Chapter 1- A Weak Spot

Walter had been leaning back in one of the only soft chairs in his lab, listening to one of Beethoven's many symphonies as he best to relax and get his mind off of the seemingly vast emptiness of the lab. Peter and Olivia were busier now than they had ever been before, now that they had Etta, who had recently started going to daycare only a little earlier that year. The little girl had been excited to get started on this grand new and exciting adventure that was ahead of her and she took all of it head on, much like her mother would. Walter could see so much of both Olivia and Peter in her, even at such a youthful age. The thought brought a smile to his face; he couldn't say that the older days were better, or even simpler than they were now, it was all just the beginning of something far greater than he could have possibly ever imagined when he first stepped foot outside of St. Claire's. He had a family now.

A pair of hands gently grasped at his headphones and pried them away from his ears, causing Walter to jump and look around for the source of the disturbance and there stood Astrid with a grin on her face. "Oh, it's only you, Astro!" he said as he bolted upright in his chair and Astrid walked around in front of him so that he wouldn't have to strain his neck to see her.

"Were you expecting someone else?" she teased, as she turned to put the headphones away on the shelf behind her and then flipped the switch to turn the music off.

"Not exactly. I-I only thought that today was your day off from work."

"It is. But I don't think that prevents me from dropping by to see a friend." she said as she gracefully turned back around to face him and then gently leaned herself over his chair to bring herself to his level. "I made a few homemade pumpkin pies earlier since it's getting closer to Halloween and I thought that you may like to have one." She briefly placed a hand over Walter's and gave it a comforting squeeze before bringing herself to stand up right and pointed in the general direction of the fridge. "I left it over there in the fridge."

"That is very kind of you, Abner." He replied as he pushed himself up off of the chair to walk over to the fridge with the glass door and let his eyes darted all over the shelves until they finally landed on the tinfoil covered delectable looking pumpkin pie. The mere thought of cutting into the orange-ish filling and flaky brown crust was enough to make his mouth water; it was after all, hard for him to resist food, especially if it was something that was made by his dear friend. She had always made the best pies. "Would you like a slice?"

"No, that's okay! I had a piece with my father before I came over. This one is all yours." She said with a smile, but she knew Walter well enough by now to know that he had something else on his mind, just from the way that she had found him listening to music. "Is everything okay Walter? You seem a little… tired or… something." She remembered the last time that he was sitting in front of his stereo system with his music blasting away, she could hardly hear herself think, but this time he had, for some reason, decided to wear headphones, and right now she was sincerely hoping that he hadn't been listening to whatever it was that he had been listening to, loud enough to cause any permanent damage to his ears.

Walter made a show out of glancing around his lab for a moment, hesitant to tell her what had been on his mind. Walter felt immeasurable guilt for even considering telling Astrid the very thing that was on the tip of his tongue. Having Astrid cooped up in the lab all day with him was the very last thing that he wanted to do and he didn't want to make her feel guilty for not staying there with him more often. The two already spent a considerable amount of time together for work, and he wanted her to have more free time away from him and the lab so she could be out there living life. Which he knew must have been extremely difficult for her to do since the most important aspect of her life, her job, couldn't be discussed with anyone outside of the job. Peter and Olivia had been very lucky in that aspect.

"I'm feeling a little lonely today, that's all." He said as his eyes flickered back in her direction for a moment before finally landing on the pie in the fridge again. Walter tugged on the handle of the door until it popped open and then reached inside to retrieve the round pie that she had all covered up in tinfoil. "Peter and Olivia have been a little busy lately and they haven't had a lot of time to stop by for a visit… and Fringe cases haven't been nearly as frequent as they used to be."

"Oh Walter, I'm so sorry I really had no idea…" her voice was laced with sincerity as she spoke each of those words. "If you would like, I could stick around for a little longer? I don't really need to be anywhere at the moment… maybe I could watch a movie with you or something? What would you like to watch?" she asked as she walked over and took the pie out of his hands and placed it on the counter and immediately began looking around for a knife to cut it with.

