Okay so this chapter is pretty much pure angst... sorry...

Walter quickly turned away from her and agitatedly ran his hand through his hair. It came back suddenly, all at once, and he could barely breathe.

"Walter?" Paige asked shakily.

Veronica and Ralph watched on in fascination. Neither really knew what was happening, but they'd seen the kiss, and they'd seen it all turn bad in the blink of an eye.

Veronica put her hand on Ralph's shoulder, "Uhm, Ralph, why don't you and I go ahead back to the hotel so we can get you ready for bed."

"No." Walter said harshly. He couldn't be alone with her right now. He honestly had no idea what he was feeling, but he definitely knew he was feeling too much. "We-We'll go back with you."

As Walter began to walk away, Paige touched his elbow, "Walter."

He stiffened and pulled his arm away, just enough so she was no longer touching him. He didn't say anything, didn't even look at her, and she felt a wave of helplessness. Was he mad? Hurt? She couldn't tell. She knew that they needed to talk about this as soon as possible, because with their track record, if they didn't, they would never talk about it.

As they made their way out of the park, Paige quietly asked her mom, "Do you mind if I switch rooms with Ralph tonight?"

"No, not at all. I know you have a lot to talk about. And..." Hesitating slightly, she continued, "If you need anything, you can come to me."

Feeling too overwhelmed to get annoyed at her mother's kindness, Paige muttered, "Thanks."

When Paige followed Walter into the hotel room, he turned around and frowned, "W-what are you doing?"

"We need to talk about what just happened."

He looked down and exhaled, "P-Paige..."

She swallowed, "You, um, you remembered? Space?" He nodded, avoiding her eyes. She still couldn't read him, so she decided to ask him directly, "S-so... A-are you okay?"

He scratched the side of his head, "I don't know."

After some silence, she decided to apologize for at least one thing, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you what happened. I wanted to, but... Toby told me not to."

He scoffed, "Of course he did." She wasn't quite sure what he meant by that, but before she could ask, he finally looked at her, "S-so, you've known? This whole time?" She nodded and he raised his voice, "You knew and you still rubbed your relationship in my face? That was all on purpose?"

Taken aback, she shook her head, "N-no, Walter, I wasn't trying to rub anything in your face. I'm sorry that it hurt you-" He interrupted her with a derisive scoff, and she suddenly went into defensive mode, "Walter, you have to understand that when you pushed me toward Tim, it hurt. I had resolved to move on. I tried to be patient, Walter, but if I couldn't be happy with you... well, I would've rather settled for something else than continue building hope for us just to have it smashed again. B-but then you showed up at Tahoe, and it felt like, on top of everything else, you just didn't want me to be happy-"

He yelled, "All I've been trying to do this whole time is do what would make you happy!" He knew it was a stupid thing to say. He knew she had a valid point. But he was overwhelmed, and it felt like he could never do anything right, however much he wanted to. He wanted so bad for her to just recognize he was trying.

Paige was trying hard to remain calm, and her voice came out dangerously low, "You think it makes me happy to be repeatedly rejected by you?"

"What about you?! I might not have made the best choices, but at least I was trying! You did much more than reject me when you repeatedly dangled your relationship with Tim in front of me after what happened in space! You knew that I love you, but you kept doing it anyway! Do you have any idea how that felt?! I would never intentionally hurt you like that!"

Swallowing her pride and doing her best to address his pain first, "I know. I'm sorry. I wasn't doing it on purpose, I just... I guess it was my stupid, immature way of getting back at you. It's not an excuse, I-."

Walter's voice quieted with exhaustion, "Getting back at me for what?" After a pause he raised his voice again in frustration, "What could I have possibly done to deserve that, to get my heart broken over and over?"

All of Paige's frustration spilled over, and she screamed at him, "Do you really not get it?!" She could feel tears blur her vision, but she didn't stop, "You broke my heart every time you chose Scorpion over me, every time you claimed a relationship was destabilizing, every time I thought we might be going somewhere just for you to back out again!" Her next statement came out much more squeaky than she would've liked, "And it's happening now, Walter!" By now tears were rolling down her cheeks.

