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It starts like this:
A bluff in Baghdad, a family reunion in a mental hospital, and the comforting touch of a near-stranger as she prepares to risk her life and her sanity – and nearly loses both.
Somewhere along the way – and rather sooner than she might have expected – Peter becomes someone she can really talk to when cases seem hopeless. More than that, Olivia finds herself confiding in him about personal things: her childhood, her time with the Marines, her doubts regarding this interdimensional war they're fighting that she doesn't even really understand.
"We'll figure it out," he tells her. "Walter's crazy but he knows what he's talking about more often than not. I've got my weird contacts, and you've got your gun." He grins at her when she rolls her eyes. "Between the three of us, we'll figure out a way to stop them."
Other times, he doesn't say anything at all. He just catches her gaze and holds it until she has to look away.
Less often, he touches her, just rests his hand on her back or arm or knee in reassurance. In those moments, as she feels the warmth of him, she can almost believe they have a chance at winning.
They learn a lot about each other in the car, which Peter supposes only makes sense since they spend so much time driving from one phenomenon to the next and chasing down leads.
It starts with the normal road trip habits people pick up about their fellow travellers – favourite music stations, preferred fast-food restaurants (he's jazz and McDonald's; she's classical and Subway) – but eventually, Peter figures they've had every conversation there is to be had, from the serious to the ridiculous.
"And so," he finds himself telling her as they cross the state line back into Massachusetts at three in the morning, "there we are in nothing but our underwear, and of course that's when the police finally show up!"
Olivia laughs so hard that she snorts – something she only does when she's exhausted or tipsy – and that sends Peter into his own bout of laughter.
In the back seat Walter mumbles something that sounds like blue Jell-O, and Peter and Olivia try to pull themselves together before they wake him.
"God I'm tired," she mutters, scrubbing a hand over her face.
"Tracking down a werewolf will do that," he agrees. It wasn't technically a werewolf, but close enough that he knows Olivia won't quibble. "I can drive for a while, if you like."
The headlights of an oncoming car let him see the sideways look she shoots him. "You just want to play with the lights and sirens again."
He strives for innocence, even though she never buys it. "Who, me?"
A quirked eyebrow and a nearly suppressed smile are her only response as the conversation fades into silence. Before long, though, she's yawning heavily, and Peter wracks his brain for another story. She hardly ever lets anyone take care of her when she needs it, but he's learning to be okay with that – and to find ways around it. If she won't let him drive, then he can at least help keep her awake until they're home. "Have I ever told you about that time in Spain…?"
Listening to Peter play the piano quickly becomes one of Olivia's secret guilty pleasures. She doesn't ask him to play; it feels too personal a request, somehow. She's also given up on making song requests, even when he asks, because half the time he ignores her and plays what he wants anyway.
Even though he doesn't mind an audience, most of the time she stays in her office, finishing the unending paperwork that comes with hunting down the by-products of fringe experiments. Sometimes, though, when the paperwork's done, or she's simply had enough of the bureaucracy, she drifts into the main part of the lab to lean against the piano as he plays. She likes watching him as much as listening; there's a calmness about him that she doesn't often see.
Whenever Peter plays, Walter is inevitably drawn away from his research to look on in awe. It occurs to her sometimes that she forced these two together for her own reasons, but maybe it was the best thing she could have done for them. In moments like this, when Walter's pride is so obvious and Peter's usual gruff tolerance of his father softens into an almost open affection, Olivia thinks that maybe something good came from her selfishness after all.
One night, the weight of it all becomes too much, and they lock themselves in the lab and get blindingly drunk.
Astrid finds them the next morning, passed out and leaning against each other on the bench, and seems to get a little too much enjoyment out of making a lot of extra noise over the next few hours.
When Peter learns the truth about his childhood, he screams at Walter, then screams at Olivia when she tries to calm him down, and then pushes past both of them and storms out of the lab, the door slamming shut behind him.
By the time Olivia tracks him down, he's been drunk for two days and it still isn't nearly enough to let him forget. She doesn't say anything, just sits beside him, their shoulders brushing. They both pretend not to notice he's been crying.
Their first kiss (not counting that time they were undercover) (or that other time Walter spiked their drinks with homemade drugs) is a little anticlimactic and a lot cliché.
