I don't own Scorpion or any of the CBS affiliates.

I would like thank everyone who is following this story and also for all of the great reviews that I have received. Thank You. It is greatly appreciated.

I will be bring everyone together soon so everyone will be on the same day.

Chapter 7: Found You

After hanging up from Richard Elia and making an appointment to meet him later for a whole other matter, Paige continued down her very short list of names.

The team walked back into the garage and notice Paige already working hard at her desk and was just hanging up the phone when she noticed the rest of the team standing there looking at her.

"Morning," said a tired looking Paige.

"Morning." said the whole team simultaneously.

"Did you even sleep at all last night Dineen?", asked Happy.

"Yea, you look completely frazzled." said Toby.

"Thanks Toby, and yes, I made the attempt to sleep Happy. At least until I had one of the worst nightmares of my life." said Paige. "I've been up since 3:45 this morning because I knew I couldn't go back to sleep, I just got up and started working on case files of which my desk is completely clear of until you guys get your case files done so I can close out the rest of the open cases that still needs to be caught up on. But first things first, finding Walter.

Getting up from her desk with four files, she walked over to the table that sits in between her and Walter's desk, laying out all four files on the table. Each file contains a list of airports, train stations, bus stations, and hospitals. I got to thinking about what my mother said and I decided to compile a list to see if he actually left LA in which I hope he didn't. You guys decide which list to work off of and my job is calling a very short list of people. Even though I have started making calls to see if Walter has made contact with anyone, again my list is relatively short. Mainly because the only people I can think of him making contact with is Richard Elia, Linda and because of the way he left and the fact that my mother came back after Walter took off, I am going to talk to her again to see if she had helped him in any kind of way to disappear. Look I'm grasping at straws here and I desperately need to find Walter." said Paige.

"Hey, we want to find Walter as bad you do and this is great work kid. It is a place to start looking and when you get done with your list you can always help one of us.", said Cabe.

"Yea, and if anything you can take over one of our lists and we can start working on our case paperwork to break up the monotony of the list that we are working on and we all get a chance to clear our desk of any case files and start the new year off with a clean slate." said Toby.

"You're saying that because you are a month behind on your paperwork.", said Sly, "But I'm also going to agree with you on starting the brand new year with no old case files sitting on my desk."

"I can make that my New Year's resolution as well, but we have to take turns on whose list gets worked on first." said Happy.

"Guys, all the lists can be worked on at the same time. If nothing else, if one of you can get Paige and myself hacked into one of these places to look for our man that would be helpful because whoever is free can work on their backlog of paper work. This would allow us to look for Walter and clear out our backlog at the same time. How is that for a plan? Everyone cool with that?" suggested Cabe.

"I'm good with it.", said Sly

"I'm game.", said Toby.

"I'm in but Paige gets to chose who clears their desk first since not all of us have a month long backlog.", said Happy who was looking pointedly at Toby.

"Ok guys. Give me a minute..." walking back to her desk and looking at her computer, she brought up the file she was looking for and printed it off and walked back to the table. "...ok this is what I got left: Cabe, I am missing seven files from you, Happy, I am missing three files from you, Toby, I am missing twelve files from you, Sylvester, I am missing five files from you, and Walter, realizing there was no point in calling his name, I'm not missing anything from him. He evidently finished all of his case files and place the last one on my desk including the Christmas Eve fiasco before he left so therefore his desk is free and clear of any old files." Paige got a little emotional because she suddenly thought about her nightmare that she had had during the night. Sighing she made her decision. "Toby since you are the farthest behind why don't you start on your case files first. Let me finish my phone calls and then I will help with the lists and hopefully we can accomplish something today whether it being finishing paperwork or finding Walter or both, at least we can say we did something today. Oh, by the way, I also have a personal appointment to take care of later on this morning but it shouldn't take long and as soon as I am finished with that I will be back to help with the search of finding Walter all over again."

