A/N: The events of this story are actual events based on a recent occurrence in my life, with my youngest. It's been a tough pill to swallow, with every feeling imaginable coursing through me. So I'm processing it the best way I know how, channeling it into writing!
Xoxo
Walter sat in the doctor's office, gripping the armrests of his chair with white-knuckled intensity. Paige sat beside him, her fingers laced together in her lap, her shoulders tense. Across from them, Dr. Lee, a specialist in child development that Toby had referred them to, spoke in a calm, practiced tone.
"So, I'm afraid that we are diagnosing Megan with autism spectrum disorder."
Paige inhaled softly, nodding as if she had expected it. Walter, however, blinked rapidly, his mind racing to process the words, the sound hitting like a bat to his ribs.
"No." He said, shaking his head slightly. "That can't be right. That's not possible. She's not. I don't accept this."
Dr. Lee offered a small, understanding smile. Toby had warned her that Walter would not handle a diagnosis well.
"I know this can be difficult to hear, but Megan exhibits significant traits--"
Walter interrupted, sitting forward.
"She's advanced for her age. She memorized the periodic table before she turned four, she reads at a middle-school level, she--"
"She also struggles with social interactions…" Paige interjected gently. "She doesn't respond to her name half the time, Walter. She doesn't understand when other kids try to play with her. She barely ever makes eye contact. And transitions are incredibly hard for her."
Walter's jaw tightened. He knew all of this. Of course, he did. But… no. Megan was brilliant. Just like him. Just like Ralph.
"Megan is very intelligent, Mr. O'Brien." Dr. Lee agreed. "Autistic children often have strong cognitive abilities, but intelligence and autism are not mutually exclusive. Her challenges with communication, emotional regulation, and sensory processing align with an autism diagnosis."
Walter swallowed hard, turning to Paige.
"But… you thought Ralph was autistic once. And he wasn't. He was enabled. We just needed to adjust the way we taught him, the way we supported him. And now he's thriving."
Paige reached for his hand, squeezing gently.
"Walter…"
Dr. Lee tilted her head slightly.
"Every child is different. Megan isn't Ralph. She has her own strengths, and her own struggles. This diagnosis isn't a limitation… it's just a tool to help you understand her better. To help set her up for success."
--
The car ride home was silent. Paige kept glancing at Walter, watching the way he stared straight ahead, his hands at ten and two, his mind clearly a million miles away. When they pulled into the driveway, he finally spoke.
"I just… I thought she was like… me." His voice was barely above a whisper.
Paige's heart clenched.
"She is like you, Walter."
"No." He shook his head. "She's not."
He stepped out of the car, walking toward the house like he wasn't entirely sure how he got there. Paige followed, watching as he drifted toward the living room, sinking onto the couch with a blank expression. She sat beside him, letting the silence settle before speaking.
"I know this is hard. It's a lot to process."
Walter exhaled sharply.
"I had this vision of her future. That she would grow up and build things, solve problems, maybe even work at Scorpion someday if she wanted. That her life would be easier than mine was, than yours was. She be happy, and accepted. That she'd… I don't know. Do something important."
Paige frowned, tears in her eyes.
"Walter, she will do something important. It just might not be what you imagined. What either of us imagined for her."
Walter rubbed a hand over his face.
"She's going to struggle, Paige. Her whole life. People won't understand her. She'll have to work twice as hard to communicate, to be accepted. I don't want that for her." His voice cracked. "I don't want that for my daughter."
Paige felt tears dropping from her eyes.
"Of course you don't, Walter. I don't either. But that's not up to us. Our job is to love her and help her however we can."
Walter let out a breath.
"What if I don't know how? What if I fail her? Make things harder? Genius? I can understand. But it's not the same. Regular humans? You and Cabe are the only ones that I can connect with, and even then, I fail frequently. What if I can't connect with Megan? What if I hurt her because I don't understand."
Paige squeezed his hand.
"Walter. She's not some stranger. She's still the same little girl she was this morning. And you have been nothing but the most remarkable father, friend and advocate for her since the day they put that little pink blanket in your arms. We're going to make mistakes, and she's going to have good days and bad days, but what's important is that we will support her, we will keep advocating for her. And I have no doubt in my mind that you won't ever stop trying to understand her, and that's more than I can say for most people."
"Just… try to understand her."
"Exactly. You once told Ralph how the world needed to rise to his level, not the other way around. How beautiful it would be if that could happen. Megan sees the world differently than all of us. We need to find a way to come to her level."
--
Later that evening, Megan sat cross-legged on the floor, lining up her collection of space shuttle figurines with meticulous precision. Walter knelt beside her, watching as she adjusted each one by millimeters. He hesitated before speaking.
"Why do you like to line them up?"
