References to torture, hypervigilance, reactions to trauma.

Peter sat in the very plain chair Massive Dynamic had provided and watched this other other Olivia pace. He was going to call her Livvy in his head, he decided. If she was anything like the other Olivia Dunhams he had met, she would hate that. He didn't remember the other Olivia Dunham very well, but he was guessing. He had to call her something.

Livvy was emaciated with ugly injection sites on her arm. Massive Dynamic had her attached to an IV that allowed her to walk, she needed everything and the kitchen sink back in her body. Still, she paced. She was also on anti-anxiety pills which seemed the best for someone held hostage for over three months.

She recognized everyone except Peter and Agent Danzig, so Peter had been chosen as her interrogator. He preferred to think of himself as her interviewer and he thought that approach would work better. He said, "Is there anything we can do for you right now?"

Livvy shook her head. "I appreciate the shower and clothes and everything else. I guess a haircut is too much to ask."

"Actually, I know how to do that," Peter said. He remembered working at a salon at some point in his life.

"You're kidding," she said.

"I'm not," he said.

"He dyed my hair and then he didn't and it looks awful," Livvy said, staring at herself in the mirror, pulling at her hacked hair. "I don't know why he did it. He never let me leave where he was holding me. It was probably one more way to ruin my day. You could just shave my head."

Peter approached her slowly. "I think I could salvage a sort of pixie cut just cutting off the black."

"Okay, I want that," Livvy said. "When were you a hairdresser?"

"I don't remember," Peter said.

"That's not confidence inspiring," she said.

"I have brain damage, but it doesn't affect my learned skills. Just my ability to remember how I got them," Peter said, smiling.

She frowned but she helped him wet her hair and sit up in a chair as he combed her hair out. "Your hair looks like someone just attacked it randomly. Sorry if that's the wrong word."

"No, it's accurate. He cut my hair like this."

Peter nodded. Of course, the Massive Dynamics room for interviewing traumatized experiment subjects had shears for hair. Once he started, he fell into the rhythm of it easily. "It's going to be a Rosemary's Baby Mia Farrow kind of short cut, but I think you might even like it."

"As long as it comes without the baby from Satan," she said, lightly.

He didn't try to talk to her while he had the scissors in hand. When he was done, he let her go to the mirror and admire it while he cleaned up the hair. He put it all in an evidence bag so Walter or his scientists could analyze it. He suspected Livvy wouldn't know everything she'd been subjected to or wouldn't want to articulate it.

He sat back down and waited for her to start pacing again, holding onto her IV stand. Instead she sat down across from him. She said, "You're Peter Bishop."

"The first you've met, right?"

"Yeah," she said. "In my, in my universe, Peter Bishop was kidnapped in 1985 to an alternate universe. He's still there, or he was still there. I've been away."

"The alternate universe being the more scientifically advanced one, with the zeppelins and blimps instead of airplanes," Peter said.

Livvy nodded. "Do you want the whole story?"

"Can we ever know what the whole story is? What you feel comfortable saying now is fine," Peter said.

"Oh God, you're a Bishop." She pushed her short hair back. She said, "On my side, Bell and Walter took a bunch of drugs and had this idea that by giving children the right drugs, they could open the kids to a perception that would allow them to be singularly blessed. To have abilities. Adults were limited by life and growing up. Something like that." She frowned. "The first time they realized there was another side was when they started cortexiphan trials. And I saw it."

Peter nodded. He went over to the side bar and made her coffee. He brought the mug to her, standing away from her as he handed it over. She took it, nearly smiling at him.

She said, "On our other side, it was different. They were scientifically advanced, like you say, even with the blimps. That Walter had started back in his teens trying to see and get to alternate universes. So when his Peter died just before he found the cure, he could see Peter on my side had survived." Livvy sipped her coffee. She said, "Walter had used cortexiphan on him, to prolong his life. Just enough so the other Walter could abandon all his principles about not breaking the barrier between universes and come over here and take him."

Peter smiled. "It was the exact opposite here, which is funny to me."

"Hilarious, I'm sure," she said.

"I'm from the other side, I was the kidnapped one. My father was so angry, I don't think he could conceive of a world where he would be the kid snatcher," Peter said.

Livvy looked up at him and then quickly down at her coffee. Peter said, "So your world experienced the disasters of the broken universe. Blight, wormholes, extreme weather."

"Yes," she said. "We don't have wormholes yet, but we've had all the rest. That's why Walter kept up the cortexiphan trials. Years and years. It didn't stop until I was 18. He was working for the government by then."

"Like when our Olivia flashed over to your side," Peter said.

Livvy's hands tightened on her cup. "She didn't flash over, she was in my head and body. When she left I was on the ground, in pain from the noise, being pushed out."

"She never meant that to happen," Peter said. "She didn't know."

"Of course not," she said. "She's untrained, some kind of over-emotional loose canon."

"I don't think that's how I'd describe her, but I see your point," Peter said. "Did you come here? Did your other side?"

"I watched. Traveling here or my other side is dangerous, we planned carefully. We watched so we were prepared. Unlike that Walter, we take breaking the barriers very seriously. I've never been to my other side, just observed."

"But you were sending the shapeshifters over in this universe after you were taken," Peter said.

She shuddered. "That fucker, that man, kidnapped me. I don't know how he got over to our side, but he did. He just snatched me. He drugged me and threatened me. When he does it, it feels like dying to him. It hastens his death, he thinks. So he had me do it," she said. "There were drugs and shocks." Her voice was quiet. "And more. He's not well."

"Tell me more about him," Peter said. "We want to find him."

"You should," Livvy said. "He's Russian. From this side. This universe. He was taken from his parents when he was three and raised in a Soviet laboratory. They weren't very good parents. He's obsessed with purity. No one who compromises is good. Purity of ideology, I mean. One misstep and you're not a hypocrite, you're a killer, destroying everything."

"He's not political?"

"He's nothing," she said. "He rants but it he never has a point. He's an angry white guy." she sighed. "He calls himself Sasha. I can describe him. His real hope is to find a way to destroy these two universes and then, I guess start on my two."

"How do the shapeshifters play into that?"

"They don't. He tried mind control, it wasn't effective enough. He's not a great planner, you know, no compromises. He sent the shapeshifters so he could research the Bridge. He wants to blow it up. He wants to blow it up so much it takes out both universes. Is that possible?"

Peter shrugged. "I don't know. It's a powerful machine. I was in there."

"And it worked," Livvy said. "Do you think we have one?"

"I'm sure you do," Peter said. "When we get you home, I'll get you the coordinates so you can build it. And some other information. But it only works for Peter Bishops."

"Given who raised him, I doubt our Peter Bishop would consider it," Livvy said. She yawned.

Peter said, "You sleep. I'm sorry, the door is locked, we're worried about losing you or him finding you. But you have a window to look out. And I promise we're going to get you home."

"Maybe I can do it myself," Livvy said.

"If you could, wouldn't you be gone by now?"

She sighed and sprawled on the bed. "Do you talk to me tomorrow?"

"Unless you want someone else," Peter said.

"Could you bring Charlie?" Her voice was soft. "Is he here?"

He said, "I'll do my best."

!

Olivia jiggled a peevish Henry on her lap as Peter walked out. He went straight for her, but she knew him, she handed over the baby to his open arms. Peter sat down next to her and kissed her cheek. He said, "I care about you, too, I swear."

"She's doing it for us," Astrid said. "Ever since Asher and Lincoln got here, Henry has been very clear about whose company he wants."

"Aww," Peter said, smiling at the baby. "It's nice to be loved."

"We should talk about what we just heard," Lincoln from the other side said. He looked considerably more irritated than Agent Danzig. But he'd been irritated since Henry arrived with Lincoln and Asher.

