Disclaimer: fic title from "heal" by tom odell. I don't own anything you recognize, Scandal is (unfortunately) the property of Shonda Rhimes and ABC.
AN: Okay, so, if you've read any of my other stories, you know it's been a long time since I updated The Pressure of Cheating Death or A Certain Step, and even though I'd written a lot for this story, like A LOT, I decided I wasn't going to post it until I had updated one of those first. Between the two of them (it's a pretty even split) I've got probably... close to a hundred thousand words written yet to be posted, but I'm having trouble putting any of it together in a way that I like and the constant mess of fuckery going on on the show really isn't helping honestly, so I've decided to stop trying for a while at least. I'm going to start posting this new story, and hopefully giving my brain a break from worrying about when I'm going to get TPOCD or ACS updated might do the trick and have me ready to post again. I'm sorry, I've had loads of messages from people asking me to update TPOCD especially, and I promise I'm not giving up on it, I just don't want to disappoint anyone by posting rubbish updates because I'm prioritising quantity over quality.
That being said, I hope you like this new story, constructive criticism is always appreciated if not! : )
Huck does not put much stock in the bible. He never really has, and he doubts that he ever shall after the things that he's done, seen and been through throughout the course of his life. He doesn't believe Jesus of Nazareth was anything more than a mortal man – a good man, a great one that much is true – but only a mere man nonetheless. He doesn't believe that Jesus turned water into wine, or that he fed five thousand people with a loaf of bread and five fish – because if he can or could do that but now sits idle on a cloud watching as millions starve down on Earth, he is not a God at all but rather a monster claiming credit for his Father's work.
That being said, there are some wise parables told within the pages of the bible that he can't help but find interesting, a few he finds to be accurate and occasionally even one or two he deems applicable to his own life. The bible speaks often of fire: Hebrews 12:29 says for our God is a consuming fire. Of the hell he knows he shall encounter in the afterlife if such a thing does in fact exist, Revelation 21:8 teaches that but as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolators, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. Exodus 19:18, however, one of the few verses that has so thoroughly captured Huck's attention, states; now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly.
That verse had stuck with him so intently, inspired him so deeply, that it counts for a great deal of the reasoning behind the way he'd chosen to spend this otherwise most normal of Thursday evenings. He is, in point of fact, planning to descend some fire of his own – literal fire, in this instance. He walks the unforgivable halls of Wonderland, abandoned by all who existed here and were both unmade and created here, carrying a bag that gets lighter and lighter as he goes. He walks from room to room with twofold purpose. The first is to check that every individual room is definitely empty, that no teenagers have broken in here on a dare or looking to party, that no homeless people have sought refuge inside the abandoned buildings, and he does this because he doesn't want anyone to get hurt – because the reason for his excursion here tonight, and the reason his bag is getting steadily lighter, is that he is in the process of burning the place down. He brought with him a duffel bag filled with cans of gasoline, and a small lockbox filled with explosives. Each room is doused with accelerant whilst the C4 is placed sparingly, strategically, to make sure that the whole place is completely and entirely decimated as opposed to just a burnt out shell, rebuildable if you know where to look.
He is going to descend fire upon the home of B6-13, sending a column of smoke climbing into the sky and wherever Rowan is in the world, he the mountain is going to tremble without understanding why.
He is more or less done by the time he reaches the lowest sub-basement in the building – the room which houses The Hole. He's been both dreading this part and eagerly awaiting it, truth be told. On one hand, he can't wait to be done; to draw a path in gasoline from the building to a safe distance and then to light a match, but on the other hand he feels sick and jumpy and afraid at just the thought of walking back into that room knowing what he'd endured in there previously. He makes himself do it though, because he needs this. B6-13 may have been dismantled by the President in his forthright anger with Rowan and Tom and their ilk and his all consuming grief for his dearly departed son, but personally Huck needs to cleanse the Earth of it's presence entirely. It will be good for him, he hopes, and for Quinn too, and anyone else who's still wrestling with their soul over the things that went on inside these walls.
