Author's Note:
You guyyyysssss! I swear I didn't mean for the update to take this long! It was supposed to be up WEEKS ago, but man, January hit me HARD, healthwise (thankfully not COVID related). I plan to update much more regularly and much faster from here on out. This fic is my pride and joy, so rest assured even if updates aren't as frequent as I'd like them to be they WILL happen.
Originally, I planned for this chapter to be much longer, but it's been so long I decided to break what I had up and give JWYW more chapters.
Thank you for all your reviews, they definitely kept me going. I'm a needy bitch who thrives off validation, so please keep your reviews coming. Tell me what parts you liked. Tell me what lines of dialogue stuck out to you. Tell me what made you laugh/cry/smash your keyboard in frustration, I WANT TO HEAR IT ALL!
Also, If you're confused about something, don't be shy about asking either in a review on or on tumblr (I'm jilyandbambi there, too). If you're an anonymous/guest reviewer that asks a question in your review, check my Tumblr for replies.
Chapter 2
NOW
March, 2012
George Washington University Hospital, Washington DC
The paramedics had been able to stabilize Liv on the way to the hospital, so upon arrival the response team opted to skip the trauma bay and whisked Olivia away to a private room where an obstetrics team was already prepared and waiting. The VIP treatment came compliments of one Lionel Whitfield, an early client of OPA and major donor to GWUH, and the first favor the team called in for Operation LISP. Neither Whitfield nor the physicians tapped to be in charge of his VIP's care were made aware of the patient's identity, only that they were to be admitted under an assumed name and that every person assigned to their care—everyone from the attending physician on down to the orderly coming in to change the bedsheets—was required to sign an NDA prior to setting foot in the patient's room.
Notably, the very first thing the attending physician, Dr. McNeil, did after introducing himself, the two residents, nurse, and orderly accompanying him was hand Abby a sealed folder containing all of the requested paperwork as well as copies of each staff member's ID badge. The confirmation that the team's instructions had been relayed and followed to the letter did a lot to repair her frayed nerves. Much needed, because now came the questions.
"Ms. Whelan," Dr. McNeil began, somewhat uncomfortably. "You're a…close friend of Ms. Pope's, is that correct?"
"That's right," Abby nodded, glancing down at her and Olivia's joined hands, and giving them a squeeze.
The thing was, Liv was awake. She had come around in the ambulance, just as they were pulling up to the hospital. The paramedics had pronounced her 'awake and responsive' to the team of physicians there to help unload the gurney. Inside the ambulance, once Liv had a chance to take in where she was and who was with her, her eyes had slipped shut, the only indication that she was still with them was her death grip on Abby's hand that hadn't relented since they left the ambulance together.
She wasn't fooling Dr. McNeil and his team. Feigning unconsciousness was damn near impossible when hooked up to a heart-rate monitor and ultrasound machine, after all, but they indulged her nonetheless. It seemed a fair amount of latitude from doctor to patient was one of the perks of concierge medical care. Truly, the rich benefited from a completely different health care system. That left Abby up to bat.
"And…would you say…" Dr. McNeil hesitated, looking more uncomfortable, if possible, after exchanging a series of silent looks with the resident moving the ultrasound want around Liv's belly. Clearing his throat, the doctor began again. "Would you say you're on equally good terms with the, uh, the father of Ms. Pope's unborn child?"
Now it was Abby's turn to look uncomfortable. Her gut dropped to the soles of her feet. Liv squeezed their hands tight enough to hurt.
"No," she said quietly, hoping the doctors weren't able to read her and Liv's silent exchange as well as they could each others'.
"I see," said Dr. McNeil. "While I recognize that you've been by Ms. Pope's side since she collapsed, for ethics reasons, I do hesitate to go into any further detail without all parties involved present…"
"It's fine," Liv spoke up suddenly. Grimacing, her face twisted off to the side, away from the direction of the doctor's voice, unseeing eyes cast on the grainy, black and white image of the tiny life hopefully still growing inside her. She said, "It's fine. The—he's not coming. He can't be here."
