II.

Hopping through time

Olivia was guided by an armed short dark haired man, with an irish accent, he led her towards the dining room on the other side of the property, the room was spacious. neat and luxurious, there was a table with candles at the center and white tablecloth. A black grand piano was sitting at the corner of the room, as a silent witness.

Peter was giving his back to the door, looking through the big glass sliding doors, overlooking the terrace illuminated by the exterior lighting .

The house was made of glass, broad and elegant.

At the recognition of their presence, he turned around, opening his arms as a welcome sign. He was wearing black pants and a black shirt.

He was gorgeous.

– "Olivia! You look beautiful on that dress" He admired her in awe. She was wearing a summer blue-gray linen dress with a bare back and straps tied to her neck.

– "Yeah well, there was no other choice for me." She protested.

He extended his hand to grab hers to guide her inside of the room towards the table, she let herself be led by him.

– "Thank you Anil!" The man nodded in acknowledgement and left the room.

– "So what's with the bodyguard? And this property?" She said looking around admiring the place. – "Where are you getting the resources for all of this…"

He guided her to sit on the table. A soft Jazz melody, playing in the background.

Peter snorted gently, at the description of his friend. – "Anil is not a bodyguard. He's a friend and a partner. We work together."

– "And what exactly does that work entail?"

He smiled looking softly at her eyes, understanding exactly what she was implying, as he came closer to her with a bottle of Chardonnay in his hand.

– "Here, have some wine first." He said as he poured the wine on her cup.

– "I don't want wine, I want answers." She stood to his level and looked at him directly in his eyes defiantly, this time he was not getting away using his charm. – "And I want them now, or I swear to God Peter…" She was taken aback by him earlier, but not now, now she was determined.

– "You know, It seems to me you are not exactly in a position to demand anything Liv. You have no leverage here." The tensión on her jaw and face was evident to him, he could read her like a book with his eyes closed. – "Have a seat please." She sat unwillingly with a stiff posture.

He walked to the dining room buffet taking two covered plates, walked towards her to put it in front of her and uncovered it revealing as a first course a watermelon strawberry salad.

– "This salad is one of Walter's inventions, it's delicious. He says the ingredients are aphrodisiac." He gave her a wide and warm smile. "Have a bite." – Oh God! Could he be any more charming?

– "Walter is dead. He killed himself three years ago." She watched him walk to the other side of the table to sit in front of her, with his plate at hand.

– "I can assure you he's very much alive. And very impatient to see you, maybe tomorrow."

Peter was aware that the more he tried to explain, the more confused she would get.

– "Be aware that some answers will only lead to more questions."

– "So what's the plan, keeping me here for like what…?

– "Forever."

She tried to ignore that comment, at least the implications of it. So the possibility of a -till the day we die- kind of forever with Peter, was stacked at the back of her mind as all the other things that were uncomfortable or too difficult to deal with. She was not the kind of person who could deal with emotionally uncomfortable situations. Evasion was her strategy of choice. – What could she possibly respond to? She barely knew the man for Christ sake, and here she was all hot and bothered just by looking at him. She hated being vulnerable, she hated it!

– "At least give me some answers, I deserve to know what's going on."

"You know… Information is power." He said suggestively. – "You want information… and I have it. What do you think we should do about that?"

– Oh boy! Game on. She thought.

– "What do you want, Peter? If it's money…"

– "Oh no, it's nothing like that!" He snorted. – "You know what I want!" He looked at her intently, giving away in his eyes all that she needed to know.

– Peter, what you said to Mrs. Merchant, I want what you want. –

For a moment there she stopped breathing, and swallowed the knot forming on her throat. The tension between them, building up like a volcano.

He knew this was too much for her, and he didn't want to push too hard, so he tried to deflect a little. – "You know, I've been told you haven't been eating. You didn't touch your breakfast, nor the sandwich they gave you later. Are you planning to starve to death or something?"

– "Tell me what you want."

– "How about a little game." He said amused – "I give you something, you give me something kind of thing."

She knew he had the upper hand, if she wanted answers she would have to comply with whatever his demands were, and she hated not being in control of a situation.

– "I'm not gonna fuck you Pater." She looked at him with defiance. – There… she said it.

– "Oh! but you will." He chuckled. – "Sooner than you think. You'll beg me for it." He said with confidence in his voice. There was an uncomfortable silence – "But that's not what I want right now, I want to take care of you so… Come sit on my lap."

She froze for a moment.

– "Are you serious?"

– "Deadly serious, come on." He extended his hand.

– "So… I give you something… you give me something." She said more like reassuring herself that this little game had a purpose and he would keep his end of the bargain.

– "That's right." With his extended hand.

She stood slowly from her seat, and walked to him, extending her hand to reach his. – Was she really agreeing to this? Oh boy!

He pulled her hand strongly, till he finally grabbed her by the waist and sat her on his lap. – Oh God! Taking the opportunity to inhale her scent. – "I missed your scent" He said with his nose buried in her hair.

