His heart pounded stronger with every step. His long strides allowing him to walk effortlessly fast through the never ending hospital hallway, his agents barely keeping up and his chief of staff falling ever more and more behind.

From the moment Cyrus had spoken the words out loud Fitz had sprung into action, his only mission was to reach the hospital. Cyrus had tried to stop him by telling him Olivia was still in surgery and letting him know that he couldn't see her right away, by reminding him that as president he couldn't simply sit with her all day or even night, but he didn't care. He would be by her side. He had to be by her side. He needed to see her the moment she woke up. If she woke up.

Slow down, take a deep breath, stay calm they kept repeating, but their words had only fell on deaf ears. How could he stay calm? How could he possibly stay calm when he'd just been told that the one person he loves more than anyone, the one person he wishes desperately he could spend the rest of his life with, the one constantly haunting his thoughts, may very well not live to see another day?

He couldn't, and he needed desperately to know he hadn't lost her.

As they reached the end of the long, empty corridor he saw a nurse in full scrubs and cap standing by waiting for them. Knowing how he would react, Cyrus had called ahead even before he'd broken the news to Fitz and informed them that they had a patient who would be receiving a very VIP visit. Being used it by then the hospital had easily accommodated them and had prepared a room on a private floor where Fitz could go visit.

Now the nurse looked confidently at him, apparently unfazed by the presence of the powerful man walking her way, and waited as Fitz slowed to a stop in front of her, Cyrus quickly running up to stand next to him.

"Where is she?" Fitz demanded before the nurse could even open her mouth to speak, his voice gruff and his brow furrowed as he peered into the woman's eyes waiting for an answer.

"She's still in surgery Mr. President. She has a number of injuries which need to be treated and at this time our estimate is it will be another 2 hours before she's out."

"What happened to her? What are they fixing exactly?"

"I'm sorry, I can take you to the waiting room and give you small updates but as far as her medical condition I can only speak to fam - "

"He's her medical proxy." Cyrus jumped in before Fitz could answer, sensing the heated anger radiating from him with every passing second.

The nurse looked at him quizzically, not expecting the retort and Fitz turned to him eyebrows raised in response to his statement.

"It's right here," Cyrus said ignoring both of their reactions as pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. "I had it faxed over from her attorney as soon as I heard, your doctors should already have a copy as well." He handed the paper to the nurse and she took it, reading it carefully as Fitz continued to stare down the man next to him.

"How long have you known this?"

"She told me right after she did it." Cyrus answered, not meeting Fitz's eyes but watching the nurse instead. "It was soon after you got shot. She saw how difficult things had been for her because she wasn't considered family and she didn't want to put you through the same thing, I just don't think she believed it would ever actually come to that."

Fitz could only stare at him in confusion, the words losing their meaning by the shock of what they signified.

"She said she trusted you, "Cyrus continued, finally matching his stare, "that you would know what to do."

"I -I -" Fitz started but couldn't finish. Olivia had never uttered a word of it to him in all the times they'd spoken. The shooting had been well over a year ago and they'd ended things a number of times since; still it appeared she'd never opted to change her mind.

"Sir," the nurse interrupted as she folded up the paper and put it into her shirt pocket, "if you will follow me I'll update you on Miss Pope's condition."


"Come on Benji this is good stuff, I know you want to eat it." Olivia moved the spoon toward the baby's mouth like an airplane, trying to catch him by surprise as he laughed at the spoon-plane heading his way but every time she got close the child would close his mouth again not allowing an ounce of mashed carrots to get into it.

Olivia sighed and put the spoon down listening as Benji laughed once again, this time at her frustration.

"You love torturing me don't you?" She asked as if expecting an answer but the boy only laughed some more.

"You need help?" A voice asked surprising her. Olivia looked up to find Fitz standing by the door watching her with his hands on his hips and a smirk on his face.

Olivia smiled back and put the spoon down, pushing her chair away ready to give up.

"Do you think you could get him to eat?" She asked with a challenging tone.

