Chapter 7
THEN
August 2011
White House Executive Residence
Washington, D.C.
"You're… not… ah!–playing fair…"
Ignoring her glib protest, Fitz dipped his head to seal his lips over one of her perfect, pert nipples. He laved and scraped at the sensitive flesh with tongue and teeth as Olivia writhed in his lap, pinned down and in place by his iron grip on her thighs, pointedly denying her the movement she was steadily unraveling without.
He was being stern with her–determinedly so. Rock hard and buried to the hilt, her velvety warmth quivering around his cock like tiny aftershocks the more she squirmed in his grasp. This was every bit an exercise in endurance for Fitz; one he intended on seeing to completion. Dragging his teeth along her nipple a final time, Fitz slowly released the tortured bud before abruptly switching course, lifting Olivia up off his lap and withdrawing from her completely.
The shock of the sudden loss elicited a heady gasp that lowered to a blunted whine as she scrambled to recover. Pinpricks of pure, peak frustration gathered in the corners of her eyes. Fitz responded with a kiss to her swollen lips, moving to her flushed cheeks, trailing lovebites down her jawline until he reached her beautiful neck; all the while keeping his tight grip on her lower half so that she remained in place astride his lap, wrists secured behind her back, and her bare legs spread to expose the wetness seeping from her fucked-open core.
He claimed Olivia's mouth again, plundering with his lips and tongue while his hand crept between them and cupped her sex. Olivia moaned, rising up to deepen their kiss as Fitz's thumb began lightly circling her clit. She broke their kiss with a beady whimper.
"Fitz…"
He met her pleas dead on with measured obliviousness, all the while continuing his steady assault on her clit. With the tip of his finger, he began probing the outer rim of her core, only going as far as the tip. Olivia wailed.
She tried lifting herself up further away from his lap, desperate to escape the teasing. But Fitz's other hand, bracing the small of her back, kept her in place. Fitz continued to work her over. The fluid seeping from her coated his fingers the more he probed her, the friction working against her as he added another finger.
"Baby, please…" Olivia whimpered. She gave an abortive cry of thanks when he added a third finger. But the relief was short lived as he stilled his ministrations to a complete halt. Olivia's head dropped to Fitz's shoulder with a defeated sob. Fitz smirked.
Fair play was vastly overrated.
"You're already so swollen, sweetheart," he cooed.
She groaned again as he withdrew one finger. Cupping her ass with his free hand, guided her into an agonizingly slow rhythm against the digits buried in her.
"You've already come for me so many times," he murmured. "Don't tell me you've still got more to give."
Olivia whimpered into the collar of his dress shirt, as she tried to rut herself to relief against the palm of his hand.
"You're greedy," he scolded. "I am, too. But you knew that."
He stilled his ministrations again, tightening his hold on the curve of her ass to once again keep her in place. Olivia keened and shook her head vigorously into his neck, knowing full well what his next words would be.
"I'll give you what you want, Livvie. But you have to give me what I want, first."
She mewled. "Can't…"
It was a far less articulate refusal than the ones that had preceded it, over the previous days. Fitz had wasted asking, and begging, and bargaining, each fruitless attempt hitting the wall of stone cold refusal. Until he'd finally thrown in the towel on diplomacy for want of simply fucking the Yes out of her. Lo and behold, progress.
Let it once more be said that fair play was for suckers.
"You're almost there, Livvie," he cajoled. Once more he slid a third finger inside her, plunging all three into the knuckle before carefully withdrawing them one by one. And again. In. And out. And again until Olivia's walls clenched and quivered around his fingers. She bucked. He held her down, keeping her at his mercy, her relief, literally in his hands. He brushed against her clit with the tip of his thumb. Olivia squeaked in surprise. Her body went rigid, the muscles of her upper half pulling taut as she tried to escape the added sensation.
"Please, baby…"
"Shhh… You know what I'm waiting to hear."
Fitz continued his slow torture, drawing out each stroke as long and deep as possible the more a desperate Olivia squirmed and pleaded.
"It's easy. Just one little word," he soothed as he massaged her engorged clit. Trapped between his probing fingers and the immobilizing hand on the curve of her ass, Olivia's only escape was to bury her face in his shoulder and endure. Her breathy little moans heightened to guttural shrieks muffled into the meat of Fitz's shoulder while he, with tender precision, plucked the final, frayed threads of her resolve, one by one.
Fitz kissed her brow and leaned in and drove three fingers in all at once, burying them to the knuckle as the woman on his lap wailed. Swallowing her cries with his own mouth, he was pitiless with this final incursion, roughly working her open, using her own wetness against her as he drilled her quivering channel faster, harder, a pace measured only by Olivia's heady, blissed-out mewls. Shifting her up to reach a better angle, Fitz dipped his head and took one of her nipples in his mouth and volleyed it between tongue and teeth while his fingers kept up their work. He released it, and looking up at her, murmured into the swell of her breast.
"Come away with me, Livvie."
He wouldn't ask again, wouldn't have to. The fire sale had ended. There were no more offers left on the table. This was a plea bargain.
Head-to-head, gazes locked, Fitz's thrusts kept up their relentless rhythm as he watched Olivia's glassy eyes go dull and then flutter shut, resigned to ecstasy. Her lips parted, and sweet little grunts of pleasure-pain eked through as the walls of her swollen, perfect pussy quivered and clenched around him.
Fitz instinctively relaxed his hold on her and, reaching behind her for her bound wrists, he pulled the necktie loose. Olivia sighed prettily, cheeks coloring with the swell of relief. Her arms at first dangled limply at her sides before she painstakingly raised and looped them around his neck.
Fitz stilled his motions, demanding a full answer.
"Yes," Olivia breathed
And, in a fluid series of moves, Fitz slipped out of her, lifted her from his lap, swept the remains of dinner to the floor, and spread Olivia across the hastily-cleared dining table. His cock, rock hard and eager to fill the void his fingers had left, sprang free of his suit pants and jammed to the hilt inside her tight sheathe. Olivia's back arched with the intrusion, needing a moment to accommodate him even with ample preparation. When she settled, he moved, gripping her hips to bring her down to meet his fevered pace. Olivia took him in eagerly, unquestioningly. Nearly blind on the precipice of satiation, her head rolled back and her eyes followed suit as she cried out.
