Thanks for the likes and reviews once again. I´m glad you guys enjoy reading this little story. :)

Addie: Thanks for dropping a line. Here you go. :)

Casbru: Glad you like it. This story is definitely going to be Olitz, but I wanted to write a direct continuation to the end of season 3 so naturally Jake would be in the picture first of all. Hope you can bear with that, because suddenly having him gone would make no sense to me.

LoreneMichelle41: I feel sorry for them, too. :( they both can be rather stubborn but I am positive they´ll work through that eventually ;)

Chapter 4 - Fake

She could not have been sitting on the floor for more than a few seconds maybe, even though she felt so numb that her senses might deceive her as she sat there, the photos still clutched in her hand, unable to tear her gaze off the pained, grieving face that she had never stopped loving. But when she heard his footsteps, no more than a few moments could have passed.

"Liv."

"Don´t."

Her voice sounded sharp, more steady than she thought it would but that was only for the better.

She could hear him stop where Jake was standing, a few paces off. She did not look up, feeling anger rise inside her so powerfully that she didn´t know entirely where such a strong feeling came from all of a sudden. But if she was honest to herself, she knew full well. She was looking at what she had been running from but that had been her choice. Not a choice others had made for her.

"You were trying to hide this from me."

Again he didn´t move and took his time to reply. "Liv. You were hiding this yourself." Now he did get closer. Carefully as she could tell from the corner of her eyes and all of a sudden that annoyed her even more. "The way you stay away from news, from papers, from everything. You think I didn´t see how you avoided TV and the internet, how you tried to not get into contact about anything that happened after we left? I was just doing what you were doing."

She looked up at him. "I choose to avoid that. But this is addressed to me." She wanted to fling the envelope and pictures away from her, to the ground but found she couldn´t. Ever since she had come here she had avoided everything Fitz, and she perfectly well knew why. She was addicted to him, just like he was to her and the tiniest amount of exposure to knowing how he was doing how he was… suffering would cause withdrawals and right here she was experiencing just that. And it angered her. She was a rational person. She knew how things worked, how problems were fixed. Why wasn´t it easier or at least manageable to handle issues of her own? Why wasn´t it easier to fix herself? He looked so tired…so alone…

Jake crouched down in front of her, the light behind him, his shape showing against the evening sun starkly. Looking back at him she felt emotions battle inside her.

"And see what it has done to you." he stated in a calm voice, that same calm voice he always used when he felt he was in the right, when he knew he was talking sense. She stared right back at him before avoiding her gaze.

"Remember what you did?" he went on. "You got on that plane, Liv. You….we decided to leave all of this behind you. Remember that phone call before we took off that you did not take? That was a decision Liv and it was a good one."

She wanted to snap at him but it was a whole more difficult if that meant snapping at herself because that would be what it was. He was merely a reflection of her own deeds, showing her a mirror of what she had done when she had left the States behind to start … something new that she had not even begun to define and that right now in this sunlit corridor that could seem so warm and perfect seemed like a façade, like make belief, a game that lacked authenticity because it was not her. It was her trying to be someone else. Because she was the scandal, she was the problem that needed to be handled.

She got to her feet, suddenly unable to bear that she was sitting there on the ground, vulnerable. He wanted to assist her get up but backed away at the glare she shot him. "This was MY decision Jake. This is MY life. I decided to come here because I was sick and tired of people telling me what to do and not to do, because I was tired of seeing my world crumble because of the things I did and the things I cannot even be held responsible for." Her voice rose with every sentence and she felt how she was about to talk herself into a rage. From calm to angry, just like that. It told her a lot about what her attempt at trying to keep herself away from everything had done to her. Withdrawals…

"Well whoever is sending this to you is clearly trying to get you involved again, Liv." His voice sounded more firm now, too. "Whoever this person is, is doing just what you decided you don´t want any more. They´re trying to make you come back, don´t you see that?"

For a moment she was wondering if he was right and it struck her that if one looked at it from this angle, it made a lot of sense. Why send her these pictures? To make her feel bad? Or to manipulate her.

"I cannot imagine who would know this address." she said. "unless there are people involved that are very high up the ranks and who have access to a lot more than we think they have." Her voice still sounded angry. Who could it be she wondered. And wasn´t it a sign of how sick and twisted her world, her life had become that the first two people who came to her mind were her parents? Her father? Surely not, she decided. He had no interest in having her back in Washington. All he had ever wanted was to get her out of there, but she had believed him to be the only person to know about her new identity. After all, he had fabricated it for her.

"What does it matter?" he asked, raising his hands in a gesture of slight helplessness, before stepping forward, only an inch away from reaching out for her to touch her. "Liv. Let´s just not think about it."

"And do what?" she asked. "just live with the awkward feeling that someone knows where I am?"

"That´s not what you´re worried about." he gave back, not giving an answer to her previous question. "It´s not what´s on your mind right now, Liv and that´s exactly the reason why you need to continue what you started. Because it takes no more than a few photographs to hurt you and I cannot see you hurt like this."

She gave a short, joyless laugh.

"What?"

"Oh, don´t get this conversation started, Jake. You´re far too tangled up in all the things I´ve been through to claim you have nothing but my best interest at heart."

"I´m here with you now, am I not? I left everything behind, just like you. And that even though you tell me you love another man. Doesn´t that tell you enough about where my priorities are?"

She didn´t want to argue. Right now there was just one thing she wanted and she knew that this was the very one thing she mustn´t do and couldn´t have.

