A/N: Kayso, I actually wanted to post this on Sunday, but then illness, school, and really, terminal laziness got in the way. At least it's here now. Also, whover told me I could edit photos was a liar. Anyone who wants to make me a cover art would be greatly appreciated.
A few notes:
-Yes, these lyrics are all from either Disney or Pixar. Disney makes its living off parent issues, it's perfect. If you don't know where a lyric comes from and would like to, feel free to ask me or Google.
- The alt!pairing here is ALTLincoln/AltLiv. I have never and will never ship Our!Lincoln/AltLiv
- Much as I tried on the ending, it just wasn't coming to me
- I guess there are spoilers here, but they're really more speculation
- You guys know the drill by now, I'm an angst whore. Buckle up
- Enjoy!
for one so small,
you seem so strong
(Peter)
For the first time in twenty years, Henrietta Elizabeth sleeps in her father's arms.
For the first time in twenty years, Henrietta Elizabeth sleeps soundly.
For the first time in what has only felt like mere months, Peter Bishop breathes in his daughter's scent, and forces back the lump in his throat when he finds she smells exactly the same.
His daughter is beautiful. His daughter is strong and amazing and perfect, just as they knew she would be.
Her small fingers cling onto his jacket, refusing to release him from the tight hug she has him in.
He reaches for her hands and clasps them in his own, drawing her into a seat beside him, where she again buries her face in his chest, but he needs to see her. He needs to see her face. He needs to see Olivia, see Walter, see himself in his baby's face.
"Sweetheart…" he implores, and feels her shake her head. "Sweetheart, look at me."
"Can't." Her voice is teary and uneven.
"Why not?" He strokes her hair gently, feeling it slip through his fingers. Just like it did twenty years ago.
"You'll disappear," is all she says.
if you want to cross a bridge, my sweet
you've got to pay the toll
(Etta)
Walter insists Bell is more of a priority.
He has skills, he rationalizes.
Olivia's have been negated.
Etta can see her father's mind struggling to remind himself that the man he is talking to, the man who calls him boy in such a cold affect, he is not his father.
She can see the memories behind his eyes, the memories of the bumbling, eccentric, not-quite-complete Dr. Walter Bishop, can see him telling himself that this man is not the same.
Her childhood is mostly a blur to her, but she remembers Grandpa and the Red Vines with shocking clarity. He had made her a tinfoil hat one time, with her name burned into it.
She remembers (the memory is fuzzy around the edges, but she remembers), him presenting the hat to her with burned fingers, his face alight with enthusiasm as he urged her to try it on, try it on.
If she squints, she can still see a burn scar on his middle fingertip, but his eyes hold only Dr. Walter Bishop. No traces of Grandpa are to be found.
someday you'll walk tall with pride
Henrietta Elizabeth Bishop is a Fringe Division agent, has been since she turned nineteen.
She is twenty-four years old, and has seen more of the atrocities of the world than most.
But she does not object when her father refuses to let her watch while he "questions" Bell.
Does not object, but asks Aunt Astrid why.
"Honey," she smiles, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind Etta's ear. "You may be all grown up, but it doesn't matter if you are twenty-four or seventy-four. You will always be his little girl, and he will always try to protect you."
It fills Etta with a warmth she is not accustomed to, so much so that the next time she sees her father, she wraps her arms around his waist, fingers clutching at his jacket, with no explanation given.
someone once lied to us
now we're not so blind
(Peter)
Bell spills easily.
Peter did not even have to take the hammer he had stashed in a ceiling tile to get that bastard to tell him what happened to his wife.
As he exits the room, he thinks of Olivia.
And I know, rationally, that he is not responsible for all the bad things in the world, but he is responsible for some of them.
Bell took his wife away from him. He gave her to the Observers to save his worthless ass. All Peter ever wanted was for Olivia to feel safe; to feel loved, and Bell took that away from her.
That alone earns his several applications of vinegar to his not-quite healed stump of a hand. His face collapses in unimaginable pain and Peter feels no guilt.
He does, however, feel a little less human.
(Then his baby runs over and wraps him in a hug, and he is reminded of why he did this, of why he does anything).
he made the devil so much stronger than a man
They did not abandon her, he tells her, his face stricken with pain. Why would she ever think that?
She was taken.
"We looked for weeks, every minute of every day, we couldn't find you. And then your mother…"
He wants her mother's memory to be pure, she knows, doesn't want her to know just how far away from him Olivia had pulled those last few days.
He tried, he tried so hard to reach her, to convince her that he needed her too, that this was not her fault, but Olivia had always had a wicked guilt complex, and Peter had lost his baby, was losing his wife. He was fragile too.
And, after so many hours of arguing, he too had broken down. He remembers the words perfectly.
