Fanfic: DW/F Xover -- The Ghost in the Machine -- Chapter 2

[lunawho]

Fandom:   Doctor Who and Fringe
Rating:  K+ to T
Spoilers: through 4x13 "Journey's End" in Doctor Who and 3x22 "The Day We Died" for Fringe.
Pairings: TenII/Rose and Peter/Olivia
Note: Best to read previous fic "The Planets Bend Between Us" to fully understand certain references in this story.  Link is included in chapter 1.
Genre: sci-fi, angst, drama, slight romance


Chapter 1

Disclaimer: See previous chapters.
A/N: Sorry for the slow update. Life has been really hectic for me the last couple of weeks. Thanks to all who reviewed and recced this. Your support means more than I can say. I hope you enjoy!

CHAPTER 2
Rose Tyler decided not to take Olivia Dunham's laughter too personally. For one, it was obvious the woman was in desperate need of a good laugh, and that a large portion of the span of time she had been doing so was due to stress. When it's been building for a while, and is then released, it tends to come off in one long act - sometimes of violence, sometimes in a long sleep of over a full day, and sometimes in a bout of laughter. Also, Rose couldn't really blame Olivia for laughing. The Doctor's plan probably sounded quite preposterous. What good had talking about the past ever done for physically altering the universe, at least from a totally sane, never-having-traveled-across-the-universe-with-the-Doctor standpoint? Probably little to nothing, as close as Rose could figure. Therefore, she forgave Olivia her incredulity. It was a totally natural reaction, especially given that Olivia had no conscious memory of having contact with the Doctor before. Rose only hoped that something unconscious within Olivia's mind would accept what the Doctor had to say, despite Olivia's trend toward skepticism.

Rose took the moments of Olivia's laughter to think about the situation. As far as Rose could tell, she was in an entirely new universe. Upon hearing that she would be traveling to Olivia Dunham's dimension, she had a brief moment of excitement mixed with trepidation. She remembered the brief conversation she had with Olivia upon their initial introduction in Pete's World and that all the major events of Olivia's universe were identical to the major events of Rose's initial universe. Rose had both hoped and been afraid that they were the same. However, after mere seconds of standing in the "bridge" room, she had been able to tell that the universe Olivia was from was quite different from Rose's original home. Something about the air in this universe, though somewhat familiar, felt distinctly off. The fact that the major events were exact in their details meant that Olivia's universe and the universe the Doctor and Rose had initially traveled in were probably side-by-side, and the walls probably as thin as the ones between Olivia's world and Pete's World, but they were not the same. Upon this realisation, Rose had almost kicked herself for hoping. After all, Olivia had been ignorant of the Dalek Invasion and the Army of Ghosts - attacks that had been world-wide in Rose's original home - and she knew Olivia would have been well cognisant of those events. Still, Rose had felt a brief moment of hope, but she had been shocked to find that the disappointment she felt upon having that hope snuffed out was small compared to what she had imagined it would feel.

The room Olivia had led Rose and the Doctor into was filled with large computers and whiteboards covered in equations and complicated theorems that the Doctor would probably claim were completely wrong, but that Rose couldn't even begin to decipher. Not that she would tell him so; no, she would merely nod at what he said and smile as though she had even an inkling about what was coming out of his mouth. And the second his back was turned, she would share a bemused and confused look with the advanced scientists in the room and allow herself the comfort of knowing that at least she was no dumber than the geniuses the Doctor had just outwitted. At least, that was the way these situations usually went, and Rose was pretty certain this time wouldn't be much different. There were some things that were a given in life with the Doctor and feeling generally dimwitted was one of them.

When Olivia started speaking again, Rose forced herself back to the current state of affairs. Apparently two minutes of laughter had not changed Olivia's perspective on the credibility of the Doctor's methods for her voice was just as incredulous as her laughter had been. "How is that going to work? You're gonna be a shrink and I'm going to fill you in on the past, and suddenly everything will be fixed? I've become fairly open minded after seeing some of the things Walter's done over the last three years, but that is a stretch. There is absolutely no scientific basis AT ALL in that idea. I'm not a scientist, and even I can tell you that."

