WriterFreak001:
Three days later, I still cannot get over that midseason finale! O_O It was so intense and magical! I have re-watched it every day since Monday and will continue to do so until January 5th is here! XD
GUESS WHAT?! I made a Scorpion Twitter account. Just type in WF001Scorpion, and the account should pop up! :) Please follow me! (This time, I'll be able to follow you too! :))
A note to anybody who has read my BATB fanfictions: I am in the process of re-reading Defying the Stars. It was a lot longer than I anticipated so it will be at least a week or so until the next update for DTS. If you have any questions or concerns, please speak to me via PM.
Thanks!
Title | Deception
Fandom | Scorpion (CBS)
Description | It did not take a genius for Walter O'Brien to know there was a connection between him and Paige; with each day, the pull between them – whatever it might be – grew stronger, but when Drew came into the picture, it threw Walter in for a loop. Of all of the things he had ever foreseen, he never predicted Ralph's father's untimely arrival. More importantly, Drew seemed to be hiding something; can Walter and his team discreetly investigate Paige's ex without her finding out? What will Walter do with what he finds? Find out and see.
Rating| This fanfiction will be rated K+ for brain stuff and fluff.
POV | Third Person Omniscient
Disclaimer | While CBS owns Scorpion, I am the owner of this masterpiece.
Claimer | I am human; there are bound to be mistakes. If you feel like something should be changed, you have the power to send me a review/private message. I can't guarantee if I'll change it every time, but I do read all of my reviews and all of my private messages!
Deception
Written by WriterFreak001
Chapter 12
~ SCORPION ~
Two weeks had passed since Paige was released from the hospital, and Walter could tell that the last mission she had been on had affected her greatly. Until her psychiatrist cleared her to return to the field, she was not to attend any of the missions. Toby had volunteered to psychoanalyze her, but Cabe suggested for Paige to see someone who had an impersonal relationship with her - someone like the last woman they had all had to see after the painting fiasco. Walter figured it was the best tactic as well. Even though Toby would most likely clear Paige after a day (and even though Walter inwardly wished Paige could be cleared adequately fast), he also wanted Paige to seek the help she needed so when the time came for her to be reinstated, she would be at her optimal level. He was conflicted. Cabe had to, in a way, fill in for Paige since he was better at handling the emotional side of the job, and, at times, Megan helped too – only if the job was simple and had nothing to do with terrorists or real threats.
With Paige out of commission, going on missions felt off for Walter. He was used to her company, and even though he could communicate better with Toby, Happy and Sylvester, talking with Paige in the van was refreshing. She had a way of breaking him out of his constant thinking; her presence alone was enough to drag him out of the rabbit hole most times. Not always, but most.
Luckily, her absence on the missions did not equate to being absent from the Cyclone. She still brought Ralph over every morning before he went to school. Once, the three of them went out for ice cream after Ralph was done with his lessons for the day. Unlike the last time, Drew didn't intervene during their outing, but he did make his presence at the Cyclone a few times. Luckily, Paige and Ralph weren't present whenever he arrived; there was enough stress on Paige from her last mission; Walter didn't want Drew's presence to regress all of the progress Paige had made in therapy.
Walter still wasn't sure how he felt about Drew's presence; it was something he had to put aside and analyze later – once he collected more data on the man. So far, all of Drew's spontaneous appearances wasn't doing him any favors. If Cabe or Toby hadn't been there to kindly escort Ralph's father out of the Cyclone, Walter didn't know how he would have reacted around him. Most of the time, when he did have feelings towards something, they were usually feelings of anger and were very unstable – out of control (Like the time he rammed into that young hacker when the governor's daughter was dying or when, years ago, he had a knack for drag racing). Taking on intense cases and throwing crockery usually helped him meditate, but every once in a while, his anger was executed in a destructive way – usually towards the criminals his team takes down.
