A/N: Okay, so I have been out of the fic-writing world for a while - I've just been reading lately - but I finally found a show that I love enough to start writing again. I'm a bit rusty, so sorry if this got a bit long-winded.
You're My Chosen: Ten times Walter was a dad to Ralph. Mainly a dad!fic, but of course I can't do it without Walter/Paige undertones! Each chapter is its own individual story, but they do go chronologically and build from each other like a continuous story. Inspired by the song "Family Tree," by Matthew West. ("You're my child, you're my chosen, you are loved.") Please R&R, to let me know if I've completely lost my mojo!
Disclaimer: Come on. It doesn't take a 197 IQ to tell that I don't own Scorpion.

Chapter One:"Pointless Fun" - Paige enlists Walter's help in convincing Ralph to go to a school dance.

"That was exhausting," Paige complained, toeing off her heeled boots and flopping down onto the cracked leather couch just inside the door of the garage, "I need a nap." She covered her eyes with her forearm and let out a deep breath as the others filed in, murmuring their agreements after a long day of annual testing at Homeland. There had been written portions, stress tests, psych evaluations, and interview after interview conducted by agents with shining black suits and smileless faces. Even Sylvester, who was more inclined to the dull side of things, had been itching for a bit of action by the end of the day.

"Mm," Walter grunted, sitting at the end of the couch, right where Paige's bare feet ended. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, noting how the liaison's breathing immediately evened out to a slow, steady pace. He envied the ability of Normals to fall asleep so quickly; his mind was always racing and he was lucky if he drifted off less than two hours after closing his eyes.

No sooner had Paige fallen asleep than an alert on her phone began sounding off, and she jackknifed into a sitting position with a loud groan. "Already?" She sighed and swung her feet over the side of the couch, reaching for her shoes, "I have to go get Ralph from school." She stood, teetered, and almost fell back before Walter reached out and steadied her with a firm hand to the middle of her back.

"I'll drive," he said, not a question but a fact. Walter O'Brien only stated facts, after all.

"Oh, Walter," she shook her head and picked up her purse, "you don't have to do that. Stay. Rest. You've had a long day."

"You've had a long day," he corrected. "I used maybe 4% of my intellectual concentration on those guys – I got bored, you got tired. Come on," he pushed himself up and grabbed his keys from the end table, "I don't mind."

She hesitated, but then nodded, "Okay. Thanks, Walter." He nodded like it was nothing and led her out to his car. He knew the way to Ralph's school without even thinking about it, and he was able to let his mind wander as he navigated the busy LA streets. Paige had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, head against the door frame and hands folded neatly in her lap, lips parted slightly and a dainty whistling noise escaping from between them every so often. Walter smiled, making a mental note to point out that noise. He knew that, if it was anyone else, she would be embarrassed or offended by such a comment, but she liked it when he teased her. She said it made him seem more "like a real boy."

She was still sleeping when he got to the school and he didn't want to wake her, but he'd run into this problem before; the school wouldn't let him pick up Ralph on his own without an in-person forewarning from Paige. He wasn't the boy's family, after all. Not technically, no matter how differently he felt. He knew only Paige could enter the school.

Fortunately, the kids had all filed out for the day and Walter saw a familiar dark-haired boy making a beeline for the beat-up old car. He stepped out to fold his seat forward, pressing one finger to his lips to make sure Ralph didn't wake his sleeping mother, and then smirked like it was some kind of super secret mission. He pulled the seatbelt over the boy's chest himself – though logically he knew Ralph could probably design his own safety system that could be implemented in cars everywhere tomorrow – before getting back into his seat and pulling away from the curb.

"How was your day, Ralph?" He asked quietly, eyes on the rearview mirror.

Ralph shrugged and looked out the window, "They won't let me stay in from recess anymore."

Walter let out a knowing chuckle, "Let me guess: 'You need fresh air, social interaction, et cetera.'" Ralph nodded to confirm this. "Yeah, they told me the same thing. I will say this, though: You have to keep your body healthy. You know that, right? And that's not just eating good food and washing your hands – you have to exercise and breathe good air and be in the sunlight. Maybe later we can sit down and come up with a fun idea to help you with that."