Rose braced herself for an interesting discussion. Both the Doctor and Olivia Dunham - or the Olivia Dunham that Rose remembered from before the change - had strong wills and quick minds, and neither would give up on their agenda very easily. However, Rose knew from experience that no one ever told the Doctor that something was beyond his power. He would make it his own personal mission to prove to the challenger and the universe that he was right, or he would die trying. Rose seriously hoped that the Doctor wouldn't let the situation go that far this time; he didn't have any more regenerations or spare hands lying around to give him extra chances this time.

"First off, don't insult a good shrink. They can usually tell when a person has a problem before the patient does. And trust me, when you finally believe me - which you will, by the way - you'll really see the truth in that statement. And second, don't underestimate my intelligence. You'll never find a smarter man than me anywhere in the universe, and that's not opinion or ego, it's merely fact. If I ask you a question, it's because the answer is important. Your universe is falling apart around you second by precious second, and so is Pete's World. This "bridge" that's been created - and to be honest, it's closer to being a paddle boat that's sprung a leak and is sinking fast while all of your so called scientists run around bailing out water with pails - was put together by a shoddy engineer and there's heavy traffic trying to cross it. Now, you can answer my questions, silly as they may seem to you, and trust that there's no one more equipped to handle this problem than me, or we can all sit here and wait until the universe crumbles around us. Trust me or not, I'm all you've got. When it comes to the universe, there's no greater source of intelligence than me."

When the Doctor was finished, his dark brown eyes were blazing. Rose felt her unease with the situation rise, and gooseflesh crawled up her arm. The Doctor didn't usually get so impassioned or indignant with a skeptical acquaintance quite so quickly. Rose suddenly felt the situation must be more dire than she had previously assumed based on the Doctor's intense reaction, especially considering he was showing his temper to a woman that he considered a friend and held in such high esteem. The Doctor's belligerence had quite the effect on Agent Dunham, if appearances were anything to go by. The agent had raised her head a little higher and stiffened her jaw slightly, like a girl who had been scolded by the teacher before the entire class and did not quite appreciate it. But there was also an acquiescence there - an unspoken promise to listen and try to keep any sort of disbelieving sounds to a minimum.

"Alright," the blonde agent said, her voice curt and to the point. "I'll answer your questions. But only if you really think it will help."

Olivia grabbed a swivel chair from one of the nearby tables and swung it around to a lab table, sitting behind it, her back ramrod straight and stiff and her hands folded in a business like manner over the faux-marble tabletop. She sat so stiffly and without expression that if Rose had not known better, she would have assumed the woman to be a painted statue. Rose remembered a semblance of that stiffness from meeting Olivia in Pete's World, but the current form of it seemed extreme, as though Olivia had forgotten entirely what it meant to relax.

The Doctor swung himself onto the table that lay adjacent to the one Olivia was sitting behind and sat Indian style on the tabletop, loosening his tie as he did so. Rose hopped up beside him and dangled her legs off the side. The Doctor gave Olivia a sincere "Thank you," and leaned back, resting his weight on his hands for a few moments before springing forward again and resting the tips of his fingers together and resting his chin on them, like a wizened old professor using the Socratic Method on an overly-intelligent pupil.

"Now, let's start with the most obvious change - "

"Change, what change?" Olivia asked, giving Rose a look of confusion. Rose felt a brief second of guilt as she schooled her face into an image of nonchalance and gave Olivia a stony expression. After all, despite Olivia's hard exterior, she had been someone Rose considered a friend, and it was hardly Olivia's fault that she had no memory of the meeting. But they were running on little time, as evidenced by the Doctor's all-business attitude (something he only did when he was greatly worried), and so Rose felt that if the Doctor didn't deem it fit to answer Olivia's question, Olivia was probably safer not asking it.

