21 Questions: Part II

/Present Day/

"Wow, this one sounds promising, Ken. Are you going to give him another date?"

Kenny rolled his eyes. "Are you ever going to call me by my name?"

"'Ken' is a lot better than Geraldo, don't you think?"

"What? Sometimes I switch it up and call you 'G.' Is that not enough for you? You earned your name, coming up in my Lounge asking me a million questions about Liv, like you were Geraldo Rivera. She wasn't even your girlfriend for god's sake."

"Well, if I hadn't have been so intrepid, she would have been some other man's wife. I guess I'd rather you call me Geraldo, than 'Grant'—like you're my drill sergeant."

"Oh, right. Liv's at Daddy Hell and High Water tonight" Kenny pronounced. Fitz had been his usual jovial and warm self throughout most of their dinner. But even approaching the neighborhood of Eli's name crossed a boundary into a territory of feelings Fitz ordinarily tried to conceal. But this emotional driftwood had washed up on the shore.

"That man does not like me. Nothing I have done or not done has changed that. I think he hates me as a matter of principle. Like I'm some sort of symbol to him."

"Do you want him to like you, or simply not to hate you? Because those are two separate things."

Puzzled, Fitz stopped chewing and swallowed. "Ideally, both."

"But which is a priority? Papa Pope is not the kind of man you can kill with kindness. He would rather die."

"Or have me killed," Fitz mumbled.

"That, too," Kenny pointed with his fork.

"I want him to like me, but—"

"I knew it. I knew it. I knew you would say that."

"Oh come on, Ken. What's wrong with wanting to be liked?"

"Nothing's wrong. But it bothers you, more than you're letting on, that Papa don't like you. Remember when you were first sniffing around Liv at The Lounge?"

"I wasn't 'sniffing' around. I liked being where she was. She's just…" Fitz sighed to complete his sentence.

"Six years and your nose is still wide open. My god. She Tamia'd the shit out of you," Kenny absentmindedly shook his head.

"Who?"

"Never mind. The point is I could tell then, as now, that you're used to everybody loving you. You've got looks, charm, a good head of hair, and lest I forget—Mon. Neeey," he said, exaggerating its two syllables. "You're used to people being drawn to you without having to do too much. And when you do work for it, you bag a dime like Liv. Well, Eli doesn't wanna fuck you and is impervious to your charms. Not even a little bit interested in you."

"And that is the problem. If he would get to know me—"

Kenny's forefinger sprang up dramatically between them both. "Let me stop you right there. He thinks he already knows you. You're probably right about being symbolic to him. G, you know how your granddaddy started the Grant fortune dealing in illegal moonshine?"

"Liquor."

"Same shit. But a real bootstrap story, right? Well, your wife's daddy came from nothing, got himself into Princeton, earned a PhD and became head paleontologist at the Smithsonian. Now that's a bootstrap story for your ass. But this country has no respect for stories like that, from Black people. We can't turn in our straps for a reward. Guys like you were obstacles at every point in Dr. Pope's path. This isn't about you. I've seen that kind of resentment aimed in all the wrong places, with other folks. That man is in his seventies. What he feels? That shit is calcified conviction. He's never gonna love you like a fat kid with cake. You've got to figure out how you proceed from here."

"If it were only about me, I could swallow it. Trust me, I've had to let a lot of things go over the years. Our relationship, or lack thereof, is also a tension for Liv. I don't want her carrying that weight, especially now. Besides her health, she's worked too hard to see her life as hers and not an extension of her father's. And what about the baby? Is Eli going to cut me out of family time? Treat my son differently because he's bi-racial?"

"He's not racist. He just don't fuck with you. In his eyes, you led his daughter astray, but he's not gonna reject that kid because of your Celtic blood. That's his baby's baby. But Imma tell you this, and y'all need to figure it out: bi-racial, schmi-racial, Papa gone treat that kid as Black. Now that's the that on that."

"But that's my child. How—"

Just then Fitz's phone buzzed on the table, startling him out of his thought. He looked down to see 'Cara' on the screen, and looked back at Kenny.

"Ken, you know I have to take this. I'll be right back." Fitz started leaving the table to find a quieter spot in the restaurant. "And don't think I forgot that you didn't answer my question about that date!"

/6 Years Ago/

"Abby, I've already told you: I'm home, and I don't' want to leave again."

"When did you become boring?" Abby accused.

"Take that back. You know how exhausted I am. Between my client load and Edison's campaign…"

"That sounds like wife work. And last I checked—"

"Abby." Olivia warned. "I don't want to talk about this. I want… I need a quiet evening."

