AN: Hi! Man, fanfictions are like Pringles: once I start, I can't stop. Thank you all SO MUCH for the reviews on the last chapter—that was awesome! I may continue writing about their wedding but I finished this one first, so sorry if they get out of order. Oh, and I signed up to be a beta reader so if anyone's in the market let me know! Enjoy. :)
"Walter?"
He jumped, nearly dropping the ice pack in his hand. Paige had a terrible habit of sneaking around the garage—he knew she was purposefully being quiet to avoid amplifying his headache, but it wouldn't do any good if he suffered a heart attack instead.
"Sorry," she said in a genuinely apologetic tone. "How's your eye?"
Walter lowered the pack away from his face so that Paige could inspect the bruise. "It feels like I got punched in the face."
She tried to hold back her laughter, but a small snort slipped through anyway. She and Walter had been shopping in the supermarket an hour earlier when a man in the cereal aisle struck up a conversation with them. Paige didn't mind, but the genius was growing increasingly agitated, so she tried her best to extricate them from the situation. She was mere seconds away from making a graceful exit when the man asked if Walter was "challenged" because he wasn't talking, and Walter, insulted, revealed that his wife was cheating on him. She knew Walter was making an observation based on evidence and was almost certainly correct, but the man did not appreciate his honesty.
"Next time we'll stick with eggs," she joked, wrapping her hand around his and bringing the ice back up to his face. "Do you need me to get anything?"
"Can you hand me my phone? It hurts to lean over."
Paige cracked a sympathetic smile, her heart reacting in a strange way to the pitiful look on his face. Even though she had no doubt that punch was long overdue for Walter, she appreciated that he usually wasn't being malicious—he just couldn't separate what needed to be said from what should be kept quiet.
She placed the phone on his knee and lowered herself down next to him on the couch. He scooted over a fraction to give her more room, but the movement caused him to wince and she watched his fists clench until his knuckles had turned white.
"Are you okay?" she asked, instinctively reaching out to touch his free hand. He seemed uncertain how to react, tensing up for a moment before pulling his hand away and using a scan of his palm to unlock his phone.
"I'm fine," he said quickly, making a show of checking his text messages. He spent what felt like an eternity reading a message from Megan, despite the fact that it was only seven words long. "Thank you," he added as an afterthought, knowing that Paige was always suspicious of the word 'fine.'
"Sure." Paige angled her body as if she was going to push herself off the couch, but changed her mind at the last minute and twisted back around to face him. "Walter?"
"Hm?" he replied without looking up from the screen.
The liaison knew Walter much better than he gave her credit for, and it was obvious to her that he was avoiding her gaze. She let out a sigh and stared down at her hands, wringing her fingers together. "I know that it makes you…uncomfortable…to be touched. I'm sorry, it's kind of an automatic reaction for me. But I just want you to know that I'm working on it, okay?"
Walter felt his heart drop into his stomach. It was true that he didn't typically appreciate physical contact, but he'd come to accept that it was different with Paige. The idea of her lessening her already fleeting gestures filled him with a mild panic, but he couldn't tell her that.
"It's okay," he finally managed to choke out. "Don't worry about it."
"Thanks, Walter," she said, glancing at him with an unreadable expression. He watched Paige's fingers stretch toward him, then retract quickly, as though she had planned to touch him again and thought better of it. "Thanks," she repeated distractedly before moving to stand up.
Paige was clearly upset about something, and Walter was startled to realize that he felt unsettled too. Before she could leave and he could talk himself out of it, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, spinning her around to face him. She stared at him with a mixture of surprise and curiosity.
"Um…" Walter started uncertainly. He was in an awkward position, still sitting on the couch, one hand on her arm and the other holding the ice pack by his side, and he cursed himself for not planning this out better, whatever this was. A surge of adrenaline coursed through his body, temporarily disguising the pounding sensation in his head.
There was a moment of eternal silence between them as Paige watched him expectantly and he frantically searched his mind for a clue about what to do next. He had passed the point of no return; he couldn't laugh it off and pretend it was nothing when they both knew it was something.
"Walter?" she prompted. His fingers were grazing the inside of her wrist and he could feel her pulse jumping wildly. He heard his own thumping heartbeat in his ears, so loud it drowned out everything except her voice. "Walter, are you okay?"
He swallowed hard before finally—reluctantly—releasing her from his grip. "I, um…" he started again in shaky voice, "I just wanted to say…"
Walter had planned to thank her for taking care of his injury or perhaps apologize for embarrassing her at the grocery store, but his mouth felt dry and the room was spinning and he couldn't take his eyes off of her. He knew he would never be able to finish his sentence.
"Walter," she whispered, no longer a question but a statement. His mind and heart raced as Paige leaned down and inched closer to him, looking as unsure as he felt about what was happening.
