Chapter 16

About to Break Loose

"You can open your eyes," Fitz whispered to Olivia who was lying back on the exam table of the doctor's office.

Olivia's eyes opened slowly and she looked over at the monitor. "Ms. Green, I am convinced you are pregnant," the doctor said as she maneuvered the transducer. Even though your home pregnancy tests and our in office urine test showed negative, the pelvic exam convinced me they were wrong. This transvaginal ultrasound will give us the true picture. And...here we go. See there. That's your baby. Look at this area here that appears to be flickering. That's the heart beat. I'd say you are approximately, 6 weeks and 5 days give or take."

Both of their eyes were transfixed on the small image and the little movement of the heartbeat. Olivia didn't realize she was crying until she finally took a breath.

"I can't believe it," she said in awe, almost to herself.

"Believe it. Very soon, it will be undeniable. Urine tests check for the pregnancy hormone. Some women have lower levels of the hormone until further along in their pregnancy. I think that is why the tests were negative. Your levels were so low that the test didn't register it, hence the false negatives. I am going to remove the transducer now and print you these pictures."

Olivia glanced at Fitz who was now looking at her. "I knew it," he said, kissing her on the cheek.

"Six weeks. What were we doing then?" she wondered.

"Apparently were were making a baby," he replied with a little smile.

"I'll let you get dressed. We can talk about setting up regular appointments, prenatal vitamins, nutrition and all the fun stuff," the doctor said before departing.

"I need to call my parents and Tim. What will Tim say?" Olivia wondered as she dressed. She was having a hard time lining up the buttons of her blouse because her hands were shaking.

"Livy, calm down," he instructed slowly fastening her buttons. "The only thing you need to do now is breath. In and out. Just breath." He covered her heart with his palm and then placed her palm on his heart. They breathed in and out until their heartbeats almost matched.

"Thank you, Fitz. I feel better even though I am scared out of my mind right now," she said with a nervous giggle.

"That's okay. We can be scared together," Fitz said.

She hugged him partly because she appreciated that he was frightened too.

"Grant, what's up? I know something is going on because you are smiling at work," Tim predicted with narrowed eyes.

"I can't tell you," Fitz said, still smiling. He was bent over his file cabinet, rifling through the stuffed drawer.

"Oh no. That's not going to work. It has to do with my sister, I bet. She won't let you tell me. Okay then. Give me a hint. Animal, vegetable, or mineral?" Tim asked.

Fitz's burst out laughing. "What types of clues are those? But I'll bite. Ummm...animal.

"You all are getting a dog? But why would you be smiling about that? Scratch that. What does it rhyme with?" Tim inquired.

"Navy," Fitz said, as he sat behind his desk watching Tim's effort to guess.

"Rhymes with Navy...ummm...there's gravy, wavy, hazy, crazy...my sister is crazy, but that's not news that-" Tim surmised.

"Tim," Fitz said, raising an eyebrow. "Well, I guess you won't know."

"Okay. Rhymes with navy..." Tim said. He continued to ponder, tapping forearm crutches absently. "Baby!?"

"I can't confirm or deny, but there is more than bread in the oven now," Fitz said smugly.

"Wow. So I'm never getting rid you, Grant," Tim said, with his own little smile. "I am coming over tonight. I want to see how long it will take her to tell me."

"On a serious note, Tim. I am ready to take the nuclear option where Mellie is concerned. I am convinced that she is the single most dangerous threat to us. She needs to be contained. It's past time," Fitz said.

'We're a perfect fit,' was the thought that ran through Helen's mind as she braced herself against Issac's powerful thrusts into her quivering, wet cavern. Bent over, spread eagle style with her hands splayed on out on the floor, her hips were lifted at the perfect height to meet his. His big hands held her waist which took some of the pressure off her arms. It felt so good that the blood rushing to her head did not register. On the edge of insanity, they both came at the same time.

Issac pulled off his t-shirt and placed it between them as he pulled out. He discarded the condom. Helen wiped herself and threw the soiled t-shirt at him. He sidestepped it and they both watched it fall askance on the waste basket.

