Hello again! Here's the next chapter as promised. Thanks so much for the wonderful reviews!

First, yep that was supposed to be Megan's spirit at the end of the last chapter, being very annoyed with her brother.

Next up is going to be an original story line. There will also be some action coming very soon.

So I am going to introduce Tim in my timeline...I have some plot points and some cool scenes I need him for. I might be in the minority here, but I actually liked him. Definitely not in the "stood between Walter and Paige" way, but I thought his character was a good guy and had served as a good addition to the team overall. Don't worry though, I'll use him fairly and everything will turn out okay for our favorite couple, promise!


Part IV:

I, Walter


Chapter 33:

Live Free: Part 1


They had gotten Walter back. Even though they all were saddened by his grief, they were relieved his humanity was not lost forever. Walter was going through a grieving process like a normal human.

Well, almost.

There were a few hiccups related to his "normal" low EQ. He started talking to himself, occasionally. Then there was the sister's-ashes-in-a-coffee-can incident, but that was normal, abnormal Walter. Paige helped him recognize what he was doing and he slowly was starting to adapt.

He seemed to finally get closure after a specific phone message. The message stated he was going to be awarded the $15 million grant for his rocket and its design. It was the rocket Ralph had been working on with him. Walter had started the project to win the grant to apply the money to Megan's research. He decided to not accept it.

Instead, with the help of the team, he decided to launch his rocket into space. It carried the coffee can containing Megan's ashes to forever orbit the Earth amongst the stars.

*****SVD*****

Walter's life got even more complicated, if that was possible, when Cabe was assigned a new Homeland trainee. His name was Tim Armstrong, and he was an invalidated Navy SEAL after an explosion left some shrapnel dangerously close to his spine. He hoped to return to active service, but he was exploring his options by taking a position with Homeland.

Walter just hoped he didn't explore too closely.

Walter took Cabe aside after their first mission involving Tim, which was successful, but Cabe had been captured and tortured when attempting to retrieve stollen artifacts in Djibouti.

"Cabe, I'm not pleased with Tim's presence. We don't know enough about him, and it's too high of a risk that he might find out what I am. If I had been able to use my abilities in Djibouti-"

"Things would have turned out exactly the same way," Cabe interrupted him. "I would have been saved still, just a little sooner. I'm still ok, Walter."

Walter accepted Cabe's analysis, but he still had reservations. All in all, Tim seemed like an honorable man, and logic kept telling him that he was someone to be trusted.

What he definitely didn't like was how Tim started looking at Paige. Then when he asked Paige out, Walter started to feel an ugly, rolling feeling in the pit of his stomach. For several days he tried to ignore it, and refused to identify it.

He had to recognize it, however, when it caused a close call occurred regarding Walter's undead status.

The trigger, of course, involved his still present feelings for Paige.

Before that though, there had been harrowing near death experiences to get him primed.

*****SVD*****

Tim had left town for a few days to address some details regarding his injury and the Navy's stance on it. Tim was hoping to rejoin the SEALS, but the remaining shrapnel near his spine was being classified as a liability. He was trying to appeal their decision.

After all the insane recent events, they all enjoyed a very uneventful period of time. So for that morning, they enjoyed things being boring.

At least Paige thought it was boring. She returned from a meeting with a client. It had been a short, but strange meeting. The man decided not to use their services after only a few minutes of talking. No big deal, she supposed, but she was mildly annoyed that she had to take the afternoon off and have Ralph find a different way home from school because of it.

She walked into the garage and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Toby was sitting on the edge of Sylvester's desk, chatting about something in a one-sided conversation while Sylvester did his best to ignore him. She could hear Happy using some kind of high powered equipment in her workshop. Walter was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't concern her. She was sure he was somewhere around.

She sat down at her desk and sighed. "Sorry guys, client changed his mind. A waste of time, to be honest."

She heard the two men exchange some quick whispers back and forth. "Uh, huh," Toby said, looking up at her. And Sly looked…uncomfortable?

"Boo!"

Paige screamed and nearly fell out of her chair.

