Chapter Text
They were almost free. Walter pushed through the underbrush and made a path that Paige could follow. He knew she was strong and capable, but she was also more tired than him and had suffered more during their confinement. But he’d found a way out, and the team should be nearby by now, and if he could get her there before she collapsed of exhaustion, he’d call that a win.
“Walter--” something caught at the back of his shirt. Her hand, fumbling.
He turned just as she stumbled, and he caught her before she fell, but something was not right, he felt it in the very cores of his bones something that he would have called impossible and illogical if not for the fact of what it felt like. “Paige.”
His hand was on her face before he could think whether or not he should do that, and he tried to catch her eyes.
“The poison,” she said, one arm clamped around her stomach, the other knotting into his shirt, her knuckles white. “He said he’d poisoned me, that it had a time limit--I felt fine, I didn’t believe him--Walter--”
This time when he said her name, it sounded frantic and distant in his own ears, like someone else was talking, but he didn’t have time to worry about it because Paige was failing. He knees went out, and she collapsed into his arms, her head lolling and her eyes rolling up into her head as all the color went out of her face. Walter let her weight take them both to the ground and barely controlled it enough not to hurt either of them.
She hadn’t said anything about poison.
He’d taken first aid classes when they first started taking these dangerous cases, and he was as good at emergency response as a layman could be, but his hands were shaking as he checked her pulse, as he lowered his ear over her face to hear if she was breathing, and his heart was beating too fast to accurately count her pulse. All that mattered was that she still had one.
How long had she been feeling it’s effects? Why hadn’t she said anything?
Why hadn’t he thought to look back and make sure she was alright?
They’d been captured three days ago on a case, and most of that time, they’d been separated, questioned. The syndicate in question had kept him awake for two of those days, and he was half-mad with it before he’d had to figure out a way out. Paige had been thrown back into his room last night, and she’d been crying and exhausted, but there hadn’t been so much as a cuffmark or slash of rope burn, and she’d said they never laid a hand on her.
No, but they poisoned her to use her against him. Against herself. And he’d broken them out and signaled the team without finding out if there were other things to consider, extenuating circumstances that made the plan untenable.
No, he couldn’t panic. He could go totally insane, or sleep, or punch a wall until his hands were bloody when they got home, when everyone was safe. Now, he needed to think.
She had a pulse, and it was slow because she was unconscious, but it was there and it was steady for now.
Her breathing was shallow, but it didn’t sound obstructed when he laid his ear on her chest and listened to several too-fast-for-an-unconscious-person breaths.
Her skin was pale and cold, and there was sweat forming on her brow and the hollow of her throat.
He wished he had a way to reach Toby. Toby would know what to do. But wishing got him nowhere, while staying here left them open to being caught by whoever might have followed them out. Walter took two deep breaths to get himself under control, and lifted her in his arms and went back to pushing through the underbrush. She felt heavier than she should have; he was more worn down than he’d thought, and this stab of adrenaline gave him the strength to carry on, but he could already feel his muscles shaking with fatigue, and when it wore off, he’d hardly be able to hold himself up, let alone her.
He only had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
The walk was harrowing. Every step, he could have fallen, could have dropped her, could have tripped and fallen on top of her, could have passed out, the dots around the edges of his vision taking over more and more of his view. But then he reached a clearing, and the sun dazzled his eyes, and people ran toward him, yelling.
“She’s been poisoned,” he said, and it was Toby who was taking her weight out of his arms, Happy catching him before he could fall, Cabe pulling his other arm over his shoulder and more dragging than leading him back to the helicopter parked but not powered down across the clearing.
He didn’t make it to the seat before he was out.