Just What You're Worth Chapter 3, a scandal fanfic

Chapter 3

THEN

May, 2011
Washington D.C.

Yesterday's clip of Billy Chambers all but steamrolling White House Press Secretary Britta Kagan off the podium mid-answer went viral before the night was over. The original video uploaded to BNC's Youtube channel during their live coverage of the special briefing was sitting at just under four million views as of 9:00 am this morning, a mere sixteen hours later. There had been no statement from the Grant administration regarding the controversy save an announcement posted to the Briefing Room homepage just after midnight last night, stating that today's regularly scheduled briefing would be canceled. But while the White House had gone dark, every tabloid, pundit, and talk radio and morning show host across the country were going feral.

Having tuned in from her living room, Olivia hadn't waited for the live feed to cut before unplugging both landlines and setting her phone on Do Not Disturb, in anticipation of the onslaught of calls from a sure to be panicked Cyrus and Hill reporters looking for comment.

The Democrats' spending bill had breezed through Congress in a matter of weeks. With a majority in both houses of Congress, no one was surprised by the ease with which the Dems were able to push it through. The question on everyone's mind was what would happen when a bill which, among other things, slashed funding for school voucher programs to free up spending for under-served districts, provided billions in grants to states and cities that invested in green energy initiatives, and increased federal funding for Planned Parenthood, landed on the desk of the Republican president. The Republican president who, going off the word of the more outspoken GOP surrogates and RNC insiders appearing as guest commentators on nearly every cable news program as of late, was already in hot water with the base. Particularly following his reaffirming U.S. support for NAFTA at last month's Quebec summit, and the White House's backing of Democrat Senator Charlie Schaeffer for another term as Majority Leader over the Montana blue-dog who'd stepped up to challenge the party favorite. Dousing jet fuel on this political firestorm was the White House's hard-line refusal to comment publicly on the Dems' bill until it was brought to a vote.

This was all a test. It would be Fitz's third strike if he signed the Democrats' bill. For all the GOP's talk of a big tent, RINOs had to be kept penned up. The party would throw Fitz to the wolves to make an example of him, and there was no way the Democrats would embrace a GOP castaway, 'liberal' or otherwise. Fitz was treading dangerous waters.

You didn't need to be a Hill insider to guess at the pressure the president had to be facing from within his own administration due to the backlash, particularly from his vice president and chief of staff. But Cyrus Beene ran a tight ship, the White House had earned a reputation early on for being leak-proof. Rumors of a rift forming between President Grant and Vice President Langston were bound to circulate, especially given that few had had much faith in an alliance between a RINO and a dyed-in-the-wool conservative lasting beyond the first year in office. A White House divided was easy prey to enemies both foreign and domestic, but gossip could easily be brushed off so long as there was no smoking gun.

Leave it to Billy Chambers to go and give the world one. Cyrus had to be pissed.

Expecting the worst, Olivia had waited until she was safely in her office before taking her phone off Do Not Disturb. Sure enough, the backlog of voicemails and notifications caused her phone to overheat, killing the battery. Huck was still working on fixing it.

Fitz gave her a burner their last night at Camp David. Secret Service had modified it to send and receive calls from a very short list of approved numbers, all unlisted. In the weeks since, Olivia had let Fitz do the calling and here, today, was the primary reason why. Fitz, the president, and Fitz, the man were at once inextricably linked and mutual exclusives so far as Olivia thought of him; and she did, all the time, every hour of every day she thought of him, saw him, was reminded of him and in the same breath, worried for him, especially as of late. It was in these moments Olivia fought hardest against the urge to pick up the phone and call because if she did she would dig in with readily prepared solutions for everything that was going wrong and everything coming up on the horizon. This thing they were doing—if it could be called a relationship—was still too fragile for Olivia to trust herself not to fall back into old habits and wreck the promise of Fitz's forgiveness by being her.

A muffled argument from the hall followed by the door to her office swinging open broke Olivia from her thoughts. Harrison stood in the doorway, unsmiling, his arm held out across the door-jamb to hold back a red-faced Cyrus Beene.

"You got a minute?" Harrison said, looking apologetic and irate. "He said he won't leave unless he hears it from you."

Keeping her face neutral, Olivia nodded. "Let him through."

Harrison dropped his arm and Cyrus brushed past importantly. Harrison rolled his eyes and shut the door behind him.

Seeing as they both knew Olivia knew what Cyrus was here for, Olivia didn't see a reason to mince words.

"What?"

Half-mocking, Cyrus tutted. "No, 'Hi,' 'Hello,' 'How are you?' It's been months, Liv."

