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

"I'm here," she says softly, slumping down in her chair in mixed relief that he's conscious and at least capable of sarcasm, and frustration that she's not seeing a way out of this.

She can wait. She's been here before, more often than she'd like to admit - but having Steve here with her is putting her more on edge, like she's somehow responsible for making sure he gets out of here in one piece. She is responsible for his presence in this universe, anyway, so whatever happens after that... it's on her.

"A little patience, Captain, and I'm sure we can find some way to entertain you," the stranger says with wry amusement, moving off behind their chairs. "Just a few preliminaries now..."

Olivia hears the rattle of glass on metal as he prepares something, but doesn't look back. She's not sure seeing what he's doing would make her feel any better.

"Seen this one before. You kids with your remakes - never as good."

He smiles at Olivia as soon as the enemy moves out of sight. The unsteadiness has settled somewhere between his chest and stomach, making him feel like he's going to be sick.

Generic medical facilities in a room that looks like it's only recently been occupied again. Cameras, though. Steve marks their positions and the angles they cover without looking at them, expanding the map in his head to include likely locations for cameras he can't see, covering the angles the others leave blind.

Assume your enemy is smarter than you - assume they'll always have a back-up plan.

He rests his head against the chair and tries to steady his breathing. His head starts to pound. "Should I bother asking what you're doing and if you need both of us for it, or would you like to deliver the monologue without the usual prompts?"

Olivia manages a faint smile back, genuine if strained. She flexes her hands, trying to keep circulation through restraints that are almost too tight, and lets Steve do the talking for the moment - he's getting answers, after all, and she's not about to do anything to change that.

"Ask whatever you'd like. We don't need or want to conceal anything from you. If we thought you'd have come along willingly..." He sighs softly, sounding regretful - but not much, considering he lost two men bringing them here. "We do need the both of you, though. We need an army - you can consider yourself the first recruits."

The back of Olivia's neck prickles at the words, some old fear clawing its way up her throat from a half-buried memory - and the feeling only intensifies as he steps back into view, holding two more syringes. One contains something dark red and viscous in a way that can't be anything but blood. The liquid in the other is bright red, and the bottom of her stomach drops out as her gaze fixes on it.

"Is that Cortexiphan?" she asks, her voice hard and level like she already knows.

It's not the Cortexiphan worrying Steve. It's the blood.

"That's mine, isn't it."

No no no no no. His voice stays even, but the adrenaline of fear floods through him.

Relax. Relax. "You clearly know we wouldn't have agreed to this. When you say 'recruits', do you think we'll be doing actual fighting for you, or are we just your lab rats?"

"You'll fight," he murmurs, shaking his head as he doublechecks the syringe of Cortexiphan. "We're just giving you the means to win. And to answer both your questions, yes. You were both designed as soldiers, from what we understand, but neither design went... quite far enough."

He bends to inject the Cortexiphan into Steve's IV, and Olivia jerks forward, yanking hard at her restraints even though there's no give to them, nothing to gain from fighting but bruises. "Wait, stop. You can't- Cortexiphan was designed for children, it's not-"

He doesn't stop. The needle goes into the IV; the plunger depresses. Olivia holds her breath, watching Steve in barely concealed panic.

"True. Adult subjects don't tend to survive, but we don't have the time for children. And with your friend's healing factor..." He withdraws, sets the first syringe aside, and turns to Olivia with the second in hand. "We're sure he'll be better than fine."

"Don't. She doesn't have what I do - there's no guarantee that will work. You don't know what the procedures were. Injecting blood into someone-"

He doesn't throw himself against the restraints, tempting as it is. Just grits his teeth. "Wait. Wait and see what happens to me first. You're wasting your resources if one of us dies right away."

Olivia's eyes flick to the syringe, and then back to Steve, watching uncertainly for any sign something's going wrong. It's just blood. Super soldier blood with god knows what in it, sure, but she doesn't see it actually killing her. Cortexiphan, though...

