"Florence!" Sylvester said happily as he looked up when the door opened. Pushing back in his chair Sylvester stood and moved quickly around his desk.
Florence watched with trepidation as Sylvester came across the floor.
"I'm really glad you came back." Sylvester grinned. "You are back, right?" He asked as he stopped.
Florence could tell from his excitement and body language Sylvester wanted to hug her. She paused for a moment and then stepped in and gave him a brief hug.
"Thank you." Florence said softly as she stepped back. "I'm back for now. But the next lie I get told and I will be gone for good."
Sylvester grimaced as he nodded.
"Good seeing you Florence." Happy said from her work area after her words with Sylvester.
"It's nice seeing you too Happy." Florence told her. "Where's everyone at?"
"Toby's in the kitchen getting coffee, he's been going over Mark's medical records. Walter has him trying to see if there is anything his doctors missed. Paige and Walter had to go to Homeland with Cabe." Sylvester told her.
"Sylvester, about what you said to Walter. I know now you didn't really care that way for me, it was just part of the deception." Florence started.
"No. No it wasn't, it was the only thing about that night that was truthful. I was actually quite scared, I felt it every time I tried to cross that boundary with you. Everyone kept telling me to tell you, I just worried over it so much. And while it did have an effect to help catalyze what we were doing, that was a secondary factor we hadn't counted on. Originally I wasn't going to say anything about it, I was just supposed to agree with Paige over Walter taking you to the lecture and we'd walk out. But when you said you had developed feelings for Walter, it did something to me. I was actually very mad at Walter over it. Misplaced anger, but anger nonetheless. I'm sorry for blurting that out." Sylvester spoke honestly as he looked Florence in the eyes.
"I'm not sure what to say. I had felt things for you, but I didn't think you saw me that way. You were always about Megan. It really messed me up thinking I had alienated you that way." Florence said softly.
"You didn't alienate me, I promise." Sylvester smiled. "I just hope I haven't ruined a chance at a deeper relationship with you."
"Was there anything left for me to do?" Florence asked. She was feeling very self conscious now and not sure how she wanted to respond. She looked about the Garage trying to settle her thoughts from her feelings about how Sylvester felt.
"What do you know about methane poisoning?" Toby asked as he walked out of the kitchen.
"Don't do it?" Florence said quickly.
Toby grinned.
"I wasn't planning to. It appears our once Cyclone member poisoned himself unwittingly and now he's at death's door. It is good seeing you." Toby explained as he walked over to his desk and sat back down.
"So what you are really asking is, do I know what can be done for multiple organ failures due to methane poisoning." Florence sighed as she considered the problem.
"Exactamundo!" Toby smiled. "Don't stress over it though. I know the truth, Walter is just feeling really guilty over the situation and I'm doing it for him. To help his guilt."
"That's kind of you." Florence nodded.
"Well, I've been a bit nastier to him than I needed to be during all of this. So it is a way to say I'm sorry." Toby explained.
"Katherine." Walter greeted Katherine Cooper as he walked into her office with Paige and Cabe.
"Walter." Katherine smiled. "Good seeing you Paige, thank you both for coming in with Cabe."
"Well we're always ready to try and help out Homeland." Paige smiled before they sat down in the chairs around Katherine's desk.
"I'm sure." Katherine smiled.
"I'm assuming you are wanting some computer help?" Walter asked quietly.
"Well what we need help with in that department can't come from you. Not when you are a serious suspect." Katherine told him. "Walter, I'm not looking for clarification either way, but I want to stress, I really hope if you were involved, to any degree, with the information that has been given to the reporters, that your tracks are well covered. This has given a lot of powerful people a black eye and they are calling for blood. As far as I'm concerned they deserve the black eye for letting a certain someone run unchecked all this time. And because of your skills with computers that puts you towards the top of the list. People will be trying to figure out if you were involved."
Walter barely nodded his head.
"I'm also very concerned about you having been contacted by Collins. Cabe has reported he is very sick, and won't live much longer." Katherine explained.
"Cabe's report is quite correct. From my own research last night I'd estimate two to three weeks at best. His doctors have said one to three months. But I agree with Mark, they are being too optimistic." Walter told her flatly.
"Okay, I don't want to know anymore about it as far as what contact you've had with him physically. I'm not going to ask if you know where he is, I don't want you to lie about it. Just please, be careful Walter. You've got a lot of people who depend on you to consider, if you were to go to prison over either of these events. Not the least of which is Paige and Ralph." Katherine told him.
"After coming out of this month and a half of separation there is nothing breaking us up again. I missed Paige and Ralph far too much. No one will ever be able to prove if I did something illegal." Walter told her.
