Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End
Carla Humphrey loves her job. At least she used to. She works for one of the richest couples in Manhattan, the Fitzgerald Grants. True she is a domestic, but she is never treated like one. She is the envy of her fellow workers. That is until recently. Over the past two years, something has changed this once loving, happy couple into a powder keg waiting to explode. And today seems like the day that the fuse has been lit.
Carla is dusting in the living room when she hears the penthouse elevator doors open. It is only 3:30 in the afternoon, way too early for Mr. Grant to be home and Mrs. Grant is upstairs in her bedroom. Roland, the doorman, didn't announce a visitor, so who could this be coming into the apartment?
As she makes her way to the foyer, her heart stops. It is Mr. Grant and by the look on his face, he is furious. His head whips at the sound of Carla advancing towards him.
"Where is my wife?" he demands through clenched teeth.
"She is upstairs in her room, sir," Carla answers.
Fitz stalks through the foyer to the staircase and takes the steps two at a time. As he disappears from her view, Carla says a silent prayer for Mrs. Grant. Today is not going to be a good day.
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Olivia kneels in front of the bath tub with a toothbrush and a box of baking soda cleaning the grout work. It really doesn't need it, the entire bathroom is immaculate, this is just a way for her to organize her mind. She has so many decisions to make. Hard decisions and she just needs to do something mindless to help collect her thoughts. She leans forward to turn on the water. She is rinsing away the remnants of baking soda when she hears the outer bedroom door slam shut.
"Olivia, where the hell are you!" Fitz booms.
She is frozen in place. She had hoped that she would have more time before he came home. She knew he was going to be furious with her but she had to stand her ground. She slowly turns off the water and stands. As she turns to face the door, he walks in. His face is red and full of fury. His eyes are almost black with anger.
"What are you doing?" he asks taking in her appearance. She is wearing a tank top and running shorts with no shoes. Her hair is pulled up into a high ponytail. There are yellow rubber gloves on her hands and she is holding a toothbrush.
"Cleaning the grout work," she replies evenly.
"Cleaning the grout work," he repeats slowly. "Let me get this straight, I told you to be at the club today at 11:30 so that we could have lunch with David Gentry, the multi-billionaire who wants me to head up his East coast operations, and his wife and you what, decided to stay home and play maid!"
"And I told you yesterday and the day before that that I was not going to lunch today. I am not going to sit by your side and play the happy dutiful wife," she snaps as she removes the rubber gloves.
"What else are you good for then?" His asks coldly.
His reply is like a punch to her stomach. Things between them were not always like this. She tosses the gloves on the side of the tub and moves to push past him to get out of the bathroom. He grabs her arm to stop her. She can smell the scotch on his breath.
"Let me go Fitz," she says with a slight tremor in her voice.
He hears the tremor in her voice and it spurs him on. He tightens the grip on her arm. He is sure to leave bruises. She has to be punished for not showing up today.
"Well if you don't want to play the part of the dutiful wife in public, at least you can do it in private," he spits at her.
He pulls her roughly out of the bathroom into the bedroom and throws her down on the bed. As soon as she is free from his grasp, she scrambles to get off the bed and away from him. He catches her by the ankle and pulls her down to the end of the bed.
"Don't do this Fitz, please," she pleads. Lately, he is becoming increasingly physically abusive toward her, and she is afraid of what he will do to her in his drunken state.
"Shut up!" He yanks on her shorts but she scissors her legs so that he can't get them off.
She begins to kick at him with all her might. He is caught off guard by this and she lands a solid kick to the side of his head. He releases her ankle and stumbles back away from the bed. She uses this moment to scramble off the bed.
"You bitch!" he roars. "I can't believe you kicked me." She can see a large red welt beginning to form on the side of his face.
"Fitz, please just go cool off somewhere. Don't do this please." She is backing away from the bed, trying to put some distance between them.
"Oh, you are going to pay for this. For embarrassing me today, for kicking me."
He stalks towards her and she tries to dart around him, but he catches her by her ponytail. He wraps it around his fist and yanks back hard, stopping her dead in her tracks. He pulls her body flush against his and with his other hand, he rips off the tank top and roughly handles her breasts.
