Hydrogen in our veins, it cannot hold itself, our blood is boiling...

[nolimitation]

It's a long drive from New York to Boston, and by all rights, she should be tired when she gets in. She's not. She can't stop running over every argument for why they shouldn't even begin to trust the other side, and trying to come up with one she hasn't already presented to Broyles. She can't stop glancing at the boxes of files on her passenger seat, wondering just how familiar the cases in there are going to be.

She takes the turn for the lab without even thinking, and when she realizes it, she sighs faintly, giving up on any idea of not working tonight. After a moment of thought, she reaches over to hit the button to call Steve when she hits the next stoplight.

"I hope I didn't wake you up," she says when he picks up, though she knows by now he sleeps less than she does. "Do you have any plans tonight?"

Comments

[usavatar]

"No ma'am, though I'm guessing I'm about to."

In fact, he's pouring himself a cup of tea and thinking about settling in with a book when she calls, since - well, sleep. Who does that these days?

Besides, it's Olivia. It's been almost a year since she showed up in his New York, and whichever side of her universe they're on and whether or not they'll get back to his, it's hard to imagine a world without her these days. "What can I do for you, Agent Dunham?"

[nolimitation]

She grins at that response - not that she expected any different, but it still makes her smile to hear it.

"Only if you want it. I have a couple boxes full of files from the other side, and the sooner I get through them, the better. If you feel like helping me out, I could bring coffee... or dinner?"

[usavatar]

"I wouldn't object to either."

He cheerfully crosses his kitchen - though thinking of it as his still pings strange now and then - to dump his tea down the sink. "Where should I tell the taxi to drop me?"

[nolimitation]

"Uh... actually, I thought I might just drop by your place. If... you don't mind, that is. I'd rather not go to the lab and bother Walter this later unless I have to..."

And she's already halfway there, closer to his house than her apartment. But she's not going to say that and make him feel like he has to agree to her invading his place.

[usavatar]

"Sure." It's slightly surprised, but not unwelcoming. He pins the phone between his ear and shoulder, quickly emptying the contents of his tea ball into the little container on the counter he uses for compost.

He drops it in cup to clean later, looking around to make sure the place is tidy -

Which it is. He's military, after all, and has never been prone to collecting belongings.

That leaves him to rearrange the books on a side table in the living room to have something to do with his hands. "Are you far from the city?"

[nolimitation]

"I'm driving through Brighton now. I can be there in fifteen, twenty minutes at most if I detour to grab some food." Which she's doing right now, as a matter of fact...

Olivia pauses, and then adds softly, "Thank you, Steve. For... helping." And for giving her something to think about that's not just how much she hates this accord, and how quickly it's going to go bad. "I owe you one."

[usavatar]

It's not hard to read between the lines with her. She's a creature of habit, and this case, it means she was thinking about work and got half way to the lab before remembering herself or the time.

He makes his way back to the kitchen, leaning his back against one of the counters.

The part that makes him happiest - beyond the fact that he knows her well enough to tell - is that she knows him well enough to call and ask for company. That she'd want it in the first place.

"Chinese? Can you ask them to double mine?"

Steve still feels sheepish asking, even if his physical requirements make it a reasonable request.

[nolimitation]

Olivia smiles again, the expression audible in her tone. She's had enough late nights and food runs with Steve that she would have done it without being asked, but he always does anyway. "Of course. I'll see you soon."

She waits for Steve's goodbye before she hangs up, still smiling faintly to herself.

When she pulls up in front of the house, she stacks the bag of takeout on top of one of the boxes of files and carries it up to the door. It means she has to hit the doorbell awkwardly with her shoulder, but she's not especially concerned with her dignity right now.

[usavatar]

Steve opens the door almost at once. He wasn't waiting next to it, exactly - just sitting on the front stairs reading.

He takes the files before anything can end up on the porch, balancing them against his hip and gesturing for her to come in with his free hand.

"I take it things were as tense as ever."

[nolimitation]

"Thank you." She steps inside, snagging the bag of Chinese food off the top of the box and heading to the table with it. The question gets a wry smile and a weary shrug as she unpacks the cartons, leaving room to set the files down where they can both reach them.

"Well, no one pulled a gun, so that's some improvement. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the other Agent Dunham came over here specifically to piss me off, so..."

And yes, it worked. It always does.

[usavatar]

He touches her elbow lightly, a comforting gesture and more than he'd do for most people, at least in terms of physical contact.

His tone stays light. "She just wants to upset her better half - better whole."

He sets the files down and ducks back into the kitchen for plates and silverware. It's a tic that's gotten made fun of more than once, but he hates using disposable dishware.

He even has reusable chopsticks at this point.

Steve pauses at the table before laying the dishes out, ducking his head to watch Olivia unpack the Chinese, their actions complimenting each other without overlapping. They've done this enough that it's a sort of ritual. "When's this batch from? Recent?"

[nolimitation]

She takes a deep breath, steadying herself through that little contact, and manages to let some of the tension bleed away as she breathes out. "You're right. I shouldn't let her get under my skin like this..."

