A/N: Short chapters keep my mojo going.
I won't say enjoy because y'all are probably going to want to choke me for this.
Promise another chapter is in the works. Same for Holiday Dreams and Son of a Preacher Man!
Nearly a week and a half goes by. Olivia watches as the revelations in her interview ricochet around Capitol Hill. She isn't the only one. It becomes painfully clear as several other interns reach out to Donna Graham. A few of them ask if they can speak to Olivia who has yet to decide what she even wants to do. The only thing Olivia knows right now is that she has to tread lightly. The most important thing for her to take care of right now is the bean in her belly. But that doesn't stop Donna Graham from reaching out. She insists on introducing Olivia to her friend, a sexual abuse advocate. Nonetheless, Olivia is compartmentalizing. As usual. If she can get through this thing, then she might worry about that.
Today she's cleaning out her apartment, to move back into her father's home while she and Fitz search for a place. She'd almost wanted to take Fitz up on his offer to just move into her apartment, but something in her wanted to go home. At least for now, until she could make a home with Fitz. She shleps around her apartment. Yoga pants sit low on her hips and the gray Georgetown t-shirt hiding the slight pudge of her tummy. Fitz is up the road, getting lunch. Boxes of various sizes litter the living room. Olivia stands at her bookshelf, eyes roaming the titles. If someone would've told her a year ago, when she'd been first hired at St. Gabriels that she'd be here, she would've laughed in their faces. But she's here.
Olivia runs her fingers along the spine of a copy of Gloria Naylor's Bailey's Cafe. This apartment has been her home for the last three years. A small slice of life she'd carved out in post adolescents rebellion. To leave it now . . . her fingers pause on the spine and she takes a step back. She's pregnant. The thought enters her mind for the billionth time in at least the last hour. There is a thing growing in her body. A thing growing ten toes, ten fingers, and possibly a head full of hair. A thing that'll squeeze out of her body and squirm and scream and be half hers and half Fitz's. She'd never truly thought of having children before finding out she was pregnant. It'd been a fleeting thought every here and there. One she'd cried herself to sleep over when Edison had told her Maryanne was pregnant all those years ago. But not one she'd really ever confronted or thought through in detail. Now it is all she could think about. She kept imagining chunky cheeks and soft brown curls. Soft baby snuggles and light airy sighs. Even names start to fill her brain. Maya. Eliza. Something tells her she's having a girl.
She lifts her t-shirt, smiles at the slight rounding of her stomach and a tear slips down her cheek. It pools on her chin and she wipes it off. She lets her shirt fall back in place and suddenly she's a fountain. She doesn't know if she's crying because she's sad; because she's overwhelmed; or just because. Whatever it is, prompting her tears, she doesn't have long to ponder on. A steady knock sounds against her door.
"This is why I said we should've just ordered in," Olivia shouts. She doesn't hesitate to pull the door open.
Her mouth drops.
Instead of finding Fitz, she finds Edison. Haggard. Eyes red.
Each word she tries to speak breaks apart on her tongue. This is a nightmare. This isn't happening. Not at all. He would never show up here. Ever. Except it is him. He looks worse for wear. His six o'clock shadow is thick, his clothes rumpled.
"Olivia…" his voice is harsh, broken.
She hasn't seen or heard from him except through a TV screen in five years. And even then, she could never listen to his voice for long. Any time she spoke, she only heard the vulgar things he had to say about her. The things she'd walked in on. Even now as he stands in front of her, she can hear them clear as day.
"Why are you – how did you." The words jumble against her teeth. She panics and moves to slam her door but he pushes it open. He forces his way in and the door slams behind him. Stale alcohol waifs from his pores.
"I exploited you? I'm not a good man?" He asks.
Olivia assumes his question is rhetorical and even if it isn't, she can't speak.
