Entry tags:
Run This Town (Fringe Exchange)
I pulled ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elfin in this year's ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fringe_exchange. Her prompt was:
Things I'd like: In general, I like super-smutty porn just as well as fluffy gen, and everything in between. I have a great fondness for characters being enthusiastic about their kinks. I like pairs, threesomes and moresomes all equally.
Specifically, I loved the adult Etta we saw in season 5 and a story about her would be amazing, whether it. Alt-Olivia/alt-Lincoln always makes me smile, as does alt-Olivia/alt-Charlie, and alt-Olivia/alt-Lincoln/alt-Charlie. Really, I just love alt-Olivia in all her snarky glory, whether paired with another character or not. Also, I love Olivia - character study, missing scene, anything. She's the best.
Things I wouldn't like: negativity toward alt-Olivia
And thought, I can do something with that.
8,200 words in the altverse later, this is that thing. Spoilers through 4x20 "Worlds Apart". Huge thanks tokerithwyn for telling me what didn't work, notating my more creative grammatical inventions, and making happy noises in the margins. Any flaws that remain (and I can see several) are all mine.
Title: Run This Town
Warnings: none
Characters: Redverse Olivia Dunham, Redverse Charlie Francis, Blueverse Lincoln Lee, Mona Foster, Redverse Walter Bishop, OCs
Summary:
Can't be scared when it goes down
Got a problem, tell me now
Only thing that's on my mind
Is who’s going to run this town tonight
“Any change?” Olivia asked Astrid. She’d paced a hole in the carpet between Astrid’s terminal and Charlie’s desk since the event started.
“There has been no change,” the other woman said in her careful style. “A Class Nine event, eighty-three-point-two miles east of Nantucket. As I reported to you, Agent Francis, and Colonel Aguilar in my initial report an hour ago. And in every update to that report,” she added pointedly.
Olivia turned on one heel to face Charlie, slouched in his chair. “We should be there,” she said. “This is bigger than the Boston quarantine office can handle.”
“What do you want to do, steal an airship and check it out in person?” Charlie asked, unimpressed. “Livvy, the boss says no-go, we don’t go.”
With Broyles out, the Secretary had pulled Colonel Aguilar out of the Fringe Chicago office to oversee (and clean house, rumor said). Anyone who let who let themselves be deceived by the petite woman’s soft appearance, the physical opposite of Colonel Broyles’ looming presence, quickly learned she shared Colonel Broyles’ scary, scary unconcern for anything like common sense in the face of results. Indifference to orders was one of the very short list of personnel quirks on Aguilar’s zero-tolerance list. Olivia let out a restless breath as she made another circuit of the room.
“If the microquakes get any worse, we might have to start answering calls in New York,” another voice put in. The other side’s Agent Lee still looked out of place in the office, a familiar face falling into unfamiliar patterns. Her Lincoln would be pacing the floor with her, she thought, while this man plowed through Fringe Division orientation paperwork with a duffel bag shoved under his desk.
Charlie shook his head. “We’ll be out,” he corrected, “you’ll be here. Don’t want to miss your flight, do you?” Aguilar had taken one look at Lee and ordered him to Quantico for a month of intensive retraining. Lee shrugged unhappily at the reminder. “Hey, this is Colonel Aguilar’s version of a compliment,” Charlie reminded them both. “If she thought you were hopeless, she’d have you shuffling paperwork somewhere nice and safe. She’s got that sort of pull.”
“Yes, that came through clearly,” Lee said, but looked unconvinced. “It would be nice to think it was because of something I did, rather than who I remind people of.”
Olivia shook her head. “Aguilar read all our reports about the work you and Peter Bishop did on the Jones case, and your help capturing Nina Sharp and finding the shapeshifters’ headquarters. Trust me, no one’s confusing you with our Lincoln.” Including her. Identity blurred at odd moments, but when she looked him in the eye, this Lincoln was too still, head at an ever-so-slightly different angle. “If we did, we’d, you know– ” she made a vague hand gesture, deliberately smiled a little too widely “–get the science geeks to figure out which Lincoln you were. Like that movie with, um...”
“Arnold Schwarzenegger?” Lee supplied. “Total Recall?”
Olivia snapped her fingers. “Patrick Swayze.”
“Agents,” Astrid called. “The Nantucket event is stabilizing.”
They turned to the big incident board, Cape Cod a lonely hook on the left side of the map. The angry red indicator that had flashed over the ocean was fading into the map as they watched. Across the room, technicians and field agents relaxed.
“Just in time,” Lee said as he reached for his earcuff. “Taxi’s here.”
“Let me know when you get to Quantico, okay?” Olivia said impulsively. It didn’t seem right to send Fringe’s newest agent off alone. “Don’t wander off without letting us know.”
His smile was not her Lincoln’s, but it sent a similar shiver down her spine. “I think I can do that.”
Lee checked in from the Fringe training grounds with short anecdotes about training. The current cover story is that I’m your Lincoln Lee with a head injury from a Fringe event. The Fringe event… well, that’s true, isn’t it? Olivia felt an unexpected huff of laughter escape her lungs. The head injury is a self-sustaining rumor, after the Avocado Incident. No one but the Secretary’s office buys the Captain Lee part. The Agent in Charge was very clear that even with brain damage, Captain Lee would know how to operate a decohesion detector.
She wrote back with small talk and a couple of apartment listings near the office.
Are you kidding me, he replied. For this much money, I could buy a house in Connecticut.
She grinned. It felt like a mask flaking off around her mouth. Welcome to New York, she wrote back.
As much as she liked the guy, four weeks gave her time to process, and start laying to rest the illusory Lincoln that hovered in the corner of her eye. The respite made Agent Lee a welcome addition to HQ’s roster, even with Colonel Aguilar keeping him in a tight orbit around the office during his first week back in New York. On Tuesday of his second week back, he pulled together three apparently unrelated Looker reports that ID’d a radical hacker group’s negative energy materials supplier: Nina Sharp, under an alias, working out of a Manhatan apartment. When the dust and arrests had settled, Colonel Aguilar had chewed Lee out for excessive zeal in the same breath she’d commended his initiative.
Charlie clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to Fringe Division, Agent Lee,” Charlie said. “C’mon, let’s get you a drink.”
What Olivia hadn’t realized about Lincoln was that, across all the universes, any Lincoln Lee was a giant nerd.
“Nolan directed a Green Arrow trilogy,” Lee said weakly.
Mona laughed giddily. “Not quite,” she replied. “It’s Red Arrow over here. And they are really good movies,” she gushed, as she leaned back against Charlie. Charlie gave Olivia a look and a minute shrug across the cozy booth. She smirked back. You married her, Charlie.
She had to give Charlie some credit. Mona might have a lousy poker face, but her transparent enthusiasm injected energy into what could have been an awkward evening. The Secretary’s office was still dragging its feet on the paperwork for Lee’s cover story, and until their i’s were dotted and t’s crossed could Agent Lee please try to avoid all contacts familiar with the late Captain Lincoln Lee? Or leaving his hotel, when not at work? Pushing to get Bug Girl read into one of the hottest secrets of the century had been a smart – and kind – move. Olivia swirled the last dregs of tonic water in her glass, briefly lost in thought.
“Anyone else need another round?” she asked, easing out of the booth. “Mona? Lincoln?”
Mona and Lee were still at it when she returned. She handed Charlie a beer as Lee shrugged, in response to one of Mona’s questions. “Do you have Douglas Adams over here?”
She nodded. “The Dirk Gently guy? Of course.”
“That’s not what he’s known for over there…” he trailed off. Olivia stifled a snicker. The increasingly inaccurately named “Hitchhiker’s trilogy” had been part of her pop culture briefing on the other side. “People let you know about the big things, like changes in world history and Machines that rewrite timelines. It’s the little stuff that trips you up. The things you don’t see until they’re gone. That was the punchline of a joke in one of his other novels.” He looked around the crowded room. “No more McDonald’s hamburgers.”
“Lamburgers,” Olivia corrected him.
“Lamburgers,” Lee echoed skeptically.
“Yeah, that was the headline after all the sheep died. ‘No more lamburgers’.” She bumped his shoulder with hers, deliberately cheerful. “If you want a hamburger, we can hit the golden arches. This is New York! There’s a million McDonald’s.”
But it wasn't about comics, or lamburgers. Olivia locked her apartment door behind her and licked her lips uncertainly before she dug out her mother’s scrapbook.
There were plenty of snapshots floating around from her childhood, including a couple that had shot around the internet after she’d medaled at the Olympics: little Olive and Rachel posed in front of a freshly painted door, Marilyn and Olivia outside a gun range. Olivia kept turning the pages, the pictures stretching out across the years: Rachel’s college graduation, Olivia at Rachel and Greg's wedding, Rachel and Marilyn at the baby shower. The grandmother-to-be looked radiantly happy, but Rachel was already a little puffy, fatigue dragging at the corners of her smile. Morning sickness, their mother had scoffed, as she had poured Rachel a glass of water, sparkling clean in the golden evening sunlight. I couldn’t keep anything down until the second trimester either. It’ll pass, sweetie.
It hadn’t.
The last picture in the scrapbook had been taken at the hospital: Marilyn and Olivia on either side of the bed, their hands meeting Rachel’s swollen fingers on her belly, all of them smiling at Greg and the camera. The four Dunham girls, as close together as they’d get.
The briefings provided by the shapeshifter Newton had covered the facts of the other Olivia Dunham’s life: colleagues, favorite restaurants, known associates. But they hadn’t touched on the substance under the surface, the holes and stumbling-blocks that had tripped her up: Walter’s panicked 3 AM calls, a nearly empty Johnnie Walker bottle by a stack of takeout menus, stumbling across page after page of emails and video chat logs, including pictures of the niece she’d never met and the nephew whose existence hadn’t been even a glimmer of possibility.
The hardest thing is the people, Lee had written from Quantico. The drills are tough, but the look in someone’s eye when I have to say, no, I don’t remember them... and the look when I say or do something he wouldn’t. I volunteered for this, and I wouldn’t change that decision. But it feels like I’m getting to know this side’s Lincoln Lee by the shape of his absence. I wish I’d known him better in person, not by what he’s left behind.
Some things you got to choose; some things life, fate, whatever, chose for you. Out of habit, Olivia slipped the scrapbook back in her work bookshelf, the one place she always had been pretty sure Frank wouldn’t pry, before turning in for the night.
Olivia scanned the situation room as she strolled in with the rest of the midshift the next morning, sipping her tea (black, one half-and-half, no lemon). In Broyles’ glass-walled office, Aguilar leaned back in her chair, gesticulating to an invisible audience. A lot of serious faces manned the desks, including Lincoln’s.
“What’ve you got there?” Olivia asked Lincoln, leaning over until her hair brushed the desk.
