AN: To the reviewers who were all excited about Fitz winning the election on his own, have patience, I totally have a plan… :)
Mellie has been wracking her brain all night - since she couldn't sleep, she figured she may as well try to utilise the time for something useful.
She knows she's right about Fitz - he is, to use Cyrus' point, a cannonball right now. He's a damn problem too, because they don't know which direction he's aiming his ire in. She knows that she and Cyrus are going to take the brunt of it - they're his wife and long time friend, respectively, and he's going to get completely stuck on this whole 'they didn't believe in me' thing.
Verna is replaceable - there are plenty of other people around with her access and a jet who would be only to keen to take her place. Hollis Doyle is almost as replaceable - the campaign would miss the money he's throwing at them, but he's not the only loaded Republican around. It wouldn't be a total loss. Olivia and Cyrus, the package deal that they are, are almost as essential to the campaign as the candidate himself - Fitz, no matter what he may think, cannot get himself elected without their help - if he turns on them, fires them, they're going to have one hell of a problem on their hands - in fact, they'll be dead in the water.
Lastly, she comes to herself. She's the key to his image, she knows, but Fitz is not his father. If he reached his limit - and this situation she knows may well be the catalyst for that - he might try divorcing her, fighting for the kids because he thinks it's the right thing to do, rather than stay because doing anything else could have a negative effect on his PR.
She's counting on his ambition and near crippling daddy issues to fall far enough in her favor that he'll be… persuadable on the matter. She's pretty sure he won't try leaving her, not this close to getting everything he's ever wanted, but she also knows she can't get complacent. She bites the inside of her cheek, knowing what she has to do, and fires off a quick text to one of the few people she knows would do anything for her.
Mellie:
I need your help.
Private:
Are you in trouble?
Mellie:
I'm not sure yet. I need you to send me a fairly old file - it's from almost twenty years ago.
She hears the door open and close, and she looks up from her phone to see Fitz walk through the door for the first time since he'd stormed out of the conference room yesterday.
"Where were you?" She asks, locking her phone and setting it down on the desk behind herself, knowing she'll have to wait until the argument she knows is coming is over to finish her conversation.
"Out." He replies, throwing his jacket onto the bed.
"Out where?" She pushes, feeling a familiar sensation of irritation directed at the man before her creeping up her spine.
"Don't worry, honey, nowhere that would compromise our public image," He answers coldly, "I know how you feel about that."
"Fitz, for the last time, I- We were trying to help you!" She argues in frustration, throwing her hands in the air, not able to understand why he doesn't see that.
"You were trying to win." He counters. "And no, not 'for the last time'. You do not get to be angry that I'm acting like you owe me an explanation for this. Because newsflash, Mellie: you do."
"Owe you- I have explained-"
"Excuses are not explanations!" He explodes, and they both stare at each other from opposite sides of the bed, completely unable to cross the gulf that currently sits between them. "I'm going to take a shower," He mutters eventually, "We have a breakfast meeting with Cyrus and Liv in half an hour."
Harrison is still technically on probation, so though she knows he's a damn good lawyer and it's her instinct to offer his services to Fitz, she can't. Instead she calls Steven, who, though is just as good of a lawyer as Harrison, he's not on probation - so he's twice as busy.
"I need you to do me a favour without asking too many questions." She says instead of 'hello' or 'how are you' when he picks up.
"And by 'too many' I assume you mean 'any at all'." Steven replies drily in the worn in English accent she's always loved so much.
"I might be bringing someone to see you in the near future." She tells him as she paces back and forth across the room, voice pitched low on purpose. These days you never know who could be listening in.
"I'm assuming you mean lawyer-me. Off book?" He asks, knowing not to ask her for details over the phone.
"Yes. And initially, I think so. He's… well, you'll know him when you see him." Olivia says cagily, tucking the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she stops pacing and holds up an off white pantsuit and a gray one, trying to decide which one to wear for tomorrow night's town hall debate.