Megan didn't look up, her small fingers still adjusting one of the rockets.
"Because it makes sense."
Walter frowned.
"What makes sense?"
"The order. The way they should be." She finally glanced up, her bright brown eyes meeting his.
"Do you not see it?"
Walter felt something shift in his chest.
"No." He admitted. "But that doesn't mean it's not there."
Megan considered this, then nodded as if that answer was acceptable. She picked up her favorite shuttle, a tiny replica of the Endeavour, and handed it to him.
He looked at the toy, turning it over in his hands, then back at his daughter.
Maybe she wouldn't be a carbon copy of him or Ralph. Maybe she wouldn't grow up to be the next great scientific mind. But she was brilliant in her own way.
And Walter would make sure the world saw it. That he saw it.
--
The next few days, Walter watched Megan like he was conducting an experiment. Not in a cold, clinical way, but in the way a scientist observes the world, trying to make sense of something he didn't fully understand.
He didn't just watch. He studied her.
He needed to understand. To make sense of it.
Paige was diving into every book she could find, dealing with child advocates, the school, ABA therapy, and doing a lot of crying at night. He listened. He held her. He did whatever he could to help her. But his true focus was elsewhere.
On Megan.
On understanding her.
He sat at the kitchen table, his laptop open but untouched. His coffee had gone cold. He was too focused on Megan.
She was in the living room, spinning in circles. Not aimlessly, but methodically. This wasn't new. She'd been doing this for years. Every few rotations, she'd stop, adjust her stance, then start again. But now, he was seeing things through a fresh set of eyes.
He furrowed his brows.
"Megan?"
She didn't respond.
"Megan."
Nothing.
Paige, washing dishes, glanced over her shoulder.
"She's in her zone. If you really want her attention, touch her shoulder or get in her line of sight. That's what the book recommends."
Walter hesitated before kneeling down near her. He reached out, gently placing a hand on her arm.
She stopped abruptly, blinking rapidly as if surfacing from another world.
"What?" She asked, slightly breathless.
"Why do you do that? The uh, the spinning?" Walter asked carefully.
Megan shrugged.
"It feels good."
"Good how?"
"Like… my body and my brain match."
Walter's lips parted slightly. He hadn't expected that answer.
Paige walked over with a knowing look.
"Spinning helps her regulate herself. It's called stimming. It helps with sensory processing." She held up the book, several dozen sticky notes flagging pages. He knew this information. He knew about autism. He was a genius. But, what he didn't know was what Megan was thinking. She wasn't a diagnosis. She wasn't a book subject. She was his little girl.
Walter looked back at Megan, who had already resumed her spinning. The way her face relaxed, the small, pleased hum she made as she twirled, it was as if she were recharging, realigning herself.
Walter filed the information away.
--
Walter took Megan to the park.
It was something he rarely did alone, usually leaving the task to Paige as she handled Megan having sensory overload in public much better than he did, but today, he wanted to see how she interacted with the world beyond their home, to learn from it, from her.
Megan ran toward the swings but didn't join the other kids. Instead, she crouched down in the dirt, tracing patterns with a stick.
Walter sat on the bench, watching.
Other children ran past her, laughing and calling to one another, playing tag. Megan didn't look up.
A boy stopped beside her, piquing Walter's attention.
"What are you doing?"
Megan continued drawing.
"Mapping the constellations."
The boy frowned.
"That's just dirt."
Megan finally looked up at him, her eyes narrowing.
"It's the night sky."
Walter tensed. He recognized that tone. It was the same one he had used as a child, and Paige would probably argue still uses, matter-of-fact, defensive, irritated by someone not understanding something so obvious.
The boy scoffed and ran off. Megan exhaled sharply, stabbing her stick into the dirt before resuming her work.
Walter stood, walking over. Kneeling beside her, he looked down at the patterns she had created.
"Which one is that?" he asked.
Megan pointed.
"Orion's Belt."
Walter nodded.
"You got the proportions right."
Megan's lips twitched upward, a tiny, pleased smile.
Walter glanced back at the playground.
She wasn't lonely. She just didn't need the other kids the way some children did. The universe in her mind was more interesting than a game of tag.
He understood that.
He had lived that.
Maybe they weren't as different as he thought.
--
The auditorium was packed. Parents, siblings, and grandparents sat shoulder to shoulder, some balancing cameras, others whispering excitedly. The bright, colorful banner above the stage read:
Rome Wasn't Built in a Day – A First Grade Musical!
Walter sat stiffly in his seat beside Paige, his gaze locked on the stage, where a sea of six and seven year olds bounced excitedly on the risers in their little tunics and gold paper laurel crowns. They fidgeted, waved to their parents, whispered and giggled as they waited for the show to begin.
And then there was Megan.
