So I know this episode aired last spring, I hadn't seen a single episode of Fringe at the time. I got into it after being pestered by my friend Roxanne-she gave me the 'why you should watch' speech, and I began watching-now I'm completely hooked, just a couple episodes shy of being caught up, and adoring this show.
I know other fics have been written about the aftermath of the conversation between the Olivias concerning rainbows, but I wanted to write it as well, and I did without the intention of publishing, but Roxanne offered to beta it for publishing, and I thought "what the hey?" So here it is!
insert all appropriate disclaimers here
"It is for the best, you know."
Olivia looked over at the Secretary of Defense, who was squinting slightly to see her in the mist that had followed the afternoon's rain. "I know." She looked at the ground, her temporarily fascinated by her feet. "And," she said, turning her head to see Bishop again, "and I'm sure that Peter still exists. Over there."
"I do hope you're right," he said, offering her another smile.
"He does," said Lincoln – Other Lincoln – from her other side. "If he was going to vanish, then I would have stayed on that side, where I came from."
"That's different, young man," Bishop said. "You are not the reason that all of this happened."
Technically, Walter – the other Walter - was the reason that this had all happened, Olivia thought, but there was always the possibility that they were overthinking the ramifications of closing the bridge.
"Peter's over there," Lincoln said encouragingly. "And this is for the best. You're both right."
Bishop looked over at him, his expression suggesting that Lincoln was perhaps trying too hard. "At least our world has healed some," he said. "And at least we still have some healing to go."
Olivia tipped her head to the side slightly. "How do you mean? The bridge is closed. We won't get any worse, but our time of improvement is over."
"Yes, in a way," Bishop said. "The bridge isn't actively doing anything to help us, but we have some residual aid coming to us. Did you know that if the sun were to go out this instant – " he snapped his fingers, "we would still receive light and heat from it for – "
"Eight minutes and twenty seconds," Astrid blurted out as Lincoln and Olivia opened their mouths to speak.
Olivia changed what she was going to say as that was already taken care of. "So you're saying that some of the help we've obtained just hasn't registered yet?"
"Precisely. Even though our world began healing immediately, it's like a car. You turn it on, you instantly get a response, but when you turn it off, it takes a while to cool down. When you water a plant, it takes a while to germinate, even if the watering can completely goes away – even if the water in the soil completely goes away. Not all effects are immediate, even if it starts out that way."
The rain had stopped. As she usually did, only this time more consciously due to her recent conversation with the other side's Olivia, Olivia raised her eyes to the sky.
Nothing.
Lowering her head, she nodded to Bishop. "I hope you're right."
In the first couple of days following the closing of the bridge, Olivia felt depressed. She knew she was still grieving her Lincoln, and she supposed that a part of her still longed to be able to go to the other universe now that it was impossible; for all its problems, it was quite a nice place.
Although they had cancelled The West Wing, and their Red Lantern just looked seasick all the time.
It was a pretty odd universe, but Olivia had grown to like it anyway. It just seemed less desperate than her own, and it simply wouldn't make sense if one didn't feel a connection to something that was saving the entire world, the world one dedicated her life to protecting.
As a new day dawned, and another after that, Olivia, Astrid, and Lincoln saw that Bishop was right. The world continued healing, though, as Astrid reported to everyone several times per day, the progress was slowing. It would be a matter of days before everything completely stopped, "just under eight, it appears."
"Eight more days," Olivia said, nodding. Eight more days of their world improving. Eight more days of knowing it would get better.
That was eight days longer than she had figured they'd have, anyway.
"I'll take it," she said, smiling to Astrid as she headed off. Work didn't stop just because the bridge was closed.
Eight days and twenty hours. Eight days and twenty hours after the bridge closed, the monitors stopped showing improvement. Their hypothetical water source had been cut off, and now the last drop had fallen from the faucet.
"We'll be okay," Olivia said to Lincoln and Astrid when the latter reported the news. "We can live like this. We've managed under far worse."
They nodded, then Lincoln spoke. "Eight days and twenty hours," he said. "Is that a coincidence?"
"To the time it takes for sunlight to reach the planet?" Astrid asked. She gave a sharp nod. "Possibly."
She rattled off an estimate of how likely it was that the two events were correlated. Olivia nodded. There were a lot of things that she'd never know. Some of those things were things she wanted to know. Others were things she didn't know if she would want to know the answer. And others…others she knew she never wanted to know.
That day, their work twice caught them in a downpour, the first rain lightening, but not going away, just as Olivia reached a building she had to enter, and the second hitting her as if with a vengeance the moment she stepped back outside. Her clothes clung to her like they had developed an affection, and rainwater dripped from her hair into her eyes, blurring her vision.
Of course she'd been out in the rain before. But this was the first heavy precipitation since the bridge had been closed, and she suddenly felt very down, wondering if this was how her counterpart felt all the time, burdened and lost.
And afraid. Olivia knew that her world was better off than before, but somehow the realization hadn't hit her until she was hit with the rain that this is it. This is all it is ever going to be. It will never get better.
The finality, reaching her while she was cold and wet and tired, scared her a little bit, although she didn't plan on admitting that anytime soon.
"Keep looking up."
She heard the voice as clearly as if Olivia Dunham was standing right in front of her. She almost expected to see the other woman looking over at her, smiling, the more solemn of the two being the one providing the optimism.
That didn't seem so surprising to Olivia, though. She hadn't spent much time with her double in comparison to the time the other people in Olivia's universe had, but she knew that Olivia had a way with people, making them hope and making them believe that everything was going to be okay. For someone who'd spent much of her life feeling helpless, it was amazing that she could have that effect on people. It was one of the things that Olivia admired about her, and part of the reason she had grown to like and respect her so.
The rain was subsiding, and Olivia sighed, wiping the final bits of rain out of her eyes and, as usual, lifting them towards the sky. The other Olivia had likely meant that she should keep looking up after the rain in a metaphorical sense, but there had been eight days and twenty hours, over a full week, of healing after the bridge had closed.
Nothing. Olivia stared over the tops of the buildings, seeing nothing but the gray sky, and she sighed deeply, looking back at the ground as she headed back to where she was meeting Lincoln, her boots squeaking as she walked. She rounded the corner and kept walking, looking at the ground, lifting her head only when she neared the crosswalk.
And she stopped.
The rain had finally stopped, mere seconds before Olivia lifted her face to the sky. She wondered if she really had looked up from her feet because of the approaching crosswalk, or if something had somehow told her to look to the sky right then.
Either way, she did look, and her eyes widened and a smile came across her face when she saw the rainbow, stretching over the top of the buildings in front of her, the colors probably not as bright and contrasting as they had been two decades ago, but to Olivia, in this moment, they were as noticeable as the difference in hair color between her and the other Olivia.
The atmosphere was well enough for rainbows to exist. It was the final gift from the other side.
She wished that somehow Olivia could know.