A/N: Some fluff on a dreary cold, autumn morning, to top your coffee with! I absolutely love the invisible string theory. My mom and stepdad recently discovered some long ago connections between them, and I just find it so fascinating.
Xoxo
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"There you are." Walter spoke from the doorway of the garage of their condo, unable to fully see her with her car parked between them. "I was going to see if you would like to grab some dinner out while Ralph's at class? We can bring him home something for later…"
"Oh, uh, sure. Yeah, that sounds nice." She responded distractedly.
Watching as she pulled another box from the storage shelf on the other side of the garage, he scrunched his brows and descended the short staircase, walking around her red car to find her in a sea of old photographs and albums.
"What is all of this?"
"Oh, um…" She peered up at him, gracing him with an excited grin that still made him weak in the knees. "Have you ever heard of the invisible string theory?" She sat, digging through the box, pulling out a dusty old photo album. "Aha!"
"Oh, Yes. The Cosmic String Theory." She lit up, excited that Walter would know about this theory of human relationships. "Though, it's still just a hypothetical concept at this point, suggesting that the universe is made up of one-dimensional strings that permeate it--"
"Oh, uh, no." She giggled. She should have known. "Wrong theory, Walter. Not science."
"Oh. Um, then no, I am not aware of any other theory involving strings that are invisible, no." The way his face twisted when he was troubled at not knowing something would never cease to make her laugh, though, she bit her lip to keep from doing so. She'd learned that lesson the hard way. He did not take it well.
"I guess I'm not that surprised you aren't. It's this theory that people, relationships, lovers, are connected to each other, and have always been connected without even realizing it."
"Connected…" He drawled out slowly, trying very not to sound as disinterested as he was in idiotic notions people place on human connection.
"Yes, Walter. Connected." She mock glared at him, catching on to his tone despite his efforts. "I know it's not your cup of tea. But, I love the idea of it. That, something, be it spiritual, emotional, cosmic, whatever, ties people together. Like fate, or soul mates. That different moments throughout your life you perhaps had chance encounters with the people you're meant to be with, that your souls find each other, and you didn't even know it, or odd coincidences that you can't explain between you, that just show you were meant to be together…"
"Well, according to Greek mythology, humans originally were created to have four legs, four arms, and a head with two faces. Complete. Zeus feared the power they held, and split them in two, condemning them to spend their lives searching for their other half. But that's mythology."
"I think that's really beautiful… and tragic."
While I can understand the sentiment of such fables, it's ridiculous, Paige. The belief that there is only one persoaryou're compatible with for life… there are 8.2 billion people on the planet." She sighed. "We're connected by genetics, ancestry, but the idea that people are destined or fated to be together is… foolish. People are together because they make an active choice to be together, not because of some invisible string, or fate. I mean, you and I, we weren't even raised in the same country. Have led entirely different lives… we met in a diner, a chance encounter. It was happenstance, not fate." While he loved that Paige liked to challenge his thinking, sometimes, he really struggled to not point out just how preposterous her wild thinking could be. Always up in the clouds.
"I'm going to try not to be offended by that." She eyed him. She knew him well enough to know it was simply Walter being Walter, but how she wished to hear him say something romantic someday. Just once. How they were meant to be together. How she was his other half. She shook her head at him. "Just… here, come look at this."
Reluctantly, he sat on the cold concrete floor of the garage, cramped next to her car, trying to appease her so they could go about their day.
"Look at what?"
"Those things of Megan's that Sly dropped off this morning…" Walter quirked a brow at the mention of his sister. "I was going through the boxes earlier, and there's several photo albums of you guys as children, all the way up til she passed."
"Yeah, she always had lots of photos. Was always snapping her camera away. Said she wanted to leave memories behind for me. I told her it was nonsense."
"Oh, I'm sure you did." She teased, and handed him an album of Megan's. "Look." With a sigh, he took it, and looked at the grainy old photo under the plastic sheeting. "What do you see?"
"Megan and I. As kids." He began handing her back the album, when she pushed it back with a scowl.
"Walter, please. Humor me."
