iv.

The agents lead Peter into the building far too casually, as though he's not in custody at all; they follow him into the elevator like today's nothing more than an average day at the office. But at the end of the elevator ride, they walk him down a corridor and deposit him at a table in an interrogation room, complete with mirrored wall, utilitarian table, and a camera watching his every move.

It's no big surprise when Peter hears the lock click into place after they walk out.

The laws of time change when one's left alone with nothing but the hum of florescent lights and an increasingly hostile internal monologue for company. Peter's not sure how many seconds or minutes or centuries pass, but it's enough. More than enough for his resolution to take a hike, for his longstanding but inexplicable faith in Olivia Dunham to lark off so that only his crawling dread remains.

Without a doubt, that's the point of abandoning him here. Knowing he's being manipulated doesn't strip the tactic of its power, unfortunately.

Peter shifts in his chair, glancing up at the camera in the corner and suppressing a grimace. He rests his chin on his closed fist and wonders how much more time will pass before this is all over.

If it's ever over.

-x-

Peter doesn't recognize the slim, friendly-looking woman who stations herself against the wall by the door, but the man who follows her into the room, that's another story.

Faith and resolution having departed the field, Peter finds himself with nothing much to fall back on but bravado.

"Colonel Broyles," Peter says, leaning back in his chair and raising an eyebrow. "Nice to meet you."

Broyles has the grace not to look surprised, not to miss a beat as he sits down in the chair opposite Peter's. "Seems I'm going to have to have a chat with my people about the sort of information they're throwing around," he says.

"Nope." Peter shakes his head. "Wasn't them."

Broyles's eyes narrow. "Care to pass on who it was?"

Peter shrugs, drawing out the moment. It's probably the last time in a good long while that he's going to have the upper hand. Might as well enjoy it.

Broyles' chair creaks as he leans forward. "Mr. Bishop," he says, his voice steady and even, "I don't know how things are where you're from, but there's no treaty on this Earth that covers treatment of detainees from another universe. Now, I can be your best friend, or I can be your worst enemy. It's your choice."

Back home, there's no one that doesn't know who Broyles is, despite the man's attempts to dodge interviews and avoid any attention that smacked of limelight. Colonel Broyles, the quiet hero: a serious man, a thinker, a strategist. Quick to give credit for successes; even quicker to take blame when events inevitably went sideways.

Maybe those white hat, good guy qualities exist somewhere inside this doppelgänger version, but right now, this Broyles just looks pissed. Peter rolls his eyes and relents. "You run Fringe Division in my world, too. But over there, it's not quite the same cloak-and-dagger shop I'm starting to think yours might be. You could even say you're something of a hero."

Broyles' expression doesn't shift a hair. "Well, Mr. Bishop, over here, I'm just the guy with his fingers stuck in the holes in the dike. And what I need to know from you is whether you're going to help me plug up the leaks, or bring the whole set-up crashing down."

-x-

"Over there," Peter says for the fourth or fifth time, "most people don't even know your world exists. They're fighting a war against nature. Against physics. That's all they know."

"Mr. Bishop, I've got whole laboratories full of your side's agents and infiltration technology," he says, shaking his head. "Enough to tell me that what you're saying" — he stabs a finger across the table at Peter — "is patently untrue."

Peter holds up his hands, palms out. "Look, I'm not saying there aren't people fighting you." He forces himself to unclench his teeth and blows out a slow, deep breath to drive away the tension in his neck, to keep his frustration from showing in his voice. "But it's a handful," he continues at last. "Just a few."

Broyles settles back in his chair, chin resting against his folded hands, and Peter resists the urge to wiggle in his chair while he waits. He's already familiar with the posture, as well as the other man's adroitness at knowing when to ask questions and when to let silence do the interrogating for him. They've been going round and round the same set of questions and answers, the same assurances and denials that Peter's pretty sure are getting him nowhere.

The whole process is damn uncomfortable.

Broyles leans forward, lays a hand on the table, and drums his fingers gently. "All right. This handful you're talking about. Your father?"

Peter lifts an eyebrow. Well, that was new. He nods slowly. "Secretary Bishop."

"You?"

"Not even close."

