Upon discovering the old house had hot water and an actual bathtub, Olivia disappeared for an hour, allowing herself the luxury of a long soak. With bubbles, of course.
When she emerged, clean and relaxed, and wearing a cotton robe that must have belonged to Etta, she padded upstairs to the attic bedroom, to find Peter sprawled loose-limbed across the bed, already dozing.
He cracked an eye open when the door creaked, and gazed with interest as she dropped the robe on a nearby chair, a delighted smile crinkling the faint lines of his face. She was gloriously naked.
"Did you miss me?" Olivia teased, as she crawled into bed with him.
"More than you'll ever know," he replied with feeling, as he accepted her into his arms. He nuzzled her neck, and breathed in her freshly almond-scented, and slightly damp, hair. Enjoying the simple closeness, they laid in bed and just held each other for endless minutes, trading occasional kisses, his fingers running through her hair, hers softly caressing his chest as she listened to his heart beat.
"Olivia? In the dream we shared, did you really mean..." Peter finally asked.
Olivia turned her head to look at him and nodded. "Yes."
Peter watched her face intently. "Now...would not be the ideal time," echoing something she'd said to him, on the topic of more children, years before.
"Yeah. I kind of turned a corner on that, while we were apart. There is no ideal time, Peter. We took all those precautions, and we still didn't get to see Etta grow up. It's a...miracle...that we get to know her as an adult."
She laid her head on his chest again, and they lay together in affectionate silence for a few more minutes, until Peter chuckled.
"What?" Olivia asked.
"Well, depending on how you look at it, we haven't had sex for either six months or twenty years."
Olivia laughed, and joined in the silliness. "...And we're either thirty eight or fifty eight years old..."
Peter shook his head. "Not me. I didn't exist until 2011. So I'm only twenty five, going by
calendar years."
Olivia tweaked her husband's ribs fondly, making him squirm. "I'm cradle robbing! Or I was..."
Peter fought back laughter.
"But I remember another fifteen years from a third timeline, I could technically be forty. And I was married to you for those fifteen years, so I've been married to you for either nineteen or thirty nine years, while you've only been married to me for four years or twenty four."
The two of them spent the next few minutes shaking with uncontrolled laughter. Eventually, Peter sobered, and wiped at his eyes. "Our lives are so weird."
They gazed lovingly into each other's eyes for a moment. Finally Olivia tugged on the waistband of Peter's boxer shorts.
"You're a little overdressed if we're gonna work on making that little boy." she said with a wink.
Etta Bishop laid awake deep into the night, tossing and turning or simply staring at the ceiling of her room, unable to quiet her racing mind. Finally she sighed in frustration, sat up and pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and went to find something more productive with which to occupy herself.
Etta was introspective enough to know exactly what was wrong. She had succeeded in her life's major goal – reuniting with her parents – and now didn't know what to do with the rest of her life. Etta supposed that succeeding early was a good problem to have, but nonetheless, it was difficult and worrisome for someone as goal-oriented as she was.
Leaving her bedroom and entering the living room, she saw light spilling out from the kitchen and heard Walter talking to himself. The inhabitants of the Bishop household kept some truly strange hours, she reflected with some amusement. But maybe sharing some cookies and conversation with her grandfather would help her get back to sleep. He always had such amusing stories to tell.
She rounded the corner and entered the kitchen – and stopped short, her arms flailing to maintain balance, her eyes shot wide open. Walter was standing at the kitchen sink, whisking some eggs in a bowl.
Naked as a jaybird. Well, except for his socks.
Fortunately, he was turned away from her. As it was, she was getting a good view of the full moon.
"Uh..." she stammered, "Granddad...don't you think...that uh...it'd be safer if you put on some..."
Speaking was the worst possible thing she could have done in that situation. Hearing her, Walter turned around and smiled enthusiastically.
"Henrietta! What a joy to see you! Would you like to help me make some butterscotch-oatmeal cookies? It will be just like when you were a little girl!"
Eyes up, Etta thought, smiling at the absurdity of the situation she found herself in. Remember, Walter is a few cards short of a full deck. It's not his fault. Eyesupeyesupeyesup...
Astrid stuck her head in the kitchen.
"Walter!" she scolded, "...put some pants on before you scar your granddaughter for life!"
Startled, Walter looked down at himself, realizing at that instant that he was completely naked. He didn't seem embarrassed, more puzzled by the objection.
"Well, we're all fam..." he started.
"Don't even finish that sentence," Astrid interrupted.
Walter growled. "Oh, all right."
