Paperweight
A/N: This is Olivia's perspective after reading Simon's note in "Concentrate and Ask Again". Warning for a couple of uses of strong language in this fic.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fringe; if I did Olivia would have slapped Peter by now for not noticing.
She knew that even if she read the words a hundred times over it would not change their meaning; the black ink would still curl into those six crunching words.
He still has feelings for her.
Of course he would still have feelings for her, he fucking slept with her.
Her fingers tightened over the paper, it felt heavy like a sheet of steel; she never thought that such a small note could have such a heavy weight. Her shoulders were tight beneath the fabric of her blouse, wound and corded into thick knots; even turning her neck slightly felt like trying to twist a rope that was a metre thick. Her throat was tight; she found it slightly difficult to breathe.
She considered the reality of those six words; the chance of them being the truth was just as great as them being rubbish.
But if they were rubbish then every other piece of advice that Simon had given her earlier would also be void. If she didn't trust his words now then what possessed her to trust him earlier?
There were troves of information in her mind, feelings and notions that she kept locked away from others. Things that she never wanted anyone to know because they could change someone's perspective of her instantly.
She now understood why people shouldn't be able to know what people think.
Her pulse fluttered and her stomach felt hollow at the notion of what other secrets Peter had. She brushed her nose with her hand, secretly placing her hand over her mouth to hide the half broken sob that she wanted no one to hear.
She was thankful for the mercy of her solitude; she would have despised Peter noticing her red-rimmed eyes and the flurry of questions that he would ask.
She was sick of goddamn questions.
She wanted a fucking answer.
She had one, but it wasn't of the simple, cheery kind that she preferred.
Her eyes fell from the letter in her hands to the coffee cup on the counter, vacant now but once full of liquid vigour with a dash of sugar. She stood and walked to the table; it sat on a small stack of untouched reports, an attempt to prevent any sort of random flight of paper should a sliver of wind sneak in.
She imagined the red 'X' in the box that indicated the addition of milk, like the coffee that he'd brought her earlier that day.
How many of those coffees had he bought her?
The patterns on the cup were a devilish smile of mockery, the rim outlined lips that yelled when they attempted a whisper.
She was quicker with a smile...
In the next second her hand clasped the cup and scrunched the face into an unrecognizable heap of card. She threw the mangled cup into the garbage and left her reports on the table alone without placing something else on top of them.
She had no need to.
His words were a better paperweight now.
End.
Reviews are to the writer what coffee is to Olivia Dunham; a necessity ;)