A/N: I'm BAAACCCKK! :D Hello again, here is the next chapter of this tale. Enjoy :)
Chapter Five: Human
Walter was leaning over the charred corpse, completely engrossed in his work when Olivia walked in.
"'Livia, hey. What's going on?" Peter asked, turning from the autopsy.
"There's been another victim. New York."
Walter looked up. "They're expanding their field."
Astrid looked up from the computer screen. "Well whoever they are, they certainly don't stay local."
Olivia tossed a clear plastic bag onto the lab bench. It wasn't empty, however; a small piece of beige paper laid inside it, and through the warped cover of the bag the words AT THEE I LEAVE could be seen.
Walter walked over and gingerly picked up the evidence, the skin around his eyes crinkled as he squinted at the evidence.
"It's been burned into the paper," he said.
"What?" Olivia asked.
"The words," Walter replied. "I suspect with some kind of oil."
"Wait," Peter said. "Walter, you're saying that someone deliberately wrote some random words on pieces of paper in oil, burned the words and placed them at the crime scenes."
The man shrugged. "Essentially, yes."
Peter held up a hand in confusion. "Why?"
"I have no idea," Walter said and bit into another piece of red liquorice.
"Alright, next question," Peter said. "Then why New York?"
"Maybe there's some connection between the locations," Astrid suggested. "Where was this one?"
"On Washington Street," Olivia said.
"Wasn't that where the Brayson Place Hotel used to be? The one that disappeared?" Peter inquired.
Olivia was silent for a moment, and then nodded with a smile "Yeah."
A mechanical bird sounded into the conversation as Olivia retrieved her beeping cell phone from her pocket. She retrieved the chirping contraption from her pocket and glimpsed at the caller I.D.
Rachel.
Olivia hadn't talked to her double's sister since the first day she was over here, and then it had been a brief call muddled with relief and promises of more conversations to pass at a later date.
She answered as calmly as she could, taking a step out of the lab so that they wouldn't overhear.
"Hey Rach, how's it goin'?"
Her sister gave a brief chuckle and answered "Great, Ella just got one of her math tests back and she got an A+ on it."
"Did she really? Tell her that's great," Olivia said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible. Although she found it difficult to be enthusiastic in the company of ghosts who'd taken on the colours of the living.
"So Ella and I are going to be in your area in the next couple days, I've got a conference and Ella's visiting one of her friends, would it be alright if we dropped in?"
Refusal was not an option.
"Yea, sure."
Her sister answered in a pleasant tone "Great, we'll probably see you Sunday then. Bye Liv."
"Bye," she said softly and hung up the receiver.
A torrent of wind rushed out of her lungs as she slumped against the wall and irregular boulders of invisible weight tumbled off her shoulders, only to be replaced byt heavier ones.
How was she supposed to speak to someone who she knew as dead?
It wasn't the knock at the door two days later that startled her, but it the knowledge of who rapped their knuckles against the door that made her shoulders hitch briefly before she went to answer the door.
When she opened it, a flying blur launched her into a hug. "Aunt Liv!" She tried to reciprocate the hug as best she could as the neurons in her brain scrambled for the name of Olivia's niece.
Elizabeth? Ellie? El... Ell... Ella! That's it, Ella!
"Hey Ella, how are you doin'?"
"I got an A+ on my math test," she said excitedly.
"I heard, aren't you smart," Olivia answered.
Ella took a step back from her and looked at Olivia strangely. "Aunt Liv, what happened to your hair?"
"Oh it's just a dye sweetie; it'll wash out in a week or two." And she stood to lead them into the kitchen, her sister following at her side.
"So what prompted the change 'Liv?" Her sister asked as they sat down.
Olivia shrugged. "Just a change of heart I suppose," she turned to Ella. "Ella do you want a drink?"
The child smiled a full grin. "Yes please."
It wasn't until she got to the fridge that Olivia realised that she had no idea what Ella liked, and asking would only rouse suspicions. Then she saw a jug of milk sitting on the top shelf and grabbed it, kids liked milk didn't they? She poured some into a glass, a clear one with no ornate detailing or rich tints of colour. This side's Olivia was like a slab of untouched alabaster, completely devoid of any embellishments.
She set the glass in front of Ella, and the child looked at the glass and then at Olivia, her eyebrows almost stitching together in confusion. But she said nothing and picked up and the glass and took a gentle sip.
Rachel went into a story about her work and the conference she was attending, but Olivia paid little attention to the words of her double's sister and instead focused on the sheer weight that their presence had on her. Rachel died years ago, and the mental image she had of her sister was blurred and smudged with age, but this meeting made a fresh palette of colours wash over the page. The image was fresh like a bouquet of daisies, close to the point of tangibility.
If she wasn't from another universe she would've rejoiced in the event of seeing her sister again, but these were not the terms that she would have agreed to. Her sister was like a mirror, but warped and cracked beyond the memory she had. And Ella was a misty fo,; a dream taken from their fingertips and faded into frayed threads of life.
If she were home now, those chairs would be empty and she wondered if her doppelganger ever saw it, what she would make of it.
She reckoned that she'd see some empty chairs that her sister and niece would usually sit in. The emotions from when her sister passed poured into her in a torrential rain and concern accompanied it with fine accents of stone and lightning.
Her own concern was surely something that mirrored that of her double at the time, but how could one tell when universes separated them?
If their places were switched, she knew she would be concerned.
She remembered a case that she'd heard of before the Fringe incidents; one about a con artist who would forge portraits and try to pass them off as originals.
She felt like a copy, appearing perfect, but a careful inspection revealed slight differences; a stray line here, a patch of uneven shading there. And she was sure she had more than a few of them.
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