A/N: I really hate that the show never really dealt with Fitz's suicide attempt. Anyone else, and we would have had a whole flashback episode dedicated to it and an arc afterward dealing with the repercussions, but no. Not for Fitz, apparently. So, I decided to write out a little something that handled it. The bold lines are from the bible book 'Lamentations.' Just a little addition that I wanted to try. I haven't written anything like this on my own in awhile. I put a lot of thought and time into it, even rewatched S3 to try to get a good grip on the mindset. People seem to forget that Fitz has suffered too, and I wanted to highlight that. Anyway, I hope you Gladiators like it!
Lamentations
Expressions of great sorrow
"They're calling Ohio in five minutes. With the electoral votes you're guaranteed in California, it's over, sir. We won."
Fitz barely heard Cyrus, but he understood the gist of it, just from his body language. He would remain the President of the United States for four more years. He gave him a nod and turned, headed for the Oval. The cheers of victory from the staffers were more than he could stand. Joy didn't ring well in his ears. It didn't sound whole. It didn't echo.
It was drowned out by the mourning.
The memories came to him in flashes, and he so wished that he could make them stop. That he could stop thinking. Stop feeling. That he could forget the things that he had learned and been through. That it would all stop. Just for a moment.
The joy of our hearts has ceased, our dancing has been turned to mourning.
'Fitz!'
Gerry on the floor of the stage, blood flowing freely from his mouth and nose. Eyes heavy-lidded. Body weak and buckled. His boy.
'Jake was doing his job. Serving at the pleasure of the President.'
Was that was he had been doing when he had killed James? Was that what he had been doing when he had slept with Olivia?
'I fought him. I fought.'
The thought of Big Gerry forcing himself on Mellie. Inside of Mellie, against her will. And the thought of how she must have struggled and fought against him. What he took from her. What he took from them.
'It's just me, waiting, for a house in Vermont that I can't live in, and a man who makes me promises he can't keep.'
She was right. All he seemed to be able to do was let her down. No matter how hard he tried to please her, to love her, he always seemed to disappoint her.
'You take everything from me!'
He had been livid about Andrew and Mellie. It was betrayal, on both of their parts. But apparently it had actually meant something to Mellie.
With trembling hands, he picked up the decanter of scotch and poured a generous drink. Weak and worn down, from everything that had happened, Fitz sank to kiss knees, coming to rest inside the patriotic circle of the seal. His shoulders shook with sobs.
He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, "My endurance has perished; so has my hope..."
"Fitz, you can't stay on the floor all night. You have a nation to address, a speech to give."
"Where's Olivia?"
Their calls to her had been futile.
Our eyes failed, ever watching vainly for help; in our watching we watched for a nation which could not save.
People often talked about how numb they felt after they lost a loved on. How the absence of feeling and emotion was overwhelming, ironically. How could feeling nothing at all be that hard to stand? They would say how they wanted to feel something, anything. To have an actual, visible response to the trauma they had experienced.
Fitz was willing to give anything, everything to rid himself of the absolute anguish that raged violently inside of him.
The ceremony had been private. Family and close friends only. It was the only funeral that Fitz had attended during his presidency that shook him so harshly that he was unable to give a eulogy. He knew that he wouldn't be able to get through it, and thankfully, no one pressured him to try. It took all he had to hold it together in front of people. To hold himself together and not completely lose his grip in front of everyone. Granted, it was a legitimate, emotional situation. It would have been natural for him to fall apart, even publicly. But, save for a handful of sobs at the burial site, he held his composure.
Despite his less-than-loving marriage, Fitz adored his children. Their life after he became President was far from simple or calm, but he tried his best to be the best father he could be. He didn't get to enjoy the quality time that he wanted to with the kids, but he knew they understood. Their father was a busy man, the leader of the free world, who had the weight, the unbearable weight, of great responsibility pressing down on him. That was the sacrifice he had made when he was elected.
Grant for the People.
And now he had lost the opportunity to spend even one more moment with his oldest son. He had lost the opportunity to watch his son grow up. To see him graduate from high school and surely get accepted into the Ivy League school of his choice. Or go into the military like him. To see him make the important choices about his future and to be given the chance to guide and support him through it. That was all gone.
His son was dead.
From on high he sent fire; into my bones he made it descend.