She was on the top riser, sitting rather than standing as the show progressed, her posture curled inward, hands constantly tugging at the sleeves of her costume uncomfortably. Unlike the other children, who beamed, sang, and performed their practiced choreography with ease and enthusiasm… Megan did nothing.
She didn't smile.
She didn't sing.
She didn't dance.
She didn't even look up at the audience.
Instead, she rocked gently, shifting back and forth in her seat, her hands moving from her sleeves to her ears whenever the music swelled too loudly.
Walter swallowed hard, something tightening in his chest.
He had known school was difficult for her. That was part of why they had pursued the evaluation in the first place. Megan struggled with transitions, with group activities, with loud environments, with fitting into the square peg - round whole scenario of the public school system. There had been countless reports from her teacher about meltdowns, about her refusal to participate, about how she spent recess alone, playing with leaves instead of engaging with her classmates.
But watching it unfold in real-time, seeing her so different from the other children. It was harder than he expected. He looked at the other kids, each one smiling brightly as they recited their scripted lines, proud and eager, their voices carrying across the auditorium. They beamed at the audience, made eye contact, waved eagerly to their parents.
Megan just sat there, watching with an almost clinical curiosity, her little fingers digging into her sleeves.
Walter exhaled slowly, forcing himself to keep his expression neutral, but when he turned to Paige, his heart clenched.
She was discretely wiping away an errant tear on her cheek, a soft, sad smile playing at her lips.
The realization hit him like a freight train.
The normal life he had imagined for Megan wasn't coming. Not the way he had pictured it. And he had to grieve that. Paige was already grieving it.
Megan wouldn't be the kid waving excitedly from the stage, shouting her lines, singing loudly, laughing with her friends in a flurry of energy and excitement.
And yet…
After the final song, after the chorus of cheers and applause, after the swarms of proud parents rushed to the front to hug and snap pictures of their little Romans, Paige and Walter made their way to find Megan.
She was still on the stage, sitting on the edge now, swinging her legs, completely unaffected by the whirlwind of movement around her.
Paige crouched down, offering a bright smile.
"Megs, you did such a good job up there!"
Megan blinked at her.
"I didn't do anything."
Paige smoothed back a loose curl from her daughter's forehead.
"Well, that's just not true. You got up there. You sat with your class. You stayed the whole time. That's a big deal, sweetie. I'm proud of you!"
Megan tilted her head slightly, as if processing this.
Walter, still feeling the overwhelming emotions of his earlier thoughts, crouched beside them.
"Why didn't you sing or do the movements?" He asked, his voice softer than usual, not accusatory, just curious.
Megan's small fingers traced the edge of her tunic absentmindedly as she answered.
"Because I was watching."
Walter frowned slightly.
"Watching what?"
She finally looked up at him, meeting his eyes with a steady gaze, but only for a second.
"I was watching how happy they all were."
Walter's breath caught.
Megan looked back toward the stage, where a group of children were still giddy with excitement, hugging each other, babbling about their performance.
"I didn't need to do it." She said simply. "They were happy doing it. And I was happy watching them be happy."
Walter just stared at her.
His daughter, his quiet, brilliant, perceptive daughter, hadn't needed to perform to feel connected. She had found joy in simply observing joy. And somehow, that made Walter prouder than if she had stood up there and belted every note perfectly.
He reached out, gently tucking a stray curl behind her ear, the edges of his lips twitching into the smallest smile.
"Then you did exactly what you were supposed to do. And you did it remarkably well. Because you, young lady, are remarkable." he murmured. "Now, how about you let Mommy take a few photos of you as a historically inaccurate Roman, so you can take that costume off? You don't look very comfortable."
Megan beamed, small but sure, before hopping off the stage.
"It's scratchy."
Paige squeezed Walter's hand as they watched her skip ahead of them, still tugging at her sleeves, but light and unbothered.
Walter exhaled slowly. Maybe the life he had imagined for her wasn't the one she would have. But maybe, just maybe, it would be something even more extraordinary.
--
The next morning, Walter walked into the kitchen, stopping abruptly at the sight before him.
Megan sat at the counter, carefully separating her cereal by color. A precise row of reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and purples stretched across the counter, arranged in a gradient.
Paige, sipping coffee, caught Walter's look and smirked.
"Just your average morning."
Walter approached, watching the intensity of Megan's focus. She wasn't just sorting, she was categorizing, arranging, controlling something in a world that often felt unpredictable.
He cleared his throat.
"Meg? Why do you separate them?"
Megan didn't look up.
"Because it's wrong when they're mixed up."
"Wrong how?"
She finally met his gaze.
"Don't you ever feel like things are jumbled in your head? And when you fix them, it makes everything better?"
Walter stilled.
