A/N: Thank you so much everybody, for reading, and for the reviews of course :) I'm sorry it took so long to update, this story is giving me quite a run for my imaginary money, and Real Life hasn't been helping at all. It turned out bigger than I expected (AGAIN) so there will be one final part after this.

I hope you'll enjoy, I apologize for any mistake.

THE BULLET

Part Two

In light of recent events, to say that Peter's relationship with Walter is complicated would be a gross understatement. If you include his entire lifetime and the few timelines that make it up, summing up their relationship to 'complicated' becomes plainly offensive.

Peter easily gets lost in the confusing notions of what once was but isn't anymore, or what is now but never was before. When he finally –and gladly- accepted the fact that he was in the right place and had been all along, he hoped for a while that Walter would experience the same memory shift as Olivia's, especially since his behavior had changed so much since Peter had 'reappeared' into their lives. But it became obvious rather fast that Olivia's situation was unique and nothing short of extraordinary.

Peter has resigned himself to the fact that Walter will never remember the three years they had before he entered the Machine. Likewise, he doesn't remember the lowest moments of their relationship, like the months that preceded his admission to St Claire, or how his son never visited him there, or how Walter lied to him all of his life about having kidnapped him from an alternate universe, thus causing Peter to run a world apart away once the truth came out.

But for each moment filled with lies and resentment, five more moments spent learning to trust and love each other have disappeared as well. Peter would lie if he said it doesn't hurt, to think about what he lost, of this fragile and yet profound relationship Walter and he managed to build through these years. He needed it as a child, longed for this connection for years, and when he finally had it, it was ripped away from him, like too many things in his life.

Ultimately, though, Peter doesn't think anything will ever hurt quite as much as the memory of his father shooting Olivia in the head.

Fortunately enough, however, his rather unusual life has led him to develop an uncanny ability for burying things down and pretending nothing bad really happened –and by unusual life, he does mean being kidnapped from an alternate universe, or erasing himself from time, among other similar incidents.

This ability to reshape his perception in order to cope with tragedies is what allows him to regain some sort of normality with Olivia rather quickly during the day time. For a time, at least.

He finds distractions. House hunting is one of them. As it soon becomes apparent, the task is more complicated than he first expected.

He really shouldn't be surprised; what appears to be 'perfect' on paper rarely turns out to be that perfect once you get a good look at it. But in the weeks following the Incident, he makes finding a decent –and affordable- house for Olivia and himself his new priority. It also conveniently distracts him from graver thoughts, and gives him a good excuse to spend many hours roaming the internet late at night instead of sleeping.

Olivia has made it clear very early on that he pretty much has carte blanche, and that she trusts him implicitly on the matter, meaning that she can't really bring herself to care much about real estate. It takes him about a month, but he finally finds what he believes to be the perfect house –or at least as perfect as it will ever be, and insists on taking Olivia on a tour.

She lets him guide her through the rooms, listening to him as he recites facts after facts about the location and the foundations, making sure to tell her about the Indian restaurant only two blocks away, or how the nursery's window faces the yard, isolating the room from any noise from the street. She doesn't make any comment on the presence of a fireplace in the bedroom.

They eventually end up standing in the middle of the empty living room, and when he finally stops talking, he gives her an expectant look, awaiting some kind of reaction from her.

She smiles and nods her head, pursing her lips. "It's really nice," she offers, now trying to look somewhat enthusiastic, and obviously failing.

He chuckles, more endeared by her efforts than upset by her lack of interest. "Try and sound more thrilled about this, honey; you're the one who's going to be paying most of the mortgage on it."

She's smiling almost apologetically now as she comes to stand closer to him. "I'm sorry," she says, putting a hand on his arm, squeezing gently with a matching look on her face. "I've never been good at this. A place to live is a place to live to me," she shrugs, her eyes and smile a bit sad, now. "I guess you could blame it on my parents making me move every six months as a kid, not to mention foster care and boarding school after that. It didn't exactly make me eager to get attached to one place."

He gazes down at her, anything but surprised by her explanation, feeling this surge of shared understanding he so often experiences with her. "I think I can relate a bit. You would never believe it now, but I went through this kinda nomadic phase myself."

"You don't say," she smirks cockily, but her smile softens when he brings his hand up to her face, and she leans into his touch, as she always does. She presses a kiss to his palm, before saying: "I'm sorry your girlfriend turned out to be the least sentimental woman in this universe, and probably the next."