“A Special Forces unit raided Nina Sharp’s residence at six o’clock this morning.” He tapped a snapshot of men and women in BDUs frozen in the act of rushing an apartment building foyer. “Charlie said Secretary Bishop ordered the raid. Colonel Aguilar’s been on a conference call with Liberty Island since she came in. She wants to keep anything related to the other side in Fringe–”
“I bet,” Olivia said, irritated. “Sharp’s our case. And I recognize those warrant exhibits - those are your leads. Why would the Secretary farm it out?”
Lee shrugged. "Manpower? Politics? There's been a lot of focus on tracking and apprehending the shapeshifters, but the follow-up was…” he hesitated, but plowed on, “...downgraded, more than once, when Colonel Broyles was in charge. I think we’re feeling the effects of that now.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “You think there’s another mole? C’mon.”
“I really hope not,” he said. “We’re missing something, but not that.” He flicked away the snapshot. “Some other connection. Sharp worked with Jones, Broyles was suborned by Jones… in your report you said Sharp told you Broyles was ‘just a pawn’. Small potatoes.”
“It was a bluff. She was trying to rattle me." Olivia said derisively. “You can’t really think someone’s out there, I don’t know, masterminding David Robert Jones.”
“Sometimes the best lie is the truth,” Lee countered. “The research team’s hit a wall tracing Jones’ history, even with the Nina Sharp investigation throwing new light on his possible associates. What if someone’s deliberately erased the information before we even knew we needed to look for it?” He leaned in slightly, glasses catching the overhead lights. “Take a step back. What do we know about Jones?”
Olivia opened a hand. “Well, most of our information came from Peter Bishop’s original timeline… he was some sort of biomedical expert, a terrorist connected to the other side’s ZFT movement. He died in that timeline, but didn’t in this one.”
“And over here, he’s working with this timeline’s Nina Sharp, running one of the most complex biomed programs we’ve ever heard of as a footnote to the multiverse experiments. Project management on a literally world-spanning scale.” He leaned back, absorbed in evidence reports highlighted in amber and red. “And almost no evidence any of this was taking place for, for years.” Lee was silent for a long moment. “We got lucky when we captured Nina Sharp, but the more I think about this, the more I really don’t like Jones running silent. Given his history, I’m worried how he might celebrate his re-appearance.”
“Astrid can run any tangible hypothesis we can tie to facts, but she can’t run lack of evidence,” Olivia said, frustrated. “It’s like the Chung case on your side... the hand of God, ‘tears of Ra’ guy?” she clarified. Lee nodded slightly, listening. “He made this compound that was some sort of paradox. To find Jones, it sounds we’d have to solve a similar paradox. We need to know what we’re looking for before we can look for what we need to know.”
Lee sighed slightly. “I wish–”
Olivia cocked her head at a familiar meep-beep, meep-beep. “Is that our cue?” Lee asked, watching her closely.
She held up a hand, listening for the shift in the monitor room’s low-voiced conversations.
“Anomalous energy signature detected,” one of the techs called out, over the whooping alarm. “Local… Manhatan. Confirmed, breach in Manhatan.” Olivia caught Lee’s eye, nodded sharply as she pushed away from the desk. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aguilar emerge from her office as she tapped her earcuff off.
“Dunham. Where’s Francis?” she snapped.
Olivia looked at Lee. “Tea run,” he said. “Not a good time?”
Aguilar’s mouth twisted with lively gallows humor. “The Army task force at the Sharp residence tripped something that triggered a level one alert. The task force CO swears they’ve got it under control, but we’ve heard that before. I want our people on the scene before we have another Boston. Take Jessup and Lee, Hagen’s stuck on the Nixon Parkway.”
“Ma’am,” they said in chorus, scrambling for the elevator just as Charlie stepped out, balancing several take-out cups.
“Got the alert on the way back. What’s it this time?” he asked, with a resigned air.
Olivia flashed him a bright smile. “Someone ordered a wake-up call downtown.” She grabbed his shoulders, steered him right back into the elevator as Lee appropriated and set aside the other agents’ to-go orders. “Finish yours in the car, old man.”
“All right folks,” Charlie shouted hoarsely as the response team piled into the van, “first reports indicate an event on the 14th floor of a residential building at 5th Avenue and 119th Street. Someone triggered a device with the usual effects: blue flash, gravitational anomalies.”
“Is that Army-speak for ‘our guys floated to the ceiling?’ ” Olivia asked, half-seriously.
Charlie shrugged. “Could be a crusher – there’s been a casualty already.” He continued, “the officer in charge is a Captain Owens. Usual teams are responding from the NYPD and fire departments, just in case we need backup. Aguilar’s getting custody of the scene worked out.” Charlie looked around the van, made eye contact with each team member. “Other than the Army team, we’ve worked with all these people before, let’s act like it. Dunham will lead the evaluation team, I’ll be Fringe’s smiling face on the street with Jessup.” That got a few snickers from the tactical squad. “Agent Lee–” Lee looked up from a tablet, over his glasses “–is on science and risk reports. Lee says to move, you move.”
Olivia nodded thoughtfully. Putting their greenest agent in the technical hot seat wasn’t a great compromise, but leaving Lee out with the secondary teams, mixing the other agency personnel who had worked with her Lincoln, invited different problems.
God, she hated politics. She wished the Secretary’s office would clear Lee already and end this, this waiting. Olivia chewed on her lip, tried to redirect her restlessness into last-minute equipment checks.
She wasn’t the only person with nerves. Charlie fiddled with an injector as Lee read off the vital stats, attention darting between spiky, erratic graphs. “Numbers are showing limited molecular dissolution, no failure… yet. Air quality’s good, no oxygen needed.” On both crowded benches, hands that had started reaching for bottled air relaxed.
“You heard the man,” Charlie said as he slipped the injector back into a pocket. “This is a little one, if we handle it right. But we don’t know what else Sharp’s got in there that might accelerate the breach, and we don’t know what else the Green Berets might’ve tripped over on the scene. Be polite, but don’t let their people get in the way of doing our job.” He popped the door and jumped out, Olivia hard on his heels.
NYPD had beaten them to the event. Men and women in Army BDUs worked under the rapid direction of civilian police, barricading the wide street and pushing back a milling crowd as the Fringe Division personnel roared in.
“Who’s in charge of the scene?” Charlie shouted, squinting into the morning sun.
“Over here,” a competent-looking woman in her thirties called out. “Captain Janet Owens, Special Forces.”
“Charlie Francis, Fringe Division. And my partner, Agent Dunham. How’d your casualty happen, and where’s your event witnesses?”
“Initial report was that Sergeant Vaschenko entered apartment 1441 with his team and jostled some kind of device on a coffee table, which exploded. The team was affected by reduced gravity and sporadic reorientation.” Owens nodded in the direction of several bloodied and shaken-looking young men and women huddled near an Army transport. “He was thrown against the ceiling–” Olivia and Charlie glanced at each other “–causing ultimately fatal injuries. His CO and the rest of his team are being held for medical evaluation.”
“We’ve got some field medics with specialized experience, they can look your people over if you want,” Charlie said. “Livvy, anything urgent?”
She shook her head. “Can you question his team?” she asked, shifting from foot to foot. “We should get Lee and the response team upstairs, see if this is proliferating.”
Charlie nodded.
“No one’s reported any other effects, other than the first gravity shifts,” Owens added. Owens’ dark face drew into a puzzled frown as she looked past them. Olivia glanced back and followed Owens’ sightline to Lee, in conference with Jessup and the other agents. “Good luck, Agent Dunham.”
“Thanks,” Olivia replied, and flashed a polite smile at the other woman before she jogged back to Lee’s side. “Got the field kit? We’re going up.”
“Remind me why we’re taking the stairs?” Lee huffed, somewhere around the tenth floor.
“What, not up for a little exercise?” Olivia said, teasingly.
“I want to the gym this morning. Today’s fitness plan didn’t include a second round of weightlifting,” he said, hefting the science field kit for emphasis.
”Well, on one of my first responses in Fringe, we had a class two vortex on the 64th floor of the Chrysler building. The first response team thought they could take the elevator.” She shook her head. “The debris thrown out by the vortex ripped through the primary and backup cables.”
Lee shifted the kit to his other hand as they kept climbing. “Failsafes didn’t stop the elevator?”
“Nope. Stage four degradation, something wrong with fundamental forces. Linc said it was an elegant fuckup. We ambered three offices, tried to call the elevator, and that’s when we found the first team.” Linc had lost his dinner while Charlie held his head out of the mess. “Fourteenth floor, here we are.” She pushed open the heavy fire door.
A bar of amber sunlight was flung across the hall, ending at the half-open door of 1441. Olivia looked at Lee; Lee looked back at her. She listened closely, frowning. Was someone – a looter, or a confused civilian – in Nina Sharp’s apartment?
It was unlikely, but just in case… Olivia met Lee’s eyes as she put a finger to her lips. He nodded, and dropped behind her as he swapped the decohesion detector to his left hand, using it to brace his service weapon in the right hand. The public image of Fringe Division, Olivia thought wryly, science and guns. Agent Lee might play it a little more buttoned-down than her Lincoln, but on him it looked pretty good. She gestured for the rest of the team to stick tight in the stairs. She slid into the hall ahead of Lee and pushed the apartment door wider as silently as possible.
This side’s Nina Sharp was a woman who valued silence. A hardwood foyer was covered with a boldly patterned rug in the aggressively modern style the other side’s Nina also favored. Soundproofing muted New York’s ever-present traffic to a distant hum. The little foyer opened to a sunny living room, with a kitchen to her right. Olivia’s boots sank deep into muffling carpet with each step. She drifted toward the kitchen, half-sensed Lee pushing into the living room as she cleared the kitchen.
“What the–” Lee shouted hoarsely, as a near-identical voice snapped, “FBI, on the floor.”
Olivia twisted back toward the foyer and around the corner as Lee replied to himself, “The FBI doesn’t exist over here. You know that, right?”
She blinked. Lincoln Lee was holding himself at gunpoint, a mirror image marred by one’s glasses and the other’s three-day stubble. An upended, blast-scorched coffee table and fragments of what might have been a briefcase bomb, the heaviest components stuck at improbable angles in the ceiling and upper walls, completed the tableau.
Lee thumbed the safety off. “Fringe Division, on the floor.” He didn’t move as he asked Olivia, “How hard do you think it would be for one of the shapeshifters to drop off the map?”
She swallowed as she brought up her own service weapon. Aimed for the double’s heart, just a little over from the last place she’d laid hands on her Lincoln.
“Another–” the double’s face was a study in contrasts as his weapon dropped out of position. Incredulous was winning out. “Did you– wait. Liv, I can explain.”
She didn’t move, hands steadied by cold, furious purpose. Olivia focused on her target, avoiding his eyes. “If you really are Lincoln Lee, prove it. Because if you’re not, if you’ve been walking around wearing my best friend’s face for the last two months, I promise you will not leave this room alive.”
“Liv,” he said, “What can I give you? C’mon, we’ve had this argument. You know how easy it is to fake stuff that’s in the records. I guess we could talk about Frank, and that time at that bar in Queens, but then I’d have to admit–”
Lee moved, just a hair. In her Lee, it might not mean anything, but this guy probably had an idea. “Tyrone,” he broke in.
