AN: I already have a story I'm pretty focused on, so this isn't a priority for me. However, if it's really well liked, I might change my mind.

Summary: When the Observer distracted Walternate from the cure, he changed the world. How would the story have gone if he hadn't?

Walter felt the alcohol burn through his stomach as he watched his alter work. He tried hard not to feel the less generous emotions that were boiling up beneath the scotch; envy, bitterness, rage, and a cavernous grief so deep and dark that he wasn't sure he'd ever find the strength to pull himself out of it. He took another swig and considered taking something a little stronger. Until a few days ago, he hadn't actually taken any drugs in years, but he had everything he needed here in his lab to make them if he so chose.

Walternate was in the middle of testing his thirty-eighth compound. Even despite all the alcohol he'd ingested since... well, in the last few days, he could still remember every chemical Walternate had added, every precise measurement, every temperature, every time delay. All the different compounds had burned their formulas into his mind like cattle brands – scars on his brain. Mementos of roads he hadn't tried. Roads that might have saved his son, had he been smart enough, fast enough.

Roads forever lost to him, now.

Something dark flickered in the corner of the Window - Walter glanced up and saw a strange figure in a suit. He was completely bald, lacking even the definition of eyebrows, and he was wearing a top hat. Walter blinked and wondered, absently, if the man was really swaying in that peculiar pattern, or if that was just an effect of the alcohol in his system. Logically, it was probably the latter. Probably.

He glanced back to the Window where Walternate yelled something without looking at the man in the suit. He'd obviously heard him, but he seemed a bit too focused at the moment to turn around. It turned out to be fortuitous, because the compound suddenly began to change. From the bottom, the color shifted, bleeding into a beautiful, luminous blue. Walter blinked and questioned himself silently - and desperately - if this were an effect of his blood-toxicity as well. But alcohol was not (at least in the amounts he had imbibed) a hallucinogenic. The color must be real.

Walter stood up and whooped. Walternate, unaware of the observation, threw both fists into the air and laughed triumphantly. The image grew blurry as Walter's eyes fogged with tears, and he spun in a circle, laughter bubbling up his throat, elation made audible, tangible. Rampant euphoria raged through his system, making him bend over, still laughing, still crying, to gasp for breath.

He stood up again, watching the blue fade back to red, and he was not afraid. It was merely unstable - not yet the final variant, but nonetheless the cure. He watched the other Walter hurry about his lab, grabbing other chemicals to stabilize it, and mentally calculated the time it would take to finish. It did not take long to come to a conclusion.

Walternate had plenty of time to save his Peter.

Walter smiled. "Well done, my boy. Well done."

But as a grinning Walternate ran out of the lab to call home, Walter felt his absence. The other lab was empty now - the mysterious bald visitor having disappeared at some point - and it seemed almost accusing. Mocking. There was the cure, in the middle table, surrounded by instruments and materials that would finish it, that would build it to its final rendition. There it was. Just beyond his reach…

Walter leaned back against the table, suddenly very drained. The joy faded to an echo, the laughter eased into a gentle, sad smile, and he was left only with the tears.

He knew it now. The compound. He knew exactly how to make it, and his mind - despite the drunken haze, despite the emotional surge, despite his bone-deep fatigue - was already racing through the more likely ways to stabilize it. He could have a completed cure finished by... oh, tomorrow, if he hurried.

And it wouldn't change anything. If he'd seen this a month - a week - before, it would have mattered. But now? God, now?

His son was dead.

And nothing really mattered anymore.

He opened his mouth, feeling his jaw quiver and his eyes well up as - once more - that endless pit of grief opened up inside his stomach, and swallowed him up whole.

"Take care of him." He whispered to the Window, to the Walter on the other side who had succeeded where he'd failed, and turned silently to leave.

His son was dead.

*Twenty years later*

She ran through a forest, calling out names she couldn't remember, of people who didn't exist. Things that didn't exist. She looked up to the sky, and beyond the canopy a bloated white shape floated by. Some distant spot-light swept past, hitting the blimp, revealing its true form.

Olive turned and followed it through the trees, glancing up to spot it, to make sure she stayed on target. Before long, it got ahead of her, and she began to run - desperate to stay within sight of her only landmark, to anchor herself to something unique here, in this forest of silhouettes and shadows.

Something was chasing her through the forest. At first it looked like simple shapes, and then like people, and then like beasts pacing her just out of sight. Olive ran harder, glancing up yet again towards the canopy. But she could see only black sky beyond them, with ambient light hiding both star and moon's light from her. The blimp was gone.

Olive ran harder, hearing louder and louder footsteps, harsh breathing just behind her neck. Something at her heals, crushing leaves, brushing its hand along her back.

