Have fun with this. It's just a look-through of Peter and Olivia and what they went through during the time gap and all. A great excuse to say I updated while I am just stalling till I know where to go. LOL But rest assured I do have a goal: maybe complete this story before Fringe returns in April? That gives me a month. Hopefully I can do it. Enjoy.

"Peter? Hey."

Slowly, Peter opened his eyes to what he thought was a dream: the dream of being trapped in another world being pursued by baddies …and Olivia was with him.

But then he saw those emerald sparkling eyes of hers, the only light he could see in this f*cked-up place, and then he moaned after feeling pain in his foot…the nightmare had become real.

"Shh!" Olivia whispered as she held him. "There's still a few of them lurking around. We have to stay quiet."

Peter quietly obeyed. From what he could tell, he and Olivia were hiding in a cramped space of mud and dead branches. He could hear voices in the distance but nothing too alarming. The pain in his foot still bothered him, but apparently it was only a bullet grazing and a strain from tripping…nothing too serious.

An hour passed and still they waited there until they were sure that the men who were searching for them had given up and went back to their camp.

Peter finally broke the silence. "You…came back for me?"

Olivia sat him up and smiled. "Hey, you've been doing the same for me."

He wasn't going to deny that.

***

Still criminals on the run, there was very little for them to run to. They searched desperately for a road or even a sign that would lead them back to Boston. But many roads in New England were completely destroyed over the years by various scientific warfare. It was too dangerous to ask what few souls they would encounter. They had no weapons to fend themselves or to even hunt. No one could be trusted.

In truth, they had no idea where they were and while neither of them was ready to admit it, Peter and Olivia both feared that they could be wandering through nothingness forever.

The atmosphere had become stuffy and nauseating. Peter lost count of how many times Olivia would suddenly collapse. He couldn't blame her. This reality was taking a toll on the both of them. And soon she was vomiting. Half the time, Olivia didn't even realize that Peter was carrying her. But even that would become too much for him in months time.

It didn't make any sense until one night, when they were camping in a small abandoned store, possibly a drug store. The damage was such that it was impossible to tell. Olivia was no doubt in the moldy bathroom practically on death's door, but she was still stubborn enough to block the door so that Peter couldn't come in.

He was banging on the door. "Olivia! You okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she said in a tone that defied her words. "Please…I just need a few minutes alone."

God, she sounded like she was already dead.

"Let me in or I'm coming in there!"

"Peter, please…"

Peter ignored the plea and kicked his way into the bathroom. He was surprised to find Olivia quickly scurrying away from the toilet and against the wall. Her hands were quickly snatching the items that were scattered on the floor in a hopeless attempt to hide them from Peter.

But it was too late. Peter had spotted one lying on the floor with a couple of scattered boxes of the ones Olivia tried to hide from him.

He said nothing but picked it up and held it in his hands. It was the horrifying answer to a lot of horrifying questions. He turned to look at her and both exchanged faces of worry and then, he held it to the light.

His arm was shaking as he waited…a minute later, one pink line appeared…and then another.

There was no need to look at the other pregnancy tests that Olivia had hidden behind her and she instantly broke into sobs. Peter was at first stunned, unable to think. But Olivia was on the floor slowly deteriorating. She needed him.

He held her and wanted to say something…but he was foolish to think that anything was going to be okay now.

***

They found themselves walking mindlessly as days turned into weeks and then to months. Everything looked like everything else, dead and dark and it slowly drove the two of them insane. They rested frequently just to conserve their fragile energy. Some days, Peter and Olivia would often go through periods of just innate silence out of fear of being heard and a lack of will. There was no discussion of their third passenger…of what was to come. There was very little need to discuss it even when Olivia's stomach began to bulge. There was really no point in planning. In this reality, what was there to plan for other than death and destruction?

All Peter and Olivia could do for now was focus on their own survival. Peter took charge of scavenging for food. Scraps and cans here and there. Not enough to be healthy but enough for them to get them through another day.

The skies became so dark it was pitch black even in the day. Once in a while they would see unusual changes, colorful glows and streaks that were often followed by faint echoing booms. No doubt a massive fire or explosion. Were people still fighting…because there certainly did not seem to be anything left to fight over?

"Do you think we're being punished?" Olivia asked.

Peter looked confused. "For what?"

"For leaving." Olivia kept her voice low, afraid to disturb the dead silence of the land. "Everything just seemed planned out for us to come back…to make us stay…"

"It wouldn't have mattered," said Peter. "Walter was hell bent on bringing me back with him whether any of this was gonna happen or not."

"But what if this was all about me? I can't imagine everything being like this unless one of us was made to make people's heads explode."

They huddled together under a worn-out blanket that Peter had with him. There was little to do now except to sit and watch the glows in the sky. As beautiful as they were, it was clear that something devastating was happening hundreds of miles away.

