Justice
A/N: This was inspired by events that we learned of in 4.02 "One Night in October"; namely, of how Olivia did in fact kill her stepfather.
This is going to be dark and angst-ridden. There is no other way to write this.
Disclaimer: I don't own a single cent of Fringe; I can only claim the profound wanderings of my muse that inspire works such as this.
There's a revolver in the kitchen drawer, the second one down next to the sink.
Nine year-old Olivia Dunham knows this because she's been checking up on it for the past four months, polishing it whenever her stepfather was out on another of his futile drunken rampages. She shines the weapon with a scuffed cloth that she found tucked away in a corner of the attic, her anxious eyes flicking to the kitchen door all the while.
She doesn't have to make it known to her mother that she's noticed the bruises; they lace up her arms like mottled cobwebs. It makes the fire of Olivia's anger burst open from its spiteful furnace, and she knows that after tonight, there will be no more bruises.
She thinks of how wonderful it will be to be able to wear short sleeves again and not see black and blue staining the surface of her skin. She knows that no one has taken much notice of her; she sits in the room at the daycare centre with her paper and pencils and that is all she needs. She's always been a self-sufficient child, using what she has to make do.
She watches the clock with great intent now. He will be back soon.
Her mind briefly falls on the people at the Jacksonville daycare as the gravity of what she is about to do settles on her shoulders. She thinks of Walter and his kind face, but with it comes clouds of fear, portents of an approaching storm. She thought that he was married – she saw him talking to a pretty woman, once – but she's wasn't quite sure. She's never really gotten to know the others much aside from Nick Lane; but even though they got along well, she deems the bond as something less than friendship. Her hours are spent roaming in worlds that form in her precocious mind, where she can freely wander without the restraints of rules.
She runs the cloth over the barrel again; she can see her reflection glaring back at her. It's almost midnight now, and it's unlike him to be back later than that. He claimed that staying out late was a bad influence for the children, but Olivia doesn't believe the lies he paints on the walls of their lives. At this point she's ready to rip the walls off and burn his yellow-coated lies.
She's had a bag packed for days in case the need ever came for this; she had considered telling Rachel, but her mother would need someone at her side, and Olivia knows that she would not be the one.
There's a crunching outside, like heavy footsteps on broken glass. Olivia opens the drawer of the small table next to her and tucks the cloth away; hiding it now won't be necessary. She peeks out the living room window to be certain, and the dark, stumbling figure out in the rain is all the confirmation she needs. She flicks the safety off the gun and makes ready to charge into the kitchen when he comes in. She knows how to hold it and the way to squeeze the trigger; she's seen her stepfather do it before outside, and when he waves the same gun around her mother and sister.
The porch creaks under the weight of steps. She's curled around the edge of the doorway that connects the kitchen to the living room. A heavy clink of keys rattling against the door frame sends a shiver up her spine just before the door opens.
From there, impulse takes over.
She dashes around the corner, gun raised in her shaky hands. It's only a moments later that her stepfather turns around and sees her there, his face a combination of stupefaction and concern.
"Olivia," he says as he raises his hands in mock defense. "What are you doing? Put down the gun."
Her hands spasm in shivers as her lips quiver; she will not lower that gun. She shakes her head as her eyes fill with tears and her heart pounds with fear. She knows that the minute she lowers the guns she loses any chance of ending this; she will lose any freedom that she has ever had.
"Olivia," he repeats, anger encroaching on his voice. "Put the gun down, now."
She shakes her head as a sob falls from her lips. She cannot help the sadness; there will be no more bright days after this. She knows what type of cars will come for her, filled with men and their shiny silver bracelets. But she had chosen her fate long ago.
Her stepfather starts walking towards her, his eyes ripe with fury and his voice booming like thunder. It's so dark in the house that she wonders if he can even see her. She presses her finger to the trigger.
"Olivia, I said –"
Those were the last words that he spoke before a bullet tore through his shoulder. He stumbles back, a cry flying from his mouth as he looks to her again. "You brat! When I get my –"
She fires again, this bullet shredding through his chest. She tries not to look at the darkness spreading over the kitchen floor; she knows that it's blood.
When her stepfather tries to speak again, he only emits a low gargle in the back of his throat as his knees hit the stained linoleum with a hollow thud.
She pauses then, her eyes trailing over his injured form. He seems so much smaller like that, and she gets the impression that he's almost the same height as her, the same size. She wonders how someone like him could have ever been as small as she is, as she believes that monsters don't exist in any form of innocence. She studies him again; his lazy eyes that have rolled off to the side, and the gouges formed by the bullets she fired were soaking with blood. The shaking hand with the gun falls to her side. She takes a step forward as the supreme gravity of what she's done truly hits her.
She's just shot another person. Another living human being, no different than she is.
Conflict bleeds into her mind. How can her stepfather be human like her when he comes home drunk and beats Olivia and her family? How can a human being harm another in such unjustified ways? She looks to the gun still trembling in her hands and realizes that she has done the same; she's almost killed another person for a cause her nine year-old mind doesn't even fully understand. She only understands that what is happening in this house is wrong and that it has to stop.
She moves towards her stepfather and he suddenly lashes out at her, a long, bloody arm grasping in vain in the air. It's then that she realizes – that she knows – that he is not like her. He is the epitome of human wrongs, and she will not stand for that.
She moves away from her stepfather and raises the gun again as her lips tighten over her clenched teeth; she will not put the gun down. His form struggles up from the floor, the darkness and blood casting him in a horrific scene; his eyes appear to glow in the murky moonlight.
As she presses her finger to the trigger again she thinks of all the things she has seen, all the faces that have come to appear in her life. There are so many, but the list seems incomplete somehow, and she feels as if there must be another. She tries to delve deeper into her mind, but too many breaks and jumps in her memory halt her progress and she abandons the endeavor entirely. Her real father is dead, and Walter Bishop is nowhere close to what she had before. Her stepfather is an onyx stain on her family tree that she no longer hesitates to burn off because there is no one else; the men in her life have all abandoned her for their own pursuits and let her be the bearer of their misfortunes.
She's had enough, and with one final breath she delivers a final blow
The bullet tears through his neck and unleashes a torrent of blood. Olivia cries out in fear and runs out of the kitchen as footsteps thump down from upstairs. She crawls beneath the safety of the living room table next to the couch and curls her knees up to her face. In those terrifying moments she hears her mother enter the kitchen, and then the screaming starts.
She prays that no one will find her.
Outside and across the street, two men in suits watch the scene play out beneath the brims of their black fedoras. One jots his observations down with his left hand as the other stares ahead at the Dunham household. September stops writing and looks to December.
"It appears that much has changed," announced September, closing his notebook.
"Yes," replied December, looking ahead. "And I suspect that much more is about to."
Fin
I'd really appreciate some reviews everyone; this was not an easy piece to write.