Katherine shook her head as her eyes closed.
"Okay, get out of here." Katherine told them with a smile.
Walter walked through the door after Paige as they entered the Garage. He paused as he reached Toby's desk and saw him going over the records with Florence.
"Anything?" Walter asked softly.
They both looked up, the look on their face clearly said no but Walter continued to look expectantly at them.
"Hey Walt, I know what you want, but I know I already told you the odds were slim to none. And I know you are smart enough to have figured that out before you asked me to do this. I have been devoting serious effort to this task for you. If you need me to say it, I will. Or if you want me to lie to you, I will do that too." Toby told him as gently as he could.
Walter's jaw jerked to the side before he turned and stepped over to his desk. He sat his backpack down and then stood there bent partially over as his hands rested on the top of the desk.
He slowly breathed for several minutes just trying to calm down. Everyone watched him the entire time. Finally he stood up straight and shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Sylvester, how's the Gettleman job looking?" Walter asked.
"I-It's almost done. M-Maybe two more days at the most." Sylvester answered nervously.
"Happy, where are you on the Beauchamp job?" Walter spun on his heel to look across the Garage floor.
"I'm still waiting for those parts to come in, once they are here about three hours of work will finish it." Happy told him.
Walter barely nodded and then turned and walked off to the back of the Garage. Feeling helpless, vulnerable, embarrassed or jealous was something Walter hated. He recalled when Sylvester had been blown up by the one explosive that hadn't detonated. When the truth of Cabe knowing three days before the Baghdad bombing came out. Knowing that another life was taken because of that horror and then meeting face to face with the man who lost his love the day of the bombing. Then watching him slowly die from the same gas.
He was in a tailspin when he got to the Garage after that. He felt it when Paige told him she was moving to Maine so Ralph could be with his Father when he got to the Garage. All because she didn't want Ralph to become him. He nearly killed himself, accidentally, after that. The kiss he shared with Paige after stopping the threat of the satellite. Watching as the front of the train left the rest of the subway cars. The fear on Paige's face, the look of his betrayal of his actions. And then that slap. Physically it was one of the weakest slaps he felt, emotionally it devastated him.
Then when his sister died, if it hadn't been for Paige he'd have given up. Making the only decision he could to save everyone meant taking Toby's life, that nightmare ran through his mind at least once a week. Fearing he lost Happy and then Toby in Antarctica. Realizing someone had used Linda against him. When Cabe seemed to like Tim thanks to Toby's suggestion. Trying to keep Paige and himself from being sucked up into that funnel. When Paige used her meager oxygen reserves to give him enough oxygen to climb back up so they could escape. Finding Toby in that web of dental floss as the seconds ticked by, drawing ever closer to spilling the acid into Toby's face.
He crashed and burned so many times the following year. Tim's involvement with Paige, his inability to express himself the way he wanted with Paige. Being sidelined by the secret service. His blow up with Tim and Tim leaving the US for Jordan. As Cabe nearly died in the desert.
When Paige had stepped back from her responsibility to see if Walter could grow by dealing with people he had no business dealing with because of how he was. His anger as he lashed out at her because of it on the raft when she told him the truth. The feelings of embarrassment when his memory returned from the rocket. How he felt betrayed and embarrassed by Paige, in front of his friends. How he watched in horror as he fired her.
"WALTER!" Paige, Toby, Happy and Cabe screamed together.
Walter's head jerked up and he found himself squatting down, sitting on his heels next to the bathroom. His arms wrapped tightly about his legs as he was curled up crying hysterically. He had no memory of doing that.
Paige knelt down now that he finally came out of it. She threw her arms around Walter and pulled him tightly against her.
As her scent filtered into his consciousness. As her soft form pressed into his arms and legs. It all slowly drew him further from the rabbit hole he was in. His arms slowly pulled out from between them and he slipped them around her to hug her back.
"What happened Walter?" Toby asked. He didn't need to. He knew Walter and knew this was putting a whole new stress level into his savior complex. But he needed Walter to admit to it.
"Mark." Walter said. "What's happening to him…makes me feel helpless. Dragging up other memories of helplessness, embarrassment, vulnerability, anger and jealousy. All the feelings I couldn't control, couldn't stop feeling…things that made life harder on me and those closest to me."
"You need some couch time buddy." Toby told him.
"Maybe later." Walter said even as he slowly stood up with Paige.
"No, now. As the team's doctor, I'm ordering it. You've been curled up in a ball for nearly a half hour crying. Nothing we were doing was getting through to you. So either you hit the couch with me up in the Loft or I have you placed on a three day hold in Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Center." Toby told him seriously.
