Part 4 – I Can't Believe She Stayed

Five minutes later they were all seated at a booth in one of the nearby airport restaurants. Walter and Paige got a coffee, hers with cinnamon. Ralph wanted a chocolate milk. Walter also ordered them a basket of french fries and some fried mozzarella cheese sticks to have something to eat while they talked.

"How do you like school Ralph?"

Paige started to answer the question for him out of habit.

"It's pretty boring. They have me in a class with a few other kids and we don't get to do any real work. Some days my mom just lets me stay with her."

Paige was shocked. She had never seen Ralph talk to anyone before. No doctor, no specialist, no teacher, no one. And yet here he was openly having a conversation with Walter.

"Do your teachers know how smart you are, Ralph?"

He shrugged his shoulders and looked towards his mom. "They think I am learning disabled."

Paige had more tears in her eyes. Not knowing how school really must have felt for Ralph.

"Well, we are going to have to fix that aren't we." Walter told him, smiling and ruffling through his hair, without a flinch. Paige could not believe this was all happening. She smiled at the sight as it warmed her heart.

They talked for a few hours. A second chocolate milk and basket of french fries later and they were still talking.

"So, you never told us why you were here today. I'm assuming it wasn't to fix their Wi-Fi." Paige asked him.

"Actually, in a way it was. I don't know if you were aware, but there was a glitch in some of the software updates that went out to the planes today. Somehow, there were 56 planes over the Los Angeles area that didn't have the proper guidance for their landing gear."

"Oh my gosh. I knew there was something going on because all the flights were delayed. Are you saying you saved all those people?" Paige asked amazed.

"No, I um wouldn't say that. Me and my team helped to um get the software installed on the planes."

"How?" Ralph asked him inquisitively.

"That's a good question Ralph. We tried to do it wirelessly, but the plane was moving too fast, and the data wasn't able to upload before the plane was out of range. So, we had to do it with a wired connection."

Paige snorted. "How could you do it through a wired connection? If the planes were flying overhead?"

"I um had to reach out the roof of the car we were in, while it was traveling almost 200 miles per hour, and take the cord from the plane eight feet above my head and load the update from my laptop." Walter told her like it was all in a days work.

Paige snorted again, not believing him. Ralph trusted him. He knew he was telling the truth.

"You're not lying, are you?" Paige said after looking at Ralph.

"I only state facts." Walter told her. "The scariest thing about the whole day was, at one point when I couldn't figure out what to do, they were to a point where they accepted that two planes were disposable."

"No, they can't do that, they should try to save everybody, why would they do that?" Paige asked shaking her head.

"The greater good theory, spare a few to save many." Walter told her.

"You should always try to save everybody." Paige reiterated. "I'm glad it didn't come to that. I'm glad you figured it out. Tell me about your team."

"I own a company called Scorpion. I have three other people who work with me. They are also geniuses, all with different strengths. And as of today, we have a contract with Homeland Security as part of a task force to help them with certain cases that arise."

"Sounds interesting. What was it like before you got this contract? Were you always out on big missions?" Paige asked him fully engaged with his conversation.

"Honestly, pretty boring. Most days we didn't seem to have much excitement if any at all. I am hoping my days of installing routers and fixing Wi-Fi signals are over." Walter told her with a smile as he sipped his coffee.

After they talked a little longer, they decided it was time to leave the airport. But before they did, Walter had one thing he wanted to try to do for them. He brought them over to one of the offices where he earlier had to fill out some paperwork. He told the supervisor there about the flight that Paige didn't get on and asked if there was any way that they could reimburse her the money that she paid for the tickets.

"I will gladly reimburse you the full amount for these tickets, and I will also give you two free vouchers for air fare anywhere in the continental United States as a thank you for your friends' heroics today. He went above and beyond for us today and saved thousands of lives in the process. It is the least we can do for two of his good friends."

