A/N My first Fringe Fic! I couldn't help it after seeing the finale. This is a spoiler by the way, so if you don't want to know what happens, don't read this.
She knew it the moment Etta reached Peter's arms. He smiled like he didn't have a care in the world. He spun their amazing daughter round and round, but he didn't look confused or disoriented. He didn't remember, and if he didn't now, he never would. Maybe it was better that way.
The year 2036 had changed Peter, and she didn't want to find out if he could cope with the future that could have been. Losing his daughter twice, even in another timeline, could very well destroy him.
Seeing Henrietta again filled her heart with joy. The little girl was perfection personified. Olivia smiled, knowing that their would be no invaders to take her daughter away from her. The moment of the invasion had passed. She wouldn't have to feel that hopelessness again as she fruitlessly searched the world for her child.
She was a bad mother. Her inability to get attached to people and consequently her daughter proved that. She loved Etta to pieces. She had from the moment she found out she was pregnant.
Olivia gave Henrietta everything she wanted, spoiled her, trying to compensate for that lacking connection. She took care of her and yet there was always this feeling in the back of her mind.
She could deal with Henrietta dying. The though left her feeling cold as she watched her husband and child play in the park. She could see the joy radiating of the two, but she felt detached. This was not her world.
The three timelines in her head, no matter how quickly the previous two were fading, made her feel fake. It wasn't uncommon for her to confuse one with the other. She used to have Peter to help her untangle them, but this time she was the only one who remembered.
She wondered what Walter and Michael were doing, if they were alright in the future. She looked at Peter and tried to figure out where Walter had gone to according to this timeline, but couldn't find anything about his fate in the messed up memories.
Flashes of an older Etta shot across her closed eyelids. The happy little girl had grown up in war and had inherited Olivia's worst qualities. Her indifference had been used to torture and kill enemies without guilt. Her stubbornness had caused Etta to erase herself and force them to flee.
When Etta had first disappeared, on this very day in another timeline, she had joined Peter in his search, but she had been able to distance herself from her child. She had been able to think clearly, rationally, while Peter had been blinded by his loss and grieve. It had barely effected her. Olivia had been indifferent. She knew her daughter was out there somewhere, but it didn't bother her, not when millions were gone, and she could help them all.
So they had gone their separate ways. She had gone to Walter and helped him with his plan while Peter searched for their child.
She had thought of Etta everyday, but never took the time to search for her again. She looked at the wall with missing persons everyday and watched as hysterical family members and friends searched for them, gave up everything else. That feeling never hit her. It never reached her brain and geared her into action. Her grieve was silent and effective. She promised herself that when the plan worked she would find her daughter, but until then she had a world to save.
And when Etta died, she just wanted to win the war. Peter's obsession with revenge, how far he had been willing to go, awoke that pain in her, but her mind won. Her heart was locked up and silenced.
She would win the war and finish what Etta started. She distanced herself again. This time she couldn't do it automatically, so she locked away the memories one by one. She banished them to the back of her head, the bullet around her neck reminding her that when this was finished, there were memories left in that space in her mind.
So when the wormhole opened, and she was losing to Windmark, being thrown around, she had forgotten what she was fighting for. That was when the bullet, of which even Captain Windmark knew the meaning, caught her eye. She remembered why she was fighting. For loss and innocence, for freedom and love. For Etta.
And now she was the only one to remember. Year after year she watched Etta grow up. She did everything she ever wanted to do. She went to the park on weekends, took weekdays of work to take Etta swimming. She went to other countries on vacation with her little family, always trying to remember that she hadn't been there already in this timeline.
Etta was different. She wasn't hardened by war or loss. Didn't have the drive she got by spending all those years looking for her parents. They were a normal family, and Olivia just didn't feel like she fit in. But she stayed, because she loved them, and they her, and that was enough.
And then one day, she saw it. A thirteen-year-old Henrietta came downstairs, fiddling with her necklace. Olivia watched her daughter, trying to figure out which one Etta would be wearing today, when she saw it.
The-bullet-that-saved-the-world hung around the teenager's neck. Olivia tilted her head to the side and met her child's eyes. A new awareness shone in them that hadn't been there yesterday.
She knew it was wrong, but joy flooded her veins. The Etta she had known in 2036 was still there. Even though she had never wanted her daughter to be war-worn, it felt wrong to try to love a second version of her daughter, the wrong version.
That made her a bad mother, she knew that, but she couldn't help it. She had kept silent for eight long years, but she would finally be able to tell her Etta that they'd succeeded, that her death had meant something.
So when Peter left for work, leaving her to bring Etta to school, she pulled her daughter into a long hug and held her tighter than she had in years, and the smaller arms squeezed back just as tightly.
"We won, Etta," she whispered victoriously.
"I know, mom, I know."