CHAPTER 2 - Brave New World Part II
... 1 year ... 2 months ... and 6 weeks later ...
"Did you find Bell?"
"Not yet"
"I wonder what he has in store for me now"
"It's gonna be ok"
"You know, for the first time, I dont think that it is. I remember being in the lab in Jacksonville when Walter and William were doing the Cortexiphan Trials. I remember how it smelled, how I felt, how scared I was, how all alone I was. And now, you know, years later, nothing's changed. I'm still that little girl and William Bell is still doing experiments on me. I'm just still being used.
"No... something has changed. This time you're not alone."
She hugs him, nestling her nose into his shoulder and then pulls back.
"I'm sorry," she admits to him.
"Sorry for what, Liv?" he says slightly chuckling, "you know one of these days you're going to have to eliminate that word from your vocabluary."
She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes and he can tell her mind is elsewhere. "You know the Nanites?" She asks, seemingly changing subjects.
"Yeah... what about them?" he responds, confused by her train of thought. She doesn't indicate clarification coming anytime soon, so he prompts her "they are connected to Bell somehow. So... What? You think he is going to use them again?"
She sits back in her chair, leaning away from him looking down at her lap, "No, I think he got everything he needed out of them."
He reaches toward her, still leaning foward and resting his one healthy arm on his knee, "everything he needed?" he asks, trying to put all of this together in his head.
She shrugs her shoulders, "I dont know... I can't quite figure it out. But something doesn't add up," she pauses, thinking through Bell's motives and what the hell he might want out of this whole situation. Finally, she starts to explain her thought process... "ok, so we know he introduced the Nanites through David Robert Jones... and then Jessica was placed there to get infected, come back to the lab and try to - I don't know, trigger me I guess - see if I could fulfill whatever messed up need Bell has made for me."
She sighs and he doesn't think he's seen her be this deflated about solving a case; then she continues, "and it happened again when David Robert Jones tried to kill you. They knew we'd have to be separated on each roof and you would be alone to target. So, if I wanted to save you, I'd have to find that ability to save you in myself, in my own actions." She looks at him, raising her eye brows in contempt, "he planned for my to use my power, again. It's like it was a test - the whole thing was a test to see if he could activate me. And activate me in multiple circustances, not just this one off time."
He looks back at her, slolwy following her thought process, trying to find the end of the chain.
She continues, "It's almost like he's an observer at this point... playing with the balance of our futures. Because he orchestrated all of those situations, from..." she motions her arms widely, "wherever he is, and I don't know how he did it... but he if he is going to all this effort, there has to be a reason, right?"
She continues her rant, "first he said I was a soldier, and now... what? a weapon? Something he can turn on and off at will?" She pauses, thinking through what kind of weapon she would be used as and the deadly implications that would have for their world, "I was supposed to be a soldier for the other side, well, we don't need that anymore... but Bell had to use his little pet project. He couldn't let the world go by without seenig the life and work of William Bell in action."
"Liv," Peter tries to stop her.
"No, Peter," she says with more exhaustion than irriation, "you don't get it."
"Ok," he says plainly, "then teach me. Tell me what I don't get."
He looks at her, eye brows raised, almost challenging her - trying to get her to open up. There is something deep down in there, and its going to take a lot to get it out of her. He's not sure she even knows what it is. But if the last year and a half has shown him anything, its that he is the only one who can get Olivia to open up. So he has to try.
She looks directly in his eyes, pulls her hand out of his, sits back, and crosses her arms. She's leaning all of her spine onto the back of her chair, trying to put as much space in between them as possible, "he's going to kill me."
...
She says it as a fact. There is no question about it. Her face is flat, terse, and defeated. Something Peter has never seen.
Even in their worst of times she's always had that spark of determination; there was no such thing as defeating Olivia Dunham. He thought it wouldn't ever get worse than when she was kidnapped over there... he had hurt her in such a cruel way, Walternate had hurt her in an unspeakable way, and they were forced apart from one another. Who can recover from that and expect something in the future to be a worse case?
But, this is indeed, worse. Hearing that William Bell is going to kill her... the words coming out of her own mouth... with such confidence... is terrifying.
He feels like minutes have gone by; time is moving in slow motion. But in relatiy, he sits up in his chair almost immediately blurting out, "that's not possble." He repeats himself, this time defensively, but more defeated, "that's not possible..."
