I've been outlining this fic for what seems like forever, but I didn't want to post it until I was done with Here To Stay. But then I needed an emotional break from Here To Stay, and none of the oneshots I want to write are 'working' for me (aka it's horrible writer's block). This was the only other thing my brain wants to work on. So I'm going to try and take on the task of publishing multiple multi – chapter fics at the same time.

It was a hot night - even for Southern California in the middle of the summer. Paige reached into her purse, fishing around for a hair tie. Locating one, she pulled her hair up into a high ponytail, sighing in relief when her neck was exposed to the air.

One would think that it'd be cooler at the beach, but the ocean air wasn't helping much. But the heat and mugginess wasn't stopping Walter and Ralph. They were less than fifty yards from her, alternating between peering into a telescope and entering data into Walter's laptop. It was an important night for astronomy, Paige knew, and she felt bad that she couldn't remember exactly what it was they were observing. But when Walter and Ralph told her they were doing something together, she got so focused on that they were doing it together that she usually forgot the specifics of what it was.

She loved Walter for reasons she couldn't even begin to count. But she'd be lying if she said the way he was with her son wasn't one of the biggest reasons she fell for him. After so many years of Ralph lacking a second parent, Walter had come along and been everything the boy had always longed for. The moment that Paige chose to have Ralph, she gave up the option to only consider herself when looking for a partner. To find someone who was so right for both her and her son – two very different people – had once seemed so impossible. And now she sat on a beach towel watching that person help Ralph study…whatever was going on in space. Paige didn't think it mattered that she didn't remember what it was. They knew. And they were having a great time. And that's what mattered.

Ralph said something to Walter that Paige couldn't make out. The older genius smiled, ruffled Ralph's hair, and the boy laughed. Paige's heart thumped in her chest. She had heard the mother of one of Ralph's friends lamenting just the other day about how her son backed away from her touch now. Ralph was starting to get annoyed by Paige tousling his hair. But despite her feeling like she should be jealous that he still let Walter do it, it actually made her feel warm inside.

The man she first knew as "the Wi – Fi guy" had become her and Ralph's everything.

Walter used to think that the company of other people wasn't what true contentment was about. Contentment was solving a problem. Contentment was being successful, creating something that only his brain could manifest. He and Collins used to hole up and work for weeks on something without so much as a casual pleasantry passing between them. Any conversation was solely about the matter at hand.

But as he'd told Collins after his attempted escape following the Toby kidnapping, he had gained humanity in the past few years. When he had told Paige at Happy and Toby's wedding that every success, everything that used to fulfill him completely, felt empty if she wasn't there to share it with him, it was as open and honest as he'd ever been. And while he would have been out observing the comets tonight even if he had never met her and Ralph, he knew that observing them with Ralph had made the experience so much better than if he had done it alone.

And it wasn't that he'd had the experience with another person. It was Ralph specifically. The boy and his mother had such a hold on his heart and although he'd never liked relying on other people, especially not emotionally, he had no objection to that. He was completely happy with it.

He and Paige weren't living together – not officially, anyway. He spent most nights at the Dineen condo. A good portion of his clothes were there and whenever he did spend a night at the garage, Ralph usually texted asking where he was. There hadn't been a conversation about them co – habituating long term, but even Walter wasn't so oblivious that he didn't know that's essentially what was happening. He wondered if Paige had realized. When someone moved in without a discussion, it was, for obvious reasons, usually a lot clearer to the person who had done the moving.

Walter heard the unmistakable creak of Paige's bathroom door opening, but he hadn't realized how little time had passed until she appeared in the living room, still in the clothes that she'd worn to the beach and with her hair completely dry. He closed his laptop, already rising to his feet. "Something wrong with the shower?"

Paige shook her head, a small smile on her face. "No. I just…uh…"

Walter felt a twinge of nerves. Maybe she had noticed that he had essentially moved in. Maybe she was unhappy about that. Maybe she thought it was a calculated move – maybe she felt he was intentionally trying to push the relationship farther without talking to her about it. They had been doing so much better with communication since they got together, but… He cleared his throat. "Is…is everything okay?"

"Yeah, oh yeah," Paige said quickly, nodding. Walter noticed she was wringing her hands. "I, the shower is fine, I just…I was thinking about something today while you and Ralph were doing your thing and it wasn't the first time I'd thought about it and I want to talk to you about it and I realized as I was going in to get ready to shower that I probably should stop putting it off and just come out with it, so…" She stopped for a breath, and froze, looking at him for a moment before clearing her throat and gesturing to the couch. "Sit?"

Walter lowered himself back onto the cushion and pushed his closed laptop farther onto the coffee table. She sat next to him, her knees pointing toward him, and clasped her hands in her lap.

If you aren't comfortable with me spending so much time here, I can spend more nights at the garage. I'm sorry if I came off as being presumptuous.

But what if she just wanted to make their relationship more official? What if she wasn't upset about the fact that they were essentially cohabitating?

You know I'm never happier than when I'm with you.

"Walter, I want a baby."

It was a simple sentence, a short one of just five words, but Walter managed to respond in even fewer. "What?"

A note – this fic WILL have smut, smut that needs to be there to really delve into some of the issues that will pop up in this story. I will change the rating to M once I get to the first smut chapter. So at the bottom of this page, if you'd like, click "follow story" and then you will get notifications when I update, since it won't show up in the default filter.

(Also I know I still owe some of you reviews. My best friend and I both recently had some bad news in our lives and when I'm feeling down about real life writing helps me more than reading, plus I want to be reading and reviewing you all when I'm of a mindset that I can really focus on the story and read it properly, in the way that it deserves.)