I put a lot of thought into this chapter and into how to resolve this issue. I hope I am doing it justice. This is how I would hope/like to see things go if Fitz and Liv would ever actually talk about what happened to Verna. Leave me a review and let me know what YOU think!

"What?", Olivia whispered, staring at him incredulously.

"I killed Verna.", Fitz repeated brokenly. "I killed the Supreme Court Justice."

He watched in agony as Olivia dropped his hands and scooted towards the opposite end of the couch, away from him. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words came out. Fitz noticed the trembling of her hands and the pure and utter shock that had taken over her face.

"She was very sick…", Olivia trailed off, almost as if she was trying to explain the death in a more plausible, more acceptable way.

"She was.", Fitz admitted. "But ultimately, her illness didn't kill her. I did."

Olivia watched the pain and regret that colored his features, and tried to make sense of his words. It couldn't be. It simply couldn't be that this kind-hearted, good man had killed a human being. And not just any human being – a Supreme Court Justice.

"I don't understand, Fitz.", she cried and got up to pace the length of the room. "I don't understand what you are trying to say here."

"I want to explain, Liv. Please sit down."

She huffed, but it lacked any kind of anger. When Fitz looked up at her to see if she was returning to her seat on the couch, he noticed that she looked unbelievably sad, disappointed, and confused. Finally, she reclaimed her seat, but stayed as far away from him as the couch would allow.

"When I went to see Verna at the hospital, I was shocked at how sick she was. I'd had no idea. She looked like she was not going to live much longer, and she knew that. I sat with her and talked to her and then… she… she told me about Defiance, Liv. She's the reason I found out about the election rigging."

Even though Olivia didn't reply, he knew by the look on her face that she had assumed that much. Cyrus and Mellie would have rather cut their tongues out before ever telling him about it and Hollis would not have gained anything by sharing the secret. Verna was the only possible leak, and Fitz knew that Olivia had figured that out a long time ago.

"I wanted to leave.", Fitz continued brokenly. "I almost left, but then she told me that she wouldn't take your secret to the grave with her. She wanted to come clean, Livy. She wanted to reveal to the world that I am not supposed to be President, that the election was rigged."

The thought alone terrified Olivia, and she made no effort to control her facial expressions in front of Fitz. They had come so close to being caught, and it would have been Verna's fault. Olivia could not begin to wrap her mind around the fact that the Supreme Court Justice, who had been a more than willing participant in the rigging, would have thrown them all in front of the proverbial bus.

"She was going to talk and I couldn't let her. I couldn't let her do that to me, or to any of you."

"What did you do, Fitz?", Olivia asked, and she sounded completely terrified.

"I took off her oxygen mask and I… I held her down until she stopped breathing. I killed her, Olivia. I killed her to protect myself, and you, and this godforsaken presidency. I killed a woman because she was going to be honest."

Olivia watched as a tear slid down his face at an agonizingly slow pace. Fitz dropped his head so she could not see his tears and ran a hand through his hair. He wanted to look at her, see her reaction to his words because he knew her feelings would be visible through Olivia's eyes.

"I was never going to tell anyone about this.", he finally continued. "I was going to take my secret to the grave, but I couldn't – I can't. We promised each other to do this right this time, and I couldn't keep going with this secret still between us. But I am sorry, Liv. I'm sorry I am not the man you thought I was."

"We do things.", Olivia whispered after a long moment of silence. "To fix people and situations… we do things."

Fitz regarded her with confusion and wordlessly urged her to continue.

"When a client walks into my office, and we take the case, we begin doing things that are wrong. Sometimes they are morally wrong, sometimes they are incredibly questionable. And sometimes… sometimes we do things that are illegal.", she explained with a voice that sounded eerily detached. "I promise my clients to do everything in my power to fix the problems they cannot fix on their own, and I am good at my job. I am great at what I do, but I am not always proud of what I do. I destroy lives to save others, Fitz. We do things."

It took him a long time to let her words sink in, but finally he understood what Olivia was trying to tell him.

"I don't want you to look at me for the rest of your life and see a murderer. I don't want you to hate me."

"You aren't a murderer.", Olivia replied, and for the first time her voice sounded a little stronger.

"I killed Verna Thornton."

"But you are not a murderer."

"How can you say that, Liv? How can you look at me and not see what I have done?", Fitz asked incredulously.

"I see what you have done. But I also see why you did it. Verna was dying, Fitz. You killed a woman that only had a few days to live."

"And I took those few days from her. I am guilty of murder, Livy!"

"No. You are guilty of protecting yourself at all costs. You did what you thought was necessary."

"Why can you be so calm about this? How can you ever forgive me?", Fitz inquired, sounding almost angry now.

It's not my place to forgive. Will you ever be able to forgive yourself?"

He didn't want a fight, and all he had ever wanted was for her to understand what he had done and why he had done it, but Olivia's reaction surprised, almost shocked him. She looked pained by his admission, but the shock had left her face and was replaced by sad understanding. It was times like these that Olivia Pope was a complete mystery to the President. When he didn't answer her question, Olivia continued.

"I can be like this because I understand why you did what you did.", she admitted. "I'm not saying what you did was right, but it doesn't make you a bad person, Fitz."

"I feel like one, Liv. How could I not?"

"Why did you forgive me for the election rigging?"

He didn't hesitate to reply: "Because I finally understood what made you do it. That doesn't mean I agree with it – I never will. But I do understand."

"Exactly.", Olivia nodded.

They looked at each other for a long time, and Fitz allowed himself think about what she was really telling him. Did she forgive him? Did she forgive him for killing?

"I will never say that what you did was right, because it wasn't. There may have been other ways of solving the issue before Verna could talk, but at the time, you didn't think about that. You were shocked and scared and you did what you thought needed to be done. I could never hate you for that."

Fitz scooted forward slightly, hoping she would meet him half way. After only a moment of hesitation, Olivia joined him on the middle of the couch and allowed his body to fall against hers. She remembered the last time she had held him like that on the day of his father's funeral, and his obvious pain hurt her just as much now as it had back then. He didn't cry this time around, but his entire body had gone weak in her arms, and she knew it was because he had carried the weight of his actions around for so long. Olivia gently stroked his scalp with her fingernails and cradled him much like he had done to her back in the hospital.

"Thank you for telling me.", she whispered against his curly hair.

Fitz didn't move out of her embrace, but lifted his head to look up at her.

"I don't deserve you.", he said sadly.

"I think we deserve each other. We both made such terrible decisions, but that doesn't make us bad people. It makes us human."

"Does it?", Fitz sighed. "Haven't we done so much that we no longer have the right to call ourselves good people, Liv?"

"Maybe this is exactly why we deserve each other. We are good and bad. We make incredible mistakes, but we rise above them to do something right, something good. It's what allows us to keep going despite the harm we have caused."

"Will it stand between us?", he asked, and Olivia knew he was referring to Verna's death.

"No.", Olivia assured him with conviction. "I will never forget what you did, and you will never forget it either. But it will not stand between us, because you were honest with me. You could have kept this a secret, Fitz, and unbeknownst to me, it would have always stood between us. Your honesty means the world to me."

He remembered their mutual agreement then to take things slow and one step at a time, but when she looked down at him with so much love and understanding, Fitz could no longer hold back. Leaning up slowly to allow her time to pull back if she chose to do so, he gently placed his lips against Olivia's. She gave in to him immediately, holding his face in her small hands as they kissed. Their kiss was full of longing and love, and in that moment Fitz felt more connected to her than he ever had. After a while, Olivia broke away from his lips, and smiled at him sadly.

"Do you think I could stay here with you tonight?"