A/N: Here comes the 3rd part! Once again, thank you so much for the love you're giving this story :')

Enjoy!

SHIVERED BONES

III.

Peter is awakened by his ringing phone.

For a moment, he almost ignores it; the fact that he managed to fall asleep at all is a miracle in itself, something that probably won't happen again for another couple of days. He rolls onto his side anyway, grabbing for his phone on the coffee table, squinting at the screen.

There might have been a time in his life when he would have discarded the call without a second thought, especially coming from an 'UNKNOWN CALLER', but these days are long gone. Peter makes it a point to answer every single one of them, now –a side effect from having once received a midnight call informing him that the woman he thought he was with was actually trapped in another universe.

As far as 'what if' scenarios go, the one in which he would have ignored that particular phone call has been responsible for a few of his many sleepless nights.

He therefore accepts this one, too, bringing the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

"Peter Bishop, you sly son of a bitch."

Even though he hasn't heard the voice in years, he recognizes it at once. There is only one person who can say these words with an equal amount of endearment and irritation. To his own surprise, he finds himself grinning within seconds. "Andy?"

"Don't 'Andy' me, you asshole," she says, sounding mostly irritated, now. "Before I even let you try to make excuses for yourself and your shitty behavior, I'm going to tell you a story. It starts a few weeks ago, when I had to conduct some business with Massive Dynamic. While I was over there, I learned that there had been a change in ownership, and that Walter fucking Bishop apparently now owns the billions dollars company. I told myself 'no way, this cannot possibly be the same Walter Bishop from my childhood, who used to tell me and his son it would be fun to get hooked up to car batteries, and who was then committed because he went insane.' But guess what, Peter? Turned out he's the same man!"

"I…I'm astounded by the news, truly," Peter says. "I think I need to sit down." He actually stands up, his grin even wider as he walks to the kitchen.

"What the hell, Peter?" Andy asks. "Do you have any idea how hard it was, tracking down your number? And I'm fucking well connected, which is how I finally got to learn that you'd not only come back to Boston a few times through the years, but you've actually been living there for over two years now, and you haven't tried contacting me once?"

Peter has opened the fridge, getting everything out to make himself a PB&J sandwich; he's starving all of a sudden, only now realizing he hasn't eaten anything since yesterday. He's still smiling, although he hears the hurt in her voice. He's well aware of what an asshole he's been, indeed.

"I'm sorry, Andy," he says, opening the jam jar. "I can't blame you for being mad at me, I should have called a long time ago. To be totally honest with you, the first time I came back here, I knew I wouldn't be staying long, not to mention that I still felt like a complete jerk about the way I ran off. Then I just…"

"Yeah, yeah, you forgot," she says, acidly. "That's one of your biggest flaws, you know that? Running off when you don't want to deal with your shitty problems, and then 'forgetting' and pretending everything's peachy."

He finishes spreading peanut butter over his bread, letting out a low snort. If only she knew what had led him to develop such terrible coping mechanisms. "Well, you'll be happy to hear I'm evolving as a human being," he says, taking a bite of his sandwich. "I'm currently in a very shitty situation, and I haven't run yet. I'm also still waiting for selective amnesia to kick in."

"Good for you," she says, even more cynically. "I would give you a medal, but I'm so mad at you, I'd probably just shove it up your ass."

Peter chuckles, a wave of old, deep affection washing over him. "God, I've missed you, Andrea. I really am sorry for not contacting you. It's no excuse, but you wouldn't believe how insane my life has become."

"No, you're right, I wouldn't believe it, and it's definitely no excuse." Then, after a pause: "I'm glad to hear your voice, though. It makes me feel about twenty years younger."

"Really? Twenty years ago, my voice used to crack a bit more, if I recall."

"Best six months of my life, Bishop. You sounded so ridiculous."

"Let's not go there," he warns. "I may have a selective memory, I have my share of embarrassing stories about you between ages 11 and 16."

"Fine, fine," she concedes, and he hears the smile in her voice, now. "So. You're really living with your dad again, uh?"

"Yeah," he answers simply. "Things are…different. Kinda better, too."

"Well, they could hardly be worse."

Peter doesn't say anything to that. Andy had been his childhood best friend. She'd grown up three houses down from his, and they'd gone to school together all the way through high school. She knows more about how broken his home life used to be than anyone else. She had definitely witnessed more than she should have, between his increasingly crazed father and a chronically depressed mother.

