Yes, I'm finally posting a new chapter in this story. My apologies to all who have been looking for more.

I know it's an excuse, but in my defense, my muse has been bombarding me with other stuff-like Bad!Walter ideas and 'Rouge,' and teasing me to respond to americanchick's and oranfly's challenges.

I don't own anything and any errors are mine.

This chapter reflects the events of episode 2.16 entitled "Peter." If you've never seen it you should watch it before you read this.

And please, if you want more chapters, please review. It will help greatly. :)

Olivia, Walter, and Peter all reflect on recent developments

Activated-Chapter 13

The sudden knock on her apartment door startled her. The interruption of the silence she desired so much angered her. Then the anger quickly shifted into the fear of who it might be. Olivia Dunham desparately hoped it was a neighbor's child soliciting for Boy or Girl Scouts, and not the one man who now hoarded her thoughts, whose image had kept her awake for most of the last three nights.

As she made her way to the door with her second scotch glass in hand Olivia suddenly wished it was Peter Bishop at her door that evening. She would tell him everything. As Olivia undid the lock a voice in her head shouted out like a child. Would you? But it was too late to change her mind and close the door. To her relief Walter Bishop stood there looking exhausted, holding a parcel of some kind, waiting for Olivia to say something.

"Walter, what are you doing here?" she asked him, each word feeling like a weight on her tongue.

"You left me no choice. You wouldn't answer your telephone, return my messages. I tried to communicate." He locked eyes with her and she could see a glimpse of the weariness within him.

"I need time, OK?" Olivia replied defensively. "I don't even know...hot to begin to work this out."

Walter's eyes shifted to the ground and then back up to her face. "I think I do," he told her softly.

"Please, Olivia, I need to explain." His eyes focused on the glass in her hand. "And if you wouldn't mind, I could use a sip of something myself."

Olivia moved to let him in and closed the door behind him. Wordlessly she walked to the walnut-colored table and poured three fingers of scotch into a glass as Walter watched.

"Have you told Agent Broyles?" Walter asked her, afraid of her reply.

"No," she replied as she finished pouring his drink. "But to be honest, that doesn't mean that I won't."

"I always knew that one day I would have to pay the price for my deception."

"Well," Olivia answered slowly as she put the cover back on the decanter. "We're not really sure what the cost is yet, are we?" She tried to concentrate on picking up his drink and walking with it but her mind took a turn into dangerous territory, wondering for the millionth time what he would do after she told him the truth. She'd seen his reaction in kicking the bathroom stall when they'd found the id chip from Walter's face in the sink the time Newton had kidnapped him. Olivia knew after this news that was a cake walk in comparison. No matter how much she'd analyzed it, it all came down to the same outcome. Peter would take off. And that was totally unacceptable. Period.

Olivia set Walter's drink on her coffee table, and watched as he took the wrapper off the parcel he'd brought with him.

"No. I suppose not" Walter held onto the sides of the now exposed item. "I invented this after William and I learned that we had doubles on the other side. Or maybe it was before. I can't remember. It's a window to the other universe. I was a different man then. I was going to change the world." Walter put his head down, remembering. Then he looked up at Olivia, determined. "But you see, after Peter became sick, none of that seemed to matter anymore. The illness was genetic. Hepia. Savage. Wasting. I tried everything." Walter's eyes glistened with dampness. "There was simply no hope. At least...not on this side. But over there...they're more technologically advanced. If the alternate Peter was also sick over there, then wouldn't his father be equally motivated to find a cure? He was. God help me...he was."

Olivia sat down, not quite sure she'd heard him correctly. Why was he talking about an alternate Peter with the same illness? She had a very bad feeling she was about to find out.

"...and I realized at that moment that despite what I'd promised, what I fully intended to do...that I could never take Peter back. The way she looked at him, I saw in her what I feared most in myself when I saw him...that I couldn't lose him again. It was the first hole, Olivia. The first breach. The first crack in a pattern of cracks, spaces between the worlds. And it's my fault." Walter was quiet for a moment, lost in his thoughts. "You can't imagine what it's like to lose a child."

The two of them sat there mentally and physically drained. Silent. Olivia Dunham was thankful she hadn't eaten anything for several hours prior. The gnawing in her gut was bad enough. She hadn't been expecting this. The enormity of it. Peter's illness. Peter's death! Walter's intentions, Walter's actual actions. It was too much to process. But she did know one thing. Her Peter, alternate or not, deserved to be told the truth.

Sweaty and in need of a break, Peter Bishop sat down on their bench in Boston Common. Although the air had a typical New England coolness about it, he was warm, sweaty, and worried. Something was off for the past three days. He'd been majorly disappointed when she'd canceled their going out for drinks due to a sudden migraine, but it was certainly understandable. Olivia had been through mental and physical hell during those days that had run into each other. He even understood when she showed up to the lab the day after much more quiet than her usual self. Peter knew from personal experience the mental and physical exhaustion that often occurred post-migraine. But three days?

As he pondered this a feeling crept into him. A mix of sadness, nausea, and...longing? Peter sat on the bench just receiving it knowingly. Olivia's. Should he go to her? He knew she probably wouldn't appreciate his just showing up at her door, especially if she still wasn't feeling well. But if there was something else wrong...she would tell me, wouldn't she?

Peter's mind shifted into a different direction and the reason for his walk. Walter had been acting strangely as of late. Quieter. Not eating as much. Preoccupied. Was he regressing into mental illness? Peter took a breath and got up off the bench. He started walking toward Cambridge. Walter was his father. Surely he would tell him if there was something wrong.