Toby walked into Happy's workshop after Tim left following the briefing with him and Sylvester.
Toby saw Happy taking her tools off the wall and putting them into her tool chests.
"So, you are just cutting out on us?" Toby asked.
"You're lucky I don't drop you where you stand." Happy told him.
"We've got to be able to talk about this, Happy." Toby said as he took a step towards her.
Happy eyed his foot and Toby froze in place.
"No, we don't have to talk about this. You've screwed up so many things in the last twenty four hours alone." Happy told him.
"Hey, I was just enforcing the majority rules." Toby told her.
"Accepting that contract blindly? We didn't vote on that. You belittled Paige, then insulted her and let that creep insult her." Happy yelled as she slammed the lid of her tool chest down and then locked it before moving to the next.
"You didn't vote against it." Toby told her.
Happy swore as she grabbed up her ball peen hammer and stared at him.
Toby swore and held up his hands and cocked his head.
"Look, you could have insisted. But you didn't. Neither did Sylvester, so sure, I pushed it. Paige was being a jerk. She needed to be put in her place." Toby told her and then ducked as the hammer flew past him.
"She's a person, her place is where she wants it to be. For the last three weeks you have been a complete jerk to her and Sylvester. Today your actions took the cake. If you weren't my husband I would have decked you for what you did. I should deck you anyway. You and Sylvester can find a ride back to his place on your own." Happy told him.
"Sylvester can take the bus, I'm riding home with you." Toby told her.
"No, you won't. You'll have three hours tomorrow from noon until 3 p.m. to get your stuff out of my house." Happy told him.
"You can't kick me out of our home." Toby yelled.
"Wrong, it is my home. You can go back to that crappy apartment you used to live in a few streets from Sly." Happy told him.
"Come on Happy, surely we can talk about this." Toby said softly.
"Oh, now you want to talk. Where were you wanting to talk before you did all this crazy crap? I can't believe I've wasted so much time on you." Happy told him as she locked up the next tool chest.
"Wasted time? What are you talking about? We successfully beat the odds and got married." Toby cried.
"See how bad gambling is in your blood? There were no odds in us getting married. Just you and me. And we both had given up, thinking we weren't going to get married and yet Paige pulled off a wonderful surprise so we could get married. And you were so crappy to her. Until this morning we were a loving couple and then you had to go beyond being a complete jerk to Paige. You got our company embroiled with that scumbag and you know he isn't here because of the great raise he got. The feds pay shit, you've seen Cabe's paystub and he's worked for the feds for a lot longer. Tim's here to be an ass to Walter and Paige." Happy spit at him.
She began filling her last tool chest.
"So what do you want from me?" Toby asked.
"What do you think I want?" Happy yelled.
"If we shut down CP what are we going to do for income?" Toby asked as his eyes probed Happy.
"I don't know, but it would be better than this crap. And that isn't the only thing I want." Happy told him.
Toby frowned as he tried to assess her.
"You want me to apologize to Paige?" Toby asked incredulously.
"And?" Happy said.
"No, I am not apologizing to 197." Toby told her.
"It's been nice knowing you." Happy told him as she pulled back on the dolly lifting up her tool chests and began moving out to the work bay.
"Just like that?" Toby demanded.
"What do you expect? Do you remember what I told you long before we married? I need stability Toby, you aren't providing that. You make me feel unsafe. I tell you what I need and what do you do? Oh no, you can't be bothered to apologize to Walt. We were wrong, what we did was even worse. Paige is absolutely in the right to be pissed at you and us. Walter took us in when we had no one. He gave us a home, he gave us a family, he gave us a purpose. He ultimately gave us his unconditional support. He risked deportation so we could get married sooner. He gave us money to try and get pregnant and then to find out why we were having problems getting pregnant." Happy spit at him.
"Hey, we gave him money too, remember the spy plane?" Toby yelled back.
Happy grabbed the mug on the workbench and tossed it and Toby ducked just in time.
"That wasn't the same thing. That money didn't come out of our pockets. We weren't going to miss anything from it. He used the money he got back from Cabe's bail and instead of paying the loan off he banked it on us. On our happiness. We went after Scorpion's life blood. Underbidding him just so we could take jobs away from him. Hell the first three jobs we got were less than half what they should have been. Scorpion was his way of trying to make right the evil that Merrick tricked Cabe into tricking him into committing. The poor man has nightmares because of all the lives that died that day. Did you even once try to help him with that? Then that count went up when that lunatic killed Jim with that sarin gas. Two more bodies were added to his nightmare. And we tried to destroy that which was his way of trying to make amends." Happy yelled.