"'Hi. Hello. How are you?' —What?"

Olivia studied her former mentor. Such were the demands of his profession that it was normal for Cyrus to appear one ill-timed surprise away from a heart attack. He was perpetually harangued, and it suited him. But there were extra bags under his eyes, making them look sunken, beadier, and the skin around his face saggier and beaten. Cyrus lived and breathed the political rat race that was a career on the Hill but the recent turmoil within the Grant administration was clearly taking a toll.

"He's put me on Mellie duty."

Of all the places Olivia could have seen fit for Cyrus to begin, that would've been the furthest down the list.

"What?"

"I am the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States of America," Cyrus said, the beginnings of the rant he'd likely been biting back for weeks coming out in short, choppy heaving. "On paper and in practice I am the president's eyes and ears. I direct traffic in and out of the White House and the Oval. I am the most trusted and most important adviser to the leader of the Free World. Executive Orders, initiatives, agenda items, photo ops, campaign promises, every move, every decision he makes comes through me…"

"Or so it should," Olivia finished for him.

"Or so it should." Cyrus all but growled, his faced reddening despite his attempts to breathe through his nose. With a sharp look aimed at her to drive home the point, he continued. "So how is it that I, the president's senior-most adviser, know as much about his intentions to deliver the Democrats a gift-wrapped win as the fucking press corps and Billy the Prep-School Dropout?"

He cut Olivia off before she could answer. "Because I've been spending the past several weeks overseeing the First Lady's tour of the Pacific coast. He decided out of nowhere last month that the Office of the FLOTUS had too many cooks in the kitchen and chopped the staff down to a few valets and Mellie's personal secretary. Just in time for her to go across the country on a feel-good tour to settle the base after the show he put on in Quebec. Ergo, me, holed up in my office sorting out every elementary school visit, library opening, and donor-wives luncheon in every major district from Spokane on down to Baja, only looking up from the First Lady's itinerary to threaten another staffer into keeping their trap shut about the president essentially banishing his First Lady from the White House!"

Poor Cyrus was breathless by the end. Like an old balloon, he deflated, catching himself on half-bent knees and gobbling air into his windless sails in frothy, impatient gulps.

Olivia loved her mentor to bits but his temper made it impossible for her to take him seriously, at times. Privately, she compared him to the likes of Yosemite Sam and Donald Duck; any old delayed meeting or overcooked steak was enough to send him into a cartoonish conniption. In that way, Cyrus was the Dark Helmet to her father's Darth Vader. It made talking him down from one of his tantrums similar to the motion sickness she got from long plane rides, easily managed if caught at the onset

There were, of course, instances such as the present, the rare occasion where the sky actually was falling and Cyrus being reduced to incoherent sputtering was a reasonable stress-reaction. Responding to a crisis was a hundred times easier when you didn't have to fight to keep a straight face but twice as hard when you had equal stake in the outcome.

"He moved her out."

The admission dangled from the lowest vine, plump and juicy, while Cyrus caught his breath and waited for Olivia to bite. She considered her mentor.

Cyrus Beene was a man who had always looked his age. His work was his life but it didn't keep him young; impossible, considering the demands of a career in politics combined with Cyrus' own disposition. By no means frail, he was far from hearty. James, to whom Cyrus was newly engaged, fussed incessantly over his fiance's health. He was far from the only person in Cyrus' small circle who worried.

While she couldn't say with certainty whether she regretted leaving the White House, or that she missed working with Cyrus, the guilt at how she'd left her colleagues—Cyrus in particular—abruptly, without explanation, and never once looking back, had continued to eat at Olivia even as she settled into her role as bystander, watching the administration deteriorate from the sidelines. She owed Cyrus more than that. She owed everyone more, but no one more than Fitz and what could she do if not the one thing he'd asked of her: Stop fixing him.

"Moved her out of where?"

"Their room, obviously!" Cyrus flailed. "He had the valets move all her things out into a room on the other side of the residence where the kids' rooms are. Not that the Chief of Staff is meant to know any of this, but so far as any of the Residence staff know he did it without telling Mellie. Apparently, he's going to spring it on her when she gets home this weekend."

Olivia frowned, flashing back to the second night at Camp David. Fitz had specifically told her he was going to wait until he was in the second year of his term before asking Mellie for a divorce. As with his work, Mellie was another topic they steered clear of during their nightly phone calls. With a timeline in place and Fitz set on divorcing his wife, and Olivia having vowed to stay out of all of it, she'd seen no reason to tread into those waters and upset the peace their nightly conversations brought both of them. Worse than the implication that Fitz may have decided to speed up his plans to leave his wife without talking to Olivia about it first was the thought of anything—be it life altering or altogether inconsequential—happening in Fitz's life apart from her, and him not deigning to share it with her.

