Chapter 9 - Complicating An Already Complicated Situation
Happy Quinn had never been one to sleep in. The habit was born of too many years at too many foster and group homes. The risks one took of sleeping during daylight hours when others were awake were too great. It was all too likely that your stuff would be ruined or stolen. And that's if you were lucky and your foster siblings or parents didn't decide to mess with you directly while you were asleep instead. Happy shivered unconsciously at the memories of learning that particular lesson the hard way.
Happy loved Toby but she never could make him truly understand her lack of desire to sleep well past noon, and he certainly didn't share her desire to get up and start her day with the rising of the sun. Toby's father was rarely awake before the local track opened. What was the point? And so by extension was Toby. Their childhoods could not have been more dissimilar. This was why every morning before the sun even made its way above the horizon, Happy was at the Garage working on her rebuilding her beloved Triumph Bonneville T120 motorcycle while Toby slumbered on in his own bed.
Her usual wrenching companion joined her a bit later than usual this morning. She was willing to give him a pass for slacking off, Nathan had traveled to San Francisco the day before to see a specialist for his shoulder and hadn't returned to LA until after 3 AM.
Happy Quinn had been a loner before she had met Walter. As it stood now, she mostly only tolerated the others on the team generally, but she felt Nathan's absence at her elbow keenly. He was an astute observer and a quick study. She had made much quicker progress on the Bonneville working with him than she would have made working alone. And she enjoyed his company more than she thought she would when she had offered to help him improve his skills. Happy's thoughts drifted to the first morning after Nathan had moved into Walter's Airstream and he had become her accidental assistant. She chuckled at the memory.
Happy had shown up at the Garage just after dawn to work on her pet project and was happily hammering away at a dent in the Bonneville's side panel. She didn't give a second thought to the noise. Walter usually wasn't sleeping anyway and if he was, he wasn't bothered by the noise. If the sounds of her work disturbed him, he would simply slip on his noise-canceling headphones and keep working on his own project. But the first time Happy showed up to work on the motorcycle after Nathan had taken up residence in the trailer he had been in for a rude awakening, literally.
Nathan had nearly fallen out of the camper clad in nothing but his underwear in his haste to find the source of the racket. He quickly realized Happy was creating the din and discovered her pre-existing arrangement with his landlord that no one had seen fit to inform him of.
The naval Ensign prided himself on his ability to go with the flow in a variety of situations, but this had nearly pushed him to the breaking point, particularly when Happy had tossed a sarcastic "Sorry," over her shoulder and then snickered as she returned to her banging, clearly not the least bit penitent for waking him in such an unceremonious manner.
Nathan was ready to tell off both Happy and Walter. He was trying to decide who he was more irritated with, and start there, when he saw just exactly what it was Happy was working on. And all was instantly forgiven. Nathan was in love the moment he laid eyes on Happy's Triumph Bonneville T120. He was a decent mechanic. He had to be as a nuclear engineer on a naval submarine, but Happy… Happy was an artist. He realized how fortunate he was for the chance to even sit at the feet of a master and watch. Nathan disappeared into the Airstream to pull on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans and then sat to watch her work from a respectful distance as he pulled on his work boots. Nathan was quickly mesmerized watching her work, and it was only his well-trained reflexes, honed by years in the Navy, that allowed him to save himself from being brained by a flying wrench, despite his injured shoulder.
"Nice catch. Maybe you're not completely useless after all, Nellie. You're not going to learn a thing unless you get your hands dirty," Happy smirked.
"Y-you want me to work on the bike with you?" Nathan hated how his voice squeaked on the final syllable. He was such a complete fanboy. The Wizard's Chest crowd would be proud that he could nerd out as completely as they did.
"I've seen your work on a few cases and on a project or two around the Garage. Even helping Ralph with his schoolwork. You haven't completely embarrassed yourself. You have potential. But how would you like to become, you know, actually good?"
Nathan smiled at Happy warily, not entirely certain she wouldn't chuck another tool at his face. "I'd like that. Where do I start?"
Happy looked him up and down and gave him an approving nod. "First thing. I don't sleep in. Now, neither do you. No excuses. Second, today's lesson: I work, you watch. I tell you which tool or part I need, you hand it to me. We'll see how you do and go from there. Ball-peen hammer."
Nathan stared at her blankly for a few seconds. It took him a moment to realize the lesson had already begun. He scrambled for the requested tool and slapped it into Happy's waiting hand.
"Slow start, Hall. I guess you can only get better from here. At least I hope you can."
Nathan blushed and Happy had to turn her head so he wouldn't see her smile. She was going to enjoy this.
And so far she had.
Happy was impressed when Nathan emerged from the trailer only a few minutes later, looking surprisingly refreshed. He grinned and easily caught the socket wrench that Happy tossed his way, only half meaning to cause bodily harm.
