Title: That Happy Place (part one of possibly 2 ficlets)

Rated: T

Summary: This was choice 'A' from a poll I asked you guys in the second chap. Choice 'B' was the one I did in chapter 3. Deals with an alternate take on Peter and Olivia while they are held captive in Jones' basement in chaps 7 & 8 of "Growing Up".

Characters: Peter (age 9), Olivia (age 7), Mr. Jones, Mitchell Loeb

Warnings: More creepy stuff, plus angst and stuff to make you more sad, heh

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With each passing night, the bodies began to pile up. The upstairs adults would bring down a fresh corpse, bagged in a clear garbage bag, to toss in an open pile on the other side of the stairs…all plain sight of the children imprisoned behind the gated wall.

It was intended to. The children would wake up to that foul stench and recoil in horror at the sight. Two of the bodies were slashed open by the throat only making the pile of body bags extra bloody.

The point was to send a message straight to the children and traumatize them into absolute obedience.

Loeb said it best one day when the children awoke and saw him adding to the pile. "This is what happens to people who don't listen to us…" He added to his taunt "…and it can happen to little children, too."

All of this made Peter's true nature show. He wanted to convince the adults so much that he wasn't afraid and that their tactics wouldn't scare him.

But he was…

The worse was at night when all was dark and that dreaded pile was still there and the rats would make their descent. There were plenty of traps and disinfectant to stave up any infection, but Peter was still afraid, still shaking and crying at night.

Olivia seemed calm, almost numbing to the situation. She was the only reason, Peter tried to maintain self-control, the only reason he hasn't allowed these monsters to break him no matter how hard they pushed him or caused him pain during the day. He wasn't alone, and that made all the difference here.

"Livvy?" he whispered. "You awake?"

The moon was bright out and Olivia looked over at Peter with tired, struggling eyes. "Yeah. I can't sleep."

"Come here."

"To your bed?"

"Yeah."

"But the rats might get me."

"They won't get you if you run."

She looked over and saw about four or five rats climbing on top of the body bags.

"Come on," said Peter. "Make it quick."

Olivia kept turning her head to the rats and then to Peter's bed. She swung her feet over the side of her bed too scared to let them touch the floor. It was five feet to his bed but still too long for a small child like her.

She took a deep breath, hoped that Peter would be right…

…and dashed for it.

A couple of the rats noticed the movement and tried to run toward the gate but the traps stop them.

Olivia leapt right onto Peter's bed but unintentionally shoved Peter against the sidewall.

"Ow!"

Peter clasped his hands over his mouth. He and Olivia stayed very, very, very silent for what seemed almost like a whole minute. They waited but heard no whispers, no footsteps of any kind above them. There was no light through the floors above them tonight.

They looked at each other and then Peter finally relaxed. Suddenly, the two children were giggling softly. They didn't know whether it was from relief or from how silly it was that Olivia almost crushed Peter.

Regardless, it was the most the two of them smiled since being here.

On some nights, though not every night, Olivia would try and sneak into Peter's bed. They got better sleep as a result. Considering how much toiling they did in the daytime…the best thing they had to comfort them was to be with each other.

…

In their basement prison, Peter and Olivia had little to occupy themselves with except for some blocks, some children's puzzles, and crayons and paper. Olivia could solve the puzzles in 5 minutes without any problem and once after, she got bored and just sat there looking at Peter while he tried to occupy himself with crayons and paper.

"What are you doing with those?" Olivia asked pointing to the crayons.

"Just drawing."

"What's drawing?"

"Um…," said Peter. "It's when you make a pictures." He lifted his crayon drawing to show Olivia. "See, it's a picture of us."

"Which one is me?"

Peter looked at her dumbfounded. "You're the one with the yellow hair!"

"But that's looks nothing like me," she said feeling almost offended. "Why do I look like a stick?"

"Just work with me on this," said Peter. "It's supposed to be a picture of us." He pointed to the other stick person with the brown hair.

"And what's that we're on?"

