Amurehna

Every time I watch through Fringe, my subconscious focuses on Olivia's discovery of her ability to cross to the alternate universe, and how she became trapped there. Then usually jumps to the part where Peter is erased from the timeline but traces of him continue to exist in the minds of those closest to him.
My subconscious seems to have a thing for them heh heh.

In the dream I am the equivalent of Astrid but in this version of Reality I was a cortexaphan subject like Olivia. My ability was similar to hers but while hers was to cross to the other universe, I couldn't cross but could create a bridge. Allowing anyone without an ability to cross, or I could lessen the cost of crossing.
So, I went with her to the other side and witnessed her capture and reconditioning but I remained outside of the story. When I finally met her again she found a way to cast me back to our universe, interrupting the storyline of the show where Fauxlivia had infiltrated our group and instead caused Fauxlivia's early incarceration.
In Olivia's absence, Peter and I became close. On the cusp of being more.
Olivia's return happens in the backyard of my childhood home. It's all washed out, wintry. There's a shift in our dynamic but no one wants to talk about it. Peter's attention has shifted from Olivia to me, and she is bitter because it never would have happened if she hadn't sent me back first.
There's a lapse. I'm leaving my apartment. This part is confusing. I promise Peter that we will go somewhere first but we have to be quick because I have work. I get into the back of the car because just as we are leaving Olivia climbs into the passenger seat. Peter is driving so I ask where we are going, he says he'll drop me off at work. I argue that I'll still need my car to leave work later, and that we should go to get that first. He has an easy-going manner, lazily talking over me.
"No really, just drop me off at my car..."
"Don't worry, you'll get where you need to go."
"Please, just listen to me for two seconds..."
"It'll be fine, everything will work out..."
Then suddenly he isn't driving, Olivia is driving from the passenger seat? Olivia accelerates and Peter falls back, clutching the back of his seat and the door, still smugly iterating that everything will be fine and I need to relax. His own seat is laying almost flat against the back seats. I'm crouching on the ridiculously spacious floorboard in the back, arguing with him.
On a whim I walk to Peter and lean down over him.
I tell him to shut up and bravely bridge the gap that neither of us could before, I kiss him firmly on the mouth to ensure his shutting up.
He sits there blankly, not moving. I worry I have made a mistake and embarrassed, I retreat to the other side of the stupidly spacious car.
"Sorry. I shouldn't have done that." I give him an excuse and space enough to ignore my rude action. Should he wish to. Of course he'll wish to.

Then he is there, standing over me. Damn dashing in his dark red button-up and black vest. He smiles a little and tells me I've misunderstood his shock. He tilts my chin upward so I must meet his eyes, and in sync he drops to his knees as I rise smoothly to mine and we smile a little as he presses his mouth to mine. It's an odd, distant sort of lucidity. I can feel his mouth. His shoulder under my hand as I draw him closer. It feels familiar somehow.
My body molds to his, straddling his thigh. Half lucidity does me a disservice, making his mouth too wet, drawing every second of the kiss out, the scrape of teeth on tongue. I ignore it.

Then I am suddenly aware of Olivia looking at us from the passenger seat. I break the kiss, it is incredibly rude to make out with someone while his once-time girl sits watching.
She smiles and bitingly says, "Don't stop on my account. I know how...charming he can be."
I flush, embarrassed.
"I'm sorry, you know I didn't intend..." I begin, turning toward her.
"Didn't intend what?" Olivia asks.
"I know that you two were supposed to..." I can't finish. I feel like I've stolen something from her and don't even have the decency to acknowledge the theft. "This wouldn't have happened if you didn't send me back sooner."
She smiles a little, she's beautiful even in her bitterness, with her dangerously red lips.
I look to Peter who has retreated to the other side of the car.
Olivia leans forward to kiss my neck and I am so overwrought already that I...react. She pulls away and I fluidly turn to give her a slow kiss. There's so much in this small, stupid scene. She feels brittle and sad and distant, mindlessly pursuing oblivion. I think about offering to share him with her. You know, together, but I think she would be insulted so I keep it to myself.

