Fringe: History Repeats Itself (1/1)
Title: History Repeats Itself
By:
vehemently
Fandom: Fringe
Spoilers: end of season 3
Rating: pure as the driven snow
What is it: I just followed that thread all the way to the end of it.
Tagline: The FBI's security protocols absolutely suck on the other side. The agent on the phone acted like she recognized me.
What did you think would happen? She told me to go to her mother's if she wasn't back by morning. It was morning. I went. To go drop the kid off and then, I don't know what. Go and rescue her like a comic book hero, I guess. I don't know what I was thinking.
I was thinking that she's in my unit and you don't leave your unit behind. That's what I was thinking.
I stayed up all night and she didn't come back. I did what you would do. I strapped Henry to my chest and I got together as much of his stuff as I could carry and I headed toward the subway to take him to his grandmother's house. I just never got there.
It happened before I got to the subway. It's possible it happened in the middle of the night, but that morning, I was so blitzed. Tired, flustered trying to deal with a whiny baby, paranoid about the Secretary's people showing up and confiscating Henry, and I'd never see him or daylight or her again. Probably I recognized what had happened sooner because I kept looking around, but I guess I wasn't looking that hard.
I don't know where I went over. That's the truth, you can do what you want to me and I won't be able to say anything different. I was trying to keep the baby from screaming and trying to make sure nobody was following me and that was at least a block or two and something was -- off. Different, but I didn't know how. Maybe it was more than two blocks. Are there containment readings you can use? I didn't see any anomalies, just a sense that something was off. It was the air, I think: their cars pollute like crazy. The buses are louder. Their weather is warmer, just a little, or the wind blows less. They use hand-held phones, most of them, and most of the ear-attachments are still corded, like wall phones from before I was born. The people look -- different. Just different, like they don't have to think about stuff we have to think about.
They don't have amber quarantines, none at all that I saw. Pretty good life, huh?
So I was in New York but not New York, and I was as far away from the Secretary's people as I could possibly hope to be, and holy cow was I lost. I went into a place with tables where people were drinking coffee and I sat down and tried to get the baby to stop crying, and then I realized he needed a changing and I knew how to do that, you know, I'd watched Liv's mother do it a couple of times, how hard can it be? So I went into the bathroom and laid him out on my coat on the floor and changed him and only managed to glue his diaper to my shirt a little bit.
I got him dressed and settled and I came out to the coffee counter and I stood there in line, what the hell, I drink coffee, but then I realized that I didn't have any money. Any money that worked there, I mean. No point in drawing attention. I took off my ear cuff and threw it in the trash. No point in being tracked, if the Secretary's agents could follow me over.
We went back out into the spring cool. I was still trying to wrap my head around it. What was I going to do if I got stopped? What would they say about a guy carrying around a kid he can't prove he's allowed to be carrying? Who could I possibly turn to on that side, who even existed on that side, and why would they listen to me? And maybe, you know, I guess I was still thinking that it was a hallucination. I was tired. It made no sense.
I don't know how long I walked around. I buttoned my coat over Henry and I carried his bag of stuff like a backpack. I looked like a homeless person, and, uh, actually that's kind of what I was.
I picked a pocket. I picked another one. I realized that none of the wallets I was getting had ShowMes, just licenses to drive and bank cards. I risked the subway and all they wanted was money. I rode into Manhatan and got off at Grand Central. Their Grand Central has a white ceiling, white and robin's egg blue. I had enough baby stuff for the day, no longer. I was going to need to pick a lot more pockets.
I got on a train heading northeast because the people on it looked rich. I got off the train someplace that had a big parking lot full of cars. I broke into one and got a better coat, and then broke into another and got the whole car. Who leaves their keys tucked up behind the driver's side visor?
I lived in that car for a little more than three weeks. I drove wherever, not too far from cities or else I'd run out of money. I changed license plates every morning so they wouldn't catch me. Paid for everything in cash. Carried around the baby under my coat like a pot belly when I had to walk and left him in the footwell when I had to drive. They didn't catch me, didn't even come close. I never even had a cop look at me funny, much less ask for a ShowMe. I can't explain it. I guess that side really does have it good.
Henry grumbled on my chest when I strapped him on and kicked me in the guts. As young as he was, he slept most of the time he wasn't crying. Less hassle than a toddler, or maybe just as much hassle but really predictable hassle. That can't wander off. Anyway, it was pretty lonely. He slept on my chest in the front seat of the car and he slept against me while I walked and sometimes he kind of squinted at me and gurgled and smiled. I bought him milk and diapers and I washed his clothes at laundromats and everything else was pretty much crossing my fingers. I talked to him a lot. That last dried part of his umbilical cord fell off, and I saved it in case I ever got back. I figured Liv might want to keep it. I don't know whether people keep those kinds of things.
It's not the same over there, not at all. They haven't had the Blight. It was too early in the spring for many leaves, but the birch trees along the highway had red buds like painted fingernails. There were pussy willows and snowdrops and crocus. I hung around long enough I started to see daffodils. Henry was starting to hold up his own head and look around, like he was really paying attention. I was tired all the time. I don't know what I was eating. I knew I couldn't keep on like this forever.
I thought about going to Reiden Lake, and trying to cross through the original rupture. But it's in the middle of the lake, and the spring was too warm: the ice was melted, if there was ever enough ice to walk on. I read the newspapers but except for some lightning storms it didn't seem like they had the same kinds of Fringe events we do. The word "amber" never appeared.
So I stopped in some small town and saw a sign for a public library. I found a computer and sat down and jiggled Henry on my leg and tried to think of what to search for. What if the name Olivia Dunham was flagged? Fringe Division doesn't exist on that side. I tried for Liv's mother and found nothing at all. So I typed in Walter Bishop.
On the other side there's something called FOIA that means government papers end up on the internet annotated with paranoid rantings. Yeah, I don't know why they allow that. But it meant that Walter Bishop, FBI consultant, showed up in a report about a murder in Medford, Massachusetts. Just a consultant. Probably not even allowed to handle weapons, definitely not a Cabinet-level position. Still: if he was smart enough to cut a hole between universes on this side -- the right side, the side I wasn't on just then, I mean -- then he was smart enough to do it on the side I was on, the wrong side, too.
