Sum over Histories

by MVariorum

Summary: Olivia comes back. Olivia and Peter save the world. Again.
Categories: Romance; Adventure; Smut
Pairings: Peter/Olivia
Rating: M: So kiddies, the faint of heart, and those with refined taste should scoot along elsewhere. You have been warned.
Story Notes: Please accept my preemptive apologies for the pseudo-pseudoscience. Not a scientist. Sadly, I'm not even a pseudoscientist. Never will be.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapters: ?
Completed: No
Spoilers: AU after early season 3 (more or less around Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?). Includes some elements of the early part of Season 3, but no spoilers beyond that.

A/N: A great big thank you to the two kind people who reviewed. As always, thank you goes to my wonderful beta starg8fans (.net/u/1472659/starg8fans).

Chapter 3 / ?

I had been over the files hundreds of times, so much that I could repeat them now from memory. Apart from the fact they were adopted, the details of which entirely checked out as normal, these were regular, upper-class kids. They lived in oversized suburban houses with large yards, had nannies and housekeepers, attended prep schools, and played club sports in their free time.

I gulped down another slug of the now cold Irish coffee, sans cream, Astrid had thoughtfully provided for me before she left for the night. Well, Astrid made the coffee. I made it Irish with the whiskey I smuggled into the lab and hid in the office desk drawers.

Everyone else had left long ago. Even Peter, with one last wistful look into the office had left wordlessly, Walter tugging at his sleeve. The kids were gone over three weeks now and I still didn't have a clue where they were—or if they were even still alive. I still spent the bulk of my days and nights the first week following leads and reading files. A few meager leads followed at the beginning, then nothing. In the meantime there had been other solve-in-a-day-cases, but the four remaining missing children were still officially on my caseload and I spent my free time working it.

I reminded myself that since the world hadn't come to an end, their captors were probably not through with the children yet, so there was a chance they were still alive.

I sighed and stretched my neck and shoulders. I wasn't sure of the time since my phone was in my coat in the other room. It was late, though. Or, more probably, early.

I didn't sleep anymore. Not that I was ever one much for sleep in the first place—I'd always been able to get by on very little and now it was even less. But since I came back, when I did sleep, I was plagued with dreams so dark and desperate that I preferred the fatigue to enduring the dreams. Usually they involved Peter merged with the machine. Sometimes he was already one with it, an animal hunger darkening his face when he reached for me, my own lust so overwhelming I didn't mind. More often than not, the Other Olivia was there, dressed like a comic book villain in black leather while she controlled Peter from behind a glass partition. Sometimes she laughed maniacally and other times she sobbed as a machine-suited Peter shredded the boundary between universes with a finger's-click of the device. Or maybe it was me who cackled and sobbed. It was so hard to tell the difference.

The worst was when she backed me up against a wall, lust lighting her eyes. And I wanted her warmth and familiarity so desperately I didn't care about the end of the world, so I didn't bother to separate us.

When the resulting orgasm woke me, my hips uselessly grinding into the mattress, I couldn't decide if my desire was narcissistic or self-sacrificial.

In the first couple of weeks I was back, during the long nights when I was too tired to work but too anxious to sleep, I stayed in my apartment and drank myself practically unconscious while I watched reruns of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer on Chiller. I understood Buffy. A destiny she never wanted thrust on her and an estranged lover from another world. When she put a sword through Angel's heart, I bawled like it was me who'd lost my childhood and my capacity for transparent and painless love.

It didn't take me long to realize I was courting addiction, so I cancelled cable and stopped going to my apartment altogether.

I glanced out the tiny basement windows. Dawn would break soon and then I could go to the field office. Since I refused to go home, I had taken to going down to the field office early mornings or late evenings to work out. To stave off memories of a lifetime of experiences that weren't mine, I ran until my calves burned, then did violence to the punching bag until my body absolutely refused to go on. As a plan for maintaining mental stability, it left a lot to be desired, but very little nowadays made me feel like a real person—or at least an individual one. Only physical violence seemed capable of anchoring me to the here and now. It also soothed the cold fury that had overtaken my existence, albeit briefly.

I'd tried going to the shooting range when I first got back. On the plus side, my overpopulated psyche had maintained the other Olivia's marksmanship—I was going to own my next qualifying test—but targeting the black and white human outline proved inadequate to my rage. I wanted to lash out and feel the pain of striking something, preferably someone, else. Pushing my body gave me a measure of control over it I was not allowed as a captive Over There. As a bonus, the physical exertion allowed me to grab an hour or so of sleep afterwards on the lumpy couch in the employee's lounge.

The second night I'd been there a cadre of Hostage Rescue Team agents had been sparring hand-to-hand, their AIC surveying my workout with a knowing air. Now, I had a side-job of sorts with the HRT, working their agents in hand to hand combat. They were the tactical elite, the special forces of the FBI, really, and they usually bested me. But I usually managed to surprise them at least once and before they pinned me to the mat with both of us sweating and panting. Occasionally, an agent would be tired, distracted, or so green their FBI-issued sweats still had the manufacturer's creases in them—then I fought with such ferocity that the agents refused to meet my eyes when we passed in the hallways. It was gratifying to be able to hurt people legally, and I liked feeling like someone at least was intimidated by me. The HRT's training was so far beyond mine—most of them were former military—that the mental skill required to even get a leg up on one of them blotted my drain-circling life from my mind, if only for a few minutes so I could prevent myself from being punched back in turn.

