A/N: I am just so shocked and thrilled and just thankful for the response towards this story! I thought that because Scorpion had been off the air for a while that it would get a couple of hits or maybe some kudos and if I was lucky – one or two reviews but this is insane! Thank you to every single one of you who read, reviewed, marked it as a favorite, and follow. Seriously, thank you so much!

Update: Chapters 3-5 have the right quotes at the top.

Disclaimer: As always direct quotes from the show belong to Socpion producers and any affiliates.

Little Girl Lost

Chapter 5

"Yeah, life is complicated. Adult relationships are complicated." Toby Curtis Season 2 episode 6 Tech, Drugs, and Rock n Roll

Paige woke up feeling more refreshed than she had in a long time.

By no means was she happy, or even content but she would take refreshed; heaven only knew she would take any pleasant emotion that was thrown her way from the last two months.

Her talk with Cabe went better than she expected. She wouldn't have blamed the older man if he never came over or if he had come over just to yell at her, to demolish her character, and scream how she was a horrible person for saying such horrible things to his son….it wasn't any less than she had deserved.

Maybe on some deep level that was what she would have wanted. She wanted someone to scream at her. She wanted that judgment placed down on her because then it would have justified all the horrible things, she had thought about herself. It would give a reason for why she was feeling so awful and that she was the scum of the earth. That her tears would be welcomed because they showed a fraction of the pain that she self-inflicted. It seemed that whenever Paige Dineen went, chaos and misfortune followed. Then again, she couldn't exactly blame fate for that, she'd always had a self-destructive tendency, ever since she was a teen.

She dated the chess captain knowing she wasn't smart enough to keep up with him. She dated the jock that she knew would break up with her when she wouldn't spread her legs fast enough. She went to college and majored in history knowing that any job wouldn't pay her enough to pay out her student loans. She entered into a sorority that she knew wouldn't help her in her studies. She dated and slept with a guy that was going nowhere in his baseball career.

She let her mother and the rest of her family go.

It seemed the only good thing she ever did, the only screw-up she didn't do was keep and love her baby boy. She was scared, terrified actually when she looked down at the positive test. She was almost graduated, her mother was gone, her father had just died and she…. Well, she was off in her own world and doing what she could to get Paige out of yet another mess. Paige was alone – she and Drew had just broken up and the only lifeline she had was thousands of miles away…. but she still came.

She still came and together they made sure Ralph would be okay. No matter what happened, it was Paige's reasonability to make sure Ralph's world would be okay. He wouldn't ever know the horrors of what Paige had to endure. He would never know the hardship of a flighty and absent mother or a distant but caring father. He would never know pain….at least if Paige had anything to say about it.

Paige remembered that night so clearly, it was ever a wonder she couldn't remember anything else. There was so much smoke, screaming, and yelling. They all got separated and she…. Well, she made her choice. She claimed that she would always be there for Paige. Would always be a call or a text away….ha! Paige hasn't heard a word in three years. It would have been four if she hadn't….if they hadn't….Paige sighed as she shut her eyes and then looked on her bedside table at the picture of Ralph she had framed.

Every morning all she had to do was look at his face and all the memories would float away. She would forget her choices that night. She would forget the pain. Sometimes…and Paige was ashamed of this fact, but sometimes she would even choose to forget her face.

As if Paige could ever really forget. However, memories are the only real thing you can have when people are lost to you.

With a sigh, Paige sat up and looked at her clock. Five in the morning on a Monday and an empty apartment. She bit her lip as she wiped the oncoming tears. She knew that Ralph would be spending the weekend with Tyler, she knew that this would be the last day she would wake up alone…this weekend anyway.

For just one moment, one glorious moment Paige allowed herself to remember waking up in another bed. The sheets would have been colder, but not icy to the touch. He would always wake up before her. His mind would be running a million miles a minute and he would be tinkering on something. Either a machine, his laptop, or….in some truly seductive ways, on Paige herself. She had to admit those mornings were her favorites.

It took some time, but she learned that he didn't like to be asleep for too long, he liked to be doing something. Kept his mind active and so she would do what she could to help him settle it and focus. She would either stay in bed and read or go over the various finances and spreadsheets for Scorpion's business plan. He also learned that she liked when he smiled at her in the mornings, and a kiss hello.

He learned that Paige loved a hot cup of Earle grey and that smelling it when she first came out of her slumber was the best start to her morning. She later found out he kept a silent timer on his watch for the time that Paige would usually wake up and so he would go to the kitchen and brew the tea in the most efficient time than when it would be poured for the most optimal temperature of the tea leaves Paige would have been awake enough to enjoy it.

