Little Girl Lost

Chapter 20: To Be Merry Weather Curt Is

Chapter Summary: An awkward plane ride on the way to sin city.

"Who'd ever think I'd be giving emotional advice to a genius?" Walter O' Brien "It's the blind leading the blind" Toby Curtis - Season 3 episode 15 Keep it in check, Mate

As expected, Walter's prediction was correct. The flight to Vegas was full of tension and silence. Tessa was sitting away from Paige – most likely a result of another argument between the two that was softly discussed in Spanish, but the facial cues proved it was anything but happy. Paige was sitting with Ralph who was distracting himself with a coding project; Sly was working on breathing exercises (no doubt anxiety over flying and the tension on the plane making him antsy) Cabe taking a nap, Florence busying herself watching a documentary with headphones firmly in place, Happy was brooding and Toby was coming over to sit by Walter.

Lovely.

"Hey, Walter!" Toby said lively as he sat directly across from him as Walter annoyed, glowered over his laptop screen, and tried his best to ignore the psychiatrist. He was in no mood to entertain his 'theories', especially about the state of his relationship with Paige or the state of themselves.

Toby kept smiling although sweat beads collected at his hairline and making a fist, he tapped on it as he would a microphone and quickly said "Is this thing on? Hello?" Toby called as Walter sighed, irritated but if he didn't entertain him now, he wasn't going to stop.

"What do you want Toby?"

"Glad to know this mic works this time! As you know it didn't quite work last time." Toby chuckled as Walter pursed his lips.

"I don't have a wrench, now what is it?"

"Ah okay, okay I know you are a bit icy to my bombardment…all expected behaviors but that is precisely the reason why I approached you on this pleasant although very awkward plane ride to the sin city."

"Toby, I'll give you 10 seconds to say what you want before I put on my headphones and ignore whatever you have to say," Walter warned as he began typing before Toby nodded his head and clicked his tongue.

"Okay, fine I'll get to my point. I'll even start with a list of facts huh. Okay fact number one: I'm an idiot. We all know that. When we were Scorpion, I was used to never being the smartest in the room. I had the lowest IQ score on the team aside from Cabe and Paige and I had, slowly, made my peace with that." Toby said as Walter's interest was piqued.

"What's your point, Toby?" Walter asked as his irritation was growing.

"The point is that, despite all of that, I'm still smart enough to lead with an intriguing topic that would pique interest enough to hear me out long enough for me to say that I wanted to talk to you, one on one, about the tension that everyone is feeling and this way you can't press 'ignore' or shut a door in my face," Toby explained as Walter frowned.

"Well, a conversation can only happen if both parties are willing to talk and I'm not Toby. Now right now." Walter scowled as he tried to get back to the work on the completed code project.

"Fair enough; so I can talk and you can, for once, listen 197," Toby said as he smirked but his face turned serious as he took his hat off and smoothed back his hair, a trait Walter noticed over the years that he only does when he becomes serious. In other words, something that is rarely done. "I was wrong to walk out that night." Toby frowned before continuing "Okay correction, I was in the right to walk out that night as previous treatment of the team was unfair, but I was wrong to stay away for so long."

"Excuse me?" Walter asked, baffled and a bit insulted as Toby shrugged.

"Listen, I walked away because I was hurt, confused, angry, anxious, and angry. I depended on Scorpion; you know that. It was my home. My wife's home. I hoped it would be our future child's home. We all depended on its success and I…. I depended on you. I needed someone to help guide me, really all of us until Paige became one of us. Then everything became a minefield. Since that night I've always wondered why you didn't lead. At best it was because you couldn't and at worst – you wouldn't. I hoped you talk to me so I could figure out which one it was." Toby explained as Walter huffed.

"Enough of this drivel. I'm not entertaining your lecture or guilt-ridden speech about how you felt. The past is the past and right now is not the time to discuss it!" Walter said harshly as he shook his head and Toby shifted.