This is what my life was now. I worked until I dropped and ate only what was available when I remembered to. I spent as little time as possible in my apartment, although I couldn't muster the resolve to move out. Sleep just wasn't part of the program. I knew I looked terrible; even the new clothes I'd bought one-size down right after I got back sagged at the waist and hung off my hips, but I lacked the initiative to shop for new ones. I don't know if it was the stress and the exercise, or some biochemical transformation only Walter knew about that happens when you cross over, but inexplicably my metabolism had twisted so that all the food I put in my body melted away, leaving sinew and muscle in its place.

Peter fed me surreptitiously. My favorite three-roll lunch from Genki Ya with extra wasabi, the prosciutto and fig on Ciabatta from Dave's, the Vietnamese noodle salad I continuously craved but never ate because I had to drive to the ass-end of south Boston to get it. He always fetched food for the others, so I didn't comment.

Once, over a year ago, I'd mentioned missing the fresh produce from my Florida childhood. So, the fruit came. A 10 pound bag of small, perfectly formed Empire apples, so aromatic the lab office smelled like September for days. Wild strawberries, that still carried traces of the morning's dew. A crate of succulent sun-warmed pineapples.

It was probably Walter who taught Peter to express concern with food, but it was the attentive specificity of his offerings that tightened my throat and made it impossible for me to confront him. He brought me things I had explicitly relished in the past. There was no way the Other Olivia liked these things in these ways too, their sheer number made it statistically impossible.

When two pounds of glossy, candy-sweet Rainer cherries appeared on my desk late one afternoon, I carried them into the lab and held them up, "Peter, it's November!"

He was encased in the shoulder-length gloves attached to the vacuum-sealed evidence box picking at something yellow and wet. He shrugged, but didn't take his attention from the specimen, "It's July somewhere."

I just stood there, waiting for his full attention. He frowned at the sample before glancing in my direction. Then he rolled his eyes and dropped the sample, shrugging out of the gloves.

"Don't eat them, then. Leave them for Walter if you don't want them." He fumbled under one of the tables and came up with a dropper of blue liquid and turned his back on me, dismissing me as soundly as if he'd left the room.

"Thank you," I managed to mumble, my gratitude sweeping out from a tender part of me I'd have bet money didn't exist anymore. That it had been wiped away, along with my identity and memories when I was trapped on the Other Side.

Peter froze halfway back into the gloves and the sample. Back taut, he stood there but he didn't turn to look at me. "You're welcome," he said quietly, and his voice hitched with some emotion I couldn't identify.

I arrived at the field office a little after six, just as light began poking out from behind downtown's skyscrapers. In the basement gym, half of the HRT recruits were there milling around, although they all backed away from me discretely when I approached.

I whipped my sweatshirt over my head, exposing the tank underneath, in preparation for the day's first spar.

A young man was circling me, knees bent, fists ready to strike. His grey-blue eyes, far too near Peter's color for my comfort, were wary and pensive with concentration.

I'd only had time to dodge a few of the agent's jabs when Broyles' voice cut across the quiet murmuring of the other agents."Dunham!"

I backed to the edge of the mat, nodded at the AIC, and jogged lightly over to where Broyles was standing in the door to the gym.

"One of the returned children is remembering. Nightmares. Last couple of nights." Broyles didn't waste any time, or comment on my presence sparring with HRT.

"Where?" I tugged my sweatshirt back over my head.

"Wellesley."

Shit. In morning traffic even with the reverse commute that was almost an hour away. And that was if I didn't shower or pick up Peter and I needed to do both.

"Text me the address. I'll leave in ten minutes." Broyles had already opened his phone. "Could you call Peter too? Tell him I'll pick him up in thirty."

Peter and I were headed West on I-90 just as light well and truly took hold. It was a little before eight when we pulled up in front of an enormous white colonial with impeccable landscaping. Even the snow drifts looked prosperous out here.

The door opened and a Latina led us into a room where a petite blond was sitting sipping coffee.

She didn't look at us when we entered the room. Broyles called her so she was expecting us. "Andrew has gone to school," she said in the surgically precise speech of the New England elite.

Mrs. Griffith? I'm Agent Dunham with the FBI, and this is—" She had barely looked at us when we came in the room, but when she did deign to glance at us, she blinked in shock.

"Simon!"

I blinked. Simon?

Peter shuffled from one foot to the other next to me. "Hello Eleanor."

The woman practically jumped out of her chair and threw herself at Peter.

Peter's arms tightened around her, although more out of instinct I could tell than affection. The top of the woman's head didn't even clear Peter's shoulder and she was babbling into his lower sternum. " . . . so scared. I didn't know what happened to you. . . . just disappeared." She pulled back to look at him, but didn't take her arms from around Peter's neck or wiggle away from his embrace. "What did happen to you?"

