Parched - Chapter One [1/?]
'I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.'
DISCLAIMER & OTHER WARNINGS
‘S’like a picture!’
The Doctor watched Rose Tyler lean over the railing, all sparkling brown eyes and delighted smile as she gazed across Boston’s harbour. Every so often, a beam of light rotated across the sky, illuminating falling white flurries. Behind them, the sound of traffic slogging through snow drifts and slush provided the sole burden on the silence.
‘You’d think you’d never seen snow before in your life,’ he scoffed, although in secret, he enjoyed her enthusiasm. Her cheeks, flushed with cold and joy, were the only visible part of her. A thick parka and woollen cap, courtesy of the TARDIS, obscured the rest of her.
‘Never this much!’
‘What are you on about? I took you to Mt Everest! You tellin’ me you didn’t spot all the white stuff there?’
‘Yeah, but that was different! I was too busy taking in the view. Seriously, look at that snowbank! S’got to be up to my knees, at least! Is it always like this here?’
‘In winter or in Boston? Answer’s usually both. Though to be fair, this isn’t even one of the record breakers. It’s got nothing on the sixth Ice Age, but then, the global super-storm era hasn’t started yet.’
‘Good thing, too, cos I don’t fancy being turned into a human ice lolly.’
‘There’s a market for that on Shabadabadon, or so I’ve heard.’
‘Where?’
‘Planet famous for its ice caves. According to the guidebook, there’s also a rather intriguing collection of living statues.’
‘Oh, please, as if you’ve ever read a guidebook,’ she dismissed, and then her eyes widened. ‘Wait, living statues? This I’ve got to see! Can we go there next?’
He shook his head.
‘Never could get there, meself. Tried three times over the past few centuries and ended up somewhere else every time.’
‘And how’s that different from usual?’ Rose teased, her grin peeking out over her scarf. It was such a welcome sight he didn’t rise to the bait.
‘Suppose it’s not, is it?’ he allowed, reaching out to take her gloved hand. She laughed and swung their joined hands back and forth; the Doctor felt something close to relief wash over him.
Something had been bothering Rose all day.
At first, the Doctor assumed exhaustion was the reason. Their latest adventure had allowed for little time to sleep. Since coming on board two weeks ago, Rose had made sleep a non-negotiable condition of their travelling together.
Whatever objections he raised to that disappeared upon experiencing a sleep-deprived Rose Tyler. He now fully supported her daily need for caffeine and didn’t argue (much) when she sometimes disappeared into her room for a quick daze. She always returned, bright-eyed and up for their next adventure, so he no longer made a fuss about it.
Today, however, her distraction continued long after her kip, and he’d come to the realisation that something was bothering her.
Not that he asked her about it.
Centuries of travelling with women, young and old, had taught him to avoid such conversations. An opening like that might lead to an hour or more of ruminations on some inane aesthetic insecurity or another. An activity more tortuous than sitting in a room full of Vogon beatniks, in his opinion.
Besides, he knew what it was like to have things he didn’t want to talk about. If Rose felt like telling him, she would. She didn’t lack the ability to express herself, another fact their time together had taught him.
To divert her attention from whatever was bothering her, he’d offered to bring her to a destination of her choice. He determinedly maintained it was simple altruism and in no way a means to waylay his own (non-existent) curiosity.
As usual, she waffled a few seconds about him having better ideas, but in the end suggested Boston.
‘You said something about pushing boxes at a tea party, right? So what was that all about?’
And instead of explaining why it was a bad idea to visit an event he personally took part in, he instead set the coordinates and took off.
As he launched into a lecture about the American Revolution, he reminded himself she wouldn’t recognise the fifth version of him anyhow. He would simply ensure they just watched from the distance instead of participating.
A minor Blinovitch Limitation violation seemed a small price to pay for Rose Tyler’s smile.
Or so he thought.
While they did end up in Boston Harbour, it was 2012 instead of 1773.
