I'm back with a new story. I'm really excited about this one. I remember hearing Elia's talk with Walter and I always thought they could've gone in a cool direction with it. Instead on the U-Dog inventions, what if Walter picked up where he left off with Megan's research while also using it as an excuse to avoid Paige and her budding relationship with G.I. Asshat. Anyway, I have a few chapters of this one already done and I'm excited to share it with you. Let me know how you like it. Leave a review. (:

The title of this chapter comes from the song Where Does the Good Go by Tegan and Sara, but i was listening to Sleeping At Last version.

Disclaimer: I do not own Scorpion or any of its characters.

"I know you and Paige had some kind of a thing once. And I also couldn't help but notice she's gotten close to your newest team member." Elia is trying to be sensitive about the subject.

"Timothy, yep." Walter nods.

"What I'm trying to say is, guys who think like you and me, we avoid what we can't solve. Do almost anything to avoid it, no matter how drastic. I've been there during my divorce. Walter, guys like you and me, we need to find something to fill our time constructively because next time you try avoidance, we might not be able to bring you home. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Hey, I didn't expect anyone to be here when I got back." Walter places his jacket on his chair walking towards the liaison's desk.

"Oh yeah, I just needed to finish the paperwork after this weeks space launch." Paige glances at her boss before returning to her computer screen. "How was the Baked Alaska?"

"Oh delicious. The ride also provided some much needed clarity on my next project. Or I should say old project" He turns back to his desk to search through some old paperwork.

"Oh yeah. Which one?" She raises an eyebrow at the genius.

"Just some research. I think I'm going to ask a friend for some help." He looks at the time. 10:30 PM. "Actually I should probably give him a call before it gets too late. Goodnight, Paige. Get home safe." He leaves the woman he's determined to work out of his mind and puts his phone to his ear. Excited to get some productive work done.

"Goodnight." Is the last thing he hears before he's switch his attention back to his phone.

"Walter, I've got to say I didn't expect to hear from you so soon." Richard voice rings through the cell.

"Hey Richard, I was thinking about what you said earlier and I wanted to run something by you." Walter walks to the whiteboard in his loft.

"I'm listening."

"I have some old research I was working on before my sister passed. Maybe, you and I could work on it together. You know do something constructive with my time. Couldn't hurt to do it with a friend?"

"Really? How about I swing by tomorrow and you can show me what you've got."

"Sounds good." Walter smiles and bids the billionaire goodnight.

He knows after a case like this week he should get some rest, but fueled with inspiration, the genius is pulled to his white board. He has more work to do and it couldn't hurt to refresh his memory with a look through of where he left off. Time slipped by when he finally looked at his watch and read 5:00 AM. He walks downstairs to grab his laptop wanting to transfer everything he has written on his board. Walking by the kitchen, Walter decided to start a pot of coffee, right now he's fueled by the excitement of the advancement in his research this can help so many people, but with a sleepless night he knows he'll crash eventually and he wants to be on his A-game since Elia is coming by to hear his research. Hopefully, he'll be so intrigued by his work that he'll want to help Walter with it. With Elia's funding and Walter's need to constructively avoid his problems, he won't have time to think about Paige and Tim. After fixing his first cup of the day, Walter heads for his desk to get to work. Three hours later and one pot of coffee down, Walter is ripped from his laser focus when the garage door squeaks open alerting him of the arrival of Happy and Toby.

Happy follows the smell of coffee into the kitchen and Toby stops in front of Walter's desk, "Damn, 197, you know, in your condition you need to sleep and I can tell by the level of crap you look like this morning you haven't gotten a wink." He says with a hint of concern.

"When inspiration strikes you have to answer the call... or something like that." Walter waves a hand at the shrink while continuing to type away on his laptop.

"Did you just quote a fortune cookie to me?" Toby asks, studying Walter like he's a science project.

"I was suffering from hypoxia just," looking at the calendar on his desk, "six days ago, Toby. Give me a break." He hits print on his computer, then looks up to the shrink from his chair.

