Forgotten FRINGE WIP

[rainer76]

 Found this today, um, written back in May, and then completely forgotten.  I should probably finish this story at some stage. An alt-verse fic, Liv, LIncoln, Peter.

When Olivia escorts Peter Bishop to his new apartment she doesn’t expect to see him again.  It affords her the opportunity to be blunt, to ask him what the other side’s like.  When Peter answers, voice husky with emotion, Olivia excuses herself and returns to Lincoln and Charlie, to the familiar comfort of her team.

 Her prediction of a media storm never comes to pass. 

 The next time Olivia meets the Secretary’s son, the ShowMe pinned to his shirt reads as Peter King and there can be no paparazzi if the prodigal son hasn’t returned.  Olivia, familiar with association in the use of aliases, taps a trim nail against the ID pinned on Peter’s chest. 

“Peter Pawn didn’t appeal?”

 “It lacks a certain grandiose,” he retorts sarcastically.

 Amused, Olivia brushes past him and follows Charlie and Lincoln to a class four event.  They come home dirty with sixty-eight civilians encased in amber.  Olivia spots him near Astrid and she’s suddenly, inexplicably, pissed.  “What’s Bishop even doing here?”

 Lincoln shrugs noncommittally.  “The Secretary is indulging him.”

 “Then indulge him at a playschool.  He’ll be more useful there.” 

 Olivia strips her kit off in the change room; one arm braced against the tiles as the water skids off her shoulder, sloughs down the curve of her spine and tumbles from her ass.  Sixty-eight civilians - thirty-eight males, seventeen females and thirteen children - their ages ranging from three to seventy-four respectively.  There’s grit in her eyes, her lashes clogged with water, the steam tight in her lungs and there has to be an easier solution than this. 

 Olivia doesn’t leave until Charlie hollers through the doorway about cold water, inconsiderate teammates, and his ailing muscles.

 Peter returns the following day. 

 Olivia feels the hairs on her nape rise, stiff as an alley cat.  She watches him out of the corner of her eye.  Agent Farnsworth is brittle in his presence, the staccato beat of her words rapid-fire, stressed, but they manage to divvy up the Orange computer system without conflict.  It takes Olivia five hours to realize Peter’s actually good with Astrid, as if off-centre minds, poor social skills, are the norm by which he operates.  Peter never looks Astrid in the eye.  He talks with his head bent, voice low until the vibration in her demeanor levels.  It takes Olivia longer to realize the tension Peter's holding, too, has diminished, as if Astrid were a safe harbor on a riptide ocean, floating above skeletal shipwrecks, the watery remnants of another empire.  Thoughtful, Olivia returns to work.

 The Orange O.S has the fastest statistical program in America.  Peter King apparently needs it and has his father’s blessing.  Olivia decides as long as he’s out from underfoot, Peter’s presence in Fringe Division shouldn’t be too disruptive.

 

 

 

 

 

He doesn’t stay in the apartment. Peter stares at the line of comic book frames adorning the walls and feels it’s a mausoleum to a childhood he can’t remember.  He’s not comfortable in the flat.  Peter’s not comfortable anywhere.  He walks the streets at night, braced against the cold, zigzagging from one corner of the city to the other; past Broadway, brothels, river-houses to the slums, he trails one finger over an amber breach, trying to find the pulse of a dying world, digging at the cyst where memory should reside.  Inevitably, his journey ends at the Empire State building, forehead pressed against cool glass as he watches the dirigibles float in. Sandy, twenty-two with a gap-toothed smile, a shy disposition, lets him be.  The docking station never empties of people; their background buzz like the ramblings of a madman who had talked all night.  Soothed, Peter sleeps, knowing he’s nothing, nobody, to any of them.

 

 

 

 

The first time Olivia sees Agent Farnsworth smile she almost stumbles over her own feet. 

 Bishop’s reclined in a chair, legs stretched over the corner of the computer’s table-top screen as he talks.  Astrid, per usual, has her eyes angled low but the smile on her face breaks like summer dawn, breathtakingly warm.  Asperger’s is a poor cousin to autism, sign-posted by social ineptness and higher mathematical reasoning; unlike its better known relative the emotions aren’t locked away but accessible, highly selective, it’s not unusual for a sufferer to converse with one person to the exclusion of all others.  In Fringe Division, no one gave a damn what Astrid suffered from, so long as she performed the task assigned to her.  For that matter, no one tried to engage her either. 