Dr. McNeil hesitated before speaking again. Abby's belly dropped again when the doctor bowed his head. That couldn't be a good sign. She and Liv clenched their hands into a fist.
"I'm afraid the baby no longer has a heartbeat," he said solemnly. At last, addressing Olivia, he continued. "Ms. Pope, do you know how far along you were?"
Swallowing thickly, Olivia replied, "Four…four months. Sixteen weeks, I think."
She thinks?
"When was your last prenatal appointment?" Dr. McNeil asked gently.
Liv said nothing. Her head turned even further away.
"…I see," said Dr. McNeil, frowning.
Still squeezing Liv's hand as tightly as she could, glared daggers at her friend, whose eyes were still stubbornly shut to the world. For good measure, she dug the nail of her thumb into the skin of the back of Liv's hand, sharp enough to drive home the message though not enough to leave an imprint. For the first time, Liv's hold on her went limp.
Dr. McNeil continued. "Measuring the fetus, it looks like it stopped growing at just before it hit thirteen weeks. This is what we call an 'incomplete miscarriage,' when the fetus stops growing and is no longer viable, but the mother's body fails to initiate the process to evacuate the fetal remains."
Abby felt sick. In other words, Liv had been walking around carrying her dead baby inside her for nearly a month without even knowing it. How was that even possible, for your own body to completely fuck you over like that? To make you the butt of its own sick, cosmic joke. If she looked at Liv, Abby knew she'd break down and lose it, and that couldn't happen right now. Covering their joined hands with her remaining free hand, she leaned in, preparing, in so many ways to take the brunt of the remaining bad news—because surely there had to be more.
"Once labor has started—in this case, it likely began during the ceremony, contributing to your collapse, Ms. Pope, but I digress—when labor starts is when we begin to lose options so far as how to proceed with an incomplete miscarriage. Some women prefer to let nature do its thing, so to speak, and deliver the fetus naturally. Others prefer a surgical option, a dilation and curettage, or D&C."
He paused, taking on a more solemn tone.
"Then, of course, there's the option of having an autopsy done to determine sex and whether a cause of death can be determined. This is something we leave up to the parents…"
"I want it," Liv said in a low, raspy murmur. "I want it over now. And I want to…to know…"
Liv trailed off. With a sympathetic look Liv, with her eyes closed and head turned, couldn't see, Dr. McNeil said, "Understood."
Addressing both of them, he said, "Normally, we only have the other parent present during this procedure, but if you're comfortable with it, Ms. Pope, Ms. Whelan could—"
"—No," Liv said, cutting him off. She sent Abby an unnecessary apologetic squeeze. "It's not. I-I need…"
Olivia's lips mouthed a muted, unintelligible explanation before giving up and falling silent.
"It's fine, Liv," Abby whispered. "I get it. I'll be right here when you get back. I'm not going anywhere."
The nurse and orderly, who'd gone to fetch a gurney as soon as Liv chose to go with the surgery, were back. With a final, mutual squeeze, Liv let go and Abby stepped away so that Liv could once again be transferred from bed to gurney. Giving Abby one last sympathetic look, Dr. McNeil brought up the rear behind his team and the gurney. The door to the room slammed shut behind them, leaving Abby alone to play the waiting game until the rest of their family joined her.
THEN
April, 2011
Camp David, Frederick County, Maryland
Fitz was up with the sun the next morning, more out of habit than preference. Holding public office had a way of recalibrating one's internal clock; allowing himself to sleep in on a rare day off had been a problem for him since his governorship and it's only gotten worse since he became president. But despite this being the first vacation he's taken since his term began, for once, Fitz was grateful for this particular idiosyncrasy he owed to a lifetime in politics, since, in all the excitement and turmoil of his reunion with Olivia the previous night he'd forgotten to set an alarm.
It was important he get an early start today. He hadn't been being glib last night when he'd told Olivia the president was on a weekend-long work retreat at Camp David. The truth was in part aligned with the official record, this time. He'd had a lot on his mind the past couple weeks, too much to work through without space and open air, and people he could breathe around.
Undisturbed, Olivia was still sound asleep in his arms, causing Fitz to remain in bed longer than he should. Waking with her in his arms was a novelty on its own, but that morning especially, Fitz had to take a few extra moments to take her in.