He was very efficient after all.

Before she knew it, Paige felt hot tears on her cheeks, and she brushed them away. She wasn't allowed to feel pain over that. She wasn't allowed to wallow in guilt or pity, not when she cruelly ended things with the very same efficient man. After all, wasn't his efficient mind and nuances the reason she broke up with him anyway?

Yes, that's what she told herself. That's what she continued to tell herself for a week straight whenever she stared at the phone and fought with herself not to call him. To plead to talk with him and take her back. She was too proud for that. She was too proud to beg people to come back into her life when they made it clear she wasn't enough for them.

She had begged her mother to stay when she was 8 years old.

She had begged her father to stay with them when she was 17 years old and her father lay dying on his hospital bed.

She had begged her to stay when she was 21 years old, her baby about to be born as she was forcefully boarded on the train and she turned her back as Paige screamed and cried for her to turn around.

She had begged Drew to stay when less than 8 months later he abandoned them for a freaking sport.

She had even begged Tim to give her another chance when he accused her of spending too much time with Walter and begged him to talk to her once more when she accused him of spending extra time with his partner.

She had begged, pleaded until her voice was hoarse and there were no more tears to shed for them to stay and they never did.

They all left eventually.

That seemed to be Paige's destined fate. If Paige didn't mess it up somehow, they would leave because she wouldn't be enough for them anyway. She knew that getting entangled with Walter O' Brien was tempting fate. She knew that if she acted on her feelings for him, she would either find a way to screw it up or he would leave her because she wasn't enough.

Never in her wildest dreams did she think it would be both.

She groaned as she felt a headache come on and she rubbed her temples. She bit her lip as she moaned as her finger dug into the painful sides and she bent her head in-between her knees.

She tried to stop thinking. She really did but it seemed the past did have a funny way of coming back and Paige really wasn't in the mood to go down memory lane. Sighing she got up and thrust the blankets off her as she padded quietly to the bathroom. Finding the pain pills easily she popped two in her mouth and dressed casually as she could for an early day in the office.

As she grabbed her bag, she did a double-take at her closet and bit her lip again. She knew better than to look at them in whatever home she had. She knew better than to look on an unsecured network even if it was on a flash drive. Although she didn't know technology as well as she did Paige had always been sentimental. After all, losing her only family does things to the psyche (at least that's what she's been told by Toby) and she took steps away before she looked back.

In hindsight Paige should have left the flash drive there, she should have left the hard drive alone and left it in its dusty box. She should have just called Toby and explained everything as she bared her soul to the shrink as Toby would have learned that the usually very controlled Paige Dineen was one big emotional dumpster fire.

In hindsight, Paige should have done all those things. Consequences be dammed, one person should know the full history of the skeletons in Paige's closet. A skeleton that only Cabe knew about (and let's be real, what Cabe knew was like a tooth or a finger bone) and the burden Paige had to bear would be too much for even the strongest of soldiers. Toby could be trusted, there were so many times that Paige looked over to her friend, possibly her best friend on the team, and thought to herself a million and one times what would happen if he knew but then, Paige remembered the warning of so long ago.

So, she didn't say a word, didn't mention a peep (unless you count that painting session with Cabe a few weeks after his friend Mick was sent to prison and Paige had too many wine coolers and a sad case of loose lips, but Cabe promised not to tell a soul.) Paige never said a thing which is why on that morning when Paige hesitated outside her closet door, ultimately taking the hard drive with her…did the phrase hindsight is 20/20 had never been truer.

The silent trip to the office was dark and the roads were clear giving Paige plenty of time to think. Ralph was more than likely either just getting up or eating breakfast about to leave for school and Paige smiled as she thought of her son before frowning at the echo of his words from two days ago.

"Experiments can fail if a partner doesn't fully believe in it, to begin with"

She did believe in it…didn't she? She believed in it so much that she was willing to ignore the warning signs of dating a genius. A mind so wonderful, so powerful that someone as dull and primitive as she couldn't hold his interest for long. She was woman enough to admit that when Florence first made herself known she had actually vouched for her, one of the first of the team to do so. She knew how it felt to be judged without context and she didn't want her friends to do the same. She wanted to be nice, to extend the olive branch…. she just never expected Florence to shove that branch in her back.

Okay…so that was petty.

And not exactly honest either.

