A/N: Olivia could be a little nicer to Edison, especially as it's she who's changed and not him, but Edison could also be a bit more understanding. He keeps pointing out her change, but he hasn't asked why she's changed or tried to accommodate her in the least. The only thing he's done is try to guilt or bully her into being the Olivia she used to be.

Edison's mother is something, isn't she? Y'all really weren't here for her. Not to worry, she won't be back for a while, if at all.

I'm so glad y'all love Teddy. I added him as sort of an afterthought and fell in love with his character.

The reunion is coming up in a few chapters but a few things need to fall into place first. Also, there's going to be some unbelievable mess that takes place very shortly after the lovers are reunited that I have to get just right.

Olivia ran her fingers over the book cover's raised lettering. It had been in his hands. He had read and loved it. She opened the front cover and smiled at the words scribbled on it. Stars shining bright above you. Night breezes seem to whisper I love you. Birds singing in a sycamore tree. Dream a little dream of me. She ran her fingers over his slanted left-handed script, wondering if he'd smiled as he wrote the lyrics that now brought a bittersweet smile to her face and tugged at her heartstrings whenever she heard them. She flipped through the book and a newspaper clipping fell out. She picked it up and her heart leapt at the sight of his smiling face. She couldn't remember if he'd been so handsome when she last saw him or if she was just imagining that he looked better than ever because she missed him so much. She ran her fingers over the picture, trying to caress his face off the page. She read the caption: "Army Ranger Capt. Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III lent a helping hand to the jazz band after the saxophonist fell ill Saturday night." She could feel the warmth of his smile as she read through the interview. A lump welled in her throat at the last lines of the article: "Waiting for him in the States are a pair of younger sisters, Tess and Celia, in San Francisco, and Olivia, the love of his life, in Macon Georgia." She read the line over and over, not sure if she could believe her eyes. There, in black and white, he'd called her the love of his life. He'd told the whole world that he was crazy about her. She put the article on her nightstand, intending to frame it, and unfolded his letter. She smiled at his hand-writing. She didn't know it was possible to love the way a man wrote.

Dear Livvie,

I got a letter from Stephen today. He sends his love from Tokyo. He was hoping you'd follow me to France. I told him he's crazy. My friend Teddy sends his love too. He's read all your letters and I think he's close to being just as crazy about you as I am. But who can blame him? I'm sending him to California to meet and hopefully fall in love with my youngest sister Celie. Remember her? She's the one who plays the cello like you.

I miss your smile. I wish I had a picture of you. I probably don't need one though. I'd just spend all day staring at it. Or showing it to everyone with eyes. I've told the whole platoon about you. I just can't help myself. They say home is where the heart is and talking about you is close to home as I can get.

I played the sax at a jazz club last night. I haven't touched one in months. I thought I'd be rustier than hell but I was pretty good if a crowd of drunken soldiers and prostitutes is to be believed. Well after I played, a reporter interviewed me. I sent you the article. I hope you like it.

I love you Livvie. I shouldn't say it given our situation, but it's true. Sure as there's a sun in the sky, I love you. I'm in love with you. You're the love of my life, Liv. I've been head over heels for you since the moment I saw you. When I come to Georgia, I'm gonna make the biggest play of my life for you. I was thinking that I should just be passive and hope for the best, but a very wise young man told me that waiting and hoping isn't the way to win the girl of your dreams.

I suppose I should wrap things up now that I've quite possibly said way too much.

I really do love you,

Fitz

He loved her. He loved her on purpose. Someone as amazing as him had fallen for her. She couldn't stop repeating the thought to herself. He loved her. And she loved him too. There was no denying it. She could tell herself any number of lies she'd like, but she loved him. It was a bittersweet moment. She was in love with someone halfway around the world and engaged to someone she had been avoiding like the plague for nearly a week.

"Can I come in?" She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Edison's voice. He was like some movie villain. She'd thought his name too many times and now he'd materialized.