Peter pointed to the green stuff. "That's grass. And that…" Peter said pointing to the blue above the stick figures. "That's the sky."

"That's a funny color to make the sky."

Peter was getting really irritated now. "Oh yeah? What color should it be other than BLUE?"

Olivia looked at the crayons and found very few colors to work with. She put only two crayons on the table that would be remotely close to representing the sky in her world: gray and black.

"Doesn't he ever let you go outside?" Peter asked referring to Jones. Olivia shook her head.

"It's looks pretty though," she said. "I wish I could see it someday."

"Well as soon as I find a way out," said Peter. "You'll get to see this place. That's the fun of drawing. You get to make pictures of things you want to see."

Olivia felt a little hopeful but still the concept of the drawing was seen with a bit of uncertainty. "Where is it?"

Peter shrugged. "I dunno. We would have to run very far away to find it, but don't worry, it's gonna be there. A nice happy place. No adults or monsters. No bad clouds either. It'll just be you and me."

He gave the drawing to Olivia. She awed at the peaceful colors and the strange yellow circle that Peter drew in the blue area. That must've been the big light that came out during the day. Slowly she was getting the idea. The picture wasn't a real scenario but it was a hopeful one and in the picture the two of them were holding hands, which made it even better.

She hugged the paper closer to her and whispered to herself "I can't wait."

…

Jones had been far too easy on Olivia since training her. But now it had gotten to around test time and she was scared. A potted tomato vine, all dried up and dead was placed in front of her and she was supposed to get it to turn into a sunflower.

But nothing seemed to work. Olivia couldn't see the dead vine as anymore than a dead vine.

She wished she knew how to pretend. She couldn't understand why that little girl Astrid would host a tea party without actually serving any real tea. How could she possibly get a dead plant to turn into a flower?

She sat alone in that dark room, staring at the impossible plant on the table, while Jones stepped out to talk to Loeb.

In her desire to focus on the plant, Olivia began to pick up strange noises, mumbling from the other side of the closed door. For some reason the voices became clear as if she picked up a channel.

"I'm telling you, he won't run," said Loeb. "I can leave him alone out there all day and he's still gonna be there."

"He must be staying on account of Miss Dunham," said Jones. "That is a problem."

"Why don't we just kill him?"

Olivia froze. It couldn't be. Were they talking about Peter?

"I don't believe it would be wise to kill a child unless it is our last resort."

"Well they're gonna find these kids here," said Loeb. "And then what are we gonna do? You said yourself that the boy is a waste. We don't need at all. So what if we just kill him and throw the body in a gutter somewhere…we could lead them away from here."

Jones sighed. "Perhaps you are right. We'll give him a few more days. If he doesn't run, then we'll kill him."

Her eyes began to fill with tears. These monsters were going to kill Peter and there was nothing that they could do to stop it. It just wasn't fair. Now it getting less and less real that she and Peter would be able to run away to their happy place.

She wiped her eyes as Jones reentered the room. He was not pleased that Olivia still hadn't finished the test yet.

"Olivia," he growled. "The flower…now!"

She kept her eyes on the dead plant but her mind was more on Peter's drawing. She would give anything for that drawing to be real now. She wondered if there would lots of flowers in their happy place…maybe flowers like the one she had to make come out of nowhere right now with big colorful petals.

Suddenly, the dead vine began to move on it's own. It swiveled until it stood erect and then something began to burst from the tip. It opened up and a large shiny flower filled with long yellow petals revealed itself.

She had done it. The flower had come out.

Now she was beginning to understand this pretend stuff and how real it could possibly be.

Jones made her do a few more tests, which she was able to do successfully thanks to her own ability to finally imaging that happy place. It was real in her mind and nothing to tell her otherwise.

But once testing was over and Olivia was brought back to the basement she had some thinking to do…thinking that made her cry all over again. They were still going to kill Peter. No matter what she could imagine, she that there was no way out of that. She couldn't will her mind to stop the monsters from killing Peter. She was still a child after all.

