Hi! Sorry this is a Repost because the format got messed up, sorry about that.
New stories Summery on the bottom and SURPRISE, One shot coming your way to make up for this annoying Repost ;) Check it out. I don't own Scorpion or any of its characters. K.
_SCORPION_
"Hi Walter." Ralph watches as the genius with the 197 IQ comes down the stairs. He freezes on the staircase.
"Ralph?" He smiles brightly.
He remembers the boy coming to the garage. But, the he remembered it so vividly; He assumed it was a dream.
"Hey buddy." He makes his way towards Ralph and ruffles his hair.
"I need cloths." The boy comments. He was still wearing Walters's gigantic tee shirt.
"Yeah, I know." The mentor guides the boy from the couch towards the kitchen and begins taking out the child's favorite cereal. He hated the thing but found himself eating it every morning since the liaisons departure.
"We could go out and buy you some after you eat, buddy." He pauses for a moment to take out his phone, texting the team not to come in today.
"Could we work on the rocket first?" The boy questions hopefully.
Walter looks up and smiles at the ten- excuse him- eleven year old. He wants to agree but sighs instead.
"I think it would be more efficient if we worked on that afterwards so we don't have to stop."
Ralph frowns but nods in agreement.
"You should... call your mother." Walter tentatively states as he hands the boy a spoon.
"She's working." Ralph responds quickly and begins eating his cereal, avoiding Walters gaze.
"Ralph." Walter warns. "I know you don't want to but at one time or another you are going to have to. The most efficient thing to do is call her now." Walter explains, his voice stern, almost…fatherly. "Get it over with."
Ralph doesn't respond at first but Walter continues to watch him.
Eventually, the boy frowns childishly before extending his hand for the phone.
"Oh, you still have her number saved." Ralph comments as he lifts the device to his ear, only to put it back down and put it on speaker. His mentor looks at him with an eyebrow raised in confusion as it begins to ring.
"Yeah?" He questions, his voice sounding as bewildered as he feels.
"She deleted yours the moment we got on the air plane to Portland." Ralph says.
Walter just stares at him for a moment. His expression was blank.
'Does she hate me? Why?' He couldn't help but wonder.
"I'm not allowed to talk about you at home, so really at all." Ralph shrugs casually as he continues to elaborate. "She's being irrational and-"
"Hello?" Paige answers in confusion.
Well, Ralph just explained why she didn't know who was calling. Walter rolls his eyes and sits beside Ralph, pouring himself a bowl of the disgusting cereal.
"Mom." Is all Ralph says. No greetings of any sort. Just an answer to who was on his side of the line. A fact.
Walter puts down his spoon and watches the exchange. It didn't surprise Walter that the boy didn't want to speak to his mother- In fact, he had attempted to warn Paige of the probability of that happening before she ran away -but the way Ralph seems to have disconnected completely from his mother…. Walter couldn't help but be reminded of the way he, himself had disconnected from Cabe so many years ago and again two months prior. He felt and feels betrayed. Just like Ralph does now.
At this realization, Walter can't help but feel glad that he had told his team to stay out of the garage today because he knew what Toby would say and the last thing he wanted right now was the shirks psychoanalyzing every move he made.
The shrink would question him on why he doesn't call Cabe and help Paige by setting an example for the eleven year old but last time Toby suggested he help Paige by helping Drew connect to Ralph, she got up and took the boy three thousand miles away.
There were two many factors in helping Paige and the last time he tried, the results were unfavorable. He couldn't help but feel betrayed by her as well.
"Ralph!" Her voice rings through garages kitchen. " We are going to talk about this when I get to you tomorrow! Are you okay? I heard you got into a fight at school."
Ralph frowns and hands Walter the phone, though it's still on speaker, he leaves to play proton Arnold on the opposite side of the garage without another word. The man frowns as he watches the boy walk away.
"Ralph?"
"He has a black eye." Walter states as he watches the boy turn on the refurbished machine.
"Walter." She says, her voice almost breathless though she seemed fine a minute ago.