"Did I ever force you to fuck me? Did I rape you, Olivia? Or were you happy to get down on your knees for me? You came onto me. Did I ever make you do anything you didn't want to?" He looks like a mad man, arms waving at his sides, acid pouring from his words. "Never. Now you're trying to ruin me. Everything I've done, everything I've accomplished? It means nothing. I don't care who you have to tell, Olivia, but you will make this right. You will fix this. I will not be undone by a little whore." He punctuates his point by knocking the vase sitting on the shelf next to the front door over. It slams to the grown with a loud crash.
Olivia jumps, shaking. "Get out of my apartment, Edison!" she shouts. There's far much more base in her voice than what she feels. Quite frankly, she's fucking terrified. It hadn't ever crossed her mind that he'd confront her. It'd never been her intention to say anything about Edison at all.
"Fix this, Olivia. Tell them the truth. Tell them how you wanted everything. I have people calling for my resignation. My son is a pariah. My wife wants to walk away. I did not get into this alone and I refuse to go down alone."
"I was twenty-years-old!" Olivia hisses. The fear begins to mold into outright anger. "I admitted I was wrong! I sat there and told everyone what I did! Everyone knows I slept with a married man. I've been carrying this around for five years, cutting off parts of myself while trying to accept that you never loved me. I've been blaming myself forever. I let you take advantage of me. I asked you to do that and I didn't!" Her ears start to ring and she feels dizzy.
"Bullshit! You knew I was married. You knew I wasn't going to walk away from my wife. From what I built. What you're trying to take away from me because – because I showed the world who you are?"
"That's not me!"
"Bullshit!"
"I loved you. I did those things for you." She hears her voice crack. "And you made it dirty, you made it wrong. How could you film and show it? How could you do that to me?
Tears run hot down Olivia's cheeks.
"You're going to fix this, Olivia. You have to fix this. You have to. I've worked too hard to get here. Do you know how many other Black male senators there are? There are three of us. I have a shot at the presidency and you're going to take that from me? From us?" He tries.
Olivia wipes at her cheeks. The acute shame she's felt since that fateful day of finding out he never gave a damn for her, blooms across her chest. He's using the same talking points, whether he knows it or not, as Maryann had the day she'd seen Olivia in the hospital. The same guilt she'd twisted and inflicted upon Olivia, Edison uses now.
"Don't do this, Livvie." His eyes are round as saucers. He stares at her, almost looking remorseful. "Please, Olivia. If you ever loved me, you'd take it back."
Olivia's eyes screw shut. Her heart chugs in her chest. Despite knowing that Edison never loved her, she can't say the same about herself. She did love him. Once upon a time ago, she did. The last month has been daunting and impossible. Her eyes screw shut and she shakes her head, trying to push his voice out. "Edison, stop. I want you to go. Get out. I don't know why you came here, but I'm not lying for you. What's done is –"
Her front door bangs open. Before she's able to grasp what's happening, the coffee table she picked out of the Goodwill smashes to pieces. It's a flurry of limbs and fabric as Olivia tries to gain a better grasp of what's happening. It's Fitz. Smashed styrofoam carries filled with smashed food line the carpet. He has Edison pinned to the ground, hands wrapped around the Senator's throat. Edison reaches up shoving at Fitz's face. Everything seems to be moving at a pace Olivia can't keep up with.
"Fitz, stop. Please stop! You don't want to do this. Please don't!" She moves to try and separate them, but another voice intercedes. She turns to find Harrison.
"Olivia, don't! Stay right there." Harrison orders. He moves to grab Fitz around the neck and is nearly bucked backwards by Fitz's flying right hand. Harrison manages to pull Fitz back. "You've got too much to lose man. Think about it." Harrison holds him.
Edison sputters and turns on his side. He coughs and howls. "I'm going to lose everything."
"Don't you say speak to her. I'll kill you if you ever come near her again. I'll kill you!" Fitz howls.
"Get the hell out of here before I let him go!" Harrison shouts.
"Fitz, please. I–" A sharp pain reverberates through Olivia's stomach. She doubles over, clutching her stomach. Her eyes screw shut and her knees hit the floor.