Fringe Hers

A birthday present for my friend CreepingMuse.

Thanks a _lot_ to JWAB for editing it and making it much, much better.

Timeline: season 3, around 3x09-3x10.

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><p>Olivia closed the front door and let go of the handle in disgust. She wanted to go to the bathroom and wash off the dirt – from her hands, which had just touched the handle, her body, dressed in her old clothes, her feet in old socks and boots. If she undressed now, she would have to cross the room, barefoot, on the floor where <em>she <em>had stood, step on the cold tiles of the bathroom where _she_ had showered, touch the same tap, dry off with the same towel which _she_ had used. Or Peter had used. Olivia didn't know which was worse.

She had found his M.I.T. shirt in the washing machine. He had stayed over, with _her_. More than once, for sure – you don't leave your girlfriend dirty clothes the first time you stay the night. Olivia shuddered. _She_ had been his girlfriend – the girlfriend Olivia never got to be. Probably never would.

She had washed her sheets, and her clothes, and cleaned her apartment, over and over. She had ripped the blankets off the bed and thrown them into the washing machine. She'd swept everything off the cabinet in the bathroom into a trash bag and thrown it away. She'd scraped the kitchen sink with a sponge so hard that her nails left scratches on the surface, and spent two exhausting hours mopping the floor. It hadn't helped. The apartment still felt rotten, used, like it didn't belong to Olivia any more. Like _she_ had marked everything, claimed everything as _hers._

_She_. The other Olivia? The fake Olivia? OtherUniverse!Olivia?

No.

She refused to make that distinction. She refused to be PrimeUniverse!Olivia, or the real Olivia, or even "our Olivia." Walter and Astrid and Broyles and even Peter could use any distinguishers they wanted, but she refused to. She was Olivia Dunham, and that woman, even if they shared the same name and the same face, meant nothing. Nothing.

Except _she_ didn't. Except _she_ had a job, and a loving mother, and Charlie, and Lincoln, and a whole life. Was it hard for _her_, too? How did _she_ bear to wear somebody else's clothes, live in somebody else's apartment, be with a man she had just met? Or did _she_ not care about any of that, completely focused on _her_ mission?

And now that _she_ went back, was _she_, too, wandering around _her_ place, looking for traces of somebody else's presence? Like Olivia had found dirty clothes to be washed, or dishes drying on the kitchen table instead of by the sink, or forks in the cabinet instead of the top drawer, or a bar of chocolate she hated in the fridge. Would _she_ notice those little things that made up who Olivia Dunham was, that should have tipped her friends off that _she_ wasn't her?

But none of them had noticed. Not even Peter.

They had known each other for two years. They had fought side by side almost every day. She had trusted him, sometimes more than she had ever trusted anyone else.

How could he have any feelings for her in the first place if he had no idea who she was?

No, Olivia shook her head. She couldn't blame Peter. He hadn't expected it. _She_ had fooled him. He was a victim in this, too. _She_ had stolen their second kiss, and third kiss, and God knows how many more kisses. _She _had taken their first grocery shopping together, their first night out as a couple, their first time – Olivia could never get them back. They wouldn't be the same for Peter as for her. They wouldn't be real.

Olivia sank to the floor, covering her face with her hands. Her chest was so tight she couldn't breathe. How would either of them know what was real? He had looked at _her _and seen Olivia, would he look at Olivia now and see _her_? How could Olivia be sure he wasn't longing for _her_, the woman he'd held and kissed and touched? How could he be sure of anything any more?

Olivia wiped her tears angrily. That woman had done more than wear her clothes and sleep on her sheets and seduce the man she loved. _She_ had stolen part of her life, two months Olivia was never getting back, two months of experiences. Of life. And Olivia could sit here pitying herself on the floor in the apartment that didn't feel like hers, or she could get up and do something about it.

She got up. Went to the kitchen. Opened the cabinet, grabbed the forks and shoved them into the top drawer. Then she took the damn bar of chocolate she couldn't even look at yesterday and threw it into the trash can.

It felt good.

She would go shopping. She would get new sheets, the expensive ones she wanted but never let herself buy. New clothes, too: that long navy coat she had almost bought, and that dress Rachel encouraged her to get. New dishes, new towels, new soap. She would move the furniture a little, even redecorate when she had enough time. Maybe it wasn't that hard to start fresh, after all.

Her phone rang and she fumbled for it in her pocket. Peter.

She dismissed the call.


End file.

Fringe, Angst