Sorry for the wait, guys! I had some personal things to take care of. Here's the next chapter...not much happens on the legal side of things, but I wanted to show the Cyclone some more.
"Do we not have a case?"
"We did," Cabe said. "But I passed it along. It wasn't something only we could handle and no one is working at full capacity."
"He has no faith in us," Toby said, feigning hurt.
"Not when you all are so distracted, I don't," Cabe said. "Not to handle something like this."
"I thought you said it wasn't that important?" Happy snipped, glaring at him.
Cabe stared at her for a moment, and then let out a deep sigh. "I just think we all need to put this behind us before we go back to being all that stands between humanity and chaos."
"We can't put it behind us until it is resolved," Walter said. "And the hearing isn't for another week."
"Ralph still doesn't know, is that correct?" Cabe asked.
"I haven't told him," Happy said.
Toby shook his head. "Me either."
"Good. We can't let this affect him."
"That would not be a good idea," Walter said. "It's affecting Paige enough already."
"She is handling it remarkably from what I've seen," Cabe said. "She's not missing work, she's acting the same around him. It's commendable."
"That doesn't make her okay," Walter said. "Yesterday she came into work with the tag sticking out the back of her shirt. And she's paler than usual. Plus she keeps looking down at her feet when she doesn't have anywhere specific to direct her eyes. Her eyes, that are…are tired. And stressed. We have to figure out a way to help because she doesn't deserve to continue on like this." He put his hands on his hips, then noticed that Toby was looking at him with a knowing expression. He exhaled sharply. "Shut up."
"Didn't say anything," Toby said. "No need, when you can tell us every little detail about Paige that has changed since Drew filed."
"Hey hey," Sylvester said, standing up and walking over to stand next to Walter. "I think it is important that our leader know everything there is to know about his team. It makes us extra productive!" He slung his arm over Walter's shoulder then leaned toward his ear. "I got your back buddy," he stage whispered. Cabe started to laugh, then cut it short and turned the sound into clearing his throat. "Well, Paige is going to be using us as witnesses, do we all know what we'd say?"
"We don't know which of us she's planning on using yet," Toby said, "but we have compared our major talking points via both pie graph and chart to make sure that everyone has the basics covered. Reaching behind him, he pulled out a whiteboard that was filled from end to end with notes, arrows, and Venn Diagrams, as well as a stick figure drawing of someone in a plane flying toward the word "Maine." Toby pointed to the drawing. "To clarify, that's Drew, and Ralph isn't with him."
"Paige wants us to not say anything negative about Drew," Happy said. "We are the very people he doesn't want Ralph around and we can't even explain why the guy doesn't deserve the son he abandoned."
"This is a situation where the haters can't hate," Toby said. "Taylor Swift would not approve."
"I think you guys need a bit of a refresher on the definition of "hating"," Cabe said. "Explaining why you believe Paige is a better parent than Drew isn't the same thing as saying Drew is a bad person. If the judge doesn't believe Paige is better for Ralph, he'll award custody to the kid's father, and so whether she likes it or not, we have to talk about how Drew wasn't present, and how he wants to prevent the kid from being with people that make him happy to be the way he is. How the Hell is Paige planning to win if we don't?"
"She's going to say all that," Toby said. "She just doesn't want us to."
"Well, we may not know the story as well as she does," Cabe said, "but we know the basic fact, and that is that Paige is who Ralph needs to finish growing up with. And if she wants the best chance of winning this case, we need to tell the judge that whether Paige likes it or not. She just wants to protect Ralph's father's image for the sake of the boy. In the end, she'll understand that we have to do what we have to do."
Paige was sitting on the couch reading – a book disguised with an old book cover from her high school days to prevent Ralph from seeing the subject matter – when the doorbell rang. Ralph jumped up, running for the door. "Walter's here!"
"Hey buddy," Walter said, crouching down and gathering Ralph up when the boy opened the door. He rose, using his foot to push the door closed.
"He is getting too big to be carried," Paige said, looking up from her book with a smile.
"Eh," Walter said dismissively, walking around to the front of the couch and lowering Ralph to one end of it. Taking a seat in the middle, he took the remote Ralph handed him and looked over at Paige. "You going to play?"
"Oh," she said. "I think we both know the answer to that question." Ralph giggled. "I'm going to go in my room and read…you guys will be okay out here?" Walter and Ralph gave her a pair of upward turned thumbs that were so in sync it seemed impossible to be accidental. Paige smiled and nodded to them. "Water pitcher is in the fridge. Have fun."
The next time she looked at the clock, it was after midnight. She looked at the clock radio beside her bed, startled. Did I fall asleep? The book she had been reading was on the floor, pages splayed, one with a deep crease. Must have. She wondered if Ralph had gone to bed on his own or if he and Walter were still rematching.
Paige wandered back out into the living room, a bit curious at the lack of exploding sounds from the TV or mild trash talk from the players. She stopped when her eyes fell on the couch.
Walter was stretched out on it, his head resting on the arm farthest from her, his eyes closed, one arm lazily stretched out over in front of the couch and his breathing slow and steady. Next to him, Ralph was asleep as well, his head resting on Walter's outstretched arm. His own arm was dangling, his joint in a better position than gravity than Walter's. Walter's other arm was crossed over his body, resting on Ralph's upper back.
Paige slowly moved backward, holding her hands out behind her to feel for the wall. She leaned against it, drawing in a long, deep breath to regulate her breathing.
This was why she hated when Walter came over. Watching him and Ralph interact in her home always got her so emotional she could hardly handle it, and now, with the prospect of her losing Ralph, and Ralph losing all of them – even a joint custody arrangement would give him significantly less time with the cyclone…the knowledge of Ralph's current calm potentially being shattered, while he lay asleep and completely unknowing….she put a hand over her face as she pressed her lips together to stop her crying from becoming audible. She sat silently against the wall, shaking with the effort of not waking them up, wishing that the combined I.Q. of the team was enough to magically make this go away.