She'd been staring at the ceiling for hours.

Her room was too bright and unbearably dark, all at once. Paige considered switching on her bedside lamp, but she would convince herself to get up and do some paperwork, or clean, and she would never get back to sleep. Alternately, she could adjust the blinds to eliminate the glow from the streetlight, but she didn't want to bang around blindly in the morning.

It wasn't about the light, anyway.

Paige had dozens, maybe hundreds of sleepless nights when Ralph was growing up. Staring at the stacks of unpaid bills on the table. Shivering because the heat had been cut off. Sore and achy from working double and triple shifts. But she'd known, then, that she was doing everything within her power to make the situation better for her son. A string of bad breaks had left them high and dry, but like hell was she going to give up.

It was different now. There was no one else to blame. She was in a situation all of her own making, and she just kept digging her heels in as the place she knew she should be slipped farther and farther away.

Her fingers slipped under the pillow, curling around her phone. She woke up earlier than Ralph, and she liked to muffle the alarm so she wouldn't disturb him. Paige unlocked the screen, unsurprised but still disappointed by the blank screen that greeted her.

Good night. I love you. Walter's messages had been nearly identical, eleven o'clock exactly, every night they weren't already together. At the time, she'd wished he was a little more creative. Until the texts stopped coming entirely.

Taking things for granted was for people who had never experienced hardship. She'd vowed to appreciate every kind gesture that came her way.

She did. And then she didn't.

Paige opened her favorites list and tapped the name at the bottom. She'd moved it from the second spot, under her son, but couldn't bring herself to take it off altogether. In case she needed to contact him about Ralph, of course. "Paige?" he answered after two rings.

He sounded distracted, but not groggy. He clearly hadn't fallen asleep yet either. Unless…

She swallowed. How had she not considered the possibility that he had company? But if he did, he would every reason to ignore her call, or at least take longer to pick up. If he was with someone…with her…she would be able to tell, wouldn't she? Hear a voice on the other line, asking who it was?

Paige shook her head. Cabe insisted that Walter hadn't moved on, least of all with the chemist. But she couldn't stop entertaining the possibility, wondering if Walter was hiding his new relationship to save face. Because if they were together, then she'd done the smart thing. She had seen the signs and shielded herself from getting hurt again.

And if they weren't…she'd left him for nothing.

"Paige," he repeated, sounding impatient. "Is Ralph okay? Did something happen after I dropped him off?"

"N-No. Ralph's fine." Her eyes slipped shut and she sank back into the pillow. Ralph needs help with a project. I have to pick up something I left at the garage. We should figure out how to divide our proposals more evenly, so we can waste less of our time competing. "It's been a really long day and I…I needed to hear your voice."

He deserved the truth. And none of those excuses sounded valid at one in the morning anyway.

"I don't understand."

Get in line, she almost said, but she bit her tongue. Not being able to share her reasons with Walter didn't mean she didn't comprehend them. "You can hang up if you want. It's not an emergency. I just…want to know how you are."

Paige wasn't sure she had any right to ask. She'd taken too much from him. But as much righteous fury as she'd been filled with in the beginning—and despite the small amount of information Cabe let slip when they met secretly for coffee twice a month—Paige knew half the reason for her sleeplessness was relentless, nagging concern for the genius. The wounded look in his eyes just before she left haunted her every night. She hadn't meant to be so cruel.

And even though she'd dragged half the team with her—if she was being generous with herself, she could argue that wasn't all her fault—she didn't want Walter to be alone. He'd already spent too much time that way. She didn't want him to be with Florence, of course, but she didn't want him to be alone.

God, she was messed up.

"Oh." His voice startled her out of her thoughts. She'd almost forgotten asking him a question. "I'm fine."

Paige guessed fine was as thorough and truthful of an answer as she could expect. Why should he just up and pour his heart out to her, after months of virtual silence between them? It wasn't like she was telling him every thought that crossed her mind either.

She hesitated, suddenly realizing how little she'd thought the call through before she made it. "I saw the bridge rescue on the news. It sounded rough," she said softly. "Tell me you're being safe on cases, at least?"

"Of course. I promised Ralph I would."

A breath caught in her chest at the mention of her son's name. No one knew better how reckless Walter could be when he was in pain. She could picture Ralph making him swear that he wouldn't go off the deep end again, and she felt an unwelcome pang in her heart at the thought of how much Walter loved the young genius, regardless of the mess Paige had left behind.

"Good." Her fingers tightened around the phone, pressing it closer to her ear as if that made any difference in their physical distance. She didn't want the conversation to end. Just knowing that he was on the other end, even in the silence, filled her with a sense of peace she hadn't felt in months.

I miss you. So much. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she was afraid to say anything that might make him shut down even more. So she stuck to the safest topic she could think of.

"Ralph got invited to this computer camp in the summer," she started hesitantly, waiting for him to cut her off. When he didn't, Paige took a deep breath and added, "Apparently it's kind of a big deal. Did he tell you about it?"

"Yes. I think it's a great opportunity for him."

"Oh. Good." Paige bit her lip, rolling over onto her side and shifting to get more comfortable. "I've never heard anything about it. I thought you might know if it was worth it."

She tried to focus as Walter began to rattle off facts and figures about the camp, and its location in Montana, and the exact nature of the courses Ralph would be taking, but her brain got fuzzy halfway through. A yawn slipped through her lips, and she clasped a hand over her mouth to stifle it. She didn't want to give Walter the wrong idea. He wasn't boring her. His voice was just so…familiar. Comforting. She'd been lying awake for hours and it only took—she checked the screen—eight minutes of listening to him for her to relax enough to drift off.

"Paige?"

"Hm?" she responded, wondering if she'd accidentally spaced out and missed her cue to talk.

"I…I would like to know how you are, too."

There was another uncomfortable pang at the gentleness in his tone. Paige wasn't sure she deserved it, but she soaked it in like oxygen after being stuck underwater. "I'm okay."

Walter cleared his throat, the way he always did when he was trying to stall his words before he could decide how to phrase them. "Just…okay?"

She wanted to be able to say that she'd never been better. That breaking up with him was the best decision she ever made, and she was finally reaching her full potential. But that was a lie. And she'd already thrown out enough hurtful lies for the childish purpose of building herself up. "Yeah. Just okay."

The genius drew a breath, and Paige braced herself for a snide remark about how she deserved whatever she got. Or maybe for the words she desperately wanted to hear but knew she had no right to expect. Then again, she hadn't expected them the first time either. "It's late. I should go," he said instead.

"Me too." It wasn't quite enough. She would stay on the line all night if he asked. But ten minutes between them without anger, like nothing was off, like they were in the beginning…that was more than she could have realistically hoped for tonight. "Sorry I called so late."

"It's fine. I, uh…" Walter trailed off. "I see no reason why we couldn't try to be…friends. We were before."

She knew there was a brief window between the day they met and the day she fell in love with him, but she could barely remember it. Maybe they could repeat the experiment and the opposite would happen. But she doubted that. "Okay."

"Okay. I will…speak to you later, then."

"Sounds good. Bye." Paige's finger tapped the red button quickly as she narrowly restrained herself from signing off with an inappropriate expression of affection. She could have played it off as a mistake, but deep down, she knew it was more than habit compelling her to say it.

Paige was scrolling to her alarm screen, intending to move her wake-up call an extra twenty minutes because ugh she was going to be tired in the morning, when the text notification completely derailed her train of thought.

Good night.

She smiled into the pillow. It wasn't everything. But it was a start.