While I was trying to put together Burning Ammission, I started writing down this story and it all came together with the recent events on the show.
I didn't forget about that unfinished story and I'm going to conclude it soon.
Enjoy this one for now! And remember to check the dates of the events or you might get lost in future chapters.

Dedicated to all people who read and commented on my previous story
and also to all the new one reader who might enjoy this piece.

Intro

February 13, 2016
(Early morning)

The garage was silent and peaceful. Suddenly Walter woke up all sweat in his bed and, between his heavy and long breaths, he tried to remember what was he was dreaming about. Of course that was The Nightmare, what else if not the constantly repeated events of Baghdad?
This time something was different, he could feel it, also because he haven't had those nightmares for several months now.

'Time to get up, if you don't remember it, it's because it wasn't important.'
However he always remembered his dreams, good or bad that they could have been. Bad where the worst but the good ones... right. He smirked at the sudden thought of one of the most beautiful dreams he ever had so far (and those always involved Paige).
He shook his head. The genius promised himself to keep things as they were up to that moment, even though, the fact that he was constantly thinking about her wasn't helping his cause.
Walter was losing his battle at keeping his mind away and his feeling at bay. Sure, he was conscious that he had feelings for her and for that very reason he decided that in the near future, if something would came up, he would have taken that step forward for real. Truth was he didn't want to lose her and keep pushing her away wasn't the right conclusion.

He leaned on the table covering his face with his hands for a brief second. Ray was right, 'don't let the distance get so far, you can never recouple the train'.
He looked at the clock, 7.30 am. It was a manner of minutes before his team would enter the garage, so he decided to have a short and efficient breakfast and being able to spend some time on the rocket… A flash run through his mind. The rocket was long gone and he knew that. Another flash, this time it was like someone was trying to blind him with a lens, it was physical. Weird.
Then Walter smelled something and looked down at the table to find a cup of hot coffee. How the hell? With a slow movement of his hand the genius grabbed it. He was absorbed in his thought when he heard soft footsteps behind him. He imagined Paige coming up to tell him they had a new case and was ready to greet her with a wide smile on his face.

The cup crashed on the floor. Walter was in shock.

"You…" he tried to formulate words but all it came out was air.

"Walter you need to calm down or you'll go into shock. And we don't want that". The voice told him.

His head was starting to spin and he felt like he was going to pass out, even though he couldn't help but watching the figure in front of him. How was that even possible? Was he still dreaming? There wasn't another logical explanation he could have think about. Walter looked down once again and the cup was gone. What attracted his attention, however, was the bright red spot on his shirt. Suddenly he fell down on his back and a pair of hands were immediately on him. Walter recognized them immediately, they were Paige's.

"Walter, stay with me. Okay?… the ambulance is almost here." She said scared. He felt she had an hand on the red spot and in that his wound to try to stop the bleeding. It didn't look that good though. His head was already running calculations on his chances of survival. He stared at her and she reciprocated until…
"YOU!" Paige yelled pointing at a man in a suit "Wake him up! NOW!". The man went out of sight and Walter kept wondering who she was referring too, obviously not him. He wasn't in his loft anymore, it was another house and he could see the sun dying under the horizon. Walter was utterly confused and everything was almost a blur.

He felt his eyes getting heavier, he was losing conscience so, just before went all dark, he grabbed Paige's hand to hold it tight. He wanted to tell her everything. Confess everything, his fears of not knowing what he was feeling and to finally let her know that he was indeed in love with her. He hoped she still felt the same and hadn't changed her mind because of their talk months before… unfortunately he hadn't the chance to say a single word and blackness came. Her hand never let him go.

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February 14, 2016
(Morning)

Paige was staring at her shaking hands covered by a certain amount of blood and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't just wash it away.

Where is this blood coming from? What happened to me?

"Paige?" someone gently stroked her shoulder "Paige? Look at me". She recognized the voice. Cabe was standing in front of her. He gave her an awkward look and asked her if she wanted to go back in the hall.

"Oh, God…" The young woman whispered as she realized she was in the restroom of a hospital "Walter". Lost in her battle to remove all the red spots on her hands, Paige momentarily forgot where she was.
As Toby would have said, her mind was probably trying to block out of her memory, the shock she just went through. In fact her hands were clean, it was all her imagination.