"Lame."

"I know. But hey, you deserve to have some fun, Ms. Divorcee. So hop to it. Bye!"

"Ok, ok. Have fun with that bottle of wine, but not too much."

"Abby!"

Two hours, 3 briefs, and one bag of popcorn later, Olivia found herself hunting for a pair of jeans so she could leave her apartment. Maybe she did want to be around people. Or one person. Half a bottle of Merlot in, she decided to Uber instead of drive.

When Olivia arrived at Maroon Bay Lounge, she was deflated not to find him there. She felt foolish in her presumptiveness. She was here and it would look silly to leave so quickly. One drink. Wrapping her tiny, delicate hands around her drink, she watched the single ice cube disappear into a warm brown sea before taking her first sip.

When he finally walked in and immediately ambled toward her, in what seemed to be slow motion, her heart thumped. Ask me things. Ask me things. Ask me. Things. She would answer them—always in her way. A new, gauzy feeling flooded through her; one of wanting to be the answer to any question he might pose. One word or a hundred, it didn't matter. He drank up her responses, enamored, delighted, intrigued by her. With every question he leaned in more and more, until every utterance of his tickled her nose with the warmth of whiskey. Aged, double barreled Scotch, to be exact. She wanted to not know the end of this feeling.

"Fitz," she ventured. "I have something to ask you, well, a challenge. Tell me about an experience you've had that's beyond words?"

"If it's beyond words, how am I supposed to use words to relay the feeling?"

"That's why it's a challenge. It doesn't have to be dramatic. Just something you felt, experienced that would be hard to understand unless another person experienced that same thing. I'm following your lead on these deep questions."

Fitz thought about something he could not tell her out loud. He skipped over watching his 23-minute old child die. Too emotional. Skipped over watching her slice through water of their gym's pool a thousand times. Too creepy. He skipped and skipped and skipped until Olivia finally interrupts his thoughts.

"I'm sorry." She feared she had gone too far.

Fitz's face was unreadable except for the ghosts of the unsaid moving just beneath his skin.

"I didn't mean to confound you. I misconstrued the game."

"No, you didn't," he reassured. "I blanked. Tell you what, you answer and that might spark me to remember something."

Now that she had to answer, she didn't want to embarrass him and say something too deep. She searched the ceiling for an anecdote and it gave her Italy.

"Tasting a straight-from-the-vine tomato in Tuscany, for the first time." Her face flooded with the fondness of the memory. "I know, I know." She rolled her eyes at herself. "But this tomato was so unlike any other I had tasted. I stopped after the first bite. I was speechless, trying to comprehend what I had eaten. It made such an impression that every tomato before that became a lie. And every one after that never measured up."

Fitz wanted to be a Tuscan tomato. He wanted to burst himself open for her, seeds and all. To be consumed by her for all that he was. To delight and surprise her in similar ways. To make her speechless from consideration. Except he did not want to be tucked away in a private memory to be gossiped about later. He wanted her to look at him ten years from now and feel that every man before him was a lie, and that she had captured the truth, relishing it as hers. Forever.

"Wow. When was that?" Was what he offered out loud.

"My last summer in Europe, before I came back to attend Princeton. A few weeks before my 18th birthday."

"That's quite a long time to hold onto such a memory."

"Not really. You remember things from your childhood and college. The tomato was no different."

"Yeah…but it's a tomato."

They both laughed.

This is what it feels like to be inside her, he thought. Inside her mind. To leisurely stroll across the intricacies of its cortex. To unravel its puzzle and delicately put it together again. Each time she left him there to go home, he'd think about what he wanted to next ask her. He wrote them down and stored them in a special place. Seeing her, feeling her proximity was something he stockpiled for the times when she didn't show up, sometimes an entire week. Whether she knew it or not, he had created space for her. His life consisted of the not-Olivia and the Olivia.

Kenny looked over at the two of them, caught up in their own world of ask and tell. He would have to break it up. "Listen, y'all ain't gotta go home, but I do. So, get out."

…

"Where did you park? I'll walk you to your car."

"I didn't. I'm catching an Uber to my place. It's not a long trip. I'll be fine," Olivia replied.

Fitz looks up at the clear night's sky, his hands clasped behind his back. He leaned in, "It's a pleasant evening."

A reluctant puff of air emanated from her nose, something akin to laughter.

"If it's not too far for you, I'd love to walk you home. You also owe me a few answers tonight."

"I owe you?!"

"That's right. I think I only asked about 17 questions tonight. Far below the usual. I value consistency."

