A/N: Hope you're enjoying! Trying to keep the chapters more reasonable lengths to get them out quicker to you!

I have some deep seeded issues with my family, and while it's nothing being portrayed in this, it is fun to picture certain people while writing horrid characters, and then messing with them! isn't that the best fun of writing? Anyway! I promised not to try to kill Paige, and yet, still kinda messing with her. Oops? ClearlyI have some deep seeded issues with her as well. lol.

Anyway, onto the fun! Any other characters you'd love to see again?

xoxo

--

He hung up the phone, his stomach twisted like a pretzel, never having felt so anxious, so protective, so angered before. That woman would not get away with this. He would not allow Betty to win this game. After all, if this was a game of strategy, he was a genius and would win the long game. For the time being, he'd let her believe she was going to win. Strategy dictated that holding your cards close to the chest was imperative to success.

Game on.

First move.

Walter stepped back into the Inn, and sought out the elder woman, finding her still seated in the dining room, smug arrogance settled into her features as gazed upon the daily paper, neatly folded in one hand, her coffee delicately held in the other. Picture of class.

And trash Walter thought.

Unbeknownst to him, just behind him, Paige walked through the door, seeing his fleeing form headed for the dining room.

Her chest filled with hope, nerves, her belly flapping with butterflies. Could he possibly be telling her Nana off? Would he really give up Scorpion for her? Or risk it? Quietly, she followed him. There had to be a way for them to fight for them, for Scorpion, for their life together. Walter was a genius, he would know a way. They had escaped precarious situations dozens of times, they could find a way. They had to.

"Ms. Thompson, a word?" He approached, nervously. Somehow his acting when pretending to be Paige's boyfriend had come all too natural to him, but acting in the opposite, playing the part of someone who would cave into her demands, as if he had ever caved to someone else ever, made him very uneasy, afraid he'd blow his own cover, afraid his ego would rear its ugly head and he'd give it away.

But he would hold it together. For Paige.

Paige watched on, breath hitched, hands gripping the door frame with Hulk-like force, careful to stay out of sight. The early morning hour guaranteed quiet, with everyone still in bed, or at least in their rooms. Thankful, suddenly for the copious amounts of wine having been passed around last night.

"Mr O'Brien, I hardly expected to see you back so soon." She responded curtly, placing her newspaper down on the table, and extending a hand in invitation for him to rejoin her.

"I'll stand. I've thought over your… proposal…" His tongue but on the word, careful not to use the term threat… or hostile takeover.

Paige gulped. She couldn't see his face, just his back, and noted how tense his shoulders were. Breathing was becoming challenging for her, and she closed her eyes briefly, allowing the memory of standing beneath the showering falls of the morning sprinkler with Walter wash over her tense mind, much like the water had. How bright and radiant, full of life his smile had been staring at her. The pure love she saw reflecting back at her when he asked her to dance. The sound of their laughter playing against the clicking of the sprinkler heads and whooshing of the water streams, the feel of his warm, strong hands against her wet skin, the way the droplets weighted down his curls and dropped down his face, one streaming over his lips and had tempted her so much. What she would give to be back in that moment.

Before her bubble had burst.

" And…?"

Moment of truth, Paige thought, clenching her fingers against the dark stained wood casing of the door frame.

"And I can't risk losing Scorpion."

Paige's heart hit the floor with a thud. The hits just kept hitting.

"I knew you'd think clearly." Betty sneered.

"I have my own terms, however."

"A business transaction wouldn't be just without a bit of negotiation. But, as long as you understand that you don't really hold the cards here, Mr O'Brien."

Little did she know, he mused, wringing his hands, desperate to finish this, get back to Paige. Spend a few hours away from this insanity just being with her, showing her what she deserves, which is so far from what this family offered her.

"First, Paige does not find out. I won't have you hurting her like that."

"Fair enough. You have my word. This will be our little secret."

A tear dropped down her cheek from the doorway. The thought of Walter hiding this from her, even if to protect her, hurt. So deeply. Was he protecting her from her grandmother's betrayal, or simply hiding his own?

"Second, you allow me to finish the weekend with her before I end things. Grant me the opportunity to say goodbye. She's stressed out enough here, I don't want to add to that, to abandon her here. Please. You're asking me to give up the woman I love. I'm just asking to have two days."

The woman he loved.

She wiped away at her eyes, which were blurring through her tears. Her cheeks hot and wet. She understood. It would be their weekend of what if. They would say hello and goodbye to what could have been. As much as it hurt, as wrong as it felt, it was better than nothing. It would have to be.

