Rated: T

Spoilers: "Over There" Part 2.

Disclaimer: This is not my show. No inFRINGEment intended.

A/N: This is a companion piece to "The Waiting Room". It takes place 72 hours after the end of "Over There, Part 2". Olivia's POV. Thanks again to piratesmiley for being my beta reader.


Every time, after they had finished with her, or when she finally fell unconscious, she would wake, disoriented, hurting, with no recollection of what had occurred except for vague, fleeting memories of pain and a familiar, detached voice, asking questions. She had no idea what they wanted. In the dark, swallowing silence, she would lie, cheek pressed to the cool linoleum, the iron tang of blood in her mouth as she tallied her injuries. She liked to think that in her drugged stupor she fought back. She liked to think that she had left her mark on them, as they had left their mark on her. She had never even seen their faces.

This time, when she woke, she discovered two things.

First, she found that the right side of her face was so swollen and sticky with blood that her right eye wouldn't open at all (not that she could have seen anything in the dark). With unsteady fingers, she very gently felt her face, wincing at her own touch and as the cuff of her sleeve brushed her wrists, which were rubbed raw from being tied down. She discovered an inch-long gash on her forehead, and a puffy, split lip. Well, that's new. She ran her tongue along her teeth to make sure they were all still there. When she took a breath and the smell of blood filled her nose, suddenly she was nine again, standing in a corner, watching her step-father batter her mother. She'd scream at him to stop and he'd turn, jeer, spit ugly words. What are you gonna do about it? You want it too, you little bitch? She gritted her teeth. Unwilling to let them—or herself—think they'd broken her down, she dragged herself upright, leaning on the wall.

That was when she discovered the second new thing: there was a candy bar on the floor. The rattle and crack of the wrapper under her foot, overloud in the perpetual black silence, made her jump. She reached down slowly and gingerly picked it up, utterly perplexed. For days there had been no food, only tepid, mossy water. They wanted her weak, she'd decided. They wanted her malleable. They didn't know her at all. Admittedly, the first day in the cell she had panicked. She'd begged to be released, believing that since their Walter had a good heart, Walternate must have some good in him, too. She had learned her lesson—it wouldn't happen again. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction (though sometimes it took all of her strength to keep from howling endlessly in rage and misery).

But she was hungry, god, yes, she was hungry. She squeezed the wrapper in her fist to make it crackle, relishing in the foreign sound as it filled the noiseless cell, and leaned back to consider her options. I could eat it, obviously, she thought, But that—also obviously—is exactly what they want me to do. She didn't want to play into their hands, and she figured the chances that it was just a candy bar and not drugged with something were next to nothing. But it was so terribly difficult to think rationally when she hadn't eaten in so long. It was a constant battle just to stay lucid, and she feared she was beginning to hallucinate. Every once in a while she would see faces flicker in the periphery of her vision: Peter, Walter, Astrid. Sometimes she saw Ella, or Rachael, or even John. Once she saw Broyles. When she was actually able to fall asleep she dreamed so vividly of home that upon waking it was a struggle to tell the difference between what was real and what was not. She squeezed her eye shut, focusing, refusing to relinquish her grip on reality just yet (she'd seen what it was like at St. Claire's). She ran her finger along the serrated edge of the candy wrapper. If they're trying to kill me, there are a lot more efficient ways of doing it. If they're trying to drug me—well, they already have done, several times. She couldn't tell how many times. What are they playing at? Of course there was also the possibility that it was simply another part of their twisted game. She couldn't parse it out.

I'm tired of playing the fucking mouse, she thought, with venom. Her head spun as she fought a swell of nausea. She clutched the candy bar in her fist and allowed herself to slump into the corner. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was rationally analyzing all of this. Right eye swollen shut—temporary loss of depth perception. Dizzyness, nausea—a concussion. Hallucinations—starvation? Or after-effects from the drugs? For some reason it made her think of Walter. Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe it was the candy bar. Their Walter, her Walter. Was he the Other Walter now? Did that make her the Other Olivia? Was she Olivia at all anymore? She didn't feel like she was herself, in here, but she didn't want to admit they'd stolen that, too. Her head ached. She stretched her legs out in front of her, leaning heavily against the wall.

