Notes: not mine, no profit garnered. For the trope bingo squares: CHARACTER IN DISTRESS, LANGUAGE/TRANSLATION. Title and opening quote from Deborah Flanagan's The Secret Lives of Scientists. Thanks to the JAM! and A for beta help. All mistakes and bad parts my fault.
Albert Einstein has a way with gravity. "When one thinks
seriously day and night one can't engage easily
in loving chatter; I treat my wife as an employee
whom I cannot sack." Has empathy
for dust and dirt
and a few teaspoons of uranium.
The third guy tried to take advantage of Peter, drawing a gun and threatening to kill him and/or send him back to Big Eddie. Peter wasn't at his first go round in this type of rodeo, and had been expecting it all along from all the people in this chain. He smacked the gun out of the man's hand and held it on him until the fourth guy showed up, grimacing through the pain in his hand.
The fourth guy had Peter's new documents and ID, the person he was going to be. Peter said, "Are you going to try to kill me, too?"
"No, unlike this idiot, I understand my job rides on reputation." He handed Peter the whole packet. "Give me the gun, I'll take care of this ass."
Peter thought for a split second about the implications of his act, that he was surely leaving guy number three to die. He shrugged and handed over the gun. He got in the car guy number four had left for him and started driving. He was in Ecuador now and it was time to get to his plan: to end everyone who'd put him in this situation.
Peter wasn't one for killing. He intended to bankrupt, humiliate, expose, incarcerate. He wanted his enemies powerless and unaware of who did it. If people knew he was behind it, he might end up back in Ecuador in another three years. The country was pretty, but he'd prefer to stay home.
Peter hadn't planned much for most of his life. He'd generally preferred letting things play out, he'd had short term plans only. But he'd had a lot of time in the last four months to think about how to get the fuck out of his current situation.
First there had been two months on the run with Walter, after Big Eddie and someone else had threatened to kill Walter. Walter hadn't been fun to live with, but the longer he went outside St. Claire's and not drugged up the way the institution had wanted, the more tolerable he'd been. It still wasn't very tolerable, but lucid was better than mumbling aggression alternating with drooling. Walter had said many things that left Peter wondering, but he'd decided not to explore any of it.
He hadn't minded when Agent Dunham showed up to bring them in and save her boyfriend. He'd spent two months with Fringe, and the best part was Dunham, the worst part was how many more questions about Walter and what he'd done Peter had.
He thought things might just work out until he'd seen Tess. He took off to spend time with her. He knew enough to know the best way to take time off at Fringe was to simply disappear. This time he had Tess with him which was 100 times better than Walter. Dunham lured him back to take care of Walter after a week of hotel hopping in widening circles around Boston. Peter told Tess he'd be back, he'd left very careful instructions for her to follow so he could find her. The most important thing was to protect Tess.
Two days later she didn't answer her email or his texts or her phone. Charlie was the one who told Peter when they found the body. Apparently Dunham couldn't face him.
Now he was in Ecuador. He went to Quito, and found a place to live where he had access to power lines and the internet. Step One: Big Eddie. It wouldn't do to come at him straight. When Peter was stuck with Walter and their tour of western Massachusetts, he'd started his research on Big Eddie's organization with an eye to getting rid of Walter without too much guilt. He'd worked for the man trying to get rid of his debt, so he already had an idea of what to look for.
In his new apartment, he drew in notebooks. He made flowcharts and diagrammed links to find weakness. He had a place far from Old Town, he hardly wanted in on the tourist activities. He definitely didn't want to show up in anyone's photos from their trip, Dunham would find him that way.
Once a day he walked a few blocks to one of his four coffee places of choice which he rotated randomly. Peter would order coffee and sit for an hour, thinking, jotting notes in his cliched moleskin. Plans for his big plan, plans for afterward, general random thoughts. In one of his coffee places, the second week, he sat down next to an older man who had brought his own chess board and pieces and was playing himself.
"I'll play you," Peter said, trying for a Mexican accent in his Spanish. The old man waved him over.
It was a surprisingly challenging game. Always be wary of old men, Peter thought. He used the old man's chatter with the girl behind the counter and a few customers who came in to figure out how to refine his accent. He had an Ecuadoran passport, he wanted to sound like he was from Ecuador.
He'd stopped shaving or getting his haircut. He stopped when he had a good beard going on and only had his hair trimmed after he'd achieved some kind of curly mess. He almost liked it.
