"Hey Mom." Ralph said as she came in that evening.
"Hey Ralph. I brought take out." Paige told him while trying to sound happy.
Ralph frowned. It wasn't often his Mom got take out for them since the break up.
"What's wrong?" Ralph asked as he paused his video game and stood up.
"You are growing too fast for one thing." Paige smiled. But Ralph could see the stress all over her face.
"Come on Mom, talk to me." Ralph said as he stepped over and sat down at the island in their kitchen.
"We're going to have to tighten our belts a little. So I thought we'd have a slight splurge." Paige told him as she opened the bag and got his food out for him.
"Are you guys going to have to cut your rates?" Ralph frowned.
"No, actually we're going to have to raise them and hope we can meet what we're making now." Paige sighed. Ralph watched her get her salad out of the bag.
"That doesn't make much sense. What is going on that you have to raise your rates to make the same amount?" Ralph asked and then paused until she said her prayer.
"Walter is suing us." Paige sighed.
Ralph grinned.
"About damn time." Ralph laughed.
"It isn't funny Ralph. This is going to hit us hard. We did have the choice of trying to fight it out in court." Paige started.
"At which you would lose." Ralph grinned.
"Ralph!" Paige said, shocked. "Don't you understand how serious this is?"
"You mean you guys just now woke up to how serious it is? I was surprised Walter hadn't sued you long before now. If he didn't love us so much he would have done it a long time ago." Ralph said before biting into his burger.
Paige rolled her eyes.
"Well apparently he no longer loves me or the guys." Paige sighed. "The other option was to give him fifty percent of every contract we have for the next two years. He at least consented to letting us keep what we've already got bid out while only paying him twenty percent. I'm going to be making less than I was before Scorpion if we can't pick up more clients. Or if we can't get some new clients and get them to pay what we should be making from the jobs." Paige said. "I just can't believe this."
"You mean you can't believe Walter finally got tired of being used and abused and asserted his own worth." Ralph said.
"Ralph, Walter was not innocent in what happened." Paige argued.
"I never said he was. He screwed up but what did you do?" Ralph looked at her. "You didn't give him a chance, you explained a stupid concept of white lies to him. And in trying to honor that lesson he screwed up. You were happy he lied about the lecture itself. But because he didn't want to waste the money he spent on the ticket you got bent out of shape. I don't know how many times I told you, Walter didn't give a rat's ass about Florence. I told you, it was about the fact that he had spent money on that ticket and the company was in the red. But you won't ever listen to me." Ralph said with passion.
"You got me the help I needed through Walter. He helped me so much. Then you gave me what I needed the most. You made me a family with him. And then you bailed on him, on me. Tore my family to shreds. Didn't listen to my opinion. You just wanted to punish Walter because he took that…person…to that lecture. Tell me right now, face to face, do you think Walter cheated on you?" Ralph demanded.
Paige looked down at her salad and kept eating.
"I didn't think so. I'm going to my room. If you want to look at my homework, it's on the coffee table." Ralph told her before storming off.
Ralph sat down in the chair at his computer desk and closed his eyes. Tears ran down his face as he reached up and moved the mouse making the computer wake up.
"It's ScorpJr1, are you there?" Ralph sent out into the void of the dark web. He heard his Mom's phone ring.
"Hey buddy." Walter's reply came back fairly quickly. "I suppose you know about the lawsuit." Walter sighed.
"Yeah, Mom came home with take out. So I pressed her on what was up." Ralph sent back.
"I should have told you before. Sorry." Walter typed back. "You know how much you mean to me right? If there is anything you need, I'm here for you."
"I get it. I know you weren't innocent in this, but neither was Mom and she chose this. But what I need is to be your son again." Ralph typed as his lip quivered.
Walter's eyes teared up instantly.
"Oh Ralph. How I wish that was possible. But your Mom…she made her choice and it didn't include me. There isn't much I can do. Other than to be here to try and catch you if you need me.
"Can't you offer her employment? Then I could at least be around you." Ralph sent back.
"Do you think your Mom would accept it if I did?" Walter countered.
"No." Ralph sighed. "This sucks. I didn't do anything wrong but I'm being punished too."
"I know Ralph and if it was up to me I'd fix it. But it has been almost five months. I can only believe she doesn't care anymore. At least until it started to affect her, she wouldn't even engage me on a personal level." Walter sighed.
