Title: Corner of your heart
Author: MissForsythe

Rating: Nothing too smutty or offensive.
Disclaimer: not mine
Notes: Can you really completely delete a person from existing? Can you delete them from your heart?

The Observer watches as the blonde woman wanders around the grocery store, idly picking up items and putting them back. He's seen her doing this so many times. As though she's expecting to hear someone say which brand of mustard to buy, or that she really doesn't need that much milk. Sometimes she'll cock her head and look over her shoulder, as if she's expecting him there.

Olivia Dunham knows that she's forgotten something. But she can't remember for the life of her what. It's not the same feeling as when she's forgotten her umbrella or forgotten one of Ella's school plays. It's deeper then that. If she didn't know any better, she'd think it's guilt. Sometimes, when she hears the next door neighbour play the piano, she can almost remember, but then he stops playing. The neighbour never plays long enough for the imagery to become clear. One time, she was so close, and she wound up curled in a ball against the couch, angry and crying. Sometimes, in her dream, she sees a cow in a laboratory and laying in water in the dark. The flash of light that follows is so bright she thinks that she'll be blinded permanently. But for some reason, she feels safe. There are two strong arms pulling her out of the water and holding her close.

I'm here.

Then she wakes up to the darkness, but the voice follows her throughout the day, sometimes until only some really strong medicine manages to drown it out.

There's a scarf in her closet, a silk one. She has no idea where it came from. If she tries, she can pretend that it belongs to Rachel and that it was left behind during one of her visits. But when runs her fingers across the smooth silk, she knows that It doesn't. It's her scarf, it was a gift. She vaguely remembers a sunny morning in April, perhaps at Easter. Again, the association never brings forth the whole picture, but she knows that she got it from a lover.

"Pretty girls should have pretty scarves."

She's fascinated with the history of Dr. Bishop and Dr. Bell. The Mad Scientists, as the media dub them. They're an odd looking pair, and she thinks they look the part perfectly. But it's Dr. Bishop she's most interested in. Perhaps because he has that haunted look in his eyes, as though he suffered a great loss. She went to see him speak at a medical conference last winter, he spent the first half of his speech talking about separate universes, and the other about his experiences with LSD. And yet, when he was escorted off stage, she saw him looking for someone in the audience. It took her a minute to realise that he was looking right at her.

Sometimes she thinks of mundane things, all of which are hidden in the corner of her heart. Car rides in a vintage Chevy, bacon and eggs on Sunday morning, a blue shirt that smells of aftershave and something else she can't define. Small memories of a person she thinks she should remember, but can't. Not even if she would find a cow in a laboratory or if she cross examined Dr. Bishop to find out if he has indeed lost someone important.

The observers sit in a café near Olivia Dunhams house, and watch as she and her niece walk down the street.

I think we underestimated something.

The youngest Observer looks up from his coffee, not understanding what could have possibly gone wrong with what was pre destined. It started with Peter, and by taking his existence, a compromise was made. But when he sees the photographs of Olivia looking over her shoulder, wearing the scarf and attending a medical convention, he realises that humans really do value love over everything else. Because it can be tenacious, and in Olivia Dunhams case, it can never be fully erased.

The lock is intact, is it not?

The Observer stares out the window, and he does something that he's seen humans do, but has never tried himself. He lies.

It is intact.

He knows that a mistake has been made, albeit a subconscious one. The lock is not intact, and he knows that it won't be long before they figure out how to open it, as they always do.

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