AN: Thanks for all your well wishes and prayers for my health. It's all much appreciated. I'm finally feeling at least 80%. My lungs aren't in as much pain as they were. I'm also back at work again. Work has been crazy, too. Slowly getting back into the writing groove, though. This chapter is short and it's me getting comfortable writing again. Hope you enjoy.
Anger was a natural part of the grieving process. Olivia had been taught that fact at the tender age of nine, when she lost her cat – affectionately named Eartha Kitt-y— in a freak poisoning accident. In an attempt to rid his backward of raccoons, Mr. Kelly, the Pope's next-door neighbor, had lined his fence with rat poisoning. Clever raccoons knew not to eat the poison. A chunky indoor cat who had accidentally gotten out, however, didn't. Olivia had nearly kicked a hole in Mr. Kelly's shin when he came to bear the bad news. She'd raged at the sky, her parents, and grandparents over her loss. She'd torn her room apart and thrown all of her stuffed animals out. No matter how destructive she was or how irate she became at those around her, nothing brought Eartha Kitty back. Twenty years later had come and gone since. Still, Olivia didn't know how to handle her anger. Especially not anger that she hadn't confronted before. Sure, she'd raged at herself since the rape, but in the last week, since reopening the wound with Fitz, she realized just how pissed she was at Jake. Not only that, but how much of her anger had been misdirected at Fitz. So here she was, hacking away at the punching bag in her office gym.
Swimming was still her drug of choice when she couldn't sleep, but boxing was for her rage. And she had a lot of it. Each time she pulled back, fist balled, she saw Jake. He'd taken apart of her and now he was back inside of her head. She swung at the punching bag. He'd taken it and she hadn't realized how much hurt she held onto because of him until now. She was fine with shunning the world until now, but slowly, she was starting to see what it'd cost her. She needed to grieve the life she would never get back and right now, she was in the anger stage of grief. Tomorrow she might bargain or beg for better days but right now, she was angry. Angry and in the right to be. Her group therapy sessions for survivors had taught her as much.
She swung a fist at the bag. The leather was heavy against her knuckles. She grunted. Everything felt tight. Claustrophobic almost. Since confessing to her parents, having it out with Fitz, and getting back together with Curtis, she was a pressure cooker on the brink. Would this ever get easier? She swung again. Harder. Her knuckles stung. The pain almost provided a sense of relief. Something else to focus on besides the flashes of memory and anger clouding her head. Soon, she was firing both fists at the hunk of leather and sand in front of her. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. Her chest heaved.
So caught up in punishing the punching bag, that she didn't hear the familiar beep of a keycard opening the sliding gym doors. Matter of fact, it wasn't until the punching bag came to an abrupt halt, her fist still slamming against it one more time, that she realized she wasn't alone. She was normally hyper vigilant about her surroundings, all things considering.
Olivia peered around the lump of red leather to find Fitz staring at her. He had a small, purplish bruise under his left eye. She huffed, letting her arms drop to her side. It'd been a week since she's seen him and merely minutes since she last thought about what she wanted to say to him. Sorry just didn't seem to hack it.
"If you keep swinging at the bag like that, you're going to spring your wrists," he said. He offered up a small smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, prompting her to frown.
Olivia looked at the punching bag and then over to Fitz. She was a swimmer, not a boxer. "Want to show me how it's done?" She didn't really want him to show her. Until she could figure out what she wanted to say to him, however, boxing lessons would have to suffice.
"Only if you answer some of my questions."
"What kind of questions?" She dropped her arms to her side, suddenly nervous. She fought to meet his eyes, afraid of what she'd see in them. She didn't want his pity nor his concern. The last thing she wanted was for him to look at her and see what had happened instead of seeing her. All of her worries about what she'd say to him when they met face to face again melted away.
"Like what do you need from me?" Fitz asked. He let go of the bag and it swayed in place. He took several steps back. Much like her, he was dressed for the gym.
Her right eyebrow rose. "Need? I-I don't…. what do you mean?"
His eyes tore away from hers. He pushed the bag. Whatever he was trying to say, he was clearly struggling with. "A friend told me to ask you what you need from me for you to help you heal."
There was the acute, stabbing sensation she'd been feeling in her gut since he'd told her side of the story. The remorse in voice and eyes since was suffocating for her.
"I failed you six years ago. I need to know what to do for you to heal now." He continued.
Olivia looked up at him, her dark eyes sparkling under the fluorescent lights. He looked like he hadn't been sleeping well. Hopefully, the bags under his eyes weren't her doing. A beat passed. "Was it the same friend who gave you that shiner?"
His jaw tightened and his blue eyes grew cloudy. "No. This was . . ." He looked away from her for a long moment before turning back. Olivia watched with curiosity. "A dispute over a parking spot."
"You're still a bad liar," she said. Whatever he was holding back, it must've been important.
Fitz laughed. He cracked a sideways smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. It was the same smile he'd give her all those years ago, right before a hard exam that he swore he'd fail. It was a somber smile, a remorseful one full of hollow hope and a hail Mary. "Yeah, Lincoln should've –"
"Been your father," she finished for him. It was a joke their Torts Professor always slung Fitz's way.
They both laughed. A tiny bit of tension fell away. "Can we grab lunch this week?" Fitz asked.
Olivia looked at him uncertainly. She hadn't considered what her relationship with Fitz would look like once she figured out how to apologize to him. Was lunch in that picture? Was a friendship in that picture? "Okay. If you teach me how to properly hit a punching bag."
Fitz nodded. "I can do that. First thing first is that you should either wrap your hands or wear gloves. It stabilizes your wrists."
"I don't have boxing gloves."
"I have some in my locker. If you want, I can go grab them."
She shook her head. "I should actually get dressed and head home." Her eyes caught the clock on the wall behind Fitz. It was nearing five. "I have date tonight plus I need to make a couple of phone calls before I leave here."
"Lucky Curtis." Fitz pushed the punching bag again and took a step back.
Something told Olivia that Fitz didn't mean his words. "Curtis is nice."
Fitz held up his hands. "I'm sure he is. Well, I should grab my gloves and throw a few punches before I have to go pick up Karen."
"Maybe learn how to block some punches too," Olivia teased. "Lunch tomorrow. We should probably talk about the contracts we need to finalize too."
"Tomorrow it is, Livvie." He walked away, towards the men's locker room.
Olivia watched as he went. Livvie. She hadn't heard that nickname in ages from anyone but her mother. Hearing it from Fitz's lips felt right.
/
Millicent Grant hadn't climbed her way out of Podunk North Carolina just for Olivia Pope to knock her back down. Not four years after the fact. She punched the unfamiliar numbers into her cell phone, eyes red and seething. It was the thousandth time she called. If Jake Ballard didn't answer this time, she would march over to his place and tell his wife just who he was.
On the fourth ring, Jake answered. "What, Mellie?"
"Wow, he lives," she sneered. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Bedridden. With cracked ribs. Courtesy of your ex."
"So, he came to see you, too."
"You already knew that, or you wouldn't be calling me. Gotta say I'm shocked that he'd believe Pope over me." Jake said.
"Did you…Pope told him. Did you force yourself on her?" Mellie asked. She couldn't bring herself to say the word. Mellie hated Olivia Pope, but had she known what she and Fitz walked in on wasn't for pretend, she would've put a stop to it.
"I'm not dignifying that question with a response."
"Did you?" Mellie repeated. "Did you make me an accomplice to rape?" she spat.
"Make you an accomplice? You came to me, not the other way around." Jake responded. The line went dead.
Mellie screamed and flung her phone across the room.