The next few weeks were, of course, tough for Joseph. However, slowly and surely once the shock had worn off and with the support his friends gave him, he started to return to his normal self, working through his grief in his own way. He was still quieter than usual and stayed away from social events for a while, but with time his focus returned, he was able to smile again and engage with life. Even if sometimes doing so would bring him close to tears as he could hear his grandad reminding him to live life to the full, don’t squander it and certainly enjoy it.

That abrupt behaviour made him rather apologetic, especially to Sofia who saw the most of it. “No one expects you to be the same after this.” She reminded him gently, her voice soothing and gentle as she held him close. “He was a father to you. It is normal for someone to change after a loss like that.”

Therefore, as it always does, life went on regardless of how much someone wished they could take a break from it all, a respite to heal.

~-x-~

With the end of autumn term approaching faster than any of them would like, were ramping up their work on the prototype. They had to not only register their application for funding from different sources but to acquire them in line with the CAPEX deadlines, meaning that they had till the end of the year. That way all expenditures and budgets could be appropriately set by the beginning of the financial year. So far they had put in bids for a number of potential investors and the available departmental pot.

They knew that their success would depend on what they could show to prove their worth.

“Get anything good?” Natasha asked without looking up from where she was typing on the laptop. The cloying aroma of cigarettes was a giveaway that didn’t require her vision.

Zachariah smiled despite himself as he returned from his smoke break. “Nothing we haven’t already heard.” He admitted and she nodded offhandly. No matter how much he knew she’d prefer it if he quit smoking, she had never denied that it was a useful way for him to get all the latest gossip. “So, how’d Barney do?”

“Why did you call it Barney?” Zachariah shrugged at her repeated question, he honestly didn’t know. Their prototype just felt like a Barney to him. “Anyway, it’s still off.” She explained as he walked up behind her so he could read the screen over her shoulder. “Our LOD was higher before...” She indicated to the chart she had up that she’d quickly plotted from their latest batch of results. He hummed in thought as he saw the calculated limit of detection was currently much higher than they’d had it before. They needed to get it lower, the lower amounts they could detect the better. This didn’t make any sense, Antonis had been thorough when they were working on the limits originally and his theoretical values had proven to be around the right ballpark before they’d mounted the array.

In the end he figured that talking through his thoughts would allow them both to organise them into a logical order to problem solve. “You and Toni had a much better signal before we mounted it... And Sofia ran those calculations three times since.” Natasha nodded along to show her agreement. She remembered it the same way. In a way that reassured him, but at the same time it was annoying there was no obvious problem to fix. “Then we better take it out and recheck the alignment. Maybe we knocked something...”

“You’ve wanted to dismantle it since you put it together.”

“It keeps me indispensable.”

Suddenly the jovial mood left her face. “Allerton threatened to get rid of you again?”

Zachariah shook his head. “Not as such, but the budget rumours are still circulating.”

Natasha pulled a face. “That’ll cheer Sofia and Joe up.” She grumbled. They had been trying to get some clarification on whether or not they’d be able to keep either Sofia or Joseph after their write up year but so far they hadn’t been given any reassurances or definitive answers on the matter. Zachariah knew it would be great if they could keep them both one, or even just one of them, but with the rumours circulating he would be thankful if they still had their jobs at the end of the year. Antonis would call him a pessimist, Natasha a cynic, he preferred the term realist. Though he had to admit that Natasha might not be entirely wrong in her assessment and if she were being entirely honest her outlook wasn’t that different to his. Their only reassurance was that if they were running that close to the wire they wouldn’t have been allowed to advertise for a PhD placement for Olivia to have started.

Zachariah nodded in sympathy to her annoyance, they were all equally frustrated by the uncertainty, but there was nothing they could do about it other than focus on their work and attempt to increase their funding. Natasha put the computer away and they set to dismantling Barney so that they could start over.

They ended up spending all day checking over Barney. From the angles they’d drawn on and used to affix the sensor array to the connections they’d made to do so. Until it was time for Zachariah to pack up and he left with his usual warning not to touch anything whilst he wasn’t there.

~-x-~

In the end they’d found nothing. Zachariah decided it was time for plan B. “Plan B?” Olivia asked as Sofia started passing out coffee mugs and Joseph and Natasha pushed a bunch of chairs out of their way.

“Darts.” Antonis explained as he plucked them from the dartboard that hung on one of the notice boards.

