Disclaimer: I make no money from this; I certainly make no pretense that I created these complex characters. I wouldn't leave them in such misery from week to week. Okay, maybe I would. I don't know. Pretty sure they belong to Bad Robot etc. though.

Spoilers: Everything through Concentrate and Ask Again.

Rated T for a naughty word probably everyone older than 10 has heard.

A quick stylistic note at the end.

It didn't say anything I didn't already know in my heart. I'd lost him. I'd gone over to the other side, putting my life on the line once again for a man I loved and thought loved me back, only to lose it all.

It's not that I don't know he cares for me too, but I'm too damaged. I can't be the person he wants me to be. I can't even bring myself to hate her. Not really. We're so alike in so many ways. I would have done the same thing if I'd been in her place. She was told what she was doing was to save her universe. I'd lie, kill, and yes, if I thought it would make the difference in passing off my cover, I'd sleep with the enemy. The lives of a few billion people are worth a little of my pride and self-respect.

To see it this clearly, though, laid out in a single sentence scribbled on a torn out notebook page, my heart feels like it's bleeding all over again. The shame I felt at John's apparent betrayal is back. I feel like such a fool. My damned mind-reading peer was right, we're too damaged and freakish for normal lives. Tears stream down my face and a sob catches me by surprise.

I don't cry. At least, I never used to. Not like this. I'm a soldier. I never even shed a tear in boot camp with drill instructors doing their best to batter down my defenses and ego. I think the difference was that I knew what they were doing; I have no idea what Peter's truly thinking or feeling. Even this clue is meaningless in a sense. I know this intellectually, but emotionally it doesn't feel true. It feels like the night I discovered his laundry in my machine. Proof of the betrayal I feel. I'm back to square one. So much for knowing always being better.

And he lied to me. I asked him point blank and he lied to my face. What else is he lying about? This seems important, niggling at the back of my mind, but I can't pinpoint the uneasy feeling. All the steps he seems to be trying to take with me right now are aimed at regaining my trust, but I know now that he's perfectly capable of lying to me.

Fuck him. I snort. Not literally. Maybe. Maybe that's the trick. Should I treat it like pulling off a band-aid? Just do it quickly; don't think about it. Just send him a text telling him I need to talk to him and jump him in the doorway? He was sleeping with her, is that the edge she has against me? Maybe he just misses sex. Guys are like that, from what I understand. Then, I've never understood them all that well.

I've always been too straightforward. I don't flirt well. She does. She still is here, in the back of my head. I can't get some of her memories out of my head. My shot tonight proves this. My aim has never been that good. I think he'd be better off with her. He's from her world, after all. Maybe they were always meant to be together and I'm the one who's interloping. Maybe the person I was supposed to be with died in bed as a child all those years ago.

Everywhere I go, she's with me, like a fucking ghost I can't get rid of.

Peter swallowed against the burning knot in his throat and was glad he'd already set her coffee down; he would have crushed it in his hand otherwise. He stumbled back a few steps from Olivia's sleeping form, hunched over at her desk where she'd apparently fallen asleep after writing those words, and sank onto the couch against the back wall.

The smell of coffee would wake her shortly—what was he going to say? He tried to rehearse the words in his head, but his mind kept going blank. He saw her groggily raise her head and run a hand across the back of her neck. He was vaguley surprised to feel tears streaming hot down his cheeks. Any moment now she would notice the coffee and turn to find him like this, and she would know that he'd read it.

Note - I wrote this in the choppy style that I did to try and emulate the stressed, confused state I feel like Livia should be feeling. If I continue (based upon if reviewers think it's worth it, of course!) the rest will be in a more prosaic manner.