Walter insisted on doing more tests but Olivia was not going to let him. What happened in the lab spoke for itself. Not only did Ella have Cortexiphan, but the abilities she gained from it were nothing like Walter had ever seen in any of the trials.

"Belly would be extremely fascinated with you," he said to Ella.

"Walter, just stop," said Peter.

Ella had not been talking much since arriving at the Bishop house. For their first night here, Olivia insisted that they cook Ella's favorite spaghetti for dinner. Even at the dinner table Ella was poking at her food only taking in a few bites at a time.

"Are you sure you don't want more?" asked Olivia.

"I want to go to bed."

"Okay." Olivia didn't argue with want Ella wanted. "Peter, where's your lift to go upstairs?"

"It's been acting up," he said. "I could take Ella upstairs and…"

"You could carry Agent Dunham upstairs, Peter!" said Walter.

"It's fine, Walter. It'll be too much trouble. I can take the living room couch. Just please help Ella get some sleep."

Peter took Ella upstairs to show her the guest bedroom leaving Olivia and Walter alone.

"Tomorrow I want to try…"

"No!"

"You didn't let me finish."

"We've done enough tests on her to know what's wrong, Walter. And we know how it works. She was so scared, she made that trail of blood appear. We know she can activate her ability when she's scared. You don't need to do a hundred tests on her to prove that like you did with me!"

"It wouldn't be wise to overlook her particular case, Agent Dunham."

Olivia wheel over practically hitting Walter's leg and then reached up to grab his shirt. The glare she gave Walter was cold as her voice. "I was able to go over 20 years without knowing you turned me into a freak. I'm not letting anything that you've done to me happen to Ella. So no more tests, no more activating any fears. The only thing you're going to focus on is finding a way for her to control it…without any drugs or needles…and you'll do what I say, Walter or I'll make you sorry."

She let go of him just in time to see Peter coming back down with a bunch of pillows. "You sure you'll be okay down here, Olivia?"

"I'll be fine," she said as she turned away from Walter.

Peter did his best to construct a comfortable environment for Olivia to sleep in. She had a pile of pillows to rest her broken leg on. Her broken arm, she was just gonna have to manage the pain.

There were too many noises upstairs as Olivia tried to sleep. Most of which sounded like Walter's footsteps and sometimes singing. She felt terrible to not being able to go upstairs and keep Ella company in that kind of environment.

In the middle of the night, Olivia had given up on any possibility of sleeping comfortably and just sat up on the couch.

"Aunt Liv?"

Olivia didn't even notice that Ella standing there in the living room. "Ella, what's wrong?"

"I don't wanna sleep Aunt Liv." As she got closer Olivia could see that Ella was pressing a bunch of tissues against one arm. "Look."

The tissue had a lot of blood of them. "Oh my god, Ella!" Olivia quickly looked over her arm. There wasn't even a sign of a cut or a scratch all. Just a small spot where Ella had the needle injected into her for the blood transfusion. "You're not hurt?"

"I dreamed it, Aunt Liv," she said. "I dreamed I was in that house again and there was blood all over my arm and when I woke up…I think I got blood on the bed."

"It's okay," said Olivia. "Do you need to clean up?"

Ella nodded and Olivia pointed her to the nearby bathroom. When she was done, Ella went straight to Aunt Liv. "I'm sorry I woke you."

Olivia shook her head. "I don't want to sleep either. Come here."

Ella went over and joined Olivia on the sofa. "I was dreaming about a fire when it happened."

"When what happened Ella?"

"When I put the bed on fire at your house."

"You didn't cause that fire, Ella. You might think you did but it's…hard to explain what's happening to you."

"Uncle Walter's not a doctor, is he?"

Olivia squeezed her hand. "Ella, the important thing is that you're going to be okay, and we're all going to do everything we can to help you get through this."

They heard fast footsteps coming down the stairs. Peter appeared and looked at the girls on the sofa rather wide-eyed. "Olivia? Ella?"

"What's wrong, Peter?"

"Nothing it's just…I was just checking in on Ella and I saw her bed empty with blood on the sheets. I got worried."

