It happens like this: Peter Bishop pulls his first con when he is sixteen years old.

Even though it is the only one he will ever regret, it is the catalyst for a long and sordid stretch of time through which all he does is lie and cheat and take things that do not belong to him. Maybe it is beginner's guilt; maybe it is because it is the only time he cheats anyone who was close to him.

But no matter how bad he feels about it, he does not give Mrs. Edwards her money back. He needs it more than she does.

It happens like this: it is 1994, and he is in living in Allston with his mother because she couldn't afford the mortgage on their house in Cambridge. Even in their new home—tiny, two bedrooms and one bath—Elizabeth still struggles with money. She drinks, all the time, and keeps getting fired from waitressing jobs; Peter would hate her, but he can't, because he would be a drunken wreck, too, given the chance.

Mrs. Edwards lives two streets down from them, drives a shiny new Lexus, and hires Peter every so often to feed her dogs when she goes on vacation; they are tiny little fuzzy things that yap at him every time they see him and try to chew on his ankles. His on and off girlfriend—Tess Amaral, whose mother is a veterinarian—says that they are miniature poodles, but he's pretty sure that they are actually just demon spawn. But whatever—she pays him five bucks a day to come over once in the morning to give them their dry food and once in the evening to give them a second helping of kibble, this time with the smelly canned stuff on top.

The con is, he supposes, not a very good one. But it works well enough that he can get electricity at his house turned back on, which means that it's a success.

He asks Tess to help because he knows that she will—these days she is wild, rebellious, untamed, nothing like how she will be in later days—and because she's the one he needs for this to work. She wants to wear a disguise, and he almost thinks about letting her until she starts thumbing through a pile of fake mustaches at the costume store.

It happens like this: one week while Mrs. Edwards is on one of her vacations, Tess borrows her mother's car, drives it to the street where Mrs. Edwards lives, and skids to a halt in front of the dog owner's house. Peter, who has been sitting dutifully on the sidewalk, springs to his feet with one of the poodles in his arms and begins yelling.

The commotion attracts the few neighbors within hearing range, and they gather around Peter, who cradles the dog—hidden from view—in his arms.

"You hit him!" he says, angrily, to Andrea, who throws her hands up in surrender.

"Baby, oh, God, I'm sorry. Look, let's drive him to my mom's vet's office, okay?"

And off they speed.

Three days later, when Mrs. Edwards returns, Peter presents her with a $600 veterinarian bill, explaining that he had to pay it out of his own pocket so that the vet could do the necessary procedure. The neighbors corroborate his story. Mrs. Edwards, who goes to a different veterinarian clinic and isn't all that bright to begin with, gives him a check for the amount he's earned watching the dogs, the vet bill, and a little extra for all of his trouble.

It happens like this: the electricity gets shut back on, and Peter realizes that he is actually good at this; "this", of course, being tricking people into giving him all that they have to lose.

What Peter regrets is that Tess winds up dragged down into this life, his life; he regrets it the moment he agrees to it. He can tell that he is cheating her of her innocence, dragging her into his lost and broken world. But she was too necessary to the plan for him to say no.

xxx

It happens like this: Peter comes down to breakfast one morning in 2011 and finds a woman that he'd wished fervently to only ever see again dead.

There is this moment when Peter is sure that he's hallucinating; he comes stumbling down the stairs of his and Walter's house, spurred into movement so early in the morning only because he's wondering why there's an empty spot where Olivia should be in his bed and where she's gotten to. The first thing he sees when he enters the kitchen is her, standing with her arms braced behind her on the counter: barefoot, wearing one of his MIT t-shirts and that pair of soft faded black jeans she reserves for her off days, the early morning light backlighting her hair so that it looks like a halo. There's that look in her eyes that spells grim determination, and that fire-bright intensity that simultaneously scares him and magnetizes him to her. She looks so perfect that it hurts him, somewhere deep in his chest.

And then he sees the guests.