The other man’s shoulders sagged as glared at his double. “Why do you– I am trying to have a life-saving moment here.”
“Good idea,” Olivia said to Lee, impressed. It wasn’t the facts, it was the reflexive tells that betrayed the substance of the person behind the face.
“Thanks.” Lee glanced past his double to Olivia. “Your call.”
Olivia licked her lips, eyes unintentionally meeting the double’s. If it talked like a duck, and walked like a duck… it could still be a shape-shifting duck, fooling them in the heat of a crisis. If it were only Lee and herself at risk, she might’ve gone on her gut, but they could lose the building, maybe even the block if she blew this call. She shifted her stance, slid one hand off the handgrip, found her earcuff under a fall of hair. “Charlie,” she said, “Charlie, get your ass up here right now.”
Not-Lee’s face brightened. “Charlie’s here? Oh, good.”
Charlie made it in record time. “Livvy, what–” he rounded the corner with the same double take.
“He says he’s not a shapeshifter,” Olivia said, tried to ignore the tightness in her throat. “Charlie, I really want to believe him.”
“Not a shapeshifter, not a mind-reader, just me,” Not-Lee said. Charlie and Lee shot him exasperated glances.
“We still have an event going on here. Do you know anything about it?” Lee asked Not-Lee.
“Who d’you think ID’d this as Sharp’s operation? I’ve been cooling my heels in Owens’ back seat all morning. Snuck out when the exploratory team started screaming for trained backup over the radio. Sharp had one of Jones’ amphilicite devices–” Not-Lee glanced up at the metallic shrapnel and back down to the scorched, broken coffee table “–set up as a failsafe. Ambering the apartment should seal the breach. The problem is, if we amber the apartment–”
“–we lose the evidence,” Olivia and Lee finished with him.
“Nice to see you’re all on the same page,” Charlie said. “You–” he pointed at Not-Lee, “If you drop the weapon, for the moment, we’ll assume you’re on our side.”
Not-Lee bent down and set the weapon on the floor, pointing the grip at Olivia. She took a deep breath as she retrieved the handgun, ejected the clip, and cleared the chamber. Everyone else in the room breathed out as she replaced her own service weapon in its holder and stuffed the other gun under her jacket.
“Situation?” Charlie asked Lee, who was swapping his own weapon for the science kit. Red light flickered and crawled through the air, concentrated near the coffee table, as he checked for universe bleedthrough.
“Not stable,” he said. “By the book, we should have ambered this place five minutes ago.”
Not-Lee nodded, picked up the thread. “Especially if Sharp kept any of Jones’ other amphilicite devices. A little flux could trigger another device and start a full rip at any second.”
“Think we can get another five minutes?” Charlie asked them.
Not-Lee shrugged. “This place could go up any minute. I’d be happier with more like three. Smash and grab?” he asked.
Charlie touched his earcuff. “Jessup, you following this? Yeah, send ‘em in and start the clock now. If something goes wrong, amber the whole building, that’s an order.” He let it go. “Livvy, you and him–” he pointed at Lee “–set up the quarantine potentiators. It’s moving day,” he said to not-Lee, “and they’re helping,” as the rest of the response team flooded the tiny foyer. “Two minutes, thirty seconds, go, go, go!”
Lee handed her two canisters. “I’ll take the bedroom, you handle in here,” she said quickly, then cut through the response team's human chain, not looking back and Lee and the double. She ignored the banging and thumps as the response team shoved the apartment's furniture into the hall, as well as the muffled thread of Not-Lee backseat driving Lee’s setup.
She activated each canister as she dropped them at opposite ends of the room, then scanned the scene: modern cream wallpaper, matching contemporary red duvet on the bed, a recently remodeled closet and bathroom, an unlikely contrast to the old-fashioned writing hutch, closed. "Hey Charlie!" Olivia shouted. "Are we taking anything out of the bedroom?"
"Up to you, Livvy," Charlie shouted back breathlessly.
Quarantine protocol has been activated. Quarantine will be initiated in two minutes.
"Can I get some help here? There’s a big writing desk–" she started to push it across the carpet "–doesn’t look like it’s – shit!" The desk jerked to a stop as something snapped and popped away from the wall.
"Liv!” “Olivia?" Lee and Not-Lee’s voices overlapped as they sprinted into the room.
"Unplugged something," she said tersely, as the automated voice droned on. Quarantine protocol has been activated. Quarantine will be initiated in one minute. As if she needed a reminder that a vortex could coalesce and spit out giant mutant ants, or a breach could twist the walls into a new floor – or ceiling – any second. Maybe they’d get carnivorous bugs, again. “Give me a hand."
They shoved the heavy desk into the living room just in time for the 45 second warning. Olivia's stomach lurched as she passed the spot the coffee table had been, felt her feet losing traction on the floor. Gravity was definitely losing its grip – she didn’t know the science behind it, just that it was a really bad sign. The three of them gave the desk a running start, now dangerously light, and slid it through the hallway into the rest of the evidence heap at 30 seconds. Charlie and the last of the response team ran out behind them, dragging hard drives, shopping bags stuffed with paper records, tablets, and incongruously, the framed pictures that had decorated the kitchen. “That everyone?” Charlie shouted. “Where’s Ruiz?”
Quarantine protocol has been activated. Quarantine will be initiated in fifteen seconds. “Here!” Ruiz shouted, hidden on the other side of the tumbled evidence pile.
“Someone stuck back there, Jorge?” one of the tac squad shouted to Ruiz, which opened the floor to general ragging. Olivia swept a glance through the hall and visually confirmed Charlie's more formal head count.
Quarantine protocol has been activated. Quarantine will be initiated in ten seconds. The warning beeps escalated in scale and intensity.
"Whoever designed the quarantine warning system has a real flair for the dramatic," Lee muttered.
"The Secretary's hidden theatrical yearnings?" Not-Lee shrugged as he ran a hand through his disarrayed hair. The usual thick smoky cloud drifted down the apartment's sunny living room and curled around the half-open door as they watched.
Olivia looked away as the amber solidified and cleared, refracting the morning light across the hall in new, distorted patterns. Her gaze landed on Lee, half in shadow, as he studied not-Lee, the mottled light masking his face.
Quarantine protocol is active. Authorized personnel only.
Lee dragged his attention back to the science tablet. "Environmental readings are stable. We're clear," he said to Charlie and the rest of the response team.
Not-Lee peered at the edge of the solid amber, using one foot to prod at the last bit of the foyer carpet where it unrolled from the quarantined residence. "Wouldn't notice a thing if the door were closed. Nice work,” he said to Lee.
Charlie drifted closer to their little group. "Jessup called up. Seems Owens got some new orders and took a squad in, broke our perimeter. Bets it's got to do with him?" He glanced at not-Lee.
“What’re we betting, that seventy you owe me?” Olivia asked.
Charlie rolled his eyes. “Some lightweight can’t remember who paid her tab last night.”
“My tab–“ Olivia mock-sputtered, as the elevator doors opened. “How about first dibs on asking Aguilar if she knew about this?”
Owens stepped out of the elevator, flanked by a Special Forces tactical team. “If you want to ask her, Livvy, let me know first. Some of us have responsibilities now,” he finished, unconsciously tapping his ring finger over his crossed arms as Owens’ team approached.
"Agent Francis, Agent Lee, Agent Dunham, I've got orders to secure the scene and transport you to the Department of Defense," Owens said briskly. You too, Captain," she said to not-Lee. "I think you can guess what this is about.”
Not-Lee grimaced, but nodded.
"Captain Owens, I appreciate you're under orders, but we have reason to believe this, uh, person represents a threat to Fringe operations," Charlie said.
Owens let out a disbelieving huff. "If your threat could slip through the wringer the Secretary put this task force through, we have bigger problems," she said, as her subordinates herded them toward the elevator. "Believe me when I say this man has been established as Captain Lincoln Lee by the most rigorous tests a very paranoid science team could devise."
The ride to Liberty Island was remarkably silent. At the small fleet of black cars, their impromptu escort split them into pairs, herding Olivia and Charlie away from the two Lincolns. In the back seat of one SUV, Charlie caught her eye, and stared significantly at one restlessly tapping foot. Olivia leaned back into the SUV's leather seat, firmly planted both boot soles in the floor mat, trying to echo Charlie's jaded facade. Neither of them particularly wanted to discuss Not-Lee or the investigation in progress around Captain Owens’ unknown quantities. Even staring at the back of the driver's seat or at the traffic flowing past, she was pretty sure they weren't doing a great job projecting the legendary Fringe Division cool.
Their ambiguous escort, guides or unannounced arresting agents, swept them into the Up elevator, not down to the basement. "At least they haven't locked us in a maintenance closet," Lee muttered as the elevator lifted smoothly.
"That might have saved your life, considering Broyles was in Sharp's pocket," his double said, edgy. "And don't get your hopes up. Labs are on the third floor. The chemistry department has its own hazardous waste service crew."
Olivia glanced between two Army escorts at the elevator call screen. "So what's on the fourth floor? Other than the Secretary’s office."
"Some windows,” Not-Lee said. “The elevator. It’s biometrically locked, of course. Maybe a lobby for Fringe agents who ask the wrong questions and need a time out.”
"Jesus, Linc," Charlie cut in, as the elevator slid to a stop. “What’s gotten into you?”
He shifted on his feet. “Not bugs,” he said.
“They’re not bugs–“
“–they’re arachnids,” Lee, maybe-not-Not-Lee, and Olivia chorused.
The Secretary didn't keep them waiting long. His spacious office was nearly empty when they trooped in. At the window, the Secretary was silhouetted by the view across the Hudson, his back to an aide in class B's. “Captain Lee," the aide greeted them, but broke off as Olivia and Charlie loped into the room, Lee and the last Special Forces kids trailing behind.
Civilians usually didn't bother her, but the Secretary did. Or maybe dealing with Secretary Bishop after she'd watched his double shuffle through a shabby research lab in boxers and a flowered kitchen apron bothered her. This Walter Bishop turned at their approach, the superficially casual shepherd of the Department of Defense at the flourishing center of his far-flung herds.
"Thank you, Major Warner," the Secretary said to the aide. "I think that will be all for now." She took the hint, and even managed to avoid looking any of the three – four – Fringe agents on her way out. Olivia let herself fall into a half-assed at-ease, Charlie to her left, maybe-Lincoln on point between them, Lee offsides on her right.
