Disclaimer: No InFringement intended.
English is not my first language – sorry for any mistakes!
"Peter. I know it's taken me some getting used to, but as long as you're stuck here, you make a good partner."
It's a punch in the gut. He is able to smile (once a conman, always a conman) and to thank her. Inside his shell he is dying. Slowly.
It hurts.
Every single look, every word, every breath she takes - hurts him.
SheIsNotHer SheIsNotHer SheIsNotHer SheIsNotHer
She smells like her.
She walks like her.
She behaves like her.
She is so damn patient.
She is so damn sympathetic.
Sometimes he is on the verge of grabbing this Olivia, of shaking her, to make her admit it's all a bad joke and sure she knows who he is and sure she loves him and sure they will live happily ever after.
Her presence is a torture. Every second. Every minute. But as painful as it is – he won't miss any second, any minute of it.
It's a bit easier to constantly be aware that Walter is not his Walter. The old man refuses to take him as his son. That helps. On the one hand it makes him feel all alone; on the other hand it gives him a kind of certainty:
This is not my timeline. This is not my home. I have to go back!
Sometimes during the lonely nights, he is afraid of going crazy. Afraid of losing his sanity just like Walter did. His dreams seem to be so real. He isn't even sure that he isn't dreaming the whole fucking time. Maybe the machine did send him into a coma (again) and he is merely having a very very bad and cruel dream?
Now he is sitting in the lab, procrastinating over some paperwork no one asked him to do. He does not want to go back to the old empty house. Back to sleep and back to more weird dreams. So he tries to focus on the FBI forms he is fairly familiar with. Routine work to soothe his brain.
"Son, I have an idea. Where is the blueprint of the interface you drew last week?"
They are alone in the lab, and the deep voice startles him out of his concentration. "What? What did you just say, Walter?"
"Your DNA sequence as a whole is too complex – we'll never be able to transfer the data to the machine, but maybe… maybe we can refine it and use key sequences only…"
"You called me 'son'!"
"I did. Did I?" There is a faint smile on Walters face, but after a second he is earnest again.
"Let's take a look at the latest sketch – c'mon Peter, don't be so lazy! There's a machine to fix."