Fringe Exchange Gifts!
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fringe_exchangeIf you don't have a sock to post to the comm, post your Fringe Exchange gift in the comments! A joyous Fringe Exchange to you all!
Please put the recipient's name in the comment title: Gift for: FringeFanatic7831.
If you use something that approximates this format in the body of the post, it would make my heart glad.
Title:
Author: Anonymous
Recipient:
Warnings: (if any)
Everything else (word count, summary, author's note, characters, etc.) is optional.
Comments will be unscreened as soon as everyone has a gift ready to reveal.
Please put the recipient's name in the comment title: Gift for: FringeFanatic7831.
If you use something that approximates this format in the body of the post, it would make my heart glad.
Title:
Author: Anonymous
Recipient:
Warnings: (if any)
Everything else (word count, summary, author's note, characters, etc.) is optional.
Comments will be unscreened as soon as everyone has a gift ready to reveal.
Gift for: cotillion66 (2/2)
Date: 2014-12-05 10:01 am (UTC)*
Rachel meets the man she ends up marrying at a keg party neither of them were supposed to be at, hovering around the punchbowl and smiling infatuatedly at each other over plastic cups. Olivia meets the man she ends up marrying in the desert of a country in a universe he was never supposed to be in, his face stubbly and personality equally prickly.
She meets the man she could have married, though, not long after she joins the FBI, and John Scott is particularly gifted at making it extremely clear he is exactly where he’s supposed to be.
Contrary to Bureau belief, her relationship with John did not blossom from inter-office flirtation; the meaningful glances, the sly touches - they came after.
She had disliked him at first, finding him trying a little too hard to be a hard-ass, with buckets of arrogance and equal parts self-aware charm. Her irritation with him dissipated upon discovering he was not treating her with any particular, personal disdain; rather, he was treating her precisely the way he treated every other man in the Bureau, an experience which was so disturbingly new for her that she wasn’t quite sure how to respond.
They’re on a raid when her fight-or-flight response leans a little too heavy towards fight and she ignores a command to take cover.
“Dunham, get down!”
A millisecond later when she still hasn’t responded he flies at her, knocking her roughly to the ground. To this, her reaction is immediate; her hands fly out in furious protest against his chest, her elbow eventually connecting with his chin.
“Jesus, Dunham,” he hisses, rolling off her.
She waits for the accusations to fly once they retire for the evening but she catches his eye in the lobby after dinner and all she gets from him is a dark look. It’s her, then, and not him that initiates the confrontation – the humiliation seething inside her and manifesting itself as fury until she’s striding purposefully down the hallway and pounding on his door.
Something in his face tells her a part of him has been expecting this.
“I want you to know, I’m not some damsel in distress you have to protect from the fire fight.”
“Easy, Dunham. No one’s been fooling themselves thinking you are,” he cajoles.
“Well I didn’t see you shielding anyone else out there today!”
His demeanour shifts entirely at that – bristling visibly he draws himself up to full height and draws his brows together in annoyance.
“That’s because nobody else is as pig headed as you when it comes to personal safety! If it had have been Agent Lewis thinking it was funny to play sitting duck out there, I would have tackled him too.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
If Olivia’s completely honest with herself, she’s not entirely surprised when Scott’s mouth slams into hers – in fact she’s pretty sure she did a good job of meeting him halfway on that one. What’s most alarming is that she doesn’t do this – doesn’t get swept away on angry tides of pent up passion and tension, doesn’t allow herself the sin of kissing a co-worker after hours in the threshold of his motel room, doesn’t get involved with people on any level other than what is absolutely required. But what she’s doing here and now with her partner is definitely a form of involvement, his body insinuating itself around hers, her legs wrapping around his waist and hands tangling in hair as her shirt disappears smoothly over her head.
It’s hard and fast, just like he is, and everything moves so quickly that it translates somehow into smoothness; there’s no time to fumble or grow awkward with overthought.
He doesn’t collapse over her or climb off but bows his head a moment, catching his breath and collecting his thoughts before meeting her eyes.
“Dunham,” he says, and she can read the hesitation on his face - that they’re coworkers, that he has a good twelve years on her at least, that he has crossed some sort of line she didn’t want him to cross. Olivia on the other hand feels young and energised and alive, playful even, and rolls her hips against him, crisscrossing her ankles over his calves with a gentle squeeze.
“So, you do this with Lewis, too?”
His eyes crinkle with relief and he smiles, really smiles as he eases off of her, and Olivia thinks it might just be the first time she’s seen him do it.
“Only when he undermines my authority, then yells at me,” he quips back, sweeping her hair behind her ear.
“That has to be a lot. I mean, Lewis, he’s a bit of a trouble maker,” she smiles against his mouth, opening her own to grant him entrance.
(She bites her lip when he eventually tells her he loves her because although she knows she should be wary, there’s still that little girl inside of her that wants so desperately to be adored. Sometimes when John Scott looks at her she feels eleven years old again, hair short and jagged around her jaw bone, and despite the vulnerability she shies away from it makes her feel warm right down to the tips of her toes. Mostly though when John Scott looks at her she feels all woman, lithe and blonde and elegantly limbed.)
*
John Scott dies in Olivia’s arms and not long after Greg raises his hand to Rachel during one fight of many, and when Rachel packs Ella into the car and books the next flight from Chicago to Boston Olivia can’t help but feel like history’s starting to repeat itself.
It’s three days before the FBI stars align and Olivia has an evening free to cook dinner and share a glass of wine with her sister, Ella in bed by eight thirty and the phone forgivingly silent. Marital troubles aside she thinks Rachel looks good, healthy, and in true Dunham nonchalance she brushes Olivia’s frown of concern off with a fluttery hand gesture.
