"Dad, I really need you to do something for me, please." Ralph finally spoke again.
Walter smiled even as he scratched at the side of his head.
"Do you know how good it feels hearing you call me Dad? What do you need from me?" Walter asked with heavy tears in his eyes.
"I need you to figure out how to apologize to Mom. I need us to be together, as a family." Ralph told him seriously.
Walter frowned.
"Ralph, nothing would make me happier than to figure out what I could say or do that would inspire your Mom to forgive me and come back to me. But I can't begin to imagine what it would take. She wasn't too willing to listen to me before. I'm sorry." Walter told him as a tear finally slipped over his eyelid and ran down his cheek.
"Oh God, Walter, I've got to get in there." Paige said as she stood.
Toby grabbed her arm.
"NO! You got to stay here. This is too important for you to interrupt. I've got to hear this without you clouding the issue." Toby told her.
Paige almost whimpered as she sat back down.
"Dad, she'll forgive you if you just speak from your heart. I know it, please try." Ralph begged.
Walter frowned as he continued to scratch.
"I'll try Ralph, but, why is this so important?" Walter asked as his hand came down and scratched at his left elbow.
Ralph sat silent for several minutes.
"Ralph? Talk to me buddy." Walter asked again as his hand came over and touched his face.
"Did you know Drew isn't my Father?" Ralph finally spoke.
Walter's eyes opened wide as he shook his head.
Paige's hand shot up to her mouth even as Toby and Sylvester looked at Paige in shock.
"What did I just hear?" Happy asked as her head came up over the edge of the Loft as she came up the stairs.
Cabe reached out and patted Paige's arm trying to be supportive.
"I didn't, but what makes you say that Ralph?" Walter finally questioned even as he continued scratching.
Ralph looked over towards the north windows of the Loft.
"I'm sorry for just blurting that out. Do you remember back in January, before Mom broke up with you? I was taking my genealogy class at Caltech." Ralph asked slowly.
Walter nodded and while he was thinking he'd stopped scratching.
"As I recall you had to do a DNA sample from Drew, your Mom and yourself. You were also allowed to do one for up to three friends. You did one for Cabe, Happy and me as well." Walter said after thinking for a few moments.
Ralph nodded.
"Drew's DNA and mine hardly match at all. There is less than a 3% chance he could be my Dad." Ralph explained.
Walter sighed even as he began scratching again.
"I'm sorry buddy. I know that must have hurt. I'm sure if your Mom knew the truth she would have told you." Walter told him.
Ralph nodded slowly.
"I'm just confused by it. As far as I know Mom and Drew had been living together eleven months before I was born. And I can't imagine Mom having cheated on Drew but clearly something happened shortly after they moved in together." Ralph told him.
"My DNA analysis shows my roots are actually about sixty three percent Irish." Ralph added.
Walter nodded and then he slowly frowned as his eyes flitted back and forth rapidly a number of times. His itching stopped the entire time.
"Ralph, as I recall, I remember you discussing with Cabe and Happy their DNA results. But I can't recall you ever talking to me about mine. Was there something wrong with the analysis?" Walter finally asked as he finished reviewing his memories of that event.
Ralph shook his head.
"No, your analysis came out perfect too. Mom's showed she was just under 25% of Irish descent. And that works out as best as I can tell of Grandpa Ralph's family tree. After combining what was told to me by Mom and Grandma Veronica." Ralph told him.
Walter frowned and reached up and gently taking Ralph's chin in his hand he lifted his head a bit and turned his face so he could look into Ralph's eyes.
"Ralph, what are you trying to tell me?" Walter asked with a bit of fear causing his gut to knot.
Ralph slowly nodded.
"I don't know how or why but I've made some predictive assumptions about the facts. But since you don't have a brother, especially a twin brother, you are my biological Dad." Ralph told him.
Paige gasped at that news and her eyes were wide as she looked up at Cabe and saw him nod his head letting her know that he knew this shocking truth.
"Oh my Gawd, Cabe. Why didn't you say something to me about this?" Paige almost cried.
"Kid, it wasn't my truth to tell. You had enough guilt going on over the break up and then Walter disappearing. Besides I gave my word to Ralph not to say anything. Not that I really understood much of it." Cabe told her.
"This is unreal. How could you and Walter have met each other and had sex that you both don't recall the other?" Happy asked.
Paige shook her head even as she realized now that a certain event from 2005 had actually been with Walter. She'd been going over her memories from 2005 trying to figure out what happened since Ralph had said Drew wasn't his Dad. She'd put the incident out of her mind after she found out she was pregnant. She'd always just hoped Ralph was Drew's.
