SMOOTH OPERATOR... Or Not

AN: *SPOILER WARNING* for the next episode (Maroon 8) based on the sneak peeks. I'm still squealing over how cute Walter is in the bonus clip! Waige is going to be SO awkward and amazing!

This story is rated K+ for a little language.

OXOXOXOXOXO

"We are all fools in love." – Jane Austen 'Pride and Prejudice'

Walter watched Paige approach out of the corner of his eye. He could feel his pulse and respirations increasing, so he tried taking a calming breath to relax. He could barely suppress a stupid grin or the urge to lope up to her and hug her tightly to him. This love stuff was ridiculously enormous. He didn't have the adequate capacity to contain it all inside, so it frequently spilled over on its own without his permission.

"Hey, Walter," Her voice was stolen a little by the balmy breeze, but he was the one blown away. Simply hearing her say his name sent a thrill straight through him.

Then he looked up at her. How was he ever expected to act rationally again? It was impossible. He could feel his IQ decreasing and his expression change as his eyes drank her in. Love drunk. Besotted. Idiotically enraptured. Those words made sense to him now and that's how he knew he must appear. But he couldn't be bothered to care.

Walter cleared his throat and answered sub-intelligently, "H-hey, uh, Paige."

She sat beside him in another one of the seats out of the plane's tail section where he was working on a makeshift booster for the radio signal using broken pieces of metal and bits of copper wires. "You missed dinner, so I brought you some. Take a wild guess what's on the menu."

They shared an amused look. "You might have heard I'm pretty smart. I'd say fish and fruit?"

"Wow. You are smart!" Paige smiled at him and handed over a portion wrapped in a banana leaf. He felt desperate to kiss her, but they were on the beach in full view of her son who was at the signal fire with the others. He and Ralph had forged an easy peace and the boy seemed okay with him dating his mother. However he was 'grossed out' by any overt display of affection and he didn't mind loudly expressing his dislike. Walter didn't want to test Ralph's patience. Especially not at this juncture.

So he settled for muttering his thanks and pressing his lips lingeringly to the fine hair at her temple. And he tried distracting himself with his meal instead.

As he ate his dinner and drank from the shared bottle of water, he noticed her looking at him sidelong. She would take a breath and open her mouth as if she wanted to say something, then she would fall silent again.

"Is something on your mind?" He asked around a mouthful of mango.

Paige picked at the chipped polish on her nails. "Yes. I just don't know how to bring it up."

"You can tell me anything, Paige. You know that. I'm trustworthy."

"I know I can trust you. It's not that…" she gave him a little half smile. He lost his appetite because his insides promptly turned all jittery and he momentarily forgot what they were talking about. He shook his head to clear it.

"I was just wondering if you could do something for me?"

"Absolutely anything within my abilities. Name it."

Paige's eyes went all soft and drifted down to stare at his lips for a moment. She sounded a little breathless when she replied, "Could you maybe… tone it down a little? Just in front of the others?"

Wait. What?

Walter frowned in confusion. "Tone what down?"

She bit her lip and turned her gaze toward the incoming tide for a few seconds. "I know this is all new for us. But we really need to focus on getting off the island safely right now. Everyone is scared …and your random… gushing about our feelings? It's getting a little irritating for them."

"I guess it's only okay for Toby to talk about Happy...," he groused.

She wrapped her arms around herself. And something disturbing occurred to him.

"I'm embarrassing you?" The thought made him cringe.

"Sometimes. I don't know. Just a bit, maybe. It's okay. As I said, this is new…"

Walter interrupted, "I'm doing this all wrong. I knew I'd be bad at this. I have no prior experience…" A strange ache constricted his chest.

Paige took his hand and shook her head. "No. No, Walter. You are not bad at this. You are incredibly sweet. I never thought… But we could really use that big brain of yours concentrating on a solution for us now."

He linked his fingers with hers; needing to be joined with her in some way, suddenly and illogically afraid she would disappear. "I have had some trouble staying on task lately. You'll have to instruct me on how I should proceed. You've been in love before and you react normally to emotional stimuli anyway. I don't know how to do this correctly. Tell me what to do."

She leaned in close to him and rested her cheek against his shoulder. "I have been in love before, but not like this. It was never this overwhelming before. Don't forget I'm feeling it too."

That statement abruptly elevated his mood making him feel nearly giddy. Was it possible being in love would eventually require him to take mood stabilizing medication?

"I was so young with Drew," he stiffened slightly at the mention of her ex and she rolled her eyes at him before leaning fully against him across the tattered armrest. He slipped his arm around her. "It turned out, I was in love with him and he was also in love… with himself. As long as I frequently stroked his ego and told him how wonderful he was and didn't require anything too hard from him, he was fine. Then I got pregnant and we started having financial issues, so he 'travelled with the team' more often. Which I found out later translated to him finding other women willing to stroke his ego among other things. Then we started to believe Ralph had learning disabilities because he wasn't talking. So he bailed on us. The truth about our 'love' sunk in pretty quickly after that."

As soon as they got back to civilization, he was going to erase that asshole from existence. Well, probably not. It would cause difficulties for Ralph. But it sure was tempting. Instead of voicing his thoughts, Walter murmured, "I'm sorry."

"Ancient history." Paige shrugged, "The point is, this is all very new to me too."

"What about Tim?" Walter inquired in a small voice. He felt compelled to ask even though he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

She snickered softly. "You're kidding, right? I was never in love with Tim. He was my lame attempt to get over you. I mean, why did you date Linda?"

It was his turn to chuckle. "An experiment. To see if I could successfully date a normal."

"We obviously belong together. What a couple of morons." He could hear the smirk in her voice.

"Agreed." They sat for a few minutes in silence watching the sun as it started to sink further below the horizon. It painted the rippling water a vibrant orange and turned her hair golden where it draped across his arm. He felt the steady drumbeat of desire beginning low in his abdomen. Walter had to do something to distract himself or he would be tempted into doing something inadvisable. "Will you indicate to me when I need to 'tone it down' in the future? Maybe we can come up with a signal?"

"I could start humming? Would that work?"

"Okay."

"Oh, and Walter? For the record, when we're in private? You can be as overboard and cheesy as you want. I kinda like it then. And I love you all the time. Got it?"

He couldn't contain it another second. Walter lifted her chin and kissed her hard on the mouth.

Paige pulled away before things could get too out of hand. She hummed 'Dem Bones' for a few seconds then she gave him a reluctant grimace, cut her eyes toward the fire and whispered, "We have an audience, remember."

Walter sat back and sighed, picked up her hand and stroked her palm absently with his fingertips. She shivered and murmured, "There's a really good reason for you to focus on how to get us off this island."

He raised his eyebrows, and asked, "What's that?"

"I want to be alone with you."

It was his turn to shiver with anticipation… and a healthy dose of newly restored determination.