Not mine, no profit garnered. Title and all chapter titles from Kristin Hersh lyrics. Thanks so so much to the Jam for encouragement and beta. All mistakes mine. Please heed the warnings, both Peter and Olivia have reactions to the trauma they experience.
Olivia heard the people coming in as she plunged down in the tank. She closed her eyes and saw red. There's no place like home, she thought, a manic giggle in her head. She imagined, she remembered who she was and how she'd gotten here.
Then, here was the gift shop. She needed to move, to get far enough away they couldn't drag her back. How had they gotten her back last time? It was cortexiphan. Cortexiphan was what they'd synthesized from her brain. She kept remembering things, facts crowding into her head. She blinked and begged to be let outside. They couldn't drag her home from outside.
The freaked out custodian unlocked the door for Olivia and watched her walk out into the cold dark night. Olivia looked over her shoulder and waited to be caught again. She waited to be pulled back, find herself staring at the Secretary or Brandon. The cortexiphan she'd given herself bubbled in her blood. She was cold and wet. She was still home. This was her here.
She laughed as she walked to the edge of the Island. She'd done it. She was home. Olivia won.
Which Olivia was she? No, she knew that absolutely. Charlie was dead, she'd shot the shapeshifter who'd killed him in the head. She would not see Charlie in the morning, she would not see Lincoln.
Except now she had no idea what to do. Her blood was boiling and she thought she saw fires on the edge of her vision. She looked around but there was nothing. No ferry for hours. Olivia didn't have a phone. She should have used the phone in the gift store. But she didn't want to turn around. They would drag her back. She had finally beaten the Secretary, so she wasn't giving him a chance to beat her.
She was shivering. For all she knew, everyone was dead. The other Olivia, Olivia had replaced her. So where had the other woman gone? Here. She must have gone here. If they thought that Olivia was her, then they could all be dead.
Except Peter. Walternate wouldn't kill Peter, not ever. She remembered kissing him, really him, in that apartment.
Peter, she thought. She couldn't stand. She sunk to her knees. She covered her face with her hands. She could swim a mile to Jersey City. Then she could call the FBI. She wondered who would answer? If she were in Boston this would be easier. If she were home this would be easier.
Olivia wondered what would happen if she clicked her heels together and said there's no place like home. She rubbed at her face again and then closed her eyes. She could do this. She would need to swim. She would.
Olivia felt a wrench in her gut. She opened her eyes and she was across the street from her apartment. Cortexiphan was frightening. Olivia was frightening. To herself. She was hallucinating. She wasn't. She walked to her apartment. The hide a key was gone. She could pick the lock. She didn't have her tools.
Olivia went downstairs. She walked by a car with a cell phone on the seat. She broke the window with her gun. It was uselessly waterlogged, so here was a use for it. The phone wasn't locked which Olivia hadn't even thought about. But it wasn't locked. She dialed Peter's number. She always remembered numbers.
"Hello," Peter mumbled.
"Peter," Olivia said. "I made it home."
"What?"
"It's me, Olivia, I've been on the other side. I made it home. I can't get into my apartment."
Peter was silent. Then he said, "Give me five minutes and come back." He hung up.
She put the phone back in the car.
Peter had said to give him five minutes. He was in the apartment. He was in her apartment. He was with her. The other Olivia was in her apartment, sleeping there with Peter. Peter, she knew Peter perfectly. She thought she knew Peter. It seemed like it was years ago, not months ago, he'd left. She went to the hospital and he'd disappeared. Peter, she thought. He said five minutes.
Her blood felt like sludge. She turned back towards the apartment.
She heard two shots in quick succession. She banged on the door. No one answered. She kicked the door open, pain shooting through her ankle and knee. The living room was dark. Things had been moved. She went to the bedroom.
It was her, lying on the ground, two shots in her chest, blood in her hair, blood pooling on the floor, ugly bruises all around her neck. Which Olivia was she? She blinked and smelled the blood, overwhelming her. What had Peter done? Had Peter done this? This wasn't the Peter she knew. Was it?
Olivia saw Peter. He was sitting on the floor beside the bed. His head was between his knees. He was only wearing briefs. He had her gun in his hand.
Peter had done this. This Peter, real Peter. Had been sleeping in his underwear in her bed with Olivia, but not Olivia. Olivia had been with Frank, Peter had been with Olivia. They'd been in the wrong beds like Goldilocks.
She stepped over the body. Peter said, "I think she's still breathing." His voice sounded unreal. What would happen if Olivia wished for something, would she get it, like she'd wished for Boston? What would she wish for? She wished it was ten minutes ago and she didn't know Peter was sleeping in her bed and Peter hadn't murdered someone. Tried to murder someone.
Peter broke Steig's hand for her. Since then he'd had Ella on his knee, laughing with her. Now he'd killed Olivia, tried to kill Olivia. Olivia was hard to kill.
Olivia took the gun from his hand easily. She picked up his phone and called Broyles. She said, "You should come here." She might have said more. She sat on the bed. Peter and the other woman had been sharing this bed.
Peter and the other woman had been sleeping together. He thought it was her. When he found out it wasn't, he tried to kill her. It was a lot to think about and Olivia had already had a big day.
Police and FBI arrived. Olivia passed out.
!
Two years ago, 3 days after he beat the shit out of Michael, Tess had called him and picked him up from the hotel. She was giddy and manic and still mad at him, but once he'd loved her so he didn't mind. She wanted to pay for his dinner and laugh at her stories and his stories. She touched his thigh. She tightened her grip. By dessert, her thumb kept brushing against his dick and his jeans were too tight. She was brittle, which was not a word he used to use about Tess.
She had a feral smile that night. He didn't ask about it. He wasn't always the greatest person in the world. He was rarely that guy. Two years with Olivia had changed him. Back then he'd been mostly criminal, resisting what Fringe division was doing to him. They went to a hotel two blocks from the restaurant, neither were getting four stars for anything but convenience. Tess said, "You fucking beat up Michael, you fucking idiot," literally while he was inside her, fucking her.
"Are you complaining?"
She smiled like she was unbelievably high and shook her head. When she got off him and poured herself another glass of wine, he reached in her purse for another condom and touched metal. He pulled out the gun. "What the fuck is this?"
"It's a gun," she said, taking it from him. "I used it to kill Michael and Big Eddie and shoot their stupid computers and then I set their books on fire. You're free, I'm free. We're all free."
"What?" He was shocked and surprised, genuinely surprised, at what she was capable of. Tess was someone he knew and had loved, she'd sat on his hotel bed and watched cartoons with him when he couldn't do much of anything.
Sitting in the hospital, driven here by FBI agents, in jeans that smelled like Olivia's now blood soaked room, he was remembering his confusion at Tess. He laughed and rubbed his eyes and one of the agents turned to look at him like Peter had sworn in a church.
Back then, Tess had said, "Ever since you ran off and left me, Michael has, he hit me. I'm done. I'm not scared anymore."
"How drugged up are you now?" Because that would make her behavior make sense.
"I had a little coke, but don't worry, I didn't bring it with me. I am also pretty drunk. Just like you," she said. She pulled a last condom out of her purse. She tucked the gun back in.