Tears form in her eyes as he man-handles her. She feels humiliated and violated. This is her husband, the man who used to cherish her, not berate and mistreat her. What happened to them? What happened to him?
"I'll teach you how to be a dutiful wife," he growls in her ear.
He forces her to walk back over to the bed and he pushes her onto it on her stomach. With one hand still in her hair, he uses the other to pull down her shorts. He can hear her crying, but he doesn't care. Getting her shorts down to her knees, he works on her panties. She used to wear sexy thongs. Now she practically wears granny panties. With a grunt of disgust, he yanks them down her legs to her knees as well.
She shivers as he undresses her from the waist down. His hold on her hair is unbearable and she can't help but cry. She knows that her pleas will fall on deaf ears, so she silently prays that he doesn't hurt her too much. The sound of him unzipping his pants brings another layer of fear to Olivia. This is going to be bad.
Just as he is about to enter her, there is a knock at the door.
"GO AWAY!"
"Mr. Grant, there is a phone call for you. A Mr. Gentry," Carla calls out from the other side of the door.
"Fuck," he says as he stands up. He looks down at Olivia and says, "Don't. You. Move."
He zips up his pants and runs his fingers through his hair. He opens the door wide and walks out past Carla. It makes him chuckle to know that Olivia is seen by the maid in her current state. The more humiliation she can feel the better. He heads to his office to take the call.
Carla quietly heads in the opposite direction and takes the back stairs to the kitchen. Tears fill her eyes for Mrs. Grant. She is such a fine and gentle lady, she doesn't deserve the way he is treating her.
Olivia gets up from the bed and pulls off her panties and shorts. She quickly goes to the closet and puts on new panties and a bra. She throws on the first thing she can find, a yellow sundress, and slips on a pair of low heeled sandals. She takes the back stairs to the first floor and walks quietly down the hall. She just needs to get her purse, which is on the hall table at the bottom of the front hall staircase.
As she rounds the corner, Fitz is standing in front of the elevator doors with her purse in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other.
"Going somewhere?" his tone menacing.
"Please just let me go Fitz. I can't take this anymore. I just want out."
"NO! Now get your ass back upstairs!"
When she doesn't move Fitz throws her purse across the room, its contents spilling everywhere. He begins to unbuckle his belt and pull it through the loops. Olivia's eyes grow wide with fear. There is no way in hell she is going to allow him to beat her with his belt. She bolts up the stairs, trying to get to their bedroom. If she can lock the door she can call the police. But her efforts are to no avail. He catches her ankle when she is half way up the stairs causing her to fall forward and hit her head on the steps.
She kicks at him violently and manages to land a solid kick to the center of his chest. This causes him to lose his balance and fall backwards down the steps. Unfortunately, he does not release his grip on her ankle, so his momentum pulls her down the stairs as well. Her head hits each tread on the way down. There is a loud sickening thud when Fitz's fall ends, Olivia rolls down the steps and landing at his feet. Her shoulder is on fire and she is seeing stars. She can see Fitz's face from where she lays. His eyes are closed and blood trickles from his mouth and a pool of it is gathering at the side of his head. Even in this bloody state she can't help but think this is the first time in months that he looks peaceful.
Her last conscious thought before the world goes black is "I hope he is dead."
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A/N: Okay so this story popped into my mind tonight and I had to start getting it down. I have a pretty good idea where it is going and I can feel the creative juices flowing on this one. Don't hate me for angry Fitz.
Don't worry, I won't abandon The Summer She Grew Up (currently working on the next chapter) or For the Love of Harper. I have hit a little bit of a wall on both of those and need some time to refocus.
In the meantime, I hope to have the next chapter for this story up tomorrow sometime. It's kind of hard to write when the kids are home for the summer and my husband already thinks I am Scandal Obsessed so I try to write when he isn't around.
As always, review/comment/suggest/rant. I love it all.
I do not own Scandal or its characters. If I did, Season 3 would have gone way differently than it did!
