OMG OMG OMG! Last night's episode was so deliciously twisted, creepy, and angsty and so sweet all at once. That was a classic Fringe episode it was. Now I've had this flashback plotbunny of Peter and Olivia meeting each other as kids dating as far back as the episode "Ability". Last night's episode finally got me to take it off the shelf. I guess the ending was what got this plotbunny rollin' into an actual story. Here you go!
Disclaimer: I don't own Fringe. I wish I could be a writer for the show though.
Warnings: You might want to watch the awesomeness that is "Bad Dreams" first, but it's not 100% necessary. Just watch it anyway! :)
The other children were successful in their final testing, but she had become the problem child. It wasn't because the Cortexiphan wasn't working on her…far from it.
If anything, the drug was working too much on Olive.
It was too bad neither William nor Walter could see the problem beforehand. Otherwise, incidents such as the now completely scorched cell could've been avoided.
They erased her mind of the incident, and she suddenly found herself sleeping in a new cell, one that was fireproof and had duller colors. But she was still alone and isolated, and despite how tamed she was, Olive was still very sad all the time. All the other test subjects were gone and moved on with their lives. Nicholas, the closest person Olive ever had to a friend, was already released and returned to his family while she was still stuck here, surrounded by things that made her not only depressed but unexplainably frustrated and angry…like the color yellow. All they needed was another trigger, to make everything fall apart and make any progress with Olive to come to a screeching halt.
That was the last thing Walter wanted, but William firmly believed that they didn't have any other choice. There was no telling how much longer they could stall the child's father with the excuse that she just wasn't ready. It was a threat to both their studies (and the outside world) to let her go in such an emotionally premature state.
The two men continued arguing for days how to speed up her progress. William was more demanding about quicker results, even if it meant being aggressive. Walter was far more realistic. Olive needed time for her emotional state to be balanced. They needed a way to make her feel happy here despite the absence of other kids. Perhaps Walter, being a father himself, showed a little too much compassion and knowledge towards his subjects, but William would merely accuse him of being his naïve old self.
William put his foot down. They would have to take the risk of any new triggers knowing it would be dangerous for all of them, mostly Olive. Because if there was the slightest chance of any successful result, William had always been known to take it.
More tests were due to begin tomorrow, after William would complete his business trip.
In the meantime, Walter was left in charge of her in the lab during the day. He looked at his watch. It was around 4:00 in the afternoon. His wife was expecting him to call it a day and be home for dinner in half an hour's time.
But he hated the thought, even just the idea, of leaving Olive here, alone for one night. Sure there would be security guards patrolling on night watch, but if things went wrong, William sure wouldn't be here to keep an eye on things. Besides, the man certainly wasn't skilled in dealing with kids like Walter was.
The children weren't allowed to leave the lab, period. Walter knew this. He knew the risks. But he couldn't help but think that maybe this was what Olive needed more than anything right now: a change of place, some fresh air, and maybe a few new faces to be around.
William would be in New York till the evening at the very least. That would give Walter plenty of time to put his plan to work.
He cautiously approached the girl in her cell. She was sitting on the bed, stroking the fur on the teddy bear that suffered some damage in the cell fire she caused.
"Afternoon, Olive."
As friendly as Walter was, Olive never seemed to put on a smile or make the slightest acknowledgement of other people…not even for him.
"Olive?"
She took one glance at Walter's direction and came face to face with those lights. They always put those lights on her and she hated it. They made her dizzy half the time. The frustration of the lights, however, was very brief and instantly she was just sitting there looking confused as Walter touched her face.
"Very good. Now, how would you like to spend a few hours outside of this murky fish tank? I told my wife I'm bringing a friend home for dinner tonight. What do you say?"
Of course she didn't respond but Walter still took her hand anyway and led her out her cell. Security was completely oblivious to them, even as they got all the way out into the parking lot to Walter's car.
