Nothing but Lies XIV

Summary: xiv. Resolution. There's nothing worse than not knowing what one is fighting for. Loose threads come together in two universes.

"Olivia!" Peter came running around the corner on a dead run and almost crashed into her.

Only Olivia wasn't there anymore.

-v-

Charlie!

She yelled his name but wasn't sure whether she had said it loud or in her head only. The second he began to disappear she knew she'd never reach him on time to hold on to him. She didn't even realize what she did. Suddenly the world seemed to crease, to lose substance before her eyes. Then it re-manifested and she was in the same place she had stood before: a dimly lit corridor. Only now, Nina Sharpe was kneeling next to Charlie and Peter was nowhere in sight.

Olivia gaped.

Charlie groaned in agony. Nina didn't even seem to see her, injecting the writhing man with something from a syringe.

"Don't hurt him!"

The woman looked up and seemed utterly surprised. She caught herself quickly and continued to work on Charlie.

"He'll die if I don't do this," she said calmly.

Olivia started forward, towards the Nina Sharpe double and Charlie, but something caught her arm and rendered her unable to move. A sharp drag pulled her backwards; tore at her entire body. She yelped in surprise and fought the pressure but it didn't loosen. If only, it increased.

Olivia!

Someone was calling her. She gave another glance at Charlie, who seemed to be unconscious but had stopped convulsing in agony, and at the woman at his side. Nina Sharpe sat back on her knees and sighed in relief.

"He should make it."

The tug-of-war became too strenuous to continue. Partly from relief, partly from defeat, Olivia stopped fighting it and gave in to the drag.

The world threw folds again.

And then she was back and Peter was shaking her hard. He had gripped her arms so tightly it hurt.

Don't you dare disappear on me again!

Had he said the words loud or had she imagined them? She stared at him wide-eyed and gave an involuntary noise of pain. He stopped and looked at her intently.

"Are you back?"

Numbly, she nodded.

"Thanks God." He breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought you were gone. You were… disappearing? What the hell is going on?"

"I crossed over," she answered while her heart started beating and her head started working again. "I saw Charlie and somehow… Peter, I saw Charlie!"

The strangeness of her situation stuck her without a warning. She started laughing. Not maniacally but quietly and incredulously.

"God! I saw Charlie. And then I crossed over. He barely made it out alive. And Nina Sharpe saved him. She probably sent him here in the first place, too."

"You sure it was him?"

Without needing to clarify, she knew what Peter meant: already once a person with Charlie's face had tried to deceive them.

"Absolutely," she said; her voice full of certainty. "He had the Glimmer."

Peter opened his mouth to say something and closed it again. Taking a step back he looked at her and seemed almost hurt. Olivia suppressed the urge to step closer again and touch him in order to make him feel better. She pulled up her brow.

"What's the matter?"

Within seconds, he shook off the strange feeling of jealousy.

"Nothing. Liv, this building is being evacuated. Let's go."

"How do you explain the fact that three people went inside and only two came out?"

Her voice carried an almost teasing undertone. He shrugged, playing along, feeling a grin tug at his lips.

"I'll tell them one of us had an important meeting to attend."

-v-

"So he knows."

"Yes."

"Is that good or bad?"

Olivia laughed again. Peter reveled in the sound: it wasn't a happy laugh but a laugh nevertheless. Something that meant she was able to laugh again. Something that meant she had somewhat forgiven him – or, at least, was putting it behind them.

"I guess it's good. If Charlie knows, he might be on our side."

"What if he isn't?"

"Peter, you knew Charlie. He's exactly like him, and…" She stopped. "It's awkward to talk about two different but somehow the same people, isn't it?"

They drove quietly for a while and Olivia realized one thing: Now that she was dealing with Charlie – with two Charlies – she suddenly was able to understand the conflict Peter felt. Which didn't mean she was able to forget, but she understood. Maybe that was a beginning?

"If you say you believe in him, Olivia, I trust you."

Another awkward silence followed.

"Ummm… Okay. Should we call in Walter, Astrid and Broyles and see how this changes our plans?"

"Peter, we don't have a plan except for "Stop the destruction of our world."

"A great motto. We should put it on banners and demonstrate in public. You'd get lots of supporters. Maybe they'd make you president."

He couldn't help it: he was trying to make her laugh. He loved the sound.

"Peter, concentrate," she scolded him, but her smile was genuine. Then, her phone rang.

"Oh hey, Astrid, right on time. Could you please call Broyles and ask him to come? We'll have a little head-to-head brainstorming and see what we'll get out of it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yes, we'll bring the donuts for Walter. Okay. We'll see you, then!"

She sighed and looked at him from the corner of her eyes.

"We'll have to stop at Walter's favorite sweets shop. Do you, by any chance, know a German bakery called Lindner's?"

-v-v-

Charlie woke up with the worst headache he ever had had before.

The blood in his head seemed to burn, hammered in his skull relentlessly. The bright light in Nina Sharpe's lab was too much for his eyes. He groaned and put an arm across his face.

"Seems like he's awake again," a familiar voice said. Charlie laid stock-still. "Yeah," another voice answered. "Congrats, Charlie. You took the crossing better than I did when I returned."

Lincoln and Olivia were staring down on him, their faces unreadable.

"I want to know what's going on here," Lincoln requested.

"I want to know what you're planning," Olivia added, her arms folded across her chest.

"I want to know how the hell they came here in the first place," Nina Sharpe concluded and shot angry glances at each one of them. "I thought we had an agreement, Francis?"

Charlie wished he still was unconscious. Instead, he sat up with a great amount of will-power and glared at his team.

"Didn't I tell you to go back and wait for me?"

"We had the feeling you wouldn't return quickly," Lincoln said and jumped up to sit on a lab table. He ignored Nina's warning glance. "Something's going on, Charlie. You're behaving strangely since Broyles… Or even before…"

His voice trailed away.

"You were on the other side," Olivia accused him. "What did you see?"

"Shouldn't you worry more about whom I have seen?" He asked her, his voice without anger. She was the Olivia he had known for almost his entire life. He had seen the other Olivia, had talked to her, had worked with her. She had been different than his Olivia, different in any way that mattered. Now he had seen her again he knew with absolute certainty: This was the Olivia he had known since she was a rookie. Even though she had changed, even though she was involved in something he couldn't watch without doing anything, he cared for her. He would always care for her. But somehow, he cared for two Olivias now. They were almost like twins: each one of them was different, had a different character, a different life. But they looked alike. Just like twins.

And both were extremely important to him.

"Okay." It was Lincoln's turn to cross his arms and glare at his friends and colleagues. "I'm the one who's being left out and I demand to know what's going on. Now."

Charlie threw Olivia a look. "You should explain, shouldn't you?"

She stared back icily. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"See it as a test."

"A test," she echoed, her voice incredulous. Charlie nodded.

"A test. Olivia, I need to know where your loyalties are. I need to know on which side you are."

"I'm on our side, isn't that obvious?"

"It seems to me like you're on his side," Charlie shot back and made a movement upwards with his head. Above them, unseen, the Statue of Liberty loomed towards the sky. They all knew whom he referred to. "Nina – this lab is safe, isn't it?"

Nina Sharpe nodded. "Sound-proof and swept for bugs and cameras. Go on."

"His side and their side aren't necessarily the only options, Olivia. This isn't only about two worlds and an angry man who can't forget someone else stole his son. Think, Livia. If there are two universes, why only two? Why not four, or six, or ten or twenty? What will happen to them?"

She didn't answer.

"I need to know if you're with us or not. Start by telling us everything you know."

-v-

"So that other Walter Bishop stole the Secretary's son and caused the rifts to open in our universe?" Lincoln asked incredulously. "And this woman who kept repeating she wasn't you even though she looked like you really was from the other side?"

"Believe me, I'd never shoot at you or Charlie, even if I was going crazy."

She didn't shoot at us, either, Charlie thought but didn't say it loud. Lincoln shook his head. "But she looked exactly like you! She behaved like you! She…"

"Linc, we've already talked about the doppelgänger thing, haven't we?"

"Yeah, but meeting one is one hell different from simply hearing of one!" Lincoln had started pacing to and fro in Nina's lab, what seemed to annoy the scientist to no ends. But she didn't say anything, just stood there, scowled and watched; her arms crossed.

"Okay, okay, I'm starting to get it. They started the mess and now we're paying for it because cracks and rifts open up in our reality. But the Secretary wants to destroy them by blasting them somehow, with this strange machine you left them, Liv, and therefore we have a shield so we won't take damage as well. The other Olivia is back home and searching for a way to stop us from destroying her world and we're… Well, what's our job in this sick mess?"

Nina and Charlie both threw Olivia an inquiring glance.

"I get it, I get it!" She hissed. "We're not going to destroy them even though they started destroying us. We're looking for a way to save them because destroying one universe could mean many other, possibly existent universes would collapse as well. Right?"

"Could you destroy hundreds of worlds only to save one?" Nina asked, her voice soft. "There are millions of people on the other side alone. You even got to know some of them. Would you want their blood on your hands? Isn't the price too high?"

Everyone looked at Olivia. Charlie couldn't tell what the woman was thinking but he literally felt her inner conflict. After what seemed like eternity she looked away.

"You're right," she whispered almost inaudibly. "The price is too high."

Charlie almost sighed in relief. Nina seemed to have found the right words. For a long, long while, they remained quiet. Lincoln, as so often, was the one to break the awkward silence.

"Hey, Charlie, how on earth did you find her?" He nodded towards Nina. It was a good question. As always, Lincoln's instincts steered them onwards. He couldn't have known Nina was the only person on earth (this earth, at least) that could have helped them but he suspected as much.

"I didn't find her. She found me."

Charlie threw a quick glance at the scientist. Nina didn't move a muscle in her face. "I was poking around for information and she contacted me two weeks ago. Nina has access to the main data bank of the Department of National Security and used to work together closely with the people from the Department for Science, Innovation and Progress, the one the Secretary is now using for his plans."

"Used to?" Olivia echoed. "Were you kicked out?"

Nina turned towards her. "I left." The aged scientist shrugged, seemingly careless, but her eyes shone coldly.

"Let's just say Walter Bishop has experimented with things he never should have touched. And he will pay for it. Whatever he had to go through - he had no right."

After he had met her, Charlie had immediately started a research on Nina Sharpe. It had taken him some days – and some help of people who owed him one or two favors – but now he knew the reason for her deep hatred towards Walter Bishop. Too many children had left their lives in order to make one man able to achieve his goal. Cecilly Sharpe hadn't even been given the chance to turn two.

"And you're still allowed to stay here?"

"Walter Bishop is a calculating man, girl. He keeps his friends close and his enemies even closer. I'm an outcast, too valuable to be allowed to walk freely, too dangerous to let go at all, but of no help when it comes to his little games since I refuse cooperation and he has nothing left to force me to do so. Anyway, this way I can do something helpful, can't I?"

"Why didn't you just leave?"

"Where should I go? This world is controlled by the United States of America. And who controls the United States?"

"So you're afraid?"

"Fine," Lincoln interrupted the dialogue before two women could jump at each other's throats. "So now we know we're all in the same boat and we're good. But what will we do now?"

And that, Charlie knew, was the question he had been brooding over for the last weeks.

What are we supposed to do now?

At least, he now had a team he could work with. And, now, he knew with iron certainty that he wasn't wrong. He had seen the effects the disruption between their two universes had caused and still caused. He had seen it with his own eyes: His truth wasn't the only one, as his world wasn't the only one. Sitting back and watching someone destroy another universe was something he couldn't accept. He knew Olivia on the other side was working hard to do the same as he did on his side. Maybe they'd find another way.

Maybe they'd all die.

At least he now knew what he would die for.

A/N: Sorry, Misery's Toll! This chapter was written before I read your message, so...