AGOG Chapter 4

This chapter is mostly Paige's POV on the next scene. It's more angsty, and less humorous than the previous chapters. Looking at most likely a total of 7 chapters with frequent updates this week.

After day three of the nearly silent treatment, Paige was frustrated. Ok, more than frustrated. She had lost her patience and was fluctuating between pissed off and hurt. Communication and helping the team translate their emotions were supposed to be areas of her expertise, but no matter what tactics she had tried to employ, Walter had refused to even look at her, much less open up about whatever was eating him.

When she and Ralph went back to the garage on Sunday to gather his things from the previous night, she had simply found his two bags neatly arranged on her desk. She had gone up to the loft to check on Walter to see if she could get him anything and was met with a locked door and a lame response about being fine, but potentially contagious, so she and Ralph should just leave. They honored his request, but the mother in her couldn't help but send a few text messages throughout the day to see if he was feeling any better or offering to come over with gingerale and saltines. Her first two texts went unanswered. The last one was curt:

Am fine. Trying to sleep.

And so she took the hint.

Monday had been a slow day at Scorpion, giving Sylvester plenty of time to sanitize every surface their leader may have come in contact with in the last 72 hours (he factored in the incubation period for the average flu) after Paige told the team Walter was under the weather. Walter spent most of the day up in the loft and when he finally descended he insisted he was "fine" and became quickly engrossed in his computer. He didn't engage in conversation with anyone and disappeared back up to his quarters when Ralph came in after school.

On Tuesday morning, Paige had arrived to somewhat organized chaos after dropping off Ralph. A case had already been presented to Walter and he was barking snippy orders to the already assembled team. They clearly had already been working for a few hours. She had glanced at her watch; she wasn't late.

"Why did everyone get here so early?" she had warily asked Happy who was occupied with a circuit board and some tools Paige thought looked almost surgical in nature.

"Walt texted everyone at 6am to let us know we caught a case and needed to get our asses in here," she glanced at Paige. "Didn't you get the message?" she asked before returning to her project.

"No, I didn't," Paige muttered as she walked away attempting not to feel a little left out. She pulled her phone out of her purse to double check her messages. Nothing from Walter since Sunday. She walked immediately over to Walter whose eyes again, remained fixed on the screen in front of him.

"Sorry. I guess I'm late. I didn't get your message," she stated flatly. "Can you catch me up to speed?"

Even though she was losing her patience with him, she couldn't help but notice he was wearing her favorite dark blue button-up shirt. His lack of tie allowed her a glimpse of the very top of his chest and she deduced he wasn't wearing an undershirt beneath. Her favorite fantasies of Walter always involved her very slowly unbuttoning his shirt, and immediately running her hands over his bare chest, reveling in what she imagined would be his warm, smooth skin. She had taken to assessing his undershirt status on a daily basis and always felt a little flushed on the days he opted not to wear one.

Today however, was clearly not going to be one of those days.

Walter continued typing as he gruffly responded, "I didn't send you a text, because you're not needed for this portion of the case. In fact, you sh-should just take the day off." He stood up abruptly and swiftly moved over to Sylvester who was also furiously typing away. Paige noticed he chose to stand to Sly's left side, seeming to strategically place himself as far away from her as possible, with Sylvester as a buffer between them.

She paused for a moment, trying very hard not to be offended. "It's ok," she called over. I'll just catch up on paperwork and then do some grocery shopping so I can make you guys lunch." Sylvester gave her a polite smile and nod while Walter ignored her completely. Paige walked over to her desk and sat down. It certainly wasn't the first time she felt excluded when they were involved in coding or hacking or whatever computer espionage she assumed they were engaged in, but to not even fill her in on the particulars? Surely she could help with profiling or planning how to find their way past whoever might be impeding the goal of their mission. Despite his low EQ, Walter had always made sure Paige felt important to the team. He had gone out of his way to do so on several occasions, which meant the world to her and she found incredibly sweet. Today he was making her feel like the others had on her first day of officially working for Scorpion.

She looked around for Cabe, who would maybe be able to catch her up, but he was nowhere to be found. She spotted Toby who looked equally immersed in scrolling through a database and ogling Happy every few moments. She was starting to become a little paranoid.