It had to have been months since Olive got to see the outside world. She knew though, that this car ride wasn't to finally take her away from that dreadful place. Walter seemed like a nice being after all, but he was still someone that she couldn't completely trust. Plus his awkward mutterings during the car ride made him more creepy and unstable in her eyes.
**
As she walked with Walter to the front door of the house, every inch of her body was screaming to make a run for it now that she had an open opportunity to do so. No way in hell was she going to go back to the lab. If anything, leaving the lab and coming to this house could've been part of a nasty trick.
Her thoughts became sidetracked as Walter opened the door. A puppy's barking caused her to squirm and made her hesitant to follow Walter into the house. And then, a small chubby-faced brunette boy came running towards Walter. From where Olive could see, the boy suddenly stopped and was in some sort of trance. She thought so for a second anyway.
The puppy then zoomed past the boys and began jumping at Olive's feet. The frustration in her head was building up. She didn't want to cause another trigger, not here.
"Rufus! Calm yourself!" Walter barked.
"Rufus is crazy, daddy," said the boy. "He craps in front of strangers."
"Petey! That is no way to talk when a young lady is present!" Walter's yelling since arriving at the house did not calm Olive's nerves anymore than the puppy's erratic behavior did. "Now then, this is Olive, she will be joining us for dinner and I expect you to be on your best behavior."
They entered the living and Olive saw another person standing there looking at her in both fear and confusion. She had to be the mother of the house.
"Stay in the living room and get acquainted, kids," said Walter as he followed his wife into the kitchen. He knew his wife would not be happy to know that the guest he brought was a child from his own lab.
"Is that who I think it is, Walter? You brought one of your…test subjects here? What on earth has gotten into you?"
"Oh you worry too much, woman," Walter spat at her. "She's very well behaved. The change of setting could do her some real good. Might help finish the testing and then I can rejoin you and the boy back in Boston."
"And if William were to find out you…"
"He will not. Clearly the man and I have been having our disputes over the matter and I am taking the risk to prove to him how wrong he is. We just have to make a few adjustments in here, though."
She crossed her arms with great suspicion. "What adjustments?"
"Well, I wouldn't serve corn for dinner if I were you. And I would get rid of those nasty curtains. Too yellow. Far too yellow. It would drive the poor girl insane."
His wife would most certainly make the adjustments but she thought his requests, no matter what they were, were just insane in their own right.
The two children remained awkward and anti-social toward each other until it was time for dinner. Much to the surprise of Walter's wife, Olive seemed to behave normally as she was quietly eating her meal.
"You kids are awfully quiet," Walter said with agitation. "It disturbs me. Olive, do you like my wife's chicken? It taste better without the ghastly butterscotch glaze she puts on here wouldn't it? I'm grown more fond of that protein glop you kids get for dinner every…"
"Walter!"
He turned to his quite angry wife without much remorse. "Oh I'm just kidding, dear. It's good chicken…occasionally good chicken. You know, this unusual silence has just gone on for long enough. Son, why don't you take Olive outside to play for now?"
"Aw, daddy! Do I have to?"
Petey did not like the idea of having to play with some weird, quiet, girl that his father brought home. Then again, he really hated playing with other kids in general.
Walter turned to his son and staring him down with a serious demanding tone. "Yes…you…do!"
Walter opened the back door and Olive cautiously stepped out into the backyard, taking in her new surroundings. Before Petey could join her, Walter grabbed him by the arm.
"Don't let her run off, boy. I mean it."
As his father let go of him, Petey had to hold in his own set of tears and frustration. His father was often like this with him: harsh and cold to him, then he would turn to a stranger all bright and cheery.
He was grateful that he and his mom were only here in Jacksonville to visit, and that his father was now living this far away from his real home in Boston.
Not that life Boston was actually any better. Petey hated other kids ever since he started preschool a year ahead of normal preschoolers. Clearly, he was gifted, but he was still more emotionally fragile than the older kids.
