Caught in Forever Amber, part two
Part one
“It was her from the beginning.” Lincoln was talking to Olivia through his ear cuff, while Charlie was driving, one eye on the road and the other on his partner. “We need to move fast before she gets wind that we’re onto her. Hopefully she’s not aware that her brother was spotted at the hospital.” He paused, probably listening to Olivia’s reply. “Yeah, you do that. Charlie and I will swing by her place.”
“Liv’s going to Bishop Dynamics?” Charlie asked once Lincoln had flipped his cuff off.
“Yeah, she’s also put every Fringe agent on alert. We’ll find her.”
“Hope so.”
Helen Beckett didn’t live very far from her brother’s place; whether it was a coincidence or not, it meant that Lincoln and Charlie were there not twenty minutes after leaving Former’s place. They parked a couple of streets away, not wanting to clue her or anyone who could be at her apartment about their presence.
“Think her brother is there?” Lincoln said, voice low even though Beckett’s building wasn’t in sight yet.
“Could be.”
“And what about Carlyle? Is he even connected to this mess?”
It was sheer gut instinct that made Charlie answer, “I think the poor guy got framed. Probably dead by now.”
“Well, fuck.”
They got silent as they approached their target, walking close to the walls to lessen the chances they’d be seen from the windows. There was a narrow back alley that had to lead to the back of the building: Charlie leaned to check if it was empty, then turned to nod at Lincoln.
“Take the front, I’ll go through the fire escape,” he said, drawing his gun out.
Lincoln raised an eyebrow at the sight of it. “Are you sure it’s necessary?”
“You know my motto: better safe than sorry. It’s better if I’m safe and they’re sorry.”
“You just pulled that one out of your ass,” Lincoln said, but he clapped Charlie on the shoulder, and Charlie couldn’t help but notice that his touch lingered a little longer than needed.
“Be safe,” Charlie said, and Lincoln’s hand rose to his head for a mock military salute.
They parted, and Charlie walked into the dark alley, gun pointed forward, ears and eyes alert. At the corner of his eye he caught sight of an Auburn Diamond, and his left hand reflexively went to the pocket where he kept his oxygen, but the sign wasn’t blinking so he ignored the urge to use it.
He heard something from behind him, a shuffle, and whipped around immediately, scanning the area. The busy street at the end of the alley formed a rectangle of light and life, like at the end of a long corridor, but the alley itself was dimly lit and getting darker with the falling night. There was a big dumpster against the brick wall of the building, the only place where someone could hide, so Charlie padded slowly, quietly, in that direction. His heart pounded loudly but steadily; under his skin the ever-present itch of the arachnids was becoming an ache, reminding him he needed his shot. He took a breath and all was left was the steely calm that came before action.
He was about to point his gun behind the dumpster and shout when a man sprung out with a scream, like a devil out of its box, and Charlie stumbled backward, almost losing his balance and his gun.
“Fuck!” he swore as the man shoved him against the dumpster, getting a glimpse of a flat nose, blond hair.
The man raised a fist and Charlie blocked his arm, tried to push him away but though the man was smaller, he was damn strong. The corner of the dumpster dug into Charlie’s lower back, acutely painful, and the man’s face - Former, had to be him - was barely inches away from his, his grey eyes burning, intense and crazy.
“Motherfucker!” Charlie managed to extract himself and land a blow, and the man cursed while Charlie grabbed his gun. “Fringe Division!” he yelled.
He heard the scraping noise behind him too late - the back of his head exploded with pain, and the world shifted and darkened.
ooo
Shit, shit, shit. That was the litany going through Lincoln’s head. Fucking nightmare. Can’t be happening.
“Liv!” he barked as he flicked his earcuff, jumping into the car and starting it. He didn’t know where the hell he was going but it didn’t matter.
“Lincoln?” Olivia’s voice in his ear, close and intimate, and just hearing her was a balm to his rattled nerves. “What is it?” she asked immediately, her voice tense and worried.
“Charlie’s missing.” He forced a breath in, making himself give a full report for Liv’s benefit. “Beckett wasn’t at her place. Looks like she left in a hurry: her drawers were open, no toothbrush in the bathroom. I don’t know how long she’s been gone, but Charlie was supposed to come in from behind, take the fire escape, and now I can’t find him.”
“Did you-”
“I tried to call him like a hundred times. He didn’t answer. I looked through all the building, the streets around… Are you at Bishop Dynamics? I’ll meet you there.”
“I’m on my way. There’s a march against Amber and all midtown is paralyzed.”
They let a silence linger between them while Lincoln drove, slaloming between cars and buses, leaving a trail of honking vehicles behind him. One eye on the road in front of him, the other in the rearview mirror, and his mind on the situation.
“I didn’t find his body,” he said, “which means they probably didn’t kill him.”
“Which means that they want him for something else.”
“Yeah. They want to make an example out of him.”
Olivia started to reply something but interrupted herself: “Lincoln, wait a sec-”
There was a click indicating that she’d switched to another conversation, putting him on hold, and Lincoln waited for her to get back to him, his heart pounding in his ears, dread curdling his stomach. The traffic light turned red and he had to grind to a halt, his foot pressed hard on the brakes, tires screeching in protest.
“Lincoln?” Olivia’s voice was tight and controlled.
Lincoln kept his eyes on the light, waiting for it to turn green, his fingers drumming against the wheel. “Let me guess: there was another attack.”
“Bingo,” Olivia said darkly.
---
Lincoln waded his way through the crowd surrounding Bishop Dynamics, focused on his target: the spot of color that was Olivia’s hair, barely visible behind the dark line of policemen delimiting a perimeter around the building. The people around him were not just panicked, like they’d been after the DoD hospital attack, but angry, yelling, some of them brandishing signs reading ‘Amber is Death’, and ‘Release the Ambered.’
Lincoln flashed his badge at the police to get through the protective line, and joined Olivia in the recess formed by one of the glass entrance doors.
“How many were trapped?” he asked without preliminaries, but froze at her expression.
Olivia knew how to keep her emotions in control when there was a need for it, but Lincoln had known her for two years, as a partner, as a friend, and, well, biblically. Her eyes hid nothing.
“What is it? Liv?”
“You need to see this for yourself,” she said.
She led him through the lobby, which was huge and empty save for a few Fringe agents.
“We evacuated the building,” Olivia explained once they were in the elevator. She had her hands thrust in her pockets and was rocking on the balls of her feet, all nervous energy. This didn’t bode well. “Only one floor was touched, but…”
“The floor where Beckett works, right?”
“Yes.” Olivia had been about to say something else, and her mouth remained open for another second before she pressed her lips together. “Yes,” she repeated.
The lights on their destination floor were off, but Lincoln didn’t need them to see the wall of Amber. He took a few steps toward it, Olivia lagging behind, and looked for the silhouettes of the people trapped inside. There was one standing, right in the middle of the corridor, and Lincoln immediately identified it as Helen Beckett, even though he had never met the woman in person.
“Kamikaze attack, or did she get trapped?” he murmured, somewhat rhetorically. Olivia said nothing.
There was another shadow at Beckett’s feet, someone who was crouched - no, lumped on the floor, like he or she had been unconscious when the Amber mist hit and solidified. Lincoln stepped closer; he gasped, feeling like the air had turned as solid as Amber.
“No,” he said. He felt Olivia come closer, the warmth of her shoulder against his.
“We found this,” she said, and held out to him another sheet of notepad paper. ‘Release the ambered’, was the message scrawled on it.
Charlie had told them once, “If I get ambered, just leave me in there.” Lincoln had refused to even consider that it might one day come to this.
“They got here so fast; they must have planned this,” he said, the words coming out of him without much control on his part; you run into a problem, you analyze it, dissect it into tiny bitty pieces that feel more manageable than the whole huge thing. He was formatted that way, as much by science as by his work as a Fringe agent.
