One week later.

Olivia was excited, Abby, Elliot and Kamaya had called and were in desperate need for girls night. Sahara's dad came back for two days and then left once again and Kamaya decided she was over it and needed to vent, the way she always did every time he left.

They told her they were going to drive down and spend the night at her apartment, Kamaya insisted that she needed to get away from Sahara as well because she was driving her crazy.

Olivia spent the day at the lab and in the evening she stopped by the market on her way home and bought extra bottles of wine, popcorn and chips and then she stopped at a takeout restaurant and got burgers then headed home. She showered and threw on something comfortable and by the time she was done, she heard her doorbell chime.

She quickly opened the door and was greeted by hugs and familiar smiles.

"Hi guys, I'm so glad you drove down to see me."

"Hey girl," said Elliot.

"Hi Liv," said Abby.

"Hey," said Kamaya.

She took her time hugging each of them and then gave them space take off their shoes.

"Okay so I need a shower asap," Kamaya said, " I feel so sticky and hot, I didn't get to bathe before I came down here."

"The towels and washcloths are in the closet right outside the bathroom."

"Okay," she responded as she headed in that direction.

Abby and Elliot took their bags and went to change into something more comfortable and then met Olivia back in the kitchen as she heated the burgers in the oven and opened the wine so it could breathe. Abby and Elliot dug around the kitchen looking for snacks to eat later on. By the time the burgers were ready, Kamaya joined them.

They all got comfortable on the couch with their food and wine and Kamaya was the first to begin.

"I have man problems!"

They all laughed.

"What did he do this time?" Olivia asked as she took a bite of her burger.

"He's just so... ughhh. He shows up, of course Sahara gets excited you know even though she barely knows him, he starts whispering all the sweet nothings and la-de-das in my ear and even though he never follows through, I believe him… again… because I'm an idiot and two days later, he tells me he can't do and he needs time to figure out what he wants."

"That piece of shit, first of all he dresses bad and I already told you I think you should just cut him off, all that stress isn't good for your pores" said Elliot.

"He's her father, it's not like I'm asking him for money you know, I've been doing it all by myself, if Olivia didn't cut me those checks every now and again I don't know how I would manage between rent, a nanny, bills and my student loans, insurance, it's fucking crazy and I can't take it anymore."

"I'm really sorry Kam, that's got to be really draining," Olivia said sympathetically.

"It is, I'm at the point where, I'm ready to start dating again and find someone who will be there for the long haul you know."

"I really think you should start dating," said Abby.

"I know but it's hard, I'm a doctor, I'm busy, my schedule is crazy and I'm a single parent."

"Yeah but there will never be a good time, you have to make time," Olivia retorted.

"I know but all these jokers out there just looking to waste time, it's just hard and we've been doing this on and off thing for almost three years but Sahara needs stability so this time I'm done," Kamaya sighed.

They were used to Kamaya being done every few months.

"What about you Elliot, do you have man problems?" asked Olivia.

He chuckled.

"Nope, I got two guys that I'm rotating, nothing serious but it's fun."

Olivia laughed and took a sip of her wine.

"Two on the side, I like that."

"What about you, what did you do after we left Aspen, you still haven't answered that," Elliot countered.

"Yeah, you've been real hush, hush about what happened after we left," Abby joined.

"There's nothing to tell" she said coyly.

"There's a lot to tell, start talking," Abby demanded jokingly.

Olivia took another sip of her wine. She wasn't sure if she wanted to give them details, she was used to talking to Kamaya and Elliot about past partners but not about Fitz, she confided in Abby the most but even Abby didn't know everything. She trusted them to hold her confidence and after pondering for a few seconds she decided to go for it because after all, they were her closest friends.

"We took tequila shots and then we you know… did it."

"You 'did it', what are we 12, details girl," Elliot was quick to point out.

She laughed shyly.

"I got him drunk then I took him to the bedroom and we had sex all night, it was amazing, I have no idea what he did to me but once he put the penis in I just kept coming and coming and coming."

Kamaya's eyes opened wide, Elliot started smiling, Abby did too.

"Seriously," Elliot said incredulously.

"I'm so serious."

"I wish my deadbeat could keep and erection, he usually finishes before me. The sex is good though, it's not great but it's good."

"Me and Stephen had sex that day we came to visit," Abby said.

"Woah, you - wait, was it in my apartment."

"Yes."

"In my bed?"

