Summary: Olivia's tired of being careful.
Notes: Written for Fringe_Exchange 2013 for purpleyin. Circa "One Night in October."
This is the way Olivia's world works, these days:
Just this morning she'd arrived at the Harvard lab to find her new associate (not partner, he's not that, not yet) Lincoln Lee already scouring the files for every scrap of information about shapeshifters their tiny division had accumulated. She'd been surprised, honestly so, to discover that he'd gotten to work before she did...and then, self-mockery dialed up to full, compelled to acknowledge that she wasn't the only one in the world with a drive for equal parts vengeance and understanding that superseded the need for sleep. Agent Lee had chased her down and refused to accept the usual non-answers in his search for Robert Danzig's killer; that kind of persistence bodes well for his association with Fringe Division.
But Astrid's suggestion that she get to know Lee better caught her even more profoundly off-guard. Astrid worries about Olivia's solitude, Olivia knows she does, but there's very little Olivia can say to reassure her.
He's cute, Astrid said, and the words echo in Olivia's mind as later that day she's introduced to his alternate in the other universe.
Captain Lee, over here, though she doesn't learn his rank until later and he doesn't correct her when she calls him "agent" instead. He is cute, very, and seems to know it, but he doesn't let ego interfere with the case at hand. He's confident in his role enough to stand back and let the other Olivia do her job (Olivia's job), his trust in his colleague obvious.
She almost feels bad about shutting him down in the car, when he dares to suggest she might share anything, anything at all, in common with her alternate. He's not incorrect, after all; sitting in the car listening in on the investigation feels intrinsically wrong. And he had nothing to do with her kidnapping and the other Olivia's subterfuge, left in the dark by the senior officers he'd sworn loyalty to.
It's only simple if there's trust, Olivia had protested to Broyles at the start of this case. For whatever reason this Lincoln Lee trusts her to deal with McClennan, once the professor realizes the truth; Olivia sees him watching her through the window, letting her take the lead.
As evening falls on a stressful day she finds herself trusting him in return as they descend together into a storm cellar where a serial killer might be hiding. Maybe it's the fact that she has a favorable impression of his alternate, or maybe it's that he seems to value her input and doesn't treat her like an extension of his Olivia.
...or not "his"; there's been enough contact between worlds to gather intel on the people here, and it turns out that the other Olivia Dunham's in a long-established relationship with someone named Frank Stanton. Olivia's never met anyone by that name and has no interest in looking for the man on her side. Too many uncomfortable parallels exist already.
The dynamic between Captain Lee and her alternate seems more fraternal in any case, without that undercurrent of sexual tension that Olivia's come to expect between men and women who work closely together.
It's a question she shelves until later, after McClennan's double saves her the trouble of a bullet and his victims have been stabilized. The follow-up banter between Lincoln and the other Olivia is casual yet professional, and Olivia finally recognizes the tone: she hears the familiar repartee between military comrades, which makes perfect sense given the nature of this world and its soldierly Fringe Division. And if this military is anything like the one Olivia knows, the prohibition against fraternization would have been drummed into the officers and held by those who respected the code as an inviolable tradition.
It's a good rule, even outside the military. She'd learned that hard lesson from John and has no intention of repeating the mistake.
There's nothing left but the after-reports and transporting Professor McClennan back home when Lincoln Lee—contrary to all protocol—asks her to come back for a debrief once things on her end have been wrapped up. And the way he says it, the gleam in his eye, says that the official pretext of an information exchange is just that.
It feels like a terrible idea in the very best of ways, and maybe that's why she says yes. Olivia's had to be so very careful these last few years, just she and Walter and Astrid to stand against the horrors that science had wrought on their world. She's had to do it alone, because no one who wasn't enmeshed in Fringe Division would understand, and she wouldn't have been able to share the burden in any case. Because—
Maybe your type doesn't exist.
Olivia hasn't known what her type might even be, not since John's betrayal. She'd loved him. She would have accepted the engagement ring, if he'd lived to offer it, if they'd never been drawn into that first Fringe case. But that was very far away now and long, too long ago.
She's not sure this Lincoln is really her type either, but he's here and he's interested and he already knows what she does for a living. That counts for a lot, in Olivia's world.
It's even better that she's not technically in her world. She doesn't work with this Lincoln on a daily basis. There'd be no workplace awkwardness to deal with afterward, aside from having to look his alternate in the face, and Olivia's fairly certain that Agent Lee will be distracted by his new life for the next several weeks anyway.
Captain Lee's face brightens when she agrees and she thinks that maybe his situation isn't so different than hers: working in a specialized field that cuts him off from the rest of humanity, restricted from connections to his colleagues for reasons ultimately not dissimilar to hers.
This world owes her. If Lincoln's willing to work off the debt, Olivia's willing to let him try.
If you're down and confused
And you don't remember...
Because your baby is so far away
And if you can't be with the one you love, honey
Love the one you're with
— Stephen Stills
Also, a nod to Rainer's "Janus," which influenced this one on levels I'd forgotten until I went back and reread it. That is, of course, a far superior work.