A/N: Okay, first off. How fun was it watching this last Scandal episode? I feel like it was the Sandal of old. If Kerry Washington ever does a thriller and/or horror piece, I don't think I will be able to see it because she is too much of a good actress. It used to be five minutes after the show I was still sitting there trying to figure out what had just happened, but after this episode I was trying to figure out what had happened to me because I was on the floor screaming instructions at the television by the end of the episode, lol, and then when it went off I was just laying there. Anywho I've read a lot of interpretations of Olivia's dreams and everyone brings up some really interesting points, but I haven't seen anyone bring up the point that when Jake was in the dream it was actually related to her current reality where as the Fitz part of it was in no way shape or form related to anything that is currently going on in her life right now except for Abby, remotely the Tom thing which is over, and the fact that she screwed him which hasn't happened in a while. Plus the 'don't let go part', again this may just be me projecting my inner demons and faults on the character of Olivia but I can see how it could apply to her too. When she told Jake not to let go, to me that was short for 'Yes, I know I'm effing things up, but I know you love me and I need you to keep loving me because I'm going to get my shit together sooner or later and stop hurting you, so I need you to just stick through this with me. I don't know where this will leave us at the end of it all, but I do know that I want us to be on good terms, I want you in my life in some way shape or form.' Which is why she paused when Abby asked her where's Jake, she didn't even pause like that when she asked about Huck being in a pound and you know that's her boy. And then his reply, of I won't, just goes to show how much she actually trusts him with her vulnerability. She knows he's not going to leave her, because he told her he wouldn't and she believes him, it's just hard for her to believe that someone is actually sticking with her and putting up with all of her BS.
Plus, it seems like they set Olake up from some straight up mental harmonious teamwork (hope it goes that way anyway). When that guy was mocking Jake for running out into the street, Olivia was looking at the screen like 'Alright, he's going to need my help to save me this time.' And then she took off the ring and tucked it under the rug while looking at Jake on the screen like she expects him to find it and come for her. Her belief in their two people partnership is still strong, by evidence of that and her dreaming of him saving her. I may be delusional and seeing what I want to see, but I just don't think this set Olake back in anyway. Didn't necessarily move it forward but it revealed a little bit more to us about Liv's actual thoughts on both men.
Plus: I would like to bring up the fact that I was having a discussion in one of my other fics with an Olitzer who stated that she might love Jake but she is in love with Fitz. And my reply was that I didn't think she loved anyone of them, and what was her response when Abby asked her if she loved either of them? What was her response? Deflection and defensive reply! Liv is still figuring out how to sit with Liv comfortably, when she figures that out maybe, just maybe she can love someone else in that way, and no shade, but I'm just saying I doubt that would be Fitz unless some major changes happens because she is just too smart to end up with him the way he and everything is right now, which is why Tom had to be there to protect him (a.k.a keeping him from killing himself) from her when she kites out again, because she really ain't bout that life that Fitz trying to sell her. And then maybe, if Jake get a real job and stop killing people and stops accumulating hits on his life, maybe just maybe it could be him or it could be somebody else completely. Who's to say? I guess Shonda, and we'll have to wait and see what she does with this.
Plus: Why the hell did she drop that gun? I would have been shooting everyone that approached me until I got back to my apartment or at least to some faces that I knew that weren't in on my kidnapping. But I guess it had to go that way for the show to take the direction they want it to go. Just like Jake the B613 trained black ops agent failed to investigate the suspicious noise coming from the apartment cross the hall. Creative licence, I'm not mad.
Anyways, I digress, here's the next chapter.
"Let me just say, this was an awesome idea," Abby said as she dipped another cracker into the crab dip.
"Yes," Anna agreed. "Although I will say I have already gained five pounds since I moved here messing around with you and this sympathy weight," she finished looking at Olivia.
They had decided to have post baby prepping party, an idea they had gotten from one of the third time mothers in the prenatal yoga class. It was when all of the expectant woman's friends gathered at her house around the time the baby was due to help her eat all of the junk food she had stocked during the third trimester, since that was the time she would usually find herself going to the store and just picking up random things that she would normally not eat. That way she would be better prepared to get on the post baby body training schedule and not feel compelled to eat all of the leftover food in her house simply to keep it from going to waste.