When he ran off to the other side of the world years ago, she was one of the many people he left behind without a look back, not even bothering with goodbyes.

Unsurprisingly, his guilt is quickly resurfacing, in the form of that acidic burn at the back of his throat, making his sandwich taste sour. He drops what's left of it on the counter, his brief euphoria already receding. "I don't suppose there's anything I can do to make up for fifteen years of silence, is there?"

"Of course there is, why do you think I tracked you down?" She scoffs. "Remember that promise we made each other when we were ten?"

"Uhm," he thinks for a moment. "The one about us going skydiving naked?"

"No, smartass, you missed out on that one about ten years ago. I'm talking about how we said that if we weren't married by age 40, we would marry each other. Fuck, how unoriginal were we, back then?"

"We're only 33," he points out.

"No kidding," she says. "I'm getting married next week, Peter. I was calling to let you off the hook."

"Oh," he says. "That's…thoughtful of you."

"Seriously," she continues. "I really am getting married next week. When I found out you were back in the area, I was pissed, but go figure, turns out I still love you. I want you there."

"Andy," he says, hesitantly. "I don't know."

"Oh, come on, you owe me," she insists. "Don't you back out of this one. The ceremony's private, direct family only, but the party afterwards is going to be ridiculously big. It will be like you're not even there, exactly the way you've been for the past fifteen years."

"You're making it sound so tempting, sweetheart," he says, his resolve wavering.

Part of him wants nothing more than to see her again, this ghost from his past. But he did leave her behind, and from the resentment he hears in her voice, she's likely to give him quite an earful. He isn't sure how much more his guilty conscience can take at the moment.

"Where's that big party of yours?" He asks anyway.

"New York," she answers. "I figured you probably travel over there a lot now, with our father's new job, CEO of the world and shit."

"You could say that," he says. "Are you living there now?"

"Yeah, I've been there for six years. We should meet up before the wedding, though. I doubt I'd have any time for you then, and I have missed seeing your ugly face. I want to see if you've finally gotten rid of your acne."

"I just hide it all under my sexy stubble, now," he retorts. "Sadly, I still cannot pull off a mustache the way you do."

"I love you too, Bishop. So, will you come?"

He stares at his half-finished sandwich, scratching at the stubble he just mentioned with a knuckle. "Honestly? I don't know, Andy. I wasn't kidding about things being…tensed, at the moment. Or, 'phenomenally shitty', as you would say. I'm a bit of a mess, moping around, not really the life of the party I used to be."

There is a pause, and then: "Okay, we have to meet, just so that you can tell me all about whoever that is who broke your heart."

He's not surprised by her perspicacity. "Yeah, well, the thing is, I actually did most of the breaking. My heart was just collateral damage." He tries to sound casual, and inevitably fails. After a sighs, he adds: "Look, I just…I'll try, okay? My job has a tendency to be unpredictable and life consuming, so I can't promise anything."

"I wouldn't believe any promise of yours, anyway," she says, but her voice is warm, almost affectionate. "If I promise not to give you hell about what happened back then, not on our first meeting anyway, will you seriously think about it?"

"I will," he says, truthfully.

"Good. You have to start making amends, you know."

Even though she said it teasingly, the joke is lost on Peter.

…

The bullet pierces the man's forehead.

Olivia's aim had been steady, her shot precise.

When the dead shapeshifter falls to the floor, the woman he was holding hostage against him begins to scream, before she crumbles to the floor with him, grabbing at his body. She's hysterical, her howls only halting for a second when her gaze takes in the silvery blood now leaking out of his skull. Her screaming resumes, louder. It takes two FBI agents to pull her off the corpse of what she thinks is her dead husband.

Olivia asks them to take her to the kitchen, away from the scene, telling them to do their best to help her calm down, and to let her know when she's ready to talk. She'll replace them soon enough, the ache in her chest making it hard for her to stay detached. She's always done her job with empathy, but these days, every case feels more personal, not to say emotionally draining, especially those involving shapeshifters and identity swaps.

Everybody present seems to relax a little when the woman's desperate cries become less audible. Olivia instructs the rest of her team to collect evidence and to send the body to the lab, before scanning the room again, her eyes quickly stopping on Peter. She'd asked him to stay in the car during the raid, but he obviously did not listen, there to witness the scene. He's now standing in front of a wall, staring at the pictures frames that hang on it.