Unease became upset, acute and painful enough that Olivia felt her mask of neutrality crack and fall to pieces in slow motion. Though there was no way for Cyrus to know the real reason she was distressed by his little bombshell, it showing at all was enough to fill her with shame. She tried in vain to cover it up, slipping into another placid expression but it was already too late. The student had yet to surpass the teacher; he had her and they both knew it. Still, she wouldn't be Olivia Pope if she didn't choose to go down swinging.

"Alright," she said, drawing back on her haunches. "You've braved morning rush hour to come and share your salacious gossip about the interior of the president's bedchamber. Titillating as it all is, Cyrus, I would like to get my day started, so if that was all…"

"Cut the crap, Liv. I know you see the writing on the wall, and that if we don't do something soon we're going to be facing enemies from within and without."

"'We'?"

Cyrus shook his head, exasperated.

"He's stonewalling Sally, too. There's been a cold war going on between the Oval and Langston ever since that whole thing with the Senate Majority Leader. I know for a fact that little cold sore Chambers is in her ear about walking away from the administration and using the next three years to whip the far corners of the base into a frenzy. She goes, she splits the RNC and with him pissing off the donors and the old guard lately who's to say how many friends he or anyone linked to him will have on the Hill when all's said and done.

"Add to that whatever ice storm's brewing between him and Mellie. I don't know what possessed him to fling her across the country, what either of them could have done to set the other off. Haven't asked, don't care to. I'm not here to play the sassy gay friend and dish about relationship woes over mimosas at brunch. Mellie's as vindictive as she is conniving. It's hard enough keeping her from overplaying her hand when she's actually trying to help us, I don't want to think about what she might do if he pushes her too far."

Olivia sighed, not quite ready to admit defeat. "I don't see where I have anything to do with this. This isn't my arena anymore."

"Just…" Cyrus drew out the word, throwing his hands out for emphasis. "Talk to him. What he won't hear from me, or Mellie, or anyone else, he'll hear from you. I get him wanting to make good on his promise to deliver change, obviously that means playing nice with the Democrats and throwing them a bone or five. I get all that. And God knows anyone would need a break from Mellie from time to time. But he's making himself an island. He's signing the bill, we can't hold that off, but mark my words Sally's just biding her time. We can't be where we are now when that shoe drops."

"Okay."

"Okay?" Cyrus balked, clearly expecting more of an uphill battle. Olivia allowed her lips to quirk upwards in a small smirk.

"I'll talk to him," she said airily. "Although, like I said, if he's not talking to you, I don't know how much chance I'll have at getting through to him."

Which wasn't a lie. Things were good between her and Fitz with her no longer giving her input on matters related to his day job. She had no idea how he would take her sudden reneging on their happy arrangement.

"Good," Cyrus huffed. "I already had Lauren put you on his schedule for this coming Friday at seven. He thinks he's Skyping with the kids, Mellie's idea."

Olivia frowned.

Cyrus went on, oblivious to the small shift in her demeanor. "We just…need him to be a team player again, Liv. You brought that out of him before, during the campaign. Don't let him blow it five months into the big league."

Weary of him and where this discussion was headed, Olivia nodded her head pointedly over Cyrus' shoulder to the door of her office. "I said I'll handle it. Consider it handled."

"Thank you," Cyrus said, with too much genuine gratitude for her comfort, before finally taking his leave.

Olivia closed her office door behind him to signal to the others that she didn't want to be disturbed, and went back over to her desk. Palms sweating, hands shaking, she rifled through her purse for the phone, Fitz's phone. Finding it, she dialed the familiar number. Too amped up to sit, she instead leaned against the side of her desk while she waited for the call to go through. She felt ridiculous, like some smitten preteen psyching herself up to call the cute boy from Algebra. Restless, she swept the hand not holding the phone to her ear behind her across her desk. She pulled back, a lone push pin balled in her fist, just as the other line picked up.

