Like to Get to Know You Well
Fandom: Fringe
Pairing: Alternate Lincoln Lee/Alternate Nick Lane
Rating: T for this chapter
Summary: Life goes on for Captain Lincoln Lee after the Bridge closes.
Notes: A semi-sequel to "Life in One Day." Picks up post-revised 4x17 "Everything in its Right Place." Generally canon except that alt!Lincoln lives.
Confession: In my story notes for "Life in One Day" I originally wrote:
(Oh! Oh! And to follow through, in 4x20 "Worlds Apart" Lee meets adorkably preppy alt!Nick Lane and they renew their acquaintance and fall in love and live happily ever after. Dammit, someone write that.)
—and by the time I posted "Life," I had over 9k of it. *sigh*
Thanks to JB McDragon for first look!
Getting shot really sucked. Missing out on critical developments while his arm regenerated the tissue damage sucked even worse.
Lincoln had still been out of action while Liv and the other Lincoln—and the other Walter Bishop—investigated the latest case involving Jones. Along the way, they found the mole who'd disrupted their investigations for months: Colonel Broyles.
If Liv hadn't seen the colonel's betrayal for herself, Lincoln never would have believed it.
In the wake of that revelation, Fringe Division was in shambles. Lincoln found himself pressed into service as the transitory chief, although there was no illusion on any side that he'd be permanently tapped for the position. He was still too young, too green on the bureaucracy side of things...and despite his temporary post, a whiff of suspicion remained around him and Liv (and Charlie, for that matter, down at the Academy) for having been so close to the colonel. As close as anyone was outside Broyles' family, at any rate.
But Phillip Broyles—his military rank stripped from him—swore that he'd worked alone, and every polygraph and shrink's evaluation to that effect confirmed it. Even the high brass seemed to be coming around to the fact that he'd acted out of purely personal reasons, rather than any ideological or apocalyptic belief.
Broyles betrayed everything he ever worked for in an effort to save his son. The most human reason, and maybe the easiest to understand.
Lincoln hadn't processed it all himself, honestly. He peeled Liv away from his double long enough for them to have a few short, unsettled conversations about the whole mess, but neither of them reached any kind of satisfying conclusion. He wasn't sure they ever would.
At the same time, his alternate—that buttoned-up, suit-and-glasses-wearing, specter-from-another-time shade of himself—was still hanging around. Agent Lee claimed it was because he was intent on finding Jones, who'd killed his FBI partner and as a direct consequence pulled him into his side's Fringe Division. It was a viable excuse, a reasonable one even, and having a permanent liaison from the other side who could speak for that world didn't hurt either. But Lincoln saw the way Agent Lee looked at his partner, and she was looking right back.
He'd say "no accounting for taste" if that wouldn't be insulting himself, so instead Lincoln settled for being more-than-slightly bemused by the situation. He hadn't lied to the other Astrid: he really would have fallen for Liv if he'd been at all inclined in her direction orientation-wise. Lincoln was half in love with her regardless. So it really wasn't a surprise that his double mirrored those feelings. The fact that Lee was more apt to act on them still seemed a little bizarre, but Lincoln was inclined to chalk that up to the differences between the worlds and not obsess about the fact that his mirror image liked women.
And he could take it as a kind of flattery that Liv clearly reveled in the attention, even encouraging it. Part of him was glad; she'd taken the breakup with Frank hard. If she was going to fall for a Lincoln Lee, it only made sense that she'd go for one more likely to return her interest.
Didn't change the fact that watching them together, heads bent over a shared computer screen, severely weirded him out.
He didn't have a lot of time to dwell on it, though. His new (albeit temporary) job had him running from sun-up to sun-down, and sometimes half the night. The search for Jones was on in full force, and they were still chasing down the remaining shapeshifters.
And then the other side's Walter Bishop called a summit, claiming he'd figured out Jones' plan. It sounded insane to Lincoln—trying to collapse both universes to create a new one?—but Secretary Bishop seemed to think his double was on to something.