There wasn't any picture. I looked at his name for a long time and then I tried not to think too hard about it: I fed coins into a pay telephone -- they don't even image the coins! You could put bottle-caps of the right size into such a primitive machine! -- and called up the FBI's Boston field office. I told them I was an FBI agent. I asked them for a way to reach Walter Bishop, and they gave it to me.
The FBI's security protocols absolutely suck on the other side. The agent on the phone acted like she recognized me.
They were only a couple hours' drive away. I drove under the speed limit and paid the tolls in exact change and nobody wondered whether the lump under a blanket in the footwell was a baby. And that was how I got there.
I had stories from my dad, he went there for law school, long before they had to amber it off. And, I don't know. I didn't think it would be that loud, right next to the big traffic interchange. I didn't think it would be so... open. The gates were iron, just a formality. People walked everywhere without challenge. It was tourists and students and you couldn't tell the difference among them and they were so casual. They didn't know what we'd lost. The buildings were so... Harvard. Just like I thought they'd be, only not. There were so many bicycles. I didn't know where to park the car. Everybody seemed to know how the traffic worked, some kind of invisible signal for when to cross and when chancing it is taking your life into your hands, and I didn't. There were a lot of things I didn't know.
The grass was mostly still brown and there were puddles everywhere, but they had daffodils. I walked around in a daze staring up at the brick facades, all their huge inefficient windows. I had Henry in his bowling ball setup against my chest and my back was killing me.
Somebody in a straw hat with a maroon bandana was giving a walking tour, barking out historical factoids. I drifted into the back of the crowd, just close enough to hear but not to rub elbows with anybody. They were young people mostly, probably prospective students, with parents thumbing through little paper maps. They all looked so... unconcerned, so easy. They wore scarves and gloves and talked on hand-phones and ignored the elderly buildings. It was creepy.
Mostly I joined the group to pickpocket somebody, to get some more cash and be able to buy myself a snack, but I'd hardly even had a chance when the tour guide brought us in front of the Science Center. It wasn't hard to shuffle away and head inside. They didn't stop me at the door -- a student held it open for me, with one of those indulgent smiles people give to new parents -- and they didn't stop me when I wandered out of the big main hallway and they didn't even stop me when I opened up a door into a stairwell and started down.
I didn't know where I was going exactly, but I knew it was a basement. I picked that much up from the report on Colonel Broyles's death. I think I tried every door below ground in the Science Center. Most of them were locked.
I made a deal with myself: if it wasn't behind the next three doors, I could give up and go search a directory somehow and maybe get caught. And try the food machines, and maybe get caught there too. How I was going to feed Henry next time he woke up was something I wasn't even ready to deal with. I was so tired of not knowing what I was doing, getting caught would almost have been a relief. Of course, I opened the second-to-last door and there it was.
The paper mail was still in a pile on the closest countertop. Most of the rest of the space was cluttered with stuff, iron and rubber and some fantastical plastics I didn't recognize. Some beakers full of liquid, one of them on a burner bubbling slowly. A woman halfway across the room raised her head as I walked in, and I stared at her.
She was small and tidy and compact, like Agent Farnsworth, but she had a little smile on her face as she tapped on a keyboard, the kind of smile you make when somebody's said something funny and you don't want to be seen laughing. So she looked like Agent Farnsworth but not like her at all, which I guess is what I should have been expecting. She had little slim fingers and neat little painted nails that made little noises as they touched the keys.
She was sitting there in her counter-height chair and she looked up and recognized me. She said my name, mild, not very surprised, "Oh hi, Agent Lee." Her smile widened. Definitely not Agent Farnsworth.
I said Hi back. What do you do at a time like that? She looked down at the baby strapped to me and looked back up again. I said, "Hi."
"Are you here on vacation?" she asked, while her forehead wrinkled. "I didn't realize you had a family."
"I --" I'd driven hours to get there and hadn't spent any of that time thinking up what I was going to say when I arrived.
"Are you all right?" She hopped down from the chair and came up to me. She put a hand on my arm and tilted up her chin and she was a knockout, really, you don't notice it over here because she won't make eye contact. Her attention was kind of, I wanted to do anything to keep her eyes on me. "Are you hurt? Is that how you lost your glasses?"
"I don't wear glasses," I said. She pulled out a stool for me to sit on and leaned in close. I could smell her perfume, or maybe it was stuff she put in her hair. She put a thumb on my chin and tilted my head from side to side. I'd shaved only a day or two before. I didn't look too bad, I hoped. I let her do it.
Her breath stirred my eyelashes. "You don't look injured. Is the baby okay?" She touched the straps on my chest. Her neat little purple nails ran through the sparse blond hairs on his head.
"I didn't think there'd be one of you over here," I said. I took a breath and tried to figure out where to start and I guess I didn't notice that she was looking at me funny till she called over her shoulder,
"Olivia?"
"Yeah," came the reply, from behind a half-glassed door. It was a good thing I was sitting down. I put my hands around the Henry's back because they were shaking. The door opened up and somebody was standing in it, and that was Olivia. She had yellow hair instead of red, and she was wearing -- no, it wasn't what she was wearing. It was how she stood, how she tilted her head, the tortoiseshell half-glasses on her nose. She was the Olivia I'd known for a short while, the Olivia who had swum away, the Olivia who'd gone back to her own side. If Agent Farnsworth was right, she was the Olivia Colonel Broyles had died for.
She controlled herself very well. She took off the glasses and folded them and tucked them into the neck of her sweater and I guess that was the gesture she needed because when she was done with that she could look at me again. Her neck was red. Her hair was back in a ponytail so I could see the red creeping up her ears. She said, to the Other Agent Farnsworth, "This is your Agent Lee?" She sounded disappointed.
I tried to say hello to her but my throat hurt too badly. I looked at her and she looked at me and over the course of about a minute her face changed. I can't describe it. It was a little turn at her mouth, or her eyes were -- I can't describe it. She kept on looking at me and after a little while I knew she knew I was from this side. Her other side. She knew I was the Linc who had looked out for her, the Linc she trusts.
