Ruby Slippers
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The Mentalist, just the thoughts in my head.
Rating: T(violence and mild swearing)
Summary: There's no place like home – a journey both within and without as Peter and Olivia find their way back to each other.
Spoilers: Post-ep to Over There 1 & 2
Author's Notes: Thank you everyone one for such a positive response to this story. I'm so very pleased to know that you are enjoying it. Sorry this chapter took so long. I did warn you that I was slow. Work and life tends to get in the way sometimes. On the up side, chapter 3 is nearly three quarters done, so you shouldn't have to wait as long for the next one.
Thanks, as always to my fabulous beta, Joy, for putting up with my not so subtle nagging with the grace and kindness of a best friend.
Chapter 2
"Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable"
The woman seriously needed to inject some colour into her life.
Agent Olivia Dunham picked through her doppelganger's closet and drawers searching for something comfortable to wear, preferably something that wasn't a shade of grey. Her eyes finally landed on a flash of blue - a soft, almost powder blue sweatshirt. It was a far cry from the bold reds and oranges that characterized her wardrobe, but it would have to do.
Shucking the blazer and white blouse that made up what she'd quickly discovered was her counterpart's uniform, Liv sighed heartily as the soft fleece slid against her skin. This was much better. Discarding her no-nonsense trousers on the bed, she traded them in for a pair of grey yoga pants before making a bee-line to the kitchen, intent on settling her increasingly uneasy stomach with a decent meal.
Espionage had never really been one of her strong suits and now, only two days in, she was already exhausted. It was one thing to pretend to be someone else entirely, but this... she wasn't even sure what to call this mind-warp she was currently living in. In all honesty, the whole thing was freaking her out just a little. She felt like Alice, gone through the looking glass, living a life that had taken a 90 degree turn from everything she knew.
The strangest things were familiar. Sure there were faces she knew; it had taken a concerted effort not to address Agent Broyles as Colonel when he'd instructed to her take a few days to recover and catch up on her paperwork. However, it was little things that haunted her, like the cache of butterscotch candies she'd found, as expected, in the bottom drawer of her desk, e-mail passwords, voices passing in the hallway, the scent of the quilts surrounding her as she slept. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the whole damn mess.
She'd been worried about blowing her cover that first day in the office. Liv was gregarious by nature and she had been concerned that if her twin had a similar work situation, negotiating the ins and outs of their camaraderie would be like navigating a minefield. She was flying solo and she was flying blind, so it had been with some trepidation that she'd walked into the Boston Federal Building yesterday.
The fear had quickly dissipated when she'd realized that it was unlikely her coworkers would notice anything wrong, because it soon became apparent that they were unlikely to notice her at all. This universe's Olivia Dunham was as far as she could tell, a very solitary woman. The distance was almost palpable, a living force field that held her colleagues well beyond arm's length.
While it was a lucky break for someone trying to skate below the radar, Liv had found it unsettling. She wasn't used to having so much time alone in her head, and it made it hard to focus. She had yet to receive her final orders, having been told to simply blend in and perform reconnaissance. It was a relatively simple task, but one that left her with too much time to think. Without the distraction of life or death decisions, it was becoming harder and harder to keep from wondering about the woman who shared her face, whose life she had invaded.
Tipping the contents of a container of soup from the deli down the street into a saucepan she'd placed on the stove, Liv hoped that minestrone in this universe was the same as what she was used to. Absently, she reached into the drawer at her left hip for a spoon, only to stop with a start when her hand didn't come up empty. Eyeing the utensil with a mixture of awe and exasperation, she gave her dinner a distracted stir before turning her attention to her surroundings.
'Don't be deceived, Olivia. They are monsters in our skin.'
Taking in the gingham dish towels, decorative candle holders and papers strewn haphazardly over the tiny dining table, Olivia struggled to conjure the image of a monster's lair. Everything was just too normal, too comfortable and lived-in ... but vaguely lonely.
It permeated the apartment now that she'd taken the time to acknowledge it, the underlying shadow of isolation that darkened the room. She tried to chalk it up to her own feelings of distance from Frank, from her mom, but it was more than that. A muted ache settled into her heart as though her double's spirit had taken up residence within its depths, affording a glimpse of the shroud over her world. It was a ridiculous notion and she knew it, but that didn't make it any easier to shake.
This new weight bore down on her in the oppressive silence of the kitchen before she finally had to break the inertia. Striding purposefully into the living room, Liv scanned the tables, shelves, the mantle over the fireplace, anywhere, for evidence of a life outside this room, for a reason for how two versions of an image could be so vastly different. They were like two sides of the same coin. Sure, her life back home was filled with danger and stress, but it was also filled with friends, lovers and family. This Olivia seemed to only have one half of the equation. With anyone else, it would be easy to dismiss as poor coping skills or a pathetic martyr complex, but...