He walked down the stairs to the basement in a huff, muttering about prudes. "Olivia never objects when I'm naked..."
"That's because she gave up, years ago!" Astrid replied.
"Thank you, Aunt Astrid." Etta said, sighing in relief, "I don't know what we'd do without you."
"Just a word of advice, Etta," Astrid said, "...Stay in your room until breakfast on Tuesday."
For the first time in far too long, Olivia woke up naked and happy, enveloped in Peter's arms, his broad, bare chest warming her back. She smiled in the darkness, and nuzzled his hand that clasped hers.
"Mmmmm." She heard him rumble in her ear. "It's too early for good morning, even for you. Go back to sleep, or have sex with me again."
Olivia giggled softly. At that moment, she even loved Peter's drowsy grumpiness.
"Okay, sleepyhead," she whispered.
More content than she had been in years, Olivia dozed off again.
At the break of dawn, there was a soft knock at the door. Of course, Olivia was already awake. Peter groaned and drowsily buried his head under the blankets, muttering something about Dunham women. Olivia snorted in amusement, and quickly pulled on one of Peter's cast-aside shirts.
"Come in, Etta." she said.
The door opened and their daughter entered, carrying two large, steaming mugs, both of which she handed to Olivia after smirking at Peter's form hidden under the blankets.
"Good morning. I've brought you coffee, and Astrid and Granddad are downstairs making breakfast. Should be ready in fifteen minutes or so. Just relax, I'll bring it up to you."
"She gets the early bird thing from you," Peter grumbled, after emerging from under the blanket and accepting a mug. "It's definitely not a Bishop trait."
"Our...twenty-four-year-old daughter is bringing us breakfast in bed." Olivia marveled.
"Mmmm. you'll get used to it. I did." Peter yawned and stretched, while Olivia took an experimental sip of her coffee, and made a sour face.
"Our daughter makes terrible coffee." she said.
"Yeah. Technically it isn't coffee. It's coffee chews dissolved in boiling water, and you'll get used to that, too."
Olivia went silent, staring into space as she sipped her coffee.
"What?" Peter asked, though he thought he had a good idea of what was troubling her.
"It just sunk in. My little sister is older than I am. Rachel is fifty five, now. Ella is thirty two." Olivia replied, with a sigh.
"Well, if you go by how many years since your birth, you're still older than Rachel is."
She gazed at him, eyebrow raised. "Not helping, Peter."
Fifteen minutes later, Etta returned carrying a tray piled with a hearty breakfast, which she placed on a chair she pulled over to their bedside.
"All right, I'll let you two eat in peace...oh Mom? Astrid and I were wondering if you'd join us for some girl time, later today?" she asked hopefully.
Olivia looked at Peter, who smiled.
"All I'm going to be doing today is working in the basement with Bell and Walter. Go have girl time."
Wispy clouds of smoke filled the basement lab with a distinctive aroma. Walter leaned back in his chair, puffing on a fat joint, doodling on a tablet computer.
"Peter doesn't like me." Bell said across the basement lab to Walter, puffing his own blunt.
Bell used a watchmaker's screwdriver to make a minute adjustment to the prosthetic limb he was working on. The prosthesis resembled a skeletal hand made of grey plastic and black metal.
Walter frowned. "Whatever gave you that impression? I mean, using his wife for a power source to destroy the universe, betraying us to the Observers...I just remembered I don't like you anymore, either. Why the hell am I sharing my weed with you?"
Bell grimaced. "It's not your weed. And I don't have any ill feelings toward him or you. But his attitude will interfere with our working relationship. Things will go much slower with Peter constantly double checking my work on the control matrix."
Walter shook his head. "That's the price of getting you out of the amber. Trust has to be earned, William, and I'm afraid you've built up quite a debt to us on that front."
Bell nodded. "I understand all that. But to be honest, I'm more concerned with what he'll do to me after I build the matrix."
Walter sighed. "I won't let him kill you, William. Neither would Olivia, for all that you've done to her."
Bell smirked, put down the screwdriver, and picked up the prosthetic hand, inserting the stump of his right arm into a socket,wincing at a twinge of pain as he did so. He closed an arrangement of clamps, locking the prosthesis to his arm, then experimented with flexing his new fingers and bending the artificial wrist.
"Well, I suppose this will have to do." said Bell.
The two of them turned, hearing footsteps coming down the stairs. Peter appeared, fanning his hands in a vain attempt to disperse the intoxicating clouds.
