"Do you really think this is a good idea, 197?" Toby asked as he walked into the area in the loft where Walter was working on an experiment.
Walter looked up at him almost like he was in pain as he tried to reach a bolt that was on the bottom of a piece of equipment on the benchtop.
"What idea is that? And before you answer it better not have anything to do with Paige." Walter told him.
"What are her qualifications to be here?" Toby asked as he ignored his statement and settled his butt on the corner of the workbench in the Loft and looked at him.
Walter decided to ignore him and continued working.
"I get it, she's pretty, really pretty, she's turned your head…probably both of them." Toby pressed, figuring if he got dirty about it, it would force Walter to speak.
Toby saw the muscles of his face and neck tightened up but Walter continued to ignore him.
"Come on Walt, besides looks and gams, gams that go all the way up to her ass I might add, what does she have? She's not a genius, she really can't help us." Toby pressed.
Walter's free hand slammed onto the tabletop causing his experiment to shift and cut his hand.
"Damn it Toby." Walter swore as he pulled his hand out and saw the two inch gash.
"Oh damn Walter, you need to be more careful." Toby told him while jumping over to him and grabbing a rag off the bench.
"Get away from me. What I need is for you to stop butting into things that aren't any of your business. This company is just your employer. How I choose to operate it, whoever I bring in to work with me on it is my business." Walter told him as his left hand applied pressure against the cut. "I told you downstairs, if you have a problem with it, get out."
"I didn't say I had a problem, I'm just seeking information." Toby defended himself as he followed along behind Walter.
"Walter? Are you okay?" Paige said as she reached the top of the stairs.
"I cut my hand." Walter called back to her as he entered the Loft bathroom.
"Come on Walt, let me see. I am the team doctor." Toby complained as Walter began running water over the wound.
Paige moved in and pushed past Toby and saw the cut.
"Walter, you need to have that professionally taken care of." Paige told him as she grabbed his hand looking at it.
"If you say I need to." Walter smiled shyly at her.
"I say you need to." Paige smiled back at him.
Toby rolled his eyes as he moved up and Paige moved back so he could examine it.
"Yep, that's about twelve stitches as deep as it is. Is there any numbness?" Toby asked as he pressed all around the skin surrounding the cut.
"No, I can feel you pressing all around it." Walter told him.
"Hold pressure on it while I go get my medical bag." Toby said.
Paige stepped back up and pressed her hand against the cut and held it while Toby left.
"What happened?" Paige asked softly.
"Toby…Toby always happens." Walter rolled his eyes. "Trying to butt his nose into why I asked you to come to work with me. Getting a bit sexual about you physically, trying to provoke me to answer." Walter told her with a smile. "He's just jealous because Happy won't give him the time of day."
Paige stared into those eyes and she pushed in and kissed him.
"You want me to come in there to stitch you up or at the table?" Toby asked, interrupting their kiss.
"How about you go to Palmdale and wait for me to show up." Walter told him after breaking his kiss with Paige and they grinned at each other.
"Damn son, what happened?" Cabe asked as he reached the Loft and saw Walter sitting at the small dining table and Toby examining the cut.
"Toby." Walter said simply.
"See, I always get blamed for things. I didn't touch you." Toby complained as he picked up the needle holder and tissue forceps to begin stitching the cut.
"That's because 94% of the time it is because of you and your mouth." Happy said as she stepped off the stairs.
"Hey Sara." Paige picked up her phone as she saw her neighbor's number come up. "Oh you are? Sure, let me come out." Paige said and then hung up as she stood. "Ralph's here, Sara is a little scared of the neighborhood." Paige smiled at Walter.
Walter nodded with a slight smile and stood up.
A few moments later Paige came back in the door with Ralph just in front of her. As soon as he saw Walter he dashed over to him.
"Hi Walter." Ralph said with a smile.
"Hey buddy." Walter held out his fist and Ralph bumped it with his.
"What happened to your hand?" Ralph frowned.
"A hazard of working here sometimes." Walter smiled. "Is your homework done?"
"Not yet." Ralph told him.
"Here, you sit at my desk, I'll go get you some milk and cookies and then you get your homework done. If you get it done early enough and if your Mom doesn't mind, I've got a project you can help me with." Walter grinned.
"Can I Mom?" Ralph looked excitedly at her.
"After your homework is done, yes." Paige smiled.
Ralph quickly moved around the desk and sat down as Walter walked past Paige, giving her a quick kiss on his way to the kitchen.
Toby looked at Happy and held his hands out.
Happy made a face and shrugged her shoulders.
"Here you go buddy." Walter said as he put the plate of cookies and the glass of milk down. "These are the closest I can find here in the States to my Mom's shortbread cookies, they are my favorite."
