BUDDING GENIUS
AN: Few men know how attractive being a great dad is to a mom. It's pretty irresistible. One of the things that first drew me to Scorpion was Walter's relationship with Ralph. I loved that so much, I decided he needed to have a biological kid too. Happy Father's Day! Hope you enjoy.
P.S. I wrote this kind of quick. I'm hoping it's not too sappy. But what's life without a little sap?
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Sometimes you do everything right and things go wrong anyway.
When Paige was pregnant with Ralph, she didn't even know for sure until she was over two months in. Plus, being a very young mom following a baseball player meant her prenatal check-ups were sporadic and her diet consisted heavily of hot dogs, peanuts, fries, milkshakes and other junk food she could scrounge up at one ballpark or other. Consequently, when they were told Ralph had developmental delays, she'd worried it was her fault.
So when she and Walter decided to have another child, she was determined to follow the rulebook to the letter. Anything she ate or drank was meticulously screened for possible harmful effects. She checked and rechecked her seatbelt every time she got into a vehicle to make sure it was positioned just so around her rapidly disappearing hipbones. She chose to forgo medicine when she came down with a cold during her second trimester even though the obstetrician told her certain over the counter drugs would be okay. What was a little discomfort compared to her child's safety?
Even so, a sonogram late in the pregnancy not only revealed – to their absolute delight - they were having a little girl, it also showed she had a cleft lip and possibly a cleft palate as well.
Walter, in true Walter fashion, read every article that ever existed about the condition. He was very practical about the whole thing. Paige simply worried about what it might mean and hid behind a brave front. She tried to prepare herself, but after the baby was born, she still cried when she found out she couldn't nurse her new daughter. The anxious parents had to feed her through a tube until her poor little mouth could be surgically repaired.
Her husband was a rock throughout the process. He paid careful attention to every detail the pediatrician told him about the best sleeping positions to keep her from aspirating to cleaning and sterilizing the specialized feeding equipment. So much so, they let the baby go home with them sooner than anticipated.
In a low moment, after several long nights taking turns sleeping upright with their little girl propped on their chests, a teary-eyed Paige asked Walter if he was disappointed or if he regretted his decision to become a father. She'd been filled with those same old insecurities again. Drew taught her that fathers sometimes leave their kids when things get too complicated.
"No. Why would I be disappointed?" He looked at his wife with true confusion, a fuzzy little head nestled under his chin, one chubby fist tightly clutching one of his fingers. "I could never be disappointed in any child of mine just because she's different or difficult. She's the child I've got and I'd never reject her or regret having her. Not ever."
Paige kissed him then, feeling herself fall even deeper into love with this strange, beautiful man. He was already so fiercely proud and protective. Of course he wouldn't regret or reject their child. After all, he knew exactly how that felt.
Several years and a few surgeries later, their sweet little girl's lip looked mostly normal. It still sported a thin scar and her nose was a bit crooked on one side, but her parents had stopped seeing those tiny imperfections years ago. All they saw was the daughter they both adored.
So, when she came home from her first day of school quiet and sad, Paige couldn't imagine what had gone wrong. And no matter how much she tried to coax an answer from her dejected little girl, she couldn't get her to open up.
When she wouldn't come out of her room for dinner, Walter told Paige he would try talking to her. In his mind, every problem has a solution. The mother in Paige wasn't so sure and followed him, peeping around the door frame when he approached their daughter.
She was lying on her bed hugging her favorite stuffed animal tightly, sniffling into its matted fur.
Her father sat on the edge of the bed and brushed a strand of tear-dampened hair behind her ear. "Sweetheart? Do you want to tell me what happened at school today?"
She shook her head emphatically against her pillow, tangling her dark curly hair around her face again.
"Hey. You know, Uncle Toby says talking about things makes them seem less terrible. You can tell me." He rubbed her back in soothing circles.
"Daddy? Do you think I'm ugly?" The earnest little face looked squarely into his.
Genuinely taken aback, Walter answered, "No!" Then more gently he asked, "Did someone tell you that?"
She gave a slight nod, then she sat up and climbed into her father's lap, worming her arms around his neck. "A mean boy told me my mouth was ugly," she whispered.
His eyes caught Paige's across the room before turning his focus back to his child. "Hey. Look at me. Do you think I'm ugly?"
"No." She shook her head and watched raptly as her father pointed to the scar that bisected his own lips, the one he'd gotten years ago from shrapnel in a lab experiment that went very wrong.
"You and I, we match. See? And as you get older that scar on your lip will fade just like mine did. But guess what? If that mean kid doesn't stop saying unkind things like that, he'll get uglier and uglier on the inside and it won't ever go away."
As Dad and daughter embraced, Paige backed into the hall swiping at a lone tear that had escaped. Just when she thought she couldn't love him any more, he proved to her she could.
Making Walter O'Brien a father was one thing she could say she'd gotten absolutely right for both of her kids.