Nina said, "From the tests we ran, this Olivia is genetically identical to both Olivias. I'll need Walter to look closer, but I do think there's a slightly different composition to the cortexiphan between the two of you."

"Did you do a spinal tap on her?" Olivia was appalled.

"We don't have to do that to test for cortexiphan, we have much more sophisticated and less invasive scanners," Nina said.

"Let me see," Peter said, holding out a hand. "Where's Walter?"

"He had some supplements on him I didn't catch," Astrid said. "He wanted to calm himself down and it worked too well. He'll be great in the morning."

"Great," the other Lincoln huffed.

Asher kept staring at the other Lincoln and then back at his boyfriend. "So weird," he muttered.

"Okay," Peter said. "Nina, has Massive Dynamic made any progress on a grid search around that barn?"

"We don't have many cameras in the area, but we're using the camera footage from the Ottoli case to search," she said.

"What we need," Olivia said. "Is for you to get to the CIA to release all their files. This is 100% a Fringe case now and them hoarding whatever they have is threatening the universe. Two universes."

"I'll try to phrase it that way," Nina said, leaving the room.

It was just the two Lincolns, Asher, Agent Danzig, Astrid, and Peter. Asher said, "Do we get the Thompson LES tonight?" He had a slight smile.

"Yes," Peter said. "I already reserved three rooms, Astrid you get your very own room. Agent Lee, Agent Danzig, we can put you up in a hotel if you want, I'm sorry, there weren't any available at the Thompson."

"We want a hotel room, of course," Agent Lee said. "What's the Thompson LES?"

Olivia said. "A really nice hotel. I think Peter can find you something that's nice and closer to here. We'll find a way for you to talk to your Broyles before tomorrow morning, of course."

Lincoln frowned but accepted it.

It was two hours before they were in their hotel room and another half hour before Olivia finally got Henry asleep. She should have asked Peter, but he was engrossed with the test results and preparing theories to debate with Walter.

She was setting a bad precedent. Like she was Henry's stepmother. Henry was so worn down and exhausted and all he wanted, clearly, was to be held by his people. Olivia was one of his people at this point. She loved how he relaxed with her, how much he loved her. He didn't realize Olivia wasn't good at this.

She wanted to whisper, "Don't get too attached," to Henry. She wouldn't have meant it.

Instead she laid in bed and put her arm around Henry so he was sleeping with her arm surrounding him. She'd done that with Ella, more than once. This felt different than that. "I love you," she whispered.

Peter said quietly, "I heard that."

She rolled her eyes. "You caught me, I like the tiny baby."

Peter said, "Did you see how much he irritated the other Lincoln? Like Henry offended him."

"You know, the other Olivia probably can't have children," Olivia said. "Her sister died of a kind of viral eclampsia and she probably has it, too."

"Does she want kids?"

"I don't know," Olivia said. "She's with Lincoln now, ask him."

"No," Peter said, organizing his notes. He got in bed on the other side of Henry. "So she hates kids and he hates kids? I don't follow."

"I didn't mean that at all," Olivia said. "I only meant to say that the issue of kids is complicated for her, and that was even before you gave them all an actual future that wasn't dying in five years."

"Maybe it's because we have it easy," Peter said.

"Maybe he saw how much Henry looks like his mother and it hurts him. Maybe we should stop analyzing the poor guy," Olivia said. "We don't want to be smug parents."

"We're kind of smug parents," Peter said, a small smile on his face like he knew she'd said something significant.

!

Walter Bishop called the woman Olivia 3. "Doesn't matter if you consider yours 1 or ours 1, she is definitely 3."

Lincoln nodded. The other Walter Bishop was nothing like the Secretary. He babbled and got lost in his thoughts and only once in a while had a look on his face like he wouldn't be bothered killing everyone on the planet.

Lincoln and Agent Danzig poured over the data Nina had secured from the CIA. It was extensive. "These experiments are barbaric," Lincoln said. Their would-be destroyer of worlds was either Evgeni or Maxim. Neither boy had a last name at all, all the records called them Evgeni or Maxim. It was repulsive.

Walter nodded repeatedly like he agreed. But Lincoln knew the man had conducted experiments on this side's Olivia, among others.

"We were obsessed with perception," Walter said. "Belly and I, we took large quantities of LSD. I don't know if you're familiar with the drug, it has amazing properties that can change your life, how you perceive your life. Perception shapes reality, what we perceive is reality. The commies were much more about concrete concepts. The parallel universes vibrated at a different frequency so sound and vibration was what they needed to work on."

"So they tried to turn these kids into tuning forks," Agent Danzig said. He plucked pictures of 10 year old Evgeni and nine year old Maxim from the files. "I'm sending these to Astrid. She can age them up and start searching."

"Although the very nature of their, ah, forkness, may have changed their facial structure," Walter said.

"You're kidding," Lincoln said.

"One of these sets of notes indicates even these two success stories had moments when they could not control the phasing. Maxim, in particular, did something wrong in 1988 and turned the bones in his hand to dust," Walter said. "Well, I never caused that at least."

Lincoln was at the edge of his tolerance for this horror show. He'd had enough when he was firing the Secretary's men and women. This was just more. He was going to tell Liv they shouldn't even think about kids in a world capable of all of this.

Then Peter came in with his report on his meeting with Olivia 3. He and Walter started trying to explain things on a whiteboard. All Lincoln got from it was that when Walter kidnapped Peter, two parallel lines had stopped going straight, instead they were tangled and sweeping around, even hitting other lines. The Bridge kept the two universes on parallel lines. "This is a gross oversimplification," Peter said.

"Thank God," Agent Danzig said. "We already spoke to Broyles about increasing security on our side around the Bridge."

Lincoln sighed. "We're sure that your bad guy had an ally, maybe still does, in the administration on our side. Someone told him how to track down the shapeshifters and bring them back, ready to kill. It might be an anti-amber activist who tried to have Charlie and Liv and I killed."

"Or it could be unrelated," Peter said. "It would be nice to lay all the evil in the world at this guy's feet, but we can't make assumptions."

"He had to have someone on the inside," Lincoln said, glaring at Peter.

"Agreed," Peter said. "I just don't want to miss finding the inside man because you're looking for someone else."

"I know how to do my job," Lincoln said. He exhaled loudly and walked out of the room. He found Charlie sitting outside Olivia 3's room.

"When do we get to go home, boss?"

"Wish I knew," Lincoln said.

"She wanted me there because in her universe, she's married to Charlie Francis," Charlie said.

"I won't tell Mona if you tell Liv," Lincoln said.

Charlie grinned. "That poor girl. Her Charlie was a widower, they started dating two years ago. Now they're married."

"I bet he misses her," Lincoln said.

"Peter was good at talking to her. Why do you want to smack him around again?"

"He irks me," Lincoln said. "That condescending amnesia thing."

"People with brain damage, they're such assholes," Charlie said.

"He's standing right behind me, right?"

"No," Charlie said. "It's just the two of us out here."

Lincoln shrugged. "I just want to go home. All of this is irritating."

"At least we have some answers," Charlie said. "And we can tell Liv how good she'd look with a short hair cut."

"Don't you dare," Lincoln said.

Charlie shook his head. "Poor girl." Lincoln could tell he was thinking of Olivia 3. "I wish I could have helped her more."

"It was probably helpful just to see an uglier version of her husband," Lincoln said.

!

Liv said, "Three universes."

"At least four," Charlie said. "In the universe where you and I are married, the Secretary was the kidnapper."

"I can believe that," Liv said. "His wife says he used to be a good man, after all."