There is no mistaking the woman sitting at his kitchen table; she is mostly identical to the woman that stands at his kitchen counter. He says mostly because he can finally distinguish between the two; there is something cruel about the red-headed Other's mouth, something wild and raw and dangerous about the way she holds her jaw and turns her head. And, yes, truthfully, there is less of an intensity to her; but right now, in this moment, he can't imagine why he ever thought that was a good thing. Her hair glints like fire in the morning sun, and he wants more than anything he's ever wanted before for her to be out of his house, out of his life, out of his memory.

The man sitting next to the red-headed Other has this same look of cruelty and wildness; they seem strangely similar in the way that they hold themselves. Not to say that they look bad, really, but they look like some kind of sleeping lions who—if provoked—will rise up and tear this world to shreds.

The name Lincoln Lee comes to Peter, from Olivia's reports and recounting of her time in the other universe, and it fits this man—the spiked hair, the way his mouth is curved as if any moment he might laugh at you or with you, the fact that he is cradling the other Olivia's hands protectively in his own.

They must hear him stumble to a halt in the doorway, because all three of them look up, wearing similar expressions of anguish and grief.

"Peter," says Olivia; or, rather, both of them say it. They say it at the same time, with the same inflections on the syllables, and then exchange a surprised look before hastily looking back at him.

He is speechless for a moment, and the man who is sitting at the table gives him a look that almost reads of sympathy; finally, all Peter can manage is this: "What's…What's going on?"

Neither of the women speaks; they are working admirably at not looking at one another, keeping their eyes lowered and their jaws tight. Lincoln Lee seems to realize that it falls on him to say something, but it takes him a moment to work his way up to it; he stares hard at Peter for a long moment, accusing, hateful.

So again, Peter asks angrily, "What is going on?"

It happens like this: without prelude, without build up, without any moment for Peter to prepare himself.

"She's pregnant," says Lincoln evenly, and the Other makes a tiny sound and tightens her fingers around Lincoln's.

But Peter doesn't even really comprehend this bit of the news; all he can think is that he finally has a reason for the way that he is, the way that he was. Walter—the Other Walter, his biological father—has sent a pregnant doppelganger of the woman Peter loves in a ploy to get him back. And suddenly it makes sense how well Peter can manipulate people, deceive them, get them to give him all that they have to lose; it must be in him, as some tiny scrap of DNA that belongs entirely to the other side, because there is nothing in this Walter—his Walter, his adopted father—that can so ruthlessly control people. There is a tragedy in Walter that keeps him from being able to hurt anyone else too badly.

Peter is his father's child; not some trickster god, master con, like he's always fancied himself, but the result of his alikeness to a man who wants to destroy another universe entirely in an effort to save his own.

They take all that the other people have to lose.

It happens like this: three years ago, there was nothing that Peter Bishop couldn't cheat or lie or steal his way into or out of. He was the master con; all card tricks and charming smiles and "sweetheart" this, "sweetheart" that. Divert their attention away from looking too closely at the real him so that he can rob them of whatever it is that they have to lose. He always fancied himself some kind of rogue trickster god; the wanderer, the liar, the creator, the destroyer and protector. He was transcendent, lost and found; a spirit, a messenger, a doer of good and bad equally.

And then came Olivia Dunham, with her bright green eyes and characteristic blonde ponytail; and he couldn't cheat his way from her. Not that he had tried particularly hard—at first, of course, he told himself that that she had blackmailed him, forced him into this picture of quasi-domesticity, but sooner or later he was forced to admit to himself that he could have left any time he wanted to. Running, wondering, making himself lost; this is what he's always been good at. But there is—and was, even in those early days—something, something in way that Walter looks at him and Olivia smiles at him and Astrid just sighs patiently. And what an admission this is: that he is not the trickster god bound, but the trickster god reformed.

Well; mostly reformed. But there's a place for all of that here, a happy medium; he can be the trickster, the con man, the criminal with weird connections, and have his odd little family unit.