'You gotta trust me; I'm you.'
Despite the Secretary's caution, Liv was starting to believe her twin's desperate assertion. The whisper of connection that had teased her mind back in her apartment was coming at her much stronger now and she needed to understand, needed to know where the paths had diverged.
Her well-trained eyes lit on a box tucked behind some books to the left of the fireplace. Settling herself on the edge of a nearby chair, she pulled the container from its hiding place. Her lips quirked into a hint of a smile as she carefully lifted off the faded and tattered lid, unearthing a veritable treasure trove in her archaeological dig into this Olivia Dunham's past. She knew that there would be a box like this one, like the one she kept on the top shelf of her linen closet. Few would ever accuse her of being overly sentimental, but she did keep a store of birthday cards, notices, letters and other reminders that there were people out there who cared about her.
However, the cache she'd just uncovered was nothing like what she kept at home. Sure, there were letters and cards and newspaper clippings, but closer inspection revealed that they were not celebrations of love, but mostly records of loss and hardship, a grim accounting of a life where the rain just refused to let up.
She did find some bright spots, holding back a surprised laugh when she pulled out an image of a young woman in dress whites that was almost identical to one she had in her own collection. But the cards and keepsakes were outnumbered by obituaries and newspaper clippings chronicling yet another person ripped from her life. Faces she knew, like Charlie and her mother, and faces she could only speculate about smiled up at her from funeral programs. Understanding crept its way through her brain as she realized that it must have been easier for her counterpart to close herself off than rather than deal with the heartache of losing someone else.
'Who do you have left?' she mused, thumbing through the pages.
As if in answer to her thoughts, the phone rang, its shrill tone slicing through the heavy silence, kicking her heart into overdrive. Sitting stock still, Olivia held her breath until she felt ridiculous, knowing that the person on the other end of the line had no idea she was there. Finally her mechanical double finished instructing the caller to leave a message and a tiny and impossibly adorable voice dragged the breath right out of her.
"Hi, Aunt Liv!" she chirped, and Olivia's heart clenched painfully as she realized that she was hearing a ghost, the reflection of the niece she'd never had the chance to meet. She didn't really register the words, letting the cheerful cadence of the child's voice wash over her, filling the hole that had been left in her heart when her sister had succumbed to complications seven years ago, taking her baby with her.
Liv almost jumped for the phone when she realized that the little girl was winding down, suddenly desperate to maintain the connection. However, her training finally kicked in, steeling her heart and checking the knee-jerk reaction.
With a "'Kay, bye!" the call clicked off and the apartment was once again plunged into stillness.
Refocusing on the box in her lap, Liv couldn't help the tiny bubble of relief knowing that this Olivia wasn't completely isolated. She sobered quickly, however, remembering that her double was no longer in this world and was likely discovering well and truly what it was like to be alone.
That thought bothered her more than it should. It wasn't the first time she'd been responsible for capturing and imprisoning terrorists. If the Secretary was right, that was indeed what her double was, a monster bent on destroying their world. Still, thumbing through the photographs of lives and loves lost, Liv was having a hard time believing the Olivia who had collected these mementos was nothing more than a woman trying to hold onto the one of the only things she had left.
"I need to speak to Peter Bishop."
Her desperation had been palpable, and the ferocity with which she'd fought had belied her need to find this one man. Hell, she'd crossed universes to track him down which was not usually a terrorist's goal. Sure, the rift they'd caused had nearly obliterated a large portion of the lower East Side, but Liv didn't get the impression that destruction was the intended outcome.
"He's in danger here and he needs to understand that."
No, it had been a rescue mission, and a backwards one at that. As far as she was concerned, Peter Bishop had been finally rescued after over twenty years. Still, they'd come to take him back, claiming a threat to his life. It made no sense. The prodigal son was finally home, what could possibly be a threat to him now? It would be easy to write off the fear in her counterpart's eyes as pure delusion, but he'd followed her back to this world seemingly with no argument and appeared intent on staying on the wrong side.
She was going to be seriously pissed if this whole mess had been caused by a lovers' quarrel.
Still, she got the sense that it was both not quite and so much more than that. Unwanted tendrils of doubt snaked their way up her spine, lodging in her brain, and uprooting the certainty that had guided her so far. Shaking her head angrily, Olivia dropped the box to the floor and pushed herself up from the chair. The room wasn't really big enough for proper pacing, but she gave it her best shot. Having all this time to think was driving her crazy. She did not need to be questioning the motivation of her enemy. She was trained to receive and carry out orders for the benefit of her country and, she supposed now, her universe and she did it well. Now was most definitely not the time to be changing her MO.
