Noro: I hope I will. Hope you´ll like the new chapter. :-)

Clio1792: Yep, that´s what I always thought. Two smart people unable to communicate. It´s a difficult thing to depict and that´s why i´m glad you like it.

Kz4valentina: Once more lots of thanks for your awesome reviews. :) It´s really a huge huge compliment when someone is losing some sleep over your fanfics, because that must mean it´s keeping people on their toes. So here´s a new chapter for you. :)

Jennkyle: thank you :)

: Thank you and they will, eventually. ;)

Crabapplect: YOu´re very welcome. Hope you´ll stay for more. :)

Chapter 29

Wants and needs

It had been a while since she had last been to what had become one hell-hole of a city. In the dry afternoon heat, her clothes seemed to nearly stick to her body, black cloth suffocating what little air there was, yet allowing her to have a wary yet thorough look around, her musings undetected under the veil. What she saw, making it through narrow streets, always accompanied by her two armed friends, was a mix of atrocities and absurdities that had made the news in the so called western world over and over again. They passed a group of about two dozen men, ranging from early twenties to old age, gathered in front of their shops in a small back alley, ready for public prayer which had become as much a typical thing for the city as the sight of veiled women or the lack thereof alltogether. As common and ordinary a sight as that of half masked jihadists in their proud insanity, patrolling the streets on horseback or run down pickup trucks, hawk-eyed for any violation of what had become the law of the land, like half mad blood hounds on the lookout for easy prey.

She knew the names of none of her companions. Not their real ones at least, so she refered to them by their chosen names and they did the same about her. Abbas, fierce eyed, mid twenties, young enough to follow extreme ideologies with the excuse of feeling alienated, without much questioning them, too young to be able to turn things in his favour and who, for all she knew, would probably end up dead in a ditch some time soon. Jack, white, bearded and around his fourties, the typical renegade fighter, grown up and socialised in the west, western heritage, but fortunately ISIS did not make much of a difference when it came to the origin of their followers. If anything, it proved their point, at least according to him.

It would have been unthinkable for Maya to travel the roads of Ar Raqqa on her own. The city was a battle field in the midsts of the Syrian Civil War and had been in the clutches of the self acclaimed Islamic State for about two years now. The laws that the new lords had imposed went for everyone and as much as she despised being tamed by anyone, she wasn´t crazy enough to dismiss these rules. She had a goal after all and it wouldn´t do her any good to get stuck in a place like this for reasons of public undecency – or worse. She couldn´t afford it. In this bleak, dangerous part of the world, so much more hostile even to women, the woman named Maya had some business to attend to.

They approached the meeting point, turning into yet a more narrow street. Abbas slowed down and Maya assumed a very unlike her devout position, head held low, hands in her lap, her entire figure merely that of a dark ghost in the back seat it seemed as her driver rolled down the window and exchanged a few quick words in Arabic with a man outside the car while another kept a wary eye on the vehicle with his rifle raised. A third and fourth instantly approached them to check for explosives. She kept quiet until they had decided that their little party was no danger and then there were no more questions asked.

They exited the car in front of a dingy, small house in a row of buildings in what could have been a lowly frequented part of town, maybe a bar of sorts in years gone by but with a different choice of beverages now, since alcohol was strictly forbidden. A few dangerous seconds out in the open and they were inside. Despite the danger, or maybe because of it, Maya felt an anticipating tingle in her fingertips. Danger made her heart beat faster and not in a bad way. Maybe that was just part of being what most people would refer to as crazy.

"He will meet us here," Jack said, his American accent, as she knew, would be completely undetectable later, when not needed. Jack might not be big on his academics. Or finishing college. Or highschool. But he seemed to have a knack for picking up accents. A handy little skill. "Leave the talking to me." He added as they walked into the building, passing deserted rows and small tables. Under her burka, the woman who called herself Maya, smirked to herself, enjoying the knowledge that this attire allowed a free and unwittnessable display of sarcastic sneer. She had come here with a job to do. With an offer to make, and all hell be damned if she let a minion like Jack steal her thunder.

OOOOO

He didn´t know how it had happened, but he had finally fallen asleep. His daily 6 a.m. wakeup call startled him from that, his back protesting as he spent the first few seconds of being awake wondering where he was, until his memory and limbs connected and he found that he had never gone to bed at all, but spent the night leaned against the wall in a sitting position. With a grunt, Fitz got to his feet, inwardly scolding himself. He was feeling cold because he was just wearing pj shorts and a Harvard shirt and the room, even though not cold, had been cooled down automatically to a healthy night temperature which was fine under the sheets but chill when spent outside of them. As he rubbed his back he was torn between wondeirng whether the pain in his limbs was a subtle reminder that he was getting older or rather a less subtle reminder that he was so desperate to be close to Olivia Pope that he had spent the night cowered against the wall that bordered the room she was staying in. Neither was a very good sign of him having his wits together.