"Well, pal I really hope that's a defense mechanism which I'll assume it is and that it's not because you assume you are completely in the right because if that was the case then it means you really are an egomaniac and there was no hope for your emotional well-being whatsoever," Toby said as Walter clenched his fists and shut his computer.

"Obviously you're not going to stop so let me be clear. If you wish to discuss it then let's discuss it. First, I know I wasn't completely innocent. I'm not so conceited or emotionally stunted as I once was to believe that the treatment you received from me was unfair and unjust. I realize that and I have tried to fix my mistakes with Scorpion 2.0 by allocating funds appropriately. I'm sorry about the treatment and if time travel were discovered or created, I would go back and fix it, but I cannot. I can only move forward." Walter huffed before taking a calming deep breath as he tried to let down his guard. "Second, I realize now how my actions affected the company and its employees. Happy informed me of your adoption plans and I apologize for the role I played, although unintentional." Walter breathed out as Toby leaned back, eyebrows raised as his mouth dropped open.

"I know my mistakes and have tried to rectify them to the best of my ability, however," Walter paused as Toby closed his mouth and Walter took a steadying breath "I have taken great lengths to improve my social awareness, emotional maturity, and adaptability. For you to insult me based on the outdated information you possess is not only incorrect but frankly insulting." Walter said as he glared, and Toby raised his hands in surrender.

"Believe me pal I know. That's exactly the type of response I predicted. You've made tremendous progress without us and have grown in leaps and bounds. You've improved faster in the last 2 months than in the last 2 years and that deserves recognition. You should defend your name and growth against a bupkus like me who is belittling it."

"Which is why I'm asking for the last time for you to get to the point already." Walter fumed as Toby nodded fervently and placed his hat back on his head.

"I screwed up. Bad. We all did but especially me. I know you and Happy were friends for so long and part of the reason she walked was that I was leading the way. She will never admit it but that's part of it. Ironically, I'm the best psychiatrist in the world and I forgot the cardinal rule of desiccation: communication. So I admit, like yourself, if I had the ability to hot tub machine myself back to the past there are so many things I would change." Toby admitted as Walter tilted his head towards the hot tub reference. "It's a time travel movie….it doesn't matter the point is I'm trying to rectify my own mistakes and if you let me we can fix one right here by communicating. Starting with a question I've meant to ask you." Toby said as he took a deep breath and Walter set his laptop aside to show he was actively listening. A tactic he learned by a social graces YouTube video. It turns out that with proper use of a search engine YouTube is more than a website you can place entertaining ferret videos.

"Why did you never pick up the phone when I called? All 87 times?" Toby asked quietly as Walter sucked in a breath and leaned back. Admittedly Walter himself didn't know. He remembered astutely seeing his phone flash with Toby's name across it and he would just let it ring. He couldn't bring himself to answer and he knew that just ending the call would be more efficient, yet he couldn't do that either. He didn't want to hurt Toby's feelings. Truthfully, he didn't know what to do each and every time his phone rang so he just…. let it ring.

He never ignored the fact, however, Toby, out of all of them, was the only one who called.

At least Toby tried but Walter for his part never picked up. Did that mean he didn't try either or was there some deep phycological reason that he didn't want to know about or even worse…. he did know and for another phycological reason, he refused to tell it to himself?

Walter decided to not think about it and focused back on Toby who was staring at him expectantly as Walter only replied, "I don't have a substantial answer for that question now."

Toby then smiled although there was no indication it was a happy smile as Toby looked down, his shoulders slumping as he sighed. "Yeah, I figured. I don't know either." Toby admitted as Walter nodded in understanding as he leaned against the seat and crossed his legs, rocking his foot nervously as he debated whether communication now, as Toby suggested would right the wrong of that night.

Toby for his part smiled at him and relaxed as well, nodding and slipping his hat over his face; at ease with him as Walter couldn't help but smile at the similarity of the action when, before the split, he would do that action when Walter would stay late at night and Toby would stay late and sleep in the garage claiming that he didn't want to drive but Happy divulged it was to keep him company.

