A/N: Hi! I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated. Final exams have literally been my life for the past few weeks. Plus the original version of this chapter is locked on the hard drive of a laptop that I can't get on so I had to rewrite this whole thing from memory and that took a while.

Last chapter our babies met with an ugly dose of reality and they're going to get a bit more this chapter, but nothing too bad. No one will be hurt this time, I promise.

Olivia sat on the bed, defiantly shoeless, frowning at Fitz. He wanted to leave for the park immediately so they didn't miss the beginning of the show. Olivia wanted to wait until after the show had already started so no one saw them. He leaned against the dresser, wearing his brown dress uniform of all things, frowning back at her.

"Livvie would you just put your shoes on so we can go?" He looked at her plaintively.

Olivia shook her head. "I think we can wait a bit longer."

"Nothing's going to happen. Let's just go."

Olivia rolled her eyes. How could he be so naïve? His face was just now looking normal again and it had been two days. "You can't seriously say that after what happened."

Fitz sighed. "Everything will be fine."

"Stop saying that!" She huffed as she got off the bed and stormed to the window. She could see the park already filling with people across the street. She wished Fitz would stop pretending that things were easy for them. It was as if he hadn't had his face nearly beaten off a few days before.

Fitz walked over and gingerly took her in his arms. "Are you scared baby? Talk to me."

She turned to look at him with wide, glassy eyes. "You don't understand."

"I understand." He rubbed her shoulders. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you baby. I promise."

"I'm not worried about me. Nobody beat the hell out of me." She rubbed the spot where his face had been bruised. "I'm worried about you."

"I'll be fine." He kissed her forehead. "Baby it's gonna be family and kids out there. No one's gonna be looking for trouble. We'll just sit in the back with the other colored people."

"You say that like five or six colored men didn't just try to beat your face off your head a few days ago."

A pop of fireworks broke their tension and they both turned to the window to see a blue burst of color in the sky. Fitz looked down at her. "Happy now? Can we leave?"

Olivia smirked. "I suppose."

She put on her white sandals and they left the hotel hand-in-hand. They got to the park and found themselves swarmed with children running everywhere. Fitz smiled at little boys ooh'ing and ah'ing over his uniform. They found a rather secluded spot atop a small hill beneath a tree and Olivia spread out their blanket while Fitz bought Cokes for them. He returned and sat next to her, pressing a kiss to her cheek. She shivered a little and he draped his jacket over her shoulders. Olivia lay her head on his shoulder and they watched the show without incident, though Olivia noticed a few people looking at them curiously. At intermission, they went to find the ice cream booth.

A woman with a large, stiff beehive gave them a crooked smile. "What can I get y'all?"

"I'll have a double scoop of chocolate," Fitz replied. He smiled and bumped Olivia's hip with his own when the woman muttered something like, "I'll bet you will," as she turned away.

She handed him his ice cream and looked at Olivia. "And for you?"

"Just a scoop of strawberry please." The woman made her ice cream and Fitz paid her. As they turned to leave, Fitz stole a lick of Olivia's ice cream.

"Olivia?" They both looked away from each other and Olivia frowned at the sight of Edison standing before her, holding a mason jar of lemonade.

"Edison…hi." She almost felt like she'd been caught red-handed.

"Wasn't expecting to see you here," he replied with a thin smile, eyeing Fitz curiously. "Where's Abby?"

"There was an unexpected change of plans and she couldn't make it." She gave Fitz's hand a squeeze as she smiled at him. "This is Fitz Grant."

Fitz stepped forward to shake his hand, meeting Edison's too-firm grip with one of his own. "Nice to meet you."

He moved back to Olivia's side and adjusted his jacket on her shoulders. Edison smirked at her. "Liv…are you on a date?"

He knew very well that she was but he wanted to hear her say it, to admit what she'd done to him. Olivia's cheeks went hot but she squared her shoulders and raised her chin proudly. She had nothing to be ashamed of, and she certainly wasn't going to be made to feel so by the likes of Edison. "Yes."

"Do your parents know about him?" She could have slapped the smirk off his face.

Olivia maintained her straight face. "Not yet. He's only been back in the states for a week and we wanted to spend some time together first."

"Really? Where'd you two meet?" The pieces were finally falling into place. He now knew why she'd been so eager to get rid of him.

"Italy."

"So he's why you came back so different." It wasn't a question.

"I came back different because I realized I wasn't in love with you."

