Walter remembered another time the team had stayed up all night at a hospital, growing sore from the uncomfortable seats, growing tired enough that the uncomfortable seats didn't really matter, but being worried enough that sleep wasn't really anything more than a pipe dream. The morning following, they'd been told that the little girl's body had accepted her new heart. And they'd celebrated.

Walter couldn't remember what time the call had come in, the call that Florence had been involved in an explosion at a job none of them knew she was doing. At first, they believed that she was dead. The man named Burgess who called the garage and spoke to Paige said there were no survivors.

"How could this happen?" Happy said, angrily, picking up a wrench and whipping it across the room as Paige tearfully repeated the information to the assembled group.

"How on Earth do we tell Sylvester?" Toby asked. "I'm sure he would rather hear it from us than from a phone call, but…"

"You're a doctor," Walter pointed out, "how do you tell someone their loved one is dead?"

"I've never had to tell my friend that!"

Thankfully, Cabe had rushed into the garage only minutes later to relay the news to the team, and when Walter started telling him they already knew and Paige asked if there were any remains to bury – Burgess hadn't known – Cabe had given them a look of surprise.

"Remains?"

"Yeah, old man," Toby snapped. "You know, the body of our friend."

"Did Burgess tell you she was dead?"

There was a silence in the garage, everyone looking frantically around the group, before Paige asked for the confirmation they were all wanting. "Is she alive?"

"I just received a report that she's been airlifted to a trauma center close to the site in critical condition. We have a plane taking off in twenty minutes that will take us there. Where's Sylvester?

Sylvester had been next door, in Florence's lab. Walter hadn't been there when Paige and Cabe had broken the news and hadn't gotten a look at the younger genius until they were at the airfield. Sylvester's skin now, hours and hours later, didn't look any less pale than it had then.

The last waiting game had been unbearable. But at least they could look back on that one knowing it was a success. At least that night they had had information. They had been aware of the details of Olivia's condition before her surgery, had known what was going to happen and about how long the wait would be. This time, they knew nothing. This time, the team hadn't been involved at all. This time, one hundred percent of what happened would be completely out of Team Scorpion's hands.

That was almost as terrifying to Walter O'Brien as the prospect of losing one of their own. He knew his team, he knew how capable Toby's medical skills were, he had the utmost faith in all of them to pull off whatever they had to. He had faith in Florence, too, but scorpions were stronger together than alone, and right now, the chemist was fighting for her life without any of them.

"What time is it, Walter?" Paige asked, her head on his shoulder.

He looked at his watch. "Three thirty exactly."

"Mmm."

"It's a good sign that we haven't heard anything yet, isn't it, doc?" Cabe asked. "Means she wasn't, uh…means she was with us on arrival."

"It's tricky," Toby said. "We know they at least got her stabilized, because if they couldn't, it's been far too long without us finding out. But the longer this goes on, the more extensive her injuries, because they have to get their treatments started and know the extent of everything and have a prognosis before they talk to us."

The team fell into silence, so much so that Walter swore he could hear the light tick tocking of his watch. The minutes passed, no more words passing between the team, and they looked up in unison as Sly returned from the bathroom. "Well," he said slowly, reclaiming his spot between Paige and Cabe, "at least I'm pretty sure by now there's no more food in my stomach to come back up again."

Gross, Walter thought, but he knew Paige would lift her head and glare at him if he said that out loud. Not the time, Walt, he heard her say in his head.

"You need some water or anything, kid?" Cabe asked.

Sylvester shook his head. "There's a drinking fountain near the men's room that actually seems impeccably clean." He let out a sigh. "I take it we've heard nothing yet."

"No," Paige told him gently. "But we will soon, I'm sure."

