"Uncle Fitz! Come have a muffin with me!"
Javi was instantly next to Fitz the moment he saw him walk in the front of the coffee shop. Leaving the table where he sat by the counter, he pulled Fitz over to the table with him.
"Okay, okay, bud. I got it. Let me get some coffee first, okay? I have to wake up to get that much energy like you have," Fitz laughed and went to place his order.
"Where's Liv?" Huck asked, putting his cup on the counter. "She didn't answer the phone all weekend. I don't want to know why either. Whatever freak in the sheets shit you two do, I don't want to know about it."
Shrugging his shoulders, Fitz turned his attention back to Javi at the table. "Did Papa already leave?"
"He's not here yet. He's coming. It's Monday. Papa and Aunt Livia always meet have breakfast on Mondays."
Fitz watched him play a game on the iPad while they waited for Jerry to come in. In the last five days, Fitz had yet to hear from Jerry or Huck asking about Olivia. But since she wasn't talking to Jerry when everything happened, he wasn't surprised. Fitz thought for sure that Huck would have called him to locate her.
Getting his cup from Huck, Jerry joined the two at the table. "I see she's still mad at me. Fourth week of breaking our Monday morning routine. How's she doing?"
"I don't know," Fitz shook his head while looking at Javi's game.
"Well, I hope she gets over this soon. Verna's having another wedding catastrophe. Something about the flowers aren't going to be in season in October. And I need my best woman to help me with the tux. Need the Olivia Pope seal of approval," Jerry laughed. "I'll send her some flowers and then she'll be over it. Will she be at the office all day?"
"Probably not."
"I'll have them sent to the apartment then."
"Don't bother. Olivia's not there."
"I need to do something, this has gone on far too long," Jerry sighed and pulled his phone out looking for the closest florist. "So, where should I have them sent?"
"I don't know, dad. Send them wherever you want, I guess. Abby will make sure she gets them."
Putting the phone on the table, Jerry gave him a stern look and crossed his arms. "Who the hell is Abby?"
"Bad word, Papa!"
"You tell him, Javi," Fitz laughed before looking at Jerry. "Abby is my assistant."
"Livia is your assistant. What are you talking about? Where's Livia?"
"I don't know where she is."
"Aunt Livia went far away," Javi told them, still playing his game.
"Fitzgerald, how do you not know where your girlfriend is?"
"Because she's not my girlfriend. I broke up with Olivia last week. I haven't seen or talked to her since."
"Javi, go get Daddy to come over please." Jerry waited for Javi to be out of earshot before saying anything. "Have you lost your damn mind? What the hell do you mean you broke up with her? Where is she? Where are you staying? Why didn't you tell me this last week?"
Pulling the chair out next to Jerry, Huck looked between the two of them and easily sensed the tension. "What's going on?"
"My idiot son broke up with Livia. And now, he has no idea where she is!" Jerry practically yelled.
"What the hell Fitz? What'd you do?" Huck demanded to know.
"Why do you assume that I did something? You know she has blame in this," Fitz told them. Looking around the half empty coffee shop for Javi, he saw him behind the counter with Kim in the office and knew it was okay to talk freely. "Olivia is pretty fucked up and honestly, I can't believe you two let her get that far."
Reaching over, Jerry smacked the back of Fitz's head hard. "You are lucky that's all you get right now. What happened? We both know that Livia has some issues, but she has been dealing with them and trying to get help. Verna tries her best to get her what she needs. She said they'd made progress in sessions before. Why did you break up with her?"
Fitz leaned back in the seat holding his coffee cup. "I'm not going to be with someone who cheats. I can't be with someone who opens her fucking legs to get what she wants. Even if she thinks she's doing it for me. Olivia's got what she wanted from me and went on to the next." Shaking his head with a chuckle. "I should have known she was a slut from the beginning."
Both Huck and Jerry were ready to fly across the table at him. Huck's fists were balled up tightly as if he would take a swing at him at any moment. Jerry looked as though he was going to start screaming at him.
"This is your son, Jerry. And I'm trying my best to not rip his head off his body right now. But there is a limit to my patience with him," Huck told Jerry while shooting daggers at Fitz. "You had better start explaining and fast or you'll end up in the morgue by noon."