"Yes!"
Fitz hovered over her and captured her lips in a long searing kiss; finding her hands, he took both hers in one of his and pinned them above her head.
"That's it. Good girl…" he urged against her mouth, pounding harder, deeper in time with her wet gasps of pleasure.
With a free hand, he tweaked a battered nipple, squeezing and scraping it between the nails and tips of his fingers. Olivia wailed low in her throat and Fitz kissed the spot, trailing up her jaw, her cheeks, the corners of her eyes, the shell of her ear, then bit down.
"Take all of me, Livvie."
"Yes…" her head bobbed weakly as tears leaked from doe eyes glazed with bliss; swollen lips mouthed formless shapes, too far gone to know what exquisite sounds were passing through them. Again and again, Fitz seasoned his praise with soft kisses to every piece of her he could reach.
"So perfect. So good for me, sweetheart…"
"Yes…"
"Good girl…Just like that…"
"Yes…Yes…Yess.."
One Week Later…
Champs d'Orés Estate
Santa Rosa, California
This was going to work. She and Fitz were going to be together–were together–and were going to be together. They had their plan and they were sticking to it, and this was going to work.
So it more than made sense that she was here, on a spur-of-the-moment trip to California with her married boyfriend, as opposed to being in D.C. with her team, helping them work the Caldwell case. Because they needed to get comfortable flying solo, without her there to run point. They had no choice (though they had no idea there was even a choice that had been made, that she'd for all intents and purposes preemptively abandoned them). Because the plan was going full speed ahead, and it was going to work, and once it got to that critical phase where she had to sever ties with K-Street completely, they would have to not need her, for everyone's own good…
"It's going to be fine."
Olivia's thoughts broke off and her pace halted. Spinning around on her heel, she turned toward the cased opening leading into the parlor, through which Fitz had just entered.
"I know," Olivia lied. Fitz smirked.
"I watched you do two full laps." He traced the perimeter in the center of the room marked by the gap of bare floor in the space between the Aubusson rug and the French provincial sofa and matching bergerés bordering the fringes.
"Lucky that the floors were redone in '05. It'll be a while before they show any signs of wear," he added dryly, coming to stand face-to-face with her.
Olivia avoided him. She held up her phone, the Messages app still open, giving him a flash of the text exchange she'd had with Cyrus while he'd been with his agents..
"Cyrus and Britta's flight got bumped. They won't get into Oakland until quarter-to-noon unless Cy can get them on a red-eye."
The White House snubbing California governor Andrew Nichols for the VP spot had left the west coast base smarting. The Sunshine State was one of the major tent-poles holding up the liberal wing of the GOP, the other being the Northeast. The threat of Andrew Nichols having enough political capital to force a schism in the RINO camp was minimal; the more imminent danger was in the Nichols or Langston camps reaching out to the other and turning the entire party against the administration. There were rumblings of Sally Langston being in talks to launch a talk radio show early next year. If they left Nichols to simmer he'd be sitting down with Langston by Easter sweeps.
In light of this, a conciliatory trip to California to shore up Nichols' support in the Bay Area in anticipation of his announcement of his intent to seek a full term as governor in next year's race was unavoidable for the president. It was a no-brainer. Through both terms as governor, Fitz had retained a high degree of support in the Bay Area–unlike his successor and former lieutenant governor–and continued to poll well with voters in the Bay Area counties. In any normal scenario, Fitz would've been the first to suggest he fly across the country to make nice with the best friend he snubbed for a promotion. It was the kind of gift-wrapped, silver platter solution for which every politician on the Hill would sell their soul to Hitler's ghost.
So, naturally, when his chief of staff brought the idea to him, the president elected to flip the script and play hardball:
Only if I can bring Liv and get to pick the first night accommodations.
Cyrus agreed right off the bat. Olivia, who had neither been present for this exchange nor privy to the plans for a weeklong tour of goodwill, was notified of her upcoming travel plans via text from the White House Chief of Staff that same morning.
he's wheels-up 8/18-23 clear ur calendar & pack a bikini
Olivia kept her reply short and sweet:
no.
Fitz begged. Cyrus blackmailed. Fitz shut down Cyrus' blackmail attempt, and what followed was seven days of the most flagrant lobbying campaign Olivia had ever seen come out of the beltway. In the face of coy looks, and an intense battery of questions from neighbors, the doorman, and her team–who were now at least half convinced she was being courted by a Saudi oil prince–Olivia stood firm in her refusal. There was a long weekend of radio silence due to Fitz attending a security summit in Strasbourg. And then came the dinner invitation.
A chance for them to get back on track, he'd said. They hadn't seen each other in weeks, he'd said. He didn't want them to ever get too busy to spend time together in person, he'd said. There was so much against them, if they were going to make it they had to make time for each other, he'd said. "We're in this together," he'd said.
Olivia bought a new dress, took a half day, got a facial, her hair and nails done, and arrived for dinner in the Residence at the appointed time… like a dedicated sucker.
He broke her, in more ways than one. The less said about how, the better.
The crux of the matter was that somehow, in the blur of a week that followed that fateful dinner, Olivia looked up and she was pacing the floor of a two hundred-year-old Italianate palatial estate on a vineyard in the middle of California wine country. And here was Fitz, sauntering around on Cloud 9, above so much as even feigning participation in the actual purpose of the trip. Olivia felt she should've been slapped with a rubber glove.
She tried again. "Oakland isn't nearly as bad as LAX but there's no way they'll make it in time to brief you before the Interfaith luncheon."
Offering no indication he'd heard her, Fitz curled his arm around hers', slyly drifting his hand down the length of her arm until their hands met. Threading their fingers, he tugged her playfully along after him as he led them out of the parlor.
"There's an art gallery on the ground floor," he said, referring to the palatial beaux-arts mansion they were now wandering through. "It started as a couple of early Renoirs from the private collection of the house's original owners. Of course, it expanded as their descendants contributed as the property was handed down. Now, it takes up the whole eastern wing of the main level."
