Thank you so, so much for the reviews! I appreciated them so much. (Side note: I'm really behind on reading fics, so if I usually review your work and I haven't, I'm getting there, I promise!) I hope this is a worthy second part, please enjoy!

Paige nearly jumped out of her skin when a knock inevitably came on her door. It was late and most of the lights in her apartment were off, Ralph was asleep…she could choose not to answer. She wasn't ready to face him. What would she say? Would he decide that he couldn't work with her anymore? Maybe she'd been around the geniuses too long, but she wanted to decide how she would handle any of Walter's possible reactions before she actually came face-to-face with them.

The visitor tried again, and Paige quickly realized that it wasn't Walter's methodical, evenly-spaced knock. She stood up and reached for the door, placing her ear against it. "Who is it?" she asked quietly to keep from waking up her son.

"Not the person you're avoiding, so let me in," Toby announced from the other side. Paige breathed a sigh of relief and twisted the doorknob to reveal the shrink, who looked at her guiltily. "Hi. I suck."

The liaison debated telling him to leave, but she could only handle tension with one member of the team at a time, and it was a great deal easier to face Toby right now than Walter. "Come on. Let's go outside."

She shut the door gingerly behind her and led Toby down the stairs and into the courtyard, falling into step with him on a trail behind her building that wound around the pond. They were silent for a few moments before Toby spoke up again.

"I'm sorry." He glanced over to gauge her reaction, but she kept her eyes straight ahead. "Happy and I never meant to make things worse. We just wanted to…I don't know, help you and Walter be honest about your feelings."

"Why?"

"Because you're our friends and we want you to be happy." Paige raised her eyebrow, earning a reluctant sigh from Toby. "Fine, and also because Walter's a pain in the ass about workplace fraternization and we figured he'd have to loosen up if you were together."

She didn't respond immediately, and Toby worried that she might lambast him for manipulating her personal life for his own gain. To his surprise, though, a ghost of a smile appeared on her face. "He is a pain in the ass," she agreed before breaking into laughter, which Toby couldn't help but share.

When they caught their breath, he shook his head and walked backward on the trail, facing her. "I really am sorry, Paige."

"I know." She reached one hand up and halfheartedly smacked his shoulder. "Could you warn me next time, at least?"

"Done."

Paige came to a gradual stop near the pond, staring out at the reflection of the moonlight on the water. Toby stood with her patiently, sensing that she needed the ear of a psychiatrist, or a friend, or maybe both.

"I'm sorry that I bit your head off," the liaison offered. "Not as sorry as you should be, but still, it wasn't fair. I just…" She lifted her eyes to take in the stars, blinking as they gradually came into view. "When Walter said he wanted to meet new people, I thought he'd round up a few more guys like Ray and start a poker night or something. But then he was dating other women and I felt like…like we'd been seeing things completely differently, and what I thought was happening between us wasn't happening at all. I felt dumb."

"You're not dumb," Toby said evenly. "Walter is dumb. I'm dumb. But you're not."

Paige inhaled and let out a deep breath. "I didn't say anything because I knew it would strain our relationship as colleagues and as friends. His biggest fear is that emotional involvement would hurt the team, and he's right."

"Trust me, that's not his biggest fear," the shrink scoffed, but she didn't ask for an elaboration, so he dropped it.

"How do you deal with it? With Happy?" Paige tilted her head to look at him. "The distance, the trust issues, the way they're next to you one moment and then gone the next…" She snapped her fingers to illustrate. "Sometimes I wonder if it's a losing battle."

Toby shrugged, rocking back on his heels as he thought. "Happy wouldn't be Happy without all of her problems. That's who I fell for and that's who I have to accept. But I'd rather be with her on a bad day than anyone else on a good day, because she's worth it." He hesitated before dropping his hand to Paige's shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. "Being in love with a genius is just different. Everything is more intense—the good stuff, too. Sometimes it requires an…unusual perspective."

She grasped his hand on her shoulder, shooting the psychologist a sad smile. "I'm not ready for it," Paige admitted as he released her. "Whatever's about to happen. I'm not ready for everything to go to hell, Toby."

"Hey, it won't," he assured her. Relieved as he was that Paige had forgiven him, he could see the doubt in her eyes now and kicked himself for treating her so selfishly. Whatever the fallout was from this, he had to make sure that he and Happy would be there for her. "Don't assume the worst, Paige. Just talk to Walter. He might surprise you."

That I love him? That's what you think, isn't it?

Maybe that's true.

Those words had run through Walter's mind in hundreds of variations since the previous evening. No matter how much he lectured himself that it would more efficient to get a good night's sleep and view the situation with fresh eyes in the morning, nothing seemed capable of stopping them.

Maybe that's true.

