Author's Note: So I'm still pissed off about the mess that was season two. The whole thing was a disaster. I still think the way the writers set it up it was highly out of character for Paige to give up Mike's location to Sid, but since there seems to be no more explanation for that other than "she was emotional" I would at least appreciate an unapologetic follow through from Paige, (even though we're not going to get it).
The romantic in me wants Paige to feel guilty and regretful for (nearly) killing Mike, and have her still have feelings for him. The feminist in me is pissed off on her behalf, and wants a showdown. So here's my show down, I guess.
WARNINGS: This is not my normal fluff stuff. I'm sure I'll write more romantic stories later, but this isn't it. This is a story of a woman who is fed up with an ex boyfriend's shit. In an earlier draft, she pistol whipped him.
Also this is a lot for one chapter, but there was really no good place to break it up.
Big thanks to somewhereinthedreams for helping me sort through my Premiere feelings and encouraging me to write this.
Paige is finally putting away her laundry which has been piling up around her room for the past month. Having the rest of the house clean again, had left her with a sharp contrast of the mess of her private space. Plus the mindless task of separating the blood soaked garments from the clean, or at least salvageable, is soothing and lets her mind wander as she sorts.
The soft knock at the door breaks her brief moment of reflection, like a crack in a window that's about to shatter.
"Fucking perfect." Paige groans, balling the sweater up in her clenched fists.
If she wanted to talk to people, she would leave the door open. Just because they all live together doesn't mean they need to spend every waking moment together. The bonfire was about all the kumbaya she could take for one evening. The only reason she attended that particularly uncomfortable event, was because Briggs' shit always seemed to affect the rest of the house, and she wanted to stay one step ahead of the oncoming shit storm.
The door opens without her permission or acknowledgment, and into her room walks Mike Fucking Warren. The last person on this planet she wants to see right now. As if it would ever be anyone else. At least he has the good sense to look sheepish.
"Hey." Mike says softly, putting his hands in his pockets and giving her a gentle smile.
"Wrong room." Paige growls, going back to the task of laundry in front of her.
"I want to talk." Mike implores.
"Yeah, well I don't."
Paige needs him to leave. NOW.
"Come on, Paige. Don't do this. Talk to me." Mike continues to gently push her.
"We're upstairs Mike. Which means, I have a gun. Get out." Paige warns.
Even out of her peripheral vision, she doesn't miss the way Mike's eyes nervously dart to the gun sitting on her desk, three steps away.
She continues ignoring him, choosing to focus on her laundry instead. Her hands shake as she folds the ripped stained shirt, but at least it keeps them occupied. She doesn't want Mike to see her shaking and misinterpret her anger for nervousness. She's not nervous. She's pissed off.
"You're not going to shoot me. Come on. Talk to me." Mike says calmly, after a beat too long of hesitation.
"You sound pretty sure about that." Paige says woodenly, folding her shirts in even mechanical movements.
"I trust you." Mike says, his voice dripping with patronizing compassion.
"That's crap. You do NOT trust me!" Paige gives up the laundry throwing it down in a huff. This was all such bullshit coming from him. Especially after the shit he pulled today.
"I know why you did what you did. I know you." Mike reassures her, and clearly he has no idea what Paige is even pissed about.
"If it had been Briggs running point with Sid tonight, and not me, would you still have shown? Would you have rushed out of the hospital, all hopped up on drugs, and given up the one tactical edge we had of Sid thinking you were dead, and then just let the bastard walk? No, if Briggs was there, you would have trusted him to handle the op."
"That wasn't an op. It was a suicide mission."
"If it had been Briggs instead of me, would you have trusted him to nail Sid, or not?!" Paige demands again, "Tell me!"
"Tell me tonight you weren't planning on sacrificing yourself!" Mike counters in something that almost could be considered a yell.
It's the most emotion Paige has seen Mike express all night, but it's not even the normal amount of contempt he would express for someone screwing up his dry cleaning. She barely recognized the man in front of her even though it had only been a little over a week since she'd last seen him.
