Chapter 6
"What do you mean he's here?" Peter's voice roared through the already bustling, frantic lab as he burst through the swinging doors, Olivia close on his heels, already on her cell, fielding calls from Boston and sweeping a hand through uncharacteristically mussed hair.
"Fauxlivia brought him," Walter growled, stabbing a crooked finger in her direction without glancing up from the elaborate computer screen in front of him.
Spinning on his heel, Peter faced her, eyes narrowed and normally graceful elegant hands clenched into furious fists. "Was I wrong to trust you, Liv?" he inquired, stepping into her personal space as she sat still and tense on the edge of the lab table, the tension between them painfully different than it had been just early that evening.
Liv scoffed irritably. "No. No, of course not! Why would I want him here?"
"I don't know. But he did send you here in the first place." His words were even, but she could see Olivia fixing her blazer out of the corner of her eye and wondered if the boys had been right, if Peter really gave a damn about her and their baby.
"He tried to control me, tried to control my child." Liv started to shove him away but his fingers wrapped tightly around her arms.
"Don't try and play games with me." Peter's voice dropped a dangerous octave-and-a-half and he leaned in closer, breath warm on her cheek. "You may have stolen her life, but you invaded mine. And we both know you did it all for him. I'd hate to think you fooled me twice."
"I did it for Lincoln and Charlie and my mom and all the people we've lost. I couldn't care less about the Secretary. Don't presume to understand me just because we've fu-" Liv shot back venomously, cutting off as his fingers tightened on her arms again.
"Just answer the question: was I wrong… to trust you?"
Liv held his eyes for several long heartbeats. To her credit, she didn't look away in shame as she answered in the affirmative. Dropping his hands in disgust, Peter stepped away from her as though she'd punched him in the gut but before he could say anything she added, "But not for the reasons you think."
"It doesn't matter why. One way or another, I let you use me again." Peter walked away despite her protests, the door swinging behind him again as he wandered mindlessly down the hall.
The catch of a hand on his arm had him turning back but a curled fist sent him stumbling into the stark white wall. Peter clutched his jaw with a groan, glaring up at Lincoln. "Something I did to offend you, Lee?"
"You don't get to talk to her like that. And you don't ever touch her like that," Lincoln stated, the words firm, confident and not a small bit threatening.
Peter straightened, dabbing at a drop of blood on his lip. "Look, I get that you love her. But I love Olivia and I will do what it takes to protect her."
Reaching out, Lincoln hauled him up by his lapel. "Don't give me that crap. You know as well as I do you can't love one and not the other, not really. They're two sides of the same coin and all that… nonsense. The only people who really believe you don't love them both are you and Liv and believe me when I say it's breaking her down." He dropped Peter abruptly, leaving him there, slumped against the wall with useless denial in his eyes.
He could hear the soft tick-tock of his watch hands as he lay there, keenly aware of the growing bruise on his jaw, several long minutes slipping away from him before he pushed himself up with a groan. Pausing at the vending machine in the hall for red licorice, Peter made his way quietly back into the lab and sat on the gurney beside Liv. "You don't have to talk; just listen, all right?"
Liv's tongue darted out across her lips irritably but she nodded, hands folded in her lap.
"If you want me and everyone else here to really and truly believe you're on our side, you're going to have to give us the whole story. If, however, you would rather retain your loyalties to Over There and Walternate… I won't stop you. The FBI will no longer protect you and you'll be out on your own, but I will make certain none of you get hurt on my account," he murmured, voice even and calm before holding out the small bag of candy. "Red vine?"
She slid one out, biting off the end before pursing her lips. "I'm not on your side. But I'm not on his either. You have to understand how difficult it is. My family, the people I love, are all over there, all of my memories. But this baby deserves to grow up in a world where… where farm animals aren't extinct and Boston is a family vacation." Liv glanced up to meet his eyes and found more understanding there than she had expected.
