Notes: Title and quote from Sera Cahoone's song Take Me Anyway You Like. Not mine, no profit garnered. I've assumed here that Peter on both sides was sick a while as a child, since age 5 at least. Thanks to my friend who loves the Angelic Bathmat and PB for beta advice!
Cause I'm already in your life
So take me anyway you like
Peter was going to die and he couldn't say he would have chosen this specific method. Dragged at gunpoint from the shitty hotel room, why did that hotel have to be his last place of residence? He would have wanted something classier or something even seedier. Mediocre and bland were awful descriptions of the last rooms you'd ever see. This room he was going to die in, it was a fucking cliche. An abandoned warehouse, his hands taped together around a pole, mouth taped shut, looking at weird stains on the concrete floor. The company sucked, too.
Big Eddie and Michael had taken their turns beating the crap out of him. He'd had a brief hope that he'd get to live so he could pay them back when he'd said, pre-tape, "People know I'm here. FBI people."
"Exactly," Big Eddie had said. "And when they find you dead everyone will know and it will be a valuable lesson to anyone who tries to fuck me over again." He'd added a swift kick to the kidneys with that depressing comment.
So this was the end. He never thought he'd be thinking of Walter and hoping Walter would be okay. Olivia. He should have kissed her multiple times. Should have, would have, could have.
Big Eddie leaned over, holding a syringe. "We know where you work now. Where you worked. And some of those people who don't like you were happy to provide a referral to other people who don't like you. So I don't know how this is going to kill you, but the guy from ZFT who gave it to us promised it would be painful and leave a gruesome corpse."
Peter struggled pointlessly, but Big Eddie was a man of action. He stabbed Peter in the neck with the syringe and Peter felt his brain explode before he felt nothing at all.
x
"Explain to me why you did this," Broyles said, glaring at the both of them.
Charlie said, "Walter woke up and Peter was gone, at 4 am. He called Olivia. We checked the security footage and saw Peter being led away, gun to his back. Facial recognition tied the two men to Big Eddie."
"So we knew if we brought it back to the FBI, Sanford Harris would -"
"Prevent us from investigating the armed abduction of one of our own consultants?" Broyles looked skeptical.
"He was abducted by people in organized crime he owed money to," Olivia said. "I thought if Charlie and I could do it, without telling you, we could -"
Broyles sighed and Olivia stopped talking.
Charlie said, "We managed to track down the place he might have been taken to thanks to a friend of mine in Boston PD. We entered to find two men, clearly in the act of attempted murder."
"And killed both of them," Broyles said.
"They drew their guns on us, and we had announced ourselves," Olivia said. "Is someone upset we killed Big Eddie?"
"Actually yes," Broyles said. "I have heard from Sanford Harris. He wanted to know why you two ruined a two year joint operation between Boston PD and the FBI to take down an entire criminal organization. With Big Eddie and his lieutenant dead, apparently, all that intelligence is for naught."
"But Peter is alive," Olivia said.
Broyles said, "How is he?"
"Bad," Olivia said. She walked to the end of the hospital corridor, standing with Astrid as they looked in the hospital room.
Astrid said, "They beat the crap out of him but he would have been back at work in a few days or a week or two. With some very colorful bruises. But the injection is the problem. The doctors don't know what it is. Walter is getting samples."
Olivia said, "What is it doing to Peter?"
"Walter says it's overloading his brain."
Walter dithered and stuttered and stared off into space in the middle of his sentences. Astrid managed to get him to explain the tests they'd done. Mostly. What Olivia understood was that there was so much activity happening in Peter's brain it would certainly cause brain damage if it hadn't already.
Olivia said, "Walter, please, you have an idea, don't you?"
"I don't know," Walter said, crying.
Olivia and Astrid bullied and cajoled Walter into trying to come up with something. Naturally, Walter's solution involved electric shocks and drugs. "Put the brain back on the right train tracks, cracker jack," he said.
Peter would have objected, Olivia was sure. He would have argued about dosages and testing and called at least something ridiculous and impossible. Astrid and Olivia nodded numbly and hooked up IVs. Peter was in a coma, but his face was creased with pain. He'd been given painkillers and it didn't seem to make a difference. Walter said Peter would be brain dead by the end of the week without treatment.
