Disclaimer: Unfortunately I do not own Scandal, I only write about it. If I did I wouldn't be screaming at my TV every Thursday...


There's movement all around her. People, hands, voices. They're all over her, overwhelming each one of her sense. No a part of her is calm, none at piece. The pain, the touches, the discomfort reach her from the inside out and it's only as she's being lifted and strapped down, the wheels on the gurney beneath her bumpily rolling over the sidewalk, that she realizes that she's in an emergency room.

And she's the patient.

She opens her eyes slightly, small slits allowing light to reach brown and all she finds is white all around her. White walls, white lights, white sheets, and white lab costs. She panics for a second believing this is a different kind of white, a final light type of white, but soon she finds herself coming face to face with a brown face putting an oxygen mask over her and she sighs inwardly at the relief that she is still alive.

The air is cool and welcoming and if she could somehow find the ability to speak she'd find the way to say thank you.

The relief is only momentary, however, as she soon finds herself becoming cold as her clothing is cut and stripped all around her. She tries to stop them, tries desperately grab their hands and take the scissors away and give her some semblance of privacy but she knows it's futile. Her hands barely lift off the hard table under her eliciting the desire to attempt to move her legs as well but when she finds she can move those even less the panic surges fully within her and she finds herself gasping for breath.

It's no longer about what she can feel, but what she can't instead. She can't feel a lot, she now realizes. Too much. Little by little she feels less and less and the mask over her nose is no longer enough to do its job.

Monitors are screeching all around her, people are moving and screaming twice as fast and twice as loud as ever before. The mask is pulled harshly off her face and her head pushed back, the small slits of her open eyes allowing her to barely see becoming half as wide as the darkness looms all around her.

Someone is pulling her mouth open, she can taste the rubber against the insides of her cheeks and tongue, as hard cold metal clicks against her teeth.

It's the last thing she remembers, later it won't even be the only thing she remembers. She feels the metal as it's pushed into her throat and then she feels nothing else. Then she sees nothing else.

Then everything goes black.


There's an incessant sound that beeps over and over. Beep, beep, beep. A rhythmic intangible auditory hell. It keeps going without an end in sight.

With each passing second as her mind once again enters the real world the sound becomes louder and more damning.

Beep, beep, beep.

She shifts away from it and tries to hide from the noise, an attempt to drown it out as she buries her head further into the pillow beneath her.

"Mmmm turn it off" she says without opening her eyes, refusing to fully acknowledge the pounding noise that keeps trying to wake her.

"It's yours" an equally sleep ridden deep voice responds and she feels a soft tap against her leg pushing her towards it.

Just as she's about to grab the pillow beneath her and pull it over her head to kill the noise entirely, she hears another sharp sound that this time, she can't ignore.

"Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy" comes a child's voice closer and louder with each syllable and before she knows it the source of the voice comes tumbling onto the bed throwing her full weight onto it as she lands half on the mattress and half on the body beside her.

"Oww" comes a deep growl.

"Sorry daddy" says the little girl now crawling her way up the large bed to her mother's side until her knees as seated right in front of her and two little hands are grabbing either side of her face trying to wake her up.

"Mommy it's morning, time for school."

She opens her eyes and comes face to face with two large green eyes staring expectantly back at her. The little girl bounces on her hind legs at the excitement of fulfilling her goal of waking her mom and the movement becomes enough to keep Olivia from once again closing her eyes.

"Okay, okay baby girl. I'm up, I'm up." she says as she begins to finally move off the bed and turn to turn off the alarm, regretting having gone to sleep so late, but not the events that led to it. Just as she does the little girl is grabbed around the waist be a large arm and is pulled down to have rasberries blown against her sides.

"Daddy!" The little girl screams between giggles. "Daddy no!"

"Little girls who are wide awake at this hour in the morning must endure 3, no 5 straight minutes of kisses and tickles."

The girl screeches with laughter in anticipation as Fitz puts her down and wiggles his fingers over her.

"Nooo daaaddyyyy" he tickles her belly as she screams and kicks, losing her breath as the laughter grows stronger.

"Fitz you're going to make her sick" Olivia says as she steps out of her closet with her clothes in hand and catches the scene on the bed.