 Astrid’s smile is a revelation.  More tellingly, is the relief in Bishop’s eyes when he sees it.  

 Olivia, halfway down the stairs, comes to a complete stop.  Her fingers curl inward like hooks, mouth tight as she watches them suspiciously.  She meets with Lincoln and Charlie at Keggers (Lincoln’s choice) and they pass the night with round after round, their voices loud, rowdy with each outlandish story.  Olivia nurses her drink while the boy’s knock theirs back, her stomach tight with laughter, with the joie de vivre she finds with these men.  She walks home with Charlie’s arm tossed over her shoulder, with the memory of Lincoln sprawled boneless in his seat.  Olivia would die for them, knows unequivocally her teammates would do the same. She walks home with the flash-bang memory of Peter’s interaction with Astrid, and feels her suspicion sour into certainty.

 “What do you want?”

Olivia might not socialize with Astrid but the woman’s part of her unit.  Liv doesn’t know Bishop well enough to decide his game-plan (she’s actively avoided him since their conversation about the alternate reality), but where men and women mix there’s tension and she won’t see Astrid hurt. 

Peter startles, the stubble dark on his cheeks.  There are schematics laid out across the desk, his hair standing on end as if he’s fisted it.  “Good morning to you too,” he drawls.

 “Are you trying to sleep with her?” 

 It’s a natural extension, aggressive enough so Olivia can read his reaction.  Peter’s expression flickers through a dozen emotions before it turns ugly.  Olivia regrets her choice of words, would snatch them back if she could, except the tone and accusation is already out there.

“She was a friend on the other side.  As for sleeping with this Astrid, Julie Henders might object.”  The name means nothing to Olivia.  Peter’s eyes are chipped flint. “Anything else you’d like to know?”

She wants to know if the other Olivia has more tact, but she posed the question to gain an honest insight. Pandering to social niceties is a luxury Fringe, and Olivia, can’t afford.  She wants to know who Julie Henders is, whether or not she needs to run a security background on her, she wants to know how Peter knows more about Astrid’s home life than she does.  

“Has anyone shown you the SOPs and evac procedures yet?”  she asks instead.

Peter blinks.  He leans back in his seat and motions toward the second window on his computer-screen.  He’s doing his own research then, trying to bridge the gap between the world he was raised in and the world he was taken from.  The taste in Olivia’s mouth feels like ash, a sliver of regret, because no one’s bothered to show him personally. The Secretary may have given his son an ivory tower to live in but Peter doesn’t spend every waking moment there.  Olivia shifts her stance.  “You have any questions or don’t understand why the procedures are there, then ask someone immediately.  Astrid…or me, or whoever you can find.”

Peter nods curtly.

Olivia hesitates then steps toward her team, their desks sequestered together in a row. He’s un-tethered – there’s thunder in Peter’s eyes – the earliest warning system known to mankind.  Olivia wonders if her double would know how to settle him, soothe the twitches out of his runner’s frame.

“Liv,” Lincoln greets, one hip propped against her desk.

“What is it?”

“I was about to ask the same thing.”

She raises an eyebrow.  “You’re looking clear-eyed, especially considering last night’s activities.”

“You can thank my good looking charms to the wonders of Cold n’ Sobers.”

“Better than an espresso shot?”

“If I could remember what espresso tastes like I would agree.” Lincoln smiles disarmingly, and Olivia agrees, Lee’s charming and heartbreakingly young.  He angles his head toward Peter.  “How’s our kidnap victim?”

“Prickly.”

Lee nods and drums his heel against the desk.  “Out-fit him with an air canister and ear-comm, Astrid says the power usage in his apartment’s sub quota.  If he’s going to be walking the streets at all hours, he might need it.”

Olivia meets Lincoln’s eyes, an entire conversation in the space of a second, and nods.  Tersely, she changes the subject. “We had a phone-in this morning by a woman named Doris Marice, some old bitty who said something weird happened yesterday.”

