we have spoilers for EVERYTHANG. :D
Needle prick scars.
Teeny and tiny, the marks were invisible when masked by the sleeve of her suits, jackets and shirts, invisible to anyone who saw the crook of her elbow. But they were there, each time she looked in the mirror, each time she wore a tank top, a visible reminder and an invisible weight she carried around. Sometimes she'd stand in the foggy bathroom mirror and trace her fingers over the outlines of the angry red scars, just watching them under her fingers, trying to find the pattern to them, the reason behind them. The crook of her elbow would forever hurt, each day bringing on the same throbbing, nulling pain that the previous day had, yet the skin showed no mark for the pain that lay underneath.
The bruises fade away in time, occasionally she finds a funny lump, in an unusual place, and she remembers the black bruise that sat there a few months before. They blacks would fade to blues and purples and then to yellows and finally skin colors. But no one would know they were there, she refused to flinch at the slightest touch of them, refused to move underneath a hand pat on them and above all, refused to show them. She stood a stable strong wall built of steel mortar and diamond bricks in the public eye because crumbling wasn't an option, it couldn't be an option.
But she wasn't sleeping. She wasn't eating. She would stare down at the muffin that sat on her desk or the banana in her hand and both seemed to always end up in the trash. The couch wasn't comfortable enough to provide sleep, the floor brought the nightmares and the bed, well it felt empty and hallow stripped. The energy she needed to put her apartment right seemed to be gone so the bed remained empty of her small and slight frame. Subconsciously she knew she would return to the sheets by herself, to curl up and fight off the nightmares that waited to paint vivid and real pictures behind her eyes. Weeks later, things were still hurting. Things were still wrong.
Her body ached still, her bones would creak in the cold and her knees were weak, hurting. Her hair was just about dead, she couldn't braid it, she could wear it down and she couldn't let the bangs fall. There would be no fringe. She refused any part of herself that would look like her. And yet when she stared in the mirror, she couldn't find herself. She saw her and she saw everything she had. She couldn't find herself in her own reflection. And it was awful. It brought nightmares. It frightened her. What had Olivia even fought for over there?
She thought she fought for her side. She thought she fought for reasons beyond her comprehension. She thought she had fought for the chance that someone, anyone, from her side would miss her, would come for her. But what had she found when she came home? Stripped of her dignity, her will power, imprisoned and tortured for absolute nothingness, she had nothing left there. She was expendable. And when she had arrived home, after her struggles, her fights her tortures, waking up in the hospital she saw it, but said nothing. She was replaceable.
She saw it everywhere. Fooled, her friends, her co-workers, her bosses, fooled by her. Everyone was fooled. And she was here, back again to find that home wasn't home. Her friends were her friends, her work was her work, and her home, was no longer hers. There was a huge gap between her and reality, a space between sanity and crazy she feared that she may have been shoved across, forced onto, waltzed over by her and her other self in a brutal and mind blowing beautiful tango. She was a train, derailed from tracks that were never really hers and heading for the cliff, tumbling over and into the sea with strands of sun-ripened gold hair.
So she held out for the moment, the snapping, the breaking, twisting. She held out for the instant when her heart simply said "No more!" and gave in, encasing itself in a shell of quarantine amber, suspended permanently in that state of agonizing pain that she felt. But it never came. Or if it had come and gone, she was already encased, head to toe in the cold, to frozen to feel the amber on her skin. But she didn't believe that, because his touch burned her. It burned her, charred her like fire on a building. She could see his gentle nudge burned into her flesh behind her eyes when she looked at her shoulder again. She felt his gentleness and she wanted to explode. She wanted to implode. She wanted some volatile reaction to his sleezily simplistic chemicals and pull him apart. She wanted him to feel what she feels. She wants someone to know. She wants someone to feel her.
She felt the strangest urges to do something stupid. She wanted to do something reckless and dangerous. She wanted a one night stand or to get into a bar fight. She felt the need to leap from a plane and spread her arms and try to fly simply because she felt invincible. She was Olivia Dunham, a conqueror of two worlds. She didn't die. She couldn't die. More than once since her return she had been found standing in the rain, cold and sopping wet, eyes glassy and wet and staring at the sky and letting the rain drip into her eyes. More than once she found herself standing in Boston harbor, simply waiting for a sailor to ask if she wanted to go across the ocean, escape away. But they never did. She was invisible, nobody, insignificant.
She wanted to feel insignificant. She didn't want to be special anymore. Olivia wanted to be Agent Olivia Dunham. She didn't want to be the only one in the history of ever to be able to hop between worlds. She didn't want to be the object of Walter's fascination. She didn't want to be the object of Astrid's scolding eyes and she certainly didn't want to be the reason Peter looked in pain. She just wanted to be Aunt Olive and sister Liv. A full night of sleep is first on her list of things she'll never have again and shortly following that is a normal, functioning relationship. Things are things that couldn't happen because she was significant, she always was.
She'll insist she's fine, but she wont be. She never will be. Fine is a term she uses to cover up everything but fine. But who believes her anymore. She can insist persistently that she is quite fine, but that will never be the case. She hasn't been fine in years, years. To be fine now met she would be content. What was content to her anymore? She didn't know herself. She lost herself between worlds, floating in the atoms she was able to dissolve between so easily, calling for her to join. But she won't come to that. She's too important. Everyone needs something from her. The universe. Her sister. Her niece. Peter. Everyone needs her. So who does she need? She needs herself too.
There is a small black reminder tattoo on her neck. It tells her she was not her. There are need marks and bruises on her body. There are wounds in her body that won't ever heal. But she needs to be strong. But it's so hard. Where is the strength she needs when she can't find herself? She had nothing over there. She gave up everything for something over here. But she has nothing here. She has nothing to stay for. She can leave now. Her life was fulfilled, replaced by a woman not her. The reprocussions are greater than she would have ever asked for. She wants to be happy again.
Olivia Dunham would like to curl up and dream it all away. For one, full, twelve-hour night.
She can return to being strong tomorrow.