This piece was inspired over a week's worth of speculation on season 5 that eventually turned itself into a loose plot. I wanted to post this before whatever awesomeness that real writers came up with blew this out of the water tomorrow night. Sorry to jump on the Season 5 dog pile. Written for, and edited by CoffinWood. Post Letters of Transit.
He knows he's holding on too tight to her but he's terrified that if he lets go she'll disappear all over again and he's only just gotten her back. So he crushes her into his chest, nose buried in her hair; the child-like smell long gone, but if he keeps breathing her in for long enough he knows he'll find it hidden somewhere, just like he remembers. The lights on the train flicker overhead, and although she's grown now and not the same little girl he never knew, he's deliriously happy in this moment. And the fact that she's holding onto him just as tight makes him both proud and troubled.
"Hi Dad," she says into the crook of his neck, and when she speaks he hears Olivia's voice and he's suddenly choking for words.
The day Peter finds out he's going to be a father he plays Choplin on the piano he finds under a dusty sheet in the corner of the lab. The textures of his notes are furious, bits and pieces of sonatas ingrained in him from the childhoods that never existed, weaving melodies together delicately and forcefully all at once, all of it reverberating off the old brick walls.
Peter knows nothing of how to be a father, no real experience to draw from on how to care for another human being. If he's being honest with himself, he's a little terrified. The notes become choppy, a muddled mix of anger paced by fear and the tempo increases as his hands stab the keys in frustration.
It's Walter who finds him, lips curled down and his hands tucked into the ruffled material of his worn lab coat that somehow still fits into even though it's from the seventies. The music cuts off when he runs out of music to play and Peter realizes he's no longer alone. The silence is thick where the music used to be.
"I can't do this." Peter finally says into the open space surrounding him, and even air tastes stale on his tongue. There's a bone-deep sense of failure that he can't shake, and it makes it hard to talk.
"Well, perhaps you should have thought of that before." Walter says evenly and Peter snorts though it doesn't lighten the mood at all.
"How do I even…" Peter grapples but he's silenced with a warm hand on his shoulder that's as close to fatherly as Peter can hope.
"You'll be surprised at what the love for a child can do to a man," Walter says, his eyes wistful and a little sad with a lifetime of understanding. "You'd destroy universes for them."
It's the first and last time his father ever says those words out loud.
At that moment, watching Peter at the piano, Walter can't bring himself to reveal the warning from the Observer whose name he doesn't quite recall. He wants to spare this boy with his son's face from the threat he knows is still coming, and the and devastating truth - that in order for their child to survive, Olivia's prophesy must still be fulfilled.
Walter doesn't regret withholding the information at the time, content to be a grandfather for as long as he can and hopes Peter doesn't make the same mistakes he did.
Four years later Peter does. He doesn't care if he destroys a thousand worlds; end the lives of a billion people. He'd gladly send them all spiraling into the goddamned sun if it means he gets to keep a firm hold of his three-year-old with the pudgy legs and curly pigtails. Fatherhood didn't come easily for him, but as soon as he held the little bundle in his arms for the first time and saw his eyes and Olivia's chin, he knew she was the best thing he'd ever done in his whole life.
And for the first time he understands how his absence broke his father as a man, and why he was never able to piece himself back together properly. The horror of losing his daughter is enough to make him go a little insane. It doesn't.
It turns him into a raving lunatic.
Olivia never blames him after the Purge and the Observers carried their Etta away, her little fists outstretched and reaching for her parents but within seconds they were just…gone. Vanished and left them standing in the same park that was filled with warmth just moments before. Silent weeks stretch by and while Peter becomes consumed with anger and revenge and hellfire, Olivia turns quiet; retreating backward and going back to work. Peter ignores it, buries the problems of his broken marriage because he's witnessed firsthand the destruction of losing a child and what it does to a couple. And he's not ready to lose his wife, too.
And he just knows he can fix everything if he can just figure out a way to get their kid back. He works around the clock with Walter at the lab, not able to face Olivia until he has answers for her he never finds. He does his best to keep them together, makes sure she eats, puts the dishes away, but the house it too quiet without the bustling noise of Etta's footsteps and soon he stops coming home at all. He knows it's over the moment Walter comes to him quietly one night at the lab, sitting where Peter had sat at the piano when he first learned he was going to be a father. Peter hasn't played a note since Etta disappeared.
"I'm afraid I've forgotten something," Walter says, his face gaunt with distress. "Something important I've only just remembered." By the way Walter's face quivers and his hands shake, Peter knows it's bad. Through bloodshot eyes, Peter listens, saying nothing. Preparing for the worst.
"One of them came to me here one night to warn me. He told me that he warned Olivia," Walter stumbles, held together by his son's fingers pressing over his own. "That in all futures, Olivia had to die. I think this is how we get Etta back."
Peter's blood drains. But he knows the truth of it without Walter having to say the words aloud. He knows that Olivia knows, too.
"Olivia for Etta." Peter concludes. It isn't a question. He can see it in Walter's crumbled face and he's out the door before he really understands what the hell he's doing, racing home like a shotgun's aimed at the back of his head.
