Part 7
"Are you ready to see the rest?"
She quickly brushed the side of her face wiping away the tear as she nodded her head yes.
"The um the rest of them I actually keep in my safe. These are the ones that are very special to me."
"Walter!" Paige exclaimed while putting her hands to her mouth and tears starting to fall from her eyes. She was wrong to be disappointed. She was about to be completely awed.
Walter walked over to his safe and grabbed a stack of at least 50 pieces of paper. He carefully set them down on his bed next to where Paige was sitting. Walter took a deep breath. He didn't know what to expect.
"Um, my mind used to be full of only facts and formulas, and um equations for math and science. And I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Advance those fields as much as I could. Then when I met you and Ralph, my um whole world started to change. I was still of course always working on those pursuits, but the more you were around the more I realized how wrong I had been. And so, now instead of trying to work out equations and formulas when my mind would get too worked up, I use all the um memories of Ralph and of course you to ease my mind."
"Walter that is so kind and sweet." Paige told him as tears continued to roll down her cheeks.
"The first few are going to be of Ralph. When I first met him at the diner, when he came to work with you the first time, the um first case he helped on, one from Happy and Toby's wedding, a few from the island, and just some other times I thought about."
Paige was shocked. She couldn't speak. Tears filled her eyes. Walter was looking at her and reached for her wanting to hold her and comfort her.
"Walter, these are remarkable. I, I can't believe this. He looks exactly like I remember he did. You remembered every detail of him." She trembled while she spoke.
"Those were important memories for me. The um first time I saw Ralph sitting at the counter, I knew he was special, and I hoped he would be a part of my life. And I am so very fortunate that he is, and he always will be. And that is all because of you. Thank you for letting me be a part of your family."
"Our family. You are amazing, you know that. Incredible, simply incredible."
"The next couple are of the two of you."
Before she could even look at them, she started to cry.
"I don't know if this was a good idea." Paige said with her face red from crying.
"Oh." Walter said
"I don't know if I can make it through these without breaking down Walter."
"Here, let me hold on to you and we can look at them one by one and I can tell you when they were from." He told her while pulling her close trying to calm her.
"Thank you Walter." She said to him, and he returned a smile that let her know how much he loved her.
Walter took his time with each picture. Explaining to her the exact moment they came from. Some she knew instantly, others, she had to think about for a moment. The image of Ralph handing her the keys that first day, the two of them dancing at the wedding, the first Christmas at the garage, them on the train. They spent time on each sketch and reminisced at the memories they shared together.
"I was so mad at you that day." She told him holding the image of them on the train, "I thought we lost you that day."
"I wasn't going to let anything happen to the two of you, I had to do what I did. I'm sorry I scared you that day."
"You are more than forgiven. Walter, can I keep the one of me and Ralph at the Christmas party? I think it is my favorite one. The look in his eyes…"
Walter held her again as she cried, his eyes filled with tears as well.
"That was a fun and special night. I still love my sweater by the way. I would love for you to keep that one. And you're right, he has a magical look in his eyes. I think he was trying to process everything around him."
"Oh, thank you." Paige squealed and gave him a big kiss on the lips. "There's plenty more where that came from too."
Walter smiled. He was glad Paige was liking the sketches. This was turning out to be a good decision he thought to himself.
"The um re-rest of th-them are um all you. Some of them, um w-will be um easy to see when th-they were from. Others, um, w-will be a li-li-little tougher." Walter told her anxiously. He just hoped she could tell how special these sketches truly were to him.
"Walter, you're nervous. You're shaking."
Walter was getting emotional, more now than earlier. He had tears in his eyes and streaks down his cheeks.
"I um wh-when I sk-sketched these I um didn't know if I would um ever b-be able to um hold you in my arms again." He said with a trembling voice.
"Walter, will you hold me in your arms now. And don't ever let go, okay?" Paige said with tears in her eyes too.
They embraced and held on to each other tight. They didn't want to let go. They felt closer now than ever before. The embrace helped Walter to calm his nervousness.