Huck sets down the duffel on the floor to his right, and the lockbox on the floor to his left, and kneels down at the trapdoor covering the mouth of The Hole. It's a lot like the way he imagines it might feel to kneel at your own headstone. He died down there, once. Years ago – almost ten years ago, now, he was thrown into this hole and came out as someone else. Burning it will be a lot like giving his old self a much needed and long overdue funeral. He takes a deep breath, curls his hand around the handle in the door, and throws it open. The room is immediately filled with the disgusting stench he'd always associated with the place; sweat, vomit, blood, human excrement and death. He doesn't look at first; afraid of what he will see if he tries to look into the abyss and of what might look back, but he makes himself, finally – and promptly throws himself back across the floor with a gasp of knee-jerk panic.
Sprawled on the floor five feet away, heart pounding and palms beginning to sweat, he holds himself still for a moment. Do not do this to yourself, he thinks firmly, trying to take deep breaths as best he can, you did not just see what you think you saw. There is no one down here. There is not. Do not do this to yourself, Huck. Go back over there, look down, and see that you did not just see what you think you saw. You did not.
He doesn't bother trying to stand up, he's not sure his legs would hold him, and the absolute last thing he needs right now is to wind up tripping over his momentarily coltish feet and falling into The Hole. He would, without an ounce of hyperbole, he would quite literally die, and that is not what he came here for tonight. Instead, he pulls himself onto all fours, and forces himself to crawl across the cold dusty concrete until he can see into The Hole below.
He makes a pained noise when he realizes he was wrong before. He is not doing this to himself. He definitely did see exactly what he thought he did. There is a person at the bottom of that hole. There is a human being down there. "Hey!" He says, voice coming out both panicked and pained, "Hey, hello! Say something, please! Hello?"
The person doesn't respond, and Huck wonders if he's dead. He doesn't look old enough to be an agent – if he is Rowan must have started recruiting right out of high school because the kid looks like a teenager. "HEY!" Huck shouts, his own voice thrown back at him by the echo, "I am about to set this place on fire so if you are not dead I need you to show me a sign that you can hear me."
There is still no response, and Huck leans a little closer in an attempt to get a better look – and is filled with a sense of confusion when he realizes that surrounding the boy is supplies – food, water, a blanket… what the fuck?
He glances back at the floor and sweeps his hand across it in the direction of the mouth of The Hole, sending dust and dirt and a few tiny stones of concrete rushing down inside, and the person at the bottom flinches slightly.
Holy shit.
There is a live person at the bottom of The Hole – a live, possibly underage person being kept down there, and kept deliberately alive at that.
Huck hasn't the faintest idea how to go about trying to get him out, or if he is even safe to be around, but all he knows for sure is that he can't leave this kid down there to be burned alive by his plan for biblical vengeance.
He takes out his phone and dials Quinn. He wants to call Olivia, indeed every instinct in his body is telling him to, but he also doesn't want to subject her to the twofold horror of returning to Wonderland whilst also forcing her to look at someone in a similar situation to the one she not long ago escaped from herself.
"Are you awake?" Liv whispers against Fitz' bare back, "I have a confession to make."
"That sounds ominous." Fitz answers, his voice a little groggy where he was close to sleep, but he rolls onto his back anyway, opens his arm to her, and she moves forwards to rest her head on his shoulder, cuddling in close to his warm body.
"Okay," She says slowly without looking at him, and curiosity and concern rise in him in equal measure. "I-" She stops, and takes a deep breath, and he holds still where his hand had momentarily begun brushing up and down her back. "I can't make jam." She blurts finally, "I can't cook, at all, actually. I burn pasta-"
"Liv, wait," Fitz interrupts, trying his absolute hardest not to laugh, "That's your big confession? That you can't make jam?"
"Or cook in any capacity whatsoever." She reaffirms, making sure that he understands.
"O-kay…" He says slowly, like, and…?
