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A/N: So I was rewatching episodes of Scandal because of the hiatus lately, and I thought that Liv was practically a different person in Thwack! (5x17). I had some free time, so this is just a short oneshot on how Olivia could've had a different, more emotional reaction.

Olivia felt the drops of Andrew's blood on her face, her hands still cold from gripping the freezing metal chair. She was slumped against the wall, and all she could feel was...numb. Which was why, when the bunker door opened, she didn't care who it was, didn't care that there was a chance she could be executed for the murder of the former Vice President; she didn't even raise her head up, only shut her eyes in anguish as the red doors flashed through her mind,

She'd thought that it would all stop once Andrew was dead, thought that her PTSD would fade away like Andrew's life had. She'd watched the light drain from his eyes, watched his smugness turn to terror as she bashed his head in, and it scared her that it felt...good. It had felt liberating. Oh god, she thought, what's wrong with me?

Perhaps some part of her had been corrupted by her father, since no one could escape from his unscathed in some way, whether physical or mental. Perhaps some part of her had been damaged beyond repair. Olivia didn't even realize she was crying until someone laid their hand on her shoulder, she finally looked up, and saw the tear drip down on the metal floor, slightly red from where they'd slid through the drops of blood.

Her stomach turned as she looked into his face, expecting to see disgust and even pity in his blue eyes. He pulled her towards him, not caring if she got blood on his suit, gently rocking her, trying to stop her crying and increasingly rapid breaths that bordered on the edge of hyperventilation. Fitz quickly took off her coat, pressing her face against his chest.

"Hear that?" he asked, positioning her next to his heart. "Just breath with me, Liv. In-that's right-and out. In….Out…" And so it continued, and when Olivia was at least not on the verge of a panic attack, Fitz was just about to help her stand when the door slid open once more, followed by Abby's horrified shout. "Oh my God!"

Olivia stiffened in Fitz's arms, and he quickly motioned for Abby to leave. After a moment's hesitation, Abby took another lingering look at the mess on the floor and exited the bunker. Olivia was still crying, tears silently falling down her face, and Fitz was unaccustomed to seeing her like this; he normally had to pry emotion out of her, and even then, it was only a few seconds of sadness before her walls were back up. Now, she was so broken in such a large scale, and all he could do was hold her.

Olivia tried to time her breaths with Fitz's, and when, after nearly half an hour on the floor, she felt calm enough, she started blurting everything out, things she'd thought that she would never tell anyone. "Fitz…It felt...good. I liked the feeling of his head caving in, liked the blood. It was satisfying, Fitz. My...my guy is out now, and I thought that killing Andrew would make everything go away, but it didn't. I killed someone Fitz, when I was being held hostage in that airplane hangar. I killed someone, and I also whacked someone in the head with a metal pipe, just to get to the red doors. But when I got there, it was all a trap, and I still have the same nightmares every night, and I'm suffocating under Lois's dead body, and I-"

Olivia was rambling now, not making much sense, just spewing out words, but Fitz got the gist of it and held her as she told him all her secrets. "Fitz, I don't even know who I am anymore," Olivia said; by now, she'd ventured into more than just murdering Nichols. "When Jerry died, all I could think, as I sat in the waiting room with Cyrus, was that you were getting four more years in the Oval, that you were going to win. What sort of a person even thinks like that? You're the most important person in my life, and after you'd suffered this huge loss, all I could think about was the political benefits."

Olivia fell silent then, watching Fitz's expressions. He leaned down and kissed her so gently that she wanted to cry again. "Let's just start over," he whispered. "Let's just forget about all the things we've done to each other, okay? And once I'm done with the presidency, we can go to Vermont and start an actual life together. Okay?" "Okay," Olivia breathed, and as she stood up, she actually did feel relatively okay now. Maybe a new beginning was just what she needed, she thought, wiping the blood from her face.

~Fin