Fringe Fic - To the Dislike of Bees
Characters/Pairings: Olivia/Peter, Walter, Astrid
Rating: Teen
Word count: ~5500
Summary: Written as part of fringeverse’s Big Bang. Bees have never been the most beloved of creatures. But the Fringe team gets called in when these bees attack. It might have something to do with the acid in their stings…
The scene contained within the ropes of the bright orange police tape was not a pretty one. Between the steps of two apartment buildings, a heap of flesh and bones, that was once a human being, was being scrutinised by a particularly eccentric scientist. While Walter was wide eyed with fascination, everyone else present at the crime scene was trying not to catch so much as a glimpse of the deceased man. Olivia turned from the rather gruesome sight to Peter.
“Alright. Witness’s say John Doe was walking down the street, dressed like he was going to a meeting, and was attacked by bees. We were called in because there were, reportedly, thousands of them. They came from an industrial neighbourhood a few blocks down,” She motioned towards a group of warehouses and large buildings in the distance, “honed in on the victim, and stung him repeatedly.”
“Then what happened?” Peter was almost unfazed by the reported attack, they had both heard far stranger tales, and not all of them from Walter.
Olivia looked down at their feet pointedly. Both of their shoes were crusted with insects’ guts. “Then they died.”
Before they could continue their conversation, however, Walter called their attention back to the body they were trying not to look at. Both barely concealed their disgust as he gently pushed on an area of skin and his fingers easily penetrated into the victim’s arm. “The bees seemed to have some form of strong acid in their stings. The integrity of his flesh and bones has been greatly compromised.”
“How do you know?” Olivia asked tentatively, worried she may receive an explanation she wouldn’t understand, or one she could do without hearing.
“As I said, his body has been, at least partially, disintegrated, enough that the consistency is…” he rubbed a small amount of the bloody material between his fingers, “almost pudding-like. Could you have Asteroid bring me my mobile lab, most of my examination will need to be constructed here.”
“Here?” Peter’s question was really more of an exclamation. He was not looking to babysit Walter in the middle of the street on a hot summer day.
“Well, we can’t move the poor fellow, he’d fall to bits before we got him in the van.”
“We need you to hurry, Walter.” Olivia’s tone was slightly more relaxed than Peter’s, possibly because she could escape a day in the sun to follow leads. “We should find out who this is as soon as possible.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem.” He laid a small bit of blue paper on what was once the man’s shoulder, recording the change in colour. “I simply need to add a few samples of his DNA to a tube containing a basic chemical. About five grams of any substance with a pH of 13. Please tell Astro to bring three sealed test tubes with the requested substances.” His brief interaction with them ceased as he turned to take more samples, roping one of the forensic team into assisting until Astrid arrived.
Seeing that the forensic team was now gathering the man’s personal effects into plastic bags, carefully so as not to further disintegrate the items that had been stung so many times they may have fallen apart on their own if the stings hadn’t been acidic. Olivia called out to the man that was handling the briefcase. “Could you hold up a minute, I need a look at that.”
The man waited as she made her way over and snapped on gloves. “Let’s have a see what’s inside.” She muttered as she lifted the cases’ lid. Most of the content seemed to be intact, with the exception of a mobile phone partially eaten by acid. The appointment book fared much better, with only a hole the size of a thumb in one corner. “And what were we doing this morning.” She thumbed through to page bookmarked, then one over to find the current date. ‘9.00 - Breakfast at Joanne’s. 10.00 - University lecture. 2.30 - Job interview, Sharp MD.’
The two letters fazed her for a moment, before the meaning smacked into her skull. She signalled Peter over. She couldn’t help but say in a slightly sarcastic tone, “You’d never guess where our victim was headed this afternoon.” Olivia flicked to the back section of the book, with room for storing business cards, removing the most recent one and displaying it.
‘Nina Sharp
Massive Dynamics’
Olivia let him take it in for a second, before placing it back in the book, returning the case into the evidence bag.
“Looks like we have a lead. I’ll go check this out in a moment, I think Walter’s finishing up.” She nodded her head in the direction of the scientist, now pestering the men trying to load the body into a van, no doubt on its way to Walter’s lab.
Peter walked over to Walter. “What happened to examining the body here?”
“Why would I want to do that? The sun is causing a secondary reaction, making him decompose even faster, and there are no clues I can gain from the body itself due to its current state. All I can do is take samples and analyse them at the lab.”
Peter gave up with exasperation and returned to Olivia’s side. “I’ll call Astrid. She can pick him up and take him back to the lab since she’s already on her way.” They both shared a knowing look. This had long ago ceased being annoying and simply become a part of working with Walter.
“Astrid would have barely left, you can take Walter yourself.” She said, knowing he would argue. “I’ll be able to talk more to Nina on my own, we have a…rapport.” They both smiled at the references to Massive Dynamics massive dealings in the world of science gone mad.
“I’ll see you when you get back.”
Peter gave Olivia a small smile as both turned their separate ways, and neither noticed one of the seemingly dead bees, soundlessly, rise from the mass of bodies surrounding it, fly to Olivia’s back, and hide itself under her collar.
~*~*~*~*~
It was a moment of rest in the lab. All samples had been purified and were in the process of being analysed, a puddle of sludge of a pinkish hue was sitting on the examination table closest to the door. If one looked closely enough, small fragments of bone that had yet to dissolve floated in the mess. Walter, undisturbed by the whirring and pinging of various instruments watched the body, waiting for inspiration to strike. Peter watched Walter.
By the time the last of the analysis had been completed, Astrid had returned from her quest for an ice-cream brand that had been banned ten years ago due to health concerns, Peter was in the office, reading up on bees, and Walter had gotten bored with the body, and turned to the infernal little creatures that had put it in such a state.
“Peter, I just noticed something.” Walter said, barely loud enough to be heard in the office. He was holding one of the bees close to a light with a pair or tweezers (sterile lab equipment lay forgotten), his other hand holding a magnifying glass.
“What is it?”
“This bee, it still has its stinger.”
Astrid, whose time had been spent on far more interesting pursuits than books on bees, spoke up. “Why is that important?”
“Well, the man over there was stung repeatedly, and once deceased, all of the bees died.”
“Yeah.”
“Well bees die if they sting someone, they lose their stinger in the process. It’s a sacrifice mad for the greater good of the hive.” He turned the bee so they were better able to see it through the magnifying glass. “If this bee didn’t lose its stinger, why did it die?”
Peter glanced at the container with the dead bees inside. “Wait a sec.” He took one out and examined it as his father had. He repeated the process with two more. “None of these bees have lost their stinger.”
“Could these bees have not stung him?” Astrid asked.
Peter shook the container slightly. “As far as I can tell, these all have stingers on them still, and some of these were taken off the body itself.”
