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

[subject13]

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.

[n_o_p_e]

"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.

[subject13]

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.

[n_o_p_e]

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."

[subject13]

"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.

[n_o_p_e]

He opens the door.

Everything inside looks how he remembers it. Exactly how he remembers it, down to the picture of his father on the dresser. It's a closet of a space, a bedroom folding into a kitchen with a toilet in the corner. The air tastes stale. Like a hospital. Like a sick room.

"Mother?" Faint. Timid. He knows even if she's here it's not her, but...

But.

He smudges at his eyes with the back of his hand. "I thought... I don't know." He moves inside, not letting go of Olivia. There are little lead soldiers scattered across the floor. Steve picks one up, turns it over in his fingers, feels every edge and point. "This isn't real. It's not."

He covers his eyes with his wrist, sounding and feeling entirely like the boy he looks. "I want to go home."

[subject13]

Olivia's fingers tighten around Steve's as she swallows convulsively, looking around the unfamiliar space and trying to imagine how it must look to him. She'd never felt any connection to a particular place, not since her father died - never stayed in one place long enough, never trusted things not to change without warning, but for Steve...

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "We'll get out of here and go home, I promise, we just-"

Something thumps in the hall outside, and Olivia goes stiff immediately, holding her breath and staring intently at the door like a rabbit spotting a hound, wanting to run but with nowhere to go. Another thump and a crash, and a door down the hall slams open.

Don't be scared don't be scared don't be scared this isn't real it's okay it can't hurt you-

"We need to get out of here," she whispers.

[n_o_p_e]

He blinks away tears, looking from Olivia to the door and back. He moves between them automatically. Emotions filed away, or at least put into second place.

"What's the matter? What is it?"

Steve's hand wraps tight around the little metal soldier and he squares off facing the door. He's not letting anything get to her. He's not letting anything through. "There's a fire escape. It's the window next to the bed."

[subject13]

"It's nothing. It's..."

Another door slams open, closer than the last, followed by the distinctive thump of a fist hitting a wall.

She tugs on his hand, pulling him toward the window. "I'm faster than you are, you need to go first."

"Olivia! Where are you hiding?"

Olive jerks at the sound of her name, and grabs Steve's shoulder to shove him toward the fire escape. "Steve, go!"

[n_o_p_e]

He stumbles, catches himself on the bedside to keep from falling, and is about to answer when it feels like an invisible hand closes around his throat. He can't talk, can't move, and from the corner of his eye he can see that his hand on the bed has disappeared.

Olivia's alone, for all she knows, and he can't speak to assure her it's not true.

His heart rate picks up enough to make breathing hard, not just with adrenaline. Fear. There's no struggle to make. It's like he's eyes suspended in nothingness, even if he tries to thrash against whatever holds him still and invisible. He can't protect her. He can't even try.

[subject13]

"...Steve?"

He's not moving, and she can hear her stepfather's footsteps coming closer and oh god, they need to move, they need to...

He's gone. He's gone he's gone he's gone she's alone and he's coming to get her and she needs to go, but if Steve's still here--

The door bursts open, a monster in the doorway. She can see her stepfather in it, if she looks hard, but when she looks at it, all she sees is the monster, burning eyes and massive hands and hulking muscles, so huge it has to duck to make it through the door, and Olivia gasps, backing up until she hits the wall. There's a window somewhere. There's a fire escape, Steve said, and if she can just get out...

"Haven't I told you not to run from me, sweetheart?"

Olivia goes totally still, breath caught in her throat. She's better than this, she's older and she knows better and... and she's a scared little girl all over again, and even when everything in her screams to run, all she can do is stand there, wide-eyed and terrified.

[n_o_p_e]

Olive!

He still can't move. He feels himself dissolving, being pressed into the wallpaper, watching as that monster stares Olivia down. Powerless. He can't breathe. He can't-

A very different scene. Olivia, a little older, talking to people he doesn't recognize. Olivia, an adult, acting as a representative of the Fringe Division. The team, their team, going through the motions of an average day as he watches - and then another day, and another, their hairstyles changing and their eyes tiring, wrinkles showing and hair graying, and still he can't move or speak.

No! Terror. That's what this is. Absolute fear. Watching another world spin on without him, seeing this time as the people he's come to care about live and die and grieve while he stands by in frozen silence.

Not again. Not again.