So…I told myself I was going to take a break after finishing "Will You," but then I listened to "Sweater Weather" by The Neighborhood and got inspired to write this. It happens to be sunny and 85 right now where I live, but if you're somewhere with rain/sleet/snow/some combination thereof, I hope this makes you feel at least a little bit better about it.

Walter flipped a page in his book, but he couldn't remember reading the first half of the sentence that continued on it and flipped back. He'd been trying to get through the same section for nearly ten minutes, but no matter where he went in the garage, the same sound drilled into his brain—an incessant dripping caused by statistically drastic rainfall and rusty pipes that never seemed to get fixed despite the substantial paychecks from Scorpion's cases and the technical acumen of the world's best mechanic.

He skipped ahead to the next paragraph, but the drips somehow sounded even louder, and the rain bouncing off the metal awning was deafening. Walter had often contemplated the link between high intelligence and mental illness—unsurprising, considering his past with Mark Collins—but he'd never expected to be driven insane by precipitation.

The genius tossed his book onto the floor and searched his drawers for a pair of headphones, earplugs, anything to drown out the noise. He stiffened as he heard the front door to the garage clang shut, and for a split second, wondered if the sound was only in his head. "Walter?"

Paige's voice. Also possibly in his head—it very often was—but the genius straightened up and walked toward the entrance anyway. The liaison was standing in place by the door, tilting her head to the side and brushing her hands through her hair to release beads of water.

"Paige," he said with a hint of surprise. "What are you doing here?"

The liaison finished squeezing out her hair onto the concrete floor and whipped her head back, her dark strands sticking against her flushed face. Walter noticed, for the first time, that she was soaked through—her jacket and sweater clung to her body, and her black boots squeaked when she moved. It wasn't, if he was being honest, an unpleasant view, but he forced his eyes upward to meet hers. "Hey," she said as she shook off her hands. "I'm just going to wait the storm out here, if that's okay."

"Of course," Walter answered immediately before clearing his throat. A million things that he knew he should say or do sprang into his mind, but he struggled to prioritize them, so he asked, "Where's Ralph?"

Paige rubbed her eyes and wiped away her streaked mascara. "With his sitter. I went out to dinner, but the storm got worse on my way home, and I was closer to here, so…" Her fingers tugged at the sleeves of her black trench coat, but the moisture caused the fabric to stick to her skin. "Can you help me with this?"

Walter nodded and circled behind her, clutching the collar of the coat and sliding it down over her shoulders. The sleeves were halfway off when his fingers grazed her upper arm and she tensed, causing him to stop abruptly, worried that he'd hurt her somehow. Paige didn't acknowledge the reaction and simply stepped forward, letting the coat fall into his hands.

"So, um, dinner?" Walter stammered, reaching into the closet for a hanger and wrapping her jacket around it. "But not with Ralph?"

Paige turned around to face him and smirked. "I have other friends, you know."

"Of course," he mumbled, chancing a glance at her and looking away quickly as he realized her pink sweater was currently skimming her body in a way that would be impossible for any man not to notice. He felt a small sense of relief—and possibly, though he wouldn't admit it, a larger sense of disappointment—when Paige crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back on her heels. Walter wondered if she was embarrassed to be exposed in front of him, or if she didn't notice, or—worst for him—if she did notice and was taking this opportunity to test her effect on him. "You just, uh, you never really talk about…anyone outside of the team."

"I know." Paige tightened her grip around herself and rubbed her arms, staring down at the floor. "It's two different worlds. They're hard to merge."

Walter nodded, but he couldn't really relate. Scorpion was his world. Even Ray, the one true friend he'd found outside of work, had been absorbed into the team and played a critical role in several of their cases. He always wanted to know more about Paige, more about her life outside the garage, but he knew as well as she did that meeting her friends over bowling or karaoke or whatever normals did in their spare time was unlikely to produce a desirable result.

Paige caught his eye and tilted the corner of her mouth up. "It's not because I'm embarrassed by the team, or anything. Or by you," she said, reading his insecurities plainly. "I'm not."