“So these bees don’t die after a sting.”
“Not just that, they could sting repeatedly.”
Astrid looked at the specimen with distaste. “I knew there was a reason I never liked bugs.” Then looking at the computer that had been blinking for the last ten minutes, she exclaimed, “Oh, DNA results are in.”
Peter looked over her shoulder while Walter glanced up from whatever had distracted him.
“Luke Boeman.” She pulled herself over to her own computer and searched the name in the FBI’s database. “He’s thirty two, three speeding offences.” She moved to the reports of the incidents. “He’s an actor.”
“Why would an actor be attacked by bees? Or going for an interview at Massive Dynamics, for that matter”
“I don’t know. I’ll look into him a bit deeper. Let’s hope Olivia’s found something.”
“Yeah, she’ll be back soon.”
Walter, glancing at the clock and seeing that it had struck noon, an acceptable time for lunch, he asked. “Can we go get food?”
~*~*~*~*~
Massive Dynamics truly embodied its name. It was a massive company, with massive profits and massive influence. And Olivia was standing in the massive hallway, watching glaringly white walls run commercials, advertisements and propaganda. Every employee must have the company spirit, after all. Olivia wasn’t fooled by the façade, there was nothing other than cold-minded ambition. That was the reason, above all others, that she refused Nina’s offers. Massive Dynamic was cold, sterile, clean. Work was left on a computer in an office with massive views, and you told lies to your family because of company policy.
At the FBI, they were understaffed and underpaid and work never ended. No hour, no dinner date, was safe from a call to see a dead body. You did not have you colleagues and your family, your colleagues were your family. You all sat in a room with barely any room to breathe, then laughed about it over drinks.
But that was behind her now. John was dead, Charlie was dead, and she’d watched countless others die too. No doubt, there would be more, and she would do her best to prevent that. That was why she was here, in a massive white hallway.
“Miss Sharp will see you now.” The woman was pristine and professional. And utterly unremarkable. Pretty. Olivia, despite her freakishly good memory, couldn’t recall whether it was the same woman that had come to fetch her last time.
She was led through many identical corridors towards the now-familiar office. She glanced at the view, a beautiful park, then to the redhead behind the desk.
“Hello, Agent Dunham.”
“Nina.” Her acknowledgement was curt, as their relationship had never been all that warm.
“Well, what can I do for you?” She said the words as if expecting an accusation, and Olivia was not undeserving of the tone.
“A man was killed today, a couple of blocks away. I believe he had a job interview here at two-thirty. He was also in possession of your business card. I was wondering if you could check your schedule, see who you were meeting.” She watched as Nina pulled out the translucent tablet from which all the company’s files seemed to be accessible.
“I had an appointment with Dr. Harry Young. He was a university lecturer and researcher on entomology, one of the best in the field. We were interviewing him as a head for a new project for the Department of Defence.” As always, the information was offered with no hesitation or resistance, but without fail, Nina was always able to give more questions than answers.
“Entomology?”
“The study of insects.”
“What project?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you any specifics. You’ll need a special clearance from the Defence Department for that. But it’s called Project Melaina.”
As Olivia always did when information was withheld from her, especially by Nina, she gave her a good long look. It never worked. Unable to find any other questions worth asking, or arguments that would convince Nina to tell her what she knew, she thanked her, said goodbye, and left the building.
As she left the building, she felt a sharp pain at her neck. The woman who had escorted her out looked at her curiously. “It’s nothing, I just think something bit me.”
~*~*~*~*~
Olivia walked through the doors to the basement lab in Harvard, still sweating from her overheated car, and immediately called out to Astrid, who was sipping strawberry milkshakes with Walter and Peter. “I need you do a search on a Dr. Harry Young, our victim.”
Astrid looked at her in puzzlement. “The victim is Luke Boeman. The DNA results came in an hour ago.”
“Dr. Young had a job interview with Nina Sharp at 2.30. It corresponds to the day planner. He was trying for a position as head of ‘Project Melaina’.”
Astrid turned to her computer again. “Who did you say the interview was for?”
“Dr. Harry Young.”
Astrid searched for a moment. “Dr. Young. Lecturer, right her at Harvard, a dozen different research grants. Specialises in…”
“Entomology. Bugs.”
“Actually, I was going to say bees. His last three papers have been based solely on the topic.” She opened up the forward to each. “Pretty dry.”
“Well, that can’t be coincidence. He specialises in bees, then someone with his day planner gets killed by a hoard of them.”
Walter interjected. “Hive. He was killed by a hive of them.”
“So an entire hive attacked him.”
“Yes, by the numbers involved, I’d say so.”
It was Peter’s turn. “Not just the drones?”
“No, I’ve seen every level of bee society in the samples. Well, all but the queen, but for all we know she was crushed.”
“Well, on that note, what have we learnt about the bees themselves. Any idea why they did this?”
“We think they’re genetically engineered for the specific purpose of killing people.” Peter looked at the three people who stared at him oddly. “Well, I think so. It makes sense. The bees have a strong acid in there stings, have the ability to sting repeatedly without dying. And once they were done, they simply dropped dead, but not from losing their stings like most bees would. They’re genetically engineered little assassins.”
“Walter, is that possible?”
“Yes, it would actually be much easier to slightly alter one creature, than to create a new creature from multiple species’ genes as we’ve seen before.” He smiled, a little guiltily despite his innocence in that particular matter. “But still, this would be complicated. The bees would have to produce some base in their system to neutralise the acid, and then they would need a method of quickly disposing of the resulting ionic compound and water. Otherwise they’d die very quickly.” He laughed. “Once you bought a goldfish, Peter, and forgot to clean out its tank for a month. It died of…”
Peter’s smile, unlike Walter’s, was more of a grimace. “That’s fine, Walter. But the bees did die, just after Luke Boeman was killed.”
“Olivia was puzzling together the pieces of the rather complicated puzzle in her head. “So these bees were genetically engineered…”
“Recently.”
“…sent to kill Mr. Boeman, then died because they couldn’t expel the toxins in their system.”
Astrid was looking at other possibilities. “Or the bees were sent to kill Dr. Young, were somehow drawn to Luke, and killed him instead?”
Peter’s eyes lit up. “The briefcase! As far as we can guess, it must be Dr. Young’s. The bees honed in on something in the briefcase.”
Walter, sipping his now warm milkshake, interrupted again “It would explain why the bees attacked no-one else.”
“So we need to find out where Dr. Young is, and why someone wants him dead.” She paused. “If someone wants him dead. Walter, could you test the briefcase?”
“Of course.”
“Ugh, Olivia.” Astrid looked away from the computer she was on. “I think I found a connection between the two. Yesterday, Dr. Young deposited five thousand dollars into Luke Boeman’s bank account. And he didn’t show up for a lecture today.”
