Spoilers: Through the end of Season 2. Specific for "Over There" (Pts 1 and 2).
Disclaimer: I don't own the fabulous show of Fringe. No infringement intended.
A/N: This is my first Fringe fic, and my third fic in general. So feedback and constructive criticism are welcome and appreciated. A million thanks to Lee for being my beta. She's the best.
Olivia can think of a hundred reasons why Peter should come back.
For one, Walter is an emotional wreck. She had spent an hour at the Bishops' apartment the other day, helping Astrid and Walter clean up before being called back to the Federal Building. Astrid tells her that everything is now in its proper place, all the dishes have been washed, and the freezer is filled with Pudding Pops.
But the upstairs still smells like dirty laundry underneath all the Febreze, because Walter refuses to wash Peter's clothes. It'll get rid of his scent, Walter cries, and Peter hates it if I go through his underwear.
He's afraid of being sent back to St. Clare's, Olivia knows. Walter needs you, Peter.
She thinks of the heartbreak on Walter's face when she had told him that his son was gone, how hysterical he'd been when she had picked him up from the police station after his meltdown at the grocery store.
But the image shifts so that all she sees is the son instead of the father, all she remembers is her own near-breakdown, and all she wants is Peter's lips against her forehead and his hand tangled in her hair.
When she feared that she was a murderer, when she feared that she couldn't trust her own mind, it had been the touch of his palm against her back that had served as an anchor to her sanity.
You aren't prepared to lose him, Nina Sharp challenges - one woman to another - but even in her head Olivia refuses to rise to the bait.
It's Walter who can't trust his own mind. It's Walter who will simply forget what he's doing, because pieces of his brain are literally gone.
And Olivia knows, that as much as he'd like those memories back, nothing pains Walter more than the absence of his son.
You can't imagine what it's like to lose a child, he'd told her, the night he'd explained everything. She sees the face of a broken man and knows she can't let Walter lose him twice.
Your father loves you, she wants to tell Peter, even as she imagines his face hardening at the word 'father.' He only took you from the other side to save you. He only kept you here because he loves you very, very much.
Astrid won't stop baking pies. Olivia drives home with a blueberry one sitting safely on the passenger seat beside her. Yesterday it was apple, the day before that it had been banana nut and chocolate chip muffins. Olivia's relieved that Rachel and Ella are coming by this weekend because she doesn't know how much more food - albeit all of it delicious - she can stand.
She sighs and can't help but think irritably to Peter, Astrid is worried and it's all your fault.
Then she recalls how he'd trusted her enough to tell her about his mother's death, and how she'd let him believe that he'd figured out why Walter had been acting so strangely.
She remembers him sitting beside her in this very car, the way he carefully broached the subject of their almost-kiss, the relief in his face when he'd thought things were good between them once again.
A family, he'd called them. Her, Peter, and Walter.
The familiar feeling of guilt wells up inside her, but she forces it down as she tightens her grip on the steering wheel.
Astrid misses you, she imagines telling him. She drives Walter home every other night and plays Monopoly with him. And she never lied to you about anything. She never deceived you.
This isn't just your fight, he'd told her. And she wants to tell him that he's right, that of course he was right.
I can't fight the shape-shifters without you, she thinks. I need your IQ and your weird connections. You're the only person willing to stay up late with me on a case, tossing ideas back and forth over a box of pizza.
And she realizes, as she nurses a glass of whiskey at the bar, that he was right about another thing too. Everyone has a best friend. Charlie had been hers for the longest time; he'd been more than her partner. It still hurt to think how she'd failed him, how she hadn't noticed that he had been dead for weeks.
Then Peter had assumed the role of confidant, and she'd told herself that she wouldn't fail him either. And yet she had, she failed him by lying to him. She could save him from a deadly virus, but she couldn't save him from her own selfishness. She can't help but smile a little bitterly to herself, Han (Solo) once again.
