A/N: Thank y'all for such a warm welcome back! Much appreciated.
Now, for the story: This was originally supposed to be a two-shot fic, but I ended up wanting to flesh out both Fitz and Olivia's backgrounds a bit more, so this is what you get.
I'm not sure how long this will be, I'm just going wherever it takes me right now.
The year is 2006, too, fyi.
Also, for the guest that posted about canon ages: I went by what was on Scandal Wikia for these two. We all know how great Scandal continuity is.
Thanks for reading!
This if for Jazzy, my baby love, and for my prima Swany. Ily both. Thank you for your encouragement.
-M
He immediately takes a leave of absence from the school, disappearing like a thief in the night without so much as a goodbye. In his absence, vice principal Sally Langston takes charge.
His feet hit the ground running and he doesn't stop until he finds himself tucked safely within the walls of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Alexandria. Thirty-five minutes outside of D.C still isn't enough distance between them. He almost crossed the line; he almost crossed it.
If he closes his eyes, he can still see the pout of her full lips, the outline of her lithe body, and hear the hum of her voice. He'd been so angry with her, so furious, and somewhere along the way the rage gave way to lust; raw and unadulterated. His feet had moved of their own volition, his body drawing him to her, every inch of him yearning to touch her.
Every dream and inappropriate thought he'd had about her - lifting her into his arms, wrapping her thick thighs around his waist, palming her full ass, holding her soft curves and pert breasts against his bare chest – begged to become reality.
Divine intervention had separated them. The crucifixion falling from the sky like a pitcher of ice water down his pants.
What had he been thinking? Only he hadn't been; he'd just been acting on his most carnal desires, the most lascivious of thoughts.
When he makes his way through the church, in search of a confessional, she is his only thought still.
Is she okay? Had he hurt her? Had he scared her?
He pulls the curtain back and slides into place, ignoring that the man on the other side is a friend in arms, and speaks.
"Forgive me father, for I have sinned."
-x-
Fitz has been missing in action now for three weeks. Vice Principal Langston offers no insight into his disappearance, but in his absence, she works to make Olivia's life hell.
Ever since the incident with Lizette, Olivia's been under harsh(er) scrutiny. She's almost never allowed to be alone with students, a nun or VP Langston consistently sit in on all her lessons.
It takes her a week into Fitz's leave to make up her mind to resign at the end of the year. Teaching is her passion, molding minds, and creating critical thinkers, her aim, but without Fitz, she isn't sure why she's here anymore. She's clearly the outsider and there will be no olive branches extended to her.
She tries to keep her mind off that moment in his office where she was ready to give it all to have him; her job; her moral understanding of right and wrong just to feel the hard planes of his granite-like chest press her against any flat surface; the rough palms of his oversized hands run across her taut nipples; her teeth nipping at his bottom lip as she –
If she were religious, she would find the need to confess her thoughts and sins, but she isn't. The only guilt she feels is that her presence has caused his absence from the place he loves to be. Like her, he loves to teach, and he loves children, but because of her, he can't be here.
She is the serpent in his Garden of Eden.
/
Two more weeks pass by and Olivia returns home after another day of monitoring by the dictator-in-principal; she finds Jake outside of her apartment, waiting.
"We broke up, Jake," she states flatly, "that means you can't just show up to my apartment whenever you'd like."
"That whole 'broke up' thing is what I want to talk to you about, Liv. Let me in." he reaches for one of her long braids and holds it between his fingers, looking at the ends in amusement. "Bet these go over well at a Catholic school."
Olivia snatches her hair back from his hold and opens her door, wondering what she ever saw in him. "You have five minutes." She sets her things down on the table near the door and peels off her coat and shoes.
It's been a long day and she has no intention of being his entertainment for the night. A bath, Chinese takeout, and a glass of wine were calling her name.
Out in the hall the sounds of her neighbors fighting carries through the building.
"I'll never understand why you choose to live in Anacostia, Liv. It's not safe here for you. Your dad bought you a place in Foggy Bottom, yet you're here."
"Four minutes and I'm here because I don't want my father's help. Now are you going to plead your case or continue with the unsolicited questions about my life choices?"