Walter slowly nodded and then grinned at the young man.
"Nothing would make me happier than to know you are, in fact, my son Ralph. But are you sure?" Walter asked.
Ralph nodded as he pulled his tablet over from where it sat on the nightstand. He pulled up the email with the different DNA analysis reports and handed it to Walter.
Walter's eyes scanned each entry and the person it was designated with. It was clear who Cabe's was. He had over 25% of each for Scots and Italian. Drew had no Irish ancestry so it was clear that they didn't confuse the names and the analysis. And both Happy and Paige's were correctly labeled since they both were female and Happy's had 50% Chinese ancestry and Paige's had Irish and Italian. His eyes examined the details of Ralph's and his DNA and saw all the matches and calculated the odds of him not being Ralph's Father by less than .1%.
Walter looked up at Ralph as he began crying and dropped the tablet and pulled Ralph down onto his chest and hugged him fiercely.
"My son." Walter finally sobbed.
Paige wasn't able to take it any longer and she jumped up and as Toby reached out to stop her Cabe's hand flashed out and caught his arm and yanked it back away from Paige as she ran for the bedroom.
Paige paused a half minute staring at the Father and son both sobbing together as they hugged. She quickly moved around the bed. She found the small transmitter and turned it off before she fell on the bed throwing her arms around both men and her sobs joined theirs.
Walter slowly worked his arm out from under Paige and wrapped it around her and hugged both Ralph and Paige to him.
"Damn it, she turned off my transmitter." Toby complained as he got up to move to the hallway where he could listen.
"Sit down Doc." Cabe told him.
"I need to hear what is going on, Cabe." Toby said as he went to move to the hallway.
"You need to sit down and shut up. You've got enough information already. You can give them this time." Cabe told him. "Or I can knock your ass out, your choice." Cabe threatened him.
Toby swallowed hard.
"Just sit down Fungus. You are going to get yourself into even more trouble." Happy told him as she took a sip of her coffee. The bag of breakfast sandwiches sat untouched on the table as they had all been so fixated on the unfolding drama.
"How do you think this is even possible?" Sylvester asked.
Happy shook her head.
"I can't imagine a way that Walter wouldn't remember Paige. And Walter is so much of a dork there isn't a way Paige would forget him. And it isn't like Walter to have a one night stand. Hell, Paige and Ralph are the first people he's been able to touch or be touched by that didn't cause him to grimace. Even his sister made him uncomfortable at times." Happy told him.
Sylvester slowly nodded.
"That's true." Sylvester said.
"Well my only guess is that Paige was probably drunk or high on some narcotic when it happened. Walter is a bit more difficult. There isn't much that would stop his brain from realizing he knew Paige and had sex with her back in 2005." Toby told them.
"I'm sorry, what did you just say?" Florence asked as she came up the stairs.
Sylvester smiled and as he jumped up to greet her his heart rate shot up.
"Walter is actually Ralph's Dad. We've been trying to figure out how it was possible that neither Paige nor Walter remember the other but were able to have sex to conceive Ralph." Sylvester told her quickly.
Sylvester and Florence shared a tender kiss before moving on over to the table.
"My money is on some kind of physical trauma on Walter's part. It has to be a head injury that wiped out the memory, or stopped the memory from forming." Toby told him.
"Your money is where?" Happy's voice shot up an octave as she glared at him.
Toby smiled and shook his head.
"It is just a figure of speech my Asian queen." Toby told her quickly.
"It better be or your doubloons will literally meet my work shoe." Happy threatened him.
"How did you find this out?" Florence asked, puzzled.
"Ralph was telling Walter while the rest of us were sitting in here listening through a receiver picking up the signal from Toby's transmitter he hid in the bedroom." Sylvester told her.
Florence glared at Toby.
"That isn't cool Toby. How would you like it if someone listened in on your private conversation?" Florence spat at him.
"Hey, it was part of my need to know, to evaluate how Walter was affected by the drugs, okay?" Toby defended himself.
"Speaking of that, what is your conclusion so far?" Cabe asked as he got a sandwich out and opened it.
Toby shook his head.
"Well I'm hopeful but it ended too soon. I'm especially encouraged by how quickly Walter was putting things together from what Ralph was telling him. Even after all the abuse he's still fast mentally, I'm unsure about how smart he still is. Only time will tell." Toby frowned. "But he was significantly slower than his baseline which could point to some damage."
