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Toby closed the door to his apartment behind him quietly and set his wrapped piece of cake on the counter. He slid out of his jacket while toeing his shoes off and padded quietly into the bedroom.
She was on her stomach in the middle of the mattress, still wearing the tank top and boyshorts he’d cajoled her into the night before, facing away from the door, sheets tangled in her legs. She was pressed flat into the mattress, but he could tell from the doorway that her muscles were too tense for her to be asleep. He rounded the bed to stand in her line of sight, but she didn’t acknowledge him, continued blinking absently at the window on the far wall.
He tipped forward, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You get any sleep?”
“No.” It was more grunt than word. “Stupid pill didn’t work worth a damn.”
He stepped out of her line of vision. “It was half of the smallest dosage available. I didn’t want you to feel zonked today.” He reappeared in his favorite Harvard t-shirt and boxers, slid onto the mattress beside her, stopping a fraction of an inch from touching her. “You’re zonked enough as it is.”
She continued to stare right through him. “I didn’t sleep.”
“All evidence to the contrary. You were snoring when I left here this morning.”
Her hand slid under the pillow lazily then, pulled out the homemade heart-shaped note he’d left her that morning, but the blank look never left her face. “Huh.” She flopped the note toward him half-heartedly. It was all she could muster.
“You’re welcome, Valentine.” He pulled his thumb across her forehead, just above her eyebrow. “Can you eat something? Brought you a slice of cake.”
“Nuh.”
“‘Kay.”
Her eyes shifted for the first time, and he watched as she crawled out of her emotional hiding spot. “You go in?”
“For a little bit. Walter said to take the day, no worries.”
Her face hardened. “Was he there?”
“Yeah.”
She shifted her eyes to Toby’s for the first time. “And?”
“And he was horrible. He’s devastated over the way this went down, same as you,” Happy snorted loudly and rolled her eyes. “And he’s worried sick about you,” Toby brushed her hair out of her face. “Same as me.”
Happy rolled her eyes again, but it was softer this time, and she stirred, finally, pulling Toby close to her and lashing herself to his torso with her arms. “S’the big deal?” she mumbled into his chest. “I’ll be fine. Always am.” She leaned her forehead against his throat, went still as he pressed a kiss into her scalp, then pulled away, pushing herself into a sitting position against the headboard. She sniffled momentarily. “I should shower.”
Toby shifted, leaned his head against her thigh. “If you want to. I think it would help.”
“Okay,” she exhaled long, then rubbed furiously at her face. “Okay, enough of this.” She ran the tips of her fingers through his hair. “Move it.”
He grinned as he rolled away from her. “Want some company?”
“Perv.”
He poured a glass of orange juice when he heard the water shut off in the bathroom. He knew better than to try and force food on her before she was ready, but she’d told him once that orange juice could get her up and running on days that even coffee couldn’t do the job. He carried the glass to the bathroom, rapped lightly on the door. “Surprise for you,” he called over the hair dryer.
He pushed the door open gently, surprised to find her slouched against the sink, wrapped in a towel, hair dripping as the dryer pointed directly at the tile.
“Hey,” he set the glass down, turned her to face him. “Hey, look at me. What’s happening? Happy?”
She raised her eyes to his. “What is he doing right now, I wonder?” she said, barely audible over the roar of the dryer. “My dad. Did he get a shower this morning, did he get…” she swallowed around the lump in her throat, “any sleep last night?”
Toby reached down, pulled the dryer from her hand, shut it off. “Hey, don’t do this to yourself, OK? He’s fine.”
“He’s in prison, Toby. How can he be—”
“It sucks,” He brushed a wet strand of hair out of her face. “Sucks like I don’t even know what, but he’s OK, Happy. We’re looking out for him. Don’t torture yourself. You worry about you right now. We’ve got him.”
She huffed, ran her hand through her wet hair. “Yeah, Cabe’s got him, alright.” Her eyes dropped closed, brows knit together. “Wait, what does that mean, we?”
“Did you really think Cabe would just put your dad in the system and walk away? The whole point of this was to protect him from that bastard. He’s being well-treated, Happy. Cabe will make sure of it. Forget every investigative report you’ve ever seen on prison conditions, or whatever is rattling around that big brain of yours.”
Happy shook her head. “What do you mean, we?”
Toby drew a deep breath. “Cabe got me in to do an intake evaluation this morning. That’s where I was most of the time I was gone.”
“You saw him?”
“Yeah.”
“And he’s OK?”
Toby pulled her into his arms, brought a hand to the back of her head. “Like his future son-in-law, he is most concerned about how you’re doing. Like his daughter, he is heartbroken and in a little bit of shock.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “But he’ll be fine. You both will be.”
“Well…well,” Toby felt her palms rise hesitantly to his back. “Well, I wanna see him, too.”
He nodded. “Give it some time, Hap.”