"Sure Eddy." She got up, the letter folded in her hand, and went to her underwear drawer to add it to the stack with the others. Edison entered the room like he was afraid she'd do something to him. He sat gingerly on her bed, looking at her to see if she looked like her old self. Her hair had completely reverted to its natural springy curls, pulled back from her face in a low bun.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

Olivia smirked as she turned around to look at him. "I wasn't sick."

"Liv…" The phone ringing cut the tension. Olivia left the room and went downstairs to answer it.

Edison picked up the newspaper clipping off the nightstand and stared at the smiling soldier in the picture. He wondered who he was and what it was about the article that made Olivia save it. He looked at the French name of the newspaper and was even more confused. Where had she gotten a foreign newspaper article? Who had sent? Why did they feel the need to send it? He began reading the article, skimming for details about the soldier. "The San Francisco native soldier has been in the heart of the war in Berlin, in the hot bed in Italy, and now resides in the remnants in France." Edison wondered if the man had been in Italy with Olivia, if they knew each other. He guessed that they didn't. Where would she have met him? But that made the question of why she had the article even more glaring. He read on, skipping around to learn more about the saxophone-holding soldier, until he got to the end of the article. "Waiting for him in the States are a pair of younger sisters, Tess and Celia, in San Francisco, and Olivia, the love of his life, in Macon, Georgia." Edison stared at the article for a long moment. Surely not his Olivia. There was no way. But it seemed too much of a coincidence that she had saved or been sent an article in which a soldier just so happened to mention an Olivia in Macon. He looked at the tall man in the picture. No. Olivia wouldn't cheat on him. And definitely not with a white man. She knew better than that.

Olivia returned to her bedroom, carrying a laundry basket loaded with her clothes. She set it on the bed and looked at Edison, not registering the article in his hands, only the look on his face as if she'd sprouted a second head. "What?"

"Who's this?" He held up the clipping and her eyes widened.

"A soldier I took care of in Italy." Not technically a lie. "Abby sent it to me." Definitely a lie.

"Why?" Something wasn't panning out but he couldn't—rather he didn't want to—put his finger on it.

Olivia shrugged. "Familiar face in the paper I guess."

She wondered when she'd become so adept at lying. Edison put the article down on the nightstand. "Says he got a girl named Olivia who lives here."

His tone wasn't accusatory but his eyes were fishing for something to confirm a suspicion he wasn't willing to admit. Olivia blinked at him. "And?"

"Just a funny coincidence." He shrugged.

"Are you implying that I'm the girl he's talking about? Because I'm certainly the only Olivia in Macon, right?" How could she have been so careless to leave the article laying out in the open? Granted, she hadn't known he was coming over, but she should have been more careful than that.

Edison smirked at her sarcasm. "No. You're not the kind to cheat. And certainly not with a white man. You think too much of yourself to be some white man's bed wench."

Olivia wasn't sure if she'd just been insulted or complimented. Edison's words had a habit of leaving her confused that way. Still the constant connotation of condescension that tinged his voice when he talked to her made her stomach roil with animosity. "I suppose you're right." She sniffed. "Did you need something Eddy? I'm a little tired and I'd like to take a nap."

"Actually I did. I want to talk to you about the wedding."

Of course he did. "What about it?"

"Why you don't want to talk about it."

"I'm just settling back into things here, Eddy." She began folding her laundry, dreading the talk she knew was coming. She should have ended it at the airport, but something always held her back. "I'm starting a new job. I'm getting back in touch with old friends. There's a lot going on."

"So the wedding isn't important?" He frowned at her.

Olivia sighed. "I didn't say that. Why are you in such a rush to get married? We've only been together for a year. We've only been engaged for six months. Honestly sometimes I think you only proposed because I was leaving."

If he was completely honest, he had only proposed because she was leaving. It was always something he planned to do, but her leaving made him anxious, like he was losing her. So he did what he had to do to keep her. If she hadn't been so keen on leaving him behind, he'd never have had to rush things. If he was being perfectly honest, everything was her fault. But he didn't want to blame her. She was only a woman and subject to fickle flights of the heart. "It sounds like you're just having cold feet, Liv."

"Well if you know that, why are you pushing me?"

"Because you need to be pushed. You'll see. When we lock this thing down, it'll all make sense and you'll feel better about everything."

