Are my post-finale fix-it fics all basically becoming the same fic? Probably, but who cares.

"Walter, please say something."

He wasn't sure what he expected when Paige had shown up at the garage at thirteen minutes to midnight, asking if they could talk. She'd paced wordlessly for a couple of minutes after that, and Walter had developed a dozen or so theories about what she could be working up to tell him.

What she actually did tell him, though…it had never crossed his mind. Not seriously.

"Walter," she said more loudly, clearly growing exasperated at his silence. "This is really hard for me, okay? It took me weeks to get up the courage to come here and now you're just…you're not saying anything and I'm…" Paige exhaled loudly, brushing her hair out of her face. "Please just tell me what you're thinking. I don't care if you haven't made sense of it yet."

He did his best to shake himself out of his daze. She looked seconds away from slapping him out of it. "Y-You're right," he finally said. "It doesn't make sense, Paige. I'm not sure where this is coming from."

She shrugged, seeming to have some trouble looking directly at him. "It's not coming from anywhere. I mean there wasn't, like, a big moment. Just a lot of little ones where I realized that I gave up on us too soon and I have regrets and…I still love you, Walter. Is that so crazy? Are you telling me that you don't feel it at all?"

I still love you. Somehow, it was even stranger hearing it the second time. One time could have been his imagination. A misunderstanding.

"I didn't say I don't feel anything. That's not fair. I was very willing to make our relationship work," he said quietly, feeling simultaneously vindicated and gutted by the guilt in her expression. "But I just…I think you're mistaken."

Paige frowned. "Mistaken about what? What does that even mean?"

"About still being…" He gritted his teeth, not even aware he was doing it until the telltale ache started in his jaw. "I-In love with me. I've thought a lot about this. Since you left. I did research. Most of it was garbage, but…" Walter crossed his arms, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu that he did not enjoy. They'd had conversations like this before, but they hadn't attempted a relationship then. Now they had, and he knew. "I learned that sometimes people feel lonely after a breakup. Or they have regrets. That's normal. That doesn't mean you still love that person or want to be with them again. I d-don't know what you're feeling right now, Paige. But I can't ignore the empirical evidence. The way our relationship ended makes me certain that if you ever were in love with me, that ended a while ago."

Paige looked like she'd been punched in the stomach. She stared at him in almost deafening silence for a moment. "You sure believed me when I said it at the wedding."

"A lot has happened since then," he said flatly, suppressing the urge to recall that particular memory. It used to feel good. It didn't anymore. "Perhaps I could have saved us both of a lot of trouble if I'd handled things differently."

In the immediate aftermath of the team's breakup, Walter was sure he would have handled things differently. He didn't sleep for several days, just in case…he supposed in case she called, and he might miss a very brief window in which she was willing to talk.

But that was months ago. Ninety-three days and nights for him to realize that she wasn't going to call. Ninety-three nights to wonder if it was all for the best, despite his current heartache.

With her standing two feet from him, though, repeating those words…he was having a very difficult time recalling what side he'd landed on.

"You don't mean that," Paige rebutted quietly. "There was more good than bad. A lot more. That's all anyone can expect of a relationship, Walter. And I think we could do it again. Better this time."

Walter swallowed. He knew how difficult it was for Paige to press forward despite his resistance. Her fear of rejection was, in part, responsible for where they were now.

He didn't want this to be so hard for her. He wanted to make it easier. But he didn't know how to bend.

"Okay. Look. I hurt you. Badly. I will apologize for that. You hurt me too. It took a while, but Cabe finally helped me understand it wasn't intentional." Picking up on his surprise, she added, "Yeah. He told me you didn't know we were in contact. He didn't know how you would take it. But choosing you didn't mean he could turn his back on the rest of us. And besides…he hurt you once too. He understood."

"Cabe lied to protect me. I forgave him. These situations are hardly the same."

"I know, I know." Paige stepped a little closer, and Walter felt himself tense up involuntarily. She'd clearly noticed too, because she didn't move any further. "I'm not trying to excuse what I did. But…but I know that you still loved Cabe all those years. You felt hurt and betrayed and you couldn't trust him, but you still loved him. And you found a way to put things back together. When you needed Cabe the most, he stood by you. I'm just asking for a chance to prove that I could do the same thing."

