It was the day after the bomb explosion, and everyone in the White House was still on edge. Sure, living in DC and being around politics, you hear of bombs exploding, unfortunately it has become a common things. There had never been a bomb that had exploded so close to them, that is what was messing with their heads. The Washington Monument wasn't that far away from the White House⦠had a person tried anything closer to it. Who knows what would have happened.
Fitz shook his head at the thought; he hated when his mind wandered to those 'what if' scenarios. They weren't good. He instead focused on the work in front of him. One of the newly elected Senators from Arizona had just been caught on a sex tape. As if he didn't have enough on his plate already, idiot politicians were going to add more stress to already large pile.
The first thing he did was talk to Cyrus about the video; how much damage control was needed? Was the girl of age? Was he intoxicated? Was the girl his wife? The necessary questions needed to ask when something like this comes up.
According to Cyrus, the Senator was drunk during the filming of the secret. The woman in the video was not wife, shocker Fitz thought. The woman was however, a legal adult but just by three years. A 25 year age gap, great Fitz thought again.
"What is wrong with American politicians and their need to always have an affair with a woman who are twenty years younger than them, and then record it?"
"A mid-life crisis, sir." Cyrus responded to Fitz's hypothetical question.
"Well I'm sick of it. If you want to have an affair, great that is none of my business. But I am sick and tired of seeing drunk politicians all over the news. This is disgusting. What the hell kind of position is that? Cyrus, is he tied up right now? Why the hell am I watching this?!" Fitz asked, disgusted at the video playing.
It was obvious that he was getting frustrated with all the idiot politicians who can't keep it in their pants, and who feel the need to mess up whatever good they have going for them. It was getting to a point where if you don't have an affair, you're not really a politician.
He put his head in his hands, and sighed. What is this world coming to?
He knew he wasn't innocent, and he doesn't have a place to talk. He too, was having an affair. But it wasn't just sex or a mid-life crisis for him. It was love. And he had too much respect for Olivia to videotape it, and then post for everyone in the world to see. He would never embarrass her like that. You don't do that to someone you love. If you're going to have an affair, why not just get divorced and move on?
He shook his head with disgust at American politicians and picked up his phone.
"Liv, are you busy?"
"Too busy for a quickie. I'm sorry, we're still managing the Washington bombing case."
"Is that all you think of me?" He asked jokingly, with a slight of seriousness.
"Oh c'mon, you know I'm just teasing. What do you need?"
"I'm sure you've seen the video of Senator Roswell by now. I need you on it. He's a great Senator for our party, and I need to know if there is any hope left of keeping his place on the Senate."
"Consider it handled." Olivia said her catch phrase into the phone.
With Olivia on the case, Fitz knew that whatever secrets were lying in the Senator Roswell sex scandal, she would dig up. There was no one better, that's my girl, he thought.
Before contacting anyone about the Senator Roswell case, the first thing she did was make sure that the Washington bombing case was controlled. Olivia had Brenda dealing with 911 Tipline calls. (That was the FBI's job along with the DC Police, but the only way anything would get accomplished, is if she was working on it. Cyrus had granted her permission to use the phone calls. Brenda and employees below her tracking down the information.) Olivia had placed another worker on trying to fix the landscape damage as soon as possible; she was scheduled to make another statement/speech on the bombing in two days and the people needed answers she intended to give.
She then called her real team.
Four Years Ago
"I don't know, I just want to help people. I just want to make people's lives better."
One of Olivia's law school classmates had asked what she wanted to do not that she was an actual lawyer, and that was the best answer she could come up with. She didn't become a lawyer to become rich by squeezing money out of people; she hated that. She really did want to become a lawyer to help people, she just had to figure out how.
"That's really refreshing to hear. Stay in touch, okay! I'll miss you!" The friend said, and then she was gone, packing up her apartment leaving with her boyfriend.
I'll never see any of these people again, Olivia thought.
Her dad had left her a college fund; he started saving for her college the day she was born. Even though they stopped speaking somewhere between her junior and senior year of college, he still wanted her to have it. "I just want the best for you, Olivia."
Getting a full ride to James Madison University, she didn't need any of the money she had in her college fund. So it sat, for another four years collecting interest. When she had decided she wanted to go to law school, Olivia had earned another scholarship for having a 4.5 GPA all through college. She went to Georgetown Law School for three years, and hadn't spend a dime.