Olive sobbed, trees blurring, leaving the whole of the forest a blur of black, brown, and green smudges. But still, despite the tears, despite the shadows, she could see those forms out of the corner of her eye. Flickering, growing solid. Coming closer.

Lips against her ear. Clawed hands reached around, ready to grab her, ready to wrap her up and pull her back into the shadows. Despite the claws, despite the odd, boney structure of the fingers, she knew those hands – they were the hands that had wrapped around her mother's throat when she was five and crying. Or they were the hands of the Dream-Man – the one Olive never saw, but could feel dwelling in that forest, in her mind, just out of sight…

The hands brushed against her face, claws tearing skin. Olive screamed "No!"

And burst free of the forest.

The sounds of pursuit faded. The flickers receded, taking with them the monstrous arms and the hot breath against her temple. And before her lay a beautiful city - something out of a fairy tale. Tall buildings filled with light, and blimps floating towards them, shining lights of their own. A fairy city. Olive gasped at the beauty and at the sudden feeling of freedom - of safety.

She turned back to the forest, and saw it returned to normal. Tall trees swaying in the breeze, the distant coo of an owl. The shadows at its base had become simple shadows - guileless, sleepy shadows, empty of monsters or beasts. Olive smiled and turned around, her eyes seeking that fairy city once again.

But instead, she found herself face to face with herself. Only, this other self had eyes swirled with yellow and black. There were no pupils, but Olive knew the other her was looking at her too.

And the other Olive smiled.

Olivia jerked awake with a gasp, vaguely aware that she hadn't taken a breath for a while. It wasn't uncommon for her to hold her breath during a nightmare. She sat there for a minute, looking around the dark bedroom of her apartment, searching for yellow eyes, for hands, for monsters.

Then she blinked and buried her hands in her hair. Already the dream was fading into the recesses of her memory, to be forgotten like so many of her dreams.

"Shit." She muttered, rubbing her scalp with her palms. This was so stupid. Four years in therapy, and she was still having the same damn nightmares?

Olivia took a deep breath to bring calm, to just let go of the dreams, of the old feelings, the way she'd been taught. She took another deep breath, and another, and before long the shaking in her hands had eased, and the cold sweat on her forehead dried. She was herself again. Calm. Controlled.

Breathe.

After spending a moment clearing her head, Olivia threw back the blankets and got up. It may only be... 4:15 AM, but all that meant was that she'd have some time to work out before she took her shower. Then she'd head up to work and try, yet again, to get Broyles to see her as the good FBI Agent she was, and not just the bitch that'd gotten his "patriotic" friend indicted with sexual harassment.

Olivia sighed. It might not have been so bad if she and John hadn't been fighting. A week beforehe'd intercepted a call from a college kid wanting to interview her for some kind of report. It wouldn't have been a problem if it'd been because she was a cop, but he'd been looking specifically for "abused kids" who lash out. He'd found an old article about Olivia's… experience, and he'd wanted her story.

John had had no idea until then, and when he'd asked her about it – in a sweet-hearted attempt to comfort her, probably – Olivia had gotten defensive. She hadn't meant the all the things she'd said that day, but she'd been completely honest when she'd told him she didn't want to talk about it.

Of course, then she'd kicked him out, which she'd immediately regretted. John was a very good looking man, and it'd been a long... long time since she'd been involved with anyone. But relationships meant intimacy, and intimacy meant sharing, and – well...

Certain experiences had meant Olivia wasn't real good at sharing.

But John was a good man, and he was obviously trying not to take it personally. Nonetheless, it made the workplace even more awkward than it was before. If this hadn't been the job she'd dreamt of most of her life, she probably would have put in a formal request for reassignment.

Olivia told herself not to think about it as she started doing push-ups. The fight-or-flight tension that'd sky-rocketed in her during their argument had faded by now, and she was starting to miss waking up in John's arms.

Olivia sighed, finished her push-ups, and rolled onto her back. John would forgive her – in fact, if the sad looks he'd been sneaking at her were any indication, he probably already had.

But have you forgiven him?

She shrugged the uncomfortable thoughts aside as she pulled herself up and headed for the shower.

By the time she got the phone call, Olivia had forgotten all about the dream.

Walking through a plane filled with skinless corpses was most definitely not what Olivia had expected to do that morning. And that evening, watching John – the man she'd shared a bed with for the last several months – disappear behind flames and shrapnel was... beyond horrible. And when they let her into that room, to see John almost... almost rotting right there on the operating table, and knowing that this man – this good man – who cared about her was probably going to die, and she couldn't help him...