He'd never imagined her sounding so upset when she said it. Walter knew he had pushed her away, over and over again, even when what he wanted most was to get closer to her. And despite his intentions, that had clearly taken its toll. She wasn't happy about her feelings for him. She sounded tired. Defeated.

His IQ, the business, the lives he saved—it didn't feel like much when he kept hurting the people he cared about.

Of course he cared about Paige. He cared about what happened to her. He cared that she was safe, and happy. He wanted her and Ralph in his life and had crumbled at the prospect of losing them. But if there was a word for that, it eluded him.

There were a handful of people Walter could admit that he'd loved, in the best way that he understood love. Cabe, the man who'd accepted him as a son, and continued to despite their baggage. Ralph, the child who turned his life upside down and gave him a renewed purpose. Megan, the sister who understood him, showed him kindness, believed in him until her last moment. There were bits and pieces of what he felt for them in his relationship with Paige: his respect for Cabe, his protectiveness toward Ralph, his complete trust in Megan. And then there was something else, something he wasn't sure how to identify, and that was the part he wondered about now.

"Walter?" His eyes snapped to the door as an uncertain voice broke his train of thought. Paige stumbled back a bit, caught off guard by his sudden reaction. "Sorry. You're busy."

She turned abruptly to leave, but Walter pulled himself together and called out her name, stopping her. "It's okay," he insisted as he stood up from his chair. "We, uh, have some things to talk about."

"Yes." Paige took a tentative step inside the loft, folding her arms over her chest and training her eyes studiously on anything that wasn't him. "I got emotional yesterday. I was…upset, and I wasn't thinking clearly. I didn't mean to say that."

"Oh." Walter cleared his throat, bracing himself to ask a question he had no doubt he would regret later. "So you didn't mean it?"

He shuffled uncomfortably, surprised by the twinge of disappointment that had wormed into his voice. Was he afraid she would say no? And if he was, what did that say about him? Paige considered the question for a moment, picking nervously at her fingernails while Walter realized he was holding his breath.

"I didn't mean to say it," she repeated simply, and the genius knew that there was meaning between the lines, even if he couldn't decipher it immediately. Paige always expressed herself clearly; it wasn't an issue of semantics. She had purposefully avoided saying no.

Walter couldn't belief the wave of relief that washed over him.

"Paige…" he started quietly, not entirely sure where to go from there, but he was interrupted by the slamming of the door downstairs.

"We've got a case!" Cabe shouted, his voice echoing off the metal surfaces in the garage. "I need you all, now!"

Backup frequency.

Paige stared at the text, ignoring the idle chatter over her comm. Then, almost as an afterthought:

Please.

She sighed and glanced at the footage on the monitor to confirm that the team was okay before switching to the alternate frequency that they typically only used in cases of emergency. The liaison couldn't be sure what Walter needed it for now, but after two years of missions with Scorpion, she'd learned to roll with whatever random requests they made.

"Are you okay?" she asked, fiddling with the device to make it fit more comfortably in her ear. "Why didn't you just call me?"

"My reception here is inadequate," Walter explained, tapping on the ridged surface to emphasize his point. That may have been a bit of an understatement. While Paige was overseeing operations at the garage and the rest of the team was conducting surveillance in the hotel above him, Walter was stuck waiting in a tunnel for the signal to hack the power lines and take control of the building's systems.

"Shouldn't we be on with the rest of the team?"

Walter shrugged. "Sylvester needs ten minutes to decrypt the codes, Toby's distracting the staff, and Happy still hasn't gotten into the safe. We have at least five minutes before anyone needs us."

"Five minutes to…?" Paige asked cautiously, still lost about the reason for their covert maneuvering.

"To talk." The genius brushed specks of dust off his pants, to keep his hands busy if nothing else. "We shouldn't…we can't pretend like nothing happened. We need to resolve it."

Paige wasn't sure what to make of Walter's tone, blunt and matter-of-fact as ever. It probably meant he saw her feelings as a problem that needed to be handled, and she wasn't sure if she could endure that. There was also a chance, however, that his emotional investment was simply overwhelming him, and he needed to process it the only way he knew how. But that was more than she was comfortable hoping for, so Paige pushed it aside. "Okay."

"Happy told me everything," Walter started, and she could tell from the small variations in his breathing that he was pacing inside the tunnel. "What they said to you. I'm sorry that they cornered you like that."

The liaison dropped her head into her palm, pinching the bridge of her nose. "They meant well. The whole thing just…snowballed."

"Yeah." There was an excruciatingly long pause, and Paige resisted the impulse of every nerve in her body to say that they should move on and forget about it. That was always her tendency—to gloss over uncomfortable territory between her and Walter, and regret it later when she started to wonder what he might say if only she gave him the chance. "I wish you had told me, Paige."

Her head shot up.

