A reviewer brought up the topic of Fitz and Liv's reveal to Danny about Fitz being his father and how Danny's reaction wasn't too believable. I wanted to make it seem as believable as possible so at first I felt the same way you did, like it wasn't realistic for him to feel so okay with everything, but then I also took into account that he's a 4 year old boy and most kids around that age are kind of bubbly and very resilient, so news like this would excite him before he started asking questions or getting angry, especially since he was already starting to like Fitz. But as Liv and Fitz go through some hard times, he'll have more questions and concerns for them.

Concerning this chapter, however, it was very difficult to write and was probably my most intense chapter to date, so prepare yourselves.

Chapter 24: In An Instant

2016

"So, this is Xavier, Xav for short, Matt, and of course, you know Simon and Abby already," Olivia introduces as she and Fitz stand off to one end of the living room and her brothers and Abby on the other end.

Fitz gives a quick wave and affably greets them, "Hey, guys."

Olivia can sense his nervousness and gives him a subtle squeeze of the hand. "And everyone, this is Fitz."

Her brothers say hi awkwardly but Abby just rolls her eyes and walks past Olivia and Fitz to the kitchen, breaking the barrier between the two groups. She turns back to the boys and says, "Damn, guys, this isn't a funeral. Fitz is a cool guy, stop acting so weird."

The boys all look at each other and after some silent deliberation decide to park it on the couch.

"So, what's for dinner?" Abby asks, continuing to break the ice.

Olivia smiles and goes to join her friend in the kitchen. "Veggie burgers."

Abby cringes. "You know, not all of us are vegetarians, Liv."

"I thought it'd be a little healthier than just regular burgers, but I also made curly fries," Olivia says with a timid smirk.

Abby chuckles. "Whatever, I'm starving."

"Help me dish out," Olivia says. "I could use your help, too, Si," Olivia tells Simon as an idea comes in mind.

"Uh…alright," he says with a shrug.

"Here, I'll help, too," Fitz offers but Olivia stops him, saying, "Well, actually, babe, I think we're good in here, but you can socialize with the guys."

Fitz face is immediately taken over by an expression of worry but since he could almost never say no to Olivia's gorgeous, doe eyes, he sighs, gives her a small smile and agrees, "I'll try."

He lays a kiss on her forehead and she whispers, "Thank you."

As she goes back into the kitchen, she catches Abby and Simon looking over her doodles. "Wow, someone is really looking to the future."

"I would call it lovesickness," Simon mutters.

Olivia glares at him and disregards his comment. "Well…that future may have actually come sooner than you thought it would. It certainly came quicker than I thought it would," Olivia murmurs, still pondering how sudden it had been.

They both give her questioning looks as Abby asks, "What do you mean?"

Olivia grins at her friend and her brother and tells warns them, "Just keep calm when I show you, okay?"

Abby and Simon exchange looks and then nod slowly, growing more and more wary. Olivia reaches into her pocket and forms a fist around the ring before gradually opening her hand and putting a finger to her lips to remind them to stay calm. Regardless, as soon as Abby sees the ring, she screeches at the top of her lungs, gaining frightened looks from the guys.

"What? What is it?" Fitz exclaims, ready to rush over to them.

"It's nothing. We just got a little excited is all," Olivia explains, lifting up her hand and wiggling her fingers. Fitz makes an 'Oh' shape with his mouth once he realizes. He winks back at her and she does the same before they go back to their conversations.

"You're freakin' married?" Abby yells in a whisper, looking both excited but extremely shocked. Simon on the other hand appears completely freaked out. "What the hell, Liv?"

Olivia shushes them and before continuing the conversation, takes both of their arms and pulls them down to the ground so that they're all crouched by the cabinets under the sink. "Not yet. I'm engaged," Olivia clarifies.

"Oh, my gosh, spill! Tell me everything!" Abby orders in a hushed voice.

"Wait, wait, wait…you're getting married?" Simon asks Olivia, staring at her like she has five heads.

"Yes, I am," Olivia says calmly.

He shakes his head in disbelief. "You're out of your mind."

"Si, just let her tell us how this all happened and stop freaking out. If Liv wants to get married, she can. It was only a matter of time. Now tell us!" She commands giddily.

"Well, it was yesterday night. He took me out to dinner, we got back home, we were in bed and then he suddenly just asks me to marry him…"

"Out of the blue?"

Olivia nods. "Out of the blue. It was really shocking at first, I mean, I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him but the ring just made everything more official and…real. I'm going to be known as 'Mrs. Grant' soon."

