Fitz's POV

I don't know what to say. And I don't know how to feel. At this point, the only thing I know is that my anger is not justified. There is probably a reason, an explanation, a truth to why the papers aren't signed. But none of those reasons, no explanations or justifications could make me feel better.

"I-I can explain," Livvy stutters, sitting upright on the mattress. She says this, but offers no elaboration.

I close my eyes and force myself to take a deep breath before I say anything I am going to regret. I'm not gonna lash out at Liv like I would with Mellie, for the sole reason that she is not her. Livvy is rational and loving and even though she is flawed and insecure, she deserves more than how I treated Mellie. "I don't need to hear what you have to say. You didn't sign the papers...you didn't sign them, Liv."

I'm more sad than I am angry. Call me sensitive but I really thought this was forever, I thought this was sure. I thought I fixed whatever problems or doubts Liv had.

I thought I handled her.

I don't realize I am thinking aloud until she slams her hand down on the box next to her. "I am not your thing to fix."

"What..." I let the papers fall to the floor and cross my arms. I close the door behind me. "Forgive me if I thought you loved me. If I thought this actually meant something."

"I do love you," she yells, clutching the blanket around her chest. "And this does mean something. But I am not your thing to be fixed, I am not your thing to be handled. This means everything to me, Fitz, but you are not my life. You are not some hero that saved me of all my problems."

"I never said I was!" I lie. I was thinking that. Deep inside, I had some idea that all of Livvy's insecurities would go away when I was with her, when we were together. "I didn't know you still had Jake in the back of your mind."

"I don't!" Liv shouts angrily. "Stop trying to make this about Jake. It has nothing to do with him!"

I slam my hand on the wall behind me. I know Livvy is a flawed person, we all are. I know she makes mistakes, we all do. And I forgave her through each one. I never held a grudge against her, not for anything. But this lying, this deflecting, I am not gonna stand here and take it. "You didn't sign the papers, Liv. This has everything to do with him."

"No, it doesn't," Livvy hisses from behind me. "This is about me and you. I didn't sign the papers because I didn't sign them. I was going to. I have no doubts about this. But believe me when I say you have this thing wrong, this superior complex where you think you're my knight in shining whatever and you can save me from all the shit going on in my life. I can save myself."

"You're not doing a bang up job of it," I turn around and narrow my eyes. "You stayed with that son of a bitch for years, Liv. You made my daughter stay with him. That wasn't strength. That wasn't saving. That was weakness. And I know you, Liv. You aren't weak. You just act like you are and for the life of me, I don't know why."

She stares at me for a minute before looking away, wiping her eyes. "You know the right ways to hurt me."

I swallow and press my back against the wall. "Are you gonna run? It's what you do best."

Livvy scoffs and folds her arms against her bare chest. "I hate you."

"I love you," I look up and she slowly turns to me. "Liv, I love you. I just don't know why you did this. Why we're like this. I just...why didn't you sign the damn papers, Livvy?"

"I..." Livvy leans back against the mattress and exhales. "I don't know, Fitz. I don't love him, I love you. I want you. But I didn't sign the papers. And I don't know why."

I swallow and look up at ceiling like her. Maybe the answer is up there. "When I saw you again, I thought you were a puzzle. A complicated, complex mystery I had to solve. But you're not, Livvy. You're a woman. You're a human. We all are. In the end, we do things, feel things and sometimes there are no explanations for them. All I know is that you're not just a human. You're the love of my life. You're the love of my life and I can't understand you."

Surprisingly, Livvy reaches out her hand to me. I walk to the mattress and get in behind her, wrapping the blanket around both of us and holding her arm so that she's turning away from me and I am spooning her. I won't stay mad at her. I can't. But I can't stop thinking that she was going to prolong signing the papers for a while. And I just don't know why. A minute passes before she finally says something, and when she does it's in the form of a whisper. "It's okay. I can't understand myself either."

Olivia's POV

It doesn't make any sense. I give him so much shit and in the end, he puts his arms around me and kisses my cheek and rubs my shoulder and tells me it's okay.

I reach down and blindly pull a sweatshirt from a box, which happens to be a gray one with NAVY with black letters on it I put that on after I put on my pajamas too.

It's not okay. I love him. I'm in love with him. He's the love of my life.

I don't want to let him down, not again. I want to be the girl he deserves.

Four and a Half Years Ago

This waiting is as painful and as difficult to deal with as the nausea. I'm literally here, in this stupid apartment, five months pregnant, married and so unhappy. I'm not trying to, you know? I want to keep the promise I made - I want to be happy, to move on. I want all of these things because it's what Fitz asked of me. It's what he asked and I would give him anything.

On the other hand, he's rotting in prison, probably beaten up or worse. He has a case that's not going anywhere. I know David is trying but at this point, nothing is happening. There are no leads. There is no actual proof that Fitz shot his kids and wife besides some witnesses who testified that Fitz and Mellie were unhappy in their marriage. Asher Harris, after being elected as governor, admitted to having an affair with Mellie. That gave Fitz motive. And since they don't have any other suspects, Fitz doesn't really have a defense case.

Even though I have other clients, not a day goes by without thinking about Fitz. Without worrying about him. I feel so helpless. I wanna move on, to get over him, to put all this behind me. But I can't. I just feel so powerless.

I keep on thinking about it. It doesn't just cross my mind - the case is constantly embedded in there. It's all I can think about. I left it but I never truly left it, you know?

I never, ever lose cases so I keep on thinking about where I went wrong. I keep on wondering what I missed. All these cases are really are puzzles, guilty or not. When you get it wrong, all you did was miss a piece that connects the big picture.

I know Fitz didn't do it - I know that, David knows that and Mellie knows that. She hasn't testified and that makes my blood boil. Even if they didn't have a relationship, if he spends the rest of his life in prison, it'll be on her. How can she live with herself? How can she keep her daughter away from her innocent father? How?

And another thing I keep on thinking about. When I last saw Fitz, he told me about how the guards were horrible, complete shit. The guard who let Fitz get beat up the first time was never reprimanded or questioned.

What was his name?

Even though I shouldn't, I grab my laptop from the bedside table and open it. After some research, I find that the guard's name was Roger McClain. He was supposed to be on a two week suspension after he left Fitz in that bathroom but the prison was severely short staffed so they let him come back after two days.

Roger McClain...was he hired by Asher? Asher benefited most from Fitz being framed. That way, he could win the election. But if Asher really loved Mellie...would he try to have her killed?

I don't know. There are too many factors to consider here. I take a deep breath, clear my head and dig into the article on McClain a little more. It says that he never denied the negligence on his part and he never requested to return to work. In fact, a week later, he quit the job all together.

I type his name into Google. Sure enough, he's unemployed. But why? Why did he quit his job? He needed money, didn't he? Better yet, why did he leave Fitz in the first place?

My guess is that whoever paid someone to kill Gerry also paid McClain to abandon Fitz in that bathroom, in hopes that a prison gang would kill him.

Or scare him into not testifying.

I grab my phone from the foot of the bed and scroll through my contacts. Investigating a murder isn't what most pregnant women do in their pastimes, yet here I am. Whatever it takes to get Fitz out, even if That means figuring this out and leaving an anonymous tip to David. I call Abby, who is actually just a ten minute drive from where I am right now. "Abby?"

"Liv," Abby shouts, sounding worried. "Is everything okay? Did your water break? Is the baby coming? It's too early."

"No, Abby," I grin at Abby's internal instincts. She is gonna make a hell of a godmother in four months time. "I wanted to ask you...do you have any contacts in the hacker business?"

"What?" Abby stutters. "What do you mean?"

"Like," I stammer for a reasonable explanation. "Like someone who can hack into bank accounts and stuff?"

"I'm officially worried," Abby jokes. "Is this for a new case?"

I trace my thumb over the edge of my computer screen. "Something like that. Can you help, Abs?"

"I think," Abby replies slowly. "I mean, I know this guy, Huck, from grad school. He can help you hack into virtually anything, get you all the information you need. He owes me a favor so I can call him up for you."

I inhale. Maybe it's the fact that there's a little hope or maybe it's the pregnancy hormones but that's the best news I have heard in a while. "Thank you, Abby. That really means a lot."

"No problem." Abby says, sounding hesitant. "Is everything okay, Liv?"

I swallow and look at my computer again. "It will be."

X

"Livvy," I wake up to Fitz's voice and open my eyes, blinded by the sunlight through the curtainless windows. "Liv..."

I blink and look around the room. Karen and Savannah are also in here, on the foot of the mattress, both drinking cold drinks from Starbucks cups. Fitz nudges a cardboard drink holder with an iced coffee and a paper food packet by my side. "Morning. I took the girls out for breakfast and got you a sweet iced tea. You don't drink coffee, right?"

I smile and prop myself up on my elbows. Savannah and Karen are hovered over an iPad, making me roll my eyes. But it gives me an excuse to talk to Fitz. I balance the holder on my stomach and scoot over so he sits next to me. He grabs my hand and squeezes it under the blanket. It's kind of funny that we're secretly holding hands after what we did last night, but even though Karen and Savannah pretty much know we're together, I know he's trying to slow everything down for their sake.

I take my tea and squeeze his hand back. I wonder if he's still mad at me. What I have learned is that Fitz is a really forgiving guy. I think he just has too big of a heart, which I love. I really need to stop fucking up though. I need to stop lying and I need to get everything together.

I swear I don't love Jake anymore. Last night, with Fitz, the name 'Jake Ballard' was completely erased from my vocabulary until I remembered how much I screwed up and left the unsigned papers in plain view.

I don't actually think Fitz was angry. I think he was hurt. And at this point, that is seriously the last thing that needs to happen. He deserves so much more than the shit the universe throws at him.

"Where did you put the papers?" I whisper, brushing my thumb over his knuckles. "I want to sign them."

Fitz kisses my cheek, Savannah and Karen too occupied to care or even notice. "Don't worry about it. I put them back in the box."

"I'll sign them as soon as I get up," I promise, twisting my green straw further into the tea, pushing ice cubes against the side of the plastic.

"No," Fitz mumbles. "If you sign them now, I will know you did it just for me and if that were the case, I couldn't live with myself. If you're gonna do it, do it for you. I'm not mad at you, Liv."

"Okay," I nod, because that makes sense. Then again, he's Fitz. He is always so smart and he always make sense. I still feel guilty but I know i'm gonna do it. It's just a matter of when. "I hope you know that I am sign them, Fitz."

"I believe you," Fitz tries to smile and tell me that he trusts me but I am not so sure he does. And I don't blame him. I haven't given him a lot to trust me off of. Ever since five years ago, I have lied to him, betrayed him and let him down. He has never held it against me.

I feel something buzz against my thigh and Fitz reaches into his pocket with his free hand and pulls out his vibrating phone. "Huh."

"Who is it?" I ask in between sips of my tea.

"The senatorial committee," Fitz mumbles his reply, his eyebrows raised and eyes locked on his phone. "I guess I should be ready to be shunned from DC."

I grin, but I'm nervous for him too. If he really did call out the senate and yell at them like he described, he really could be facing consequences. He smiles back and walks out of the room to take the call.

I look back down the bed at Savannah and Karen. They're not on the iPad anymore - Savannah is sipping a strawberry smoothie and having Karen braid her hair. The way Karen does it is so elaborate and she does it so willingly. Karen and Savannah definitely hit it off from the start and I know Savannah already considers Karen to be her older sister, just like she considers Fitz to be her dad.

As for Karen? I don't know. She's doing better, I think. She's closer to both Savannah and I and if she let Fitz buy her Starbucks this morning, their relationship must be at least a little bit better.

As happy as i am about that, I don't think it will be enough. I really think Karen needs some closure. I haven't spoken to Fitz about it, just because it may not have been my place. It still might not be, but I think it doesn't matter now. Karen needs to see her mom, even if it's for a couple of minutes.

My thoughts are interrupted by Fitz walking back into the room, his hands by side, shaking. He swallows really hard and then looks at me, biting his lip.

"That was Senator Carson," he says quietly. "He said if I want it, the job is mine."