I have been working on this for probably a total of eight hours over three nights, which probably means it should be longer and/or better, but I'm pretty happy with what it turned out to be. I'd personally love to see Walter and Paige having to go undercover as a couple and it not being the whole 'we're both loving it but are acting like we don't to each other' scenario, but the 'hey let's take advantage of it and be affectionate like we both know we want to' way that I have them take in the fic. It does get heated at the end, I've still rated it T because I've seen waaaay more explicit content out there, but just a warning.

He'd been a bit wary of going undercover as a couple with Paige; Ray was right, he didn't have his feelings for her under control. Her presence didn't distract him on the job; when he had something to work on, he could get her to leave his mind. But she was where his mind wandered; the time he spent by himself he usually spent with her, imagining conversations, scenarios, domestic scenes that included Ralph. He used to deny having feelings at all, but now that he recognized them and given them the inch, they'd gone right ahead and taken the mile.

"I don't know if I can do this," he admitted to her, not offering up any explanation.

She gave him a nervous smile. "I know what you mean." She thought for a moment, biting her lip, then walked closer to him. "But you know...it could be a lot of fun."

"W-what do you mean?" he asked, smiling although he wasn't sure why.

"Well," she said, "we get to pretend for a day that we're a couple and..." she rested her hands on his shoulders, "...we know it won't hurt anything because convincing everyone it's a real relationship is essential to the mission being successful. It's a party, but it's surrounding an event coordination night for a couples' group. If we don't act the part, whoever is planning this attack will realize that we're onto them."

So they'd gone to the meeting, she pressed her nose into his cheek affectionately when they checked in as a couple, and he held her hand. They listened to the event coordinator in the auditorium, sitting in the back, her head on his shoulder and his hand rubbing her back. When the food arrived, they shared dessert, and when someone turned on music and some couples began to dance, Paige looked at Walter and raised her eyebrows.

"For the mission?" Walter asked, a small smile on his face.

She grinned, nodding. "For the mission." He stood and reached for her, taking her hand and leading her out to the floor. They'd done this before, they effortlessly melted into the group of couples, her hand slid up from resting on his shoulder to the back of his neck. "You're improving."

"The key to acquiring proficiency in any task is repetition," Walter said with a smile. "I'm afraid I don't have any jokes this time, though."

"Oh, how about this?" Paige asked. "What do you call the love child of a web hacker and someone who dances ballet?"

He blinked. "I don't know."

"The Netcracker Suite."

"That is a very bad joke. What?" He frowned at the look on her face.

"That couple over there," she said, swaying to the side and rotating their bodies ninety degrees. "They were holding hands, and they just let go. He shook his hand out and she wiped hers on her dress."

"They don't like touching each other," Walter said, glancing at them out of the corner of his eye.

"And look at their body language," Paige said. "She's crossing her arms. He keeps looking at his watch. They don't like each other."

"They're not a real couple." Walter glanced at the door. "Wait until the song is over, then grab your purse and pretend you're going to the restroom. I'll go into the far corner and call Cabe."

"Okay." She looked around. "The song has just started, though."

"That's okay," Walter said. "Right?"

She smiled, tipping her head back, then let go of his hand and leaned forward, resting her forehead on his shoulder as her left arm still curled around him, her hand in his hair. She let go of his other hand and her right hand replaced her left one behind his head, her left hand going to his back. He linked his own fingers against her lower back, drawing her closer.

"Hey," she said, standing just to the side of his bedroom. "Can I come in?"

Walter was hanging up his jacket and looked over his shoulder at her. "Yeah. You changed already."

"The damn tag on the dress was driving me crazy," she said. "I was about to head out, is there anything else you need from me first?"

"I don't believe so," Walter said. "You have the paperwork on your desk?"

"Yep," Paige said. "I'll file it in the morning, here, let me help you with that." She moved over to him, tugging his tie loose as she spoke. "Certainly one of our easier missions. I always do like the ones where we don't almost die."

"Those days are preferable," Walter said with a chuckle as she removed the tie and set it on a chair. "And I uh..." he fell silent for a few moments. "I enjoyed spending the time with you tonight. It was nice."

She smiled. "I had a good time too, Walter. I liked being able to act that way around you." She hesitated, then put her hands up to his neck, looking into his eyes.

His hands instinctively – it's instinctive now? – went to rest on the top of her hips. "Our feelings for each other seemed, um...essential, to the maintenance of our undercover operation. We determined the other false couple by their inability to fake a connection, if ours wasn't so, ah..." he was suddenly hyper aware of how close she was, and he cleared his throat, "tangible, then they may have made us first."

"Uh huh," she said softly, and he saw her eyes shift, glancing down at his lips, and he looked at hers, he remembered what it felt like to have them on his, and he closed his eyes, leaning toward her, knowing she was going to meet him.

Their mouths connected, her lower lip caught between his, and she stepped closer to him, sliding a hand up into his hair. He slid one of his hands up her back, resting it between her shoulder blades, wanting her to stay. He ran his tongue over her lip and she pressed herself against him, none of the awkward spacing, not like last time.