"Olivia." Fitz said her name with a expectant drawl. It was likely he'd been on the receiving end of more than his usual stream of pleadings and lectures from beleaguered advisers and staff. Though Olivia no longer qualified as such, the magnitude of the current circumstances warranted one from her. He'd been expecting her to call today and ruin their carefully constructed peace. She rolled the push pin between her thumb and forefinger

"Cyrus came to see me just now," she began without preamble. "He wants me to come and talk to you. He set up a meeting for this Friday at seven, when you're supposed to, um…"

She trailed off, having ripped the BandAid off only halfway. Baiting him with the promise of treasured quality time with Karen and Jerry was low, another betrayal she was delivering unto him even if it hadn't been her design.

"When I'm supposed to be meeting with my kids," Fitz finished for her, again, unsurprised. "My kids who, as of today, are on a week-long school camping trip in the Catskills and won't be back until next Tuesday?"

Olivia chewed her lip. Oh.

"Oh."

"I'll be the first to admit I'm not even in the running for Father of the Year, but I do make it a point to at least keep their school calendars on hand."

Something rotten curdled at the floor of Olivia's stomach. She hurt. "I'm sorry, Fitz."

Silence on the other end.

"Cyrus just left OPA. I was sure you already knew about the meeting but I wanted to give you a heads-up anyway so that you…"

She trailed off, letting the quiet part expire in the dead space between them.

"I won't come. I'll tell Cyrus I tried but you'd ended your day early and had left the Oval by the time I arrived."

"No, come," Fitz said immediately, in that low, urgent voice she hated to argue with. "We'll have dinner together in the residence."

Olivia blanched. "I…don't think that's the best—"

"I've eaten alone every night for the past two and a half weeks," he said. Olivia could hear the grin slipping across his face. "This way you won't have to lie to Cyrus. Please, Livvie? It's been weeks…"

I miss you…

"Okay."

"Okay?"

Inwardly, Olivia shared a laugh with herself at the symmetry. "Okay. I'll see you Friday at seven. I have to go."

"Wait-!"

"What?"

"What are you wearing? To dinner, I mean."

Olivia laughed again. "Goodbye, Mister."

She received more than just raised eyebrows from everyone at leaving the office at the end of the business day on Friday. Pulling an all-nighter was more common for her than leaving at rush hour. But even Abby left it alone when Olivia explained she had to leave early to do a quick favor for her old mentor who'd come to see her the other day. Huck had fixed her phone by then, so with instructions to her team to text her if anything came up between then and the morning, Olivia was home with enough time to shower and change before the Secret Service would be arriving to escort her to the White House.

Being inside the residence made Olivia feel like a trespasser. She was, when it came down to it and all of the "official" reasons for this meeting over a candle-lit dinner went away and things were taken at face-value.

Fitz was already there when Tom showed her into the dining room. The private dining room, within the First Family's private quarters, not the one reserved for guests. He thanked Tom, who made a swift exit, and crossed the room to where Olivia had barely moved.

"You didn't have to go home and change, you could've come right from work," he said, conversationally, leading her by the hand to the table, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

There were two places set, one at the head and the other just adjacent to his right. Olivia wondered if that was where Mellie usually sat.

"I know," she said, waiting for Fitz to take his seat.

On the menu tonight was some kind of roast, apparently, with asparagus and mashed potatoes. There was a basket of rolls on the table. Looking at it made Olivia feel heavy. Vaguely, she remembered Stephen setting a salad down in front of her, but what she'd done with it afterward escaped her. And now, the combined weight of the day and this evening filled her gut like a tankard of cement, leaving no room for anything else. The smell of the food in front of her nearly made the back of her throat burn. She started with the asparagus for show while Fitz went about making small talk.

Then there was a hand on her knee. Startled, she looked over to find steel blue eyes boring back into her.

"There you are," said Fitz. At her puzzled look, he said. "You haven't been able to look at me since we sat down."

"I'm worried for you," she blurted out, before she could catch herself. Fitz pulled away. Olivia clutched the napkin in her lap for support, resolved to push through now that it was out and there was no point in stopping. "I don't want to talk you into or out of anything, I'm not here to do that. I don't do that anymore. I came to have dinner with you because you asked me, and because I miss you. But I'm scared for you, what might happen if you keep alienating Cyrus and Mellie, and antagonizing the base. I know it's important to you to do this your way, the right way, but you're not even a full year in office and there's already been an attempt on your life—"

"To fix everyone else's mistake."

Fitz countered with blunt-edged, bitter steel, Olivia shrank back at the blow. Throat constricting, she cut away a small piece of roast with the side of her fork and brought it to her lips to hide their quivering. Maybe it had been deliberate on her part, to provoke him into dropping the forced casual veneer he'd been putting on up to that point, and letting the frustration and fatigue simmering beneath the surface boil over; to show her something real.

"I know that," she said.