Avoidance of potential paradoxes aside, the fact the TARDIS got things wrong again grated on the Doctor.
Over the centuries, he had become accustomed to the faulty navigation and other oddities of his ship. But usually, when he tinkered or replaced something on the ship it stayed fixed for more than five minutes. He had just replaced the yearometer while Rose was sleeping off their romp through the twentieth century; he’d even stopped off for the proper parts and everything!
ETAs should be bloody accurate again, he thought angrily. There was really no excuse.
Yet another way the War had inevitably damaged his third heart as much as him.
Before he could fall back into the ever-waiting, ever-present guilt, Rose had asked what was wrong, and he shoved it aside; navigation problems he would deal with later.
At least twenty-first century Boston contained its own charms.
‘Can we get something to eat?’ Rose asked now, squeezing his hand. ‘I’m starving - and don’t get on about “inferior human digestive systems” again.’
‘You said it, not me. Though I am a bit peckish meself.’
‘Will wonders never cease?’
‘None of your cheek, or I won’t buy you any supper.’
‘With what money?’
‘Hm.’ He glanced around and then spotted a cash machine in the distance. ‘Hang on.’
He darted across the street and lost no time in setting the sonic to override the computer’s card recognition system and PIN numbers. There was a whir, and it spewed out several hundred dollars in paper bills.
‘Here we are,’ he declared when he returned, handing her a wad of cash.
Rose raised an eyebrow as she took the money. ‘So what, you’ve got a bank account or something?’
‘Technically, yes. UNIT expense account. I don’t use it though. Makes it too easy for them to keep track of me.’
‘Didn’t you say you worked for ‘em?’
‘I do. Doesn’t mean I want them able to get a hold of me when I’m on sabbatical! Else they’d have me cleaning up every little sneeze on this planet,’ he disdained.
‘So if you don’t want UNIT knowing where you are, where’d the money come from?’
‘Not my UNIT account.’
‘So what, you stole it?’
‘Consider it the world doin’ us a favour for saving it every other day.’
She seemed to consider that and eventually smiled. ‘Yeah, okay, works for me.’
‘Fantastic,’ he pronounced and took her hand once more.
He had past companions who entertained moral compunctions about sonicking cash points. There may have been certain issues he and Rose disagreed on, but this was obviously not one of them. ‘Come along then - let’s find you something to eat.’
‘Reckon they’ve got chips?’ Rose enthused. ‘No, wait, they call ‘em “fries” here, don’t they?’
‘Never mind that! You can’t have chips every place we go.’
‘Sure I can! I’ve got to be able to compare from place to place.’
‘That might be true, but you can’t leave Boston without sampling their seafood. Some of the best clam chowder I’ve ever had.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do say so!’
As they started to turn the corner, the Doctor suddenly experienced the familiar, hair raising sensation of being spied on.
It wasn’t a completely foreign sensation to him; occasionally his perception filter failed or was ineffective against someone particularly observant. That sometimes led to unwanted attention and at worst incarceration.
This, though, this was something else.
There was a pinprick of awareness accompanying whoever or whatever was watching him right now. Without relying too much on his damaged senses, he could just sense the cool ripple of presence outside its proper place and time.
He wanted to shake it off as paranoia, or even more distantly, wishful thinking, but that had never done any good in the past. Still, it wouldn’t do to tell Rose anything out of the ordinary happening, not until he was sure at least.
‘What’s goin’ on?’
Rose regarded him with concern, and he realised he must have allowed a lull in their conversation.
‘Just remembered - best seafood’s back that way,’ he told her brightly.
It wasn’t a lie - not really.
The strange sensation did seem to originate from the same direction as an upmarket restaurant he knew. The whole thing was likely nothing - an overactive paranoia from lack of sleep on his part. But if it turned out to be something, at least he would be around to do something.
Either way, Rose trusted him and let him lead her back in the direction they had come from.
After ten minutes of wandering around, distracting her with cheerful lecturing, the Doctor still couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of whatever was messing with his senses.