She held the condom up and grinned. He had loved her. She was definitely crazy and she was like someone he didn't know at all. He should tell her to surrender and make a case for herself. Who was he to be Mr. Law and Order, he wondered then. He wondered now. He went down on Tess, his wet mouth on her killer pussy. She said it first, laughing and pulling his hair to get him closer. "How do you like my killer pussy?"
After they'd used that last condom, he went to the bathroom and took a shower. It was long enough for her to leave. She had left $75k on his pillow with a note about a refund for overcharging interest. "Tess makes a joke," he said out loud. He pocketed the money and cleaned the room so there was no sign she had been there.
Two days later Olivia had cornered him to talk about the case. "This woman confessed to her mother, but she's left town. Do you have any idea where she might be?"
"No idea," he said. "Good for her, those guys were assholes."
"That's not the way it's supposed to work," Olivia said. He hadn't told her about his past relationship with Tess, he'd trained himself so well he barely reacted when Olivia showed him the picture. The $75,000 was split among five accounts Peter still had hidden away.
Maybe he would need that money now to get him out of jail. Her blood and skin was under his fingernails. He waited for someone to take all the forensic evidence and arrest him.
Broyles sat across from Peter, his expression typically unreadable. He said, "Peter, tell me what happened."
Peter shrugged. "Olivia called. I knew, it was clear what had happened. I gave the other one one question to answer and she didn't even try. We rolled onto the floor. Her head was already bleeding, I think she must have hit her head when we fell to the floor. I choked her until she stopped breathing. Then she started breathing so I choked her again. Then she started breathing but I couldn't kill her again. I don't know why I didn't do it again."
"Why did you shoot her?"
Peter frowned and looked at Broyles. He said, "In horror movies, they always get up. They get up when you think they're done. So I shot her to keep her down." He could hear the words and know they were wrong but it seemed logical to him.
Broyles just looked at him. Did the man even have micro expressions? Or Peter couldn't read neon signs on people's faces because he was gone, he was done, he was no better than Walter in 1991.
"You stay here," Broyles said. Broyles didn't cuff Peter to his surprise. He should be in jail.
He fell asleep in the hospital waiting room. He woke up hours later. He felt like he'd had the shit beaten out of him. It was the aftermath of all the adrenaline from Olivia returning and what he'd done, he could hear Walter tell him that in his head. It wasn't a great sign he was hearing voices. He noticed the FBI agent standing over to the side, not even looking at Peter. Noted, Peter thought. He got up and walked out.
!
Olivia was floating. She was on a magic carpet. She blinked a few times and tried not to be so ridiculous. Ridiculous, she thought, remembering the way Lincoln said it when he was drunk. That was her memory, that wasn't implanted. She grabbed at things in her head, trying to organize.
"How are you feeling, Agent Dunham?"
"What am I on?" She scrunched up her face and relaxed. Whose voice was she using, she wondered.
"Dr. Bishop gave you something to counteract the overdose of Cortexiphan," Broyles said. "I'm sorry."
"For Walter's help?" Olivia found she could focus now. "Or because in two months you didn't even realize I'd been replaced?" She was angrier than she realized. That was all her, that was a comforting realization. The other Olivia didn't have the same wellspring of outrage. Lucky her.
Broyles shook his head. "None of us did. I am profoundly sorry about that."
"Is she still alive?"
"Yes, barely," Broyles said.
"Did you arrest Peter?"
"For what? Technically that woman doesn't even exist."
"She's a human being and he nearly killed her," Olivia said. She loved him. She came back for him. He was capable of this. He was capable of more.
Broyles frowned. "Frankly I'm not sure I wouldn't have done the same thing in his place."
Olivia said, "I don't think that's true." She wiggled her toes and twitched. She felt a little drunk.
"I can imagine his anger," Broyles said.
"I need to know what happened while I was gone," Olivia said. "What was she here for, besides Peter?"
Broyles sat down and gave her the briefing she needed. He added in some thoughts and avenues they'd explored in the last 15 hours since discovering the other Olivia's betrayal. "There will be more to look into."
It was astonishing. They'd discovered the machine on this side and built it. Newton was dead. Peter had been happy. It was two months of her life lost. The other Olivia and Peter had had sex. She needed to find her focus again.
"I'm going to sleep now," Olivia said. "You can debrief me tomorrow."
"I can even wait until the day after," Broyles said. He patted her hand apologetically. It was inadequate. She wanted to smash his hand, backhand him. How could he not know, how could any of them? She closed her eyes and waited for sleep. Why did she always have to save herself, why hadn't someone come for her? She liked the anger because it felt like her true self.
Olivia checked herself out of the hospital when her vision was back to normal. Broyles had brought by keys to a new SUV and her wallet and house keys. He'd also brought clothes or someone else had. They seemed new. That woman hadn't bothered to get a new wallet or change the key chain. Someone had cleaned everything out of her wallet besides her credit cards and ID. The photo of Ella she had had behind her library card was gone.
She had no idea what she was supposed to do. What was she supposed to do, she thought in circles. She was in her car and she drove.
She drove herself to her apartment. She had to decide what to do about the place. She didn't want to go inside. She wanted someone else to do all of this. Her first thought was to burn it to ground. She should probably get a few things before she lit the match. The door was unlocked.
The washing machine was running. She took another two steps inside. She followed the noises into the kitchen. This was reminding her of two nights ago when she came home. She was once again following odd noises in a place that no longer felt familiar. Peter was scrubbing the empty refrigerator. There were two full garbage bags next to him. He looked at her blankly. "Hey," he said. "I just wanted to get your apartment clean."
"Okay," Olivia said. "This doesn't seem crazy at all." Peter should be in jail, she thought. She was so glad to see him.
"It seems really crazy," Peter said, going back to the fridge. It practically gleamed.
"I was thinking of moving out, actually." Olivia glanced at the bedroom and then back at Peter.
"That's a good idea, actually," Peter said. He backed away from the fridge. "You're not getting your deposit back, though."
She couldn't look at Peter and she couldn't listen to his monotone. In the back of her mind, she saw herself on the ground, neck red and bruised. She saw herself bleeding on the floor of her own bedroom. Peter did that. Then he'd come here, apparently, after Broyles decided a violent and brutal attempted murder was okay. She went back into the living room and sat on the couch. Then she reconsidered and sat on the floor. She said, "Is anything worth keeping?"
Peter sat down next to her. This close she could smell the alcohol on him. He said, "I think you're the best judge of that."
"I don't really want to go in the bedroom," she said. "That's where the things I might want to keep would be."
"No books? No special spoons or mugs?" He sounded more like the Peter she remembered.
"There isn't much I'm sentimental about," Olivia said. "A couple books. Some jewelry. My coat, if she didn't wear it."
"Leather jacket," Peter said. His voice was monotone again. Devoid of emotion, she thought. "She wore a leather jacket most of the time."
"You're scary," she said. She touched his hand. It looked swollen and red, it felt hot. "You're scaring me." She wanted to hate him for what he'd done. She waited for her anger to come back. She had a lot to be angry with Peter about.
She loved him more.
"Really?" He didn't look at her or curl his hand around hers. She wasn't used to him not reacting to her touch. He stood up and said, "I probably just need some sleep." He went into the bedroom. He came back with her jewelry box and her winter coat.
