Sylvester's feelings take him by surprise, motherhood stirs up old memories for Happy and Walter tackles domestic issues.

I am having so much fun writing this story with these wonderful characters and bringing all those moments to life that we were denied the chance to see on screen. I hope you all enjoy this chapter, your reviews mean so much. Thank you kindly!

CHAPTER 10.

"Excuse the mess."

Kimberley walked into Sylvester's apartment and looked around, wondering what 'mess' he could possibly be referring to. This was by far the most neat and tidy apartment she'd ever been in.

Sylvester closed the door, activated the deadlock, slid the bolt across and latched the security chain.

Kimberley couldn't help but smile. "You said I'd be safe here," she said. "I guess you were right."

"Can't be too careful," replied Sylvester, checking the lock for the third time. "If I ever found an intruder in my apartment I know I wouldn't be as calm as you."

"I don't feel calm," replied Kimberley, her smile fading. "And you should have heard me scream when I saw him."

Sylvester smiled supportively at her. When he and Walter had arrived at her apartment the police were already there, but the intruder was long gone. Kimberley had been giving her statement to a young, female officer who had praised her for her composure. Sylvester had recognised the signs of fear in her eyes, though and she seemed to appreciate his empathy.

"Any idea who he was?" he asked, but Kimberley shook her head. "Try not to worry, the cops are onto it," he added.

"And Walter," added Kimberley. "He seemed pretty mad at that detective."

Walter had suspected the break-in had something to do with the murder of Charlie Snyder, but the Police detective had not been convinced at all.

"Hmmm," agreed Sylvester. "Walt tends to act like that when he's convinced he's right about something."

Kimberley sat on the couch and tucked her knees up under her chin. "Are you sure it's OK for me to stay here tonight?" she asked quietly.

Sylvester had made the offer as soon as he realised she had nowhere else to go. Anthea was visiting their mother for a few days and none of her friends could help her out, so Sylvester had suggested she stay with him. "Of course it's OK," he replied with a smile, but he had started to wonder if he'd made a mistake. They barely knew each other, had she misinterpreted his intentions? She seemed nice enough, but it was a bold move for the genius and even Walter had raised his eyebrows when he'd made the suggestion. "But… but if you feel uncomfortable…" he began, feeling his anxiety level jump.

Kimberley's face fell. "I don't… at least, I didn't…" she replied. "If you think I should go…"

"Oh, oh, I didn't mean…" Sylvester stumbled over his words. "I… I…" He stopped talking and took a deep breath. "Why don't I make some chamomile tea?" he suggested.

"I'd like that."

They talked for a while and Sylvester began to relax as they drank their tea. Kimberley told him about Charlie and how he had been her mentor when she had started as a rookie lifeguard.

"I wasn't sure if I was really cut out for it," she explained. "But Charlie taught me to believe in myself."

Sylvester smiled. "Megan did that for me," he replied. "She was my wife," he explained. "She was sick, we didn't have long together, but she was the most incredible person. Before I met her I used to struggle with anxiety. A lot. I still do, sometimes." He wasn't sure why he had started talking so openly about himself, but he felt comfortable talking to Kimberley.

"You must miss her very much."

"All the time," he admitted. "But she's always with me. I'll always remember her and you'll always remember Charlie."

"I was kinda shy when I first started" Kimberley began. "And I remember once when Anthea was working all hours at the orphanage and I didn't really know anyone yet, Charlie organised for some of the guys to hang out with me after work."

"He sounds like a good man," noted Sylvester.

"He was," she agreed, sadly. "He cared about everyone… and everything too. Sometimes it got him into trouble."

"Like the time he got suspended?" asked Sylvester, remembering the information they'd discovered in his files.

Kimberley nodded. "He should never have been suspended, he was just trying to save an endangered species. He should have got a medal, but it was all about politics. He doesn't… I mean, he didn't talk about it much."

Sylvester smiled sympathetically. "It gets easier," he said. "Missing someone you cared about, I mean."

Kimberley smiled back. "Thank you," she said and she rested her hand on his knee. "You're a very kind person, Sylvester."

Sylvester blushed hard. "I… I… I…" he stammered. "Um… more tea?" he suggested and before waiting for an answer he ran out to the kitchen.

