A/N: My first stumble into Fringe-fic, dedicated to my TV Soulmate/Conserva-buddy Maggie, who awesomely lets me rant about Fringe. Now I'm not fond of Altlivia, but I am fond of Altlivia hooking up with Lincoln over Peter. Then 'Bloodlines' happened, and after a bajillion squees later, this was born.

This is how it happens:

Olivia Dunham is giving birth seven months too early on the floor of a shop in Chinatown, Lincoln Lee cradling her and a cabbie she's just met urging her to push out the accelerated baby. The pure icing on the cake to what has got to be the strangest pregnancy on record.

(She's nowhere near ready to be a mother. Twenty-four hours ago she was thinking of getting an abortion, now she's giving birth to a child she isn't even sure she wants. Irony's a bitch.)

So Lincoln's holding her, saying soft words of encouragement and promising he'll stay the whole time, reassuring Olivia that everything's going to be okay, holding her while she gives birth, hoping that somebody out there has the sense of decency to dial for an ambulance and wishing her weakened body will be able to outlast the arduous and extremely painful process of childbirth. He talks, rubs her back, lets her squeeze hand like all expectant fathers do when their wives are bringing a miracle into the world. Except he knows he's not the kid's actual father, but Lincoln has been so in love with this woman for so long that he doesn't give a damn about the baby being the Secretary's grandchild. He will be the father in its life.

"There's no place else for me to be," he says, making sure that Liv knows he'll never leave her or her baby. That was a promise he made to himself when she first told him she was pregnant and Frank had left, and he intended to keep it.

And Olivia's never looked more beautiful to him, exhausted and sweaty and nothing short of utterly terrified, lying on that floor in the shop in Chinatown while strangers gawk through the windows and frantically call 911, so when Henry begins to tell her the baby's head is showing and she clutches him closer, the words tumble out of his mouth:

I love you.

He doesn't think she hears him, she doesn't think it's real.

But it is, and after she's back from the brink of death and protectively clutches her newborn son in her arms, he just holds them closer and can't wipe the grin off his face for the most disgusting Fringe event in the world. Not even catching Charlie's worms could do that.

(The woman behind the counter and the people outside congratulate him after Olivia has been lifted into the ambulance. He's just too damn happy that she's alive to care about their misinterpreting the situation.)

She decides to bring it up at the hospital, after the doctors and nurses made sure that she and the baby are okay and that the VPE won't come back after childbirth. That there will be no 'serious complications' to Liv after giving birth on the floor of a dingy shop and not in a hospital. The way she asks him, however, makes him realize that there will be.

(Lincoln sometimes hates that about her, he really does.)

"Do you want to talk about what went down in there? What you said?" she asks him once Baby Dunham is safely nestled in his arms and Charlie is on an emergency run for ice chips and make sure her mother is settled, giving them adequate time to sort this whole mess out.

He sighs, continues to glance down at the baby as he speaks: "It was the heat of the moment, Liv. You almost died, and they just came out. I've been holding them back for so long…"

"Did you mean it when you said you loved me?" she juts in, arms twitching in a silent threat to take back her son and kick him out if he gives the wrong answer. "Did you?"

Lincoln looks her dead in the eyes, she shudders. "Every word."

(Two words, nine syllables. More than enough.)

It's after he's spent the second week in a row kipped out on her couch in his attempts to help her with the baby, heading off to work bleary-eyed with exhaustion and returning even more so but insisting that she let him take over and get a much deserved break from dealing with a screaming newborn, that she asks the question.

Not that Olivia is ungrateful for the assistance; Lincoln is the only one who can who can calm down her son enough to make sure that all of them can take at least a short nap; she just wants to know why this man, of all people, is staying behind when others have already left. Why an extremely eligible bachelor is so hell bent on caring for a baby that's not even his when her more than willing mother is a mere phone call away.

(She already knows the answer; she just needs to hear him say it to her face.)