"Good thing she's got this weird fondness for sunrises, then," he teases her, always happy to remind her that she's not completely immune to sappy notions either, and being even more appreciative of the way she always rolls her eyes in response. "Also, I'm not giving up hope on those pregnancy hormones kicking in at some point. We still have seven months to go."

She chuckles silently at that. "You say that as if you're the one who's nauseous twenty hours out of twenty-four, or the one who's going to get more enormous and achy by the day."

"I feel like now is the right time to tell you they also have a broad selection of fast-foods in the area," he indicates then with his favorite 'jackass' smile. "I can make sure I get enormous, too, if it makes you feel any better."

She shakes her head and rolls her eyes again, before moving away from him to walk slowly around the room. Her eyes roam the place, maybe trying to picture their furniture in there. He doesn't fail to notice how she's fidgeting a little, twisting her fingers distractedly. He knows that, no matter what she says, she cares more about this than she'll ever admit, even to herself.

Finally, after a long minute of silent contemplation, she brings her gaze back to his, and the smile she gives him is soft and confident. "I think we should take it."

He tilts his head, unable not to smile back. "Are you saying this just to get me off your back?"

She shakes her head slowly. "No. I'm saying this because I think this really could be our new home. Who knows, the three of us might even end up staying here permanently."

In retrospect, given his own emotional reaction to this statement, he's sentimental enough for the two of them.

…

The sweet, hopeful moments they share during the day are genuine and real.

So are the dark visions that plague his nights. Because the nightmares don't go away.

They get worse.

Peter's subconscious seems decided on coming back with a vengeance at night whenever he has a particularly good day, making sure none of them will forget the trauma of what happened on Bell's ship.

His nightmares were bad enough to start with, but after a few weeks, they turn into night terrors.

Having done excessive research on sleep –or rather sleep disturbances- early on in his life, he knows the official definition goes something like this:

'Night terrors is a state of intense fear and agitation sometimes experienced on awakening from a stage of sleep not associated with dreaming but characterized by extremely vivid hallucinations. These anxiety episodes of extreme panic are often accompanied by screaming, thrashing, fast breathing, and sweating. '

'Extremely vivid hallucinations' are the key words in what Peter now experiences, though the physical aspects of it are true, too. While his visions keep on being about death and blood, he's not on a surreal ship anymore, lost in endless corridors, condemned to hear Olivia die without being able to reach her in time.

It all takes place here, now, in the apartment, in their bedroom. He's already too late, and she's already gone, lying dead on their bed, with her blood soaking the sheets.

And he is completely unable to discern what's real and what isn't when he's having that kind of episode, his subconscious exaggerating every detail in ways that feed his panic and desperation. Since he's not exactly sleeping, he doesn't 'wake up' from those either. It feels more like a switch turns off in his brain, and reality comes back into focus. But the feelings associated with what he just experienced take a long while to disappear.

The fact that he cannot do anything to stop himself from being affected physically is another problem.

Whenever he snaps out of these hallucinations, he's rarely in bed anymore, often standing in the middle of the room instead. Olivia has obviously done research on her own, because she's always careful to keep a safe distance between them as she tries and calls him out of his trance, knowing that he's not in control of his actions when he's in such a state of panic.

And no matter how he wakes up, or where, he's always clenching the bullet in his hand.

Obviously, he never threw it away.

During the day, when he pretends everything's fine and even believes it for a few hours, he doesn't touch it anymore, doesn't look at it either; but every morning, he puts it in one of his pockets, making sure it's always on him, barely even questioning his actions. He just does it.

At night, it rests on his nightstand. He has long ago stopped trying to hide it from Olivia's sight, just like she has given up on getting him to talk about it. Just like him, she seems to have decided to appreciate the normalcy of their days instead, while dealing with the nights as well as she can.

Not so long ago, she used to be the one barely sleeping at night, while he could sleep soundly through a storm. Now, on top of her frequent nausea, pregnancy also causes her to feel a kind of exhaustion she cannot fight, and by the end of the day, when they get into bed, she's usually sound asleep within minutes.

Peter stays awake for hours, dreading what will come if he lets his mind drift away.

She might fall asleep much faster than she used to, her body still refuses to be completely inactive for more than a few hours at a time, which is why she often wakes up way before dawn, when he hasn't gotten any sleep at all yet. Whenever they are awake like this together, she pins herself to his back, an arm wrapped comfortingly around his waist, her cheek pressed upon his shoulder-blade, and they breathe slowly in unison.

