Title: A Very Fringe Thanksgiving

Pairing: None

Characters: Astrid F, Olivia D, Peter B, Walter B

POV: vague Olivia

Genres: Holiday, Family/Friends

Spoilers: A few from everything before 1.09

Warnings: None

Challenges: Thanksgiving, Bible Verse, Flashfic-750

Part of a Series?: No

Chapters: 1

Word count: 750

It was Tuesday and Walter had pleaded with Astrid and Olivia to please stay a little later that afternoon for a surprise. Liv had an early flight the next morning and Astrid still had to prepare her apartment for company, but both agreed to stay a few extra hours and the Bishops seemed pleased. Afternoon came and Walter sent the two women to the first floor to argue with the man delivering Gene's hay—apparently he wasn't handling the feed the way Dr. Bishop thought appropriate—and it irritated them both because they felt it would cut into the time for whatever Walter had wanted to show. Olivia had already decided that she would take a quick look at whatever it was and then sprint for the door because she wanted to repack everything in her suitcase and possibly a long, hot bubble bath. After a lengthy discussion with the deliveryman, they returned to the lab to find one of the desks cleared off and laden with an early Thanksgiving dinner—a small turkey, mashed potatoes, a meyer's flask filled with rich smelling gravy, dinner rolls, green beans, and canned cranberry sauce.

"Hope you gals are hungry," Peter greeted with an amused smile.

A smile escaped Olivia's lips. "This all looks so great! Did you know about this?"

He grinned further as they all walked to the desk. "Maybe. You FBI agents aren't as good at detecting as you think."

"This turkey will be the best you've ever had, I assure you," Walter told Astrid, who replied,

"I'll be the judge of that."

"Peter, this is so nice," Olivia confessed.

"I thought Walter would want to have a holiday dinner with the people he's closest to."

"You'll sit here, and Peter will sit there, and I'll sit here and Agent Dunham will sit here!" Walter directed and they all found their respective seats.

It appeared someone had even taken the time to fold their napkins into origami: Olivia had a frog, Astrid had a daisy, Peter had a butterfly, and Walter had folded himself a pigeon. They all picked up their plastic utensils but Walter cried,

"I want to say grace!"

"All right, Walter," Olivia said, folding her hands like she would in church.

Astrid bowed her head and Peter set his fork back down before Walter began.

"Then David said, "I will show kindness to Hanun the son of Nahash, because his father showed kindness to me." So David sent messengers to comfort him concerning his father. And David's servants came to Hanun in the land of the people of Ammon to comfort him. And the princes of the people of Ammon said to Hanun, "Do you think that David really honours your father because he has sent comforters to you? Did his servants not come to you to search and to overthrow and to spy out the land?" Therefore Hanun took David's servants, shaved them, and cut their garments in the middle, at their buttocks, and sent them away."

Walter sat down without another word and began to eat the mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and gravy he had mixed together on his plate. The other three exchanged confused glances but silently decided it was better just not to ask questions.

For desert, they were offered a pumpkin pie; Walter carefully measured and remeasured out the slices so that everyone had an exactly even piece out of the eight cut.

And it was dark and icy when they finally left the lab, but Olivia felt very warm as she walked to her car. Her stomach was full, and in a metaphorical sense, so was her heart. Walter had wrapped up a pie slice on a paper plate for her and at his father's insistence, Peter had included a plastic fork.

She felt guilty for being so irritated earlier that day. She hadn't thought that perhaps neither of the two men had had much to celebrate for many years and all of this chaos and turmoil that the Pattern created was a blessing in disguise for them. She suspected that Walter was fed a lukewarm substitute for a turkey dinner at St. Claire's year after year and that Peter had probably shut himself in a dark hotel room during the holidays. They had obviously taken much effort to make a makeshift meal in a makeshift home for a makeshift family. And she was very grateful for everything they had done.

It was the best Thanksgiving any of them had had in years.

A/N: Don't try reading too much into Walter's Thanksgiving prayer. I literally opened my great-grandma's bible to a random passage (1 Chronicles 19:2, 3, & 4) and wrote it down. And the scary part is, it sounds very Walter.