Sylvester cautiously entered the shop and saw Happy and Toby staring at each other.
"Uh, did you ask her?" Sylvester all but whispered.
Toby's head slumped forward.
"Ask me what?" Happy demanded.
"There is no way we can do this job without you." Toby told her.
Happy shrugged.
"Sucks to be you today." Happy told him.
"Are you really quitting on us?" Sylvester asked near tears.
Happy looked at him.
"Yes." Happy told him after a moment of thinking. "This whole thing was a stupid idea from the start. If I hadn't been so mad I never would have gone along with it. I've been fooling myself thinking Toby changed and quit gambling. He just changed how he was gambling. It is clear to me now he just started gambling with our lives against Walter. Constantly antagonizing him. And you never once tried to talk me down from how upset I was about the stupid lecture. Even before it became a problem. We should have forced Walter to tell Paige about taking that skank to the damn thing."
"Don't call her that." Sylvester objected.
"I'll call it how I see it. Do you honestly believe she had feelings for Walter?" Happy challenged him.
"No, not really." Sylvester admitted.
"Exactly and yet we let that skank take Scorpion down. We were supposed to be a Cyclone and if one of us was attacked, we were all supposed to jump in to defend them. Did we do that?" Happy yelled.
Toby and Sylvester both shook their heads.
"So what are we going to do?" Happy demanded from them.
"I think we need to apologize to Walter." Sylvester told her.
"And?" Happy asked as she looked at Toby.
"And Paige." Toby reluctantly admitted.
Ralph looked out of the carpool car's windshield surprised. His Mom's car was already at the condo. He thanked Sara as he climbed out and closed the door. He walked up the short walk and up the steps to the second floor. Slipping his key in the door he turned the lock and walked in. He'd started to call out to his Mom but froze as he saw her kissing some man on the couch. Ralph's face turned dark and he slammed the door shut.
Paige and Walter both jerked up in shock and Ralph's eyes went wide as the anger drained instantly from him.
"Walter!" Ralph yelled and ran over. He jumped over the back of the couch and crashed into Walter's arms as they both tumbled off the couch. Landing on the floor as the coffee table was pushed out away from the couch.
Paige smiled as Walter and Ralph hugged on the floor. She reached her hand out and rubbed Ralph's back. She saw Walter's pain and figured something was hurt.
"Walter, are you okay?" Paige asked softly.
Walter nodded even as he continued to grimace.
"I take it that you approve of Walter being here Ralph?" Paige teased.
Ralph nodded.
"When did you guys make up with each other?" Ralph asked as he sat up.
"At lunch, down at Kovelsky's." Paige told him.
"So does this mean you are leaving Centi-peed on their partners?" Ralph asked as he got up with Walter and sat down on the couch.
Paige tilted her head at him even as Walter snorted.
"That isn't very nice Ralph. But yes, Walter wants me back in Scorpion too." Paige told him.
"Are you dropping the stupid 2.0 from the name?" Ralph asked.
"I am, we are forevermore Scorpion. No bloody A, B, C, D or 2.0" Walter told him with a grin.
"Good. So what are we doing to celebrate?" Ralph asked.
"Tacos?" Paige suggested.
Ralph and Walter both nodded.
Walter was driving them back from dinner. They'd gone to a favorite restaurant for tacos. His eyes kept watching the mirrors and the cars parked along the roadway they traveled on. Ever since they left the condo he felt like they were being watched. And then he spotted the plain beige car about twelve cars behind them. It was just far enough back that he couldn't see who was driving but he noticed the driver sped up at every light they could, just getting through before it was red. If they got stuck behind a light, the car caught up fairly quickly after the light changed.
Walter hit his turn signal and turned right into a residential neighborhood.
Paige frowned as she looked over at him.
"Walter?" Paige questioned the turn.
"I think we're being followed." Walter told her even as he made another right turn. He saw what he was looking for. He turned into a driveway with bushes. The house was for sale with no lights so he figured it was empty. He turned off the lights and they waited.