He had given her a week. He gave her the benefit of the doubt. A full week after Election Day, when he had been told that she was gone, to see if she had really ran away. From her life. From him. The Secret Service assured him that she had left. No traces or trails to be followed. But somehow, somewhere deep down inside of his big, aching heart, he had faith in her. In them. He had hope that she would return to him. That their love would keep her coming back, regardless of their less than ideal circumstances. As it always did. She always came back to him.
My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
Didn't she?
He had to see for himself that she was gone.
Tom let him into her apartment, using the key that they had once taken it upon themselves to have made. For instances just like that one. An absolute necessity to enter the residence. When Fitz stepped inside, he knew. In his gut, he knew she was gone. The air there felt different, empty, and the rooms matched it, as if her absence had stolen the life from it.
He and the left behind space had that in common.
His agents had given him space and privacy, already knowing the truth and knowing he could need a moment. In the darkness, surrounded by what little possessions she had left behind, Fitz felt the waves wash over him. The pain from losing Gerry returned with a vengeance, only to be joined by the pain of losing her. It was real.
His son was dead.
The love of his life had left.
Fitz sank to his knees and put his head in his hands and began to sob. The soft sounds grew in volume and intensity, turning to wails. Sounds that didn't sound human. Tortured. He was filled to the brim and he bubbled over, his lamentations were hot, boiling, as they spilled from his eyes in rivers, and from his mouth in desperate cries. His hands covered his face, his head bowed to the floor as he released the grief that he had been holding. The heartbreak that had been building for a week, coming out all at once instead of in bits and pieces.
She was gone.
And he had nothing.
For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit.
He saw when he returned that his scotch had been replenished, and for that, he was thankful. His moment of weakness at Olivia's was a faint blip on the radar compared to the monsoon that was still stirring inside of him. A drink, yes. He needed to dip down into that bottle. To attempt to still the storm.
To offer himself an alternate method of drowning.
A voluntary plunge into something besides his misery.
The burn trickled down his gullet, sloshing a heat into his belly that didn't even begin to soothe his hurt as he had intended. It only spurred it on. His thoughts ran even deeper with each sip. His vulnerable state opening him up to things he hadn't felt or thought about in a long time. So he kept going. Bound and determined to saturate himself in the booze. To waterboard every inkling of emotion that seemed to have taken over every single cell of his worn down body.
His son. His first born son was dead. Fitz had held him in his arms, the terror on every inch of his face, as he carried him out of the auditorium. His little Gerry.
His son was dead. No matter how many times he said it, thought it, no matter how he tried to phrase it to himself calmly to face the truth, his heart couldn't settle. He couldn't bear it.
'Dad, I'm sorry you're going to lose.'
His son was dead.
So many things that he had given up for the office he held. His freedom. His privacy. His integrity.
And now, he had lost Gerry too.
We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought.
The love of his life was gone. She had vanished and had done so smartly, as she did everything he supposed. She always had been brilliant, his Livvie. One of the many things he loved about her. Above-the-curve intelligent, and the kind of show-stopping gorgeous that made heads turn fast enough to break necks. And she had been his.
But the love of his life was gone.
In the time that he needed her most, she had disappeared. She had left him behind to deal with everything alone. When only she was capable of touching his wounds without him hissing from the contact. Instead, she had seared fresh gashes into him.
The love of his life was gone.
He had told her that it wasn't her fault. That he didn't hold it against her. That her mother's sins were not hers to bear. But it hadn't mattered. His words had not comforted her, apparently. She was in the wind. Gone to parts unknown.
She had left him.
Again.
He poured a second glass of scotch.
My stomach churns; my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death.
All he had wanted was a clean campaign. A chance to win on his own virtue instead of the grimy, back alley channels that were dark and dank with corruption. His heart had been so pure before all of this. Before Remington. Before he had followed what seemed like a simple order. Before everything that followed. Before the world had broken him and molded him into who they wanted him to be. The President of the United States. His whole life, really, he had been groomed and manipulated into being the man that everyone else wanted him to be. Every hair in place, the perfect politically-motivated wife on his arm. All for the presidency. His father's dream. But Olivia had made him want it for himself. She had pushed him to believe that he was capable, that he was worthy, of the Presidency.
She had stolen the election for him. And in a way, his second term had been stolen as well.
By way of his dead son.
He remembered the pride that he felt on Inauguration Day, the first time around. The feeling of purpose. That he was there to make change. That America had chosen him to be there. All of that was tainted now.
He remembered how he had taken her, that night, on his desk in the Oval. How she had tried to deny her feelings, but in the end, could not. The way she had arched and moaned beneath his touch. That night he had felt invincible. Untouchable. As if he could not be conquered.
