New fic: "The Rhapsody of Things As They Are", Fringe, NC-17, Redverse /Charlie/Olivia/Lincoln

[eretria]

Title: The Rhapsody of Things As They Are
Author: eretria
Fandom: Fringe
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Redverse Charlie/Olivia/Lincoln
Spoilers: season 3, especially "Immortality"
Size: ~ 32500 words
Summary: Charlie Francis has seen a lot of weird shit since he started working for Fringe Division. But this … he still has no idea how he's going to file this report.
Disclaimer: No profit gained or wanted.
Notes:Set after "Immortality" but before "Bloodlines" under the assumption that neither Charlie nor Lincoln know about Olivia's pregnancy.
The science in this story ... will probably make endocrinologists either weep or fall over laughing. I'm not an endocrinologist, so if you are, please bear with me. I tried my best to have it make sense.
The fandom hivemind was at work with regards to how Charlie deals with the arachnids, though I want to give a nod to kerithwyn and elfin.
The title comes from Wallace Steven's "The man with the blue guitar".
Thank you, as always auburnnothenna and murron for wonderful beta-reads.
AO3 link: Here.



Charlie Francis has seen a lot of weird shit since he started working for Fringe Division. Hell, he's had arachnids swimming in his blood, ready to turn him into a proud and pretty dead spider mama if he didn't dose himself every six hours with a growth inhibitor. But this … he still has no idea how he's going to file this report.

***

It starts with a class one event that's really a milk run for Linc, Liv and him and in hindsight, that should have been a warning because nothing is ever easy.

It turns out that it's not a vortex but some anti-amber activists on a vendetta. They catch him, Liv and Linc, and he's almost impressed that they manage so much. The masked little twerps also have the nerve to gag and bind them in the ratty old shed they lured them to. They set fire to the shed. "See how the ambered feel," is the final greeting and Charlie hates this day, because how the hell does ambering compare to being burned alive? They couldn't even get that bit right?

He hates the day even more when he sees the mounting look of panic in Linc's eyes when he takes in the flames licking toward the gasoline spilled on the floor. Fire. Out of all things, when Linc has just recovered from the third degree burns sustained by that freak from the other universe. Even with their trackers active and help likely already on the way, the cavalry is never going to make it in time to stop them from being burnt to a crisp.

Charlie's not going to watch him go through that again. Hell, he has no intention for any of them to go through that, first or second time around.

Their attackers haven't used zip ties to bind their hands so with a judicious amount of shuffling and caterpillaring over the dirty floorboards and the help of Liv's smaller hands reaching the pocket knife in his cargo pants, they manage to cut through the restraints at the very last moment before the fire reaches the gasoline and hell breaks loose around them.

Charlie has seen the door at the other side of the shed. He grabs Linc and Liv by their elbows and barges ahead, pulling them with him. The explosion behind them gives them enough velocity they burst through the old, splintering wood of the closed door and find themselves tumbling down a rotten staircase into the darkness of the basement. They land on something that groans and gives under their combined weight. Charlie hears glass break. His head hurts and he feels dozens of splinters from the door bite into his hands and face.

Liv's hair is burning at the tips and she claps her bare hands against it to quench the flames. For the fraction of a second, he sees her face, then everything's dark again The stomach-turning stench of singed hair and skin fills the basement within seconds.

Somewhere to his left, he hears Linc breathing hard. He's brushing wood splinters and glass from his jacket with a sound of disgust that morphs into one of bitten back pain. The flickering of the flames above them doesn't provide enough light to see him, but Charlie thinks that Linc will have his face and hands full of splinters from the door just like he does. "I hate fire," Linc says.

"Right there with you, buddy," Charlie says. He's surprised that Linc isn't freaking out more. God knows, if Charlie were in his shoes, he would be. He's shaky enough as is. Then again, he knows that even if Linc can't lie, he's pretty good at deflecting. He thinks that if he could see Linc’s eyes, he’d see bright, blinding panic.

"Where the hell are we?" Liv asks.

The light from the inferno above them isn't enough to light the basement, so he fishes a pen light from one of his pockets and darts the small beam of light over their surroundings. The dust in the air has him sneezing a couple of times. The basement looks like a suspiciously well-stocked lab and the glass he heard breaking, the glass he heard Linc brushing off his jacket earlier – it's vials. Vials that weren't empty, judging by the powdery residue that's now floating in the air and glittering in the flashlight's beam.

Linc sneezes as well, and Liv follows. That can't be good.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Charlie asks.

"Get the eggheads," Linc and Liv chorus.

***

It all goes to hell in a handbasket soon after that.

They're placed in quarantine after the lead egghead, a petite Argentinean scientist by the name of Dr. Silvina Casares, whom Charlie frankly finds terrifying, takes one look at the lab and declares a full lock-down.

The decontamination vehicle is a black monstrosity that gives Charlie the creeps whenever he sees it. Like an oversized coffin.

"What's up, Charles?" Liv asks in a cheerful voice that grates on his nerves. No one should be this cheerful with their palms blistered from the fire they just escaped. "Feeling a little uncomfortable?"

Charlie forces himself to relax and drop his shoulders a fraction. "Happy as a pig in shit."

Liv snorts.

"Agents," Dr. Casares says. She sounds like a damn drill-sergeant and Charlie feels himself standing at attention even though he never was in the military in the first place. The woman is scary. She's barely twenty-five. No one so young should be that scary. "Get in."

There are no niceties with Casares, ever. Charlie finds himself scrambling into the vehicle's back faster than he normally would have just to get away from her.

Liv and Linc amble in behind him, they seem unfazed if a little on edge. Both have caught his hectic retreat. He hopes against hope that they'll just let it slide, but of course, these are his partners of two years. He should know better.

"Feeling a little uncomfortable now, Charlie?" Liv asks and her smirk is off somehow.

Linc sits down next to Liv so they're both facing him now and he leans forward, elbows resting on his knees. "Look at that. Big bad Fringe agent is scared of a little girl." His jaw looks harder somehow. The jibe feels more personal than their usual banter.

"She's about as far from a little girl as you're from a choir boy," Charlie snaps. It's not like Linc to demean people, not even when he's trying to get a rise out of Charlie.

"You never know what Linc gets up to in his spare time," Liv says, a speculative glint in her eyes.

"What free time?" Charlie asks, aware that his voice is flatter than usual. "Big Boss here is even too busy to go on dates, so I doubt he's got time to sing with –" he interrupts himself. "Or does mighty Boss Man have a problem landing with the ladies?" It's an open wound and Charlie wouldn't normally go there but he feels backed against the wall. "Too busy with – "

"Fuck you, Francis." Linc sits up, his back ramrod straight.

"What, did he hit a nerve?" Liv asks. Her speculative look appears blood-thirsty and Charlie feels his skin crawl. Something is off and he doesn't like it. They should be bantering, not trying to hurt each other deliberately.

"Can't all have perfect love-lives like you," Linc snaps and Charlie sees the shutters go down behind Liv's frozen smile. He knows about Frank leaving her. Looks like Linc doesn't.

"Yeah, but you're not even trying," Charlie says just to distract Linc from Liv.

Linc whips around to him. "But you are, aren't you, Peter Parker?" A nasty smiles crosses Linc's face. "Bug girl dates Spiderman."

Charlie shrugs. "Better than nothing."

"How is that going to end, huh, Charlotte? Are you two going to be holding hands for the rest of your lives?"

"Fuck you." Charlie has to take a deep breath, curl his hands into fists and shove them into his jacket pockets, so he doesn't clock Linc one.

"At least I could," Linc says with a nasty smile and this time, Charlie doesn't hold back on the urge to get right into Linc's face, because god damn, he didn't bare his soul to his partner just to have it thrown back at him for a cheap laugh half a year later.

Liv is there at the last minute and steps between them. "Knock it off, you two."

Charlie rolls his shoulders against the tension that has settled in them and walks to the other end of the decon truck, as far away from Linc as possible. He doesn't need any more smart-assery.

***

Once they arrive at the hospital, decon is a given. Charlie hates decon, especially the part that means that their clothes are being burned. He likes the jacket he's wearing.

So strip-down, wash-down. They're not strangers to it, which is probably a good thing. He'd been a cop before he joined Fringe Division, Liv and Linc were soldiers; none of them is shy or awkward about being naked in front of the others. Nevertheless, Charlie has to fight an almost visceral reaction of hunger at seeing more and more skin revealed as Liv and Linc strip. He shakes his head and concentrates in scrubbing his hands along his arms. The water from the shower heads is far from a pleasant warm and the disinfectant stings the cuts and bruises they all sustained in the tumble down the rabbit hole.