Walter, until this moment, didn't know how much he missed that movement. How much he truly missed his friend.

"Toby?" Walter asked hesitantly as Toby flicked his hat up and sat up. "In the spirit of communication and honestly I, to have a question I have been meaning to ask," Walter admitted as he struggled to find the right words.

"I'm all ears."

Nodding, Walter squared his shoulders and decided that if he really wanted to right his wrongs, he should have just done this before. Now, here's a chance to do it again, but right this time. Be honest. "You mentioned that you left because of the treatment, and the turbulent emotions but I guess I still don't understand and I'm hoping you can explain it to me," Walter admitted as he internally cringed as admitting he didn't know anything was going against his own nature. "Why did you leave that night. Why not the next night or the day before. Why that night when everyone was already leaving?" Walter asked honestly as he didn't try to hide the hurt in his voice as Toby leaned back and sighed, shaking his head.

"Honestly? I don't have a sustainable answer for that right now. I guess that's better than an 'I don't know. An I don't know means that there is no answer and an 'I don't know means I was probably scared because Happy and I thought about adaptation and this was no emotional environment for a child or for us as parents. An 'I don't know is I didn't know what I was thinking. An I don't know meant that there was no logic in the decision, which I guess is a good summarization of the events of what happened. I don't know. I just….walked." Toby admitted as he sighed and rubbed his chin.

"I think that's a good answer. I can agree with that assessment. There was no logic, from anyone, especially me. I shouldn't have let my emotions get the best of me that night. I'm sorry." Walter said as Toby smiled and leaned to pat his back and Walter smiled.

"I'm sorry too. I should have handled that better. It's literally my job as a world-class behaviorist but something I'm not sorry …. I'm not sorry for your development. You know I never thought I would ever hear the words "I let my emotions get the best of me from you, Walt. Although it wasn't the best reaction, I am glad I'm able to hear it. It probably doesn't mean much coming from me, but I'm proud of the progress you made. Truthfully, I'm impressed." Toby said smiling as Walter chuckled although thinking of the road it took, he rather not let on how hard it truly was, least of all to Toby.

"I had to adapt. When everyone left….I thought that you all would come back. That it was a moment of poor judgment but that you all would return back to the garage in silence but eventually everything would go back to normal. That didn't happen and it forced me to realize harsh truths. If Scorpion were to survive – my business, my livelihood was to continue I had to be like nature and adapt to my new surroundings. There was no one to catch me if I fell. If I had regressed as I so often did….it would mean I would have lost more than I could have handled. The lessons I had learned, I now had to put them into practice." Walter explained as Toby nodded his head in understanding as Walter took note of his body language. It was loosened, relaxed and Walter leaned back and let his own body relax as Toby grinned.

"Nice use of observance of social cues and body language. I purposely poised my body to see if you would copy my movements in mirroring to relax the situation even though everyone else is…well, meh let's not worry about everyone right now." Toby grinned as Walter crossed his arms.

"As much as I missed your company your analysis is something I can do without." Walter threw in as Toby chuckled.

"Ah hah, there's the 197 I know! Nice to see some things don't change; dime-store analysis as you called it and yet they are still spot on." Toby said as Walter sighed.

"I've been giving emotional lessons to Florence," Walter said as Toby stopped chuckled abruptly, and looked on in shock.

"So, it's true then." Toby gasped as Walter looked over in confusion.

"You knew?" Walter asked as he quickly pieced together the puzzle. "Florence told you because you tried to do the same." Walter guessed accurately as Toby nodded.

"Yeah, I mean…. after that night everyone was a mess and Florence wasn't getting Paige's help after that performance. I tried to get everyone together to talk but, well no one wanted couch time and the only person who followed me up on the option was Florence. Then imagine my surprise when she calls me a week later to tell me my services were no longer required because you were teaching her and since you both worked at the same company it was easier logistics-wise. No follow-up or explanation, just a quick call. To be honest I didn't believe her until I saw her improvement at the meeting. I was surprised and even more impressed with her newfound emotional intelligence. In both of you…. especially without Paige." Toby finished quietly as Walter tried to hide his flinch.