Now graduated, with 0 debt, she was now looking to collect that college fund and turn it into a future. The only thing she had to do was ask her dad for the money, which was way harder than it looked.
After begging and arguing and debating and yelling for two long weeks, Olivia's dad had finally agreed to let her use the money. The money was for her after all, and since she had a scholarship for college, couldn't she use it how she see fit?
Once the money went through to her bank account a week later, she went office hunting.
She didn't know exactly what she wanted to do with her law degree just yet, but she knew she would need an office. Working for someone else and a boring law office was not going to happen. Opening up her own firm was the only other option. Her relator showed her the perfect office; it was right in
downtown DC, overlooking the National mall. It was built in the late 1800's but the company who owned the space had gone out of business. The outside was real brick from the 19th century. It was, in her opinion, one of the best office buildings in DC. So instead of buying just one floor, she bought the whole building? She had a lot of money, why not use it? She even had some left over to spare.
Next came, finding the associates of Olivia Pope & Associates.
Olivia found Huck outside a subway car. A man was harassing her, and he came to her rescue. At first she thought the man was homeless, which he was at the time. When she took him to get cleaned up (haircut, shower, clean clothes, etc) she learned of his technical skills. His words being, "I was an Army Technician. I could break into any software, I used to be the best." Olivia never asked what happened to get him here, but that didn't matter. What happened in your past, is not relevant when trying to change your future. She knew he was a perfect fit in that moment.
Lindsay Dwyer, aka Quinn Perkins, became a member of Olivia Pope & Associates when a bomb went off in California. Olivia had read up on the details of the explosion and learned that the girl's boyfriend was in it, and she was the one who allegedly set it off. Digging deeper, she learned that she had just passed the California State Bar Exam, and graduated from Stanford Law. She invited her to DC, and had her argue her defense case for Olivia. From that moment on, Lindsay/Quinn was a member of Olivia Pope & Associates, or OPA. Olivia was on her defense council, and her new employee walked away free, with her only charge, 36 hours of community service.
Abby Whelan was a close friend of Olivia's from law school at Georgetown. After graduation, the friends said their goodbye's and Abby moved away with her boyfriend and then the two got married. Olivia went and celebrated with her friend on her newfound love. Just a short time into the marriage, Abby's husband, Charles became angry and aggressive and abusive. Causing her collarbone to break, her jaw shut closed from excessive bruising, and more injuries surrounding her face and chest. Once Olivia caught news, she threatned Charles, made him sign a divorce. "If you sign these divorce papers easily, she will go easily. Didn't you say you wanted to be a Senator one day, Charles? I mean, it's a family tradition for Putney men to become Senator's of Virginia. Wouldn't it be a shame if the long line of Putney Senators ended with you? Bye-bye daddy's money. So help me God, if you do not sign these papers I will leak this story to every news outlet in the country. I will turn every woman in this country against you, no woman will ever look at you again, let alone marry you. Think long and hard about how much you want to be a Senator, Charles because I can make that come true or take it away before you can even come up with a defense. Sign the papers." Of course, he signed. Olivia took Abby in, and let Abby live in her apartment while Olivia was on Fitz's campaign trail. Once Abby got enough confidence to get on her own two feet, she was the newest member of OPA as an investigator.
Harrison Wright, was a native of DC. He was selling luxury cars in Takoma Park, when he caught wind of Adnan Salif, an insider trader. His lifestyle instantly changed; he and Adnan hit it big. The pair made a fortune out of the business, before they were eventually caught. Salif had to serve her time in prison however, Harrison did not. Out of his eight year sentence, Harrison only served six months thanks to, Olivia Pope. Ever since he got out on probation, he has been loyal to Olivia, never asking questions, just doing to his job to catch the bad guys. He quickly became Olivia's second in command. He was sharp, with a quick mind. He was great under pressure and knew how to twist someone the right way to get what he wanted. He was made for DC politics.
Now that she had her team of magicians, she just needed to figure out what she wanted to do them with. She didn't want to open up a boring law firm with boring clients and boring cases; no, Olivia wanted to help people. Why not help the scummiest of DC politicians? They were rich, would mean they would pay well, they would be high-profile cases, and she was after all, helping someone. As much as she hated helping the bad guys keep the image clean, she did. It's for the good of the republic, she told herself whenever she hated a new client.