"Your friend, Huck, dropped to her fucking knees to get me divorced," Fitz stared at him before turning to Jerry. "Your best woman spread her thighs for the judge to sign off on a divorce. She screwed the judge to be sure that she could get me out of my divorce." Standing up, Fitz grabbed his jacket and cup. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to get to."
Both men watched Fitz walk out of the shop and down the sidewalk until he was out of sight.
"Isn't that bastard Richards his divorce judge?" Huck asked.
"Yeah. You don't think he did something to her again, do you?"
"I think she would have told us. But she hadn't seen him. She never wanted to see him again. Liv wouldn't just go see him. She hates him."
Rubbing the back of his head, Jerry started to get even angrier but now it was with himself. "I told her not to go alone. I knew she was going to go. I should have told Fitz myself."
While Jerry told Huck what Judge Richards wanted and what Olivia was going to do, Fitz went off to the office ready to start his day. The three work days last week that he was without Liv didn't go too well. Today was Abby's first full day in the office. Walking into the outer office, Abby's office now, he looked around but didn't find Abby. Stacks of papers covering the desk that he has no clue what they are about. The desk phone rang on multiple lines. Ignoring it, he went into his office and went to work.
"Do you know what this woman does, Fitz?" Abby asked him as she waltzed into his office and took the seat in front of his desk. "Because she's doing way more than an assistant. She's like super human or something. No one can do what she does. There's so much to do and not enough hours in the day to do it."
"She USED TO take care of my schedule and court documents. She doesn't work here anymore. Hence why you are here. She was an assistant. You are an assistant now."
"She does more than that! I spent the entire weekend trying to configure what the hell she does. I came here yesterday, and I have over two hundred emails from people here and in every office on the planet with problems. The phone has not stop ringing and there's multiple line systems on those two phones out there that I have no idea about. I finally got the password to the voicemails and there are people yelling looking for Liv to pick up the phone and fix this huge crisis that, guess what, I know nothing about. I got text messages with random colors and numbers and times. I have no clue what they mean. David has no clue what it means. IT department has no idea what it means. And then, I call them back and ask what's going on. This Nicholas guy wants to know where Liv is and insists that she is the only one who knows what to do and won't tell me a damn thing," Abby told him and finally stopped to take a breath. "I thought you were only doing criminal law and seminars now."
"There are other things that happen in the back ground. She used to take care of it. She took care of intel with the other offices daily to make sure everything was running okay. If you really think you need to, you can call her and ask. But I do not want to even hear her voice, Abby."
"What the hell happened with you two? Two weeks ago, you were head over heels in love with her when I talked to you. Now, you can't even say her name."
"That is none of your business. All you need to know is that we are not together anymore. Do you know who the text was from with the random things?"
Taking out her phone, Abby pulled up the message. "Yeah, um, Damien? Don't know him. He says 'Yellow'. The number '8'. And '2 hours.' I don't get that at all."
"Hmm, Damien is in Moscow, I think. The other parts I'm not sure of."
"It means: Caution, fired, in two hours," Jerry told them as he walked in. "Livia keeps a records list on the computer and a hard copy of codes in the bottom drawer of the desk."
"Of course, you would know," Fitz rolled his eyes. "See if you can understand the other messages, Abby."
Letting her leave the room, Jerry closed the door to the office and took her seat. "The things you said earlier about Livia are out of line and unwarranted. I told you last year before you two started dating that she was different, and I wasn't going to allow you to speak about her that way. I mean it the same now."
"Dad, I don't need a lecture from you about my ex-cheating girlfriend. Nor, do I have the time to listen to you defend her."
"I told Livia not to go see Richards without telling you first. Or to take you with her. She's determined she can handle anything and everything all on her own. And with the exception of her sleeping habits, I'm sure she can. There's nothing Olivia Pope cannot do."
"Except tell the truth."
"Not telling you something and telling you a lie are two very different things, Fitz."
"Lies of omissions are still lies. And cheating to get something is still cheating. I don't know how you handled your affairs in the past, but I know they were still affairs."
Jerry sighed realizing he was not going to get through to Fitz without giving full details. Leaning forward, Jerry closed the lid of his laptop. "You need to pay full attention to me when I'm talking to you about this. I'm not repeating myself and I'm not discussing this with you or anyone else ever again."
Hearing the straight tone of the 'not fooling around' voice he just received, Fitz set his laptop to the side. Whatever this is, I'm sure I'm not going to like it.