"At least then we would finally have Sid on something!"
"At what price? Your life?" Mike prods gently.
"It wasn't your decision to make." Paige says, hating the fact that she can feel tears of frustration welling up in her eyes.
Paige never cries when she's sad. She may feel like she'd like to, but the tears never come. Paige cries when she's angry. Frustrated. Extremely emotionally over the top fed up pissed off. She doesn't fall apart though. She can still get shit done with her mascara streaking her face, but it's an incredibly inconvenient physical reaction.
However, Mike has never seen her cry, and Paige is going to make god damn sure he never does. Because he would think she was crying over him. Because the way Mike sees things, everything Paige does has to do with him and she's sick of it. There's more important things in this world than whatever little romantic drama he's concocted in his head that he's imagined from a summer of flirting and a few rounds of sex.
"Sid, would have killed you. I didn't have a choice, Paige. When it comes to you I-" Mike starts to take a step forward but Paige stops him before he can continue. She sees what he's trying to do here.
"Don't. Seriously Mike. I meant it. I don't need you to save me. I need you to stay the hell out of my way." Paige tries to push past him to open the door so he can see his exit, but he takes her by her good arm with exceedingly gentle fingers.
"I'm sorry I had to mess up your op, but I'm not sorry for what I did, because you're still alive." Mike assures her. "Look you have to forgive yourself."
"No, I don't." Paige cuts off his sanctimonious lecture. "I don't have to forgive myself, and I don't have to forgive you either. Jesus when is anyone in this house going to take a little personal responsibility? We're all a bunch of hypocrites! We spend so much time trying to put the bad guys behind bars, we never even consider that we've become the bad guys."
"You've made mistakes, we all have, but it doesn't mean you need to leave Graceland." Mike assures her and he must have been without oxygen for longer than she thought if he honestly thinks the two of them could live together after all that's happened between them.
"Yes it does! I don't deserve to be here anymore, and you know what's more? I don't want to be here. Not the way it's become." Paige insists.
"Running away is not the answer. Paige, we can fix this." Mike pleads and once again he seems to be missing her point.
"No, we can't Mike!" Paige screams in frustration, "Did you hear Briggs story? A police officer is possibly dead. Briggs helped kidnap a boy whose only crime we know of was his bloodtype, and now he's dead. Who is going to tell that kid's mother? How will they explain that their innocent son, who they loved, was kidnapped by no fault of his own, tortured, scared, butchered, and they can't even have a funeral because a federal agent burned the body to a crisp."
"We're not talking about Briggs anymore are we?" Mike says, crossing his arms uncomfortably.
"Do you remember your first sauce night, Mike?" Paige asks.
Mike just shrugs in a way that should mean yes, but his casual stance tells Paige he doesn't. Not really. Sure, Mike remembers everything, but he doesn't truly remember the experience and the feelings it brought. The significance of it. Paige remembers, because that was the first time that she realized she might have feelings for the blonde rookie. More than just attraction, but actual feelings.
"You were so torn up about Eddie's death. You remember that? You felt so guilt ridden, over a man who had voluntarily gotten involved with a murderous psychopath. I came into the kitchen, and you were still standing at the sink. Your hands were wrinkled, and the water had run cold. You couldn't stop scrubbing…" Her voice has become soft with emotion at the memory of tenderly leading him away from the sink and tucking him into his bed, "You were wracked with guilt for months. All over Bello's second hand man. A criminal who committed suicide. Where's that Mike? Now you're comfortable to just sit by and watch while innocent people are murdered?"
"Paige, you gotta let go. Sometimes with what we do, people die. You're a great agent. The letter from Lena may have been a fake, but every word of it was true. You're an incredible agent. You deserve that award." Mike pleads, and she finds it incredible that he has the nerve to say her name.
"Lena is dead, Mike. That is all on me. So no I don't want a fucking award!" Paige snaps, all memories of tenderness quickly evaporate and she is back to boiling anger again.
