I want to thank everyone who is reading from the bottom of my heart.

This one is short, and is more of an epilogue to this first part of the story; I, Genius. I had to include this slightly altered scene from the original season 1 finale. We can't ignore Paige and Walter's budding relationship now can we?

No this is the end of the first section, but we have three to go :). It will still be one long story/posting. The next part is titled: I, Vampire.

Chapter 17

Not Bad

As the evening progressed, Cabe was still out with Damon, and the rest of the team had gone home. Walter had fallen asleep at his desk, apparently very deeply, as he didn't budge as the rest of the team continued later into the night with no efforts to keep the noise level down. Paige even let Ralph stay up late, as it wasn't a school night.

The whole team had returned home and decided to let the sleeping vampire lie. Everyone had left except for Paige and Ralph. Paige looked at Walter at his desk. His head was resting on his folded arms, his face towards her.

She saw none of the stressors of the past couple of days reflected upon it. Paige was uncertain if sleeping this soundly was a vampire thing or if it was just Walter still being exhausted from recent events.

The last couple of days…Paige was exhausted as well, and she felt more emotionally exhausted than anything. When she had seen his car balancing on the edge of that cliff on the news, she had rushed to the crash site as fast as she had been able. To get there only to see Walter fall to his apparent death, well, it had been devastating. Then to see him die again…

Each time she almost lost him, she had been forced to face feelings she had been denying within herself. She cared about him. She thought she might even love him.

She approached his sleeping form. The only way she could tell he was different than he used to be was how infrequent his breathing was and the slightly lighter pallor of his skin. It didn't matter, though, because all she saw was Walter and who he was, not what he was.

She placed a hand on the side of his face. He still slept soundly.

"Yesterday, I thought for a moment I'd seen you for the last time. It really bothered me that if that had happened, our final memory together would have been a fight. I'm really glad that wasn't the case, because…"

Paige leaned down and placed a soft kiss upon his lips.

"I really care about you, Walter."

She left the garage, meeting her son outside.

****SVD****

Walter didn't hear her, but his subconscious did pick up on her words in a way. He slept soundly and awoke refreshed the following morning with a sense of wellbeing and self-acceptance he hadn't felt in a long time.

Shortly after sunrise the team arrived at the garage one by one, just like a normal day.

Happy entered her workshop and soon the sound of large machinery echoed throughout the building.

Sylvester sat at his desk furiously typing at his computer, engaged in whatever math problem currently challenged him.

Paige engaged in small talk while going through files meant to keep Scorpion overall organized.

Toby seemed his usual laid back self, but his occasional probing questions to members of the team showed he was constantly psychoanalyzing.

Cabe even stopped by later, and was soon helping the team in each of their projects any way he could.

Ralph and Walter had on safety goggles, working on the latest components of their Soviet rocket project. Walter lifted a several hundred pound metal component with ease and held it in place while Ralph started securing it.

Walter looked up and saw Paige looking at him and Ralph, smiling. She didn't stop when she saw he noticed, and kept smiling at him, locking with his eyes when he gave a smile back.

Things would never be the same, but suddenly the future didn't look so frightening.

Part one complete :). Again all four parts will still be one large story, so stay tuned here for more to come!

I wouldn't mind hearing what you thought of the first section as a whole though as I put the finishing touches on everything! In other words. Review, review, review!