Normally, Olivia slept with the weight of the world tying her down. Exhaustion buried and concealed during her waking hours by a body and mind in constant motion came home to roost as soon as she gave in and allowed herself to power down. In sleep, it left her visibly scrunched and oddly coiled like a rusted spring, brittle and close to breaking, her unconscious mind readying her for battle before it would allow her to enter the REM cycle, if she made it there at all. Awake and in control, Olivia Pope presented herself as an inferno, a one-woman army. Asleep and bare of any walls on which to hang the façade, she was simply depleted.
She's different that morning. Heavier. Lulled. Knowing Olivia well enough to know the way her unconscious mind held a full night's rest from reach with a thousand simultaneous worries and contingencies and hypotheticals meant it was plain as day when a miracle occurred and her beautiful, brilliant, interminable mind let the human need for sleep overtake it. More than at peace, Olivia was at ease.
Like any man, Fitz did take a certain amount of pride in his skills in the bedroom, but he wasn't so vain as to credit Olivia getting what is likely the best sleep she's had in all the time he's known her to post-coital bliss; or fatigue. A cursory glance at the parts of her body not covered by blankets or his navy t-shirt shows that he was rougher with her last night than he'd been cognizant of at the time…
Carefully, so as not to disturb her, Fitz unwound himself from Olivia and slipped out of bed to prepare for the day ahead. The day before, he'd told his agents he planned to go on a solo hike that day, leaving his guest on her own, and that she'd need access to a secure laptop and Internet connection as she'd likely have work to do. Fitz was gratified to find that whichever member of staff that had brought in breakfast had also left a laptop and some office supplies by the breakfast tray.
Before heading out to meet the agents on the other side of the cabin door, Fitz grabbed a banana-nut muffin and used the first page of the legal pad the staff left for Olivia to scribble down a note:
Livvie,
I'm on a hike for most of the day today. Need to clear my head. The trail runs up along the northern base of camp.
You were sleeping so peacefully, I didn't want to wake you just to tell you I was leaving
I'll be back in time to have an early dinner with you. Please eat something before then. The laptop and stuff are for you.
Hal is on call, he's to be within 20 ft of the cabin at all times while I'm away. If you need anything, ask him.
—III
The extended daylight hours of late-spring left the sun still high in the sky by the time Fitz returned to the cabin at just before five. He found Olivia where he imagined she'd be, at the table, plugging away on the laptop that had been procured for her.
Not wanting to startle her, Fits rapped his fist twice against the wood-paneled threshold separating the cabin's entryway and the small sitting area as a sort of pre-greeting before he speaks.
"Hi."
"Hi," she said back.
There was a listlessness in her reply, in her eyes, in the way she'd snapped to her feet as soon as she'd heard him come into the room, that set off a ringing in Fitz's head. He noticed Olivia was still wearing his navy t-shirt and nothing else, apparently having chosen to forgo getting dressed for the day. Having never been on vacation with Olivia before now Fitz had no way of knowing whether she was the type to lounge around in her pj's when the opportunity presented, but it didn't feel like an Olivia Pope thing to do.
The food on the breakfast tray from that morning had gone untouched. The only thing missing was the muffin Fitz had taken with him on his way out. If the tray was still here that meant no one had come to get it, which meant it hadn't been switched out to serve the lunch tray.
"Have you eaten?" Fitz asked cautiously, not wanting to jump down her throat with accusations and over-concern.
Guiltily, Olivia's eyes darted to the untouched breakfast tray then back again before the guilt was quickly concealed by a cool mask of nonchalance. She folded her arms across her chest.
"I had a lot of work to do."
It's an Olivia Pope answer to be sure, and yet, Fitz didn't trust it. It's Olivia's truth but not the truth. But he went along, not wanting a fight. "Did you have everything you needed?"
Nodding, Olivia uncrossed her arms and let them drop lazily to her sides. "I did, I got a lot done. Thank you."
