Samhain Scare
Two : All Saints' Day
A fair distance away, hidden by the trees, a woman gasps, horrified by the consequences of her actions.
But it's too late now; they're dead.
"You're telling me that at 11.57 last night, four seemingly normal women crossed over and now three of them are dead, their bodies half their own and half their alternates'." Broyles sounds shocked; just a bit, but it's a lot for him. Olivia nods as Peter voices out his agreement.
"This wouldn't be the first time," He shrugs. He wants desperately to bring up the first case of unexplained crossing over; the first time he almost kissed Olivia. But he doesn't, because he can't; not now, when lives are at stake and everyone needs to be at their best – not distracted by small details wiped out by his non-existence.
Broyles shoots him a look but says nothing; it shouldn't come as a surprise, his in-depth knowledge of past Fringe events. After all, that knowledge alone is what led him to grant Peter a consultant gig, keeping him close to the team.
Their superior sighs; it's a heavy sound, one that carries the weight of the world. "The remains will be transported to Dr. Bishop's lab. Agent Farnsworth, you will assist Dr. Bishop. Dunham, question the witnesses before you return to the lab. Bishop…" The normally organized man seems at a lost.
"You're with Dunham." He decides finally before walking away again.
Peter can barely conceal his pleased grin.
"She told us her name was Luna, but none of us believed her."
"Why not?" Olivia asks Clarissa Hubble, who is apparently the leader and spokesperson of this… coven, as they refer to it.
"Sienna here," She points out a blonde, "picked up on some uncertainty when she introduced herself. That's her gift," The bright-eyed lady explains eagerly, her former distress having seemingly evaporated.
"Alright," Olivia is being quick and straight to the point; what freaks her out isn't these women with their dreamy looks and extra abilities, but the fact that she is inclined to put some faith in their words – after all, she's the one who can cross universes with the mere power of her mind, and set fires with that very same mind; she doesn't even want to think about the unexplained bouts of telekinesis.
Peter Bishop's easy smirk does nothing to help put the women at ease as she methodically works her way through all nine of them. They shoot him looks of distrust and confusion, and one actually scowls at him as he moves closer to Olivia.
"What's her deal?" He interrupts the interview, tilting his head to indicate the scowling woman.
"That's Sienna," Clarissa repeats, missing the dark look Olivia shoots Peter for his disruption. "She senses emotions."
"So she's an empath." Peter states.
"We don't label ourselves." Clarissa says a little too quickly, a hint of over-protectiveness in her words. Peter goes on with his questions.
"Okay, so why is she looking at me like that?"
Olivia shoots Peter another look, this one of mildly-concealed irritation. He smirks slightly as Clarissa motions for this Sienna lady to join them.
"Sienna," She starts serenely. "This is Agent Dunham and…"
"Peter Bishop." He fills in helpfully, leaving out his official title.
"Right, Peter Bishop, who was wondering about your gift."
Peter wouldn't quite have put it that way, and he's about to say so when Sienna starts speaking.
"You're lost," She says simply. "You belong, but you don't. You have a hundred emotions flitting through your mind. It gives me a headache."
"Ah," Peter nods knowingly even though he's lost. His sense of disbelief is apparently well and alive, despite its mysterious absence these past three years.
"You don't understand. No one does." Sienna sighs quietly before gravitating back to the other women.
"Wait," Olivia calls out, sounding urgent but tentative. "You… You felt things, when Luna showed up. Can you tell me? Please?"
Sienna looks undecided, her eyes flitting between Olivia and Clarissa, finally settling on Olivia. "You believe." She says simply. Olivia tenses, uncomfortable to have been put on the spot like that, her beliefs brought into light.
"It's alright," Sienna reassures her. "It doesn't matter."
"So you'll help us?"
"Suzanna was my sister." She sighs sadly, her eyes blank as she looks over Olivia's shoulder, at the slightly charred portion of the clearing. "I'll help you."
"Walter!" Olivia snaps over the insanely loud music the mad scientist is playing. A pre-occupied Astrid flips off the music in a well-practiced move, leaving Walter puzzled until he looks up.
"Agent Dunham!" He says in that delighted way only he can, as if her appearance has made his day. "What a surprise."
"We've got three bodies, Walter." Olivia gently reminds him. "I think that's a pretty good clue that says I'll drop by."
"Ah, but nothing is certain, dear. And it is always nice to see you." Looking over Olivia's shoulder, he finds Peter hovering, uncertain of what Walter's mood is like today.
