*Spoiler alert* Ding dong Timbo is gone! Yippee! And thanks for great reviews on the last chapter! This story will be mostly angst, but I promise there will be a happy ending. :)
I honestly didn't think I'd get this chapter out so quickly... I accidentally consumed caffeinated coffee instead of decaf Saturday night, and was wired half the night. So instead of being responsible and using the time to debug a hell of a program for my computer science class, I decided to work on this... and wrote the whole chapter in one go. I kept coming back to it thinking it must be riddled with errors, but ended up only tweaking it here and there. So enjoy this quick update and try not to get spoiled with it, because I can't promise it'll happen again...
Walter didn't know if it was her yelp of pain or the sight of her blood welling up and beginning to trickle down her arm, but the haze of thought, logic, and math that had distorted his perception immediately lifted. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the wound at first. He'd done that. The guilt gurgled in his stomach until he was nauseous, and he couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes. When he registered that she was being taken care of, that she'd be fine, he spun around on his heels and dashed up to the roof, needing fresh air and some room to breathe.
He knew he had hurt her emotionally plenty of times. To say that emotions were his weak spot would be a huge understatement. But he had never thought he was capable of hurting her physically. He had never, for one second, hesitated to risk his life to save her from physical harm, not yesterday, not ever. Now he was the one she needed saving from.
Walter braced his hands on the wall on the perimeter of the roof, shutting his eyes and dropping his head. He instantly popped his eyes open again, assaulted with the image of Paige falling backward, at his hands, and ripping her arm on the sharp metal. It looked much too close to one of the dreams he'd had last night, of her falling backwards off the buoy and into the jaws of a shark.
He didn't know how long he'd been standing there when he heard the roof door swing open. He straightened up, and saw Paige walking slowly toward him, her arm bandaged up. Walter glanced at her once, but quickly looked away and fixed his stare on the floor. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... I would never..."
"I know, Walter." Her voice was unusually quiet, and Walter realized his hands were shaking at his sides. After a beat, Paige stepped closer, "The team says you haven't done this since Collins... do you... do you know why this happened now?"
Yes. "No." His eyes continued to bore into the floor, afraid she would call his bluff. She always did.
Her voice softened, "I think you do, Walter." His eyes snapped to her, the familiarity and comfort in her tone and in her eyes tearing through him, clutching his heart in a burning fist of sorrow. He hadn't heard her talk to him like that in so long. He missed it. He missed it so much it physically hurt, and hearing it now... he had to turn away to keep himself from hoping he'd hear it again.
Walter winced when he heard her huff, "Fine." And he heard her footsteps clap on the cement floor, and the roof door closed, leaving behind a suffocating silence. God, he missed the days when she would push him until he finally told the truth, when she wouldn't give up on him so quickly. He took that for granted. He took her for granted. If he ever got her back, he'd have to make sure he never took her for granted again.
But it wasn't like Walter could tell her anyways. There was no way to explain why he was spiraling without telling her what he'd wanted to tell her since Tahoe. But he'd made promises that he wouldn't do that, and after everything he'd done, there was a probably a good chance that she'd think his words were just another childish gimmick to try to pry her and Tim apart. She likely would never forgive him for such a despicable play on her emotions, and he didn't think he'd blame her.
Walter hadn't slept much, disturbed by dreamt versions of yesterday's events. The team, including Paige, was often in danger, but this time was different. Sure, sharks follow a general set of behaviors, but the specific actions of a specific shark at a specific time is incalculable. He'd felt useless, unable to protect Paige in the ways he normally would. He couldn't predict a set of events and find a solution, other than the obvious prediction that if they had stayed on that buoy... His greatest strength rendered worthless, he used the only other thing he had at his disposal: distraction. Distract the sharks so Paige could get to safety. Walter hadn't really considered at first how likely it was that his distraction would have ended in his own death. He had understood it was dangerous, and of course death crossed his mind, but his priority had been Paige, then he'd worry about himself. It wasn't until after he'd been swimming for some distance and the sharks began to close in that he had realized the reality of his situation.
Despite coming so close to being shark lunch, few of Walter's dreams had consisted of his own death, and in the ones that had, Paige hadn't managed to survive either. The whole situation was disconcerting, because he'd always been able to control his dreams. If one began going in a direction he didn't like, he would just rewind it and play it out his way. But not this time. He had been fully aware that it was a dream, but it was like the dream was made of goo, and his mind could never get a solid grip on it.
And the thought that his last interactions with her would have been her giving him the silent treatment... it was unbearable. He had comforted himself these last few weeks by convincing himself that eventually, Paige would forgive him. Eventually, he'd have her back in his life. Eventually... they'd be together. But yesterday forced him to face the real possibility that maybe there would be no eventually. That this was it. This was how it was going to be. And every time he thought about that... well, his heart would prove to him yet again that it wasn't just a circulatory muscle. He learned the hard way how much it could hurt from emotion, however illogical that was.