"Yeah, and I wonder how Dad's going to react to that," Simon says evenly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Olivia lets out a small laugh, staring up at the ceiling. "I don't know how he's going to react, Si. I can only imagine that he'll be furious and won't want to speak to me for a very long time, but we're kind of already in that boat. The last time I saw him, we were both extremely angry at each other. I basically told him if he couldn't accept Fitz and I then he had no place in my life. I chose Fitz over him. I don't see him getting over that, much less accepting Fitz, especially as my husband. You guys are the only ones who know. I can't tell Matt and Xav because they couldn't keep a secret if someone paid them to and you guys are the only people who I thought should know for now. Abby, you've been so supportive through it all, I couldn't have asked for a better best friend. I can't thank you enough."

Abby smiles heartwarmingly and grips Olivia's hand. "And Simon, I know you haven't really agreed with any of my decisions when it came to Fitz or Dad but you've still stuck by me and listened to me when I've need someone to talk to."

"Well, you are my sister, so I'll always support you, but I think you're rushing into this. You guys have been dating for, what, a year? You just finished your first year of college, neither of you have a stable job—what happens if you get pregnant?"

"First of all, you sound just like Dad right now. Secondly, Fitz and I are being safe and won't be having kids any time soon. And thirdly, even if I just started college and we're still looking for good jobs, Fitz and I have been living together for a year and we're doing well. If we get married, that won't change."

"Then why do you have to get married now? If nothing will change, why can't you just wait?"

"Because I'm ready to take things to the next level in our relationship. I want to spend the rest of my life with him and this is the first step. Please, Si, I'm really going to need your support on this. He makes me happy—this makes me happy," she tells him, holding up the ring.

He stares back at her for a long time before finally glancing to the ground and grumbling, "I-I have to think some more about it…"

"Simon…"

"This is not a light decision, Liv."

"At least don't tell Dad yet—or Matt and Xav. I need to do this the right way."

"As long as you and Dad are still on bad terms and you're going through with this without him knowing, there is no 'right' way." Simon gets up, sighing and motions for them to do the same. "This food isn't going to serve itself."

They follow his lead but Olivia can't believe how impossible her brother is being. Whether she got married or not, it wasn't his decision. All she wanted was for him to be there for her, mostly for when she decided to tell her father about the marriage, and she knew that she had forced a lot of her somewhat radical decisions on him before, but this was most important to her. And it almost felt like an act of betrayal for him to just give her the cold shoulder about it. She hoped he would come around sooner than later.

Present

As Fitz sits at the local dinner he went to as a kid, waiting for his mother to show up, he spins his straw around in his drink, admiring the constant, hypnotic swirl it created as it took his mind somewhere else. He had agreed to meet his mom for brunch, mostly because he hadn't seen her in a while, but also because he was breaking down and besides Olivia, who had gone cold on him and was the cause of his troubles at the moment, she was the best at putting him back together.

Within five minutes of him waiting, he sees his mom walk through the doors of the diner, dressed in a rosy pink blazer and beige slacks. He thought of this as just a casual outing, but he should've remembered that she never failed to dress nicely whenever they met up and now he felt bad.

"Hey, honey," she says as he gets up and gives her a hug. She feels smaller and a bit weaker than he remembered. "Hi, mom."

He hands her the menu and she looks over, discussing the new entrees that have been added, but in the end, like always, she gets the same thing that she has for the past thirty years while Fitz goes for a small appetizer, not feeling that hungry.

She puts the menu down and smiles subtly at him. "So, how is my son doing? You seem a bit sad."

"Do you remember Olivia Pope?" Fitz asks, blurting out exactly what was on his mind—she was always on his mind, no matter how much it hurt to keep thinking about her, he couldn't stop. Sometimes it was like a wound on his mind that would heal only to get reinjured.

She stares back at him, thrown off by his arbitrary question but she nods. "Of course. She was that lovely young girl you dated years ago," she pauses with a look of uncertainty on her face, like she was going to add more, but instead she clears her throat and asks, "Why do you bring her up now?"

Fitz takes a sip of his drink and says nonchalantly, "I'm seeing her again, at least I still think I am. She has a son, four years old now—he's also my son. I had sex with her in a closet at a gala five years ago and…bam. She's pregnant with my son. His name is Danny, by the way. He's the greatest kid you'll ever meet. I love him, I love her, I love them, and I want to finally start my life—I want to start a family. But she keeps pushing me away and I have no idea why. I know it's been so long and so much happened in the time we spent apart but I'm just trying to love her and be there for her and she won't let me and…it's killing me, because if we split again, I don't think I'll be able to handle it."