"That's exactly what you should be doing. Taking a break." Walter is saved from the rest of Toby's tirade from the garage door opening again. The genius excuses himself from the psychiatrist moving to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. He hears the familiar voices of Paige and the interl—Tim. He makes his way back to his desk focused on getting back to work when he run into the Navy Seal.

"Damn it!" Slips from the genius' mouth as the steaming hot liquid seeps into his shirt.

"Walter, what happened?" Paige walks into the kitchen with concern in her voice. The dark circles under his eyes are the first thing she noticed when she looks at the scene before her. Walter is drenched in hot coffee in the same shirt she saw him in yesterday.

"Nothing. I wasn't paying attention." He puts his cup in the sink and dashes to the loft.

"I'm worried about him." Toby walks into the kitchen alerting the liaison to his presence. "He didn't sleep at all last night. That's how the rabbit hole starts. Soon he won't be eating and then he'll start talking to himself."

"What do you mean?" Tim looks up from cleaning the mess on the floor.

"He'll work himself to the bone." Happy interrupts, squeezing by the giant oaf to get to the coffee pot.

"I'll talk to him." Paige starts up the stairs. Knocking on the bookshelf, "Walter?"

"Hmm?" He has a new shirt on standing in front of his white board.

"Are you okay?" She asks his back.

"Yes. Why wouldn't I be okay?" He continues writing.

"Well, you were in the same thing you wore yesterday and it's 8 in the morning. You cursed and you never do that. Then, there's the glaring fact that you didn't get any sleep last night." He doesn't bat an eye at her as she list off his unusual behavior.

He pauses his work, "Why is everyone suddenly worried about my sleeping habits? There are many people who don't get sleep at night."

"Yes, well you're usually not one of them. You always said that it hinders brain function which is inefficient." She wishes he would spare her a glance, but his focus stays with the whiteboard.

"I can't help it when I have an idea. This could be groundbreaking and could help many people." Walter starts writing more equations on the board.

"Well, you can help people after you get some sleep." Paige fails in her attempts to take the marker from his hands.

"What time is it?" He finally spares her a glance.

"8:45. Why?" She freezes in her attempts to apprehend the marker. Finally, he looked at her.

"Crap, I need to shower." He caps the marker in his hand and rushes into the bathroom. Leaving Paige in the middle of the loft, once again, staring at his back.

"Well, did you get anything out of him?" Toby ask before she's able to get her foot off the last step.

Paige takes the coffee from the shrinks hands, "No, but last night when I was doing paperwork he said something about doing research with a friend."

"Friend? All his friends are here. What other friends does Walter have?" Happy asks from her desk.

"You don't think it could be Collins do you?" Sly drops his comic book on his desk and looks to Toby.

"There's no way Walter would work with him again. Not after almost killing Toby." Paige answers as she walks to her desk.

Cabe's at Homeland for the morning, so the group is surprised when the garage door opens, with everyone on the team already present and accounted for. Everyone looks to the intruder.

"Hello Scorpion, is Walter around?" Elia steps into the the garage with a mix of glares and looks of surprise thrown at him.

"He's—" Paige's eye shift to the rest of the team as the tech billionaire enters their home. One of the last times he was here he was trying to hire Walter.

"Right here. Sorry, I've been busy ever since we hung up last night. I'll come down there, we can grab a cup of coffee then we can head back to the loft and get to work." Walter speeds down the stairs and guides Elia to the kitchen with all eyes on the duo.

"Oh, this is nearly as bad." Toby adds as the group watch their boss walk to the kitchen with their rival.

"Why?" Tim unbothered by the show everyone is observing in the kitchen.

"Not that you care much, but last time those two got close Elia tried to poach Walt. Then he ended up hanging off a cliff." Happy informs the SEAL.

The group disbursed when the billionaire and genius turn to enter the loft. Toby leans into Paige, "You are going to need to be the one to fix this."