Edison smirked. "So you love him? Or do you just want some blue-eyed, good-haired babies?"

Fitz tensed but Olivia squeezed his hand. "I do love him. What does it matter to you?"

"Nothing now." Edison gave a shrug. "I suppose it's just as well. You always thought you were too good for the simple things I wanted. He must do something pretty special, something that'll buy you all the airs you could ever want to put on."

Olivia blinked. "I'm sorry you're so miserable. But the show's starting and we have to get back to our seats."

She moved to walk past him and he grabbed her arm. Before Fitz could get to him, Olivia delivered a slap that made Edison's ears ring. She wrenched her arm from his grasp and looked at Fitz. "Let's go."

They went back to their seats and Fitz wrapped his arm around her shoulder. He pressed a kiss to her temple then her cheek. "I'm sorry Livvie."

"Why are you sorry? That wasn't your fault. That's just Edison being Edison. He's an ass, always has been." She held her ice cream cone up for him to lick. He licked off a glob of ice cream and got some on his chin. Olivia smiled as she wiped it off. They leaned against the tree, huddled close, and watched the rest of the show.

As they walked back to the hotel, Fitz clutched the ring box in his pocket. In the middle of the empty street in front of the hotel, he stopped, using the excuse that his shoe was untied.

"Hold this a minute." Olivia didn't look at what he placed in her hand until he didn't rise after a long moment. She looked down at him to find him smiling at her. "Aren't you gonna open it?"

She looked down at her hand and gasped at the sight of the ring box. She opened it and gasped it again. Fitz smiled at her as she stared at his mother's ring. He couldn't think of any place it belonged more than on her finger. She just stared at it with wide eyes, her hand over her mouth. Fitz smirked as he took the box from her. "Okay. You don't seem to know how this works."

He took hold of her left hand and smiled up at her. "Livvie, you're the love of my life. And I know we've only technically been together two weeks but I've never been so sure of anything in my life. I can't live without you. I can't breathe without you. Will you marry me?"

Olivia's vision blurred with tears and she could only nod. Fitz slipped the ring on her slender finger and stood. Olivia shrieked when he lifted her off her feet and swung her around. A car whizzed by, the horn honking loudly. The driver yelled, "Get the hell out of the street!"

Fitz laughed as he spun Olivia around again. "I can't believe you're gonna be my wife!"

Olivia laughed, cupping his face. "Well believe it baby, cause I'm never giving this ring back."

XXXXX

A few hours later, a shiver awoke Olivia. She moved closer to Fitz only to find him gone. She opened her eyes and looked around the room. He wasn't there. She got out of bed and shut the window, shutting out the summer breeze, then went to the bathroom. He wasn't there either. She looked in the corner where his things had been earlier and found them still there. She frowned as she sat on the bed. She looked at the phone and decided to call the front desk to ask if they'd seen him.

A woman answered on the third ring. "How can I help you?"

"Hi. I'm in room 308 and I was wondering if you'd seen the man that was in here with me. He's very tall, with dark hair and blue eyes. He might be in pajamas." It was undoubtedly the strangest phone call she'd ever made.

"He was just down here. He went to the restaurant," the woman answered.

"Thank you." They hung up and she wondered what he was doing in the restaurant at 2 in the morning. She got up and found her underwear, pulling them on in the darkness. She groped around for her bra and found it atop the dresser. As she put it on, her hand brushed a particularly painful hickey—more of a bite mark, really—and she winced. She pulled on a nightgown and her robe, not sure of what else to wear at such a time. She found her slippers in her suitcase and put the hotel key in her pocket then left the room.

Fitz sat on the piano bench, dwarfing it really, his saxophone to his lips. Olivia watched him for a moment before going over to him and placing her hands on his shoulders. Fitz stopped playing and leaned back against her warm flesh. "You left me."

"Just for a little bit. I was getting a little stir crazy and I just needed to walk." Olivia walked around to face him. She took his saxophone and leaned it against the piano's leg. She sat in his lap and held his face.

"What's wrong?"

He lay his head on her shoulder, cuddling her close. He looked up at her with a smile. "You snore."

"I do not!" She laughed. "And if I do it's only because you have to sleep with the window open and that messes up my sinuses."

"I wouldn't have to open the window if you didn't need to sleep under a million blankets." He smirked at her.

"Sorry I'm not hairy like you. I've gotta keep warm somehow." He gave a glimmer of a smile but couldn't hold it. Olivia held his face. "What?"