"Peter…you know when I didn't want to tell you, about what I remembered?"

"You don't need to."

"I was meant to kill him, Peter. My father. He came to the lab to rescue me. I tried to stop it but all I can remember was people telling me that I did it. I killed him. I killed my father just like I killed the other children in that lab…"

Tears were falling faster than Peter can smooth them away. He now understood the extent of what Walter saw in her memories and why he tried to erase them all. If there was anything worse that happened to Olivia during those stolen years of her childhood, he didn't want to know. The guilt of having killed other innocent people had already destroyed Olivia enough.

But Peter stood by his belief from long ago: Olivia was not a murderer.

"Livvy." He wrapped his arms around her. "Don't blame yourself for what my…for what THEY did to you."

Peter felt a slight nudge and thought it was just Olivia being restless, but suddenly she gasped in surprise and looked down.

Olivia began to relax finding peace with the sudden movements, almost smiling. Peter caressed Olivia's stomach feeling the tiny little kicks that allowed their minds to…for a short while…escape from their guilt and their troubles.

***

They had forgotten when it was that they gave up traveling to a road back to Boston and just wandered around for survival.

At one point, Peter was able to grab and break the neck of a skulking vulture. He was afraid it wouldn't be safe for Olivia to eat but desperation won out. And both agreed…it only barely tasted like chicken.

On a foggy day (or night), the two of them stumbled into a massive field of erected tents. It was near "that time" and they hoped to get help from a doctor in the refugee camp. Peter approached the large medical tent. He heard a faint buzzing thought only to be in his imagination. But then he opened the tent and was blindly attacked. Huge swarms of flies have made every inch within this space their home. Inside, cots were lined up with bodies now mass nesting grounds for maggots. Near the back of the tent, the same was happening for several corpses of what used to be doctors.

Olivia was peeking into smaller civilian tents with the same results. Everyone within the refugee camp had died out years ago, possibly from a pandemic or contamination.

She stopped suddenly.

"Peter!"

He panicked upon answering the call as he saw her sitting down. "What are you doing? We need to get out of here."

She said in short breaths, "I can't go anywhere!"

In his head, Peter was screaming. 'SHIT!' This was happening here and now whether they wanted it to happen or not.

They had nothing to work with but a jacket for Olivia to lie down. Time passed painfully until cries began to echo throughout the camp. Olivia didn't have a moment to catch her breath when she caught sight of a little baby boy writhing and crying in Peter's hands. They came together and wept silent tears of joy over the new little life they had regrettably brought into this world.

***

The new family was forced to leave the death-infested camp all too soon. The sky began to shed snow. Peter knew the snow meant another freak winter was fast approaching.

Olivia had pale and physically weakened from the birth. The cream-colored snow was rising almost two feet, with no signs of stopping when they finally found adequate shelter in an old strip mall.

The days went by more slowly as they struggled to stay alive in their camp. Peter continued to brave the bad weather to into nearby buildings and bring back what little food he could. What time was not spent waiting and surviving, Peter and Olivia would spend huddled together and looking over their little one in awe, determined to live it out until the freak winter ended.

"What should we name him?" asked Peter.

"I like 'Walter'."

Peter turned to Olivia and gave her a wild and outraged look that screamed 'you wouldn't dare'.

She then laughed. "Joking, Peter." Peter sighed with relief. "But I do think you should name him," she said. "I thought this would make you ecstatic."

"I wouldn't say ecstatic," said Peter. "But I am happy."

"I mean having a new son in the Bishop family line. I'm sure this is everything Walter wanted."

"Yeah," said Peter. "He threatened to ground me if you didn't give me a grandson before he turned 70. I didn't see the big deal. My grandfather died when Walter was like 2…but I guess that would explain why Walter sucked at raising me.

"What was your grandfather's name?" she asked him.

"Robert Bishop."

Olivia smiled. "I like that.

To which Peter replied "anything's better than 'Walter'."

***

Several months later, the snow melted and the world was dark again. Robbie was far from chubby but seemed surprisingly endurant. Olivia however had gotten skinnier and paler with no explanation. Peter found himself having to support Olivia as they walked and carry the baby at the same time.

They found themselves lost again, spending weeks wandering through a lifeless desert, with forests of tall charred trunks sticking out of the ground like giant spikes. The newest shelter they found was a house with wood rotten to gray and decorated a bit with aging graffiti. Dead plant life had nearly devoured every nook and cranny within.

The place had not been inhabited for many years. But as Peter and Olivia explored within, they both got a strange familiar vibe about this place.

"Peter? Is this place what I think it is?"

Even Peter was shocked. The small rooms looked familiar, and when Peter walked up the little stairway he saw the loft scattered with books and cards coated in two decades of dust. And there were papers crudely written with the name 'o/_IvI'.

And then…he finally remembered.

"It's our house," said Peter. "It's the place where Walter found us."

