A/N: This is a relatively short chapter, but I wanted to get it out before we get a new episode tomorrow. It's been way too damn long, hasn't it? Well, let me know what you think and thanks for reading!

Chapter 12: Cities in Dust

We found you hiding we found you lying
Choking on the dirt and sand
Your former glories and all the stories
Dragged and washed with eager hands
But oh your city lies in dust, my friend. - Siouxsie and the Banshees

Liv struck Fitz so hard that he staggered for a moment. She took that opportunity to run. Almost immediately she was tackled to the ground by the man who shot at her. She kicked him in the face and reached for her knife; however another person joined the scuffle and held her arms.

"Get your hands off of her!" Fitz pushed Jack and the other man back, but grabbed Liv by the waist, pinning her arms down to her side. "You ok?" His look of concern made her want to scratch his eyes out.

"No, I'm not ok! Let me go!" She struggled against him, but he had a firm hold on her and sat with her between his legs.

Jack stood up, wiped the blood from his lip. For a moment, his expression hardened but then a smile slowly broke over his face. "Well, looks like you've got yourself a handful there, Fitz. Who is she?"

Fitz looked down at Liv, still struggling, her eyes shooting daggers at him. She would hate him even more if he did this, but he didn't see any other way. He needed to maintain some position of authority and freedom if there was any chance for them to get out of this. "Her name is Liviana Bishop. She's a bounty hunter. I had an agreement with my father to find her and bring her back to Denver. And that's what I intend to do."

"You lied to me!" She fought to break free again. All this time he had been leading her into a trap. He slept with her and she opened up to him, the whole time he knew he would turn her over to the General. His father. She honestly thought that this General wanted to kill him. She was such a fool. Jack laughed at the ongoing tussle. After nearly exhausting herself, Liv finally stopped, panting and trying to catch her breath.

Jack then spoke. "The General sent us looking for you. We just made it over the pass a couple of days ago. We might have just skipped the bunkers altogether, but guess who we bumped into?" At that point, Harry and Amber emerged from the trees. Harry didn't exactly look pleased with the company he was keeping and gave Fitz a regretful nod. It appeared that Harry and Amber had escaped their confines and somehow passed them on the road. It was probably when they spent that extra day at the springs. Damn, Fitz thought. If we weren't so busy playing around, maybe we could have slipped by them.

"So I thought where would Fitz go? The bunkers, of course! Sometimes you can be so predictable." Jack shook his head and made a dismissive sound. "The General made it seem like you just took off. Why would he do that if you had an agreement with him? And what does he want with her? He never told us to look for this Liviana Bishop."

"Maybe because he doesn't trust you, Jack." Fitz could tell that his words hit the mark when the smirk was wiped off of the other man's face. "I honestly don't know what he wants with Liv. He told me to find her in exchange to be relieved of my duty. Maybe he thought I was taking too long. But I'm here. I've got what he wanted. I'm heading towards Denver and I'll face whatever he has plans for me." He felt his stomach twist; he knew exactly what his father had planned for him.

Jack called out for a rope. He held it in his hands, stared at Fitz for a moment and then threw it at him. "Better make those knots tight. I'd hate to be you if she broke free," he said with a wink at her. Jack turned his back on them and then called out, "Let's move out people!"

Fitz quickly bound Liv's hands and grabbed the knife he knew she had hidden on her. He whispered under his breath, "I had no choice, Liv. This was the only way. But I'll figure out a way out for us, I promise."

"I don't believe you," she spat. She couldn't believe that she let herself trust him. She should have known he'd be just another person who let her down. She felt a moment of panic wondering what was in store for her when they reached Denver. She tried to let the fear go and focus on the anger. Anger could sustain her for at least a little while. He could see the hurt and resentment in her eyes and wanted to erase it. He wanted to fight the person who caused it but couldn't because it was him.

"You don't have to believe me, Livvie. I'm just telling you what's going to happen. I will get you out of this." He spoke with conviction and faced her with clear eyes, willing her to look into his soul and see the truth.

And despite her anger, there was a part of her that wanted to believe him. She looked into his eyes and felt that same connection she did the moment she first saw him. She shook her head to clear it. God, she was an idiot. "Well, I was always taught that actions speak louder than words. And your actions have spoken enough." She broke eye contact with him and sat in stony silence.

