AN: Just in case you wanted to know, this takes place the day after Megan's passing. It isn't really compatible with the episodes that air after "Arrivals and Departures". Disclaimer-I don't own any of the Scorpion characters or set-up. Read on:
Chapter 3. Walter POV:
"Hey, I brought the coffee!" Paige yells from downstairs. Walter closes his computer and gets up from his chair. He comes down the steps to find that Cabe had also arrived along with Paige and Ralph. Paige hands him the coffee cup in the middle to him. "Here you go, Walter." She says and stares him in the eye. He knows that she is going to ask him again about how he is doing, but he knows that acting upon his emotion right now isn't good for the team. It's illogical.
"Thanks. Hey Ralph, you want to go check out the new telescope that came in this morning?" He asks Ralph who was watching Sylvester write equations on the chalkboard.
"Actually we have work to do today." Cabe says and Toby groans out loud.
"Another mission?! I think we should get a break after what happened yester-" Toby stops in the middle of his sentence. Everyone looks at Walter and he looks around at them. Why are they staring at him? After 5.67 seconds Cabe fills the silence.
"You don't get a break today. They want you at some research facility." Cabe says looking at his phone.
"What do they want us for?" Happy asks him twirling a knut between her fingers.
"Hopefully blowing stuff up. That's always a fun thing to do." Toby says and when everyone looks at him he shrugs. "It's a research facility, why would you have one of those if you don't blow stuff up?"
"It's a children's research facility." Cabe says with raised eyebrows.
"Darn. Oh, well." Toby says shrugging his shoulders. The rest of the team grabs their coffee from Paige at the counter.
"And they want us there in 20 minutes." Cabe says and walks towards the door sipping on his coffee.
"I call shotgun!" Toby says and follows Cabe out the door. When everyone but him and Paige have left the garage she walks over to him.
"Walter are you sure you're okay? It's a lot to handle, and everyone here wants you to be happy after what happened." Paige says and Walter stares at the clock over her shoulder. 19 minutes 34 seconds til they needed to be at the facility. 33 seconds. 32 sec-
"Megan would want you to be happy too." Paige says moving to the side in front of the clock like she knew what he was doing.
"I am perfectly functional. We have 19 minutes 28 seconds til we need to be there. So I suggest we move." He says and Paige looks at him with a disappointed look on her face. Walter is confused, what did he do wrong? Paige just turns around and walks out the door towards the car.
Paige POV:
Paige was hoping Walter would open up to her, but no such luck. Hopefully, he would open up in time but that wasn't for certain.
"But I called shotgun!" Paige hears Toby complaining and walks towards the car to find Happy in the passenger seat and Toby standing in the way of the door closing.
"And I got here first. So get in the back." Happy says and pushes him out of the way so she could close the door.
"Meanie." Toby grumbles and jumps into the back seat. Paige climbs in next to Sylvester in the very back of the SUV. His eyes were still rimmed red, but he was holding up. Paige even dared to say he was holding up better than Walter. Showing emotion about Megan passing was better than pretending it didn't happen.
"How are you holding up Sly?" She says patting him on the arm. He looks over at her and the corners of his mouth turns up.
"I'm doing alright. It's just still really hard." He says, his voice cracking at the last part. Paige reaches over and gives him a hug. For the first time, he doesn't stiffen up or shy away from her. He leans into her hug and Paige even dares to say reciprocated it.
"Thank you, Paige." He whispers and Paige smiles. Sylvester was the best emotionally on the genius squad. So, it was easiest to talk to him. Walter was the worst emotionally, so this was going to be a hard week.
"This facility has heard about what you guys have done to help the world and other people." Cabe says from upfront. "They sent out emails to all the people with kids that have high test scores or something like that. The email had information about geniuses and asking them to come to the center today if they thought their child might fit the criteria." Cabe says and Paige can tell this is not going to be good.
"That's a good idea." Walter says.
"That's a bad idea." Paige says at the same time as Walter
"Why is it bad?" Walter asks, a puzzled look on his face.
"All parents think their kid is smart, so I bet you're not going to find very many geniuses. Just kids with parents who are overly confident in their kid's ability to take tests." Paige points out. She knows that parents at Ralph's school, they all think their kid is the smartest.
"Paige is right. There's not going to be many genius kids that come to this thing. Only 1% of the population in the world are geniuses. What makes you think that they're going to be able to find a genius in LA?" Toby says from the seat in front of her.
"Well, you guys are lucky because they didn't ask just they parents in LA. They asked the parents around the US." Cabe says.
"And how exactly do we play into this?" Walter asks.
"You are going to confirm if they actually are or aren't genius material. No one can really tell like you guys." Cabe says and Paige has to agree. There is no way that normal people, herself included, could tell if they had a really smart kid or a genius in front of them.
"Sounds a lot less action packed than normal missions, so let's embrace it!" Toby says. "But I'm still sad we don't get to blow some stuff up." Toby adds as an afterthought.
"We're here." Cabe says and pulls into a large facility with a packed parking lot. The building was close to the middle of downtown and Paige recognised it from driving past it before.
"Why didn't they tell us earlier about coming to this?" Paige asks looking out at the crowds of people standing outside the doors.