“How did they get here so fast? It must have been a trap,” Olivia said, instantly in sync with his line of reasoning. “They wanted to take a Fringe agent, freeze him in Amber, because…”
“Former’s wife.” Lincoln’s memory conjured the poised woman, impeccably put together, her hands joined over her knees as she told them her husband’s tale of woe. “She played us well and good. They needed leverage. If the Department of Defense wouldn’t react to a few civilians falling victims to the Amber attacks, maybe the life of a Fringe agent would weigh more in the balance.”
Olivia snorted. “Have they met Secretary Bishop?”
“Probably not,” Lincoln said, the corner of his mouth curving up even though the rest of his face felt frozen.
Still, to think of it, it was not that bad a plan. Fringe agents didn’t grow on trees - it was a dangerous, thankless job, and Charlie was one of the best. Lincoln had no idea of what Secretary Bishop’s decision was going to be, and that scared him shitless. He angled toward Olivia, almost like they were going to kiss, and their eyes met. In Olivia’s wide-eyed gaze Lincoln found the same determination he had in him. No way in hell were they going to sit around and pray for the best.
He turned to face her, taking hold of her arms, drawing her closer.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” he said in some pale imitation of Charlie’s drawl.
She smiled. It was a dangerous smile.
---
Secretary Bishop took his time studying the skyline of buildings that could be seen from the window to his office, like he was unaware of Lincoln and Olivia standing straight with their hands locked behind their backs.
“Secretary Bishop,” Olivia called after a while, making him turn around and look at them with piercing eyes raking over them, as cold as a winter draft.
“I’m being told that we lost Agent Francis in another attack,” he said, his tone neutral enough but his expression knowing.
“With all due respect, sir,” Lincoln said, “we haven’t lost Agent Francis. We know where he is - and how to get him back. He isn’t dead.”
“You and I know that, but the general population doesn’t,” Bishop said, but despite the implied objection Lincoln saw something in the twist of his mouth and the quirk of his eyebrow, a willingness to be convinced, that made Lincoln bold enough to suggest: “The general population doesn’t have to know all we know, I agree with you there - they don’t have to know that the Amber the terrorists are using is the exact same formula that Fringe Division uses to contain vortices. We can put any spin we want on it.”
Secretary Bishop’s mouth pursed thoughtfully, and Lincoln and Olivia shared a quick, hopeful look.
“We can’t leave Agent Francis trapped in there,” Olivia insisted. “He’s a good agent, one of the best. You know that. And think about our allies from the other side - you know how eager they always are to moralize. It could affect our working relationship with them if they discovered that we are keeping all those people prisoners when we could technically free them without damage to the cohesion of our reality.”
The Secretary frowned, and for a moment Lincoln was afraid that Olivia had been too blunt. The man’s features schooled themselves once more in an unreadable mask as he said to Lincoln, “I knew your father well.”
The comment took Lincoln by surprise, as it seemed to come from nowhere and was no news to Lincoln or Olivia. “Yes, sir,” he replied cautiously, and then, because a little buttering up couldn’t hurt, “My father had a lot of respect for you.”
“You will stop those terrorists.” It didn’t sound as much as an order as some set-in-stone prediction. “I don’t want any more attacks, I don’t want those people to keep blackmailing us. This is an unacceptable situation, and I want it to stop, no matter the means. When this is done, I will free the people trapped in Amber. Do we understand each other?”
Failure wasn’t an option, got it. It wouldn’t have been one whatever Secretary Bishop said, but Lincoln nodded obediently anyway. “Perfectly, sir,” he said, echoed a split-second later by Olivia.
They left Liberty Island with renewed energy, but the high from the implicit carte blanche they’d obtained from Secretary Bishop didn’t last the ferry trip back to Manhatan.
“I guess all we need now is a plan,” Olivia said in a dry tone, and the despondent look on her face made Lincoln’s heart squeeze in his chest, both because he hated seeing her unhappy, and because he knew that she was thinking of what was at stake.
He nudged her with his shoulder, once, then again until she snorted and shoved back. “Hey,” he said. “Piece of cake.”
“Right. I forgot - you’re the brain to mine and Charlie’s brawn.”
“Nice of you to acknowledge it.”
They kept up with their banter until they made it to HQ, but it felt forced without Charlie there with them, cruelly unbalanced. HQ was buzzing with activity, and their arrival was welcomed by a curt, “Good. You’re here,” from Broyles.
“We have free rein from Secretary Bishop to do whatever it takes to stop Former,” Lincoln said. “We just need to find him or get him to surface again.”
“Agent Farnsworth made a few estimations for us,” Broyles said with a nod to the young woman.
At this cue, Agent Farnsworth started to drone, the glow from her screen creating two pools of light in her dark eyes: “According to my calculations, there’s a 10% chance that Former will attempt to leave the city, 5% chance that he will attempt to leave the country entirely, 40% chance that he will attempt another attack in the next 48 hours, and 45% chance that he will try to go back to Bishop Dynamics to liberate Helen Beckett. There’s also a 50% chance that he will try to contact his wife. I have made other estimations about the possible places and timings of his next attacks if you want them.”
Farnsworth raised her head, almost meeting Lincoln’s eyes in expectation to his demands. Lincoln opened his mouth to speak up, but Olivia beat him to the punch: “He’s going back. He’ll want to free his sister.”
“You sure?” Lincoln asked doubtfully. “This is awfully risky for him.”
“He attacked Bishop Dynamics,” Olivia argued. “At this point he must be desperate or crazy. Think about it - Secretary Bishop is giving no sign that he’ll yield to Former’s demands, we know who he is, and he’s lost his primary accomplice with all her precious scientific knowledge of Amber. And that’s without taking into account the fact that she’s his sister. Given how he reacted to his brother getting stuck in Amber, I think he’ll want to hold onto his remaining blood relative.”
“Yeah, precisely - the brother. What makes you think Former will try to set his sister free when he didn’t try it with his brother? Helen Beckett had the necessary knowledge.”
“The circumstances are different: Former hadn’t backed himself into corner the way he has now. He probably still thought he could both help his brother and further his anti-Amber agenda. Sir,” Olivia turned to Broyles, who had listened to the exchange in silence, arms folded across his chest, “I know I’m right. Former will go back to Bishop Dynamics. Allow us to go with a team and we’ll catch him there.”
“We don’t know how soon he’ll go back there,” Broyles said. “Chances are that he will lay low for a while and wait until we’re distracted with something else.”
“Unless,” Lincoln said, and all the eyes of everyone involved in the conversation turned to him, “unless he already thinks we’re distracted with something else.”
Broyles’s brow furrowed. “What are you thinking?”
---
The crude light from the interrogation room was doing Mrs. Former no favor, her pale complexion washed out to the point that she looked sick. Or maybe she was just uncomfortable.
“I apologize for the summon, Mrs. Former,” Lincoln said, sitting at the table across from her, smiling at her with what he hoped was a friendly smile. “You probably heard about the latest attack on Bishop Dynamics. My partner - the one who was with me when we visited you,” Lincoln let his eyes drop down, and swallowed in a flash of genuine distress, “he got caught in it.”
He looked up to observe her reaction and saw her draw a deep breath, but apart from that her face was quite hard to read. Was it surpris he could see there, or maybe regret? Had she known when she’d subtly directed them toward Helen Beckett that she would throw one of them off the cliff?
“I’m sorry to hear about your partner,” she said. “What can I do to help?”
“I know you said you didn’t know where your husband was, or about his plans.” He marked a pause to give her time to come back on her declarations, but she merely looked at him with a cool expectant expression, so he went on, “But if you could give us even the slightest idea of what he could do next… What his next target could be. I imagine he talked to you about his grievances against Amber protocol - what was his anger particularly aimed at?”
“Well.” She pressed her lips in a tight line, as if thinking about Lincoln’s question, or hesitating, and maybe Lincoln was projecting but he thought there was something calculated about the gesture. “As I said before, I have no certainty. My husband didn’t confide in me. But if I had to guess…” She trailed off, shook her head. “It’s crazy.”
Lincoln tried to shove his irritation back down. “Try me,” he said.
