Title We Can't Always Get What We Want
Author: GEM
Date: 1-31-12
Character: Olivia
Rating: T
Summary: In order for him to be President, the people have to elect him. We are the People. We help make the history. Olivia contemplates her decisions regarding Fitz and answers a question Verna once asked her What do you want out of this? What did you get out of this?
Disclaimer: Scandal is Property of Shonda Rimes and ABC et al.
Olivia couldn't take the guilt any longer. Cyrus's words that night in the hotel hallway haunted her more than Verna's or Mellie's. Yes, they had done this. Fitz was President. Cyrus was right, Fitz was the real deal. In the end she didn't get anything at all. She gave up everything. Cyrus became chief of staff, Mellie, First Lady, Verna, was a Supreme Court Justice, but Olivia didn't gain anything. She lost something, everything and she would have to live with her decision for the rest of her life.
Fitz, that should have been the answer to Verna question. She wanted Fitz, out of this. Mellie asked her to think about her future...think about what she wanted, and all she really wanted was Fitz. How do you admit that when the man's wife is sitting at the same table asking you what you want? The answer is you don't answer it at all.
Olivia wasn't sure what finally drove her to cross the line. It was not something she was proud of. He was married. He was her boss and she should have been able to do a better job. If she had her head truly in the game. She would have but Fitzgerald Grant was intoxicating. Olivia did have her head in the game because Fitz, the man, not the candidate became the most important thing in her life. what they had together wasn't an affair. They were truly in love. They had tried to dance around it in the beginning but the forces surrounding them were too great. They gave in, both of them, willingly and it was exactly what they needed. They both taught each other what it is to love someone fully. They formed the most lovingly relationship she had ever experienced in her life.
Olivia taught Fitz that he wasn't a coward that he was worth something. She had a difficult time keeping her wits about her as she watched Fitz's father tear away at him. Senator Fitzgerald Grant seemed to have an inane ability to poke and twist the knife just enough to cut away at her confident candidate. It was painful to watch Fitz turn into a small child again in front of his father, a man Olivia had away perceived from what she had heard and read as a self made and honorable man. Olivia learn quickly that this was not entirely the case. On more than one occasion she wished that she could just send him away.
Looking back on her decision, Senator Grant was one of the forces that caused her to say yes and give up her future. She was haunted by the way he had treated Fitz when he joined the campaign. The afternoon after his father's funeral Fitz made it clear that he wanted to win the election. She remembered the look in his eyes, through his masked grief there was a confidence that Olivia had not seen for weeks. Fitz truly believed, as he talked to her in the back yard, that he was going to win, but numbers don't lie. Cyrus was right, there was no way for him to win on his own. Love blinded her. She didn't do her job, and she had to live with that. She sold her soul to the devil the day before the election because of love. She did it for Fitz because she loved him. She knew he would make a great President. She believed in him and there no way she was going to let Fitz's father win. Senator Fitzgerald Grant never missed an opportunity to tell Fitz he wasn't a winner. It was eating at him. Fitz needed to know that he was worthy. Fitz could win. She needed him to know he was a great man, a great candidate and he would make a fantastic President. She needed to erase Gerry Grant's voice in Fitz's head. Olivia needed Fitz to win. She needed him to think he had done it all on his own. She needed him to prove his father wrong.
Olivia wanted Fitz. Everyone else at the table got what they wanted; All Olivia got was heartbreak. She knew her situation wasn't practical but she dreamed of having a life with him. A life that they might have had if she let the people decide the election. A life where they were together with everything she ever dreamed of. That's what Olivia wanted...but you can't always get what you want.
OOO