The phone rang again, stilling her feet and focussing her awareness, narrowing it to a fine point as she waited for the caller to reveal themselves.
"'Livia, it's me."
Although she had only a cursory experience with the voice, she recognized it immediately. She sucked in her breath unconsciously and held it, curiosity bubbling irrepressibly just below the surface as she waited for his next words.
A sigh rushed through the tinny connection, followed by, "I'm going to assume you're not home and not simply ignoring my calls again."
The length of the pause that followed made her wonder if he'd disconnected the call, then, "Look, I know that 'weird' doesn't even really begin to describe the way things have been since Jacksonville, but I want to you to remember one thing ... I came back. It's a lot to process, I know. How do you think I've been feeling? I mean you knew and you didn't-"
His words trickled away, like his lungs had suddenly cut off his air supply, choking off the rest of the thought. Still holding her breath and stretching her hearing to the edges of its reach, Olivia caught the rasp of a steadying breath hidden within the white noise of the answering machine before Peter managed to push past the wall in his throat.
"Anyway, I came back for a reason and we really need to talk. So, uh, just call me, 'kay?"
His voice trailed off into a rushed jumble of unintelligible words before the message ended with a click that resounded in the pregnant quiet of the room.
Blowing out a string of choice curses under her breath, Olivia dropped heavily to the couch, running her hand through her hair as though she could brush away the tangles of this other woman's life in the middle of which she'd just found herself.
"Damnit."
Her heart actually hurt. Between her twin's desperate plea, Dr. Bell's sacrifice for whom she assumed had been an old friend and now that damned love letter of a message, she was actually starting to care about these people. The knowledge that one of the people in question was currently locked away never to see the light of day was gnawing at her gut, making her insides roil. This was not supposed to happen. Her mind whirled, desperately wanting to know the whole story, to figure out where in this mess she was supposed to fit.
Meanwhile, the purely practical half of her brain was frozen in dread because there was no way in hell she was going to convince Peter Bishop that she was the Olivia Dunham he knew and seemingly loved. Her cover would be blown the minute he got her alone and she wasn't sure how much longer she could hold him off.
She needed guidance. She needed her orders so she could complete her mission and get the hell out of here. She had an entire universe to protect. She was on the right side of this... she had to be.
Peter's thumb hovered over the number one button of his cell phone. He'd already tried Olivia's cell, but after striking out again on her home line, he was tempted to keep alternating between the two phones until she finally had to pick up out of exasperation.
It wouldn't be the first time he'd attempted to use her temper as the valve to finally release all that was pent up inside of her: fear, frustration, uncertainty. Olivia Dunham didn't share, at least not without a significant amount of prodding, but this avoidance was becoming a little ridiculous. It had shades of their relationship after they'd returned from Jacksonville and she had been shouldering the incredible burden of his true origins. Peter realized now, with an inkling of dread, that at the time she had likely been terrified that too much time in his presence would wear down her walls and the truth would slip free.
'Is there some other earth-shattering revelation she's neglected to tell me?'
He was being paranoid and he knew it. Peter could understand her wariness. Neither of them were exactly the poster child for stable relationship material and the last person she'd trusted with her heart had run roughshod over her life both before and after his death. While Peter would admit that he and Olivia had been growing closer this past year, the last few weeks had stepped up the timetable dramatically. Considering the Gordian knot of emotions and rationalizations that was his psyche at the moment, Peter could imagine what Olivia was going through.
For the last seventy-four hours, there had been a constant clash between anger, resentment, relief and gratitude, all roiling within his chest, making it difficult to breathe. He was still a long way from sorting it all out and accepting that family didn't always have anything to do with genetics or, in this case, physics.
Walter was being excruciatingly careful around him, keeping his experiments to a minimum, baking cookies and making taffy, instead. Despite the overriding air of domesticity pervading the house these last few days, Peter couldn't help but notice that his would-be father's spine was strung tighter than a piano wire. Walter was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for Peter to disappear again. It was a fear, Peter realized now with some small hint of remorse, that had been Walter's constant companion for the last 25 years.
A year ago, he would have left anyway, guilt or responsibilities be damned. A year ago, he would have disappeared to some Middle Eastern country and picked up his life where Olivia had so rudely interrupted it. Now, however, the idea of running held no appeal. He'd already tried it and look where it had gotten him, about to become cannon fodder in a war he still didn't completely understand.
No, he wanted to stay, and not just because Olivia had given him hope of something beyond the burgeoning friendship he'd come to cherish before this whole mess had cracked open, spilling out over their lives like an oil slick. He wanted to stay because of Walter, and Astrid and even that damned cow his father was so fond of. The betrayal of his own blood had only crystallized his notion that this group of people, this family they'd become, was worth the effort.