"If you made better life choices, I wouldn't have to question them, Liv."
"Three."
"Look," he starts as he makes his way to the tiny island that splits the room into sections, section one is her living room, section two is the kitchen. He opens her fridge and surveys it's barrenness.
"No beer?"
"I don't drink it, look, Jake—"
"I want us back. Together. You split up with me without any warning, Liv. We were good and then you and get that job at that stupid school to spite your father and move down here for god knows what reason and suddenly you're dumping me. We're good together, Liv."
She knew this was coming, from the moment she'd told him it was over, just before Christmas, just after Fitz has seen them together. Friend should've been a hint for Jake then, but clearly, he hadn't been listening.
"We're going in two separate directions, Jake. We just don't work anymore."
The truth is they'd been going in two separate directions from the moment he'd walked into her life. He was an arrogant law student at Georgetown, the son of one of one of her father's colleagues. She'd been lonely, so lonely, when she'd allowed her father to talk her into going out with him.
And for a bit there, Jake had kept her company; but his self-assurance, arrogance, and ignorance left a sour taste in her mouth. It'd quickly become clear to her that his presence in her life was coming down to a decision of self-respect vs. a warm body in her bed for the sake of it. He spent many nights scoffing at her decision to forgo law school, as she'd originally planned, to teach inner city kids instead. He'd scoffed even harder when she nixed her father's job offer after not having many teaching jobs come her way, and refused to move into the luxury apartment bought for her.
"I can't live the life you and my dad have mapped out for me in your heads." she continues.
But Jake isn't paying any attention to her, instead, he's staring at a photo on her refrigerator. A photo she'd forgotten she'd tacked up, though she smiled at it often.
Olivia immediately recognizes the picture. She'd taken it, and it's negative the moment the yearbook committee had brought them to her to ask if she wanted it included for the year.
It was taken during Homecoming Spirit week. In the photo she stands, dressed head to toe in a set of silver silk pajamas, her long black hair free of its current braids, and outside of some concealer and eyeliner her face is bare; she's smiling, hard, her attention on Fitz instead of the camera. Next to her stands Fitz, his arm wrapped around her small waist. He's dressed in a set of black and white flannel pajamas, and like Olivia, he only has eyes for her; camera be damned.
"Isn't this your boss?" Jake snarls, tossing the picture onto the counter.
She scoops the photo up, unable to stop the smile that tugs at her high cheeks as she sees the image. She misses him; she misses Fitz. If she must go to confessional and profess her sins, pretend to be religious, just to have him near her again, she will.
"I see; you dumped me because you're hot for teacher. Isn't he like fifty? Isn't he a priest?"
"Get out." Are the only two words she has left for him.
"Your father was right about you, Olivia. You are too stupid and idealistic for your own good."
The door vibrates on its hinges as Jake slams it shut. His words echo her father's, they sting like a scabbed over wound being ripped back opened. She double locks her door behind Jake as he goes, vowing that he won't get one tear out of her, and heads for her shower.
/
She dreams of Fitz for the thousandth time that night, but unlike the many times before where they spend the night engaged in the ilicit only to have the sun prematurely wake Olivia before the dream's end, they simply lay in bed together. Dream Fitz holds her as she tells him about her hopes and wishes. And unlike the other men in her life, he encourages each seemingly outlandish and idealistic thought. He allows her space to be herself.
When her alarm clock buzzes against the nightstand the following morning and Fitz suddenly disappears from her bed, she wonders when and how she got here.
How she went from a few stolen glances she convinced herself weren't reciprocated to dreaming and yearning for a man that could never be hers?
-x-
Of course, Father Stabler would send him here, to where it all had ended and began for him.
He bends down and brushes the dirt from the grave stone, tracing the letters; the names of his wife, daughter, and son.
Melody Margaret Grant (1966-1996)
Karen Elizabeth Grant (1991-1996)
Fitzgerald "Jerry" Thomas Grant IV (1993-1996)
Soon as his fingertips reach his son's name, Fitz falls to his knees, the sobs tearing from his throat threaten to split him in two.