"Ooh." Paige moaned.
"Paige, finally. Please try not to move too much. You'll hurt yourself more." Happy told her quietly but Paige's head throbbed at the slight sound.
She could hear a strange beeping sound and it sounded like a dump truck was right beside her, and it was in reverse. The sound was almost deafening.
"Happy?" Paige said with her eyes squeezed together in pain. "What is that horrible beeping noise and why is it so loud? It is really hurting my head."
"Let me see if I can silence it." Happy said and turned and looked at the vital monitors and she hit a button silencing the sounds. "How's that?"
"Better, thank you. It sounds like there is another one." Paige said as she tried to open her eyes and the little light that struck them, stung. "Oh, why is it so bright?"
"I can dim the lights. Is the other beeping too loud? I can mute it too." Happy told her as she moved to the wall and lowered the lights.
"I think I can deal with the other beeping, it isn't in my ear as bad." Paige told her as her eyes registered the light level growing darker. She opened them slightly and saw Happy standing next to her. Happy had minor cuts on her face and her hair seemed singed. Her hands were now holding her hand and Paige saw herself lying in a bed, a hospital bed. "What happened?" Paige asked as panic set in.
"Try and calm down Paige. Let's start with, what is the last thing you remember?" Happy asked.
Paige's eyes closed as she thought. "We'd finished breakfast, Walter and Ralph had scraped the foul word someone painted on my car windshield off and we dropped Ralph at school." Paige said as she frowned. I don't really remember much after that. It's kind of jumbled."
"Okay, well that is better than they feared." Happy told her.
"Where is Walter? Were we in a car wreck?" Paige looked at Happy.
Happy shook her head.
"No, you weren't in a car wreck. Walter is in the bed next to you. Cabe demanded they put you both in the same room. He's still unconscious." Happy told her.
Paige turned her head too quickly and cried out in pain.
"Careful. You've got whiplash. Between me pulling the two of you and Walter pushing you down it really wrenched your neck. Sorry." Happy told her.
"Don't be, pain is better than death. So how is Walter? What exactly happened?" Paige asked.
"Because of what Tim did, Homeland pushed for a joint investigation with the LAPD. They are still trying to figure it out. Someone put a bomb in Walter's car. When he opened the door it started a timer. From best guess it was set to go off two minutes after one of the front doors was opened." Happy told her.
"Tim!" Paige said almost hysterically.
Happy shook her head.
"Homeland and the LAPD lie detector groups have cleared him. He's fully cooperating with the investigation. He's on suspension and he's been very remorseful and upset over it. I honestly don't think he is lying. He admitted to the paint on your car, he admitted to using your old bank card from Scorpion to charge that rental that followed you guys. He admitted to putting a tracker on your car so he could keep tabs on you. He's currently under arrest for what he admitted." Happy explained.
"I still don't believe it. Wait, Walter didn't cancel my credit card? How's Walter?" Paige asked as she tried to gingerly turn her head.
"Apparently he hadn't. Walter took the brunt of the concussive blast. Hold on." Happy told her and grabbed the mirror from Paige's purse.
She held it up and Paige smiled sadly seeing Walter lying there unconscious.
"He has a head wound?" Paige fretted.
"Yeah, a piece of shrapnel flew off the car, only grazing his head thankfully. But it flew past us and it hurt Toby pretty badly." Happy explained. "He had to have emergency surgery. He lost almost a third of his left lung where it cut through him."
"Oh no. Happy, I'm so sorry. I didn't want anything bad to happen to him or you." Paige said as she squeezed Happy's hand.
"I know Paige, I don't blame you." Happy told her.
"Why aren't you with him?" Paige asked.
"He's in the next room with Sly. He was pissing me off and I wanted to sit with you guys while Cabe took Ralph down to get some dinner." Happy smiled at her.
"Dinner? Wha-What time is it?" Paige looked confused.
"It's almost seven p.m. You've been out of it for two days. Don't worry about Ralph, we've been taking care of him." Happy told her.
"Gawd, how did we get so messed up?" Paige cried.
"I don't know, for geniuses we really screwed this up. I'm so sorry." Happy told her.
"Mom!" Ralph said excitedly as he heard them talking and ran on into the room.
"Hey baby, it is so good seeing you." Paige said as Ralph leaned over and hugged her as best he could.
"I've been so worried Mom." Ralph told her.
"I can only imagine, baby." Page smiled as she ran her hand through his hair.
"Hey kid, good seeing you finally awake." Cabe smiled.
"Thanks Cabe. Happy says no one knows who did this? And by the way, you and I need to have a discussion, I can't believe you were so rude about me to Walter. Why would you say such mean things?" Paige asked.
Cabe chuckled.
"Sweetheart, we already talked about that." Cabe said gently.