"You've said that once or twice before... and it those things turned out to be very possible," she says back shyly, almost ashamed of the harsh reality she is trying to warn him about. And how confident she is that it's true.
His heart rate increases, slowly but steadily. Not as if adrenealine had suddenly been poured into his vanes, but as if he was on a slow drip. Each drip, a thought of what the rest of his life would have to be without her. And he just sits there, while the adrenaline, turned dread... drips... drips... drips, filling his entire blood supply.
She wouldn't describe the look on his face as concern, but rather realization. He can't make eye contact with her, and his eyes are searching the room for answers as if September would show up to explain all this. He was also the one who showed up, a bullet in his chest, and declared her death in all possible futures. Peter's mind is flooding with contradicting thoughts, fears, assumptions, and confusion. If she really is being used as the power source for Bell's... whatever Bell is doing... what will be left of her when its all over? Or worse.. the realization that if they do stop Bell... what does that mean for her future?
Yes, he is concerned for her, of course, and yes he is concerned for his own future... but at this moment her words ring through his ears... he's going to kill me. He has to realize that she is determined in all states... drunk, hungover, mission critical, even running toward death like an old friend. She has accepted that what she said is true. And now he has to save her - from herself.
Well, really, he has to save her from Bell. But he's succeeded in convincing and otherwise unconvincealbe Olivia Dunham that she must die. She must sacrafice herself for the greater good... whatever "good" he is planning.
"Why are you saying this?" Peter asks now, barely a whisper.
"I don't know," she replies, hesitating, unsure if she should tell him the whole truth, "I just don't think I was meant to be happy. And then... you. And I was happy... I am happy" she looks directly at him, too much meaning in her eyes. She starts uncrossing her arms, physically opening up to him more, "so I believed that I had changed my path. Changed the fact that I was a cortexiphan child. Changed the fact that I would never be white picket fence, have a family happy. That I could be something different than what I was supposed to be."
"But?" he asks. She smiles, knowing the meaning behind his question, moreso than just trying to get her feelings off her chest, "But, I still don't think I was meant to live a normal life," she shrugs, "so maybe I could fall in love and do all these normal things, until my time. Until the normality had run out and I would have to face the fact that they did change me, for better or for worse, and I can't stop whats happening," she seems all too unaffected by her own words, already resigned to her own future.
Tears start welling in his eyes and he reaches out for her hand again, lifting his chair and pulling it closer to her. She grasps his hand and he closes his eyes, relief in the touch of her skin. But his mind is racing, he can't focus a single thought.
They havn't even found Bell yet and their universe seemingly has hours left. He cant stand the thought of losing her, but really what's at stake is losing... everything. He knows their entire universe will cease to exist, but he almost fears the unknown consequences beyond that. Something worse would be bound to happen. He wants to shove all of that deep down and be the strong, supportive version of himself that she has relied on so many times before.
At the end of the day... he can't express to her how confident he is that they have to have a future. Why else would he have been brought back after he reset the machine? And hell, he's already lived a full life with her, he's seen it and knows it has to exist. When he got in the machine he had no idea what was coming, but no matter how much destruction and terror he had to live through in that future world, he had her.
He was married to her. He woke up with her next to him every morning, and she felt entirely permanent. Their whole relationship was a series of events pulling them apart time and time again. And then, finally, he had her... for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death did they part.
And so, with a bullet from Walternate sqaure in her forehead, they were parted.
"I'm sorry," she says, pulling him out of his thoughts. She can tell he's gone down the worst path, a life of loneliness and terrible what ifs. You'd think they would have had some luck by now, and just be left alone from all the chaos of the universe.
He still can't respond, knowing that she had been taken from him in all circumstances. There was no happily ever after... mostly because he was never supposed to exist. He served his purpose: to right the wrong of that observer so long ago, distracting Walternate from the cure. Everything so far had a purpose - to bring him home, to save their side, to stop Walternate and the machine, to realign the future of their world. A world without Peter Bishop.
So if he wasn't supposed to come back to this timeline, if he wasn't supposed to exist, what is his purpose now? Each universe, each timeline had a role for him, and yet, this one has nothing for him. He came back, she remembered him, all in contrast to what the observer thought could happen. All because of love.
Love that won't let him sit idly by and let her fall into this role of the sacraficial lamb. Maybe that was her original part to play, before Peter was thrown back into the timeline, but now he's here. He's another variable that this timeline could not have predicted. And he is going to be the one who changes her path.