“That’s detailed.  Did Doris add to the observation?”

“Only that she saw a window opening, a pathway to heaven.  She thought the angels had come to take her away.”

Lincoln grimaces, mutters under his breath.  “Another nut-case religious wacko.”

“Dime a dozen.”

“Any other news?”

“A body in an abandoned factory, teeth and nails missing, single gun-shot to the forehead.”  Olivia notes Lincoln’s impatience, his hands rolling through the air in a ‘wrap it up’ gesture.  “The victim’s name was Daniel Mewlinksi, a former employee of Bishop Dynamic, someone took their pound of flesh.  He was fired over a decade ago.  Secretary Bishop bumped the case over to us.”

Lincoln chews on his lip, head canted in the direction of Broyle’s office.  “Take Charlie and head off the local LEOs, find out if Mewlinski had a gambling debt or an angry ex-wife and if neither, find out who his associates were and what he’s been doing for the last ten years.”  Olivia grabs her jacket and swings by the kitchen to grab Charlie.  “And Olivia,” Lincoln calls out.  “This requires talking to people.  Not shooting them in the butt.”

Olivia crosses her eyes.  “One minor incident.”

Lincoln snorts; captivated by the sway of her hips as she vanishes from view.  When he turns Bishop has his chin propped against his palm, expression inquisitive. Lincoln knows the look, he’s seen it reflected in the mirror often enough. “Broyles said you worked for a unit not dissimilar to ours?”

“A little more insane, a little less tech.” Peter rubs a hand over the back of his neck.  “The old bitty who witnessed the doorway to heaven, where was that?”

And pretty good at deflection.  

Lee folds his arms, trying for arch and failing miserably.  Bishop appears amused rather than chagrined.  Lee says evenly, “Those type of phone-calls are common, every time there’s an ‘event’ the religious nutters are off quicker than a bride’s pajamas - jamming our phone-lines - doom-saying this and doom-saying that.” 

Impatiently, Peter backtracks through the computer’s logbook until he finds the information for himself.  Perplexed he stops and re-reads the address twice.  Lee leans over his shoulder.  “Is Boston General still on 55 Fruit St?”

Lee rocks his seat forward minutely and corrects him.  “One block over.  On this side of the universe fifty-five is residential.” 

“You mind if I talk to her?”

“Yes,” Lincoln says flatly.  “For one you don’t have authority and two, your father will kill me if anything happens.”

“Then come along and protect me from old bitty’s,” Peter says wryly.  He takes Lincoln’s measure slowly, a sweep from head to foot, his expression sardonic.  “You’ve got a gun.”

“How come everyone in my social network’s sarcastic?” 

Peter’s smile is reluctant, curving his mouth, he maintains eye-contact with Lee, his expression expectant. Lincoln knows it’s more than idle curiosity, something about the phone-call piqued Bishop’s interest.  Personally Lee hates being kept out of the loop, he hates secrets altogether.  They have a tendency to bite people in unexpected places.  

“I’ll come along.  But you do what I say when I say it, no questions asked.”

“That’s not what Olivia said.”

“That’s why I’m in charge.”

 

***

 

 

Apartment 6A has the unique scent common to the elderly.  Lee would bet his left nut widower Marice hasn’t cracked a window in the last decade.  The heater’s on full blast, trying to reconstruct Miami summer in winter, a vase with decaying flowers sits on the mantle piece, the petals spilled across the floor.  There’s rosemary beads wrapped around Doris’ wrist, her hands shake with minor tremors, the onslaught of Parkinson’s’. 

“I saw it right over there, beside the window.”

Bishop has a spectrum analyzer in his hand, leaving the heavy talking to Lincoln as he ghosts the perimeter of the room.  Lincoln schools his features into professionalism.  “So you saw a window beside the, um, window?”

“Don’t act dubious around me, young man!  It was bright as heavenly light! I saw the angels of our Savior beckon me from the other side.”