"Ralph." Paige knocked on his door.
"Yeah." Ralph replied as he looked to the door.
The door opened and Paige looked in.
"How do you feel about dinner with Cabe and Allie tomorrow?" Paige asked.
"Sure, why not." Ralph sighed with little enthusiasm.
"Ralph, you love Cabe and Allie." Paige pointed out.
"I love Walter more but here I sit, unable to have dinner with him." Ralph retorted.
"I can't help that Ralph." Paige snapped.
"Yes, you can. But you won't do it. You'd rather I suffer along with you without Walter. You could have ended all of this almost five months ago. But it seems you get some sick twisted pleasure in this suffering." Ralph snapped back.
"Ralph Dineen!" Paige yelled. "Do you want to be grounded?"
Ralph huffed.
"Big deal, tightening our belts. So I won't have internet anyway. Won't have access to ninety percent of my game station's game library. What else are you going to take? All the pens and paper so I can't even write?" Ralph snarled.
"Fine, we won't go to dinner with them tomorrow." Paige huffed.
"Fine. I didn't want to anyway." Ralph yelled back as she slammed his door.
"Ralph?" Walter's message sat on the screen.
"Sorry, I just got into an argument with Mom over everything." Ralph sighed.
"Ralph, do me a favor. Digging your heels in with your Mom like this is not going to help the situation. Go and apologize to her like the man you really are. The one I know you are. Give her your support. If there's anything I have learned about your Mom, after all this time. She's got to feel support. You backing her into a corner is just going to keep her frustrated and angry. Just ask yourself. When was she the happiest? What is different between then and before today?" Walter reasoned.
"She had you in her life. Now she doesn't." Ralph responded.
"You are over simplifying it Ralph. She had us, she had a life that was supported. She wasn't worried about making ends meet. She wasn't as worried about you. What about last week, what did she have?" Walter pointed out.
"I know, but it still sucks Dad." Ralph sighed.
Walter smiled.
"I love you too Ralph. You'll always be the son I wish I had. I don't know much about playing catch or anything but it is so funny, when you would sleep here. I'd sometimes stand by the bookcase and watch you sleeping. And I would imagine what it would have been like trying to learn with you while trying to teach you how to grow up, how to be a kid. I'd think about all the things in your life I never got to see. Your first step, first word. And it looks like I'll be missing other firsts. Though part of me was glad I was here for your first heartbreak. When Patti said no." Walter smiled as he sent that.
"That was a particularly crappy day." Ralph smiled. "I'm glad you were there too."
Ralph sat there for a moment.
"Dad?" Ralph sent back.
"What's up Ralph?" Walter responded.
"If I can get a judge to rule for me to be emancipated, can I come live with you?" Ralph asked.
Walter's eyes closed as tears ran down his face.
"Ralph, you will always have a place with me. No matter what. If you need me, just let me know. I can even employ you as a research partner." Walter typed. "But Ralph, I need you to understand this. If you do this, you will hurt your Mother. She's sacrificed a lot because she loves you. And this will hurt her a lot. So, for now, go apologize to your Mom."
Ralph smiled a little.
"Thanks Dad." Ralph sent back before he sighed again.
Ralph did a quick search on the internet and found a family lawyer who had amazing reviews and he called the number.
"Teague Family Law, how may I direct your call?" A somewhat bubbly feminine voice answered the phone.
"I need to speak with someone about emancipation." Ralph said as a tear slipped down his face.
Ralph pushed back and stood. He looked at his half eaten sandwich and fries. He pushed them into the bag and crumpled it up and tossed it into the trash can. He walked over and opened his door and walked to the living room. He found his Mom sitting there on the sofa, and she had gotten out a bottle of wine.
"Please stop drinking." Ralph sighed.
"Why? You don't care about how I feel, how I am doing." Paige huffed before she drained the glass she had in her hand.
"Yes I do. I always have. If you really want to go to have dinner with Cabe and Allie that's fine. I'm sorry about my attitude." Ralph told her.
"But here is the thing about that Mom. You are able to bemoan and sulk and feel crappy and act surly about what you have chosen in how you responded to Dad. But you just expect me to be happy and okay with everything I wasn't given a voice in. If I don't give you unconditional support or if I express my feelings over it, you threaten to ground me. I'm forced to live with your choice, with no voice. How can you be okay with that?" Ralph asked as he sat down beside her and pushed the wine bottle out of her reach.