She heard heavy laughter before she could get her bearings. She swiveled her chair around. Hanging upside down, like Spiderman, from a thick cable coming from the high ceiling, was Walter. It seemed he had silently climbed down behind her after she sat down.

His face had several grease spots and his shirt, equally dirty, was falling slightly around his waist. His head was level with her own as she sat, and on his face was a large grin of pure amusement at his success.

"I'm sorry," he said, still laughing. "I couldn't resist. I was working on some wiring on the ceiling. It was too good an opportunity to pass up."

She glared at the two other men.

"Toby made me not say anything," Sly said quickly, looking sheepish. She still thought she saw an amused glint in his eye.

Toby, of course, was unapologetic.

She looked back at Walter, still hanging there, slightly swinging back and forth. He was still smiling at her with a mischievous glint in his eye. He looked so happy and carefree in that moment. How could she stay mad at him?

"Uh, huh…" she said in acknowledgment, trying to sound annoyed. Instead of saying anything else, she stood up and gave Walter a firm push.

"Woah!" His amused look turned to one of alarm as he went swinging towards the wall behind him. He twisted and stopped himself from hitting it with his legs, then fluidly pushed off to swing in the opposite direction. He released the cable, twisted in the air, and landed on his feet in front of Paige's desk. He straightened and turned to her. The amused smile returned.

"Show off," she accused him, but this time returned his smile.

He gave a shrug. "I admit I've felt a little restless since I've had to hide my abilities with Tim around."

Tim. Her thoughts turned to him. He had asked her out after Djibouti. He was amazing. Every girl's dream to be honest. She would likely go on another date with him. There was absolutely no reason not to.

She glanced up at Walter, who was still smiling at her.

At least, no one was giving her a reason not to.

Their lighthearted moment was interrupted when Cabe abruptly opened the garage door.

"After all this time, you geniuses are still lousy at answering your phones!" he chastised angrily.

Happy poked her head out from the next room, completing the group. They all sensed the urgency in his voice.

"What's going on, Cabe?" Walter asked.

Cabe slowed and came to a stop in front of them.

"The Governor received a ransom demand about twenty minutes ago. A local group claiming association with ISIS has hijacked and taken a school bus. It had just left an elementary school, and it was full of kids. The driver was killed and left on the road with the demand."

Cabe reached in his pocket and pulled out a flash drive, tossing it to Walter.

"With the ransom demand we received a live video feed of the inside of the bus. On that drive is the link."

Walter immediately plugged the drive into his computer and pulled up the link.

"This is so awful," Paige said, "But this sounds more like work for a hostage negotiator or the military. What can Scorpion do?"

Cabe wasted no time answering. "Two things. First, we were hoping you could confirm that's a live feed and see if you can get any information from it," Cabe started.

They heard a soft 'beep' as Walter pulled up the feed.

"And second?" Page asked.

"Paige…" Walter said.

They all looked at him. He looked up at the team with a look of severe concern.

They all moved around to look at his screen.

On it they saw the interior of a school bus. The camera was placed high and in the front. They could see every seat and at least the heads of every child. A rough looking man carrying an AK-47 walked slowly up and down the aisle.

What caused Walter concern, was what he saw on the left of the feed, in a seat about halfway down the aisle.

A small, dark haired boy sat in the aisle seat. As the soldier walked past the children, almost all of them shied away in fear, or were crying and huddled low in their seats. Not this boy. With each pass he would just look up at the armed man, with a look of constant analysis.

One of the children on the school bus was Ralph.

*****SVD*****

The team immediately started working at full mental capacity. These men had just made two grave errors. First, they provided a live video feed to a team of geniuses, and second, they had kidnapped Ralph.

They, of course, were concerned about the rest of the children on that bus, but by human nature, nothing motivates like threatening one of your own.

Walter took the feed and immediately started tracing it. It wasn't easy, even for him. The signal kept being bounced around and made it difficult to track down. But he was a genius with a one-ninety-seven IQ. Overall, it didn't take him long to isolate the source.

There.

His head snapped up. "I found them!" he announced.

"Let's go!" Cabe yelled. They all grabbed their equipment and immediately took off out the door while Cabe made a phone call to Homeland.

