This is what you wanted.

The thought came unwelcome to Olivia's mind. I don't know what I want, she thought more fiercely, trying to focus on the files spread across her desk.

It was a tough case. A young man, barely out of his teens, already an ex-convict but trying to get his life together so he could take care of his new wife and infant son. Unfortunately he answered the wrong help wanted ad and died as a result of brutal experimentation.

Olivia stared at the pictures of the scene, searching the background for clues. What was truly horrible was that she had seen other bodies dumped in the same spot between abandoned warehouses, both before and after she joined Fringe division. She remembered them too well. One victim was a woman who had been raped and tortured before left to die. She left behind two children and her assailant was never found. The other was an old man who had been used to test a new gas. The scientist had hoped the gas would temporarily paralyze people, freezing them wherever they were standing. It hadn't worked, it just caused a slow and painful death.

To make the case even worse, Olivia was probably going to have to talk to Nina about this one. Their relationship had been strained, to say the least, since the Tylers incident.

Olivia didn't really blame Nina for still withholding information, even after their years of semi-friendship. But the incident had proven once and for all that William Bell cared little for human lives. Lives like her own. And since Olivia couldn't direct her anger at a dead man (or her father-in-law), why not the woman who had let her love for Bell blind her to his severe character flaws?

Olivia closed her eyes and rested her head on her forearms. This world...

"Dunham," Broyles' voice shook her out of her dark reverie. "Can I see you in my office?"

Olivia nodded. She closed the files, leaving them for later.

"What is it, sir?" she asked as she walked into her boss's office. Broyles gestured for her to take a seat and waited until she did so before he spoke.

"Dunham, I'd like for you tell me what is going on."

"What do you mean?" Olivia asked, hoping for clarification.

"I told you before that I pay attention," he said. "You've been distracted since you came in today. You seem more upset than I have ever seen you, and considering everything that has happened in the past few years, that is quite something."

"I'm sorry, I try not to let my personal life affect my work-" Olivia started, but Broyles waved a hand to stop her.

"You don't need to explain if it's personal," he assured her. "I just need to know if it could affect the Division. Do I have to transfer you away from the Bishops?"

"No, it's not something that would warrant that," she told him. "I had a physical this morning and received some news."

"Are you ill?"

"In a way." She figured now was as good as a time as any, so she held his gaze and told him. "I'm pregnant."

Broyles leaned back in his chair and considered her. "Unwanted?"

"No, actually," she said. "It's something we've been hoping for. But now I'm realizing how big of a mistake this could be. I'm sorry I've been letting it get to me."

"I'd be more concerned if you weren't acting any differently, Dunham. Does Peter know?"

"You're the first I've told," Olivia admitted. Broyles straightened his posture and put his hands on his desk.

"I can't speak for the two of you," he prefaced. "But my children have given my life meaning."

"And you don't regret having them?" she had to ask. "After everything you've seen?"

"I could never regret having them," he told her. "Parenting is incredibly difficult. Possibly more difficult than the work we do here. There are days when I fear I will go insane with worry because of them. But I have found that it is all worth it. Nothing can compare to the love, joy, and pride your children will make you feel."

Olivia nodded, trying to imagine it. But it didn't work. "Ever since I found out I haven't been able to stop thinking about how awful this world is," she admitted.

"The worlds can be awful. It is up to you to teach your children how to improve it."

Olivia looked down and tugged on a bit of her pant leg to smooth it out. In all the years that they had worked together, they had probably talked about her emotions twice. But, despite his appearance, Broyles was a person you could always go to for advice. So she said, "I hope this feeling goes away."

"It might," was all he offered. "Don't stay late tonight. Finish the paperwork from the last case and give the files to Agent Lee. Then you can go home and talk to Peter."

"I will," she promised, getting up to leave. She paused before she was fully out of the chair. "Sir, if we discover that Massive Dynamic-"

"I'll talk to Nina," he assured her before she could finish. She started to move away again, but he stopped her.

"One more thing, Dunham." He looked at her, as serious as he almost always was. "I think you and Bishop are just strange enough to make great parents."

"Thanks," she said with a smile.

As she walked back to her desk a new thought came to her mind. It was the image of a child, sweet and innocent, making all the world a more beautiful place.

She spent the rest of her day at work alternating between pleasant and poisonous thoughts. She thought about coming home after a rough day at work to a cheerful child who didn't know about the horrors of her job. She thought about ravaging childhood diseases. She thought about storytime. She thought about internet predators. She thought about teaching her son or daughter how to shoot their father with a squirt gun.

