Title: The Day That Peter Bishop Pointed A Gun At Olivia Dunham
Rating: T (plus a curse word...)
Setting: Somewhere in season 3
Summary: The title says it all!
Author's Note: I started this before season 3 started and finished it shortly after watching episode 2 of season 3. There aren't any spoilers for those two episodes in this one, it's merely me speculating, Also, I have only run this through spell check so any errors are mine!

Peter Bishop never thought that there would be a day when he would have to point a gun at Olivia Dunham. But today... today was that day.

For the last few weeks, he had sensed that something had been wrong with her. It had started with little stuff. Like a coffee without sugar. Olivia Dunham always had one sugar in her coffee. Always Then came the distaste for Indian food. Nothing could beat a good Indian curry if you asked Olivia Dunham. And now, she wouldn't even touch it with a stick. There were the odd things she would say, like call something by a different name or not recall a certain event. Or the times when she would open the wrong door or press the wrong button even though nothing had changed in years. Those were things that never would have happened to Olivia Dunham. Those little quirks he loved so much about her, most of them were gone. They were replaced by other quirks he had never noticed before, and most of which he found rather annoying and irritating at times.

It was the little things that would usually go unnoticed, but not to Peter Bishop. They made a difference like night and day. In the beginning, he hadn't thought much about it. They all had been through so much, they all needed a break. They'd crossed universes, not once, but twice. Maybe his encounter with the other Olivia Dunham, even though it had been short, had tainted his view. He had seen a different side of her, one of those could-have-beens. The moment he had laid eyes on the red-haired version of Olivia Dunham, he had tried to convince that Olivia was Olivia. He had tried to tell himself that maybe the red hair wasn't so bad after all. But in the end, she wasn't his Olivia.

There were two of everything, and this Olivia Dunham that he was looking at, she was the same. But then she also wasn't. She was not the right one. She was not the Olivia Dunham he had grown to respect and trust. She was not the Olivia Dunham he had fallen in love with. She was the other one. She was the Olivia Dunham from the other universe. It was the only explanation he had for all those little things that were just so wrong about her.

It had started with one short sentence. "You need to do me a favor." He knew that if this Olivia Dunham was his Olivia Dunham, she wouldn't say no. She would call him crazy and would question why he would ask her for such a favor but in the end, she would do what he asked her to do. She would do it because she trusted him. And because she had nothing to hide.

The Olivia Dunham that stood in front of him, however, reacted just the way that he had hoped she would not. He had hoped that he was wrong in all his assumptions about her and that he was just getting a little bit too paranoid. She answered him with a simple "no". If he trusted her, he couldn't come to her with such a request. But if she didn't have anything to hide, she had nothing to lose by saying yes either. And that would have been why his Olivia would have said yes.

All he had asked for was an x-Ray. A simple procedure so he could be sure once and for all that this woman was not the right Olivia Dunham. He needed to see that fused over crack in her pelvis to believe. But the moment he heard the word "no", he knew there wouldn't be such a healed break to be found. Maybe there would be different ones, but certainly not the one he was looking for.

He hadn't expected to see her reach for her gun. No, he definitely hadn't seen that coming. Though, if he hadn't, why did he feel the cold metal of the gun pressing against his back, the slick shape perfectly fitting in his palm as he reached for it, and his finger the perfect match for the trigger? He had never pointed a gun at a women before. And he had never thought that the first women he would aim one at would be Olivia Dunham.

That ice cold grin that played across her lips, that piercing stare, the tight grip on the gun which was pointed right between his eyes - no, this definitely was not the Olivia Dunham of this world. There, opposite him, stood a perversion of everything that Olivia Dunham ever was and ever would be. Why had he ever believed that they had brought back this world's Olivia from the other universe? Just because she looked like her? His eyes had betrayed him. He should have listened more to what his heart was telling him instead.

It is said that it's your personality that shapes who you are, the things you have gone through, good and bad. That it's this personality what attracts you to other people, and not blonde hair, blue eyes or red lips. Peter Bishop had always thought there to be some truth to this, but he would have never thought just how much of this was true when it came to Olivia Dunham. He had never thought much about what it was he liked about her. He'd always had a thing for blondes, so she was not an exception to the rule. But if anyone now asked him what it was that was do special about her, and if he was true to himself, he wouldn't say it was the color of her eyes, her long blonde hair or her slender form. Not so long ago he had described her as someone who was always trying to right some imaginary wrong. And that, that was part of the reason why he had fallen in love with her.