"And I'll knock you out and drag you to the hospital myself if I have to." Happy said as she stepped up.
"It will be for the best to go talk to Toby, Walter." Paige told him softly.
"It would be for the best son." Cabe tried to encourage him. "Remember when he helped me deal with my Father's murder. I'd completely suppressed that he was killed right in front of me."
Walter nodded as he looked at Cabe.
"Only if you sit with me." Walter said softly as he looked at Paige. He saw that even Sylvester and Florence were back there watching.
Paige smiled and nodded before she turned and they walked back up front to the stairs and up into the Loft.
"Is he okay?" Happy asked Toby quietly.
Toby looked at Happy and the other three members of their Cyclone for a moment.
"Short answer, yes. Let's hope Mark lives long enough for Walter to sort through this stuff. The last thing Walter needs now is for Mark to die while he's so vulnerable. That would make Megan's death look like a fair if not." Toby sighed.
"How's Walt?" Cabe asked as Toby came back down the stairs.
"Asleep." Toby told him.
"Asleep?" Cabe frowned.
"I drugged his water after we got done talking. He hasn't slept very well in a long time. He needs some serious sleep." Toby told him as he walked towards his desk.
"Does he know you drugged it?" Cabe asked.
"Of course not. Do you think he would have drank it if he did? Trust me Cabe, he needs this. Since you believe in the big man upstairs, why don't you say a prayer that Mark lives at least another week. Give us some time to get Walter's head back on firmer ground." Toby told him.
"So, what happened to him?" Cabe asked as they walked over to Toby's desk.
"I know I don't have to tell you Walter has a bit of a white knight complex…Mark's current predicament is stressing him out. It triggered a flood of all the memories of all the times Walter has been in difficult positions of pain." Toby told him as he picked up Mark's records.
"You mean like Baghdad?" Cabe asked quietly.
"That was a prominent one for sure. Along with every time things didn't go exactly right with the team. Like when Sylvester got blown up, when he had to trigger the fire suppression system that killed me and when Collins had me in that dental floss trap." Toby sighed.
"Poor kid. All he ever wanted to do was help." Cabe looked back up at the Loft.
"I'll have a session with him every day for the next week. Hopefully Collins can stay alive that long at least. We've got to help him realize that what is going on with Collins isn't his fault and he doesn't need to feel bad over it." Toby explained.
"Would it be beneficial if we took Collins into custody? So the State can see to his health care?" Cabe asked.
"No, that might even speed up his death. As much as it pains me to say, this is one time we want that lunatic out of jail. He'd probably give up and die if he was arrested. No, we need him where he is. He's got medical care, people to assist him as he needs it and at least the feel of freedom.
Cabe slowly nodded.
"I'll see if I can talk to Katherine privately, see if we can keep anyone from figuring out where he is." Cabe said before he walked out of the Garage.
Greetings! I hope this finds you all well!
Marti - I suppose we'll find out as the story unravels...*bwahaha* Looks like a lot of those feelings are impacting Walter pretty hard right now. So glad you like how the story is going! Definitely recommend waiting to see, never know what will crop up in the next chapter...
Railman - I could tell you if Mark has something up his sleeve so to speak, but I think I'll wait for it to play out. With only 3 chapters left, it's like the shell game...which of the 3 shells will turn over with the gooey center? Looks like Happy had some success with Toby! Well, so far, Florence hasn't exploded...hehe
LouBe - Right? Would be a great way to mess with the team. hehe Lavender is supposed to have a calming effect and might be something that helps slow down their racing thoughts. It must be exhausting to have thoughts racing through your head at times. I know in times past when the Muse really talked and I wrote 5k-8k words a day I always had headaches following those sessions. Well as you see, Sylvester had some motivation to help him act upset with Walter. hehe While the story never really spoke how Ralph acted, I can just imagine he referred to them many times as the Three Stooges. lol Well so far it seems Toby's apology is going to be more mental than speaking words..."Hey Rocky, wanna see me pull a rabbit out of my hat?" *rip* "Nothing up my sleeve..." *bwahhaaha*
Pearliegirl - This is wise, with Mark, you never know what you might get...tick...tick...tick. The Muse just grinned. An official copy? Hrmm...I'll see if Homeland will be willing to do that. LOL
Lucy - hehe You are in good company about thinking of Mark's sleeve! hehe Florence refused to answer that...
Susan - Thank you! So glad you enjoyed it. Definitely is not the way I'd want to go. As for Florence, I do believe that is a universal constant for you. hehe
To the Adventure! -Tim