Chapter 10 – Episode 8 The Human Kind
Human Hearts
Summary: And I know our hearts are broken and it hurts but this is what makes us human.
Warning: See above…
Set: post-ep to Episode 8 of Season 5.
Disclaimer: No copyright inFringement intended.
A/N: A proper welcome for heather7000, and for zeusfluff, amynoemi and red lightning – thank you, as always. I don't know whether I'll be able to update next week. I'll do my best but Christmas and family do come first^^ Happy holidays to all of you.
A/N2: Christmas 2012. Have a wonderful time!
Hold your breath and count.
She's there.
She's dead.
She's there.
She's dead.
But she's there.
She's there she's there and she's there and she is so close he can see every line in her face, every movement of her heaving chest. Peter can see himself in her eyes, his own reflection in her beautiful, beautiful irises. Every time he kissed her, every time he touched her, every time they fought and he worried and she cried and she made him laugh dances in front of his eyes. Images flit past like pieces of a mirror, reflect and take hold. The cool agent who forced him out of Iraq and into the journey of a lifetime. The woman who led him through Fringe cases and events. The girl who fled to a field of white tulips, the teenager who shot her stepfather, the woman who taught him where he belonged. With whom he belonged.
Olivia.
God, and he loves her.
…
After all the nights she has lain awake wishing for him it feels like a miracle that he is there again. His arms are wrapped around her waist, her face is buried against his chest. Olivia can feel every breath he takes, every silent sigh that resonates through his body. Peter's body presses against hers, warm and reassuring and completely there.
The lab is dark.
After Etta's apartment has been compromised they don't have any other place to go. Anil offered them another place but all the rooms she has stayed in since she woke up after 20 years of ambered sleep blend together in a haze of nightmares of loneliness, loss and defeat. Staying in the lab – in Walter's sacred place – feels right, feels almost familiar. They have spent days here, nights and weeks and months. Sleeping on the cold, hard floor next to ancient machines and long-dead dreams is the logical extension of her work description, she guesses. The nest of blankets, jackets and pillows is unnecessary, Peter's warmth everything she needs. Astrid sleeps in the adjoining office, her head resting on a pile of books, her delicate frame wrapped into blankets to blot out the cold. Walter is in his own room, in the small bedchamber he always occupied when he stayed at the lab for nights on end. His silent snores are familiar, even soothing, she has heard them during the last weeks and months, they have accompanied her restless dreams. And Peter is there – firm and alive against her – and after dreaming of him holding her for all the time it feels like a dream now that his arms are a firm cage around her. His hands ghost over her sides, his breath warm against her hair. After all the time he avoided touching her he cannot seem to stop now, as if he was afraid she would disappear the second his hand loses contact with her. His arms feel almost possessive but there is nothing else right now she wants but his touch. Nothing but his arms keep her from falling to pieces. She'd smile but it still hurts to think of how she had to persuade him to do what had to be done. In the silence of an ancient, humming refrigerator and a siren somewhere far away, her own heart beat is loud in her ears.
"Livia."
He knows she's not asleep. His voice is barely a whisper, still. Olivia strains her neck to look at him but she only sees his black silhouette against the even blacker darkness of the lab.
"Do you think it will ever go away?"
Peter's voice is strained. A few hours ago he was crying in her arms, his entire body shaking with the force of his sobs. The second her arms wrapped around his shoulders he clung to her as if she was the last pillar standing upright and he needed her support. She is fine with that as long as it means she can lean on him again, as well. But she knows he is talking about something else entirely, so she contemplates his question. She doesn't know who was more surprised at the fact that his ability to see the time flows hadn't disappeared with the tech: Walter or Peter. They shouldn't have been. Even she could see that something that rearranged the structure of the brain as severely as the device did would not cause reversible changes.
"It altered your brain, Peter. Perhaps it will change back with time. Maybe your sight will return to normal again."
"Hmm."
He doesn't sound convinced but he does not doubt her, either. She knows he knows that she is telling the truth. And because neither of them knows more about it nobody can tell what will happen next. Well, strictly speaking, at least. For a whole while, Peter is silent. Olivia counts his heart beats. Fifty-three. Fifty-four.
"I know it's not true but it still feels as if we're abandoning Etta."
There it is. Peter's voice hitches on her name and Olivia feels the searing pain that shoots through both of them, as if their bodies are synchronized. One.
"I could kill Windmark tomorrow. He passed through the park. He will be there tomorrow, in the place I predicted he would be. I could still go there and make sure…"
"Peter," she reminds him softly and tries to ban the fear she feels at him leaving her like that again from her voice. "You don't have the tech anymore. You can see the timelines, but you cannot influence them. And, besides…"
"It's not what she would have wanted," he whispers. "I know."
