Thanks for your patience (and reviews)!

"Why are you crying?"

Oh god, this can't be happening. Please tell me I'm hallucinating.

Hallucination or not, Paige was going to have to face him eventually. She sucked in a deep breath, smoothing out her shirt and clearing her eyes with half a ripped tissue before throwing it in the trash. She could handle this; it wasn't like he'd never seen her cry before. She just had to suck it up for two minutes, find out what he wanted and kick him out. "What are you doing here?" she asked more evenly, swallowing the rough edge in her voice.

"Uh…" He cleared his throat as Paige turned around to see him holding Ralph's backpack in one hand. But it didn't take a behavioral psychologist to realize that Walter wasn't interested in discussing the circumstances of her son's missing schoolwork. His eyes were firmly trained on her blotchy face and probably atrociously streaked makeup and she hated it, hated how raw and exposed she felt under his scrutiny.

"Walter, I'm busy," Paige snapped, taking three rushed strides toward him and grabbing the backpack out of his grasp. The brief brush of his hand against hers forced a jolt through her body and she suddenly felt like she might be sick. "Thank you. I'll make sure Ralph gets it. Good night."

Surely even someone as dense as Walter could understand that cue.

She dropped the bag next to her desk, wondering for a brief moment if Ralph had "forgotten" it the same way he allegedly struggled to carry his astronomy project by himself. Her plans for a thorough lecture about meddling were interrupted by the keen awareness that Walter wasn't moving.

"I don't understand. Am I supposed to pretend that y-you're not upset?"

He sounded confused and frustrated, and Paige acknowledged that ignoring her breakdown when they were together would've made her furious. But whatever cobbled-together-out-of-necessity relationship they had right now was a far cry from those days. "Well, I'm not your employee or your girlfriend. So yes. It has nothing to do with you."

The lie felt bitter on Paige's tongue the instant it left. She'd meant to say it was no longer any of his concern, which was true. But to claim that when she sat down at her desk, not even five minutes after the babysitter had picked up Ralph, and attempted to finish a proposal only to completely and utterly fall apart, that Walter was not responsible for some or all of it…that was too massive a denial, even for her.

Seeing him and Ralph again, the way they looked at each other…seeing him in the place she'd built with almost the sole purpose of excluding him, of competing against him…god, nothing felt right. She hadn't sorted through what she felt, yet, but it certainly wasn't satisfaction, not even the vindictive kind.

This was everything she wanted for herself. Everything she'd dreamed about while working grueling triple shifts at Nemo's. And then Walter walked in and blew that fantasy all to hell.

"Is this about Centipede?" the genius asked tentatively, snapping her out of her daze and instantly reigniting her anger. She welcomed it. It was more productive than regret.

"You would love that, wouldn't you?" she bit out sarcastically. "Watching us all flame out spectacularly without you? Centipede is doing fine, sorry to burst your bubble."

Walter set his jaw, his eyes narrowing as the uncertainty dropped from his face. "I don't want you to fail, Paige. Unlike you, I'm not that petty."

"Says the man who Photoshops his rivals out of pictures." Bringing up Tim was a low blow and she felt a mixture of triumph and guilt at the change in his expression. But she was so tired and he clearly wasn't going to leave until she made it impossible for him to stay. "I'm not your responsibility anymore, Walter. And I'm sure as hell not interested in your pity. Isn't there something better you could be doing with your time? Maybe going to some stupid lecture with Florence?"

Walter's head snapped up and Paige's eyes widened as she recognized almost immediately how big of a mistake her snipe was. She hadn't meant to bring the chemist into this, at least not explicitly. It would only open up the wounds all over again.

Not that hers had closed to begin with.

The genius was quiet for a moment, opening and shutting his mouth several times until he settled on a response. "Florence and I have no relationship outside of Scorpion 2.0. There was never…" He shook his head, looking down at his feet again. "It doesn't matter. I already told you that, and you refused to listen. But you're treating me like I torpedoed your company and ripped away half of your family so you'll excuse me if I'm confused as to why you're acting like I'm the villain."

She stared at him, searching his expression for some assurance that he was telling the truth. Paige wanted nothing more than to know for sure that he and Florence weren't doing all the things that haunted her thoughts when she let them wander. But he'd dreamt about her, kept her a secret, taken every opportunity to be around her. Their connection was too strong. How could Paige compete with that? Wasn't it better to get out early and concede defeat?

"I didn't torpedo your company," she said instead, desperate to course correct. "Scorpion 2.0 was winning plenty of contracts last time I checked."

But Walter, that stubborn jerk, didn't take the bait. "So that's it? You get to blow everything up and walk away and I'm the petty one because I want to defend myself? B-Because I want to talk about it? How is that fair?"

"It's been a month!" She threw her hands up in exasperation. "You want to talk now? You sure weren't feeling that talkative when you were sneaking around with Florence. Or after I left, for that matter, because I didn't exactly see you running after me!"

He paused, realization slowly dawning on him, and Paige cursed herself for slipping again. "Was that what you expected?"

She didn't really want to answer. But she'd been pushing it all down for so long, pretending to everyone that she wasn't focusing on the past for a second, and it just spilled out horribly like it had the night she found the tickets. "I don't know. What does it matter now? You just let me leave and the next time I heard from you, it was about Ralph. So I was right. You'd already given up on us, I just made it official."

"That's not true," Walter rebutted. "E-Even if I could convince you that Florence was only a friend, you made it clear that our relationship was unsatisfactory. That you couldn't stand another second being around me. What purpose would chasing after you have served other than to facilitate further rejection?"

"To show that you gave a damn! Which I guess was too much to ask. God, Walter, I put everything into our relationship and you couldn't even make it a year—."

"I couldn't make it a year? Unless I'm remembering things incorrectly, and I think we both know I'm not, you were the one who got bored with me. My lectures, my hobbies, my eating habits—."

"Yeah, and what about you? What about every time I asked you to do something I cared about and you dismissed me? To hang out with her, no less. What does that mean other than that I bored you?"

"I was never bored with you." Whatever argument was on Paige's tongue faded at the earnestness in Walter's voice. In his eyes. "I-I neglected my duties as a boyfriend. Obviously. But in four years I've never once felt bored or…or unsatisfied when I was with you. I can't force you to believe that, but it's a fact."

Paige pressed her lips together, trying and failing to stop her anger from dissipating. She needed the frustration, the humiliation, the heartbreak. Without it, she was just another stupid woman pining for a man she wasn't sure she could trust.

For a long minute—maybe more than one, she had no idea, though he probably knew exactly—they just stared at each other. When she didn't answer, Walter swallowed and nodded, dragging a hand over his face. "I'm sorry I made you miserable. I still am, apparently." He glanced between her and the door, his shoulders dropping as he exhaled. "You're right. I shouldn't have waited so long to say all this."

He turned to leave, not waiting for her response. It didn't make sense. All she'd wanted was to get rid of him and now, steps away from achieving that goal, she was one hundred percent sure watching him walk away after everything he'd just admitted would be impossible.

"Walter, wait."