"This is going to be expensive," Olivia said. "Moving, buying things."
"I always assumed you had a fortune in your savings," he said. He was slightly less impassive this time. It was like the Peter she remembered was wavering in and out. Coming into focus and blurring out again. Maybe all of the cortexiphan hadn't left her system yet. Which Peter had strangled that woman?
"Good tailored suits are more expensive than you might think," Olivia said."I've given Rachel money, too, over the years. But you're right, I've saved up enough money to move."
"You could try to make the FBI pay for it," he said. He fiddled with her rings. She stopped herself from pulling everything out of his hands.
She hadn't paid attention to what he said. "What?"
"Shouldn't the FBI pay you for damages?"
She grabbed her rings away from him. He held up his hands in a surrender position. She said, "Sorry. I guess that would be nice, but I don't think Broyles has the funds."
"I should go," Peter said. He stood up again.
"Go where?"
Peter said, "Good point," and sat back down.
Olivia thought they should go somewhere. Find a hotel room with two beds and drink themselves to death. She thought about saying just the first part out loud. He should have known. Everyone should have known. Peter most of all. She couldn't imagine anything she could do to him to make him feel worse. He would welcome a punch in the face. His eyes were dark and blank.
She said, "Let's get a hotel room. With two beds. We can drink. Then I'll find a place to live." She put one foot in front of the other and right now she needed a place to sleep. She needed to not be in her apartment. She didn't want to leave Peter.
Welcome home, she thought.
The hotel was more of a motel. 3 years ago, she and Peter had examined a room like the one they were in, the brain surgeon, she thought. If she'd ever followed up on Walter's ramblings that night, who knew what would have happened.
They bought alcohol. Olivia went to Target to get clothes for the next week. "No big decisions for a week," she said to Peter. "That's the kind of advice they give you after big life changes."
Peter nodded. Somewhere in the drive, he'd deflated. She'd never known him like this. Like he wasn't even there. Maybe this was how he had been after he left the hospital. That was just, that happened months ago. Poor Peter, she thought. Poor Olivia. She heard it in her head in the other Olivia's voice, that constant mocking.
She stepped outside the hotel and decided to drive again.
Olivia went to the hospital to see the other Olivia. She was heavily guarded. Olivia looked over the report the doctors had written. Peter had done a lot of damage. The woman couldn't speak, might not be able to for months. The gunshots had been clean. She was an Olympic marksman, Olivia thought. The other Olivia would still be able to make impossible shots even with this side's medicine. Olivia thought primitive medicine. She felt for a moment she'd walked into a hospital from the 1930s. But it was only primitive 70 year old medicine to someone from the other side.
Olivia looked back at the report. That woman was experiencing a heavy period. Her injection had worn off.
She would live. Olivia wondered if Peter had wanted that.
Olivia walked into the room where that woman was being kept. Her neck looked worse than three days ago. If Olivia got close, she could probably see the shape of Peter's hands. Instead, she left.
The next day she had a debrief. She talked to Broyles. He took notes and she wrote things down. She liked talking to Broyles, it felt very familiar to all the thoughts in her head. They discussed what had happened on this side, what had happened on the other side. She missed Charlie. She missed the Charlie she had seen a week ago. She missed Lincoln. She didn't say either of those things out loud.
She went back to the motel. Peter had barely moved. The TV was on. She ordered pizza and Peter sat up and ate a piece.
She dreamed and didn't remember any of it. She woke up and did sit-ups and push-ups. She looked through her Target purchases and put on her new underwear, new bra, new jeans, new long sleeve shirt. She reminded herself to finally use the hair dye she'd bought.
She touched Peter's cheek to make sure he was alive. He said, "When you get back, can you bring food?"
She had a million answers to that. Peter should go home, she thought. She loved him.
Anger wouldn't save her but she was willing to keep seeing if it would work.
She did bring food back from her debriefs.
She dyed her hair in the bathroom. She shouldn't let it continue, she thought, while her scalp itched. She should kick Peter out. She couldn't stay in this motel room indefinitely. She shouldn't even stay in it for the week she had planned.
She had no idea what to do with Peter in his current state. He had committed a horrifying act of violence. He now seemed to be in a depressive episode. She reviewed psychology texts she'd read in her head, she thought about things they took for granted on the other side.
Olivia said, "Why can't I do my cortexiphan tricks anymore?"
Peter roused himself and looked at her skeptically. "Have you tried?"
"Sort of," Olivia said. She gestured at the lamp on the table between their beds. It did not turn off. "What did Walter say?"
"When do you think I've talked to Walter about anything in the past few days?"
She looked at the two empty bottles lined up precisely on the floor by the bedside table. "At the hospital?"
"I only talked to Broyles," Peter mumbled. "I didn't even see Walter. You can call him, you know."
"Pass," Olivia said. She opened her first beer.
"The cortexiphan is essentially always present," Peter said. "From my research piecing together Walter's research. You relearned those pathways, activated yourself thanks to Jones. But then you did nothing with it until Jacksonville. Walter gave you more to help you find, basically, that muscle memory again. Which worked. But again, you did nothing with it. Until you passed over with help from the others. You said you took even more to get back here, so. Walter had to stabilize you from what he called an overdose."
"You did research on this?"
Peter said, "Yes, of course. My father experimented on you, I care about you. Both of my fathers, apparently." He sighed. "The cortexiphan isn't gone. It's written into your brain, basically. You've had two more re-applications. But it's like muscle memory, you have to use it. You use French three times a year, you're not going to be instantly fluent each time. Be glad, I spent some time at Massive Dynamic a month ago reviewing the Soviet experiments from the 70s and 80s. They didn't go the way of LSD, they were pursuing use of magnetic waves and sound. The idea was to unlock the children's potential to make perfect little soldiers. The kids were taken from their families."
"Should I even ask how Massive Dynamic had all that data?"
"They bought it," Peter said. He was looking at the ceiling. "William Bell and Nina were always looking for other people's experiments. Anyway, the Soviets couldn't get it to work in most of the kids, and the kids died or were sent back to their villages to starve and die."
"Why would they starve?"
"Sound waves made them deaf and magnetic waves left them with tremors. They couldn't fend for themselves, but they'd been removed from their parents at such a young age, most of the time, they had no one to take care of them. They'd all end in orphanages or the equivalent," Peter said. "That was all in the footnotes, I think I was the only who looked at those parts of the reports."
"What about the ones who didn't die?"
"Very few lived, the records were very vague about what happened. I don't know if it was to protect them or because someone wanted to sell the information for more than even Nina would pay," Peter said. "Are you worried about them?"
"I think I'm going to have nightmares about embittered Russian adults trying to make me deaf out of revenge, or for money, or just to survive," Olivia said. She pictured Nick Lane, Sally Clark and the others, dead now. Mostly dead. Poor Nick, she thought, a catch in her chest. She didn't remember them, she could bring up memory after memory of the other one, but her own childhood, people she'd loved, all gone.
Peter smiled weakly for a split second. "Glad I could help," he said. He closed his eyes and rested his hands on his chest. She watched him breathe.