"Thanks Walter." Ralph smiled as he quickly grabbed one and bit into it.
"You're welcome Ralph." Walter smiled.
"Mmmmm…Good!" Ralph said before he took a swig of his milk and got ready to do his homework.
Paige smiled with a tear in her eye. Except for her Dad, Walter is the first man that Ralph's had involved in his life.
"Thank you." Paige whispered as Walter stepped back by her and looked at Ralph.
Walter's arm rose up around her and his hand rested on her hip. He smiled as he tightened his arm muscles and hugged her a bit tighter to him.
Toby just stared at the couple as they looked with love at Ralph.
"You don't have to thank me for that." Walter whispered.
Paige stood leaning her shoulder against one of the support columns watching Walter and Ralph work on some project. She smiled at the excitement they both had, it was almost like the ten year old boy in Walter overtook him and he was enjoying working with Ralph.
"Walter, I've looked at what you have in both kitchens and I'm afraid it would challenge even my skills to make something worth eating." Paige called out.
Walter looked up puzzled at her and then seemed to understand as he nodded.
"We can go out to get something to eat. I usually eat out a lot, because I can only get my preference from Kovelsky's." Walter smiled. "If you want to make a grocery list later I can run to the store to stock the kitchen." Walter explained even as he gestured and Ralph stopped working.
"Well, to save money that might be a good idea. I certainly wouldn't mind cooking for my two men." Paige smiled.
Walter grinned and walked up to her and they shared a tender kiss.
"A-plus Mr O'Brien." Paige told him as the corners of her mouth tugged upwards.
"The scale broke as you pegged the needle at the top, Ms Dineen." Walter said with a full grin.
"Sweet talker." Paige smiled as her hand came up and she dragged her finger down his chin.
Walter walked into Kovelsky's, right behind Paige and Ralph and he braced himself for whatever might come as he saw Mrs Kovelsky moving out of the kitchen.
"There's my favorite new couple." Mrs Kovelsky said in a loud voice causing quite a few guests to look over.
Walter blushed a little even as Mrs Kovelsky stopped in front of them.
"And who is this strapping young man?" Mrs Kovelsky asked as she looked at Ralph.
"This is my son Ralph. Ralph, this is Mrs Kovelsky." Paige smiled.
"Ralph, what a pleasure to meet you. Are you like this one? You don't like to be touched?" Mrs Kovelsky smiled pointing at Walter.
"It's nice to meet you." Ralph nodded quickly as Mrs Kovelsky chuckled. "May we sit at a booth?" Ralph asked her.
"My little heart, you may sit anywhere you want." Mrs Kovelsky gestured as she laughed.
Ralph immediately turned and ran over to the booth next to an aquarium.
"Even here?" Ralph asked.
Mrs Kovelsky nodded even as Paige blushed lightly.
"Let me guess, you want to calculate the bubbles?" Mrs Kovelsky asked as she took the menus from the hostess and walked over to where Ralph stood.
Ralph nodded as he climbed into the booth.
"When it is just Walter he likes to sit in that same spot and calculate the bubbles. He says it relaxes him enough to get some sleep. Do you have troubles getting to sleep sometimes?" Mrs Kovelsky asked, handing him a menu.
"Sometimes, but if the moon is in the right position it can cast shadows that I'm able to calculate geometric equations from and that helps a lot." Ralph told her as he looked at the menu. "Oh, can I have a chocolate shake?"
Paige laughed as Walter motioned for her to sit down first.
"Yes, you may have a chocolate shake." Paige told him.
Ralph and Paige ordered first.
"Will you be having your usual Walter?" Mrs Kovelsky asked.
"Ah, I think I'll have the salmon platter instead Mrs Kovelsky." Walter told her.
"Walter, if you want your fish dinner, get it. There is no reason not to." Paige told him.
"They aren't very appetizing for most people, Paige. I wouldn't want to spoil Ralph's and your dinner." Walter told her.
"We won't know until you get them, so get them." Paige said as she squeezed his hand.
"How about I get them for lunch tomorrow and you can decide then." Walter countered.
"Fine." Paige said as she smiled and then leaned in and kissed him.
"I like Mrs Kovelsky." Ralph said as she was walking back towards the kitchen.
Paige and Walter both smiled.
"We like her too Ralph." Paige told him.
Mrs Kovelsky just smiled all the way back to the kitchen after giving the hostess the menus back.
After setting up his computer to run the DNA analysis Walter had gone to the store and bought everything Paige had wanted. After putting it all away Walter stopped at the top of the stairs of the Loft as he saw Ralph sleeping half on top of Paige as she slept on the couch.
