A/N: So glad y'all are still enjoying this story-which, for the record, is a lot longer than I originally intended it to be.
As mentioned at the beginning of all this, I've been rewatching Scandal on Netflix this summer, and it struck me today how different the world of this fic is from the world Shonda creates in Season 5, and yet how I unwittingly created some similarities, too. I love how brave Shonda is, to take Olivia to this incredibly dark place all throughout Season 5. Lord knows Liv is incredibly hard to like at times, but what guts, to make your character into a hard, angry shell of a woman and then challenge yourself to somehow bring her back.
I hope I've taken Liv to a slightly less dark place in this fic, but I still want to continue to play with her weaknesses, her insecurities, because those don't automatically melt away, even when her romantic dilemma is solved. However, weaknesses can go on the back burner for the moment - this chapter is all about the fluff and smut, because honestly those two deserve some of both at this point. (Also because even when they purport to not give a damn about each other, they are still so stupidly in love. Even in Season 5. That's an OTP, people.)
So...enjoy the fluff and the sexytimes!
They all take turns peeking out the back window in the nursery, even the Secret Service agents, They occasionally go out front to where their colleagues are still stationed, talk into their receivers to whomever is covering the back perimeter, but they seem quite clear on the fact that they're not supposed to go on the patio. Quinn wonders what kind of signal the president uses to imply that death would be preferable to interrupting.
They wait at least an hour, tiptoeing around, trying to get a glimpse of the three of them without being too obvious that they're moving the blinds. After the first half-hour, Quinn starts losing it.
"Maybe we should go out there," she suggests, but it's half-hearted. "Make sure they're not killing each other or something."
Huck doesn't even bother to respond, just cuts her a sideways look and keeps peering through the window. Abby shakes her head, sharp and more than a little worried.
"No," she says, decisively. "They work best when there's no one between them, when it's just the two of them and they can pretend the world isn't there. Trust me, I've seen it before."
Quinn purses her lips and thinks about that for a while. Then, she beckons the other two to the corner of the room, out of the way of the agents; they huddle in a ludicrous powwow over Mali's crib.
"I have an idea for when they finally come back in here," she says, and they lean in, listening.
Time to have this settled, she decides.
~f~f~f~f~f~f~f~f~f~f~f~
When they finally come back in, Mali still peacefully asleep on Fitz's shoulder, they're greeted by her team, standing in a block in the living room, flanked by his agents.
"We've come to a decision," Quinn announces coolly, and it's all Liv can do to not blink. God, but she's come into her own these past few years. Gone are the days of the scared girl who jumped at shadows and apologized for getting the wrong kind of coffee.
"And what is that?" Fitz fires back, and she raises a hand to his shoulder, presses in to remind him to play nice. A turf war isn't going to help any of them.
"You two need some time to...talk," Abby chimes in, and her fair skin flushes just a bit. Liv remembers exactly the kind of talking Abby is not-so-subtly alluding to, and she swallows convulsively. They are so not ready for this, not even a little bit -
"We'll take Mali, pick up some stuff for dinner," Huck says, very matter of fact, but it does not escape her notice that he's making direct eye contact with her, serious and determined. Her team, her family, are all there, and even though they're standing opposite her they are so very much on her side. They want this to work if she wants it to work, and they will move heaven and earth (again) to make it happen. Suddenly she is swamped with such a wave of love for them that it hurts.
"You will not - " Fitz begins, outraged at the idea of anyone taking away his daughter, but Liv pinches his shoulder through his suit (not gently), and nods.
"Thank you," she says quietly. They all share a look, decisive to a man, and Quinn's the one who steps forward, holds out her arms for Mali. She lifts her chin, looks at Fitz without challenge but without even a trace of fear, and Olivia remembers with a pang all the late-night dinners, the arguments through open windows, those strong hands on the steering wheel as the labour pains came and came. Quinn has been her partner through it all, and if anyone has a right to take her child for a few hours, it's she.
"Let her," she murmurs to Fitz, very gently. "It'll be all right."
He's struggling, she can see it in his face, but ultimately he trusts her, transfers their sleeping child to Quinn's waiting arms, and watches with such fear in his eyes that she aches for him.
"It's just for a little bit," she says, softly, pushes up on her toes out of habit to get closer to his ear. He turns, automatically slides his arm around her as he does.
"I know...I just..." and she nods, smoothes down his lapels with a practiced hand, gentling him.
"Just a little bit," she repeats, and motions silently with her other hand that they need to get going, now. She sees Abby's sheepish expression, the gravity in Huck's eyes, and then the door is closed and the house is quiet again. The agents have disappeared again to God knows where. They seem to be able to silently walk through walls on Fitz's command.
"So," he says, turning to face her, and his hands drift to her shoulders. "What exactly do they think we should be talking about?"
