kind of a song-fic but not...lyrics are borrowed from 'Almost Lover' by A Fine Frenzy; if you haven't heard it yet, get to it, her voice is hypnotizing.
reviews/comments/critiques welcomed with open arms!

"Reasons"

She's clinging to the girl, afraid that if she lets go a shadow on the wall will reach out and snatch her away. And it could, in this fucked up world of Fringe science. The boogey-man in the closet probably does exist, and with her luck he has an inter-dimensional device that lets him sneak into the rooms of little boys and girls so he can abduct them from their beds, whisk them away for strange injections and obscene experiments.
But maybe that's just Walter.
Olivia's eyes are crackling with the words Never Again.

Ella snuggles against her aunt's chest, the furious pounding of the woman's heart frightening her more than the strange man who tried to pick her up from school today. He'd seemed nice, she'd argued, and he'd known mom's password.
Olivia shakily tells the girl there will be no more passwords. She'll talk to Rachael.

Aunt 'Liv's friend – colleague, she calls him stiffly – approaches cautiously, takes a seat on the bench beside the rattled agent. He smiles swimmingly at Ella, but the girl can see the concern laced in his eyes. All the grown-ups have been looking at her, like that.
Except the funny old man. He'd smiled and laughed heartily while he pricked her finger – for a small blood sample, he said – her aunt looming like a storm cloud in the background. He'd been there too, her friend, and he'd lightly taken the woman's hand, uttered something about 'she'll be fine.'
The look that had earned him would have encased lesser men in ice.
An hour later, the tests are definitive: nothing abnormal. Ella is fine.
Olivia is still shaking.

Ella twists in her aunt's arms, looking up into stormy eyes.
"Aunt 'Liv, when can we go home?"
"Soon, baby…" she murmurs into the girl's hair. She plants a soft kiss there, and pulls the girl closer, closes her eyes and prays to any god listening that she'll wake up and none of this will be real. Because if it is, then someone has her backed into a corner, and they have their eye on the only goddamn thing left she cares about in this world.
The friend – Peter? – lays a tentative hand on her aunt's back, and the concern in his eyes has multiplied a dozen-fold.
"He's going over the blood work again, but anything more in-depth is going to take some time…"
She nods silently, stares off into some void somewhere between this reality and her breaking heart.

"Aunt 'Liv," the girl whines suddenly, "it was just a glass of water!"
The agent's eyes sting. It's always just a glass of water, or a two dollar fucking bill.
Someday her mother will have to tell her that a drink at the bar isn't always just a drink.

The girl tires of the tension and the anger, lays her head on her aunt's shoulder with a heavy sigh.
"Sing me something?"

The request clearly surprises the weary agent, and she glances sheepishly at the man sitting beside her. He smiles encouragingly, amusement flitting across his face, and she tries to bury her embarrassment in the girl's hair.
"Ella…"
"Please, Aunt 'Liv? Sitting here is boring. And your voice is pretty."

The woman shakes her head, smile half relief and half defeat.
"I wouldn't know what to sing, honey." She glances again at the man seated beside her. "And besides, you don't really want your aunt to embarrass herself in front of her colleague, do you?"

"Does that mean 'friend'?" the girl pipes.
Olivia smiles broadly, favorably at the man beside her, then at Ella.
"Yes. That's exactly what it means."

Peter squeezes her shoulder gently, and takes the opportunity to excuse himself. When his solid figure disappears around the hall corner, Ella murmurs furtively into her aunt's ear.
"Will you sing for me now?"
Olivia realizes she can't say no to those bright, innocent eyes.

"Okay," she whispers, mimicking the girl's covert antics, "what should I sing?"
The girl contemplates for a moment, and the woman swears that it's the cutest 'thinking' look she's ever seen.
Much cuter than mad-scientist deliberations or brooding genius reflections, she decides.
Ella smiles up at her aunt. "The song you sing when you're looking in the mirror."
Her aunt's puzzled expression tells her she needs to clarify.

"The one you sing while you brush your hair."
The frazzled agent takes a moment to recollect what exactly the girl is recalling.
When she brushed her hair this morning…
Something flickers through those stormy eyes, something like what Ella sees in her mother's eyes when anyone mentions her father.

"That song? Are you sure?"
Ella nods affirmatively. She knows her aunt has never caught her watching, but when her aunt sings to herself, when she thinks no-one is looking, it's both beautiful and sad.
The best way the girl knows to describe it is snowfall in winter.

Olivia nods slowly as Ella nestles into her neck, and begins to hum. This turns slowly to quietly murmured words, and the girl finds herself lost in the enchanting melody she's heard uttered gently so many times before.

