This is my first ever fan fiction! I'm super excited. This chapter is kind of short but I will be posting frequently.
Please enjoy and review!
Disclaimer: I don't own Scorpion.
Walter O'Brien had just finished eating his breakfast when he plopped down in front of his laptop. He took a small sip from his boiling hot coffee before siting it on the desk.
Walter flipped the laptop open. It booted up quickly, since the geniuses owned the latest technology. His backdrop forced a little smile out of him. It was a picture of Scorpion's Christmas gathering. Paige had pressured the group into letting her take a big family photo, as she had called it. All of the geniuses disliked posing for cameras and were reluctant to agree, but after Paige emailed the picture to each of them, Walter knew for a fact that he was far from being the only one with it as a back drop.
In the photo he was standing next to Paige, his hand on Ralph's shoulder. Ralph was nestled in between the two of them. Both him and Walter beamed at the camera. Walter had a wide smile that he had spent years perfecting and modeling, trying to make his smile look 'normal'. But Paige wasn't even looking at the camera, which was strange, since she wanted the photo so bad. She had her face turned to look at Walter. There was a strange expression on her face that Walter could never completely understand, no matter how much time he spent looking at it (and he had spent a lot). She smiled, and though it was not as polished, or as big, as the smile on Walters face, it was incredibly real. So real that just looking at it had caused Walter to smile widely.
Walter tried to break away from his trance. He had spent too many mornings trying to analyze Paige's expression in the photo. Today, he was planning on doing more research on MS to help Megan, but first checked his email. He would be hesitant to work on an assignment that wasn't from Cabe Gallo after what happened in Vegas, but it never hurt to check. He noticed a strange email, with an unfamiliar address. The subject was simply 'Walter'. He opened it to find it was coated from top to bottom in numbers.
To the untrained eye, those numbers seemed random, but Walter's 197 IQ perked up as he scrolled through the numbers and he immediately noticed something. After fiddling mentally with the vague, complicated pattern, he discovered something. An equation, half solved, encrypted cleverly into the thousands of digits before his eyes. The smile that Paige had inadvertently given Walter melted away like ice under fire. Walter wanted to solve it. Walter had to solve it. And so his descent had begun.
"Hey guys," Paige greeted everyone. She held subway bags on her arms and an exhausted smile on her face. "I've got lunch."
Everyone rushed to the table to start dig in. Paige handed Happy a napkin, trying subtly to point out the black grease that was streaked down her collar bone. The mechanic took the napkin, a ghost of a smile on her mouth. Paige recognized the appreciation and smiled.
Paige helped hand out each genius their subs, trying to start casual conversation by talking about Ralph, but Sylvester and Toby went a little rigid when she mentioned Drew. She knew that the two of them didn't like him, or trust him with ralph, but they knew she wasn't going to remind them again about how it was none of their business. Happy was silent through the entire painful and awkward discussion, eating silently.
"Where's Walter?" Paige asked once she noticed his neglected sandwich, still wrapped and sitting on the table.
"Working upstairs." Happy said before taking a massive bite out of her sandwich, finishing it off. Toby gawked at her, wondering how a tiny girl could stuff so much into her mouth.
Paige grabbed Walters sandwich and headed up the stairs. She saw Walter scribbling rapidly across a black board. Paige didn't even know Walter had a black board up there.
"Hey," Paige greeted him. She walked beside him to watch him work. "I'd ask what you're doing, but it would probably be easier to finish it than explain it to me." Paige offered the small joke as a bit of an experiment, not as unlike the ones Walter did as she thought. She was still hoping he would become more human.
Walter didn't respond at all, in fact he didn't even look at Paige. Paige frowned. Once, she would have thought that was rude, but now she knew that's how the geniuses worked. Unintentionally rude, because they didn't know any better. (Except for Toby who was intentionally rude quite frequently)
"I brought you lunch." Paige said. "Foot long teriyaki chicken? Extra lettuce." Walter still did nothing to show he even knew Paige was there. "I'll just put it on the table, then."
Paige walked down the stairs and walked up to the team that was still eating their subs at the dining table. "Do you know what's up with Walter? He seems pretty off."
Toby shrugged. "Maybe it's his sister, or he's working, or..." Toby's voice trailed off as his eyes wandered away from Paige's.
Paige sighed. "I don't think Walter cares that much about Drew, Toby."
Toby raised his eyebrows. "I disagree, but he understands that the time to be expressive about that particular mess has passed, so that's probably not it. What seemed off about him?"
"I don't know, he wouldn't even acknowledge I was there when I was talking to him. It was like he didn't even hear me."
Sylvester and Happy exchanged looks. "What was he doing?" Sylvester asked nervously.
"Working on a black board." Paige said, frowning. The geniuses had quickly become more anxious. "What's wrong?"
"Not good, not good, not good." Sylvester muttered as the three of them ran up the stairs, leaving Paige on the bottom floor. She chased after them.
"Walter?" Happy called as they all approached him and his board.
"Oh no, it's that blackboard." Sly muttered.
"What's wrong with that?" Paige asked.
"He usually only pulls it out if he stressed, or extraordinarily concentrated on something." Sylvester wrung the bottom of his sweater in his hands while he spoke.
"Walter?" Toby stood right next to him. "Walter, what are you doing?"
Walter continued working, ignoring all of their presences. He looked like a robot. Any hint of emotion he had before had been drained out of him. Before, it had worried Paige slightly. But while he remained expressionless, surrounded by frantic geniuses, Paige watched the situation completely freaked out.
"Walter. You need to snap out of it, man. Have you even had breakfast?" Toby said loudly. He hauled his friend away from the board, forcing him to sit down in a chair. Sly handed him the sub.
Walter took the sub, but only held it in his hands. He was muttering quietly to himself.
"What's he saying?" Paige asked.
"It's just gibberish." Happy said, clearly growing more and more frustrated.
"Ok, what is going on?" Paige asked. Sly looked exceptionally nervous. Toby actually looked unsure of himself for once, and Happy just looked disappointed and more pissed off than usual.
"He's gone down the rabbit hole." Toby finally admitted.
Thanks for reading! Reviews are very appreciated. I am new to this, and I'd love any advice or input on my story and how to better it.