'You're welcome' feels redundant but Fitz didn't have anything else to say that wouldn't feel hollow or possibly ignite an argument. Awkward two-person silences have a way of rapidly deteriorating into an even more awkward staring contest, which was where they ended up until Fitz broke the standoff.
Over his shoulder, as he made his coward's retreat to the en-suite bathroom, he mumbled to Liv that dinner would be brought out shortly. The words Try and take a load off, until then got to the tip of his tongue before he remembered who he was talking to and bit them back.
His navy shirt was big on Liv, too long for her arms and stopping almost at her knees, making her look that much more like a lost, bitty thing left barefoot and waiting on the losing side of an aborted conversation. But Olivia Pope was none of those things. Truly, she the last person Fitz would think to be the type to wait on or for.
He spent as long as he dared in the shower, scrubbing the outdoors and the stilted smalltalk off of him, in the hopes that by the time he comes out dinner will be on the table and they'll have at least have a conversation piece between them. And maybe, he'll be able to wheedle Olivia into eating some of it.
No such luck.
The empty table is the first change Fitz catalogs upon coming back into the main room. With Olivia now in a white bathrobe, he puts two and two together that the staff came for the breakfast tray while he was in the shower; but no dinner to replace it.
"You're pacing."
In circles, he made a point of leaving out in the interest of keeping his tread light the further he came into the main room. Eyes shut, jaw set, Olivia seemed to not even have registered his renewed presence in the room at all, much less his voiced observation. She'd put away the laptop she had been working on when he'd come back from his hike, but the legal pad was still out and open to the note he'd left her that morning. Her stride didn't let up even as Fitz sidled up to the edge of her orbit in a subtle attempt at making his presence more known. Oblivious, or ignoring him, she continued on her way to wearing a crater into the area spanning the inner-circumference of the main room: from the table to the armoire in the corner to the entryway and then back.
She limped, noticeably, a strained whimper squeaking past pressed lips each time the leg she was using as the dominant started to give, forcing her to shift her weight to the other. With the robe covering all the parts of her exposed to Fitz's mouth, and tongue, and teeth last night he couldn't tell what degree Olivia being so uncharacteristically open about the fact that she's in pain was due to this simply being the best she could do to hide it—meaning she was hurting worse than she was letting on—and how much was due to her merely being too preoccupied to bother putting up a front.
"There was a problem with the ovens," Olivia informs him without breaking stride. "Maintenance took care of it but it set the kitchen back by about an hour. Yvette from housekeeping told me when she came by for the tray."
Having her back to him while she relayed this felt pointed. A little stung, and left scrambling, Fitz's attention was drawn back to the note on the table. He let the update on the evening's meal hang in the air, unacknowledged for the sake of a more pressing concern.
"Was this okay?" he asked, holding up the legal pad for her to see what he's referring to, despite her back still being to him. The question was the proverbial spark. Liv ignited.
"Why are we here? Why did you bring me here?"
She'd done an about-face before the first question had even left her mouth all the way. Brown eyes were, at once, flashing and darkened, teeth bared into a scowl. Olivia had, of course, been ready to tear into him from the moment he'd returned from his hike. Foolishly, Fitz had hoped if he eased them into the confrontation they could avoid the explosions and aftershocks; at least for long enough for him to realize on his own what he'd done to provoke her in the hours between her crying herself to sleep in his arms and him walking through the door.
To someone who didn't know Olivia well enough the two questions might seem redundant, or that the second was the clarified form of the first, the answer she really wanted. Fitz knew better. She meant both; and expected a different answer for both.
Breathing out through his nose in preparation to begin the dialog he'd spent the better part of a day-long hike rehearsing, Fitz gestured to the seat Olivia had vacated earlier. "Why don't you have a seat."
Olivia's scowl deepened, her arms folded across her chest. Wanting to avoid another silent standoff, Fitz set the notepad down on the table and took the plunge.
"The briefing I gave the press isn't just a cover story. I'm here—we're—here because I need to think."
Olivia's response was as he predicted. Angry, affronted, she opened her mouth and let it hang, agape before her lips seal back together in a bid to rein in the rising fury, lest she lose control of the situation.
