Chapter 26 It Happened That Night
Olivia was fully awake now and everything had come rushing into her head at once when Fitz had said, "Talk to me Olivia." All the pain of the last six months the heartache of being apart from him had just about destroyed her. She was barely functioning at work. She was going in everyday but she had been a shell of her former self. Surprisingly she had been able to fool everyone but Huck. She was all smiles and business outside of her office door but once she was behind that door and her façade was dropped she was an exercise in misery.
She had come back to the office one night after midnight because she couldn't sleep. She tried to involve herself in one of the newer cases they had and she just couldn't do it. She broke down into a flood tears and uncontrollable sobbing. That was how Huck had found her one night when he too had come in to work on a case. It had broken his heart to see her like this. Olivia never cried. She was the strongest person he knew. Maybe someone had died or something. At first he had backed out thinking to let her have her privacy. But as he stood outside her office door the painful weeping and sniffling continued. Finally he couldn't bear it any longer. He walked into her office.
"Olivia it is me Huck, what is wrong? What has happened?
She looked up at him with her eyes swollen and reddened. She looked so hurt and vulnerable. She didn't even try to compose herself or anything. Totally defeated she looked up at him and said, "I left him and I don't know what to do. I miss him so much, I hurt so much. Loving him has given me so much joy, but the pain is paralyzing. I feel dead on the inside without him. I should never have left him. She doesn't deserve him."
"Who Olivia? Who has hurt you this way? Tell me Olivia. I will hurt them. I will make them sorry."
"You would wouldn't you? You could make her disappear and… What am I saying? She is the mother of his children. For the love of god I am losing my mind! No one can touch her. She gets to call me names. She gets to make me feel small and dirty for loving him. I am so tired Huck. I can't eat. I can't sleep. This is killing me!"
"Olivia stop this now. Tell me how I can help you."
"No one can help me help me Huck. I am in love with the President of the United States and I don't know how to stop loving him. I left him because his wife found out and she was making my life miserable. She is a horrible mean person."
"Then let me remove her from the picture Olivia. No one has to know. She could just disappear."
The First Lady of the United States of America just disappears into thin air? No Huck please don't even think about it. This is my problem. I have to figure out how to end this misery on my own."
"I have seen you and the President working together Olivia, he loves you back. He can't seem to hide it. If he loves you and you love him go back to him Olivia and stop this crying and moping. It can't be good for you. I don't like this."
"I am sorry to bring you into this Huck. This is my problem. I should never have told you my problems. Please just go back to whatever you were doing. I will figure this one out on my own."
From that very exchange Olivia had come up with the hair-brained scheme of going out on the town and finding a man any man that could take her mind off of Fitzgerald Grant. She was bringing in her party clothes to work so she could go out from there. She started staying late at work. She would work until nine or ten and then she would hit the party circuit.
Huck had been watching her when she left the office at night. She wore dresses that barely covered anything. Huck knew what was under those dresses, he was man after all. Olivia wore thongs which meant her ass was out. She had her breasts pushed up and exposing her cleavage. She was trying to entice men. He was worried she would attract someone bad. He finally went to her and offered to go out with her and protect her. She didn't want protection. She was a grown woman she had said, she had skills she could protect herself and do what she wanted.
She had done what she thought she had wanted and she had ended up where she was right now in a hospital bed. Huck had warned her that what she was doing wasn't the right thing to do. It was dangerous. And he had been right.
Olivia thought she had chosen a nice guy to have fun with. She liked him and he obviously wanted her so she was going to have sex with him to see what she would feel with him. She had let him touch her intimately and she had felt things. But in the end she couldn't go through with it. She was going to go home and call the man she loved. And then she had seen herself in her own bed. She had seen herself put a sex toy in her body, something that was supposed to be private; she was seeing it on a big screen television. It wasn't to be believed that someone had done that to her. And now she had to tell Fitz what she had done and how she came to be in this hospital bed.
"Talk to me Olivia."
"Fitz I have been such a fool. I should have listened to you. You were right. I love you Fitz just you and no one can take your place. I thought I could somehow forget you by interacting with other men. I was purposely seeking them out. I was out there in the street trying to tempt men into wanting me. I wanted to see if I could want them too. I wanted to see if I would or could respond to them as I had with you. I was so alone without you. And I missed what we shared together. It had been months and I wanted to have sex with another human, I had tried it solo, I could get there but it wasn't the ending I wanted.