...
"Peter?" she asks, finally pulling him out of his own head.
He looks up at her, startled, trying to find the words to start, "is that why you started this conversation saying sorry? Because you think you have to die?" he asks, trying to keep his weak facial features from showing somberness that has overcome them. When she opened with that, he thought it was just another day with her taking responsibility for something she shouldn't have to, but this has turned into a day... the day where the fate of the world literally in their hands. His mind has already gone to worst case scenario, so she's likely been there for hours already.
He has to find a way to convince her otherwise because she is the one faced with this. And he can't show her the fear seeping through his every pore - because she knows he feels it. Of course he feels it. And worse, when he admits it, it'll be the confirmation that this is her future, what she is meant to do. To die. An absolute. He of all people cannot confirm that for her. And of course, the the entirety of their hours left together, she'd want to comfort him because, well... he'd be the one that had to stay.
"Yeah," she whispers, intertwining her fingers into the hand he extended.
"How do you know?" he asks, unsure if he really wants to know the answer. Maybe she just knows that its going to happen, but doesn't know how it will happen. Regardless, the situation is not ideal.
He has to turn off the sarcasm in his own mind... not ideal - no shit, this is the love of your life, you idiot.
"Remember I started talking about Nanites?" She asks gently, trying to ease her way into the subject, simultaneously trying to ease him out of his own mind. She can tell he is overthinking, but really, she can't blame him.
He nods. Words cannot be formed at this moment.
"Well when Walter found out that it was Bell, that they were made by him, he showed us the design, right?"
Peter nods again, but his head only moves a milimeter, the energy draining out of him as she continues to explain, "I recognized the design... but I didnt know what it was from. And then, last night..." she sniffles, indicating the tears are starting for her as well, "I had a dream. A strangely recognizable dream..."
She blinks tightly to pull back any tears threatening to spill over the edge of her eye lid and looks up at him. She has to look into his eyes when she says these words, otherwise she won't be able to get them out, "I was in a blimp, and there was a man in the blimp. And he had an X design on his T-shirt. It was the Nanite design," she speaks in short choppy sentences, "and I had trapped him up there because I knew he... or what he represented, was going to kill me."
She can see the realization sink in on Peters face and memories coursing full of LSD come full circle.
Who is this guy? I saw him... in your mind. You had him trapped in a zeppelin just floating around."
"Oh, I dont know. I've never seen him before. But, I think... he's the man who is going to kill me."
She finishes her explanation, trying to stop him from recollecting that night, so long ago, "and of course you came to get me, out of my dream. And we were in my childhood home in Jacksonville again. But he had jumped out of the blimp with a parachute, and I don't know where the man went. Apparently he's been in there," she points to her temple, "the whole time, and now he's come back to the forefront of my mind to show me that William Bell will be responsible for my death."
"Liv, that's not going to happen," he sounds as if he is trying to convince himself as much as he is trying to convince her.
"I don't know, Peter," she sighs, "I just feel used. And at this point, I just want this all to be over."
"How can you say that?" he asks, his voice raising this time. He stands up and walks away from her; when he turns around his voice shakes as he pleads, "No. Liv, that's not what is supposed to happen."
"Then what is supposed to happen?" she says, her voice full of frustration and resignation.
"We figure something out," he replies, trying to compose himself, "you know... I'm the one who is supposed to be helping you. I have always had that role and I've always been good at it. So why can't you let me do that?" He begs, "why have you accepted this? You've already decided this is your fate without even giving me the chance to try" his voice still raised, trying to get through to her. He settles, only slightly, "you've known since you woke up this morning... havn't you?"
She doesn't look back up at him.
"This isn't your responsibility, Olivia," he practically growls at her.
"So then why is it happening?" she asks, her voice raised now too, "why are we already headed exactly in the direction that he wants us to go?" She holds her arm out toward the main comms room where they are trying to locate Bell.
"Because it is, Liv," his frustration and anger no longer hidden. His sadness turns to anger because he knows she will resign to this future that is supposedely laid out for her. It all adds up now; it all makes sense. All the signs have pointed here, and these signs have been given to her over years. And now that it's all come together, she will fulfill this. According to Olivia Dunham's book of ethics, it's her duty.