*****SVD****

Walter and Paige sat in the back of Cabe's SUV while he was on the phone as he drove. The rest of the team followed close behind. Paige hadn't said much of anything since they learned Ralph was one of the children taken. Walter provided Cabe with the area where the signal was originating and they were on their way.

Walter looked over at Paige. She was staring into space with her fingers unconsciously twirling her necklace back and forth. She was clearly terrified for Ralph. Walter was deeply concerned as well, but he relied on facts, numbers, and odds. He didn't have all the information yet, so in his mind, there could still be a very high chance of success, so there was no point in worrying to that extent emotionally yet.

However he had come to understand that most humans didn't think that way, and he recognized that Paige must be in a lot of emotional pain right now.

It would be a few more minutes until they reached their destination, and Walter didn't like the thought of Paige going through something so unpleasant. It made him feel even more, dare he say, anger, against the men causing his family pain.

"Paige?" He placed a hand on her shoulder.

Paige jumped slightly, clearly lost in her own thoughts. She looked at him briefly before looking in the distance again. "He never takes the bus," she said.

"What?" He didn't initially understand her statement.

She looked up at him again, this time holding his gaze. "Ralph. He never takes the bus. I needed to meet that client, and it was right when school would let out. Ralph said he was okay. I thought he was ready."

Walter had come to realize humans often blamed themselves in illogical ways during dire situations, or dwelled on how normally inconsequential decisions butterfly into tragic events. He couldn't say he completely understood it, but he was coming to accept that human nature was often illogical, and the best way to approach it was to support those suffering from it, regardless.

And right now, Paige was definitely suffering, and Walter wanted to help her.

Walter placed a hand on her shoulder. "It was impossible for you to have known the situation Ralph would now be in. You know that, Paige."

Paige only slowly nodded. "I know that, Walter, I do. It's just, how does such a small thing lead to something like this?"

Walter was starting to become better at recognizing "rhetorical" questions, so he tried to just support her by making her a promise. "I swear to you Paige, Ralph will be okay. He's important to all of us. He's important to me. We will get him back."

"It's times like this I wish I had your constitution, Walter." Paige gave a soft smile, recognizing his words. "But for right now, I'll settle for your empathy."

"We're here." Cabe announced from the driver's seat.

"Ok," Walter said, now focusing on their task. He looked down at his phone, which was running his tracking software. "Stop here. We should be several hundred feet to the south of where the feed should be coming from. We don't want to get too close and alert anyone who might be there. We'll set up here and see what further information we can gather. Did you talk to Director Molina?"

"Yes," Cabe answered. "She agreed to let us take point on this, for now. I convinced her we would be the best chance to gather information quietly, but she only gave us an hour. If we don't have any headway by then, she would be calling in the hostage negotiators and the military."

Walter narrowed his eyes. He didn't like that. "Her attempts to take an aggressive stance and be in the spotlight could do far more harm than good."

"It's the best I could do, kid, so let's get to work."

Walter resigned to their time window and quickly exited the parked car, followed by Cabe and Paige. Toby, Happy, and Sylvester exited the car behind them.

Walter looked at his phone and their surroundings. They were standing at the entrance of a very large dockside yard of barely used warehouses. Walter looked up through the gate of the yard entrance and made eye contact with the building he was sure housed the signal that brought them there. The building where Ralph was. It was large warehouse a few hundred feet from them.

Surrounding this section of the yard was a tall, metal wall. Behind it was as good a place as any to start setting up their equipment. Their job was to try and come up with ways to determine what exactly was inside that building. Where the bus was, how many of the terrorists, if there were explosives, and how many.

Their job was to determine the safe way to get Ralph and the rest of the children home safely.

The sun was starting to set, and it would likely be dark within the next twenty minutes or so. They set up a makeshift workstation behind the barrier upon which they set up their laptops a various pieces of equipment.

"Ok," Sylvester said quietly. "We are up and running and receiving the live feed. We'll be able to see inside the bus at all times. Outside, however, we're still as blind as anyone else."

Walter sat down again at his laptop, seeing if there was any other advantage they could gain from the feed they had to the bus. Despite his new abilities, a computer keyboard was still where he felt most powerful.

