Notes: Title, opening quote from Jay Thompson's Summer Letter. No profit garnered, not mine. For the trope bingo squares HUDDLE FOR WARMTH, ROLE REVERSAL and the gywo bingo setting seen below. Thanks to the JAM! and A for beta help!
nothing I encounter is anymore its whole self
whole origin though I
know that shape rare silhouette
same whatever I name
It was suffocating crossing over. Peter couldn't breathe and he felt his lungs empty. He reached out for something and fell on the ground. He reached for the remote device to turn off the door and found it. He pointed it at the door and hit the button Walter had told him four separate times was the one to close the door. For a moment, he couldn't see, everything was a kind of a hyper-reality with yellow ground and high mountains topped with snow. The yellow ground was a reflection of something off to his right. He blinked a few times and then he snapped out of it, because he heard Olivia shout at Jones.
Olivia hadn't stumbled, she had already caught up with Jones. She grabbed Jones from behind by his neck. Peter wondered if there was a squelching sound. He forced himself to stand up as Olivia dragged Jones back. "This is pointless, Agent Dunham," Jones was saying.
"No, it's not," Olivia said.
Jones started struggling, elbowing Olivia in the gut. Peter reached into his pocket and opened his switchblade. He ran at Jones and tackled him to the ground. There was a squelching sound. Peter slashed at Jones; his neck, his chest, his arm. There was blood, too, the kind of arterial spray that would have meant death for anyone else. Jones just stopped moving, his eyes closing. Olivia said, "Drag him towards where the door was."
"Then we open it, push him through it and go home," Peter said.
"You open it, close it on him so we know he's dead, and then we find Bell," Olivia said.
"We stay here," Peter said. "Okay," he said. It didn't feel okay at all but he understood Olivia wouldn't go home without catching her man.
He did what she told him to do, opening and closing the door. They were left with half a charred corpse. Peter finally looked around. "What the fuck."
Half of the lake was amber, a huge chunk of amber covering the entire other half of the lake and onto the shore. That was the yellow reflection he'd seen. Olivia was taking it in, her mouth open and eyes wide. "Is that, it's like the amber in the bus."
Peter got close to it and started poking at the amber near them. "No, it's slightly different composition, the color is stronger on this. Among other things."
"Really?"
"Really," Peter said. "So slightly different universe with a much larger fascination with amber." He turned back to her. "Where do we go now?"
"We find Bell. He's not here," Olivia said. "I bet he's in Manhattan, at the other Massive Dynamic."
"You're sure there's another Massive Dynamic," Peter said.
"It makes sense, doesn't it?"
"Sure," Peter said. "Manhattan is that way and it's a long walk."
"What, you've forgotten how to steal cars?"
Peter smiled at her. They started walking away from the shore. "There's no lights, no sign of houses where there used to be, where they are on our side."
"There's no amber encasing half the lake on our side, either," Olivia said.
They spotted an obviously abandoned house and car just as a driving rain suddenly kicked in. The rain and wind were bitingly cold and they were both soaked in minutes. They ran towards the house but when they got close they saw that half the roof had fallen in. "Do you think it's safe?" Olivia looked back at Peter.
"It looks like a tornado tore through here," Peter said. "There aren't these kind of tornados around here, though, not usually. Unless alternate universes have alternate weather patterns."
Peter moved through the part of the house that offered no shelter. He looked around at the blank spots on the wall, the quality of the furniture left behind. "Someone's already cleaned this place out."
Olivia said, "Including whomever died in here."
"How do you know that?"
Olivia pointed at a disgusting stain on the carpet under part of the remaining roof. Peter said, "Good deduction." He took her wet hand and pulled her in deeper to the house. They found a bedroom that had been untouched by whatever damaged the roof. Nothing in the house had escaped being battered by rain and weather, even with a ceiling that didn't leak. "Nice smell of mold," Peter said. He started opening the drawers. "We have plaid, Dunham."
"Is it soaking wet?" Olivia's teeth were chattering.
"It's too big for both of us, but yes, it's dry." He handed her the shirt and grabbed one for himself.
Olivia stripped down to her underwear and bra and used the absurdly large plaid shirt to dry herself off. She squeezed out her jeans and then put them back on. She did the same with her button down but she put the plaid shirt on and then carefully folded her shirt and held it to her chest. She said, "You can't tell me this is sexy."