He had been wrong.
It had started with Amanda Tanner. His loneliness after Olivia had resigned had made him weak. She was his flaw. Her absence left him open, and Amanda had been there. Once. Only once, had he made that mistake. But it was a big one. It had made Olivia doubt him, and it put them all out there for the press to destroy. Amanda ended up dead. Olivia ended up backpedaling to turn the story. And Mellie had ended up pregnant to cover their asses. Fitz wouldn't give up Teddy for anything, but that had been the beginning. The tip of the iceberg.
The assassination attempt. No matter how much time passed, Fitz would never forget the feeling of the bullet colliding with his skull. The deafening sound of the bone cracking and the scorching path the chunks of metal made as they tore holes through his body. Verna had done that. Verna had tried to right her wrong. She had tried kill him to undo her role in Defiance.
So he had taken her life. Something he now had to live with.
Then Olivia had found out about Remington. The start to all of it. All Fitz had wanted to do was get off of the desk they had him riding and be out in the field. Out there making a difference. Fighting for his country. And they had ordered him to shoot down a plane. Killing innocent people. All in the name of what they thought was national security.
All for nothing.
They had fought about that for weeks before he had Secret Service bring her, albeit forcefully, to Vermont. To the house he had built for her. For them to reside in together, after all of it was over. Where they could finally be together, away from the danger and drama of the political world they had dove into. Where they could just be. Olivia and Fitz. With babies and jam, like they always said. They had made love that night. On the floor of the living room in front of the roaring fire. Over and over, until they were spent.
It was a night he would never forget. No matter what happened.
Andrew had betrayed him and slept with Mellie. One of the few people in the world that he thought he could actually trust, which was the only reason he had named him Vice President on the ticket, had been disloyal him. Betrayal seemed to be the name of the game in Washington. With power came great responsibility, and with great responsibility came envy and betrayal. It wasn't about jealousy when he had clocked Andrew in the face, no.
It was about how he had thrown away his trust like it was nothing.
It all led to Mellie doubting whether Gerry was Fitz's son. After all those years, the doubt rose high enough to choke her and she had to know. His father had raped her. The sonofabitch had forced himself on his wife. It had effectively ruined his marriage, taking every ounce of passion away from what he thought was, and could have continued to be, a loving relationship.
Big Gerry ruined everything that he had touched.
And now, his son was gone. The son who had always been shy, who had started to grow into a handsome young man, surely to succeed in the world, was gone.
His son was dead.
The love of his life was gone.
Water closed over my head; I said, "I am lost."
When he was on his third scotch, and the ache had barely been numbed, he knew that it wasn't enough. The alcohol wasn't working. He had used it to seek comfort before, but this time it was too much. There was too much hurt in his heart for the substance to wipe it away.
He needed more.
He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked.
Mellie had been fighting sleep since they had lost Gerry. The White House physician had given her Valium, in hopes that it would calm her anxiety and lull her into a restful sleep.
Fitz itched for sleep. Real sleep. The kind of sleep that it seemed he only achieved after a long night of making love to Olivia. Sleep that he hadn't had in months.
He was so damn tired. And sleeping sounded good.
Sleeping forever, even, sounded great.
He ambled with glass in hand, his gait more than a little unsteady, towards the residence. The agents saw, but allowed him space. It was no news that Fitz got a temper when he drank, and they would be fools to try to interfere in how he attempted to cope with his grief. So distantly, they observed. Waiting to see if his condition declined further.
Fitz stepped into the bathroom and closed the door quietly behind him. They took care to leave all medications high up in the cabinet, and away from the curious hands of Teddy. But right where Fitz could get his hands on them. It took him a moment, his coordination lacking, but he found them. The little blue circular pills that he hoped would dissolve his sorrow.
He shook three out into his hand, and without another thought, he tossed them back into his mouth. His body swayed slightly from the jerky motion, but he stayed upright, washing them down with a swig of scotch.
For I am in distress.
He shifted onto the floor clumsily, sitting with his back resting against the lower sink cabinet. His tie had been shed earlier, but he unbuttoned second and third buttons on his shirt, his white undershirt coming into view. Otherwise, he was fully dressed, his black oxfords and socks still adorning his feet. Well-dressed, even when his heart was a mess.