He kept having this nagging feeling, thought, that this was too easy. They had found the bus and Ralph too easily.

What did that mean then? The terrorists wanted to be found?

He ran the scenario and logic in his head.

Oh, oh of course, Walter thought. The scenario suddenly made perfect sense.

"This is a trap," Walter said out loud to everyone, but no one in particular.

"What do you mean?" Happy asked.

"This was too easy. It was far below my abilities to intercept that signal and lead us here. They wanted to be found."

"Ok, egomaniac, why would they do that?" Toby prodded annoyingly.

"You tell me," Walter shot back.

In a second Toby shifted from sarcastic pain-in-the-ass to genius behaviorist. Toby glanced at the feed then his eyes moved back and forth, seemingly analyzing all possible human behavior behind Walter's theory.

"Uh oh," he finally said.

"What, uh oh? What is it?" questioned Happy.

"Walter's right. This is a trap." Toby went on to explain. "These are terrorists. They do the whole kidnap and ransom thing occasionally, but not like this. What are terrorists biggest goal? Terror. Their goal, especially in the country they're trying to terrorize, would be to have those bombs set off, not receive a payday."

This was not doing anything for Paige's calm. She went pale.

"Then why haven't they just done it? God forbid," Sylvester asked.

"As awful as this will sound, that's not terrifying enough. Think about it. If they just set the bombs off, the children would be killed, it would be a tragedy, but do no more than anger the American populace. But if the government tries to infiltrate where the bus is, and instead accidentally sets off a bunch of explosives…"

The rest of the team was now following the line of thinking. Toby still finished his explanation. "Not only would there be a tragedy, but to the outside world, it would have occurred not just because of terrorists, but from the incompetence of the American government."

It suddenly made a sickeningly amount of sense.

"How certain are you of these motives?" Cabe asked Toby. Far too much depended on any intel they had.

Toby watched the feed, and the man walking up and down the bus aisle. After a few moments of doing some kind of analysis to add to his interpretation, he looked back up at Cabe. "Very certain."

Surprisingly, the strong voice to break silence that followed, was Paige's.

"So then what do we do about it?" she announced.

Her words spurred the group forward once again. Walter's mind started working.

"No doubt they have scouts for the major entrances," Cabe said.

There were three large doors they could see. Three sides of the warehouse opened on solid ground, and one faced the ocean. In additional there were multiple windows on the upper level that gave whomever was inside a high ground advantage in terms of surveillance.

"Remember though, the theory is they won't trigger anything until it's clear someone is inside, or their plan won't be as effective as they want," Toby pointed out.

"True, but it will still be ideal if they are unaware they've been found yet."

Walter glanced back at the live feed. At Ralph.

Ralph was still staring at the armed man as he walked back and forth. He had one foot up on the seat and was hugging his knee to his chest as his other leg was fidgeting up and down.

Wait…Ralph didn't "fidget".

"Guys!" Walter said.

They all gathered around his laptop.

Ralph's leg wasn't fidgeting in nervousness. It was actually moving in a quick sequence over and over. Morse code.

Walter watched the sequence to decipher it.

Has detonator.

The man inside the bus held the trigger for whatever explosives were around the warehouse.

Clever Ralph. He would have realized the camera was providing a live feed. Walter didn't know if Ralph knew Scorpion was the one watching, but he was doing his best to provide more information to whomever was.

"Happy, what are the odds there's more than one trigger for any explosives in that building."

"Unlikely. More than one signal can create complications, or premature detonation."

So most likely if they were able to keep the man in the bus from realizing anyone was there, the more time they would have to reach him and prevent anything from happening.

They still needed to see what was going on in that building, though.

Walter recalled the image of the building in his mind for a moment.

He saw the large brick and metal structure. He also saw the very dated, large poles lining the dock where numerous power lines attached. Some of those power lines crossed over the building itself.

There was nothing more his computer skills would provide, at the moment, but maybe he could contribute in a different way.

"Paige, remember that joke we just played on you? I think I have an idea."


So what did you think? I really enjoyed writing some levity between Walter and Paige- the prank scene was a lot of fun to write.. Then of course I dive deep into a place of peril again :).