Wrench in hand, Nathan slipped easily into his usual position a few inches from Happy's right elbow. They had been working together on the motorcycle for a few weeks and had become a well-oiled precision teamwork machine. In that time, Nathan's wrenching skills had improved considerably. Happy often called him 'almost competent'.
High praise indeed, as far as Nathan was concerned. He considered it a part of his physical therapy, especially for regaining mobility in his injured shoulder as it continued to heal. But his favorite part of their early morning motorcycle restoration sessions was the conversational variety he experienced. Generally speaking, Happy was a woman of few words and Nathan didn't mind, some mornings they didn't speak at all. Other days they would exchange a few sentences. Sometimes conversations took place over days. But then there were the rarest of rare days when Happy had something on her mind, when her defenses were down, and she was downright talkative. Nathan lived for those sessions when he got the chance to see the woman behind the tough exterior. The smart, sarcastic, hilarious woman he was hoping one day to call a friend.
Today Happy definitely had something on her mind, but she wasn't in the mood to share. She swatted Nathan's hand away every time he reached out to help. Eventually, he gave up, and simply crouched down a few feet away and observed. Happy was in her element. It was almost impossible to keep up with what she was doing, she moved so rapidly. Nathan was doing his best, but eventually, his mind wandered as he ran his fingers through his rapidly growing blond locks. It had been years since his hair had been this long. His senior year of high school, he thought with a wave of nostalgia. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed being able to style it, though the wash-and-go aspect of the military crewcut he'd sported for the past several years definitely had its upsides. Nathan had just allowed his thoughts to drift to thoughts of whether or not Paige would prefer a crewcut or if she would be attracted to his longer hair when a screwdriver went sailing through the air toward his head.
"Just because you're not using your muscles, Hall doesn't mean there isn't something here for you to learn," Happy fumed.
Nathan opened his mouth to defend himself, wanting to point out that she was the one pushing him away from literally everything he'd tried to do on the bike that morning, but he stopped himself when he saw the irritation on her face. This obviously wasn't actually about the motorcycle at all, so he decided to wisely keep his mouth shut and let Happy do the talking.
She looked him square in the eye, "What were you thinking about so intently that you were ignoring my work on the Triumph's clutch anyway?"
Before Nathan could even think about how colossally brainless this answer would be, one word slipped out of his lips, "Paige."
An array of emotions crossed Happy's face so quickly, and Nathan was unable to parse a single one. He wondered briefly if she was going to just bean him with a wrench for sheer stupidity. She looked at the wrench in her hand, testing its weight for a moment as if considering it before she slowly and carefully placed it on the floor at her feet.
She stood once again and surveyed him, arms crossed in front of her and Nathan felt like nothing so much as a schoolboy who had been sent to the principal's office.
"I'm actually glad you brought her up. I've been wanting to talk to you for a while now about her."
Nathan gulped. Now he knew what had been weighing on Happy's mind. She had been wanting to talk to him about Paige. He didn't know if he was relieved or completely freaked out.
Happy continued as if he hadn't just acted like a frightened six-year-old. "I see the way you look at the waitress and I know Walter sees it too, much as he pretends otherwise. What are your intentions here?"
If Nathan had lived to be a thousand years old, he would not have expected Happy to start this conversation with him. She hadn't said this many words to him that weren't related to the work they were doing in the past week. "Oh, um, I don't… I don't h-have any intentions with Paige."
Happy stared at him for a few seconds as if trying to determine if he was lying to her or just plain stupid. It appeared she decided upon stupid. "Well, why the hell not? I see you mooning after her," Happy sighed. "And she's nearly as bad."
Nathan nearly dropped the screwdriver he was holding. "S-she is?"
"Would you stop that? Stop not noticing that you are exactly the kind of man Paige is drawn to. And drawn to you she is. Just because I'm not interested in what's on your shelves, doesn't mean I don't see what you have available and I see that what you have is quality. High quality."
"Ummm, thanks?"
"You're welcome. Paige has had it rough and she deserves someone who sees how exceptional she is. And I think that's you. That is you, right? You do see how amazing a woman she is don't you, loser?"
"Of-of course I do. She's beautiful and smart and talented," Nathan hesitated. "But what about Walter… isn't he in love with her? And why are you, of all people, pushing me to make a move? Isn't he your best friend?"
Happy sighed and sat down on one of the milk crates littering the area near her workspace. As she did so, she kicked another crate in Nathan's general direction and gestured for him to be seated as well. Nathan sat down slowly, careful of his injured knee as he did so. He guessed this was going to take some time. "Walt is… different."
Nathan nodded, this wasn't news to him. He had heard whispers from the team about Walter's struggles to deal with his own emotions as well as the emotions of others around him, which was why Paige had originally been brought onto the team.