"Cause you have to be a good man to kidnap a child?" Lincoln glanced at her. "We need to talk about how you define a bad man."

"A good father, I mean. He loved his son," Liv said.

Charlie swallowed the last of his beer and tapped the table as he said goodbye.

Liv said, "So you saw the kid, right?"

"Yup," Lincoln said. "He looked like a baby. Blond, wispy hair, chubby little body, blue eyes. Kind of whiny."

"How is a baby kind of whiny? It's a baby," Liv said, smiling.

"Their Lincoln and his boyfriend brought the baby up to New York and he whined a lot. He wasn't happy until he was with Peter," Lincoln said.

"Lincoln has a boyfriend," Liv said.

"I used to date that guy, actually," Lincoln said. "Asher. Two years in college. My dad loved him. More than me, I think."

"In the third universe you're probably dating Peter," Liv said.

"Maybe," Lincoln said. "There's no Peter in universe 3, he's in universe 4 so maybe we're high school sweethearts. I dunno, does Peter even swing that way?"

"Yes," Liv said. "He told me back when."

"There you go," Lincoln said.

"You're in a very foul mood," Liv said. "Did the baby upset you?"

"No," Lincoln said. "That other Olivia did. He kept her, she was strapped down, and chained to a wall. She was drugged. And he was using her for her powers. That's just what we did."

"That's not what we did at all," Liv said.

"The Secretary and Brandon did a lot of fucked up shit," Lincoln said. "I hate that I participated and don't tell me I didn't know. I still did it. I thought we were the good guys."

"You were 100% the good guy," Liv said. "I'm the one who did bad things, remember? If you and Charlie had known she wasn't me, you would have helped her." In the bar's dimmed lights, he could see the gold shimmer of her eyeshadow. She pulled it off somehow, beautiful and bright.

"It's nice you think that."

"You were lied to, we were all lied to. We were told the other side was evil. All demons. But they're not. They had nothing to do with any of it, most of them," Liv said. She patted Lincoln's arm. "You're not the same as evil Maxim."

"We're sure it's Maxim? Is Sasha even a nickname for Maxim?"

"Yes and no," Liv said.

"Even Maxim, he was experimented on. He was used his entire life. Now he wants revenge on the whole world, and I don't know, what do we do when we catch him? We're just one more tormentor," Lincoln said.

"I'd feel more sorry for him if he weren't trying to destroy our world, and a few others," Liv said.

Lincoln tucked Liv's hair behind her ear. He said, "Apparently, in Charlie's opinion, you look great with a pixie cut."

"Ugh, I would never cut that my hair that short," Liv said. "Come on, let's go home. You won't have to go to the other side for a while, you can recover your bearings."

"This weekend is Mom's wedding, damn," Lincoln said. "I'm going to be so hungover."

"I'm excited," Liv said. "So again, let's go home and rest up." She took his hand as they left the bar.

!

The first time Olivia 3 heard Walter call her Olivia 3 she'd gotten angry enough that they all decided to she would now be known as Livvy as she requested, to reduce any confusion with Olivia. "I'll be staying here tonight with you and Walter," Olivia said. She walked around Walter's house, it was the first time she'd been there since Peter's not-death. Someone was keeping it neat, probably the tag team of Lincoln and Astrid.

Walter said, "We'll all be fine. See, as I said, while on our side cortexiphan subjects are largely immune to each other's powers, the cortexiphan formulation from, ah, Livvy's universe makes cortexiphan subjects all that much more vulnerable to each other. So Livvy here was lashing out but you, Olivia, you were the only one affected. But now we'll be fine."

"Thanks for repeating that," Livvy said. Olivia walked her up to Peter's old room. "Peter lived here?"

"Slept in that bed," Olivia said. "We had it in the apartment, but now that room is sort of Henry's nursery. So we brought it back."

Livvy nodded. She sat down on the bed. She said, "Do alternates ever get along or do we always rub each other the wrong way?"

"In my case, it's because you broke my head. After I broke yours, I guess," Olivia said.

"Are you staying here tonight?"

"Yeah, I'll be on the couch. Because of Walter, you shouldn't have to deal with his nuttiness, but this seemed more comfortable than our apartment," Olivia said. "Henry only sleeps 4 hours at a time."

"I get it," Livvy said. "I just want to go home."

"That's all we want," Olivia said. "But we need to find a safe place for you and get you back up to full strength."

"I should be ready already," Livvy said. "To do all that. Not some victim being shuttled from place to place."

Olivia smiled. Livvy said, "What?"

"I never realized how I sounded when I said stuff like that," Olivia said. "Please give yourself time to recover."

"People are waiting for me," Livvy said.

"I know," Olivia said.

Livvy looked around. She said, "Walter used to live in this place on my side. I keep expecting to see Amelia around."

"Who's Amelia?"

"Peter's sister," Livvy said. "She was 6 months old when Peter was taken. She didn't have the same disease. Another irritating genius. She's a good egg, just, you know, irritating."

"I'm trying to imagine a female version of Peter," Olivia said.

"Unlike Peter, she grew up with two loving parents. My Walter never lost his mind, not this much," Livvy said. "Sorry, I sound harsh."

"It's okay," Olivia said. "I understand. You should get some sleep."

Olivia skyped with Peter and Henry before she set herself up on the couch. Peter was showing her that Henry was already picking up on the baby sign language he'd been trying to teach him. "He's too young," Olivia said. "I read those websites."

"He's a genius," Peter said. It did look like Henry was signing an O. "That's his sign for you."

"I love you," Olivia said.

"Me, too," Peter said. He kissed the screen and she missed him so much. She loved her unburdened Peter.

She laid on the couch, listening to Walter murmur in his sleep. New Peter was confusing and cheerful. He was still Peter. They'd been having sex for weeks and he was definitely still Peter there. Except now they had sex on the couch and in the shower and not in the bed because Henry was there. She let herself remember the last time they'd had sex, the way his teeth had grazed her nipples and his fingers steady pressure pushing into her.

Olivia closed her eyes. She woke up two hours later with a blinding headache. She got up off the couch and saw that Walter was sleeping peacefully. She dragged herself upstairs and went to Peter's room. Livvy was tossing in her sleep. Olivia said, "Olivia. Olivia."

Livvy sat straight up and Olivia fell backwards in pain. Livvy said, "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"Okay," Olivia said. She rubbed at her nose and it was bleeding.

Walter came upstairs at a rush. Also he was naked, which Olivia never found soothing. He said, "Clearly I should have given you a tranquilizer before you went to bed, my dear."

"Yeah," Livvy said. "I would, okay, why don't you go get that?"

He ran back downstairs. Livvy said, "Never pretty in any universe."

"Yeah," Olivia said. "I'm going downstairs, too. You sleep well."

"It was a nightmare," Livvy said.

"I know, I had them, too," Olivia said. "It's okay."

She sat on the couch. She wanted to go home. She wanted her baby and Peter. Her baby, she thought. Henry, she thought.

She texted Peter. He'd answer if he were awake. He still had nightmares. He never remembered them, but he had them. He woke up angry and upset. Then he looked at Henry and calmed down. Sometimes he went right back to sleep.

Peter called her back. He said, quietly, "Why are you awake?"

"Livvy had a nightmare," Olivia said. "I now have a migraine and a nosebleed. Walter, naked, gave her a tranquilizer so she would sleep more soundly. I just, I want to see Henry."

"Okay," Peter said. He hung up. She stared at the phone. Surely he wouldn't.

Five minutes later, Peter was in the living room, putting Henry in the bassinet Walter had bought for Henry's trips. Henry had woken up on the drive over. He looked irritated, his face screwed up and she had seen that expression on Rachel a million times. "You're bad," Olivia said.

