Title: The One and Only Journal Entry

Spoilers: All Episodes are fair game

Summary: Etta can't sleep. She tries to make sense of what's going on around her.

Author's Notes: Much like Etta, I couldn't sleep and this is what happened. No beta, so please forgive my mistakes. Comments = love.

Disclaimer: These are not my characters, I just play with them. No copyright infringement intended.

The One and Only Journal Entry

Etta slid from beneath the thin sheet and eased herself off of the cot. It creaked and she slowed her movement. Astrid was asleep only a few feet away. Etta didn't want to disturb her. There was no way to know when the next quiet moment was going to be.

Etta was fully aware that she would try to sleep as well, but it won't come. They had returned from the mine hidden in the forest hours ago. The adrenalin was still pumping. Not from the mission-the success and the loss—but the wild mix of emotions that she had been fight for most of her life. To give in was too sweet compared with the reality that she lived in.

She moved away from the corner she and Astrid shared. She passed the office where her parents were sleeping or at least pretending to be sleeping. She intentionally avoided the room or even glancing towards the windows.

The unnatural glow of the amber was more than enough light. She didn't know what she was looking for. She was just moving. But she was moving through a time capsule. The amber wasn't the thing only holding time. There was the room under the floor. And there was every scrap of paper discarded on the tabletops.

There was a stack of papers in the corner on the opposite end of the room. She perched on a stool and fumbled through the piles until she found a pen. She realized what she had been looking for. She needed an outlet, a way to organize her thoughts. She flipped over a piece of paper with what looked like a lunch order on one side. Or so she guessed because she had no idea what a cheese steak was. She began to write.

I've never done this before. People journal right? But people have also never been in a situation like this before. Who has? Who has dream and hoped and wished for something your entire life. Something you know is impossible and then to have it happen just like you thought it would. You hope and you hope and you hope and then you get it and you don't know what to do. I have to get it out of my head. This will be my only journal entry.

I'm living in a fairy tale. It's horrible everywhere else, but sometimes I just have a family. A real family. A grandfather, a father, a mother. Not foster parents or a guardian. I was lucky in the end. I found good people, but I wasn't theirs. I was included but I never belonged. I was always just on the outside. But you learn to keep your mouth shut. You learn to smile. You learn to how to leave the words 'Mom' and 'Dad' entirely out of your vocabulary because crying for your mommy even at five years old gets you punished.

Etta unconsciously ran her tongue along the inside of her lower lip. She found the small lump, the scar tissue left over from the face lip from her foster father's wedding ring.

"You're mother is dead. Now, shut up!" he had yelled right in the aisle of the grocery store.

None of the other customers had done anything. They watched a grown man smack a child in the face and they said nothing. It was dangerous time. You didn't get involved in other people's problems. An Observer had watched them go.

Just because I learned these rules didn't keep me from wishing it had been my mom who tucked me into bed. Or that my dad came to make sure I was okay after I had a nightmare. And there were a lot of nightmares.

There are a couple of things I can remember. It's more like echoes. I couldn't see their faces. I remember sitting on my mom's lap. She holds out her hand and I place my hand inside of hers. She leans over and kisses the back of my hand. Her blonde hair blushes again my cheek. I don't have any context. I don't know where we were or what we were doing, but I felt loved.

I remember a day in the park. The sun is shining in a way it doesn't shine anymore since they messed with the air quality. My dad is swinging me in circles around and around. I'm laughing in my father's arms. I can't tell what's up and what's down, but I felt safe.

Those are essentially the only two times I can remember feeling loved and safe. I never really wanted for the essentials. I was clothed and fed. I was lucky; the abuse I suffered was minor. It stung just as much, but it wasn't chronic. Overall, I deposited into families that were almost trying to help; they took in Purge orphans for more than just the money they got from the government.

I was starved for affection. I was never kissed good night or hugged or really loved. I missed it because I knew I had known it once. I had my memories even though I had been told a thousand time to forget my old life. Your parents are dead. And then after I joined the Fringe division, the old team was dead. I never believed them. I held out even though every rational thought said everyone else was right.

And now they were in the next room. Sleeping. And my dad hugged me good night and my mom asked if I needed anything.

I've always wondered what having actual parents would be like. It's different from what I expect, but not the way I expected. If that makes any sense, which it probably doesn't because it's very late at night and I know I'm rambling. Anyway, every night before I went to sleep, I used to image what my parents were like. They have had every face, every voice. All I could remember was blonde hair.

But there actions were always clear. Seeing them for the first time always played out the same way. Tears and hugs and the feeling of love that I could barely remember. I never thought beyond that.

