"She's pregnant?" Happy asked as Toby walked out of the kitchen and into her work area after hearing his words to Paige.
"Well, I don't know for sure, but from her exclamation, I'd say it is a strong possibility." Toby smiled.
"How is that possible?" Cabe asked as he walked over from his desk.
"You got me." Toby shrugged. "Unless the test she took before was a false negative, which is highly unlikely. Then that would mean the fetus had to survive what happened to Paige. And I'm not sure that is possible."
"Well you didn't think her surviving what happened was possible." Happy pointed out.
"Granted but this seems even a bit further fetched than her surviving that whole process." Toby explained and then they saw Paige walk out of the passage to the kitchen and over to Walter's desk. They watched as she sat down and pulled the laptop back up.
They watched as Paige began working and then they saw the faces she began making. Then pointing at the screen and her mouth moving before working some more. The more it happened the more agitated she seemed to grow.
Happy frowned but began walking over towards the desk.
"Uh, Paige?" Happy said after stopping in front of the desk.
Paige frowned but looked up.
"Happy?" Paige asked.
"Are you arguing with Walter?" Happy asked.
"Oh, not really arguing." Paige said. "We're in a disagreement on how to fix this bug. He wants to finish flowcharting it to decide where to begin. If he would just give me forty three point five minutes I could fix it and he'd see I am right."
Happy started to say something when Paige slammed her fist on the desk.
"Damn it Walter." Paige swore. "Love, I love you very much. But you know you are still flowcharting the process while I have found the problem and I'm fixing it. I have your project saved, so even if I'm wrong, which I'm not, you can still work on it your way."
Paige sat staring like she was listening.
"Fine, if you want to waste your time doing it this way, then do it." Walter huffed.
"Is that what you meant about you being willing to share your time so I still have a life? I realize you prefer a more logical approach to problems. But I'm telling you, my instinct based on your abilities and knowledge tells me this is the right fix." Paige told him.
Paige heard Walter mentally sigh.
"I'm sorry." Walter said. "You're in control, go ahead and do it your way. If you are wrong it will be a learning experience."
"Thank you, but that is a very backhanded way of saying that." Paige said in an exasperated tone. "When I prove I'm right, it will be a learning experience…for you."
"Uh, Toby said he thought your test showed you're pregnant." Happy asked.
Paige sighed.
"Happy, please. Let me finish this and we can talk, okay?" Paige asked, clearly irritated.
"You got it." Happy nodded and walked back over to her area.
"That was interesting." Toby said softly.
Happy nodded.
"I guess we better give them some time before we disturb them again." Cabe nodded.
Forty two point six minutes later:
"There, now I just have to compile it." Paige said confidently before setting the compiler up. The entire time she worked on it, she had to mentally put up with the sounds of what amounted to, having someone digging through your garbage as Walter tried to wait until she finished the coding job.
"So, are you two good now?" Cabe asked.
Paige frowned.
"What? Oh, we were just disagreeing earlier. There isn't anything really wrong between us." Paige told him with a smile. "It's actually rather nice having this experience. Not only do I have a plethora of information at my fingertips that I never knew before, but we can resolve our disagreements a lot faster. Like, did you know just how bad that beef jerky is for you? At your age the amount of sodium and saturated fat is phenomenally bad for someone your age. Just one ounce has twenty two percent of the recommended sodium for a young man, let alone someone your age."
"Great, do you think you could make a bigger deal out of my age? Like I need this in addition to Allie hounding me on my dietary choices." Cabe complained.
"I could recite numerous studies and lectures Walter has sat reading and listened to on this subject for you. Seriously Cabe, we all love and care about you. I know you enjoy beef jerky, but you are the only Father figure we have. Do you really want to shorten how much time you have left?" Paige said sweetly.
"Walter…" Cabe closed his eyes and shook his head. He should have known Walter was conspiring against him and he knew he wasn't going to win this contest.
"So are you up for discussing your test now?" Toby asked with a huge grin.
Paige sighed.
