A/N: Hi everyone, I know it's been a while since I've done a one-shot, and I really wanted to give this one a go, because I had some inspiration. This is pretty self explanatory, just a look at both Lincoln and Liv's feelings during (and after, I suppose) Over There (Part 1) when Lincoln gets burned. I don't know if this scenario has been done before, but I thought I'd give it a try. The title of this is based on the song that sort of inspired this, which is Questions/Answers by The Undeserving. The fic also switches points of view between Lincoln and Altliv frequently, sorry if this is confusing for anyone! Please review if you read, and enjoy! X
Does anyone know that I'm here?
All alone, fighting my fear
The moments and the pain
Is there nothing left to gain?
Is there something more?
Than this life can ever give me?
I will know for sure when I find what I'm looking for
Pain is a funny thing. Some people say it numbs, while others say that it's so overwhelming that it can knock you out. For Lincoln, he had never known pain like this. He's been shot at, and he's been hit before. He's broken arms, ribs, wrists and fingers, doing his job, and doing stupid things as a kid, but he's never felt pain like this. He supposes he should have seen it coming. The minute he recognized Nick, he should have known something was off. He didn't understand it. Why had he been there, on that bridge, with that girl? He hadn't even had a full minute to comprehend what was happening before there had been a huge burst of light, and then nothing at all. Just the pain.
He did remember what had happened when they had finally found him. He was conscious the entire time, but his eyes were so badly burnt that he could barely open them. He knew they were feeling for a pulse, and he wasn't sure if they were going to be able to find it considering the level of char that he was sure was covering him. He had grunted some sort of response before he heard her voice.
He heard someone call her over, and if he listened hard enough, he could hear her footsteps as she approached slowly. "Lincoln." She says his name quietly, as she crouches down over him, and there's a startling moment of clarity where he knows that if this is it - if this is the last thing he gets to see before he dies - he would be fine.
"Liv." He croaks out her name, trying to convey to her what he's feeling, which is a lot, at the moment. He wants to touch her, just her hand, but he can't move, and he feels so empty, which is saying a lot, considering he's pretty sure he shouldn't be able to feel anything.
"Hey." She says, and she turns her direction towards the other agents on the scene, "where's the ambulance?" She asks, and he doesn't wait for a response, he just lets out a small sigh before closing his eyes. He doesn't know what's going to happen to him, but he knows that if she's here, if she's going to be with him while they decide his fate… well, that's better than any other scenario he could have imagined.
She barely registers Frank coming in the apartment, but he speaks to her, and she looks up, distracted momentarily from the thoughts of her partner. He's asking her about him, and she flinches, but he doesn't seem to notice. She slips back into the mode of caring girlfriend before he asks how serious it is. "Well, he's got third-degree burns over ninety percent of his body. He's gonna need three months in a Nanite Regeneration Chamber, but he'll live. I'm sorry - and on your last night."
She remembers that he's leaving tonight, and she feels guilty for a second for realizing that this would give her more time to think. He walks away to go change clothes, and she closes her eyes for a second, relishing the silence of the apartment.
She opens her eyes as her mind begins to fill itself with images from today. Of her alternate self, of Lincoln's burned body – both things are images that she'd rather forget. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees him lying there, helpless, and she can't handle that right now. He's the leader, he's the one that's supposed to have everything under control and keep everyone safe, and he nearly lost his life today.
She remembers how when they made the call that there was a man down, all she could think about was that they were calling from the location that Lincoln was in. She knew he was there, and the sickening feeling in her gut clued her into the fact that he was the man down. She didn't want to believe it, but all her instincts were telling her it was true. She had rushed over there as soon as she had been able to.
She had fought the urge to vomit as soon as she saw him. Not because it was awful to look at, because it was, but because it was Lincoln. And there was a horrifying moment where she thought that he might not be okay. How could he be? They had technology and medicine to help people with severe burns, but just looking at him… he could barely open his eyes.
