Home
Written by: Addie Price
Summary: Olivia makes her way home. Set after 3.04 'Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep'
Words: 2,380
Note: Please keep in mind that this was written before 3.05 'Amber 31422.' Any similarities to the events depicted in that episode are either pure coincidental or because I saw them in a preview and couldn't help but incorporate them.
As always, please review!
Disclaimer: FRINGE is the property of FOX Broadcasting Company and its associates. I am in no way affiliated with FOX nor do I own any of the characters depicted in this story.

"According to the old legend, if you run into yourself, your double, it means you're supposed to die."
-Mike Flickner

The doctor had told her to change out of her clothes and into the clothes they'd provided for her, a plain white cotton dress. She felt odd complying, as if she had done a similar experiment before, but pushed off the feeling with her shirt.

As soon as she was finished preparing herself to the doctor's specifications, she shut the locker door, wrapping the provided robe around herself. She walked from the white-tiled locker room, following a doctor through the antiseptic-washed hallways to the room where the procedure would take place.

Stepping into the room, she felt a wave of dread overcome her. All of a sudden, she was convinced that the man standing before her was wrong, that the suit he was in was wrong, that everything about his smile and his eyes and his being was so completely and utterly wrong that she almost recoiled at the sight of him. She felt as if she were about to be physically sick.

Olivia forced the feeling out of her, convincing herself that, even though she'd only seen the Secretary a few times, there was nothing wrong or different about him. He was as clean and proper as ever, extending a hand to her as she came into the room.

"Ah, Agent Dunham." She took his offered hand, letting him lead her to the tank in one corner of the room. A scientist stood to one side of a table where various sensors lay out, wringing his hands together in nervousness and excitement. It took a moment, but Olivia remembered his name was Brandon. She didn't know how she remembered; as she thought further to when they had first met, she realized she didn't know, couldn't recall ever being introduced to the young scientist.

The Secretary led her to the scientist, releasing her hand so she could shake his. He waved between them. "Brandon, this is Agent Olivia Dunham."

Brandon leaned forward enthusiastically, shaking her hand with a refreshing excitement. "Yes, we've-" A sharp glance from the Secretary cut him off and Brandon released her hand, clearing his throat in embarrassment. He clasped his hands together, rubbing them. "Shall we get started?"

The Secretary nodded, keeping his narrowed eyes on Brandon as he backed up, allowing the scientist to begin placing the sensors on Olivia.

As he attached the sensors to Olivia's head and chest, Brandon explained what they would be doing. Essentially, they were trying to find the same things that her alternate had in the other universe – the way by which she could travel between realities. In order for people from their universe to safely travel to the other, they needed to know the secrets of her doppelganger. They needed to be able to safely cross between realities without repercussions.

"We've found that the best way to study the mind," Brandon said, placing an electro-magnetic probe at the base of her skull, "is to immerse the subject in a sensory-deprivation tank." He clapped his hands together. "Okay, that's all of it. If you could, ah, remove the robe."

Olivia complied, letting the robe slip from her shoulders. She accepted Brandon's offered hand as she stepped into the tank. It was a glass enclosure, filled with salt water. The set up was simple enough – nothing like the advanced technologies Olivia was used to.

Lying back in the water, Olivia let the water support her. She felt her body relax, felt her eyes shut. The water and tank was familiar to her, an environment that she had been in many times before. However, as much as she strained to remember, she couldn't pinpoint the memories of ever having been in such a tank before.

"Just relax, Agent Dunham." Opening her eyes, she saw Brandon looking down at her through the glass doors of the tank, smiling weakly. "And listen carefully to my voice. I'll be guiding you through your mind and the only thing connecting you to this world will be my voice. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Brandon nodded before retreating from her line of sight. Olivia closed her eyes, letting the chamber take away her senses. She was weightless in the water. The tank was silent, save for the few times Brandon's voice filled it. Despite the fact that the container was made of glass, Brandon and the Secretary had retreated to a different room, leaving the one with the tank in a pitch darkness.