But that did not excuse Drew from being a potential victim to Walter's anger; that was why Walter figured it was best for other members of the team to handle Drew's drop-ins in order to avoid doing something he would regret later. Much, much later. After the second drop-in, Cabe suggested that it was best to keep Drew's consistent pestering a secret from Paige until she was better, but when Walter remembered making a promise to tell Paige everything when things were about Drew, the 197 IQ Genius advised against it. In fact, he was on his way to pick Paige up from Dr. Cassandra Davis's office and tell her himself.
When he arrived at the psychiatrist's office, he sat down in the waiting room and waited for Paige to finish with her session. It was a good thing the day was going slow and that there weren't any cases, otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to pick her up. She usually drove herself to her appointments, but Cabe had offered to drop her off on his way to Homeland, and knowing Paige, Walter knew she couldn't refuse. Toby assumed that Cabe offering to drop Paige off to the clinic was his way of wanting to discreetly check up on her and see how she was doing. Walter, however, had to wonder if it was about something else. He would have to sit down and analyze it later.
After staring at the gaudy wall with poorly tessellated rhombuses painted over the yellow plaster, Walter forced himself to look away from it. Otherwise, he would find himself walking up there with a Sharpie Marker in order to correct the embarrassing misrepresentation of argyle pattern. He closed his eyes and leaned back into his chair before spotting a TIME magazine featuring Google and its two-factor authentication method that was laying on the table in front of him.
With nothing better to do (meaning, doing anything to keep him from staring at that atrocious wall), Walter leaned forward, picked up the magazine and started thumbing through the pages. He quickly read through the four page article discussing the ins and outs of the two-factor authentication method that Google had somewhat recently adopted, and then rolled his eyes as he tossed it back onto the coffee table. "Idiots," he muttered. "As if that really protects an account."
He could hack into someone's Google account in milliseconds; two-factor authentication or no two-factor authentication. And people actually trusted those sorts of things…. The only firewall or security software Walter trusted were the ones programmed by himself. He'd like to see Google try and crack his codes one day; he doubted that the smartest technician onsite could successfully hack into any program created by Walter. Collins came close, once, dare Walter to ever admit it, but that was a very long time ago. Walter's programming had very much improved since then.
He started staring at the pattern on the wall again and sighed. "Okay, this is just depressing." He stood up, walked over to the front desk and waited for the assistant to finish her conversation on the phone before calling for her attention. "Excuse me?"
"May I help you?" The assistant smiled and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
"I hope so," Walter nodded and then stepped back towards the yellow wall. "I couldn't help but notice the pattern along the wall, and –"
"Oh, you like the diamonds too?" Her voice was squeaky and annoying. Walter made note to make the conversation as brief as possible.
"No. Actually, diamonds – in the geometric sense – do not exist. These horribly painted shapes," he moved his hands along the wall, oblivious of the visitors watching him, "are called rhombuses, and this pattern – at least, the true representation – is called argyle. May I suggest for you to contact the owner and tell them to have someone paint over the pattern; it is quite distracting. Argyle is what's known as a type of tangram, and the pattern is supposed to tessellate. The vertices don't properly align, the angles are irregular and the lines are completely crooked. Clearly, someone doesn't know how to use a ruler." Walter folded his arms in front of his chest and pressed his lips together as the assistant stared blankly at him. "Basically," he pointed back towards the wall, "the pattern on the wall is absolutely atrocious."
The assistant blinked once. Then twice. "Is there…," she cleared her throat, "anything else I can do for you?"
"No. That would be all." Walter replied and then turned around to find Paige standing behind him with her foot tapping against the tiled floor. "Hi."
"Hey," she raised an eyebrow. "Care to tell me what that was all about?"
"I saw a problem so I decided to offer a solution." Walter shrugged and jammed his hands into his pockets.
"Sometimes, Walter," Paige sighed, "it's best to keep your opinions to yourself. Remember, not many people think like you do, Walter. If you read the sign printed next to the wall, you would have realized that the wall was painted by students from a disability school." Paige casually touched his arm and pulled him over towards the sign he obviously missed.
