I am nothing without pretend
I know my faults
Can't live with them
- Wye Oak, "Civilian"
"Sit here with me and watch me choose you."
She stood there dumfounded. After all the labor and anxiety that went into placating Mellie, preserving Fitz's presidency, walking on proverbial eggshells, putting her feelings in a box... Olivia couldn't believe him standing here, in her apartment, saying these things. Part of her wanted to turn into a puddle of besotted mush and part of her wanted to wring his neck. Part of her wanted to kiss him and part of her wanted to kick him in the kneecaps.
So she just stood there. Dumfounded.
He patted the couch cushion next to him, gesturing for her to sit down next to him, but she couldn't. She was in a state of suspended belief. She took a step away from him. Away from this place, this time, the altered reality in which they were sitting in her apartment for then next 21 minutes while Mellie outed their affair on national television.
Olivia wasn't sure if they'd ever spent 21 minutes in silence. They'd done the one minute thing countless times but this felt new. If she was being honest with herself, lately her relationship with Fitz was mainly comprised of sex and arguments. Arguments and sex. Late night, angst laden phone calls, mean sex, surveillance, and most recently a concussion. There were a million reasons she should shut her door, her legs, and heart to Fitz. Those reasons all hovered around them like dust particles and faded to ether in this heavy, sticky, sticking silence.
They stared at each other for 21 minutes. The meter of breath, fluttering of eyes, and pursing of lips place holders for the thousands of words said and unsaid, deeds done and undone.
For 21 minutes, Olivia covered her mouth with her hands, afraid to speak. Afraid to break the spell that the silence had cast on them. She studied the contours of his face, his prominent brow, his patrician nose, his handsome jaw line. She loves him. She hates him. She hates the part of herself that needs him.
He was smiling at her. Smiling is first nature to Fitz, the easiest of deceptions for him. It's his first and primary lie. As the 21 minutes turn into to seconds, turn in to past, he relaxes his mouth into a more neutral expression. As clock winds down, his confidence is supplanted by hesitation. What if this time and and this space is not enough to bridge the gulf between them? If Fitz were being honest with himself, that gulf was really a trench, full of trauma, pain, sorrow, and loss. If Fitz were being really really honest with himself he would say that a lot of that comes from him, his presidency, his life, his world, his mess.
So he just sat there, and smiled a wry and bittersweet half smile. And she just sat there, dumfounded. They tried to let 21 minutes of silence settle like balm into their emotional scars. Would it be enough?