alchemyalice | Frequency

Title: Frequency
Fandom: Fringe
Genre and/or Pairing: Peter/Olivia
Rating: PG
Warnings/Spoilers: all of Season 2
Word Count: ~1,500
Disclaimer: I am not nearly as awesome as J.J. Abrams, and thus, I own none of this.
Summary: Olivia speaks. Peter hears her.

A/N: Written for

kissbingo , prompt 'ear'. I don't know what it is about prompts, but I can never do them straightforwardly.

Peter.

The first time is like a feather touch, hollow and breathy.

He barely notices except for how his name sounds beneath the vibration.

Peter. Oh god, Peter. They aren't going to let me go.

He closes his eyes, and listens.

***

He knows from the start that she’s not the same. This Olivia is doing a great job—she’s a smart, adaptable woman with a mental toughness most Marines couldn’t grasp, and she’s mostly kept to herself, citing various ailments and exhaustion that would be totally understandable anyway, given how she just leapfrogged back and forth between worlds. But Peter knows his Olivia too well for that; he knows that she wouldn’t stop for such trivial things like health, and he knows the raw spots of her that they don’t speak about.

He mentions her stepfather once, so gently and quickly, but it takes a half-second for this Olivia to flinch and look accusingly at him.

One half-second too long.

Oh god almighty.

***

Peter walks the halls of Harvard and makes his way down to the basement. Students are beginning to recognize his face. It’s a little odd.

He nods at one of them before ducking his head and then opening the lab door.

“Hello, Walter.”

They’re back to ‘Walter’ now. A superstitious part of Peter thinks that the day he started calling Walter ‘Dad’ was the day the universe decided to fuck everything up. Probably because it didn’t like the lie. Considering the things he’s seen, he’s really not surprised he’s started to characterize the universe (well, both of them) as one fickle bitch.

Not to mention how he can’t really forgive this Walter. Not yet, at least. He understands him in a way he wishes he didn’t, but that doesn’t really shake the jar of not belonging.

Especially with Olivia being…not.

“Peter! You simply must come and see what I’ve managed to create. It’s been far too long, and I was having such trouble remembering, but now it’s here!”

Walter is gleeful in the way that could either mean insanity or mundanity, or both. It’s been quiet enough in the past week. Whatever is happening in the alternate universe, Walternate is keeping it quiet and fairly non-invasive, so far.

Peter looks at not-Olivia, who is leaning against the piano with her arms crossed, looking dubious. He catches her eye like nothing’s wrong, and asks the question with his eyebrows. She tilts her head to indicate greater chance of mundanity than insanity. Okay then.

He tromps down the stairs into the lab and says, “Yeah? What is it?”

“Strawberry banana milkshakes! My original recipe! I had forgotten the true proportions of the ingredients, but I’ve since remembered. Along with the components of my secret ingredient.”

“May I ask—“

“Don’t,” Olivia interrupts, more sharply than she would, though she tries to soften it with a smile. “You don’t want to know. And don’t drink it.”

Walter looks vaguely hurt. “You had some without complaint.”

“That was before you told me it had LSD in it.”

Peter looks at the ceiling. “I’m so many kinds of not surprised.”

“You’ve had far larger doses than that, Agent Dunham,” Walter says with a sort of amused reproof. “That much will barely give you a buzz. Even better, though, is how it enhances the strawberry flavor!”

He continues to list the other ingredients with alarming vigor, which Peter tunes out for the sake of his own sanity, and because he’s watching the emotions on not-Olivia’s face. Confusion first, then alarm followed by cautious acceptance of—what? Peter wonders. It could be any number of possibilities, with only Walter’s reminder of something that happened to someone that isn’t her. He lists the possibilities he can see in the narrowing of her eyes, the twitch of her jaw muscle. That Olivia-from-here was into drugs, that Walter uses drugs on a regular basis, that she’d had a crazy hippy upbringing…all not the truth (well, okay, the second one was the complete truth), but Peter had every confidence that the truth of her counterpart's dosing would be the last thing to occur to her.

When she notices him looking, he blinks, smiles, and looks away. Astrid suggests gently that Walter make a batch of milkshakes without hallucinogens.

***

Broyles knows something is wrong, knows it in his gut, even when Peter won’t tell him yet what it is. So he barely raises an eyebrow when Peter puts in a request for a couple of days off. “I just need to straighten things out,” he says. “In my head. What with the parallelisms and—“

“It’s fine,” Broyles interrupts. And then looks at him in that solemn way that makes him seem even taller, if that’s even possible. “Do what you need to.”