He had bought pretty low quality boxer briefs. If she looked close enough she could practically see his dick through the cheap cotton. She looked away. She'd kissed him on the other side, once for real and again when she had hallucinated him, or made him up. She'd thought about having sex with him, more than once. He'd had sex with her, with the other Olivia. She tried to figure out how she felt about that. She decided on angry. Angry was working today.
She stared at the lamp and tried to turn it off and on. Like riding a bike, apparently. She couldn't make it work.
She fell asleep, she woke up. She looked at Peter on the other bed, turned on his side. She said, "Are you up?"
"Mostly," Peter said.
"Have you done this before?"
He twisted so he was looking at her. He looked haggard, drunk, and pale like a junkie. He said, "Be more specific."
"4 days in a hotel, never leaving except to buy alcohol, this," she said, gesturing at the room.
"Yes," he said. He turned away from her. She wondered when. She wondered if he'd nearly killed someone in a rage before. Nearly killed someone in whatever that had been. She wondered where in his history of cons and travel his previous days in hotels drinking had occurred. She wondered if the other her had slipped up on his history, the part Olivia knew and, she suspected, no one else did. He should have noticed. She had anger to hold on to, anger was who she was.
She talked to Broyles. She went to the bathroom in the middle of the debrief, looked at her brassy blonde hair. She went in a stall and cried. She'd done the same on the other side, once. She wasn't good anymore at using anger to hold onto herself. She wasn't just anger.
!
Someone knocked on the door. Peter stirred and looked over at her, his eyes dull. "I got it," Olivia said.
It was Astrid. She immediately said, "I'm sorry, Olivia, I'm sorry."
She should be, Olivia thought. She frowned. She couldn't just be angry, she needed to find words. Astrid grimaced at the silence. She said, "I went to your apartment and got more clothes. I never saw the other one wearing them, I promise." Astrid passed over a surprisingly nice leather bag. "Then I had to figure out where you were. I assume Peter's here, too, right?"
"This isn't mine," Olivia said.
"No, call it an apology bag," Astrid said.
"You don't have to," Olivia said and meant it. She forgave Astrid, just like that. She had too many people to be angry at. Astrid not seeing through that woman, it was Olivia's own fault. Peter should have known.
"I know, but I want to. I also brought some clothes for Peter. This is one of his own bags," Astrid said, smiling. "Do you think he's coming home anytime soon?"
"You should ask him," Olivia said. She looked over her shoulder. Peter had a pillow over his head. "At some point. Walter's doing better by himself, isn't he?"
Astrid sighed. "Mostly." Astrid hugged her suddenly. She said, "I really am sorry, Olivia. I should have known."
Olivia patted her back. "Yeah, but it's okay."
Astrid left and Olivia brought the bags into the room and turned on the light between the two beds. "Have you eaten at all?
Peter said, "No. We can order pizza again. Or you can get whatever you want and I'll get something."
"Peter," Olivia said. "How about you be the competent one for an hour or two?"
He laughed. She smiled for the first time that day. He sat up and pulled out his cell phone.
She sat on the bed and looked through her bag. She hung up the two suits. She hung up the nice shirts. She was overwhelmed. She stood at the closet, her hand on one of the blazers. It wasn't what she usually wore. It was exactly what she always wore. Who was supposed to be angry at right now? What was her anchor? She looked over at Peter. He had put his phone down on the side table and was thumbing through his wallet.
Peter wasn't anyone she wanted to depend on. He freaked her out. She sighed and sat back on the bed. The TV was playing the news from the BBC. She concentrated on the anchor's voice. She could suddenly see a girl of 13, deaf with uncontrollable shakes, in the corner of an orphanage, calling for home. It felt too vivid to be imagined. Had the Cortexiphan still in her system made that visible to her? She covered her eyes and laid down on the bed.
!
Peter was hungover and he didn't want to do anything that required effort or thought. Even the prospect of aspirin or more beer wasn't working to rouse him. He didn't know where Olivia was, but he was sure she would be back. She probably had a ton to do, getting briefed and back to work. Funny how Broyles hadn't called him nor had Astrid. He retrieved the other's laptop from under his bed, regretting even that movement. Three tries and he didn't get in. He put the other's laptop back. He opened his own. His perfunctory real estate search was getting nowhere since this was Boston, he had strict requirements, and being perfunctory was a bad idea.
He stared at the ceiling and imagined going back to live with Walter, having Walter around him constantly. Walter, who hadn't even come to visit him in his probably depressive episode. Walter couldn't know like Peter did that it usually only lasted a week, he had no excuse. It was the way Walter parented. Peter grabbed his phone and called Maddie. He told her what he needed in an apartment. He gave her his income that she already knew, what he could afford which she could calculate with her eyes closed, and to make sure he wasn't using any of Walter's Massive Dynamic income. She said, "I'll call you back in two hours."
He couldn't think of a thing to do for two hours. He closed his eyes and hoped for sleep or stupor.
Olivia's eyes were different. Peter cataloged differences. Something he should have been doing for a long time. He tried to recreate what he'd been thinking, before Olivia called and after. He'd worked through Walter's lie first. Once he knew the important truth, it was easy, it had been easy to put together the pieces of what Walter had done and how he'd lied. He'd realized his mother had known. He was even more to blame for her suicide than he'd originally assumed.
He stared at the ceiling. Then he'd gone to the other side and his father had lied to him. His father had manipulated him. The real aim of the weapon, the device, the machine was a mystery to Peter, but now that they had started building it, he was getting closer to the answer. It was destruction.
The TV was still on the news. It was probably good for Olivia to get caught up. He said, "I thought she was you."
Olivia looked at him, with those different eyes. Since she'd gotten back, she'd mostly been angry but under everything she was lost. Which was pretty understandable. Olivia said, "Why didn't you realize?" She sounded like she was drowning.
"I didn't realize because the thought just didn't occur to me. I saw you cross over with us. I don't constantly question the people around me to make sure they are the people I thought they were. In hindsight, I really should've been doing that most of my life. I know I was wrong, I'm not making any kind of excuse. I'm saying, I thought she was you. I wanted to be with you and you kissed me, and I was with you," he said. "I want to tell you if you want to know."
"You're not Walter, you have no excuse to be oblivious," Olivia said, a nasty streak in her mouth he certainly deserved.
"No, I'm not," he said.
"I don't want to know," Olivia said. She sat down on his bed. She said, "Peter. I have no one."
"No," he said. "I should have known. I was an idiot."
Olivia shook her head. "I don't know why I said that."
"I know why," Peter said. "You seem pretty lost."
"Thanks," she said. They were sitting across from each other, legs crossed, on the awful bedspread on the lumpy bed. Peter had taken a shower this morning, shaved. He would be fine in a day or two. Except if he really thought about when he'd assaulted the woman he'd had sex with four hours earlier. He would be fine in a day or two.
Olivia said, "Was the sex good?"
Peter said, "I thought so, but I've been thinking wrong for a few months, I guess."
"Thanks for the honest answer," she said.
"You sound angry," he said.
"Yes, Peter, this whole situation makes me angry. You make me angry."
"I'm glad you're okay," Peter said. "However okay you are."
She shook her head again and covered her face with her hands. "Shut up."
He did.
He stretched out on the bed while Olivia just sat. He thought he'd wait her out, talk to her when she was ready. He fell asleep instead. He woke up with a start, his hands twitching like he'd tried to kill someone in his sleep. Olivia was pressed against him, the quilt from her bed over both of them. He said, "Are you awake?"
