Summary: Walter and Paige get back together.

Toby has messed up when it came to his handling of the breakup between two of his best friends - the others are not too happy with him.

This first chapter is a bit short, but the others will be a bit longer. I have written this out until chapter 5, so I can post at least those in quick succession.

Despite the title threatening the poor guy's life, he won't appear until a few chapters in.

xxxXXXxxx

Chapter 1: I'm going to kill Toby!

Ralph opened the door before Walter was able to knock. The younger genius motioned for the older one to enter.

"Shhh…!" Ralph signaled Walter to avoid making too much noice.

"Ralph, what happened?" Walter lowered his voice to a whisper.

The teenager couldn't surpress a grin at his mentor's dissheveled appearance.

It was apparent that Walter had been tossing on whatever he had gotten his hands on after Ralph's call, ending in brown slacks and a wrongly buttoned blue shirt.

It also told Ralph that Walter had not been up late to work on one of his numerous projects, but had been tossing and turning in his bed.

It had only taken one ring of the phone until the call had connected and Ralph had heard Walter's voice for the first time in four weeks.

Calculating the time one normally needed to get from the garage to the Dineen condo at this time of the night, Walter had covered the distance in ignorance of the speed limits along the route.

"Mom's devastated!" Ralph sighed. "She's been crying herself to sleep every night since she broke up with you."

Walter flinched at Ralph's words, but Ralph continued.

"In the past weeks, she was mostly lamenting why you had to consort with Florence…"

"I did NOT consort with Florence - I took her to a lecture as a friend after your Mom made it clear she wasn't interested in going."

Ralph ignored Walter as he continued.

"This morning we had a big fight and I accused her of being unfair to you. That she tried to force change in you when she was encouraging me to change at my own pace. I challenged her why there are two standards. Then I questioned why she wanted to be with you in the first place and then try and change everything about you that makes you you. Why she seems to want to turn you into a normal guy. And finally I told her that only because Drew was a cheat and Tim ditched her for a fancy job overseas didn't mean you'd do the same." Ralph paused for a moment, his recount showing no sign of remorse on the harsh truths he had brought up.

"You really laid into her." Walter looked at Ralph with wide eyes, trying to imagine their conversation. The kid could be harsh if he wanted to and felt it was warranted, Walter had made that experience - he just hadn't considered Ralph would give his mother the same treatment.

"I'm telling you, so you know what has been on her mind already when you met her at Clandestines for the sales pitch today. She didn't know she was going to meet you there and it caught her off guard."

"I remember," Walter mumbled, his face falling as he recalled the early afternoon. If he had thought she had been clipped towards him the first time they met on a sales pitch, only two weeks after Scorpion's breakup, he had no idea what he was supposed to call this afternoon.

Her curt responses had hurt more than Toby's gloating because they had won the contract two weeks prior or Sylvester's nervous avoidance of his eyes.

"What you don't know is, that Mom totally botched the meeting and they left only a few minutes after you did. That's why they were at the traffic light in front of the coffee shop you, Cabe and Florence had stopped after the Sales pitch."

"Cabe wanted to pick up some of their vegan muffins to surprise Allie." Walter threw in, replaying the minutes they had been outside the coffee shop, waiting for Cabe to return. Normally Walter would have waited in the car, but Florence had been on him the moment team Centipede had been out of sight and he had tried to avoid her presence for at least a few short moments. But the persistent chemist had just followed him and pretended to comfort him. Walter had finally lost his patience and snapped at her.

"As they stopped on the traffic light, Mom watched Florence try to lay her hand on your arm and that you flinched away from her as if her arm was on fire - and from her and your expression you said some harsh things to her."

"She claimed she wanted to provide comfort after your Mom's cold treatment, but I don't want her to touch me. She had been constantly trying to touch me since your Mom left and I told her several times to stop it. Today I told her I'd have to ban her from Scorpion if she kept it up. That didn't sit well."

Ralph snorted. "I can imagine. Anyway, seeing that made Mom finally realise how foolish it was to think you'd be even remotely interested in Florence and she was about to jump out of the car, but Toby held her back and told her she was a fool to think you would ever want her back or even want her as a friend after the way she had dumped you."

Walter's eyes flashed with anger. "I'm going to kill Toby!"

"I think he was sore Mom botched the sales pitch and let it out on her. As if he has any ground to stand on." Ralph snorted derisively.

"When she came home, she ate a whole tub of ice and was so out of sorts that she told me the whole story. She just sat there and cried and ate ice cream. I tried to advice her, but she didn't listen to me. She claimed I couldn't give advise because I'm only thirteen and don't have any experience with these kind of things." He sighed. "Walter, she didn't drown her sorrows in alcohol before Scorpion and I remember down to a very young age. She has drunk herself tipsy enough to fall asleep more easily a few times since you two broke up. She thinks I didn't notice, but I did.

Tonight she waited until I had retired to my room and then she brought out the cheap wine that has been sitting in the back of our shelves from the time when she couldn't afford anything better. And now she's in her bedroom and is bawling her eyes out. Before she just cried herself to sleep and the next morning she's pulling herself together. But now she keeps crying how she messed everything up and that Toby is right. I tried comforting her myself, but she only takes a look at me and starts crying harder and claims she has failed me, too. Nothing I say seems to console her."

"So you called me…" Walter concluded.

Ralph nodded. "I don't expect you to go in there and tell her everything is going to be forgiven and forgotten, I know that. If you two consider any kind of relationship again, just friends or being a couple, you both have to work for it. But can you help her now, please? She needs you right now."

Walter nodded, then slowly walked towards the door to Paige's bedroom. As he got closer he could hear her heart wrenching sobs through the door.

"I'm going to kill Toby!" Walter repeated his earlier words.

Apparently not being able to let his frustrations out on Walter anymore, Toby had turned to the others, sabotaging and hurting instead of supporting like a friend with his expertise should.