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She couldn’t really say when or why it started.
In the beginning, she couldn’t even say that it started.
It was just there.
- - -
Olivia Dunham had never been one to back down from a challenge, to get beaten by anything or to just give up. It wasn’t in her nature. She had always fought through, beaten the odds, found another way. And then, she had gone on with her life, shaking off the feelings she didn’t want, pushing them aside or just simple not allowing them to be there in the first place.
It had started when she was a child, barely five or six years old, when her father had died, and she couldn’t understand why everything was changing.
With eight, when her stepfather had raised his hand against her for the first time, and then with nine when she had pulled the trigger twice.
With fourteen, when she had carried her mother to her grave, with her baby sister crying next to her.
When she had been away for college, and had learned about how cruel, dark and twisted a human mind could get.
When she had served in the Marine Corps and learned that one of her teammates had been assaulted by their superior.
When she had lost John, only to later find out that he had used her and lied to her for months, that nothing they had had, had been real.
When she had relearned all her childhood memories of the Cortexiphan trials and had to relive them for weeks in her dreams.
She had gone through all of that, and had managed to shake it off again, to march on and be the FBI agent that she needed to be, the friend and sister that she needed to be. And she couldn’t say when that had changed.
- - -
She still went to work like every other normal day. Waking up to Peter next to her still snoring softly, getting out of bed and turning on the coffee maker, before taking a quick shower. Getting dressed and waking her boyfriend up, convincing him that ‘five more minutes’ weren’t an option, with a coffee mug in hands. Getting out of her apartment and into the car, waiting in the parking garage. Driving to the lab to either drop Peter off and going into the bureau, or to join him and work on the newest case they had. Going home together – or on rare occasions, bringing him home to Walter – and going to bed after some sort of dinner and maybe a bit of TV.
Her routines never changed and neither did the quality of her work. She was still on top of the game, chasing after suspects, filling out paperwork, sitting in interrogation rooms.
And she was still a good partner. Spending time with Peter, eating together, falling asleep together, listening to and interacting with him.
And yet…
The small things were piling up, ignored and hidden away in some dark part of her mind, until they came crushing in all at once, the avalanche triggered by her own mind poking holes in the barrier between herself and those things.
She couldn’t remember the last time she laughed.
A real laugh, the warmth rising slowly from her stomach to her face, almost hugging her heart. She still laughed, but it didn’t evoke the same emotions. She still laughed but more out of reflex or duty or habit, rather than impulse, rather than joy.
She didn’t enjoy the sunrise anymore.
She still woke up every morning when she was supposed to, still early in the day.
But never just because the sun was rising, and never stopped to just watched. She didn’t look outside the window in her kitchen and watched how the sky turned from pink to orange and red, how it dyed the rooftops and brick walls and woke up the world every morning. The promise of a new, untouched day didn’t seem important anymore, and the content buzz inside of her she had always felt when she was up at those early hours, stayed out.
She wasn’t passionate anymore.
She still followed her job, still tried to protect innocent and help others, but that burning drive inside of her was just gone. She did it out of habit, out of a sense of normality, out of duty. But the feeling of fulfillment and sense wasn’t there anymore.
She couldn’t really love anymore.
She still loved Peter, allowed him to be near her without having her guard up, allowed him to touch her and to care for her. She still kissed him, leaned into him, cared for him too. But that very sensation of feeling something was gone within the next second, not lingering after and shaping her day.
The only emotion that she was aware of having was guilt.
Guilt for not feeling as she was supposed to, guilt for not being normal, guilt for not being able to love Peter as he deserved.
But there was nothing she could do against it. Nothing she could think of, nothing that she was able to do. She just couldn’t, and the reasons for that were as unreachable as the answers.
And she didn’t know why.
- - -
“Olivia?”
He sat across from her on the couch, one of his feet hanging from the cushion while the other was stretched out between them, resting next to her hip and waist. They had rented a movie she didn’t really care about and had been watching it for about half an hour, without her knowing or seeing anything of what it was about. She had been seeing, but not watching, her mind unhooked from reality.
“Hmm?”
How a hum could sound emotionless, she wasn’t sure, but she also didn’t care, aside from the ever-present guilt that was beating down on her. Why couldn’t she be different?
She watched how his hand reached for the remote and pressed the red button in the middle, effectively turning of the movie, and with it the sounds she hadn’t even fully registered.
“What is it?”