“No, I need to see—”
“Happy, you will visit him often. But right now, it’s important to maintain his cover, and I think you both need to take a beat before—”
“Cabe can sneak me in,” she pulled back, looking up at him. “He owes me. Just so I can see for myself that—”
“Happy, it is not an easy thing to see, OK?” Toby said. “I barely know the man, and it wasn’t easy for me to see. The two of you, take a couple weeks to settle down emotionally, and then—”
“Ugh,” she pushed him away from her, stepped around him into the bedroom. “Fine, Toby.” She pulled new clothes on in one fluid motion and flopped back on the mattress face down.
Toby appeared in the doorway. That had been a lot of work to end up right back where they started. “OK. I’ll let you get some sleep. I’ll um,” he rubbed at his gritty eyes, “I’ll read in the living room.”
He was across the room before he heard her tiny reply.
“Bring your books in here if you want.”
Happy rolled over, burrowed deeper into the mattress. She cracked one eye open. “Time’s it?”
“2 p.m.,” Toby said, setting one book down to check his phone.
“Who’s that?” She let her eyes fall closed again.
“The team.”
“Not going in today.”
“Hell, no. They’re just checking on you. Lovin’ on you. Though,” he leaned toward her playfully. “They better not be lovin’ on you the way I love on you.”
She gave him a tiny lopsided grin, reached for his phone. Her eyebrows shot up. “Cabe with the big-hearted compassion. Looking to alleviate his guilt.” She dropped the phone back in Toby’s lap and let her eyes slide closed.
“And Sly. Paige wants to know if she can cook you something.”
“He’s such a hypocrite.”
“Stop it, Happy.”
“Doc, seriously—”
“No, seriously, Cabe Gallo doesn’t have a hypocritical bone in his body. Be pissed at him if you want. Be hurt. Betrayed. But don’t say that about him. To stand over his body in the desert screaming for him to live, and then cast him off a few weeks later…you’re hurt right now, Happy, that’s completely understandable. But I have never been as hurt, as pissed, as betrayed as I was by you a few months ago, and even as you left that night, I knew you had your reasons. I was dead inside, but I knew you had your reasons. You can’t give up on him this easily, Happy. That…that would be hypocrisy.”
Happy sat bolt upright on the mattress. “When Walt hacked NASA, and he didn’t put him away, when he overlooked a slew of would-be misdemeanors and more than a few would-be felonies in your past, my past, Sly’s past…when he helped, instead of reported, Walt and I a few months ago, when he knows about that new little nest egg of Paige’s and he can’t—“ she inhaled suddenly, as if physically pained. “He can’t—he can’t even let me have…” The tears spilled down her cheeks and her face crumpled. “I just got him back,” she wailed, and allowed Toby to pull her into his arms. “I just…I just got my dad back,” she sobbed. “Why couldn’t Cabe just let me keep him?”
“Happy,” Toby cooed. “I’m so sorry. I think if it had been up to him, Dollface, he would have. But it was out of his control. And I know you’re not ready to receive this right now, but he really was trying to protect you the best way he knows how.”
Happy clung to him, sobs and hiccups wracking her body, before turning her knuckles into her chest. “Dammit, Doc, it hurts,” she wailed.
Toby pressed his hand against her chest, then pressed two fingers into her neck. “You’re OK,” he dropped a kiss to the bridge of his nose. “It’s just a little broken heart, Hap. But you’re gonna be OK.”
The shadows were growing long by the time Happy padded into the living room.
“She wakes,” Toby looked up from his medical journal. “How ya feeling?”
“Groggy,” she moaned, crawling over the arm of the couch. “And my back hurts.”
“When one lazes in bed for 20 hours that has a tendency to happen,” he stood, turning her face toward him. “Your eyes are swollen. I’ll get you an icepack.”
“Wait,” she caught his sleeve awkwardly between her fingers. From her perch on the arm of the couch, she pointed to the center cushion. “Could you…”
Toby sat, furrowing his brow.
She looked around the room, made a sound as she expelled all the air from her lungs. “I, um, I want to say thank you, for last night. Today.”
Toby gave her a toothless smile. “Happy, you don’t have to thank me. This is what we do for each other.”
“I’m sorry for…I mean I…looking back…I have not made it easy on you. I’ve just been, um…really upset.”
“I know,” he nodded. “I don’t mind the challenge.”
“Going to check on my dad, and…” she gestured back toward the bedroom, “everything you did for me today, I just…I just really appreciate it.”
Toby nodded. “Sure.”
She slid off the arm of the couch, crossing her legs as she hit the cushion. “Doc…” she picked at the cuff of her sock. “When you proposed…the first time…and I couldn’t accept…was it this bad?”
“Happy,” he sighed. “I shouldn’t have mentioned that this afternoon. You were going down the rabbit hole, and I was trying to get your attention before you sunk too deep. I was tired…it’s hard, seeing you go through this…and,” he nodded, deeply. “Yes, I will admit that the subject is still a bit of a sore spot sometimes. It was the wrong time.” He hooked his index finger under her ring finger. “You’ve said yes now. Let’s not compare each other’s battle scars tonight.”
Her eyebrows pinched together tightly. “I would never want to make you feel like this. I’m so sorry.”
Toby shrugged one shoulder. “Thank you. Somebody told me yesterday that sometimes love isn’t a refuge. Sometimes love is painful. It isn’t anybody’s fault. It just is what it is.”
