Author's note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first installment. In response to one of the comments I got on chapter 1, I don't think Fitz is solely responsible for the way Olivia has changed or for the breakup, but the argument in the last scene of this installment reflects Mellie's perspective. I think both Fitz and Liv bear a lot of responsibility for things going wrong, although the circumstances and the people around them (Mellie, Cyrus, Liz North, etc) are as much to blame as anything. I think if they are ever to get back together and make it work, both of them need to be called out for and accept responsibility for their mistakes. That is what I am aiming to do with this fanfic. I am not aiming to pin the blame one way or the other, but to explain their actions in a way that I feel the writers failed to do fully last season. Warning: this chapter contains a slightly smutty flashback scene. I don't think it is explicit enough to require an M rating but be advised.

OLIVIA'S APARTMENT (November 14, 2016 at 12:30 AM)
Olivia comes in, pours herself some wine, sits on the couch and calls Mellie, struggling not to cry.

"Mellie, it's me," she says quietly. "I've been thinking, and I think you should accept Cyrus' offer," she says resignedly.

"I've been thinking the same thing," Mellie admits. "That way I'll be in line to become president if they find enough evidence to impeach him."

"Yeah. In the meantime, you won't be as high profile. If you want to give things with Marcus another go, you'll have time before it becomes a public spectacle. And if it does go public, we'll handle it. That's what I should have said in the first place instead of interfering."

"It's alright, Liv. I understand why you did it. You know me well enough to know that if I had to choose between love and power, I'd choose power. Besides, I guess I don't really have the right to be mad. I tried the same thing to get rid of you eight years ago."

"Wait, are you talking about the offer I got from the White House counsel's office?" Olivia asks, caught off guard by Mellie's revelation.

FLASHBACK: 8 YEARS EARLIER

Olivia glances around to make sure the hallway is clear before using the key card Fitz snuck into her hands earlier.

As soon as she opens the door, he grabs her and pulls her in, his hands and lips roaming all over her.

"Mmm…someone's impatient tonight!" she remarks as he pushes her down onto the bed and starts unbuckling her jeans.

"I'm anxious to show you what you'll be missing if you take that job in the White House counsel's office."

"Fitz…" she chides.

"Look, Livvie, it's a great opportunity for you. I can't ask you to turn it down. But that's not going to stop me from spending the next few hours showing you how much I want you to stay, or what you'll be giving up if you go," he says, flashing her a wicked grin.

Olivia giggles, then pulls back. "Fitz, stop. I've been thinking about this. I applied for the job over a year ago, and I never heard back. So why now?"

"Because you're brilliant, and amazing, and somebody's noticed what a miracle worker you've been on this campaign?"

"That's what I'd like to believe. But I have a nagging suspicion that someone pulled some strings because they know about us," she says.

"Why? Did someone say something to you?" Fitz asks, slightly alarmed.

"No. It's just my gut…we haven't been discreet enough."

"We've been very discreet!" Fitz insists. "But tonight, I've got a corner suite, Mellie's back in Santa Barbara, Cyrus is too busy trying to hide whatever he's got going on with one of the reporters covering the campaign because he thinks I don't know he's gay, and the rest of the staff is staying two floors down," he says with a grin. "So I don't plan on being discreet at all. In fact, I plan on being the opposite of discreet," he says teasingly as he pulls her campaign t-shirt up over her head and starts trailing kisses down her neck, then her chest, then lower.

"Fitz…Fitz!" Olivia cries in faint protest, knowing she is going to lose this battle as she always does.

…

PRESENT DAY

"That was before the convention! You knew during the campaign?" Olivia asks Mellie, surprised.

"I wasn't sure, but I suspected it. I saw the way you looked at each other."

Olivia smiles sadly.

…

8 YEARS EARLIER

Five hours after the last flashback, Olivia wakes up at 5:30 am and smiles as she looks at Fitz, who is still sleeping peacefully next to her. Wanting him to get some sorely needed rest, she sneaks out of bed and starts retrieving her scattered clothes from the floor.

"Where do you think you're going?" Fitz complains. Olivia smiles.

"I was trying to let you get more sleep," she explains. "We don't need to be up for another hour, and I have to get back to my room before anyone else wakes up. But since you're awake, I might as well tell you that I made a decision."

"Oh yeah?"

"I'm not going to take the job at counsel's office," she tells him.

"You're not?" he asks, trying in vain to contain how relieved he is.

"I made a commitment to this campaign, to getting you elected," she says nonchalantly.

"Really? You're staying because you made a commitment?" Fitz questions, pulling her back onto the bed. "It has nothing to do with the fact that I had you quivering and moaning and begging for hours last night?"

Olivia blushes furiously.

"I'm staying because my work is not yet done here," she says with a smile. "But if I'm going to stay, we need to set some ground rules to make sure nobody finds out about us," she says sternly as she perches herself up on his bare chest.

"Ground rules?"

"New rule number one: no staring in public. Rule number two: no sitting next to me on the bus unless we're actually going over something related to the campaign and there are other people around. Rule number three: no more pulling me into closets backstage during campaign stops. Rule number four: no passing X-rated notes disguised as edits to your stump speech."

"Oh come on! I was discreet about that."

"I mean it! I am trying to get you elected. I can't do that if…"

"If I get you all hot and bothered during the day thinking about all the things I'm going to do to you at night?" he says suggestively as he starts nibbling on her neck while his hands start roaming her still naked body.

"Fitz, stop! I'm serious. We have to be careful, especially now that we brought a bunch of Langston's people on staff. You don't think they'd jump at the chance to have you replaced as the nominee if they found out about us?"