"I know, I'm putting my girlfriend over our kid, but I've decided I can do it once or twice. Plus you're not correcting me when I said 'our.'" Peter put Henry in her arms and Henry looked a little less irritated. Henry yawned.

"I want to adopt him," Olivia said.

Peter came at her with a baby wipe. He said, "You have blood on your face."

"Did you hear me?"

"Yes," Peter said. "It's distracting when you have a bloody nose." He wiped her face clean and kissed her. "You know, he's genetically yours."

"It's too complicated to deal with that," Olivia said. "I don't want to explain any of this to Rachel. So adoption."

"Okay," Peter said. He kissed her again. Then he sat back and watched Henry fall asleep. He said, "Then you get to pick his middle name. I mean, neither of us picked Henry, I don't even know who he was named for. He's a Bishop because, well, sometimes he gets that look Walter has when there's an extra tart at the coffee shop or there's mucus that glows in the dark."

"I knew a Henry when I was on the other side," Olivia said. "He was a good man. I don't know how the other one would have met him, though. You know, I always thought being in law enforcement would make naming a child hard."

"Too many criminals named Aiden and Bentley?" Peter smiled.

"I worked on a case with a serial child abuser named Astrid, if you can believe that. Our Astrid is wonderful, but I could never name a kid that. Okay, middle name," Olivia said. "I think, Francis. Do you like Francis?"

"I love it," Peter said.

"Next one, I get to choose the first name," Olivia said.

"Next one?" Peter had that insanely happy smile. The extra tart smile, she thought. Mucus glowing in the dark, like Peter wouldn't love that.

"Next one," Olivia said. "Old fashioned this time, no more snatching out of timelines. I might not want more than just two, to be clear."

"Absolutely," Peter said. "Should we get married?"

"Should we? That's a lousy proposal," Olivia said, smiling.

"Agent Dunham, will you marry me?"

"Yes," Walter said. He was still naked, though now he was eating bread. "Say yes, Olivia."

"I'm so glad you were eavesdropping the whole time, Walter," Peter said.

"You are in my living room," Walter said.

"Yes," Olivia said. "If you get a decent ring."

"So, huge diamond," Peter said.

"I can make one," Walter said. "I can make a real whopper of a diamond."

"She doesn't want a huge diamond," Peter said. "Hey, Walter, can you go back to your bed so I can make out with my fiancee?"

Thankfully, Walter did. They put Henry in the bassinet first.

!

Liv, Charlie and Lincoln had a whole new kind of weird case. People who thought they were going to live and so wanted to finally build their crazy time machines or a host of other contraptions. "All it does is emit poison gas," Lincoln said. He poked the machine and ignored the dead body on the floor. He stepped over the guy and looked at the schematics. "This would never work."

"We evacuated the building, if you were wondering," Charlie said.

Lincoln took notes on his tablet. "These are the component gases, if you pass them to the hospital, they should be able to help anyone who got a whiff."

"I would've built my time machine before we had a future, not now," Liv said. She painted her fingernails now, she had shimmery black fingernails today. "Like, go back 500 years, live out a real life."

"500 years ago, no TV, no internet," Charlie said. "No porn."

"There's always porn," Lincoln said. "People were drawing vulvas in cave paintings."

"Okay, so he has some very primitive porn, but what else do you have 500 years ago?"

"Clean air," Liv said. "Fertile fields. Sheep."

"I like TV better," Charlie said. "And porn that's better than vulva paintings."

Liv said, "Does Mona know about your porn obsession?"

"She has incredible taste in porn," Charlie said. "She's the one for me."

"Porn and bugs, she's a treasure," Liv said, smiling.

!

"Why are you here?" Walternate asked.

"I wanted to see how you are doing," Peter said. He had come to this side to tell his mother he was getting married, at the courthouse, in a few weeks. He had also gotten a briefing at the complete lack of success anyone had had finding Maxim. Nor was Fringe division any closer to finding Maxim's inside man. None of that was the ex-Secretary's business, any more than Peter's son was.

"Really?" The man had a gift for packing contempt into short syllables, Peter had to admit.

"You weren't the only one to wonder why," Peter said.

"I can't imagine your girlfriend is very pleased," Walternate said. He made girlfriend sound like he was saying shit covered scum.

Peter said, "I don't remember what you did. Everyone's told me, in a lot of detail. But it's abstract to me." He sat down in one of the two chairs in the austere living room. "I've started to remember things, but it's all been good stuff, nice things. Maybe this is a gift. For me and you."

"That sounds like nonsense," Walternate said. "I am a man of science, not sentiment. You sound like the loon that raised you."

Peter smiled. "Since he argues constantly that perception shapes reality, I don't think it's leap to think that in the complex functions of the brain memories could be sorted as bad or good. I perceive I would prefer not to remember and I don't."

Walternate shook his head. "What a naive way to live."

Peter said, "So what do you do all day? You live up here alone and you do what?"

Walternate stared him down. When Peter said nothing more, Walternate said, "I'm not plotting anything."

"I don't think you are. If you were, you would make more of an effort with me."

Walternate almost smiled. "Yes, my rudeness makes my innocence more probable." He finally sat down in the other chair. "I wake up, I make myself breakfast, I take a brisk walk. I read studies about the damage afflicting the world and try to find solutions. In some cases, I have already sent recommendations on to the relevant authorities."

Peter nodded. "Do you get many visitors?"

"No," Walternate said. "I appreciate the ones I do get."

"Even me?" Peter smiled.

Walternate didn't deign to answer. After a few moments he said, "If you remembered anything you wouldn't be here."

"I do, though," Peter said. "I was three, and it was snowing. I remember you cursing and laughing trying to get on my snowsuit and I kept trying to take it off. I thought it was hilarious and you didn't."

Walternate looked at him coldly. "That boy was taken from me and that act of thievery tore the fabric of this universe apart."

Peter smiled and stood up. "Okay. I'll probably come back, though, you haven't scared me off."

"I doubt you'll be back," Walternate said as he followed Peter out and closed the door behind him.

Olivia really didn't want hear about his visit. "I know he upsets you," Peter said.

"It's not upset," Olivia said. "He kidnapped you. He sent that woman here and drugged and brainwashed me. I don't understand why you would ever want to see him. Do you not believe us about what he did?"

"I absolutely do," he said. "But I feel like this amnesia, it's a gift. It's a second chance. He lost a child and his world fell apart, literally. It's understandable he's reacted ruthlessly. It's not excusable, but it's understandable."

"You sound so -"

"Naive?" He sat down next to her. "That's what Walter said."

Olivia looked down at her laptop. She said, "You can forget your pain all you want, but the rest of us can't. We don't just forget the pain he caused you."

He reached for her knee, gripped it. He said, "I know. I promise. But we have Henry now and I just, I have to believe there's good in him. He loved me like I love Henry."

Olivia twisted her engagement ring. He'd had fun making it, creating ultra thin gold wire, spinning it around in intricate patterns. The ring looked simple unless you were close to it. When the light hit it right, it reflected fractal patterns. Olivia seemed enthusiastic about it.

Olivia said, "He hurt us, he had Charlie killed."

Peter just nodded. "I need this. I can't explain why. Please don't be mad at me."

"I'm not mad, I'm not upset. I don't want to hear about it."

!

Lincoln and Liv went to Charlie's wedding. Mona didn't have a bug in the oven, as Liv put it, but neither she nor Charlie wanted a big to do so they were just having a party. Also, Charlie had nearly died when another suicide cult blew up a building.

"She realized she wouldn't get any of his death benefits," Lincoln said quietly to Liv.

"Come on, she's nicer than that," Liv said.

