A/N: Hello beautiful people! As always, this is just a thank you for you wondiferous reviews! Thanks for your feedback and encouragement! It's appreciated and valued and loved so very, very much.
I do hope you enjoy this chapter. Things are going to progress rather rapidly from this point onwards :)
It is Love that holds everything together, and it is the everything also.
Rumi
Chapter 6 – Love
"Aunt Liv, how do you know when you're in love?"
Olivia looks up from the kitchen counter where she's scooping ice-cream into two bowls. Her 10-year old niece lies sprawled out on the couch, knees in the air, staring fixedly at the ceiling. "I think I'm pretty sure I'm in love, 'cept I'm not sure-sure cause I've never been in love before, so how do you know? When you're in love I mean?"
Olivia bites on her bottom lip to hold back a smile. This from the girl who a year ago pointedly told her that boys were totally gross.
"Uh, well-" Olivia plonks two spoons into the bowls and prepares to make her way towards the couch.
"It's just that when he smiles at me, Aunt Liv, I get sort of squishy feelings inside, like my tummy's made outta custard and this morning, he asked to use my 2b pencil, cause he left his at home and I only had one and it's my favourite pencil, but I let him use it even though it's my favourite so does that mean I'm in love cause of the custard tummy and the pencil?" She takes a deep breath and looks at her aunt with a serious expression that has Olivia fighting back a grin.
"Uh...I think it means that you care for this boy, Ella," she says somewhat placidly, handing the little girl her ice-cream.
"Yeah, but is it looooove?" the girl wants to know, her mouth now full of Rocky-Road.
Olivia pulls her spoon from her lips and pretends to think, giving due seriousness to the situation. "Let's see. How long have you known…what's his name?"
"His name's Tommy Nadir. He transferred to our school this morning. He's perfect," she says with a dreamy expression that has Olivia smirking.
"So, um…you've known him for a whole day, sweetheart?"
"Yeah," Ella says, her eyes still glazed over, "And he's perfect. He's perfect, Aunt Liv." Her gaze suddenly shifts to Olivia. "Have you ever been in love, Aunt Liv?"
The question catches Olivia off-guard, which is surprising, since ten-year old logic isn't that hard to follow and this question was bound to come up at some point or another. Still, she finds herself looking down, swirling the last of her ice-cream in her bowl until it's nothing but a goopy-mess.
She looks up and gives Ella a sad smile. "I was…a long time ago."
"Was it magical?" the little girl asks her eyes wide, her mouth stained with chocolate. "Did you share pencils?"
Olivia's tempted to say that they shared a whole lot more than that…consciousness's for example. But instead says, "Yeah, for a time it was." She gently tucks stray hairs out of Ella's face.
Her niece beams, seemingly satisfied by the answer. "What was his name?"
She's surprised at how much it doesn't hurt to think about it. She wonders if time really is the healer of all wounds. She looks down at her gorgeous young niece, all innocence and wonder and genuinely smiles. "His name was Pet-John. His name was John." Olivia corrects herself almost immediately, but the slip-up scalds her tongue.
She feels suddenly light-headed, as if she'd stood up too fast and the world was spinning. Ella is saying something, her face taking on that smitten expression again, but Olivia doesn't quite hear the words, her mind racing. It felt so natural, so incredibly right to use the first name, yet it made no sense.
"-and then Mary said that he told her that he likes drawing too and then I told Mary that just cause he likes drawing doesn't mean nothing."
"Anything," Olivia corrects absently.
"What, Aunt Liv?"
"It doesn't mean anything," she repeats, wiping the ice-cream off Ella's cheek.
Her niece nods fervently. "Yeah, that's what I told Mary. So then she said-" Ella's words are cut off as the front door opens and Rachel enters with a smile.
"Knock, knock," she sing-songs, grinning at her two favourite people.
"Mom!" Ella bounces off the couch. "Aunt Liv took me to a movie and then we went to the park and then we had ice-cream and-"
"Yeah, I see," Rachel interjects, casting an amused look at her sister as she wipes the last bit of chocolate off her daughter's chin. "Honey, go get your things, the cab's waiting downstairs."
"Oh, but mom, Aunt Liv and I were having a conversation." She says this with a low voice, as if to impart the gravity of the situation.
Rachel furrows her brow, attempting her best 'serious-face', "Honey, I'm sure you can continue this 'conversation'" her amused gaze flicks up to meet Olivia's for a second, "on the telephone. Now get your things."
Ella looks like she might protest, but Olivia steps up behind her and engulfs her in a hug, "Go listen to your mom, sweetheart. We'll talk some more on the phone, okay?"
