CHAPTER ONE: THE SPARK
You're forced to walk along a darkened corridor. The lights slowly flicker on, one by one, with each measured step that your father takes. Your father. Not the one you left at home, the crazy mad scientist who craves chocolate pudding cups in the middle of the night, but your biological father, the one with the pressed suits and the steely-eyed gaze.
Now you know where you got your poker face; your cool demeanor that had gotten you out of a scrape or two during your tumultuous times. The thought of you resembling him in any way just makes you sick.
You fall back a step as you take in what you just realized. Then you're roughly pushed forward by the press of cold metal at the base of your spine. Cold, you think as you pass by what you know are cells for "subjects." Cold is all that these people know.
You catch her reflection, your captor, as you walk past one of the many sealed windows along your path. Her now-blonde hair is tucked neatly inside her collar. You hate that. As she shoves you once again, you decide that you hate her too. But here's the kicker: you've fallen in love with her as well.
She may not be the hard-ass FBI agent who dragged you out of Iraq and turned your world – it's wasn't even really your world after all – upside down…or inside out…or some other version of asymmetry that only Walter could think of, but she's also Olivia. And you find yourself unable to resist any version of her. True, she was less haunted and more mischievous, but it was that same coy smile, throaty voice, and twinkle in her eyes that made you believe that this new side of her was simply caused by this new evolution of your relationship. Idiot.
She pushes the barrel deeper against your back at your father's demand and you sadly laugh to yourself. Even from this world, Olivia's a stickler for the code.
You stop at a window towards the end of the hall. You brace yourself cause you know what's behind the wall and you wish like hell that it wasn't true. A machine scans Walternate's identity and after a few beeps, the door opens.
Suddenly she's there, right in front of you. Your Olivia huddled in a corner. Your strong, brave FBI agent reduced to little Olive.
You're thrown into the room as the other Olivia throws over her shoulder, "Ten minutes, Bishop. That's the deal."
The door seals you in but all you care about right now is her. Seeing her here, alive and…almost well, you berate yourself a thousand times over about how stupid you had been, not noticing that she wasn't the Olivia you came home with.
You silently end a mental battle that shouldn't have been in your head in the first place. You'd take your card-counting, Cortexiphan-induced, universe-hopping-to-save-your-life Olivia over the other one any day. The problem is, you've seen this picture before.
Sitting at the corner of the room, with her arms wrapped around her legs, she doesn't even acknowledge your presence. You shift in place and as she slowly raises her eyes to meet yours, you feel the stirrings of a fire you know you'd never be able to tame.
"You're not real," she whispers, "you can't be real."
Your heart breaks for her.
Your heart breaks for you.
You catch a glimpse of wayward tears and you wonder if that's all she's been doing since you mistakenly abandoned her in this other universe. She bows her head back down. Her hair forms a rusted golden curtain that shields her away from you.
Your heart breaks a little more.
"Olivia," you try, but it just sounds wrong. You're not surprised to find your voice choked back by your own tears. You can't even call her by her name cause that's what you also used to call her.
So you move closer and lift her chin to meet her eyes.
"Sweetheart, I've missed you."
And the room burst into flames.