Ignoring him in kind, Olivia said. "Cy emailed me a breakdown of everything. We can go over it in the car in the morning. "
"I know you had a chance to see some of the vineyard when we first drove up to the front. It's nothing compared to the view from the terrace."
One of the keys to client management for a lawyer was maximizing the window of cooperation. An efficient albeit risky way to ensure maximal cooperation from a difficult client and minimal headaches for the lawyer involved a method Cyrus called "regimented indolence;" giving them what they want, when and how they wanted it so long as it didn't endanger the case, with the tacit, iron-clad understanding that the client would return the favor by following the lawyer's instructions to the letter when it was time to get down to business. Mollification, applied with the appropriate degree of force, was the lawyer's silver bullet.
Olivia yanked her hand out of Fitz's grasp. Folding her arms across her chest, she glared at him; the, This is not the man I voted for going unspoken but for the small frown creasing an otherwise expressionless face. She left the look up long enough for it to sink in before relaxing her expression and delicately offering back the hand she'd snatched away. He took it. Message received. Today was his; tomorrow, he would be on his best behavior.
The corridor Fitz took them down emptied into a sunlit anteroom which let out onto the aforementioned terrace. The unfurnished room was its own centerpiece; the row of floor-to-ceiling windows along the eastern wall catching the best of the late-afternoon sun, the soft streams of light softly illuminating the fresco painted across the ceiling depicting village life in the Bordeaux region of France. Olivia caught herself holding her breath as a grinning Fitz ushered her outside through a pair of French patio doors.
The grand Italianate style terrace was constructed of the same tan limestone brick as the remainder of the building's exterior. It stretched nearly the entire length of the southern façade, lined by a balustrade that capped off the imperial staircase which emptied into a small courtyard and topiary garden on the edge of the vineyard. And then there was the vineyard.
Credit to Fitz, the view from the terrace was indescribable. Rows and rows of lush green vines stretched out as far as the horizon, the sun's rays saturating the crimson hue of the grapes until they burned the color of embers, and the land shone gold like fields of wheat. The view went on for miles, a sea, rolling with the tide of the Sonoma Valley hills. Olivia had steeled herself to play along and humor Fitz and admire the view and match the love and inexplicable attachment to this place beat for beat so that in the morning there'd be no trouble getting back to the more pressing matter at hand. But one look and she was nearly just as gone.
"About half of what's grown here is Merlot. The rest is split between Cabernet and Pinot Noir," Fitz said. "The primary buyer is the winery we passed before turning onto the drive. We co-own that as well."
Olivia's heart seized. "'We'?"
Fitz pulled her closer to him. "My mother's great-grandfather built this for his wife when they moved here during The Gold Rush. She came from a family of winemakers in Provence and grew up on an estate like this one but had to leave it all behind to marry the man she loved. He knew how homesick she was, so this was his way of giving her home back to her. She knew more about vineyards and winemaking than he did, obviously, so he left everything to her.
"It's remained in the family since. My mother would bring me here as often as she could when I was young. We both saw it as a retreat away from Big Gerry–my grandparents wouldn't allow him on the property. Getting to play with my cousins was the only time I got to be around friends my father didn't hand-pick for me."
Fitz trailed off, momentarily lost in memory. The arms around Olivia held her tighter. She said nothing, not wanting to intrude.
He continued. "When my grandparents died, the property and their majority stake in the company went to my mother's cousin, who loved the business as much as they did. He died of cancer in '99. He was gay and, to make a long story short, not everyone in the family was accepting. I was an exception; he leaned on me a lot as he lost friends during the AIDS crisis. When he died, he left everything to me.
"Big Gerry decided I was going to be president when I was still in the womb. There was no way I could leave everything behind and be a winemaker even if I had the desire. I reached out to some distant relatives in the old country who still run the old family business and they agreed to assume management. A couple years later we decided to turn it into a private resort: corporate retreats, celebrity and VIP hosting, that sort of thing. The building and the land are mine, profits go into a trust."
Finished, he settled his chin atop Olivia's head and held her.
"Did you still visit often?" Olivia asked, finding her voice in the intense silence.
"Not as much as when Mom was alive," he answered somberly. "The cousins I was close to as a kid moved on as they grew up and had families of their own. They like coming here to vacation and it's a good venue for big events but we're like ships in the night. I haven't seen them since the last family reunion. Visiting alone is pointless. I'd bring Karen and Jerry but the fun part about being here as a kid is having other kids around to play with. Besides, I guess selfishly, I want them to know this place the way I did."
"But you brought me," said Olivia. It was not an accusation.
"I brought you," he said. The somber undertone in his voice was gone, replaced by a tender smile. The eager gleam in his eyes from earlier returned as he signaled behind them.
The patio doors they'd come onto the terrace through opened, and out stepped a secret service agent escorting a valet carrying a small tray with a bottle of wine and a pair of wine glasses. At Fitz's instruction, the valet set the tray beside him on the ledge of the balustrade while the agent handed Fitz a leather folio. He waited until both men retreated back into the house before speaking again.
He handed Olivia the folder. As she opened it, he said. "I wasn't being forthcoming earlier when I went into that part about how 'we' co-own the winery, too."
Olivia nearly dropped the papers she held in her hands. Fitz stopped talking and she was grateful, as her mind was struggling to unscramble the words appearing on the pages in front of her.
'Olivia Pope' ... 'co-beneficiary' … 'Champs d'Ores' … 'privately managed' … 'dwelling and surrounding lands and materials' … 'all profits, proceeds, & rights associated and not limited to…'
She felt Fitz's hands grip her shoulders, gently stroking her upper arms, and realized she was shaking. Slowly, she looked back up to Fitz for a full explanation.
"We co-own the winery, Livvie," he said, placing meaningful emphasis on the first word. "Along with the vineyard, and the house. Everything we saw on the drive up here, everything you've seen since we arrived, it's all yours' now, too."
Olivia's mouth hung open. She could barely catch a breath, let alone speak any of the thoughts jumping the line in her throat.
"I can't run a vineyard." Not the first thing she meant to say, but it was on the list.