They'd brought Peter from the hospital to the lab. "We brought him home," Astrid said quietly.
Walter had carefully shaved Peter's head so they could hook everything up. "He really does look awful," Walter said. "Okay, we may as well start."
Olivia watched the jagged ups and downs of Peter's brainwaves. It looked wrong. Then Walter and Astrid started injecting and shocking Peter. His brainwaves stopped, restarted, stopped, and slowly restarted at what Walter declared a much better rhythm. "It's a not a rhythm, technically, of course, it's more complex, I will draw you a diagram so you can really understand. You have to think of it like, well, a souffle."
Olivia nodded. She went and sat down by Peter. She took his hand.
It was two days before Peter regained consciousness. He was back at the hospital now. His eyes were bloodshot and dull. "Olivia," he mumbled.
"Yes," she said.
He blinked rapidly. "So I lived."
"Yes," she said. "We were all very relieved. Walter, in particular."
"Let him rot," Peter said, his voice low.
"Peter?"
He rubbed his eyes and said, "Maybe just come back tomorrow."
x
Peter remembered everything. Everything he'd ever seen, heard, tasted, smelled, thought about, read, touched, experienced. Every breath, every fucking heartbeat seemed to trigger another wave of memories. Even the pain only slightly dulled by the drugs they had him on was a trigger for memories. They were constant, they came with smells, sensations, emotions.
Walter, he thought. It was a nightmare to sort out when he could barely speak or sleep. His mother, on both sides. Two sides, two universes, the lake.
He described it to the doctor as sensory overload, or whatever words he gritted out. The doctor tried some mix of beta blockers and SSRIs which actually worked, at least diminishing the cacophony to the point of a dull distraction.
It took a week to find the right mix and dosage and then titrate down to see if they could find something he could live on. Peter looked at himself in the mirror, appalled at how bad he looked. He didn't even have enough hair to call it a buzzcut. It was stubble on his head. He was sickly pale and unbelievably haggard. The bruising to his face had started to heal, at least.
He'd had a buzzcut five times in his life. He'd pulled it off at least four times, maybe all five times. He swayed, the memories rushing up, knocking him off balance a little. But the drugs were really working and it was 100 times better than it had been. He had a three month supply in his bag, he'd paid as much of his portion of the hospital bill as he could. He was finally free of Big Eddie, he didn't want to get chased around the world by the hospital's collection agency.
He went back and sat on his bed, tying his shoes, tightening his belt. Walter came in, so very chipper. Walter said, "I brought custard. I know you don't remember, son -"
"I remember everything, Walter. Everything. That's what they did to me, Walter." Walter's whole face fell. Peter got up and put the custard container on the bed. He didn't want a mess attracting the nurses.
Walter said, "Please, Peter. You have to understand, you were going to die. Your father had missed the cure, I had to make sure you didn't die. I meant to give it to you there -"
"Shut up," Peter said. His head hurt and he was swaying on his feet again. He had a lot of memories of Walter, of both Walters, and it was almost debilitating to try to concentrate around them and form words. Even with his medication. "You owe me this: don't tell anyone I'm leaving for 8 hours."
Walter nodded. "Do you think you might come back? Do you think -"
"I said be quiet," Peter said. Walter recoiled at his anger.
Peter's next stop was home and after that, the lab. He emptied every place he'd hidden things, took what he wanted to keep for himself. He emptied every one of his accounts he thought the FBI could find. He emptied all of them, just in case.
His last stop in Boston was Olivia's apartment. She opened the door and actually smiled at him, so happy. He almost felt like an asshole, but he hated Walter more than he cared about anything else. Nearly anything else. "Come in," Olivia said.
"I have things to do," Peter said. "After this. I'm thinking of trying for a modeling contract because I look so great right now."
"You do not look great at all," she said. "But I'm glad to see you standing and talking."
Peter waved his hand over his head. "Brain damage," he said.
She stopped smiling. "But you feel better now," she said. "Right?"
