Cyrus Beene was an ambitious man. Ambitious to the point of ruthlessness. He was sharp; he was brilliant. He was a man of words – he could use them to heal and to wound, to weave a threat within a compliment; to end and to resurrect. His morals were flexible at best; and the only principle he believed in was practicality for the sake of victory, whatever that may be. He was an ambitious man. He was a brilliant man. But, now, lying on their couch, he is a shell of himself. Now, Cyrus Beene is a broken man.

"What's the time?" He asks groggily as he attempts to sit up, but the pulsing thunder in his head is too much.

"Oh, you're up. Good!" Fitz says almost cheerfully; his voice sounding unnatural and high-pitched. "It's two." And it's an octave lower now – more like him, and less like a cartoon.

"Two in the afternoon?"

"Well, yes," He points to the window, somewhat bemused, "daylight, outside?" A questioning smirk.

A second attempt at getting up. "Maybe", he thinks, "possibly", he closes his eyes for a moment, "just breathe in; on three" and his legs finally touch the ground – it's shaky and unfriendly, foreign. "I should get going." He is no longer having an inside monologue, no this he chooses to share this with the other man in the room.

"Cy, you should stay. We want you to stay."

"Stay where?"

"Here? We want you to stay here. For a little while, until, you know…"

"Until what?" He sounds annoyed. Fitz takes a breath. He should have handled this better, he could have. He knows Cy, he knows he's too proud to accept a handout, and too stubborn to realize that that's not what this is.

"Until you're back on your feet. Just for a bit."

"You have a newborn baby and you want me?" He says it with a chuckle, almost mocking. His blue eyes suddenly cold, withdrawn. "An old drunk and a baby in the same house? I guess it's true – you really have lost your mind." He always did know how to twist the knife.

"Well, I am recovering. Slowly." The last word aimed at himself, not at their guest. "So I could really use the company." Change in the approach, he tries to make it about him, his own brokenness.

"I don't need your help." But Cy, Cy doesn't hear. His pain doesn't let him understand that this, this isn't pity, it's not charity, not a basket-case miracle story to tell at the office Christmas party. He doesn't understand that this really isn't just for him, or just about him – it's also about Fitz; he also needs this. He doesn't understand; his pain just won't let him see past his own suffering.

And the tension is broken by a cry from the pastel-colored device. A soft cry that makes him smile. "I better get her." And with that he disappears into the land in which cries are not pain released under the pressure of madness; where cries are not desperation, tears rolling down the cheeks are not the pieces of soul jumping off the cliff. He disappears into the land in which a cry is just a cry for a little human contact, a cry for a touch, for a sound of beating heart; for love that lights up the grey-blue eyes. He can make her stop; take away her cries, but when he comes out Cy is gone. A cry unheard for too long; a cry echoing in his mind, but the voice of the broken man is long gone.

/

"I feel like I should look for him." He says looking at the potato wedges on his plate and the way the vinegar from the salad is threatening to invade their space.

"Fitz-"

"I know what you'll say." She raises her eyebrows, not offended, but rather amused.

"Really?" It's a challenge, and Zo looks up as well, leaning back in her chair.

"That he's a grown man; that he's not my responsibility and that I should let him be." He says it all in one breath, very pleased with himself.

"Actually," and his smile drops as her lips curl upwards, and Zo's face disappears behind a grin, "I was going to say – I agree. You should look for him. He's not your responsibility, but he's a friend and you love him. And you need this. You need to do this."

"Zo, close your eyes."

"Seriously, guys?" She sounds annoyed, but she says it with a smile that gets even wider as she closes her eyes. He gets up and marches over to his wife, bending down, while his finger lifts her chin up.

"I knew that. I was trying to reverse-psyche you."

"Mhmmmm." And she doesn't wait for him; no she reaches for his neck and pulls him down, their lips meeting, a soft brush of tongues and a moment to linger; a moment of bare touch. Eyes locked they pull apart, "Zo, you can look now."

"You know I've seen you kiss before."

"We know, but you know the rule-"

"Limited PDA." She says in her mock robotic voice, almost perfected – she could be a TV anchor.

"If you end up on one of those MTV reality shows, we don't want to be dragged into it, accused of scarring your psyche."

"You do know I've skipped three grades, and I'm fairly intelligent for my age. I'm a bit too old to believe Nur was brought by a stork, so you know, I know what-"

"Wait, are we having the talk?" He asks, standing up, his face a translucent white.

