Walter and Paige have dinner, but there's more talking than eating. Little do they know that danger is just around the corner.

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CHAPTER 10.

"Yes, yes, I know, Cabe… I won't…. I doubt that will happen…"

Walter held his phone to his ear as he walked along the corridor towards Paige's condo. His spontaneous suggestion that he and Paige should have dinner this evening had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he was beginning to have second thoughts.

"Cabe, I don't have any expectations…" continued Walter. "We're just going to talk, that's all… No, I'm not an idiot, Cabe… I think Paige made her feelings quite clear… Yes, I do understand that, but…"

Walter sighed as Cabe continued his lecture. He realised Cabe was just worried and he really appreciated his concern, but right now the only person Walter wanted to talk to was Paige.

"I have to go, I'm here now." Walter ended the call before Cabe could add another unhelpful comment about 'taking it easy' and 'keeping your cool'. "It's not like anything I say could make this any worse," he mumbled to himself as he pocketed his phone and took the last few steps to Paige's door.

Walter had brought a bunch of flowers with him for Paige. It was a small bunch, no roses or anything that had screamed 'romance' to him as he'd selected them – but then Walter O'Brien and 'romance' were not the greatest of bedfellows, he acknowledged to himself, so maybe Paige would misinterpret the gesture? He suddenly wondered what had possessed him to buy them in the first place, so he ran two doors along the hallway and left them outside another apartment. He just hoped the occupant would appreciate the gift.

He ran back towards Paige's door and was about to knock, but he hesitated. He could hear voices. More specifically he could hear Paige's voice. She must be on the phone, he realised. He stepped closer to the door and glanced over his shoulder. Satisfied that no one else was around he pressed his ear to the door. He could hear Cabe's voice in his head – did this count as doing something he would regret? Possibly, he conceded, although it would depend on what he was about to overhear.

"I can't explain it, Toby."

At least Walter now knew who she was talking to.

"I guess you could call it paranoia – is that bad?"

Was this to do with her strange behaviour up on the roof earlier?

"That's easy for you to say… OK, OK, I'll try."

Try what? Why does she need to try? This used to be so easy.

"Of course we will, but don't forget our meeting with Richard Elia in the morning. Couch time will have to wait."

Walter found himself holding his breath as Paige laughed, presumably at something Toby had said. He'd missed her laugh more than anything.

"He'll be here any minute. Thanks for the pep talk, Doc."

Was the thought of having dinner with him so terrifying that she needed a pep talk from a shrink to get her through it? Walter sighed. No, that was unfair, he conceded. It had been a pep talk from a friend, no different to the conversation he'd just had with Cabe.

Walter took a deep breath. "It's now or never," he muttered and he knocked on the door with determination.

The door flew open. "Walter!" exclaimed Paige, as if she was surprised to see him. It put Walter a little more on edge than he had already been.

"Paige, I, er, I…"

Paige smiled. "Come in," she said and she stood aside as he walked inside. "Dinner is almost ready."

"Um… um… perhaps we should talk first?" suggested Walter. He followed her towards the kitchen and watched as she stirred the saucepan. "I hear that you – that is, Centipede Partners – won the Elia contract," he said casually.

Losing that one to Paige had stung more than the Gettleman contract. Despite the fact they weren't as close as they used to be, Walter had hoped Richard Elia would have stayed loyal to him. Then again, Paige had briefly been an employee of Elia's company so maybe his loyalty lay with her now?

"Yes," confirmed Paige. "He was impressed with our pitch." She moved a book from the couch and sat down. "It's Ralph's," she explained as she put the heavy textbook on the floor. "He's been reading a lot of real books lately instead of staring at his tablet screen all the time."

Walter sat beside her, but kept a reasonable distance between them. He wished he could forget everything that had happened and take her in his arms, feel close to her again, but of course it wasn't that simple. Just being here reminded him of just how much she had hurt him. It also reminded him of how much his own actions had hurt her.