Everyone that approached me I turned them down. So I began to ask myself why am I out here if I am going to refuse every guy I meet. I knew the answer to that question but I kept looking. There was this one guy he was different from the others or so I thought. We hung out a couple of times, dinner, dancing and talking. I decided he would be the one where I would test myself to see if I could lay down with a man after you and feel anything. We kissed and things heated up I thought I wanted what he was offering. I went to his home with him and he was all over me. Right away I knew I couldn't do it. I didn't want to go to bed with him. I didn't love him. I didn't want to share my body with him. I was going home. I was going to call the man I loved and ask him to forgive me and take me back. I was going to call you Fitz."
"On one of the nights we were out he had bought me a bottle of wine and we didn't finish it. I had asked him to take it home with him and save it for when I actually came home with him. To stop where we were headed I asked him to get me a glass of that wine. He said he had it in a wine cellar in his basement. When he had gone down stairs to get the wine I had made up my mind to leave. I was sitting there on the couch and I turned on his television to continue to slow things down. I definitely had given him the impression that our next step was his bedroom."
"Fitz I looked up at the screen and there I was on his TV walking around naked in my own apartment. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was me. I watched myself walk into my bedroom and into my closet. I pulled the sex toy that you had given me from the shelf and I got under the covers. Even thought you couldn't see what was happening under those sheets I knew what happened next. I had placed the thing inside me and started to move with it. Watching what was happening on that screen it was like I was having an outer body experience. I remembered it so well because I was pretending it was you inside me. You were there with me on the phone telling me what to do. You were telling me how to move and when to increase and decrease the powerful vibrations. It was almost like you were there. I had closed my eyes and grabbed on to something to hold on to as I pushed it deep inside me. I closed my legs tightly around it and I came all over it. And this man that I thought was a decent human being had been watching it."
"He has my home rigged Fitz and this man has been recording my every move for I don't know how long. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The video continued with other footage of me. I saw at least one other time he had taped me naked and in my bed in a private moment."
"All of this is so humiliating to tell but I want you to know the truth. He came back into the room as I was watching the tape. The tape was singular in its purpose because all it was doing was showing me inserting a dildo inside me and playing those particular parts over and over again. This sick son of a bitch was watching me for his own perverted pleasure. He had turned my most private moments into some type a pornographic collage for him to view over and over again."
"When he came back into the room and he saw what I was watching he dropped the bottle of wine. He knew he had been caught! The bottle shattered sending wine and glass everywhere. I called him out on what I was seeing right away and he actually thought to explain it away. He said he was hired to spy on me by someone. He claimed to be a private investigator. I knew it was bullshit. You see I never even told him my real name Fitz. I never gave him a phone number or an address. He only knew me as "Carolyn" the name I had been using out there. Yet he has set up surveillance equipment in the apartment of Olivia Pope? I am sure he has been stalking me. I had noticed him for the very first time maybe two months ago in the doughnut shop I go to every morning. I now believe every encounter I have had with the guy has been staged. He kept popping up like a bad penny. I was very wrapped up in this thing of trying to forget you so I missed the signs of his twisted perversion."
"Anyway he actually came toward me and tried to embrace me. I fought him off with some of my self-defense skills. I was aiming for his testicles with a side kick when he reached out and grabbed my leg and threw me off balance causing me to fall. I apparently fell and struck my head on a glass end table. I must have been knocked unconscious because I wakened to him standing over me and I was dazed. But I wasn't confused I knew I had to get out of there. The guy was obviously a psycho. The tape was no longer playing and I knew I had not turned it off. He was placing ice on my head claiming I had slipped and fell when he accidently dropped the wine. I actually have no idea how long I was out. He never offered to call an ambulance or take me to a hospital. He only wanted to know what I remembered."
