"I had to help. For the greater good. I'm part of the team!"

Paige stood in the shadows as she watched Ralph hunch over the desk next to Walter, both of them working furiously. She didn't understand what they were doing, despite her years in this line of work.

She had tried to take him away from this once. She'd tried dragging him across the country to his biological father's doorstep, terrified for his life, willing to risk him being hurt emotionally again because she was so desperate to make sure he wasn't hurt physically.

Her decision had been rash, fueled by a dangerous day and conflicting emotions, but she felt that same fear today that she had back then. Ralph was now an official part of Scorpion, taken onto the team by Walter when his other options vanished. He'd be here daily, not catching carpools, not holed up in a university's library, but here, in the garage and eventually in other countries, risking his life for the greater good, just as he'd been so willing to do five years before.


"You do realize that because of first impressions, no matter how many times you walk in here I'm going to be looking for a bomb?"

Linda rolled her eyes, spread her arms, and slowly pivoted three hundred and sixty degrees, stopping to cock and eyebrow at the behaviorist. "Satisfied?"

He tossed a chip in the air and caught it in his mouth. "For now."

"Linda!"

She turned, a grin already on her face. "Hey Walter!"

"You have a good flight home?" He asked, opening an arm out as he approached, already knowing that she was going to hug him.

"It was long," she said, reaching for him. "But nice, you know, Hank is always so busy, but on the flight, he doesn't have to work, no one else is asking for him time, we could just talk, you know, that was, that was nice." She hopped up on the nearest desk. "Where's Paige?"

"Where's Hank?"

She ignored Toby's question. "How is the baby doing? How is Sylvester?"

"The baby's fine," Walter said, "everything perfectly normal so far. Sly's pretty excited."

"Was it all the hanky-panky jokes?"

"That's so exciting," Linda said, continuing to pretend Toby wasn't speaking. "You know how long it's been since I've gotten to play with a baby? Not," she stopped, looking suddenly awkward, "not that...I know it's up to Sylvester who...but...I mean, I'd love to meet her. Or him."

"I'm sure Sylvester would be fine with that." Paige, who'd appeared from the kitchen area in time to hear Linda begin to stammer.

"Hey," Linda said, the grin returning to her face. Paige's expression matched, and the two women hugged. "Wow," Linda said, shaking her head as she held Paige at arm's length. "You look...almost the same!"

"I think I look exactly the same," Paige said.

"No, definitely not," Linda said. "You're showing already."

Walter frowned. "I don't see any difference."

"You see her every day," Linda pointed out. "I haven't seen her since before all this happened. There's a definite difference."

Paige placed her hands on her lower abdomen. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe we'll start noticing soon then," Paige said. "April will be over before we know it, and then I'll be a solid couple of months along."

Linda nodded awkwardly. Everyone in the room knew that Megan's birthday was coming up, just a few days after Paige's. "Lots happens in April," she said quickly, clumsily. "Are you guys done fixing up the bathroom? I gotta pee."

"No," Walter said, "turns out the structural integrity of the wall is a complete loss and with no one really living here, we haven't gotten around to it. There's one in the airstream, Ray!"

The former fire fighter was tinkering with something in the corner of the garage, and he straightened up and headed over to them. "Yeah, Wally?"

"This is Linda," he said. "Linda, Ray. Can you show her to the bathroom?"

"Yeah," he said, gesturing with his head. "This way."

"Thanks."

"If she didn't like my hanky panky jokes," Toby mumbled to Walter and Paige, "she's not going to make it to the airstream and back before she's had enough of all his Ray puns. Still better than your bomb jokes though, I do want to make that clear."

Paige smirked, then turned to Walter. "Did she say anything about Hank?"

Walter shrugged. "He's home."

"When Happy came home from that stint in Austria, I spent the next seventy two hours in her father's workshop so she could be with both of us, even though I don't like the smell of that machine he was working on" Toby said. He looked at Walter while gesturing to Paige. "When you returned from Somalia, I don't think she let you out of her arms for the rest of the week. They're both home for the first time since the marriage, and she's here? Without him? I mean, it's healthy to not have to spend every waking second together to function but you'd think they wouldn't let anyone else near them right now."

"Every couple is dif..." Paige trailed off, shifting her weight at Toby's expression. "Yeah, I know." She rubbed a scuff mark on the floor with the toe of her boot. "I know better than anyone here."

"And he said that I had enormous potential. He wanted me, really wanted me, and there wasn't anything he wouldn't do to get me where he was. The offer, Paige, the offer was absolutely too good to refuse."

"Drew..." She bit her lip. "You said you were joining us at the end of the season. That was a season ago. You haven't even been to this place since you helped move us out here."

"I will. Just one more year. Paige, I'm sorry, but this opportunity...it's just too good to miss out on."

Paige looked over at her son, who had sat up at the mention of his father's name and was staring at her intently. "But we're not too good to miss out on?" She said quietly.

"Paige, don't be like that. I know it's hard, but we have to make sacrifices."

Paige frowned. Drew was still playing baseball, just like he always had wanted. She'd given up on school, on singing, on her relationship with her parents, all because of the little boy who had become her entire world. She understood wanting something, and being willing to do anything for it, and she almost said "I'm the one making all the sacrifices, Andrew," but she didn't.

Because when the alternative was not being there for her son, giving up all those things was the easiest task in the world. She would do it again, every day for the rest of her life.

"Well, do what you need to do," she told Drew flatly. "And we'll see if we're still here when you decide we're too good to miss out on."

"Don't be like that, Paige. It's just one more season, okay?"

"Sure. Oh..." she trailed off. "The landlord is getting angry. Says if we don't pay on time this month we'll get evicted. My three year old will not be homeless, Drew."

"I told you I'll send the money. Okay?"

"Thank you." She set the phone back down onto the receiver. "Your dad has another job."

Ralph's large eyes were unblinking.

"He'll be home after this one," she said. "That's what he says."

Ralph frowned, scooting to the edge of the couch, picking up the bottle of nail polish that was sitting on the coffee table.

"You wanna..." Paige shrugged. "Okay. Just let me put some paper down and wash my hands." She placed her hand on her son's shoulder and kissed the top of his head.