"I have them organized in order of when they happened. I sketched them at different times, but I kept them this way so when I looked at them, it was more like a timeline."
"How um often do you look at them?"
"For a um while, when I was alone after Cabe left for the day, I looked at them all the time. As um I sketched more I would um lay them out on my desk and close my eyes and just relive the um memory."
"Walter, that is so sweet."
"When we um started to re-reconnect, I still looked at them all several times a day, and usually all through the night, before I would lock them back up in my safe."
"I am so sorry for how bad I hurt you. That was so horrible of me to say some of the things I did. I hope you know how wrong I was to say them, and how untrue they were. And none of it should have been done in front of the others. God, I messed us up."
"No you didn't, I caused you to do what you did. It was my behavior that caused it. But, Paige, I wouldn't want to change any of it now. At first, I would have done anything to go back in time and fix things. But now, where we are now, I wouldn't want anything to be undone. If that night, as horrible as it was at the time, created this new, stronger bond with us, I wouldn't change any of it."
"See, right there, that proves again how simply amazing and mature you are. I had no reason before to ever doubt you. And I never will again."
One by one over the next couple of hours they started going through the sketches. The first time he ever saw her, as she was walking an elderly customer to his booth, to later the same day bringing him a water and answering her front door.
"Oh my gosh Burt, he used to come in the diner three times a week. He was so sweet. You telling me I was anemic among other things, and you offering me a job. That day changed my life."
"Mine too. I probably didn't make the greatest first impression, but it was one of the most special days of my life."
"You may not have made the greatest first impression, that's true, but by the end of the night, mmm, I came really close to kissing you. Did I ever tell you that?"
"No I didn't know that, I um, I would probably have um passed out if that happened." Walter smiled while thinking back to how different everything might have been if she did kiss him. "I still wouldn't want to change where we are now though."
"You are so adorable. What's next?" Paige told him with a kiss.
"You in Vegas with your drink by the pool, the um look on your face when I sliced that fake painting, and um one of my um favorites; you in that dress from Hetty. That was one of the first ones I sketched. You um literally took my breath away when I saw you in it. I knew right away I had feelings for you, I didn't know they were feelings of love at first, but you in that dress. Oh boy, I started to figure out how differently I felt about you than anyone else I was ever going to meet."
"Walter O'Brien. That was beautiful."
"I agree, you looked beautiful in that dress. I mean, you look beautiful every day, but you were absolutely stunning that night."
"As I recall you looked pretty sharp yourself."
"Huh! I don't think a single person even noticed me, not standing next to you anyway." Walter said as he kissed her. "All I know, is almost four years later, you are even more beautiful."
There was one of her singing at the garage, from the cave in at the beach, her on the cruise ship, with the diplomats, and another one he really liked from the wildfires.
The weather balloon, the image of her just before their first kiss afterwards, at the dam, the earthquake, the tornado in Vietnam and from the reactor in Chernobyl.
"Our first kiss was another of the first ones I did."
"I wish I told you what that kiss did to me right away. It was different from any other kiss I ever had." Paige told him.
"I almost kissed you again right away, but I was too nervous and pulled back. I thought maybe you didn't feel the same way I did about it."
"Oh I felt it." She reached over and patted his leg.
"This was when I was holding you in the tornado and then when you saved my life in Chernobyl."
"I remember both of those too. They are all so amazing Walter. They really are."
There were some from his vision of her in space, searching for Ralph's autistic friend, in Ireland, when she saw her mom, the nudist resort, the ocean with the sharks and the chess tournament. As well as a few others from that time.
"Some of these were not as fond memories for me, but I still wanted to have images of you from all the time we knew each other. I was still so madly in love with you, I just couldn't get up the courage to tell you how I felt."
"Like these?" She held a few sketches up.
"Yes, you were with um Tim during that time. I still couldn't keep my eyes off of you. I wish I had told you my true feelings so many different times. Before Tahoe, in Tahoe, after Tahoe."
"It seems like we were always just a little off with our timing."
"I was for sure. All before Tahoe I could have told you. I drove there to tell you and I couldn't, and then I finally got the nerve to tell you I loved you and everyone heard me but you."