"Neither can I. That's why I have people do it for me." He smirked. "Did you miss that part of the story?"
Olivia shook her head. "It was left to you."
"Right, it was mine. So I called my lawyers and estate people, signed the forms and made it mine and yours. Ours,'" Fitz's self-satisfied grin grew wider as he called himself humoring her.
"You said coming here makes you sad."
"I said coming here alone is pointless. But now there's you. This place will never be what it was when I was little, when my mother and my grandparents were alive and filled it with life, and love. But I don't need that anymore now. We can create new memories here. We'll have kids that we'll bring out here in the summertime to run around and play; take them to the beach a couple miles out, go sailing and teach them to surf…"
There was more Olivia had to say, more answers she needed from him. But before she could say anything, Fitz cut in.
Reaching behind him for the bottle of wine, he held it out to her with the white label facing up.
"There's also this."
Seeing her confusion, he drew her attention to the label.
Champs d'Orés
~1983~
Merlot
Sonoma Valley
Olivia's heart stopped. Just below the vintage–1983, her birth year–was an illustration of a ring: a criss-cross stacked gold band identical to the one she wore on her finger.
"It's the latest addition to our portfolio," said Fitz. "Only offered to guests who stay on the property. I put in the order back in–"
Olivia kissed him before he could say any more. Throwing her arms around his neck, she clung to him as he lifted her into his arms. She fell deeper into him, pouring everything there was left to say, all the words she no longer had, into tongue and lips and soft caresses along every part of him she could touch.
Because there wasn't anything to discuss. This was going to work.
September 2011
Camp David
Frederick County, MD
Leonard had come to them on the strength of Mellie's father's recommendation. Twenty years ago, when Fitz and Mellie were putting together their prenup and doing their first round of individual estate planning, Leonard Rabinowitz had been a newly-minted junior partner at his uncle's Midtown Manhattan firm. Leonard's uncle had managed Mellie's father's estate for longer than Mellie had been alive. At the time, learning this about the same man who, along with a vocal contingency of fellow Sons of the Confederacy–threatened to withdraw from the board of their country club if the building managers followed through with a pledge to remove a statue of Stonewall Jackson, had softened Fitz toward his father-in-law to-be.
This would turn out to be short-lived. And, it only took one meeting with Leonard for Fitz to know he wanted to spend as little time in the same room with the man as possible. It had been his great fortune to only need one hand to count the number of times he'd seen the man face-to-face in the two decades since making his acquaintance. And now, thanks to his wife, Fitz would be spending the next 72 hours with the man.
The idea had been to spend Labor Day weekend at Camp David with the kids before they headed back to school. All summer, he and Mellie had made an effort to get in as much quality time with the kids as possible, but had done so separately. This would be their first time doing anything together as a 'family' since Christmas. With Karen and Jerry unable to miss the fact that their parents slept in different rooms, and neither Mellie nor Fitz able to provide a satisfying answer to the questions their kids were tiptoeing around, both parents felt they owed their kids a shred of normalcy to cap off the summer.
That had been the idea.
Then, at the last minute, as he and his family were settling into the Aspen Lodge, an aide popped in to inform the president that his guest and his guest's family had arrived, and "Mr. Rabinowitz is all set up in the conference room when you're ready Mr. President, Mrs. Grant."
One look over at Mellie's brisk, business-as-usual demeanor as she carried on unpacking, acknowledging the aide's announcement with casual thanks, and Fitz burst out laughing.
He was still laughing when they entered the conference room; still laughing when a confused and somewhat irritated Leonard greeted them and slid two copies of the documents he'd brought with him across the table to him and Mellie; still laughing when Mellie finally dropped the act and snapped at Fitz to at least have the decency to behave like an adult when they were discussing their children's inheritance.
Fitz stopped laughing.
"What is this about, Mel," he drawled, wearily using his index finger and thumb to spin the stapled packet of papers on the table in front of him around the axis of his ring finger.
"Our children's inheritance," Mellie repeated in a flat voice devoid of any sarcasm. Oh, she was serious?
"What the hell are you talking about? Karen and Jerry are more than taken care of."
"Let's call it me itemizing the list and checking it twice so that I know my babies get what they're entitled to should worst come to worst."
"They're sitting on a $30 million nest egg, each."
"Right," Mellie said, She turned to address Leonard directly. "I want to go over the trusts I brought to this union–the money my momma left me, the trust from my daddy, the property and family money my grandparents–"
"Stop, just hold on a sec!" Fitz held out both hands, signaling Leonard to quit writing and for Mellie to be still. "Mellie, that's all yours', I have no claim to it whatsoever, nor do I want it."
"That's sweet, honey, but the law says what's mine is yours and should I go before you while our marriage still exists on paper, legally, all my worldly possessions go to you and then where will Karen and Jerry be?"
Fitz was insulted. "You're acting like I'd rob my own flesh and blood! Of course your assets and the things your family has left to you would go to the kids. How could you suggest otherwise?"
"My momma loved to ski, you know," Mellie said, her voice lowering to a jagged grit. "The lovely Yankee she settled down with after my father threw her away for that bleach bottle slut built her a ski lodge in Utah. Provo's beautiful. She left it to me. I took the kids once during their winter break. You had plans–"
"What does that–"
"Do you think she'd like a winter palace for when the vineyard's not in season?"
"That's what all this is about?!"
Fitz was laughing again but this time he also wanted to throw something. He settled for tearing up the papers Leonard had handed him.
"The vineyard was mine to give away. I don't concern myself with what you do with your inheritance, extend me the same courtesy."
"Not when it concerns the kids," Mellie seethed. "That vineyard's been passed down to each subsequent generation of your mother's family and when it's your turn you hand Jerry and Karen's birthright over to your–"
"Watch your mouth," Fitz barked.
"A ring, a house, a vineyard, a winery," Mellie raged. "Your private collection of first editions? You're chipping away at your family legacy for little trinkets to give your girlfriend, like a little boy scraping through his mother's jewelry box for presents to give the girl next door. It'd be romantic if there weren't two people ahead of her with a better claim. Have Karen and Jerry ever been to that house in Santa Rosa? Do they even know it exists or any of the history?"
