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wizardofahz · 2 years

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Time's Favorite Superhero

Fandoms: Fringe, 12 Monkeys A/N: Happy 10th end-of-Fringe-aversary! This was written in Cassie's POV, but hopefully it should be readable to 12 Monkeys and Fringe fans alike.

Cassie takes in the lab before her. It was not what she'd imagined, old-fashioned as it is, when the FBI had come to her for help. She had expected something fancier, high-tech, because despite how much government agencies enjoyed griping about their budgets, surely the elite teams got the latest and greatest, right?

Behind them, their FBI guide slips away. A different FBI agent approaches. "Hi. I'm Agent Olivia Dunham with the F--"

"Woah," Jennifer draws out in a long exhale before exclaiming, "Hey, Otter Eyes!" Given their close proximity, Cole jerks back at the volume. "I found someone Time likes as much as you." Jennifer turns back to Agent Dunham with dual finger guns. "You gotta die, but Time will always find a way to bring you back."

"Jennifer!" Cassie scolds. She knows holding the entire timeline in her head is difficult for Jennifer, but she also hoped Jennifer would know better than to talk to people about their deaths by now.

Jennifer observes Agent Dunham carefully.

"Spoiler alert?" she says more contemplatively than guiltily. If Cassie had to guess, Jennifer is sorting through the timeline and double checking which events have already happened.

In the background, an older man in a lab coat leans into the younger man beside him and asks, "Is she an Observer?"

Agent Dunham has clearly experienced her share of weirdness. She barely reacts beyond a quirked eyebrow, and her voice is dry when she responds, "By all accounts, I have died a couple times."

"Right on!" Jennifer cheers as if Coach Time had drawn up a brilliant play and Agent Dunham followed through with a crowd-rousing dunk. She holds up a hand, asking for a high-five that Agent Dunham doesn't seem inclined to reciprocate.

To save them all from further awkwardness, Cassie sticks her hand out in Agent Dunham's direction. "I'm Dr. Cassandra Railly, a virologist with the CDC, but you can call me Cassie."

Jennifer pouts when Agent Dunham reaches for Cassie's hand instead of her own.

Between Jennifer's eccentricities and Cole's lingering post-apocalyptic gremlin social skills, Cassie decides to make the rest of the introductions herself. "That is Jennifer Goines, CEO of the Markridge Group, and this is James Cole."

Agent Dunham's gaze settles on Jennifer, reappraising, then lands on Cole. "And what's your role?"

Cole shrugs. "I just have a vested interest in making sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again."

"Again?"

"You know how it is," Cassie steps in. No one needs to know about the pandemic-induced apocalypse they broke time to fix. "Humanity likes repeating history, pandemics included."

"Oh yes," the older man says, sounding entirely too excited.

"This is Dr. Walter Bishop" -- Agent Dunham says, quickly cutting off what Cassie can only assume is Dr. Bishop's incoming pathogenic fanfare -- "and Peter Bishop."

She doesn't expand on Peter Bishop's credentials, but there's clearly a familial resemblance. It seems theirs is not the only family in the world-saving business.

Speaking of families.

Still pouting from the rejection, Jennifer turns her frustration on Cassie.

"I can practically hear Frau Grandma when you say my name like that. 'Ms. Goines,'" she says in mimicry of Jones' disapproving voice, then in Cassie's, "Jennifer."

Agent Dunham clears her throat, a noise bordering on impatience, and begins debriefing Cassie's contingent on the weaponized virus the Fringe team found. The situation is relatively contained at the moment, but they want a cure developed in case of a potential breach.

Cassie and Jennifer join the Bishops in tackling the problem. Agent Dunham sits to the side, occasionally watching and asking questions, but mostly reviewing whatever case evidence they have.

Cole also situates himself elsewhere, antsy with nothing to do. His eyes flit towards Agent Dunham often. She's the only one with a gun and therefore the biggest potential threat, but Cassie notes an underlying curiosity, probably wondering what also made her special in Time's eyes.

Cassie would be curious too, but she has bigger fish to fry. Actually, no. Wrong animal. Because as pressing as another global pandemic is, her most immediate concern is herding cats, super genius cats with an infinite capacity and penchant for chaos. The synergy of Walter and Jennifer is frankly too much for one person to handle.