"It was good to see Ralph today," said Walter. Toby would probably say he was deflecting – deliberately avoiding talking about what he should be talking about – but Walter didn't feel ready to lay his feelings about Paige out in the open, not yet.

"He's missed you," replied Paige, with more sadness in her eyes than Walter had expected. "This has all been so hard on him. And my behaviour hasn't exactly helped. He… he ran away the other day."

Walter wasn't at all surprised. When he was even younger than Ralph, Walter would regularly run away from home. Growing up in rural Ireland knowing that there was a big wide world out there to discover frequently drove him crazy, but unfortunately, despite his genius mind, he rarely got further than the next town before someone would recognise him and take him home. "I imagine he is… confused a…a…about our current situation," offered Walter.

Paige nodded sadly. "Is that how you feel?" she asked, nervously.

Walter shrugged. "I… I suppose that's part of it," he replied.

Walter had been coping with a vast array of emotions in the last four weeks and he didn't know how to process any of them. He had tried to make some kind of logical sense of them, put them in order so he could work through them one at a time, but it hadn't worked. Instead his thoughts had become such a jumble that his judgement had become clouded and he had come to realise that the only way he could get through each day was to deliberately supress his feelings. It had been totally exhausting.

"I know Mark Collins had something to do with this," continued Paige. "But his mind games would have had no effect if the danger signs hadn't been there in the first place."

"Danger signs? I… I thought things between us were good. I didn't expect any of this."

"Didn't you? I think that somewhere in the back of your mind you had some very deep concerns about us. Otherwise why would you feel it necessary to keep a secret from me? I think you knew that our relationship would suffer."

Walter thought about her words for a moment. Maybe she was right? "It seemed a trivial matter."

"Trivial?"

"Well, yes," agreed Walter. Then he realised Paige's expression was one of horror. "I'm not sure if I'm m…m…making myself very clear…"

"Sneaking around behind my back with another woman is not trivial!"

"Paige, you know it… it wasn't like that," insisted Walter. "It meant nothing."

"But you made it look as if it did," replied Paige.

"The innocent pebble in the box," nodded Walter. "Just something Toby said," he added when Paige looked confused.

Walter had really hoped not to be going round in circles with all of this again this evening. He had hoped they would be able to put it behind them and come to some decisions about their future, but it seemed Paige was still seeking an explanation for what happened and Walter didn't know if he would ever be able to give her the answers she craved.

"Paige, I know I made a mistake, but… but I had no idea you felt that way about us. I suppose I knew you would be upset with me, that's why I kept it from you, but… but those things you said about me… I... I had no idea."

"That was the problem, Walter," replied Paige, her voice wavering for the first time that evening. "You should have known."

"How? How am I expected to know how you feel?"

"You just are!" Paige exclaimed and leapt to her feet. "I need to check on the dinner."

Walter sighed. It was easy to wish he could go back in time and tell Paige about the lecture, or better still, not go at all – especially not with Florence - but the more he thought about it the more he realised that his actions had been the catalyst for Paige to face up to her feelings and now those feelings were out in the open it was impossible to ignore them.

"I'm not m…m…making excuses," began Walter after a moment of reflection. "But… but you are aware of my EQ issues. Understanding other people's feelings is the… the one thing I struggle with the most. I… I wish it had been different with you – I thought it was different with you - but apparently it wasn't. I thought you understood me better than that."

Paige dropped the wooden spoon into the pan and hung her head. "I thought I did too," she said, her voice barely audible. She slowly turned around to face him. "You're right. I expected too much."

"I'm sorry I let you down."

"Oh, god, Walter!" Paige exclaimed and almost ran back to the couch to join him. "You didn't. Yes, you did a stupid thing. Then you made it worse by not telling me about it, but… but… I don't know if this is going to make any sense to you, but I've been let down before. Badly. And this is nothing in comparison, but in my mind it was. Or at least it could have been. So because I never expected you to cheat on me…"

"I didn't cheat."