"It was in the guest bed, I washed the sheets though. We did everything even anal."

Olivia gasped.

"You guys did anal the first time you had sex," Olivia asked rhetorically.

"Never do anal on the first time Abby, isn't that like a rule," Kamaya said as she sipped her wine.

"I know but he wanted to do it and it was fun."

"I'm rotating two penises right now, one of them is a younging so I'm teaching him a few things," Elliot added.

Olivia laughed and shook her head.

"So what is he like, the president, I didn't expect him to seem so down to earth in person," Kamaya asked.

"He's exactly as you said, he's down to earth, he's kind, he's charming, he's perfect, I couldn't have asked for a better man if I made him myself."

"What was it like when you first met him?" Elliot asked.

"When I first met him, I took one look into his blue eyes and it was so clear that, he was the only one for me, we both knew it, right away. It was kind of surreal, I didn't think you could just take one look at a person and be completely infatuated with them but I was and he was. Once his eyes caught me, I just couldn't look away. It was weird because in the two weeks that he'd been in comatose, I made him out to be this horrible person because everyone around him was so terrible but then he woke up and he was this down to earth, really great guy."

"So you guys became a thing in the hospital?" Elliot asked.

"Yes and no," Olivia replied, "yes because I think from that moment, we both kind of knew that something was up and no because honestly we were just friends, granted, it was not for very long but we started out as friends."

"When did you guys stop being friends and it turned into something more?"

"Like two weeks later."

They all started laughing.

"No, I'm kidding, it was less time than that. I leased a temp apartment I D.C. to monitor him after he left the hospital, the following Monday, he came to my apartment and I showed him my boobs."

Elliot choked on his wine as they laughed.

"What, you have to explain that," Abby said.

They all seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the story so she continued.

"We were sitting on the couch, I wore a tank but it was a little chilly in the apartment so my nipples were hard, he told me we couldn't focus and so I changed and put on a snuggie, you know the red one I have and he was still talking about my breast so I asked if he wanted to see them, he said yes and I showed it to him, he loved them by the way."

"When did you guys first have sex?" Elliot asked.

"The day before I left for DWB with Abby, we got close a few times before that but we were both holding out under the pretense that he was married and we were going to wait until he got divorced but Mellie was fighting him on it and I was leaving for three months, we didn't want to wait any longer so we did."

"Was the first time good?" Elliot asked.

"It was amazing, you know I never thought sex could feel like that, I cried guys."

Elliot gasped and smiled. "The dick made you cry?"

"You did."

"I did, I was just overwhelmed I guess."

"So wait, aren't you worried he might cheat on you since he cheated on his wife?" Kamaya asked.

"No, the divorce was already in the works long before I came along, he'd never cheated on her before me but she'd been cheating on him for years so it was really complicated, not that I'm making excuses but they hated each other and they definitely weren't having sex, I don't think he really cared that she was cheating."

"Wow she cheated on him," Abby said utterly taken off guard by how casually Olivia said it.

"Yeah."

"And she had the nerve to go out there and make it seem like she was some victim."

"I'm just trying to figure out why you told Abby but not us," Elliott said snarkily.

"I didn't tell Abby until-"

"No, she lied to me for months, she told me about him when I kinda already found out, when we were in Somalia."

Olivia smiled shyly at the memory of Fitz singing on tv.

"Yep."

"The first time I actually met him was when I came back from Ethiopia and I was in the hospital and he was asking me about what happened to you. He looked like he hadn't slept in days and he looked really scared and that's when I realized that he really loved you. He was really nice, he flew me back to New York privately, gave me guards for a little while to handle the press cause everyone wanted an interview," Abby said as she recalled.

Olivia had never found out what actually happened with Abby once she came back to D.C.

"Those guards in the suits, you told me they were detectives from the FBI not secret service agents," Elliot howled.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't say anything."

Olivia felt like the conversation was starting to get dark and she didn't like it so she wanted to change the subject.

"Do you guys wanna watch old episodes of friends?"

"No, we wanna talk about your love life," Elliot responded.

"What else do you wanna know, I've told you everything."

"I don't know, what do you guys do for fun, how many times do y'all have sex, is he the best you ever had and does he buy you stuff, come on girl, start talking," Elliot said excitedly.

"How many times we have sex per week?"

"Yeah, like in a normal week?"

"Okay but what's a normal week?

They started laughing at Olivia because they knew she was deflecting.