Zachariah nearly laughed as Olivia looked around at the rest of them as if to ask how that answered her question. “I’ve found the best way to get the most out of our geeks is to distract them from thinking until the light bulb goes off inside their head.” Zachariah explained as he sipped his coffee. “Somehow they work better when they’re not thinking too hard about a problem.”

It occurred to Zachariah that no one argued with the fact that he’d singled out Natasha and Antonis as geeks. All six of them were highly smart individuals - all scientists either having completed or working towards their PhDs - and could easily qualify for the label. For a brief moment he felt insulted on Sofia’s behalf that he hadn’t included her in that category, those three were on another level compared to the rest of them, for slightly different but no less impressive reasons. But did people accept it because they instinctively knew that or was it because even as adults and comfortable in their own selves, the stigma of being labelled such remained?

Zachariah was almost lost in his own side tracked thoughts as Antonis started the game by landing three good shots. “What they really just want to do is watch me fail... repeatedly.” Natasha joked as she walked over to pluck the darts from the board.

She wasn’t wrong, Zachariah thought with amusement, that was just an added benefit.

As Antonis and Natasha got into the swing of a very lopsided game - Antonis was a much better player than Natasha and they all knew it - the whole team went over what they knew about the problem and what they’d tried and subsequently what had failed to fix it. “So, basically, what you’re saying is that since we’ve mounted the sensor array to the prototype we’ve reduced our sensitivity? But removing it hasn’t returned it to the previous levels we saw?” Natasha summarised before making another irritated noise as she yet again missed any numbers on the board. Antonis just about resisted grinning as he collected the darts for his turn.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Yes.” Zachariah agreed, briefly throwing Olivia a glare as she got too close to touching what appeared to be an abandoned circuit breadboard on the central desk. Olivia quickly retracted her hand, realising it was a work in progress despite the fact she hadn’t seen anyone touch it since she started. Zachariah smiled internally and made a mental reminder to talk her through some of the mini-projects that lay half completed around the lab and office. However, right now, they were focusing on one problem.

Sofia looked up from where she was checking the wheels on her skateboard, having borrowed some grease from the lab. “So... what would cause that?” She asked.

“The obvious problem would be misalignment, but you’ve already checked that.” Joseph piped up.

“True, but if it’s only just off...” Natasha trailed off as she paused at the dartboard, tapping the darts against her chin as she thought. “Have we checked the power connections? Maybe the problem isn’t with the array itself?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Zachariah agreed as he finished up his coffee.

“Your go.” Antonis prompted and Natasha rolled her eyes at him before moving to take her shots. Zachariah hid his smile into his mug as he could tell she was wondering - yet again - why she agreed to play knowing that she was dreadful. Especially against Antonis who had a good aim on him. For all her brassy nature she was relatively ego free and didn’t care too much about embarrassing herself, Zachariah also suspected she secretly liked being included.

“Okay, that’s our plan for today sorted. Who wants to go out tonight then?” Natasha asked brightly.

“It’s a school night.” Joseph reminded her.

“And?” She challenged. “You three are still students.” She added with a wave towards him, Sofia and Olivia.

“Still... it is unusual for you to heavy drink midweek.” Sofia said.

Antonis chuckled. “She is trying to escape.”

Zachariah knew that meant he was going to wake up to find her crashed on his sofa again as Natasha chuckled at the confusion on the rest of the group’s faces. “If I don’t go out tonight I’m going to murder my housemate. All I’ve heard for the last three days is him and his new boyfriend at it all night.” She paused in thought as Antonis took his turn. “I wonder if I can convince my other housemate to swap rooms...”

“Which room?” Zachariah teased.

Natasha brightened up considerably as she glanced at the lab in thought. “That could work. I have access to powerful cleaning agents...”

“I think drinks would be easier, so we better go out just to keep you sane.” Joseph figured and the rest of them agreed. “Or you crash somewhere else.”

“Drinking is more fun.” Natasha quipped before missing the board entirely. That was why they set up the dartboard in the middle of the notice boards. “Who knows, it might improve my aim.”

“Lost cause.” Antonis teased.

~-x-~

Once their break was over it was back to work as usual, though it involved even more dismantling of their prototype than before. They had decided to double check everything and not just the power, though that was where they started.