Although he and Paige were on better terms, and he could safely say they were friends it doesn't take away the sting of the secrets she held or the lies she told. She never told anyone to his knowledge but then again…. Walter took a quick glance at Toby who was looking concerned in Paige's direction as she was drifting off.

"Did you know?" Walter asked quietly as Toby shook his head.

"I had no idea. I'm still shocked she was able to hide it so well. You know I asked her about that, and she is craftier than I gave her credit for." Toby admitted as Walter shifted his eyes over to Tessa who was typing away on her laptop, her eyes shifting around the plane until they landed on his. With a quick glare, she glanced away and refocused on her project.

"I wished I had known," Walter said as Toby nodded.

"I'm not sure it would have a made a difference pal. Over the time I have known Paige, even the last few days – there isn't much I see we could have done for her if she wasn't ready to deal with it. Even now when we're on our way to the problem directly she's still avoiding it. She's sleeping, which is good, she hasn't been resting and the body needs to rest….as far as her support network goes. Support only works if support is welcomed. Her relationship with her sister is complicated but the support that Tessa offers is something that we couldn't at the time. Maybe now, but I understand what you mean." Toby explained as Walter huffed.

"My question though is how have you been dealing with all of this?" Toby asked curiously as Walter straightened.

"I'm fine. Besides, it doesn't matter how I feel. Paige is the main concern. Her life will continue to be in danger if we don't get the contents of the laptop and I refuse to withhold aid from her or Ralph." Walter said vehemently as Toby said nothing.

"I never said that she wasn't important but Walter even with a person with the best EQ this is a difficult situation. Your ex-girlfriend, who at this point I assume based on my excellent detective skills, more than an 'ex' at this point, her son whom you have a deep connection with are in this much danger and you're fine? I don't buy it." Toby declared as Walter shook his head.

"I'd rather not discuss it right now. Besides we did break up and she is my e-ex girlfriend whom I was once associated with." Walter gritted out as Toby quirked his eyebrows.

"Well, you can listen. You can care about someone even if you aren't 'associated' with them anymore, especially with your father's position in Ralph's life."

"I'm not his father Toby." Walter corrected. The fact remained that Drew Baker was his father. With the news of his death so close and Ralph's cold shoulder, he wasn't about to start declaring such things, even if he did wish it was true.

"Drew may have helped biologically create Ralph but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that you are his daddy. He looks up to you, respects you, and even loves you. Yeah, he's not talking to you now but he's a teenager. This is like a rite of passage for parents. Still, when Ralph does come to talk to you and he will, he's going to need the support only you can offer. He's been through a good amount of mental trauma the last few days and to ensure his mental health he's going to want to talk to you." Toby declared as he stood up and smiled, clapping Walter on the back as he swiftly sat beside Happy who pointedly ignored him.

Toby just shrugged, threw a wink at Tessa before taking his hat off, and placed it over his eyes, doing a good show of pretending to sleep as Toby was congratulating himself on the seeds planted in Walter's head as Walter himself leaned back against his seat, pondering his thoughts and Toby's words.

Next Time on Little Girl Lost:

"The 86ers could care less for an old agent and a 13-year-old kid. They'll be fine, if I were you, I would be more anxious about us." Tessa buffed as Paige whirled around.

"Are you kidding me? I'm course I'm worried about us! I'm worried about my son, my team, you, me, mom! At least I'm feeling something. You've barely spoken a word since we got on the flight so excuse my anxiety, Tessa!" Paige yelled as Tessa rolled her eyes.

"Yelling won't make the situation better; it would just cause damage to my eardrums."

"Ugh! You're impossible you know that! You act as if this isn't a big deal. You were ranting and raving in the garage, threatening my team, and now that we're here your suddenly fine!" Paige ranted as Tessa calmly got up out of her chair and retrieved a gun from underneath the bed as she quickly unloaded it and tossed it to Paige.