"Did you, before I gave it to someone else?" Fitz charged back, louder and with more righteous indignation than the pangs of guilt, smarting at the reminder that Karen and Jerry had in fact never seen Champs D'Ores, told him he had any right to be. "Don't you dare try to dress yourself up as some long-suffering June Cleaver to the kids you tried to guilt me out of bringing home for the summer! You aren't pissed at the thought of me stripping Karen or Jerry of anything promised to them. You heard about the trip and you're jealous–"
"Fine, Fitz, think what you want," Mellie shouted over him. "But I want my children's name on everything I own so that there isn't even a snowball's chance in Hell anything my family left me end up in the hands of the first little bastard mule your mistress spits out!"
Fitz was on his feet, his chair tipped over and kicked to the side, his vision soaked in red as he stalked around the conference table, snatched Leonard out of his seat, and marched him to the door.
"Give your family our best," he heard himself grunt. "There's hiking, fishing, stargazing at night if you want to sleep under the stars. People write songs about the view. Enjoy your stay, let the staff know if there's anything you need."
He all but pitched Leonard through the door like a football. The smaller man went stumbling the last few feet to the doors of the outer office, then scurried the rest of the way out of earshot.
Rounding on his secretary, Fitz barked, "Get Cyrus in here, now!"
He caught Mellie, uneasy, preparing to slip out of the room while he was on a tear. "You, sit." He pointed to the vacated chair. Mellie sat.
Cyrus came. Fitz couldn't say how long it took. His fury hadn't abated when the door swung open and his Chief of Staff swept in. Fitz didn't mince words.
"Legal separation. I want the lawyers here before the weekend is over and I want it in the paper by Monday. Go."
Perhaps Cyrus had been briefed on his way about the fight. Perhaps he'd seen Mellie's reaction coming once he'd found out where Fitz had taken Olivia on their trip to California. Perhaps, he'd been anticipating this being the denouement to a successful summer and had already made his peace with the turmoil in the president's personal life as collateral. Whatever. Fitz could tell by the dull acceptance with which Cyrus received his marching orders that he would get his way.
"Let's wait until December to make the announcement," Cyrus started to haggle. "We can do a joint interview between Christmas and New Years."
"October," said Fitz.
Cyrus said. "The week going into Thanksgiving. That Sunday. You'll be out of the news cycle by Pearl Harbor Day."
"I want the lawyers here tomorrow, Cy. Tomorrow."
"It'll be a lengthy process, even if it's just a separation," Mellie piped up. Fitz jumped. He'd nearly forgotten she was still there. "You won't get everything you want in one day."
"Neither did the makers of Rome."
"This will have to be handled delicately," Cyrus said to both of them, like a carpetbagger gearing his band of thieves up for their next big heist. Fitz had the urge to start laughing again. He bit his tongue.
Cyrus said. "We have to be precise with the timing. This is uncharted territory, but if we brand it right we can still get three more years out of this presidency."
"Wonderful. Now what are you waiting for," said Mellie, cocking her head and rolling her eyes in Fitz's direction. "Throw up the Bat-signal and tell your whore to get to work."
NOW
March, 2012
George Washington University Hospital
Washington, D.C.
"Fuck!" Stephen swore as he fished his billfold out of his back pocket. "How the fuck did you get it right?"
Scowling at Abby's shit-eating grin, he slapped the wad of bills into her outstretched hand.
"Stephen, have some decorum," Abby chided. "Let's at least pretend to be civilized in front of the leader of the free world so Liv's not embarrassed when she wakes up."
Stephen scoffed. "She knows who her family is."
"Which is why she's never brought a boy home to us. If not for these unfortunate circumstances we might never have met and whose fault do you think that is?"
"Yes, the person who organized the betting pool over the father of the baby has nothing to do with it," Stephen said pointedly.
Miffed, Abby turned to the president. "Deport him. He had you down as Prince Harry. He's a traitor and a British spy. He was all gung-ho about Liv moving to England and giving up her citizenship."
"Me?!" exclaimed a properly scandalized Stephen. He leaned in toward Fitz. "Listen, I'm almost positive that organized gambling rings involving members of the president's immediate family violates some kind of federal statute. Might want to have the Secret Service check the books is all I'm saying."
"Yeah, check those books, Mr. President. Stephen failed the bar twice."
"Abby named our betting pool The Sperm Bank!"
"Guys, seriously?" Abby and Stephen's bickering was cut off by Harrison, who appeared out of nowhere, sauntering in with his suit jacket slung over his shoulder.
"Did you forget that this is a hospital? What's with the–aw, damn it to hell!"
His reaction, upon finally noticing the Secret Service agents stationed around the lobby, and the Commander-in-Chief in the seat next to Abby, was not unlike Stephen's from a few moments prior. Abby was pleased.
"Nice to meet you, Harrison,"
Three sets of eyes snapped in the president's direction, as he calmly stood to make a proper introduction to the latest arrival. Abby was the first to recover.
"He had you down as George Clooney."
"Shut up," Harrison shot back as he shook the president's hand. "You know me? She talks about us? What has she said?"
"Harrison, my money!"
"In a minute, you're not the IRS–" Glued to the president by his own fascination, Harrison continued with the rapid fire. "You're why she stopped taking the metro, right? And all those gifts that show up to the office without a sender? Huck never lets her keep them, you know. Says it's too much of a risk."
"See, this is why Liv never brings anyone home," Stephen said to Abby.
"Like I said, you're all so freaking neurotic," Abby replied without a hint of irony. "Harrison, sit down, get out your wallet, and stop interrogating POTUS before we all end up at a black site."
"I'm relieved to hear Liv doesn't take the metro anymore," President Grant supplied kindly to Harrison, who'd taken the seat on the other side of him. "She never gives a straight answer when I ask whether she's driving or using public transport. She knows it drives me crazy."
"Huck always has an eye on Liv," Abby said in the most delicate tone she'd used since the arrival of her other team members. "He's basically four secret service agents rolled into one. He'd never let anything happen to her."
"I know that," said the president. "But still…"
"You know Huck," Stephen guessed suddenly. "As in, you've met him personally."