"Yes," she muttered. "I do feel lost."
He rubbed her back. He had nothing to offer her.
She pressed even closer, and then she kissed him. Even the kiss felt different, he thought. He kissed her back. She pulled down his underwear and felt him up. He started getting hard and shifted so he was on top of her. He pushed her shirt up and cupped her breasts before he had his mouth on her. It felt nothing like the sex he'd had a week ago. He didn't think of her, just Olivia. He spread her legs and went down on her. It was like the first time, it was the first time. He concentrated on the way she reacted. She came around his fingers. He held his dick for a moment and then she sat up and pulled his hand off. She took him in her mouth, just the tip at first and then more. He said, "Olivia."
She was away from him, she laid on her back. She spread her legs wider. He got on top of her again and this time, guided himself inside her. She moaned as he first entered. "Fuck," she muttered and he stopped. "Come on," she said. He moved slowly then faster. He could do this for hours. He felt her heat. He kissed her and she panted, her back arching. "Peter," she said.
He came and closed his eyes. He felt her hand, bringing herself to another orgasm. He pulled out and laid on his back next to her. He watched Olivia get up and go to the bathroom. He should have asked her about birth control. He went into the bathroom after her. He looked very bad in the mirror. He ignored that thought and went back to the bed. Olivia was pretending to sleep already.
He remembered the first time with the other Olivia. Right then, all rushing back. It was a chore for her, a job she'd done, taking off her bra and letting him touch her. He hadn't even realized she didn't want him.
He should have killed her. Maybe when he woke up Olivia would be angry again and shoot him in the head.
!
Olivia woke up and disentangled herself from Peter. She took the other woman's laptop and sat on her bed. She tried a few passwords from her false memories. None of them worked. She rubbed the back of her neck. She couldn't feel the tattoo, but she imagined she could. She had an appointment in a week to start the laser removal. She had to pay for it. It was more money from her savings. There were false memories in her head. She tried to remember anything of John's stay in her head, but nothing came.
This was her new normal, wildly swinging emotions, no sense of herself.
Peter sat up. He said, "Hey."
She didn't answer. She'd used up all her bravado. She was naked, sitting on her own bed. She felt she lacked her armor. She was almost nearly out of anger. At least for now. Peter said, "Okay then."
"I've finished most of my debriefs," Olivia said. "Today is the first mandatory meeting with the department shrink."
"Does he know about the other universe? He's not going to spend the whole time having to be convinced, right?"
"He is a she and she has known for a while. That's what Broyles said. I haven't met her yet."
Peter said, "Are you going to look for a new place to live, really?"
Olivia frowned as she stood up and went to the closet. "I think so. I started looking at ads. It's a hard market.
"I am just throwing this out there, but I've found a new place. It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bath about a block from where Walter is -"
"We're not a couple, Peter," she said, looking over her shoulder. He must have been more productive when she was out of the hotel than she thought.
"I know," he said. "It has two separate bedrooms which would be two separate beds and two separate bathrooms. Also, I already have the place, paid first and last, moving men and new furniture come this weekend."
She interrupted again. "Have you told Walter?"
"Not yet," Peter said.
"Why are you moving out? Walter needs you, doesn't he?"
Peter laid back down. He said, "Walter will be fine."
"Why move out? I assumed you came here because you were," she tried to think of the right word. "You were in shock."
"Really? I figured you thought it was more of some sort of traumatized catatonia occasionally broken by drinking too much," he said.
She shrugged and pulled today's pant suit out of the closet. "So if it wasn't that, what was it?"
"It was absolutely that," Peter said. "But it's become obvious to me that part of that woman's job was to make sure Walter and I got along in support of the finding of the device on our side scheme. Even besides that, Walter and I never really dealt with the part where he kidnapped me and brainwashed me and probably did something to my memory. For the last month I'd been basically living away from him. I realized I didn't want to live with him again."
"So you're moving out without telling him," Olivia said. Peter was irritating her all over again.
"I said I hadn't told him yet. Look, I'm sure he will be less than thrilled that I'm moving out and worse, have suddenly remembered that he did these horrible things to me. Back to how this originally started, I'd planned to make the second room some kind of workroom but if you want to use it until you find a better place, you're more than welcome," Peter said.
Olivia looked around the mess of a hotel room. She thought about going back to her apartment. She said, "I'll bring it up to the shrink. If she still lets me go back to work, then it's not too crazy, I guess."
She had almost closed the bathroom door so she could shower when Peter said, "So last night was just a one-off?"
"I don't know, Peter."
"Okay then," he said. She closed the door. In the shower, she thought she couldn't envision doing it with him again. Last night she hadn't thought once about what Peter had done to that woman. This morning, she thought of it every time she saw his hands.
When she came out, she got dressed. She said, "We're just starting to piece together what she did. She was probably the source of lot of your cases."
"Yeah, not all, but enough," Peter said. "She planted the box with Newton, she made sure Newton died after she stole Newton's memory disk. She almost certainly placed the codes to get us interested in the the first people book and find the pieces of the machine." Peter laid back down on the bed, pulled up the covers. "It's weirder to me to think about the cases she worked that had nothing to do with her objective. A man tried to build a weather machine like it was General Hospital and she talked him down from killing himself. I guess she had to be you so we wouldn't notice."
"You've figured it out," Olivia said. She didn't know why it irritated her that he had made the same leaps she and Broyles had. "If only we could interrogate her."
"Sorry," Peter said. She looked at him but his face was towards the wall.
Olivia couldn't bring herself to think of telling Dr. Felton everything she was going through. She'd never seen much value in shrinks. She was unprepared for actually meeting Dr. Felton.
She wasn't someone Olivia knew from the other side, or previously from this side. She didn't start with the questions Olivia expected. She had a soothing voice. She had a slight accent Olivia couldn't place which ate at her.
Finally Olivia said, "I get it, you're from Chicago."
"Yes, I grew up in Shady Park," Dr. Felton.
"So did my father," Olivia said. "You sound like him a little."
Dr. Felton watched her, waiting.
Olivia said, "I actually don't remember my father that well, but the other Olivia, her father died when she was 14, not her mother. That's how I recognize the accent."
"Is that disconcerting to you?"
"It's awful," Olivia said. "I hate it. I'm angry all the time. Because she wasn't. She probably still isn't even after being choked and shot by the man she slept with."
"You have a lot to be angry about," Dr. Felton said.
"I agree," Olivia said. "How much more of this do we have to do?"
"We have a lot to do," Dr. Felton said. "It took us a half hour for you to say you're angry."
"You probably guessed before that," Olivia said.
"It's pretty apparent," Dr. Felton said. "Would you like to talk about your anger?"
"What's there to talk about?"
"Running on anger is difficult for your body," Dr. Felton said. "You said you need it to remember who you are versus who she is. Did you start remembering yourself on the other side?"
"Yes," Olivia said. "I know there's more to me than anger. There's the violation from the experiments Walter did to me, the way I've reacted to my childhood."
"The way you reacted to your abuse," Dr. Felton said.
"Is that in my records?"
"No," Dr. Felton said. "I deduced."