The guilt grew from the back of her throat as she looked down at the purple musculature system that should be hidden behind lightly tanned skin. She couldn't see the scar on his arm, or the hair on his chest, or the birthmark she'd found on his hip.

His skin was like paste, like wet paper machee -

Olivia swallowed back a sob. That guilt whispered in her ear, gnawed at her, pushed her to fix it, to fix him. To explain to him that she'd just been scared to get too close, scared that remembering the horror of her childhood would make it real, but he was one of the few people she... that she…

She had so few people who were important to her. She could not lose him.

Four hours later, an exhausted Olivia printed off the article on Dr. Walter Bishop and prepared herself to argue her case to Broyles.

Walter poked at the butterscotch pudding and shivered in revulsion. Of all the puddings he'd ever tasted, this was by far the worst. Even when compared solely to the other pudding flavors - or, flavor rather - served here at St. Clair's, where nothing palatable was ever really served. Well, except when on certain medications; with chemical aid, anything could become... almost delicious.

But then, on others, he could barely stand to eat at all.

Walter spooned up a bite of the pudding and wondered what he'd been thinking about a moment ago. Something about... about... something. Dreams, maybe. Dreams and… Windows. The recipe for LSD. Peter playing with a silver coin, just like Walter taught him. Strawberry milkshakes. Piano playing.

Special, special children. Bell. The genetic similarities between bovine and homo-sapiens – the musculature, the cell wall... Ring around the rosie, pockets full of posies. The periodic table, missing elements. Theoretical elements. Orders to dissect – a harmless prank really, except it wasn't because he'd always known –

The - oh, dear God, what in the world was he eating?

Butterscotch pudding.

Oh, yes. Right. Mondays were pudding day. It must be Monday. Walter frowned. Hadn't they had pork-steaks yesterday? They didn't make pork-steaks on Sundays -

"Hey! Dr. Bishop!" Walter looked up to see one of the nurses - a tall, buff man with short, curly hair. "You've got a visitor."

The man walked over to Walter's side, grabbed him firmly - but not roughly - under the arm and steering him up and out of the chair. He took Walter across the room, over to the door the inmate hadn't passed through in years; the door to the visiting room. Only his wife was left alive to visit him. Or his ex-wife, rather, in light of certain... events.

But she was his only living relative, according to the courts.

Bishop smiled through the fog and the roiling confusion. She wouldn't have come just to visit him - she'd only come if something happened. She'd sent him a letter to tell him she'd remarried, and she must know it would only hurt him to know any news about this new family of hers. So, he knew what this must mean.

They needed him.

He knew they'd come for him someday - for the things that were buried in his brain. When the world started to break down, they'd come for him. But... what did he mean by that?

The visitors' door opened. Bishop walked through, confused, but ready to bargain for his freedom.

A petite blonde woman in a suit looked up at him from where she sat, elbows on the table, fingers interlaced, and smiled. There was something... something familiar about her, about the color of her eyes, about the shape of her face... but the where and when of it escaped him, and in a moment he forgot about it entirely.

"Hello, Dr. Bishop." The blonde woman said. Mentally, Bishop calculated the rough percentage of the human population that were blondes, the comparative cell structures of several different mammals, and his - at this point only theoretical - new recipe for custard. And, for some bizarre reason, he pictured a classroom filled with children in a circle.

"My name is Olivia Dunham."

For a second, he almost remembered that name. It was significant, he knew. Important, somehow, and... familiar. That circle of children flashed briefly behind his eyes, and then disappeared.

But then that thought too drifted from his grasp – wind through the ruins of a great, great mind.

On the "Other-Side"

Peter smiled at the Serbian, and calmly outlined his business proposal. It was highly-illegal, but the Serbian had never shown any law-abiding tendencies, and so long as nobody was going to get hurt... Well, Peter was all for making a little easy money. Besides which, if his father were ever to find out...

Peter hid a dark smile at the mental image.

After the deal was completed, Peter took the elevator down to the lobby and headed out toward the parking lot, feeling a smirk pulling across his face as he fiddled with his keys. He had a job (for a while), a gorgeous place to stay, a decently challenging con to pull off...

Life was good.

As he walked, he caught a glimpse of a red-head walking toward him from the reception desk. He noticed something familiar immediately, and subconsciously slowed down to get a better look. Something about her face - her amber eyes, maybe the shape of her jaw -

When the memory of a blonde haired girl with blood on her face abruptly solidified in his mind, he almost missed a step. As it was, he jerked to a halt and gaped quite obviously. He was so lost in a sudden wave of painful nostalgia that he missed the swell of confusion on her face.