“Any credit card hits?”
There was a brief pause as she typed. “Not since yesterday.”
“Do you have a home address?”
“Corner of Chuchill and Queenston.”
“I’ll call Broyles, tell him what we know, then we’ll see if he’s at home. In the mean time could you look up ‘Project Melaina’ for me?”
“On it.”
Olivia looked down at her phone, forgetting what Broyles’s number was. She tried to remember for a minute before admitting defeat flicking to her contacts. She was glad no-one noticed her hesitance.
Olivia never forgot numbers.
~*~*~*~*~
After no reply to their first few attempts at contact, Olivia kicked down the door with a resounding crash. The problem was, the action made her lose her balance and she fell back to be caught by Peter.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said breathily, “just…lost my balance for a second there.”
“Well, there’s a first: Olivia Dunham loses her balance. Do you wanna go inside now that we’ve…invited ourselves in?”
Olivia waited just a moment too long to answer. “Yeah.” She couldn’t help it, his arms were comfy. It had absolutely nothing to do with the dizzy spells she had experienced over the last half hour.
Once they were both steady on their feet, they proceeded onto the house. Peter muttered something along the line of ‘I could have just picked the lock’. Olivia had forgotten.
The foyer was crisp, clean, modern. It seemed more of a display house than someone’s home. The rest of the house was the same, not a dirty dish or load of clothing to be seen. With the exception of an office, with papers scattered everywhere. On the desk there was a single clear spot, with no dust on it. No monitor to be seen, but some speakers and a mouse sat on the desk as if they were awaiting the computer’s return. “A laptop. He’s taken it with him.”
Then they heard a shuffle, in the bedroom adjacent to the office. Both crept into the room as silently as possible, and simultaneously noted the wardrobe door was slightly ajar. Olivia nodded her head in the wardrobe’s general direction, Peter nodded. They both flanked it, and Olivia reached towards the handle. Before she could pull it open, a stout, balding man shot out faster than she believed was possible. Peter, too, was off after him in an instant and caught him before he reached the hallway.
“I’m Olivia Dunham, FBI.” She showed him her badge. “Are you Dr. Young?”
He sighed with relief, apparently expecting someone else to have come crashing into his house. “Yes, I need you to take me into protective custody. Someone’s trying to kill me.” He looked desperately out the shuttered window, obviously worried about an imminent attack of some sort.
Olivia looked to Peter, then to the man he was holding.
“Well, that answers one question. I’ll call Broyles.”
The doctor slumped with relief.
It wasn’t until Dr. Young was being taken to the federal building, Olivia and Peter following in the car, that he asked her about the man’s break for it. “Usually you’re a lot faster than that. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine” she said, keeping her eyes on the road and off his concerned expression. The silenced pressed for another minute.
“I’m fine.” She repeated defensively, with her tone just a bit higher than it should have been.
~*~*~*~*~
Olivia slammed the files onto the table before Dr. Young. “We have records proving that you paid Luke Boeman five thousand dollars yesterday.” She carefully placed a picture on top of the file, with a gentleness contrasting with her previous motion. “This is Luke Boeman.” Her voice was also softer, but no less threatening. The picture was enough, with a man falling apart on the sidewalk. “Would you care to tell us why a hive of bees attacked him, why his body was eaten by acid,” She uttered with the right emphasis to make him shiver, the word sounding more like a menacing hiss, “And why we found your briefcase at the scene.” She leaned forward on the desk, and placed a picture of his briefcase in the evidence bag, and remained in that position towering over the seated man.
“I already said I’d tell you everything.”
“Why was he attacked.” It was a demand, not a question.
“I had an interview for a job with Massive Dynamics and the DOD. A week ago, I got a threat not to go in. They said they’d prove it to me and then…” his lip turned up in disgust, “they sent some bees after my dog.”
“So why did Mr. Boeman have you briefcase.”
“After I came home from work a few days ago, I noticed that the lock, which was broken, was working perfectly. I also detected a chemical, rubbed into the fabric. When I found this out, I…I hired him, said I wanted him to do my interview for me, so I’d get the job. I payed him enough so he wouldn’t ask questions. I figured that, if I stayed at home, they would go after him, not me. If not, he could do the interview for me, and I’d explain it all later.”
Olivia gave an unconvinced ‘hmm’ before sitting down. It was a mockery of a polite conversation between equals. “Well, that’s enough to get you for…” she tried to recall what crime specifically he had committed. “Criminal negligence.” That didn’t sound right. The people in the adjoining room looked on with concern. “What’s ‘Project Melaina’.”
He was surprised that she knew the term. “That was the project I was going to work on. Genetically engineering bugs for use as weapons.”
“Well, it looks like someone’s already done that for them.”
He looked at her squarely, catching on that she didn’t know all she pretended to know. “The…the project has been operating for years now, I was just going to…iron out some little problems, replace the head scientist.”
“What happened to the head scientist?”
“H-he went missing. About a month ago. Dr. Angera.”
About half way through his sentence, Olivia was hit with another dizzy spell. She tried to focus on his face for a few moments, then settled instead for looking in his general direction. “Thank you for…for your time today. I just have to…talk…to my superior.” She gripped the edge of the metal table to get up, hard enough to gain a cut on her hand.
“Are you okay?”
She made one halting step towards the door, before collapsing.
~*~*~*~*~
“Walter, what’s wrong with her?” Peter voiced the concerns of everyone waiting outside the hospital room.
“On close examination, the doctors found a small sting on the back of her neck. It appears one of the bees may have survived, and stung her.”
“Acid wouldn’t do this. She would have noticed immediately.”
“She doesn’t have any acid in her system. We were able to recover the sting, which did come off, and there is a powerful, unidentified toxin in it.”
“Wait. Poisonous bees, as well as bees with acid.” Apparently, Broyles wasn’t keen on the idea. “I’m gonna have to do some political wrangling to get information on this Project Melaina. Call me if there is any change in her condition.”
Looking at Peter, Astrid said “I’ll take Walter back to the lab to get working on the, uhm, toxin.” She gave Peter a sympathetic smile before taking Walter’s arm. “Come on Walter, let’s get back to the back to the lab.”
“Okay.” he said, completely lucid. Worry had a tendency to do that to him, unlike the woman he saw in the children’s ward, insane with grief. He looked away, the sight bringing up too many bad memories of Elizabeth doing the exact same in another children’s ward, in another decade.
Peter, on the other hand, wasn’t particularly worried about the past. He was worried about now, he was worried about Olivia. He walked into the room and sat on one of the notoriously uncomfortable chairs. There was nothing that suggested she was sick, simply that she wasn’t quite healthy. Her skin was a little tight on her cheeks, a little paler than it usually was. And, of course, she was lying unconscious on a hospital bed being pumped with medication.