Ralph smiled and Walter couldn't help but smile back, though he knew the boy couldn't see it. That smile always made him feel ten pounds lighter, which he knew was impossible. But that was how he felt.

Walter drove them back to the garage and, thinking the single mother was finally getting some well-deserved sleep, he carefully carried her back inside and eased her onto the couch, then ushered Ralph into the kitchen for a snack. They talked about classes for a while before Sylvester hijacked the child to play a few games of chess and Walter slipped upstairs to his loft, lying down on the bed to close his eyes for a few minutes. A few minutes soon turned into a few hours and he finally fell asleep, not waking until 7:09 that night, when a heavy, hearty smell wafted up to his nose and pushed his eyes open.

He stumbled down the stairs, stomach rumbling, dress shirt wrinkled and the top two buttons undone. "Who's cooking?" He mumbled, rubbing his eyes, and was surprised to find the answer was Paige, bustling from stove to counter while the rest of the team tried to help however they could.

"Eggplant Parmesan and tomato-basil soup," Happy said with a screwed up expression. "Doesn't sound like real food, but at least it smells good."

"You are going to love it," Paige said definitively, dipping down to peek through the oven door.

Walter opened the refrigerator door to retrieve a bottle of water, his eyes never leaving the liaison. "Not that I'm not happy to have real food instead of take-out, but why are you still here? I would have thought you and Ralph would want to get home."

"He said you guys were going to talk about some...health plan? Besides, we haven't had a team dinner in about a month and I thought it would be nice. Cabe's gonna be here around seven-thirty. Hope it's okay."

"It's fine," Walter said, taking a long gulp of water. Sure, he had about three different projects he wanted to be working on and six case files he still hadn't written to submit to Homeland, but he could make time for dinner and a boy-genius. He'd just stay up an extra hour (or five) tonight. "Ralph," he called when he spotted the boy tracing invisible patterns between the chips in the tiled floor, "come help me set the table?"

"Okay." Ralph hopped up and took the plates Walter pulled down from a cabinet, then followed him to the long table just outside of the kitchen. "Can we do it the geometrical way?"

"Is there any other way?" The man smiled and let Ralph go first, placing a square plate on each of the seven rectangular place settings. Walter followed, placing a round bowl on every plate. They spent a few minutes folding cloth napkins into triangles and laying them over the bowls and then arranging the silverware on either side of the settings. "Perfect," Walter clapped a hand on Ralph's shoulder, pulling him close for a moment before letting him move away again. "Now, let's talk about that exercise thing."

They spent the next fifteen minutes coming up with a plan, that Ralph would go outside for every recess, even if it was just to read a book in the sun, and would join Walter and Toby for "sports day" once a week. He'd probably end up being the better athlete of the three of them, but if they were going to embarrass themselves, at least they'd do it together. All the while, Paige watched on from the kitchen, between stirring and chopping and flipping, smiling at the way Walter gesticulated when he spoke to her son – the way her son smiled and nodded whenever he did so. After Cabe arrived a few minutes later, she called them over to eat and noticed how Ralph automatically situated himself between her and Walter, politely asking her to cut his eggplant and then, at Walter's suggestion, requesting they be in geometrics. Dinner was...amazing. The eggplant Parmesan was delicious, as was the accompanying tomato-basil soup and Italian bread. There was red wine for those who indulged (Happy, Toby, Paige, and Cabe), and iced tea for those who didn't (Walter, Sylvester, and Ralph). There was no dessert because, as Paige put it, she could "never quite get the hang of desserts," so they dug some slightly-frostbitten iced cream out of the freezer and did up a makeshift sundae bar with honey-roasted peanuts, licorice bites, chopped pineapples, and chocolate sauce. Ralph had two bowls, and Paige informed them that he ate more when he was having fun and didn't want the night to end. This made Walter smile, if only because he'd always noticed Ralph eating more than usual when the whole team was together.

It was nine-thirty when Cabe announced he had to leave, Happy and Sylvester went off to their respective projects, and Toby settled in in front of his computer to watch a movie with his headphones on. "Are you taking off?" Walter asked when he caught Paige going through her purse.

"In a little bit, but first," she pulled her hand out of the bag, a folded sheet of paper between her fingers, "can I talk to you about something?"

