She can't help but feel that there's something wrong.

Something wrong that goes beyond the fact that the woman working alongside her is her, an alternate version of herself with confidence and red hair and a cheeky smile. Beyond the fact that the Walter barking out orders to them wears a dark suit, his eyes and his voice cold and calculating.

She's anxious, on edge, can't focus. Her mind wanders constantly, and every time the heavy metal door to the room swings open with a deep moan, her eyes dart to the threshold. Longing, hoping desperately.

She wishes she knew what she wanted to come through the entrance.

No one really notices. When they do comment, she tells them that she's tired or stressed, and they give her a knowing smile and go on their way. Walter, her Walter, smiles, wearing a white lab coat, half-eaten Red Vine in hand, and prescribes her some LSD. He knows what blend she enjoys.

Only her alternate knows her well enough not to be fooled.

"Who are you waiting for, Dunham?" she asks her one day in a detached tone, trying to sound disinterested. Her eyes immediately look towards the door.

Someone. Anyone. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

"No one."


The most frustrating thing is that she really can't remember.

She tries. Every day she tries to remember as hard as she can. At night she lies in bed, sleep evading her. She stares at the ceiling and she just thinks, thinks, thinks, until her head hurts and tears form in the corner of her eyes.

But it's gone. Whatever it is has become black and empty in her mind, just like Walter and Cortexiphan and Jacksonville.

And she can't remember, can't remember, can't remember.


She supposes that it's been a long time since she began to feel lonely.

She hadn't thought anything of it at the time, with John getting sick and dying. Losing your lover, finding out that he wasn't who he said he was, realizing that you couldn't trust a word that had come out of his mouth, couldn't believe in any of the feelings he claimed to have for you, well, that was bound to leave you with some sense of solitude, wasn't it?

Nothing had seemed so bad then, besides the obvious. Of course, there was the trip to Iraq, that she still can't explain to this day. She just knew, knew with an unjustifiable certainty, that the cure to John's illness was in Iraq. Something, someone there was going to help them.

That ended with her sitting in the Baghdad International Airport, empty handed and possessing more questions now than she had begun with, hundreds of dollars down the drain and a furious boss waiting for her at home.

And then there was Dr. Walter Bishop.

Dr. Walter Bishop, a brilliant reclusive scientist, who had scoffed at her when she first knocked on his door and asked for his help, turning her away with an adamant "No". But Olivia Dunham is quite persistent when she wants to be, and she will forever be indebted to Dr. Bishop's lovely wife, Elizabeth, for finally convincing her husband, once and for all, to help her.

Dr. Walter Bishop – genius, scattered, frustrating, almost childlike, almost unbearable, but so, so, so genius. Indispensable, unfortunately, and as days with the scientist turned into weeks turned into months, filled with words she didn't understand and the most gruesome, disturbing crime scenes she'd ever witnessed and trying futilely to get Walter to focus, she came home every night, exhausted, and wondered why she took this job in the first place.

But, as it turned out, if you spent some time with Dr. Walter Bishop, he wasn't as bad as he first seemed.

You had to learn to handle Walter, and slowly but surely, she and Junior Agent Astrid Farnsworth did so. They learned that doing certain things would make him stay on task for more than a few minutes, found ways to get him to translate scientific jargon into statements they could comprehend.

And she discovered that, shockingly, Dr. Walter Bishop could become bearable when he let his walls down and you got to know him. Enjoyable even. She found that as he stood in the lab and smiled at her, asking for some licorice, as they discovered hybrids and mutants and Observers and disease, he could be somewhat endearing.

He became almost like a father to her, in some strange, twisted way. A father that she never had. A father that she had to monitor and babysit like a younger brother, yes, but also a father that cared for her and encouraged her and tried to make her smile on those days that were especially hard.

She'd never had something like that before.


She still felt lonely, though.

Of course, no matter how much she liked the man, it wasn't like people like Walter Bishop satisfied your craving for company from other, completely normal human beings. And Astrid was a sweetheart, but

she was as much caught up in this mess as Olivia was, holed up in that basement lab with Walter all day.

She had no one on the outside, and she told herself that is all she needed. Then she'd feel better.

She had Charlie, at least. Agent Charlie Francis, her colleague, her best friend, who could always crack a smile and tell a joke when things got to be too much. He could always hold her hand and pull her back from that ledge when she thought she was about to go over.

That is, until she didn't anymore.

He's taken over by a shapeshifter, a creature than can change forms and become anyone they want to. He, it, tried to kill her, in a deserted alleyway on a cloudy, wet day, and she shot it. She killed it.

She killed Charlie Francis. She killed her best friend.

She sat on the cold, dirty, damp pavement and stared in horror as blood and something metallic (mercury, she'd later discover) flowed from the bullet hole in his forehead.

Just when she thought things couldn't get any worse.

She remembered, in that moment, the songs that her dad used to play on his old record player in their house in Jacksonville, before everything. She remembered being little two and a half year-old Olivia, standing on Daddy's feet as he glided them across the living room, singing so loud and off-key, and how she laughed.

She remembered, there was one song that her mother started to play a lot, after Daddy didn't come home.

You're gonna cry, cry, cry and you'll cry alone
When everyone's forgotten and you're left on your own
You're gonna cry, cry, cry