Author's note: My apologies for taking so long to post. Things have been weird this summer. You'd think being more or less housebound would increase writing productivity, but you'd be wrong. Plus I screwed up Walter and Paige more than I originally planned due to the car accident so I've had to alter some story line going forward. Sigh. That's what I get for being too angsty, I guess. I really really want to thank you all for your continued support and reviews and patience.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

"It's Paige," he blurted out. "And she's in bad shape."

"I need to see her."

Walter struggled to sit up, the attached tubes and wires restricting his movement as did the wave of dizziness and nausea which swept over him. Flopping back onto his pillow, he let out an involuntary groan.

"Settle down, 197," said Toby. "She's not going anywhere."

"How bad is she?" Sylvester asked. Walter thought he heard real concern in the younger genius's voice.

"She's pretty banged up." The shrink preceded to rattle off a list of her injuries. Walter's breathing quickened at the mention of every broken bone, every cut and bruise.

"I need to see her," Walter reiterated as he managed to slide upward a couple of centimeters. "You can't stop me," he lied, pushing away Toby's restraining hand as he tried to sit up again, refusing to acknowledge the minimal effort he'd expended so far had nearly depleted his strength.

"You moron," Happy said, her anger rolling off of her in waves. "You'd risk your health to go see that bit. . ."

"That's enough of that, Sweetpea," Toby stated as he stepped into between his wife and Walter, who stared in shock the behaviorist had actually reprimanded the mechanic. "Remember what I advised about. . ."

"You can shove your advice up your ass, Doc," she snapped. "And as for you. . ." She jabbed a finger in Walter's direction. "Are you really this stupid? After everything she did. . .?"

"Yes," he declared defiantly, tired of her belligerent attitude toward Paige. "I've forgiven her. I love her."

"You dumb son of a bitch." Happy spun around and stomped out of the room. Once again, Toby surprised Walter when he didn't rush out of the room after her.

"We should go, too," said Cabe before gently nudging Allie with his elbow. "Let Walter get some rest."

"Good idea." Allie came forward, her left hand settling on Walter's arm for a moment. "Hope you're feeling better soon."

"Thanks," he said before reaching out and lifting her hand. "When did this happen?" he asked, displaying the diamond on her ring finger.

Both Cabe and Allie blushed, silly grins gracing their faces. "Saturday night," the agent replied, clearing his throat. "We were going to tell you guys this morning but. . ." He shrugged.

"Congratulations," said Walter, and he meant it. Cabe had been alone for a long time. He deserved some happiness in his life. "Before you go, can you get a nurse or someone to. . .?"

"Son. . ." The older man shook his head. "You're not in that great of shape either. You really got your bell rung. . . You can wait to see her until you're better."

"Dammit." Walter swallowed his frustration as he blinked his stinging eyes. "Sly. . . Buddy, please. . .?"

"Cabe's right, Walter," said the human calculator in a nervous yet clipped tone. "You need to rest."

"We'll be back later before visiting hours are over," the Homeland agent stated.

"Don't bother." The pounding in Walter's head intensified as he realized no one was going to help him see Paige.

Cabe and Allie exchanged a glance. "Well, good night then," the older man said. "We'll see you in the morning."

Sylvester tonelessly echoed their sentiments before following them. Walter flinched as the door slid closed with a snap behind the younger genius.

The sound of someone clearing their throat lifted him from the melancholy threatening to overwhelm him. "Why are you still here?" he asked Toby, who had seated himself in the plastic chair by his bedside. "Shouldn't you go find Happy before she kicks someone's ass?"

"The only asses she wants to kick are currently in this room. She can wait. I need Ralph's phone number," the shrink stated in a terse change of subject.

Oh, shit. Ralph. He'd completely forgotten. . . "You mean, no one's notified him?" he asked incredulously. "We were supposed to be back yesterday afternoon. My phone. . . Where's my phone?" He glanced around frantically, only succeeding in making his head hurt even more.

"Calm down. The police have it."

"Why would they have it?"

"Evidently it's part of every crash investigation to check to see if it was in use prior to the accident."

"I wasn't using. . ." He didn't like the idea of someone going through his messages. Especially since there was a text message from Gloria he'd ignored the previous morning when he and Paige had been checking out of the hotel and which he hadn't yet deleted. Guilt crept through him he still hadn't told Paige about his bumping into the other woman.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, 197, although I doubt you're wearing any," said Toby. "It's protocol. They have Paige's phone too. She only had your name as a contact and. . ."