Linc bitches loudly and Liv teases that he's setting a bad example. She gives his bare ass a playful slap with the back of her hand. It echoes in the tiled room and Linc shoots her a dirty look. "What you don't get is: I'm the boss. I complain whenever I want to."

"You bitch," Charlie corrects. "There's a difference."

Linc gives him the middle finger. Charlie blows him a kiss.

***

With all three of them once again dry, their scrapes and wounds treated and already healed, and now clad in fetching agency-issued white scrubs, their debrief takes place in one of the biohazard quarantine cells.

Secretary Bishop appears and it takes Charlie one look at his body language to know that he isn't going to like what's about to come next. "We're going to keep you in quarantine for the time being."

Charlie fights a groan and feels an itch under his skin that's not the arachnids. Behind him, Liv is pacing; her bare feet are loud on the linoleum. Linc saves him from asking the question that's on his mind. "What was in that lab, Sir?"

"We don't know yet."

"Bullshit," Linc mutters and shakes his head. He looks agitated, tense, rolls his shoulders.

Charlie throws him a surprised look. It's not like Linc to swear, especially not in front of a superior. Just like it wasn't like Linc to get so personal in his bantering earlier. The itch under Charlie's skin grows worse.

Bishop must have heard Linc, because he plasters that deceptively mild smile on his face. "You were saying?" He's not focused on Linc yet, his gaze keeps tracking Liv who's still pacing behind them, but that doesn't mean for one second that he didn't hear Linc the first time.

Charlie hopes that Linc will shut up and not destroy what was until now a brilliant career. Not destroy their team.

Linc leans against the window, braced on his forearms. His smile is all teeth. "I said 'Bullshit'."

Charlie bites back on a groan. He watches the scene unfold as if he's watching a movie, unable to move because he's just so shocked that Linc, ever-the-good-agent-Linc, the brilliant kid that can be glib but never rude, is single-handedly deconstructing himself and his future. Their future together. The thought alone makes Charlie want to knock him unconscious so he can't talk anymore.

"You wouldn't keep us in here if you didn't know something. You wouldn't even be here if you didn't have some kind of an interest in this."

Linc does have a point, Charlie thinks, even if he's a complete nutjob for saying it to Bishop's face instead of talking about it with Liv and Charlie in private. Bishop wouldn't come over here for a simple debrief, even if they're the leading Fringe Division in the country. They're important, but not that important.

Bishop's features freeze for the blink of an eye, then turn fatherly. His gaze slides to Liv, then back to Linc. "You will watch your tone, Agent." His tone is mild, yet doesn't hide the steel underneath.

"Or what, huh? Are you going to fire me?" Linc laughs, mirthless, and Charlie shakes his shocked trance, tries to pull Linc away, shut him up, but he shakes Charlie's hand off. "I know way too many of your secrets."

Bishop's gaze turns glacial. "Do you now," he sounds politely interested and the hair on the back of Charlie's neck rises.

"Linc," he tries again and attempts to distract Linc physically by stepping close to him.

"Shut up, Charlotte, and back the hell off."

Charlie holds up his hands and takes a step back; his annoyance flares sharp. "Just trying to help, buddy."

"I don't need your help." Linc glares at him.

Charlie holds his gaze while he wants nothing more than to beat some sense into Linc. "Obviously. You're fine handling that self-destruct button all on your own."

Charlie sees Bishop tracking their back and forth. "I will not hold Agent Lee's actions against him, Agent Francis. Whatever was in that lab might be affecting his mood."

"Don't patronize me, you bastard," Linc snarls and slams the heel of his hand against the window separating Bishop from them hard enough that Bishop recoils. The glass is reinforced, otherwise it would have shattered under the impact.

"Don't test my patience, Agent."

Behind them, Liv stops pacing and stops beside Linc. She stops rubbing her hands over her arms and Charlie's grateful for it; the sound drives him nuts.

Liv's not a person to lash out; despite her jovial exterior, she internalizes, but she stares at Bishop like she wants to flay him alive, slowly, and much to Charlie's amazement, Bishop actually lets himself be stared down. There's something going on between them that Charlie can't parse, something that has nothing to do with their current situation.

"I'll send Dr. Casares to take blood samples," Bishop says, half-dismissing them already. He takes one last look at Liv and his lips thin, then he turns on his heel in precise, military fashion and walks out.

Anger radiates off of Liv, mingles with the fury Linc is projecting and combined, their rage is so intense that Charlie feels it like a class three vortex, spinning faster and faster until it pulls him in. Linc gives the glass another thump and Liv bares her teeth on a snarl.

Charlie rolls his shoulders against the tension that has settled in them and thinks, 'Let her come.'

***

Silvina Casares makes a fascinated sound when she looks at the instant read-out from Charlie's sample. "Your arachnids are happy."

Charlie slams his chair against the wall in frustration when she doesn't answer his question on what she found. He doesn't really need to, though; he can feel it in his veins and under his skin. They're getting more active. They're growing.

***

Liv simmers down a little when Charlie's chair crashes against the wall. It freaks her out that she can barely remember what happened in the last few minutes. Everything is lost in a red haze of anger strong enough she can still taste it on the tip of her tongue.

"Hey, relax," she says, putting on a cheer she doesn't feel, "you're going to be fine."

Charlie gives her a look that's as familiar as breathing and which cuts right through her bullshit. "Easy for you to say. You don't have hitchhikers in your body."

Liv fights a wince. Charlie doesn't know. Can't know. No one besides Frank, the EMT medics, the hospital ob-gyn, and Secretary Bishop know, and Bishop's made sure that none of them are talking.

"Can't all be special like Charlie," Linc comments. His snide tone saves Liv from having to reply to Charlie and gives her the chance to throw a pissed-off look at Linc.

"Shut up," she says, not wanting round two of Linc laying into Charlie. "And while we're at it, watch your motor-mouth around Bishop. I'd like to keep our team intact."

"Awww." Linc's smile is a parody of his usually mischievous one and it rubs her entirely wrong. "Mother hen worries about us."

"Yeah, buddy, so should you." Charlie sounds odd, his voice is raspier than usual but strangely flat. Liv has no time to think about that because Linc flips Charlie off and the thoughtless dismissal of Charlie's concern in this regard is so unlike Linc that she tenses. This can't be normal. Linc is normally Mr. Protocol, even if he hides it. He believes in the chain of command and in the sensibility of procedure. She wonders what the hell was in that lab that completely erased that. What it will erase in Charlie and in her.

"Looks like we'll have some downtime until they figure something out," she says, just to say something.

"Sucks that you have to spend it here, right?" Linc says and he's clearly spoiling for a fight. What scares Liv is that she's ready to give him one. She rubs her hands over her arms again to counteract the feeling of her skin being too tight for her body. She's hungry even if she doesn't think she could eat a single thing.

She shrugs, forces herself not to bite. "Just gives me more time to spend with my favorite idiots."

"Well, Charlie and me have no one waiting for us," Linc says.

Charlie's, "Speak for yourself, Mr. My-Job's-Too-Demanding," lacks heat. Liv knows that Linc is right, Charlie isn't seeing anyone right now, or they'd know about it. He's a tight-lipped bastard about everything else, but when it comes to relationships, Charlie Francis is a gossip girl at heart. Charlie doesn't look as if he's in the mood for any kind of talking right now, though. He's pale and holds himself in a way that Liv doesn't like, because Charlie only usually gets this quiet when he's in pain.

Once again, Linc distracts her from Charlie. He rolls his eyes at Charlie and continues, "What will Frank say when you don't come home this weekend? What if he has another one of those super-romantic getaways planned?"

"Frank's not in," Liv forces out, clipped. God damn it, Lincoln Lee has a talent for going right for the jugular. She wonders if he knows more than he lets on and, if he does, she hates him for it. All she really wants is for him to shut up right this second.

"Work?" Linc asks, because of course he's not letting it go.

She shakes her head; an aborted, choppy movement that has her neck muscles hurting.

"What, he's out on the town without you?" Linc's eyebrows shoot upward toward his hairline. "What happened?"

From the corner of her eyes, Liv sees Charlie step forward. "Linc …" He really does sound odd, his voice shaky, but Liv attributes it to the same anger she feels rising inside of her.

"Tell me, what is it? "Linc crowds her, goes on like a sniffer dog smelling cocaine. "Oh, oh-ho!" He's gloating now and she wants to ram her fist into his face. "Lover's tiff? Second thoughts?"

If she doesn't walk away, she's going to hit him. Any moment now. She turns away from him, giving him the coldest shoulder she's capable of. Anger is making her scalp prickle. Her hands ball into fists at her sides. "None of your business, Sir."