"Explanations are in order, I believe," the Secretary began. "And apologies.” He paused. "The sniper's presence at the shapeshifter Canaan's apprehension sent alarms ringing from the most junior Lookers right up to my office. We knew our enemy Jones, and we knew some of his methods: terror, subterfuge, infiltration. Captain Lee's injury in the line of duty presented an opportunity to turn those methods against him, removing from Jones' surveillance an experienced, resourceful agent." He studied their expressions. Olivia felt her face set in studied neutrality. Trust went two ways, and he’d pulled the trigger first. "I had anticipated a longer, subtler hunt for the mole, when I feared Jones had replaced our agents with shapeshifters or worse. In such a hunt, an insider's perspectives would have been invaluable." His lined face sagged, briefly weary. "Even in my darkest moments I did not question Colonel Broyles' loyalty, or conceive he could continue such a deception for long. In the second point, at least, I was correct." Secretary Bishop sighed. “No one knows better than I the lengths a father will to go to, to save his child. This does not blind me to other motivations. The methods Jones used to suborn Philip–” he glanced at Charlie “–suggested other levers he could apply to pry open our operations.” Charlie stared right back, unblinking. That’s right, Liv thought, tried to keep her anger off her face. Try to rattle us, Mister Secretary. Sir. Half of Fringe, herself included, had taken their shot at Charlie's bugs at some point. Charlie wasn’t going to crack. “His cooperation, combined with the intelligence gleaned from Captain Lee's and Captain Owens' interrogation of Nina Sharp, suggested grave dangers to our world. And so I maintained the option to produce Captain Lee in a future gambit."
It rang true, Olivia thought. Either Walter Bishop, given the choice to go through channels or squirrel away some treat for his personal use, would go for the more secretive option. In this world, though, Bishop wasn’t hiding Red Vines or self-prescribed drugs. “It’s inconvenient when a dead man is, say, caught on security footage,” Olivia interrupted, bold in her fury. Linc and Charlie winced, but Lee nodded once, slowly, with the look around the eyes her Lincoln got as he found the puzzle-pieces locking together. “How useful if you’ve got a double around to explain those little slip-ups .”
"Liv–" Linc hissed, out of grabbing range.
But the Secretary let a slight smile crease his face. “Agent Lee’s presence provided an unwitting distraction for this sleight of hand. A cover which has now backfired,” he continued, an edge of chagrin in his voice. “Agent Lee and Captain Lee identified Nina Sharp’s residence within hours of their double’s discovery. If Captain Owens’ investigation of Nina Sharp and Fringe Division are to avoid tripping over each other, the time for subterfuge is coming to an end. To establish and defend the peace – a lasting peace – will require energy we cannot afford to waste on foolish concealment.”
The escort left them on the pier: four Fringe agents once more let loose on an unsuspecting world.
Olivia rocked on her heels, still vibrating with tension. Lee wandered over to the environmental boards, apparently discovering an intense curiosity about air quality in the outer boroughs. Removing himself from the family quarrel, she thought wryly, which left her team in a rough triangle near the water.
"Ferry should be along in about five minutes," Charlie said. And then we can get out of here was the unspoken implication. They were all on edge, Olivia thought: Charlie fiddling with his injector again, Lee withdrawn, Linc… her Lincoln looked as wrung out as she felt.
He glanced at her, met her eyes. “Settle down, Liv. I volunteered. Volunteer, you know that word?"
"Yeah, I know how Secretary Bishop asks people to step up . 'Agent Dunham, we've identified a chance to strike back at the other world and only you have a chance at successfully completing the mission.’ " Olivia crossed her arms and scowled as she looked up at Lady Liberty’s bright torch.
It was the things that weren’t in the open that were their faultlines. Things people… just didn’t bring up. A scrapbook mixed in with procedural handbooks. Brunch with a red-haired stranger who called her by a childhood nickname only her mother remembered. A voicemail for someone whose face she was wearing. “Aunt Liv, you forgot my birthday.” The substance knitting together the facts. If Jones had offered her, say, one VPE-free life, no questions asked, what would she have done?
She didn’t like the thought that Jones could get under her skin like that. Might be able to get to anyone like that. She shuddered, imagining the possibilities.
"We all knew this was a dangerous job when we signed up, Livvy," Charlie said. "Not that you're off the hook," he added in Linc’s direction.
“Ha.” Olivia shook her head, tried to muster a smile. It didn’t take. “After Frank, and everything last year with the other side, losing you–” she broke off “–either of you–”
She crossed the empty space, wrapped her arms around her Lincoln. Squeezed, hard, as his arms came around her. “Never do that to me again,” she whispered roughly, as she dug her fingers into the back of his jacket. “Please don’t ever do that again.”
“Someone’s got to watch your back,” he said, just as hoarse, hugging her back fiercely.
She felt Charlie wrap an arm around them both, leaning in. They held on, a tight unbreakable unit, under New York’s muggy skies.
Linc had to go to Philly, of course, once the Secretary had broken the news to his father and stepmother. With Linc off task force duty and Fringe’s name cleared, the Secretary had no qualms about dumping the rest of the Sharp-Park-Jones-Bell-shapeshifter investigation back on Aguilar’s desk. Aguilar passed it on to her current favorites with dispatch. Olivia flipped between warrant exhibits, AARs, and the rest of the documentation pile, shaking her head at the parallels between her Lincoln and Agent Lee’s reports. Similar phrases, overlapping trains of thought, close attention to the same little details... she hoped that, for everyone’s peace of mind, the two men would find their equilibrium faster than she had with the other side’s Olivia Dunham.
“We really need a better name for this investigation,” Lee said tiredly, after a briefing from Owens’ people. Olivia glanced over. SPJBS was doodled across his old-fashioned paper notepad, along with Bridge Follow-up, ShArkBell, and several increasingly silly possibilities.
“ZFT? The Jones case?” Olivia tried aloud.
Charlie rubbed his face. “Only slightly less vague than The Investigation. Nice and short, good for talking about work at bars. Now can we get going?”
“Awww, someone misses Bug Girl,” Olivia teased, practically skipping to the elevator.
“That’s Mrs. Bug Girl, Livvy,” Charlie said. “Or you could, I don’t know, try using her name.”
“Am I missing something?” Lee asked, glancing between them. “Do I need to know something before Mona’s crowd talks me into going to that comics convention?”
“Livvy didn’t exactly see Mona’s finer qualities when they met,” Charlie said, hitting the lobby button.
“I have never seen someone transform into a fifteen year old girl the way she did,” Olivia said. “It was…” she cut herself off.
“...creepy? Buggy?” Lee finished for her. He took a long step to keep Olivia between him and Charlie as they got out of the elevator. “Give her a chance, Olivia.”
“Yeah, Tyrone, message received,” Olivia said. It didn’t get the rise it always got from her Lincoln. Another little difference in a world rocked by change: Frank out, Mona in, Linc dead and back from the dead, like one of his comic book stories. Aguilar in Broyles’ office, with no clear line of succession if - when - she lit out for home.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Or maybe she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit she knew exactly how she felt. Somewhere in the basement of her brain, there was another little girl crying about bad timing in an unfair world. Suck it up, she wanted to tell that kid. “Is there anyone you don’t like?” she asked Lee.
He pretended to give it some thought as they left the building and stepped into the sticky heat of late summer. “I’m pretty annoyed with this side’s Nina Sharp,” he said thoughtfully, raising his noise over the sounds of street traffic. “And I’m not a big fan of Walter’s surgical technique. The other side’s Walter,” he clarified, “not Secretary Bishop.”
“A terrorist and the man who broke two universes,” Charlie said. “That’s it?”
They bickered amiably all the way to the bar. Mona jumped up from the bar with a wave as they walked into the blissful chill of the air conditioning. The man sitting next to her half turned with an easy smile.
“Hey, look who’s back!” Charlie said, punched Linc’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be in Philly?”
“Dad and Sarah would’ve been happy to keep me a while longer, but the job’s here,” Linc said, with a smile. “A week off was more than enough, especially when Sarah’s on a baking binge. She made the raspberry-lemon bars,” he told Olivia.
Olivia swung around, nailed Linc with pleading, hopeful eyes. “You brought some back, right?”
“Mmm, I thought about eating all of them by myself…” Linc intercepted Lee’s puzzled look. “Sarah doesn’t bake on your side?”
“Sarah who?” Lee asked, genuinely curious.
Linc’s eyebrows rose. “Huh. Dad didn’t–” he started to ask, as Olivia said to Lee, “Sarah’s lemon bars are notorious. Don’t worry, Charlie and I’ll eat your share. She’ll never know.”
“Very funny, Liv,” Linc said.
“Thank you for the, um, considerate offer, but I think I’d like to make up my own mind about this," Lee replied. Linc glanced approvingly at his double.
Five didn’t fit in the small booths, so they grabbed one of the tables: Charlie and Mona, Linc and Olivia, Lee on the table’s short side. “Give me the updates,” Linc said, as Mona and Charlie ordered at the bar, “any developments?”
“Because Monday’s not soon enough?” Olivia said wryly.
Linc raised his hands, palms up. “Because on Monday Colonel Aguilar’s going to be giving me the death glare. It’s a little distracting.”
Lee broke in. “No sign of Jones–” he glanced around the crowded room, lowered his voice “–locally. Forensics is still processing everything we pulled out of the Sharp residence, but we've already gotten one lucky hit. That writing desk Olivia pulled out the bedroom? There was a communication device inside. It looks like an early personal computer, but it’s linked to a quantum-entangled counterpart located somewhere on the other side. In theory, at least."
Linc leaned in, unsurprised respect on his face. "Good eye, Liv.”
“Aguilar and the Secretary are still hashing out where to set it up,” Olivia added. “Aguilar wants to keep it at HQ, especially if we make contact with someone hostile on the other side. Secretary Bishop wants it in the DoD labs on Liberty Island, probably for the same reason."
Linc nodded. “I hate to say it, but the Secretary might have a point. No one has a good idea how that thing works. All we know is that we found it in the middle of an event. It could work through some kind of natural or at least stable effect, or it could punch through a soft spot and set off another breach.”
“Or it could be something else entirely,” Lee countered. “Look, the only other device we know of that affects both sides the way this PC does is the Bridge. And that was healing this world.”
“I’d really like to believe we can get back in touch with the other side.” Linc tapped the table as if swiping at the computer’s mechanical keyboard. “But we just don’t know what we’re dealing with. This communication device could cut two ways just like Peter Bishop claimed the Machine can. Both sides thought the Machine could only be used as a weapon until we turned it on. What if we activate this thing and it breaks the universe? We’re going to have to treat that computer like any other unknown tech.”
“It sounds like Secretary Bishop’s still holding some secrets in reserve, too…” Lee started to say, as Charlie and Mona came back with the first round.
“Filling him in, guys? Liv, what did I miss?” Charlie asked.
“Just the part where I reminded Linc whose turn it is to pay the tab,” Olivia said, as they squeezed awkwardly around the table.
Lee shook his head slightly. “Nice try,” Linc countered with a grin. “I know you love to grab the check, Liv–”
“Hey,” Olivia interrupted, sharply, “are you implying–”
“I think someone’s paid their dues,” Lee put in quickly. “Drinks–”
“–are on me,” Charlie finished for them. “Only fair, since I intend to– what?”
Mona looked at them all with the innocence of an angel. “Oh, the bartender has my Show-Me,” she said. “You can pay me back later tonight, sweetie.” She burst into laughter as Lee flushed pink at the double entendre and Olivia choked on her soda. She nearly missed Linc mouthing good job across the table as Olivia coughed it back up, and by the time she’d caught her breath, the conversation had moved on.
elfin in this year's fringe_exchange. Her prompt was: Things I'd like: In general, I like super-smutty porn just as well as fluffy gen, and everything in between. I have a great fondness for characters being enthusiastic about their kinks. I like pairs, threesomes and moresomes all equally.
