The meal was eaten in comparative silence all the participants were all lost in their own thoughts and memories of Walter . All that is except Tim all though the meal he had sat next to Paige with a smile on his face as if he had won something or somebody .Paige had remained silent and not touched Tim once during the meal something that constantly happened when Walter had been around .
After about a hour they all decided to go their own way . Cabe and Tim left to go back to Homeland , Paige made no attempt to kiss or even speak to Tim when he left she just remained rooted to her chair . Happy offered to take Toby and Sly home , they both made a move to her truck . Happy made her way over to Paige who was still seated . "Hey girl are you staying here for the rest of the day ?" Paige appeared shocked at the sudden intrusion into her thoughts ,so it took a few seconds for her to reply . "What! sorry Happy i am just so lost in my thoughts ,but to answer your question no i do not intend staying here , i have to pick Ralph up in about fourty minutes and will be going in about ten minutes ." " Are you safe to drive ?" Queried Happy "I will be fine do not worry about me , i will see you tomorrow ,have a good night . "
Just after Happy left Paige got up and went to her car and went to pick up Ralph from school . Ralph was coming out of the main entrance ,as he arrived at her car she reached over to open the door for him . "Hi baby did you have a good day ?" Queried Paige . as she began to drive away from the school "It was alright ." Replied Ralph not looking at her but down at his hands . "Do you want to order pizza for dinner ,or do you prefer something else ." Asked Paige . "Whatever !" Replied a rather sulky and morose Ralph . "You do not speak to me like that young man . What on earth is the matter with you ?" Replied an annoyed and short tempered Paige . "I miss Walter ,he was the only person who really understand me and my thinking . None of the others have that ability and since you have been with Tim even you do not seem to appreciate what i am about ." Shouted a now angry Ralph . "Oh baby i am so sorry ,i miss Walter as well ." Answered a now tearful Paige . "You do not miss him that much ! You have Tim now ,and your whole attitude to the other geniuses and also to Walter has changed so much you cannot even communicate to them with out being annoyed at whatever they say or do . Except that is for Tim ,who you seem to hang onto his every word and hold on to him in front of everybody as if to say HE IS MINE NOW I DO NOT NEED YOU LOT ANYMORE ." Shouted Ralph which shook Paige as she began to realize what her son had said was at least partly true . By now tears were streaming down Paige's face as she sobbed . Unable to drive she pulled over to the side of the road and reached over to hug Ralph. But he pulled away so that he was pressed hard against the passenger door . Paige just looked so shocked and seemed unable to move as she sobbed even harder .
Ralph offered no sympathy to his mom ,just giving her a dark glare and turned to look out of the window . Leaving Paige feeling so alone and unhappy . It took her about ten minutes to recover enough to continue her journey home .
Once they arrived back at the condo Ralph ran straight to his bedroom and slammed the door . Paige just felt everything was going wrong ,she collapsed on the sofa ,as tears ran down her cheeks . Had she changed that much in the few months since Tim joined the team . Her mind began to wander she had only really gone out with Tim because she thought Walter was moving on with Linda . After all she was hugging Walter when she said yes to a date with Tim ,only to find out it was a breaking up hug ,but it was to late by then . Walter then gave her tickets for Tahoe ,how she had hoped he was going to say it was the two of them to go , but Walter being Walter said to ask Tim . Walter still could not get his E.Q. working . Then he tried to wreck the weekend , which if not for Cabe's phone call ,would most likely succeeded .
I did lose my temper with him when i found out just after the missal had missed us . Maybe i should have listened to him and he would have explained himself . That thought bought back something Ray had said the day he left after finding out he was not responsible for his friends death . He had told her what Walter felt for her ,but she would need to approach him as he never would approach her . Her own pride and stubbiness had stopped her doing that ,then along came Tim . Who showed her a little affection and was willing to take her out on dates which was nice . Nice but not love , love she could never give to Tim . She liked him , but he did not send electricity though her body when they touched and his kisses were nice but nothing like when she kissed Walter in the experiment after the balloon incident . The more she thought about the kiss the more she realized the affair with Tim would never go far , she had never even thought of having any sort of intimate relationship , yet all the times she was around Walter for the past two years , most of the time all she thought about was jumping his bones .
