Fic: das Über-Ich (Walter, PG)
Walter’s no stranger to voices in his head. Slippery, suggestive voices whispering from the shadows, planting oily suggestions that ooze their way up through his subconscious, leading him into temptation. Spewing taunts that sound as if they’ve been twisted from his own larynx.
Seductive voices.
Sometimes they sound like Belly, full of the arrogant fire of youth. “Do it, Walter. You have the knowledge. You have the power. Don’t be afraid to cross the line.”
Other times, they’re his dear Elizabeth’s sibilant accusations. “Walter you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t have. Why, Walter? Why? Why couldn’t you just leave the boy alone?”
Voices laced with accusation.
With a carefully regulated combination of Haloperidol and tetrahydrocannabinol, and the occasional hallucinogenic, he can (mostly) tune them out. Mostly… Now that there are other voices he’s learned to trust. Voices that belong to faces and bodies with hearts and minds of their own. Voices that urge him and cajole him and draw him out.
Voices he depends on, even on the days when he knows they are still but figments of his imagination.
His favorite (and it’s perfectly alright to have favorites, so long as he doesn’t let on so the other voices know, for they are sometimes jealous voices) is the one he thinks belongs to Astrid.
Ever practical (“Walter, you know its twenty-eight degrees outside. You need to bundle up or you’ll freeze.” or “Don’t forget to set a timer for the soufflés. They’ll fall if you just open the door to peek.” ), and always conscientious (“Really Walter? Don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud. It’s not Peter’s fault he and Lincoln work well together. The important thing is that they’re helping solve the case.”), she is the bright and shining Ego to his dark Id.
In the here and now, William quotes poetry and wants to know if he recognizes it, and for the first time in a long time, when he needs their courage the most, Walter’s voices are silent. Even Astrid isn’t whispering in his ear, encouraging him to pull himself together and figure out a way to stop this madness.
And why should she? After what he did? After he left her hurt and alone, bleeding from a gunshot wound... and yes, yes! In the case. There is something he can do after all.
“Yeats,” he answers absently as door crashes open. He clutches the Luger to his chest.
Peter is quick, impatient. He wants William to stop the merge, but he’s also hot-headed, that boy. He doesn’t understand what Walter understands; that once the reaction has begun, orders and threats aren’t going to stop it.
And then there is a new voice. He’s not alone, after all.
Walter? it asks, tentative at first, gently probing. Testing him. Then again, surer: Walter.
His left hand trembles so badly he almost fumbles the gun and spills the palmful of shells all over the floor. He glances over his shoulder, but she’s still there behind him, over by the cabin door. Of all the voices, he’s never heard hers before.
Olivia?
William is so caught up in his delusions of grandeur, taunting Peter about his place in the new order, that he doesn’t hear her. And Peter… the boy is red-faced, hypertensive with the frustration of not being able to just act that he can’t hear anything but Bell.
The universes draw closer, precious seconds are slipping by.
Walter, we have to end this now.
Yes, they need to end it, he thinks. But he doesn’t know how. Olivia is the power source. It’s not like he can just flip a switch and turn her off.
Yes you can Walter.
He can see her reflection in the window. The preternatural calm in the middle of their perfect storm. She’s staring at him, unblinking and intense as she paints exactly what she wants him to do in harsh, broad strokes, and no, no, no he can’t do it. Not to her. He can’t. He can’t.
He won’t.
Walter tries to pull away. Shut her out. He tries to summon Astrid’s voice… begs for her calm, siren-sweet reason amid the howling winds of the maelstrom, but it seems that she too is in agreement with Olivia. “There’s no other way, Walter. You know that. You can do this. I know you can.”
No. He can’t. He will not. No matter what the odds are that it will work. He has survived in a world without his son and that is not a place he wants to go back to. Pulling the trigger on Olivia would be no different than putting a bullet through Peter’s heart and stopping it cold himself. He’d rather there not be a world left to live in at all.
“Now that’s just being selfish, Walter.” Astrid chides.
Peter’s jabbing his gun into Williams chest and it won’t matter how much restraint he’s showing because the room has gotten brighter, the storm wall closing in on them fast, shoving the two universes together towards their inevitable collision and collapse. Even William can’t stop it, even if he wanted to.
He can smell his own sweat and the fear, pervasive and sickly sweet. It fills his nostrils and turns his stomach as he tries to forget everything he knows about the devastating effects of projectiles in confined spaces.
Olivia decides she’s done negotiating:
I’m sorry Walter
Walter’s hands suddenly feel steady. They move with a dexterity he hasn’t felt in years, slipping the shells into the Luger’s magazine and snapping it shut as if they’ve practiced this exercise over and over again on their own.
He turns smoothly, arms raised, the gun aimed true with a fluidity his muscles have no memory of ever owning on their own. Time, or his perception of it, crawls for the barest of moments, all the players frozen in a life-sized diorama that gives Walter the sensation of being nowhere and everywhere at once to witness William’s surprise and Peter’s shock as they realize exactly what is about to happen next.
To see Olivia’s cleared-eyed trust as his finger tightens on the trigger.
She allows him just enough time to whisper ‘Forgive me’.
Also posted at DW, where
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