A/N: Hello again my fellow readers! Here is the next installment of CW for you all :)
Thanks goes to my ever wonderful beta, Uroboros75.
Chapter Eighteen: Trepidation II
She heard the door open with the shallow breath of hinges creaking in their places. From the corner of her eyes she saw the flick of light that passed over their tinted surfaces. She thought for an instant that perhaps Peter had returned, forgetting something in the torrent of words that had just ensued.
Then she saw Walter walk through the door, his hands stoic at the edges of his crisp jacket. She thought that perhaps he'd had a rather trying day at the office, though the wrinkles around his eyes only ever gave but the slightest indication of his mood. But the suspicious air of something menacing, the sensation of something dark and frightening following him into the room was what changed her mind.
It was an unusual scenario. They had both been in that same apartment, but on separate occasions. Now with the both of them in the same space it felt as if there was not enough air for the both of them, and the lack of oxygen only made Elizabeth more apprehensive.
"Walter," she said as she took a tentative step forward. "What are you doing here?"
His face was unwavering in its stern calmness, and his hands moved slowly behind his back. When he spoke, it was of authority, a voice he ordinarily kept for the office.
"I was concerned about your well-being, Elizabeth," he said. "Seeing as you didn't answer at the house, I had your phone checked and found you here."
She looked distantly to the corner where her bag sat; her earpiece was tangled amongst her other possessions. She thought for an instant that she heard a feral growl from that same corner, and imagined a clawed appendage reaching over the front of her bag.
"Why?" she asked innocently, only because she did not want to venture into the deeper waters where ominous leviathans of ferocity lurked. She had once seen Walter angry, but even that word barely managed to confine the pure rage she had seen flowing out of him. The word 'anger' had merely been a fence to surround his emotion, and she had prayed for hours that it would hold.
"I told you this morning that I had some errands to run and that I'd be back at the house later," she continued.
Now there was an ounce of genuine concern in his eyes, his lips in a smooth, still line on his face. "There has been... an incident in the city," he said, his eyebrows rising slightly. "I simply wanted to ensure that you were safe."
Her thoughts immediately went to Peter and what he'd told her. Was her husband's ultimate goal to lure their son back within the realm of his control? Herd him into the pen of his jurisdiction and send him in line to the slaughterhouse? The thought made nausea coil in her stomach like vipers, webbing against her organs in a painful pattern.
She wondered for an instant if it could be true, possibility looming on the precipice of her perception. The largest and most scandalous truths were often some the hardest to accept... or some of the easiest. Whenever truth arose from its sarcophagus and revealed itself to the world at large, denial would always be close behind, a blind rejection of something that changes one's perspective. But she looked at Walter and the strange hitch of his eyebrows and wondered for an instant how she could deny it. He had spent so many hours away from her cooped up in that monolith of contorted copper that his face was now merely a mask, a facade that covered the man she had married. But the mask now conveyed uncertainty, which was a double-edged sword.
How could she grant the man she loved such disdain?
Walter's eyes fell from hers to the table, where the shadows of specific papers had masked the rings of condensation from her cups of tea.
"Where are the schematics?" Walter asked calmly, turning back to her. Elizabeth saw the dark tinge in his eyes and knew that he was anything but calm. "Elizabeth," he said, stepping towards her with an ominous tone. "Where are the schematics for the device?"
She backed away slightly. Her right hand came up near Walter's shoulder, not quite touching but enough to convey the desire for space. There was something about his tone and how he was more concerned about the blueprints than her. She felt as if the space between them now was not enough, as if it rippled with the boiling steam of lava roiling beneath their feet. Knowing what she did about the device, coupled with Walter's power, was intimidating at best, and downright terrifying at worst.
The notion that her husband – a man that she married for his soft smile and her fascination with his infinite intelligence – could become something menacing with the flick of a switch was overwhelming. The idea that a single action of such a minuscule proportion could overturn the lives of billions made a tremor race through her body.
"I don't know," she said, shaking her head.
"The schematics," he said more firmly with a hard motion towards the table. "The ones that were here. I saw them the last time I was here. Where are they?"
