Chapter 25: Fitz and Olivia

Fitz could feel the tension leaving him the closer he got to the Residence. It had been a long morning in the West Wing. He had met with the Director of Secret Services and chewed her out about the security detail on Olivia. She apologized profusely and said that the agents had been re-assigned. She then went over the new protocol each agent would go through in the field. "They were young agents and should have had someone more experienced with them and as the department head, I take full responsibility for it," Julia hesitated a moment before adding, "The First Family usually isn't spread so far apart. We must provide the same level of expertise in five different locations across the country, Texas, Connecticut, Massachusetts and now Camp David."

Fitz narrowed his eyes, was she actually trying to make this his fault? "If it is too difficult for you to do your job and make your organization work, then I will find someone who can. If there had been someone looking to hurt Olivia and Maya last night, your apologies would mean absolutely nothing."

"Yes, sir, you are completely right. There are no excuses," Julia said a little shamed-faced. She then went over her weekly report on threats on the First Family that were compiled in coordination with the FBI and Homeland Security. "We've been hearing a lot of chatter lately among some white nationalists group, on white power music fan sites and some blogs that have raised concerns. We are taking some people in for questioning and tracking their movements."

Fitz felt his stomach tighten thinking about how some faceless forces out there could just decide to go after Olivia and Maya and how completely reliant he was on others to protect them. "I need you and your people to be better at this, Julia. I need to know that they are safe." How many random nuts and methodical haters would it take until one of them broke through their defenses? "I know, sir, I know," She looked like she genuinely felt the weight of her responsibility with his admonishment. "We will protect them. And we will not let the same mistakes happen again, sir."

"And let's make sure you don't make new ones, either."

The rest of the morning was full of meetings on other national security issues and the farm bill that stalled. He had to admit, he was doing a lot of clock-watching, willing noon to arrive sooner. When his last meeting went fifteen minutes overtime, it was all he could do not to just physically throw them out of the Oval Office.

When he finally got home, he found Olivia in the nursery saying goodbye to James. Maya was engrossed with her blocks. "I'll email the interview times. I really think you'll find someone that will work." James picked up Ella, slung his bag across his shoulder, and said goodbye to Fitz.

As soon as he was gone, Olivia wrapped her arms around Fitz's waist and buried her head in his chest. He asked, "Rough morning, huh?" She nodded her head, not looking up. "Want to talk about it?" She shook her head no. And so he just held her tightly. He could feel her chest rise and fall against his. She was real. She was safe and she was his. He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her back. When she finally broke off, he gently held her face and wiped the tears from her eyes with his thumbs. He gave her a soft open kiss and she smiled.

Fitz then picked up Maya and they walked to the dining room where lunch was already set up. Eventually, Olivia opened up about her meeting with Dr. Keyworth and his diagnosis. "Well, it sounds like this guy knows what he's talking about. You know, I met him briefly during that whole Heaven's Rapture fiasco down in Georgia. He seemed like a good guy. Maybe it's a good idea to keep working with him."

"Maybe," Olivia said noncommittally. She felt uncomfortable about the idea of opening up to anyone, she knew too many secrets. It would never be a completely honest conversation about her whole life, it couldn't be. However, if she could limit it to working out her immediate issues relating to the kidnapping, it might be worth it. "This just really messes up my plans. I need to get out there. I need to hold a press conference. I need to tell my story."

"You need to do what's right for you and not worry about the press, the narrative and all the other nonsense. Because it doesn't matter, Livvie. It truly doesn't. People are going to say what they want to say. Think what they want to think. We know the truth, and that's all that matters, really." He could see Olivia was about to protest and he cut her off. "I know we need public perception in our favor in order to accomplish certain things, but all that is secondary Olivia. It doesn't mean anything compared to you and Maya. It means nothing at all." When she heard her name, Maya looked up from the sandwich she was picking apart and smiled. Fitz smiled back and then teased her about how she was eating her sandwich, which made Maya laugh. Olivia silently observed their interactions and thought; this really is all that matters.

Still, she wanted to be heard. She had her pride, and didn't like the fact she hadn't been able to speak out against some of the misinterpretations and flat-out falsehoods relating to the kidnapping and her life. She wanted to at least say her peace. "Maybe I could do a print interview," she thought out loud. A one-on-one seemed less threatening to her than standing in front of a microphone with all of cameras on her. Fitz contemplated it, "That might not be such a bad idea, if that's what you truly want to do."