Things were tolerable until he got that strange bird flu. After months of endless pain and nausea, he was finally able to go back to preschool. Walter brought him back that day and let the bird flu story slip out and be known to everyone in the class. Bad enough that Petey's face became slightly bloated and chubby from the treatments he had been given. The preschoolers began to call him awful names like "flu boy" and "sick face". "Bird cheeks" was the worst one, in his opinion.
After that painful year, Petey refused to make any friends when he advanced to kindergarten, still much younger and smarter than the rest of the class, but still chubby and constantly teased. He abhorred it when his mother would bring houseguests over with younger kids and expected Petey to play with them. He hated the kids in his Boston neighborhood, just as much.
Now his own father was forcing him to play with strange kids during his own damn vacation, and it only angered him…reminded him of horrid times back home.
Olive looked down at the ground shyly, not knowing what to do except to stand around. Her eyes turned towards Petey as he ran towards the set of swings in the backyard, completely ignoring her as he went about swinging without a care. Then, she noticed the actual metal-framework supporting the swing set.
It was yellow…an absolute horrid bold yellow.
She froze, unable to turn away…fighting every urge in her body to not scream.
The swing that Petey was enjoying began to bounce and swerve uncontrollably. The metal framework on one side of the set seemed to be bending and curving on its own. Petey managed to jump off the swings before the other end of the swing set came down.
He looked and saw Olive was whimpering and shaking her head. Then Petey turned and saw the entire swing set had now collapsed. The framing continued to bent and curl until the whole thing was nothing more than a ghastly pile of yellow metal.
She did this. Somehow Olive did this.
"What was that?" He said still shaking. "What did you do?"
"I'm sorry," Olive could barely say. Too upset to think of anything else to do, she curled herself up into a ball on the grass.
This only weirded Petey out more, but at the same time, the boy was quite curious.
"Tell me how you did that."
Olive yelled "NO!"
This didn't diminish his curiosity. "Are you some kind of witch?"
"I'm not a witch!" Olive nearly cried with tears in her eyes. "Witches are bad."
"Witches aren't all bad…and I didn't say YOU were bad."
Olive thought about all the other kids at the lab she scared with her abilities. Even her 'buddy' Nicholas felt a bit uncomfortable around her when she got angry. Angry. That was all she seemed to feel all the time. "Well…maybe I am," she sobbed.
"But you're crying," said Petey. "Daddy says bad people don't cry. So…you can't be bad."
Olive wiped the snot and tears from her own face but was the dirt on her fingers spread mud on her face. "But I broke your swing."
"But that thing you did…that…" Petey struggled to find the right words. "THAT WAS SO COOL!"
Olive looked up at him confused. "Whhhat?"
"That was awesome! You DO have magic powers! I bet you could do all kinds of cool stuff."
Olive didn't think any of the stuff she could do was cool. There was nothing cool about setting a room on fire without matches or making a kid bite his own tongue or break a doctor's clipboard on just the mere thought of it.
She could only reach an arm out to stop him from thinking all of these false good thoughts about what she just did. But at that moment Petey touched her hand and in an instant, her world stopped…but not in a bad way. Her world at that moment was very calm. All the stress and anguish in mind seemed to have instantly vanished and her face no longer felt red from crying.
For the first time in…God knows how long…Olive was starting to feel calm, maybe a bit happy.
Unknown to both of them, Walter was watching the kids through the kitchen window absolutely stunned. His son had just made an instant, emotionally changing connection with Olive. Walter knew that having another kid around for Olive to play with would make her feel a little bit better. But damn, he had no idea that his own son would have such a powerful effect on her. This was heavy, possibly important, stuff to add to his labnotes tonight.
His thoughts of joy were interrupted by that nagging woman. "Walter? What was that noise outside? Are the kids alright?"
"They're perfectly fine, dear," Walter said in a rather annoyed fashion. "Go back to slothing around or whatever it is you would rather do."
Petey pulled Olive off the ground from her misery with much excitement running through his system.