Specifically, I loved the adult Etta we saw in season 5 and a story about her would be amazing, whether it. Alt-Olivia/alt-Lincoln always makes me smile, as does alt-Olivia/alt-Charlie, and alt-Olivia/alt-Lincoln/alt-Charlie. Really, I just love alt-Olivia in all her snarky glory, whether paired with another character or not. Also, I love Olivia - character study, missing scene, anything. She's the best.
Things I wouldn't like: negativity toward alt-Olivia
And thought, I can do something with that.
8,200 words in the altverse later, this is that thing. Spoilers through 4x20 "Worlds Apart". Huge thanks to
kerithwyn for telling me what didn't work, notating my more creative grammatical inventions, and making happy noises in the margins. Any flaws that remain (and I can see several) are all mine. Title: Run This Town
Warnings: none
Characters: Redverse Olivia Dunham, Redverse Charlie Francis, Blueverse Lincoln Lee, Mona Foster, Redverse Walter Bishop, OCs
Summary:
Can't be scared when it goes down
Got a problem, tell me now
Only thing that's on my mind
Is who’s going to run this town tonight
“Any change?” Olivia asked Astrid. She’d paced a hole in the carpet between Astrid’s terminal and Charlie’s desk since the event started.
“There has been no change,” the other woman said in her careful style. “A Class Nine event, eighty-three-point-two miles east of Nantucket. As I reported to you, Agent Francis, and Colonel Aguilar in my initial report an hour ago. And in every update to that report,” she added pointedly.
Olivia turned on one heel to face Charlie, slouched in his chair. “We should be there,” she said. “This is bigger than the Boston quarantine office can handle.”
“What do you want to do, steal an airship and check it out in person?” Charlie asked, unimpressed. “Livvy, the boss says no-go, we don’t go.”
With Broyles out, the Secretary had pulled Colonel Aguilar out of the Fringe Chicago office to oversee (and clean house, rumor said). Anyone who let who let themselves be deceived by the petite woman’s soft appearance, the physical opposite of Colonel Broyles’ looming presence, quickly learned she shared Colonel Broyles’ scary, scary unconcern for anything like common sense in the face of results. Indifference to orders was one of the very short list of personnel quirks on Aguilar’s zero-tolerance list. Olivia let out a restless breath as she made another circuit of the room.
“If the microquakes get any worse, we might have to start answering calls in New York,” another voice put in. The other side’s Agent Lee still looked out of place in the office, a familiar face falling into unfamiliar patterns. Her Lincoln would be pacing the floor with her, she thought, while this man plowed through Fringe Division orientation paperwork with a duffel bag shoved under his desk.
Charlie shook his head. “We’ll be out,” he corrected, “you’ll be here. Don’t want to miss your flight, do you?” Aguilar had taken one look at Lee and ordered him to Quantico for a month of intensive retraining. Lee shrugged unhappily at the reminder. “Hey, this is Colonel Aguilar’s version of a compliment,” Charlie reminded them both. “If she thought you were hopeless, she’d have you shuffling paperwork somewhere nice and safe. She’s got that sort of pull.”
“Yes, that came through clearly,” Lee said, but looked unconvinced. “It would be nice to think it was because of something I did, rather than who I remind people of.”
Olivia shook her head. “Aguilar read all our reports about the work you and Peter Bishop did on the Jones case, and your help capturing Nina Sharp and finding the shapeshifters’ headquarters. Trust me, no one’s confusing you with our Lincoln.” Including her. Identity blurred at odd moments, but when she looked him in the eye, this Lincoln was too still, head at an ever-so-slightly different angle. “If we did, we’d, you know– ” she made a vague hand gesture, deliberately smiled a little too widely “–get the science geeks to figure out which Lincoln you were. Like that movie with, um...”
“Arnold Schwarzenegger?” Lee supplied. “Total Recall?”
Olivia snapped her fingers. “Patrick Swayze.”
“Agents,” Astrid called. “The Nantucket event is stabilizing.”
They turned to the big incident board, Cape Cod a lonely hook on the left side of the map. The angry red indicator that had flashed over the ocean was fading into the map as they watched. Across the room, technicians and field agents relaxed.
“Just in time,” Lee said as he reached for his earcuff. “Taxi’s here.”
“Let me know when you get to Quantico, okay?” Olivia said impulsively. It didn’t seem right to send Fringe’s newest agent off alone. “Don’t wander off without letting us know.”
His smile was not her Lincoln’s, but it sent a similar shiver down her spine. “I think I can do that.”
Lee checked in from the Fringe training grounds with short anecdotes about training. The current cover story is that I’m your Lincoln Lee with a head injury from a Fringe event. The Fringe event… well, that’s true, isn’t it? Olivia felt an unexpected huff of laughter escape her lungs. The head injury is a self-sustaining rumor, after the Avocado Incident. No one but the Secretary’s office buys the Captain Lee part. The Agent in Charge was very clear that even with brain damage, Captain Lee would know how to operate a decohesion detector.
She wrote back with small talk and a couple of apartment listings near the office.
Are you kidding me, he replied. For this much money, I could buy a house in Connecticut.
She grinned. It felt like a mask flaking off around her mouth. Welcome to New York, she wrote back.
As much as she liked the guy, four weeks gave her time to process, and start laying to rest the illusory Lincoln that hovered in the corner of her eye. The respite made Agent Lee a welcome addition to HQ’s roster, even with Colonel Aguilar keeping him in a tight orbit around the office during his first week back in New York. On Tuesday of his second week back, he pulled together three apparently unrelated Looker reports that ID’d a radical hacker group’s negative energy materials supplier: Nina Sharp, under an alias, working out of a Manhatan apartment. When the dust and arrests had settled, Colonel Aguilar had chewed Lee out for excessive zeal in the same breath she’d commended his initiative.
Charlie clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to Fringe Division, Agent Lee,” Charlie said. “C’mon, let’s get you a drink.”
What Olivia hadn’t realized about Lincoln was that, across all the universes, any Lincoln Lee was a giant nerd.
“Nolan directed a Green Arrow trilogy,” Lee said weakly.
Mona laughed giddily. “Not quite,” she replied. “It’s Red Arrow over here. And they are really good movies,” she gushed, as she leaned back against Charlie. Charlie gave Olivia a look and a minute shrug across the cozy booth. She smirked back. You married her, Charlie.
She had to give Charlie some credit. Mona might have a lousy poker face, but her transparent enthusiasm injected energy into what could have been an awkward evening. The Secretary’s office was still dragging its feet on the paperwork for Lee’s cover story, and until their i’s were dotted and t’s crossed could Agent Lee please try to avoid all contacts familiar with the late Captain Lincoln Lee? Or leaving his hotel, when not at work? Pushing to get Bug Girl read into one of the hottest secrets of the century had been a smart – and kind – move. Olivia swirled the last dregs of tonic water in her glass, briefly lost in thought.
“Anyone else need another round?” she asked, easing out of the booth. “Mona? Lincoln?”
Mona and Lee were still at it when she returned. She handed Charlie a beer as Lee shrugged, in response to one of Mona’s questions. “Do you have Douglas Adams over here?”
She nodded. “The Dirk Gently guy? Of course.”
“That’s not what he’s known for over there…” he trailed off. Olivia stifled a snicker. The increasingly inaccurately named “Hitchhiker’s trilogy” had been part of her pop culture briefing on the other side. “People let you know about the big things, like changes in world history and Machines that rewrite timelines. It’s the little stuff that trips you up. The things you don’t see until they’re gone. That was the punchline of a joke in one of his other novels.” He looked around the crowded room. “No more McDonald’s hamburgers.”
“Lamburgers,” Olivia corrected him.
“Lamburgers,” Lee echoed skeptically.
“Yeah, that was the headline after all the sheep died. ‘No more lamburgers’.” She bumped his shoulder with hers, deliberately cheerful. “If you want a hamburger, we can hit the golden arches. This is New York! There’s a million McDonald’s.”
But it wasn't about comics, or lamburgers. Olivia locked her apartment door behind her and licked her lips uncertainly before she dug out her mother’s scrapbook.
There were plenty of snapshots floating around from her childhood, including a couple that had shot around the internet after she’d medaled at the Olympics: little Olive and Rachel posed in front of a freshly painted door, Marilyn and Olivia outside a gun range. Olivia kept turning the pages, the pictures stretching out across the years: Rachel’s college graduation, Olivia at Rachel and Greg's wedding, Rachel and Marilyn at the baby shower. The grandmother-to-be looked radiantly happy, but Rachel was already a little puffy, fatigue dragging at the corners of her smile. Morning sickness, their mother had scoffed, as she had poured Rachel a glass of water, sparkling clean in the golden evening sunlight. I couldn’t keep anything down until the second trimester either. It’ll pass, sweetie.
It hadn’t.
The last picture in the scrapbook had been taken at the hospital: Marilyn and Olivia on either side of the bed, their hands meeting Rachel’s swollen fingers on her belly, all of them smiling at Greg and the camera. The four Dunham girls, as close together as they’d get.
The briefings provided by the shapeshifter Newton had covered the facts of the other Olivia Dunham’s life: colleagues, favorite restaurants, known associates. But they hadn’t touched on the substance under the surface, the holes and stumbling-blocks that had tripped her up: Walter’s panicked 3 AM calls, a nearly empty Johnnie Walker bottle by a stack of takeout menus, stumbling across page after page of emails and video chat logs, including pictures of the niece she’d never met and the nephew whose existence hadn’t been even a glimmer of possibility.
The hardest thing is the people, Lee had written from Quantico. The drills are tough, but the look in someone’s eye when I have to say, no, I don’t remember them... and the look when I say or do something he wouldn’t. I volunteered for this, and I wouldn’t change that decision. But it feels like I’m getting to know this side’s Lincoln Lee by the shape of his absence. I wish I’d known him better in person, not by what he’s left behind.
Some things you got to choose; some things life, fate, whatever, chose for you. Out of habit, Olivia slipped the scrapbook back in her work bookshelf, the one place she always had been pretty sure Frank wouldn’t pry, before turning in for the night.
Olivia scanned the situation room as she strolled in with the rest of the midshift the next morning, sipping her tea (black, one half-and-half, no lemon). In Broyles’ glass-walled office, Aguilar leaned back in her chair, gesticulating to an invisible audience. A lot of serious faces manned the desks, including Lincoln’s.
“What’ve you got there?” Olivia asked Lincoln, leaning over until her hair brushed the desk.
“A Special Forces unit raided Nina Sharp’s residence at six o’clock this morning.” He tapped a snapshot of men and women in BDUs frozen in the act of rushing an apartment building foyer. “Charlie said Secretary Bishop ordered the raid. Colonel Aguilar’s been on a conference call with Liberty Island since she came in. She wants to keep anything related to the other side in Fringe–”
“I bet,” Olivia said, irritated. “Sharp’s our case. And I recognize those warrant exhibits - those are your leads. Why would the Secretary farm it out?”