Almost as if it's compulsory, Linc goes on, grabs her shoulder and turns her back to him. "Did you find out some dark secret? Perfect fiancé not so perfect anymore?" He is gloating and she wants to wipe that damn smirk off his face with her fist.

"Linc, you might wanna shut up now," Liv hears the warning tone in Charlie's voice.

Charlie knows. She told him about Frank leaving her. Didn't give him the reason, just told him. Charlie hadn't asked, had just given her a hug and a kiss to the top of her head while he held her. Charlie's always been good at that, at understanding boundaries. Linc is different. He can't lie and can't keep a secret and most of all he doesn't know when to shut up and to stop prodding. And she desperately needs him to shut up. Now. Before she does something drastic.

Liv tries to concentrate on Charlie in an attempt to shut Linc out. Charlie's sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall as if he needs the support it offers to stay upright. He's even paler now, his lips are a thin white line and she wonders if he may have overdosed on the inhibitor. She's heard the hissing sound of it at least four times since they were put in the quarantine cell.

"I keep telling you that you have bad taste in men." Linc goes on as if Charlie never spoke. "But you never listen, do you?" He tries to reach out to touch her with a look of exaggerated pity on his face. "You just keep choosing the wrong guys – "

She hits Linc there and then, her nerves snapping like a wire stretched too taut. Her fist connects with his cheek with a crack that has a dark and festering satisfaction roiling in her stomach within seconds.

Linc shakes his head against the blow and pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue. She sees blood on his teeth. "What the hell, Liv?" Linc glares at her, anger mixed with physical pain and a look of hurt betrayal and she knows she should back off, apologize, retreat before this escalates any further but she can't ignore the surge of relief that flooded her body for the split-second in which her fist connected with Linc's face.

So, like an aggressive sleepwalker, she crowds him and hits him again. And again. And again, until he's on the ground and she's pummeling into him. He's blocking her, but not fighting back – too much training, too much basic decency to hit a woman. Linc is a good colleague, a good superior officer, but he'll never be a match for her in hand-to-hand-fight because he's just too careful of hurting her. She uses that to her advantage now and feels no remorse over it.

"Jesus, Liv, stop," she hears Charlie's voice, but she can't, she won't. Part of her wonders why Charlie doesn't make her stop, but it's quickly swallowed by the part that enjoys the chance to get all the violence out of her system. Each time her knuckles get in touch with Linc's skin on another blow she feels elated despite the pain that is the skin on her knuckles tearing and the coppery smell of blood when his lip splits. It’s like scratching an itching mosquito bite she couldn’t reach before.

Linc wants to retaliate, she can tell, she sees how much he's holding back, smells it in the way his scent – blood and sweat and anger – changes to something sharp and feral that she wants to unleash. She wants him to fight her back. Wants his hands, his fists on her, pushing, pulling, exchanging blows to get the tension out of their systems, so she hits him even harder, ignores the rush of blood in her ears and Charlie’s shouts, and watches the growing fury in Linc's eyes and his movements. No, Linc's not going to just take a beating for long. He'll fight her back. Anytime now. He'll bare his teeth and leash out. If only she hits hard enough, if only –

Charlie’s on her then, pulling her back, immobilizing her arms with bitten off curses and she kicks and tries to throw him off, but his hands are on her bare arms, his chest against her back and as soon as her body registers the levels of closeness, she sags like a limpet, all energy drained from her, relief so sweet and so immediate it takes her breath away and makes her knees buckle.

Her skin sings with the touch and that awful hunger she's felt since they left that lab recedes. She hangs in his arms, limp, panting. She feels like she's just run through the desert and found a well at the last moment before she died of thirst. This makes no sense. Unless …

Unless her feeling better for those split seconds while she was hitting Linc had nothing to do with releasing her violent urges.

Liv glances at Linc where he's leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, panting, bloodied, his shirt torn and she wants to run as far away as she can from what she's done. The remorse is like hot mercury on her tongue, bright and poisonous.

"You about done?" Charlie asks and gives her a shake.

She nods, unable to form words, unable to say "Don't let go," without sounding even more than a lunatic than she already must look. His hands on her arms, even though they're biting into her skin enough to hurt, are a lifeline, a rush of pleasure and peace alike. She feels a crawling sensation where the inside of his wrist touches her naked skin, something that's not just blood pumping through his veins, but before she can summon enough brainpower to think about what that means, Charlie says, "Good," lets go of her and walks over to Linc. He lets go of her and no, no, no. She feels her heart beat faster, her skin parchment-paper thin and that awful, debilitating anger returns to the forefront of her mind.

In mid-step, Charlie falters, doubles over and goes to his knees with a bitten back sound of pain.

He never makes it to Linc's side.

***

They're placed in separate quarantine cells after Charlie's collapse and her attack.

Frustration and the need to get back with Charlie and Lincoln have Liv beating her fists against the walls, screaming obscenities. She has no agency in here, can't help herself and can't help Charlie. All the choices are taken from her and she can't breathe from the rage that's choking her and the feeling of loss swirling in her, making her want to claw her way out of her skin.

Complete psychotic break, it says in her file from that time the other Olivia had taken her place, after the events at the opera house. The other Olivia had nothing on her.

Liv's voice gives out after fifteen minutes of non-stop screaming.

They pump a sedative into the air when they notice that her fists are leaving blood stains on the white walls.

She goes under.

***

Charlie thought that with the inhibitor, he'd have things under control. He remembers the hours after the arachnid infestation, the itching escalating to pain so bad he wanted nothing but for someone to shoot him in the head and end it all. They'd knocked him out and he'd still felt the pain, even in his unconscious state. On bad days, he's still waking up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat from the phantom pain.

He'd had it under control.

It was under control.

Until now.

The itch he'd attributed to whatever was in that lab, particularly after looking at Liv rubbing her hands over her arms, turns out to not be lab-related at all. It's the spiders. He's felt it, known it and ignored it, because it can't be, it mustn't be. He's pumped himself full of enough of the inhibitor he's jittery and weak and it's still not working.

"Your arachnids are happy," Casares said. She has no idea how right she is.

They're growing, the bigger ones are crawling, stretching his blood vessels, his veins to the point of tearing. The smaller ones make him itch so much he wants to scratch away his skin to make it stop. On top of it all, he feels a hunger and an anger that's hard to control. It's the worst kind of nightmare, the one where you know you won't wake up.

If the inhibitor's not working, and none of the eggheads come up with another way to stop them, then eventually, the spiders will tear his blood vessels for real and he'll bleed out from the inside. It was easier the first time around when he was clueless. This time, he knows what's coming and he's had the false safety of the inhibitor. It was always a possibility that something could go wrong one day, but he never once imagined it would just stop working.

And just this morning, he thought that life was pretty good. It must be a trigger thought for something horrendous to happen, since Linc told him that he thought the same thing before he was burned.

Why the fuck did he ever decide to work for Fringe Division? He could have stayed a cop, could have been shot in the street or taken by a vortex like so many other cops. But no. No. It had to be Fringe Division. He had to be on the front line with the leading Fringe Division, breathing in whatever damn thing was in that lab. And it had to affect the fucking spiders.

Charlie shakes with anger, fear and disgust, and claws at his arms again. His stomach turns; he imagines the spiders crawling around his innards and the thought makes him sick enough he empties what's left in his stomach on the floor.

His arms are scratched bloody by the time he opens his eyes again.

Let it bleed, he thinks. Maybe if he scratches long and hard enough, the god damn spiders will find a way to crawl out of him.

He wishes Liv and Linc were here.

Charlie has never been so scared in his entire life.

***

Dr. Silvina Casares makes people nervous. In charge at twenty-five, she's not only too young for most people's comfort, but also too self-assured. While too imposing to use the word pretty, she's definitely a striking figure, black hair cropped short, eyes a piercing green accentuated by a tribal tattoo on her left and right temple. She wears jeans and a black shirt that says, 'I can kill you with my mind,' which is unsettling when you know that it might be true. As one of the first results of genetic manipulation to create specialists, she's been engineered as a scientist. Somewhere in the genetic make-up, bedside manner and compassion have been completely erased. She's fantastic in every other regard: thorough, dedicated, whip-smart, funny as hell, but completely stone-cold. It's one of the reasons Lincoln likes having her on the science team. She's the one to make the hard recommendations, was there when Boston was ambered and showed not an iota of remorse.

Lincoln doesn't like it when she looks too cheerful; he's found out the hard way that Casares being fascinated is a bad, bad sign. She looks cheerful now, and with him, Charlie and Liv being the specimens that she looks at through that bulletproof, hermetically sealed glass, that freaks him the hell out.