He had seen her though, and had said one word. Her name. She didn't know if she had imagined it, but there was more meaning in this one word that Lincoln said to her than all the words that Frank had ever said to her, and it terrified her. What did it mean, if her partner could say her name with that much pain, and regret, and desperation that she felt it in the clutches of her heart, but when her boyfriend came home and greeted her in practically the same way, she felt nothing?
What did it mean, that when she saw Lincoln lying there, she had had to fight back panic and anger and pain like she had never known before? She had never allowed herself to think about this before, and now it was all rushing through her at once, and she didn't quite know what to do about it. It wasn't fair to Frank. That thought kept repeating itself in her mind, and she knew it was true. It wasn't fair, but then again, when had life ever been fair to her?
She didn't ask for half of the things she had been exposed to when she started working in Fringe Division. She had certainly never asked to be teamed up with Lincoln Lee, that's for sure. Everything she had ever heard about him made her wary of him, and not just because everyone said he had an ego, and he was cocky, but because she was instantly reminded of herself when anyone said those things. It was how she was, as well. Confident and sure of herself, but kind and loyal to a fault deep down.
Knowing you were going to be almost exactly alike before you even met someone was frightening, not to mention, Olivia knew it wouldn't end well. She would get too attached (too late now) or they wouldn't get along at all sometimes, which was certainly the case, at least at the beginning.
When they first became partners, they couldn't agree on anything. He had more experience, she was trained more. She was a marksman; he couldn't shoot to save his life, literally. They argued over all these things and more, but somehow, later on down the line, it had worked out.
Sitting on her couch just thinking about all of these things, it just felt wrong to her. She needed to be doing something to help him. This wasn't doing anything, sitting here waiting for him to get better. She got up and grabbed her earpiece, ignoring Frank as he asked her where she was going as she closed the door behind her.
What had he been thinking about pain? What he felt before, just as the accident had happened, was nothing compared to the feeling of thousands of nanites regenerating your skin from the inside out. If there was a hell, he was sure it was something like this.
He clenched his fists as he felt a particularly strong pinch in one of his legs, and he could feel sweat breaking out on his forehead. This was the absolute worst. Luckily, he thought sarcastically, I only have three more months of this left.
When the nurse came to get him out of the chamber, he was only a bit rude. He justified it to himself by noting that not only was it annoying that she was that cheerful, but it was just not natural. How can people working for the Department of Defense be in such good moods all the time? Couldn't she see that he was in immense pain? He scowled to himself as he got dressed, and walked out of the changing rooms, only to stop dead in his tracks.
Olivia.
This was a horrible idea. He was just staring at her. What was her problem? What had she been thinking, coming here in the dead of night when she knew he was having treatments done?
"Hey…" She said slowly, cringing when her voice cracked due to pure exhaustion and worry for him.
"Hey yourself…" He said, just as slowly. He was looking at her warily, and she wondered for a minute if it was written all over her face. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh you know… I was just in the neighborhood… thought you could use some company." She said, and he smirked.
"You live 20 blocks from here."
She put her hands on her hips, "Your point being?"
He shot her a look that said he wasn't buying any of her beating around the bush, "You were not just in the neighborhood. You've got something to say."
It was quiet after that, and she was a little surprised at how well he knew her. She fidgeted a little, and she knew he noticed, and she just prayed that he didn't realize that she only acted like this when she was around him, a fact she had just come to terms with herself.
He had a strange expression on his face, "So…"
"Where do you sleep?" She blurted, and then made a face, outwardly projecting how strange she thought she was, assuming he was thinking the same thing.
"Where do I… what?"
She shrugged, "They won't let you go home, will they?" She asked, and she wondered if things were always going to be this awkward between them now. What had changed? She visited him at the hospital in the middle of the night, and some strange cosmic shift happened?
This was ridiculous.
Something very strange was going on here. He couldn't figure out why she was acting like this. She was being nervous, and awkward, and he didn't quite know what to do. He was still standing there, clutching his sweatshirt in one hand, waiting for the nurse to come back and tell him where he was supposed to go now, and he realized that he didn't want the nurse to come at all. He knew she would make Olivia leave, and he had come to the conclusion about ten seconds ago that Olivia leaving was the absolute last thing he wanted.