"You know, I think I understand Walter's irritation with you even more now than ever before." Paige told them. "But yes, the test did say I am pregnant, the only thing we can surmise is the test I took before the accident showed a false negative."
"Wait, that isn't what we came up with." Walter disagreed.
"You know that isn't very common, right?" Toby asked.
"Walter, if you think I'm going to tell them we think the reason I'm pregnant is because I masturbated with your body, you don't know me at all." Paige told him quickly.
"I wasn't suggesting that, but what you said is very inaccurate." Walter told her.
"What else would I say then? That you had a wet dream and we think some of your sperm made its way into me?" Paige asked.
"Just because it is a natural bodily function, I'm really not comfortable with that idea either." Walter said as Paige smiled feeling his hot embarrassment of that being said about him.
"Paige?" Toby snapped his fingers.
"Toby…" Paige sighed. "It is very possible I looked at the test too early and it simply didn't have enough time to fully develop. How common is it to have my body disintegrated and yet, here I am?"
"Yeah, I'm not buying that." Toby told her. "I'm sure you have taken plenty of tests before and would know not to check too early."
Paige glared at Toby.
"You really know how to step in it, doc." Cabe said before walking off.
"So what you're saying is, you think I'm some floozy?" Paige asked with an edge to her voice.
"Ah…no. And quit trying to change the topic." Toby said quickly. "But I also don't think you are some nearly celebate creature. And either before or after having Ralph, you'd be concerned from time to time and would check at least once a month when you were sexually active. And the commonality of your body still being functional after being disintegrated has no effect on how common or not it is for a pregnancy test to give a false negative."
"I'll change the topic if I want to." Paige told him.
"How's it going to work if Walter's body comes out again?" Happy asked softly. "I mean it isn't like we could perform a cesarean section to get the baby, right?"
"That would be tricky." Paige nodded. "It might be possible to do a cesarean section in that case. But the truth is, Walter ran some numbers earlier and after reviewing them together a few times, I'm kind of in agreement with him. We think my body became dominant because of the prenatal vitamins, the baby and even my bath salt and oil might have helped." Paige explained.
"So, it is possible that your body will remain dominant until…birth?" Happy frowned.
"Possibly, maybe longer with breastfeeding." Paige shrugged. "We've agreed to try and continue the bathing condition, just in case the bath had a hand in bringing my body out, to ensure it each day."
"So what about figuring out how to separate you? Is that no longer a priority?" Happy asked.
"Of course it is." Paige smiled. "But at this point, we are probably years away from figuring out how to accomplish this. But even if they called tomorrow and said they figured it out, we've decided we'd wait until after the baby is born."
"You really irritated Paige earlier." Happy said to Toby as she drove them home.
Toby grunted.
"So what are you thinking?" Happy asked.
"Why is Paige so sure it had to be a false negative pregnancy test?" Toby said as he brooded.
"What else could it be?" Happy asked. "Do you think she's trying to cover up about doing a one night stand?"
"I guess we'll find out in about nine months." Toby told her.
"What do you mean?" Happy asked.
"Assuming she got pregnant before our break up. If she has the baby a month late but the baby is of a normal weight, we'll know it was a false negative. If it is a couple of weeks early with a normal weight range, well she probably hooked up with someone after breaking up with Walter." Toby told her.
"Oh man, that would kill Walter." Happy said as she made a turn.
"Naw, Walter had to figure she'd have hooked up with someone out of anger with him." Toby told her.
"You really don't have a very high opinion of Paige do you?" Happy glared at him.
"Hey, that isn't my feelings on Paige. But speaking statistically, that is a very real possibility. A study showed twenty five percent of people had sex with someone else within the first 4 weeks after a break up. Usually to try and make their ex jealous. Besides, Paige's friends couldn't stand Walter and I'm sure they tried to hook her up with someone else to keep her from trying to go back to him." Toby explained.
"I'll beat the crap out of them if I find out they did that." Happy growled in anger.