She should leave him be, but something in his body language makes it impossible for her to dismiss him. She's never able to dismiss him completely, never was, irremediably drawn to him, which, given their current situation, is a bit of a hassle.

A week ago, she would have fled as soon as possible anyway, preferring the company of a grieving woman over having to remain too long in Peter's proximity. Today, she walks to him. She keeps a good distance between their bodies, though, as she comes to stand beside him.

She doesn't say a word, giving him a furtive glance. She knows at once that he's aware of her presence, his body tensing a little more. She tenses, too, a predictable response, and it is all it takes for her to start regretting not leaving him alone.

She needs to come to term with the fact that she can't do this anymore, seek him out whenever she wants to get a moment's respite from whatever is happening around them, the way he used to seek her out, too.

Pursing her lips, Olivia moves her eyes away from his tensed form, looking at the pictures instead.

"They were high school sweethearts," Peter says then, his voice low, a deduction he obviously made from a portrait taken on their prom night. "And they were married in the spring." Olivia has spotted the wedding picture, too, the glowing couple standing in front of blooming cheery trees.

Try as she might, she's unable not to be affected by his tone of voice as he makes these odd observations, and she turns her eyes back to him, looking up at his profile this time. Even when they do stand close to each other, something they both avoid doing these days, she tries not to look at him for too long, in an attempt not to get caught up in one of his long stares.

Yet, she watches him today, taking in his altogether ruffled appearance. His hair is getting too long, his stubble unkempt. He looks like he's not getting much sleep either, his face too pale, his features strained.

She forces herself to look away again, biting the inside of her lip, wishing these signs of melancholia didn't cause her stomach to turn to stone. The truth is, she's been reluctant to think too much about his feelings, well aware that he's not doing so well himself, but unwilling to find out exactly why.

Of course he would feel bad about what happened and the pain he caused her, but she can't help wondering if maybe he's missing her, too. Missing what the two of them had before Olivia came back.

"Look at them," Peter says, then, more to himself than to her. "They were a perfectly cliché couple, set to live a perfectly cliché life. Absolutely normal. Goes to show everyone's at risk of having their life screwed over."

He sounds beyond bitter, and given how 'weird' the two of them are, Olivia gets his point loud and clear, her mouth pursing again. She still has no idea what to say, or if he even expects her to speak at all.

She's once again saved from having to find a way out of the situation on her own, as an agent joins them to let her know the woman, Laura, is ready to talk. She doesn't hesitate, barely glancing at Peter –who's still staring at the pictures anyway, before walking to the kitchen.

To say that Laura is ready to talk was a bit of an exaggeration; she's calmed down enough to be able to listen, now sitting on a chair, looking completely numbed, both her hands resting on her prominent belly. Olivia takes a seat in front of her, and softly begins explaining what happened. Generally speaking, she's not supposed to say too much to civilians, but given what this woman just witnessed, she deserves to be told part of the truth. Everyone should be offered the chance to get some closure.

"I don't understand," Laura says, when Olivia is done giving her the most succinct explanation she can, looking more wretched and confused by the second. "He was…replaced?"

Olivia nods. "From what we know, probably a while ago," she says, keeping her voice soft. "I'm sorry, Laura."

Laura brings a hand to her mouth, trying to swallow back her sobs, her face distorted with sorrow and incredulity. Then, her hand falls back on her stomach, suddenly looking horrified. "What about my baby? Is she…?"

"Your baby is fine," Peter's voice comes from the doorway. Olivia shifts in her seat to look at him, but he doesn't meet her eyes, his gaze on the other woman. "The man who took your husband's place? There's no way he can conceive a child. Your husband probably died at some point during your pregnancy. I'm sorry," he adds, almost as an afterthought.

This doesn't soothe Laura at all. She's hugging herself tightly, now, rocking back and forth. "He was gone and I didn't know?" She laments, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. "We've been together for ten years, how could I not know?"

Laura is too distressed to notice the tension that now crackles in the air, but being both the cause and the recipient of it, Olivia cannot even attempt to ignore it, disturbed by the inevitable déjà-vu these words cause her to feel.

How could you not see that?

"You loved him," Peter says quietly, drawing Olivia's eyes back to him. "That's why you didn't know."

While he had remained silent on that night Olivia asked him the same thing, asked him how he could not have known, he speaks today, although he still doesn't look at her as he does so.

