Author's Notes: Here's Olivia's half even though it seems irrelative after 504. The things that this show puts me through. No beta so please forgive any mistakes. Comments = love.

Disclaimer: These are not my characters; I just play with them. No copyright infringement intended.

Reflections

Olivia:

There was a small noise. It presented no danger. It was probably just an appliance turning on. But she was in a strange world, sleeping in a strange bed on a strange floor. Olivia jerked awake. And had no idea where she was.

She gulped the strange air as she tried to catch her breath. She couldn't even say what she had been dreaming about, although she could guess. She felt choked by the sheets. She struggled to get them off her. The bed beneath her moved in a strange way. It squeaked louder than whatever had startled her.

Her eyes roved around the unfamiliar room. She found Peter sleeping soundly on the cot a few feet away. It was coming back. She'd been in amber. Peter had found her. Peter had found their daughter. She was in Etta's apartment.

The place was small and barely holding together. Yet, there was the ribbon of the advanced technology that came from the decades since she was last conscious. She couldn't figure out why Etta was forced to live here. The whole neighborhood was barely inhabited. Something horrible had happened here. Olivia was so far behind on her history, but she could feel it in her bones. It felt like shadows or ghosts. The apartment felt like a hide out, not somewhere people actually lived.

Olivia covered her face with her hands and took another deep breath. Her heart still pounded, but at least she was quiet.

She must have fallen asleep as soon as they got back. They'd talked to Walter. They'd had something to eat; not a real something, but enough to satiate. Then, she settled herself on the inflatable mattress to avoid having Peter insist she should have the cot. She must have gone right to sleep. She couldn't remember when the lights were turned off. In fact, she didn't even realize she'd been asleep. That's what caused her confusion.

A little voice in the back of her mind said, 'Yeah right.'

Her confused was caused by running down a street one minute and being blasted against a wall the next over twenty years in the future. Her head was still spinning. Over twenty years.

She focused on the ceiling; there was stain in the corner from water damage probably ten years ago. She focused on the mattress; inflatable mattresses were still the same. She felt the cool air on her damp skin. It's the only way she could think of to stay sane. She had to keep grounded; she had to grip onto the physical reminders of where she was.

Her time in the amber was not like sleeping. There was nothing restful about it. Her mind was active. It wasn't awake, but it played on a loop. A single thought for twenty years. Though, it hadn't felt like twenty years. More like when she fell asleep in the middle of the day. You think you've only just closed your eyes and your mind is still thinking, but then something wakes you up and it's been half and hour. Or twenty-one years.

The floorboards moan under her bare feet as she rolled off the mattress and hurried to the bathroom. She slipped through the door and quickly turned the sink on to hide any sounds. She lifted the toilet seat and dropped to the edge of the clipped ceramic tub. She leaned her elbows on her knees and fought back the wave of nausea. It felt like morning sickness in the way a thought or a smell had trigger it. She'd had horrible morning sickness with Etta.

She was not coping well. She didn't want to cope. She wanted to go back in time and put her toddler to bed and wake up to find Peter had brought her into the bed in the middle of the night. She wanted to pulled Etta's sleeping form closer and kiss her soft cheeks, smell her sweet baby scent. She wanted to take her to her first day of kindergarten and sit in the audience to watch her graduate. She wanted to be there to for every second. She knew it wasn't possible. Just like it wasn't possible to go back and keep her dad alive or keep her mom from married her stepfather or keep Rachel from his anger or keep herself out of the cortexiphan trials or keep the other Olivia from stealing her life or keep the timeline from change for Peter. Back was not an option; she knew that even if she didn't want to accept it.

She didn't know what to think. She knew nothing of this future or, most importantly, who that girl was in the bedroom. She'd seen Etta's face and she'd just known her baby was standing in front of her. She hadn't believed it. The look she had given Peter asked with everything part of her being to tell her the woman standing in front of her was their daughter. She'd had been so sure that Etta had been—well, it didn't matter now. Her daughter was asleep in the next room. She was alive.

Her stomach was settling. She reached over and turned off the sink. It was the amber. She system needed time to adjust. The voice in the back of her head said, 'Yeah right' again.

She could feel the pictures of Etta's life looking down at her from the shelf above the chipped tile. She eased herself off the tub to get a better look at the photos. Etta as a little girl with a dog. Etta with a man and woman, who were presumably her foster parents. Olivia didn't know if she wanted to meet these people and thank them or be angry with them. Probably the latter.

There were months before Olivia ambered herself when Etta could have been found. She'd be alive all that time. Olivia knew she should be grateful to those people for taking in her child, but she couldn't help feeling they were the ones who had stolen her.