She lays her hands on his chest, fights to keep the nerves out of her voice. Does he really not get where this could go, or is he deliberately avoiding it?
"What happens next, I suppose," she says, and hates how tentative she sounds. This is what the last year has done to her, to the Olivia Pope who made and re-built and tore down worlds. It's a damn shame, she thinks regretfully.
He stares down at her, that very familiar furrow appearing between his eyebrows.
"We could do that later," he observes, and maybe she's imagining it, but there's a trace of suspicion in his tone. "Why did they really leave, with my daughter in tow?" (No, she definitely wasn't imagining it.)
In all the time they've been together, every scandal weathered and betrayal overcome, she's never once had to tell him in so many words what they could do with two or three hours on their own. Maybe she's losing her touch, and the thought almost makes her frantic.
"I guess...they were trying to give us some space…" she breathes, and she looks up from where she's got his coat in a death grip, and oh, there it is, that look, the one that turns her bones to water, makes her legs tremble under her. She hasn't lost her touch at all, and she doesn't even think about it, doesn't try to weigh all her options, just uses her grip on his coat to angle him over her, raises up to her toes so her mouth is right there.
"Plenty of space," she murmurs, lips a hairsbreadth away from his. He groans, deep in his throat, and then his mouth is on hers, hot and possessive, his hands streaking under her pretty pink wrap to curve fiercely over her waist. He hauls her even closer, never breaking his assault on her mouth, and when his thumbs brush the undersides of her breasts and one hand sneaks down to her hip, lower, she gasps loudly.
"Fitz," she pants, mindless, God, how does he do this to her, turn her to putty with just one kiss?
"Fitz - bedroom," she orders. Shaking, she tries to take his hand to lead him down the hallway, meets with resounding defeat when he simply reaches down and picks her up, those big hands steady under her thighs. She tilts her head back, floating, and is rewarded by the scrape of his teeth along the column of her throat, over her collarbone.
"Which way?" he grates, and she has to rack her brains to think what he's talking about before it comes back to her. (This man, this man who utterly destroys her.)
"Down the hall, to the - ahh, to the right," she whimpers, shameless, when his fingers slide higher, trace the firm curves of her ass. "Hurry, God, Fitz, hurry."
He doesn't waste any time, slams the door shut behind them and deposits her on the bed, leans over her with his arms bracketing her head. She knows that look, the hunger of it, the greed, and the heat of that look alone has nerves tingling over every inch of her skin.
"What do you want?" she whispers, boldly; it's a direct challenge, and when his eyebrows quirk up, she smirks at him, all teeth and come-and-get-me.
He stands up, picks up her left foot and slides off the little black flat she's wearing.
"What I want," he says, tone deceptively controlled, and he moves to the other foot, dropping her shoes to the floor, "what I want to is take off every inch of your clothes," he slides the wrap over her shoulders, pauses to skim a finger slowly along the strap of her camisole, "kiss you from head to toe, until you're begging me not to stop," she closes her eyes in desperate lust as his hands move to the waistband of her lounge pants, "and then make love to you for the first time in three hundred-" soft kisses, open-mouthed, on her hipbone, her inner thigh, her knee, "-three hundred and seventy-eight days. That, Olivia, is what. I. want."
She lifts her hands to the bottom of the camisole, tries to lift it for him, but his hands close warm and forbidding over hers.
"Don't," he whispers fiercely. "Let me. God, Liv," he pulls the soft fabric over her head, takes to her bra clasp with frenzied fingers, "we are never going to leave this bed. Never. I want you in every - " but he doesn't finish, because she cuts him off with a sharp kiss, all teeth and dominance and now, ends it with a nip to his bottom lip that makes him moan, frantic, into her mouth.
"Livvie," he rasps, and she loves that she can still do this to him, after everything, that he still wants her this badly, always will. She attacks his shirt buttons with more ferocity than skill, unbuckles his pants with sweaty palms. Then, suddenly, she's hit with a wave of horrible apprehension, unfamiliar fear in this very familiar position; she's reminded all over again that she has had a baby since he saw her last, for God's sake, that she's still slim but that there are curves that weren't there before, that she is not the same Olivia Pope who left him over a year ago. What if he -
She never gets to finish the thought, because he kicks his shoes off, hooks his thumbs in her lacy underwear and tugs. There she is in front of him, bared in every possible way, and her heart goes into overdrive. He just stands there, lingerie dangling incongruously from his fingers, and she cannot breathe.
"Liv," he breathes, and his eyes flutter shut, flutter open again, and there is such adoration on his face that she reaches for him without thinking. "You are - my God, I can't - there isn't - "
She cuts him off by grabbing his shirttails and tugging him over her, to her, kisses him again with the taste of victory in her mouth.
"I love you too," she murmurs and feels his body shudder at the words. "Fitz. I love you too."
And through the endless haze of what comes next, all she can think of is that finally, finally she is home.