"No," said the Other Agent Farnsworth. Her voice was low and strange. "This isn't my Agent Lee at all. Is he?"
There was something going on between them. They didn't even have to talk or look at each other. Some disagreement flared up and then they put it away and the whole time the only sound was me trying to control my breathing. The baby grumbled against my chest.
"What --" said Olivia, while I was saying,
"Sorry, he's just waking up, I have to --" and I stood up and started unbuckling him, seriously, it's like wearing riot gear except the armor plating squirms. The Other Agent Farnsworth was at my side at once, hands on the straps like she knew what she was doing. She lifted the baby out and supported his head just the right way and, and, she just looked like somebody I could trust. It was a relief to let somebody else take over, and not just for my back. She must have guessed what I was thinking, and gave me a little weird half-smile.
Olivia found a plastic basin and a couple of towels and between them they laid the baby out into his improvised cradle.
"What are you doing here?" Olivia asked, her eyes on the baby. When was the last time I saw her? Maybe four months ago. Not that long. She asked, "How did you come over?"
"I don't know." I didn't know. I still don't know. You have to believe that by now.
"But you are from the other side," said the Other Agent Farnsworth. She took up something that looked like a medical tool, but maybe it was a pen. That side has pens, you remember? She asked, "Did Secretary Bishop send you on a mission?"
I took in a breath, shaky. Her eyes were keen but gentle. Of course she would know about Secretary Bishop.
"You look good," said Olivia abruptly. The baby twitched again. Maybe he recognized her voice. "No scars."
I rubbed my eyes, ran a hand over my cheek. I couldn't remember when the switch had happened, if this Olivia had seen me after the last hyperbaric treatment. Probably she'd only ever known me as Burnt Lincoln Lee, and had never made jokes about my pretty face. Yes of course I know about those jokes, I'm not stupid.
"I didn't figure it out till after. You know that, right?" I wanted to take her hand, but I couldn't do that with her. She's not the same as Liv. She gave me those sharp inquisitive features and I needed her to get it. "Charlie and I put our heads together, I guess only two months ago. I mean, who believes that? We've replaced your best friend and colleague with Sanka Crystals, let's see if anybody notices."
Olivia didn't look at the Other Agent Farnsworth. The Other Agent Farnsworth didn't look at Olivia, but stiffened as if they'd seen each other's faces. And I guess I hadn't realized till just then that of course, that was where Liv had gone. She'd slotted herself into Olivia's place and this Agent Farnsworth, the one who did make eye contact and needed a keyboard to talk to a computer, maybe she hadn't figured it out at all. Maybe she only found out when they switched back, and nobody asked where Olivia had been all those months.
Just like me. Just like you.
Olivia set that aside, something she wasn't going to handle right in front of a stranger, in front of me. She has her pride. "How's Charlie?" she asked.
I wasn't planning to tell them much of anything. Safer that way. I said, "Well, he's got a girlfriend. She, I, I think he didn't meet her till after you went away again. To here." And then I figured I should ask. "Do you have a Charlie?"
Olivia's mouth turned down. "Not any more," she said.
"He was assassinated," said the Other Agent Farnsworth. "By a mechanical agent. Sent from your side."
"A mechanical...?"
"It uses a machine to transform itself to look like anybody. We saw a rash of them leading up to the Crossover. You don't know?"
"No," said Olivia for me. "He doesn't know."
They were both staring at me. I closed my mouth. I always knew there were things above my pay grade, but -- "What do you mean, Crossover?" The capital letter was obvious in the way she'd said it.
The Other Agent Farnsworth examined the table, then stole a glance sideways to take her cue from Olivia. Olivia was thinking, that way she does, where she's very far away while she's standing right in front of you. You remember it, right? I don't think I've ever seen that look on Liv's face. Olivia raised her chin and put a hand on the baby, absently, just to touch him.
"We went to New York. Our New York. We were at the Statue of Liberty. We crossed over, or they did, I --" she shied away from me. I was too eager, I guess. She didn't go on.
The Other Agent Farnsworth took pity on me. "All of a sudden there were two Olivias, and two Walters. I didn't see a counterpart for me. It seemed like both worlds crossed over into each other. And then later they shuddered and came apart, we though permanently. But if you're here," and then she faltered too, her lids lowering so I could see the lavender eyeshadow, a delicate layer of glitter overtop. Definitely not like our Agent Farnsworth. She pulled herself together and went on, "But if you're here, maybe there are still soft points where people can cross over."
"I didn't mean to," I protested.
The baby squirmed under Olivia's hand. No way she would know that it was almost time to feed him. No way she would know that he was Liv's son. She gave him one of those gorgeous little smiles of hers. "I didn't know you had a girlfriend," she said, and looked up halfway through saying it and caught my expression before I could hide it. The second half of that last word sort of fell off, because obviously her brains had gone on ahead of where her tongue would follow.
"I don't," I said. I heaved a couple of breaths and worked up a lie worth a damn. "He's -- he's my nephew. You didn't meet my brother while you were over here. There. The side I come from. I was watching him, and --"
No, Liv didn't tell me who Henry's father is, only that it's not Frank and that's why they broke up. You think I don't wish it was me, you're wrong. But it's not. It's something to do with Secretary Bishop is all I know, and no I don't like that mental image any more than you do. I mean, I don't think Liv would go for him, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't go for her, you know? And if it's like that, then no wonder Liv isn't talking. Yeah.
Olivia concluded: "And now you're here."
"You were the only people I could think of who would even know what happened." I cleared my throat. "Is your version of Secretary Bishop here?"
The Other Agent Farnsworth gave me a funny look. "We call him Walter," she said. "And he'll be back in a little while."
"Court-mandated therapy sessions," added Olivia. I must have made a face.
"He's really good," said the Other Agent Farnsworth. "So much better than he used to be. He's out of supervised living and in his own apartment now."