"Alright, fine. But if you expect me not to stare at you in public you cannot wear those shorts you were wearing the other day in Orlando. Between the way your legs looked in those shorts and the way the white campaign shirt was sticking to your skin because of the heat, it's a miracle I was able to get through my stump speech."

"Fine. Noted," Olivia agrees with mock annoyance.

...

PRESENT DAY

"But it didn't work. You didn't take the bait," Mellie says over the phone. "So you were right about Marcus, and where his priorities lie."

"I'm not sure if I was right," Liv admits resignedly.

"Liv, are you okay? You sound like you've been crying." Mellie asks.

"No, I...I'm fine," Olivia insists. "I'll set up a meeting for you with Cyrus tomorrow to discuss the offer." She hangs up quickly, leaving Mellie confused and a little concerned.

OPA
Huck shows Abby how he found the video of Cyrus arguing with Vargas, hoping to satisfy her that it's authentic.

"Here are the logs for the file...you can see it hasn't been written to since Thursday night, when we first got it from the FBI. I'm the only one who has touched this copy since we got it...Quinn and Charlie are looking at other parts of the video on other computers since there's over 3,000 hours of footage, but I'm the only one who knows the password for this computer. I'll give you the entire activity log for the computer if you don't believe me."

"No, it's okay. Thanks, Huck."

"Anytime," Huck says, barely masking his irritation.

"What? Don't look at me like that."

"Look at you like what?"

"Like I'm being disloyal. Like I'm a bad person for doing my job. Look, I don't want to believe Liv is up to dirty tricks any more than you do, but unlike you guys I don't have the luxury of pretending that she hasn't changed."

Huck shakes his head. "You're the only one who's pretending, Abby. You're pretending you're here because you're worried about her."

"I am worried about her. You should be too!"

"If you were worried about her you would have been there when she asked."

"When? You mean over the summer, when I couldn't leave my job in the middle of a national security crisis because she wanted an extra body to help fix some stupid 2-day news story about Teddy being used as a prop that Liv was more than capable of handling herself?"

"You don't understand. Liv didn't need an extra body...she needed you. You know as well as I do that Liv never would have let a reporter get near Teddy unless something was throwing her off her game. Whenever Teddy was around it made her anxious, sometimes to the point of panic, but it took us a while to figure out what was making her anxious because we didn't know what you knew. When we finally pushed her on it she wouldn't tell us what was wrong, but she said 'get Abby, she can help'."

"You didn't tell me that she was having anxiety attacks! Quinn didn't tell me any of that when she called. She just said Liv wanted my help dealing with the fallout. I guess I didn't put two and two together," Abby admits guiltily.

"Whether you put two and two together or not, the point is we told you she needed your help. And there was a time that would have been enough for you. I know you have an important job now and I'm happy for you. But you don't get to come in here and pretend like you're still one of Liv's gladiators, because you're not."

Abby scoffs and turns to go, then whirls back around. "She's hurting herself. You know that, right? Win or lose, at some point it's all going to come crashing down when she realizes that what she thinks she's fighting for isn't really what she wants. So if I'm not allowed to worry about her, I sure as hell hope you guys are."

OVAL OFFICE - NEXT DAY (November 15, 2016 at 11 AM)
Fitz walks into his office and is surprised to find his ex-wife waiting for him.

"Mellie. To what do I owe the pleas..." he stops when he sees the death glare on her face.

"Did you accuse Olivia of planting evidence against Cyrus?" Mellie asks angrily.

Fitz looks caught off guard. "I didn't accuse her of anything," he says flatly. "She looked me in the eye and promised me that she wasn't setting Cyrus up and I told her I believed her. I don't know why she sent you here to interrogate me about it."

"She didn't send me. I came on my own, after spending the last several hours trying to figure out why she was so upset, and then finding out it's because you let Cyrus manipulate you into believing his ridiculous conspiracy theory about her."

"I didn't let Cyrus manipulate me into anything," Fitz insists, looking surprised when Mellie tells him how upset Olivia was. "I didn't want to believe him, but we both know Olivia's desperate to win this...oddly, more desperate than you seem to be. I don't want to believe she would fabricate evidence to frame Cyrus, but I needed to be sure. She's changed, Mellie...I can see it, Abby can see it, and if you weren't so blinded by your own ambition, you'd see it too."

"And whose fault is that?" Mellie snaps.

"Excuse me?"

"You did this to her, Fitz! You broke her!"

Fitz shakes his head angrily. This is a conversation he never thought he'd have with his ex-wife.

"I broke her? She left me, not the other way around!"

"Oh please. You didn't fight for her! You spent years telling me she was the love of your life, and then you let her go without a fight. You promised her you were going to leave me for years, and yet you came crawling back time after time to save your political career until she forced your hand by going public. Then you tried to push her into a shotgun wedding on the same day we signed the divorce papers to save your presidency yet again, and you punished her for not wanting to go along with it."

"Damn it Mellie! Do you even know what she did to avoid that 'shotgun wedding'? She fabricated release papers to get her father, the man who KILLED OUR SON, out of prison in exchange for his help blackmailing the Senate committee."

Mellie looks shocked, realizing for the first time that Olivia never told Fitz about her own role in releasing Rowan.

"She didn't tell..."

"She didn't tell you that part, did she?" Fitz snaps angrily, misinterpreting what Mellie was trying to say. Mellie sees an opportunity to protect herself and seizes on it.

"No...I guess she didn't," Mellie stammers.

"Are we done?" Fitz asks. Mellie nods and turns to go. She hesitates for a moment in the doorway, agonizing as her conscience nags at her, something she never thought would happen when it came to Olivia. After a minute, she turns around.

"Wait!" she calls out.

The president looks up from the papers he had started reading.

Mellie hesitates for another moment as Fitz stares at her. "She didn't...I don't think Olivia told you the whole story," she admits.