When Love is not Enough
By Joan Powers
A/N: Don't get me wrong. I like Walter and Paige and I hated the manipulative season 4 Scorpion finale. Yet it got me thinking about the future for this couple. WARNING: Stop reading now if you need a happy ending. No flames please.
Rating: PG-13/K+
Timeline: post season 4 finale
Summary: Paige reviews her feelings about Walter after their breakup.
Paige hung up the phone and wearily rubbed her temple with her fingers. Another potential job lost. Although Team Centipede was highly qualified, it was having trouble getting off the ground.
She missed Scorpion. The exciting and dangerous (and often high-profile) jobs. The ability to truly help people. Getting paid on a semi-regular basis. The magical way the team came together, often in the midst of petty squabbles, to solve complex problems.
She couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was that Walter had brought to the table. It certainly wasn't his people skills. Happy, Toby and Sylvester were geniuses in their own right. Yet without Walter, the team was foundering.
Paige missed their Scorpion family. They'd been through so much together. They didn't always get along but that's what family was all about. Even though many of the original team members had formed Centipede, it didn't feel the same. Perhaps the wounds were still healing? Maybe they just needed time to rebuild trust and learn to work together within new parameters? Or maybe they'd become skittish about mixing work with their personal lives, since they'd been burned before?
And Ralph? It tore her apart to see him so despondent. Water had been such a wonderful role model for him.
Was her life any better now?
Had she made a mistake, ending her relationship with Walter and inadvertently destroying Team Scorpion?
Had she overreacted?
Compromise was part of relationships, she knew that. And men required some coaching – remembering birthdays and anniversaries, learning what was appropriate to wear to a football game versus a fancy dinner party, giving diplomatic responses to questions such as "does this dress make me look fat?" This was a given with every new relationship.
She cringed as she remembered her words to Walter.
I worked so hard at this experiment, Walter. I really did, but it is over.
She'd lashed out, in pain. Because it hurt. She'd poured everything she had into their relationship and then this happened? It was unacceptable.
She'd thought she was the less emotionally needy person in their relationship. That she had the balance of power due to her vastly superior social IQ. The fact that such a small slight could hurt her so badly showed her otherwise.
Her greatest fear was that she could never keep up intellectually with Walter. That he would eventually tire of her. Once the first bloom of love had faded, he would move on.
Yet, that wasn't the only factor for her to consider.
Her needs were important too.
Truth be told, I am completely exhausted trying to convince myself that you satisfy me!
As much as she loved Walter, she'd meant every word she'd said. He frustrated her. He barely tried to mesh with her friends. His feeble attempts were apparent and poor. To be fair, she wasn't interested in most of his passions. She'd barely passed high school algebra while Walter could spend hours contemplating numbers and functions. She'd been relieved when he'd mentioned that stupid lecture was cancelled. Relieved!
While it wasn't crucial for them to have everything in common, they needed some mutual interests. It drove her crazy when Walter constantly pointed out scientific inaccuracies in movies. He didn't care for the same music. He barely tolerated trying new foods and he avoided sporting events. While things were great in the bedroom, that alone wouldn't have been sufficient glue to cement a lasting relationship.
Scorpion had been their home, their family. She mourned the loss of it. But would it have been enough to keep the two of them together? Her doubts had fueled her reaction.
Ultimately as much as it hurt to consider, someone like Flo would be a better partner for Walter. Someone who shared his rabid intellectual curiosity. Someone who lacked the need for spontaneous gestures and romantic words.
She had over reacted to Walter's lie of omission – she knew that. It was foolish of her to endanger her employment. But it had been the last straw.
While Walter was highly intelligent, in other ways he was immature. That's why she'd been hired to work for Scorpion in the first place. She remembered how poorly he treated Tim – the small desk, the petty comments and blatant manipulations. Yet she'd continued to make excuses for Walter's behavior, believing he'd improve as he developed his social skills. He just needed mentoring and time.
Walter loved her, she had no doubts about that. And she loved him, deeply. But would they ever be able to truly connect? Was love enough?
Training Walter emotionally wasn't like getting her ex-husband to take out the trash and pick up his dirty socks. For an emotional response to be effective, it needed to be authentic. The Valentines' day barrage of gifts confirmed this. His song had been touching, although that was an exception in his case. The memory made her heart ache.
Most men upon walking in the door of their homes could immediately distinguish by their lover's expression if they were in the dog house. Of course they'd be clueless as to why, but they'd be fully aware that something was off. Under similar circumstances, Walter would just be clueless overall. And while she could train him to recognize these signs – to discern facial expressions and vocal tones, he'd never fully comprehend the emotions behind them.
Relationships require work to maintain. But this was too much. She was exhausted. Walter's lie was tipping point. It showed her that he would never be able to meet her emotional needs.
You hid it because you knew deep down you did something wrong.
Maybe he truly didn't realize what he was doing was wrong. And that made it even worse. She needed a partner that was mature – not the emotional equivalent of seventeen years old.
As much as the pain of their breakup lingered, she'd made the right decision. It was for the best. Eventually she'd actually feel it and be able to move on.
THE END