"She's fine" he responds as he lifts her up and places the still giggling child on his lap.

"See?"

The child smiles back at her, baby teeth and gaps in full view, as she calms down and settles into her father's arms.

"I'm not sick mommy." She defends her father.

"All right baby girl, I believe you. Now why don't you go wake your brothers while mommy gets ready for and daddy gets Benji."

"Okay!" The girl screams with excitement at the news that she would get to wake yet another two people. She begins to jump from her father's lap and he helps her by lifting her and placing her on the floor. As soon as her feet hit the carpet she's out of the room as quickly as she'd entered it.

As if on cue, the second the girl is out of the room the monitor on the nightstand next to their bed begins to make noise and the sound of 10-month-old Benjamin Grant waking is immediately heard.

"His timing is impeccable as always." Fitz says as he walks up behind his wife and gives her a kiss on the neck.

"Just like you babe." She says tapping his rear as he walks past her. He turns back to her, a look of desire in his eyes, and she softly laughs at how predictable he is.

"Not now Fitz, go." She twirls her finger in front of her telling him to turn and keep going toward their youngest son's room and he does, a look of satisfaction stays on her face watching him until she's snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of her phone getting a new message. Reading it, she quickly puts it down and once again grabs her clothes to take into the large master bathroom, her movements twice as fast as they were just moments ago.

She was going to be late.


He hasn't seen her in 3 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, and 10 hours. 3 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, and 10 months without touching her, without kissing her, without inhaling her scent and placing his hands on either side of her face as he tells her he loves her.

3 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, and 10 hours too many.

He wishes he could say he was getting used to it, that he was getting over, that he thought less about her now than he did 4 months ago but all that would be lie. The truth is there isn't a moment of the day when she's not on his mind, when he's not wondering what she's doing, or when he's not itching to reach for the phone and call her. When he's not desperate to yell and scream and throw everything against the wall, to end it all now - the presidency, the fake marriage, the way he constantly needs to pretend to be okay, to be happy. Not a moment when he doesn't wish for a different life, a simpler life.

A life with her.

But this is how she wants it. She ended it and no matter how hard he'd tried this time she was unwilling to change her mind. She never answered the phone, or her door, or listened to any of the messengers he'd sent to get her. He'd leaked her name, she'd learned the truth and she'd hurt him in the worse way she knew how.

So here he was now, another evening in the Oval Office. Another monotonous meeting and pile of paperwork to sign. Another speech to memorize and appearance to get ready for.

He was sitting now behind his desk reading the latest bill sent up by Congress, another ridiculous law they wanted to pass that had nothing to do with anything the American public actually needed. Except he wasn't even paying attention, he just kept reading the same paragraph over and over without turning the page for over 10 minutes.

Frustrated he slammed the papers on top of his desk and ran his hand through his hair and down his face. He was so sick of it he could barely breathe. He felt suffocated by these walls and his position and he wanted nothing more than to leave it all behind.

Feeling the anxiety grow within him he got up from his chair and made his way to the window behind him. Placing his hands in his pocket he stood steadily looking at the setting sun and long green pasture in front of him.

He became mesmerized by the beauty of the city and the people who came from all over to take pictures of the house he only wished he could move out of. He found it amusing when he thought about it, how they stood outside looking for him, while he so often stood on the inside watching them.

It helped relax him, it brought a sense of clarity to his mind that could often get lost in the political DC environment.

It was the only thing keeping him sane on most days.

Just as he felt once again calm enough to return to his previous task he heard footsteps outside his door and he turned in time to see his chief of staff open the door and close it quickly behind him.

"What is it Cyrus?" He asks as he watches the older man slowly walk toward him without meeting his eyes.

"Sir…" Cyrus starts, but doesn't finish as he halts in his steps. He takes a deep breath places his hands on his waist, his sight facing the floor as if he avoiding what he needs to do.

"Cyrus?" Fitz asks once more, a sudden sense of dread growing within him at the alarming appearance of the older man's nervousness.

"Fitz..." Cyrus finally lifts his eyes to meet the other man's gaze and finishes the statement he'd been trying to make since he entered the room.

"It's Olivia."


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