It was very interesting seeing all the reactions to last chapter. I got all types of feedback—people who were really upset at Liv, people really upset at Fitz, and then those of you who were partial. I know I have no business influencing your opinions but try and look at the situation from a partial POV. Looking back at everything, I'd like to say they were pretty much both at fault for the demise of their relationship. I won't really be focusing on the past anymore with this story, maybe a few brief flashbacks, but I'm trying to focus on their present relationship and them making a better future as you'll see with this next chapter. So enjoy!

Chapter 26: To Build A Home

There is a house built out of stone
Wooden floors, walls and window sills...
Tables and chairs worn by all of the dust...
This is a place where I don't feel alone
This is a place where I feel at home...

And I built a home
For you
For me

Until you disappear
From me
From you

—To Build A Home by The Cinematic Orchestra

2026

Fitz rings the doorbell, bouncing his foot anxiously. After a few seconds he hears footsteps that eventually stop at the door and he can tell that she's discovered it's him.

"Olivia, just open the door. We need to talk," he says boldly.

After some hesitation, he hears her release a loud sigh and then unlocks the door. She didn't look as worn out as he expected, but he could tell just by the look on her face that she wasn't doing well at all.

"Fitz, what are you doing here? I'm working," she says tiredly.

"We need to talk," he repeats evenly.

"I told you I just needed time to myself."

"Liv, I've given you almost a whole week to yourself but I know that the longer we stay away from each other and just ignore each other, the worse it gets. This always happens."

"What always happens?"

"You tell me you need time to yourself or you leave and ignore me and I give you the space that you need and then eventually we end up going months or years without speaking. It's a pattern and I'm not going to let it continue, especially with Danny involved. Where is he, by the way?"

She gives him a long look, soaking everything in that he just told her before answering, "He's with my brother's family. They're on a retreat for the next week." She pauses and then says softly, "I'm sorry."

She steps back, letting him into the house. For some reason he had expected the place to look like a trainwreck but it was clean and spotless as ever. Even when she was sad, she was still extremely meticulous.

He follows her into the living room where he could see she had done some work, indicated by her laptop and a stack of papers on the coffee table. She gestures for him to sit down and after a slight hesitation, he does.

She glances towards the ceiling, letting out an elongated sigh as she paces back and forth in front of him. She stops and gazes at him. "I don't know what you want me to say, Fitz."

He raises his eyebrows. "What do I want you to say? I want you to tell me what's going on with you, with us. I'm pretty sure that I didn't do anything wrong this time, I just want to put our past mistakes and offenses behind us, but if I have done something wrong, please just tell me so that we can work this out, Liv. Please."

"I just had a bad night," she says, referring to the night they went out to the basketball game and she was completely distant. "I was tired…"

"Liv, if this relationship is going to work, you're going to have to talk to me and stop feeding me these crappy excuses. I love you, but you have to stop pushing people away, pushing me away. I used to know you like no one else, and in some ways I still do but in other ways I feel like an intruding stranger. Let me help you."

She looks away from him but he can see that she's starting to tear up. He stands up and walks over to her, surprised when she doesn't try and walk away from him. However he stops in front of her, afraid to touch her as to not scare her away. "Talk to me, Livvie."

She puts a hand to her forehead in distress and finally glances back up at him, saying in a shaky voice, "I love you, too, but this scares me—us scares me. I had this awful nightmare the day we went out to the basketball game and I've been having them all week. In my dreams, horrible things happen to you…I don't want to tell you," she says, shaking her head but he takes her hands and holds them firmly.

He looks her right in the eyes. "Just tell me. I can handle it."

Her lip quivers and she takes a deep breath. "In the first dream we were out having dinner on the date we were supposed to go on. Everything was going great and then all of a sudden, blood just started flowing out of your mouth and your nose and your eyes and you told me you were dead. And then you turned into Simon and suddenly I'm back at that scene again of the car crash, of how he died in front of me and there was nothing I could do," she tells him as her tears freely flow. "I've had an entire decade to move on and get over what happened and I have, I went through counseling, I dealt with it, but now that you're back in my life…I still associate you with what happened. Not that you had anything to do with the accident but Simon was so precious to me, just like you are and the possibility that you could one day just be ripped away from me like he was is so horrific to me. You could die, Fitz, and there's nothing I can do about that! I know it doesn't make sense for me to push you away but the more time we spend together and the more I continue to fall for you again and grow more comfortable with us I get scared because that's when bad things happen in life—when you're comfortable, when you least expect them to happen…when you're happy."

