A/N - Drew may have leapfrogged over the interloper on Walter's least liked people list for now.
Marti - I'm sure Walter had plenty more to say to Mr. Baker. He decided to keep some of it for future stories. Glad Drew was able to admit to his shortcomings as well. Ralph should be excited whenever he finds out.
Railman - I think we were all shocked that Drew did the right thing for once. I'm sure after a visit or two he will go back to his normal ways of skipping out. By the start of baseball season he will find a way to not show up.
Pearliegirl - Thank you! It was a fun chapter to write. Sure looks like they are headed in that direction. Wink. Wink.
LouBe - Thanks, It was good to see him realize he wasn't what Ralph needs anymore. I wish we could have seen a Walter and Paige moment like this in the actual show.
Grykon - nobody likes Drew. I am pretty sure I did see Walter sneak in a couple of left over ice cubes from the Vor Collective 'blowout' into his water glass. Drew is probably sitting on the toilet as we speak. Keep up the good work!!
Part 13 Friday June 6, 2018
A few days passed and life was somewhat back to normal for everyone. Walter and Paige had decided it would be easier to get in contact with a realtor. They wanted to speed up the process and they felt overwhelmed with all the options available. Patty was actually the wife of one of the people that Scorpion had rescued at the giant sink hole where Veronica "died". She got right to narrowing down their search for them.
"You guys will need to get me some idea of what you are looking for. I'm going to ask a couple of standard questions for us to get started and you let me know what we need to find."
"Sounds good to us." Paige said holding on to Walter's arm.
"And before we start, I just want to thank you guys again for saving my husband's life, I am truly grateful. Alright, so what is most important to you guys in your search, location, square footage, big backyard, number of bedrooms, did I mention location. Those are some of the bigger ones usually."
"Well, we are currently in a two bedroom condo, with our 13 year old." Paige told her. Walter felt a huge sense of pride when she referred to Ralph as their son.
"So, more space for sure. Three beds, four beds?" Patty asked.
"We were hoping four if possible. A third bathroom would be nice too. The yard size isn't going to be a deal breaker for us, but we would like some outdoor space for entertaining. A deck would be really nice." Paige said while Walter continued to politely smile.
"OK. What about overall size? 2000, 2500 square feet?"
"We didn't really have any specific size we wanted, per say. Just something with some room for us to grow in to." Paige told her, dreaming of possibly expanding their family.
"Let me ask you the big question. Budget. Have you gotten pre-qualified for a loan yet? Mortgage companies are usually pretty good at getting back to you quickly, no more than a week or so if you haven't. There would just be some forms to fill out."
"We um, we were thinking we would just like to pay for it in full." Walter spoke up.
"You know most of these houses that are in your desired area and in the size you are hoping for will start at two to three million dollars and go up from there." She told them, not sure if they knew how expensive the houses were.
"Paige, was there anything else you were wanting in the house?" Walter turned to ask her. "Didn't you say you wanted a nicer updated kitchen, with a big walk-in pantry?" Walter asked her again.
"Sorry, it's just a lot to take in. Yes, we would like a newer updated kitchen with a big walk-in pantry. And a separate laundry room if possible. And we have decided we could actually push our budget a little more too." Paige told her while holding Walter's hand tightly, feeling a little overwhelmed.
"Oh, OK, so the price points don't scare you off? I know most first time home buyers find the prices a shock." Patty told them with a smile.
"Oh, it's still a shock, trust me." Paige told her and then started to realize how real this moment was for them.
Paige started to get a little emotional. Walter saw it right away and tried to comfort her.
"Would it be okay if you gave us just a minute?" Paige asked the realtor before she stepped out of her office to let them talk.
"Are you okay, Paige?" Walter asked with concern in his voice.
"Yes. I'm okay, it's like I said, it's just overwhelming." Paige told him.
"Can I get you some water or something else to drink?" Walter offered her.
About the same time, the realtor came back with two bottles of water for them and offered to go back in the lobby and wait some more, but Paige told her she was fine.
"Sorry about that, I just never thought I would be in a position to have the opportunity to buy a nice house like this. It's a lot to take in. It's almost too good to be true." Paige told her. Walter was rubbing her leg to help to keep her calm and she appreciated the kind gesture.
"I understand. And I don't want to seem pushy, so please excuse me if it sounds that way, but I do need to get an idea of what you guys are comfortable with paying and I can start to pull some properties for us to go and see. And we can do that right away, or I can just print off the sheets and let you guys decide which ones you want to look at."
