Ralph was shocked by how fast and hard his Mom had opened her office door. And just like that, he was engulfed in his Mom's arms. She was squeezing him so tightly.

"Mom?" Ralph asked. He could feel small tremors in his Mom's body and her breathing was off.

Sylvester stood up as he heard the concern in Ralph's voice.

"I-I, I need you to stay with Cabe." Paige told him before she let go of him and rushed out the front door.

"Wait!" Ralph called. "What's wrong?"

Cabe put his hand on Ralph's shoulder as Paige reached her car.

"What's going on?" Ralph asked as he looked up at Cabe.

"Nothing bad, but something very important she has to do." Cabe smiled down at the young man. "Is your homework done?"

"Yes sir." Ralph answered.

"Good, let's go get a milkshake." Cabe grinned.

"Yes!" Ralph cheered.


Walter stood in front of his desk going through an inventory he'd made of everything within the Garage and the intellectual properties that belonged to Scorpion 2.0. He was slowly moving through it, deciding what could be sold and for how much to offset the needs of Scorpion 2.0. The items of highest value he had listed under the "Last Resort Only" column.

Walter looked at Ferret Bueller in his cage as he chattered away.

"I've got to be honest, Ferret. Things aren't looking too good." Walter sighed. "Maybe I should just scuttle it all, but that would go against my very core though. Especially with them naming their company after a centipede, a predator of scorpions."

Walter sighed again.

"But what's the point? I can't do anything right in a relationship. No matter how much I try, no matter what I do for people, I'm always left alone and labeled as some kind of misfit. Always in the moment they are grateful and I see some light, a bit of hope. But all too soon, their gratitude runs dry and I'm just a constant annoyance to them. Not worth anything to them anymore." Walter shook his head.

Ferret Bueller began chattering even more.

"I can't even satisfy you." Walter sighed, remembering Paige's words to him. "I guess when Cabe comes in, I'll ask him to take you to Ralph. You always like Paige more anyway. That would be one less thing around here reminding me I'm not enough."

The door opened suddenly and Ferret went nuts.

"Walter?" Paige said as she hurried inside.

Walter sighed as he shook his head.

"What do you want Ms Dineen?" Walter said without looking towards her.

"I've got to talk to you." Paige told him as she moved across the Garage floor.

"Too bad." Walter said as he moved to stand behind his desk. "Go talk to your friends, or to whoever satisfies you. Since I can't, just leave me alone."

"What?" Paige paused before she got to his desk. "No, I need to talk to you…"

"I don't care!" Walter screamed, interrupting her. "Why would you want to? You left me, remember? You belittled me, told me I couldn't satisfy you…wouldn't even give me a chance to talk to you, to explain. You took all those traitors with you and formed a company to destroy me. So just get out of here."

"Walter…no…That's not how it…" Paige started before Walter cut her off again.

"I don't care!" Walter screamed again.

Ferret began chittering louder.

"Walter, please, this is too important." Paige said softly even as she looked at the caged animal.

"No it isn't." Walter glared at her. "Whatever is wrong, whatever trouble you are in, whatever those three did to upset or piss you off has nothing to do with me. I'm done being a doormat. All your things you left here are on the couch in that box, take it and go. That's what you are good at, taking everything you can get and then leaving."

"Walter…" Paige almost cried. "Is that what you truly think of me? Is that what you think you mean to me?"

"You've proven I don't mean anything to you. You only saw me as possibly helping Ralph. Now that he's so much better, my quirks which you claimed were crazy weird, but to be okay with it because they were great, are no longer great, no longer worth your time. Just, go…and take that damn animal with you and leave me alone." Walter struggled to remain emotionless.

"No!" Paige said defiantly. "I'm not going until we've talked. After that, if you want me to leave I will."

Ferret's chittering got even louder.

Walter's mind latched onto the next thought he had.

"Oh, I get it. Mr Dodd finally remembered the non-compete clause in your contracts with Scorpion. Well tough, I will be enforcing it and you guys can go bankrupt for what you did to me." Walter told her.

"Walter…" Paige said softly. "This isn't about that at all. I didn't even know that was part of our contract."

"What's wrong with Ralph?" Walter asked suddenly, as it was the only thing that he could think of to bring her over to see him then.

Paige smiled.

"Nothing is wrong with Ralph, Walter. He's fine." Paige started to explain.

"Then whatever this is, isn't important enough to deal with you. You had your say that night before you left. What you've done since has said even more. I'm not important to you, so get out!" Walter demanded.

"Walter!" Paige yelled back. "You can't assign a level of importance to this without knowing what it is. And you are extremely important to Ralph, to me. Please, I'm begging you, let me talk to you."

"NO!" Walter yelled. "How dare you play the Ralph card, playing on my emotions over him." Walter choked up. "I love that boy…you can't use him to hurt me like this."

Ferret began rattling the cage as he chittered at the couple.

