Happy tapped her foot against the coffee table. "Pick up, pick up." Another ring. "Pick up, dammit." At the next sound she heard through the phone, she tipped her head back and groaned. I don't want to leave a detailed message. I want you to answer your phone. Hanging up, she immediately hit redial. "Answer your damn phone!"

"Hel-what?"

"Nothing, nothing," Happy said, clearing her throat. "Morning, Dineen."

"Good morning. Sorry, I'm driving and this new car is an absolute nightmare to get the hands free set up. You'd think it would get easier."

"Uh huh. Hey, question."

"What's up?"

"I know this is last minute, but can you guys watch Tad for us this morning?" Happy asked. "We have to go meet with our lawyer, and he's been fussy, and I don't want to piss anybody off today."

"Sure!" Paige said. "Bring him to the garage? I'll be there in a few minutes."

"That works. Thank you."

Happy dropped the phone in her lap and gave a heavy sigh of reprieve. "Paige and Walter will watch him," she announced when Toby came back inside with Tad. "That's a relief, right?"

"Yes," Toby said. "Hap…you know that…that it's okay that he's fussy, right?"

"Of course," Happy said. "I just don't want to bother anyone at the office."

Toby settled on the couch next to her. "Are you sure that's all it is?"

It wasn't all. It both comforted and infuriated Happy that her husband knew what she was really worried about. "Let's get him in the car," she said brusquely, rising off the couch and grabbing her keys off the counter.

Paige was absolutely delighted to spend the morning with Tad, regardless of his apparent distress. "You don't worry about a thing," she assured Happy and Toby. "He is in good hands with us."

"I know that," Happy said, biting her lip. "That's why I called you."

Paige shifted Tad to her other arm and put a hand on Happy's shoulder. "Hey. He is in even better hands when he's with you."

"I don't know about that. We have to make them believe it, anyway."

Paige glanced past the mechanic and met eyes with Toby, who gave her a small, tight smile. Ah. So he had the same suspicions as her. Happy wasn't handing Tad off because she didn't want to inconvenience law office staff with a crying baby. She was worried that his crying would somehow tell everyone that she wasn't fit to be his mother.

"He's colicky, Happy," Paige said, "not neglected. Ralph was a horribly colicky baby. I swear Drew and I didn't sleep for months on end."

Another small smile, then Happy reached out, taking one of Tad's feet in her hands. She wiggled it, then backed away, eventually turning toward Toby and the two walked to the car with his hand on her back.

Paige turned to Walter beside her. "Well, we have three hours to try and make a happy baby, although sometimes with this you can't do much."

"Isn't he…a bit old to be doing this?" Walter held the garage door open for Paige and Tad.

"Most cases of colic have been resolved by the time a baby is three months old," Paige said. "Ralph was a very good baby. He didn't have colic at all, if you go by the Rule of Threes."

"The Wessell Criteria," Walter said.

Paige raised an eyebrow at him. "Yes. That is another name for what I was talking about."

"Sorry."

She bit her lip. "No, I was snippy for no reason. I thought you were being corrective."

"No. I was clarifying."

"Okay. I'm the one who is sorry, then."

"No, I'm sorry too. I was clarifying when I was almost positive that I knew what you meant. It was unnecessary. I did it again. I'm sorry."

They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Paige grunted and resumed. "Tad is older than the average baby for colic, but it's still not unusual to have it at his age. We're going to cuddle you all day long, yes we are," she said, changing her tone as she looked at the baby. She looked back at Walter. "He really is the cutest little thing, isn't he?"

"Mmm. He is an aesthetic delight, as far as babies go."

Paige patted Tad's back gently, then slung the bag Happy and Toby had brought off her shoulder. "Your mama said you've been fed and changed, so looks like it's snuggle time, huh?" Tad was making small sounds, but not full on crying. Yet, anyway, Paige thought. "Walter, you have a hot water bottle up in the loft. Can you go fill it, please?"

He nodded, taking off up the stairs, and Paige sat down on the couch, laying Tad so his feet were against her abdomen and his head at her knees, and slowly began to rub his stomach. "You'll be fine, little guy," she said affectionately. "You'll sort yourself out soon."

Tad made a little sound like "eh" several times in a row, and then started crying again.

Paige looked up when she heard Walter approach with the hot water bottle, and she lifted Tad back up. "Sit with him," she said. "Put that against you and let him rest with it next to his stomach." She handed Tad to Walter as he got into position on the couch. "It's not too hot, is it?"

"No," Walter said. His hands came protectively around Tad. Paige sat back down next to them, reaching over to run a finger along the side of Tad's face. "It's okay, Taddy."

Tad was still crying. "Did you know that colic is the number one killer of horses?" Walter asked. "They can't throw up. Their digestive system is so terrible it's a wonder they haven't gone extinct."

"Well, it's a good thing that Tad isn't a foal, then," Paige said. She scooted closer to them. "I remember watching that video of you guys rescuing him. I never thought that he would be in all of our lives."

"Mmm."

"It's incredible." She kissed his shoulder. "That was such a dark day, and yet something so wonderful came from it."

"Sylvester seems to have recovered fine from your situation," Walter said.

"I can tell he still gets shaky sometimes. But he knows we all love him, and he values our opinion on things, so he's coming to fully accept that he didn't do anything wrong. To tell the truth, though, I think part of it is he just tries not to think about it."