"If we could find someone that would do a friendly interview, put it in a paper's weekend magazine as a public interest story, I could ease myself into the shark infested waters. It would probably be the topic of all the Sunday morning talk shows." She laughed out loud when a sudden idea occurred to her, "We could get James to do a freelance interview for his old paper."

"Maybe he knows too much about us," Fitz said uneasily. He always felt a little uncomfortable having a formal journalist taking care of Maya.

"He wants to write an authorized biography on us, you know." Fitz rolled his eyes at that information. "Well, if he ever hopes to do that, he knows he can't throw curve balls at me right away."

"Cyrus will flip out."

"That's a bonus." Olivia couldn't help from letting a little of her contempt show at that point. Fitz immediately picked up on it, "God damn it, he told you didn't he? That son of a bitch!"

"Fitz," Olivia reprimanded watching Maya, who now seemed very interested in what they were saying. "Sorry," he said, glancing at his daughter. "I'm going to fire him," he stated calmly.

"You're not going to fire him," Olivia responded, defending her friend, in spite of her anger. "First of all, he's got too much dirt on you and second, he's very good at his job, even if he's a manipulative S.O.B. I told him I wouldn't say anything to you. Oops."

"What exactly did he tell you?" Fitz felt his blood boil, Cy did precisely what he told him not to do. Olivia downplayed the conversation, still trying to protect her former mentor despite his actions. Fitz told Olivia that he planned to call Mellie later that day to try and get her to back down. "I'm not sure there is anything really to say. Mellie can be very stubborn, even if it might not be in her own interest. I sure as hell am not going to apologize for having you here last night." Olivia was about to say something, and he stopped her, "No, I don't even want to hear it. You are not going to play martyr at the altar of Mellie's ego."

"I wasn't planning to. I was going to say, we probably need to start working on a contingency plan regarding Mellie. I'll talk to Harrison this afternoon, I was planning to stop by the offices, but I think I'll just call him on the way back to Camp David." She knew that there would be a lot of cameras camped out at her old office building, hoping for a possible shot of Olivia. "You can deal with Cyrus," Olivia had little patience with the Chief of Staff at the moment. Fitz agreed and they finished up their lunch chatting about things that had nothing to do with the kidnapping, his divorce or Cyrus Beene. Fitz was reluctant to leave, but he had an afternoon of meetings, so he gave Maya a hug goodbye and left Liv with a lingering kiss.

Olivia and Maya were taken out of the White House discretely; however, it was an open secret that they had stayed there that night. When Olivia called to explain that she wouldn't be doing a press conference to Harrison, she could tell he was annoyed. She did not disclose the fact she was diagnosed with PTSD, but really, it didn't matter. There was no time for having personal hang-ups in her former profession. Everyone, including the clients, just needed to do what they needed to do to get the job done. Olivia wasn't holding up her end right now. Harrison did like the idea of a print interview, even though it wouldn't have the same impact as getting her to do a press conference. She said she'd call James later about it.

"Do we have anyone working on the inside of Mellie's campaign," Olivia questioned.

"Lauren knows a few people she's worked with on other campaigns she's been tapping. And Huck, well, he's been finding out information through other means." Olivia was sure those "other means" included hacking and other spying techniques that would make the Watergate break-in look like child's play. She didn't want to know too much about it to maintain deniability.

"Put your ears to the ground today, I think something may about to go down," she said uneasily. Mellie was about to go off script in a big way, she could feel it. When they arrived at their lodge in Camp David, Buckley was there to greet them. The poor dog got left behind since no one knew they would spend the night at the White House. Maya ran up to him and gave him a big hug. They all went for a long walk on the forested trails of the compound. When they got back, she called James and floated the idea of an interview by him. He couldn't have been more excited, although he was obviously trying his hardest to maintain an objective cool exterior. He would come to Camp David the next day and interview her.

She spent the rest of the afternoon, going back and forth with James on the terms of the interview when she wasn't playing with Maya. Fitz wouldn't be there until late, but then he would be all theirs for three days. And his sons. Olivia felt a familiar nervousness in the pit of her stomach. She kept her fingers cross that the boys and Maya would get along. She had no idea how this weekend would go, and while she really needed them to love Maya, truth told, she secretly hoped they would like her too.

