In another timeline, another life, his old girlfriend, Tess, had told him he had a bad habit of ignoring good advice, and it made him reckless. "Same old Peter," she'd said, " Playing things, fast and loose, until it's too late." Sorry, Tess, he thought, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. The tech in the back of his head was proof of that.

He'd left the Resistance interrogation room hours ago but he didn't want to go back to Harvard yet. He couldn't face them, especially Olivia. On the phone, she'd been in so much pain as she pleaded with him, through tears, to come home, and he wanted so much to hold her and tell her everything would be alright, but now…no, he couldn't face them, not yet.

As soon as he enters Etta's apartment, he can smell her shampoo in the air. In the kitchen, her half empty cup of tea in the sink is where she left it. At the dining table, the web screen shows an unfinished word game she and Astrid were playing. These are the last pieces of tangible evidence of Etta's existence and Peter gathers them up, hungrily, like a starving man.

He sinks into the sofa. He's tired and his head hurts a lot, like it could explode at any minute, and it reminds him of a case they once had, in the other timeline. Heads were exploding from the inside out. Must have felt good, he thinks and smiles bitterly. He closes his eyes and rests his head on the back of the sofa, but he can't sleep; his mind is active, maybe too active, and it's starting to scare him a little.

He sees the message com on the coffee table. Etta had left them a message once, when they'd first been back, before the Observers knew she was in the Resistance. He activates the message com and quickly searches the memory cache, his fingers trembling slightly as he goes through the files, looking for that message. When he finds it, he hesitates for a second, not sure, he can bear to see her again, but he can. He touches the screen and listens to Etta's voice fill the quiet room, and for a few seconds, their beautiful daughter is alive and smiling, and telling them not to worry, she'll be home soon. When the message ends, he touches the screen and plays it again, and again, and again. God, she was beautiful. "Was" being the operative word.

He touches the bandage on the back of his neck. The pain's not so bad now, but is that a good sign or a bad sign? Doesn't matter, he thinks. Fast and loose, that's the only way to work the plan now. He'll go back to how he used to be, before he met Olivia, before he'd wanted to change for her, for them, Olivia and Etta, his family. His "fast and loose" ways had been replaced with responsibilities like trash pick up on Wednesdays and taking Etta to daycare and packing only peach yogurt in her snack bag, because she didn't like strawberry. He'd loved it, thrived in it. Tess wouldn't have recognized him then, but now? She'd be shaking her head and saying, "Same old Peter."

Yet, it bothers him. He should have told them what he was thinking of doing. He should have discussed it with them, right? He closes his eyes because he knows the Peter that has the right answers to those questions is long gone and the Peter that's here now, the one sitting on his dead daughters couch, doesn't have time to answer because he's got to keep moving and hope it's not too late. He touches the screen and listens to Etta's message, again.