Everyone agreed to the plan for the day and went to their respective workstations and got to work. Paige went to her desk to make one more phone call, if anything she can make plans to meet up with her mother and talk to her face to face. At the same time she can't help but feel that her mother was telling her the truth about not knowing where Walter was at because she knows how Ralph feels about him and she wouldn't think she would hurt them by hiding Walter from either of them, especially Ralph. Thinking back Paige knew in her heart that her mother was right about her: she was in love with Walter and never Tim. With that thought Paige picked up the phone to make her next phone call.

"Hello, Linda."

"Yes."

"This is Paige Dineen, I work with Walter O'Brien. I hope you don't mind me calling you this early in the morning?"

"No, its ok. What do you need?"

"I was wondering if you have seen or heard from Walter any time between 6:00pm Christmas Eve and now?

"No. why? Is Walter alright?

"Honestly, we don't know. He left and we don't know where he went and we just want to know that he is ok and uninjured. We are all worried about it, especially me. So, do you know where he is at or have you heard from him at all.", sighing an exasperated sigh, "Look, if you know where he is and don't want to tell us because you made a promise to Walter or you just don't want too, then that is ok. We just want to know that he is alright. Please, if you can just let us know something anything would be helpful", Paige practically begged of Linda.

"Sorry, Paige but I don't know anything. I haven't heard anything nor have I seen him since we broke up several months ago. Paige, exactly how long has he been missing? When was the last time you saw Walter?"

"I last saw him on Christmas Eve. We left that evening and came back Christmas morning and he was gone but with our line of work, we are just worried that he may not have left on his own accord. We have looked at our security footage to make sure and it does appear that he did leave on his own but the car he had gotten into was out of camera view. So, we just can't say for sure on anything and we are looking at every possibility to make sure he did leave on his own."

"Oh, well honestly I haven't seen or heard from him but if he happens to call me then I will call you to let you know that he is ok and I if I can get a location from him then I will give you that info as well providing he is ok with me giving you his whereabouts. He is still my friend and I don't want to jeopardize that anymore than you would want too."

"I can live with that. Thank you Linda.", said Paige.

"You're welcome", said Linda, "Oh hey, it may be a day late but Merry Christmas. I hope you had a happy one. And can you do me a favor call and let me know he is alright in return."

"Yea, sure I can do that and Merry Christmas to you to Linda and honestly I could have had a lot better one. Thanks anyway for that and thanks again about calling me or any member of this team if you hear or see Walter around. Bye Linda." with that Paige hung up from Linda. Another dead end on her end of things.

After the big blow up inside, Walter started to get in the car to drive back to his house but thought better of it. Knowing the chances of him driving over a cliff are slim to none, he also knew he still should calm down before driving anywhere, so he walked to Clementine Lake to clear his mind. The one place he went to as a a child to get away from Thomas and Connor Quirk, the two bullies he had to deal with throughout his childhood. Even though Thomas seems to be keeping the truce between them Walter hoped that Connor would do the same.

As Walter approached the shore of the lake he picked up a stone and tossed it. Luckily, the lake didn't have any ice on it and the stone skipped easily across the lake, so he continued skipping rocks trying to clear his mind. He stood there thinking the only reason he came back home was try to clear his mind of everything that has happened between him and the team over the last three quarters of the year and mainly to get over Paige, if that was possible. He tried to make a conscious effort to reconnect with his parents and yet as hard as he tried he just seem to fail. It started off well and all was going good until Uncle Tobin came in the room an started insisting that he should have brought Sylvester with him because Sylvester was more interesting according to Uncle Tobin but thinking about the whole situation his parents never asked why he didn't bring him but that was probably because they already knew a little on what was going on. He thought about trying again with his parents but he was thinking of asking them to come to his house to talk that way it would just be them and no Tobin right now or anyone else for that matter. He felt he needed to try again because if he wants acceptance from his parents then he would have to make the attempt again. Thinking to himself, "I can approach this as a social experiment." something he never thought he would catch himself saying about anything because it sounded like something Paige would say.

The whole time Walter had been standing there, he never noticed he was not alone.

