Fitz felt the light kiss on his lips and slowly opened his eyes. Right beside his was Olivia. She looked just the same as she did to him. Always beautiful, adorable, sexy.
"Hi," he whispered and kissed her.
"Hi. Have a nice trip?" she asked sitting beside him.
"Olivia, where are we?"
"Why don't you take a look? I think you'll recognize it."
Fitz sat up and looked out the window. Beyond Olivia he could see the Vermont house with the orchards behind it.
"What are we doing here? I'm dreaming, aren't I? I miss you so much that I'm dreaming about it. About the plan we had."
"No, Fitz. Come on, come inside."
Olivia pulled Fitz behind her out of the car and up the front steps of the house. She let him in first so he could look around.
"It looks lived in. I thought I sold it. Cyrus said…"
"Cyrus lied. I asked him to. You wanted to sell this house… our house. I couldn't let that happen. Vermont is important to us. It's the one thing that's kept us alive this long. I came to remind myself of our dream a few months ago. When I found out I had the brain tumor, I came to the house and saw the for sale sign out front. I thought you gave up on us. On our family but I came to realize that I was the one you were giving up on. Maybe not completely giving up on me but enough to want to sell our house. A house that, by the way, you couldn't sell to begin with, no matter how much you may have wanted to sell it. But when I saw the sign, I called the realtor and paid whatever amount necessary to keep it. But the thing with that is you put the house in my name. And because you did that, you have no choice to sell it. I took the house back and got ready for things to happen. I moved in the day after Karen showed up at my apartment."
"You've been in Vermont the whole time?"
"Yes. I've been exactly where I am supposed to be. I just got here a little earlier than you did." She watched Fitz walk around the living room to the kitchen looking around.
He stopped in front of a cabinet, staring in it. "There's jam," he whispered.
"Every flavor. It may not be the best but I left them for you to try."
"You mean for the past three months you've been sitting up here making jam by yourself? You were under my nose the whole time and I never saw you?"
Olivia nodded preparing herself for whatever he might say. "Fitz, you had to become yourself without me, or Mellie. You needed to work on yourself and come to terms with who you are alone. I don't define you. Neither does Mellie or Karen or Teddy or your Presidency. And while you did that, I made sure I was a person that I liked, that I was content with. So even if you didn't want to be with me, if you found someone else, I would still be able to live here with our dream and see what happened. I thought eventually you might come here or figure out that this is where I was. Even if you found another woman to…"
"There's never been anyone else. I never dated anyone else. It was all…"
"Karen's idea, I know, she told me."
"When? Why would she tell you?"
"I talk to Karen every day in one way or another. When you told me you were thinking of dating someone else, I dropped it. Each day that I talked to her, I'd ask how you were. But for several weeks after you told me you'd be dating someone, I stopped asking. I never really wanted to hear about how you and your new…whoever was. Karen would tell me about her day, ask about certain things, boys mostly, and then she'd ask how I was, where I was. Karen still doesn't know. I didn't want her to slip and tell you that I was here. As cruel as that sounds, I didn't want you to know until I knew you were okay. Several weeks after I stopped asking about you, she let it out of the bag. She told me it was her idea for you to start dating someone. Even for pretend. She told me you were unhappy and there was no need for me to worry or be jealous because there's only one other girl in your life and that's her. Karen knew that we are supposed to be together because you sulked around for weeks. And I don't blame you, I did too. I wanted you to be the best that you can alone, without me. It looks like you've been doing great. I see on the news that you've done wonderful things for the country."
Fitz was silent for several minutes keeping his back to her. He listened to everything she had to say before opening his mouth.
"You've done great, Fitz. What are you going…" she started before he cut her off.
"You ran again!" he screamed at her. "You ran for the millionth time and now I've been called to you. That's a change. But you ran away!"
Olivia poured a glass of Scotch and handed it to him. "63. The best." Fitz downed it fast and set the glass on the counter. "I knew you'd think that. You can think that I ran away but really think about it, Fitz. If I ran away would I be here?"
Fitz thought about it for a minute. "You ran away from me. But you were running towards us."
"You understand now?"
"Your logic seems illogical but I do understand."
Olivia smiled and kissed his lips pressing against his body. Within seconds Fitz had her in bed with him each showing each other exactly how much love they shared.