He opened the fridge and stared at the contents, not really sure what he was looking for, he just needed something to ground his thoughts. His thoughts… about Kimberley. He grabbed a can of soda water and tugged at the ring pull, focusing on the snapping noise it made and the subsequent fizzing sound to help soothe his mind.

Sylvester had been confused about his feelings before and it had contributed to almost destroying the team – his family – so this time he wasn't going to take any chances. He wasn't going to wait and wait for weeks before testing the waters until his head was spinning so much that he didn't know what to think anymore.

This time he wasn't going to confuse being a good friend with being 'the one'. He had to be sure this time.

He had to be.

A smile spread across Sylvester's lips and slowly his anxiety eased to be replaced by a sense of cautious excitement. Nothing might come of this, he realised, but he wasn't prepared to risk not knowing. He hadn't felt like this in a long time… and he liked it.

xXxXxXxXxXxXx

"Morning, lovebug. How did you sleep?"

Happy blinked deeply at the early morning sun streaming in through a gap in the curtains. "Good," she replied, then she pushed herself further up onto the pillows as Toby handed her a cup of ginger tea. "The girls... are they OK? Did they sleep through the night?"

Toby shook his head. "Not exactly," he replied. "But they're sleeping now."

Happy squinted at him. "You look like crap," she noted, bluntly. "Have you been up all night?"

Toby climbed into bed beside her. "Not the whole night," he explained. "I guess I got some sleep around three thirty... until about four thirty."

"Why the hell didn't you wake me, dumbass?"

Toby planted a tender kiss on her temple. "You needed to rest," he explained. Her face fell into an angry frown and he kissed her again, soothing her ire immediately.

"I'm their Mommy now, Toby, I should be getting up to them in the night," insisted Happy.

"While Daddy sleeps all night so he can get up for work in the morning?" queried Toby. "I forgot we're living in the nineteen seventies now. Hurry up and iron my shirt and make my breakfast, will you?"

Happy scowled at him. Then her expression softened and she ran a hand over her growing baby bump. "We waited so long for this I started to think it would never happen. Now it's all happened at once. We've had the girls for less than forty eight hours and already I'm failing them."

"Hey, hey, hey," said Toby, softly, wrapping her hand in his as he spoke. "You're not failing them. We're in this together, right? So we share the parent-y stuff. All of it. The fun stuff and the less fun stuff... like sleepless nights."

"Do you really think this new diet you put me on is gonna fix me?" she asked. Her pregnancy had been progressing well so far so she wasn't ready to take it easy, especially not now. It felt like she had so much to do and she couldn't do any of it.

"Sure it will," grinned Toby. "I designed it, didn't I?"

"And you're never wrong," added Happy, rolling her eyes sarcastically.

"Never," he added with a wink. "I guarantee you'll have more energy today and by the end of the week you'll be running marathons... hmmm... running gear..." His eyes glazed over momentarily as his mind filled with the image of his wife in yet another saucy costume, but Happy soon snapped him out of it with a slap on the arm.

"Perv!" she exclaimed and shook her head, but Toby could tell by the look in her eyes that she hadn't completely dismissed the idea.

He rolled onto his side and slipped his arm gently over her bump. "All this'll be worth it, sugarpuff," he whispered. "I love you."

Within a few minutes Toby was snoring lightly. Happy carefully moved his arm and rolled out of bed. For the briefest of moments she stood there just watching him sleep. His lips parted slightly with each breath and his eyelids twitched as he quickly slipped into a deep sleep. She watched him until the urge to pee eventually became too much and she headed for the bathroom. When she returned Toby had rolled onto his back and the snoring was louder. If she had been attempting to sleep herself the noise would definitely have earned her husband an elbow in the ribs, but this time there was no need to disturb him.

As she got herself dressed, her mind wandered back to the first time they'd met. If anyone had suggested back then that they'd eventually get married, let alone have kids, she would have thought they were crazy, but now she couldn't imagine being married to anyone else.

She pulled on a t-shirt and was about to brush her hair when she heard a cry from the other room. She raced towards the sound, hoping to calm whichever of the twins had woken up - it was Stella - before she woke her sister, but she was too late. By the time she was in their bedroom they were both crying.

"Listen up," she said, lifting Stella onto her hip. "Daddy's asleep, so cool it."