As these thoughts were golng though her head she began sobbing again . Never again would she be able to see , hear or touch him again , and thinking about it she blamed herself for his death as she imagined his mind was not fully on the job that morning of the explosion . What was she going to do now ? Her mind so mixed up she had forgotten all about Ralph , so she went over to his bedroom door and knocked . "Baby do you want pizza , if so which one would you like ?" Paige was finding it difficult to keep the quiver out of her voice . "Anything will do ." Snapped Ralph . Paige could not reply as she could not speak due to the tears that had began to stream down her cheeks again . After about twenty minutes she had stopped weeping , so she ordered the pizza . The pizza arrived , Paige knocked on Ralph's door again to tell him the food had arrived . He came out , went to the kitchen grabbed two slices of pizza and immediately went back to his room . This action caused Paige emotional pain and once again she began to weep.
The rest of the pizza was left uneaten on the kitchen island . Paige forced herself to stand up and make her way to her bedroom . She just threw her clothes in a heap on the floor as she pulled them off , she grabbed her night dress and pulled it over her head and crawled into bed . After a restless night she was up and showered by 5.00am , as the water cascaded down her body she began to relax a little and two decisions were made . First she was going to finish with Tim , she could no longer be with him as her feelings for him were never real and she was using him to punish Walter . Second she was determined that Scorpion would not fail and she was going to run it well ,in Walter's memory . Once she had dried herself and hair she dressed and went to the kitchen to make coffee .
At 7.00am she woke Ralph so he would be ready when the carpool arrived around 8.15am A still angry Ralph appeared 30 minutes later and sat at the kitchen island and ate the cereal that Paige in front of him . "Are you all ready for school ?" Paige asked with a little trepidation in her voice .
All she got from Ralph was a very short and sharp "Yes ." Is carpool ride arrived but has Paige went to hug him before he left , he just pulled away from her and walked out of the door without looking back or saying anything to her .
This again was to much for Paige and she sat on the sofa and cried again . After about ten minutes she pulled herself together and made her way to the bathroom ,were she splashed cold water on her face and touched up the little makeup she had applied earlier .
She made her way to the garage and parked in her usual parking space . She also noticed no other vehicles had yet arrived . She entered the garage and was surprised to see Tim sitting at her desk .
"Morning Paige, i think we should talk ." Said Tim .
"We most certainly should , but you go first ." Replied Paige .
"Well i get the feeling that our relationship is very one sided on my side , rather than yours ." Tim spoke with a controlled anger in his voice .
"You are certainly correct on that score , i think you are nice and generally kind , but i do not and never could love you . I must admit i only went on that first date in anger at Walter dating Linda , and then i saw them hugging on the roof that night i was jealous , what i did not know then that it was a goodbye hug . I still carried on flirting and kissing you in front of Walter to punish him , but now he has gone i will have to be honest with you . The action ends now ." Replied Paige with anger building up inside her .
"So you are dumping me for a GHOST !" Yelled Tim making a move towards Paige .
At that moment the garage door opened and Toby and Happy entered . "Morning all ." They both shouted together . Immediately Toby picked up on the atmosphere and asked . "Have walked in on something ." "No." "Yes." Tim and Paige answered together .
With that Toby and Happy made their way to the kitchen .
" In the Airstream Now. " Paige said with anger , pointing at Tim. Once inside the Airstream with the door closed , Paige turned to Tim and with a controlled anger in her voice .
"I am not dumping you , i am stopping something i should never have started . When i touch you i get no electrical feeling go through me unlike when Walter only had to brush past me and my whole body would tingle ,your kisses felt as if i was kissing Toby or Sly . The only real kiss i had with Walter was an experiment and to be honest it was organismic , so that is it . We will still have to work together so i trust you can cope with that . If not i will speak to Cabe to see if we can get a replacement for you ."
Tim stood there for a moment with his mouth opened in shock , he eventually managed to speak . "Well that could be a problem , Cabe as told me to stay here as he will only be coming in if the case involves Homeland."
"If that is the case , you will have to remember i will be in charge of the team and all decisions must be approved by me ." Stated Paige in a voice that was not going to be argued with .
As Paige and Tim left the Airstream the garage door opened and Sylvester stepped through . "Morning everybody ." A greeting that was met with silence .
Paige slowly followed by Tim made her way to her desk and sat down . "Guys , please gather round we need a meeting , Paige called out . The team bought chairs over to her desk and sat in a circle around her desk , apart from Tim who distanced himself from the others and stood about four feet away from anyone looking totally dejected . Once everyone was comfortable Paige began to speak. " First Tim and I will no longer be socializing together ." She waited for some form of response but no one seemed to dare to ask the question everyone wanted to know the answer to . As no one seemed capable of speaking Paige carried on .