"What?" He asks when she appears in front of the quarantine cell again. He's been pacing like a caged tiger for what feels like half an hour, listening to Liv scream bloody murder two cells down, trying to push back the unease and the memory of her assault. She's fallen silent now and that makes him even more ill at ease.

Casares holds up the pad with the test result from their blood tests. "Your stress levels are through the roof."

"Yeah, no kidding," Lincoln comments. Despite the instant treatment of his injuries, his face and chest still feel sensitive from Liv's attack. He feels the bruises deeper in his tissue and can't overlook the irony of her literally getting under his skin. As if she hasn't been there all along. Her attack had managed one thing, though, it had calmed him down for some time. He supposes he should be grateful for that.

He takes a closer look at the readings and his jaw drops. The cortisol and norepinephrine levels are truly off the charts, higher than he's even seen in the more extreme cases at the academy's medical classes. "That's …"

"Approaching lethal levels, I know, isn't that fascinating?" She sounds as if she's just found the holy grail.

A hot surge of anger rolls through him. "You're telling me that you find our imminent deaths fascinating?" he snarls at her.

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

Lincoln slams his hand against the window again and curses.

Casares doesn't bat an eye. "Excessive amounts of cortisol will destroy the immune system, shrink the brain and other vital organs, decrease muscle mass, and cause thinning of the skin which results in prominent blood vessels." She gives him a long once-over. "Are you experiencing any abdominal pain, Agent Lee? Sensitivity to the skin? Aggression?"

Lincoln bares his teeth and feels the anger slither underneath his skin like he imagines the arachnids in Charlie's blood doing. He looks at his arms and sees the veins raised against his skin, like miniature purple snakes coiling along his arms.

"Stupid question, you're right," Casares comments, dry as dust.

"We're not your lab rats," he shouts at her. "Do you have any idea what these cortisol levels will do to Charlie's arachnids?" The small glimpse he got on the pad suggests a serious worsening of Charlie's condition. It explains the subdued noises of pain he's heard from Charlie's cell, the ones he's tried to ignore, hoping against hope they wouldn't mean what he feared. Lincoln was there when Charlie was first infected. He never wants to see him go through that again. "Don't stand there, do something!"

"Your face looks red," Casares comments as if she hasn't heard him. "An increase in norepinephrine accelerates the heart rate, constricts blood vessels, and raises blood pressure. I would like to take your blood pressure."

Lincoln wants to hit her and he shocks himself with that urge because he's never wanted to hit a woman before. Except for Liv, earlier. He still feels sick to his stomach over it – if he survives this, he'll have nightmares of this out-of-control-Liv for weeks to come, of that look of hatred in her eyes -- but he can't deny that somewhere in the middle of the beating he took, he'd felt almost elated. Better, if just for a microsecond. Obviously he'll always be a masochist when it comes to Olivia Dunham.

He drops his chin to his chest, runs both hands through his hair and fists them near his scalp. Strands stretch tight and tear. The jittery feeling of his heart beating overtime and the latent anger are still there, slithering under his skin. He needs to do something, he can't just sit here and wait for whatever they were exposed to to slowly erode their minds.

"What about Agent Francis?" he rises from his crouch slowly. Concentrating on Charlie, on doing his damn job to keep his people safe, should help him distract himself.

"I don't see how that information is going to help you in your current situation."

He takes a deep breath and fights against the rage that's filling the back of his mind with a swirling addictive pull. "That man," he presses out from between clenched teeth, "is not just my agent, he's one of my closest friends. I won't watch him die."

"No, you won't," Casares says, matter-of-fact. "Since you're separated from him, you'll just listen to him die if the new inhibitor doesn't work."

Lincoln yells, unarticulated rage floods his entire system, blots out reason. When he slams his hand against the glass this time, his wrist breaks.

***

The quarantine cells may be sealed, but they're not soundproofed. As long as something is loud enough, it travels between the cells, even if it's muted, without needing to resort to speakers and microphones.

Liv wakes when she hears Linc shout in fury, hears something thump and Linc's shout turns into a howl of pain.

A nurse runs past her window with a horrified look on his face and Liv's stomach knots. "What the hell happened?" Her voice is rough, her throat raw.

"Hey!" She thumps her fist against the window, making a nurse jump. "What's wrong with Agent Lee?"

There's no answer and her mind latches on to the nearest answer: something she did to him, one of the blows she's dealt him must have injured him a lot worse than it seemed at first. She's sick to her stomach and her hands are shaking. It must be something she did. Lincoln.

She tries to get the nurse's attention again but she's being ignored. No one tells her anything, they just throw glances in her direction, careful, fearful glances as if they're dealing with a dangerous headcase.

There's nothing else she can do but make them pay attention to her.

As a result, there are bloodstains on her window as well as on the walls now.

"No," she shouts, when the familiar hiss of the sedative being released into her cell reaches her ears, her voice sandpaper-rough. "No, don't, you bastards, don't you dare – "

She goes under.

***

She's a little calmer when she wakes next. Her hands are wrapped in gauze – just patches, she notices, no bandages, as if they're concerned she might get creative with them - , but she can tell that underneath the gauze, the healing process is already complete. Her side's advanced healing techniques are something she took for granted before. Now that she's been to the other side, she knows better and is grateful for them.

The speakers are open in all their cells, the endocrinologist, fresh-out-of-college Dr. Dimaguiba, informs them. She cranes her head and can make out that he's standing in front of Linc's cell, reporting to him. She's seen him a few times before; he'd seemed nice if a little shy. He wears rimless glasses that accentuate a broad, likeable face, and still has the bright eyes of someone who started the job very recently, but he wouldn't be here if he weren't one of the best. The hilarity of him giving Linc a sit rep makes Liv snort. Linc, even though he's the head of Fringe division, is just as compromised as she and Charlie are. She appreciates Dimaguiba keeping up appearances, though. It's more than Bishop would have done.

"We have determined what is causing your condition," Dimaguiba says. He fidgets a little, and Liv sympathizes. Linc can be intimidating when he wants to be.

"And?"

"Your bodies' oxytocin supplies have been completely depleted."

"Oxytocin?" Liv echoes.

"It's the hormone created by touch," Linc explains before Dimaguiba can.

"We're lacking the cuddle hormone?" Charlie's voice comes through the speakers and Liv can hear his eyebrows knitting. "Are you kidding me?"

She doesn't like the way his voice sounds tight, like he's biting back pain.

"She's not," Lincoln confirms. "I've seen the test results."

"I am not filing that report," Charlie says.

"As if you ever do," Liv quips. She's trying for levity, but it sounds forced even to her ears. "So, what, can you just dose us with the stuff and everything will be back to normal?"

"In theory."

***

Turns out that theory and reality have very little in common.

The oxytocin is administered by a nasal spray to breach the blood-brain barrier and it has an effect. Just not the one they'd all been hoping for.

Lincoln hasn't had a hard-on in public this bad since he was 13 and he has never, not even back then, been so damn desperate to jump whoever steps in front of him or at least to rub one out as he is this very moment. The thought of Liv and Charlie separated from him by only one wall makes him want to howl in frustration.

"Well," Casares says, "that's a raging success, isn't it? Looks like chemically introducing the oxytocin only raises their stress levels further now that they're sexually frustrated on top of everything else."

"I don't understand," Dr. Dimaguiba says with a furious blush, "this should have worked."

Casares gives Lincoln's hard-on and his still healing, bandaged right wrist a wry look. "Be easier if you were left-handed, huh?"

Lincoln has a seizure when his blood pressure spikes through the roof and his last thought is that he wants to bash her head in so badly he can taste it.

***

When he wakes again, he's informed that his oxytocin levels have dropped down to zero again. The frustration and anger he feels is almost a relief over the chemically induced horniness. He's glad he wasn't in the same room with Liv and Charlie when the hormone kicked in, doesn't need the extra humiliation. Despite his wrist being mended, he's weaker now, though strung out beyond anything a human body should be able to endure. He feels like a live-wire, snapping and fizzing with no rhyme or reason.

"What else?" Lincoln asks, shaking his head to clear his mind. "There has to be something else."

In the cell next to his, Charlie is groaning in pain and Lincoln's mind latches onto it, weirdly glad to not have to think about what the treatment not working means for himself, too. "What's happening to Agent Francis?" he demands.

"I'm afraid your earlier assessment was correct," Dimaguiba looks pained. "The high levels of cortisol in all of your systems in his case render the inhibitor useless and also suppress his immune system. The arachnids in his blood are multiplying. They have also doubled in size."

Oh, God, Charlie. A block of ice settles in Lincoln's stomach when the full meaning of Dimaguiba's words hits home.