" - and I'll ask you if you know anything about how Walternate gained power on the other side."

Rose glanced at the Doctor, for she was well aware that it was the kind of question he already knew the answer to. The Doctor merely give her a small glance from the side and a tiny quirk of a smile, and Rose decided to act as though she were as clued into the Doctor's plan as the Doctor was, not that the Doctor ever really had a plan. Well, unless blow something up and run away as though hell were after you counted as a plan. In any case, the Doctor apparently had a reason for asking this question, and Rose wasn't about to be the one to give the game away.

"I don't know specifics," Olivia answered, lifting her hands slightly as she spoke. Rose found herself clinging to this one factor of Olivia Dunham for it was the one thing so far that apparently had not changed at all. Olivia still spoke with her hands. "According to my alternate and her team, and what little snippets of their universe's past that they've been willing to share, Walter was a high level scientist working for a company much like Massive Dynamic until the mid-80s. That was when the tears in the universes started to appear. At first, they didn't know what it meant - they were just random anomalies, and they usually led to the deaths of maybe a dozen civilians at the most. But they escalated quickly, and in 1986, Walternate's wife Elisabeth was killed in one of the Fringe incidents that occurred. She was walking across the Harvard Campus to meet with your Walter when a car from our side crossed into your universe and ran her down. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But apparently your version of Walter is just as myopic and obsessive as mine, and he couldn't let go of this idea - wanting to know where this car had come from. When small objects from our side started popping up in your universe, he came to the conclusion that the theory of multiple universes was correct and he started to find ways to cross over.

"As for his rise to the position of Secretary of Defence, I know much less. If you were to ask the version of myself from your world, she would probably say that he united the people under a common goal and was given the position by the President because he was able to instill in the people a modicum of the feeling of safety as well as give the feeling that he could sympathise with them, as he too had lost someone he loved due to my universe's interference. If you asked anyone from my universe, we would tell you he preyed on their emotions and their grief and basically pulled a Machiavelli and wormed his way into the position. But my superiors would probably just tell you I'm biased."

"You don't trust the Secretary do you?" the Doctor asked, his voice sounding almost contemptuously amused.

"Of course not. Lose as much to him as I have, and you wouldn't trust him either."

"Oh believe me, we don't," Rose answered, taking the opportunity to finally speak up. "If anything, our employers are even more wary of him than you are."

"Why?" asked Olivia, removing her arms from the table and crossing them across her chest, leaning back slightly to a more relaxed position in her swivel chair. Rose felt something inside of her that had been unknowingly tense the whole time ease itself a bit. Olivia was still wary, that was evident from the closed posture, but she was becoming a bit more comfortable. Apparently, anyone who questioned the Secretary was a bit more trustworthy in her book.

"Because he holds too much power," Rose answered blatantly. "Even in Britain, people subscribe to his way of viewing the world. In our universe, we've had problems not only with your universe, but with others - the walls for us are even thinner than the ones for you. We at Torchwood know that it isn't solely your universe's fault - the holes were already there, and there are outside forces that no one outside of Torchwood knows about that are contributing factors - but Dr Bishop's views are quite popular among those not in the loop. He thinks that the war he declared on your universe all those years ago was just and right, and he still hasn't backed down from that, even through all the peace talks. That sort of unapologetic allegiance to an idea is a dangerous thing. It can't see anything else, and that worries us at Torchwood. In Britain, we saw the worst of what allegiance to the ideas of one man can do to a people."

The Doctor and Rose were both silent for a moment as they remembered all those who had been "upgraded" to Cybermen or "deleted" by the Cybermen due to Dr Lumic's fear of death. One man's determination to stay alive and defeat death had led not only to his own death, but to the deaths of hundreds of others in London alone, to say nothing of those who had been cyberised in continental Europe. The moment soon passed and the Doctor spoke again.

"Now tell me about the events six months ago. What led to this so-called bridge?"