"I'm not-" She stops again. "I'm not housewife material. I'm not going to magically become one when all this is over and we're living in Vermont, I'm not going to quit my job and turn into someone I'm not just because we're married."
"Livvie, I would never ask you to do that." He answers, cupping his free hand around her face gently.
"You didn't ask Mellie to, but she still did." Liv points out, "And you have this whole idea of our life planned out where you go off to work and I sit at home cooking and cleaning and if that's really what you want, you need to tell me right now because-"
"I can't really be the mayor."
"Fitz-"
"Hold on, Liv, just- just listen to me for a second."
She falls silent and waits expectantly (and a touch apprehensively, truth be told) for him to continue.
"I can't really be the mayor of Burlington, and you can't really make jam. That version of Vermont is a fantasy, and I don't want a fantasy with you. I want a reality, a life." He tells her, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, "I want to wake up with you in the morning and complain when you drag me out of bed to go for a run with you. I want sex in the shower when we get home." He teases and she laughs warmly, ducking her head to kiss his shoulder before he continues, holding her a little closer, "I want to make breakfast for us and Karen and Teddy and whoever else comes along. I want to do the school run whilst you go upstairs to your office and work on fixing the world the way only Olivia Pope truly can. I want to see you sat in the bleachers at the kids' soccer matches waving at me coaching from the sidelines. I want family dinners and vacations and fights about who's turn it is to do the laundry or get up with the baby at three o'clock in the morning."
Liv doesn't even know where to start. This man. This incredible man, her incredible man… he amazes her. Really and truly he does, but rather than say that she teases with a smile and borderline watery eyes, "Are you saying you want to be my housewife?"
He laughs, fingertips skimming up and down her back once again, "I've been the primary wage earner for twenty five years and the sole wage earner for almost the same length of time." He answers, "I wouldn't mind a few years of being a kept man."
She laughs this time, shifting a little closer, "So you'll stay home and cook and clean whilst I bring home the bacon?"
"You could run for mayor." He suggests, laughing, though she could if she wanted to (they both know she doesn't, she's always been more at home directing the narrative than being the narrative), "You could be the Mayor and I could make jam."
Liv laughs, feeling better for finally having this most overdue of conversations, before stretching up just far enough that she can fit their lips together. Though this kiss is as passionate as any they share, this one isn't edged with their frequent sense of panic, of desperation, of needing to make every last second of their time together count before one or both of them has to rush off and save the world someplace else. This kiss is warm, and loving, and welcome home and I love you.
The ringing of the phone interrupts them, and Liv reaches over to the bedside cabinet and hangs up the call without bothering to check and see who it is. Fitz rolls them over slowly, putting Liv on her back beneath him, and her knees rise to bracket his hips. The phone rings again, and Liv sighs, pulling away from the kiss.
She reaches out for the handset and he catches her hand, "Ignore it," He implores her, leaning down to plant kisses on her neck, and she almost, almost gives in.
"I can't," Liv tells him, arching under his mouth, "Two calls, one after the other, at two thirty in the morning… it's probably an emergency."
Fitz leans back suddenly, a vague look of alarm on his face, and Liv snatches the phone from its cradle on the last ring. "Olivia Pope."
"Liv, it's Quinn. I'm sorry to call you so late but… we have kind of a… situation on our hands." She says, and Liv can hear worry and uncertainty edging the woman's voice – not something she often hears from her these days.
"What kind of situation?" Liv asks her, brow knitting at Quinn's tone.
"I don't mean to be rude but are you with the President right now?" Quinn asks, her voice a little hesitant, and Liv pauses out of sheer surprise.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm sorry, I know I- I'm sorry, normally I wouldn't ask but the President absolutely cannot hear about this until we're sure one way or the other." Quinn half-explains, and Liv moves to sit up. Fitz moves over and sits beside her in bed. She steals the top sheet and wraps it around herself as she stands up, finding herself worried that Fitz will hear Quinn just out of sheer proximity to the handset.
"Quinn. What is going on?"