"Alright, in the past week at least," said Abby.

"Twice."

"A week?" Elliot asked.

"A day," Olivia responded.

"Oh my god, you little sex addict, I love it," Elliot said as he jumped up excitedly, "and what do you guys do when your together?"

"We watch tv or talk, we go out on dates, sometimes I'll help him with work and stuff, you know like a normal couple."

"You guys aren't a normal couple, he's the president of the United States. You guys trend on twitter every other week, that's power couple status," said Elliot.

"You're being dramatic."

"I'm serious but let's get back to your relationship, does he buy you things, does he spoil you cause I remember when I watched him pick you up on TV for your first date, he had an Hermes bag, I'm just saying."

"He's buys me jewelry and stuff and he gave me a Amex unlimited credit card that he wants me to use for everything but I don't really use it."

"What kind of jewelry, can we see?" Elliot asked.

"He got me this really pretty black diamond necklace and a matching bracelet, let me get it, I'll show you."

Olivia got up and headed to her closet and brought back two velvet specialty Tiffany boxes. She laid then in the floor and then opened them so they could see the necklace and bracelet.

"Holy shit," Abby said as she clutched pearls that weren't actually at her neck.

Olivia watched as they stared at the necklace in awe.

"I'm trying to figure out what's inside your vagina that makes all these men wanna buy you things, freaking crazy ass Daniel bought you that other necklace and so much other stuff that you don't even wear, the Russian guy you operated on bought you a convertible and now the president of the united state bought you this, do you have tips, cause I need stuff too," Elliot joked.

Olivia rolled her eyes and chuckled and picked up her boxes and brought them back to her closet and then came back to the living room and laid in the floor.

"By the Way Liv, there's an Indie Fest concert coming up at the armory, The Strokes are gonna be there, Bombay bicycle club, Two Door Cinema Club, The Temper Trap, Foster the People, The Colorist, Grouplove, Haim, Kings of Leon and The Arctic Monkeys and some other bands but we don't really care about those ones, we're all going, the tickets go on sale soon so you know if you aren't too famous to come, we could all go."

Olivias eyes opened wide.

"Are you kidding me, why didn't you bitches tell me sooner, I am 1000% there."

"It will be just like old times," Abby said excitedly.

Olivia rolled her eyes and chuckled.

"Can we watch friends now."

"NO!" All three of them said together.

Olivia laughed and relented, answering their questions without revealing anything she thought Fitz might be uncomfortable with. After a few hours, Abby and Elliot all fell asleep on the couch and Kamaya and Olivia slept in the floor.

In the morning, Abby, Kamaya and Elliot left early and headed back to New York while Olivia got ready to head to the lab. She was excited because Fitz would be coming by and she really wanted him to see the lab.

She spent most of the morning, brainstorming as she'd been doing for the past past week and working on her last millennium problem, it was almost done.

By 1:30 in the afternoon, Fitz texted her that he was minutes away. Five minutes later, he buzzed on her lab door and she hurried over to let him in. He greeted her with a big smile and a soft kiss.

"Hey Livie."

"Hi baby, I'm so glad you could come, I know you're really busy so I appreciate it."

"Don't worry about it," Fitz lifted the paper bag of food in the air, "I brought lunch."

Olivia took it and sniffed it.

"That smells amazing, what is it? A panini?"

"Yeah, I had the chef make some."

"Perfect."

She took him over to her work station where she had a ton of books and paper scattered and gave him a stool to sit on she gathered all the paper in one heap and moved them to another table.

Fitz looked around at the lab, it immaculately designed, the whites were blindingly white and the light were bright.

"It looks great in here," he complimented.

"Thanks."

He saw the whiteboard in the other side of the work station and began reading the notes on it.

"What's next?" And then beside that she wrote, "cancer cell degeneration."

"Liv?"

"Yep," she answered as she pulled a stool for herself.

"What this," he said as he pointed to the board.

She looked up.

"Oh," she said slightly embarrassed, "um just, you weren't suppose to see that. It's just the ranting of a mad woman, ignore it."

She ran over to the board and pushed it into a corner and then ran back to the work station.

"Are you working on cancer?"

"I was working on a hypothesis, I don't want to bore you with details."

Fitz gave her a knowing look and she knew she was being dramatic.

