Happy Scorpion Day! My brain refuses to accept that I have other things to do and I think I may actually just be addicted to writing fanfic, so here's some short little fluff. (Side note: I got to 100,000 hits on this story recently and it was an awesome feeling, thank you all for being such loyal readers. ;)

Eight months.

It had seemed like such a long time. Tim would be more than seven thousand miles away from Paige, from Ralph, for eight months. Even Walter could fix things in that amount of time.

But he hadn't. They were friends, and he found some consolation in that. He could safely say, from experience, that a bond of friendship with Paige was better than nothing. And maybe that was all he would get in this life. But as selfish as it was, he'd never stop wanting more. Wanting to love her the way he knew he could, now.

Eight months and he could be the right person for her. Eight months and she would realize that Tim wasn't the one. Eight months for Walter to find a way to give Paige everything she deserved.

His time was up.

Tim would be returning soon—Walter didn't know the exact date, because if he did, he couldn't guarantee that he would even bother getting out of bed. The interloper would return, charming and nauseatingly attentive as always, and he would pick up where he left off with Paige, no doubt making up for lost time in a manner that Walter was loathe to consider. She missed him—the genius gathered as much from snippets of their phone calls at the garage. Paige had made her choice a lifetime ago, and Walter was an idiot for believing he could change her mind.

He could tell her. The truth, this time, no backtracking. But he wouldn't, if she was happy. It would be unfair and ruin any ounce of goodwill he'd earned with her. Walter knew he had a thousand chances to win her, when she was receptive, when she wanted him to, but that window was closed.

So he would do what he'd always done. Bite his tongue and tell himself that this was for the best. Hope every day that Tim would protect Paige and care for her, help Ralph connect with the world, give them both the family they wanted so badly. That would have to be enough.

It never quite would be.

His eyes traveled of their own volition to Paige's empty desk. It was Saturday. No reason for her or the rest of the team to be there. God, the garage was so quiet—he could practically hear the echo of his own thoughts, imagine the door swinging open and the sound of her heels meeting the concrete floor.

"Tough problem?"

Walter's eyes flew up. She wasn't a figment of his imagination…or at least, he didn't think so. If he was hallucinating, the realism was impressive.

When he failed to respond, Paige raised her eyebrow. "Why are you sitting on your desk?"

The genius looked down at the wood desktop through his crossed legs, frowning. "I thought it might give me a new perspective."

"Mind if I try?" Walter shrugged and Paige dropped her purse on the couch before crossing over to his workstation, hopping up next to him and letting her legs dangle over the edge. They sat in silence for a long minute, Walter choosing to be contented with her presence instead of asking why she'd come. There was a chance he wouldn't like the answer. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

He didn't know what he was looking for. Clarity? Peace? Assurance that he would survive watching the woman he loved move on with someone else? In that case…no.

Paige leaned toward him slightly, her shoulder bumping against his in what seemed like an intentional movement, though Walter couldn't be sure. She glanced over at him. "This isn't about a project, is it?"

The genius shook his head, staring down at his clasped his hands in his lap. It was torture, in some ways, having her this close. Close enough to touch her, to whisper in her ear all the words he needed her to hear. But she would leave. He didn't want her to leave, either.

She was always too near and too far, all at once.

"I want…" Paige swallowed, moving her gaze straight ahead. "I want to tell you something, but I'm scared to. It would really help if you said…anything, right now."

Walter's heart leapt into his throat. He'd never understood that expression until he met Paige, but whenever she was upset, or in danger, the genius couldn't deny that was exactly what it felt like. She wasn't showing her traditional markers for anger or fear, but she didn't sound happy. What if she was leaving Scorpion to be with Tim? Would he be able to stop her? Should he?

Irrational thinking. He didn't have the facts yet. Walter knew he could spend hours debating, analyzing, and still not know how to reply to her cryptic statement, so he abandoned his better sense and said the first thing that came to his mind. "I d-don't want you to be afraid."

Paige nodded. She didn't seem comforted, necessarily, but her voice was stronger next time she spoke. "Tim's coming back soon." The liaison glanced at him briefly, nodding again when she read from his expression that he'd already pieced it together. "We, uh, talked about moving forward. You know, where we saw ourselves a year from now. Five years." Walter was pouring a strenuous amount of energy into schooling his features, but whatever Paige saw was clearly still too much, and she stared down at her feet as they kicked against the front of the desk. "I wanted to see that. I wanted to be excited about it. But when I pictured myself in the future, it wasn't….it was never with him."

Walter didn't mean to exhale so loudly. His knuckles were white where they wrapped around the edge of the wood and the pressure had just been too much for his body and…and she didn't love Tim. She hadn't said those words, exactly, but it seemed like a reasonably safe assumption even for someone as emotionally deficient as him.

"Walter?"

Paige was staring at him, no doubt concerned he was having a stroke of some kind. He cleared his throat. "I'm l-listening."

"So, um…I broke it off. A few weeks ago. And I spent a lot of time thinking about…about the future I did want. Not the one I was forcing myself to imagine, but the one that I kept seeing even when I tried not to." The liaison let out a low sigh and crossed her ankles, the only sound passing between them the quiet thud of her boots against the hard surface. "The stuff I did with Tim…the dates, spending time with his family, the long phone calls…I did want all of those things. I was just doing them with the wrong person. I was planning for a life with the wrong person." She bit her lip and when she met his eyes again, the genius was startled by the heat in hers. "It should have been us. Everything you didn't want and that I gave up on…it just should have been us. Tell me that I'm wrong."

Walter sat motionless, vaguely aware that his mouth was agape. She was challenging him, asking him to return her feelings or reject her for the final time. He wanted…he wanted the right words, but they didn't come. They never came, not naturally, but Paige knew that. All she needed was for him not to push her away again.

The hand that was between them moved around to rest behind her back, and Walter tipped his head, catching one last glimpse of her dark eyes before his lids slipped closed and his lips touched hers. Paige hesitated, exhaling shallowly before she pushed back against him, her fingers trailing up his outstretched arm to grip his shoulder. He shifted the position of his legs for a less awkward angle that would allow him to slide one hand over the outside of her thigh while the other rested along her jaw.

She was asking him for more than he had ever offered anyone, more than he'd believed he was capable of providing. It should have scared him, but he knew he would give it to her, and probably anything else she asked for, because he'd already faced the alternative and he didn't want it.

Life without her would never be enough.