Lost Hope
Chapter 1
*Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep.*
"Peter…the alarm" Olivia mumbled as she flipped over to bury her face beneath the covers and hide from the sun. A barely conscious Peter reached his hand over to the nightstand and blindly swatted toward the noise.
For the first time in three weeks Olivia managed to sleep in long enough to hear the alarm blare at 6:00 am. Every day until today she had been dragged out of bed like clockwork at five o'clock by morning sickness. As much as she was relieved to be keeping her insides inside for once, she couldn't bring herself to wake up this morning. You need sleep, she reasoned with herself. In truth, she was just ready for a day off. She wrapped her arms around Peter's torso and quickly dozed off again.
It had been exactly four weeks ago today that Olivia stood in William Bell's office on the ship he was using as a safe-house while starting his own universe. This meant it had also been exactly four weeks since Walter had aimed a gun at her forehead and pulled the trigger.
While it took her a few days to bring herself to forgive Walter, she had been back in the lab almost immediately to get to work on cases. For the most part she understood what he had done and was even secretly a little thankful for it; after all, with her alive there was no way to stop the universes from collapsing. And he had known the Cortexiphan in her system would repair any damage he did. At least, he hoped it would. Either way, she had pushed the memories to the back of her mind and aside from the occasional nightmare, they had stayed there. Plus, she always had Peter by her side when the dreams stirred her awake. He was an expert at calming her; all he had to do was mention the baby and her thoughts would drift back to happy places.
*Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep.* Olivia sighed as she sat up. She knew she eventually had to get out of bed. At least I got 10 extra minutes this morning, she thought as she glanced at the clock. She had to do a double-take when she realized that it was 7:30.
After turning off the alarm, Olivia carefully stood up from the bed, finally registering that Peter wasn't next to her as he always was when she got up in the morning. Confused, she slowly walked into the bathroom, hoping the morning sickness was gone for good and not just waiting for her to be up and moving around. With no nausea after brushing her teeth and washing her face, Olivia felt confident that she would be free of sickness, at least for today.
As Olivia left the bathroom and headed to the living room to look for Peter she caught the smell of cinnamon in the air. Intrigued, she headed for the kitchen where she found Peter. He was leaning over the sink when Olivia paused in the doorway. She let a moment pass, then another as she took in the glow of the sun enveloping him from the kitchen window. Finally, the sight of French toast and orange juice on the counter pulled her into the kitchen.
"Good morning," she said, still a little groggy. Peter was startled but regained his composure almost instantly. He turned as Olivia was pulling a chair out from under the table.
"Good morning," he said, a smile spreading across his face.
"It's 7:30." She had intended this as a statement of fact but it ended up sounding more like a question.
"Yeah. I thought you could use the sleep." Peter held back a laugh. He knew Olivia well enough to know that she was never great at taking kind gestures from people. But he also knew her well enough to know that somewhere, deep-down, she was grateful for the extra sleep. "Are you hungry?"
"Starving," she said as her eyes flew back to the plate of French toast next to Peter. Obliging her glance, Peter picked up the plate and the pitcher of orange juice and walked them over to the table. He set them down for Olivia and then went back to find some glasses and silverware.
"What's all of this for?" Olivia asked as Peter made his way back to join her at the table.
"What? A guy can't make breakfast for a beautiful woman?" He moved a few pieces of the French toast to Olivia's plate and poured juice into her glass.
Olivia blushed. "Well, he can. But I've been working with the FBI long enough to know there is always an ulterior motive," she teased and began to cut into her breakfast.
Peter contemplated this for a moment. "You're right" he finally said as he leaned across the table and surprised her with a kiss. "I just needed an excuse to do that."
"I knew it. Always an ulterior motive." she tried to sound as indifferent as possible but couldn't hide her smile.