"Good morning, Mr President," his personal aide announced when he picked up the phone on his nightstand.

"Good morning, Dyllan. Anything unusual happen tonight?"

"No, Sir. Your schedule will proceed as planned, starting with the daily briefing in the Oval at 9.30, followed by a meeting with your national security advisors by your request at 10 am."

He brushed a hand through his hair, trying to blink away sleep. "Good, sounds like an ordinary day then."

"One minor thing. Secret Service agent Tom Larsen called in sick for today an hour ago, but we already rearranged your security detail for the day."

"All right. Thank you, Dyllan."

There were several bathrooms in the residence, including the ensuite one in the master bedroom but he tended to avoid that one for reasons he told himself were random but which he knew to be Mellie-related. He had put his foot down with her and he was glad she was gone, but this bathroom had been the one they had used together and as little he regretted what finally looked like the end of their marriage, it also reminded him of other things: This had been their family bathroom and his family, the kids, were gone with her. He missed them where he didn´t miss her and for now his strategy, besides making sure to keep in regular phone contact with Karen and little Teddy, was to avoid the places they had shared which was difficult enough in the Residence, so he chose the places where this strategy actually worked. He closed the door to his bedroom from the outside and, with bare feet, made his way over to the other end of the Residence. He needed a shower to get his day started right, or maybe he should even consider a workout first and then shower before the meeting. He could tell he was trying to circumnavigate the thought that she was here, that Liv was probably still curled up asleep, so close and yet so far. No, for an early morning, this was maybe more than his tired, slightly overtaxed mind could bear and so he tried to direct his thoughts to other things. The meeting he had requested would be about the meeting Masri had suggested. He hoped that his security team had done their homework, coming up with concrete plans adding to suggestions of his own, because despite everything, despite Liv and his own chaos, despite the threat that was Eli Pope and their desperate need to get the man behind bars for good, there was always so much to do. A president never had the luxury of dealing exclusively with his own fucked up little world of problems. There were always the problems of the nation and the world to attend to.

He almost managed it. As he approached the bathroom door he was so set on the question on whether New York City as the seat of the United Nations or a completely neutral place such as The Hague would be best for their meeting, that only when he pressed down the door handle, he noticed the slight background sound of the shower running. Only when he had already half entered the room did he fully allow himself to remember that he was not alone in the Residence today.

She wasn´t asleep. It shouldn´t astonish him to find that she had been awake before him. That was so her. What he truely wasn´t prepared for was to catch a glimpse of her, her familar, feminine shape a slight blur through the pearly glass of the large shower cubicle. She had her back on him which probably saved both of them the awkwardness of a situation that once had not been awkward at all, her head tilted back so she was raining the warm water on her face, her figure betraying the slightly tired, relaxed body language of someone who had just woken from a good night´s sleep. He froze. Watched. It could not have been more than two seconds until his brain kicked in and he retreated, suddenly not wanting to risk her turning around and seeing him like this, because right now, in these moments, he was weak. He pulled the door close softly, careful not to make a sound and exhaled a breath he hadn´t been aware he was holding. Two seconds and it had been enough to assault his resolves of taking things slow, of properly allowing himself to work through her betrayal, through what she had done to him, to give himself proper time to re-evaluate whether they still had a chance. He cursed his body to be the traitor right now, fully aware that the sight of her naked body might have stirred him there, but that in reality her under his shower, in his home, had merely rekindled a longing far deeper than that. A longing to share his life with her? He had wanted that once. Who was he even kidding?

oooo

A quick call to the valet and the breakfast was on the way. It was one of the moments where he was glad that such decisions were made by others, because he himself wasn´t even sure what he would have served. Something small and simple and effective? Maybe just cereals, some breads, coffee? Practical and reminding them both of a distance he still told himself he needed? Or would he have sent confusing signals by squeezing oranges, making pancakes with syrup and all the little things he thought had to be part of a good breakfast? The kitchen staff decided to go with the latter option and the valet arrived with a cart of fresh breakfast buns, bread and butter, different spreads, scrambled eggs, fresh fruit and juice. It was the most oppulent breakfast they had brought in the last few days, because they knew of course, what he liked and brought just that, often because he was short on time. He briefly wondered whether the agent on duty last night had asked the kitchen staff to put up a little more effort.