Broyles's fingers still against the tabletop. "You know an awful lot for someone who claims not to be involved."

"I don't like questions that don't have answers," Peter says with a shrug. "And I've got a bad habit of poking my nose in where it doesn't belong."

The corners of Broyles's mouth tighten and lift a fraction in what on any other man Peter would swear was the start of a smirk. "I'm starting to get that," Broyles says.

-x-

Peter's led from the room by the quiet woman who'd spent the whole of his interrogation trying to make herself invisible in the corner. She leads him down hallways, around corners, and up a flight of stairs to a room Peter's sure is no less secure than the one they'd just left. This room at least has a bed, though on further thought that's not much consolation.

He'll probably be here for quite some time.

The young agent excuses herself — an unnecessary politeness in Peter's opinion, all things considered — and walks out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her. Peter lowers himself to sit the bed and scoots back on the mattress until his shoulders and head touch the wall. He lets his eyes drift shut rather than contemplate the sparse furniture and the bare concrete walls of the cell around him.

Instead, he considers whether he'd have been better off taking his chances back home with his father after all. He'd still be stuck in a cell, no doubt, but at least they wouldn't be able to vanish him from the face of the Earth with only a small handful of people the wiser.

Might not have stopped his father from trying, though.

At the click of the door's latch, Peter's eyes snap back open. Broyles's quiet shadow has returned, this time bearing a tray of food. She sets it down on the little table against the wall and perches herself on the chair opposite.

"No truth serum or anything, I swear," she says, waving him over, "just the finest the agency cafeteria has to offer."

Peter's stomach grumbles in response to the smells drifting in his direction, and he shrugs. "How fine is that exactly?" he asks as he pulls out the second chair.

The young woman purses her lips and tips her head to the side. "Somewhere between day at the ballpark and your average elementary school kitchen."

Peter laughs, a short, surprised sound. "I'm assuming that's just as bad over here as it would be back home."

She nods. "Sad to say, some things must be true everywhere."

Peter takes a few bites of the meat and gravy in front of him and finds he's too hungry to care much about the taste.

"So," she says, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table and her chin atop her folded hands, "do you recognize me? From the other side?"

Peter shakes his head. "Not even a little bit."

She makes a face, clearly a little disappointed. "Maybe I'm just that forgettable."

"Hardly." He sets the plastic fork down and picks up the cardboard container of milk from the tray. He tugs on the spout and scowls when it fails to open properly. He prods at the thing with a fingernail and manages to make an opening. "You weren't kidding about the school cafeteria thing."

"I really wasn't."

"So do I get to know your name, Agent Never-Seen-You-Before? Or is the mystery part of the persona?"

She grins. "I'm Astrid," she says, sticking a hand across the table to shake his. "I help Agent Dunham out on occasion, but mostly I'm Agent Broyles' right-hand man."

"Ah. The power behind the throne."

"Maybe," she says, her grin becoming a little bit crooked. "If you need anything, let me know. I'll see what I can do."

Peter points his fork at her. "Coffee. Olivia tells me you have coffee everywhere. Back home you have to sell a few children and your ancestral home just to get a cup."

"I think I can handle that."

"Thank God. And Agent Astrid."

She rolls her eyes and points at his food. "Now keep eating, or Agent Astrid will get in trouble."

"Yes ma'am."

The quiet as she sits and he eats is almost companionable; she taps the table gently as she waits, a catchy rhythm that could have come from something he'd heard on the radio back home. Peter's reminded of the song Walter had hummed behind him in the basement hallway, hours and a lifetime or two ago.

"How did Olivia even find you over there, anyway?" Astrid asks, finally breaking the silence again.

It's almost perfect, the congenial act, the friend in a dark place, but there's a tiny shift in the tension around her eyes that gives her away. Anything Peter says here is going straight into his permanent record.

They're soldiers protecting their home, all of them, even the kind and friendly Agent Astrid. And none of them even know from what.

-x-

Peter lives what he assumes are several days of the same routine; at least, there are meals spaced out at regular intervals, and there are times when the lights are on and times when they're off. Peter sees Broyles, and he sees Astrid, and he sees a handful of other men and women over and over again.

He never sees Olivia or Elizabeth or Walter.