Her thoughts became more and more positive when she left the office and headed home. Walter would be an incredible grandfather, always spoiling the child with sweet treats. Ella would love to have another cousin to play with. With its father's genes, the kid was sure to be a genius.

Once home, she checked the refrigerator to see what she could make for dinner. They were almost out of steak, but there was just enough for her to mix it with some broth and veggies and get her stew on. Walter and Astrid were staying overnight at a museum, having volunteered to tell stories at the day campers' slumber party (and wanting to sleep next to the dinosaurs), so Olivia only had to make enough for her and Peter.

She heard the key turn in the lock and her husband walk in. "I'm home!" he called out, sticking to their agreement to always announce themselves.

"In the kitchen!" Olivia called. Peter hung up his pea coat and joined her.

"Smells good, hon," he told her, nuzzling her neck as she stirred, making sure he got a good smell of her skin. Then he went to the fridge and pulled out a beer.

"I was going to open the bottle of wine we have left over from Easter," she said, looking at the beer.

He promptly put it back. "What's the occasion?"

"I had time to cook a meal," she said, leaving the conversation for later. "I have bread warming up in the oven and everything."

"Wow," Peter commented. He pulled out two wine glasses and started setting the dining room table.

She turned off the stove and filled her own bowl, leaving the rest for Peter to serve himself. Then Olivia pulled the bread out of the oven, removed it from the foil, and put it on a sharing plate. They took their food to the dining room table and sat, Peter pouring the wine.

Olivia had felt relaxed, almost content when Peter came in. She had had it all planned out. Have a nice dinner with her husband, tell him the joyful news, let him celebrate with the wine. But now that it was time to put the plan in action, the negative thoughts returned.

Parenting will be too stressful, it will destroy our marriage.

"Livia, this is really good," Peter said, oblivious to her thoughts. "Is it a recipe?"

We won't have time for the kid because of our jobs. It will grow up emotionally stunted. It will become a sociopath.

"No, I just threw it together."

I won't lose the baby weight and Peter's eye will start to wander, looking for someone hotter.

"How was the lab?" she asked, giving in to temptation to put off the inevitable.

"Awful," he told her. "Since his assistant had the day off, I had to help Walter examine that kid. We think they tried to turn him into an orangutan, which explains why he had that expression of terrible pain. Some of his bones and muscles had started to transform."

Who would even think of that? Olivia took a drink of her water.

"Are you okay?" Peter asked, finally catching on to her discomfort. "I didn't even know you were going to be home today."

"Lincoln took the lead on the case," she explained.

Peter studied her for a moment. "Why aren't you drinking?"

Shit. She cursed his observation skills as her mind battled over telling the truth or lying. For the first time in a long time, she wanted to keep something from Peter. Their marriage had been going really, really well but this... this was hard. She couldn't handle it if he freaked out. Or if he started gushing.

"I'm not supposed to," she said at last, the thought Full disclosure winning the battle.

"Are you on antibiotics?"

"No," Olivia answered.

Peter's eyes widened. He looked at the food and at the wine as if they had a whole new meaning.

"Are you pregnant?"

Olivia nodded. Peter beamed, quickly standing. He closed the distance between them in seconds, pulling her into a hug.

"This is great! We've been trying for so long, I was beginning to think that me being from another universe-" he cut himself off, perhaps feeling in the hug that she didn't share the same excitement. He pulled back and looked at her. He had assumed the steely mask on her face was to hide her happiness, but now he could tell he had been wrong. "Do you... do you not want this, anymore?"

"I'm just so worried," she told him, her green eyes telling him the honesty of that statement. "Look at what was done to that man, at what has happened in our lives. What's going to happen to our child?"

Peter placed a hand on her cheek, his thumb rubbing her skin softly. "Livia, honey, we can't protect them from everything. But between your gun and your abilities it would be damn near impossible for something bad to happen to them."

Olivia nodded, but Peter could tell her anxieties hadn't left her. "Remember those universes we saved?" he asked.

Her mouth quirked at that. "Yeah, I remember."

"And that time you brought me back from non-existence?"

She nodded again.

"Raising a kid should be a piece of cake compared to that," he told her. And then he thought about it. "Okay, maybe it will be about the same. Or worse. They say it's pretty hard. Shit."

Olivia watched as anxiety spread across his face. She couldn't help but smile. He's starting to get it.

"Shit," Peter repeated. He dropped his hands and stood, looking around at their house. "We're going to have to baby-proof everything!" he said, starting to pace. "We can't let Walter experiment at home anymore, the fumes could be dangerous. Not to mention cleaning supplies and our bottles of liquor, we have to lock those up. And there's so much the kid can run into, the table corners and the glass door... and the stairs! Why do we have so many stairs?"