What was like last time was the rush of adrenaline that shot through him as their lips continued their dance, as he heard and somehow felt her inhale, he was just so conscious of her and everything felt good. "Mmmm," came from deep in his throat, his hands firmly resting on the top of her hips as he pushed his mouth against hers, causing her to lean backward slightly. But she wasn't about to be outdone; she pushed back, her hands going to the front of his shirt, gathering fistfuls of it just above his belt buckle, using it for leverage as she satiated his desire to deepen the kiss, sending more pleasant shivers through his body. She kept her hands near his waistband, running her thumb over his belt, and while he still wasn't the best at reading people, he knew what she was thinking and he wasn't going to protest. He wanted to push her against the wall, get as close to her as he could, get more contact, pin her between him and something and he always praised himself to being able to work at above average capacity even when he was splitting his time but god, did he have a one track mind right now. He mmmm'd again and he thought he heard her simultaneously make a similar sound and then it was too much, what they were doing was too little, he spun them around and pushed her backward three steps to his bed, then pushed her down. He could feel her squirming under him, trying to get herself fully onto the bed, and he reached down, getting an arm under her knee and helping scoot her into a better position, then found himself restricted by her knees gripping his hips, preventing him from moving away.

Moving away was the last thing on his mind. He pushed his hips against her, feeling her legs tighten around him, and her hands were working his shirt again, tugging at it urgently as she responded to what his hips were doing, grinding hers back against him as she removed her lips from his for the first time and began to kiss him below his ear, her tongue teasing him, causing him to inhale sharply. He tugged her shirt from under her belt and slid a hand underneath, feeling the hot, smooth skin of her stomach and the torturous material of her bra. His eyes were closed, his mouth open slightly, as she continued to work her way down his neck and to his collarbone, her lips and tongue dancing over his skin and making his breathing audible enough that, in an Intercom Era Garage, it was probably fortunate no one was around.

She tipped her head back and one of her hands reached for his belt, and he could feel her fingers trying to get it undone; he was torn between wanting to help and wanting her to do it. He felt her tug it loose, and she undid her own button, unzipping her jeans and grabbing his hand, guiding it to her waistband, unhooking her legs from around him and resting her feet on the bed. He knew she wanted him to slide her jeans down off her hips, but...

"Wait."

She looked surprised, more than a little agitated, and definitely concerned. "What's wrong?" He knew he wasn't giving her much of an inclination that anything was wrong, balancing on his left arm from elbow to wrist, his right hand resting on her jeans, right over her zipper, his hips filling the space between her thighs, her ever present pants irritating him and his own providing him nothing but agitation. He had never experienced anything like this anymore, this sort of attraction, the feeling in his chest when he looked at her, both feelings that he found exacerbated by her reciprocation. Her eyes were slightly closed, she was staring intensely at him, he could tell by her expression she wanted exactly what he did, and yet...

"Uh..." truth was, he didn't know why he stopped. He knew he wanted this, he knew she wanted this, and every atom in his body was protesting, but they'd stopped themselves so much earlier than this so many times before. "There must be..."

"There's reasons why we should stop," she said, wiggling out of her shirt and tossing it to the side as she spoke. Walter was confused; her words and actions were sending him two completely different signals. She reached a hand up and drew his head down toward her to plant fast, hard kisses on his mouth before speaking again. "But..." More kisses. "I know we said we were going to...just pretend...just for the day but...why does it have to stop...at 'you're under arrest'?" She kept kissing him in between each sentence fragment; she was trying to make sure he didn't get too distracted by her words. Her tactic wasn't needed. Paige Dineen was lying beneath him in only her bra and jeans and at the present moment Walter couldn't have added two plus two. He furrowed his brow. He didn't trust himself to put together a coherent sentence, but he really, really felt like something should be wrong with this.

"Sometimes, something can feel good and be okay," she said gently, caressing his cheek, smiling, running her fingertips lightly over his cheek and neck and making him close his eyes and push against her touch. "I don't want to keep searching for any little reason to hold back, Walter. Not when we have something like this, god, Walter, this is good. And being with you...it makes me happy. And if you feel the same way, how could that be a bad thing?"

He had the fourth highest I.Q. ever recorded, and yet somehow, she'd managed to read his mind, to somehow ground him and blow him away all at once. He shifted his weight upward so he was kneeling and tugged at her jeans, sliding them off her hips and working them down her legs. No one ever talked about this part, he had to move over to the side, practically off the bed, in order to get them off, when just a minute before there was nothing between them but a few layers of clothing. He wondered if it was this awkward for everyone as he dropped her jeans to the side, undoing his zipper and shedding his own before crawling back onto the bed.

Paige was looking up at him, smiling, and he took in a breath at the sight of her. "You look...good," he blurted.

"You do too," she said, reaching for him and encouraging him to lower himself over her again. She put her lips back on his, curling her legs back around him as he ground his hips against hers, mirroring the motion. He felt her take hold of his hand where it rested on her hip and guide it up, up, and over, to the front of her bra where the clasp easily came undone. The urgency was back, the adrenaline surging, he could feel it from both of them at every point of contact they had and he liked that Paige was just as affected by him as he was by her.

God Walter, this is good.

Her words from earlier rang in his head as her hands ran all over him, as his tongue found a spot on her neck that made her shudder, a reaction their close proximity allowed him to feel with his entire body. His name rushed through her parted lips. And he liked how it sounded.

He liked this new them.

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