A/N: I've wanted to do this one for a long time now. Title taken from Dorothy Parker's poem of the same name.
Coda
After confronting Fitz, Mellie wants out of the White House, so she signals her Secret Service agents to prep her car for her. She feels jittery with unspent energy as they bustle her into the limousine and drive aimlessly for a half hour. When the thought comes to her, she acts on it before she has time to second guess herself and gives the driver the address.
As the car pulls into the building's parking lot, Mellie thinks to herself that Fitz can never find out; it will have to be her secret. What's one more between them, she thinks bitterly as she moves down the hall towards the elevator. God knows, Fitz has his secrets. He has secrets wrapped in secrets, things that she was never privy to because he never included her in his decision making process.
Mellie will allow herself a secret of her own. She deserves it.
"I told him he's become his father," she says the moment the door is open.
Silence greets the declaration. Down the hall, Mellie can hear the elevator ding.
"Damn."
"Yeah," Mellie returns eloquently.
Olivia studies her for only a few moments more before tilting her head. "Come in."
Her apartment is as elegant and fine as Olivia herself is, Mellie is unsurprised to find. Music is wafting up from somewhere behind her, gentle and smooth and sad. There is a coffee table in front of the sofa and on it is a bottle of red wine and a glass holding nothing but dregs.
Olivia joins her, not having the decency to even look ashamed of the picture of utter misery her living room is.
"It seems I've been directed to hell," Mellie says after a moment.
It coaxes up a laugh from Olivia. "Sit down. I'll get you a glass, Mrs. Parker."
Mellie does just that, removing her coat and (fuck it) her heels. She picks up the bottle and examines it. It is a good vintage and not inexpensive. She feels disgusted that it will be wasted on thoughts of him.
"So is it true?" Olivia says when she returns, wisely not acknowledging just how comfortable and informal Mellie has become.
"Is what true?"
Olivia hands her the glass and makes no offer to pour it for her. "That he's become his father."
"Yes," Mellie says at length, voice gone soft. "Yes, it is."
Olivia takes the bottle from her when Mellie's own glass is filled and refills hers. "Well…fuck."
"Yeah. Fuck." It's as good a toast as any at this point. Mellie finds the wine sweeter than she'd expected, but it sits curiously heavy on her tongue.
"I suppose you blame me."
"Fitz does," says Mellie. She thinks that that is enough for both of them, although she's damned if she'll tell Olivia that.
They sit on the couch with a good three feet between them, both staring straight ahead. This is modus operandi with Fitz, so Mellie has forgotten the prickle of discomfort the distance and silence causes with polite, receptive company.
"Does he know you're here?" Olivia inquires, and it feels like something more than just a perfunctory statement to break the silence.
"All he knows at the moment is the bottom of a decanter of scotch," Mellie replies bitterly. Her mouth quirks up in a smile as she lifts the glass to her lips. "And he wouldn't believe me if I told him where I was going."
"I suppose he wouldn't."
Mellie looks over at her then, really looks. Olivia appears less miserable than the state of her apartment would have had her believe. Maybe heartbreak isn't what it used to be, or maybe she's just been bruised enough to have calluses too thick to penetrate, like Mellie has.
Either way, Mellie thinks that Fitz has got the worst of it. Serves the son of a bitch right.
They finish two glasses in silence and Olivia is pouring them a third when Mellie opens her mouth again.
"He's not himself," she says. She feels like she's said it before, a million times—to herself, to her kids, to him directly for all the good it did. Every single time, the words taste like ashes. "He's not the man I fell in love with anymore."
Olivia licks her lips. "He's not the man I fell in love with either."
The wine makes her bold. Mellie is surprisingly thankful for it. She laughs suddenly, feeling a strange sort of hazy solidarity. For everything that they are and everything that they aren't, Mellie knows that she and Olivia are both women covered with the burns that only this sort of heartbreak can leave on a person.
She catches sight of Olivia scrutinizing her. Mellie feels manic. "I was just thinking…if I went in there tomorrow morning and demanded a divorce. Can you—can you imagine the look on his face?"