"With Walter gone we cannot afford to let Scorpion standards slip . I therefore suggest that i will remain as office manager and the person leading for any jobs we bid for . We will for a while have to restrict bids to the kind of jobs we know can be handled by the people we have here . Tim as informed me this morning that Cabe wil be working out of Homeland headquarters , unless the job is a Homeland contract when his services will be required . Tim in the mean time will act as liaison between us , and Cabe . Anyone got any questions ?" Asked Paige as she finished the briefing .
The first hand up was Toby's . " Who exactly is to be in charge of Scorpion and taking over from Walter ?"
" As i have already said , i will basically be in charge of the day to day running , When it comes to jobs the leader will be determined by the type of job it is . " Answered Paige in a some what aggressive manner ."
Happy was the next to ask . "Will we be able to quote for jobs that require my skills and not just coding jobs , as without Walter we have no one who can figure out problems that can so often occur when we go out on jobs , Which seems to happen on a lot of jobs , even those those should be simple ."
" To be honest i think we are going to have to take each job as they come and at times hope for the best , and do what we have always done in the past and get on with it ."
Sylvester had sat through all these discussions without saying a word , suddenly started speaking . " Without Walter , who here would be stupid to jump on a runaway train going nearly 90 mph or stay behind to ensure a mixture Happy had made to ensure it was hardening around a bomb .Or jump from a speeding van to reach us on the R.V. behind , or escape from an airplane that was rushing down a runway with an unconscious pilot , to name just a few . I do not know any one here ,brave or stupid enough to do anything like it .
Paige had stayed silent , but now with tears running down her cheeks . "To be honest there is no one so we will have to scrutinize all bids to be sure we will be able to handle them ."
"By now Tim had heard enough , he raised his voice . "Well I'm here ,i can do anything like that . I am a Navy seal ."
"But an ex Navy seal with shrapnel in your back which would restrict you to much . Plus you would probably need a full plan of action before even thinking to do it , were as Walter did these things without really thinking about them . You only have to remember your first dealings with Scorpion , following your plan you managed to get Cabe captured and tortured , and Paige could easily have been killed .Even before we had replaced the bowl you almost got Paige and yourself killed had Paige not calmed your anger down . Then the second job you came on to Vietnam , no way could you have done what Walter did to save all our lives . In fact none of us could . The third job , robbing Fort Knox , you bullied Walter into taking this job by attacking his ego . Another situation that only Walter could have saved the three of us from . Then when you were bought back from Tahoe , no way could you have saved the day the way Walter did . So no you could not do what Walter did on these or on most of the jobs we have completed ." Answered a very sarcastic Toby . Tim gave him an angry stare then turned away and sat down on the sofa .
Paige decided to check to make sure there were no outstanding jobs , or if any jobs that they could bid on . After a sixty minute search she had found two jobs that they could bid on . She called Sylvester over to help determine how much work would be involved so she could work out the costings .
After a couple of hours a disgruntled Tim made an excuse and left the garage . Before he had time to close the door behind him , Toby was up and across to Paige , asking questions as to what had gone on between her and Tim . Paige gave him a long hard stare before answering . "My private life is just that my private life , so just go away and leave me alone ." Despite Paige's protest Toby just kept badgering her . Suddenly Toby's hat flew six feet across the garage and he let out a large yelp , rubbing the back of his head . "You heard the lady it is her PRIVATE LIFE , if and when she want's us to tell us what happened she will . NOW LEAVE HER ALONE , if not next time it will be a wrench i hit you with and not my hand , now GO AWAY ." Shouted Happy then turned to Paige and smiled . Paige mouthed thank you to her and began to work on one of the bids .
Toby had made his way back to his desk and appeared to be reading two books at once but was actually trying to read Paige to see if he could figure out what had gone on between her and Tim.
Once she had finished both bids and cleared up some outstanding paper work it was time to pick Ralph up . She was very apprehensive as she pulled up at the school . Ralph had just left the school and made his way to her car .
"Hi sweetie , how was school ?"
"Alright !" Answered Ralph in much the same mood as when he left the condo that morning .
She set of for home the ride was taken in silence , Paige nor Ralph seemed to want to break the peace . She knew that she would need to sit him down and have a good talk to him over what had happened at the garage .
Mean while twenty miles north of Los Angeles in a wooden area was a small wooden cabin . Inside a man was busy working on a computer , he heard a knock on the door , he shut down his computer and made his way to the door . He opened the door , looked at his visitor and said .
"Hello Cabe ." To be answered .
" Hello Walter ."