"I'll be fine," he lied. "But the thing is, it occured to me when I thought I was going to die, there is a really long list of things I should have done before dying and in the top 10 was not doing this." He touched her cheek and kissed her.
He stopped the first second because the memories, every kiss ever in his life overwhelmed him. Olivia immediately moved in closer, kissing back. She must have thought he was hesitating. The memories receded and he held her waist. She said, "Are you sure you don't want to come in?"
"I am not sure at all," Peter said. "But I really do have something to do." He thought about staying. Forgive, try to forget, be a good man, stay with Olivia. "I have to go," he said. He kissed her again. He left in his rental car for New York City.
He had one place in New York City where he had a few things hidden. Once he had that, he packed his bag, returned the rental car, and went to LaGuardia. He was flying over the Atlantic four hours later. He destroyed his phone in the Heathrow men's room. He dropped his credentials in the letter he'd written to Charlie.
Two months later, he was walking his favorite circuit of streets in Lagos when he saw Olivia. He smiled at her and blinked back the nausea that came from the rush of memories he had at seeing her. He drew out a cigarette and lit it, breathing in.
Olivia said, "You wrote to Charlie and Astrid, not me?"
"I said goodbye to you in person," he said.
She wasn't smiling. She was in dark jeans and a grey t-shirt with one of those large backpacks, like she was a college girl hiking through Europe. Except this was Nigeria and Olivia had never had the chance to look that carefree. She said, "I needed to find you."
"I'm not coming back to Boston," Peter said.
Olivia sighed and looked down. Peter said, "But I am really glad to see you."
"Really?" She looked at him again and he could see she was exhausted.
"How tired are you? Come home with me, I'll let you take the bed."
She said, "Okay," and smiled, weakly. He held out her hand and let him guide her through the streets.
xx
Olivia sighed. Peter looked tan, lean. He didn't exactly look good but she wasn't sure why she felt that way. She didn't like the beard. She didn't like the smoking. His hair had grown back though it was still shorter than she'd ever seen on him. She was walking without looking at anyone around them, without being aware.
She squeezed his hand.
She said, "Broyles didn't know. I assume you wondered if he did, since you wrote Charlie everything you knew. But he didn't. He knew Walter had something do with the first break, he knew about the alternate universes, but he didn't know Walter took you or anything about that. Nina gave him information, lied to him a number of times. He was appalled when Charlie told us what Walter did and angry at Nina. If you were wondering."
"I was," he said. "Thank you."
"Your information was very useful. Once Walter calmed down," she said, skimming over Walter's breakdown and how she still didn't know if they had done the right thing not putting him back in St. Claire's. "He remembered a lot more."
"Of course he did."
"He said, he assumed you would never forgive him so he tried to forget. But we know more about the other side and all sorts of things," Olivia said.
Peter looked over his shoulder at her. He said, "What sort of things? About the cortexiphan trials?"
"Yes," she said. "There was this man, Nick Lane. I was linked to him from the tests. He was, uh, Walter called it a reverse empath. He made people feel what he felt. But in my dreams, it was horrible. I felt like I was the one killing them. Three people he killed with his feelings and I lived it all. So Walter and I and Charlie and Astrid flew down to Jacksonville."
Peter stopped walking and hugged her close to him. Just from her voice, Olivia thought. She must have had a pathetic expression on her face. He was wearing a blue t-shirt that felt impossibly soft against her cheek. His hand in her hair made her feel settled. She said, "Nick killed himself and six other people. We found out that someone is tracking down all these children from Jacksonville and Ohio and activating them."
"Like Jones tried to do with you," Peter said.
"It's probably Jones," Olivia said. "Or someone connected to him. Or someone who's read ZFT."
She pulled away from him. She said, "Walter's been very helpful."
"By starting the experiments in the first place, using children as his guinea pigs? He started all of this, Olivia." He took her hand and started walking again. She followed.
"He loves you," she said.
"He kidnapped me. He lied to me for months, made my mother lie to me, literally made me believe I had imagined my entire early childhood which I'm sure had absolutely no affect on my mental development, used me for his science, ignored me, belittled me, and then he went crazy," Peter said. She could hear the anger in his voice. It didn't have any fury in it, which scared her. He said, "He's an abusive asshole. I know he's more scared than scary these days but I never want to see him again."