He was reading the first paragraph of an article in the New York times for possibly the third time when he picked up the small sound he had been waiting for – the bathroom door. He had the breakfast table set by the large window in the East Sitting Hall so she would see it (even though he told himself it was just because he liked the sunrise). Another lie he told himself. He longed for her to join him, feeling trapped in his own needs and what his reason told him he needed instead. He glanced over the rim of the paper, noting almost absent mindedly how lovely she looked. He had briefly hoped she would be wearing a bathrobe and her wet hair done up in a turban, but she had gotten fully dressed already in black dress pants and a cream coloured blouse , the outfit enhancing the elegegance of her slender figure. Just when he looked up, she slowed down, glancing at the breakfast table and then him. He didn´t allow the situation to become uncomfortable and placed the newspaper on the small stack of daily papers he still insisted on receiving.

"Hi."

She smiled as she came closer and sat down on the chair on the other end oft he table. A slow, fluid movement, almost careful as if she was trying not to disturb something dangerous.

"Hi." She looked around.

"Coffee?" Her smile widened a bit as he nodded, but Fitz saw it didn´t completely reach her eyes. So there he was, sending strange signals. He got up and reached for the coffee.

"Fitz, this wouldn´t have been necessary…" she began, her voice low.

He felt the slightest pang at her mild regection. Or was that even one? He could tell she was walking on metaphorical tippy toes, just like himself, when he answered. "It´s okay, they brought everything up here a moment ago so let´s dig in."

He was so tuned in tot he minute changes of her behavior, so alert to look out fort he tiniest little alterations in her body language, that he noticed the small twitch in her fingers, moving towards him and then stopping when he set down the coffee mug. "Did you sleep well?" he asked.

The softness in his voice betrayed his own weakness to him and he almost sighed. "Fitz…" she began. He sat down, not on his side of the table where his cup and plate were, but next to her.

"I think we can get started with our work today. I made sure David Rosen has secret service detail now and I made sure to clear my schedule for a two hour spot this afternoon so we can meet with him here and talk through our strategy. Do you…"

She didn´t buy his distraction, of course. "Fitz, I don´t want this to be awkward for you."

He sighed. "We talked about this. Liv. I cannot really have a say in it if you are hellbound on staying somewhere else, but you have the best protection here."

"This is not just about my protection." she contradicted with a slight shake of her head. Her eyes meeting his…the apology, the desperate ´I am sorry´ he read in them…for a moment he could have drowned in it. Then he broke eye contact, until she reached out and carefully covered her hand with his. "This is about….you, too." He wondered if her hesitation meant that she had meant to use another pronoun instead. Maybe that pronoun had been ´us´?

"Yes, it is." he admitted, noticing faint agitation in his voice. „It´s about me, and it´s about you, and it´s about what we are trying to get done here, Liv. It´s about all the other things on my mind and it´s about my mind getting clouded with the hope that we can finally bring justice to … Jerry." He noticed he was pointedly avoiding connecting the thing to her father. To her.

"I understand, Fitz." He could tell she wanted to say more and he had a good guess at what he wanted to say. That she missed him, that she was sorry. But there were other things that he needed to say. That he needed time to heal. That he needed to clear his thoughts to be able to function. That fort he first time in months he had finally regained his wits and professionalism by kicking out both Cyrus and Mellie and that he could not jeopardise this for his own feelings, because he didn´t just have her and himself tot hink of. He owed it to the American people to give his best every day he had left in this job.

She got up and he didn´t resist when she stepped next to him. Stepped right next to him and carefully ventured out to let her hand run through his hair. „"We can work this out." he heard her say. "We can fix this." It was difficult to say whether she was refering to bringing down her father or to restarting their relationship from what felt like square one. But in a way, to his ears, it wasn´t arbitrary at all, and thatmade him feel conflicted, for shouldn´t he sort his priorities in a different way?

But Fitz missed her, too. She had slept mere feet away from him, he could still sense the heat oft he water of his shower on her, she was right next to him and yet he missed her. WIth a small sigh he closed his eyes as he felt his right arm slip around her waist. None oft hem attempted a kiss. It was just a moment of shared closeness, her standing next to his chair, him leaning against her, both supporting each other. And in this moment none oft hem spoke, scared to ruin the closeness they felt but didn´t dare admit.