Post season 4 finale. I watched an interview with Kerry where she said how Olivia needs a good therapist and there's so much truth in that that I thought it would be really interesting to explore it. A month or so after the "Whatever we want." Olitz, but also, and I've been saying this for good two years, first and foremost I ship Olivia with a good therapist.


She wonders whether there is a person somewhere, in some basement, collecting a paycheck for suggesting color-palette deals – buy a green and a white for your doctor's office and you get another one free, buy a blue and a white and you get free pictures of oceanscapes.

"What are you thinking about?" The questions irks her. Logically she knows it shouldn't. She is paying, and paying a great deal at that, so that this woman could pick her head, so that she would ask what she is thinking and then tell her how and why she shouldn't be thinking and feeling this way; she is paying a great deal for her expertise, yet this is the third sessions she has spent quietly inspecting the décor of the room. She's moved the coffee table since the last time.

"You've moved the coffee table." She says as she moves her eyes lazily along the wall one more time, before focusing it on the woman sitting across from her – all wide rim glasses and crisp white shirt peeking under the collar of her tweed jacket.

"You're paying me $350 an hour to inspect my décor?" She leans forward in her seat, her notebook resting on her knees, closed, a silver pen lodged in the middle.

"There are still dents in the carpet, which means you've done it quite recently," she points her hand to the corner with the coffee table, indicating the four almost-invisible dents, "but the table is close to its original position which means you weren't intending to move it, which means someone must have spilled something, except you never offer drinks, or food here, so…" She trails off, making the implication clear, no need to ask.

The therapist leans back in her chair, apparently unfazed, and presses her glasses further up her nose, "So you never shut off?"

She's taken aback, this is not the answer she's been expecting, "Excuse me?" It is her turn now, to lean forward in her chair, hands folded in her lap, her left hand playing with the ring on her index finger.

"You seem unable to switch off." The doctor repeats slowly, "For three weeks you have been coming into my office sitting here silently. At first I thought maybe you just needed the quiet, maybe you were paying me to give you a place where you can sit quietly, isolated from the world for an hour, but that's not it, is it? Because you don't do quiet, you don't do down time. The first week you've inspected my entire library, and mentally re-arranged it. Last week you were focused on my dry-cleaning and my desk, especially my family photos, and this week, you've found the coffee-table fascinating. You've spent the last three sessions trying to figure out why I've slept in my office and now that you know I'm having an affair, I feel like it might be time to move on, and maybe, if you're feeling up for it, focus your impressive deductive abilities on some introspective self-analysis."

"Isn't introspective self-analysis an oxymoron?" She says it to try and cover up her shock. She is Olivia Pope, she doesn't get shocked, or surprised. She is a good, a great, judge of character, she anticipates things like this, she can read people and situations, and she read her, she read her and she didn't realize she was capable of this, she read her and she underestimated her, and now she's trying to buy herself some time by playing semantics. "I mean," she leans back to try and seem casual, "introspection, implies looking inward, to the self."

"With most people it does." The woman is looking straight into her eyes, the intensity of her stare is unnerving, "I am not sure it does with you." And with that she falls silent.

"How come?"

"Well," she sounds way too self-assured and confident. It bothers Olivia, this is how she is supposed to sound, this is how she sounds with her clients. How did she become the client? "You're always in control, and people who are always in control tend to be masters of deflection. They identify with the world, and so explain the self in terms of everyone and everything else – you're the boss, the fixer, and most-wanted woman in DC – this is not just how you are seen, it is also how you insist on seeing yourself – you perceive yourself through how other people perceive you."

"I am not always in control." She needs to discredit this line of reasoning at its very beginning, nip it in the bud.

"OK," the doctor smiles deliberately, "when was the last time you were not in control?"

"Take off your clothes." He whispers it into her ear, his warm breath tickling the skin on her neck. She bites her lip as she steps back. Through hooded eyelids she looks at his chest, then slowly inspects his shoulders, the firm lines of his jaw, his lips and the way he licks them, his eyes – glued on her. She shivers. She smiles. It is all too familiar, they are re-writing a memory, re-writing their own beginning.