Maybe, united, even if for only two days, she could find a way. They could find a way.

"Very well. But Mr O'Brien, I assure you, if this is some trickery, I will find out."

"I have no doubt, ma'am."

"Very well then. Two days. Any more conditions?"

"Yes… The infusion of funds you promised…"

A rock dropped in her stomach. The memory of the Area 51 case struck her, how Walter had risked everyone and everything for the payday. Though, she reasoned it was to save Megan. Could this really be financially motivated somehow? As team manager, she did the books. They weren't a financial windfall company, but they were doing alright. At least she had thought so. Her conversations with Walter had never given her any reason to believe he had concerns about Scorpion's profits. It made no sense. Walter was a lot of things, but to accept money - dirty money - when there wasn't a clear need, and a need that tied back to someone he cared for, just wasn't one. This wasn't like him. It wasn't logical.

"I'll be discreet."

"No, it's not that. I'd like the money to be transferred to this account…" He handed her a slip of paper, an account and routing number haphazardly scrawled in his best left-handed chicken scratch writing. "...an account I established for Ralph a couple years ago." Betty looked up, a look of shock gracing her scornful eyes. Paige, too, was shocked. Ralph? "Scorpion will survive. My priority is with Ralph. I want to be sure that Ralph will have every opportunity possible for him. This will likely cause a major discord with Paige and I, and should it come to be that she leaves the company, I will ensure she is financially sound, but I just need to know he will be taken care of as well."

Another tear slipped down her cheek, and she covered her mouth with her hand, as if willing the sob not to escape. He sounded so… broken. She wouldn't fault him for choosing Scorpion. But hearing him say that, knowing he had an account for Ralph, that his concern was them, and not Scorpion, it would make this so much harder, because it only made her fall deeper in love with him.

"Consider it done."

"Okay. Um, that's it, then." Walter turned to leave, sullen and weary, as if the last hour had aged him ten years, and Paige, afraid of being caught eavesdropping, hid behind the wall with haste.

"You're doing the right thing, son." Betty offered the snidest attempt at comfort either of them had ever heard.

"I am. But you're not." He tossed back, before walking away. "And don't call me son." He seethed, refusing to give her the satisfaction of facing her once more.

Paige rushed back, running up the stairs, needing to collect herself, place her mask of indifference on, accept this new reality of saying goodbye before she had even been able to be with him, before facing him.

As Walter exited the main doors, in search of Paige, his phone buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket, reading the notification. A mix of relief, and worry flooded his system as he perused the information.

Level two unlocked.

Time to find his love and get the hell out of here. He searched outside, but it was as void of humanity as he had been before meeting Paige.

Upstairs, Paige touched up her makeup, and checked herself over several times to ensure she didn't look as a mess as she felt. Rationally, she knew that just telling Walter she knew was the most logical position, but yet, she feared it. His words were clear, he wanted a weekend to day goodbye. And she knew that bringing it up would only muddy the waters more, but a strain between them. Her knowing, even though she understood, that he wouldn't risk Scorpion for her, would only force him to go back into his shell, the ultimate friend zone, and she would never have even her two days with him. And if they were going to team up to come up with a way to fight back, they had to have something to fight for. She needed that something before she could tell him. What she really needed to tell him was that she was in love with him, that she didn't care about anything else, and she would fight anything and everything to be with him. Even her lunatic grandmother.

Two days would never be enough for her.

But a relationship between them would never survive if he lost Scorpion for it.

So, two days would have to be enough… for now. While she figured out what to do next.

Cleaning up the bathroom counter of her makeup, she took one final look in the mirror and sighed. Time to face the music. She could do this. She would do this. For him.

The sound of a shaky keycard sliding into the door caught her attention and just as the door opened, she stepped out of the bathroom.

"There you are." He said with such gravity, such power, such relief, accompanied by a heavy sigh and his shoulders visibly relaxing.

About to speak, she was suddenly cut off by his arms wrapped around her, pulling her in tight for a hug unlike anything she had ever experienced. A hug that said the start of goodbye. A hug from Walter. A hug that held onto her with dear life.

It only took her a second to meld her very tense body into his, encircling her arms around his torso and holding close to his back, as if her life depended on the contact being closer, closer, never letting go.

"I'm right here." She whispered against his chest, willing her tears not to fall. "I'm right here."

A bizarre impasse. Both knowing the great secret. He unaware she knew, and she unaware of his plan. Neither willing to speak of it. She would continue to assume he was saying goodbye. He would assume she wasn't remarking on his odd behavior because of the closeness they had been sharing already.

Game. Set. Match.