“My husband is a very thorough man who likes to go to the heart of things. If he’s struck Bishop Dynamics, I’d say he’ll want to end up on a high note, strike the source of it all.”
“Like… Fringe Headquarters?” Lincoln raised an eyebrow to mark his incredulity.
“Or the Department of Defense.” She had a quick smile that looked out of place on her. “But I imagine that the security there is impenetrable.”
“The security here is pretty badass too,” Lincoln murmured, making himself look like he was thinking about it, and resisted directing a glance at Liv behind the one-way mirror adorning the back of the room. “But unless your husband has turned completely suicidal, Fringe HQ does seem like a more likely target.”
“I don’t want you to put words in my mouth,” Mrs. Former said, slightly raising her hand. “I’m not sure at all that this is what my husband will do.”
“Of course,” Lincoln said, standing up to signal the end of the conversation. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Former. I’ll have an agent take you back home.”
Once he’d said his goodbyes, with promises to keep Mrs. Former up to date, Lincoln joined Olivia in the backroom.
“That’s a ballsy move on their part,” she commented when she saw Lincoln enter. “To try to make us focus so much on our own navel that we miss everything else.”
“It’s big enough that it could have worked as a misdirection. From what we’ve seen of Former so far, he seems bold enough to actually attempt on attack on Fringe Division. You still think that Former is going to free his sister?”
Olivia’s eyes were still fixed on the empty interrogation room, like she was replaying the interview in her mind.
“Yes,” she said with calm conviction. “The fact that his wife didn’t even mention it as an option makes me think it’s the most likely one. He’s going back. And we’ll get him. And we’ll get Charlie back.”
She held out her hand and Lincoln took it, giving it a heartfelt squeeze.
“I know,” he said.
---
Stakeouts would suck less if only making out with his partners was an option, Lincoln thought, glancing at Olivia, at the way the shadows nestled in the hollow of her throat. But he was a professional, and so was Liv. So was Charlie, for that matter. Lincoln directed his eyes to the Bishop Dynamics building, standing tall and threatening in the chill night, with its cruel angles hiding Charlie somewhere in there. You couldn’t see the Amber from the outside, but it was easy to imagine.
“How do you think time passes for someone stuck in Amber?” Lincoln asked before he could help himself. “Is it like being paralyzed and feeling every second of it? Are you stuck in your last moment before it hit? Or is it like dreaming?”
Olivia shot him a reproachful look. “You’ll ask Charlie when we have him back.”
“Yeah, because Charlie is so fond of sharing and caring,” Lincoln said with a snort.
“Then I guess you’ll just have to suffer the…” Olivia trailed off, then smacked Lincoln’s arm with the back of her hand. “Look, I think he’s already inside.”
All Lincoln had the time to catch was a glimpse of a shadow from behind the glass doors, but if Olivia had seen something that was enough for him. He brought a hand to his ear cuff.
“Possible visual of the suspect,” he murmured at the intention of the stand-by team. “Wait for my signal.”
Olivia was already out of the car and Lincoln had to hurry to catch her.
“Don’t run headlong in there.” She had her gun out and he mimicked her. “We don’t know if he’s alone, or if he has his own personal army of fanatics.”
“I’m not a rookie anymore,” she huffed, but slowed down her pace.
Inside the building the silence was so absolute it was almost a physical presence. Lincoln and Olivia padded quietly across the lobby, eyes on every patch of darkness that could hide an intruder.
“We’ll have to take the stairs,” Olivia said, and Lincoln nodded because it made sense. They couldn’t alert Former of their presence, but climbing up the stairs was going to take some time and they had no idea how long it took to free someone from Amber.
The climb up the ambered floor was excruciatingly long, like aiming for the top of a mountain that disappeared into the clouds. The need to be silent battled with the need to be swift, and the fact that they didn’t know what awaited them upstairs or whether Former had men posted at intermediary floors was nerve-racking.
After the first five or so floors, Lincoln murmured, unable to resist, “Are we there yet?”
Olivia, leading their cavalry of two - great view of her ass, so there was no complaint from Lincoln - didn’t even turn around to quietly reply, “Don’t start. I will shoot you.”
She would, so Lincoln bit his tongue the next time the urge to needle her hit. They continued their ascension until they reached 18th floor, and Olivia raised a hand to signal the need for perfect quiet. As soon as she pushed the door to enter a shadowed hallway Lincoln could hear a hissing noise, intermittent and low. Olivia paused for a second before she headed toward the noise, and Lincoln followed her once he’d soundlessly closed the door to the staircase.
Down the hallway there was a soft glow, casting reddish light on the granular Amber wall. Olivia and Lincoln stepped closer and soon Lincoln could make out the kneeling figure of a man, wielding what looked like a blowtorch, cutting incandescent lines with it on the Amber. The man had his back to them so it was hard to tell if it was Former.
Lincoln turned to Olivia - he could barely see her face in the feeble light that came from the window at the end of the hallway behind them, but he could see that she had turned to him simultaneously. He raised his hand with three fingers up, and lowered them one by one, counting down the seconds.
Three. Two. One.
“Fringe Division!” Lincoln shouted, and the contrast with the previous quiet was so sudden he almost startled himself. “Put the torch down, and stand up with your hands in the air.”
The man froze then complied, slowly unfolding himself to his full length, which, as Lincoln quickly realized, was quite considerable. Standing with his back straight he had close to a head on Lincoln.
This is not Former.
As soon as the thought flashed through his mind he could read in Olivia’s body language that she’d come to the same conclusion. She tensed, started to twirl around while yelling to Lincoln, “He’s not-” Her eyes widened. “Watch out!”
She pointed her gun somewhere over Lincoln’s shoulder and he heard the hiss of a bullet by his right ear, then someone cry out in pain. The tall man with the blowtorch shifted on his feet and Lincoln directed his gun at him, trusting Olivia to take care of whoever was behind him. “Don’t move!” The man stilled.
“You, put the gun down!” Lincoln heard Olivia bark. Her words were followed by the sounds of a tussle. Reflexively Lincoln moved to help Olivia, saw the tall man move at the same time, so Lincoln jumped at him and kneed him into the gut. As the man folded on himself with a muffled groan of pain Lincoln whacked him over the head for good measure and guided his fall to the floor.
“No, Lincoln!”
The cry sent a jolt of adrenaline through Lincoln’s body, but he didn’t have any time to react before he was thrown against the wall of Amber. Some of it still was still hot from the blowtorch and Lincoln hissed at the burn against his cheek. Then he was yanked from the surface and an arm was looped around his neck, securely pressing him against a man’s chest. The man holding him was shorter than him and Lincoln found himself twisted in an uncomfortable position so they’d be at the same level.
“Don’t move or I shoot your partner.”
It was said calmly but Lincoln could feel the unmistakable press of a gun against his ribs. He could see Olivia, holding her gun with both hands, silhouetted against the lighter square of the far away window, and he knew that they were pretty much screwed.
“Olivia,” he said. Don’t listen to him. Don’t let him use me against you.
The man - Former? - jabbed the gun against his side, hard enough to be painful. “You be quiet.” Then to Olivia: “Put the gun down, agent.”
Olivia didn’t. Lincoln couldn’t make out the expression on her face, but knew she was looking at him, could see the white of her wide eyes. The harsh rhythm of his heartbeat progressively slowed down as calm settled in his mind and body. He couldn’t do anything to save himself in this situation, and all that was left to him was to entirely surrender himself to her. It was going to be okay.
“Do it,” he said.
“Shut up!”
Alarm had crept into Former’s voice and his grip tightened on Lincoln. Olivia raised her arms.
“Sorry,” she said, then she fired her gun.
---
Lincoln woke up slowly, becoming progressively aware of the mattress under his back, the pillow behind his head, the sheets and blanket snuggly tucked around his body. He was warm, comfortable, floating as if on a fluffy cloud. He had absolutely no urge to move or try to open his eyes, until his attention was caught by the deep, rumbling sound of a familiar voice. Charlie.
