as_damaged | ☎ voicemail [v 2.0]

Olivia's exhausted enough to admit that she's pretty damn desperate to be pounding on some stranger's door too-early in the morning. Considering that Olivia doesn't even know her neighbors back home, after living there for more than three years, it's undoubtedly an exception.

"I'm so sorry," she replies in a low voice, loud enough to penetrate the door.

Dressed in a large grey t-shirt with her hair down, Olivia at least doesn't look like she's some three-o-clock bandit. She's all tense about this, right hand balled into her fist, lips tightly drawn into a flat line, stance rigid. Waking someone up at this time is unmistakeably rude, but the reason for her visit should be pretty apparent. Just glance at the dark burrows under her eyes, the unmistakable bruises from a lost battle with sleep.

"I wouldn't be knocking if I didn't have to," she takes a breath, "Do you have any NyQuil? Sleeping pills?"

The sensible thing to do-- the safe thing-- would be to turn around and go back to bed. In fact the smart thing would have been to ignore the knocking entirely, but it's far too late for that. As wary as she's become in the City, Cameron decides to give the stranger the benefit of the doubt.

More or less.

"Just a moment."

There's a long pause before she unlocks the door, opening it a crack.

"What's wrong?"

'I can't sleep' sounds like something a kid would confess to their parents after rudely waking them up. It's definitely not good enough for a wake-up call this early.

"I don't plan on making this a habit, I promise," she explains.

Olivia smiles weakly, pushing her hair out of her face.

"I haven't slept in three days, and I'm not sure any of the drug stores are open."

To her credit, the woman looks every bit as tired as she claims. Which gives her some credibility; and so Cameron softens, slightly. Enough to let the door open a little bit more, though she doesn't invite her in.

"How long have you been here?"

In the City, or the building, either way. She assumes this must be a newcomer. Is it the ticking, she wonders, or merely the strangeness? Really, Olivia's lucky to have chosen a doctor's door... or perhaps not, since she's not likely to turn anything over without talking through it first.

"Three days," Olivia replies, then quickly rushes into her next statement, "I want to let you get back to sleep. Really. This is honestly inexcusable. Just, if you happen to have anything."

Olivia wants nothing but for the awkwardness of this midnight interlude to end, with the little patience she has worn down to the bone. Her weak smile is still there, a halfhearted attempt to appear harmless.

"I'll make it up to you," she offers.

She shakes her head slightly, not to say no but to slow the conversation down.

"Three days, I understand why you're in a hurry. I just can't in good conscience-- without asking. Are you-- or were you, on any medications at home?"

A pause.

"I'm a doctor." Maybe that would have been better to lead with; she raises a hand to rub at her eyes, too awake now to go right back to bed anyway. Bleary, she steps back.

"Would you like to come in?"

"Coincidence?"

Olivia doesn't fight Cameron's requirements, and nods to her in a silent acquiescence. She understand rules and protocols as any government agent would, so if this is what it takes for a night's sleep, then she'll follow along.

"Hopefully you don't get this a lot," she jokes, hesitantly following the doctor in, "Neighbors taking advantage of their next-door doctor."

"It's why I don't put out a shingle," she replies in what is a remarkably friendly tone for a woman woken up at three in the morning. Once Olivia passes her she locks up, shrugging the loose sweater she threw on over her pyjamas back onto one shoulder.

"Water?" She's going to the kitchen anyway to get her own, and nods towards the living room in case Olivia would like to have a seat. At any reasonable hour she'd offer tea, something, but these are the circumstances in which they find themselves.

"So," she asks again, taking a step towards the kitchen, "any medications?"

Olivia declines politely with a quiet 'no,' not hesitating to take a seat on the couch. The long, sleepless hours reveal themselves in the tired sag of her shoulder at rest, the shadow of frustration that seems to be registered permanently on her features. She's thankful, though--something that's difficult to say when you're kindapped a dimension away. She's thankful that this venture into another universe has yielded an experience less traumatic than the time before, with people who, all around, seem generally kind, helpful and equally as lost.

"No prescriptions," she pauses, "I took some aspirin a few hours ago. Does that count?"

She offers another weak smile when Cameron joins in her in the living room.

