Eventually, the conversation changed from whether he would return to how.
Isaac refused to close the garage.
Eleanor refused to waste his experience on occasional consulting calls.
They negotiated like engineers.
The final arrangement was not the original full-time position. It was a senior technical role with scheduled blocks in Houston, remote analysis from Harlow through approved systems, and authority to lead independent failure reviews without entering the normal management track.
Isaac would spend roughly half his working time on government propulsion programs and half in the garage.
"No direct reports," he insisted.
"Adrian counts," Eleanor said.
"Adrian is not a report. He's a recurring problem."
"I'll put that in his review."
"Don't."
"Too late."
The arrangement required infrastructure.
NASA would not place classified equipment permanently inside an open repair garage, so secure work remained limited to approved remote facilities and periodic travel. Isaac's garage computer could handle unclassified modeling, professional development, and general design work. Anything sensitive stayed inside government systems.
The boundary suited him.
He did not want the garage to become a secret laboratory.
It was his father's place.
That mattered more after Houston, not less.
Before his first formal planning week, Isaac spent three days clearing old jobs.
He repaired Mrs. Delgado's delivery van again after a sensor failed.
He rebuilt a water pump for a rancher who tried to pay him in cash and venison.
He finished a seized tractor axle that every shop in the county had refused.
Then a seventeen-year-old named Noah Pierce appeared at the bay door carrying a bicycle wheel.
"Mr. Merritt?"
"Depends."
"My mom says you fix anything."
"Your mom exaggerates."
Noah held up the wheel.
"It's bent."
"I can see that."
"Can you teach me how to fix it?"
Isaac almost said no.
He had no employees because employees created payroll, paperwork, scheduling, training, liability, and conversation.
Noah stood there anyway.
"Why?"
"Because I keep breaking things trying to learn from videos."
"That's one way."
"My school doesn't have shop anymore."
Isaac looked at the wheel.
"You know what a spoke does?"
"Holds the rim."
"Wrong."
Noah's face fell.
"Good," Isaac said. "Now we can start."
Two hours later, the wheel was straight.
Noah returned Saturday with a lawn mower.
Then Wednesday with nothing, just a notebook.
By the end of the month, he had become something Isaac insisted was not an apprentice.
"Then what am I?" Noah asked.
"In the way."
"Do I get paid?"
"For being in the way?"
"Fair."