He also knows he needs to get this out of her - whatever this is. Every time he thinks he's figured her out, he gets stumped with a new problem all over again. But he knows her, and this is something he can pull out of her. She is using the concept of being the chosen one, or the weapon of her generation, or whatever bullshit Bell had convinced her she was. She's bought into it.. well, more she's brainwashed into it. Its how she was raised. It's how they raised her. And she doesn't know this is her weakness, but it is. She falls into their trap and can't fight her own way out, it's impossible. So he has to fight for her, and in order to do that he needs to know what she is really afraid of.
Because that's what all of this comes down to: fear. Not fear for herself, but for those she loves. Fear for him.
And it always has been.
She hasn't responded yet, so he continues, "it's happening because they wanted it to happen," he says agressively pointing out toward Walter, "And Bell still wants it to happen. So we have to stop it."
"And what if it's unstoppable?" She asks defensively.
"Have you ever thought about it the other way?" He asks, still flustered. He brings his voice down and his tone to a calm demeanor to ask again, "have you?"
"The other way?" She asks, not so much out of curiosity, but moreso out of the aching feeling inside her that she at least has to hear him out.
"What if it's you that's unstoppable? What if its you and something is going to happen, coming out of all this cortexiphan stuff, but you get to decide what it is? Doesn't your willpower still count for something?"
"Sounds like some preachy bullshit," she says, looking away from him. Her eyes meet the door and he knows she wants to leave. But she won't. He's gotten through to her enough that she won't leave because at the end of the day she's in love with him. If the last year and half has shown him anything, it's that she's in love with him. But, from her perspective, she is just hurting him more by doing all of this. She thinks it would be easier to just move on, accept what is going to happen, and share the time they have left together.
He sighs, "Liv, what do you want from me?"
"What?" she asks, turning her head back toward him.
"We've gone through this, ok? Over there, in my apartment, you said I belonged with you. And then you came back and you didn't want to be with me. And then you did," he says exaggerating the on-again, off-again tendancies of their relationship, "So we were happy, and then the machine was activated, and the timeline reset, and then eventually you remembered me, right?" He asks.
She looks at him, confused as to why he is bringing this all up again, and sad to remember all the obstacles they faced. They could have had so much time together...
"Right," she nods, curtly.
"So you got to choose. You got to choose what you wanted. All along the way; it wasn't like this has been some one time thing for us," he walks back over to where she is sitting, "and now we know that some futures were certain, and others that were supposed to be, werent. Even when observers said it should be. We chose otherwise." He sits in the chair again, lowering himself to her eye level, "so what do you want?" he asks, bringing is hand up to her cheek. His gentle skin caresses her face as he cups her cheek. You would never be able to tell she way crying, but a tear rolls down her face and crashes into his thumb, trickling down his hand and wrist. She is stoic, strong, stable in this moment, but she is also telling him that she doesn't want to die.
She's telling him she wants to fight it.
...
The door opens suddenly and Nina Sharp peers in, "Peter..." she stops as she sets her eyes on the scene in front of her, Peter's arm extended to cup Olivia's face - the two of them looking into eachother as if they were about to collapse into one another.
Peter quickly drops his hand from her face, stragically wiping away the last tear on her cheek. They simulantiously look over to Nina and the open door, acting as professionally as possible, Peter asks, "Nina?"
"Oh, um.. sorry, it's just that we need your help. We might have a way to find Bell."
"How much time do we have?" he asks, as if time was ever something he could waste in this situation.
Olivia takes her eyes off Nina and turns to him, eyebrows furrowed and forehead wrinkled.
"Umm... about 6 hours," she says hesistantly, wanting to give him a conservative enough number that he had to stay. Not that she doubted him or his commitment to fix this all the way up to the end, but she still doesn't know him all that well.
"Ok," he says, "can you just give me a few minutes?" He asks, "I'll be right out," he speaks with a suprisingly calm demeanor and smiles with such sincerity in his eyes. Olivia can see it even as he looks at the door and she looks at the profile of his face. Not that Peter has ever been one to lie or exagerate, but in this instance, his eyes say he will do anything to prevent their universe from imploding... so he really will be out in just a few minutes.
"Yes, of course," Nina says, questioning his motive but also trusting that he is doing the right thing. She backs out of the room and the door latches softly behind her.
"Peter?" Olivia asks, "what are you doing?"
He looks back to her, meeting her eyes again, "I'm helping Nina," he says confidently.
She rolls her eyes, "seriously, Peter? Now? Of all times you chose to be sarcastic?"