It was the third image that Olivia really focused on. Etta standing with another woman with dark hair. It was only a few years old at most. Etta looked the way she did now and that's really what Olivia was interested in. Etta really did look like her. She favored the Bishop side of the family when Olivia had last seen her. She still had Peter's big eyes, but everything else seemed to be a reflection of Olivia. She had the same general face shape, the same nose, the same mouth and, of course, the blonde hair. It was so strange and beautiful to see the woman that little girl had become.

Olivia suddenly needed to see Etta. Not the picture, but with her own eyes. She was still struggling to believe that she was actually here. It was like a sweet dream that she knew was a dream and that any moment she would wake up and have to face reality.

She left the bathroom and carefully crossed to the other side of the apartment. She tried to avoid the loudest floorboards. The door to Etta's room was open. Olivia would just poke her head just to get a glimpse of Etta. She didn't want her daughter to think she was invading her privacy.

She peered around the corner. Etta was sprawled out on her bed with the sheets just covering her legs. She was facing the door. She was too still, like she was holding her breath. Her were squeezed too tightly. Olivia almost smiled. Etta wasn't sleeping.

Olivia just watched her daughter, waiting. Finally, Etta moved. She opened one eye and saw Olivia standing in the doorway.

She sat up a little, wide awake. "Is everything okay?"

"You used to do that when you were little," said Olivia.

"What?"

"Pretend to be asleep. It was usually when you want to be carried in from the car."

Every time they drove home at night around Etta's bedtime, she would squeeze her eyes shut in her car seat and try to keep herself from smiling. Olivia and Peter would pretend to whisper so as not to wake her. They were trying to encourage a little independence that meant not carried Etta as much, it meant letting her do things on her own. But on nights like this when they were coming back from Walter's or Nina's or some other activity, Peter would lift the toddler from her car seat and carry her straight to her bed.

"Do you need anything?" asked Etta, interrupting the thought.

Olivia shook her head, but she wasn't sure Etta could see her in the semi-darkness. She took a few steps into the room, so she could see Etta better. She saw the empty side of Etta's full sized bed and realized she had no intention of leaving.

She moved slowly, unsure of exactly what she was doing or whether Etta would want her there. She lowered herself onto the bed. She cautiously lay down next to her daughter. Etta didn't seem to mind. She flipped over immediately so they were face to face.

Olivia could take in every single one of Etta's features. Even this close the resemblance was uncanny. They weren't identical; they didn't look unbelievably similar. They looked like mother and daughter in the way that you look back at your mom's old pictures and say 'wow, Mom, I really do look like you.' And Olivia had not believed that her baby girl was going to ever get any older. There had been a time when it all seemed lost. To now have her grown daughter looking back at her was more than she could have dreamed of.

Olivia was brought out of her wonder as she realized that Etta's eyes—so like Peter's—were filled with tears. She shut them and two tears spilled over and ran down each cheek.

Before Olivia realized it, she had instinctually started to reach out. She slowed her movement and carefully wiped away the tears with the back of her fingers.

"Look at you," said in the darkness, keeping her voice low. "I want to see you as a child. I want to call you baby girl and tuck you into bed."

Etta almost smiled. "You still can."

"No, I can't because you are all grown up and I am so proud of you."

Olivia must have said something wrong. Etta shut her eyes again and Olivia could tell she was on the verge of tears.

"Don't be sad," she paused, trying to make a decision, and then added, "baby girl."

"I'm not sad. I'm happy. I've wanted this for such a long time," said Etta.

Olivia closed her eyes for a moment unable to face her daughter's admiration. If Etta only knew...Olivia had given up. She didn't know how to tell her daughter that she had believed in her heart that she was dead. She also didn't know how to function on the pedestal that Etta was very quickly building.

She opened her eyes and looked at her daughter once again. "Henrietta, I am so sorry."

"For what?"

"For abandoning you. For letting you grow up alone. For letting you get dragged into all this. For everything. This was my greatest fear; the thought that kept me up at night even while I was pregnant with you."

"Do I wish it had been different? Of course. But it was no way your fault. I never blamed you or Dad. It's them, the Observers. They're the ones who took everything."

Etta seemed to want to shrug it off. She wasn't understanding or maybe didn't want to understand. "It's still my nightmare."

"It doesn't matter now. And besides, I turned out all right. Didn't I?"

"You did," Olivia answered softly.

Etta didn't say anything else. She just looked up at Olivia and Olivia read the trust on her face. They were still. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence. She didn't feel the need the space. They just were.

It was late and dark and calm for the first time in hours, days probably. Olivia watched her daughter. Etta was giving in to her tiredness. Olivia couldn't. She was afraid to even move for fear of ruining the moment, of breaking the spell.

Etta might trust her mother, but Olivia didn't trust herself. These moments felt like an indulgence; something that couldn't be afforded in these dangerous times. She had let her guard down that beautiful day in the park and everything had changed. Things would have turned out differently if they had Etta with them.