Three weeks later:
"I hope you both have a good trip home." Walter said as he hugged his Mom at the departure gate. With Cabe's pull he got to escort them to the gate and wait with them until they were called to board.
"I'm sure we will." Louise smiled. "Now you be good, and do what Paige tells you to do."
Walter smiled as he nodded before he turned and shook his Father's hand.
"Paige wants to know if you are any closer to a decision about moving to the States." Walter told him.
"Aye, closer. We're going to look at the market for selling the farm. It would be nice if we could sell it all in one transaction." Sean grinned.
"We'll contact the zoo and see if they would be interested then." Walter grinned.
"Now you both remember to keep eating more but smaller meals throughout the day." Louise reminded them.
"Definitely." Walter nodded. "Part of our being tired was from overeating apparently. That or we're finally beginning to find our equilibrium through this."
Louise cried a little as they turned and began walking into the boarding ramp.
"Walter, you could have hugged your Father goodbye." Paige told Walter as they watched his parents disappear into the tube of the boarding ramp.
"I'm sorry, there is something weird about hugging my Father while in your body." Walter told her.
He smiled hearing Paige's laughter in his mind before sighing.
"I had really hoped that Ralph would be interested enough to try and keep the farm going." Sean sighed as they both connected their seatbelts.
"I know Sean. But he's too much like his Father. All that genius inquiry, while he might take to it for a short bit, he'd grow bored before long." Louise gave him a sad smile. "It has been in your family for generations."
"Our family." Sean said softly as he squeezed her hand.
Louise smiled as she squeezed his hand back. And then her eyes lit up.
"What about Grady O'Sullivan?" Louise asked quickly.
"Grady?" Sean frowned as he looked at her.
"You remember my nephew, right?" Louise looked at him brightly. "Well you said our family, right? Why not keep it in the family? We could pass it down to Grady. He's my sister's youngest son, just about to graduate from college and loves farming. It can be the O'Brien-O'Sullivan farm moving forward." Louise said excitedly.
"Well, now…" Sean said before he paused.
Louise watched his eyes dart back and forth a bit as he considered the thought.
"You don't have to answer right now Sean." Louise said.
"No, I'm just going over everything. I think I would really like that. Do you think he'd really want to do it?" Sean asked as he rubbed his chin.
"Well I wouldn't see why not. He wants to work on a farm, he'd have to hire on to some farm somewhere else. Tobin has sold all his land and Grady's folks are city dwellers. We're the only family with a farm." Louise reminded him.
"Well I guess we can contact him and find out." Sean grinned.
"Morning boss." Toby said as he moved across the floor towards Walter's desk, unsure if it was Walter or Paige in control of Paige's body.
"Toby." Walter said in such a way it left no doubt he was in control.
"How's things going?" Toby asked as he sat down.
Walter sighed even as Toby opened his doctor bag and began getting everything out.
"A little quiet this morning." Walter told him even as he pushed the readout from the ekg machine over to Toby.
Toby picked it up and studied it for a moment.
"Still not comfortable with me seeing Paige?" Toby asked in an offhand voice as he read the piece of paper.
"If Paige chooses to let you see her that way, that is her choice." Walter told him.
"Relax 197, I was just teasing." Toby smiled. "Is she conscious?"
"Not right now." Walter said as Toby took their wrist and checked their pulse.
"So, how does it feel as a woman?" Toby asked as he slipped his stethoscope around his neck.
"Toby…" Walter sighed.
"You know, you are about as fun as a bag of diarrhea." Toby complained.
"And for a Harvard trained doctor you are the most infantile person I know." Walter told him.
"What's going on?" Happy asked as she walked out of the kitchen.
"Nothing, my lotus blossom. Just having some fun with Walt." Toby grinned.
"Well, quit perving out on the situation before I give you an adjustment you won't like." Happy told him after swatting his hat off.
"Yes dear." Toby laughed. "You see how she disrespects my hat, right?"
"She could always use her blow torch on it." Walter suggested.
