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[flip_the_lights]

Well.

This is...unexpected.

This isn't anything like good, either, judging by Olivia's expression: an open mix of wariness and curiosity she makes no effort to hide. She glances over her shoulder to look at her apartment, turns back to the bar, then takes a slow step over the threshold. Brushing red hair aside, she touches a thick black cuff on her left ear.

"Fringe, this is Dunham," she says, low.

No response. Olivia looks up, tapping the cuff a little harder. "Fringe, come in."

Nothing.

"Shit," she mutters, and immediately drops her hand to a small aerosol can at her belt. At least she's already dressed, wearing her usual form-fitting leather clothes that reveal a slash of red fabric at her chest, and not, say, walking around the apartment in her underwear. Even better than a breach right outside her door? Would be facing that breach in nothing but a bra.



[ooc: mun is still pretty wiped from the election last night, so slowtimes may occur without warning. post is open until I say it's not!]

Comments

[flip_the_lights]

"FBI?"

Turns out Olivia is really good at pulling off the askance look.

"Uh, no. DoD. The FBI folded almost ten years ago."

Seriously, where has this guy been? Did he get stranded on the moon? (Not that that'd explain it -- she knows they get TV reception up on the moon just as clearly as they get it in New York.)

[nerves_of_ice]

"Ten--"

He sits back in his chair; makes himself sit back in his chair, thinking furiously and hoping it doesn't show on his face even as he goes with gut instinct.

"I don't get what's going on here."

And that has the ring of absolute truth.

[flip_the_lights]

"Yeah, me neither."

Still light. Still coupled with that sharp, scrutinizing look that he's occasionally seen on the other Olivia's face.

"How do you know me, Jim?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"From here," he says, as the waitrat returns with their drinks and squeaks for attention.

"We met here. Which you clearly don't remember."

[flip_the_lights]

A beat. For a second, Olivia's face is oddly blank.

And then she smiles -- it's a whole lot sharper this time, much more humorless -- and says, "Let me guess. Blonde hair?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He accepts the drinks and sets them both on the table, but doesn't look away from her.

"Yes." A beat. "That means something?"

[flip_the_lights]

"How many times have you see her here?"

For now, she ignores Jim's question as she pulls her tea close to her.

[nerves_of_ice]

"A few," he says, quietly. "Why?"

[flip_the_lights]

"We met pretty recently."

The sharp, humorless smile hasn't faded.

"Kind of surprised you thought we were the same person."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Except for the hair and the clothes, you look a lot like her," he points out. "You have the same name. You work for Fringe Division."

Bucky himself is a lot more tense than he was a few seconds ago. The last time he'd seen Olivia smile like that--

Beat.

"What do you mean, you met?"

[flip_the_lights]

"She's from the universe next door to mine," says Olivia. "She ripped a hole in my world trying to get over here."

Just one more of many caused by the people Over There.

[nerves_of_ice]

"She wouldn't do that."

Instant and certain.

[flip_the_lights]

"You sure about that?"

She props her chin in one hand, the curiosity all facetious now.

[nerves_of_ice]

"I am."

A single beat.

"Why aren't you?"

[flip_the_lights]

"Because that's the only way to get between worlds," she says, quite patient. "You can't just -- "

(allow the universe to pass right through you)

" -- teleport between the two like it's nothing."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Uh-huh."

The look she's getting now is extremely skeptical.

"So how did you get here, then?"

[flip_the_lights]

"Hell if I know."

There's a faint rigidity to her calm now.

"Figure it's a new variation on all the standard anomalies that keep cropping up."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Standard anomalies?"

[flip_the_lights]

"All the fun little rips and tears in the fabric of reality my world's been dealing with for twenty-five years."

She tilts her head.

"All of which started from another time they tried to cross over."

[nerves_of_ice]

Twenty-five years.

"It happened when I was a child. That's how I gained the abilities I have."

"Someone did something to you. When you were just a kid. And it wasn't your choice."

"What happened then?"

He looks as concerned as he sounds.

It's not even a stretch. The more they talk, the more worried Bucky's getting.

[flip_the_lights]

It's classified, she wants to say, but her mouth has other ideas.

"They kidnapped Secretary Bishop's son," she says instead. (This is classified, this is classified, but the way he's looking at her, and the tiny instinctual blip in the back of her mind that labels him as a friend -- ) "The other Walter Bishop raised him as his own."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Son-of-a-"

He cuts himself off there.

"The other Bishop? "

Stall; gather information; figure out what to do with it once he's got it.

[flip_the_lights]

"Yeah."

That sharp, askance look comes back.

"Don't tell me you met him here, too?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head.

"Does he come here?"

[flip_the_lights]

"I wouldn't know." Calmly. "Secretary Bishop never mentioned this spot in any of his debriefings."