"I can't explain it to you on the phone, but I need you to come to Wonderland."
Every muscle in her body freezes, and she just barely resists the urge to hang up the phone on the spot. "Not a chance, Quinn."
"I understand why you don't want to, believe me, I do, but Liv this is- you need to get here. Now, or ten minutes ago, preferably."
"What the hell are you doing there?" Liv demands, and she can feel Fitz' gaze following her as she shifts restlessly, wanting to pace but limited by the phone cord.
"Huck called me." Quinn answers, "Just get here, please – and like I said, if the President is with you… you might want to consider amending your whole honesty is the cardinal rule thing for a bit. Seriously."
Liv contemplates refusing, but she can hear the seriousness in Quinn's voice, and she sighs, her eyes shuttering closed. "I'll be there as soon as I can." She answers finally, "I'll call you when I'm almost with you." She hangs up the phone and doesn't look at Fitz as she turns away from him and heads for her closet.
"What's wrong, what's going on?" He asks her, and she sees him pull on his boxers and a T-shirt out of the corner of her eye, "Where are you going at this time of night?"
"I'm not sure yet." Liv answers honestly (to the first part of the question, at least), pulling on black slacks and an off white silk scoop neck shirt, all without looking at him – until she feels his arms wind around her waist, that is.
She stops her movements immediately, and feels him press a kiss to the back of her head. "When you- when you said it might be an emergency and I looked at the time… this isn't- it's not about Karen, is it?" He asks her, and she turns around in his arms.
"No," She tells him immediately before belatedly realizing, you don't actually know that for sure – in fact, given that Quinn had insisted on Fitz being kept in the dark—"Not as far as I know." She amends, "I'll call you as soon as I know what's going on."
"What do you mean not as far as you know?" He asks, "Livvie-"
"Okay, hold on." She says quickly, stepping out of his arms and picking up the phone again. She dials out to Karen's school, puts the phone on speaker and the handset back down, and when the secretary answers Liv says, "This is Olivia Pope calling on behalf of President Grant, he just wants to check on Karen and make sure she's okay."
"Of course, Ma'am," The woman answers the same way she always does when Liv calls like this – and it's happened fairly frequently of late, "Give me one second, I'll send out her dormitory manager to check on her." A tinny version of a classical piece of music plays from the speaker whilst they wait on hold, and Liv finds her stomach is in knots of fear – what if she's wrong? What if Quinn's call did have something to do with Fitz' daughter? What if she isn't there but it has nothing to do with this? What if—
"Karen's dorm manager has radio'd back to say that everything is fine, does the President wish to speak with his daughter?" The secretary asks, "Because we can wake her up if he does."
Liv looks across the room at Fitz questioningly, but he shakes his head, relief clear on his face. "No, that's okay." Liv answers her, "Thank you."
She hangs up the phone with one hand and puts on her watch with the other. "It might turn out to be nothing." She tells him, crossing the room to her closet to take out her suit jacket and pull it on. "You should go back to bed."
"I won't be able to sleep," He comments as she steps back into his space. "Call me when you know what's going on?" He requests, and she hesitates.
"I might not be able to tell you, you know that." She reminds him, and he shakes his head.
"I know, I just- I need to know that you're safe."
It's still a huge adjustment, making a real go of their relationship without Mellie there to use as a roadblock when she gets scared, or not reacting badly to him wanting updates on her safety – she has to remind herself sometimes that that's all it is. He's not demanding that she call him because he wants her attention and doesn't like it when someone else has it, he's asking that she call him because the only word that can be used to describe the last eight months or so is traumatic. Gerry's death, her almost leaving for Barbados with Jake but changing her mind at the last second, Harrison's murder, Mellie walking out on her family and leaving Fitz to deal with Karen's grief and Teddy's confusion by himself, Liv's abduction that would've forced him to go to war to save her (because he would have, had it come to that) had Huck and Quinn not found her at the last second… he'd been an inch and one more piece of bad news away from a nervous breakdown when she'd got back, and she can't say she blames him.