He's always staring at the bullet on his nightstand, shinning almost eerily in the dim moonlight permeating the room, and she knows it.

"Let it go…" she sometimes murmurs against his skin.

He pretends not to hear her, even though they both know he always does.

He feels her frustration at her inability to make him snap out of this state of mind; empathetic as she is, he knows she feels his distress in ways she shouldn't, but he is grateful for her silent understanding, no matter the strain it puts on them. But Olivia is stubborn and fierce, no matter the issue, and that is why she often doesn't give him a choice in stopping his contemplation, exhausting his body if she cannot stop the reeling of his mind.

Given the things he sees in this room whenever he sleeps, she is the sole reason why he still finds comfort in their bed; when she's moving upon him, she breaks him down with each thrust of her hips, before putting him back together with the force of her gaze, refusing to blink. Her eyes bore into his, reaching down to touch his soul, and the warmth of this raw union soothes his qualms, forcing him to let it go if only for one ephemeral moment.

But when he sleeps, the cold always finds him, there, freezing him to the core.

For the only warmth that is left in these desolating visions is that of his tears on his cheeks and of her blood on his hands.

…

Olivia is officially fifteen weeks pregnant when the bump literally appears overnight.

She still has a long way to go before it becomes the big and rounded stomach that will be so prominent during the last stretch of her pregnancy, but the change is definitely there, reshaping her silhouette in unmistakable ways to a knowing eye.

It is early on a Saturday morning, and having –once again- had a rather troubled night, Peter is enjoying a few more minutes of rest, basking in the warm and reassuring light of the sun, when Olivia comes back from the bathroom, wearing nothing but her underwear, along with a definite look of bemusement on her face.

"Look at this," she says, baffled, straightening up and turning on the spot to offer him a good view of her profile, and indeed.

It looks like someone is now pushing into the curve of her back, making another kind of curve pop out on the other side of her, when yesterday, the only obvious signs of her pregnancy to them had been her tense and firm stomach –and a bigger bra cup. Now, without her clothes on, and knowing every inch of her body like he does, the bump is unmistakable.

She's absolutely gorgeous, and his heart swells, as much at the thought of their child growing healthily in there, than at the sight of her small, bewildered smile.

According to Olivia, it's a girl they're expecting, something that should be confirmed the following week at her next ultrasound appointment, and at that instant, Peter wants nothing more than to pull her down onto the bed so he can press his lips to that wondrous bump of hers, while cooing exceedingly over his tiny baby girl…but they always try to balance up the cheesy quality of these kind of moments.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you're pregnant," he says instead with a smug, cheeky smile.

Her shoulders slump and her stature relaxes; yet, the small bump remains. She scowls at him, but he knows she's more amused than annoyed.

"Get your smartass out of bed, Walter is waiting for us."

It's mid-July, now, and the weather has become hot and heavy, though not too humid yet. They are supposed to meet Walter at the lab, for no valid reason. Astrid has decided to take the month off, a well-deserved break after everything they've been through this year, and Walter has been feeling more lonely than usual without her around, which explains why he keeps coming up with all sort of lame excuses to get Peter and Olivia to come by the lab everyday.

Not being officially on duty, Olivia doesn't put on her usual work attire, allowing herself to wear something more casual and adapted to the weather. She still puts a light jacket on, but the gray top tank she wears underneath obviously does nothing to hide the new change in her figure, rather the opposite, actually.

Peter rarely gets to to see her acts so…normally, like any mother-to-be enjoying this apparent sign that her baby is growing well. The fact that her nausea has finally completely subsided a few days ago now undoubtedly has something to do with her atypical cheeriness. Maybe those pregnancy hormones are finally kicking in, too. All that matters is that Olivia's happiness is contagious, and Peter shares her good mood for a while, completely forgetting about the things that was haunting him a few hours ago in the dark, and almost looking forward to spending a lazy day in the lab listening to Walter's ramblings despite his lack of sleep.

Everything drastically changes on their way to Harvard University. And it is ridiculous, really, what can set him off these days.

Two things, completely independent from one another, happen simultaneously. They are less than five minutes away from the lab when a car backfires in an adjacent street, exactly when a stupid driver attempts to cut in front of their vehicle without any warning.

Fortunately, Olivia is the one driving, because at the sound of the snapping noise, so similar to a gunshot, Peter freezes in what has become a familiar frightened state these past few weeks; had he been driving, he doubts he would have been able to make the car jerk aside to avoid the collision, a move that Olivia obviously manages, causing his shock to worsen.