Olivia reminded Anna that it was okay because she expected her to come to the gym and train with her and also partake in some of her dieting. To which Anna completely agreed at this point since her dancing was starting to pick up a little more and she was actually getting more serious job offers in D.C now that her work was becoming more known around the area.
"So tomorrow makes forty weeks," Quinn told her. "What did the doctor say?"
"Nothing," Olivia told her.
"She told her her cervix was still closed," Anna offered, making Olivia give her a look to which she responded by laughing.
"Sorry Liv," Abby told her. They all knew how miserable Olivia was and to be honest they were all growing increasingly anxious. They wanted to meet this little one, but they were also afraid that Olivia was going to flip out and start offing people any second, especially after seeing her go on one of her more vicious verbal rants with one of the clients after they discovered she had lied to them. They had all witnessed it and had taken a little more interest in her mental and emotional stability during the last week.
"Why don't you just have sex?" Anna told her. The three other women shared a look as Anna continued to eat from the bowl of chocolate pudding.
"What are you talking about?" Abby asked her.
"Have sex," she said nonchalantly. "It'll make you go into labor."
"No it won't," Quinn told her, but the three women were still looking to her, clearly interested in her reasoning.
"Uhh, yes," she replied.
"Anna, you can't induce labor by having sex," Olivia told her.
"Okay, fine whatever," she defended, "but I think I know more about this than any of you."
"How do you know more about this than anyone in this room?" Olivia asked her in a sarcastic, yest somewhat placating tone, seeing her take a defensive stance.
"Because Olivia," she told her causing Abby to smile as they were again slipping back into the role of the young twenty-somethings she had grown to know and love, "I actually had stable female friends back in LA. Some of them who were actually sane enough to hide their insanity long enough to get and keep a man in a stable relationship and pop out some babies." She looked back down at her phone, before mumbling. "Which is more than I can say for any of you."
"Well, gee thanks," Abby told her letting her know they had heard her. She didn't care.
"How does it work?" Quinn asked not fazed by Anna's comments as she had grown used to them.
"I think it's something in the sperm," she told them. "It causes the cervix to soften or something. It has some of the stuff that they used to induce labor in the hospital, at least that's the theory I hear. And the orgasm can start the uterus contracting. And if you get someone who knows how to hit all four cylinders at once, the nipple stimulation…"
"Alright Anna," Olivia interrupted her. "We get it." She took a sip from her tea before going for the crab dip sitting in front of Abby.
"That actually sounds like it might work, Liv," Abby told her, after a collective moment of silence from the room. "I mean if sperm can help to make a baby, it has to be useful for something else, right?
"It does work," Anna told her, "And you've got perfectly good dick right here under the same roof with you, so if you want to pop this kid out in the next couple of days and not have to wait another week, I suggest you saddle up and mount his ass," she finished before getting up to go into the kitchen to grab another bottle of wine.
Olivia watched as she disappeared into the kitchen wondering how Anna still had not managed to learn how to censor her mouth even in her 30's. The thought however had intrigued her and she found herself contemplating Anna's suggestion. She wanted this baby out and she could think of less pleasant ways to go about getting that done.
"Hey, how'd it go?" she asked from the couch as he walked into the living room. He had gone to talk to a friend about a job earlier and told her that he would probably be back later as he planned to grab a few beers and catch up with said friend. To which she had mildly threatened him that if he got himself killed or incarcerated, lawfully or unlawfully, while she was literally due to go into labor at any moment, he would be begging her to hand him over to her father by the time she got through with him. He had informed her that it was a legit meeting and that he would be back unscathed at the end of the night after their girls' night was finished. He had found it best to not be in a room alone with them as it made him feel alienated as they one, often ignored him or two, they usually set him up asking him for a guy's perspective on a topic they were discussing to which he concluded the only correct answer was to remain silent which they would not let him do.
