Happy hung up her phone and ran towards her work table and grabbed her jacket off the back of her stool as she ran past and out into the hallway. She didn't stop running as she hit the front door and went down the stairs leaping six at a time and then dashed to her truck.

Paige had barely got to the door when Happy had her truck revving and slammed it into reverse and stomped on the accelerator then popped the clutch. Paige frowned as she gave up hope of stopping her and pulled the door back shut as she brought her foot back inside. She watched as all the smoke rolled off of Happy's wheels. Happy put down a good twenty five feet of solid rubber tire marks on the pavement before she whipped the truck around and shifted into first and tore off towards the exit leaving behind even longer tire tracks as her tires screamed. She took pride in her truck and she had supped it up to such a degree that no police interceptor could begin to keep up with it.

"What the hell?" Toby all but yelled as he moved up to see what was going on.

Paige shook her head. "I don't know. Something has to be wrong but why didn't she say something first?" She looked at Sylvester. "Do you have any idea?"

Sylvester shook his head. "I could pull up her truck's GPS."

"Well what are you waiting for?" Toby yelled. "Normally you are already on that without looking like you want permission."

Paige put her hand on his shoulder. "Calm down, it isn't Sly's fault. Go ahead and do it Sly."

Cabe was put back on hold and he looked at Florence standing there. "Did you need something, kid?"

Florence nodded as she pointed. "Walter's phone is here. I didn't want to touch it in case of contamination or something."

Cabe smiled. "It's okay kid, get it. Maybe there is a message on there."

Florence nodded before she stepped back over and picked it up. The screen was cracked and the case cracked with a shoe print on it. She sighed as she held it up to Cabe.

Cabe shook his head. "Yea, I'm here." His attention diverted back to the phone. "I'm not sure what time he disappeared. Sometime after 8 pm yesterday. I say that because, according to Florence, the car was here when she got back at 8 pm." Cabe shook his head again. He sighed. "No, I don't believe she did something to him. Give me a break."

Florence grinned as she watched him rolling his eyes. She tried to turn the phone on but other than a few flickings of distorted graphics it shut back off quickly. She held it out as Cabe took it.

"You can also quit searching for his phone. We found his phone here, smashed." Cabe told the man as he looked it over in his other hand. "No, it looks like Walter's shoe print on the phone. No, I am not saying Walter did all of this on his own, it is possible he is being coerced. I can say that because I've known the kid for more than half his life."

The door opened suddenly and Happy ran inside. "Florence, Cabe?"

Florence moved to the railing. "We're up here Happy."

Happy was already moving quickly towards the stairs only barely glancing at the damage she saw as she moved over. She ran up the stairs and moved past Cabe into the kitchen. They both watched as she reached up under the only cabinet not destroyed. She flipped a hidden lever and then pulled on the cabinet moving it away from the wall. "Not good." Happy said seeing a section of plaster patch pulled away from the wall. She pulled the flap but the hidden compartment behind it was empty except for some docking stations. "Walter, what have you done?"

"Happy?" Florence asked quietly.

Happy looked over and shook her head. "This was Walter's emergency stash. He kept nearly one hundred thousand dollars in here, along with all of his backup drives and devices. They contained every bit of data and ideas he's ever had or ran across. Not to mention deep cover IDs."

Florence gasped. "Could someone know about it and have forced him to give it to them?"

Happy shook her head. "He wouldn't have given any of it to anyone. And no one else but me knew it was here. "This isn't good. Probably wouldn't do any good as he had dozens of false identities inside of it, Cabe, but have they checked flight manifests?"

Cabe looked at her and nodded. "There is nothing for Walter or any of the known aliases."

Happy shook her head. "He wouldn't use one of those. Or he infiltrated Homeland's system with a virus blinding them to him and what he is doing. We need someone capable of hacking as good as Walter who could figure this out."

"Sly?" Florence asked but couldn't believe it.

Happy shook her head. "He's good but Walter is on several tiers above him. We need Ralph."

Cabe nodded. "I've already got an agent headed to pick him up from school. I figured if nothing else, maybe Walter might have told him something we could use."

Happy looked doubtful. "Well, you better be prepared for a fireball of anger when he gets here. There is a good chance he'll refuse to help. He's siding with his Mom over the breakup."

Cabe rolled his eyes. "Just great, like that is exactly what we need."