"We did? When?" Paige asked as she struggled to think.
"It's behind the blast amnesia Paige. They said you'd likely have memory loss anywhere from one to twenty four hours before the bomb went off." Happy told her.
"Oh, so, what was your excuse then?" Paige asked.
Cabe chuckled.
"We talked about it at the Garage the morning of the bomb. I'd done it trying to push Walt into protection mode so he'd give in to your messages and talk to you. He was struggling so badly. He couldn't completely accept that you were serious about talking to him. But no, we don't know yet who set the bomb." Cabe explained.
"This is so frustrating. Wait, what about the surveillance cameras at the Garage? Didn't they catch anything?" Paige asked.
"There are no external cameras." Cabe told her.
"Yes there is." Paige tried to nod and stopped. "Walter installed it shortly after Mark escaped that last time."
"It didn't show up on the security reel." Cabe frowned.
"It wouldn't, the old system was maxed with the number of cameras. And money was too tight to upgrade it so Walter had it recorded separately onto the server. If I had a laptop and my password still works I could access it." Paige told them.
Ralph grabbed his laptop and brought it over and opened it for her. He connected it to the Garage server and held it out for her.
"Thanks baby." Paige smiled at Ralph. She slowly typed her name and then her password and hit enter. The system paused for a moment as something downloaded. Walter's little song he wrote for her began playing. "Oh Walter, that was so sweet of you." Paige said after the song ended.
"Hey Paige, if this played, this means you tried to access your account on the server since we broke up. I just wanted to let you know, while I'm apprehensive about talking to you, I really hope I can soon. I miss you so much and I never meant for you to be hurt. I wish I was normal so I could see how stupid I am when it comes to you and not be that way. I love you." Walter's message played.
"Oh Walter, I love you so much." Paige smiled. She clicked a link and then another and then entered her password again. And then they saw a bunch of video files. "Okay, that gets you access." Paige told them.
Cabe and Ralph moved over to watch the videos.
"Happy, is there a way to move my bed closer to Walter? Maybe I could hold his hand? Please?" Paige asked.
"You want it, you got it." Happy told her. She examined the bed quickly and disengaged the locks on the wheels and moved her bed carefully until the two sides butted against each other.
Paige reached over and took his hand through the bars of the beds.
Happy reset the locks and smiled at Paige.
Happy and Paige kind of jumped as they heard the explosion over the laptop.
"Oh wow, that was too close." Ralph said as he looked up and saw his Mom. "If you guys hadn't been stopped by Happy honking and walked back to where you were you would have been killed Mom."
"Sounds like it." Paige said softly.
"Keep rewinding it Ralph." Cabe told him as they watched.
Ralph nodded and resumed watching it backwards.
"So how badly were you hurt?" Paige asked as she looked at Happy.
Happy shook her head as she smiled.
"Not bad at all, some minor cuts and some singed hair. I had both of you acting as shock absorbers." Happy grinned. "You are going to need a hairdresser though. I hope you like bob type haircuts. It will take a while for yours to grow back out."
Paige chuckled and groaned before she reached up and touched her hair.
"I guess that explains part of the smell I smell. I could really go for some pain killers." Paige complained.
"Let me call the nurse." Happy said as she hit the call button.
"Nurses' station." A male voice answered a few moments later.
"Yes, Paige Dineen finally regained consciousness and is wanting something for pain." Happy told the guy.
"Okay, I'll tell her nurse."
A few minutes later a young woman about Happy's age walked in carrying a syringe.
"Well Paige, it is good to see you awake finally. I'm Debbie, I'll be on for another two hours. How are you feeling?" Debbie asked.
"My eyes hurt, my ears are ringing, my head and neck hurts and I feel like I was blown up." Paige smiled.
"Not too bad then, since that is what happened to you." Debbie smiled as she injected the drug into the IV. "I'll get the Dr to order a pain drip that you can control now that you are awake. He might want to see you first though."
"Well he'll have to come see me, I'm not going anywhere." Paige joked.
"Haha. Good one. How is your memory?" Debbie asked.
"I seemed to be missing a few hours. I don't really remember anything after about eight thirty the day this happened." Paige told her.
"That really isn't too bad. Right now you have a catheter in, we'll leave it until tomorrow when the primary care doctors go through. They might want it removed depending on how you are doing." Debbie told her.
"Wonderful." Paige said sarcastically.
"That's the ray of sunshine I've heard about from the, umm, gentleman next door." Debbie told her.
"If you mean my husband you just insulted gentlemen all over the world." Happy laughed.
Debbie and Paige laughed.
"I'm feeling pretty hungry." Paige told her.