He and Olivia rarely fought, and Peter would be the first to admit that he was no longer who he once was, he didn't hit the people he loved where he knew it would hurt the most, but that fight…
He remembers yelling that it didn't matter, it never mattered what he said, she would push him away anyway.
He remembers telling her in no uncertain terms, that he had always loved her more than she had loved him.
And he remembers getting in her face and snarling that she wouldn't know how to love, how to really love someone if it slapped her in the face.
Which was ironic, because that was exactly what she did.
Slapped him and ran, and when Olivia Dunham didn't want to be found, she wasn't.
And he had gotten ambered and the last words he had said to the love of his life were accusations.
tell me where, did I go wrong
everyone I loved, they're all gone
According to Bell, one Observer took Olivia.
An original observer, by the name of September, made him a better offer than the "new" ones.
The greedy bastard couldn't refuse.
Peter doesn't even try to hide the smile.
we must sound the drums of war
(Olivia)
She falls out of the amber, but Peter catches her.
(He always did)
She gasps for breath
(He breathes for her)
His face is full of apologies, as she knows hers is.
(It doesn't matter. They have their entire lives to make it up to each other)
And the young woman, the young woman says nothing while Olivia catches her breath, but her eyes, huge and blue, search Olivia's face, and she feels like she's looking at Peter.
and at last I see the light
and it's like the fog has lifted
She reaches out to touch the girl's face, and she knows.
The next moment, her daughter is in her arms, and she is clutching her with whatever strength she can muster, wiping away her baby girl's tears.
we are one, you and I
we are like the earth and sky
one family under the sun
They are a family. It is never perfect, but they deal.
Peter disappears to the basement of the safe house for hours with Walter, building the device that will free the world.
She scavenges for food, information, and a safe place, to test their homemade device.
Sometimes, she takes Etta with her, and it's not always focused on the battle that is their lives.
Sometimes, Etta takes her to the places she would always come to for an escape. They visit the house where Nina raised her, visit the treetop in what used to be the park that Etta would come to when she needed to be alone, visit Simon.
We'll get him out, she promises her daughter, who simply links their arms and smiles.
I know, Mom.
hush now my baby
be still love, don't cry
Her child has not escaped unscathed, though.
Etta still had nightmares; horrible nightmares that made her thrash and wail, and inevitably, cry out for one of her parents.
When that happened, the only way to calm her would be if that parent was there immediately, stroking her hair, their arms wrapped tight around her.
One night, Etta had called for Peter, and it had taken him six full minutes to still her flailing limbs. When she had finally come to, her head had stayed buried in her father's shoulder for a half hour.
Those were "Peter's nights". Those nights where Olivia would step back, go back to she and Peter's bed and hopefully fall asleep.
Her nights, she lay with her child's head in the crook of her elbow, stroking her hair and telling her all about Fringe division as it used to be, about she and Peter, about how they loved her so very, very much.
They never talk about it in the morning, but though she hates how much it hurts her daughter, Olivia loves having Etta close again.
love is where they are
She and Peter reconnect.
He has apologized a million times for things that were her fault, not his, but they eventually agree to leave things long past in the past.
This is their future.
They never talk about it again.
(They don't spend much time talking those first few nights)
from the day we arrive on the planet
and blinking, step into the sun
This time, Peter is with her. This time, she takes a home test.
I hope it's a boy, she whispers into his shoulder.
Etta squeals in excitement, but still falls asleep in Olivia's arms that night.
he lives in you
(Peter)
The trial run for the device works perfectly.
(Works perfectly on a very unsuspecting cadre of Observer trial subjects)
They time their last revolt to the hour, but account for the Loyalists.
There will be bloodshed, but they are hopeful (hopeful) of no major casualties.
kill the beast
(Peter and Olivia)
They free Simon from the amber three months after he pushes himself in.
He is blown halfway across the ratty old lab, but luckily, lands in a soft pile of hay.
(Although the long-dry cow manure that coats his hair is perhaps not so lucky, and Etta wastes no time reminding him.)
Peter and Olivia do not miss the way their daughter's eyes light as she rests her palm on his cheek to calm him as he gasps for breath.
two worlds, one family
(Etta)
They ally with the Other Side.
Etta meets her mother (but not her mother), her hair now a soft strawberry blonde.
She smiles a smile so unlike Etta's mother as the woman (she is instructed to call her Liv) shakes her hand, and Etta instantly likes her.
Liv introduces her husband, Lincoln, who sports an ear cuff, like his wife, and a thigh holster.
Their son and daughter have grown up in the same world as she. Etta falls into easy conversation with Jesse and Marilyn, and finds, after this is all over, she would be pleased to call them friends.
Their counterparts agree to help them.
(They didn't really expect they would say no).
The machine is safely stored.
The plan is in motion.
It all seems a bit anticlimactic for Etta, but as they journey home, she links her fingers with Simon's, and for the first time, allows herself to imagine what life could be like after all this.
be prepared
(All)
The world is freed in a flash.