Olivia’s sister fell into a cult in the months prior to childbirth.  None of Rachel’s prayers helped her or the young one she was carrying.  Lee tries to keep his face friendly, because the only ‘angels’ he knows herald destruction, and he’s had enough religious nutters shouting in his face to last a lifetime.  “What were the diameters, ma’am?” 

“Three meters by three,” Doris trails off, uncertain.  “He didn’t look well…the angel on the other side.” 

Peter goes preternaturally still.  The spectrum analyzer flashes red in his hand.  Lincoln throws him a sharp look.  “How long did the window stay open for?”

“Two minutes, if that, it flared brightly then vanished,” Doris runs the beads through her hands, the sound clickety-clacking in the oppressive heat.

“No one stepped through?”

“No angels, sir.  I imagine it wasn’t my time.”

“I imagine so.”  Lee smiles at the woman then swings in front of Peter, chest to chest, close enough he can feel the other man’s warmth.  Peter startles and hops backward.  “Was is it?”  Lee asks casually.

“Kappa radiation.” Peter taps his finger against the windowpane.  “I’ve been in this room before, except on the other side it’s the prison ward at Boston General.  There was a gaping hole where the window used to be, a message scrawled on the wall.”  He sounds distant to Lincoln’s ears, as if he’s fading away. 

“And for those of us with IQs less than 190, what’s the significance of Kappa radiation?”

“A theorized connection with bending time.”

“Time travel?”

Bishop squints at him.  “Just what I said.”

“Doris, what time did you see the window open?”

“2:45 pm, on the dot.”

“That was fifteen minutes before a new wormhole formed.” Anger claws down Lincoln’s spine, sixty-eight civilians lost their lives yesterday, and the last time someone tore their way into Lincoln’s universe, they came for one person.    “Is it them?”  Peter’s face flattens, inscrutable as a sphinx. Lee knots one hand in his collar and jerks him forward.  “Is it them?”

It’s the wrong move.  Bishop shoves him, violently quick.  Lincoln stumbles three paces and sees Peter shift his weight, moving to the balls of his feet. 

“I don’t know yet,” Peter spits.  “Walter created a device to step through worlds, but originally he meant to travel through time, it just…didn’t work the way he thought it would.”

“And they still have it?”

“David Robert Jones stole it.  One year ago.” 

“If you boys are going to fight then I’ll ask you to take it outside.  Otherwise I’ll cane the both of you with my walking stick.”  Doris is already out of her seat. Lee doesn’t like the predatory gleam in her eye.

The tension between the two men remains thick.  They make their apologies to Doris, as well as their thanks for her assistance, and make their way out of the apartment door.   Peter stops Lee halfway down the hallway with a hand to his elbow, his voice tight.  “Can you give me a day?  Please? I want to check the carbon readings, see if I can pin-point the ‘when’ on the other side.  It might not be what you think it is.”

“Sure,” Lee says easily.  “I didn’t get this position by running to Command with unsupported theories.  I’m good at keeping secrets.”

 

***

 

“So,” Lee says as he steps into Broyle’s office.  “I think someone’s trying to break into our universe.”

 

***

 

Daniel Mewlinski had been strapped to a table-bench; three of his fingernails are missing, the molars torn from his gums.  The third eye is a neat bullet wound directly above his forehead.  Olivia circles him, her feet treading lightly. 

He bled from both nostrils at some stage, broken capillaries around cheekbones and eyes, bruises across his extremities.  Olivia’s not trained in forensics but she takes one look at the ad-hoc generator, the copper wires discarded on the floor, and knows Mewlinksi was interrogated, mind probed with the combination of electric shock to the forebrain and neuron translator.  “They wanted information.”

“Yeah.”  Charlie indicates the bullet wound, his face tight with frustration.  “And Mewlinski gave it.”  The interrogators wiped the evidence of Daniel’s last thought with a hole to the forehead.   “He was sixty-four, wife died two years ago, no children, financials are clean.  His severance pay from Bishop Dynamic set him up for life.”

“Why was Mewlinski fired?”

“Do you want to ask Secretary Bishop or should I?”

They stare at one another.  “You know, technically, I think Lincoln’s in charge.”

Charlie laughs, his feet scuffing against the floor.  “I don’t mind telling you, Liv, this case doesn’t sit right.”