She cleared her throat in tension. – "Your turn."

– "Not just yet." He said as he took his fork, and stabbed a piece of the salad. – "Open." He said taking the fork in front of her mouth.

– "Peter, I'm not a child."

– "Then stop acting like one. Come on! Open your mouth and eat your vegetables."

She did as requested, and took a mouthful of strawberries, lettuce and goat cheese.. As he casually took a piece of watermelon with his fingers and put it in his mouth, chewing away happily.

– "See! That wasn't so difficult was it?" He was lazily burrowing a circle with his hand on her lower back.

– It's kinda like you're burrowing through the muscle into the bone. I don't like it. –

– "One more." He said, giving her a piece of watermelon, as he smiled.

He watched a drop of watermelon juice escaping her mouth and rolled down her chin all the way to her clavicle. He wanted to lick it away so much, but instead he took a piece of cloth and cleaned her up with the tip, gently.

– "All right. My turn." He took her right hand gently, to put it to rest on his hand with her palm facing up, caressing softly the side with his thumb.

– "Imagine this, most of us experience life as a linear progression, a straight line like this…"

With his middle finger he traced a pattern on her hand, from her wrist towards her palm, soft and slow.

– "We're born." He finished the path led by his finger, from her palm all the way to the tip. – "We die…" The sensation of his finger sliding through her hand made her legs feel wobbly. She needed to stand and get away from him, but he had her firmly pinned to his lap. – Damn it! She was playing a dangerous little game here, and she was loving it.

– "But it's an illusion. Everyday life presents us with an array of choices; as a result, life should look more like this…" He traced a new path deviating from the central line on her hand, to the left towards her forefinger all the way to the tip. – "And each choice… leads to a new path, to go to work.. to stay home.. creating a new reality." Now the path ran towards the right, to her ring finger. – "One that may lead you to fall in love… to get married…" There was a whole meaning in his eyes. He traced his finger circling where a marriage ring should be. – "To have a baby…" He turned her hand and grasped it in both his hands with care.

She was now holding her breath. Melting in a puddle at the soft trace of his finger on the back of her hand.

– "Another path, the road not taken."

He recognized the confusion in her eyes so he tried another route.

– "It's a Deja vu."

– "A Deja vu!"

– "Yeah, like when you have a dream so vivid that you could swear that it wasn't a dream, or when you can feel that you've known someone your entire life, when in reality you've just met them. Kind of like how you're feeling right now, with me."

She swallowed away her tension. He took a strawberry with his fingers and took it to her mouth, and she obliged, chewing softly. He looked at her pleased.

– I thought of a hundred reasons why you have to come back. To fight the shapeshifters, to save the world… to.. to take care of Walter. But in the end. You have to come back, because… you belong with me.–

Images of a redhead version of her started to fall on the back of her mind like a stack of cards. Images of her kissing Peter softly.

She wasn't sure where that came from, or how to put those pieces together. – Was she hallucinating now?

She was so enthralled in her thoughts, – Could this be something else? – she didn't realize how or when Peter pulled up her hand, and brushed his lips on her wrist, giving a soft kiss to her pulsing point. As he snaked her waist with his arm keeping her firmly against his lap, while the evidence of his arousal was popping up beneath her. – How is it that he could manage to turn this into something so erotic.

– "It's a momentary glimpse to the other side. To a parallel reality, we feel that we've been somewhere before, because actually we have. In the timeline you're experiencing now, we didn't have much time. I left you and Walter, and that choice led to Walter going back to St. Claire's, ending his life." He said with sorrow in his voice. – "You were left alone trying to figure out all this nonsense on your own." That last statement pained him.

He now kissed her palm, right on the center.

– "I'm sorry for that." He was truthful. – "That was an idiot version of me." She took a breath she didn't know she was holding.

– "But… there is another reality in which I didn't leave. A slight difference made me take a different choice, and I stayed with you and Walter. Walter didn't die. And that path led us to a very different story. Stories." He emphasized the `s´.

She started to feel really anxious. These images on her mind made no sense. – Was she going crazy? She finally found her voice as she managed to push Peter away, standing up to take some distance. – "You really expect me to believe all that. And what does it have to do with Jones and your involvement with him?"

– "Is it really that hard to believe? You saw how Jones teletransported himself out of prison, and all the Fringe events you've come across? Almost everyone experiences these Deja vu's, but some people can go way beyond, some people have the innate ability to move between these different realities with no consequences. Like you. And with the proper training you could even go back and forth through time, and more."

She snorted. – Seriously?

She paced back and forth like a caged animal. Not really sure she wanted to know.

– Some truths can cause more harm than good. Some Pandora's boxes are better left unopened. –

This was not the truth that she was looking for. She can't handle this.

– "Some technologies have been developed to make it possible to jump through these different realities. Now, imagine what some people would be capable of doing, to get their hands on that."