Nothing for it, he decided he and he resolutely led Rose toward the restaurant.
∙ ΘΣ ∙
‘Hey - whoa, whoa! Wait! I’ve got it!’
Olivia Dunham found herself smoothly manoeuvred away from the trunk of the SUV and the box marked Old Photos. Her partner, Peter Bishop, was already nudging her toward the sidewalk as he slipped his arms around the box, grunting with the barest effort.
‘You do know I’m pregnant and not crippled, right?’ she quipped, running a hand through long blond hair, if only to keep from smacking him in frustration.
‘Both of which qualify you for your very own personal heavy lifters,’ Peter replied, unaware or uncaring of her tone. ‘Tell you what, though, I’ll let you get the door.’
‘Oh, you will, will you?’
‘Well, you’ve got to earn your keep somehow, woman.’
‘I have a gun.’
‘And I am never saying that again,’ he avowed.
Olivia let out a gentle snort of laughter as she closed the trunk and locked the SUV. Peter had been like this for almost ten weeks now, ever since they were told of her condition.
At the thought, she absently pressed her fingers to her abdomen, a gesture became more and more automatic as time passed. She carried a sonograph picture of the baby in her pocket and was waiting for the right moment to show it to Peter.
Their daughter.
Whenever she stopped to reflect on it, she couldn’t help marvel at everything that led them to this.
Four years ago, Olivia had been no more than a Special Agent with the FBI, desperately trying to find a cure for her then-partner. Peter had been a jack-of-all-trade whose activities were barely above the level of career criminal. They never would have met if she hadn’t needed his help to access his father. Walter Bishop, the sole person with the knowledge to help her, had been rotting away in an asylum, his release conditional on Peter’s presence.
At the time, she would never have foreseen her life turning out as it did. Some days it was easier to believe she had traversed alternate universes and battled shapeshifters than it was for her to comprehend the idea of life growing inside her.
Ever since their revelation of her pregnancy, it felt as if she was trapped in a whirlwind; which was odd because she hadn’t even been working all that much.
Olivia’s pregnancy had been low maintenance so far. No morning sickness or odd cravings, and or even a genetic disposition to Viral Propagated Eclampsia as she once feared. Her OB/GYN assured her everything was progressing as expected.
Life continued as normal while they looked for a new place to live - somewhere that Walter, who was finicky for routine, would approve of as well. There had been few incidents requiring the attention of Fringe Division since the debacle with William Bell and his attempt to create a new universe. As such, Olivia and Peter had taken the past two weeks off to move into their new home. The place remained cluttered with boxes that needed unpacking, but the most important furniture and belongings had been dealt with.
‘Hey, Liv? Kind of falling down on the job here.’
She shook herself from her reflections and smiled at Peter, following him up the walk to their new flat. ‘Sorry, just thinking.’
‘Yeah? What a coincidence, me too,’ he said, shifting his weight under the box as Olivia shuffled her keyring around for the house key. ‘What, with this being the last box and all, we should probably celebrate.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. I’m thinking maybe… Italian? Candlelight and non-alcoholic wine?’
‘Is this you trying to be romantic?’
‘Depends. How am I doing?’
‘You had me up until the non-alcoholic wine part. That stuff’s disgusting.’
‘And considering I’ve seen you chug a flatworm shake, that’s something.’ Peter paused. ‘You’re not going to suddenly get cravings for that, are you? ‘Cause I’m good with three a.m. ice cream runs, but I am definitely not hunting up creepy crawlies for you.’
‘I’m sure if that’s ever an issue, Walter has me covered,’ Olivia answered dryly.
‘You’re probably right,’ Peter laughed. ‘In fact, if -’
A sudden crashing noise inside interrupted him, and both of them froze.
With practised synchronicity, Olivia had her service weapon out of its holster and in hand, while Peter soundlessly rid himself of the box. Before he could give her the warning she knew was coming, she entered the flat, her firearm held in front of her.