President Grant nodded.
"We knew that already," Harrison said to Stephen. "Huck was the only one who didn't place a bet."
"We knew he knew who the guy was, we didn't know they'd met."
"How did that happen?" said Abby.
An uncomfortable look crossed the president's face. "I'll let Liv share that story."
"Speaking of," Harrison said. "Have you guys heard anything yet? It's been nearly two hours since you two left in the ambulance, Abby."
The uncomfortable expression on President Grant's face twisted into one of anguish. Abby said quietly, "It's not good. Liv's going to be fine, but it's not good."
"Oh."
Harrison slouched back in his seat. Stephen,, also hearing the news for the first time, shifted uncomfortably, unsure where to look. The former raucous energy in the room dissipated and a heavy melancholy shroud settled over them all.
Then the lobby doors burst open again.
"Okay!" Quinn chirped as she came bustling in, laden with bags and out of breath. Huck trailed in silently behind her. "Huck jammed the traffic cams around the convention center, corrupted footage from the last twelve hours, and threatened the ambulance drivers within an inch of their lives. We did a preliminary scan of the inboxes of every beltway gossip rat that was there tonight and only like two of them think there's anything worth mentioning–don't worry, we're already on their editors' necks to kill it. We went by Liv's to grab her some clothes, made a pit stop at the dollar store to load her up on popcorn since she barely ate today, and then we passed the gift shop and figured 'might as well' since the cat's obviously out of the bag by now–" She held up one of the transparent, smiley-face shopping bags in which the rough shape of a miniature Teddy bear could be gleamed. "And then Huck thought we should–Oh!"
Coming down from the adrenaline high she'd been on since receiving Abby's text caused Quinn to miss the subdued reaction to her status update and make the connection that they weren't alone.
"Thank you, Quinn." Carefully, the president accepted the shopping bags and Ferragamo weekender bag from the momentarily dumbstruck gladiator. "It's nice to meet you, despite the circumstances. Nice to see you again, Huck."
Quinn did a rapid double take between Huck and the president. After a pained struggle to find her words, she finally blurted out.
"...but, you're not Leonardo DiCaprio."
President Grant shook his head with a short, wry laugh. "No, I'm not. I'm guessing that was your bet?"
"Are we in trouble?" Quinn exuberance dimmed by genuine apprehension.
"Only if you don't have Abby's money. She's a real shark in case you didn't know."
Quinn whirled on Huck, a look of genuine betrayal on her face. "You'd already met him and you let me put down three hundred dollars on Leonardo DiCaprio?"
Huck was unfazed. "I told all of you it was wrong to bet on this in the first place."
"That didn't stop you," Stephen quipped.
"I bet brownies, not cash. It's different."
"Plus, he didn't give a name," said Quinn, coming to Huck's defense. "He only said that if one of us turned out to be right, Abby had to make those turtle dove brownies we had for Friendsgiving."
"And I absolutely will make those brownies–in fact, I'll make two pans, since winning's made me so generous–but only after everybody pays up."
"Give her your wallet," Huck told Quinn, deadly serious.
"Is your family like the Irish mob or something," Quinn grumbled as she handed four crisp hundred-dollar bills to the redhead. To Huck, she added. "You knew he'd be here when we showed up. That's why you had me stop at the ATM before we got on the elevator."
Huck shrugged. Abby said, "I'm Scottish, Perkins. And for your information, the Whelans were honest bootleggers. The mob bought our whiskey like everybody else."
Quinn and Huck took seats next to Stephen in the row facing the other three, Huck choosing the one on the end. Taking one last opportunity to gloat, Abby made a show of counting out her winnings from the other four. Then, zipping the cash in one of the inner pockets of her rain jacket, she clapped her hands once, and surveyed the rest of them.
"And with that last bit of business taken care of, I officially declare Operation LiSP a success. Go us!"
"Operation LiSP?" said President Grant.
"'Liv's Secret Pregnancy," Stephen explained.
"Ah."
With a significant look in Abby and the president's direction, Harrison said. "You gave him the heads up when you saw my text, right, Scrooge McDuck?"
"What text?" said Abby, reaching for her phone. Shaking his head while she scrolled through their text chain, Harrison informed Fitz.
"Technically, I shouldn't be here. The event's supposed to go till 11:00." Harrison stalled. As, only when he began to replay the series of events that transpired after Olivia collapsed did the layers upon layers of obligation, blind affection, settled debts, and personal grudges abstracted beneath what had, until that moment of realization, been just another job, did the full picture come into focus. Out of the corner of his eye, Harrison saw the cringing expressions of his fellow gladiators, belated realization having fallen upon them right as it had himself. The president was nonplussed, sensing the shift in energy in the room but ignorant to the cause sitting just around the corner.
He picked up where he left off. "Liv went down right as the First Lady went on to give her speech. The paramedics coming in and wheeling out the former White House Comms Director on a stretcher killed the mood. You know a little unplanned excitement makes an audience get rowdy. The organizers needed the mic so they could address the situation and restore order, so the First Lady's speech got cut.
"She stormed off to the Ladies room after leaving the stage, so while that was happening, I worked it out with Walsh's team and the planning committee for FLOTUS to go on right after the main course was brought out. But, when I went to find her in the green room she, uh–in so many words, told me to follow Liv to the hospital and to tell her our services were no longer required."
"I'm sorry," said the president.
Harrison waved him off. "I ran into your Chief of Staff in the hall. I guess he heard her fire me because he tried to hire us on the spot to keep it from getting out that the president up and left the First Lady stranded in the middle of a media-attended event. I told him no. Then, he asked me for a ride to the hospital. Knowing how he's always up Liv's ass for a solid, I told him no again, handed him a bottle of water off the table and told him to relax his nerves. Does he always have that look like he's one piece of bad news away from a cardiac event?"
"Yes," said the president. He added sheepishly. "But to be fair to him I don't do anything to help. The guys and I snuck out while his back was turned."
"The Commander-in-Chief, ladies and gentlemen," Abby snarked.