– "Is that what Jones was after? Was that the same instrument he used to escape prison? Is that what he stole from Massive Dynamic? What was in the briefcase he gave you Peter? – Oh my God! – "Does he work for you, was he stealing for you?" She was now panicking, backing down in horror. – Did she really have this so wrong, all along? Has she been chasing Jones for three years when the real man behind the curtain is Peter Bishop? Was she really that stupid?

– "It's not stealing if you own the company."

– "What are you talking about, Peter? William Bell owns Massive Dynamic."

– "William Bell is a ghost Olivia, have you ever seen him? Oh! Let me guess, every time you want to talk to him, he's traveling. The truth is, he's been living in an alternate universe for decades, and he can't go back to your reality. There is too much compromise on a molecular level for him, the technology that Massive Dynamics uses over there is very unstable and they haven't figured out how to travel safely."

– Where am I? Who are you? The answer to your first question is… is very complicated. The answer to your second– He steps into the light. – "I'm William Bell.–

She's starting to really panic, gasping for air.

– "Liv, I know this is hard to hear. You're not in your world anymore. I pulled you out while you were chasing your own tail. In this timeline, in this world Massive Dynamic has finally figured out the way to travel between universes and realities, we now know how to hoop back and forth through time safely, we learned to experience time on a different level, like Observers do, we experience the many possibilities in the future based on the different choices we make." –

– "Observers?"

– "Yeah, in your timeline, they haven't interacted that much. You may have seen them in pictures, creepy bald eyebrowless guys, gray suits and hats?"

She has seen them.

– "Do they work for you too?"

– "No… but they have been a hindrance. I'm not a terrorist Olivia, but in this world I do own the most powerful and technologically advanced company in the world… well universe would be a better way to put it. If anything I'm guarding this technology, keeping it from falling into the wrong hands, trust me I've seen it in another timeline and it's not good."

– I'm afraid there's no avoiding what has to happen next. I pulled you out of a moving car. Momentum can be deferred, but it must always be paid back, in full. As I once said to Walter, physics is a bitch.–

– "Are you telling me you're…"

– "God?" He joked. "No, Leave that to Walter."

– "What was in the briefcase?"

– "Olivia!" He took her face in his hands.

– "There is a whole new reality of multiverses and time traveling, I'm telling you, you're one of the few people with the ability to do it naturally. Are you listening to me? Jones doesn't matter. Whatever you think your mission is, what I'm telling you trumps all that. Haven't you figured it out yet? This was never about stealing anything, or Jones pretending to conquer the universe, trust me there is no one version or time line where he succeeds, not even when he had William's Bell help."

– "Some things are never meant to be."

– A very vivid image of her crashing through the windshield of a black SUV falling head on and rolling like a rag doll through the pavement. Slipped through her mind. –

– "What was… in… that briefcase?" She insisted, marking the words, trying to cling to the only bit of the reality she had. She was starting to hyperventilate.

– "Nothing, it's irrelevant… it's a joke really."

– "Tell me Peter"

– "It was Nina's Sharp stapler from her desk."

– "What?"

– "We just wanted to stir the pot, and put everyone on a chase."

– "No..! No! Massive Dynamics kept it a secret, that means it must have been important."

– "Or very embarrassing! Admitting there was a security breach inside the leading company that sells high security and advanced intelligence technology to the government, just to steal a stapler. Which by the way, makes it not that secure. If the word of that gets out there, that could cost them millions."

– "No way!"

– "Oh yes, it's in every security camera of Massive Dynamics, with a little victory dance in the end!" He said amused.

Olivia stood there completely aghast. – What kind of sick joke is this?

– "Don't you see? I just needed to get to you, and I knew you would pursue Jones, and he would get you exactly where I needed you to be."

– "No.. no, no no. This can't be."

– "You see, time hopping is tricky. It has to be done in very specific locations on the planet. Soft spots we call them. You and I, we tend to pull each other. In each one of these many life's possibilities our paths always come across, that's how I found you again. Somewhere in another timeline, a long time ago I lost you. So I've been hopping between universes and different timelines searching for you, to bring you home with me where you belong."

– And so I came back for you... for us. And we started seeing each other. And I explained the differences because our relationship was different. I thought she was you, Olivia.–

And there it was on her mind, not only very vivid images, bits and pieces of nonsense events making her feel mad, but also a flood of Intense emotions running through her body, pain, disappointment, embarrassment, betrayal. And then the loud sound of her heart breaking apart deep inside. A sharp pain on the back of her head started growing.

– "No… No… Oh God! What's happening? Peter! What's happening to me?" Her head was spinning.

– Astrid, Nitroglycerine, thirty C.C.s. Peter, turn the head to the side, make sure she can breathe. I think she's receiving a flood of memories. Could be too much, too fast.–

Olivia fell to the ground and her body started shaking, uncontrollably.

– "Olivia! Olivia! Help! Help! Walter!" He yelled in desperation.

To be continued...