A/N: This is the alternate version of chapters 26-28 of Standby (the dream sequence is exactly the same, so you can skip over that part--it's included here for continuity). This version was the first one I wrote, but I felt it was too OOC for the characters at this point in the story. I rewrote the chapters, but I decided to post this for the angst-lovers (of which I count myself one). Some passages will seem similar but this version diverges significantly. This is where you get to laugh at my writing, because I didn't spend nearly enough time editing (trying to keep writing actual, legitimate chapters of Standby instead).

Credit is due to "Bones" for a line towards the end--if you watch the show, you'll recognize it--forgive me for so blatantly referencing another fandom, but the line fit too well for the circumstance.

JANUARY

Olivia felt oddly thrilled. She took sips from the cold steel shaker that held the half of her milkshake that didn't fit in the sundae glass. Ever since they'd left the piano store she'd been jittery and up, like she'd had coffee even though she hadn't. It was Peter that was having the coffee, sitting across from her with his fingers threaded through the handle of his mug.

She was having thoughts she hadn't invited but didn't particularly mind at the moment. She imagined it came from seeing him in a different way, seeing him demonstrate an ability she'd never really observed: not that way, not like that, and the pictures of it were filling her head, except in them he had no shirt and she could see the way his back moved while he played. And from there it was a short leap to thinking of how it would be to find him naked in bed, how it might be to fuck him. A shockingly short leap. Not that it stopped her from thinking. She regarded it with amusement as something novel and transient, like her mind was a wind-up toy that had leapt off the table and would stay there, kicking, until it wound down. Harmless. Diversionary. Meaningless. Surprisingly fun. She let the slideshow play.

She smiled into her milkshake as Peter watched her over their glasses. And as he kept he eyes on her, something changed that Peter noticed but Olivia did not. At first he thought it was a change in the lighting, but it wasn't. Then he thought it might have been the canned music, but he listened and realized there was no music playing. Yet something was different, and after a moment he knew it was her. She looked different to him. She felt different to him. And then he knew. He could feel it, a ripple in the bath of her psychic overflow. It felt honest and familiar and he just knew. His smile fell.

Just like that, Peter thought. After all this time, it happens just like that.

It almost made him feel bad for her, because he remembered it happening to him. He wished he could tell her it would be easier for her than it had been for him--that she had a free pass through the most of the uncertainty, the awkwardness, the hope and fear and cold-sweating in bed. If there were such thing as a sure bet, he was it.

He was struck by the thought that the piano might have been The Thing That Did It, and that this moment--the two of them so casually dropping time in the diner--was already beyond The Point of No Return. And despite having tried for this outcome, despite having given her space to become comfortable, having carved out a path for her, he felt worried. What if it hadn't been slow enough? Sometime soon they would reach the point at which half of everything would be up to her, and as recently as ten days ago she'd left the room when he told her he loved her; that scared the everloving shit out of him, but there was nothing he could do.

It was hard for her to fail. It was hard for him to fail, but she was worse. She took nothing in stride, she took everything personally and she could carry a grudge like a battle-axe. When it happened--and it was going to--if she failed to control the situation to her satisfaction, she might never try again.

Peter watched her face. She hadn't realized yet that she was on a road with no turnoffs, that she'd passed the last fork an hour ago. He could tell because she wasn't suppressing anything, hadn't come to see that she wouldn't be able to put it away if she tried. Once she saw that, he would see stress on her face, feel her panic during the long hours she would spend trying to talk herself down. But there was none of that yet, just the flush over her cheeks and her eyes a little brighter than usual, pupils wide and dark as she glanced around the mirrored walls. He was desperately tempted to forego the effort of the mental blinders she begged him to wear; he wanted to see the specifics that made her stare off toward the counter, unfocused and with a look on her face he hadn't seen nearly enough.

He wouldn't, though. He was pushing her boundaries enough by not telling her that he would always sense her in part, that even a radio picks up static when not tuned to a station. He felt her giddiness and her thrill at being secretly daring, seeing him like that while he sat across from her, drinking coffee and pulling apart a chocolate croissant with his hands. It didn't take a genius nor a mind-reader to pick up sexual overtones: she was glazed over like a hot donut. But the other parts, possibly the more revealing parts--exhilaration, excitement, willful ignorance--they required special skills to discern. Which he had. And thank god she didn't know he knew, or he'd already be a dead man.

