Notes: Not mine, no profit garnered. Title from Radiohead's the Bends. I tried to be as 90s accurate as I could. Thanks to be the Jam for beta help. I assumed Peter Bishop grew in his adolescence like the actor who played him, so I really have to thank that commenter on celebheights for their detailed estimations of Joshua Jackson's height in every Mighty Ducks movie.

"But you're not her, are you? You're not my real mother," Peter said.

The woman said, quietly, "No. I'm not."

!

The first time Peter visited his dad at St. Claire's, Walter had been confined there for three weeks. In Peter's estimation, the drugs were kicking in. Peter was only thirteen so he was forced to sit with Walter in a communal room. Peter had hoped to meet with his dad in private, they had serious things to discuss. On the other hand, it was a mental hospital, and people would expect Walter to be spouting what they heard as nonsense. Plus, no one but his mother took Peter seriously. He was a short pudgy kid who looked more like eleven than thirteen.

Peter let Walter hug him. He said, "I know what you did. I know you took me."

"Oh, no," Walter said. "Oh." His fingers twitched and Peter tried not to look. He felt pity and disgust and didn't try to hide it on his face. Walter said, "Your mother told you."

"Yeah," Peter said. "I know all your so-called friends and partners are the kind of people who just look the other way when a kid gets kidnapped. I thought I would give you a try anyway. Especially now."

"Now that I'm here," Walter said.

"Now that you're here, Mom and I are leaving Boston. She's going to help me find a way home," Peter said.

"Oh," Walter said. "Where are you going?"

"Mom said there was a girl in Jacksonville who could travel to the other side. I'm going to figure out how you did that."

Walter nodded. Then he frowned. "She won't remember. We made them not remember. And cortexiphan, son, you have to be careful. It had different effects on people. It didn't seem to have any effect on you."

Peter said, "When did you give me that drug?" He had a pretty good idea, but this was the testing the thesis part of his work. Peter had been working on this problem since he was seven.

"When you were sick," Walter said. "Well, not sick. When you were getting better and I'd cured you, there was still so much damage. C-c-cortexiphan, it has regenerative properties. It did for you. So I shouldn't say it had no effect. But you never developed the kind of abilities we saw in the other children. Of course, we never gave it to you regularly and we never tried to activate you."

Peter nodded. Walter said, "You should be careful. I know Belly's favorite combination, do you need that? I believe he has everything down there locked up."

"That would be helpful," Peter said.

Walter took the pen from Peter's hand and wrote it on Peter's palm. "But you should be careful, Peter, please."

"Careful about Bell? That's my plan," Peter said.

"No, going home. Your father has a darkness in him. I know, I have it, too. But I had friends. I used to have friends? Cannabis. Other wonderful drugs. Your father. He can be a very frightening man."

Peter said, "Like you."

Walter said, "Worse than me, that's why you should be careful. I can be a very bad man."

"Thanks, Walter," Peter said, standing up. "Good advice." He reached over and hugged him. He did love Walter. He loved the man who kidnapped him, who shocked him for weeks in the garage until he told his mom. He remembered this man better than his own father. He said, "Bye, Dad."

Walter said, "Bye, Peter. Bye."

When they first got to Jacksonville, Peter's mom suggested they simply stay in a hotel until they figured out if there was a reason to stay longer. Then she and Peter went into the daycare center and saw all the equipment, boxes and files. She said, "We should rent a trailer. I suppose we should get ready to settle in for a bit."

They were loading everything into a U-Haul when a white security guard came up. He said, "What are you doing?"

"I'm Walter Bishop's wife," she said. "Do you remember him? He sent me to get his research."

It looked like Mom's accent and bearing alone would carry her, but Peter said a plaintive "Mom?" for an extra push. The guard backed down and wished them well.

She rented a nice place with three bedrooms. Peter turned the third one into his workroom. He went through files and set up a lab. Because his mother insisted, Peter made an arrangement with the local high school to take the last three credits he needed to say he was a high school graduate. He didn't really care after that. When he got home, then he'd go to college.

