A/N: Someone asked about Disneyland...and just in case anyone else is confused, here's an explanation. Paige needed a way to ask Mike if he trusted Briggs, without asking him directly because she's paranoid that something is up with Briggs. She's not entirely sure of Briggs' motives and feels like he's hiding something, but doesn't know what. Obviously, Briggs faking Mike's death didn't do much in terms of building trust...so that led Paige to ask Mike about Disneyland. When they were investigating Briggs and Paige had the fake pregnancy belly, she joked about going to Disneyland...Mike jokingly turned her down because they arrived at their location.

Someone else asked if Briggs is on Mike's side...and since this story is from Paige's POV, that remains to be seen. At the very least, he wants Sid handled.

Hope this clears things up. If you have questions, just ask :)

Paige waited until Briggs left for the hospital before approaching Charlie. She wasn't entirely comfortable with Briggs having a shift guarding Mike, but she couldn't do anything about it and if Mike was okay with it, she'd have to trust that Mike knew what he was doing. Paige softly knocked on Charlie's bedroom door. "Charlie?"

"Everything okay?" Charlie asked, opening the door and ushering her into her room.

She had this whole speech rehearsed in her head to get Charlie to let her guard down so she could manipulate her into slipping up about what Briggs was hiding. But she couldn't do it. She was so sick of the lies and didn't want to add to them. As much as Charlie cared about Mike, she wasn't entirely sure that Charlie would side with Mike over the father of her child.

"Yes. No." Paige sighed heavily before unexpectedly bursting into tears. "I don't know."

Charlie wrapped her arms around her, tightly hugging her. "It's okay, baby."

"Sorry, it's just - so much is going on." Crying definitely hadn't been on her agenda for tonight, but she was just so overwhelmed with everything. Guilt over what she did. Everything with Mike. Not trusting Briggs. Sid being out there. And despite everything, Charlie was her friend and she really was the only person she could talk to about this. Not that Jakes or Johnny, or even Briggs wouldn't listen, but it was different with Charlie. Maybe because they were the only females in the house. Or because Charlie took care of all of them. Or maybe on some level, she was looking for some hope in what felt like a sea of hopelessness. Charlie was convinced she and Mike were star-crossed lovers, but didn't Charlie realize that star-crossed was basically another word for doomed?

Charlie walked over to the bed and motioned for Paige to sit down next to her, "Don't apologize. You're dealing with a lot."

"Mike and I talked today. Well, we fought first. It seems that all we do is fight. But it was good. We cleared the air about a lot of things, talked about things we needed to get out in the open. How do you and Briggs keep it together?" Charlie and Briggs had more than their fair share of ups and downs, but when things were bad they rallied and found a way to make it work. That was the complete opposite of what she and Mike did, which was allow outside forces to strain their relationship, letting their pride get in the way and allowing their differences to pull them apart and pit them against each other, instead of forcing them to present an united front, which was what Charlie and Briggs did. Maybe she and Mike weren't meant to be anything more than friends. But how could they just be friends?

It was hard to keep their personal feelings away from their jobs and even harder to keep work from interfering with their relationship. Maybe things would be different if she moved out. Maybe they needed space from each other. Space to learn how to trust each other. Time to become friends again.

"It helps that I'm pregnant. For all his faults, and trust me, Paul has many - but when I need him, he's always there for me. Things with Amber were bad and he saved me. All those things I had doubts about, suddenly didn't matter anymore. When I fell for Paul, I knew he was a flawed man."

That was the difference. Mike wasn't a flawed man. He had flaws. He made mistakes. But as similar as Mike was to Briggs, he wasn't Briggs. By no means was Mike perfect, neither was she. It was unfair to hold Mike to an impossible standard and when he failed, she froze him out and made it so he couldn't talk to her.

"Your word is shit."

Both of them were to blame for so many things, and while Mike was ultimately responsible for his own actions, she recognized her part in them.

"I don't know if we can ever fix things," Paige confessed. Although they cleared the air, the animosity still lingered between them. She was so desperate to find a way to make things right with Mike that she was afraid to say or do the wrong thing. She didn't want to destroy their truce before it even started. But things were different now that he let her know that something was going on with Briggs. That meant he trusted her, didn't it? Maybe just a little.

It was a start. Rebuilding trust with Mike wasn't going to happen overnight. It was going to take time and it was going to be hard. They had a lot of stuff to work through. If he wanted to make things work. If he chose to stay and not move back to DC as soon as he could.

Things would never be the same between them. They couldn't pick things up where they left off. There was too much history and hurt between them to start over, but they had to find a way to move forward. If she could help Mike clear his name, it could be the start of him trusting her again. Even if it was just in a professional capacity, it was a start.

"You said you two talked today," Charlie gently said.

"We were fighting," Paige bitterly laughed. If her relationship with Mike could be summed up in one word, it was fighting. They playfully bickered when they were getting along. When they were angry they let didn't hold back and either they made up or kept arguing. But things had been so strained between them after he got her out of Sulla's, that they never made up. Instead they kept fighting and finding new ways to hurt each other, until there was nothing left. "But he finally told me the truth about what happened with Lina."

Lina. The one tinker bell she desperately wanted to save and the only one she couldn't. Sulla may have been the one that stabbed her, but she and Mike were also responsible for her death. She put Lina on that bus. Put a target on her back. And Mike kept her in there.