At length we come to a city square that reminds me of Italy. Except it is distant and empty like a ruin. It's full of stupid restaurants? We observe them with equal amounts of puzzlement and amusement, because they revolve around Suddenly Salad. *snorts, then cackles a little*
"That's an unprecedented number of restaurants." Peter says, frowning down at a patio table, like all the ones around it it has a plate of the stupid Suddenly Salad mix.
"Yeah, it's a little excessive, isn't it?" I say with a laugh.

At first I'm at work, Lowe's. Walking the one aisle that is mine It's a huge mess and I'm offended that some stupid person has wrecked it and that I have to clean up after them. Then I realize that the PSAs are doing a reset, and for some absurd reason we're selling mattresses now. I look at the bay, unsure what to do with it now. Why are the mattresses even HERE? Why are there pillows scattered everywhere? Do I clean them up? Or wait until the reset is done?

Then I am in my childhood home in Blackstone MA. It's the latest hour of the night, the house is dark, and I'm looking down at a random assortment of objects on a dresser top. I think about returning the ring to my ex, like he has asked, and feel a very distant, cold pain when I realize he is dead and has been for a few weeks. (The dead part, isn't true, at least.) And, returning the ring is no longer an issue, I feel relieved and also guilty for feeling better, that I don't have to think about it anymore.
Seamlessly the story changes, it isn't only that he is dead but that he never existed, and I'm the only one who remembers. It seems so sad to me that I'm the only one. I can't be the only one, can I? Who remembers him? I think about our dog, and wonder who has been taking care of him in my ex's absence. I should pick him up. He'll be sad now, that my ex is gone, I suppose he'll have to make do with me.
I'm in the hallway of the house. But I'm not myself. It's a really absurd Fringe crossover. I pass a man who makes a grab at me, I feel completely insane because he's trying to convince me that I'm wrong. That the person I believed existed wasn't even real.
. In the show Fringe, Olivia Dunham had a niece, Ella. I hear her talking in my head like someone has mentioned a person to her.
"Aunt Liv? Who is that?" She asks. Of course she doesn't know me, but it hurts all the same. I twist free of the man making a grab at me. I see myself in third person and for a moment I'm Olivia.
He's certain that I'm insane, because I think Olivia Dunham existed, when no one else remembers her. It seems so sad, that everyone should forget. It's a sharp, perfect pain in my chest. I twist free, making a run for the stairs leading to the front door. I know she's real, I can't have made her up.

I rarely analyze dreams when I post them, but I suppose this makes sense...after the fact. In the show, something similar happens to one of the characters, a timeline is erased along with one of the main characters. Olivia's belief that he once existed is enough to pull him from the ether into existence. So. That I see myself in third person, as Olivia and also the person believing she existed when no one else remembers...makes a sort of sense. People forget about me all the time. And just like the DCs, they don't even realize they're doing it.

Fragment 1: Songs
In the beginning of the dream I'm amused by how this song sounds like this one. I even see the music videos playing side by side, but in the dream the lyrics to Colors of the Wind are a stupidly obvious echo to the other song. I think "Did they do this on purpose?"

The Clockworks, the King and the Key-knight
Beneath the main building where I work, a tangled mess of hallways, tunnels, and offices stretch infinitely down into the earth. There are too few people to occupy the whole space, and much of it is dark and has been abandoned. I see the office from outside, the walls are a cool blue-white. The lights are dim, casting most of the hall into shadow. A door opens and I emerge from it, a woman slightly taller than me (with two others standing nearby) pats me on the shoulder and ushers me out. I'm naked to the waist, she hands me a pink hoodie to cover myself so I pull it on and zip it up. I thank her for releasing me. She smiles and walks behind me to the stairs leading to the surface.

