A/N As ever thanks for the reviews. This is I think, the penultimate chapter (althought an epilogue is starting to also make itself known to me. Possibly as a stand alone!). I have not come into money in the last day or so and such these characters are regretfully still not mine. Sorry, if they were I'd consider sharing.


Olivia Dunham has always been fond of a drink.

In the thirty six days that proceeded Chicago there had been four empty whisky bottles in the recycling. There was a fifth almost ready to join it. Logically she knew this was too many but in the hours of darkness, when sleep was not forthcoming and her home felt foreign the glass in her hand was comforting and emptied almost of its own volition. On day one had she emptied her wardrobes and filled the washing machine – the glass never far from her hand. On day ten she gave up her half hearted efforts at cooking when she found the pans had all been moved, and turned to the scotch instead. On day fourteen as she sat on the floor and let the sobs rack her body for the twenty third time because she could not find the iron, opening a bottle of wine seemed like the only thing to do. On day twenty seven she considered a takeout only to find the speed dial on her phone erased and no sign of the menu for Mr Iyers anywhere; so washed down her sadness with another generous double.

With a slightly lighter heart Olivia returned from Chicago on day thirty seven. Standing in the market that night she reached for a bottle to replace the diminishing fifth and realisation hit her. Of all of the changes in her home; the collection of mens' toiletries in the bathroom, the piles of paper on tables and the rearranged kitchen cupboards her liquor cabinet had remained strangely untouched. On reflection she remembered tearing her counterparts home to pieces on the day she came out of the tank with a sudden, overwhelming comprehension of the enormity of her situation. The fear of being trapped driving her to desperately seek out alcohol, any alcohol to numb the pain. There hadn't been any. Not a drop. Anywhere. She, the other Olivia didn't drink. And so with the memory clear she placed, with great and deliberate purpose, the bottle in the basket. Threw in a six pack for good measure thrilling in the knowledge that this act that this was entirely hers.

She started making deals with herself. A drink on return from work only if she'd been to the lab. Only if she's not flinched when Peter bathed her with one of his warm, worried stares. A refill if she'd managed not to react when something from that time, the missing, unknown time was mentioned. A glad of wine allowed only if she'd cooked in dinner from scratch. A night cap permitted if she took it to bed staying there once the glass was drained. Then suddenly, without noticing two week had gone by. It was day fifty one and she had been back way longer than she'd been gone. New pictures hung on the walls, new linen graced the bed and her kitchen was her own again. She'd found new toiletries and a new scent and they were becoming familiar, comforting in their newness. Her sister was coming to visit at the weekend and there seemed to be a hint of possibility in the air. A hint of a future again. There was just one thing she had to do. Determined she picked up the phone and started to type a text message.

Olivia Dunham has always been fond of a drink.

Before...Peter enjoyed knowing this about her. Enjoyed the fact that he knew the delicate looking blonde was actually a robust, dare he say, hardened drinker. Enjoyed the knowledge that she could drink him, and most from his darker past under the table if she so chose. Enjoyed the memories of their all too rare trips to bars where she'd knock back a double before nursing a beer and share a little more of herself with him. Magic tricks, logic puzzles, a taste for awful puns and the card counting that were never mentioned at work but a part of their shared history regardless. He enjoyed the few nights she had let him into her home; when she had stood in the kitchen doorway proffering a beer in one hand or the whisky bottle in the other. Enjoyed the nights when cases were too tough and home seemed too far away and they'd break open beer from the lab fridge and order a pizza. Now all of those memories tortured. Felt like the pounding of a head after way too many shots.

He'd allowed himself to become distracted. He had betrayed her. From the second day when the pleasure of being able to hold Her in his arms had unbalanced him such that he hadn't noticed She hadn't ordered Her own matching shot he had been guilty. Guilty even if was more of an omission than a lie. The guilt remains. Wraps him. The guilt of the slightly awkward dinner dates when She ignored the wine in favour of the sparkling water. The guilt of ignoring the fact She never once offered the whisky bottle when he was in Her apartment; the guilt of how easily he was sidetracked from knowing by the hint of skin, the gentle caress of lips and the promise of more. The memories sparkle in their nearness and slowly he himself starts to fade. Whenever he is alone, without conscious thought the recollections hammer at him, his failings relentlessly catalogued.

Today, the fifty first he thinks, has been a tough day. The kind of day that, not so long ago, might have finished with his feet propped up on her desk, a beer in his hand. Perhaps even one of the days when Walter would get a lift home with Astrid and they would put the world to rights shot glass in hand over her coffee table or in a corner booth in a less than perfect bar. Tonight he is alone. Alone with only the remains of the awful day and the significantly worse memories of his transgressions. He lies on the bed fully dressed waiting for the time when sleep might claim him, ease some of the pain. In the darkness his phone springs to life and lets out the shrill pitch of a text message arriving.

"Too late for a drink? O"

He can't imagine, can't begin to contemplate what this might mean when a second message hits his inbox. Bittersweet and yet full of promise,

" It's what normal people do"