"We do not touch the First Ladies."
The last time Mellie was this happy, she had been a newlywed. She'd been laying in bed with Fitz, the two of them entangled in cold sheets and a warm embrace that left both of them breathless. "I love you." She'd said to him, and she meant it. Yes, it was a political marriage, but that didn't mean that love was unattainable. That was all this feeling could be, right? This sensation that filled her entire body and gave her a sense of being whole, being something more than she'd ever been. She had never felt like this before, never thought she needed to.
Until now.
"I love you too," he whispered back, strong and sure and catching her completely off guard. No surprise, no false sincerity, no awkward silences between smiles for the cameras. They were alone, and he loved her still. And she'd laid her head on his chest and thanked every star in the sky for what she'd been given.
"We do not touch the First Ladies."
The last time Mellie had been this terrified was 15 years ago on that fateful night with Fitz's father. In a matter of minutes he had taken her pride and her soul and the rest of her life, all so he could feel powerful again for one fleeting moment.
At the cost of her sanity, not that he cared.
She'd crept into the bedroom that night with bare feet and shaky steps, praying with each careful footfall that her husband wouldn't awaken. But he had, and so she couldn't take a shower, something she'd never wanted to do more in her life. She'd climbed into bed and bit her tongue, trying not to scream with terror as the man she loved wrapped his arms around her in an embrace- so like the one from the night that he had declared his love for her- and slept as peacefully as ever.
So naive, so blind, so blissfully ignorant. So lucky.
"We do not touch the First Ladies."
Funny how terror and happiness could mix so readily. Funny how such different feelings could simultaneously fill her with a whirlwind of emotion that made her want to dance and cry and scream. All at once.
"We do not touch the First Ladies."
In spite of herself, Mellie laughed. Because Andrew made her feel different than Fitz ever had, even in their first years of marriage. He took the walls she had spent so many years carefully building and had broken them down in one fell swoop with three words: "you deserve more."
No one had ever fought for her before. She and Fitz were matched; clinical, cold, but true. Yes, there was love, but when a child gets a new puppy, he drops the other dog like the years they spent together meant nothing. Olivia Pope was the puppy, and Mellie found herself fighting to save a relationship that lately was beginning to give her whiplash. She had always been the one fighting. Until today.
"I love you, I've always been in love with you." She could tell Andrew had meant it, which was scary until it wasn't. Once she let herself accept it, it was bliss. It was what she'd been missing all along. She'd known it was there- he'd saved her life, for god's sake- she just didn't know how good it would feel.
To be loved so deeply.
So unconditionally.
"We do not touch the First Ladies."
When she'd said this to him, he was ogling over Jackie Kennedy's portrait like a kid in a candy shop. It was adorable. He'd laughed when she said it. "What a shame," he'd replied. "Because I'd really like to kiss you right now."
And Mellie, overcome with emotion like a schoolgirl in love, let him.