"I'm being serious," he exclaims, "come with me," he stands and holds out his one hand, "come on," he encourages her.
She reluctantly grabs his hand and stands with him while he leads her out of the conference room. They exit the room and hear the commotion of the comms room. He immediately turns the opposite way down the hall, pullling her along with him, almost jerking her arm because she initially heads toward the comms room out of instict.
He takes her to an empty office, slingshots her inside, and closes the door behind him. She hears the click of the door lock and turns around to him with wide eyes, "what on earth do you think you're doing?"
"Liv, its not what you think... although I could be interested," he says winking at her, "could be a good distraction for you," he smiles widely.
"You are a teenager sometimes, you know that?" she asks compltely seriously, but he can tell she is holding in a laugh.
"Yeah," he says proudly, but the smile fades quickly. It's just so easy for them to just be happy together that he forgets where he is. He has to refocus on the real problem: the love of his life being used as a large scale, universal weapon. He's on a mission - which most of the time is her role in this relationship, so it takes her by surprise. "Ok," he refocuses the conversation, leaning his ass against the desk, casually crossing his arms, facing toward her and the door, "let's make a deal, what do you want?"
"What do I want?" She asks, almost laughing at him.
"Yeah," he says as if it was the most obvious question he could have asked her, "you choose. You've done it before. Just tell me what you want." He looks at her with a completely straight face, his arms still crossed across his chest. Most of his weight is on one leg, with the other crossed gently over at the ankle. He continues leaning against the edge of the table and waits for her to respond, as if he has all day.
"I want this not to be happening," she says, not falling into his pointless game.
"Well, that's not an option," he says painly, then asks "Next?" She looks at him entirely confused.
"Liv, come on, we don't have a lot of time," he motions his wrists in small circles in front of him, trying to pull the information out of her, "it has to be a realistic option - but you get to choose it," he finishes as if this makes perfect sense - and she thinks he's speaking a foreign language. He gives her about 5 seconds to respond, and when she doesn't, he continues, "Do you want to live your life?"
"What? Yes, Peter," she says with exasperation now.
"Ok. So let's make a plan."
"How can we do that? We have no idea what's going to happen - we have no idea where Bell is."
"Ok. Fine, we'll just sit here til two universes implode and well die together. That's option A."
"That's a shitty option" she says plainly.
"Exactly! So come up with Option B, Olivia, come up with an alternative so you can do something about it. They are all waiting out there probably minutes away from finding him. I've never been a part of this timeline, so whatever Nina needs from me... he couln't have predicted it. I am a new variable that could give you the chance to actually find him, actually confront him. So, what's the plan when we do find him?"
"I don't know." she says sheepishly, now.
"Do you want to just go out and face him alone?" He continues to prod her, question after question.
"You know I can only be activated when you are there... so I don't know Pe-"
"Yeah" he interrupts her, "so do you want me there so you can use it against him? Or do you want me to stay so he can't use it against you? What do you want? What do you want from me, Olivia?"
Anger, frustration and sadness are building within her, until it boils over and she explodes, "I WANT..." she cant finish the sentence. He raises his eye brows at her, asking again, what do you want from me, Olivia?
Still agitated, she starts shakily, "I want... you... to be ok. I was us to be ok. I don't want to keep fighting this. I just want... you, ok? Just a the normal life I was never supposed to have, with you."
"Ok," he says, releasing a breath he didnt know he was holding, "So how do we fight for that?"
She looks at him frozen, as if it has taken her this long to realize that he is actually being serious about this - finding and confronting Bell.
She starts pacing back and forth in front of him, building up momentum to speak, "ok, so if you aren't supposed to be here, Bell would have never took over my subconcious. And I wouldn't have known about the man in the blimp."
"Ok," he responds with a nod, "that's a start."
She continues, "I mean, that was almost two years ago. Its been so long since I told you about the man in the Zeppelin... that night."
He smiles back at her, silently telling her how much he loves her, recalling that first night they shared so deeply how they felt about eachother. But, also encouraging her to continue, "I was so afraid to tell you about the man before you came over, but then when you got there it just slipped out. That this man in the Zepplin was going to kill me. It happened without me realizing it, because maybe I knew you had to be a part of it, somehow, too. So you had to know."
