AN: This is fluff. This is also future-fic. This is essentially future-fic fluff. (Completely different tone from the previous one, by the way.)
Oh, and anyone else think that Walter's kind of like Spock?
He was never going to be romantic.
She knew it, from the very beginning.
He'd told her as such, when they started officially moving from friends and colleagues to something more. (She would never forget that pros and cons list.)
And besides, it was obvious, because he was like no other man she'd ever met. (And would ever meet- it sounds like an exaggeration, but he did compute the probabilities for her, and he agrees. He discounted Ralph, of course.)
He doesn't buy her jewellery or flowers. (But, after one...well, embarrassing and rage-inducing incident, he is quite sensitive, for him at least, around her time of the month. And during that time, she always seems to find a banana and a bar of chocolate on her desk every day.)
He refuses to celebrate Valentine's Day. Commercialized, completely ridiculous interpretation of a Christian holiday, which was in turn a modified Pagan fertility rite, which had no scientific basis by the way, that has been recast by Hollywood and florists and greeting card manufacturers and chocolate producers for their benefit! (But, before they start living together, he comes over to her place, or she goes to his, at least twice a week, and it's just him, her and Ralph- watching/dissecting movies, stargazing or playing games- and it's like they're a normal, almost Hollywood, fairytale family- well at least as normal a family as one with two geniuses can be.)
He doesn't understand anniversaries, and doesn't consider birthdays significant. (But he never forgets one, and he does celebrate, in a low-key, awkward fashion that she's come to view as him for her sake.)
It's the most interesting marriage proposal she's ever received (and will ever receive). Flowcharts and pros and cons lists and supporting calculations, excerpts from highly rated peer-reviewed journals and decision trees...and photos of their cyclone, photos of the two of them with Ralph, him asking her son for his blessing (despite knowing his thoughts on having Walter as his real, legal father), that earnest nervousness, fear, insecurity (such an unusual look on his face) when he'd asked, the blush on his cheeks when she'd teasingly suggested you should have known I would have said yes, genius (and what he'd whispered into her ear in response: There is a distinction between knowing and believing with absolute certainty.) And that diamond ring he'd made her, with assistance from Happy, from scratch (diamond and all- because diamonds and jewellery are horrendously overpriced and if he was going to spend money on such a frivolous object, he was going to minimize the cost), just because he knew she would want one (after all- engagement rings were fairly pointless; while they did signal a woman was in a committed relationship, they were quickly replaced with another that served the same purpose, thus they did not justify their cost. Regardless, she got one. Toby attributes the decision to 'jealous caveman Walter'.)
He is like no other man she will ever meet.
He is like no other man she has ever dated.
He is Walter.
And that is why she loves him.
(And, she loves him regardless, but he might actually be a little bit romantic.)