Fitz was in the middle of a long day, and his lack of sleep was catching up to him. He didn't see Cyrus until about three that afternoon. Fitz had a feeling that his Chief of Staff was deliberately avoiding him, so he told his secretary to summon him. "If you ever go behind my back like that and try to use Olivia again, I'm firing you, I swear to God."

Cyrus stood there with a stunned expression on his face. "This ship is full of holes, I'm bailing out the water as fast as I can, and you are talking about firing me? If I had any sense, I'd quit! Liv understands what's at stake here, although she's a little off her game right now. If she wasn't she'd know that the Mellie situation needs to be handled and if you can't come up with a couple of lies to placate your ex, we are all going down!"

They went back and forth for awhile until Fitz said, "Cy, this ultimately is between Mellie and me. Not you, and certainly not Liv. Using Liv to get to me is off limits to you now, Cy. You don't get to divide and conquer anymore. If you thought you experienced Siberia after I found out about Defiance, you will experience a nuclear winter if you ever do this again. Am I clear?" Cyrus nodded his head in assent and then left the room fuming.

Fitz had been trying to find the best time to talk to Mellie. His latest conversations with Olivia and Cyrus had just made him angrier with her, and he wanted to approach the conversation in the right frame of mind so that he might actually have an impact on the situation. He had made an effort to think back to the times when they got along, when they were friends and when they shared the same goals. He was twenty-nine when he met Mellie. Looking back at it now, it was an obvious set up by their families, but he didn't complain at the time. He wasn't like a lot of the younger students in his law school. He had seen a lot of the world and knew exactly the direction his life was going. And while his father pressured him into a political career, it's what he wanted as well. He didn't share his father's cynicism though; it wasn't about power for him, he honestly thought he could make a difference in the world by getting into politics.

At the time, he thought Mellie would make a perfect partner to achieve his plans. She was smart, graceful and ambitious. He had no illusions: he didn't love her and she didn't love him, at least not the kind of romantic love he always read about. Looking at his Mom and how much she wasted her life on his philandering Dad, he didn't see how love was a good thing anyway. So they got married and embarked on his political career together. She was fantastic at fundraising, she was able to turn on the charm and get just a little bit more money from donors. She had no problem with the logistics of politics, she loved talking about who was up and who was down and how they would squash the competition. But when he tried to talk to her about the meaning behind the politics, about his ultimate goals behind each office he pursued, about what motivated him philosophically in each issue, she grew bored and irritated. He began to realize that for all of her intelligence, she had a pretty shallow outlook on the world. To her the ultimate goal of politics was power itself and how to acquire and maintain it was her ambition.

He soon found that he really didn't share a lot in common with her and there were times when he didn't even really like her. When she became pregnant with Jerry, he thought things might change. However, it became clear after he was born that they couldn't even really share the joys of parenthood together. While she loved to play up her children to the cameras, she had little patience for motherhood when the media wasn't looking. They both did what was necessary to navigate the cold waters of their marriage in order to further his political career. It worked for a long time; they stopped really speaking to each other for years and they hardly even noticed.

He had resigned himself to this fate until he met Olivia. The revelation that another life was possible, one where he could share passion and common interest with someone, hit him like a ton of bricks. He tried to fight it at first; he wasn't going to be one of those cautionary political tales of someone who lost it all in a foolish moment of desire. But the more he got to know Olivia; the more difficult it became to resist. He was in love with Olivia before he had even touched her, and when he finally did, he didn't think it was possible to ever let her go. Of course, the reality became that forces kept on driving them apart and they were separated longer than they ever were together. That connection never really severed, though, despite everything. There were even times when he tried to re-commit himself to his marriage with Mellie, but it never worked. The same problems that were always there in the marriage were amplified.

Now he had to deal with furious Mellie again, just when it seemed like he was so close to not having to do this anymore. In the past, he would just wind up apologizing for practically anything just to stop the argument and shut her up. And that's essentially what Cyrus was telling him to do, for old time's sake. This time he couldn't do it, he couldn't apologize for trying to live honestly, for perhaps the first time in his life. He wouldn't apologize for being with Olivia. But he had to do something, so he picked up the phone and called her, not knowing exactly what he was going to say.

"I understand you are pulling out of the joint statement on the divorce," he said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

"Since nothing about this divorce has been 'joint,' I don't see why our statements have to be," Mellie said with a stinging bite.