Peter thought she was strong for going to fight, for going to New York. But she'd been running. She'd been running as hard and as fast in opposite direction, away from the grief, the sadness, the pain, the guilt. She had dabbled with things that weren't meant to be. She had accepted her punishment. She had lost her child.

Motherhood has always been something Olivia wanted. She wanted to be a mom. As she got older, it caused a physical ache in her chest sometimes. That was only one side of herself. The other side was still a kid, was damaged and scared and lashed out. Part of her said she should never inflicted that side of her on a child. Her situation had never seemed to align with becoming a mother or being able to take care of a child.

But it had happened. It hadn't been planned, but there it was. A little life, a little heartbeat thump, thump, thumping inside her. And it was perfect. Well, it was perfect after the morning sickness stopped. Then, it was diapers and sleepless nights and first steps and first words and Etta was this tiny person that Olivia loved so much.

And Olivia missed everything after that. Twenty-one years. She missed birthdays, Christmases, first days of school, first crushes, fighting over curfew, graduations, just seeing her little girl smile.

Although, Etta wasn't a little girl. The proof was lying in front of her. They were connected; they were blood. But Etta was essentially a stranger. She needed to get to know this woman. It suddenly didn't feel right her being her. Etta wasn't a toddler who was fussy in the middle of the night. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

"Mama, where are you going? You can sleep here. It's better than the floor. I don't care," said Etta, sounding very much like the little girl she'd been when Olivia had last seen her daughter.

Her back was to Etta. "I won't actually get any sleep. I should…" She let the sentence fade away. She didn't really have any idea what she should be doing.

Olivia felt the bed shift again. "Please, don't. Can we just talk? There's so much time to catch up on."

"Tomorrow. I promise. I'm still exhausted." She stood up and turned around so she could see her daughter. "Good night, baby girl."

She moved towards the door.

"Did I do something wrong?" asked Etta, still sounding like a little girl.

Olivia took a deep breath. She was the one who was doing something wrong, not Etta. "No, absolutely not. I just so tired and if I stay in here I'm not going to be able close my eyes because I can't get over how beautiful you are."

She walked away. She had every intention of going back to sleep, but she merely stopped in front of her inflatable mattress. She folded her arms across her chest and stared down at the tangle of blankets. She stood there for a long time and tried very hard not think about anything.

She didn't know what she was doing. She didn't know what she wanted. Well, that wasn't exactly true. She knew that she wanted that day in the park to have ended very differently.

She didn't want to push Etta away; she didn't want to pull away either. This was so confusing. She sighed. The corners of her mouth pulled downward and she felt a few tears welling her eyes. She shook her head; that wasn't going to help. She had so many things she wanted to say to her daughter; she had so many things to ask. She wished she knew how to form the words. She was scared of the answers; she recognized that. She was running again.

Just as suddenly as had risen from the bed, Olivia turned around again. She walked back into Etta's room and stopped short in the doorway.

Etta was flat on her back, but she quickly sat up. She looked ready to jump into action.

"I love you, Henrietta. More than I could ever put into words," Olivia blurted out.

"I know. I love you too, Mom."

"I want to know everything about your life and at the same time I'm scared to hear it. I loved being your mother and I hate that something prevented me from doing that. It hurts. Can we just take it slowly? I need time to try and figure this world out." She did know that's how she felt until the words were coming out of her mouth.

"Of course. I've thought about this for so long, but I don't really have any idea what to do."

Olivia entered the room again and perched on the corner of the bed. "In a way, I'm glad to hear you say that. I thought I was the only one. I'm not very good at this kind of thing."

Etta moved closed. "Me neither. I think that's the strangest part. For me, at least."

Olivia tilted her head and frown. She was about to ask Etta to clarify, but Etta understood the look.

"I can see myself in you," Etta said. "I have never had that before. Ever. I've never looked like someone or acted like them because of biology. I really am your daughter."

"I knew the second I saw you. There was no one else you could be with that blonde hair and your dad's big eyes." Shining tears filled in Etta's eyes again, but she smiled. Olivia continued, "We really should get some sleep."

Etta nodded. Olivia got to her feet again. She leaned over and kissed Etta on the forehead. She knew the gesture was awkward, but the sentiment was all the really mattered.

"Good night, Mom," said her daughter, trying to keep the catch out of her voice.

"Good night, Etta," Olivia answered.

This time when Olivia returned to the living room, she actually lay back down. She was on her back looking up at the ceiling again. She felt a little less heavy. She might not know this grown version of her daughter, but Etta was still her daughter. She could see what she had passed onto Etta; she could see hints of the little girl that she did know.

She still felt wholly inadequate and that Etta's faith was misplaced. But she also felt like there was hardly anything she could do to make the situation worse. Maybe up was the only option, even if Olivia couldn't see the way yet. Maybe she would never see the path. Maybe some of the damage could be repaired. She closed her eyes. Maybe she should worry about it tomorrow.