Walter… Peter. She still had no idea what had happened to them. Paralyzing fear and mind-numbing panic curled in the pit of her stomach, ever-present. Had they been captured? Had they gotten away? What if they had been hurt? What if…? She couldn't bear to think it. They're alive, they have to be—Walternate wants Peter alive. She didn't know where that left Walter. She took a shallow breath through her mouth, wincing as her bottom lip stuck to the top, pulling at the split. I have got to get out, she thought fiercely. What if they already have Walter and Peter, too? I'm the only way to get us home! I have to find out if they're safe, I have to DO SOMETHING—

She hauled herself into a standing position and stood for a minute, weaving, before she stumbled and sat back down heavily. She'd already spent hours searching the cell for any weak point. She didn't have a plan, and in her condition she didn't think it likely that she'd make it far even if she did manage to get out. Peter's face flashed in her mind and she dropped her head, left hand covering the side of her face that wasn't battered. Peter. She'd had a lot of time to think, to imagine, to wonder what had become of him, and Walter. Sometimes she fantasized that they had crossed, somehow, and were safely on the other side. She would lie on the linoleum, half-dreaming, picturing Peter reading a book or buying coffee or putting apples in a bag at the supermarket. He had wanted to come home with her, and even though she hadn't made it, she wanted that for him—she wanted him to be home safe; she wanted him to be happy. She didn't know if it was possible, but it was a desire that ran deep, anchored in an unfamiliar, primal piece of herself, within.

The intensity of her feelings for Peter was a surprise. During the weeks that he'd been gone, faced with the enormity of the void that he'd left, she'd spent a lot of time thinking about him (and a lot of time trying not to think about him). She had accepted that she was infatuated. Peter was charming and Peter was handsome and it was easy, so easy, to spend time with him—to slip into some frame of mind where she might even anticipate spending time with him. She had thought that she was lonely, after losing John, and then Charlie. On some level, she admitted that they had become friends. Good friends. She justified her search for Peter because it was the best thing for the team (she told herself these things as she was up working on the search for him, tracing leads at 3am).

But by the time they'd learned that he'd crossed over into this Universe, she'd had to acknowledge that she did have feelings for him. Real feelings. Feelings with a capital F. Which was, apparently, obvious to everyone but her. Even Nina Sharp had known it before she did. Why am I always the last one to know these things? Vaguely irritated, she felt both dominated by and completely disjointed from her own emotions. It was a character flaw (with a pang she thought of Charlie). And so, by the time she had finally recognized the depth of her feelings for Peter, she had already lost him, and she hadn't known if she would ever get him back.

But she had to try.

So she had gone to find Peter, to save him, to save her, to save them all. She hadn't planned what to say, and when she did find him, the shattered look in his eyes had taken her aback. She'd felt him slipping away just when she'd realized that she needed him to return, not just to keep him safe, but because if he didn't she wasn't sure she'd ever be whole again. She'd opened her mouth to say something, anything, to pull him back to her, to muffle the agonized howling in her chest. What had come out of her mouth was, "you belong with me". He'd blinked, surprised as she, and it had hung in the air between them like a ghost.

But she'd meant it from the core of her being, within.

She hadn't known how to touch him. He'd been gone so long that she didn't know how to share space with him, anymore—and now she wanted it too much. But she was free-falling, at that point, and there had been nothing to do but bare her brittle heart to the wind. She'd needed to feel that he was real and warm and present. God, if I had known. So she had pressed her trembling lips to his. At first all she'd felt, all she'd tasted, was her own bitter desperation. But then he'd returned the kiss, pulling her closer, filling her with relief and a vibrant, blinding joy that was so unaccustomed she could hardly recognize it. Something that had echoed and rattled in her chest for weeks finally settled, whole. You belong with me. He'd tasted like home.

In the pitch-dark of the cell, something jagged shifted in the hollow of her chest, piercing her somewhere beneath the breast bone. She covered her heart with her hand, mouth open in a silent cry. For once she didn't need to ask herself what she was feeling—Olivia Dunham was familiar with heartbreak. She slumped slowly to the floor, pressed her wretched face into the wall, and surrendered herself to the miserable abyss of her loss.