"We would be okay going up closer to four million, maybe a little more if we needed to." Walter told her while he saw the tears filling up in Paige's eyes again. He knew they were happy tears, but any tears on her face always had an effect on him. He held her hand a little tighter just to make sure she knew everything was okay.
"Oh, goodness. And you are talking about paying in full too?" She asked as Walter nodded.
"One thing we didn't mention before. If we could get some kind of bonus room, that would be something else we would really like. A place for he.., our son and his friends to hang out in." Walter told her still holding on tight to Paige's hand.
"You guys are too easy. With your budget and your wish list, we can check off all these boxes for you. Give me about 15 minutes and I'll pull some listings for you." She said with a big smile. "And if you need anything else, you let me know. I'll be right back."
"Thank you." They both told her.
Walter and Paige waited for the next few minutes and talked to each other about the possibilities of finding a few houses today that would interest them. Not wanting to get their hopes up too much, they decided to wait and see if they were going to have many options to look at first. Paige was starting to relax a little more and she gently rested her head on Walter's shoulder as he put his arm around her to hold her close.
Patty came back in the office with a big smile and a stack of papers with close to 20 houses on them.
"If we're lucky, maybe one of these will be the one." Patty told them.
She carefully went over each one with them and helped them to narrow down their search. After almost an hour of meeting with her they had seven houses that they felt met every one of their wishes. They were all located within five miles of Paige's condo, which was important for them, because they wanted Ralph to be near his friends that he had made.
Patty told them to take the papers home with them and to look them up online when they had time, and they could view all the pictures that were available to see. And whenever they wanted to go see one of the houses to let her know and she would meet them there.
"Walter, I think I must be dreaming right now, because this doesn't seem like it could be real." Paige told him as they got back in her car.
"I would offer to pinch you, but I can assure you this is real Paige." Walter told her.
"Do you think one of these houses here could be our new home?" She asked holding up the stack of papers.
"Possibly, they all looked to have everything we were hoping for. They seemed to be newer homes which is good, less things to go wrong. And they would all be close to your condo." Walter told her.
On the drive home they stopped to pick up some food and bring it home for lunch before they scooped up Ralph to head to the garage to get some work in. Having the flexibility they did right now without any Homeland jobs hanging over their heads was a blessing. They were able to come and go as they pleased as long as they kept up with all of their jobs. And with Paige's organizational skills and nerd herding abilities, she was always able to keep them on task. Occasionally she would let Ralph sneak in a few games of Proton Arnold, and every once in a while, she would let Walter indulge in some one on one personal time with her. And if Ralph wasn't with them at the office, it was more than every once in a while. But while they were at work, she expected them to work. Cabe was due back from his month long vacation with Allie in under two weeks and they were going to have to figure out what they were going to do when he got back. They had been talking about seeing if Happy, Sylvester, and possibly Toby would be interested in returning in some capacity to Scorpion.
Walter and Paige decided to keep the house hunt a secret for now from Ralph until they had the search narrowed down to only a few houses. They didn't want to get his hopes up quite yet, plus they were excited about talking to him about their other news, the one about Walter officially moving in with them.
It was almost 6:30PM when they got finished for the day. Paige had kept her thumb on them for most of the afternoon and the two geniuses in her life didn't disappoint her. They flew through six jobs between them and were now a full day and a half ahead of even her schedule, which was quite impressive.
To celebrate all the work they got finished, she ordered some take out from Kovelsky's for dinner and dessert. She set up a table on the roof and had everything ready to go for them by the time they got up there. Before they started eating, she called the first ever Scorpion Owner's Meeting to order.
"Before we begin our first ever owner's meeting, I would like to acknowledge our first ever owner of the month. Mr. Ralph Dineen, it is my absolute pleasure to inform you that you were select as the winner of the inaugural award." Paige told them.
"Speech. Speech." Walter said as he clapped for him.
"Good job, sweetie." Paige told him.
"Whatever. You guys are the only ones who even voted on this thing, I never turned my ballot in."
"I guess it was a unanimous win then." Walter told him while putting his arm around Paige.
"He might be a hard man to beat. He's just so cute." Paige told him leaning her head on Walter's shoulder.
"Mo-om." Ralph said back.