Charlie.
His eyelids felt glued together but he struggled until he could open his eyes and was blinded by light.
“He’s waking up.” It was Olivia.
He blinked a few times to clear his vision, and when the blurriness receded he could see that he was in a hospital room: daylight filtered faintly through the drawn curtains on his left, enough that he could see the shape of Olivia ensconced in an armchair on his right, with Charlie half-leaning, half-sitting on the arm. Olivia’s hand and forearm were pressed along his thigh, her thumb rubbing absent-mindedly over the seams of his jeans.
“How you’re feeling?” she asked, and tried to smile but it didn’t get to her eyes.
“Alive,” he said, grinning at her, telling her without words that they were okay. “Thanks for not killing me.”
Her smile thawed minutely. “That’s skill for you. Former’s wound was a little more serious than yours, the bullet shattered the bone, but he’s alive as well and in custody. All the Amber victims from the attacks were released - the story is that the formula used by the terrorists was a flawed product and aren’t we glad that the real one remains in the hands of those who know how to use it properly, blah blah blah. Ah, and Beckett confessed to Carlyle’s murder. Police’s dredging the Hudson looking for the poor guy’s body.”
Lincoln nodded at the news, relieved at this turn of events, but his eyes drifted to Charlie, who had yet to say a word. He looked whole but his face was grey, his features drawn like he’d been awake for days.
“Charlie,” he said. “How are you?”
He saw Olivia roll her eyes and could guess Charlie’s answer before it even passed his lips.
“I’m fine.” His hands were shaking, and when he caught Lincoln noticing, he buried them in his pockets. “Aftereffect. Doctors said it’ll pass.”
Lincoln shared a look with Olivia: doctors didn’t know shit; they probably had never been confronted with someone released from Amber before.
“How’s the shoulder?” Charlie asked gruffly.
Lincoln rolled his shoulder experimentally. He couldn’t feel any pain, probably because of the drugs - he’d be a little sore later, he knew from experience - and he could move easily.
“It’s almost healed,” he said with nonchalance. “Good as new.”
Charlie’s jaw tightened. “You could’ve been killed.”
“Well, we had a plan and everything, but-”
“Dumbass.”
Then Charlie leaned forward, cupped the back of Lincoln’s head to forcefully draw him in, and kissed him. His lips were dry and a little cooler than normal. His strong fingers were digging into Lincoln’s scalp, bordering on painful.
“Uh, hello to you too,” Lincoln said once he got his voice back, his lips tingling with the memory of Charlie’s kiss. And maybe it stung a little when Charlie pulled back and sneaked a glance in direction of the half-open door to check if someone had seen them, but whatever. Life-affirming kisses were their own rewards.
Olivia was sniggering, watching them, until Charlie turned to her and pinned her down with a death glare.
“So,” he said. “Wanna tell me whose brilliant idea it was?”
Lincoln and Olivia exchanged a look above Charlie’s shoulder before answering simultaneously, pointing an accusing finger at each other:
“Hers.”
“His.”
Charlie sighed deeply. “Bunch of middle-schoolers,” he mumbled, ostentatiously not talking to them. “Gonna end up dead or worse one day.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Please, Lord, give me strength.”
“See what happens when you’re not here to keep an eye on us?” Lincoln said, aiming for light-hearted but missing his target by a mile or two, his voice a little too strangled to ring true.
There was an awkward silence after that. Charlie sat down on the edge of Lincoln’s bed, glanced at Liv, then clumsily patted Lincoln’s hand with his own. Lincoln swallowed, his heart fast-pacing with emotions too heavy and complicated to handle when he was still drugged out of his mind. He was hung up on his teammates, had been for at least a year - he’d been accused of it by several exes, so he knew his fault well. He could deal with it as long as said teammates didn’t give in to mushiness. He couldn’t let his feelings get too real, because he would choke on them.
“I…” he said, but no words would come out. Charlie’s hand was still covering his own. Olivia looked like she didn’t know whether to join them or leave the room, but Charlie made the decision for her: “C’mere, Liv,” he said, patting the bed next to him. “Group hug,” he added with a wry smile.
“Looks like Amber scrambled your brains,” Olivia said, but still rose from her chair and sat with them on the bed.
They didn’t exactly hug, because that wasn’t their style, no sir, but they sat very close to each other, Lincoln shoulder to shoulder with Charlie, his leg pressed against Olivia’s hip. Charlie’s head was bowed and Lincoln could hear his breathing, sounding too loud.
“When I was stuck in Amber,” Charlie said, his voice gravelly, “I kept having these flashes, kinda like I was dreaming. Maybe because I was unconscious when it hit… It was bits and pieces of my life, mostly… mostly of the two of you.”
Lincoln didn’t dare breathe, for fear that he’d shut down this unusual bout of openness from Charlie.
“I could’ve stayed that way forever, and never had the real thing again.”
Charlie cleared his throat and rubbed under his nose with a finger, shaking himself like he’d just gotten out of the water.
“But we’re here now,” Lincoln said, trying to sound soothing and feeling awkward, because he’d never had to hit that note with Charlie. “You have us. We’re not going anywhere.”
He couldn’t ask them to be what he wanted. What did he want, anyway? Some kind of threeway romance? Flowers, chocolate, candle-lit dinners, walking hand-in-hand and all that jazz? Whenever he tried to envision it his mind came up blank.
“Aww, that’s sweet,” Olivia said, her voice cutting with sarcasm. “Lincoln, you are a romantic. Who knew?”
It shattered the moment, but also lightened the mood and Lincoln was washed over with relief and gratefulness. It felt wrong to be solemn and stilted with each other; everything about their lives was already so serious. Lincoln smiled at Olivia, and Charlie chuckled and his hand moved away.
“Someone has to be,” Lincoln answered in the same tone, “to compensate for you two emotionally-stunted oafs.”
“Emotions are complicated,” Olivia said. “Shooting people is more straightforward.” She realized what she’d just said and winced. “It’s probably too soon to joke about it, is it?”
“No, no, not at all,” said Lincoln, waving a casual hand. “Tell me more about how you express your emotions by shooting people. What does a bullet in the shoulder mean?”
“I wanna shut your mouth with lethal force?” Charlie suggested.
“I confess my preference for “I want to ride you like a pony,” but given that Former got shot too your interpretation is more likely.”
“But then you know how Liv likes violent preliminaries.”
“Hmm, you’re right.” Lincoln looked at Olivia in askance. “Liv, wanna make out in my hospital bed?”
“Okay, you two, that’s enough,” Olivia protested, lightly punching Lincoln’s uninjured arm - she was just as delicate with Charlie, like they were both made of glass, and that strained the fragile illusion that everything was normal. He looked forward to when Olivia would hit him again with bruising force.
Charlie shifted against Lincoln’s side. “We should let you get some sleep,” he said, traces of awkwardness seeping through his voice again.
“I barely woke up,” Lincoln said. “Besides, I can sleep just fine with you two here. Done it before, as you should recall.”
Don’t leave. The message seemed to go through. Olivia and Charlie settled on each side of him, and it was a bit too snug in the bed to be completely comfortable, but they’d had worse and it took them mere minutes to find a way to fit against each other, falling back into place as naturally as puzzle pieces. The ache into Lincoln’s shoulder was waking up, but the heaviness in his chest was easing.
“Hey, guys,” Olivia said just as Lincoln had started to doze off. Her voice sounded dreamy, like she was talking from somewhere deep in her headspace.
“Yeah?” Lincoln said. Charlie might have been asleep because he didn’t make a sound.
“When Lincoln gets discharged we could go to my place. Frank’s out of town, you know.”
Warmth bloomed inside Lincoln’s chest. “I would like that. What do you say, Charlie?”
Lincoln nudged Charlie, who squirmed and let out a small snore. Lincoln turned his head to share a look with Olivia. Nose to nose, the two of them burst out laughing. Edging closer to each other on the pillow, breathing each other’s air, they kissed between giggles until they were breathless with it.
