A/N: Written for fandom_stocking over at LJ, or Alba17 who wanted a character study. Beta read by Tania.
When Peter first met Olivia, he wasn't prepared to stay. She was cute and smart, but she was also FBI and dangerous. What was worse was that she wanted him to do something Peter wasn't prepared to do, something he had never planned to do. He had to confront his father and keep him 'sane'. It was a fight, on more levels than one, but after much persuading, bribing and blackmailing, he consented. Still, he was ready to hop onto the next plane out of there as soon as the strange case was over. What the hell was Fringe Science anyway? Peter wanted nothing to do with it, or with his father's work.
Something deep inside was warning him away from the man, probably the same thing that managed to keep the lid on painful, long repressed memories. Peter wanted to listen to his instincts, but then he was kidnapped, and things happened, things that weren't supposed to happen, not to any sane person. And even if there was a different universe, a thick wall of reality between them, Peter was still Walter's son. He had the genes of a genius-if psychotic-scientist. The curiosity in his heart, that hunger for knowledge. So he stayed.
Slowly, he became the man he was supposed to be. Slowly, Peter learned about his destiny. He was beaten, tortured, drugged and shot by pulse guns. He jumped between universes, met his mother and his evil father, he fell in love with a woman that wasn't who she was supposed to be and unknowingly became a father. After a long painful struggle, Peter found his Olivia, the one and only that really understood who he was. He saw their future in the ruins of the world, saw the love and family he could've had. He came back with an answer, a solution for both universes. Something so simple, yet capable of saving worlds. He came back and made them see.
Then he vanished and the third universe was born.
When Peter re-appeared in the lake naked and freezing, despite the confusion muddling his brain, the only thing he wanted was to see his family. He didn't stop saying their names until the agents came and picked him up from the hospital. He needed to see Olivia, alive and well, to see Walter shaven and as close to sanity as his father was capable of without being an evil bastard. Peter would've given anything for a chance to just hold them both close, to feel loved and safe if only for a moment.
Instead he got suspicious looks, cold eyes that didn't recognize him and a cot in a holding cell. Once again, Peter found himself in a place he didn't belong and it hurt so much more than before. Because this time he couldn't tell himself it was just his memory being fuzzed by sickness, as he did during his childhood. These weren't people that didn't know him because he was kidnapped as a child. Lying in that cell, waiting for someone to realize he was needed, that he had a purpose, was pure torture. Time seemed to stop, forever stuck at midnight. Peter closed his eyes, and then blinked them open, hoping that it was all just a dream. Looking around his cell, he pulled in a shaky breath and closed his eyes one more time. If this was a dream, it was one that offered no escape.
There were times when Peter Bishop wanted to be forgotten by the world. Times when he would've been happy if Walter looked into his eyes and told him he wasn't his father, that there was nothing they had in common. He never would've thought one day it would happen, or that it would hurt this much.
The End