"You should take my job," Olivia said. She was angry again. It was comforting.
"She's different from you in a number of ways," Dr. Felton said.
"Yes," Olivia said.
"Why do you think for you anger was the difference you chose to hold on to? Why not the differences between the universes or something else?"
"You think when I feel lost and confused, I should dwell on airplanes and readily available coffee?" Olivia lost her steam halfway through the sentence. Dr. Felton mentioned how hard anger was on her, she immediately felt aches and pains in her body. She felt like she'd had sex the night before, she felt like muscles had been tensed for months. "Would that work?"
"You could try," Dr. Felton said. "Why don't you? Just for the next 24 hours. And then it'll be time to meet with me again."
Olivia stood up. She said, "My, Peter, Peter Bishop, he has a new apartment he's moving into. He said I could have the other bedroom if I wanted, while I look for a new place to live. Do you think that's crazy?"
"It sounds like a good arrangement for you," Dr. Felton said. "We can talk about any negative things that happen or that you feel tomorrow."
!
A few hours after Olivia left, Peter felt alive enough to get up. He showered and put on clean clothes. He packed up everything he needed to hold on to and paid for the last six days without checking out. He left a note for Olivia and emailed her from his phone that he was back at Walter's until his apartment was ready.
Walter smiled at him like no time had passed and Peter had done nothing at all. "So nice to have you back, son."
Then Peter told him the good news.
"I don't understand why you won't stay here," Walter said.
Peter said, for the seemingly 700th time, "I need my own space, Walter. You can walk there in five minutes."
"What if I need you to help me?"
Peter said, again, "Five minute walk away. If you can't walk, my phone number is programmed on this cell. You just have to hit 1 and call."
"What if I fall down or I get locked in the bathroom?"
"Again, you mean. If you lock yourself in the bathroom again. Walter, I will come by to see you every single day if you don't come to see me first," Peter said. He was ten minutes into this discussion and he already felt more frustrated than when Walter first got out of St. Claire's.
"I could be locked in the bathroom for 23 hours, you mean. Or feebly trying to stand on my own for the same time," Walter said.
"Walter, you're not feeble. If you'll feel better to have one of those lifeline button necklaces, I'll get you one of those."
"I don't want you to leave," Walter said, his eyes wet.
"Walter, I wasn't home for longer than 45 minutes for a month and you were fine with it," Peter said.
"I thought you were with our Olivia, off making love and going to concerts," Walter said. "Do you think Olivia hates me for not noticing she was gone?"
"No, Walter, I think you're the only one she didn't expect to realize she was gone," Peter said. Walter's face fell and Peter felt guilty for hurting him.
"Are you and Olivia dating now? Is that why you're moving out?" Walter looked skeptical. "That doesn't sound like Olivia."
"Yes, she's not the type to start a relationship with some idiot so stupid he doesn't even realize he's fucking someone else. We aren't together. She doesn't want to live in her apartment. She's having a harder time finding a place than I did, so I offered her the other room. Which is the absolute least I could do since I'm the reason she doesn't want to stay there."
"Because of your relationship or because you nearly killed that awful woman? I heard Astrid and Agent Broyles talking about it," Walter said. He didn't look the least bit concerned that his son was capable of what Peter had done. Of course Walter thought nothing of it. He didn't find Peter's insane break notable or wrong. Walter said, "Do you think she was drugging you and that's why you did it? I'm sure it's worn off and you won't do anything to me."
"I wasn't drugged," Peter said. "I can't do this, Walter." He went to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow morning."
"You're just leaving me here?"
Peter said, "You'll be fine." He left.
He hated himself for pulling out his phone and calling Astrid. He asked her just to check on Walter and she said, "Okay." He asked her if she'd been doing that all week and she said she had. He said goodbye because he couldn't think of anything else to say. He should have something to say to Astrid. He called Maddie again and got another hotel for the next night or two. He drove around until Maddie called back and he could check in. As soon as he got in, he opened his laptop and started catching up. He needed to look over everything from when she had been here and see what else he'd missed.
He wondered if the other Olivia even had General Hospital on her side, if she'd ever heard that story about the Ice Machine. She'd acted like she didn't know, but how was that surprising, who thought Olivia Dunham watched soap operas? Maybe she'd faked her lack of knowledge because the other one assumed Olivia wouldn't know.
He'd told that Olivia one night about all the things he'd read about the Soviet experiments, more than he'd recounted a few days earlier. Had he said that it was marginally better than what Walter had done to her? She hadn't said anything about the cortexiphan trials.
She'd been appalled. "How does anyone do that to children?" She'd said that while sleeping in someone else's t-shirt, having just had sex with her mark, pretending to be someone he loved.
!
"I know how much you want to say you told me so," Lincoln said, standing next to Charlie on the street. People went by, and Lincoln thought of the poetry his father had made him study. No one was speaking of Galileo in these rooms.
Lincoln's father had wanted Lincoln to speak well, to write well, to be a good person. He exhaled and rubbed his eyes.
Broyles had said it had been ever since her breakdown. Charlie said, "I don't want to say I told you so at all."
"It wasn't her, all along it wasn't her," Lincoln said. "How did they do that? How can they do that?"
"Broyles said the plan just happened, but they had her memories ready to implant in this other Olivia," Charlie said. "When did she do that?"
"How would I know? I was in the hospital," Lincoln said. He spat on the ground, something his father would have slapped him for. Lincoln wondered why he kept thinking of his dead father.
"When she came from her apartment to here, I think someone from the Secretary's office pulled her aside," Charlie said. "But they have to have those machines ready. Calibrated. I've only done it once. Before brain surgery."
"I can't even make the obvious joke, damn it," Lincoln said.
"Now we go back to work and we do our job," Charlie said.
Lincoln stared at him, trying to agree. Trying to find the voice in him. He was thinking of his father again. "When in doubt," his father had said, "look at the best person you know and do what they did. Or just the closest person to you who isn't an idiot or an asshole."
Lincoln would have said that was Broyles, but after today's revelation, it was now Charlie.
!
Olivia sat down next to the other Olivia's hospital bed. She was in tight restraints. Olivia thought about the ways she would try to get out of those. The woman looked too weak to try any of them. Olivia would have tried to look weak, too. They were the same.
"You failed," Olivia said. "I assume. I'm sure your mission wasn't supposed to end this way."
The other woman didn't react. Olivia said, "I should catch you up on what I did when I was you. But I bet they've had to admit you've been gone for months. To Charlie and Lincoln and Frank and your mother. Broyles always knew. You work with good people. You have such good people in your life. Is that why you'll take orders to fuck your boss's son?"
She thought that remark had landed, the other woman's mouth twitched. "I slept with Frank. When I thought I was you, and after. Because he's Frank. He's a good man. He's different in bed, from Peter. Did you ever lie there and compare them?"
Olivia stood up. She tried to think of something devastating to say as she left. Nothing came so she just left.
!
Walter demanded he come to breakfast. Peter slouched and picked at his french toast. Walter said, "I never, I have not told you my side."
"Your side of the being kidnapped story," Peter said. "I know your son died, Walter."
"He did," Walter said, teary even now. "You understand, we had a window to the other side. Belly and I had built it. Before that, back in the 70s, Belly had been tracking soft spots. I had as well, of course. Sometimes, in the natural course of events, in a completely natural happening, a soft spot would burp up something. All those toys and knick knacks we had in Florida, those were from that. Those burps."