At some point he had given up on sleep, and decided to get some work done while he was awake anyway. He was being efficient. Although even Walter had to admit that it was much more about clearing his mind of painful possibilities than it was about efficiency. He hadn't even registered what was happening until he was already there, and by that time he couldn't pull himself out of it. He had invited the world of thought into his brain to allow the world of reality to rest, but thought seized his mind while reality slept. And when reality finally woke somewhere inside him, it had already been beaten into a feeble voice, drowned by the battle cries of thought. That is, of course, until Paige...
Walter tried to convince himself that this was just a one-time occurrence. An outlier. Surely, yesterday's case would fade into just another near-death experience in his memories. But the fear of this happening again, of hurting Paige again... he couldn't shake it. But what was he supposed to do? It wasn't as if he could force Paige to forgive him. He had to earn that, and it was up to Paige to decide when he'd earned it.
Paige hadn't meant to be so short with him on the roof. She was just scared. Everything about the situation scared her. Even the fact that she was so scared, scared her. She didn't blame him. For all his flaws, she knew he would never... he wasn't in his right mind. It just frightened and worried her that he had gone down the rabbit hole so severely. Something must be wrong, and for some reason, guilt kept gnawing at the back of her mind. But that didn't make any sense. She had done nothing wrong. Right? Of course. Well, maybe... She buried her face in her hands as she leaned against the inside of the door to the roof. She didn't know what to think anymore.
She pushed off the door and made her way heavily down the stairs.
"Did you find out anything?" Sylvester asked, his anxiety obvious in his posture.
Paige shook her head, and before she could think of a fuller response, the door swung open, and Cabe burst in, "We've got a case. Time sensitive. Everyone pack their things, I'll explain on the way."
Happy set down her wrench, "Not good."
Cabe frowned at her, "What's not good?" When she didn't reply, he scanned the garage, and added, "Why are you all just standing there? Find Walter and get your asses in the van, asap."
Again, no one replied, but now they scurried into action, the air heavy with unspoken words. Toby volunteered to fetch Walter, and as Cabe waited to get going, he glanced at Paige. He nodded at her bandage, "What happened to you?"
She took a deep breath and breezed out a response in one long string, "Let's not talk about that. I assume there's danger, lives at risk, real problems, so let's not talk about that." Cabe gave her a concerned look, but mercifully said nothing more.
The case was an emotional one for everyone, but it seemed to hit Walter the most. Either that, or he was unable to shake what was bothering him before. Or both. No one could be sure with Walter.
A teenage boy, fourteen years old, had been kidnapped. The FBI was on the case first, but their investigation soon uncovered information which proved that this was about much more than ransom money. The kidnappers were going to use the boy as a disposable pawn: force him into suicide bombing a large group of protesters in DC. That's when Homeland got involved, and Scorpion was called in.
Paige had her hands full with this case. Obviously the parents were hysterical, and they kept crying about how their last conversation with their son had been a fight. The boy had stormed out, and didn't come back. Then Walter was severely short-tempered and beyond rude, even to the parents. She might have snapped at him a few times. And of course Paige had her own emotional turmoil, having a son of her own not far from this boy's age. Paige was about to take a breather of her own when they finally found the kidnappers and would-be terrorists, and rescued the kid. He was visibly shaken and a little scratched up, but he'd be okay.
The boy was bundled into an ambulance, his parents at his side. Paige smiled when the father looked up and mouthed a thank you to her before the ambulance doors closed between them. As the ambulance rolled off, Paige glanced around and found Walter leaning against the van, staring at the dirt in front of him.
She walked over and leaned against the van next to him, "Are you okay?" He just blinked at the ground, so she continued in more serious tone, "Walter, I don't blame you for what happened this morning. I'm just worried about you."
He turned to her and blinked, then just stared at her. He seemed almost... astonished? He didn't say anything for several seconds, but his posture had relaxed, so she waited for him to speak. He resumed his previous stance and pressed his lips together, then finally muttered, "I don't want our last conversation to be a fight."
Paige was pretty sure she forgot how to breathe. "Is... Is that what's been bothering you?"
His gaze was locked on a small rock, seeming to see something else entirely in his mind's eye. "In part, yeah, I suppose."
"Walter..." Paige's voice came out in a whisper, so she swallowed then tried again, "Walter, people fight. It happens. And we've fought before, but you didn't go down the rabbit hole then."
Walter's lips drew into a straight line, "I know."
"So, what gives? What's the other part?"
Before Walter could answer, the rest of the team came bounding up, ready to go home. Paige sighed, wishing that the geniuses didn't have such bad timing. She thought she was finally getting somewhere with Walter, and they might have just ruined it.
