The next morning Fitz woke up to the sound of Karen calling him.
He jumped up.
"What time is it kare?"
"9:35" she answered.
"Shit! I'm late for work."
"It's Christmas Eve daddy, you don't have work today until the Christmas party later."
Fifty wrinkled his eyebrows.
"Oh yea, I forgot"
Fitz laid back on the couch and closed his eyes, he was ready you're go back to sleep.
"Daddy!" Karen called again.
"What." Fitz whined.
"Wake up it's Christmas eve aren't you excited, you never sleep this late."
"I know sweetie I'm just really really tired this morning."
He tried to go back to sleep.
"Daddy come on, get up it's just me and ginger up, Olivia and Gerry are still sleeping."
At the mention of her name ginger started barking.
Fitz pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.
"Karen if you let me sleep for a couple more hours, I'll let you open a gift when I wake up."
Karen pretended to ponder.
"Really?" she giggled.
"But you and ginger have to keep it down the okay."
"Got it"
With that Fitz went back to sleep.
Around 12pm Karen woke him up again.
"Daddy, you slept for 2 and a half more hours. Are you ready to get up now. Even Gerry's up."
"Okay I'm up now."
"Can I open one of my gifts now. You said if I let you sleep longer I could open one of my gifts." Karen reminded.
"When did I say that?"
Fitz knew he said it but he had no intention of letting her open gifts so early.
"Earlier when you were sleeping."
"Hmmm, if I was sleeping how did I say it?"
Karen was slightly perplexed.
"You were awake."
"So I was asleep but also awake?" Fitz asked.
"Daddy" she whined.
"I'm sorry Karen if you can prove that I said that, then hey, you can open it but if not you'll have to tomorrow."
"But daddy that's not fair you said I could open one."
"A few hours won't kill you Karen.."
Karen stormed off and went to the bedroom and slammed the door shut.
It was so loud that Olivia jumped up.
Karen jumped into the bed and covered herself with the blanket.
Olivia was a little disoriented at first, but then realized it was Karen that was on the bed with her.
"Karen?"
"Yes." She answered, her voice muffled by the blanket covering her face.
"What's going on? Are you okay?"
"No, dad is being annoying, earlier when I woke him up he said I could open a gift if I let him sleep a little longer but when he woke up again he's saying he doesn't remember and I know he's doing that on purpose."
Olivia chuckled.
"I'm pretty sure he's doing it on purpose too."
"Can you talk to him and see if he'll change his mind?"
"Oh no kare, I'm staying out of this one."
Karen let out a loud exaggerated sigh.
"Okay" she relented.
She got up from under the sheets.
"Olivia your hair's all frizzy and curly"
Olivia's mind flashed back to the night before, it must've gotten like that after her session with Fitz.
"Yea, it got wet last night when I showered, I'll have to straighten."
Karen didn't think twice about her answer.
"Well I'm gonna go apologize to dad for my 'bratty behavior', hopefully I'll soften him up and he'll let me open one." Karen laughed and headed out the room.
Olivia stretched and stood up, everything from her waist down was sore as she had expected and almost got used to. She had a weird throbbing pain in her lower stomach from how deep Fitz took her last night, she slowly made her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth, change her clothes and take something for the pain.
After almost a half hour, the pills kicked in, she made her way to the living room and found Karen begging Fitz to open a gift. Fitz was ignoring karen because she did this every year before christmas. He looked up and saw Olivia,
"Good morning Livie, how are you feeling?" his voice had just enough smugness in it to annoy her.
"Any luck Karen?"
"Nope." she whined.
Gerry walked in right behind Olivia.
"Merry Christmas eve everyone." Gerry said cheerfully.
"That's not a real thing Gerry."
"Shut up Karen." he snapped back.
Olivia stood back while Karen and Gerry bickered and Fitz tried to get them to stop, it always annoyed her how Fitz could totally bounce back whenever they had crazy sex like they did last night and she was always left with after effects.
"You know Karen, if you really want to get back at your father we should all team up and beat him up, maybe he'll let you open a gift then." she said slyly.
Karen eyes opened wide.
"That's a great idea, Gerry will you help? I'm sure all three of us can take him."
"Seriously? I'm right here." Fitz said in the middle of their discussion.
They ignored him.
"Okay but If I help you, you have to give me $100." Gerry said.
"No way, $50" Karen countered.
"$90"
"$75 Gerry, last offer." Karen said evenly.
