I changed this up a bit and decided to include a couple Olitz flashbacks along with the story of how her Gladiators find out about the relationship. Which means the story went from K+ to at least T. This part takes place immediately after the last chapter, while Stephen is driving Liv to the office at the beginning of 1x04.
For the purpose of this story, I am assuming: 1) Fitz's first election was in 2008 (since Barack Obama seems to not exist in the Scandalverse, and Fitz is term-limited in 2016 just like Obama); and 2) Fitz did not win California in his first election (because any Republican who wins California would not need to rig voting machines in Ohio). He may have won it in his re-election due to the sympathy vote.
Just to be clear, I know that Fitz really does love Olivia, but her thoughts here reflect how she felt when she found out about Amanda Tanner. It was clear the way season 1 was written that the Amanda ordeal made her question, at least for a while, whether she actually meant anything to Fitz or whether he was just using her like he used Amanda. So that is her state of mind at this point in time. This is not intended to be "Fitz bashing".
"Just to be clear, when you say I'm not crazy, you mean that you..."
"Had an affair. With the president of the United States. Yes," Olivia chokes out. Her heart is pounding and she feels herself shaking as she hears herself actually say those words out loud for the first time. "Okay. I did it. I said it out loud," she says, feeling both disbelief at her own words and relief that she finally said them.
"Yup, you did it. Now you just need to breathe and remember that you're talking to someone who's in absolutely no position to judge," Stephen reassures her.
"Right. Okay," she says as she struggles to calm down.
"Was this...when he was president, or during the campaign?" Stephen asks after giving her a minute to catch her breath and himself a minute to process.
"Both," Olivia says sheepishly.
"So this went on for a while then?" he asks.
"Almost a year," she says, her voice conveying disbelief at her own answer. "It started right before Super Tuesday and ended..."
"When you left the White House?" Stephen asks. "Let me guess, that's when his wife found out?" She looks surprised that he figured that out. "Liv, I've been with plenty of married women," he reminds her. "It usually ends when the husband finds out."
Olivia rolls her eyes. "It was my choice to leave," she says. "She didn't...nobody forced me to resign or threatened me or paid me to go away."
"So besides the First Lady, who else knows about this?"
"As far as I know just his secretary, Lauren, the son of one of his Navy mates who worked advance during the campaign, a handful of private security agents he hired during the campaign and transition, and a few Secret Service agents."
"That's why he declined Secret Service protection during the campaign and hired private security, isn't it? Because people he's paying directly have more incentive to sneak you into his room and stay quiet about it?"
"And because it earned him political points for saving taxpayers money and helped deflect criticism of him as rich and out of touch," she says slyly.
"Brilliant," Stephen says, impressed. "Your idea?"
"Maybe," she says with a grin. "Even though there were legitimate political reasons for using private security, he paid them out of his own money, not campaign money, just to be safe. We made sure that no campaign or government funds were ever used solely to cover up the affair."
"Liv, I don't care about protecting the president. That's not your job, remember? I care about protecting you. Cyrus Beane keeps coming by the office and threatening you to try to get you to back off Amanda. Does he know?"
"He does now. Amazingly, he didn't know until I came to the Oval to confront the president about Amanda...that's when I realized that it didn't..."
"Realized what?" Stephen probes.
Olivia buries her head in her hands, embarrassed. "I've dealt with dozens of women like Amanda," she laments. "And every time, I tell them that they are not special, that the politicians they were screwing were just using them and it didn't mean anything," she laments. "But somehow, I was stupid enough to believe that I was special, that what I had with him was somehow different and it did mean something..."
"You don't know that it doesn't," Stephen chides. "And you're not stupid. But you can't represent Amanda. It's a conflict of interest."
"It's not a conflict," Liv insists. "I can represent her better than anyone else can because I understand what she's going through better than anyone else."
"I understand that," Stephen says. "But it's still a conflict. The Monica Lewinsky affair came to light during the Paula Jones ordeal. If Amanda goes public, it's likely your name will become public too."
"I know that. But that's true whether I represent her or not."
Stephen opens his mouth to protest, but they arrive at the office and are forced to table the conversation.
This next part takes place on the ride home from the office after meeting the dictator general.
"Liv..." Stephen says cautiously.
