Greg was waiting for them. He had put a stool near the observation area so Noah could see without crowding the workbench, and a clean copy of the old timing diagram rested on a clipboard beside it. He looked at Angela first. "We'll keep him away from anything moving or hot," he promised. Then he looked at Noah, and his expression grew uncomfortable.
"I also owe you an apology. I laughed when you spoke yesterday. You were trying to help, and I treated you like you couldn't understand anything because you're young. That wasn't fair."
Noah stared at him, surprised by the directness. He had received many apologies from classmates after small arguments, but this was different. Greg was a grown man whose hands were scarred from decades of work, and he seemed genuinely embarrassed. "It's okay," Noah said. Greg shook his head.
"It wasn't okay. You don't have to make me feel better about it." Noah considered that for a moment, then said, "I just wanted the car to work." Greg's smile appeared for the first time without an edge. "So did I. I think I forgot that part."
Victor watched the exchange from beside the shelves. Something in it reminded him of how often his father apologized to the men who worked in his shop. Edward had been demanding but never considered respect a resource that diminished when given away. Victor had admired his father's success while quietly rejecting the patient habits that made people loyal to him. Now he saw a mechanic regain a boy's trust simply by acknowledging what had happened. It was an inexpensive gesture, and therefore, in a way Victor was only beginning to appreciate, one of the rarest things in his house.
The team walked Noah through the day's work, explaining which readings had been checked and what remained uncertain. He listened from his stool, asking questions only after Daniel paused. There were moments when the technical language passed beyond his understanding, and he wrote unfamiliar words in his notebook rather than pretending to know them. Greg was surprised to find that teaching the boy required him to explain assumptions he'd been repeating automatically for years. The exercise forced the mechanics to agree on the order of their tests, which brought unexpected clarity to their own work.
They inspected the new assembly together, though only the technicians handled the parts. Greg showed Noah the intact identification markings and the measurement record, then placed the damaged component beside a photograph of the replacement so the difference was visible. Noah studied the old rubber bond, where a pale crack cut across the dark material. "Dad used to say a new coat of paint can hide an old problem," he murmured. Victor, standing behind him, looked down at the notebook resting in the boy's lap. "Did he write things like that down?" he asked.
"Sometimes," Noah answered. He opened the notebook and showed Victor a page filled with small diagrams, each labeled in a compact handwriting. There was a drawing of a pulley, a row of measurements, and a note about listening for changes under load. Victor bent closer.