Chapter Text
Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.
Paige sucked in a breath, her lungs burning. That wasn't supposed to happen. That wasn't…
All the numbness she'd felt in the SUV dissolved into choking panic. They weren't supposed to die. And yet that was exactly what she knew would happen, had to know would happen, because why else would she stop Walter from getting to them?
Eighty-four seconds left, ticking by faster than it seemed like they should, and Walter had faced worse odds. He'd faced worse odds and succeeded. This wasn't the first bomb Scorpion had encountered. Not even the deadliest. I can outrun the blast radius in sixty-four seconds, but I have to get everyone off the second floor.
Typical Walter. Thinking about everyone but himself, his own survival of secondary importance, if any. That's cutting it close, Toby had muttered over the comms. If he has to stop to help someone, there's no way he'll make it out in time.
Nine people on the second floor of the research facility. Nine people who had kissed their families goodbye and driven to work, unaware that was the day a homegrown terrorist unit would send everything up in flames.
And the day Paige would let them.
Damnit. Walter swore. He never swore. Paige, the power surge locked the door. I can't open it from here. You need to enter the override code.
Her voice hadn't sounded right. It sounded like it was coming from someone else. I can't.
Her fingers hovered above the keypad, tears blurring her vision. 7-9-5-2-8. Entering it would be the easiest thing she'd ever done for a mission. Just like dialing a number on her old flip phone. What do you mean? The code isn't working?
Seventy-two seconds. His odds were dwindling. Her throat closed up.
Paige glanced up at the screen. The bunker door was secure. He'd followed one of the men down there before Toby realized, a second too late, that it was a distraction to mask the real location of the remote detonator. There wasn't enough time to reach and disarm the bomb, but Walter was confident that he could reverse the detonator's signal to stop the timer until the building was clear.
Sixty-six seconds. No detonator. Paige. Paige, talk to me!
She hadn't responded. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Walter called for the other team members, but Paige was the only person in the control center. Far enough to be safe from the blast. Too far to reach him in time.
Fifty-two seconds. The window was gone.
But he was safe where he was. The bunker was built to withstand explosions up to seven times the strength of this impact.
Maybe the nine had gotten out of their sealed lab. Gotten the message. Gotten to safety.
There was nothing Walter could do for them now, anyway.
He was still yelling her name through the comms when the ground shook underneath her.
She woke up the moment his feet touched the stairs.
Paige straightened in the bed, adjusting her loose blouse and smoothing her hair with her fingers. True to his instincts, Walter fled as soon as he was cleared by medics. He got into a car with Cabe and she let them go, knowing he would be safe with the agent while he cleared his head. He wasn't used to losing people. He hadn't done it in years.
In any other circumstances, he would find comfort in her. Cling to her like he'd done after every difficult case since they started dating. But that wouldn't happen tonight. One look at her and even with his limited EQ, he knew this wasn't a technical glitch. It was a choice—made out of fear, in the heat of the moment, but a conscious choice nonetheless.
"I'm not ready to talk to you." Paige jumped, startled to see him in the doorway of the loft, his hands shoved into his pockets. His stare was hard and for the second time that day she felt frozen in place. "Please go home."
She bit her lip. "Walter, I am...so, so sorry."
His bloodshot eyes dropped to the floor. Paige didn't know where he'd been all day, but he clearly hadn't slept. He looked ready to collapse. "Two people survived. They've found four bodies. The other three were unaccounted for as of ten minutes ago." The genius swallowed, his voice dying out for what felt like hours before he spoke again. "You had the code. You chose not to enter it."
Paige wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement. It didn't matter. She wouldn't lie to him. She couldn't reap the benefits of her decision—Walter's life—without also accepting the consequences. "Yes."
"I don't understand, Paige."
Of course he didn't. Time had been on his side. But not by enough.
She angled to face him, twisting her hands nervously in her lap. "I was trying to protect you," she said, her voice quiet but determined. "That bomb was going off no matter what we did and you were s-safe where you were."
Walter shook his head, still refusing to meet her eyes. "My calculations were correct. I had time to reach the second floor and evacuate the building before—."
"Maybe." The word barely made it out of her throat. "In a perfect world, maybe. But I couldn't take that risk. If you'd gotten out of that bunker, there was no way you would have left any of those people behind. Saving them could have cost you your life."
"So we let them die instead?"
Nausea bubbled in Paige's stomach. Scorpion had failed to save people before, but the ones paying the price were usually criminals. Not civilians, not innocents. And never this many at once. "We tried to warn them. There's no guarantee you would have been able to reach them in time. Get them out." She curled her fingers into her palms, suddenly aware that she was shaking. "Maybe we were just going to lose this one, Walter."
"That wasn't your call," the genius said sharply. "As the leader of this team, I made a decision based on facts that you overruled because of an illogical—."
"Illogical?" she snapped, her visceral reaction surprising even her. "Have you ever stopped to think that you were being illogical? Telling yourself you were capable of saving everyone when you weren't? You're so convinced that they would be alive if you left the bunker, but you don't know that."
"Nine lives to one, Paige. Regardless of the outcome, those odds were worth fighting for. I've accepted an equivalent amount of risk to save one life, and you have never tried to stop me before."
"I know. I know." She couldn't explain it. The paralyzing fear. The split-second indecision. The selfishness of prioritizing Walter's survival above others, even though she knew it was the last thing he would want. She couldn't defend it. It just was. "I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say but I'm sorry. And I don't expect you to understand right now, but maybe once this all cools down, you'll be able to—."
"No."
The word slammed into her, sucked the air out of her lungs, made her ache all at once. "No what?" she asked, which was stupid. She already knew the answer.
"You want me to understand why you did what you did. But I can't." Walter set his jaw, every muscle in his body tensed as he stared past her to the wall. "You went against everything Scorpion stands for. Everything I believe in. I don't know how to accept that."
I don't know how to forgive you. That was what he really meant. Paige stifled the sob in her chest. "Walter, please." He finally looked at her, his stoicism cracking slightly at the sight of her barely holding it together. "Haven't you done stupid things to save me? Things that put our missions at risk? I will always carry the guilt of today with me. Forever. But you're alive, and if I'm a horrible person for caring about that more than anything else, then so be it. I need you, Walter. Always." Her hand was still trembling as she placed it on her abdomen. "But especially right now."
The abrupt shift in his expression told her he knew exactly what she was implying. "You..."
"Yeah." She pressed her lips together, her other hand covering the first. "I'm pregnant, Walter."