As Paige sat back up wiping at her face trying to dry her cheeks Ralph frowned at her.
"What are you doing here Mom? Were you listening at the doorway all this time?" Ralph asked, a bit upset.
Paige shook her head as she reached over and pulled the small transmitter out from behind the blood pressure machine and showed it to them. She dropped it on the bed. The three of them didn't see that it turned back on when it hit the bed.
"Toby needed to hear if you were able to have a conversation with your Dad. To help him evaluate your Dad's mind. We all heard, though I guess you had already told Cabe." Paige said sadly.
Ralph sighed and nodded.
"I didn't want you to find out this way Mom. I wanted to be able to sit down privately with you and Dad and tell you." Ralph told her.
"Hey, Paige must have turned it back on." Sylvester said with a smile.
"We should go turn it off." Florence said.
"No, no, wait." Toby told them.
Since their hug ended Walter had begun scratching again. Paige's presence definitely was driving his anxiety up. He was positive she was going to begin tearing into him again at any moment.
"Why didn't you say anything when you first found out Ralph?" Paige asked quietly, almost ignoring Walter much to his relief at the moment.
"I wasn't sure how to tell you Mom. I couldn't imagine why you, either of you didn't tell me you knew each other back then, that you had had an affair with Dad while living with Drew. And that I might have been Walter's son. I was so mad at you both after we got home from our trip to Hawaii. That's when I received the email with the test results in it. And then I was even madder at Dad for hurting you again. And I got even more mad at you for breaking up with him and I didn't handle it well with Dad and so I didn't take the chance to talk to him."
"And then you started Centipede with the Stooges. That made everything worse. I was mad at them for coming up with the idea of that stupid company and helping making it possible. Because of that, it made it possible for you to ignore Dad. You still had a decent income. If it wasn't for CP you'd most likely would have come back and talked to Dad and you could have worked things out. But instead it drove my Dad further away."
"And then because of Toby's stupidity Dad got taken and tortured horribly by that creep Toby owes money too. I could have lost my Dad because of all of you. Before he ever had a chance to know I was his son. I had to live for fifteen months, two weeks, three days, eighteen hours and twenty eight minutes without my Dad. Not knowing if he was alive or dead. And then for five hours and fifty two minutes to know he was alive but so severely hurt and abused." Ralph screamed so loudly that they didn't need the transmitter for that.
Toby, Happy and Sylvester all sat there with tears in their eyes at Ralph's pain and anger at what they helped to cause.
Walter reached back up and grabbed Ralph and pulled him back down against his chest and they both cried again.
"It is going to be okay Ralph. Somehow this is going to be okay. You aren't losing me. I'm so sorry I hurt you so much. I never wanted to hurt you. I just knew with your development you would be okay without me as your mentor. If I had known I was your Father nothing could have taken me from you. I'll be by your side forever." Walter told him.
"I just wish I could stop hurting the ones who mean the most to me. I would love to somehow make all of this up to you and your Mom. I need you both back in my life." Walter told them even as he looked past Ralph at Paige.
"If you can and are willing to help me understand how Paige, I would love to be able to apologize in a meaningful way to you to demonstrate how sorry I am for deceiving you." Walter finished.
Greetings! I hope this finds you all well!
Railman - Thank you, still struggling but working on it. Seems he is still very keen on Paige as well. As for Toby, only time will tell.
LouBe - Looks like Florence is in the same camp as you! hehe Well I hope it keeps you on the edge of your seat! Thank you, just a bigger struggle this year than the last.
Lucy - hehe Yep, awake...seems pretty big on Paige still at least. hehe
Susan - Well most of them are just trying to listen to Paige over it for now. Sylvester once time passed he cooled down a good bit.
JerBr23 - Yeah, I'd be very hesitant to trust Toby myself. And looks like Walter is there too!
Marie Mac - Thank you, I'll try! Yeah, that sounds like it would waaaay too late for normal brother type bonding, more like uncle/nephew. Kind of like my Dad and his oldest brother. I think they were 20 years apart.
Margaret - Enjoy your time there! Yes, addiction is horrible no doubts at all. The burn mark was kind of a calling card, that Bigelow uses to "warn" someone. As for the sexual abuse, Bigelow implied it while talking to Toby on the phone. I won't go to heavy into details but more comes up in later chapters. Originally I had thought this story would go deeper into the topics but as I wrote they kind of get treated with kid gloves.
To the Adventure! -Tim