"It was strange. For days previously, the cracks between universes had been getting worse. Crazy lightning that caused cars to explode and bridges to split in half, vortexes were opening, buildings from both dimensions were mixing together. It was chaos. And then, at 6:02 am, we got a call that a room in the Statue of Liberty was 'flickering' - that was the word they used. Everyone who entered the room would see flashes of a similar room with different people in it. Well, we quickly vacated the area, terrified that it was another incident of two buildings in the same space merging together. And they did merge, but it was weird because for the first time ever in a merge, everyone was safe. The two dimensions mixed perfectly in that *one* spot. At first, everything was perfect and everyone could meet in that one room and travel back and forth between the two dimensions with no problems. But, now it's like a short-circuited battery. Only one dimension can be in the room at a time. You can flick a switch and cross over, but the two dimensions aren't in the same room anymore, but you are standing in the doorway with one foot in and one foot out."

"That's a pretty good analogy of the problem actually," said the Doctor, one eyebrow quirked to show that he was impressed.

"Yeah, that's how Brandon explained it to me after Walter said in it a much more scientific way that made no sense."

"So," the Doctor said, taking a deep breath, "the real problem is that you have either a short circuited battery or the batteries are going flat and you need to get them charged, am I right?"

Olivia was silent a moment, bobbing her head side to side a bit, before pursing her lips and nodding. "That sounds a bit like the description I would give it, yeah."

"Hm. Well, you see the problem with that description is that it's not the right one at all."

Even Rose found herself a bit confused. It sounded quite accurate to her, given the problem Olivia had been describing. Rose hadn't been quite sure how the Doctor planned to fix said problem, given that she wasn't sure how you could "re-charge" a battery if said battery was a person, but the problem in and of itself had seemed fairly straight forward. But, as usual, this encounter with the Doctor was apparently not what it seemed.

"So, what is the problem then?" Rose asked, voicing the question she was fairly sure was on the tip of Agent Dunham's tongue.

"The problem is," the Doctor announced, drawing out the "-ess" sound in apparent relish, "that you're running your computer on the wrong operating system."

"I believe I speak for both Olivia and myself when I say, 'what?'"

"To use an analogy that would make a completely inexplicable idea explicable, you are trying to operate a programme - a very advanced, multi-algorithmic, complexly coded programme - on a basic Windows 95 operating system. The programme and its assets are too complex of an idea for your basic PC."

"I'm afraid you lost me at all the complex computer stuff," Olivia said, giving Rose an alarmed look, complete with raised eyebrows. Rose merely shrugged, as lost as she. For the first time, Olivia seemed completely like the Agent Dunham Rose remembered meeting the year previously. Totally out of her depth and lost in the Doctor's rambling, but eager to grasp the concept and use what she had learned to put to rights what was wrong.

"Ok, to put it as simply as possible. The problem is that what you think is a battery isn't a battery, therefore the problem isn't the power source. The problem is that the bridge and the universes aren't compatible. They never should have been in the first place. This bridge was never supposed to be here, and the two universes NEED to be kept separate. The walls between realities haven't been able to heal because both sides - due to both Walter's interference and the Secretary's - keep crossing over. The travel between dimensions needs to stop, and both realities will eventually reach some semblance of normalcy. It'll take longer for our world because there's been more trouble than simply a war between this universe and our own, but cosmos willing, it will happen eventually."

"So, how do we get rid of the bridge?" Olivia asked, asking the obvious and yet most pertinent question.

"Well, that's where you come in Miss Dunham. And I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. But you're going to have to trust me, and it will be difficult for you, but you have to because if you don't, eventually both universes *will* die."

A brief glimpse of fear and worry crossed Olivia's face before it was hidden behind the familiar look of steely resolve that Rose was most familiar with seeing on the agent's face. She went from confused and slightly wary woman to war-weary, determined soldier in microseconds. Rose couldn't help but slightly admire that.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to go through you memories, and find who you lost."