It all became a little easier to believe after the earthquakes started.
Suddenly they were scrambling even more frantically to find any trace of Jones in either universe, while all the distress calls overloaded the emergency services. Natural phenomena technically didn't fall under Fringe Division's jurisdiction, but if their suspicions were true, these earthquakes were anything but natural. Lincoln lent out as many of his agents as he could and instructed the other division heads to do the same. The decline in the number of Fringe events gave them that a little bit of latitude, if nothing else.
The last thing, the very last thing, that Lincoln Lee expected was to fall in love in the middle of the crisis. Given the uncertainties of his life, he probably shouldn't have been surprised.
Those agents remaining in the slightly understaffed command hub of Fringe Division were all very clear on their instructions: all queries intended for Lincoln Lee were to be routed to the longstanding member of the division, not the interloper agent wearing his face. But as interim head, Lincoln really was too busy to be interrupted with trivial requests. The staff was practiced at running interference with well-meaning but uninformed civilians, legacy of Broyles' leadership. So anything that hit Lincoln's (borrowed) desk or anyone who crossed the threshold of his (temporary) office was by definition significant.
Someone had evidently successfully passed the gauntlet. His (interim) assistant stuck her head around the doorframe. "Captain Lee? You have a visitor."
"Thanks, Marie," he said absently, looking up—
"Lincoln?" The man in the sweater vest looked around nervously. "Captain Lee, I mean. Uh, hi. Nick Lane."
Lincoln half-rose from the chair, thinking that something about the man's face seemed familiar. He automatically catalogued details: tall, blond, cute in an understated way, anxious. That last probably had more to do with his surroundings than anything else.
"I don't know if you remember me, but we grew up in the same neighborhood in Philly," Nick continued, looking into Lincoln's face for any sign of recognition. "You went out with my sister—"
"Kendra," Lincoln finished with him. "Wow, yeah, that was a different time. Right! Good to see you again." He reached out to shake and Nick's hand met his, firm and warm. "So what brings you to Fringe Division?"
Nothing good, he knew. Civilians didn't visit the facility unless they'd been part of an event, or witnessed one.
"I'm really sorry to ambush you like this, but...I really didn't want to call the hotline and you're the only person I know who's an actual Fringe Division agent." Nick looked agitated and clearly troubled so yeah, nothing good. Lincoln held his tongue and let Nick speak his mind. "I had a vision."
Nick's face was full of anxiety, probably half-expecting to be met with disbelief. Lincoln had been doing this job too long to dismiss him out of hand. "A vision?" he repeated, waving Nick to a chair.
Nick sat, nodding, his words coming faster now. "I— I saw the earthquake. I was standing right in the middle of it. The thing is, when this happened, I wasn't even aware there was an earthquake. I hadn't turned on the news yet." His eyebrows drew together in confusion, as if he was just realizing what he was saying. "How is that possible?"
"I don't know," Lincoln said softly, which probably wasn't what Nick wanted to hear. "But we'll figure it out, okay?"
"Okay." Nick slumped back in the chair, looking at least a little less on edge. The relief of confession, Lincoln knew, and the promise of help went a long way. "It's, uh. Good to see you, too. Despite current circumstances."
"Definitely." Lincoln went over to the sideboard. "How do you like your tea? And what are you doing now?"
"One sugar, thanks. And, uh...kind of related to your work, actually." Nick blanched in embarrassment when Lincoln glanced his way. "I shouldn't have said that. I used to work as an advocate for an Amber victims' rights group, but now I've moved over to helping the people who're being pulled out of the recovery zones. Their lives are a mess, most of them were declared dead—" he stopped, wincing again. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."
"It's fine." Lincoln managed a genuine smile as he passed Nick his tea. "We don't have the resources to keep up with the post-recovery operations. I'm glad you're part of the solution."
"I understand why the Amber had to happen," Nick said earnestly. "It's not like there was any other choice."