"Helen, I had forgotten how sweet that ass of your is. Damn!" Isaac beamed. "I have to have some more before the night ends."

"I forgot how big your pole is, but I that's all you're getting. I had a slight lapse in judgement listening to your sob story about Grant and his woman who you can't get out of your mind. Were you thinking about her when you were just fucking me?" Helen asked angrily, walking past him and down the hall to the bathroom. She had keen desire to wash off his scent.

"Come on, Helen. You're my best friend. It's okay for us to share a little DNA every now and then," he said lazily as he walked behind her marveling at her perfectly rounded butt. He skin was was a light shade of mahogany, the perfect contrast to his darker shade. He started to get hard again as his eyes swept from her shoulder to her thigh.

He stopped short when she slammed the bathroom door in his face. "Down boy," he said to his raging erection. "No such luck." He turned in the opposite direction towards her other bathroom for a cold shower.

Later when they were both dressed, they sat down for coffee at Helen's small kitchen table. "Aren't you going to rustle up some breakfast for us?" Isaac asked.

Helen peered at him over her government issued tablet where she was reading her work e-mails. "There's the stove, the pots, and the frig. You're welcome to do your own rustling," Helen instructed.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were mad at me," Isaac said, snatching the tablet from her hands.

"Damn it, Lee, give that back! I need to read my e-mails," Helen railed.

"Not until you stop acting this," Isaac said.

Helen looked at Issac and then looked away. She was mad at herself for having sex with him. It brought back all those unresolved feelings she had for him, which she thought were long gone. Maybe that's why she was so quick to go there with him. She wasn't over their past entanglement, which she thought was ancient history. She had hoped that she and Tim from work were going to get together, but he had been pretty distant lately. She had been excited when she learned that Issac would be allowed back at their office, but she knew it had been a mistake to have sex with him. The best way to handle this was to distance, deny, and distract.

"Sorry, Isaac. We're cool. I'm just preoccupied with the increased workload. We just went through a major software upgrade at work. Every case, we've handled is now on computer. Grant is making us recatalog all the paper files to match the electronic files. It's just a lot of busy work on top of our regular cases. You should be ecstatic to have the tristate copper wire case. I'd give anything to be out of the office right now," Helen said, retrieving her tablet.

"I'm convinced that Grant gave me that case to purposely keep me out of the damn office! I really tried with him. I set up a meeting with him to set things straight. I apol-"

"What did you want to set straight, Isaac? You went after his woman. It wasn't a mistake. From how you described it to me, you knew they were together when he threw your ass out of the hospital room after she almost busted up your sex trafficking sting. But you followed her for a week and then joined her...what was it...sculpting class. What the hell was that? You were pursuing her. I don't understand. You could have most any woman you want and you go after her. Why? Is is the chase? Because you were trying to stick it to Grant? I can't wrap my head around it," Helen said. She walked to the refrigerator and pulled out butter, eggs, and milk.

"I don't understand it either, Helen. I can't get Alyssa Green out of my mind. I can tell you this because you know me. I am not one for relationships, entanglements...I get in and get out. But with her...and I know I've only spoken with her twice, at the hospital and at her class...it's like kismet. She was supposed to run through my sting. When she ran into me, I felt it...Bam! Instant attraction."

Helen laughed, as she scrambled the eggs, watching them go from liquid to solid. She turned off the burner and moved the pan to a cool burner. She separated the eggs between them and slathered a pat of butter and then jam on the two pieces of toast for him and one for her.

"You should hear yourself Isaac. You sound like virgin, touched for the very first time. My sage advice to you is to see this woman as figment of your imagination. Leave her the hell alone. These days Grant is inordinately happy. He actually smiled at me last week. I heard him laugh yesterday. Leave this Alyssa Green alone or Grant is going to put your ass in a hole and throw away the key," Helen warned. "Now eat your eggs and toast so we can get to work, dear."