"Um, Ellie, that's a story for another time. Uh, I'm with the FBI now." Peter gestured toward the badge I had started to pull out before the surprise had stopped me. "We are here about Andrew's abduction."

The woman shuddered and put her head back into his chest. Peter looked at me beseechingly over her head.

I didn't know all the details, but I could guess at their relationship. This woman was obviously from Peter's past, possibly a mark, and whether it was genuine remorse, or just having his past revealed to me so openly, his conscience was itching him.

I quirked one eyebrow at Peter before cupping the woman's elbow, gently separating them to make her face me.

"Mrs. Griffith, um . . . Simon," only Peter could have heard the emphasis I put on the name, "is a consultant with the Department of Homeland Security and for reasons of National Security we cannot reveal the nature of his association with us. Suffice it to say, he is here as a liaison to the FBI, investigating your son's kidnapping."

She nodded and I felt a grudging respect for her focus. "Of course." She backed away from Peter and gestured to the coffee pot sitting on a nearby cart.

Once ensconced on her hard backed couch, sipping from coffee from china cups so fine they were practically translucent, Eleanor related her son's nightmares the night before. With an attention to detail I was beginning to appreciate, she reached for a notebook on the table next to her chair and balanced it on her knees.

"I wrote everything down as soon as I could, so that I wouldn't forget anything. I just can't help but keep thinking about those other kids." She crossed her arms in front of her, rubbing her upper arms with her opposite hands.

She glanced furtively at me, then at Peter. "Um, do you want to read this yourself, or . . . "

Peter turned to look at me, subtly acknowledging my authority.

"If it's okay, we'd like to take that with us." I tried to smile at her, but she was still looking at Peter. I gave up. "Maybe you could just tell us what happened in your own words."

Eleanor nodded tightly. "Andrew always sleeps well." She smiled fondly, "Even as a baby he slept well."

Wordlessly, she refilled Peter's half-empty coffee.

Last night, he seemed . . ." She wrinkled her nose, " . . . out of sorts. Grouchy, temperamental. And he never is."

"How has he been since he was returned?" I asked.

"Fine," she replied.

She set her coffee cup down. "Not exactly," she amended. "Andrew has always been even-tempered and easy-going. Since he's been back, he seems to be . . . stressed. I tried to question him, but he always said he didn't remember, didn't know anything. He knows about the other children, so if he knew anything he'd tell me."

Eleanor jammed her hands under her thighs at the edge of her seat and leaned over the table towards us. "He went to bed like normal last night. Then, at midnight, right after I had just turned out my own light, Andrew was suddenly standing in my doorway. He was crying, just quietly crying. And he said, 'They are somewhere else, Mom. Somewhere not here.' I asked him how he knew that and he said they were all wearing masks to help them breathe and that they rode in a giant air balloon."

"What was he like when he was saying these things?" Peter asked quietly. "Was he upset?"

Eleanor was visibly shaken and she drew in a deep breath. "No. After the first bit, he was done crying. He was talking like he was telling a story. Someone else's story—not his own." She shook her head. "Since nothing he was saying made sense, I just tried to get more details from him in the hopes it would help."

She tore out several pieces from her notebook and handed them to me. "I wrote down what I could. Maybe something there will make sense to you."

Then Eleanor looked me directly in the eye. "Agent Dunham, what is going on here? Was ? . . . I mean . . . I can't believe I'm going to say this." She looked up at the ceiling. "Was my son abducted by aliens?"

I reached out to touch the edges of her hands which rested on her knee and she gave a little laugh. "That sounds just as crazy out loud as it did in my head, I'm afraid."

"I don't think so Mrs. Griffith." I said as gently as I could. "We can't discuss an ongoing investigation, you understand," people rarely understood, but I said it anyway, "know, however, that the children's abduction—your son's abduction—was carried out by someone very much from Earth."

She nodded and rose. "I will let you know if anything else happens."

"Of course. Thank you Mrs. Griffith. You have already been very helpful."

The door closed behind us after Eleanor had given Peter one last furtive hug and her phone number, begging him to call so they could catch up.

We walked back to the car in silence. We were exiting onto I-90 again, several miles outside of Wellesley when Peter finally spoke, "I knew her almost 7 years ago."

"Simon Peter," I replied. "Like the apostle. Cute."

"I told you, keep it close to the truth. Or at least something you can remember."

"Uh, huh," I said. "Was she the mark?"

"No." Peter looked out the window. " Her sister. And Eva was a Grifter of the first order. Bigger . . . than I ever was."

"Listen, Simon," I said. Peter groaned. "It's not group therapy. You don't have to share."

"'Reasons of National Security?'" Peter mocked. "Seriously?"

I grinned at him sideways. What the hell was going on? We were barely speaking weren't we? Now we were teasing each other like twelve year-olds left to our own devices with a bottle of Boone's.

Peter smiled cautiously. Then the smile faded and he took a deep breath, "Seven years ago their father hired me to keep Eva and her lover from stealing his fortune. But Eleanor was always there too. And I think she always knew there was something not right about me. Ellie was the smart one—miles smarter than she looked."