Under the bright lights of the interrogation room, Broyles and his agents ask Peter the same questions enough times and in enough different ways that he knows he'd have no hope of keeping his answers consistent if it weren't for one pesky little detail they may never come to believe. He's telling them the truth.

Back in his cell with the lights off, Peter forces himself to sleep, and he tries not to dream.

-x-

Olivia walks into the room just as Peter's finishing breakfast.

"Long time no see," he says as she sits in the opposite chair.

"Yeah," she says. Her gaze flicks around the room, taking in the spare furniture, the bare walls, and the camera in the corner. She stares up at the camera for several long seconds before she finally turns back to face him. "I'm sorry about all this, Peter."

He takes a bite of toast and doesn't bother to answer.

"Right." She clears her throat. "If it makes you feel any better, I've been getting the third degree, too."

Peter chews slowly, finishing the toast off with a swig of coffee. "But I bet you get to go home at night," he says when he's done.

She looks down at her hands and flicks the nail of her forefinger against the pad of her thumb. "With a guard on the door my first few nights."

"Doesn't really make me feel any better, no." He nudges the corner of the tray in front of him, straightening it on the table. "I'm sorry."

She waves a hand, dismissing his words.

"Hey, I don't have anyplace else to be," he offers. Not anymore, at least. "And the food's not too bad."

She nods. "We're working on that."

"The food?" he asks.

"No, the other part."

Peter's eyes narrow. "Who's we, exactly?"

Olivia shakes her head.

He leans forward, looking up at the camera and then back at her face. "How are you even here telling me this?"

She holds his gaze as if trying to make some point, but whatever connection Peter once thought he'd had with her seems to be inoperable right now, because he hasn't got a clue what she's thinking. Eventually she leans back in her chair, blowing out a long breath. "Who knows," she says with a shrug. "All evidence to the contrary, Agent Broyles still trusts me." She cocks her head to the side and folds her arms across her chest. "For what it's worth, I think he wants to trust you, too."

-x-

The next time Astrid walks him to the interrogation room, it's Agent Broyles who sits waiting on the other side of the table. Peter doesn't waste time, doesn't wait for Broyles to speak, doesn't even wait for the door to close behind Astrid on the way out.

He drops into his chair and looks Broyles dead in the eye. "There has to be another way. Some solution to all this besides beating at the edges of both our worlds until the laws of physics cry uncle and everyone ends up dead." Peter lays his hands flat on the table, fingers spread. "I never knew Colonel Broyles personally on the other side. And I sure as hell don't know you. But I know you've been sitting here listening to me all this time when you've probably got a thousand better ways to get intel from a guy who doesn't actually exist."

Broyles rests his elbows on the table and steeples his hands in front of his face. "What's your point, Mr. Bishop?"

"There has to be another way." Peter points a finger at the other man. "Maybe you're the guy to find it."

Broyles weaves the fingers of his two hands together. "Maybe you are."

"I don't know," says Peter, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. "But somebody damn well better."

-x-

Broyles has never shown up in Peter's holding cell before. When he does, it's with Olivia and — surprisingly — Elizabeth in tow. Olivia comes to stand near the bed where Peter's sitting, while Broyles stops behind one of the chairs at the table. Elizabeth leans against the wall beside the door.

Peter tosses aside the book he'd been perusing, one of several Astrid had brought him a few days before. Nothing too modern, of course; nothing that might give anything away. "You know, on the other side, Romeo and Juliet is a comedy," he says. "A really good comedy. Your Shakespeare was kind of a depressing guy."

Broyles raises an eyebrow. "You're not helping your case any, Mr. Bishop," he says.

"When am I ever?"

Broyles grunts and shakes his head. "We're having a difference of opinion on exactly what to do with you."

"As in, am I ever getting out of this joint?"

"Maybe." Broyles's closed fist taps against the back of the chair. "What would you do?"

Peter shrugs. "Never been a position to make that kind of call," he says. "So I really can't say."

Broyles looks at Olivia and back to Peter. "Yes. You have. You all have," he says, glancing over his shoulder at Elizabeth. Then he sighs. "Believe it or not, Mr. Bishop, I don't believe you're here for some nefarious purpose. And I appreciate what you did for my people."

