"You weren't alone last night; I was here. Liv, you have to sleep."
"And I will. Just not right now."
Having enough of her stunts to avoid sleeping, Fitz was determined that she was going to get some rest tonight. Sleeping through the day wouldn't do her any good but tonight she was going to, even if he had to knock her out somehow.
"I have something for you as well," she remembered grabbing her purse off the counter. Digging through the side, she pulled out an envelope from his bank. "Here's your credit and debit cards. Everything's been fixed."
Fitz took the cards and looked at them. His name was on both the cards and the documents for his accounts. "What's this?"
"Your new bank accounts."
"I told you I didn't want my father involved with any of this. Why would you go behind my back and call him?" he nearly yelled at her.
"I did NOT call him. I haven't talked to Jerry in several days. I went to the bank myself. I just had to talk to the right person."
"Olivia…"
Taking a step back from the counter, Liv crossed her arms at his tone. "You said you didn't want Jerry involved. I didn't involve him. You never said anything about me not helping you. You spent three hours and twelve minutes on the phone with the bank and got nowhere. All I did was go down there and talk with the manager of the branch. He pulled up the information and saw what happened. I just explained that she's vindictive and those accounts have been yours for thirty years. All that money was put into your account by you. She had no right to move it. If I overstepped, you're just going to have to live with it. It's too late to take it back now."
After listening to her explain what she did, Fitz started to soften up. Before he could say anything, she was out of the kitchen to the dining room. "Hey," catching her as she rounded the counter beside him, he pulled her closer to him and hugged her. "Thank you. You didn't need to go through the trouble of dealing with the bank. I'm sorry I yelled at you."
Wrapping her arms around him, she gave him a return hug. You smell amazing. I just want to stay like this forever. "It's alright, I should have asked you if you wanted my help or let you do it yourself. My job is to make sure you have everything you need. Bank accounts sounded like it belonged in that description."
"Speaking of your job," he pulled back from her letting her go and looking at the table. "Why are you on the phone with Paris and Moscow?"
"Rome, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, Athens, Venice, and many others," she smirked and took a seat.
"It's two in the morning and I come out to find you wide awake on the phone with various people all over the world. Do you talk to the people at the space station too?"
"No, though I'm sure they would be great to talk to."
Fitz took a bite of his bagel and tried to think of some reason that she would need to be awake and talking to people that early. But nothing came to mind. "Are you running some sort of organization? You've got agents everywhere?"
"Something like that," she told him. Seeing the blank expression on his face almost made her mad. "You have no idea what I do for you, do you?"
"Other than make sure that I have bank accounts and a proper tie on with documents I need for court, I suppose not."
"Fitzgerald, who do you think puts together all the reports that you sign off on for the other locations around the world for the firm? Who gets all the information from the office managers at every branch? Makes sure that there are no issues that need to be brought to the board? Or fixed immediately? Or that there's enough staff? Money is coming in? Paychecks are going out? Clients are satisfied? That your plane is arriving on time? Your hotel rooms are booked? The speeches you give are in order? The car service is there to pick you up and take you where you need to be? Or that you can drive yourself? What about your dry cleaning? And your own clients are happy with the attention you give them? What about Rome having a slight issue with an unhappy client? Beijing having an attorney arrested? Or…"
"You do all of that in a night?"
"And more. You wanted to focus all your attention on being a criminal defense attorney. But you forget that you are also a senior partner of a large firm. And making sure that you can have what you want to do and that your job is still running smoothly takes a lot of effort. Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it's not there."
"Liv, I can hire another person. We can work it out, so you have less responsibility and aren't stressing yourself out so much. We'll come up with a solution. You're only one person."
"You said I was doing a good job."
"And you are! You do fantastic. I guess I didn't realize how much work you actually put in every day. But I'm going to fix it."
"Fitz, I don't want you to hire another person. I've managed this on my own for the past seven months. I can do this in my sleep."
"The sleep that you aren't getting?"
"That's not fair. My lack of sleeping has nothing to do with your work. I've got this down to a routine. Each office calls me at a certain time every day and we make sure that everything is going as planned. No issues have come up in the twenty-four hours since we spoke and if they do, they know to call me right away."
"I'm very much against this."
"You weren't against it two days ago."
"I didn't see what you were doing. What about this: if this gets to be too much for you or this turns chaotic, or you don't want to deal with the world anymore, you tell me, and we will hire another person to work nights just on the things that you normally do in the middle of the night."
Shaking her head, Liv disagreed. "I don't see a point to hire someone. I'm very capable of doing this myself."
"You can't do everything yourself, Liv. It's okay to ask someone for help."
"IF it ever gets to be too much then I will let you know. We can talk about it and see what needs to happen BUT only if I bring it up or my work is lacking," sticking out her hand in front of him, "deal?"
"Do we need to make a contract? I'll draw it up now," he laughed and shook her hand. "Deal. Pleasure doing business with you."
