This chapter is super late! I was doing well posting everyday but had to go out with family yesterday and I couldn't post this morning because I had to rush to school... Very sorry to those who were expecting a chapter.

Anyways, this is definitely one of my favourite parts of the story. You guys will see why ;) (Yes, I'm talking to you, Waige fans)

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Scorpion.

Chapter 7

A week had passed since Paige's date. Progress had slowed, though it was debatable if it was even moving before.

The team became more desperate in their pursuit for Collins. They maintained surveillance cameras around LA, a guard was positioned at the garage door and the email had been through countless decoding soft wares. Each time they found a location for Collins, they hacked into cameras around the area and found it to be a trick. Collins was beating them down.

Paige feared everyday he was going to bust down the garage door and come for Walter. As the teams desperation increased, she could tell they had similar worries. Tension in the garage was thick enough to slice through with an axe.

Day after day Paige had forced Walter to eat. Her routine with him became dull and exhausting; argue and wrestle until Walter relented and repeat. She soon decided she would try to make him sleep again. She didn't bother to tell the team. They were absorbed in a new idea they had discovered; searching for Collins' possible collaborators.

Paige put her game face on when she walked up the stairs and saw Walter quietly working.

"It's been two weeks Walter." Paige begged. "You need to wake up. Or at least sleep." Walter ignored her, scrawling something on a note pad and muttering.

Paige sighed, waiting a moment for Walter to react. A small thought crept into her mind. Happy had set out the Nyquil again a few days before, her not-so-subtle way of telling Paige she needed to get Walter to sleep again. Happy had given Paige a pointed look when she noticed the Nyquil, but said nothing about it.

Paige rejected the thought quickly. She was disgusted that she even thought about drugging her boss.

"Walter! It's almost midnight. Please!"

Once again, all she got in response was muttering. Mumbles of none sense. It was making Paige go crazy. She'd had enough of all this. She was starting to get frustrated.

"That's it." she said, snatching the note pad away. Walter stood up immediately, frowning.

"No. You don't get it until you've slept." Paige walked over to Walter's bed and thrust the notebook beneath the covers. Walter got on the bed and reached for it, but Paige pinned him down when he tried to resurface.

Walter tried to move his arms to push her off, but Paige laced her fingers through both his hands and pinned then over top of his head. Walter was stronger than Paige expected, though. He began to slowly lift her arms up, even though Paige used all her might to keep him down.

Under normal circumstances, Paige was sure the man would have simply stood up without a problem. Luckily (well, more like unfortunately since the whole rabbit hole mess was completely unlucky), he had gone without proper sleep, nutrition and water for two weeks. So with great effort Paige managed to keep him down. She could see how frustrated he was, but Paige was a single mother. She had spent many nights with her own genius as he tried to coerce her into letting him stay up late. If anyone was able to get Walter to sleep, it was Paige.

/WEAKNESSES\

Paige awoke with hardly any memories from the previous night. She always woke in a confused state, more disheveled and slow than the average person. That's just how she was.

She moved her head a bit, nuzzling her pillow. A soft rhythm played beneath her ears; a slow thudding that sounded distant and a lot like an echo, at the same time. In her exhausted state, she kept her eyes shut as she pondered what the noise was.

As coherency slowly returned to her, she realized her pillow was also moving in a similar pattern. Up and down, fluidly and at a relaxed pace. Paige was in no particular hurry to be concerned as to why she heard the melodious thudding and why her pillow rocked; it was when she trying to move her fingers that she fully snapped in consciousness. She found something soft entwined with both her hands - fingers.

Paige instantly looked up to her hands that were stretched above her head. Her heart lurched when she saw Walter's head, turned to the side, only inches above hers. His eyes were shut and his features smoothed with the tranquility of sleep. His long lashes cast long shadows of his eyelids to make him look strangely soothed, something he had not looked like in the past few weeks.

And Paige was lying on top of him, using his chest as a pillow.

Both their hands were above their heads, fingers still laced together. Paige quickly remembered how she had pinned him down the night before, fed up with his refusal to sleep. She hadn't expected to fall asleep with him.

Paige didn't know what to do. Her mind raced almost as fast as her pulse. This was wildly inappropriate. Walter was her boss, and she had just spent the night on top of him! (not in THAT way, but still.) What if he woke up that second and saw her staring up at him? This wasn't right.

At the same time, Paige was thankful that Walter was asleep. The dark crescents that marked the soft skin underneath his eyes were so dark it looked as if he had rubbed eye liner there purposely. Paige was grateful that his rest had caused those shadows to fade slightly. If she moved, he would probably wake up, and her day of chasing him around would begin.

A small part of Paige, though she would never admit it to anyone aloud, was completely content in her position and dreaded the thought of moving. Though she had spent the entire night with her arms hoisted up above her head, she wasn't uncomfortable in the slightest. In fact, the position was startlingly natural to her, though she could only imagine how strange it looked. Paige didn't want to move.