Paige swallowed hard as they turned on the street that ran down to the Garage. They left several minutes after Sylvester was able to pull up her tracking information. While Happy took the most direct route, Paige wasn't nearly as fast at driving as Happy. And Happy had run every light she came to. They saw a black SUV ahead of them and then it pulled across and stopped behind Happy's truck. As Paige moved to park behind them they saw an agent open the back door and they saw Ralph climb out and slowly began walking towards the Garage door. "Ralph?" she said in surprise.

She called out his name as she finally got the car parked and exited out the door.

Ralph turned and saw his Mom's car and Toby climbing out of the front and Sylvester exiting the back. He moved on back and Paige came running around from behind the SUV. "What are you doing here?" Paige demanded as she came to a stop in front of him.

Ralph shook his head. "I don't know Mom." Ralph said in the baritone voice he was developing. "They pulled me out of school, said it was a Homeland emergency. I didn't even know I was coming here."

"Ms Dineen. I'm agent Stanley of Homeland. Agent Gallo requested your son's help in solving a missing person's case that has Homeland's top priority."

Paige shook her head. "Then Cabe should have called me first. Where the hell is he?"

The agent gestured at the Garage. "He's been preoccupied trying to direct resources."

Paige huffed. "Fine, let's go see what is going on Ralph."

As the other agent entered the Garage Happy met him and ripped Ralph's backpack out of his hands and ran for the work table. She opened the pack and pulled his laptop out and began trying to connect it to the Garage router and swore as she failed to get a signal. She ran towards the server room.

Paige stepped in with Ralph and they saw the mess the monitor tree was in and Paige swallowed hard. Ralph moved quickly to his laptop but saw there was no wireless signal.

Happy pulled the server door open and swore seeing all the damage inside. She saw Ralph pulling something else out of his backpack and she ran over to them.

"Happy, what is going on? Who's the missing person?" Paige asked.

Happy rolled her eyes. "You can see the monitor tree right? Who do you think is the missing person?" She saw the satellite modem Ralph was hooking up to his laptop. "Man I am so glad you got that thing Ralph."

Ralph nodded. "One of the best presents Walter ever gave me."

"You're saying Walter is missing? That's why you ran out of the office without saying anything to me? What the hell Happy. You're supposed to be my wife." Toby said angrily.

"I didn't have time to deal with all your petty bull." She looked at Ralph. "Poop, the situation was potentially too devastating. And I can tell you now I know it is at its worst possibility."

Toby rolled his eyes. "And just how would you know that?"

"I just do." Happy told him as she watched Ralph connect to the internet through his modem. "I know you have a lot of issues over what happened with Walter, Ralph. But, I'm going to do something I don't do lightly. I'm begging you to put that aside and do your best. I can't begin to tell you how bad this can go if we can't find him quickly."

Ralph slowly nodded. "I promise to keep my feelings out of it and to do my best."

Paige had moved about the floor of the Garage looking at things. The Garage looked so sterile, not counting the mess of destroyed items. Without all of their personal items that had used to sit on their now ruined desks, around the couch, Happy's work area, it would have been a nightmare for Walter. It was then that she gasped as she saw the Scorpion neon sign. Destroyed, struck multiple times by the fire ax that used to sit just inside of the RV. That thought made her look at the RV and every window was busted out, the tires with huge cuts in them.

She looked to the loft and saw Florence moving down the stairs carrying Ferret Bueller. "Where's Cabe?"

Florence rolled her eyes and looked up at the loft and walked on back into the kitchen and put him back in his cage.

Paige sighed. She knew she deserved at least a minimum of a cold shoulder from Florence. She began climbing the stairs. She'd spent most of her evening in silent contemplation over the words Florence had scorched her with. She saw the couch was destroyed along with the picture frames that housed the pictures of her and Walter. The ones of Ralph were untouched, as were the ones of just Ralph and Walter. The ones that had the three of them were destroyed except for the section of Ralph. Her hand came up as she let out a soft whimper almost.

She looked back and saw Cabe on his phone talking to someone. By the sounds she assumed it was Katherine Cooper. She saw the kitchen and dining table were destroyed as well. She swallowed hard and stepped into the hallway and walked down and looked into the bedroom and saw the destruction in there as well. She walked on down and looked in the bathroom and it was a mess. She walked on down to the small room Ralph had slept in but found it undisturbed. Her eyes closed as several tears slipped out from under her eyelids to run down her cheeks.