And then she is laughing again, loud and uncontrollable. Olivia smiles, then snorts, and then she too is laughing, harder than Mellie has ever seen her.
"There should be some kind of disclaimer that comes with the ring," Mellie says after a while, once they have both calmed down and slumped further into Olivia's sofa. She holds up her left hand and frowns, annoyed to find the band of gold there a touch blurry. "They don't prepare you for situations like this when you get married. No one tells you how to deal with the isolation. The days of utter despair. The loneliness." Mellie covers her face with her hand. "Oh god, I'm so tired of being alone."
Olivia indulges her silence as if knowing that Mellie needs that, needs to block out the world while she allows herself the briefest of moments to fall apart. Mellie lets her hand fall, eyes dry. She feels ready to crack and Olivia, perceptive bitch, can probably see that plain as day, but Mellie smiles anyway, determined to keep up the façade a little longer.
"You probably think it's self-imposed. The loneliness," Mellie adds at the slight confusion twisting Olivia's beautiful features. She's unable to keep the bitterness out of her tone. "I was hard on him, always pushed him more than he wanted to be pushed. Went against things he wanted, behind his back because I had to do what I thought was best. I alienated him, and as a result he pushed me away. Set me aside. And for a while there, after Defiance came out, I thought that maybe it was over; maybe we could start fresh and it would be like it was when we were younger, before…" Mellie trails, realizing she's babbling. She has to stop talking; her voice is shaking. She takes another sip of her wine and Olivia, sweet Olivia, leans forward and opens her mouth.
"You were too strong for him," she says. It's jarring and unexpected; the lump in Mellie's throat dissolves so quickly that she almost chokes.
"Oh please. I don't need your pity."
"You're insane to think I'd ever offer it to you." Olivia gives her a look, the calculating one that reminds Mellie that this is the woman who damn near single-handedly got her husband elected. "I don't pity myself and I damn sure won't pity you. But you're right: you pushed, you went behind him and made decisions for him, you attacked him where he was most vulnerable and you threw his failures in his face, but that was nothing compared to the times you beat him. Because there were times when you were smarter and sharper and faster than he was, certain when he was indecisive and right when he was wrong." Olivia tilts her head towards Mellie, eyes narrowed. "And you made sure he knew it, didn't you?"
Twenty years of marriage flash before Mellie's eyes in seconds. "It…wasn't always intentional."
"And that makes it all better," Olivia drawls, tone vicious in a way Mellie has never heard before. She rests her head on the back of the couch, baring the graceful column of her throat. Mellie imagines the ghost marks of her husband's teeth in the flesh there. "So in the back of his mind, he's always going to wonder whether or not you could have done a better job in the seat than him. And not only did you keep stabbing at him with this notion that you could have done better, you also added insult to injury and never let him get away with any mistakes. You were too strong for him, Mellie. We all dug our own graves."
She knocks back her glass of wine. Mellie's eyes are still pinned to her throat as she swallows. A few moments later, Olivia's eyes open lazily and find Mellie's in the dim light.
The question comes unbidden, unwanted. "So why did he marry me then?"
"Why the hell are you asking me?" Mellie doesn't respond. "Because he thought he was strong enough to take it," Olivia intones. Then, she raises an eyebrow. "And because he loved you, of course."
"Of course," Mellie repeats. "And why did he stay married to me after he found you?"
Olivia is silent for a few seconds. Her eyes slide closed as she settles on her response. "Because I told him to."
Mellie digests that. She looks at Olivia there, slumped against the couch in a deceptively white set of silk pajamas and realizes that this is her. This is not the woman her stole her husband away or the campaign fixer or what some call the most powerful woman in Washington; this is Olivia and Mellie is seeing her for the first time, without the lies and the smiles and the nice words.
She snorts, a small sound that she doesn't let escape her throat. Across from her, brown eyes crack open. "We could have been friends," she murmurs. "We could have been such friends if you could've just kept your hands and mouth and thighs to yourself, Olivia."
Olivia flicks her fingers errantly and shrugs, the motion inelegant in her inebriation and yet somehow, utterly charming. "Cést la vie."
