These Things Come Easily to Us
"What do you want?" demands Olivia Dunham.
The red-headed woman, who has shown up in Walter's Harvard lab with absolutely no warning, grins widely. She is standing in the doorway, looking roguish and brilliant, like some ember a malevolent fire that has popped in to say hello. In her boots and cargo pants and shiny black jackets, it is easy to envision the other woman as an enemy combatant. She shrugs easily, swinging her arms lightly at her sides, and Olivia is struck with how much looser the other woman's movements are. "I have something," she says gleefully, "for you."
Lincoln Lee is gaping at the red-head, as he has been wont to do, but quickly snaps his mouth closed and blinks nervously. As if sensing how flustered he is—because, it seems, that Vulcan mind-mold between Olivia Dunham and Lincoln Lee transcends paltry things like dimensional boundaries—the woman in the doorway turns her head to examine him, and makes a sound of amusement. "You haven't met my Lincoln yet, have you?" she asks him. There is a certain amount of possessiveness to the question that she seems to be unaware of, but there is a sharpening to Lincoln that says he picks up on it.
Before she can actually think about what she is saying, Olivia snaps out her own name, "Olivia!", and the two woman look at each other, equally surprised. It is the first time that Olivia has acknowledged the other by name at all—every time she might have, it felt too much like claiming. As if sharing her name she would be sharing some scrap of her soul. "What do you want?" demands Olivia, again.
"It's our birthday," says the red-head, as if the answer were obvious—and it is, to an extent. Olivia realizes the reason that the other woman is angling one hand behind her: she is clutching a badly-wrapped package. "I got you a present."
There must be something earnest in her voice, and something must soften in Olivia's face, because the red-head steps into the room, pausing behind Lincoln to peer over his shoulder before coming to stand in front of Olivia. She thrusts the package out in front of her, grinning all the while. Olivia doesn't particularly want it, but she reaches out and takes the gift, aware that Lincoln is watching quietly. She can tell right away that it's a book, and she tears off the already-ripped and messily taped blue gift wrap gingerly, looking dully at the title: If You Meet Buddha On the Road, Kill Him!
"Lincoln wrapped it," says the red-head quickly, with a grin, and Olivia knows that it's a joke or a lie. "I saw it in a store and—I don't know. It felt like it belonged with you or reminded me of you or something. So happy birthday."
Despite the surge of familiarity that goes through her at the sight of the book, Olivia makes a dismissive noise and says, "I guess you don't know me as well as you thought. Now, since you probably couldn't get clearance to come here for a personal visit, I'm going to ask you again: why are you here?"
Putting her hands up in a gesture of mock-surrender, the red-head dances from one foot to the other like a prizefighter, grinning all the while. "Fine, fine. The Secretary sent me to meet with a woman named Nina Sharp? Lady's kind of scary. Hard to tell which side she's on."
"Mine," says Olivia, bristling.
Lincoln fidgets, as he is wont to do, fumbling to straighten his glasses even though they're not crooked. "You didn't say it was your birthday," he says to Olivia, trying valiantly to ignore the red-head's mocking gaze.
"That's why Walter and Astrid are making crepes. I'm meeting my sister and niece for dinner in a couple hours. It doesn't matter," explains Olivia. She doesn't bother to explain the odd feeling she always gets on her birthdays—like something disturbing or strange should happen but doesn't, and she always spends the whole day waiting for some ill omen, her heart in her throat as she flips through her measly pile of birthday cards.
"Well, happy birthday," says Lincoln, and turns back to his laptop.
The red-head is still standing there, still grinning, but Olivia's initial wave of revulsion has receded somewhat, and she glances back down at the book in her hands. "Thank you," she says stiffly.
"You're welcome," replies the red-head. "See how easy that was?"
It wasn't, as a matter of fact, easy, but Olivia refrains from mentioning this. The red-head doesn't exactly look eager to make amends, but there is something almost genuine about the crinkle of her smile, and Olivia wants to at least be civil.
"Do you want to have dinner with Rachel and Ella?" The question is out of Olivia's mouth before she realizes the though is even in her mind; maybe it's prompted by this odd familiar feeling she gets from this book, which stupid because it's just an old paperback.
Lincoln flinches or recoils or something; but his shock is nothing compared to the red-head's. Her grin falters for the first time, and she actually staggers back a step. Olivia can't tell exactly the source of the other woman's reaction: revulsion, at the thought of taking Olivia's place again? hurt, at being reminded of the one thing Olivia has that she doesn't? or is it something more positive, like pleasant surprised that Olivia can treat her reviled doppelganger with some modicum of kindness?
"I—" begins the red-head.
"Never mind," snaps Olivia, shutting down, cursing herself for that momentary flicker of compassion for the woman that wears her face. The red-head is ruthless and—from what Olivia can gather from experience and the unofficial record she's collected of the red-head's time as Olivia—mostly devoid of empathy.