She could hear Peter reaching for his phone, probably dialling 9-1-1 to tell them of an intruder in their home. Satisfied that the authorities were on their way, Olivia nudged open the door to the kitchen to confront the burglar.
Except there wasn’t one.
Instead, she found with a colourful kind of pandemonium.
Every available surface was packed full of bottles, some open and others still sealed. Sitting in the middle of the floor, with several open containers and spoon in hand, was Peter’s father.
‘Walter? Seriously?’ Peter groaned, thumb paused over the call button. ‘I figured you were still at the lab.’
‘Oh, hello Peter. Olivia,’ Dr Bishop greeted them mildly. ‘Agent Farnsworth was kind enough to drive me home. While I waited for you both, I decided to ensure all the available infant nutrition options were both safe and gustatory. The baby should not be fed subpar mush.’ He lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘So far, the strawberry is superior.’
· Φ ·
‘It’s a bit posh, innit?’ Rose asked, uncertain.
She didn’t miss the disapproving once-over the host gave them as she shrugged out of her winter coat. Judging from what the other patrons wore, her jeans and trainers weren’t the dress code here.
‘You’re fine,’ the Doctor told her as he finagled a table for them at the back of the room. It offered a nice view of the whole restaurant, and even more impressive, it was right beside the heater.
He surreptitiously brought out the sonic and buzzed it about. Rose opened her mouth to ask, but stopped when a wave of warmth flowed over her from the heater.
Snow’s nice to look at, and all, but once you lose feeling in your fingers, not so much, she decided. I’d just as soon see it from inside.
‘Just act like you own the place and no one will even notice,’ the Doctor went on, grabbing a menu to examine.
Easy for him to say, he never got tossed out of somewhere for looking too poor.
It happened to her and her friends enough times that she dreaded that particular brand of embarrassment. The worst time had been the previous year when Mickey scraped together enough money for a nice dinner. They weren’t asked to leave, but the contempt in the eyes of the other guests and hotel staff left a bad taste in her mouth. Even worse, Mickey apologized for days afterward despite it not being his fault.
No, don’t think about Mickey, she coached herself, stomach swooping unpleasantly.
If there was anyone she wanted to contemplate less than Mickey right now, she couldn’t name them.
The matter had been nagging her since she thought about it the night before, along with a myriad of thoughts she had barely processed. Ever since arriving in Boston, she had tried to keep her mind on anything else, to act as if everything was normal. Rose’s subconscious obviously didn’t want to listen to her.
She was late.
She was never late.
She was always painfully, agonizingly on schedule. Except for that one scare due to what the doctors identified as stress over her GCSE. Rose knew that couldn’t be the case right now. Oh, she had been in stressful situations, sure, but they were always followed by a period of catharsis and the sense of a job well done.
So what other reason did she have for being late, except that she’d slept with Mickey a few days before meeting the Doctor? They had been careful - they always were - but clearly something had gone wrong, judging by the box in deep pockets of her parka that her hand kept wandering toward.
It felt like a brand.
She had bought it right before she and the Doctor arrived at the restaurant. They had passed a chemist and she made up a story about wanting to buy the chocolate-peanut butter cups in the window display.
‘They don’t have those back in London,’ she wheedled. ‘It’ll be for dessert later.’
He’d shaken his head fondly, given her a wad of American money and waited for her outside. Because apparently walking through the local version of Boots was far too domestic for the exalted Time Lord.
She’d nipped in, bought the first test she could find and shoved the box into her voluminous pockets on her way out. She offered the Doctor some of her chocolate, laughed when he warned her about spoiling her dinner, and they’d been on their way.
The fact that she had lied to him made her feel sick.
I’ll pay him back once I get back on the TARDIS, she resolved. There was a bit of money in her ref backpack, she could figure out how much it came to. Not that the Doctor actually cared about money, but she’d spent a whole pregnancy test’s worth more than a bag of chocolate -
Oh God, what if I am…?