Ella looks back at her aunt, her eyes registering so much love and trust that Olivia feels momentarily overwhelmed. "Okay, Aunt Liv." And then she's off, bounding towards the bedroom.
Rachel shakes her head. "Thanks again, Liv. I know I sort of sprang this on you, but Greg was supposed to take her and-"
"Rach," Olivia shoots her sister a reassuring smile. "Come on, you know how much I love spending time with Ella. It's not a problem. How did the meeting go?"
Rachel gives a half shrug. "Oh, it's all the same. Boring." They share a laugh as Ella comes traipsing back in, backpack slung over her shoulder.
"Hey mom, can we get Chinese for dinner?"
"We'll see."
"Is 'we'll see' a yes?"
"It's a 'we'll see'. Now say goodbye to Aunt Liv."
Olivia watches this exchange with amusement before bending down and placing a noisy kiss on her niece's cheek. "Stay safe, baby girl."
"I will," Ella answers, hugging her tightly.
Olivia stands by the door as she watches them go, her heart warm from the interaction and infinitely grateful for the stability of her family. Despite the constant unravelling of her world, they're the one thing that remains constant, the one thing she continues to fight for. She closes the door gently once they're out of sight, preparing to spend the evening in quiet solitude. Kaufman's "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers" is playing at nine and she thinks she might catch it before bed. In light of the recent case, it seems morbidly appropriate.
"Ella's gotten really big."
She whips around at the sound of the voice, her entire body immediately responding to the specific cadence and inflection.
He's standing in the doorway of her bedroom; leaning casually against the doorframe as if he's being there is the most natural thing in the world. On his face is that smirk that tugs at something deep inside of her and she fights the urge to take a step towards him.
"Hey," he says softly, when it becomes clear that she isn't going to speak. Those green eyes assess him with warily, but she'd be lying if she denies the fact that it feels as if she's just taken a shot of pure caffeine. Just the sight of him makes her entire body zing.
"Hey," she replies almost on autopilot. "You were gone." The words come out of her mouth before she can think about them. "I thought…" she cocks her head to the side, her gaze still fixed on his solid form. "It's been almost two weeks."
His eyes go dark and that smirk is gone. "It was longer." He says this softly. "For me it was longer."
"Peter?" Those two syllables wrap around her tongue like a familiar taste and she swallows unconsciously.
His face shifts as that self-assured mask crumbles under the sound of his name from her lips. He looks, she thinks…beautifully vulnerable. And suddenly it's too much. The room is thick with everything they're not saying and she feels as if she's about to suffocate.
"You were right about the shape-shifter," she says, trying to ease out of the murky water they were wading in. "Bell confessed."
Peter crosses his arms over his chest and nods. "And the shifter?"
"Dead," Olivia says.
The smirk returns.
"You're not surprised," she observes.
"Why would I be?" he walks towards her now, a slow saunter that has her twitching to move towards him or away from him, she can't decide which. "You're Olivia Dunham," he states simply as if this fact alone justifies his lack of surprise.
"And that means what to you exactly?" her voice quivers ever so slightly as he takes another step closer and she prays her doesn't notice.
"It means that I've known you long enough to know that you rarely, if ever, fail."
Her face clouds over and she does take that step back. "I'm not sure who you think you know, but it's not me."
"Olivia." He says her name like he knows her, like he's seen what she's capable of. And she has to remind herself that he wasn't there when the hotel vanished, when all those people died. He wasn't there to see her fail. "Hey," he says, suddenly pointing his thumb towards the kitchen. "You want coffee? I'd kill for a cup. I haven't had coffee in ages."
The non-sequitur is so unexpected that she laughs. An actual short burst of laughter that has him grinning and the shadows behind her eyes fleeing. "Sure," she says with a resigned sigh, "Why not?"
He motions for her to sit down on the couch while he busies himself in the kitchen. She's fascinated by the way he moves with such ease and confidence, as if he's done this a hundred times before. She takes the moment to unabashedly study him. Unlike the other times he's appeared, he's not wet or naked (not that she's disappointed, she tells herself). He's wearing a faded jeans and green sweater that looks like its seen better days. She knows the body underneath those clothes is hard and lean. She thinks about hardened angles, obviously due to strenuous activity, and muscles that wouldn't have shown if he'd been eating well. Unconsciously, her tongue darts out to wet her lower lip.
He approaches with two mugs of coffee and offers one to her. "Black, one sugar," he says with a strange look before she can say anything.