Lincoln nodded, a little surprised. Most civilians cheered Fringe Division when their lives were in the process of being saved, but had a colder view when their homes and pets and sometimes their loved ones had been caught in Amber. But that discussion could wait for another time. "Can you tell me anything more about your vision? Anything in the area, the people around you, that kind of thing?"
Nick stared at him for a moment, then took a careful sip of tea. "I... You're really taking this seriously."
"Yep." Lincoln pulled up a virtual map of Manhatan and centered it on the location of the 'quake. "You did mean the earthquake here in the city, right?"
"Uh, yeah." Nick got up, clutching his mug in both hands, and came over to look at the map on the screen. "Right, that's the spot. I was standing right there." His finger hovered over the screen at the epicenter of the earthquake. "There were people yelling, running, but I was just standing still. I remember..." he swallowed nervously. "There were some billboards, the old paper kind, not digital. And Lincoln, I couldn't see the Twin Towers. I kept thinking they should be there, all the other buildings were where they were supposed to be, but there was just...nothing."
Lincoln tried for his best stoic Fringe team lead expression but Nick caught him out, staring at his face in growing alarm. "That means something. You— you know what this is."
"I'm not sure. But I think I know what you saw." Lincoln put his hand on Nick's shoulder, trying to offer reassurance. He wouldn't have taken the liberty with a stranger, but he and Nick were old friends. Sort of. "Listen, I need to consult with a couple of people, and then there's going to be a mess of nondisclosure documents for you to thumbprint, and then I get to tell you a story. You're probably not going to believe half of it, but—"
"What's happening to me," Nick whispered, and Lincoln took the mug before it fell out of Nick's trembling hand. Dammit, he was usually more on the ball than this.
"It's okay. It's okay, Nick. We'll figure it out," Lincoln said firmly, doing his best to sound like he meant it. He took Nick's hand, squeezing slightly. "I know you're scared. We'll do our best to keep you safe. I promise."
Fringe agents never made promises, because too often they couldn't be kept. But he would damn well do everything in his power to make this one stick.
Nick squeezed back, his fingers tightening convulsively around Lincoln's. "I couldn't— I couldn't talk about this with someone I didn't know. I'm glad you're here."
"Me too," Lincoln said, and looked over as someone cleared her throat in the doorway. Liv was standing there, almost at attention but smirking slightly at seeing him holding hands with a stranger.
"Sorry to interrupt, Captain. I can come back."
"No, I was just about to call you." Lincoln gave Nick's hand a final squeeze. "Nick, this is Olivia Dunham, one of our best agents. Liv, my old friend Nick Lane had an experience related to the earthquakes, I think it might be a lead. I'm gonna expedite some need-to-know authorizations and then we'll need to bring him up to speed. But first I need to confer with our friends across the Bridge."
"George Washington or Brooklyn?" Nick asked faintly, still sounding dazed.
"Little farther than that," Liv said, swinging into the room to take Nick's arm. "So, old friend of Lincoln's, huh? Any embarrassing stories you can share?"
Nick smiled, wavery but there, and Lincoln waved them on. "Go ahead. The calls shouldn't take long, and then we can start sorting this out." He waited until they'd gone, Liv smartly steering Nick away from where Agent Lee sat in the main room, and then summoned his double up to the office. "Listen, I need you to go over to the Bridge and talk to your people."
Lee listened intently as Lincoln explained. "So you think this guy—Lane—he saw my side in his vision?"
"Yeah. I don't know how, he's not a psychic or anything. But maybe your Dr. Bishop will have a theory."
"Sure. It's something new to look into, anyway. We weren't getting any further with the data at hand." Lee headed off while Lincoln stared after him, bemused. He'd said "we" without a moment's hesitation.
"Someone's making himself at home," he muttered under his breath, and then called for Marie to start downloading the nondisclosure forms that would allow him to tell Nick about the alternate universe.
The easiest method, and the most expedient, included introducing Nick to Agent Lee.