Lee shrugged. "Manpower? Politics? There's been a lot of focus on tracking and apprehending the shapeshifters, but the follow-up was…” he hesitated, but plowed on, “...downgraded, more than once, when Colonel Broyles was in charge. I think we’re feeling the effects of that now.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “You think there’s another mole? C’mon.”
“I really hope not,” he said. “We’re missing something, but not that.” He flicked away the snapshot. “Some other connection. Sharp worked with Jones, Broyles was suborned by Jones… in your report you said Sharp told you Broyles was ‘just a pawn’. Small potatoes.”
“It was a bluff. She was trying to rattle me." Olivia said derisively. “You can’t really think someone’s out there, I don’t know, masterminding David Robert Jones.”
“Sometimes the best lie is the truth,” Lee countered. “The research team’s hit a wall tracing Jones’ history, even with the Nina Sharp investigation throwing new light on his possible associates. What if someone’s deliberately erased the information before we even knew we needed to look for it?” He leaned in slightly, glasses catching the overhead lights. “Take a step back. What do we know about Jones?”
Olivia opened a hand. “Well, most of our information came from Peter Bishop’s original timeline… he was some sort of biomedical expert, a terrorist connected to the other side’s ZFT movement. He died in that timeline, but didn’t in this one.”
“And over here, he’s working with this timeline’s Nina Sharp, running one of the most complex biomed programs we’ve ever heard of as a footnote to the multiverse experiments. Project management on a literally world-spanning scale.” He leaned back, absorbed in evidence reports highlighted in amber and red. “And almost no evidence any of this was taking place for, for years.” Lee was silent for a long moment. “We got lucky when we captured Nina Sharp, but the more I think about this, the more I really don’t like Jones running silent. Given his history, I’m worried how he might celebrate his re-appearance.”
“Astrid can run any tangible hypothesis we can tie to facts, but she can’t run lack of evidence,” Olivia said, frustrated. “It’s like the Chung case on your side... the hand of God, ‘tears of Ra’ guy?” she clarified. Lee nodded slightly, listening. “He made this compound that was some sort of paradox. To find Jones, it sounds we’d have to solve a similar paradox. We need to know what we’re looking for before we can look for what we need to know.”
Lee sighed slightly. “I wish–”
Olivia cocked her head at a familiar meep-beep, meep-beep. “Is that our cue?” Lee asked, watching her closely.
She held up a hand, listening for the shift in the monitor room’s low-voiced conversations.
“Anomalous energy signature detected,” one of the techs called out, over the whooping alarm. “Local… Manhatan. Confirmed, breach in Manhatan.” Olivia caught Lee’s eye, nodded sharply as she pushed away from the desk. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aguilar emerge from her office as she tapped her earcuff off.
“Dunham. Where’s Francis?” she snapped.
Olivia looked at Lee. “Tea run,” he said. “Not a good time?”
Aguilar’s mouth twisted with lively gallows humor. “The Army task force at the Sharp residence tripped something that triggered a level one alert. The task force CO swears they’ve got it under control, but we’ve heard that before. I want our people on the scene before we have another Boston. Take Jessup and Lee, Hagen’s stuck on the Nixon Parkway.”
“Ma’am,” they said in chorus, scrambling for the elevator just as Charlie stepped out, balancing several take-out cups.
“Got the alert on the way back. What’s it this time?” he asked, with a resigned air.
Olivia flashed him a bright smile. “Someone ordered a wake-up call downtown.” She grabbed his shoulders, steered him right back into the elevator as Lee appropriated and set aside the other agents’ to-go orders. “Finish yours in the car, old man.”
“All right folks,” Charlie shouted hoarsely as the response team piled into the van, “first reports indicate an event on the 14th floor of a residential building at 5th Avenue and 119th Street. Someone triggered a device with the usual effects: blue flash, gravitational anomalies.”
“Is that Army-speak for ‘our guys floated to the ceiling?’ ” Olivia asked, half-seriously.
Charlie shrugged. “Could be a crusher – there’s been a casualty already.” He continued, “the officer in charge is a Captain Owens. Usual teams are responding from the NYPD and fire departments, just in case we need backup. Aguilar’s getting custody of the scene worked out.” Charlie looked around the van, made eye contact with each team member. “Other than the Army team, we’ve worked with all these people before, let’s act like it. Dunham will lead the evaluation team, I’ll be Fringe’s smiling face on the street with Jessup.” That got a few snickers from the tactical squad. “Agent Lee–” Lee looked up from a tablet, over his glasses “–is on science and risk reports. Lee says to move, you move.”
Olivia nodded thoughtfully. Putting their greenest agent in the technical hot seat wasn’t a great compromise, but leaving Lee out with the secondary teams, mixing the other agency personnel who had worked with her Lincoln, invited different problems.
God, she hated politics. She wished the Secretary’s office would clear Lee already and end this, this waiting. Olivia chewed on her lip, tried to redirect her restlessness into last-minute equipment checks.
She wasn’t the only person with nerves. Charlie fiddled with an injector as Lee read off the vital stats, attention darting between spiky, erratic graphs. “Numbers are showing limited molecular dissolution, no failure… yet. Air quality’s good, no oxygen needed.” On both crowded benches, hands that had started reaching for bottled air relaxed.
“You heard the man,” Charlie said as he slipped the injector back into a pocket. “This is a little one, if we handle it right. But we don’t know what else Sharp’s got in there that might accelerate the breach, and we don’t know what else the Green Berets might’ve tripped over on the scene. Be polite, but don’t let their people get in the way of doing our job.” He popped the door and jumped out, Olivia hard on his heels.
NYPD had beaten them to the event. Men and women in Army BDUs worked under the rapid direction of civilian police, barricading the wide street and pushing back a milling crowd as the Fringe Division personnel roared in.
“Who’s in charge of the scene?” Charlie shouted, squinting into the morning sun.
“Over here,” a competent-looking woman in her thirties called out. “Captain Janet Owens, Special Forces.”
“Charlie Francis, Fringe Division. And my partner, Agent Dunham. How’d your casualty happen, and where’s your event witnesses?”
“Initial report was that Sergeant Vaschenko entered apartment 1441 with his team and jostled some kind of device on a coffee table, which exploded. The team was affected by reduced gravity and sporadic reorientation.” Owens nodded in the direction of several bloodied and shaken-looking young men and women huddled near an Army transport. “He was thrown against the ceiling–” Olivia and Charlie glanced at each other “–causing ultimately fatal injuries. His CO and the rest of his team are being held for medical evaluation.”
“We’ve got some field medics with specialized experience, they can look your people over if you want,” Charlie said. “Livvy, anything urgent?”
She shook her head. “Can you question his team?” she asked, shifting from foot to foot. “We should get Lee and the response team upstairs, see if this is proliferating.”
Charlie nodded.
“No one’s reported any other effects, other than the first gravity shifts,” Owens added. Owens’ dark face drew into a puzzled frown as she looked past them. Olivia glanced back and followed Owens’ sightline to Lee, in conference with Jessup and the other agents. “Good luck, Agent Dunham.”
“Thanks,” Olivia replied, and flashed a polite smile at the other woman before she jogged back to Lee’s side. “Got the field kit? We’re going up.”
“Remind me why we’re taking the stairs?” Lee huffed, somewhere around the tenth floor.
“What, not up for a little exercise?” Olivia said, teasingly.
“I want to the gym this morning. Today’s fitness plan didn’t include a second round of weightlifting,” he said, hefting the science field kit for emphasis.
”Well, on one of my first responses in Fringe, we had a class two vortex on the 64th floor of the Chrysler building. The first response team thought they could take the elevator.” She shook her head. “The debris thrown out by the vortex ripped through the primary and backup cables.”
Lee shifted the kit to his other hand as they kept climbing. “Failsafes didn’t stop the elevator?”
“Nope. Stage four degradation, something wrong with fundamental forces. Linc said it was an elegant fuckup. We ambered three offices, tried to call the elevator, and that’s when we found the first team.” Linc had lost his dinner while Charlie held his head out of the mess. “Fourteenth floor, here we are.” She pushed open the heavy fire door.
A bar of amber sunlight was flung across the hall, ending at the half-open door of 1441. Olivia looked at Lee; Lee looked back at her. She listened closely, frowning. Was someone – a looter, or a confused civilian – in Nina Sharp’s apartment?
It was unlikely, but just in case… Olivia met Lee’s eyes as she put a finger to her lips. He nodded, and dropped behind her as he swapped the decohesion detector to his left hand, using it to brace his service weapon in the right hand. The public image of Fringe Division, Olivia thought wryly, science and guns. Agent Lee might play it a little more buttoned-down than her Lincoln, but on him it looked pretty good. She gestured for the rest of the team to stick tight in the stairs. She slid into the hall ahead of Lee and pushed the apartment door wider as silently as possible.
This side’s Nina Sharp was a woman who valued silence. A hardwood foyer was covered with a boldly patterned rug in the aggressively modern style the other side’s Nina also favored. Soundproofing muted New York’s ever-present traffic to a distant hum. The little foyer opened to a sunny living room, with a kitchen to her right. Olivia’s boots sank deep into muffling carpet with each step. She drifted toward the kitchen, half-sensed Lee pushing into the living room as she cleared the kitchen.
“What the–” Lee shouted hoarsely, as a near-identical voice snapped, “FBI, on the floor.”
Olivia twisted back toward the foyer and around the corner as Lee replied to himself, “The FBI doesn’t exist over here. You know that, right?”
She blinked. Lincoln Lee was holding himself at gunpoint, a mirror image marred by one’s glasses and the other’s three-day stubble. An upended, blast-scorched coffee table and fragments of what might have been a briefcase bomb, the heaviest components stuck at improbable angles in the ceiling and upper walls, completed the tableau.
Lee thumbed the safety off. “Fringe Division, on the floor.” He didn’t move as he asked Olivia, “How hard do you think it would be for one of the shapeshifters to drop off the map?”
She swallowed as she brought up her own service weapon. Aimed for the double’s heart, just a little over from the last place she’d laid hands on her Lincoln.
“Another–” the double’s face was a study in contrasts as his weapon dropped out of position. Incredulous was winning out. “Did you– wait. Liv, I can explain.”
She didn’t move, hands steadied by cold, furious purpose. Olivia focused on her target, avoiding his eyes. “If you really are Lincoln Lee, prove it. Because if you’re not, if you’ve been walking around wearing my best friend’s face for the last two months, I promise you will not leave this room alive.”
“Liv,” he said, “What can I give you? C’mon, we’ve had this argument. You know how easy it is to fake stuff that’s in the records. I guess we could talk about Frank, and that time at that bar in Queens, but then I’d have to admit–”
Lee moved, just a hair. In her Lee, it might not mean anything, but this guy probably had an idea. “Tyrone,” he broke in.