It is not what she wanted to say but she leaves it at this. It feels so selfish to be happy right now, as if she is marring her daughter's memories. Because as long as he is here and holds me only lasts as long as it is dark, as long as it is night and she can blot out the terrors of reality. Because I am afraid of you dying is so little in the face of Etta is dead. Any other time Peter would have felt she was hiding something, but not today. He is exhausted, physically and mentally, and the only thing Olivia wants for him is to fall asleep and rest. Peter shifts his arms, draws her in closer. Olivia presses herself against his warmth.
"I miss her so much."
"So do I."
She never was good talking about emotions. Peter has changed her. Etta has changed her. Being with the two of them, Olivia feels like she has become another person. Or rather as if she has somehow outgrown the shell that used to be the Olivia she knew. Like she has left her cocoon. She feels anything like a butterfly, though.
"I wanted to take her to Jacksonville, you know?" Peter's voice is a blend of pain and wistfulness. "I wanted her to see our field. And my old house, and my mother. I wanted to see her grow, go to High School. I wanted to see her off for her Prom Night. I wanted…"
He stops, his voice choked. Because he loves her, and because Etta loves her, too, Olivia can say what she says. She stretches and whispers it into Peter's ear.
"I wanted to see her fall in love for the first time."
Peter stiffens abruptly. She cannot help herself – she chuckles. "Oh, Peter, it would have happened. I wanted to talk to her about boyfriends, and school, and about having children of her own. I wanted to see her grow, just like you."
"But she did."
Peter nods slowly, as if he has to back up his own words. The pain is there, clear in his heart and hers. It flows, circulates, as if their linked bodies are one system. It does not become less painful, but the knowledge is soothing.
"She had a life. She had parents who loved her. She went to school – perhaps she even had a boyfriend. She learned. She laughed. She…"
"She lived."
Peter swallows. Olivia squeezes her eyes shut.
"She lived, Peter. She was alive. You and I are proof. We know she existed. And whatever will happen, we won't let go of her. That way, she'll never die."
"But it hurts." Peter buries his face in her hair, his words a warm gust of wind on her scalp. "It hurts so much, Livia."
"It's a human heart, Peter. And I…" She takes a deep breath. "I don't want the pain to stop. Because every breath, every beat – every painful second – reminds me of the fact that she was alive. And that she always will be there."
"I-"
"Peter?"
"Yes?"
"Promise me one thing."
He hesitates. Olivia moves away from him a little bit, enough to peer up at him through a veil of her own hair. She can almost feel the conflicting emotions that dance through him. She knows he's not someone to promise things recklessly, neither is she. She'd rather cut off her own hand than to break a promise, but in order to do that one has to promise things rashly and for the same reason she has never done so. The promises she has given she can count on her two hands, almost. Peter is similar, she knows. Still, she feels not the slightest bit of remorse at the fact that she is demanding something from him she knows he seldom gives.
"What?"
"Don't ever…" She takes a deep breath, gives it one last thought. "Don't ever leave me like that again. Wait." She stalls him when he takes a deep breath to deny her her wish. "Wait. I don't mean you cannot go away, cannot leave for some time. I don't even mean you can't leave me, break up with me or whatever. Just don't… Just don't leave me behind like this time. I don't think…"
I don't think I could stand losing you again.
Strange. She's not the great talker, never was. The second time in a night she finds herself delivering something like a speech. About her feelings, even more. It doesn't get easier but this is Peter, and he needs to understand this. She pleads with the entire strength of her being, like she did the day in his apartment on the other side, when she told him to come back with her, and like she did the last night, on the balcony above the park. She plead then, trying to make Peter see reason, trying to make him understand that he was going away and that it wasn't his path he was heading down. She refused to let him go because she knew if he went, he'd never return. Now she is pleading again, with every fiber of her being. Don't leave me like this. Don't leave me behind. Please don't do this to me again.
"You are a part of me. Losing you means losing myself."
Big words. And yet, so meaningless. Olivia tries to convey the depth of her plea with her hands, taking his face into them and looking at him.
"Peter. Please."
He looks at her, long and hard.
Six hundred and twenty one.
Six hundred and twenty two.
Six hundred and-
He leans down to kiss her, his eyes dark and soft. The kiss is slow and reassuring, a promise he gives with his heart and his mind, not his words only. Olivia revels in the feeling of his lips on hers, of his hands in her hair. Slowly, slowly – God, she missed his touch, his closeness, his kisses. She missed him so much. And then a spark runs through her body, sets her aflame. She kisses him back until she forgets her own name.