“It was her from the beginning.” Lincoln was talking to Olivia through his ear cuff, while Charlie was driving, one eye on the road and the other on his partner. “We need to move fast before she gets wind that we’re onto her. Hopefully she’s not aware that her brother was spotted at the hospital.” He paused, probably listening to Olivia’s reply. “Yeah, you do that. Charlie and I will swing by her place.”
“Liv’s going to Bishop Dynamics?” Charlie asked once Lincoln had flipped his cuff off.
“Yeah, she’s also put every Fringe agent on alert. We’ll find her.”
“Hope so.”
Helen Beckett didn’t live very far from her brother’s place; whether it was a coincidence or not, it meant that Lincoln and Charlie were there not twenty minutes after leaving Former’s place. They parked a couple of streets away, not wanting to clue her or anyone who could be at her apartment about their presence.
“Think her brother is there?” Lincoln said, voice low even though Beckett’s building wasn’t in sight yet.
“Could be.”
“And what about Carlyle? Is he even connected to this mess?”
It was sheer gut instinct that made Charlie answer, “I think the poor guy got framed. Probably dead by now.”
“Well, fuck.”
They got silent as they approached their target, walking close to the walls to lessen the chances they’d be seen from the windows. There was a narrow back alley that had to lead to the back of the building: Charlie leaned to check if it was empty, then turned to nod at Lincoln.
“Take the front, I’ll go through the fire escape,” he said, drawing his gun out.
Lincoln raised an eyebrow at the sight of it. “Are you sure it’s necessary?”
“You know my motto: better safe than sorry. It’s better if I’m safe and they’re sorry.”
“You just pulled that one out of your ass,” Lincoln said, but he clapped Charlie on the shoulder, and Charlie couldn’t help but notice that his touch lingered a little longer than needed.
“Be safe,” Charlie said, and Lincoln’s hand rose to his head for a mock military salute.
They parted, and Charlie walked into the dark alley, gun pointed forward, ears and eyes alert. At the corner of his eye he caught sight of an Auburn Diamond, and his left hand reflexively went to the pocket where he kept his oxygen, but the sign wasn’t blinking so he ignored the urge to use it.
He heard something from behind him, a shuffle, and whipped around immediately, scanning the area. The busy street at the end of the alley formed a rectangle of light and life, like at the end of a long corridor, but the alley itself was dimly lit and getting darker with the falling night. There was a big dumpster against the brick wall of the building, the only place where someone could hide, so Charlie padded slowly, quietly, in that direction. His heart pounded loudly but steadily; under his skin the ever-present itch of the arachnids was becoming an ache, reminding him he needed his shot. He took a breath and all was left was the steely calm that came before action.
He was about to point his gun behind the dumpster and shout when a man sprung out with a scream, like a devil out of its box, and Charlie stumbled backward, almost losing his balance and his gun.
“Fuck!” he swore as the man shoved him against the dumpster, getting a glimpse of a flat nose, blond hair.
The man raised a fist and Charlie blocked his arm, tried to push him away but though the man was smaller, he was damn strong. The corner of the dumpster dug into Charlie’s lower back, acutely painful, and the man’s face - Former, had to be him - was barely inches away from his, his grey eyes burning, intense and crazy.
“Motherfucker!” Charlie managed to extract himself and land a blow, and the man cursed while Charlie grabbed his gun. “Fringe Division!” he yelled.
He heard the scraping noise behind him too late - the back of his head exploded with pain, and the world shifted and darkened.
ooo
Shit, shit, shit. That was the litany going through Lincoln’s head. Fucking nightmare. Can’t be happening.
“Liv!” he barked as he flicked his earcuff, jumping into the car and starting it. He didn’t know where the hell he was going but it didn’t matter.
“Lincoln?” Olivia’s voice in his ear, close and intimate, and just hearing her was a balm to his rattled nerves. “What is it?” she asked immediately, her voice tense and worried.
“Charlie’s missing.” He forced a breath in, making himself give a full report for Liv’s benefit. “Beckett wasn’t at her place. Looks like she left in a hurry: her drawers were open, no toothbrush in the bathroom. I don’t know how long she’s been gone, but Charlie was supposed to come in from behind, take the fire escape, and now I can’t find him.”
“Did you-”
“I tried to call him like a hundred times. He didn’t answer. I looked through all the building, the streets around… Are you at Bishop Dynamics? I’ll meet you there.”
“I’m on my way. There’s a march against Amber and all midtown is paralyzed.”
They let a silence linger between them while Lincoln drove, slaloming between cars and buses, leaving a trail of honking vehicles behind him. One eye on the road in front of him, the other in the rearview mirror, and his mind on the situation.
“I didn’t find his body,” he said, “which means they probably didn’t kill him.”
“Which means that they want him for something else.”
“Yeah. They want to make an example out of him.”
Olivia started to reply something but interrupted herself: “Lincoln, wait a sec-”
There was a click indicating that she’d switched to another conversation, putting him on hold, and Lincoln waited for her to get back to him, his heart pounding in his ears, dread curdling his stomach. The traffic light turned red and he had to grind to a halt, his foot pressed hard on the brakes, tires screeching in protest.
“Lincoln?” Olivia’s voice was tight and controlled.
Lincoln kept his eyes on the light, waiting for it to turn green, his fingers drumming against the wheel. “Let me guess: there was another attack.”
“Bingo,” Olivia said darkly.
---
Lincoln waded his way through the crowd surrounding Bishop Dynamics, focused on his target: the spot of color that was Olivia’s hair, barely visible behind the dark line of policemen delimiting a perimeter around the building. The people around him were not just panicked, like they’d been after the DoD hospital attack, but angry, yelling, some of them brandishing signs reading ‘Amber is Death’, and ‘Release the Ambered.’
Lincoln flashed his badge at the police to get through the protective line, and joined Olivia in the recess formed by one of the glass entrance doors.
“How many were trapped?” he asked without preliminaries, but froze at her expression.
Olivia knew how to keep her emotions in control when there was a need for it, but Lincoln had known her for two years, as a partner, as a friend, and, well, biblically. Her eyes hid nothing.
“What is it? Liv?”
“You need to see this for yourself,” she said.
She led him through the lobby, which was huge and empty save for a few Fringe agents.
“We evacuated the building,” Olivia explained once they were in the elevator. She had her hands thrust in her pockets and was rocking on the balls of her feet, all nervous energy. This didn’t bode well. “Only one floor was touched, but…”
“The floor where Beckett works, right?”
“Yes.” Olivia had been about to say something else, and her mouth remained open for another second before she pressed her lips together. “Yes,” she repeated.
The lights on their destination floor were off, but Lincoln didn’t need them to see the wall of Amber. He took a few steps toward it, Olivia lagging behind, and looked for the silhouettes of the people trapped inside. There was one standing, right in the middle of the corridor, and Lincoln immediately identified it as Helen Beckett, even though he had never met the woman in person.
“Kamikaze attack, or did she get trapped?” he murmured, somewhat rhetorically. Olivia said nothing.
There was another shadow at Beckett’s feet, someone who was crouched - no, lumped on the floor, like he or she had been unconscious when the Amber mist hit and solidified. Lincoln stepped closer; he gasped, feeling like the air had turned as solid as Amber.
“No,” he said. He felt Olivia come closer, the warmth of her shoulder against his.
“We found this,” she said, and held out to him another sheet of notepad paper. ‘Release the ambered’, was the message scrawled on it.
Charlie had told them once, “If I get ambered, just leave me in there.” Lincoln had refused to even consider that it might one day come to this.
“They got here so fast; they must have planned this,” he said, the words coming out of him without much control on his part; you run into a problem, you analyze it, dissect it into tiny bitty pieces that feel more manageable than the whole huge thing. He was formatted that way, as much by science as by his work as a Fringe agent.