Olivia heard her phone ring from the living room as she picked up her glass of juice. With a roll of her eyes for losing the moment, she pushed back from the table and went to answer. Peter's phone began buzzing on the counter. This was never a good sign – both phones ringing at once usually meant there was a new case. She grabbed her phone from the coffee table and saw Broyles' name on the caller ID, further confirming her suspicion.
While she still held out hope, she put on her best FBI Special Agent-voice to answer. "Dunham."
"Agent Dunham, we have a case." Per usual, Agent Broyles sounded tense.
"Where?"
"There isn't a where for this one. I'll meet you and the Bishops at the lab in 30 minutes."
"Yes, sir." And with that, she hung up the phone. Of course. She knew a day off sounded too good to be true.
Peter walked into the room with a you too? look on his face. Olivia nodded before standing up to get ready.
Twenty minutes later, Olivia sat in the passenger seat of the FBI-issue SUV, staring absent-mindedly out the window as Peter drove them to the Harvard lab. She playfully intertwined her fingers with Peter's loose hand over the center console.
Peter broke the silence as he pulled up to a red light. "You feeling okay?"
"Yeah. Good actually, for the first time in weeks. Why?"
"I noticed that you actually managed to sleep until the alarm went off this morning. I just wanted to make sure that's a good sign."
"I think it is. But I've never done this before so I guess we will both just have to see." It hit Olivia for the first time today that she was pregnant. That she was actually growing a small human being inside of her. The thought was both exciting and terrifying. She still had almost seven months before the baby would be welcomed to the world, but she was already feeling anxious.
"Well I hope so. I hate seeing you feeling sick all the time."
"Not as much as I hate feeling sick all the time." It was much easier for her to joke about it when she wasn't draped over the toilet.
"I know." Peter gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
"Do you think we're going to be good parents?" Olivia blurted after a few moments of silence passed. She had been thinking about it a lot lately. Neither she nor Peter had had the best parental figures growing up. Her own stepfather had been abusive. And Peter's father was, well, he was Walter which is a fact that speaks for itself. She wondered how their combined experiences could possibly make them a good set of parents.
Peter, still driving, broke his glance from the road for just a moment to lock eyes with Olivia. "Of course we will."
"But-" Olivia started to protest.
Peter didn't let her finish. He had had the same thoughts but didn't want to let either of them go down that path. "Listen, I've seen how you are with Ella and other kids. They love you. You're a natural. And I, well I'm good at faking it until I make it-" Olivia laughed, knowing this last part was true. "-so one way or another we're going to make it work."
They pulled up outside of Kresge Building, the home of Walter's lab. Peter shut off the engine but neither of them got out right away.
Their eyes met again as Olivia took a moment to consider their potential parenting abilities. "I hope you're right." She said before pushing open her door. Peter kept his grasp on her hand as she stepped out and then got out himself. He met her in front of the car and placed his hand over the small of her back to gently guide her into the building.
Peter held the door open for Olivia as she passed in front of him into the lab. They were met with the lab's usual sights and smells; Gene stood quietly in her stall, chewing hay, Walter stood over a Bunsen burner, probably cooking some sort of breakfast concoction, and Astrid bustled around between the computer and Walter, making sure he didn't do any harm to the lab or to himself. She was the first to see Olivia and Peter and greeted them with a cheerful "Good morning."
Peter and Olivia responded with a synchronized "Good morning, Astrid".
Walter, hearing the exchange, broke his concentration from his equipment. As he had every time he saw Olivia since hearing her and Peter's announcement, he ran over to greet her with an enthusiastic, but gentle hug. "Good morning, Olivia," was followed by "Good morning, Peter," as he turned to face his son.
"Good morning, Walter," Peter chuckled as Olivia blushed next to him. He enjoyed Olivia's bashfulness at the warm greeting.
"Is Broyles here yet?" Olivia asked to no one in particular.
"Not yet," Astrid answered. "Did he give you any details about this one?"
"No. He just said that there was no 'where'. But I'm not quite sure what that means," Olivia confessed.