Cool it? She shook her head in dismay. That wasn't a thing you said to babies, she knew that, but it had just come out. "Um, OK," she continued. "So I think I just proved how crappy I am at this game, so give me a break, huh?"

Stella appeared to calm a little so Happy sat her on the floor before turning her attention to Caitlin. "Hey," she said softly. "I'm trying, OK. I promise you I'll get better. I just need to figure out how to be a mommy."

She lifted Caitlin into her arms and held her for a moment. "Sshhh," she whispered, bouncing her gently and walking around the room.

Stella seemed content to watch them until Caitlin eventually stopped crying. Happy sat Caitlin down next to her sister and then lowered herself to the floor to join them, grimacing at how awkward she found the manoeuvre. She was only just over half way through her pregnancy and already she was finding simple movement difficult. She sighed and picked up some plastic stacking blocks and the girls both grabbed at them.

"You gonna build something?" she asked optimistically. "I'll show you how."

She quickly constructed a bridge with the brightly coloured bricks. It was a simple overhanging beam design, but it was effective. Stella took one look at it before knocking all the bricks to the floor with a swipe of her hand. She giggled at Happy and picked up a blue block in one hand and a red one in the other. For a moment Happy thought she might stack them, but instead she started banging them together. Happy frowned and tried to take them from her tiny hands, but Stella tightened her grip and continued her game.

"OK, OK," conceded Happy with a chuckle. "I guess you're gonna be a musician, not an engineer."

She sat back and let the girls play for a while, enjoying the moment, a moment she had thought might never come. After a while, Caitlin came to her for a cuddle and Happy gladly obliged.

"I get it, you just want to make sure I'm still here," she said, holding her close. "Y'know, when I was in the orphanage... I mean, I was older than you, but I used to imagine what it would be like to get adopted one day. To start with I used to get attached to the foster parents – dumb idea, believe me. I soon learnt not to bother 'coz eventually they just hand you back and never even give you a second thought. You have no idea how that makes a kid feel. It hurt like hell…"

Her voice hitched and she took a moment to swallow, fighting a wave of emotion.

"So then I guess I learnt not to get attached to anyone," she continued eventually. "If it wasn't for Tob... I mean... Daddy, I'd never have learnt how to... I don't know, I guess I'd never have learnt how to love."

Happy pulled Stella onto her lap, moving Caitlin over to make enough room for her sister. Having them both in her arms felt wonderful and terrifying at the same time, but she knew she and Toby had made the right choice when they decided to bring these girls into their lives. She was absolutely certain about that. "We're your world and you're ours," she whispered, echoing her words from the moment they'd decided to adopt. "You'll never have to go through what I went through. Never… never…"

Happy closed her eyes as a barrage of unhappy memories came flooding back. She kissed the top of Caitlin's head and somehow managed to maintain her composure, forcing those old feelings of unhappiness and desperate loneliness back into the far corner of her mind where she usually kept them.

"Geez," she said eventually. "Why am I telling you all this? It's not like you have a clue what I'm talking about."

"Because you know she's a good listener, just like her Daddy."

Happy's head snapped round at the sound of Toby's voice. He was standing in the doorway, leaning his head on the doorframe and his face conveyed all the empathy he felt for her at that moment.

"How long have you been...?"

"Long enough."

He walked into the room and knelt beside her. Stella immediately held out a plastic brick for him and he took it from her. "Thank you, sweetheart," he said with a smile. Then his face became more serious again as he turned his attention back to Happy. "I wondered how long it would be before the whole adoption process reawakened those old memories of being a foster kid," he said.

Happy pursed her lips and moved the twins from her lap. "Not now, Doc," she whispered. "Please. I'd rather keep the memories buried a little longer. Just let me enjoy these first few days... weeks... I'll tell you when I'm ready to talk about how much being a foster kid screwed with my head, OK?"

Toby nodded and smiled. "OK," he agreed and he captured her lips in a tender kiss. "You know I'll wait for as long as you need, but…"

Suddenly he had an idea.

"But maybe there's someone else you could talk to about it?" he continued. He hoped Happy would be prepared to go along with his plan when she realised the reason behind it.

Happy narrowed her eyes. "What the hell are you talking about? Didn't I just tell you I'm not ready to talk to you about it yet?"

"What if you talked to Cabe instead?"