Walter slid his arm farther around her. At least with them sitting side by side, her pregnancy wasn't inhibiting closeness. He looked across at the seats facing them. Happy had arrived at the hospital over an hour after the rest, having to pick up Tad and Ellie from the babysitter and dropping them off at Allie's. She'd been sitting next to Toby for most of the evening before jumping to her feet, startling everyone, to announce in a panic that she'd forgotten to thank Allie for agreeing to keep them overnight. Cabe assured her that she hadn't been rude. Her realization had led Paige to realize she hadn't called Ralph, but by then it was well after midnight on the east coast. Stress did things to people mentally that Walter felt was unfair. They were all already a mess worrying about Florence without this other stuff popping up in their heads.

Cabe's phone rang, and he stepped away to answer it. When he returned, he looked at them solemly.

"No," Happy said firmly. "No way you found out about her on the phone when we're sitting here in the goddamn waiting room."

"No," Cabe said. "I don't know anything new about Florence's condition. But I do know something new about ours."

"What do you mean?" Sylvester asked.

Cabe paused. "The job Florence was doing. I know we got some details earlier, but none of us knew exactly how, uh, much they wanted her to take on their project."

"Not really giving us any new information with that sentence, Cabe," Happy said, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, I'm not entirely sure how to say this," Cabe said. "The blunt version is, the agreement was a very lucrative one for Florence. Her payment for this job was two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Not finished," he said when a collective gasp shot through the group. "She had it written into the contract that the money go to the company."

"She completely paid off our debts," Walter said, shifting his weight as Paige sat up and leaned the other way, against Sylvester.

"Oh, my God," Happy said, her and Toby's jaws hanging.

"Excuse me," came an unfamiliar voice. The team turned, quickly getting to their feet when they noticed who was standing before them. "Doc," Cabe said, "what's the word?"

"My name is Dr. Farooqi," the man said. "I was the lead trauma surgeon for Ms. Tipton."

"Is she alive?" Walter blurted. Paige stepped closer to him.

"She is." He paused before speaking. "She has survived surgery and is currently in recovery."

"How bad is it?" Sylvester asked, wringing his hands.

"Her injuries are extensive," said Dr. Farooqi. "The most serious is the bleeding in her brain. It has stopped now, and she was fortunate to receive prompt treatment, but it's not unheard of for brain activity to be lost in the days following the trauma. The possibility of a stroke is also present in addition to other complications that can arise from either the trauma itself or the treatment. In addition, she has a ruptured ear drum and ruptured eye, which if she survives could hear completely or could result in her being blind in the eye and deaf in the ear. It's impossible to tell right now."

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Happy said to Toby in a low voice. He put his arm around her.

"Ms. Tipton also has about a dozen fractures," Dr. Farooqi continued. "Her collarbone is broken, the radius and ulna in her left arm as well as two bones in her wrist and three of her left ribs. There is a hairline fracture to her skull as well as her pelvis. Then there are the burns from the explosion and she has some – minor, especially compared to everything else – damage to her lungs that may leave her with asthma or COPD. She also suffered dozens of lacerations and contusions."

Walter felt Paige's arms, wrapped around his, tighten as she took a small step closer to him. "What are her chances?" She asked quietly.

Farooqi took a deep breath. "She's in a coma right now, and there's no real way to predict if or when she will come out of it. But she has brain activity, and while we are providing her with supplemental oxygen, she is capable of breathing on her own. She will be kept under constant observation and hopefully given a little time she will regain consciousness. I know you have a doctor in your mix, but I will be happy to answer any specific questions you may have about the information I've given you."

"Can we see her?" Cabe asked.

Farooqi hesitated. "I can have one of the nurses take you back one or two at a time. She's in intensive care and the ability of the staff to be able to do their work is the top priority."

"Of course," Cabe said. He gestured toward Sylvester. "He should go first, alone."

"Let me to get Justin," Farooqi said. "He will get you back there."

"Thank you," Sylvester said. Walter was impressed by the younger man. He was sweating, and he'd run off to throw up twice since they'd gotten the phone call, but overall, he appeared to be holding it together well. Walter knew he would be an incoherent, irrational mess if Paige was in the same situation, and yet he knew Sylvester loved Florence every bit as much. Sometimes Walter wished he could be more like his brother.

