References: tribe of Bishops (The Day We Died), the Artist (Inner Child),
Song lyrics: Lips of an Angel by Hinder
Peter woke to a cold bed and a retching sound coming from the bathroom. Rubbing his eyes, he got out of bed and wandered over to his wife, who was kneeling by the toilet emptying the contents of her stomach. "Oh Liv," he whispered, kneeling beside her and holding her hair back and rubbing circles between her shoulder blades. "You OK?"
"I hate this," she muttered. Her morning sickness had only really become routine within the last week or so, something they were both still getting used to. Olivia felt like the whole room was spinning and rested her sweaty forehead into Peter's chest.
"What can I do, Livia? You want some tea or something?"
She shook her head. Not knowing what to do, Peter just kept rubbing her back as she tried to take deep breaths and push through the nausea. "Fuck," she muttered, turning away from him and throwing up again. The acrid taste left tears in her eyes and she cringed, wiping her mouth and leaning back against him.
Worrying, he smoothed some damp hair out of her face, feeling her clammy skin. "You sure it's supposed to be this bad?"
"That's what the doctor said. I just have to tough it out until it passes."
"OK. What do you want me to make for breakfast?"
"I don't know that I can handle eating right now."
"Wait a while," he said, rubbing her back. "You'll be hungry when this stops, and you and the baby need to stay well fed. I don't care if you only eat a little bit, but you're eating something."
She nodded. "Maybe just cut up some fruit?"
"Sure."
She sighed. "I think it's over."
"Do you want to go lie down?"
Olivia nodded and he helped her up, letting her brush her teeth and go back to bed while he got some food for her. He couldn't imagine what this was like for her, waking up sick every morning because her hormones were going haywire. He wondered how long this was going to go on for. It was frustrating for both of them, not knowing what to do or how to handle it. They'd never done any of this before and while they were overjoyed with why it was happening, it scared them half to death too.
Peter took some fruit back to the bedroom and put it on her bedside table, kneeling down and brushing a thumb across her cheek as she tried to rest. "You OK, beautiful?"
She nodded and forced a small smile. She wasn't sure how much her stomach could take at this point, taking a chunk of pear from the plate he had brought and nibbling at it slowly.
Peter laughed. "You eat like a bird."
"Shut up," she teased, smiling.
He kissed her forehead and moved his hand from her cheek down to her flat belly, imagining the things to come. "Just think, every day you go through all this crap is another day closer to meeting our baby."
"Hmm," she assented, smiling and closing her eyes. Peter's warm hand gave her comfort, but what he'd said had also made her a little uneasy. "We have a lot to do," she realised out loud, her voice soft. "We're getting closer every day and we still need to figure out hospital costs and get baby supplies and choose names and -"
"And tell people?"
"Peter, you know I don't want to tell people yet. The doctor said our risks of having another miscarriage go down significantly once we hit the three month mark."
"That still leaves us with a little over a month before we tell anyone. That's a long time, Olivia."
"I know, but…" She clenched her eyes shut at the memory, shaking her head.
"Liv…" he murmured, stroking her hair.
"Peter, I…" she started, tears hanging in her eyes. "You know how hard losing the last one was, for both of us. But you didn't have to tell anybody what happened. I had to tell you and Charlie and that was the worst part of the whole thing for me. Telling you was the worst part. I can't do that again. I can't tell people we're having a baby and get them all excited only to tell them later than we lost it. You don't understand. I can't do it."
"OK," he said softly, not realising just how worried she had been about this. "Liv, this one will make it."
"I know. I hope so, anyway. I just don't want to take the chance, I guess. I know we can handle whatever happens and we're being extra careful with work and stuff, so I want us to keep moving forward without worrying about the dangers. It's telling people too early that scares me. But it's only another few weeks to wait."
"That's OK," he said, kissing her. "For now he or she will be just between us. They'll be only ours. But who knows? Maybe we'll choose to tell people early next time around."
She smirked, raising an eyebrow. "Next time?"
"Who says we'll only have one kid? I bet we'll have two, maybe three. A little tribe of Bishops."
She laughed. "Who says the kids are getting your name?"
"Come on, it's bad enough you didn't change your name when we got married."
"Neither did you."
"That's not the point. The kids are getting my name. Or a combination."
"That's just sexist. What if I want a tribe of Dunhams?"
"Gosh, we're not gonna have this fight yet, are we?"
"I'm sure we can save it for a few months down the track." She smiled, cupping his cheek and kissing him back, making both their hearts swell. They both knew this would be a hard stretch, but they could do it together. All three of them.
Later on when they went to work, Peter and Charlie had to go investigate a lead on one of the Pattern cases, so Lincoln and Olivia tried to do some research at the Federal Building.
