Right, so it's been forever. Hope you're all doing fine and rocking at life. Trigger warnings for this chapter: self harm and suicide, so you might want to skip it.
Two heads on the same pillow. His chest is to her back - rising and falling in the same rhythm. Their legs entangled, the tips of her toes reaching his ankles. His arms are wrapped around her, a cocoon, his hands resting on her belly, her hands on his, their fingers interlaced. They are one.
A soft buzz. The darkness of the room is broken by the flashing of the screen. She stirs. "Fitz."
"Mhmmm." He nuzzles into her neck, buries his face in her hair. It smells divine, it smells like her, like home. "No."
Still buzzing. "Fitz…" She hits his hip gently with her elbow, moves her feet up his calves to his knees. "Fitz… Your phone."
"Sleep." He pulls her in, closer, closer still.
"Phone." And there is an edge to her voice, an edge that instantly awakes him. And he turns around, rubbing his eyes with heels of his palms. Unknown number. It can wait till the morning. He pulls her in again, wraps her in his arms. The big spoon. Another buzz.
"I swear to god…" And she pushes him away. He grunts in protest, but reaches for the phone just the same. This better be good.
"Hello." And suddenly he is awake.
She is asleep. No, she's not really, she's in a state of half-consciousness when reality seems so beautifully distant yet within reach, in a state in which she is at peace, the warmth of his body still lingering on her skin, in a state in which she can hear his voice, in which she can hear the change in it – from slumberous to pure panic. It's a moment between breaths and suddenly she is awake. She is sitting at the edge of the bed, her hands on his shoulders, her voice strained – "What's wrong?" And the truth is – she doesn't want to know.
She doesn't remember. She doesn't remember how he tells her. She's heard stories of people and shock and 3am phone calls and somehow they always seem to remember the exact wording, they seem to recall everything with precision, as if from a distance. She can't. She doesn't remember. She doesn't remember how he told her it was about Karen, she doesn't remember putting her clothes on, him putting on his. She doesn't remember waking up Cy, or calling Mellie. She doesn't remember starting the car and offering to drive. She doesn't remember holding his hand on the way there, or squeezing it every time they stopped at a traffic light. She doesn't remember saying – "She'll be fine." She remembers nothing but paralyzing guilt, a pit in her stomach, a voice in her mind, screaming – this – could have been prevented, she could have prevented it. She should have. That, that is all she remembers. It's all she'll remember.
They're at the hospital before sunrise. It's quiet. Too quiet. And bright, the neon lights give everything a glow, it seems otherworldly somehow. There are too many hallways, too many corners, too many doors to pass, too many nurses who don't know and too many minutes before there is someone who does. And the doctor – she's too young, she looks too young, and she looks too relaxed, she doesn't look like a hero, like she could save someone's life.
"We pumped her stomach. Her vitals are steady. There doesn't seem to be any permanent damage, but we won't know for sure until the morning."
"What kind of damage?" And her voice sounds foreign. A whisper of a broken creature.
"Can we see her?" It's the first time he speaks since they left the house and his voice is hoarse, thick, no gentleness in it. The doctor nods and leads the way. They follow in step. She's holding his hand.
She looks at the floor when the doctor opens the door. She looks at the tiles, and the lines that run between them. She looks at their feet, their unsteady steps. She can't look up, physically can't. She can't see her this way. But he squeezes her hand and it's not about her in that moment, it's about him and the fact that his daughter tried to kill herself, and she's lying in a bed looking broken and frail. She's there, but she's gone; she's been gone for a while, but now he knows, he finally knows. She looks up. The girl is pale, a greenish shade, her cheeks sunken, her lips a dark red. Skin seems loose on her bones, it's a soft purple, covered in large bruises. Her wrists are facing the sheets. There are tubes and wires connecting her to machines, and there are noises and beeps, but they're steady, they're calming – she's alive, she's breathing.
He lets go of her hand.
He's towering over the bed and then he's leaning and kissing the girl's forehead, running his fingers through her hair. Frantically. Desperately. As if stopping, even for a moment would let her slip away. And she just stands there, rooted in place. And she feels her stomach contract, and acid travelling up, and she's running out of the room, running towards the bathroom. Except that there are too many hallways, and too many corners and she doesn't really know where she's going. And she's dizzy, and she can't breathe, and the floor seems to be spinning, the square tiles are moving, and the ground – it's shifting beneath her feet. And she's falling, and someone catches her before she hits the ground, but she can't make a sound, and it's all noise, just noise, she can't hear the voices. And they're giving her something to drink, and a pill and it's all coming back into focus, and the sounds are becoming clear, her heart is no longer drumming in her ears.
"Your blood pressure is dangerously low."
"I'm pregnant." She says as she swings her feet off the bed.
"Still, it's low, even with the pregnancy." The nurse says with a small but impatient smile. He seems like a decent guy. Young – why are all of them young – but polite, compassionate.
"I feel fine." She plasters a smile. It is not kind. It's her way of ending a conversation, of having a final say without uttering a single word. "I should get back to my husband."
"You should eat something." He says as he helps her off the bed. "Get some sugar in your system." She nods her head, but she's already walking away.
He's back where she left him. Leaning over the bed, his hands still running through Karen's hair. She pulls two chairs from their spot near the wall, and wonders, in a completely casual way a desperate mind usually strays – why they keep them by the wall, when surely everyone would want to sit by the bed. And they sit. They wait.