"Walter, please. Calm d–"
"Where are they, Elizabeth?"
His voice was rising in volume now, puckered with thorns of something beyond rage.
Walter stopped for a moment, a reflection of her eyes in his. She saw it, her eyes downcast and her lips curled into a tight frown.
She was afraid of him.
"Someone else has been here," he stated flatly, stepping away from Elizabeth. "Who was it Elizabeth?" She said nothing, only shook her head. "Elizabeth, please. I must know."
Her lips remained tight, sealed shut like the skin of a ripe coconut. The words he wanted sloshed about inside her; the magnitude of her doubt was simply too great to allow Walter to know. If what Peter had informed was indeed true, then revealing even a speck of it to Walter could throw the potential for his escape into the realm of impossibility.
"It was Peter wasn't it?"
Her eyes snapped up, meeting the slightly defused aura of Walter's. She saw the reflection of her shock at his lucky guess, the shock of what he knew was the answer. She swallowed away her hope, leaving the bitter taste of trepidation in her mouth.
Walter's lips had slipped into a slim line, covering any notion of anger that had once been present. The logic behind his reasoning was dawning on her, cresting over the bridge of her understanding like a crimson sun. There were only a few people who had access to this apartment, who knew of its significance. Peter was one of those few individuals.
Walter's face scrunched, like a piece of paper balled and contorted between someone's hands, as his eyes bloomed into rage.
"You would keep my son from me?"
His voice boomed not in volume, but in threat.
His son?
The selfishness boiled against her ears. He was so bold as to declare Peter the child of but one man and leave her for the rotting pages of memory and time? She would not adhere to such a declaration, not by any means.
"Your son? He is my son as much as he is yours!"
It was her voice that bellowed now, filling out the room with a volume comparable to that of church bells. "Who was the one who kept him company when he was sick? Who was the one who raised him?"
She could see small pang of guilt in Walter's face, the knowing shame of trespassing.
"Who was it who sat by his bedside while you puttered away in your lab?"
"Need I remind you that the time I spent in that lab was primarily on trying to find a cure for Peter, not 'puttering' about in some aimless, deluded experiments?"
His voice matched hers, stretching the thin membrane of their relationship. Trust had already been rescinded, and she was sure that sensibility was soon to follow.
"And you would call a scientist from the other side a maniac over someone who would put their own son in a machine used for destruction," she said. Then, with a shake of her head, she voiced the thought she had been nurturing for so long.
"What's happened to you, Walter?"
He reached forward and gripped her arm, his fingers curling against her flesh.
"Walter," she said desperately. "What are you doing?"
"You are coming with me," he commanded. "If Peter is here and you have been informed about the device, then you must come with me."
She twisted her arm in his grip, friction burning her skin against his palm. "And if I don't want to?" she snapped.
He turned, one palm reaching for her face before she moved away. He settled it on her shoulder. "Elizabeth, ever since Peter first disappeared, I have only tried to make the universe better. Now that he's back, I can make this all end."
"By using our son to wedge a wall between the front lines so you can drop a bomb? Walter, this is wrong."
He shook his head. "No, Elizabeth. There is a fugitive loose in the city, and I believe that Peter may be in route to aid her. If you come with me, you could help me convince him that he needs to turn her over."
Elizabeth shook her head, the gravity of the situation threatening to pin her to the floor like a carpet. "Why?"
Walter's grip tightened on her shoulder. "Because I need you."
And she followed him, his grip lighter on her arm out of the building. She chose to abide out of a desire simpler than aid. It was primal, and impossible to ignore. She chose to go with Walter so that she could ensure the safety of Peter, keep him out from the scope of Walter's intentions.
It was love that drove her feet onto the concrete path outside the building. Her footsteps carried over to Walter's waiting vehicle, where a few stray papers fluttered in a gust of wind. Her bag slung over her shoulder, she slid into the vehicle in front of Walter.
A gentle jump of the car drove it onward, powering it forward as a soft grind from the road lulled through the walls. Elizabeth eyed her bag and hoped that she would not see a spindly appendage, accented with sharp claws the colour of onyx, reaching for her from the depths of her bag.
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