N/A : This chapter is shorter, but there will be another one soon ! :)

Thanks for reading ! :D

She sighed but complied, and a quarter later we were parking near the old building surrounded by amber.

The front door was closed but we encountered no difficulties to smash it open, blowing a small cloud of dust. The place was really dark but we didn't have enough to find the switch. Everything was covered with large white sheets protecting the machines, but they had been there for so long I didn't even know if they were still working.

'Okay, try to find a tank, I'm gonna look for a syringe.' She nodded and lifted the sheet covering the nearest machine – which looked so weird that I didn't even want to know what it was. As she carried on, I searched the drawers, the desks, everywhere where a syringe could be hidden. I finally found one that looked a bit dirty, but we were going to have to do with it.

'Have you found the tank?' I asked her, taking the cap off the needle.

'Yeah, I think so. What do we do now?' she said as I joined her.

'Have you got any serious disease?' I asked while rolling my sleeve.

'Huh, not that I am aware of. What the hell are you doing?' she exclaimed as I slowly pricked the needle in my arm, groaning of pain. Using my left hand, I took a good quantity of blood then turned to her.
'You've never been treated with Cortexiphan, I have. We're supposed to have the same blood, so this shouldn't cause any problem. Without this we're not going to cross over, now come on, show me your arm!' I ordered. She hesitated a few seconds, but she finally extended her arm to me. Very carefully, I injected my blood inside her own blood system, not really knowing if it was going to work. This was the only solution I could think of at the moment and Walter had probably already sent his whole army to get us. I repeated the operation five times until I couldn't move my fingers anymore. It felt like my arm was about to fell on the floor and I was so tired I barely could stand properly on my feet. When I began to vacillate, she was quick to slid her hands under my arms to help me regain balance.

'It's okay' I told her, even though I knew being that weak wouldn't help me cross over. 'Come on, go in the tank.'

She opened the doors and cautiously slipped inside it. I was unable to lift my legs, so I just sat on the edge and let myself fall inside. The water was freezing and I could hear her teeth chattering whereas my whole body was shaking hard. The tank was too small for us to be side by side, so I just laid on the top of her. She wrapped her arms around my waist and, exhausted as I was, I would have loved to close my eyes and fall asleep.

'What do we do now, apart from changing into ice statues?' she asked, her voice resounding strangely on the metallic surface.

'Be scared.' I simply told her, trying to let the fear take possession of me.

'Now, just when I thought this couldn't be any weirder.'

'I'm not joking, this is how it works...' She sighed, but she didn't really seem to want to be scared. Police sirens rang far off and I thought this could trigger her fear. Instead, she just straightened up, trying to figure out how long it would take them to reach us.

'Shit, I haven't taken my gun! If they find use we're dead!'

'Olivia...' I whispered, shaking her shoulder weakly.
'Not now, please shut up! Do you really want them to know we're in here?'

'Olivia...' I said one more time even though I knew she had decided to do something heroic to save her life. 'I think I'm dying...' I couldn't feel my limbs anymore, even my body had stopped shaking. I couldn't think straight and when she tried to tell me something I didn't hear a single word. I heard a door being smashed in the distance – which was actually only a few meters away – but that wasn't the thing I feared the most. My biggest fear was death and even if my thoughts weren't clear I knew I was going to die. An unusual sensation ran through my whole body and I used the last of my strength to grasp her wrist and whisper in a last breath in her ear :

'Come with me...'

I closed my eyes, knowing that this sensation meant I was leaving this world. The weak aura of life irradiating from me dimmed and before I could entirely realize what death was like, everything went dark.