Rose fought the urge to put a hand over her eyes and groan. She had urged the Doctor before they began this mission to make sure to ease Olivia into the idea of re-written time lines gradually (she knew from experience that it could take a while to process), but as usual the Doctor had steamrollered his way in with direct statements. She really hoped Olivia could trust them as quickly this time as she had done before, because otherwise they were now seriously screwed.
Olivia was not positive when her brain had gotten off the main road of the conversation that she, Rose, and the Doctor were having, but it must have been a few exit ramps before where ever the Doctor was, because she was totally lost. Olivia did not consider herself the smartest person in the world when it came to science - she was no Brandon, Walter, William, or even Astrid - but she did know the basics, and she was pretty sure the Doctor was running from the world of science into the realm of science fiction.

"I'm sorry. You lost me. You need me to remember someone I've met before? You're going to have to give me some clues because I've met a lot of people since coming to work for the Fringe Division, and there's 28 years worth of memories from before that."

"No, no, no, no. I need you to remember someone specific, but it'll be hard because you've never met him."

Olivia was pretty sure that the Doctor was making the kind of sense that just...well, it wasn't sense at all if she wanted to be frank. It sounded like the sort of thing Walter would say, and she had the sudden urge to call him in and ask for his assistance, but resisted. After all, the Doctor would probably only start speaking even more complicated analogies and theorems with another genius in the room. Olivia looked to Rose, hoping the younger blonde woman might possibly give some sort of expression that would convey even the most minute of information as to what the hell the Doctor was talking about.

Rose thankfully took the hint.

"Doctor, maybe you should start by explaining about time lines."

The Doctor gaped at Rose slightly open-mouthed for a moment as though baffled at her confusion. Rose nodded in Olivia's general direction and it was only when the Doctor glanced in Olivia's direction and saw her confused expression that he apparently realised why it was that Rose made the suggestion. "Oh yes. Quite right. Well, most people see time as linear - one second after another, cause and effect, minute by minute, hour by hour. But it's not like that at all. It's more a great big ball of wibbly -"

"Wait, is this the idea of time is part of a fourth dimension and it can fold itself backwards and re-write things?" Olivia asked, cutting in.

The Doctor looked faintly put out, and Olivia fought back a burst of pride that she apparently knew at least a little something that the Doctor apparently considered beyond general knowledge.

"Yes. That," the Doctor said, slightly begrudgingly, "Well, even if you normally don't believe it, assume for a moment that the theory is truth." Olivia already believed in the idea of time travel, having seen small vestiges of it before - enough to suggest that the idea had *some* credence to it anyway, but said nothing. "Sometimes, these re-writes are events. Other times, they're people. Now, some re-writes are fine - they can be done and the universe carries on much like normal with only a few differences. But some events and some people are fixed. They have to live and they have to die at a certain time, and any forces messing with those events can end the entire universe. Now, whatever or whomever caused the re-write this time did it well enough that the universes have held up for much longer than they usually would. But not well enough, as you can see. Now, I'm lucky in that I'm, shall you say, one of a kind and Rose is 'smarter than your average bear' (to quote a popular American cartoon), and I remember the way it was before. I remember *you* from before."

"That's impossible. You're from Pete's World. I was never there until four months ago and I never left the Statue of Liberty."

"That's true. You haven't been there. Not anymore. But once upon a time, you spent quite a period of time there. It's also probably why you're so innately distrustful of Walternate. He didn't exactly give you five star accommodations while you were there, to be quite honest. And while you were there, you met me and you met Rose. And we got you home."

"I don't believe that. I *can't* believe that. I mean, I have a photographic memory. I remember everything, and I don't remember that at all."

"And yet, a part of you does believe me. Just like a part of you believes me when I tell you that you lost something irreplaceable, and that the someone you've forgotten is the person that this entire reality is dependent upon."

It was all Olivia could do to keep staring into the Doctor's eyes and not glance off to the side, for he was completely right.