Rose picked nervously at the price tag still on the box.
She could just be jumping to conclusions.
She hoped she was just jumping to conclusions.
Otherwise, she was going to have to explain to Mickey how he had gotten her pregnant a year ago (in his timeline). Then she would have to figure out what the hell she as supposed to do about it.
‘…of course, everyone looks silly in a lobster bib,’ the Doctor was rambling, completely unaware of her inner turmoil. ‘Human or not.’
He grinned at her expectantly, and she realized he was waiting for an answer.
Mentally grasping at the long speech she had turned out, she instead seized on his previous sentence. ‘Thought you said I should get chowder?’
‘And now I’m sayin’ you should have the lobster as well.’
‘Just how much d’you think I can eat? We haven’t all got two stomachs like someone I know.’
‘Once you’ve tried the lobster, you’re gonna wish you had,’ he retorted and flagged down a waiter.
Crisis or not, Rose was hungry and so she let the Doctor order for both of them. At least if she threw up later, she could blame it on bad seafood and not…well, the alternative.
The appetisers and main course went without incident, although the Doctor did occasionally look around as if he was cataloguing the room. She had seen her neighbour Jason do that a lot since coming back from Iraq, and figured it was a soldier thing. The Doctor had be in a war, after all, so she didn’t comment on it.
Instead, she prompted him for stories on his previous visits to America, genuinely cracking up as he regaled her with stories of meeting Benjamin Franklin (‘Now, there’s a man that knows how to take an electric shock!’) and his brief friendship with Thomas Jefferson (‘It wasn’t until we were four paragraphs in to the first draft of the Declaration of Independence that I realized he was trying to pull me!’).
The wait staff moved to and fro with the boundless energy you usually found in a restaurant during peak times. On a raised platform at the back of the room, a group of men and women in business suits were just opening their champagne. Beside them, a young couple huddled close together, hands clasped as they whispered intimately to each other. On the other side of the room, a family wrangled their kids together to leave, while a bald man in a suit moved his hat out of the way of his dinner.
‘Alright, I admit it. This is gorgeous,’ Rose said, polishing off a chew of bread dipped in the creamy white sauce. ‘First time I’ve ever been glad I didn’t go with chips.’
‘You want a good plate of chips, next time you’re peckish I’ll bring you to Quebec in the fifties. Friend of mine invented this dish with chips and cheese curds that -’
The Doctor stopped talking abruptly, jaw clenching and eyes widening in something like surprise. Or discomfort.
‘Doctor?’
Whether he would respond or not, she didn’t find out, because there was a sudden clatter near them and a choking shriek.
The large dinner party at the back had suddenly erupted into a flurry of movement. Those at the table began shouting and crying. They scrambled for wine glasses and water pitchers, throwing aside plates and centrepieces in their haste. One of the men at the table staggered from his seat, careening into the nearest couple and snatching a glass of water from the horrified young woman.
‘What’s going on?’ Rose asked, jumping to her feet.
‘Oi!’ the Doctor yelled. ‘Someone stop that man!’
Her head whipped around to see what he was pointing at. The bald man from across the room was calmly watching the growing pandemonium without the least bit of bother. With a casual, deliberate movement he put his hat on and stood to leave the restaurant.
The Doctor’s directive went ignored in the wake of another scream piercing the din, this time from another patron sitting by the frantic dinner party. The panicking diners now began to gasp and seize, their bodies riddled with convulsions.
‘Stay here, see if you can help,’ the Doctor ordered as he took off after the mysterious man. ‘I’ll be back!’
Rose gaped at his retreating back for half a second before throwing herself into action. She had no idea what she was supposed to do or what he was doing, but two weeks together had taught her to go along with even the most inexplicable behaviour.
She stumbled toward the table on the platform, dodging other diners doing the exact opposite. Everyone else wanted to put as much space between them and whatever was going on, and she understood the sentiment.
