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“Our first night off in two weeks,” Toby closed their apartment door. “Nobody camped in our living room floor until all hours. The makeshift office of Centipede Partners is closed for the night. Alone time with my beloved at last,” he pressed a kiss into Happy’s hair. “Hey, do you want to go get some dinner? Sit and eat in an actual restaurant for a change?”
“Yeah,” Happy said distractedly, already making a bee-line for the patio door. “I just want to check on the cat, see if it ate that food I left for it this morning.”
Toby sighed. She’d barely said a word or made eye contact since they’d bumped into Walter, Cabe and Florence in that reception area. She’d been a human pressure cooker for two weeks, and since setting eyes on them again, she’d been building toward a blow-up. Or a meltdown.
He saw it through the glass door. The slump of her shoulders. The dejection reverberating from her as she reached for the dish. Dammit.
She opened the door, put the dish in the sink silently, jaw clenched so tight he could see her tendons working.
“Still didn’t show, huh?”
She shook her head. “This is the fourth day.” And he heard it, the scarcest hint of that little wobble her voice got when she was broken. That wobble had the power to crush him. He’d do anything to send it away. But once again, what she needed, he couldn’t give her, no matter how much he wanted to. He took a steadying breath. “Hap—”
She cleared her throat roughly, banged her fist softly on the edge of the sink twice. “I think maybe it doesn’t like the leftovers we’ve been having lately,” she refused to meet his eyes. “Do cats like Chinese? Or pizza? I mean, what the hell do I know?”
She moved the stand beside him at the kitchen table, kept her shoulders angled away from him as she reached for her bag. “That’s why I picked up some cat food.” She pulled a few tins from her bag and returned to the kitchen, pulling a new dish from the cabinet.
Toby blanched. “Happy, you bought cat food?”
He watched her shoulders shrug as she dumped the tin’s contents into the dish. “Well, we were out.”
She passed by him again, fresh dish in hand as she headed for the patio.
“That’s actually ok that were out of cat food. I’m fine with us being out of cat food. Happy, honey...we don’t have a cat.”
She met his eyes, defiant as she closed the patio door behind her. “What the hell have I been doing the last couple weeks then?”
“Feeding a cat that showed up on our patio the night we left the garage that might be a stray, or might belong to one of the neighbors, but for sure doesn’t belong to us, Happy,” he stepped toward her. “And it seems to me like he might have moved on, sweetheart.”
She stepped around him. “I’m sure it’ll be back. It just hasn’t liked what we’ve been offering the last few nights. Just let me change out of this dumb shirt and we’ll go to dinner.” She breezed past him.
“Happy, I think we need to—” his ringing phone halted his pursuit into their bedroom, elicited an eye roll. “Hang on just a sec,” he pressed the phone to his ear. “Dr. Tobias M. Curtis. Yes.” His eyes went wide. “Yes! Absolutely! We’ll see you then!” He ended the call. “Happy! Adopt LA wants an pre-screening interview! Friday at 1!”
No response. He sprinted into the bedroom. “Hey, did you hea—“ he stopped short at the sight of her. She was on the floor on the far side of the bed, and even though she wasn’t facing him, he could she her shoulders heave with every stifled sob. Toby shook his head. “And we are go for meltdown,” he whispered.
He crossed the room, took a seat on the floor facing her. Her crisp white button-down was balled up in her lap, one hand still inside its sleeve. She swiped at her cheeks with her fists, struggled to even her breath, looked everywhere but at him.
He squinted, shook a finger at her. “My finely honed senses are picking up markers that —”
“Screw your markers!”
He furrowed his brow. “That’s not helpful,” he teased. “We said we were gonna be better about talking these things out, remember? Because we want to set a good example as parents?” He was met with a scowl. “Happy,” he sighed, laid a hand on her ankle. “You’ve been running from this for two weeks. Tell me why you’re crying, sweetheart, come on. Or, you know, if you wanna keep taking clothes off instead, I’m good with tha—”
“Because this shirt is stupid!” She yanked her arm out of the sleeve and hurled it against the wall. “Centipede Partners is stupid. That stupid cat is stupid! And going on that pre-screening interview, that’s really stupid!”
“Hang on, since when did our having a kid start to be stupid?”
“What’s the point in starting a family if our kid is going to have no family?”
“You’ve got a family, Happy.”
“I’ve got you,” she sniffled. “And don’t get me wrong, that’s the most important...you’re the most important thing.” Toby smiled, but didn’t interrupt. “But there has to be more than just the two of us.”
“Why?”
She recoiled, clenched her hands into fists, pushed them into her thighs. “I had a mom and a dad, but nobody else. And I ended up with no one. I wanted...one of the things that made me want to do this was that our kid had a big family. But that’s just,” she waved her hand dismissively, “gone now.”
“The hell it is, Hap. You’ve still got the rest of them.”
“We’re barely getting along, Paige is pissed at the world, and Sylvester’s not far behind her. And I don’t have Walt. Or Cabe.”
“You don’t think so?” He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed. Happy knit her brows together as he put the call on speaker.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Cabe’s stilted voice came over the line. “I’m still at the office, can I call you when I leave?”
“What the hell?” Happy whispered.
“Cabe, listen, Happy’s…trapped under something heavy, and I’m starting to think it’s kinda serious, so could you—”
“What? What the HELL happened, where ARE you? Are you at home?!? I’m on my—”
“I’m fine,” Happy snatched the phone from Toby. “Don’t come over here.”
Silence. “Happy?”
