A/N: I am sorry for the extremely late update on this story. I have had a lot going on lately and I haven't had the time to update it as often as I would like. As a result, please forgive any errors that I have made in this chapter, but I didn't want you guys to have to wait any longer.
Chapter 9: Of Magnets and Neuropathways
Walter continued to look over the journal as he waited for Olivia's arrival. Etta had long grown bored with all of the experiments that he had been conducting on the book in question, and took to watching some cartoons on his television set back in his office in the back of the lab. Walter only hoped that she wouldn't stray too awfully far from his bed to inspect the other aspects around his room, not that he had anything dangerous in there now that they had cleaned out his entire lab when they thought that he had passed away.
The sound of the door opening in the background momentarily drew his focus away from what he was doing, but he assumed that it must have been Olivia; after all she was the only person that he had been expecting to show up. "Hop up on the chair dear, just over there; I already have everything set up for you." Walter said, not looking away from the journal. "I'll be with you in just a moment."
"I don't know who you were expecting to come through that door, Walter, but I can guarantee you that I am not that person." A raspy voice responded to his calling, startling Walter and causing him to nearly jump out of his seat to look over at the intruder as if he were looking at a ghost. "You look surprised to see me, my old friend."
"W-What are you doing here?" Walter stuttered, backing as far away as he possibly could in his seat, from the man that he had once called his best friend.
"Nina told me that you had asked to see my notes on my soul magnets." William held up a thick folder and shook it for Walter to see. "I volunteered to bring them to you myself."
"No… no. I don't want any help from you. You should be locked away for what you did."
"What I almost did." He sternly warned with a finger pointing at him. "Who would it benefit to lock an old man away anyways? One that might only have a few months left to live? I can still do a lot of good Walter, but more on the outside of those prison walls, than on the inside of them. It's not like they could hold me in there anyways. Trust me when I say this, I would find a way to escape." He said with a smile and a light shrug before he extended his arm for Walter to take the folder from his hand. "Here, take it. I don't know what you might be needing those note for, but you must have really needed them if you asked for my help, Walter."
Walter eyed the folder for a moment, thinking about turning the offer down without a second thought. He needed William's help, certainly, but he both wanted and needed his knowledge without him being actually being involved or knowing about the case. Or the fact that he hadn't been smart enough to figure this out on his own. Why had he continued to trust Nina? She was in love with this egotistical man and would continue to follow him until the bitter end, no matter what it was that he had done.
"Come now Walter, don't be like that." he continued upon seeing Walter's hesitation to take his offer and dropped the folder down on the table by Walter's hand. "I know that you disappeared for quite some time, not long ago. Nina probably hasn't had the opportunity to tell you this yet, but I was the one who led the search to find you. Would you believe that?"
"Why? Why would you do that?" he asked, knowing now that the only reason that William Bell ever did anything to help someone else, it was usually had to be beneficiary to William Bell. The man was as self-serving as he ever was, or so he thought.
"That-that does not matter. I assure you." William took a seat next to Walter and seemingly made himself at home without asking for permission.
"So, I'm still a pawn in your game." Walter furrowed his brow as he jumped out of his seat in an attempt to push himself further away from William Bell. "You must still have some use for me if you needed me enough to go looking for me."
William sighed and shook his head from side-to-side in what could only be described as disappointment in his friend. The older man sitting there before him looked to be more tired and more feeble than Walter could ever recall him looking before, knowing that his cancer must be starting to take its toll on him. "Oh Walter, can't this just be about me worrying about an old friend?"
Walter shook his head 'no' feeling a little too stunned to say much else. "William, you tried to destroy both universes… You tried to play God. What my assistant said to me many years ago, she was right, some things are not ours to tamper with… s-some things are God's."
"Walter, there is no God. We are the only creators that there are." He held up his hands. "I didn't come here to argue with you, Walter. I just wanted to see you again… before something happened to me. My cancer is getting worse and I'm not sure how much longer that I will be around to see you." He nodded towards the notes on the magnets. "I wanted to do one good thing at least. Why did you need my notes? Perhaps I can be of some assistance here."
Side glancing at the notes that were callously laid there on the desk, Walter retook his seat and placed his hand on the folder and stared at them for a moment as his mind drifted off in thought. Should he trust William with what was going on, and tell him what was happening with Olivia? Or should he keep it a secret? Could William be of some help to him in some way? William had to know more on this subject than anyone else, because no one was more obsessed with conquering death than he was.