"323-555-5981," Walter recited the familiar number sequence. "That's his cell.".

"Okay, thanks." Toby started to turn but Walter held up his hand to stop him.

"I should be the one who calls him. He needs to hear this from me, not strangers," he said.

"I'm not exactly a stranger. . ." the doc began, a bit indignantly.

"You know what I mean." Walter shut his eyes for a moment as pain spiked through his brain. "He hasn't heard from you guys for over a year and a half. And he. . . Well, he's been almost as angry as Happy about what happened."

"That's understandable," the psychiatrist said as he nodded. "As a child, he has little to no control over what the adults in his life do. You were unceremoniously yanked away from him without warning. . . That had to be upsetting."

"It was." He and Ralph had both suffered from the abrupt parting. "That's why I should be the one. . ."

"Who's the Harvard trained psychiatrist here?" Toby grinned. "Ralph needs informed reassurance. You'll either go robotic or all maudlin on him and neither of those options are ideal. Let me do it."

"Fine," Walter conceded. The other man had a point and he was too tired to argue about it anymore.

The shrink scrutinized him for a moment before saying, "For what it's worth, Walt, I think you're a bat shit crazy fool to take her back after what she did. But I don't wish ill on her. I'll see if I can get the nurse to wheel you over to her room."

With that, Toby spun around and was gone. Walter sighed with resignation over the fact he couldn't go anywhere. . .not without assistance anyway. His head ached, the side he'd hit on the car window throbbing excruciatingly with every heartbeat. Pain radiated from nearly every joint. A tangle of tubes and wires were connected to his body, including IVs, a blood pressure cuff, and an incredibly uncomfortable catheter.

Closing his eyes, Walter leaned back and waited for Toby to fetch a nurse as he'd promised. He didn't want to doubt the shrink would follow through but. . . The rest of the team's decidedly hostile and frosty departure left him with a deep sense of betrayal. He'd thought they were his friends. His family. People he could count on. He was no longer certain he could.

ooooo

"I think she's waking up."

The voice sounded as if it came from far away. It seemed familiar, unlike the strange beeps and hums Paige could hear. She tried to open her eyes but they didn't obey, stubbornly remaining closed. The rest of her body refused to respond as well. It felt as if something heavy rested on top of her, weighing her down, leaving her unable to move.

Something warm brushed against her forehead for a split second. "I think you're right." This voice was deeper than the first and another one she thought she should remember.

"Mom?"

"Paige?"

The corners of her mouth twitched upward as she realized who the speakers were.. The two people she loved most in the world.

"Hey, she's smiling," she heard Ralph say.

"She must recognize our voices," Walter replied.

"That's a good sign, isn't?"

Her son's question seemed anxious. Why would he be anxious? Unless he and Walter had come up a plan to do something and wanted her to wake up so they could tell her. But she was so tired and she just wanted to go back to sleep.

A hand grasped hers. She knew instantly it was Walter's. It felt strong and she could feel the calluses on his fingertips. Calluses which had caressed nearly every part of her body. A groan escaped her as she twisted her bottom lip between her teeth.

"Should we get the nurse?" Ralph asked, again with more than a bit of anxiety. Then what he said sank in. Nurse? Why would she need a nurse? What was going on?

Struggling to open her eyes as she fought the desire to drift back to oblivion, she blinked at few times before finally focusing on the ceiling. A ceiling which was definitely not one in her bedroom. Nor the one in Walter's bedroom. Not even the one in the hotel room in Vegas. Where the hell was she?

"Mom!"

"Paige."

She tried to turn her head so she could see them but an excruciating pain shot down the right side of her body, causing her to cry out.

"Don't try to move," Walter cautioned as he gave her fingers a light squeeze. Ignoring his warning, she angled her face to her left to see Ralph standing beside Walter, who sat next to her bed.

Ralph was wearing his usual outfit of a shirt and jeans but Walter wore a blue bathrobe, which was odd, because his bathrobe was brown. His left arm was in a sling and he had a brace around his neck. A gauze bandage wrapped around his head but it didn't hide all of the deep purple bruise on the left side of his face, which was also covered with tiny cuts. And instead of a regular chair, he was sitting in a wheelchair.