"We don't know what they're even doing together. Toby, you need to calm down." Paige tries to calm the shrink down.

"Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you when we're all out of a job and you're back to waitressing." Her stomach flips at the thought. There's no way Walter would leave them. Elia's already tried once and he refused.

"So, I was thinking instead of downloading a person's brain into a computer. There would be a chip implanted into the brain. So, if someone were to have Alzheimer's, instead of forgetting the chip would send signals to the memory centers of the brain. Imagine all the people this could apply to: someone who's deaf could hear their children's voice, the blind could see their parents grow old together, or if their paralyzed they could dance with their loved ones. At the moment, I'm not sure on where it would be on saving lives yet, but it could be used to improve one's quality of life." The fire burned bright in Walter as he explained his work to the billionaire. Elia is impressed with Walter's research, especially since he was sitting here just a few days ago telling him to come up with something constructive instead of nearly killing himself to avoid the hurt he was feeling. The kid worked fast, Elia will give him that.

"This is really good work, Walt. I'd love to help with this. It'll be a lot of hard work, but this could really help a lot of people." Richard flips through the papers Walter handed him.

"Really?" Excitement radiates though his body.

"Yeah, we'll have to work closely on this. You'll have to spend some time at my think tank, I'm not sure how your team will feel about it." Elia sits the folder in his lap, looking to the genius in front of him.

"This is for the greater good. They'll understand." His smile couldn't get any wider. Megan would have been so happy to have something like this when she was sick. If he could help more people like her then it will all be worth it.

They begin walking downstairs. "Okay, so if you can come by my office, say in three days then we can get started on this. Maybe in a month or so, we'll have a board meeting about getting investors." Walter feels the eyes of his team members burning into the back of his head as his walks Elia to the door.

"Absolutely." Walter's grin couldn't get any bigger if he tried. Toby is the first to take note of that.

"This is going to be so good. I can't wait to get started on this with you." Richard shakes Walter hand. "Have a good day, Scorpion." He waves to the rest of the people and makes his way to his car. Happy's banging on car parts seems louder than usual.

"Hey Walt, you're not leaving us are you?" Toby, always lacking in subtlety, asks.

"No, of course not." Walter walks to his desk to begin his work for Scorpion. "I'll probably be out of the office more while Elia and I start working on our project, but you guys can handle jobs with out me right?" The sound of metal clanging stops.

"Of course, we got this, right?" Tim looks around at the rest of the team.

"No, he—he doesn't speak for us." Sly stands from his desk dropping his comic book walking to the rest of the group.

"Yeah, sit down GI Joe. Walt, what exactly are we going to do if we get in a pickle and you're not there? It's kind of your shtick to come up with last minute save the day fixes." Toby walks to their leader.

"What the hell, O'Brien? You're leaving Scorpion in dust?" Happy's voice cuts through her boyfriend's.

"Guys, I'm not leaving. And I'll still go on jobs with you, just not the easy ones. It's just going to be for a short period of time." He looks at his team members all staring at him. "I need to do this work. Please, it's for the greater good."

"I think what everyone is trying, but failing to say Walter is we'll miss having you around." Paige finally breaks her silence. She's not too keen on the idea of Walter being MIA for a while, but he seems passionate about this work.

"I don't think that's what they were going for, but I appreciate the effort." He give her a small smile and goes back to his computer. "We should all get back to work. Did everyone finish their paperwork from our last case?"

There's a sadness in the air. Paige chalks it up to the uncertainty of Scorpion's future. Without Walter she doesn't see the group working. She may be the glue, but at the end of the day Walter was the heart. They needed him.

"Hey kids, we've got a case." Cabe walks in the garage pulling his glasses from his face. "Where's Walt?" He ask the room of people.