"I'm a former governor, Olivia." She flinched at his use of her full name. "Before that, a state rep. Before that, an active serviceman who's seen combat."

"I know."

"I'm not some bored trust fund baby who'd never worked a day in his life before deciding to run for president on a lark. My entire career has been in politics—"

"I know. "

"I know how to plan ahead, to strategize, and what to expect with what I've set in motion. Despite what you and Cyrus and whoever else might think—"

"'Cyrus and I' don't think anything. He showed up at my office today because he couldn't get hold of me. My phone died last night."

Fitz was nonplussed. "Why didn't you just charge it?"

Rolling her eyes, Olivia clarified. "No, I mean it died. I got too many in-coming calls and texts at once after the press conference cut off, and the poor little battery went to the great, big RadioShack in the sky."

That was too much for Fitz. Hearty, body-shaking laughter overtook him and abounded the room on a mission, effortless and magnetic, dissolving the space between them. Olivia joined him. The two of them combined were infectious, fueling the other on until they were both wiping at the corners of their eyes moments later.

"I'm worried, too."

Still recovering from their laughing fit, Olivia would have missed the quiet admission were she not staring at his lips.

"You're right, you know," he went on in that low, reluctant rumble. "It could all blow up in my face, this path I've set myself on when I decided to throw out the script that had been written for me."

Olivia traced the contours of his face with her eyes while she considered her next choice of words and whether Fitz had said all that because he wanted her input, or if it was simply that he needed them to be said aloud and the room could have just as well been empty. Having broken the ice with that cheap anecdote left her feeling venturous.

"There is no script. There never has been. Things can and will fall apart whether you toe the line and fall in lockstep with Cyrus and Sally and the rest of the base, or chart your own course, and in any scenario you're still the president so it all falls on you regardless."

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown."

"Exactly," said Olivia, finally chancing to look up at him and meet his wry smile with one of her own, careful and small, but also—she hoped-encouraging. "No matter what, you own the outcome. It makes the most sense for you to assume responsibility for your own missteps—if that's what they turn out to be—as opposed to someone else's. You're here now. You're ready. You've been ready. It's your legacy, no one but you gets to decide how you'll shape it."

"I love you."

The second confession of the evening caught Olivia off guard just as the one earlier had. She didn't have it in her to react when Fitz, abruptly and in one swift motion, stood and scooped her out of her chair and into his arms before settling back into his seat with Olivia now sitting side-saddle across his lap.

It was nothing to Fitz to say those words and mean them. He knew love the way he knew thirst, knew fatigue, knew to smell with his nose, and taste with his tongue, and smile with his teeth or lips or eyes. Love was primeval for Fitz, experienced and expressed as apparent, categorical the way a growling belly signified hunger; love simply was. The constancy made Olivia uncomfortable for all the diffidence it brought out in her.

Edison, who had been her last and longest-lasting adult relationship, had been good about making these things neat and orderly. He'd avoid her after fights, ignore her calls, or, after they began living together, he'd spend the night at his office or on a friend's couch. His reasoning was that, growing up his father had always stressed to him that were he ever to find himself so angry with a woman that he couldn't speak without wanting to raise a hand to her, he was to leave and not come back until he was sure he could 'treat her like a lady.' Edison hadn't been the type to want to see her, speak to her, hear about her day, sit down for a meal, whisk her away on a surprise long weekend trip, much less give her a priceless family heirloom, when he was angry with her. Olivia knew how to be persona non-grata until he was ready to accept the olive branch. She'd always known where to plant herself within Edison's orbit, she'd loved that about being with him. She missed it, but not in the way she now knew was possible.

She agonized over Fitz. Love. Hurt. Resentment. Desire. His feelings toward her hadn't changed since the night he learned the truth: he was angry with her but loved her. He loved her but hadn't forgiven her. He wanted her but couldn't trust her. The lines ran parallel to one another, static and enduring; if a limit was ever reached, there was no way she'd see it coming, no way for her to ever be prepared when the day eventually came.

Olivia had known what attracted Edison to her, and what about her repelled him, what could drive him away if she wasn't careful. The bounds of their relationship made it simple to know how to please him, how to placate, how to appease; and how to do the opposite: how to lose him.

(And in the end, it hadn't even mattered how careful she'd been. It hadn't stopped Him from making sure she lost Edison no matter what she did.

Nothing she did ever stopped Him…)

Olivia couldn't lose Fitz, but she didn't know how not to. What did he need from her, what could she do to make him love her the way he had before? And how was she to behave with no means of gauging whether she was making him love or mistrust her more the longer she waited in limbo?