"Mmhmm," he stepped forward and she stood up allowing him to take her seat as he cooed at the baby who was flapping his arms screaming 'dada' in excitement.

"Your first mistake was heating up the carrots. Benji hates carrots, don't you Benj?" In response the baby flapped his arms harder, smacking the his hands against the table in front of him hitting the spoon and getting carrots all over his hands.

"Seriously?" she asked as she took a paper towel and began cleaning the table.

"Yup, always has, probably always will." Fitz answered and grabbed Benji's bib to wipe the carrots off his face and hands.

"Are peas okay?" Olivia asked as she threw the towels away and reached for another container from one of the cupboards.

"Mashed peas are great, he loves those." She heated up the peas as he put the carrots into the sink and grabbed a clean bib, ex-changing the soiled one for a new one.

"I feel horrible that I didn't know that." Olivia confessed as she brought the peas to him.

"It's okay babe." Fitz said giving her a reassuring smile. "Remember when I forgot that Connor hates Oreos and brought two packets home instead of the chocolate chips only to have him throw a tantrum?"

She laughed vividly remembering the scene. She was pregnant with their third child and Connor, their oldest, had been begging for cookies all day, but with her constant morning sickness she didn't want to get out of the house. Instead, she asked Fitz to bring some home. Needless to say he had to go back out only minutes after arriving home and had to take the boy with him to make sure he got exactly what he wanted.

"Yeah, I think that's why Ally loves them so much." She teased and he laughed as he started to feed their youngest. She watched him silently for a moment, lost in the memories of their past adventures whilst also admiring how careful and caring he was with their son. It was one of the things she loved most about him, how good he was with their kids, all four of them. He was gentle and attentive and never too tired to play a game or tell one more story.

"You okay hon?" Fitz asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"Huh?"

"Your arm." He signaled with his elbow and she caught herself absentmindedly rubbing her left arm.

"Oh, yea, I think I bumped it on something." She responded and quickly ceased movements feeling somewhat self-conscous.

He looked at her for a moment, but then shrugged it off. "Okay, just be careful next time babe."

"I will – "

"Daddy, daddy!" she got cut off by a sudden small voice coming from outside. They both looked up to see their second son, Matty, standing near the glass door which led to the backyard with a football in one hand and knocking on the glass with the other as he waited for Fitz to answer.

"I'll be right there Matt." Fitz replied knowing that he was calling him to go back outside to finish the game he and the kids had started.

"Okay, don't take too long!" the 6-year old said and then ran back to meet his siblings who appeared to be playing a game of tag with 4-year old Ally chasing her oldest brother Connor around. The 7-year old easily outran his sister, but was quickly falling as soon as Matty came up behind her and chased him down.

"Do you remember when it was just two of them and all they wanted to do was watch Toy Story all day?" Olivia asked as they watched the scene unfold outside where a simple game of tag had rapidly turned into wrestling between the two boys with their sister cheering them on.

"Yeah and do you remember when Matty used to cry anytime he went outside because he didn't want to touch the grass?" Fitz replied.

"Oh yeah, that I definitely do remember, I had to hold him the whole time to keep you from playing 'watch the baby cry on command.'"

"He loves it now doesn't he!" Fitz laughed as Olivia tried to give him her best 'not amused' look but was soon also smiling.

They watched for a bit longer, while Fitz continued to feed Benji until they caught Ally falling back after she got a bit too close to her brothers' games. Seeing her face begin to change while the boys remained oblivious to it Fitz finally put the spoon down and got up from his seat.

"I better go back before it turns into complete chaos," he said giving Olivia a peck on the lips as she took the spoon from him and sat back down to finish the feeding.

"All right baby, have fun. I'll come out in a bit." She watched as he went directly to pick Ally up, who was holding her arms up waiting for him, and said something to the boys who immediately stopped their fighting and stood up with Connor grabbing the ball Matty had dropped earlier.

Going back to the task at hand Olivia dipped the spoon into the mashed peas Fitz had been feeding Benji and turned to the baby to find him smiling, looking as happy as can be.

