Like Home
Summary: Their family might be falling apart, but Astrid would not trade these past eight months for anything. Peter/Olivia S4 Spoilers
Word Count: 1913
They run into each other in the hallway. Astrid is fairly sure that it's well after midnight, but then again, it is often hard to tell. Sometimes at this hour she'll catch fleeting glimpses of him as he tries to act as though he doesn't watch them. He'll stand still until he fades into the brick, eyes closed and counting seconds until she turns away, as though she was merely distracted by a trick of the light. She supposes maybe he returns to his government-funded lodging where he showers and passes out, only to rise again entirely too early.
Peter Rook is running himself into the ground, and they both know this. If Astrid knew what caring words to say to talk him down, she would say them. But she can't.
He is waiting for her, but the expression on his face says Chance Encounter. "Peter," she greets him with an earnest smile. He looks awful, tired eyes and two days worth of unshaved stubble decorating his usually handsome face.
"Hey, Astrid," he replies, and holds up a red-stamped file for her to see, "Walter was asking about these, and I thought I'd deliver them to him since I was in the area. Since I've run into you, would mind?"
Astrid looks over his shoulder, down the maybe nine-foot span between them and the door to the lab and feels a frown tugging at the corners of her lips.
It has been eight months (four days, nine hours, eleven minutes, twelve, thirteen, fourteen seconds…) since he burst into existence, and he's made a great consultant to the FBI. But when he doesn't have specific knowledge that can help them with a case, he is just there, standing on the sidelines. And what a waste of genius, if they asked her.
Their new mission? Get Peter Home. For the past month, every spare moment has been spent trying to find out how to get him back where he belongs.
Astrid knows she is being kept out of the loop, that there is something about Peter Rook that both Olivia and Walter know that they are not sharing, but she has an inkling that maybe this is where Peter belongs. If she only had the guts to say so.
"Peter…" she says gently, "Lincoln's gone home and we're short a pair of eyes. If it's not too much too ask, would you like to help?"
Walter, I'm scared. I want to come home. Do you hear me?
The lab smells like the homemade hazelnut bear claws Walter has heating in the oven, and despite herself, Astrid finds her stomach growling.
"I've already checked that list," Olivia says, voice loud and domineering in the sleepy silence that has overtaken the room. These late nights have hit her hard as well (they've hit all of them really, and if it weren't for her unwavering love for the others and her job, Astrid would be comfortably tucked in bed right now, Lincoln's arm around her waist), and her nerves are raw.
Peter does not look up from the papers on the desk in front of him, only lifts his hand to acknowledge that he's heard her. He scribbles something in the margins with a pathetically dull pencil, and a muscle twitches in Olivia's jaw.
"I told you, I already checked that one," she says, and tosses him a separate folder. As it skids across the desk, it topples over a cup of writing utensils that spill across the desk. She returns to scanning her iPhone for whatever information it's providing, and Peter slaps his hands down against his thighs.
"Really?" he demands. Both Astrid and Walter look up from their work stations and share a brief moment of eye-contact. Here they go again. Astrid readies herself to stand and intervene, to take her place as the voice of reason before they upset Walter, "Was that really necessary?"
"You're wasting valuable time," she shrugs, voice tight with anticipated release.
Peter gestures to the aluminum cup lying on its side and the devastation around it, "Casualties be damned, right? Lord knows I'd better not even think about double checking a file that the infallible Olivia Dunham might have already skimmed."
Walter's fingers begin to twitch, and he curls in on himself as if each blow were aimed toward him. Astrid sighs and drops from the bar stool set at the counter she'd claimed as her own for the night and braces herself for entry into the fray. "You guys…"
"-and you couldn't be bothered to use them anyway! Do you know how hard it is to read your chicken-scratch handwriting when its that faded? You've got an entire selection of writing utensils at your disposal, so how about using one with a point?"
"Who says my notes are for you to read?"
"Who do you think is trying to save your sorry ass and get you back to your girlfriend?"
"Is that what this is about?"
"Is that what you think it's about?"
Astrid self-consciously adjusts her curls, knowing she should step in, but not knowing how when such carefully guarded information is so readily being spilled in front of her.
Peter quite literally forced his way into their lives. Astrid cannot complain, as she is an avid advocate of the saying the more the merrier! and the man does bring a sort of liveliness to the lab that neither Walter's eccentricities nor Lincoln's barely concealed naiveté can compensate for.
It's his aggravating and almost manic bursts of cockiness that can so suddenly be overshadowed by dreary insecurities that make Astrid feel for Peter. She doesn't like to think of herself as a girl who's attracted to damaged men who need to be fixed (contrary to the string of failed relationships she has trailing behind her), but sometimes she thinks she has a kind enough smile to help ease the pain.
