"Peter," Olivia said, feeling panicked, guilty, anxious, and a whole other mix of emotions she couldn't quite process, "what are you doing here?"
"I got a call from a lab tech about a case development. But also I work here," Peter replied with an accusatory tone. "What are you doing here? I thought you were running to the federal building and the gym."
"I was. I just had to confer with Brandon about a case," Olivia said slowly, not wanting to have an all-out fight in the middle of Peter's lab.
"Brandon? Can I see you for a moment?" a lab tech peered in the room apologetically.
"Sure," he answered. "I'll give you two some privacy," he directed towards Peter and Olivia.
They fell silent and Brandon's footsteps echoed across the shiny white tiled floor as he walked out of his office and closed the door, leaving Peter and Olivia alone together.
"Olivia," Peter said with a mix of determination, worry, and anger bubbling under the surface of his seemingly calm voice, "can you please tell me what is going on?"
Olivia bit her bottom lip and looked up at him from under her eyelashes. "I don't know," she whispered.
Sensing the fear in her voice, Peter took the chair next to her, sat down, and grasped her hand. Coaxingly, he murmured, "What's wrong, Sweetheart? Talk to me. Please."
Olivia took a deep breath and recounted what she had told Brandon. She told Peter the details of her nightmare, how it prevented her from sleeping at night because all she could see when she closed her eyes was the life fading from her daughter's. She explained how it felt like more than a dream, how she felt like she had lived it. She told him about her most recent dream, how it had only been a minute long, and had not been particularly happy or sad. How it had made it harder to ignore the first one. As Olivia sat there in Brandon's office, shaking slightly with tears welling her in eyes and a lump in her throat, Peter remained silent, never breaking eye contact with her. He kept her hand clasped in his and rubbed slow reassuring circles with his thumb.
"I didn't want to tell you any of this yet, because I don't know what it means," Olivia said apologetically. "I'm sorry. I know you must be mad."
"Baby, I'm not mad," Peter said, voice full of reassurance, "I'm worried about you. That's a lot for one person to handle. You need to tell me these things so we can work them out together, okay?"
Olivia wiped the stray tear that fell out of her eye with the back of her hand. "Alright. I will," she said, giving him a sad smile, as he pulled her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her tight and kissing her hair.
"If you'd like to get your mind off this, I did come here for a reason," Peter said a couple minutes after Olivia had calmed down. "You know the message we sent to the Fringe Division Over There? Apparently we've received some sort of response."
Olivia looked at him startled. "Really? Broyles wasn't really counting on getting a response at all, much less this soon," she said eagerly. "Let's go, I want to see what it says."
Peter led Olivia out of the offices and into one of the smaller laboratory rooms where William Bell's typewriter was being kept. The hallway was chaotic; about ten different laboratory specialists, Brandon, Astrid, Philip Broyles, and Nina Sharp were crowded around the room.
"Agent Dunham," Broyles greeted Olivia, "good to see you. Couldn't stay away from all the action, could you?"
Olivia smiled, not wanting to explain her real, non-work-related reason for being there. "You caught me. What's this about the response? What does it say?"
"We're currently making copies for your case files as well as our own internal affairs files," Nina explained. "I can get you a copy soon."
"Secretary Bishop said in the message that he doesn't know how Alex Jefferies got over here," Broyles explained. "However, he did assure us that he would have his team dig into his missing persons case and get us more intel as soon as possible."
"There's something else," piped up Aaliyah, Brandon's head lab assistant, "Alex Jefferies's spinal tap results came back. He had massive quantities of cortexiphan in his system at his time of death."
"Walternate has sworn off testing cortexiphan on children," Peter stated, "there's no way he'd be sending kids over here that way. And he has no reason to do so; we've just demonstrated that we have a clear means of communication with his team."
Olivia frowned, "If Walternate didn't send Alex Jefferies over, then who did?"
A/N: Any guesses on who's dosing kids with cortexiphan? If you're correct you win a prize! (The prize may or may not be imaginary, but minor details) Three updates in less than 24 hours cuz I'm nice. But that also means proof reading was minimal, so I apologize for any errors!