"Okay, let's say you're right and that I did once know someone that I've apparently now never met. How do we make me remember someone that I've never had contact with?"

"That's the great thing about energy," the Doctor said, bounding down off the table and walking down to the whiteboards, where he uncapped a marker and started writing equations. Olivia watched as Rose walked up next to him, looking at his scribblings with interest. Olivia wasn't sure if he was really writing science or just wanted to keep his hands busy while he thought, for she was pretty certain she saw him draw a telephone box at one point in the equation as though it was a variable. "Energy and matter are neither created nor destroyed. Your friend whom you lost, is technically still existent even though reality can't recognise him. He once existed, therefore he has always existed and always will exist. Whatever took him out of the universe could not do it completely, but it could dim his electrical signal enough that none who knew him before would recognise the signal. Not without me anyway."

The Doctor recapped the marker, apparently finished with his maths. Olivia looked at the finished product and felt even more confused. Inside the already complex algorithm were randomly drawn circles and dots that, though beautiful, had no real apparent meaning as far as Olivia could tell. She doubted even Walter would be able to gain much knowledge from it.

"Your friend is sending out signals; I know because they've been kicking in my head and giving me a headache ever since I stepped foot on that "bridge." But the problem is that I'm not outfitted to communicate with him - he's not on my wavelength, I guess you could say. You on the other hand, Agent Dunham, if I can get the right equipment, would find it quite easy to have a conversation with him, if I amplify the electrical signal."

Olivia released a heavy sigh. She had a pretty good idea where this was going, and she didn't like it one bit.

"What kind of equipment?"

"A sensory deprivation tank that could be wheeled into the "bridge" room would be good for starters."

Olivia closed her eyes and resisted the urge to thunk her head on the tabletop. She hated that tank, and no good ever really came from getting in it. But, the universe needed her to talk to this guy, and she supposed that a few minutes of discomfiture was a lot less pain than she had suffered through in previous cases.

"I think I know where I can find one."
An hour later, she was standing in the "bridge" room with Walter, Astrid, Broyles, and the two scientists from the other side. The man who called himself the Doctor was busy putting wires and electrical equipment together with Walter on one side of the room (and causing quite a ruckus with their banter while doing it), while Astrid and Rose were double checking the measurements on the drugs that would have to be put in Olivia's system. Olivia meanwhile tried not to think about the last time she had gone into that tank to have a conversation with a guy on another plane. He had ended up stuck in her head for months after he had died, and for a while she had been unable to tell her own memories from those of her former boyfriend's. It had been somewhat frightening, to say the least. And then when she had gone into hypnosis to find Nick Lane, a boy from her childhood whose dreams she had been sharing, she had panicked. She had seen seen him kill a poor, defenceless stripper with his own misery and she had panicked and gone into a temporary catatonic state. When she awoke a couple of days later, Nick had committed suicide, his wild hyper-emotive powers taking six other people off the top of a multi-storeyed building with him. Olivia was wary of letting other people into her head, and she was only doing so now because she felt she had no choice. The end of the world trumped her personal discomfort with having other individuals wander through her mind. Plus, if what the Doctor said was true, then this guy she had forgotten was in her head anyway. She may as well make some use of him.

Broyles had asked her if she was positive about what she was about to do. She had answered in the affirmative, despite the fact that she was never really positive about anything anymore. It was either do the Doctor's suggestion or do nothing, and nothing was never an option where Olivia Dunham was concerned.

Olivia leaned on Astrid's shoulder as the Doctor put the neural receiver into the base of her skull, just as she had done three years before when she had first climbed into the tank. The one in the "bridge" room was not the same one that was placed in Walter's lab in the Kresge Building at Harvard (as that one was immobile), but one wouldn't really be able to tell so from the somewhat rusted doors. The only difference was that this tank had wheels. The Doctor and Rose kept their hands on the tank to keep it from moving as Olivia stepped in, using Astrid's arm for support as she did. Olivia gave a brief shiver as she submerged herself in the strangely green coloured water, and the doors slowly closed, leaving her in darkness.