"You're shivering," he noted to change the subject. She raised her eyebrows in surprise and increased the friction on her arms.

"I could use some dry clothes," she conceded, glancing at the loft before looking back to him. "Do you have anything I can borrow?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," Walter murmured. Paige…in his clothes…he took in a deep breath and shook away the thoughts that flooded his mind. It was an innocent request; there was nothing inherently intimate about her wearing scraps of cloth that he just happened to have worn previously. He repeated that thought to himself as he walked toward the stairs, motioning for the liaison to follow him.

Walter pushed open the bedroom door for her, feeling a spark of insecurity as she walked inside. She'd been in his room before, and there was nothing particularly embarrassing about his living space, but the closer he and Paige had become, the more sensitive he was to her opinions about nearly every aspect of his life. With her encouragement, he continued to open up new sides of himself to her, but deep down he worried that every new piece of information might change her too-optimistic opinion of him.

Paige knelt down and pulled out his bottom drawer, finding a gray fleece pullover from a physics exhibit Walter had taken Ralph to and a pair of black sweatpants. There was something very…high school about her desire to inhale the fabric and capture his scent, a mix of chemicals, gasoline, and something vaguely woodsy that was undeniably him. She decided to speed up the process, sensing that Walter was nervous about having her in his personal space, and put the clothes on top of his dresser as she stood up.

The genius was startled when Paige wrapped her fingers around the hem of her pink sweater and pulled it over her head, leaving behind a pink camisole that would have been form-fitting on the best of days, but was much more so now. He choked a little and tried to play it off as an intentional cough. "You shouldn't, um…" Walter stuttered as Paige reached for the sweatshirt, averting his eyes and focusing on the wall behind her. "You shouldn't keep any of your wet clothes on. It increases your likelihood of developing illnesses such as pneumonia by thirty-six percent."

Paige cocked her head to the side. "Walter, it's a tank top. I'll be fine."

Walter sighed and swung his eyes back to her, keeping his attention strictly above her neck, for his sake and hers. "You're going to get sick," he explained bluntly. His lips formed into a smile as he added, "And you know how you are when you're sick."

"Oh, shut up," the woman snapped jokingly, rolling her eyes. The sneezing, the shakiness, the flat-out denial…sick Paige was the worst kind of Paige. He would still choose Paige at her worst over anyone else at their best, of course, but he chose not to verbalize that thought. "What?" she asked suddenly.

Walter glanced behind him and from side to side, wondering what he'd missed. "Nothing, why?"

"You were, um…" She let out a small laugh. "You were staring."

"Oh," the genius mumbled, embarrassed that he had been so obvious without even realizing it. It wouldn't have been the first time that he'd lost track of reality while thinking about her, but he didn't want her to be uncomfortable. "Sorry."

"Don't be," Paige answered with an unaffected grin, twisting the gray sweatshirt in her hands. "Truthfully, I, um…I like the way you look at me. It's been a long time since anyone's looked at me that way."

Walter felt heat creeping deep underneath his skin. He was a bit surprised by her confession, but he appreciated Paige's honesty regarding her feelings; playing games was too stressful for him, and they'd already spent far too long backtracking and dropping vague hints about their attraction. "I doubt that," he said under his breath, but the liaison heard and chuckled.

"You don't see how women look at you, either," she teased, scanning him up and down playfully. "You have a lot more going on than you realize, Walter."

The genius's skin burned. He didn't have a good rebuttal—anything he said would make him sound insecure, overconfident, or entirely oblivious. Paige always knew how to render him speechless.

He stepped back as the liaison flipped her hair over, splashing water droplets in his direction, and gathered it in her hands. Walter understood the gesture and disappeared into his bathroom, returning with a black hair tie in his hand.

Paige accepted the offering and held it up between her fingers. "Where did you get this?"

"Happy left it here," he replied simply, pushing his hands into his pockets. He congratulated himself internally for identifying and responding to Paige's need, but the smile on his face faded when he saw the doubt in the liaison's eyes. Walter ran through the possible causes of her reaction in his head, his eyes popping open when he realized the potential inference of his words. "She fixed my sink," he explained hurriedly, relieved when Paige's face relaxed and she shook her head.

