A/N: So we begin to see a little more into their daily lives and into Fitz's past. Hope you enjoy and feel free to leave a review.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from ABC's Scandal or anyone/anything else.

I have been working less hours the past few weeks as the investigations continued, and Pete has done a good bit of my work at the office, which I am incredibly thankful for. He's a pretty good Lieutenant Governor. After we got settled back in the house over the weekend, I knew I needed to go back to work that next week and get as much done as I possibly could. My only concern was Mellie.

I know she's grown and can do more work if she wants, but for crying out loud, I wish everyone would give her a break. That's all that's in the headlines around here - more rumors about her or1 how she is or how she needs to go back to work. She doesn't even get paid for the excellent work she does. Her entire life changed in an instant three months ago, she's still in counseling, and we just had a death in the family. I'm not saying any of these are good excuses not to work, but it's one thing on top of another, and people need to learn to mind their own business. She'll work when she's ready. If she told me tomorrow she never wanted to work again, that would be ok too. Until then, she is doing just fine.

She spoke of writing to me the other day. She told me that when Ben and I were at work and Kelly was gone during the day for a little while, she would write short stories and plays for fun. TV got boring real fast, and she was running out of books to re-read. She also mentioned sitting outside on their warm concrete patio in the afternoon and closing her eyes, singing her favorite songs for all to hear.

She let me read what she wrote. She let me listen to her sing.

I was in awe.

I knew she liked both, but I never knew how good she was until that moment. She took my breath away. Her powerful yet soft voice, her stringing together of words, her descriptive beauty, it all made masterpieces. She has one hell of a creative imagination.

As soon as I can have a music room added on the house for her and the kids, I will.

Yes, we're planning on having more kids and haven't even had our first.

But anyway, Jade texted me last night and said she's planning on coming over after work a few days to hang out. I don't think she fully understands how much that means to Mel. It's been hard moving here and not having a lot of time to get to make friends and then being thrown into the gubernatorial race full force, that was the icing on the cake. Now we don't know if anyone is really a friend or not, and after recent events, that group has gotten tremendously smaller.

As I lay in our bed beside my wife for the first time in weeks thinking that night, I looked over at the alarm clock - it was 1:48 and I had to be up at six.

It was going to be a long day. Most of them had been long recently. Too long.

I sighed quietly as I glanced over at my beautiful sleeping wife, curled up next to a pillow with the covers pulled in close to her.

I was the luckiest man on earth.

I stretched my legs and arms out, and in doing so, it hit me, out of nowhere. The excruciating pain through my shoulder, the intense phantom sensation of my foot. I sat straight up in bed and bit my tongue not to cry out and wake Mellie. I grabbed my prosthetic and put it on quickly, then stumbled out into the dark living room. I barely made it to the tan leather couch before the breath was knocked out of me. My entire body collapsed into the couch as I tried to keep my cry quiet and my eyes dry. This was the most intense one I had in a long time; I almost blacked out. My throbbing ankle made me almost forget about the pulsating pain in my shoulder. I could feel the bullets ripping through my muscles all over again. I held on to the couch for dear life, feeling Warren's tag and mine cold against my chest, remembering that day all over again.

The day I watched my best friend die before my very eyes, in my very arms.