Secrets and Lies

Disclaimer: I do not own Fringe or any of its brilliant characters. I am merely borrowing them for the purpose of entertainment, and promise to return them in (mostly) pristine condition.

He knows that the key to any relationship is always sharing, because at the end of the day sharing breeds trust, and there is no relationship that will truly flourish without trust. It seems trite, but it's unavoidable; secrets and lies live in the darkness and if they accumulate than they can extinguish the light of any relationship and leave the people involved fighting in the blackness that they create. And it is a universal truth, appropriate for all relationships; lovers, co-workers, parents and children, and whatever term would be used to classify his relationship with Olivia.

They are not partners; not quite, as he is not an FBI agent (and he is most definitely not John Scott, a man who, after pulling Olivia's seizure-ridden body out of the tank she wouldn't have been in if it wasn't for Agent Scott he can say that he hates, just a little bit and for reasons that not even he wants to think about), but they are friends, and so he knows that keeping too many secrets from her will kill that friendship. Despite that, there are things that Peter Bishop will never tell Olivia Dunham, because he wants her to see him as a good man, and he's not she would if she knew them. The nature of a man is a telling thing, after all, painted into reality by what he does and he doesn't want Olivia to see that the canvas of his life is mostly one of dark shadows and twisted, mangled shapes.

As such, he will never tell her about the time he nearly went to visit his father in St. Claire's right after his mother died, just so that he could watch the pain dawn his father's eyes. He didn't end up going; instead he hit a dive ten miles from the hospital and drowned his sorrows in alcohol and a woman whose name he didn't remember in the morning when he asked her to leave. He also won't tell her that the reason he'd stopped at that bar wasn't because he'd had a last minute change of heart and had decided to spare his father the hurt, but rather because he'd had a flat tire and he hadn't wanted to walk the rest of the way.

He won't tell her that the only reason that he fudged his way into MIT was because he wanted to one up his father, and that the only reason that he left was because in the middle of one chemistry lab he'd suddenly seen exactly why his father had been so seduced by science, and as soon as he had he'd run as far as he could from it in the hopes that he'd be able to fuck up enough that he'd never be tempted again (he hadn't wanted to understand his father, he wanted to hate him and MIT had put him closer to forgiveness than he had been comfortable with). Nor will he tell her about the fact that he really hadn't had to lie his way into MIT: he'd actually received an acceptance letter and a full ride in the mail when he was 18 that he'd burned as he imagined his father's dreams for him going up in the smoke.

Neither will he tell her about the real reason he was in Afghanistan when she blackmailed him into releasing his father from St. Claire's. He won't tell her about the smell of blood and death, about harsh voices screaming hatred, and about sitting around a bar with soldiers all reminiscing about the great things they had at home and how he'd stayed silent at his turn, because the only thing he had been able to think about was how he was about as far away from becoming his father as he could be. He also won't tell her how, after she'd revealed that she hadn't known anything about him; that her inference had come from looking at his face instead of a file on every misdeed he'd ever done, his whole chest had lightened, as if a great weight had been lifted off it and that he could breathe again, because she didn't know, and how later he had realized that feeling had not been prompted by a desire for privacy but because there was still a chance she could see him as a good man.

Still, Olivia is a perceptive woman, and he's knows that there is a chance she will figure them out on her own and that if she does, there is a chance she won't judge him to harshly. They are friends after all, and close ones at that and with friendship comes forgiveness and while they are not a business partnership they are a partnership of sorts; one that never really should have been (he owes his father that, and he's finding that almost makes up for all the shit his father put him through; something that makes him less angry than it would have in the past) but that he wouldn't trade for the world. And he knows that she has her own skeletons in her own closet; her step-father, John Scott and others that she hides and that he has yet to figure out on his own, and so there is a chance that if she knew him; all of him, she wouldn't turn away.

This however he will definitely not tell her; this he will do everything in his power to make sure she doesn't find out on her own, using those eyes that see far too much already. She's too fragile now; the pain of John Scott still to fresh and with the fear of a war of the worlds looming on the horizon, he knows that right now she needs stability or she's likely to go insane. She needs Walter to be crazy and brilliant, Broyles to be dark and stabilizing, Astrid to be youthful and supportive and she needs him to be sarcastic but caring: she needs him to be a friend, nothing more, nothing less. She needs him to be the Peter that she knows, not the one that she doesn't.

And so that is why he decides, laying on a medical bed sweaty and tired and looking up at the beauty of her face he'll never tell her; he'll never let her know that yes, although the virus had wanted to get out it had been indiscriminate; uncaring of who it infected. It had been Peter who had wanted Olivia; Peter who had searched Olivia out while the virus had burned in him and while others had been unable to do more than bang at windows. Peter who had pressed his body against hers and slammed her against the wall while they fought, holding her there for longer than was strictly necessary; Peter who had kept the virus from infecting her when it had so desperately wanted to get out.

Peter, who still wants her as she looks down at him, an angel offering forgiveness that he isn't sure he deserves. And so this is why he stays silent when she speaks to him; this is why he will accept her olive branch with a smile that is a lie in itself (a suppression of the truth, disguised with the shifting of a few facial muscles) and this is what he will keep a secret (not forever, he hopes, but until she's ready to know it).

He had been exactly himself.

A/N: This came to me after I watched "What Lies Beneath," which I loved but which left me wondering why Peter hadn't sprayed Olivia with the virus when they had been in the basement. And so, to answer that particular question, I wrote this, which ended up being much more serious and angsty than I had planned (oops), and a bit more of a character study of Peter than I had intended. Enjoy, and feel free to review with constructive criticism or what have you.