"He's you," Nick said, looking between them in amazement. They'd told him the basics, but seeing was an entirely different matter.
"Not really," Lincoln and Lee said together, and Lincoln laughed and shrugged. "Okay, maybe a little."
"Wow." Nick cocked his head to the side, studying the other Lincoln. "Frankly, you're more like I remember."
"It's the glasses," Lincoln said, unaccountably annoyed. "I got my vision corrected when I went to the Academy."
Agent Lee was squinting through those aforementioned glasses. "I...vaguely remember a Nick Lane over on my side. His sister was really pretty. But I never talked to him much."
"From the report we got from your colleagues, he was probably—" Lincoln checked his next words and reconsidered his approach. "Nick, we have some information about your alternate. It might be difficult to hear, but I think you should know."
He quickly outlined the other Nick Lane's history: the experimental drug trial, the suicide attempt, the record of mental instability and hospital stays. "It looks like Jones recruited him, gave him a purpose." He paused, then added, "Dr. Bishop thinks that you were seeing through his eyes during the earthquake."
"So that's why the Towers were missing," Nick said slowly. "And you think he had something to do with the earthquake? Caused it somehow, because of those experiments?"
"That's the working theory," Lee said, not unkindly.
"Okay. So...why are you telling me this?" Nick frowned. "Is here something I can do to help find my...double?"
In retrospect that was probably the moment, right there. But Lincoln was too wrapped in the tension of the situation to recognize it. Agent Lee nodded, saying, "If you're willing, we'd like you to come over to the other side. The Fringe team there has some ideas."
"The chance to see another universe? Are you kidding? Sign me up." Nick grinned, suddenly as eager as a kid at Disney Town. "I didn't watch all that Star Trek for nothing."
Or maybe that was the moment.
Regardless of the circumstances, Lincoln couldn't leave his post for the trip across the Bridge, much as he might've liked to. He trusted Liv implicitly to be his eyes and ears and bring everyone back safely.
"On it, boss," she threw back, teasing, when he voiced his concern. "I'll bring your man home."
"Temporary boss," he shouted after her. And more quietly once she'd gone, "Not my man."
But that didn't stop him from charging Lee with the responsibility, too. "Look after Nick," he told his other self fiercely. "Don't let anything happen to him."
Agent Lee blinked at him, taken aback by his emphasis. Lincoln wondered a little at it, too. But Lee accepted the obligation with all due earnestness. "I won't."
Nick came back safe, despite being dosed with LSD and Cortexiphan. Lincoln would've had a few sharp words with Dr. Bishop about that if the intensifying earthquakes hadn't made every other concern irrelevant.
In the end, despite everyone's best effort, they were forced to close the Bridge to preserve the integrity of both worlds. And Agent Lee chose to stay on this side, to very little surprise on the part of anyone who'd been paying attention.
The earthquakes stopped. The world didn't start falling apart again, even if it didn't get any better. And when Lincoln finally found time to take a breath, he met up with Nick for breakfast at a diner near Fringe Division early on a Friday morning. The new boss Colonel Dahlander was still getting up to speed on all the division's workings and Lincoln was on "how high" call until further notice. The weekend ahead looked to be full of files, bureaucracy, and a lot of gritted-teeth "sirs." But he could steal an hour for breakfast, at least.
It wasn't hard to guess at least part of the reason why Nick wanted to stay in touch. The existence of the other universe was still classified to everyone outside the D.O.D.'s need-to-know radius, barring those brought in for specific circumstances, like Nick. He wouldn't have been able to talk about his experiences with his family or friends, and Lincoln knew from experience how that kind of secrecy could eat at you. Even if he could share the details, most civilians didn't want to hear them. It wasn't by accident that most of Lincoln's close friends worked for or around Fringe Division.
But Nick didn't seem unsettled by Lincoln's job, and he waved cheerfully when Lincoln entered the diner. "Hey! I'm glad you could make it. You sounded stressed when we talked."
