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Butterfly	By : pip Category: 1 through F > Fringe Views: 2226 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Fringe. I do not make any money from this work of fanfiction.

Chapter List
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Author's Note: And here you have the next chapter – enjoy!
Chapter Three
The next day began with disappointment, and after all the time he'd spent awake too, annoying Peter, waiting for the dawn and for the revelations he expected the blood sample to bring. But he and Asterisk had been over and over it since they were left to themselves, and the results were conclusive. It was just blood – the victim's to be precise. Even then Walter continued to check, certain that perhaps they'd missed something, peering into the electron microscope, refusing to give up. Blood under the electron microscope had the look of candy, perhaps cherry menthol tablets. As if the thought had conjured them, the recollection of their taste spread over his tongue. Then, beside him, Astrid sighed.
It was like waking up, only the clarity of the search for some abnormality in the blood sample deserted him, leaving him floundering in the observable world. Walter turned away from the familiar security of his clipboard and looked at his assistant. Without her, he would be lost. If Peter was his go-between, she was surely his anchor to the world, and the same disappointment as he felt shone in her eyes. He wondered if she knew what those cherry sweets were, but there was something else too. He tried hard to remember, then he had it.
“You haven't slept.” It was an announcement full of reproach.
“Not a whole lot, no.” She drew in a deep breath and held it for a second, her brows drawing together. She really was very beautiful. “How can you tell?”
Reaching out to cup her face with one hand, Walter brushed a thumb on the skin below one of her eyes. It was a full, dark circle. The pills he had given her would have ensured a sound sleep, and he suddenly felt sad, because he liked Astro. Her skin was warm and soft under his touch. “You didn't trust me.” She dropped her gaze and shook her head a little, shaking his hand away in the process, her hair tickling against his palm. And after all, why should she trust him? He had spent the last seventeen years in a mental institution.
“Of course I do, Walter.”
“Really?” He didn't believe her, and it was a strange thing, but he couldn't recall ever hearing her lie before. Walter turned away, pretending to search for something, anything, prepared now to let the matter drop. For all of his capabilities in the sciences, his confidence was fragile when it came to other people and this revelation was beginning to signal a spiral of despair which would make this one of his bad days. He was pleasantly surprised when Astrid followed him, poking her head around into his line of sight, so close he could smell her perfume, understated but pleasant nevertheless. It was impossible to be upset with her.
“Really,” she said, sincerity in every line of her face. Walter smiled at her, quite unable to help it, and felt a sudden rush of vivid, misplaced enthusiasm.
“Well, there's not much else to do today, given the disappointment. You know I sleep here sometimes, in the back. You could take an hour or two off.” He wasn't aware of making the suggestion until he'd done it, and by then it was too late to take it back.
“I think that –”
Walter was so prepared for her refusal that he continued as if she hadn't begun to speak. “It's quite all right. You don't need to humour me. In fact, you probably shouldn't –”
“I am really tired,” Astrid said, cutting him off before he could start babbling. She reached beneath her lab coat and took out the bottle of pills he'd given her the night before. They exchanged conspiratorial glances.
“If I do, will you promise not to do anything while I'm asleep?” she asked. Walter held his breath, a number of possibilities racing through his head, none of which she would consent to, he was quite sure. He held up his hands in a gesture of innocence.
“I know you, Walter,” she said, clearly warning him, and he suddenly felt quite mischievous, unable to contain the smirk that twitched his lips upwards, or the knowing chuckle.
“Well, yes, I suppose you do,” he admitted without a bit of resentment. He became serious for a moment and laid a hand over his heart. He had changed. “I promise.”
“Okay...” She wandered off to get a bottle of water, and Walter returned to the electron microscope happily, willing to go through the results another couple of times on his own. She trusted him. His perception narrowed and honed to a precise beam of concentration, which was abruptly ruined by the sound of pills being shaken out of a bottle. He frowned, and then, a few moments or minutes later his concentration was broken again.
“Whoo...” Astrid sounded a little high. It didn't really suit her, and that in itself was quite surprising. “What's in these, Walter?” He smiled, happy with the compliment.
“Oh... my own blend of a few selected favourites,” he said without looking up. “Codeine, phenobarbital, chlordiazepoxide and a little sodium theopenthal.” He raised his eyes to see the effect on her. “Nice, isn't it?”
“Nice. Mmm... The truth drug?” She looked and sounded a little worried, still on her feet but swaying like some kind of strange dancer.
“It's not really a truth drug,” Walter chided her as he looked down at his work again, “it just decreases your inhibitions so that you don't lie. I included it for its anaesthetic properties.”
“S'really, really... relaxing. Walter? I think I'm going to go and sleep in your bed now.”
“All right, Aspic. I'll wake you later.”
“Do you know, I've been dreaming about being in your bed for weeks...” Walter looked up quickly to see Astrid covering her mouth with one hand, eyes wide with shock.
“You don't say,” he commented cheerfully, mildly pleased, mostly with himself. “Have you really?”
