A/N: Thanks for sticking with this story...I know it's been angsty and I've been promising for a while that it gets better. But it had to get worse before it got better, right? Just wondering if people had to choose a side (for this story)...Paige or Mike? As always, I'm curious to know what people think and desperately hope the writers find a believable way to redeem Paige this season.
"You're not supposed to be here," Mike said, catching sight of her entering his hospital room as he slowly walked from the bathroom in his room to the bed.
"You're moving around better," Paige quietly said, resisting the urge to walk over to Mike and help him. He didn't want her help and she couldn't deal with him pushing her away, especially with how they ended things yesterday.
"I made a lot of mistakes, but you put Lina on that bus. You put a target on her back when Sulla lost money because of her. Me trying to get her out of there, that's what got her killed. What happened to Lina is just as much your fault as it is mine."
Paige stared at him, shocked that he would say that to her.
"Paige..."
She could hear the apology in his voice and see the regret in his eyes. But as much as she wanted him to comfort her, she didn't deserve it. Mike was right, she did those things. Sulla had already been targeting Lina when Mike moved in there. She heard Sulla beating Lina on the audio surveillance. "No, you're right. I did those things. I thought - I was trying to save her, but I made things worse." Paige jumped up and grabbed her bag, "I should go. You need to rest."
He said some pretty harsh things to her, but those were harsh truths she needed to hear.
"About yesterday," Mike began.
"Don't, okay?" She was barely hanging onto her sanity. She didn't have the energy to fight with Mike today. She seriously debated not stopping by to see him at all, but she just needed to see him for a few minutes, because seeing him reminded her she was alive. She dropped a paper bag on the foot of the bed before walking over to the window. "I got you a salad and there's some chicken noodle soup in there. Charlie made the soup. It's pretty good."
One minute. They had gone almost a whole minute without fighting. That had to be some sort of record. She should leave now.
"Gotta keep my strength up, just in case someone tries to kill me," Mike joked.
"I was wrong and I don't blame you if you hate me forever, but you're not blameless in this. If you had been honest with me - "
"When Paige? When was I supposed to be honest with you? You shut me down every time I tried talking to you, because I wasn't saying what you wanted to hear. Things were so strained between us, I thought there was a chance you might've let Sid kill me back in the warehouse. Maybe you should have."
Paige turned around at Mike's words. "What?"
"This would all be over. You would've had Sid on murder charges and - "
"And you'd be dead! Do you really think I want that?"
"You sent Sid to kill me! That would've just eliminated you as the middleman. You - "
"Fuck you, Mike," Paige snapped. The last thing she wanted to do was fight with him today, but she was sick of being his emotional punching bag. All the anger she had pushed down because she thought he died came bubbling to the surface and she was ready to unload on him. "I was wrong, I can admit that. I fucked up, okay? I lost faith and I stopped trusting you. Can you blame me for that? All I ever wanted from you was the truth, but you lied to me. How did you keep all your lies straight? Was anything between us real?"
Mike insisted she was more than a passing fling. That night he practically told her that he loved her. And she believed him. Only now she wasn't so sure. What if that had been a lie too? Because his first summer at Graceland, their whole friendship had been built on lies. Lies of omission due to his assignment, but still lies. He also lied to her about breaking up with Abby. Lying used to make him uncomfortable. That certainly wasn't the case any more. Should she chalk that up to Briggs? One more thing Mike learned from his training officer or was him being uncomfortable with the lies all part of his act?
"You're asking me if anything was real?" Mike asked, unable to mask the hurt in his voice as he slowly moved towards her. "You know how much you mean - meant to me."
"I know how much I mean to you now," Paige tearfully whispered. "I ruined everything. Everything we had, I destroyed it. Destroyed us. But I didn't do it alone. I didn't recognize you anymore. You were so obsessed with Sid and catching him that you turned into a man I didn't recognize. That night when Lina died, you should've told me."
"Told you what? That every time I tried to protect Lina, it just made Sulla more interested? That Sulla was trying to assault her and I stopped him? That I tried to take her out of there and he stabbed her repeatedly? That I tried to save her and I couldn't? That I almost killed him? My hands were wrapped around his throat and I almost killed him with my bare hands, but one of his guys hit me and knocked me off him. He told me she was my mess and I had to clean it up. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is it? Because I tried calling you that night. I tried calling you afterwards and I couldn't. I didn't know how to tell you she was gone. I didn't know how to tell you that I failed you."
Stunned into silence, Paige was horrified as Mike finally shared the details of that night with her. Everything she suspected was true.
"The worst part was, was seeing these girls not know whether or not they wanted to be bought, hoping that where they were going was better than where they were."
Would Lina have been better off if she let that man buy her that day? Would she be alive? Instead she was beaten. Assaulted. Murdered. Burned.
And for what? So Mike could keep his Op going? That was the simple answer. She knew it was more complicated than that. That in order to shut it down for good, Sulla's needed to be kept open. But it was kept open at the expense of her girls. At the expense of Lina's life.
Images of what happened to Lina started flashing through her mind and she squeezed her hand into a fist, pressing her nails into the palm of her hand to help keep her in the present. She took a deep breath, releasing it slowly, knowing she needed to keep her breathing under control or she'd have another panic attack.
