"Go to hell!", she spat, not caring that her son was within earshot and had heard every single painful word.
Ralph wondered vaguely if the two people he loved more than anything could hear the sound of his world as it came crashing down around him. How could his own mother have broken his heart like this? How could Walter have walked through fire and risked his life on countless occasions to save his mom only to fire her?
He felt betrayed and sick and so sad. He wanted to scream and fall to the floor.
Everything he had ever wanted had been so close, dancing just out of reach, and then the two smartest people he knew on both sides of the IQ/EQ spectrum had taken that dream and crushed it.
Walter felt her words and it was almost enough to bring him to his knees.
They were sharp, hard, and full of vitriol.
He wondered vaguely if the pain on her face was anything like the same pain he felt in his chest.
Her agony was evident in her eyes, his laid silent within.
The next few seconds passed in a blur as she gathered some items from her desk and dragged her son from the garage.
He watched her go, pulling Ralph with her.
Walter was unable to cry out and his heart wrenched even further as Ralph's eyes locked onto him.
The boy was terrified and his eyes brimmed with tears and he reached for Walter weakly, silently begging the older genius not to let him go.
Walter realized as the door slammed shut that he had lost her again, this time for good and that, this time, she had taken Ralph with her.
Her words bit into him and he felt like she had slapped him, much like she had after the train incident, but the sensation he felt in his gut where his scars were from his car accident, painfully reminded him of the last time Paige took Ralph away.
He barely registered the remarks of his teammates as they left, all he picked up was the tone from each of them, their disappointment and sadness. Cabe's silent glare told him all that he needed to know about what the older agent thought of the situation.
Walter was left in stony silence.
He had effectively driven away the woman and the boy whom he loved with every part of his being.
That was it.
They were gone and he was to blame.
He stood there in the middle of the garage for a long time until his eyes fell on Paige's desk.
For the first time since Megan's death, he felt the tears welling and he half dragged himself to her chair and plunked himself into the ergonomic seat before bracing his head in his hands and crying.
How could he have been so utterly stupid?
Across town, a brokenhearted little genius was crying himself to sleep, muffling the sobs with the pillow.
His mother already thought he was asleep and he didn't want to disturb her.
As much as Ralph hated the situation he was in, he had held it together, feigning normalcy so well that he had fooled his mom.
Half of him wanted to just melt away into the sheets and mattress while the other half heard his mother sobbing a little less quietly into her bedding and he wanted to be with her.
But more than anything, he wanted his mom and Walter to realize their love for each other and come to each other's rescue.
As corny and illogical as that was, he wished that this could have been like the movies where they would have lived happily ever after, where true love's kiss could overcome any curse, even the ones residing on his mother's lips and building in Walter's head.
A fresh sob came from his mom's room and Ralph felt himself shake.
"No such luck.", his brain whispered.
All Paige had wanted was for Walter to give her some sign that it was okay, that she could properly confess her love.
Instead he had delivered a bombshell with that stupid little wry smirk of his.
In one sentence, he had crushed her heart.
I guess it was true what they said about the road to hell being paved with good intentions, only this time heartbreak and hell became synonymous.
She wished she had stayed and talked it through, but there was no going back now.
Walter was without her and Ralph and Ralph was abruptly without a mentor.
He had hurt both of them and the whole team and Paige didn't know whether she wanted to scream or break down and cry.
Tears won out, coming hard and fast, soon pulling her under into a world of uneasy sleep.