“How did they get here so fast? It must have been a trap,” Olivia said, instantly in sync with his line of reasoning. “They wanted to take a Fringe agent, freeze him in Amber, because…”
“Former’s wife.” Lincoln’s memory conjured the poised woman, impeccably put together, her hands joined over her knees as she told them her husband’s tale of woe. “She played us well and good. They needed leverage. If the Department of Defense wouldn’t react to a few civilians falling victims to the Amber attacks, maybe the life of a Fringe agent would weigh more in the balance.”
Olivia snorted. “Have they met Secretary Bishop?”
“Probably not,” Lincoln said, the corner of his mouth curving up even though the rest of his face felt frozen.
Still, to think of it, it was not that bad a plan. Fringe agents didn’t grow on trees - it was a dangerous, thankless job, and Charlie was one of the best. Lincoln had no idea of what Secretary Bishop’s decision was going to be, and that scared him shitless. He angled toward Olivia, almost like they were going to kiss, and their eyes met. In Olivia’s wide-eyed gaze Lincoln found the same determination he had in him. No way in hell were they going to sit around and pray for the best.
He turned to face her, taking hold of her arms, drawing her closer.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” he said in some pale imitation of Charlie’s drawl.
She smiled. It was a dangerous smile.
---
Secretary Bishop took his time studying the skyline of buildings that could be seen from the window to his office, like he was unaware of Lincoln and Olivia standing straight with their hands locked behind their backs.
“Secretary Bishop,” Olivia called after a while, making him turn around and look at them with piercing eyes raking over them, as cold as a winter draft.
“I’m being told that we lost Agent Francis in another attack,” he said, his tone neutral enough but his expression knowing.
“With all due respect, sir,” Lincoln said, “we haven’t lost Agent Francis. We know where he is - and how to get him back. He isn’t dead.”
“You and I know that, but the general population doesn’t,” Bishop said, but despite the implied objection Lincoln saw something in the twist of his mouth and the quirk of his eyebrow, a willingness to be convinced, that made Lincoln bold enough to suggest: “The general population doesn’t have to know all we know, I agree with you there - they don’t have to know that the Amber the terrorists are using is the exact same formula that Fringe Division uses to contain vortices. We can put any spin we want on it.”
Secretary Bishop’s mouth pursed thoughtfully, and Lincoln and Olivia shared a quick, hopeful look.
“We can’t leave Agent Francis trapped in there,” Olivia insisted. “He’s a good agent, one of the best. You know that. And think about our allies from the other side - you know how eager they always are to moralize. It could affect our working relationship with them if they discovered that we are keeping all those people prisoners when we could technically free them without damage to the cohesion of our reality.”
The Secretary frowned, and for a moment Lincoln was afraid that Olivia had been too blunt. The man’s features schooled themselves once more in an unreadable mask as he said to Lincoln, “I knew your father well.”
The comment took Lincoln by surprise, as it seemed to come from nowhere and was no news to Lincoln or Olivia. “Yes, sir,” he replied cautiously, and then, because a little buttering up couldn’t hurt, “My father had a lot of respect for you.”
“You will stop those terrorists.” It didn’t sound as much as an order as some set-in-stone prediction. “I don’t want any more attacks, I don’t want those people to keep blackmailing us. This is an unacceptable situation, and I want it to stop, no matter the means. When this is done, I will free the people trapped in Amber. Do we understand each other?”
Failure wasn’t an option, got it. It wouldn’t have been one whatever Secretary Bishop said, but Lincoln nodded obediently anyway. “Perfectly, sir,” he said, echoed a split-second later by Olivia.
They left Liberty Island with renewed energy, but the high from the implicit carte blanche they’d obtained from Secretary Bishop didn’t last the ferry trip back to Manhatan.
“I guess all we need now is a plan,” Olivia said in a dry tone, and the despondent look on her face made Lincoln’s heart squeeze in his chest, both because he hated seeing her unhappy, and because he knew that she was thinking of what was at stake.
He nudged her with his shoulder, once, then again until she snorted and shoved back. “Hey,” he said. “Piece of cake.”
“Right. I forgot - you’re the brain to mine and Charlie’s brawn.”
“Nice of you to acknowledge it.”
They kept up with their banter until they made it to HQ, but it felt forced without Charlie there with them, cruelly unbalanced. HQ was buzzing with activity, and their arrival was welcomed by a curt, “Good. You’re here,” from Broyles.
“We have free rein from Secretary Bishop to do whatever it takes to stop Former,” Lincoln said. “We just need to find him or get him to surface again.”
“Agent Farnsworth made a few estimations for us,” Broyles said with a nod to the young woman.
At this cue, Agent Farnsworth started to drone, the glow from her screen creating two pools of light in her dark eyes: “According to my calculations, there’s a 10% chance that Former will attempt to leave the city, 5% chance that he will attempt to leave the country entirely, 40% chance that he will attempt another attack in the next 48 hours, and 45% chance that he will try to go back to Bishop Dynamics to liberate Helen Beckett. There’s also a 50% chance that he will try to contact his wife. I have made other estimations about the possible places and timings of his next attacks if you want them.”
Farnsworth raised her head, almost meeting Lincoln’s eyes in expectation to his demands. Lincoln opened his mouth to speak up, but Olivia beat him to the punch: “He’s going back. He’ll want to free his sister.”
“You sure?” Lincoln asked doubtfully. “This is awfully risky for him.”
“He attacked Bishop Dynamics,” Olivia argued. “At this point he must be desperate or crazy. Think about it - Secretary Bishop is giving no sign that he’ll yield to Former’s demands, we know who he is, and he’s lost his primary accomplice with all her precious scientific knowledge of Amber. And that’s without taking into account the fact that she’s his sister. Given how he reacted to his brother getting stuck in Amber, I think he’ll want to hold onto his remaining blood relative.”
“Yeah, precisely - the brother. What makes you think Former will try to set his sister free when he didn’t try it with his brother? Helen Beckett had the necessary knowledge.”
“The circumstances are different: Former hadn’t backed himself into corner the way he has now. He probably still thought he could both help his brother and further his anti-Amber agenda. Sir,” Olivia turned to Broyles, who had listened to the exchange in silence, arms folded across his chest, “I know I’m right. Former will go back to Bishop Dynamics. Allow us to go with a team and we’ll catch him there.”
“We don’t know how soon he’ll go back there,” Broyles said. “Chances are that he will lay low for a while and wait until we’re distracted with something else.”
“Unless,” Lincoln said, and all the eyes of everyone involved in the conversation turned to him, “unless he already thinks we’re distracted with something else.”
Broyles’s brow furrowed. “What are you thinking?”
---
The crude light from the interrogation room was doing Mrs. Former no favor, her pale complexion washed out to the point that she looked sick. Or maybe she was just uncomfortable.
“I apologize for the summon, Mrs. Former,” Lincoln said, sitting at the table across from her, smiling at her with what he hoped was a friendly smile. “You probably heard about the latest attack on Bishop Dynamics. My partner - the one who was with me when we visited you,” Lincoln let his eyes drop down, and swallowed in a flash of genuine distress, “he got caught in it.”
He looked up to observe her reaction and saw her draw a deep breath, but apart from that her face was quite hard to read. Was it surpris he could see there, or maybe regret? Had she known when she’d subtly directed them toward Helen Beckett that she would throw one of them off the cliff?
“I’m sorry to hear about your partner,” she said. “What can I do to help?”
“I know you said you didn’t know where your husband was, or about his plans.” He marked a pause to give her time to come back on her declarations, but she merely looked at him with a cool expectant expression, so he went on, “But if you could give us even the slightest idea of what he could do next… What his next target could be. I imagine he talked to you about his grievances against Amber protocol - what was his anger particularly aimed at?”
“Well.” She pressed her lips in a tight line, as if thinking about Lincoln’s question, or hesitating, and maybe Lincoln was projecting but he thought there was something calculated about the gesture. “As I said before, I have no certainty. My husband didn’t confide in me. But if I had to guess…” She trailed off, shook her head. “It’s crazy.”
Lincoln tried to shove his irritation back down. “Try me,” he said.