"Same, now what would you like to do for the rest of the day?"
Throughout the day, Fitz kept his eyes open for any sign that Olivia was getting tired. Even after her coffee and then it wearing off, she still seemed wide awake. If I had that many shots of espresso a day, I'd probably die. While he watched the football games in her living room, she did some work and got his reports together.
"Dinner?" Forgetting she was not alone in the apartment, she jumped out of her seat at the sound of his voice and looked at him, holding her chest. "You okay?"
"Fine," she nodded and relaxed back down to the chair. "Dinner… sure, order whatever you want. I'm just about finished here."
Ordering dinner, Fitz left her alone until it arrived.
"Perfect timing," she smiled as she closed the last of the files. "I smell bread. Did you order Italian?"
"Liv, I know very little about you, but I do know that your love for Italian food is the same as your love of your work. Come watch some tv and eat with me," he pulled her from her chair into the living room having already set the coffee table with what they needed.
"Thank you, Fitz. I haven't had this in a few weeks."
"I don't think you've ate in a few weeks."
"Are you going to harass me about my eating habits now? You've moved from my sleeping habits to my eating habits?"
"Careful with that word 'harass' Ms. Pope. You know it can get people in trouble," Fitz laughed.
After a couple hours of lounging on the couch with her, Fitz decided to call it a night and practically begged her to do the same.
"It's only ten, old man. Can't keep up?"
"Don't tease me about my age," he said leaning over her on the couch with a smile. "We old men like to be sure we have enough sleep to keep up with the young folk. And you, Ms. Pope are one that I have a big problem keeping up with."
Liv laughed as she looked up at him. Without thinking twice about it, Fitz reached down and started to tickle her, making her laugh louder. Damn I love that sound. I'll have to make her laugh more.
"Fitz! Stop!" she begged still laughing trying to grab his hands.
"Stop what? I'm not doing anything."
"No tickling!"
Letting her go, Fitz took a step back from her letting her recover. "Alright, you win," he smirked. "Good night, Liv."
"Night, Fitz."
Sitting in the living room, she scrolled through the channels finally finding something she could tolerate as background noise. Just after midnight the sound of the knocking at the front door scared her almost to death. Quickly so whoever it was wouldn't wake Fitz, she ran to it and looked through the peep hole.
"What are you doing here?" she asked opening the door.
"Huck called me and said you changed the plan," Jerry answered rolling his suitcase in with him. "What are you doing changing the plan? You know we worked this out."
"Keep your voice down, Fitz is asleep."
"What is Fitz doing here? He said he was staying at a hotel last I talked to him."
"Things have changed since then. Fitz didn't want to involve you, so I didn't. I took care of it myself."
"What did that woman do now?"
"You should talk to him about it." Seeing Jerry move further into the apartment instead of leaving she followed him to the living room. "What are you doing? Jerry, you need to go home."
"I would have except you canceled on Huck and sent him to his in-laws. Therefore, I am here. Now, go get ready for bed."
Putting her hands on her hips, Liv was irritated with his demands. "What is it with you Grant men thinking that I do everything you want because you tell me to? I don't do things because you say so. I have my own free will."
"Livia, it's been a long flight from New York with the crap weather. I would have been here last night if I could have been. And you ignored my calls all day."
"Because Fitz is here."
"Well, now I'm here. I'm exhausted so will you please go get ready for bed so we both can sleep? The hotel I had to stay at had the most uncomfortable bed and you haven't slept in ten days. I'm not in the mood to argue with you."
Rolling her eyes, Liv headed back to her room while Jerry changed in the bathroom. "You are just as demanding as your son."
"Where do you think he got it from?"
Changing into her yoga pants and a tank top, Liv pushed the covers back and waited for Jerry to come in. Making sure she had her phone plugged in beside her, she was ready to get some much needed sleep.
"You good?" Jerry asked her closing the bedroom door and turned the lights off.
When she nodded yes, he put the bedside light on beside her and went to the other side crawling in with her. Within a minute, Liv was sound asleep on her side facing him.
At two am, Fitz had gotten up for the bathroom. Seeing the lights all off in the dining and living rooms, he noticed under the crack of the door to her bedroom a light was on. Once he finished, he lightly knocked on the door hoping it wouldn't wake her if she was asleep and opened it. Laying on her side, Fitz noticed another person in the bed with her. Taking a step into the room, he saw the face of the other person.
"What the fuck is going on!" Fitz screamed.
Jerry woke up, shooting straight up in bed seeing his son in front of him. "Shhh, Fitzgerald! Don't wake her up."
"What the hell are you doing in bed with her!" He yelled, going to the side where Jerry was, Fitz was ready to beat the hell out of his father. Still Olivia hadn't moved, even with the loud voices so close to her. "Get the hell up!"
Jerry was ready to argue but Fitz pulled him off the bed, making Olivia wake up.
"What's going on?"