"Are you ready, Agent Dunham?" Brandon's voice crackled in the tank.

Olivia felt herself nodding and heard, as if from a distance, herself faintly say, "yes."

"Alright," Brandon said his voice low and calculating. "Open your eyes and tell me what you see."

She did, revealing that she was in an old lab. It was dark, as if in a basement. A cow stood in one corner, chewing hay. A metal rusted tank similar to the one she lay in was in another. She heard Brandon speaking once more but couldn't quite comprehend his words, her mind entirely focused on the man who was suddenly standing before her, a hand raised in greeting. A man who was all too familiar.

"Hello, 'Livia."

Pain exploded behind her eyelids, white hot and burning. It encompassed her, emanating from both her mind and her surroundings. She let out a gasp, bringing her hands to her head, trying to hold the pain both in and out at the same time. Every thought she might have had was ripped from her mind, to be replaced by the searing pain.

Teeth clenched tightly against the pain, Olivia fell to her knees, grasping at the last sense of reality she had. She looked at the man, her only connection to her surroundings, her eyes narrowed tightly, barely able to see around the searing pain.

"Peter?" Her voice was small, tight. It reverberated throughout her mind, throughout the room. The man smiled at her, eyes kind.

"It's nice to see you again."

"I don't . . . know you!" she gasped. Shutting her eyes again, she willed herself back into the quiet, painless void of the tank. "You're . . . you're not real!"

A hand touched her shoulder. "You do, Olivia. You just don't remember." She felt him kneeling next to her, felt his breath on her ear as he whispered, "You belong with me."

Suddenly he was gone and her mind exploded, a flood of memories filling her. She was nine, holding a gun, pointed at her stepfather as he gaped at her, bleeding from a wound in his stomach, daring her to finish the job. She was fourteen, at her mother's funeral, watching the casket be lowered into an open grave. Her sister was in the hospital, giving birth to a baby girl and naming her Ella before she died from complications. She was on a date with a man named Frank. She was being recruited for Fringe Division and flying to Iraq to meet a man called Peter Bishop whose father could save her partner John Scott's life. She was being partnered with Lincoln Lee and Charlie Francis after John died. She was watching the first use of amber quarantine at Harvard as Boston was evacuated. She was in a hospital bed, Peter's hand to her head, telling her everything was going to be okay. Lincoln was kissing her in the rain, even though she was with Frank. She was with Charlie in an alley, bleeding silver from the bullet wound in his forehead, her gun still smoking from the shot. She was in a cell in the Department of Defense Headquarters on Liberty Island. She was being tested on, wincing as they injected drugs into her arm. She was telling a taxi driver that she wasn't insane, that she wasn't who they said she was, that she was from a different universe. She was being told that she had had a psychotic break, that she was claiming that she wasn't from here. She was joking with Lincoln and Charlie, the same Charlie she had seen bleeding from a wound that was impossible to recover from.

The memories stopped. She opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. She was back in the lab, but it was different. The equipment was all covered with white sheets, hiding it from view. And standing before her, smirking, was a red-haired version of herself. Her alternate, her doppelganger, her double. She weakly stood, remembering what the Secretary had once told her. "There are others, doubles. They may look like us but don't be fooled. They are monsters in our skin." She remembered the alternate universe, the fight she'd had with her other self.

"Who are you?" she asked, not unaware to the fact that Peter was now gone, that they were alone in the lab. "Where am I?"

The Other Olivia waved an arm towards their surroundings. "Walter's lab, on my Side. This is how your mind sees things, its way of working out the problem you have right now. And as for your first question, isn't it obvious? I'm you."

"What do you mean 'the problem?'?"

Olivia laughed, the sound high, unnatural. "You have two consciousnesses fighting for control of one mind. I'd say that's a problem, wouldn't you?"

