A/N: Firstly, a stupendous THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed/read/enjoyed the last chapter. I read every single review and it means so much that you take the time to share your thoughts with me. Knowing that you guys are enjoying the story makes the writing process and 2am caffeine highs so worthwhile. So THANK YOU

Secondly, a huge thanks to Ambre for her constant support/flailing/motivation during this chapter (and all chapters really). Any references to Peter's anatomy are dedicated to you, bb.

Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?

– William Shakespeare

Chapter 4 - Refrain

She stands there for the longest time, just staring at him, her gun still aimed directly at his head despite the fact that he's very clearly unconscious. He lays on his side, curled up in an almost-fetal position, his breath coming out slow and steady. Her heart pounds so loudly that for a moment she wonders if it's enough to wake him. But he doesn't stir and eventually, she uses her foot to nudge him onto his back. She realises that it's a bad idea the second his head rolls towards her and his arm sprawls out against her foot. It isn't his arm she's focused on though, and despite the insanity of the situation, Olivia finds her breath hitched in her throat as she stares down at this undeniably attractive stranger on her bathroom floor. Her eyes move from the dark stubble on his chin, down to the strong column of his softly vibrating thorax. His chest is broad and smooth and she finds her gaze travelling lower, until she swallows loudly and wonders if he really is a projection of her imagination what the Freudian implications of his particularly impressive anatomy would suggest about her own state of mind. Softly, she crouches down beside him and lays her gun on the cold tiles. Up close, she can hear the gentle intake of his breath. She tentatively reaches out, her hand almost trembling as she moves in to lay a fingertip upon his cheek. He's warm, is the first thing she thinks. Warm and undeniably real. His eyelashes flutter lightly against his cheeks and for a second her hand hovers above her gun, but then he stills and mumbles something that sounds very much like her name. She brushes the wet curls off his forehead, an action that feels uncannily familiar, as if she were suddenly caught in a revolving door of déjà vu.

...

By the time she wakes the light has changed from the purple hue it was when she first sat down to a deep blue that covers the room. Though it isn't the light that that she first notices but the pair of stormy eyes fixed intently on her face. Her first instinct is to jump up, but for some reason, she doesn't and stays seated in the wicker chair while he sits at the edge of her bed, still wrapped in the blanket she'd thrown over him.

His gaze locks onto hers and for a second, there's so much energy arching between them, she wonders if the lights are suddenly going to flicker or something.

"You're real, aren't you?" she asks finally, her voice almost echoing in the silence of the room.

The corners of his mouth twitch slightly. "I was about to ask you the same thing," he says, not once taking those eyes off her.

"Okay," she nods tersely, and leans forward, resting her fingertips against her chin. Despite her rapidly beating heart, despite the fact that her body is literally gravitating towards him, she tries to remain cool and objective. "So who are you and why are you here?"

She notes the briefest flicker of hurt cross his features but then it's replaced with an almost careless smile that does nothing to calm her fluttering nerves. "It's funny; I was less naked when we had this conversation in my head."

Her gaze darts to his hands clutching the blanket at his chest. "You were passed out," she begins awkwardly. "I uh, I dragged you in here."

"Yeah," he rubs the back of his neck somewhat sheepishly. "Sorry about that."

She gets up suddenly and pads across the room towards her wardrobe. Without a word, she rummages through one of her bottom drawers pulls out a pair of grey track pants and a t-shirt. "These should fit," she says, tossing the clothing at him. "And then I want answers."

He barely gets out a, 'thank you' before she walks out, shutting the bedroom door behind her.

...

She presses the heels of her palms against her eyes, successfully blocking out light, but failing to block out thought. Her mind is whirring and all she wants is for it to stop, for all of it to stop and make sense. Her entire life has been about making sense of things and this is the one time, she can't even begin to understand what is happening. Despite what Walter has said, she's almost certain that the man in her bedroom is real, she hopes to god he is, because if he isn't then painkillers aren't the only drugs she's going to be prescribed. And yet, despite the uncertainty of it all, the one thing she's almost sure of is that she can trust him, which makes absolutely no sense and makes her question everything about the entire situation itself. But there's something about the way he looks at her, there's something almost…vulnerable in those blue eyes that makes her want to trust him.

