Author's Note: This is my take on what happened between the team cleaning up the garage and the Toby/Happy scene at the end of "Fractured" (2x16). Thanks to Flavato Forever and Anonwrite for their proofreading assistance and feedback! I really appreciate it. :-)

So don't ever think I need more
I've got the one to live for
No one else will do
I'm telling you
Just put your heart in my hands
I promise it won't get broken

"To love someone with all of your heart requires reaching them where they are with the only words they can understand." ~Shannon L. Alder

Toby never thought that Happy would ever reciprocate his feelings. But, thanks to some miracle instrumented by the gods, it actually happened. It was after the L.A. earthquake, when emotions were still running on the intense high from earlier, when it finally happened. Happy had left the garage before him; he heard her rev up her bike and drive away not two minutes after her departure. He assumed she was tired from the events of the day and drained from the hours-long adrenaline rush, so he wouldn't see her until work the next day. The fact that she didn't say goodbye bugged him – he thought they were growing closer. He looked towards the door she had walked through less than five minutes ago, puzzled, but then put it out of his mind as he finished up his part of the cleaning before leaving for the night.

It was about an hour and a half after Happy left that he parked his car and walked up to his apartment. He was pulling his key out to unlock his door when he ran into another person walking in the opposite direction. The psychiatrist glanced up to apologize but what – or rather, who – he saw had stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Happy, what are you doing here? Are you okay? Is something wrong?" Toby started babbling, shocked but happy to see his colleague.

Happy looked around nervously and shifted on her feet. "Um, well, yeah…it's nothing. Just wanted to check on you, make sure you were okay after the quake. Okay, goodbye." Happy tried to dash off down the stairs, but Toby caught her arm before she could make a clean getaway.

"Hap, wait," Toby said, knowing more was going on that she wasn't saying.

Happy, though she was a good eight inches shorter than the doctor, shot him a death glare that would have caused most to whither. However, Toby had become immune to moments such as these, and he kept a level gaze on the mechanical engineer for a few more moments.

Eventually, she lowered her eyes, let out a deep, exhausted sigh, and mumbled something to herself. Toby couldn't catch all of it, but he could have sworn she said something along the lines of "can't do this anymore."

'What can't she do anymore?' the psychiatrist wondered. Curious about this, he unlocked his door and gently guided Happy to his sofa, closing the door behind them before taking a seat opposite the mechanic.

He waited quietly, but a few minutes passed without Happy speaking. Finally, Toby broke the silence.

"You said you couldn't do this anymore? What is 'this' exactly?" the psychiatrist gently prodded.

Happy looked at him almost angrily, but Toby could see she was wringing her hands with worry.

"We've known each other for a while," her words came out as a whisper.

'Wow, something really must be bothering her,' Toby thought. Happy was never this quiet about something unless it was really disturbing or unsettling to her.

"And we got – I mean, we were – well, it's kind of like…"

A part of Toby wanted to laugh, watching Happy string together phrase after meaningless phrase in an attempt to get her point across, but he knew that that wouldn't solve anything for either one of them.

"Maybe I shouldn't have come," she concluded, but didn't move. "It's just…"

She looked at Toby hopefully, as if he might say something to rescue her from the awkwardness of her inability to express her feelings, but he stayed quiet. She sighed.

"Forget it," she muttered. And without any sort of warning, she leaned across the sofa to press her lips to his, giving him the most passionate and frustration-filled kiss Toby had ever had. The vexation and tension of the situation only fueled the fire, and soon Toby was responding, his arms wrapped firmly around her waist, pulling her on his lap. At some point, Toby's hat had been knocked off his head, and Happy was grabbing onto Toby's curls in an effort to release her exasperation whilst pulling him in as close as possible for the kiss.

It was not long after they started kissing that Toby knew that they were about to pass a point of no return. Still holding onto Happy with one hand, Toby pulled away so he could look into Happy's eyes. For a moment, there was a look of hurt and confusion as to why Toby did what he did. He quickly responded to the unspoken question to assuage her fears.

"Happy, Hap," he began and kissed her lightly again, "Are you sure you want to do this? I know you prefer action over anything," Toby smiled wryly at this comment, and he could have sworn that a faint blush appeared on Happy's cheeks. "However, I don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to do or are not comfortable with." He tilted his head slightly to the right as he read her facial expressions, looking at her eyes, to gauge her response.

After a moment, the mechanical engineer looked him straight in the eye, and without any hesitation, she said, "I want this. You are the one I want, the only one."

Toby leaned down to kiss her as Happy closed her eyes and tilted her head up to press her lips to his own. It was in that moment, as Toby held her in his arms, that Happy knew she could give her heart away. In Toby, she had found not only a lover and a best friend, but an intellectual equal and partner in life.

Growing up, she had let herself trust few people, and every time she was let down in one way or another. In her late teens, after she'd left high school and before she met Walter and joined Scorpion, she had given herself to someone who she thought would show her the love and care she had secretly craved for during those lonely years in foster care. Instead, the guy who Happy thought loved her only used her. Her abilities were unrivaled, and he used them advantageously in his line of business. Then, as the relationship continued, he grew jealous of the looks and comments Happy would get about her body; he tried to show Happy that she belonged to no one else but him. After weeks of fighting off his advances, she beat him in retaliation after he tried to take advantage of her in a drunken rage. Before dawn the next morning, Happy had packed up her stuff and fled. She left him, her foster care years, and her old life behind her; when she met Walter, he offered her a fresh start. And then, when she met Toby several years later, she found in him a kindred spirit of sorts, one who understood the pain of absent parental love, abuse, and abandonment in their adolescent years.

As she and Toby grew closer – first as colleagues, then as best friends, and now as a potential couple – Happy was afraid of opening up and allowing herself to be vulnerable. Her past experiences showed that only brought pain and suffering. But, in the year since Toby had slept through their date, the mechanic came to this realization: life is full of pain and heartache, but those feelings will be multiplied if you deny yourself what you want and love the most. And that night, as she looked into Toby's eyes, she realized he was it. All those years of searching for love and security, she found in this sarcastic but kindhearted psychiatrist from New York. She was treasured for who she was, and in spite of everything life might throw at them, her heart would be safe in his hands. And for Happy, that was something she never knew she wanted until she had it, and it was a feeling she never wanted to relinquish.

"I have not always chosen the safest path. I've made my mistakes, plenty of them. I sometimes jump too soon and fail to appreciate the consequences. But I've learned something important along the way: …to heed the call of my heart… [The] safest path is not always the best path and I've learned that the voice of fear is not always to be trusted." ~Steve Goodier