"Paige, sometimes we try our best and bad things still happen-" Mike tries to comfort her, tries to take her into his arms, but she pushes him away from her again.
"This wasn't some bad thing that happened, Mike! This was me! I should have taken her from that bus the second I met her, but instead I used her as bait to try to track her to the other girls!" Paige screams at him, and there come those angry tears again, threatening to overflow any second.
"It was the right thing to do. We might have never found Sulla and the other girls otherwise. It was a completely sanctioned op at that point-" Mike begins to rehash facts she already knows. What she did may have been completely by the book. Legal. Protocol. It may have even been for the greater good. But that didn't make it right. "You couldn't have known-"
"I knew enough. I knew that I shouldn't have started sleeping with you. I knew it last summer! Why do you think I filled out your transfer papers to DC! You should have just stayed there and never came back!" Paige screams.
True it's a low blow, but if Paige traces back to when her life went to hell it was the second he walked back into Graceland. She hated herself more than him for that. For giving into temptation.
"I know you don't mean that. Look I know things fell apart, and we've never really had a chance to talk about it, but for a while there... we were good, Paige. We were good together. I wouldn't trade those days for-"
"I would! I would trade every single second, gladly, for Lena back." Paige cuts him off again.
"What we had together had nothing to do with what happened to Lena." He explains in a rational voice.
"It had everything to do with Lena, Mike! We killed her! This toxic thing between us, killed her!"
"Ok. I think you need to calm down and think about what you're saying." Mike tries to calm her, but it's far too late for that.
"I have thought about it. It's all I think about. If I hadn't been screwing you, Jess wouldn't have taken away my backup, and if she did, you were screwing her, so you could have gotten it back. If you weren't so hung up on 'saving your girlfriend' you would have realized that leaving me in Sylmar and buying Lena was the tactical smart decision."
He doesn't reply. She didn't expect him to. She knows she will never get the apology she needs to hear, so she continues on with her rant.
"If I didn't care about you and your career, I would have marched straight over your head, and reported your ass and gotten Silmar shut down! If I weren't seeing you through these fucking rose tinted glasses, I wouldn't have sat around waiting for you to do the right thing and save those girls. I would have realized that you were just an ass-kissing psychopath, who would do anything to advance his career, and get his revenge for his wounded pride, even if it meant a couple girls had to be tortured, raped, and killed a little while longer!"
He doesn't even wince. The whole house can probably hear her by now, but she doesn't give a damn. She's been bottling up these feelings for too long. He couldn't let it go, and now she was going to scream at him until he saw a glimpse of the pain she felt.
"If I wasn't blinded by my feelings for you, I would have trusted my gut, and realized you were covering up Lena's death. I could have used my time energy and sanity on something useful rather than feeling like I was going out of my mind trying to discover the truth! That you were a worthless, lying, sack of shit who didn't have the balls to admit that he royally fucked up!"
"Alright, look I know you're angry but-" Mike tries to calm her down, and Paige can't believe even now he's not admitting to what he did. More so, she's pissed that this entire time he has barely reacted other than trying to be this calming soothing teddy bear, that Paige knows he's not.
"Of course I'm angry! And you should be too! What the fuck Mike?!"
"Look, when Sid came for me I thought I was done for. I was done for and when I woke up I realized that all this anger-" Mike's voice is so calm she's wondering if they replaced him with a robot.
"Oh save me the sanctimonious bullshit. Just because you were pronounced clinically dead for a few minutes, doesn't make you Jesus Christ. So cut the act and while you're at it, cut your hair. It looks ridiculous." Paige scoffs, realizing he's not going to leave so she turns to walk back towards her laundry.
"Sorry, I haven't exactly had time to visit the barber." Mike replies with a soft smile. The delivery of the joke is so unlike Mike it makes her sick. Usually when she pushes, he pushes back, or at least has the snark lurking in his voice. There's no hint of it though, and right now Paige would prefer a fight to whatever new bullshit way Mike Warren has come up with to piss her off.
