Paige sensed his presence more than heard it.
She looked up from her desk-even in the modern, high-tech world she inhabited, paperwork remained a burden-and saw him standing a few feet away.
"How long have you been standing there?"
"Not long," Walter said, taking a few cautious steps towards her.
But when he saw her smile, he seemed to relax, and mirrored her expression.
The Garage was abnormally quiet that afternoon- Happy and Toby had taken Ralph to Knottsberry Farm (an amusement park), Sylvester was checking out a new comic book store, and Cabe was on assignment in San Diego- So that left Paige and Walter (to Toby's excitement) alone.
For a majority of the day, Walter had been upstairs, working on something.
What it was exactly, was anyone's guess.
Paige had been catching up on paperwork, as she had been trying to motivate herself for the past week to do so.
"Are you almost done?" Walter asked shyly, clasping his hands behind his back.
Paige looked down at the small stack of papers in front of her, then met his gaze again.
"Um, about. Why?"
Walter glanced around the Garage.
"I was-I was, um, wondering if you wanted to, um, if you would like to go to the beach? I was going to collect some samples for a project I'm working on, and it would be more enjoyable if you went, too."
And then he quickly added, "But you don't have to if you don't want to."
Paige looked at her documents once more, then rose to her feet.
Smiling she said, "I would love to."
They took Paige's car, with the windows rolled down all the way.
Walter smiled at Paige, who was laying on her propped-up arms, a peaceful expression on her face.
Walter wished she would look like this more often.
Carefree, relaxed, and young.
(Not that she looked old most of the time.)
She looked as if all the problems in the world were far away, and for this moment, they were.
They arrived at the beach a few minutes later, and Walter was disappointed to see Paige being disturbed.
He would have driven around all of Southern California if Paige would've remained like she was moments ago.
But she hopped up as if her seat was on fire, slamming the door.
Before Walter knew what she was doing, Paige had kicked off her sandals and was literally almost skipping through the sand.
Scratch the peaceful expression in the car, Paige looked even happier here.
"I haven't been to the beach in forever. I feel like it's has been calling my name."
She smiled.
If this had been a few years ago, Walter would've argued that the beach isn't alive, so it couldn't 'call her name', but it was 2017, not 2014, and Walter understood figure of speech.
Walter took his samples quickly, placed them in the car, and hightailed it back to where he had left Paige.
He hadn't missed much; she was still standing almost motionless in the water, letting it wash up onto her feet.