"It went okay," he told her as he went into the kitchen to grab a beer. She waited until he came back out. "Sorry I missed you guys' eating party," he lied causing her to smile and hit him lightly on the arm.
"Did you enjoy spending time with your friend?" she asked, causing him to pause and take more notice of her demeanor. She was too happy to see him. Since his eyes had popped open that morning he hadn't been able to do anything better than slightly annoy Olivia.
"Yeah," he told her, studying her a little longer before turning back to the television. Whatever it was, it would play itself out, soon. He could feel it coming.
"How's he been? Was he happy to see you?" she continued.
Okay, now he was getting worried. She was clearly up to something. One thing he had established before he had left was that Olivia did not like this friend, even though she had not met him. She didn't like this whole secretive job thing and therefore had decided that she didn't like his friend. So why was she all of a sudden interested in his well-being and if he had had a good night out.
"He's good," he told her, trying to catch her angle. "We had fun."
He continued to look at her waiting for her to continue, but she simply replied, "That's good," before turning back to the nightly news. He soon turned back to the television himself but her next question made his head snap back in her direction.
"You wanna have sex?" she asked bluntly, and in a way that made all of the previous questions seem like the niceties a college guy would extended before trying to get a girl to go back to his apartment with him. He nearly choked on his beer.
"I'm sorry, what?" he asked for clarification.
"I asked if you wanted to have sex," she told him, in disbelief of his surprised reaction. It wasn't like she was asking him to rejoin B6-13 and the most that could come from her request had already happened so she didn't see what the big deal was. "You don't want to have sex with me?" She seemed as if her feelings were hurt a little bit.
"I didn't say that," he quickly corrected. "I just didn't know we were on...sex having terms right now. You've seemed a little annoyed with me lately."
"I have not," she lied.
"Liv before I left earlier, you told me to stop breathing on you," he stated making his point. "I was five feet away from you." She had really been on edge with everyone, he just assumed he got the worst of it because he was under the same roof as her and because he was unable to get pregnant. He got this from the fact that after he pointed out to her that they should probably leave her hospital bag next to the door instead of putting it in a car since they still hadn't decided which car they would be taking when the time came or if they would possibly need to call an ambulance. He then told her that they should probably keep one at her office too to which she turned to yell at him, "I'm sorry, are you going to be the one doing this?" After that he had learned to keep his opinions to himself until he was specifically asked for them, though there was now a bag at her office and perched under the table stand next to the door. Usually he would call her out on her craziness but he figured since she was obviously going through something he could never experience that he would let her have it. Also he didn't even think that she would care at this point if he pointed out to her that she was behaving like an insane person.
She just glared at him before reiterating her original question. "Do you want to have sex or not?"
"Ye…yeah," he stumbled over the word.
"Okay then," she stated letting him know that it was always meant to be a yes or no question and she didn't appreciate his deviation from that plot with his questions and opinion passing.
He was about to ask how they were going to maneuver the mechanics of it this time, but didn't get a chance as she straddled him and pressed her lips to his. Her hand immediately went for the zipper on his jeans. She stuck her hand through the zipper opening and smiled against his lips when she realized he already had a half hard on.
"Are you okay?" Huck asked her as he saw her grab the bottom of her stomach and place her hand on the wall as she bent forward a little. "You want me to call Jake, or Abby , or…someone?" He was a little nervous. Somehow he had been the one to get left at the office with the term pregnant woman. He had been trained for a lot of things in his life including digging through a persons insides as a form of torture, but this wasn't one of them.
"I'm fine," she said straightening up again. She made it across the hall to her office and grabbed a few papers before starting to head back towards the conference room. She had just made it through the door of the conference room when she felt the same pain causing her to, again grab the wall, the papers slipping from her hand.
"Liv, let me call…," Huck tried as he stood up from his seat.
"I'm fine Huck," she insisted. She had been having these contractions, god she hoped it was contractions and not Braxton Hicks again, all morning. She had talked to the doctor who told her that she should come in the following morning unless the contractions become more frequent, she experienced bleeding, or it seemed like her water had broken. The contractions had been more frequent during the last two hours, every five to ten minutes to be exact but she was trying to ignore it as she wanted to finish up the day at the office before she was confined to a hospital bed for a few days.
