Author's Note: One more spoiler here, and then it's over. Also, fun fact!: This was originally part of chapter one, but it got too long. Finally, the lack of reviews makes me sad. However, it's already written, so there's not point in not posting it, luckily for those of you who are reading :)
Disclaimer: I did it! I bought it! Wait, no, I didn't.


Chapter Two

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with sleep.
--William Shakespeare

The park is a swingset and a slide that briefly interrupt the flat landscape. He and Sian each take a swing, while Olivia sits at the bottom of the slide. She's hunched over a bit, obviously in pain, and she's probably a half-hour past her Advil dose running out. Still, she remains on task.

"All right, Sian. Can you tell us how you found out where the terrorist was going to be?"

Sian glances at him; he gives her an encouraging smile and starts to pump. "I…it's gonna sound stupid out loud."

"My father is a brilliant, mad scientist who once used blinking Christmas lights to hypnotize me into cutting off the sleeves in my shirt," Peter offers, making Sian laugh. "You can't top that."

She rolls her eyes, but looks more relaxed. "I see things when I go to sleep. I…dream them, I guess. Stuff that's going to happen in the future, usually, unless I have a weird nap or something. It was little stuff at first, like what Mum was gonna make for dinner, but then it got bigger, like if my math teacher was gonna give us a pop quiz on certain days. It only got really big recently, when I saw that terrorist."

"When did it start?" Olivia asks.

"Three years ago, I had sinus surgery. When I went to bed that night is the first time I remember," Sian says, swinging a bit.

Peter suspects it wasn't just sinus surgery. "How far ahead into the future do you see?"

"Just a day. I've never seen anything past that." She looks down. "You want me to come back with you, don't you."

"We have a lab in Harvard, and yes, we'd like our scientist to examine you. But only if that's all right with you and your mom," Olivia says, shivering even though the air is warm.

Sian's quiet while Peter goes over to Olivia and drapes his jacket around her shoulders. Finally, the girl asks softly, "Can you make it stop?"

"We'll certainly try," Peter says honestly.

Convincing Mrs. Williams isn't hard once she hears that promise, but there's a small problem when she points out that she can't exactly leave her seven other children with just their dad. "She can just stay with you, can't she?" Peter hints at Olivia when she seems totally baffled by this development.

"Oh—yes," Olivia says quickly. "I wouldn't mind at all. I'll just need you to sign a release for stating your agreement."

After that, Sian packs and says goodbye to her siblings, and they ride to the airport and board the little FBI plane.

"Wow," Sian says, looking around wide-eyed. "Are all planes like this?"

"Not really," Peter says with a laugh. "Haven't you ever been on one?"

"We visited Wales when it was just me and Yan, but I was only a baby," she says, picking a seat by the window.

"Well, if you're only going to have one plane ride to remember, you can do worse than this."

Olivia downs her medicine and passes out again; Peter lays a blanket over her and gently kisses her forehead. As he suspected, she's burning up, but with the sleep and the medicine she'll hopefully be back to her old self soon enough. With Olivia sleeping and Sian listening to a beat-up CD player and staring eagerly out the winder, he settles down to catch some shut-eye himself.

He wakes up to hushed voices and someone settling down in a seat, and Sian waves. He smiles and moves over to the seat across from her.

"They let me go into the cockpit and watch for awhile," she explains softly. "They have so many controls in there, but they said they mostly don't have to use them."

Olivia shifts in her sleep and murmurs, "John," before quieting again. They both look at her.

"Is she sick?"

"I think so," Peter answers. "But she's not the kind of person who stays home."

Sian looks at him for a second, like she's considering something, then says, "If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to tell?"

"Cross my heart," he says, doing so.

"I knew you were coming. I even knew you'd find me at school and that you'd be taking me to Harvard," she says. "I thought about faking sickness but you'd have found me anyway."

"So this conversation is old news? What am I going to say?"

She shrugs. "I dunno. It doesn't work like that. I only get the big picture, the main events and all that."

"How much of what you dream can you change?" he asks curiously.

"I used to try, just to see what would happen. Usually the end result is all that matters, so no matter what I try, it happens anyway. I was always going to get on this plane with you, even if I'd stayed home from school." She shrugs again. "I don't really try to change things. I figure if it was important enough for me to dream about it, I probably shouldn't mess with it." He nods in agreement. It's a good general assumption."

When they finally arrive, Peter drives them back to the lab as Olivia dozes in the back seat. Sian gazes out the window, and Peter does his best to point out the various sites.

"It's better being here than dreaming it," she comments.

At the lab, Peter leads the drowsy Olivia over to the couch.

"I need to go research Sian's surgery…her doctor," Olivia mumbles.

"You need to rest. We need the real Olivia Dunham back with us." It shows him just how bad she feels when she makes only a token murmur of protest as he gently takes off her shoes and lays her down on the couch before covering her with a blanket. He strokes her hair lightly and within minutes, she's dead to the world.

"Olivia is awfully quiet today," says Walter. Sian giggles and Peter rolls his eyes and joins the three of them.

"I'm Sian," the girl says, holding out her hand. "You're Dr. Walter Bishop and Junior Agent Astrid Farnsworth. May I call you by your first names?"

Astrid nods and seems bemused, but Walter is delighted. "Peter didn't tell you all that, did he? How fascinating! How do you know? Did you read our minds?"

Sian giggles again. At least someone finds Walter amusing. "No, I dreamed it last night."

Walter peers into her eyes like he can see into her brain. "We'll just have to put you to sleep, then, so you can dream more," he says cheerfully. "Up on the table!"

Peter does his best to make Sian comfortable while Walter bustles around her with electrodes. "Is that gonna hurt?" she asks warily.

"Nah, it's just going to measure what your brain does when you're sleeping. You won't feel a thing." She's still tense, so he tries to distract her. "Tell me about your siblings. How many are you?"

"Eight altogether," she answers, cringing when Walter puts on the first electrode. "Yan—Ianto, he's the oldest at 16. I'll be 14 next month, then Carys is 11, Bronwen is 10, Aled and Dai are 8, Hugh is 5 and a half, and little Rhys is only four. We call him little Rhys because my Da is big Rhys."

"That's a big family. Do you like it?"

"At home I do. I love all the little ones, and it's always nice when we all sit down together. It's never lonely and I have people to go to when I want a talk. But at school, people used to tease."

"Used to?"

She flushed. "When this all started, I thought maybe if I told people stuff like pop quizzes, they'd think I was cool. Instead, they thought I was weird and scary. Now they just ignore me." She pauses. "That's preferable, I guess, to the teasing. I—"

"All finished!" Walter interrupts, seeming thrilled to be getting on with it. "Now you can go to sleep."

Sian stares. "I can't go to sleep just like that."

"Why not?"

"I'm not tired."

"Then you must make yourself tired. Think of boredom."

"I'll play you some music," Peter says quickly, and moves to the piano to play Brahms' Lullaby. Sian takes offense.

"That's baby music."

He chuckles softly and switches to Bach. Olivia finally gets her pick, but it's lost on her as she slumbers on.

Thank you for those of you who reviewed, especially ocein, whom I can't reply to.