"These…people, they're good at what they do, making sure you won't suspect anything. And even though you probably noticed some changes, you rationalized everything. Why would you even consider the idea of your husband possibly being replaced by someone who looked exactly like him, but wasn't him? Beyond the fact that you would think yourself crazy, you wouldn't even have allowed yourself to think it. Because accepting the idea that they might have been replaced means accepting the fact that they are gone. Denial is just…safer."

Olivia's heart is racing again, her chest and her throat constricted as she stares at him. She stares at his weary features, sensing the guilt and humiliation coming out of him in waves, almost wishing he would meet her eyes, now, shaken by his words, and by the way he identified himself with this woman.

Olivia had instinctively empathized with her pain, but what she'd failed to realize until now was that this pain was a reflection of Peter's pain.

After only a few seconds of this suffocating silence, Peter slips away from the room, never once meeting her eyes.

…

In the hours that follow, Peter isn't sure who's avoiding who.

He's definitely not encouraging proximity or eye-contact, which is particularly easy considering Olivia spends the rest of the day (hiding) in her office. The car ride back to the lab was awkward enough; he supposes they both need a break from the tension.

Walter keeps him company at first, assisting him in removing the data disk from the dead shapeshifter's spine, briefly brainstorming some ways they might be able to read whatever is on it. His father quickly grows bored with the topic, though, and before long, he's out of the lab, off to the biology department.

After hooking up the data disk to a computer, Peter has nothing to do but wait. He's been going over the Machine's spreadsheets again, every piece of information Massive Dynamic regularly sends him, as they constantly run new diagnosis on the device. Given his current state of mind and constant exhaustion, with his elbow on the table and his head resting on his closed fist, Peter is most productive in dozing on and off.

The next time he opens his eyes, his gaze meets Olivia's.

Finding her staring at him should have been enough to startle him. He must have been starting to fall asleep for good, though, because he's so confused for a moment that he doesn't move at all. He simply stares back at her, as she stands a few feet away from where he sits.

She's got her coat on, as if she had been in the process of leaving the lab when she stopped to…what, watch him sleep? He would never have let himself think that the sight of him half-asleep was enough to stop her in her tracks, but the way she's now looking at him speaks for itself.

She seems to have momentarily lowered her guard, discarding that forced, neutral expression she usually tries to adopt around him these days. Her pain is out in the open again, but there is no accusation in her eyes, no resentment. There even is a softness in her gaze, something resembling empathy, as if the pain she feels isn't simply her own anymore.

The moment doesn't last long, a couple of seconds maybe, until they both seem to realize what they're doing –staring at each other a bit too openly, at which point they swiftly avert their eyes.

Peter straightens up, running a hand over his face, as if chasing the last of his sleep. There's no need, really. With his heart now racing in his chest, his mind is efficiently awakened.

"Hey," he greets anyway, not looking at her. His voice is hoarse, and they can both pretend that's caused by sleep, too. "You're heading home?"

"Yeah," she says, sounding slightly breathless herself. When he looks back at her, she seems to be trying to readopt her casual demeanor, politely distant; she's mostly failing at it. "You, uh…" she starts, before pointing at the computer. "Any luck with the disk?"

"Uh uh," he shakes his head, stifling a yawn, his body still a bit groggy. "It's running diagnostics, but I'm not too hopeful. I guess I'll wait another hour or two, see if something comes up."

Already, he's spun his chair away from her, offering her his back as he looks down at the Machine's schematics again; he's well aware that she has yet to walk away. He's also well aware that he's behaving like a coward.

He shamelessly stares at her from a distance when they're surrounded by people, but the moment they're on their own and she's close enough for him to see the green of her eyes, he can barely hold her gaze.

"Peter?"

The way she speaks his name completely immobilizes him for a moment, her voice hesitant but soft. Familiar. It's the first time she uses that tone since the day she woke up, in her hospital bed.

Trying to look more composed than he feels, his heart now galloping somewhere at the base of his throat, he spins his chair around to look at her. She's abandoned all attempts at putting her mask back on, that same, soft pain back in her eyes, slightly constricting her face.

"What that woman said, today, and what you said to her," she begins, tentatively. She sounds conflicted, as if she's forcing the words out of her. "I just…it made me realize that, these past few weeks, I never really thought about it from your point of view. About…about what it must have felt like for you, to realize what she'd done. Not just to me, but to you. And I'm sorry."