He stood and helped her up. He turned her to face him and placed both hands on her shoulders and compelled her to look at him again. "And my actions will speak again, Liv." He would prove to her that she could trust him, that he was worthy. He wanted to just kiss her, to make her remember what they had shared. But that linked seemed severed now, and he didn't know if it could be repaired. He let out a deep sigh and led her to the field where the others had gathered.

Harry approached them as they walked. "Look, Fitz, I had no choice in telling them we met up with you. I just wanted to thank both of you for leaving the rover. We'd have probably not have made it without it. I won't forget it." This admission surprised Fitz. Not many people would have owed up to that kind of debt. Fitz acknowledged his tacit apology with a nod. Liv didn't even bother to glance at Harry.

When they got to the field, they found Twitchy holding Spin, rocking back and forth. Liv's heart dropped. No, no, no! Twitchy turned to face Liv, tears streaming down her face. She was holding his side, her hands covered with his blood. Spin seemed barely conscious and groaned in pain. They were surrounded by more armed people. After he had finished talking to one of his underlings, Jack walked up to the injured man and the woman who held him and casually pulled out his gun. As he was about to pull the trigger, both Liv and Fitz shouted at him to stop.

"Jack, don't kill them," Fitz commanded holding out his hand as a warning. Jack hesitated, used to taking orders from Fitz.

"They're dead weight," Jack argued. "We already have two injured people slowing us down." He waved his gun at Harry and Amber, who had bandaged arms from their last encounter with Twitchy and Spin. "We don't need a third."

"The General will probably want to talk to them too," Fitz thought up the lie quickly, anything to stop the carnage. "They have more knowledge on Liviana and he wants that information. It would be a shame if we had to tell him you killed them before he could get it."

Jack gave him a skeptical look, but Fitz knew him. He knew that the man was eternally trying to cull the favor of the General. And he would do nothing to jeopardize his position."Artie!"

A scrawny young man with dark hair, pale skin and buggy eyes emerged from near one of the militia's rovers. "Yes Lieutenant Story," he stammered.

"Patch this prisoner up and put him in your rover." Artie immediately ran over to Spin and pulled a bag off his shoulder. Jack then instructed other people to bind Twitchy up and assigned someone to drive their rover. He turned to Fitz. "I guess you can leave on the horse you rode in on," he laughed at his own joke. "I could have Liviana ride with me since it appears you two are on the outs," he proposed.

He could feel the heat starting to rise in his neck and his face flush at the idea of Jack being anywhere near Liv. "No Jack, I've got it," he responded tersely as he directed Liviana towards her horse.

"Just let me know if you need any help," Jack offered with some amusement.

Liv stubbornly refused to make it any easier for Fitz. At one point in mounting the horse he had to sling her across the back of it with her bottom straight in the air. Jack guffawed at that point along with a few other people. Then Jack called for everyone to move out before he mounted his own horse. Fitz finally got her to sit in front of him, but the warmth and comfort of their earlier rides together had vanished. This is going to be a long ride, Fitz thought ruefully.

He sat on the edge of his desk and held the ship in his hands, pricking his thumb repeatedly with the miniature antenna to stem the growing numbness in his body. She thought he killed that girl. She actually believed him capable of ordering the death of someone just to save his reputation. He made an incredibly stupid mistake with Amanda Tanner. He hadn't spoken to Olivia in months. He had sent some agents to spy on her, telling himself it was for her safety, but knowing deep in his heart that his intentions were less than noble. When they had informed him she went on an actual date, it sent him reeling. He found himself getting slightly drunk. He didn't realize how lonely he had been until he started talking to the ingratiating aid that had that had spent the past several weeks flirting with him. She wound up giving him a blow job in the side room off the Oval Office. Afterwards, he felt disgusted with himself thinking that the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

He had tried to explain to Olivia for weeks what had happened, but she wouldn't hear any of it. Finally, she called him accusing him of murdering that woman. It stunned him to think she believed it. After all they shared together, after everything they went through, she didn't know him at all. For a split second he thought of hurling the replica ship across the room. He could take momentary pleasure as it shattered into a hundred pieces. He refrained; he actually liked this gift from the first George Bush. When the senior Bush heard Fitz had served on the namesake of the aircraft carrier that he did during World War II, he presented it as a gift to congratulate him on his successful run for Governor.

