Ok so I was going to post this chapter before I left for my holiday (which is the reason why I haven't updated in like a month and not because I forgot about this story) but it wasn't finished so I didn't, sorry L. I decided to treat you guys a bit coz this was initially going to be a lot shorter but you defiantly need a reward for sticking with this evil story.
(The italics are once again flashbacks)
Disclaimer: I do not own Scorpion or any of its characters. I'm just a massive fan who likes to write.
"Walter, snap out of it! Come on pal we need ya!"
Toby felt as if he was screaming to a dead man but he knew that it had to be done. It had been a month now, since the accident. Walter hadn't spoken a single word and he had become lost in thought more and more frequently. Everyone started to make assumptions that Walter was in danger of going down the rabbit hole, so they decided to give it one more try.
"Listen, I know you're grieving. Your mind is not capable of dealing with such large doses of EQ that it is simply restricting you from functioning, but you have to plough through and overcome it. Here. We think that you should use this to make sense of what happened back there" the shrink stretched out his hand, showing Walter a journal.
The motionless man didn't even look at it so the behaviourist set it down on the table and concluded speaking.
"I want you to write everything in it. No one will see what you have written. No one will judge. Just pick up a pen and write whatever comes into your head. Every though, opinion or meaningless word. You don't want to talk, fine. Just write. Please Walter."
Awaiting a simple nod or gesture, Toby sighed when he didn't receive it and walked off. Walter heard his footsteps echo down the staircase. He looked at the journal. It was an A4 book with a simple brown cover and the words 'Walter's journal' stained on it in a thick black marker. He reached out his left hand and grabbed it. What good would this do? This is pathetic. Deciding to ignore Toby's pleading, he tossed it across the room and watched it fly away. A small piece of paper dropped out of the book and landed face down slightly further than the journal itself. Interested, Walter got up and went over to see what the paper contained. On it was the message 'Don't do it for yourself, do it for Paige'. Still somewhat confused he knelt beside it and flipped it over to see it reveal a picture of the whole cyclone celebrating their first Christmas together. Megan was embracing Sly with a squinted smile, Happy was in the process of removing Toby's new hat as he was trying to grab her hips and pose, Ralph was held up by Cabe whilst holding mistletoe over Walter and Paige. Paige. She looked more beautiful than ever in that picture. Her hair was still slightly decorated by fake snow, her hair carefully combed perfectly underneath a Santa hat. Her eyes full of life and laughter. Her smile glimmering. He reached out to stroke the glistening, soft paper. He remembered how his fingers used to trail between her honey hairs. How her smile was so contagious that no one was able to be sad around her. How she laughed, cried and snored softly when laying on his chest in the night.
Something pinched his eye. Then tears begun to drip. Just like the time when he cried over Megan. But now he was alone, with no one to comfort him and no one to be strong for.
…
Toby entered Walter's upstairs room with a sandwich only to find the man hunched on the floor, clenching the photograph silently. The shrink swore beneath his breath and sprinted back down the stairs as quickly as he could. He entered the kitchen where all of the remaining geniuses and Cabe were sitting and slammed the plate firmly on the table.
"He's just getting worse. Great idea to throw in that picture, Hap" exclaimed Toby in a sarcastic manner before slouching onto the nearest chair.
"I though it would help. That time I found the picture of my parents, it motivated me to go and find my father than wait and do nothing" she shot back with a saddened tone.
"Maybe we should tell him the full truth" suggested Sly who was in the process of solving the fifth Rubik Cube on the table to relieve some stress.
"Are you mad? Walter's falling apart as it is. If we tell him all that we know we could loose him all together! His brain isn't capable of dealing with this much emotion at once and if we throw another bombshell at him, well, his brain could shut down fully" replied Toby in a defensive way.
"Well we're going to have to tell him one day" they shot back.
"And we will. Just let him deal with this first" reassured the behaviourist.
…
The journal slammed down on the desk. Walter's hands were shaking slightly but he opened the cover with ease, slumped on the desk chair and grasped a freshly sharpened pencil. First staring at the blank page as if he was trying to decipher a code that was written on it, he eventually begun. Not doing it for himself, but for Paige, the pencil started to glide on the page smoothly. The gentle sound of the pencil juxtaposed what was being written…
…
"Walter" exclaimed Paige as she saw the man gliding down the stairs from his loft room, with her voice sounding weirdly relieved.