She felt her hands shaking, her breathing weak and shallow as she leaned on a covered counter. "Which one are you?"

"I'm from the Other Side. Don't you remember? They injected you with my memories, put you in my life." She stalked forward, eyes narrowed dangerously. "Couldn't you tell, Olivia? You're not from here. This isn't your home."

The realization of what was going on hit her, almost knocking her to her knees. If the lab was representative of her mind, then it meant that her Alternate was in control. The lab appeared as it would on the Other Side, not as it did at home. These were not her memories. Her double had taken control of her mind. She needed to fight to gain it back.

She straightened, feeling a new, invigorating strength fill her, renewing her. The lab flickered, Gene the cow appearing in one corner, the sheets disappearing from the equipment, revealing what was underneath, but only for a moment. Her alternate glanced around, startled, before grinning when it went back to what was normal for her. "You're not strong enough," she said. "You can't control your own mind. How do you ever expect to get home if you don't even know yourself?"

Olivia shut her eyes, bringing her hands to her head. "Shut . . . up." She looked at her, eyes dark. "I know who I am."

"Do you? Do you actually know who you are?"

"Yes. Of course I do."

A third voice joined them, distinctly male. "That's it, Olivia." She spun on her heel, finding the source. Peter. "You have to remember. You have to go home."

Olivia's eyes softened, filled with sorrow. "I . . . I can't. I don't know . . . I don't know how."

Peter stepped forward, touching her forearm gently. "You do, 'Livia. You just don't remember."

She looked up at him, fearful. "Peter, what if . . . what if I don't want to remember?"

"You have to, Olivia. You have to remember."

Suddenly, he was gone and she was alone once more. Her alternate had disappeared as well, though the room remained the same – the equipment covered and the air musty. Leaning against a wall, she shut her eyes and slumped to the floor, crying softly. She was alone and terrified.

And as she sat there and cried, something triggered inside of her. She felt it flood her mind, filling her, enveloping her entire body. It was an energy, a strength. It coalesced inside her, gathering itself at the core of her very being.

All of a sudden, the energy exploded from her core, filling the room. A moment later, she was back in the tank, the water surrounding her once more. The energy sucked into her once more before rocketing outwards, shattering the glass tank. Water spilled through the room and glass shot both inwards and out, leaving long cuts and scrapes on her. She felt the water carrying her from the tank and then it was gone, replaced by the hard ground. And then, Olivia Dunham fainted in the middle of John F. Kennedy Park at Harvard in Boston.

The Secretary burst into the room, closely followed by Brandon. The tank had exploded, water pooling around shattered glass on the hard tile floor. Besides the remains of the tank, the room was empty. Agent Dunham was gone.

As Walter Bishop turned to face him, Brandon expected to see the wrath of God in the man's eyes. But what terrified him even more was the calm evenness in the Secretary's voice as he asked, "where is Agent Dunham?"

Brandon swallowed, trying to figure out the best way to explain what he knew had happened to Olivia Dunham. Quick and easy would be best, he decided. Like a band-aid.

"Sir, I think the only explanation is that we triggered her ability. She's gone back to the Other Side."

The Secretary took a breath, deep and slow. "Did we at least get the information we needed?"

Brandon checked the interface then nodded. "Yes, sir. She had some sort of chemical in her brain, one that had been there for a long time. I'll begin analyzing it immediately."

Walter nodded. "Thank you, Brandon." He clapped a hand on the scientist's shoulder. "And, Brandon, well done."

She woke up in a hospital room, Peter Bishop standing at the foot of her bed. Even though she had only met him once before, he was easily recognizable. It was in the soft glow of the hospital room that she realized how much he looked like the Secretary. She was confused as she looked at him. If she remembered correctly, Peter had gone home with her alternate, returning to his universe. At least, that's what Lincoln and Charlie had told her.

"Peter Bishop?" She hadn't meant for her voice to be so harsh, so plainly confused. "What is the Secretary's son doing here?"