He thought about his own habits, the way he needed things aligned just so on his desk, how he rewrote his equations over and over until they felt right, how he had once spent an entire night reorganizing the kitchen because the inefficiency of it gnawed at his brain.
Megan turned back to her work.
"It makes my brain quiet, Daddy." she added softly.
Walter's breath hitched.
This wasn't wrong.
This wasn't something to fix.
This was her way of navigating the world.
--
That evening, Walter found himself lingering outside Megan's bedroom door. The soft murmur of voices drifted into the hallway, and when he peeked inside, he saw Ralph sitting cross-legged on the floor, a book open between him and Megan.
She wasn't reading. She was watching.
Ralph was animated, gesturing as he explained something, likely some complex scientific principle, knowing him. Megan, wearing the only pajamas she owned, because they were the only ones she would wear, had one hand tugging absently at the sleeve while the other traced absent patterns on the carpet.
"You see, Megs?" Ralph was saying, pointing to the book. "Saturn's rings aren't solid. They're made of ice and rock. They look like one big ring, but really, they're billions of tiny pieces orbiting together."
Megan blinked.
"Like people."
Ralph frowned slightly.
"What do you mean?"
She shrugged.
"From far away, groups of people look like one big thing. But up close, they're all separate. Like Saturn's rings made of these tiny things, all different from each other… people are all just orbiting together, looking like one big thing, when we're really billions of tiny pieces, all different, all unique."
Ralph was silent for a moment. Then he nodded, a slow smile pulling at his lips.
"Yeah. I guess they are."
Walter was about to step away from the doorway when Megan's voice, quieter than before, made him pause.
"Ralphie… do you think I'm a freak?"
Walter's chest tightened instantly. His body tensed, every nerve in him going on high alert.
Ralph's brows knit together.
"What? No. Why would you ask that?"
Megan shrugged, still tracing patterns on the carpet with her finger.
"A boy at school called me that."
Walter felt his hands curl into fists. He wanted a name. He wanted to fix this, to make sure no one ever called her that again. But before he could intervene, Ralph spoke, his voice steady, calm, sure.
"Well, he's wrong." Ralph said matter-of-factly. "You're not a freak. You're special."
Megan looked up at him, skeptical.
"That's just something people say when they don't want to say the truth."
Ralph shook his head.
"No, it's something people say when they don't understand what makes someone different." He leaned back on his hands, tilting his head slightly. "Do you know what a quasar is?"
Megan narrowed her eyes.
"Daddy taught me. It's a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy that emits an extremely bright light."
Ralph smirked.
"Yeah. A lot of people just think black holes are destructive, that they only pull things in and make them disappear. But quasars are different. They have so much energy that they send out massive beams of light. They shine brighter than entire galaxies. And do you know what else?"
Megan shook her head.
"They're really rare." Ralph said. "Scientists don't completely understand them. But just because people don't understand something doesn't mean it's bad. It means it's unique."
Megan was quiet for a long moment, processing. Then, finally, she asked.
"So… I'm like a quasar?"
Ralph grinned.
"Definitely. Some people might not get you at first. But that's just because they don't know how to see your light yet."
Walter swallowed against the lump forming in his throat.
Megan blinked a few times, then gave a small, thoughtful nod.
"Okay." she said simply. Then she picked up the book and flipped the page. "Tell me more about Saturn."
Walter stood frozen in the doorway, overwhelmed by a rush of emotions.
Pride. Sadness. Love.
He had spent so much time fearing Megan's struggles, fearing that her differences would make life harder for her. But Ralph, wise beyond his years, as always, had just given her something far more valuable than protection.
He had given her understanding.
Walter exhaled softly, stepping away before they could notice him. Maybe he didn't have to teach Megan how to navigate the world alone. Maybe, just maybe, she already had someone by her side who understood her better than he ever could.
--
That night, as they lay in bed, Paige rested her head on Walter's shoulder.
"You've been quiet all week." she murmured.
Walter exhaled.
"I've been watching her. I'm trying to understand her world."
Paige smiled against his skin.
"I know."
"I… I think I get it now." He admitted. "She's not broken. She doesn't need fixing. She's just… Megan."
Paige looked up at him, tears in her eyes.
"Yeah. She's just Megan."
Walter swallowed hard.
"And she's going to be amazing."
Paige's smile widened.
"She already is. Just like her dad."
Walter pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
He had spent years believing that intelligence meant success, that genius meant potential. But watching his daughter, he realized something else. Brilliance wasn't just about numbers and formulas.
Brilliance was in the way she spun in circles to find balance.
Brilliance was in the way she mapped constellations in the dirt.
Brilliance was in the way she sorted her cereal, in the way she saw the world, not as it was, but as it felt to her.
Megan wasn't the future he had imagined.
She was something even better.