She stooped, with some trouble to help Huck pick up the papers she had dropped but only made it half way down before she stood up suddenly and looked down at her stomach. Huck noticed her sudden movement and looked up at her. "What? What's wrong?" he asked her, sensing the change in her demeanor.
She looked at him, eyes wide and took a second to register the wetness she felt before replying. "I think," no she didn't think, either it had happened or she was starting to have hallucinations or she had loss all control and sensation of her bladder function. "My water just broke," she told him.
He stared at her for a moment before he stood too, forgetting the papers on the floor. "What do you want me to do?"
It took her a minute to reply. She had to gather her thoughts. She had been waiting for this for a while and had been trying to actively make it happen for the last two weeks, but now she was shocked that it was actually happening.
"Liv," Huck called her name causing her to look up at him. "What do you want me to do?" he asked again.
"Okay," she said gathering her thoughts. She took a second to think, "Okay, grab my bag in my office, it's behind my desk and drive me to the hospital."
"Okay," Huck said as he ran to her office to get her bag. He returned and they made their way to the elevator. He focused on navigating through the afternoon traffic, trying to avoid areas known for the heavier, stand still traffic. He called Jake after he had safely gotten her handed off to a nurse as he was able to take a good breath then, and informed him of their current situation. After talking to Jake, he proceeded to call everyone else.
"Here. Take them," she said in a clearly frustrated tone as she tossed the phone to Anna and returned to her hunched over position, preparing to have a needle placed into her back. Her phones had been ringing all day. Her regular phone more than the one Fitz called her on but she couldn't help but think some of those calls on the other phone were either about him or from him. She was in pain and now she was super stressed as she was trying to prepare to welcome her first child into the world because the people who had stolen countless nights of sleep and endless moments of solitude from her couldn't give her a few days to do just that. She managed to steal a side glance at Jake who just stared at her with those eyes. It wasn't so much that she felt like he was judging her than he was invading her thoughts and knew exactly what she was thinking, feeling and that she had wanted to throw the phones against the wall rather than to Anna who stood at the end of the bed since she had been growing more and more frustrated every time the phone rang. Damn him and those eyes, she wanted to punch him in the face.
The pain in her back erased that thought from her mind as she flinched a little bit and let out a low hissing sound. The doctor apologized and informed her that it was numbing medication in preparation for the epidural needle and that it should be the worst part before warning her not to move for the fiftieth time. She then felt a familiar hand slip into hers and opened her eyes to see Jake had moved closer to her, offering her his hand for support which she gladly took. Before she could fully appreciate the comforting measure, she heard a ringing sound coming from behind her and whipped her head around towards Anna, sending a murderous glare her way, or rather towards the objects in her hand.
"I'm going," Anna said holding the phones up in the air in surrender as she tip toed out of the room, afraid Olivia might attack her in her quest to destroy the phones she had just thrown to her.
Olivia turned facing forward again, trying to re-assume the position she had been in before she moved. She heard the doctor sigh before once again informing her that this was the very critical part as the needle would be close to her spinal cord and any sudden movement could cause the epidural not to work, which she did not want, or nerve damage, which she also did not want. Then she noticed that Jake's face was closer to hers as he whispered in her ear telling her that she could not move.
"I know," she replied, resting her forehead against the front of his shoulder. The position she was supposed to maintain was not the most comfortable, especially with a huge uterus keeping you from being able to curl forward effectively so she took the opportunity of his closeness to relieve some of the stress off of her back. "Sorry," she said loud enough for the doctor to hear. She knew what it was like dealing with people who made your job harder by not being able to follow simple directions.
"It's okay," the doctor told her before informing her he just wanted the best outcome of the procedure for her and her baby. "Let's wait for this next contraction to pass," he said and she immediately felt what he was talking about as her uterus again began contracting and she let out a small soft grunt as she squeezed her eyes tight as well as Jake's hands.