He didn't have to go school to take his classes. His mother said, "I know how important all of this is, Peter, but you should still meet people, make friends."

He went to a garage and a store that fixed appliances and a hardware store and a computer store and he convinced all four to give him jobs under the table. Jacksonville still had mom and pop stores, he didn't think he could have pulled that off at chain stores. He was a little tempted to try. So he met people. He made friends. None of his new friends were his age and most of them were more friendly acquaintances than people he would confide in or something, but he had friends. After two weeks at all four places, he had a month's rent for their house covered.

His mother said, "We should check on that young lady."

"Dad said she wouldn't remember. When he says he did bad things to children, I believe him," Peter said.

"I just want to see if she's doing well," his mother said. "You liked her, too, Peter."

"I know," he said. "That was six years ago." He was ashamed he'd told her to trust Walter, sort of. He felt like his memories of her were surreal or faked somehow.

"Nevertheless, I have looked her up and we're going to visit her tomorrow."

Olivia answered the door. She looked exhausted, pale, harried, and beautiful. Peter's mother said, "I'm sorry to intrude, I don't think you remember me, but you were part of some clinical trials my husband did. I wanted to check that everything was alright."

Olivia stared at the two of them and then said, "I don't remember."

"Do you think your mother might?"

"She's pretty busy," Olivia said. There were two voices from inside and Olivia held the door open.

The house was neat but sad. Sad in the atmosphere, in the air. Peter's house had been like that right before Walter snapped. Olivia's mother was obviously sick and weak. There was a younger girl, probably Olivia's little sister.

"We signed you up for those," Olivia's mother was saying. "You just don't remember."

"Why don't I remember?" Olivia looked angry. Peter wondered if she was going to set the house on fire, but nothing happened.

"You received the money, didn't you, Mrs. Dunham?"

"There was money?" Now Olivia looked even angrier.

"No, no," Mrs. Dunham said weakly. "I don't think there was."

"No," Peter's mother said sadly. "There was compensation, ten thousand dollars from Kelvin Genetics for every year you were in the study. It would have been about thirty thousand dollars. I looked it up on Walter's records." She handed Mrs. Dunham an official looking sheet of paper from her purse.

Olivia sat down next to her mother on their couch and looked at the paper. "He took it," Olivia said. Now she sounded defeated. "He took my money."

"My husband," Mrs. Dunham said.

Peter knew from the look on his mother's face that they were staying and she was going to try to make every single thing better. Peter thought it was a character flaw, the kind of thing that happened to someone who had lived too long with Walter Bishop. He just wanted to go home, he didn't need more people to leave. He would be work out how to do it before he even got attached.

Two hours later, the five of them were sitting down to dinner that Peter's mother had made. Rachel, the little sister, was actually smiling and laughing. Olivia looked cautious. "I have homework," Olivia said, as soon as she finished eating.

"She's taking geometry," Mrs. Dunham said proudly.

"So I really need to study," Olivia said.

"If you need any help," Peter's mother said, "Peter is very good at math."

Olivia had a very pretty look of complete skepticism. Peter said, "I got a 5 on the AP Calculus BC exam last year. I can probably help."

Peter wasn't the greatest teacher but Olivia refused to let go of a question until she had the answer and knew it and could repeat it. He remembered her in that field with the white tulips. She seemed much much older now.

They went back the next day and the day after. They went the week after, and for a whole month. Peter's mother had taken over the Dunhams' lives and none of them minded. Peter didn't mind either, to be completely truthful. He had his jobs, his easy school courses, his endless attempts to understand how Walter had gotten Olivia to be able to cross over. He was teaching himself quantum physics and the effects of all the insane drugs Walter cooked up. It was going to take a while, even for him. It was a depressing realization but all the more reason to get working as soon as possible.