"You can put magic spells on people. Make them do funny things. And I can be your student! You can teach me everything you know about magic."
Olive was still very hesitant. "I don't know. We're not gonna hurt anyone, are we?"
"Of course not. It's only play magic." Petey assured her.
Pretend play was a rather foreign concept to Olive. She didn't know how to pretend to NOT have these abilities. Playtime at the lab was often a curse to her. Whenever she played board games with the other kids, she would unintentionally have the dice and game pieces move in her favor. The other kids would attack her and accuse her of being a big cheater despite the fact that she would NEVER intentionally cheat.
"First we need a cave, so we have a place to make spells and potions. Come on!" Petey went to the sandbox and picked up the plastic blue bucket that was there. Then he ran to the edge of the property. Olive followed and watched him jump into a ditch, about 3 ½ feet deep.
"I was digging to Australia," Petey said, explaining his handy shoveling work on the ditch. "Now we have a secret witches' hideout."
Olive carefully climbed into the ditch to join Petey. She didn't want to get her clothes dirty or get her knees scrapped. Otherwise Dr. Bell would find out she got to leave the lab.
"Okay, now we have a cauldron." Petey got the blue bucket, filled with a bit of sand from his sandbox and a half-empty bottle of water. He poured the rest of the water bottle into the bucket, darkening the sand inside. "Now we add the magic ingredients."
Petey reached over the edge of the ditch and grabbed a handful of grass and added it to the mixture.
Olive couldn't see what was so amazing about this mixture. A bunch of mud and grass wasn't all that magical in her opinion.
"I think…I think you need something more in here," she said pointing to the bucket.
"Maybe…some newt!"
That was a rather unusual response. "Why newt?"
"Don't you know the rhyme?" Petey said. "We need eye of newt."
"Well, how do we find one?"
"This is Florida. There are lotsa newts!"
The two kids stood up in the ditch surveying the grassy yard for any sign of newt to add to the potion. Petey eyed some movement in the grass and hastily clasped a tiny tree lizard into his hands.
"I caught one!"
At that moment, Olive saw another tiny lizard just sitting on a rock. Her hands managed to capture the creature in the middle of its leap. "Me too!"
The kids hurried back into the ditch, their hands filled with lizard and excitement.
"Put them in the cauldron!" They both released their respective 'newts' into the bucket at the same time, shrieking and giggling at the icky, quick touch of the things. Their movements were sudden as both lizards raced up the bucket in an attempt to escape.
"They're gonna get away!" Petey cried.
Olive didn't want the 'newts' to run away and ruin their potion either. She wished for them, silently, to stop and suddenly the two lizards froze in place. Their feet remained attached to the inner walls of the bucket on command. Petey must not have noticed that she did "it" this time and preferably, she liked it that way.
"Now we just imagine the cauldron is bubbling."
"Okay," Olive said. She made the image in her mind of the unusual mixture of water and sand bubbling, just for the sake of being imaginative.
And yet the water in the bucket began to rise and was bubbling rapidly. The lizards were freed from their frozen stance and fled as the bubbles began to rise to the brim of the bucket.
This time, Petey knew Olive was using her weird magic. "It's bubbling!" said Petey with excitement. "You made it bubble!"
The shame of allowing her own imagination interfere with reality seemed to vanished with Petey's excitement and encouraging words. He was now stirring the bubbling mixture with a large twig.
This wasn't so bad, Olive thought. Perhaps her strange abilities didn't have to make her do "bad things". Perhaps she could actually do fun, happy things, with them. Petey seemed to be thrilled with it after all.
"It's finished!" Petey announced.
Olive looked at the mixture with fun curiosity. "What kind of potion is it?"
"I don't know. Maybe you drink it and find out what it does."
"Ew," Olive protested. "I'm not drinking that."
"Me neither," Petey said with disgust. "Let's give it to Rufus! He drinks pee water so maybe he'll like it."
"I'll take it to him," Olive happily said reaching for the bucket handle. "I'm a witch and it's my job!"
