Spoilers: "Over There" Part 2.
Disclaimer: This is not my show. No inFRINGEment intended.
A/N: This takes place 72 hours after the end of "Over There, Part 2". This is my first fanfic. Many thanks to piratesmiley for being my beta reader.
It was the Observer who tipped him off. Peter had been leaning on the low stone wall that marked the edge of a Harvard campus parking lot, watching students and faculty trickle past as he waited for Olivia. Why does it seem like I'm always waiting for Olivia? The thought didn't bother him as much as he'd expected. He'd been hoping that catching her outside of the lab might give him the opportunity to corner her into saying something—anything—about what had happened. Just give me something to go on. It doesn't have to be much. I'm a patient guy. He crossed his arms and turned west, squinting in the sunlight for signs of her black SUV. Well, I can try to be a patient guy, anyway.
Someone bumped into him from behind and Peter stumbled, checking that he still had his wallet—he'd spent enough time as a fence to know when he'd been pickpocketed—and looked up just in time to see a tell-tale fedora disappear around the corner. Peter gave chase, of course, but, predictably, the Observer had vanished. Only when he stopped running did Peter find the note the Observer had slipped into his jacket pocket. It read, "She must not know. Tonight, 1:37am." Underneath there were GPS coordinates. It might as well have been Greek to Peter, except that Peter could actually read Greek. Something big was going to go down at that location in about 12 hours, and the Observer wanted him to be there. The question was, why? Or rather, what was it this time? And who was 'she'? Just another day averting the apocalypse… or an apocalypse, anyway, he thought, wryly, turning to go inside and tell Walter and Astrid.
As he turned he saw Olivia's black SUV swerve into the parking lot. Even her driving seems on edge lately. He paused to wait for her. She looked grumpy when she got out of the car, but then she carefully wiped her expression blank when she saw that he was waiting for her. She must not know. Did the Observer mean her? He frowned and put the strip of paper back into his pocket. "Hey," she said. "You called—what 's up?" She settled next to him at the wall and folded her arms behind her back. "I was workin' on a report." Working on a report—at her desk at the Bureau, not here at the lab. He looked into her face, hopeful, and only saw a question. You told me that I belonged with you, he thought, feeling betrayed. It hurt him more than he cared to admit.
But Peter was nothing if not resilient. "Walter never passes up the chance to make one of us play guinea pig. Today's your lucky day." He paused to watch her expression. She managed a chuckle and a dry grin that didn't reach her eyes. "Walter has a few tests he wants to run in the lab, just to make sure everything is okay since we crossed back. As you know, crossing over can have strange consequences." She nodded and started walking toward the lab.
Since getting back from the other side, she'd been impatient with Walter, short with Astrid, distant with him. Rachel had called last night to make sure that Olivia was alright—Olivia wasn't returning her calls and Rachel had just wanted to make sure. Peter had chalked it up to stress after everything that had happened, but now he wondered if there was something else, something really wrong. He feared it was him. God forbid you have feelings for someone, Olivia. He thought, in flash of bitter frustration. Because that would be terrible. Then he instantly felt bad, considering what had happened the last time she'd been in a relationship. It had been terrible. He needed to be patient. He needed to wait for her to come to had opened the door to the lab and was holding it, looking at him quizzically. "You comin'?" she asked. He nodded and followed her in.
"Walter," he called, looking around. Astrid was working on paperwork, and Walter was happily doing something awful with Manduca larvae. "Olivia's here so you can run those tests." Walter came over and greeted Olivia, gesturing for her to sit down in a chair.
"Agent Dunham, I was thinking I might compare a recording of your brain waves with the ones I took before we left. I have a theory regarding how crossing over might affect the pattern—I want to see if there has been any effect," he got out a pen-light and was looking at her pupils. She looked slightly annoyed.