"I know," agreed Paige. "But you could have and I guess it came as a huge shock and… and all those things I said were just my way of protecting myself. I couldn't really express my deepest fears, not in that moment, not while I was so mad at you. I wish I'd dealt with the situation differently, I overreacted, I'm sorry."

"Those things you said came from somewhere, though," Walter pointed out.

"They were petty and I couldn't stop myself," replied Paige. "You see my life, everything I've been through, it seems to have affected me more than I realised. I know I'm stupidly needy sometimes, but I can't help it. Some days I feel as if the whole world is against me, I know that sounds ridiculous."

"I was never against you, Paige."

Paige felt a sudden surge of emotion. She had been determined not to cry in front of Walter again, but she couldn't help it. "I'm not proud of any of this, Walter," she said as the tears began to trickle down her cheeks. "I didn't want this. I didn't want this!"

"I know, Paige. Neither did I."

"I don't want this!" Paige leapt to her feet and scrunched her hands into tight fists.

Walter stood too and reached out to her with one hand as she became overwhelmed by emotion. He was a little shocked by the sudden outburst and he wanted to comfort her again, just as he had done earlier that day, but he held back, doing nothing more than placing his hand gently on her forearm.

"Paige… are you… are you alright?" he asked. Stupid question, he thought to himself, but he had nothing else to offer her.

"Make it stop!" she cried and she stamped first one foot then the other. "You're a goddam genius! Please, just make it stop!"

"I… I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean."

Paige ran her hands through her hair. "This!" she screamed. "Look at me, Walter!"

"You're beautiful," he responded instinctively, before he'd had time to think.

Paige's eye's widened at his words. "Please, Walter… don't," she breathed.

Part of him longed to hold her again, but he was scared. "W…where do we go from here?" he asked. He had no idea what to do or say now. Paige suddenly seemed so vulnerable and it wasn't a side of her he was used to seeing.

"I honestly don't know," replied Paige. "Some days it feels completely overwhelming, but I'm trying to work through my problems with Toby's help. I don't know what I would have done without him these last few weeks. My whole team have been so understanding…" but she trailed off and the colour drained from her face. "Oh, Walter, I didn't mean… I didn't… they're your team."

"Not anymore," noted Walter.

"But today…"

"Today we agreed to work together to find Mark Collins," replied Walter. "What happens after that remains to be seen. I don't know if we can ever truly be a team again, not like before."

Walter accepted that a lot of the problems with the team had been his fault. Ever since their lives had become more dangerous Walter had been more concerned – outwardly at least - with proving that he could save the world than with the people who mattered most to him. He knew he hadn't always given his friends the respect they'd deserved. He wished he'd rewarded their loyalty more openly then maybe they wouldn't have left, no matter how badly he'd screwed up.

"It's what they want, Walter. It's what they've always wanted."

Walter shrugged. Of course it was what he wanted too, but he hadn't dared to hope. There was still a long way to go, but at least now there was the prospect of finding a way forward. He wished he'd been a better friend to all of them in recent years. His own behaviour made no sense to him and he knew he had to change. "It's what I want too, of course," he admitted.

Paige smiled warmly. "And you and me? I'll understand if you prefer to keep a distance between us."

"Paige, you're part of the team," replied Walter. "We cannot truly reunite without you."

"I wasn't really talking about the team."

"I… I know." Walter took a deep breath. He could kiss her right now and it would feel effortless, but it was too soon. It might never be the right time for such intimacy again and he had to prepare himself for that prospect. Walter had no idea how to process what he was feeling, but Cabe's message about not expecting too much rang in his ears. "But I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your question."

Paige nodded. "Then I guess we just have to see what happens," she responded. "But we have to be honest with each other. Honest about our feelings, about what we're thinking. Without honesty we have nothing. We need to learn to communicate with each other. I actually think we used to be better at it when we were just friends."