She understands why he left, just wonders how much he must hate her to leave without a goodbye. She grips her glass tighter, lowers it back onto the bar as she tries to shake off her self-pity. Sniffing, she looks up just in time to see a bald man in a black suit and hat walking towards the exit.
She shifts in her seat to go after him, needing answers, before noticing a sheet of paper lying on the stool beside her. She grabs it, looks at it, tries to make sense of what she's seeing when her phone rings and a frantic Walter confirms what the Observer is trying to tell her.
She needs to find Peter. She can't fail another best friend.
She remembers the day she'd given him his credentials - civilian consultant to the Department of Homeland Security. He hadn't understood what had happened out there in the woods, couldn't explain how the Observer knew what he was going to say before he said it.
After that day, Peter hadn't looked back. He'd wanted to solve the Pattern as badly as she did - maybe, more so, at times. The cases they dealt with frustrated his intelligence in ways that didn't frustrate hers, and what was unspoken between them was that a part of him was trying to make up for what his father had done.
Olivia had learned to rely on Peter as her best ally, a person who wouldn't get in the way of her primary objective of saving lives.
Of course, there were times - especially in the beginning of their partnership - where she felt like he was getting in the way. He'd try to get her to slow down, would flat out object to any course of action that involved her and one of Walter's experiments. But most days she knew that it was good to have Peter be the levelheaded one, and it was always comforting to know that he had her back.
And, apparently, he'd been watching out for her even more than she'd thought.
She didn't know about the list of demands, was shocked when Broyles told her that the spacious new office that Senate Intelligence had authorized was thanks to Peter.
She wants to know what else was on that list, wonders if Peter knows that at least one of his demands has been fulfilled.
You need to come back and see this office, she thinks. You need to come back because Fringe Division needs your help to save the world.
But, for now, he's not here. Which means it's up to her and the rest of the Cortexiphan kids to get the job done.
"Mission Impossible," Nick had called it, and she wanted to appreciate his humor, but all she could think about was how strange it was for her to be standing there, preparing to save the world - two worlds - with a team of people that she barely knows.
Olivia feels like she should be more relieved to have them at her side, to know that she doesn't have to do this alone. There are others like her, others who share a battered childhood, have been haunted by it throughout their adult life.
But there is no sense of camaraderie; she doesn't feel like she's one of them. They've each learned to harness their ability, but she's not even sure what hers is.
Nick still calls her Olive, looks at her with the fondness borne of a shared childhood, but all she feels is unease and the familiar stirring of frustration at her lack of any memories of that Jacksonville daycare, of what Walter and Bell had done to her.
Maybe that's a good thing, Peter had said.
Unwittingly her mind jumps back to that place, to the only memories she does have of it. She'd stepped on the grass and tried to recall flashes of a blond, little girl running through that field. She'd examined the chipping of the red paint on the playground equipment and couldn't remember ever gripping those bars. Finally, she'd sat on that swing but it felt like any other swing she might've sat on as a child.
Then Peter had found her, had sat beside her, and suddenly she wasn't the only lost child there anymore.
At the time, neither of them had known that Walter had stolen him. But she'd already known that he had gaps in his memories too, that he couldn't remember his childhood very well except for being haunted by nightmares.
She can't help but want him there beside her again, can't help but think that he's the only one that she trusts to help her, that he's the only one that can keep her own nightmares at bay.
Olivia lets herself into the apartment quietly, knowing that Ella and Rachel are already fast asleep. She's only a little surprised when she enters her room to see her niece tucked safely underneath the covers, breathing softly. Rachel must've promised the girl that she could sleep in Aunt Liv's bed, which Ella likes better because she says it's softer and it has more space. It's also because her mother snores, but neither Ella nor Olivia dare to mention that to Rachel anymore.
Olivia smiles as she slides into the bed, imagining how Ella must've tried to stay up until Aunt Liv came back. Carefully, she pushes the hair back from her niece's face, feels a pain in her chest as she thinks about what she has to do in the morning.