The odds were truly in their favor again. If there was any hope left, it would be that maybe Walter would remember this place and come looking for them here. But Peter knew better than to hold out for such a hope.

By this point, in the other world, Peter and Olivia were presumed dead.

And now there was nothing more for them to do and no place to go that would guarantee them their lives.

They finally accepted that they would be here forever.

At least, they were home now.

***

As a callback to his nomad days, Peter became an expert woodsman and scavenger. Later he would eventually find himself guns and ammunition from one of his expeditions so he could at least hunt whatever animal life was left.

And Olivia found herself settling into life as a matriarch. It wasn't a place she expected to see herself in…not like this anyway. But she took to staying inside the house with Robbie and taking care of him, knitting clothes for him from scrap fabric. She even tried planting a garden outside but in this dreaded landscape, few crops were likely to thrive.

With time, the place that once sheltered Peter and Olivia as children became a home in the most decent way possible.

But despite all their efforts, the world around them was still a dangerous place. They could still hear distant booms and see glows in the sky. Sometimes they even felt slight shakes in the ground beneath their feet.

Extra precautions had to be taken. The doors and windows remained boarded up. They even found a couple of corpses not too far away from the home that were used as a scaring mechanism. Peter had them tied and hung from a tree 10 meters from their house, hoping to scare off trespassers.

Robbie was growing up in a world with no light and yet he was bright and curious and never seemed to mind the horrid conditions. It was a different story for Peter and Olivia. They were falling apart on the inside from all the bleakness, fear, and isolation. They were slowly becoming ghosts of their former selves. And still they did what they had to for Robbie's sake. They found small bits of happiness in spending time together as a family. They even attempted bits of normalcy, celebrating birthdays and Christmases even when there was no point in doing so. They would silently celebrate being together.

Soon Olivia and Peter became needy for more than just stabs at normalcy. They needed a new form of escape.

Eventually they found one in the only form they knew…

While Robbie was asleep in his makeshift crib, Olivia and Peter would get under the covers of the bed, abandoning their clothes as well as their boundaries.

The pleasure took their minds far away from the desolate world around them. Sex became such a good coping mechanism, that it soon became an incurable addiction…

…until Olivia became pregnant again.

That was a frightening day for Robbie. He had never heard his parents yelling like that before and over what he was still far too young to understand. But he remembers crying, and lots of it.

He would hear the same cries again months later. He didn't understand what his mother was doing in the bathtub that was causing her so much pain. His father was worried and sweating. Robbie could only sit outside and listen with fear.

But soon his baby sister would be born that day.

Almost immediately though, things started going wrong. Anna had just spent a few seconds out into the world and suddenly Olivia turned white and began to seizure.

"Olivia? Olivia!"

When it stopped, Olivia felt light, way too light, she couldn't feel anything anymore. She couldn't even sense anything around her and yet she was still alive.

"Peter?"

He struggled to hold the baby in one arm and reached out to Olivia with the other. "What was that Olivia? What's wrong with you?"

"I…" she mumbled. "I think…Cortexiphan. I thought it was all drained out of me but I was using it. I used it to have Robbie…and Anna."

If Olivia didn't look like she was about ready to die Peter would have had time to marvel at how quick she found a name for the kid. "I didn't know…" she said trailing off.

"Okay," said Peter trying to calm himself. "Alright, we know now. You're still feeling the after effects of CRONUS, Liv. You just need to avoid using the Cortexiphan you have left in your system."

"But I…"

"You have to, Liv!" said Peter. "You could be dead next time!"

She moaned, "I know."

For many months after Anna was born, Olivia remained bedridden immovable and more helpless than when Peter first saved her from William Bell. The children were found spending most of their time now by Olivia's bedside where she continued to be a mother to them the best she could…even when it was discovered that Anna might not be a normal child and that she might have some developmental disabilities.

But Robbie knew his mom wasn't looking like his mom anymore. And his dad was feeling more in despair by the day. He was happy when he saw his mom trying to practice moving around again with a cane but Peter got overprotective. Olivia wasn't allowed to get out of bed anymore than Robbie was allowed to step outside the house. Soon it was getting to him…almost to the point of frustration, and Robbie was usually the quite and calm type. He rarely had any need to fuss even when there was hardly any food to eat.

When Peter was nowhere to be seen and Olivia and Anna were asleep, Robbie quietly snuck down the stairs. He pulled the boarded door open enough to squeeze his way out. He had to go out there and see for himself, answer the questions his mother and father wouldn't answer such as why they were alone or why they boarded up the windows and the doors…or why he wasn't allowed to be outside alone when it didn't seem all that dangerous.

Maybe, if nature were willing, he would find something in this foreign world to help his mom get better.

He had no idea that as he stepped out, his eyes would finally be open to the truth of his surroundings, that the world he thought was innocent and pure was more like a death trap.

And now, he would be sorry to have disobeyed...