Well, updated slow as usual, but as promised, story progress!

"You hiding out in here all day?" Walter asked Florence as he walked into the kitchen and grabbed a mug.

"I…" She was reading some texts from Sylvester, even though he was in the next room. They'd been from the previous night. Just a few little, random compliments and words of encouragement. She'd been struggling a bit today, and reading them helped.

"I'm not trying to be an ass," he said, "that was a bad way of asking how you were doing."

"It's okay." She and Walter hadn't talked much recently, not much more than they'd had to. "Just thinking about Tilly."

"How is that going?" He asked. "I don't mean 'that' as in…Tilly isn't 'that'. I meant like…the whole…everything around her." He made a circle motion with the hand holding the mug.

Florence debated on how much of herself to share. Walter was the most like her, of all of them. "I'm still struggling on how to connect with her. And you know a little about that. I mean, not with Amber, but like, with Paige – "

"I have struggled at times with Amber," Walter corrected. "Not to love her, or to understand that I loved her. No, not that. But to connect? Sure. I've only recently figured out that she is very smart, just in her own way, and while it wasn't that I couldn't love her, I do still struggle to find common ground with people who aren't geniuses, and that's not ego, it's my fault. It's a weakness of mine. It's something I'll always be working on, providing I retain the EQ necessary to do it."

"What would you suggest I even do? Like at first, when I found out she existed, I was so excited for a world with her in it. Then I was terrified a world with her in it would cease to exist almost as soon as it began. And now I know that was just a defense mechanism, but when am I going to be excited about that world again? And how do I even help us bond?" She wanted to cry. She bit her lip to stop herself.

"I don't know. Write a song for her. Or play one for her. Just not about buttocks. They don't like that."

"Why would I try to bond with my daughter over songs about buttocks?"

"There is a song called 'Baby Got Back' which appears to be-"

"That's 'baby' like 'boo' and not 'infant' and not applicable to this situation."

"Never understood 'boo' as a term of endearment. It's also, as your husband informed me once, not how spies refer to one another."

"I feel like I've probably heard this story from his perspective and it was both less confusing and less weird."

"Most definitely." Walter grinned, then grew serious again. "If I didn't believe love existed and could wind up falling so hard and so fast for Paige, you can love Tilly. I wasn't trying. I was actively fighting against it. You're trying. You want it. You'll find it."

"I hope you're right. I just hate myself for how much my relationship with Tilly has changed in an amount of time so short…I mean…" Florence stopped, pausing to keep herself together. "She isn't even supposed to exist yet. And I went from being excited, to terrified, to almost resentful, to wanting something but not knowing how…"

"My relationship with Paige has changed too. I, we're…my injuries. You know. They impact certain aspects of our lives. I'm embarrassed by it. Sometimes."

"I am too," she said. "Sometimes. By my inability to relax, or my inability to be less subdued. By my paranoia and irritability. By the way I just want to cry and can't even figure out why sometimes."

"I feel like I have been distant from you," Walter said. "With everything in my brain, and then these feelings I've had about you reminding me of my sister…that was weird. And I apologize for it. And I think I've pulled away from you because I didn't want to keep being weird. And I haven't been supporting you as much as I should have been."

"Walter, you have been wonderful. Everyone has. It's scary to admit, but I probably wouldn't be alive right now if it wasn't for all of you." She tipped her head. "Sylvester is wonderful. I love him so much. But humans, we're not solo animals. Or pair animals. We have always thrived in groups. I've needed all of you. Not only him. And this family means absolutely everything to me."

A small smile came over Walter's face. "Good. Good. That's all I wanted to create here. A family."

"You've done it. And I don't care what those people at the benefactor bid event says. Us getting through everything we've gotten through is a testament to how capable we are as a unit."

Walter's body jerked slightly.

Florence stopped talking. "What?"

"That reminds me." Walter pulled out his phone. "I got a notification about an email from them."

It was Florence's turn to flinch.

Walter looked at her. "Want to read it with me?"

"I have no idea."

He chuckled. "I understand. Come over here."

She jumped up from the table, circling around next to him and peering over his arm. "Remember, Walter, we've worked for a long time without this kind of money. We managed. We just talked about how much we can accomplish together, at the end of the day it doesn't-"

"I know. But still. We deserve it. We could make more effective versions of half the other contender's stuff and still have money left over for ours. We deserve to be able to help people. How stupid is that that that's a sentence I can say? That we could be denied the ability to put ourselves on the line time and time again to make the world a better place?"

"Walt," Florence said. "Paige will literally murder me if you get worked up."

"I am not an invalid. I have brain trauma. I still can feel emotions."

"Let's just open the email and see, okay?" Sylvester's words were back in her head. About how despite one person's own struggles, they could overcome them to help someone else. Walter was calming down.

"Okay," he said. "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

"I don't think-"

"Okay. I'm going to open it. Then we'll figure out what bridge we have to burn."

Florence still wasn't sure he wasn't mixing idioms, but she let it go. "Open it on three?"

"Sure."

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

Walter clicked. Two pairs of eyes scanned the email's contents. Then Walter leaned back, and Florence straightened up. "So," she said. "How are we going to tell the others?"


Happy was the first to notice them approaching, Florence and Walter, both looking solemn, Walter's jaw set, Florence's left hand gripping her right. She nudged Sylvester, who was next to her, studying an engine she'd been working on.

Toby noticed the two of them staring, and his eyes shifted to the approaching duo. Paige spotted them at nearly the same time. Paige's eyes widened slightly, a hand going up to her chest. "Walter? Florence?"

"What's wrong?" Happy asked, glancing at Paige before reverting her eyes to the two of them.

"Well, I uh…" Walter glanced at Florence. "I don't really know how to say this, actually."

"S'up everyone."

Every person in the garage jumped as they turned to look toward the door. "Whoa." Ralph held up his hands. "Something the matter?" His eyes went to his mother. "Oh my god, they found Meg Mitchell, didn't they?"

"I don't – " Paige's expression made it clear that she hadn't thought that was what it was about, but when she looked at Walter, she appeared confused, as if she'd thought she knew what he might have to say, but was now questioning it.

"No, Ralph," Walter said. "I'm sorry. We don't have news on Meg Mitchell."

"Oh." He looked dejected.

"I got an email," he said, and Paige's expression changed again. It told Toby that she knew, she knew that the email had come in, but he didn't think she knew what it said. There was too much anxiety in her eyes. Or perhaps it was there because she did know, and now knew that Walter knew, and she was worried because it was bad news, that this might put him off the deep end, that it might make Florence feel like a failure, that…

Eyes were all on Walter, then Florence, Walter, Florence, Walter, trying to predict who might say something first. He shifted, glanced at Florence, and the small, almost invisible smile the two shared right before they turned and grinned at the group gave it away, although almost too quickly to process before they spoke, in unison.

"We got the money!"