Paige knew that she tried her best to mend the rift that had started with that awful smelling gas but when she stepped foot inside the door and saw Walter's immediate interest (even if he immediately said it was for disdain) she got worried.

Florence was a genius that much was certain. She was a genius who, although struggled with her EQ, wasn't as lost as the others when Paige first met them. Of course, when she barged in a few days later gripping her son's arm she (briefly) considered rescinding that olive branch and the green-eyed monster reared its ugly head when Walter and Florence engaged in banter that she thought was a brain measuring contest but looking back it could have been considered, well, flirting.

She took in a breath as that thought once again entered her mind.

She knew that Walter prioritized Scorpion above anything, he would do the most efficient solution to a problem 99% of the time. Before Florence, that figure would have been 100% if he had not wanted to do the less efficient option if it meant that Florence wouldn't have joined them on the trash collecting case. She wondered if she had simply ignored all the signs or if she was an even bigger moron than she thought.

At least she had the gall to stick it to her when she was being a jerk. Florence's callus words still hung around in her mind about a woman who had it easy. If only she knew, getting her butt grabbed and living in motels was a cakewalk compared to her childhood.

Of course, she really wasn't about to do a deep dive of her traumas while they were about to do a deep dive on a sinking ship. Perhaps that should have been clue number one that Florence would bring trouble.

No, that's just being petty…again…. and lying…. again.

Paige knew that the green-eyed monster and whatever else little monsters that were within her brain showed up when Florence did. If she was being truly honest with herself (which why wouldn't she be when she was driving down a darkened road to her office) the little monsters came when Mark Collins did.

Mark Collins knew his mind games…. he knew how to work Paige's insecurities like a violin. She knew that now. After months of thinking, of doing nothing but think when she was alone and insomnia had taken her in its icy grip, she knew that maybe, maybe Ralph had a point.

Maybe she didn't fully believe in it after the first case of them together. It was just Paige's luck that it had to be with Collins and that as she always did, she lashed out and didn't communicate as she should have as a girlfriend. She did wonderfully as a liaison to the geniuses and to Walter but as a partner…that was something that was lacking.

She self-destructed.

"Experiments can be sabotaged…" Paige repeated her sons' words quietly to herself as she parked in front of the darkened building. "Sabotaged…. story of my life." Paige muttered as she got her bags and hurried upstairs. She punched in the code and quickly set up her desk and paused at the hard drive.

She knew the office had a hard-wired ethernet cable to the internet. Logically if Paige plugged in her laptop via ethernet and then plugged in the hard drive…. she should be okay. They would be okay. It was dumb to even bring it with her. It's been tucked away for years in her closet ever since she had settled in LA with Ralph but it's been years….she hasn't even looked at the flash drive either.

"Baby steps Paige" She whispered as she set up her laptop, not Paige's personal laptop but the laptop that held the truth. That held memories that Paige hadn't thought about it in ages. Punching in the familiar password she smiled as the name crept up and grabbing the innocent-looking flash drive, she plugged it in and clicked on the only file on it.

Instantly dozens of photos popped up and Paige gasped as she didn't even stop the tears that came down her cheeks. There they were young, smiling…happy.

She didn't even remember that she could smile like that.

Plus, her father…. he looked exactly as Paige chose to remember him. Strong, healthy, alive. His brown eyes crinkled at the edges and he smiled shyly at the camera.

Biting her lip she moved the folder and plugged in the hard drive, too giddy to even pay close to the warning thoughts inside her head.

It's been 4 years…. she could look for four seconds.

As fast as before the hard drive hummed and file, after file entered the laptop and Paige clicked on the video tab as a tiny, smiling 10-year-old Paige smiled at the camera.

"Turn page, sing for daddy. Don't be shy sweetheart." Her father's voice echoed behind the camera as Paige smiled shyly and softly started singing "Stand by me" and she heard her playing in the background.

"Beautiful larynx turn page" Her father complimented as Paige blushed and she heard her scoff as young Paige in the video pouted before adult Paige let out a gasp as she saw her come on screen.

"Turn page you have to adjust your larynx by two and one half an octave in order to reach the note of C. The piano was already adjusted to the key, so you have to blow more air from your pharynx"

Paige smiled and shook her head as she paused the video and touched the screen. This was so long ago….if only she knew what she knows now. Maybe things could have been different. Blinking back tears she hurriedly closed all the windows and packed up the hard drive and flash drive. Unplugging the ethernet cable from the laptop she slid it back inside her bag as she yawned.

