so this is an alt-livia fic, my first official, one that is. I hope it plays out like this in the end. and i did like Newton, towards the end.

summary: Her ultimate sacrifice

warnings: M on the safe side.

spoilers: 3.04. ending scene.

disclaimer: i own nothing!

Newton's words are clear, ringing like angry loud bells in her ears, rocking the delicate crystal that forms her mind. There is a large crack in her crystal structure, the cutting edge running from the top of her head and across her eyes and down her spine, blocking out her chance to see clearly. She can only see within her mind. Newton did that to her. Or had the crack existed and she was ignoring it graciously? The anger she had was generated solely by the fact that her façade could not fool even a machine.

This Olivia is the like the sands on a beach, warm and open, easily able to be morphed into anything. She can be formed into a castle and shine in splendor for a day, marveled by all who wander upon her, temporialy distracting them from the onslaught of high waves. But when she is alone, the waves consume her and ebb away the magnificent castle that is she. She becomes the flat sand once again. And such is her moral line. A simple line drawn by her own self that Newton has seen and pointed to, laughed, and kicked water on. She etches herself deeper into the ground but the largest swell has yet to arrive and she can see it, looming. It frightens her and she builds a wall of flimsy sand to block out the swell.

She doesn't drink wine, but fills a glass and stares at the liquid. It's a deep angry red and it reflects how she feels. Angry. It's blinding her and she glowers at the glass, wanting nothing more than to see it fall apart underneath her fingers. She wants to feel the control run through her veins again. She let Newton get into her head. Newton sees she's losing her grip, losing her way. She needs to know she's still in control. She types a message to Peter on her phone in clam and smooth sweeps of her fingers. Her cover must hold, even if she has to distract him forever. She sets the phone down when it beeps that the message has been sent. Pouring out the wine she leaves the kitchen in search of the bathroom.

She knows what she must do. She must be the good solider. She is there for a purpose. No one knows her plan now, only Newton. Newton makes her angry. The man knew nothing. He was an insignificant machine made up of parts and mercury, disabled be a simply memory chip. She has not gone rogue. If anything he had. She keeps to the mission, always to the mission. She lives it. Breathes it. It is her flimsy sand wall, a part of her so consuming, she can't see over it to see that she's the only one who still believes it's a secret. Everyone knows, everyone but her.

She hears his knock and smiles, knowing he's here. It's its own distinct sound, his knock, the soft rasp of strong knuckles on her door, followed by a small thump of him leaning on the doorframe. She leaves the bathroom and opens the front door, and there he stands. She's never been religious, though her mother was catholic and seeing him stand there made her feel one thing. She was going to confess. Just confess one small sin and speak the truth, before letting all her future sins and past sins devour her tonight in the form of the Secretary's son.

"I lied," she confessed, the first truthful words she's spoken to him. He smiles, some strange predatory smile and nods his head. Suspicion creeps into her mind and the crack gets longer and deeper in her mind. Newton's voice fills her ears. He must know because she's never seen that smile before. It's new and foreign and she isn't sure if she likes it yet.

"About what?" he asks with a smirk on his face. It's weird to see no confusion knit his brow. She panics. He knows. Of course he knows. With her eyes wide she pulls on his shirt and tugs him into her apartment. She ignores his question. And she lets him push her against the wall because she doesn't know it yet. She has no idea that he is her wall and her storm, both the part that will build her up and tear her down.

All she knows is what she's read about him. She can't read people, emotions or body language. That's why she was so bad at guessing at dinner. So she doesn't know more than what she's read. She skims over the part about his IQ, she skims over the part about his mother, she skims over the part about his nomadic past. She doesn't care if he leaves her tonight. But what she doesn't know is that she, the real Olivia, is the only one who saw it all and was the only one that could fool him.

She'll do anything to distract him, anything. Her fingers are calm and smooth, running over his face and neck. All she sees right now is Newton's smug face in her mind, the satisfaction he's getting knowing she's unraveling. She closes her eyes and lets out a breathy moan into the room, but no matter how dark her vision goes, his face remains. His fingers are unlike anything she's ever felt before and she feels the tide ebbing in, washing over her. As she drops her shirt to the floor and pushes him back, he gives her no noise and it's eerily uncomforting. He's unsettling.

And like a fire consumes its log, she's becoming ashes. He lets her burn herself up on him, growing wings of flames that eat away at her flesh in the darkness. He makes no noises or sudden movements. It's all her. It's all her undoing. In the dark of the night he's able to see perfectly her crumbling. And he enjoys her fall, watching with unguardedly cruel eyes as she does it all to herself. He knew. He had known. She had known of his ability to play people, but she had never been played. He'd outsmarted her. And in the last seconds of her undoing, his eyes burn holes into hers, heading straight through her sight and into her mind, cracking the last of the crystal of her fragile mind, watching the ocean ebb away the moral line in the sand and the wall.

In the dark of the night she lay on her side, naked and shivering, staring at the wall. The secretary's son sleeps soundly next to her, his arm outstretched to drape over her. Her eyes are wide and staring in the blackness. What has she done? What has happened to her? Is she losing her mind? In the midst of the blackness Newton manifests from her mind and crouches down next to her, staring her in the face with his heartless expression. He was a machine, after all. He smiles and pats her cheek, as if to say good job. He stands and looks over to Peter before vanishing back into her mind.

Her moral line is drawn in sand, washed away with the tide every night she falls asleep. But she redraws it in the morning at the dawn's early light and protects her façade with crystal. Except tonight, when her own façade proved her undoing, tonight, when she over stepped that moral line in the sand she stepped into the waves. And the current was strong and consumed her. Newton said her inability to cross that line would be her undoing.

But it was her willingness too that proved him wrong. And she doesn't know who she is anymore.

Reviews?