"He's been working from the loft since Elia visited. Only time we really see him is when he comes to get coffee or when Ralph is here before carpool." Sly offers the older agent. It's been a week since the news was dropped on the rest of the team that their leader would be missing for a while. No one was handling it very well. Happy's withdrawn more from the rest of the group, Toby's analyzing everyone's actions more than usual, Sly's been reverting to more comic book reading, and Paige has been trying to keep herself from knocking on the genius' door to ask what the hell is going on. Walter's worked on projects before and he's never pulled away from the group like this. The only person he gives any attention to is Ralph, but even he's asked his mom what was wrong with Walter.

"Hey Walter," Cabe shouts from the bottom of the stairs, "move your ass before I come up there and move it with my foot." Walter appears at the top of the stairs, "We've got a case, kid."

Walter comes barreling down the stairs, "Oh um, I can't today. I'm heading to Elia's right now. Can you all handle this one without me?" Walter pulls his backpack on and stop in front of the Homeland agent.

"We can do it, right Cabe?" Tim answers before the rest of the team has a chance to answer.

"Okay, great. Call if you need help. Good luck." Walter grabs his keys from his desk and leaves his team in the garage.

"I don't like this." Toby says after the door closes behind Walter.

"Me either." Sly speaks up.

"Ditto." Happy adds.

"Come on guys, you're just as smart as Walter. We can do this." Tim tries to encourage the group.

"It's not a question of smarts, GI Joe. It's a question of skill set. Walt, is the best at thinking on his feet. And we don't even know what we're walking into and you sent our leader walking off into a new flashy job. So, can you shut it with your can-do attitude?" Happy is uneasy to say the least. The fate of her family is once again being threaten.

"It's just a systems check at an old military base should be easy. We need to retrieve some old information, as well." Cabe says to the group.

Paige still staring at her boss' desk. They haven't spoken much since Walter started working on his project with Elia. She misses the genius. There's definitely been an emptiness in the air with him gone.

"This is great progress, I can't believe how much you've got done in just three days." Walter beams at the praise from his idol as the duo walk down the hallway.

"Thank you. I'm really excited about this." Richard stops the genius before they enter his office.

"You know Walt, I know I said find something to constructive to do with you time, but I want to make sure you're taking care of yourself. You look like you haven't slept in days."

"I've gotten a few hours." Walter studies his shoes.

"You're going to need more than a few hours to keep up in the coming months." The older man brings his hands to his pockets.

"I promise, I'll get sleep tonight." He nods to the billionaire. Walter doesn't want to mess this one up. Everytime he's worked with Elia something has gone wrong. Soon or later Elia will think he's incompetent.

"Okay. Let's get to work." Elia leads him into Walter's temporary office for when their working at his building.

"Things would have gone smoother with Walter there." Sly makes his opinion known while finding rest at his desk.

"We all came out of it alive." Tim smiles twisting his soaking wet shirt to remove any excess water.

"I want to slap him." Happy leans into her boyfriend to whisper.

"Yes, well, we would have come back with the information Homeland wanted if Walt had been there. Instead, we managed to flood a military base. So, we did half a job." Toby sit on his desk with his arms crossed. "Cabe, do you think you could talk to Walter about joining the team again?"

"He hasn't left. He's just doing some work with Elia." Sly defends his boss. He was the only one to stay dry; after leaving the group to finish up his job in the car.

"I think it's more than that, but he won't talk to me long enough for me to get any information out of him." Toby looks to Sylvester with a knowing look, as to not give it away to the rest of the team. This is about Paige. Don't be dense.

"Alright doc, I'll see what I can do." Speak of the devil, Walter walks through the door looking dead on his feet. Paige's eyes follow him as he walks to the trailer in the back of the garage mumbling to himself. "Hey Walt." The genius didn't acknowledge the agent. "Walter!"

"Oh hey, Cabe. When did you all get back?" Walter turns to the group, he looked awful. The bags under his eyes are getting worse and darker.

"We were here before you, son." Cabe doesn't hide the concern in his voice.

"Oh sorry, I've just been running numbers and I got lost, I guess." He shrugs and was about to continue to the trailer when Cabe stops him.