"And Agent Dunham?"

"Her condition is … a bit of a wild card."

"How?"

"In the last hours, her body has begun producing a large amount of a CRH binding protein."

"A what?" Lincoln hates himself for skipping most of his endocrinology classes at the Academy. He has enough vague knowledge to bullshit his way out of an exam, but nowhere near enough to fully grasp what Dimaguiba is saying.

"A protein that binds corticotrophin-releasing hormones."

"Pretend for a moment that my brain is too fried to follow you." It is, Lincoln knows. He wouldn't have a problem following Dimaguiba on a normal day.

Dimaguiba smiles and some of the tension leaves his shoulders. "During the stress-response, your brain secretes a corticotrophin-releasing hormone," he says, clearly more at ease now he can lecture. Lincoln remembers that he was working at a college before Fringe Division hired him. "It's the body's master stress hormone and it triggers the release of glucocorticoid stress hormones from your adrenal glands."

"Cortisol." This much Lincoln remembers. It's little enough.

"Yes." Dimaguiba nods. "Normally, the levels drop again once the stressful situation is over. Yours don't, in fact, your adrenal glands keep producing cortisol. There's nothing counteracting the secretion."

Lincoln shakes his head against the information overload and against his mind processing exactly what that means for them. "And what is different with Agent Dunham?"

"The CRH binding protein in her system prevents the CRH from being recognized and used by the respective receptors. As a result, a large part of the extra CRH is rendered biologically inactive. Think of it as a phone call into open space." Dimaguiba mimes holding a phone. "Hello, anybody home?"

Lincoln glares at him and Dimaguiba sobers quickly. "She's not producing enough of it yet to make her any less aggressive than you and Agent Francis, but it heightens her chances of survival."

His brain latches on to the first part of Dimaguiba's sentence. He doesn't want to hear the rest of it. "Yet?"

"Well, I suppose if she were in the second trimester of her pregnancy, her chances would be much better."

Lincoln goes still, so still he can feel his muscles vibrate with the need to move. His stomach feels as if it just plummeted from a high rise. "Her what?"

Dimaguiba blanches and takes a step back. "You didn't know."

"No," Liv's voice, scratchy and low, comes through the speakers suddenly. She sounds tired. So tired. "He didn't. Neither did Charlie. But, hey, thanks for saving me the trouble of telling them on my own damn terms."

Dimaguiba's gaze flickers along the walls of their cells. Under any other circumstances, Lincoln would feel bad for the guy because he looks so guilty. Not today. He fears he might break his other wrist if Dimaguiba stands in front of him a second longer, giving him that scared rabbit look. "I need to speak to Dr. Casares."

Lincoln tastes bile at the back of his tongue. Cold sweat breaks out along his upper lip. His scalp prickles.

"Talk to me guys," Liv says. It's a plea.

He doesn't know what to say and his body takes the decision away from him: He heaves, vomits water and bile, feels his blood pressure spike and a high-frequency hum fills his head. His nose starts to bleed.

It goes on long enough that a flurry of motion starts behind the window. Nurses start running. By the time someone in a hazmat suit pushes inside his cell, Lincoln has almost grayed out. His last absurd thought is that he should leave the morning sickness to Liv.

***

He drifts in and out while Casares and Dimaguiba argue.

"Well, the hormone is produced by giving and receiving affectionate bodily contact. Touch."

"The notes we found said that the compound was manufactured in order to be weaponized to incapacitate enemy armies. If you take into account that the compound lowers the oxytocin levels enough that you either touch or die, then … well, you have the answer there. Whoever made this stated clearly that they didn't want to kill, just incapacitate. And how to best incapacitate an army without killing them? How do you make really sure they can't move anymore?"

"You mean that it has to be produced naturally?"

"Under field conditions, there would be no doctors there, no scientists."

"What are you saying?"

"It's kind of a long shot, but I think they need to get in skin contact with each other."

"Do you remember what happened the last time they were in a room together? Agent Dunham beat Agent Lee within an inch of his life."

"Open the doors," Lincoln says and forces his eyes to open.

Casares' voice rises. "It's our best chance and you're trying to tell me we can't take it because you're too chicken to risk a few bruises – "

"Open the doors," Lincoln says again, louder this time. He tries to push himself into a sitting position.

"I," Dimaguiba yells back, "am not taking that attitude from someone who doesn't care about the most basic – "

"Open the damn doors," Lincoln bellows.

They whip around to face him.

"Now."

Dimaguiba looks intimidated. "Sir, we – "

"Now."

He has no authority here, not in his state, but Casares moves nevertheless, she uses the brief fugue state Dimaguiba seems to be in. The doors between the cells open with a hiss and in the tunnel that forms between the three cells, Lincoln sees Charlie kneeling on the ground with an injector pressed against his wrist, doubled over in pain. His arms are scratched open, the bandages torn off. Blood stains his hands and Lincoln's stomach bottoms out. He can't lose Charlie. Not now. Not ever.

Behind him, Liv's loose hair is like fire in the white cell. She's on the floor, knees pulled up and arms locked around her legs; she looks hollow-eyed, rocks back and forth. They stare at each other over Charlie's prone figure, then, in a whirl of motion, Liv is through first, tearing her shirt off and launching herself at Charlie. He staggers backward with a grunt when she locks her legs around his waist and presses her entire upper body against his bare chest. A sound tears free of her chest when Charlie's arms close around her back to hold her against him, a broken sound, close to a sob. Charlie sags against her with a whimper.

Lincoln watches them through a red haze of doubt and fear, then propels himself forward as well, pulling off his shirt, dropping to his knees and pressing himself against Liv's bare back, holding on to her, to Charlie. They both keen at the contact; the relief is so immediate that their knees buckle and they all slide to the ground in a tangle of limbs. He's neither willing nor able to let go. Charlie's hands snake around Lincoln's back and hold him close, clawing against his shoulderblades hard enough to bruise.

The first touches feel like cauterizing a wound, they hurt, burn all the way down to his bones, but that changes soon enough. The closer he pulls Charlie and Liv, the easier he can breathe again, think again. The jitters stop, his heartrate slows down. With his face pressed against Liv's shoulder and his hands petting Charlie's back, with Liv's foot rubbing against his calf and her hands touching him and Charlie in repetitive, soothing motions, sanity returns gently, like a long lost friend.

It's the return of that sanity that makes him aware of the still palpable tension in Charlie's body and the feeling of something moving under Charlie's skin.

"Charlie," he whispers.

Charlie claws harder into Lincoln's back and Lincoln knows this, he knows that Charlie bites back on sounds of pain until he's almost bitten through his tongue. He remembers Charlie when he was infested with the arachnids in the first place; his fingernails white from pressure as he fought against the urge to claw at his skin and his body held perfectly still, never uttering a sound.

Lincoln's stomach bottoms out. If Charlie's still in pain then that means that whatever Foster's new inhibitor and their touching stopped or healed did not change the damage done by the arachnids. Did not stop the arachnids from getting active.

They can still lose him.

"Liv," he breathes against her shoulder. "Liv, we need to – "

"I know," she murmurs back.

***

Casares brings in Mona Foster again, and Liv thinks that if Bug Lady Foster looks shocked, something must be really wrong. Foster loses all of her dorky attitude and barks short orders to the medical staff behind her. Hectic movement starts and Liv holds on to Charlie tighter to stave off the feeling of dread that's settling in her stomach like a lump of ice. Charlie has gone limp. She can feel the movement under his skin, in his veins.

The doors open and a medical team appears with a stretcher. They're wearing scrubs and surgical masks, no hazmat suits anymore. They still look alien. Liv still shrinks back into Linc, cradles Charlie against her as if she can protect him. It's a ridiculous thought. Foster was called in to help. Nevertheless the thought of letting go of Charlie has cold sweat breaking out over Liv's upper lip and her muscles locking. They need to stay together. She's never been more sure of anything.

"Please let go of Agent Francis, Agent Dunham." Foster's voice is muffled behind the surgical mask.

She can't. Her hands won't open, her muscles won't unlock.

"You need to let go of him."

She wants to, intellectually, she knows she needs to, but she can't.

"He might die if you don't."

"I can't," she forces out from between clenched teeth. "It's not that I won't, I can't."

Whatever that damn compound was, it seems to make sure that when the infected people actually do touch, they form some kind of a bond that makes it nigh impossible to separate until the compound is broken down in their bodies and the oxytocin levels are back to normal. If they ever do.

"Knock them out," Casares says and offers an injector to Foster.

Foster's eyes widen. "Dr. Casares, I can't – "

Casares moves, quick and no-nonsense. "I can." Liv feels a quick sharp pain against the side of her neck, then nothing.