While Olivia grumbles for the rest of the way, already regretting not putting her flashing lights up right away and arresting the stupid driver, Peter falls into a grave silence, agreeing on occasion with whatever she's saying, but he's mostly trying to get a grip on himself, aggravated by how shaky he feels.

So far, they've been lucky to have a rather uneventful summer, with random cases that have been ridiculously ordinary and harmless, now that the Bridge has been closed and that the Jones/Bell threat has been averted. Realistically, Peter knows that sooner rather than later, willingly or not, Olivia is going to find herself in a gun chase again, probably long before the end of her pregnancy, and he's going to have to deal with it.

If he listens to the most over-protective part of himself, he wants to ask her to never put herself in that kind of danger, ever again. Not only does he know that it's hardly ever her decision, there is also the fact that she might feel the urge to punch him in the face with the barrel of her gun if he dares make that kind of suggestion. Knowing her, she will probably be outside trying to save the world from ending again when she goes into labor.

In any case, what started as a good day for him has now been officially ruined, as he finds himself on edge, flinching at the slightest noise, unable to get the firing sound out of his head. For obvious reasons, he immediately knows he won't have much patience for Walter today, which is why he lets Olivia be the main receiver of his harmless eccentricities, while he pretends to be busying himself on something else, farther away in the lab. What he really does is watch the pair quietly, his eyes mostly on his father.

Once again, his ruminations have taken him back to the ship, and to the Incident.

Rationally, he doesn't resent Walter for what he did; after all, he did save Olivia and both universes in the process. In some very twisted way, he finds his actions almost admirable, for having made the choice he made, for accepting that sometimes, sacrifices need to be made, something he failed to see years ago, in more than one timeline.

But Peter's rational self doesn't hold much power against the part of him who depends on Olivia as one depends on oxygen to live.

The way Walter had reacted so fast is simply unnerving. As soon as Bell told him Olivia was the power source fueling the creation of his new world, the 'living uncertainty engine', Walter just…shot her.

What is even more unnerving is the thought that, if he did it once, he can do it again.

Olivia's words still haunt him to this day, weeks later, those words she told him a couple of hours prior to her death.

"And now, you know, years later, nothing's changed. I'm still that little girl, and William Bell is still doing experiments on me. I'm just still being used."

He comforted her, back then, telling her that she wasn't alone anymore, which was true, and still is now. But he had comforted himself, too, as he silently promised her he wouldn't let anything bad happen to her, ever again.

Evidently, her words had been truer than his, and he is now condemned to live with the knowledge that his efforts will always be in vain.

He cannot protect her from Death.

Almost worse, he cannot protect her from them, from these men who started it all.

Olivia has been used all of her life, often asked to do things against her will; a gifted soul who only longs for normality. But normality was taken from her the moment William Bell and Walter Bishop poured cortexiphan into her bloodstream when she was just a child.

They have made a power source out of her, one capable of destroying worlds, not unlike the way Peter can when he interacts with the Machine. And each of these men has a role to play; one of them turns the power on.

The other one turns the power off.

Walter told them the cortexiphan is mostly gone from her system, now, but he also said some of it will always remain, that it has become part of her. They still don't know where Bell has gone to.

What if one day, he decides to come back and play God again? What if he uses her, kills her, by his own hands, or through Walter's?

It is strange really, how the brain works, especially when one suffers from some serious PTSD and doesn't want to admit it. A mind under stress is very good at playing tricks, and Peter's mind decides to play one right now, as his eyes remain glued to Walter and Olivia.

Suddenly, all he can see is the blood on his father's hands.

Olivia's blood.

And it doesn't make any sense at all; she's standing right next to him, as fine as can be. She's even smiling softly, that small smile he knows means Walter is talking about the baby again. He cannot be sure, as he has become completely deaf to any sound besides the thumping of his heart.

Everything seems to be happening in slow-motion, now, with the exception of his pounding heart, beating so loudly and fast against his ears. All that matters is that he sees it, slowly sliding down Walter's fingers; Olivia's lifeblood, their baby's lifeblood until she is out of her mother's womb.

It isn't real. Every lucid part of him insists that this is not real, cannot possibly be real. But it feels so real, and it had been real, and god what if it's real?