Olivia did her best to fein sleep. Fitz was at his little game again, a game that involved her expanding belly. Without opening her eyes, she knew what she would find. Fitz up on one elbow facing her belly. He was watching intently for movement. When he saw the baby move he would lightly tap other parts of her stomach trying to coax the baby to follow his taps. He swore that the baby would move to wherever he tapped. That's how she got her nickname, "Bam Bam."

"Fitz," Olivia yawned, now opening her eyes and reaching down to pull his head back from her belly. "I'm trying to sleep here. Must you do this every morning?"

"Yes, Livy. Bam Bam loves our little game. She is getting good at it," Fitz explained, continuing to tap on her belly.

"Bam Bam is going to go batty with all that tapping. No I'm going to go batty," Olivia observed. She sat up on the bed and stretched. She rubbed her stomach and smiled at him. She stretched out her arms, beckoning him closer. She wrapped her arms around him, tucking his head under her chin and kissing the top of his head. He snuggled into her chest and lightly rubbed her belly.

"Fitz, I love you so much." Olivia said after awhile.

"Baby, I love you too," he replied lazily. His hand traveled lower toward the spiky hair that was starting to grow back. It brought back memories of him shaving her. She smiled remember how fun that had been. Olivia covered his hand with hers, stopping him.

"This last six months has been pure bliss. But Fitz-"

"I knew there was a but in there somewhere," he breathed, sitting up and facing her on the bed.

"But, I keep waiting for reality to set in. Cyrus has yet to tell you what he wants from you...from us. He's kept his end of the bargain. All of us have our new identities. Mellie seems to be gone. But I feel exposed...like a sitting duck waiting for Cyrus to pounce. I'd rather find out what he wants before Bam Bam is born. So I want you to request a meeting with him. Demand to know what he wants. I want to be there, Fitz. There is no reason why I can't meet him. I'm sure he knows everything about me. It's only fair that I get to look him in the eye," Olivia argued, bracing herself for his objections.

"Okay. I'll set it up," Fitz said easily.

"But, Fitz...wait what?" she answered, nonplussed.

"Okay. It's done," he said crawling towards her with a heavy erection. "Oh Livy, when you just said, 'pure bliss' it turned me on. Look at me. It's sort of painful. I need you to help me get rid of this thing."

Olivia couldn't contain her laughter. "Fitz, you kill me with this...this...word thing of yours. Yesterday, I said that the bread wasn't moist and you had the same reaction. A couple of days ago it was me saying 'meatloaf'...last week I said bananas.

He grinned impishly and lay on his back with his hands behind his head. She threw her leg over his waist, sheathing him slowly as she continued, "Your erections have nothing to do with me. You're just...ahh." He silenced her teases when he ground his hips up while pushing her down to the hilt.

Isaac scarfed down the remaining part of his bland burrito as he crossed back into New York. He'd been as this case for months now and it seemed that he was just going in circles. He'd made the split decision to take an extended lunch break. He drove around New York City mindlessly until he found himself circling the blocks where he'd followed a certain woman who he couldn't get out of his mind. He figured she wouldn't be a the sculpting studio, but she might be in the the vicinity. He parked and pulled out his phone, mapping a perimeter of concentric circles. He knew that if he continued methodically circling these streets, he was bound to run into her. He wondered if Grant was keeping tabs on him. He had followed orders everyday for months so he was counting on Grant not checking on him today. If fact, he planned to only do this today. That is how he rationalized it.

An hour later, after coming up empty-handed, he decided to adopt another strategy, stay in one place and hope the target comes to you. He parked in front of a building that was around the corner from the public library. He had a feeling she as the kind of woman who liked to read. He absently read the name of the building across the street from where he was parked, "Womanspace. New Life Here." He mused that it had to be a woman's shelter. Then he thought about the young women he'd apprehended in the sex trafficking sting and the life they could have had here.

In the blink of his eye, he saw her. His heart began pounding in his chest and he felt adrenaline pulsing through his body. "Alyssa," he whispered.

