Thank you all for the positive response! And thanks to the many people that added this fanfic to their alerts. I'm not entirely sure where this story is headed, but you've all encouraged me to continue on. :)
And I'm sorry it took me a while to update. This installment has been half-written on my laptop for weeks now. But here it is! Better late than never? I hope it was worth the wait, and that you all enjoy.
This next chapter will be from Peter's point of view sort of. Maybe more omniscient. I have trouble staying in one point of view…in case you hadn't realized.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Fringe. I do not own the characters from Fringe. I don't even own either of the Fringe season box sets much to my dismay.
When he saw her fall, it was like everything went into slow motion. Her eyes rolled, her head tipped back, her knees gave out. And then he was holding her, just barely holding on. Her legs were dragging the ground. And then time caught up.
His reaction was immediate.
"Walter!"
She wasn't too heavy, wasn't too light. She was perfect. But he didn't have the time to revel in the ethereal beauty that was Olivia Dunham given the current situation. He was able to get her to a couch before he heard Walter's bare feet padding into the living room.
"Son? Is everything all right? Oh my."
Walter stood watching in the doorway as his son took Olivia's pulse, elevated her legs, checked her breathing. "Why is Agent Dunham in our living room?"
"She passed out at the door, Walter. Said she needed to talk to you." his eyes narrowed as he looked at the older man's face.
"I can assure you, Peter," Walter said quickly, catching on to his son's suspicions, "I have no idea what's going on. How is her breathing?"
His gaze flickered down to the woman on her back with her feet propped up in the air and then back to Walter. "Normal if just a little shallow. Pulse is normal too."
"How intriguing." Walter bent down to look at her face before being shooed away by an overprotective hand.
"Get back, Walter. She needs air."
He watched as her breath became more hitched. And when a rivulet of blood began to trail from her nose and onto the couch, Peter went from barking orders at Walter to barking orders into the telephone. An ambulance was on the way.
"The nose bleed is most likely just a reaction to Agent Dunham's abnormal brain activity. She'll be fine." His voice took on a tone of panic. "She'll be fine."
"Go change, Walter. At least put some clothes on under that robe of yours." He knew he shouldn't have been so hard on Walter. After all, none of this could have been his fault. At least not directly, right? Like a guilty child caught stealing from a cookie jar, Walter slunk off to retrieve some appropriate clothing.
It took twelve minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and all the while Peter was mumbling curses under his breath. During his wait, he called Astrid and asked her if she could give Walter a ride to the hospital.
"Walter!" he hollered on his way out the door, "Stay put!" He climbed into the ambulance, and the doors slammed shut.
Soon enough, they were in a special wing of the hospital secured by Broyles, and he watched as they hooked her up to countless machines. The orderlies told him to remain calm. They told him not to worry.
"Don't worry, Mr. Bishop."
Like hell he wouldn't worry. Wasn't he just here some weeks ago, leaning over her hospital bed, waiting for her to wake up? And she woke up eventually. She always did. But how many times would this have to happen before her luck ran out? As cliché as it sounded in his head, he desperately wished that it was him in that hospital bed, hooked up to all the monitors instead of her.
But she seemed to be looking a little bit better now than back in the apartment despite the fact that the doctors had no idea what to make of her illness. That was nothing new. It wasn't as if Walter or he could explain to the doctors that Olivia's temporary comas were usually due to universe hopping. That wouldn't go over well…especially not with Broyles.
He sat there for hour after hour in silence. It gave him a lot of time to think about things. About Olivia, about the little family unit they had built together along with Walter and Astrid and even Broyles, about love and feelings and being tied down to one place for the first time in years because of them, and about the woman who had brought it all crashing down.
He'd mentally catalogued the differences between the two women. Delving into the list of changes that he'd brushed aside made him realize how stupid he'd been. And frankly made him feel like a selfish, egotistical ass. Yes, that too.
She was quicker with a smile. She laughed more. And at times, she practically radiated ease and self-confidence. Her eyes weren't as burdened, weren't as haunted. Knowing the truth now, he could look back and pick out more changes. Her hair was dyed a few shades too light, and she wore it down a lot more often. She took her coffee with cream instead of black with two sugars. She struggled to remember numbers and small details about cases, things that Olivia would have remembered. She thought Ronald Regan played in Casablanca and her sudden interest in U2 of all things…it was so glaringly obvious.
And then, every once in a while, he'd catch her doing this thing when she was surprised or just being cocky. Her mouth would turn up into a smirk. Her eyes would light up. And then her eyeb-
His inner musings were interrupted by the movement of the hospital sheets in front of him, or rather the body of the agent under the sheets. His breath hitched as his eyes travelled upwards past her twitching legs and to her grimacing face. He grasped her hand.
"Olivia, can you hear me?" He squeezed ever so gently and began to brush his thumb over the stretched skin on her knuckles as she began to grip the bed sheets in panic or in pain. He couldn't tell. But then, her heart monitor began to beep frantically, and he quickly pressed the alert button on the side of the bed to notify the nurses.
Her eyes shot open, but they were glazed over as she stared at the ceiling or perhaps somewhere beyond, breathing heavily. This wasn't normal. She usually regained awareness sooner after waking up than this. And where were the damn nurses? He pressed the button again.
Olivia was in a daze. Her eyes looked unseeingly back and forth across the plaster, and then her head tilted ever so slightly. He watched intently as her bewildered brown-green orbs passed over the wall decals, the window sill, the hospital tray, and then him. She began to blink furiously until the fog in her eyes cleared away.
"Sweetheart?" he sighed in mixed relief and confusion.
And there it was…the telltale sign. The very thing he'd overlooked. Her mouth turned up into a surprised, yet bemused half smirk. Her eyes lit up. And then her eyebrow rose questioningly, ever so daringly.
His heart thumped at a wild rhythm, and terror crept over his entire being. It shouldn't be. How could it be? But then she spoke, and he began to drown in emotion. Pain, guilt, sorrow, fear.
"Peter Bishop? The Secretary's son?"