The other man’s shoulders sagged as glared at his double. “Why do you– I am trying to have a life-saving moment here.”
“Good idea,” Olivia said to Lee, impressed. It wasn’t the facts, it was the reflexive tells that betrayed the substance of the person behind the face.
“Thanks.” Lee glanced past his double to Olivia. “Your call.”
Olivia licked her lips, eyes unintentionally meeting the double’s. If it talked like a duck, and walked like a duck… it could still be a shape-shifting duck, fooling them in the heat of a crisis. If it were only Lee and herself at risk, she might’ve gone on her gut, but they could lose the building, maybe even the block if she blew this call. She shifted her stance, slid one hand off the handgrip, found her earcuff under a fall of hair. “Charlie,” she said, “Charlie, get your ass up here right now.”
Not-Lee’s face brightened. “Charlie’s here? Oh, good.”
Charlie made it in record time. “Livvy, what–” he rounded the corner with the same double take.
“He says he’s not a shapeshifter,” Olivia said, tried to ignore the tightness in her throat. “Charlie, I really want to believe him.”
“Not a shapeshifter, not a mind-reader, just me,” Not-Lee said. Charlie and Lee shot him exasperated glances.
“We still have an event going on here. Do you know anything about it?” Lee asked Not-Lee.
“Who d’you think ID’d this as Sharp’s operation? I’ve been cooling my heels in Owens’ back seat all morning. Snuck out when the exploratory team started screaming for trained backup over the radio. Sharp had one of Jones’ amphilicite devices–” Not-Lee glanced up at the metallic shrapnel and back down to the scorched, broken coffee table “–set up as a failsafe. Ambering the apartment should seal the breach. The problem is, if we amber the apartment–”
“–we lose the evidence,” Olivia and Lee finished with him.
“Nice to see you’re all on the same page,” Charlie said. “You–” he pointed at Not-Lee, “If you drop the weapon, for the moment, we’ll assume you’re on our side.”
Not-Lee bent down and set the weapon on the floor, pointing the grip at Olivia. She took a deep breath as she retrieved the handgun, ejected the clip, and cleared the chamber. Everyone else in the room breathed out as she replaced her own service weapon in its holder and stuffed the other gun under her jacket.
“Situation?” Charlie asked Lee, who was swapping his own weapon for the science kit. Red light flickered and crawled through the air, concentrated near the coffee table, as he checked for universe bleedthrough.
“Not stable,” he said. “By the book, we should have ambered this place five minutes ago.”
Not-Lee nodded, picked up the thread. “Especially if Sharp kept any of Jones’ other amphilicite devices. A little flux could trigger another device and start a full rip at any second.”
“Think we can get another five minutes?” Charlie asked them.
Not-Lee shrugged. “This place could go up any minute. I’d be happier with more like three. Smash and grab?” he asked.
Charlie touched his earcuff. “Jessup, you following this? Yeah, send ‘em in and start the clock now. If something goes wrong, amber the whole building, that’s an order.” He let it go. “Livvy, you and him–” he pointed at Lee “–set up the quarantine potentiators. It’s moving day,” he said to not-Lee, “and they’re helping,” as the rest of the response team flooded the tiny foyer. “Two minutes, thirty seconds, go, go, go!”
Lee handed her two canisters. “I’ll take the bedroom, you handle in here,” she said quickly, then cut through the response team's human chain, not looking back and Lee and the double. She ignored the banging and thumps as the response team shoved the apartment's furniture into the hall, as well as the muffled thread of Not-Lee backseat driving Lee’s setup.
She activated each canister as she dropped them at opposite ends of the room, then scanned the scene: modern cream wallpaper, matching contemporary red duvet on the bed, a recently remodeled closet and bathroom, an unlikely contrast to the old-fashioned writing hutch, closed. "Hey Charlie!" Olivia shouted. "Are we taking anything out of the bedroom?"
"Up to you, Livvy," Charlie shouted back breathlessly.
Quarantine protocol has been activated. Quarantine will be initiated in two minutes.
"Can I get some help here? There’s a big writing desk–" she started to push it across the carpet "–doesn’t look like it’s – shit!" The desk jerked to a stop as something snapped and popped away from the wall.
"Liv!” “Olivia?" Lee and Not-Lee’s voices overlapped as they sprinted into the room.
"Unplugged something," she said tersely, as the automated voice droned on. Quarantine protocol has been activated. Quarantine will be initiated in one minute. As if she needed a reminder that a vortex could coalesce and spit out giant mutant ants, or a breach could twist the walls into a new floor – or ceiling – any second. Maybe they’d get carnivorous bugs, again. “Give me a hand."
They shoved the heavy desk into the living room just in time for the 45 second warning. Olivia's stomach lurched as she passed the spot the coffee table had been, felt her feet losing traction on the floor. Gravity was definitely losing its grip – she didn’t know the science behind it, just that it was a really bad sign. The three of them gave the desk a running start, now dangerously light, and slid it through the hallway into the rest of the evidence heap at 30 seconds. Charlie and the last of the response team ran out behind them, dragging hard drives, shopping bags stuffed with paper records, tablets, and incongruously, the framed pictures that had decorated the kitchen. “That everyone?” Charlie shouted. “Where’s Ruiz?”
Quarantine protocol has been activated. Quarantine will be initiated in fifteen seconds. “Here!” Ruiz shouted, hidden on the other side of the tumbled evidence pile.
“Someone stuck back there, Jorge?” one of the tac squad shouted to Ruiz, which opened the floor to general ragging. Olivia swept a glance through the hall and visually confirmed Charlie's more formal head count.
Quarantine protocol has been activated. Quarantine will be initiated in ten seconds. The warning beeps escalated in scale and intensity.
"Whoever designed the quarantine warning system has a real flair for the dramatic," Lee muttered.
"The Secretary's hidden theatrical yearnings?" Not-Lee shrugged as he ran a hand through his disarrayed hair. The usual thick smoky cloud drifted down the apartment's sunny living room and curled around the half-open door as they watched.
Olivia looked away as the amber solidified and cleared, refracting the morning light across the hall in new, distorted patterns. Her gaze landed on Lee, half in shadow, as he studied not-Lee, the mottled light masking his face.
Quarantine protocol is active. Authorized personnel only.
Lee dragged his attention back to the science tablet. "Environmental readings are stable. We're clear," he said to Charlie and the rest of the response team.
Not-Lee peered at the edge of the solid amber, using one foot to prod at the last bit of the foyer carpet where it unrolled from the quarantined residence. "Wouldn't notice a thing if the door were closed. Nice work,” he said to Lee.
Charlie drifted closer to their little group. "Jessup called up. Seems Owens got some new orders and took a squad in, broke our perimeter. Bets it's got to do with him?" He glanced at not-Lee.
“What’re we betting, that seventy you owe me?” Olivia asked.
Charlie rolled his eyes. “Some lightweight can’t remember who paid her tab last night.”
“My tab–“ Olivia mock-sputtered, as the elevator doors opened. “How about first dibs on asking Aguilar if she knew about this?”
Owens stepped out of the elevator, flanked by a Special Forces tactical team. “If you want to ask her, Livvy, let me know first. Some of us have responsibilities now,” he finished, unconsciously tapping his ring finger over his crossed arms as Owens’ team approached.
"Agent Francis, Agent Lee, Agent Dunham, I've got orders to secure the scene and transport you to the Department of Defense," Owens said briskly. You too, Captain," she said to not-Lee. "I think you can guess what this is about.”
Not-Lee grimaced, but nodded.
"Captain Owens, I appreciate you're under orders, but we have reason to believe this, uh, person represents a threat to Fringe operations," Charlie said.
Owens let out a disbelieving huff. "If your threat could slip through the wringer the Secretary put this task force through, we have bigger problems," she said, as her subordinates herded them toward the elevator. "Believe me when I say this man has been established as Captain Lincoln Lee by the most rigorous tests a very paranoid science team could devise."
The ride to Liberty Island was remarkably silent. At the small fleet of black cars, their impromptu escort split them into pairs, herding Olivia and Charlie away from the two Lincolns. In the back seat of one SUV, Charlie caught her eye, and stared significantly at one restlessly tapping foot. Olivia leaned back into the SUV's leather seat, firmly planted both boot soles in the floor mat, trying to echo Charlie's jaded facade. Neither of them particularly wanted to discuss Not-Lee or the investigation in progress around Captain Owens’ unknown quantities. Even staring at the back of the driver's seat or at the traffic flowing past, she was pretty sure they weren't doing a great job projecting the legendary Fringe Division cool.
Their ambiguous escort, guides or unannounced arresting agents, swept them into the Up elevator, not down to the basement. "At least they haven't locked us in a maintenance closet," Lee muttered as the elevator lifted smoothly.
"That might have saved your life, considering Broyles was in Sharp's pocket," his double said, edgy. "And don't get your hopes up. Labs are on the third floor. The chemistry department has its own hazardous waste service crew."
Olivia glanced between two Army escorts at the elevator call screen. "So what's on the fourth floor? Other than the Secretary’s office."
"Some windows,” Not-Lee said. “The elevator. It’s biometrically locked, of course. Maybe a lobby for Fringe agents who ask the wrong questions and need a time out.”
"Jesus, Linc," Charlie cut in, as the elevator slid to a stop. “What’s gotten into you?”
He shifted on his feet. “Not bugs,” he said.
“They’re not bugs–“
“–they’re arachnids,” Lee, maybe-not-Not-Lee, and Olivia chorused.
The Secretary didn't keep them waiting long. His spacious office was nearly empty when they trooped in. At the window, the Secretary was silhouetted by the view across the Hudson, his back to an aide in class B's. “Captain Lee," the aide greeted them, but broke off as Olivia and Charlie loped into the room, Lee and the last Special Forces kids trailing behind.
Civilians usually didn't bother her, but the Secretary did. Or maybe dealing with Secretary Bishop after she'd watched his double shuffle through a shabby research lab in boxers and a flowered kitchen apron bothered her. This Walter Bishop turned at their approach, the superficially casual shepherd of the Department of Defense at the flourishing center of his far-flung herds.
"Thank you, Major Warner," the Secretary said to the aide. "I think that will be all for now." She took the hint, and even managed to avoid looking any of the three – four – Fringe agents on her way out. Olivia let herself fall into a half-assed at-ease, Charlie to her left, maybe-Lincoln on point between them, Lee offsides on her right.