"Practicing for the Olympics or trying to thump the fish on their heads?"

"Uh. What?", turning around, only then did Walter noticed his visitor sitting not five feet away from him on a rock. She was rather beautiful, not Paige-beautiful but beautiful nonetheless in his opinion. She had reddish brown hair but couldn't tell the length because she had it pulled back from her face and couldn't get a definite measurement on her height because of the way she was sitting on the rock. Without a doubt she definitely caught Walter's attention.

"I asked if you are practicing for the Olympics with skipping rocks because I'm sure you would win the gold medal for it if there were such an Olympic sport or are you trying to thump the fishes on their heads?"

"Um, neither, I'm just trying to clear my mind. Who are you?" asked Walter.

"Ruby Ferguson, and you are?"

"Walter O'Brien."

"Nice to meet you.", said Ruby holding our her hand to Walter.

"Nice to meet you too." said Walter taking her hand.

"So, what is so wrong that you have to come down here and disturb the fish by throwing rocks at them?"

"I'm not throwing rocks at them. As far as what is on my mind, it is rather personal and I'm not ready to share with a total stranger."

"Well, we aren't total strangers we at least know each others names."

"Either way, I don't want to talk about it."

"Well be that way then, but I have been told that I'm a good listener."

"Maybe, but I'm not ready to share just yet."

"Whatever, I'm going to go and leave you tossing your rocks."

Getting up and gathering her things, Ruby left Walter standing on the shore of Lake Clementine.

Walter stood there reprimanding himself for the way he spoke to her. She didn't know him nor about his personal problems back in LA nor did he know her, because he never seen her before today. She also doesn't know about his low EQ problems basically she didn't know him any better than he knew her. He knows he should try to follow her and apologize to her but he will have to run into her again in order to do that. Walter stayed at the lake for another thirty minutes before he decided to walk back to get his car so he could leave. So, while walking back to the house he debated whether he should let his parents know that he was leaving or just get into the car and leave and try to talk to them later.

Watching Walter walk out the door, Sean, Louise, and Tobin was shocked at Walter's out burst.

"What was that all about and how ungrateful can he get?", said Tobin.

"Look Tobin", Louise said in an angry and tearful tone, "Sean and I already knew that he was upset. Over what, we don't know exactly. But the fact that he came all the way home to talk with use face to face said a lot to me. Now, I'm not sure if he is going to come back and try again since you made him feel as welcome as a rat. All you were concerned with was whether or not Sylvester came with him. Sylvester may be our son-in-law and we love him too but Walter is our son first and foremost not Sylvester. It took a lot for Walter to show up here just to try to talk to us over something that is personal to him, something of which he has never done before today."

Sean listening to his wife yell at her brother just stood there and thought more on what Walter had said before storming out of the house. Sean said in a low voice that Louise almost didn't hear him. "He's right. I hate to admit it but Walter is right about everything. We don't know him. I'm ashamed to say it but I do not know our own son. I do remember the angry child that left here but I do not know the man he has become. Neither one of knows him not even YOU Tobin.

"Well, who's fault is that. He didn't exactly call and talk to any of us.", said Tobin.

"No, Tobin, he didn't but that fault lies both ways. Every time we called to check on Megan, we never checked on him. We never asked if he was alright. We never asked if he needed anything. We simply never asked anything about him. So, how can you expect him to tell us when we gave him every impression that we didn't care about what he was doing. Last year the day Megan died, he tried talking to me then even if I didn't understand what he was talking about but I didn't ask him to explain further I just discounted what he was saying as science fiction and simply ignored him then. I even witness him save us along with an entire hospital full of people along with the rest of his team but I never tried to get to know him. Even when he told us stories about Megan, I just didn't try. Even everybody here witness him risking his own life to save everyone in this village, the very same people who treated him as an outcast and still I didn't notice anyone going out of their way to get to know the man he became. I know I didn't try any harder. The only thing I told him was that I as proud of him but that was it. But I can say this much , he grew into an selfless man that I can be proud to call my son but that is all I can tell anyone about him.", said a deflated Sean.

