So I have a larger, more substantial fic that will be coming out once we know the fate of the show. Depending on what that is, that larger fic is either going to be "here's an idea of what could happen next year" or "hey this is my idea for season five and if you like it feel free to make it your headcanon." But on Nikki's Instagram the other day, a few of us suggested that it would be fun if this happened next year, and she liked the idea, and I thought hey, here's another idea of something to write, especially while we hang in this limbo. So here we go.

"Hey, Patty! Over here!"

She looked around, seeming confused, so Ralph stood up while continuing to wave. Her eyes fell on him, and she smiled. "Hey, Ralph!"

"Are you waiting for Sylvester?" He asked as she came over and joined him on the bench.

"Yeah. We're going downtown at ten. Or rather, whenever he gets out of the meeting since it's already 9:59."

"I'm sure they'll be done soon. They've been in there a solid half hour. Most of their contracts are worked out in that time, and this one doesn't seem to be on...the other group's radar, so less competition."

Patty shrugged. "It's his commitment downtown. So if we're late, it's his tardy, not mine."

"Relaxing a bit more nowadays, huh?"

She shrugged again. "Well, a lot of things are different."

Ralph nodded. They sat in silence, staring at the people going by. One was walking a dog. It wasn't the dog they rescued from the cistern, but it looked similar.

Ralph looked back at Patty. "My mom doesn't let me help. Even on the easy jobs. I barely know what's going on."

"That sucks."

He bit his lip. "You see Sylvester almost every day. How is he?"

"He's having a hard time." Patty sighed, smoothing down her skirt. "He's okay if we're actively working on something, I suppose. He's working on one of those Millennium Problems."

"Math is the only thing that consistently gets him into his head."

"You mean out of his head?"

"No," Ralph said. "When we get like this, we cope by withdrawing within ourselves."

Patty gave him a long look. "How are you doing, Ralph?"

He looked down at his knees. He hated his skinny little legs. "I don't know."

There was a long silence, and when Patty spoke again, Ralph could tell she was being cautious. "Who…who's side are you on?"

Ralph bounced his heel against the pavement. "I don't know. Walter hurt her, and I hate him for hurting her. But he only did what he did because he thought that's what she wanted. He was learning, and you mess up when you learn." He bounced his heel again. If his mother was here, she would lecture him for mistreating his shoe. "But back to the other hand, he made her cry." Hard. At night when she thought Ralph was asleep. "And how can I side with someone who makes her cry?"

Patty scooted closer and put her arm around him. Just a few weeks ago, he would have practically short circuited. His heart maybe picked up the pace a bit, but that was it. "It's complicated," she said. "I know." She shook her head slowly. "I just can't believe after all that, Florence does have feelings for your…for Walter. I know I haven't known everyone as long as you, but how would he ever be able to work with Walter again after that?"

"She likes Sly, too."

"She has a mighty fine way of showing it," Patty said.

"That's the thing," Ralph said. "She has shown it. None of us had any clue she had a thing for Walter. But there were indications with Sly. She'll get over this thing."

"I want to be positive," Patty said. "But I mean…is thinking that realistic at this point? We don't even know what's been going on at the garage."

"No, but I think I know what it's like. For her. It reminds me of a crush I had when I was a kid. No, I mean," he added at her amused smirk. "When I was a kid kid. I was like nine. I was just starting to make friends at school. There were some girls in my class who could have been well suited for me eventually and vice versa, but I fixated on the leader of the group I found myself in. Her name was Sloan, and she was one of the first people who was truly kind to me. I got this crush on her. It lasted for a little while and went away. Thinking back on it now, even if we'd been old enough to date, we wouldn't have really made sense. We weren't that much alike, but the ways we were alike would have just exacerbated our flaws. We wouldn't have worked together like that."

"What was her name?"

"Sloan."

"Right. You said that." Patty tapped the tips of her fingers together. "So what? We hope Florence's crush fades, hope she tells everyone that, hope they get their heads out of their asses and talk to each other and hope that they agree to be a team again before some innocent person dies because one of these two teams are down a few essential roles? That's a lot of hoping, Ralph."

He sighed. "Yeah, but what can we do?"

At first, their shared look was casual, but it grew, in unison, to something more intense. Ralph knew they were having the same thought before the girl even spoke. "That's the question," Patty said, a light in her eyes. "Right there. What can we do?"

"It's up to us," Ralph said. "For a bunch of geniuses they can be pretty stupid and my mom is proud to a fault sometimes."

Patty reached into her bag and pulled out a notebook and color coordinated pen. "So what's the plan? Locking your mom and Walter in an elevator? Siccing Dr. Rizzuto on Florence? And what should we call this operation?"

She'd spoken so fast Ralph almost didn't process everything she said. "Situations where people can talk, definitely. And natural calming remedies, like our strategy with Cabe's trial, things that will help enhance logical thinking and make people them less tense and less likely to fight."

"Excellent, excellent," Patty mumbled, scribbling into the notebook. Or rather, writing fast, Ralph thought, since scribbling implied the writing would be difficult to read and her penmanship was almost annoyingly perfect even in a rush.

It wasn't long before Ralph heard his mother calling his name, but he and Patty had filled almost an entire half page with ideas. "Coming!" he called back, standing up. "Meet up in a few days?" He asked.

"Absolutely. I'm free between four thirty and six on Friday. Oh, before you go," she added quickly, pointing with the tip of the pen to the top of the page.

"Oh, a name, uh…" Ralph wracked his brain. "I got nothing."

Patty pointed the pen at him. "Did you ever see The Parent Trap?"

He had. His mother loved both the Hayley Mills one and the Lindsey Lohan remake – enough that Ralph actually knew the names of both of those actresses. He thought a moment, then smiled confidently. "The Cyclone Trap."

Patty wrote it in big, bold letters.

I hated the name Team Centipede and Sly calling them the Human Centipede just made it a million times worse (how they made THREE of those movies is beyond me) so please know every time I type that word in this fic I will cringe.