"I don't want to talk about it," Liv says, the wine having worn off and her defenses back up.
"I know you don't want to talk about it, but..."
"But nothing!" she snaps. Stephen backs off and says nothing. To his surprise, she reopens the conversation after driving in silence for a couple minutes.
"Look, I'm a big girl. I knew the risk I was taking. I've always known there was a risk of my name coming out and you know me well enough to know that I will not compromise my representation of Amanda because of it. Honestly, I'm amazed we were able to keep it secret for so long. I guess people didn't suspect it because I don't fit the profile."
"The profile?"
"You know me. I'm a workaholic who throws myself into whatever campaign or crisis I'm working on. Before it started I usually declined invitations to go out at night with the rest of the staff because I had more work to do. On the rare occasions I did go out with the rest of the staff I was the person who wouldn't shut up about the campaign when everyone else wanted to talk about anything but politics. So when I started using work as an excuse to stay behind and spend time with him nobody thought anything of it. I guess most people assumed I wouldn't be reckless enough to jeopardize the campaign by getting in bed with the married white Republican candidate I was killing myself to get elected."
"Liv, stop..."
"I guess you could say it's karma," she continues. "For ten months I helped him sell the illusion of being a happily married family man. He even told me that I underestimate how good a politician he is when I said that they seemed to be doing better. And yet somehow I was still stupid enough to believe the lies he told me and delude myself into thinking that he was somehow different from all the other politicians I've handled and that I actually meant something to him. To think, there was even a point when I was concerned that he might be throwing the election because he wanted to be with me," she laughs dryly, amazed at how delusional she was. "I honestly thought I knew him, and I know how ridiculous that sounds..." her voice trails off as she struggles not to cry.
"Liv, stop," Stephen chides. "Just because he got involved with Amanda after you left doesn't mean that you don't know him, or that you weren't special to him."
"Stephen, he lied to my face! When he asked me to handle Amanda, I asked him if the rumors were true and he looked me in the eye and lied effortlessly."
"Isn't it possible that he lied because he was ashamed to admit it to you, because he does still care about you? Look, you vetted him thoroughly before taking a leave of absence from Grunner & Morrison to work on his campaign, right?"
"Yeah..."
"And as far as you could tell, he had never been unfaithful to his wife at that point, right?"
"Not as far as I could tell. I guess we'll see if anyone else comes out of the woodwork if Amanda's story goes public. Why?"
"From what you've told me, he was in a sexless marriage for years before you ever met him," Stephen says. "And as far as you know he never cheated before he met you...so I don't think you can assume you didn't mean anything to him. Obviously there was something special about you that made him willing to risk his chance to become president of the United States."
Olivia shakes her head. "He told her he loved her," she says, fighting back tears. "He bought her a dog, and he called her a nickname that...look, it doesn't matter, okay?" she says, cutting herself off because she doesn't want to tell Stephen about the ring. "It doesn't matter if what he felt was real or whether what I felt was real. He means nothing to me now, so you don't need to worry about my ability to represent Amanda."
"Alright," Stephen says. He knows she is lying to herself but he plays along. "You know, we might be able to use your history with him to her advantage."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you have any evidence?"
"No, but I'm sure it's out there. We were sneaking into each other's rooms late at night on the campaign trail for 9 months during the election and two months during the transition. I'm sure there's footage in a security camera somewhere. We always carried campaign binders with us to make it look work-related, but if someone was looking they could put two and two together. And it's possible that there's a tape from the security camera in the Oval on the night of his inauguration. He said one of his Secret Service agents deleted it, but there's no way to be sure there isn't a copy somewhere. Like I said, if it comes out it comes out."
Stephen looks impressed at her last revelation, but resists the urge to comment on it - for now. "Liv, stop. You're not thinking strategically here."
"No!" she says firmly when she realizes what he is suggesting.
"Liv, it's the smart move and you know it. As far as we know Amanda's involvement with him was brief, brief enough that people might forgive it as a mistake like they did with Bill Clinton. But if it comes out that he also had an affair with a top campaign advisor for almost a year, while selling the illusion of being happily married, not to mention..." Stephen hesitates to go on.
"Not to mention that I'm black, and 14 years younger than he is, and the one who helped him fake a happy marriage..." Olivia finishes for him.
"The point is, he can probably survive Amanda. But if you decide to go public too..."