“My husband is a very thorough man who likes to go to the heart of things. If he’s struck Bishop Dynamics, I’d say he’ll want to end up on a high note, strike the source of it all.”
“Like… Fringe Headquarters?” Lincoln raised an eyebrow to mark his incredulity.
“Or the Department of Defense.” She had a quick smile that looked out of place on her. “But I imagine that the security there is impenetrable.”
“The security here is pretty badass too,” Lincoln murmured, making himself look like he was thinking about it, and resisted directing a glance at Liv behind the one-way mirror adorning the back of the room. “But unless your husband has turned completely suicidal, Fringe HQ does seem like a more likely target.”
“I don’t want you to put words in my mouth,” Mrs. Former said, slightly raising her hand. “I’m not sure at all that this is what my husband will do.”
“Of course,” Lincoln said, standing up to signal the end of the conversation. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Former. I’ll have an agent take you back home.”
Once he’d said his goodbyes, with promises to keep Mrs. Former up to date, Lincoln joined Olivia in the backroom.
“That’s a ballsy move on their part,” she commented when she saw Lincoln enter. “To try to make us focus so much on our own navel that we miss everything else.”
“It’s big enough that it could have worked as a misdirection. From what we’ve seen of Former so far, he seems bold enough to actually attempt on attack on Fringe Division. You still think that Former is going to free his sister?”
Olivia’s eyes were still fixed on the empty interrogation room, like she was replaying the interview in her mind.
“Yes,” she said with calm conviction. “The fact that his wife didn’t even mention it as an option makes me think it’s the most likely one. He’s going back. And we’ll get him. And we’ll get Charlie back.”
She held out her hand and Lincoln took it, giving it a heartfelt squeeze.
“I know,” he said.
---
Stakeouts would suck less if only making out with his partners was an option, Lincoln thought, glancing at Olivia, at the way the shadows nestled in the hollow of her throat. But he was a professional, and so was Liv. So was Charlie, for that matter. Lincoln directed his eyes to the Bishop Dynamics building, standing tall and threatening in the chill night, with its cruel angles hiding Charlie somewhere in there. You couldn’t see the Amber from the outside, but it was easy to imagine.
“How do you think time passes for someone stuck in Amber?” Lincoln asked before he could help himself. “Is it like being paralyzed and feeling every second of it? Are you stuck in your last moment before it hit? Or is it like dreaming?”
Olivia shot him a reproachful look. “You’ll ask Charlie when we have him back.”
“Yeah, because Charlie is so fond of sharing and caring,” Lincoln said with a snort.
“Then I guess you’ll just have to suffer the…” Olivia trailed off, then smacked Lincoln’s arm with the back of her hand. “Look, I think he’s already inside.”
All Lincoln had the time to catch was a glimpse of a shadow from behind the glass doors, but if Olivia had seen something that was enough for him. He brought a hand to his ear cuff.
“Possible visual of the suspect,” he murmured at the intention of the stand-by team. “Wait for my signal.”
Olivia was already out of the car and Lincoln had to hurry to catch her.
“Don’t run headlong in there.” She had her gun out and he mimicked her. “We don’t know if he’s alone, or if he has his own personal army of fanatics.”
“I’m not a rookie anymore,” she huffed, but slowed down her pace.
Inside the building the silence was so absolute it was almost a physical presence. Lincoln and Olivia padded quietly across the lobby, eyes on every patch of darkness that could hide an intruder.
“We’ll have to take the stairs,” Olivia said, and Lincoln nodded because it made sense. They couldn’t alert Former of their presence, but climbing up the stairs was going to take some time and they had no idea how long it took to free someone from Amber.
The climb up the ambered floor was excruciatingly long, like aiming for the top of a mountain that disappeared into the clouds. The need to be silent battled with the need to be swift, and the fact that they didn’t know what awaited them upstairs or whether Former had men posted at intermediary floors was nerve-racking.
After the first five or so floors, Lincoln murmured, unable to resist, “Are we there yet?”
Olivia, leading their cavalry of two - great view of her ass, so there was no complaint from Lincoln - didn’t even turn around to quietly reply, “Don’t start. I will shoot you.”
She would, so Lincoln bit his tongue the next time the urge to needle her hit. They continued their ascension until they reached 18th floor, and Olivia raised a hand to signal the need for perfect quiet. As soon as she pushed the door to enter a shadowed hallway Lincoln could hear a hissing noise, intermittent and low. Olivia paused for a second before she headed toward the noise, and Lincoln followed her once he’d soundlessly closed the door to the staircase.
Down the hallway there was a soft glow, casting reddish light on the granular Amber wall. Olivia and Lincoln stepped closer and soon Lincoln could make out the kneeling figure of a man, wielding what looked like a blowtorch, cutting incandescent lines with it on the Amber. The man had his back to them so it was hard to tell if it was Former.
Lincoln turned to Olivia - he could barely see her face in the feeble light that came from the window at the end of the hallway behind them, but he could see that she had turned to him simultaneously. He raised his hand with three fingers up, and lowered them one by one, counting down the seconds.
Three. Two. One.
“Fringe Division!” Lincoln shouted, and the contrast with the previous quiet was so sudden he almost startled himself. “Put the torch down, and stand up with your hands in the air.”
The man froze then complied, slowly unfolding himself to his full length, which, as Lincoln quickly realized, was quite considerable. Standing with his back straight he had close to a head on Lincoln.
This is not Former.
As soon as the thought flashed through his mind he could read in Olivia’s body language that she’d come to the same conclusion. She tensed, started to twirl around while yelling to Lincoln, “He’s not-” Her eyes widened. “Watch out!”
She pointed her gun somewhere over Lincoln’s shoulder and he heard the hiss of a bullet by his right ear, then someone cry out in pain. The tall man with the blowtorch shifted on his feet and Lincoln directed his gun at him, trusting Olivia to take care of whoever was behind him. “Don’t move!” The man stilled.
“You, put the gun down!” Lincoln heard Olivia bark. Her words were followed by the sounds of a tussle. Reflexively Lincoln moved to help Olivia, saw the tall man move at the same time, so Lincoln jumped at him and kneed him into the gut. As the man folded on himself with a muffled groan of pain Lincoln whacked him over the head for good measure and guided his fall to the floor.
“No, Lincoln!”
The cry sent a jolt of adrenaline through Lincoln’s body, but he didn’t have any time to react before he was thrown against the wall of Amber. Some of it still was still hot from the blowtorch and Lincoln hissed at the burn against his cheek. Then he was yanked from the surface and an arm was looped around his neck, securely pressing him against a man’s chest. The man holding him was shorter than him and Lincoln found himself twisted in an uncomfortable position so they’d be at the same level.
“Don’t move or I shoot your partner.”
It was said calmly but Lincoln could feel the unmistakable press of a gun against his ribs. He could see Olivia, holding her gun with both hands, silhouetted against the lighter square of the far away window, and he knew that they were pretty much screwed.
“Olivia,” he said. Don’t listen to him. Don’t let him use me against you.
The man - Former? - jabbed the gun against his side, hard enough to be painful. “You be quiet.” Then to Olivia: “Put the gun down, agent.”
Olivia didn’t. Lincoln couldn’t make out the expression on her face, but knew she was looking at him, could see the white of her wide eyes. The harsh rhythm of his heartbeat progressively slowed down as calm settled in his mind and body. He couldn’t do anything to save himself in this situation, and all that was left to him was to entirely surrender himself to her. It was going to be okay.
“Do it,” he said.
“Shut up!”
Alarm had crept into Former’s voice and his grip tightened on Lincoln. Olivia raised her arms.
“Sorry,” she said, then she fired her gun.
---
Lincoln woke up slowly, becoming progressively aware of the mattress under his back, the pillow behind his head, the sheets and blanket snuggly tucked around his body. He was warm, comfortable, floating as if on a fluffy cloud. He had absolutely no urge to move or try to open his eyes, until his attention was caught by the deep, rumbling sound of a familiar voice. Charlie.