197 looked up from the stash of papers that he was clenching and smiled towards the liaison. Her baby pink lips and bouncing hair stunned him as usual. Ever since they started dating he was finding it hard to believe that he was lucky enough to be the man to kiss her senseless and the only one to combe his fingers through her waves. They shared a quick peck at the bottom of the stairs before he raced to his desk and started to sift through the documents. Paige kissed Ralph goodbye before the genius waved to the others and walked out to his carpool. His mother then strode over to her boyfriend's desk and sat down on the corner of it. Walter looked up to see her beaming smile and eyes staring deeply into his own.
"What?"
"Well I have a little something to tell you" she replied mysteriously with the smile getting bigger and bigger.
"Go on"
"Well-"
Whatever she was about to say was interrupted with the slam of the garage doors and Cabe storming in with a file in his hand. He announced as always that they had an important case from Homeland and the whole team gathered around him.
"Is it ok if you tell me later?" questioned Walter in a calm voice as he placed his hand on her back.
"Yup, sure. Let's go and see what this case is about"
She gave him a reassuring smile to which he answered with a nod and they went over to join the others.
The case that Cabe explained seemed fairly simple. All they had to do was break in to a suspect's house before retrieving his computer and any other necessary sources that would confirm that he is the one that committed the murder of a University student the previous day. They all hunched over to discuss the ways in which they would approach the case and after a few minutes were ready with all the equipment necessary.
Happy jumped to the task of getting them in flawlessly in under a minute and Sylvester made quick work of hacking the computers and transferring it all onto a portable pen drive whilst memorising almost every word. Meanwhile Toby profiled the surroundings while Walter and Happy set about in search of safes, hard drives or any other information. That's when it started to go south.
"Shh. Did you guys hear that?" whispered Paige as she tip toed over to the window that seemed closest to the noise.
Her alarmed voice halted the typing sound from the computer and turned the attention of all of the geniuses. They all heard it. The sound of a car pulling up in the drive way. The translator uncovered the window ever so slightly to see a young man, with a phone by his ear which he seemed to be communicating through, run over to the garage of the house and then quickly exit it whilst tucking away a small gun into his jackets pocket.
Paige signalled to the others that he was driving away and as soon as she felt that he was far enough, she told them all that she had witnessed. Happy replied with a "not good" to which Toby followed with an upfront curse.
"Ok so whoever he was talking to must have set him up with another job which resulted in him coming back to retrieve the gun. On the bright side, we just saved ourselves a lot of time because we can be pretty sure that he is the one that killed our student."
"Thank you Toby for that optimistic statement but now we have a much bigger problem than the Uni student. That dude just went to kill some more people" fired back Happy.
"Exactly, that's why I am going to go after him while you guys finish up here and make your way back to the garage. Happy come with me, I'm going to need you to start that red car over there for me" announced Walter before pointing to the car that he was planning on stealing to put another of his incredibly risky plans into action.
"I'm going with you."
"Paige I'll be fine. You should probably go with the others."
"No, Walter. That man has a gun and he clearly doesn't care who he kills. I want to go with you. I will go with you."
He knew he couldn't argue anymore so he simply nodded his head and exited the building after Happy. The mechanic got the geniuses desired car started in no time and departed to meet up with the rest of her team mates. The remaining two jumped into the car and followed in hot pursuit of the man. Cabe's assistance was necessary to track the man and with his help they were on his tail as he zoomed through the streets of LA.
"There! I see him!"
Walter's foot pushed down on the accelerator with all his might…
It happened too fast. Too fast. The man they were following slowed down but it was already too late. The screeching sounds of breaks and glass smashing was enough to alert everyone of what has happened. Paige couldn't hear Cabe's worried voice over her com device, asking if they were ok and what happened. She couldn't feel the weight of the car force itself down her body. She couldn't smell the summer breeze drifting by as if nothing had happened. She had no way of possibly knowing that her whole system was shutting down one by one.
…
The pencil tip snapped at the end of the page, smudging part of the writing with its lead. The pencil flew across the floor along with the book that was now filled with every little detail that Walter could remember. The man caught his head in his palms and begun rubbing it furiously, pleading that all of thoughts as well as the events of that day disappear faster than they occurred. He killed her. It was all his fault. He allowed her to go with him. He didn't put in more of a fight. He let his focus of catching the killer over cloud his judgement to not go too fast. He was the one who ignored the promise that he made to Paige on the first day that they met. "I won't let anything happen to you". Lies. His fault. All his fault.
So I'm not 100% sure about this onebut let me know what you thought Nextof it anyway. chapter is the funeral and a bit of a plot twist is coming up that I kind of hinted in this chapter but I'm not going to say any more…
