They had their backs to the last wall left standing, fire surrounding them. Unlike the tentative little fingers entwined in the midst of the burning canyon, Paige was gripping Walter's hand tightly.
"Do you see a way out of this?" She shouted over the roar of the burning warehouse.
"I can't see anything! The smoke is too thick and the depleting oxygen is hindering my brain function." The fear lacing his voice was thicker than she'd ever heard and was so much scarier than the three walls of flame that were steadily approaching. He avoided eye contact "And.. uh... I am s-sorry I dropped your phone earlier. If I hadn't then we could still call for help."
"Or call Ralph." Quieter and suppressing a sob she said "Oh God, Ralph! I just hope he knows.."
See her silently crying, worried about whether her child knew how much she loved him damn near shattered Walter, acting without thinking he pulled her into a tight embrace, "He does. He knows that you love him. Even someone with a low EQ like me knows how much you love him." They slid down the wall, still in their embrace and listening to the structural supports starting to fail on the other side of the building. His thoughts slipped and searched around his brilliant mind for a way out, but all he kept coming back to was Paige. Paige and Tim to be more precise. "Does Tim know?" At her confused look he continued, "About your feelings? For him, I mean."
She scoffed, leaned back, and stared at him in silence for a short while. "Can I confess something?"
"I promise I won't tell anyone. Even if we do make it out of this alive." His halfhearted attempt at humor was, as always, endearing.
She leaned in close to whisper in his ear "You're an idiot." When he turned to her in surprised, she captured his lips in a quick but passionate kiss. "I would have preferred to go to the Jazz festival with you." She ghosted her hand down his cheek, and when she tried to take the deep breath she needed after seeing the heat in his eyes, her body wracked with coughs. The air was getting thick with smoke, even being as low as they were.
Walter's mind went from raging passion and hope to crippling fear and loss. He knew. He knew that there was never any chance at a happy ending with Paige, whether she rejected him or he lost her on the job, it was never fated to end well. Determined to cling to one last vestige of happiness before the smoke overtook them both, he pulled her to the ground where the air was still barely breathable. "I am fairly certain I love you, and since we are probably not going to get out of this alive, I just figured you should know. So..." After a few seconds of her stunned silence, she smiled. All his effort to improve his EQ these past few years and he finally knew that her smile was not a mockery of the love he had just mostly confessed, it was not a graceful acceptance of feelings that weren't reciprocated; it was an answer. He almost laughed out loud with joy, and had the levels of oxygen not been dropping so quickly, he would have recited a fact about love and his own elevated serotonin levels, but he had to settle for a kiss. One measly, heartfelt, passionate, desperate, intense, earth shattering, never-ending but over all too soon kiss.
They pulled back from each other, four eyes filled with tears of emotion and exposure to the heat and smoke. "I am in love with you Paige. I didn't want to lose you or Ralph."
"I love you too, Walter." Wheezing she curled into his side with her head on his chest and thought of Ralph and all the things that might have been and the things she'll never get to experience. With Walter's arms around her and his heartbeat in her ear, a slightly frantic rhythm, she felt mostly at peace. (but that could have been her rising CO2 levels.)
Just before they both drifted off into their final sleep, the wall fell. Happy stood, soot covered, hands on her hips and proud as she could be, fire engine number 9 parked behind her. "C'mon guys! It's not nap time yet. Get off your asses, Cabe is looking for you and he's pissed!" Toby ran up from somewhere behind Happy with two masks and some blankets. Ray and Ralph were on the base of the truck mounted ladder, spraying the surrounding area with a water/ suppressant mix, with smiles to match Happy's.
Paige and Walter both started laughing (and coughing, but who can complain when you have a family like that and a love like theirs?).