"I went along with the ruse pretending I didn't remember what had really happened. I just wanted to get out of there. He offered to take me home I refused and asked him to call me a cab. He did. The entire time we waited for the cab he was asking questions trying to see what I remembered. I had the cab take me to my office and I called Huck and asked him to meet me there. The taxi driver had to awaken me. I remember him asking me if I were alright. I thought I was alright. I paid him and got into the elevator and went up to the office. As soon as I got out of the elevator I felt dizzy. I walked through the door I remember vomiting and trying to get to a chair and sit down. I must have passed out again. And now I wake up here"
"I don't know how you have come to be here but I am glad to see you. I have missed you so much. I have done so much wrong lately; things that I knew would only lead to trouble. I just need to put the brakes on and come home to you where I belong. I have been such a fool. Can you forgive me? Do you still love me Fitz?"
Fitzgerald Grant had stood there listening to Olivia tell him what had happened to her and he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Someone had put a surveillance camera in Olivia's apartment and was taping her! He was shaking his head trying to fully grasp what had just been said to him.
He had a flashback of the initial set of pictures that Jake Ballesston had brought to the White House. Somewhere amongst that first set of pictures and every set he had brought to him during the six weeks he has asked Jake to take pictures of her were pictures of Olivia going in and out of a doughnut shop every single morning. There were pictures of her and Cyrus on a bench in Independence Row. She and Abby were out to lunch. There was Olivia driving into the garage for work and at home. Every picture he had been presented over the six week period all appeared to be work-related or nothing more than friendly encounters. There were never any pictures that insinuated she was seeing anyone.
He had expected her to come back to him by now and he was worried. So he had stooped to having her followed and photographed. It was a desperation move. He missed her and wanted to make sure she hadn't found someone else. When it appeared to him that she wasn't seeing anyone he had asked Jake to close the case. Fitzgerald Grant's heart was about to beat out of his chest. He had run both of his hands through his hair. He was looking at Olivia as if he were looking right through her.
Olivia had asked Fitz two questions and he had said nothing. He was just staring at her with what Olivia had perceived as revulsion. She could see it in his eyes. He had listened to her story and he was repulsed by it. He was staring but he wasn't seeing her and she knew it. He was imagining her out on the streets of Washington DC acting no better that a street walker. Of course she hadn't detailed what she had done with that fiend but she could imagine what he was thinking. She remembered what she thought when Mellie had told her she and Fitz were intimate again. She had imagined him doing with Mellie all the things he did with her. Fitz knew that she was very sexual and she imagined that he thought she was doing things with Jake that she had done with him. She had let that man touch her and she had responded to him. She was ashamed that she had. She could say she was single and she could do as she chose with her body all she wanted too. But it wasn't just her body alone, her body was his, just as she felt his body was hers. Why had she done this?
"Fitz please don't look at me like that. It didn't mean anything that he touched me. I swear it didn't. I could never feel what I feel with you with anyone else but you. Please don't shut me out!"
He had heard every word she had spoken since she had opened her eyes. The relief he had felt when she had opened them, his heart had started to beat again. She was going to be alright they were going to be alright. Someone had caused her to be hurt and he was going to find out who it was and they were going to pay. And then as he was listening to her some things were clicking in his head. Surely it wasn't what he was thinking. His old friend was an officer and a gentleman he would never hurt a woman. He would never videotape a woman without her permission. Fitz surely hadn't asked him to videotape anyone. He had asked him to take pictures, benign pictures of Olivia's comings and goings around DC. He had never asked for video! He is reading too much into this. He looked at Olivia she was worried that he was upset with her. There was nothing further from the truth. That moment of revulsion she had seen was for himself!
"Olivia I am sorry you are misreading me. I don't blame you for anything. None of this is your fault, none of it. I love you with all my heart. There is nothing that you have said that changes one thing about the way I feel about you. You have to know that Olivia. I have been waiting for you to come back to me every day since you left me. But I don't own you Olivia you have a right to the agency of your own body. I would hold you only to myself of course if I could. I would choose not to share you but to be honest you owe me no explanation."
Right at that moment the attending physician knocked on the door. "May I come in?"
"Please come in Dr. Wagner. She has been awake about twenty minutes. And she has her full memory and she is aware of everything that is going on. And she has verified to me that she did indeed trip and fall in her office just as her brother Huck suggested. There was no foul play. The President was looking at her beseeching her not to add any more to that aspect of her story.