"He's changed," Olivia said.
"Yes, he has changed. That doesn't mean I have to forgive him or that that change makes anything easier for me," he said. "Fuck him."
"He's trying now to make up for things," she said. "I believe that."
"And I'm glad for you, I'm glad that makes a difference to you. It doesn't to me. I was 7 years old. For months, Walter and my mother told me everything I knew was wrong, that everything I remembered was wrong. He took me away from my parents and the actual place where I belonged," Peter said. "I don't want to keep talking about this, Olivia." She wished she could see his whole face, not her own reflection in his sunglasses.
He squeezed her hand again. "And we're here."
Peter lived in a upscale apartment complex. They rode an elevator to the fifth floor. Then they were inside a pleasant looking apartment and he kept guiding her until she had walked up to his bed. She sat down on the edge. He kneeled in front of her and started to take off her boots. He said, "Put your backpack on the floor."
"You're ordering me around now?" She didn't sound very authoritative.
"You need sleep, Olivia."
She put her backpack down. She laid back on the bed after he got both of her boots off. She said, "When did you start smoking so much?"
"It helps with the brain damage," he said. "Cigarette smoking has been demonstrably shown to help some people with some forms of mental illness."
"You're smoking therapeutically," she said.
"Yes, I am," he said. "I'm leaving the room now if you want to take off your pants."
She closed her eyes and fell straight asleep.
She woke up again some time later as Peter got in the bed next to her. She was under a thin blanket, he was lying on top of it. She opened her eyes and saw him injecting himself with something. "Are you taking heroin now," she said.
"No," he laughed. "Sometimes on bad days this is the only way I can sleep. It's just barbiturates." This new Peter laughed about taking drugs just to fall asleep. Also, she thought, seeing her was a bad day. Peter went out like a light.
She woke up again. She looked at the three phones on the nightstand, each in its own charger. Peter had built it, she was sure. It was 3 am. She had slept nearly 10 hours. Peter was still sleeping.
She got out of bed and set to searching Peter's place. She started with the other bedroom, which had clearly been converted to a work room. Along one wall he had a chemistry set, more modern than Walter's. Another table held his tools; screwdrivers, soldering irons, little tiny things she'd seen him use back in Boston. He had a computer with a huge monitor. Everything looked like it was used frequently and organized and clean. In a box from Markham's Books, she found a number of German novels. It was incongruous. She flipped through one and saw formulas written along the pages. It looked like Walter's handwriting, oddly.
She looked at the address label on the box. Peter was now Peter Bethel. And he'd lived in this apartment for at least 5 weeks. They knew he'd spent one week in various cities in Europe before disappearing completely. He must have moved to Lagos then. And stayed. She looked around his work room and thought it looked not at all mobile. He really intended to stay here.
She went into the living room. It looked like Peter had friends over, maybe to watch TV or hang out. Comfortable couch, two nice chairs, a big TV. There were bookshelves, each only half full of books. It was a random selection. It looked mostly like books Peter had picked up, read, and kept.
There were no pictures anywhere.
She bent down to look at one of the side tables. Peter had shown her a trick he'd pulled at the hotel, making a secret drawer. She felt around, thinking he'd done the same thing here. He had. He had a box, unlocked, that seemed to contain all of the personal items he had. Pictures of his mother. In three of them, he'd clearly carefully cut out Walter. Things she didn't understand the significance of. Two post it notes from Astrid, ones she'd left for Peter back in the lab. A napkin on which Olivia had written "i owe peter bishop one good bottle of wine" she'd signed with her full name. She remembered that night in the bar.
The kitchen was an average kitchen. Better stocked than hers, which wasn't saying a lot. He had three or four types of beer in his refrigerator. Which reinforced her impression he was settling in, making friends, hanging out.
She went back to the bedroom. Peter was still asleep. He hadn't moved. She went into the bathroom. He had three pill bottles, all prescriptions from the US. From the hospital. She already knew about those. There was an electric toothbrush she was afraid to touch. It bore all the marks of a Peter Bishop custom job. Beard trimmer, whitening toothpaste.
