A/N: Hello again everyone! Sorry for the long wait, RL has caused me to be rather busy as of late, but rest assured that I am still working on this fic. I have up to chapter eighteen written and ready to post and chapter nineteen is currently WIP. I was going to try and finish this before the season four premiere, but it looks like that won't be happening :P
Many thanks go to my wonderful beta, Uroboros75 :)
Anyways, enjoy! This is a longer chapter, so I hope that it makes up for the wait :)
Chapter Fourteen: Memento
Reiden Lake was a quiet place, devoid of any unnecessary noise. In reality it was devoid of quite a few things; the few neighbouring cottages had lost their human touch and been eroded by harsh winters. There were no boats on the lake, no children running about or swimming. And the lake itself was placid, a smooth varnish of sunlight reflected over the surface.
Peter stepped out of the car. He looked from the lake over to the cottage; the windows were all boarded up and chains clung to the shed door. Haze twirled in the air, coughing up fog in thick plumes. Sunlight crept through the mist, bleeding into it like the blood of fireflies.
He had a distinct notion about how everything could play out, and the knot in his stomach was an unwelcome burden.
There were only two cars there: the Bishop's station wagon, an ancient beast of browns, and a standard FBI SUV, sleek and black in comparison. Peter saw four people step out from these vehicles.
Broyles, Astrid, another agent and her.
He was grateful that she looked at least a tad deflated; if she had come bounding out that car he wouldn't have hesitated to set her straight.
She turned for an instant and saw Peter, and that devious serpent of a smile slithered over her face. For a second he thought that she tried to wave at him, but she realized quickly that that was impossible with handcuffs locked around her wrists.
Peter was trying not to explode; his teeth were locked in his jaw as he resisted curling his hands into hard fists.
She was really going to regret it if she kept that up.
He felt a touch on his shoulder. He turned and saw Walter, his face complacent and calm; but his eyes said something else.
He strode forward, Walter at his side, and walked past Bolivia, her smiling face glaring at him like graffiti.
"Peter," she said with a smidgen of apprehension.
He ignored her, trudging on to talk with Broyles and Astrid, but as he continued walking he heard her call his name again.
Don't even try Buttercup, he thought. Don't even try...
"You will enter New York City here," Broyles said as he motioned to a corner of the map, a low key area devoid of heavy patrol. "From there, you will proceed quickly through the city to the docks. Acquire whatever means of transportation necessary to get across to Liberty Island. Once inside, find Olivia and get out."
"Sir," Astrid piped in, "what about when we're inside the complex on Liberty Island? Don't we have a specific plan for that?"
Broyles sighed heavily. "No," he said. "We have no intelligence records of the layout of the facility, and there are very few projections that we can make based on blueprints of the Statue of Liberty."
"So essentially we're going in and just supposed to... wing it?"
Broyles raised an eyebrow. "Wing it?"
Astrid shrugged. "For lack of a better term, yes."
Peter heard Walter chuckle behind him. "Ah! Astro's taking a page from my books, wondrous!"
Peter looked to Walter and quirked an eyebrow at him, Walter simply shrugged.
"She's learned a few things from me over the years," the old man said.
Peter sincerely hoped that his teachings included nothing more than a few humorous expressions.
Astrid continued her conversation with Broyles as a light wind ruffled her pale blue sweater. Peter looked to Bolivia, who for all her wits and charm was strangely stoic. Peter didn't mind that much; he was always more fond of sleeping snakes than live ones.
Bored with the lack of movement, Peter stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat and walked over the cottage, ignoring Walter's voice as he did. There was a stack of crates lined against the door, splintered at the edges and worn along the sides. Peter pushed them away, trying not to embed any slivers in his fingers. He reached slowly for the door handle and paused for a moment when his fingers finally curled around the handle. He was about to step through that door and walk twenty-five years into his past.
Now he was about to walk amongst the shadows and demons that he'd kicked out years ago.
He pulled the door open, and a loud creak snapped through the air as the musty interior of the cottage was revealed to him. He poked his head inside and saw nothing but shapes covered in sheets and layers of dust.
And with a breath, he dove into a life long lost in limbo.
He stepped past the threshold, gently placing his foot down on the floor as a puff of dust rose around it. There was a hollow thud beneath his foot as he shut the door behind him.
