Olivia and Fitz stand in the back of the auditorium during Mellie and Sally's debate per request of Mellie. She didn't want any distractions and they did as they were told because they could tell that she was nervous enough all ready.

The debate is going well so far. They're both on stage behind their podiums and Sally's wearing her signature color. Red. Olivia didn't notice Mellie's attire until they got up to leave the restaurant and though Olivia thought the suit looked amazing on Mellie, she thought it'd look better on the floor of her hotel room.

"She thinks about you." Says Fitz while keeping his eyes on the stage.

"What?" Olivia responds while looking over at him.

"Mellie. She thinks about you. A lot actually. She hasn't done that since college. Back then she used to talk about you all of the time and when she wasn't talking about you she'd think about you. She'd have this look in her eyes and I just knew she was thinking about you. She'd lie when I would call her out on it but I always knew."

Olivia just stands there quietly. She doesn't know how to respond. She wonders why he's telling her this.

"When you left she stopped talking about you. It took a couple of months for her to actually stop thinking about you. She got rid of everything that reminded her of you." He pauses. "Well almost everything." He pauses again and then finally makes eye contact with Olivia. "It wasn't until six years ago that she started thinking about you again. She started watching you on TV and following you on the news. She even read articles that had your name in them. She never talked about you though. Never. I hadn't heard her say your name in fourteen years and now she's saying it in her sleep. Every night since you walked back into her life she's dreamt about you. I'll look over at her and she'll have this smile on her face. Then she'll wake up and she'll realize that it was just a dream and she's not smiling anymore."

"Why are you telling me this, Fitz?"

"Because I don't want you to lead her on. She's still in love with you. She'll do anything for you."

"You don't think I know that? That's why I left all those years ago. Because she wanted to marry me. She was willing to give up everything she had worked for so that she could be with me and I wasn't going to let that happen. Mellie is brilliant. She's the smartest woman I've ever met but what she was going to do fourteen years ago was idiotic. I would have said yes to her proposal if I didn't think that she was going to wake up one day and regret marrying me over becoming the first female president of the United States. I didn't come back to lead her on. I'm here to do my job. I'm here to put her in the White House." She breaks eye contact with Fitz and looks back at the stage. "I'm still in love with her too."

In that moment Liv's head starts spinning and she was on the floor before she knows what's happening.

"Liv!" Fitz yells as he kneels down next to her. "Liv, can you hear me?"

When she doesn't answer, he picks her up and carries her out of the auditorium doors.

It's about thirty minutes after the incident when Mellie and Sally finally get a break from the debate.

When Mellie walks backstage she spots Cyrus. "Hey, how am I doing out there?"

"Excellent. You have a comeback for everything that comes out of that devils mouth. Sally should throw in the towel right now."

Mellie smiles. "Well you can thank Liv for that. She's a genius when it comes to debates." She looks around for Liv and her husband. "Where is she by the way? Fitz too. I thought they'd be back here."

Cyrus takes a deep breathe before he answers her question. "I don't want you to panic, but Liv fainted and was taken to the hospital. Fitz is with her.

Mellie moves to leave the room but Cyrus anticipates this and takes a step to the right to block her. "Where do you think you're going? You have a debate to finish."

"Cyrus, you obviously do not know me very well if you think that I'm going back on that stage. Liv is in the hospital. I should be there."

"I know that she's your friend and you care about her, but there's nothing you can do right now. Let the doctors check on her. Besides, I know you don't want to be anywhere near Olivia Pope if she finds out that you threw a presidential debate because she fainted."

Mellie just stands there looking at him for what feels like a full sixty seconds. She knows he's right. Olivia would be furious and she definitely didn't want that. "Fine. I'm going to go freshen up but you better update me if you hear anything."

"Absolutely."

By the time the debate is over Liv has been moved to her hotel room.

When Olivia wakes up she notices two things. She's incredibly thirsty and Mellie is sitting in the corner of the room.

"You're awake." Mellie says as she rises from her seat and walks over to the room's mini fridge. She gets out a bottle of water and hands it to Olivia. "Doctor says you fainted from exhaustion. He said that haven't been sleeping enough."

"I don't have time to sleep. I have a campaign to run." Liv responds before taking a sip of her water. "Besides Cyrus sleeps fewer hours than I do."

"Cyrus is a robot. He doesn't need sleep. You do."

"Lesson learned."

Mellie walks back over to the chair and lays her blazer over it. Olivia takes this as an opportunity to check Mellie out. "You don't have to stay here. My team can take care of me."

"I know they can. Huck is standing on the other side of your room door like some kind of watchdog, Harrison put you into bed and Abby changed your clothes."

Olivia looks under the covers and finally notices her change of attire. She's wearing a red Stanford t-shirt and matching shorts.

"They care about you." Mellie says as she sits down on the bed next to Liv. "Almost as much as I do."

There's a long silence until Liv breaks it by making a confession.

"I slept with Jake last night."

"I could have went my whole life without knowing that."

"I'm sorry. It would have come up eventually and I just think that it's better that you hear it from me now. It was awful by the way."

"Really? He's had a thing for you since college. I thought he'd be excited. Very giving."

"His problem was that he was a little too excited. Didn't last very long." She takes another sip of her water. "I just wanted someone to take me to bed. Someone should. I mean look at me." Olivia says as she gestures toward herself. Half of her makeup is on her pillowcase and her hair is everywhere. "Ok, maybe don't look at me now. I'm sure I look disgusting." She says as she tries to fix her hair.

"You look beautiful."

Olivia immediately stops messing with her hair because it's Mellie. She's seen her look worse than this. "I wanted it to be you. I wanted you to come back here with me last night. I still do. But I'm running your campaign. It would be inappropriate."

"Well let's be inappropriate." Mellie says as she leans in closer to Olivia and to her surprise Olivia closes the gap.

Liv is kissing her for the first time in fourteen years. It's not exactly the same but it's familiar. It's perfect.

Olivia deepens the kiss and starts to unbutton Mellie's shirt. "You look amazing in this suit." She slides the shirt off with ease and then she moves to flip Mellie on her back.

"Are you trying to top me?"

"I'm usually on top."

"You fainted today. You should probably just lay back." Mellie says as she pushes Olivia on her back. She spreads Liv's legs and settles between them. "Let's see if I remember what makes you scream."

As Mellie kisses her way down her body, Liv prays that Huck isn't still standing outside that door.