"I promise you, she will be safe. Nina found a good family for her. She'll be with people who know how to help her hide her abilities but could never be connected to us. They won't touch her, they won't notice her. She'll be safe. She will."
"Will she be loved as much as she is with us?"
The last time he saw her, he could lift her up above his head, he'd run around their house making motor noise as she spread her arms out and squealed at the top of her lungs, "LOOK MOMMY! I'M AN AIRPLANE!" The last time he'd held her in his arms, she had been so small. He remembered how he held her against his chest, the Velcro on her ruby slippers (a pair of bright red toddler sneakers that she had smothered in glitter when he hadn't been watching her closely enough at her craft table) had come loose and the shoes threatened to fall off her tiny feet as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. Her hands had been so pudgy, fumbling to grab at his shirt collar and then her mommy's hair. The last time he saw her, she had looked just like him. He remembered Olivia – Olivia – breathing, smiling, crouched over her when she was just a baby sucking contentedly on one of her toys, with that look of awe on her face as she pointed out his cheekbones and his ears and the crease between his eyebrows on a much younger, much more perfect face.
Now, she looks exactly like her mother, right down to that centered part in her hair that never, ever moved. He looks into his daughter's eyes and he sees Olivia. He touches his daughter's cheek and feels Olivia's skin, fair but rough, nowhere near as soft as when she was two and he would help her shave her bubble beard that she always grew during baths. He holds her against him and feels Olivia's strength, her feet planted firmly on the ground. But she leans into him, and her hands, her rough, slender hands, clutch at his back, not like when she was little and would wrap her arms around his neck when he held her. She does still bury her face into his neck.
Baby girl.
His little baby girl, all grown up. He can't help wondering who took care of her, how loved she was growing up, how many people have hurt her. And he fights to ward off the panic at what he wasn't there to protect her from. Without Olivia to calm down, he can't ignore his own anxiety. He remembers holding his love's tear-streaked face, warding off his own agony, only allowing himself to focus on easing hers.
"She'll be okay, Livy. She'll grow up and be happy, fall in love, have babies. Just not with us, not with us."
He'd thought he was wrong. After Bell betrayed them, showed them a long abandoned subway tunnel out of the city, only to tip off the Observers that Olivia Dunham was planning her escape that night, when they realized that they were doomed, Peter just wanted to hold Olivia one last time. He wanted to bury his face in her skin and commit the feeling of her body against his to memory before they were separated, and no doubt executed. Olivia fought, though. She knew it was beyond useless, she must have. But she fought, even as they dragged her away. They ignored Peter. They didn't even acknowledge him. They just tore Olivia, thrashing and screaming, out of the tunnel, away from him. His initial reaction had been to run after her, and he had almost caught up to them when he stopped, when he realized why Olivia hadn't given up and held onto him when it was obvious they were doomed. There was one thing Olivia would always fight for no matter how hopeless the situation.
He ran back into the city, to Walter and Astrid, to see if they knew where he could find someone, anyone, who knew where Nina had sent his daughter, someone who the Observers wouldn't have thought to read. But when he got there Walter and Astrid were panicking, when they saw Peter show up alone their panic increased and before Peter could scream that he needed to find his baby, the amber had already hardened.
Peter froze, knowing that if Bell told the Observers where he and Olivia were, there was very little doubt he had told them about Henrietta, and where she was.
But she is alive, and in his arms, and beautiful. And in this moment, he will not let himself grieve for a childhood he missed, or let his mind wander over what must have happened to Olivia (in the back of his mind, he knows exactly what happened to her, but he won't let himself admit it, will cling to the notion that he's been wrong before). He will hold Olivia's daughter, he will hold this person that he and Olivia created one night after a long boring day at work and a power outage and Olivia rolled onto his chest in bed and murmured that they should make a baby.
(The world had seemed so, so much better then. The bridge closed and the only threats were the odd crazed scientists who took their aspirations too far. And having a baby finally seemed like something they had time for. Olivia was going to take her full three months of maternity leave and not have to worry about the world ending. Peter was too. When they went in for that first sonogram and they heard the squishy sound of their baby's heartbeat, the future seemed so full of promise. He remembers the day she was born, skipping and running down the hallways of Massive Dynamic's health centre because he was on such a high that simply walking was impossible to find Walter and Astrid and exclaim "She's perfect!" He remembers Olivia holding her, the dazed and euphoric look on her face as she used their special connection to let Henrietta feel just how much she loved her, and how the baby almost immediately calmed down. The way she fussed when Peter took her out of her loving mother's arms for the first time, but calmed when he started talking to her, turned her head in recognition of his voice. He remembers tiny fingers and tiny toes, warm ivory skin, the way she looked at him with that goofy smile.
She was only four the last time he saw her. Small enough that he could lift her up and run around the house while she squealed in delight. It's impossible to comprehend that this beautiful young woman is the same little girl who he carried to his and Olivia's bed after a bad dream so she could sleep between them and feel safe. But he looks into her eyes and sees the same bright green orbs that looked up at him through tears as little arms clung to his legs and promised she'd be good, so good, if he and mommy didn't go.
This is her, his little baby girl, not so little anymore. And he will continue to do what he has always done. Love her and protect her, make sure she is safe. He just prays that he hasn't failed already.