Both girls chuckle, sharing a look. "Well, clearly you're not. Go look for Cyrus and I'll tell Zo all about condoms." She puts the emphasis on the last word and again they chuckle as he tries to swallow the lump in his throat.

/

"Cy." He's sitting at the bar. Or more accurately, sitting on a stool, while his upper body is sprawled on the bar, his head surrounded by nut peels and empty glasses.

"And my white knight is here." It's humorless, both his voice and his face; completely humorless.

"Come home with me." The man doesn't move. "Cy, James wouldn-"

"Do. Not. Say. His. Name. Don't you dare say his name. Not in front of the alcohol. The bastard left me all alone." His voice cracks at the very end. It breaks, breaks at the recognition, the utterance of his loneliness. The loneliness, not just a consequence of the loss of husband; no, it's more than that. It's loneliness because no one understands, not intimately anyway, the reality of living on, in the aftermath of death. He's the lone survivor of his loss. "I don't want you here." He sounds exasperated. No, he sounds tired and exhausted.

"That's not true though, is it?" For the first time since last night his voice finally sounds like his own – it's not guarded, or controlled; it's caring, but firm; open, not reserved. He sees the old man's ears perk up and goes on, "You went to the same bar I found you in, two times. That doesn't sound like someone who doesn't want to be found." He finally looks up, but loses his balance when he tries to move his body.

"Come here." He wraps the man's arm around his shoulder, and puts his arms securely around him, guiding him out.

"I don't need you to save me."

"James saved me." And there's a flash of surprise in his eyes, but then sadness and hurt creep back in, overpowering him. He'll tell him. One day he'll tell him. One day, when he's ready.

He stays with them. He stays on the couch. The very same place where he got the call, the call that told him his husband was coming back home – back in a coffin, a closed casket; he left to save lives and lost their future to death. The same couch. The same place. He was here. That day, he was here. Liv went to the hospital and he stayed, stayed to make phone calls; stayed to find out, to track Fitz down – he stayed so he could bring him back. His phone rang and he answered – hope, that, that was that tone in his voice – hope; shattered, gone after, "It's about James" and an awkward pause. Hope, gone; pain instead; all this pain. He doesn't remember much about that day, not much aside from the pain and the couch – the way it felt when he fell; when he stumbled into abyss of his husband's death; the way it welcomed him into hopelessness, engulfed him into brokenness.

He stays with them and he drinks himself into a different kind of abyss and they let him; try to help him. Fitz always finds him, he always brings him back. They clean him up; Liv buys him papers and she talks to him about work, about politics and the world – she talks and he listens, although he feigns disinterest. He pushes them away, but they just keep pushing back – slowly peeling away the shells.

/

He hears water running in the kitchen and soft steps break up the silence of the night.

"Liv?" He calls out. He can't sleep. It's starting to get to him – their caring.

"No, it's me."

"Oh, sorry Zoey." She sounds startled and he didn't mean to freak her out; he actually likes her, as much as he can like a child – with all that hope and all those dreams pooled in her eyes, within the reach of their fingertips.

"That's OK." She pauses. "Can I get you something?"

"Oh, no, that's OK. I just couldn't sleep. I don't need anything."

She's quiet for a moment and then she starts moving; but not in the direction of her room; no, instead she slides into the armchair and looks up at him – barely an outline in the dark. "I'm sorry your husband died."

He doesn't know what to say – he knows thanks is appropriate, but it seems silly to thank someone for recognizing the awfulness of death. Silly and pointless, he thinks to himself. "Thanks."

"It's OK." She pauses again, and then, "I guess. I mean I don't really understand why people say thanks."

"It's polite. Because the other person recognized that they're hurting, so they reciprocate. Politeness." But he smiles. She's his kind of child – brilliant.

"But the other people don't really know, do they? I mean they can guess, but unless they felt it, experienced it; they're not going to know what they're feeling sorry for." She doesn't say it in a petulant or a childish voice. It's soft and confident, instead; thoughtful and reflective – she says it for herself as much as she says it to him.

"Why did you say it then?" It's genuine interest, not an accusation; softness, not unpleasantness.

"My parents are dead."

"You miss them?"

"I don't really remember them."

"That doesn't mean you can't miss them. You can miss a future, a possibility, even if you don't remember it, even if you haven't lived through it; especially if you haven't lived it." And his voice trails off as he thinks of the conversation they had the night before James left – the conversation when he finally agreed to give him what he wanted most, to give him a baby. Then a possibility, now a distant memory. She breaks him out, shattering the if-only and bringing him back to reality.