She wore a plain grey dress with a wide white collar. Her hair was pulled into a bun and she wore black rimmed glasses. He chuckled at this get up. "Is she trying to blend in? She could never blend in." She pushed a cart shaped like a cube. She stopped at the door of Womanspace and pushed what had to be a doorbell. A woman appeared at the door and opened it wide for her to enter. She turned to face him as she attempted to pull the cart inside backwards. That's when he saw her abdomen. "She's pregnant." Anger, the source of which he didn't understand, filled him. He hated Grant all the more. When the door closed behind her, he cranked the car and pulled into traffic.

"Come in, Fitzgerald," Cecily Beene said with a welcoming smile. She looked like the quintessential society wife, in her staid blue dress, pearls, designer pumps, and perfectly coiffed up do. The only difference was that she was Chinese. The only indication was her features since her accent and everything else about her was pure vanilla. She stepped back and let them enter the regal home of Cyrus and Cecily Beene. "This must be Torry! Cyrus has told me so much about you. It's so romantic... love at first sight! That's a far cry from how Cyrus and I became a couple. We couldn't stand each other at first sight. I'm glad to know that you two have the fairytale."

Fitz and Olivia exchanged a look. Reference Librarian,Torry Howard was Olivia's new identity. They had purposely chosen an unisex name. Olivia thought it sounded more masculine than feminine, but they thought that was an even better foil. They realized that Cyrus had told his wife, but they weren't sure how much of the story she knew.

Fitz extended flowers and a bottle of wine to Cecily. She took it, giving Fitz a hug. "Thanks. Fitzgerald. I have a collection of teas, Italian sodas, and ciders for you, Torry." Cecily hugged her also. "How many months are you?"

Olivia hesitated, not sure how to answer. "Six months and counting," Fitz answered.

"Fitz! Torry! It's so good to see you," Cyrus beamed, meeting them at the foyer. He shook Fitz's hand and planted a kiss on Olivia's cheek.

"Dinner is served," Cyrus announced.

Dinner was actually quite enjoyable for Fitz and Olivia. It was as if they each had a script that each person had memorized and they were acting out a scene. Cyrus was playing the part of the proud boss of his most outstanding worker. Olivia and Cecily were doting wives who were expected to become fast friends. After dinner, they settled in the large drawing room for after dinner drinks and dessert. Halfway through their conversation about global politics, Cecily stood.

"I must say my goodbyes. I have to turn in. I have a long day tomorrow planning a major fundraiser for the Women's Cooperative Coalition. When you are able, Torry, I'd love for you to get involved. Cyrus was telling me how you donate your own specially made bread and pastries to Womanspace. Our fundraiser will benefit that shelter too. I could introduce you to some people who could help you expand your charity," Charity said.

She said her goodbyes and headed upstairs.

The three of them, Cyrus, Fitz, and Olivia sat in silence for a while.

"Olivia Pope. I admire your hutzpah, setting up this meeting. I know it was you who wanted to talk to me. Don't look so horrified. I didn't get this information by spying on you. I don't spy. It's beneath me. I get other people to do that for me. I know it wasn't Fitz. So let's get down to brass tax," Cyrus announced. He sat up straighter on the sofa and sprawled his arms out behind him.

"Fitz, Olivia...In about one month I am going to announce my candidacy for Presidency of these United States."

"Let me guess," Olivia said, looking Cyrus square in the eyes, "You want Fitz along with my team whose asses you've all saved to guarantee that you win the election through some twisty, plot involving tampered ballots, and rigged voting machines. I've been racking my brain trying to figure this out Cyrus, and I think I know. We have a particular set of skills that you need, a covert band of thieves at your beck and call. Is that it?"

"That would be one conclusion you could come to when reviewing all the information at your disposable. But my dear, you don't have all the information so what I'm going to say is going to sound absurd and irrational. I want Fitz to be my running mate and you to be his wife. It's time for a shotgun wedding," Cyrus announced, smiling into his wine glass."

Olivia and Fitz looked at each other trying to make sense of what they'd heard.

The above: From the Mixed up files of Mrs. Butter Fly Pages...

Working on SBSS thanks to ee.

~~UTCSBAWA~~

BP