Fitz sat back amused.
"Deal." Gerry agreed.
"How do you guys plan on attacking me when I expect if?" Fitz smirked.
"Like this." Gerry said as he dived on him.
They both fell off the couch and landed right on the fluffy carpet.
"I need back up." Gerry called.
Instantly Karen was sitting on her father's chest punching his arms, Olivia went for his legs.
Ginger saw all the action and started barking as she ran over and joined in on the assault on Fitz, she grabbed his shirt with her teeth and started pulling.
"Way to go Ginger." Karen laughed.
Even though all three of them were on top of FItz he could have easily gotten up but he decided to stay down as a good sport.
He felt fingers running on the sole of his foot and instantly howled out laughing, he knew it was Olivia because she was really the only person who knew he was ticklish there.
"I surrender." he breathed out as he laughed.
"Are you gonna let me open a gift?" Karen asked.
"Yes."
"Me too." Gerry asked.
"Yes" Fitz laughed.
"That's more like it." Karen said as she got up.
Gerry got up and Olivia did as well.
Fitz stood up and breathed out and ran his hands through his hair.
"But let's make things a little more interesting." FItz began.
Karen and Gerry looked perplexed.
"Open a gift if you want but whatever you open has to be donated to the charity were working with for the christmas party later this evening."
"Aww come on dad!" Karen complained
"So who wants to open their gift first?" he asked.
"I think I'll wait till tomorrow." Gerry said and Karen nodded in agreement.
"Great, now that that's settled, what are we having for lunch since most of us slept through breakfast."
They made sandwiches and lounged for a few hours until it was time to get ready for the party.
Fitz and Gerry had their suits delivered from the whitehouse by the agents, while Karen and Olivia proceeded to get ready.
Olivia curled both her and Karen's hair in loose curls, she decided to switch up her makeup look and opted for something a little more dramatic than she normally went for.
She used a bronze eyeshadow to give her eyes a soft but gilded look, once she applied her dewy foundation and mascara she topped the look off with a matte red lip. Karen watched as she did her face.
"I love it Olivia, you look so pretty, can you put makeup on my face." karen said when she was done.
"Thanks Kare, I'll put just a little and remember.."
"Don't tell dad" Karen finished.
"Right" Olivia laughed.
Olivia added a little blush to karen's cheeks, some lipgloss and little bit of mascara.
"There, all done."
Karen looked in the mirror.
"I love it." Karen said excitedly.
Olivia helped Karen put on her red chiffon Dior Kids ruffle dress they bought in Paris, once Karen had her dress on she slipped on ballet flats and she was ready to go.
Karen also helped Olivia zip up her long sleeve red embellished Dolce & Gabbana a-line dress that stopped just above her knees, she paired it with nude Stuart weitzman nudist heels.
She wore a pair of simple gold knob earring she bought from the Chanel boutique in Paris.
She looked herself over and when she was pleased she grabbed her YSL clutch and headed to the living room with Karen.
When she saw Fitz and Gerry they looked like twins in their matching Brooks Brothers suits.
Fitz was facing the window, he was on the phone so he didn't see her even though she saw him.
"Gerry you look so handsome"
"Thank you liv." Gerry blushed.
"You're welcome."
Fitz heard Olivia's voice and turned around.
He was stunned at how beautiful Olivia looked.
After a few seconds he was off the phone,
"You guys look stunning."
"Thank you daddy, liv helped me pick out my dress." Karen said excitedly.
"Well, she did an amazing job."
"Thank you." Olivia said modestly.
"Okay everyone ready?" Fitz asked.
"Yep" Karen answered for Olivia and Gerry.
Fitz held Olivia's hand as they all headed to the car. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her the entire ride.
When they arrived the white house, most if not all the guest had arrived.
They entered through the secluded entrance Fitz usually used when he was coming back from Olivia's apartment and once they were in the whitehouse they made their way to the grand ballroom.
As they neared the entrance Fitz could see that Olivia kept fidgeting.
"Are you all aright?"
"No, yea I'm fine." She lied.
"You look very beautiful, I'm going to go crazy telling guys to keep their eyes off of you."
"No, behave yourself." she scolded jokingly.
She had no idea how people would react to them together and she wasn't sure she was prepared for what came with being Fitz's significant other publicly.
They were now in front of the entrance, Olivia took a deep breath, the agents opened the door and all four of them walked in together.
