Spoilers: Jacksonville
Disclaimer: Fringe does not belong to me. (Yes, that's an accusation)
Author's note: Okay, we know that this would never, ever happen in the show, it's the most impossible outcome of all, but I needed to write it.
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Wrong choices
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She makes her first mistake before the not-date: agreeing to keep a secret that wasn't hers until two seconds ago. She doesn't realize then that she would never be free again.
They do have the date; dinner and drinks. It was perfect. For a few hours she convinced herself that the glimmering was because he was so beautiful.
They walked back to his house and stopped at the porch; Peter touched her face like he had done before and actually finishes the kiss this time. They almost went upstairs until they remembered Walter was in the house, so she left with the promise to repeat dinner and drinks. They would never call it a date.
When Olivia gets home she lays down on her bed still with her clothes on and his scent on them and cries.
After the revelation sinks in she spends the two following days crying, heartbreaking sobs all around the apartment. She would remember every few seconds and cry. There were tissues everywhere to prove it.
Olivia stays away from the lab for the next two days, Walter comes on the second.
Peter calls on the third; he sounds nervous over the phone, "...We don't have to do this Olivia...," there is a long pause "anyway..." She picks up the phone on his last word.
There she makes her second mistake: allowing this to evolve without telling him the truth. She feels like she has let go of something, but also feels the imprisonment of her own lies and wonders if this is how Walter feels all the time.
She goes to New York on the fourth day. Nina confirms everything Walter told her, as if the glimmering around Peter wouldn't have been enough confirmation.
She stood at Daily plaza in the middle of a working day; she could hear the sound of the people around her, busy, going through their day as if nothing was happening, as if her world wasn't ending along with his. They, the people, don't know there is a war unfolding right in front of their noses and that the first casualties had already happened, that she had already delivered everything for this war, her lover, her friend, her life, her childhood, her future, her family, him.
As she had cried all the time for the past two days, she hadn't been able to eat anything. Just the thought would make the void on her stomach bigger. Those wonderful blueberries she had bought were rotting on her refrigerator.
"Hey." Peter was in front of her with that cheeky smile and his glimmering.
"Hey." She tried to appear normal to him but she knew she didn't succeed because of the way he kissed her.
They had agreed to have lunch today, she told him she was going to New York, he insisted on seeing her there.
They had lunch at the Mitsumi hotel on Broadway; they got the table on the corner. He was happy, he kept smiling. When they were walking towards their table he took her hand.
They ordered, but she could still not eat, she kept looking around at the people wondering how come they kept eating, breathing, drinking, living when her world was ending.
Peter made his best to not notice this; "Please Olivia, eat, you are far to thin for my liking." For his sake she did.
They skipped dessert but drank coffee, that much she could hold. As she had not been able to eat for the last couples of day, sleep had proved impossible, she would wake up every few minutes clutching her chest not able to breath, almost drowning, seeing shadows on her bedroom; she would lay down until the cycle repeated.
She kept looking out the window that pensive expression on her face, that horrible line on her forehead and her left hand over her mouth, like she was trying to stop the abominations from blurting out of her mouth.
"Hey." Peter took her hand away from her face, he put it between both his hands and caressed it with a tenderness Olivia didn't know he possessed, he looked at her in the eye with such intensity she forgot to look for the glimmer around him. Olivia smiled in return; sincerely this time, because the glimmer wasn't there anymore.
"Hey."
She looked down to their joint hands and smile even wider.
"What did Nina want?"
"Nothing, really, she just wanted to give some technical information for the report."
She felt dead inside.
"Olivia, you are crying."
She hadn't notice the tears that he was trying to wipe away from her face.
"What's wrong Olivia?" She had not answer for that.
Olivia looked directly into his eyes. "I think Cortexiphan messed up your emotions, maybe Walter should take a look at you."
"And here I thinking it was you who had done that."
Peter gave her this glimmering look, like she had professed her undying love to him.
They left the restaurant shortly after, Peter put his arm around her waist and she leaned into him. They walked very slowly to the underground parking lot, he kept caressing her hair. Peter opened the SUV's door for her to get in. They kissed on the car until they had no breath left in them.
"I want to show you something."
Olivia is surprised at this but she lets him.
He takes them to central park. They walk for a while hand in hand, people look at them. They get to a secluded part of the park where the trees are so together they hardly let the light get through.
"This is my favorite spot in the whole park." She can see why. She stands there bathed in thin sunlight, she closes her eyes attempting to feel the warmth of the sun inside her; she starts to shiver without noticing, Peter takes off his coat and puts it around her shoulders. She opens her arms and he inevitably fills them with himself.
He shines, not like a glimmer, not anymore; more like a halo from an angel that has stopped her so many times from falling.
That's when she knows she cannot be away from him. She clungs to him like there is no tomorrow, because, indeed, there isn't. Peter feels this.
"Hey, I'm not going anywhere, Olivia."
You betrayed me.
Now she really had.
They cannot keep their hands away from each other the whole way to the car. They cannot stop kissing.
He drives them back to Boston; he holds her hand the whole way.
By the time they are in Boston again she makes her third and most conscious mistake: be selfish.
No more winning, no more crying, no more worrying him; let her promise to Walter get her something for herself in return for once.
She would allow herself to be held by him in bed.
He would never ask again because she almost seems like the normal Olivia, she feels like the normal Olivia; because she decides to forget, she decides to love him, to take whatever time she can get, she knows it would end in heartbreak for both of them, but for once she doesn't dare to deny this to herself. Love.
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End
I know it's too crazy and that it was way too fast, but as I said before I needed to write it.