"So if that is what you want, then I'll become a robot. I'll only express acceptance of the situation. I'll bury my feelings deep down, under everything." Ralph told her.
"Ralph, it isn't…I don't want you to do that. I just, when things go wrong I need your help. Not your attitude. And stop calling him your Dad. He isn't your Father." Paige told him.
"Of course he is my Dad. Name one other man who has shown even a tenth of the interest in me that he has. And it has been almost five months Mom…when do I get to express how I feel? I constantly have to walk on eggshells. I get two minutes here, two minutes there and lots of threats of grounding. I can't even tell you anything about Dad after I talk with him. Don't you understand how important he is to me? About how much Dad and I are alike? About how much your relationship with him means to me? At least when he had you, I had hope that I could have a relationship with someone." Ralph told her.
"Ralph, you are worlds different from Walter. You won't have his problems. For one thing, he's inconsiderate, you aren't." Paige tried to tell him.
"He isn't inconsiderate." Ralph almost yelled. "Dad was like me as a child. But he didn't have a Mom who protected him. He was forced to be part of a society that didn't understand him and didn't really care because he was different. The Walter we met…was a miracle. He could have easily been like Collins. A sick twisted shell of a human. Look how the stooges turned out. Dad has issues relating to people. But he is a good man."
"Toby is a degenerate that drinks and is looking for a fix to his gambling. Sylvester is so overwhelmed by phobias he can barely function and if it hadn't been for Walter they'd both be dead most likely. Look how bitter Happy is…even now. Look how far Dad grew in the four years we knew him. He even wrote that song for you about his feelings for you. And you just belittled it all. You threw him away. So why will it be different for me?" Ralph told her.
"Don't you remember four years ago? How I was? I'm like I am now because of Dad. You've said it a million times, he worked a miracle with me. All the good you did to and for me, wouldn't have mattered if it hadn't been for Dad. Because I couldn't get out of my head to be here with you. So please, don't belittle him anymore. Or at least not around me." Ralph said as he sniffed back tears.
Paige sat there blanching from all of his words.
"I'm sorry, I just came out to apologize for what I said earlier. Not to get into it with you again. I wanted to tell you I would really like to go to dinner with Cabe and Allie. I love you Mom. Good night." Ralph said and got up off the couch after pushing the wine bottle back over to his Mom and went to his bedroom.
"I love you." Paige said before he got far as she sat there staring at the bottle.
Walter had sat there at his computer after Ralph said he was going to go apologize to his Mom. Walter wasn't the same man he was before the Gettleman pitch. He'd had an epiphany that day. He looked across the time of Scorpion trying to recall when he was happiest.
For the longest time it was just him and Happy and he thought he was pretty happy. Then came the mistake of Collins. He sacrificed some of that happiness for adding him to the Cyclone. Then he found Sylvester. He'd never admitted to anyone but his heart broke for Sylvester. Even more than it did knowing his own sister was dying and there was nothing he could do about it. Adding him to the Cyclone brought some more happiness into the Cyclone as he continued to work to help Sylvester mend from the pain his family had caused him. And then he found Toby.
Walter sighed at that memory. Having the barrel of a 357 revolver pressed into the side of his head and the hammer cocked to fire. One slight mistake and his brains would have been all over that alley. He almost couldn't believe he was offering to make this guy's debt good. Just to spare a life. To try and redeem himself a little bit since the Baghdad bombing.
He remembered how unhappy things grew in the Garage with the five of them. Toby's snark wasn't bad, but in conjunction with Collins, it really disrupted the Garage. He had talks with Collins to knock off the antagonism of the other geniuses. Walter had realized it was Mark's actions causing the most damage. But in between their fits of intellectual discourse of topics, Collins continued to psychologically abuse the others behind Walter's back. It wasn't until Walter saw how badly it was affecting Happy did he finally say enough. Collins wasn't well and his illness was destroying the chance for the others to grow and become full people. And he saw it as a chance to experiment, could conventional therapies help a genius in the rabbit hole? So he made a phone call and Collins was locked up on a ninety six hour psych hold. Walter then pushed to have Collins declared unfit and a menace. He sighed in as much heaviness of guilt as he inhaled in relief when it was granted and Collins was put away.