Now, we're trying to figure out what this is. We're a family; I don't doubt that. But they're physically only about ten years older than me. A few months ago, I was four—no three—years old. They love me, but we don't know each other. It was easy with Dad. Right way, like the short hand was already there. He takes care of me. If something goes wrong, he looks to me first. He makes sure I'm okay first. I have never had that before. I've been on my own. Entirely on my own. I've had people I can trust, especially after joining the rebellion and the Fringe division. But there has been no one that I can count on unconditionally.

Until now. It scares me. I have it now: someone to count on. I don't know how I lived without it and I don't know how to do it without them anymore. It took only a few hours before I why totally depended. It was the first morning. I was half awake and I caught Dad checking on me. I was done. That was it. I need them and it scares me.

Like the way it scares Mom when she looks at me. She's quiet most of the time, but she watches me. She knows exactly where I am and what I'm doing. There's no judgment; she's not worried about me. It's more like she has to make up for lost time. She takes me in every time I walk into a room.

I wish I could figure out what she was thinking. I can't read her the walk I read more people. It's quiet like she is. When we're together, we just are. Like my memory of her. I'm just sitting on her lap. She doesn't say anything and feel loved.

She is so beautiful. I watch her too. I hope she doesn't notice. I just want to be near her, be close. She's my mom. I still can't believe I can write that. You're supposed to tell your mom everything. You're supposed to talk about boys and clothes and friends and home-cooked meals. Olivia Dunham might not be that kind of mother; she is strength. She is my strength and has been my entire life even when I couldn't remember her face.

I told her about pretending to go on missions together. She didn't laugh. I had kind of forgotten about that. Mom and I always got pinned down. The Observers would be closing in. I'd pretend be hurt after a daring move to protect her. Dad would show up at the last minute and save both of us. Everything would end happily.

I still hope for that. We're working on Walter's plan. I think I've been waiting for everything to settle down. I want to have a moment to get to know them. I have to stop waiting. This is our reality and as hard as we are working to change it, I can't say when that will happen. I have to take this chance while we have it. There's so much I want to know.

She reached for the chain around her neck before remembering it wasn't there. She felt naked without it, but she hadn't been able to get another necklace.

I'm going to ask about the bullet tomorrow. They kept safe so it must be important. I figured that when I found it in our house. Our house. I found that place about ten years ago and it's still as strange as to write 'our house' as writing 'my dad' or 'my mom.'

She yawned and rubbed her eyes. She really did need to sleep. She added one final note.

Talk to them. There's nothing to be afraid of. They love you. And I love them.

She didn't know who she was writing to. Was it herself? Would she find this scrap of paper in a few years and marvel at what a strange time it was? The Observers would be gone. She would have to remember a time when they were here rather than close her eyes tightly and vaguely remember a time when they weren't.

"Etta?"

She jumped. She hadn't heard anyone else moving. She spun around on the stool while stuff the page now filled with her scribbles.

"Mom, you scared me."

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I shouldn't be hiding in a corner of the lab in the middle of the night.

"Couldn't sleep?"

"No. I was too amped up after the mission."

"I used to be that way too. I would stay up late doing paper work until I could barely see straight."

"I'm getting to that point. What are you doing up?"

Mom smiled. "I have to pee."

Etta laughed. That's not what she was expecting. It was so normal to wake up in the middle of the night because you have to pee. "That's too normal for our family. There has to be a better reason than that."

Mom laughed. "All right, how about this? I knew my daughter was sneaking out after curfew."

That caught Etta by surprise. It was so screwed up that that was too normal that it wasn't even possible in their family. She wanted to throw her arms around her mother's neck.

"You never would have caught me," said Etta, trying to keep the catch out of her voice.

"I don't doubt that."

"I'm going to sleep. I don't want to keep you from your business."

Mom smiled, but she seemed to notice the change in tone. "Good night, sweetheart."

There was an awkward moment when Etta tried to figure out if her mom was going to do something else. Finally, Mom leaned closer and kissed Etta on the forehead. She felt the contact like something hot.

"Night."

Etta walked away and back to her cot. She was already back under covers when she remember the journal entry. She would have to get it tomorrow.

Olivia didn't know what to do. Stay busy. It was all she could think, but there was nothing to do right now. So she cleaned. She rifled through papers and threw away twenty-year-old jelly doughnuts.

There was a stack of books and old papers on a table in the corner. The page on top of the pile was an old lunch order written down in Astrid's handwriting. She looked through the first few papers. Nothing seemed important so she pushed the entire mound into the trash bag she was carrying.

She propped the books upright leaning against the wall. Someone could sit at the table now. She couldn't say who there was to actually use it.