For the Caesar's Palace Monthly Oneshot Contest.
A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.
The lab was, usually, busy place. Rarely did Olivia walk through the doors and not find herself in the middle of some madcap experiment cooked up by one Walter Bishop. More often than not she found herself dragged into helping him on whichever hare-brained scheme he'd thought up this time. It was part of the charm, she liked to tell Broyles.
"I'm not sure I would consider uncertainty over whether or not you are still in the proper dimension when you leave the lab 'charm', Agent Dunham," he'd respond.
To this, she'd laugh and say how he was just biased because of that one time he'd accidentally tripped on some LSD Walter had left lying around, but if he really didn't like it here then he could always hold her hand. He'd glare at her then and give her some new assignment to get her out if his hair— so to speak.
Today, though, there was no assignment. The world, she guessed, was giving them a break from multi-universe-threatening danger, for today, at least. A day off would be good for Walter, she decided. He seemed to be getting better, day by day, and some days he even seemed fully lucid. But the whole saving-the-world thing? It really didn't take into account the fact that, despite all his progress, he really was incredibly fragile, mentally.
"Walter?" Olivia called as she stepped into the lab, frowning. The usual enthusiastic response was absent, and she was instead met with an odd air of silence.
Gene gave a forlorn moo. "Hey, girl," Olivia greeted her. "Have you seen Walter?" Gene, of course, merely gave a her a vacantly soulful look and returned to grazing on. . . something. Wrinkling her nose at the foul-looking goop, she draped her jacket across a nearby chair. Her lips tilted downward as she surveyed the empty lab. All the usual clutter was there— old experiments and alien-looking pieces of equipment and the occasional piece of red licorice all strewn haphazardly across the tables and chairs. Her scan of the room, however, didn't disclose Walter's location. As she turned to grab her jacket, though, a faint crash reverberated from the office. She approached to the sound of a dull moan, which increased in volume as she neared.
"Walter?" The man in question huddled, face tightly pressed into his knees, in the far corner of the room. "Walter, what's wrong?"
As he raised his head, Olivia saw tears in his eyes, threatening to spill over. "Oh," he said. "Agent Dunham."
"Call me Olivia, please. Are you alright?"
He began to shake uncontrollably. "I wish. . . I wish. . . I— I've done terrible things, Agent Dunham. Terrible things."
She frowned. "I know. But you're making up for it now."
"No. These things, they are more terrible than you can even imagine." He paused, giving Olivia a mourning stare. "I played God, Dunham. I played God and God struck me down in my arrogance." He stopped, reburying his face in his knees. The tears flowed freely now.
"Walter. . . "
"I've destroyed worlds," he wailed. "Universes. People have suffered because I selfishly fought God's judgement. I am not God. I was never God. And yet I thought I could contest his will." He stopped sobbing, abruptly, and wiped the tears from his eyes. "I am sorry, Agent Du— Olivia. You do not want to hear about this."
"It's okay, Walter. Everyone makes mistakes. We just have to live with them and move on."
Walter shook his head. "No, Olivia. You don't understand. Some of us have made mistakes too big to move on from, too big to be forgiven for. I don't know if even Peter was worth this."
"Peter? What does Peter have to do with it?"
"Everything," he replied. "But you don't want to hear about that."
Olivia sighed. Days like these, when Walter regressed into this weird state of depression, were the hardest. High stakes and near-death experiences she could handle. She was trained for that. Never did it say, when she joined the FBI, though, that she would be caring for aging scientists slipping into senility. "Come on, Walter. Let's go get a milkshake— that should cheer you up, right?"
He mumbled indiscernibly and nodded. She gave him a small smile, as she helped rise him to his feet. "C'mon. We can get whatever flavor you want."