Olivia's already gone by the time he gets there, the house achingly empty in its stillness. The fear's overwhelming, thick and angry on his shoulders. Without Olivia it feels haunted. After a few heated moments of searching he finds her in the backyard, perched on the swing in the abandoned play set, staring into the darkened sky like it might have some answers. He half-expects to find a packed bag, but he knows she wouldn't bother taking anything with her. He sits in the swing beside her, feet scraping against the grass and staring up at all the injustice in the night, trying to sort out the raging swirl of emotions. He doesn't hide it well; he doesn't bother to, feeling like he's been punched in the chest. She doesn't turn her head to look at him, her face lit only by the light from the moon; wearing the same broken expression she's had since the day they lost Etta.
He suddenly misses his wife even though she's close enough that he can touch her.
"I don't think I can live without you." Peter says, voice thick. Olivia doesn't move.
"I can't live without her." She answers, and he knows she's already gone and for the second time in his life (maybe the third?), he dies.
At first he tries reasoning with her. When that fails, he resorts to begging. In frustration, he argues; shouting at the top of his lungs, red-faced and hauling every hurtful thing he can to try and change her mind. He calls her selfish, calls her worse, but he knows it's pushing a boulder up a mountain, but he has to try. His words are lost on her, her determination set. She doesn't raise her voice once during his tirade, won't crack like he wants her to, which makes him all the more desperate and exceedingly more angry.
Only when his voice is shot does she finally wrap her arms around his middle, pressing her forehead in between his shoulder blades as he slumps over the kitchen sink and he realizes she hasn't touched him since that day and he spins to kiss her so fiercely that it startles them both. She doesn't tell him to stop so he doesn't; his need to touch her is so expansive that she lets him drag her to their deserted bed with hot mouths and low murmurings in an attempt to expel the demons that are riding his bones. He claws at her skin like he's trying to crawl inside her, leaving long red welts on her back because he wants to memorize everything about her that he's taken for granted. When they finally fall back empty and spent, he falls asleep for the first time in weeks. Etta's face plagues his dreams and he's comforted when he feels Olivia's warmth beside him, and he lets himself think that things might be okay.
She's gone when he wakes up the next morning, her side of the bed long since cooled. He touches the spot where his wife slept and feels the emptiness of the house waiting for him and it's all too much and he presses his face into the scent of her pillow and screams until there's nothing left in him.
Walter never tells Peter what happened to his wife, but Peter knows Olivia's gone. His father's face mirrors his own deep-seeded turmoil, and there's a sucking sensation like his heart's burning holes through his chest. Hot tears stain his cheeks that he doesn't bother wiping away because he's beyond caring anymore. It's autumn, the leaves a kaleidoscope of beautiful oranges and gold but it's the chill Peter feels in the courtyard of Harvard not the beauty; the season lost on him altogether. There are Observers everywhere now, thick as thieves and the pressed black and grey of their suits stands out sharply against the soft tones of the weather. Dark-suited infiltrators that don't bother to go unseen.
"Did she say anything…anything for me?" Peter asks, gripping Walter's shoulders for support when he's close to toppling.
Walter nods, his eyes flashing as he tightens his grip on Peter's jacket.
"She said 'keep her safe'." And he hesitates for just a second. Peter's face is hot with anger and Walter almost shrinks away, but the residing guilt of not warning Peter of September's warning earlier haunts him every day.
"She also said not to come looking for her body."
Peter doesn't respond, even though he wants to lash out and break every bone in Olivia's body for making this choice for the both of him. He opens his mouth to curse when he sees the curl of yellow hair that stands not far behind Walter.
It's been six weeks, four days and nineteen hours since Peter last saw his child. He still has every detail of her face memorized. Etta stands brightly, his little girl, hand in hand with September not fifteen feet away and he wants to laugh and cry, but mostly he just wants to scoop her up and make sure she's real.
"Etta?" he says like he's not sure over Walter's shoulder, and when she looks to September for the okay he holds his breath. It's a slow burn, spreading along his stomach and filling his chest as he waits.
"Hi daddy," she squeaks, running to Peter's arms and letting him wrap her in a bear hug to breathe her in. His hands shake, but he feels like he's being slowly put back together.
Peter gets only a week reunited with his daughter before the first wave hits and the fighting becomes an annihilation. The Observers are systematic and precise: void of humanity, cruel. They crumble the government in less than two days and make swift work of any factions that dare to resist the takeover.
Fringe is the last of those fractions. Without Olivia, it becomes a crusade for the remaining members. Etta's left in the care of Nina Sharp, who Peter doesn't tell about Olivia, not yet, because he needs her to focus and care for the last attachment he has to his wife. They both know she's gone, and the unknowing is difficult and stretches the tension out between them but there's no one else that Peter can trust. Etta's different since her return, her child-like expression gone and she looks at him with the same knowing focus that she obviously inherited from her mother. It's difficult for Peter to look at Etta without seeing Olivia; and too soon it becomes painful. Etta's bright and she does things that Nina's never seen before, but Nina keeps that information from her father because she still doesn't trust the sonofabitch.
