Well after taking a little break from writing and reading a little of the other stories out there on our favorite geniuses I decided to get back into it. My story Graduation was always meant to just start where it does but today I started thinking about it and I decided I wanted to write a prequel for it. This story won't encapsulate the entire 3 years before Graduation but I wanted to try and write at least from after Paige get's home to sometime after/around when Dr Rizzuto starts treating Walter. To the Adventure -Tim

Paige slammed the door and screamed as she fell to her knees on the floor and began crying. Ralph bolted from his bed at the unaccustomed noise that woke him from sleep. He looked about his room trying to understand what he was hearing when it dawned on him he was hearing his Mom crying. Fear filled his face and heart. He ran out of his room and saw her kneeling there just inside the door. His babysitter standing by the couch shocked. He walked slowly towards his Mom; tears began to streak down his face. It had to be Walter; their mission had to have gone wrong, Walter had to have been seriously hurt or worse. He reached her and knelt down beside her and wrapped his arms around her neck and cried with her. Paige wrapped her arms around Ralph and they just cried for a long moment.

"I'm sorry Mom, is Walter dead?" Ralph slowly asked with such fear of her answer. Paige slowly shook her head, "Is he okay? Was he hurt and in the hospital? Is he going to be okay?"

Paige sniffed and wiped at her eyes, "He's fine Ralph; I'm sorry Ralph, I really don't want to talk about it right now. Please go back to bed. We'll talk about it in the morning. Okay?"

A million questions burst into his brilliant mind but he could see the pain and sorrow and he decided to bury them for now and kissed his Mom and went back to his room.

Paige slowly got up off the floor and seeing the babysitter, she sighed as she got up and grabbed her purse and pulled out her wallet and paid her while canceling the rest of the week with her.

Ralph grabbed his laptop before he got in bed and turned it on. He quickly muted the sound and turned down the screen brightness. He opened up the messenger program they always used to communicate when they weren't together. He saw Walter's id was online and he sent a message. "What's going on? Why is my Mom hurt and crying?"

Ralph sat there waiting and waiting. The longer it was taking the madder he was getting. Finally he saw that Walter was typing a reply. "Hey Buddy, look, it isn't a good time, but you deserve to know, I stuffed up. Not on purpose but yea, I really made a mess of things. I had invited Florence to that lecture your Mom didn't want to go to. Not out of anything romantic or anything, just to share the experience with someone and kind of as a thank you for all she had done to help Scorpion. But I stupidly didn't bother to tell your Mom about it. She found out about it tonight and well, I guess we're over now. Sylvester and your Mom quit the team and walked out, followed by Toby and Happy."

Ralph sat there unable to decide what he should be doing or feeling, tears were leaking from his eyes as he read what Walter typed several times, he wanted to smash something, he wanted to hit Walter, he wanted to tell her to forget him, he wanted to go beg his Mom to give Walter another chance.

Paige threw her coat at the closet door and watched it fall to the floor in a crumpled mess. Numbly she walked into the kitchen and pulled the bottle of wine out of the fridge and walked back into the front room and sat down on the couch and struggled to get the cork out. Finally she just pushed it back into the bottle and took a big swig and then another and another. "Why Walter?" She questioned as she took another swig.

Ralph saw another message come across from Walter, "Ralph? Are you still there? You want to yell at me too? I'm really sorry." Ralph was so confused, he'd been so happy since they got rescued from the island. He had been so sure that his Mom would marry Walter and he'd be his Dad then and they'd live as a real family, he might even get a sibling from his parents. But now, his dreams had been dashed and his heart broke into a thousand little pieces. He grabbed the laptop in anger and started to throw it but at the last second he stopped and told it to shutdown and put it on his nightstand and crawled under his blankets and cried himself to sleep.