He wasn’t going to give up on her. “You’re going to get through this ‘Livia. You’re gonna be fine.” He knew those words had significance for her. He was also going to ignore the logical thought that told him she wouldn’t, the part of his mind that noticed how strong the medication she was on, or listed potential toxins in her mind.
But what in their world was logical in his world. Their jobs weren’t, the solutions weren’t, Walter wasn’t. Logic had stopped applying to them a long time ago. But here, he wasn’t helping her.
He left, to help her, because there was still an interview waiting to be finished.
~*~*~*~*~
There were inches between Peter’s face and Dr. Young’s. Had the man been able to sit any further back, he would have. As it was, he was terrified, there was certainly no danger of him withholding answers. Peter backed off. “I want you to tell me everything you know about Project Meleina. Now.”
“I-I already told you everything I know. That’s all Nina told me over the phone. I was supposed to get specifics at the interview and if I was hired.”
“I’m sorry, but you see, one of those bugs has stung a friend of mine. It’s killing her, you may have seen some of the effects of that. I’m a little desperate for answers.”
“I don’t know anything!”
~*~*~*~*~
“Walter, have you got something?”
“There’s not enough to sample. As far as I can tell, it’s more of a venom. Derived from some Australian snakes, but there’s too much mixed in to sort through. There’s also no trace of acid in the sting, it’s from a different type of bee altogether. Maybe the queen.”
“Walter, can you fix it.”
He didn’t have to say anything. All he could do is give her a helpless look that broke her heart again.
~*~*~*~*~
“You scared that man pretty well in there.” Broyles said, voice neutral. It wasn’t a compliment or accusation.
“Didn’t do much good. He doesn’t know anything.” Peter looked back into the interview room where the man sat with his arms around his chest.
“I’ve put in some calls to the Department of Defence, but they’re stonewalling me. Even with an Agent’s life at stake it will take them a while to give me something, and we don’t have that much time.”
“But you know who can give us the information we need.”
“Nina Sharp.”
“I’ll call her.”
~*~*~*~*~
“Phillip, what’s wrong.” It was rare that he would call Nina’s personal number, rarer still he did so at 10 o’clock at night.
“Olivia’s been stung by a poisonous bee. I was wondering if it had anything to do with Project Melaina.”
She saw where this was headed. “Phillip, I can’t tell you unless you’ve gotten clearance.”
She heard his intake of breath. “What, Agent Dunha…”
“I can’t tell you about the project, but I can tell you that, if this is anything like what we’ve been working on. You are going to have to give her three different antivenins. Red-belly black snake, brown snake, and tiger snake. The hospital won’t have any, but we will.”
“I’ll send someone over.”
Fifteen minutes later, Peter was standing in the lobby awaiting the promised treatments.
“Here you go.” Nina said as an assistant handed him three bags. “Call me when she’s better.”
He simply nodded before rushing out to the car on his way to the hospital.
~*~*~*~*~
In the end, it was close. Another hour and she would have been dead. The one saving grace was that a sting could contain much less venom than an actual snake bite, even with the venom concentrated. When Olivia woke the next day, the sky outside her new room was a depressing, monotonous grey. The clouds formed a smooth blanket, blocking any blue, any trace of sunlight. Still, it was a bright enough day that she could see clearly the small crowd that had amassed at the side of her bed. Peter sat in one of the blue plastic chairs, head in his hands, like he hadn’t slept all night. Walter and Astrid were evidently visiting, a bag of takeaway in their hands. So it was lunch time. Astrid was the first to notice her, and alerted the others. “Peter…”
He looked at her and smiled. It was a soft smile, but she had obviously worried him. Worried them. “What happened.” She mumbled, but she was worried they might not have been able to understand her. Her tongue was unbearably dry, and felt too big for her mouth. She wet it and tried again, and this time the message got across.
“You were stung by a bee, genetically engineered but different to the ones from Wednesday morning. We think it tracked you after handling the victim’s briefcase. It had snake venom in its sting.” Astrid’s summary was accurate and concise. She seemed to be the only one who could explain the series of events to her with Peter looking like he might drop dead and Walter sucking loudly on a straw.
“Nice.” Her tone of voice implied it was anything but.
“We should let you rest.” Astrid said, noticing that Olivia was even less talkative as usual. She took Walter’s arm to lead him out.
“I’m glad you’re well, Agent Dunham.”
“Thank you, Walter.”
Finally, the only two people left in the room were Peter and Olivia. “You had us worried there for a bit.” He said.
“Well it wasn’t really intentional.” She said with a small, very small, smile. “Did we catch whoever did it?”
“Nope.” He said the ‘p’ with a distinct pop. “You’ve still got work to do when you’re well and good again.”
“I’m well and good now.” She said, though she got the impression that the statement wasn’t as powerful as she wanted it to be, as she was nodding off to sleep.
“Don’t worry, the case will still be there in a few days.”
He knew that, if she was awake, she would have said something along the lines of leads going cold in a few days time. But she wasn’t awake, and he was the only one in the room. He was free to just sit and examine her face for as long as he wanted, without fear of being seen or reprimanded. And it was just what he needed.
Because he had almost lost her, just like her had almost lost her before, and would almost loose her again. Because he had no logical reason to stay by her bedside, and their world was ruled by all things illogical.
And because he loved her.
~*~*~*~*~
It was three weeks later that the two were once again alone together, this time in a bar, celebrating their victory. They had finally solved the case. Of course, two of the three intervening weeks were spent relaxing while Broyles tried to wrangle clearance for the three of them to know the details of Project Malaina. The most useful of that information was personnel and lab use records. As always, the seemingly mysterious case was boiled down to the simplest things, such as an overly ambitious scientist looking for promotion, and a way to get rid of the competition.
Olivia swatted a mosquito that tried to bite her. She looked up at Peter “Say nothing.” She commanded, words slightly slurred. Nonetheless she took another swig of her drink.
He smiled, one of the truly carefree smiles he got when he didn’t have to worry about Walter, or people he’s annoyed, or saving the world. “So, Agent Dunham, thoughts on the case?”
She took a long look at the amber liquid left in her glass. “Yes. I don’t like bees.” She said it with the determination of someone who has made up their mind for good, Peter was simply surprised that she hadn’t made her mind up as a child.
“What, you liked bees before?” His tone implied her believed otherwise.
“I’ve never really had an opinion, not until now.”
“I’ve hated bees. Always have.”
“Why?”
“I’m allergic.” He stated it like it explained things perfectly. “Got stung by one when I was five, my hand swelled up like a balloon. Problem is, I distinctly remember it was green.”
“That’s not a bee.”
“It was a bee.”