Peter turned to face me. "Eva deserved what she got, but Ellie," he broke off. "I tried to fix it as best I could, you know? I figured if she just never knew, it would be better . . ." Then he shook his head and grimaced. "Better for me, I suppose."

"Were you supposed to make Eva fall for you?"

Peter exhaled sharply. "God, no! I didn't work like that." He shook his head. "Never had the stomach for that. I appealed to her greed."

Interesting. Even as a confidence man, Peter had a conscience. "But Eleanor did?"

"Huh?" Peter asked.

"Fall for you?"

Peter shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. I hope not."

Just as we got into the outskirts of Boston, the horizon shimmered and I had another memory that wasn't mine.

I was in the car, but it was stopped. Charlie was sitting next to me talking to someone else on his earpiece.

There was a great deal of smoke and noise, and I was more terrified than I could remember ever being. Agents were running around on this side of the highway, where traffic seemed to have disappeared. The other side of the highway headed out of town, traffic was stopped, bumper to bumper.

Charlie looked at me and I sucked in my breath when I saw the scar on his face. He raised his eyebrows at me but then turned to reach in the backseat. He pulled out a weapon and handed it to me then turned to retrieve one for himself.

He nodded at me. "Just like falling off a bicycle, right Liv?"

He turned to open his door and I did the same. Then we both got out of the car.

I jogged behind him, still looking around for clues as to where, or when, I was. Charlie stopped at a group of agents conferring in low tones a short distance from the car we'd just exited. One of the agents gestured behind him in the direction of the city skyline.

I caught my breath and watched as the amber expanded upwards to engulf the entire city. The amber grew and grew, consuming everything in its path, cracking and popping when it hardened until the entire city was swallowed in an amber bubble.

"Olivia!" Someone was calling me from far away. When I turned to follow the sound of the voice, it got a little closer, but more urgent, "Olivia!"

I turned and headed back in the direction of the car, then the horizon shimmered again and Peter's anxious face was only a few centimeters away from mine.

"Olivia! Can you hear me?" I blinked and slid back and away from him a bit so I could focus on his face.

"Peter?" I was still sitting in the driver's seat. Mercifully, the car had stopped moving. We were pulled over on the median, the car still running, hazard lights a ticking blink on the dash.

"What the hell just happened? And don't tell me you are fine."

"Peter," his face swam in front of me, "—Umm—"

"What just happened to you? You just drove to the side of the road—nearly killing us—and then just sat there."

"I think I just crossed over."

"What!" Peter backed away from me almost comically fast, flattened himself against the passenger seat door, and fixed me with a glare.

Fear and anger suffused his face in equal parts. "What did you eat yesterday for lunch?" he demanded.

I nodded once to show him that I understood. Then I had to stop and think because I was suddenly overwhelmed with thoughts and sensations of Chicken Chow Mein from the campus carryout closest to the lab.

"I had the peanut butter and pickle sandwiches Walter brought from home. And an apple." Peter relaxed a little.

"But you are thinking about Chinese carry-out in an attempt to trip me up." That earned me a small, relieved smile.

"Maybe I should get "Thing 1" tattooed on my forehead and be done with it."

"How about Prime?" Peter teased. Then, his smile vanished and he asked, "Olivia, if you just crossed over, why were you here the entire time?"

Good point. The steering wheel felt solid where I gripped it. It must have been just a memory—not mine of course, but it sure didn't feel like it. I glanced at him from the side of my eyes and shook my head as I put the car in gear, "Fuck if I know."

Back at the lab Walter was MIA, having been taken away to the Federal Building's lab to oversee the transfer of some evidence. I recounted mine and Olivia's morning's pursuits to Astrid, minus her sudden trip to Neverland, mostly because I really wouldn't have know what to say about that.

Astrid nodded at appropriate intervals, but never took her eyes off the computer screen in front of her. Astrid was like that. Diminutive and so downright adorable you miss the fact that she missed nothing. And she could kick my ass with one miniature hand tied behind her back. Which was hot.

I sighed and handed her Ellie's note about her son's disappearance. "Ellie gave us this," I said, "she took notes as soon as she could after he son told her where he'd been."

Astrid deigned to take her eyes from the monitor to raise one perfectly arched eyebrow at me, "Ellie?"

"Uh, it's a long story."

"Ellie is an old friend of Peter's" Olivia called from behind the half-shut door of the office where she was bent over logging onto her computer.

Olivia emphasized the important words so Astrid wouldn't miss them. "Apparently, not that long." I blinked at Astrid and gave her my best blank face.

She didn't take her eyes off of me, watching my face carefully. "Uh-huh," she said, nodding sagely.

I'd been wandering the world for close to a decade, relying on little more than my wits and what I considered a highly evolved poker face. Of all the people on the entire planet, I get partnered with two women who managed to read my face as easily as a billboard with only half the effort.

One of whom could read my mind if she'd bothered. But she rarely did since all my truths seemed to be right there, written across my face.