"Peter!" He smiles, beckoning the young man over. Walter knows that on some basic, biological level, this Peter is just as much his son as his Peter was, and if it's his one chance at being a real father, Walter will take it. Besides, he takes comfort in the fact that Peter knows of the lucky silver coin, and their shared love for bacon is common ground.
Not bacon pudding, though. Walter remains the sole fan of this product despite his best efforts to slowly acclimate the young people to it. Lesson learned: Olivia does not enjoy having bacon pudding diluted into her coffee.
"I was just about to start on the bodies. Dear Asterisk had to leave; these are the only cases she can't handle. But now we have you!" Walter rejoices, eagerly pulling out his tools. "You'll help me, won't you, Peter? Olivia, you are free to watch if you'd like." He offers generously. Olivia draws on her self-control and refrains from blanching.
"I think I'll pass," She says lightly, leaving the men to the autopsy. "I'll be in my office; tons of witness statements to go through." She holds up a manila file as evidence.
"Alright," Walter says, a bit more subdued. "Don't forget to come out for dinner! I had Astro run out and get us a few things since the stove was on anyway."
"Mm-hmm," Olivia hums, not in the least disgusted.
It's reassuring for Peter to see that some things never change.
She never meant for this to happen; never never never. All she wanted was to see him again, just one last time. One last hour with him and then she would have brought them home safely.
But they wandered off on their own, and it had taken everything in her very being to come back without the collective state of mind they shared.
She's weak, so very weak.
Maybe she'll be with him after all.
"So they definitely crossed over." Olivia surmises over take-out; Walter had mixed up the spoons, again, causing Astrid to promptly throw out everything and call for Chinese.
"Yes, yes." Walter agrees between mouthfuls of food. "It seems that the soft spot was nudged, somehow, allowing these young women and a fourth, I believe, to cross over, if only momentarily. And as you saw, upon their return, the fourth woman must have been absent since they were pushed-" He utters the word 'pushed' with a blaring, excited tone as he pushes out his hands to demonstrate, "-back here for balance, but in a simple case of how no two things can occupy the same space at once, their poor souls were horribly deformed."
"Are you saying that this woman, the missing one, is the reason why they crossed over?"
"It is entirely possible, Olivia. In fact, it remains the only possibility. This young woman, gifted in her own way, must have ripped a small hole into the fabric of the universe, allowing for a vortex of sorts to consume and pull them into the other universe. Upon their arrival, she must have left and so when the universe cleaned up after itself, wrenching these three women back, it compensated in additional body parts for what was missing – the woman herself."
Once, in a distant lifetime, she might have been disgusted by these details at any given moment, what more over dinner. Now all Olivia can focus on is working herself as hard as she possibly can to get to the bottom of this because universe-hopping isn't something to be taken lightly.
"Okay, so is she still Over There?"
"Possibly. However, I should think that she would find a way to return. All evidence leads me to conclude that this crossing over isn't accidental; this young woman has a task and she wants to achieve it before returning."
"Walter," Astrid speaks up, pushing away a carton of her own. "How did she cross over in the first place? I mean, she did it all on her own and the only other person who can do that is-"
"Olivia. True, but I theorize that extreme emotions and an enlightened mind are both big factors when it comes to this particular ability of crossing between universes, and a combination of both in a soft spot drastically improved this woman's chances of crossing."
This catches Olivia's attention. "So Cortexiphan isn't the only thing that can help?"
"No! Far from it – Cortexiphan was made to stimulate a certain part of the human mind, to keep it open. This is why it only worked so well in children; because children retained control over all parts of their minds when they were young. Similarly, an enlightened mind, one open to various impossibilities, could coax the same ability to cross over safely, and at will." Walter explains energetically, putting down his food.
"Walter, are you telling me that if someone actually figured this out and shared it with the general public, all anyone would have to do to cross over is enlighten themselves?" Olivia is on edge; this can't be good – there must be a reason why not everyone can just cross over; some things aren't meant to be tampered with.
"Yes, put simply, I do believe so." The old man says casually, focusing on his food once again. Olivia's mind reels while Walter happily downs the rest of his food. Two worlds that were never meant to collide, and now they're on a direct crash course, a war with a sadistic version of Walter heading up the other side's first line of defense. A sadistic man who will stop at nothing – memories of her time spent in captivity Over There pull her deep into a dark corner of her mind.
"'Livia, calm down," Peter's soft murmur sounds in her ear as he gently grips her hand, soothing her. "Come back to us, sweetheart."