"That didn't cause any damage," Peter said.
"No, it was like a membrane stretching open and snapping back, not like what I did. Belly and I found these things. Some were old, they'd come over years earlier. Soft spots probably started forming in the 18th century, if there weren't ones even earlier. Belly and I used to argue about this all the time. What is the fabric of these two universes that we are so close to this one, and don't hear from the other ones?" Peter twirled his fork. He was really excited about hearing another exegesis from Walter about physics. It definitely answered the question of how Walter had done these things to him and why Peter should forgive him.
"We realized things from our side must have popped over, too. But we both agreed, we thought, we couldn't build our door to get over. It would kill the world. But I saw you on the window, you were dying, and your father was distracted, he missed it, Peter. He missed the cure."
"I know," Peter said. "He was distracted by the Observer." His father had told him on the other side.
"Oh, you know. Oh. Well, I went over with the idea of having made the cure and just giving it to you. But Nina, she tried to stop me and I fell. It was all gone. I couldn't let you die again," Walter said, teary again. "I loved you. I love you. So I brought you back. And your mother came to the lab and I couldn't take you away again."
"I wasn't yours to do anything with," Peter said.
"I know," Walter said. "With our windows, we could see the beginning of it all. There was more burping over. The membranes didn't snap back as well or at all. I thought we have to train the children for the inevitable. We revived the cortexiphan trials. And then there was Olive."
"But you couldn't make that work because 7 year olds aren't the most effective tools," Peter said.
"No, it wasn't that. We found, she made her first trip to the other side when her stepfather was going to hit her. The best way to get her to travel was a combination of fear in that intimate setting. Your mother said it was beastly. And I did agree. So I -"
"Did nothing to save Olivia from the abuse she was suffering," Peter said.
"I did, I warned that man. I told him not to touch her. And he didn't," Walter said. "Until we left and stopped."
"Follow up was always your strength," Peter said, eyes narrowed. "You know what, Walter? You abused me. You chose to lie to me, to make my mother lie to me. Do you know that kind of effect that has children? On me?"
"I thought we had to to keep you safe," Walter said.
"Why? I didn't go to school. I didn't see other kids. Other kids would have just thought I was making it up, like the kid in 4th grade who told everyone he was really a wolf from Argentina. By the time people would have believed me, I would have known to keep my mouth shut. Who would I tell? The people you worked with. You didn't want any of them to know what you'd done," Peter said.
"I thought we would get you home in time," Walter said. "It would all be a dream to you."
"You had to have told me that everything I remembered, everyone I knew, that nothing had happened to me. You had to have, Walter," Peter said. He was so angry, he hadn't raised his voice once.
"I'm sorry," Walter said. "Can we call this a start? Please, Peter?"
Peter scratched his jaw and looked at the table. He wanted very much to say no, nothing could ever start, but he knew he never would. He said, "Yeah, of course, Walter. Just give me a day to move into my new place."
!
"Sorry you're stuck with the twin bed," Peter said.
"I have to buy a new bed," Olivia said. "So I will take what I can get. I need furniture and clothes and pots and pans."
She watched Peter unpack a box of books, putting them in either the living room bookshelf or in his bedroom. She tried to see if she could figure out how Peter decided which went where, but she didn't know the books well enough. She knew Peter, he was back to normal. What she perceived as normal, she thought. She said, "How do you have the money for all this? Do you need me to help with the rent?"
"I'm good," Peter said. "I'm paid not too badly by Homeland. I don't have hobbies or a pet so I don't burn through a lot of money. I have some savings from previous endeavors. Also, it turns out I'm the legal guardian of a multi-billionaire."
"Right, Walter owns Massive Dynamic now," Olivia said. "Or you do, legally."
Peter waved his hand. "All I do is make sure Walter doesn't spend his money on a strawberry milkshake factory or ordering too many supplies for his homegrown pot. Walter does the running the company part and Nina reigns him in. I just sign some of the checks. But I'm paid for it in addition to my salary."
"High school dropout con man now effectively runs the world's largest company," Olivia said.
Peter smiled at her. "I only get paid because the lawyers insisted. Granted, I hired the lawyers. But they seem like very nice people."
"I had no idea," Olivia said.
"What?" Peter said. Now he was frowning.
"When I met you, I had no idea," Olivia said. She thought about airplanes and coffee. She couldn't keep being angry, she decided to save it for special occasions. Thinking about airplanes made her sad. She realized airplanes depressed her. Or, she thought, underneath all the anger, she was incredibly sad. She covered her face with her hands.
Peter took two books into his bedroom. When he came out, he sat down next to her on the couch. "New couch smell," he said.
"It's nice," she said.
"I've slept on a lot of couches for the last two years," Peter said. "I consider myself an expert."
"Is it more comfortable than the twin?"
"It's a very comfortable bed," Peter said. He got up suddenly and reached behind a box. "Guess what I did this morning after my painful and horrifying breakfast with Walter?" He held up the laptop. "Finally cracked it. Walter, of all people, gave me the inspiration. She really loved U2," Peter said. He sat back down next to her. "This was the worst thing I ever read, and I read the Fountainhead." He sounded like he was trying to make a joke.
"What did she say?"
Peter shrugged. "She didn't have a section labeled 'shapeshifters who will help me escape' or 'the particulars of my evil plan,' but maybe we can figure that part out."
"You need to give this to the FBI," Olivia said. She took it from Peter. She started to read.
!
"Stop," Charlie said, mostly exasperated. He wasn't angry, that Lincoln was sure of.
Lincoln said, "You think you can read minds?"
"I can when it's yours," Charlie said. "You were thinking it's been fifteen days since Liv was lost on the other side, and no, not fifteen days, even longer because we were lied to by Broyles and the Secretary and she's been gone for months. Then you were thinking about the technology involved in convincing that other Olivia that she was ours because we haven't chewed that question over enough. Then you go back to fifteen days since that Olivia left and what happened to Liv and it's a fucking circle that goes nowhere."
"A circle doesn't go nowhere," Lincoln said.
"So poetic," Charlie said.
"It's not poetic, it's geometry," Lincoln said. "You didn't read my mind, that wasn't what I was thinking."
"I forgot to add the part where you wonder what they were doing to the other Olivia, how she escaped, why can't you go to the other side and get Liv back and what else?" Charlie smirked but it wasn't unkind. Charlie was as angry at everything as Lincoln. Charlie was just a better soldier.
Lincoln looked away. "We have to see if this is a breach."
Charlie looked around and inhaled. He exhaled and said, "It's not."
"Your nose over this?" Lincoln waved the meter around. "I know which I trust."
"I'm just that good," Charlie said. The meter agreed with Charlie.
Lincoln frowned and walked deeper into the rubble. There had been a building here once, a few years ago. Then it had collapsed when a tiny breach had opened in the main supporting column. Thanks to the readings, Fringe division had arrived just as the column had started to fold into itself slowly and in time to evacuate nearly everyone before the building collapsed. Nearly everyone, Lincoln thought, looking at the remaining debris. Three agents, fifteen civilians dead. The breach had closed by itself.