"Sly…" Toby looked at him sympathetically. "Sly, we've beaten worse odds."

"I know."

"Walter, what time is it?" Paige asked in a whisper.

He pulled his free hand out of his pocket and checked his watch. "Almost four a.m."

"What time is it exactly?"

"Three forty eight."

"Hi guys," said a young man in scrubs, approaching the group. "I'm here to bring the first group back to Ms. Tipton."

"That's him," Cabe said, putting a hand on Sylvester's shoulder. "He goes first."

"Come with me, sir," the man said. "I'm Justin."

Walter was watching the nurse lead Sylvester away when Paige tugged at his arm. "Walter, come over here."

"Hmm?" He followed her away from the group. "What is it?"

"I need to go downstairs. I believe I've had a couple contractions."

Walter was startled. "You're not due for months!"

"I know. I'm going to let them know and they can probably give me some medication to stop them. They have all sorts of treatment for preterm labor."

He just stared at her. How was she so calm about this? "I'll come with you. Oh, my God."

"I'd like that if you came with me," she said, reaching out and squeezing his hands. "Don't look so alarmed, I'm sure it will be fine."

"How are you not freaking out?" It was too early. Babies could survive at this stage, but…

"Walter, I am freaking out," she said. "About Florence, which may be why this is happening, and about this, too. But we're literally in a hospital, and I've just had two or three and they're mild and spaced out. Stressing out even more is just going to make this worse." She tugged at his hands. "Let's go downstairs and get it taken care of. Who knows – Florence might even be awake when we get back up here."

One thing that Sylvester had been grateful for as the end of Megan's life neared was that aside from losing muscle mass and growing slightly pale, changes that people not intimately close to her wouldn't necessarily even notice, she had remained visually the same. He was glad for her sake as well as for his, because he knew watching her waste away would have been absolutely agonizing. At least when he remembered her, he always could remember her the same way.

Florence had bandages all over, wrapped around her skull. Bandages covered her body in patches – probably even more were hidden under the blanket that was neatly tucked around her – covering lacerations and keeping the burn dressings in place. Her left arm was in a cast from shoulder to wrist, and the skin that was visible was covered with bruising. In a sharp, painful contrast to Megan's subtle changes, the woman in this bed probably wouldn't even be recognizable to people who didn't know her well. If not for her small size and the tufts of blonde hair that were still visible, Sylvester wasn't sure he would even believe that this woman was her. And he knew her better than anyone.

Justin left him alone – as alone as he could be in intensive care – and Sylvester stood over the bed, looking down at her, thinking that he'd never quite realized how small she was before. "Can she hear me?" He asked a nurse that was passing by.

"Maybe," the nurse replied, giving him a nod. "It never hurts to talk."

He was scared to touch her, but he extended his hand, brushing the back of it lightly over her visible fingers, poking out of the cast. "Hey, Lori," he said, using the only shortened version of her name she didn't mind, and one he used only rarely, always when they were alone. "It's Sylvester. All of us are here, Paige, Walter, Toby, Happy, Cabe. Allie has the babies, she sends her thoughts. So does Ralph." He wasn't sure if Paige had called New Jersey yet, but it's not like Florence could know the difference. "They let me come back to see you first, but the others will later." He noticed her right hand seemed almost okay, with no cast and no burn dressings past the wrist. He circled around the bed and took the hand in his own. "We're all going to be here as much as we can. I'm sorry you had to be away from us for a while, while they fixed you up. But we're going to be around you so much while you're here and when they let you come back home that you'll probably end up coming up with another smelly chemical to keep us away." He chuckled in spite of himself. "I'm really proud of you, you know. You're such a fighter." He leaned down, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand. "I love you so much, Florence. You're gonna get through this, okay? And I'm going to be right here with you while you do."

She was in a coma, so he hadn't been expecting a response, but the silence that followed was still excruciating. Sylvester let out a long, shaky breath. He didn't want her to hear him cry.

But it was so damn hard.