On a Thursday, in the midst of the worst of the fighting, Nina's frantic call comes through that Massive Dynamic is falling and they're searching for Etta. Panic is a lit match and by some miracle Peter, Walter and Astrid are able to get to Nina and Etta before the Observers do, Peter wrapping his arms around his child once more and he knows there's nothing more he can do to protect her in this world.
So he decides he needs to hide her elsewhere.
"Nina, I need you to help me with something." Peter says, feeling the hole in his chest crack back open, unbelieving that he's even considering it. Nina already knows what Peter wants to do, and despite Walter's heated protests that there must be a better solution, the truth is there isn't. Nina sends a message to the other side and demands to come with them.
They travel the distance to Reiden Lake, all squashed in Walter's beloved Vista Cruiser, Etta squished between Nina and Walter, each one holding a hand as Peter drives and Astrid keeps lookout from the front seat. Astrid hums like a jaybird and Etta lays her head on Nina's lap to listen.
"Am I doing the right thing? Is this what Olivia meant?" Peter asks Astrid as the car creeps to a stop, the headlights illuminating the falling snowflakes of winter. When did it become winter? Walter and Nina are already outside, setting up the gateway that Walter promised he'd never use again. Etta stands to the side, watching intently from the sidelines. The car smells different, after all this time, it smells wrong.
Astrid's little round face finds him, her eyes glassy and exhausted. She takes his hand in hers and gives him a reassuring squeeze.
"Absolutely." It gives him the strength to get out of the car and carry on with their plan.
"You're going someplace new, baby." Peter tells Etta as he kneels down. Etta's eyes are wide and frightened and she looks so much like Olivia that Peter smiles.
"Like before?" she asks, clutching Peter's thumbs.
"No, not like before."
"Are you coming too?" Etta asks, a little more hopeful. Peter's face is grim as he shakes his head. He hugs her fiercely and takes her hand to lead her through to the other side to the waiting arms of Walternate and Elizabeth, keeping himself together long enough to press Olivia's bullet into his mother's hand before saying goodbye to his daughter forever.
The team lasts another few months in the resistance before they know it's useless. Fringe Division is decimated; the Observers fully in charge now and they're wanted for questioning, which is a nice way to say execution. Their photos are plastered across telephone polls and along the exteriors of crumbling buildings. There are giant orange mounds covering the city like anthills, the Observers ambering chunks of the population that tried to resist.
"I have an idea," Walter says as they're crouched down in the bottom-most sewer on the underside of the city. "But we need time." They've been running for the last six days and they're all exhausted, filthy and living a few feet above shit. When Massive Dynamic fell under control of the Observers control they lost contact with Nina Sharp, and while they don't say it, they all assume the worst.
"I know where they won't find us. I've been working on something. We'll hide in plain sight." Walter pulls out a little box that Peter recognizes. "We need to regroup. We'll strike when they won't expect us." What Walter doesn't mention is that it isn't actually his idea, but that's beside the point at the moment.
Astrid's face is thinly veiled horror from under the low glow of the kerosene lanterns they've stolen. "Is that what I think it is?" she points to the little innocuous box pressed between Walter's sticky hands. Peter's lost everything in the world except for these two people and honestly, he's sick of losing.
"Okay." He says.
They find a corner in the sewer that they've set up as their main command and Walter places the beacons for his Amber 31422 Particle Decelerator with Astrid's help. They talk in low murmurs while Peter sits in the corner because he doesn't care what happens if he's not out hunting Observers. Walter notices him and squashes in beside him on the floor, the box between his fingers. Peter lets the silence hang, content with not speaking.
"It was Olivia's idea," Walter says as he works through his thoughts. Walter hasn't dared to speak Olivia's name out loud since she left and Walter hesitates like it's painful. "The ambering. She knew the Observers wouldn't come looking for her if she were ambered." Peter's heart stutters in his chest, his head swirling like he's about to black out.
"Olivia's alive?" Peter chokes out, scrambling up the wall and pulling Walter up with him, fingers tight in his lapels. Walter's grip is white-knuckled around the box and Astrid shouts in the background that they're ready but the sound of rushing blood in his ears makes it difficult for anything else to break through.
"She made me promise not to tell you," Walter tells his son, hand on his shoulder to make him listen. "She knew you wouldn't give up if you thought there was still a chance." For what feels like the first time in months Peter can breathe.
"She's alive." Peter repeats, feeling every bone in his body burn. There are explosions overhead, rattling Peter as he releases his hold on Walter when he catches something in the corner of his eye, another figure rounding the corner and hears Walter's voice and the beeping of the device activating but his ears are ringing and he can't get the whirling emotions spinning out his head. He opens his mouth but the amber's vapors are thick in his lungs and even though he wishes he had a few extra seconds to strangle Bell as he lurks in the corner, he can't stop thinking she's alive, she's alive, she's alive. It's the last thought he clings to as the vapors evaporate around them like steam as the amber solidifies, and it's the same thought he keeps with him for the next twenty years until they're busted out.
She's alive. And he's going to find her.