She hated that Mike forged the letter to Lina's family. Hated that he felt he needed to. But she understood why he did it. He hadn't been trying to trick her. He was trying to comfort them. In his mind, it was better that they lost contact with their daughter, but believed that she was out there somewhere. Happy. Alive. A lie was better than breaking their hearts with the horrors Lina endured before dying.

Charlie rested her hand on her shoulder, "It's good to get things out in the open. You can't forgive Mike for something you don't know about."

"He touched my face," Paige said, blinking back tears. "I know it doesn't sound like much. But I was upset and he touched my face and he said he cared." All the hurtful things they said and did to each other still happened. Maybe he still hated her, but he cared. At least cared enough to comfort her. Cared enough to not want her to hurt.

"Of course, Mike cares about you," Charlie said, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. "That didn't all disappear because of this. He can't shut off his feelings, especially not how he felt about you. From the moment he saw you - "

"That was a crush," Paige insisted. Just an attraction. Despite what everyone thought, nothing happened between her and Mike last summer. They were friends. Friends on the edge of maybe becoming something, but they never really crossed that line. Just one kiss when they were investigating Briggs.

But that moment he saw her, she remembered seeing Levi walk in with Charlie. Wondering who he was and what his story was. Being attracted to him, but not wanting to pursue anything because of Graceland. Not wanting to let a personal relationship interfere with her job. Not wanting to get involved because it would cloud her judgment and split her focus. Clearly, that had been the right idea because from the moment she and Mike slept together, things got complicated. Everything snowballed with the case so quickly, they barely had time to start figuring out what they meant to each other before falling apart.

There hadn't been time for them to just be. To have fun and enjoy that beginning stage of a relationship. Sure, they both enjoyed sneaking around and even though no one said anything, everyone knew that they had been sleeping together, no matter how stealthy they thought they were being. They had almost been caught more times than she could count.

"You're so bad," Paige whispered as Mike pushed her up against one of the pillars downstairs. Anyone could walk in at any moment.

"No one's home," Mike insisted as he slid his hand up her skirt.

"But we're downstairs and..." her voice trailed off as she leaned against the pillar for more support. Paige bit her lip, moaning softly as his fingers pushed aside her bikini bottoms. How was she supposed to find the willpower to tell him they should go upstairs when he was touching her like that? "Mike..."

"Then we better be quick."

She met his gaze and nodded. Just being with him was enough to turn her on, but the idea of getting caught was exhilarating. She fumbled with his zipper as Mike kissed her neck.

"I want you," Mike whispered as he unbuttoned her shirt. Pushing if off her shoulders, it fell to the floor. Mike started untying the strings of her bikini top. "How the hell do I get this off?"

Paige laughed, ignoring Mike's frustration with the many strings of her bikini top. She pulled him closer for a kiss. "I hate your schedule."

"I - "

They both froze when they heard the front door slam. Paige pushed Mike away from her as they both frantically started straightening their clothing. Mike ducked into the kitchen and she made a beeline for the living room.

Johnny looked at her curiously when she sat down on the couch and grabbed a magazine. "You okay, P?"

"Perfectly fine," Paige said, holding up a magazine, quickly turning it so it wasn't upside down anymore. "Just catching up on my celebrity gossip before I head out to the beach. I see why Charlie's hooked."

"You look a little flushed. Were you..." Johnny's voice trailed off and he grinned widely when Mike stepped out of the kitchen. "Your jeans are unzipped, Mikey."

Paige kept her eyes on the magazine in front of her as Mike said, "You know, I think the zipper's broken." Mike zipped and unzipped his jeans a few times. "I think I need new jeans."

Paige tossed the magazine on the coffee table, "You can go shopping later. Those reports you wanted to look at are up in my room."

"I have to check in with Jakes first, but I'll be up in a bit."

"I thought you were headed to the beach, Paige." Johnny shook his head, laughing to himself as he headed into the kitchen. He knelt down and picked up her discarded shirt, "Lose something?"

Surprisingly, no one said anything to them about it. But everyone knew. Sure, she and Mike had been close. But everyone knew. That was evident when they all thought Mike was dead. But something had been off about Briggs. She hadn't put much thought into it until now, because she had been too caught up in her own grief. But now that she knew Mike was suspicious of Briggs, she was rethinking every interaction she had with Briggs since that night.

"Maybe that was a crush, but now, can you honestly tell me that what's going on with you and Mike is a crush? You two aren't some summer fling that ran it's course."

"No love in Graceland," Paige reminded her.

Charlie laughed, resting her hand on her stomach, "I think Peanut disagrees."

"I don't know what Mike meant. It's probably just residual feelings or because we're roommates or coworkers or something." Paige closed her eyes for a few seconds, angry that she was still having trouble keeping her emotions in check. Damn Mike Warren for making her an emotional mess. For breaking down the walls she used to protect herself from getting hurt. Just when she was starting to make peace with the fact that she meant nothing to Mike, he had to go and tell her that he cared. And while part of her was thrilled at what it might mean, she was afraid to hope that it could mean something.

Usually she was the one that was hot and cold, not Mike. The tables were definitely turned this time around. Her feelings were an open book but she was left guessing what his feelings were.

"You and I both know that you and Mike aren't over. You'll find a way to work through this."

"And if we don't?" Paige tearfully asked.

check my bio page for updates