Cold. That was the only thing I could think of as I slowly regained the control of my body. I was unable to move, it felt like I was trapped in an giant ice cube. I tried to lift my arms but the only result I got was a light sensation in the tip of my fingers. I was aware of nothing but my own frozen body. No sound reaching my ears apart from the loud beating of my heart, no other feeling than the cold paralyzing my limbs, no other taste than salt on my tongue, no other smell filling my nose than rust. Then I realized that I was supposed to be dead. Aren't sensations proofs that you're alive? The single thought came as a bombshell. I quickly opened my eyes but a powerful white light dazzled me and I couldn't see a thing until my eyes got used to this sudden change of environment. The aftershock gone, I noticed there wasn't so much light, after all. The other side was so dark that I had probably forgotten what a real sunny day was like. All I could see was a sheet metal panel that looked a bit rusty -which was actually the roof of the tank. It took me a long moment to finally understand that I wasn't dead at all and that the silence said it all : we had crossed over. Not a single wing flutter was to be heard and I could see the light filtering through the little opening of the tank's doors. I opened the tank and stepped out of it, a pool of water slowly growing at my feet. I sighed deeply, exhausted but euphoric. That was the beginning of new life and this time there would be the two us. I turned to help her get out of the cold water but I suddenly realized that she hadn't moved for a while. Hadn't even said anything. Hadn't even whispered... That triggered a huge fear inside me and the tiger got out of his den, all its senses under alert. I leaned forward to look inside the tank and my eyes grew wide with a mix of surprise and horror. I hadn't heard her because she simply wasn't there. No Olivia in the tank. She hadn't crossed over with me. She'd stayed over there. For a moment I didn't know how to react. Cry? Shout? Let myself die? I had no idea what to do in such a situation, so I just stood there, looking blankly at the dark water. I needed time to assimilate the information, but when I did it came as a great shock. I would never see her again. It seemed so absurd at that time that I just could accept it. I closed the tank's doors, then opened them back, as if she would have appeared in it just by magic. It didn't work the first time so I repeated the same operation, every time more frantic, over and over again, until my arms were sore. With a cry of rage I slammed them one last time and I began pacing, fulminating. There must have been a reason why she hadn't cross over with me. A good one. Maybe she had forgotten to take something very important and she was going to cross later. Maybe she had decided to wait a little to make sure they wouldn't try to follow us. I knew the most logical explanation was that she had been caught, or worse, killed. I was trying hard not to think about that possibility but a dreadful vision occurred to me when my eyes landed once again on the blasted tank. Her, lying in a deep red water, her leather jacket torn by bullet holes. I shook my head, trying to ignore this nightmare view. I was about to call Walter to tell him find a solution to get her back when the door open quite violently. Peter seemed to be highly stressed and he headed to the small office, his fingers trembling. I would have wanted to call him, let him know that I was there but there was no use. He had already seen me. He stopped dead and blinked, as if he couldn't believe his own eyes. But then his face split in a smile and he exhaled deeply, clearly relieved. He almost ran to me and drew me in a hug which left me breathless. I hugged him back because it was the only thing that I felt comfortable doing. I didn't know why but the feelings I used to have for him were faded. It probably was because my mind was elsewhere, focused on her.

'Olivia, how did you...?' He didn't finish his question when he noticed the tears in my eyes. I should have been happy because everything was back to normal, me and Peter together, safe in our world. But without her, it didn't feel right. She had become way too important for me and knowing that she probably was dead in another universe didn't help me to feel better.

'Olivia, what's wrong?' he asked, and I could hear the concern in his voice.

'I... It's just... Everything's wrong.' Because nothing can be right in such a situation. I judged that it was unnecessary to tell what was really on my mind because I knew if I had he would have thought I had been knocked on the head pretty badly.

'Olivia, it's fine!' he said, stroking my back. 'I know you've been through a lot and it's not gonna be easy to get past that, but I'm here now, okay?'

''Kay', I answered, the sound of my voice muffled against his shoulder. The last thing I wanted right now was to have a long conversation so I decided not to ask him how he had got back home. That would be a story for another time. I patted his arm with a smile and wiped what was left of tears on my cheeks. I really needed to be alone so I wouldn't blow the semblance of smile that probably looked like a grimace.