"Hey, Dunham!" somebody shouted across the room. She walked over to another agent, Ray, who handed her a fax. "You remember this guy?"
Looking down at the fax, her stomach dropped. It was from The Artist, she could tell. It was an old serial killer case she and the others had worked last year – she'd even studied his early killings at the Academy. But they'd never caught him. She'd worked tirelessly on that case and to this day considered it one of her biggest failures. They'd always assumed he was dead or in jail for another crime, until now.
But then she looked a little closer. "Ray, are you sure this isn't a fake? Or a copycat?"
"Why do you say that?"
"The Artist's usual faxes are invitations to his 'exhibitions', when he later displays the body of his victim. All he ever gave us were the names of the cities where the bodies would be found. This guy's sending us a specific address."
"Maybe he's advancing. Serial killers do that."
"Maybe," she said pensively. "Try and trace where it came from, I'll get a team together to check out the address."
When she and Lincoln parked in front of the house, Broyles was already waiting for them on the front steps. Their boss was spooky like that. No matter where he was, he somehow always managed to beat you to the crime scene.
Olivia walked up with Lincoln and gestured towards the house. "Do you think it's really The Artist?" she asked Broyles.
Broyles just looked at her in that overly serious way he did when things were bad.
"What is it?"
"You should see for yourself."
Lincoln and Olivia followed him through the front door of the house, the smell of a body already making Olivia gag. As the agents all put cream under their noses, Olivia was reminded of her first crime scene as a junior agent, when Lincoln taught her that trick to block the smell, and how afterwards, when she was overwhelmed by seeing her first butchered body, he had comforted her as she cried. But when Broyles eventually led them into the last room, all those thoughts were thrown out of her head.
The victim was tied up against a banister. Hair dyed, skin dyed, clothes changed. All the usual markers of The Artist, except one.
"The victim's male?"
"We're trying to ID him as we speak. Forensics just started putting his DNA through databases, hoping we'll get a match."
"This isn't his house?"
"No, it's vacant."
"It's got to be a copycat," said Lincoln.
Olivia stopped for a moment, trying to keep the smell of the body from getting to her. But she couldn't. She closed her eyes, trying to keep the nausea at bay.
"Agent Dunham, are you alright?"
"Sorry. Just give me a sec," she said quickly, running back outside to get some fresh air and sitting on the front steps of the house.
Lincoln came jogging after her. "Liv. You OK?"
She nodded, putting her head in her hands and trying to take deep breaths.
Lincoln knelt beside her. "You look a little green. You sure you're OK? You don't normally get this way at crime scenes."
"I'm fine," she said, swallowing. "I've just been a bit sick lately. The body isn't helping."
She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. The nausea was making her ears ring and her head spin. Somewhere a little further off, she vaguely heard one of the male agents make a teasing remark about her being a lightweight, and Lincoln's sharp response. But she wasn't listening. All she wanted was for her body to be her own again. But it would be another seven months before that was possible.
Broyles came up behind them and she stood up quickly, brushing off the nausea. "Dunham, are you alright?"
"Yes, sir," she said, but as usual she didn't convince him.
"Agent Lee, why don't you drive Agent Dunham back to the Federal Building. She may be of better use there."
"Yes, sir."
"Broyles, please let me stay, I'm fine."
"No, Dunham. You're not well. It's best that you stay out of the crime scene."
"Wait in the car," Lincoln suggested. "I'll probably be out of here in 20 minutes anyway, seeing as we just came to do an overview while forensics work on the scene. Besides, we don't need you throwing up on any evidence," he teased.
Realising that neither of her bosses were going to give her another choice, she nodded, taking Lincoln's keys and going to lie down in the back seat of his black SUV. When she managed to soothe herself a bit, she checked her phone for new messages out of boredom. She didn't have any texts, but she had over a dozen new emails since she last checked them an hour ago. Scrolling through her inbox, she realised they were from Peter.
Surprised, she opened the first one.
It merely said, "Ryan?"
She opened the next one. "Sasha?"
Then the next. "Chloe?"
An excited smile crept onto Olivia's face as she clicked through each and every email Peter had sent her from the lab, mentally evaluating each potential baby name he'd suggested.
"Andrea?"
"Ethan?"
"What about Julie?"
"Connor?"
"Daniel?"
"Remy?"
"Will?"
"Grace? (That's your middle name, right?)"
"Cassie?"
"Michael?"
"Frodo? (jokes)"
She laughed as she read through the huge list of names and started typing a response:
Jeez, somebody got bored at work ; )
Some of these are great. For a boy I love Ethan, Ryan and Daniel. Not Will. Michael and Connor are OK but I'm not sure.