I sighed petulantly. My lungs felt constricted, like there was too little air in the room. There were too many people in here, with too many problems, who, if I were honest with myself, I cared too much about.

I had to get out of here. I glanced at my watch. Not quite 10.00.

I reached for my coat and told no one in particular. "I'm going out for a while."

No one answered.

"Walter?" the lab's door swung outwards and slammed into the wall behind it. I scanned the room, but saw no signs of life.

Peter hared off somewhere he chose not to share earlier that morning. I had no idea where. Without thinking, I reached out to locate him. When I felt him prickle along the back of my skull instantly, I knew he hadn't left the area, but he wasn't here now. Astrid and Shannon were traveling for Thanksgiving, so Astrid was taking next week's three work days off. Today she had come in and gone home early to start the weekend. Broyles had just told me over the phone that Walter was escorted back to the lab earlier that afternoon.

I climbed down the stairs, still scanning the room looking for Walter. If I was lucky he was here. If the gods smiled on me today, he would be alone.

"Walter?" I called a little more loudly. Walter had a tendency to retreat into his own world.

A clatter and some mumbling stage left suggested that Walter was here somewhere.

"WALTER?"

Walter's head popped out from behind the doorway of the lab's storage room. "Oh. Olivia, dear. It's you." He shuffled out into the main room, carrying a battered file box. "I was just reviewing my notes from when Belly and I tried to—"

"Walter," I interrupted, "I need your help."

"Why, yes, of course." He set the file box down in the middle of the doorway to the storage room, stepping carefully over it.

"I . . . ," now that I was here with Walter's pale eyes staring into mine I didn't know how to start. I felt dizzy and weak.

I was as unstable as an exposed nuclear reactor. I couldn't even think about telling Walter what was happening without shaking and sweating like I was infected with the hantavirus.

"Olivia," Walter mind snapped back to this world so obviously I almost heard it click. "What is it my dear?" Concern overlaid his superior-scientist voice and his eyebrows were drawn together in one long, hairy line.

"Walter." I struggled to pull myself together, glancing around at the lab equipment like maybe they could help me. "I've been seeing things."

Walter's eyebrow(s) rose quizzically. "You are seeing Agent Scott's memories again?" Walter was talking mostly to himself. "But that doesn't make any sense. It has been quite a long time, and Agent Scott has been—"

"No, Walter. Not John's." And I felt an inexplicable sadness for the old days, when what worried me most was ridding my mind of the consciousness of my traitorous dead lover.

If only.

I decided that this was information that I needed to tell Walter, no matter how much it cost me in terms of personal privacy. I had to tell him as much as I could stand.

Walter just stared at me. Waiting for me to go on. "Not John's memories," I repeated, "Hers."

Walter squinted an eye at me. "Hers?" he repeated.

"The other Olivia."

"Oh."

I waited, but for once, Walter didn't seem to have anything to say.

"Also, I keep crossing over."

That got his attention. "More than once?"

"A lot more than once," I confirmed.

I remembered Peter saying I hadn't left the car. "I think," I amended, "sometimes it's hard to tell."

For a moment, Walter looked like someone had snatched his favorite snack from him en route to his mouth, before the unmitigated pity surged over his face. It was almost more than I could take.

"Olivia. I'm sorry." He looked down at his hand. "I'm sorry we didn't know."

I wasn't sure which thing he was sorry for that he didn't know. Didn't matter. I needed to move on before my voice disappeared altogether. "I know Walter. Can we fix this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I need to control this Walter. Just this morning, on the way back from questioning a witness, driving along the I-90 I crossed over and . . ."

Walter was scrambling for his notebook. Fluttering pages, testing and discarding pens that didn't work. Did you have an accident?"

A little startled to see all traces of compassion wiped from his face as he instantly transformed into the dispassionate scientist, I stuttered, "Umm. No. That is. I'm not sure. No." I finally managed firmly. "No. I don't think so. Just came back on the side of the road."

"What did you see?"

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. Then I gave up and just shoved my shaking hands into the pockets of my jacket. "Charlie. On the day of the Boston Fringe Event. I was in the same place as I was in the car. . . roughly. The outskirts of the city on the freeway. And I . . . I think I might have been new—as a Fringe Agent. I'm not clear on the timeline—I can't seem to access and identify all the memories when I want to. That's the problem."

Well, one of them anyway. I had a number of problems at the moment. Walter was scribbling furiously in his notebook. I waited for him to stop before continuing.

"There were people. Trying to exit the city—all bunched up on both sides of the road. Except for the lane we were in, which was blocked off. I was, um, pretty terrified. Charlie and I were in the car. Then we were running towards the other agents, and the amber was growing, right up from the center of the city—," I broke off, unable to continue.

But he had to know the most important part. I leaned against the lab bench and drew a choking breath. "Walter, when I was over there, they made me think I was her—"

"How?" Walter was still writing rapidly. He didn't look at me. Somehow, that made it easier.

"I don't know, really. First, they just tried to persuade me. I know that. I was locked in a room with a shrink who tried to convince me I was her for days. Then the tests started. I think they injected me with something to make me think I was her.