As he sat there, continuing to sip his scotch, he felt the waves of relaxation begin to wash over him, cleansing him of the woe one tide at a time. Each wave stronger than the last. A pleasant numbness slowly enveloped him. The ache gone. Faded in the haze of the potent combination of chemicals.
If that was the last feeling he ever felt. If that was the last feeling he felt before leaving this world, he could accept that.
He closed his eyes, savoring the peace. But even in his slumber, his thoughts swirled wildly. At random. Running into each other. So many words from the past in rapid recall, riddling his brain with the memories.
'I would eat, breathe, and live Fitzgerald Grant every minute of every day. You would be lucky to have me.'
'See her again. I'll blow you away.'
'You think it didn't change me? You think it was easy? Simple? I went against everything I believed in, for you. I did that for you. Everything was for you. And you walked away, you didn't even let me explain.'
'Then one day, about, oh, three or four years from now, you'll step into your bathroom, take out that revolver your father gave you when you were elected governor, you'll put it in your mouth and you'll blow the back of your skull off.'
'That's all you are. My son. Not as smart, not as interesting, but my son just the same. I made you! I could destroy you!'
'I'm celebrating. Because Olivia Pope still walks this Earth. She's still alive. And as long as she's still alive, well, she's your flaw. Your Achilles heel. Which makes her my weapon. She's the strings that if need be I will pull to make my puppet husband dance.'
'I wait for you. I watch for you. My whole life is you. I can't breathe because I'm waiting for you. You own me, you control me, I belong to you.'
'Olivia doesn't have the secrets of the universe tucked between her magical thighs.'
'You really want to pretend we don't all know how this movie ends?'
'I don't need protecting! I am not the girl you save. I am fine!'
'You made us love you. You made us so devoted with your charm. We would do anything for you. We sold our souls for you! Something had to be done!"
'I wasn't there for him. I kept my distance from him. Because I was afraid of what he might be. It turns out he was yours. The whole time. But he was always mine. Or he should have been. But I was afraid, and now he's gone.'
'You almost died. Don't do it again.'
'You're not their father anymore. And you're not Fitz anymore. You know who you are? You know who you've become? You're Big Gerry. You're your father…Deal with it. Put another glass of scotch on top of it and just deal with it.'
'You love this job? You love being President? You give for what you love.'
'There's a reason. There's a reason that this is not Vermont, and we don't have kids, and you're not the mayor. There's a reason that we are not happy. It's so you could be president.'
'You love that she is a door marked exit. You love that she is your way out. Because if you are with Olivia Pope, you don't have to fulfil your father's dream of being president. If you are with Olivia, you no longer have to be your father's son. An apple never falls too far from the tree. You are always going to be Senator Grant's disappointing boy, Fitz. She is always going to be the formidable Olivia Pope. Don't use the person that I made to make you into a man. You're a boy."
'The least you can do is be my friend. Just a little bit. The least you could do is show up. Show up for me. Show up for me, Fitz. Instead of being like some...stranger.'
'You can't vet your jokes. You're not funny.'
'There are things we don't tell them. Things we bury. Things we hide. That's the job. You did something, sir. It doesn't mean you don't deserve to be happy.'
'For you there's only two people who matter in this world. Olivia, and yourself. The rest of us, we're just on our own.'
'I could never hate you.'
'I didn't do this for you. I did NOT do this for you. I did this for ME. So I could work on the campaign. So I could walk down the street and not be whispered about. So I could stop being known as the woman who screwed the President. So the scarlet 'A' on my chest could be invisible. So I'm not a joke. I am a person. I am not a hen. I am not a prize…This is not about you. My whole life is not about you.'
'We're in this together…'
"I think he's coming around. Mr. President?"
"Fitz…"
"Mr. President, open your eyes if you can hear me…"
Light. Bright and blinding light assaulted his senses, making his stomach lurch and his head sear in white hot pain.
He blinked slowly, vision foggy and watery, the figures stooped over him blurry and barely recognizable.
"Oh, thank god."
Mellie.
"Mr. President, we pumped your stomach, but we're going to need to get you into bed and get some fluids in you…."
He was alive. And if the physical pain hadn't told him that, the slowly returning heaviness in his chest would have.
He was alive.
His son was dead.
The love of his life was gone.
The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned! Because of this our hearts are faint, because of these things our eyes grow dim.
A/N: That's all she wrote! PS: If anyone wants to get together to co-write some Olitz, shoot me a PM. I'm always game for a good writing partner and enjoy the challenge of working in that dynamic!