She sighs, thinks of her niece and thinks of her sister, even thinks of her mother who'd passed away long ago. She thinks of times when they were happy, times before and after her stepfather, of the day Ella was born, of trying to teach Rachel how to cook.
She pushes away her fears and imagines that tomorrow she'll succeed, that tomorrow she'll find Peter.
Ella wants you to take her dancing, she'll tell him. Walter's gotten it into her head that you'd be the perfect partner.
She thinks of Peter, of him taking her by the hand as they move across the lab in tandem. One of Walter's old records is playing, and for some reason she's wearing a hat and Peter's wearing a suit and it's like they're in some old movie from the '20s but she doesn't question it. Just falls asleep to images of them dancing, of his face before her - alive and well and happy to see her.
Olivia's been looking for Walter in Central Park for hours. It's getting dark now and she has no idea in which direction he'd run off, so she decides to give up the search. It's another in a long list of failures that she brushes away to agonize over later, for now she tries to focus on what is her best option for moving forward.
She considers her position. She's a fugitive in another universe, possibly the only one of them to cross over who's still alive. She has no idea where to find Peter. The person who would know is Bell but she doesn't know how to contact him. Plus he either betrayed them or their message to him had been intercepted, which means it wouldn't be safe to contact him even if she knew how.
She tries to think of anyone else she could go to for help, instinctively wonders if there might be another Sam Weiss in this universe before she dismisses that idea as a foolhardy notion. Anyone here isn't the same person that they are in her universe; she has no reason to trust any of her contacts from back home.
Suddenly an image from the theatre flashes in her mind, and she remembers the shock of seeing herself leaning over James Heath's body, only herself had red hair and was wearing a leather coat - not a suit like she usually did on the job.
She realizes that the Olivia here is also some type of agent, and she wonders if that means that they're enough alike that this Olivia will help her. Of course, her alternate self was probably also at the park and must've shot at them, but Olivia can't really think of a better plan. The best she can hope for is that this Olivia might care enough about the truth and doing the right thing, might want to help her save a life and a world. And the worst is that this Olivia won't be trustworthy at all, but that she'll know herself well enough to be able to tell and manage to extract some helpful information in the process.
Olivia looks herself up in one of those computerized directories they have all over the city, and is relieved to find that this Olivia lives just a short walk away. She heads over there, hood up and face mostly down, even as she scans her surroundings and listens for the sounds of any type of law enforcement.
Buses whiz past her as she walks on the sidewalk and she feels exposed because there aren't as many people on the streets as she'd expected. Even though it's late at night, it's still New York. She wonders if there's some type of curfew, thinks maybe that it's just because she's heading toward a residential area and that other parts of the city must still be bustling with activity. Or maybe she's just being paranoid. She can't really distinguish what's real from what's not anymore. She'd been to this universe before but had only seen it from Bell's office. It's another thing entirely for her to be wandering the streets in order to go meet her double.
She makes it to the other Olivia's place quicker than she'd expected, and determines which window must be hers. It's still lit but she doesn't see anyone inside. But she doesn't have to wait long until shadows appear, and she can discern the outline of two figures. With a jolt, she realizes that this Olivia isn't alone. This Olivia has a man, a lover, and a life. She can't help but stare, can't help but see what she'd given up.
With a burning regret, she remembers Peter's hand on her face, the way he'd looked at her, first with concern then with awe then with a desire she'd never seen in his eyes before. She'd only been able to turn away from that desire because she'd thought she was going to save a world that was both of theirs. But she'd been wrong, she'd been so wrong. He'd glimmered and she knew he didn't belong. He'd glimmered and, just like the building, he was gone.
Olivia looks at the two figures in the window, watches them lean in towards one another, and watches how this Olivia doesn't pull away.
And she knows that there's only one reason why she wants him to come back.