A case that puts Olivia at risk really gets to Peter. Awesome Peter protectiveness and jealousy.
Takes place in the non-existent happy period after Olivia returns from the other side and they start dating, but before the Fringe world ending apocalypse of the season 3 finale.
A/N: I am not a scientist and none of the science-y stuff in here is real, or plausible. I've made it all up. So don't fault me for that!
ACT I
Peter slid back into bed, between the cool sheets and the wooly, army green blanket. His rustling, however gentle, stirred the sleeping woman beside him.
She blinked, rolling from her side to her stomach as Peter wrapped his arm around her. "Morning," she whispered through a yawn.
"Ah, yes," Peter said. "It's only 6:30, and already I've stopped Walter from setting the house on fire. He was in the kitchen doing some crazy experiment."
"Oh, no," Olivia said, nuzzling into Peter's underarm.
"But don't worry, despite being half asleep and thoroughly exhausted from last night's activities," Here Peter paused, a devilish grin across his face. "I did manage to here the clash and bang of Walter's experiment before he did too much damage."
"My hero," Olivia said, sighing as she breathed in the sweet, earthy scent of Peter's bare skin.
"Hey, don't mock me. You may be the ass kicking FBI agent, but I have to find some way to assert my manhood around here."
He wrapped his arm tighter around Olivia, who had now migrated from the pillow she had been lying on to the inside of Peter's arm. He kissed her forehead gently.
"I think you did that last night quite well." She opened her eyes to look up at Peter, who was still smirking with a crooked, devious smile. Before he could reply, a buzzing came from the cell phone on his night table.
"Damnit," Peter said, picking up Olivia's ringing phone and handing it to her. "I was hoping I could prove myself again before we have to go save the world from the weird and terrible."
"Dunham," Olivia said into the phone, still cuddled into Peter's chest. "Yessir, I'll get the Bishops. We'll be there soon." She put the phone down, and hugged Peter tightly. "Can't we just get one free day where the fate of the universe isn't relying on me waking before 8 A.M?"
"I wish," Peter said, kissing her again. Olivia sighed at the feeling of Peter's scruffy face touching her forehead, the most gentle and loving touch she'd ever felt.
She reached up to run her hand through Peter's scuffy beard and he smiled at her. "We should get up, shouldn't we?"
-SUTTON, MA-
Olivia, Walter and Peter emerged from a black SUV and walked past the many police officers and CSI techs to meet Broyles, who stood over a mangled and cut up body.
A woman, blonde, lay lifeless among the bushes at his feet. Her skin was bluish in tint, her lips and eye sockets purple. Her skull had been cracked open and it was clear someone had been rooting around inside it.
"What have we got," Olivia said to Broyles, who sternly looked down at the body.
"Female, 30. Name Christina Petroski, killed, cut up and dumped in the woods. ME can't quite settle on a time of death. It appears she was killed days ago, and possibly preserved in formaldehyde. Decay has been stunted severely."
"Okay," Olivia said, nodding her head.
Peter, who had crouched down to better view the body, winced as he realized there were cuts covering a lot of her body. "While that's gruesome on it's own, why is this a fringe case?"
"The murder is similar to two open FBI cases. Both those victims grew up in Jacksonville, Florida on a military base. Cortexiphan subjects, confirmed by blood tests. We can't be certain until Walter tests this victim, but we think she was a subject too. She lived in Jacksonville until quite recently. It appears someone is hunting cortexiphan subjects and experimenting on them." Broyles looked at Olivia with his usual hard gaze.
"Cortexiphan kids," Olivia said, looking slowly from Broyles to Walter, who had a look of guilt on his face. Walter ducked behind Peter, almost as if in hiding.
"Wait," Peter said, holding up his hand. "If someone is hunting down cortexiphan subjects, Olivia should not be investigating. Whoever's doing this knows who was in the trial. They know Olivia was a subject. I am not risking that."
"Peter," Olivia said, "The only way to protect me from whoever's doing this is to find him before he finds me. Or any one else who was in the trial."
Peter ground his teeth and fisted his hands. "Broyles—" he said, trying to appeal to him. But Walter put his hand on his son's shoulder, garnering his attention.
"Olivia's right, son. Sitting in wait will do nothing to protect her." Walter looked sheepishly at his son, who was looking angrier by the second.
"Let's get this body back to the lab, then. " Olivia said, already walking towards her SUV. Peter looked down at the body and sighed heavily, then turned to follow her.
-HARVARD UNIVERSITY-
While Astrid and Walter were pouring over the body, Peter and Olivia sat in the office sifting through files on Christina Petroski, as well as the other two victims, Allison Jacobs and Samantha Goldberg.
They had been quiet for a while, Olivia immersed in the background files of the victims, Peter mostly shuffling through papers but unable to concentrate.
"Why all females," Peter said, staring at Olivia, his arms crossed across his grey sweater.
"I don't know, Peter. But you're right. It is the only connection between the victims, besides the cortexiphan trials. They weren't even living in the same area. One lived in Pennsylvania, the other in Connecticut, near Hartford, and the latest one here in Massachusetts. We need to figure out why they're being targeted, and how the killer knows about Cortexiphan. They weren't even abducted in similar places. Petroski was in a bar in Boston, Jacobs in a parking structure and Goldberg in her work building. How is he identifying them?"
"I don't like this," Peter said, clenching his teeth. "Whoever's doing this could be looking for you."
"Peter," Olivia said, reaching her hand over to Peter's, which was lying, clenched on the table. She picked it up, unballing his fist and began to intertwine their fingers. They continued to look at each other, Peter still clearly unhappy with the situation, Olivia trying to calm him with her gentle, green eyes.
Astrid walked into the office and the two quickly let go of each other's hands.
"You guys might want to hear this," Astrid said, a grim look on her face. They followed her out into the lab.
Walter was in the middle of dissecting the victim's brain, with a look of excitement on his face.
"Alright, what have you found, Walter," Peter asked.
"Smell," Walter said, but only Peter leaned forward. "What you should be smelling is formaldehyde, as the body was preserved in it. However, this body smells like sweat and the possibly the slightest bit of honey.
"Right here," he said, using a scalpel to pull back a portion of the brain. "This should be the hypothalamus, which is largely responsible for our reactions to pheromones. As sweat and perhaps honey, are possible reactive pheromones, I find this most curious. The unique odor leads me to believe that someone was perhaps using the cortexiphan in these woman's systems as a way to enhance the way we perceive pheromones, which are largely responsible for human attraction, not to mention sexual ar—"
"Okay, Walter, we get it," Peter said, cutting him off. "Someone's trying to make these women into a walking aphrodisiac."
"My question is, how did they know who to target? How could he know who had been exposed to cortexiphan. Massive Dynamic lost those files years ago."
"I think it's time to pay Nina Sharp a visit in New York," Peter said, crossing his arms.