There was only one other option left…and idea that she had. She had no idea if it would even work but in the end it could save Peter.

An hour of fresh tears later, Olivia could hear Loeb coming down with Peter and she quickly wiped her eyes.

"Hey, Livvy," Peter greeted. "What's hanging?"

She looked up at the pipes. "I don't see anything hanging."

"It's just an expression."

"Oh."

Peter studied Olivia's face and noticed the despair amongst her pink puffy cheeks. "You look really sad. Is something wrong? Did he hurt you?"

"No." Olivia shook her head. "I…I think I can do it now. I think I can do the things they said I can do."

"That's good. So you can imagine whatever you want and it will happen right? Maybe you can find us a way to get out of here."

"Yeah," Olivia half-chuckled along with Peter.

Peter stood waiting in anticipation. "Well? Aren't you gonna try it…come on."

Olivia hesitated knowing what it was that she was about to do. Peter was sitting on his bed watching her but was unaware that he was suddenly compelled to stand on the bed.

He was getting a bit dizzy and confused. He had no idea what was happening, only that he was suddenly jumping on the bed.

Just a little higher he got with every jump, and then his head hit the pipe that was hanging above him. It knocked Peter out and he fell off the bed crashing to the floor.

The pipe developed a crack from the collision and now water was slowly dripping out.

Her plan hopefully worked. Loud footsteps made their descent into the basement. The angry Jones was in front. "What was that noise?!"

He opened the gated wall when he saw Peter lying on the floor with a bleeding head. Olivia kept her focus on Peter as Jones check his pulse. "He must be dead," he said. "Hit his head on the pipes."

Jones then ordered Loeb to get the van as he picked up Peter. Olivia was no longer focusing on Peter as he was being carried out.

She could only hope it worked. For a brief moment that Olivia focused on Peter she was able to fool Jones into thinking that Peter was dead but he was still breathing before they came downstairs. Now she could only hope that he would be able to get away. She didn't want him to come back for her or they would kill him.

Peter had to leave and never come back…but at least she would be alive.

The gated wall was closed on her as the figures went up the stairs. She hoped to get one last glimpse of him. But soon the basement door close and she was left alone in a basement with such a corpse pile and the rats.

She ran back to her bed and grabbed the piece of paper she had left there. It was all that she had left of Peter and the vision of their happy place. Now she knew that she was never going to make it there but maybe Peter would and that thought alone made her feel a little bit better.

She kissed the stick figured Peter in the drawing and whispered "Goodbye, Peter."

…

Peter had been found just hours after his supposedly dead self was dropped in a ditch. It was right on the border between Vermont and Canada and by chance, it was the Canadian Mounties that found him and took him to a nearby hospital. His head had been hit badly and his memory was very frizzy for weeks afterwards when he was given sanctuary and new life in a foster home.

It was about a month later when all the memories came back. He began to scream and panic. Olivia was the first person he cried out for.

"Livvy?! Where are you, Livvy?!"

His foster parents weren't able to make much sense of the boy except to have learned of his name and that he escaped from a lab. They didn't believe the lab part was possible. Peter no longer wore the ankle bracelet since Jones had it removed ages ago. And his ramblings about Olivia were seen as no more than an imaginary friend. In a way, the foster family did not believe that Peter had regained his memories back and that he was only guessing at what his name was.

It would create a riff that was already wide enough. Peter had not only been separated from Olivia. He had no idea of where it was that he and she were originally held captive. Without that knowledge there was no way for him to run out and look for her.

He was stuck here in this lousy foster home with lousy foster parents and even lousy foster siblings. He would be considered a baby for crying a night over someone that no one believed even existed.

But as far as Peter was concerned, they could all go to hell. Olivia was real. The horrifying experiences they had endured were real.

He had just had to be patient. He just had to wait. As soon as he got enough money or as soon as his foster family would let him get out, he was going to travel the entire world looking for Olivia.

For now, Peter could only hoped that Olivia would hang on, until he finds her again.