"Walter, I can't get rid of her," I whispered. I looked around for somewhere to sit since my legs didn't feel like they could hold me anymore. "I— . . . I don't think I can do this." A nightmare mosaic of memories, crashed through me. My dreams and hers. Charlie there, with his jagged scar and his guarded tone. Charlie here, but dead, and I didn't know. Peter already in the machine, a vicious gleam in his eyes. A dead city, frozen in amber. My mother, alive. The feel of her arms around me. Ella. Not Ella.

The torment of captivity and endless tests.

Without even knowing what I was doing I reached out to touch Walter's sleeve. I needed something to fasten me to this place, to save me from the unpredictable Tilt-A-Whirl of my crowded consciousness. The incandescent haze of her and me. Both of us. Impossible to tell which one was me.

If I ever was me.

Maybe I always was her. Maybe there was only one universe. And I was crazy—the tricks of my own schizophrenic mind making me believe I was an FBI agent from another world. My mother's arms waiting to enfold me in the midst of my insanity.

The edges of Walter's lab blurred and shimmered. "Not now," I think I moaned as I struggled to stay upright.

Fatigue swamped me. A bone-deep weariness that I couldn't fight. Walter stopped scribbling in his book. "Olivia—"

My legs folded like they were made of Tinkertoys. I felt the concrete floor slam into my elbow and hip.

Then blackness overcame me.

######

Some amount of unknown time later I came to stretched along the couch in the yellow light of the lab's office.

"Hello dear." Walter was sitting at my desk nibbling on Cheez-its.

"What happened?"

"I believe you fainted. Have you eaten today Olivia?"

"How did I get here?"

Walter just shrugged and popped another cracker into his mouth. "You couldn't weigh much more than 50 kilos dear." He chewed, squinting into the bottom of the Cheez-its box. "And I'm not so decrepit as you imagine. I carried you."

"Did I cross over?" I sat up carefully on the couch.

"I don't know." He put the box down and turned to face me. "Did you?"

"I don't think so. At least, I don't remember it."

Walter's face was openly paternal. "Olivia, why didn't you tell me? You've been back over three weeks."

I didn't know. Frightening though it was, Walter was the closest thing to a father I'd ever known. If I couldn't tell him, who else would I tell?

I pulled down my runched up blouse. My jacket was draped at the end of the couch. "I thought I could handle it. I thought it would fade. Like John did."

Walter's Sybil-esque face transformed into the unrelenting scientist's again. "Olivia, I can only help you if you tell me everything," he said. Walter looked at me sternly and I nodded.

So I told him. As much as I could remember. Or make sense of. The time Over There, thinking I was her. Frank's kindness. How Charlie was alive. My mother alive and Rachel dead. How, since I've been back I felt demolished, fragmented like the far-flung pieces of colored glass in a church window, smashed and reassembled into a whole new image.

I even told him about Peter appearing to me over there. How he worked to convince me I wasn't her.

Walter just sat there, nibbling Cheez-its, nodding occasionally, jamming the box between his thighs so he could scribble notes.

"I'll need help with this, Olivia."

Oh no. I looked at Walter silently begging. He only shook his head back at me. "I won't keep any more secrets from Peter, Olivia." He rolled up the cellophane and folded the Cheez-its box closed. "None that I know of, anyway." He stood and put his lined hand on my shoulder.

"And you shouldn't either," he said so quietly I almost didn't hear him, even though the lab around us was dark and silent.

Walter left the office, headed back to the storage room, probably to find the files he would need to tear open my brain.

From the hollow darkness of the lab Walter called, "We can start tomorrow."

I found her in one of her favorite hideouts: a bar on the unfriendly edge of Sommerville. It was a One-Vinyl-Padded-Door-No-Windows kind of establishment where she went when she wanted to be alone with a host of other solitary drinkers.

The bar was already filling up and it wasn't even 4 o'clock. Maybe everyone was kicking off the Thanksgiving week early. Olivia sat at the end of the bar, coat still on, one unbuttoned side snaked around her holster, tipping back a shot of the inevitable whiskey. A beer bottle sat next to her on the bar top.

She was the only woman in the place. She'd prominently displayed her weapon, probably to fend off the inevitable come-ons, making it clear to the flannel-clad, workbooted patrons she wasn't there for the company. Even though the bar was half-full, there was a two-chair force-field around her.

She set the shot glass back down and pushed it toward the back of the pitted bar then tapped her first two fingers at the barkeep who was lazily filling the ice well and watching hockey scores on the elderly wood-paneled TV at the end of the bar.

Her elbows were propped on the bar. She knew I was here, I could tell by the hunched tenseness of her shoulders, the way she pointedly didn't look in my direction.

She'd known I'd follow her after Walter filled me in. By now, it was practically my MO.

Just like fleeing to drink alone was hers.

I walked down to her end of the bar and slid into the seat next to her. There was nothing else to look at in the place, so the customers' eyes followed me, waiting for me to strike out.

