It's an ironic parody of a case that they worked long ago, far before any of all of this started. The ironic part being that instead of chasing down a bald man with no eyebrows whose kidnapped a brown hair girl because she crossed his mind and never left, he's the kidnapper. And the person who would have been chasing him down, the person who calls him 'observer' actually is the person he's kidnapped. The one and only Olivia Dunham.
The cruelest part of this horrific joke is not the fact that he's had to sacrifice his luscious baby soft brow lock and perfect eyebrows, it's that part where he looks at the woman in front of him and can tell you every intimate detail of her skin, have cataloged every gasp and moan and what elicits them, where he can stare at the woman and tell anyone every detail of her life and exactly how her lips curve around her name but she can't remember him.
Have you ever had your heartbreak as hard as this?
The truth of the matter really, is that he's complicated. He exists, he doesn't, he was a lover, he's alone now, he's handsome, he's bald. She's as straight as they come, she goes about her day like normal, eating cereal, drinking whiskey, working, etc. He spends his time hiding from the sun, moving about and blending in, as much as a bald man with no eyebrows could blend in. They tell him it's better this way, that she is so different than him in every way that he'll never want again. Because they don't want. Because they aren't.
But oh how he wants. Even they way she looks around the room, the small motel room with wide green eyes and hair strewn across her face does he want her. He cannot simply forget her. He will not simply forget her. With briefcase in hand and hat on his head he watches, just watches, observes he thinks, and his brow turns into a scowl. Fucking fantastic. Like everything he does, it's in the heat of the moment. If he knows Olivia Dunham, if he were to approach her now, she'd be free in seconds. Be he wants to free her, he wants to unbind her, to touch her. But she doesn't know him. How many levels of rape would that be for him?
She stopped moving to watch him place his briefcase down, his hat resting atop the dresser. His bald and shining head is looking at her, his face shaved, clean, bare of all body hair. Her eyes are wide and unfriendly, a deadly caged cat, waiting, breathing, hoping for that single moment, that slip to over take him and rip his flesh from his body before fleeing from the room. Olivia Dunham was capable of that.
"You'll hurt yourself," he opted to say, "Struggling like that."
Wide, cat like green eyes become needles, points and they flicker at him without falter, without fear. He stared back, unable to move his sight from her. She stilled and inhales and exhales hard, nose crinkled in displeasure. In all the time they once spent together, a whole world away, he'd never seen that expression. Wild. Feral. Frightening. Dangerous. He briefly wonders if, since he never were and they never were, she were actually as haughty as her double (whom he'd rather not follow around to watch) because seeing her sitting here, tightly tied to a chair, huffing and puffing, he wouldn't mind being charged with rape. But instead he follows his own stupidity of a brain that existed sometime ago and unfurls the cloth in her mouth, aware that her teether were chomping, trying to get a thing of flesh to bite him.
"Who are you?" she started in on the drill, "What do you want? Where am I?"
While everything has changed, nothing has changed. She still is as bossy as he remembers, so demanding it's quite hilarious to watch. Her mouth quirks when she gets no response and she snaps her jaw like a piranha.
"Answer me!"
Instead he sits down across from her, smoothing over his already smooth lapels of his jacket. He could really fuck with her and start talking like Yoda, saying words out of sequence and being cryptic. It could be quite amusing, until she ninja's her way out of her restraints and pulls the gun to shoot him. So instead of finding amusement in her dark face, he opted to simply watch her, watch her breath part from her lips in little breaths that tease him. Her eyes never leave his face an part of him hopes that she's trying to find the connection between them, trying to grasp an invisible line that does not exist. Not now anyway.
He's not sure how it happened, but that it did. He had been staring for so long, watching her face, so perfect, until he grabbed a handful of hair and pressed his lips against hers. Just as fast as his brain has processed it he's removed his face from hers. She looked shocked, not upset, and her eyes changed from wild to confused and finally angry.
"Who are you?" she demanded harshly, "Who the fuck are you?"
Again Peter won't answer. Instead he brings his fingers to her lips and touches them, traces them before she snaps again at him.
"Who are you?"
