Work Text:
'The truth is, we're all dying.'
***
In one world, Henry Dunham is born on March 26, 2011, on the floor of a restaurant in Chinatown, New York, 6 months premature. He is delivered by a cab driver named Henry Higgins, his namesake and godfather, and is the son of Olivia Dunham.
He is the step-son of Lincoln Lee, was raised by him since he came into the world. He was there when Henry was born, there when his mother died for that brief moment. Has been there beside his family for as long as Henry can remember.
He remembers the picnics they had when he was about 4, in secluded areas of parks away from the Amber. He remembers playing soccer with Lincoln, and those times when he underestimates his strength and kicks too far (of the time he met a strange old man with a stranger, balder friend), as Lincoln laughs and corrects him, shows him tricks with a wink and a grin on his face. He remembers his mother watching them, a sparkle in her eye that flashes every time she laughs, red hair shaking with her.
He also remembers the looks she has sometimes when she looks at him, a sad smile on her face. Henry suspects it's because he must look like his dad, with his curly brown hair and bright blue eyes, because he certainly didn't get them from her.
(No one ever tells him who it is, and eventually he stops asking.)
When he turns 26, Henry applies to be a Fringe agent. The world is dying, has been dying for a long time, and he wants to help. He follows in his mother's footsteps, works his way up until he's Captain just like his step-father was.
Amber spots get more and more frequent, now dotted so close together that there are fears they will all collapse upon one another and suck the world up into itself.
One day it does, and he is one of the first to go in.
***
'From the moment we're born, we're dying.'
***
Time rewinds and Henry is barely one. The world is collapsing around him and his mother holds him close. Lincoln runs beside them as orange flames lick the ground and white flashes tear open the sky. The world shakes and everything breaks, and Henry doesn't feel himself anymore.
***
'And life is just a series of bad choices and regrets in between.'
***
In another time, Henry Dunham is never born at all.
He ends up in a state of limbo, a place of non-existence surrounded by white. He is everything and he is nothing; he is something that doesn't exist. But he is not alone, is joined by others too. The world is a shifting place, and people are spat out and sucked in at random.
(The universe is sorting itself out, one of the others say, a man with red cuts on his face and bright blue eyes before he disappears, vanishes in the second he has to talk.)
All he knows is that this is the place people go to when they are not needed in the world; can't, haven't, won't, exist in the world that happens now.
He doesn't let that bring him down.
***
'Life is the thing to be afraid of.'
***
A year later, in another place (another time, another reality), Henry Dunham comes back into the world as Henrietta Bishop. She is born on September 21, 2012 to Olivia Dunham and Peter Bishop, in a hospital in New York City. Her name is given by her father when he cradles her gently, rocks her in front of her mother as they both smile.
She blinks open as he whispers her name. Memories swim in the depths of his eyes, and for a moment Henrietta can see a reflection in them, of her yet not her. There is a gladness and a sadness, a shadow of a ghost within them. The first thing she says is a gurgle, not what she wants, but it has the intended effect. Her father brightens, smiles wider and the ghosts disappear from his eyes.
Her brightest memory is of the one when she is 4 (no, 3 years, 1 month and 5 days), of the day when she was at the park blowing on dandelion puffs as her father looks over with a grin on his face. She remembers running to him, mouth wide as she jumps into his arms and spins, her eyes shut tight in glee and blond hair swinging behind her. She remembers the feel of his hand on her back, the warmth of his palm and fingers.
She also remembers that that's the last day she sees her parents. It's a flash of light and the resounding crash of rubble, a desperate shout for her and a numbness. When she opens her eyes, she's in a place she doesn't recognize. Her mother isn't there, her father isn't there, she wears a tag with her name: 'Etta', scribbled on hastily.
(She's put into the system, last name unknown, first name shortened and she doesn't say anything.)
By 24, 'Etta's moved through 6 foster homes, become a Fringe agent, and knows everything she can of her history. Public sources only provide so much, but she finds her house, her aunt, her cousins. The bulk of information doesn't come until she types her parents' names into the Division database, where she not only finds they were in Fringe Division, but were *The* Fringe Team.
She's imagined finding them for years, working together, fighting battles against the Invaders. The amount of times they'd won, the scenarios she went through in her mind, is nothing compared to when she finds them in Amber, exactly the same as they appear in her memories.
Except life dictates that this is too good for her, and within the month she finds them, she's shot and slides down the wall. Her last act of defiance, to the Observers and her parents, is to activate an anti-matter bomb with a smile on her face; they have to run now, she doesn't give them a choice.
She dies with the words "I love you" echoing in her mind, and she doesn't regret a thing.