"Of course it is," Peter said. He realized he hadn't done anything to get himself out of his wet clothes. He enjoyed Olivia in her underwear, that was his only excuse.
Once they both had their huge plaid shirts on, Olivia started going through the drawers while Peter moved on to other rooms. Olivia said, "The person who lived here was an XXL kind of person." She sighed and came into the room Peter was searching.
"This is all children's clothes," Peter said. "Hand me downs, too. But that's probably just what they didn't care about. You've noticed that most of the personal items in this house are gone."
"Tornado came, someone died, the family came back and took what they wanted to remember," Olivia said. "But it's weird, why not take everything? Or at least clean out the house. This looks like an evacuation."
"Great," Peter said. He rubbed the plaid shirt and decided the itch he felt was psychosomatic. "Hopefully they weren't evacuating because of radiation or something else we've just exposed ourselves to."
"Hopefully," Olivia said, looking a little queasy herself.
"It wasn't radiation," Peter said. "There would be signs. And I mean actual signs."
"Except it's an alternate universe, so maybe in this America the signs aren't what we expect."
"This is a great train of thought," Peter said. "That pickup outside looks like it still runs. Maybe it can take us to Manhattan." He grabbed one of the children's raincoats and put it over his head like a cape.
"Looks good," Olivia said, as she did the same.
The rain was just as hard and just as cold as it had been before they went inside. Peter checked the doors on the truck, it looked like a fob lock which was much harder to break into. He wasn't really a car specialist. "Spare key," he said. He started checking all the wheel wells with no success. Then he looked in the back of the truck. Finally, he found the little magnetic keyholder and pried it open. "Spare key," he said, holding it up to Olivia.
He unlocked the doors and they both got in, slamming the doors shut. Peter started the car but didn't take it out of park. "How long can we run the heater, you think?"
Olivia was shivering. She said, "Turn the car off. We need the gas to get to Manhattan."
Peter nodded. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled Olivia close to him, her itchy shirt against his skin. She grinned up at him. "Body heat, huh?"
"I've always wanted to try it," Peter said.
"I doubt that," Olivia said. She took out her phone and quickly switched it to airplane mode. "I don't want to think about the roaming charges." Then she set her phone alarm for 2 hours. "We can nap."
"Even Olivia Dunham needs to rest a little," Peter said. He hugged her closer and closed his eyes. He felt unsettled, deep in his bones, and he didn't know why.
Olivia woke him up. "You're having a nightmare," she said. She held his face in her hands. "It's okay, Peter."
He forced himself to smile at her. "Of course," he said. "Did you get any sleep?"
"You had good timing," Olivia said. "The alarm goes off in 10 minutes."
Peter looked around the cab of the truck. He pulled down the visor, looked in the side pockets. "Maybe we can find money."
Olivia opened the glove compartment. Underneath two books of maps, an actual pair of gloves and a flashlight, she found a plain envelope. "Money, that's good. That's weird." She pulled out a twenty. "Parallel universe."
Peter looked at the picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. "How much is in there?"
"50," Olivia said. "I wonder if there's money left in the house?"
"It's still raining," Peter said.
"Right," she said.
"I'll mug someone, it's easier than you think," Peter said.
"You have a bloody knife, right?" The set of Olivia's mouth made clear she wasn't a fan of the knife.
"I have a knife, the rain cleaned it off. And I have the remote to turn the door back on, assuming no one takes down the apparatus on the other side."
"Walter wouldn't allow it," Olivia said.
She looked at him and he started the truck. Olivia put her shirt back on and used the plaid shirt as a kind of jacket to cover her gun. When she was done she indicated he should pull over. "You want to drive," Peter said.
"I want you to get out of the shirt," Olivia said. "But yes, while I drive."
After a half hour or so, the radio crackled to life. "I didn't even know it was on," Olivia said. "Maybe we should look for this universe's NPR."
Peter played around on the dial but everything was music. Some songs Peter knew but sung by the wrong person, others neither of them recognized. The deejay came on and announced the last song they'd heard was from "John Lennon's controversial new album Ambered Darkness. The ex-Taps singer has a lot of opinions as usual."
Peter said, "So, John Lennon is still alive and the Beatles had a different name here."
"That's insane," Olivia said. Her hands were steady on the wheel.
The barren lands they'd been driving through started to have more green and more houses. They saw more billboards. "Oh my God," Olivia said, softly. She was clenching her hands on the wheel now.
The billboard advertised flights to the moon. The next one was for the new season of the West Wing. Peter felt a shudder in his body he couldn't explain. He said, "Oh, fuck, look at that."
A zeppelin passed over them on its way to Manhattan.
"I need a break, the bathroom, some water," Olivia said.
"Gas station," Peter said, glancing up the highway.
Olivia pulled in and parked in front of the store attached to the gas station. Peter inclined his head towards another billboard with a simple message. "Apparently we can't forget our ShowMe," he said.
"It's probably ID, which we don't have."
"We lost it, it was stolen," Peter said.
"I don't know how far that'll get us," Olivia said.
"We're also tourists," Peter said. "How's your Spanish?"
She didn't answer. Then she opened the car door and said, "I take it we're from Ecuador. See if you can buy us some water, I'm going to pee."
Peter thought it would be a nice thing to be from Ecuador. Better than Boston, he thought, oddly. He headed into the store. His first stop was the magazines and comics. Red Lantern, he thought, because of course it was. He rubbed his hands together and tried to focus on getting information. It was too much for him to look at, he walked away, his sneakers feeling like lead weights. He found water and odd snack bars and canned food for badgers. In this place, people had badgers and dogs and cats. He went to the front counter. He saw some of the same cigarette brands and briefly craved one so strongly his hand formed a fist. He shook his head and smiled at the lady at the counter.
She took his money and didn't ask for any showme. She did ask the man behind Peter who was buying gas.
Olivia was already in the car. She had perfect posture, eyes straight ahead but she was worrying her hair. He got in beside her and handed her her bottle of water. He said, "Any good graffiti?"
"No," Olivia said. She got back on the highway.
Peter said, "Instead of the Green Lantern, they have the Red Lantern. The women's magazines don't talk about losing weight, at least not on the cover. There was a positive story on the cover of We celebrating someone's polyamorous relationship. JFK is still alive. So is JFK, Jr, who has two kids."
"You learned a lot there," Olivia said. "This was a bad idea, Peter."
"They have pet badgers," Peter said.
"We could turn around now," Olivia said.
"You don't want to do that," Peter said. "You want to catch Bell. At least see him and speak to him. William Bell wrote an entire manifesto about a war that had already started between this side and ours. Now he seems to live here. There's a lot of questions you want to ask."
"I'm a little, this is overwhelming," Olivia said. She was still driving.
"I trust you to still chase Bell down," Peter said. He nearly smiled.
They got closer to Manhattan, or Manhatan as it was spelled on the road signs. Olivia said, "Damn it. Let's switch, you drive."
"Why damn it?"
After they switched, Olivia took out her phone and started snapping pictures. "I should have been taking pictures all along. Can I use your phone when mine runs out of space?"
"Just don't delete the nude pics," Peter said.
"I assume they're not of me," Olivia said, actually smiling. "That would be creepy."
"I am never creepy," Peter said. "I was making a joke. But I do want to keep that pic of you and me, fully clothed."
"We can frame it and hang it in our house in Quito when we retire," Olivia said.
"Your tone says you're making a joke but I'm going to take that seriously," Peter said.
The hurdle was the bridge. It wasn't one of the bridges into Manhattan that existed on their side, but it was the one they ended up at. Plus it had a kind of toll booth. "People are scanning their cards, I guess it's their showmes, or they talk to a person and then they get to get on the bridge," Olivia said. "How do we get past that?"
"We're tourists," Peter said. "All our IDs were stolen. We borrowed this car from a friend we were visiting and now we need to get into Manhattan to go to the embassy, which I hope to hell they call an embassy here."
"That's a good story," Olivia said. Her eyes were still wide and her hands were clenched in fists. "I assume we're from Ecuador."
"I really fell in love with that place," Peter said. "Hopefully it exists on this side."
"So I shouldn't worry, you've pulled this con before," Olivia said.
"Yes, actually," Peter said. He glanced over at her again. She was calmer, but she looked tense. "That bother you?"
"No," Olivia said. "You don't do that anymore, right?"
"Not since I came home, not since you," he said.
Olivia nodded. She didn't look at him and her shoulders didn't relax.
Peter pushed it aside. He hadn't done this in a while and he needed to be focused for any of this to work. They reached the toll booth and the bored woman asked for their showmes. "They were stolen," Peter said in Spanish. He repeated it in broken English, but the bored woman replied to him in Spanish.
Peter stuck to Spanish and explained in desperation that their IDs and wallets had been stolen and their friend had lent them his car but they had nothing. They had nothing at all, he repeated, his voice cracking.
The woman finally said, "Okay, I can give you something temporary." She reached for some kind of scanning machine. "I'll just do the biometrics -" The scanner sparked and fizzled. The woman frowned. She pulled out a tablet and said, "Fine, whatever, give me your names."
"Luis Paredes Valencia," Peter said.
Olivia leaned forward and said, "Maria Febres Cordero."
The woman typed it into her tablet and sent them on their way across the bridge.
"Quick thinking on the name," Peter said.
"I wrote a paper on Ecuador's politics in the 1980s, he was one of the Presidents," Olivia said. She was back to staring out the window, taking pictures. "Oh, God," she said.
Peter saw it, too. He saw the Twin Towers and the Grand Hotel and the zeppelins coming in and flying out. "Definitely not Kansas," he said.
"We should ditch the truck," Olivia said.
"Okay," Peter said. "We're still planning to get home, right?"
"Maybe I can do it, like Walter said." Olivia looked down at her phone and put it aside. She took his phone and started using the camera. Her hands were steady.
"Now you think so?"
"I stopped that scanner," Olivia said. "I was scared, Walter said his alternate was prominent in the government. I was worried that this side's Peter Bishop might be someone whose biometrics were being tracked or something."
"When did Walter say that?"
"He told me," Olivia said. She looked back at him. "He said it when you weren't there."
Peter sighed. They ditched the truck 10 blocks from Massive Dynamic. They walked slowly, both getting distracted by cars and signs and stores. "No coffee," Peter said.
"Tea shops on every corner," Olivia said.
"More ads to go to the moon," Peter said. "I would kill to do that."
"Is that actually squid on a stick?" Olivia looked disgusted,
They browsed at a news stand. Olivia backed up and pulled Peter to her. "Look at that," she said.
"Fringe has their own billboards here," Peter said. "That would be nice."
"Something's wrong with the world," Olivia said. "Look at the newspapers; reports of wormholes, research on blight, insane weather. No one's arguing about global warming here."
"Walter did it," Peter said. "You're not supposed to cross over, the consequences could be catastrophic. Apparently they were on this side. I'd bet some of what we've seen is those consequences coming home to roost on our side."
"Why did he do it?"
Peter shrugged. "He refuses to say. Walter didn't mind experimenting on children, college students, anyone really. He doesn't want to admit this one which is frightening." He hated this world. He didn't want to be here. But he wanted Olivia to get what she wanted so he jammed his hands in his pockets.
"Maybe we could find a library," Olivia said.
She took his hand and he tried not to feel like he was being dragged. They saw TVs playing in what looked like a hotel bar. They went in and sat down. No one asked for a showme and they took Olivia's twenty without looking at either of them twice. "This is good whiskey," Peter said.
"At least they have that," Olivia said. Olivia grabbed his arm hard.
Peter reluctantly looked up. It was Walter. The other Walter. One who looked comfortable in a well made suit and spoke commandingly. The other Walter was talking about a warning sign everyone needed to know about given recent shifts in air quality.
The bartender came by and said, "You two okay?"
Peter nodded and said it was their first time in Manhattan in Spanish. The bartender nodded. "That is actually the great Walter Bishop."
Peter didn't hear any scorn in the man's voice. Olivia said, "We've heard of him, of course."
"Everyone knows him," the bartender said. "Ever since the Zero Incident and everything falling apart, he's been there to help. I know people don't like the amber, but I think it's nuts. It's like being upset at the water damage when they put out a fire."
"The amber stops the wormholes," Peter said.
"Sometimes they have to do it suddenly, they can't get everyone out," the bartender said.
"Of course," Olivia said. "I agree."
