The Necessary Case
Chapter 3
Paige POV
I walked into the garage to find it strangely quiet. The only member of the team that was here was Toby, the rest of the team were on a case in South America.
"Guys, anyone here, come on, Happy? Walt?" I heard Toby shout, I quickly rushed over.
"What on earth is going on?" I questioned, raising my voice.
Toby looked in my direction, his panic-stricken eyes meeting mine. I quickly ran over to my desk do retrieve the comm device that I left there when I went to take Ralph to school.
"Toby, what's happening here?"
"No idea, the monitors say their comms are still intact but they are not responding to me." He told me, worried.
"It will be fine." I tried to reassure him, but my tone gave away my true worry, and I know he picked up on that.
I put my hand on his shoulder as we waited for someone to respond. After what felt like eternity we heard a cough, and then another.
"Happy?" I asked, hoping that everyone was okay.
"Yeah I'm here…" Happy trailed off. Toby breathed a sigh of relief when she spoke.
"What happened back there, where is everyone else?"
"Uh, Walter is on the other side of the room, but I can't see Sly or Cabe. The ceiling caved in on us and we kind of lost track of each other." Happy told us.
"Okay, are you okay? Are you hurt?" Toby worried.
"I'm fine Doc, I was underneath a table by the time it caved in."
"Can you get to Walter?" I asked, praying that he was okay.
"Yeah, give me a second."
Walter POV
I slowly woke up, from what seemed like a long night's sleep. I heard a muffled voice, and someone was shaking my shoulder.
"Walter?" The voice said.
"Walter, can you hear me?" The voice said, it sounded like Paige, but Paige wasn't here…
I sat up sharply, narrowly avoiding clashing with Happy who was the person shaking my shoulder.
"Happy? Where are we?" I wondered, confused.
"We are in South America, the ceiling caved in on us. Guys some of the concrete must have hit his head, he's completely out of it." Happy said, it took me a second to realise that she was talking to Paige and Toby through comms.
"Okay, Walt. Sit still for a second I need to find Cabe and Sylvester." Happy said, standing up.
"I'm fine, I can help." I argued, trying to stand on my feet.
"O'Brien stay where you are." Happy threatened, climbing over fallen concrete trying to get to where Cabe was. Happy shook his shoulder and he woke up dazily.
"You okay?" I heard her ask. Cabe nodded and she helped him to his feet, together they tried to find Sylvester.
"There." Cabe pointed towards the back wall of the room. They rushed over there, lifting a piece of plasterboard to reveal Sylvester, awake but covered in dust and dirt.
"Everyone good?" Toby asked.
"We're all fine, Doc. A little dusty but Walter was the only one to be hit badly enough to make him delirious." Happy informed them and I grimaced, reaching up to brush the dust from my hair.
"Do you want us to send an ambulance in your direction?" Paige questioned.
"Walt, do you need to go to the hospital, how do you feel?
"Fine, nothing that an ice pack can't fix." I replied.
"We can't leave until we find the laptop guys, otherwise we will have no control over our own military vehicles." Sylvester said, looking around and spotting a door.
"Sly is right, we need to carry on with this, you staying here Walter?" Cabe asked.
"No I'm coming, I need to upload the spyware software." I said, following Sylvester in the direction of the door, Happy and Cabe following me.
Sylvester opened the door carefully to ensure that the ceiling on the other side of the door wouldn't collapse. When the door was fully open, Sly and I quickly made our way over to the old computer on the other side of the room whilst Happy observed the stability of the concrete.
"There are cracks along where the beams are situated, see where the lines are? So far they are only 80 percent cracked but based on the mass of the concrete in the other room I would say we have about six minutes to get out of this building." Happy warned us.
"Walter you need to hurry." Paige said, panicked.
"I am going as fast as I can but I'm uploading a 2016 spyware system on a computer made in 1990, it says three minutes forty seconds to completion." I told them.
As the spyware was downloading, the cracks along the ceiling got bigger, exposing the cracked ceiling beams that were the only things keeping us from getting buried under two tonnes of concrete.
"Okay, let's go." I unplugged my tablet and hastily followed the others out of the derelict building.
Happy got into the drivers' seat, with me riding shotgun, and backed out of the driveway. We drove for miles through the desert, making it to the airport where the plane back to LA was waiting for us. We got out of the car and was greeted by an army major, asking if we were successful.
"The case was successful, if it wasn't military planes would have been falling out of the sky by now." I said, he thanked us and lead us in the direction of the plane that was waiting on the tarmac.
Toby POV
"The plane landed at Klemmer Airfield three minutes ago, they will be back soon." Paige said, reading the message on her cell phone. I walked in from the kitchen and handed her a cup of tea, knowing that she would roll her eyes. Since she has been pregnant, Walter has banned her from drinking coffee, and she detested drinking anything but coffee in the morning.
"Tea? Toby come on, you're the doctor and you know that drinking one cup of coffee is a day is fine. Walter isn't even here, can I please have coffee?" She whined and I laughed.
"Okay, but quick, you said they'd be here in five minutes, right?" I handed her my cup and she took a sip, sighing contently.
I was standing by the monitors helping Ralph with his homework, as it was on the human body, so he thought it best to come to me. It was either that or he just didn't want to do his homework.
"What you doing?" Paige asked, coming in from the kitchen with food for Ralph.
"Toby is doing my homework. No, he's helping me with my homework." Ralph corrected himself quickly and I covered my mouth with my hand to when Paige gave Ralph her motherly stare.
I got up when the garage door swung open and Walter, Sly and Happy walked inside. Paige quickly put down the cup of coffee and pushed it in my direction.
"You okay?" Paige asked Walter, noticing the bandage that was on the right side of his forehead.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Now I'm glad that you didn't go on this case. Being in a building with unstable ceilings when you are twenty-eight weeks pregnant is ill advised." Walter said, kissing Paige's forehead before announcing that he was going upstairs to change, Paige followed him. Sly went over to Ralph and I went over to Happy's work station. She was quiet, covering her face with her hands, leaning against the workbench. I walked up behind her and rested my hands on her shoulders. Once she realised it was me, she turned and rested her forehead on my chest.
"What's up, Hap?"
"Nothing."
"Happy?" I tried again.
"Today could have ended so much differently. I get that we do this all the time and what we do is dangerous, but two of our team were knocked unconscious today, that could have been me, or Sylvester…"
I pulled back and looked at her.
"But it wasn't and everyone is okay, and the cases we do aren't always dangerous, we just need to have faith that everything will be fine, and it will be." I tried to reassure her, but she was still tense.
It took her a few minutes to calm down but eventually she settled, leaning further into my chest and wrapping her arms around my waist, I reciprocated, wrapping my arms around her.
"Guys, food is here, I got Italian." Cabe announced as he walked through the door, carrying three take-out bags.
Everyone gathered around the monitors, talking and eating together, as Scorpion, as a cyclone, as a family.