And then the inevitable came as her lips touched his, sending shockwaves through every part of his body. Walter couldn't tell if he was responding, if it was even really happening or if he was dreaming again. But his dreams never felt this real. He could feel Paige start to pull back and, almost on instinct, Walter captured her lips again, pressing against her urgently. She responded by clumsily tumbling into his lap, brushing her hands through his hair and over his face, too lost in the moment to worry about whether she was aggravating his bruises. His hands trailed down her sides until he found her hips and pulled her closer to him, eliciting the quiet murmur of his name.
Walter wanted her, he wanted it all, but it wasn't right. Abruptly, he pulled Paige off of him and jumped up from the couch, the ice pack falling to the ground by his feet with a crack. She looked at the source of the noise and then up at him, her eyes wide and her hair falling into her face. The liaison stared at him in disbelief before composing herself enough to ask, "Did I do something?"
"No," Walter said quickly, running his hands over his face and cringing when he made contact with a sensitive spot. He couldn't think straight and he recognized that it was wrong to run, but in the moment, it was all he knew how to do. "I'm sorry. I can't," he said in a clipped voice before turning around and taking the stairs to his loft, knowing that he was very likely going to regret it.
Walter was hiding. It was nearly 9 p.m. and he had locked himself in his bedroom, waiting to hear the heavy click of the front door closing so that he would know Paige was gone and he could breathe again. But the click never came.
All he could think about—the only thing he was sure he would ever think about again—was their kiss. He dreamed about being that close to her, but once he was, he knew he was getting a taste of something he could never really have, and it had to end. With any luck, Paige would come back tomorrow morning and realize, like he did, that they had made a mistake and were better off as colleagues and friends.
There was a part of him screaming that this was the mistake, hiding from her, letting her go, but he silenced it. There was no room for emotional decisions if he wanted Scorpion to survive; only logic.
Walter sank back in his bed, telling himself that he should get some sleep but knowing it would be nearly impossible. If he thought he dreamt about Paige before, well, it wasn't going to get any better. He turned sideways and pushed the uninjured side of his face down into his pillow.
"Walter!" he heard a voice yell, accompanied by a loud knock that caused him to bolt upright in his bed. "Open the door!"
The genius groaned before stumbling out of his room to the entrance of the loft. He had thought they would both start fresh in the morning, but it was clear that Paige had been downstairs for the past two hours and wasn't planning to leave until they talked. Walter took a deep breath before pushing open the deadbolt and sliding the door open.
"We need to figure this out," Paige said, squeezing past him into the apartment. He looked around helplessly and closed the door behind her. She stared at the floor, tapping her foot a few times before looking up at him and crossing her arms. "That was a jerk move, Walter. If you didn't want me to kiss you, you could've just stopped me."
He did want her to kiss him; that much he understood. Walter hated to lie—even more so when he knew it would hurt Paige—so he chose not to say anything.
She absorbed his silence and rolled her eyes, pacing back and forth across the room. His head ached just watching her. "I spent the last two hours trying to figure out what is going on, and I know what you're doing, Walter. You want to pretend all this didn't happen. You want me to come in tomorrow and forget about all of this." Paige knew him well, he had to admit. "But I can't do that. No, I refuse to do that, because it's unhealthy and insane. So we're going to talk about this like adults, because that's what we are and I think this is important."
Paige took a deep breath after finishing her rant and stared at him harshly. "Do you want to go first or should I?" she asked, still pacing. She clearly wasn't going to take no for an answer, so Walter waved his hand to indicate that she should start.
"Fine," she said, settling into one spot on the carpet. Her cheeks were flushed, and Walter couldn't help but think about how beautiful she looked even when she was angry. He chastised himself for getting distracted. "I care about you, Walter. What happened down there…I wanted that, I've wanted that forever. I thought you did too. Was I wrong?"
If he had ever thought about lying to her, he changed his mind when he saw the pain behind her eyes. He didn't like knowing that he was the reason behind it and he resolved to try not to make the situation any worse. "No," he admitted quietly, directing his attention to the floor.
Paige seemed to be slightly relieved by his answer, and she stood silently for a moment before asking the real question. "Then why?"
It was a simple statement with no simple answer. How could he even begin to unpack all the reasons he had given himself to stay away from her, reasons he had buried so deep that they became a part of him?
"It was irresponsible of me to let that happen," he stated, picking a spot on the wall and focusing intently on it. Anywhere but on her. "I know—I've known, for a while—that it would be detrimental to both of us if this…we…developed into something more. I, um," he cleared his throat, "I lost sight of that, and I'm sorry. It wasn't fair to you, but I think you'd agree that there are simply too many obstacles in the way."