He couldn't think straight. When he first met Paige, he'd found it frustrating that her presence scrambled him so easily. He learned to enjoy it, eventually, losing himself in her. It was the only time his mind could rest.

She was his blind spot, a mile wide. How could he agree to anything when he was blind? Fifteen months ago, he'd been one hundred percent certain that everything was perfect. That he could trust her unequivocally. He was wrong, then, and he wasn't often wrong twice about the same thing.

But she was right. He'd forgiven Cabe, and the agent proved himself worthy of that leap of faith repeatedly. It wasn't impossible.

Possible wasn't the same as probable, though.

"I will upset you again," he said, continuing quickly to cut her off before she could respond. "I will, Paige. You seem certain that we can fix our issues, but I wasn't even aware that we had any. Nothing…nothing that serious. I'm never going to communicate the way you want. I'm never going to care about the things that you want. We will experience the same issues again and you will react the same way and I don't…"

I don't think I'll survive it. That seemed a tad dramatic. Maybe not wholly hyperbolic, though.

Walter stepped back, looking down because if she saw his face, she would know he wasn't nearly as full of conviction as he sounded. "It would be best for us to cut our losses. We don't have to w-wonder what might have happened. We know. We can move on. Closure is important. At least, uh, that's what the article said." He wasn't sure this was what closure felt like. He had nothing to compare it to. If it was closure, he had to say that it was vastly overrated by society, as were many things. "Is this…settled, then?"

Paige didn't say anything at first. Finally, she shook her head and said, "I don't believe you."

"I'm sorry?"

"Cabe told me how things have been around here, and it doesn't square up with this BS about closure that you're trying to sell me. And you…" She shifted her weight. "You told me I was the love of your life. I meant it when I said it back. And I tried not to, but I still mean it. If it wasn't true for you, then say so, and that will be everything I need to know. But I don't think you can."

He was loath to consider what, exactly, Cabe had told her. He could always tell when Cabe caught him in the garage looking as lost and hollow as he felt, because the agent would simply put a hand on his shoulder and tell him to "hang in there."

Walter opened his mouth and promptly shut it. I only state facts had turned out to be an untruth, in a way. He'd proven he was capable of lying, even if it made him physically sick.

But this was a line he couldn't cross. He could tell her he had closure, that he thought they should leave the past in the past. He couldn't tell her he didn't mean what he said. He'd often found it acceptable to be honest at the expense of someone's feelings, but he wouldn't hurt her for a lie.

So he stayed silent.

"Okay." Paige nodded, her eyes closed, and he wondered if she hadn't been as certain of his answer – or non-answer – as she pretended to be. "Look, I hoped…that we would be able to talk about this tonight, but you're clearly not ready. I'm springing a lot on you and I've had all this time to think about it, but you need more. I can give you that."

He wanted to talk. His brain was screaming at him to say something, anything, but the more rational part of his mind knew blurting out the first thing that came to mind could cause even more damage. She wasn't incorrect. He needed a chance to process everything she'd said and his reaction to it.

"I know you're not sure if you can trust me again. It scares me too. I can't promise you that things will be okay, I don't know that, no one does. But even if we have the same issues again, we don't have to react to them the same way. We learn from our mistakes on cases, there's no reason it can't be the same for us." Paige blew out a breath. She'd been talking a lot. She was fitting ninety-three days – really, more than that – into one conversation, one they both knew was coming very late.

Maybe not too late. He hoped…not too late.

"I'm gonna go. And when you're ready to talk, you can call me." She turned in the direction of the door, barely taking a step before hesitating and shifting back to look at him. "Whatever we need to do to trust each other again, I am willing to do it. Just so you know. You were my best friend, Walter. Since the first day we met. If you don't believe anything else, you have to believe that. I'll do what it takes to get that back and I hope that you will too." She relaxed, seeming satisfied that she'd said everything she came to say. "Okay. Now I'm going to go."

He'd watched her leave the garage so many times. Too many times. Sometimes with that warm smile at him over her shoulder, sometimes storming away from him with tears in her eyes.

But no matter how she left, she always ended up right back there. Every single time.

"Paige?"

She stopped, supporting the open door with her back as she faced him. "Yeah?"

"Can you…tell Centipede I said hi?"

Paige smiled. "Yeah. I will."