It's New Year's Eve and they're threading their way across campus through pockets of mostly drunk undergrads when midnight strikes. Caught up in the atmosphere, or feeling nostalgic – or just taking advantage of the situation – he catches Olivia's wrist and tugs her around to face him. The kiss is only a few seconds long, just a press of lips against lips, but when it ends her cheeks are flushed and her smile is shy. Peter's still holding her wrist.
He slides his hand into hers, tangles their fingers together, and doesn't let go until they reach the lab door.
"Agent Dunham, what's your situation? Agent Dunham? Agent Dunham!"
Olivia can hear Broyles, but he sounds much further away than the earpiece in her right ear. Reality feels… stretched, somehow. Or narrowed; she can't decide which. It probably doesn't matter, she thinks vaguely.
Based on intelligence from a surveillance team, Shaun Wilson, their suspect, has locked himself in one of the offices in this abandoned warehouse. They only have one chance to take him out. If they give him any warning whatsoever, or if they fail to subdue him on the first try, then Wilson will have time to release a deadly engineered virus with the push of a button. While they know he's in the building, however, they don't know precisely where. He could be in one of a dozen rooms.
The thing is, Olivia knows exactly where he is.
She doesn't know why, or how, but she knows which of the rooms he's in. More than that, she knows his exact position in that room, where he's standing, the direction he's facing….
Still caught in the same feeling of unreality, Olivia lifts her weapon, aims at a wall, and pulls the trigger.
Reality snaps back into place with a shiver of sound and light, and on the other side of the door there's a dull thump.
Olivia holsters her weapon with a hand that's faintly trembling. "Target down," she reports to Broyles, relating her position, and then leans her head against the wall and closes her eyes. It isn't long before the sounds of the FBI team are ebbing and flowing around her, but she doesn't bother to respond until a familiar voice addresses her directly. "Olivia?" She opens her eyes to the worried face of Peter. "Are you okay?"
She blinks, taking a moment to organize her thoughts. "You know," she says slowly, gaze flicking over to Wilson, a single bullet hole neatly piercing the center of his forehead, "I'm really not sure."
Einai kalytero anthropo apo ton patera toy. Tell that to Peter. You're going to need him by your side.
Olivia bolts upright in her bed with William Bell's words ringing in her ears.
Consciousness comes slowly and painfully. Especially painfully. It thrums through him in time with his heartbeat, and he can't help but moan.
"Peter?" he hears dimly over the pounding of his pulse. "Peter, are you awake?"
It takes a few tries, but he manages to crack his eyes open. Walter is hovering blearily over him. "Oh god," he groans. "What happened?"
"You were run off the road, son. Do you remember?"
He does, bits and pieces of it anyway. "Olivia!" he remembers with a start, trying to sit up. That turns out to be a mistake and he sinks back into the hospital bed with a grunt. "Is Olivia okay?"
"Agent Dunham is fine." The new voice is Astrid's, and Peter follows the direction of her finger to the other bed in the room. On it is Olivia, curled up on her side and sound asleep in her street clothes. He quirks a brow at Astrid in confusion.
"She wasn't injured," Astrid explains, "not nearly as badly as you. As soon as the doctors checked her over, she signed herself out AMA and went after the people who tried to kill you. This is the first time she's slept in more than two days."
His eyes flick back to Olivia. He wants to know more, like did she catch the bastards and why were they trying to kill them in the first place, but the thoughts are fuzzy and the exhaustion is settling in, fast and heavy. She's the last thing he sees before sleep claims him.
"I'm sorry for what my father did to you."
Her pen falters with her signature, and he's already looking through his own set of files by the time she looks up. Not that any of the words are registering just now. "Peter?"
He keeps his eyes trained on the papers in front of him. "The cortexiphan trials, what was done to you. I'm sorry." It's something he's wanted to say for a while now. As much as he hates it, part of him still feels protective of Walter despite everything, but that Olivia was one of the children experimented on….
He can feel her looking at him. "Peter, you can't—" She stops, then gets up and comes around the desk. "It wasn't your fault. You have nothing to apologize for, not to me."
He does look up then, giving her a wry grin. "But he is my father, and since odds are low he'll apologize himself, I figured it falls to me to do the honours."
She studies him for a long moment, and he fights the urge to look away. Her next words are quiet, certain, and speak to fears he's had for fifteen years or more. "You're not your father, Peter."
Instinct tells him to play dumb or joke it away, but she deserves more than that. "Thanks, 'Livia." Then it's too much honesty so he rubs a hand over his face, glancing away.