They all started eating their food. Walter even chose not to get the fermented fish. He was trying to turn over a new leaf and now was as good a time as any to start. He figured if they were going to be living together, he didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable during their mealtimes and he knew they would be eating a lot of Kovelsky's since it was so convenient to pick up.
"Our first ever order of business at our first ever Scorpion Owner's meeting should be something memorable, don't you guys think?" Paige announced to nods from both of the geniuses.
Paige pulled two small boxes out of her purse and set them in front of Walter and Ralph and told them to open them up. As the pair of men opened the boxes Paige looked on with a growing smile on her face.
"A key?" Ralph said, disappointed, "Why do we need keys?"
"Well, it's been a while since we changed the locks at the condo, and I figured new keys would help."
"But why does Wal…" Ralph started to say before he understood what was going on and reached out for his mom to give her a hug. "Does this mean Walter is gonna live with us?"
"It does, as long as you are okay with sharing your PlayStation with me sometimes, otherwise the deal is off." Walter told him with a smile before Ralph jumped into his arms in joy.
"You can have it if it really means you are moving in with us." Ralph told him making both Walter and Paige smile.
"Honey, that was so sweet of you, and Walter was teasing about that, you can keep your PlayStation, we wanted to surprise you tonight with this. We were going to talk to you earlier about Walter moving in with us, but we were pretty sure you were going to be okay with it." Paige told him while rubbing his back while he was still hugging Walter.
"I mean he used to be there with us most nights anyway, so it seems efficient to have him be there all the time. We still can come and hang out here sometimes too though, can't we?"
"Yes, of course we can." Paige told him. Ralph was always happy hanging out at the garage.
As they finished eating their food, they talked more about upcoming jobs they had to finish and ideas for the future.
"I think we need to talk about what we are going to do with Homeland when Cabe gets back from vacation. They will want us to take on different jobs again that will require more than just coding and programming." Walter started. "And now that I no longer have the sole voice when it comes to deciding what to do, I think we need to put our heads together and come up with a better solution."
At this point Ralph and Walter both stuck their heads into the middle of the table and bumped them together getting a laughing snort from Paige, a very rare occurrence.
"Genius humor at its finest." Walter told her, which got them a second snort from her and happy smiles from both of them. Walter gave her a big hug and whispered that he loved her into her ear.
"Now that we got that out of the way, what do you guys think about having the old gang over for a dinner this week and see if they would have any interest in possibly teaming up again. If not full time, maybe on Homeland jobs that we can both fit into our schedules. I just think it is best to explore all our options." Walter stated. He and Paige had discussed the topic earlier and they agreed that the idea coming from him would be better for Ralph to hear than if she brought it up.
"Ralph what do you think? And we want you to be honest with us and let us know how you feel." Paige asked her son.
"Your mom's right. You are an official owner of Scorpion, so even if we have some fun and games sometimes, when we have serious things to talk about, we both want you to be able to voice your opinions and ideas. Sometimes they are better than anyone else's." Walter told him while Paige held his hand tight as a sign of thanks for always knowing what needed to be said.
"I am still mad at them for walking out on you Walter. But I know I can't hold grudges against people forever, mom taught me that a long time ago. Can we maybe at first see if they are interested in only Homeland jobs with us as kind of a trial basis and then we can see if we are interested in bringing them back to Scorpion?"
"That's why he was owner of the month." Paige told Walter out of the side of her mouth with a smile.
So, it was settled, they were going to invite the guys over next week for a meal and a discussion about the possible reformation of the original cyclone.
Monday evening, Happy, Toby and Sylvester were back in the garage for the first time since the night they all walked out on Walter and Scorpion.
"Thank you guys for coming over to eat dinner with us. We thought we would wait till everyone got here and we could all decide what to get." Paige told them trying to break the ice as they looked around to see not much had changed.
"Hey Walt, I like what you've done with the place." Happy said trying to start up a conversation.
"Yeah, the only thing we really added was a workstation for Ralph when he didn't want to sit near us while we were working." Walter told her.
"Yeah, I bet you were working." Toby muttered under his breath.
"Toby, you have something to share?" Paige asked him.
"Nope, I'm good." He said as he plopped down on a couch.
"Hey Ralph your spot is pretty close to my old area, that's cool." Sylvester told him.
"Yeah, I always liked the area over by the white board, we got to work on some cool math problems on it. You got any new ones for me to look at." Ralph asked him back.
"Actually, I do. I remember one Walter showed me when I first started working here and I know I never showed it to you before. Just give me a few minutes to write it out." Sly told him back.
And the ice was broken. For the most part at least.
Happy was talking to Walter and Paige about the walls they put up for Ralph.
"You know, I could re-enforce them with some scrap beams I've got laying around, give it a little more support." Happy told them.
"That would be great, thank you Happy." Paige told her.
Of all the people gathered in the garage, the least likely of all of them was ready to make the real first move.
"Toby, how have you been doing?" Walter asked him.
"This some kind of test or something?" Toby asked back defensively.
"It's not, just trying to make the night enjoyable for everyone and I know we have had some issues between us. I was hoping at some point we could sit down and try to work through some of them." Walter told him starting to realize lots of eyes were on the two of them as he sat down on the couch Toby had plopped down on when he first got in.
"Thank you Walt. I'm tired of being in the doghouse with the wife. Where do you want to start?"
"Oh, you want to talk now." Walter asked not realizing he would even be accepting of his offer.
"Yeah, I think we have let this go on way too long." Toby told him.
"We or you?" Walter shot back.
"You think this is all my fault?"
"All, no, but most of it, yes." Walter told him, the same thing Happy had told him earlier.
"Unbelievable. I should have known better." Toby told him shaking his head.
"Toby, I only have one question for you, and if you can answer that for me, I think anything else we need to work through will be much easier to do."
"OK. What question is that?" Toby asked, wanting to hear what it was.
"Why?" Walter simple asked him.
"Why what?"
"Why did you try to keep me and Paige apart? You never gave me an answer the other day."
"I didn't keep you guys apart, that's absurd."
"CUT THE CRAP TOBY." Walter shouted at him causing all other conversations to end.
"Sorry." Walter turned to everyone and spoke.
"Toby, I can't make you admit what you did, that's something you need to own up to, but until you are able to, I don't think any conversation I have with you is warranted. We work through that, and we can get back to how we used to be, we don't work through it, and I just don't see any chance for us to have a relationship moving forward."
Walter got up from the couch and walked over to stand by Paige as she was still talking to Happy.
"I'm sorry for raising my voice earlier. That wasn't planned. I was hoping we…"
"Hey, it's okay." Paige told Walter giving him a hug, not wanting him to be upset.
"Sorry Happy." Walter told her. "I didn't mean for that to happen, I promise."
"He'll come around; he has been kind of mopey around the house a lot lately. I think he knows he messed up and he is trying to deal with it." She told them. "Give him some time."
Another ten or fifteen minutes passed before they ordered a few family packs from Ralph's favorite BBQ place. They ordered ribs, brisket, pulled pork and chicken to go along with cold slaw, beans, corn on the cob and fries. Everyone kept talking and interacting with each other waiting for the food to arrive.
"Hey, you got a few minutes." Toby asked Walter as he quietly approached him.
"That depends Toby." Walter bluntly said back to him.
"Can I talk to you in the Airstream?" Toby asked. Walter nodded his head yes as he let go of Paige's hand, but not before she gave it a little squeeze.
They made their way over to the door of the Airstream and went inside. They sat down a good distance from each other, and Walter was content to sit silently until Toby said whatever it was he had to say.
"Walt, let me start by saying I'm sorry. I haven't been the best of a friend to you for quite some time."
"Our um relationship does seem to be a lot different now then it used to be."
"I've been pissed off at you since you let me die in that stupid building Elia was putting up. And ever since then, it was like any little thing you did just made it worse."
"We have been over this hundreds of times Toby. That was the only way I could think of to save everyone."
"Yeah, everyone but me."
"What are you talking about? You are still right here. That was over two years ago, and I have gone over every scenario in my head hundreds of times since that day and I still can't think of another way I could have done it. Neither has anyone else. It wasn't just your life Toby; it was Happy and Sly and all the kids with Sly and all the other people trapped in the building. If I didn't do what I did, all of them die and you too probably, because there was no way out. So, what was I supposed to do? You think I enjoyed seeing my friend fall lifeless to the floor in front of my eyes. I have to live with that decision every day." Walter told him with watery eyes.
"Then I find out you marr.."
"Damnit Toby, we got married so I could stay in America. Again, we have talked about this ad nauseum. Why is it only me you are upset with, what about Happy? She wanted to keep it a secret, I told her from day one we should not keep it from anyone. And I still got a divorce from her so you two could get married and I risked being sent back to Ireland with no chance of being able to come back. And you knew how much I cared for Paige. Why?"