"Walter, I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on at the Bureau—"
"Yes, yes of course you do. This will only take a few minutes." Walter put the penlight down and gestured toward a chair. "Please have a seat. Peter, would you bring the neuroanalyzer?" Peter nodded and crossed toward the cabinet where they kept it. Olivia watched him pull it out and unfold it. All of a sudden she reached up and pulled her hair out of her ponytail, shaking her hair out over her shoulders. Peter brought the neuroanalyzer over to her and carefully placed it on her head. As he went around behind her to start hooking up wires, she tensed microscopically. Just a tiny bit, but he had seen it. What is with you today, Olivia? He started plugging wires into the analogue/digital converter, and gently brushed her hair off her neck and over her shoulder to keep it out of the way. As he did so he caught a glimpse of something black at the base of her neck—had she gotten a tattoo? Seriously? He opened his mouth to say something, make some jibe, but before he could say anything she jumped, pushing her hair back quickly.
"Peter, you pulled my hair!" He knew he hadn't. And after all the times they had placed electrodes in the back of her neck to put her in the tank, he knew that tattoo hadn't been there before. She didn't want me to see it, he thought, his curiosity piqued. "Jeez, Olivia, you're kinda on edge today—did you have more than your usual vat full of coffee this morning?" She looked around at him and smirked, but the tension didn't leave her face. Her pupils were oddly dilated, indicating stress.
Walter turned on the monitor and began recording her brain waves. Almost at once his eyebrows shot up and he pointed to the screen, comparing the previous recording to the current one.
"How extraordinary—look, do you see how much more slowly the phase advances in the theta rhythm of the hippocampus? This is hardly the effect I had expected! It's almost as though we're comparing two completely different brains! Do you feel any different, Agent Dunham?" Olivia glanced up quickly and then looked away again.
"No, I feel fine." Walter began scribbling excitedly on a notepad, oblivious. All of a sudden, Peter was on edge. He was getting the tingly feeling in his fingertips that he usually associated with a deal gone wrong. He stood there and just looked at Olivia, the way she was sitting, her auburn hair. The weird new tattoo. He thought about the note in his pocket. She must not know. And Walter's declaration. It's almost as though we're comparing two completely different brains! Suddenly it clicked. No, no, no—it can't be, he thought, fingering the paper in his pocket, stomach sinking horribly as his pulse quickened.
"What effect did you expect, Walter?" He asked, watching Olivia out of the corner of his eye. He really, really didn't like the thoughts that were occurring to him at the moment, but he sidled over to the drug cabinet anyway, out of Olivia's range of view with the halo frame on her head.
"Well, my theory was that the theta phase advancement would have accelerated due to the increased use of her abilities these past few days, but as that is clearly not the case—" He looked down to make another note on his chart. Peter slipped an autoinjector filled with sedative out of the cabinet and into his pocket. Walter put a finishing touch on his notes and flipped the folder shut.
"Okay, Peter, that should be enough for now. Agent Dunham has a busy schedule." Walter stood and walked across the lab toward his desk. Peter crossed back over to where she was sitting, turned off the monitor, and started disconnecting the wires, mind churning furiously. Suddenly an idea occurred to him.
"Hey, Olivia, you've been working really hard lately—what if we went out tonight to celebrate coming home?" She looked at him incredulously through the wires of the halo. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Walter stop and start busying himself with something at the bench, clearly eavesdropping.
"Are you asking me out? On a date?" She smirked like she thought it was a joke.
"Yeah, I guess I am." His heart was pounding in his chest as his mind raced. She half-smiled.
"I'll have to think about it. Like I said, I've got a lot of catching up to do."
"We could go to that place we went for your birthday," He said lightly, working to keep his voice even.
"Not tonight. Maybe some other time." She said. Peter nodded and swallowed, trying not to gulp audibly, as he broke out in a cold sweat. Shit, shit, shit, what have they done with the real Olivia—with our Olivia? He went around behind her, ostensibly to disconnect the rest of the wires, slipped the syringe out of his pocket, and plunged it into her neck. She cried out and struggled for a minute, then slumped forward. Walter cried out and rushed over, waving his hands.
"Son, son, that's hardly the way to handle rejection!" Peter pulled the frame off of her head and tipped her forward so that Walter could see the tattoo on her neck. Walter looked at it for a moment and then took a step back.
"Oh dear—this isn't our Agent Dunham, is it?" Peter shook his head, feeling sick. Was this the alternate Olivia, or a shapeshifter? His mind's eye treated him to a series of images of the real Olivia—or his Olivia, anyway—face-down in a ditch somewhere. He tried to block it out.
"Astrid!" He bellowed, panic-stricken. "We've got a problem!"