She looked through his clothes. It looked like Peter hadn't kept any of his clothes from back in Boston. She thought briefly of one of his shirts, a blue button down she would have kept if he didn't want it. She looked at Peter again. He was only wearing short boxers. She wondered if he normally slept naked. She closed her eyes to enjoy the thought. She opened them and felt ashamed, guilty, confused at herself.
She would have been looking for him even if he hadn't kissed her. But he had kissed her and a part of her wanted him back in her life particularly. She and Walter and Charlie and Astrid dealt with cases, solved some of them, they were able to go on without Peter. They were adjusting. Harris had argued against any resources going to finding Peter. They had never let him know what Peter had said in his letters. But Broyles wouldn't give up on Peter. And he'd somehow forced Nina to use Massive Dynamic's resources to find Peter and not let anyone else near him. So Olivia could find him.
Astrid had said her letter was just about Walter since Peter had correctly anticipated that care of Walter would fall on her. She had never let anyone else read it. Olivia wondered, if she asked, would Peter tell her?
She went back to searching his bedroom. She found his syringes and barbiturates in the very back of his closet. She finished with the bedside table he had his phones on. It was another trick secret drawer. She opened this box carefully. As she expected, he had three guns. a box of ammunition for each one. One of them was loaded, with the safety on. Under the weapons, there was his real passport, his birth certificate (which wasn't his really, she thought), three more passports and a large wad of euros.
She put everything back. She was suddenly exhausted again. She got under the blanket and fell right back asleep.
She woke up with warm weight on her waist. Peter. She moved slightly. He grunted and moved off her. She said, "Good morning."
"Did you search my whole apartment?"
She smiled. He didn't even sound angry about it. Or disappointed. "What's with the german novels?"
"Amongst Walter's most prized possessions. From his father. I sold them a decade or so to Markham and then bought them back once I got here. Maybe someday he'll go looking for them."
"And you won't give them to him," she said.
"I think I'll decide if he asks me," Peter said.
She got out of bed and went into the bathroom. Peter called from the bedroom, "I'm making breakfast for us."
x
When Olivia came out from the bedroom, looking quite pretty in her t-shirt and tight jeans, he was poking around on her laptop. She said, "Are you looking for information on Walter?"
Peter said, "It's a character flaw that I still give a damn about him. One I am working on correcting."
"He loves you," Olivia said. Again.
"I don't care," Peter said. "I do care, clearly, but what I mean is, it doesn't make a difference. Nothing outweighs what he's done to me. Literally, my life is a lie, a lie Walter orchestrated and enforced. Please stop trying to convince me I should forgive him or work with him or whatever you're envisioning." He went to the kitchen and put breakfast on two plates.
"I'm not," she said. He emptied today's medication into his water, just like Walter used to. He drank it down. She watched him closely. Then she started eating placidly.
They ate almost companionably. She said, "What are you doing for money?"
Peter said, "I don't do cons anymore, Olivia. Nothing like being the victim of one for 23 years to lose your flavor for it."
"Peter," she said.
"I fix things and customize things. Gadgets and phones. Turns out you can get paid pretty well for that, without breaking the law or anything."
She said, "That's good." She got up and poured herself a cup of coffee. She said, "Walter really does miss you."
He would not be that guy who brought up her past to make her see his point. Would not. But was very tempted to be. He finally said, "Just, how about this, Olivia. You tell me what level of abuse and harm and suffering Walter has to be guilty of to cancel out who he is now to you. How bad does it have to be before you stop thinking I should forgive him?"
She stared at him for a long few minutes. Then she put down her mug of coffee. "You're right," she said. "You are. I must sound like my mother. She always thought I was just too angry at my stepfather. I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted," he said, smiling. "Now, you are completely on vacation, no missions to bring home wayward sons, let me show you this fantastic city."
After he got dressed, he took her out to walk around. She was surprisingly talkative. She told him about how Astrid was, how Sanford Harris had argued against tracking Peter down and then disappeared shortly after they had connected him to whomever was activating the other cortexiphan kids. She looked beautiful. He kept looking at her, blown away by her smile, the sun in her hair.