"Who is it?" Ralph asked as he had turned and was looking down the drive. The bushes that lined the property perfectly blocked the yard and drive except where the sidewalk and driveway was.
"I don't know, they stayed back far enough that I couldn't see the driver clearly. It was a plain beige car." Walter told them.
"Tim?" Paige asked worriedly.
"Maybe, he'll be sorry if it is." Walter told her as he squeezed her hand.
They sat there for nearly ten minutes and nothing ever happened.
Walter nodded before he turned the lights back on.
"Either I am just being paranoid or they couldn't guess where we went." Walter told her as he kissed her hand and then backed out.
The driver of the beige car sat on the side of the street Walter had first turned on and watched his computer as he saw the GPS tracker show the car backing out of the driveway it currently sat on. The car backed into the street to come back to the original street. He put the car in gear and turned into the alley he was close by. The tracker was getting closer to the original street and he saw the spot he needed. A backyard driveway with a garage blocking the line of sight and he turned in and stopped. He watched as the tracker turned onto the main thoroughfare and moved off. He smiled as he'd achieved what he wanted. Instilling some fear.
Walter sat up with his back against the headboard of Paige's bed while she was snuggled into the sheets sleeping. He'd volunteered to sleep on the couch but Paige wanted him closer. They'd snuggled for about an hour and then after Paige drifted off to sleep Walter carefully moved up and pulled his laptop over. He connected to the Garage server and then opened his hacking portal before using it to scramble his connection through dozens of servers on the web all designed to throw security trackers off someone's trail.
First thing he did was eliminate the vehicles that were in the registry as belonging to Homeland. Nodding as he didn't find any beige cars. He turned to Tim Armstrong's record. None of his credit cards came up in a search for recent rental car receipts. Walter started a search to find out who were the closest people to Tim when he had an irritating thought. He did a search for rentals using Paige's old Scorpion credit card number and found that someone had used it earlier that day to rent a beige car.
Walter wanted to swear for not canceling the card when Paige walked out. But then he smiled. He quickly hacked into the rental company. He saw the video archive and downloaded a copy of it. He disconnected and began reviewing the day's video. He saw Tim walk in and talk to the counter person and then showed him an ID. Walter saw the $100 bill folded behind the ID. The guy walked over to a copy machine and slipped the money into his shirt while picking up something off the copier stand. Instead of putting the ID Tim gave him on the copier he put the item he picked up and made a photocopy of it.
He watched Tim laugh as the guy handed him a copy of it and his ID back. He took the keys and winked before leaving.
Walter leaned back, pressing his head into the wall. He felt like beating it against the wall but he didn't want to disturb Paige. He began to consider his response. He was tempted to exact revenge himself. He could easily destroy Tim's life on the web. But then he wondered, if Tim was doing this, he'd have to be prepared for that. Which means he'd have to have someone watching his records. He could easily file a complaint with the DA or the credit card company. But then he wondered, why did Tim make it this easy to catch him. Surely as an ex-Navy Seal he had to have the basic knowledge of how to get around from being detected.
He deliberately made it known he was going to be around. And almost immediately this stuff happens. What was his end game? Was this a trap to catch him illegally hacking into companies and even Homeland? Walter quickly disconnected and looked at the laptop. He brought up his Doomsday protocol software and set the parameters and watched it scrub his laptop.
Greetings! I hope this finds you all well! Well a bit of good news, I managed to write chapter 10 to close this out.
Railman - hehe Could be! lol And as you can see, CP isn't doing anything. Cabe you say...maybe next chapter? Yep The War Between Us he did.
Lucy - Thank you! hehe Ralph's glad you liked them! lol He really hopes you like Centi-peed on their Partners too! lol Good question...could Tim's antics be a deeper problem? Certainly will be big trouble for Carlson if so and it is proven...
Margaret - Thank you. I've been trying to just go with it but I miss being creative.
Jerbr23 - LOL Well if Tim hasn't put Cabe in the dust yet, I've got a feeling next chapter he might **** ***** ** ****...lol
LouBe - hehe Salty sweets...I think we'll all always know what that means for Paige. Tim seems to be pulling out all of the stops! Florence was definitely unhappy that day! lol Maybe one day she'll use it to tell Walter she's pregnant. "Walter, would you go get me some chocolate drizzled popcorn please?" "Sure...wait...are you?" "Congratulations Walter! Number 3!" lol
To the Adventure! -Tim