"Explanations are in order, I believe," the Secretary began. "And apologies.” He paused. "The sniper's presence at the shapeshifter Canaan's apprehension sent alarms ringing from the most junior Lookers right up to my office. We knew our enemy Jones, and we knew some of his methods: terror, subterfuge, infiltration. Captain Lee's injury in the line of duty presented an opportunity to turn those methods against him, removing from Jones' surveillance an experienced, resourceful agent." He studied their expressions. Olivia felt her face set in studied neutrality. Trust went two ways, and he’d pulled the trigger first. "I had anticipated a longer, subtler hunt for the mole, when I feared Jones had replaced our agents with shapeshifters or worse. In such a hunt, an insider's perspectives would have been invaluable." His lined face sagged, briefly weary. "Even in my darkest moments I did not question Colonel Broyles' loyalty, or conceive he could continue such a deception for long. In the second point, at least, I was correct." Secretary Bishop sighed. “No one knows better than I the lengths a father will to go to, to save his child. This does not blind me to other motivations. The methods Jones used to suborn Philip–” he glanced at Charlie “–suggested other levers he could apply to pry open our operations.” Charlie stared right back, unblinking. That’s right, Liv thought, tried to keep her anger off her face. Try to rattle us, Mister Secretary. Sir. Half of Fringe, herself included, had taken their shot at Charlie's bugs at some point. Charlie wasn’t going to crack. “His cooperation, combined with the intelligence gleaned from Captain Lee's and Captain Owens' interrogation of Nina Sharp, suggested grave dangers to our world. And so I maintained the option to produce Captain Lee in a future gambit."
It rang true, Olivia thought. Either Walter Bishop, given the choice to go through channels or squirrel away some treat for his personal use, would go for the more secretive option. In this world, though, Bishop wasn’t hiding Red Vines or self-prescribed drugs. “It’s inconvenient when a dead man is, say, caught on security footage,” Olivia interrupted, bold in her fury. Linc and Charlie winced, but Lee nodded once, slowly, with the look around the eyes her Lincoln got as he found the puzzle-pieces locking together. “How useful if you’ve got a double around to explain those little slip-ups .”
"Liv–" Linc hissed, out of grabbing range.
But the Secretary let a slight smile crease his face. “Agent Lee’s presence provided an unwitting distraction for this sleight of hand. A cover which has now backfired,” he continued, an edge of chagrin in his voice. “Agent Lee and Captain Lee identified Nina Sharp’s residence within hours of their double’s discovery. If Captain Owens’ investigation of Nina Sharp and Fringe Division are to avoid tripping over each other, the time for subterfuge is coming to an end. To establish and defend the peace – a lasting peace – will require energy we cannot afford to waste on foolish concealment.”
The escort left them on the pier: four Fringe agents once more let loose on an unsuspecting world.
Olivia rocked on her heels, still vibrating with tension. Lee wandered over to the environmental boards, apparently discovering an intense curiosity about air quality in the outer boroughs. Removing himself from the family quarrel, she thought wryly, which left her team in a rough triangle near the water.
"Ferry should be along in about five minutes," Charlie said. And then we can get out of here was the unspoken implication. They were all on edge, Olivia thought: Charlie fiddling with his injector again, Lee withdrawn, Linc… her Lincoln looked as wrung out as she felt.
He glanced at her, met her eyes. “Settle down, Liv. I volunteered. Volunteer, you know that word?"
"Yeah, I know how Secretary Bishop asks people to step up . 'Agent Dunham, we've identified a chance to strike back at the other world and only you have a chance at successfully completing the mission.’ " Olivia crossed her arms and scowled as she looked up at Lady Liberty’s bright torch.
It was the things that weren’t in the open that were their faultlines. Things people… just didn’t bring up. A scrapbook mixed in with procedural handbooks. Brunch with a red-haired stranger who called her by a childhood nickname only her mother remembered. A voicemail for someone whose face she was wearing. “Aunt Liv, you forgot my birthday.” The substance knitting together the facts. If Jones had offered her, say, one VPE-free life, no questions asked, what would she have done?
She didn’t like the thought that Jones could get under her skin like that. Might be able to get to anyone like that. She shuddered, imagining the possibilities.
"We all knew this was a dangerous job when we signed up, Livvy," Charlie said. "Not that you're off the hook," he added in Linc’s direction.
“Ha.” Olivia shook her head, tried to muster a smile. It didn’t take. “After Frank, and everything last year with the other side, losing you–” she broke off “–either of you–”
She crossed the empty space, wrapped her arms around her Lincoln. Squeezed, hard, as his arms came around her. “Never do that to me again,” she whispered roughly, as she dug her fingers into the back of his jacket. “Please don’t ever do that again.”
“Someone’s got to watch your back,” he said, just as hoarse, hugging her back fiercely.
She felt Charlie wrap an arm around them both, leaning in. They held on, a tight unbreakable unit, under New York’s muggy skies.
Linc had to go to Philly, of course, once the Secretary had broken the news to his father and stepmother. With Linc off task force duty and Fringe’s name cleared, the Secretary had no qualms about dumping the rest of the Sharp-Park-Jones-Bell-shapeshifter investigation back on Aguilar’s desk. Aguilar passed it on to her current favorites with dispatch. Olivia flipped between warrant exhibits, AARs, and the rest of the documentation pile, shaking her head at the parallels between her Lincoln and Agent Lee’s reports. Similar phrases, overlapping trains of thought, close attention to the same little details... she hoped that, for everyone’s peace of mind, the two men would find their equilibrium faster than she had with the other side’s Olivia Dunham.
“We really need a better name for this investigation,” Lee said tiredly, after a briefing from Owens’ people. Olivia glanced over. SPJBS was doodled across his old-fashioned paper notepad, along with Bridge Follow-up, ShArkBell, and several increasingly silly possibilities.
“ZFT? The Jones case?” Olivia tried aloud.
Charlie rubbed his face. “Only slightly less vague than The Investigation. Nice and short, good for talking about work at bars. Now can we get going?”
“Awww, someone misses Bug Girl,” Olivia teased, practically skipping to the elevator.
“That’s Mrs. Bug Girl, Livvy,” Charlie said. “Or you could, I don’t know, try using her name.”
“Am I missing something?” Lee asked, glancing between them. “Do I need to know something before Mona’s crowd talks me into going to that comics convention?”
“Livvy didn’t exactly see Mona’s finer qualities when they met,” Charlie said, hitting the lobby button.
“I have never seen someone transform into a fifteen year old girl the way she did,” Olivia said. “It was…” she cut herself off.
“...creepy? Buggy?” Lee finished for her. He took a long step to keep Olivia between him and Charlie as they got out of the elevator. “Give her a chance, Olivia.”
“Yeah, Tyrone, message received,” Olivia said. It didn’t get the rise it always got from her Lincoln. Another little difference in a world rocked by change: Frank out, Mona in, Linc dead and back from the dead, like one of his comic book stories. Aguilar in Broyles’ office, with no clear line of succession if - when - she lit out for home.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Or maybe she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit she knew exactly how she felt. Somewhere in the basement of her brain, there was another little girl crying about bad timing in an unfair world. Suck it up, she wanted to tell that kid. “Is there anyone you don’t like?” she asked Lee.
He pretended to give it some thought as they left the building and stepped into the sticky heat of late summer. “I’m pretty annoyed with this side’s Nina Sharp,” he said thoughtfully, raising his noise over the sounds of street traffic. “And I’m not a big fan of Walter’s surgical technique. The other side’s Walter,” he clarified, “not Secretary Bishop.”
“A terrorist and the man who broke two universes,” Charlie said. “That’s it?”
They bickered amiably all the way to the bar. Mona jumped up from the bar with a wave as they walked into the blissful chill of the air conditioning. The man sitting next to her half turned with an easy smile.
“Hey, look who’s back!” Charlie said, punched Linc’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be in Philly?”
“Dad and Sarah would’ve been happy to keep me a while longer, but the job’s here,” Linc said, with a smile. “A week off was more than enough, especially when Sarah’s on a baking binge. She made the raspberry-lemon bars,” he told Olivia.
Olivia swung around, nailed Linc with pleading, hopeful eyes. “You brought some back, right?”
“Mmm, I thought about eating all of them by myself…” Linc intercepted Lee’s puzzled look. “Sarah doesn’t bake on your side?”
“Sarah who?” Lee asked, genuinely curious.
Linc’s eyebrows rose. “Huh. Dad didn’t–” he started to ask, as Olivia said to Lee, “Sarah’s lemon bars are notorious. Don’t worry, Charlie and I’ll eat your share. She’ll never know.”
“Very funny, Liv,” Linc said.
“Thank you for the, um, considerate offer, but I think I’d like to make up my own mind about this," Lee replied. Linc glanced approvingly at his double.
Five didn’t fit in the small booths, so they grabbed one of the tables: Charlie and Mona, Linc and Olivia, Lee on the table’s short side. “Give me the updates,” Linc said, as Mona and Charlie ordered at the bar, “any developments?”
“Because Monday’s not soon enough?” Olivia said wryly.
Linc raised his hands, palms up. “Because on Monday Colonel Aguilar’s going to be giving me the death glare. It’s a little distracting.”
Lee broke in. “No sign of Jones–” he glanced around the crowded room, lowered his voice “–locally. Forensics is still processing everything we pulled out of the Sharp residence, but we've already gotten one lucky hit. That writing desk Olivia pulled out the bedroom? There was a communication device inside. It looks like an early personal computer, but it’s linked to a quantum-entangled counterpart located somewhere on the other side. In theory, at least."
Linc leaned in, unsurprised respect on his face. "Good eye, Liv.”
“Aguilar and the Secretary are still hashing out where to set it up,” Olivia added. “Aguilar wants to keep it at HQ, especially if we make contact with someone hostile on the other side. Secretary Bishop wants it in the DoD labs on Liberty Island, probably for the same reason."
Linc nodded. “I hate to say it, but the Secretary might have a point. No one has a good idea how that thing works. All we know is that we found it in the middle of an event. It could work through some kind of natural or at least stable effect, or it could punch through a soft spot and set off another breach.”
“Or it could be something else entirely,” Lee countered. “Look, the only other device we know of that affects both sides the way this PC does is the Bridge. And that was healing this world.”
“I’d really like to believe we can get back in touch with the other side.” Linc tapped the table as if swiping at the computer’s mechanical keyboard. “But we just don’t know what we’re dealing with. This communication device could cut two ways just like Peter Bishop claimed the Machine can. Both sides thought the Machine could only be used as a weapon until we turned it on. What if we activate this thing and it breaks the universe? We’re going to have to treat that computer like any other unknown tech.”
“It sounds like Secretary Bishop’s still holding some secrets in reserve, too…” Lee started to say, as Charlie and Mona came back with the first round.
“Filling him in, guys? Liv, what did I miss?” Charlie asked.
“Just the part where I reminded Linc whose turn it is to pay the tab,” Olivia said, as they squeezed awkwardly around the table.
Lee shook his head slightly. “Nice try,” Linc countered with a grin. “I know you love to grab the check, Liv–”
“Hey,” Olivia interrupted, sharply, “are you implying–”
“I think someone’s paid their dues,” Lee put in quickly. “Drinks–”
“–are on me,” Charlie finished for them. “Only fair, since I intend to– what?”
Mona looked at them all with the innocence of an angel. “Oh, the bartender has my Show-Me,” she said. “You can pay me back later tonight, sweetie.” She burst into laughter as Lee flushed pink at the double entendre and Olivia choked on her soda. She nearly missed Linc mouthing good job across the table as Olivia coughed it back up, and by the time she’d caught her breath, the conversation had moved on.