She doesn't say anything, just brushes her fingers over his shoulder – he can't remember the last time she touched him, touched anybody on purpose – before returning to her paperwork, and they settle back into a comfortable silence.
Their second kiss (still not counting that undercover mission, or those spiked drinks) is a lot unexpected and still a little cliché.
It's Olivia's birthday. Walter had insisted on making her cupcakes and so Peter and his father showed up on her doorstep at an hour that would be too late for most unexpected visitors but which fits their screwed-up schedules just fine. It's well past midnight before he convinces Walter they need to let Olivia get some sleep.
He lingers in the doorway, watching Olivia watching Walter as his father makes his way to the old station wagon. "You okay?" he asks when she turns to face him. He hasn't forgotten that birthdays are usually not good days for her.
"Yeah." She smiles up at him. "I'm glad you both came tonight."
He smiles back, noting that she looks more relaxed than he's seen her in a while. Without thinking about it, he leans forward and brushes his lips over her cheek. "Happy birthday, Olivia." It's just a friendly gesture – except his voice was a lot softer than he meant it to be and why hasn't he pulled back?
He's close enough to hear the little hitch in her breathing, to feel the quick puffs of breath along his jaw. Then she's moving, stretching up just a bit to touch her lips to his cheek. "Thank you," she murmurs, and that should be the end of it except she's not pulling away either.
They both move at the same time, lips brushing once, twice, again, before he buries a hand in her hair to hold her still for a more thorough kiss. Olivia rises up on her toes, fingers grasping the edges of his jacket, and her lips part beneath his.
A door slams shut nearby and Peter pulls back with a start, realizing where they are and what they're doing. A quick glance at the car shows Walter playing with the interior lights, paying them no apparent attention.
"Well." Olivia's voice draws his eyes back to her. Her cheeks are red, but then again his face is feeling pretty warm too. "That was interesting."
"It was," he agrees, then cautiously asks, "Was it good interesting?"
She doesn't answer, simply smiles enigmatically and turns toward her door. "Good night, Peter."
"'Night, Olivia," he responds automatically, and heads somewhat dazedly for the car.
"Do you think Agent Dunham minds that we brought her cupcakes?" Walter asks halfway home.
Peter thinks back to how at ease she's been the past few hours, and the little smile he caught playing on her lips as she turned away from him just a few minutes ago. "No," he tells his father. "No, I don't think she minded at all."
Walter's quiet again until they're pulling up in front of their own house. "You know," he says thoughtfully, "I think she liked your present better." Then he's out of the car, and Peter's left speechless.
It's only through sheer will that she holds it together the entire week Ella is missing. She follows leads and interrogates suspects, all the while running on too little sleep, too much caffeine, and enough fear to paralyze her if she ever stopped long enough to think about it.
As it turns out, Ella's abduction has nothing to do with nightmarish creatures or soldiers from another dimension. Instead, it has everything to do with a man angry at his ex-wife, a man who picked up their daughter from school and spirited her away before the FBI caught him on his way to the west coast.
"What does it say about me?" she asks Peter after it's over, Ella tucked safely in bed with Rachel standing guard. Olivia felt in the way in her own apartment, which is how she ended up at Peter and Walter's place. "What does it say about me that when my niece goes missing, my first thought is that she's been kidnapped by a shapeshifter and taken to another Earth?" Her hands start to shake.
"Olivia? Hey, 'Livia…." He carefully takes the glass from her trembling fingers and presses his palm to her cheek. She goes to him without hesitation, resting her forehead against his shoulder, and he slides his arms around her. She's still shaking. "It's okay, sweetheart. Ella's fine. She's safe. You found her and brought her home." Neither of them catches the endearment, or the fact that the tone is a far cry from the last time he used it so long ago, back when they first met.
An hour later, and they've both fallen asleep on the couch. Walter wakes them just after five with a plate of blueberry pancakes that turn out to be surprisingly good.
Their third kiss is neither shy, nor hesitant, nor interrupted. Nor does it stop at kissing.
And as it turns out, it's just the beginning of many more to come.
It starts like this:
A bluff in Baghdad, a family reunion in a mental hospital, and the comforting touch of a near-stranger as she prepares to risk her life and her sanity.
But the bluff quickly becomes unnecessary, the estranged men become her own family, and the near-stranger becomes her closest friend and touchstone in the middle of this extraordinary life she finds herself living.
Olivia doesn't know how it will end, but with these men by her side, she feels ready to take on anything.
--end--