Olivia could easily picture everything Peter imagined as he described the dangers he saw just glancing around the room. But somehow all these new horrible scenarios weren't causing her to panic. It was comforting, knowing Peter was right there with her. And it was easier, now that he was the one in distress, to look at everything rationally.

"Think our marriage can handle me not drinking for a year?" she asked, hoping to distract him before he remembered the weapons they kept in the house.

He turned and knelt back down next to her chair, his hand going back to her cheek. "You aren't going to go through withdrawal, are you?"

Olivia wasn't sure if he was joking or actually concerned. "Of course not, but you're going to have to go to after case drinks with the rest of the department by yourself."

"I won't be going," Peter told her, giving her a smile. "I'm going to be way too busy making sure you aren't sneaking scotch at home. I can't have my kid being born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. They're going to be a big strong genius, like me." His hand stopped moving and his eyes moved to the table. "Speaking of which, you have food to eat." He happily moved back to his seat, ripping some bread and dunking it in. He looked up at her while he chewed. "Have you seen a doctor?"

"That's where I found out,"she said, eating dutifully and liking the smile that was now staying on Peter's face. "I'm almost five weeks along and everything looks good. So the kid's going to be a genius, huh?"

"With our genes? Of course," Peter said as he sipped the wine. "They'll know how to throw a punch, too."

"Hopefully they'll choose a career path that doesn't require that skill."

"Maybe they'll get Walter's habit of experimenting with food and be a chef."

"As long as they don't experiment with drugs like he does."

"Only good drugs. They'll cure AIDS." Peter gulped down the rest of his wine and grabbed the glass that was supposed to be Olivia's.

"They better not get it themselves."

"It won't matter because they'll cure it!" he said cheerfully. "But, if it's a boy, and he gets my strong jaw, he's going to be pretty irresistible."

"You don't have that strong of a jaw, honey," Olivia quipped. "And what if it's a girl?"

"She's not going to date," Peter decided. "We can't have her ending up with a conman."

"That would be awful," Olivia agreed. "Especially if the conman doesn't have a strong jaw."

"I have a strong jaw!" he insisted so loudly Olivia had to wonder if he had ingested something at the lab that was mixing with the alcohol. Or maybe the news was making them both a bit unhinged. She finished the last of her stew and watched as he eyed her with a serious expression on his face. His took one last draw from her wine glass and then stood.

"I have a strong jaw," he repeated, walking around the table on steady feet. He leaned in to her ear. "And I'm going to prove it to you."

Olivia met his gaze, his eyes just inches from her own, and had to ask, "Was that supposed to be a come on?"

4

"That story about the snoring brontosaurus actually frightened me," Walter told Astrid as he held the door open for her. She carried the Dunkin Donuts through the door and to the kitchen. Walter paused at the stairs to yell, "Peter! Olivia! We brought breakfast!"

There was no response. Walter strained his ears, trying to hear snores, and realized that the shower was running.

"Are they coming?" Astrid asked.

"I think one of them is in the shower," he said, walking into the kitchen to riffle through the bags. "Hopefully I didn't wake the other up. Usually Olivia wakes earlier than this and makes coffee." He looked at the pot, which was clean and empty. That was fine, since they had brought some, but it did cause Walter to worry if one of them was ill.

"Oh well, I'm not going to wait for them to have their choice of sandwiches," Astrid said, reaching in and finding her favorite croissant filled with gooey food-like substances. As she bit in they heard quick footsteps and a door close above them.

"They better hurry up or the food won't be warm," Walter said. He ignored the selection of warm sandwiches and bit into a strawberry doughnut.

Peter and Olivia came down before the food had a chance to cool off. They were both dressed for the day, but between their body language and equally damp hair, Walter and Astrid knew exactly what they had been doing.

"Ah, sex in the shower!" Walter cried happily. "I do hope you were careful."

"Walter, we're married and going to have a kid," Peter said. "We don't have to be careful."

"I was referring to the dangers of the shower. Thousands die each year when they slip in the shower, and that's not even when sex is mixed in. Most accidental deaths happen at home, you know."

Astrid was the one who bothered to hear just what Peter had said. "Wait, going to have a kid? Not trying?"

"Going," Olivia clarified, grabbing a bag and taking an egg, sausage, and cheese sandwich.

Walter nearly passed out in happiness.

AN: One random Arrested Development reference. I have a problem.