He walked forward slowly, the sleeves of his coat brushing against the occasional corner or edge. Sunlight leaked into the room between the slats of cheap blinds as Peter walked over to a familiar form. A sheet was draped over it, wrinkled at the edges like damp paint. The top was smooth, bathed in a sunlight that gave the sheet the colour of eggnog. Peter walked around to the back, where the sheet dipped slightly and pressed his fingers against it. He could feel the cool wood beneath his fingers, and he closed his eyes and heard the keys singing. He imagined his fingers dancing over the keys, the strips of ivory sinking beneath the press of his fingers. He remembered the pressure of the small wooden bench beneath him, his feet dangling in the air.
He was tempted to throw the sheet off and open the piano, but that was a canvas already painted on and he had to find his own to colour.
He stepped around the other side of the piano and his foot nudged something in the dusty shadows. He bent down and plucked it off the floor, but it wasn't until he brought it back into the hazy light that he could see what it was.
It was a picture frame, caked with dust and dirt but the faint shadows of faces still seeped through the dust. Peter leaned his elbows against the piano, and with his left thumb swept some of the dust off of the picture. The faces were all too easy to recognize.
It was a family portrait, an old one at that. Walter's hair was still a dark brown, and his face a little more full. Next to him was Elizabeth, eyes bright with a large grin; it was from a time when his mother was still happy. And between them was a little boy with a funny look on his face.
Peter couldn't be sure if it was taken before or after he was abducted; his memories of those days were faded, eroded to blurry images by the waves of time. He looked up from the picture to the rest of the house; amongst those walls were memories, moments of a life that he'd shared with another child and it was all blended into some crazy mural of lies and bedtime stories; though the house itself was severely lacking in any colour other than dying beiges and rotting browns.
Peter looked back to the photo. He couldn't remember that moment in time. Whether it was because it wasn't his or his memory had yet again failed him he didn't know. He tried to imagine the photos that he would have had with his parents on the other side; Walternate wrapped in some ornate suit and Elizabeth, quiet and demure, sitting with her arm around his shoulder.
For some reason, whenever he tried to imagine Walternate in those photos, all he saw was a blank space; a void flooded with air and lost words.
What he was trying to imagine was close to impossible.
Something inside him whispered like a little gremlin that Walternate wouldn't ever be in those photos. He would always be caught in some debacle at the Department of Defence and those incidents always took priority. He imagined the loneliness that must have swallowed Elizabeth over there when he was gone, full and consuming like a dark orchid.
Then he thought of Over Here, of this Elizabeth and the guilt that overtook her. The guilt that was so thick and pestilent that it eventually curled into a noose. He thought of Walter, weighted with the broken backs of two universes, much like a surgeon trying to perform an operation bordering on impossible.
Then there was Olivia.
He wondered for a moment what things would have been like for her without him, if he hadn't been taken from the other side. If she hadn't crossed over, wasn't experimented on by Walter, what would she make of the world then?
The thought crossed his mind that perhaps she'd be a little more jovial, a few less lines creased in her forehead. But the only thing that that reminded him of was her, and that's the last thing he wanted. She was the exact opposite of his Olivia, and that was why he was crossing over for her; she'd fought enough battles, it was time for someone to fight one for her.
He heard the door creak open behind him and turned, where Walter was strolling in. A brief look of nostalgia crossed his face as he walked towards Peter, eyes bright in the sea of shadows.
"Doing a little reminiscing?" He asked gleefully as he stepped up to the piano.
Peter shook his head. "Honestly, I'm not too sure."
Walter motioned to the frame in his hands. "What's that?"
Peter turned to the frame in his hands to show Walter, his eyes scrunching slightly as he examined the photo.
"Thing is, I'm not sure if this was taken before or after you crossed over," Peter added gently.
Walter looked up, a smile crossing his face. "Oh no this was after, not very long actually. We did this because we wanted things to get back to normal," his smile faded. "We wanted things to feel right for you, for it to be your home."
"It wasn't though, Walter," Peter said, continuing only after a thick pause. "But... it's where I've been for the past twenty-five years; where I've learned most of what I know. Where I've met people, where I've become the person that I am. And for those reasons, I suppose it really is a home for me isn't it?"
Walter's eyes were slightly glassy; a smile trembled at the corners of his mouth.
"That's good to hear, Peter," he said softly.
Peter smiled once more as the door opened again. It was Astrid.
"Hey guys," she said. "We're ready to go."
Walter practically bounded from the edge of the piano.