"They just thought of inviting you guys a few days ago, apparently." Cabe said and parked in an upfront spot that said 'Reserved Parking.' They all filed out of the SUV and walked up to a side door where a guard was standing. The guy had blonde hair and a very distinct jawline. He looked like your everyday big, powerful security guard.
"Agent Cabe Gallo with Scorpion." Cabe says flashing the guard his Homeland badge. The guy's eyes widened with recognition.
"Right this way." The guy says. He types in a code to the keypad and opens the door. We walk through the door and it opens into a wide hallway that has bathrooms on each side and farther down has a wide open space with glass walls. Inside the glass room, they have the front of the building and lobby.
"Go straight, turn left and there should be a door on your right." The guard says pointing down the hallway.
"I'm going to use the restroom. Meet you guys there." Paige says to them and they all nod back at her or murmur some conformation. The guard walks back towards the door. Paige follows the guard and opens the heavy door to the women's restroom. As she walks into the room she swears she can hear the man say
"Tell Hamlet they're here."
Toby POV:
Once they're out of sight and hearing range from Paige and the guard, Toby approaches Walter.
"Hey Walt. How are you doing?" Toby asks hoping for the best. Cabe opens the door to the main lobby area room and they all file through. Personally, Toby thought the finding geniuses idea was pretty dumb. Most geniuses parents wouldn't take them to this kind of thing. None of the parents of the geniuses on Scorpion had supportive parents.
"I'm fine." Walter tells him flatly. Not the answer Toby was hoping for. Toby glances over at Walter who has a blank face on. Toby wanted to help Walter, but he made it really hard.
"I have some uplifting news. Want to hear it?" Toby asks him, even though it's a rhetorical question.
"Not really, but you're going to tell me anyway." Walter adds with a sigh.
"So remember when Paige handed you your coffee this morning?" Toby asks excitedly, hoping some of the enthusiasm would leak into Walter.
"I can't forget anything, Toby." Walter adds looking over at Toby with a bored look on his face.
"Whatever. So, she put your cup in the center of the coffee tray. That's an unconscious sign that your cup was more important to her-" Toby rambles but is cut off by Walter putting a hand up.
"I know where you're going with this Toby. Leave it alone." Walter says and walks away from him towards the rest of the group who was standing around. With a sigh, Toby follows and meets up with the group. Toby scans the room and finds a man that has a name tag with the name Scott on it. Scott has perfect brown hair and an expensive suit on. Definitely the boss.
"Let's go see that guy. He's the boss." Toby says pointing at the man. They walk over to him and Paige jogs over and rejoins them.
"Hello! My name is Scott Johnson, and I'm in charge of this project. You must be Scorpion." Scott says sticking his hand out at Walter.
"Walter O'Brien." Walt says shaking his hand.
"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Johnson." Paige adds in politely. Thank god for Paige. They would be dead without her.
"Thank you so much for coming on such short notice. The doors will open in 10 minutes, so I'll show you around and tell you how this will work." Scott says and walks over to the doors. "They'll check in with Jason and Alicia over here," Scott points at a tall guy and girl with iPads that must be the sign in sheets, standing at the opening of the doors. From the doors, the line barricades followed through the whole area. Through the window Toby could see the line of people standing outside, there was probably about 150 people waiting. That was probably around 70-80 kids.
"We have an idea of what each supposed genius' best areas are, so we gave them 1 or more categories like Math, Visual, Mechanical, Scientific and some others." Scott walks along the crowd control lines until he reached an area that had a bunch of people at tables lined up. The setup reminded Toby of an airport and the baggage check-in area.
"The parents and kids will check in and talk to the staff here who will direct them to the correct rooms around the building where they can take the tests and talk to you guys to see if they are geniuses." Scott finished and turned to look at them. Toby could point out a few flaws in Scott's plan but he decided to keep his mouth shut. There wasn't much he could do in 10 minutes.
"You have some problems with your plan-" Walter starts but is interrupted by Paige.
"That sounds great. What rooms are we going to?" Paige asks with a smile on her face ignoring Walter completely.
"Ms. Quinn, you are going to room 234 in the East Wing." Scott says pointing towards the wing in the left corner that had the sign 'East Wing' above it.
"That's dumb. It's pointing South." Toby points out and Paige elbows him in the side. Toby winces and shuts up. Criticizing this guy wasn't worth having his ribs brutalized by Paige.
"Mr. Curtis, also in the East Wing. Room 278." Scott says putting emphasis on the word 'East'.
"Fine. Happy let's go to the East Wing!" Toby says and grabs Happy's hand dragging her to the left corner hallway.
"Let go of my hand." Happy tried to yank her hand away. Toby let go and she crossed her arms over her chest. Toby chuckled as she did so and as she walked a good 10 feet in front of him. As they walked away Toby faintly heard that Walter, Paige and Ralph were assigned to the same room. It wasn't going to be a fun day for Walter, that was for sure.
AN: Sorry I haven't posted this past week, does this long chapter make up for it? Hopefully the multiple perspectives wasn't too confusing?
Someone commented on one of my other FanFics that they would like it if I finished up the ones I'm working on before I post new stories. To make that process faster I have decided to work on only a couple of my FanFics and try to finish them, then finish the others. Please give your opinion on which ones you want me to finish first, I need to know which ones you like best so you get the ones you want!
Lastly please comment, review or PM me with anything I could improve on or what you like. Bye!