Slipping, falling, turning under the dark waves that threatened to strangle. Seeing nothing, feeling everything. Hearing detached words, saying jumbled sentences. Solving the cases, pretending to be alive. A face, his face, among the seemingly random images.
Olivia Dunham had just awoken from the second nightmare that night.
She held her forehead gingerly, the cold sweat chilling her long, thin fingers. Her blonde hair was falling out of its ponytail and the back of her tank top was soaked and clinging to her body. In other words, she was a complete meltdown.
She couldn't remember what had caused these related but odd dreams. Well, she did, but she didn't know why that harmless incident had made her sleepless for a week.
Because a week ago, she had come within seconds of blowing herself up, only managing to shut off the bomb with some drug she was given as a child. A normal person's common sense would tell them, Get out of here, the building was going to come down anyway, do you want to die?
Olivia, however, found it her civil duty to protect and defend the people who had unknowingly come inches from facing death. She envied their ignorance. Not a day went by when she didn't think about some disturbing case she had been on with her fellow partners.
Partners.
The word rang out clear in her mind, so loudly she had to sit up and grip her head forcefully to stop it. Almost like a school bell, its-
Bell. William Bell. Head of Massive Dynamic. The very reason she had, so often, to face terrifying monsters and mystical apparitions. There was the time that she went with Walter and-
Walter. He was the scientist of the team, but also the most detached, the most insane, the most likely to believe just about anything she told him. Hell, she could probably tell him unicorns existed and he'd give an hour long explanation to back it up. Of course, laughing in the corner would be his son, Peter-
Peter. The freshest face in her mind. After all, he had been shown his sarcastic smirk in several of the flashes of dream. He came back. Why did he come back? Why did he value her life so much as to risk his own? Why hadn't he, like everyone else, completely abandoned her when she needed him so much?
Unfortunately, nothing could distract her from those vital questions that chanted like a tribal ritual in her head. Well, she didn't know why. All she knew is that he did, no matter what he had said before.
She sat up and looked around the small apartment room. Alone. She didn't want to be alone anymore. When she had been with John Scott, she had felt like for once, there was always going to be something there with her. And what do you know, she fell for it.
So now she was alone in her house, completely freaked out by the fact she can turn lights off with her mind, and brooding over her fallen "soldier" if he could be called that. Her sister and niece had decided to spend the night in a hotel room, since Aunt Livy was acting a bit strange. Olivia couldn't say she blamed them.
There was only one person she wanted to see right now. The one person who always made her feel safe because he constantly came back, time after time, to save her like those wimpy princesses in the fairy tales she told Ella. Wimpy as they might be, she needed him, like a newborn child needs air. He was the one who caught her whenever she dared to fall.
If she was honest with herself, she loved him. Almost unconditionally. But by loving him, she was setting herself up for his world, his shady, terrifying, and abysmal world. She loved him from the day they met, even though she didn't know it, and time had only strengthened the bond.
Wait a minute.
There were two men in her life that fit that same description. Peter, who she had been thinking about, and John Scott. Only, John had never caught her, only been there to help her back up on her feet after she fell. Sorry honey, here, take my hand. Oh please, she had taken falls that would break his spine-
There was a noise that broke her thoughts. It went on, and on, repeating it annoying high-pitched sound. A light also distracted her. For a few moments, she couldn't place what the disturbance was, until she looked over on her nightstand and saw her cell phone.
"Oh."
Olivia reached over and picked it up, beautiful green eyes burning as she stared at the bright light, trying to decipher the letters there.
CALL FROM: Bishops (Home)
She flipped it open and held it up to her ear awkwardly. "Hello?"
"See, Peter, I told you she was awake! Oh! Hello, Miss Dunham."
"Walter?"
"Yes, yes. I wanted to ask you if you've had any dreams lately."
"No. I don't usually dream anyway, though."
Her lie seemed to have worked. "Hmm. Well, okay then. I apologize for waking you." There was a pause, with muffled voices in the background. Olivia figured Walter was talking to Peter with his hand over the receiver. "Peter wants to talk to you."
"Walter, no- hey Livia."
His rough voice physically calmed her and made things a little bit clearer. She was Olivia Dunham, FBI agent, in the Fringe division. Her elite team consisted of herself, Peter, Walter, and Agent Astrid Farnsworth. Her sister was Rachel Dunham, her niece was Ella. His voice made her remember everything again.
"Hi Peter."
He half sighed, half groaned. "Walter wants to know if you're positive you haven't had any dreams."
"I'm positive. I haven't had any dreams." She was surprised; normally she couldn't lie to Peter. Maybe it was because she couldn't look him in the eye right now.
He snorted. "Told you, Walter. I guess he thought… never mind. I'll see you tomorrow, Liv."
"Yeah."
As they said goodbyes and hung up, she realized that tomorrow couldn't come soon enough.
There you go, something for me to break my writer's block and my first Fringe ONESHOT. (heavy on that, this is not going to be continued) Yay or nay?