He glanced down and saw the seal from Ralph's school stamped on the corner of the paper. "Is Ralph in trouble? Because we got that recess thing worked out."

"No, I know," she smiled to calm him, "and he's not in trouble. This," she handed it to him, "is actually about the school charity festival." Walter unfolded it and read as she spoke. "They do games and a bake sale and a silent auction, but that's mostly for the adults. The big thing for the kids is a dance."

He'd finished reading the paper before she finished her first sentence, but he let her continue because, well, he liked hearing her voice. When she stopped speaking and didn't start again, he realized she'd finished but he didn't know what to take away from it. "So..." he handed the sheet back, "you're recruiting chaperones?"

"I want Ralph to go to the dance," she rolled her eyes at him, stuffing the flier back into her purse. "He went to Billy's party last week and they've been having lunch together with another boy and girl from their grade – he's on a good path here. I'd really like him to keep it going."

"By...going to a dance. I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"It's something fun, something social. He can drink that gross sherbert-pineapple punch and listen to those stupid Kidz Bop songs and feel uncomfortable any time a girl walks too close to him during a slow song." Paige's eyelashes fluttered, like she was thinking back to a fond memory.

"You make it sound so appealing," Walter deadpanned, reaching for his glass of iced tea.

She threw her hands up, "No, it is! Because it's normal! And I know," she rushed on before Walter could open his mouth, "that I'm not supposed to say 'normal,' and you know I love Ralph exactly the way he is, but be honest: If you'd had the opportunity for normal social interaction when you were growing up, would you have been worse off? Would Sylvester or Happy or Toby?"

There was a moment of silence as Walter pursed his lips and looked around at his team. Happy was pounding on a copper panel with more force than necessary, Sylvester was nudging a ruler back into place on his desk, Toby was trying to angle his computer screen away so no one could see he'd switched over to a poker website, and then there was Ralph. Ralph was sitting cross-legged in Walter's favorite chair, writing something down in a three-subject notebook, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Paige was right. He was a little uncomfortable with how familiar he was becoming with Paige being right. She wasn't like them – she wasn't a genius – but there were some areas that she thrived in, leaving the rest of the team choking on her dust. "What do you want me to do?" Walter asked by way of response.

"I brought it up with Ralph while you were sleeping, and he doesn't want to go. I thought maybe you could convince him."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"You and Ralph, you see things the same way," Paige said with a shrug. "When you tell him things, he understands. If you could find a way to make it sound appealing, I think he'd listen."

Walter nodded, thinking it through. "Okay," he said slowly, "okay, let me talk to him." He walked across the room and knelt in front of the boy, Paige standing just behind.

Ralph stopped writing and put his notebook down in his lap, "Hi, Walter."

"Hey, bud," the man smiled, putting a hand on the boy's knee, "can we talk about something?"

"Yeah."

"Your mom told me there's a festival coming up at your school, but you don't want to go. Why is that?"

Ralph pulled his lips to the side and looked away for a moment before refocusing. "I don't see the point of dancing. I don't learn anything."

There was a set look to the boy's face that Walter recognized well. He stood and took a step toward the woman who stood behind him. "Paige, could you maybe give me a minute?"

"Why?"

"It's just," he glanced over his shoulder, "I'm about to tell Ralph something that I never thought I'd say, and I don't really want anyone else bearing witness to it." She hesitated, but in the end she took three big steps backward and went back to the kitchen to put the leftovers in Tupperware bins.

Walter went back to Ralph. "Can I tell you a secret, Ralph?"

The boy perked, leaning forward; Walter's secrets were always really cool math and science hacks. "Yes."

"Sometimes," Walter picked at a loose thread on the chair, "it's okay to switch your brain off."

Ralph pondered this for a moment with a crease in his forehead, "That would kill you."

"It's an expression. Look," Walter moved to sit next to Ralph on the chair, barely enough room for both of them to fit so he sat as far forward as possible, "what I mean is, you don't have to analyze everything all the time. Sometimes it's not about facts and figures, equations and algorithms. Sometimes you can just have fun."

"Equations are fun," Ralph protested, still not understanding.