She shakes her head at that, having a sip of water as she settles into a chair. Three a.m. or not, she sets it on a coaster.

"So your sleeping problems are new."

Tick tick. The only real upshot to being woken up is that the company dulls the sound, more effectively than the cat can.

"Working in law enforcement doesn't lend itself to regular sleep schedules."

She catches Cameron's gaze as she speaks, simultaneously making mental notes about the doctor. Her attention to detail is unavoidable.

"I hadn't been sleeping well for a few months back home, but it's never gotten this bad-- three days."

It's mutual, this careful observation, though their reasons differ slightly. What they share, perhaps, is the slight wariness.

If she were being fair, Cameron might reason that there's not likely to be much harm in giving her a single dose of sleeping pills, but under the circumstances she's worried about... not setting precedent, exactly, but attending to symptoms without a thought to the cause.

"Are you living alone, here?"

To say that she's living here means admitting to herself that her stay in the City is more than just a temporary, anomalous event. Olivia's denied the thought of no exit since the moment she arrived. To think that she'll have to wait to solve the mystery of that device, or to think-- how long will it be until she can see Peter?

It was only three days ago that they woke together in the sunlight.

The smallest frown appears ephemeral on her features.

"For now."

She nods, very slightly, settling back in her chair. There's a lot you can glean from a conversation like that; living alone so quickly suggests she hasn't found anyone she knows here, or at least no one she trusts. Nor does she care to try her luck with strangers. It's an attitude Cameron, alone in her home here for most of three years, can sympathize with.

"Under the circumstances-- arriving in an unfamiliar place, not to mention the City's unusual qualities-- some trouble sleeping doesn't seem particularly unusual."

"People here seem to handle it well," she replies, "How long have you been here?"

Then again, even when people find themselves presented with the preternatural, human resilience always manages to win out. People are able to adapt to the absurd, to rationalize the impossible until they're able to come to terms with it. Olivia's last few years in the Fringe division are testament enough.

"Is there anyone here from your world?"

"A little less than three years. Some of my colleagues were already here, when I arrived."

And more had followed, though that doesn't seem relevant now. Still she's alone here, which says something about her (not that Olivia knows that much.)

"Yours?"

Olivia shakes her head, glancing downwards at the carpet. Quiet for a second, she looks almost immediately.

"Three years."

She doesn't add anything else, but the shock that sits on her words tells Cameron everything she needs to know.

It would be funny if it weren't sad. Quirking the corner of her lip, she can't help but make it worse. After all, Olivia ought to know what the odds are.

"My boss had already been here for years, then."

To hear the truth, however difficult it may be, is something that Olivia always appreciates. The truth is efficient, while lies lead to complications.

She wrings her hands together. A nervous tick translated from the storm of thoughts now coursing through her mind. Does time really stop? If not, then what? What will happen to Peter? Her world?

"Is it true what they say, about time stopping," she pauses, clenching her jaw, "How certain is it?"

This is perhaps the only bit of reassuring news she has, and while Olivia tenses, Cameron relaxes.

"It's difficult to be sure of anything," she begins slowly, hedging only because she doesn't like to claim certainty when the City's greatest constant is change. "But I've never heard of anyone finding it otherwise. My colleagues-- none of us came from the exact same moment, in our own world, and none of us have noticed others missing from reality due to our stays here."

Olivia could question whether Cameron's colleagues are truly the colleagues from her world, or if they actually come from different, parallel universes and are just unaware of it. With all the uncertainty that comes with this place, it could be the case. But Olivia doesn't mention it for the sake of government confidentiality agreements and not giving the impression that she's absolutely insane.

Instead Olivia just claps her hands tighter, pressing her lips into a line. They could talk about this for hours.

"I don't meant to be rude, but," she pauses, looking up at Cameron, "I'd really like to sleep."

"Of course," she says, and stands. "Just a moment."

Cameron heads off to the bathroom, and comes back with a couple of pills in the palm of her hand, which she holds out to Olivia with the faintest trace of a wry smile.

"For tonight. If this is a regular thing... well, come by the hospital, and ask for me."

☎ voicemail [v 2.0]

seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state;

seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state;

seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state;

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seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state;

seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state;

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seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state;

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seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state;

seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state;

seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state;