As soon as the where inside the ballroom it was eerily quiet, all the conversational noise had vanished and only the band could be heard. Everyone stared, some with open mouths, one of those opened mouth stares came from Edison who had been closest to the entrance, now he was the closest to them.
Olivia didn't realize she wasn't breathing but Fitz did.
"Breath Olivia." he whispered.
She sucked air in her lungs and then let it out in a series of deep breaths.
"Come on, let's enjoy the party beautiful." He said trying to cheer her up.
Karen and Gerry ran of to greet familiar faces in the crowd.
Fitz and Olivia worked the room, making irrelevant conversation for the allotted amount of time Fitz needed to meet in order to be a gracious host. Olivia barely said a word throughout, she wanted nothing more than to go to the bar and have a glass of wine. After a while, she felt like she was losing it,
"Fitz I'm gonna go to the bar and get something to drink." She whispered as she quickly pardoned herself and headed to the bar.
Fitz decided to give her some space and figured maybe if she had a little wine in her system she would relax.
Olivia sat at the bar for a total of 30 seconds before Edison made his way over to her.
"Liv." She was looking the opposite direction so he called out to get her attention.
She knew exactly who it was, one of the persons she was dreading talking.
"Edison." She said politely.
"President Grant, really?"
"Hello to you too, how've you been? Glad to hear. Me? I've been doing good too. Well it was nice seeing you." Olivia said sarcastically.
"How long?"
"I don't know what your talking about."
Fitz saw when Edison eagerly made his way over to Olivia, he was too far way to hear what they were speaking about but he could see Edison's eye locked on Olivia and whatever the conversation was Edison didn't seem pleased and based on Olivia's body language he could tell she was annoyed. He didn't want to intervene if Olivia had it under control and cause a scene and direct more attention to Olivia than was necessary.
"Actually I do know what you're talking about, but I don't answer to you so..."
Edison grabbed her hand roughly.
"But you answer to him?"
Fitz waved to the agents and quickly they made their way over to the bar and as quickly as he could, he made his way over as well.
He was livid.
"Edison let go of me right now." Olivia ordered, she tried not to wince even through his grip was really tight.
She didn't even realize Fitz was on his way over until she saw him behind Edison.
"Get your hand off of her." Fitz ordered.
Edison pulled his hand back quickly. Olivia looked around and saw two agents behind her and one behind Fitz.
"Mr. President, we were just chatting."
"Not anymore." Fitz clipped.
"Get him out." He ordered the agents, Edison began to protest but didn't bother to stick around and hear it. He took Olivia's hand and led her to the dance floor.
Fitz had managed to not attracted too much attention to Edison's episode other than a few eyes the whole thing when pretty much unnoticed and even those who noticed didn't know exactly what was going on.
"Are you okay?" He asked as they moved slowly to Frank Sinatra's "Have yourself a merry little Christmas.".
"Yea I'm fine, I think he probably had too much to drink he doesn't normally act like that."
"Don't make excuses for him liv."
"Forget about him, I'm surprised you were able to control yourself like that, knowing you I thought you would have punched him in front of everyone." She laughed.
"Well I thought about that but I didn't want to bring any more attention to you than you already had by being the most beautiful woman in here. Your glowing." Fitz said smoothly.
Olivia blushed and giggled like a schoolgirl.
"Thank you, I think the glow is an after effect from what you did to me last night." she said seductively.
"Don't even let me think about it, we're in public." He joked.
"That's what makes it fun"
"For you, you don't get erections."
"Imagine the headline"
"If you keep this up then we might have too."
Olivia giggled.
They danced alone until Cyrus interrupted them and asked Olivia for a dance, when Olivia took off with Cyrus, Fitz danced with Karen.
"Long time no see liv, you look good." Cyrus said
"A compliment from you cy, I think I might fall over."
"What are you guys doing liv?"
He began
"Now is not the time to come out not with the campaign starting so soon."
Olivia sighed.
"Why don't you tell that to Fitz, he's your boss not me."
"You know he's not rational when it comes to you. He won't listen."
"So then why even bring it up?"
"You know I love you but I'm just saying now isn't the right time, wait till he gets re-elected, then you guys can get married for all I care, I'll happily be your bridesmaid."
"Was there a good time for you to come out of the closet."
"No, but I'm not the president, once people find out that a white republican president is dating a black woman, some, a lot actually, are going to take issue with that. Is it right? No. But that's the world we live in. There's nothing that happened tonight that can't be undone. Well just tell them that you're a friend who accompanied him and his children, nothing romantic at all."