He was dreaming in Spanish, seeing Tess and all his other usual nightmares. Walter loomed over him, Tess ran her finger across her throat and blood came pouring out. When Peter woke up, he went straight to his computer and the internet. His first and second week in Ecuador he managed to get two of Big Eddie's subordinates arrested. Neither would flip on Big Eddie, but they were two less links for Big Eddie to rely upon. He didn't want anyone to rat out Big Eddie, he had plans for that asshole and for Michael.
Sometimes he dreamed about Fringe cases. Sometimes even he saw Olivia.
He tried to check on Walter. He didn't try very hard. Dunham would take care of him, hopefully more than she'd done for Tess.
He missed Tess constantly. The most fun he'd had in years was when he'd dated her plus their week together. She had a nails on chalkboard laugh he absolutely hated and she knew it. She knew it because she knew him so well, better than Walter which wasn't hard. She laughed at him at all the time. He'd lie on his side in bed and he'd feel Tess rubbing his back. It felt like comfort, not sex. When her hands went higher and she was teasing his hair, that was sex. It was great sex.
She would have loved Ecuador. She would have laughed at him when he told her that his chess partner said with his hair he looked like that guy from Welcome Back Kotter. The old guy had sung the theme badly, Peter's first real laugh in ages.
After a month in Quito, his accent was perfect. He fooled new people he met. His chess game had sharpened. He loved the city and he even loved his new name and character. He'd filled two notebooks with nonsense so he copied the things he wanted to hold on to into a third notebook.
After two months, (everything in two months, he thought, why hadn't he got two months more Tess?) he'd done everything he could with the internet and a few paid helpers who didn't even know who'd hired him. He always spoke with them, when he had to speak to them, in Spanish. One of the guys had even said Peter sounded like he was from Ecuador and they'd talked for a few minutes about football.
It was time to go. He didn't say goodbyes because that was memorable. He packed up everything he wanted to keep in a medium duffle bag. He'd buy everything he needed once he got to the States.
Luis Paredes Valencia bought a plane ticket to Florida. Peter wasn't very nervous waiting his turn through customs, it was a really good passport. It wasn't new, it was four years old, and had stamps from vacation trips to Brazil and Chile and Guatemala. He handed it over confidently.
The agent looked it over, then handed it back to Peter. "Thank you," Peter said, in his finest Ecuadoran-speaking-English accent.
Peter rented a car thinking he could make the trip in a day or two. He'd already arranged to rent a place in Dennis, Massachusetts, on the Cape so he had a reasonable drive to Boston. But he couldn't stop himself from getting off the highway in Jacksonville and driving to the daycare center. Walter had mentioned it and then conveniently forgotten he'd mentioned it. Peter easily broke in and started looking around.
He found the list of kids' names and heights. "Olive D" one read. He ran his finger over it a few times like it would talk to him. Maybe, knowing Walter, it would. He looked around the rooms, and in the files. Then he got back in his car and drove for hours. By the time he snapped back into his head, he had just entered North Carolina. He was suddenly exhausted. He found a motel and tried to sleep.
He stared at the ceiling instead, already dreading what his nightmares would be. Walter had done a bad, bad thing. Walter experimented on children. With the great William Bell. One of those children was almost certainly Olivia.
When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed about Olivia. She was in Quito, sweating as she walked backwards towards Old Town and he told her not to go there and she kept saying she was sorry. In Spanish.
He spent a week in Dennis getting his small apartment set up, buying a used car, all the equipment he needed. Then he went back to work. He'd knocked out a third of Big Eddie's organization. He started on the rest. His first, easiest tactic was empowering other people and lowlifes who worked in the same areas of interest as Big Eddie. He passed on useful information through customers and a few crooked cops he'd identified. Then he hired two crews and sent them off to rob Big Eddie. They both succeeded which was better than he'd planned. Luis rewarded everyone with an increased share and a thickly accented thank you.
Then he got people arrested. None of the people he'd hired, all Big Eddie's people. He even exposed a few crooked cops through a reporter. It was nice to reward people for doing well. The reporter wouldn't give up her source, but if anyone had followed her, they'd have seen her meeting with Luis and his wild hair and beard.
Six weeks and he'd reduced Big Eddie's operation to a weak shell. He got his hair cut, a nice buzz cut. Then he shaved his beard. Then he moved from Dennis to Stoneham. He was still Luis. He felt like he hadn't spoken English regularly in years, not months.
He set up Big Eddie. He wished he had someone to share it with because it was an elegant and intricate set-up. It was a beautiful thing. Peter didn't ruin his long term plans by actually seeing Big Eddie put away in prison, but he managed to view some footage. After the shell his organization had been reduced to, the poor guy didn't have protection in lock up and he was killed by another prisoner after 38 hours. That made Peter smile. Then he wondered how much he looked like Walter in that moment, crowing over his experiments on 3 year olds.