Henry whined in his basin-crib. I got up and put him on my shoulder: he's always a little cranky when he wakes up. Disoriented, I guess. I know the feeling. I paced a little with him and then turned around and saw the way they both were looking at me. Not the way women do at a guy who's holding a baby, or not just that. And it was so -- you have no idea. I'd had nobody to talk to for weeks. I didn't know what the sitrep was and I didn't know where Liv was and I didn't know if we were in danger or not. It's like being on a stakeout except the next shift never arrives. It was such a relief to think I could tell somebody.
"There's an interest. In this child. At the highest levels." The interesting specimen leaned a little away from me, like he wanted to see what I was thinking, and then he whipped his head around, you know that way, oh maybe you don't. Well, babies' heads are heavier than normal, and they lose their balance like any top-heavy thing. He banged his forehead against my jaw and it hurt, though I think he mostly cried just out of surprise. Olivia and the Other Agent Farnsworth each took a step towards me, but I got it under control. "I don't know why. I just know the Secretary would use this child against his parents." And that was the truth. I still believe that's the truth.
"So you fled here?" asked Olivia.
"Not on purpose," I told her, and she caught the irony in my voice. We looked at each other. I'd forgotten how she could be, that spark of her that was different from Liv but still funny and bright. I said, "Actually I'm trying to find my way back."
That spark went behind a shade and her face closed down. The Other Agent Farnsworth pursed her lips. "We might be able to help you with that," she allowed, like somebody stipulating an illegal search in court.
I just wanted to go home right then. I didn't even care what happened after, as long as I could go home. Henry slapped a clammy hand on my face and I pulled myself together again.
"There are some unpleasant things," I said. "With Secretary Bishop."
"Unpleasant," Olivia said low, like a growl. Well, she would know.
I was thinking out loud. "I'm trying to find my way back, but maybe I shouldn't. Maybe it's not safe for Henry."
Olivia recognized the name. I'd forgotten she would.
"He's named after Henry Clay," I improvised. "You know the Lees. Big on history. Uh, did your side have a Henry Clay? Senator from Kentucky, president in the 1830s?"
The Other Agent Farnsworth looked small. She twisted her hands together, those shiny purple nails. "Yes. But ours wasn't president."
"I could leave him with his grandmother," I went on, "but the Secretary knows where she lives. I don't think --"
The Other Agent Farnsworth broke in: "Are you asking for... asylum?"
"No! Uh, I guess not." I had to go back. I couldn't tell them it was because of Liv. Clearly she was going to be a sore topic. Henry got grumpy just then and without the need to check with me Olivia rummaged in the bag of baby stuff and came up with his bottle. It was one of two bottles Liv left me with, weeks ago. I'd been washing them out three times a day for twenty-some days. She uncapped the bottle and went to the fridge and what do you know there was half a gallon of milk in there. I watched dumbfounded as she filled the bottle and set it into a water bath over one of the burners. She knew exactly what she was doing.
She saw me staring. "I have a niece on this side," she said. She gazed down into the warming water. "She doesn't exist on your side."
Liv's mom told you about that, right? It had to be Liv's sister. I don't know if they just don't have VPE on that side, or if they have a cure for it.
Olivia lifted the bottle out of its water bath. She pressed it to her cheek to test its temperature. She came over and handed it to me and said, "You want asylum for the child, but not for you."
I sat back down. I stuffed the nipple into Henry's mouth and he shut up. The room seemed bizarrely quiet. "I have to go back."
You understand that, right? I had to come back.
"We can't take care of a child," said the Other Agent Farnsworth quietly.
"No," Olivia agreed. "But something might be arranged."
They glanced at each other again, a way of communicating that I didn't share. Olivia put her glasses back on and went into the office she'd come from. In a few minutes, I heard the muffled sound of her voice. Henry sucked on that bottle like there was no tomorrow.
Slowly, like she didn't want to scare me, the Other Agent Farnsworth approached. She stood over Henry and me and smiled. "He's beautiful," she said.
"He looks like his mother."
"Olivia's got a lot of connections. She'll find a safe place for him."
I cleared my throat. It was so good to hear. "Don't tell me where. If it's as bad as I think it is on the other side, on my side --"
"You can't be forced to tell what you don't know," she said, with a grimace.
We didn't say anything else while Henry ate. My arm fell asleep under his weight. When he was done, the Other Agent Farnsworth took him from me and rested him against her shoulder. I fetched a cloth: he's messy after eating. She patted his back and he let out the hugest burp. It was nice to have somebody else to laugh at that with me.
"I don't know how I can thank you, Agent Farnsworth."
"Well," she said, "you can call me Astrid."
Astrid. I'd seen the A. on Agent Farnsworth's timesheets and never wondered what it stood for. How long did I work with her and never got to first names?
"Linc," I said, she smiled shyly at me. "Thank you, Astrid."
"You're welcome, Linc." Behind her, Olivia strode out of her office with a sheaf of papers in her hand. Maybe she was already faking up a birth certificate for him. Maybe since then she's gone and done genetic testing for him, and figured out he's Liv's son. I didn't want to know, so I wouldn't be forced to tell.
"When you come back for him," interjected Olivia, and she didn't say it conditionally, she knows I will someday, "look for him in Hartford." She has that certainty, that solid stance in her posture, that's like Liv, only quieter.
"Hartford, Connecticut?" I asked. "I don't get it."
"When you come back," she said, "You'll figure it out." Astrid patted the baby's back and nodded.
And that's all I can tell you. Olivia did some things I don't understand and then I was back here, on this side, I mean. Alone. I was in the same basement, only it was all cobwebs and dust and footprints. I walked around between outcroppings of amber till I found my way out of the maze and then, I mean, I'd thrown away my ShowMe weeks ago, and my ear cuff too. I flagged down a state cop. I turned myself in, Charlie. Doesn't that mean anything to you?
You don't even realize. The fact you're the one interrogating me says everything. If she's not in custody, if she's not locked up in some prison in the Department of Defense, how come she's not feeding me my balls to get her boy back? Don't you think Liv would do that?
And if she is in custody, then she needs our help, both of us. Henry's safe, so they can't use him against her. But she needs people in her corner. That's you and me, maybe Agent Farnsworth behind the scenes. She can delete the record of this interview.
We can do this. We have to do this. Just unlock that door and let's get out of here.
This entry was originally posted at http://vehemently.dreamwidth.org/24751.html. Comment wherever you like.