He turned abruptly and faced the wall. "Olivia," he murmured into the air.
"WHO ARE YOU? Answer me! Tell me! Can you hear me! Who the fuck are YOU?"
Instead of answering her he grabs his hat and bag and turned away from her, toward the door. Hand on the knob, he faced her, eyes meeting, her dark and beautiful green eyes glimmering for just a moment, just a second, with the same haunt that he knew across a universe. He clenched his jaw, flinging his hat away, his suitcase hitting the ground and springing open, photos from their past and her future sprawling across the floor.
"Don't you remember me Olivia?" he almost shouts, his temper worn thin, "Can't you see me?"
"I don't know you," she answered, a fresh expression crossing her face. It's a wicked one, one he's seen when she's negotiating with someone, where it looks like the ocean is breaking across her skin. Waves, gorgeous and wonderful that loll across flesh that he touched so long ago. It's frustrating to him, he knows her, knows her and she doesn't know him. His brain tells him, impossible, she must know something, anything.
Because to be honest, the alternative would kill him.
"I see you," she answered, breathy.
"What's my name?" He asked. If she gets this right he can call her bluff, he can reveal her tricks. Maybe he can reveal himself.
"You're an observer," she started, "You're named after a month."
He smiled sideways.
"No sweetheart," he answered, "You know me, think hard about this."
Quiet as she is, he proceeded to pick up photos, to gather scattered memories in his fingers to tuck away. He likes those memories, is fond of many of them, and would like to keep them close. From the corner of his eye he watches Olivia Dunham, the captive and the captivator as she thinks hard. He can see her mind working, he always has been able to see it working through her green glossy soul windows deep into the complex span of veins that interconnect, interact between each other, pumping blood and cortexiphan-infused cells through her. He can see the nest he once made, a place he once held and he can see that it has been over grown and unused.
"I don't," she said, "I don't know you."
The pictures he picked up scatter against the ground and he whirled around, crouched on the ground. A few photos remained clench in his hand and he unfurls them to show her.
"This is you," he said, "And this me, a long time ago. We were together Olivia, you and me. You rescued me from the Other Side once and told me to come back for you. I broke your heart and you forgave me. You told me you loved me in May."
Her eyes went wide and she leaned back against her ropes. Her face remained confused for a moment but she changed it, a calm and careful glance. It's a glance she uses on people who are insane, on Walter.
"Okay," she said with a smile, "I remember you. Yeah, I do. Just let me go and we can talk about this."
Peter stood back up. She didn't know him. He shook his head.
"No," he answered, "You don't. You don't remember me."
"No, no I do."
"No," he said more firmly, "You don't. I'm not crazy, despite what you think."
"I don't think your crazy," she answered. He gave her a light smile.
"But you do," he answered, "You think by agreeing with me, I'll let you go free. After that you'd hunt me down, try to find me like you do to us all."
"Why are you here?" she finally lost it, "What do you guys want? What do you know about us!"
The irony behind that question is hilarious and he almost wants to laugh. He knows just as much as she about himself, and he's one of them. He turned back around to her, his bluish green eyes invading her as he replaces the cloth over her mouth. Just as he did so her hands come free and she punched him in the jaw.
Someone he knew this would happen, that by trying to knock some sense into her, she'd more than likely knock his not existent brain out. He scrambled-but not fast enough-as she untied her self and round house kicked him in the gut. She scrambled for his weapon, the one that fell from his suitcase and turned it on him.
"Last chance," she said, "Who are you?"
He chest heaved as he sat up, watching her point his gun at him. It was oddly erotic, the way she stood over him, wild and fierce and he wanted nothing more to place his hands all over that skin again and claim her as his own once again. He scrunched his face as his mind processed those mental images before his darkened eyes dragged up to hers from the tip of the gun.
"I'm yours, sweetheart."
In a final attempt to rectify the situation that he had so easily lost control over he lunges for her. but it's too late, she had already pulled the trigger and he flies backward at the force, lunging him through the window of the motel at a high speed and into the parking lot. He landed on his feet eyes looking back into the room she has yet to come from. Doors are beginning to open and he has made his choice. He turned and walked.
She does not remember him.