"Walter's going to be fine." Cabe tried to reassured her in a hug but she pushed him away. Paige didn't want comfort from anyone, not after all Walter went through these past few days. She had to be strong a look strong even if inside she was a castle of glass. Paige was sure that if anyone would have blown some emotional words her way, she would have crashed in million pieces. That couldn't ever happen. Actually, she thought, right now Walter was the one who needed to be comforted, so she needed to be as strong as possible. Once she shook herself awake, Paige opened the door and walked to the end of hall where she found Toby discussing with a doctor. Happy looked furious and Sylvester was visibly shaken. Megan made him stronger, but when a friend is hit, you don't really know if you're able to suppress your fears at all. And so they resurfaces… they were all over Sly's face. Paige didn't expect anything less from them, she knew all too well their behaviors, how they could react to such a news.
As she arrived in front of the group, Toby stopped talking to observe her body language.

"Toby, I'm fine". She was ready for this.

"So says Walter and that's never true". He cocked his head causing her to roll her eyes.

"Stop analyzing me. Ok? I am not Walter" she paused. "Doctor Ford, you were saying about Walter's conditions?"

The man in front of them was tall, good looking. He had some shades of grey in his hair but he wasn't too old, late thirty maybe. He coughed to prepare himself to repeat his little monologue.

"As I was explaining to your friends, Mr. O'Brien is stable now. Unfortunately, during the surgery, he lost a lot of blood which led to some complications. The shot wound h-…"

Toby cut him out, raising a hand and focusing on Paige instead, who immediately turned her head in his direction " Yes. Blah, blah, blah… Paige, the important thing now is that Walt's gonna be fine. In fact the doctor and I were already discussing the way he should be treated for his conditions. I'm a doctor graduated from Harvard and… most importantly, I'm a genius with an IQ of 178…"

"170" Happy corrected him.

"Yeah, whatever" Toby gave her a look "…so I think that I have the better solution to his currently situation." The doctor was about to reply but Paige was faster.

"Solution to what? I need to see him, now." she didn't think twice and started walking toward the entrance of where Walter should been taken when the doctor stopped her grabbing her wrist.

"Miss, you can't enter there… not yet, you aren't allow-" Paige set her hand free with a firm movement.

"Doctor? Cut the crap already. That wasn't a question, so you have two options… one: you'll be the one who takes me to his room; two: I'll find him by myself". Surely Paige's determination took the doctor aback.
Toby eyed a smile on Happy's face. He was surrounded by strong women: Happy, the love his life, and Paige, the love of Walter's life… well, if he weren't too dumb to finally admit it.

Cabe moved in front of an almost furious Paige and took the doctor aside instead. "This badge tells she can enter wherever she wants" he showed his badge in all of its glory "And if she says she wants to see Walter, you make that happen. Are we clear?".

The doctor surrendered with a sighed and nodded. "Fine. But I can allow only one person to stay with the patient".

"Good." Cabe concluded.

"Paige, you stay with Walt as long as you need. Sleep if you can ok? We are heading to the police station where the agents have her in custody…" Toby explained her marking the pronoun, avoiding to say the actual name out loud. No one wanted to hear it anyway. "I'll let the man here to play the doctor for a few hours. Then, he'll do as I say." At these words Happy raised an eyebrow skeptical.

"Ralph is still at school and if I stay here…" Paige stated. She told him what happened even if she worried about his reaction. Walter was his best friend and she remembered what happened when he was stuck on the a cliff edge with Elia's Ferrari. Sometimes she still blame herself, no matter how many times Walter tried to reassure her that it wasn't her fault. She came to the conclusion that they were both right, she could have avoided the exploit of that night and he could have avoided taking the car and drive like crazy.
Too much happened this past night and she couldn't wait to put all this at her back. If only the case was definitely closed. Paige needed to see her second favorite genius immediately, seeing with her eyes that he was fine.

"Don't worry, Paige. We'll take care of your son, everything's under control" Cabe lied. Nothing was under control and emotions were at the first place of the list. And he noticed how the shrink navigated well with words when he said 'situation'.