She nods as she finishes setting out the food, balling up the bag and walking to the kitchen to toss it in the trash. "Those should be mostly from since you arrived here, so if there's anything you'll recognize, chances are it's in there."

[usavatar]

Mostly since he arrived. He exhales, helping himself to both a pile of noodles and a stack of files. These are never pleasant reading. Not that he's unused to unpleasant reading. Once upon a time he told Fury he doubted anything would surprise him any more - he's learned in more ways than he'd like that isn't true.

The first few are comparatively tame fare. Someone merged with a dog, someone else whose consciousness got transferred to a pond who was drowning people in an attempt to reclaim a body. It isn't until he hits fourth plate of food and his eighth file that he stops.

His chopsticks slide out of his fingers and bounce off the edge of his plate to the floor.

[nolimitation]

Olivia's quickly absorbed in her reading, frowning slightly to herself as she scans the files and makes notes to herself, only occasionally remembering there's food and taking a few bites before she's distracted again.

Her head snaps up at the sound of Steve's chopsticks hitting the floor. She sets her own file down, glancing from Steve's face to the file and back.

"...Steve? Is something wrong?"

[usavatar]

Their original host leaves them alone, bound to the chairs, and Steve can't stop looking at the lights.

Row after row. Innocuous little bulbs. Shining in the dimness of the room. He can almost feel them, the same way a person feels their fingernails resting against their skin, present and not. It makes him feel sick, and he can't tell if that's because he can feel them, or because of whatever they're pumping into his system now. Cortexiphan, and whatever else they've added to the cocktail in his IV.

He can't stop looking at the lights, and he can't stop thinking about the hallucinations - because really, there's no other word for them. No other word he wants to use. Olive - Olivia's stepfather, the empty Hell's Kitchen apartment, the emptier streets. And then the real nightmare, watching from behind glass as an entirely different universe aged without him. Watching everything familiar die all over again.

The fear that stirs is enough to make the lights in the box buzz. He closes his eyes, tries to calm down.

Calm down.

Calm.

It comes on so gradually he doesn't notice at first. He doesn't notice, doesn't really notice, until the lights start going out.

Tink.

Tink.

Tink.

"Olivia?" There's a warning in the question, awareness that something new and probably horrible is coming their way, but there's no adrenaline. No surge of readiness.

Just calm.

Tink.

"Good boy."

Steve blinks. There's someone in the room. How did he not notice her come in?

She smiles lazily, and he feels a whole new kind of sinking. It's like going under the first time, into the dreams, and he struggles -

Only to feel the woman's fingers on his temples as she straddles his lap. "Now, now. It's my turn to play, and I play nice, don't worry."

She grins over at Olivia, winking. "Oh, he's cute. Nice catch, Olive."

[nolimitation]

It's the sound of the lights going out that she notices. She's been slumped in her chair, eyes half-closed, weaving between reality and hallucination still and trying to pull the two apart, but the soft tink, tink of the lightbox snaps the world back into too-sharp focus.

Olivia's head jerks up, and she stares at the lightbox for a second before turning to look at Steve, somewhere between relief and worry. It worked. The Cortexiphan worked, and it hasn't killed him yet, and she's honestly not sure if the fact that they succeeded is good or bad right now.

She notices the woman moving before she speaks, and tenses immediately, though not quickly enough to give Steve a warning. Bad. Definitely bad.

"You get the hell off of him," she snarls without thinking, before she can bite back the words, and no, damn it, that's the opposite of helpful right now. She takes a breath and tries again, her voice still hard-edged with anger but more controlled. "It's Olivia. Or Agent Dunham, if that makes you more comfortable when I arrest you and everyone else involved in this."

[usavatar]

"Olive," she says, and scrunches her nose into a grin. "Olive, Olive, Subject Thirteen."

She closes her eyes and tilts her head, and Steve has the strange feeling that she's pawing through his head like a clerk through old records. She hums quietly, the sound dripping into his veins until he can't remember how to move. Her next words roll over him as boulders of sound dissociated from meaning.

"His head is like a land mine of awful, Jesus. Did you know his first lady love went by Agent Thirteen? Maybe he's attracted to unlucky numbers."

Fight. Steve closes his eyes. There's the slightest foreign flavor to the sinking, the barest awareness that lets him get his nails into the gap and stir. The woman on his lap makes an annoyed sound.

"He's also fucking stubborn. Trying to have a conversation, honey." She leans in and brushes her lips against Steve's forehead and he's under again, falling so far and so fast that it's hard to remember anything past tranquility. It's like being asleep without being unconscious. Every muscle relaxes, and the last lights in the box go out.

"There we go." She slides off his lap and bounces to the ground. "Don't like to use that much juice on someone right off the bat, but they didn't pick you two for no reason. He'll be down for a while, but it's like, the opposite of what you guys were forced into before, so don't fuss, Ollie."

He's still breathing, barely. Still blinking. But there's absolutely no awareness on Steve's face.

She drags a chair over to sit next to Olivia, grinning. "Oh come on. Don't you remember me?"

