Weeks had passed since they last spoke, Olivia remembers the coolness of his demeanour at Verna's funeral and how she'd never been so devastated by his words before. She pulls her large white sweater closer around her as she sits in front of the television, watching for a glimpse of him and sipping wine as a chill fills her apartment. She misses everything about what her life used to be with him, misses how she felt when he was part of her even though she tried for so long to push him away.
Work was the only thing that made her feel like Olivia Pope, she could lose herself in it for hours at a time, but there was always a reminder of him lurking where she least expected it. The hardest part was when she had to go to the White House, her visits were few and far between, but the couple she did have to make were close to unbearable, speaking to Cyrus while knowing Fitz was lurking in the background and that if she turned a couple inches in a certain direction she would see him. Cyrus tried his best to shield her and even though she knew it was against her better judgement and something she shouldn't do, she craned her neck to look at him and it was as painful as she expected to see him staring back at her. It wasn't the same way that he used to, now there was so much hurt in his eyes she almost regretted breathing, Olivia Pope had a lot of regrets.
Later that night she finds herself in her cold bed, willing the phone to ring like it's done so many nights before with a call coming from a secure phone line at the White House, but of course the phone doesn't ring. This is the time of day that she gets most lost in her thoughts and feels every emotion, from devastation to betrayal to anger. Lost in her thoughts it barely registers when she gets out of bed and starts getting dressed, nor does it register when she's bribing the front gate guard with his favourite cupcakes to get back into the White House.
Olivia snaps back into herself when she's standing in the Oval Office behind the President's desk demanding Cyrus bring Fitz to her. "But, Liv, he's with the First Lady, they are putting the baby to bed."
"I don't care if he is with Jesus Christ himself, get him, Cyrus."
"I'm on it." Cyrus cracks, missing most of his usual fight, he's not the only one who isn't himself.
"Ms. Pope, what are you doing here? You shouldn't be here."
Watching Fitz greet her like a stranger, an intruder just makes the rage inside of her grow. "Ms. Pope? Really?"
"Well, we clearly shouldn't be on a first name basis, I never really knew you."
"Mr. President, you've got a lot of nerve." She can barely look at the hurt in his eyes again and she almost breaks her intense eye contact, but she doesn't.
"I have a lot of nerve? You fixed an election, you sat around a table a group of you that were supposed to be closest to me and betrayed me!" His tone is hushed but the sharpness of his tone is unmistakable.
Olivia blinks and he knows that he's twisted the knife in her just a little more.
"I understand that you're upset, I understand that we lied and what we did was unthinkable, but we did it for you, we wanted you to win, Fitz."
"You think I feel better because you understand, because you did this for me… I didn't win, Olivia… I wouldn't have won."
"I know," her voice is barely a whisper now, "I am so sorry, Fitz. I didn't want to do it, I swear to you… I was the last to agree."
"Oh, well everything is forgiven since you were the last one who wanted to. You could have came to me, you could have told me… was what we had real, or just part of this arrangement?"
"We are real. I know you can't see this and I get that, but I put everything on the line for you, we all did."
He slowly walks towards the desk that she's behind and they are like magnets floating around each other. "Stop talking, just please…" He's standing in front of her now, so close she can feel his breath and her body stiffens. He presses her back into his chair, kneeling in front of her and pressing his head against her stomach, she wraps her arms around him, holding him close and kissing the top of his head.
"I'm still mad at you," his voice is muffled against the fabric of her shirt.
"I understand," she whispers lost in the feeling of their embrace.
"I just… I need a break from being mad at you."
"Me too."
He brushes his face down her body and she loses her breath as he breathes against her midsection while undoing her pants and pulling them down her legs.
"Fitz…" Olivia breathes roughly, "the cameras…"
"I don't care," his nose is pressed against her as wraps his hand around the panties she was just wearing and stuffing them in his back pocket. With both hands free again, he grasps the inside of her thighs and pulls her towards him.
Doing this again with him is like a rubber band snapping, the tension that has been building up within both of them for the past months is finally draining. The limited space between them is now filling with a different delicious tension that they've been craving.
Somewhere along the way, Fitz ends up back in his chair with Olivia on his lap. Holding her bare hips in his hands as he moves inside of her, he decides that nothing can be better than this. He can be mad at her, he can even hate her a little bit, but what he can't deny is how good she feels and how much he needed her right now.
It scares Olivia that this is what she needs to feel complete, she knows that when she goes home tonight she will sleep. She's not ready to admit to herself that she only sleeps when everything is okay between them.