"Sometimes not thinking about something makes it easier," Walter said.

"Yeah."

Tad made a few more discomforting sounds, then fell into relative quiet. Paige beamed. "Walter, you've calmed him right down!" She placed her hand over his on the baby's back. "You're a natural. Either that, or he loves you." She kissed his cheek. "Maybe both." She frowned when she felt him stiffen. "Is something wrong?"

"Nope."

He was staring straight ahead. He was lying to her. "Walter."

He turned his head toward her, offering up a smile. "Nothing is wrong, my sweet."

Paige debated over whether or not to pry. She didn't want to ruin the moment they'd been sharing. But something you said clearly bothered him. "Walter? Please talk to me."

"I can't."

"Walter." There was slightly more warning in her tone now, no, not warning, unease. Her own voice, months old, was rattling in the back of her head. Please just talk to me. Tell me what's going on. She swallowed, putting a hand on his arm. "I want you to be comfortable telling me things."

"I am. Nothing's wrong."

"Okay." Her hand trailed upward, fingers lightly skimming Tad's hair. "I just don't want to say anything to make you feel uncomfortable. And I clearly did a minute ago."

Walter sighed. "If I tell you what's in my head, then you will feel uncomfortable. I would rather the discomfort be mine."

Well, now she really wanted to know. But would that be selfish? Paige felt a tightening in her chest – frustration, she recognized. He didn't want to burden her. That should be enough. But she didn't want to burden him, either…what was the balance? What was more of her motivation, the selfish need to know, or the selfless need to make him feel like he could tell her?

She sighed quietly. "I would like to know what bothered you. I would have thought it would make you happy that Tad seems to be so comfortable around you. If it doesn't, I want to know why. But I do appreciate you wanting to spare me any potential discomfort, even though I can't imagine what that might be-"

"I just, I thought…" Walter trailed off, letting out a quick breath through his nose as he faced forward again, adjusting his hands on Tad ever so slightly, securing him.

"Do you want more or less of this?" Paige asked, flexing her fingers on his arm. Sometimes it was easier for him to talk if she wasn't touching him. Sometimes he needed her touch to stay grounded.

"You're fine." He licked his lips. "A thought that I couldn't shake, can't shake, is if you and I hadn't broken up, if the teams hadn't split, if things had been different…maybe he would have been ours."

Paige was sure she stared at him an awkwardly long amount of time, but her brain refused to process what he'd said with any amount of efficiency. "Ours?" She asked incredulously, her voice quiet.

"I told you it was stupid."

"N-no." She moved her hand, rubbing his arm. "You thought about us..about us having a baby? Adopting a baby," she clarified when she realized how it sounded.

"Adopting or biological. It didn't really matter to me. I'd had those thoughts in my head since fairly early on in our romantic relationship," Walter said. "Happy knew about them. I knew it wasn't appropriate to tell you. It was far too early. But by the time…when this happened, we would have been together over a year. We would have worked that case together…" he trailed off again. "I boosted Florence up. The day we saved him. I sent her through a window into the room he was in and she freed him. Then she handed him down to me. Adrenaline was high, I wasn't thinking about anything but getting everyone out. But still, when I handed him off to Cabe – you would have seen him running from the house on the news – there was this little…this twinge I felt that I didn't even try to identify at the time. I realized later that I hadn't wanted to give him to Cabe. I wanted to save him all by myself. And I had attributed it to the way I get around kids. You know. Owen at Zuma, Olivia with the heart transplant." He took in a long breath. "Then you and I slept together just a couple days later. I had said it didn't have any impact on me. I knew it wasn't us getting back together, it was just about comfort. But it made me realize that I had been entertaining these…subconscious thoughts. About what might have happened with us, and him."

"I had no idea." Paige bit her lip. This is a lot of information. "Though you know, Walt. If we had been one team, we all would have been in Arizona that day. That call came in hours before Aimee Tracker's place. Someone else would have saved Tad, if he got saved at all." Walter's hands tightened around the sleeping baby, instinctively, protectively. That made Paige feel, as Patty had said recently, some type of way.

"And Happy and Toby, being married and already wanting to adopt, even if we had all gone there, and you and I had been together, they would have been the ones to get him anyway. We hadn't been talking about marriage or kids at all."

"Maybe we would have by then."

"You're right. Maybe."

"God," Walter said, tipping his head back, "I ruined everything."

"What? No, no you didn't."

"I did."

"No."

"I know, I know. The breakup was both our faults. But-"

"That's right, it was. But we didn't ruin everything." Paige shifted, getting to her knees and facing him, knees pressing against his thigh. "Because we're here. We're together. We may have hit pause for a while, but something that exists can't have previously been ruined."

"It ruined our chances with him," Walter said quietly.

Paige didn't think she fully comprehended just how badly Walter wished Tad was his. Theirs. Ours. But she could see the longing on his face, the regret in the way he held the boy. She also could see the road this would go down if his feelings were left unchecked. The tension between them and Quintis. The confusion for their friends' son. "I have no doubt that you will be his favorite uncle," Paige said.

"I know what you're thinking. I'm not going to sabotage the adoption like I did your Tahoe vacation."

"I wasn't thinking that," Paige said. "But I'm glad."

Tad shifted, giving a quiet grunt in his sleep. Walter smiled. "I'm glad he's safe, above all else. I'm glad he's safe."