Hey guys, sorry for being MIA. I've been so busy with senior year and college applications. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. I recommend listening to "In my veins" by Andrew Belle while reading.

On second thought, was she really so desperate to be with someone she no longer had feelings for? Olivia didn't need any other guys in her life— all she needed was a certain blue eyed little boy. It was hard to believe that Thomas was turning one in a couple days.

"That cake is not gonna feed everyone." Stephen said as Abby brought out a small blue cake. "It's a smash cake. It's tradition." "What the hell kind of tradition is that?" "One that I don't have time to explain to you because it's Thomas' birthday." "If you two can stop fighting over traditions, here's the real cake," Olivia said while bringing out the actual cake.

Everything was perfect, yet Olivia couldn't help but feel like something was missing. Fitz. Olivia pushed the thought out of her head, she had to remind herself that this was the life she had chosen. Their relationship had been tumultuous to say the least, was she really so wrong to not want Thomas to be dragged into their mess?

"Then what is it Fitz? What do you want?" Mellie had not taken Fitz's refusion to have another kid lightly, to say the least. "A divorce. To answer your next questions; One, I do not care about the optics. Two; this has nothing to do with Olivia Pope." This was only partly true, but Mellie didn't need to know that.

"You can't do this to me, not after everything I've done for you." God, he couldn't even remember the reason why he fell in love with Mellie, her personality certainly wasn't it. "The only reason I stayed with you all these years was for the kids, but they're older now." "You do know that I'm going to fight this every step of the way. I will share our dirty laundry with the world. You have 24 hours to rethink this decision or I go to James and tell the world about you and Olivia Pope."

Olivia was just about to put Thomas to bed when there was a knock at the door. She really should've checked to see who it was before she opened it. Fitz smiled at her, "Hi." He shouldn't be here, he should be trying to save his marriage. "You shouldn't be here, you should be trying to save your marriage. Cyrus told me you filed for divorce."

Thomas rubbed his eyes and looked up at the tall stranger in front of him. "Who you?" Fitz smiled at him, "I'm..." Unsure if Olivia had told their son who he was, he settled on "Fitz." "Hi Fizz."

"I did, though not without a fight from Mellie. She's going to go nuclear on our marriage in about 25 minutes," He stepped closer to her, "You and I are going to run out the clock. You told me to earn you, so this is me earning you." Fitz took off his jacket and laid it on the back of a chair.

"Fizz stay?" Thomas wriggled out of his mother's arms and pulled himself onto the couch next to Fitz. He showed Fitz one of his toy cars and asked "play?" He had Olivia's smile. Fitz thought.

Olivia sat on the armchair opposite them, still in half disbelief that Fitz was here. Looking at them side by side, it was easy to tell they were father and son. When Thomas had been a newborn, she could have stared at him for hours, trying to figure out where she was in this tiny baby.

Had it been a mistake to keep them apart? She was beginning to think so, Thomas hadn't instantly taken to anyone the way he did with Fitz. There seemed to be an almost immediate comfort between them. Olivia could have stayed watching them interact forever but Thomas' eyes began to droop closed.

It was about 10 minutes until Mellie went public. "Come on buddy, let's go to bed." Thomas crossed his arms, "Not sleepy," before promptly falling asleep against the couch. Olivia picked him up, why had this become so awkward between her and Fitz? Then again, nothing like this had happened before and there had been no sleeping toddler that forever connected them to one another.

Only 3 minutes left. It felt like forever that they had been sitting there. Olivia could think of no ways to fix this without Thomas being exposed to a life of constant cameras. This was exactly what she hadn't wanted to happen.

"Well, time's up unless you don't want me.." Fitz trailed off, Olivia took his face in her hands and kissed him. She did want him, so bad it scared her. She pulled him towards her room; it had been so long since they'd done this but their bodies seemed to remember each other.

Fitz began to trail kisses down her body. Olivia had subconsciously covered her stomach. Despite her efforts, she hadn't quite managed to lose all the baby weight. "You're so beautiful," he murmured before kissing every imperfection and did things with his tongue that made her toes curl.

Waking up with him was a new experience for her. Olivia could get used to this but she knew that it might not last. Fitz stirred beside her, mumbling a good morning. "Not a bad way to wake up on my birthday."
"Happy Birthday Mr. President."
"Are you coming to my party later?"
"I actually have plans with a very adorable one year old and watching Disney movies but I think we can reschedule." Olivia suddenly felt guilty, not because of the plans but because she hadn't even given him an explanation as to why she kept Thomas away from him. She at least owed that to him.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out. "For keeping him from you. I- I was scared and I didn't even know that I wanted him... but I did. I didn't want him to grow up with cameras being shoved in his face, I wanted him to have a normal life."

Fitz could understand why she did it, he didn't like growing up in Big Jerry's shadow and he certainly hated himself for wanting to follow in his footsteps, no matter how great a politician Big Jerry had been— he was a terrible father. "I knew.. when you were pregnant. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to force you to keep a baby you didn't want for me. I want to be in his life. We'll figure it out, we're in this together." He linked their hands together.

Olivia couldn't shake this sinking feeling in her gut that something bad was going to happen. She hoped it was wrong. She stood outside in the cold November air with Cyrus, waiting for the presidential motorcade to appear.

Mellie hadn't done it, having realized how petty it was only minutes before sitting down with James. What example would it set for her children? Or that boy? Not that she cared about the boy even though she was technically his stepmother. The media would have enough of a field day with that once they found out the truth.
Mellie began to put on her usual First Lady facade and acted like her marriage wasn't already over a long time ago.

Fitz had walked no more than three steps towards the building when a shot rang out and he turned to see what had caused it, when another rang out. A searing, blinding pain tore through his head and he crumpled to the floor.

Well guys, that's the end of chapter 10. This is definitely the longest chapter I've written but hopefully it cleared up some of your questions. Anyways, next chapter will probably be up sometime next month. Let me know what you think :)