Walter blushed, almost embarrassed. But he had to admit, hearing the man call Paige and Ralph his good friends sounded pretty nice to him. Ralph looked at him with amazement in his eyes. Paige saw the way her son was looking at him and she started to wonder what it was about him. She hadn't felt like this about anyone in a long time, maybe ever. She had a certain look on her face as well.

"Thank you, sir." Paige told him. "That's very generous and kind of you."

After they left the office and started walking again, Paige turned to Walter.

"Thank you for doing that for me. You don't know how much that means to us." Paige told him and without thinking gave him a hug. Walter wasn't sure what to do at first as he didn't move his arms from his side, but after a few seconds he was able to reciprocate the action and place his arms around her too.

Walter walked them to their car as they continued to talk and was getting ready to tell them goodbye for the day. He wasn't sure how he was going to contact them again to try to set up a time to help Paige to better understand Ralph more.

"I've not um really e-ever done this before, b-but if I um gave you my phone number, w-would you think about m-maybe um calling me sometime if you would want to go out and grab a meal or a dessert or something sometime. I um mean b-both of you. Or y-you could um j-just call if you ne-needed help um needed me to help you with um anything relating to um related to Ralph."

Paige had made herself a rule. She didn't date much. As pretty as she was, and as often as she got hit on by patrons at work, or anywhere else she went, she rarely dated. She always put Ralph before herself. Most men, when they found out she had a son, didn't want her number anyway. Like the jerk from earlier at the airport, not that she would have said yes to him anyway.

But here was a man, who not only offered her his phone number, to leave the option up to her whether to call or not, he asked for and wanted Ralph to join them. That had never happened to her before. She saw the look in Ralph's eyes too.

"Well, I've really never done this before either, but why wait for a call. I'm here, Ralph's here and you're here. Why don't we go get something to eat tonight? I want to talk to you more about ways to connect to Ralph anyway."

"Ralph, is that um ok with you?" Walter asked him.

Paige was impressed. He wasn't asking Ralph to impress her, but damn, that scored him some points for sure. He really seemed to care about her and her son.

"I think that plan sounds pretty efficient." Ralph told him.

"Efficient, I like that word." Walter told him with a wink.

Might as well throw in some more points for the genius.

"Let us drop you off at your car, and then we can figure out dinner." Paige told Walter.

"Huh, my car, seems to me I forgot my car is not here. I arrived in a um government SUV if you can believe it."

"You don't say. This some clever way of getting a free ride home Walter?" Paige said totally joking, which Walter did not get.

"I can assure you it was not. My um car is not um here."

"I'm kidding Walter. I'll drive to dinner and then we can take you home."

"Are you ok with that?" Walter asked, wanting to make sure she didn't feel obligated to drive him home.

"Yes, I think I can trust you." Paige told him with a big smile as he was getting in her car.

"And we are paying for dinner, as a thank you for getting the tickets refunded for me. I spent all I had on those tickets."

"I can't let you pay for dinner. I asked you both to eat, and that should mean I pay for the meal. Besides, Scorpion had a fairly successful day today, and I want to celebrate it with you guys."

"Well, if you insist, then you need to pick the restaurant." Paige told him.

"Ralph, what is your favorite type of food?"

"My mom's chicken."

"Ooh sweetie, thank you. You never told me you liked my cooking before." Paige teared up; she had never seen Ralph this talkative before, even at home when it was just the two of them.

"Does chicken parmesan sound good to everyone?" Walter asked.

"Yes." They both said.

They headed to Walter's favorite Italian restaurant. It wasn't too far from Paige's condo or the garage. She realized she only lived about 15 miles from where the restaurant was. Walter told them he lived not too far from the restaurant either.

They talked more throughout the meal. Walter shared some ideas with Paige on ways to connect with her son.

The meal was splendid. Ralph ordered dessert, by himself, and was so far out of his shell around Walter, Paige couldn't believe it. Before her eyes, for the first time she was getting to see who her son truly was. And she owed it all to the now, not so stranger sitting next to her having a meal with them.