Olivia straightens up a bit more fully, then, pushing the hems of her jacket open so that Walter can see her newly showing bump better; the old man is beaming, and if Peter hadn't been deaf to everything but his racing heart, he would have heard his delighted exclamation, followed by his comment that starting to show this early surely means she's carrying a boy, to which Olivia purses her lips with a small, knowing shake of her head, one that is very, very slow in Peter's world.

And then Walter is asking her something, a hopeful look on his face. Olivia's smile softens even more, and she nods her approval, still very slowly, keeping her jacket open, saying a few words Peter cannot hear. But he doesn't need to hear the words to know what she has just allowed him to do.

His insane panic worsens, becomes all-consuming, and he watches in frozen horror as Walter's bloody fingers reach for her, for the bump, and something dark snaps inside of him.

"Don't touch her."

His temporary deafness is gone at once, and he hears his own words booming through the lab, the quality of his voice almost foreign even to himself, his tone low and menacing.

It is all it takes for him to snap out of his hallucination, but it's already too much.

There is no more blood on Walter's hands; there never was any in the first place. These hands have stopped their movement at his command, and there is a changing look on the old man's face. He quickly goes from shocked to something close to pain and shame, his mouth already quivering, obviously understanding what has prompted Peter's sudden livid shout.

As Walter lowers his gaze in sorrow, Peter feels the tension still blocking every muscle in his body, knows that his face is still constricted in a mask of dark contempt; his vision may not have been real -they never are, his fear and anger are real, and he doesn't seem able to slow the panicked pounding of his heart.

When he sees Olivia's hand come to rest briefly and comfortingly upon his father's arm, Peter finally turns his gaze to her, their eyes instantly meeting. She's looking at him with something close to dismay, and there is honest concern and confusion on her face, quietly asking him what the hell is wrong with him.

That is something he would very much like to know.

What the hell is wrong with him?

Suddenly, Peter feels nauseous all over again, physically unable to stay here, having to face the consequences of his brief bout of insanity.

All he can do is run away from this.

Without a word, he escapes the lab and finds the nearest bathroom, falling down to his knees in one of the stalls.

When his hands come to grab the bowl and he dry-heaves ineffectively over the water, he realizes that the fingers of his left hand have once again closed around the bullet. He guesses he got it out at some point, while he was hallucinating. His chest still heaving spasmodically, he straightens up slightly and opens up his trembling fingers.

He stares at it, then, sitting in the palm of his hand, his stomach lurching as his head throbs, now feeling weak and feverish in the aftermath of his delirium. Sickened by the fact that it is now affecting him in the daytime, too, he feels nothing but pure hatred towards that tiny piece of lead.

Without giving it much thought, he tilts his hand, and the bullet rolls off his palm, falling into the toilet bowl; he watches as it sinks straight to the bottom and stops there, the water still rippling from the intrusion.

His fingers find the flush handle, awaiting nothing but a small pressure on his part to swallow the damn thing away, bury it deep into the sewers, exactly where it belongs, where he would never have to look at it again. He could do it, right now, should do it.

But the seconds pass, and Peter doesn't move, feeling the sweat slowly dripping down his forehead.

He cannot do this, he realizes then. Flushing it down the toilet just seems…wrong, somehow, almost disrespectful of everything that has happened. He hasn't been keeping this memento for weeks only to flush it out, the way he would have his own vomit if he had managed to purge his stomach.

He doesn't know why he's keeping it, but maybe he'll figure it out, someday.

Just as impulsively as he dropped it in there in the first place, his hand dives into the bowl and he retrieves the bullet –definitely not one of his proudest moments.

Soon, he's going to have to leave the room and face Olivia, who is probably waiting for him, outside in the hall. She will be worried, and she will be caring, as she always is; he will apologize for his behavior, to her and to Walter. He will blame it on his lack of sleep, on the new moon, and god knows what, all the while ignoring her begging looks, begging him to talk to her, or to someone else, to get help, because he obviously needs it.

But stubbornly, and surely a bit arrogantly, he feels this is one battle he has to fight on his own.

For now, he simply sits there on the ground, his damp temple pressed against the cool wood of a stall covered with stupid scribbles, fighting a new wave of nausea as he clenches the bullet between his dripping fingers.

This is just one more thing he'll pretend never happened.

TBC...

A/N: More angst coming in the last part, but there should be a resolution, too. I'm just one scene away from finishing it, so hopefully I should be able to update it much faster. Like I said, this story has been beating me up, so I'd be extremely grateful for any feedback!