-ooo-

After returning from the grocery store, Paige spent over an hour in the kitchen preparing sandwiches, chopping vegetables for a pasta salad, and baking brownies. She was hoping the sweet smell of warm chocolate would be enough to entice everyone to take a break for an early lunch for at least a few minutes.

Sure enough, Toby was the first to indulge, even remembering to thank Paige profusely between mouthfuls of everything. Happy was next, grabbing a quick sandwich, giving Paige a nod and returning to her work area. Sylvester set a new record for himself, limiting his washing up to under 5 minutes and sat down to the table, eager to dig and complimenting her after the first bite. Paige started to feel a little better. Her colleagues were busy, but not intentionally giving her the cold shoulder. The only icy blasts she was still receiving were of course from Walter. She decided she would sit down and join the mathematician when Walter called out for him.

"Sly, I really need you over here now."

Sylvester froze in mid-bite and frowned. He slowly rose, moving his hand toward a brownie to gulp down or save for later, Paige put her hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back into his seat.

"Eat," she insisted firmly. "I'll go see what Walter needs."

She fixed a smile on her face and strode over to Walter, who of course, continued to ignore her.

"Walter?" she said and waited for a response.

Nothing.

"Walter," she said more sternly. "The team needs a little break. Especially Sylvester whom you know worries about his blood sugar levels." She paused as she watched him tune her out. She took a deep breath and continued. "You could use a break too, you know. I know for a fact that you operate less efficiently on an empty stomach."

Silence.

Determined, she kept insisting, "Come on – five minutes." She moved closer to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. "I got your—" Walter jumped away from her, flinging her hand off of him as if she had burnt him. Paige stepped back several feet with wide eyes "—favorite…" she weakly trailed off.

"You – you shouldn't be here right now!" Walter yelled, causing everyone to stop what they were doing and stare at the pair.

Paige felt her eyes well with tears. She had no idea how to respond.

"You – your lunch – you are distracting me," Walter paused as he realized his admission, quickly correcting himself. "The team," he breathed angrily. "You are distracting the team." He had delivered his whole tirade to the floor. Now, he flung himself around to face the wall, running his fingers through his hair and continuing in a quieter voice that almost made him sound more volatile. "We don't need you for this mission, Paige. You don't even know what case we're working on—"

"Because I didn't realize I needed to be here early! You didn't tell me! You won't even look at me! What is going on, Walter?" She hated that her voice came out higher than usual and made her sound whiny and defensive.

Walter remained with his back to her and was silent. Paige looked at her three colleagues, her friends, questioningly for some clue as to what she must have done. Sylvester held up his hands in innocence, Happy raised her eyebrows and shook her head. Toby however, was looking at Walter with a mix of incredulity and skepticism.

"Paige, please just go," came Walter's eerily calm voice eventually.

"Fine," Paige sniffed. "I'll just put the food in the fridge in case anyone is hungry later." She looked again at her teammates who still looked as baffled as she was before dropping her head so her hair would curtain the sides of her face and hide her tears. She walked briskly into the kitchen to attempt the world's fastest clean up so she could get the hell out of there.

As she scrubbed and dried and wrapped up the food, setting aside a few brownies to take home to Ralph, she was too lost in her own thoughts to tune into anything else going on in the garage until she heard a loud crash and Walter yelling, "Get the hell away from me!" She looked up to catch him bolting up to the loft, taking the steps two at a time. As she quickly glanced around, she easily deduced that Toby had been on the receiving end this time. After Walter slammed the door to the loft, Toby turned and walked over to Paige.

He took one look at her tear-stained face and patted her on the back. "Come on," he said. "I'll walk you to your car."

Once they were out of the garage, Toby asked, "So I'm guessing you don't know what crawled up 197's ass either?"

Paige shook her head. "Everything was fine when he picked up Ralph on Saturday for the meteor shower." She pulled at a strand of her hair, twisting it around her finger nervously. "When I saw them again on Sunday morning, he barely spoke to me or Ralph." She recounted the awkward breakfast debacle.

Toby raised his eyebrows. "I wish I could have seen that," he chuckled.

Paige smiled and sighed. "Hopefully one day, we'll all look back on that morning and have a good laugh. But right now..." she trailed off as her eyes welled with tears again.