"I'm gonna miss you so much."

Olivia caressed his face gently. "Don't worry about that. You just worry about getting back to me. We've got plans to do everything in the world that won't wait."

"I just don't wanna leave you again."

Olivia pressed a kiss to his lips. "Let's not talk about that right now."

She turned around in his lap and took his hands, placing them on the piano keys. Using him like a puppet, she played a dawdling tune. "Heart and soul/ I fell in love with you/ Heart and soul/ The way a fool would do/ Madly/ Because you held me tight/ And stole a kiss in the night."

Fitz leaned over to rest his chin in the curve where her neck and shoulder met. He kissed the curve of her jaw and sang along with her. "Heart and soul/ I begged to be adored/ Lost control/ And tumbled overboard/ Gladly/ That magic night we kissed/ There in the moonlight mist."

Olivia laughed and kissed the corner of his mouth, still playing with his fingers. Fitz smiled at the sight of her little hands atop his. He could see them doing the same thing with their bundles of babies someday. "But now I see/ What one embrace can do/ Look at me/ It's got me loving you/ Madly/ That little kiss you stole/ Held all my heart and soul."

XXXXX

Fitz smirked at Olivia holding up dresses in front of her underwear-clad body in the mirror. "Livvie, we're not meeting the Queen. We're just going to the record store."

She smirked at him in the mirror. "I know. But everything goes so good with my ring that I can't pick."

"I think you might love that ring more than you love me," he teased, going to her suitcase to look at the dresses she'd tossed out.

"I'll admit it's a tossup." She looked down at the ring and grinned. "My old ring was silver with a pear-shaped diamond in this gaudy setting that made it glare whenever light hit it. Can you imagine something as tacky as a pear-shaped diamond winking at everyone within twenty feet? This one is much more beautiful, much more me."

Fitz laughed as he walked over and held up a white boatneck dress with a scalloped hem. "This is pretty."

Olivia took it from him. "I forgot I packed this."

She handed him her two other dresses and put the white one on. Fitz zipped it and kissed the crown of her head. Olivia pulled her hair back in a ponytail and tied a powder blue ribbon on it. She put on her white sandals, which Fitz lovingly fastened for her, then they left the hotel, headed for the record store.

Fitz smiled as he held Olivia's hand, headed for the bay of taxis waiting outside the hotel. He opened the door for her and she grinned at him as he held her hand to help her inside. He climbed in after her and looked at the cabbie, smirking as the man eyed Olivia. She was looking at her ring and wasn't paying attention but Fitz noticed his eyes moving over the swell of her breasts. Fitz cleared his throat, drawing the man's attention. "We need to find a record store."

"Yes sir." He pulled away from the curb.

Fitz looked over at Olivia and smiled at her as she smiled at her ring. "I remember when you used to look at me that way."

She looked up at him and smirked. "I'm sorry. It's prettier than you."

Fitz scooted closer then pulled her next to him. He kissed her cheek and Olivia lay her head on his shoulder. She interlaced her fingers with his and looked up at him. "Do you think we'll always feel this way?"

"If we ever stop, I'll just make you fall in love with me again, even harder than the first time."

"I don't think I could ever love you more than I do now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?"

"Yes."

Olivia smiled. "Good. That's what I want too."

A few minutes later, they arrived at a record store called Spins. Fitz got out of the cab and helped Olivia out. He handed the cabbie a ten dollar bill and told him to keep the change.

In the record store, Olivia looked through crates of records in search of "Dream a Little Dream of Me" for Fitz to take back to France. Fitz was in the jazz section, looking through records for something to give Olivia so she wouldn't be so lonely. He picked out Charlie Parker's Autumn in New York and went to find her.

"Hey pretty lady. Here alone?" Olivia looked up at Fitz with a smile.

"Actually I am. What's it to you?"

Fitz grinned. "You're the prettiest lady I've ever seen and I was just hoping you'd let a gruff old soldier take you out some time."

"I suppose that would be nice, as long as you're a gentleman." She gave him a cheeky wink.

"I'll try my best but I can't make any promises." He pulled her in and popped a kiss on her cherry lips, making her laugh. He smiled as her head fell back. "Man, do I love you."

Olivia blushed. "Promise you won't ever stop looking at me like that."

"Never." He took the record from her and smiled at it. "I'm gonna play this to death in France."

Olivia looked down at the record in his hands. "What's that?"