"Is his eye okay?"
"He'll be fine."
"Okay." She breathes. The phone remains silent for a few awkward moments before Walter finally clears his throat.
"When will you get here?" Walter continues in the most efficient way he could.
"My flight is tonight, I'll land by you at 4 am. I'm staying in a motel around the corner from the garage; I'll take a cab there and pick him up in the morning."
He hesitates and looks at the boy playing proton Arnold.
'Don't take a cab, I'll pick you up!' He wants to say. 'Say it Walter!' He yells at himself, 'just say it.'
"And when will you depart?" He says instead.
"Three thirty the same day." Paige replies, her voice thick for reasons Walter couldn't comprehend. "That's the first flight I could find."
Walter clutches his phone tightly. The first flight she could find?
'Is it so bad being me? Being around me?' He remembers yelling to her, two months earlier. She had never directly answered the question; She avoided it.
But now he got his answer.
"Bye Paige." He says hanging up the phone without waiting for a response.
Mr.197 stares at the wall for a moment as if it would provide some comfort, or answers or whatever it is that he needs. The problem being that he's not even sure what it is he needs.
His fingers are tapping repeatedly on the kitchen table and his other hand covers his mouth, balled in a fist, as he decides his next move. His body is stiff yet somehow stretched in an uncomfortable position.
He glances at the boy on the other side of the room.
There is no way in heck he was helping Paige Dineen.
"Ralph, maybe you should shower and put on what you wore yesterday." The boy frowns but reluctantly agrees and quickly makes his way towards the loft.
"My hypothesis is that all the towels and bottles are in the same places as they were the last time I was here." It wasn't a question, though the child genius pauses on the steps to ask it.
"Correct." The boy nods and Walter watches as he makes his way upstairs.
He was not going to help Paige. That was decided. But he would help Ralph. Help was something Walter couldn't and wouldn't ever deny the boy.
He sighs and takes out his phone, scrolling through the contacts. Slowly he finds Cabe's number in his phones address book.
He hesitates before it he places the call and his body stoic as he presses the device against his ear.
"Walter?" A Gruff voice answers after the second ring. "You okay son? Uh, I mean Walter." The man's voice was laced with concern, almost emitting the emotion on guilt on Mr. No-Emotion-Quotient's side of the line.
Walter clears his throat.
"I'm fine." He admits. " Cabe, meet me at Kavelsky's. 12 noon."
No greetings, no games and no curtsey questions. Similar to the conversation Ralph had with his mother earlier.
"Yeah of course." Cabe replies without hesitation. Then the genius hangs up the phone.
He doesn't say greetings or pleasantries anymore. He only ever did for the sake of the liaison. She told him that it made him seem more human and for a minute, Walter had convinced himself that was a good idea.
Now, he knew better.
He pushes the bowl away, loosing his appetite.
_SCORPION_
It's not long after that Ralph is dressed and ready.
"Walter," The boy asks as his mentor closes the garage door behind him. "Will I get to see the team today?"
Walter glances down at the boy as they walk towards his busted red car.
"Honestly, I wasn't planning on telling them you were here," He shrugs, "It's been a mess in the garage since you guys left."
"Could we invite them to come over tonight?" Ralph questions, climbing into the back seat when Walter unlocks the car.
Walter frowns for a moment. He wanted to selfishly have the boy to himself; he didn't want to share the limited time Ralph had in the garage. But he cares more about what Ralph wants than what he wants. Besides, it may be good for him.
"Yeah, sure buddy. If that's what you want."
The boy smiles excitedly in the back seat as Walter started digging for his phone in his back pocket before handing it to the child in the back seat.
"Here, text them to be in the garage at six, we could keep you a surprise and order a pizza."
"Sounds efficient to me." The boy swipes the phone. Walter laughs- a relatively new sound since the Dineen's departure- and turns on the ignition and carefully backs out of driveway beside the garage.
The last place he had seen Paige so many months ago.