Still pacing, she says "It doesn't make sense. What? I'm not supposed to know he's going to kill me? I was supposed to just go in and find him, blindly becoming the weapon he wants me to be? And knowing... now... will allow me to survive...?"
"It doesn't sound very convincing," she finishes.
He opens his mouth to start, but words won't form. It's as if the idea slipped away - Peter acting eerily like Walter.
"What?" she asks, attempting to trigger the thought again.
"I don't know," he responds.
She's stopped pacing now and stands in front of him. One of her feet on either side of his crossed ankles, her eyes exactly in line with his as he leans against the desk.
"Maybe I should just jump off the deep end..." his eyes fill with dread as she starts, "maybe at the end of the day, nothing has really changed. Right?" She looks to him for confirmation and he is unable to provide it, "ok so now, I know i'm going to die today, but if I didn't... what would be different? You wouldn't be here, but we would still go after him. And say we found him, I would probably do all the same things, falling into the role I've been cultivated since the age of 3 for. Just because it seems so certain this time, you know?"
"But would you have even been successfully activated if I wasn't here?" He asks.
"I am going to assume yes, because I am predicted to die in all possible futures. There couldn't be such certainty if it wasn't a global, inter-universal event like this. We saw how many iterations were caused by the Observer saving you. It took him 25 years to fix that, to get every little thing back on track."
She tries to step away from him and continue pacing, but he wraps his arms around her low back, trapping her to him, "I'm trying to think," she pleads, ever so logically, still pulling away.
She gives in to his strength and settles in his arms, facing him. Her hands rest on his shoulders silently while she contemplates her options. Her eye lids fall closed in her attemp to focus her thoughts. After such concentration, she only gives him a simple four word answer: "You'll come with me."
"What?" He asks, mostly for clarification on his role in all of this.
"I trust you," she says, "I trust you with my life, and that is literally what is at stake. So, if I am going to trust someone with my life today of all days, it's going to be you. No plan will prepare me for what Bell has in store."
"Are you sure?" He asks, wanting to do more.
"Yeah," she says smiling shyly, "I trust you to help me," she says with newfound determination.
She turns to grab the door handle and head back to the team, but turns around to meet his chest after he stands. She looks up at him, finally admitting, "this isn't much of a plan..."
"Are you kidding?" He asks, "this is an excellent plan compared to the one you had about an hour ago. Give up and die.. now that's not much of a plan," he says smiling down at her, somehow.
She smiles back, "why are you looking at me like that?"
"You've always faught so hard for others... I've just never seen you fight this hard for... you," he pauses, "it looks good on you," he says cheekily, pulling her in for a kiss.
...
They exit the room and walk hastily toward the comms room, Peter catching Nina's eye. With a subtle nod he signals that they are ready, and Nina immediatley starts briefing the team, "Olivia is giving off an exceedingly strong and specifc ElectroMagnetic field. We can use her to find Walter and Bell. The frequency at which Olivia is resonating will also be the frequency at the epicenter of the dimensional intersection, meaning we should be able to identify the exact location where the two universes are overlapping. The calm at the center of the storm, as it were."
The team looks to the data map at the center of the room as Broyles dials in on the location, "Got it. Eighty-four miles due east of Nantucket. Call upstairs. Tell them we need choppers. Dunham, suit up."
"Peter's coming," she responds immediatley.
"What? A civilian? No." Broyles huffs.
"I can't be activated unless he is there,"
"All the more reason for him to stay behind," he says sternly.
"No." Olivia retorts.
"No? Are you disregarding a direct order from your commanding officer, Dunham?"
"Yes," she says confidently and then she does the most uncharateristic thing Olivia Dunham will ever do: she walks away.
She signals for Peter to come and he follows her swiftly. He looks back as he takes his first step toward her and lightly shrugs to a shocked and distraught Broyles. His face and shrug saying 'Sorry, gotta do what my lady says.'
Peter catches up to her and holds his hand up for a high five, "Nice one!" His enthusiasm obviously is not reciprocated. She immediately goes into agent mode and starts instructing him, "When we get there, we'll have to find Bell on that massive container ship. Stay on me so we don't get separated. That would defeat the purpose of this whole 'plan'."
"Ok, I won't leave you..." he says seriously, then he leans down toward her ear so only she can hear, "like ever..."
She knows exactly what he is referencing, back to that night after LSD, the first time she ever admitted how deeply she fell for him. This time, whiskey aside, she warns him, "be careful or I'll leave your ass behind."