Author's Note: This is a sequel to Strangers, so you might want to read that first. As always, I don't own Scandal, but I would love to hear your thoughts!
If there was one thing that Olivia Pope was so good at that she could make it into an Olympic sport and then singlehandedly win the gold medal, it was avoidance. It took her two days to approach Jake after that conversation with Mellie. In fact, she didn't even really approach him. Mellie technically threatened and blackmailed them into it. Then again, that was a pretty good description of who Mellie was in general those days with the people that she continued to be friends, so it shouldn't have surprised Olivia nearly as much as it did when the other woman shot her a withering glare when Jake stood to leave the dining table one morning just seconds after Olivia walked into the room.
"Let's be clear, Olivia, Jake," Mellie stated evenly, cutting her pancakes into small squares and lifting her fork to her mouth, "I am about two seconds away from shoving you two into a closet, locking the door behind you, and mysteriously losing the key until you work out your issues, which could possibly lead to me actually losing the key and would then force Fitz to call in one of his extremely handsome task forces to get you out. So I would suggest you have this conversation both willingly and amicably before we reach that point. Understand?" Her smile was friendly, but her eyes informed them that she had no problem making the threat into a realistic problem for the two of them.
It was awkward when she pulled him into an empty conference room. Of course it was awkward. She had done things to and with this man that the Pope himself probably wanted to scold her for, had lived with him for two months, had given pieces of herself to him that no other man had ever been given even the slightest opportunity to touch, and yet the idea of having a conversation with him about all that had happened since they left that island absolutely terrified her. She wondered how long she could blame her parents for her issues when it came to emotional avoidance. Considering they had both almost killed her, she figured their blame for it probably didn't have an expiration date.
"What's up, Liv?" Jake asked, effectively pulling her from her thoughts and pissing her off at the same time. That tone of voice, the matter-of-fact one that informed her he was probably more than a little bored at the moment, that tone of voice was the last thing that they needed in that moment. That voice suggested that he had already given up on her, and since he was one of the very few people left in her life that still believed in her, she couldn't really afford for him to give up on her. "I mean, I have my speech for this afternoon edited. Is there something else?" he continued, and she had to remind herself that punching a trained assassin in the face was not likely to be her best course of action.
"I understand that you are angry with me, but this is ridiculous," she snapped, catching him off guard. "We used to be friends, Jake. You used to be my best friend, and now you are looking at me like I'm unrecognizable, like you couldn't pick me out of a lineup if need be. And I know what changed, I do, but honestly, Jake, what changed?"
Jake scoffed, shaking his head. "What changed? Oh, I don't know, Olivia. Perhaps I thought that you did, that you even could. But you seem intent on proving me wrong about that these days, because I honestly don't know if you are capable of changing anymore. That's the saddest thing about all of this."
"You agreed to be Mellie's Vice President, Jake! You agreed to serve! You agreed to possibly be in a position where you must answer to three hundred million bosses! How do you think those three hundred million people that put their trust in their government and their military and their security agencies would have felt if you had just left them out in the cold to, what, go be normal?" Olivia scoffed. "You were a Navy Admiral, and now you're the Head of the National Security Agency and the vice presidential candidate to the Republican nominee who is days away from possibly making national history. You don't get to be normal. If you wanted that, then you shouldn't have..." Olivia trailed off, unwilling to finish that particular sentence and tear open another still-stitched wound.
Jake knew, though. He always did. "If I wanted that, then I shouldn't have wanted you, right? If I wanted normal, then I shouldn't have fallen in love with the formidable Olivia Pope? That's what you're saying-or not saying, in this case-, isn't it?" Jake scoffed. "Contrary to your beliefs, most people don't get to decide how they feel, Olivia. I love you. I want normal. And yet here I am, fighting with you in a conference room about my failings as a vice presidential candidate while my wife, a woman that I neither know nor like, is out campaigning for Mellie Grant, the woman who I am supposed to be helping make history. I DO NOT WANT THIS! And yet here we are. You always win in the end, don't you? You beat your father, you got your vice presidential candidate, and everything you've done, everything you've felt, everything that we were and that we could have been, it's wrapped up in a nice little box that will never again be opened, because Olivia Pope can go up against Command, but actually doing what she wants or feeling what she feels is so terrifying that she won't even consider it."
"Don't tell me what I'm scared of!" Olivia fired back at him.
"Then don't be scared of things that you shouldn't be scared of!" Jake shouted. "Don't be scared of normal! Don't be scared of the future! Don't be scared of me!"
"Then don't ask me to be someone that I'm not!" Olivia shouted back. "This is who I am, Jake!"
He looked away from her, shaking his head sadly. "No, this is who you've always had to be. You may think you're fearless, but the woman standing in front of me is still the grown-up version of that little girl whose mother died in that plane crash and of that teenager whose father sent her away and of that young woman who found out her father was a killer. Everyone else has changed, but you haven't. You're constant. And that can be a good thing, Liv, it can be a great thing, but it's not a great thing when you stop living your life based on facts and start living it based on what happened in the past. Your mother didn't die in that plane crash, and you have no reason to fear your father anymore. Everything has changed, but you refuse to. Why is that?"
"If I let myself walk away from all of this, if I let myself love you, I would be destroyed! You would destroy me!"
Jake looked her in the eyes. "If you actually think that I would-that I could-do that, then you don't know me very well. And if you don't think that we could figure out, then you don't have faith in either one of us. So what am I supposed to do with that?"
Olivia didn't know how to answer that question, but that didn't keep her from trying. "I miss you, Jake. And maybe that's selfish, and maybe that's unfair, and maybe that's a few other things that describe our relationship thus far, but I miss you. I miss being able to talk to you. Can't we be friends again?"
Jake laughed without humor. "The last time I tried to be your friend, I fell for you in less than ten months, and I never un-fell for you. I don't think I really know how to be your friend, Olivia."
"Can we try? Please?" she murmured, and he looked towards her before he nodded slowly and hesitantly.
"Yes, I suppose we can try." He glanced away from her. "I really do need to get back to Mellie."
"Of course," Olivia replied quickly, smiling shyly at him when he held open the door for her and they returned to their candidate a little less broken than they had been when they had left her.
He had said that they could try. She wasn't sure that it had been a promise, but if it had been, she was going to make damn sure that they kept it this time.