Big thanks to anyone who read and/or reviewed my Drunken Mistakes fanfic over the months. This is a one shot, set around the time of Momentum Deferred.

I'll be posting a companion fic to this during the weekend, from Olivia's point of view.

Unbetaed, as usual, so all mistakes are mine.

Half three.

Peter groaned and rolled over, away from the taunting red numbers on his alarm clock. Half past three in the morning and he still couldn't sleep. He could blame Walter and Olivia alike for disrupting his sleep patterns, (and he most certainly would if either thought to comment on the bags under his eyes in the morning) but the fact of the matter was that there was only one thing keeping him awake to the early hours of the morning. Sex. Or more specifically, his lack thereof.

One year, he realised. It had to be over a year. A year and one month at the very least. That was pathetic, even by his standards. His last time had very definitely been in Iraq. Before a certain Olivia Dunham had crashed into his life with all the grace of a bull in a china shop, destroying any semblance of a life that he had once had, and pulling him into this freak show of an operation.

Olivia. It was her fault really. She'd tracked him down, blackmailed him and forced him to help her with her damned hopeless cause. Worse still, she'd made him care. About Walter, about her and about the pattern. He'd never asked for a family, he'd never asked for an FBI pay check and he'd certainly never asked to develop feelings for his boss, but that was the hand he had been dealt. What he had asked for was his own bedroom, but of course the feds took their time to deliver. That had been the true beginning of his dry spell.

He could have slept with Olivia's sister. Beautiful, single Rachel. She'd called him around midnight, close to a year ago, one thing clearly on her mind. For reasons that were completely evading him now, he turned her down. It had been something to do with Olivia, he wagered. Olivia, and a severe lack of alcohol. Back then, it had been eight months. It had seemed like a lifetime at the time, but yet still manageable. And so some sort of strange affinity for Olivia Dunham had held him back. Because he'd known how much pain the John shaped hole in her life was causing her, and that she most certainly wasn't sleeping with anyone either. So it had only seemed fair that he held out, at least for a while.

And so he'd turned Rachel down in April, but he wouldn't today. If, for whatever reason, she picked up the phone and made that same booty call tomorrow, he would jump at the opportunity. Sure, it would still prick at his conscience and Olivia would certainly be furious if she found out, but by God, it would be worth it. Because if his affection for Olivia had doubled in the subsequent months, his need for some sort of physical relations had quadrupled.

Looking back now he'd wanted sex, surely. But he'd needed it to be with Olivia, if only to keep his conscience clear. Today, it was becoming more and more obvious that he needed sex, but now he merely wanted it to be with Olivia. This fascination- or to be quite frank, this crush- of his may cause him to take stupid risks, to pull her out of tanks and provide her a shoulder to cry on, but it wasn't enough anymore. Not enough for him to keep abstaining in the vague hope that she would get emotional, terrified or drunk enough to throw him a bone.

He didn't love her. In that fact, he took a great deal of comfort. But he was close. The last time he'd felt like this he'd been on the very verge of falling. He'd felt himself standing on the precipice, and he'd turned and ran. Within days of even thinking about the 'L' word, he had broken up with Tess and fled the country. Not necessarily in that order either. He wouldn't leave this time, however. His freedom had long since evaporated, and he found he liked this flutter in his chest every time he met Olivia's gaze altogether too much to slip away in the night.

Everything always came back to Olivia, these days. He ran a tired hand over his eyes. He needed to sleep and to do that he needed to reach some sort of resolution. He groped around in the dark, and found his jeans over a nearby chair. Pulling a coin from the pocket, he stared at it. Heads, he'd talk to Olivia; tails he'd hit the bar tomorrow night. Feeling almost ridiculous amount of reverence for something as simple as a coin toss, he flipped it once and felt an unmistakable relief as it landed on his duvet.

Good. Decision made, and fate had picked for him. Sex with a stranger it would be. He might face rejection, he may get the odd slap before he got what he needed, but at least neither would be from Olivia. He honestly didn't think he could handle that.

Lady Luck, as always, was not on his side. His plans for the next evening were well and truly put to rest in the form of a case involving a woman from Walter's past, Olivia's heart practically stopping and a whole lot of missing heads. In other words, a normal day in the lab. So he put his own personal needs to the side once again, and got on with dealing with Walter's crisis of the week all the while telling himself very firmly not to fall for Olivia.

On the whole, he was relieved when he received the phone call from Broyles, telling him that the shapeshifter was dead, shot by the one and only Olivia Dunham and that the case was closed. He didn't ask for more details, knowing he was to be debriefed in the morning. When Walter arrived home safe on the bus, he told him the good news and focused on getting ready to go out that night.

He hadn't forgotten the results of his coin toss.

When he eventually managed to part from Walter, he hit the nearest bar he could think of. All and all, things were going surprisingly well. He'd attracted the attention of a leggy blonde, bombarded her with compliments and had bought her a drink or two. However, she had no sooner leant in and asked him to come back to her place when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Wincing, he prayed that it would only be Walter, attempting to remember some missing ingredient for yet another batch of cookies, but glancing down at the screen; he found that naturally, luck still wasn't on his side.

It was Olivia. Typical. He considered declining the call, hoping she would take the hint, but something stopped him. She rarely called him, and when she did, it was usually important. Deep down knowing this was a terrible idea, be excused himself to take the call, hoping it would be a brief one.

"Peter Bishop" he answered, attempting to sound as distracted as possible, hoping that she would take the hint and realise that this was a bad time.

"Peter, I need you" her tone just about broke his heart, and although he knew that he was off the clock and that he certainly had no obligation to go to her, he really couldn't do anything other than dash to her side. He glanced at the blonde, sighed inwardly, and told Olivia,

"I'm on my way."

The companion will be based on why Olivia called rather than the aftermath, in case anyone was wondering.

Oh, and just had to add, the promo for the next episode... 2:12, I think... looks awesome :D