"Charlie Parker, the best sax player in the world." He handed her the record and she looked over it with interest. "This is gonna change your life, Livvie."

"I'll take your word for it." They paid for the records then left the store, mindful of a group of schoolboys eyeing them. Olivia smirked. "I wish white men wouldn't look at me that way."

Fitz shrugged. "They're just curious."

Olivia frowned at him. "Because I'm some sort of freak?"

Fitz shook his head. "Because you're beautiful and electric and they've been taught that you're not, but there you are proving them wrong."

"Is that what you think?"

He shook his head again. "No, but then, I was never taught that you could be anything less than any other woman."

Olivia smirked. "So you don't think I'm beautiful and electric?"

"I think you're everything."

"Everything?"

"You are whatever a moon has always meant, and whatever a sun will always sing is you." He squeezed her hand. "That's from a poem by E. E. Cummings. My mother used to read me poetry all the time but that one never made any sense before you."

"I don't think anything made sense before you," she replied.

Fitz smiled at her as they stopped at the corner. He looked at the building behind them. "Let's go in there."

Olivia looked back at the building and smirked. "A tattoo parlor? I don't think so, Fitz."

"Come on. I'm not gonna make you get one." He pulled her into the tattoo parlor and smirked as she looked around at the walls covered in pictures of body art.

"Did you come to one of these places to get your tattoo?" she asked, referring to the army symbol tattooed on his right bicep.

"No. One of the guys in the barracks had a kit in Germany. It hurt like hell but it turned out real nice." He remembered his first night in Berlin, when he and the rest of his platoon had all taken their turn in a rickety folding chair to get an eagle and their platoon identification tattooed on their arms.

Olivia walked over to a wall full of photos of chest tattoos. Many of them covered entire torsos. "I wonder how many people have these. Can you imagine sitting through something like this?"

"We don't do it all at once ma'am." They turned to find a man, covered in tattoos himself, standing before them. He chewed a toothpick, running his hands through his inky black hair every few minutes. He wanted to look tough in his leather jacket, but he just looked like a school boy in a Halloween costume to Olivia. His face was stubbly with what might become a beard when he got older and his green eyes still bore a wistful childishness. "We take it a few hours at a time."

She looked back at the tattoos and shook her head. "Still, it must hurt something awful. I can't even imagine…"

"I would never do that to a woman," the young man assured. "Why mess with God's artwork, you know?"

Fitz nodded in agreement, then tapped the back of Olivia's hand. "Look at that one, Livvie."

She looked in the direction he gestured and smirked. On the wall, someone had had a pair of crimson lips emblazoned on their bicep with "Olivia" overlaying it in beautiful black script. She looked back at him. "No."

"Yes." He grinned at her then looked at the man. "I want that one."

He nodded and took the tattoo off the wall to examine it. "I can do this in a half hour probably."

Olivia looked at him with a frown. "I don't want to watch."

"It's not bloody or nothing, ma'am," the artist assured her.

She shook her head then looked at Fitz. "No."

"Yes."

Olivia glared. "If you get one, I'll get one too. I mean it."

"You wouldn't," Fitz scoffed.

"I will. I'll do it, Fitz. It'll be big and ugly."

"No. I mean it, Olivia."

She looked at the artist. "I'd like a tattoo please."

"No she wouldn't," Fitz insisted.

"Yes I would."

After going back and forth for nearly ten minutes, Fitz glowered as he sat in a chair next to Olivia. She smirked at him, her skirt hiked up around her waist as the tattoo artist examined the fleshy arch of her hip where she was insisting on getting tattooed.

"I've never tattooed a colored person before." He looked up at her. "I've always liked how colored people come in so many colors, you know? Like white people are just white, but colored people are all sorts of different shades."

"Thank you," Olivia replied, unsure of what else to say to him.

"You've got real nice skin."

"Thank you," she repeated.

"What would you like?" he asked. "I can give you a real pretty flower or something."

"I want a heart."

Fitz snorted. "What happened to 'big and ugly'?"

Olivia glared at him then looked back at the tattoo artist. "I want a heart, about the size of a half dollar, and I want his initials in it. Although his attitude is making me reconsider the initials."

She watched as Fitz's smirk fell. "Livvie…"

"Don't you get all soft on me," she replied. She looked down at the artist. "How bad is it gonna hurt?"

He shrugged. "Not too bad. You can have some whiskey if you want."