Ella smiled. "I'm okay, Uncle Peter."

"You sure?"

"It's fine," said Olivia. "It was just something she was dreaming about."

"I'm scared if I dream something it'll happen when I wake up," said Ella. "Like with the fire."

"You know, Peter has a magic formula for that don't you? Every night, before he goes to sleep, he tells himself to not dream tonight as much as he can."

"Yeah," said Peter. "But this is not a normal case."

Olivia gave him that look. Was he serious? Since when has anything for them been considered normal?

"I got something even better that you'll like, Ella. And I assure you, it's not a Walter concoction. I just need to go to the kitchen and whip it up."

When Peter went into the kitchen, Ella leaned over to whisper to Olivia. "I still think about the man I killed, Aunt Liv."

"That wasn't your fault, Ella."

"I didn't want to shot him," said Ella. "I only wanted to scare him. I wanted him to stop hurting us."

"I know, and it was very brave of you."

Ella went very silent and just started to quietly cry again. But Olivia was there to wipe the tears. "Mommy will be very mad, if she knew I touched your gun."

"She doesn't have to know, Ella," said Olivia. "Besides she would be even more mad with me. Your mother didn't approve of me being a cop at first."

"Why not?"

"Because I would be using a gun." Olivia paused. "Ella when I your age…I shot someone too…with a gun."

Ella was shocked. "You?"

"Yeah… a long time ago, your grandma got married to someone after grandpa died. And you're mother and I were just small children. We had no choice but to live with him. We thought he was okay but…he wasn't. He was a very scary man, and he would hurt other people around him. And then he started hurting me…"

Ella was crying again. "Why? Why would he hurt you Aunt Liv? You're a good person."

"He was angry with me," said Olivia. "He thought I hated him for no reason and would say to people that I act out on purpose to make him like a bad stepfather infront of grandma. The truth was, I did have my reasons. I was terrified of him. And before long, it wasn't just me he was hurting. He started hurting your grandma and then…"

"He hurt mommy?"

Olivia nodded. "Yes, he did. One night it got really bad and I got scared, and so did your mom. He was more angry and terrifying than he ever was. I knew I had to do something. I knew he had a gun because he would threaten us and say he would use it someday on grandma…and us. I knew I had to get to that gun tonight before he did…and I did. Your mother saw the whole thing though. She saw me shoot him and she was never able to get that image out of her head. That's why she hates guns. But I had to do what I did or none of us would've been alive in that house by the end of that night."

"You were very brave, Aunt Liv."

She smiled. "Thank you, Ella."

"Did you kill him? The scary man you shot?"

Olivia looked at Ella in the eyes and said "yes…I killed him."

"Mommy never told me about him. She said that grandma only married grandpa."

"And she was right to," said Olivia. "But I think you've done enough growing up this week to handle a rough story like that."

"Hey." Peter had been standing by the living room entrance for who knows how long with looked like a glass of chocolate milk in his hand. "It's a little something I made some years ago to help me sleep without dreaming. It's rough to swallow but I added some chocolate to help."

Ella took the glass in her hands. "It's better to not think about it and just swallow," said Olivia.

She gulped the whole glass and swallowed. "Eew, that tasted like…smelly egg nog."

Peter laughed. "It works really quick though."

And soon enough Ella was yawning. "Can I stay down here tonight?"

"Of course."

Olivia handed Peter a pillow and some blankets and he set up a makeshift bed for Ella on the loveseat. He guided Ella to the loveseat and could hear her mumbling over and over again "don't dream tonight…don't dream tonight…"

He tucked her in and soon Ella was fast asleep.

"Thank you, Peter," said Olivia.

"Why did you lie to her? About killing your stepfather?"

"I didn't want her to feel alone. And she's been terrified enough. She doesn't need to know that he's still out there stalking me," she said. "Right now, we need to focus on how to help Ella through this."

I love protective Olivia! Well at this point I have no freaking clue where this story is gonna go. I can either end it here or make things more miserable for poor Ella given her state. Any ideas are welcome via PMs. Thanks. :)