He looked at the wall again and accounted for the disabled artists. He pressed his lips to a fine line and thought about the times bullies at school had made fun of his sister's artwork. Walter never had an appreciation for art, but he appreciated the effort his sister had put into her drawings; she had worked on them for days and nights even when she was in pain. Her effort and persistence is what gave the artwork value. Not the actual representation. He factored in that scenario into the present one and realized his error.
He turned to the assistant and said, "While I'm not sorry that I said the pattern was atrocious – because it is, I do admire the hard work and persistence of the disabled students who took the time to come here and attempted to paint an argyle pattern successfully."
As he turned to walk away, Paige leaned over the counter. What she said to the assistant did not go unnoticed. "I'm sorry about that; Walter can be a little…abrasive at times, but trust me, his apology was sincere."
Walter felt Paige wrap her arm around his as they walked out of the facility and headed to her car. When they were both seated inside her Chevy with seatbelts buckled, Walter kept the vehicle in park. "Did you really think my apology was sincere?"
Paige shrugged. "Yes and no."
"I'm going to need a more in-depth answer than that." Walter replied, needing the information for future analysis.
"The reason I say 'yes' is because you are a very forthright person. You speak your mind candidly, and although you tend to find ways around apologizing by stating what you're not sorry for and then addressing what you appreciate, I know your apologies are sincere because you always state facts. I have yet to come across you telling someone a lie. You might withhold information – as you have done in the past before, but your brain is hardwired to state things that are factual to you. So if you say you're sorry, I know you are sorry because you say you are. Does that make sense?" Paige's left eyebrow furrowed upwards as she bit her bottom lip.
"Oddly," Walter nodded, "it does. Why would you say 'no' then?"
"This might be a little harder to explain," Paige chuckled. She flipped her hair back and then mulled over her next train of thoughts. "While your apology is sincere according to your standards, Walter, it doesn't always seem as sincere when you try to communicate your apology. That is most definitely because you have a hard time understanding emotion, and how certain things you say may affect people negatively. The way you communicate your apology needs improvement – there are a lot of sensitive people in the world, Walter; what may seem like a sincere apology to you may come across as arrogant or condescending to others. Like I said," she smiled and squeezed his hand, "the delivery needs work. But, for the most part, I'd say you're improving since the first time I met you."
Walter nodded. "Okay." He was determined to process everything she said later when he was by himself. The way she answered his question was in the form of a pros and cons list; he planned on re-writing Paige's answers into list form for better analysis.
"Before we go back to the garage, can we stop by the park?" Paige asked as she pulled her hair up.
"The park is on the way so I do not see how that could be a problem." Walter replied with a simple nod as he merged onto the highway.
"Thanks, Walter."
~ SCORPION ~
By the time they arrived at the park, it was 2 PM – an hour before they would have to leave and pick up Ralph from school. Walter and Paige walked over to the bench at which they sat the last time they had visited the park and sat down. Walter stared towards the grove of trees in front of them, calculating the curvatures of the leaves as Paige leaned her head against his shoulder. She had been doing that a lot more lately. Walter was getting used to it and wasn't as rigid to her touch anymore. He still stiffened when others rushed up to hug him, but when he was with Paige, things were starting to feel more natural (or at least semi-natural).
Over the past several weeks, he had noticed that she often expressed her emotions to him by giving him a gentle touch on the arm or caressing his hand; at one time, he made it a personal endeavor to observe Paige and note how tactile she was with the other members of Scorpion. She used her hands less when she was around Toby and Happy, but she sometimes patted Cabe on the shoulder as he often reciprocated the gesture during their cases, or Paige would give Sylvester a hug (which was a very understandable gesture considering Sylvester's overabundance of emotional quotient). For the most part, aside from Walter, Paige often used her hands to communicate with Ralph. She would ruffle his hair or hold his hand. She'd bend down and hug him ever so gently, and often kissed the boy's forehead or cheek before dropping him off at school. As far as he knew, Paige had only kissed his cheek once too. He added his observations to his accumulating pros and cons list in regards to his connection with Paige. There were an abundant amount of pros and very few cons, in fact, there was only one con he could remember ever writing down: Drew.