***

She wakes with Linc spooned around her, holding on to her like a lifeline. Part of the hunger she felt earlier is back, even with him there. She grows restless and even though she needs him with her, she's overwhelmed by the heat of his body but feels cold at the same time. It's not enough; Charlie's missing like a limb cut off.

When they take Linc out of the cell to check if the treatment is working, she feels her blood pressure rise again and the anger returns at full force. So much for touch being a damn cure. It's more like Charlie's inhibitor, just treating symptoms, but not curing anything. She's going to be walking like Siamese triplets with Charlie and Linc for the rest of her life if this can't be reversed. Right this moment, the thought doesn't bother her as much as it should. What does bother her is that she's alone and that the relief she felt touching Charlie and Linc is deteriorating by the second. She needs them back with her. Both of them. The anger over the separation slithers under her skin, she's hot and itchy and the urge to ram her fists against the glass until either it or her wrists break is back.

It's the worst possible time for anyone to come check in on her. So, of course, it's exactly the time Secretary Bishop turns up in front of the quarantine cell's window.

"Agent Dunham," he greets her, his tone neutral with a tinge of well-acted concern. Or maybe it's real. She doesn't know and doesn't care. Pacing seems like the best idea to get rid of some of the tension flooding her body. Her scalp prickles when she takes in his face and his damn knowing eyes that track her every movement. She wants him gone. She wants Linc and Charlie back.

Liv's still in her bra and the white scrubs pants; the top lies discarded on the floor. Bishop has his attention on her face but doesn't look at her body – whether that's down to a sense of privacy, sheer lack of interest, or a dislike for seeing his agents stripped down is anyone's guess. Liv picks up the top and pulls it on anyway. It scratches against her skin like nettles and she thinks of the fairy tale that included a shirt woven from them. Mom had read it to her a long, long time ago. Funny what one's brain remembers.

She realizes that she never replied to his greeting and says, "Sir."

"How are you feeling?"

What a fucking joke. The need to shout at him and kick the wall is overwhelming. She reigns it in by planting both feet on the ground and clasping her hands behind her back, falling into parade rest. Her muscles are drawn taut enough that she feels her entire body vibrate with the tension. "Permission to speak freely, Sir?"

"Go ahead." Bishop sounds soft and understanding. It makes her want to break his face. Her hands curl into fists she has to open and close several times so she doesn't lash out.

"Like hell, Sir."

"I was informed that you were doing better."

By whom? She wants to shout. The parade rest is killing her, her muscles are drawn so tight now that she worries that keeping this position for one more second will break her bones. She starts to pace again and rubs her hands over her arms. "When I was with Agents Lee and Francis, yeah."

"Agent Lee has only been taken out for a routine check. No one means to be unnecessarily cruel."

What a sick fucking joke. She can't believe he manages to utter this with a straight face.

"What about Agent Francis, huh?" She gestures toward the door and beyond. "Is keeping the cure for his infestation from him necessarily cruel?"

Bishop gives a long-suffering sigh. "We've been over this, Agent."

They have. When she had first returned from the other side, she had gone straight to him with the knowledge of how the other side had cured their Charlie. It turned out that the creature that had infected both Charlies had been pretty similar, only the one from over there had been part snake whereas here it had been part spider. The cure is simple enough that Liv still wonders why the hell no one has ever thought of it in her universe and she still feels an spike of irritation of the scientists in charge of helping Charlie. The inhibitor had always been a half-assed attempt, just treating symptoms, never a cure. Deep down, she knows the reason, of course. They're expendable. Charlie's doing a good job, but ultimately, someone else could take his place. Bishop never would have gone out of his way to save Charlie. Not like the other Bishop – like Walter – did.

She remembers telling Bishop about the cure, so sure he'd let her create the antidote. She also remembers the sharp flare of annoyance, almost hatred she'd felt when Bishop had denied her request, telling her that she couldn't use information from the other side for personal indulgences since it would compromise the mission. That hatred is back now. Liv tastes it on her tongue and feels it singing in her veins.

She's a soldier, though, and Bishop's her superior officer. Back then, military training trumped the need to beat him into submission, but she has never stopped thinking about it, wondering if she could find a way to create the cure herself. If the glass weren't separating them right now though, she doesn't think she could or would hold back.

It was a pipe dream, she knows. She doesn't have the scientific background, nor the means to create the cure by herself. She could gain access to the creature's remains, and hope that what samples they preserved would have the same effect as the live blood of the creature had in the other universe, but she knows that she needs someone with an advanced medical and scientific background and that she'd be committing treason to even try. She has no problems with the latter, she'd do it for Charlie in a heartbeat, but the former is a problem. Too many obstacles. Not even Linc's degree is advanced enough. Even if they tried, it would risk Linc's freedom as well and she wants at least one of them to be there for Charlie. So she has kept on trying, again and again, always hoping that one day, she'll manage to wear Bishop's resistance thin.

It hasn't worked. It's not going to work now, unless …

Bishop tracks her movements with eyes like a hawk, scanning for ways the stress must be affecting her, probably worried about the baby. It's a look so different from Walter; there's no gentleness in it, only strategy. She's never going to get to him the way she got to Walter. But if strategy's Bishop's game … then she has a chance here. Even through the red haze of anger, she knows that Bishop needs her. She's pregnant with his grandchild, and she's not under any delusions that there's not some kind of hidden agenda that goes beyond any warm, grandfatherly feelings.

So, if he needs her, then she has blackmail material here.

"Yeah, we talked about it," Liv says. "Only circumstances have changed, haven't they?" She rests her hand on her belly and watches Bishop's gaze track her movement.

"If you want your grandchild healthy, you need to cure me. Which means you need to get both Agents Lee and Francis in here." She walks toward the window, her shoulders back and her spine ramrod straight. "And Agent Francis can't be in here with us unless his arachnids are under control."

Bishop's eyes narrow. "You're playing a dangerous hand here, Agent Dunham."

"It's the truth and you know it." She ignores his warning look. "Your scientists couldn't figure out any cure apart from touch and all the data points toward that this whole damn mess won't be cured from just two of us touching. It has to be all three. If Charlie dies," she has no idea how she manages to get the sentence out and not choke on it, "Linc and me won't be enough. We won't make it either. It'll take us longer to die, yeah, but we will."

"That's not verified yet. The data we have hasn't been fully analyzed."

"Wake up and smell the hippie, man!" Liv snarls at him and slams her hand against the window. "If this was meant for war, to incapacitate armies without killing or spilling blood, then it was never meant to be cured by just two soldiers touching." Her mind races to come up with an explanation and launches onto the next best one. "Two soldiers can still function while staying in close touch. Three already can't. Now think of a whole platoon. The whole damn compound must have been developed so that it can only be cured by all of the people who were exposed to it touching. They must have abandoned the research when it became potentially deadly. There's a limit to how many people can be touching each other simultaneously."

Instinctively, she knows she's right. She sees that Bishop hasn't bought it yet, but can't deny the logic of her words either. He looks as though he bit into a donut filled with mustard instead of jam before his features smooth out and he looks paternal again. "Well, Agent, even if the data analysis should differ, I can see how support from your team mates in this difficult time would be beneficial to you." He gives her one of his tight-lipped, spine-chilling smiles. "Losing Agent Francis would prove unnecessarily stressful to you and the baby."

It takes all of her willpower not to launch herself at the glass. As if this was ever about her. If she weren't pregnant, she's not sure they'd still be alive by now. Liv bites back on the urge to tell him exactly what she thinks of him, though – for Charlie. She needs to play this right. And if it means remembering her acting experience from over there, and swallowing most of her pride and her anger, then so be it.

"It would, Sir," she says and forces a vulnerable tremble into her voice. "We need him here with us."

Bishop unlaces his fingers from in front of him to clasp his hands behind his back, which straightens his posture impossibly more. He looks calm but his eyes are full of a sub-zero fire when he says, silky-smooth, "Of course, Olivia. Anything you need." He knows. He knows she's bluffing but he also knows that she might be right. He can't risk denying her wish and it galls him.

Liv feels like punching her fist in the air in victory but holds back.

"You understand that the information about the cure will remain classified."

"I do, Sir." It's easy to read between the lines: She must never tell Charlie where the cure came from, that she brought it over with her. Bishop may think he's getting back at her that way, but she's not a child anymore. All she cares about is getting Charlie back to normal, and spider-free for good. She doesn't need to be his hero, she just wants him back with her and Linc.