"You are endless. You know that?"

She turned on the taught leather heel of her Bordeaux calfskin boots, in the direction of Connecticut Avenue. Fitz was instantly at her side.

/Present Day/

Sunday evening, as promised, found Olivia seated at her father's dinner table. She had resolved in herself that now that she was pregnant, she would make more of an effort to see him regularly. He was going to be a grandfather, and she did not want their child being welcomed into a family environment of resentment and unsaid things.

Olivia punctured the silence. "Mmm, the lamb is delicious, dad."

"It's been a while since you've been for dinner. I know how much you love it, so I thought I'd make the effort," Eli smiled genuinely.

"I'm surprised because lamb is usually your go-to around Easter. It's nearly Thanksgiving. Oh, that reminds me, Fitz and I are joining James, Cyrus and my God-baby, Ella, for Thanksgiving. We'd like you to come, too."

"As an after-thought? No, thank you. I'm fine where I am. Besides, I have plans."

"Oh?" Olivia said in genuine surprise.

"An old friend of mine moved back to the area and we're both on our own, so we're going to catch up on Thursday."

"But you're not on your own. You live in this house by yourself, but you're not alone. You have us. Fitz and I are your family."

"I have you, and you have a life. I don't want to be some sad, needy old man dependent on his daughter."

"And his son-in-law," Olivia added.

Eli's jaw tightened on hearing that term. He tolerated Fitz in Olivia's life, but he was no son of his, and no law could force that relationship.

Olivia used his silence to form the question she had wanted to ask since that day her father came to the hospital. She methodically wiped, delicately, the remnants of pureed roasted cauliflower from the corner of her mouth and folder her napkin over her skirted lap.

"Why did you never make space for him?"

"For whom?"

"Dad, you know who I mean."

Eli looked from his plate to the arrangement of flowers nestled in the dimpled copper vase at the center of their dinner table: red dahlias, torch lilies and yellow chrysanthemums necklaced the white and green tinged ornamental cabbage. "Olivia, there was no space. Is no space," he said, still staring at the arrangement.

"Even after mom? Who, or what took her space?"

"My work and you take up all the space that I have. Sure, I have colleagues and acquaintances, my research. These are things that matter to me. Space exists for things that matter. Your relationship with that man has nothing to do with me, as you have made abundantly clear."

"Fitz and I are a unit, so caring about me should mean caring about what's important to me. Fitz is a big part of that. I've never excluded your from our relationship. You care about my accomplishments, my reputation, my work, so why not the family that I'm creating? It's an extension of you, after all."

Eli abandoned his knife and fork, and took to wringing his hands slowly. But he offered her nothing in response.

Olivia kept prodding, understanding that if she had to take him to the edge in order to get some answers, she would. She was almost 10 weeks pregnant and could not bear the thought that she'd have to visit her father, alone, with their child. How could he fully appreciate his granddaughter and reject fifty percent of who she was? Olivia refused to imagine such a future.

She began with a process of elimination. "I already know that you were disappointed to give up your Jack & Jill fantasy for me and Edison. But it can't be the white boy thing since you were the one who set me up with Jake after I broke it off with Edison. I still don't understand what you saw in Jake that was good for me. So this disdain you carry for Fitz must be personal. Is that it, dad? Is it personal?"

"Jake loved you. Did you know that?" Eli responded.

"He thought he loved me. He was a fun distraction, and I cared for the man I thought I knew. But love? That was never there. I could never love him."

"What does it matter? He would have slipped into your life, no problem. Not sent you into a tailspin of uncertainty. You wouldn't have had to throw out everything you thought you knew about yourself. Everything I raised you to be."

"Which is what?! The second coming of Eli Pope?"

"Olivia! Watch your tone. Do I look like one of your little employees?"

Olivia let out huge sigh of consternation. She knew this would not be easy, but something had to give. She tabled the idea of telling him tonight. Instead she pivoted to her second agenda.

"You've lost weight."

"That's not a question."

"My question is why. Why have you lost weight? You're an extremely consistent man. Frustratingly so. So, what's going on now?"

"Nothing," he shrugged nonchalantly. "I need to pay better attention to my cholesterol levels, so I have changed my eating habits accordingly. I may not be able to control getting older, but I'll be damned if old age controls me!"

Olivia looked at the modest spread on the dinner table, noting that everything there reflected some health tweaks. Instead of whipped potatoes rich with butter, there was pureed cauliflower that had been roasted with a bit of Olive oil, salt and garlic. No bacon in the green beans. The lamb—grilled—was a lean cut. And didn't he say he had raspberry sorbet for dessert? The meal backed up what her father said, but Olivia could not shake the feeling that something wasn't adding up.