The end of the day saw parts strewn across the lab in a way that almost made Zachariah cry - despite the fact he had helped them do it - resulting in both Natasha and Antonis teasing him that he was more likely to have robot babies than real ones. He’d retorted that at least they wouldn’t take apart a real baby, before pausing and deciding that was only because neither of them were medical professionals or had backgrounds in biology. Then paused again before deciding that actually it was only because of the moral implications and that he should be thankful neither were evil geniuses, or at least that Antonis could keep Natasha in check.

However, the alcohol they all consumed that evening cheered them up. Though some partied much harder than others. Zachariah and Natasha were out the longest, Natasha only left because Zachariah actually carried her out with him. Later on, when they sobered up, they became a little concerned that no one actually questioned why he was carrying a clearly inebriated woman over his shoulder.

He was not surprised to find her still asleep on his sofa as he was about to leave for work. He grinned to himself before he stooped to muss up her hair until she swatted at him. “Aren’t you too old to be crashing on sofas on school days?” He teased now she was awake.

“I hate you.” Natasha retorted, clearly still half asleep. “You better have coffee ready for me when I arrive.”

“We’ll probably be on the third batch by then.”

Zachariah sidestepped the arm she threw in his direction before she’d even moved. He knew her too well, even still, she only just missed him. He had no qualms about leaving her there to sort herself out, his housemates knew her well by now and this was hardly the first time she’d crashed on their sofa. They trusted her only to help herself to Zachariah’s cereal and his shower stuff. He should probably stop humouring her irresponsible whims, it only encouraged her, but then again between them and Antonis they balanced each other out pretty well. But sometimes Zachariah did wonder if he should give Antonis some back up on the responsibility front. Lord knew that Natasha was unlikely to step up on that issue.

Zachariah couldn’t help but reflect that she’d possibly done this too many times when it was only Olivia who looked confused when she arrived at work in her dress and heels from the night before. Sofia already had coffee ready. “You have about an hour before Allerton is due back.” She warned as if they had a whole protocol for this situation. Zachariah supposed that they kind of did.

“Thanks. Maybe seeing me like this might give her the breakdown we need to get rid of her...” She considered as she swapped her heels for a pair of trainers she had in her desk before grabbing a bag of spare clothes and heading to get changed whilst Zachariah muttered something about not getting his hopes up.

He left them to it to go and check on Antonis in the lab who was busy drawing their Christmas tree mess as he walked himself through what they had. As he did that Zachariah resumed testing the electrical and power connections and ultimately found nothing wrong with them. “Is Nat in yet?” Antonis checked once he finished his diagram and Zachariah nodded.

A few minutes later Antonis returned following Natasha who was busy staring intently at the diagram she held in front of her. The two men shared a familiar and amused look, Natasha got like this she’d seen something but didn’t know quite what she’d seen. It was always worth letting her see the thought through. She stopped next to the amplifier array and her eyes darted between the notepad and the device as if comparing. “It is the same.” Antonis assured her as he stopped next to her shoulder and did the same comparison.

“It’s back to front.” Natasha said as if it were so obvious she couldn’t understand why none of them had spotted it till that moment. Zachariah’s head snapped up as she said that and he frowned at the same components only to find that she was right. He looked up at them to see the same expression of realisation cross their faces at the same time as they turned back to each other. “Joe.” They said in unison.

Zachariah pinched the bridge of his nose. Joseph was a chemist and good at working out how to improve sensitivity, detectable components and the like, but the practical engineering was not his strong suit. Sofia on the other hand had spent her youth building and dismantling computers and consoles, that was what had got her into computer science in the first place. That was why they had tried to ensure Sofia was in the lab with him at all times when they started, they hadn’t been intended to play match-maker.

They shouldn’t have let him help with the engineering whilst he was still reeling from his grandfather’s death. “At least we’ve found the problem.” Zachariah finally decided, each word slow and careful. It was frustrating, but ultimately it wasn’t really Joe’s fault and he certainly hadn’t done it deliberately or maliciously. Zachariah knew that and so he would make himself act accordingly, but maybe get Antonis to explain to the rest of the group in case his own irritation seeped into his tone and was misconstrued.

“He’s taking this better than I expected.” Natasha fake whispered to Antonis as he took his notepad back from her.

“I think he is committing how much you drank last night to memory, that way he can get you hungover next time we need to troubleshoot.” Antonis replied in kind.

“You two do know I can hear you, right?” Zachariah looked at his friends only to receive two innocent grins, in fairness, it went some way to dispelling his frustration at the situation. Even if it worried him that Natasha might be a bad influence on Antonis.