Olivia also smiled. She raised her glass. “To the dislike of bees.”
Rating: Teen
Word count: ~5500
Summary: Written as part of fringeverse’s Big Bang. Bees have never been the most beloved of creatures. But the Fringe team gets called in when these bees attack. It might have something to do with the acid in their stings…
The scene contained within the ropes of the bright orange police tape was not a pretty one. Between the steps of two apartment buildings, a heap of flesh and bones, that was once a human being, was being scrutinised by a particularly eccentric scientist. While Walter was wide eyed with fascination, everyone else present at the crime scene was trying not to catch so much as a glimpse of the deceased man. Olivia turned from the rather gruesome sight to Peter.
“Alright. Witness’s say John Doe was walking down the street, dressed like he was going to a meeting, and was attacked by bees. We were called in because there were, reportedly, thousands of them. They came from an industrial neighbourhood a few blocks down,” She motioned towards a group of warehouses and large buildings in the distance, “honed in on the victim, and stung him repeatedly.”
“Then what happened?” Peter was almost unfazed by the reported attack, they had both heard far stranger tales, and not all of them from Walter.
Olivia looked down at their feet pointedly. Both of their shoes were crusted with insects’ guts. “Then they died.”
Before they could continue their conversation, however, Walter called their attention back to the body they were trying not to look at. Both barely concealed their disgust as he gently pushed on an area of skin and his fingers easily penetrated into the victim’s arm. “The bees seemed to have some form of strong acid in their stings. The integrity of his flesh and bones has been greatly compromised.”
“How do you know?” Olivia asked tentatively, worried she may receive an explanation she wouldn’t understand, or one she could do without hearing.
“As I said, his body has been, at least partially, disintegrated, enough that the consistency is…” he rubbed a small amount of the bloody material between his fingers, “almost pudding-like. Could you have Asteroid bring me my mobile lab, most of my examination will need to be constructed here.”
“Here?” Peter’s question was really more of an exclamation. He was not looking to babysit Walter in the middle of the street on a hot summer day.
“Well, we can’t move the poor fellow, he’d fall to bits before we got him in the van.”
“We need you to hurry, Walter.” Olivia’s tone was slightly more relaxed than Peter’s, possibly because she could escape a day in the sun to follow leads. “We should find out who this is as soon as possible.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem.” He laid a small bit of blue paper on what was once the man’s shoulder, recording the change in colour. “I simply need to add a few samples of his DNA to a tube containing a basic chemical. About five grams of any substance with a pH of 13. Please tell Astro to bring three sealed test tubes with the requested substances.” His brief interaction with them ceased as he turned to take more samples, roping one of the forensic team into assisting until Astrid arrived.
Seeing that the forensic team was now gathering the man’s personal effects into plastic bags, carefully so as not to further disintegrate the items that had been stung so many times they may have fallen apart on their own if the stings hadn’t been acidic. Olivia called out to the man that was handling the briefcase. “Could you hold up a minute, I need a look at that.”
The man waited as she made her way over and snapped on gloves. “Let’s have a see what’s inside.” She muttered as she lifted the cases’ lid. Most of the content seemed to be intact, with the exception of a mobile phone partially eaten by acid. The appointment book fared much better, with only a hole the size of a thumb in one corner. “And what were we doing this morning.” She thumbed through to page bookmarked, then one over to find the current date. ‘9.00 - Breakfast at Joanne’s. 10.00 - University lecture. 2.30 - Job interview, Sharp MD.’
The two letters fazed her for a moment, before the meaning smacked into her skull. She signalled Peter over. She couldn’t help but say in a slightly sarcastic tone, “You’d never guess where our victim was headed this afternoon.” Olivia flicked to the back section of the book, with room for storing business cards, removing the most recent one and displaying it.
‘Nina Sharp
Massive Dynamics’
Olivia let him take it in for a second, before placing it back in the book, returning the case into the evidence bag.
“Looks like we have a lead. I’ll go check this out in a moment, I think Walter’s finishing up.” She nodded her head in the direction of the scientist, now pestering the men trying to load the body into a van, no doubt on its way to Walter’s lab.
Peter walked over to Walter. “What happened to examining the body here?”
“Why would I want to do that? The sun is causing a secondary reaction, making him decompose even faster, and there are no clues I can gain from the body itself due to its current state. All I can do is take samples and analyse them at the lab.”
Peter gave up with exasperation and returned to Olivia’s side. “I’ll call Astrid. She can pick him up and take him back to the lab since she’s already on her way.” They both shared a knowing look. This had long ago ceased being annoying and simply become a part of working with Walter.
“Astrid would have barely left, you can take Walter yourself.” She said, knowing he would argue. “I’ll be able to talk more to Nina on my own, we have a…rapport.” They both smiled at the references to Massive Dynamics massive dealings in the world of science gone mad.
“I’ll see you when you get back.”
Peter gave Olivia a small smile as both turned their separate ways, and neither noticed one of the seemingly dead bees, soundlessly, rise from the mass of bodies surrounding it, fly to Olivia’s back, and hide itself under her collar.
~*~*~*~*~
It was a moment of rest in the lab. All samples had been purified and were in the process of being analysed, a puddle of sludge of a pinkish hue was sitting on the examination table closest to the door. If one looked closely enough, small fragments of bone that had yet to dissolve floated in the mess. Walter, undisturbed by the whirring and pinging of various instruments watched the body, waiting for inspiration to strike. Peter watched Walter.
By the time the last of the analysis had been completed, Astrid had returned from her quest for an ice-cream brand that had been banned ten years ago due to health concerns, Peter was in the office, reading up on bees, and Walter had gotten bored with the body, and turned to the infernal little creatures that had put it in such a state.
“Peter, I just noticed something.” Walter said, barely loud enough to be heard in the office. He was holding one of the bees close to a light with a pair or tweezers (sterile lab equipment lay forgotten), his other hand holding a magnifying glass.
“What is it?”
“This bee, it still has its stinger.”
Astrid, whose time had been spent on far more interesting pursuits than books on bees, spoke up. “Why is that important?”
“Well, the man over there was stung repeatedly, and once deceased, all of the bees died.”
“Yeah.”
“Well bees die if they sting someone, they lose their stinger in the process. It’s a sacrifice mad for the greater good of the hive.” He turned the bee so they were better able to see it through the magnifying glass. “If this bee didn’t lose its stinger, why did it die?”
Peter glanced at the container with the dead bees inside. “Wait a sec.” He took one out and examined it as his father had. He repeated the process with two more. “None of these bees have lost their stinger.”
“Could these bees have not stung him?” Astrid asked.
Peter shook the container slightly. “As far as I can tell, these all have stingers on them still, and some of these were taken off the body itself.”
“So these bees don’t die after a sting.”