"Anyway," said Harrison, signaling there was more to tell. "He went into the green room after I turned him down and I went to let Rebuild America know they had to find an understudy. On my way out I was told to use the side exit because the Secret Service had ordered the lobby sealed off. But your guy was there again and waved me through. While we were waiting for our cars by the valet, he told me he and the First Lady were on their way. He said he gave her the wrong hospital to throw her off but that for Liv's sake, she'd better still be unconscious when they got here."
President Grant's face hardened.
Harrison said. "He said it like a warning but I took it as a threat, and passed it along to these guys in our group message so that we'd be ready."
"Your wife might think she's pissed now," said Quinn. "But we've been waiting for a reason."
"Put a pin in that for a second, Quinn," said Stephen, his hand raised in the signal for stop. He pinned the president with a razor-thin glare. "On the subject of your wife, how much longer is that expected to be the case? You're legally separated now but it goes without saying that isn't enough."
"We have an arrangement," President Grant said, unable to hide his discomfort despite not shying away from the unfriendly stares from Stephen and the rest of the team.
"An arrangement," Abby repeated. "Between you, Mrs. Grant, and…Olivia?"
"Not exactly," President Grant quickly answered. "Not in the way that phrase would make you think." He paused and wiped a hand along his face while deciding where to begin.
"About a year ago, there was…a confrontation between Mellie, Cyrus, my Chief of Staff, and myself. The two of them went behind my back and dragged Olivia into it to try and force my hand. I made it clear that heads would roll if they tried anything like that again. As the dust was settling, Mellie demanded Olivia's help in securing a Senate seat in exchange for keeping quiet about the affair and giving me an easy divorce. Liv agreed."
"And you let her do that?" Harrison said.
"Does anyone ever 'let' Olivia do anything?"
"I'm talking about your wife," Harrison clarified. "You let your wife back Liv into a corner like that and didn't say anything?"
The president opened his mouth, then closed it.
Stephen added. "So everything the First Lady has had K-Street handle for her for the last several months…the interview, the op-ed, the fundraiser tonight, that's all been to lay the groundwork for the First Lady's eventual senate run. All so that you can get divorced as painlessly as possible. Do I have that right?
The president nodded.
"So you basically let your girlfriend manage your divorce from your wife," said Quinn, not bothering to hide her disgust. "Don't tell me you're only just now seeing how messed up this is. You have to have heard the way she talks to Liv. She throws her weight around K-Street expecting Liv to just drop whatever case we're working to cater to her list of demands. It's gross! She treats Liv like–" Quinn broke off, seeming to choke on the words she said next as the ugliness of their implications became clear. "–like she owns her. And Liv just takes it."
President Grant, to his credit didn't bother defending himself.
Stephen said. "We thought she only put up with it for the sake of not alienating the White House, what with K-Street being so new. But this…if we had known."
"She fainted the night of your primetime interview back in November," Harrison told him quietly. "We thought it was from overwork and not eating. It was during the part where you two came on together, and you kissed her hand and said you'll always have love for her as the mother of your children."
The president made a strangled sound from the back of his throat. His head dropped in his hands.
"She said she was fine," he mumbled. "She said she could handle it."
"She's going to say that and not just because she's Liv and work is her life," said Stephen in a low but firm tone, like a teacher trying to impart a difficult life lesson on a young pupil. "She's trying to earn you."
The president, for the first time during the whole discussion, was completely bewildered at that statement. Stephen, anticipating the man's confusion, didn't begrudge him an explanation.
"I see now," he said, thinking aloud while appraising the president sympathetically. "It makes sense that this is how things got to where they are. Liv only knows how to work for other people–whether that's taking a job or just doing someone a favor. It's her way. It'd take someone with a Nobel Prize in psychology to get her to understand that she doesn't have to justify her place in other people's lives. But that's how she thinks.
"You, on the other hand, you've always been at the center of everyone's world whether you wanted it to be that way or not. You're used to having people work for you. You're used to Olivia working for you. That's how your relationship began, after all. When she agrees to take a job you both know will put her in a difficult, demeaning position she's got no business being in, it goes against both your programming to put a stop to it. Even though it's your divorce and your wife she's managing, and you're the president; the one who, in theory, has enough power at his disposal to take all this off her plate."
The words were like a stone cast through the lacustrine atmosphere around them, rings of contemplation, regret, and resolve rippling soundlessly through the air after it. Stephen's closing argument hung over them with the weight of consensus, of finality, but coming to terms would be a process. No one knew how to start it off.
"You gotta do better, man," Harrison said finally, a warning but also quiet encouragement.
"You're right," said President Grant, looking first at Harrison before gazing around at the other members of Liv's team, her family. "Everything each of you said. You're all right. I'm…ashamed, so ashamed at how I let things go."
"It's not all on you," Quinn offered kindly. "And it's not like you don't really love her. There's just…some stuff Liv's really good about hiding. Even I'm still learning."
Nodding once, the president said. "There's a lot I have to say to Liv when she comes around. But one thing I want to make clear to you all is how grateful I am that she has you. Beyond how you came through tonight, there aren't many people in my world who'll tell me what I need to hear without an ulterior motive. So I mean it when I say 'thank you.'"
The group fell into a companionable silence after that, the air cleared but the mood no less tense. No one wanted to think about how long it'd been since Olivia had been taken into the operating room, or how there hadn't been any updates since Abby was shown to the waiting area.
When a man who Abby identified to the group as Dr. McNeil, the physician they'd vetted and who had performed Liv's initial examination, appeared from around the unoccupied nurse's station, accompanied by a female physician in teal scrubs, everyone sprung to their feet at once. The pair of physicians, wearing matching contrite expressions, approached Abby first and beckoned her to follow them off to the side where they could speak privately.
"We can only give an update on Ms. Pope's prognosis to her next-of-kin," said Dr. McNeil. Sending an apologetic look to everyone, the president especially, Abby followed the two doctors to an empty space off to the side where they were out of earshot.
"First off, I need to apologize," he said, the contrition in his voice colored by wounded pride that the arrogance of his profession made it visibly painful to conceal. "I made a mistake in my diagnosis that luckily for Ms. Pope, my resident, Dr. Nunez caught before it was too late."