He was home alone one Saturday morning when Olivia came to the door. "Shouldn't you be home?"

"Hi to you, too," Olivia said, coming in the house. She was looking at everything, never meeting Peter's eyes. She was in jeans, like always. He'd never seen her in a skirt. He remembered her in a pretty patterned shirt, but now he only saw her in blue and black and gray. He'd liked her in those bright colors. She said, "The people from the hospice are over today."

"I'm sorry," he said.

Olivia shrugged. She was a more screwed up 13 year old than he was. It was a weird standard to judge someone by. She turned around to face him. "When we met, that I don't remember, did I tell you about my stepfather?"

"Yeah," Peter said. He looked at the floor so he didn't have to see her face. He wasn't committing to this. "He'd hit you." He looked up and she was faking a smile.

"I shot him," Olivia said, chin up like she was expecting a fight.

"Unfortunately, he lived," Peter said. "My mom said you were going to get your money back, though."

"Yeah," Olivia said. "So where's all that stuff you're working on?"

Peter led her into his workroom. She said, "Wow, it's a mad scientist lair."

"I'm trying to recreate one," Peter said.

"Why?"

"To go home," he said. He had promised his mother not to tell anyone and usually it was an easy promise to keep. It felt insane but he wanted Olivia to know. He told her everything he knew.

"That's nuts," she said. She picked up one of Walter's notebooks and started flipping through it. "You're nuts."

"It's true," he said.

"Like me being a firestarter," Olivia said.

"I can prove that you were," Peter said. He had this irresistible urge to make her see the truth. She brought that out in him. He turned on the TV and the betamax player. He showed her the tape of herself when she was just three.

She stared at the tape, at Bell and Walter asking how poor Olive in the corner was. He gripped her shoulder and said, "I'm sorry. I just kind of sprung this on you."

"My fault," Olivia said. She shrugged his hand off. He turned off the tape. "I set things on fire."

"You crossed over, to my side. The way my dad did it sort of broke the universes, but the way you did it, nothing broke," Peter said.

"I can't do it now," she said. She sat down on the floor and covered her face with her hands.

He sat down next to Olivia and rubbed her back. He said, "Did you bike over? There's this ice cream place a few blocks away and I could get you some."

She sat back and he pulled his hand away. She looked at him with watery eyes. She said, "You're going to buy me an ice cream to make me feel better?"

"I could not buy you ice cream and see if that works."

"I like your mother better than you. She's not your mother, though, right?" Olivia sounded more puzzled than mean.

"She's the one I've got," Peter said. "I know it's confusing. In a few months I'll have been here longer than where I'm supposed to be, so... I'm a stranger in a strange universe." He smiled at her like she should know it was a very bad joke. Which was stupid because she'd probably never read the book. He hadn't either, but he knew the title.

"You're paying for that ice cream," Olivia said.

A few weeks later, Mrs. Dunham's sister came to help take care of the girls. Peter turned 14 and didn't have a party, just dinner with his mother. Olivia turned 14 and had a family dinner in the hospice with her mother. He bought her a gift, though. It was a book about the FBI. She talked about working for the FBI all the time.

!

Olivia's mother died. Peter's mother seemed to be in charge of the funeral somehow. The funeral was awful. Peter was wearing his one good suit but he'd gotten it eight months ago. His mother insisted he was growing an inch a month, which was an exaggeration. He was only an inch and a half taller than he'd been before which did not work out to an inch a month at all.

Every pair of nice pants he owned was too short so he looked foolish. He was very conscious of it as he milled around trying to do things. He looked young and useless.

Olivia's mother had been a kind woman. She'd always been sick for as long as he'd known her. She still liked when Peter and Olivia spent time together because Olivia was sometimes happy with him. The first adult Peter knew who'd died was Dr. Warren, Walter's lab assistant. Dr. Warren had been nice to him, too, but she had certainly known Peter had been kidnapped here. She was always distant with Peter, like he was sin personified. He wasn't that taken with her, either.