"Why do you keep doing this? You know you don't have to," she asks, secretly hoping that he'll say those three little words she desperately wants to – oh who is she kidding, needs to – hear. The shadows flit across his face as he ponders, glancing down at the bundle in his arms when it gives a sleepy yawn and nestles further, the expression changing from wonder to tiredness to resignation to finally that face he makes when he has only a simple explanation to give her:

"Because," he states, "you need me."

(And it's not exactly what she wanted him to say, but for the first time in her relationship with Lincoln Olivia thinks yes. Yes I do.

Also, who is she to deprive her son of the only father he's ever known?)

This is how it happens:

Lincoln Lee is lying on the floor of the Secretary of Defense's office with a bullet wound to the chest, Olivia Dunham cradling him while Peter Bishop and the other Olivia Dunham chase after a madman with nothing but murder and revenge on his mind. This, for the record, will be the only time Lincoln will say that getting injured in the line of duty was worth it.

(After all, taking a bullet to save the woman you love and her – your – infant son is one of the most romantic ways to go.)

So Olivia's holding him, frantically trying to stem the flow of blood with her hands and listening to make sure that the Secretary won't come back and try to finish the job, hearing not-her voice and Peter and Charlie and both Astrids and the Secretary and other Walter and Elizabeth and her screaming son and the others fighting in the room with the machine, cringing when she hears shots being fired and Lincoln gasping for air and coughing up blood. She talks to him, gives him orders. It's what she does best when there's the threat of never-ending pain.

"Don't you dare leave me, Lincoln Lee," she gasps as the crimson patches under her hands grow larder and larger without end, "you hear? Don't you even think for a second about dying on me. The baby needs you, needs his father. Remember?" She attempts to keep her voice steady and strong, the tears threatening to spill out of her eyes and the fearful quiver in her spine fails her. He just laughs, coughs. More blood flows. "Why…would I ever…dream about leaving…you…Liv? Besides, it's not just…the baby…who needs me," he responds, his coughs punctuating every syllable.

And the tears she's been trying to hold back flow freely now, as she clutches him tighter and his shaking hand reaches up to brush them away. In that single tender moment, with yells and explosions going off around them and Lincoln beginning to slip into unconsciousness, the words tumble out of her mouth:

I love you.

She doesn't think he hears her, he doesn't think it's real.

But it is, and when the yells and gunshots intensify and there's more banging and the Secretary and other Walter and not-her voice scream "Peter, no!" she just holds him closer and wishes for a miracle. Anything to have Lincoln's eyes open and see that adoring look he gives her when he thinks she's not paying attention.

(She gets what she wants, the noises die down and a whirring begins. Then a small explosion, a larger one. Bright lights shoot behind her eyes.

Black.)

He brings it up after he gets out of surgery, after the doctors and nurses in the other universe have successfully gotten the bullet out of him and moved him off the ventilator and out of intensive care. The one she's been dreading ever since the moment it happened. His thought process is simple: they're alone (Peter and other Olivia are caring for JJ until he gets out of the hospital and they get settled), they're safe because the Secretary is finally dead, and this universe's Walter probably couldn't hurt someone even if he tried, and now is the perfect time to bring up a sensitive moment.

(Olivia sometimes hates the whole 'perfect timing' thing Lincoln has. She really does.)

"Want to talk about it?" he asks simply as she polishes off her second vanilla pudding, glancing up with a scared expression. The resigned sigh Olivia gives him as she sets down the plastic cup tell him she doesn't want to, but she will.

"If you need to know anything about what I said," she tells him as she scoots up the bed so she can look into his eyes, "just know that I meant it. Every word."

Everything happens as it should. He drags her in for a kiss, gets caught by Peter and other Olivia as they come in with JJ. Lincoln gets released, gets healed, they get jobs, a place in Boston, a life together.

Love.

(One word, four letters. More than enough.)

Fin.