"This is a different kind of fun." Walter was in dangerous territory here, talking about things he didn't understand. And if he said something in a gray area like this, he could end up being wrong. That was bad enough when it was just him, but he couldn't be wrong when it came to Ralph – he wouldn't. So he thought. Thought back to the one dance he'd ever enjoyed, crashing a charity auction on a mission with the team, the soft skin of Paige's back beneath his palm, her body warming his as they swayed to the gentle, twinkling music.

"Think of dancing," he said carefully, "like dreaming. People like you and I, we can control our dreams if we want, but it's funner when they're just those weird, crazy ones, right?"

"I rode a troodon once," Ralph said in lieu of a yes, "I know I could never really do that, but it was fun anyway."

"Exactly," Walter smiled. "Dancing is like that. You aren't controlling the situation or thinking about everything. It's just something you do with your friends for pointless fun, like riding a troodon, and it can feel surprisingly good."

There was a long beat of silence while Ralph considered this, and finally he said, "I don't know how to dance."

"You're ten," Walter laughed, "no ten-year-old knows how to dance." Ralph continued to stare at him, anxiety written all over his face, and he felt himself crumble inside. "Paige!" He called out, and the speed at which she came back into the room made him sure she'd been eavesdropping the whole time. "Do you have some of those, um...stupid Kidz Bop songs?"

"I can get some." She wiggled her phone out of her back pocket and pulled up a music app, typing in the information and hooking the device up to the jack that ran to the wall speakers. The music started, obnoxiously upbeat and overpowering in the vocals, which were layers of children singing together. Paige wrinkled her nose, "This is not the way Beyonce is supposed to sound." She gave a full body shudder, but refocused when she saw Walter pulling Ralph up from the chair.

"I don't claim to be a master dance," the man said as a disclaimer, "but hopefully I can offer some insight. Now, if you were thinking while you were dancing, you could count out the beats and move to it. But we're not thinking, right? We're turning the brain off. I think your mother would tell you to feel the beat – feel the vibration of it in your feet, the way it thumps in your chest. Then just do what feels right." He took a step back and waited, but the boy didn't move.

"I don't know, Walter," Ralph looked up nervously. "Can you do it first?"

Oh, god, this was going to be embarrassing. But he seemed to be making good progress so far and he didn't want to let the boy down now. "Okay," he said for the umpteenth time, and he was beginning to wonder if his vast vocabulary was slipping. "Let's give this a try."

"No, really, it wasn't that bad," Paige tried to assure Walter, but she was still laughing. To her credit, she'd held it in until Ralph was out of earshot, so as not to discourage her son. After all, it wasn't him she was laughing at. Ralph danced like any ten-year-old; Walter, on the other hand.

"I'll admit, I got a little carried away." Walter winced as he worked his shoe and sock off, propping his foot up on a stool as Paige opened the first aid satchel. Once both he and Ralph had loosened up a little, they started to get into the dance, jumping around and flailing their bodies like madmen. That's when Walter had had the bright idea to try a jump-kick, like the ones he'd seen guitarists do onstage, and split the skin of his big toe open when he jammed it against the end table.

Paige sprayed it with antiseptic and dabbed the blood away before spraying it again and leaning in to examine it. "It's not deep, but it's right on your tippy-toe so it's gonna be really uncomfortable until it heals." She peeled open a circular bandage and laid it over the cut, then secured it with a strip of medical tape. She was putting the satchel back when Ralph walked into the room.

"I'm kinda tired, Mommy," the boy admitted, letting loose a huge yawn as proof.

"All right, honey," she smiled softly at him, "let me get our stuff together and we'll head home."

He nodded and pulled himself up into one of the counter stools next to Walter. "Okay. Hey, Mommy?"

"Yeah?"

"Can Walter come to the dance, too?"

Paige dropped the Tupperware bowl she'd just picked up, but played it off as an accident and quickly added it back to her stack. "You mean you want to go to the dance now?"

"Walter made it seem really fun. Can you come?" He asked the man now, "You could see me dance and it could count as our sports day."

Walter looked up at Paige, who was staring back at him with a dumbfounded expression. "How about you remind your mom tomorrow morning to see if they need some more chaperones?" He reached out to push the hair out of Ralph's face, "Because I think that would be a really cool sports day."