“You say that about every case,” Olivia teases.  “The worms make you squirm.”

“Cute, you should take the comedy act on the road.” Charlie consults his hand-held, his voice turning gruff.  “Daniel worked with two other scientists, they’re credited with the initial design of the shape-shifters Walter Bishop later enhanced.”

“Who were they?”

“Harris Pike and George Bell.”     

Olivia squats down, perfectly balanced on her haunches as she examines the floor for casings.  “Either of them still employed by Bishop?”

“Pike was given the same severance package as Mewlinski…  Bell, I don’t know yet.” 

She can feel Charlie’s stare on the back of her head, pregnant with speculation.  “I had a coffee with the Secretary’s son this morning, he’s good with Astrid, and I saw him talking to Lincoln before we left.”  Irritated, Olivia ignores him.  “Which makes you the ugliest girl at the prom.  I’d say he was avoiding you, if I wasn’t so certain you were avoiding him too.”

“How’s it relevant, Charlie?”

Charlie runs his tongue over his teeth and looks in the opposite direction.  “I guess it’s not.”

 Olivia backs off a notch, lets some of the tension ease from her shoulders, and looks down at Mewlinski one final time.  “I think we need to ask some important people some important questions.” 

Olivia never asked Peter if he loved the girl from the other side.  Olivia’s known the truth of it since she stood at parade rest and heard him describe her double in fits and starts - whatever Peter’s reasons were for leaving the opposite reality - they didn’t come cheaply.  Time to acclimate to the differences between worlds, to the differences between people, is the only kindness Olivia can afford him, a kindness Secretary Bishop’s keen to overlook.

Charlie’s hit was on target; Olivia has been avoiding Peter. 

 

She’s been uncomfortable since the Secretary made his request to drive his son home.  Olivia feels like she’s walked into a movie theatre halfway through a foreign film.  She’s not privy to the language, to the weight of expectation in Peter’s eyes.  She has no interest in competing against a phantom memory of herself, and until Peter’s willing to discount a history they don’t share, staying away from him was the easiest working solution.  Or it was, until he set up shop in Fringe Division.

LATER PARTS IN THE STORY - AVOID AT WILL !!!

 

Peter stretches his back, t-shirt riding high, revealing a strip of pale stomach, Lee, who’s opportunistic by nature, takes a moment to appreciate the view. “What’s she like?”

 

“Guarded.  It’s her against the world…I guess she’s not big on sharing information.”

 

Lee glances sideways.  “She knew?”

 

Peter’s eyes remain fixed.  “She must have.”  He peels the label off his beer, knee braced against the table, his smile twisted.  “I spent the greater part of my adult life running cons.  You pick strangers as your mark, it makes it harder to get under their skin but it lets you pull the con without any attachment involved.  The only rule is simple: keep the people you care about close, don’t lie to them, which I guess makes me the biggest chump of all...” Peter takes a sip, there’s a perfect ring of condenscion on his knee-cap, the beer dangles from his fingertips precariously.  “Walter pulled off the greatest con ever, and I never had a clue.  Olivia…” he trails off, fingers curling inward, eyes closing, and changes what he was about to say, raises his beer in a salute, “Here’s to karma, I guess.”

 

“Olivia’s single,” Lee says conversationally.  “Frank and her had a disagreement about children last year.  Between the two of us, I’m sure we could wrestle her into bed.”

 

Peter’s mouth twitches.  “Only if she adores overconfidence.”

 

“I’m a good looking man and you’ll pass muster at a pinch.”

 

“Thank you,” Peter drawls.  “I’ll take the image to bed with me.”  He drops the empty on the sink and heads toward the door.

 

“Peter, you came here to fix Walter Bishop’s wrong-doing,” Lee grimaces, uncertain if what he has to say will be taken in the right spirit, uncertain if it’s anything Peter wants to acknowledge at all.  “It was a good reason to come.”

 

 

Peter touches her, fingertips skating across her nape, shivery sensation like electric current, sparking off her skin and setting goose bumps to rise. “What is this?” he whispers.

 

“Unit colors.  Lee tells me his tattoo’s on his ass.”  She can feel Peter’s smile, his hand flattens on her nape, brushes upward into the hollow of her skull.