They had lunch, they had dinner. He took her to a bar he liked. In the bar, she looked up at him, pressed against him by the crowd and he looked down and she kissed him. He had to stop for a split second and he saw a question in her eyes. He said, "Brain damage." They kissed for a nice long time.
She said, "What do you mean, brain damage?"
"I remember everything. Everything that triggers memories, triggers every single one of them and I remember everything. I know I keep saying that, but literally, nearly everything from age 2 to yesterday and it's not distant, it's vivid and overwhelming. So I get headaches and I can't do anything," he said.
"So seeing me made you have a bad day?" She frowned. "Your memories."
"I hadn't seen you in two months. Every single time ever since I met you, spent time with you, and even after, it's just too much and I can't sleep because everything is happening," he said. "I can go on about this, you're really the first person I've told."
"Otherwise you just record it all and experiments on yourself, right?"
He smiled at her. "I am my father's son. As much as it pains me."
"So you treat it with drugs and smoking?"
"Basically," he said. "Hopefully, the more we kiss the less the bad things happen."
"Is that true, or are you just hitting on me?"
"I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive," he said. He held her waist and kissed her again. He didn't need to stop.
They necked like teenagers for the whole walk home. At his door, he said, "Tomorrow we should go swimming."
"I didn't bring a suit," she said.
"I'll buy you one," he said, kissing her again, his hand already up her shirt. "Something in very bright colors."
"That's one way we could go," she said, as he pushed the door open without letting her go.
"Were you implying we should go skinny dipping?"
"Yes," she said. She pulled away from him and took off her shirt. "But you really want me to wear a swimsuit, so I guess we can go with that."
"I am not smart at all," he said.
She undressed quickly and lay back on his bed, smiling. He went to the bathroom and came back with condoms which he tossed on the bed. He undressed slowly.
Olivia looked at him with something like pity in her eyes which was not arousing in the slightest. She said, "Is this the first time you've had sex since?"
"I haven't actually had it yet," he said. He laid down next to her. "But yes. Maybe we could stop talking now." He kissed her and pulled her flush to him.
Her warm skin against his triggered another rush. This fucking irritating life. Olivia kept moving against him even when he stopped. He started again because this was Olivia and what he wanted, had wanted since she'd confessed she'd lied about the secret file on him. She wanted him, more fool her. This was good. It was good. The sex was good.
Olivia said, "I think that was better for me than for you. We should do it a lot more so that evens out."
"Hopefully not to the point where neither of us is enjoying it," he said. "And it was good for me, too."
"You look like you have a headache," Olivia said.
"Isn't that usually a line to avoid coitus, rather than an observation post-coitus?"
She kissed him. It was much better than good and all the way to fantastic.
Like the kissing, the sex was better the second time, in the morning, and even better the third time, after they had breakfast in the morning. At some point he convinced her to put some clothes on by telling her of all the restaurants they hadn't been to yet.
"Do you want to talk about the brain damage?" She touched his hand across the table. "You said you hadn't talked to anyone."
"No, I do not. Not at all. I'd like to avoid seeing that look in your eyes again," he said. "Let's talk about you, that's fun."
She stared him down and then said, "Let's talk about Lagos."
She stayed ten days. "I know you have more vacation," he said.
"I have to go back," she said.
"Because they can't go on without you," Peter said. "I used to think that about myself."
"You weren't wrong," Olivia said. "We've accommodated, but that doesn't mean we're doing as well as we could be."
"It's not my problem," he said. He meant it. "If you stayed, I would happily support you until you got a job. Which you do many different jobs, you know."
"Once I got a job, you'd cut me off," she said.
"I want a sugar mama, what can I say?"
He was standing with her outside his apartment, waiting for her cab. She said, "Would you shave off the beard for me?"
"You would stay for that?"
"No, but I would think about it really hard," she said. The cab came, she kissed him goodbye, and he watched the car speed off. She called him, when she landed in New York. She said, "I just wanted to check on the beard again."