A/N - Hi everyone! I'm not sure if anyone's still reading these things, but it's been a while since I've written (my muse has officially gone MIA) and someone on a FB group I'm in posted a May challenge - write a piece a day based on whatever song you get when you put your playlist on shuffle. I love music and it normally helps me get in a writing space so I'm trying this to get back into the swing of things (and hopefully get enough of my muse back to work on some updates for my current WIPs). This one's short because the song was difficult AF to write a story for.

I Don't Need Your Love

from Six: The Musical

It was hot. Hotter than it had any right to be in mid-February. Hot enough that Olivia had taken refuge on the beautiful, secluded beach that had been her backyard for the last month. At least here, lounging on a plastic beach chair with enough sunscreen on to, fingers-crossed, prevent another horrifying sunburn, the salty breeze occasionally flitted across her skin. That tiny, one-room shack her father had waiting for her was nothing short of a tin box in the sunlight. It was damn near lethal.

Somewhere in the distance it sounded like Jake was floundering in the clear water. Probably another attempt at a self-sufficient lifestyle. It always took him the better half of the morning to come to grips with his failures as a fisherman.

Overhead, the twittering of a Palm Swift drew Olivia's attention. Tilting her head back against the seat, she smiled at the small, brown bird flying above. She felt a pang in her chest watching the bird enjoy its freedom. Freedom was a concept she only now realized her father had dangled so neatly before her.

'Take my offer. Go anywhere in the world, Olivia. Escape the cage that Fitz is going to place you in.'

Olivia rolled her eyes at that memory. She had been stupid - nothing new where her love life was concerned. She had allowed her father to prey on her fear of losing herself and having every accomplishment she had ever made overshadowed by a man. Her need to play the martyr and sacrifice her own happiness for the 'greater good' had been another easily exploited column for her father to fixate.

At the time, she had convinced herself that fleeing was the only response. If she stayed, she was jeopardizing Fitz and, to a lesser extent, herself. What was there for her in being the president's mistress anyway? Eventually, someone would find out and, inevitably, leak the news to the press. After that, it wouldn't matter what she did. History would only remember her as one of the many women in a powerful man's orbit. Monica, Catherine, and all the others were sad reminders of women who had fallen victim to a man's story.

Olivia would be damned if her name was added to that list.

So she had fled. With Jake Ballard of all people. It was the logical thing to do, she had convinced herself. Flee with the man who had never really asked that much of her. The man who would never be a threat to outshine her. And, if she was being truthful, that first month together had been good .

Since then? The little things, the big things, and all that was in between were guaranteed to bother her. He snored. He left the toilet seat up. He never washed a dish. He spent all morning stomping about the coast in an attempt to be some allstar fisherman - and peacocked about when he failed in a lame attempt to garner some form of praise from her. Worst of all? She hadn't had an orgasm, that wasn't by her own hand, since Fitz.

Essentially, she had allowed her father to convince her to exchange one cage for another. And Olivia Pope would be damned if she stayed in a cage.

It was time to go home.