"You're not going to give me any more trouble are you?" she asked as she moved the spoon to the baby's mouth and he took it without protest. "I guess daddy was right after all."


"What do you mean you can't tell me more?!"

"Sir, I've told you all we know for now. Her injuries are extensive, she'll recover from them in time but there was a lot of swelling of the brain. We were able to reduce it but she fell into a coma when she got here and hasn't woken since. We've run tests and there doesn't appear to be any permanent damage that we can see, but we won't know for sure until she wakes up."

"And when will that be?"

The doctor shook his head, his frustration as evident as the man's in front of him. It was his third time explaining this and they only seemed to be going in circles.

"It could be today, could be next week. Could be longer. We don't know for sure."

Cyrus sighed in anger and turned away from the doctor. Not knowing was not an answer, it wasn't an option. In his line of work there was never a point where he simply didn't know something, he always knew, he went out his way to know. It was what made him so great at it.

More specifically, not knowing wasn't going to get his president away from Olivia's bedside and back to the White House where he belonged.

"Tell me again, from the beginning, tell me everything."

The doctor sighed and hung his head, his hands on his hips as he prepared to tell the other man what he knew once again.

"She came in around 4pm this afternoon. It was a motor vehicle accident. According to the officers at the scene her car was hit on the driver's side by another driver who failed to stop at the red light."

"And the bastard is fine."

"He is. His air bag went off. He was examined here earlier but he only had a few scratches and as soon as he sobered up he was taken in."

"Okay, okay, okay," Cyrus said moving his hand in a forward motion to speed the doctor along. "What about Olivia?"

"Her air bag went off but because she was hit on the side the motion made her body bounce back against the side window. When she came in she still semi-conscious but we quickly lost her. There was a lot of bleeding which caused swelling, she received a severe concussion from the impact which is what we believe is keeping her from waking up now. She was never without oxygen and we believe we stopped the bleeding in time, but at this point there is nothing we can do but wait."

"What about the rest of it? Will she be fine once she does wake up?"

The doctor shook his head.

"She has a broken radius and a lot of bruising on the left arm. Two cracked ribs and a sprained right ankle. Apart from reducing the swelling in the brain and stopping the bleeding, there was also lacerations on the spleen, which we were able to fix. Like I said Mr. Beene, physically she's stable right now, it's just of matter of waiting for her to wake up."

Cyrus nodded.

"Okay, fine. Thanks. You can go now." He said waiving his hand dismissively.

The doctor narrowed his eyes, taken aback by Cyrus's reaction, then straightened up and left.

Once gone Cyrus turned back to the ICU room Olivia was in and looked down at his phone. He had calls to make; he needed to decide what his next move was. To figure out how he would get Fitz out of there, to make plans if the worst indeed did happen.

Not knowing what to do yet and not wanting to think about the latter he glanced back up and caught a glimpse of the image through the glass window.

Olivia was lying on a hospital bed completely unmoving. She had bandages wrapped around her head and a breathing tube down her throat along with various wires and machines all around her.

Cyrus stepped closer to the window, carefully peering through to see the full picture. Olivia's left arm was hidden completely under a cast, but her right was resting lightly on the bed. He followed it down to her hand and he found it enclosed entirely within Fitz's much larger ones. Looking up he found the man seated by her bedside, hunched over with her hand between his. When he looked at his face, he was surprised by what he saw, however. His mouth was moving, he was speaking to her, saying something inaudible from where he was standing, but what stopped him in his spot were his eyes.

He was crying. Fitz was crying.

It wasn't loud or obvious at first glance, but it was easy to see once you looked for it. His brow was tense with his eyes closed, shut tightly, and they were glistening with tears waiting to fall.

Cyrus turned away from the scene, unwilling to see more. He'd come back in the morning.


I'm sorry it took me so long to update, I had a bit of trouble for a bit deciding on some things, but I think I have it now. I promise it won't take so long again. Let me know what you think! :)