Sorry for the delay in updating, I had a trip and then two graduations with my little sister. (Also I was mean and wanted to leave Heidi with the same cliffhanger you all got at the end of 10 so I was going to wait until she caught up to update and thankfully she did yesterday haha.)
Ralph disappeared into his room as soon as she told him.
Paige wondered if he wanted to be alone, or if he was throwing himself into school work as a distraction, or if he simply wanted to leave her alone because he knew how much she hated to cry in front of him. She had such a love – hate relationship with that idea. She loved the thought that he wanted to spare her embarrassment, but she hated that that would mean he was much more aware than she wanted him to be. She hated that that meant there were more and more things she couldn't protect him from.
She kept repeating what she'd told herself whenever she worried that she and Walter wouldn't survive the distance. That she'd come through this before. That she had Ralph, and would always have Ralph, and that it didn't matter if a man stopped loving her because Ralph was all she needed.
But none of that was comforting now. If Walter was dead, Paige didn't know how she would recover. She didn't know if she could. She didn't even want to think about what it would do to her son.
She jumped as her phone began to buzz, and when her shaking hand managed to turn it over to see the display, the air rushed from her lungs in a shuddering breath. "Walter. Oh thank God."
She managed to press the green accept call button, realizing as she put the phone to her ear that possibly she wouldn't hear Walter's voice on the other end. Maybe it was someone calling to tell her...but no, that couldn't be, because if he was inside of a base that blew up, any explosion that would kill him would surely destroy the phone...wouldn't it?
"Hello?"
"Paige, it's me."
She burst into tears. "Oh God, Walter. You're alive."
"Yeah. I am. I'm at a Lily Pad in Africa. The base that was attacked isn't even on this continent. I'm so sorry you were worrying. I called as soon as I could."
Suddenly, Paige's relief turned to a flash of anger. She sat up straight, wiping her eyes. "Eight hours after this attack was as soon as you could? Somehow I doubt that."
Walter seemed to sense her mood by the change in tone. "Paige?"
"I just...you know how much I worry about you and I can't believe it took you eight hours to be like oh hey, it's the love of your life, I'm not blown to pieces thousands of miles away from home."
"I..." Walter sounded baffled at her words. "I had a six hour flight, then had to go into prep with one of the top technicians here so we can start on the training. I got into the air like ten minutes before the explosion happened, and this secure phone they gave me doesn't work up there. And I couldn't take the phone into the prep room because the signal would mess up some equipment. I called you...I called you literally the moment I got your voicemails."
"It's just really interesting that you make all these promises to always be there and I can't get ahold of you when I really, really need to. What if something had happened to me? What if something had happened to Ralph?"
"You aren't being fair," Walter said, and Paige couldn't decide if the feeling in her stomach at the detection of anger in his tone was guilt or rage. "I just told you I was in the air, then had to go right to the training session. I was only dark for eight hours. We've gone a full day without any contact. I didn't know about the bombing and therefore had no indicators that you would be scared. And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, that you were worrying like that but it's not like I let you worry on purpose. You ought to know by now that I would never do that."
"I know." Paige sighed. "This is just so hard, Walter."
"You know it's hard for me too though, right?"
"I'm sure it is," she said, "I mean, I know it is, but..."
"No, Paige. You don't get to throw a 'but' in there."
She blinked, switching the phone to her other ear. "Excuse me? We both miss each other, Walter. And I'm the one who has had such horrible experiences with distance. You can't possibly understand how gun shy I am around this."
"Yeah, yeah you do have a history. And I get that, I honestly get that. And I've worked so hard to make you feel better about it – about us. But at least you're not alone." She heard Walter take a breath. "You don't have me with you, and I don't have you with me. But you have Ralph. And Cabe, and Happy and Toby and Sylvester. You get to go to work and see people who are essentially family. You get to go home with your son. I go to work with people who I don't care about beyond my general concern for the welfare of humanity. At the end of each day I go to that night's tiny room that I may or may not be sharing with people I barely know or have never even met. Other than me, everything is the same for you. I have nothing here."
"Thanks, Walter. I spent most of the day thinking you were dead and now you're guilting me into feeling worse."
"That's not what I'm doing, Paige, and you know it. This isn't going to work if we can't both feel these things."
"This isn't going to work?" Paige said. "What in the Hell does that mean?"
"You know what it means. You've always been the one telling me that we both have to work hard at this relationship. That love is wonderful but it's never easy. That that is exactly what makes it worth it. And we're worth it, Paige – I know you're worth it to me. But I have to be worth it to you, too. Sometimes I have to shoulder pain for you, and sometimes you have to for me. But this is a time where we both have to do it. I know that you show emotions better than I do. But you should know by now that I feel everything just as intensely as you do and it's not like you're at home miserable and I'm over here not feeling anything at all."
"I thought you were dead today," Paige said, her voice cracking again. "It'd have been nice to have some tenderness, is all." She heard a sigh over the phone, and continued angrily. "You were the one to want to talk about routines being disrupted. Today was an average day for you on this job. New location, training prep. Today, it was my world turned upside down. I thought I'd lost you. And now, even though I know you're okay..." I feel like we're so far apart. In more than miles.
"And I said I was sorry," Walter said. "I am. Paige, I love you. It hurts me to know that you were hurting. But it isn't my fault."
"Yeah. Like it was never Drew's fault either. Wasn't his fault Ralph wasn't talking. Wasn't his fault it was a better financial option to take that other pitching offer. Or Tim! Tim, oh Tim. Wasn't his fault I didn't want to meet his parents. Wasn't his fault I wasn't comfortable taking my clothes off with him. Wasn't ever his fault. It's never any of your fault, is it?"
"Paige, I cannot believe you would..."
"I don't want to hear it. Okay, Walter? You were perfectly fine this whole time. And I worried sick. And for nothing."
"So, what?" Walter asked. "Isn't that better than me actually getting hurt or killed?"
"Are you implying that I'm saying it's not?"
Another exasperated sigh through the phone. "Paige, I have to train the..."
"Now we're walking away in the middle of an argument. Excellent."
"You know I'm already late. You know I go almost straight from prep to training. I didn't even have time to call but I did because I knew how worried you were. I wanted to ease your mind. I didn't think I'd somehow be blamed for that."
"Fine. Go to your job."
"I'll call you later," Walter said, his voice still sounding tense. "Love you, bye."
Paige drew her knees up to her chest, holding the phone between them and breathing hard out of her nose.
She hadn't heard Ralph's door creak open, but it must have, because within a minute or two the boy was standing hesitantly at the entrance to the living room. "Mom?" He asked, his voice quiet.
Her eyes shifted to him, and her eyebrows rose in acknowledgement.
Ralph bit his lip. "Is...is it over?"
This fight was something I'd been planning since I started outlining this fic, but man was it hard to get into the groove of writing given that we're all soaring on cloud nine with Waige right now in the show! But anyway, as always, I'd love to hear what you think, and hopefully it won't be more than a couple days until I get the next chapter out.
Also "Lily Pad" is a military camp/base with fewer than a couple hundred permanent residents.