A small explosion from the kitchen rattled the ancient light fixtures in the den where he'd taken refuge. A rather creative invective from Walter followed, and Peter couldn't help the tiny smile that tugged on his lips. Some days it took a lot of effort.
He hazarded another glance at his cell phone, hoping beyond hope that he'd find a notice of a missed call, something, anything to let him know that she was just as invested in this as he was. The phone merely lay idle on the couch, prompting a long breath of frustration from its owner.
God, he missed her, had from the moment he'd walked out the front door of the hospital, knowing he was never looking back. He'd wanted nothing more than to leave, to put as much distance between himself and the life he thought he'd known as possible. Still, the ache for her had followed, settling like a splinter in his heart, throbbing with every beat, every step he took further away from her. He'd tried to ignore it, to bury it under the rage and resentment that boiled up from his gut, but in the quieter moments it would flare up into a bright flash of pain that couldn't be denied.
Now, with both of them back in the same city ... back in the same universe, all Peter wanted was to ease the sting, to sooth himself with her quiet calm and wrap himself in her strength. He wanted to understand and ultimately forgive. He wanted to slip back into their routine. He wanted to seek out refuge from the chaos and uncertainty that was Walter in the steady peace that came from her presence beside him.
Eyes once again drifting to his traitorous phone, a decision coalesced within in him. Heaving himself off the couch, he snatched up the device and made for the front door. Snagging his coat and calling a quick "I'm going out," to Walter and Astrid, Peter jogged down the steps, intent on his destination.
He was done giving her time.
She was nearly there.
Tendrils of awareness rippled out from the swirling mass of her consciousness like eddies in a stream, rushing down corridors, filtering through concrete and glass, warm objects and cold, before echoing back to their origins. Each returning wave danced along her skin, contracting follicles and setting hairs on end, splitting the currents into tiny rivulets that raced along neurons, firing images on the blank screen of her eyelids.
She'd lost track of time ages ago, but she had noticed that they'd left her in the dark for longer than usual since her ninth visit to the grey room. Each trip had increased in length and intensity. By this last outing, Olivia had figured the techs had cranked the horror factor up to eleven, bombarding her with an endless tableaux of pain and turmoil as they still tried to break her, attempting to unlock secrets she herself was only beginning to wrap her head around.
The cool blackness of her cell was a relief to the hot ache that wracked her body. It soothed the damage and allowed her to re-centre as she sat cross-legged on the unforgiving tile floor. She'd started this ritual after her second bout in the chair, taking advantage of the drugs bathing her cells to hone strengths she only barely knew she had, let alone understood how to wield. Still, she had to try.
The intervals between trials were also getting longer and Olivia wondered absently if they were giving up on her, having been unable to wrench any useful information from the iron grip of her mind. She actually hoped they'd forget about her entirely. She was nearly there and just needed a little more time...
Shifting her attention from the mental map she'd pieced together, Olivia focussed her sights inward. Reaching deep into the darkness of her soul, she stoked the embers of anger which had burned in her gut for as long as she could remember.
Most days she managed to temper the flame, dampen the glow as each new hurt added fuel to the fire. Most days she could direct the heat, forging tools that had become valuable assets to her job. Today, however, she merely fanned the blaze, coaxing it into a raging inferno that licked out from her core, consuming everything in its path.
Releasing the reins, she embraced the fury, revelling in the heat that coursed through her veins, lighting up every nerve ending, filling her with a heady power that was both enticingly novel and strangely familiar.
The seeds of her anger ghosted across her mind, flitting behind her eyelids before she tore them down and added them to the pyre: her stepfather who'd ripped away any sense of parental security before she'd torn off his knee-cap with a bullet; a vague collection of friends in high school and college who'd never really understood; her mother who just hadn't been strong enough; her sister, who just couldn't say no; Broyles, who had dragged her into this nightmare; Walter who had created it; John, who'd eroded most of the trust she'd so carefully built; Charlie, who's body snatcher had wiped away the rest and Peter... The flame burned brighter. Peter had made her want to believe again, made her want to love again, had promised to be there, but she should've known that no one ever kept their promises.
The fury was white hot now, the cells in her body practically dancing within their membranes, the glow that arced across her skin beating back the darkness. Oxygen drained out of the air around her, drawn inexorably to the fire that blazed within her core, building up an almost unbearable pressure behind the cage of her ribs. She could see the event horizon; all she needed was a catalyst.
Footsteps echoed in the tiny corner of her mind still dedicated to perception, thudding softly behind her tympanum, a subtle, but crucial counterpoint to the frantic beating of her heart. Having finally reached critical mass, all Olivia could do was wait.
Three.
Her heart and lungs stopped and held, aching for release.
Two.
Eyes opened, irises a beacon in the darkness.
One.
The doorknob turned and the world went white.