"And why am I here?" she demanded in a tight voice, as though she already knew what he was going to say.
It occurred to Fitz then that she might, actually. For all he knew, she could have spent all day in this cabin the way he spent all day in the woods, thinking, planning out everything they had to say to one another, everything left over from that night two weeks ago, everything there was left to say, and writing the script of what the other's response would be. Taking the plunge all of the sudden felt like a mistake. He probably should have waited for dessert. But what's done is done.
"Because I need to think."
It was as close to the truth as Fitz can get without launching into the full speech he'd written and rewritten in his ad-nauseum for days now, the long-winded, heart-on-his-sleeve explanation he was still working to perfect so as not to scare Liv away or cause her to do something drastic. But Olivia prized honesty as much as she loathed evasiveness. Fitz could see now that leaving her with nothing but a note, without waking her up, or better yet, giving her a full itinerary when she showed up instead of jumping her right away, could have avoided putting them where they were now. Hindsight was never helpful in the moment.
Olivia resumed her pacing.
"You needed to think," she repeated aloud to both herself and to him. She kept her back to the door and Fitz in her sights, this time, switching things up from circles to back and forth now that he'd thrown down the gauntlet and given her something she can work with, a situation to resolve as opposed to a conversation to endure.
"You needed to think," she said again, mockingly, this time. "And, of course, like any man, you do your best thinking with the head between your legs, especially, when you can stick said head into something warm—"
She broke off mid-rant, shaking her head, for the first time looking away from him.
"And, of course, " she said. "Of course you'd need your mistress to do your 'best' thinking—"
"Don't call yourself that!" Fitz barked, incensed by the word and the crack in Olivia's voice when she'd used it on herself. "Don't ever call yourself that when you and I both know you're more than that. We're more than that."
"We don't know anything," Olivia shot back, still refusing to look his way but unable to keep the quiver from her voice. "What am I then? Your common law wife? Your girlfriend? Your lady of the evening, who you have to have your agents send for and steal away to you under cover of night, and lie to the rest of your staff, to your family about where you are and who you're with, and what you're doing, and who…"
She trailed off on the end of a sob, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle it. The pacing stopped when the tears began, leaving them an arm's length apart. She batted Fitz's hand away when he reached for her.
"Livvie…"
It was easier to let her name hang in the air like a false platitude than insult her by trying to contradict any of what she just said. Olivia shook her head and twisted further away. When she spoke at last, it came in a voice he'd never heard her use before, small, choked.
"You left me all alone…"
He hadn't meant to.
That morning, when Fitz had weighed the choice of waking Olivia to tell her his plans for the day versus simply leaving her a note, and had gone with the latter option, he'd done so having weighed and accepted the possibility that waking up alone the morning after would rankle given the 'circumstances' of their relationship and Olivia's justifiable sensitivities surrounding them. He'd chosen door number two secure in his belief that the hurt he'd cause would be, at most, a surface-level abrasion, no blood trail, no scar. Casual affronts like these were something that happened inevitably in every relationship, as he'd learned in his twenty years with Mellie.
But Olivia wasn't Mellie. Before anything else, Fitz realized his first mistake had been assuming he could treat Olivia the way he would Mellie; that all women had the same reaction to the same offense, and that he, as a man with decades of experience with women, could weather the storm of a woman—this woman—Olivia's—reaction to his slight the way he would any other, with grace and apologies and mea cuplas and promises, and arrogance. That had been his first mistake.
His second was assuming that Olivia would only be hurt and angry upon waking up and finding herself all alone, then spending an entire day alone, by herself, with no word or assurance from him that last night meant anything, save a hastily scrawled note. Olivia was angry, and hurt, but more than that, there was fear in her voice, fear that kept her from looking at him, fear that wouldn't let him hold her, touch her. He hadn't accounted for fear.
"I'm sorry," Fitz said softly. It went unacknowledged. Olivia stood stiff and away, a wax statue of desolation and fury, simultaneously demanding and pleading with him not so much as dare touch her. Backed into a corner of his own making, Fitz did the only thing he could, explain.
