"What happened to your eye?" Walter asks, picking up the ten year old. He continued to hold him close as Ralph keeps his arms wrapped around his mentor.
The contact was out if character for the both of them.
"I got into a fight at school." He frowned sounding younger than he had in years.
"He hit you." It wasn't a question, it was a fact.
"Don't worry," Ralph pulls away to look at him, "I got him right in the nose."
Walter chuckles as he remembers teaching Ralph to defend himself from bullies when him and his mother first came to Team Scorpion.
Of course, since then his emotional quotient had radically increased, increasing the amount of friends he had and those friends would help defend him against bullies. Ralph had never found a use for the lessons.
Evidently, until he moved to Maine.
"What happened to your face?"
"I got into a fight." Walter smiles at the boy.
"With Happy?" He questions, causing Walter to let out a loud, sincere laugh. His first since the small boys absence.
"Close but no. With a terrorist."
Walter hands Ralph his cold bag of green beans.
"You look different." Ralph comments with a frown. "Like mom."
Walter raises an eyebrow in confusion.
"You lost weight and your eyes are tired. Just like mom."
Walter didn't dare hope the boy's mother felt as miserable as he had been feeling since she had left.
He placed the boy down on his desk and he stood in front of him.
"Does she know you are here? Is she with you?" He glances back at door, his heart rate speeding up but the entrance remains empty.
"No to both."
"You ran away?"
Ralph doesn't respond, he just looks around the room avoiding his mentor's eyes.
"Shoot." Walter sighs sitting next Ralph.
"Don't tell her!" Ralph's eyes widened. " I don't want her. I want to stay with you."
Walter frowned; his own EQ levels had plummeted since Paige left. It cause a lot if problems during cases but Walter couldn't deny that he wanted to keep the boy here and not tell his mother. Ralph EQ seems to be on overdrive.
He sighs.
"She'll call the police, you need to call her. She'll be worrying about you."
"So? Worrying is irrational. The result will remain the same no matter what she feels." Ralph frowns defiantly at first, until his defiance turns into sadness. "If she doesn't care about what I feel, why should I care about what she feels?"
Walter knew what cause the boy at act out in such an extreme way.
"Ralph, what you did, hacking your way on an airplane and-"
"Hitch hiking."
Walter frowns.
"And hitch hiking over here, it was dangerous."
Ralph nods in agreement.
"But rational and necessary."
Walter raised an eyebrow.
"How do you see that?"
"I know you care about me, because while mom was working a double shift, I had a babysitter on my birthday and while Drew was out playing a game, you remembered and you sent me a birthday present."
Walter was still confused.
"But you think birthdays are nonsensical?"
"But Mom and Drew," Ralph spat his fathers name in disgust, "Don't."
Emotional overload.
Walter understood Ralph, just like he always had.
"Mom never let me call you or anyone on the team. I wasn't aloud to say your name but I hate it in Portland. It's cold and wet. I'm not calling her."
Walter sighs.
"Alright buddy." Walter stands taking the boys hand and begins leading him up the stairs towards the loft, "I'll call her but it's late now. How about you go get dressed for bed and tomorrow, I'll cancel work and we could spend the day together. I've been waiting for you to finish my rocket."
"Really?" The boy's eyes light up, " I thought for sure you finished it."
"Nope," Walter smiled happily at the boy. " Not without you, buddy."
The boy just smiles as they make their way to Walter's room.
"Can I borrow a shirt for pajamas?" Ralph asks, surprising Walter.
"What's in you knapsack?" Walter questions. He assumed Ralph had packed some items in his bag but Ralph had just dropped it by the door, the way he used to drop his schoolbooks.
"You came from school?" Walter hit his head in realization.
The boy shrugs.
"Alright, alright." He passed the boy an old tee-shirt of his, it was too big on him now but then again, so were all his clothes.
After putting Ralph asleep by reading him a story in his mentor's bed, Walter quietly made his way downstairs.