"I know," Lincoln said. "But we're mean to each other, it's what we do. I wanted to get it out of my system."

"Ah, just say mean things to me, so you don't get punched on Charlie's wedding day."

"He's taking a month long honeymoon," Lincoln said. Lincoln sighed. He'd like a month off. He could just take it, but not now that Charlie had. He knew Liv wouldn't take a month off and what was the point of vacationing without her? He looked over at her and wondered if he was right.

"Do you think they'll have kids?"

Lincoln took Liv's hand. "Maybe they will."

"They'd be weird parents. Good, but weird. Little mobiles of spiders and worms over the crib," Liv said.

"They could name the baby Arachnid if it's a boy or a girl," Lincoln said.

"One of the nicknames could be Ned, that's a solid name," Liv said. "I would be okay if I never had sex with anyone besides you for the rest of my life. Even if that's 70 years."

"What if we finally had a threesome?"

"Finally?" Liv said. She was grinning at him.

"I don't know, I couldn't think of how to answer that," Lincoln said. "You're a handful."

"Thank you," Liv said.

Mona came over, saying to Liv, "Oh, god, your makeup is fantastic."

"Thanks," Liv said. She had made an effort, Lincoln had watched her in the bathroom. She added, "Yours is better. You're the prettiest in this room, man or woman."

Mona blushed. "Thank you."

Lincoln said, "Charlie is so marrying up."

Mona laughed and moved on to the next set of guests. Lincoln waited until she was out of earshot to say, "Threesome with Mona but not Charlie, what do you think?"

"We'd be only be attractive to her if we got a lice infestation or something," Liv said.

The first day of Charlie's honeymoon, they finally got a lead on the anti-amber inside man. Who was a woman. Astrid had been correlating information, and Lincoln spotted the woman as someone he'd interviewed for the ex-Secretary's purge on footage Astrid has. "Why would she be there?"

"I believe this footage shows someone scouting a location for a bomb. A bomb that went off too soon to hurt any Fringe division agents but did kill two construction workers," Astrid said. "The police handled it, but when I reviewed the bomb's wiring it was very similar to the bomb that nearly killed you and Agent Francis. We interviewed her."

"We did," Lincoln said. "We decided she was mostly innocent."

"We did not decide she was mostly innocent. Innocent is not a correct description of her state of culpability and cruelty," Astrid said. "Nothing in her record or demeanor indicated she was involved in persecuting people who disagreed with the Secretary or sending killers to the other universe."

"Liv, I think we have a lead," Lincoln said.

They went to Ms. Littleton's home to arrest her by themselves, which was a mistake. She had no military training and they thought she would be unarmed. She answered the door with a shotgun pointed at the two of them. "I saw you coming up," she said. "You think I didn't recognize you?"

"We were hoping we could talk," Liv said. "Maybe you could explain why you keep trying to kill us."

"You know exactly why," Ms. Littleton said. "Amber is state sanctioned torture of innocent civilians. We know, you know, they're still alive in there. They're in stasis. You can free them and you don't."

"If we free them," Lincoln said. His voice wasn't steady. He took a deep breath and watched Ms. Littleton's hands on the gun. He could push Liv out of the way and take the blow. "If we free them, the integrity of the amber collapses, and the wormholes destroy everything."

Liv said, "Before you kill us, I wonder if you were working with a Russian man named Sasha or Maxim? It would be nice to know."

"I'm not," Ms. Littleton said. Lincoln really wished he hadn't blanked on her first name. "I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you and myself."

Her hands on the shotgun were shaking.

Liv ducked suddenly, tackling Ms. Littleton as the shotgun went off. Lincoln took the shotgun away from her and said, "Liv, you okay? Liv?"

"I'm fine," she said. She pulled up Belinda Littleton and put cuffs on her. "I was waiting for you to move on her. Then I realized you weren't."

"I was going to push you out of the way and take the bullet if she pulled the trigger," Lincoln said. "Excuse me."

"You've obviously never killed anyone, Belinda," Liv said. "That's sweet, Lincoln, but she obviously wasn't capable of killing us."

"Fine," Lincoln said. "Next time I won't even think about sacrificing myself."

"Not if you don't have to," Liv said. She rolled her eyes, which was somehow more effective at communicating contempt with her perfect cat eye eyeliner.

Belinda glared at both of them.

!

Olivia, Astrid, and Lincoln went to Ohio to investigate a series of murders where the dead were apparently strangled by tentacles. Lincoln said, "You couldn't do that with a tentacle dildo, right?"

"No," Olivia said. "Maybe someone's just using tentacles as a garrotte."

"A garrotte works by cutting, a tentacle couldn't do that," Lincoln said.

Astrid said, "Just to put it out there: malevolent octopus."

"Find me the body of water where it's living," Olivia said.

They sent the bodies and other samples back to Walter. There were no witnesses to question.

Astrid volunteered to put herself in the same park where the other victims had been killed. The park was a full two acres, though, and it would take them a month to have her walk down every path.

Lincoln said, "If it's a malevolent octopus, it needs water, right? Maybe we can find a small pond or well spring. We could have Astrid walk round there."

"It's a start," Olivia said.

The found the monster on the third night. It was some kind of mutant octopus and lizard. Possibly transgenic, Walter speculated. Lincoln and Olivia had shot it 12 times in any body part they could aim at without hitting Astrid.

"I had my knife ready," Astrid said, coughing. "But it wrapped around my arms."

"We saved you, we stopped the killer," Lincoln said. "It's okay if you didn't contribute."

Astrid smirked. "I contributed. I stood still while you shot at me."

"We weren't going to hit you," Olivia said. "Probably."

Olivia told the story to Peter when she was finally in her own bed with him. He said, "Octopus and lizard?"

"It had three legs and 9 tentacles," Olivia said. "Walter is going to have so much fun with the corpse."

"I almost wish I was working," Peter said.

Henry yawned. "No, you don't," Olivia said.

"I'm sure Walter will tell me all about it," Peter said. "I missed you. Henry missed you. Livvy probably missed you in some way, but she might not have. Everyone is glad the lizapus didn't kill you or Astrid or Lincoln."

!

Livvy took her tranquilizers and stayed with Walter without incident. She met with Dr. Felton in the morning, took a handful of pills and usually ended up with Peter watching Henry in the afternoon. It wasn't just the hair that set her apart from Olivia. She was more of a soldier, more focused on work. She often complained about her itch to be involved.

"Maybe I could help at the lab," Livvy said for the 100th time.

"You're not ready," Peter said. "You jump five feet at sudden sounds, needles make you shake and the crackle of electricity makes you shut down. This isn't weakness."

"It's exactly weakness," Livvy said. She was lying on the floor watching Henry do his tummy time. Henry's determined face looked a lot like Livvy's.

She would talk about her side, she catalogued the differences. She seemed to think the team on this side had it easier. He never corrected her. It was what she needed.

One week, she said, "I like that you're not that attracted to me," she said.

"My type is not Olivia Dunham, it's this Olivia Dunham," Peter said. "That makes you feel better?"

"I see the similarities here and I wonder if we're all just pieces of a mobile, going around the same circles, forming the same associations each time," she said. She poked at Henry's mobile above his bassinet.

"Some things happen over and over again. One of me always seem to die," Peter said.

"Henry doesn't have that disease," Livvy said, tentatively.

"He had a mild version of it that was easy to cure. We know how to do that, after all," Peter said.

"We only have our two, or four universes to look at though," Livvy said.

"But the machine was put on the planet so long ago. Time travel," Peter said. "Maybe the very existence of the machine makes it happen. There has to be a Peter to get into it, there has to be a breach to heal."