"Paige?" Mike asked, reaching out to gently place his hand on her shoulder.
Paige looked down at his hand in confusion and he quickly dropped it. This was the first time he touched her since finding her at Sulla's. She could see how much it had hurt him when she refused his comfort, especially when the rest of the house welcomed her home. But she probably would've slapped him if he had tried. The affection that consumed them behind closed doors didn't burn out or fade away, it was just gone. It was as if their personal connection was erased. Then Mike got shot and she thought she was wrong about him. For a few fleeting moments, she thought things could work out between them. She had covered him up with a jacket when delivering his ID, before discovering the truth. Then she turned him over to Sid and Briggs faked his death. Since finding out he was alive, all she wanted to do was touch him, but every time she did, he pulled away. Unless he was asleep. That was the only time she could touch him. And now that he had reached out to comfort her, she unintentionally pushed him away.
"Sorry," Mike mumbled.
"No, don't - it's okay. I needed to know what happened."
"I never wanted - "
"Mike, please," Paige pleaded, not wanting him to see how much everything had been affecting her, but letting him know was the only chance she had at some semblance of a truce. "I can't fight with you anymore. Whatever you want to say to me, can it just wait until tomorrow? I'm barely holding it together. You're still in here. You hate me and I have to find a way to live with what I did. Sid's out there and no one will tell me anything. I'm tired and I'm stressed and you probably don't care about any of that, why would you? You keep saying you want me to go, so I'll go." Paige moved to sidestep him but he held out his hand, stopping her.
"Believe it or not, I don't want to fight with you." Mike held her gaze for a few seconds, sadly smiling. "You're wrong."
"You're wrong," Mike insisted, backing her up against the wall.
Laughing, Paige held her hand behind her back, determined to keep the last ice-cream bar for herself. "Six bars, six of us. Seventeen hundred on your practicals and you can't do simple math? What did they teach you at Quantico?"
"Johnny ate two, I asked Charlie to save me one, so that one's mine."
"Possession is nine tenths of the law, Agent Warren," Paige teased.
"Come on, I spent all day watching westerns with Bello. Please." Mike pouted giving her his best puppy dog eyes.
"Fine, I'll share." Paige pulled out the ice cream bar and took a bite, offering it to Mike. He took a bite, then grabbed it from her hand and ran off. "Mike!" Paige screamed, running after him. Laughing she ran into Briggs and he pointed in the kitchen.
Since she didn't have an ice-cream bar behind her back, the odds of this conversation ending up with the both of them laughing before collapsing in the sand were slim. "Mike, please don't." She was exhausted. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Charlie was right, she needed to start taking care of herself. But she also needed to see Mike. Figure out a way to get involved with the investigation into Sid.
Paige sighed heavily and her shoulders slumped as she waited to see if he was going to let it drop. She just didn't have it in her to fight with him right now. She was so sick of fighting with him.
"You said, I don't care. You're wrong. I care."
For the second time that day, she stood there stunned into silence. Positive she heard him wrong, she closed her eyes for a few seconds, convinced that when she opened them, Mike would be sleeping and this would be happening in her head. Her eyes shot open when she felt Mike's hand on her face, lightly stroking her jaw with his thumb. She held her breath for a few seconds, unsure what was happening. If this was happening. If she was hallucinating again.
"You're trembling," Mike murmured, reaching for hands.
Mike brushed his thumbs over her knuckles and she watched him, still in disbelief that he was willingly touching her. Just a simple touch that didn't used to be out of the ordinary. She looked up, offering him a small smile when he met her gaze.
They stood silently for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts. She wondered if Mike was as afraid to speak as she was. Afraid to say the wrong thing. Afraid to start another fight. Afraid to take a tiny step forward and hug. Afraid to apologize. Instead, they just stood there, lost in the moment, content to just be in each other's company for the first time in months.
The spell was broken when the door opened and a nurse bustled in, "Mr. Warren, you should be in bed."
"I just needed to stretch my legs. Can you give us a minute? We're kind of in the middle of something?" Mike asked, turning to flash a smile at the nurse, while still holding onto her hands.
"It's time to change your dressing and Dr. West will be in soon to check on you. Two minutes," she said, disappearing back in the hall.
"That's my cue to leave," Paige said, suddenly anxious to make a hasty exit as she pulled away from him. Both of their outbursts seemed to clear the air between them. Mike was actually being civil to her and she wanted to get out of here before they started fighting again. Whatever the nurse interrupted, she couldn't deal with that on top of everything else.
"Paige, you don't - "
"Maybe she can heat up that soup for you. It's probably cold by now. I should've packed it in a thermos or something," Paige said, desperate to talk about anything impersonal.
Mike met her eyes for a few moments and nodded, "Yeah, I'll ask. Thanks."
"Yeah, well, I should get going."
"Are you okay to drive?"
"I'm fine."
"Who drove you out here?"
"What makes you think someone drove me out here?" Paige suspiciously asked as Mike moved past her towards the bed. Not wanting to push her luck, she kept her distance, letting him climb in by himself. She moved the bag she put on his bed earlier, setting it on his overbed table.
"Never mind, just ignore me. You should probably go home and get some rest."
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