It helped but not a lot. He'd felt such guilt over it he retreated into the rabbit hole. The others had seen it as Walter grieving over being abandoned by Collins since he hadn't told them what he did. If it hadn't been for Happy he'd have died there. He had often thought about trying to turn their marriage of convenience into a real relationship but he knew his track record with other people and he wanted better for Happy.
Walter scoffed on the thought of who she chose. But then he sighed and at least acknowledged Toby constantly tried with her. Walter wondered why he always failed.
Walter remembered the day he met Paige. A completely random event. From the moment he met her as he entered the diner he had devoted thirty seven point eighty nine percent of his attention to her and what she did. He smiled as he tried to rationalize it as he was doing research in how normals behave. But he knew better. How effortless she moved through the diner. The toss of her hair, her smile, the uplift of her voice. Her laugh and positive outlook. Watching her had nothing to do with behavior, but with desire. He'd already been there a half hour and should have been done when his girlfriend walked in for their breakup date.
Walter shook his head at how badly that played out. Efficiency and relationships do not go together. It wasn't until after he resumed setting up the router that he truly noticed Ralph. The diner owner being rude about him irritated Walter. Always everyone had thought Ralph had been the driving force behind him bringing Paige into the Cyclone. To him, back then, he was irrationally drawn to Paige. Something about her touched him on a level he didn't know he had. And while Ralph was important, even then, it was Paige that had been his goal. Everything with and for Ralph had been a small part of his stunted self's only way of acknowledging how important Paige was to him.
He marveled at how effortlessly Paige maintained a constant awareness of Ralph during that time. Walter recalled how his head twisted as it dawned on him what Ralph was doing on the counter. He hurried through the last steps of the configuration and quickly stepped over to Ralph. He reached down and moved a jelly and Ralph instantly countered. There was a small flurry of moves until Ralph paused as he considered how Walter had beat him.
Paige then stepped up asking if she could help him. Walter's heart cried out. "Yes, you could go out with me." But Walter wasn't even close to being able to do that.
"No, but you should help him." Walter said, more scared than anything. He had to retreat quickly, but not before he expressed his displeasure at the ignorant owner. "Wireless is up. Don't yell at that boy." Walter told him as he left. Walter found true happiness that night when he went to offer Paige a job with Scorpion and she accepted. Even more, he felt that connection to Ralph and then he understood how important Ralph was to him too.
Greetings! I hope this finds you all well! Finally recovering from last Wednesday. Good thing since I'm going to have to go through it again this coming Wednesday. lol And this damn bug randomly making the story unavailable is truly frustrating. Even more so since the admin of his place never communicate.
Railman - hehe Walter is being guided by a lot of previous variables right now. I wouldn't be surprised if some of that guidance wasn't from what he observed of Richard. We'll definitely learn a bit more in the next chapter. Yep...this certainly has the potential to squash CP flat, Walter it seems hasn't completely gotten over Paige but clearly he isn't the same love sick boy.
Guest - I doubt Happy would ever have lived on minimum wage. But just because Walter is offering them a chance doesn't mean it is going to be even close to easy.
Supergirl - Hey! I was really worried something bad happened, hadn't seen a comment from you in so long! Glad to see you! Yeah, it just seemed like such an easy out to just dump it all on him.
Marie Mac - Yeah, this story bug is so frustrating. I wish there was a better answer. Thanks for continuing to try and read it! Hope you are enjoying it.
Margaret - hehe And Ralph just upped the ante on the lashing. lol Well they haven't beaten him on every job as Happy pointed out. Just the ones he apparently didn't care if he got or didn't go for. Next chapter will bring some light into what has been going on in between.
Marti - Thank you, I think would like to think the majority felt the same way. And while it probably looks like from this that Ralph is only blaming his Mom but he isn't. But he knows she holds all the cards as far as their relationship with Walter goes at this time. She's chosen this and he is constantly making that clear to her. Well it was easy for Walter, you see what he did was...Continued in the next chapter.
Heleen - Thanks! Glad you are enjoying it. You know, I'm not sure if there is anything I would consider a cliffhanger in this story to be honest. I mean, sure there are chapters where it stops and you might wish it went on, but it isn't like someone was just shot, come back tomorrow to find out what happens. lol
To the Adventure! -Tim