"No!"
"I know you never would decide to go public. But the fact that you could gives you leverage."
"No, it doesn't," she says adamantly.
"See? This is why you can't be objective."
"Yes, I am. It doesn't give us leverage because I have as much to lose as he does if it comes out and he knows that. He knows that I've always been more afraid of it coming out than he was. If it comes out, I'll be exposed as a fraud, and a hypocrite, and a liar."
"You're not any of those things. What you are is a total badass who once again makes me feel inadequate."
"How could I possibly make you feel inadequate after what I told you tonight?"
"Come on, Liv! I pride myself on the fact that I've had sex with some fabulous and often unavailable women in a variety of unusual places. Behind the curtains at a concert with 20,000 people in the audience, in a federal courtroom, in the freezer at the morgue. But you've had sex and possibly made a sex tape with the leader of the free world on the desk in the Oval Office!"
"I never said it was on the desk!" she says indignantly.
"Well, am I wrong?" he asks eagerly.
"No," she admits, rolling her eyes and blushing a little.
"So you see why you make me feel inadequate," he explains.
Olivia bursts out laughing through her tears. "I guess that's one way to look at it," she says gratefully, feeling a little less heartbroken and less down on herself after hearing Stephen's spin on her predicament.
"What about Air Force One?" he asks. "Tell me you've joined the mile high club on Air Force One."
"Not on Air Force One, no," she says with a chuckle. Her mind wanders back to Fitz's campaign plane about two months before the election.
FLASHBACK - SEPTEMBER 2008
"Sir, we are wasting millions of dollars a week in California while Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado and Florida are in danger of slipping away," Cyrus urges.
"No! I said no! We are not pulling out of California!" Fitz says angrily. "Any other brilliant ideas? No. Okay. Then if you'll excuse me, I have a headache and I'd like to get some rest."
When Cyrus doesn't respond Fitz gets up and walks into the little bedroom at the end of the plane and shuts the door.
Olivia comes over and sits down next to Cyrus. "No luck?" she asks. Cyrus shakes his head frustratedly. "Go talk to him. Get him to change his mind," Cyrus demands.
"Cyrus, he's not going to budge on this. Not yet. Let's give it another couple weeks."
"Another couple weeks? We are bleeding millions of dollars a week advertising in a state that hasn't gone Republican since Ronald Reagan because he can't accept losing in a state his daddy won. You need to talk some sense into him. You're good at talking sense into him."
Olivia seems slightly surprised and anxious, but quickly recovers. "I talk sense into him by figuring out when to push him and when not to," Olivia explains. "He's not ready to be pushed on this."
"This is important, and time sensitive. I have to let our guy at Cumulus know by 3 pm whether or not to cancel next week's ad buy in Los Angeles and San Diego. Please, just go talk to him and try to get him to see beyond his wounded ego on this."
"You want me to go knock on the door to his bedroom?" she asks as if it's the strangest idea ever.
"Come on. He doesn't really want to rest. He just says that when he wants to get away from an argument."
"Fine, I'll try," she agrees reluctantly. She picks up a stack of polling data and walks to the front of the plane and knocks on the door to the bedroom.
"Governor? I'm sorry to bother you, but..." she says as she knocks.
Fitz opens the door and gestures for her to come in. As soon as the door is shut his lips attack hers. She gives in and indulges for a minute, then pulls away.
"Stop," she chides softly. "I came here to talk to you about California."
"Then go ahead. Talk to me about California," he says with a grin as he starts unbuckling her jeans.
"Fitz, no. Are you crazy? These walls are paper thin, not to mention that people will notice if I disappear for too long," she whispers.
"You didn't disappear. Cyrus sent you to try to convince me to pull our ads out of California. So, convince me. Walk me through that polling and ad buy data you brought and try to convince me," he whispers. He pulls down her jeans and pushes her onto the bed, where he starts running his hands up and down her bare legs.
"I told Cyrus, we are not giving up on California," he says loudly enough for anyone standing outside the little bedroom to hear. Simultaneously, he pulls Olivia's t-shirt up over her head and starts undoing his own belt buckle. "We can win California. Or at least force Reston to spend money defending it. Right?"