"I do get it," he murmured hesitantly, his voice reluctant but sincere. "I have a life here and a biological family there. I had to choose between the mother I'd lost and the woman I could lose. Whatever you decide, Liv…" Peter reached out a hand to cup her cheek, pressing his lips against the other in a chaste kiss. "I don't have any right to stop you."
He left her sitting there as he joined the buzz of science jargon and panicked FBI agents, his packet of Red Vines torn open on the gurney in his place. Whether it was his gesture of good will or her own conscience, even Liv was never quite sure but she pulled Agent Broyles aside a few minutes later and changed the universe with one simple confession.
"I know why he's here."
Five words got her an audience of five in Nina's office, the next best thing to an interrogation room at Massive Dynamics. Liv rested her elbows on each arm of her chair, facing Nina, Walter, Broyles, Olivia and Peter. "I'm not stupid. I want to know all four of us will remain protected," she insisted, one hand resting on her stomach pointedly.
"We can't guarantee anything," Olivia shot back, fists resting on the desk as she leaned towards her double.
Broyles rested a hand on her arm until she pulled back, jaw clenched. "We certainly have no intentions of handing anyone over to… Walternate… if that's what you mean. And I don't plan to let you out of FBI control. Please, Ms. Dunham. He must be here for a reason so it's doubtful we have much time."
Temporarily satisfied, she took a deep breath. "You know that I came here originally with the mission of spying but you're also aware of my goal to search for the scattered pieces of the machine?" She received nods all around so pressed on. "Well, I was successful on almost all accounts, except we missed something. There is one small part that wasn't included in my mission. I honestly don't believe anyone realized it was missing until after I had returned but I guess the whole thing doesn't quite work properly without it."
"So he's here to search for the missing part," Walter murmured, hands nervously clenching and unclenching at his sides. "Which piece is it?"
Liv pulled a small scrap of paper from her pocket and smoothed it out on the desk. The picture was drawn in pencil and covered in creased lines but Walter seemed to recognize it. "I would have spoken up sooner but I had hoped… vainly, I guess, that it wouldn't be necessary."
"Well then there's only one thing for us to do." Five pairs of inquiring eyes turned to look at Peter. "We have to put as much distance between that part and the rest of the machine as possible."
It was a simple plan really: dismantle the small part from the machine, pile into a decidedly non-FBI issue van and run like hell.
Less than 24 hours later, Peter leaned his hands against the 18th floor window, head spinning slightly as he looked down to the sidewalk below.
The door opened behind him and Lincoln reflexively reached for his gun at the sight of an intruder. "Something I can help you with, Bishop?" Lincoln sneered, hands falling away to his sides as he realized his gun hadn't been on him in weeks.
Glancing over his shoulder finally, Peter chewed on the inside of his cheek. "If you love her so much, why convince me I love her too?"
Lincoln swallowed hard, his shoulders slumping as he reached into the cupboard for a hoarded bottle of bourbon, though he probably should have been packing what meager belongings he'd accumulated instead. "Because apparently unlike you, I want her to be happy. With or without me."
"That's not fair," Peter murmured, gratefully taking the proffered glass.
"Isn't it? You've brought your Olivia and mine nothing but trouble."
"Well." Peter sipped at the cheap, pungent alcohol. "That's fair. Doesn't mean if I had the chance, I wouldn't run away with her, take her wherever she wanted to go, just run away from my father and a mirror image of herself and nearly dying every other day…"
"Question is, which of them do you mean? Would you rather desert the woman you love or your child?" Lincoln raised a judgmental eyebrow.
"Is that really what you think of me?" Peter demanded, slamming his glass down. "I didn't ask for this pregnancy, you know, but I am going to stand by my son if it kills me!"
"You-" Lincoln stopped, glass halfway to his mouth. "How do you know it's a boy?"
Peter stumbled over an excuse before sighing heavily, fingers rubbing at his forehead. He pulled his wallet from the inside pocket of his coat draped over a chair, sliding a fuzzy ultrasound photograph onto the counter. Picking it up, Lincoln felt his brow knit in confusion. "But… you weren't there."