"Us either, but the mysteriousness has Walter particularly intrigued this morning."
Hearing his name, Walter broke back into the conversation. "Just think of all the possibilities. Oh, you don't think it has something to do with Belly again, do you?" The thought must have just occurred to him. His eyes began to search the lab as if the new ideas suddenly racing around his mind were being projected around him.
"Let's hope not." Peter said, trying to move the conversation away from those memories. Losing Olivia twice was plenty for him. He didn't want to think that it could possibly happen again.
The door opened and Broyles walked in. He nodded as a general greeting to them all, then immediately broke into his briefing. "I received a call this morning from the offices downstairs about a 25-year-old woman, Celine Drier, who is evidently supposed to be in the witness protection program. But until they came across the name in a series of files, no one in the office had heard of her. The FBI has been trying to locate her for three days with no luck. Yesterday they made contact with her immediate family, but it seems they have no idea who she is. Agents have spoken to her parents, brother, and husband, but they all claim to have never heard of a Celine Drier."
"What do you mean they have never heard of her? You just said she is their daughter, sister, wife." Olivia's confusion spoke for everyone in the lab.
"That's why they called me. Her listed address is a vacant apartment in Middleton. I want you to go and check it out, see if you find anything that suggests she has been there or where she might have gone."
Peter jumped in. "So outside of federal records she doesn't exist? How is that possible?"
"I don't know," Broyles confessed. "But it seems this is the fourth in a series of individuals going missing. In each case, the only record of the people having existed at all is in handwritten reports. Their families, coworkers, and friends, have no idea who they are and leads as to where they might have gone are non-existent."
"Fascinating," Walter said to himself as he began to process the information and his mind began running through possibilities. "Maybe someone is experimenting with induced amnesia or perhaps with mind control..." He trailed off as he ran across the lab to look through an old notebook.
Broyles pulled attention back to the immediate details of the case. "I'm having agents speak with the witness protection office to get information about why she was in the program. But, so far it appears as if Celine Drier never existed."
"Could Celine Drier be a fake name? If she's using a false identity her relatives might not know who we're talking about," Olivia wondered aloud.
"Unlikely," Broyles responded, appearing to have already asked the same question. "A preliminary search of known aliases and identities used by the witness protection program turned up no results. Whoever this woman is, or was, has always gone by the name of Celine Drier. And it's not just the name the family has no memory of; the parents claim they only had one child, their son."
"Okay, well we can head over to the apartment and see if the landlord or a neighbor can give us any information," Olivia offered when Broyles was finished.
"And I'll have her file sent over so I can try to see if there is anything that stands out," Astrid volunteered.
"Good. Let me know what you find," Broyles said as he turned to leave the lab. He paused and turned back around as if he had just remembered something important. Olivia looked up, waiting for more details or further instructions. "Olivia, how are you doing?" The gentleness of the question broke through Broyles' usual stern façade.
Olivia realized Peter was already on the other side of the lab helping to control Walter's increasingly-fantastical theories and Astrid was on the phone, probably tracking down Mrs. Drier's file. "I'm okay." She was momentarily thrown off by his inquiry into her personal life. She saw him studying her, looking for hidden meaning in her facial expression or posture. "Really, I'm fine," she offered as reassurance after a moment.
Broyles nodded and again turned to leave.
Peter walked up next to Olivia. "What was that about?"
"Oh," Olivia shrugged. "Nothing. Broyles was just checking on things. Are you ready?"
"Sure. Do you have the address?"
Olivia's phone beeped just then with a new message. Right on queue it was the address from Broyles. "Yeah." She grabbed Peter's hand and they headed back to the car.
a/n: This is my first story. Ever. So I'm sorry if it's a little rough in the beginning but I promise it will get better as I go. My goal is to just be able to do justice to the incredible world the show's writers created. But anyway, thanks for reading! Comments would be much appreciated :)