Here To Stay update still coming soon! I'm just in a better groove with this one right now and given how sporadic and unreliable my energy is I've found it's best to go with whatever is easiest at the time.
There was something different about them.
Ralph could tell as soon as he walked in the door. His mother was sitting at the kitchen table, looking through a magazine, and Walter was behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders as he leaned over, studying the page she had open.
"Hi guys," he said, almost before they turned to look at him. "What are you reading?"
"Magazine your mother stole from Cabe."
"I did not steal it," Paige said, then looked at Ralph and raised her eyebrows. "Stealing is unacceptable."
In this moment, Ralph was almost amused at how strong her instinct to mother was. "Got it. What's it about?"
Paige lifted her eyebrows. "Vacation destinations," she said in a voice that suggested something scandalous.
"I don't follow, Mom."
"It's what we think he's going to do," Walter said. "You know, Allie."
"We're by ourselves," Ralph said, "what's with the secrecy? We've been thinking he's going to ask her to marry him for months now."
"And this magazine," Paige said, "is more evidence!"
Ralph rolled his eyes. "Have fun with that, Mom."
"How was your sleepover?" She asked.
"Good. Fun. I taught him how to get around the parental controls on his dad's laptop. Which isn't anything that I would ever do here," he added quickly, noting that the proud look on Walter's face was not mirrored on his mother's. He walked down the hall and entered his room, slinging his overnight bag onto the mattress, then laying down next to it and stretching out on his back. The sleepover had been fun, but no one ever slept well at them. He was feeling a little achy and he wished he could stay on his mattress all morning.
"You want some breakfast?" Walter appeared at his bedroom door. "We just had toast, but I've gotten pretty good at pancakes if that's what you wanted."
Ralph sat up. "Is my mom pregnant?"
Walter blinked, glanced down the hall, then entered Ralph's room, closing the door behind him. "No, Ralph. She's not."
Ralph nodded. "Oh. You guys seemed happier this morning than you have been lately. And she especially seemed brighter. So I wondered." He hesitated. "So things are better with you and her?"
Walter cocked his head, furrowing his brow in the way that he always did when he was trying to pretend that he didn't know what Ralph was talking about. "What do you mean?"
"Like, I know that you guys haven't been the same recently. I may not know the details…and I really don't want to know them…but things were different somehow."
"Were you worried?" Walter asked, sitting down next to him. "I'm sorry if we scared you."
Ralph exhaled through his nose. "You're never going to leave us. I know that."
"Good. I'm glad you know that. Because you're right." Walter smiled. "You two are stuck with me."
A corner of Ralph's mouth turned up. "Just don't be so caught up in this baby thing that you guys forget you already have a kid. I haven't been seeing much of you guys lately. At least, not as much as I'd like."
Ralph almost felt guilty at the look on Walter's face. He hadn't intended for the older genius to feel bad. Truth be told, he'd liked having some extra time to himself lately. But he had been starting to miss them.
"I'm sorry, Ralph," Walter said. "The last thing either of us wanted to do was make you feel like you'd taken a back burner."
"I don't think that," Ralph said. "I just know what it's like to be so obsessed with achieving a goal. I've seen it before. People lose themselves." He drew his knees up to his chest. "I don't want that to happen to you or my mom."
Walter placed his hand on Ralph's back. "It won't. I promise. I know…I know that I've gotten close to that in the past. But I'm better than that now, okay? You make me better. You and your Mom."
Ralph smiled. Walter had a very reassuring smile. It had been making him feel better for years. "Good." He shifted his weight. "I love you, Walter."
"I love you too, buddy."