"Okay," said Petey. "Give the potion to Rufus, and we'll wait and see if anything happens."
Olive climbed out of the ditch with the bubbling bucket in hand. "Be right back."
Petey sat in the ditch and waited.
It started to get silent…and boring in that ditch.
Petey thought maybe it had only been a few minutes. When really…Olive had been gone for over 20 minutes.
"Olive?"
He got no reply and decided to stand up and looked out over the yard. It was empty.
Then he climbed out of the ditch. He was shocked to find the blue bucket had been abandoned, near the crumpled pile of yellow metal. The water and sand mixture inside was no longer big and bubbly. It had disintegrated into a small clump of wet sand.
"Olive!"
He kept calling for her all throughout the backyard. Perhaps she had gotten bored and decided to play hide and go seek. She seemed odd enough to do something like that.
Yet by the time all the hiding places had been turned over, Petey began to get very worried.
Did she…did she run?
If she did, then his daddy was going to seriously kill him.
**
Walter felt relieved. Olive was brought back to the lab and after her mind was erased of the past few hours at his house, she had no clue or any sense that she had even left her cell at all, with the exception of some unexplained smudges on her face.
And yet she felt so calm…and happy. Almost as if she had been enjoying herself for one brief moment without knowing why. She was smiling. Proof that Walter's plan was a success. The few hours of serenity might have finally given her the confidence to pass her test tomorrow. There would be no need to take aggression. She would pass and then she would finally get to go home.
If his wife wasn't so damn insistent that he get back to put his son to bed, Walter would've stayed in the lab and enjoyed the surprising success of his risky plan. Instead, he waited for Olive to fall asleep. He had to trust that she would be safe and asleep until William returned in the morning.
He arrived back at the house as evening set in and was not so surprised to find his wife angry at him, possibly at another silly work thing.
"Your son's been up in his room crying for the past hour," she said. "And I can't figure out for the life of me what's wrong with him."
Walter had a slight feeling he might know and he went upstairs, passing by his wife's nagging.
"And what the hell happened to the swing set outside! Don't tell me you were doing another one of your crazy metal experiments."
Walter went up to his son's room and closed the door to drown HER voice. Petey was crying on the bed. "Boy, what on earth is the matter?"
"Daddy, Olive's gone. I think she ran away. I didn't mean to let her run away. I'm sorry. Don't be mad at me!"
"Oh son." Walter sat on the bed and tried to hug his son but he was trying to kick and squirm out of his embrace as he usually did. "Olive didn't run away. I had to return her to the lab…I mean, home, home…I had to return her home."
"But we weren't done playing!" Petey said pouting, practically yelling at his father. "And I didn't get to say goodbye!"
"Calm yourself, boy. I was in a hurry to get her back, and god knows where the hell you were when she had to leave."
This made Petey very, very, angry. He had been in the ditch waiting for her to come back. She said she would come back. She…said…so.
He jumped off the bed and grabbed one of his toy trucks from his suitcase. One toy truck flew at Walter but he dodged it, and the toy struck the wall violently.
Petey was now grabbing various toys he had on the floor and threw them at his father with pure anger and hatred.
"You bring her back," he said very demandingly. "You bring her back tomorrow!!"
Walter stood shaking at the violent tantrum being thrown by his own son. He was rather shocked at how much rage his son had towards him…over a playmate. He didn't know his own boy would be so…attached to her.
"I can't do that, son," Walter said nervously.
"Yes you can!" Petey yelled. He was bawling again. "I know you can!" He threw another toy truck at Walter and that one nearly hit him in the knee.
Walter then checked his watch. It was almost time. He softly but nervously counted down. "Three…two…one…"
"Da-"
Petey's anger stopped in mid-sentence. He blinked and then found himself utterly confused. He put his hand to his face and found that it was soaked with tears.
Walter sighed with relief and asked with a fake smile "Why were you crying, son?"