When Happy was certain that Nathan was settled comfortably and she had his full attention once again, she continued, "And that's part of the reason why Walter and Paige have had such a complicated relationship. Walter has tried to express his feelings for the waitress a few times, but something always gets in the way and they just can't seem to push through. I want what is best for Walter, always. But sometimes I'm not sure if Paige is actually what is best for him. She ties him up in knots and he just doesn't know how to untie himself. I see how much it hurts him sometimes to want her so much and not know how to tell her, to be afraid of taking the leap into a relationship that is more than what they have already. I know she has feelings for him too. I wonder what would happen if she could develop feelings, be in a relationship, with someone else. If the possibility of being with her could stop haunting Walt and he could go back to being content with who he was before, before Paige," Happy paused, looking at Nathan searchingly, "I think she could be happy with you. You seem like her type. She goes for the alpha male. You're good-looking, if you're into looks, which she obviously is, charming, funny, smart, all the normal things. You're good with her kid, which is important to her after the way his waste of space bio dad treated him. Everything Walter has going for him that draws Paige to him, you have it, and more. You're good with people. Your EQ rivals Paige's. Plus you don't have an ego that needs to purchase its own seat on an airplane. In fact, if you made your move, she'd have to be certifiable not to be at least interested."
"I-I am interested…" Nathan said slowly, reluctant to speak the words aloud for the first time as if actually saying it made it real. "But I don't know her that well and I don't even know how long I'm going to be here at Scorpion, that's really up to the United States Navy. I would hate to start something and not be able to finish it. Not with a woman like Paige."
Happy nodded solemnly, she had expected nothing less from Hall. He wasn't the type to look for a fling.
He ran his fingers through his hair in agitation, then climbed painfully to his feet and began pacing. "I don't want to complicate an already complicated situation. And as much as I care about Paige's feelings, the thing that really holds me back is my friendship with Walter. You say that he would be better off if the choice of whether or not to have a relationship with Paige was taken off the table, but I'm not convinced, and even if I were, I'm not sure I want to be the one who stands between him and the woman he's in love with."
Happy smiled up at Nathan and for some reason, he felt as if he'd passed some kind of test he hadn't even known he was taking. She picked up a wrench as she stood and moved back toward the motorcycle. She punched him lightly in his good arm. "I thought you'd make an adequate addition to cases, but I was certain that you would disrupt the team. I saw how you looked at Paige the first time you saw her on the rescue boat and then again your first morning at the Garage. I saw that you were attracted to her and that you saw how in love with her Walter was. I thought for certain you would just take what you wanted, no doubt someone who looks like you, with your social abilities and EQ is more than capable of doing so. I have never been more pleased to be wrong about someone in my life."
"I consider that high praise from Happy Quinn. As for your relationship advice, I will take it under consideration, but I make no guarantees. You've given me a lot to think about."
Happy shrugged. "Fair enough. There is one guarantee that I need from you though. I need your word that we never speak of this conversation, in which I revealed my feelings regarding you or Walter ever again."
"Done. On one condition."
Happy raised an eyebrow questioningly.
"I want you to show me how to balance the carburetor."
"You're not ready for that yet, nub."
"You're just afraid that the student has surpassed the master," Nathan challenged her with a chuckle.
Happy eyed the Homeland intern sternly. "Even with that bum shoulder, that you claim is 'still healing', drop and give me fifty for that level of insubordination, Ensign," she ordered.
Nathan quickly schooled the humor out of his features and with a serious face, dropped to the floor and swiftly lowered himself into pushup position. He was still there counting out reps as the rest of the team drifted into the Garage.
"Well, this looks like a story worth hearing!" Toby hooted as he pulled over a chair and sat down on it backward watching Nathan finish counting out his pushups, still using military precision form, despite the discomfort to his shoulder.
Happy ignored both men and meticulously wiped her tools down and carefully put them away. "Not really anything to tell. He was disrespectful and used The Bolt Whisperer without permission and paid the price," Happy lied smoothly. The entire team gasped at her words. The Bolt Whisperer was Happy's prize socket wrench and no one, not even Walter, even thought about using it without asking Happy first.
Upon reaching fifty, Nathan leaped athletically to his feet, a suitably contrite expression on his face as Sylvester clapped him on the shoulder. "You really should have known better by now."
Nathan didn't correct the Human Calculator, simply nodded in agreement, mindful of his promise to Happy not to speak of their conversation about Walter's feelings for Paige.
Cabe gave a long low whistle of disbelief as he eyed Nathan. "I thought you were smart, kid. You won't make that mistake twice."
"No, Sir, I won't," Nathan assured the senior Homeland agent
Cabe nodded, satisfied before he called out to turn the entire team's attention to the screens in the center of the room as he began the morning's briefing of a new case from Homeland.