 

“You haven’t investigated?”

 

“I don’t want to be that close to Lincoln’s ass.”  Olivia turns, the motion places space between them; it allows Olivia to draw air, to smile despite herself.  Peter’s eyes are slate blue, turbulent as a stormy ocean, for a moment, Olivia feels coveted.

 

 

 

Olivia cups his chin, her fingers running over stubble, porcupine skin.  “Don’t slip away, Peter.”  She searches his eyes, laying it out for him because her world is dying, bleeding from the inside and the fault doesn’t lie with her people.  If he steps through, Olivia’s world has lost whatever advantage it had.  “Please, please, this is your home.”  His face is corpse pale, staring at the window where half of David Robert Jones’ body has materialized.  If Olivia strains her ears against the rain, she can hear her own voice calling for Jones’ to halt, the dim echo of a weapons discharge; if Bishop’s memory of events is correct, there’s another version of him standing on the opposite side, twelve months younger and with no clue as to Walter’s deception.  Olivia whispers, “We need you.”

 

Peter’s face crumbles, the words slotting into place like a hidden key, Olivia wonders it’s so simple, so devastatingly simple.  Peter’s hair is wet with rain, both of them on their knees in the mud.  He turns to face her, his voice a vicious snarl.  “I won’t hurt them.”

 

“You won’t have to.”

 

“Walter…”

 

“You won’t have to, I promise.” 

 

As long as Peter doesn’t run Olivia can protect him, give him time to find a solution that doesn’t involve the destruction of worlds, so long as he doesn’t run.  He stares at her, the intensity of his focus like high-beams on a blackened night, Olivia holds still, whatever Peter’s searching for he apparently finds, his eyes slip shut, the fight leaves his body.  Olivia loosens her grip, moves her hand to the back of his head.

 

Olivia keeps sentinel, her eyes fixed on the window as it shimmers, Peter’s forehead pressed against her shoulder.  Olivia thinks she catches a glimpse - blond hair, fixed determination, a mirage of her own features in a blackened night before the window warps like a fun-house mirror - and David Robert Jones’ body, (arm, shoulder, part of his torso and foot), drops to the sodden ground in a bloody shower.

 

Peter shudders and pushes away, stumbling to his feet.  He turns a half-circle, fingers clenching into a fist.  Olivia stands, quiet now, and wraps her fingers in his hand, she leads him through the dead forest, across the dried up lake, toward Lincoln and a family of her own design.

 

***

There’s a knot on the back of Lincoln’s skull the size of a fist, fingertips damp with blood every time he touches it, the two of them look like survivors from a mud-wrestling event, with more bruises and none of the fun.  Lee hisses.  Peter knocks his hand away and presses a damp cloth to Lincoln’s skull, his touch surprisingly gentle as he examines the wound.  The three of them took adjourning rooms, Olivia has her own, letting the guys twin-share it; the expense account under government rebate’s not all that generous.  “Thanks,” Lee whispers, eyes half-closed.

 

“What are you going to tell the Secretary?”  Not my dad, or Walter, or even my father. 

 

If the senior Bishop gets wind his son tried to return ‘home’ the resulting shit-storm would engulf them all.  The Secretary could erase Peter’s memories, they have the tech – and from Walter’s perspective, it might be the easiest solution - if he ever wants to claim a relationship with his son not tainted by the Other.  In the long run it might be easier on Peter too - destroying another reality is simple if there are no faces attached to the massacre.  Lee holds the other man’s stare, willing Peter to trust him, to trust them. “I’m going to tell the Secretary you stopped Robert David Jones from crossing into our reality,” and then, because Lincoln needs the reassurance too, “you are going to find a third option, right?”  Every relationship’s reciprocal to some extent, Lee needs to hear Peter’s promise as badly as the other man needs to anchor himself.

 

“Yes.” 

 

There’s solidness in Peter’s eyes, in the way he answers, and for a man who said he didn’t know where he belonged Lee trusts him implicitly.  They’ll draw their own trenches of warfare, circle in close.  Peter’s mouth curves into a sad smile, he steps toward the bathroom, shrugging his shirt from his shoulders as he closes the door.