Right on cue, the door to the cell opens and Linc stumbles in. He's at her side with three long steps and folds around her. He smells of sour sweat and disinfectant and warm skin and she nearly gasps when her brain latches on to all the places he's touching her. The thrum of discontent and hunger that vibrated inside her since he left the cell recedes a little. She pulls him into a sitting position and climbs onto his lap so their chests are touching and she can feel him breathe. His hands snake under the scrub top and come to rest on her back, warm and dry against her sweaty skin. They're trembling.

Liv is still very aware of Bishop watching them even if Linc isn't. She shoots Bishop one last look, then presses her face against the side of Linc's neck and pulls him closer, concentrates on the way his breathing evens out.

He's muttering, so soft, against her hair, warm breath puffing against her scalp, "It's not enough, not enough, we need more." He feels it too. They need Charlie.

She hears Foster exclaim, "Mr. Secretary!"

Foster's voice is drowned out by Casares saying, "I have the report you asked for, Sir."

It grows silent after that.

Liv clings to Linc and hopes that Bishop will have the cure for Charlie developed soon because their heartbeats aren't slowing down and she has a feeling that she's right. That even touching Linc from head to toe won't be enough eventually.

***

It's nearly eight p.m. by the time that Casares and Dimaguiba appear in front of the window again. Liv can't believe that this whole mess started only this morning. It feels like days passed. The lack of Charlie's presence is getting harder and harder to take. She can hear Linc's heart beating fast and erratic, her own is synched with his.

"Looks like you're right." Casares' voice comes over the speaker. "They all need to be in skin contact with each other." So Liv's argument to persuade Bishop had actually been valid. It would feel like more of a victory if Charlie were with them.

"The readings are conclusive," Dimaguiba confirms.

"Good thing Foster is such a whiz when it comes to bugs, huh?"

Liv's heart does a double take and she feels Linc's fingertips press harder into her back. She's glad he's always cutting his nails extremely short, or she'd be having eight bloody half moons on her lower back now. "Charlie?" Linc whispers into the crook of her shoulder.

"I'm buying Foster rounds for the rest of her life if she – "

The door opens with a hiss and then Charlie's in the room with them. He looks like death warmed over but he's standing on his own two feet and there's no sign of pain anymore. Unless Foster worked a miracle, Liv's plan must have worked out. Bishop had let himself be blackmailed.

"Always cuddling without me," Charlie complains, his voice even raspier than usual.

"Well, some of us were busy flirting with pretty doctors," Linc says and the words glide down Liv's back, "Liv and me had some life-saving to do."

"Yeah, yeah, always the heroes." Charlie grins and it looks almost normal except for the hunger lingering in his eyes.

"Get your ass over here, Francis," Liv orders and points toward Linc's back before placing her hand back against Linc's skin and trailing the knobs of Linc's spine. Charlie's gaze follows her hand. "Cuddle. Now."

Charlie rolls his eyes. "So bossy."

"You have no idea."

Liv turns, Linc spoons around her back, and Charlie moves closer so his chest pressed against hers and his forehead rests against her collarbones. He hooks his leg over her and Linc's calves and it's like a circuit has been closed. Something hums between them on a level deep enough it can't be articulated, but Liv knows that this is it. They're healing, breath by breath. It might take a while, but as long as they don't let go of each other, they'll be all right.

***

"Has anyone figured out what got us into this whole mess in the first place?" Charlie asks what feels like hours later.

"Casares and Dimaguiba talked about it," Linc says. "You didn't hear?"

"Bit busy with my spiders at the time."

"One of vials we fell on contained a compound that reduced the oxytocin levels in our blood to almost zero. As a charming by-product, it raised the stress hormones through the roof enough to reach lethal levels."

"Hence the aggression?"

"Yeah."

"So what the hell was it for?"

Liv knows that Linc loves the science lectures, so she leaves it to him. Besides, her voice is still raw from her earlier screaming. "According to the notes found in the lab, it was meant for warfare. The scientist who invented it didn't want to become another Fritz Haber, so he searched for something that would only be deadly if the soldiers didn't work together."

"You mean if they didn't cuddle."

"Pretty much."

"So, what you're telling me is that we've been dosed with the prototype of a hippie 'make-love-not-war' drug?" Charlie asks from where his head is pillowed against her chest.

"In a nutshell," Linc says and stretches behind her, "yeah." His chest and belly are a broad strip of warmth against her back and she presses against him to soak up the feeling of skin against skin. He hums under his breath and she smiles.

"Well," Charlie says and moves closer to her so he can reach Linc better, "it's a good thing I like you, otherwise this would be awkward."

Linc's laugh is puff of warm air against her ear. "Charlie Francis, Ladies and Gentlemen, declaring his undying love."

Charlie raises his head and blows Linc a raspberry.

"I'm still glad we weren't in the same room when they gave us the hormone earlier," Charlie says as he settles back down. "That really would have been awkward."

Liv shrugs. "I'd have had no problem with it."

"You'd … " Charlie turns his face up so he can look at her, his stubble rasping against her cleavage, his eyebrows comically trying to meet his hairline. "You'd have had no problem with having sex with us."

"Nope." It's a big, fat lie. Or, well, maybe more of a brag. "I trust you and neither of you is completely hideous … " She smirks as she trails off.

"Gee, thanks."

Liv shrugs again. She's relaxed now, ready to banter. "Better than strangers, right?"

"I suppose."

"Come on, don't tell me you never thought about it."

"You and me?" Charlie says. He moves his head from side to side slowly; his chin is like sandpaper against her skin. His pupils are wider than before. "I'm fond of all my limbs attached, so I'll give you no more than a definite maybe." His hand tightening on her hip belies his words. Liv feels his touch race through her and is surprised to find herself imagining it more deliberate.

Charlie's gaze slides to Linc. "Me and Linc?" A grin flickers over Charlie's face and crinkles the corners of his eyes. "You've seen his ass, right?" Liv knows that Charlie is bisexual, and Charlie's never had a problem with showing his affection for both her and Linc. He's kept it in check, though, never once tipped the balance to where they couldn't go back to a normal working relationship or friendship. It's the first time she ever hears him acknowledge what has been plausibly denied before. Liv feels a jolt go through Linc's body when Charlie pinches his ass and Linc slaps his hand in retaliation.

"All three of us together?" Charlie sucks in a breath and releases it in a puff that skitters over her collarbones. "Not going to answer that." He rubs the inside of his wrist against his hipbone and settles back against her chest. Liv feels the controlled exhalation against her skin. "It's moot anyway." A drunken late-night confession Liv has heard: Charlie hasn't been with anyone since the arachnids. He's terrified he'll infect any potential partner.

"Have you thought about it?" Linc, who's been on the sidelines of this conversation until now, asks. His voice sounds a little too jovial. He's also put some distance between her and him. It's not soon enough to hide the twitch of his cock against her ass. She fights the urge to press back against him, to show him he's not alone in his reaction. The subject of their conversation and a pretty active imagination have her a little wet herself.

"Sure." It's a lie. In the past, she's entertained thoughts of herself with each of them individually, but never together. She's glad that they don't call her bluff.

"Really," Charlie says. "Huh." He, too, moves away from her a little. Subtle, they both aren't.

"And?" Linc asks. His voice is tightly controlled, but she knows him well enough to hear the waver underneath.

Oh, Linc. So ready to run into a perceived open sword.

She rolls to her back and pushes up to her elbows so she can look at them both. "I imagined sexier circumstances than all of us nearly dying, Charlie half-way on his way to doing a Kafka and you recovering from a broken wrist and your face looking …" she trails off and bites her lip when she scans Linc's face for the first time under sane circumstances.

The bruises have mostly healed, but there are subtle discolorations there.

Dimaguiba had said that high levels of stress hormones could lead to memory loss, but she remembers what she did only too clearly. Every hit, every blow, every one of his pained grunts. She remembers the look of shock and betrayal on his face. Remembers the moment when she heard him cry out in pain in the next cell and the thought that she had done permanent damage. "I'm sorry," she says and raises her hand to touch Linc's cheekbone. She moves slowly, doesn't know what she'll do if he should twitch back. "I never meant to – "

Thankfully, Linc winks at her and rests his face against her hand. His smile is warm against her hand. "Sure you have, many times."

Liv strokes her hand along his cheek, careful, gentle. His stubble doesn't rasp against her skin like Charlie's did, it's longer. Softer. Just like Linc. She's not ready for a quip, needs him to understand that she's serious about the apology, so she says, "Doesn't mean I should have."

"And I shouldn't have called Secretary Bishop a bastard." Linc shrugs and moves away from her hand. "Still did though."

Liv can't help the laughter bubbling up. "Extenuating circumstances?" she asks and offers her hand to Linc.

He takes it. "Yup."

Next to them, Charlie is grinning. She's glad to see he's shaken the dejected fugue. "You're like school kids after a fight in the playground."

