A/N: Sorry guys, it's been a difficult few weeks. My muse hasn't been musing. I want to ensure the next Secrets is right, so delaying a bit. But this was inspired today while sitting at a softball clinic. I have SOOOOOO many stories drafted right now, so just know there's lots to come. Just need my life chaos to wind down a bit so I can give them the attention and respect they deserve. Appreciate everyone's patience!!!
This is 2 parts!
Xoxo
Seven months.
Two hundred and thirteen days since the team fractured, splintering like glass. Since the last time he touched her, kissed her, heard her say his name in a way that made the impossible seem within reach.
Since he lost her.
Walter had done everything right since. Everything he was supposed to do. He had buried himself in work, forced himself to engage in the mechanics of normalcy. He even started dating again, a woman who was kind, intelligent, practical. She laughed at appropriate times, listened when he spoke, and didn't challenge him in ways that made his world tilt dangerously.
Someone who wasn't Paige.
Someone who made him feel very little, but filled the void she'd left behind.
He had done everything he could.
And yet, none of it had prepared him for this moment.
Paige Dineen was standing ten feet away.
The breath left his lungs like a forceful punch. He hadn't seen her since the day she walked away from him at the Gettleman pitch for the last time, her expression carefully blank, her goodbye clipped and efficient. But now, here she was, standing at the counter of a small café, scrolling absentmindedly on her phone while waiting for her order.
She looked… different.
No, not different. Better.
Her hair was longer, cascading in effortless waves that brushed against her shoulders. The sweater she wore was soft, oversized, unfamiliar. And for some reason, that was the thing that undid him. That sweater.
Because once upon a time, he had known everything she owned. Could recall the texture of her favorite cardigan under his fingertips, the way she pulled the sleeves over her hands when she was cold.
Now she was wearing something new.
Because life had gone on without him.
His jaw clenched, logic warring against emotion. He knew that he should walk away. That pretending not to see her was the correct course of action. But his body wouldn't move, his feet cemented in place as his mind cycled through a hundred different scenarios.
He could say something.
Just one word.
Paige.
Maybe she would turn, maybe she would smile… that small, knowing smile that used to belong to him. Maybe they could talk, and it wouldn't hurt like a thousand tiny fractures in his ribs.
But then, he appeared.
A man.
Tall, well-dressed, with an easy confidence that grated against Walter's skin like sandpaper. He approached her from behind, his hand settling on the small of her back with a casual familiarity that sent a sharp, violent ache through Walter's chest.
He used to touch her in that intimate way.
And then Paige turned to the man, and she smiled.
Not a polite, distant smile. Not the practiced kind she used on acquaintances or strangers.
It was warm. Soft.
It was real.
Walter's hands curled into fists at his sides.
He should look away. Shouldn't stand there like a fool, watching the way her body leaned ever so slightly toward this man. Shouldn't catalog the way her eyes crinkled at the corners, the way she reached out and touched the man's arm with that effortless intimacy she used to reserve for him.
But he did.
Because apparently, he was a masochist now.
Paige had moved on.
Just like he had told himself to do. Just like he had forced himself to do.
Except now, standing there, watching her exist in a world where he was nothing but a distant memory, he realized a hard truth.
He hadn't moved on. Not at all.
He was still right there. Stuck. Trapped in the past, in the remnants of a love he had convinced himself was necessary to let go of, no matter how desperate he'd been to hold onto it.
His throat tightened as Paige tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a habit he knew well, one he used to find endearing. But when she did it now, the man beside her leaned in, murmuring something too low to hear.
And Paige laughed.
Walter's stomach twisted violently.
She hadn't laughed like that in front of him in a long time.
How he missed the sound.
But then, as if she felt his stare, as if something inside her sensed him before she even saw him…
She turned.
Their eyes met.
And time stopped.
Her breath hitched, just for a fraction of a second. He saw it, the briefest pause in the easy rise and fall of her chest. A flicker of something unguarded, something real, something… wistful.
And then, the sadness.
It was there, just for an instant. The way her lips parted, like she wanted to say something but lost the words before they could form. The way her brow furrowed, barely noticeable to anyone else, but Walter saw it.
Because he knew her.
Still.
Even after all this time.
And for one agonizing, gut-wrenching moment, it felt like they were right back in the thick of it, like if he just stepped forward, just reached for her, just said something, the world would correct itself, and she would be his again.
But then… the man nudged her, speaking about something Walter had no care to register.
She blinked, and it was gone. Their moment ended.
Her expression smoothed over, her lips pressing into something unreadable. And just like that, she looked away.
And Walter let her.
Because what else could he do?
She wasn't his to call out to anymore.
She wasn't his at all.
He'd lost her. Lost everything.
And so, with lead in his limbs and the weight of every mistake he'd ever made pressing into his chest, Walter turned and walked away.
Even if it killed him.
He had to live with this heartbreak that he caused.