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"Do you know what day is today? It's Valentine's Day and…" Paige couldn't bring herself to say any other word. She didn't really know what to say actually, just the first silly thing that passed in her mind. It was killing her seeing Walter so vulnerable.
Her eyes were glassy, they were like that since… she couldn't even remember. Maybe I should get some sleep. However her mind was running ideas, not like a genius, that's for sure, but her mind replayed many time the events in the hall.
What Toby was trying to avoid to tell her, for whatever reason, was that Walter was in a coma. Perhaps he omitted that information because he saw how emotionally instable she was, behind the façade she pulled.

When she entered the room the doctor let her accommodate on a chair beside him.

"What I was trying to tell you before" he crossed his arms and sweetened the tone of his voice "your friend… is in a deep coma".

Paige, who never left eye contact with her genius, instinctively looked up to meet the doctor's eyes. "Excuse me… what did you just say?" she barely spoke as tears started forming in her eyes.

"The bullet didn't perforate any vital organs, but his heart stopped during surgery. He is stable right now, but we need to do more tests to know something more. The reason I didn't allow any visitors around is because he needs to rest. A real good rest. But… deep down, I think that some company can't hurt". The doctor noticed her gesture and it didn't take a genius to figure some things out. "Are you his girlfriend?". Or at least he thought so.

Paige didn't expect the question. She was barely listening, but that last word caught her immediate attention. She turned to face the man with an hysterical laugh "Girlfriend? Oh, no. No, he's just a very good friend". Paige talked so fast that now her face was burning; she never felt so embarrassed before in her life. That was the reaction that comments of her Walter was causing her. She had a similar reaction also when she… kissed him. The truth? She lied about not feeling anything and she regretted it ever since. Sometimes she wonder he was lying too. Maybe… she hoped so.

"I'm sorry, I just… noticed the way you grabbed his hand and caressed his hair, so I assumed you were a couple". She really did that? God, she must have been in auto-pilot or something because she didn't even realized it. Instinctively she put her hands on her thighs far away from Walter.

Seeing embarrass on her face and the way she distanced herself from the patient, the doctor cursed himself for being so indiscrete but instead of apologize he tried something else instead "Well, you know… I wanted to be a psychiatrist, but then things changed and… well, here I am. You look attracted to him, just-". He said scratching his ear noticing her deadly stare.

"Oh, you're a Toby then, same level of (in)discretion… how fortunate that is" she whispered while the doctor raised his eyebrows. The man didn't get a single word, but understood one thing, better shut it and leave.

Now, finally alone with Walter she talked of various silly stuff and about Valentine's. She also asked him if he heard what the doctor said.

"You know Walter? I wish that was true." Being her girlfriend.
And with that, she laid her head near his arm and fell asleep holding his hand.

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His eyes suddenly open once again.

Good… it was just a dream. He told himself.
Walter stretched his arms on the couch, he must have fallen asleep there the night before. Proton Arnold was still on, emitting few sounds once in a while. He heard a voice and soon a smile formed on his lips.
Paige was still there and she must have moved in the loft to do some last calls. It was evening and the sun was already gone. He heard her saying something about… Valentine's?

He stopped on the stairs. What if she was dating someone? She would have told him, wouldn't she?
Walter pushed the door of his loft open but no one was there.

"Hello?... Paige?". Silence. The genius observed the room. Was it only his imagination?

You know Walter? I wish that was true.

Those words echoed loud in the room as if they came from a speaker. Walter at this point started panicking, realizing that the dream wasn't over… at first he thought he was down the rabbit hole, but hallucinations aren't part of that world, or at least not like this one. He took a deep break and tried to analyze what was real and what wasn't.
"I woke up from a bad dream, I wanted to have breakfast but the cup of coffee and then…" things started to be clearer as a solution arrived. "The garage isn't real!" quickly he remembered the blood on his shirt, so he checked it. No blood "This doesn't makes sense".

"Doesn't it?" it was that voice again. That figure again in the dark. It took a step forward, then another one and another one while it kept talking "But it could, Walt. You only need to put all the dots together. Come on, unlock your brain.".

"But… I can't, I can't remember" he was about to cry, overwhelmed by emotions. "I just can't".

"It's all in your mind. See?" the figure stopped and pointed at his abdomen. Walter followed with his eyes and blood was all over his shirt. "Who, Walt? Who shot you?"

"MEGAN, I DON'T KNOW!"

A/N: Thanks for reading this! Reviews are always welcomed!