"Cabe?" Happy looked at her husband like he had gone completely crazy. "You want Cabe to be my therapist?"

"Sure. He's been taking night classes," replied Toby. Happy gave her husband a startled look, but he couldn't keep a straight face for very long. "Relax, honeybunch, I'm not talking about therapy," he said. "I know you've talked to him about it before."

"A little, I guess," agreed Happy. "Back when he was staying at my place that time."

"Then you could go a little further," suggested Toby. "Tell him exactly how some of your experiences made you feel."

Happy scrunched her nose. "Sounds weird. What's going on?"

"Will you trust me on this?"

"Never," she snapped. Then she sighed and a smile twitched at the corner of her lips. "Always," she said.

A smug grin spread across Toby's face. "In that case, I think we're going to Cabe and Allie's for lunch."

"Have we been invited?" asked Happy, suspiciously.

"Not yet," replied Toby, with a wink. "But we will be… I just need to make a phone call."

xXxXxXxXxXxXx

"And the kitchen has these cute tiles and the bathroom suite is really modern and…"

"Mom! You've told me all this!"

Paige sighed and put a plate of sandwiches and a mug of green tea on the table in front of her son. "I just want to make sure you agree with our decision."

The truth was, Ralph was really bored of hearing about light fittings and door handles and carpet tiles. He glanced at Walter and completely understood why he had found all the viewings and decision making so difficult.

"Stop doing that," Paige scolded. Walter and Ralph both gave her a look of confusion. "That genius thing you do," she continued. "That telepathic thing, knowing what each other is thinking without needing to say a word."

"There have been many studies into the possible existence of telepathic abilities," replied Walter. "But none of them have discovered an ounce of truth in the idea. Not in the sense that two people can transmit their thoughts to each other in the form of words, anyway. You know, this may be a discussion you should have with Toby, because…"

"Never mind," sighed Paige. This wasn't the direction she'd anticipated this conversation going at all. "So, are we all agreed?"

"About telepaths?" asked Ralph.

"About our new home!" exclaimed Paige, throwing her hands in the air in despair. "Because if we are I'll call the agent."

Walter took her hand in his and smiled warmly at her. "I think w…w…we are all in agreement," he said, glancing at Ralph.

"I meant it when I said I'd gladly live in a cardboard box if it meant the three of us could finally be together," said Ralph. "You've made me wait long enough already!"

"Ralph!" Paige frowned at her son. "Being a genius doesn't give you a free pass to talk to me like that!"

Ralph pouted and folded his arms across his chest. "Can I eat lunch in my room?" he asked. "I was gonna Skype Daniel."

Paige knew she couldn't stop him. She knew he was right about how long it had taken her and Walter to get this far, but there had been reasons. Not all of them had necessarily been good reasons, but they were reasons nonetheless. If she could turn back the clock and do things differently from the moment she met Walter then she would, but of course she knew that was impossible. She also knew that everything they'd been through in the last five years, all the ups and downs, had only made their relationship stronger so maybe she shouldn't be wishing she could change the past after all? The important thing was they were here now, at the start of the rest of their lives together, one stroppy teenage genius included.

Walter watched as Ralph carried his sandwich towards his bedroom and was struck – not for the first time - by how much Ralph reminded him of himself at that age.

"I guess a few weeks seems like a lifetime when you're an impatient fourteen year old," suggested Paige as she brought two more plates of sandwiches to the table.

"Ralph is capable of accurately calculating the passing of time, so… so I doubt he…"

"That's not what I meant," replied Paige, rolling her eyes. "He was so much easier to please when he was a baby," she continued. "Toby and Happy should make the most of the early years, they're so precious. Oh, Walter, you should have seen Toby with the girls yesterday. They were so adorable!"

Paige had talked about the twins a lot in the last twenty four hours. Walter had counted her use of the words 'cute' eleven times, 'precious' ten times and 'adorable' eight times. It had started something niggling at him, a question he couldn't help but feel he should know the answer to already, but he really didn't.

Open communication. That was one of the most important things in their relationship so he would just have to ask her outright, he realised, or he could get completely the wrong end of the stick and that had never ended well for him in the past. He took a deep breath, now was as good a time as any.

"Paige, would you like to have another baby?"

Paige almost choked on her sandwich.

To be continued...