Author's Note: You're the Clock is a line that comes from the poem 'Mother' by Herman Coninck. I found that poem about five minutes before posting this, but I'm quite pleased with how it applies to this. I hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Scandal or ABC and claim no rights to the familiar characters or plotlines.
There were a thousand things that should have been on Olivia Pope's mind at that moment. She was the person in charge of one of the most successful political consulting firms in all of D.C., which meant that there were files stacked on top of files in her office of cases she still had to accept or turn over to someone else. Andrew Nichols, the man that had had her kidnapped her for a week with no remorse simply to force the President of the United States of America into a war that most Americans, even those with more conservative viewpoints, didn't believe in, was being released from the hospital later on in the day, even though his position had been terminated when it became obvious that his fine motor function and mental stability-if it could be called that- had been destroyed by the stroke that he had suffered. Susan Ross, the Senator from Virginia that she had helped get elected months before, was the President's-and the First Lady's-first pick for the office of the Vice President since it had been vacated by Nichols, and Abby had already asked her to help Susan deal with the optics of becoming one of the most powerful women in the world after less than six months in the Senate. There were politicians calling her every minute of every day, family members calling to beg for her help on one case or another, many of which were either at the top or the bottom of that stack of files that she couldn't bring herself to sort through. And if all of that wasn't enough, her father was still walking around as a free man after killing some of the nation's bravest soldiers and almost taking Jake's life, as well. Olivia had a lot of things that she could have been focusing on in that moment. But there was only one thing that she was capable of focusing on.
It was hard to believe that it had been eight weeks since she had been taken from her apartment by masked men and endured much more than some people could live to speak of before Stephen managed to save her from being sold onto the black market. It was even harder to believe that it had been seven weeks since he had helped her onto that plane and accompanied her home before returning to Russia and the life that he had built for himself. It was hard to believe that it had been that long, because it was hard for her to believe that what she had been forced to endure had ended. She still woke screaming most nights, still couldn't sleep unless she was too physically exhausted to stay awake, and still looked at everyone that walked by her as though they could be the next person ready and willing to cause her harm. She was traumatized, had been diagnosed with PTSD weeks before, and yet refused to make any changes to her lifestyle. In her opinion, if she changed, they won. It wasn't even funny how often it occurred to her that they had already won. She would never again be the woman that laughed and danced in her apartment. That woman had died the day that she had been snatched.
She tried her best to be normal, though. She drove to work every day, even if she spent most of the day in her office with Jake, whose presence was apparently nonnegotiable until they got her father off of the streets. She went home, ate dinner, and settled into bed, although she rarely did any of those things alone anymore, either. Jake had learned in the second week that he had spent on her couch after she had returned that Olivia hated being alone in bed because it worsened her nightmares and made it nearly impossible for him to pull her out of them, so he laid beside her every night from that point on. Olivia didn't even try to pretend that she was unaware of the fact that he laid awake even more often than she did. The fact that her screams were what awoke him each and every night made her hate the people that had done this to her just a little bit more, something that she hadn't known was possible.
There were good times, though. He still ordered in food and rented movies and poured her wine, although she had switched to white almost immediately after she caught sight of the stain on her couch cushion. He had ordered a new sofa with her help as soon as she was finally ready to let go of that one, although she knew that he knew that letting go of the couch was a lot different than letting go of the trauma. They laughed sometimes. In fact, he was the only one that could make her laugh at all those days. But despite the fact that he was what made her feel whole, despite the fact that she fell more and more in love with him every day, they didn't do anything beyond that more than once. But as the women at her Catholic boarding schools had preached again and again, once was all that it really took.
On the night that it had happened, it had been two days since her return from the hell that she had endured at the hands of the cronies of Andrew Nichols and Elizabeth North, and she had been so defeated that she hadn't known where to go for help. She had called Jake, but had been a tearful mess when he had arrived, and had yelled and screamed at him until he wrapped her in his arms and pressed a kiss to her head while promising that everything was okay and he was going to make sure it stayed that way. She hadn't even bothered to inform him that that was in no way a promise that he could keep before she had pressed her lips to his, and while he had been rightfully hesitant, her tears had won out in the end. It amused her still, the fact that Jake Ballard could face bombers and terrorists and other extremely unsavory people with a charming smile that made them want to spill all their secrets but gave a crying woman whatever she wanted with no questions asked. It was a reminder that, in some ways, he was just like other men.