"Walter Patrick O'Brien!" Paige said in her best Mom voice. "I was wrong that night here in the Garage and I wasn't very nice about it. And as sorry as I am about my behavior that night, I can't really apologize for what I said and did. I don't even know how to say I'm sorry for it. But I will try if that's what you want me to do, but what I need to talk to you about is so much more important. I would never use Ralph for anything, much less to hurt you. In fact, what this is about, is potentially more important than anything you've ever equated as important."

Paige stood looking at Walter, she could see his eyes moving about her physical presence as well as moving as he thought. He was definitely calculating what she might think could be so important to him.

"I don't care." Walter finally said as his arm rose up and he waved his hand dismissing her and what she thought was important.

Ferret again rattled his cage.

"March 16th, 2005." Paige finally said as she realized she'd have to say something that would get through to him. He was too hurt to listen to anything else.

"I don't…" Walter froze as he was about to tell her he didn't care. His brilliant mind pulled up his memory of that day, of the mystery that surrounded what happened to him during those hours after he was mugged.

"What about it?" Walter slowly responded.

"I know what happened." Paige told him even as her cheeks felt hot.

"You don't know anything." Walter dismissed her.

"Yes I do." Paige promised. "And if you will sit with me, I'll prove it."

Paige felt that Walter's eyes were probing her, trying to figure out if she was lying or up to something.

"May I?" Paige asked as she gestured to the chair beside his desk. She thought that might encourage him to give her a chance.

Walter slowly nodded.

"But do something about that damn animal first." Walter told her but never moved beyond where he stood.

"Ferret can just wait, I told you, this is more important than anything." Paige said as she sat down in a chair she knew well. How many times had she sat down in it to have a conversation with Walter?

Since Walter hadn't yet given his word she could speak on the subject, she decided to just wait.

Several long minutes passed and Paige was beginning to think his silence was permission.

"Wouldn't you prefer to sit with me as I talk? Or do you need to lord over me for my transgressions against you?" Paige asked. A calculated challenge she felt might help.

Ferret seemed to really squeak loudly at being ignored.

Walter's hand finally reached out and took the back of the chair so he could pull it out. A moment later he sat down, but was still stiff.

"As it turns out, March 16th, 2005 was a special day for both of us." Paige smiled finally. "For you it seemed like it was a horrible day I'm sure, it was horrible for me as well at the time. You were in San Francisco. You had attended a lecture at the university there and then returned to your motel room a friend got for you." She saw the shocked look of recognition in Walter's eyes.

"As you entered the room, you were hit from behind and knocked unconscious." Paige continued. "You came to a few hours later and found yourself in bed and half undressed. You discovered evidence that something sexual happened to you about your body. You also found a pair of pink panties on the floor."

"So you guys hacked a database somewhere and discovered this." Walter said in disgust.

Ferret grumped and burrowed into his nesting material.

"I'm not finished, but no. None of us hacked any database." Paige said softly. "They don't know I'm here or any of this. You went to the hospital and they took your complaint seriously. They did an exam and rape kit on you as well as called the police."

Walter slowly nodded.

"But the police didn't believe your story, didn't really care to pursue what happened. Because, in their opinion, you wouldn't admit you had gotten a prostitute." Paige told him.

"This is all old news, so how is this supposed to be so important to me?" Walter snipped.

"That isn't what is so important Walter." Paige sighed. "I'm just demonstrating I know what happened to you. Now, that day I returned to my apartment where I lived with Drew…"

"I do not want to know about you and Drew." Walter said angrily as he cut her off again.

"Walter…" Paige said cautiously. "This isn't about me and Drew, but this part is important as context for the story, okay?"

"Fine." Walter rolled his eyes.

Paige condensed that part of the story to get to when she was headed back home from the liquor store.

"You see, there was a cheap motel next door to our apartment building. And as I was making my way back to the apartment, I saw several men running from one of the rooms. I looked and saw the legs of someone sticking out the door of a room." Paige told him and saw Walter's eyes open wider. She explained what she remembered and then waking up and fleeing the motel.

"There is no way this is true." Walter said, shaking his head. "You got this info from some place and are making this up to play some kind of twisted joke on me."

"Walter!" Paige said sharply. "Do you really think I would confess to having raped you just to play some kind of joke on you?"

"Raped?" Walter looked disgusted.

"That's what your complaint to the medical staff said, that I raped you." Paige told him.

"I would…never…I never said you raped me." Walter said as he began looking sick. "And there is no proof this was you and I."

"Walter, what are the odds that on the exact same day, there were two men in San Francisco. Both staying at that Travelodge, who got mugged going into their room and then awakened later to discover they had sex with someone who left pink panties on the floor?" Paige asked.

Paige could see he was trying to run the numbers on that which made her smile.

"Stop." Paige told him. "Look at this." Paige said as she pulled the tablet Cabe had shown her out of her purse. She pulled up the file and let it play out so Walter could see it all happen.

"It boggles the mind." Walter murmured after he watched it several times. "But as interesting as this is, the quality, it doesn't prove this is you and it doesn't rise up to the claim of being "more important" than anything else."