"I suppose that isn't fair anyway," Mellie hums, reaching across Olivia for the wine bottle. It is almost empty. "It wasn't just you. Fitz deserves some of the blame."
"There's plenty to go around," Olivia acknowledges, waving her free hand again.
"He deserves most of the blame," Mellie adds, pouring herself half a glass. She holds her hand out and Olivia offers her own wineglass. Their fingers brush and then Mellie's curl around hers, holding Olivia's hand steady as she empties the rest of the bottle into Olivia's glass. When she lets go, Olivia's body changes; she twists on the couch to face Mellie and it does something strange to the wine settling in the pit of Mellie's stomach.
"I have this thing," Olivia says. Her words are coming slower now, or maybe Mellie is hearing them with a delay. "This…thing with men. For the past ten years, every one of them has been…wrong."
"So you're saying you deserve most of the blame?"
It takes a moment for Olivia to catch the non sequitur, so long that Mellie wonders if she is more than drunk—if she is distracted. If her fingers are still tingling from the contact, too.
When Olivia finally does catch on, she smiles, baring even white teeth. "Cute. You're cute."
"I try."
"The man before Fitz, he was…" Olivia's eyes go distant. "I was going to marry him."
Mellie wants to groan at the thought of Olivia—powerful, assertive, career-driven Olivia—ruining herself by tying herself to a man. "What happened?"
Olivia rolls her eyes. "I pulled back. He always thought it was because of my career, that I put it over him—and I guess a part of that was true, but…"
Olivia trails off and Mellie finds herself intrigued for a reason she doesn't really understand. "But?" she prompts.
"It just…started to feel forced. Toward the end, it felt forced."
Mellie considers what Olivia has said (and all she hasn't). She inclines her head. "Men don't want to be less important than anything. Hell, they don't even want to be equal. They always want to be above, put before everything else."
Olivia nods, eyes still distant. Then, she snorts. "I tried to make it work again, a while after we first called it quits. I thought maybe I'd try something a little more normal after Fitz, but it didn't work."
"Is normal what you want?"
Olivia meets her eyes. "I…don't know what I want anymore. I used to think it was higher ground," Olivia mutters, eyes flitting away to focus on the blood red inside her wine glass. "I just—I don't want higher ground. I want middle ground. Something even and sturdy enough for me to stand on for a minute…just one damn minute."
And there is the misery that Mellie has been looking for. But it's wrong somehow, not at all what she had been expecting. Mellie realizes that she had been looking for it in mentions of Fitz, pain to echo hers, but as always, Olivia is one step ahead of her.
"You're not upset over losing Fitz," she murmurs. "You're upset over losing yourself."
Olivia's eyes dart up to hers again. She smiles bitterly. "Took me a while to figure out which was loss was more worthy of mourning." And suddenly Mellie can't look at her anymore. But it's too late, because Olivia's seen it already. "Why'd you come to me, Mellie?"
"I don't know," she says, and it is the most difficult lie she has ever told. Mellie knows exactly why she came now, even if she didn't when she reached out one slender finger to press Olivia's doorbell. What kind of fucked up person is she, to have the only source of empathy in her life be from an enemy?
But she isn't going to get what she wanted, she's realizing now, because Olivia can't empathize with her anymore. Fitz isn't the source of Olivia's pain any longer; she's moved past it, transcended it, looking beyond to healing herself. Her misery is self-contained, not wrapped up in another person. Olivia isn't letting anyone control her anymore. Mellie realizes that she still is.
And suddenly Mellie is ashamed that she's spent ten months trying to trick herself into thinking that she could manipulate Fitz, take that moment of vulnerability when he came to her saying that she was the only person who'd ever been honest with him and twist it into some ghostly imitation of what their love was before everything had happened. Mellie is ashamed and she feels it burn her cheeks and ears like scalding water.
So much for those fucking calluses.
"I should go," she says even though she doesn't move.
"Mellie?"
The concern in Olivia's voice has her lifting her eyes. She feels on edge, on the brink of something that hurts deeper than infidelity. "I got on my knees for him," she blurts out before she can stop it. "I climbed into the shower after him and pried the glass of scotch from his hand and he never looked at me, not one single time. And the whole time, I told myself that I was doing it for me, that I was going to bring him back from inside of himself and make him the man he used to be again."