Olivia blinked at him. "So your solution to my doubts about getting married is to get married?"

"I think getting married—living together and having a routine, really—will make things easier for us, so they can go back to how they used to be."

Several minutes passed. Olivia continued folding her clothes. "I feel like we aren't ready to get married, especially not if that's why you want to get married: so things can go back to being the way they were. They're not going back Eddy. I'm not that person anymore. I think if we got married now, we'd wake up and realize we've made the biggest mistake ever."

"That's just cold feet." Olivia moved away from the bed and began putting away her clothes so he wouldn't get up to touch her. She feared she'd turn to stone in his embrace. She wasn't lying to him about her feelings, but she wasn't telling him the whole truth either. "It's no reason to stall the wedding plans."

"It's not cold feet!" Her voice was louder than she'd intended. "I'm terrified that I'm not myself with you, Edison! That I'm going to marry you and never know real passion! I want ridiculous, inconvenient, painful, life-changing love, and I don't know that that's what we have! I look at you—you hold me—we talk—and it's all so bland! I've changed! Haven't you noticed? Haven't you noticed that things aren't the same between us?"

"Of course I've noticed. I just thought that maybe you'd get over whatever's bothering you and things could go back to normal." He stared at her like she was a stranger.

Olivia wrapped her arms around herself. "Well they won't, Eddy."

"Where do we go from here?"

"I don't know." She really didn't.

"I'll see you later." He was suddenly by her side, his lips on her cheek, then walking out of her room. She heard the door close as he left. She stood in the same spot for a long moment. She wasn't sure what had just happened. She'd been as honest as she could and he hadn't responded any differently. Abby had been right when she said that Edison just didn't get it. She looked down at her engagement ring. He had pushed and she'd refused to budge. They had reached the kind of impasse that relationships didn't normally survive. Were they even still together? She slipped the ring off and put it on her dresser, deciding she'd wait a few days to see how she felt about wearing it.

XXXXX

"Now Celie and Tess are going to be waiting for you when you get off the plane. Tess is real tall with dark hair. She always wears red lipstick. And Celie's real short with reddish hair. She'll probably be grinning and looking around for you." Teddy nodded, memorizing Fitz's descriptions of his sisters as they stood near the gate where he plane to California boarded. "Make sure you write to me when you get a chance to tell me what's going on."

"I will. First thing." Teddy shifted his backpack on his back as the announcement to board played over the intercom. He blushed crimson. "I'm, uh, I'm gonna miss you man. You're the closest thing I've got to family…and what you're doing for me now is just—"

Fitz cut him off with a hug. He rubbed Teddy's fuzzy head, his scalp still mostly visible as his hair hadn't grown back just yet. "I'll miss you too man. Have a good time. Give my sisters a hug and kiss for me."

Teddy smiled as he and Fitz let go. "Tell Olivia I said hello."

"Will do, kid. Now get on that plane." With a final pat on his thin back, Fitz sent Teddy off to California. As he walked back to the barracks, it occurred to him that he was family to Teddy. He wondered what happened to his real family, if he'd ever had one. Fitz's own parents had died in a car accident when he was 25, leaving him to take care of his sisters, then 16 and 14, and he had felt incredibly alone even though he was an adult. He couldn't imagine being as young as Teddy and being on his own. But none of that mattered anymore. If family was what Teddy needed him to be, he could be that.

XXXXX

"Letter from the missus," Huck announced when Fitz walked into the barracks. He tossed Fitz the white envelope, smirking at the way Fitz stared at Olivia's loopy girlish writing. Fitz sat on his cot and opened the envelope eagerly. He pulled out the picture first and grinned at it. There she was, smiling at him as she lay on a porch swing. Her sweater hung off one shoulder, leaving it tantalizingly bare as she rested her chin on her hand. The other hand held down an open book. He wondered who had taken the picture of her, what was going on that made her smile so happy. He marveled at her beauty. Black and white didn't do her justice, but nothing could ever take away from how breath-taking she was. He got up and walked over to Huck's cot, shoving the picture in front of the book Huck was reading.

