A/N: During this (last *sobs*) hiatus, I've been marathoning Fringe from the beginning again; I'm past Entrada now, but season 2 was marvelous to rewatch, so I'm full of season 2 P/O feels, hence this drabble I just scribbled.
The prompt was: Travelling by airplane.
AIRPLANE
Olivia had reached a state of restlessness that reminded Peter of the first few days they had spent together, almost eighteen months ago.
She was so impatient that she seemed ready to crawl out of her skin, the kind of impatience that had led her to jump off buildings in the past, or to 'simply' engage in a frenzied, running chase, if no building were available. The worst thing she could be forced to do at that instant was to sit in a confined place and wait it out.
They were stuck in an airplane. They had been for the past hour, and would be for the next two.
There was no way around this; none of them enjoyed wasting three hours in a plane, but it remained the fastest way for them to go back from Florida to New York. What seemed to be a lifetime ago, he might have used this break to get some sleep –they all needed sleep, having been awake for almost three days straight, now, but there was no way he could rest.
Even if he hadn't been feeling quite agitated himself as time ticked away and that mysterious building got closer and closer to being sucked from their universe and into the other one, his quiet concern for Olivia would have been more than enough to trouble him alright.
He kept a steady gaze on her, as she sat opposite him, a stare she was plainly aware of; she had long ago chosen to ignore it, though, as nothing she could say or no look she could give him would be convincing enough to make him stop, and they both knew it.
He stared at her, unable not to remember that first flight they had been on together, from Iraq to Boston, all these months ago. It was all so similar, and yet so different.
Just like she had back then, she kept using the phone, inquiring on any update in New York, despite the fact that the situation remained unchanged so far. She constantly fidgeted, too, her eyes looking through the window, though there was nothing to see but the dimming light of dusk, her twitchy fingers going up to her forehead and hair again and again and again.
It looked the same, but it couldn't have felt more different to him; he couldn't have more felt more differently, especially when it came to her.
He knew her, now. She wasn't just an obviously stubborn –and irritating- FBI agent who was dragging him away against his will from what had been a pretty damn good deal in Iraq, forcing him to go see the man he only called Father because of genetic obligations.
He knew the meaning of each of these movements she made, understood her body language, felt the burn caused by that look in her eyes, even when she wasn't looking at him.
There was a darkness surrounding her now that hadn't been there when they had first met, one that had begun to form the instant John died in her arms, and had only thickened as the months went by, and the deaths multiplied. Charlie's had been the latest, most damaging blows in a series of damaging blows, adding more weight on her already crushed shoulders. Never before had he met someone so haunted.
And yet, she shone brighter in his eyes than anyone he had ever known