“Ha!” she said back, a little too loudly, then retreated quickly behind the door, leaving him alone to work. It was at least an hour before the full implication of her statement sunk in, and by then it was too late to ask her about it.

It must have been some time later, since he had abandoned the blood sample and was involved in investigating something else entirely, when Peter wandered into the lab and disturbed him. “Ah!” Walter exclaimed, feeling suddenly very guilty. “Peter!”
“Walter,” he greeted, smiling slightly, then nodded at Astrid. “What is Astrid doing in your arms?” Walter looked down as if he had forgotten he was carrying her. He drew in a deep breath to explain.
“Well,” he began. “You're not going to believe this, Peter, but she fell asleep!”
Peter raised his eyebrows, and his eyes twinkled. “I see. Did you help her?”
“Yes, but she wanted me to,” Walter protested, and then began to feel put upon. Why all the questions? Anyone could see he was merely concerned. “She's been having trouble resting. I was just going to see if there was some kind of cause so that I could help.” Walter nodded over to the dream machine. Peter shook his head in warning.
“She'd never forgive you. Put her back to bed, Walter.” Grumbling about being disturbed, Walter did just that, settling his sleeping assistant before coming back into the main area of the lab where Peter was waiting for him.
“What is this?” he asked immediately. “What is going on?” There were two new gurneys being wheeled into the lab, each one with a body covered by a pristine white sheet. “More victims?” There was a relish to the way he said it that made the nameless junior FBI agents stare at him, he knew that, and didn't care.
“Well, these are two heart attack victims. Only, when they came to do an autopsy, there was a little bit more to it than that,” Peter explained as Walter lifted one of the sheets.
Grimacing in distaste, he let the sheet drop. “You mean they've already been poked and prodded by an amateur? No, no, no, Peter! All the evidence will have been lost!”
“To be fair, Walter, there wasn't any evidence on the first body. Why do you think these will be different?”
Walter huffed. “Sometimes, son, the similarity is the evidence. Agent Dunham could tell you that. But now?” He threw his hands up in a futile gesture. “They've already been opened!”
Peter did a double take. “They aren't Christmas presents, Walter.”
“No, I should think not. At Christmas I want sherbet powder with a stick of liquorice. Wonderful fountains of fizzy sugar...” he said as he peered under the other sheet. “Well, well...” Walter looked up, and his searching eyes found Olivia. “Ah, there you are, Agent Dunham! Three bodies, all in their fifties, all killed in a similar manner. I take it you know what this means?”
Olivia gave a short nod, while Peter was confused, looking from one to the other. “I don't get it. What?” Because Astrid was otherwise engaged, Walter began gathering a trolley of instruments together. He actually managed quite a competent job.
“We have a serial killer, Peter! Our first!” He clapped his hands and wheeled his instruments around to the first of the two corpses. “Now that is a fine Christmas present.”
Almost as if she had heard the earlier conversation, Olivia waited for Walter to look up again. “I'm going to see if I can find any heart attacks that haven't been autopsied, before they're buried or cremated. There may be a lot more victims out there.”
“Yes, yes, a marvellous idea,” Walter said hastily, then paused, thinking. “But wait... I have something I think might help you. Whistling a jolly little tune, he began searching through drawers of equipment and old projects. “Ah-ha! Here it is!” he said, excited, pulling out something that looked like mobile bar code scanner. He'd forgotten all about this little thing, and it was only because it would come in handy now that he had remembered it. For a moment, he frowned, and looked at all the nameless things in the drawers that were open. What were they? What secrets were here, just waiting to be rediscovered and...?
“What's that?” Peter asked, breaking his train of thought and bringing him back to their current dilemma: how to find victims.
“Oh! Yes. Hold up your hand, Peter,” Walter instructed, and then waited to be obeyed. With a little difficulty, he pulled out a loop of tightly coiled copper from the device and turned it on, passing it over Peter's outstretched hand. It clicked like a Geiger Counter, and when he got to the wrist, he chuckled. “You know,” he confided, looking around at Agent Dunham, “it still reminds me of one of those games where you have to be careful not to touch the wire.”
Peter closed his eyes, and then opened them, remaining perfectly still. “I take it that it's not going to buzz if you touch me?” he asked, swallowing, staring helplessly at Olivia.
“It's a quantum super-conductive magnet, son. Probably best not to think about it!” Walter said with a kind of careless cheer that had become familiar to them all, and a slight sheen of sweat broke out on Peter's head. “There. That should do it.” Carefully, Walter drew the loop of wire back over Peter's fingers, and then switched off the device, plugging it into a nearby terminal by way of a strange data connection that looked like it was once a simple coaxial cable.
On the screen, an image came up of a skeletal hand and wrist, with muscles and tendons outlined in grey. “It still works,” Walter said with a satisfied clap, “after all this time.”
“Wait,” Peter said, clearly astounded, arms still protectively folded. “Are you telling me that back in the seventies, you invented a hand-held MRI scanner?”
Walter sneered at the device, then at himself, and waved a hand as if brushing the compliment away. “I wanted to get rid of the need for the encircling wire. I could only shrink it, using quantum particles. The technology is exactly the same. It's one of my failures, I'm afraid, but it should do for our purposes here.”