Instead of destroying something he valued, he reached out his palm and laid it flat on the desk, gliding his fingertips across the smooth polish of the wood grain. He closed his eyes and remembered the feel of her underneath him. Making love to Olivia was the first thing he ever did on this desk. He had imagined doing it for weeks before the Inauguration. He wanted a tangible reminder of her; of their time together every day he stepped into this office. She, more than anyone, was responsible for getting him here. His euphoric state the day he became President was only tampered by the fact he couldn't openly share it with Olivia. He turned to her after the Justice swore him in and gave her the brightest smile. They did it; the insecurities installed in him by his father seemed to fall away like the shedding of old skin. He had become President on his own terms.

He and Mellie had gone to four balls and he had begged off the last two. He knew Olivia would be at the White House. She never stopped working, but perhaps a part of her waited for him too. He watched Mellie settle in their bed for the night before he made the phone call down to Liv. He should have felt guilty, but he didn't. In their twenty years of marriage, he had never cheated although he suspected she did. There were temptations to be sure, yet the shadow of his philandering father had stopped him.

When he met Olivia, everything changed. He felt like he had been hit by a thunderbolt when she introduced herself across the crowded room. She was sharp, beautiful and blunt. At first, his attraction to her scared the hell out of him. It almost felt like her soul called out to him from the moment he met her. By his first day in office, he didn't think he could live without her. He imagined a thousand different scenarios where he had met her sooner. Where his younger self actually believed in the idea of one true love and waited for Olivia. In the end, he did his family duty and married the perfect wife with the perfect background as a strategy for his budding political career. It wasn't until he met Olivia that he realized what a mistake he made.

He walked confidently down to the Oval Office the night of the Inauguration, knowing that Olivia waited for him there. He opened up the door to a vision of her in white and black. He gave her a sardonic smile as they played a game of cat and mouse. When she finally hitched her skirt up on the desk, his throbbing response was almost painful. He took her on the Resolute Desk in as many positions and in as many ways as possible. He wanted that night seared into his memory until his dying day.

And it was. It burned in his brain at that very moment. Even the thought of her hating him, even her believing him capable of murder, and the fact that his administration stood on the brink of collapse could banish those images. He tried to get his mind off of her and the looming chaos of the Amanda Tanner scandal. He picked up the latest national security report and moved to a sofa in the middle of the room. He must have read the same paragraph ten times, thinking about how they had moved from the desk to the sofa directly in front of him that night. In fact he thought as he gazed around the room, he think they might have covered practically every inch of the Oval Office. Tom must have gotten quite an eyeful the next morning on the security footage.

He couldn't believe the misfortune that he and Olivia had been caught not once, but twice on tape. When he got the audio recording of their first time together, he didn't know what to believe. All he knew was that he needed to talk to Olivia about it. Cyrus kept on hounding and hounding him saying that Olivia was trying to blackmail him with it, but he didn't want to imagine that she could do something like that. After she stood him up at their spot, the nagging worry that Cyrus was right ballooned. Why would she take Amanda on as a client? She was going after the White House full throttle and now this sex tape showed up. Was everything that he thought about her a lie? He thought again of their first meeting and how something inside of him recognized her almost immediately. He thought again about how he told her that he felt like they were meant to find each other and that they had met before. No, not all lies, but a misunderstanding that he had to correct.

"Hal, Tom, could you come in here for second please?"

A/N: I thought I'd start giving a cheat sheet on which present character corresponds with their past life. There are a few that might remain a mystery until the right time.

Olivia Pope = Liviana Bishop
Fitzgerald Grant III = Fitz Grant
Quinn Perkins = Twitchy
Huck = Spin
Stephen Finch = Fincher (already left story)
Harrison Wright = Harry Walker
Abby Whelan = Amber
Edison Davis = Lewis (died in Tombstone)
Jake Ballard = Jack Story
Fitzgerald "Big Jerry" Grant II = The General