AN: Well, between my niece using me as a cosmetology doll and my nephew trying to put himself in the hospital (this child has no fear and loves heights, please send help) I managed to squeeze this out. We're getting somewhere. I promise. As I was telling someone else, we are going to get some happy times here, too.
I really like Fitz and Marcus's friendship on the show so i'm trying to rope some of that into here, too.
Happy Holidays everyone. Stay safe and stay healthy.
"I don't want to hear it, Abby," Olivia hissed, climbing to her feet. After all of Abby's grandstanding, the redhead's words felt like a hot knife peeling back her eyelids. "What can he possibly say to me? I'm sorry I let my friend — ra — force himself on you?" Rape. She'd already used the r word twice today. Three since Fitz had walked back into her life. Since it'd happened, she'd found anyway not to call it what it was. Assaulted. Attacked. Forced. Rape made it finite. Rape made her body a crime scene. Slowly she was realizing that much like a rose by any other name, the violence she'd experienced would still be such.
"Liv, if I thought he wasn't sincere or if he wasn't telling the truth, I'd shut him down in a second, but I can feel it in my gut. He didn't know what was happening to you." Abby pleaded. "You're the one who told me to trust my gut and go for it. That's what I'm doing."
"Don't use that against me. Not here, not like this. Not after what I told you he did to me."
"You also told me that you think you were drugged. The way Fitz describes what he remembers — I think he might've been drugged, too," Abby reached out, fingers grazing Olivia's shoulder, prompting Olivia to flinch.
"Don't touch me," Olivia's voice raised. She held up her hand and took a step back. "I don't know what you think you're trying to do, but don't. Leave."
"Can one of you tell me what's going on?" Curtis asked. One of his hands slid in between Olivia and Abby. "I don't like what I'm hearing right now. Who the hell is this guy?"
Olivia tilted her head. Her spine tightened and she folded her arms across her chest, fixing Abby with a glare. It was one thing to tell Curtis what'd happened to her all those years ago, it was another to go into detail. And she never had. It was too hard and she never wanted Curtis to look at her through a victim lens. He already had. It was one of the reasons he'd broken up with her. He didn't need the full story. "He's no one," Olivia tried. Her teeth clenched.
"He sounds like someone who needs to have his teeth knocked in."
"No, he sounds like someone Olivia needs to hear out. For her own piece-of-mind and peace at mind."
"I said no, Abby. I'm filling my resignation letter tomorrow. Fitz can have that job."
"You can't run forever? What if Curtis stays? Will you talk to Fitz then?"
Olivia's throat tightened and it felt hard to breathe. A part of her knew Abby was right. She couldn't hide forever. She couldn't run forever. One of these days she'd run out of road. Then what? Lie down and die? "Why should I?"
"Because maybe then you can heal."
Six years sat between now and then, leaving Fitz's mind to fill in the blanks. Much like Olivia, he'd cut out the rest of his work day. He now stood in the gym, sparring gloves on as he waited for Abby to call. She promised to let him know once she got through to Olivia; something Fitz feared wouldn't happen. And he couldn't blame Olivia one bit, either. He still couldn't reconcile the man he'd grown up with, with the monster who would do something so heinous to a woman. Trying to sort it through was like trying to hold water in his hands; almost pointless. Jake was married; he had a son on the way; he was Karen's god-father and had been a source of support for Fitz when Mellie walked away. Mellie. Where was he to begin with her? She'd fucked him over, but more rage inducing was that she'd screwed their daughter over.
He swung at the punching bag. The thud of leather on leather wasn't as satisfying as it once was. The energy it took to swing wore Fitz's body down but did nothing for his mind. Jake raped Olivia. Jake forced himself on Olivia. Jake... . He'd thought about Olivia at least once a year since she'd disappeared. No forwarding address. No phone number. He'd thought about finding her parents, checking in on her. Just to see if she still thought about him. Just to see if she missed him. Jake's words always stopped him, though. Jake's words and what he'd walked in on. It was still fuzzy, but at the moment it'd looked consensual. At the moment he'd heard her moan. How had he convinced himself that she'd been in ecstasy when really she'd called out for help. He stood there, able to stop her torture, and just . . . hadn't. No wonder why she wanted to take his head off. He was right there. He could've stopped it. He could've done something. Even if it meant going against his friend. Right?
"If you break the bag, you have to buy a new one." The bag jolted to a halt.
Fitz peered around the bag to find a young, Black man he recognized as another associate in his office. What was his name again? Martin? Marcus? That's what Fitz got for using the company gym. "They can take it out of my salary."
"This anger have something to do with Olivia?" Marcus asked.
Fitz swung at the bag harder. "Don't say her name."
"Can't help but notice every time you are two feet near her, she runs in the other direction. Except for this morning. She -" Fitz threw all of his weight into the bag, warranting a 'oof' from Marcus.