"Shit," he said, "...I really didn't want to get high today. Marijuana and anti-matter don't mix!"
Peter fixed his cold gaze on Bell, then his eyes moved to the new prosthetic hand.
"Wonderful..." Peter sneered, "We have our very own Darth Vader."
It turned out that "Girl Time" with Etta and Astrid meant going out into the woods and shooting things, an activity Olivia could definitely get behind.
Etta and Astrid lead her on a long walk to where an old jeep was concealed in a patch of woods on the edge of town. After an hour's drive on dilapidated rural roads, Etta stopped the vehicle at an abandoned farm.
Olivia watched as her daughter walked back from the long line of old paint cans she'd set up along an overgrown wooden fence as their targets.
"Sixty paces." Etta said. She drew her pistol, turned and opened fire, discharging her weapon until the twenty rounds in the magazine were gone. Olivia felt, more than heard, the eerie, high pitched reports of the hyper-velocity pistol.
Olivia raised an admiring eyebrow. "Nice shooting, honey."
Astrid chuckled. "Not as good as you think. The high speed bullets shoot flat, out to almost forty yards. You don't really have to correct for range."
"Aunt Astrid," Etta pouted, "...don't tell her all our secrets!"
Olivia stepped up to the line and raised the pistol they'd given her. More cautious than Etta, she spaced her shots, putting one round into the dead center of each of her targets.
"Nice. Kicks like a .22, hits like a .45!" she said, admiring her own excellent marksmanship.
Olivia moved to stand beside her daughter as Astrid stepped forward.
"Etta," Olivia said quietly, "...I want to talk to you about what you did at the warehouse. It's kind of important."
Etta looked at her and nodded. "Okay."
"When was the first you realized you had...an ability?" Olivia asked, stepping a little closer.
"I was fourteen the first time it happened, still living with Aunt Rachel in Chicago. An incident happened...a bomb. I didn't have anything to do with it, but I was nearby, so I got detained. They brought in an Observer to read all the witnesses and suspects. When he read me...I don't know. I was scared, and I just wanted to go home. So...I put my thoughts into his head, trying to make him believe that I hadn't seen or heard anything. It worked. He was convinced I hadn't even been in the area, and that I'd been detained by mistake. He ordered me released immediately."
Olivia's eyes had widened. "...that sounds useful."
Etta nodded. "It has been a few times. It certainly helped me in Fringe division, and in working for the Resistance. I could keep information secret, so I did a lot of courier work...taking messages between cells, that sort of thing. Still do."
Astrid finished her turn at shooting and approached, stopped at a respectful distance to listen to their conversation.
"Now...about what happened at that warehouse. When the Observer attacked us?" Olivia asked.
Etta nodded. "Yeah. Well...Dad was in trouble. And it just happened. It was like I shoved all of my thoughts into his head at once, and it overwhelmed him. I did it to the second one, too."
Olivia nodded, and rubbed Etta's arm affectionately. "I have a theory, Etta. If Astrid agrees, I want you to try to push one thought, just one thought into her head."
"Why me?" objected Astrid.
"Because one Cortexiphan subject can't affect another," Olivia said, "Nick Lane couldn't project his emotions onto me, and Simon Phillips couldn't read my mind. It could be risky, though."
Astrid thought for a moment, then nodded. "I trust Etta."
Olivia smiled. "Thank you. Etta?"
Her daughter nodded, and turned towards Astrid. "Okay, Mom. How do I do this?"
Olivia shrugged. "I don't know, honey. When I move things, I sort of reach out with my mind and feel them. Like I have an extra arm. And I'm just really pissed off or afraid when I burn them. I don't know how it works for you."
Etta nodded, and then gazed intensely at Astrid. After a few seconds, Astrid gasped, held up her hand and said, "Apples. I 'm picturing a basket full of apples."
Etta nodded. "That's what I sent. So I'm what...a reverse telepath? A mind writer?"
Olivia sighed, thinking of all the difficulties her abilities had brought to her life. She reached out and stroked her daughter's back, trying to impart some comfort.
"Something like that. I'm sorry, honey," she said.
Etta looked at her and smiled. "I'm not. I like being special."
Having three geniuses in the house certainly made it easy to triple check their work. Which was good, because the Device they were assembling was quite definitely a one shot, all or nothing proposition.
"Six dimensional equations make my head hurt." Peter complained, as he checked Walter's math, "Why does it take so much energy to do what we're trying to do? Five grams of anti-matter, and it'll barely reach a one hundred meter radius."