Peter tries swallowing past the lump in his throat. While she had to force herself to speak, he's now forcing himself not to look away from her. Hearing her say this should have made him feel better, but it doesn't.

He shakes his head, not to negate her words, more in defeat than anything else, finally averting his eyes, unable to stand seeing that ache in hers. She doesn't owe him any apology, but he's not about to discard her efforts, aware of what it cost her to say this.

"I'm sorry, too," he manages to say instead, unable to hide the self-contempt in his voice.

Olivia means it, everything she said. Compared to how things were a few weeks ago, when they could barely stand to be in the same room, let alone speak to one another, this is a clear sign of progress.

Yet, it doesn't give him hope. It doesn't make him think that maybe, just maybe, they will be able to fix this. Because Peter still feels it, that wall between them, that unforgiving distance now separating them.

Olivia might have traveled between words to find him, once, he doubts she will ever brave that empty space between them.

As if on cue, Astrid enters the lab, then, and when Peter glances back at Olivia, his suspicions are confirmed: she's finally turned away from him, now behaving like he's not even here at all. Peter barely listens to the women as they chat for a few moments. Less than a minute later, Olivia is out of the lab, having said something about needing to go shopping.

He's gone back to the Machine's data, pretending to be intently focused on it, when he's mostly trying to pull himself together again. If he tries hard enough, he might avoid getting sucked back into the hollow that used to be his gut.

"You need to go out more."

Peter looks up. Astrid is now standing almost exactly where Olivia stood, minutes ago.

"Excuse me?"

She gives him a knowing look. "You know what I mean. These past few weeks, you've been spending more time in this lab than me and your father combined."

He lets out a noise that is meant to sound like a chuckle, the only 'laugh' he can muster at the moment. "You don't have to worry about me, I'm fine." He's already averted his eyes again.

"One of these days, I swear I'm going to get a dictionary and force the two of you to read the definition of fine out loud to me," Astrid mumbles, almost to herself. Peter doubts the other person she's referring to is Walter. "I don't mean to sound coddling, Peter, but have you looked at yourself in a mirror, recently? Those are not even bags under your eyes anymore, I think they qualify more as dark, bottomless pits."

"I'm fi-" he begins, but he stops himself with a sigh, bringing a hand to the back of his head, ruffling his hair in a defeated gesture.

"Look," Astrid says, having walked closer to him. "I get that you're feeling miserable, and I'm not going to tell you you need to get over it. That's not my place. But as your friend, I do have to tell you that you need to take better care of yourself. I don't think I can handle nursing two Bishops at the same time."

He actually smiles at her. Both her concern and her words are genuine. "Thanks, Astrid," he says. "I promise to stay away from the LSD, if that helps."

She smiles at his lame attempt at a joke, but doesn't look convinced. She tilts her chin toward the heap of sheets spread over the table. "You need a distraction, one that doesn't involve shapeshifters or this damn thing."

She walks away, then, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Her kind words don't bring him much comfort, having just been reminded of another time, not so long ago, when he was told he could use a distraction.

She had straddled his lap, then, pinning him to the back of 'her' couch. In that moment, she had felt almost as feral as she looked.

There's always the temporary fix.

Peter barely sleeps these days. Instead, he's spent hours replaying every scene in his head, every conversation they had, and he's come to the conclusion that this is what it truly was about, for her.

Distractions.

Distracting him was her mission. To fog his mind and overwhelm his senses, drugging him on endorphin to hijack his genius brain. She made him feel content and sated, as he prided himself on the fact that Olivia seemed so much happier, less burdened, even. Knowing that he was loved and had a place in this world by her side had made him feel happier, so why wouldn't it be the same for her?

She fed him lies between the sheets, and in every discussion they ever had, constantly prodding, pushing, trying to get him to say or do whatever she wanted him to do.

Peter thinks of Olivia, then. He thinks of her as she was minutes ago, hesitant but kind, apologizing for having been so hurt that she hadn't thought about his pain, once again wearing her heart on her sleeve for him.

Astrid's right. He needs a distraction.

Peter gets his phone out, looking for the number he added only a few days ago, pressing the call button before he can change his mind.

Andy picks up almost right away. "Missing me already, Bishop?"