Biting his lower lip, Walter turned his head back to William and gave him a slight nod, signaling to him that he would trust him here; after all, what could it hurt? "I-I am not sure. What has been going on is unexplainable, even to me. We went into this abandoned Asylum, to inspect a weak spot, and we found a journal there. I have read this book and I have found that everything in this book is happening to us now." Walter gently patted the book as he spoke. "The book, I have found, has been giving off an unusual energy reading, and I have come to suspect that this book is the cause of all of this."
"And what does that have to do with the magnets?" Bell curiously asked, placing an elbow on the desk and leaned his head against his hand.
"I hypothesis that this energy is somehow using Olivia to manifest itself in this plane of existence." Walter made a gesture to demonstrate as he spoke.
"And you think that the magnets have something to do with this why, Walter?"
Walter squinted at the man in confusion, hadn't he been the one who had put some of those magnets into Olivia's tea? No, that was in another time line, he quickly reminded himself, otherwise he wouldn't be there right now. "You put some of those magnets into Olivia's tea when you pulled her over to the other side, you knew that if anything should happen to you, you would have another means to live and conquer death."
"I don't know how you knew that…" Walter could tell that he had somehow managed to shock William, which caused a proud smile to appear across his face.
"It was in another time line." Walter stated, his voice apathetic and cold towards the man, perhaps even a little angrier with him now than he had been before he had remembered that particular fact about the him.
William's head hung low now with his jaw clenched. "So that's where you were?" he suddenly asked. "In another time line?"
"You could say that, yes, I suppose." Walter leaned back in his seat, feeling a little more relaxed now that he had the upper hand in their conversation and he wouldn't let William by with any of it. It was only part of the whole truth of course, but he hadn't told anyone else about the full extent of what had happened and he wasn't about to tell the likes of William Bell.
"Walter, I don't even know if the magnets will work. I just wanted to try them out in the off chance that they would. Did you just want me to die if I had a chance to live outside of this body? It's dying Walter."
"They work. But we're all dying, William. But you had no right to do what you did to her without her knowledge of it, and what you have done has already costed the life of Astrid's father." Walter was becoming even more infuriated with the man with each and every passing second. "And Peter, God knows where he could be right now."
"That's not fair. I had no way of knowing that any of this would happen."
"No, you wouldn't. Because you only know how to think of yourself and what else you can accomplish to add onto the long list of achievements of William Bell."
"Isn't this what you would call the pot calling the kettle black?" William huffed as he straightened himself up in his seat. "You always did things without thinking of the consequences later." William let out yet another long sigh. "Walter, this isn't getting either of us anywhere. Please continue on with your hypothesis…"
Walter looked uncertain for a moment, but gave him a nod, knowing what he was saying was to be true, but he had had so much pent up anger towards the man that it was becoming extremely hard for him to control it. "Fine, have it your way… I think that the unique combination of the soul magnets and Olivia's neuropathways created by the cortexiphan is being used by this… entity in order to project itself onto other people around her."
"She is the controller…" Bell said thoughtfully to himself, taking everything that Walter had said to him in and taking a moment for himself to fully process everything. "Olivia can control other people with her own powers and you're saying that this… residual energy is somehow attracted to my soul magnets and it is now using Olivia's unique abilities to manifest itself, or to project itself, onto other people?" he nodded to himself, impressed with what Walter had been able to come up with yet again. "You never cease to amaze me, Walter. That's brilliant."
"So you think that it's possible?"
"Of course it is. Almost anything is possible; you have said it yourself many many times before now. I see no reason for you to start doubting yourself now." He replied with a smirk. "Residual energies are always trapped in a loop, doomed to repeat itself… so in theory, if things really are as you say they are, and all of events written in the journal is starting to unfold here, then it is safe to say that you're right about what you're dealing with here."
"Can you think of a way that we might be able to stop all of this?" Walter asked, starting to feel a little weak.
William went silent for a moment, almost hesitant to say anything out of fear of what might happen next. "Yes…" he suddenly admitted with a nod. "I would have to demagnetize my soul magnets inside of Olivia… and that could be a little painful for her."
"FREEZE!" a gun clicked off to the side of the lab, causing both of their heads to turn towards the direction of the doorway this time, only to see Olivia standing there with her gun trained on William Bell. "You better not move you son of a bitch. Or I swear that will shoot you…"