"The problem with cancer is a single cell, it generates another cell and then the regeneration process continues until the entire body is affected, if you can find away to degenerate the cells and not just with medicine but programmed fighting cells to degenerate malicious cells in a much more vicious way than he body would be capable of on it's own, that's how you cure cancer."

"That's great."

"No, it's not good enough, it's not specific enough, I need to fine tune it, right now it's just a crazy thought in my head, I have to turn it into an actually scientific theory. I'm not arrogant enough to think I alone can cure cancer but I have to explore the idea and technically isn't not really about cancer it's really about cells so it links Aids and Hiv, all those sort of diseases."

"Don't you need staff and stuff?"

"I will in the future but not right now."

Fitz smiled.

"I'm not sure what to say, what do scientist say: good look?"

"Godspeed."

"Okay Godspeed."

Olivia giggled.

"I was kidding."

"Oops."

They sat and ate lunch together while they chatted about mundane things until it was time for Fitz to head back to the white house. She walked him over to the door and kissed him goodbye. As Fitz opened the door to let himself out she stopped and turned to her.

"Our anniversary is tomorrow, I'm going to pick you up at 8."

"Didn't we celebrate our anniversary enough on our vacation," she said with a smirk.

"We did but tomorrow marks the actual day and we ought to celebrate that too."

Olivia smiled.

"What should I wear?"

"Something fancy."

"Okay, now I'm excited."

"Good, I'm glad."

He leaned down and kissed her again.

"I'll see you later."

Fitz left and headed to the white house to meet Ezra, who was personally going to deliver the finished ring and he was nervous and also excited to see.

He took a lot of time to think about how he wanted to propose, even before he asked Ezra to start making the ring. He thought about doing a nice dinner and then propose but that felt 'normal', he needed something more special but he was also a little uncertain because she seemed to not really be making a big deal about the prospect of an engagement or marriage but she was Olivia and she deserved no less than the best so he ultimately he felt confident about what he had planned for her.

A half hour later as he sat in his office, Lauren let Ezra in.

"Good afternoon Mr. President."

Fitz stood up and greeted him.

"Hi Ezra, thanks for coming."

He was carrying a large case and he had his own security escort him down to D.C. Fitz had seen sketches up until that point but never the actual ring. They sat on the couch and Ezra entered the code into the armored briefcase and waited for the code to be accepted then he opened the case and took the ring on the display and handed it to Fitz.

Fitz held it up and inspected it, he looked for the way the light reflected off of the many facets, how it floated and the clarity of the diamonds. He was pleased. The main 15 karat cushion cut diamond was surrounded by smaller rosy light pink diamonds and the rose gold ring band was studded with small crystal clear light pink diamonds, it was flawless and absolutely beautiful. The white diamonds juxtaposed the pink diamonds and rose gold in a way that was absolutely regal and the way light reflected off the pretty colors was like no other ring he'd seen and he was no novice at inspecting jewelry.

"Wow, this is it."

"You like it?"

"Well… The sketch didn't do it justice. This is perfect for her."

Ezra smiled.

"I'm glad you're pleased."

"I love it but let's get a woman's opinion."

"Lauren!" Fitz called.

Seconds later she hurried into the office.

"Sir."

"Lauren, come here please and let me see your hands."

Lauren walked over to Fitz and Ezra and held up her hands.

"You and Olivia have about the same size fingers, can you try this please."

Fitz handed Lauren the ring and she gasped at the beauty of it. Fitz smiled and looked to Ezra.

"That was the reaction I was hoping for."

Lauren tried the ring on her ring finger and held up her hand to display the ring.

"Yep, this is Olivia's ring right here. Ezra this is beautiful, you and Lorraine did good work."

"Thank you Mr. President."

"Lauren, can I have it back," Fitz asked.

Lauren quickly too the ring off and handed it back to Fitz and en excused herself.

"Sorry, she's skittish."

Fitz shook his hand.

"This ring is flawless, thank you, it was short notice but you and the team really pulled through."

"You're welcome, Mr. President."

Fitz showed him out and closed his door then brought the ring and box over to his desk. He sat and held the ring up, he saw tiny, dainty, italic letters inscribed in the band that read: "strong, brave, beautiful, OP."

He had called Ezra a few days after their initial meeting and asked that he inscribe those words around the band just as a special touch for Olivia.

It took him a little while to break his focus from the ring and calm down enough and get back to work.

Excitement wasn't the word for what he was feeling at the prospect of asking Olivia to be his wife.