"What do you mean by 'mistake'? What kind of mistake?" Abby asked, panic rising.
"When Ms. Pope was first brought in; she said she believed herself to be about 16 weeks along," the doctor began. "If you recall when I explained that she was suffering from a miscarriage and that, after measuring the fetus and not finding a heartbeat, the fetus likely stopped growing at around 13 weeks?"
Abby remembered.
"Thirteen weeks was generous," Dr. McNeil admitted. "Truthfully, the fetus couldn't have been older than ten weeks. But it is extremely rare for a fetus to take a month-and-a-half to evacuate the womb once it's no longer viable. Even though Ms. Pope told us she hadn't seen an obstetrician to confirm her pregnancy and how far along she was. I went with her self-reported estimate of sixteen weeks, and chalked the fetus' size up to restricted growth. That was my mistake.
"Ms. Pope was in a great deal of pain, bleeding, and experiencing bouts of unconsciousness. My instinct is always to act decisively to prioritize the health of the mother. But had I proceeded with more caution, especially since Ms. Pope could only estimate the age of gestation, I would have ordered a blood panel and a complete ultrasound instead of presuming miscarriage. Had I done so, I would have noticed right away what Dr. Nunez did when Ms. Pope was brought back for the D&C: that her cervix wasn't dilated."
Dr. McNeil paused to give Abby time to digest the load of information. "Without belaboring the science of it all, I'll say that in order for there to be a miscarriage the cervix has to be dilated. No dilation–"
"No miscarriage–" Abby said. Her heart pounded with the faintest tinges of relief, holding out for confirmation that the doctor was saying what she hoped he was.
"Ms. Pope was still under general anesthesia, but we ran some more tests including a full ultrasound–oftentimes, women who experience irregular menstrual cycles go too far back with estimating the date they fell pregnant, which is why it's best to see a GYN as soon as you may suspect–"
Abby cut him off with a raised hand. "Not to be rude, doctor, but I really need you to get to the point here."
"The pregnancy is still viable," Dr. McNeil said. "Based on the results of her lab work and the ultrasound, Ms. Pope is about nine weeks along. This explains why initially we weren't able to detect a heartbeat using the Doppler, whereas once the bleeding subsided and we did the transvaginal–"
Again, Dr. McNeil was cut off as Abby grabbed him by the arm and full-on dragged him, stumbling, back to where the president and her fellow gladiators were still standing on pins and needles.
"Tell them exactly what you told me. Minus all the gorey details," she ordered.
Flustered, Dr. McNeil cleared his throat and relayed the Cliff's Notes version to the others. Abby, who had never in her life been this elated to see someone else receive good news, couldn't tear her eyes away from the president. It was like watching a black and white world suddenly be drenched in technicolor. The doctors' news visibly erased years from President Grant's face.
"She's not all the way out of the woods yet," Dr. McNeil cautioned. "Ms. Pope is severely anemic and vitamin deficient. This will likely be a very difficult pregnancy. I've strongly recommended to Ms. Pope that she see a perinatologist–an OB-GYN that specializes in high-risk pregnancies–within the next couple of days. I've reached out to a colleague of mine at Children's National, Dr. Holland Reynolds. High-risk twin pregnancies are her bread and butter."
Abby did a double-take. That was new information.
"Twin?"
They all said the same thing at once. Abby noticed Dr. Nunez cringing as she watched her superior's eyes flit anxiously around the room.
"He was trying to be kind and let me reveal the news since I was the one who made the discovery when I did the transvaginal ultrasound," Dr. Nunez came in for the save.
"I'm sorry. It's a teaching hospital," said the attending. "I'm…trying to be better about that part of the job." Graciously, he stepped back, deferring to his student.
Dr. Nunez elaborated. "We almost missed it. Twin B was sort of hiding behind their sibling and one of them has a fainter heartbeat–which is normal at this stage. They're measuring at between nine and ten weeks. Both heartbeats will be more clear by week twelve."
"...Twins…"
The president repeated the word slowly, in a quiet voice all to himself. He seemed to have made himself alone in the waiting room as his mind continued to process the new information; for there was no way to mask the cyclone of elation, panic, joy, fear, and love all packed into that one little word as belonging to anyone other than a man who'd just learned he was about to be a father again, twice over.
Every member of Olivia's care team–including the blundering Dr. McNeil–had a spotless history when it came to caring for VIPs and abiding by NDAs, it was why Abby had selected them. She'd been thorough. Still, it didn't get bigger than the President of the United States, and while McNeil seemed to be having an off day, there was no way the president's reaction had escaped him. Liv wouldn't be seeing this guy again after tonight, but they would have to be a lot more thorough at Children's National to plan around President Grant's heart eyes.
Dr. Nunez cut back in to give the final word. "I told Ms. Pope that I want to keep her overnight for monitoring due to the bleeding and the fact that we had to take blood on top of that. But she's awake and ready to receive visitors. Dr. Nunez can take you back. Once again, I want to sincerely apologize for my mistake and the pain I know it must have caused."
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A/n:
Friends, it has been a JOURNEY getting to this point. I decided a looooong time ago that Olivia wouldn't miscarry because I thought it would be more interesting to write a plot centered around maternal health. More on that later.
Another thing I anguished over was whether I wanted to go with the vineyard subplot. It started out as just a cute whim that I was going to cut to save time, but then I found another use for it down the road. Love it when that happens.
So what do you guys think?
early-seasons Fitz is a hopeless romantic with a big heart but is still very arrested by his upbringing and his privilege. I really wanted to capture that here with moments in this chapter (his insistence on Olivia coming with him to California, his lack of consideration for how Mellie would feel about him giving property that *should* go to his kids to his mistress, whether Mellie is even right to feel that way or whether she's just lashing out; and the hints implied by the gladiator's accusations). He loves so fiercely but oftentimes from his own POV.
What did you guys think of the gladiator's meeting Fitz? Would you have made the same bets if you were in their shoes?
I literally cracked myself up when I came up with the line about "The Sperm Bank", like I literally ran around my computer full on cackling. It's so Abby and so Stephen.
Please leave reviews. I go back and re-read all the ones you guys write for inspo.