AN: Hey, so this has been sitting around my computer for a while so I thought I'd finally publish it :D It's a kind of 5x08 follow up with bits of dialogue from the episode. I hope you enjoy it.~Andy
When Walter had told her what had happened between Peter and Windmark, Olivia knew she had to find him, she had find someway to reach him because at the rate he was currently going he was going to get himself killed and they had already lost far too much since they were taken out of the amber. She found him spying on Windmark. After spending hours searching for Peter, she realised she should have just looked for the monster that had killed their daughter instead. As Olivia approached her husband, she listened to his near to emotionless voice go on about trajectory and his plan to kill Windmark. She kneeled down on the wet ground beside him, looking into his once beautiful but now darkened eyes.
"Peter, I've lost you before over this and I'm not gonna let that happen again. Now your thinking is way ahead of mine, I understand that," she said, looking for any sign on emotion in his eyes. "But the fact that I am here has got nothing to do with anything except feeling and soon you're not going to be able to feel anything, not for me, not for Etta." She was desperate; she'd cut the damn tech out herself if she had to. As Peter spoke of Etta's last thoughts, telling her that she had thought about them before she'd been shot, she felt like her heart was breaking all over again. He was acting as if Etta would have wanted for him to become one of the observers.
"Etta's not gone Peter, Windmark didn't take her." She needed for Peter to understand that their daughter was still with them but he just wasn't getting the message, the way he had said she was dead made that all too clear.
"She saved my life today, with the bullet that she brought to us," Olivia began, hoping this would get through to him "She's alive inside of us. And there is nothing that Windmark can do about it because the love that we can share with her now is invulnerable to time and space, even to them." She took a breath, placing her hand on his knee "And I know that our hearts are broken and that it hurts but that's what makes us human." Olivia studied his face, searching for any sign that the man she had fallen in love with was still there.
"Emotion is our weakness." She almost laughed at that, emotion being the very thing that had driven him to do what he did, to become this.
"No, Peter, it's our strength because it's the one thing they don't have." Now, she was more than desperate, if they had any chance at completing the plan, to succeed in taking their world back, they needed Peter.
"We have to hold onto our connection with Etta, feeling what we felt for her or she dies all over again and we cannot let her be erased." She saw him start to become her Peter again, she knew she was finally get through to him as she continued, explaining how she was asking him to hold onto their daughter, their Perfect Little Soul. He had to remember that he was one of them; he wasn't one of the observers.
"I want you to listen to me, I'm not gonna lose you again, Peter, look at me. I love you." Olivia realised she had finally gotten through to him, watching as he took out a knife and cut the tech out, removing it from his hand she replaced it with the bullet, closing his hand around it. She held onto him as he collapsed into her, whispering, "I love you" to him over and over again as if it were her tether to him.
They stayed on the rooftop together for hours, neither bothering to check the time. Peter stayed quiet, his head in Olivia's lap as she gently ran her hands through his hair.
"Do you remember when Etta took her first steps?" he asked her, his voice barely above a whisper but still causing a small and rare laugh to escape her lips "that day in the yard when Rachel had brought the kids over, we hadn't even realised she was standing until we looked up and she tried to walk towards us." Olivia replied with a sad smile at the memory of a time when her beautiful daughter had still been alive and not hardened by the cruelness of the world, also taking the quiet moment to wonder what had happened to her sister, wondering whether or not her and her family were somewhere safe.
"Remember her first word?" She asked as she looked down and saw him laugh
"Gene" he nodded, remembering the day they had walked into the lab, his little girl in arms who had just pointed to the cow and yelled her name. Both of them had suspected that Etta would start speaking soon but neither of them had expected their daughter's first word to be the name of Walter's pet cow.
The two of them both knew that hey would have to leave soon, before sunrise and before the Loyalists began their morning searches of the city and they both knew that if they were still awake that Walter and Astrid would be worried.
"We should head back to the lab." Olivia whispered, helping Peter to stand and walk towards the train station, the streets were all but empty, most people having returned to their homes at curfew.
The train ride back to Boston was silent; Peter was basically asleep with his head on his wife's shoulder as she kept her arm tightly around him, the contact a constant reminder of what she still had in the cold world she was living in.
Once they had returned to the quiet lab, Walter and Astrid already asleep. Olivia lead Peter to one of the work benches, sitting him down and silently doing what she could to patch up the incision in his neck, knowing Walter would have to stitch it in the morning. Peter sat quietly, watching as she moved to stand in front of him once she was done. Taking note of the cuts that were on her face, her lifted his hand and cupped her check, smiling softly as she leant into it. Olivia just stood in front of him, revelling in the comfort of the simple gesture, placing her hand on his as a way to assure herself that this was real, that it wasn't a dream and that he was really on his way to become the man she married again.
"Remembering our wedding day?" she asked quietly, watching the smile she loved so much appear on his face as he spoke of the simple ceremony, when Etta was six months old, where Olivia finally agreed to wear a dress, Peter managed to get out of wearing Walter's purple tux and their daughter had been the perfect flower girl along with Ella.
"I know we're not the same as before" Olivia said, looking into Peters eyes, his hand still on her cheek "But we'll get there, it's just going to take some time." Peter looked at her with a small smile as he placed a gentle kiss to her lips, with their foreheads rested against one another's, Olivia closed her eyes, trying to pretend that they were at their old house and Etta was asleep in her room.
After a few minutes they pulled away from each other. Peter took her hand and lead her to the office they were using as their bedroom, pulling her onto his bed after changing out of their wet clothes, he wrapped his arms around her tightly, it was a squeeze for the two of them to fit on the small bed but they both silently agreed that this was what they needed, the contact and to be close to one another just to know that they were still there. Closing her eyes, Olivia rested her head on her husband's chest, allowing sleep to claim her just as Peter already had. Both were hoping to dream of a simpler time, to escape the cruel world and remember what they still had left.