"About the dating. I didn't mean to hurt you. I apologize if I did." Walter, suddenly feeling strangely unsteady on his legs, slid down against the tunnel wall and pulled his knees up to his chest, deliberately avoiding any contemplation on the filthiness of the ground below him. "I think that Happy may have been right. I was so sure that I would let you down, I ruined things before I really had the chance to ruin things."

Paige's heartbeat flooded her ears. She was grateful when Walter continued without expecting a reply; for once, she thought she might be speechless.

"There's something else," the genius explained in a level voice, tracing the subtle lines on his clothes with his fingers. He wasn't sure how to understand Paige's silence, but he was running out of time to say what he needed to say, so he blurted out, "Happy explained to me that, uh, there's a high probability that…what I feel for you is, in fact, love."

Anyone outside of Scorpion might have found that statement absurd, but it sounded just about right to Paige. Unable to muster a more appropriate response, she let out a sharp laugh and said, "Yeah?"

Walter could picture the expression on her face clearly, as if she was standing right in front of him, and it made him chuckle. "Apparently it's, uh, evident to everyone except me," he noted, leaning his head back on the hard wall. "She said it's obvious in the way that I…that I look at you. Um, and the little things—like the cinnamon in the coffee pot—everyone hates that, Paige. I do it for you. And the fact that there's nothing I wouldn't do to protect you and Ralph. I know I tell you that it's based on logical reasoning and calculations, but truthfully, when you're in danger, I don't think about that. I just know that I need to protect you." He exhaled slowly and shook his head against the metal. "God, I can't tell you the truth about anything, can I? I'm sorry. You deserve better, Paige."

"I don't want better," she said quietly, finally finding her voice. "What I want hasn't changed, Walter. It's never changed."

Paige had been so weighed down by the truth that she'd gotten used to the heaviness, and had stopped noticing it until it was gone. The words were out, and she could breathe again for the first time in too long.

"I don't need you to say it. I don't need you to say anything," she assured him, knowing that the team would be looking for them soon but reluctant for the moment to end. "But I do need to know if we're heading somewhere, however slowly, or…"

"We are," Walter interrupted, not really wanting to hear the second option. "Or at least I am. If you are?"

The liaison couldn't suppress the ridiculous grin that reached her face, even when it felt like her skin might crack. "I am," she answered without hesitation. "So get back safely, alright?"

Paige shut her laptop as the sound of engines died out and four geniuses and one government agent filed into the garage.

"I am starving," Toby complained loudly. "If that mission ran any longer I was leaving to get a burger."

Happy rolled her eyes. "It's terrifying that you're trusted with national security."

He placed his hand over his heart in a gesture of mock offense. "Genius must be fed," he said earnestly before disappearing into the kitchen, the mechanic behind him.

When the rest were out of earshot, Walter walked wordlessly behind Paige's desk, taking her arm and leading her through the back entrance.

"Hey," she greeted as he shut the door behind him, but her words were drowned out as Walter crashed his lips hard against hers. Her breath hitched as she hit the side of the building, his hands firm around her waist and hers tangled up in his hair. She'd been pretty knocked out by their first kiss, but somehow this one was so much better.

"Wow," she laughed breathlessly as he pulled back, his arms stretched out on either side of her and his palms resting against the wall. "It's good to see you too."

"Sorry," Walter said, even though he didn't sound sorry and he certainly didn't need to be. "I had to do it before I talked myself out of it."

"I think we should do less talking," Paige mumbled as she hooked her arms around his neck and drew him into another kiss. The feeling of his fingers on her back and the heat of his body on hers was mind-blowing, but even through her haze she knew it was only a matter of time before the others caught them. "I have to pick up Ralph," she said when they broke apart. "We could all go to dinner, if you wanted."

Walter's crooked smile was making it much harder to catch her breath.

"Unless you have somewhere else to be," she teased, raising her eyebrow.

"No," he smirked, tightening his grip around her. "Not this time."

"Huh. Looks like we missed something," Toby whispered as he looked over the roof ledge. "I told you they were radio silent for way too long."

"Who cares how it happened? We won." Happy offered her hand for a high five, which the shrink gladly accepted. "And Walter can't give us crap for our relationship. I mean, he still will, probably, but we've got leverage now."

Toby smiled at his girlfriend and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her in close to him. He kissed the top of her head before murmuring, "It's a good thing I'm around to make your life easier, right?"

"You jerk!" Happy laughed, tearing back and punching him in the arm. "I knew you were listening to my conversation with Walter!"

"You make a very good psychiatrist," he insisted, snickering as she hit him again for good measure before resuming her spot against his chest. Toby's voice grew more serious as he noted, "You were right, though. I don't care if you say it, Hap. I'm just honored to be part of your life."

"So corny." The mechanic wrapped her arms around his waist until there was no distance between them and she could hear the comforting sound of his heartbeat. "Who knows, doc?" she said as they stared at the skyline, a small smile breaking through. "Anything's possible."