Petey didn't know what his father was doing in his room or why there were dents on the wall behind him. "I dunno. Is it dinnertime yet?"
"Dinnertime was hours ago, boy. It's nearly time for you to get to bed."
He saw the nighttime sky through his bedroom window but that couldn't be. It was still sunny when he was downstairs. Wasn't that a few minutes ago? He didn't even recall having dinner at all.
"What is the last thing you remember?" Walter demanded.
"I…" Petey stammered. "I saw you open the door…and...you were carrying some…Christmas lights?"
"Anything else?"
Petey shook his head while rubbing his eyes.
Walter put a hand on his boy's shoulder and smiled. "Good."
**
It almost felt like waking from a nightmare, except Walter was wide-awake and in a frozen state of absolute fright. He had just finished watching the test subject "Olive" tape and was putting it back in the bin when one memory of that day hit him. Then another and another. Every resurfacing memory came with a sharp pain of absolute guilt.
By the time the whole memory of the day returned to him, Walter finally broke down, dropping to the lab floor in tears.
He couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take anymore accusations by Peter or other familiar faces of bad things that he did but could not remember…only to have them resurface as truth. It had to be something in his brain, a possible drug he once took to block bad memories? Always a possibility, but what if the drug itself was just another one of those bad things destined to scar his own soul? Was he really that terrible a being for not seeing the connection between "Olive" and Agent Dunham until 25 years after the fact?
Perhaps Peter was right to call him a terrible father if he couldn't recall the bad things that made Peter hate him. Perhaps all the bad memories of being his father (that he could never recall) really did outnumber the happy memories he would ramble on to the lovely lab assistant about.
That day, from nearly 25 years ago was destined to disappear from his memory by tomorrow. Deep down, he wished he could keep that day's events in his memory bank. It explained so much of the present. He knew his son could help Olivia when she had to endure those dreams to track down Nicholas. But how he knew Peter could do it or why the thought came to mind…it never occurred to him. Not until now.
He remembered now, that Peter had no friends as a boy and that perhaps he could not have possibly been the best choice of company for "Olive". But in the end, everything worked out. "Olive" did pass her test the next day without any hurt or harm and her father was able to come and bring her home…far away from his work, as she deserved. With the experiments over, Walter returned to his wife and Peter in Boston but Peter was still unusually aggravated towards him. He said on some days he couldn't even think of a reason, that he just wanted to hate his dad.
Walter had to keep reminding itself. It was for everyone's own good that he erased the children's memories of that day. William never suspected that "Olive" left the lab. Yet, Walter couldn't help but feel a bit awful about doing so. Either way, he never saw those two so happy in his life until he saw them playing together.
Now, both Olivia and Peter were being intensely hostile toward him and his failing memory of the experiments. Olivia needed that information and Walter could barely get his mind to jog out the specific details under the kind of pressure she had given him. It just simply wasn't how his mind worked. He thought those two would understand him better than anyone. But now, it seems, they would be the last ones to ever care…to ever forgive him.
The truth was very clear now. He was a brute…a terrible, selfish, brute for not remembering all of those suggestively terrible things he did to his son…and to Olivia. People like Walter do not give innocent kids a few hours of happiness and serenity only to cruelly swipe the memory away from them, and still be considered a good person.
It was the most that Walter had ever cried since first being sent to St. Claire's. The old man could only find anything to be grateful for about his life, not after everything he caused. The only thing he had now was that he could spend more private time in the lab by himself for moments such as this. This probably wasn't the best thing, as Walter did not have other people around to keep him distracted from the constantly invading ghosts of his past.
Man, I usually get so excited about writing Fringe fics, but this is the most excited I've ever been about a Fringe fic. I swear I couldn't sleep a wink at all last night because of the juices in my head were flowing, but I couldn't get to a computer until this morning! My proudest accomplishment today!
After all, when you don't have a job…write fanfics! LOL
Now the only thing more exciting than getting this posted is getting some review love! Go! Go! Go!