 

The shower turns on.

 

Lincoln swallows, drops the cloth to the tabletop and knocks on the adjourning door.  Liv’s already showered, red tresses damp on her shoulder.  She’s dressed in the motel’s robe, her feet bare as she slips past him into the room.  Olivia turns a circle; she stares at the bloody cloth discarded on the tabletop and kisses Lincoln. It doesn’t take much to curl an arm around her neck and surge forward, mouth hungry as he kisses the slope of her neck, breathing Olivia in.   They could have died today or yesterday or any day in between; it’s a cliché not an excuse but it makes sense to Lincoln, he won’t waste what time he’s been gifted with.  He’s loved Liv since the moment she pulled his ass out of a class four event; since he realized Olivia stood fearless where others hesitated to tread.  Olivia’s naked under the robe, hairless, he flicks a finger over her pubic bone, over skin silken soft, folded with layers and encounters slick.  “You’re going to do this with me,” Olivia whispers, her mouth nudging under Lincoln’s ear.  He’s already hard, has been since he saw Peter strip his t-shirt off for the shower, adrenalin and post battle leaving him on edge. 

 

“Yeah,” Lincoln whispers, and seals his mouth over Olivia’s, stealing breath and air until he hears the bathroom door open.  There’s a second where Bishop doesn’t respond, a second or two where Lincoln thinks Olivia miscalculated the situation; then Peter crosses his ankles and leans against the doorjamb.

 

Lincoln’s happy putting on a show, but Liv twists, ducking under his arm and sliding forward, her robe drops to the ground in a flutter of white cotton.  Lincoln doesn’t know what he was expecting, modesty or shyness aren’t words he would associate with Liv, but the poise she demonstrates is something he envies.  Olivia’s not ashamed of her body.  She enters Peter’s personal space as if she has every right, as if her welcome is given, her hands tugging the t-shirt off insistently, her fingers knotting in his hair.  Peter bites her lower lip, eyes wide open, and Lincoln approves because this isn’t revisionist history; there will be no altering the story to suit half-formed dreams, to buoy the hopes of yesterday, this is solace, and it’s a claiming, leaving an indelible fingerprint behind.  Peter’s eyes should be wide open, and if he draws blood, demands bruises of his own devising, then it’s nothing less than what Peter’s been asked for. 

 

It’s not a gentle coming together.

 

They twine around one another, the kiss open-mouthed, her hands dropping to his hips to push the boxers down.  They’re both still slightly damp from the shower, skin rosy red, flush clean.  Lincoln strips off, watches avidly as Olivia pulls in close and guides Peter from the doorway, two-stepping him in Lincoln’s direction. 

 

 

***

Lincoln comes out of the bathroom with his skin damp.  Olivia’s sprawled on her stomach, naked and easy, tracing an invisible tattoo on Peter’s skin.  “They stole him when he was seven.” Olivia sounds bewildered, angry, turning her head to meet his gaze. 

 

They don’t know they’ve lost him, Lincoln thinks, Newton destroyed the footage from the motel; every recording that contained the Secretary in their reality gone, as far as Walter’s concerned, his ‘son’s merely gone to ground – if they’re bothering to look for him at all, it’s hard to tell, the motives of the Other Side have never been clear to Lincoln.

 

Bishop’s asleep; one knee falling open, his breathing even.   Olivia etches her pattern on the hollow of his hipbone, fingertips a hypnotic caress.  Lincoln takes the other side of the bed and kisses Olivia, the two of them raised over Peter’s somnolent form; tongues tangled, mouths wide, his fingers skating across her tattoo.  Lee recognized the design she was drawing.  He pulls back to whisper, “You want to mark him?”

 

Olivia’s eyes are the color of beer, fierce as a big cat; her fingers cease their restless pattern.  “He’s ours Lincoln, this is his world; I’m not against reminding him.”

 

They’ll mark him, Lincoln decides, every time Peter looks down he’ll know exactly where he came from and whom he belongs to.  Lincoln kisses her, ruthless, thirty years old and burning the candle at both ends, no point in stalling when destruction is imminent.