She slips her cardigan off and lets it drop to the floor. She takes a step back, towards the bed. He loosens his tie with his left hand. The silk of her blouse feels cool against her heated skin. She cocks her head to the side and smiles, before unbuttoning her dark slacks. She pulls the zipper down and they slip down her legs. She is almost bare, but she does not feel vulnerable. She feels seen, she feels centered, she feels at home in her own body for the first time in weeks. Unlike the first time, she does not blush, she does not look down, she looks into his eyes. She watches him, the way he watches her; she sees him, she enjoys him. She lets herself enjoy him.

"Lie down." And she does. He kicks his shoes off and takes a step towards her. He pulls his tie off over his head. She inhales, sharply, audibly, it sounds like a gasp and he smiles, smirks. He takes another step, unbuttons the top three buttons of his shirt. He takes his cufflinks out of his cuffs. He drops them in his pants pocket slowly, never taking his eyes off of her body – she can feel him undressing the layers she has spent years building, adding, fortifying; she can feel his eyes find their way under her skin. He rolls up his sleeves. Slowly, deliberately, letting his fingers graze the wiry hair on his forearms. This is foreplay and they both know it, they know that each move is a way to arouse, a way to awaken their senses, all their senses, it is a way to bring about their complete presence.

He kneels.

He kneels before her as if he were in a temple – slowly, each movement laden with significance. One knee on the carpeted floor, then the other, his movements almost silent, but for the ruffling of clothes. He touches her knee with his finger and it feels as if her skin is on fire. She needs more, she needs his skin against hers, his flesh against her flesh, the sweat, the shared breaths – she needs the unison, the carnality of it, the mindlessness of it. She needs to be overtaken by instinct.

He traces his fingers up her legs, until he reaches the edge of her underwear. She is anticipation. She is neurons firing signals at the speed of light; she is hyper-awareness of her every skin-cell, of every nerve ending in her body.

"Lift for me Livvy." And she does. She feels the lace of her underwear slide down her legs. Slowly, tortuously slowly. His fingers absent from her skin – she knows he is careful not to touch her. This is his way – slow, deliberate, selfless – a dance of movements, of looks, of words whispered into her skin.

Her underwear falls on the floor without a sound. She opens her legs wider. He kisses the inside of her knee, and it feels like she is melting into him, disappearing into the single spot upon which he lay his lips. He kisses her again, and again, and each time it is a small death and a rebirth in a different place. He pulls her closer to the edge of the bed. She opens her thighs wider. He hooks them over his shoulders. He blows hot air, and she shivers at the way it feels against her moisture.

He kisses, and sucks and licks, and she disappears, and becomes, all at once. She feels no guilt that this is the White House and she is in his marital bed, or that he is still a married man. No, she no longer feels guilt about the way she feels. No more guilt. She just feels his teeth on the inside of her thigh, and his fingers deep inside her – she feels good, she feels whole and almost-but-could-it-be-happy? She feels the tension building in her core, she feels his grip on her hips, she feels his scalp under his fingers – but she does not feel guilt. She feels the universe exploding, and she feels the aftershocks, and the quake of her thighs and the clench of her stomach. She feels it all. She feels her need for him. He is undressing. He is hovering above her. He is kissing her, and she can taste herself. But that's the thing, she tastes different on his lips, than on any other man's she's ever been with. She sucks on his tongue, but then he's turning her around, he is biting on her shoulder as he teases her entrance. And all her control is gone, all her composure and it's all instinct, it is knowing his body and her own, and what feels good, and god it's so easy with them, this is so easy with them.

She can feel the therapist's eyes on her lips, and she bites into her own smile. "The last time…"

"You were not in control?" The woman says with a smirk. It unnerves Olivia, it is almost as if she can read her mind, and that is not what she wants, no – she still has too many secrets, too many dark days and dark stories, too many things no one is to ever find out.

And then she blurts out, "I put my father in jail."

The therapist does not look taken aback. "That is the last time you felt out of control?"

"No," she says as she looks out the window, "That is the first time in a really long time, maybe even since I can remember, that I felt fully in control of my life."

"And what did you do with that power?"

The sun is about to set. It has colored the Capitol Dome orange. It makes her think of him, the orange juice, and the way she felt whole three weeks ago. How did it all go so wrong?

"I ran."