She relished the feeling of being back in his arms after their time apart, as they held each other, and let the fact that she hadn't returned his I love you play off into the white noise of the dining room. The circle of Fitz's embrace radiated warmth, for which Olivia, in her short sleeve wrap-dress, was grateful. Fitz ran hot, so of course the air conditioning had been switched on in the residence now that it was approaching Memorial Day and temperatures were creeping up to summer highs. Olivia was wearing dresses to work now; though the one she was wearing was shorter and tighter in the bust than what she'd worn to the office. Fitz toyed none-too-innocently with the hemline as he spoke.

"I moved Mellie out of my bedroom."

Olivia winced, having expected this to come up. It was nevertheless another minefield, and she was already so tired.

"I know. Cyrus mentioned that when he came to see me. I'm sorry."

"What? Why are you sorry?"

Busying herself with one of the higher buttons of his shirt, Olivia said, "When he told me he made it sound like it was something he wasn't supposed to know. I'm sorry he does. I—"

I'm sorry you're surrounded by people you can't trust.

"He told me Mellie's not supposed to find out until she comes home next week, I'm not sure that helps."

Fitz shrugged it off. "If he or anyone else had told her, I'd have had an earful and then some by now. It's fine."

Olivia relaxed back into him, pressing a small kiss to his chest as she did so, and went on working that same button through its hole, halfway in, halfway out, and then again.

"I put her all the way down the hall, on the other side of Karen and Jerry. And I got new sheets." He said that last part a little too proudly. Olivia grinned in spite of herself.

"I don't know what I'm meant to say to that."

"Say what you think."

"I have thoughts?"

"That was you that asked the Wizard for a brain, right, Scarecrow?"

Olivia swatted him playfully against his chest before turning serious and looking down at her lap.

"You don't think this'll, I don't know, up the ante between the two of you?"

She felt Fitz tense, and couldn't bring herself to look up. "How do you mean?" he said tersely.

"Kicking her out of your bedroom like this, without warning or discussing it with her first, for all your staff to see and gossip about. It's like you're throwing down the gauntlet, making a statement."

"What's wrong with that?"

Knotting her hands together in her lap, Olivia said, "I thought you were going to wait until the end of the year to start divorce proceedings."

"I am," he said. "Officially, anyway. But I don't see a reason to pretend behind closed doors. I sent her off with the excuse of making nice with the base back home, but really I needed to get some space. But having her gone this long gave me a chance to see how…good it feels to—" He made a gruff noise of frustration in the back of his throat as he broke off. "You know I don't like doing this. Ranting about her to you isn't fair. It's just, I feel lighter. I'm sleeping better than I have in years, even with everything on my plate right now. Continuing to put space between us after she comes home felt like something I needed to do for my own peace of mind, regardless of how she takes it."

"And what if the chips fall too early?"

"What if she pushes me for a divorce before the end of the year, you mean?"

"That," Olivia said carefully. "Or, the media and rumor mill continue to speculate on your dead marriage."

"Then I get divorced ahead of schedule," Fitz said breezily, completely missing the point of where she was going.

"And then what?" she whispered, hesitant. For the first time feeling the full weight of that question now that it was out there.

Comprehension dawning, Fitz shifted, bringing her flush against him and tilting her chin up so that she was staring into his eyes.

"And then we get married," he said softly. "And you become my First Lady."

As if that were the answer, he leaned down and met her lips in a soft kiss she brought herself up to deepen on reflex. They lingered against one another, living inside the dream until Olivia shattered it, pulling back.

Fitz continued to bear down on her, dreamy and triumphant, and ever so oblivious. Olivia tried to match his grin if for no other reason than to hold off suspicion, but she wasn't assembled for naiveté and she couldn't hide from Fitz, not ever.

She kissed him.

Using his shoulders for leverage, Olivia pulled herself up to straddle him as she deepened the kiss. Moaning, she opened her mouth to him, cradling the sides of his face while his tongue devoured her and his hand drifted beneath the skirt of her dress, trailing up between her legs to cup her sex, tracing the fabric covering her center where she was already wet.

Then she was in his arms, their mouths fused, legs wrapped around his waist and the world passing by in a blur, until his lips were gone and Olivia was falling, falling back against his bedspread. His new bedspread.

Above her, Fitz loomed, hungry eyes roaming over her like a starving man over a feast; her wrists pinned down on either side of her a silent command to keep still while he took his time savoring.