"Well good, here is a menu and the number for the cafeteria is on it. You've got about a half hour before it closes. Or if your friends don't mind going to get it, there is pizza and subs downstairs if none of that looks good. And we have a number of fast food restaurants nearby." Debbie told her.
"Wow, what was in that shot you gave me?" Paige asked as her mind kind of floated.
"Demerol, it was prescribed in case you woke up and before we could get an IV pain killer set up for you." Debbie smiled.
"That's pretty powerful. Don't give it to Walter." Paige told her as she looked over at him.
"Why?" Debbie frowned.
"He doesn't like things that mess with his mind. This will definitely mess with his mind.' Paige told her.
"Oh, okay, I'll update his chart then." Debbie smiled.
"Right there!" Cabe told Ralph and Ralph stopped the rewind and let it play. "Is that Florence?" Cabe said.
"What?" Paige and Happy both said. The nurse frowned but walked on out of the room.
"It looks like maybe Florence came around the corner, it is really hard to tell, but size wise and the hair. But this is the person who planted the bomb." Cabe said as they watched the person open the door and put something under the passenger seat. They watched as a wire was run out to the door and connected to it.
"At that position, once the passenger door was opened more than fourteen inches the timer would have been triggered." Ralph said as he calculated the door opening. "This bomb was set by someone who wanted to kill Mom. Whoever this is, knew Mom and Walter were back together."
"Tim is the only one who knew we were back together." Paige frowned. "But you said Tim isn't responsible."
"I didn't say that, just that is what the lie detectors are saying. I said I didn't think he had anything to do with it." Happy clarified her statement.
"Wait, you said you and Walter were at Kovelsky's, when Tim found you together." Cabe snapped his fingers.
"I did? I don't recall telling you that." Paige frowned.
"Part of the memory loss sweetheart. So that means anyone who goes to Kovelsky's could know you were together again." Cabe said.
"Well we did take Walter's car back to the Garage and then went to my condo in my car." Paige told them. "So someone could have seen that too I suppose."
Cabe called to inform Homeland of the video evidence they'd gotten while Happy went downstairs to get a pizza for Paige. Paige sat talking with Ralph. He was getting her caught up on the last two days. She kept running her hand through his hair.
"Sorry, I just feel like I missed so much in just two days." Paige smiled.
Ralph just smiled and shook his head.
"I don't mind Mom. I'm just so glad you are going to be okay and that you and Walter are back together." Ralph told her.
"Well it looks like the Dr is too busy to come see you so he just sent an order for a painkiller IV drip. I can set it so it has an automatic drip and gives you the option to give it a little boost every hour or just when you click the button." The nurse explained as she came in.
"Oh, well, I'm still swimming a bit now. Umm, how about just when I click it? If I change my mind later it can be reset right?" Paige asked, her eyes a bit unfocused.
Debbie smiled.
"Of course." Debbie said as she began setting it up.
"Mom?" Ralph questioned while looking at her.
Debbie looked down and frowned as Paige's eyes rolled back and her stats began dropping.
"Does she have an allergy to painkillers?" Debbie asked quickly as she hit the call button.
"Not that I know of." Ralph told her.
"Nurses' station." The voice announced.
"Get me a crash cart for a possible drug allergy!" Debbie said as she began checking Paige over. "Paige." She said as she shook her for a moment.
Greetings! I hope this finds you all well! Oops...another cliffhanger? *cackle*
Railman - A nice right explosion indeed! And apparently not of Tim's doing...Who'd have thunk? Yeah, not too sure on Centipeed myself. But Happy seems likeable so far...
Lucy - Yep, from one cliffhanger to another...hehe Though it seems like Tim might be a somewhat settled issue, at least while he's in jail. Maybe he was just in it for "fun"?
JerBr23 - I always hate Cabe being in some bad light after his relationship with Walter and the whole Baghdad situation. *sigh* As for the other 2 centipeeds, not sure yet...And Tim, well...he won't be around for a while. lol
Margaret - hehe Sorry with the confusion. The Grab Bag is just a bag to catch stories that either won't be finished (like the 1st 4 chapters are of the unneeded alternate story Caber) and I didn't feel like chapter 5, Paige's dream to fix how the show ended needed to be on its own. This story will be chapters 6-15 and are unrelated to the first 5. At this time, there is probably another story that will go in here after this one. Walter Under The Bridge. I'm not sure I'll finish it, so don't want to post it on its own either. But if you look at the title of chapters, hopefully it will help guide you as to what is what for this story Grudges. Any title without Grudges isn't this story.
And it seems FFN has had a new screw up. *sigh* While stories are being shown as updated, they aren't appearing at the top of the stack so at a glance it doesn't look like anything has changed in 4 days. And the metrics so a writer can see how a story is being accessed is messed up as well.
To the Adventure! -Tim