Updates happen when you're home alone and inexplicably can't sleep at 2am.
Paige did not go to the house. She didn't want to see the home Tim and Lauren had made together. She didn't want to see where Lauren had died. She didn't want to stand where a violent assault had taken place. She didn't want to see where Tim possibly took an innocent civilian's life. That made it even worse than just knowing that she was looking at a place where someone was murdered.
If he did it, then it could have been her. Would have been her, if they'd stayed together. She didn't know Lauren, but she did know that Lauren didn't deserve what happened to her. Even if she'd said cruel things, even if she'd confessed to an affair, even if she'd threatened to walk out on Tim…none of those things were capital offenses. None of those things were punishable by death without trial. Even if she'd killed someone herself. Murderers still got their day in court.
As Tim would. If he did it.
She thought about what her friends had said. Yes, she'd felt trapped, tricked into agreeing to meet Tim's parents before she was ready. Yes, she saw their perspective of what had all happened in Ireland. And she thought about how Tim had asked, while not asking, for her to accompany him to Jordan. I want to ask you to come, he'd said. But he stopped shy of point blank asking.
She saw that in a different light now. He had made his desires clear without actually asking anything of her, so if she stayed, he technically hadn't been rejected. If she'd come along and grown to resent it, well, it was her choice to come in the first place. Because he hadn't asked her. Not really.
She remembered how he'd always gotten her to tell him that the issues with Walter weren't his fault. She remembered how he got her to make fun of her family. She remembered how he'd jumped at the Fort Knox job when he'd learned how much money was involved, and how she'd been impressed and proud at him manipulating the geniuses, instead of suspicious of him for it, like she always was when it was anyone else.
She'd come to hate the person she was when she was with him. And that was partially her fault. But it was partially who he was that changed her.
When the team returned from the house, some tests pending, others still left to be run, they didn't tell her what they'd found, or what they thought. She knew that was because they all thought he was guilty.
But she realized that she did, too.
The police had put them up in a motel, and Paige was silent as she and Walter entered their room. He called Cabe and Allie, and she took the phone into the hallway when it was her turn to talk to Amber. Hearing her sweet girl sing songs over the phone helped to settle her soul. Not entirely. But enough. For a few minutes.
She came back into the room, and she and Walter bid their daughter goodnight together. They sat on the small couch by the window, and when Walter hung up the phone, he stayed there, quiet; he wasn't looking at her, but she knew he was paying attention to her all the same. Her posture. How she was breathing. What she was doing with her hands.
She leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder. "I need to get ready for bed," she said. "Long day tomorrow. But it feels like getting up off this couch is the biggest chore I've ever been tasked with. And I've birthed two babies."
"Well, this is a pretty low, tiny couch," Walter said. "So I mean, it's comparable."
She smirked. Reaching over, she took one of his hands and squeezed it before sighing and getting up. She went into the bathroom, catching sight of herself in the mirror. She stood silently for a while, perfectly still, and then slowly began to strip. Shirt. Bra. Slacks. Socks. Panties. She stood there, staring, her eyes trailing over her physical self.
She didn't realize how long she was standing there before Walter rapped at the door. "Are you okay?"
"Is it true?" she asked, "that every cell in your body replaces after seven years?"
"Seven to ten years," Walter said through the door. "Some of it is depending on who you ask."
Paige stared into the mirror again, studying herself, just as she and Walter had jokingly done not too long ago. But this time, she wasn't seeing signs of age. She was seeing herself as someone who didn't exist seven years ago. As someone who was almost entirely different than a decade prior.
She turned, opening the door and meeting Walter's eyes. "I am so glad," she said quietly, "that I'll soon have a body that he never touched."
Toby was uncharacteristically quiet. Sure, he was quiet sometimes, but this was a different quiet, and Happy didn't like it. "Doc. I just can't. Like, part of me thinks it makes total sense that Tim did this. The other part of me is like…no. He dated our friend. We took him places with us. We trusted him with our lives."
"We liked him," Toby said. "Kinda."
"At least we weren't as wrong as we've ever been," Happy said. "I think Collins was a worse call than Tim."
"I'm not sure what that says about us. That the terrorist only might be the worst person we've ever trusted."
"You think this is going to jeopardize our shot of getting that money?" Happy asked.
"God." Toby sighed. "I'd completely forgotten about that."
"You know what else we forgot about?"
"What?"
"Who's feeding the parrot while we're gone?"
"Oh, fuck." Toby groaned. "I will never forgive myself if that thing dies and I can't torment Sly with it."
"I'm sure Cabe won't mind feeding it. Honestly Paige probably told him to. She thinks of everything."
"Yeah." Toby was quiet for a moment. "I miss the kids."
"I do too," Happy said.
"I mean like more than usual." Toby took off his hat and held it in his hands, staring down at it and frowning, as if he'd noticed some imperfection that suddenly seemed massive.
"You're probably thinking about how Lauren's stepmother is so far away and she felt safe leaving her, and now look what's happened. And you realized how often we leave Tad and Ellie behind, and even though we know Cabe and Allie won't hurt them, something still could always happen that's outside of their control."
Toby looked at her, raising his eyebrows as she sat down on the bed next to him. "You the behaviorist now?"
"No," she said. "I've just been married to one for a long time." She rested her head on his shoulder. "And also," she added quietly, "I'm feeling the exact same way."
"You want the bed?"
"Where would you sleep?"
Sylvester gestured to the far side of the room. "Sofa."
"Sylvester, that sofa is almost smaller than me, I'll sleep on it."
"That's not the gentlemanly thing to do."
"You be gentlemanly, I'll be practical."
"Practical would just be us sharing," he pointed out.
"I agree, but you were the one who suggested we not do that by asking if I wanted the bed."
"I'm okay sharing if you are."
"I'm okay sharing if you are."
They stared at each other. Sylvester raised his eyebrows. "So…we've come to an agreement?"
"I think so."
Sylvester hated this. Some days it was so easy for them to talk to each other, to joke around like they always had. And then some days it was like…this. Where they acted like exes. He wasn't sure what their normal was supposed to be. He wasn't sure if they were technically exes or not.
Florence stared at the floor. "I hate this, Sylvester."
His heart pounded, and he didn't know if it was from anxiety or hope. "Hate what?"
"The way we are with each other sometimes. This way we are."
He nodded. "It's not my favorite dynamic. But it's not the worst."
"How is it not the worst?"
"Because it's still you. And I'll still take talking to you over most other things."
She came closer to him. "You're my favorite person in the whole world. And I hate how much I've put you through. I hate making you always doubt what's coming next. I hate being in this weird space between wife and ex. I hate that I'm not the person that I was a few months ago. I know how hard this is for you and I don't know how you still love me, because I feel like loving me is nearly impossible right now. Especially since I still don't know where I need to be."
Sylvester lifted his left hand, using the index finger on his right one to point to his wedding ring. "For better or for worse, Lori," he said.
He leaned down, placing a gentle, chaste kiss on her forehead. "In sickness, and in health."
