Title: Hero
Summary: She wouldn't live to see another day and some things in life she would never see or do, but she would be a hero.
A/N: A one-shot that popped into my mind last night after hearing Olivia's 'hero' quote again.
Timeline/Spoilers: The end of the world… / The entire series, really, but of course mainly season 3.
Yes, Olivia is my hero, but I still don't own her or her friends.
"The difference between a hero and a coward – they are both scared. It's what a hero does, that makes him a hero."
- Olivia Dunham
She had wanted to be a cop since she was nine. She had wanted to keep the world save, because hers never was. It was her ambition, passion and determination that got her through college and the FBI training. It was her devotion that made her work each case with the same intensity, never stopping until she caught the bad guy and made this world a safer place, piece by piece.
It was all these abilities and years of experience combined that had made her even more determined to save her world, when she found out there was another.
From the moment Olivia heard she had an Alternate, she knew this woman was a cop too. Some things you can never change in a person because they are there since birth, and Olivia Dunham was born to become a cop – no matter what motives, no matter what universe.
Olivia Dunham was born to be a hero.
And Olivia Dunham was born to be a coward. Because in the end, both of them knew only one would survive, one would live to see another day, one would be the hero. They both weren't selfish, Olivia a little less than her Alternate. But now they were both scared. They had tried, separately, to find a way to stop the inevitable. To find a way in which both universes could survive. And there were ways, plenty of ways, but they were only ways to prolong the inevitable, until one day they would run out of ways and the worlds would clash anyway. She would never leave her task in someone else's hands, and who's hands would that be? Probably those of her children and her grandchildren. And in the end that was what this was all about; she wanted children and grandchildren, but with a man who by the laws of nature didn't belong to her. She wanted him and so she would fight.
But she wasn't the only one and that once again proved how much she was like her Alternate or her Alternate like her. Yes, by the laws of nature he belongs to her Alternate, but the laws of nature stopped applying 25 years ago, so what's the use in living by them now?
They had both fallen in love with the man who was to take one of their lives, they both would fight for him and they both were scared to lose him. They both wanted to be the hero, but only one could be. And who that hero would be, wouldn't be determined by whose world would survive. Both of them thought they would be the hero if they lived, if they saw their world healing and recovering. But then the hero would be chosen by him, by who he chose to spend the rest of his life with. Then it wouldn't matter who he picked, because neither would be the hero.
There was something in Olivia Dunham that made her realize that, and maybe she didn't even realize. Maybe she was just doing the right thing, because she always does the right thing. She wouldn't live to see another day and some things in life she would never see or do, but she would be a hero. Dying for her country, her world, that would fall right after her, with her. She would never be able to tell anyone and no one would know what she had done. No one would ever know she was a hero, but that's how it always goes; heroes hide in corners. And she would hide in the corner of his memory, forever being his hero.