"Doesn't mean I don't care," Peter chided softly. "I would like to be the father I never had, you know. I'm not a monster, Lincoln. And I wasn't raised by him."
"I don't think you're him," Lincoln half-growled under his breath, eyes still glued to the small gray image of Liv's baby.
"Yes you do. You're caught between jealous of me and hating me." A humorless smirk tugged at his lips as he swung his coat over his arm. "Ought to make for a real blast of a road trip," he said, voice dry with sarcasm as he let himself out before Lincoln could argue.
Across town, Olivia sighed softly, opting for a slew of black and grey t-shirts, slacks and jeans from her hotel closet. Her hands stilled as she folded a pair and laid it in a practical duffel bag on the bed, shoulders slumping slightly.
"You almost ready?" Peter called gruffly from the hall, hand catching on the doorframe as he swung into the room. Intuitively picking up on her less-than-perfect posture, he willed a moment of calm on himself and slipped his arms around her from behind, cheek pressed gently against hers.
She stood there silently, gratefully, for a few moments before tipping her head back onto his shoulder, murmuring, "I miss you."
Peter smiled, although he was certain it wasn't funny, lips brushing her ear. "What do you mean?" he whispered back.
"I just…" Olivia paused and he thought she might not answer. "I've just been thinking a lot lately. I know I hated it but I just really want to be back in Iraq, listening to you call me 'sweetheart'. Think Walter could whip me up a time loop so I'd never have to leave?"
Chuckling bitterly, he pressed hot kisses across her jaw. "I can call you 'sweetheart'. And we can run to Iraq if you want, but I think I'd prefer somewhere you can be half-naked on occasion," Peter teased, his voice dark but sincere.
"This isn't going to end well, you know. Someone's going to die and it's going to be your fault," Olivia murmured, eyes closed as she rested in the crook of his neck, her hands covering his on her waist.
Peter blinked in surprise, stammering slightly. "Wh-"
"It will be my fault too," she conceded after a beat. "And Walter's. Definitely Liv's. It always comes back to you though, Peter. I wish it wasn't that way. I wish I could take your place all those years ago, be the one that shouldn't have been."
He curled his arms tighter around her, eyes slamming shut. "Don't you dare talk like that. You are always supposed to be," he whispered, lips brushing her ear.
Olivia cleared her throat, pulling away from him, one hand pressed flat against his chest. "We don't have a lot of time. You should go pack."
"I've already packed." Peter reached for her again, smoothing blond hair behind her ear, his eyebrows knit together in worry.
"Well, then, what about the van? Shouldn't you be, I don't know, checking the oil or the tires or something?"
"Why shouldn't I be right here, with you? I thought we were past this, Livia," Peter sighed, hands dropping to rest awkwardly on her arms.
"We were. We are. But we can't do this." Olivia stepped away, putting the bed between them. "I don't like her. But doesn't it feel wrong to kiss me and know a few miles away she's thinking about you? I can't hurt her like that, not when I know exactly how she feels."
Peter's shoulders sagged and he shook his head slightly, chin dropping to his chest. "I should have known you would do anything to be unhappy."
In her defense, she did look offended but before she could protest, he walked around the bed and took her face in his hands. "When you're ready, even if it's fifty years from now or the world has ended or I'm married or anything, I love you." He pressed a soft kiss to her lips, pulling away even as she nearly gave into him there and then. "We're meeting at Massive Dynamics in 20."
Twenty(-four)minutes later, Peter, Olivia, Walter, Astrid, Liv, Charlie and Lincoln piled seven duffel bags and one very sensitive briefcase into the back of a rather inconspicuously beat-up 1980s panel van and pulled away into the bright lights of a New York evening.
"Are we doing the right thing?" Broyles asked in that quiet, gentle way of his as the metal doors rolled back down behind the disappearing van.
Nina pressed her lips together with a small, noncommittal shrug. "Depends."
"On what?"
"On them. It's all on them now, Phillip. Why don't you pay your kids a visit before the world ends, hmm?"