"The bed is brand new," he said, the low rumble of his baritone causing Olivia to shiver involuntarily. "It's one of the first things I did after..."

He broke off. Releasing her, he crawled up the bed to lie beside her, and traced her lips with the tip of his finger.

"You're the first, last, and only woman I'll share this bed with," he said dreamlike, somewhere past euphoric. "The only woman I'll share any bed with. You're it, Livvie."

Olivia's breath hitched as he claimed her mouth, kissing her once, twice, before getting up and moving back to the foot of the bed to again take her all the way in.

"Take your clothes off for me. Let me see you, Livvie."

Clumsy hands rushed to obey, fumbling with the buckle and clasps at the bodice of her dress until she finally was able to unwrap herself, a belated gift trembling too hard to shrug off her sleeves without his help. The pale pink lace bra and panties were new. She knew later she'd be annoyed at Fitz for tearing at them, but now she was almost as relieved as he was to be rid of them, and bare for him.

He basked in her. Reverent, as he trailed the surface of her from head to toe, from her lips, down her throat, the swell of each breast, her hips, and to her legs; first with his eyes, and then the tip of his finger. He slowed as he reached the end, drawing up the seam of her inner thigh at a cruel pace until he at last reached the apex, shoving two fingers in at once.

Olivia cried out, her back arching as she adjusted to the sudden, sharp intrusion.

Undaunted, Fitz continued to stroke her, feathering kisses up her quivering belly and the valley of her breasts before he reached her mouth, swallowing her whimpers. He added a third finger, and they both groaned at the added sensation, the sound of his digits gliding in and out of her wetness.

"Baby…"

"So wet for me, before I even touched you…Is it all for me, love?"

Olivia nodded breathlessly, barely able to form words. "F-for you…Just you. Only you."

"Love you…"

Fitz slipped away, and Olivia cried out at the loss of him as her walls clenched around nothing.

"Turn over for me, Livvie," he breathed into her ear, helping to guide her onto all fours, barely giving her time to adjust before the head of his cock was lined against her entrance and he slid in to the hilt in one fluid motion. He once again claimed her mouth as the both moaned into each other.

Fitz's pace was ruthless as he took her, it was all Olivia could do to give her body over to his control. There would be finger-shaped bruises on her hips in the morning from his grip on them, rough and unyielding as each thrust, barely giving Olivia enough time to accommodate the size of him before slipping out and slamming back in again in time with her cries of pleasure.

Pressing kisses to her neck, Fitz wrapped one arm around her belly holding her steady his front, the other traveled down between them to tease her clit into a hard, throbbing nub.

"You take me so well, Livvie," he ground into her ear, dragging his tongue along the column of her throat. "So fucking tight. So fucking perfect."

"Mmm," she whined, wrapping her own arms over his shoulders and threading her fingers into his curly locks as she felt herself begin to crest.

He rode her through her orgasm, letting up his pace to stroke her through it tenderly, soon following her over the edge and collapsing on top of her.

Instead of pulling out right away, he rested inside of her while they breathed through the aftershocks; bracing himself on his arm between her middle and the bed, so as not to squash her. After a few moments, Fitz slipped out of her for the last time, Olivia moaned at the loss of him. Rolling away, Fitz brought her with him beneath the covers. Olivia curled into his side, entwining her legs with his and burying her face in the crook of his neck, breathing him in.

She lay awake sometime later, after the haze of afterglow ought to have lulled them both to sleep, lost in her own head. Beside her, Fitz lay with his eyes shut, not asleep but doing his best to get there despite her.

Tracing the contours of her lover's face, Olivia pounced, bored of waiting.

"Fiiiiiiitz…" she said, in a sugary sing-song. "I'm cold…."

She wasn't, actually. The covers and Fitz's body heat were enough, even with the A/C on. They both knew what she wanted, needed.

Fitz threw back the covers with an exaggerated, put-upon groan and made his way down the hall to his closet. The sound of drawers being dragged open and snapped shut echoed off the walls of the half-empty walk-in closet. Olivia shivered. As if on command, Fitz reappeared at her side of the bed holding her prize out for her to take.

Olivia pouted.

Smiling indulgently, Fitz bunched the long-sleeved Navy around the collar and brought it down over her head, fluffing her hair out through the other side before helping her with the sleeves one arm at a time. Olivia stretched up on her knees to give him a peck on the lips in thanks and to let him know she was all set.

Fitz crawled back into bed and his arms came around her, pulling her into his lap. Olivia relaxed against his chest, tucking herself under his chin.

It was okay to say this now.