"A one hundred meter sphere..." Walter mused, "Placement of the device will be critical."
"Another gram of anti-matter, and the sphere balloons out to one thousand meters." Bell said, "It's a shame Peter threw the other container in the river."
Peter glared at Bell. "You try to figure out how to contain a leaking anti-matter bomb. Without dying of radiation exposure or blowing up Boston."
Bell held up his hands and smiled. "I didn't mean it as criticism. Your design for anti-matter containment is remarkable, even more so for someone of your limited education. And I'm sure you've realized you've solved the energy crisis. Massive Dynamic will probably license the technology from you, assuming we survive this crisis."
Peter raised an eyebrow, but Bell interrupted him before he could reply.
"...but circumstances have conspired against us. We really do need more power for the Device...and I really need a cup of tea."
Bell left for the kitchen. When he was out of earshot, Peter turned to Walter.
"Have you been thinking about...Etta's condition?" he asked.
Walter nodded, and bit into a Red Vine with gusto. "Yes, it's been in the back of my mind, son."
"Any conclusions?"
Walter nodded. "I don't believe her body could be synthesizing the Cortexiphan. She's been dosed."
Peter's face turned red. "I'll kill him..." he sputtered, starting to stand up.
"Peter!" Walter halted his son by seizing his forearms. "It couldn't have been William, he was in the amber, remember?"
Peter thought for a moment, then calmed himself and sat down. "It's a short list of suspects," he said.
Walter nodded. "Nina Sharp."
Astrid Farnsworth stepped forward and released her ball, sending it thundering down the alley. Strike.
"Nice." Etta growled, from the scoring table. Never having played, her aunt was beating her badly, and the Dunham competitive nature was rearing its head.
After spending two hours in the woods shooting, and a picnic lunch, Olivia had requested that they return to the city; she had something important to do. She'd directed them to Sam's bowling alley.
Olivia emerged from the basement, carrying three bottles of beer and an opener. She distributed the bottles and opened them, then tossed the opener on the scoring bench.
"Sam liked his beer," Olivia said in explanation. "And I know he wouldn't want us to mourn his passing, so let's celebrate instead."
Olivia looked down for a second, to gather her thoughts. "I've known Sam for over twenty years, and in two timelines. He helped me a lot during a difficult time in my life, and he literally helped save the world once. So..."
They raised their bottles, took a sip in unison, and grimaced.
"Ewww," Etta said, "...skunky beer."
"All right..." Astrid said, "Now I have to finish kicking Etta's ass at bowling."
Hours later, Peter carefully lowered the last of the five anti-matter containment devices into a metal tube inside the body of the Device, adding his contribution to one of the most advanced pieces of technology ever created. He picked up a nearby boxy instrument, and touched the attached probe to a contact on the outside of the Device, then checked the reading.
"Gentleman, the Device is powered." he announced.
Bell stepped forward, holding an octagonal plate with a holographic interface projector – the control matrix. He spent the next hour plugging in over one hundred fiber optic connections. Finally, he waved his hand in front of the interface, and green status messages projected themselves into the air.
"The Device is complete." Bell said softly.
"I feel like we should smash a bottle of champagne on it, and give it a female name," Walter said. "I suppose we'll have to smoke some Brown Betty and name it Eunice."
"Eunice?" asked Peter in mock disbelief.
"She was a very strange girl," muttered Walter, "...wasn't she, Belly?"
Bell nodded solemnly. "Yes, Eunice was very strange."
"Eunice was a cow," Walter explained to Peter. "A very strange cow."
Olivia, Astrid and Etta returned to the Bishop household a half hour before curfew. Peter and Simon had spent the last half hour pacing the living room, trading scenarios of what could have gone wrong and generally making each other extremely nervous.
They were very relieved when the women arrived home. Peter leaped forward to embrace his wife and daughter, then hugged Astrid while Simon repeated the procedure with Etta.
"Well, we've made progress," Peter said. "We finished the device. But the range is limited, so we have to brainstorm a plan to get a majority of Observers in one place to use it."
Peter led them into the living room where Walter and Bell were waiting, bickering on the couch.
"Etta will probably be able to help with that," Olivia said quietly. "I've been thinking about it a lot."
"Indeed. She will be vital to future events."
The voice was soft, emotionless, and familiar. All eyes moved to the center of the living room, where a short, pale man in a grey suit and fedora, with a black eyepatch covering his left eye, had simply appeared out of nothing.
September had returned.
Once again, all possible praises for my beta, DixieGirl, and a big thank you to my readers.
CofA