Finally she swallowed the remaining tears and walked slowly to the bathroom. She looked and found what was left of the rolls of toilet paper and scraped up enough to blow her nose. Cabe was still on the phone as she came out of the hallway. Paige sighed as she stepped over to the stairs and began walking down when she heard Walter's voice come from Ralph's laptop.

"Ralph, stop looking for me. You'll never find me. I wish you a better life. Goodbye." Walter said in a flat and completely emotionless voice.

"Is that authentic?" Happy asked.

Ralph nodded. "Checksum matches and it is on the secure network Walter and I established to communicate and share ideas and thoughts. According to the timestamp he recorded it at about 9 pm last night."

"I want to get back to how you knew about this secret stash of Walter's. Was this some stash for the two of you to run off with together?" Toby demanded angrily.

Happy shoved him as she glared up at him. "Say something that stupid one more time and I'm going to put your ass on the floor. Keep being a pain and I'm going to have agent Stanley put your ass off the property. And if you resist he can put your ass in jail." She turned back to Ralph.

Toby grabbed her shoulder and pulled against her. "Hey, I'm not done talking to you."

Happy spun around and her fist flashed up and at the last second she altered her swing just enough to miss his chin and hit his right shoulder. She hadn't pulled the strength of her punch and Toby was still staggered back by it. "Touch me again without my permission and I'll drop you where you stand, Fungus. My friend is fucking missing and could be in serious danger. Quit being an ass and take a look around this Garage and use your world class behaviorist skills from Harvard and tell me what you see. And if you still can't understand then leave."

She looked at Ralph. "Sorry Ralph."

Ralph nodded. "Not the first time I've heard it. The kids at school think it makes them sound cool and grown up to use it when adults aren't around. As if having to hide saying it from adults can make them look grown up."

Happy nodded. "Still, I shouldn't have said it around where you are. He just pushed the button."

"I get it. He was being a prat like normal. He deserved worse." Ralph told her.

Happy grinned. "How'd you hear about that?"

"Mom was blowing off steam at one point last night. She didn't think I could hear her." He said as he continued searching.

Florence stepped over and put a cold soda down for Ralph. She held one out to Happy. Happy grinned. "Thank you for calling me."

Florence nodded as Happy took it. "Thank you for coming so quickly. Is there anything else you can think of that I can do to help?"

Happy sighed and shook her head. "Not really. And not to impugn Ralph but Walter is right. If he doesn't want to be found chances are we won't be able to. If it hadn't been for his stash being gone I wouldn't be half as worried. This isn't going to end well."

Florence nodded. "I realize it is a lot of money but what exactly would he be doing with everything in there?"

Happy sat down next to Ralph as they both opened their bottles. "It is hard to say for sure. It could be something as simple as going home to Ireland or as bad as something I don't even want to consider."

Paige frowned. "What could he possibly do that you wouldn't want to consider?"

Happy looked at her shaking her head. "How about joining up with Collins?"

"H-He wouldn't ever do that." Sylvester spoke for the first time since arriving.

Happy laughed. "Oh, you think so genius? What was Walter's biggest desire?"

Sylvester shrugged. "Besides Ralph and Paige, it would be the success of Scorpion."

Happy nodded as she pointed to the Scorpion sign. "He lost Paige and through her, Ralph. You attacked him physically and verbally. We attacked him verbally and we all walked out. And he demolished Scorpion. So you tell me what you think he might do."

Greetings! I hope this finds you well!

RiseOfDespair - hehe Well, the story felt it was time for Florence to be a good guy, just caught between a rock and hard place.

2LawDog - Yup, he really did...What is it Happy is most worried about that she doesn't want to consider it? Thanks! Yes, racing or driving his car recklessly hasn't always worked out for him...

Railman - Thank you! How many to "look forward too"? That's kind of hard to say...but you can expect a total of 16 chapters. hehe

TJ Martin - Thank you!

JerBr23 - Thank you...as for how soon...that is a good question.

Marti - Not good at all. Poor Walter indeed! No cliffs would be a good thing for sure...as for what or where...stay tuned for chapter 5. *bwahahaha*

Susan - Thank you! Where is Walter indeed! Happy's not unreasonable, she knows the truth when she hears it. hehe

LouBe - Thank you! Well, now you know what Toby's reaction was...LOL As well as part of Ralph's and Sylvester's. Got to love a good protective pillow!

Started working on a new story yesterday. It will probably be a long one shot. Another divergence storyline. Currently sitting at just over 3.4k words.

To the Adventure! -Tim