The red-head takes a step forward, her hands on her hips but her fingers fiddling with her belt loops. "I didn't—I couldn't see them. When I was you. I figured that Ella—that the kid would know."
So for some stupid reason, even though Olivia resents and loathes and distrusts this woman, she asks again: "Do you want to have dinner with my sister?"
"Yeah," says the red-head, quickly, as if she's afraid that Olivia will retract her offer. And then, the one word that Olivia is certain that she's never heard from the other before: "Please." It's a wry sort of "please", with her lips curling upwards, hinting at that grin, and her head tilting to the side, but there is something real underneath, bubbling just under her obnoxious, abrasive surface.
Olivia glances at Lincoln, who is watching the two of them contemplatively. She thinks that she and the red-head must look like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, which means, of course, that sooner or later some monstrous crow is going to come soaring along and scare them both. "Do you think you can hold down the fort?" she asks him, and he nods. "Tell Walter that I'll be back for crepes."
The red-head doesn't say anything here, knowing probably that she won't be extended an invitation for crepes. Olivia will let her have her sister, just for a night, but she refuses to let the red-head pretend again the Harvard lab is hers. The red-head has some claim to Rachel—the same claim that Walter had on that alternate version of his son—but there is nothing in this beautiful cluttered mess of a room that can possibly belong to her.
"I'll see you later, then," says Lincoln; then as if he can sense (because of course he probably can) Olivia's distinction between what the red-head can claim to, adds, "For crepes."
The time passes in silence then, the two women either communicating wordlessly or knowing instinctively what the other wants—Olivia isn't sure which she'd prefer. They find clothes and a wig for the red-head, move up the dinner by a couple hours, and Olivia waits for an hour as the red-head spends their birthday with a not-sister and a not-niece. When the red-head finally gets back into the car that evening, shaking her blonde hair away and running her fingers through her red locks, she says, "This is for you," and presents Olivia with a crayon drawing from Ella. It's of Olivia, Walter, Astrid, Ella, and a blobby shape that is probably Gene, all drinking root beer floats—for a second Olivia thinks that there are six shadows shaded into the picture, but it's only a trick of the eye. Olivia places it carefully on the dashboard.
"Can you drive me back to New York?" asks the red-head, and Olivia murmurs her reluctant assent, swearing internally that if there isn't a crepe for at the end of this day she will not be so kind the next time she meets her double. And then, quietly, after she's settled back in her seat, the red-head says, "You know I had this dream once, that I tried to save your world. There was a child—and Lincoln wasn't its father, but he was, maybe, almost…I don't remember. And the Secretary kidnapped me and…But I tried."
"It's a shame that we don't dream things that actually happen," Olivia says, not malicious but thinking of the blue-eyed trickster god that haunts her dreams and Walter's mirrors.
The red-head makes almost mournful noise, and Olivia wonders what she dreams about: Olivia dwells on that throwaway line about a child, almost painfully curious, because there is something almost familiar about the story. Sleepily, the red-head turns on her side, wadding up Olivia's old jacket to use as a pillow. "Sometimes," she says, "I have this nightmare that you're only dreaming me, and one day you'll wake up and I'll be gone."
"That's an interesting theory," notes Olivia.
"I'm allowed a few interesting theories," says the red-head, her voice garbled by drowsiness. "You got Peter and everything."
Olivia does not know what this means—although her heart does this strange thing in her chest at the name "Peter"—so she stays silent as the red-head drifts off to sleep. She doubts seriously that she could sleep so easily if it was the other way around and the red-head were driving—but maybe that's the other woman's problem: too much trust. Trust in her Secretary Bishop, trust in the righteousness of her causes, trust that the woman with her face won't kill her in her sleep.
Lincoln Lee is waiting for them at the bridge—the red-head's Lincoln, who does not fidgety, but has his lips curled into that easy smirk and is radiating that effortless energy that Olivia only catches glimpses of in her Agent Lee, although she's sure it's there. He grins at Olivia when he sees her and says, "Happy birthday."
"Thanks," she replies.
The red-head takes her place beside Lincoln, dancing from one foot to the other like a prizefighter, looking like the other half of this effortless fire-bright person. "See you around," she says to Olivia, grinning.
"Happy birthday, Agent Dunham," says Olivia.
Olivia smiles at Olivia, and one woman turns to cross a transdimensional boundary while the other returns home to eat crepes.
A/N: Ends kind of abruptly, I know, but I felt like it ended there, so it did. Lots of purposeful repitition...And of course written before tonight's episode, which legit completely my life. Title was kind of a reference to both the traits the our Olivias do share, and also the way that they have little lapses in reality where Peter is leaking through. So, drop me a review, yeah, tell me what you think? :D