Walter sat there for over two hours waiting for Ralph to come back online and to respond. He sighed as he finally decided his Mom must have caught him and took the laptop away from him. He refused to believe Ralph wouldn't have kept talking to him otherwise. He got up and walked around the Garage, refusing to go up to the loft. Her presence was so strong in the Garage itself, what it was going to feel like upstairs frightened him. He could smell her perfume, her soap, her shampoo and his memory thought back to how many times in the last year when they stayed late and just enjoyed each other's company here on the main floor. He started to go into the camper and sleep when the Garage door opened. He turned, "Paige?" he asked in desperation. He saw Happy and Toby come in, "Come back to gloat and rub more salt in my wounds?" Walter asked in anger.

"Happy decided she wanted to get her tools tonight." Toby told him.

Walter scoffed, "Afraid I was going to get rid of them? You should know me better than that."

Toby shook his head as they grabbed her tool chest and drug it back out the front door. Walter sighed as he entered the camper and walked into the back and stretched out on the bed and slowly fell asleep.

Ralph woke up the next morning, the sun seemed awful high and he checked and his clock said it was almost 10 AM. He leapt out of bed, fear in his heart, his Mom never overslept. He ran to the door and opened it and saw her lying on the couch, the empty wine bottle on the floor. He ran over with tears in his eyes and fear in his heart. He checked and found she was still breathing and he fell on the floor and cried.

Something was wrong, Paige couldn't quite figure out what it was, her mind still half befuddled by the wine, she forced her eyes to open and the room was completely blurry, she blinked several times and her eyes focused slightly and she realized she heard crying and she tried to sit up but then saw Ralph was half laying on her hip crying. "B-baby? Wass wrong?" She slurred.

Ralph's head shot up, "Mom? Mom, are you okay?" Ralph asked desperately.

Once he got off her hip she slowly sat up on the couch and grabbed her stomach, "Yea baby, I'm okay, are you okay? What time is it?"

"If you're okay than I am okay, it is a little after 10 AM." Ralph told her.

Paige held her head, "Oh man, you're late for school and I'm late for work." Then just like that the reason for her drinking came back to her. "I guess I better call your school and tell them you won't be in today." She looked around for her purse and seeing it by the door she tried to get up and fell back and Ralph got up and picked it up and brought it to her. Paige smiled, "Thank you baby." The smell of the alcohol on her breath nearly caused him to gag so he stepped back and sat down on the coffee table. "Good morning Miss Avery, its Paige Dineen, yea, Ralph won't be in school today. I forgot to call earlier; he has a couple of appointments. Yes, he will be back tomorrow. Thank you."

Ralph stared at his Mom with his eyes wide; he never heard her flat out lie before. "God I feel awful," Paige said, "This is why we shouldn't drink Ralph. Give me a minute and I will make you something to eat."

Ralph shook his head, "It's okay Mom, I'll just go make a bowl of cereal."

Paige looked up at him and frowned, "Are you sure baby? I'm really sorry you are seeing me like this."

"It's okay Mom, I know Walter hurt you," Ralph told her.

Paige's eyes opened wide in shock and fear, "Oh baby, I'm sorry; I was going to tell you today. H-How did you find out?"

Ralph looked down, "I used my laptop to message him. He told me what he had done. D-did you guys really quit and leave Scorpion?" Tears stood in his eyes as he feared her answer.

Slowly she nodded, "I can't be with someone I can't trust baby, I-I hope you can understand that and forgive me." Ralph started crying again. Paige reached over and pulled him over onto her lap and hugged him tightly.

"He seemed really sorry about it Mom; he said there hadn't been anything romantic about it. Do you think you could give him a second chance Mom? Please?" Ralph sob.

Tears slipped out of Paige's eyes, "Oh baby, I don't know, I don't think so. My heart is screaming yes, but I just don't think he will ever finish developing emotionally or even any more and I need more than where he is."

"But you knew where he was before you ever decided to become his girlfriend; you had no clue then if he would get better or not, why was it an acceptable risk then but not now?" Ralph asked imploringly.