By:
vehemently
Fandom: Fringe
Spoilers: end of season 3
Rating: pure as the driven snow
What is it: I just followed that thread all the way to the end of it.
Tagline: The FBI's security protocols absolutely suck on the other side. The agent on the phone acted like she recognized me.
What did you think would happen? She told me to go to her mother's if she wasn't back by morning. It was morning. I went. To go drop the kid off and then, I don't know what. Go and rescue her like a comic book hero, I guess. I don't know what I was thinking.
I was thinking that she's in my unit and you don't leave your unit behind. That's what I was thinking.
I stayed up all night and she didn't come back. I did what you would do. I strapped Henry to my chest and I got together as much of his stuff as I could carry and I headed toward the subway to take him to his grandmother's house. I just never got there.
It happened before I got to the subway. It's possible it happened in the middle of the night, but that morning, I was so blitzed. Tired, flustered trying to deal with a whiny baby, paranoid about the Secretary's people showing up and confiscating Henry, and I'd never see him or daylight or her again. Probably I recognized what had happened sooner because I kept looking around, but I guess I wasn't looking that hard.
I don't know where I went over. That's the truth, you can do what you want to me and I won't be able to say anything different. I was trying to keep the baby from screaming and trying to make sure nobody was following me and that was at least a block or two and something was -- off. Different, but I didn't know how. Maybe it was more than two blocks. Are there containment readings you can use? I didn't see any anomalies, just a sense that something was off. It was the air, I think: their cars pollute like crazy. The buses are louder. Their weather is warmer, just a little, or the wind blows less. They use hand-held phones, most of them, and most of the ear-attachments are still corded, like wall phones from before I was born. The people look -- different. Just different, like they don't have to think about stuff we have to think about.
They don't have amber quarantines, none at all that I saw. Pretty good life, huh?
So I was in New York but not New York, and I was as far away from the Secretary's people as I could possibly hope to be, and holy cow was I lost. I went into a place with tables where people were drinking coffee and I sat down and tried to get the baby to stop crying, and then I realized he needed a changing and I knew how to do that, you know, I'd watched Liv's mother do it a couple of times, how hard can it be? So I went into the bathroom and laid him out on my coat on the floor and changed him and only managed to glue his diaper to my shirt a little bit.
I got him dressed and settled and I came out to the coffee counter and I stood there in line, what the hell, I drink coffee, but then I realized that I didn't have any money. Any money that worked there, I mean. No point in drawing attention. I took off my ear cuff and threw it in the trash. No point in being tracked, if the Secretary's agents could follow me over.
We went back out into the spring cool. I was still trying to wrap my head around it. What was I going to do if I got stopped? What would they say about a guy carrying around a kid he can't prove he's allowed to be carrying? Who could I possibly turn to on that side, who even existed on that side, and why would they listen to me? And maybe, you know, I guess I was still thinking that it was a hallucination. I was tired. It made no sense.
I don't know how long I walked around. I buttoned my coat over Henry and I carried his bag of stuff like a backpack. I looked like a homeless person, and, uh, actually that's kind of what I was.
I picked a pocket. I picked another one. I realized that none of the wallets I was getting had ShowMes, just licenses to drive and bank cards. I risked the subway and all they wanted was money. I rode into Manhatan and got off at Grand Central. Their Grand Central has a white ceiling, white and robin's egg blue. I had enough baby stuff for the day, no longer. I was going to need to pick a lot more pockets.
I got on a train heading northeast because the people on it looked rich. I got off the train someplace that had a big parking lot full of cars. I broke into one and got a better coat, and then broke into another and got the whole car. Who leaves their keys tucked up behind the driver's side visor?
I lived in that car for a little more than three weeks. I drove wherever, not too far from cities or else I'd run out of money. I changed license plates every morning so they wouldn't catch me. Paid for everything in cash. Carried around the baby under my coat like a pot belly when I had to walk and left him in the footwell when I had to drive. They didn't catch me, didn't even come close. I never even had a cop look at me funny, much less ask for a ShowMe. I can't explain it. I guess that side really does have it good.
Henry grumbled on my chest when I strapped him on and kicked me in the guts. As young as he was, he slept most of the time he wasn't crying. Less hassle than a toddler, or maybe just as much hassle but really predictable hassle. That can't wander off. Anyway, it was pretty lonely. He slept on my chest in the front seat of the car and he slept against me while I walked and sometimes he kind of squinted at me and gurgled and smiled. I bought him milk and diapers and I washed his clothes at laundromats and everything else was pretty much crossing my fingers. I talked to him a lot. That last dried part of his umbilical cord fell off, and I saved it in case I ever got back. I figured Liv might want to keep it. I don't know whether people keep those kinds of things.
It's not the same over there, not at all. They haven't had the Blight. It was too early in the spring for many leaves, but the birch trees along the highway had red buds like painted fingernails. There were pussy willows and snowdrops and crocus. I hung around long enough I started to see daffodils. Henry was starting to hold up his own head and look around, like he was really paying attention. I was tired all the time. I don't know what I was eating. I knew I couldn't keep on like this forever.
I thought about going to Reiden Lake, and trying to cross through the original rupture. But it's in the middle of the lake, and the spring was too warm: the ice was melted, if there was ever enough ice to walk on. I read the newspapers but except for some lightning storms it didn't seem like they had the same kinds of Fringe events we do. The word "amber" never appeared.
So I stopped in some small town and saw a sign for a public library. I found a computer and sat down and jiggled Henry on my leg and tried to think of what to search for. What if the name Olivia Dunham was flagged? Fringe Division doesn't exist on that side. I tried for Liv's mother and found nothing at all. So I typed in Walter Bishop.
On the other side there's something called FOIA that means government papers end up on the internet annotated with paranoid rantings. Yeah, I don't know why they allow that. But it meant that Walter Bishop, FBI consultant, showed up in a report about a murder in Medford, Massachusetts. Just a consultant. Probably not even allowed to handle weapons, definitely not a Cabinet-level position. Still: if he was smart enough to cut a hole between universes on this side -- the right side, the side I wasn't on just then, I mean -- then he was smart enough to do it on the side I was on, the wrong side, too.