After the service they went back to the Dunham house. He sat in Rachel's closet with Rachel because Rachel said she wouldn't leave there and the look on Olivia's face said she could not deal with it. He tried to braid Rachel's hair because she asked but he sucked at it. He tried again. He said, "I should be able to get this."

Rachel leaned into his shoulder and said, "Okay, you can go."

"Are you coming?"

"I'm staying," Rachel said.

"I'll come check in with you," he said, meaning it.

Then he walked around looking for Olivia and ignoring everyone else. He found her in the backyard. "Are you cold?" He held out his suit coat.

Olivia took it and put it on. "Thanks," she mumbled. He hoped it didn't smell bad.

"It's warmer inside," he said, like an idiot. He sat down next to her on the plastic bench.

He was fidgeting when Olivia grabbed his hand. He was about to apologize for everything he'd done ever when she kissed him. She kissed him on the lips. He didn't know what to do with his hands or his face.

Olivia pulled back and clasped her hands together in her lap. He said, "What was that?"

Olivia looked up at him like he was a huge asshole which he certainly was. "I mean," he said. "I like you, I even like you that way."

She said, "Even like that?"

"Yes," he said. It was a bad time to figure out this feeling that made him want to stay, but he had the feeling, and he wasn't about to lie to Olivia.

"I wanted one nice thing for today," Olivia said.

"We can do it again, then," he said. She didn't take him up on it.

The next time they kissed was three weeks later. Olivia came over again on a Saturday. She said, "Tell me what you're doing, what was done to me."

He started walking her through what he understood of Walter and Bell's theories about cortexiphan and experimenting on children. He gave her her own file to look at. She just put it aside. "What are you planning to do?"

"I think I've finally figured out how to synthesize cortexiphan and how to get all the ingredients. Then I think there's a way to activate people again. Walter has some notes about it."

"You're just going to experiment on yourself?"

"I guess," he said. "I don't want to hurt anyone. My dad experimented a lot on mice but that grosses me out. I don't have the right temperament. The effects of the cortexiphan vary on people, but I was thinking since I'm from the other side, maybe it will help get me home like it helped you cross over."

She was standing right in front of him. He reached out and fingered the hem of her over-sized sweater. It was like pulling her close but creepier, he thought. He was always an idiot or creepy around her. She grabbed both of his hands and this time he kissed her. She was wearing some kind of lip gloss. She stepped back, almost backing into a stack of boxes. She said, "I'd do it."

"Olivia," he said. "It's probably incredibly dangerous. I mean really dangerous."

She shrugged. "But you're going to do it."

"But you're -"

"A girl?" She crossed her arms.

"Yeah, but I was going to say you're more important than me."

Olivia looked at him like he'd grown five heads. She said, "What does that mean?"

"I feel like you're more important than me. You matter. I'm not even supposed to be here, but you are. You have Rachel."

She convinced him somehow. Mostly she kept asking and he couldn't think of a reason why not in the face of her and her lip gloss. He had started to think of Olivia as an irresistible force. He was not an immovable object capable of saying no to her.

It was another two weeks before they kissed again. He went over to her house and she said cheerfully, "We're alone for an hour or two."

He sat down next to her on the couch and before he could ask what that meant, she was kissing him. With tongue. They were making out. Like the guys at the garage and the appliance store were always talking about, though they probably weren't keeping their hands to the girl's knees. They were all at least 5 years older than him. It was already his favorite thing to do, probably. Olivia was definitely his favorite person in the world.

Rachel banged the front door as she came in and he and Olivia were immediately on opposite sides of the couch. Rachel said, "I'm going to my room to watch TV."

Peter kept his hands to himself and over his lap. He said, "Is there a kissing schedule?" Olivia looked at him like he was an idiot, which was accurate. "I mean," he said, "Are we going out? Dating? I like all of this, I promise, I like to know when to expect it next."

