ONCE

Stream-of-consciousness piece. Peter and Olivia had a daughter, once.

Once, I had a family, now I can't remember the last time anyone tucked me in or kissed me goodnight.

That's a lie, I can, but it was years ago. It's a distant, hazy memory, I might even have made it up. I think about it often, far too often in THEIR opinion, but I can't help it. Even when I clear my mind totally, it's the last thing that lingers.

I can still smell her hair. The long blonde waves of it that brushed my face as she kissed my forehead. She smelt like roses, and mint, and him. She couldn't seem to shake that musky scent of him off her, even after a shower, it clung to her, so much so that in my memories their smells combine. I guess, thinking back, it was probably because they were all over each other all the time. Not in a bad way, but forever close. Holding hands, giving light kisses, touching cheeks.

Beautiful.

She gave a little smile then, and turned to face him in the doorway. He kissed my cheek, not my head, and his shadow of stubble grazed my face lightly, comfortably. He gave me the cocky grin I saw when I looked in the mirror, and they both murmured the words, "Goodnight sweetheart."

Then they linked hands and walked out of the room, pushing my door to so only a crack of light shone through, missing my bed by inches and forming a yellow line across the floor beside my bed.

It was the last time I saw them, and I was seven years old.

They took me that night, had them called out on urgent business, leaving me with only a babysitter for protection, a smiling woman with tight black curls and caramel skin, her name still evades me - when they dragged me through the back door I caught a glimpse of her on the sofa, a bullet through her forehead - she hadn't even had time to reach for her gun.

I can't imagine how wrenched apart they must have felt when they returned home to that scene. I've imagined it time and time again in my mind, she would be crying, so would he, but quieter, and he would hold her, but only for a second, and then they would start the search. Set the cogs rolling, ready to find me.

But they never did come. I've spent 10 years now in this place, this disinfected blank, violated to the very last reaches of my own consciousness. Unsure whether I'm even capable of my own thought anymore, but I must be, because I'm thinking all of this. They kept me locked up for months, trying to break me, but the one thing he taught me was never to come quietly, and she taught me never to stop fighting. In the end, I think they drugged me, because I found myself awake on a cold metal chair with the greatest pain I've ever felt shooting stars behind my eyelids.

And then there was the blankness, all thought seeming to evaporate. The last thing that lingers is always the smell of her hair, even now. And then they force it from me, and do whatever it is they do.

I've formed a theory, of course, I've been here long enough. They need my brain, to do things they can't, computers can't. To solve things, invent things, whatever. And somehow they've found a way to do that, by removing ME for a while and taking control of my mind. The thought of that makes me nauseous.

I haven't looked in a mirror in ten years, but I can see my own long straight brown hair, and I always had hazel-brown eyes, like hers. Sometimes I just run my fingertips over my features, wondering if I look like them. Either of them.

They told me, when I was fourteen, that my grandfather had been killed, that they'd killed him. He's a face I can't conjure up, whether I ever met him or not I have no idea. They told me less than a year later that the FBI had pulled the plug on my case, that no one cared any longer. Then they took all my thought away so even that didn't hurt.

I know they've been in my head, they've sifted through my memories time and time again, as if they're looking for something, but never quite find it. I can imagine what it must be - something from them. Something, anything... something that would destroy them. I can't be sure, but I don't think they've had any luck. Otherwise, why would they still need me alive???

Once, I had a name. She used to say it lovingly as she brushed my hair every morning, he used to shorten it to something else, but that's faded along with the colours in my world. They've taken too many paths across my brain to count, and I think I'll soon be useless - to them, to the world. I think they'll have used me up by then.

So until the day when I really do know nothing more, I have to keep thinking. Imagining that they are still looking for me, that they never gave up. They tell me he was killed on my trail back when I had just been taken, that she took her own life only months after. Some days I don't remember that, and they're still out there searching, they're getting closer with every day.

Sometimes I even blame him, for condemning me. He saw his father, he knew himself better than anyone, except maybe her, and he must have known I would be the same. He must have known. When I was at home, it meant nothing. Even at school, I was no more than top of the class.
School... I haven't recalled that in a long time.
But it's why they took me, because they thought I'd be easier to mould than him, and his father. They thought they could shape me exactly how they wanted, but they didn't account for one thing.

That while I'm part him, I'm part her. And that means never stop fighting, never stop resisting, never trust a soul. Principles I live by, if you can call it living. Because while I've got his brain, I have her heart. And I will fight until there's nothing left of me to fight for.

Sometimes I resent them, for giving up so easily, especially her. She could have waited for me, kept searching, but I suppose I know nothing outside this place. I know nothing.

Once, I was a person, but now I am simply the genius daughter of Olivia Dunham and Peter Bishop, condemned to this until the end.

And then there's only the smell of her hair.

Love it or hate it? I'm not even sure myself... I just had to put it down, it was circulating in my head like mad.

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