The bartender slid a generous two fingers of whiskey in front of Olivia and raised his eyebrows at me. I pointed to her beer and her whiskey and he reached into the cooler behind the bar for a beer which he put in front of me and shuffled off to get my whiskey.

It was not a talking kind of place. After the bartender returned with my whiskey, we sat there silently looking at the double row of top-shelf liquor gathering dust on the mirrored wall behind the bar.

Olivia tossed back her shot and I took a small sip. I wasn't sure what was going to happen, but my need for clear-headedness outweighed my need to show solidarity by pounding back double shots at Olivia's tempo-allegro.

Besides, someone was going to have to drive Olivia's massive FBI-issue SUV back to the Federal Building and then navigate us home. I didn't want a DUI added to the potpourri of commendations and decorations in her personnel file.

I let a full fifteen minutes pass before I said anything. She would expect me to blaze in at her beleaguered and indignant. I was going to try to surprise her.

So I tried to open with the most benign thing I could think of. Something she was bound to already know. "I talked to Walter," I said without moving my eyes from the spot on the back of the bar I was staring at.

Olivia didn't say anything. She just stoked the rim of her rocks glass with her thumb and forefinger. I counted to a hundred and then asked, "Do you have anything you want to share with the rest of the class?" hoping that my tone showed I wasn't being snarky.

She motioned the bartender for another drink and slid her empty glass to the back of the bar. "Are you going to help?" she asked.

"Olivia—," I started. But then found I didn't quite know what to say. It felt so familiar. Her rushing off into yet another half-assed mess. Me unsuccessfully averting her. We were both inhabiting our self-appointed roles and they felt as comfortable as a pair of worn slippers. The fact was, I'd sooner eat ground glass than help Walter inject her with more Cortexiphan, or sink her back in the Tank, or whatever other Faustian nightmare Walter planned to help her get control of her abilities.

Abilities.

What a fucking joke.

The bartender came back carrying the bottle of Bushmills. He silently filled Olivia's glass and set the bottle down next to it. Evidently it was easier just to let us keep count.

Walter told me, with total ingenuousness, that he learned it wasn't just the Faux's Vagenda (best new word, ever) that was bothering Olivia. Evidently, Walter has just joined the rest of us. As if, Walter had imagined that at this point my sleeping with someone else would even register on Olivia's scale of Very Bad Things.

Walter described how his doppelganger had taken advantage of Olivia's skills as an empath by convincing her that she was the Faux. Olivia had been living, Walter explained, as the Faux Over There all the weeks she was gone. And now that she was back, Olivia was struggling with the infusion of the Faux's consciousness into her head. As it turned out, this problem was pushing Olivia to the edge of sanity.

Olivia's abilities already made her more capable of crossing over with relative ease. On top of that, the burden of managing both sets of consciousnesses made it impossible to single out her own identity from the hue and cry of all the others who set up housekeeping in her mind. All of this was making it difficult to locate herself in both time and space. So when she crossed over, she crossed dimensions and moved through time as well.

Now it all made sense. If Olivia was crossing not only space, but space and time regularly like she had this morning without willing it, and she was regularly experiencing the Faux's memories and dreams, and she was still unwillingly riding the vertiginous carousal of my own mind, it was no wonder she was as unstable as if she'd been drinking the mercury-blood of the shapeshifters for months.

Shit.

I planned to tell her that there was no way I would be a party to this. That she'd have to find another way. Instead, I said, "Olivia, you don't have to do this."

She gave an unladylike half-laugh, half-snort then drank her shot, chasing it with a swig of beer. I risked touching her by reaching out and putting my hand on top of hers sitting next to the beer. Even her fingers were thinner, her skin as fragile and translucent as rice paper.

She stilled, but didn't pull her hand away. When she turned to look at me the dark bar and the whiskey made her pupils wide, leaving only a thin sliver of green rimming their edges. "We both know I have to do this Peter." She looked away, but turned her hand so it was palm up under mine.

Her voice was rougher even than her normal honey-on-sandpaper rasp. "Are you going to help Walter?" she asked, "He says he won't do it without you."

I looked away. If I helped Walter and she died from any number of dangerous things or disappeared into the ether of The Other Side I'd never forgive myself. If I didn't help her she very well might blow someone up. Or go insane. Or throw herself in front of a bus just to get a little surcease.

On the other hand, just as easily, the fabric of both universes might abruptly unravel tomorrow and we'd all die anyway.

I sighed. "What do you think I should do?" I was genuinely interested in what she would say.

Olivia usually only answers direct questions about her needs when projectiles actively threaten the lives of everyone in the vicinity.

She gripped my fingers and leaned closer to me. "Help him," she said. She looked back at me and her voice was desperate, "Help me control this."

The raw honesty of her answer made me nod at her before I even realized what I was doing. I'd have followed her off the edge of a cliff if she continued to look at me with her eyes a naked combination of misery and conviction.

I peeled off three twenties from my pocket and laid them on the bar. I'd stopped counting the drinks, but I figured that would cover it since Olivia was still more or less upright. "C'mon, Miss Loaded 2010," I said, giving her my most endearing smirk, "The drunk bus is leaving."