"No, no. You don't have to do that, dear." He replied as he fidgeted with the end of his tan cardigan sweater.

"Walter, really, I don't mind. I would love to." She said with delight when she finally found a knife and began slicing out a piece of the pie and put it on a plate and handed it over to him, along with a small, white, plastic fork.

Slowly reaching out, Walter took the plate out of her hands and brought it over to his face to smell of the spices that Astrid had used in her pie. His memory had always seemed to fail him, but the one thing that never would was his sense of smell. "Thank you." He said as he dug into its delicate surface and took the first bite, flooding his senses with various different flavors, which caused his mouth to water all over again, craving yet another bite. "Mmmm this is amazing." A smile suddenly spread across his face as he looked up at her, he was already starting to feel better thanks to her.

The door to the lab was suddenly flung open, startling both of them and causing them to jump and face the entrance. Luckily enough for them, it was only Peter.

"We have another case." He said as strode over and sat down on the other side of the table and absentmindedly began cutting himself a piece of Walter's pie as he continued to speak. "Alright, get this. It's at an old asylum that has been abandoned for decades now. Some kids stayed there overnight and they claimed to see some kind of ghosts in there." Peter put a slab of the pie down on another plate and looked up at Walter, who was standing there with a blank expression on his face as he debated on whether or not he should protest against Peter eating a piece of his pie.

"I'm sorry, go on." He muttered, causing Peter to look confused for a moment but then he shrugged it off and continued speaking.

"Of course when Broyles called this in to Olivia, both of us thought that he had finally lost it but he was deadly serious." Peter went quiet as he took a bite of his slice of pie and Walter anxiously glanced over to Astrid who in return rolled her eyes as if to tell him that she would make him another one later. "Anyways, he wants us to go check it out. Olivia is dropping Etta off at the babysitter's house. She said that she would meet us down there."

"But what does this have to do with us? We don't deal with the supernatural, if there is such a thing. I mean it's not like we're the Ghostbusters." Astrid replied as she folded her arms over her chest and watched as the two Bishops dug into her pie.

"Olivia has a theory that it could potentially be a weak spot in the two universes, converging in on that exact spot, ironically. If it is, we might need to amber it… but we need to go in and make sure that it is first…" Peter paused for another as he almost eagerly took another bite. "This pie is great, did you make this Astrid?"

Astrid replied with a nod and then moved to cover up what was left of the pie with the displaced tinfoil and stowed it away back into the fridge. "Thanks, I made it this morning." She smiled and came back over to stand next to Walter who was chewing on another bite of his own piece.

"It just so happens that I found an ambering device that I had been working on some time ago, but for the life of me, I can't remember why I made it." Walter said as he placed the plate aside and walked over to a nearby table to pick up a strange device that resembled an oversized walkie-talkie of some kind. "It's not quite finished yet, but perhaps I can work on it more after we come back… if we should need it, of course." Walter said, almost relieved that Astrid would be in his lab with him for work now, rather than her feeling some form of guilt for him being in the lab by himself for the day.

"Does this remind you of anything?" Peter asked as he leaned back in his chair and laid his fork down on his plate, right next to his unfinished piece of pie. "The apartment that we went to… 6B." Peter asked, eyeing his father. He had been quizzing him all of the time lately, since he had reappeared in this time line, but for what reason, he couldn't say. Walter's only guess was that Peter had been testing him to see if his memories from the other timeline were finally starting to come back to him, just as Olivia's had, and in truth, some of the thoughts that he had been able to pull out of his head lately, he didn't remember having them before and oddly enough, just like Olivia, he was reluctant to fight back against having them. Why would he? They were memories of Peter when he was just a boy, growing up in their old home. It was something that he had wanted to hold onto and never let go of.

"No, I'm afraid not. But perhaps something will turn up soon… But I-I will be getting my things ready." He said as he and Astrid started going about the lab, collecting everything that they could think of that was needed to examine the area, if it was, in fact, the other universe merging with their side, but he wasn't worried about that, not just yet.