There wasn't any picture. I looked at his name for a long time and then I tried not to think too hard about it: I fed coins into a pay telephone -- they don't even image the coins! You could put bottle-caps of the right size into such a primitive machine! -- and called up the FBI's Boston field office. I told them I was an FBI agent. I asked them for a way to reach Walter Bishop, and they gave it to me.
The FBI's security protocols absolutely suck on the other side. The agent on the phone acted like she recognized me.
They were only a couple hours' drive away. I drove under the speed limit and paid the tolls in exact change and nobody wondered whether the lump under a blanket in the footwell was a baby. And that was how I got there.
I had stories from my dad, he went there for law school, long before they had to amber it off. And, I don't know. I didn't think it would be that loud, right next to the big traffic interchange. I didn't think it would be so... open. The gates were iron, just a formality. People walked everywhere without challenge. It was tourists and students and you couldn't tell the difference among them and they were so casual. They didn't know what we'd lost. The buildings were so... Harvard. Just like I thought they'd be, only not. There were so many bicycles. I didn't know where to park the car. Everybody seemed to know how the traffic worked, some kind of invisible signal for when to cross and when chancing it is taking your life into your hands, and I didn't. There were a lot of things I didn't know.
The grass was mostly still brown and there were puddles everywhere, but they had daffodils. I walked around in a daze staring up at the brick facades, all their huge inefficient windows. I had Henry in his bowling ball setup against my chest and my back was killing me.
Somebody in a straw hat with a maroon bandana was giving a walking tour, barking out historical factoids. I drifted into the back of the crowd, just close enough to hear but not to rub elbows with anybody. They were young people mostly, probably prospective students, with parents thumbing through little paper maps. They all looked so... unconcerned, so easy. They wore scarves and gloves and talked on hand-phones and ignored the elderly buildings. It was creepy.
Mostly I joined the group to pickpocket somebody, to get some more cash and be able to buy myself a snack, but I'd hardly even had a chance when the tour guide brought us in front of the Science Center. It wasn't hard to shuffle away and head inside. They didn't stop me at the door -- a student held it open for me, with one of those indulgent smiles people give to new parents -- and they didn't stop me when I wandered out of the big main hallway and they didn't even stop me when I opened up a door into a stairwell and started down.
I didn't know where I was going exactly, but I knew it was a basement. I picked that much up from the report on Colonel Broyles's death. I think I tried every door below ground in the Science Center. Most of them were locked.
I made a deal with myself: if it wasn't behind the next three doors, I could give up and go search a directory somehow and maybe get caught. And try the food machines, and maybe get caught there too. How I was going to feed Henry next time he woke up was something I wasn't even ready to deal with. I was so tired of not knowing what I was doing, getting caught would almost have been a relief. Of course, I opened the second-to-last door and there it was.
The paper mail was still in a pile on the closest countertop. Most of the rest of the space was cluttered with stuff, iron and rubber and some fantastical plastics I didn't recognize. Some beakers full of liquid, one of them on a burner bubbling slowly. A woman halfway across the room raised her head as I walked in, and I stared at her.
She was small and tidy and compact, like Agent Farnsworth, but she had a little smile on her face as she tapped on a keyboard, the kind of smile you make when somebody's said something funny and you don't want to be seen laughing. So she looked like Agent Farnsworth but not like her at all, which I guess is what I should have been expecting. She had little slim fingers and neat little painted nails that made little noises as they touched the keys.
She was sitting there in her counter-height chair and she looked up and recognized me. She said my name, mild, not very surprised, "Oh hi, Agent Lee." Her smile widened. Definitely not Agent Farnsworth.
I said Hi back. What do you do at a time like that? She looked down at the baby strapped to me and looked back up again. I said, "Hi."
"Are you here on vacation?" she asked, while her forehead wrinkled. "I didn't realize you had a family."
"I --" I'd driven hours to get there and hadn't spent any of that time thinking up what I was going to say when I arrived.
"Are you all right?" She hopped down from the chair and came up to me. She put a hand on my arm and tilted up her chin and she was a knockout, really, you don't notice it over here because she won't make eye contact. Her attention was kind of, I wanted to do anything to keep her eyes on me. "Are you hurt? Is that how you lost your glasses?"
"I don't wear glasses," I said. She pulled out a stool for me to sit on and leaned in close. I could smell her perfume, or maybe it was stuff she put in her hair. She put a thumb on my chin and tilted my head from side to side. I'd shaved only a day or two before. I didn't look too bad, I hoped. I let her do it.
Her breath stirred my eyelashes. "You don't look injured. Is the baby okay?" She touched the straps on my chest. Her neat little purple nails ran through the sparse blond hairs on his head.
"I didn't think there'd be one of you over here," I said. I took a breath and tried to figure out where to start and I guess I didn't notice that she was looking at me funny till she called over her shoulder,
"Olivia?"
"Yeah," came the reply, from behind a half-glassed door. It was a good thing I was sitting down. I put my hands around the Henry's back because they were shaking. The door opened up and somebody was standing in it, and that was Olivia. She had yellow hair instead of red, and she was wearing -- no, it wasn't what she was wearing. It was how she stood, how she tilted her head, the tortoiseshell half-glasses on her nose. She was the Olivia I'd known for a short while, the Olivia who had swum away, the Olivia who'd gone back to her own side. If Agent Farnsworth was right, she was the Olivia Colonel Broyles had died for.
She controlled herself very well. She took off the glasses and folded them and tucked them into the neck of her sweater and I guess that was the gesture she needed because when she was done with that she could look at me again. Her neck was red. Her hair was back in a ponytail so I could see the red creeping up her ears. She said, to the Other Agent Farnsworth, "This is your Agent Lee?" She sounded disappointed.
I tried to say hello to her but my throat hurt too badly. I looked at her and she looked at me and over the course of about a minute her face changed. I can't describe it. It was a little turn at her mouth, or her eyes were -- I can't describe it. She kept on looking at me and after a little while I knew she knew I was from this side. Her other side. She knew I was the Linc who had looked out for her, the Linc she trusts.