"Now we're talking." Happy grinned.
"Have either of you had any smell complaints lately?" Toby asked as he listened to their lungs.
"Not really." Walter said. "At least nothing that hasn't bothered either of us in the past."
"Still taking the increased dose on the prenatal vitamins?" Toby began writing in his record.
"We're doing everything we've agreed to do." Walter told him.
"How are you doing with understanding Paige's math?" Toby asked.
"I have to admit, her process is really interesting. I'm actually beginning to understand it without her explaining some of it. And I tried her way of looking at the last coding issue…I'm so used to doing it my way, it feels weird but so far she's been right on every coding job. She's eliminated twenty two percent of my normal time in finding errors." Walter explained.
"Good." Toby smiled. "That frees up a lot of time for you guys to work on the math to figure out how to separate you."
"A growing part of me doesn't want to separate from her." Walter said softly. "Besides connecting emotionally with others, there is an intimacy with us that I'm afraid of losing."
"Sorry buddy, but if we can separate you guys safely, we're doing that. You're just going to have to accept it." Toby told him quietly.
Greetings and Happy New Year! I hope this finds you all well! My game The Planet Crafter has really been sucking me in this last week. It really is like someone made it right in my wheelhouse. lol
Railman - hehe Indeed there are and I will endeavor to do my best!
Marie Mac - LOL Indeed I do forget things. Even before Cathy first got sick we both would walk into another room and call out..."Why'd I come in here?" LOL Sorry on the Knight story. Any chapter that now has a chapter name (before "A Knight on Honeymoon") you'll know I have changed it.
Pearliegirl - LOL It is funny, at my busiest I think I had 9 different stories I was working on at one time. Never forgot them...Makes sense to me, I wish Google's docs had a way for me to move posted stories from my work space to another space so only stories that haven't been posted were in my work area to see. Would make it so much easier to keep track of what I'm working on. Well, hopefully nothing bad will happen now that Paige is pregnant! *yikes* I hope my note on the Knight's story makes sense now. lol I wish I could write Nick...Sadly when they announced the cancellation, a lot of fans went off the rails and were abusive towards him on social media and he deleted his account. Now I don't know this happened, this is what has been told to me by people I trust who were active in the Scorpion social media scene during the time. A have a friend who is friends with one of the writers of the show who is working with Nick and I asked if he could ask him if he knows who owns the rights to the Scorpion story, as it might be different from CBS who owns the rights to the show. Maybe, if it is someone else we could write them and ask if permission could be given to actually publish a fan work. Back in the 60's the owners of Star Trek embraced those people and there was a huge work of stories published based off the show. Maybe it could happen for Scorpion, if permission were given.
LouBe - Thank you! hehe Glad you enjoyed a "simple" solution to the problem! lol They both need all the tools they can get to help them, together or not. lol Thank you, Ralph was truly overwhelmed seeing his Mom again. Toby/Cabe/Happy definitely fell right back into old habits...lol I think he'll always have a bit of a time with emotional intelligence, but he's getting better...slowly. lol Right now as you read they think her body will remain dominant, and they'll even try to keep it that way. That's a very good question, perhaps next chapter will answer some questions about that. (If I ever finish it.) Same goes with the closing thought! lol
Lucy - LOL Well you never know. lol I'm betting Walter is actually a bit nervous and curious about experiencing that process. lol
James - Yep, she's back and glad you found it interesting! That's a great question, more to follow concerning Paige's presence for sure. Walter is definitely looking forward to it, but as I told Lucy, nervous as well. My guess is they won't risk the baby with trying to change anything at this time, at least unless it becomes obvious that their combined lifeform is at risk staying combined. Boy next chapter has so much to cover...*wink* lol Walter always seemed to have a connection to Paige's needs and always reacted to them quickly, this just seems to support that. Glad you enjoyed Ralph's expression as well! Yep, everyone is definitely in for a penny at this point! Well I try...lol I'll do my best, you too! It is Sunday! lol
To the Adventure! -Tim