"No one's going to die," she says, quiet but firm, her eyes locked on Steve. Cortexiphan's about feelings - she remembers that much from being small and terrified, with a needle in her arm just like this - and he can't think he's going to die right now. He can't.

"She's right. No one is dying." And he's injecting the blood, clearly unconcerned by Steve's words. "Cortexiphan subjects are more resilient than you might think... and we do have more of them than we do of you, Captain."

Olivia looks up at that, glaring briefly. "Thanks. It's really nice to know where I fit in here."

Fury burns through him. Steve slams forward against the restraints, until it hurts, until every muscle feels strained -

And he falls back again, feeling better than he did when he woke up. He's still breathing too hard, his heartbeat is still too fast, but he doesn't feel like he's wasting away from fever. "Let me rephrase. If she dies, I'll tear everyone in this building apart, starting with you. Pretty sure you won't have much luck if things go the other way around, either.

Steve meets Olivia's eyes, trying to be reassuring, but there's something nagging at him. "How do you know about me?"

Edited 2012-09-17 04:23 (UTC)

He finishes injecting the blood, turns back to face Steve for a moment, and nods calmly, not a trace of fear or doubt in his expression. "I'll take that risk."

Turning to adjust the bags of fluid hooked up to their IVs, he shrugs with a thin smile. "Would you believe it's from history? Not a history that's popular or particularly encouraged, but even so..."

Olivia gives Steve a sideways look that's half alarmed, half silent question if he's wondering about this guy's sanity as much as she suddenly is.

...because kidnapping them and dosing them with blood and Cortexiphan in the first place is such a great mark of sanity.

Oh, he's questioning it. He catches her look, raises an eyebrow, and tries to settle against the chair again. If the restraints are strong enough to keep him pinned, maybe what they're connected to isn't. He's not going to start hammering on that side of things, not yet, but it's worth trying.

"I'm not part of this universe's history." Words he never dreamed of saying. "What happens now? You wait and see if we shrivel up like raisins?"

"Not yet," he says, calm and assured. Olivia is still watching him intently, trying to decide if he's for real or just insane. Either is entirely possible in Fringe Division, and she doesn't exactly feel safe settling firmly on either conclusion right now.

He moves behind them again, and returns quickly with a wooden box, which he sets on a table in front of and between the two of them, and opens to reveal a lightbox.

"Now you turn on the lights," he says, walking calmly back behind their chairs, "and you're free to go."

Olivia stares at the lightbox dubiously. She knows what this is. Walter never tried this specific test on her, but he did a hundred other things like it, pointless, frustrating tests that stopped producing results long before she ran away. "You can't be serious. Injecting him with Cortexiphan isn't going to suddenly give him abilities you're supposed to have from childhood, and I haven't been able to do anything like this sin- ahhh!"

The only warning she has is a steadying hand on her shoulder, and then there's something sharp in the back of her neck, stabbing into her spine. She tenses at the initial shock of pain, and then slumps forward, gasping softly to get her breath back. "What..."

He's moving to the back of Steve's chair to insert a probe at the base of his skull as well. "Just a little something to help you reach the necessary level of emotional response."

"Wh- Olivia!"

He has just enough time to see the probe and the wires sticking out of her neck before stabbing pain makes his vision go gray and he finds himself imitating her slump, blinking to center himself in the room again.

"When our people see what happened in that house, they're going to come looking for us. They'll find us. This..." He closes his eyes again, feeling a giddy flutter in his stomach. Not unpleasant. Quite the opposite. But his focus is straying. Steve grits his teeth. What was he saying? "This is what they do. They find madmen and shut them down."

He sags back in the chair. He's starting to feel weak again, though in a very different way. Painkillers were always too expensive when he was younger, and after Project Rebirth nothing worked on him anyway - so this? This is new. A whole different kind of fatigue, and he has no idea what to make of it. "What are you doing?"