"Mellie."
"He told me that I was all he had and I…I thought I was in control, but he was the one…I lied to myself for him, I let him ignore me as I stood naked in the shower and got on my fucking knees—"
"Mellie," Olivia says again, and then her hands are on her wrist, taking the wineglass away and setting it on the table. She doesn't realize until Olivia steadies her that she's shaking and it occurs to her that this is the first time anyone outside of her children has touched her with concern and caring in their eyes for years, and—
"It's my fault," she whispers, "I know it's my fault and I deserve it and—"
"You don't," Olivia says, bringing one hand beneath her brown hair to cup her neck, and it is perhaps the sweetest lie Mellie has ever heard.
"I loved him," Mellie says.
"I know."
"I loved him. I think I still do. But he doesn't love me anymore."
"No he doesn't," Olivia murmurs. Her thumb is tracing gentle circles at the point where Mellie's neck meets her shoulder.
"I…don't know what to do. Tell me what to do, Olivia."
Olivia smiles, and it is unspeakably sad. "You start over." She presses her forehead to Mellie's. "Start over and find yourself again."
Mellie can feel the gentle puff of Olivia's breath against her lips and she parts them ever so slightly, hazily wondering if she can inhale some of that strength and take it into herself.
The brush of mouths is accidental; Mellie is still shaking so badly that when her lips touch Olivia's, it sends a shock through her system and she pulls back. Olivia looks as surprised as she does, but her hand remains curled over her neck like an anchor.
Or an invitation.
Mellie's eyes meet hers, then dart down to her lips. This time, she moves forward deliberately, and she is no longer shaking.
The kiss is short and gentle and over as quickly as it began, this time with Olivia pulling away.
"You should go," Olivia says, eyes downcast as she slides back to put the three feet of air between them again. The distance does nothing for the feeling that has taken over Mellie; she feels as if her whole body is burning.
For a moment, neither of them move. Mellie entertains the idea of closing the distance between them again, of moving forward back into Olivia's arms and licking every trace of wine from her mouth. Almost as if hearing her thoughts, Olivia's eyes flick up to meet her smoldering gaze and in that moment, Mellie knows that if she wanted to make that move, she would not be denied.
And it is enough.
Mellie reaches down to slip one heel back on, and then another, and then she is standing, feeling off balance from more than just the wine. Olivia hands her her coat and is careful to make sure that their fingers don't brush. She walks Mellie to the door and Mellie is hyper-aware of the smaller woman behind her as though she were an extension of her own body gone rogue.
When the door is open and Mellie has crossed the threshold, she knows the moment is gone. She turns to Olivia and opens her mouth before realizing that she has no idea what to say.
There have been many silences between them this evening, but this is the first one that is truly awkward. After a moment, Olivia smiles ruefully and Mellie does too.
"Good night," Mellie says, and means thank you.
Olivia's smile widens just a bit, and then the door is closing and Mellie steps back.
She turns to her Secret Service, standing sentinel on either side of Olivia's door, nods, and they take her back to the car.
A his and hers mistress, Mellie thinks to herself. She smiles, for the first time in a long time not begrudging Fitz his various secrets. Having a dirty little secret of her own is empowering, and it is one tiny little piece of herself that she has stolen back from him.
When she returns to the Residence, Mellie finds Fitz curled up and asleep on the couch. There is no sign of alcohol anywhere near him and out of curiosity, she leans down to breathe in the air around his mouth to find it scentless.
So, her speech hit home. Mellie studies Fitz's sleeping form and after a moment, brushes her fingers through his hair.
It isn't too late for him to be there for the kids, but it is far too late for her.
Mellie undresses and climbs into bed without showering before switching off the lamp. She will wake up in the morning and be a mom and the First Lady, but she is done being Fitz's wife in private. She will shower alone.
And if, in the darkness, she reaches one hand between her legs and lets herself think of brown eyes and silky black hair and the taste of wine on perfectly pouty lips, she'll have the good sense to keep her heart out of it.
END