Then came the fun, up close and personal part of this operation. He found that fucker Michael, trying to hide out with his cousin. Michael even tried to run when he saw Peter. Peter just got on the motorcycle he'd stolen a day earlier and chased him down. He ran over him for the pleasure of it. He heard bones crack, he smelled blood.
"Hey, man," Peter said, crouching over Michael who was crying and trying to shuffle away with his broken legs. "It's great to see you. I have a deal for you. You admit you killed Tess and tell me who tipped off Big Eddie to Walter, and I will call 911 so you can go to the hospital."
"It wasn't me," Michael said.
"It's so funny that you would choose to lie right now. I appreciate it, though." Peter stood up and kicked Michael a few times, even breaking a bone. He was growing to enjoy the sound. He'd seen what they'd done to Tess, he refused to feel bad about anything he was doing now. A treacherous voice in his head sounding like Dunham said he didn't have to like it. He started to step on Michael's leg before the asshole finally started talking.
"I did it, fine, I killed her, I killed her and I don't know the guys who had the information. I don't know, I swear." Michael looked pathetic saying it. Peter saw the pictures of Tess's body in his head again. Phantom Olivia was silent.
Peter said, "You really don't know? Because I really don't care about leaving you here to die. Honestly, it would be something I would really enjoy."
"Fine, God, fine, they were some freak organization, like a frat or something. Zeta, zaft, I dunno," Michael said.
"ZFT?" Peter took out his phone.
"Yes, that's it. I'm sorry, okay, man, okay?"
Peter looked down without revulsion at the blood and piss and tears. He said, "You're going to confess to Tess's murder. You're going to say Carl O'Neal did this to you. You remember Carl. I think I've demonstrated that I will make you pay if you try to get me in trouble. Also, because I have to say this to someone, I did all this. I'm the reason all of your life fell apart. Do you want me to tell you how I set up Big Eddie before I call? It's really cool." Michael, understandably, didn't want to hear it. So Peter dialed 911 for Michael, crushed the phone under his heel and walked away.
He monitored what happened to Michael for long enough to know Michael had done everything Peter asked. Then he sat in his apartment in Stoneham and tried to decide what to do next. He could be a criminal again. Not unlike what he'd been doing since Tess died. Since Tess was murdered. He could go back to the FBI and pretend to be a good man.
He hadn't been pretending all those months ago. He'd almost been the person his mother had hoped he would be. She would have been horrified by his behavior in the past few months.
He puttered around for a week, erasing all the traces of what he'd done. He took a shower and sat on the floor of his nice white bathroom flipping through Luis's passport. There was a lot he could do now. He wasn't motivated.
He realized he hadn't done as well as he hoped in erasing himself when Olivia knocked on his door. He opened the door for her and then sat on his couch, waiting for her to speak.
She said, "Walter is fine."
"Good to know," Peter said. He already knew. He'd done a few drivebys of Kresge. Walter was living there now. It seemed like a good place for him.
"I'm sorry I let Charlie tell you about Tess," she said. She radiated guilt and responsibility.
"That was a cowardly choice. I'm surprised you didn't do it yourself so you would have that image of me finding out to flagellate yourself with. Did you ask Charlie so you could picture it right?" He wasn't surprised at his own anger. Olivia didn't seem to be either.
"I know," Olivia said. "I should have. I was, actually, trying to find out who did it so I could tell you we had caught them."
"You didn't do any of that," Peter said, smiling.
"You did," Olivia said. "I know."
Peter leaned forward. "You're saying that a lot. Why didn't you do it?"
"Things were actually pretty busy here. Walter didn't exactly adjust seamlessly to you leaving him. I did try, when I had time. But then I realized you were already doing it, from wherever you were. So, yes, I left it to you," Olivia said. She frowned. She said, "I am sorry, I'm sorry you got pulled into all of this and I know you didn't want to -"
Peter waved his hand to make her stop. "ZFT told Big Eddie Walter was valuable. I would have been stuck in this mess anyway."
"I didn't know that," Olivia said.
"Really?" He shook his head slightly. "I bet you had some suspicions."
"Maybe," Olivia said.
"Are you here to arrest me? Or just to hang out?"
"I'm not going to arrest you," Olivia said. "I came here because it seemed like you'd finished what you set out to do. Maybe you were at loose ends and wanted to come back to Fringe division. Walter misses you a lot."
"Maybe I don't miss him that much," Peter said.