He didn't remember the names of agents. Broyles and Charlie probably did. He had been at Fringe just a few months then. He'd only known one of the agents. Not like now.
Charlie walked up behind him. "That's where the breach was last time. They've excavated everything now, just left this junk for some reason."
"They left more than this," Lincoln said. "The rest was taken for salvage."
"Fine," Charlie said. "Good for them. Picked up anything yet?"
Lincoln squinted while he looked past at the meter. "Look at that."
"At that heap in particular?" Charlie approached cautiously. He stopped when he saw the brief flash. "Is the breach open again?"
"No," Lincoln said. "Something else is going on here."
The two of them carefully removed the debris around where the flash had been. Bits of mortar. A crushed tablet that should have been scavenged for parts. Lincoln wondered why the people who did that sort of thing had missed this. Why not excavate this pile? He looked at the tablet again.
"Get back," Lincoln said, grabbing Charlie as he scrambled away. They both ran for two seconds when the bomb exploded.
Lincoln felt the white hot pain in his legs and back and thought of Liv again.
He opened his eyes in the hospital. Charlie was next to him. Neither of their injuries would require an overnight stay. Broyles walked in with another Fringe agent. Lincoln tried to remember this one's name, he had transferred to Chicago just as Lincoln had started. Charlie said, "Hey, John."
John Scott, Lincoln thought. For three weeks Lincoln had hated the man because Liv had looked at Scott's picture and said, "That one is super hot." He was a little embarrassed of himself for that one. Lincoln said, "Someone tried to blow us up, Sir."
"Yes," Broyles said. "Good thing they failed."
Charlie said, "Lincoln grabbed my butt to push me to safety."
Scott smiled at that. Lincoln said, "I found computer parts, they should have been stolen already. It was too easy to get out to have been there that long so I realized someone had built that pile to hide the bomb." If Liv had been there, she would have been rolling her eyes like he was showing off. He was off his rhythm. He was used to her teasing him, the way she challenged him. The other one, when she was thought she was Liv, she had done that, too. He couldn't tell them apart.
"Quick thinking," Scott said.
"Someone faked the signals we got that sent us out there, or tampered with the monitors," Lincoln said.
"Yeah, that's something we need to figure out," Scott said.
Charlie said, "Does someone hate all Fringe agents or just us?"
Scott nodded. Lincoln said, "You're here to investigate the two of us?"
"Standard procedure," Scott said.
"You know that, Agent Lee," Broyles said, sternly.
Lincoln knew but on top of Liv, of missing Liv and replacement Liv, he was livid anyway. Lincoln said, "Well, I can think of a few people who have a motive to silence the two of us."
Charlie gave him a look of caution but also smiled at him. Agent Scott said, "Well, who?"
Broyles said, "Agent Francis and Agent Lee are privy to a highly classified operation. I'll be investigating that aspect, Agent Lee." He glared at Lincoln like Broyles was adding himself to the list of potential killers. Lincoln was only a little cowed.
Scott shrugged slightly and then the two senior agents left. Charlie said, "John Scott's a good man, he'll be fair."
"I would have said the same about Broyles," Lincoln said.
"You wouldn't say it now?"
"I don't know," Lincoln said. "I guess I'll see how I feel when Liv gets back." If, he thought.
The next day he approached Astrid at her station. He said, "I guess you can't calculate the chances of Liv getting back."
"No," Astrid said. "I don't know any of the variables, the method of travel, the treatment she might expect from the other side." Astrid tapped her fingers to calm herself. She said, "I want her back."
"Me, too," Lincoln said.
"I calculated the list of your and Agent Francis's enemies this morning for Agent Scott," Astrid said.
Charlie stood next to Lincoln and said, "I'm sure mine is bigger."
Lincoln couldn't stop himself from smiling. Astrid said, "Yes, Agent Francis is older and has more time served with law enforcement and Fringe division, creating more enemies. Agent Lee has a very prominent father."
"Had," Lincoln said, casually.
"He is still your father even though he is deceased," Astrid said. "He is still prominent."
"But he can't be affected now by my death," Lincoln said.
"I factored that in," Astrid said. After a pause she said, "Agent Francis's list of possible enemies is still longer."
"Told ya," Charlie said. "Thank you, Astrid."
"You are welcome," she said.
They learned that the monitors had been tampered with, so they reviewed footage they had near the monitors. Charlie spotted the man first. Lincoln leaned in. "He's looking at something in his hand," Lincoln said.
"He doesn't know how to do it," Charlie said.
Astrid couldn't identify the man, though. "You can always find someone," Lincoln said.
Astrid said, "Therefore something must have been done with the footage to make it impossible for my identification process to work."
"Who could do that?" Charlie looked frustrated, Lincoln just felt a dull anger.
"The same people who could give someone instructions to tamper with the monitor," Lincoln said.
"Yes," Astrid said. "That is a logical answer."
They had to kick everything to Scott and Broyles. Nothing happened. Lincoln stopped himself from looking over his shoulder every moment. He didn't have any doubt that it was because of Liv. Someone wanted the two of them eliminated for knowing what had happened.
He couldn't sleep which was bad for a Fringe agent. He played with the pill he was supposed to take when the inevitable sleepless night caused by witnessing trauma came. This wasn't having to amber living citizens. This was the fear that the Secretary wanted him dead.
When Lincoln was 7, his parents had gone to a dinner party at the Bishop's house. He'd always gone before, but this time his mother stopped him. "There's no one to play with," she'd said, holding his arm too tight. The first incident, the beginning of the end, had happened three months before that.
He thought he could bear it if Liv was there. On that stupid note, he took his sleeping pill.
In the morning, Broyles summoned Lincoln and Charlie into his office. He told both of them to sit down. Broyles said, "You were not targeted because of your knowledge of the other side and Agent Dunham's replacement. I looked into it." Broyles glared at Lincoln in particular. It occurred to Lincoln that Broyles's anger was possibly about Broyles realizing his friend the Secretary was perfectly capable of ordering their death.
Broyles said, "Agent Scott and I believe this was an act of terror aimed at Fringe Division itself by radical anti-amber activists. We all know some of those groups have contacts and allies in this department and others. Agent Scott has been undercover with one of these groups in Chicago for the past three years. The Department has authorized an operation to get him into one of these cells here in New York City and discover the culprit."
"Sounds like fun," Charlie said, quietly.
"You're dismissed," Broyles said.
Lincoln said, "Any word on Liv?"
Broyles looked at him. Lincoln couldn't read the man at all. Anger, fear, compassion, it could have been all of that or none at all. Broyles said, "Our Agent Dunham was discovered and was injured. She is still alive and the Secretary believes she will be home by the end of the month."
"It's going to take him that long?" Lincoln felt Charlie's grip on his arm.
"It is," Broyles said. "Good enough for you, Agent?"
Lincoln nodded and let Charlie push him out of Broyles's office. Charlie invented a reason for the two of them to leave and they ended up sitting outside with squid on a stick. Charlie said, "I hate these things, why do I get them?"
"You believe the anti-amber activist story," Lincoln said. He loved squid on a stick which is why he forced Charlie to get them.
Charlie looked at the ground, grinding something into the pavement with his boot. He said, "Sure."
"Sure," Lincoln said.