He finally looks up at his mother who catches his gaze with wide, wary, sympathetic eyes. She may not have understood entirely what was going on but she could see that her son was hurting and that was enough to make her hurt too. She reaches for his hand and grasps it tightly over the table. "Fitz, you're stronger than you think. If it doesn't work out, then that's that. You can still see your son. She won't take that right away from you."

"I don't want to be without her, she's the love of my life. Things were fine between us, great between us before this past Friday. But ever since, I haven't seen her, she hasn't been returning my calls and has just replied to me through short text messages. The last night I was with her, she was completely out of it and there was something she wasn't telling me."

"Maybe it was something work-related that she just didn't want to discuss."

"We always discuss work with each other, no matter how stressful or terrible."

"Well, you can't force it out of her if she doesn't want to tell you. Wait it out and she'll come around."

"I have waited it out. I've waited for ten years! I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of the silence and the anger. We were supposed to have moved on past this."

"But to her you're still somewhat new territory to her. You're just getting to know each other again. She isn't the same girl that you dated a decade ago, she's never been the same since that awful accident. Something like that could change anyone for good. You can't approach things the way you would've back then."

"The accident…" Fitz whispers to himself as the realization hits him. "It's the accident."

"Yes, Fitz, what about the accident?" His mom questions, concerned.

"I have to go, mom. I'll call you later," he tells her, whipping out his wallet and leaving two twenties on the table, much more than she needed. He hesitates before he takes off, stopping to say, "I love you," but before she can reply he's out the door.

2016

Olivia was surprised by how fast it had all happened. This entire day had happened so quickly. At the beginning of it, she and Fitz were in bed as he proposed to her and they had the best sex of their lives and now, twenty-four hours later, she was rushing towards a hospital, bruised and badly injured. It amazed her how the best day of her life had rapidly become the worst. The car had come out of nowhere and by time she realized what was going to happen it was too late. She clenches Abby's hand tightly as they ride in the ambulance with Matt, who is barely breathing. Abby was sobbing hysterically so Olivia took her hand, not as a comfort to Abby but more in order to calm herself down. There was too much going on at once and all the noise wasn't alleviating the shock whatsoever. As she stares, hypnotically at her brother, watching as the ventilator helped him breathe in and out, her mind flashes back to the moment the night took a turn for the worst and she keenly remembers every single detail. So much blood, she had repeated over and over. It had made her want to gag but she couldn't because she was much more distracted by the labored, uneven breaths around her and her half-conscious brother, whom she hardly recognized, slumped over the driving wheel.

She had asked if everyone was okay and only three of them replied back. She tried to check a pulse for her brother but she couldn't tell accurately whether he was still alive or not because she couldn't get her hands to stop shaking for even a second. This is when Abby started crying, making noises that didn't even sound human and Olivia went into autopilot mode, setting her emotions and shock aside for a moment and doing the rational thing. She was able to tell the dispatcher what she thought had happened after several tries and soon after she could hear the sirens. She began to inch her way out of the car, knowing she was injured but not feeling any pain, but as soon as she made her first step onto the concrete she heard a distinct moan. She twisted her head back and sure enough her brother had his mouth slightly open and was attempting to speak. He said her name and he desperately tried to say more but his words got caught up in his throat as he started choking. She grabbed his hand and held it firmly as if to keep him from slipping eternally away from her. She felt Abby also clutching his arm. He attempted a smile and told her he loved her and then he turned to Olivia, opening his mouth one last time and said—

"We're here! Get ready," the paramedic announced as they pulled up to the hospital. Everything there happened in a flash, one second they were being whisked out of the van and the next they were all separated as Abby and Olivia were placed on hospital beds and Matt was quickly pushed down the hall on a gurney. Olivia guessed her injuries hadn't been as severe as her brothers' since there was just a single doctor by her side but many surrounding Matt. She could hear Abby still crying from close by but Olivia just wanted to it all to stop. She wanted all the chaos and the crying and the suffering to just pause for one second so that she could process everything. As she feel back down on her pillow, her last thought was what he had told her, his last words, Be happy.

And then she passed out.