"Olive?" He whispered while wonder and terror fought for dominance over his expression. The red-head was too far away to hear, but he saw the look on her face turn just a little bit guarded at the question anyway.

"Uh - Hey." She said as she stopped a couple feet in front of him. "My name's Olivia Dunham. I work for Fringe Division; your father sent me to pick you up."

Peter didn't even hear her. He was too busy looking over her face, remembering the shape of her nose, the angle of her cheekbones, the width of her eyes. She looked like... well, like herself, just all grown up and... more solid somehow, although not even Peter understood what he meant by that. He looked into her eyes and immediately noticed the biggest difference.

She was open.

The last time he'd seen her, she'd been... scared. Terrified, even, although she hid it well. Obviously wary. There'd been emotional walls – walls no fifteen year old should have had any reason to build up. She'd been... almost broken.

And now she was whole.

There was more, though - something else that didn't make sense. He'd remembered the walls and the fear on her face, but she'd always had a smile for him. Whenever she saw him, she lit up like a Christmas decoration – bright and pretty and loving. But now... Now there was no recognition on her face at all. Like she'd...

Could she really not remember him?

He was surprised how much that hurt, even ten years after she'd disappeared.

Olive - or rather, Olivia - cleared her throat and looked to the side, her hands disappearing into the pockets of her leather jeans. Peter blinked. Apparently all this staring had made her uncomfortable. He shifted, did his best to erase all visible signs of his emotional turmoil, and shook his head.

He wasn't sure what to say. Should he confront her? Just demand to know where she'd gone so long ago, even though it was obvious she'd forgotten all about him? And knowing that she's apparently had a much easier time forgetting him than he had her, was it really a good idea to ask any of those questions? It would be like showing her a neon sign explaining how much she'd messed with his head. After all, he could still remember her favorite candy some ten years after she'd disappeared off the face of the planet.

But what if he pretended not to know her, and it came out later? Could he really pull off faking surprise? With anybody else it'd be easy, but Olive... Hell, could he even manage not to bring it all up himself?

Five minutes before, Peter had been happy. Hell, he'd been smug. And now, this wonderful little reunion had thrown him for a loop the size of Alaska, and he found himself floundering for a plan.

So, in the absence of such a plan, he changed the subject, "You work for my father?"

"In Fringe Division. Yeah." A brief, beautiful smile crossed her face - making Peter blink. That was not an Olive expression. He'd seen a mix of mirth and nerves and pride and a really weak attempt at humility in there. He'd never seen that much emotion on Olive's face over something so trivial. She looked back at him, smile weakening at the tense expression on his face. "He - uh. Sent me here to get you."

Peter raised an eyebrow, noting the slip and repetition. He carefully glanced over the muscles in her face (especially around her eyes) for tells. Absently, he noticed her hooking her thumbs into her pockets – in this case probably a blatant expression of bravado in an attempt to hide nerves. He wasn't sure whether he should be happy or bitter about this advantage she'd given him; he'd never been able to read Olive this easily before.

"Did he." Peter muttered, watching the sudden tension around her eyebrows. She wasn't expecting that reaction? Odd. Did she expect him to jump at the opportunity to visit dear old dad? Even if she didn't remember all those months of his complaints about Walter, she really ought to have guessed that if Walter had to send someone half way across the planet to pick him up instead of just calling Peter over himself, it wasn't likely to go that smoothly.

Peter grinned, a petty, childish and completely short-term sort of plan forming in his mind. It wasn't a permanent way of handling things, but... hey, he didn't have anything else to do. Why not?

"Well. That's too bad, 'cause I'm not going." He spun on his heel and started towards the parking lot, reveling in the glimpse he'd caught of her shocked expression. He turned his head to shout over his shoulder, "So sorry he wasted your time, Miss Dunham."

He was actually a little surprised at how close he was to the doors before she caught up with him. She hurried to stand in front of him, blocking his path, her jaw now clenched and her eyes narrowed. She made a rather pathetic attempt to smile at him, then opened her mouth to talk again. He dodged around her. She blinked, jaw opening and closing rapidly for an instant – shocked more at his slight in general, or at this blatant lack of manners from the Secretary's son? – before she recovered and slid back in front of him, her expression now blatantly annoyed.

Peter sighed, faking a lot more irritation then he actually felt.

Olivia smiled thinly. "I'm sorry, Mr. Bishop, but this was under the express orders of the Secretary. You are to return home to Boston immediately."

Peter felt his face go still, amusement immediately gone. "Boston is not home." He dodged around her again, now gripping his keys and walking just a little bit quicker. "And I'm not going anywhere."

