Posted on June 11, 2017

Author's Note:

This fanfic is for me to deal with the frustration of the Season 6 ending so I am working through the storyline and plot in my head as I am writing it.

I hope you will enjoy and be patient with me as I might be revising as I go and be slow in posting new installments.

To avoid any IP lawsuits, the usual disclaimer: Scandal characters belong to SR and her production company.


Fifteen months after Mellie's inauguration/Fitz leaving office

Former President Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III, dressed in black tie, was making his round through the large crowd that gathered at a DC five-star hotel reception hall for the black-tie fundraiser dinner for his foundation, The Justice Project which he was president and Chief Executive Officer. The Justice Project focused on redressing wrongful convictions and providing social and financial support to families who have family members who have been wrongfully convicted. It was the cocktail hour and it was the time when he would meet and greet the supporters and generous donors who came out in support for the foundation. However, Fitz's sense of elation from seeing so much support for his foundation was tempered with a feeling of something not being right, either, as if something bad was about to happen or has happened and he was waiting to get word about it.

Focus. Focus, Fitz silently told himself while he was chatting with George Soros. George Soros had been one of the foundation's generous donors with a sizeable donation of $250,000 and he couldn't give the impression to George that he was distracted elsewhere. George was asking him questions about splitting time between DC and Vermont, Karen and Teddy, and his opinion on the general state of current affairs. Fitz knew as a former POTUS, people would be asking him questions about the state of domestic and international affairs. He was also smart enough to know that some people would be asking to see how critical he was of Mellie as the country's current POTUS, and had been successful in avoiding fall into the trap of sounding critical of her.

Fitz joked with George about his less than successful attempt in thinking outside the box on choosing the location for his foundation. Despite his intention of wanting to set up his foundation in Vermont, Fitz quickly realized there was a reason as to why foundations don't get set up off the beaten track. When forming his board, Fitz had a hard time convincing his list of VIP board of directors to come to Vermont for meetings. Board members were more inclined to travel to major cities for meetings – even though they would be passing through the city for the meeting but they could tie in other social activities with the meeting. Even though Bennington, Vermont was a lovely city, it didn't have same allure as NYC, DC, or LA. Rather than trying to fight a losing battle, he and Marcus, his Chief Operating Officer for the foundation, re-grouped and planned their move.

While he and Marcus considered the possibility of moving the foundation to NYC or even to Santa Barbara, his hometown when he was Governor of California, they ultimately chose Washington DC for its political connection. They decided if they wanted to effect change in the criminal justice system, it would have to involve changes in law and policy at all three levels of government – local, state, and federal. A network of affiliates was being established in major cities around country with the goal of reform at the local and state levels, while the foundation itself focused its efforts at the federal level.

However, rather than moving the foundation right away, Fitz knew he needed time to decompress after being in the White House for 8 years. For the first six months after leaving office, he took time to enjoy Vermont, learn how to fly fish, and to live in the house he had built for him and Olivia. He finally made the house more habitable by furnishing it. There were some rooms which he still left unfurnished, such as the room that would have been a nursery for his and Olivia's children. There was a part of him that was holding onto the hope that one day the nursery would get used for its intended purpose.

Nonetheless, the Vermont house was still too big for him and Teddy, and even with Karen coming to stay on the weekends when she was still at boarding school. The living arrangement was now a DC townhouse for him and Teddy during the week and weekends in Vermont since Teddy officially started school. He currently had a modified custodial arrangement with Mellie concerning Teddy, with Teddy living with him instead. Fitz wasn't sure what prompted Mellie to let him have Teddy, perhaps, now that she got what she really wanted, the Oval, she no longer felt the need to punish him. Karen, now an undergrad at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore with plans to major in economics and a minor in social policy, moving back to DC worked out for the best so he could also have time with Karen. In a way, the foundation brought them closer with Karen being a volunteer for the foundation when she was available given the reasonable commuting distance between Baltimore and DC.

During the past nine months, he and Marcus focused their attention on establishing the foundation in DC. What Fitz hadn't expected was getting unsolicited help from his former Attorney General David Rosen, his former Vice President Susan Ross, and Quinn Perkins and Associates which included his former Chief of Staff Abby Whelan.

David had been asked to stay on as Attorney General under Mellie's administration to which he declined politely on the grounds that he needed re-assess the direction of his legal career after the events that lead to Mellie becoming the President. In the course of the re-assessment, David offered to volunteer his legal expertise on criminal law and prosecution to help with advancing the foundation's work. Instead, Fitz offered him a paid position as Director of Legislative Affairs to oversee the foundation's policy reform initiatives.