"No," said the Other Agent Farnsworth. Her voice was low and strange. "This isn't my Agent Lee at all. Is he?"
There was something going on between them. They didn't even have to talk or look at each other. Some disagreement flared up and then they put it away and the whole time the only sound was me trying to control my breathing. The baby grumbled against my chest.
"What --" said Olivia, while I was saying,
"Sorry, he's just waking up, I have to --" and I stood up and started unbuckling him, seriously, it's like wearing riot gear except the armor plating squirms. The Other Agent Farnsworth was at my side at once, hands on the straps like she knew what she was doing. She lifted the baby out and supported his head just the right way and, and, she just looked like somebody I could trust. It was a relief to let somebody else take over, and not just for my back. She must have guessed what I was thinking, and gave me a little weird half-smile.
Olivia found a plastic basin and a couple of towels and between them they laid the baby out into his improvised cradle.
"What are you doing here?" Olivia asked, her eyes on the baby. When was the last time I saw her? Maybe four months ago. Not that long. She asked, "How did you come over?"
"I don't know." I didn't know. I still don't know. You have to believe that by now.
"But you are from the other side," said the Other Agent Farnsworth. She took up something that looked like a medical tool, but maybe it was a pen. That side has pens, you remember? She asked, "Did Secretary Bishop send you on a mission?"
I took in a breath, shaky. Her eyes were keen but gentle. Of course she would know about Secretary Bishop.
"You look good," said Olivia abruptly. The baby twitched again. Maybe he recognized her voice. "No scars."
I rubbed my eyes, ran a hand over my cheek. I couldn't remember when the switch had happened, if this Olivia had seen me after the last hyperbaric treatment. Probably she'd only ever known me as Burnt Lincoln Lee, and had never made jokes about my pretty face. Yes of course I know about those jokes, I'm not stupid.
"I didn't figure it out till after. You know that, right?" I wanted to take her hand, but I couldn't do that with her. She's not the same as Liv. She gave me those sharp inquisitive features and I needed her to get it. "Charlie and I put our heads together, I guess only two months ago. I mean, who believes that? We've replaced your best friend and colleague with Sanka Crystals, let's see if anybody notices."
Olivia didn't look at the Other Agent Farnsworth. The Other Agent Farnsworth didn't look at Olivia, but stiffened as if they'd seen each other's faces. And I guess I hadn't realized till just then that of course, that was where Liv had gone. She'd slotted herself into Olivia's place and this Agent Farnsworth, the one who did make eye contact and needed a keyboard to talk to a computer, maybe she hadn't figured it out at all. Maybe she only found out when they switched back, and nobody asked where Olivia had been all those months.
Just like me. Just like you.
Olivia set that aside, something she wasn't going to handle right in front of a stranger, in front of me. She has her pride. "How's Charlie?" she asked.
I wasn't planning to tell them much of anything. Safer that way. I said, "Well, he's got a girlfriend. She, I, I think he didn't meet her till after you went away again. To here." And then I figured I should ask. "Do you have a Charlie?"
Olivia's mouth turned down. "Not any more," she said.
"He was assassinated," said the Other Agent Farnsworth. "By a mechanical agent. Sent from your side."
"A mechanical...?"
"It uses a machine to transform itself to look like anybody. We saw a rash of them leading up to the Crossover. You don't know?"
"No," said Olivia for me. "He doesn't know."
They were both staring at me. I closed my mouth. I always knew there were things above my pay grade, but -- "What do you mean, Crossover?" The capital letter was obvious in the way she'd said it.
The Other Agent Farnsworth examined the table, then stole a glance sideways to take her cue from Olivia. Olivia was thinking, that way she does, where she's very far away while she's standing right in front of you. You remember it, right? I don't think I've ever seen that look on Liv's face. Olivia raised her chin and put a hand on the baby, absently, just to touch him.
"We went to New York. Our New York. We were at the Statue of Liberty. We crossed over, or they did, I --" she shied away from me. I was too eager, I guess. She didn't go on.
The Other Agent Farnsworth took pity on me. "All of a sudden there were two Olivias, and two Walters. I didn't see a counterpart for me. It seemed like both worlds crossed over into each other. And then later they shuddered and came apart, we though permanently. But if you're here," and then she faltered too, her lids lowering so I could see the lavender eyeshadow, a delicate layer of glitter overtop. Definitely not like our Agent Farnsworth. She pulled herself together and went on, "But if you're here, maybe there are still soft points where people can cross over."
"I didn't mean to," I protested.
The baby squirmed under Olivia's hand. No way she would know that it was almost time to feed him. No way she would know that he was Liv's son. She gave him one of those gorgeous little smiles of hers. "I didn't know you had a girlfriend," she said, and looked up halfway through saying it and caught my expression before I could hide it. The second half of that last word sort of fell off, because obviously her brains had gone on ahead of where her tongue would follow.
"I don't," I said. I heaved a couple of breaths and worked up a lie worth a damn. "He's -- he's my nephew. You didn't meet my brother while you were over here. There. The side I come from. I was watching him, and --"
No, Liv didn't tell me who Henry's father is, only that it's not Frank and that's why they broke up. You think I don't wish it was me, you're wrong. But it's not. It's something to do with Secretary Bishop is all I know, and no I don't like that mental image any more than you do. I mean, I don't think Liv would go for him, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't go for her, you know? And if it's like that, then no wonder Liv isn't talking. Yeah.
Olivia concluded: "And now you're here."
"You were the only people I could think of who would even know what happened." I cleared my throat. "Is your version of Secretary Bishop here?"
The Other Agent Farnsworth gave me a funny look. "We call him Walter," she said. "And he'll be back in a little while."
"Court-mandated therapy sessions," added Olivia. I must have made a face.
"He's really good," said the Other Agent Farnsworth. "So much better than he used to be. He's out of supervised living and in his own apartment now."
Henry whined in his basin-crib. I got up and put him on my shoulder: he's always a little cranky when he wakes up. Disoriented, I guess. I know the feeling. I paced a little with him and then turned around and saw the way they both were looking at me. Not the way women do at a guy who's holding a baby, or not just that. And it was so -- you have no idea. I'd had nobody to talk to for weeks. I didn't know what the sitrep was and I didn't know where Liv was and I didn't know if we were in danger or not. It's like being on a stakeout except the next shift never arrives. It was such a relief to think I could tell somebody.