Color me astonished, but for once Olivia did what I told her to. She slid off the barstool and onto her feet, glancing down to fasten one button on her coat. She leaned into me slightly so that her lips were shiveringly close to my ear. "Where we going?" she asked, with the precise locution of the well and truly drunk.

"Home," I evaded.

She just smiled.

I grabbed her elbow, leading her toward the door. Shockingly, Olivia not only let me guide her, but she leaned closer into me, forcing me to wrap my arm around her waist as we passed through the narrow door side-by-side.

Outside, I held my hands out for the keys to her car. She dug in her pocket, put them into my hand, then rested her head onto my shoulder as we walked the two blocks to her car.

If the universe had exploded and burned out in a fiery burst then and there I would have died a happy man.

Olivia had got on-street parking in this neighborhood on a Friday afternoon, a universe-ending mystery in itself. I clicked the car's remote lock and guided Olivia to the passenger door. She turned to face me just as I reached around her to open the door.

With my hand still on the car door handle I looked down the few inches in height that separated us and wished I hadn't. Olivia's face was so senselessly affectionate it bewildered me and I halted.

Even before she got trapped on the other side, Olivia only seemed to barely tolerate me; tenderness was something I'd never expected or received from her before.

Stunned by the mossy undergrowth in her eyes, I didn't see her hand snaking around my neck, I only felt her tug me down gently until her mouth settled under mine.

Her mouth moved slowly, like she'd just formed her hypothesis and was in the initial testing phase of the experiment.

I knew it was the combination of anguish and alcohol, so I did my level best to control myself, really I did.

But I'm hardly on Benedict's list to be canonized, and after the disaster of recent events, it had been months since I'd touched her—really touched my Olivia. And my last two functioning brain cells assured me Olivia had never looked at or touched me like this, like I might be something other than merely agreeable and/or convenient.

While her mouth continued its assessment, I reached out under the flaps of her coat to smooth the curve between her waist and hips. When she raised up on her toes and wrapped her arms more tightly around me, I stepped forward and backed her into the passenger door, nudging her legs apart so I could seal myself along her lean length.

Of their own volition, my fingertips reached up to stroke the curved underside of her breast and she arched up into my hands, opening her mouth wider. Her tongue was cool and tasted of whiskey, the bar, and something that was indefinably Olivia.

This was getting out of control faster and uglier than an Olympic luge run. This was a Very Bad Idea. I wanted her more than I wanted air, but taking an inebriated Olivia to bed was hardly the way to cultivate trust.

Shaking like I was wired to car battery, I pulled back from her. She just stood there with her hands still curved around the edges of my shoulders, smiling her La Gioconda half-smile at me.

I swallowed hard, suppressing a groan. I tried to regulate my breathing, but found it difficult since there was barely enough blood left in my brain to control involuntary responses. I reached behind her again and managed to crack open the passenger door with one hand and steer her uncharacteristically pliable body into the seat with the other

I slammed the door, taking several deep breaths as I slowly circled around the back of the car before getting in.

No way I was taking her back to her apartment. My little head and my big head were having a serious disagreement, and faced with Olivia's obvious willingness, I didn't trust myself to go home afterwards. Our house was closer, and while Walter's chaperonage was unlikely to satisfy Miss Manners, his presence would at least ensure that Olivia and I slept separately.

We didn't say anything on the way home. Olivia's head lolled back onto the headrest and she dozed. When we got to my house, she just took my hand when I offered it and climbed out of the car. She also didn't protest when I steered her up to my room and pushed her down on my bed.

I removed her shoes, jacket, shirt and trousers. Olivia had dozed off again and I indulged myself in a glimpse of her laying there in her bra, panties, and tank. She was downright bony, sharp points angling out in places they'd never been before: her collarbones, her hipbones, her wrists. Olivia is the poster child of neglecting her own needs, it's true, but this gauntness exposed a greater demon than simple self-neglect. I wondered what Walternate had done to make her think she was someone else. Whatever it was, I knew it was deeply loathsome; so unspeakable it toppled even Olivia's considerable resolve.

I yanked the plug on the mental image of the Faux's shapely curves stretched out across this very bed. I'll say one thing, the Faux ate well while she was here. Walter and I cooked up a goddamned storm to feed that malignant bitch. Meanwhile Olivia languished in Walternate's prison.

I was really beginning to hate my biological father. If things kept up this way, I was going to eclipse Luke Skywalker and become the frontrunner of the Most Loathsome Father contest.

If nothing else, I could justify my participation in Walter's new experiments as a way to tend Olivia more carefully. At least if I was the one injecting her with Walter's handcrafted pharmaceuticals and affixing electricity to her brain stem I'd have cause to openly supervise the follow-up care.

Yeah, and the check is in the mail, it's only a cold sore, and of course I'll respect you in the morning. I sighed. Untwisting the blankets rumpled at the bottom of the bed, I covered her and backed out of the room, closing the door behind me.

I gathered blankets from the hall closet then headed downstairs. Sprawled out on the couch I thought I'd never sleep, but only minutes later I closed my eyes and let sleep's oblivion take me.