Looking at the clock and it only read 7:30 in the morning, biting her lip Paige had half of her mind to curl up on the office couch and ignore the nagging feeling of utter content and fear. She sighed before she would bite the bullet and return the equipment back to her apartment and stash the hard drive and flash drive back into her closet where it belonged. She was sentimental it was true and with all the events of the last two months, Paige felt just as lost as she had when she first lost her.

All throughout her childhood whenever Paige felt lost, she could just turn to her and whatever would spill out of her mouth would bring comfort to Paige. Granted she didn't understand half of what was said but she knew better than to question it.

Like now, she knew better than to look at these files on an unsupported network but Happy set this up herself. Nothing would come of it and it was only for ten minutes. What could Paige really say other than that? She missed her. Desperately. More than Paige could think she could miss her.

Maybe if she was here, she could have slapped sense into Paige that night. Maybe…. she could have translated for Paige instead.

Shaking her head Paige sighed as she looked at her phone again.

Cabe said that even the strongest foundations need patchwork….at least that's what she got from it anyway. Would it be so bad to call him? Ask how he was doing? Would it even be right of her to do it? Would he even want to hear from her?

That thought sent a freeze throughout her body.

What if he didn't?

There was a strong possibility that he wouldn't want anything to do with her after what happened. Yes, his EQ still needed work but that didn't mean it crippled him in deciding what was best for him. If it were Paige, she would never want to see her again.

But one phone call wouldn't count as seeing each other. They, well logically speaking, physically speaking wouldn't be able to literally see each other during a phone call.

Just as Paige was about to dial the familiar number a note caught the former waitresses' eye as she looked at Toby's familiar scrawl on the paper taped to her desk.

Paige, if you're reading this then that means you came into the office early again. Don't worry insomnia and nightmares are a normal part of a traumatic breakup. However, since this is a note, and you can better process your emotions when you see a fact laid out in black and white, I have some news for you my favorite normal under 40.

Centipede has taken on a new client who has made it mandatory to work with the newly formed Scorpion 2.0 and after I signed the contract it was made known that Centipede and partners could not, under any circumstances, back out of the assignment. Don't worry about comforting Sly I got it. I told him five minutes before I penned this letter to you. Also, we have a mandatory meeting with the client, Florence, Cabe, and Walter on Monday.

With growing horror, Paige looked at the calendar on her desk just to reconfirm that today was, indeed, Monday.

You may start panicking now.

Paige had never run out of the office doors so fast.

A/N: Once again I would like to say a huge thank you and I would also like to say thank you to Margaret Gautier. I do apologize that this wasn't in a PM but because the site doesn't allow us to message guests I'll write it here! Your review about how this story reminded you much of the original show…I was tickled pink when I read it and it drove me to a writing frenzy. It also got me thinking that starting from this chapter I'll put "previews" and sneak peeks at the bottom of the chapters!

So, stay tuned for scenes of the next chapter! Updates will happen every Tuesday!

"This is preposterous" Walter muttered as Cabe parked the van in the parking lot where he saw Centipede's office on the top floor.

"Completely absurd" Florence muttered as Cabe sighed and turned to face the two pouting geniuses. Sometimes he felt that he was raising 3-year old's instead of adults in their thirties. "I don't care how many synonyms you throw out but you're not taking that stupid cardboard plan inside the office doors unless you'll want to find my foot – "Cabe started but was interrupted by both Florence and Walter muttering "Unless we want your foot in our asses…we understood you the first time Cabe," Walter muttered

"We understood the first ten times actually" Florence corrected as Cabe rolled his eyes and took in a large sigh.

"Look….I get it. Okay, this was not my idea of a good time. I hardly think this is your idea of a good time, but we are all adults in this situation. Walter, Flo I know you both struggle with your EQ and this situation would be difficult and awkward for someone with the best EQ …but we're here, we're roped in and unless you don't want to find yourselves on the wrong end of a legal dispute, we all suck it up, grit our teeth and meet Goldman and get out. You don't need any fancy cardboard layout on how to get along with your own family!" Cabe muttered as Walter locked his jaw and Florence looked cautiously out of the window.

"Even if those people hate you?" Florence asked and Cabe sighed

"They don't hate you Florence…. they may not have liked how the events happened, but I know these guys. They don't hate easily." Cabe responded as he opened the door and she looked at Walter who refused to meet her gaze.

"Let's get this over with" Cabe mumbled as they started walking towards the office doors.