Playing with other people's toys was always more fun…
Coming towards the end of this tale now, Walter feels the drain. Physically and mentally he is exhausted. "I realised at that moment that despite what I promised, what I fully intended to do, that I could never take Peter back." He recalls the look in his wife's eyes, silently pleading, openly devastated. "I saw in her what I feared most in myself. That I couldn't lose him again.
"It was the first hole Olivia. The first breach. The first crack in a series of cracks, spaces between the worlds… and it's my fault."
Olivia had listened in near silence since Walter came to her door. Only asking the odd question or prompting him when he seemed to drift in retreat, withdrawing into his thoughts rather than letting them go. She drank slowly yet steadily throughout, sipping from her glass of scotch, refilling for them both when their glasses emptied. Her heart clenched, not only for the man sitting before her, but Elizabeth too. Mostly her concerns and sympathies lay with Peter however.
The toll on all of them had been enormous, leaving Walter a broken man, Elizabeth unable to cope with the secrets and lies on top of the loss, but it had weighed heaviest on Peter. A boy who lost not only his mother but his father too. A child who had been left with a feeling he didn't understand and yet couldn't ignore; that he simply didn't belong. She knows it has shaped his entire life from that moment forward and she understands a little better Peter's choice of a nomadic lifestyle and the struggles he still has with staying in once place and dealing with Walter here.
As shocked as she was by everything she has heard, what Walter says next shakes her to the core. Her heart sinks and her stomach plummets, but the only outward sign is her face which falls with them. But in an equal and opposite reaction, memories, thoughts and feelings are hauled once more to the surface, from where she has made efforts to bury them. They lay there in the deep, but are never at rest and she can never forget.
"You can't imagine what it's like to lose a child."
The muscles in Olivia's jaw bunch, fixing a grimace between gritted teeth. Her eyes fall away and rest, downcast with no focus. It is her mind which sees now, taking her back to a point in time, the worst of her life.
Eyes with pupils blown wide, filled with sorrow and pain slowly drag back up with laboured movement. Even more slowly they find a point of focus, back on Walter. Her voice surfaces almost before conscious thought, for this is something she has always sought to keep from others. There have never been many people who she has felt close to, there are more now than there were then. She told no one at the time, only medical personnel who were responsible for her treatment. Since then no one has heard word of this from her. Until now.
"I was pregnant..." Olivia disclosed quietly.
Even as she said it, she wondered why she was going into this now, of all times. Though she realised hearing his tale of loss was the reason. It reverberated within her; their stories have much in common, though until this night they were unaware of how much the other has lost, how much they are still struggling against and coping with. Listening had summoned emotions and caused her to relive that dark time. Coupled with the fact that she had been the one to drink the lion's share of the Scotch already consumed, the liquor has a way of loosening her tongue and for this she would certainly need more. She had no intention of stopping.
Walter's head had jerked up in reaction to her softly uttered words, as lost as he had been in his own misery and the cathartic event of finally telling this story, they completely blindsided him.
Olivia leant forward, reaching for the bottle still sitting on the coffee table and refilled her glass, this time with a much more liberal measure, stopping when only half an inch of space remained to the rim of the glass, but for the moment she left it on the table.
"When I was in the Marines," she continued, raising and tilting the bottle - hardly touched when Walter arrived, now more than two thirds empty - towards Walter, silently asking if he too required a top up. He was tempted, but shook his head, he figured he'd already had his share and that he should be as sober as possible if Olivia had chosen to share her burden now, on this evening of secrets revealed and confessions heard.
Walter has a moment of clarity - rare of late, but perhaps not surprising that it comes now, after the purging of his sobering tale - when he realises he has been vaguely aware of her pain; has known of it since he has once again come to know her as an adult. It is ever-present, there in Olivia's eyes. He has seen it in quiet moments, times of vulnerability and self-reflection, displayed in a slight sag of her posture and within light 'self-comforting' touches to her hair, her face, her stomach. Although these moments are rare, she always fights to appear composed and to remain in control, he realises signs have been there all along, and each instance speaks of barely contained, inconsolable loss, signs he should have recognised instantly. He had never once thought to enquire about it or her wellbeing.
Walter knows how a secret like this, untold, becomes corrosive. Even when the exterior armour appears strong, impenetrable. Such as that she'd constructed, which might seem like natural strength, but in his experience people only develop such immense defences when they need them and as a reaction to harrowing circumstances. It masks not only the inner self but also the turmoil.
If he were a more capable man, he supposes he would have been more aware, a less self absorbed man he would have already asked, a more caring man he would have born witness to and comforted her through the telling of her story long ago. But as consumed with his own problems as he has been, it has been easy to ignore everyone else. With her history, soaked in tragedy and her nature which drives her to overcome each and every instance, it has been easy to miss one more layer of hurt, loss and isolation through the veiling effect of each of those before it.
Shame burns at the realisation of yet another of his failures.
'You can't imagine what it's like to lose a child,' he had said to her only moments ago, but he realised that for Olivia Dunham, no imagination would be required.
This has been a plot bunny, simmering, since I first saw 'Peter'. Something about Olivia's body language and that look following Walter's line, which could easily have meant she knows intimately.
Also I find it strange that we know hardly anything about Olivia's immediate history before the 'Pilot', especially during her time in the Marines.
The dots line up and lead me here, though I have reservations about writing this as I never have before.
Firstly, I'm rubbish at planning ahead, and slow when it comes to writing, so for a story such as this I'll have to muster some self-discipline. So far I've not used a Beta, but perhaps for this it is something I should look into...
Secondly, this won't be a happy tale for Olivia; do I really want to do that to her? Is that something you would want to read?
So we have a beginning - I've not written further than this, so perhaps this chapter might also serve as a temperature gauge...