"You okay?" His voice reaches her like an arrow, affecting her in some profound way that she's given up trying to articulate.

She removes her hands from her eyes, and for a millisecond little lights dance in front of her face before his outline becomes clear. He's standing on the other side of the small table, barefoot and taller than she had anticipated. The pants that she had given him fit snugly, some may have said a little too snugly, but she finds herself distracted by his face and barely notices the clothing. Instinctively, she reaches for the counter behind her, so as to physically stop herself from taking any steps towards him. No-one has ever looked at her the way he's looking at her: hungrily, longingly. He takes one step forward and holds on to the back of a chair, gripping it until white-knuckled, as if he too is physically restraining himself from approaching her.

"You don't know me, do you?" His voice is laced with a hint of desperation that had been in check earlier.

"Should I?"

He smiles then, but it's an ironic twist of his lips rather than one of amusement. "Honestly, I don't know. I don't even know if this world is anything like what mine used to be. I don't know how any of this," he gestures to the space between them, "is possible." He takes a breath, "But I do know that you're my Olivia."

She crosses her arms across her chest, a reflexive defence mechanism. "Your Olivia," she repeats with a raised brow. "What does that mean?"

"It means-" He lets out a frustrated sigh, "It means that I know you have a sister named Rachel, and niece, Ella. I know you attended Northwestern and you spent your childhood in Jacksonville. You," he motioned to the cupboard behind her, "There's always a bottle of whiskey in there. You prefer scotch, but bourbon will do." He crosses his arms over his chest, unconsciously mimicking her.

Olivia is obviously shaken, but she forces herself to maintain composure. "Okay," she says," her tone clipped, "So you've read a file on me, maybe gone through my cupboards before I got home, that still doesn't-"

"You have birthmark on your left hip." He looks her dead in the eye, his face impassive, almost challenging. "It's sort of shaped like a star. You're not ticklish anywhere except that spot behind your ear, all it takes is a whisper against it and you're helpless. Sometimes," his façade cracks slightly as a frown line appears between his brows. "Sometimes you have nightmares, about when you were little, still living with your step-father. You used to…you'd wake up trembling and I would," he clears his throat as his voice threatens to break, "I'd hold you until you stopped." He gives a small, sad smile. "That's not in any file."

Olivia can feel her entire body responding. It's as if she's been doused with icy water. She's fighting to keep her breathing steady. "What are you-" she exhales and runs her fingers through her hair, "How do you know all of that?"

"Because for four years I worked with you. You and Walter and Astrid. And for some of that time," he takes a small step forward, making her wish that she wasn't trapped between the table and the counter. "For some of that time we were together."

She lets out a half-laugh, her face registering disbelief. Not that she's particularly amused by any of this, but somehow this reaction seems better than the one she's currently fighting, which is to close that gap between them and touch him. "I'm sorry," she flicks her hand in the air, "It's just that, you'd think that I'd remember you."

"Yeah I thought so too," he says flatly. "Look," he takes another step towards her and now the space between them is barely there. "I thought I'd never see you again. I didn't know if you existed. Christ, I didn't even know if I existed. The place where I'm from it's...there's just nothing." His voice takes on a slightly desperate tone, "So when I saw you on the subway, I thought that something had changed, since the creation of the bridge, that maybe-"

"How do you know about that?" Olivia asks in a breathless tone.

"Because I'm the reason it exists," he says. "And after it was created, everything changed." His eyes map her face, silently pleading with her. "Olivia, please." She swallows when he leans in slightly. "You have to believe me."

