Everyone is confusing this issue...

As far as I see, this has nothing to do with delays or pauses.

All you seem to want is F4 to continue processing the script. This is easy:

Code:
alias f4 { do_work }
alias do_work { inc %var | echo -a I've done this %var times }


Base your "work" on the value that %var holds. Timers are not needed here.