Olivia's attention flickered back to Peter for a moment and she saw that he was no longer smiling, concentrating on something.

"What's wrong?" she asked him. He tried to post his smile again but his effort wasn't very good. He stirred his coffee though he hadn't added anything.

"Just thinking," he said. She watched him. About?

He put his spoon down. He couldn't speak to the fear she would have, because she didn't have it yet. There were so many things he wanted to say that would have to wait for a precise moment in the future, probably the very near future. But her fate tugged at his chest because he had fought through all of it himself, months ago, and it had been hard.

"'Livia," he said. He knew it would get him a weird look from her but he reached for her hand under the table and held it in both of his. That weird look appeared as if on cue but he looked back at her as benevolently as he could. He chose his words carefully, hoping she would remember. "I'm glad you're here."

She smiled wide, tilting her head down to look up at him coquettishly. She was bold with illicit thoughts. Sweetheart, Peter thought, give it an hour to sink in.

"Me too," she said.

Oh, fuck this, she was thinking. She couldn't turn it off. Something in her really didn't want to and she couldn't convince it otherwise. She watched the mirror with a sort of sinking dread. She was going to have to go sleep with him. Not like that. In his bed. Their bed. FUCK.

Her chest would not. stop. flushing. She didn't understand. It had been an hour, max, of innocent smut. Fantasies anyone would have about him. Because he looked the way he looked. He was the way he was. He'd played that piano and now things were going south.

She'd always been able to turn it off; she was a special agent for a reason, and that reason was that she was in complete control of the situation at all times. Any situation. All of the time.

She was going to take an axe to that piano.

The terrible thought occurred to her that he could have made her want him, could have gotten inside her head. But he wouldn't. He had to be the person who wouldn't. She couldn't lose that faith or she'd have to leave the house she called home and never come back.

Olivia. Stop. She thought it hard, looking herself in the eyes through the mirror.

"It's fine," she whispered. "You're fine, everything's fine."

And even as she watched her own green irises wick up the ink of her pupils, the thought of his naked chest pressing up against her back made her lips open haphazardly.

"Stop," she whispered, and it was both her order to herself and her part in the vivid, momentary image. Stop. And he doesn't.

She argued with herself. He'd said he loved her. He'd said he loved her. He'd kissed her and he'd held her and she wasn't sure how much more she could ask for as far as signs went, but it still wasn't sitting right. It wasn't safe. It wasn't sure. She wasn't sure.

She swept an astringent-soaked cotton pad viciously over her face. She scowled at the mirror and went down the hall to their room, where she peered around the corner and saw him in bed. There was no good excuse for her sleeping on the couch or it would have immediately come out of her mouth. He looked up. He looked serious.

"Hey," he said, and it sounded like he was addressing someone to whom something terrible had happened. He was wearing a shirt to bed, a shirt with long sleeves, which was strange, but she was grateful. It was like he knew. But she couldn't think that. No. "Ready?" he asked, and she nodded soundlessly.

She slipped in next to him and the heat that he had generated seemed greater than usual, though maybe it was her. He went to put his arm over her (forgive me, but it would be too different if I didn't) and it was like he didn't notice how fast her heart was beating. She folded her arms weakly up over his.

"Goodnight, Peter," she said. She hoped it was a good balance between nonchalant and affectionate.

"Goodnight, sweetheart," he said, that note of sympathy still hanging in his voice.

There was a piano in her dream. A man was playing, but instead of piano sounds there were calliope sounds, like the circus. A conveyor belt came from the back of the piano, and on the belt little ice cream sundaes emerged from the sounding board. It was Peter but it wasn't Peter doing the playing. Then it was a stranger playing, and Peter was in front of her, taking sundaes off the belt and putting them into her hands. They disappeared as he replaced them, her palms staying perfectly empty.