"I miss them sometimes. I wonder what they'd think of me, you know if they'd like me. My mom was a dancer." She smiles quietly; it's faint, a bare curving of her lips – it's more like a twist, a flash of pain dancing, and then it disappears again, letting youthfulness back on her face. "And I, I feel like a part of me died with them too." She inhales deeply, trying to steady her heartbeat. She doesn't know why she's telling him; telling him things she could only think. "I know it's silly. But I feel like I'll never be that person, the person I'd be if they had survived. I mean, I love Liv, I love my family – they are my family; but it's a different me; it's this me; not my parents' me, not the one I would have been."

And the thing is – he understands – he understands perfectly. It's not just a person that one loses; it's a life. Death – it doesn't take someone else, it takes us as well. We mourn death – the death of them, but also the death of the life we'll never have. And that, that other mourning is far worse, for in that – we are alone – that is loneliness. And here he is, in the middle of the night, surrounded by darkness, finding a light in the twelve year-old's eyes.

"I look at Nur sometimes, and how she's learning how to smile. And she smiles when she sees her favorite stuffed duck. And there's this song that makes her lift her arms up and actually move them to the rhythm. It's all these little things that make her who she is. And I, I don't know any of that about me. I don't know what made me smile for the first time, or my favorite song when I was one, or my first words. It's OK, but…" and her voice gets quiet, barely audible, sailing along with silence, "what if I can never really know who I am, if I don't know who I was before?" And she speaks her greatest fear; the one that makes her chest freeze and her breath hitch. And he, he understands.

"We wanted to adopt a baby. And you know, that, that is who I was going to be. I was going to be a 'daddy'. And now, now I don't know who to be – I don't know how to be me without him. I don't know how to find myself separately from that, how to define myself without going back to that."

"Maybe we can't." And he moves his eyes from the ceiling, to take a look at the girl's face. It's relaxed, soft – no trace of pain, just quiet recognition. "Maybe it's not about ignoring the past, maybe it's about embracing it for what it is – a fond memory that's no longer a possibility." She chuckles softly, "Or in my case a dream, not even a memory." And in that moment he realizes – horrible things happen every day. And sometimes, sometimes they make people better, and other times, well – other times they lose themselves; but if they're lucky enough they get offered a second chance. A chance at a different life, but possibly an equally wonderful one.

"You should go to sleep." He tells her softly. She stands up and turns to leave, but then looks back at him.

"You could make a good dad. Once you, you know, clean up."

"I don't know if it's what I want anymore." And that, that is what terrifies him – the not knowing. She nods and makes her way to her door, but then, "Zo?" And she turns around – it's the first time he's used the shorthand. "You already know who you are – you don't need to know the little details of your past to find yourself – you found yourself – and you're a generous and bright young woman. There's a light within you that's a product of both past and present, but has little to do with parents or circumstance – it's who you are Zoey – you're a light. And you, everything, will keep changing, but that – that will stay the same."

"Thanks Cy."

There's a tear clinging to his eyelash, but it's not a sign of a desperate cry, maddening or a painful one – no it's a sign of healing because of just a little human contact. It's a tear for Zoey Pope-Grant who saved his life that night. The next morning when he wakes up he flushes the pills that were under his pillow; he showers and splashes cold water on his face – it's a new day. He steps into the kitchen and is met by a pair of brown eyes that see past the ambition and ruthlessness, past brilliance and the word-games; in them an unmistakable light, a light that breaks through his shells; that sees the man that he could be; a man that he can be.

Sorry it took me forever to update, but I was moving. And wrote this after 48 hours of not sleeping, so you know - keep that in mind :) And I know this wasn't Olitz-centered, but I really wanted to give Cy and Zo a moment. I hope you didn't mind that, but I thought it would be pretty cool if she was the one who could understand him best.

The next chapter will be Olitz fluff tho (I know you're thinking - it's about time).

Two more things - I don't start work for another week, so if you guys want to PM me with an idea for a one-shot; either a song you like as inspiration, or like a place, or an event or something (or you can Tumblr it to me as well). But yeah, I'm taking requests, because I have some spare time and my mind has been a bit slow with this story, and keeps running to one-shots. And secondly (and slightly off topic) to everyone who still reviews I Love You Too - it seriously makes me so happy! That was my fanfic and people still liking and reading it is so amazing. So thanks for reviewing all my stories, honestly you guys are so amazing and inspiring.

Wow, that was a long note. I feel like it should be read in one breath, like Cy's speeches, to make a better impact XD