What's wrong with Frodo? I was going to suggest Gandalf myself ; )
For a girl I love Andrea and Julie. Not Grace, coz it's my middle name (but I appreciate your sentiment, lol). Baby girl deserves her own name. Maybe Sasha. Not Remy, Cassie or Chloe.
Have you thought about these: Aaron, Marcus, Liam, Josh, Tommy, Laura, Anna, Caitlin, Ashley, Eva?
*sigh* You and I have some thinking to do…
See you at home, love you,
O
Ps. Baby's making me sick again. I'm just about ready to kill you for doing this to me. You probably think I'm joking, but I'm not. It's driving me nuts : (
She sent it off, sighing. While she thought Peter's emails were sweet, reading hadn't been a good idea in the state she was in. Starting to feel the nausea bite back at her, she groaned and closed her eyes, trying to calm her body down. After a while she turned on Lincoln's CD player, hoping the music would distract her.
Lying back, she let the slow sound of an electric guitar wash over her. It was a song she actually liked. It had only just come out last month so it was a new favourite.
Honey why are you calling me so late?
It's kinda hard to talk right now
Honey why are you crying, is everything okay?
I gotta whisper cause I can't be too loud
Well, my girl's in the next room
Sometimes I wish she was you
I guess we never really moved on
It's really good to hear your voice saying my name
It sounds so sweet
Coming from the lips of an angel
Hearing those words it makes me weak
And I never wanna say goodbye
But girl you make it hard to be faithful
With the lips of an angel
One of the car doors opened and she felt Lincoln standing beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You OK back here?"
She nodded, her eyes still closed. "You have good taste in music. I always picked you as the type to listen to semi-romantic stuff, but not rock music," she teased.
"Ouch. I love my rock music, and I'm not one for romantic songs, thank you very much. This song's an exception though. Besides, guy love songs are different to girl love songs."
"Really now?"
"When girls write love songs it's all about how awesome and perfect everything is with that person. Guys always write about how messed up things are. Like 'Oh no, I've met the girl of my dreams but I'm a starving musician so the bitch left me for a rich guy'. Crap like that."
"Ah. I see. Speaking of romance, how's it going with that girl?" she asked him, still resting her eyes.
"What girl?"
"That blonde you introduced me to a while back."
"Oh," he said, his voice slightly dampened. He shrugged. "Didn't work out."
"That's a shame."
Well my girl's in the next room
Sometimes I wish she was you
I guess we never really moved on
Lincoln was quite for a while. He got into the car, sitting on the edge of the seat she was lying down on and closing the door. Her eyes still closed, she felt the hand that was on her shoulder tentatively move up to wipe some hair from her face as he watched over her. "You sure you're OK?"
She nodded, though she was still trying to curb the sickness. "Lincoln, I'm fine."
It's really good to hear your voice saying my name
It sounds so sweet
Coming from the lips of an angel
Hearing those words it makes me weak
He got quiet again. She felt his fingertips gently trace her hairline, his palm resting against her cheek.
"Lincoln?"
She felt his warm breath on her face and her eyes snapped open. Lincoln started away, shocked at himself, his eyes just as wide as hers. She withdrew from him just as quickly. Then they both sat still. They stayed that way for a long time, just staring at each other.
His eyes dropped. "I'm sorry," he finally got out, unable to look at her.
She couldn't say anything back. Her mind was going a mile a minute. Had Lincoln seriously just tried to kiss her?
"I'm sorry," he said again, getting out of the car and moving around to the front seat. Still absorbing the shock of it all, she went around to sit beside him.
He started driving. The silence was unbearable the whole time. Olivia couldn't believe what had just happened, and what was worse, she couldn't help going over it a thousand times in her head. Lincoln was the first to speak up. "Are you still feeling sick?" he asked, his voice dampened and his eyes not wavering once from the road.
"No."
"Drink some water."
"I'm fine."
He sighed. "Fuck, Liv, I'm really sorry."
"What the hell were you thinking?" she asked, her words controlled but emphatic. "Lincoln, you know I'm married."
"I know. I know… It just happened, I guess."
"Do you honestly think I'd do something like that to Peter? You have to know me better than that."
"I do. I know how much you love him."
"I mean, what was that? Do you… Do you still have feelings for me?"
He went quiet again.
"Lincoln, nothing is ever going to happen between us," she said. "I'm sorry, but I really thought I'd made that clear. We went out one time three or four years ago and we decided -"
"No, you decided. You decided it was a bad idea and we should just be friends - that wasn't me."
"Well you could have fucking said something instead of harbouring it all these years."