Astrid's sharp gaze on their hushed interaction is the first thing she notes when she pulls herself out of her mind. Peter lets go of her hand the moment her body tenses, though she knows, somehow, that he's only doing it for her sake and not because he wants to. Something tells her that if he had it his way, there would be a lot of touching between the two of them – not that she doesn't have a similar urge to put her hands on this man.
"I-" Olivia stands up abruptly with a strangled attempt at speech. A deep breath, another, and another, until she can fool herself into believing that she's alright; that the world isn't falling apart; that no one is able to cross over into a strange world that mirrors their own; that Peter Bishop isn't the one who fills up that hole inside her, can't be the one who completes her.
"I think I'm done, so I'm going home for now. I'll see you guys tomorrow." Her second try works much better and she has her coat in her hands before anyone can say anything; before Peter can say anything because she knows he's the one who would try to stop her; to comfort her.
A mumbled 'goodnight' to everyone and she's out; she's out and God, maybe she's just becoming claustrophobic; maybe she was just in the office too long. She tries to reason for her crazy behavior but Olivia knows there's only one reason for it, and it's not claustrophobia or anything else, it's someone who knows her better than she knows herself.
"Olivia!"
A grimace and a wince seem like an odd combination and if Olivia hadn't been so freaked out, she might have been inclined to observe this particular expression of hers. But she is freaked out, because it's not Walter or Astrid or even Nina, who makes the occasional visit, calling out to her; it's Peter and she can't pretend to ignore him because he knows of her heightened senses caused by her frequent crossing-over. Besides, ignoring him might tell him that she isn't at ease with him; that his very presence does things to her, things that she'd rather ignore until she is in the safety of her own home, trapped in solid walls where she can let her guard down and pretend, just for a moment, that Peter is that missing part in her life, back to love her and protect her and make her whole and happy.
Slowly, to buy her some time to rearrange her features, Olivia turns to face the blue-eyed consultant, who's entirely too perfect for his own good.
"Hey," He lightly places one hand on her left arm, a comforting gesture perfected by him and his Olivia, the Olivia she will never be. "Are you okay?" He searches her eyes for clues, and she turns away from his probing gaze because there are things in her eyes no one should be subjected to; nightmares and horrors she's kept to herself for years; terrifying things she suddenly finds herself wanting to share with him, if only because she knows he'll make it all go away.
"Olivia," One hand gently guides her eyes back to his. "Please don't turn away from me." It isn't a sharp order, or a dark demand, but a soft plea that breaks her heart all over again. They say what you don't know won't hurt you but why are these lost memories so painful?
She wants so badly to give in, for once in her life, and simply let the pieces fall where they may. Any more of these blue eyes locked onto hers and she might just fall into him, giving in to whatever it is that hovers between them, an electrical charge almost like the one he had been just a month ago, an all-consuming force that leaves destruction in its wake.
And that's what scares her more than anything.
"'Livia, please. If you want me to leave you alone, I will, but just let me know you're okay."
The intimate nickname he has for her throws her off guard every single time, even after four weeks of hearing him use it. It's something uniquely him; no one's ever called her that. She's been Olivia, Olive, Dunham, Liv, Livvy, but never 'Livia. How can one missing alphabet make her feel so special?
And then she breaks.
"Peter."
In one single name she conveys everything – how lost she is, how empty she is, how painful not remembering is, how badly she wants to love him the way he loves her. Gently he draws her into his arms, moving so slowly she wonders if he thinks this is a dream, a careful maze he has to slowly navigate to avoid a sudden crash into reality.
Everything about this embrace is familiar – the way his arms wrap around her; the way her own hands rest instinctively against his body, as if they've done it a million times before; the way her head fits perfectly into the crook of his neck; the comforting rate of his slow heartbeat against her own, a single rhythm.
And she wants to cry, because she's home; she's finally home and whole.
I have some reservations, ending it like this, but oh well, go with the flow and where the writing bug takes you!
Happy November, everyone, and I hope you had a wonderful Halloween. In case anyone was wondering, the chapter titles aren't in any way connected to the chapters themselves, but refer to the updates. All Hallows' Eve is the 31st of October, All Saints' Day (this chapter) is the 1st of November (today), and a gold star to whoever leaves the correct answer for tomorrow's chapter title. Hint: It's a holiday of sorts commonly observed on the 2nd of November. And yes, tomorrow's chapter will be the last.
As always, reviews are love, and with this massive headache, I need lots and lots of love. (A normal bedtime might help, but who needs sleep when you can stay up partying and writing?)
Let's not forget e-mail, PMs, tweets and if you have any questions, there's always my homepage, where I take questions.
E Salvatore,
November 2011.