"Takes one to know one," Liv volleys back with a raised eyebrow.

"I wonder how our counterparts would have handled the situation," Linc muses.

It's an obvious diversion, but Liv goes with it. "With a lot of angsting," she says and smirks.

"And nowhere near as coolly as we did," Charlie says. "Nowhere as completely as we did, either, seeing that my counterpart is dead."

That still rubs Liv wrong but she's not ready to think about the picture with the tealight candle in front of it that the other Olivia had of the other Charlie in her living room or about the fact that she really nearly lost her Charlie and Linc today. She's so glad to have them close enough to touch right now. It saves her from having to find them and clutch them to her to save her from drowning in the quagmire of relief and fear. Charlie's all right now. He doesn't know yet, but he's all right. She can't wait for the moment in which he finds out that the arachnids are history, but she plays the role Bishop expects of her. "Aren't we lucky that we still have you and your spiders?"

"Yes, you are." Charlie gives her waist a rough squeeze. They go back and forth a little, her squirming and trying to break his hold, him giving as good as he gets, until --

"Charlie." There's a warning tone in Linc's voice.

Charlie lets go of her with a sharp intake of breath.

She pushes up on her elbows and looks from Charlie to Linc and back again, confused. "What?"

"I guess I shouldn't …" Charlie gestures toward her belly and doesn't meet her eyes. "Probably shouldn't play as rough as I'm used to."

Oh. Oh.

She doesn't want to, but she guesses they need to have this conversation now.

Liv pushes up and moves so they're sitting at a triangle and she can look at both of them. She heaves a sigh, then soldiers on. "Guys, I want you to listen to me: I'm pregnant, not fragile. This changes nothing. No, don't give me that look, Lincoln Lee." She pins Linc with a glare. "It changes nothing. I'm not even sure I can keep it."

Something flickers over Charlie's face and she wants to slap herself. Charlie had been in a relationship when he'd been infected with the arachnids. The relationship ended eventually, Liv hadn't known why and didn't pry. Much later, one night, drunk out of his skull, Charlie had told them that his girlfriend had been pregnant. She'd decided in favor of an abortion. He'd found out weeks after the fact and it had broken something in him. She knows Charlie always wanted a family, a kid. Liv understands the girlfriend but dislikes her on principle because of the look on Charlie's face that night. With the arachnids in his blood and no cure in sight, his chances of ever having a kid likely ended with his girlfriend's decision. "I'm not talking abortion," she clarifies. "I'm six weeks, and these days, most natural pregnancies never even make it into the twelfth week." It's a sad fact of the 21st century and the reason, expensive as it is, accelerated pregnancy is on the rise. Too many risk factors in the first weeks mean that birth rates are at an all time low. Acceleration helps leaping over the first trimester risks.

Charlie nods and reaches for her hand and squeezes it. "If anyone can do it, you can."

Except she can't, can she? VPE runs in the family. Rachel died from it, along with her baby. She's not going to mention it to Charlie, but she might not have a choice if she wants to live.

Liv forces herself to smile. "Thanks, Charlie."

"Six weeks," Linc says and she can tell that his mind is racing around that number, tracing the last weeks, calculating. "That's …"

"Yes," she acknowledges.

"So Frank …"

"Is not the father."

She gives him credit for not asking what is so clearly on the tip of his tongue, but she knows she needs to give him, give them, something. "I was stupid, okay? I was at a bar and it was late." It's the same lie she's told her mother. It's easier to use the second time around. "Frank and I had had a fight before he left for Texas. I was lonely. The guy was cute." Images of Peter Bishop's smile flash in front of her mind's eye, she feels his mouth on her collarbone and the weight of his arm as he pulled her close in bed, the focused playfulness of his lovemaking, the slip-slide of the mission mingling with emotions. She has to close her eyes and hopes that it's congruent with the lie she's spinning. "I'm not proud of it. It just … happened." When she opens her eyes again, she catches Charlie's frown. "Yes, mother, we used condoms. Turns out, they're not as reliable as you'd think."

It's not something she needs to tell Charlie, just something she needs Linc to hear. That was another part of his drunken confession about the no sex rule. Charlie knows that condoms can't be trusted 100 percent. He doesn't even take that chance.

"A guy at a bar?" Linc echoes. He looks down at his hands so she can't see the expression on his face. "You don't even drink."

She bends forward, puts her index finger under Linc's chin and lifts it so he's forced to look at her. His eyes look bluer in the cold halogen light of the quarantine cell. "I wasn't there to drink. I was there to pick up a guy. Any guy. All I wanted was a quick tumble."

"Funny," Linc says and his gaze flickers away from her, "earlier, you said that sex would be easier with someone you – "

"I know what I said," she interrupts him. "And I mean it. That night, it was different. I was using that guy." She nudges his chin with her index finger again. "Lincoln, look at me: I wouldn't use you like that. Ever."

"Because I'm important, huh?" Linc's voice drips sarcasm and she wishes he had more of a poker face.

He is. He doesn't see it, doesn't know it, but he is. It's not that she's ignorant to the way he feels about her. She never has been. It's just that before, there was Frank, and despite the very real, latent attraction she has always felt toward Linc, she never acknowledged it. Letting him know that she knew how he felt while she was with Frank would have been cruel. It was easier to stop herself from feeling, to stop herself from noticing, if she didn't admit she did either. As long as she didn't put what there was always between them into words, then it wasn't real. And things that aren't real can't hurt, right? Of course, his devotion to her has always been very real to him and it's clear how much her confession is hurting him. So much for her theory.

Charlie saves her from having to answer by flicking Linc across the back of his head. "Read between the lines, moron: She just told you that she loves you."

Charlie says it lightly, as if it's a joke, but it's true. She loves them both. She's never said it out loud, never thought she needed to, but she does.

Linc visibly pulls himself together. "What, and you don't?" he asks in Charlie's direction.

"Like a hole in the head," Charlie replies, deadpan – and smirks.

"So, are we good?" Liv asks, desperate to close the subject. The question encompasses everything: her confession, the situation, the future.

"All in the hippie spirit, everyone loving each other, yeah, yeah." Charlie rolls his eyes. He's not as blasé as he acts, but Liv is grateful for his attempt at levity. "Can we go back to the cuddling now? My spiders are getting restless."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," Linc says and Liv is glad to hear that he sounds normal again.

Charlie winks at him. "And the guys."

If everything goes right, he won't be saying it to anyone anymore soon, Liv thinks. It's hard to bite her lip.

She pulls Charlie and Linc down to her left and right again and lets herself drift in the feeling of their touch healing the rest of whatever it was the compound broke. Linc's hand rests on her bare belly, idly stroking. Charlie's hand covers his. Together, they resume the movement.

***

In the end, it takes eight hours of direct skin-to-skin contact until their oxytocin levels are back to normal and the other hormone levels stay steady. The sounds of the people around them and the feeling of being constantly watched stops Liv from relaxing fully. She dozes, but doesn't sleep, so when the all clear comes, she's tired beyond belief. Charlie is whisked off to the hospital by bug girl Foster who is constantly chattering about wanting to check up on him. Liv thinks that she'd probably rather check him out but that pun sounds lame even in her own ears and she knows that she's done for when she can't pun anymore.

On the drive home, she's a traffic menace. It's a good thing it's the middle of the night and the streets are emptied out. She's glad when she makes it home, can close the door behind her and get to bed. She barely manages to get out of her clothes before she face-plants on the mattress. Strangely enough, she doesn't fall asleep the way she'd thought she would. She lies still with her eyes closed, breathing slow and evenly for a few minutes and listens to the muted noises of cars going past the apartment block, the clicking noises of the radiators and the sound of her neighbor upstairs taking a late night shower before he leaves for work. It's the first time she doesn't miss Frank's presence.

Whom she does miss, though, are Charlie and Linc. They're cured, she knows, she's seen the test results and she hasn't felt any aggressive urges since they said goodbye either, but it feels as if she's not at home in her skin any longer, as if it's too tight somehow. A hollow ache settles under her breastbone and she hates that they each went to their places for the night. Well, not each of them, seeing that Charlie's in the hospital still. It would look insane if she showed up for a visit at three in the morning, wouldn't it?

She has no idea how she's supposed to say this without making a complete fool of herself, but she wants them close again. Just to touch them, to feel the contentment and the regained sense of self she's felt in those eight hours in the quarantine cell. A contentment she hasn't known since she last slept next to Frank, before she went over to the other side, before she slept with Peter. It feels like there's a hole inside of her, like a vortex swirling faster and faster, trying to pull her in.

She doesn't find much sleep that night.

***