"Really?" She sounded like she was mocking him, repeating his intonation back at him. She was looking at him, straight at him. He'd enjoyed that once. She never demurred. She said, "I can get you all your ID back and credentials. Put you back on salary. Even help you find a place that isn't a hotel for you and Walter."
"When you put it that way, wow. It's so enticing."
He gave in. He had an ecstatic reunion with Walter, and let the old man fawn over him and hug him. He sat for hours in Walter's current bedroom in the lab listening to Walter's idea of what had happened. He read Agent Dunham's and Agent Francis's reports to get back up to date.
"This is the part I actually enjoy," Peter said, sitting across from Astrid at a hip coffee shop she'd chosen. "I missed you."
"I'll bet," Astrid said. "So where were you? Are you going to tell me?"
"I was on the run, trying to keep my people safe," Peter said.
"You make it sound very noble," Astrid said. The skepticism was implied.
"It wasn't. I made sure to run somewhere with extremely mild winters, of course."
"Of course," Astrid said. "You grew up around here, why do you hate the cold so much?"
"I grew up around here," Peter said. "I'm sorry if I stuck you with too much watching over Walter."
"You should be," Astrid said. She ordered a refill of her fancy coffee drink Peter would be paying for. "He was so upset when you disappeared. It was 2 weeks before he even got back to work."
"He used to say work made him feel better, got him back on his feet," Peter said. "Before this year, we never really spent that much time together. He was an absentee father, at best. He could be a monster when he was around."
Astrid sipped her new drink. "I'm sure. I've heard him talk about his ideas of experiments, I remember he shocked you. But you were with him for four months, he got used to you. He loves you."
"He's being annoying about finding a place for all he missed me, he wanted us to hang out more," Peter said. "He's shot down all five of the places I've found so far."
"Pick one, move in, he'll follow," Astrid said.
"I wish that would work," Peter said. "If he doesn't like it, he'll make both of us miserable. I don't want to think about what he'd do to our nice rental property if the sun comes in from the wrong angle."
Astrid said, "I hope you have fun with that. You deserve it."
"I know," Peter said. "I owe you big time."
"No one else?"
"No, basically just you," Peter said.
He finally found a place Walter would agree to and they moved their things in. Walter's things took over the house easily. Peter bought things. The bathroom wasn't as nice as the one in Stoneham, but this was claustrophobic and suffocating, so therefore it was home.
"Now you have time to earn your paycheck," Charlie said.
"Don't tell Broyles, I had time to work before," Peter said.
"Pretty sure he knew," Charlie said.
Olivia came by the house shortly before midnight. Walter was asleep finally, and Peter was watching a telenovela from Ecuador on one of the satellite channels. Olivia sat down next to him and said, "Are you really watching this?"
Peter started explaining the plot to her in Spanish, but Olivia just looked at him until he was quiet. She said, "You mentioned ZFT. We think William Bell is behind them."
"He is," Peter said. "I'm sure of it." He glanced at her and then back at the television. "That manifesto you found, there's a typewriter that types exactly the same in the lab. According to Walter, it's Bell's."
"So he typed up a copy?"
"There's only so many copies out there, I'm pretty sure it started with Bell. Sometimes I can even get Walter to admit it might be possible which is an admission in and of itself," Peter said. He decided to omit what he'd seen in the daycare center. He didn't know what it meant yet. His silence had nothing to do with his lingering anger at her. Mostly. "Tell me about Jones again."
"You read the files," Olivia said. "We don't know where he is. We know his people used Walter's machine to get him out of prison and they kidnapped me -"
"But you escaped," Peter said, letting himself smile.
Olivia didn't smile. "We haven't heard from him, we've only heard of him. Case after case of ZFT or some random coincidence causing horrifying deaths."
"Loeb had the manifesto?"
"Yes, Mitchell Loeb. We searched his house after he disappeared. But his copy was on the computer. That scan, that's what we have. Astrid showed you?"
"Walter showed me," Peter said. "It's his nightly reading."
"Sometimes I worry," Olivia said. "I worry that they were waiting for you to come back. Somehow you're important, too."
"I'm just Walter's kid and caretaker," Peter said.
Olivia stood up and said goodbye.
The next day he went back to work at the lab. He'd just been stopping by to get Walter while he went searching for a place to live and caught up on reports. Broyles was being remarkably patient about that.
Astrid came in at 9:00 and then left fifteen minutes later when Charlie and Olivia called. "I'm excited to see field agent Astrid at work," Peter said. "From here, on my seat at the lab."
She laughed at him as she left.
To Be Continued.