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She awakens in the middle of the night sometimes, certain that her daughter is dead.
This is one of those nights, where she snaps to abrupt wakefulness from an all-too-real nightmare, that horrible surety settling low in her gut like a threatening storm front.
Olivia lies still in the darkness, staring sightlessly at the ceiling as she wills the thoughts away. She knows they aren’t true. But they were—once. Weren’t they? On her left side, Peter shifts, nuzzling into her shoulder and flopping his arm over her stomach. Not awake, but sensing her distress perhaps, even while asleep.
There’s irony she thinks, in the fact that ever since they remembered the future that never was—and she prayed never would be—she’s been plagued with nightmares and restless, broken sleep. Peter on the other hand, sleeps better than he ever has, finally seeming truly at peace.
Olivia remembers it all now. The heavy blanket of grief and anger that coated the room, sucking up the air and making it hard to breathe. Lying on that tiny uncomfortable bed in the side room of the lab, listening to Peter toss and turn only a few feet from her and yet feeling miles away from him.
She carefully extricates herself from his arm, slipping out of bed as silently as she can so as not to wake him. She slides on her slippers and makes her way down the hallway to her daughter’s room, the muted shuffle of her soles against the carpet loud in the stillness of the dark hall. With every step her dread grows, settling on her with a certainty only the wee hours before dawn can produce.
As Olivia opens the door to Etta’s room, she is struck by the scene in front of her. Etta lying peacefully—and oh so still—in her toddler bed, clutching her stuffed cow to her chest, golden blonde hair in a halo around her head. The moonlight shines in through the window, turning her chubby cheeks and snub nose so pale she looks almost bloodless.
Olivia barely finds the strength within her to walk the few feet to her bed and shakily crouch next to it. She extends her trembling fingers under Etta’s nose, heart in her throat. Soft puffs of warm air brush her hand—and the breath she’d been unconsciously holding rushes out of her all at once. She stifles a sudden involuntary sob with her fist, biting down and rocking back on her heels in an effort to calm herself and not wake her baby.
“Liv?” Peter’s sleep roughened voice from the darkness behind Olivia startles her, sending her to her feet. She swallows, scrubbing the traces of tears away with back of her hand as she turns to face him.
“Is everything ok?” Peter sounds wide awake now, as he steps further into the room, catching the hand at her side between his and gently tugging her toward him.
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” she says as quickly as her voice will allow her, hurrying to quench the worry that’s just sprung up in Peter’s eyes.
“But Peter—I just keep seeing her. Still and pale and bloody and not breathing. Over and over again until I wake up.”
Peter stiffens, and she can see in his eyes that he too, is reliving one of the worst moments of his life. He’s silent for a moment, the only sound the overhead fan in their room, filtering down the hall and through Etta’s open door.
“Olivia. Look at me, hey.” He reaches a hand up to cup the side of her face, gently tilting her head up until her gaze meets his. His hand is warm and a bit rough, and Olivia involuntarily starts to relax, the familiar comfort of Peter’s touch leaching the tension away.
“Etta’s right there in that bed, she’s safe. We made sure of it. Walter—,” Peter’s voice catches on the last word. He swallows thickly before continuing. “—Walter made sure of it. Windmark is dead, and now he’s never going to exist at all.”
“But how do we know that, Peter. How do we know for certain he’s not going appear again later in the future, or that someone else just as sadistic and emotionless won’t pop out of the woodwork to replace him?”
The fear that’s begun to recede from Olivia’s mind starts to creep back in, tugging at her with tendrils of half remembered memories.
Windmark’s blank, mechanical stare, sizing her up like snake contemplating its prey before it strikes. Nina’s limp and lifeless hand, Walter kneeling on the floor beside her sobbing. Peter, tears in his eyes as he holds their daughter close and pleads that he can’t lose her, not again.
The gentle squeeze from Peter’s hand in hers brings her back to the present, back to a reality where none of this and all of this has happened, to a place where her husband’s eyes are filled with warmth and love. Not grief and rage, and then, eventual cold and calculating nothingness.
“Olivia? Listen, I can’t see the future, so I can’t make any promises about what evil may or may not appear. But what I do know, is that whatever may happen we’ll face it together. Not like how it was before. Us, together. And hopefully less sleep deprived this time, whatever “this time” is.”
He begins to laugh a bit, quietly, and Olivia can hear the tiredness in his voice.
“I know—I know that, Peter. And in the regular daylight hours I even believe it. It’s just, when it’s dark and I have these dreams it’s hard to know what’s real and what isn’t real, let alone to believe it.”
“Then let me help show you what’s real,” Peter says, crouching down next to Etta’s bed. “This little girl right here is. She’s happy and healthy, always busy, and the most perfect little soul. She wants to know “why?” and “how?” and “what” everything is all the time. And somehow, she hasn’t woken up despite the fact that we’ve been talking by her bed for the last five minutes,” he finishes, a smile in his voice.
Olivia can’t help but to smile back at him, nodding in acquiescence of his (implied) point that they all need sleep, and turns to make her way out of the room. She knows she’ll have a clearer head in the morning, but the lingering unease is slow to release its grip on her, despite Peter’s reassurances.
As Peter stands up to leave behind her, he hesitates a moment in the doorway.
“Actually, I think we might both sleep better if Etta is in our room tonight.”
Olivia grins, voice falling to a whisper. “You softy, I thought ‘big kids sleep in their big kid beds in their own rooms.’”
Peter shrugs unapologetically. “Well yeah, normally that is the rule, but in this case I think we’ll make an exception.”
He bends down and slowly and carefully scoops their toddler up, stuffed animal and blanket included, cradling her to his chest as he follows Olivia back down the hall to their room.
Once Peter gets Etta settled between them—who miraculously, has barely stirred—he reaches his hand over her and offers it palm up to Olivia. After a brief hesitation she takes it, the physical contact and the certainty of knowing her daughter is safe and warm and breathing next to her sending a sense of relief and calm throughout her body.
She laces her fingers in his and shifts, turning to make eye contact with him over Etta’s silky blonde hair spooling across both of their pillows.
“I love you.”
There’s a quiet steadiness with which he says those words, like nothing has or ever will change them.
“I love you too.”
And there are things left unspoken, shadows not fully dispelled, conversations to be had at better times and in better hours. But as Olivia holds her sleeping daughter between her and Peter, alive and in their arms, she starts to feel like maybe, they will be ok.
Eventually, everything will be ok.