Three words, and her brain went into overdrive. Her guilt grew bigger still, almost burying her underneath it, while shame and her protectiveness towards him made its way through that mess. He didn’t need to know. It was nothing. She was fine. He didn’t need to worry. It would go away again. She was fine.
Pretending not to understand, she just raised her eyebrows, her voice still somehow distant.
“What?”
“What is it? I’ve never seen you like this before.”
Like what? She was, who she always had been. She did what she always did. She didn’t change, she was fine.
“I’m starting to get really worried.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. What was she supposed to say about that?
Sorry? She didn’t feel sorry. Just guilt and shame.
The answer was easy, almost a reflex born out of a lifetime of telling it.
“It’s nothing.”
Her guilt riddled brain stayed silent on that part, because it was nothing. Because there was nothing. As in, not there. As it, empty.
Peter’s expression was obviously saying that he wanted to disagree, that he wanted to ask until she would give him a different answer. That he wanted to help and fix and take care of whatever it was that was bothering her, that was wrong with her.
But he didn’t say anything for a long time. A very long time, he just looked at her, his blue eyes sad and concerned.
And then, Olivia watched as he stood up, reached for her hands and pulled her to her feet. He didn’t do anything else than hold her hands and look at her for a long while, before he let go of her left hand to turn off the small lamp to the side. Standing in the middle of her dark living room, she could more feel than see his eyes on her, but he still kept quiet. It started to get to her, on a level she couldn’t explain. It wasn’t uncomfortable though, so she just waited. It wasn’t like she had anything else or better to do anyways, anything she wanted to do.
Following the slight but determined tug at her hand, he led her into the bedroom, towards the bed and then into it, the covers drawn back to pull her down with him. They weren’t in their pjs yet, just sweats and warm jumpers, and neither had brushed their teeth, but Peter just pulled her towards him and wrapped himself around her. She let him, though there wasn’t much reaction from her side either. Just shifting her weight a bit around to get the uncomfortable edges of the blanket out from underneath her.
He still didn’t say anything when his chest pressed against her back, forehead resting against the back of her own and his arms tightly around her middle, right leg shifted between hers.
The room was dark, and the only thing that she really noticed was the warm body behind her, the steady breath that brushed over her hair and neck, and his lips that came in connect with the skin on her exposed shoulder every once in a while.
Her mind was still blank, still empty, just like her insides, but she still followed his silent plea and closed her eyes.
- - -
When she woke up again the next morning, it was still dark outside, the sky only ever so slightly lit by the closing sunrise, visible through the open curtains. Peter was still behind her, still in the same position as they had been before falling asleep, and his breath was still ghosting over her skin.
Following her normal routine, Olivia wanted to gently free herself from his hold and get up, starting the day as she did every day, but the arms around her didn’t budge.
Trying again, she heard his voice behind her, the vibration of it humming through his chest and into her own body.
“No.”
It wasn’t the usual groggy voice, more asleep than awake, complaining that she would dare to leave him alone in bed. It was determined, quiet but fully awake, telling rather than asking her to stay.
“Peter…”
“Stay and watch, okay?”
She didn’t know why. There was no reason to ‘stay and watch’, no argument to give onto why she should.
But he had asked, and she couldn’t think of a reason why she shouldn’t either, so she stayed, waiting until he would decide that it was okay for her to get up and begin her routines again.
“You told me once that this is your favorite time of the day. Because the world was still full of promise.” She remembered that, and back then it had been true. But now? Now she didn’t have any ‘favorite’ anything, because that would need emotions, and those weren’t here anymore.
“Watch. I promise you, that the world is still full of promise, even if you don’t feel it right now.”
It wasn’t like she didn’t think that the world was suddenly all dark and cruel, or that there wasn’t anything out there. It was just, that she didn’t feel it anymore.
And still, she followed his request and looked outside the window, watching as the sun slowly made its way across the horizon, dying the sky into a color play of reds, pinks, oranges and blues.
She looked and – for a moment – felt something.
“Watch and hold on, okay?”
She watched, with Peter at her back pressing a kiss to the shell of her ear every once in a while, and his fingers warm over her stomach, as the sun rose and tried to really take it in, pulling at the memories of when she still felt, linking it together like a patchwork blanket.
The fleeting feeling inside of her was the thing she held on to, trying to put it into the patchwork as well, trying to follow Peter’s promise.
It wasn’t perfect, but maybe a start.
Her inside was still empty, but not as hollow as before anymore.
She let the sun rise, and the promise slowly took root.