Moments ago, he felt like he would never smile again. And yet, here he is, smirking. "I'm thinking about taking a trip to New York tomorrow. Got any free time for an old friend?"

"For you, I might even free up a whole hour of my time."

…

"Olivia?"

Olivia freezes, her hands clenched around the fluffy towel she had just picked up from the shelf.

Of all the voices she never expected to hear in the middle of the Bath section of 'Bed Bath & Beyond', this one ranks pretty high on the list. For a moment, she wonders if she's imagined it. After all, hallucinating men from her life has become one of her trademarks.

But when she turns around, there he is. She stares at him, more than a little stunned.

"Lucas."

He grins widely, and even as he walks to her, she's still not entirely sure she's not making him up. Before she can do anything, he's hugging her. No, he's squeezing her.

She does not respond to this impromptu embrace, standing frozen on the spot, both hands still holding the towel, now squished against Lucas' chest. He doesn't seem to mind her lack of reaction, rocking her from side to side a couple of times, before pressing a loud kiss on her cheek. When he pulls back, he doesn't let her go, holding on to her shoulders.

He's grinning like an idiot, apparently thrilled. "Talk about chance meetings," he says.

Olivia is tensing up, now. All of her muscles are hardening, diaphragm included, shortening her breathing, a reaction she wouldn't have had two years ago. Hell, a reaction she wouldn't have had four months ago. She can't help it, her body unused to friendly gestures anymore, rather the opposite.

Thankfully, before she has to physically push him away, Lucas lets her go, maybe sensing her tension. She relaxes almost instantly once he releases her shoulders, breathing more freely, and she forces herself to smile.

She's in shock, obviously, but part of her is pleased to see him.

"What are you doing here?" She asks. "In a 'Bed Bath & Beyond' of all places?"

He smiles. "I'm here for the same reason as you, apparently," he points at the towel. "I need some of those. I just moved to a furnished apartment, but those don't come with towels."

"You just moved to…" she shakes her head, more and more confused. "You left Germany? Are you really living in Boston?"

"Well, for the time being, yes," he says, and his smile begins to falter. "It's complicated."

"You should have called me," she reprimands him, although her voice remains friendly.

"I thought about it," he says. "And I probably would have, eventually, but you never returned any of my calls or emails after we saw each other the last time, so I just assumed you were through with me."

He says it jokingly, but Olivia hears the hint of truth in his words. "I'm sorry," she says. "It wasn't personal, life has been…" She hesitates. How do you describe a life in which you deal with alternate universes? "…hectic."

"I figured," he says, the smile already back on his lips. It quickly vanishes again, though, as he peers at her, in a way that strongly reminds her of Sam. "Are you okay?"

That's an excellent question. She thinks about lying, but the prospect of lying to him of all people seems more exhausting than anything else.

She simply shakes her head in dismissal, offering him a derisive smile. "You always reappear into my life at the strangest of times, Lucas. And never when I'm at my best."

"C'mon," he says. "The last time I saw you, you'd just been betrayed by your partner, it can't possibly be worse."

Olivia knows she's making a face, but she's not sure which emotions she's showing. It must reflect some of the queasy, suffocating unease she now feels, because Lucas grimaces. "I'm sorry, Liv, I'm an idiot. I shouldn't have said that."

"It's okay," she lies in that voice so unlike her own, forcing herself to give him one of her damn smiles.

It's okay, it's fine, we're good. Yet another person added to the list.

"No, it's not," Lucas replies. "I swear I haven't turned back into a jerk in the past two years, and I can prove it to you. Let me buy you dinner."

Olivia thinks about refusing, briefly wondering why all these people suddenly insist on buying her meals, but she feels too numb to turn him down. They quickly check out what they came here to buy, and by the time they've settled down at a table in a nearby restaurant, the numbness is finally starting to recede.

"Talk to me," Lucas says. "I know your job is top secret, but something did happen to you, and knowing you, you're probably not talking about it with anyone."

Sitting across this man from her past, Olivia thinks about Sam again, who she had talked to, but she knows it doesn't really count, not in a way that truly matters. She also thinks about that realization she had, about the way she pushes people away. She looks into Lucas' friendly eyes, quietly offering her some compassion and comfort, when she's been so lonely, these past few weeks, left with no one to talk to, indeed.

Maybe this is life throwing her a bone, telling her she doesn't have to shut everyone out.