Peter helps of course. He's friendly and personable, but more importantly he's familiar with Walter's quirks in the same way that Cassie is familiar with Jennifer's. When dealing with such unique minds though, familiarity can only get them so far.

Walter sends Peter in the direction of some shelves and demands a stabilizing agent. "Quickly, Peter!"

"How am I supposed to find it when nothing is organized?" Peter asks with an exasperated petulance only a son could achieve.

"Everything is organized," Walter grumbles. "Where is Astrid? She would know where it is."

Jennifer bites her lip as she carefully pipettes 3 mL from a beaker raised to eye level. Task successfully completed, she responds, "On honeymoon with her wife."

Peter pauses his search and frowns. "How did you know that?"

"Hello???" Jennifer flings her arms out, and Cassie quickly grabs the beaker from her hand. "Primary! Give me yellow and I can paint you the world! Speaking of which, I never got them a present. Do they want a unicorn?"

Cassie doesn't bring up the fact that Jennifer doesn't even know this Astrid, not personally anyway. "Focus," is all she says.

"I want a unicorn," Walter says, focusing on the wrong thing.

"Walter."

Agent Dunham's curt, no-nonsense tone proves the most effective at getting everyone to focus on the problem at hand. Cassie gives her an appreciative nod.

They get in a few hours of productive work before Walter starts wandering around his lab and rifling through his own things.

Peter sighs. "What are you looking for now?"

"My stash of Brown Betty."

Cassie has no idea what that is, but the injection of disapproval, or is it alarm, in Peter's voice has her paying more attention. "No, absolutely not."

"We have been working on this for days," Walter protests. "I need to reset my mind, open it up to a new perspective."

"That's why Olivia brought in Dr. Railly and her team."

"Chill, dude," Jennifer says, once again dipping into her omniscience and leaving Cassie behind. "It's not like he's suggesting we break out the LSD."

Oh, they're talking about drugs.

Oh.

Oh no.

Dealing with Walter and Jennifer sober is already a lot. Cassie is absolutely not up for dealing with them on hallucinogenics.

"What about a food break?" Cassie suggests.

"That's a good idea," Agent Dunham says, and what she says goes.

They end up getting burgers and wraps. Cole ignores their cow's protests and digs right in.

(Right, because they have a cow… Maybe their cow is like Jennifer's turtle. Who knows? Certainly not Cassie.)

"Why yellow?" Walter asks Jennifer. "I merely ask to ascertain which set of primary colors you abide by. You mentioned painting, which leads me to believe your primary system is completed with blue and red, rather than cyan and magenta."

The two talk about Primaries and the Observers that Walter mentioned earlier.

Cassie is happy to let their discussion wash over her until Walter says, "We've had our own dabblings with primary colors of course, but RGB like the cones in our eyes. A simple pattern to induce hypnosis. Green, green, green, red. Green, green, green, red."

Walter's voice morphs into Olivia Kirschner's, ringing in Cassie's ears.

You're walking through a red forest, and the grass is tall. It's just rained. Most of the blood has washed away.

In front of her eyes, a green forest ends, making way for a clearing of tall grass. The scene flashes, green turning to red.

Cassie can't stop her tense voice from wobbling just a little. "Can we not?"

Cole takes a break from ravishing his cheeseburger to give her a look of concern. She waves him off.

Sufficiently rejuvenated after their food break, the scientists get back to work. Heat-shock proteins show the most promise for a treatment strategy, but they find that the virus adapts quickly to rising temperatures. If they can "speed up a fever" and surprise the virus with a high temperature before it can adapt, they might get a culture to produce the immune response they need.

That's a big if.

Brow furrowed and eyes closed, Cassie pinches the bridge of her nose. "There's no way we can instantaneously jump the solution to the right temperature. You might as well be asking for spontaneous human combustion."

"Yes!" Walter claps his hands together. "Olivia!"

"Yes!" Jennifer echoes. She puts on a dramatic voice as if narrating an action movie trailer. "Time for Time's favorite superhero." Then she snorts with laughter. "Ha! Time for Time..."

"No," Agent Dunham says, and to Cassie's surprise, she's reluctant instead of dismissive.