Walter walked to the closet by his bed and got out a sheet and a heavy blanket. He walked back out and gently placed the sheet over the sleeping pair. He pulled the blanket up and opened it up and laid it on top of them. He gently tucked it here and there around them and then sat on the coffee table and just watched them sleep.
Walter heard a soft beep and he looked up and around. Then he remembered and stood up. Walking back towards another area of the Loft he looked at his watch and realized he'd been sitting with them for just over an hour. He smiled as their faces came back up in his mind. He yawned and sat down at the computer terminal. Walter hit the spacebar and the computer screen lit up so he could read the message.
"DNA profile match, 99.9% positive." The message flashed out.
"So, it was Paige." Walter smiled as he scratched his chin. He turned to the next task at hand. He pulled up his hacking portal and went out into the dark web and began searching for Bobby Dankworth. He hadn't really thought about him in the last ten years but he quickly found five of them listed. It only took a moment to figure out which one was the one he knew. Walter began searching his records and he seemed fairly clean until he located sealed juvenile records. Walter chuckled as he quickly broke into the record and read everything. Bobby had been arrested several times as a teen, and each time he was arrested with a William Helmsley. He noticed William had been an employee at the strip club during the time Paige was there.
Walter wondered about the man named Jake, Paige had spoken of so he noted Bobby & William's information and then began searching the web and found Jake. It was a simple task to find his employment history after searching the strip club. He was honorably discharged after twenty years in the Navy Seals, then Jake went to work for the strip club "The Brass Flamingo". Walter noticed the owner of the club's last name was also Helmsley. After a search he found out that William was his nephew.
"Jake seems above board. How does Drew fit into this mess?" Walter wondered. He went back to their juvenile records and dug a bit deeper and finally discovered the connection between Bobby, William and Drew. They'd been in the same four man unit of the correctional facility while serving their final term as juveniles.
Walter shook his head and then noticed that it said Drew's current employment was running an adult establishment of some kind just outside of Vegas. Walter frowned as the name sounded familiar and he looked back at the other two's profiles. He saw that William had regular W-4 withholdings from that same company while Bobby received interest payments.
Walter clicked to open another portal and then connected to the company's website. Walter surfed through the various pages that were available publicly. Nothing jumped out at him. Walter dug around a bit and then worked quickly to slip past their firewall. He created an account and gave it full access to the site as an administrator from his other portal.
Walter was shocked by the sheer volume of porn on the servers. Then he found his way into the Revenge Porn section. The first page the server pulled up was labeled as "Paige Dineen". Walter's eyes closed as he exhaled. Even though it was years old, it had been hard-coded to always open it first.
Walter downloaded the video so he could analyze and dissect it. Walter changed back to the portal that he had full access to the underlying architecture of the system. He deleted Paige's video and all reference to it from the database. He transferred a worm to their system. Before he activated it he searched around until he found who handled their backup services.
After activating the worm Walter turned to the backup service. Their security was a lot better. It took Walter nearly two hours to locate a weakness to exploit.
Their server farm was massive. If he launched the worm in it, thousands of businesses throughout the country would be affected. Walter tried to use a general delete command but the system was coded to keep the files protected except for regular update times. Walter sighed as he knew he had no other choice, he should have coded the worm so it could be stopped. But he knew that would leave a trace behind for forensics to find. He didn't want to affect so many businesses in Vegas and wherever else they were, but he wasn't letting the video of Paige remain on the net.
Walter uploaded the worm and had it set to do a wandering wipe. It was going to have to be all or nothing. It would let him guide the path but it wouldn't stop until it was done. Walter then guided it for the first fifteen sections. He made sure Drew's backup was destroyed before letting it go on automatically destroying everything.
Walter quickly disconnected all of his portals.
Shaking his head Walter got up and started the coffee machine before he took a bathroom break. After washing his hands and face he walked out and got a cup of coffee. Walter sat back down at the computer and sighed. He hadn't wanted to do something that could cost him his newly acquired Homeland contract but he would protect Paige with his dying breath.
Walter went back out on the dark web and dropped several "crumbs" and then sat back and waited. It didn't take the hackers long to pick up on those "crumbs" and before anyone knew it three of the top banks in Las Vegas were under attack. Walter smiled and began his own assault on the bank that Drew used for his business and his personal accounts. The attacks were so overwhelming they completely masked Walter's and he was into their system quickly. Within minutes Walter was back out and every penny Drew and his business had were gone.
Walter ran that money all over the internet, confusing the path it took until it was untraceable. Walter placed it all in a special bank account overseas until he could decide what to do with it. He had several ideas immediately but he wondered if he should ask Paige for her thoughts on the matter.
