Characters: Olivia, Peter, Ella, Nick
Summary: In the blackness, Olivia drifts between sleep and wakefulness, not always aware of which is which – the blackness making it impossible for her to even be sure when she's got her eyes open or closed.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Spoilers: Up until "Over There II"
Notes: Written for lule-bell in the 2010 O/P ficathon. The prompt was "On the bridge between dreams and reality - any rating, any genre".
Set between seasons 2 and 3.
In the blackness, Olivia drifts between sleep and wakefulness, not always aware of which is which – the blackness making it impossible for her to even be sure when she's got her eyes open or closed.
So when she wakes to find herself on a beach, lying in the sand, a piece of drift wood pressing into her cheek, she's not particularly sure what's going on, where she is, or why.
"Aunt Liv?" There's a hand shaking her, small and hard.
She sits up abruptly. "Ella?"
There's a childish giggle, but no trace of her niece.
"Ella?" she says and a sharp wind throws her own voice back to her. "Where are you?"
"Last one home's a dead fish!" Comes the only reply, fading into the distance as if the speaker is running away.
"Ella?" she says again, climbing to her feet and when there's no response – "ELLA!"
She's uncomfortably reminded of her Cortexiphan induced hallucination where she met herself as a child. Little Olive, running through the woods, terrified. She remembers reaching out to the girl, before knowing who she was. She remembers being terrified and is mildly surprised to find she is not now.
"You should probably brush yourself down," says another voice, unexpectedly. It's distorted and moves at the wrong speed, too slow for one word and too fast for the next, so she doesn't recognise it until she turns to the source.
"Nick?" she says.
He quirks his lips at her. "Hey, Olive." His voice has apparently caught up with him.
For some unknown reason he's standing in the ocean, foamy water swirling around his calves, black jeans soaked up past his knees. The rest of him is dry and he is seemly unaffected by the cold breeze or the likely temperature of the water.
He's also incorporeal. Which doesn't make any sense at all.
"You're dead," she informs him, stopping before she reaches the waterline.
"Yeah," he agrees.
"Am I?" she asks.
"You should know better," he tells her, and it's not exactly reassuring. "And you should brush yourself down."
"Huh?" she says.
"Your hair...your clothes...the sand...brush...down." His voice stutters, like a bad phone connection, and starts to fade.
She looks down at herself, at the white outfit that she's been given for her incarceration, and sees he's right, she's covered in sand and she should do something about it, so she dusts herself off, shaking the sand down to her feet. When she looks up, he's gone.
"Nick?"
"Remember: you're stronger," he answers her.
"Than what?" she asks, but there's no answer. "Nick?"
After a moment, she starts walking, taking care to stay above where the choppy waves wash up on shore. The wind is biting through the meagre clothing she is wearing, and she has no intention of letting her feet anywhere near the cold water.
Up ahead there's a figure and it doesn't take longer than a heart beat for her to recognise him, without thinking she runs up and puts a hand on his arm to turn him towards her. He doesn't react, doesn't appear to notice her at all.
"Peter?" she says and he remains still, staring ahead. Underneath her fingers, she realises she can't feel the wool of his sweater. There's resistance, like she has her hand on something – not rough or textured, hot or cold – but she can't actually feel it.
Bending down, she picks up a handful of sand and throws it at him. It doesn't hit him, or bounce off him, or go through him, or even disappear. So she does it again. The same thing happens. He doesn't notice.
"You're not really here," she says and turns around and stalks back the way she came.
After a while, she realises she's tired, so she sits down and stares out at the water, wondering if it will give her any answers.
"Nice outfit," says a familiar voice from behind her. "Doesn't suit you, though." He settles himself down beside her and he's close enough that she can feel the warmth in his body. She shifts closer so she's pressed against his side, trying to draw some of his heat into herself. He lifts an arm around her shoulders and they sit like that for long minutes.
"You know," he says after a while. "This isn't how my dreams of you usually go."
She looks up at him, keeping her best 'I'm an FBI agent, tell me everything you know' expression on her face. "Oh?"
"Yeah," he says after a moment, looking fairly embarrassed. "Sorry."
She doesn't roll her eyes – because that would be beneath her. "It's my dream anyway."
"Huh."
"What?"
"I've never had a dream tell me that before," he says.
"If this is your dream, why are you standing down there?" she asks, pointing at the dark figure that was still standing further down the beach, facing away from them.
"How does that make this your dream?" he asks logically. "Anyway, that's not me. That's Walter."
The figure is too far away to see, but she realises he's right anyway. She blinks and figure is gone.
"I think Nick and Ella were trying to tell me something," she says.
"What?"
"How to get home. But I don't understand them!" she says, and hears the frustration in her own voice. Peter's arm tightens around her shoulders.
"She misses you," he says. "We all do. We're looking, but we don't know where to start. You have to help us, Olivia. You're the one who can travel between alternate universes."
"I can't! Not without help!" She pulls back so she can look at him.
"Sure you can," he says. "I've lost count of the amazing – impossible – things you can do. If anyone can do this, you can."
"If," she points out, angry.
"I have complete faith in you, Olivia Dunham: you are the most incredible person in two universes. Please come home."
She looks into his eyes, and thinks she's lost the ability to breathe, which should be impossible in a dream. This isn't the first time his belief in her has stunned her, and she can't help but believe in him in turn.
"Okay," she says.
"I miss you," he says as he leans in and kisses her. He tastes just the way she remembers and she uses that to persuade the last lingering doubts that she will be able to get herself home. She closes her eyes and then struggles to open them in the unexpected dark. It takes her a moment, and in that short passage of time his lingering warmth fades away.
She sits up in the dense blackness of her cell and the remnants of her dream makes her unsteady, so she flattens her palm against the hard bench she sleeps on and is surprised when she feels grit.
No.
Sand.
It's either hope or madness.