"So you're saying you had absolutely zero interaction with him between the Saturday pick-up and Sunday morning?" Toby asked.

"Not even a text message," Paige responded. "I really thought he must have been sick, but today he seems really – angry with me and only me now and I don't know why." More tears fell down her cheeks. "According to Ralph, they had a really good time on Saturday. I don't understand, Toby." She dug around in her bag for a tissue.

Toby pulled her in for a loose hug. "I'm going to go back in and do some investigating that has nothing to do with the case we are working on." He took a few steps back toward the garage. "I'll pick Happy and Sylvester's brains while our fearless leader cools off and then I'll try to have him come down for some couch time." He put his hand on the door to their workplace. "In the meantime, see if you can get more out of Ralph when he comes home from school. I know he's about as forthcoming with details as grumpy pants up there, but try asking him specific questions and see if that gets you anywhere." He pulled the door open and tipped his hat to her. "I'll text you later."

-ooo-

Once Ralph was home from school, Paige resisted the urge to begin interrogating him. He was already disappointed they weren't stopping by the garage, but Paige had mollified him with the promise of brownies after dinner. She made sure he did his homework, asked him some casual questions about his day as they ate, and tried to decide how to begin her line of questioning.

After a few questions and responses that had gotten her nowhere, Paige decided to level with her son.

"Ralph, Walter seems really upset with me. Did you maybe say something about me on Saturday night that would have given him reason to be mad?" She ruffled his hair reassuringly. "It's ok if you did, I'm just trying to figure this out. Can you tell me?"

Ralph rolled his eyes and cocked his head, giving his mother a look of mild disgust. "No offense mom, but you told us it was a 'guys' night,' remember? That means no talking about girls. Not even you."

Paige bit her lip to suppress a smile as she realized she'd just seen a glimpse of preteen logic. Her son might be a genius, but boys were still boys. She almost giggled at the image of the three of her men on the roof Saturday night with a sign that said, "No Girls Allowed."

Ralph was almost finished with his second brownie and she was still completely clueless about what could possibly be going on in the mind of Walter O'Brien. That wasn't an entirely new feeling for her of course, but she was more puzzled than usual. She stood and started clearing the dinner plates. "I just don't understand, Ralph. He seemed fine when he picked you up, and then really off with me ever since." She turned on the sink. "I keep replaying our last conversation, but I don't see how discussing brushing your teeth and s'mores could possibly have set him off."

Ralph was still seated at the table when she heard him say, "What'd you guys talk about when he came back for my bag?"

Paige dropped the dish she'd been rinsing in the sink.

She turned off the water and slowly faced her son. "What did you just say, honey?"

Ralph shrugged. "I forgot my overnight bag in my room, so on our way back from the store, Walter came up to get it for me, remember?"

It started to occur to Paige that Ralph had left their home with one bag, but it was two bags that were waiting for them on her desk when they went to check on Walter after breakfast on Sunday. "Walter-" she started and then stopped, completely bewildered. She tried again, "Walter came back to the condo?"

"Mom. You were here. I saw your car in the lot." He was speaking to her slowly as if she were a small child to whom he was trying to explain quantum physics. "I was afraid you'd be mad at me for being irresponsible, so I asked Walter to get it instead."

Paige's mind was nowhere near a lecture on responsibility right now. She was replaying her evening, wondering what could have prevented her from hearing him knock on the door and actually entering her apartment without her knowledge. Had she been asleep?

"Ralph, wh-what time was that?" she inquired. A potential scenario was beginning to dawn on her. She was trying to remain calm.

Ralph sighed and stood up from the table, getting bored with the conversation and happy to have oddly avoided a sermon on accountability.

"7:17," he said and walked out of the kitchen.

7:17. The movie she had watched ended at 7, she was sure of it. After the movie, she took a bath. The more she walked herself through her exact movements of that night, the more horrified she became. She put her hand over her mouth and said, "Oh my god." She stood frozen, in shock as she wondered…it sort of made sense….

"No. Not possible," she muttered out loud again, but she continued to ponder the scenario as she slowly returned to the dishes in the sink.

The big reveal is on its way! Thank you so much for any review – big or little. They make me do a little happy dance!