"Walter…" Paige smiled. "I'm not done yet."

"Okay…" Walter said as Paige saw his body finally relaxing.

"I can promise you, this was me, those are my clothes in the video and that is your room door. It was a new detective who gathered this evidence, and he wasn't able to find this woman when he looked at the video feeds from the businesses on the other side of the apartment building. It took me about two weeks to go to the college clinic to get tested for STDs and a pregnancy test." Paige said softly. "While I got the email a few days after, it took me another week to open it. Both because of dread and because we had to move to Saint Louis." Paige swallowed hard. "Walter, I didn't have sex with Drew after that day until after I read the email and knew I didn't have an STD. The email also said I was pregnant and I'm pretty sure I wasn't pregnant before March 16th."

Walter's eyes opened wide for a moment as Paige watched. Suddenly he jumped up out of his chair, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. He turned quickly and walked off towards the back of the Garage.

"Walter?" Paige said softly. A tear ran down her face as Walter kept walking. She jumped a moment later as the back door of the Garage slammed shut.

"Walter?" Paige said as she stood up looking towards the back.

Ferret came out of his nesting material and chittered softly.

Paige stood there just waiting for nearly ten minutes. Finally she sighed as Walter hadn't come back. She pulled the strap of her purse up onto her right shoulder before walking towards the front door.

As her hand grabbed the handle a tear ran down her face. She turned and walked back over to Walter's desk. She pulled a pen out of his desk drawer and a sheet of paper.

"Walter, I guess you aren't coming back right now. I know you might not read this, but I have to write it anyway. I want you to know, I really screwed up the best thing I ever had. And that was my relationship with you." Paige wrote even as she whispered the words to herself. "No one's perfect, but Walter, you loved me, loved Ralph. You made our lives so much better. You put your life on the line for us, for me, over and over. I know sometimes it seemed your research was more important than I was, but I'm sure that wasn't true. It was just your brain needing to think about science."

"I am so sorry I hurt you with my lies that night. I was just so mad you wouldn't tell me the truth, like I wasn't important enough for the truth. Even after begging you for it. And then, finding out you took Flo…It felt like you were growing away from me. So I did what I did to protect myself, which hurt you. And for that, I am so, very, very sorry."

"Words…can't make right what I did. It's why I never tried to say I was sorry. And learning about this truth brought all of that up front and center of my thoughts." Paige smiled as she sniffed back the tears. "You should have seen me after Cabe had made his point over all of this, he has to do a review of Scorpion's viability for Homeland. And that's how he discovered all of this. I'm sure I scared Ralph so much with how I looked and acted." Paige laughed a little at that thought.

"I could be wrong, maybe you aren't Ralph's Father. But if I am wrong, that would make this so much worse. Because I've been so happy at the possibility since Cabe pointed it out. I really want to get a paternity test run to find out for sure." Paige paused and smiled thinking of how happy Ralph and Walter would be if Walter was his Father. "And whether you are or not Ralph's Father, I want to try and fix our relationship. Because I still love you so much. XXXOOOXXX"

Paige smiled as she read the letter again. She looked to the back of the Garage and sighed as there was no sign that Walter was coming back. She left the pen on top of the letter, on top of his desk and left.


Greetings! I hope this finds you all well!

Railman - Thank you, glad you enjoyed it. She's done a good job with this story.

DaToad - Yeah, a is she pregnant or not cliffhanger would have been a far superior ending then what we got for sure.

Ms Natural - I'm glad you have enjoyed my offerings. I'm saddened that some people are upset over how you took your story. I'm so far behind in reading stories I haven't gotten to it yet. Not every story will resonate unfortunately. All we can do is be faithful in telling the story we're given and let it lie. Don't give up on it, keep telling it. Hopefully the people upset will turn around. My story with Paige and Cabe becoming a couple wasn't too well received either. lol

LouBe - Gosh, I've told that plot so many times and in so many ways. lol I'm glad you aren't bored with it! lol Yeah, Katherine definitely wants to keep Carson from doing away with Scorpion...she knows it is a personal matter of his dislike for Cabe driving it. Let's hope she's up for the challenge. Yeah, Cabe's normally a bit "stuffier" about them in my stories, time to change it up! lol

Guest - Thank you. I do miss writing like I used to and being able to post every other day at least. Don't want to give anything away, but hopefully you will enjoy this new story as much as the 1st chapter!

Pearliegirl - Ahhh...Now that I try to say that, I know what you were saying, before I was just reading it and it didn't make sense. lol Glad you are all in!

Massika - Woohoo! Now to reel you in! hehe While this story might not plumb the depth of where this could go for Walter in that respect...I don't want to spoil anything so...But I will say there is some pain coming for our favored boy...Paige had indeed only thought of it as a drunken mistake, but as we can see, she's at least accepting that to Walter, it was rape. I definitely do love the fun and fluff for Waige!

To the Adventure! -Tim