"Okay, fine… this is from when our parents took us to Disneyland. Shortly after Megan got sick. I believe they were concerned she wouldn't live very long, or at least have mobility. They certainly couldn't afford the trip, but took us anyway." He smiled sadly at the photo, a young Walter and Megan standing in front of Pinocchio's Daring Journey, as his thumb lightly traced over Megan's image. "One of the few memories I have where my parents didn't seem to mind my peculiarity. They just let me enjoy my calculations of the rides, even engaged in it with me. My father had me map out the most efficient traffic patterns, line lengths, to ensure we could get to every ride. Megan made me go on every ride twice with her. It was, dare I say, fun. It's why Megan wanted to move to California."
Paige smiled, gently squeezing his hand.
"Well, there's something else special about that trip, Walter."
"What?"
"Look there. See that girl right next to you, the man holding the cotton candy...?"
"Yeah? So? It's Disneyland, Paige. There's a lot of little girls and fathers holding their cotton candy."
She scowled, then handed him another photo album, one of hers.
"Yeah, well, not all of them are your wife with her dad." Pointing to another photo of a just as young Paige, with blonde pigtails, cotton candy in her hand, and her father with a great big grin, standing in front of the very same Pinocchio's Daring Journey… with a young Walter and Megan, Sean and Louise in the far corner of the photo.
"No way… that's not… that's uh…" Walter muttered, the corner of his lips turning up before comparing the two photos, including the date in the corner.
September 23, 1994
"And that, my love, is an invisible string." Paige started with a smirk, satisfied to have rendered Walter awestruck.
"The statistical probability alone is… I mean, best estimate, the parks can hold 80,000 people per day, 2 different parks, approximately 40 square miles of attractions… 365 days a year… I would have to ask Sylvester here, but… The chances are so infinitesimal…"
"And, in one the boxes, I found this." She handed him a coaster with a restaurant logo on it.
"Frank's All Night Diner. Wow, haven't thought about that place in years. The food was so cheap, and we barely had any money. We rented the apartment right above it for a while. Everything always smelled like bacon. Megan loved it. We got kicked out after they discovered I had wired the apartment to steal electricity, cable and internet from the diner. We stopped eating there after..." He chuckled at the memory.
"Sounds… very you. Wait." She shot her eyes to his, grabbing his forearm. "You lived upstairs?!" He turned, coming out of his reverie at her excitement.
"Not for very long, a year I think, but yes. Why?"
"Walter… *I* lived upstairs! Right after I had Ralph! I worked at the diner during the day!"
"There's no way we lived in the same apartment…" He shook his head in disbelief.
She shuffled through the box of photos, and found a picture of a younger Paige holding an infant Ralph, standing in front of the apartment door holding the keys excitedly, handing it to Walter in amazement.
"Invisible string, babe! Invisible string! Go ahead and explain that with science! I worked in the kitchen for a few months, and when Frank told me the apartment had a… sudden… vacancy, I jumped on it, especially when I learned that electric and cable were included in the rent! Right after I moved in, Frank offered me a position as a waitress!" The excitement at this discovery was palpable coming off of her, her eyes twinkling and mouth wide with joy. "Walter, I probably made your food!"
His slack jawed expression made her chuckle.
"This is… there's just no way…"
"Come on. Let's go drop Ralph off at class and you can try and convince me that the invisible string theory is just a foolish notion over dinner…" piling the stacks of scattered photos back into the box, she laughed. "But uh, just saying, honey, you once told me that romantic love was a foolish notion too… and just look at you now… all romantically in looooove."
Paige got up, placing a kiss on Walter's cheek with a smile, placed the box back on the shelf and walked away, leaving Walter sitting there looking at the photos she'd given him.
Suddenly, all he wanted was to scan over every moment of his entire life, rewind his memories and look for her in every crowd, at every stop light, in every grocery line and subway car. Maybe she was right. Maybe he needed to consider the possibilities. The idea of being so deeply connected to her, being so entwined with her since the start was certainly enthralling and full of wonder. He'd always seen it as a form of luck that he'd ended up with her, pure luck. His mother called it his luck of the Irish on their wedding day. But now, now he had to wonder if there was some invisible string that had tied them together their entire lives.
He liked that idea.
Walter O'Brien had found his other half.