Peter and Olivia shared a look. “It's a failure,” Peter told her, and Olivia shrugged, an amused smile on her lips.
“Well, I'll take it,” Olivia said, and listened carefully as Walter instructed her in detail on use of the device, and the potential devastating effects if the wire came into contact with the subject. Peter listened too.
“Walter, you almost vaporised me?!” he exclaimed when he heard that part, and Walter became exasperated.
“I didn't do any such thing. You're still here, aren't you? What is wrong with that?”
“Happily, nothing!” Peter shouted, and yet he didn't look happy at all. Walter sighed.
“Then what are we talking about, son? I mean, do you want me to try it again?” Walter demanded, satisfied to have won the argument, whatever it was, when Peter threw up his hands and stalked out of the lab. Olivia gave him a tight smile and went after him, leaving him alone again.
Over the next half hour, Walter made a cursory examination of the bodies, then downed his tools, and went into the back to wait for Astrid to wake up, still shaking his head at Peter's behaviour.
When she eventually opened her eyes he was watching, and he continued watching while she blinked at him, her elbows pointing out as she stretched. “Walter,” she said, clearly disconcerted. “Were you watching me sleep?”
“Yes. Do you feel any better, my dear?” Something had happened that afternoon, something new and different, and it left him feeling much more present, which probably ruled out LSD as the cause.
“Yes.” Her voice was filled with satisfied, sleepy warmth, but he saw the terrified suspicion as soon as she felt it, and she sat up on the bed. “Why? What did you do?”
“Nothing!” Walter replied, hands held up in a gesture of peace until she relaxed again. “Peter came back.”
Astrid's eyes narrowed. “And he stopped you from...?”
“Nothing!” At that Walter stood up and waved his arms around. “Why must I be subject to these endless accusations?” Really! He turned away to the door.
“I'm sorry, Walter,” she said, her voice soft and warm again. “I'm always just really cranky when I wake up.”
“Although, if I was going to do anything,” he said as an aside, “I would have peeked at your dreams.”
“And...?” Astrid questioned. Walter turned around slowly. “Did you?”
“No.” He wasn't aware of the word until it left his lips, but that was all right. It was the only answer he could give. The world paused for a beat, and then carried on. “I'll leave you to gather yourself, Ashtar, but hurry! We have new autopsies to complete!”
“What fun!” she replied laconically. He walked out of the door, and when Astrid rejoined him, she seemed much more refreshed.

After the long day was over, and Peter had left him in the lab at his own request, Walter busied himself with a couple of pet projects for an hour or so. When he was sure he was alone, when he knew that Peter wasn't coming back, he turned off the lights, went and set up the small projector screen, inserted a video cassette into the machine, and sat down in silence to watch. Walter didn't smile. He just sat with his head in his hands, and watched and listened.
On the screen, Astrid was deeply asleep. Her eyes were twitching under their lids in the close up, and her head was capped by the dream machines many strange sensors and wires. It was a tool that produced a separate hypnogogic state in the consciousness of a subject so that dreams could be related while they were in progress. The picture suddenly jerked as he adjusted the camera angle, and for a moment his own giant hand passed over the screen like an ominous shadow.
“You're dreaming. What can you see?” His own voice, so deep and matter-of-fact. Actually, he didn't sound insane at all.
“You,” dreaming-Aster replied. Then, as if in realisation: “We're in the lab.”
“And what are we doing there?”
Suddenly she giggled, and even now, in perfect analogue that didn't compare at all to reality, it was one of the most wonderful sounds he'd ever heard. “You're so excited. You've discovered something important.”
“What is it?” Although he couldn't see his own image, he could hear the smile in his voice.
“The perfect recipe for lemon meringue pie,” she said.
“That would be wonderful. I wonder, my dear, can you see the ingredient list?”
Walter sat forward in his chair, the rest of the lab in darkness except for this immortalised image of his beautiful assistant, shivering in the examination chair. He held his breath, and then it happened again, and it was real, not imagined. Astrid moaned.
“What is happening now?” His own words sounded so measured, so calm, and yet how could he have known really?
“Do that again,” she demanded, a little hitch in her breath coming shortly after. “Oh, Walter...”
And then, the words he shouldn't have said, the question he shouldn't have asked because it wasn't fair. She would answer, because she was utterly defenceless, both in psychological terms and also because of the drug he had given her. Yet here he was doing it again. “Describe what I am doing.” And over the next half hour or so she did describe it, in honest and unscrupulous detail.
Walter listened in the dark to that dream, watching every changing expression on her face, the way her lips glistened in the light, and he longed to touch her. But most of all he longed to take it back. That question, and all the questions that followed, because she was so suggestible and he knew he had almost certainly made her experience his own dream. It was an invasion, and he hadn't changed. Not at all.
Yet, when it was over, he watched again, and again. And again. Walter found it impossible to look away, to give up. She was so... for those moments, she was his, and a part of him didn't care if he had stolen her secret.
To be continued...
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Butterfly