He scoffed. "Like I ever had a chance with you, Liv. Even on that one night we did try it, I could already tell Peter had you in the palm of his hand. Only trouble was you didn't know it yet." He finally brought himself to look at her. "You're not gonna tell him about this, are you?"
"Why? Are you scared of him?"
"Shouldn't I be? You married a fucking criminal, Liv."
"Don't you dare. Peter's a good man, you know that."
"Please," he scoffed. "When I first met him he'd just gotten out of prison in South Africa. I came to pick you up for our date and all he did was try and intimidate me like some thug."
"Well, maybe that's why he deserves me more than you do. Did you ever think of that?"
"What, because he's an ex-con?"
"No. Because even when we weren't together - even when he didn't have a right to - Peter always fought for me. He took risks. He persevered. You just gave up as soon as I said no. Now you're just a selfish idiot who hides his feelings for three fucking years and then tries to fuck up his friends' marriage just so he can get what he wants. That's who you are. And that's why I will always choose Peter over anyone else. Especially cowardly pricks like you."
"Say what you want about me, Liv, but one of these days, he's going to hurt you. The guy's an asshole, Olivia – you really think he's changed? Conning people is what he does best and you're just falling for it. Soon enough he's gonna fuck someone else or beat the shit out of you or something, and when he does I won't be there."
"You're so full of shit, Lincoln," she spat.
They were both silent for a while as Olivia weighed her options. She knew if she told Peter that he'd go nuts and probably kill him, and after all, Lincoln had been a good friend to her over the years.
"I won't tell him," she finally said. "Or Broyles. That's based on the condition that you don't tell anyone, not even Charlie. But I swear to God, Lincoln, if anything like this ever happens again I will tell them everything, and you won't be able to run fast enough. Got it?"
"Yeah," he muttered.
"Lincoln you've known that nothing was going to happen between us for too long now. You have to move on. At least accept that I have. Lincoln, I'm in love with Peter. I'm married now. I'm…"
"What, Olivia?"
"Nothing," she muttered, catching herself before she could blurt out that she was pregnant. Crossing her arms, she turned to stare out the window, wondering how on earth her life got to be this crazy.
Once they were all back at the Federal Building, Lincoln and Olivia avoided each other at all costs. Not that anybody noticed – everyone was working frantically on this new Artist case. Charlie ran up to Olivia, thrusting a file in her face. "Ray said there was no useful trace on the fax, but guess what forensics just found."
"What is it?"
"They ran the victim's DNA through a criminal database, right? Well they got a few hits."
"So we can ID him?"
"No. It's worse. They couldn't get a name, but his DNA was present in several of The Artist's crime scenes."
"Wait… You're telling me that the victim is The Artist?"
"It appears so."
"Who would kill The Artist?"
Charlie shrugged. "Victim's friend, family member…"
"No, if they did it the MO would show rage, this guy was too controlled in how he killed him. Besides, how would they find out who he was before us? Charlie, you know how hard we all worked on that case last year. I've gone through the case file a thousand times over, there was no way we could have caught him. He was too good."
"Well, whoever did must be better informed than we were."
"Other criminals?"
"Perhaps." Charlie smirked. "Can you imagine when the tabloids get a hold of this? A serial killer we couldn't catch for years gets taken out by another psycho we can't catch? Heads are gonna roll over this."
"Shit," Olivia muttered, running a hand through her hair. "Well, whatever happens, we have to find out who did this now."
"I don't think that's gonna be a problem," Broyles said, coming out of nowhere. "Everybody listen up!"
The entire bustling room immediately went quiet. Peter walked over next to Olivia. "What's going on?" he asked her.
"I don't know."
Broyles came to stand in the centre of the room so he could be seen. "We just received another fax in the same style as the one we received this morning. As most of you have just learned, the serial killer known as The Artist was the murder victim found this morning in Weymouth, and this fax has David Robert Jones owning up to the murder. I don't care what cases you're working on. Drop them. If you're not already on my Jones taskforce, you're on it now. I don't care what it takes. Find him."
The room dissolved into a frantic buzz again as agents got to work. Broyles strode over to Olivia where she was standing with Peter. "I'm sorry," he said earnestly. "But you two are going under a detail again."
This day just keeps getting better, Olivia thought. But she bit her tongue and nodded obediently to her boss. "What did the fax say?"
He handed it to her, and she held it so Peter could read through it with her, their stomachs dropping. It was a photo of the body they'd found this morning, all posed and dressed up in The Artist's style, with a message at the bottom:
A present for you, my girl. I know how much you wanted to catch him.
I'll be in touch soon, Olivia.
Sincerely,
DRJ
Please review! Sorry that was long and eventful but next chap is lighter, I promise : )