Nervously he picks up his cell phone and dialed the phone of the liaison.
"Walter." A man answers the phone on the first ring. Walter feels his grip tighten around the phone.
"Drew."
"Look," Drew began, his tone sounding aggressive. " Ralph is M.I.A right now so now isn't the -"
"Put Paige on the phone." Walter cuts him off. "I called her cell, not yours. It's important."
"No, Walter now isn't the right time to-"
"Is that my phone?"
Walter could hear the voice of the liaison farther away from the receiver. It was stressed and scared. Walter knew that tone quite well.
He couldn't help notice the voice of the liaison still made him shiver.
"Walter?" She takes the phone, her voice sounding high pitched and panicked.
"Paige, calm-"
"Walter, now is a really bad time." The woman's voice starts to thicken with tears.
"Ralph-"
"Ralph got into a fight at school. Then he just- just disappeared." Walter was having problems deciphering the mother's words through her tears.
"Paige-"
"The police are here, helping but not making much progress."
"Paige, Ralph is-"
"You understand him Walter, where would he have gone?"
"Paige-"
"I checked everywhere and he-"
"Paige!" He finds himself yelling into the receiver and then remembering his guest upstairs.
"Yeah?" She cried quietly.
"Ralph would go to his home." Is all Walter says, trying to hide his pride.
"I checked; he's not here."
"He's not In Portland, Paige. He hates it there."
"I- I don't understand." She questions, though this time a bit quieter.
"He's here. He hacked his way on an airplane and hitchhiked to the garage."
"What!?" She yelled into the receiver, "Walter has him." She says to Drew somewhere off the line, she couldn't help but sound relieved.
"Let me talk to him." Paige demands.
"He's sleeping." Walter refrains from adding that Ralph doesn't want to talk to her. That Ralph feels she had betrayed him.
"I don't care, wake him up. I need to hear his voice."
"Paige, he had a long day and-"
"He doesn't want to speak to me, does he?"
Walter remains silent.
"I can't come get him until Friday." Paige attempts to hold back her tears, " Maybe you could put him on the plane and I'll pick him up here..."
"He's welcome here as long as he wants to stay." Walter says more aggressively than he means to.
"Um...ok." She breathes deeply.
Both parties remain silent. Walter hears Drew calling Paige's name but she doesn't respond to him at first.
"Hold on." She eventually snaps at the washed out reliever.
The genius could hear the sound of the movement on the other line.
"Walter?" She asks again, her voice is thick with emotion.
"Paige." Is all he says, not noticing how tightly he had the phone pressed to his ear until it began to hurt.
"I-I miss you." She admits, quietly into the phone.
He doesn't respond as he stiffens in his chair.
He hears her sigh.
"I'm not asking you to respond in kind, I just needed to let you know is all." When he still doesn't respond, it's not because he's ignoring her. He doesn't know what to do with the new information.
"I'll come get Ralph on Friday," It was blatantly obvious she was crying now. "I'm sorry he did this, have him call me when he wakes up."
No response.
"Bye Walter." Is the last thing he heard before the line cuts off and he can't help but feeling worse than before he made the phone call.
She missed him?
That's illogical; he is the reason why she left. Her fears of having Ralph become too much like him. She chose to leave him, not the other way around.
But to himself, he couldn't deny that he missed having her around.
His desk still smelled like lavender, because it was her favorite scent.
The team had invested in a new coffee pot, because even though the woman had been gone for two months, he still insisted on putting cinnamon in his pot even though everyone else hated it.
Without thinking, he hits the redial button on his cell phone.
"Walter?" She almost sounded hopeful, but the man with the 197 IQ doesn't know what to make of it. He chocks on his words.
He wants to tell her he misses her. That he could now comprehend the feeling of longing and therefore avoided her name or any reference to her as if it was the plague.
A few moments passed before he is able to speech.
"I- um. Miss dialed."
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