"I um… I sleep here, in the hospital. So they can keep an eye on me. Plus, I don't really have the strength the drive yet." He said, and he watched Olivia notice that he was leaning heavily on the wall behind him. Her eyes widened.
"Lincoln Lee… you can't even stand right now, can you?" She asked him firmly, and he shrugged.
"I'm standing right now, aren't I?"
She marched over to him until she was right in his face, "What on Earth are you thinking, letting me stand here awkwardly while you need help? Where's the nurse? We need a nurse so you can sit down or something. Where are all the people that work here?"
"Liv, calm down." He said, pushing off of the wall quickly, "See? I'm fine. I can stand." He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, because he could already feel his legs going weak. He cursed his body for the five thousandth time that day.
"Oh, you're fine? Okay, I'll just go stand over here, then." She said, and retreated to the other side of the hallway, well out of his reach. She was going to let him fall flat on his face, all because he had a stubborn streak.
"Alright, good. Seems like a good place." He said absentmindedly, trying with all his might to remain upright for as long as she stood there.
"Doing okay over there?" She asked cheerfully, and he clenched his teeth.
"Yep, oh yeah. Fine. Perfect, actually."
The next thing she did was something he had never ever seen her do. He wanted to laugh, at the strangeness of it all. She stamped her foot. She actually stamped her foot in irritation. "Dammit Linc, you're not fine! Look at you! You can barely stand! This is ridiculous."
"No," he countered, "what's ridiculous is that we're partners, and you can't even tell me why you came all the way down here in the middle of the night, Liv. Doesn't Frank wonder where you are?" He didn't meant to spit out her boyfriend's name like he had, but sure, it still hurt a bit that she was with someone, especially someone he didn't care for.
"Frank doesn't need to know where I am." She said quietly, and he cocked his head to the side in confusion.
"What's going on here, Liv? What's going on?" he asked her, and when she looked back up and met his eyes, he was surprised he didn't fall over. There were actual tears in her eyes, and he didn't know if he had put them there, or if Frank did, but the truth of the matter was that he had never seen her cry. Today was a day of firsts, he supposed.
"You want to know what's going on? What's going on, Lincoln, is that you nearly got yourself killed today, and that scared the shit out of me. I didn't know, and still don't, what I would have done if you hadn't made it. If they hadn't been able to fix you. All I know is that I'm sitting in my apartment, with my boyfriend, and when I should have been making conversation and having a wonderful night with him before he leaves for God knows how long," She paused, and Lincoln cringed, not wanting to hear a single detail about the romantic night they had planned, "the only thing I was able to think about was you." She finished, and it felt like a punch to the stomach.
His knees went weak, both from the lack of strength, and from her words, but she rushed forward just in time to catch him before he hit the ground. "You okay?" She asked breathlessly as she supported his weight, and he nodded, not really able to form coherent words.
"I don't know what to say." He admitted, some minutes later. "Actually, no, I do know what to say."
She raised a brow as he fumbled through his mind, trying to make sense of the thoughts that were running like crazy through it. "When I was lying there today, I had a million thoughts running through my mind, but the one that kept coming back to me was that I might never get to see you again," she sucked in a breath, "and I thought that if the burns didn't kill me, that thought might."
When he looks back on this moment, there are lots of things he will remember. The way her face seems to brighten by his words, and the way his heart tightens as he watches a hundred different emotions play out on her face. He'll remember briefly thinking about what she was going to do about Frank, and if Charlie was going to make fun of him much when he finally found out.
But the thing he thinks he'll remember the most, and the most vividly, for that matter, is the way her green eyes sparkle right before she kisses him, and the way she holds his hand for the entire time they sit waiting for a nurse to come get him, despite the fact that his skin is charred and rubbery, and doesn't feel at all how it should feel to hold someone's hand. He'll remember the smile she sends his way when she catches him stealing glances at her, and the way that everything seemed right in the universe, even if it was only for those brief moments.