And so, Olivia Pope became the greatest 'fixer' of all of American politics.
Present Time
Olivia knew that she couldn't be the White House Director of Communications and keep OPA open, but she couldn't bear to close down her dream, and fire her team. So she kept it open, leaving Harrison in charge. Whenever there was an extreme high profile and controversial case, Olivia would step in and offer advice. The Senator Roswell case, was the case that she had to step in on.
"Okay people, we are taking on the Senator Roswell case courtesy of the President. President Grant wants to know if it is possible that he can still keep his seat in the Senate. We need to control this situation, fast.
Huck, I need you tracking down who posted the video. I need you to see how many people have seen it so far. It's only been online for eight hours, hopefully it's not too many.
Abby, I need you to find any dirt the Senator's wife may have on her husband. See if she may have posted it and see if she knew about the affair. I also need you to find out how long this has been going on.
Quinn, I need you to find out everything we can about the girl in the video. Her name, her age, her job, if she went to college, how she met the Senator. Everything you can.
Harrison, you're with me. Let's go people!"
Harrison and Olivia made their way to the Blair House, which is across from the White House. The President's guests stay there, and Senator Roswell was unfortunately a guest. The two had a meeting with the Senator, sort of a damage control meeting.
"Senator, I am Olivia Pope from Olivia Pope & Associates, and this is Harrison Wright, one of my associates. President Grant has specifically assigned us to your case. The best way to handle this is for you to tell us the truth about everything regarding the video. Anything you hold back or lie about is only going to make my job harder, my fee more expensive, and it less likely for you to remain on the Senate, understood?" He nodded, "Good."
"My wife and I have been married for twenty years. I still love her will all of my heart, but it's no longer the passionate love we once had. The only time we show affection is in front of the cameras. We started dating our senior year of high school, that's a long time to be together. The love is still there, just the romance fizzled away. So I had an affair with a 23 year old bartender. She is young, and goofy and willing try almost an sex position we can think of. We met almost seven months ago, and have been meeting at a local hotel twice a week ever since then. That video was recorded almost three months ago. One of the bill's I had been pushing for in the Senate had just passed, and I wanted to celebrate. My wife was out of town visit our grandchildren, and I wanted to have some fun so I met up with Mindi, my mistress. We ordered multiple bottles of champagne to our hotel room, and I guess somehow we recorded us having sex. Oh God, my wife! My poor wife, she doesn't deserve this. She never cheated on me or hurt me. She doesn't deserve any of this." The Senator put his hands in head and cried.
Olivia and Harrison exchanged a look. "It's okay Senator Roswell, just keep going."
He took a moment to breathe, "I don't know why this was leaked now. Mindi and I have been doing great these last few months. We had a fight a few weeks after that night, but it was about her partying too much with an ex-boyfriend. I know she was just my mistress, but I still get jealous. Ever since then, we've been pretty solid. We started meeting up frequently since then. Once the video was leaked, I broke it off with her. I didn't want to cause my wife any more pain."
"Is that all Senator? Is that everything you need to tell us?" Harrison asked, giving him one last chance.
He gulped, "She's a Democrat." Harrison and Olivia exchanged another glance
"Here is what you're going to do. You are going to make a formal statement, saying how sorry you are for hurting your wife and your family, and disappointing your people. You are not going to talk of resigning until after the statement. You are going to say how much you love the people of Arizona and how much you want to make this up to them, and then say you will do whatever is necessary. After that, we wait to see what the media says of it. You will do public events at charities, hospitals, galas, everything you can to boost your ratings up. Even sign a bill you don't necessary like in order to boost your ratings. Do not make any sort of post on social media until your statement has been made. Are we clear?" Olivia instructed him.
"Yes ma'am."
"Good, we will meet you back here in two days to come up with your statement. Remember, no social media, no anything!" And with that, Olivia and Harrison left the Senator alone with his thoughts.
Once outside, Olivia and Harrison discussed the client. "I hate men." She said, which made him chuckle. Once they were back at the office, Olivia called Cyrus.
"It's handled, the Senator Roswell case. It's handled don't worry about it anymore."
Damn, it felt good to be Olivia Pope.