"Now, Olivia. Concentrate on my voice," she heard the Doctor say from beyond the confines of the tank. "When I count to three, you're going to open your eyes up in the place you feel safest."

Olivia closed her eyes and relaxed as best as she could, listening to the sounds of her deep breathing as they echoed through the small metallic confines. She felt the LSD-riddled drugs course through her system, ignoring everything else but her breathing. She ignored the weird humming sound that permeated the "bridge" room whenever she was in it - a sound no one else seemed to hear and that she attributed to her Cortexiphan abilities, as when she crossed dimensions she tended to have super-sonic hearing for days afterward - and she ignored the whispers of Astrid and Walter that she could hear coming through the tiny crack between the doors.

She didn't hear the count of one or two, but she heard the three, and in a move that would have made Pavlov proud, opened her eyes the second the final "-e" sound of the word "three" was done. When she opened them, she found herself in her apartment. It looked just as it always had. There was an open bottle of fine scotch on the centre of the living room table, and a small fire was going in the fire place before her couch. She found herself standing at the door. It was when she turned to the right that she first found something odd. Resting next to the door was her sister's wheelchair. When Olivia was nine and her sister Rachel had been four, her step-father had come home drunk and started beating their mother. Olivia had stood by in fear and merely watched as her mother's nose had been broken, and then her step-father had calmly walked out of the house and on his way out of the door, her step-father had grabbed Rachel. Olivia had chased after him, but he had shoved her back inside the house and shut the door. By the time Olivia had raced through the front yard, her step-father had sped away, her sister in tow. Olivia had expected them to come back, but hour after hour went by and he never came. When the police came to the door hours later, Olivia had been terrified and her mother had nearly fainted. Her drunk step-father had flipped the car. He was dead (not that Olivia was going to be crying over that one), but Rachel had survived. But she had been paralyzed from the neck down and in a catatonic state ever since. Ever since Olivia was nine, her baby sister had lived in assisted living with nurses and didn't even recognise her when she came to visit.

It was when Olivia saw the chair that she realised she was dreaming, and she began to look for more differences, curious as to what clues she may find within her own head that may allow her forgotten friend to communicate. But she didn't see anything. After ten minutes of fruitless searching, during which the only thing she found was a book hidden within her cushions that she had been reading in real life and then misplaced, she gave up wandering and collapsed on the couch. She made a note to herself to remember to search between the cushions of her real apartment next time she was there.

She sighed to herself and poured herself a tumbler full of Scotch from her living room table. When she lifted the bottle, she found an envelope, like one would usually see around a card. She opened it with interest. Inside was a card with an image of Han and Leia on the cover. (Olivia took a brief moment to muse at her subconscious. She really had no idea what it was trying to tell her with *that* particular detail). On the inside was a single handwritten sentence in a language Olivia couldn't understand, but the words made her heart pound for some reason that she couldn't remember. Einai kalytero anthropo apo ton patera toi. Those words were important somehow. They meant something to her; she had heard them somewhere before, and they had special meaning. She just didn't know where the hell she'd heard them or what in the world those words meant.

"It's nice to see you've finally joined me," came a dry humoured, somehow familiar voice from her right. Olivia looked over to see some of the bluest, most probing eyes, as well as the most annoyingly cocky smile, that she'd ever seen. The look both annoyed her and filled her with a strange sense of comfort. "It's been awhile, sweetheart."

A/N: 1) That mention of Han and Leia is a direct reference to my first Fringe fic "Role Reversals," and will make perfect sense if you read that one-shot. ;)
2) As to the story of Rachel, based on what we saw in 3x15 of Fringe: "Subject 13," I believe that part of the reason Olivia was willing to stand up to her step-father (as well as shoot him later) as a child is because of the advice young!Peter gave her, so I think that without Peter, she would have been much more timid and less likely to fight back. Because she wouldn't have seen the point.