The situation was rapidly going from bad to outright horrifying, as the victims of - whatever was going on - began gasping and clutching their throats. Several already lay on the floor twitching and there was something happening to their bodies. They appeared to be shrinking somehow.
No, not shrinking, Rose realized as she leapt up the stairs. Shrivelling.
The men and women that had once been so lively were now grey-skinned and wrinkled, their eyes now too prominent in faces that resembled skulls with skin stretched over them. Some were beginning to lose their hair and teeth, while others had loose clothing falling off of them.
The people were becoming living skeletons before her eyes.
Rose tried desperately to remember her basic first aid, or anything she had seen on television that might help, but she couldn’t call up anything. Chest compressions, tourniquets, the Heimlich manoeuvre - none of that applied to this!
So she did the only thing she could do, hurrying past them and yanking the lever down on the red emergency alarm. She might not be able to help, but there had to be someone in a hospital somewhere who could. The alarm would be faster than her mobile, even with the Doctor’s modifications.
The shrill, ringing wail of the fire alarm barely cut through the din; moaning shrieks from the victims and terrified yells from other diners still desperate the flee the restaurant.
The dinner party was almost all collapsed on the floor and the table now. One of the afflicted diners closest to her was still frantically trying to drag himself along, reaching for a half-full pitcher lying on its side.
Rose darted forward and helped to push the pitcher into his hand. He was too weak to bring it to his lips, and so she helped him. To her surprise, once she put it in his hands, he upended the whole thing over himself, desperate to catch some water in his mouth. She watched it go up his nose as well, and his spluttering got worse.
‘Stop! Slow down - you’ll drown yourself -!’ she gasped, but the man ignored her. His wide, hollow eyes gazed up at her in a silent, scared plea and his hand wrapped around her wrist.
She jerked back reflexively at the grasp, but he tightened his grip. She watched as his fingers rapidly became more bonelike, the skin like paper and the tips locking together as muscle shrunk and dissolved.
‘Let go!’ she ordered. When nothing happened but the skeleton man’s eyes going blank in death, she tried to pull away.
To her horror and disgust, the arm came away with the forcefulness of her movement, detaching at the elbow joint. There wasn’t any blood, just a sticky, gooey substance that dripped onto the floor and her.
She couldn’t help her own scream now, as she shook off the appendage and backed away on heels and elbows.
The man was still now, his jaw twisted into an agonizing silent scream and his shrivelled eyes set reproachfully upon her. Like him, the rest of the dinner party was dead and desiccated.
Rose tried to stay in control. She had seen some rather unbelievable things in the two weeks of travelling with the Doctor, things she had managed to process despite how unnatural they were to her way of thinking.
This was too much.
Before she could stop herself, she was on her hands and knees being sick all over the floor.
Sound and sight vanished for a moment with the burn of bile in her throat, and she only came back to herself when she felt a slow pat to her back. A familiar voice was speaking to her in a soothing tone, bringing her back to herself.
When she’d finished, she slowly looked up again.
‘Sorry,’ she gasped, pulling away from the vomit on the floor and looking up at the Doctor.
‘No need to apologize for being sick,’ he returned gruffly, eyes on the macabre tableau before them. ‘That’d turn stronger stomachs than yours.’
‘No…not for that,’ she hedged, swallowing the sour taste in her mouth; she wasn’t sure she wanted to try drinking anything right now after what she’d just seen. ‘I just…I couldn’t do anything to help.’
Now the Doctor focussed directly on her, his expression softening.
‘Not everyone can be saved all the time, Rose,’ he told her sadly. ‘Even someone with advanced medical training from the future couldn’t’ve saved them. There wasn’t time, once things were set in motion.’
‘Even for you?’ she asked quietly.
‘Even for me. It’s why I tried to go after the bloke that did it.’
‘You think someone did this on purpose?’
‘I do. There was a man. Don’t know if you saw him, but he felt…off. Like he wasn’t from this time.’