Paige exhaled deeply and combed her fingers through her hair, appearing deep in thought. "Is that really how you feel?" she asked finally.
"It doesn't matter how I feel," he answered slowly, drawing out the words. "I've analyzed the situation and concluded that keeping things the way they are is the best decision. For both of us, and for Ralph and the team too."
Paige shook her head fervently. "I'm sorry, I can't accept that."
"What?"
She took a few steps toward the genius, causing him to freeze in anticipation of what she might do. When they were less than a foot apart, she looked straight into his eyes and spoke again. "If you're telling me that in your heart, you really don't want things to go any further, then I'll respect that. But," she came even closer to him, "if I'm going to walk into work and both of us are going to be miserable and heartbroken because we want something we won't allow ourselves to have, then no, I can't accept that. Scorpion defies the odds every day, and I know that our situation isn't perfect, but what is there that we can't overcome like we do every other challenge that comes our way?"
Walter's brain was becoming muddled again due to her proximity, and even though his instinct told him to run again, he couldn't. Paige was standing there fighting for them—for him—even when he wasn't giving her any reason to.
"There are a lot of problems, Paige." Walter took a step backward to try and clear his head. "And even if you're right and we can overcome them, it's not fair. It's not fair…for you," his voice dropped, "to have to work so hard. Our job is already stressful; you deserve to go home and not have to fight anymore."
Paige's expression softened at his words, and she reached out hesitantly to touch his hand. He found himself unable to pull away as she wrapped her fingers around his. "There are things worth fighting for in this world, Walter. Things that we want. Things that we need."
She glanced up at him with the last word, and he felt himself grow weaker. He just wanted to spare her—spare them both—from unnecessary pain, but his resolve lessened the more she stood up to him. "This isn't a problem I know how to solve, Paige," he admitted, tearing his eyes away from her. "So I think we should just leave it at that."
Paige bit her bottom lip and looked down at the gold watch on her wrist. "Right now, it's 9:10. At 9:15, I'm going to leave the garage and today will have never happened as far as we're concerned. But first," she said, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, "you get one minute. One minute to list every reason why we can't be together."
"Paige…" the genius protested halfheartedly.
"Just do this and I'll leave," Paige promised, giving him an expectant look until he sighed deeply. She took that as a sign of agreement and started the timer on her watch.
"Fine. If something goes wrong, it will damage my relationship with Ralph," Walter argued.
"If something goes wrong, it going to be awkward around the garage," Paige added, making it clear that she was participating too.
"Drew hates me and dislikes my relationship with you and Ralph. He would make your life miserable."
"It could put us at risk during missions," she countered. "If we're worried about the other one being in danger."
"The team will never leave us alone." Walter felt the answers start to flow out of him. "They'll harass us for details constantly and there would be zero privacy."
Paige cocked her head to the side. "You have a serious issue with communication. Getting you to talk about anything is like pulling teeth."
He wasn't sure if she was teasing him or not, but he replied, "I've never maintained a successful relationship."
"Neither have I."
"I have no idea what I'm doing."
"Neither do I."
They stared at each other for a long second before the timer beeped on Paige's watch. "Time's up. Of all those seemingly insurmountable obstacles, which of them do you actually care about?"
Walter contemplated her question before arriving at a surprisingly simple answer. "Ralph. And you?"
"Ralph," she agreed. "You're not going to lose him, you know that, right? You have a bond that the rest of us can't even understand. I couldn't separate you even if I wanted to, and that's not something I would ever want."
"You can't say that with certainty," Walter pointed out, although he was secretly moved by what she said. "Neither of us know what will happen in the future."
"Do you trust me to do the best thing for my son?"
"Always," he answered without hesitation. Paige had sacrificed everything to give Ralph the best life possible, and Walter would never question her commitment to him.
"If being around you is the best thing for Ralph—and it has been every day since he met you—then trust that I will always put him first, no matter what happens between us," Paige said, resting her hand lightly on his chest. They both felt his heartbeat speed up in response. "Anything else?"
"No, I think we covered it," Walter murmured, looking down at her as she advanced closer. He had lost the argument, and he didn't care. He was tired of arguing. With her. With himself. He wanted to let go.
"Good. I'm going to kiss you again, okay?" The genius only managed a slight nod before Paige wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled him close to her, crashing her lips onto his. His fears were still there, but Walter told himself to trust Paige and finally gave in, circling his arms around her waist to support her.
"It's 9:15," Paige reminded him between kisses. "Do you want me to leave?"
Walter pulled back and took a deep breath, leaning his forehead against Paige's. "Please don't," he whispered, holding her tighter as if she might slip away from him the way he had from her. But she just nodded and came back to him, her eyes reflecting a million things that he felt, and in his head he promised that he would stop fighting against her and start fighting for her.