Susan had been one of the VIPs who Fitz asked to be on the board of his foundation to which she readily accepted and was the only one of the board members who had no qualms about traveling to Vermont for board meetings. She returned to being a political science professor in Virginia and became part of a multi-disciplinary academic research group at the university where she taught. The research group examined social policy issues which included the topic area of criminal justice. Susan's involvement with the academic research group gave the foundation access to leading scholars on criminal justice, which included Susan's new boyfriend, Philip Bamber, a law school professor whose writing and research focused on wrongful convictions.

Quinn, who "inherited" OPA from Olivia, was now juggling life as wife and a mother with an infant child while running QPA with the help of Abby, Quinn's husband Charlie, and long-time friend/colleague Huck. Quinn's pregnancy was the impetus for her and Abby to consider the future professional direction of QPA. QPA could no longer take on dangerous or life-threatening assignments as "gladiators." Quinn's involvement in helping to secure the pardon for Shawn Campbell provided them food for thought on QPA taking on legal cases like Shawn's. With that, Quinn approached him about QPA being the "foot soldiers" for the foundation's cause – helping the wrongfully convicted incarcerated by providing legal advocacy services with her and Abby providing the services. In other words, he had a team of a very smart and capable gladiators fighting for his cause at the ground level.

Even though he had his own team of gladiators, Fitz knew in his heart and soul, there was only one gladiator for him – Olivia. However, during the past 15 months, he had been out of contact with Olivia. His phone calls to her went unreturned. He left a voice message extending an open invitation for her to come to Vermont for a visit which she never took up. Since moving back to DC, there have been phone calls asking to see her that were ignored. Fitz worked on the presumption Olivia's work situation was too hectic for her to slow down to return his calls. Not to mention he was also busy with getting his foundation launched and there would be times he didn't get back to people.

As Fitz was finishing up his chat with George Soros and moving onto greeting other guests, he noticed his "team" – Marcus, David, Susan, Philip, and the QPA gladiators, all in black-tie, huddled together. Karen who was also attending the fundraiser and wearing an evening gown, looking every much the beautiful, capable, smart young woman he and Mellie raised her to be, was also part of the huddle. A moment later, the huddle broke up with David, Philip and the QPA gladiators exiting out the reception hall while Marcus headed into the direction of the banquet hall where the sit-down dinner was taking place and Karen and Susan glancing around the crowded reception hall looking for someone. Fitz realized it was him who they was looking for and once they found him, they walked towards him.

Fitz stood in his place waiting for them to reach him. "Karen. Susan. Everything ok?"

"Yeah, everything is fine, Dad," responded Karen in an evasive tone. "Are you ready with your big speech?"

"I am," replied Fitz. Fitz had a feeling they was hiding something from him and was about use a "presidential tone" to get them to fill him in when the dinner bell sounded informing the guests that it was time to move into the banquet hall for the dinner. Fitz checked his watch and saw there was another 15 minutes left to the cocktail hour before the start of the dinner. When Marcus joined them, Fitz asked, "Why has the dinner bell sounded? We have another 15 minutes with the cocktail reception…"

"Probably a glitch in the system," responded Marcus easily. "Fitz, we need to get inside the banquet hall." After working in one of the most formal work environment and being called Mr. President for 8 years, Fitz wanted his foundation work setting to be professional but without the pretense and wanted his "team" to call him by his first name.

Fitz entered the banquet hall with Karen, Susan and Marcus at his side, and his Secret Service agent, as well as Karen's agents trailing close by. As they were walking towards their table, Fitz had the feeling the three of them were preventing him from being side-tracked into greeting the guests as they were leading him to their table.

They were about to sit at their table with the other assigned guests at their table, one of them being Shawn Campbell who Fitz granted a pardon to and the "poster-child" for the foundation's cause, when Marcus's cell phone rang. Marcus move aside to take the call and Fitz could hear Marcus speaking in loud voice. "We can't start confiscating people's cell phones…"

Fitz's raised one his eyebrows when he heard Marcus's declaration and was about to get out his seat to walk over to where Marcus was standing to ask him what was going on when he heard one of the guests sitting his table exclaimed while looking at her cell phone, "Oh my God, Olivia Pope turned in herself to the FBI for treason!"