/ 6 Years Ago, Same Night/

They walked and talked. He asked questions and she answered. Eventually, it turned to only walking, the comfortable silences looping their way around the din of street traffic, and Friday night revelers, carrying their end of week relief to and fro. Sometimes their hands twitched toward the other, wanting, needing to be enveloped, but never achieving. Braver than their hands were their arms, which brushed against each other occasionally. A Morse code to the rest of their bodies.

Olivia stopped two buildings short of her own to say goodbye. She did not think it wise to do so directly in front of her building. Barring all sense, Olivia felt safe with this golden man in front of her. It was her neighbors and her doorman she did not trust. Did not want to confuse. Why she was concerned with any of that, she did not know. A perfectly innocent walk. With a man who was not her boyfriend of two years.

"Are you OK?" Fitz said, his fingers on her arm drawing her out of her thoughts.

"I'm fine. It's… It's late, and that's me down there. I enjoyed our walk." She said, looking up, despite the height of the heel on her boots, at his perfect jawline—as she had done so many times over many evenings. Just less openly than she was doing now. "But I should go. So…"

"Buttons," he filled in.

She blushed, though she should not have. She shook her head disapprovingly at him, smiling.

He shrugged. "That look on your face is all that matters."

Squeezing his hand, Olivia said, "I'll see you around, Fitz."

She backed away, not wanting to lose sight of his handsomeness just yet. But when she decided to turn on her heel, Fitz announced, "Wait! Number 21."

Curiosity beat out reluctance, without much effort. She turned around to him once again. The valediction to his bacchanalia of questions, number 21 never let her down. "I'm listening. Make it good."

"Do you have an alternative life that you fantasize about?" Fitz asked.

Olivia tilted her head to the side. "Are you implying that I'm not happy with the life I have?"

"No, not at all. It's just that when I was young, I couldn't have anticipated how complicated being an adult would be. I guess what I'm trying to ask is do you ever retreat to a simpler life, in your head?

Still a bit wary of his line of questioning, Olivia tilted her head, pondering how truthful she should be. Before she could get there, Fitz offered an answer to his own question.

"For me it's being a small town mayor who surfs on the weekends."

"You're a surfer boy?"

"I grew up in Santa Barbara—come on. It's in my DNA. Your turn."

"If I'm being honest—"

"I should hope so. I thought that's what we were doing."

"Can I finish?"

"Sorry"

"I try not to hold on to fantasies. It's a sure-fire way to be disappointed. Fantasies are incompatible with reality. I try not to torture myself by flirting with a life I could never have."

"Excellent answer, Counselor." Fitz took two momentous steps toward her so that he could look down into her eyes. "Now cut the crap. What cuddly little fantasy do you imagine before you fall asleep at night, after an exhausting day? When you go up upstairs, and get into bed, what's your most comforting thought?"

She looked up at the resplendent night sky, with its stars just visible under the veneer of noctilucent clouds. Better than NYC, she thought, but not a patch on the sky in her happy place.

"Vermont. I have never felt as peaceful anywhere as I have when I've visited Vermont. I'm not built to actually live there, and I haven't had the chance to go back in several years, but I tell myself one day I'll get a cabin there. A little retreat for myself. And maybe I'll learn to make jam, or tap maple trees to bottle my own syrup. I imagine myself there sometimes, when I can't sleep".

The wholesome simplicity of her fantasy made Fitz want to gift that entire life to her, even if she could only indulge in it for a single weekend in a year. She was the kind of woman to whom he'd give everything. But he pulled himself back, recalling that she had a someone who could give her what she needed.

"Thank you for indulging me," Fitz said.

Their eyes lingered on each other for what seemed like a full minute. Until Olivia's phone rang, disrupting the moment. She turned away to take the call.

"I'm nearly home. The cab is approaching my block. Yeah. Mmhmm. Ok, I'll call you when I get in."

Fitz wouldn't make her say it again, so he did it this time. "I could talk all night, but I know you have to go."

With one hand set on her shoulders, Fitz reached in to kiss Olivia on the cheek. His left hand set about a different task.

"Goodnight, Olivia Pope," he said wistfully.

"Goodnight. Fitz."

…

Approaching her door, Olivia rifled through her cavernous bag. Pursuing her keys, instead she found a folded piece of paper, its stock weighty.

It read: "Vermont is for lovers, too. Share it with someone."

A warm feeling rushed up inside her, exiting her open mouth. Its force was enough to push open her front door.