"Well that's just part of it; another part of it is he's been hiding this from me for several weeks. I even gave him the opportunity the other day to just come out and tell me what was going on. I told him I loved him, I knew he was hiding something and we could work through it if he would just tell me the truth and he chose not to until I discovered the full truth." Paige told him. 'Yea, but truth is, if he hadn't have told me the first half of the truth, I wouldn't have looked around and found those two tickets. So didn't he actually kind of tell me the truth?' She thought to herself.

Ralph sadly nodded his head, "I think I just want to go lay down for a while."

"Are you sure baby? I'm feeling better; I could make you something or fix you cereal if that is what you want." Paige told him.

Ralph shook his head, "I think I will just wait until lunch." Ralph kissed his Mom and stood up and walked into his room and got back in bed. Ralph began crying, crying for the pain his Mom was in, for Walter's pain, for anger at Walter for what he did, for his Mom not being able to look beyond that and mostly because knowing how much he was like Walter, if the most loving woman he's ever going to meet can't deal with Walter's short comings, what chance does he have at ever finding a life partner.

Paige sat there for several minutes and then got up and walked into her bedroom. She could smell Walter's cologne in the air and she sighed as she looked at her bed. How many times they had slept there, made love there. She walked over and opened the window hoping the wind would rid the room of his scent. She didn't need that reminder. She saw all the pictures on the wall of the three of them. She shook her head and walked into the bathroom and took a quick shower and then filled the tub with hot soapy water and just soaked.

"Walt, hey Walt! You here kid?" Cabe yelled at the loft.

Walter's eyes opened slowly and he looked around. Seeing he was in the camper he sighed knowing that last night hadn't been a nightmare. Cabe saw the camper jerk around as Walter stood and walked towards the front. He watched as the door opened and Walter stepped out into the Garage. "You okay kid?" Cabe asked him filled with concern. "I've called you a dozen times this morning. You missed the job meeting this morning."

Walter nodded as he stepped over to his desk and picked up his phone and dismissed the alarm that had been going off every fifteen minutes for the last four hours. He scrolled through all the miss calls, all of them Cabe's, none of them hers, he sighed. He looked at his laptop but saw that Ralph hadn't ever responded to his messages. He sat down and sighed again.

"Last night was pretty rough, you going to be okay?" Cabe asked.

Walter just shrugged. He looked up at Cabe and swallowed hard, "How do I fix this Cabe?"

Cabe sat down at the chair by his desk, "I don't know kid; I really don't. Allie said to tell you she was really sorry."

"Happy and Toby came back late last night and grabbed her tools and left." Walter told him.

Cabe nodded, "Well, I guess that explains the outside then."

Walter looked up at Cabe, "What do you mean?"

Cabe drew in a deep breath, "You better go take a look for yourself."

Walter stood up and walked over to the door and stepped outside, he saw his car had four flat tires and a tire iron smashed into the windshield and he saw a ticket on his car, he sighed and walked over and pulled the ticket, 'Broken windshield, four flat tires, $525' and as he turned around he saw in big bold neon letters spray painted across the front of the building, "You're a real dick!" Walter sighed and walked back inside.

Almost on cue the Garage phone began to ring and he walked over and picked it up and heard his landlord yelling on the other end about the spray paint. "It's bad enough with all the taggers and now you are pissing people off so they start writing obscene messages on the building? I expect you to either paint over it or get it removed before the end of the day!" The line went dead as his landlord slammed the phone into its cradle.

Cabe looked at him as he sat down and he could see the tears in his eyes and he could see his spirit breaking. Cabe pulled out his phone and dialed, "Hey Jerry, yea man, it's Cabe, hey can you do me a favor? My son's car got vandalized last night. Yea, four tires and windshield, if we can get it fixed up today can you do something about the ticket it was hit with this morning? Yea, here's the tag number. Oh yea? Awesome Jerry, thank you so much." Cabe hung up and looked at Walter, "My friend Jerry is going to fix the ticket now and tag your plate so if something else happens, the patrol officer will know you are being victimized." Walter nodded his head as a few tears ran down his face.