"I…I don´t want to talk about this, Jake." she said, starting to back away and go…where? She just wanted to leave this office, this place that was a mere attempt at imitating the halls she was so used to, a meager copy of all OPA had ever been to go…to that apartment she currently shared with him? There really was no escaping this pretty new life, was there?

"Where are you going?"

"I need some fresh air." She grabbed her white coat and put it on, stuffing the envelope addressed to her in her handbag

"Do you want me to…"

"No." She turned around. "Right now I don´t want anything, Jake, I just want to be on my own and you might want to wonder why."

She walked towards the door, briskly and half expected him to hurry after her. He didn´t.

"Promise me to not call him, Liv."

She halted in her steps.

What was she even thinking, she wondered as she turned around, taking a deep breath. The swirling chaos in her mind was unsettling. It had been all so clear on those first few hours on the plane, things had worked out so well and there he was, Fitz, a few pictures, and she was back in the midst of a tornado that was her life. A life she was trying to escape.

"I won´t promise anything, Jake." she stated. "I just… I don´t even know where I´m at. All of this. I´m trying to start again from a clean slate and … it´s as if everything just feels fake. This is not home. This is not my life." She could feel a lump form in her throat.

"Just half an hour ago," he stated bluntly in a way that she could not cope with right now. "it didn´t feel like you faked anything at all."

She stared at him, incredulous of how insensitive he was being right now and left, before she could think twice about not slapping him.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

She had just followed where her feet had carried her and in the end she had found herself on a park bench on some patch of green near the parliament building of Vienna, looking over to the impressive structure that, with its white marble columns and its architecture looked eerily familiar. In the end her feet had guided her to a place that at least looked a little bit like home but felt just as out of place as anything else.

She had not taken the photos out again but with her hands clutched around her bag she believed she could almost feel them, remembering vividly what they showed. The pain on his face… There were a million reasons why she should burn these photos and forget they had ever been sent to her and yet ever since she had seen her she could not get that look in his eyes out of her head. She full well knew that whoever had sent her these had probably intended that, to torment her or for some unknown ends but that didn´t change how she felt.

She had not allowed herself to think about him. It had been hard and in the end she knew she was only lying to herself but what she had denied and shut away in a remote corner of her soul was surfacing with all its power now, making her wonder what he was doing, how he was doing, whether he was holding up. If it had been him calling her when she had gotten on that plane or someone else to merely inform her that they had won the election after all. She had pretended not to care back then but of course she did. He was more vulnerable, more sensitive than he let show to the outside world. Always charming, sometimes grumpily reclusive she had learned to read him as well as he was able to read her. Had it been wrong to leave? There was no simple answer to that. Only a rational one. No. In that moment, with him grieving the death of his child it had been best for her, to leave. It was not her place to be part of that. It all led down to her and he needed to get his life fixed just like she did. And as much as it hurt he could only get it fixed with her no longer in the picture. It hurt, it hurt worse than anything, but it was the only reasonable thing to do.

It wasn´t like she hadn´t been over these thoughts before in the previous hours but they had been stuck in a circle she noticed. Her reason was fighting a battle against her emotions, trying to keep her strong, to convince her that whatever she felt like doing was the wrong way and would only increase the pain. She was very aware of her cell phone in her handbag and the wish to take it out, to dial the number she knew by heart and that just few people on the entire planet had access to, was almost overwhelming. She resisted the urge for the uptenth time, wondering whether it was time to go home, finding herself unable to think that thought without it leaving a bad, fake aftertaste.

Dusk had been settling in when she had left the office, by now it was completely dark and when she finally got up to hail a taxi to take her to her apartment, a slight cold November drizzle had started, oddly reflecting her mood. This time of the evening the city was still fairly busy, but a taxi halted instantly as if fate was trying desperately to usher her away from temptations. "Wohin soll´s gehn?" the cab driver asked. She knew what it meant even though she had never learned to speak German. Maybe she should if she was really planning to stay here. But was she?

She was about to reply to the driver, but then didn´t. "Hallo?" the man sounded busy, somewhat impatient, but she barely heard him. She had spotted something and it seemed a thing she could not escape. "Sorry." she told him. "I…I need another moment, Sir. I apologize." Shaking his head at her indecisiveness while standing in the rain, the taxi driver rolled up the window and the car left, leaving her in the night. She was still staring at what had drawn her attention and then, step by step she felt herself walk towards it. She had told herself that her cell phone was off limits, that she could not, would not use it to dial that number ever again, but a public phone. She just needed to make sure, just had to hear…

It seemed like she had no say in her doing. It wasn´t even a booth, it was a phone pole that gave no privacy but the rain that currently kept people away or made them hurry again and she ducked under the small roof it provided to at least escape the rain a bit. A passer by gave her a strange look that might have meant worry. She noticed that as he walked by, then, without noticing it really, grabbed the receiver.

There was no hesitation in her dialing, she had known the number by heart for a long while and attempts to forget it were as useless as it had been to smash her phone a long while back in the vain attempt to sever ties. Additions were not easily handled…

The moment that it took for the connection to be established she almost prayed the line would be busy, but it wasn´t. Three, four signals, then there was a clicking sound on the other end.

"Hello?"

She closed her eyes, felt that this single word let her mind go blank at the same time rendered her incapable of a reply. Standing there in the rain, using a public phone to stay anonymous, but who was she kidding. There were not many people in the world that had this number.

"Hello?" Another pause on the other end, his deep baritone perking up questioningly. How she had missed that voice. How she would always miss it.

The pause before the next word was excruciatingly long and for a moment, in her speechlessness, her throat cutting off her own words even though she tried once or twice to reply, to respond, she feared for a moment he would hang up. Then Fitz said her name.

"Liv?"