"You want to marry me?" she asked in a soft voice, brave enough to look into his eyes as she said it. Fitz appeared startled by what she'd said. As though he'd expected some other great bombshell.

"Of course."

"You want to be with me?" These weren't supposed to come out as questions. She only meant to repeat what he said to her earlier. For clarification…

"Livvie, I—Of course I do," Fitz's brow furrowed, worry giving way to anxiety.

Olivia swallowed thickly. "You want me…" She hadn't meant to break off here, the words had just gotten stuck. But, she supposed, that was also the question on her mind.

"Of course I do. I—where is this coming from?"

"You want me," she started again. "As your First Lady…" She squeezed Fitz's arm to signal that that wasn't it. That the words just weren't coming the way they usually did once Fitz brought her what she needed. Clearing her throat, she tried again.

"You want a First Lady like me?"

Fitz frowned, still not getting where she was coming from. Glaring at him, she held his gaze and directed him down to where their arms overlapped across her middle, colors contrasting.

"Oh." He'd arrived. "Livvie…"

He held her tighter as he trailed off, never having been the best at dealing with this layer of their relationship head on.

"That's not all," Olivia added quietly. "You know that's not all." There was so much more than just the one problem he refused to see. So much that they were bound to face if he loved her publicly, even after he left office. So much he didn't know...

She couldn't even begin to climb that mountain before, at dinner, or even over the phone from the other side of town. It was only when he held her, took care of her, like this, that she felt strong enough, like she could tell him anything and not risk getting thrown away.

"I know," said Fitz. "I know how hard all of this has been for you. I know how had it'll be—"

"—You don't."

Humbled, he covered her hands with his. "You're right. I don't. But I'm here. I'm not going to stand by and let you go through it alone. We're in this together."

"I need you to help me." Her bottom lip quivered.

All evening, this had been what she'd been trying to say by not-saying in response to everything. It applied here as well, but Olivia had had another, more articulate response lined up on the tip of her tongue, before the words she'd just said had so rudely up jumped the queue. That was what happened when she was like this. It was a regrettable side-effect, but one compensated by the fact that she was with Fitz when it happened; Fitz who always knew exactly what she meant. That here, she didn't just mean "help" with what they—mostly, she—would be forced to confront when they were eventually found out; that she meant "help" with everything, with her.

She turned over in his arms, burying her face his chest and fisting his sleep shirt in both hands.

"You're trembling, Livvie."

Nodding, she burrowed deeper.

"Don't do that," he said gently. "We're talking. Don't hide from me."

But she couldn't anymore. Because there was everything. And on top of everything, he wanted to get married. To her. But only if she stopped fixing him. Stopped lying to him. Stopped keeping secrets. Stopped hurting him. She was trying. So hard. But one day she would have to tell him about what had happened to the last man who'd asked her to marry him, and nothing would matter after that because He'd win just like He had before. Like He always won. She couldn't think about what would happen to Fitz when He won. Not yet.

"Livvie…"

She was scaring him. She never wanted to scare him.

She came up, letting him see her face so that he'd know she was alright. His shirt, damp with perspiration, was wrinkled in the places not still balled in her fist. He let her nestle back into him.

"Don't go," she murmured, realizing too late that she forgot the 'let'. It was just as well.

"Never," said Fitz, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Back beneath the covers they drifted off to sleep in each other's arms.

In the morning, they woke to the rays of the Saturday morning sun streaming into the room and Cyrus Beene standing at the foot of their bed, agape.

"Mother of God…"

Author's Note: Hey guys! So, um, this took MUCH longer than I expected and for that I apologize. It's been a crazy couple of months for me, but let me assure you that I work on this story every single day and have NO intention of walking away from it until it's finished.

Moving on, a very, very, VERY special thanks to labellebeaucoup for writing that sex scene for me at the end. I'm terrible at writing sex guys, had she not stepped in it would have taken me another month to get this chapter out to you.

Before I close out this Author's Note, I just want to say how grateful I am for the Scandal fandom, that we're all still here reading and/or writing fanfics even after the show's been off the air for a couple of years now. Scandal may be over, but fandom is forever, so long as fans and fan creators keep it going. My fellow fic authors inspire me so much every day. Let's never stop coming up with new ways to give Olivia and Fitz their happy ending! If you have a fic you wanna write, or a WIP you wan to get back to, it's never, ever too late to go on and do it. Writers, let's keep writing. Readers, please, please keep on reading (and REVIEWING!) our stories. I love you guys so much!

Your reviews really do help keep me going. I can't wait to hear what you think.

xoxo