"Your fingertips across my skin,
The palm trees swaying in the wind,
Images…
You sang me Spanish lullabies,
The sweetest sadness in your eyes,
Clever trick…"

The girl wraps her arms tightly about her aunt, closes her eyes.

"Well, I never want to see, you unhappy,
I thought you'd want the same, for me…
Goodbye, my almost lover,
Goodbye, my hopeless dream.
I'm trying not to think about you,
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance,
My back is turned on you.
Should've known you'd bring me heartache,
Almost lovers always, do…"

She tries to imagine the man, this girl of green and sprightly years. Tries to picture the reason her aunt's voice sounds so sad.

"We walked along a crowded street,
You took my hand and danced with me.
Images…
And when you left, you kissed my lips,
You told me you would never, never forget
These images…

No…"

The woman's voice winds delicately, dancing softly through each line and touching each word with a cool kiss. Her voice grows stronger as the song progresses, and Ella's eyes flutter open, blinking away snowflakes as the tone takes on a subtle harshness, the edgy chill of winter.

"I cannot go to the ocean,
I cannot drive the streets at night,
I cannot wake up in the morning,
Without you on my mind.
So you're gone and I'm haunted,
And I bet you are just…"

Ella's eyes widen slightly as her aunt hesitates, and she can feel the way her heart turns over in her chest. A sharp breath leaves her wondering if she shouldn't have picked this song.

"…fine.
Did I make it that
Easy, to walk right in and out…
Of my life?"

The words are barely whispered, choking back hard-battled emotions.
A silent spectator just around the corner allows himself a hushed sigh, all too aware of the way the woman's voice cracks just slightly.

"Goodbye, my almost lover…
Goodbye, my hopeless dream…
I'm trying not to think about you,
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance,
My back is turned on you…
Should have known you'd bring me heartache,
Almost lovers always…do…"

The pair is silent for several moments, the girl contemplating the question flitting in her head.
In the end, innocent curiosity wins over.
"Aunt 'Liv? Who do you sing it for?"

The agent stills, heart thumping abnormally in her chest.
"Someone special."

"Who is he?" the girl presses, eyeing her aunt carefully.
Olivia smiles at the young girl, feigning cheerfulness, but the tears are already brimming in her eyes.
"Someone I miss…very much."

Ella leans in close enough to whisper, "Like mom misses dad?"
The woman pulls the girl close, hiccups a single sob into her niece's hair.
"Yes. Exactly like that."

When Peter noisily rounds the corner, clomping feet and whistle announcing his presence, the disheveled agent rubs aggressively at her eyes.
"Peter!" The girl bounces off her aunt's lap and into the sweeping arms of this man who makes her aunt and mother smile. He twirls her around once, twice, before placing her with a distinct tennis-shoe squeak on the linoleum floor.
"Did you hear her? Did you hear Aunt 'Liv? Isn't her voice pretty?"
"Nope, I missed it," he lies charmingly. Olivia is still dabbing furiously at her eyes when she glances up at him. "But maybe someday I'll be graced with such a lovely concerto."
By all appearances his expression is jovial, playful, but the agent catches a flicker of something else, a hint of grey she can't place. The trace is gone before she can name it.

Peter bends down to murmur something in Ella's ear, and Olivia vaguely catches 'the crazy old man' and 'candy' – she has to resist the sick laugh that the connotation, out of context, conjures – before Ella exclaims with excitement and rushes toward the lab doors.
She hesitates when the grown-ups fail to follow, but Peter smoothly assures her he just needs to speak with her aunt a moment.
The girl smiles and ducks into the bowels of madness.

Olivia feels a familiar hand on her shoulder.

"Everything okay?"
When she glances up, an array of questions litter the creases at his eyes, but his smile is gentle and she knows he's breaching the chasm as carefully as he can.
He seats himself beside her as she runs an errant hand through her hair.

"Yeah…I'm alright."
Doubt and concern cast a darker hue amid the tempest blue sea in his eyes, but she's straightening her resolve and he knows she's not going to budge.
Her hurt betrays her at a very slight brush of fingertips across her own, and she cringes.

"Olivia…"
"I know," she mutters. She's not ready to tell him that she does, in fact, need him – needs anyone – to wrap strong arms around her and tell her everything is going to be alright.
"Just making sure you haven't forgotten," he murmurs.

She closes her eyes and nods her acknowledgement, her appreciation, as a warm hand rubs slow circles over her back.
Ella is her world now, her reason to make sure the boogey-man stays locked in his goddamn closet. Her heart still bleeds for the one other reason she lost.
As stray fingers gently caress a strand of flaxen hair, she passively wonders if her list of reasons can possibly grow.