A smile twitched at the corner of Walter's mouth. "I think you are probably correct," he acknowledged.

xXxXxXxXxXxXx

"We didn't stay up all night, Mom!"

"I can vouch for that, Paige." Sylvester handed Ralph's overnight bag to Paige and tried not to look too guilty. "There was definitely some sleep involved."

"Hmmm." Paige narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Well I suppose some is better than none. Ralph, please take your bag to your room."

As soon as the young genius was out of earshot, a grinning Sylvester asked the question he'd been dying to ask since he'd arrived at Paige's condo. "So, how did it go with Walt?"

"Honestly, Sylvester, I don't know," replied Paige. "We both said a few things we should have said a long time ago and I do feel better. We agreed that we can work together to find Collins and then after that we'll just take one day at a time, I guess. I just wish I could stop my head spinning whenever I try to deal with it all."

"I've lived with anxiety and my OCD for as long as I can remember," Sylvester answered with a sympathetic smile. "The best advice I can give you is don't be afraid of it."

Paige nodded slowly. She hadn't equated her recent behaviour with Sylvester's anxiety, but she realised he had a very good point. "I'll try," she replied with a smile.

"I'm sorry that I made everything worse for you that day," added Sylvester.

"What do you mean?" replied Paige with a puzzled frown. "You were shocked and you reacted impulsively, just like I did."

"You quit Walter, but I quit Scorpion," he answered sadly. "Maybe you guys could have worked something out if the team had stayed together?"

"Hey, listen, Sly," replied Paige, emphatically. "If there's one thing I've learnt from all this it's that asking yourself those kinds of questions is destructive. We can't change what happened, we just have to deal with the aftermath the best way we can."

Sylvester nodded sadly. "I guess," he replied. "Actually, that's what I'll be doing this morning. I'm going to see Florence. I want to talk to her, clear the air. I need to explain why I behaved the way I did. I want her to understand about Megan and how it made me feel when Walter said those things to me."

Paige let out a slow breath. "That's a lot to cover," she noted. "Are you sure you're ready?"

"As I'll ever be," replied Sylvester with a shrug. "And she wants to see me. Cabe has already spoken to her this morning. She's waiting for me."

"Then you'd better go!"

Sylvester turned to leave, but just then both his and Paige's phones simultaneously alerted them to incoming texts. Sylvester pulled his phone from his pocket as Paige went to fetch hers. He looked at the screen and suddenly his chest felt tight. "No… no…" he panted. His phone fell from his hand and clattered to the floor.

Breathe in… and hold… and out…

Paige had frozen to the spot, clutching her phone tightly in her hand. "It's… it's him, isn't it. It has to be…" she whispered. "Collins!"

Sylvester fumbled on the floor and picked up his phone. He showed his screen to Paige, assuming – correctly – that they had received the same message - 'I HAVE YOUR LITTLE FRIENDS'.

"Mom, I've got this weird text."

Paige spun round at her son's voice as he emerged from his room. She looked back at Sylvester and for a moment neither of them knew what to say or do.

"Mom!" prompted Ralph. "I think it's from Mark Collins.

"We've… we've got it too," Sylvester quickly explained. "What does he mean? Why… why is he doing this?"

Breathe in… and hold… and out…

"He must have kidnapped someone again like he did to Toby," stated Ralph, flatly.

"Ralph!" exclaimed Paige. Of course she had already figured that much out, as had Sylvester, but hearing her son say it so bluntly brought a new crushing wave of fear. "I… I'll call Walter," she added, but before she could select his number from her contacts her phone rang. "Walter? Yes… yes I did and he sent it to Sly and Ralph. Are Happy and Toby with you…? And Cabe too…? Oh thank god… Wait, what about Florence? She was supposed to be meeting Sly. What? Are you sure? Oh no..."

To be continued...