Olivia said, "We are definitely not going out or dating. My aunt says Rachel and I can't date until we're 15. So whatever this is, it is definitely not dating." She had a sly smirk on her face.

"So when are we not dating next?"

"I guess when we're alone next," Olivia said.

"Don't feel like we have to or anything," Peter said. "I want to, because you're beautiful and amazing, but my mother makes me watch every single special aired on date rape and read every single article. She annotates them. No means no."

"Okay," she said, fidgeting.

"I'll be here the morning you turn 15 to actually officially ask you out," he said.

She kissed his cheek as she got up and went to the kitchen.

They'd been making out on a pretty regular basis for two months when Peter finally had his cortexiphan ready. He was all set up to try the activation procedure Walter had outlined. He handed Olivia her two bags. "What is in these?" She huffed as she put on the backpack.

"Monitors," Peter said. "Walter had ones here but they're way too bulky to move so I made my own. I have the first aid kit and defibrillator."

"That's cool," Olivia said. "Why are we not doing it here?"

"Sometimes people start fires," Peter said. "I don't want to burn the house down. You may have noticed there are a lot of flammable things in my lair."

"Of course," Olivia said.

They biked to a relatively off the beaten path dead field. Peter said, "I'm first."

"Why?"

"Well, if I die, then you don't have to do it," he said. He set everything up, directing Olivia to turn on the mini generator. Then he sat down on one of the blankets he brought. "Okay, you're going to need to put in these IVs."

She pressed her lips together and knelt down next to him. She didn't have the steadiest hand but it wasn't too painful. She said, "You can miss a vein once or twice when it's my turn."

"I'm not going to do that," he said. "Okay, I'll walk you through the drugs and then woosh." He flapped his hands vaguely.

"What happens?"

"The drugs create an obstacle for me, I do stuff, then I can set you on fire," he said, smiling.

"Or go home," she said, seriously.

"Maybe," he said. He put another blanket over himself and laid down.

"Why the second blanket?"

Peter frowned. "Walter refers to possible involuntary physical reactions."

"Like you piss your pants?" Olivia grinned.

"Hopefully not," he said.

Then the drugs hit. It was a rush and horrible and Peter would never understand his dad's deep love for LSD, he just felt like there were more people than he could see and all of them were staring at him.

He climbed a wall made of skeletons, crying at touching the bones and the harsh wind against him. He reached the top and threw himself over into nothingness.

He landed with a thump and sat up. Olivia was sitting next to him and she reached for his face. "So it's upsetting," she said.

He said, "I guess," and realized Olivia was wiping tears from his eyes. He said, "No need for a diaper for me, though." He stayed sitting up with the blanket over his lap because he had another involuntary physical reaction.

Olivia removed the sensors and needles. She said, "What do I do with these?"

He kept seeing things right at the edge of his vision. He said, "Gimme a minute," and waved his hand at them. Everything flew out of Olivia's hand and both of their bikes fell over.

"Oh," Olivia said. "I guess it worked."

Peter rubbed his forehead. Then he tried to wave everything back in place and nothing moved. "That one time," he said.

He stood up and started cleaning up everything by hand. Olivia rolled up the blankets. He said, "Do you still want to do it?"

"Apparently I can turn out to be a superhero, so sure," she said. She looked pale, though.

"You really don't have to," he said. "It's pretty horrible. I can't believe my dad did that to you when you were just three."

"I want to help," Olivia said. "I can handle it."

"Next weekend, okay?"

She nodded. She insisted they stop at a McDonald's and watched him closely as he ate. "I'm not going to start crying again," he said.

"I know," she said. "I just want to make sure you're okay."

Try as he might all week, he couldn't make anything move with his mind. He read over Walter's notes to see if there were tips or anything, but of course, Walter had just been telling little kids to imagine things. That wouldn't work on Peter. His brain didn't work that way anymore if it ever had.