"New boss, lots of changes," Lincoln said, taking a seat opposite Nick. "Gonna be a while before things settle back down."
They ordered quickly off the menu. Once the waitress had gone, Nick glanced over with a measure of both curiosity and trepidation. "I read between the lines of the official reports, but...what happened? Can you tell me?"
He'd earned the right to know. "We had to close the Bridge," Lincoln said quietly, unable to keep his voice from reflecting his regret. "We're not sure if it can be reopened." Over an omelet and strong tea he filled in some of the other details, including the fact of the other Lincoln's new residency, self-editing judiciously. But he couldn't keep the frustration out of his voice. To have had those few weeks of seeing the world almost visibly healing, only to have the progress end so suddenly—
Nick looked stricken, staring down at his half-eaten pancakes. "I still feel kind of sick, that my...other self was partly responsible for all this."
"He's not you," Lincoln said firmly, shelving his own disappointments. Even with the two worlds' separation, things were better than they had been. "No one knows that better than me, especially now that I have to look my double in the face every day." And sometime soon figure out how to introduce him to Lincoln's parents, the horror. "You're not responsible for anything he did. In fact, you're the one who helped stop the worst of it. Wish I could give you a medal."
Nick snorted, then looked up. "Maybe we can get dinner sometime instead?"
"Sure," he started, but the way Nick asked made Lincoln wonder. Only one way to find out. "Friend-date, or date-date? 'Cause either is good with me."
"Um, wow." Nick blinked at him. "I thought— Back then, you were interested in my sister—"
"Just a phase," Lincoln assured him. "I got over it by senior year in high school. Over the idea of dating girls, I mean."
"You have changed," Nick said. "A lot more than the glasses. I like it." He grinned. "Okay, date-date. I'd like that. Uh, I do like women too, just so you know."
"I don't discriminate," Lincoln said, laughing. "But I was being serious. You helping to find the other Nick Lane, that was critical. A lot of people would have refused."
"Yeah, well, you didn't see the other side's lab and all the crazy low-rent tech," Nick said dryly. "I'd have run screaming if I knew how to get back from there." He paused. "Also, I think their Dr. Bishop is insane. And his drugs really sucked. Man, I'm glad to be home." He put his hand out across the table and Lincoln took it.
They sat there holding hands until Lincoln's pager went off. "Go," Nick said. "I'll call."
"You better," Lincoln said, sliding out of the booth. He leaned down to brush a kiss across Nick's cheek, just a friendly gesture, but Nick deliberately turned his head and caught Lincoln's mouth instead. The kiss was brief but he could taste the honey Nick had put on his pancakes. Lincoln straightened up, wishing he could tell Dahlander to jump in a lake. (The non-toxic kind. He didn't wish the colonel dead, or anything.) "Damn. Now we really do have to make that date. I need the chance to steal one back."
"You're a smooth operator, Lincoln Lee," Nick said, mocking him with a smirk. "Get to work, you slacker."
Lincoln walked the few blocks over to division, smiling the whole way and reminding himself that Nick had a job too, he wasn't going to be lingering over tea all day and thinking about their unscheduled date. But it seemed like Nick had the same outlook on seizing the moment as Lincoln did, and that boded well. Really, really well.
It took a couple of days for them to sort out their conflicting schedules, but Lincoln and Nick finally met up for Indian food after work on Tuesday evening. After a quick consultation, Lincoln grabbed a reservation at Nirvana on Lexington and 40th. Nick, it turned out, was a vegetarian. Lincoln decided he could put up with that, at least long enough to find out if their commonalities could make up for that shortcoming.
At Lincoln's prompting, Nick told him more about his job. Watching his face light up as he talked about the people he'd met, the victims freed from the Amber to start a new life, was hugely satisfying: both for seeing the pride Nick took in his work, and hearing the stories that he told.