After a few minutes of standing there, Sean walked out of the house towards the barn leaving an upset Louise and her brother who was thinking about what was just said about both sides being at fault. He stood out there looking at the barn loft with the intentions of measuring it, instead, he just stood there wondering how he failed Walter when he needed him the most. Staring out across the property he noticed a tall figure walking towards the house. As the figure got closer he noticed it was Walter. Sean exited the barn and began walking towards him.

"Walter.", called Sean.

Sighing, Walter began walking towards his dad to see what he was wanting. He figured if he wanted things to change then they would have to start somewhere this is as good as place as any.

"Dad."

"Look boyo, I know things didn't go well in there before and I'm sorry for Tobin but would you mind coming back inside so we can talk."

Considering his options, Walter opted for an alternative solution. "Dad, I would like that but I don't want to talk here. I rather not talk with Uncle Tobin around and Tobin should be the one apologizing not you. I know I didn't handle things in there well either but I am willing to try this again but just with you and mom right now. I'm just not sure on how to handle everything that has been going on and then again if I tell you, both you and mom will definitely not like everything that I'm going to say if you want the entire story of what has happened over the last eight months. So, here is an alternative solution. First, I need a pen and paper to write something down for you..."

"Ok, lets go back into the house so I can get that for you."

"Ok."

Entering the house, Louise went up to her son and tentatively gave him a hug who of which actually hugged her back. "Walter, I am so sorry for what happened earlier."

"I know mom, I know and I shouldn't have gotten mad like I did either. Just so you know most of it wasn't towards you or dad."

"Maybe not but you were right, we don't know the type of man you have become but your father and I would like it if would you give us a another chance to get to know you."

"That is why I came back inside. Dad is getting me a pen and paper so I can write something down for him."

"Walter."

"Uncle Tobin."

"Look, I'm sorry. I never meant to make you feel unwanted around here. Please accept my apologies and I also wouldn't mind getting to know the man that sixteen year old boy has become either. Because your are right, that is the only person I know not the man you are now."

"Apology accepted, Uncle Tobin. But right now the only people I need to talk to or want to talk to at this point is mom and dad. Not to leave you out but I really need to talk to them only. There are a lot of things that I need to say but I think it is best they hear it first from me but without an audience."

Walking back into the room, Sean handed Walter a pen and paper, "Here you go boyo."

Taking the pen and paper, Walter wrote down an address and handed it back to his dad. "You can come over anytime you want. You can follow me there or you can come over later. No offense Uncle Tobin but like I just said, I just want mom and dad for now. Please." Walter waited for a moment to see what his parents were going to do.

Uncle Tobin nodded in understanding to Walter. Looking at Walter, Tobin began to see how difficult this was for him and thought better if he did stay out it and allow Walter to open up to him on his own when he was ready.

"Um, it is nearly 4:00pm. Do you want us to go ahead and call your team or wait. And just to make it clear Tobin, WE WILL BE THE ONES CALLING NOT YOU." said Louise giving her brother a rather stern and pointed look.

"Understood sister." said Tobin.

"Just so you know if I find out that you called them before we did, you better go into hiding."

"Got that loud and clear and I promise not to do anything while your gone.", declared Tobin.

Shaking his head, Walter turned to leave when there was a small knock on the door and Thomas and Connor Quirk walked in the house.

"Ah, Wally..." , said Connor, "I didn't know you were in town?"

"Yes, I got in yesterday evening."

"Look everyone, I'm going to go. Mom, Dad, if you don't mind just call them later after we had a chance to talk in you don't mind but if you feel the need to take care of that now then go ahead. You two do whatever you feel is necessary. I'll see all of you later. Bye." said Walter as he was walking out the door.

"Ok.", said both of his parents.

"Look, you two boys..." Sean catching Thomas and Connor's attention, "...are you needing to be somewhere immediately or had any plans tonight?"

"I didn't, I don't know about Connor.", said Thomas.

"I did this morning but those plans fell through. Why?" ask Connor.

