AN: I guess this is turning into a longer story. I don't know exactly where it's going, but I have some ideas. I also have part of the next chapter drafted, but it might be a day or so before I post it. I'm still feeling my way around inside these characters' heads.

Chapter 2

The sun woke Walter later that morning, and he quickly cleaned up and dressed. He had just enough time to run the next set of tests.

Each sample took four steps, and he had fourteen samples. He was on the fifty-third step when his elbow knocked into-

"Orange juice?" He looked up.

"Yes, Walter, orange juice," Paige replied. "Did you actually sleep last night?"

"I did." Walter focused back in on the samples.

"What are you doing?" Ralph asked.

"I'm running tests on two collections of samples to determine the range of variation within each set and between the sets," Walter said.

"Do the sets overlap?" Ralph asked.

"That's one of the things I'm trying to determine," Walter replied. "But you should go back to your lens tests. Until the samples are processed and we have results, this isn't particularly interesting."

He put the last sample into the centrifuge and closed the lid to turn it on.

"So, Ralph-" he said.

"Walter, Ralph ate his breakfast this morning," Paige said. She tossed him an apple.

He caught it and smiled. "Thank you," he said.

Paige stepped closer, and when she spoke, her voice was low enough that Ralph couldn't hear it. "I get that you guys work differently, but Ralph is young and growing and needs to eat and sleep-"

"Yes, he does." Walter looked over Paige's shoulder to where Ralph was engrossed in his tests. "I can't promise I won't go down the rabbit hole, but I will do my best not to bring him with me."

"Then I will leave you two geniuses to work while I take care of our summary report on the last case for Cabe," she said.

Before she headed downstairs, she stopped over to see Ralph and ran a hand through his hair, and Walter remembered the day they met.

"He does it because he wants to hold your hand, but he can't process physical contact. So help him, or he will never connect with you."

Walter programmed his phone to alert him in forty-seven minutes, then walked over to see how Ralph was coming.

"Come on, let's take this to the white board," Walter said, motioning across the loft's communal space. "Now, this is the formula for minimizing spherical aberration." He started writing. "So, what can we determine about the lenses for the telescope?"

As Ralph picked up the marker and started writing, Walter ran his hand over the boy's head.

~Scorpion~Scorpion~Scorpion~Scorpion~

Back down in the main room of the garage, Toby was engrossed in a video game and Sylvester had the chalkboard covered in equations — again. Happy was actually reading, something she rarely did, so Paige went to talk to her.

"What?" Happy asked.

"Can we, you know, talk?" Paige said, tipping her head toward the corner where Happy kept her tools. "About Collins."

Happy didn't say yes, but she did put down the book, so Paige took that as a positive sign.

"What about Collins?" the mechanical whiz asked. "You met him. You saw."

"I saw he had mental issues," Paige said. "Look, I would ask Toby, but then everybody in the room would hear. Does the rabbit hole have any-"

"No," Happy said. She paced around the corner before stopping and looking right at Paige. "Walter and Sylvester go down the rabbit hole two or three times a month, usually just for a day or so. They get focused on a project and go until they drop. For them, it's normal."

"Toby?" Paige asked.

"Not like that," Happy said. "The doc can gamble for 72 hours straight, but you've seen what happens when he does. Walter pulls him out of it before he gets to deep." She shrugged one shoulder. "Me, I don't do that. What I do, it takes muscle. I'll work like hell on a project, but chalk and markers aren't hazardous, and my tools are, so I make sure I get enough sleep and food and water."

"That's why, then," Paige said. "Yesterday, you said you had to pull Walter out once before. That's why it's you, because you are the only one who doesn't do it." She wrapped her arms around her body, imagining Ralph like Collins.

"I do it because they're my friends," Happy said. "Walter pulls Toby and Sylvester out, I pull Walter out." She crossed her arms, her chin tilted up.

"And who pulls you out?" Paige asked. She knew better than to reach out.

"I don't need anybody," Happy said.

"Is that why you were able to pull Walter away from Collins?" Paige asked. "Because he needed Walter and you didn't?"

"You want to know if Walter or Ralph will end up like Collins," Happy said. "They won't."

"Why not?" Paige asked, forcing her voice not to tremble. "How do you know that?"

"Collins plays people," Happy said. "You saw it. He looks for our weak points and targets them. Walter's not like that. Neither is Ralph. They might go down the rabbit hole, but they'll come back. I don't think Collins ever can."

"Neither do I," Paige said. She shivered.