"Do you think she's going to acknowledge it?"
Sitting in the coffee shop with Jerry, Huck wanted to have a preparation talk with him before anyone else arrived for morning coffee of the group.
"She's been so involved with Fitz the last few months I don't think she will," Huck reminded him.
"But she is Olivia Pope, and she will surprise us. She might be caught up with Fitz but the second she sees the calendar she might go back into isolation. She did that last year too, remember? The anniversary of Steven's death will always be a reminder to her of what she was going to have. Livia and Fitz could be married for twenty years and have a dozen kids; she'd still fall down into a mess."
"I don't think you're giving her enough credit. She's happy again. It's been four years since I've seen her this happy with anyone other than Javi. She's letting Fitz throw a birthday dinner for her. Liv's never let us do that."
"Letting might be too much of a word. I think she's agreeing to it to make Fitz happy. You know she hates to celebrate her birthday."
While Huck and Jerry waited for them, Fitz was trying his best to get Olivia off the phone so they could leave. Motioning her to hurry up, keep going, talk later, anything to get her off the phone whatever the current situation is.
"Alright, alright, I'm coming! Have a little patience. Rome is burning to the ground, and you're worried about your morning bagel," she laughed heading out the door.
"I'm worried he won't have any left. Are they burning down figuratively or actually though?"
"Figuratively. You might have to fly out there and fix things."
Walking out of the elevator to the waiting car, Fitz helped her slide in and greeted Henry. "I highly doubt this is something you can't handle from here. I'm not flying across the pond to handle that myself. Besides, you are brilliant and can fix anything. Someone hacking into the computers isn't going to find much. All of our documents are safely password protected, no matter what. Whoever is hacking would have to figure out every single password to every document."
Typing away on her phone, Liv shot off orders to office managers on how to help the situation and what needed to be done. Taking her phone out of her hand, Fitz slid it into his jacket pocket. "What do you want for your birthday? All of us are going to dinner at the Italian place you love. But what can your boyfriend get you as a present? You are very difficult to buy for," Fitz smiled at her and kissed the back of her hand.
"I don't need anything, and anything I want I can get myself. No one should spend any money on me."
"It's not about the money, Livie. I want to get you something you'll love. Something you don't already have."
Pulling him closer to her, Olivia leaned towards him and kissed his lips. "I have one thing that I want more than anything and it's not going to cost you a penny."
"Name it, it's yours. Whatever you want, sweet baby." Fitz kissed her a bit harder, running his fingers on her neck.
"Promise?" Liv asked, pulling back from him a bit.
Locking eyes on hers, Fitz was just about to promise her anything but saw the spark in her eyes. "Anything but that."
"Fitz…"
"No Livie. I won't allow you. We've already discussed this."
"You said anything I wanted."
"Within reason, of course. I won't allow you to help in the divorce."
"I could get you everything you need to show Richards. I can convince him through documents that you should have been divorced months ago. There's no reason for the two of you to still be married."
"I said no, Olivia. Mellie is not going to come in and ruin your birthday too. You will stay out of this. Understood?"
Moving back to her seat, crossing her arms in a huff, Liv stared off outside the window on the drive to the coffee shop. Getting out of the car to get their coffees and food, Liv barely even looked at Huck or Jerry and walked out leaving Fitz there while Henry took her to the office.
"Well good morning to you too, Livia," Jerry snarked, taking a drink of coffee. "What's with her?"
"I'm not letting her help on the divorce," Fitz answered.
"Why not? Liv's incredible with arguing. She'd get you divorced in a heartbeat. Especially with that bastard Richards as your judge," Huck laughed before feeling Jerry kick his shin under the table. "Ow."
Looking between the two of them, Fitz turned to Huck figuring he'd get a better answer from him. "What's with those two? Richards is always asking me how Liv is and wants to know how our relationship is. But Liv seems to hate him. She never wants to go to lunch with us. Hell, she hates it when he calls the office. Something happen with him?"
"Well yeah…" Huck started to say before getting cut off by Jerry.
"Livia is entitled to loath whoever she wants. Richards is on her shit list and he's having a very hard time getting off that. He's a flirt and that didn't go well with Livia. Now, how's the dinner plans going? She hasn't cancelled it yet, right?"
Olivia sat in her office starting to work through the situation in Rome. Ignoring the rest of what needed to be done for now, she got too caught up in emails and calls, until two large vases of flowers appeared on her desk.
"Happy Birthday, Liv!" Cyrus stepped around the desk to hug her.
"What are you doing here? Did you bring Michael?" Liv stood hugging him tight. "What are these?"
Pulling the card from the white lotus flower bouquet. "These are from Michael. He couldn't get away this week but wanted to send you something."
Taking out the card, Liv read it over with a smile. Enjoy your birthday, Liv! Let it be calm and peaceful. And stop working so hard! Love, Michael and Cy.