Walter then turned to the video of Paige.
Paige moaned and as she tried to move she felt the restriction of Ralph lying on her hip. Paige looked around and saw they were still on the couch and she smiled at the covers over them. She noticed her watch read it was almost 7 am.
Paige slipped out from under Ralph and the covers and stood up. She stretched and then walked over to the restroom. Paige walked around while looking about as she came out of the restroom. Finally finding Walter hunched over a computer working furiously. She smiled and slowly walked over. She ran her hands around his sides and Walter just smiled.
"Good morning." Walter said as Paige hugged him tightly to her.
"Good morning. Thank you for the blankets. You probably should have awakened me though so I could have gone home and gotten us some fresh clothes." Paige smiled.
"Ahhh…About that. I…I actually went over to your place and selected a few items." Walter kind of said softly even as he looked at her as if she might slap him.
Paige looked at him a little quizzically.
"Really?" Paige asked.
Walter nodded as he pointed at the garment bag hanging up on the wall.
Paige let go of him and walked over and opened the bag. She looked in it and saw the blouse and skirt Walter had chosen for her and smiled. She looked back over at him.
"Did you know this was my favorite blouse and skirt?" Paige asked as she walked back over to him.
"No, I just thought those colors would look amazing on you." Walter said softly.
Paige gave him a soft kiss.
"What's this?" Paige asked as she pointed at the computer screen.
"Oh this? I'm stripping the video to its base components so I can understand exactly how to program a worm to scour the internet." Walter smiled.
"What video? Is this a case I don't know about?" Paige asked as she sat on Walter's lap. "Did you sleep?"
"No, my mind wouldn't shut down last night. I found the full version of the video they made of you with me that night." Walter said quietly as he looked towards the doorway where Ralph would have to come through.
Paige sighed as she looked down.
"So he did release it and it is out there." Paige said as she tried to get up.
Walter held her for a moment.
"Wait a minute Paige." Walter said and then explained everything he did that night.
Greetings! I hope this finds you well! Before I forget for a 3rd time...lol Do any of you remember a story, where Paige wakes up in the hospital, thinking it has been like 3-4 weeks since the break up, but it has actually been 10 years or so? That her and Walter were married now? The memory of that story came up a week or so ago and I have been looking but can't find the story. I am quite sure it was never finished but it had such great potiental.
Railman - Walter is usually pretty pratical...as long as it is efficient. lol I like the way this has motivated him to act so much quicker towards his feelings with Paige. I can get behind a good slow burn, but, sometimes I like to see it happen a bit quicker..."moving at the speed of light" indeed! lol Throwback to the song I said plays a part in this story in a few chapters.
Lucy - I just dearly love Mrs K in this story! She'll have another appearance at the end too. I really do too, having Walter consider actually being Ralph's Dad this early, really inflated his EQ.
Susan - Thank you, so glad you liked it! Yep, Mrs K is something special in this! Needed something to make up for Toby! LOL
Marie Mac - Very much so, I just got to figure how, where and who. The who probably can't be family, very few would have the patience to take a moment to learn the system to post them with. *sigh* There is the website I had designed...but I still have so much work to do to put all the stories there. Plus you never know when a hosting service will go out on you either. So...still go some planning to do. Yes, one of my faves that probably won't be finished is "Because You Want To" by MysticalGoddessofWords. Man how I wish she'd come back to finish it! lol And I'm still holding out for Pamz with "Arrythmia" too! lol
Pearliegirl - Thank you! So glad you are enjoying it! lol Well as I've said before, there are potentially millions of ways to bring them back together as a fix-it, it is dealing with the underlying issues I think for the most part have been covered quite a bit. That's why I'm taking my hat out of the fix-it ring, unless I lose my mind. lol Nope, I don't mind that you and a few others wanted to say something to JerBr.
LouBe - We'll find out more from Bobby and why he did it in an upcoming chapter! hehe I'm so glad you guys are loving Mrs K! She's amazing in this story! Her first name is Elżbieta which according to Google means "God's promise" and is related to Elizabeth. Yes, while Paige is definitely not feeling as bold as she seems, it is exactly that persona she had developed for her previous life that she relied on with Toby! Nope, there is no doubt on Walter's part, he's 100% team Paige. Did I give you that impressions? Oh my...I hope I don't disappoint you then. lol Well as far as my stories go, I promise never to delete them. If something happens to them it won't be by my hand. In part it is a major reason I am slowly posting the stories to AO3. So hopefully if anything happens to FFN, there is still a place to see them. As slow as I am, it is going to take forever. lol
To the Adventure! -Tim