Livvy looked up. "That's sad. You made sure you would die millions of times."

"Technically, not me. It was another Peter in the machine who actually worked with a Walter to make it and then went back and planted it all around," Peter said. "I'm the Peter who stole that guy's kid before he knew it existed or that he was wiping the kid out."

After six or seven weeks, Livvy started curtailing her time in therapy and her time with Peter. She was going to the lab now that she was less traumatized. She was trying to teach Olivia as a means to get her own strength back.

!

"I'm sorry we haven't gotten you home yet," Peter said. He straightened his tie for the fiftieth time.

Livvy said, "It's my fault, I should be able to get myself home."

"We said we'd help you," Peter said.

"You can leave, I'll be okay," Livvy said. "Go, get married. I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" She nodded and Peter took one last look in the mirror. Olivia, Rachel, Ella and Henry had been staying at the apartment for the last two days while Peter had been living with Walter and Livvy. It was only where he slept at night, he spent all day at the apartment with Henry as usual.

He drove himself to the courthouse. He started to think about how they were all going to get home from here but he decided to stop. It was his wedding day.

As soon as he walked into the room where they were all meeting, Rachel put Henry in his arms. She said, "He's been signing for you for hours."

"He wanted me to see him in his awesome little suit," Peter said.

"Our wedding gift," Asher said, arm around Lincoln. "I know you said no gifts, but we had to."

"He's going to outgrow it in two months," Astrid said.

"We can put it aside with my tuxedo from my wedding you decided not to wear," Walter said, still a little huffy.

"Quite the hope chest Henry's going to have," Olivia said. She looked beautiful. She was wearing a simple blue dress but she was definitely radiant. "We can do this in five minutes."

"You're both so sentimental," Astrid said.

"Sorry," Peter said. He saw his mother, sitting in the corner next to Broyles, smiling. Nina was hovering near both of them. "Mom, I'm so glad you could come."

"I'm overjoyed," she said, with a little catch in her voice.

It was over quickly. The judge had them repeat the traditional vows minus anything about obeying. Then the adoption was finalized. People cried, definitely Walter, a little bit Peter. Henry laughed. Ella clapped.

At the end of the day, they were married and back at the apartment, just the two of them and Henry. Peter said, "I think I should try to get my memories back. All of them."

"Why?" She unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor.

Peter tried to breathe or remember his words. "I," he said, "I remember those thigh highs."

She smiled. "What more do you need to remember?"

"I don't like not remembering our time together, all of it," he said.

"I don't mind," Olivia said. She was now only wearing the thigh highs and slowly unbuttoning his shirt.

"Okay," Peter said. "Okay. You convinced me."

!

Olivia spent part of every day with Livvy now. It was both a learning experience for Olivia and a way to get Livvy back to her full strength. Livvy stayed in the lab when Astrid, Lincoln and Olivia went off for cases.

She came home to Peter. He was generally in his usual optimistic mood and slightly exhausted by Henry. "Today," Peter said, "We go to the library for story time. One of the other mothers looks over at me and says, 'Henry is a strange name for a girl.'"

"Was he in his pink shirt or the pink leggings?" At that moment Henry was only in his diaper since it was dinner time.

"One of his pink shirts. I said Henry is a boy, and she actually says 'Then why is he wearing pink?' Naturally I launched into my history of gender coding colors -"

Olivia said, "Teddy Roosevelt wore pink."

Peter smiled. "Yes. She says something about here and now wearing pink will confuse Henry and I say, he's still confused by peek-a-boo sometimes. Before I could say something and come out, the librarian tells the other woman that she's disrupting story time and making patrons uncomfortable."

"Another triumph," Olivia said. She kissed the top of Henry's head and then kissed Peter. He had made dinner for the three of them.

"We're getting closer with Livvy," Olivia said. "She's still abrasive."

"She -"

"I know, Peter, she endured torture, she misses her husband, she was an experiment like me but for even longer. She lives with the apocalypse falling all around her," Olivia said.

Peter nodded. "But she still rubs you the wrong way."

"Maybe no one gets along with their alternate," Olivia said. "But soon she thinks she'll be able to find a safe way home. It makes me nervous that we haven't heard anything from Maxim."

"Or we haven't linked him to what he's doing," Peter said.

"Did you look at the reports on those sentient flowers?"

"They're not sentient," Peter said. "Well, Walter would argue all plants are sentient, but, no, they don't have intelligence."

"Any thoughts?"

"Not from me, either," Peter said. "I don't really have a lot of time to read or do anything but keep Henry from setting us both on fire."

Olivia looked at him. Peter said, "Yes, I looked instead at my brain scans and thought about ways to get all my memories back. Unintelligent flowers tomorrow."

"I know you have limited time, I know being a stay at home dad is not eating bon bons," Olivia said.

"You know, I'm not sure I've ever had a bon bon. I bet Walter has. He could make it for me," Peter said.

Henry had finished eating and was mashing peas into his hair.

The next day Olivia went into work and immediately took off her blazer. Astrid said, "Is that spit up?"

"Nope, it's vomit," Olivia said. "That I missed from three days ago. That's not incredibly embarrassing."

Astrid sat down and pulled the blazer to her. She wet a surgical rag with something from an unlabeled blue bottle. "Walter made this for me, I don't ask what's in it." She rubbed at the blazer.

"You don't have to do this for me," Olivia said.

"I don't mind," Astrid said. "I miss working with Peter."

"Thanks," Olivia said.

Astrid smiled. "I didn't mean it like that. I was just thinking about it. He's good company."

"He is," Olivia said. "So how are you? Do you want to tell me about minutiae like I was Peter?"

"You don't care," Astrid said.

"Yes, I do," Olivia said. "I'll tell Peter and he can relay back questions."

"I could just call him," Astrid said.

"You get about five minutes if you're lucky," Olivia said.

"I know," Astrid said. "I'm feeling really good about not having children."

"It's not that bad," Olivia said.

"It's totally that bad," Astrid said. "You and Peter love it, I'm happy to just come by for a few hours and then go home."

"Does your girlfriend feel the same?"

"Basically," Astrid said. "We haven't hashed out every single thing about our future, I'm not sure how long a future we have, you know? But we don't plan to go further than maybe two cats."

"You're not sure you have a future? But I thought you two were so happy," Olivia said.

"We're happy," Astrid said. "I love her. But I don't like to plan too far ahead."

"Did you get your second cat?"

"We're arguing about which one we want," Astrid said.

Lincoln sat down with them. "I think you should get the black cat, they have the most trouble getting adopted. Plus, he'll match Picard."

Olivia said, "How do you know that about the adoption rates?"

"Asher wants a cat," Lincoln said. "I say no, he sends me articles about shelter pets who need adoption."

Astrid said, "Do you want kids?"

"We've reached that level of intimacy," Lincoln said, with a nervous smile.

"You don't have to answer, sorry," Astrid said. "We were just talking about it. How I don't want any. Olivia already has one and is probably planning on more -"

"I didn't say that," Olivia said.

"Every time we go over to see Peter, he mentions the next kid," Lincoln said. "I think he said he wants four."

"That's not happening," Olivia said.

"Asher and I are waiting to see if the time comes that we want one," Lincoln said.

"You're waiting for a sign from the stars," Olivia said.

"Basically," Lincoln said.

Livvy came in, saying, "Good morning." She barely smiled. "Let's get to work."

Walter had set up chairs they could both sit in and monitor their brain waves and other measurements Olivia didn't care about. Olivia was pretty sure Livvy thought Olivia was undisciplined and soft. It was amusing to Olivia that she came off the way to anyone, but she tried to hide it.