So she resolved that she would pretend to still be asleep, with her eyes shut, and wait for Walter to stir, then jump off of him. Hopefully in his rabbit hole state he wouldn't be alarmed by her proximity. Paige was well aware about Walter's feelings on physical contact. She felt like it was a selfish decision, but she reminded herself that Walter would only benefit from more sleep.

Paige spent half an hour listening to Walter's relaxed heart beating beneath her ear. His breathing rocked her up and down gently. She almost fell asleep again, until Walter let go of her right hand and lazily threw his arm across her back.

Paige's breath caught. Should she move? She thought he was still asleep. She peeked up at his face cautiously and saw his eyes still closed. Paige felt relieved. She closed her eyes again, swearing to herself that the next time he moved she would get up off of him. But soon the warmth of Walter's body cocooned her, and she felt herself being rocked to sleep again...

/WEAKNESSES\

Paige woke up again, but this time with a jolt. Had she fallen asleep again? No, no, no... She had to be alert for if Walter moved! But, strangely, she was on her back. Even stranger still, the bed covers were now on top of her.

Paige sat up and looked around but couldn't see Walter. He must have gotten up on his own and left. But how did she get under the covers?

A ridiculous idea fell upon her. What if when Walter woke up, he had pulled the covers over Paige before he left? Paige scolded herself for having such high hopes, like a child. Walter was too far down the rabbit hole to do something like that.

But the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. There was no other way that she could have woken up like that. Paige stood up clumsily on the wooden floor and walked out of the room.

She passed by Walter, who was wearing different clothes than the day before. He was working on the same note pad that Paige had used to bait him the night before.

"Good morning, Walter." Paige said curiously. Walter looked to her for a second before turning back to his notes.

Paige stumbled down the stairs to make herself and Walter breakfast. Toby and Happy were having one of their unusual conversations (Toby flirts, Happy insults him but only spurs him on) when they paused to see Paige.

"Spend the night again?" Toby asked.

Paige nodded, yawning. She ran her hand through her frizzy hair, instantly blushing when she pictured her humiliating bed head. "Ralph spent the night with Drew."

Happy sighed disdainfully. "I don't know why you try. It's not worth it if nothing works."

"But it did work." Paige said before Happy turned away. Both geniuses looked at Paige intently with raised eyebrows. "I got him to sleep. For the whole night, too."

"How on earth did you manage that?" Toby asked. "Did the same 'watching-you-while-you-sleep' Twilight bullshit work again?"

"well," Paige's face reddened when she thought of her body pressed against Walters as she drifted back to sleep. "I got fed up, so I kinda... Tricked Walter into crawling on top of the bed. And I was able to hold him down because he's so exhausted and weak from not eating anything."

"So you held him down until he fell asleep." Happy finished, actually looking impressed. It was an abnormal expression on Happy that shocked Paige, though she didn't dare show it.

"Why didn't you come and tell us?" Toby exclaimed. "Happy's been banging things around all morning! She probably woke him up!" Happy glared at the shrink.

Paige didn't answer. She felt embarrassed about how she had spent her night. Would she tell them she fell asleep on top of Walter somehow? Or would she take a risk a try to lie to Toby?

Before Paige could decide, Toby had already connected the dots. "You fell asleep, too." Paige's face turned a bright shade of red. "But if that were all, your pupils wouldn't be so dilated and you wouldn't be blushing so much... Something humiliating happened. He didn't strip naked, did he?"

"No!" Paige stammered.

"You fell asleep? Like with him?" Happy exclaimed, awed by her own words. Paige's cheeks flared a deeper red.

"In Walter's bed?" Toby asked, stunned. Paige didn't reply, but she reddened further, fidgeting slightly with her fingers. "On Walter!" Toby spun around, clutching his hat on disbelief.

"And he's still not out?" Happy exclaimed.

"I guess not! But I did fall asleep on... Well, stomach first on top of him," Paige struggled to continue the awkward conversation, her face becoming redder than a beet "but when I woke up I was under the covers and on my back, with Walter gone. We didn't have the covers over us in the first place." Paige's voice was shaky from embarrassment.

"He must have tucked you in when he woke up." Toby said.

"But he was down the rabbit hole, he wouldn't have done something like that." Happy pointed out.

"Wait, hold on a minute," Toby said. "You're positive that he tucked you in?"

"Yes." Paige said in a small voice.

"If he would only do that if he's out of the rabbit hole, he must have been out."

Happy rolled her eyes. "That makes no sense, Doc."

"He must have woken up out of the rabbit hole, had the decency to tuck you in... But why is it that none of us can go up there except for Paige?" Toby wondered aloud.

"If you see his work, you might go down too." Paige answered. Her puzzled expression quickly dissipated while she spoke.

"He saw his work, and it all came tumbling down on him again." Toby finished.

"He woke up, though." Happy said. She looked at Paige. "You woke him up."

Paige felt dazed. The very thing she had been praying for had happened, but it had been taken away just as quickly.