He can't hold back any longer, seeing her so afraid, so he takes her up in his arms and holds her tightly against him. "I'm sorry," she whispers.

He kisses a tear streaming down her cheek and smooths down her hair. He waits for her to calm down and until she stops crying before pulling back to face her, still holding her, and asking, "You're happy with me?"

She seems somewhat thrown off by his question but she nods. "Yes. Very."

"Then that's all that matters. Livvie, I can't promise you that things will always go the way we want. I can't promise you that I'll always be around but I'm sure as hell going to try because I'm not letting anything rip me away from you or Danny without a fight. I'm never going to let you get away from me again, I've spent too much time away from you. And I know that you're worried about me but pushing me away isn't going to help. Spending the rest of our days together, being there for each other, helping each other, loving each other is what we need to do. I'm scared, too, Liv, anything could happen, but I'm here right now, I'm staying here and I'm not leaving. And I can't let you throw away what we have because I'm your man—"

"And I'm your girl," she finishes off, sniffling with a chuckle.

He smiles and repeats, "And you're my girl."

He pecks her on the lips but she pulls him back to her, wrapping a hand around his neck and pressing her lips tenderly to his. She kisses him passionately and he can sense that she had yearned for his touch just as he had for hers. "I've missed you," she says softly, smiling lightly at him. "I'm sorry for pushing you away. I don't want to do that. It hurts me as much as it hurts you but I guess it's just the way I operate. I want to change that about myself though."

He stares back at her as an idea comes to mind. He had begun a project years before and though it had been more for him, as soon as they had reunited he knew it would be the perfect surprise. He had planned on showing it to her when the project was completed. But right now seemed like the right time. He wasn't sure how she would react, but he could only hope for the best.

"Let's go somewhere," he says, taking her hand again.

"Like where?"

"I want us to take a break from this all. To go somewhere unfamiliar and to just be ourselves and re-learn each other again."

She cocks her head at him, still confused as ever.

"Would you be able to take time off from work?"

"I mean, I guess, but only a few days at most since it's such short notice."

"That's fine. That's all we need."

"I have to ask Kenny to take over the reins while I'm gone. Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise. Do you trust me?" He asks with pleading eyes.

She just stares at him briefly but eventually nods, looking back at him with full sincerity. "Yes."

He grins. "Okay, then. Along with basic stuff, we're going to need sheets and at least two comforters. And some pillows, lots of pillows."

IiIiIiI

Olivia had no idea why Fitz was suddenly so adamant about them getting out of town but she was down for it. She needed a break from the norm and she hoped they could use this time, however short it was, to talk about things and once and for all get to a good, steady place in their relationship.

They leave her house by noon and then head to Fitz's so that he can grab a few things. They also stop by her office so that she can talk directly to some of her staff and Kenny about tasks that needed to be completed while she was gone. She could tell Kenny was upset by the way he couldn't even make eye contact with her and only answered her with one or two-word sentences if he could help it. This wasn't her first time taking a break from work, since she had done so a lot in the past to spend time with Danny and the rest of her family, so she had a feeling Kenny's bitterness stemmed less from the fact that she was going off the grid for a few days and more from the fact that she was going with Fitz.

Regardless, as she and Fitz drove, she shook away all the negativity, focusing instead on the scenery in front of her and the love of her life beside her—and the music, the wonderful music from her late teen years that took her back to happier times. She dips her head back feeling utterly relaxed and smiles back at Fitz as he does the same and squeezes her hand on the console. She sees a sign that tells them they've reached the city border of San Diego and she glances up at Fitz, "San Diego, huh?"

He nods. "Sort of. You'll see, just be patient, my dear," he tells her in a teasing tone.

She rolls her eyes at him and leans back in her seat, closing her eyes.

About half an hour later she has no idea where they are as they cruise down an empty two-way highway. With the windows rolled down, Olivia gets hit with a salty, sea breeze. "We're going to the beach? Why'd we have to go so far?"

"This place is different from the LA beaches. It's more quiet and serene which is what we need. Just relax and trust me, you'll see," he tells her, leaving a lingering kiss on her hand. So, she decides to take his advice and just enjoy the ride.

