Disclaimer: I don't own Fringe. I don't want to, either – those writers know exactly what they're doing and my god do they do it well! :D
Summary: Astrid always gets the short end of the stick. Set immediately after the events in "The Firefly".
"I don't get paid enough for this job," Astrid muttered as she dipped the sponge back into the soapy bucket on her left.
She was kneeling on the floor of the Harvard laboratory, carefully trying to avoid dangerous shards of glass, as she continued to clean. It was midnight, and everyone else was already at home. This was not cool.
"I mean, no one even gets my name right!" She huffed.
"It's always 'Oh Aster, please be a dear and clean up that urine on the floor? Oh, and Peter's vomited a bit over here too, if you wouldn't mind ...' ... well I do mind, thank you very much!"
She scowled.
"The last thing I need at the end of a long day is to spend all night cleaning up other people's poisoned milk and bodily fluids! Why not do it yourself Olivia, and maybe I can drive Peter home?"
She scrubbed at the floor angrily with both hands, and then rang the dirty sponge over the bucket. She could see a few, soggy pieces of what looked like the remnants of a ... cheeseburger? ... that were stuck between the fibres of the sponge, and ew, ew, ew!
Astrid plunged her hands quickly into the lukewarm, mucky water and thrashed them around with a shudder. Water splashed dangerously close to the sides of the bucket, and she tried her damndest to dislodge the food, but it didn't really help.
Oh god ... and now some of it was on her hand!
"And you couldn't have given him a container, Olivia? Oh my god!"
Astrid set the sponge down and, cringing, picked some of the pieces of whatever-it-was off her hands, flicking the bits into the bucket. The odour in the room was sour, a curdled mix of milk, vomit and urine, and in all honesty Astrid was just trying not to add to the mess.
She set the sponge down, defeated. Some of the water, she noticed, had gotten onto her coat. Her new coat. The coat she had only bought last week.
Despondently she sat on the floor for a few minutes – her head tilted towards the ground – and eyed the small stains that dotted her lovely gray trench, and the spread out vomit beneath her. It really did look like Peter had been rolling in it. And with that thought, resignation truly sunk in.
She sighed.
She should probably start with the glass first.