"Look," he commanded.

Huck looked over the picture. "She's beautiful man. With eyes like hers, it's no wonder she's leading you around by the nose."

"She is not," Fitz argued. She was and he knew it but he couldn't think of anyone he'd rather go in circles for.

"The hell she isn't. She could sell you a beach house in Idaho and you'd be mad at the ocean for not being where she wanted it."

Fitz laughed. "Whatever man."

He went back to his cot, setting the picture next to him on the bed, and pulled out her letter.

Dear Fitz,

I really like that article. You're even more handsome than I remember. I can't believe you called me the love of your life. I love you too. I'm in love with you too. Sure as cornbread goes with greens, you're the answer to my dreams. That's silly and cliché but it just makes me think of you. I love you. I mean it. And I don't feel bad about it. You make me feel so brave and beautiful, like I hung the moon and lit the stars.

Sometimes I wonder if we fell in love with each other by accident, but the things you said in your letter make me feel like we're meant to be. I feel like in a thousand other lifetimes and realities, we'd have found each other and fallen in love. At least that's true for me. Any time, any place, under any circumstances, I feel like I'd find you and I'd choose you. I know you'd do the same for me. You're the love of my life too.

When you come, I want you to fight for me. I'm going to fight for you too. We've only got a few days to figure out if this thing between us is the real deal or if we're just fools in love. I pray we're more than that. Actually I don't have to pray. I know we're more than that. I pray we can make it work. There's a whole world of strikes against us but I think we can make it. I believe in us more than I've ever believed in anything.

I love you too,

Livvie

P.S. I love that book you sent me. I think it might be my favorite book ever.

He grinned like he'd slept with a hanger in his mouth. She loved him too. He wasn't crazy. He wasn't a fool hanging onto a handful of moments. She loved him. Olivia Pope, the love of his life, thought he was the love of hers too. Things didn't get any better than that.

He looked up at Huck. "She loves me. She loves me!"

Huck smirked. "Oh shit. You better get Roosevelt on the phone and tell him to call the war off. Who can think of justice when somewhere there's a girl who loves you?"

Fitz laughed. "Has anyone ever told you you're a really shitty friend?"

"I'm just busting your chops man. I'm happy for you," Huck replied. "So are you going to Georgia on your leave?"

"Yeah. She's game to fight for us and I'm definitely up for it. So we've got one week to make or break things," he replied.

"Give her everything you've got man. You deserve the girl of your dreams."

Fitz pulled the little black ring box from his lockbox and took it to Huck's cot. He showed him the glinting marquise cut diamond nestled on the thin gold band. "It was my mother's. Do you think she'll like it?"

Huck looked up at him. "If everything you've said about you and her is true, I think you could propose with a tinfoil ring and she'd say yes."

"I wish the diamond was bigger. My father was always a cheap one. Do you think I should get her a bigger one?" he asked. Huck gave him a familiar derisive look. "I'm spinning again, aren't I?"

"Just a little," Huck agreed. He smiled as he shook his head. "I can't believe you're gonna propose to a girl you only spent a week with, one who's already engaged no less."

"I love her. That's the beginning and end of everything." Fitz put the ring back in its safe place, grateful that Tess had mailed it to him as quickly as he'd asked her to, even though she had balked at his proposing to someone she and Celia hadn't met. Still, she told him that Olivia sounded lovely and that he'd have to bring her to California when the war was over.

A/N: So Olivia and Edison have hit the rocks big time. Liv even took off her ring. If only things were that simple… Edison's not gone just yet, especially now that he's got some budding suspicions about Olivia's change. Fitz and Olivia have exchanged I love you's. These by far have been my favorite letters to write for them. And Teddy's off to get himself a Grant girl.

Up next, Olivia's going to hear from Abby, the original Olitz shipper in this story, and Fitz will hear from Teddy. The next one is going to be letter heavy. We're only two chapters away from the big reunion. I'm probably gonna make those pretty short so I can focus on the moment we've all been waiting for.

Don't forget to leave your thoughts! I seriously love hearing from y'all. It keeps the creative juices flowing. XOXO