Seeing the tears and feeling instantly guilty, he responded, "Wait, I-"

But she kept going, her words beginning to run into each other as she let go of any and all verbal filters, "I mean, God, Walter, I know you don't mean to do it. You never mean to hurt anyone, but you do, and you hurt me!" Now she started pacing, "I've tried to help you, but you never seem to get there, and I wonder more and more if you ever will, or if you even want to be helped. I just don't get it, Walter, what is it?! What does it take for you?! What is wrong with you, why can't you get it through your stupid genius head that the only thing keeping us from being happy is your refusal to open up?!"

Wait, did she just say that? 'What is wrong with you?' He felt his chest tighten at hearing those words from Paige's mouth. He was way too familiar with that question. He'd gotten that question all his life, from family, teachers, peers, and to this day, from himself. He had only ever known two people in his life who he knew would never ask that: Megan... and Paige. But, here she was, asking him what was wrong with him.

He realized he couldn't see her clearly through his tears, and briefly wondered when he'd started crying. He knew he should say something, but his throat was tight and painful. He could barely swallow, let alone force words up through his throat.

And what made it worse was that it was his fault. He had driven her to ask that of him. Perhaps that meant everyone else had been right to ask it. He didn't know, but at that moment he couldn't go on with this conversation. He had to be alone, think, outside, where the walls weren't smothering him.

As he opened the door, he only barely heard her voice through the roar of his own thoughts, "Walter, wait."

He turned around, avoiding her gaze, "No, I just need to..." His voice kept breaking between whispering and hoarse as he tried to speak. He didn't finish his sentence before stepping out and closing the door behind him.

Paige covered her mouth in a silent sob as he left. She had watched his expression go from worried to wounded, and as soon as she realized what she'd said, she regretted it. There was nothing wrong with Walter. Absolutely nothing. Sure, he infuriated her sometimes, but she would never trade that in for a 'normal' Walter. If Walter wasn't the way he was, she probably wouldn't have fallen in love with him. She didn't know why she said it. How were they going to recover from this? Could they recover?

She sat down on the bed, resting against the headboard and hugging her knees to her chest. Then she buried her face in her thighs and sobbed.

She had no idea how long it had been when the crying subsided, but she got up, grabbed her phone, and called Walter. She didn't really think about whether it was a good idea. She just needed to know that he was okay, at least physically.

He didn't answer. She guessed she shouldn't have been surprised, but she found herself at a loss when the machine beeped for her message. "Uh-Umm..." she stuttered. Her voice didn't sound like her own. Too raspy. She began to pace. "Walter... I just, I need to know... um, l-last time you left emotional like this you ended up over the side of a cliff, so, just... Let me know that you're safe? Please? I, um... I'm sorry-" then the machine cut her off.

She sighed and flopped backed down on the bed, resuming her previous position. She remained there, staring ahead at nothing, until she noticed the first gray light of dawn creating a ghostly white glow through the window curtains.

Walter didn't know where he was going. He just walked. The dry night air of LA chapped his lips, but he didn't notice as he breathed, trying to steady his heart rate.

As much as he loved Paige, he couldn't help but wonder if they both would've been happier if they never met in the diner that day. If he had the choice, though, he could never choose a life without Paige. Even if it were a less painful one.

He kicked the ground in frustration. Everyone pushed him to develop his emotions, and when he did, he ended up having to hide them anyway. So what was the point? To be miserable? He was always told that being a robot was no way to live, but this was? Being helplessly in love with someone who probably didn't love him back, hurting her, getting hurt... all that was the way to live?

All this time he thought Paige and Tim were just being a couple. Which made him nauseous enough. But she knew, and she couldn't at least be more discreet about her relationship with the interloper? Happy and Toby acted professional, innappropriate Tobyisms aside, so it obviously couldn't be that hard. He knew she was mad at him, and rightfully so, but he had thought, when it came down to it, she still cared about him, as a friend at least. But would a friend do this?