When Olivia begins to talk, she doesn't stop. It pours out of her, almost shockingly. She doesn't give him any details, obviously, keeping everything vague, places as well as names. She also has to modify the whole 'I was stuck in an alternate universe for two months and another version of me stole my life and my would-be lover', but Lucas gets the gist of it, enough to understand she's been hurt and betrayed again.

"I'm sorry, Liv," he says, once she quiets down again, apparently at a loss for words.

She shakes her head, sweeping the air with a hand. "It's fine." Then, "well, not really, but I'm working on it."

He looks stern now. "What's his name, your partner?"

Olivia hesitates, but not long. "His name is Peter."

He's sort of the reason I'm here.

She tried her best to keep her tone neutral, but she's not fooling him.

"I hate that guy," he says.

Olivia shakes her head with a sad, tired smile. "Don't. It's…complicated."

That's an understatement. She doesn't want Lucas to hate Peter, though, not when she doesn't hate him herself. She may have been angry at him, still hurting to this day, but there is no hate in her heart.

She thinks of the 'conversation' they had, a few hours ago, after she found him half-asleep and was unable to walk away, not before telling him what she'd spent most of the day thinking about. She tried reaching out, but the effort it took was so demanding, she almost had to flee the lab in the aftermath. In moments like these, it's hard for her to see how they can ever find a way to resolve this tension between them.

The truth is, Olivia is not used to this, to having someone on the other side of her pain, still around for her to deal with. With her previous heartaches, Lucas included, the person responsible for it was either out of her life for good, or dead.

But Peter...Peter is still here.

Olivia forces herself to get out of her head, focusing back on the man sitting across from her. Lucas is peering at her again, as if he's reading her mind, and not approving much of what he's seeing in there. Sensing that he's about to say something else, she realizes she doesn't want to hear it.

Sharing some of what she's been going through with someone she trusts has made her feel slightly better, but she didn't tell him enough for him to even begin to understand the complex nature of her issues with Peter, let alone give her advice on the matter.

"Enough about me," she says, too brightly, with another derisive swoop of her hand. "Tell me why you're in Boston. I can tell something happened to you, too."

Lucas grimaces. "Well, someone broke my heart. We were engaged. Now we're not."

"Ow," she says with a sympathetic pout. "How long ago?"

"Couple of months," he shrugs. "She's actually in Boston, right now. She just…doesn't know I'm here."

Olivia frowns, pursing her lips. "You do realize that sounds a bit…"

"Creepy? Yeah," he chuckles. "I'm not stalking her. She left Germany and came back here because that's where her father is. He's sick, dying. She didn't give me much of a choice. She left me, saying she couldn't ask me to leave my career just to follow her across the ocean."

"So, you left your career and followed her across the ocean," Olivia sums up.

"Yup," he nods.

"Wow," she says, resting her chin on the palm of her hand. "She must be it, then."

The moment could have been awkward, considering the two of them actually broke up over somewhat similar matters, mainly their careers, and his unwillingness to compromise his in any way. But there is no awkwardness or residual feelings of hurt. They've both moved on and grown from it.

Lucas smiles sadly. "I really think she is. I've taken a six months leave from work for now. My plan is to settle down here and contact her, test the waters. I want to be here for her, even if she thinks I don't. But I get why she needs to be with her family right now, too, and if she needs space, I can respect that."

Olivia looks at him, somehow appeased by his words. It feels strange, to be faced with a person from her past, someone who used to mean so much to her. There is something reassuring in realizing that, she may have changed in the past ten years, he has changed, too. And yet, at the core, he remains the same man she first fell in love with.

Hopefully, it applies to her, too.

"You're a good man, Lucas," she tells him softly, truthfully. "I hope she'll come around to see that. I just wish there was something I could do to help."

Olivia didn't expect him to take her up on that offer, but he tilts his head, then, and judging by the look on his face, she's not sure she wants to know what he has in mind.

"Actually, there is something you can do," he confirms, and she raises an eyebrow. "I don't think you're going to like the idea, but I'm telling you right now, I'm not giving you much of a choice."

A/N: Did I really dare bring Lucas back? Haha I dared. Don't worry, though, he's just a mean to an end. I hope you enjoyed this part anyway! I'll post the next one within the next few days, the one I refer to as "Let There Be UST", as we slowly but surely advance toward more juicy things.

Reviews would make me ignore my school work (even more) and edit faster, just sayin' :D