"Excellent!" he said. "I just love a good inter-dimensional adventure!"
"Come here, son," Walter said as he motioned towards the device. "You can't be too far away from it or you'll be split in half like a coconut when we cross over."
Lovely, Peter thought with a roll of the eyes.
"Walter," Astrid said. "Please tell me you're joking."
He shook his head. "Oh, not at all, my dear. You see, your body can only withstand a certain amount of physical stress and when that limit is exceeded..."
She held up her hand. "Never mind Walter," she said. "I don't think I want to know the rest."
Peter gave her a gentle nudge in the shoulder and she looked at him, a slight fear bubbling in her eyes.
"Hey, relax," he began. "Massive Dynamic designed this device and provided the power supply. I'm sure that they've taken about every safety precaution known to man and then some."
She chuckled and smiled lightly. "Thanks, Peter."
He smiled back. "No problem."
Broyles approached a moment later with the agent who Peter had seen step out of the SUV with them earlier. He was older, his face a seasoned mosaic of wrinkles and creases. Peter could tell that he was standing rigidly straight in Broyles' presence.
Either the guy had a stiff back or was really trying to make a good impression. Peter wouldn't have been surprised if it was a little of both.
"Peter, Agent Farnsworth," Broyles said. "This is Agent Simons. He's been with the FBI for close to two decades and has impeccable sharp-shooting skills. I'm assigning him to you since we are supposedly 'winging it' for large portion of this operation."
Astrid smirked briefly beside him; Walter's sayings were contagious.
Peter looked back to where Bolivia was standing, surrounded by three other agents armed (quite literally) to their teeth. Her eyes met his briefly and he struggled not to choke, vile words clogging up his airway as he glared back at her. She was the epitome of disdain, coiled up in a fresh batch of deception.
"What about her?" Peter asked with a jerk of his head.
Broyles turned his head slowly, his expression smooth and unwavering as he looked.
"She stays for now," he said. "When we get our Olivia back, then we return her."
"You're going to let her go?" Astrid asked, a mild wave of shock washing over her face.
"Only if our Olivia returns. If not, she stays."
"But why are you letting her go when she has information about our side that they can use?" Peter asked, his clenched hands stuffed into his pockets.
"Because I'm no more interested in an inter-dimensional war than the rest of us," Broyles snapped. "If we keep the other Olivia, that's incentive for the other side to directly attack us, and that is something that we are not prepared for."
"And what makes you think that they will take this specifically and use it to justify a war?"
Broyles' jaw was set, clamped tight like a wrench beneath his skin.
"Because," he said, "The more antagonistic we appear to them, the more reason that they have to fight us. I plan to send their Olivia back to alleviate some of that aggression."
"And what if the aggression doesn't subside?" Peter asked.
"We'll discuss that if and when it occurs. For the time being, the success of your mission is paramount. Find Olivia and get out."
"Yes, sir," Astrid said.
Broyles walked back to where Bolivia was standing, surrounded by her cavalry. In the meantime, Peter and Astrid walked over to the device. It was similar to the one they had used to cross over before, coils of metal looping around sides where blue panels lit up. The tubular device was plain silver, tinted with murky sunlight.
"Hey, Peter," Astrid said as she walked behind him.
"Yeah, Astrid?"
"Do you think that we'll run into our doubles on the Other Side?"
He stopped as she came to stand next to him, her curly hair casting dark shadows on her face. Though he had no double, he had come into the knowledge that Astrid's double was an Agent with Fringe Division Over There.
He shrugged. "I honestly don't know Astrid. But really, I hope not."
She quirked her head slightly. "Why?"
Peter sighed. "Because I've seen their reactions to events. I've seen how they work and I've seen the kinds of weapons they use, and frankly they aren't weapons that I want to be caught at the business end of."
She'd crossed her arms by the time he'd finished talking, and there was a slight droop in her expression. He reached out and gave her shoulder a gentle pat.
"Hey, don't worry about it. We'll probably be in and out before we see any of them," he said before motioning towards the device. "Come on."
They joined Walter and Agent Simons at he device's side. A gust of wind rushed through the air, dishevelling Astrid's hair and ruffling Peter's. There were dark clouds in the distance, encroaching on the burning sun.
"Dr. Bishop!" Boyles called. "Go now!"
"Right, right," Walter said to himself as he reached for the switch. "Here we go."
He flipped the switch.
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