Fitz had been calling Olivia's cell for an hour now. She and her brothers decided to go see a movie after dinner and because Fitz wanted to give them a little room to spend time together without the air feeling awkward with him around, he chose to hang back at home. But the movie should've ended by now. He didn't mind them deciding to hang out a little more or do something else afterwards, though he didn't know what else they could've been doing besides having a very early morning breakfast at Denny's, but he expected her to at least return his texts and calls. He didn't know if he should just keep calling and texting and wait for them to hopefully get back soon or if he should go looking for them. By 1:30am he couldn't wait any longer, assuming something really terrible had happened but not wanting to believe it, he hoped in his car and headed for the theater, thinking to start there. He took the fastest way he could think of to get there but found the parking lot nearly empty with none of the cars resembling Simon's. He soon leaves the theater and after passing three intersections finds himself heading towards one that is completely sectioned off. He drives a little closer, hoping with each cycle of his wheels that his suspicions are incorrect, but as soon as he spots the old Ford Taurus, he knows they're true.

He immediately hits the brakes, puts the car in park, and hops out without turning off the ignition. He runs to the crash site, his legs carrying him as fast as possible but his brain slowing down as he tries to process everything. He gets pretty close before he's stopped but that hardly stops him from trying to get past.

"Sir, calm down," a policeman tells him, nearly tackling him to the ground. "Who are you looking for?"

"M-my girlfriend, no, my fiancé and her friend and her brothers, th-they were all in that car…" Fitz cries, pointing in the direction of the brutally mangled car. He shakes his head, about to break down, and looks away because the visual of the car and the horrible thoughts coursing through his mind were too much.

"The crash happened two hours ago. The car was t-boned on the driver's side by a high-speeder. The victims were taken to St. Arthur's Hospital about ten miles from here down this road. I saw two females being whisked off into the ambulance. Could one of them possibly be your fiancé?"

Fitz looks up at this. "I-I don't know. I need to go and find out. You said St. Arthur's?"

"Yes, I can give you dir—"

"No, I'm fine!" Fitz yells, running back to his car. He passed the hospital almost every day on his way to UCLA. He speeds off, cursing himself for being so late and praying that he can get there before anything else can go wrong.

"I'm looking for an Olivia Pope. She was brought in here with four other people about two hours ago," Fitz tells the nurse at the front desk of the hospital.

"Are you related in some way? I can't just let anyone through here, sir."

"She's my fiancé," Fitz says shakily, staring back at her with desperate eyes.

She hesitates for a moment before giving him a sad look and says, "Hold on a second."

But he didn't have a second. "Is she okay? Do you know anything?"

She shakes her head. "Many people come through those doors, especially at this time on the weekends, so I'm going to try and see if I can—"

"Fitz?"

He turns in the direction of the voice and vaguely recognizes the woman who called his name. "Rebecca? Olivia's stepmom, right?"

She nods as he walks over to her, disregarding the nurse. "Where is she?"

Becca leads him to where Olivia and Abby are, explaining, "She's fine, well, kind of. She has a broken arm and one of her ribs cracked. She also has a mild concussion so I'm trying to keep her from dozing off too much. Abby's sleeping on the other side of her, two of the boys are in surgery…"

"And her other brother?" Fitz asks, immediately regretting asking after the look of despair that flashes across Becca's face. She just shakes her head at him and throws her gaze to the ground as they continue to Olivia, making Fitz's heart wrench in his chest.

Becca suddenly stops and steps aside, revealing Olivia in a hospital gown, curled up on a bed.

"She fell asleep again," Becca says, walking over to shake her awake but before her hand can touch Olivia, Fitz hears her grumble, "I'm awake. Tell the doctor or nurse to leave me the hell alone."

"Livvie…" Fitz breathes.

At the sound of his voice, Olivia looks over her shoulder, not believing her ears but once she catches a glimpse of him. "Fitz…" She quickly flips her position and cries out in pain as she lands on her injured side.

"Hey, hey, hey, it's okay. Don't hurt yourself even more," he tells her softly, rushing to her side and taking his hands in hers. He finally releases a breath he had been holding for who knows how long the moment he feels her skin and she grips onto him. She was alive.

He wipes some stray tears from her eyes and peppers her hands with kisses, never wanting to let her go again. "I'm so sorry."

She stares back at him, looking at him like she was about to completely break down, like she was just waiting for him to be there. She starts to sob uncontrollably, so much that he doesn't bother to wipe the tears away and lets her let it all out, holding her against him.

"He-he's gone. My brother is gone," she cries. "He died right in front of me! I know he's gone. Simon is dead."