"Tip for you, Marcus, don't talk about shit you know nothing about," Fitz said. He came to a stand still, chest heaving and arms tired. He took in Marcus's expression of pure confusion. "Why are you worried about Olivia anyways? You have a thing for her?"
"For Olivia?" Marcus smiled. "Nah, she's more like a sister. You know, a biological sister, not like a sista, sista. Well, she is a sista, but not your sista." He let go of the bag waving his hands in the air. "I mean no. Olivia has a force field around her at all times. She doesn't let anyone get close and she's annoyingly calm most days. Not really since you showed up, but she used to be."
"While watching you stumble over whatever the hell you're trying to say is interesting, I don't know how to tell you that I don't care," Fitz told him, cutting to the point.
Marcus rolled his eyes. "What I'm trying to say - or was - very subtly was that Olivia's a Black woman."
"I'm aware."
"Then you know that she doesn't get the same leeway you do."
And here came the impending migraine. "The hell are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying whatever happened between you two that you keep bringing to work, stop it. They'll let go of Olivia before they let go of you. Hell, they'll probably give you a raise as they let her go."
Fitz's brow knotted together and he put his gloved hands on his hips. He was trying to follow Marcus's line of thinking, but was finding it hard. "That's not true. She's been here longer than I have."
"I really hope she didn't date you."
Marcus's words prompted Fitz's fists to tighten in the gloves. If Marcus had a point, he was losing it quickly. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"That you don't understand the weight on Olivia's shoulders and whatever you're doing, it seems like you're only adding to it." With that, Marcus pushed the bag back towards Fitz and walked off. A harsh whatever rolled off Fitz's tongue as he shoved his right hand under his left arm and tugged off a glove, then repeated the motion with the other side. He needed to hit the showers.
When he emerged a grand total of ten minutes later, his conversation with Marcus weighed heavily on his head. He thought back to something Abby had said to him earlier, too. Yale was Olivia's dream school. There wasn't any way she'd leave it because Jake had hurt her feelings. Nothing added up and the more Fitz tried to make it make sense, the more it didn't,
He went back to tugging on his suit in the locker room when his phone began to vibrate. The hollow hum of an iphone against metal cut off as Fitz reached inside his locker. He grabbed the phone and nearly growled at the sight of the name that glared back at him. Mellie.
He couldn't hold back the animosity as he answered. "What?"
"We need to talk about Karen," Mellie's shrill voice answered.
"You have my lawyer's number, talk there." He hung up, not wanting to hear anything. He knew what this was about. He'd seen the bid Mellie was making for House Rep. He might've not been in the political scene, but that didn't stop his father from bringing it up. The only reason Mellie wanted to discuss Karen now was because it reflected poorly on her image. That was one of Fitz's main impetus for finding a job outside of the city. Abandoned kid was a hard narrative to sell and Fitz had no wants to help her rehabilitate her image.
Again, the phone rang. A knotted started taking shape in Fitz's jaw. He had half a mind to slam his phone on the ground. "What?"
"Don't what me, I gave birth to her. I'm trying to do this the civil way, Fitzgerald. You're the one who insisted on taking off to D.C. and not for anything worth its weight either."
Honestly, what the hell had he seen in her? Ever? "The answer is no. To whatever you want, it's a no."
She sighed into the receiver. "If you could just act like an adult at least once in your life. I swear, you're so much more of an asshole than you were in law school."
A lightbulb goes off in his head as she mentioned law school. He was knocked back into Halloween. "Speaking of law school, do you remember Olivia Pope?"
Again, she sighed. "Not that poor little wounded Black Bird you trailed behind. Jesus, I thought you were over her. It's been years. She was so beneath you and you just chased her like a lost puppy. Thank god you went into the right room that night."
"What?" Fitz asked, taken aback by her choice of words. "The right room?" His head was foggy but he could remember climbing the stairs.
No, Fitz, not this room. The other room. He could hear Mellie's voice hovering above the bass of the music. He could feel her leading him away from the door he'd been going for, direly needing to lay down.
"I mean that you walked in on her and Jake. You got to see that she never wanted you. I tried to tell you. I'm just glad that Jake was finally able to show you."
There was something in Mellie's voice that made Fitz's skin crawl. Something that didn't sit well with him. "Mellie, what do you know about Halloween our 1L year?"
"My lawyer will be reaching out. Bye."
The line went dead. He chuckled darkly to himself. It was like cracked glass starting to spider out. He opened his phone, thumb hovering over Mellie's name, this time to call her, but got cut off by an 'Unknown Number.'
He stared down the screen for a moment, wondering whether or not he wanted to answer and remembered Abby. "Hello?" he couldn't hide the hope in his tone.
"Liv's agreed to speak to you. She wants to meet you at my apartment. Cathedral Heights. Tonight." Abby shot off.
"Tonight? I — tonight is a hard sell. I have to find a ba—"
"Either do or don't, Grant, but it's a miracle she's agreed to begin with. I doubt she'll give you a second chance."
Fitz dropped his head against his locker. How the hell was he going to do this with Karen on his hip?