They are free.
It is finally over.
Or so they think.
your rainbow will come smiling through
(Etta)
Etta thinks, for a people oppressed for so long, they should be rioting.
The streets should be crammed with people, shouting, crying, laughing, everything they were free to do now.
She realizes a second later that there are simply not enough left of their kind, and for those who are left, the danger has been present for so long, how are they to know how to live free?
They walk, for the first time, as a family, down the street with no fear of being seen.
Their hands are clasped, and Etta smiles, thinking that not only is her family back together, soon they will be a family of four.
That warmth (she is getting used to it now), touches her cheeks, and she turns her face to the sky.
It's blue now.
Hope spreads through her, unfiltered.
be brave, little one
(September)
The Girl does not see the Loyalist. She does not see the knife. But the Woman and the Man do.
Their faces are stricken with panic as they call the Girl's name.
She does not see them in time.
(She never sees it coming)
Her fingers touch the blood on her chest, a look not unlike curiosity on her young face.
(The Man catches her as she falls)
The expressions on the Man and the Woman's faces are new to me. So many shades of fear, of panic, of love.
The Girl is not a child.
She is bitter, jaded.
Yet her father holds her in his lap like a little girl. Her mother strokes her hair, wiping the blood from her child's face. They talk to her, comfort her, though her face holds no fear.
"It's okay, baby. You're going to be just fine, sweetheart. Mommy and Daddy are here. We'll fix this. You'll be fine."
The Girl only smiles serenely.
(She is not scared. Fear is an emotion her life has never allowed her to feel)
The Man and the Woman are frightened. Olivia Dunham's face is white with fear, her eyes radiating panic.
The ambulance has been called. September knows he could find out the Girl's fate, oh so easily, if only he could tear himself away.
But, for reasons unbeknownst to him, he cannot.
Perhaps there are elements of humanity in him after all.
They are leaning over her now. She has been transferred into her mother's lap. The Woman has bent so their foreheads are touching.
Their emotions are so raw, so tangible; September wastes no effort hearing them.
"We love you so much. You are so brave, we are so proud of you. You hang on, you hear? Mommy and Daddy love you so, so much."
The ambulance arrives. They fear it is too late.
god help the outcasts
hungry from birth
show them the mercy
they don't find on earth
At the hospital, I gingerly make my way down the corridor. It is, perhaps, the one place I can be assured I will not be stared at, as many simply assume I am a patient, my baldness speaking for itself.
I am waiting for only moments when the doors crash open and a gurney is pushed through. With the click of a button, (I have retained my kind's technology) I am no longer visible to the human eye.
The gurney contains the Girl. She is pale, deathly so, her clothes awash in blood. Several doctors press gauze onto her chest, keeping the knife firmly in place.
The Woman holds the Girl's hand. This is all of her child the doctors will allow her to touch. Even now, they are pulling the two apart.
The Woman fights, but there are too many.
They tell her useless things.
"Ma'am, you need to stand back if we're going to help your daughter."
"You need to wait."
"She needs you to be calm right now."
None have any effect as they finally separate mother and daughter and the Man pulls the Woman to him, absorbing her sobs in his jacket, tainted with his child's blood.
"I can't lose her," she breathes on a sob. "I can't, Peter, she's my baby. She's all I have."
The Man's face is awash in tears as well, and despite the situation, I smile. Whatever the Girl's fate, she does not lack for that uniquely human emotion they call love.
He prays a hand down to the Woman's and his fingers slip something quietly on to it.
Her head raises, and she holds up her left hand, now with her wedding band re-adorning it.
"Peter – "
He grasps her hand, pressing the warming metal of the ring into her skin.
"We're still a family. I don't…know what will happen, but right now, our daughter is still alive and we are still a family."
Humans abide, they persevere….
They are called into their daughter's hospital room hours later.
By that time, they have cried themselves dry.
The Woman sits on top of the Man, her head tucked into his shoulder, his fingers desperately gripping the bloody sleeve of her jacket.
The doctor speaks to them, and their expressions barely change.
Their daughter has a tube down her throat, many more connected to her small body. She is awash in bandages.
She barely looks to be human, buried under medicine and technology.
And, carrying on the ritual of their kind, the Man and the Woman surround her. They brush back her hair, they gently wipe her face, the Man brushes a kiss across her forehead.
Again I know, I could so easily find out her fate, but those whom she matters most to do not know.
It seems, oddly, wrong for me to know ahead of them.
So, when the heart monitor attached to the Girl's chest gives a high whine, I do what I must.
I leave them.
Whichever way fate decides to turn, whether the Girl be the Last Casualty or the Miracle That Started A Revolution, unlike before, is not for me to decide.
i will never pass for a perfect bride
or a perfect daughter
He used his brain and his imagination to turn the world into what he wanted it to be. How would you change the world if you could? What would you wish for?