Peter belongs with Olivia. Astrid does not pretend to perfectly understand her fellow agent, but she can see the line that tethers the two together. But these days they can barely hold a conversation that does not end in an exchange of verbal jabs and sulking crossed-arm pouts. There is an undeniable chemistry here! She knows it! A fire has been lit inside Olivia, and Astrid can't just stand by and watch that fire go out.
"I'm leaving," Olivia spits, flames practically bursting from her teeth, "I'll see you all tomorrow."
I've always thought there are people who leave an indelible mark on your soul. An imprint that can never be erased.
Astrid helps Peter gather the materials back together and set them back in their proper places. This is her job, cleaning up messes and putting pieces back together (and maybe preventing them, but sometimes she's not as good at that as she should be). Peter's job is putting Olivia back together, but since their decision a month ago to get Peter home, things have not been as they should.
"I think I should go," Peter says, voice quiet and strained and Astrid can see that he is falling into another bout of despair. It will be another week of lost faith and mulling over a past that Astrid has heard nothing about. She wishes she had the words. She hoped, despite the odds, that tonight they could have made headway and eaten pastries as they sat in a circle, chewing over their victory. "You know my number if you need anything."
Astrid can only watch as he spends a moment lingering over the sheet of information that was the source of the argument, as if burning holes through it with his eyes could undo the end of their evening.
"Peter…"
He looks up suddenly, remembering where he is and what he is doing (and has done) and smiles genially. "Good night, Astrid. 'Night, Walter."
He vanishes into the hallways of Harvard, and silence returns to the lab. She shakes her head, wishing she had all the pieces to this puzzle so she could finally find the right words to say.
Walter clears his throat and shouts, "Pastries are ready!"
I know what it's like to have a hole in my life. It's been there for as long as I can remember.
"I worry about him," Walter says through a slobbery mouthful, "I know he's not my son, but I love him regardless." The silence around them compels him into speech, worry imbued within him by the strain upon their makeshift family.
Without the others in the lab, Walter deflates. She used to think maybe she wasn't strong enough or bright enough to keep the old mad scientist happy, but now she understands that she's the only one he can express these worries to. He trusts her in the ways that he can.
"Your son was named Peter, wasn't he?" she asks in soothing understanding, resting her hand on the withered flesh of his knuckles. He grips the hand on his in wonderment, tears building in his eyes.
"More than that!" Walter whispers, "Oh, Astral. I've done something terrible!"
He rocks back and forth, wrapped tightly in a fraying white blanket. He is shaking beneath her fingertips and her heart breaks for him. She whispers calming words and strokes his tear-streaked cheeks with hesitant hands. Walter is familiar territory. She will always have the words to tether him to reality.
Only after he is breathing steadily again and the tears are dry, does she ask him the question she knows he needs from her, "Walter…what did you do?"
Since Peter's addition to their team, drama has not been infrequent or unusual, but Astrid cannot help but think that their lives were empty before it. She would not trade these past eight months for anything.
Do you really think this is the end of the world as we know it?
She doesn't know what she is thinking. Peter Bishop left nearly ten minutes ago, Olivia fifteen. But Walter's truth has urged her after them, to pick her feet up off the floor and say what she needs to. She's filled with words that will break hearts and fix them crooked, but that will set the world right on its path.
The clacking of her heels against the ground falls silent as she stumbles upon outside's winter wonderland. Despite odds, she finds them. She finds them together. Snowflakes are littering the ground and catching in their hair and eyelashes, lighting the world with a glistening horizon.
She has never seen them so close together, so intimate. The magnetism has always been there, but here they are breathing the same breath, blowing white clouds against each other's frozen cheeks as they gravitate closer.
They kiss without the hesitancy of a first time, but with the precision of long time lovers who have loved to the end of the earth. Astrid can feel heat flushing her face but she cannot look away from what must be the beginning of their universe falling back together.
"You belong with me," Olivia says into the darkness, dusty eyelashes grazing his cheek in a butterfly's kiss when she pulls away.
Fissures crack the world beneath them when Peter lets go and the cold air falls between them. He smiles with so much sadness that Olivia breaks and Astrid breaks and somewhere, Walter breaks as well.
"Heard that before, Sweetheart," Peter sounds like he's crying, "But you're not her."
Disclaimer: I do not own Fringe or the quotes from it that I used.
A/N: A Polivia story from Astrid's POV is something I've been dying to do. I've also been wondering, what makes this S4 Olivia Peter's Olivia? How is she any less an Alternate Olivia than the redheaded one? So this is something that's been tossing in my head since probably episode 2 of the season.
I'm not sure it came out how I wanted it to. It's kind of wordy, but I hope it's not too confusing/rushed/out of character. I hope you liked it.
-M