But today—this morning, this moment—there is no hidden hand to be dealt; he stopped hiding cards up his sleeve a long time ago. There is no lie, no charming smile that can win him a way out of this. For a moment he thinks—wildly, desperately—that these last few years have been nothing but some elaborate way to trap the half-bit trickster god that he is.

It happens like this : he is drawn back into the awful reality of the moment as Lincoln Lee's lips twist into some horrible bitter smile; Lincoln says abruptly to Olivia—the blonde Olivia, Peter's Olivia: "Liv, I think your boyfriend's gone catatonic."

Her knuckles turn white as her grasp on the edge of the counter tightens, tightens; everything about her is tightening. Her lips, her jaw, the set of her shoulders.

Stupidly, unable to even begin to process this land-shaking news he has been dealt, he asks her, "Are you all right?"

The Other makes a face, almost; a sudden curl of the lips, maybe a frown or a scowl or a sneer. He can't tell; he is looking at Olivia.

And Olivia loosens slightly, albeit with a bitter and self-deprecating laugh. Slowly, she lets go of the counter and her body sways slightly as if she is one more crack in her careful impulse control away from crossing the few feet that separate them. "Am I all right? Me?"

"You're not…?" he demands, waving one hand inarticulately and trying to convey that if Olivia leaves him now he may lose himself completely; is it bad that this is his first concern? That this news will finally, irreparably, break this at times tenuous tie between him and Olivia? Because it is; this is the first fear, the reason that his heart stops suddenly.

She hesitates, but he can't blame her for that; he sees the doubt, the pain, the raw agony in her eyes, and he can't fault her that, either. This hurts her, hurts her so much, but for some reason she seems to finally understand, finally accept, just how much he needs her. "No. I'm here."

"And you—" Peter turns abruptly on the Other, feeling the instinctive rise of bile-black hatred in his throat at the sight of her. "You're sure?"

"Positive," the Other says flatly, and for some reason it is Olivia who gives her alternate a sympathetic look. "If I weren't sure, I probably wouldn't have come here behind the Secretary's back, completely destroying both of our careers." The Other's head tilts to indicate Lincoln Lee, who is still clutching her hands tightly.

"Why are you here?" he demands, more harshly than he means to. "Did you come because my father told you to?"

"Didn't I just say I didn't? Do you think he'd let me risk his precious grandchild, crossing universes?" she snaps back, standing up and shoving her chair backwards with a loud clatter. Lincoln Lee rises, too, standing beside her like the only shelter she has in this storm. "You said that there was always hope. That you had to believe there was another way. And now I have to, too, because no matter what the Secretary thinks, you're not going to leave her, are you?" The Other glances momentarily at Olivia, then back to Peter. "You won't."

For a moment, the words are heavy like unformed lead in his mouth. "I can't. I left her once, for that side, your side. And everything went to hell. I think maybe it's just better if I stay on my side of the universe."

"This isn't your side," the Other says, nastily, hatefully; and Peter wonders if this is because she is really so full of venom and disgust or because she is too afraid to deal with all of this, and instead of seeing glimmers she just sees battles to fight.

"But it is."

And that is that. Her shoulders slump in defeat, and she presses one side of her body ever-so-slightly against Lincoln Lee, who wraps an arm around her shoulders. "I think I have to be on your side, now, because this thing inside me needs a father. Find me a way to end this war. So that my baby doesn't have to see it."

"We will," says Olivia solemnly, and the Other looks up in surprise; they have this shared moment of communion, words passing unspoken between them.

Peter thinks faintly that it might still be possible for him to become a better man than his father, that they are more different than he thought. His father is the king of the deities, the tyrant; and Peter is the trickster god.

It happened like this: once upon a time, Trickster saved these worlds.

A/N: Title from the Lewis Hyde book. I thought that Peter sort of loosely fits the trickster archetype, or at least he did back in the beginning of the first season. This is long, and kind of haphazard. Thoughts?