The positive pregnancy test in her hands was a reminder that he wasn't like other men in other ways, because it had been one time and yet there was a baby with his DNA (and hers) growing in her uterus at that very moment in time, which further explained the exhaustion and the tears and the fact that she was craving mint chocolate chip ice cream despite the fact that she despised mint chocolate chip ice cream. In fact, it was the only explanation needed for her. That wasn't the problem at the moment. The problem at that moment was that while she and Jake were much more stable than they had been in the past, they were still broken. He was still living with the trauma he had suffered at the hands of his father and her own, and she was still coping with the warning signs of PTSD. They had never really discussed children, not even when they were on the island, and the very few times that they had, they had come to a mutual agreement that the conversation could be placed aside to be had when it was more pertinent to their lives. She had been on birth control, something that he was aware of, which meant that this shouldn't have even been happening. But it was, which made that conversation extremely pertinent and even more terrifying than it had been in the past.
She shoved the pregnancy tests into a plastic bag as though they were evidence when she heard the door close. Jake was the only person other than Huck with access to her keys, so she knew immediately that he had returned from his briefing with the President. She tried to breath in and out to calm herself, but the air got caught in her lungs for a long enough period of time that she started having a coughing fit, which was certainly not the way that she had wanted to inform Jake of her whereabouts. She shoved the pregnancy tests aside just as he made his way through the open door, a look of confusion and concern on his facial features.
"Hey," he greeted, smiling slightly as he leaned against the doorjamb. "I figured you'd be asleep by now. It's pretty late." He squinted slightly and struggled to meet her eyes when she looked absolutely everywhere but at him. "Did you have another nightmare?" he asked gently. "Because if you did, you should probably take some sleeping medication. That's what the doctor prescribed it for." When she still refused to meet his sighs, he let out a deep breath. "Okay, Liv, I'm really confused right now. When I left this morning, everything was fine. Well, not fine, but better. Did I do something? Because if I did, you need to tell me, because I can't apologize or fix it if I don't know what I did." He smiled gently, taking her face in his hands. "So. Just tell me."
"You know how I've been feeling exhausted lately, and the doctor thought that it was just a result of the medication they used on me not being completely out of my system?" When he nodded, she drew in a deep breath to continue. "Well, while you were gone today, she called me in, said that she didn't think the effects would be that long-lasting. She took blood and urine samples to see if she could figure out what was going on. She, um, she did." Olivia let out a soft, shaky laugh. "The hospital lab called me a few hours ago, right before they closed. I'm pregnant."
Jake's eyes widened, but Olivia rushed on before he could even speak. "I'm less than seven weeks, I know, but you're the father, and you deserve to know. And also, you, you pretty much live here, so it would be hard to hide it." She breathed in shakily once again. "I know that we never really talked about this, that we always said we'd discuss it when the time came, but if I've learned anything in the past eight weeks, it's that nothing seems to happen on our schedules. I mean, when we met, I was a mess, and I had no idea what I was doing, and I was scared, and you, you're one of the best things to happen to me. And I feel that way again now. I think that this baby could be one of the best things to ever happen to me. But if you want an out, if you don't want to be involved or you don't feel the same way, please tell me. Tell me now, because I don't want this baby to deal with loss the way that I had to deal with it, and if I'm going to lose you, I want to know now. So, please, if you're out, then tell me you're out."
Jake looked at her seriously. "Can I talk now?" he asked, a teasing lilt in his voice. She nodded sheepishly. "Good." He smiled before growing serious once again. "I've never wanted to hurt the people in your life that have hurt you in the past more than I want to at this moment, because it destroys me that you have to ask if I want to stick around for this. It destroys me that you still wonder if I love you, and I know that that's not on you, I know that's on your parents and everyone else that's walked away, but it still, it hurts me. It hurts me because it hurts you. Haven't you realized by now that you and me, we're in whatever life throws at us together. You and me are in this together, not because I feel an obligation or because of my job, but because I love you." He took her face in his hands. "I love you, Olivia. I don't know how many times I will have to say that before you realize that I love you means I'll never purposefully leave you, but until you tell me to stop, which I pray that you will never do, I will say it as often as you need to hear it. And today, I love you means that I love this baby too. It means that you're not getting rid of me unless you force me away from your life. It means that for me, this thing that you and I have got going is what I consider an example of forever." He brushed a curl away from her temple. "So. I love you, Olivia. Will you let me do that?"
Her answer was obvious long before he asked that question. "Okay."