Lincoln had been present at a lot of those sites. He'd probably pushed the remote detonation button on some of them. He'd never spent a lot of time thinking about the people he'd relegated to the Amber, aside from mourning the general necessity and loss of life. Some agents cataloged the losses, especially the ones they'd caused, learning each victim's name and carrying the memories like a hair shirt. Those agents didn't last long, especially not after the recent revelation that the people in Amber hadn't died but were stuck in a kind of stasis instead. Realizing that some of the people he'd unknowingly relegated to a living hell had been released to begin new lives felt like a weight being lifted, one that Lincoln hadn't known he was carrying.
They talked about their lives back in Philadelphia, and the people they'd both known. "Kendra's married, two kids, her husband's a good guy and the kids are total monsters," Nick said. "She laughed when I told her I'd be seeing you."
"You told her...?" Lincoln asked, amused and obliquely delighted. "Little premature?"
"Oh, I don't think so," Nick said, smiling. "I figure we knew each other in two universes, that's gotta mean something. Hey, how's your doppelganger fitting in, anyway?"
Lincoln sighed. "Okay? And not so okay. Things are a lot different here, I don't think he realized how much. He wants to work for Fringe Division but as good as he was on his side, his skills don't directly translate. We've sent him to the Academy for some brush-up courses."
"And you're getting along?" Nick's eyes were penetrating, knowing.
Lincoln raised his hand and made a see-sawing gesture. "It's just weird. I look at him and see a guy I left behind years ago. That's—"
"Unsettling," Nick said. "Yeah." He hesitated for a long moment. "I...didn't get a chance to see my double on the other side, except on a computer screen. I don't think I was even supposed to see that. He kind of looked like— well, comparatively, probably a lot like you look at the other Lincoln. You know, I'm the dorky one where he looked cool."
"For a super-powered terrorist," Lincoln said dismissively. "And I don't think you're dorky." He leaned back, smiling. "But see, I knew I was the cool Lincoln."
Nick rolled his eyes. "Yes, true, but that was your cue to tell me how I wasn't a dork. Like, 'maybe if you weren't wearing a sweater vest.' Or something, you know, actually cool."
Lincoln broke up laughing because first, that sounded totally like Liv, who was always busting his chops about his ego; and second, Nick was utterly adorable when he was being flirty. Nick grinned at him across the table and added, "It's useful for my work, looking harmless and helpful. Sort of the opposite of your, uh, thigh holster."
"Liv calls it—" Lincoln said without thinking, and paused. "Uh."
"What?"
"My, ah. 'Fuck-me personal ad.'"
"Well," Nick said, "she's not wrong."
They stared at each other for a long moment before Lincoln said hoarsely, "This is how you know it's all a façade. Because if I was really that cool, I'd've already said something awesome to sweep you off your feet."
Nick shook his head, blushing faintly. "You were plenty cool when you kept me from freaking out about that vision. You don't have to work that hard."
Lincoln cleared his throat. "Yeah, well, I thought the guy who volunteered to go to another universe and help find his crazy double was pretty terrific. Plus, there was a Star Trek reference. Automatic geek points."
"And geek is better than dork?" Nick asked, laughing.
"I should know. Made a career of it." Lincoln nodded to the waitress and signaled to have the bill sent to his account before Nick could protest. "Ready to go?"
"Yeah." Nick was smiling to himself as they left the restaurant.
Lincoln bumped him with his shoulder as they walked. "Share?"
"Oh, just— I'm really, really glad we met again. Even if it almost took the world ending to make that happen."
"Nick," Lincoln said, and when Nick turned to face him, he put his hand on the other man's shoulder to draw him down. Nick was tall, but not so tall that Lincoln had to crane his neck for a kiss. Nick tasted like cardamom and cumin and the mango lassi he'd drank, and if those flavors were henceforth associated with the feel of Nick's mouth against his, Lincoln felt he'd already benefited from their brief association.
When they parted, Nick's face was full of satisfaction. "Chemistry," he said softly, "yay."