Edited 2012-09-17 06:13 (UTC)

"We're not here to hurt you. Either of you."

His voice is calm, and oddly soothing under the influence of whatever's dripping from the IV into their veins. Olivia starts to turn to glare, but the movement of her head hurts too much with the probe in her neck, and she sags forward again, clenching her hands tight around the arms of the chair.

"We're making you better. Ready for what's coming."

"It's just the drugs, Steve." She's been here too many times to be alarmed, just tired and angry. "And the probes are... They were..."

There's an odd sort of fog closing in, making the edges of the room blur and darken. Her own voice sounds too loud in her own ears, while everything else seems to fade. She grits her teeth and lifts her head and turns to face the man for just a second despite the pain. "Do you have any tricks you didn't steal from Walter Bishop?"

If he replies, it's lost as the room wobbles and fades entirely - and suddenly she's alone in the dark, and her own voice sounds soft and small and much too young as she calls out, fear creeping in despite herself, "Hello? Is there anyone... Steve?"

He lasts a little longer, clings to consciousness for a breath more, tries to speak, to wake Olivia up, something, but then he's adrift in blackness with Olivia's voice as the only anchor. He knows it's her, even though she sounds wrong, and somehow he finds his footing even though there's nowhere he can see to stand.

"I'm here." It sounds wrong. He looks down at his hands - and they're there, but small, stubby-fingered, a child's hands. He's standing in the middle of an empty street he recognizes, with shops he knew in another life, their displays brilliant with color and vacant of anyone, anything.

He steps back. This is Hell's Kitchen, his Hell's Kitchen, when he lived there with his mother. "Olivia?"

Steve tries to keep a tremor out of the call. This is wrong, he knows it's wrong, that it's not real. He wants to know where the people are - or wants it all to go away. He's not sure which.

Olive starts running when she hears his voice - she's still in the darkness, but she can hear him, knows it's him even though it doesn't sound like the Steve she knows, and she takes off toward the sound, because if she can just find him... If she can find him, it'll be okay.

She bursts out of an alley and skids to a startled halt, momentarily blinded by the sudden shift from darkness to light. This... This is nothing familiar, nowhere she knows.

"Steve?"

Relief. He starts to run toward her, but has to stop half-way. He's small, frail, and can feel the shortness of breath coming that means he's pushed too hard.

Steve grabs on to the nearest car to stay upright while he breathes. Even when things were bad, he was never quite this quick to tire. "I'm here. It's me."

He tries for a smile, walking the remaining distance so he can take her hand. It's forward, maybe, but it's reassuring. They're together. They'll figure this out. "What's going on?"

Edited 2012-09-17 07:03 (UTC)

Olivia reaches out to take his hand without hesitation, twining her fingers through his: whatever happens, they're staying together. She does have to take a moment to stare at him, though - to stare down at him - and deal with the fact that she's taller than he is. It's not like she's ever been small for her age, but he's Steve, and this is... somehow stranger than the eerie empty streets or the fact that she's a child again.

She shakes her head a little and glances around, frowning.

"I think we're... Walter used to do this at the daycare center in Jacksonville. When he needed to..." She swallows hard, her fingers tightening unconsciously on his. "To scare us, so we'd use our abilities. And the probes... I think those were so we'd end up in the same place."

Olive pauses, staring down the street uncertainly. "It's not as scary as I remember it."

"Yeah."

Steve's not sure what he's agreeing with. He shifts fractionally closer to her, feeling protective and seeking comfort both at once. That someone would do this to a child makes him feel sick. It's too much like Zola, the Nazis' experimentation, and it only serves to drive home the fact that the world hasn't changed nearly so much as it claims.

Music. He hears music, reedy as an old recording, piping through the empty streets. It's a jazzy sound, somehow familiar, even though he can't pick out the song.

They all died waiting for you... It's crooned to the tune of the music, in a voice like Billie Holiday's.