And that’s some smooth doubletalk if Peter’s ever heard it. He nods, and slips out of the FBI building.

He drives, first on the MassPike and then down I-87, silence from the radio, windows up. He doesn't know what happened to her, but considering the switch, he can guess.

Peter.

It’s stronger now, the signal. She’s working, that's the only thing that can explain it; she's putting all of those fucked up skills and childhood drug trials to use. Peter doesn’t know how to encourage her, but he can damn well listen.

Peter, she’s not me.

This is all wrong.

“I know,” he murmurs, and can barely hear himself over the car engine. “I know.”

He remembers the address of the Secretary’s office. It’s just a normal corporate skyscraper here, all glossed windows and leather chairs. He goes through the revolving doors and shows his badge to the woman at the front desk. When he gets to the elevator, he punches the button for the basement level.

He exits with a janitor who doesn’t blink an eye at him.

He finds the place like he’s dowsing for water. There’s a static feel to the spot, tucked in among ventilation shafts and piping.

Peter. Come on, dammit.

“I got you,” Peter says. “I'm coming.”

He can’t see her. She’s tucked out of sight in a way only electromagnetics could reach her. But there’s a waver in the air, like a heat shimmer. She resonates here, like the other universe is trying to spit her out.

Peter wants to reach through to her.

He’s pretty sure that if he tries, he’ll lose a hand.

“Olivia?”

Peter! Where are you?

“Same place as you,” Peter says, “On the other side.”

Oh god. How is this…?

“It’s all you, I’m guessing.”

I keep trying to cross by myself, like Walter said I could, but I can’t, there’s not enough power, and something’s blocking me, even when it feels like I could.

“I’m sure Walternate had anticipated something like that,” Peter says. “Are you okay?”

I’m fine. Even through the static, she’s dismissive of herself. Peter can’t help but smile, just slightly. I’m confined. They feed me regularly, and every once in a while Walternate or someone else who I know but don’t comes and stares at me. They haven’t started asking questions yet.

He hears the tamped down dread in her voice, but knows she won’t appreciate him calling her on it.

He says, “Your counterpart does a pretty good impression of you. It’s not perfect, though.”

He realizes belatedly that he’s sat down on the floor, knees tucked up in the circle of his arms, back to the wall. He can feel the crackle and shimmer next to him, the press of someone who doesn’t belong where she is.

“We’re gonna get you out, Liv. We haven’t figured out how yet, but we will.”

There’s a pause, and then, You’re really right where I am?

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sitting next to a patch of air that won’t stop warping. I think you’ve destabilized it or something.”

Olivia doesn’t answer, but he can tell she’s thinking. What of, he can’t guess.

And then he feels it, like a buzz of electrical current. It shivers across the shell of his ear and hovers like breath, vibrating against his cochlea. He imagines her, a mirror image of him, legs tucked up in that small cell, harsh lighting overhead, head turned so her lips brush delicate skin over cartilage. He wants to turn, but she’s got it just right, this contact that isn’t contact, just far away enough not to cut the both of them in half, close enough for it to feel like what they want it to be.

Flawless instincts, Peter thinks.

How long can you stay? Olivia asks in his head, but he almost feels the exhale like a charge.

He settles, keeps his head still so that he can still feel the echo of her lips. He can already sense how Olivia has recharged, her tone shifting from scared and desperate to solid, competent. She doesn’t need him to stay any longer, not if he has better things to do, now that she knows that they’re doing everything in their power to get her back.

But he wants to stay. He wants to stay until Walter figures it out, he wants to stay while they set up whatever they need to break through, he wants to just stay. “As long as it takes,” he says. “We’ll come to you.”

He pulls out his phone, and calls Broyles.

He’ll stay right here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

cut-thestring.livejournal.com

I love this. I love your take on how Peter finds out about Alt!livia. Admittedly, I haven't been reading much Fringe fic lately, but I thought it was refreshing to see him not flip out on her or even confront her at all, and just go to help Olivia directly. I also like how you wove Olivia's 'powers' into the fic, in the beginning and coming back to it in the last half. :D Cleverly done.

Again, this is great. Good fic makes me happy! (:

From:

dark glasses, game faces

Frequency

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags