A/N: Something tiny as I try to get back to some of my other stories besides Metanoia. It's a bit of a push to switch to a story your muse isn't ripe for at the moment, but well worth if it puts a smile on someone's face to get a notification. Then y'all can hate me. Shout out to Tamarra for making me think about this again.


Everything hurt.

No matter which position Olivia tried, she couldn't find a way to relieve the pain radiating across her lower back. Her daughter was making her life a living hell. With just a little over a month left to go, Olivia found herself teetering over the edge. Swollen. Cranky. Sad.

She and Fitz still weren't okay. They were cordial to each other when Tommy was around and he over-monitored her when it came to the baby, but outside of that, Fitz was downright stoic. Olivia started to wonder if she'd truly lost her husband. They'd come back from the brink before, though. They could do it again, right? Except Olivia was scared. She was terrified of putting everything back into their marriage and ending up back here again. If only she could see the great deal of irony in that line of thinking. Perhaps then she could see that she was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps then, she could find some relief.

Tears pooled in her eyes as she made her way down the hall, to Fitz's study. She lifted her hand to knock. A dull thud sounded and she pressed her forehead against the wood, waiting. When the door finally opened, Fitz stood before her. Alarm spread across his face.

"Is something wrong with the baby?" he asked.

Olivia's bottom lip quivered. Normally the sight of him, curls tussled, shirt crumpled, and legs on display, sent her into an uncontrolled tizzy. Now, however, it was the opposite. The pain proving too acute for her to do anything other than seek relief. The tears slipped over her eye lids and rolled down her face. "My back hurts." Pain wrapped around her tone. "She's trying to break my spine."

Alarm turned to understanding, prompting Fitz to nod. "Go get in bed and I'll be there in a minute."

Without a word, she turned and made her way back to their bedroom.

A meld of classic and minimalist, Olivia held onto the footboard as she fought to find a way to sit. It was difficult and uncomfortable, but she managed to perch on the bed's edge. On the side where Fitz usually slept. Her eyes slipped closed but opened seconds later when their bedroom door squeaked open. In his hands he held an old-fashioned water bottle.

"I got you a hot water bottle. Lie on your side so I can rub out those knots. After this, we're going to elevate your feet." Fitz instructed. Olivia had no fight left inside her.

"Help, please?" she begged, sounding like their now seven-year-old. "It hurts so bad."

He was at her side in seconds. Together they guided Olivia down onto her left side. The pressure on her sitz bones alleviated. Seconds later Fitz's fingers sunk into her back, prompting an uninhibited moan from Olivia.

"You're knotted up badly," Fitz spoke, "are you only laying on your side at night?"

"No," she lied.

"Are you on your feet in the office all day?"

Olivia could hear the disapproval in his voice. They were still at an impasse. She'd been at her new firm for a month and a half now. After promising to Jessica and Max that her pregnancy wouldn't be an issue, she had to keep up the façade that everything was alright.

"No." Another lie. She was so hellbent on proving to everyone that she was okay meant over doing herself.

"Olivia, I know that isn't the truth. Please, after everything, just tell me the truth." His fingers sunk into a particularly soft spot. She let out a low hiss. Fucking hell this sucked.

"I'm new there Fitz, I can't take a day off. I'm behind in jumpstarting my career again. I can't..."

"I wish you would let this go..."

She went tense at his words. Typical. Her career on hold. Again. He always wanted her to give up something. "I'm not letting my career go. Again" His fingers paused.

"I don't want you to let it go, I want you to look at your priorities. For me, for Tommy, and for our daughter. I want you to stop pushing me out. I want to sleep in my bed and be with my wife."

Frustration gathered between Olivia's ribs. He still didn't get it? Why couldn't cut pieces of himself off. Why couldn't he balance work and life better? "I'm not."

"Then tell me why you need to do this now?" His fingers paused right over her spine.

She jumped as she felt the warmth from the water bottle hit her skin. It was a loaded question. One where the answer was probably something as simple as projection. Maybe even fear or terror. Nonetheless, Olivia didn't want to talk about it. Not here, not now. Not when her daughter was using her spine as a punching bag. It wasn't fair. "I don't want to lose myself to just being your house-wife again."

"And Ben?"

The B word was bound to come up. What little relief she felt disappeared. "What about him? I don't know how else to tell you that there's nothing going on with him. I don't want him, I want you."

His thumbs sunk into the dip in her back, above the water bottle. Again, Olivia moaned. "You go to him with his feelings when you should be coming to me."

An argument bubbled in her throat. She wanted to yell at him. She wanted to tell him that nearly a year ago now, he'd abandoned her. He'd made it possible for her to find her way to Ben. But she was right when she told Fitz that there wasn't anything between, she and Ben any more. He was someone to talk to when she felt like she couldn't talk to Fitz. Even after talking to her therapist didn't help. Ben made her feel seen.

"I'm going to go make you some ginger tea," he said. The bed dipped and then lifted as Fitz stood up. "We're should get your blood pressure checked tomorrow and another test for gestational diabetes."

"When are you going to stop punishing me for trying to have it all?" It was a question that bubbled out on its own. One she didn't know if she wanted the answer to. All of her life she'd been told to make a way to have it all. Her father's expectations had made it into her past, presence, and future.

"Because you don't have to have it all at the same time."

/

She couldn't stop the hunger from rippling across her belly as she sat at the isle in her father's house. Across the is isle sat her step mother. Sandra was a sweet woman. Amenable. Loving. She'd given Olivia more than her own mother who'd walked out on her family.

"Why don't you two go back to therapy?" Sandra asked.

Olivia stirred the peppermint tea in front of her. Last night still rested in her bones and there was a dull ache in her back. Fitz had rubbed her into sleep, creating pockets of physical relief from pain. Too bad it hadn't softened the pounding in her head.

"It's hard to find time where we're both free. And then we do, we have to worry about finding a sitter for Tommy. " It was a cop out and Olivia knew that. It rolled her stomach to think about how to contend with the fact that she was lying.

"Cut the shit, Olivia. I've known you for a good while. I know what you do when you're scared. You detach. What are you afraid of with Fitz? He's done everything you ask and somehow, it's just not enough for you. I don't get it; what more do you want?" Sandra asked.

This wasn't supposed to turn into an interrogation. She was supposed to be in and out. Pick up the book left and grandma and grandpa's and be on her way. Now it'd turned into a third-degree investigation. Sandra was a dog with a bone, too. Maybe it was the hormones flooding her body, maybe it was just having Sandra stare her in the face, but Olivia felt herself tearing up again.

"I just don't want things to go back to the way they were before everything happened. I want to be someone outside of a wife and a mother. If we go that way...if he checks out on me again I-"

"So, you're checking out first because you think he will?"