Olivia followed - this time, thankfully, not getting in his way again, but walking at his side. Peter noticed a lot of emotions on her face out of the corner of her eye - he didn't even have to look to know how she felt. He used to dream of the day he'd get to see her like this – when she'd walk at his side, healed and free from her past. He felt another throb of pain, and wondered if it was really because she'd changed so much, or if it was because he hadn't been the one to change her.

She was saying something, but Peter ignored it. The sudden flare of frustration he felt was directed at himself this time. God, it was ten years ago he'd last seen her! He'd wasn't the same guy he'd been back then. He'd dated - even been engaged once, although he wasn't sure that counted, considering he'd had an angle. But seriously - they were just teenagers the last time they'd seen each other! Kids! What was the matter with him, that he was letting such... old news get to him like this?

He remembered the last time she'd seen her, and how distracted she'd been. When she hadn't shown up to their next meeting, he'd gone back every night to that same meadow hoping to see her. Days had past, and he'd started wondering about that expression on her face. Had something changed? Had her step-father come back and… and done something? Was Olivia… dead?

Peter'd been so terrified. He'd looked everywhere for her, but he hadn't even known her real name. He'd spent months looking, wondering, hoping she'd come back. And even after he'd accepted the fact that she wasn't coming back, there was still that voice in the back of his head spinning theories and asking questions. He still thought about her every now and then; he couldn't help wondering if she was out there, talking to a friend about 'this one guy' way back when, or if her bones were lying in a ditch somewhere nobody would ever find them…

A thought came to him, and Peter slowed as he thought it over. Was that why she didn't remember him? Maybe… maybe something big had happened. Maybe it was traumatic enough that she'd mentally retreated, blocking out the memory. And maybe it'd been a strong enough block to cut off all memory she'd had of him?

Peter shook his head and pushed the thought away. No use speculating; he couldn't prove any of it at the moment, and it might make him look for answers that weren't really there. Best just to play this situation by ear and keep an open mind.

" - op, are you listening to me?"

"No. " Peter said firmly. He felt a little spike of vindictive pleasure at the poorly concealed irritation on her face. Instead, he mentally attempted to pretend she was someone else - just some crony of his father's. And maybe she even was. Maybe he was imagining the physical similarities because... because he wanted, deep down, to believe it was her. Or maybe there were two Olivia Dunham's in the world, and they happened to look a little alike. After all, he'd spent years after she'd disappeared seeing her face, her hair, her body type in perfect strangers. He lost count of how many times he'd grabbed onto some poor, random girl in a crowd, only realizing too late that it wasn't her.

Peter shook his head, pushing back the memories. "And I'm not going back. Sorry, lady, but there's no way in hell."

His car was in front of him now - closer than he'd thought - and he clicked off the alarm and hit the unlock button on the remote. He reached over and opened the door -

Olivia leaned past him and slammed it shut.

Peter looked down at her in surprise and caught her eyes. He stared, swept up in a sudden wave of deja-vu, and realized that the first time he'd kissed her, they'd stood about like this. They hadn't touched anywhere else, but they'd stood so close he could feel the heat coming off her body, and he could see the flecks of green in her eyes.

Peter swallowed, and the memory disappeared. The vision had come and gone in the space of an instant, and now he stood looking down at a changed Olivia - a red-head with bangs, wearing leather, faking bravado, and with a face as open as the sky. And she was pissed.

"Look, I get that you're a con man. I get that you have zerorespect for authority. And I even get that you don't like your father." Olivia snarled. Peter blinked; yet another new expression for Olive. Or... well, at least new as far as he'd experienced them, anyway. "But I have orders to take you back to Boston, and so you've got only two options. You can come willingly, or I can slip an anonymous tip to your Serbian friend on exactly how it was you ripped him off, and see if you aren't feeling a little bit more agreeable then."

Peter stared for a second, then shook his head. There was a time he would have said she'd never do that, but... well, it was obvious he didn't really know this Olivia. And she'd proved that she had a temper already, so the chances that she'd go through with it - even after factoring in her obvious admiration for his father - went way up. After all, she didn't have to let the Serbian actually get him, she just had to let him close off any of Peter's other options. Peter sighed.

Whatever. He could let her take him to Boston, then find a blimp to some little dinky town on the East coast and fly back out. It wouldn't be long before he had a new job.

Besides which, there was a lot to consider with this whole Olivia/Olive situation. Not the least of which was why his father had sent her, when Peter knew perfectly well that Walter remembered Peter's first love.

One way or another, he'd have to talk to the old man anyway.

He just wished he didn't have to spend time with perky Olivia to do it.

AN: Review - tell me whatcha think.