"His approval ratings are in the 70's" she countered.
"A lot can change in a few months, we can't be too sure."
"And you need me to convince him to go along with it."
"Well, he listens to you."
"It's not a few months Cyrus the election is 11 months away."
"We all have to make sacrifices."
He paused.
"So, are you in."
"No." She said flatly.
"What do you mean no?"
"No, if that's what you want, you can go pitch your idea about when we should go public to Fitz, I'm sure he'll agree."
"Olivia are you really going to ruin his chances of getting re-elected." Cyrus said trying to make her feel guilty.
"Do you hear yourself? When you wanted to come out with James, did I judge you or give you a speech about what it would do to the greater good. I'm done talking about this with you. The president's love life has nothing to do with you and his campaign has nothing to do with you because you don't run his campaign, I do."
She walked of and then stopped mid stride.
"Merry Christmas." Then she took off.
Once she located the nearest exit, she quietly made her way out not bothering to check if Fitz was paying attention. Cyrus always knew how to play on her fears and she hated it.
Fitz had been so amused by a drunken belligerent senator that he didn't see Cyrus and Olivia's interaction.
When the senator was escorted out he skimmed the room for Olivia and when he missed her he went to ask Cyrus if he'd seen where she had gone.
"Sorry sir, I haven't seen her." Cyrus lied.
Fitz asked Tom and Tom reported that he'd seen her leave the ballroom.
Fitz and Tom went outside to find her and after a few minutes of walking the halls he found Olivia sitting in one of the hallway chairs looking at a painting on the wall.
"Tom, I think we're good" which was Fitz's cue for Tom to leave or at least not be seen.
"Why did you leave the ballroom? Were you having too much fun." He joked, he was trying to lighten the mood because he could tell she was a little bothered.
"Did you know this is exactly where I sat when Cyrus convinced me not to let you resign after the whole Amanda Tanner thing."
"He was the one that made you come up with that crazy plan." Fitz said surprised.
"Some men are meant to be great not happy" she said trying to mimicking Cyrus' voice.
Fitz laughed.
"And you listened? Well, yea you did." he said answering his own question.
"Cyrus knows me, he knows exactly how to get to me."
"Is that what happened in there? You and Cyrus got into it?"
"He thinks we should wait."
"Until when?" Fitz asked evenly just to see exactly how ridiculous Cyrus was.
"After the election."
"What exactly was his reason?"
"I'm black and you're a republican. He doesn't think that's a good mix for some of your voters."
Fitz eyes opened wide.
"Woah, He said that?"
"Yes but I didn't tell you for you to go argue with him."
"Well what did you say?"
"I told him to pitch his idea to you." She chuckled.
"Cyrus isn't crazy, he brings his bullshit to you because you listen to him."
Olivia was quiet.
"Please tell me you're not listening to him."
"No, it's just that every time I think he's an actual human being with feelings he proves that he not, he's just purely political."
"Don't let him get to you and please for the love of god don't believe anything he said to you makes sense because it doesn't."
"Okie dokie"
Fitz smiled and kissed her temple.
"Let's go, the party should be over in the next few minutes and we don't wanna be missing." They walked hand in hand back to the ballroom. Just as Fitz predicted the party was over within a half hour.
After everyone drifted out he ballroom, Fitz walked over to Cyrus.
"Cyrus I'm only going to say this once, when it comes to me and Olivia's keep your opinions, suggestions and idea's about what we should do with our relationship to yourself, Are we clear?"
"sir , I just rea..." Cyrus said wide eyed.
"Good, I'll see you in a week, Merry christmas." Fitz said as he walked off.
Within a half hour, they were back at Olivia's apartment. It was almost eleven and everyone was tired.
They all took quick showers, Olivia had bought matching flannel pajama sets for everyone to wear. Once everyone was changed, Karen and Gerry headed to their respective rooms.
Fitz and Olivia were cuddled on the couch.
"I love what you did with the matching pajamas." Fitz said quietly.
"I thought that would make for a good Christmas picture plus it's really cute." She chuckled.
"Do you realize this is our first Christmas together?"
"No Fitz, I've only been thinking about it since forever." She teased.
"You know Karen's gonna wake us up as soon as the sun comes up right."
"Oh I know." She laughed.
After a little idle chatter they both headed to bed.