They arrive, as the sky is beginning to turn a dark orange as the sun sets, at a large house that didn't look like it quite belonged on the beach but was extremely beautiful nonetheless. It was a mission-style house with arched doorways and ivy-laced windows. Palm trees decorated the front of the house along with a vibrant green lawn and shrubbery.

"This is where we're staying?" She asks Fitz, looking at him like he's insane as he opens her door for her.

He grins deviously. "Yep."

"Don't you think it's a little too extravagant for a mini vacation?"

He raises his eyebrow at her, the same look he had given her every time she questioned why he was doing all this. "Okay, okay…sorry."

"Let's just go in first. We'll get our stuff later," he says, taking her hand and leading her to the huge front double doors. He opens one of the them with a key and with a small creak, the inside of the house is slowly revealed to them. The layout is wide and expansive, though the few pieces of what she guessed were furniture were covered by white sheets and there was also a grand piano. The floor has a natural stone mosaic tile pattern and long stone pillars that lined the walls and stretched up to the high ceiling above the living room.

Fitz lets go of her hand, letting her wander around and explore the house for herself. She pulls back the blinds of the sliding door to what she presumed was the back of the house. She peaks through to see a large wooden porch with an area of the side of the house fenced off and finally, yards and yards beyond the house is the sea.

She doesn't even realize her mouth is agape in shock and admiration until Fitz begins to speak several feet away, taking her out of state of astonishment. "It's a beautiful house. Though, not really ready to live in quite yet. And it's new, but built to last. The ceilings are made from local pine. And the fieldstone fireplace...they did that by hand. There's this incredible greenhouse just off the kitchen—you should see the kitchen, there are these marble counter-tops that are from a quarry just up the road. Oh, and the upstairs. There's a skylight made of stained glass designed by this amazing local artist. It's marvelous."

She turns back and looks straight at him, knowing something wasn't quite right, but not in a particularly bad way. He knew way too much about this place for it to just be another vacation spot. It definitely wasn't the place someone would just pick to stay at for a few days. This was a dream house—it was her dream house.

"Fitz, what is this place?" She asks slowly, realizing she already knew the answer but still reluctant to believe it for some reason.

He takes a deep breath. "Remember that time when we went up to Vegas for the weekend and we ran out of money and couldn't stay in a hotel so we camped out in our car for the night?"

She nods. "You stayed up all night because you were afraid someone would jump us."

He smiles. "Yeah…but before you feel asleep we had casually talked about a few things, one of them being what our dream house would be like. You said you wanted something by the beach and isolated but also cozy and warm, something you could come back to at the end of a long day at work that would make you forget all your troubles, a place that made you feel at home. You thought it was unrealistic but I was able to make it work—at least I think I did. This house is yours...ours. I bought the land, and I had it built. The project started a few years back, after Virginia and I divorced and I decided I wanted a second home out here. It started out a lot smaller, it was just supposed to be a simple beach house but as I started making more money, I expanded it into a dream house—our dream house, even though I doubted you would ever come back to me, I did it as a reminder of what we had, of what could've been—a tribute. I figured I owed you at least that much. There are bedrooms for lots of kids. I think Danny would be thrilled. I imagined this being you and me raising a family and growing old together in this house. It was supposed to be our house, Livvie. I know this may not be the ideal time but I just wanted you to see it—to see the dream."

She stares back at him, frozen, feeling astonishment, amazement, and deep love all at once. She doesn't even realize she had been crying until it was becoming hard to see everything around her with her blurred, watery eyes. She marches over to Fitz, determined, and grabs his face, kissing him with everything in her. Fitz is obviously surprised but he wastes almost no time, kissing her back with full intensity. His hands fall down to her sides, sliding over her ass and gripping the back of her thighs. He picks her up, pressing their bodies closer together. He carries her all the way into the kitchen, never disconnecting their lips, and deposits her on the kitchen island where they engage in their heated kiss until both of them nearly pass out from a lack of air.

Fitz holds onto her lower back, standing in between her legs and says through his uneven breathing, "I love you. So much."

"I love you more," she says, running her fingers through his now completely messed up hair. She smiles at him, looping her arms around his neck and tells him, "Show me upstairs."