"I was advised you were awake Ms. Blue and that is good news. I have been monitoring your vital signs and they are all good. I want to come in and do a hands on exam as well as draw some more blood for testing and then I want to send you back to Radiology. May I speak freely in front of President or would you rather I speak to you privately?"
"You may speak to me with the President here it isn't a problem. Please tell me am I going to be alright?"
"Ms. Blue I have all your testing that has been done so far verified by the appropriate physicians and all the findings are consistent with my initial diagnosis. You received a concussion from your fall. There seems to be nothing more than a fall related injury to the occipital skull. There was a small laceration that has been cleaned and cleared of debris and two absorbable stitches were used to close the wound. I did cut your hair and shave an area of the scalp surrounding the injury in order to close the laceration. The hair will grow back and those stitches will dissolve on their own. However you will need a follow-up in approximately two weeks. You may see your private physician for that if you like. I am going to recommend a follow-up with a neurologist in one week as well. I intent to leave you the card of the absolute best one in the business."
"Based on your injury and the fact that we know you were you unconscious for more than two hours I want to keep you here tonight and tomorrow for observation. To be honest I expect that you have experienced the worst of this scenario. You are going to be fine Ms. Blue. Let us keep an eye on you for the next couple of days. Barring that no complications arise during that time I will release you to go home on day three. Does that sound like a deal?"
"Olivia looked at Fitz first and then the doctor and said, "Yes it sounds like a deal doctor. I want to thank-you for taking care of me Dr. Wagner. I really appreciate it."
"Yes doctor thank-you so very much," the President added.
"If you will give me about twenty minutes with the patient Mr. President and will be out of your hair."
"No problem I will be in the hallway."
Fitz left the room and he literally fell against wall. Immediately Tom and another agent were at his side wanting to know if he were alright? Was it Ms. Pope? He assured them Olivia was okay. But was he was okay, no he wasn't? What he was thinking was making him break into a million pieces. Could his weakness for the woman in that room on that bed have been the catalyst for all of this? He had just wanted to know what she was doing? How could he explain this to Olivia? Would she even listen to him if what he was concluding was true? He just stood there with his back against the wall. Again he let what he knew play in his head and his head was about to explode.
When the doctor comes out of that room he was going to have to ask Olivia if she knew the name of the man that had violated her and her privacy. He closed his eyes and prayed that he was wrong about what he suspected. Because without a doubt it was possible two very bad things were going to happen, (1) it was possible that Olivia would blame him for all of it and she would leave him for good. And (2) he was going to kill a man today.
Dr. Wagner emerged twenty-two minutes later and said to the President, "She looks good Sir. I believe she will be fine. All of her reactions are good. All of her vital signs are great. I am actually keeping her the extra day for your benefit sir. I want you to see that she is okay. I will talk to you later on this evening after her latest tests are back okay?"
"Okay thank-you." Fitz took a deep breath and he put his hand on the door handle. He opened the door and he went inside. Olivia was looking at him when he came in and she was smiling. It was a smile unique to her it had melted his heart so many times. He was weak right now because he was afraid that this smile that was reserved only for him, that said she loved only him, that smile that had beckoned him to her over and over again for almost three years now would no longer be there for him. He wasn't sure he could bear it if she left him for his folly but he was going to have to face the music if what he feared was true.
"Fitz you are back. I gathered from Dr. Wagner that my "brother" Huck found me and he also called you. I am so glad he did. Come here I need to hold you for a minute. We are going to be alright aren't we? You do understand what happened?"
"I understand Olivia and we are going to be alright." She was sitting upright in the bed. Fitz sat down beside her and pulled her into his arms and he held her tightly. He held her for about a minute before he released her. He was able to hold back the tears threatening to fall just barely. "I love you Olivia and please don't ever forget it."
Olivia on the other hand couldn't hold back her tears she was back in his arms where she belonged. She faced him with those tears streaming down her face. "I love you too Fitz. And please don't you forget that there is no one else for me but you. Promise me you will never let me go?"
"I won't ever let you go Olivia I promise. I hate to go back to this I know it is painful for you. But do you know the name of the man that violated you, did you get his name and do you remember his address?"
"I had the taxi give me the address as we drove away. I put it in my phone in my contacts. His address is listed under Predator. Please find him Fitz and make him pay for what he did to me. His name is Jake Ballesston."