"Why don't I blame Happy?"
"No, Toby I don't even care about that anymore. Why did you try to keep me and Paige apart? Until you can answer that for me, I think we are done." Walter told him as he started to get up and leave.
"I was jealous." Toby told him as Walter stopped and sat back down.
"I have always been jealous of you Walter. You are smarter than I am, you're not a screw up like I am, you married Happy before I did. It was just like anything you wanted just falls in your lap. Paige shows up and you have this beautiful woman head over heels in love with you, and her son idolizes you. I was jealous."
"Why Toby? I still don't know why you would try to keep us apart?" Walter told him.
"I just told you; I was jealous of you."
"Toby, I'm smarter than you, so what. You are still a brilliant behaviorist. And I may not have been in trouble with bookies and had gambling debts, but I had plenty of things I did that I am not proud of. NASA and then Baghdad."
"Hey, Baghdad was not your fault, and you know that." Toby told him.
"Happy loves you Toby, why is that not enough. She doesn't love me, not in the way she loves you. Our marriage was a sham, we all know that. You have gotten to be with the woman you love for years. If anything, I should be jealous of you. You got to marry the person you love years ago. My emotional shortcomings had kept me from being with Paige for years, and I struggled so much with that. You knew that and I trusted you. And I relied on your help for so long only to find out one of my best friends was just using me like a puppet because he was for some reason jealous of me. How would you feel Toby? Why shouldn't I get to be happy? You knew how much I loved her, and how hard it was for me to even admit to the fact of it at first." Walter told him.
"I would be furious. You are handling it a lot better than I would. And Walter, you should get to be happy, and I know I have been an ass to you. I have been thinking a lot about what you asked me the other day about keeping you guys apart. And I hate myself for doing it. I didn't realize what I was keeping you guys from having. I just liked having some sort of control over you, like I finally had the upper hand with you for once."
"I don't know if this conversation will change anything or not, I still can't figure out how keeping us away from each other the way you tried to would make you feel better."
"That's the thing Walt, it didn't. I hated what I was doing. Some days I would try to offer you sound advice and then the next time I would tell you something completely different. I knew at some point you would figure all this out and I hated myself for what I had done to you guys. I kept getting worse and worse every time we talked. I couldn't get past my pride. But for some reason after we talked before, I knew I had to do something. And I'm sorry it took us walking out of here and starting Centipede for me to finally realize what a jerk I really was to you."
Walter and Toby stayed in there talking until Paige knocked on the door to tell them dinner was here.
"You guys alright in here?" She asked as Walter instantly moved to her side to hold onto her.
"Yeah, I think so." Walter told her as she leaned in to hug him.
"Thanks Walt. The three of us need to have a sit down soon. I have a lot of things I need to apologize for." Toby told them. And a few days later, they did. They worked through almost everything.
They all shared a big meal together like they used to. Family meals were one of the first big changes Paige made when she started there. Scorpion was their family, always had been and she wanted it to always be. So, she cooked meals for them some nights and some nights they ordered food, but she tried to have them eat like a family as often as they could.
As they were finishing up their meal Paige decided it was a good time to talk to them about the other reason they were there.
"Thank you, guys, all for coming. It was nice being with everyone again, together." Paige started out telling them. Walter reached out and grabbed hold of her hand on the table. "Cabe gets back from his vacation soon and when he gets back, we need to decide on what Scorpion is going to do as far as the Homeland contract goes. Before we made a decision, we wanted to share an idea with you guys. Walter, Ralph, and I talked the other day about possibly seeing if there would be an interest of agreeing to work together on a trial basis on some of the Homeland cases where your added skills would be beneficial and then depending on how that worked out, the possibility of rejoining Scorpion if that might be of interest to any of you. We can discuss compensation on a case by case basis, and if we need to get something in writing, Sly, we can get that done too."
"As you know, I am not the sole owner of Scorpion anymore, so if there is an interest from Centipede to assist with Homeland cases, any decision Scorpion made would need to be agreed upon by the three of us. And if it came to it, if there was an opportunity for Scorpion to hire you back on, it would be something we would need to discuss. Do you guys have any questions or concerns with anything myself or Paige has brought up?" Walter finished.
A few general questions were asked and answered and after another thirty minutes Happy, Toby and Sly left the garage. Walter and Paige told them they didn't expect them to give them an answer right away, they wanted them to think it over and if they had any other questions, they would be glad to answer them.