She feels herself deflate and move in towards him as if she's hypnotized by the longing in that swirling aquarium of his irises. The ringing that suddenly fills the room literally causes her to jerk away and hit her back against the counter. For a second, she's disoriented, then realises her phone is vibrating on the table behind him.

"Sorry," she manages to mumble, before moving past him. "Dunham," she says, just before he rubs his hand over his face and grumbles something like, "Some things never change."

"Liv," Charlie's voice is rough on the other end of the line, as if he's just awoken from sleep. She glances at the clock. 12:16pm. She had no idea it was this late. "We got a lead on Ferelli, you up for it?"

Completely forgetting the man in her kitchen, Olivia immediately goes into agent-mode and reaches for the half-open briefcase leaning against one of the chairs. "Okay, what have we got?" she says, pulling files out and laying them on the table.

"Lucy Gates, found dead in her apartment, just two blocks from DeKalb station. Street cameras caught Ferelli entering her building just hours before she was murdered."

She sucks in a breath when she feels his body come up behind her as he leans over her shoulder, surveying the notes on the table. "CSU?" she asks, purposefully ignoring him.

"Found Ferelli's fingerprints and traces of mercury around the crime scene," she pulls out her notepad and flips to where she had written sliver-blood. "And here's where things get weird," Charlie continues as Olivia scowls at the man currently scanning her case-notes with intense interest. "Lucy Gates was spotted in Pennsylvania four hours ago. Lincoln just checked and her body's still in the Brooklyn Country Hospital Morgue."

"And still no trace of Ferelli?" She sighs when he grabs her notepad and mouths 'pen'. Rolling her eyes, she digs a pen out of her bag and thrusts it into his left hand.

"No Ferelli."

She turns when he holds the notepad up and points to what he has written, looking at her with a serious expression. She shoots him a questioning look, but he taps the page insistently.

"Charlie," she says, reading off the page, "were there any puncture wounds in Lucy Gates' mouth?"

"Yeah three in her palate," Charlie clears his throat on the other end of the line. "How'd you know that, Liv?"

"I'm not sure yet," she answers, her eyes now fixed on the face in front of her. "Listen, I'll meet you at HQ in 20 minutes, okay?"

"Olivia, you're not cleared for duty. C'mon. I only called 'cause I knew you'd want to be in the loop."

"See you in twenty, Charlie," she says, before hanging up on him. She tosses her phone down and crosses her arms over her chest. "Tell me everything you know."

He seems to think for a moment then sighs, "Okay look, I don't know how it works in this world. But the man you're looking for, isn't a man anymore. He is Lucy Gates."

"What?"

"He's a shape-shifter. They were created by, well initially by William Bell initially but-"

"Wait," she holds her hand up, "William Bell? As in Massive Dynamic Bell? The most powerful man in America?"

"Bell's still alive?" His frown-line deepens.

"Of course. He funded half of the Bridge project."

He shakes his head, "Because if he never crossed over, he never died saving us. And he and Walter-"

"Were lab partners once upon a time," she finishes for him, then stops, perplexed, her fingertips hovering over her lips as she stares at him. "I don't understand. How do you know all of this? Who are you?"

He looks down at his bare feet for a second before meeting her conflicted gaze. "I'm Peter," he says simply. "But you already knew that."

And she finds her eyes welling up for no apparent reason. "Yes." she swallows down something of a sob building in her throat. "I think so."

Her small kitchen is engulfed in silence until she nods her head in quiet resolution and looks down, "I need to meet Charlie. We uh," she looks up at him, "We can talk when I get back?"

"Yeah," he says with a slight smile. He watches her clip on her gun, tie back her hair and stuff her cell phone in her pocket before putting on her heavy coat. She winces as she puts her left arm through, but doesn't make a sound. At no point does she look at him and it's only when her hand is on the doorknob that he calls to out to her. "Olivia!" When she turns around, he's standing in exactly the same spot as he was before, and staring at her intently. "If you run into Lucy Gates, shoot her in the head."

She nods once, then walks out without looking back.

.