She felt a pair of familiar lips press against her temple and she leaned further into him inhaling his familiar scent, as he soothingly reminded her to breath and told her that it would pass in a little bit. It was comforting, not as comforting as taking a hammer to her cell phones, but she figured it was the next best thing. The contraction passed and the doctor confirmed with her that they were ready to continue.
"Hey, you remember that creepy guy that Bob used to bring with him on the boat sometimes," she heard his voice whisper into her ear. She could tell he was smiling, which caused a smile to come to her face also. "That weird, creepy laugh he had," Jake said before mimicking the man's laugh which could only be described as an electrical buzzing followed by something what sounded like a mixture of a chronic smoker with a cold and a cat trying to cough up a hairball. The laugh itself was creepy but the fact that it came at the most awkward times did nothing but add to the amusement of it all. Harold had been the guy's name that would sometimes accompany the boat delivery guy Bob while they had been on the island. She started to laugh but immediately stopped herself, well as best she could, as she realized her laughter was causing her body to shake and there was currently a needle in her back.
"Stop, making me laugh," she told him. He snorted before apologizing. They both managed to stop laughing but the smiles remained on their faces. But a few seconds later Olivia's was gone as she felt a pressure sensation in the center of her back.
"That's it" the doctor informed her, seeing her flinch again. "We're in. Just need you to hold still a little while longer so we can give you the medication and thread the catheter."
She nodded against Jake's shoulder, and heard Anna come back into the room asking what she had missed.
"What did you do with them?" was her response. To which the woman replied they were in her purse currently powered off, the answer which Olivia seemed to accept.
"There, all done," the doctor informed her as he began moving all of his equipment off of the bed so she could lye back down. He gave her instructions on how to use the epidural catheter and assured her he would be around if anything malfunctioned. He also warned her that she would probably want to back off on medications the closer it came to time to push as it often interfered with pushing and caused more women to have to push longer or in worst cases get a Cesarean section.
She lay back down in the bed as she could feel her legs growing heavier and noticed that she didn't feel the next contraction as much. Anna informed them that Abby and Quinn had called and that they were on their way. She had also informed them that she had exchanged some not so nice words with Cyrus and told him to stop calling her phone because she was currently trying to birth a baby, though it probably didn't come off as nicely as she had relayed it to them given the sweet smile that adorned the woman's face as she told them this.
Olivia fought the urge to ask if he had said what he had wanted as she was exhausted and the thought of actually being able to get some rest now that she had her new pain device outweighed those concerns. Jake was about to say something to her but he saw her eyelids fluttering close. Instead he turned to Anna asking her if she wanted to run down to the cafeteria to get some food. He had been hungry for hours but had refused to leave Olivia's side who had been informed that she shouldn't eat until after the baby was born just in case there were any complications that required a c-section. Then she had made it adamantly clear to everyone, the doctors, nurses, Anna and himself and a few people passing by in the hallway too, he was sure, that she did not want to be cut unless her baby's life was in danger. So he had stayed by her side, but now that she was out he would think at least for the next few hours or at least until she need to deliver herself another dose of pain medication, he figured he would take fifteen minutes to run down to the cafeteria grab some food then devour it before she had a chance to wake up and make them feel guilty about eating in front of her while she was unable to eat anything but ice chips.
She had been dozing off and on for the last few hours. This time when she opened her eyes she saw Anna was also asleep, her head resting on the pillow next to Olivia's as she sat in the chair next to Olivia's bed. Then she felt it, the strongest contraction that she had felt yet with a lot of pressure, it caused her to grab the younger woman's forearm. Anna stirred from her sleep, looking at her with a worried expression as she confusedly took in the painful look on Olivia's face. Then she heard Jake's voice from behind her asking if she was okay. She wanted to say no, but she wasn't sure. She had never given birth before so she wasn't sure what she was or wasn't supposed to be feeling, but she could tell something was different than before.
"I don't know," she told him, as she turned on her back to see Abby standing over her with a worried expression. "Can you get the doctor?"
"Yeah, sure," he replied quietly before hurrying from the room.