Livvy was disciplined. She ran through exercises like they were scales on the piano, stretching the cortexiphan muscles. Then they would focus on all of the various powers Walters had gifted them. Olivia had difficulty seeing beyond the other side to other parallel universes. Livvy was still keyed to the other side thanks to Maxim's torture instead of her own home.

Recently, though, Livvy had started to see her home. Olivia would try to follow her there with her thoughts but it was just starting to work. It had taken nearly two months.

Today it all clicked, finally. Livvy immediately saw her universe, spreading out from Harvard to the place in Quincy where the FBI had moved to after the events Olivia had seen in 2009. Olivia saw it all with her.

Olivia called Peter to let him know they were finally getting Livvy home. He met them in the street in Quincy where they had found the right place. Henry stayed asleep in stroller like a champ. Livvy actually smiled, genuinely happy to see Peter.

"I hope our Peter is like you," Livvy said.

"I hope he's better," Peter said. He gave her the schematics of the machine, the coordinates to retrieve the parts and a thumb drive. "I don't remember everything, but I remember what I did in there. I tried to write it all out with the appropriate equations and the like. Hopefully you can convince that Peter to do this. Tell him not to grab any babies or let any timelines be overwritten and he should be fine."

Livvy even hugged Olivia. It was awkward. Olivia said, "You're my favorite alternate of me."

Livvy laughed. "I know that's a very low bar, but I deserve that."

After all the goodbyes were done, Livvy closed her eyes and spread her arms. Olivia saw the shimmer as she disappeared. Walter ran over to Olivia and said, "Now see that she's okay."

"I know, Walter," Olivia said. She closed her eyes and did the viewing trick as she thought of it. She saw Livvy running inside and a version of Charlie running out as he saw her. They met in a rapturous hug. "Aww," she said. "She's home."

Peter hugged her from behind. "Okay, so I think you can call it a day. We sort of saved two more universes."

Broyles shook his head but he did wave them off.

Henry actually stayed asleep as Peter drove Olivia home. "Did you drug him?"

"Yes, I got him drunk," Peter said. "No, he's just tired. You might remember he got up super early this morning."

"Oh, I remember," Olivia said. She looked out the window. "I remember you when you were miserable. You were clinically depressed, but also, you were so sad. I still loved you, you weren't some monster."

"Just a little choking," Peter said. "And shooting."

"Only that once," Olivia said. "I love you happy. It's like, maybe it's who you were meant to be."

"I don't believe in meant to be," Peter said. "I don't believe in fate. We weren't meant to be, we chose each other and that's wonderful, that's all that's meant to be, people's choices. Life is random and terrifying and miraculous. I'm not who I was meant to be, I'm not the purest essence of Peter. All the bad memories my mind won't let me see are still under everything. I have nightmares about them that are just shapes and emotions crashing into each other."

"I would forget my stepfather if I could," Olivia said.

"Well, I've literally forgotten the first time you told me about him because something in me has decided I need to be spared. I want to remember that," Peter said.

"It wasn't that exciting. I had yelled at you for no reason and you said you didn't deserve it and I told you, because you were you. I never even told John. I only told Charlie because he was there when the letter came to the FBI office. But you I told after knowing you six weeks," Olivia said.

"See, I want that back," Peter said. "Are you worried I'll be ill again?"

"No," Olivia said. "No. It's nice that the machine decided to rewrite your brain chemistry so you're no longer depressed or ill like that. But I'm not worried about you being ill."

"I still want to let Walter have his way with me," Peter said. "Would you really hate that?"

"Letting Walter do anything to you is scary as hell," Olivia said. "I wouldn't hate it like I would stop you. But I wish, I don't want you to do it for me."

"I'm being totally selfish," Peter said. "I'm not doing it for you."

"Just remember, Henry needs you." Olivia put her hand on his leg. "Pull over."

Peter looked at her skeptically. "This is turning you on?"

"No, just pull over." Peter did so and now he looked worried. Olivia said, "I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant."

"That's, that's wonderful news. That's great," he said. He kissed her, his warm lovely hands on her cheeks. "I would not have caused an accident if you just told me while I was driving."

"I want you to kiss me," she said. He did, again.

!

"This is disgusting," Olivia said. She told herself she would have felt queasy even without being pregnant. Judging by Lincoln's face, she was justified.

"We've just begun the examination," Broyles said. Even Walter looked taken aback.

"Examining hundreds of bodies can take a while," Lincoln said.

They were stacked haphazardly in the bottom of a gorge in upstate New York. Walter took a deep breath and waded in. "How does this happen with no one noticing? None of these bodies look more than a month or two dead," Olivia said.

"Because we believe they are all from the other side," Broyles said. "They weren't noticed here because of the difficulty getting down here. If that hiker hadn't died in an accident falling down here and his family hadn't insisted on recovering the body, we wouldn't have known they were here."

Olivia looked at them again and saw it, the glimmer over everything. "They are from the other side. Why haven't they told us they're suddenly missing hundreds of people?"

"I checked," Broyles said. "They don't have those kind of reports. Nothing like this."

Walter was making cursory physical examinations of the bodies. He said, "Everyone I've examined so far appears to been killed by simply breaking the neck." He made a gesture Olivia recognized as twisting the neck.

"Okay," Broyles said. "We need to bring out an entire team discreetly and identify each body. Full biohazard procedures in place, we don't know if these people had small pox or dormant bird flu." Broyles sighed. "We'll send the identities to the other side and see if that helps us figure out where these people came from."

"I bet it's Maxim," Lincoln said. "He's been too quiet. Maybe this is what he's been doing."

"It fits his MO of indiscriminate death," Olivia said. "But why? Livvy said it was painful for him to travel back and forth. If he's done it this many times, he must be in agony."

"And this body on top looks to be only days dead," Walter said.

"Maybe he's moved on to another gorge," Olivia said.

Lincoln said, "We should search, but as covertly as we can. If we can catch him before he moves on, it would be our first stroke of luck." He rubbed his forehead. "Do you need us down here anymore?"

"No," Broyles said. "Dr. Bishop, we'll have a sample of the bodies sent to your lab."

"Yes," Walter said, backing up. "Yes, but just a few."

!

Peter went to see his father again. Henry was with his grandmother, and Peter was enjoying the time away from his kid. He wasn't going to feel guilty about it, he spent every hour with Henry normally, he would take these hours off.

Walternate answered the door and waved Peter to sit down.

"You actually called me, sort of," Peter said.

"You seem wed to your naivete enough to trust me," Walter said. He handed over a tablet. "Do you need me to explain that?"

"Readings on Madison Square Garden," Peter said. "The integrity of the amber seems to be compromised. I know what this is. God."

"I assumed you would," Walter said. He didn't ask, like he hadn't asked about Peter's wedding ring on the last two visits. Like he never asked about anything.

"I believe someone is taking people out of the amber, killing and dumping them. We've found so many bodies. This is incredibly helpful, thank you," Peter said.

Walter didn't smile. He said, "I hope you'll tell me when it's resolved."

"I will," Peter said. He did smile. "You know I got married."

"I saw the ring," Walter said.

"Don't worry, she hates you so there won't be any awkward Thanksgiving invitations." Peter took a recent picture of Henry out of his pocket. "You're a grandfather, too. Number two is on the way."

Walter looked down at the picture on the table, but didn't touch it. Walter said, "Despite the physical resemblance, I don't see how this child could be yours."

"He is, I just took him from a parallel universe where he was about to erased by the timeline. While I was in the machine," Peter said.

"Insane act," Walter said. "You should know better."

"I do, I didn't break any barriers, no one misses him. I could see the timeline changing like a wave, he was about to be erased. But yes, it wasn't the smartest thing," Peter said. "I don't regret it."