“Not just that, they could sting repeatedly.”
Astrid looked at the specimen with distaste. “I knew there was a reason I never liked bugs.” Then looking at the computer that had been blinking for the last ten minutes, she exclaimed, “Oh, DNA results are in.”
Peter looked over her shoulder while Walter glanced up from whatever had distracted him.
“Luke Boeman.” She pulled herself over to her own computer and searched the name in the FBI’s database. “He’s thirty two, three speeding offences.” She moved to the reports of the incidents. “He’s an actor.”
“Why would an actor be attacked by bees? Or going for an interview at Massive Dynamics, for that matter”
“I don’t know. I’ll look into him a bit deeper. Let’s hope Olivia’s found something.”
“Yeah, she’ll be back soon.”
Walter, glancing at the clock and seeing that it had struck noon, an acceptable time for lunch, he asked. “Can we go get food?”
~*~*~*~*~
Massive Dynamics truly embodied its name. It was a massive company, with massive profits and massive influence. And Olivia was standing in the massive hallway, watching glaringly white walls run commercials, advertisements and propaganda. Every employee must have the company spirit, after all. Olivia wasn’t fooled by the façade, there was nothing other than cold-minded ambition. That was the reason, above all others, that she refused Nina’s offers. Massive Dynamic was cold, sterile, clean. Work was left on a computer in an office with massive views, and you told lies to your family because of company policy.
At the FBI, they were understaffed and underpaid and work never ended. No hour, no dinner date, was safe from a call to see a dead body. You did not have you colleagues and your family, your colleagues were your family. You all sat in a room with barely any room to breathe, then laughed about it over drinks.
But that was behind her now. John was dead, Charlie was dead, and she’d watched countless others die too. No doubt, there would be more, and she would do her best to prevent that. That was why she was here, in a massive white hallway.
“Miss Sharp will see you now.” The woman was pristine and professional. And utterly unremarkable. Pretty. Olivia, despite her freakishly good memory, couldn’t recall whether it was the same woman that had come to fetch her last time.
She was led through many identical corridors towards the now-familiar office. She glanced at the view, a beautiful park, then to the redhead behind the desk.
“Hello, Agent Dunham.”
“Nina.” Her acknowledgement was curt, as their relationship had never been all that warm.
“Well, what can I do for you?” She said the words as if expecting an accusation, and Olivia was not undeserving of the tone.
“A man was killed today, a couple of blocks away. I believe he had a job interview here at two-thirty. He was also in possession of your business card. I was wondering if you could check your schedule, see who you were meeting.” She watched as Nina pulled out the translucent tablet from which all the company’s files seemed to be accessible.
“I had an appointment with Dr. Harry Young. He was a university lecturer and researcher on entomology, one of the best in the field. We were interviewing him as a head for a new project for the Department of Defence.” As always, the information was offered with no hesitation or resistance, but without fail, Nina was always able to give more questions than answers.
“Entomology?”
“The study of insects.”
“What project?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you any specifics. You’ll need a special clearance from the Defence Department for that. But it’s called Project Melaina.”
As Olivia always did when information was withheld from her, especially by Nina, she gave her a good long look. It never worked. Unable to find any other questions worth asking, or arguments that would convince Nina to tell her what she knew, she thanked her, said goodbye, and left the building.
As she left the building, she felt a sharp pain at her neck. The woman who had escorted her out looked at her curiously. “It’s nothing, I just think something bit me.”
~*~*~*~*~
Olivia walked through the doors to the basement lab in Harvard, still sweating from her overheated car, and immediately called out to Astrid, who was sipping strawberry milkshakes with Walter and Peter. “I need you do a search on a Dr. Harry Young, our victim.”
Astrid looked at her in puzzlement. “The victim is Luke Boeman. The DNA results came in an hour ago.”
“Dr. Young had a job interview with Nina Sharp at 2.30. It corresponds to the day planner. He was trying for a position as head of ‘Project Melaina’.”
Astrid turned to her computer again. “Who did you say the interview was for?”
“Dr. Harry Young.”
Astrid searched for a moment. “Dr. Young. Lecturer, right her at Harvard, a dozen different research grants. Specialises in…”
“Entomology. Bugs.”
“Actually, I was going to say bees. His last three papers have been based solely on the topic.” She opened up the forward to each. “Pretty dry.”
“Well, that can’t be coincidence. He specialises in bees, then someone with his day planner gets killed by a hoard of them.”
Walter interjected. “Hive. He was killed by a hive of them.”
“So an entire hive attacked him.”
“Yes, by the numbers involved, I’d say so.”
It was Peter’s turn. “Not just the drones?”
“No, I’ve seen every level of bee society in the samples. Well, all but the queen, but for all we know she was crushed.”
“Well, on that note, what have we learnt about the bees themselves. Any idea why they did this?”
“We think they’re genetically engineered for the specific purpose of killing people.” Peter looked at the three people who stared at him oddly. “Well, I think so. It makes sense. The bees have a strong acid in there stings, have the ability to sting repeatedly without dying. And once they were done, they simply dropped dead, but not from losing their stings like most bees would. They’re genetically engineered little assassins.”
“Walter, is that possible?”
“Yes, it would actually be much easier to slightly alter one creature, than to create a new creature from multiple species’ genes as we’ve seen before.” He smiled, a little guiltily despite his innocence in that particular matter. “But still, this would be complicated. The bees would have to produce some base in their system to neutralise the acid, and then they would need a method of quickly disposing of the resulting ionic compound and water. Otherwise they’d die very quickly.” He laughed. “Once you bought a goldfish, Peter, and forgot to clean out its tank for a month. It died of…”
Peter’s smile, unlike Walter’s, was more of a grimace. “That’s fine, Walter. But the bees did die, just after Luke Boeman was killed.”
“Olivia was puzzling together the pieces of the rather complicated puzzle in her head. “So these bees were genetically engineered…”
“Recently.”
“…sent to kill Mr. Boeman, then died because they couldn’t expel the toxins in their system.”
Astrid was looking at other possibilities. “Or the bees were sent to kill Dr. Young, were somehow drawn to Luke, and killed him instead?”
Peter’s eyes lit up. “The briefcase! As far as we can guess, it must be Dr. Young’s. The bees honed in on something in the briefcase.”
Walter, sipping his now warm milkshake, interrupted again “It would explain why the bees attacked no-one else.”
“So we need to find out where Dr. Young is, and why someone wants him dead.” She paused. “If someone wants him dead. Walter, could you test the briefcase?”
“Of course.”
“Ugh, Olivia.” Astrid looked away from the computer she was on. “I think I found a connection between the two. Yesterday, Dr. Young deposited five thousand dollars into Luke Boeman’s bank account. And he didn’t show up for a lecture today.”