As they drive towards the mall closest to Kavelsky's ( Obviously for efficiency because he had planned to meet with former Agent Cabe Gallo afterwards) Ralph spoke adamantly about the security systems he had hacked to get to California.
Walter knew what Ralph did wasn't favorable in his mother's eyes but in his eyes- he couldn't help but feel grateful for the boys poor judgment and proud of his accomplishments.
It wasn't until they entered the cloths store that Ralph lowers his voice and begins walking a bit closer to his mentor. Ralph was a shy kid. Walter ran his fingers through the boy's hair as they walkthrough the department store.
Together, they head towards the kids department where Ralph would inevitably hate majority of the clothes the store had to offer as Walter awkwardly followed behind the child.
He had never shopped for someone else before- with the exception of his sister Megan, who uses his money to order online.
He couldn't help but feel lost, even as he is directing the small genius though each section. By the end of the hour, Ralph had chosen a button up shirt and some simple black dress pants.
Walter smiles remembering how he had worn the same thing for his school picture day so long ago.
He smiles as Ralph comes out of the dressing room, oblivious to the boys intention to emulate him.
As they wait on line to pay the cashier, the two geniuses talk about what the store could do to improve not only its lay out but also its productivity and the registers speed.
Walter can't help the annoyance he feels watching the woman at the register move slowly as the line behind the one open register continued to grow behind him.
"Your son is adorable!" The woman smiles when it's his turn and when Walter watches Ralph smile and bounce on the balls of his feet from the pleasure he receives from the woman's error, he can't help smile and thank this otherwise irksome woman as he wordlessly fills her tip jar.
He doesn't want to correct her and Ralph doesn't seem to mind.
Back at the car, the man watches through his rear view mirror as Ralph buckles into the back seat of his broken down car and can't help but notice how carefully he drives with the eleven-year-old sitting patiently in his back seat.
"Ralph?"
The boy doesn't respond, he just looks at him.
"How was Maine?"
The boy frowns and doesn't respond though honestly, Walter didn't expect him too.
He purses his lips, he can't help but wonder about the boy's mother.
He had said she had lost weight and didn't sleep well.
"Last night you mentioned that your mother and I had been loosing sleep and weight within the last two months."
The boy glances up at his mentor before nodding for him to continue.
"Is she…Um, okay?" Walter finds himself chewing on his bottom lip. Of course, He isn't worried...just-um, curious.
Ralph remains silent for a moment longer and Walter begins to think he doesn't plan to respond at all.
"No." He says plainly after a moment or two.
Walter frowns and waits for him to elaborate.
"She's ...unpredictable. She rarely smiles and eats too little. She's always working and I rarely see her."
"And when you do?" Walter continues to press, dissatisfied by the news for reasons he refuses to comprehend.
"She either doesn't want to look at me or brings me to her bed and hugs me." He shrugs with a frown, "I pretend I'm asleep."
"Why?" Walter whispers.
"Toby told Happy and me that repressing feelings are bad for a persons mental health." Mr.197 doubted Toby mentioned such a thing for Ralph's benefit over Happy's.
"So? What are you repressing by feigning sleep? "
"Not me, Mom." Ralph looks strait at Walter's eyes through the mirror and admits one of his mother's greatest secrets. "She won't cry if she knows I'm awake."
_SCORPION_
Hope You Enjoyed-
Two new stories coming up, trying to decides which to post first:
1) Walters father has 72 hours to live and he convinces Paige and Ralph to come with him to Callan, Ireland with him until his father dies, because he doesn't know how to deal with his mothers emotions...or his own. To make matters worse, his fathers last wish is that Mr.197 should take over the farm as the last remaining Male O'Brian-
I'm almost done writing this complete story.
2) Walter and Paige wake up after a case in Los Vegas, in a hotel room with matching wedding bands...
I wrote the first 5 chapters and I'm not sure how long this story will be.
I wrote both summaries quite terribly but which do you prefer? Which should I post first?
Do people really read authors notes?
PLEASE REVIEW AND ILL UPDATE AS SOON AS I CAN ;)