"You will when they come for you, when it rains down on your world."

"It won't," Peter said. He left the picture as he stood up. "Thanks for the help, again, I need to get this to Fringe division."

For once, Walter said goodbye and didn't sound like he was saying fuck you underneath it.

!

The two Broyles coordinated bringing the two teams together around Madison Square Garden. The night before, Liv and Lincoln ate dinner, and fucked on the large bed Lincoln had recently bought. Liv had told him to upgrade to something sturdy. She sat on his thighs, feeling exhausted but happy.

Lincoln said, "I don't want to have sex with anyone else but you for forever. Our new long forever. Unless we both decide and the person is someone we both find attractive. I want you to have all my things when I die, except for the things I've promised Charlie or my mom. I will assign you my death benefits. If the two of us ever decide we want to be parents, I only want to parent with you."

Liv smiled. "Are those our rules?"

Lincoln nodded. He gripped her warm thighs. "They seem like good rules, right?"

Liv said, "If we ever decide to be parents, I want you to be the father. I want you and my mom to get my death benefits. You have better stuff than me, but if I die first, you can have my crap. We only have sex with each other unless we're both equally turned on by the person. We should live together forever, all that very long time, even when your penis is so much less pretty."

"It's like we're saying vows," Lincoln said, a tired smile on his face. "And I love you."

"I love you, too."

"I feel like I should reward you for not making a joke out of that," Lincoln said.

"I know, it was really hard to resist," Liv said. She leaned down and kissed him.

!

Lincoln forced himself to walk over to Olivia. She was wearing a long coat, but when she moved and it opened, he could see her small belly. He said, "Congratulations."

She was so closed off compared to Liv. She smiled slightly. She said, "Thank you."

Lincoln said, "I wanted to say I'm sorry. I like to think if Charlie and I had known, we would have helped you. We didn't know."

Olivia looked at him, her eyes wide. "I would think so, too. You didn't do it to me."

"You were a really good agent," Lincoln said.

"Yes, I was," Olivia said. "Sorry, I'm not enjoying being benched." She absently touched her round belly.

"You're not very benched," Lincoln said. "You're here while we wait for a homicidal maniac to show up and use his superpowers to open this huge wormhole."

"You and I are out here, way out here," Olivia said.

Lincoln's cuff crackled. "We've spotted him," Liv said.

"Coming," Lincoln said.

Olivia said, "I'll wait here." She drew her gun and stood at the ready.

Lincoln went over to the side of Madison Square Garden Maxim was approaching from. Liv, he knew, he couldn't see but she wouldn't miss her shot from wherever she was.

He saw Maxim walking and Peter walking towards him. Peter said, "You can stop right now." He had his hands out, no weapons. It had been Peter's idea to try to reason with the maniac.

Maxim shook his head. "Why would I? I'm very close. This wormhole will open, become so large it sucks up everything. It's what the world deserves. Every world." Maxim looked like death, emaciated, grey skin, patchy hair, wild eyes.

"We're obviously going to stop you," Peter said. "Instead, we can help you." Peter had stopped about twenty feet from the edge of the amber.

"I don't think it's so obvious you're going to stop me. How do you know I'm only working on this wormhole? This pile of amber? I'm not. I have ten. Even if you end this now, how will you stop all of them?" Maxim even had an ugly, raspy voice. He didn't seem to be using his powers yet.

Peter grimaced. "You'd be amazed what people can measure. We can strengthen all of them. In time, we will get these people out on their own as the wormholes close. Which you don't care about."

Lincoln had reached Maxim's side, about 20 feet to his right. The other Lincoln was on Maxim's opposite side. They both had their guns trained on him.

"Nothing about this universe or any universe should survive," Maxim said. "Nothing should survive."

Lincoln noticed one of Maxim's hands had been crudely amputated. Then Lincoln's chest was exploding and he was flat on his back. He pushed himself up and saw the other Lincoln had been knocked down, too.

Maxim had his one good hand around Peter's neck, squeezing. Choking, Lincoln thought. Peter's face was red, his hands grasping at Maxim's arm. Peter gasped and Lincoln saw blood from Maxim's nails starting to drip from Peter's neck.

Two sharp sounds and Maxim was on the ground, half his head gone. Lincoln said, "Good work, Liv."

Peter rubbed his neck. He looked up where Liv was and smiled. He waved, too, his hand bloody, and then went over to his Lincoln. He said, "We need to find those other nine spots."

Broyles, Lincoln's Broyles, said, "Apparently we should consult the ex-Secretary on that."

"Sounds like a great idea," Peter said. "I guess I get to do that." He pulled up his t-shirt to staunch the blood from the shallow half moons on his neck.

Olivia was suddenly at Lincoln's side, helping him up. She smiled at him. She even said, "You should get checked out. That guy can pack a punch."

"Yeah," Lincoln said.

On the private line of his cuff, Lincoln heard Liv said, "Stop flirting with her."

Lincoln turned away while Olivia went over to the other Lincoln and Peter. He said, "You weren't tempted to wait one second on that shot?"

Liv said, "Not even for a second."

"I would have," Lincoln said.

"I guess I'm a better person than you," Liv said. He could hear her smile.

!

There was nothing they could do about all the dead. Astrid suggested they save personal items so maybe someday they could give it to the families. The other side took the tagged personal items and stored them somewhere. Or they threw them out and didn't tell Astrid or Peter or Broyles.

Thanks to Walternate's help, they identified all the amber spots that were about to collapse. Walternate sat down with Peter and invented a new way to shore up the sites. He was softening, Peter though. He even watched a video of Henry spinning and rolling. Though Peter made everyone watch that video so it was more likely a sign of Peter's persistence than anything from his father.

Peter's dad, the Walter who kidnapped and raised him, settled into living alone. They always kept a FBI agent outside the house for times when Walter decided to wander, but Walter did okay on his own. Astrid and Lincoln visited for their own pleasure. Peter brought Henry over, but Henry was never left alone with Grandpa. No one trusted Walter that he wouldn't try some experiment.

One Sunday morning Peter came back from settling Henry into his nap to Olivia sitting up on the bed, looking pensive, one arm around her 20 weeks pregnant belly. He sat down next to her and she leaned into him, hugged him.

She said, "I don't know if I'll be any good at this. My mind, my body, I'm just an experiment."

"You haven't screwed up Henry yet," he said.

"That's helpful," she said. "I thought of her name, though, If you like it. I thought we could name her Alice."

"You know I love those Roosevelts," Peter said. "I do like it."

"You're the only one who's going to think of Roosevelts," Olivia said.

"You and I are the ones that matter. Once she's here, she'll make it her own," Peter said. "I've already forgotten any other Henrys."

She burrowed into him, her grip tight on his back.

He said, "I started Walter's get-your-memory-back therapy. You know the first thing I remembered? When you called. You called and said you were back. I could feel myself go cold and something in me snapped. I looked over at her asleep and shook her. I lied, I never asked her anything, I immediately went for her throat. I didn't feel anything about it except I had to. She rolled off the bed and hit her head and I choked her. Her head bounced on the floor. I choked her again and then I got up and got her gun. I sat down and shot her from there. So she wouldn't get up. I felt nothing but a sense of rightness, emptiness and rage."

Olivia sighed against him. He put his hand over hers on her belly. He said, "So Alice, you need to be a much much better person than your father."

"Than both of us," Olivia said.

"Me more than you, though," Peter said.

"This is a good thing to be competitive about," Olivia said. She tightened her grip on his back. "I love you anyway."

"I am better than both my fathers, at least," Peter said.

"Teeny tiny bar to get over," Olivia said, with almost a laugh.

"But I did it," Peter said.