"Well thank you both for the lovely flowers. Michael always knows what to pick out from meaning."
"Those are good but not as good as the gift I'll give you later. But what are these ones?"
Grabbing the card from the red hydrangeas bouquet, Liv opened it and read the card. Happy birthday sweet girl. Hope I can get some Livia time soon. Love you more than words. 41.9028 N, 12.4964 E. What do you call an excavated pyramid? Rereading the card several times, Olivia put on her glasses and googled the coordinates.
"Where's Eli now?" Cyrus asked her seeing the card on the desk.
"Unbelievable! Just un-fucking-believable!" Heading down the hallways towards the conference room where the IT team had set up to help release Rome's security issue, Cyrus followed after her running to keep up. "Everyone out," Liv shouted. Going to the head of the table, Liv put in a code to connect to the projecting tv screen getting video chat connected to Rome. "Mia, I have the problem solved. Let your team know to stop what they are doing and disconnect all computer lines to the server."
"You're sure that's going to work? There's a timer counting down on the screens," Mia asked her with a little hesitation.
"I'm aware, turn off the power to the servers."
"Yes, Ms. Pope."
"Liv, you sure you know what you're doing?" Cyrus questioned her putting a hand on her shoulder. Hearing the door open to the room, he turned to see Fitz coming in and shook his head.
Taking several steps closer to Liv, Fitz looked down at the computer she was furiously typing on. "Livie? There's a lot of commotion out there that you caused. What's going on?"
"I figured out the problem to Rome's security. It's been hacked."
"I am aware of that. What's the answer?"
"This." Putting in two lines of coded numbers and one word at the end of it. Unencrypted. Hitting enter, Liv stepped around the conference room table to the foot to stand in front of the webcam tv with arms crossed. Waiting for the connection to appear, Liv shook her head at the two people in the tv. "There are much easier ways to wish someone happy birthday. Ones that also don't include hacking into my work's computer servers with privileged documents."
"Happy birthday sweetheart! You look so lovely, Livia," the woman smiled at her.
Confused, Fitz turned to Cyrus for some sort of explanation. Cyrus stood shaking his head at them. "Do you know her?" Fitz asked in a whisper to Cyrus who nodded yes.
"If you wanted to say happy birthday you could have picked up the phone and called me. You had everyone in my office here and there and ten other IT teams up in arms trying to fix the hack that you just did."
Liv's mom? What the hell? I thought she said she doesn't talk to her. Fitz tried to take a step towards her but was stopped when Cyrus caught his arm.
"I got the flowers, thank you. I also know that dad is there, where is he at?"
"He went to the café in town. Eli was sure you wouldn't figure out the code for several hours. I told him it wouldn't take long."
"The flowers arrived at ten. If they had been here at nine then the clock would not be stopped so low. Sixteen hours started the clock?"
Maya smiled as she sat back in her chair looking at her daughter. "Always sixteen baby girl. I knew you would remember the codes."
"I'm so sorry to interrupt this reunion," Fitz stepped off to go to Olivia. "Mrs. Pope, what you have just done is a felony. One that my office will ensure you are punished for. The government does not appreciate hackers or thieves of any kind."
"Fitz, she wasn't stealing anything. My mother was merely seeking my attention. This is the only way she knows how to get it: by playing games. Trust me, if she wanted any information from the servers she would have them within seconds. However, this was not the way to get my attention, mother. What is dad even doing in Rome?"
"Olivia? Wow, she figured that out faster than I thought," Eli approached the computer with a smile. "I came out to Italy for a little week vacation and happened to run into your mother. We started talking and one week of vacation led to a month staying here with her."
"So, once again, you both underestimate me. Dad for thinking it would take me sixteen hours to figure out the encryption and Mom for thinking I would tolerate this." Shaking her head, Olivia slammed her fist down on the table. "You two are unbelievable. You are never, and I mean NEVER, allowed to even think about hacking into any server again. If you want to talk to me, you need to do it like any other normal parent and call. Give me the option of picking up or ignoring the call. Do not force me to decrypt your little game for your own amusement. Are we understood?"
Eli and Maya both closed their mouths not sure how they could apologize or if Olivia would even accept it. "Alright, you have our word not to do this again. Livia, please don't stress yourself so much. You look exhausted sweetie. Please try to unwind and relax a bit."
Nodding her head in agreement, she bent over the back of the chair as Fitz came over to her gently rubbing her back.
"Eli, I think this is a good time to say goodbye," Cyrus put in.
"You're right. I'm sure you have a lot of work to do, Olivia. Happy birthday sweetheart. Enjoy the day and relax," Eli told her before ending the video call.
"That's your mom?"
"Sadly. I'll take care of the damages she did to the servers and pay for the extra IT teams and their hours."