The sun comes up and the sky changes colors, purple, to pink to a soft white, until it's powder blue with an occasional feather-light cloud. The girl awakes at 6, then again at 8. She shivers. Uncontrollably. He climbs into bed with her and holds her, but she doesn't stop. She yells at the nurses, because why are there no more blankets, and she knows as she says it – it would make no difference, but something has to, and the blankets, the pillows, the water – it's what she knows. She speaks to Zoey, she leaves out the details – she says, it might have been an accident. The lie leaves a bitter aftertaste. A bottle of pills. There's nothing accidental about it.
Mellie comes a little bit after the shivering stops. She doesn't know the time. No, the hours melt into one – she knows the number of times the girl has woken up, the number of times she coughed, the number of times she turned; the number of times he re-adjusted, pulled her closer, without ever looking up. She knows the number of scars. There are more now. Mellie cries. Quietly. A hand over her lips, tears rolling down her cheeks. She's never seen her like this. No make up. Hair in a ponytail. Karen's hair. She just stands in the doorway for a while and when she finally moves her steps are unsteady, unsure, as if she's afraid that she'll hurt her more by coming closer. She stops next to Liv, and gives her a small smile, "Thanks for being here."
She wants to crawl out of her own skin, the guilt, the guilt is burning every single inch of it. But she nods, and squeezes her hand, she mutters a, "She'll be OK." She walks over to Fitz, and he just nods, silently. He slips out of the bed, after kissing the top of Karen's head, and she slips in. The girl snuggles into her, unconsciously, instinctually.
"You should go get some coffee." She says, her eyes never leaving Karen. They nod, and walk out in silence. He reaches for her hand and she intertwines their fingers, she leans her head on his arm. And the world seems to still for a moment, it seems quieter, bearable.
/
"She had scars on her wrists." He says, as he sits down on the bench outside of the hospital, coffee in hand. "On her wrists and her forearms and… Liv they were all different scars, this, this has been going on for a while."
She looks down. Her fingers play with the rim of the plastic lid on her cup. She has to tell him. He has to know. He'll hate her, but he has to know. She'd rather he hates her, than hates himself. "I knew she was cutting." She wants to keep looking down, looking at the lid, because really, suddenly, it's quite fascinating the way the foam is clinging to the edges of plastic, and the sun is hitting it at an angle and the shadows are stretching… but no, she has to look up, into his eyes – he deserves for her to look into his eyes when she breaks his heart.
"Wh-What?" And it's the first time in the past 24 hours he sounds completely broken.
"I knew she was cutting." He shakes his head. His eyes seem darker, a storm is passing through them. "I saw a scar in January."
"How could you not tell me?" He doesn't sound broken any more. No. He sounds furious, there is a harshness in his voice, a tone she's never heard before, a tone he's never used on her before. It stings, it cuts deep.
"She asked me not to tell you and she said she had stopped and I arranged for her to see a therapist back at school and-"
"She is a child Olivia. I am her dad." His voice is shaking from anger now, "I don't care what she asked, you do not keep this away from me, you do not hide this from me, you do not fix it without me."
"I know, I know and I'm sorry-" her voice is sobs between broken breaths, and damn-it she doesn't want to be crying, no, she doesn't want his pity, but the thing is-
"No, you don't get to be sorry. She was hurting. She was hurting and you didn't tell me. How would you feel if it was Zoey! How would you feel if it was Zoey, and she was so hurt she was doing this to herself and I didn't tell you! If it was Zoey in pain and I kept it from you?!" There is no pity in his voice. No softness. No affection. Just anger. Harsh and cold.
"I just…"
"What?" He cuts her off, and she knows, in that moment she knows, there is nothing she can tell him, not now anyway, that will make him see it her way. Because in that moment – she doesn't see it her way, she can't remember, why she didn't tell him, she doesn't remember why she kept it from him. In that moment she wants him to hate her, because she thinks she deserves it, she deserves every ounce of his anger.
"Nothing… I- I'm sorry."
"Yeah, well, so am I." And he gets up, heading towards the glass door.
"Fitz…" He stops, but doesn't turn around. "What will make it better?" And they both know what she's asking.
"You should go back to New York." And with that he walks away.
She stays on the bench for what seems like hours. She can't move. She can't go back in there and face his anger again. She can't stand his glare, the way his eyes look through her. But she can't walk away either. She can't leave him. Not now, not when his world is coming apart at the seams. She is at crossroads. She is lost. She is alone. Her father long gone, her mother still a fresh wound, Cy, Cy a friend, but not family – he wouldn't understand that staying, it's about Karen as much as it is about him, it's about saving her when she couldn't save her father.
Out of all the people on the planet, he is the only one who could understand, he is her family, he's the only one left. So she gets up, soaks in the last of the waning sun and heads inside. She can handle it – she can handle his hanger, his disdain. She can handle it. But she can't handle walking away from him. Not now. Not ever. She meant it, what she said on that rooftop, years ago, she meant – forever. And she is Olivia Pope – she doesn't give up, she doesn't back away from a fight. She will be there, by his side, until he is strong enough to let himself love her again.
A/N: Well, some of you called this a couple of chapters back. I knew I was going to go here for quite some time for a number of reasons. I'm wrapping this story up and this opens up a lot of stuff that got buried in the past. Liv wanting to save everyone because of her dad, raising kids on two Coasts will finally be dealt with, and how far loyalty and commitment go. Will they make it on the other side?... I'm still undecided. Thanks for reading and have good next 84 years.