Charlie.
His eyelids felt glued together but he struggled until he could open his eyes and was blinded by light.
“He’s waking up.” It was Olivia.
He blinked a few times to clear his vision, and when the blurriness receded he could see that he was in a hospital room: daylight filtered faintly through the drawn curtains on his left, enough that he could see the shape of Olivia ensconced in an armchair on his right, with Charlie half-leaning, half-sitting on the arm. Olivia’s hand and forearm were pressed along his thigh, her thumb rubbing absent-mindedly over the seams of his jeans.
“How you’re feeling?” she asked, and tried to smile but it didn’t get to her eyes.
“Alive,” he said, grinning at her, telling her without words that they were okay. “Thanks for not killing me.”
Her smile thawed minutely. “That’s skill for you. Former’s wound was a little more serious than yours, the bullet shattered the bone, but he’s alive as well and in custody. All the Amber victims from the attacks were released - the story is that the formula used by the terrorists was a flawed product and aren’t we glad that the real one remains in the hands of those who know how to use it properly, blah blah blah. Ah, and Beckett confessed to Carlyle’s murder. Police’s dredging the Hudson looking for the poor guy’s body.”
Lincoln nodded at the news, relieved at this turn of events, but his eyes drifted to Charlie, who had yet to say a word. He looked whole but his face was grey, his features drawn like he’d been awake for days.
“Charlie,” he said. “How are you?”
He saw Olivia roll her eyes and could guess Charlie’s answer before it even passed his lips.
“I’m fine.” His hands were shaking, and when he caught Lincoln noticing, he buried them in his pockets. “Aftereffect. Doctors said it’ll pass.”
Lincoln shared a look with Olivia: doctors didn’t know shit; they probably had never been confronted with someone released from Amber before.
“How’s the shoulder?” Charlie asked gruffly.
Lincoln rolled his shoulder experimentally. He couldn’t feel any pain, probably because of the drugs - he’d be a little sore later, he knew from experience - and he could move easily.
“It’s almost healed,” he said with nonchalance. “Good as new.”
Charlie’s jaw tightened. “You could’ve been killed.”
“Well, we had a plan and everything, but-”
“Dumbass.”
Then Charlie leaned forward, cupped the back of Lincoln’s head to forcefully draw him in, and kissed him. His lips were dry and a little cooler than normal. His strong fingers were digging into Lincoln’s scalp, bordering on painful.
“Uh, hello to you too,” Lincoln said once he got his voice back, his lips tingling with the memory of Charlie’s kiss. And maybe it stung a little when Charlie pulled back and sneaked a glance in direction of the half-open door to check if someone had seen them, but whatever. Life-affirming kisses were their own rewards.
Olivia was sniggering, watching them, until Charlie turned to her and pinned her down with a death glare.
“So,” he said. “Wanna tell me whose brilliant idea it was?”
Lincoln and Olivia exchanged a look above Charlie’s shoulder before answering simultaneously, pointing an accusing finger at each other:
“Hers.”
“His.”
Charlie sighed deeply. “Bunch of middle-schoolers,” he mumbled, ostentatiously not talking to them. “Gonna end up dead or worse one day.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Please, Lord, give me strength.”
“See what happens when you’re not here to keep an eye on us?” Lincoln said, aiming for light-hearted but missing his target by a mile or two, his voice a little too strangled to ring true.
There was an awkward silence after that. Charlie sat down on the edge of Lincoln’s bed, glanced at Liv, then clumsily patted Lincoln’s hand with his own. Lincoln swallowed, his heart fast-pacing with emotions too heavy and complicated to handle when he was still drugged out of his mind. He was hung up on his teammates, had been for at least a year - he’d been accused of it by several exes, so he knew his fault well. He could deal with it as long as said teammates didn’t give in to mushiness. He couldn’t let his feelings get too real, because he would choke on them.
“I…” he said, but no words would come out. Charlie’s hand was still covering his own. Olivia looked like she didn’t know whether to join them or leave the room, but Charlie made the decision for her: “C’mere, Liv,” he said, patting the bed next to him. “Group hug,” he added with a wry smile.
“Looks like Amber scrambled your brains,” Olivia said, but still rose from her chair and sat with them on the bed.
They didn’t exactly hug, because that wasn’t their style, no sir, but they sat very close to each other, Lincoln shoulder to shoulder with Charlie, his leg pressed against Olivia’s hip. Charlie’s head was bowed and Lincoln could hear his breathing, sounding too loud.
“When I was stuck in Amber,” Charlie said, his voice gravelly, “I kept having these flashes, kinda like I was dreaming. Maybe because I was unconscious when it hit… It was bits and pieces of my life, mostly… mostly of the two of you.”
Lincoln didn’t dare breathe, for fear that he’d shut down this unusual bout of openness from Charlie.
“I could’ve stayed that way forever, and never had the real thing again.”
Charlie cleared his throat and rubbed under his nose with a finger, shaking himself like he’d just gotten out of the water.
“But we’re here now,” Lincoln said, trying to sound soothing and feeling awkward, because he’d never had to hit that note with Charlie. “You have us. We’re not going anywhere.”
He couldn’t ask them to be what he wanted. What did he want, anyway? Some kind of threeway romance? Flowers, chocolate, candle-lit dinners, walking hand-in-hand and all that jazz? Whenever he tried to envision it his mind came up blank.
“Aww, that’s sweet,” Olivia said, her voice cutting with sarcasm. “Lincoln, you are a romantic. Who knew?”
It shattered the moment, but also lightened the mood and Lincoln was washed over with relief and gratefulness. It felt wrong to be solemn and stilted with each other; everything about their lives was already so serious. Lincoln smiled at Olivia, and Charlie chuckled and his hand moved away.
“Someone has to be,” Lincoln answered in the same tone, “to compensate for you two emotionally-stunted oafs.”
“Emotions are complicated,” Olivia said. “Shooting people is more straightforward.” She realized what she’d just said and winced. “It’s probably too soon to joke about it, is it?”
“No, no, not at all,” said Lincoln, waving a casual hand. “Tell me more about how you express your emotions by shooting people. What does a bullet in the shoulder mean?”
“I wanna shut your mouth with lethal force?” Charlie suggested.
“I confess my preference for “I want to ride you like a pony,” but given that Former got shot too your interpretation is more likely.”
“But then you know how Liv likes violent preliminaries.”
“Hmm, you’re right.” Lincoln looked at Olivia in askance. “Liv, wanna make out in my hospital bed?”
“Okay, you two, that’s enough,” Olivia protested, lightly punching Lincoln’s uninjured arm - she was just as delicate with Charlie, like they were both made of glass, and that strained the fragile illusion that everything was normal. He looked forward to when Olivia would hit him again with bruising force.
Charlie shifted against Lincoln’s side. “We should let you get some sleep,” he said, traces of awkwardness seeping through his voice again.
“I barely woke up,” Lincoln said. “Besides, I can sleep just fine with you two here. Done it before, as you should recall.”
Don’t leave. The message seemed to go through. Olivia and Charlie settled on each side of him, and it was a bit too snug in the bed to be completely comfortable, but they’d had worse and it took them mere minutes to find a way to fit against each other, falling back into place as naturally as puzzle pieces. The ache into Lincoln’s shoulder was waking up, but the heaviness in his chest was easing.
“Hey, guys,” Olivia said just as Lincoln had started to doze off. Her voice sounded dreamy, like she was talking from somewhere deep in her headspace.
“Yeah?” Lincoln said. Charlie might have been asleep because he didn’t make a sound.
“When Lincoln gets discharged we could go to my place. Frank’s out of town, you know.”
Warmth bloomed inside Lincoln’s chest. “I would like that. What do you say, Charlie?”
Lincoln nudged Charlie, who squirmed and let out a small snore. Lincoln turned his head to share a look with Olivia. Nose to nose, the two of them burst out laughing. Edging closer to each other on the pillow, breathing each other’s air, they kissed between giggles until they were breathless with it.