Between working, trying to replicate his one superhero moment and general worry, Peter was so exhausted he fell asleep on Olivia's bed Friday afternoon. He'd been reading a book while she did her homework. He woke up and didn't open his eyes. He could hear Olivia and her aunt hissing outside the door. Or talking, he thought. Olivia's aunt was saying that she didn't like how much that boy was around, and he was nice but he was also too mature to hang out with Olivia. Olivia was objecting, he was pretty sure. She thought he was an idiot.

He had to stop pretending to be asleep when Olivia's aunt came in and gently shook him. She said, "I'm sure your mother wants you home for dinner."

He realized Olivia had actually put a blanket over him. He smiled the whole way outside.

Olivia followed him out and stood next to him as he got on his bike. He said, "So you still want to do it tomorrow?"

"Of course," Olivia said. "I'll be there. It's just so stupid. I wish she'd just say I don't want you to have sex with him and not make up excuses."

"Right," Peter said. "If only adults were more plain spoken."

He was as good at not thinking about sex and Olivia as he was at making things move with his mind. He didn't try as hard with the first one.

Then it was Olivia's turn to take the cortexiphan. She was definitely nervous as he hooked everything up. She also said if he asked her one more time if she wanted to do this she would punch him in his stupid face.

He watched the monitors closely but it was hard to know how things were going in her head. She didn't speak or move, though her closed eyes twitched.

She gasped and sat up. He crouched down next to her and said, "Are you okay?"

Olivia nodded and started plucking at the wires and needles. "Let me do that," he said. "Did you want to tell me what you saw?"

"You first," Olivia said. He just went on detaching the sensors. He didn't know why he didn't want to tell her, but he knew he was still having nightmares and he didn't want to say any of it out loud and invite more. He also didn't want those images in Olivia's mind.

"Why are you glowing?" Olivia looked confused, squinting at him.

"That's great," Peter said. "That means it worked. My dad said when you saw things from the other side, you would say they glimmered."

Olivia pulled the blanket closer to her chest. "Does that help you get home?"

"We'll see," he said. "Now I'm taking you to McDonald's to watch you eat." He still didn't get even a hint of smile from her.

The guys at the garage always gave him hell about Olivia. She had come by once and he had kissed her as she left. Since then, they asked him every time he showed up if he and the pretty blonde had done it yet. Like he was having sex at 14. He was shorter than everyone who worked there and he was sure they said it just to tease him.

He felt comfortable admitting to himself that he was perfectly fine with just heated kissing. He wasn't ready to jump ahead for once, not at 14.

Trying to read Olivia was especially irritating the week after Olivia's cortexiphan since he'd barely seen her. She was always busy or needed to do homework without any distraction. He was sure she was avoiding him, which was completely unfair since she offered to do the cortexiphan. She practically forced him to give it to her.

At the first "Got in her pants yet?" from the garage guys he turned from the car with the electrical system he was trying to repair. Peter said, "How far into anyone's pants were you when you were 14?"

Jesse grinned. "I was still a virgin, but I'd gotten a few great handjobs."

One of the other guys insisted he wasn't a virgin at 14 but Peter thought he was lying, and Jesse's expression made it clear he agreed with Peter.

"So your girlfriend was just -" Peter made a gesture.

"I had to guide her hand there, but she wasn't upset," Jesse said.

"If I guided Olivia's hands anywhere, my mother would somehow know and probably beat me silly," Peter said. "Drown me in a vat of tea, maybe."

He didn't talk about Olivia to the owner of the hardware store since the owner was a woman, and a friend of Olivia's aunt from their church. Peter knew it was a stereotype but he strongly suspected the owner of the computer store had done less with girls than Peter had. He basically never talked to anyone at the appliance store except two of the saleswomen, and they were both women. He craved a peer group to hang out with but as always, there wasn't one.