“Any credit card hits?”
There was a brief pause as she typed. “Not since yesterday.”
“Do you have a home address?”
“Corner of Chuchill and Queenston.”
“I’ll call Broyles, tell him what we know, then we’ll see if he’s at home. In the mean time could you look up ‘Project Melaina’ for me?”
“On it.”
Olivia looked down at her phone, forgetting what Broyles’s number was. She tried to remember for a minute before admitting defeat flicking to her contacts. She was glad no-one noticed her hesitance.
Olivia never forgot numbers.
~*~*~*~*~
After no reply to their first few attempts at contact, Olivia kicked down the door with a resounding crash. The problem was, the action made her lose her balance and she fell back to be caught by Peter.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said breathily, “just…lost my balance for a second there.”
“Well, there’s a first: Olivia Dunham loses her balance. Do you wanna go inside now that we’ve…invited ourselves in?”
Olivia waited just a moment too long to answer. “Yeah.” She couldn’t help it, his arms were comfy. It had absolutely nothing to do with the dizzy spells she had experienced over the last half hour.
Once they were both steady on their feet, they proceeded onto the house. Peter muttered something along the line of ‘I could have just picked the lock’. Olivia had forgotten.
The foyer was crisp, clean, modern. It seemed more of a display house than someone’s home. The rest of the house was the same, not a dirty dish or load of clothing to be seen. With the exception of an office, with papers scattered everywhere. On the desk there was a single clear spot, with no dust on it. No monitor to be seen, but some speakers and a mouse sat on the desk as if they were awaiting the computer’s return. “A laptop. He’s taken it with him.”
Then they heard a shuffle, in the bedroom adjacent to the office. Both crept into the room as silently as possible, and simultaneously noted the wardrobe door was slightly ajar. Olivia nodded her head in the wardrobe’s general direction, Peter nodded. They both flanked it, and Olivia reached towards the handle. Before she could pull it open, a stout, balding man shot out faster than she believed was possible. Peter, too, was off after him in an instant and caught him before he reached the hallway.
“I’m Olivia Dunham, FBI.” She showed him her badge. “Are you Dr. Young?”
He sighed with relief, apparently expecting someone else to have come crashing into his house. “Yes, I need you to take me into protective custody. Someone’s trying to kill me.” He looked desperately out the shuttered window, obviously worried about an imminent attack of some sort.
Olivia looked to Peter, then to the man he was holding.
“Well, that answers one question. I’ll call Broyles.”
The doctor slumped with relief.
It wasn’t until Dr. Young was being taken to the federal building, Olivia and Peter following in the car, that he asked her about the man’s break for it. “Usually you’re a lot faster than that. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine” she said, keeping her eyes on the road and off his concerned expression. The silenced pressed for another minute.
“I’m fine.” She repeated defensively, with her tone just a bit higher than it should have been.
~*~*~*~*~
Olivia slammed the files onto the table before Dr. Young. “We have records proving that you paid Luke Boeman five thousand dollars yesterday.” She carefully placed a picture on top of the file, with a gentleness contrasting with her previous motion. “This is Luke Boeman.” Her voice was also softer, but no less threatening. The picture was enough, with a man falling apart on the sidewalk. “Would you care to tell us why a hive of bees attacked him, why his body was eaten by acid,” She uttered with the right emphasis to make him shiver, the word sounding more like a menacing hiss, “And why we found your briefcase at the scene.” She leaned forward on the desk, and placed a picture of his briefcase in the evidence bag, and remained in that position towering over the seated man.
“I already said I’d tell you everything.”
“Why was he attacked.” It was a demand, not a question.
“I had an interview for a job with Massive Dynamics and the DOD. A week ago, I got a threat not to go in. They said they’d prove it to me and then…” his lip turned up in disgust, “they sent some bees after my dog.”
“So why did Mr. Boeman have you briefcase.”
“After I came home from work a few days ago, I noticed that the lock, which was broken, was working perfectly. I also detected a chemical, rubbed into the fabric. When I found this out, I…I hired him, said I wanted him to do my interview for me, so I’d get the job. I payed him enough so he wouldn’t ask questions. I figured that, if I stayed at home, they would go after him, not me. If not, he could do the interview for me, and I’d explain it all later.”
Olivia gave an unconvinced ‘hmm’ before sitting down. It was a mockery of a polite conversation between equals. “Well, that’s enough to get you for…” she tried to recall what crime specifically he had committed. “Criminal negligence.” That didn’t sound right. The people in the adjoining room looked on with concern. “What’s ‘Project Melaina’.”
He was surprised that she knew the term. “That was the project I was going to work on. Genetically engineering bugs for use as weapons.”
“Well, it looks like someone’s already done that for them.”
He looked at her squarely, catching on that she didn’t know all she pretended to know. “The…the project has been operating for years now, I was just going to…iron out some little problems, replace the head scientist.”
“What happened to the head scientist?”
“H-he went missing. About a month ago. Dr. Angera.”
About half way through his sentence, Olivia was hit with another dizzy spell. She tried to focus on his face for a few moments, then settled instead for looking in his general direction. “Thank you for…for your time today. I just have to…talk…to my superior.” She gripped the edge of the metal table to get up, hard enough to gain a cut on her hand.
“Are you okay?”
She made one halting step towards the door, before collapsing.
~*~*~*~*~
“Walter, what’s wrong with her?” Peter voiced the concerns of everyone waiting outside the hospital room.
“On close examination, the doctors found a small sting on the back of her neck. It appears one of the bees may have survived, and stung her.”
“Acid wouldn’t do this. She would have noticed immediately.”
“She doesn’t have any acid in her system. We were able to recover the sting, which did come off, and there is a powerful, unidentified toxin in it.”
“Wait. Poisonous bees, as well as bees with acid.” Apparently, Broyles wasn’t keen on the idea. “I’m gonna have to do some political wrangling to get information on this Project Melaina. Call me if there is any change in her condition.”
Looking at Peter, Astrid said “I’ll take Walter back to the lab to get working on the, uhm, toxin.” She gave Peter a sympathetic smile before taking Walter’s arm. “Come on Walter, let’s get back to the back to the lab.”
“Okay.” he said, completely lucid. Worry had a tendency to do that to him, unlike the woman he saw in the children’s ward, insane with grief. He looked away, the sight bringing up too many bad memories of Elizabeth doing the exact same in another children’s ward, in another decade.
Peter, on the other hand, wasn’t particularly worried about the past. He was worried about now, he was worried about Olivia. He walked into the room and sat on one of the notoriously uncomfortable chairs. There was nothing that suggested she was sick, simply that she wasn’t quite healthy. Her skin was a little tight on her cheeks, a little paler than it usually was. And, of course, she was lying unconscious on a hospital bed being pumped with medication.