"How did you?" And suddenly it's too much. It's too intimate. Too…right. Being around a stranger shouldn't feel this…comfortable. And yet it does. And she wants to know why. She needs to know. So, she takes the coffee from him, scoots over and says in a voice that invites little argument, "Tell me everything."
She watches as those blue eyes almost imperceptibly turn bluer, colder, as if he's retreating. But he sighs and nods and looks down at his hands and she realizes, with some surprise, that he's nervous. "Peter?" Her hand goes to his knee, where it rests lightly. This achieves the desired effect and that aquarium gaze immediately meets hers with such startling intensity that she finds herself holding back a breath. "I need to know," she says softly but firmly.
"I know," he replies. He opens his mouth as if he's about to begin then breaks into a smile that hints at frustration. "I swear I've practiced this so many times, but it's just…" He shakes his head, struggling to convey himself articulately. "Look, where I come from, it's like this place, but different. It's the same world. Your world."
"An alternate universe?" Olivia ventures.
"I'm not sure," Peter replies with a half-shrug. "All I know is that I'm the only one left. Everyone I know, everyone I cared about, they all disappeared after the Bridge. You, Walter…"
Olivia arches an eyebrow, "Wait, so…you worked with Walter?"
Peter's face breaks into a genuine grin. "You could say that."
"So how are you here?"
"I don't know. But, when I saw you on the subway in New York, it because I was on that train at that exact moment. Except it's abandoned and broken down. I was looking for something for a project I'm working on. And then suddenly I was in New York. Your New York, but I don't think anyone else could see me. And then in a few seconds it was over and I was back on my side."
"And then I was shot," she murmurs, remembering now. Seeing him on the train, the way the world stopped and nothing existed except for him.
"I thought it was a fluke," he continues, "so I came to your apartment, I stood outside for hours and then in that split second, the door opened and you were on the other side of it. I think, I think that if we're in the same place geographically, you can sort of, pull me over for a time."
Her brow furrows slightly as she absorbs this information. "So you're saying that if you're in my apartment over there and I'm in my apartment over here, I can see you?"
"Yes."
"So why do you leave? I mean, you disappeared in my doorway at one point."
Peter shrugs a shoulder. "That I don't know. It's like I'm here and then I'm not and when I'm back there, I don't know when I'll see you again." He looks past her shoulder at the door, "Sometimes, I don't know if I'll ever see you again." His eyes go back to hers and she feels that now familiar tug on her insides, "I figured that if I stayed in your apartment, over there, the chances of seeing you would be greater, so that's what I've been doing."
"You've been living in my apartment…over there?" She's not quite sure what she's feeling. On any other occasion she'd feel slightly…violated, but the entire situation is so absurd and surreal that she doesn't know how to process it. "How is it possible that I can, 'pull you over' as you say?"
"I don't know," Peter counters. "Cortexiphan?"
Her eyes narrow. "I still don't know how you know about all of this. Shape-shifters, Bell, Cortexiphan, my coffee," her voice trembles slightly on that last one and she hates herself for it. "How close were we?" she asks in a quiet voice. He had said they were together. She remembers that. Of course she remembers that, just like she remembers the dozen other intimate things he said about her that no-one but a lover, a best friend could know. But the truth is too jarring, to unbelievable, to comprehend. And part of her, the part of her that realizes her hand is still on his knee and has no intention of moving it, really just wants to hear him say it.
He's watching her with that expression that tells her he's restraining himself. Like he's holding back. But there's something behind his eyes. Something almost desperate that seems to leap out and grab hold of her. "How close were we?" she asks again, softer this time.
"Close," he says.
One word. It hangs in the air between them. Suspended in the thick tension.
And then she's leaning forward. And it makes no sense because she's known him for an accumulative time of 2 hours. And it makes no sense because in every regard, he's a perfect stranger. And it makes no sense…but as Olivia's gaze gets lost in that wild blue, she loses any notion of sense.
Until the phone rings.
And Peter swears.
Loudly.
And Olivia psychically extricates herself from him and leans back to answer her furiously ringing phone. The generic ringtone seems to echo in the apartment.
"Hello?" she asks, slightly out of breath.
The voice on the other end is crackling and breathless.
Olivia sits straight up immediately clutching the phone so tight that her knuckles are white. "Elizabeth, slow down. Where are you? What's happened?" She hears the older woman take a breath. And feels her body go numb as she listens to what Elizabeth says.
"I'll be right there," she responds automatically before putting down the phone.
"What's wrong?" Peter asks, taking in her ashen face and troubled eyes.
"That was Elizabeth Bishop," she says evenly, barely registering the awe on Peter's face. "Walter's had a stroke."