‘Did you get him?’
‘No,’ the Doctors expression darkened. ‘He got away, probably with some kind of technology. Definitely not from this era, by the evidence.’
Rose’s eyes darted to the dead bodies again and she tried to get past the gruesomeness of it. ‘What exactly did he do?’
In answer, the Doctor pointed the sonic at the table of corpses and scanned them. ‘Dehydration, looks like.’
‘But they - they were all drinking,’ Rose protested. ‘Every one of them emptied their glass or was trying to drink it down. I saw it!’
‘Their bodies were already compromised by then. Whatever dried them out, was doing so faster than they could replenish their liquid levels.’
‘What could do that?’
‘No idea,’ he admitted, and his expression turned hard. It made her shiver. ‘But you and I are going to find out.’
· ΘΣ ·
If Peter hadn’t known for a fact that the universe considered him to be a non-entity, he might think that someone was conspiring against him.
Instead of a romantic candlelit dinner at the Italian bistro he’d made reservations at, Peter found himself helping Walter cleaning up the kitchen. Which, of course, translated to him cleaning up everything himself when his father lost interest and went to hunt down his Beatles collection.
Apparently eating strawberry puree had put Walter in a nostalgic mood.
Olivia had started helping with the clean-up, but a phone call from her sister effectively excused her from the job. Not that Peter was about to grudge her that. As far as he was concerned, she was incubating a tiny human inside of her - his tiny human - and he’d do his damnedest to make sure she had the least amount of additional stress in her life.
Considering their job, he had his work cut out for him.
It was ten weeks now since they had manage to foil William Bell’s megalomaniac attempt to collapse two universes. Ten weeks since he’d watched his father shoot Olivia in the head at point blank, and for her to miraculously open her eyes seconds later. Ten weeks since she’d looked up at him with disbelief and joy and trepidation and told him she was pregnant.
Coincidentally, it was about ten weeks now that he stopped being able to sleep through the night.
And now Walter, whose episodes had been manageable for the past year, suddenly decided to start acting out again.
‘He’s probably just worried.’
Peter jumped, nearly knocking the last of the puree bottles off the counter as Olivia entered the kitchen, cordless phone in hand.
‘Huh?’
‘Walter,’ she clarified, setting the phone back in its cradle. ‘You’ve got that concerned look on. Only happens when you’re trying to figure out your father. Relax. I’m sure he’s just worried.’
‘When isn’t he?’ Peter grumbled. ‘It’s just usually when he’s worried, he’s too busy building tinfoil hats to max out my credit card on organic mush that I don’t see us actually feeding our kid.’
‘Yeah, but it’s a bit different now, Peter. Things are going to be different, and we both know he’s not exactly good with that kind of thing,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s probably overthinking how his life is going to change when the baby comes.’
‘Point,’ Peter sighed.
‘You should talk to him. Make sure he knows everything important is going to stay the same as it was.’
‘Yeah, instead of keeping an eye out for one baby we’ll have two.’
The familiar chime of Olivia’s cell phone cut off anything she had to say to that.
‘Dunham,’ she answered, turning away from him.
He spent a minute considering whether he should go speak to Walter now, but then he noticed the subtle tension in Olivia’s shoulders and she suddenly barked, ‘What happened to them?’
She whirled around to face him, and he saw that her expression had morphed from that of the concerned, sympathetic woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with into the guarded FBI Agent that first tracked him down in Iraq. ‘Where? Alright, we’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’
She snapped her phone closed and shot him a grim look.
‘I’m guessing the vacation’s over?’ Peter offered lightly.
‘Looks like.’
‘What’s the case?’
‘Restaurant downtown. A dinner party suddenly turned into mummies in the middle of drinks.’
‘Sounds delicious.’ He paused. ‘Liv, are you sure you should -?’
She was already shrugging into her coat. ‘I’ll go start the car.’
Peter sighed. ‘I’ll go get Walter.’
· Φ ·
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