"Let's get you to the loft. You could use some sleep." Cabe brings his hand to the genius' back leading him to the stairs.

"Hey, I can stop by Kovelsky's and get some food." Paige offers.

"That sounds good. Thank you, Paige." Cabe thanks the liaison.

Grabbing her purse, she heads for her car. She worried about Walter. He's never around anymore, when everyone is in the garage working he's either in the loft or at Elia's. He barely eaten anything. And there's the small fact that she missed him.

"Hey Paige, you want some company?" She hears his heavy footstep before turning around to Tim.

"No, thanks. I need some time to think." She starts the car.

When she returned to the garage everyone left besides Cabe, who was in the loft with Walter. She didn't intend to eavesdrop, but she also didn't want to interrupt the father—son duo. "What's going on son? You've left the team high and dry for a week."

"I haven't left anyone. I'm just taking some advice from Richard and so far it's worked." She hears a rustling coming from the genius.

"What advice is that?"

"Filling my time constructively instead of using avoidance."

"Scorpion isn't constructive enough?" There is annoyance in Cabe's tone. Paige knows this won't stay pleasant for long.

"It is." Walter doesn't leave room for questioning in the speed he answers the old man's question.

"What are you avoiding?" Cabe's gruff voice echos through the space.

"I don't want to talk about it with you." Walter snaps back to the agent. The tension in his voice raises the hairs on Paige's arm. She'd never heard him with so much bitterness in his tone before.

"Why not?" She hears footsteps growing closer and freezes. There's no where for her to hide the fact that she was just snooping in on a conversation that doesn't involve her.

The footsteps stop, "Because I'm what you'd call half baked or not fully formed." Walter throws the agents words back at him.

"Walter—"

"You know, I'm tired Cabe so you should go."

What the hell did that mean? She didn't understand what Walter was talking about or why he would call himself those things. Cabe's footstep rattle through the garage so she decides to make her way upstairs. Maybe it'll look like she just got here.

"Hey kid." Cabe's voice bring her out of her thoughts.

"Hey, just dropping off this food for Walter." She raises the bags in her hand, providing evidence that she wasn't just listening in on an intense conversation.

Cabe sighs, continuing his descent down the stairs. "Maybe he'll talk to you."

"Hey Walter." She knocked on his door.

"Hello." He wouldn't even turn around to acknowledge her.

"I brought you food." She places the bag on the island in his kitchen and makes her way to him.

"Thank you. You can leave it on the table." The frustration in his voice hadn't completely left yet.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Fine, she hated that word. He says that when something is bothering him.

"No, you're not."

"Well, even if I wasn't, you're not the one I want to talk to about it anyway."

"What the hell is your problem?" She crosses her arms, almost as though they were a shield to protect her from any hurtful word he will say next.

He sighs, "Everyone thinking I have a problem, is my problem."

"Fine." She turns to leave.

Walter faces her with a sigh, "Wait, Paige. I'm sorry. Cabe and I just got into it. You didn't deserve what I said." He wants to be mad at her. He want to be over her. But he can't stand the thought of hurting her.

"I'm just worried about you." She turns to him.

He sighs, "I'm doing what I need to do."

"What is going on with you?" She wants answers.

"I can't talk about it."

"Why not? That's what you hired me for right." She steps closer to her boss.

"Not this." He shakes his head, takes a step back and looks to the ground.

"Fine. When you're ready to talk, I'll be here." She runs her hand down his arm, dropping it before she can reach his hand.

"I appreciate it." He offers her a half smile.

"You need to eat." Paige points to the food on the island before turning to the exit.

"I will. Goodnight, Paige"

"Goodnight, Walter." She stops before she's completely out of his door. Maybe she does have idea about what this is about. "Walt, any memories from your time in space come back?"

"No."

"Okay. Night." Something doesn't sit right with her as she drives home. Walter is further away than he's ever been and now Paige Dineen is determined not to let him drift further.