“Yeah.”
“You ok, kid?”
“I’m fine, Toby was just...being weird.”
“But you’re fine? You don’t need any—”
“Fine,” she said. “Um, is there a reason you called Toby sweetheart?”
Toby took the phone back. “I’ll explain,” he said. “And everything’s fine, sorry to startle you. Just a little psychology demonstration. Call me when you cut Walt loose for the night?”
“Will do.”
Toby ended the call. “We’ve been keeping in touch...like, close touch. But you don’t have to worry that I’m going leave you for Cabe, he pulls that sweetheart stuff when I call in front of Walt so it looks like it’s Allie calling.” Toby rolled his eyes. “Like Walter would notice.” He pointed the phone at Happy. “That little exercise should prove to you that Cabe Gallo is ride or die for Happy Quinn. You’ve got a family, baby. More than just me — and that dumb cat.”
Happy blinked, big tears rolling down her wet cheeks. “This isn’t working,” she shook her head. “You said that we’d walk into that garage again, that Scorpion wasn’t over...but it is permanent.”
Toby scooted closer to her, pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’m sorry,” he wiped the tears from her cheek with his thumb, “that this happened after everything you’ve sacrificed for Scorpion.”
Happy heaved an unsteady breath, tried to hide the wobble of her chin. “He said he didn’t need any of us.”
Toby nodded. “After everything you’ve done for him.”
“All those long hours in the early days when it was just the two of us. And then, after that freak Collins pulled him down the rabbit hole and we almost lost him. And he sure needed me to be married to him for six years, a favor that involved me committing a felony and worse, breaking your heart in the process.”
“He was embarrassed and trying to save face. He was frustrated, overwhelmed. He didn’t mean it. He’s already sorry, he was popping all kinds of regret markers today.”
“Yeah,” Happy scoffed. “He’s not the only one with regrets.”
Toby brushed her hair out of her face. “Makes you long for your robot days, huh?”
“I was worried when Paige came along that this would end up messing everything up. How the hell did this happen? We,” she waved her hand between them, “got so much better. But the team imploded. I saw it coming from a mile away, and I still couldn’t keep it from happening.”
“We’re changing. Growing. Sometimes, that can screw with a group dynamic. Remember, Walt’s still a newbie at the whole emotions thing. He’s making rookie mistakes. And the rest of us aren’t exactly experts.”
Happy rolled her eyes, let another few tears fall silently.
Toby tapped on her temple. “Words, please, Happy.”
“I’m gonna miss my roomie,” she forced out. “And I’m even gonna miss Walt’s stupid ass.”
“You already do, baby, or haven’t you noticed that all of a sudden you’re into cats?”
“I know,” she groaned. “I guess I just let myself get used to…not losing people.”
“You haven’t lost them, Happy,” Toby shook his head. “It’s just gonna take a little time for us to find our ways back to each other. Let Walt wear himself out a little more. Cabe’s keeping an eye on him. Let Paige and Sly’s anger simmer down a little, too. Then Cabe and I will orchestrate some kind of meetup.”
“Paige won’t have it,” Happy said. “She’s sworn off him.”
Toby snorted. “I swore off you once. Lasted about two seconds.”
“When you found out I was married?”
Toby shook his head. “Not long after I gave you that dollhouse. My point is, it was too late by then. I’d already lost my heart to you. I just had to realize it. There was a time I doubted Walter and Paige would ever get together, but it’s too late now. They’ve got their issues, but her heart is lost to him. She’s just got to realize it. Parenting tip,” he held a finger up. “Sometimes you have to let people wear themselves out a little, and then they’ll be in a much more productive headspace. More open to suggestion. Case in point,” he stood, pulled her up by her hands, pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. “I have a suggestion for you. Let’s get some food. You’ll feel better.”
“Okay,” she said absently. “Doc? What if…you know…”
Toby raised his eyebrows. “If…a meteor strikes Los Angeles right now?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, for one thing, I’d be pretty peeved, we could have been spending this time doing naked things.”
She swatted his shoulder. “Seriously.”
“We’re still a family, Happy,” he grinned. “Right now, scattered across the city, barely speaking to each other, we’re still family. What’s happened doesn’t negate all the years that came before it. All the things we did together. The things we felt for each other.” He waggled his eyebrows. “The unspeakable things some of us have done to each other.”
“Perv,” she accused, but her got the tiny grin he was hoping for as she shrugged into a flannel.
“You really don’t know anything about family, do you?”
“Duh,” Happy rolled her eyes. “Never had one before.”
“Happy, seriously,” he pulled her toward the living room. “You don’t have to be a genius to know how this story goes. Kid Quintis is gonna know his Uncle Walter, his Grandpa Cabe, along with his Uncle Sly, Aunt Paige, and Cousin Ralph. And he or she is gonna know them all together. Okay?”
“Okay,” Happy sighed.
“You know what might cheer you up?” Toby pulled her close. “A visit from…oh, I don’t know…a sexy pirate after dinner.”
Happy felt the corners of her mouth turn up. “Actually, I was wondering if Dr. Curtis was on call. In his scrubs and lab coat.”
A smile split Toby’s face. “The doctor is always in for you, Hap.” Something over her shoulder caught his eye. “Well, would you look at that.”
Happy turned to see the cat on patio, devouring the food she’d put out. “He came back. I thought he was gone for good.”
Toby wrapped his arms around her from behind. “I told you,” he pressed a kiss into her hair. “Any idiot knows how this story goes.”