Lincoln grinned. "I was thinking the same thing." He took Nick's hand and held it while they walked the short distance toward Grand Central Station.
Nick looked at him sideways as they approached the station. "Look, I'm no good at playing coy. I'd totally go home with you tonight or invite you to my place—"
Lincoln nodded, perfectly in accord with either of those suggestions, already anticipating the impending "but."
"Except—damn, this sounds like an excuse. I have a giant meeting in the morning. Did you hear—" Nick started, and then laughed. "Of course you did. But my office got really excited about the mayor's proposal that the recovery teams start working on Madison Square Garden."
"I heard," Lincoln said flatly, but didn't continue.
Nick glanced at him, curious. "Not exciting?"
"Well..." Lincoln sighed, wishing he could obfuscate. "That was a really nasty wormhole. And there's no guarantee that it stabilized naturally like some of the smaller ones. The lookers just don't have enough data to make an accurate projection. It's— I'm sorry, Nick, I don't want to spoil the mood."
"No, go on, tell me," Nick said, pulling them out of the flow of sidewalk traffic to sit on a low concrete rise.
"It's one of those areas," Lincoln said, feeling his face go tight, "where public safety and political ambition don't mix. Everyone wants to break open the Amber there because it's such a public spectacle, a huge eyesore that just reminds everyone of what we've lost, and reclaiming it would be a huge victory. I don't disagree, but I'm not convinced it's safe. Yet," he added hastily. "The thing is, the smaller anomalies were the first to be 'healed' by the existence of the Bridge. The bigger ones, especially those trapped deep in stasis...we just don't know."
Nick was staring at him. "That," he said, "is a much clearer explanation than anything we've heard. Some of my co-workers thought Fringe Division was just being obstinate. Why didn't your office—" he stopped, realization dawning. "Oh."
"Yeah," Lincoln said. "Who wants to be the ones pissing on everyone's parade? We thought it'd be better to work a pattern that went around the major sites until we can figure out the safest way to approach them."
"Damn. And I guess I probably shouldn't reveal that, either." Nick chewed on his lip. Lincoln wanted to lean over and do that for him, but it wasn't the time. "That's gonna make the meeting awkward."
Lincoln would have thrown up his hands, but Nick was still holding on to one of them. "This is why they don't send me to do PR work, and why I was never gonna keep that top office. Can't keep a secret. I'm sorry."
Nick cocked his head, regarding Lincoln seriously. "Fortunately for you, I'm pretty good at keeping my mouth shut. When warranted. And from what you're saying, that proposal was never going to happen anyway, if it didn't have Fringe Division sanction. Which means that the mayor was just fishing for a bump in his job approval ratings and getting everyone all excited for no reason." Nick looked genuinely angry now, but at least it wasn't aimed at him.
Still, Lincoln had managed to put a damper on the evening, and he needed to try to fix it. "For your meeting, you can pull up Fringe Division's official schedule of sites on the recovery list, that's a matter of public record. The mayor has no authority to declare what zones come next and he knows it."
Nick sighed. "I guess we do, too. Everyone was just so excited by the idea."
"I know." Lincoln looked down at their joined hands, now a little sweaty. "Uh, I liked what you were saying before I so rudely interrupted with reality."
"Oh, yeah. Very smooth." Nick was smiling again, and Lincoln counted that as a win. "We should try this again, huh? With less politics and more—"
Lincoln knew a cue when he heard one. He leaned over to stop Nick's mouth with a kiss: more serious this time, with real intent.
"—flirting," Nick gasped when they came up for air. "I was going to say 'flirting.' But your suggestion is good too."
"You're gonna miss your train," Lincoln said, straight-faced, as if he wasn't sorely tempted to convince Nick to miss it, and his morning appointment too.
Nick swore and scrambled to his feet. "Next time. Count on it, Lincoln Lee."
