THE ELEPHANT UNDER THE BED
AN: I'm really surprised no one else has written about this yet. At least to my limited knowledge. I started this before the last episode aired, but I've edited it to hopefully keep it as close to canon as possible.
It meant nothing.
Of course it didn't mean anything.
She was just being…
Paranoid? Clingy? Insecure? Jealous?
A thousand other things a confident, fairly low-maintenance girlfriend shouldn't be?
Toby, a genius behaviorist, patiently walked her through all the logical reasons behind the offending dream. More than once. And he was right. She knew he was right.
After all, she'd once dreamt she was making out with that guy Rakharo from Game of Thrones after binge watching the first season. Dreams were just a jumble of things a person thinks or hears or sees throughout the day. Toby said that too. How could she argue?
If all that was true, then why was Paige lying awake staring at the ceiling for the third night in a row even after she and Walter cleared the air?
For one simple reason. She used to have dreams about Walter when she was dating Tim. All. The. Time. She'd felt guilty too. Just like Walter did.
But her lingering uneasiness was stupid. Wasn't it? Everyone smarter than her said so.
Sure, Walter wasn't the most demonstrative man in the universe. He'd gotten tons better at expressing his emotions, however. He hadn't started spouting poetry or gushing about his feelings, but he seemed happy to be with her now. He was more relaxed and happier in general than she'd ever seen him. And he did tell her loved her.
Sometimes. Mostly when they were in bed together.
So what if he mostly responded with, 'Reciprocated' when she said those words. It didn't matter. That was an affirmation too. Walter style.
She'd told him she trusted him. And she did. It was only in the middle of the night, when she was alone with her thoughts, the nagging doubts robbed her of rest.
Beside her, Walter was slumbering peacefully with a totally clear conscience, completely unaware of her nightly wrestling match with herself.
Hopefully his dreams were free of their neighbor, her 'friend' Florence, posing as his wife. His wife. Did every woman in the garage need to be married to Walter except her? First Happy then Florence? Did she always have to be second choice? Even in dreams?
Ridiculous. Walter would say she was being ridiculous. She couldn't disagree.
Paige sighed and flung the covers off. It was no use. She might as well go make herself a cup of herbal tea and read for a while.
Walter's arm was around her middle. She lifted it gently and tried slithering out from under it without disturbing him. He mumbled something and nuzzled his nose in her hair, pulling her back against him.
"Paige?" He whispered groggily when she squirmed out of his grasp.
"I guess I should be grateful you said the right name," Paige snapped peevishly then instantly regretted it the second the words were out.
Frowning in confusion in the midst of wriggling to sit up, he asked, "What did you mean by that?"
"Nothing," She replied stiffly, knowing she was being unfair, "Go back to sleep."
"This isn't about my dream about Florence again?" It was his turn to sigh. He scrubbed a hand down his face and blinked wearily. "I thought we were past this."
"Just forget about it. This normal doesn't need to be reminded of how illogical she's being. Again." She knew she was being unreasonable, blaming him for something he couldn't control, which irritated her all the more.
She moved to stand up and he grabbed at her wrist tugging her back into a sitting position on the side of the bed. "I would never consciously betray you. I don't know what else to say to reassure you. I can't help what I dream, you know."
Paige was suddenly unbelievably tired of the whole thing. "I know that. But I can't help how I feel either. I keep going back to what Mark Collins said about us being too different. You want me for right now, but… What if eventually you decide I'm not enough? What if you figure out it would be better if you were with someone more like you? What if that's what your subconscious was trying to tell you in your dream?"
He gave her a long-suffering look and answered, "It's two o'clock in the morning, Paige. Do we have to do this now?"
Pulling her arm out of his grasp, she answered in a small voice, "I don't guess we have to do this at all." With that she stood and stalked to the bathroom, leaving an astonished Walter sitting up in bed probably wondering what just happened.
After a few minutes of oppressive silence, Paige heard the covers rustle as Walter got up and then his quiet footfalls growing louder as he made his way over to the bathroom door. Next came his soft knock followed by hesitant, muffled words, "Paige? I'm sorry. Come back to bed. Please?" When she couldn't find the words to explain her actions, he continued and her heart squeezed at the fear and hurt in his voice. "Don't break up with me over this, okay? We'll figure it out. I'm going downstairs to make tea. Then we can talk. All night long if you want. Whatever you need..."
Paige was too choked up to respond. When she heard his dejected, shuffling steps start down the ramp, she touched the door with her fingertips and whispered, "Please don't leave…" Not knowing if she meant it for that particular moment or if she was looking for a guarantee for the future.
After Walter left the loft to make the tea, Paige tore off a few squares of toilet paper and used it to dab at her eyes and blow her nose. She really didn't see what he could say to bring comfort to her. She'd thrown every argument at the issue she could think up for the last three nights.
Yet she knew she couldn't hide in the bathroom forever and hope the whole thing went away. Plus, her feet were freezing. So, she emerged and retraced her steps to the bed, dropping to all fours to rummage around under her side, looking for her slippers.
Instead of slippers, she found a discarded cassette tape. What on Earth was it doing under the bed? Paige sat back on her heels and held the tape up to examine it more closely. It was blank on one side. Then she turned it over and discovered it had the words 'For Paige' on the other side. It was written with indelible, black ink in Walter's bold handwriting.
Curious beyond belief and having no idea why her heart was pounding, she recalled her boyfriend had an old tape recorder on his desk in the loft. Completely forgetting her cold feet, she quickly retrieved it and popped in the tape.
When she pressed play, she only heard hissing. Feeling strangely disappointed, she shrugged. Then it occurred to her to rewind the tape first.
So tell me, is this a stand alone? Do we leave the happy conclusion to the imagination? Or do we need a chapter 2 resolution? Let me know your thoughts via review... Plus, reviews make life better. ;-D