He sits back down on the bed, drapes her bare legs over his lap, and starts kissing the skin just above her bra. He looks at her expectantly and motions toward the polling she is carrying, silently prompting her to give her pitch for why he is wrong.
She gives him a look of disbelief. It's hardly the first time they've talked about the campaign while fooling around. They've had interview prep sessions, strategy sessions, and even heated arguments about the direction of the campaign in various states of undress while doing wicked things to each other. But he can't seriously expect her to articulate her argument without so much as a gasp, not while his hands and mouth are doing these things to her!
She knows she should pull away but can't help take on the challenge.
"Look, I know you want to compete in California, and your strategy of forcing Reston to spend money there made sense two months ago," she begins. She closes her eyes and bites her tongue to keep from gasping as he dips his fingers into her lace panties.
"It makes sense now," Fitz counters, thoroughly enjoying watching her struggle to make her argument without making any sounds in response to what he's doing to her.
"No, it doesn't," she manages. She looks down at the papers in her hand and wills herself to focus on them even as she is squirming in his lap.
When she sees the devilish grin on his face, she decides to turn the tables a bit, and make this equally torturous for both of them. She stands up, removes her underwear, yanks his boxers down and then straddles him facing away from him, slowly lowering herself onto him before picking the papers back up to show him.
"If you look here," she says as she starts slowly moving up and down, "our ad buys in California are costing $350,000 a day. Reston's pulled his ads in all but San Francisco because he feels increasingly confident about the state. He's up by a comfortable 6 points, which is less than what John Kerry won the state by in 2004 but large enough that he's comfortable calling our bluff. Meanwhile, we're wasting money there that we desperately need to defend North Carolina and Virginia, both of which are closer than we expected."
"This wouldn't even be an issue if we hadn't taken...public funding," Fitz grumbles, squeezing her legs and breasts hard to suppress the sounds he wants to make as she rotates her hips in his lap. "Whose...brilliant idea was that?"
"Mine...and yours, and Cyrus'," Olivia says as she stands up, turns around, and straddles him again facing forward. "We all...decided that if you opted out of public funding it would feed right into...Reston's narrative that you're a spoiled rich kid who's trying to...buy it with Daddy's money." He smiles as he recalls her convincing him to take public funding and accept the spending limits that came with it while straddling him in a similar position months ago when they were alone late at night in her office at the campaign headquarters.
"Right...okay, so...California?" Fitz manages, increasingly struggling to stay focused as she picks up her pace. "We can't...win there?"
"We can't win there," she says sadly, looking deep into his eyes as she conveys the disappointing news.
"Okay, just...give me a minute to think about it," he says, giving them both the time they need to enjoy each other without having to carry on a coherent conversation. She nods and leans forward, crashing her lips onto his as he squeezes her hips and guides her movements with one hand while gently pulling her hair with the other. He watches as she throws her head back and contorts her face in a way that he know means she's reached the edge, then allows himself to let go and collapse onto the bed behind him, pulling her into his arms as he does.
"Alright. We'll pull our ads from California. But try to do it without it becoming a big story," he agrees.
"We'll pull the ads over a course of a few weeks, and leave some staff on the ground for now," she agrees, laying on the bed and catching her breath for a moment before reaching for her clothes. He sits up and plants soft kisses on her neck and back as she puts her jeans back on.
"I don't like it, but if you say it has to be done it has to be done," he says. He seems sad about the decision but convincing him was easier than she had expected. Too easy. Then it dawns on her.
"You did this on purpose, didn't you?" she whispers. "You knew we had to pull out of California, but you picked a fight with Cyrus and then stormed in here so you could get me to come in here."
Fitz shrugs, giving her a wicked grin. "Like I said, I trust your judgment," he says.
She rolls her eyes and gives him a half grin, half glare as she puts the rest of her clothes on.
"As much as I want to win California, I don't want to lose the election because I didn't know when to give up on my home state," he says. "Didn't Al Gore make that mistake?"
She turns to go but he pulls her back one last time. "If I lose the election, we'll never get the chance to do this on Air Force One," he whispers in her ear. She chuckles and gives him a quick kiss and a suggestive wink before leaving the room.
I hope you like this installment. Future chapters will jump forward in time and explain how and when Huck, Abby, and Quinn found out about Olivia's relationship with Fitz and how they reacted and may include more Olitz flashbacks as well.
