"What was that about?"Walter asked Happy as he hobbled towards her. It had been a week after the car crash at the cliff and Walter had just gotten back home.
"That was nothing." Happy answered curtly as she started to busy herself at her work station.
"I thought you guys made up while I was in the hospital. Ralph told me you two even babysat him the first and third night I was in the hospital." Walter persisted. "That telling him off just now didn't sound like nothing."
"Well it was." Happy stubbornly said back.
"When I was in the ferrari and hanging on that perch I thought about Cabe and me. I thought about how I had overreacted at the Nerf gas lab earlier when I had learnt about what really happened in Baghdad. I had been thinking emotionally. If I had been thinking logically, I would have known that the man I knew when I was sixteen would have never intentionally hurt me." Walter stated.
"Is that your not so subtle way of saying I should forgive Toby?" Happy said with a stern face even though part of her was chuckling inside; Walter giving her advice on emotions struck her as ironic.
"You know that in my mind both of you are more than just my co-workers, you are my friends. I want both of you to have some resolution. Not to mention, I think Toby is really sorry." Walter answered.
"Should have known you'd take his side." Happy said in mock anger that Walter perceived as real. As she said that tiny jibe Happy almost couldn't believe she said it. Poking fun at people was Toby's thing and not hers. Happy never wanted to believe that Toby had wormed his way into her head the way Paige had wormed hers into Walters, but apparently he had anyway.
"I'm not taking sides. I think you have every right to be angry just the way I was with Cabe. I am just stating Toby seems very sorry." Walter said.
"Walter I'm not actively mad at Toby anymore. It wasn't like the first week right after the incident when all I felt was a growing anger every time I saw him. Anger that I had agreed to go and that he stood me up." Happy reassured. "Toby was asking me if I wanted to go to the auto show on Saturday. Just because I stop scowling at him doesn't mean things are back to normal. It takes time." Happy explained.
"Oh, it was just the auto show, I thought he asked you on a date again." Walter said relieved.
"Walter, that was a date." Happy countered. She wanted to say that of course he wouldn't think so because he had thought that inviting Paige for dinner at a fancy restaurant on Valentine's day wasn't a date. However, she could practically hear Toby coming out of her and kept her mouth shut. She still had to be Happy.
"Oh." Walter said as he struggled to find something meaningful to say as he processed her information. "It is good you are getting over being mad at him. That is great for the team and both of you. I know you were thinking I take Toby's side more due to our male camaraderie. But that is not the case. I actually discouraged him because I thought it would be bad for our team dynamic, especially when you came in fuming the day after he stood you up. I care for both of you equally." Walter finished. Nearly dying had given Walter emotional hindsight but he still had trouble articulating how he felt, especially to the person he cared about most. Walter hoped he had done his concerns for Toby and Happy justice.
"I appreciate it Walt. We will be fine. Eventually." Happy affirmed.
"Good." Walter said as he started to turn away. But before he completely left ear shot Walter turned and asked,"Ralph said he had a good time with you and Toby. You had a good time too?"
"Yes." Happy said as she remembered it all.
She remembered getting back to the garage on the first night and how Ralph gleefully let Toby work on the rocket with him even though Walter had said it was a no- Toby zone since he was such spiller. Happy remembered how Toby had Ralph charm her into making them Mac and Cheese even as Toby knew Happy hated conforming to conventional roles. Happy remembered Toby doing the dishes with rolled up sleeves as he let Happy play Constructo Battle with Ralph because Toby didn't conform to conventional roles either.
Happy remembered how they had both had brought different games to play the second night they babysat Ralph. Toby had brought Pandemic and Dixit to play. Happy had brought Risk and Power Grid. Happy remembered them sitting around the kitchen table with chips, dips and soda as they attempted to out-win each other. Ralph had won the round of Pandemic, Toby had won their game of Power Grid and Happy and won the game of Risk. Dixit, Happy swore the Doc brought to show off. He had such a comparative advantage with the game with his acumen and imagination. However, Ralph was a quick study and managed to tie the game just before they ran out of cards. Happy had been left in the dust; describing pictures with words was not her strong suit.
In her head Happy remembered everything they did those nights with Ralph. In her heart Happy remembered all the things they did when Ralph wasn't looking.
Happy remembered looking up across the kitchen table at Toby's hat-less head and smiling into each other when Ralph won Pandemic. Happy remembered the fluttering of emotion at the realization that maybe moments like those would keep happening and being more special if Ralph wasn't Ralph but a kid that belonged to them.
Happy remembered the conversation they had after Paige picked Ralph up the first night. They sat side by side on the sofa sipping beers:
"Intense day." Toby ventured to speak after they sat in silence a few minutes. Toby took her not leaving straight away as a sign Happy wasn't intensely mad at him and actually wanted his company.
"Yeah. Maybe it will come down for a minute." Happy paused and then continued," I called Paige after Cabe didn't pick up." She raised her eyebrows to match Toby's surprised arch in his. "I had to take into account that maybe Sly's potentialities may not have covered the possibility that Walter had gone over to Paige's. Maybe they made up and the reason why he wasn't picking up was because they were in bed together. It was better than believing all three of them might be gone. Paige thought Walter was calling instead of me and admitted they were going away to see Drew. I went off on her. I told her we were fine before her and Ralph. As I said that, I realized that you were right about Scorpion being worth fighting for with or without Paige and Cabe."
"So you came back with the idea to track Walter via the car's onboard computer." Toby said as he finished her thought.
"Yeah. Just now, looking at Ralph, I realized Walter had not been returning their calls either. Paige being upset when she picked up was justified." Happy said.
"Well that is what happens when you have a landline and the garage is called garage in their phonebooks." Toby quipped. He realized that Happy was more attached to Ralph then she let on.
"You know Ralph wouldn't have stopped talking to us just because they moved to Portland or Maine. We would have found our ways. Long distance isn't the same as being there but it would have never been nothing. You think Ralph wasn't calling you the day the jazzed up the crappy car his dad buys him for his seventeenth birthday. Ralph is definitely calling Sylvester the night he dresses up as Super Fun Guy to his first Halloween party. And Ralph would definitely call Walter the day he gets some amazing scholarship to go somewhere amazing for school." Toby said.
Happy smiled at Toby's prediction of the alternate future that would have happened if Walter hadn't driven off that cliff. "So when would Ralph call you?" Happy asked.
"Ralph would call me the night he is supposed to go to that Halloween Party, dressed up as Super Fun Guy, in that jazzed up car with the super hot girl he has always liked who has finally noticed him because he won that amazing scholarship, because instead of going he fell asleep and missed the whole thing. Ralph would call me that night and ask how on earth did he F- it all up and what he can do to fix it." Toby said self deprecatingly.
"What would you tell him to do to fix it?" Happy asked.
"I don't know yet, I am still trying to figure it out. Hopefully, I'll know ten years from now."Toby answers.