Then he lost focus, looking at her instead of his work. The conveyor belt accelerated and the ice creams began to pile up, smashing together and jamming. She looked at Peter accusingly but he didn't even care that there was ice cream everywhere. He stepped toward her and suddenly he was wearing nothing, motherfucking nothing, and she put her hands out to push him away but they wouldn't reach him, no matter how far she pushed.

"It's okay," he was repeating. "It's just ice cream."

But it was messy and it was everywhere.

"Peter," she protested. Ice cream was hitting the floor in half-melted scoops. Vanilla and chocolate beneath her feet. She wasn't wearing shoes; it was sticky but counter-intuitively warm.

"'Livia, come up here," he said to her, and she saw that there were stairs to a door she hadn't noticed. He put out a hand to her and she took it and they went through the door and ended up in the lab at Harvard. She wasn't surprised. The sensory deprivation tank was in the middle of the room. She went straight to it.

"Help me," she said, pulling the heavy doors open. Peter stood behind her, watching. Olivia walked into the tank and lay down in the water; the electrodes had at some point become attached to her skin, and she could hear the beep-beep-tick of the monitors from somewhere outside. Peter stood in silhouette above her, looking down. He had his arms outstretched, his hands on the doors, but instead of closing them on her, he came inside and closed them behind him.

In the opaque darkness Olivia could hear the faint dips of his limbs into the water, the ripples of his movement lapping at the parts of her skin not submerged. Then his legs came together between hers and the rest of him brushed over her, invisible. She could hear herself breathing but he was quieter, and she only knew he was there because she could feel his exhales on her lips. Though everything seemed irregular and out of place she wanted to kiss him, so she tilted her head up and did it and it was like shooting an arrow into the sun, his body falling like the sky upon her.

She felt his hand touch the back of her neck--a spreading heat there--but then she felt both hands her shoulders and knew it was impossible. Yet the warmth over her spine was unmistakable, palm-shaped, and she was confused until it spread deeper, under her skin and into her head, and she started to feel little pings in her back as he learned how to do what she realized he was doing. At first it was almost haphazard, hit-or-miss, figuring out which lines led to her fingers and which led to her toes. Little sensory bomb drops exploded in her elbow, her thigh, her side. But he was a genius, and he learned fast, splitting the signals finer and finer.

In minutes he was directing with such acuity that she didn't quite know how to feel about it. His hands were absolutely still, resting unmoved on her shoulders, but she felt as clearly as anything the piquing of nerves in places he'd never actually seen, places still covered by layers of cloth. It felt strange but it felt good.

"I didn't know you could--" she whispered. She stopped short of saying what she thought he was doing. Peter was silent in the dark and she didn't know where he was looking or what his face looked like. Was he doing this for her, for himself or to prove he could do it? She put her hands between their pushed-together chests, a useless barrier to make herself feel less defenseless, but she didn't ask him to stop because she didn't want him to.

In fact it was becoming imperative that he continue. He was spreading his reach like bleeding ink, soaking through her nerves and she was seeing things in the dark: bright things, beautiful things, strings and spots of light.

"Peter," she whispered. "Oh my god." She was past self-consciousness.

Her back arched. She reached for him to stabilize herself and all she felt was skin. His touch exploded in her head, the inkwell overturned on her brain. She started to shake.

"Peter," she gasped. He lowered his head to hers. She could feel him smiling.

She woke up through a shivering orgasm. In the seconds it took her to claw her way fully out of sleep, Peter blinked awake as well. She posed in a stretch, embarrassed, hiding her face.

"'Livia," Peter said. She could feel his eyes on the back of her head and panic iced her stomach. She glanced over at him, keeping her face as even as she could. He was looking at her with wide eyes, asking her something without speaking the question. She gave nothing away. After a minute his expression faded and he turned away from her. "Nothing. Weird dream." He waved his hand over his head, clearing his mind. "Morning," he said.

"Yeah," she said, dazed, and she rolled out of bed abruptly. She mumbled something about being first in the shower and then she was gone.

Peter made a rough, debased sound and rubbed his hands over his face. Oh my god, he thought. Oh my god.