Steve presses shoulder-to-shoulder with Olivia. "What happened the times that you went through this? How did you get out?"

Olivia leans in toward him just a little more, the pressure of his shoulder on hers some small reassurance.

"Mostly you just... wait until the drugs wear off. Until they can tell it's not working. They want us to be scared, so... don't be." She sets her jaw - a normal expression on the grown Olivia, but entirely out of place on the child she is now, no matter how familiar it is to her even at this age. "It's not real. It can't hurt us."

She meant it to come out steady and reassuring; instead, it just sounds like a child trying to reassure herself and not quite managing.

"We should find out where that sound is coming from."

He wraps his other hand around hers, so he's holding it between both of his. Steve looks off down the familiar street. "They want us to be scared," he says, determined to sound solid. "I think I know where it's coming from."

Steve doesn't lead the way, exactly. He sticks close to Olivia's side, shivering a little despite the fact that it isn't cold. He doesn't want to admit how much it's getting to him - the emptiness, block after block. A couple of times he has to stop to catch his breath. He tries to hide his difficulty, mask it with looking at shops or street signs. The music goes on and on, winding between the buildings, louder and softer in turns.

They reach gray apartments rammed between two nearly-identical buildings, clothes strung out on lines from fire escape to fire escape. Fluttering, flapping quietly.

It's so easy to give in to the farce of childhood. To forget he's twenty-seven and a veteran. His voice sounds even smaller in the silence. "This is where I lived."

Edited 2012-09-18 01:18 (UTC)

Somehow, Olivia isn't surprised. When she was younger, these nightmares were all scary monsters and voices in the dark - now it's the ghosts of their lives before, dredged up and throw in their faces, and what else would it ever be?

She cranes her neck back to look up at the building, and then nods a little. Whatever this is, for the moment, it's not her nightmare. "Do you want me to go in first? So if there's anything..."

She's already gently disentangling her hand from his, starting for the door. Whatever's in there can't hurt her.

"Wait." He catches up, twines his fingers through hers again. "I'm all right. We'll go together."

He's not all right. He's afraid. He's afraid of what's waiting in there, afraid of what isn't. The fear makes him angry, and the anger makes him defiant - but still, he can't shake the childish feeling that they're stepping to the edge of Pandora's box. Putting their hands on the lid.

The front door of the building is broken. It always was. When the door moans inward, Steve moves with it, too quick to let nerves make him hesitate. It's dingy. The whole place yellowing like a photograph, wallpaper peeling and wood paneling splintered.

Steve slips his hand out of Olivia's, moving deeper into the building, toward the stairwell, with the pride of resisted shame.

Olivia moves more slowly, staring too long at the shadows until she can be sure there's nothing about to come out of them, but she does her best to follow closely, making herself a tangible presence at Steve's back as he progresses into the building. They're together. They're together, and they're going to make it out of this together, and...

There's a sound in the hallway behind her. It's quiet, just a faint scuff and the slow creak of a door opening, but she gasps softly and swings to face it, old instincts screaming an alarm. There's nothing moving, nothing she can see, but she still stares back down the stairs for a long moment before shaking herself and moving after Steve once more, with slow deliberate steps in an effort to not run. Run and they know you're scared.

Run and the monsters get you.

Steve has trouble stopping himself from running for very different reasons.

Third floor, apartment C. Steve wraps one hand around the knob.

The music stops. It feels like the building is holding its breath, watching with dozens of invisible eyes. Steve looks back.

Nothing. Just Olive - Olivia, looking as haunted as he feels. He holds out his free hand. "We're okay."

"Yeah," she whispers, and she sounds so young and small it even startles her. This isn't who she is, not anymore, but it's so hard to remember that in the middle of all this, when it feels so real no matter what she tells herself.

She takes his hand and steps forward, standing so close the front of her shoulder touches the back of his, and let's out a slow breath. They're okay, even if the silence is making her skin crawl and she's almost certain something's watching them. They're okay.

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

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