a/n: told in alternating perspectives. first is fauxlivia, then olivia, and vice versa. sorry for the lateness and general bad quality of the fic.
Her morning is sour, thick fumes and bone-deep cold as she splashes water on her face in the bathroom. She lets the tap run, washing soap scuds from her wrists, and stares at the mirror in the silence afterward, studying the portrait that is (was) Olivia Dunham.
A few bottles of cheap dye and instructions on where to apply it took care of the hair. Getting the idiosycrasies and habits of an entirely different woman correct is no easy feat. Peter brushes against her later, tucking her into his broader frame, saying things meant for the former Olivia.
Everything in this world is a lie, her superiors had informed her. Do not trust anyone. Especially him. He will find out your deception, and then the Plan will fail.
It does not make the rejection - all this luster, all this life - any less difficult.
x
I don't belong.
In this barren cell, surrounded by faces that should be familiar but which are, in the other universe, alien and unfriendly, she feels the pain of loss so much more acutely. It is sharper than any bullet, any knife, any threat. The absence of Walter, of Astrid, of Charlie, of Peter gapes like a raw wound, a missing limb.
Peter.
After they've had their tests and she's sent back to the cot, she dreams of him; glowing visions which die all too quickly, a supernova flash. She wakes and they are outside, her pockmarked arm a reminder of the experiments of before, and a promise of things to come.
On the twenty-ninth cycle, she decides that she will sleep no longer.
x
The infiltration is flawless.
At the shop, she relays her messages to the Other Side, stabbing at keys. The Plan has proceeded without delay. I have gained his trust, she records. What will I do next?
Their answer is ready.
Of course.
Duty to one's country before one's self.
This time, when she leaves, she does not return.
x
Something alerts her to the cloud before it erupts. Call it a sixth sense, precognition - whatever it is, she shoves herself and the policeman away as it billows out, oozing pus-like from the windows, through the doors, and crystallizing. A man lies inside, trapped like a fly in amber.
Already, she traces the connections. Find the perpetrator. That is her training. That is her call.
And somewhere, a flicker of Bishop tagging along, not smiling, the two of them looking at bus and the collection of corpses inside. They hadn't made a sound then. She does not talk now, speeding along silent streets and closed alleyways, a whisper of night in her breath.
x
"I do it for this world. To help save it."
"You can't save the world."
He shifts in his chair, almost laughing but not quite. She bites her lip.
"I'm not talking about everyone. Just a few people."
"Isn't that selfish?"
"I've lived." Legs scrape as she rises and pulls on her trench coat, buttoning it and staring at the slate-grey skies of a Boston storm. "I deserve to be selfish."
x
He told her once that They are everywhere, observing ruthlessly, dispatching targets with the utmost efficiency. Killing machines, bred for a single purpose: clearing the field so that They have a way in, should they choose to invade. And it's likely that they will.
Not even the greatest fortress can withstand a continuous siege. She cups her ear to the floor, and listens.
x
His body presses against hers; she says his name, the naked shape of it enfolding them both as dusk stretches into dawn and the wallpaper spreads its feathers along the rumpled sheets.
"If only every day could be like this," Peter remarks, and she laughs and kisses his bearded cheek, and he smiles through a haze of sleep.
(Carefully, she avoids looking at the stain in the hallway.)
They are reaching their ultimatum.
x
Broyles - the Other Broyles - does not cry. She is sure that even here, he would never flinch, never show the slightest sign of weakness, even if that weakness was his son. Over time, she has come to realize that the Other Side is far colder than she could ever dream of. Her home had been painful, but this - this is a word hewn from metal and stone, cruel as the blackness of the space.
Broyles does stop her as she picks up the photo of Christopher. When he talks, his voice is thick.
"He was so young."
"I'm sorry."
"Olivia-" For a moment, he hesitates, at a loss for words. "Protect him."
x
"You know I'd never trick you."
"That's just the thing. You aren't you. You're a fake of Olivia. The real one."
You don't exist. You are not real.
Oh.
And her heart beats a little bit faster.
x
Now she stands in the doorway.
For the first time in a while, it feels real. Olivia steps forward and through, back into the Prime.
Home.