"When?"
Walter showed her the sketch of her on the street corner where they were arguing after the missile was headed towards the building they had been in.
"What? When did you tell me you loved me? I had my comm in."
"It must have been after you got out of range. I was trying to tell you why I drove down to Tahoe and how I felt about you and then I finally said it. Everyone else heard. Tim threatened me after that, and I told him I would back off and not interfere anymore. And then the whole rocket thing happened."
"Why did no one tell me? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I promised to not interfere. You seemed happy and that was all I ever wanted for you. Even if it meant I wasn't the one making you happy."
"Oh my God Walter, I feel horrible. You didn't deserve any of that. But I still don't know why no one ever told me anything. Especially Toby. He sure was quick to tell me what to do about what you said in space. And he knew how we both felt."
"It's um all behind us now. And I didn't want to bring up bad memories with these. I just always found beauty in you when I sketched them."
"Thank you. What about this one? You told me you didn't look."
I um, tried my hardest, I did. But I may have caught a glimpse of your um behind as you were um getting in. And then maybe again when we were getting out. Sorry."
"And what about my um bubbles?"
Walter smiled. Tapping his finger to the side of his head.
"Walter O'Brien. You little perv."
The next batch he showed her he said was his favorite grouping. From the wedding where they first admitted their feelings to each other and then from the island they were marooned on.
"This was the um first one I sketched." He said holding it up.
"Of course it was, nerd. It's really good." She told him.
"That was a very memorable night." Walter said with a big smile.
"Mmmhmm, that was a memorable night."
"These were all from the island except the first one from the wedding when we were talking."
"As much as I despised being stuck on that island at the end, it was still the beginning of our new relationship. And there were lots of great memories for me from there." Paige told him.
"Me too, momma!" Walter told her playfully.
"You better watch it mister! Don't make momma have to make a house call to Dr. Boom."
He was always puddy in her hands when she flirted with him. "You're too easy, you nerd"
The rest of the sketches followed them through the year they dated, different glances from her that he remembered, eating meals together, sights of her at the garage. All just times Walter found her irresistible. There were also sketches of her legs, her hair, her profile, her eyes. All images of her that Walter had committed to memory over the years. The final sketch was of her standing in the lobby of Mr. Gettleman's office. They took their time going through each sketch one by one. Talking about the special memories they shared together. Her mind couldn't comprehend the way he captured every little part of her. And when she finally got to the last one, she couldn't believe what it was.
"Walter, why would you sketch this one?"
"My feelings for you never went away Paige. I still loved you. It had been two weeks since we saw each other. At the time I didn't know if I was ever going to see you again. I mean I was never going to stop trying or fighting for you, but I wanted to remember you at that moment too."
At that point Paige was completely overwhelmed and had tears down both of her cheeks. She told Walter she just needed to get a little air. She started walking down the stairs from the loft and Ralph spotted her. He noticed her in tears and Walter was several steps behind.
"What did you do to my mom?" Ralph asked sternly.
"Ralph its okay." Paige told him. Walter was looking on not understanding why Ralph sounded the way he did.
"Then why are you crying?"
"Walter was just showing me some stuff he had done up there."
"But why are you crying? Did he do something to you?"
"Yes, he did. He made me fall in love with him all over again and again."
Walter looked at her and just held her in his arms, squeezing the woman he loved with every fiber of his being. He couldn't imagine not being able to hold her like this anytime he wanted to ever again.
"Oh, okay. Well, I'm hungry, you guys have been up there for like five hours." Ralph told them. "Sorry Walter."
They had lost track of time. It wouldn't have been the first time. When they were with each other they would sometimes just lose themselves. Like nothing else in the world existed. Today had been one of those days. They could have spent another five hours up there and not known the difference.
"Where should we go? Ralph, you get to pick, since we forgot to feed you." Walter told him.
"We haven't been to Kovelsky's in a while. Just no fermented fish."
"Deal, I was gonna get the same thing your mom always gets anyway." Walter told him while still holding on to Paige.