[nolimitation]

Olivia's eyes are on Steve's face, fear and worry on her face as she pulls against the restraints almost without conscious thought. She doesn't generally think of herself as a violent person, but all she wants right now is to get her hands around this woman's throat, to get her off Steve and away from him, to keep him safe and keep her out of his head.

When her eyes snap back to the stranger's face, it's only reluctantly. "No, I don't. But I can guess. You're from the Cortexiphan trials, aren't you? Someone used you, just like this, when you were too young to protect yourself or fight back."

[usavatar]

"Walter Bishop used me," she says, comfortably, though her smile has an edge. "And these people trained me. They taught me how to handle my own power."

She brushes her fingertips against Olivia's temple. "And they sent me in to reason with you and the big guy."

The contact comes with a rush of bliss - short-lived, but intense. "Get you to see things a little more clearly."

[nolimitation]

She gasps at the contact, reeling a little, and shakes her head as she comes back from it. Brief as it was, it's still hard to drag her thoughts back together after that.

"You're letting them use you too. Are they worth hurting people the same way Walter Bishop hurt you?"

[usavatar]

"They gave me power and purpose, Ollie, and you can do the whole 'they're as bad as Bishop' speech until you're blue in the face, but I like it here. I know where I stand with these people. And really, where else would I go? To your Fringe Division? Please. I'd be an experiment again. I like being a person."

She strokes Olivia's temple as she speaks, threading calm and happiness into each word, little bursts of affection into every mention of the people who run the facility. A conditioning of pleasure, so gentle it's almost invisible. Steve stirs, faintly, and the girl starts to hum, turning so she can rest her fingers against his temple and still keep contact with Olivia. "It's so much better here."

[nolimitation]

Olivia grimaces, leaning away from the contact, but there's only so far she can move - not far enough that this woman can't reach her. Her hands curl into fists, trying to hang on to her own emotions. She knows she's being manipulated, even as the feeling of calm drags her down bit by bit, and she's losing her grip on the very things that are going to allow her to fight.

"What do you want?" she says between gritted teeth. "He turned off the lights. What else do you need?"

[usavatar]

"You need to want to help us." She shrugs.

Steve stirs, lightly, twisting his wrists against the restraints. "Olivia?"

It comes out heavy, slurred. Steve tries to clear his throat. The woman smiles. "Hey, big guy. Need a drink?"

He gives her a sleepy look, trying to focus. "Olivia."

"Single-minded. That can be a good thing."

Steve squints against the sparks of calm and happiness that flood through him like he's squinting against bright lights. There's Olivia, on the other side of this woman. This is what drunkenness feels like. He can vaguely recollect it.

She presses her fingers against Olivia's temple, stretching so she can reach Steve's too. "Okay. Now that you're both here-"
Steve feels himself getting dragged under. He struggles, or tries to, but the pull is as inevitable as it was when they went into the shared dreamscape. Only this time, it's memory. The lab, on campus. His house. Olivia's. He can see the stranger walking through each shared space, touching surfaces, twisting remembered conversations. Adding anger to encounters with familiar friends, stringing comfort into memories of this lab. Memories, he realizes, that didn't exist a moment ago.

The woman tips her head back and closes her eyes, crooning softly. "This could be home, if you let it. And it's a good one."

Good. So much pours into him with the one word. He can only imagine that Olivia is getting the same treatment - the same.... The same.... It's hard to remember where this lie started. He knows it's a lie, still, faintly, barely. He knows the feelings of familiarity pouring into him and into his surroundings aren't real. This woman is good at what she does. And she's having fun.

"Can't we be friends?"

[nolimitation]

Anger wells up, fierce and helpless, but that's never been where her power lies, and it only gives the woman more material to work with in what she's doing. She can feel her hands balling into fists in reality, arms straining against the restraints... she thinks she might hear the arms of the chair creaking under the pressure, something that seems strange for reasons she can't pinpoint... but most of her attention is in this world of memory and emotion, where she can feel her reality being twisted... and the part of her that cares is slowly fading away.

She blinks, frowns, shakes her head to try to clear it. Reality floats back into focus, slowly, and along with it, a feeling of warmth when she looks at the woman's face. She doesn't know her name, but she cares about her like a sister.

Olivia drags in a breath, slow and ragged. Her fist clenches, and then relaxes again. "...of course. Yeah."

[usavatar]

Steve relaxes, trying to remember why his muscles ache from tension, only relieved that he's back somewhere safe, a place he can trust.

"There you go." The woman between him and Olivia grins, and Steve feels himself smiling back at her. She blinks, then frowns, and says, "Right, you know me. I'm Lainie."

A wash of familiarity makes the room go blurry, as her name floods back through his memories until it's as familiar as his own. The strangeness of the sensation is smoothed away in seconds, replaced by loyalty and affection. She's a sister. She's one of the best people he knows.

"Can I unstrap you guys? You think the old doc will mind? I mean, I think he's done with your tests for the day."

Lainie spins on her stool and stops herself, facing Olivia.