"I did need to think, today especially, which is why I went out alone today and left you here." Fitz broke off to take a deep breath, steadying himself, knowing that what he would say next would be hard for her to take, that there was a chance that after he said it she'd stop listening and he would lose her for good from that point on. "I wish…I wish I could tell you that you, and our relationship, and where we go from here, regardless of how much I love you, wasn't one of the things I needed to come out here and think about; wasn't one of the things I've spent every day and night agonizing over since I found out about Defiance, but I can't."
There was a sharp, pained intake of breath drawn from Olivia, whose back was turned to him now. To Fitz, it felt like taking a gulp of air and instantly having his lungs fill with needles. From the way her shoulders heaved and her hold around her middle tightened, he'd guess it felt the same for her, too.
"I love you," he said. "I'm in love with you. I'm never gonna stop, not ever. But Defiance changed everything."
"You think it didn't change everything for me?" Olivia said, spinning on her heel and pointing out her finger at him, accusing, flushed with anger and guilt. "I went against everything, everything I believed in, everything I valued. To help you, to give you—"
"—Just…let me get this out. Please." Fitz held up his hand in a bid for peace. Miraculously, she obliged, backing down. "I know why you did what you did, why you've said, anyway. But it doesn't matter, in so far as—"
He broke off, still, after days and days of piecing this all together he couldn't seem to formulate where he felt he stood in this with words that made sense.
"I'm a traitor." His voice cracked on the last word, causing him to have to start again. "To the American people, to my office—the office—of the presidency. It may not have been my plan, or me pulling the strings, but now that I know…Well, we both went to law school, Liv, you know as well as I do that receiving stolen goods is a crime.
"I can't say anything. If I do it'll be the end you, of me, Mellie, Cyrus. It'll follow my kids for the rest of their lives. We'll all go down. I ran because I wanted to effect change, help people on the largest scale possible; there's still time for me to do that, within this term I've inadvertently stolen. But I'll always know that whatever I've done, I've done without a mandate from the American people, that I've robbed them of their mandate. I've had to think long and hard about how I'm going to live with that, make it right, and I think I've figured it out. Not so much a way out, but a way through."
Olivia's mouth trembled as she spoke up. "How…?"
Now, it was Fitz's turn to shut his eyes and move away from her. "I need to stand in my truth. It'll be hardest to do while I'm in office, but after…"
Turning back to her before he could get too far down that road, he continued. "My truth is that I love you. I want to be with you. I want you in my life while I'm in office and after, if you'll have me."
Olivia gasped. "But what about—"
"I don't love Mellie, I'm tired of being unhappy with her, and I'm going to ask her for a divorce at the start of next year, so that the first presidential divorce doesn't consume the news cycle for the entirety of my term and take away from the work that matters."
"The base will abandon you if you get divorced, and there's no way to ensure you'll secure enough of a swing from Democratic voters if Reston or another popular, more liberal candidate runs again, your chances of getting re-elected are—"
Olivia stopped herself as realization and dread set in. Before she could say it, Fitz spoke up again.
"Olivia, please hear me," he began in a low, solemn voice. "What I said earlier is the truth straight from my heart, I love you. You are the love of my life. Nothing, not even Defiance could change that."
"But…" she said in a broken whisper.
"But, before Defiance, before I found out about Defiance, I trusted you with everything in me when you told me we were in this together. But we weren't, were we? Regardless of whatever you felt toward me, the team all along was you, and Cyrus, and Mellie, and Hollis, and Verna. It was all of you, pulling the strings behind my back, manipulating everything behind my back, without my knowledge or input, even though it was always going to be my lap the chips fell in, me who was going to have to ride everything out alone."
Tears streamed down Olivia's face openly. She made no move to wipe them away. "I'm sorry. I made a mistake—"
"—I know," said Fitz. "My point is…I don't know what you'll do with the things I share with you. I know, trust me, I know that you'd never do anything to hurt me, but I don't know what you'd do to 'help' me, either. And that's…been difficult, to say the least."
Olivia shook her head in bitter disbelief. "How can you love someone you don't trust?"
Fitz raised his eyebrows. "I don't know, you tell me."