He bolted down the station stairs while Lincoln watched him go, grinning. He liked Nick's idealism, and his pragmatic side too. He liked the honesty and Nick's openness. He liked, frankly, watching Nick's ass move even in those off-the-rack dress pants. He liked the way Nick said his name.
After a minute he got up and took the subway back to Fringe Division. He needed to finish a couple of things for Dahlander before his day really ended. But he'd be thinking about Nick the whole time.
The next morning started, not unpredictably, with Liv's inspection. "How was your date? No, don't tell me," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "It went well, but you didn't get laid, because you're not wearing your stupid 'I got some' grin."
"If you already know, why'd you ask?" Lincoln reached past her to grab some sweetener for his tea, realizing even as he did so that he'd gone for the honey rather than the sugar because the taste would remind him of Nick. "I like him, though. A lot."
"Awww." Olivia smiled, seemingly genuinely pleased. "Really, that's great. It's been a while since you were interested in seeing someone for more than—you know. A night or two."
He knew better than anyone. Lincoln's reputation around the division was exaggerated, but not by much. Most of his colleagues who weren't in long-term relationships felt the same: why sleep alone when the next Fringe call might be the last? Or as Jim at the Boston bureau used to put it, morals were for people with a life expectancy. At least that's what Jim said before he got turned inside-out by a gravity inversion, proving the point by gruesome example. "Speaking of being interested—how's it going with my alter-nerd?"
"You should be nicer to him. He gave up a lot to come here, more than just coffee." Liv did that lip-twitch thing she did when she got uncomfortable and looked down. "And I know what you think, but it's not just about me. He really wants to help our world."
Lincoln bit back his first reply, and his second. "Yeah, I know. I guess we're not that different where it counts." He spotted Dahlander coming in through the command center doors. "Another day of hand-holding, not the fun kind. But hey, Liv?" He grinned when she glanced up. "You ever get to the point where you're screaming my name in a fit of passion, make sure not to tell me."
"You couldn't handle me," Liv shot back without missing a beat. And that was exceedingly true on several levels, so Lincoln just snickered and headed up to greet the new boss.
Around lunchtime he got a ping on his cuff, smiling when it announced the caller. Lincoln touched the 'wait' button, signaling to the person on the line that he was busy but would answer in a moment, and went to find a quiet spot.
He ducked into one of the unoccupied conference rooms. "Nick, hey! How'd your meeting go?"
"Better than I thought," Nick said, his voice echoing like he was standing in a restroom. "I, uh, pointed out that all the excitement was premature if Fringe Division hadn't approved the site for reopening. I hope that's okay."
Lincoln nodded to the empty room. "Perfect. I put in a word with my boss, too. The PR department needs to get some better messaging out fast."
"Great. That's awesome. I just hate to see people disappointed, you know?" Nick paused. "But hey, I didn't know you were a soccer star, too."
"Only if 'star' means 'decent player in a tiny league,'" Lincoln said, amused. He was the central midfielder, Liv was the lead striker. But Nick had evidently gone home and looked him up on the public databases, which was...pretty cute, really.
"Well, the other teams sound pretty scared of you. Actually, they sound even more scared of Agent Dunham."
"That's appropriate," Lincoln said, laughing. "She's terrifying. But, uh, we have a game this weekend, if you wanna—"
"Yeah! I was going to ask if I could come." Lincoln heard the faint sound of a door opening and other people's voices. Not unexpectedly, Nick said, "I gotta go. Call me later, okay?"
Lincoln agreed that he would and tapped off to end the call. He headed back to the command center, thankful that the screens signaling Fringe activity were still quiet. He passed by Liv on the way to his desk and said, "Nick's gonna come watch our match this Saturday. Try to make me look good, wouldya?"
Liv glanced at him sidelong. "This is where I'm supposed to say 'but Lincoln, you always look good,' right?"
"It's the truth, isn't it?" he said, and ducked her swatting hand.
This is part one of a multichapter fic, some of the rest of which does not obey this site's publication limits. For the rest of the fic, please visit AO3! (Link on profile.)