Author´s note: The muses are in a good mood so here is the next chapter, quite soon already. Enjoy :-)

LoreneMichelle41: Oh yes, she´ll yet have to deal with a lot of retaliation there, bit by bit. Things aren´t that easy…As for Tom: Totally seconded. ;)

Umusarah: You´re welcome. And yes, I used to like Tom as well. :/ Well, yes I think that´s one of the problems of their relationship, she just has this destructive tendency to hide her emotions, whereas he is much more of an open book. I bet that has to be frustrating for him.

Jennkyle: Well, I figured things need to come at a price so…Rowan will soon know where she is. It won´t make things easier at all. ;)

Cleo: Aww. :) Well, maybe this chapter can remedy. A little bit. We shall see. :)

Chapter 15 – Things left unsaid

People said that time was a funny thing – sometimes stretching endlessly, emphasizing a moment, sometimes rushing past. As she stood there in the hotel corridor, Olivia made the experience that people were wrong: it could be both at once as well. The pain and confusion on his face mixed with emotions she could not decipher, every second lasting a minute to her, making her feel what he must be going through but at the same time, time seemed to rush, to be of essence. He would leave, she suddenly knew when she saw a hardening of his features; he would leave and turn his back on her and never talk to her again. He would, any second …

His frown deepened some more, then he did what she would not have expected. He did a few determined, brisk steps towards her, grabbed her wrist against her protest.

"Where is your room?" His voice sounded pressed, so it would not quiver.

"Fitz…!"

"Where, Liv? I don´t think causing a scene right here would be a smart idea, don´t you agree?"

There was stubbornness in his voice that told her that he would risk a scene. He was in a moment beyond caring, if people heard them, if they stepped on the corridor to see the President of the United States yell at her, he would let it happen.

"512" she hissed, keeping her voice down, her heart beating so loudly that she was sure at least that would rouse the other hotel guests. "Fitz I…"

"Shut up!" He kept walking briskly, checked the room door numbers quickly as he want and she ran a bit to catch up with his stride, found he was walking in the correct direction and walked on.

He was angry, she could tell. It seemed a logical reaction, but it made him unpredictable in a way that challenged her own temper. "Fitz, stop!" she hissed. The agent had caught up with them, but he was reacting astonishingly calm. Fitz tossed him a glance. "Wait here." He said, then held out his hand. Olivia gave him her key card and he activated the door, his lips a thin pressed line and then he stepped through and dragged her after him, then let go of her wrist and she almost stumbled into the room, whirled around, facing him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He kept his voice down, she could tell, but knew him well enough to be able to tell when he´d rather yell.

She felt her mouth drop open, frowned. "What?" she asked, almost snapped. "You show up near my hotel room…why…" Why would he ask her that? Unless… She felt her spirits thing. He had not know she was here.

"You were looking for Mellie." A statement, not a question. He just looked at her, chest heaving, he was almost shaking and he didn´t answer her question. The answer probably didn´t matter anyways. But she could tell he was struggling, trying to figure out priorities. So many things to ask, so many issues to settle. And as his mind must be reeling through all of those, discarding the mystery of why his wife had known of this down the lane of things to be dealt with later, Olivia could see the anger vanish from his face, giving way to … hurt. She instantly knew she would have been able to handle his fury a lot better.

"What…" He broke off, shook his head, started again, his voice sounding almost helpless. "What are you doing here, Livvie?"

She took a deep breath. There was no way to deny it, no necessity to change her answer, to alter it in any way because there was just one. "I had to come back."

He was just looking at her, still standing near the door. "Well…I had hoped that." He said. "I really hoped that when you called."

"Fitz that was…" But he shook his head and she stopped.

"When I heard your voice … that was the best thing that happened in the last weeks, Liv."

"For me, too." she almost whispered, feeling her lips curl into an almost painful, sad smile, realizing it was because she hadn´t smiled in a while.

"So goddamn it Liv…" he said, and his voice became more livid again. "Goddamnit why was he there? Why would you call me with him…"

"I didn´t plan on him to…"

"Oh of course you didn´t. So why did you call? Huh?" He had started pacing. "To ask if I was doing okay while your…boyfriend was waiting in another room?"

She knew him so well that she knew he was using some of his words to hurt, to get out his own anger that were piercing his soul like needles.

"I called because I needed to hear your voice, Fitz. I called because I needed to know how you were doing."

"How do you think I was doing?" Now he was almost yelling, the lines in his face tight. "How do you think did it feel when you just ran off? Leaving everyone, everything…."

Now it was her turn to interrupt. "Back then I had to, Fitz. I just…I had to. For your own sake."

"My sake? I needed you." He was now no longer caring to be overheard or not, his defenses down, his heart and soul bared to her. He had suffered, she could see with brutal clarity. Suffered alone. "You left when I needed you." He shook his head. "And to know that…..you were with him…"

He had every right to be angry, to be mad, to yell at her, to lash out, she knew she deserved that, yet there was another part of her, desperately trying to make him understand. Why was it always about others and about what they felt? Did she not deserve a little happiness, a little normalcy, too? Not with Jake, hell not with Jake, but didn´t everyone have a right to deal with things in their own way? To run when sanity demanded it? She opened her mouth with a gasp that, a few minutes later into this might have been a sob. "I…I didn´t plan on this. I planned on nothing of this, Fitz. I just….had to run. Not just for my own sake."

He just looked at her, standing there, completely forlorn, looking weak and weary, so very weary in his jeans and grey sweater. He had work a cap earlier she recalled, noticing now that he had flung it away into a corner, maybe when they had entered the room. His hair was slightly ruffled, from the cap no doubt, but to her it just added to the look of being utterly lost. She knew he would show himself like that to no one, only her. It pained her all the more.

"Livvie…" That one word carried all the emotion of the world, a world that had once more narrowed down to just one room and even less, to just them, her and him. And that world was in disarray and she desperately hoped it was not too late to save it.

"I am sorry…." she whispered. "I am ….so sorry Fitz. I just….I couldn´t…."

She didn´t know how he would react, he was an enigma to her in such situations, the time apart even though it had been mere weeks a sudden gulf with him that she was not sure he was willing to swim across. There was no way of telling what he would do next, but what he chose to do made her choke up and she could feel tears well up in her eyes, blurring the features she had grown to love years ago when he stepped towards her.

So much left unsaid, so much pain in his embrace when he closed the gap but not the gulf, hugging her to his chest, resting his chin on the top of her head with a sigh that sounded a lot like a suppressed sob. So much between them that needed to be dealt with and that both of them knew. So much that had to be yelled, to be shouted and argued out to get it out of their systems but in that very moment, brief as it might be and soon as it might be over again, all that faded behind the desperate need for comfort.

There was a reluctance in his touch but yet she could tell he had no other choice than embrace her because what he had said had been true: he had needed her when she had left, had needed her so much. She buried her face against his chest, feeling the tears come, wetting the fabric of his shirt. "I´m so sorry, Fitz…so sorry…"

He just sighed. Just held her close, a painful embrace not physically but emotionally. He knew she did. He knew she felt sorry. But that didn´t make things easier. Not at all. His embrace didn´t let up when he spoke, his voice rumbling against his chest, vibrating softly against her face, at the same time comforting and upsetting. "I can´t breathe without you, Liv. I just…can´t."