Ed. Note: As usual, everything except for Emily McManus (and Grace, her sister) and Robert Delevan is owned by the happy Bad Robot people. I reserve all rights to Emily McManus and all her happy iterations. For the record, I wrote the original Braincamp thing back in 1996 or so. I just mapped it, rather conveniently, onto the Fringe universe. I must say, it really does converge rather nicely
"Agent Dunham?"
Olivia looks up from the desk in the Lab space to see a small blonde woman looking at her. "Can I help you with something?"
The woman enters the room, closes the door behind her. "I'm not sure. You see, I'm—"
"Hey, Liv?" Peter opens the door abruptly.
The blonde woman looks to the door at the sound. Incredulity seeps into her blood. "Peter?"
Peter's face morphs as long-repressed memories surface. "Emily? Emily McManus? Or is it Grace?"
He finds himself swept into a long, breath-winding hug. "It's Emily. Grace is… well, she's busy on the west coast right now." She peers up into Peter's face, steps back to behold him. "I was told you were dead."
This causes Peter to laugh. "Nope. Very much alive." He, too, surveys Emily with interest. "I haven't seen you in… it's been over 25 years, hasn't it? 1983… I was only 6 when we went to that camp together." He looks over and sees the passivity on Olivia's face. "Sorry. Have you been introduced? Emily, this is Olivia Dunham, Agent with the FBI. Olivia, this is Emily McManus. She and I went to a special camp for brainiacs back in the day."
Emily reaches around Peter for a shake. "Actually, it's Agent McManus now." She and Olivia shake, looking up at Peter's face. "Sorry. I have a problem and I need your father's help." She looks at Olivia. "This involves you too, Agent Dunham."
Emily takes a deep breath as she heads into the Lab proper. Peter's alive. And I am going to have to speak with my own personal Dr. Frankenstein. She looks over at Astrid Farnsworth, the very able and likable Agent assigned to help with these cases. If Agent Farnsworth knew half of what I know, would she be able to even be in the same room with him? Would anyone?
Before she even enters the room, she feels the contradiction beginning in her mind. The child-like mind inside the genius—or is it the other way around? She looks over at Walter Bishop, sitting contentedly eating what appears to be the remnants of a Banana Split, ice cream still decorating his upper lip. The man who gave me my life… hard to say what I should do to him
"Walter?" Olivia's voice cuts through Emily's thoughts. He reflexively smiles up at her. "Walter, this woman here says she has to speak with you about something called Operation Braincamp."
Walter's eyes fix upon Emily, and the smile does indeed fade, replaced with a gamut of emotions, from remorse to fear to… "You went to Braincamp with my son. You are one of the McManus twins."
"Emily," she acknowledges, nodding.
"You survived the cure, then." Walter says this as if this is not completely incongruous. "I was hopeful. You both had such a unique endocrine system. I was very hopeful," he repeats.
Emily sighs, nods again. "We need to talk about that time, Dr. Bishop. They are mounting Braincamp again, and you have to stop them."
Walter looks to Olivia. "I'm going to need something very good to eat. Roast Beef dinner would be nice."
