A/N

I just remembered the word I was searching for when I posted my first Fringe fan fiction: humble. Anyway.

Since it is still snowing in Germany, I thought it was a good opportunity to post this oneshot. It is one of my few Fringe fics which isn´t as angsty, too... (Who can tell me where the word angst derives from? Because I´m pretty sure it´s German in origin^^)

And I like it a lot. I love snow.

No copyright inFringement intended.

Falling Stars

As an adult, Olivia had never stopped running long enough to wonder what she felt about the white flakes falling from the sky.

As a child, of course, she had loved snow: Playing in a white world, sliding down the slight slopes on her backside, Rachel in her trail. Hiding behind little snow fortresses they had built, throwing snowballs at each other and making snow angels… Snow had been perfect, back then.

As an adult, it definitely lacked its former kind of perfection. She had been swearing at the white mass that coated her car in the morning and made it impossible to get to work. The grey slush clung to her shoes and her jacket and the watery noise below her feet sounded hollow. But other thoughts that those about the impracticability – to say the least – of snow hadn´t crossed her mind.

Until today.

The white flakes were beautiful.

They coated the window, star-shaped crystals which melted away immediately, feeling the heat of the warm lab beyond the glass. They covered the world, the street, the plants – she couldn´t stop marveling at the single tree she could see from where she stood, its branches coated with silvery icicles. It had been snowing for a few days during the last week, then stopped. But it still had been cold enough not to melt away the last remnants of snow walls towering up at the curbs. Much to Walter´s joy, his prediction had proven to be right when it started to snow again today, unexpectedly – and Olivia found that there was one certain type of snow she loved most.

It was the soft, thin layer of snow which coated the streets, not nearly thick enough to be used as snow balls or to make a snow angel in. It was barely enough to cover the grey asphalt beyond completely and yet made the world white once again, white and pure and innocent. But that wasn´t the reason why she suddenly felt a deep affection for it.

No, the simple reason Olivia suddenly concluded she liked it most was the fact that it muffled her footsteps.

Not only muffled them, but silenced them completely and utterly. Not ever her heels were heard as she walked down the path to where Peter stood, his hands deeply hidden in his woolen jacket. He stood there, gazing at something far away she couldn´t see. She briefly wondered about it – he didn´t like rain, sought shelter of the wet element as soon as a few drops touched the ground. So why was he standing in the snow? Flakes were catching in his dark hair, not enough to coat them but enough to make it appear white for a fleeting moment. He stood absolutely still, didn´t even seem to breathe. Olivia wondered what had made him leave the comfort of the lab in first place. From what she knew, the day had been fairly easy-going: No new case. No new dead. No undead, either, whether old nor new. In her personal world of crazy scientists and mad cases, this was what defined a good day.

The snow seemed to fill Peter´s normally unfailingly correct Olivia-Radar with white noise because he didn´t hear her until she had crept up on him.

"Bloody Hell, Liv!"

He jumped so hard she couldn´t stop herself from erupting with laughter. She never had seen him being this startled before. Probably he had never actually been that surprised to see someone as he was now.

"And I didn´t even bring a snowball!"

She was still shaking with laughter. It really took him a while until he recovered from her assault. Then his expression turned into something wicked. "Just wait till you don´t expect to see me."

There truly were many uses for snow.

Oh God, I love them so much! Sigh. I´d love to hear your opinion, too...