Characters/Pairing: Paige Dineen, Walter O'Brien, Paige/Walter
Summary: It's late, or early, Paige gets Walter to take a break.
Author's Note: Written for the prompt 'any, any, Don't want to close my eyes / I don't want to fall asleep / 'Cause I'd miss you, babe / And I don't want to miss a thing (Aerosmith)' at comment_fic. Spoilers for season 1.

looking at you looking at me: shallowness

"Walter," Paige says. He blinks and his eyes focus on her, away from the screen of his laptop, which is something. "You need to take a break."

"I will," he says.

"No, now," Paige insists, keeping her voice low. Sylvester is lying asleep on the couch of the hotel room they appropriated as their base seveal hours ago. "You've stopped typing for a while. Nothing has beeped. You can take a break."

"I was thinking," he says.

She rolls her eyes.

"You'll think better if you've rested. At least get a breath of fresh air."

She's repeating words that she's used to him, to Ralph, to all of her geniuses before. Walter is still looking at her. It would be unnerving if he didn't have this habit of looking at her in a very Walter O'Brien way and if his eyes weren't too tired to do anything other than fix on an object, be it code on a screen or an ex-waitress who looks like she's been up for too many hours.

To her surprise, Walter accepts her argument and makes a move to get up. Paige feels vindicated when she sees how unco-ordinated his movements are, his body stiff from staying in the same position too long.

She collects some juice and a grain bar she bought earlier. She has to stop and think when that was, 'earlier' seems so long ago. It was morning, when Cabe said, "We've got a long day ahead of us," and she took the opportunity to buy some snacks, while everyone else looked for what Happy wanted in the general store they had to make do with.

She leads Walter out to the balcony and hands him the food and drink. Sometimes taking care of someone is as basic as bringing them back in touch with the essentials of life from whatever digital world they've lost themselves in. Walter did explain what his part in the new plan was, but Paige didn't take it in.

"You haven't rested either," Walter observes, after drinking a long gulp of the juice and biting into the bar.

She shrugs, looking out over the other wing of the hotel to the night sky. There's too much light pollution to see the stars without a telescope. She wishes this mission were over and they were all safe on the garage's roof, star-gazing.

"Someone has to keep watch," she says vaguely. She's sure that Happy, Toby and Cabe are capable of getting where they need to be and executing their part of the plan at daybreak, and she knows Ralph is safe back in LA. But Sly was dozing and Walter was hacking and not fully aware of his surroundings, although he's just proved that even so, he picks up plenty. She just thought someone should be on the alert, even though Sly calculated the probability of their being followed as slim, and relaxed enough to go to sleep. There have been too many bad guys bursting in on them in the past. She's not sure what she would do if it happened here, but it made her feel better that she stayed awake, watching Walter.

She sneaks a glance at Walter now, and he's doing it again. Looking at her. When he does this, Paige usually finds it safest to pretend it doesn't mean anything.

She must be tired and over-caffeinated, because right now she wants it to mean something. She knows Walter cares for her, she knows she matters to him, but she doesn't know exactly where she stands with the most brilliant man she's met in her life.

Still, dozens of people, who may or may not be sleeping in their beds right now, are depending on Scorpion.

"You should finish that bar if you're going back to it," she says, "even if it tastes awful."

"It's not that bad, actually," Walter responds. There's a half-smile on his lips, and Paige is not staring, not remembering a kiss in a hospital room. So, when Walter breaks off the part of the bar he's bitten into, and offers the remaining half to her, her eyes aren't drawn away from anywhere in particular.

"We should share the rations," he says.

"Thank you, Walter," she says, acknowledging the reference, and takes the proffered food. And maybe it's because it's late, or early, and they're both tired and clumsy, but their fingers brush against each other, and Paige feels that tingle that she probably shouldn't. But it's there. And she has no idea if Walter feels it too, or can read her response on her face. She sucks in a breath.

There's a beep from the laptop. One of the alarms has gone off.

"Did you hear that?" she asks.

"Yes," he replies, and they both get back to work.