Author's note: So here comes the science part (and more to come). I use science loosely in this context, because I did my research on Wikipedia. But I did try very hard (although if you know more than me, please educate me. I like to learn!).
Disclaimer: I own...nothing.

Chapter Five

Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions.
--Edgar Cayse

It's much later that he allows Walter to hypothesize. They've gathered at Olivia's place mostly because she has the most room and a spare mattress. Olivia only woke up for a bit of water before falling asleep again; Walter's drug had certainly done the trick. She hadn't even stirred when he'd carried her to the car and to her bed, and is currently in a deep sleep. Sian is asleep as well on one end of the couch, curled up under a blanket. Astrid had managed to get some food into the girl before she took Walter's sleeping powder ("Totally safe, I promise!") and they'd tried to get her into the spare mattress. She'd nearly cried again, however, so Peter had let her stay even though it was hardly comfortable. He was a sucker for crying women.

"May I speak now, son?" Walter asks with a hint of reproachment in his voice.

"Sorry for that, Walter," Peter says, not at all sorry. "But the kid was freaked out as it was."

"Well, I believe she somehow entered into Olivia's dream state and shared consciousness with her in the same way Olivia shared consciousness with Agent Scott," Walter says, sounding perfectly delighted. "Only Sian can do it without the aid of a machine; isn't that wonderful? I'd be willing to bet real money that she has an enlarged hippocampus."

"First of all, Water, you don't have real money. Second of all, this didn't start until she had sinus surgery, even if she does have an enlarged hippocampus."

"Ah, yes. They must have altered her in some way during her sinus surgery to allow her to share dreams. They would have entered her brain through her sinus cavities, much in the way the Egyptians removed the brains prior to mummification."

"That's disgusting, Walter. Do not tell Sian that," Peter says firmly, shuddering. "But Walter, she doesn't go into people's dreams, she sees the future."

"Ah, but just one day into the future," Walter reminds him. "Dreams are a way of working through what happened in our day and, so it seems, what decisions we'll make the next day."

"Then what about Olivia?"

"I imagine she dreamed with Olivia due to the fever making her dreams extraordinarily vivid and therefore quite loud."

"Will it happen again?" Peter asks, looking over at the sleeping girl. She looks peaceful now, but he can still see faint tear tracks on her cheeks.

"Perhaps if she sleeps at the same time as someone with a fever," Walter says with a shrug. "Tomorrow we will give her a CAT scan and an MRI and discover more, but for now I would much rather go to bed."

"Mattress is that way."

"What about you, son?" Walter asks, sounding sincerely concerned.

"I told the kid I wouldn't leave."

He watches TV for awhile and eventually falls asleep. The next thing he knows, Sian's standing in front of him bathed in the pale morning light and looking much better.

"Your dad's in the closet reciting numbers," the girl says, blinking owlishly. "Do you like pancakes?"

Over a breakfast of delicious chocolate chip pancakes, which Walter pronounces are his new favorite food, Olivia finally makes her appearance. She looks very nearly like her old self, although she's still pale and a bit glassy-eyed. She's alert and functioning, however, and probably doesn't have much of a fever, although she still looks like she's in some pain. Her hair is brushed and, for the first time, is braided back, softening the lines of her face.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes as Peter stands and pulls out a chair for her. "Especially to you, Sian. I've been a terrible host."

"It's okay. Peter's been taking care of me," Sian says with a shrug, then adds (like the afterthought it is), "Walter, too."

"Still, I promise I'll be more responsible for you, Sian," Olivia says firmly, picking at a pancake. "Did you make these?"

"Sian made this, Olivia! Aren't they delicious? Her ability to find ingredients is second only to her ability to cook," Walter says enthusiastically.

Sian blushes. "I cook a lot for my family."

"They're wonderful," says Olivia, who hasn't yet taken a proper bite. "What's on the schedule for today?"

"An MRI and a CAT scan," Walter says cheerfully. "Asterine is taking her after breakfast, so we can see inside Sian's brain."

"But we don't need you for that, Olivia. You can stay here and rest," Peter says, but she shakes her head.

"I've done enough resting, thank you. Right now I need to get into my office and get to researching."

"I'll make a deal with you," Peter offers, and she nods, neither of them in the mood for arguing. "We take your temperature. If it's over 100 degrees, you do your research at the lab so we can keep an eye on you. If it's under, you get to go do whatever you want."

They take her temperature and it's 100.7 degrees. She protests that it's close enough to 100 degrees to count, but he threatens to call Broyles and she subsides and takes her medicine.

"Just to be sure, this won't knock me out like the one yesterday, will it?" she asks, pill halfway to her mouth.

"No, Olivia, I assure you. It is quite safe to take," Walter says absently as he closely studies the last two chocolate chips on his plate. "I wonder if they know they're the last. Do you know, chips?"

Sian giggles.

As the Doctor might say, it's sciencey-wiency stuff.