"Oh, God, Walter. . ." She tried to sit up but couldn't which made her even more frantic to get to him. "Are you all right? Oh, God, what happened to you?"

"We were in car wreck," he said. "I'm okay. The only thing broken is my head." Feeble smile trembled on his lips.

"A car wreck?" she repeated. Images of a large truck barreling toward them flashed through her mind along with a lot of loud noises and breaking glass.

"Yes, when we were leaving. . ."

"That town with the thermometer. . . Oh, God." Closing her eyes, she took a breath. "Where are we? What time is it?"

"Barstow Community Hospital," Walter replied. "It's Tuesday afternoon."

"I've been here two days?" She couldn't remember anything after they'd been hit but to lose forty-eight hours of her life. . . "I was supposed to work the morning shift yesterday. And the afternoon one today. . ." Her heart raced as panic surged through her. "Oh, God, I'm supposed to be at work right now."

"You couldn't have gone to work even if you wanted to," Walter pointed out before informing her of her injuries. Turning away from his gaze, she noticed the cast covering her arm and shoulder for the first time as well as another cast surrounding her lower right leg.

She could see the medical bills piling up in her mind. Her job didn't provide health insurance but it did keep a roof over their heads and food on their table. Barely. The severance pay Walter had given her a year and a half ago was long gone. "Oh, God, I'm going to get fired," she wailed, her financial situation growing bleaker as she knew her current employer wouldn't keep her on if she couldn't work. "I won't be able to pay our rent and we'll get evicted again."

"Don't worry, Mom," Ralph said. "Walter said we could stay with him."

Walter nodded. "Until you get back on your feet, or, uh, maybe, um, maybe longer. Don't worry," he added, "we'll take care of you, won't we, Ralph?"

Their reassurances did little to ease her mind. "I still can't believe I've been asleep for two whole days."

"Well, you have been doped up like a Colombian drug mule," said Ralph with a bit of a smirk.

"That sounds like something Toby would say," she said, recalling the shrink saying something similar the time when Walter had been in the hospital after driving off the cliff.

"He did say it this morning." The boy darted a look at Walter. "Oh. . . Uh. . ."

"This morning?"

"Uh, yeah," Walter said, his eyes dropping to stare at their entwined fingers. "They know. About us. The r-rest of the team, that is."

"Oh, God." She didn't even want to think about what their reaction had been. By the grim line of Walter's mouth, she could tell it hadn't been pleasant.

"Th-They'll, they'll get over it," he said and she didn't know if he was trying to convince her or himself. "You just need to focus on getting better."

"That's right, Mom," Ralph echoed Walter's words. "Now that you're awake, you guys can get transferred to a hospital closer to home."

Home. That sounded nice. To go home with Walter and Ralph and. . . The realization she should have been home two days earlier struck like a fist. Ralph had been staying with a friend for the weekend but he was supposed to be dropped off Sunday night. And if today was Tuesday. . .

"Oh, Ralph, baby, I'm sorry," she said as she entangled her hand from Walter's and reached for her son.

"For what?" An expression of confusion spread over his face as he took her hand in his.

"I wasn't home when the Turners dropped you off. . . You must have been out of your mind with worry. . ." Tears welled up in her eyes as she thought about how frantic he must have been.

"I was. . .a little," he admitted and she knew he had to be putting on a brave front for her. "I thought maybe you guys decided to stay another night but there wasn't a message and. . . I tried not to think about worst case scenarios, but. . ." He shrugged. "My brain processes all probabilities whether I want it to or not. Toby called me yesterday to tell me about the accident and Cabe and Allie picked me up last night and brought me here. We're staying at a motel on Route 66. Cabe keeps singing about getting his kicks on it. "

"I'm so sorry," she repeated.

"It's okay, he's not that bad of a singer."

"No, not that," she said, trying not to laugh while at the same time fighting to hold back tears. "I mean for not being home when I said I'd be."

"It's not your fault." Ralph shrugged. "You had no way of knowing a truck would run a red light and smash into Walter's car."

No, she'd had no way of knowing they'd be in an accident. But if they'd hadn't stopped to see a dumb giant thermometer. To buy stupid alien jerky. To eat gyros amid tacky statues of Greek gods and goddesses. . . All things she'd wanted to do. If they had just driven by. . . If she hadn't so quick to tell Walter the light had changed. . .

Ralph wasn't wrong very often but he was this time. It was all her fault. Once again, she'd ruined everything.