He wasn't mad at her. Not really. Disappointed, hurt, afraid, confused, yes, but not angry. Okay, maybe he'd been mad at first, but that initial charge of anger had fizzled out by the time he'd gotten to the hotel lobby. He wasn't sure he could ever be mad at her in the long term, whatever she did. And that's what scared him the most.

He looked around and realized he didn't know where he was. He stopped and turned around, but didn't dare try to find his own way back on unfamiliar LA streets. He pulled out his phone and saw he had a message from Paige, but opened the maps on his phone without checking the message. He couldn't hear her voice right now, not yet.

He could see the horizon beginning to glow with dawn, and knew he had to head back. Part of him thought he should just rent a car and drive back to the garage, but he knew he couldn't avoid this forever, and the results the last time he drove emotional were... unfavorable.

Paige snapped her head up when she heard a door open. Then she slouched in disappointment when she saw it was her mom coming through the door to the adjoining room.

Her mom looked at her with sympathy, and somehow that made it worse. "Mom, please don't."

"I just wanted to see if you were okay."

Paige frowned, "You heard?"

"Sweety, these walls are not soundproof.

Paige's eyes widened, did Ralph hear?"

Veronica winced, "Yes." When Paige scrunched up her face, she continued, "But, hey, I told him that you guys had a lot of bottled up feelings, and you'll make up." Giving her daughter a soft, stern look, she added, "So you better."

Paige sighed and swung her legs over the side of the bed, "I'm not sure we can."

"Oh, I've seen Scorpion do much more impossible things. You two will be fine, but only if you want to be." Veronica hesitated before reaching out and tucking a strand of hair behind her daughter's ear. She felt a little spark of warmth when she didn't pull away or give her a weird look. Granted, that was probably only because Paige was staring into space lost in her thoughts and hadn't even noticed the gesture. But it was something.

Walter eventually found his way back to the hotel, and wandered into the lobby, into the elevator. As he arrived to the hotel door and pulled out his key, he took a deep breath, then pushed the door open.

"Walter!" Paige immediately appeared in front of him and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. "You're okay."

Her sudden rush toward him had surprised him, and in his emotional state, he didn't recover quickly. He was still stiff as a board when she pulled back suddenly, "Oh- S-sorry, I didn't mean to... I'm just, I was worried..."

When she trailed off, he asked, "Worried?"

She sighed heavily, and gave him a look as if it should be obvious, "Walter, you took off emotional, you never told me where you were going or if you were okay, for all I knew you were-" she broke off, turned away and ran her hand through her hair.

Veronica awkwardly broke through the silence, "Um, I'll just take Ralph to breakfast." Nobody answered her as she left.

Paige was still faced away from him when he responded, "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you."

Paige turned back to him and responded quietly, "I know, Walter. And I should apologize. For a lot of things, but first for saying those things last night. I didn't mean it."

This was the first time he'd gotten a good look at her face, and now he was really sorry. Her eyes were puffy and red, her makeup was smeared, and one eye looked bigger than the other. She'd been crying, and probably hadn't slept.

Had she really been that worried about him? He should have looked at her message. He shouldn't have been so selfish. He sat down on the bed and ran his hand over his face. "I'm sorry. I- I only want to do the right thing, and I'm trying, b-but it feels like all I ever do is hurt you." She sat down next to him. "I'm sorry," he repeated.

Understanding that he was talking about much more than last night, "I know you're sorry. And I know you're trying. And yes, you've hurt me. But-"

"I don't think I'm good for you," Walter muttered, looking down at his hands.

Paige whispered, "Walter..." Recovering slightly she continued,"Walter, I don't ever want you to think that you only bring pain to my life. My life changed for the better when I met you. Ralph too. And the only reason you are able to hurt me is because I love you-"

His head snapped up, "What?"

I feel like I ended this chapter on a somewhat awkward spot, but it was the best I could do without making the chapter ridiculously long. I know I was so mean to Walter, I'm sorry. I promise you I don't think he deserved it. But I'll make it up... hopefully :)