He wasn’t going to give up on her. “You’re going to get through this ‘Livia. You’re gonna be fine.” He knew those words had significance for her. He was also going to ignore the logical thought that told him she wouldn’t, the part of his mind that noticed how strong the medication she was on, or listed potential toxins in her mind.
But what in their world was logical in his world. Their jobs weren’t, the solutions weren’t, Walter wasn’t. Logic had stopped applying to them a long time ago. But here, he wasn’t helping her.
He left, to help her, because there was still an interview waiting to be finished.
~*~*~*~*~
There were inches between Peter’s face and Dr. Young’s. Had the man been able to sit any further back, he would have. As it was, he was terrified, there was certainly no danger of him withholding answers. Peter backed off. “I want you to tell me everything you know about Project Meleina. Now.”
“I-I already told you everything I know. That’s all Nina told me over the phone. I was supposed to get specifics at the interview and if I was hired.”
“I’m sorry, but you see, one of those bugs has stung a friend of mine. It’s killing her, you may have seen some of the effects of that. I’m a little desperate for answers.”
“I don’t know anything!”
~*~*~*~*~
“Walter, have you got something?”
“There’s not enough to sample. As far as I can tell, it’s more of a venom. Derived from some Australian snakes, but there’s too much mixed in to sort through. There’s also no trace of acid in the sting, it’s from a different type of bee altogether. Maybe the queen.”
“Walter, can you fix it.”
He didn’t have to say anything. All he could do is give her a helpless look that broke her heart again.
~*~*~*~*~
“You scared that man pretty well in there.” Broyles said, voice neutral. It wasn’t a compliment or accusation.
“Didn’t do much good. He doesn’t know anything.” Peter looked back into the interview room where the man sat with his arms around his chest.
“I’ve put in some calls to the Department of Defence, but they’re stonewalling me. Even with an Agent’s life at stake it will take them a while to give me something, and we don’t have that much time.”
“But you know who can give us the information we need.”
“Nina Sharp.”
“I’ll call her.”
~*~*~*~*~
“Phillip, what’s wrong.” It was rare that he would call Nina’s personal number, rarer still he did so at 10 o’clock at night.
“Olivia’s been stung by a poisonous bee. I was wondering if it had anything to do with Project Melaina.”
She saw where this was headed. “Phillip, I can’t tell you unless you’ve gotten clearance.”
She heard his intake of breath. “What, Agent Dunha…”
“I can’t tell you about the project, but I can tell you that, if this is anything like what we’ve been working on. You are going to have to give her three different antivenins. Red-belly black snake, brown snake, and tiger snake. The hospital won’t have any, but we will.”
“I’ll send someone over.”
Fifteen minutes later, Peter was standing in the lobby awaiting the promised treatments.
“Here you go.” Nina said as an assistant handed him three bags. “Call me when she’s better.”
He simply nodded before rushing out to the car on his way to the hospital.
~*~*~*~*~
In the end, it was close. Another hour and she would have been dead. The one saving grace was that a sting could contain much less venom than an actual snake bite, even with the venom concentrated. When Olivia woke the next day, the sky outside her new room was a depressing, monotonous grey. The clouds formed a smooth blanket, blocking any blue, any trace of sunlight. Still, it was a bright enough day that she could see clearly the small crowd that had amassed at the side of her bed. Peter sat in one of the blue plastic chairs, head in his hands, like he hadn’t slept all night. Walter and Astrid were evidently visiting, a bag of takeaway in their hands. So it was lunch time. Astrid was the first to notice her, and alerted the others. “Peter…”
He looked at her and smiled. It was a soft smile, but she had obviously worried him. Worried them. “What happened.” She mumbled, but she was worried they might not have been able to understand her. Her tongue was unbearably dry, and felt too big for her mouth. She wet it and tried again, and this time the message got across.
“You were stung by a bee, genetically engineered but different to the ones from Wednesday morning. We think it tracked you after handling the victim’s briefcase. It had snake venom in its sting.” Astrid’s summary was accurate and concise. She seemed to be the only one who could explain the series of events to her with Peter looking like he might drop dead and Walter sucking loudly on a straw.
“Nice.” Her tone of voice implied it was anything but.
“We should let you rest.” Astrid said, noticing that Olivia was even less talkative as usual. She took Walter’s arm to lead him out.
“I’m glad you’re well, Agent Dunham.”
“Thank you, Walter.”
Finally, the only two people left in the room were Peter and Olivia. “You had us worried there for a bit.” He said.
“Well it wasn’t really intentional.” She said with a small, very small, smile. “Did we catch whoever did it?”
“Nope.” He said the ‘p’ with a distinct pop. “You’ve still got work to do when you’re well and good again.”
“I’m well and good now.” She said, though she got the impression that the statement wasn’t as powerful as she wanted it to be, as she was nodding off to sleep.
“Don’t worry, the case will still be there in a few days.”
He knew that, if she was awake, she would have said something along the lines of leads going cold in a few days time. But she wasn’t awake, and he was the only one in the room. He was free to just sit and examine her face for as long as he wanted, without fear of being seen or reprimanded. And it was just what he needed.
Because he had almost lost her, just like her had almost lost her before, and would almost loose her again. Because he had no logical reason to stay by her bedside, and their world was ruled by all things illogical.
And because he loved her.
~*~*~*~*~
It was three weeks later that the two were once again alone together, this time in a bar, celebrating their victory. They had finally solved the case. Of course, two of the three intervening weeks were spent relaxing while Broyles tried to wrangle clearance for the three of them to know the details of Project Malaina. The most useful of that information was personnel and lab use records. As always, the seemingly mysterious case was boiled down to the simplest things, such as an overly ambitious scientist looking for promotion, and a way to get rid of the competition.
Olivia swatted a mosquito that tried to bite her. She looked up at Peter “Say nothing.” She commanded, words slightly slurred. Nonetheless she took another swig of her drink.
He smiled, one of the truly carefree smiles he got when he didn’t have to worry about Walter, or people he’s annoyed, or saving the world. “So, Agent Dunham, thoughts on the case?”
She took a long look at the amber liquid left in her glass. “Yes. I don’t like bees.” She said it with the determination of someone who has made up their mind for good, Peter was simply surprised that she hadn’t made her mind up as a child.
“What, you liked bees before?” His tone implied her believed otherwise.
“I’ve never really had an opinion, not until now.”
“I’ve hated bees. Always have.”
“Why?”
“I’m allergic.” He stated it like it explained things perfectly. “Got stung by one when I was five, my hand swelled up like a balloon. Problem is, I distinctly remember it was green.”
“That’s not a bee.”
“It was a bee.”
Olivia also smiled. She raised her glass. “To the dislike of bees.”