There had been few silver linings in the whole series of situations, but there had at least been some – namely; the long overdue dismantling of B6-13, the re-affirmation of their relationship in a new and more serious way, the borderline compassionate acceptance of Fitz and Mellie's official separation by the public and the party thanks to the fact that no one can really judge them for it given that it isn't uncommon for couples' relationships to fall apart following the loss of a child, plus Gerry's murder and Liv's abduction had opened his eyes to the extent of the corruption within the White House, and he'd finally begun the long and occasionally dangerous process of cleaning house.
The first thing he'd done was enlist OPA to find and vet highly qualified – and highly trustworthy – teams of agents (none of whom were found in the secret service, all pulled from other branches of the military and private security, and all secretly and unapologetically put through ThornGate level background checks before they were even interviewed) to serve as the replacement personal security details for Karen, Teddy, Olivia and lastly himself. Though Liv had been predictably reluctant at the idea of having an official security detail, the Joint Chiefs had been adamant. It was too much of a risk to have her walking around unprotected given her level of access, and she'd been officially outvoted.
"I will be. I'll take Daniel and Martha with me. I'll be fine and… and I'll call you." She says, her small smile not as fake as it once might have been at the prospect of a personal detail. She leans up to kiss him, and he doesn't want to let go of her when they stop.
"Are you sure this is the right place, Ma'am?" Daniel asks uncertainly, looking out of the windshield at the clearly abandoned building sprawled out in front of them.
"I'm sure." Liv answers, her tone made brusque by the bad memories snapping at her heels. She opens the door without waiting for them and climbs out, striding ahead. They jump up and out to follow her, throwing one another a glance. They don't like this one bit, but they have learnt that trying to stop Olivia when she's really on a mission is often a thankless and, frankly, useless task.
She dials Quinn as she walks, Martha remaining behind her whilst Daniel steps in front and to the right so as to protect from attacks to the front without obstructing her path. "I'm here, where are you?" She asks.
"Come into the main building, walk all the way down the long corridor in the middle and I'll meet you at the stairs." Quinn tells her, and Liv can hear footsteps echoing off the walls wherever she is.
They end the call and Liv relays the instructions to her agents, who nod without looking at her. They look everywhere but, eyes roving over their surroundings as if expecting to be attacked from all sides at any second. The President is not going to be happy when he hears about this even if they do make it back without any problems.
The door to the stairwell opens up ahead, and Daniel stops her with an arm thrown across her path in front of her, hand automatically reaching for his weapon. Quinn steps out and he relaxes his protective stance. "We're down here." She says, holding the door open in an invitation for them to follow her back downstairs. "I don't think the cavalry should join us, though."
Liv stops walking, looking at Quinn questioningly before throwing her detail a glance. "Give us a second." She says, stepping back out of the stairwell and waiting for Quinn to join her. She closes the door between them before the agents can protest. "What is going on?" Liv repeats her question from earlier.
"We're not sure yet, you need to remember that when I tell you." Quinn answers her, "We could be wrong, this could be some kind of twisted hoax." Liv throws her an enough stalling, start talking look, and Quinn explains, all in one run on sentence, "Huck came here to set this place on fire and found someone in The Hole and we're not sure but we're pretty sure that it's Gerry Grant."
"Gerry Grant is dead." Liv says, not allowing the idea to take root, "Besides, the Army took this place apart when it was decamped. I think they'd have noticed if the President's dead son was down there."
"Whether or not it really is him… there's still a kid down there. We need to get him out, and I think – just to be on the safe side – we're best off doing it without the secret service watching over our shoulders." Quinn points out, and Liv can barely hear her. She can't get her head around the words we're pretty sure it's Gerry Grant. Is it possible? It can't be. He died. The whole world watched in horror as he collapsed on stage, looked on with a global outpouring of grief as the sixteen year old was lain to rest and the Grant's marriage fell apart publically and permanently. It cannot really be him. It just can't be. …Can it?