"IT'S ONLY BEEN TEN DAYS! What are you a werewolf?!" She yells in exasperation, wanting to punch him in the face. Whenever she sees Mike Warren these days she wants to punch him in the stupid face. That's why she stayed away from the hospital. Now that he was back in Graceland, he was dangerously close to getting a bloody nose at all times.
"Ok, you're emotional. I get that but there's no reason to insult the hair." Mike says, in a calm voice that just makes Paige's blood pressure rise even more. "What I'm trying to say is, the way I see it, I've been given a second chance. A chance to do something right. But I forgive you. I understand why you did what you did. I know for a while there I got out of control, but I've changed, Paige."
Mike can't finish his speech because of Paige's loud bark of disbelieving laughter.
"Please. Dying didn't change you. You're high on Morphine Mike! You're not changed. You're stoned. You're still the same type A, obsessive asshole you were before, it's just you've been too doped up ever since you woke up to realize it. You want to know who you really are? Quit dosing, and then you'll find out real fast."
"You're making it sound like you caught me shooting heroin."
"Stranger things have happened in this house."
"This isn't that. I'm just using it to get through the worst of it. This isn't the sort of thing you fix with a bandaid. I have a gunshot wound in my side and they had to operate on me twice, Paige. The doctor's prescribed-" Mike begins to defend himself, but Paige is tired of his excuses. All of them.
"I don't give a shit if it's doctor approved or if it's illegal smack you picked up on the street. High is high, Mike! Come back and talk to me about forgiveness when you're not walking on a marshmallow cloud of morphine."
"I know you don't believe me, but it's true. I forgive you." Mike sounds like a broken record to Paige at this point.
"Why do you keep saying that?!" Paige screams back at him.
"Because I'm hoping maybe if you know I forgive you, you can forgive yourself." Mike says calmly.
The damn tears spill and Paige lets out a muffled sob of frustration. She braces by lightly touching the edge of the bed, her head lowered behind her blonde mop of hair. He doesn't get it. It is the most frustrating thing in the world trying to have a conversation with him, because in his mind she's some love sick little girl who wants to commit suicide after sending Sid to him.
"I know you feel guilty, but you can't keep pushing me away." Mike's tone is sympathetic, but sounds a bit pleased. Like he feels like her tears are a sign that he's winning.
Mike comes up behind her and places his hands comfortingly on her shoulder. She stiffens under his touch. She uses the back of her palm to wipe away the traitorous tears. She stands up straight, shrugging his hands off her shoulders as she turns to face him. He is inches away from her face. From her bed. Despite the mascara that's stained her cheeks, her voice is clear and unshaken. It is cold low and dangerous as she stares straight into her former lovers dilated blue eyes.
"Fuck you. This is so not about you. None of this, is about you. I don't need your forgiveness. You know why? Because I don't regret it. Get in my way again and I will shoot you myself, without shedding a tear." She says each word clearly, waiting to make sure they sink in. "You know why? Because you and Sid are the same. You're all charming smiles and wide baby blue eyes, with your fake nice guy act on the surface. But inside? You're nothing but self indulgent, sociopathic, deceitful trash."
His eyes are narrow now, staring at her in disbelief. For possibly the first time, Paige knows he's listening to her. Not the barbie girlfriend version of her he created when he first saw her and put up on a pedestal, but her.
"If the situation had been reversed, and it had been Sid in that hospital bed... I don't think you would have hesitated for a moment to wrap your hand around that tube and squeeze. No. The only regret I have, Mike, is that I didn't recognize you for what you are sooner."
He looks genuinely surprised by this assessment, and she wonders if his charade is so good that even he himself didn't realize he's no different from the evil he claims to want to fight.
"Now…" Paige's hands have stopped shaking as she reaches over to her desk and picks up her gun. Not because she has any intention of using it, but because holding it makes her feel powerful. "Get the fuck out."