She recoiled as though he'd slapped her. "I do—"
"Do you?" Fitz snapped, latent anger rising in his voice. "Do you trust me to know what I want for myself? Do you trust that I, more than anyone else, know what's best for me? What I want my legacy to be? Do you trust that I'm a grown up who doesn't need to be handled or fixed, recalibrated like a broken watch?"
In all that, Olivia appeared to deflate before him. Despite being a foot taller than her, she had never looked small, to Fitz, until this moment as curled in on herself, crumbling like a dead leaf in the wind.
"What can I do?" she whimpered. "How can I make it right?"
Fitz laughed, just once, on the heels of her tinny, tearful supplication it sounded like a thunderclap. It made them both flinch. He felt awful for it, it hadn't been on purpose. Call it a knee-jerk reaction, because wasn't the answer obvious? Hadn't he been saying it all along?
"Stop. Fixing. Me."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"A-and, you'll forgive me?"
Fitz sighed, all the pent up frustration and acrimony evaporating out of him as easily as it set in. The innocence of the question and the way it had been posed, with her head hanging low, hands clasped before her like a child. Were it not for her infamous pride, he'd swear this regression on display was part of an act, another manipulation. But no, the timidity driving it home was too genuine.
"I've already started to," he answered honestly.
"How long?"
"Will it take?"
She flinched. Fitz could tell his incredulousness had stung. He honestly hadn't meant to respond so harshly. The earnestness with which she'd asked had thrown him off. It was out of character, for her, and made Fitz think back to earlier, to another, similar thread he hadn't wanted to pull on, and still didn't.
"I'm not sure, but it'll happen," he said finally before abruptly switching gears. "I have something for you."
Pushing off from the edge of the table, Fitz made his way over to the armoire where he'd hung his suit jacket from the night before, all the while aware of the pair of silent brown eyes trailing him. Fishing through each pocket, he found what he was looking for, and on the way back to the table, took Olivia by the hand in a silent plea for her to follow him as he set the small box in his hand on the table. With one hand still holding Olivia's, he flipped open the small box with his other, revealing the gold band inside.
"It's your ring," he explained, bringing her in closer to watch her while he presented it to her. "It's one of a kind, very old. It belonged to my great-grandmother. Her father bought it at auction in Paris and gave it to her for her débutante ball. It's even got a name, doux bebe. I was supposed to give it to the girl I was going to marry, but I kept it from Mellie. And now, I know why."
Olivia said nothing at first. Chin wobbling, eyes large and glassy, she swallowed once, then again.
"I can't accept a ring from you."
Fitz understood. "Don't think of it as a 'ring', think of it as…as truth. My truth. Ours. I respect your decision to leave the White House, I understand why you felt you had to go. I still want you. I always will. But I understand that it's hard for you.
"So, if you could wear this, if I could know that you're wearing this…"
As he trailed off, Olivia reached over and plucked the ring from the box, holding it in her small, trembling hand.
"Doux bebe, that's its name?"
"You can call it whatever you want. In English, doux bebe means 'Sweet Baby,' so…"
"You want me to call a ring, 'Sweet Baby?'"
"I want you to wear it, and more importantly, to be happy."
Olivia looked up at him, searching and bare. "Even while you hate me?"
Fitz wanted to shake her. Had she not been listening to anything he's been saying?
Cupping her face with both hands, he leaned in and pressed their lips together in a lingering kiss.
"I don't hate you," he said, pulling back just enough to brush away the wetness at the corners of her eyes. "I could never hate you."
Nodding, Olivia pulled away, as more tears leaked from her eyes. Looking down at the hand that still held her ring, cradled in her palm, she made sure he was watching when she slipped it on the index of the hand that was just holding his. It was a perfect fit.
Shyly, she looked up at him again. "Promise?"
"Oh, Sweet Baby…"
Fitz took the hand that now bore his ring back in both of his, brought it up to his lips and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the gold band, before pulling her all the way into his arms and tucking her head in the crook of his neck.
"I promise."
A/N:
Like I said up top, your reviews help keep me going so don't be shy abt telling me what parts you liked/loved. I can't wait to hear what you guys think!
