Baby-Blues
Author: thornbug
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I do not own Fringe. Don't make me say it again.
It starts with a look. He blinks his eyes at her, innocent and unassuming, completely unaware of the mission, the switch, the manipulation and lies. Completely unaware of anything but her. For a moment she feels overwhelmed, undeserved of this kind of naked adoration. She feels as if she is cheating him, as she is a fraud, as if he deserves so much better. A better version of herself. For the first time in a while, she wonders about the other her. Would he look at her like this, given the chance? She's still playing a role, she knows that. Her self, her true self, the woman underneath the swagger and the cocky grin was splintered the second she crossed over and now she is mere fragments of the person she used to be. But it was easy to forget that when he stares at her like this, those all-encompassing baby-blues, pulling her in. She feels as if she'll get lost them, as if she'll get lost in him and the entire world will be forgotten.
The room is quiet, with only the sound of their breathing and a soft mechanical hum to break the thick silence. Now in this bed, with him, she feels safer than she's ever felt and at the same time more unbalanced than she ever thought possible. She wasn't prepared to fall in love. She wasn't prepared to give to heart over so easily. And yet it happens without thought, without hesitation. It is instinctual and almost primeval. As if he was always hers, just as she was always his.
It's funny how her entire life she's been surrounded by good men. Charlie, Lincoln, Frank. She doesn't lack white knights, not that she needs them, yet somehow this is different. She feels, for the first time in her life, possessive. Fiercely so. As if he is hers and no-one else's. Of course this is a problem. He belongs to the bigger picture, she's not so naive as to think that the Secretary won't want some influence. He sent her across universes to ensure that his influence was maintained. Although she doubts even he could have foreseen the tangled web that was spun around them all. She doubts he knew that the sins of the father would ultimately be atoned by the son. A tangled web indeed.
The world around them is crumbling. She knows this, just as she knows she will be called upon to fight whatever impending doom befalls her world. But it is his world too, now. And she will fight not for herself, but for him, for them.
It starts with a look. He blinks at her with those soulful blue eyes that he inherited from his father. And in that moment, the moment before her son drifts off to sleep in her arms, Olivia Dunham knows love.
- end