"There you are! That cab took a while to reach the building."

"Edison, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be in Florida?"

"I know we've been out of sync lately, so I thought I'd surprise you."

He took her hands in his, and she crumpled the paper to protect it. "What's that?"

Olivia deflected. "An old grocery list I found while looking for my keys."

/Present Day/

The emptiness hit him before the gust of late November's breeze.

"Shit." He heard in the distance.

One half of the doors, leading to the bedroom's veranda thud against the outside wall from the wind's force. Olivia quickly and discreetly shuttered the doors.

"What are you doing out here? It's three am. Come back to bed," Fitz called from the doorway.

The beryl blue of Olivia's floor length, velvet robe was regaled by the moon's light, revealing facets of silver in the flattened parts of the fabric. The robe concealed the pearlescent sheath underneath, the biased cut of which would allow it to pass for a dress. Her indoor Uggs kept her feet warm.

She leaned against the glass balustrade, turning her hooded head partially in his direction. "Just thinking and getting some air. I'll be in soon. Go back to bed."

Fitz closed the door, crossing its threshold, minutes later having added a pullover and slippers to his pajama bottoms.

Her tiny frame was soon engulfed by his. One arm cradled the growing fullness of her left breast, his right palm splayed over the still taught expanse of her lower abdomen, warming her from the inside out. "Oh, you don't really want that, do you? Me, going back to bed knowing you're out here?" He said softly in her ear, his tone and his closeness enough to make her nipples rise like biscuits in a warm oven. Trailing soft kisses against her jawline, he headed for her bee-stung lips.

"Is that so?" she smiled surreptitiously.

Reaching to kiss her, she turned her head in the opposite direction. "Your baby is making me sick. I thought he had confined it to the late afternoons, but now she's taking liberties. It would a child of yours to lack self-control. I brushed twice and polished off some ginger tea, but I still feel a little bit gross."

Fitz spun her in his arms, his hand finding the small of her back, underneath the cape-like robe, melding her body flush with his. With a gentle swiftness he captured her lips. His tongue undulated inside her mouth, its mission clear: vanquish any doubt.

Ten out of ten, his acrobatics inside her mouth still gave her that melty-thigh feeling, and she stayed there a little longer with her eyes closed as he ran his hands up and down her arms.

Pushing back the hood of her robe, and gathering the fabric to shield her neck, he looked over her fine features, torched by the moon's light. "Far from gross. Not even a little bit."

She looked up at her specimen of a husband, not ever wanting to know another. "You'd say anything to make me smile."

"That's my job. I can't be sick for you, but making your feel good—I've got some expertise there."

The wind tried and failed to penetrate the warm fortress of their embrace.

"Fitz, I've been thinking about my dad," she confessed.

He led her by the hand, back inside, where he pulled the duvet back for Olivia before getting in beside her. Face to face with her, he said, "What's happening? Is there something you didn't tell me about your dinner with him?"

"The weight loss—"

"Livvie, that could be a lot of things. You said yourself that he's reformed his diet, and that the loss isn't drastic. I don't need you worrying over nothing, "he tried to reassure.

Olivia brushed the soft curls on her husband's chest before resting her cheek against them. "I know, I know. But my gut is doing backflips. There's something he's not telling me. I know it, Fitz."

"Are you sure it's not your daughter?"

"Your son is way too young for backflips."

"That reminds me… When do you want to start telling people?"

Olivia buried her face further in Fitz's chest. "Do we have to tell them? I mean they'll eventually figure it out, right?"

He tapped her ass playfully.

"Fine. I just… I like this right now. Just the two of us knowing. And Kenny. I want to hold on to this a little longer. Plus, Dr. Wilson says it's customary for women to wait until their second trimester to tell people." She yawned, "Let's broach this in the new year."

"I was thinking we'd do it over the holidays. Kwanzaa surprise?"

She laughed lazily, as Fitz felt her body grow heavier and the soft sounds of her slumber whispered against his chest.

They would eventually float apart by day's light. But for now, Fitz softly kissed the top of her head and joined her in sleep. The conversation was tabled for another day.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed Part II of this update. Thank you to those who sent me questions/PMs about what they'd like to see the earlier version of Olitz discuss. I'm so excited about all the places I want to take you whilst little Pope-Grant is 'baking'. I will be using this flashback style more in future episodes.

Please do take a little time to leave a review. It's very motivating :). Let me know you're favorite parts, or if there's anything you want to read/see in future updates.

Thanks for reading and take care of yourselves and each other in 2021.