"Right," the woman said as she tied her hair into a messy ponytail, and Walter had to admit that although he didn't want to give her any reason for suspicion, her spark of jealousy was somewhat endearing. "Well, thank you."

"Sure." An extended silence fell between them, and though Paige was clutching the dry clothes, she made no move to put them on. The genius dropped his eyes to the floor. "You should get changed. I'll, uh, go downstairs and make some tea—."

"Or…" Paige interrupted, her voice soft. She met his gaze and bit her bottom lip, letting the word hang in the air.

"Or?" he echoed, suddenly very uncertain about the direction their conversation was heading in. She took a step toward him until they were only a few inches apart, and tilted her head up.

"It's just that, uh…" He noticed a flush spreading over her cheeks as well and held his breath as he waited for her to continue. "I have a feeling that once I change out of these clothes and into this," she said, gesturing with his sweatshirt, "you won't be looking at me like you are now, and, well, I was kind of enjoying that."

Walter wanted to reassure her that she would look incredible in anything, but the words didn't come. So he gave her what she wanted and allowed himself to admire her without holding back. He took in the golden flecks in her dark eyes, the curve of her cheekbones, the wet strands of hair that still clung to her face and neck. Whatever he'd been thinking about before she entered the garage that night was gone as her proximity quickly clouded his mind.

The genius swallowed hard as she grasped his hands and closed the minimal distance between them, pulling his arms around her and resting his palms against her lower back. She was trying to remove as much uncertainty from the moment as she could, but Walter still struggled to prepare for what he knew was coming. Her hands smoothed over his shoulders and hooked around his neck, her fingers grazing lightly over his skin.

"Paige," he said in a low voice, but he didn't move.

The liaison smiled, her eyes traveling over his face while her grip on him tightened. "I know you need to go slow, Walter, so…if you're not ready for this, just tell me."

"That's not it." He shifted his hand on her back, sliding her camisole up and making contact with a patch of her still-damp skin. The genius attributed her slight shiver to the cold air before realizing that it was his doing. "I just…I can't anticipate how things will change once this happens, and I don't want to, uh, disappoint you."

"You won't," Paige said confidently, training her eyes on his. "I'm not expecting all the answers, Walter. I just want to share this moment with you."

"Okay," he breathed. She dragged her hands over the base of his neck and tangled them into his hair, leaning up slightly to align her face with his.

"You always want to take care of me," Paige whispered, earning a weak nod from Walter. "So take care of me."

He met her the rest of the way and captured her lips, his hands involuntarily gripping the wet material on her back. The genius had been putting off their first—well, second—kiss for weeks, worried that she would develop expectations he wasn't sure he was ready to meet. But it was all excuses, and holding her, feeling her palms skim over his shirt, her lips forcefully meeting his, made him regret waiting so long.

Paige smiled into the kiss and Walter drew her closer to him, thinking about what a shame it would have been if something had happened to him on a mission before he'd ever gotten the chance to be with her like this. So many opportunities missed, so much time wasted—that had to change.

When the need for air became too much, Paige pulled back and collapsed against him with a breathy laugh. He found himself absentmindedly rubbing his hand along the middle of her back, ignoring the fact that his shirt had become nearly as soaked as hers. "That was…good," she muttered into his shoulder, her arms circling around him before she caught his gaze. "How do you feel?"

"Good," Walter answered honestly, and Paige relaxed when she saw whatever confirmation she was looking for in his eyes. "So what now?"

"Now…well, it's still raining," she shrugged as she motioned to the window. "I don't know. Maybe we can make some coffee and watch a movie?"

"I can handle that." Exhaling deeply, Walter released her from his grip and pointed to the clothes that had dropped to the floor at some point during Paige's seduction. "But we both need to change first. You've already been wearing that shirt for too long."

"Still trying to get me out of my clothes," the liaison joked, gathering the sweatshirt and pants into her arms. "Fine. But at least pretend that I still look good in these, okay?"

The genius grinned. "Trust me, I won't need to."