Happy looked down at her engagement ring. “How did you forgive me for hurting you like that?”
Toby blinked, stunned. “Don’t you think maybe we’ve had enough heavy…” he cocked his head. “Oh,” a genuine smile split his face. “Oh, I see. You want to forgive your pal, but you don’t know where to start.”
Happy shook her head. “I…care about him. And you’re right…he didn’t want this. But I don’t know how…I can’t imagine going back to how it was before.” She raised her eyes to his. “How did you?”
Toby tilted his head back. “I guess…” he mused, considered the shadows on the ceiling. “I guess I decided I loved you more than I wanted to be pissed at you. But you don’t do it all in one big bite.” He lifted his finger. “You’ve got to start where you are.”
“And where is that?”
“Stop hiding in my apartment,” he said. “Let’s go get something to eat. It can be pizza wearing your pajamas, but you’ve done enough wallowing for now. Allow yourself to feel a little better.”
“And how does that help fix things between me and Cabe?”
“You can’t fix you and Cabe until you get up off the dirt, that’s how. Start by fixing you.” He spread his hands. “Would you trust the genius shrink already?”
Happy nodded. “Mancino’s?”
Toby grinned. “Perfect.”
Happy sat cross-legged in a back booth at Toby’s neighborhood Italian place. “So,” she said, handing the menu back to the server, “you’re welcome for this very fancy Valentine’s date. World’s best fiancee over here.”
“You’re ambulatory, Beloved, I am impressed enough with that.”
“I took you to a place with paper tablecloths.”
Toby upended the coffee mug full of crayons between them. “Just as well. Places get pissed when you draw on their cloth tablecloths.”
Happy snickered, picked up the black crayon. Left to her own devices, Happy would lay out schematics on any surface that would hold a mark, but today, she found herself coloring in a jagged heart.
“Dark heart tonight, huh?”
Happy hummed an affirmative. “Talk about your St. Valentine’s Day massacres.”
“Can you believe,” Toby poked her in the knee with his foot, “that this time last year, we’d just started dating?”
Happy dropped the crayon. “Seems like a lifetime ago.”
“Several,” he nodded. “I wonder where we’ll be a year from now. Starting a family, maybe?”
She gave him the first full-wattage grin he’d seen all day. “Maybe.”
“Keep being excited about what’s on the horizon, Happy. It’s what’ll get you through this. Everything else…you’d be surprised how things have a way of working out.”
“I don’t want to wait to get married,” she blurted.
Toby blinked. “OK.”
“I know you’re wondering that. Assume you’re wondering that. Since he can’t be there.” She shook her head. “We’ve waited long enough. I want to get married as soon as we can.”
Toby felt a little weight come off his shoulders at that. “Me, too.”
Happy picked up another crayon and leaned across the table, began drawing in front of Toby. “What you said earlier? About sometimes love isn’t a refuge?”
“Yeah?” Toby watched as she drew a red heart facing him, then put an H and a T on either side.
“I don’t agree with that, Doc.”
“Hey, don’t look at me, it wasn’t my idea.”
Happy picked up another crayon. “Speaking as someone who grew up without a refuge,” she said, sketching the outline of a house around their initials. “With you,” she kept her eyes trained on the table. “First as friends, then later…it’s the safest place I’ve ever been. Today. Every day.”
“You are a softie!” Toby accused.
“Am not.”
“And sentimental.”
“How dare you.”
Toby pointed at the drawing. “And an artiste.”
“It’s just a doodle, Doc.”
“Yeah, well, it’s about to be my lock screen,” he said as he aimed his phone at the drawing.
“No, no,” Happy put her hand out to block the shot.
“Too late,” Toby sang. “Now there is photographic proof of your love for me. Well,” he arched an eyebrow at her, “more photographic proof.”
Happy bit her lip. “I am not ashamed of that.”
“Your beet red face tells another story.”
“This is the perfect breakfast,” Happy said around a bite of chocolate cake. She passed the plate to Toby in the passenger seat. They’d both been slow to leave the truck after she’d parked in the alley outside the garage. “I wonder if there’s more.”
“If you’re appetite’s returning, I’ll steal the last piece out of Sly’s sanitized hands, if necessary.” He speared another bite. “But I might make you share.”
“Deal. I wish you were coming on the trip.”
“Me too. But there’s limited space, and none of the case is in my wheelhouse. It’ll be fine. You’ll have Sly there, too, he’ll keep the ice broken.”
Happy shook her head. “I don’t know what to say to him.”
“Because you’re trying to solve the whole problem again. Just say good morning.”
“And then what?”
“And then, play it by ear. I’l be on comms.” He laid his hand over hers on the gear shift, then got out of the car.
“Let her come to you,” he said softly as he met Cabe at the door to the garage. “It’ll be fine.”
Cabe nodded, pulled the door open for Toby, Paige and Ralph, and then Happy appeared in front of him. Cabe drew himself up straighter, cleared his throat.
“Morning,” Happy said, then ducked into the garage.
Cabe felt the knot in his chest loosen for the first time in two days. “Morning, kid.”