"But that doesn't mean you can let me go running around unsupervised. After all, I don't even know Romeo and Juliet is supposed to be a tragedy."

Broyles nods. "You can understand that."

Peter runs his hand through his hair. "But I don't have to like it."

"None of this is the point," Elizabeth says, pushing off of the wall and closing the distance between her and Broyles with slow, small steps.

"And what is?" Broyles asks, turning to face her.

"What does it matter if we win whatever war it is we're fighting if we forget what it means to be human while we do it?"

"Sometimes there is no other way," Broyles says.

Elizabeth shakes her head. "We've seen entirely too much for any of us to believe that."

"We're not talking about the laws of physics here."

"He's my son," she says, quiet but firm, now standing mere inches from Broyles's face.

"No, Mrs. Bishop. He's not."

"Yes he is." She cocks her head to the side, considering him. "What if it were your son, Phillip?"

"I'm not Secretary Bishop."

She shrugs. "No, you're the head of Fringe Division in two universes. How is that any different?"

Broyles's gaze flicks from Elizabeth to Olivia and then on to Peter. His eyes rest there for a long moment, his expression still and unchanging. "I'll take it under consideration," he says, looking back to Elizabeth at last.

Elizabeth opens her mouth to speak again, but Olivia steps forward, laying a hand on the older woman's arm, and she remains silent. The two women exchange a look that lasts a long time, and then Elizabeth nods. "Fine. That's all I ask."

Broyles turns and strides out without another word to any of them. Elizabeth sighs, looks over at Peter, and then follows Broyles out the door. Olivia leans against the table, her palms flat on the dark laminate surface.

Peter leans back against the wall, lacing his fingers behind his head. "So," he says with a mock-smile, "I'm having fun. How about you?"

The corner of Olivia's mouth quirks up and she shakes her head. "He's a good man," she says. "It's a tough job."

Peter shrugs. "Can't really blame him."

"I should really …" Olivia jerks a thumb over her shoulder, indicating the door. He nods, and she pushes off the table and walks out of the room.

Peter picks up Romeo and Juliet from the bed beside him, flips through the pages, and tosses it down again. Maybe he should ask Astrid to bring him a copy of Alice in Wonderland instead.

-x-

Agent Broyles stalks back in about half an hour later. Olivia slips in after him, pulling the door closed behind her. Peter pushes up from the bed and crosses the room to stand in front of them.

Broyles looms before him, hands on his hips. "If you put one toe out of line, one little finger," he says, shaking his head slowly back and forth, "I'm going to pack you away faster than you can say Bob's not your uncle over on this side."

A good solid majority of Peter's instincts are urging him to step forward, to crowd his way into the other man's space. The rest of him would really rather step back — possibly all the way back to where he came from. Fight and flight, bravado or fear. Peter looks over Broyles's shoulder at Olivia, wonders if maybe there might still be a room for faith after all, and splits the difference, standing his ground. "Yeah," he says, sticking his hands in his pockets, "I get that."

Broyles's eyes narrow and his chin lifts slightly, but he doesn't speak to Peter again. Instead, he turns to Olivia. "He's your responsibility, Agent Dunham."

"He always was," she responds without a hint of hesitation.

Broyles purses his lips and shakes his head, like he's used to Olivia and her crusades, then he walks out of the room and down the hall, leaving them behind.

Through the now-open doorway, Peter can see Walter, leaning forward at the waist, eager and curious. Elizabeth's right there beside him, the fabric of his sleeve clasped in her fist, as though she can keep him from tipping all the way over the edge by the sheer force of her will and the tiny grip of her hand.

Olivia nudges Peter with her arm, and he turns to look into her eyes. Those serious, unwavering eyes that ask so many questions but judge him for none of his answers.

Olivia's come so far. Peter, for all his wandering, has stayed in one place all these years. Until he met her again.

"You ready?" she asks, her voice soft so only he can hear.

He looks from her to his not-quite parents and back once more. "Okay," he says at last. "I'm ready."

"Let's go home."

.

But the ghosts that we knew
Made us black and all blue
But we'll live a long life
And the ghosts that we knew
Will flicker from view
And we'll live a long life

Ghosts That We Knew, Mumford and Sons