"The first time," Paige suddenly said, breaking Walter from his thoughts, "you came over to my apartment and played video games with Ralph, you asked him if he ever paused and replayed his dreams."
He smiled at the memory. Strong prefrontal cortex, he noted to himself; he would add that small bit of information to her pros list when he got home. "I remember."
"Have you been able to pause them and then get rid of them completely?" Paige asked, causing him to look at her. He recognized a sense of discomfort and fear in her eyes – he had had the same expression after he had seen the news when the US military used his program to kill civilians. It took him months to process and compartmentalize it. That was the main reason for his drag racing days. Drag racing was meditative – it helped him forget the memories he did not want to remember.
"No. Not completely." He shook his head. "I sometimes did hazardous things to temporarily displace them, but I've never been able to successfully repress them; they always surface back, unfortunately."
"Dr. Davis doesn't think I'll be reinstated any time soon." Paige sighed. "I don't have problems talking about what happened to me. She could ask me to tell her everything I remember that day, and I'd be able to tell her without having a panic attack. But, every time she brings in a bowl of ice water or a set of pocket knives or even lights a match, I feel like I'm back there…trapped with no way out. It's strange, really." Paige closed her eyes and let out a sigh.
"Not necessarily," Walter replied, causing her to look at him. He swivel a little in order to face her so he could adequately clarify her confusion. "The brain is like a mini-factory with separate functioning departments. You have the cerebral cortex, which plays a key role in perceptual awareness, thought, memory, attention, language and consciousness. The cerebral cortex is a composition of four lobes which cover both hemispheres of the brain. There is the frontal lobe – a section of the brain that controls conscious thought and higher-mental functions like making decisions – especially in the prefrontal lobe, an area of the brain that is key to processing short-term and long-term memories. These memories are not task-oriented. That is why you are able to talk about what happened and still be fine. You see that you are in a safe environment and know nothing can happen to you as you talk about it.
"There is also the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe. The parietal lobe integrates sensory data from the various senses and helps with spatial sense as well as navigation. The temporal lobe – which predominantly handles information gathered by smell and sound – allows human beings to process semantics in both speech and vision. The temporal lobe plays a key role in long-term memory; it is the reason we are able to process complex stimuli.
"Then there's the occipital lobe – the area of the brain which is involved with the sense of sight." Walter stopped when he noticed the blank look on Paige's face. "Basically, he continued, "different areas of the brain respond through different stimuli. What you remember the most is the experience of the event; you remember what your senses have collected based on what you saw when you were there. Whenever you see the bowl of ice water, your mind has been conditioned to experience that event again; the same concept applies to the pocket knives and the fire. You saw all of those things – those weapons of sort – before anything had been done to you. So that is why you react when stimulated by representations, but you do not react when stimulated by a question."
Paige frowned, "So every time I see those things, I'll have a panic attack?"
Walter shook his head gently. "Maybe for a while, but PTSD can be overcome through a variety of methods – one of which involves a psychiatrist. Toby would be a better source than me, but it is possible to redirect – in a sense – what you remember when you see those objects." Walter replied enthusiastically. It would certainly be a challenging experiment, but perhaps it would be worth the effort. "When pets are trained, they are conditioned to associate good behavior with rewards and bad behavior with punishment. Babies, I'm sure you already know this, learn in the same manner. The reason they don't touch a stove after touching it once is because the first time was unfavorable. What would you say if we decided to conduct experiments in order to try to reroute your sensory memory? For example, we might be able to train your mind to think of something positive – like flowers – whenever you look into a bowl of ice water. It may be a slow process, and there's no guarantee it would work, but the outcome seems plausible."
