A/N: So, this probably would've worked better before last week, b/c now Walter and Peter are buddies again. But, it is what it is.
Olivia smelled.
Reeked, actually.
At first, Peter had thought it was the lab that stunk - some unstoppered concoction of Walter's - but then the scent drifted toward him on the updraft from the file he tossed on Olivia's desk, and the whip of her hair as she turned was saturated with it, and Peter knew just what it was.
It took him forever to convince Olivia that she reeked of standard-issue knockout gas.
"You're kidding me," Peter said, glancing between her and his sort-of father. "Walter - Walter, you, at least, should recognize the smell." Walter only looked stonily over the tables at the man who'd proclaimed himself his son, not wanting to break the wall of disdain he'd built between them. "Well, don't do it for me," Peter said.
Huffing, Walter got up, ambled over and planted his nose uncomfortably in Olivia's hair. The lines on his forehead collapsed into each other.
"So it is," he said. He paused, clearly wanting something from Peter but wanting, more, not to have to ask a favor of the impostor. But Peter knew the favor already, and, at risk of suffering Walter's indignation for the rest of the week, he sniffed the gnarly thicket of his father's hair.
"Nope," he said.
Walter nodded curtly.
"So, if not you, Walter," Peter said, "then..."
"My dear," Walter said, eyeing Olivia, "it appears that someone may have some untoward intentions toward you."
By the end of the day, Olivia was on not-quite-official twenty-four-hour surveillance. Repulsive as the idea was to her, Lincoln wheedled her until she agreed. Peter built the bugs himself so the requisition forms wouldn't grace Broyles' desk, just in case. He constructed them well and carefully, and Olivia left with four of them - one for every room in her apartment, save one.
She placed them.
They waited.
The upside of their vigilance was that Olivia's migraines stopped. The downside was that things got a little weird.
It crept up on them - flickering lights, misplaced objects - and Walter got uneasy but said nothing. It was only when disaster became imminent - when her unplugged toaster went up in flames - that Walter finally dug the relevant files from the second basement of the Lyman building. Even sealed, the files exuded the smell of rot and mold, but the photographs (they looked like film stills, some sort of video captures) were, tints aside, good as new.
"Let me get this straight," Lincoln said, pointing to the photo but staring at Olivia. "That room...that's because of you?"
Peter can't tell from her expression if she's proud or ashamed or both. One thing she's not, and that's scared. But he can tell she expects them to be.
"Whatever the purpose of our mystery visitor," Walter said, "they were effectively suppressing the effects of the Cortexiphan."
"And now that we've shut them out?"
Walter shrugged.
"Maybe we should stop surveillance," Lincoln suggested, eyes darting under his glasses, looking for approval. "Let them come back. Maybe there's more to this than we understand." But Peter was practically grinning, riveted to Olivia.
"No," he said. "We're not stopping. Unless, of course, you want to."
Olivia thought about it.
"With your safety at stake," Lincoln said, trying to sway her, "I don't think it's a good idea to keep going."
She bit her lip.
"So far, it's just a toaster. But what if it gets worse? We can handle the surveillance, but how do we handle...you?" Lincoln said.
Olivia's face fell slightly, and Peter frowned.
"I can handle you," he said, bypassing Lincoln and Walter and speaking directly to her.
Her eyebrow jumped.
"In the place where I came from," Peter said, "there's no end to what you can do. I've been there; I've seen you do it. I know what to expect. I can handle it."
Ordinarily, Olivia would have looked to Walter at this moment, silently asking for his read. Crazy as he was, Walter had shared her visions, and he'd had a sixth sense about Peter since he'd appeared. She didn't look to Walter now, though, against her better judgement. She looked straight to Peter, who looked straight back.
"If you've believed anything I've said to you since I showed up here," Peter said, "believe that."
And, fuck if she knew why, but she did.
"I have some sleeping pills," she ventured, on the first night she spent in his house. She was holding them, ready to take them, but Peter shook his head.
"Pills aren't gonna help," he said. "Believe me. Besides, you really want to take a prescription that Walter filled?"
She tipped her head, acquiescing, too nervous to smile. Didn't stop him from smiling back at her.
"Sweetheart, I'm not afraid of you," he said. She thought he might have winked as he walked away toward the kitchen. "Drink?"
"Where you came from..." she started, the two gin and tonics having taken effect, "you said I could do things."
From the couch, he nodded. "You could."
"What kinds of things?"
He smiled tiredly. "Anything," he said. "Absolutely anything." His eyes took too long to move off hers, pupils spreading like ash, and the softness, the fondness of her reaction, however involuntary, scared her.
"I'm not her," she whispered, and suddenly it was incredibly clear to Peter that she wished she were. Looking into her jaguar-wide eyes, he wished he could tell her what she wanted to hear, but that was the kind of mistake he would never make again, in any universe.
"No," he said. "you're not." And those jaguar eyes drew down into a sad, narrow line.
"He is a catalyst," the man said, brushing pepper from his sleeve. "He has been...introduced."
"Re-introduced," the other replied.
"Yes. That."
"It will cause...complications."
"It may."
"And the woman..."
"She may."
"She will. Soon."
"Peter," she says, waking him with that thin thread of a whisper. He pulls himself to his elbows, trying to find her in the dark. She hangs at the door.
"Jesus Christ," he whispers. He knows, before she even says it. The wires in the walls are crackling.
"Peter," she says again, and her smile stretches wide. "I remember."