"But there's protests every time," the bartender said. "I think Walter Bishop is a great man."
Peter and Olivia both nodded. The bartender said, "If my kid were kidnapped, I wouldn't get out of bed."
Peter felt like his insides were ash, barely holding together and slowly crumbling on the edges. Olivia said, "I don't know about that. When was that?"
"It was news all over the world," the bartender said, like he felt pride in the story. "Back in 1985. Mrs. Bishop said a man who looked exactly like her husband except dressed in a cheap sweater - the cheap sweater, that's the part I always think about. If you could somehow make a disguise so convincing even your own wife was fooled, why not get the clothes right?"
"That's very odd, you're right," Olivia said. Peter felt nothing. Part of him knew every piece of the puzzle, nearly all of the puzzles, was falling into place. His brain kept calculating and building the diagram of everything he'd learned. He knew that Olivia was touching his back. He knew and all he felt was his chest tightening, two hands on his heart crushing it like a vise. He wasn't even moving.
"So this strange costumed man, he takes the kid, who was sick. They always leave that out. That kid had been sick for years, some genetic disease. So the man says he's found a cure, he's taking the boy. And then he never comes back," the bartender said. "Just disappeared."
Olivia said, "How do you come back from that?"
"I don't know," the bartender said. "That's why he's a great man, if you ask me."
"Yeah," Olivia said. She turned to Peter and said, "Luis, you look awful, let's go outside."
"Okay," Peter said. He let Olivia hold him up until they were outside.
Peter started walking. Olivia went after him. He said, "We said we were going to Massive Dynamic, we're not that far."
"Peter, we don't have to go," Olivia said.
"We said we'd go," Peter said. Then they were on the right block and there was no building. It was a park. Peter started laughing and he couldn't even stop. Even when Olivia was in front of him, hugging him tight.
He was probably crying a little into Olivia's shoulder. He wiped his face and stepped back. "Olivia?" She was looking at him like he was a lunatic. He said, "Massive Dynamic isn't here. Let's go home. I want to go home."
She looked at him and at the park around them. She said, "Okay, you're right, let's go."
He meant to say she shouldn't just agree with him, they were no closer to finding Bell. But he couldn't bring himself to form the words. He wanted out.
Peter tugged Olivia close and kissed her. He said, "Maybe we can stay, if you want. We haven't found Bell."
"No," Olivia said. "God, Peter, we're going now."
He felt like he was sleepwalking. He helped Olivia mug a kind looking taxicab driver. They threatened and didn't actually hurt so it was a very light mugging. Olivia had to be appalled at herself on the inside.
Peter found the GPS tracker installed on the car and threw it out the window. They drove out of Manhattan. Peter said. "Less security leaving than coming in."
Olivia glanced at him. She said, "It's very Big Brother. They track everyone's movement, have their genes on file."
"Everything is falling apart," Peter said. He looked out the window. "I don't mean just me."
Olivia said, "You're doing okay so far."
"Let's see how I'm doing when I see Walter." He closed his eyes. It felt like parts of him hadn't caught up with everything he now knew for sure. His kept feeling the grinding impact of the revelation over and over again.
"We're here," Olivia said. They walked a mile from the car to the side of the lake.
"They had to amber here," Peter said. "Of course they did, Walter broke the universe to kidnap me. Peter from your side, Walter's actual son, he died."
"You sound sure," Olivia said. She took his hand and squeezed.
"It makes sense. My mother, she was always sad," he said. His depressed mother, the very high functioning alcoholic. Her son had died. It all made sense. Every aspect of that ridiculous story made perfect sense of Peter's life.
Peter took out the remote and pointed at the site of the door.
Olivia took his hand and walked him through the door. Peter turned and closed the door. He backed up and threw a perfect spiral, watching the remote land in the lake.
"I'm so glad you're home," Astrid said. "Walter knew you'd come back. He's just asleep in the car."
"I'll wait in the car," Peter said. He left Olivia to make the explanations. He didn't feel much like being noble.
Olivia got in her SUV and glanced at Peter in the passenger seat. "Put on your seatbelt," she said.
"Okay," Peter said and he smiled. She cared about him so much she was willing to abandon her very important mission. At least for a week. He had that one thing in his life that was absolutely true.
THE END