"My lord, no wonder you've been having so much luck with him!" Toby exclaimed. "You're literally his cure!"

"We've got to do it again." Happy said. "Walter and Paige need to sleep together again." Upon seeing Paige's face contort and go extremely red, she added. "Not like that, of course."

"Though I'm sure that would work, too," Toby mused.

Before anyone could add anything to that, Sylvester emerged from his room. "Hey, could one of you drive me over to see Megan? Walter hasn't been able to see her, and she texted me to-" Sylvester's words halted when he saw Paige's face. "Why do you look like a tomato?"

Paige raised an eyebrow and Sylvester immediately scrambled to fix his mistake. "I meant why are you blushing so much, I didn't mean that you actually resemble the fruit, you look very, very human." Sly tried to console her.

"Paige slept with Walt and he came out of the rabbit hole." Toby told Sly. Sly's jaw dropped and flushed a brighter red than Paige.

"Not like that! We fell asleep together." Paige said quickly as Sylvester's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

"But he saw those equation boards," Toby flicked his finger to above them all where Walter was quietly working. "And went right back down again."

"Well that's great! They just have to..." Sly made a few awkward hand gestures.

"It's not like they actual did the dirty, Sly, you can say 'fall asleep together'." Happy said impatiently.

"Fine, that," Sly said, still uncomfortable. "And we get rid of the equation boards and everything related to them and he'll be out."

"I don't think I can get him to sleep again tonight, guys." Paige said.

"That's fine, we'll go to the drug store, find some tranquilizers and drug him!" Toby exclaimed, strangely excited and happy to drug his friend (though with the geniuses, especially Toby, it wasn't strange in the slightest.)

"Don't we have tranquilizers?" Paige asked, remembering the medical display she had received last time she forced Walter into sleeping.

"Long story…" Toby said, fiddling with his hands.

"You can drive me to Megan's hospital, as well?" Sly asked hopefully.

"Sure buddy. We probably shouldn't use them right away, so there's some time to spare." Toby grabbed his coat, then turned to Paige. "Can I borrow your car? Mine broke down and someone" Toby's eyes flicked to Happy. "Promised to fix it and never delivered."

"Sure, my keys are on the counter." Paige pointed.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Happy asked uncertainly. "If you take a look at Toby's car, you'll wonder if it broke down or went through a couple transport trucks."

"You're the last one who should be talking about quality of driving!" Toby called as Sylvester and him headed towards the front door.

"So what are you doing texting Walter's sister?" Toby asked Sly as he grabbed his coat. "You don't want Walter to come out of the rabbit hole to find out he's got a brother-in-law, do you? It'll probably send him right back down again!"

Paige and Happy never got to hear the rest of that conversation because the door slammed shut behind the boys. They could imagine the uncomfortable look on Sylvester's face, though.

The two women stood in awkward silence for a second. "I've never seen your face so red before." Happy finally said. "I've never seen anyone's face so red before."

"That was not a comfortable conversation." Paige said, following Happy to her corner as she rifled through some metal bits.

"You know, I might not be a shrink, like Toby," Happy said. "But I would say that you enjoyed sleeping with Walter."

"Falling asleep with Walter!" Paige practically yelled.

"I didn't hear any denial." Happy said, looking at Paige with the same smugness she sometimes saw on Toby. (Ok, sometimes was a really big understatement)

"This is not an appropriate conversation!" Paige said, even though her and Happy both knew she was avoiding the truth: Paige did enjoy sleeping alongside Walter. It was comfortable, pleasant, warm... Walter had just showered and smelt of soap and other, less distinguishable but soothing scents.

Happy raised an eyebrow. "Now you want to talk about what's appropriate?" Paige pressed her lips firmly together, narrowing her eyes. Happy raised her hands in defense, clearly amused. "Hey, I'm just fooling around. You got him out. No one cares how you had to do it, we're just grateful you did."

"But he's back down." Paige muttered.

"Not for long." Happy said. "Go get some food. Call Ralph. You solved a problem none of us geniuses could." Happy looked back down at her work.

Happy had never been quite too talkative to Paige before, and Paige was stunned. Aside from being independent, strong women, Happy and Paige had only Scorpion in common. Paige didn't connect with any of the geniuses exceptionally well, except for maybe Walter. She realized that their EQ made friendships, even with each other, strenuous and unnatural. What She didn't realize how much Walter meant to Happy, as a friend, in spite of their very low EQ levels. She wanted him back, badly. All of them did. Paige had felt alone before, being the only one able to help Walter, and the only one who had seemed to care. But she didn't feel so alone anymore.

They've finally found the cure to pull Walter out of the rabbit hole! And (not so surprisingly) it's Paige!

If you think the discovery means the story's over, though, you're wrong. It hasn't even hit the halfway mark. So stay tuned for the next chapter where we'll see if Walter can be woken up. I promise it will arrive 24 hours after this chapter.

Thank you so much for all of your reviews! Please continue to share your opinions on Weaknesses (bad or good) and how you think the story should progress!