Paige didn't answer right away; Walter didn't expect her to either. "I guess it's worth a try."
"Okay," Walter nodded, "When we return to the Cyclone, I could discuss it further with Toby and see what he thinks. He's always excited for a new challenge."
"I think I could say the same thing about all of you guys." Paige smiled, pulled her knees inward until she was sitting on them and then she leaned over to whisper a 'thank you' into his ear. He felt her lips brush against his cartilage. His body started to grow rigid from her touch again. Her palm caressed his cheek as the tips of her fingers weaved into his curly hair. She planted a quick kiss against his cheekbone and then resumed her original position where she was sitting next to him with her temple pressing against his shoulder.
He was still very rigid from her unexpected romantic endeavor.
If Toby could see him now, this moment would be the highlight of the behaviorist's day. Walter eventually composed himself; he had a lot to consider after that moment. Unlike the last time Paige had pecked him on the cheek, this one seemed more…intimate. His body had an unexpected (and very unfamiliar) reaction to her kiss. This reaction was physically pleasant, but it was another thing he had to set aside and analyze later.
A moment of silence passed between them before Walter decided it was time to tell her about Drew. "Cabe thought it would be best to keep this from you," he caught her attention as she looked at him, "but since I promised you I would disclose all things regarding Drew, I am disobeying his wishes." Walter paused briefly before continuing. "Three times while you and Ralph were away, Drew dropped by the Cyclone. He insisted to see Ralph and talk to you. Cabe and Toby – at different times – kindly showed him to the door. The last time he stopped by was yesterday."
Paige closed her eyes and sighed. "He's relentless."
"Do you want something done about it?" Walter half-expected her answer to be yes.
"Not at this point." Paige shook her head. "I told him I would call him and let him see Ralph for an afternoon, so it's my fault he's becoming more persistent. I've been avoiding his phone calls to my cellphone for the past two weeks – not really in the mood to talk to him. But first," Paige looked at her watch. Walter looked at his phone too. 2:35 pm. "I want to know what Cabe found out about him."
Walter started to get up, but Paige pulled him back down by gripping his hand and gently yanking on it. "Not so fast," Paige laughed, "There's still some time left until we have to pick up Ralph." Walter plopped back down onto the bench and found Paige wrapping her arms around his torso, where her head pressed against his side. At first, he was a little rigid from her sudden embrace (if that was what it was even called), but he quickly loosened up and relaxed in her arms. And for the first time, he was able to return her embrace without wondering where to place his hands in the process.
It seemed as though things were starting to feel somewhat natural for Walter the more Paige held onto him, and he had to wonder if normalcy was something he should pursue.
Or continue to keep it at a safe distance (he would have to create a pros and cons list later in order to answer such a question effectively).
But so far, the obvious pros supporting normalcy were very appealing; Walter smiled at the thought as he was caught staring at Paige.
"What?" She asked as she looked up at him and licked her lips.
"Nothing," he shook his head as he saw her lips curl to a smile.
"Okay," she chuckled softly. He committed her melodious laugh to memory. "If you say so."
If only she knew how contrary his reply was to what was going through his mind. 'Nothing' was an inadequate answer, but it was the best response he could give her until he had time to completely process everything.
At that moment, when he had naturally wrapped his arms around her form, he thought he could see everything so clearly – something he had never been able to see before. And he had to wonder…if these brief moments of perfect clarity were because he had finally found the perfect constant he had been waiting for.
~ SCORPION ~
WriterFreak001:
I really had fun writing this chapter! :) Especially the about the horrible wall! XD By the way, anything that pertains to anatomy or medicine or practically EVERYTHING intelligent is thoroughly researched before included. However, the internet isn't always the best source of information so if the information I received about the brain is wrong, then by all means, PM me and let me know!
Otherwise, what did you think of this chapter?