"Okay… just so I know, is this criminal or personal?" He's pretty sure she'll answer this, but he also knows that if the answer is anything close to a grey area, she probably won't risk discussing it on an open line.
She hesitates, catching sight of herself in the mirror on the back of the closet door, and she hears the words Divorce and Defiance roll through her head, followed closely by Accessory and Adultery.
"Personal." She eventually decides on before admitting, "It is possible that things might… spill over,"
For a moment she imagines her face, all their faces, splashed across the front page of the Washington Herald and the New York Times, her name and all their names spilling acidically from the lips of Kimberly Mitchell and Anderson Cooper accompanied by vicious, shocking headlines and words like attempted election rigging and felony and betrayal of the American people and jail time and she swallows forcefully. "But I'm hoping it won't come to that."
"If I know you, and I like to think that I do, it won't." Stephen tells her confidently, and she nods, even though she knows he can't see her.
"I have to go, I'll call you again in the next couple days so we can talk details." She tells him, catching sight of the time on the alarm clock by the bed. She needs to meet Fitz, Cyrus and Mellie in Cyrus' hotel room for a breakfast meeting in fifteen minutes.
"Okay, Liv. Talk soon."
She hangs up the phone and throws it onto the bed, deciding on the gray suit for the debate, wondering all the while how exactly they're going to get out of this one.
Olivia is alone in one of the hotel of the week's conference rooms, watching back the footage from the last speech Fitz had made at a campaign stop two days before whilst making notes in a jotter.
The door opens and Fitz pokes his head into the room, stepping inside entirely and closing the door behind himself when he realises she's alone. She picks up the TV remote and presses pause, setting it back down and trying not to smile as she watches him lean up against the door. He's wearing light coloured chino trousers, a white shirt open at the collar and a dark green v-neck sweater, and he looks good. Really good.
She's somewhat distracted from her reverie by the memory of the world's most awkward breakfast meeting that had taken place a couple of hours ago, and she opens her mouth to say as much, but he starts talking first.
"I think… I think I need to drop out." His hesitant but sure words startle her from her train of thought completely.
"What?" Liv asks blankly, like she's sure she hasn't heard right.
"Of the race." He clarifies. "I just… I feel like half the time I can't tell who I can trust and, it's like I said last night, I need to figure out what my options are - I mean, even if I win this now, how am I going to be able to trust that I won it on my own, and not because they tampered with the voting booths?" Fitz asks, still looking crushed by the news.
"Fitz…"
"I need to drop out of the race, I need to ask Mellie for a divorce and I need to pull my children out of that damn ivory-tower school she sent them to. I need to sort my goddamn life out and I can't do it all and run a successful presidential campaign at the same time." He says bluntly, and she sucks in a deep breath, swallowing forcefully.
"Okay." She nods, putting her pen down.
"Okay?" He asks incredulously, now feeling like he's the one who hasn't heard right.
"Okay." She offers no further comment, and her reaction - or lack thereof - leaves him feeling slightly lost for words.
"Wow. I thought I'd have to work harder than that to convince you." He tells her, still utterly shocked. She stands up, so that they're closer to being at eye level with one another.
"Look… I'd love for you to stay in this race and win it in spite of everything that's happened but…" she looks up at him through her eyelashes, hesitating, "But it's like I told you at that fiasco of a town hall debate rehearsal… you spent so much time saying and doing and being what you thought everyone else wanted, that to think you'd taken control of everything only to have it stolen from you again… maybe now is a good time to walk away rather than push it through and try to do everything at once… and risk losing. Sort things out with Mellie and the kids and then, hey, who's to say you can't run again next go around?"
He stares at her for long enough that she starts to feel like she must have said something wrong. Before she can apologise or ask what she said, he walks slowly to her side and raises one hand to cup her cheek and asks, "Have I told you lately that I think you are completely amazing?"