"Mellie, stop, please. Aren't you sick of the fighting? It truly doesn't have to be like this."

"It has to be exactly like this," Mellie fumed. "You don't show me any respect, Fitz. None, even after all we've been through. We haven't even filed the papers yet and you've moved your mistress into my house!"

"I understand you are upset that Olivia stayed here last night, but it's not your house, Mellie. It's not even mine. It's the White House. It's where I live. It's where I work. It's been my entire life for the past five and a half years. Olivia is a part of my life now. She's not going away. And she has been through an incredible amount recently."

"Your mistress' feelings are not my top priority, Fitz," Mellie said sweetly.

"Isn't there even a little bit of compassion left in you," he said, truly baffled by her attitude. "I mean, I know you don't like her very much, but she isn't a stranger to you. She was held hostage for a week, and you never even acknowledged it."

"I did," she said indignantly.

"Oh yeah, I forgot, you did in the press. I guess that all that really matters, right?"

"Of course, I was concerned about her well being, Fitz. I'm not some heartless monster; no matter how much easier it would be for you to believe it." She almost sounded sincere for a moment. She was getting good at faking emotions on the campaign trail. "But I was angry and I am still angry. I'm here slugging through a campaign for Senate, and I'm actually not even sure why. I never wanted this. I would have been content to be First Lady and then retire to our ranch in Santa Barbara giving speaking engagements and hosting DAR luncheons. But here I am, trying to build my own legacy because you didn't want to share yours with me anymore."

Could she be telling the truth? He always assumed she had political ambitions of her own, but maybe she never wanted to actually risk not being loved by the general public. Being First Lady was much safer than actually running for office. "Look, Mellie, I know you did whatever you thought was necessary to get me further in politics, even when I didn't ask you to do it." Thoughts of Defiance and her fake miscarriage went flashing through his mind. He put the anger aside and tried to hold on to the gratitude. "I thank you for that, I really do. And I'm truly sorry that I couldn't be the partner you hoped for when you entered into this marriage. But this is a chance to start over, for both of us Mellie. So, can we just start putting this behind us? The divorce is going to happen, but we don't need to be vicious to each other, Mellie. Please, can we just issue that joint statement when I file and promise not carry out a war in the media?"

Mellie was quite at the other end for awhile, and then she said, "I'll think about it. I'll let you know tomorrow." And then she hung up abruptly.

When Olivia called around six thirty, he gave her the gist of the conversation, telling her that he thought it went as well as could be expected and all they could do now was wait. "When did you talk to her, Fitz," Olivia asked anxiously.

"Around four o'clock, why," he asked curiously.

"I just talked to Harrison. She cancelled all of her campaign appearances today. She's been meeting with her lawyers off and on all day. She entered into a meeting with them at five thirty and it's still going. My gut tells me she's up to no good. She could be deciding to file in Texas." Fitz knew that if Mellie filed in Texas, not only would that delay proceedings, but she could list adultery as a reason for the divorce, which not only provide fresh fodder for the media, but could lead to an inequitable division of property. "Your paperwork is all ready to be filed, right? Do you know what time does the clerk's office close in Santa Barbara?"

"It closes at four o'clock their time, but there is a drop box that stays open until five," He had found out about the times just in case they needed to do a quick filing.

"Fitz, you need to get your lawyers to file now. This late in the day, the filing probably won't show up in their case information system until tomorrow and we can release a press statement then. But you need to do it now!"

"What if she wants to go through with the joint statement?" He trusted Liv, but he was really hoping that his conversation made a difference.

"Worry about that tomorrow, file now. I'm telling you, I'm not wrong," she said with absolute confidence.

"OK, Liv. I'll give them a call now." He made the arrangements with his lawyers. He then informed Cyrus who became so red in the face, Fitz was concerned he might have a heart attack. "Cyrus, it's going to be ok. Let's hold back the big guns on Mellie and see what she's up to first. Go home tonight and I'll talk to you in the morning." When Cyrus was about to say something, Fitz cut him off and said, "That's an order. Go home."

It was eight o'clock before he had a chance to speak to Olivia again. "Guess what Livvie? I'm getting a divorce!" He could almost hear her smile. "Come home, Fitz."

And with that, he left the White House for the evening on his way home. For Olivia was his only true home.