"What finally gave me away?"

This question wasn't hard to answer. From the moment they had come back from the other side, he had noticed something missing about her. It was that glimmer in her eyes, that sadness that he had always described as "haunted". In the beginning, he had thought it had vanished because of him. The Olivia Dunham of this world had finally been able to face her past and to come to terms with the one thing she had been running from for so long. She had gathered all her courage to use those powers she had feared for so long to cross universes. Only to find him, to convince him that he needed to come back. All because he belonged with her. Now he realized how foolish it must have been of him to think that those few words could have changed her so much. That a kiss had been able to fix her.

"You're not the Olivia Dunham I fell in love with."

There. He had finally said it. He was in love with Olivia Dunham, but not with this one. He had never told her that. Neither one of them. Love - that was a word that never came easy over his lips. He could count on one hand how often he had told a women that he loved her. One of those times was today, the day that he told Olivia Dunham that he had fallen in love with her. Just that this Olivia Dunham wasn't the one who was supposed to hear it. And the Olivia Dunham who was supposed to hear it – he had no idea where she was.

"I may not be. But I am the Olivia Dunham you're having sex with."

His finger on the trigger twitched. Twice. He'd succumbed to her seduction twice. And how he regretted that now. The first time, he'd blamed his miserable state afterward on the beer. Seven bottles down the hatch and he had been like wax in Olivia Dunham's hands. What had happened between them that night was nothing like he had expected it to ever be. He woke with a headache the next morning, and red scratch marks down his back. He could dimly remember how they had stumbled into her apartment, how she had lead him to her bed, how she had pressed him down on the mattress beneath her as she undressed him. It was just wild, uninhibited sex and nothing else. No, this wasn't how he had expected his first time with Olivia Dunham to be.

The second time they hit the sack together, he had already had his suspicions that there was something wrong with her. He had thought that maybe he would be able to find the Olivia Dunham somewhere inside her if he just gave her a chance to be herself with him. He wanted to give her his heart, go slow and tender - just the way he had always pictured it would be between them. But once again, all he found was quick, uninhibited sex. No meaning, no feelings. No heart involved.

He felt dirty and used. This never had been about love. It always had only been about getting close to him and obtaining his trust, whatever the cost. It had been about infiltrating this world, preparing Walternate's plan and in the end, death and destruction. He was like a chess piece – serving a purpose at one point but once the time came, he'd be sacrificed. It all made so much damn sense now.

"Where's Olivia?"

His voice was trembling with rage, his eyes burning with fury, but all he got in reply was a shrug and a devious grin. She was still on the other side, he was sure of that, but where? What had this Olivia Dunham done to her? Pictures of the worst case scenario flashed in front of his eyes – how the other Olivia could have pointed her gun right between his Olivia's eyes, how the other Olivia could have slowly pulled the trigger with that insane grin playing on her face, how one single shot could have echoed through the stillness that would have ended one life forever.

"Did you kill her?"

Peter Bishop heard himself ask the question, and immediately knew he shouldn't have asked. This Olivia Dunham was going to give him the cold truth as an answer, and he wasn't sure if he was prepared for that. As long as he didn't know, he could at least still have hope that he would get his Olivia back one day. He'd do everything in his power to find her. Even if it meant crossing universes again to save her. She had done it for him. He would do it for her.

"What if I did? What does it matter?"

It mattered to him. It was all that mattered to him. Yes, he needed to know. His voice grew louder and louder as he asked the same question over and over again. Each syllable crossed his lips with a hiss, each word erupted with fierceness and fury. And all he got in return was Olivia Dunham's crazy laughter. Word by word, step by step, the distance to her grew smaller as he spat out the same question over and over again. His mind was reeling, the gun in his hand trembling. He wanted, needed an answer to his question. And suddenly, he realized that no matter what he was going to say or do, he had been wrong about one thing. It was the not knowing that hurt more than the knowing ever would. And just because of that, this Olivia Dunham wouldn't give him an answer. She never would.

His finger tightened on the trigger as he starred down the barrel of Olivia Dunham's gun. There was nothing he had to lose. He had lost everything already. They would understand. Or so he hoped.

"Fuck you."

And then Peter Bishop pulled the trigger.