There's a lapse. I literally drop into the scene, through the roof of the porch. There's a woman who looks a little like Olivia Dunham from Fringe crouching in the yard, she's telling a story about her father. She smiles wistfully, her hands clasped to her chest.
"That was before everything happened." She waves her hand and snow dusts the porch, the wind grows colder. Her father rolls off the roof into a drift then rises and brushes off his shoulders. A dark vaguely rectangular hole appears behind him and two men leap out, dragging him back into it.
"Before He sent his knights to take us for food. Before the Mel...Melisand...Mellisana." She says the word haltingly, like she's read it but hasn't had a reason to say it aloud. I stare at her profile, then she turns her head to look and gives me a distracted smile.
"He'll come for us until we're all gone."

I walk around the side of the house, I feel like time is running out. From this angle, the porch is actually inside and it's a hallway. The room is long with yellow walls, but not very tall. Maybe 6 foot walls? There are picture frames and mirrors hanging everywhere. There's a woman there, I recognize her as the one who gave me the hoodie.
"Now, pick a mirror and I'll paint over your reflection to improve your features." She gestures without looking at me. Out of the corner of my eye I see that she's holding a paint brush.
"I can't, you never found me a shirt when we left the tunnels."
"That's ridiculous--of course I found you a shirt."
"No really, I'm naked under this."
"Take it off anyway."
I frown doubtfully then shrug. "Okay." I take off the hoodie and stand in front of a small square mirror, a 6X6 with a thick glossy black frame. I can't clearly make out my face, but I don't necessarily look pretty. My hair is too wild and my features uneven. It doesn't matter, she'll make me pretty.
"This will be my last painting. I'm going to the ISP."
I become aware that my boyfriend is listening to me talk.
"Really? That's where Justin went." (He's one of my IWL co-workers that transferred to another store.) "He used to work in ISP before moving on, if you need help you can ask him. He's nice."
"I won't know what he looks like."
"Here, I can show you." We follow the wall, there are pictures everywhere that they posted IWL after the store meeting. I can't find the one I'm looking for and I can't even focus on the pictures for long. I can feel my boyfriend's scrutiny like he's suspicious because I mentioned a male co-worker by name. "All these pictures are of people dressed like batman. They're all Batmans. Batmen? Hahaha BAT MEN. That makes them sound like giant bats with man features." ((My subconscious is so stupid.))
All the pictures were taken at night and there are 6 or 7 men and little boys dressed up. In one a man holds out his cape out to the side with one hand, and I can just barely make out a younger man's masked face blending in with the cape. "That's the only reason he was able to hide so long, he blended right in."
Then I say, "It's weird that Justin isn't in these pictures. He really likes Batman."
The woman walks away, "Never mind, let's get you painted."

It's not really clear what happens next. A man that looks vaguely like Jaime Lannister appears. He's wearing a red-brown leather jacket and carrying a sword (of course). He herds us into the depths below the building where the King is waiting to eat us. We are surprised by his betrayal. Everything is dark except the path we walk on, it ends in a circular platform, and then across from that is a narrow walkway. The five of us huddle on the platform. Jaime is on the narrow walkway. In the middle of the sentence a giant hand reaches out of the wall behind him and plucks a large old key Attachment 4725 from the center of his back with enough force to pull him to the ground. He collapses against the wall, horrified that he has led us here.
We are comforted that he didn't do it of his own volition.

The queen has the body of a woman and ball with a clock on it for a head. She's pregnant. She's standing in a bright white room with intricate circuitry lines tracing every surface. A vaguely human-shaped creature that looks like slowly cooling lava, carrying a giant axe, leaps out of nowhere and knocks her to the ground. It raises the axe as though to kill her and the King's large hand reaches down and flicks it across the room. He helps his queen up, but cuts off her head. Her head and body work independently.
"I should have know you wouldn't let such weakness stand." She says, her voice crackling. I can feel him smiling, but can only see his hand, which holds up her head at about his eye level before he discards it.