"There's an interest. In this child. At the highest levels." The interesting specimen leaned a little away from me, like he wanted to see what I was thinking, and then he whipped his head around, you know that way, oh maybe you don't. Well, babies' heads are heavier than normal, and they lose their balance like any top-heavy thing. He banged his forehead against my jaw and it hurt, though I think he mostly cried just out of surprise. Olivia and the Other Agent Farnsworth each took a step towards me, but I got it under control. "I don't know why. I just know the Secretary would use this child against his parents." And that was the truth. I still believe that's the truth.
"So you fled here?" asked Olivia.
"Not on purpose," I told her, and she caught the irony in my voice. We looked at each other. I'd forgotten how she could be, that spark of her that was different from Liv but still funny and bright. I said, "Actually I'm trying to find my way back."
That spark went behind a shade and her face closed down. The Other Agent Farnsworth pursed her lips. "We might be able to help you with that," she allowed, like somebody stipulating an illegal search in court.
I just wanted to go home right then. I didn't even care what happened after, as long as I could go home. Henry slapped a clammy hand on my face and I pulled myself together again.
"There are some unpleasant things," I said. "With Secretary Bishop."
"Unpleasant," Olivia said low, like a growl. Well, she would know.
I was thinking out loud. "I'm trying to find my way back, but maybe I shouldn't. Maybe it's not safe for Henry."
Olivia recognized the name. I'd forgotten she would.
"He's named after Henry Clay," I improvised. "You know the Lees. Big on history. Uh, did your side have a Henry Clay? Senator from Kentucky, president in the 1830s?"
The Other Agent Farnsworth looked small. She twisted her hands together, those shiny purple nails. "Yes. But ours wasn't president."
"I could leave him with his grandmother," I went on, "but the Secretary knows where she lives. I don't think --"
The Other Agent Farnsworth broke in: "Are you asking for... asylum?"
"No! Uh, I guess not." I had to go back. I couldn't tell them it was because of Liv. Clearly she was going to be a sore topic. Henry got grumpy just then and without the need to check with me Olivia rummaged in the bag of baby stuff and came up with his bottle. It was one of two bottles Liv left me with, weeks ago. I'd been washing them out three times a day for twenty-some days. She uncapped the bottle and went to the fridge and what do you know there was half a gallon of milk in there. I watched dumbfounded as she filled the bottle and set it into a water bath over one of the burners. She knew exactly what she was doing.
She saw me staring. "I have a niece on this side," she said. She gazed down into the warming water. "She doesn't exist on your side."
Liv's mom told you about that, right? It had to be Liv's sister. I don't know if they just don't have VPE on that side, or if they have a cure for it.
Olivia lifted the bottle out of its water bath. She pressed it to her cheek to test its temperature. She came over and handed it to me and said, "You want asylum for the child, but not for you."
I sat back down. I stuffed the nipple into Henry's mouth and he shut up. The room seemed bizarrely quiet. "I have to go back."
You understand that, right? I had to come back.
"We can't take care of a child," said the Other Agent Farnsworth quietly.
"No," Olivia agreed. "But something might be arranged."
They glanced at each other again, a way of communicating that I didn't share. Olivia put her glasses back on and went into the office she'd come from. In a few minutes, I heard the muffled sound of her voice. Henry sucked on that bottle like there was no tomorrow.
Slowly, like she didn't want to scare me, the Other Agent Farnsworth approached. She stood over Henry and me and smiled. "He's beautiful," she said.
"He looks like his mother."
"Olivia's got a lot of connections. She'll find a safe place for him."
I cleared my throat. It was so good to hear. "Don't tell me where. If it's as bad as I think it is on the other side, on my side --"
"You can't be forced to tell what you don't know," she said, with a grimace.
We didn't say anything else while Henry ate. My arm fell asleep under his weight. When he was done, the Other Agent Farnsworth took him from me and rested him against her shoulder. I fetched a cloth: he's messy after eating. She patted his back and he let out the hugest burp. It was nice to have somebody else to laugh at that with me.
"I don't know how I can thank you, Agent Farnsworth."
"Well," she said, "you can call me Astrid."
Astrid. I'd seen the A. on Agent Farnsworth's timesheets and never wondered what it stood for. How long did I work with her and never got to first names?
"Linc," I said, she smiled shyly at me. "Thank you, Astrid."
"You're welcome, Linc." Behind her, Olivia strode out of her office with a sheaf of papers in her hand. Maybe she was already faking up a birth certificate for him. Maybe since then she's gone and done genetic testing for him, and figured out he's Liv's son. I didn't want to know, so I wouldn't be forced to tell.
"When you come back for him," interjected Olivia, and she didn't say it conditionally, she knows I will someday, "look for him in Hartford." She has that certainty, that solid stance in her posture, that's like Liv, only quieter.
"Hartford, Connecticut?" I asked. "I don't get it."
"When you come back," she said, "You'll figure it out." Astrid patted the baby's back and nodded.
And that's all I can tell you. Olivia did some things I don't understand and then I was back here, on this side, I mean. Alone. I was in the same basement, only it was all cobwebs and dust and footprints. I walked around between outcroppings of amber till I found my way out of the maze and then, I mean, I'd thrown away my ShowMe weeks ago, and my ear cuff too. I flagged down a state cop. I turned myself in, Charlie. Doesn't that mean anything to you?
You don't even realize. The fact you're the one interrogating me says everything. If she's not in custody, if she's not locked up in some prison in the Department of Defense, how come she's not feeding me my balls to get her boy back? Don't you think Liv would do that?
And if she is in custody, then she needs our help, both of us. Henry's safe, so they can't use him against her. But she needs people in her corner. That's you and me, maybe Agent Farnsworth behind the scenes. She can delete the record of this interview.
We can do this. We have to do this. Just unlock that door and let's get out of here.
This entry was originally posted at http://vehemently.dreamwidth.org/24751.html. Comment wherever you like.