At this point Anna and Quinn were on their feet as well, as Abby brushed a piece of hair out of her face. She heard Anna say something, which sounded like a question, but honestly her voice was muted as she was focused on breathing through the end of the contraction. She wanted to press the epidural button, but the feeling that she was having felt a lot like the feeling of wanting to push that had been described to her before.
Thankfully, Jake soon returned with a nurse that checked her. "What are you feeling?" the nurse asked as she stuck her hand under the covers.
"Feels like I want to push," Olivia managed before another contraction hit her, this time Jake was the victim of her forearm death grip. She tried to breathe through it but she could also feel herself involuntarily barring down. "Okay, I'm pushing," she stated letting the nurse know that her opinion on rather she should are not was starting to become obsolete.
"Yeah," the nurse said after examining her, "no wonder you feel like you have to push. Let me grab Dr. Allen and we can have ourselves a little girl."
"Oh my gosh, Yes," Anna exclaimed forgetting about the arm she had been nursing. "We're going to have a baby."
Olivia was pretty sure that out of everyone in the room, she was the only one experiencing the joys of childbirth but she refrained from saying anything as she was sure a contraction would come again and take her breath away at any moment.
"Liv are you okay?" Abby asked grabbing the hand that wasn't currently clinging to Jake's. It was clearly a rhetorical question as the other woman didn't give her time to respond. "I'm scared."
Okay, now they were irritating her. "What?" she asked with an unbelievable look on her face. "Why are you scared?"
"Okay," Abby said grabbing Quinn's hand, "we're going to leave now."She pulled Quinn towards the door after seeing the road this was beginning to go down, leaving Anna and Jake behind for support.
Anna tried to retreat with them, afraid of getting her head chewed off too, but Olivia was clinging tightly to her so she got settled in at the bedside and managed to maneuver's Olivia's grip from her forearm to her hand, fighting herself the entire time not to make a smart ass comment.
Soon Dr. Allen entered with the previous nurse and another nurse and another team of two nurses that she assumed were for the baby since they stayed near the tiny bed in the corner, turning on the warming light and preparing it to be inhabited by the tiny being that was definitely trying to make a grand entrance. She asked Olivia if she was ready, to which her body responded for her with another contraction.
Taking that as the go ahead signal, they began breaking apart the bed and pulling out some stirrups that Olivia hadn't even realized were attached to the bed until then.
"Liv don't get mad at me," Anna said quickly, "but I'm scared. I don't think I can handle this."
Olivia looked at her in disbelief. What was there for her to handle? She felt the woman's hand slipping out of her hand and held on tighter. "Stay," she growled as another contraction hit. Anna just nodded and settled into her place next to Olivia's bed for the long haul.
"You need a chair?" the nurse asked Jake. "We've had too many fathers hit the floor. We don't need three patients."
"I don't know," was his distant response. He was pretty sure that he probably wouldn't need a chair, but then again he was pretty sure that he probably would. He had seen blood and guts and brain matter before, but he had never seen anyone give birth and too be honest, he had looked away for the most part during the birthing scenes on the DVDs.
"For good measure," the nurse said pushing the chair behind him, making sure that if he fell he would fall into the chair or at the very least it would break his fall on the way to the floor.
She was about to make an announcement that everyone with her needed to get their shit together or else she was going to kick them out of the room, but before she could say anything Dr. Allen indicated that the monitor was showing another contraction and that she wanted her to push with this one and she would count her through it.
A/N: Okay one more thing. People have been saying that they can't wait for Fitz to save her, which I don't know that he won't, but what about Fitzgerald during this entire series has pointed to him as the type to actually successfully save or contribute positively to the problem solving. At most he winged some shit that just luckily happened to not make matters worse. Honestly, I could see Mellie saving Liv before I see Fitz successfully saving her. Now don't get me wrong, he's probably going to contribute, but if the man who needs someone there to steadily hold his hands and make decisions for him and is constantly playing the victim that will be the Kansas City Shuffle of Scandal...well actually Fitz turning into a respectable human being would be, but you get my point.
Reviews people!