"I'm sorry, superhero?" Cole asks, tone mostly disbelieving but also a little put out.

So Cassie was right. He had been sussing out the competition for Time's favorite, so to speak.

"Don't worry, Otter Eyes," Jennifer says. "You're still Time's favorite non-superhero."

"I don't know how to--" Agent Dunham gestures vaguely at the equipment in front of them.

"You use your powers more than you know," Jennifer says, unusually gentle. "It's why I like being around you. You're so determined, you force Time and all its possibilities to chill. If you can dream a better world, you can make a better world. Makes things a little quieter." She taps the side of her head.

"So what exactly is your superpower?" Cole asks Agent Dunham.

But it's Walter who announces proudly, "Telekinesis."

"What, like making things move around?" Cole continues skeptically. "How is that going to help with your virus thing?"

"Olivia's powers can work at the molecular and even the particle level."

Cassie turns to Agent Dunham as understanding dawns. "So you can direct the speed of the solvent molecules, which will give us the exact temperature we need."

"But I can't control it." The impenetrable aura of Agent Dunham is buckling now, self-doubt making itself known. "Give me a dying patient and then maybe it'll happen, but I can't do it by just staring at a petri dish."

"Hmm." Jennifer taps her chin in thought. "Like the light box bomb."

"We are not attaching a bomb to any of this," Peter growls.

Cassie doesn't know what a light box bomb is or how it relates to the situation, but she does know that Agent Dunham is looking increasingly uncomfortable.

"Hey," she says, approaching Agent Dunham in her least threatening manner. "Do you have somewhere more private we can go? Why don't you come with me, and we'll figure it out."

Cassie doesn't know if her words are all that compelling -- she knows less about the other woman's powers than most in the room -- but Agent Dunham seems to appreciate the opportunity to escape. She gives Cassie a brief nod and then leads her to an adjoining office space.

Agent Dunham isn't exactly the most talkative character, and under stressful circumstances, that seems to hold even more true. Cassie finds herself having to speak first.

"What's your preferred breathing technique when firing a gun?"

The non-sequitur proves effective at pulling Agent Dunham out of her funk. Her eyes snap to Cassie's. "Excuse me?"

"You know: respiratory pause, half-hold; that kind of thing."

"You shoot?"

"It's not a skill that I thought I'd ever pick up, but--" Cassie shrugs. "Life has a way of twisting things around."

She nearly mentions what a good shot she is, how she's better than Cole, who taught her, but then she figures that would probably make Agent Dunham nervous about leaving him with the Bishops.

"The reason I ask," Cassie continues, "is that maybe we can borrow something you're familiar with and transfer it to getting your powers working when you want them to, make it feel more natural."

They work through it that way. One step at a time, seeing what works for Agent Dunham and what doesn't. They borrow other pieces of shooting advice, such as "squeeze, don't pull" for fine-tuned control.

It's still slow going, but they get there in the end. Agent Dunham manages enough control to activate a few test-retest cultures, and the scientists find a potential cure ready for human testing if the need ever arises.

"Thank you for your help," Agent Dunham says as the visitors prepare to leave, and Cassie knows she's talking about more than just the virus.

"I'm glad it worked out," Cassie says, also talking about more than just the virus.

"Auf wiedersehen, Time's favorite superhero," Jennifer says, suddenly appearing and draping an arm around each woman. She tells Agent Dunham, "Tell Astrid she'll have a unicorn waiting for her when she gets back. Would you like a unicorn too? You are after all, a unicorn, among humans."

"I would still like a unicorn," Walter says.

"Three unicorns coming right up," Jennifer crows cheerfully.

"Say good-bye, Jennifer," Cassie says. She'll have to warn Agent Dunham that the unicorns are very real.

She doesn't miss Agent Dunham's grateful look as she drags Jennifer away.

#12 monkeys #cassandra railly #jennifer goines #fringefox #olivia dunham #walter bishop #fringe #some ideas need time to develop roasting slowly over a rotating spit #and some crash into being like a series of bumper car collisions #this was the latter #anyway one day nina tries to recruit jones to massive dynamic #i can't tell if that'll be good or bad for the world #but either way it'll be a 'watch out world' moment #ahzy writes

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