Peter biked over to Olivia's Saturday afternoon. It was overcast and the air felt heavy. Olivia evidently saw him so she came out on the porch to wait for him. He said, "You're mad at me, aren't you?"

Olivia said, "Yes, I guess."

"Okay, that's not fair. You asked over and over again to do the cortexiphan, that's not fair to get mad at me about that," he said.

"I'm not mad at you about that," she said, frowning.

"What did I do?" He crossed his arms and stood straight so he was looking down at her.

Olivia said, loudly, "You, you can't say stuff about how you're going to be there on my birthday when I'm 15 and then where will you be when I'm 16? You just want to go home, what's even the point?"

Peter stopped himself from shouting at her. He said, "What are you talking about? You don't think I should want to go home? Imagine if you hadn't seen Rachel since you were seven, wouldn't you want her to try and get home to you?"

The lights on the porch and the one over the garage were all flickering. Olivia said, "Is one of us doing that?"

Peter said, "I don't care." One of the streetlights turned on and blew out. "Are you really mad at me for wanting to go home?"

"You're just using me," she said. "You just came here to use me to get home to your side."

The garage light blew out with a shower of sparks. Peter said, "I didn't even want to see you when we came here. We moved here because this is where the daycare was. My mother wanted to check on you. How could I be using you?"

Olivia said, "That's nice, you didn't even want to see me."

Peter said, as two of the porch lights blew out with sparks flying out everywhere, "You can't have it both ways. Either I'm using you or I'm some asshole who is, what? Pretending to like you before I go home?"

Olivia walked off the porch and stomped out some of the sparks that were glowing on the lawn. "Fine, I'm an idiot. Can you go now?"

"Absolutely," he said. The streetlights flickered the whole way home so apparently he'd been responsible for the fireworks at Olivia's. When he tried to turn his lamp on in his bedroom, it didn't work at all, so it was another useless side effect of cortexiphan.

He was miserable for a week. His mother said he should talk to Olivia instead of yelling at her which made him mad all over again. Olivia was the one being stupid, not him.

Friday he was at the garage when Jesse came around behind him and said, "Hey, Bishop, about your pretty blonde -"

Peter said, as he turned around, "No, I have not gotten in her pants, I will never get in her pants since she dumped me -" And there she was standing behind Jesse, her tan sweater a shade lighter than Jesse's grinning face.

Jesse laughed at him and thankfully walked away.

Olivia actually smiled at him. She said, "Can we talk outside?"

"Sure," he said. "Sorry."

"I went by all your jobs today and yesterday, of course you're at the last one I check," Olivia said. She walked her bike alongside them.

"I'm sorry if I've been a jerk to you," Peter said.

"I was just, it was a bad week, sorry," Olivia said. "I was just angry at the world and you were there."

"Okay," he said. "I am a tall target. Taller than you."

She had a small smile. She put her hands on his chest and kissed him. She said, "Your friends are watching if you wanted to try to get into my pants or something."

"No, the point is I'm not trying," he said. "I'm okay with no pants action right now. My mother thinks I should tell you that all the time."

She moved his hand at her waist down to her butt. She kissed him again and he did actually pull her a little closer with a strong grip on her butt. She laughed very softly against his neck and stepped back. "I think the light thing was me."

"It was me," Peter said. "It followed me home."

"The lights kept flickering in the house after I went inside," Olivia said.

"Okay, so it was both of us. I guess we have some overlap," he said. "But we don't have to, you don't have to help me, you know."

"It's okay," Olivia said.

Now that he and Olivia were back on, he didn't mind at all how time seemed to move so slowly that summer. He and Olivia barely worked on the cortexiphan abilities they both seemed to have sporadically. They sat together and watched movies from Blockbuster at his house or hers. They watched every Wes Craven movie they could find there. Then they got random. Peter would close his eyes and Olivia would drag him around the store and then tell him to point. There were a lot of random awful movies at their Blockbuster.

They made out chastely. Olivia was always the one who pressed closer.