She smiles and shrugs just a little, "Well, it's not like a girl can hear that too often…"
His grin matches hers and he leans down to kiss her on the lips.
"And hey, maybe next time I run…" He trails off, eyes searching her face. He doesn't have to finish his sentence in order for her to know how it ends.
"Maybe." She agrees softly, allowing them both this moment of hope and happiness and nodding as he leans down to kiss her again.
The next day he sets up the speech with the help of Olivia and Callum - an up and coming intern volunteering for the campaign who's so eager to get on the Governor's good side that asking him to help organise a secret press conference was a challenge he was only too keen to arise to.
Liv will be sorry enough to see him go that she's actually trying to figure out if there's a way to keep the kid around once the campaign ends this evening… if the cameras go live and he hasn't sold them out to anyone - even in their own campaign, she might have to put some serious thought into it.
So she decides to test him.
"This stays between you and me, you got that?" She asks, quiet but firm.
"Of course." Callum nods immediately.
"Cal, when I say, 'you and me' I mean that. Once this conversation is over, the Governor, you and I are going to be the only three people in the world who know why we're calling this press conference. Cyrus and Mellie and all of the other staff are in the dark about this, so if this gets out we'll know it was you. Do you understand?" She asks again, staring him down and daring him to lie to her.
The kid looks freaked out, but he holds his own she'll give him that. "Yes."
"As of this evening, Senator Langston will be the new Republican ticket to back."
The poor thing looks like she's just told him that not only is Santa a hoax, but so is the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny, too.
"What- why?" He asks in complete shock.
"There have been some… complications… behind the scenes. That's all you need to know for right now, okay?" She explains carefully, watching his reaction like a hawk.
"O-okay." He says, nodding slowly.
"That's all, Callum." She tells him as a dismissal, and as he's leaving, Fitz walks into the doorway of her make shift office in the campaign headquarters.
The two men pause beside each other, the Governor looking at the intern questioningly.
"I just wanted to say, Sir, it's been an honour to work for your campaign." Callum says, looking ever so slightly shocked when Fitz offers his hand to shake.
"Thank you for all your hard work, Callum."
The poor kid looks like he's going to faint when he realises that the Governor knows his name, but he nods and leaves the room like he's all in a hurry.
"What was that about?" Fitz asks, closing the door behind himself.
"I decided to test him... see if it's worth trying to find a way to keep him around when all of this is over." She tells him as she looks up from the files in her hands on the press attending the speech tonight and notices that he's shut the door, "Open the door, Fitz, people will talk."
"Whatever would they talk about?" He asks slyly, crossing the room to her side.
"Behave, Governor Grant." She says sternly as he kneels down in front of her behind her desk anyway, running his hands up and down her legs, "I mean it, in less than ten hours you're dropping out of the presidential race and the scrutiny you'll be under by tomorrow as to why exactly you're doing that, makes the way things are now look easy."
"That won't last forever though." He points out, wrapping his hands around the backs of her knees and pulling her forwards in her chair.
"No," She agrees, "It won't. But this," she gestures between the two of them, "Is exactly the kind of thing that people will use as a scapegoat reason in the absence of any other."
He sighs and lets his head rest against her knee for a moment. "I know. I know. I just." He stops talking and leans back, standing up slowly, "I know."
He takes a step back and shakes his head like he's clearing the thoughts out of it, and it's a damn good job he does, because Mellie chooses that moment to walk through the door. Her face is set in a dark frown which is replaced by a look of surprise when she sees Fitz.
"Fitz, what are you doing in here?" She asks with a fake smile and ice cold eyes.
"Liv and I were just talking." He replies, holding her gaze for a moment before he turns to Olivia and says, "Thank you for your help today. I'll drop my speech off in the next couple of hours and you can fix it for me."
"That's what I do." She replies evenly, and they share a brief smile before he leaves without sparing his wife a glance.