"We need you to babysit Tobin over here while Louise and I are gone. Not sure when we will be back but we will be back tonight. We are going to wherever Walter is staying and talk to him. There is a lot on his mind and we are planning on being there for him. If you can't stay then we will have to trust Tobin on his merits on not calling LA period.", said Sean.

"I don't have a problem babysitting Uncle Tobin.", said Thomas trying not laugh.

Kind of smirking, "I don't either.", said Connor.

Leaving everyone there, Sean and Louise walked out to the car and proceeded to the address that Walter had given them.

While everyone was hard at work either working on a list of all the potential forms of transportation that Walter could have use to leave or catching up on their backlog of paperwork, Cabe got up and decide to make a phone call. When he was finished he came back in and made an announcement that none of the geniuses thought about. "I just got off the phone with the prison that Mark Collins is being kept in and he is still there under lock and key. I even had the warden to go and physically check given the nature of his relationship with Walter and the fact that Walter was missing."

Walking back into the garage from her appointment she had with Richard Elia and making a phone call to check on Ralph, Paige heard a lot of groaning coming from all three geniuses, "Hey guys, what did I miss?"

"Cabe making an announcement that Mark Collins is still under lock and key and please do not get me wrong that is a good thing but it could also be a name that Walter may have used to get his ticket out of here." said Toby.

"Oh ok, so, I take it that we are back at square one with the lists then.", said Paige.

"Somewhat, but we just have to look for one name. Walter using Mark Collin's name is a long shot but it still wouldn't hurt to look.", stated Happy. Which caused even more groans.

"No, No,", said an excited Sylvester. I got him. I GOT HIM. He bought a ticket at LAX the plane that he boarded left LA at approximately 8:00pm and landed in Denver at 10:00pm. Now we have to try to figure out where he went from there. But at least this is more than we've had all day."

"That is great news and we can stop looking through all of these lists for him." , said a rather relieved Toby.

"Now, you do not have an excuse of not finishing your paperwork like we all had planned earlier." said Happy.

"Hey, I have started on it and I am officially half way through. Besides I took over so Sly can get his reports done and gave him a break from staring at the computer all day.", said Toby in a matter of fact way.

"Hey Sly, can you track Walter down at all.?"

"Oh sure Cabe. All I need to do is hack into Denver's manifest and look to see where Walter went from there and continued on that way until we find a stopping point. But there may be a little glitch in that, there is still a chance that he could have rented a car or change to any mode of transportation at any point from Denver and rode to another location and got onto another plane from there. But I'm trying to stay optimistic and say he stayed traveling by plane."

"Good idea and that is the way to stay positive." said Cabe. "Since all of us but Toby has completed our backlog I suggest Toby finish his paperwork so Paige can finish closing out the remaining case files so all of us will be able to go get Walter and bring him home. If not, Toby has to stay here and finish all his homework."

"I'm working on it as we speak thank you very much." said Toby lightheartedly

By 10:00pm, all files were completed and everyone had their desks clear of all paperwork including Paige who had put the finishing touches on them and send all case files that needed to be sent to Homeland, thus leaving the cyclone's desk paperwork free for a few days. Sylvester diligently worked on looking for Walter when he hit a dead end. He lost tract of Walter in Ohio

Looking dejected, Sylvester leaned back in his chair and let out a defeated sigh when his computer gave a signal that he was getting a Skype call. Answering it was Sean and Louise.

"Hey, Sean, Louise, please say you have heard from Walter.", asked an anxious Sylvester.

"We did and he is ok. Slightly on the moody side but well nonetheless ok." said Louise.

Everyone let out a sigh of relieve because they finally had the answer they had been waiting to here since they found out that Walter had left. The fact that he was alive and well.

"Did he say where he was at?" ask Paige.

"We talked to him he gave us permission to tell you but he still doesn't want to see or talk you right now. He is here in Ireland. He came home. Give him some time. He is trying to cope with a lot of things right now and Paige you hurt him most of all. On the bright side of things he is talking to us and we are working on fixing a lot of things between us as well, so like I said, give him his space." said Sean.