She nodded and he got up to retrieve the bottle from the refrigerator. He poured her a glass, two fingers' width full, then handed it to her. Olivia took a sip and grimaced. "That burns like hellfire."

"Whiskey and tattoos? I'm gonna tell your mama you've gone wild." Fitz smirked at her and she smirked back.

"Seems like I've only run amok since I got mixed up with you," she replied. She sipped a little more whiskey and found it wasn't as bad as the first time. She looked down at the tattoo artist. "Go ahead. I'm ready."

He moved to begin then looked up at her, his pale face red. "I've never tattooed a woman…here. I'm gonna have to…"

Olivia looked down, realizing that he would have to pull her lacy white underwear down to get to her hip. "Oh. Well alright."

He sheepishly pulled the lacy waistband of her underwear down, folding it over with a shaking hand. Olivia frowned at him. "Settle down now, honey. You can't tattoo me with that shaky hand."

Olivia gasped and grabbed Fitz's hand at the contact of the needle. "Shit!"

Fitz smirked at her. "Cussing, drinking, and tattoos? You're turning out to be a bad girl, Livvie."

He laughed when she replied something that sounded like "fuck you" through gritted teeth as she chewed her bottom lip. Thankfully, the young man was able to get the heart outlined and colored in fairly quickly, taking only about ten minutes, though it felt like an hour to Olivia. He looked up at her. "What's the name?"

"Fitzgerald Thomas Grant the third," she replied, hoping he would move quickly through the letters as well. The young man nodded and emblazoned the little heart with "FTG III" as quickly as he could, mindful of Olivia's shaking leg. He held it still as best he could, not wanting to grip her thigh in front of her boyfriend. He was done in about five minutes and Olivia sighed at the needle leaving her flesh. She looked down at her hip as the young man looked up at her. "I cannot believe I have a tattoo…"

"I can't believe you didn't cry." He looked down at the red crescent nail impressions on the back of his hand. "You did mark me up, though."

"Consider that your punishment for dragging me in here." The artist cleaned his needles then looked at Fitz.

"You ready?"

"Yeah." Fitz took off his light blue button down shirt.

Olivia smirked at him. "You better not cry."

"I've done this before, thank you." The young man worked much easier on Fitz, outlining the lips quickly. Fitz looked down at them then over at Olivia. "He's good. These actually look like your lips."

"Does it hurt?"

He shrugged. "Not as bad as the first one."

Olivia smiled as she held his hand. "That's only cause I'm here."

Fitz smirked at her. "I'm sure that's it."

The artist was done in about 45 minutes. Fitz paid him and they left hand-in-hand, both bearing bandages over their tattoos. Olivia looked up at him as he hailed a cab. "I can't believe we got tattoos."

He smiled just so. "I guess we can cross that off the list of everything in the world."

Olivia laughed. "So what's next?"

"Room service and a nap. I think we've had enough excitement for the day."

They took a taxi back to the hotel and Fitz put on the record while Olivia ordered pizza, red velvet cake, and champagne for them from the hotel's restaurant. Fitz took the comforter and top sheet off the bed and they sat among the pillows, having a picnic.

"What are we doing?" she asked, surprising him.

"Well, we're eating good food and drinking great champagne. We've got good music too. I'd say we're having a party, Livvie." He smiled easily at her.

Olivia shook her head. "That's now what I'm talking about. I mean… I broke off an engagement a month ago and here I am engaged again! To someone I can't even legally marry in my own hometown. How am I supposed to tell my parents that I've dumped one fiancé and gotten a new one in a month? And I got a tattoo today! Do you know what my mother would say if she saw it? I'll tell you. Nothing. Cause she'd fall dead at the sight of it. I feel like I'm just so different and I don't know how to feel about it."

He sat and processed her words for a moment then looked at her seriously. "Are you happy?"

She looked at her lap for a long time then looked up at him, a wide grin on her face. "I am. God, I'm happy, Fitz. I don't think I've ever been so happy."

"Then don't think so hard. If you're happy, then everything's okay." He smiled and she nodded. "Say it."

"Everything's okay." Looking in his eyes, she believed him more than she'd ever believed anything.

A/N: Well our babies' week is coming to a close. Next up, Olivia goes home and Fitz prepares to go back to France. Things might be getting a little rocky for our babies. I haven't decided if Olivia will move to Paris with Fitz just yet but by the next chapter, a decision will be made. Don't forget to review!