“It’ll blow over. It always does.”
“Just promise me you won’t make the same mistake mom did. If he ever crosses that line… think about Ella.”
“Ella needs a dad, Liv. Don’t you wish we had a dad?”
“I had a dad, Rach. Two of them, in fact, and that was more than enough, believe me.”
She sits still as Rachel begins to absently plait Olivia’s long blonde hair, like she used to when they were teenagers.
“Do you remember him? Dad?” Rachel asks quietly.
“Yeah,” Olivia replies, equally soft. “Yeah, I remember him.” She shifts, turning to face her sister, the half-formed braid sliding through Rachel’s fingers. “I know you don’t. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry that you have to. Remember the other stuff, I mean. I get it, Liv. I do. Mom stuck around when she shouldn’t have, and Greg can be a total asshole. But he loves Ella. I have to give him that.”
“Okay,” Olivia says eventually.
(Greg files for divorce and sole custody not long after. Olivia would like to think he doesn’t have a leg to stand on but there is another knowledge she possesses, too; the universe can be unspeakably cruel, and she is all too familiar with faults in fathers and daughters growing up without their mothers.)
*
(Rachel stays for seven weeks before she bites her tongue and reconciles; in between there’s Peter, but Olivia can’t quite bring herself to think about that.)
*
The weekend after the Barrett case it’s Olivia that finds herself seeking sanctuary at her sister’s place for once and not the other way around. Her flight gets delayed and exhaustion kicks in after what has already been an emotionally fraught – what? week? month? lifetime? She still has residual memories in her mind of her sister’s death in childbirth; still dreams in darkness of a world without her niece. When Rachel answers the door she doesn’t hesitate to envelope her in a hug.
“I’ve been worried about you lately,” Rachel confesses from where she’s preparing hot chocolate in the kitchen, and Olivia glances up in surprise. “I mean, you cut your hair, for starters. That was… not like you.”
“It was for work,” she says, thickly.
“The FBI needed you to have bangs?”
She lets out a laugh at that which somehow turns into a sob; her hand flies to her mouth and she turns away, staring desperately at some point on the ceiling willing it to absorb the tears that are determined to escape.
“Liv, hey. Hey. What is going on with you?”
She composes herself and pulls her fingers from her mouth, curling them out in an agitated shrug, other hand resting on her hip. The posture - half defensive, half devil-may-care - is organic to her.
“It’s nothing. Work’s just been crazy lately, and there was this thing with Peter, but it didn’t work out, so that’s over now. It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”
“A thing with Peter, and you think you’re getting off that easy? A week ago you showed up on my doorstep with nothing but a couple of boxes of hair dye after checking yourself out of the hospital, against doctor’s orders might I add. You asked me not to ask questions, so I didn’t – I kept my mouth shut about the red hair, the tattoo. The next morning you took off before breakfast and now you’re back here with your bags packed and you look like you’ve seen a ghost. I know you there’s stuff you can’t talk about with your job, but now? I’m asking questions.”
“There was someone else. And it’s not what you think,” she says quickly, knowing Peter doesn’t necessarily deserve the label Rachel would immediately be applying to him, “but I can’t stop thinking about how he should have known, that he should have acted differently. And from a logical standpoint, I can see his side of the story, I really can. But I don’t think I can do it, Rach. I don’t think I can let this one go.”
Rachel is silent a moment, as if debating whether or not she should say what it is she wants to. Ultimately she decides to go ahead as she reaches over the brush her fingers across the back of Olivia’s hand.
“Do you remember what you said to me about Greg? About not putting up with stuff that we shouldn’t have to, like mom did?”
Olivia draws her lips into her mouth and turns away, supposing she deserves having her words thrown back at her like this.
“Rachel.”
“Olivia.”
“It isn’t like that.”
“Do you remember what I said to you about Greg?”
“I do. And this is still completely different. It’s complicated.”
“Life is complicated. Loving someone is complicated.”
“I know what you’re doing.” At her sister’s raised eyebrow she elaborates, “You’re trying to use reverse psychology on me.”
“Is it working?”
“No,” she says with a small smile, “but I appreciate the attempt.”
“Well, it’s not like you’re giving me much to work with here,” her sister says wryly, curling into her on the sofa and pulling a blanket over their knees.
Olivia sighs and presses her cheek into her sister’s hair, taking odd comfort in the familiar smell of her shampoo. Her fingers toy with the hem of her sweater.
When Ella emerges from her room a few minutes later, dragging a crumpled sheet along beside her and gazing bemusedly at her aunt who seems to be making a habit of appearing out of nowhere in the middle of the night, Olivia says nothing but raises her left arm in open invitation. Ella, adorably bed-rumpled, burrows into her side in sleepy delight.
“Hey Aunt Liv,” she mumbles, eyelids already fluttering. “Are you going to stay for breakfast this time?”
“Only if your mom’s making pancakes.”
“Lucky I bought blueberries yesterday.”
Rachel yawns and it’s contagious; her eyes are pulling shut of their own accord.
“Then it’s a deal,” Olivia replies, and as she drifts off to sleep, sandwiched between the warmth and love of two of her favourite people in the world, she muses vaguely that in the morning they’re probably all going to have sore necks.
*
She forgives Peter eventually.
She calls Rachel after the Merchant case and begs her not to judge, even as her fingers trace the label on the whisky bottle, feeling courageous.
Rachel laughs at her defensiveness.
“Liv, all I want is for you to be happy for once,” she says.
(I want what you want, and for the first time in her life, finally something sticks.)
fin.
Re: Gift for: cotillion66 (2/2)
Date: 2014-12-06 04:14 pm (UTC)Re: Gift for: cotillion66 (2/2)
Date: 2014-12-07 05:04 am (UTC)