"We can respect that but can you tell him to call us when he feels up to it so we can talk and clear up a few things with him because what he believes has happen isn't what happened in some of the circumstances that took place." said Toby

"We can tell him but no promises from that prospective." Said Louise.

Everyone agreed to give Walter his space and said their goodbyes.

"Cabe, can you give me a lift home? I want to go home and surprise Ralph with the good news even if I have to wake him up. I know he will be happy that I did. Not to mention that maybe just maybe I can get some decent sleep tonight." said a dejected but happy Paige.

Previously:

After everyone had left to go back to the garage, Ralph retreated back to his room to work on his project that he was working on before he was interrupted by his mother who came in to talk to him. The program he was writing was based off of the pinging system used to tract cell phones but using burner phones instead which are normally harder to trace because they are disposable. After writing the program he decided he needed a test subject. He used his grandmother's phone because Ralph knew Veronica never turned her phone off so that made her the perfect test subject needless to say it was without her knowledge. Ralph thought if she found out about his program, she would surely turn her phone off and then all of his work would be rather useless. He knew all he needed was one text that he was hoping to catch and he could use to ping Walter through then he would have found him. While trying to perfect his program, he got the ultimate Christmas gift of the year. The text read, 'Goodnight Bud, Sweet Dreams'. Ralph smiled and knew he was going to have a great dream. He was going to dream that he was going to bring his Dad back home.

The next day, Ralph had woken up extra early to finished his code and was trying to perfect it and to do that he needed the perfect test subject. His Grandmother. After spending a couple of hours pinging his grandmother's phone, Ralph lied in wait for Walter in hoping he send another text. 'Good morning hope you have a great day. Scoop.' that was all Ralph needed to make his day.

Ralph came out of his room and started explaining to both Veronica and Drew what he had been working on since the day before after they arrived back at the condo. He went into great detail on what he was wanting to do and what seemed like forever, he finally convince both adults to go along with him knowing there will be dire consequences once his Mother found out.

Several Hours Later

Ralph looking at his phone notice his mother calling. "Hi Mom."

"Hey baby, I'm just checking on you. Are you ok?"

"Yes I'm doing ok. Any news on Walter?

"No, not yet. Hey, I am planning on being home tonight. I want to talk to you about a decision I am wanting to make. I don't know if it will be for the best or not, that will be something we need to talk about. I just hope it will be for the best at this point. Ok. You may not agree with it either but I do want your opinion it though.

"Ok, Mom."

"Hey let me speak to your Father or Grandmother, it doesn't matter which one you give the phone too. Please and thank you."

"I'm right next to Dad so here you go.", said Ralph handing Drew the phone.

Drew taking the phone, "Hey Paige, how is the search for Walter going?

"Not good. We are still looking for him. What I want to ask is how is Ralph really doing?

"He is doing better than he was."

"That is great to hear. I already told Ralph but I am planning on being home tonight. I need to talk to Ralph about a decision that I am thinking about making. I'll explain everything tonight."

"Sure, ok."

"Well, can you hand the phone back to Ralph I want to say bye to him and get back to looking for Walter?

"Sure, here is Ralph."

Giving the phone back from Ralph, "Hi Mom."

"Honey, I just wanted to say I love you and I promise I will be home tonight. Ok."

"Ok mom, I love you too."

"Love you see you tonight. Bye baby"

"Bye Mom."

Drew looked at Veronica and Ralph and made the most honest statement he could make at the time. You do realize we are now the walking dead when Paige gets home and find us gone and a note left on the front table as you walk in, right."

"Right and we, as in the both of us—Veronica pointing to Drew and herself—we seriously need to think about asking for asylum. You know that right?" said Veronica.

"I agree.", stated Drew.

"Well we might as well get this journey started because I know for sure I am grounded for an indefinite period of time.", said Ralph.

With that being said all three left the Dublin airport in search of Walter. Their main destination is Cork.