A/N: This is my continuation of 'The Abducted', an episode I absolutely loved.
Spoilers for The Abducted, of course, and the promo for the next episode.
The room is dark, the feeling of cold tiles beneath her feet and surpressed panic in her mind familiar as if she's never been away. She knows the room, its features etched in her heart though she cannot see; there is so much time to kill and so little to do but trace the room or wallow in sorrow. Ocassionally, she does both.
The routine is still the same. Prodding and pricking in a shiny lab -the sight of it makes her slightly melacholic, images of an old man in a worn cardigan invading her mind- and this time, the only thing that's changed is they treat her even more like an animal.
But she can't hate them anymore, can't stare at them with the same venom they'd been met with the fist time. She knows they're just people doing what they believe is right.
Aren't we all?
The feeling of routine is almost a comfort to her at times, when she thinks of faces and choices and the million dollar-question: What side are you on? It's the impossible coice of this useless war, and though it scares her to death she truly has no idea.
She has to get back. That, she does know. To Rachel and Ella, Walter and Astrid and of course Peter. Peter, the man she's seen in her visions. Who's kept her company, whether she wanted it or not. Whose words have made her doubt and whose insights have made her think, and whose touch has made her feel everything, the brushing of their skin like lifting a veil, showing her the truth, however ugly.
Frank was back. She knows it only because a guard slipped it to her yesterday, a gesture she thinks was meant to be cruel- torture her with information about her life, her family. They really don't get that she isn't her. But she feels her heart flutter when his name's mentioned, and it's a reaction that scares her.
It's not what she's supposed to be feeling. She can remember everything again, and that's supposed to be it. She tells herself she didn't change, didn't develop an affection towards Frank and his sweet words and genuine worry. She instucts herself not to care for Licoln and his big eyes, and the adorable way he stares at her when he thinks she isn't watching, his crush on her too obvious for words.
But that's the problem, isn't it? Lincoln doesn't have a crush on her, the broken one with the shy smile. It isn't her that Frank dreams of at night, when his nose is pressed into her hair. It's the one with the red hair and the leather jackets and the loud, exturbant laugh.
She wonders where Peter is right now. Is he in the lab, the other Olivia tied to a chair and the cruel voice she'd hear Peter speak in so rarely demanding answers? Is he bent over a table with Walter, figuring out a way to rescue her, like they always do? Or is he staring out of the window she so desperately wishes for, wondering if all is lost now?
It never occurs to her that maybe it's none of these things, that maybe he's pacing the room, a blonde-haired Olivia still emerged in peaceful dreams of a man she can't quite identify, his eyes a warm brown but his words sarcastic; completely unaware of the war raging in his head. She doesn't even consider this option, that he hasn't found out yet, that smiling lips and Casablanca were the only things on his mind until just oh so recently.
She has no way of tracking time but for the coming and going of the guards, their pacing footsteps sounding in pace with the beating of her heart.
The creack of the door startles her out of her thoughts, the bright light from the hallway shining directly into her eyes, blinding her. She lifts a bruised hand to shield her eyes, the harsh light forming a halo around his head, an angelic image of the last person she'd expected to be her saviour.
Words are spoken and lives are begged for, her desperation no longer quiet as all her hope became fixed on the man standing before her, torn between loyalty and concience, duty to the state and duty to his heart.
Eventually, heart wins over as she sees it in his eyes, and they are moving and running and something is wrong. Her step, it's wrong. The cocky little grin that's plastered on her face, that's not her. But there's no time to dwell on feelings and details, they need to get out of here and run, run, run.
What happens next passes in a daze, as she sees familiar faces. Lincoln, Charlie, Henry, Broyles, all forming a blur in her head as she is lead to the blue portal in the middle of the lab, and she thinks she can see a silent tear escaping Lincoln's eyes, but she can't be sure; she steps through the angry blue lights and they dissapear. All of them, gone now.
She's barely taken a step on the ground that's supposed to be home before she falls to the ground, body and mind exhausted. She tries to brace herself but it doesn't work, and the last thing she sees before her head collides with the ground and her vision becomes black is a flash of blonde-died hair and large, green eyes, only a shade lighter than hers.
A/N: Good, bad, mediocre? I'm not really sure if I should continue this or not.
