MacArthur Park: A Season 4 Olitz Miniseries
Part Three: Fitz
You are waiting for her to say something. Anything that could explain why the momentum of our pairing became inert so suddenly. Why are we not kissing anymore? There are no more elections to win. What albatross is there, still hanging around our necks?
You survived that awful night that you almost…
You survived to see her come back to you. Whatever the reason for her return, you are grateful. She, your beloved, is here. And for a moment, the two of you were inside a world where she still wanted you. One in which she missed you. She said so, and how glorious it sounded. You commit it to memory. Because…
"I can't," she says. Can't what? You just want to understand. To be a part of the inner workings of her mind. What now?
"I didn't go alone."
You hear her say it. The minute you do, your body protects you by taking a leap back from faith in her. Back from hope. Because you know what this means.
"You didn't go away alone," you repeat back to her. You know not the when, how, or where, but the who is crystal clear.
"Jake. You went with Jake." It is not a question. Saying it aloud is for your sake and hers. Not a 'yes' or a head nod, but a complete sentence from her is what you want to hear. what you need to hear. Maybe, selfishly, you feel you deserve at least that much.
"Say it," you demand more than once, until you practically spit it out through clenched teeth. "Say. It!"
"I…I went with Jake."
It is as sobering to feel, as it is hurtful to hear. Earlier when you kissed her, held her, it felt like a remedy to months of torture you have been suppressing—for Jerry and for her. Now, you don't know what this is—not torture, not remedy. Reality: it is reality. You are wilting underneath it.
"So, I am a failure as a man." You feel the Bowmore wearing off. And that's when it hits you. You are a trinity of failure: father, husband, man. Admitting these deficiencies out loud to her is one thing. You know her, after all. But, if she sees the look on your face, she will do the one thing that might send you over the edge of this emotional precipice. You turn away.
"Good to know."
You need your vision, your mind free of her for a moment, you think. Your knuckles curling against the Resolute desk are your sole source of support.
"Heavy is the head that wears the crown, they say." This presidency—the Fitz 2.0 being touted in the media—is truly all you have left.
And then she starts.
"Fitz…"
She has said your name every possible way today. None of them with the smile you have missed. Always with a cadence of slight worry, a stay against wandering down a road where you both might get lost. This time, your name in her mouth had the putrid composition of pity—a thing you cannot tolerate on top of everything else today. Don't make me feel foolish, too. Not from you.
Her attempt to comfort you? It happens so fast. Your defensive instinct is so quick, it does not register that you block her pathetic, charitable touch with such a withering grip. Not until your beloved cries 'ouch', consoling her wrist, do you realize what you have done. If it felt anything like the way you throat cut off your air supply, you are a thousand times apologetic.
You do not mean to hurt her. Not consciously. Not physically. The spiteful part of you is still to blame, but you are too ego-bruised to voice regret.
"Pay the Morgan's the 2.5 million dollars," you pronounce, recalling the matter at hand. Karen. This is about Karen.
If money was power right now, the Morgan's could have it. Your baby girl has more to live for. You can salvage that relationship.
###
What is wrong with everyone, you think. Mellie. Olivia. Jake. Everything is upside down except for the sound and the feel of your fist hitting Jake's torso. The man who ordered the death of your child. Hitting him is right. It feels good. And you don't care that it is the first time in months that something feels good, even when it should not.
The days have dragged on for you. The nights, too, because since the evening in your office with Her, you cannot sleep very well. The rational part of you knows better. Knows that She does not belong to you. Knows that She has Her reasons for fleeing, though She has not bothered to tell you. And maybe that part hurts the most. She is your friend. Your best friend. A friend you needed because you went through an unspeakable pain when you lost Jerry. Her disappearance after that was a devastating cherry on top of a rotted sundae that eviscerated you.
You are the fucking President, and you were on your knees with your guts spilling out onto the 'E Pluribus Unum' carpet beneath you. Your woeful wife beside you, calling the woman you love because even Mellie knows She is the only remedy. Your pain shielded you from shame.
Shame. Mellie does not feel any of that in her grief. It is strange because losing your first child has forced you closer together in grief, though the two of you have taken that in different directions. Deep down you know that you and Mellie have supported each other because you had no choice. You did not have Her to run to. Not then or now. Even if Mellie thought that is where you were today when you missed your daily appointment at your son's grave. The wife who reminded you of your dereliction of duty seemed damn near elated when you told her that Jerry's death was not accidental, but intentional. Your son was assassinated in political warfare.
"It was meaningful."
That is what Mellie said. And you looked at her like she had five heads. Your disgust was palpable because you saw clarity and relief in her eyes. As if she woke up from her slovenly stupor of loss. Our son's murder was meaningful. You cannot fathom such meaning.
Mellie is not the President. It is not Mellie who has to sit in that egg-shaped office every day and know that you are there only because your son lost his life, and the American people felt sad for you. No, it is you who must do that. America, like Her, did not want you either; they just felt sorry for you.
In addition to the pursuit of justice, those frustrations have brought you here, too. Looking into Jake's face, determined to solicit his confession.
"Did you kill my son?"
Every 'no' from Jake…
Punch.
Every time he blamed Rowan…
Punch.
You mete out more force on Jake's abs, his face. Your knuckles swell, crack, bleed. You cannot feel the pain because you put it in every swing.
Frustration with Mellie.
Olivia's abandonment.
Your loneliness.
Your son.
Jake's face and body is the receptacle for your pain, and you do not care. Non sibi sed patriae. Fuck that, you are putting self before country this time. In fact, punishing this murderer is for the good of the country, too. Let there be justice and peace.
You used to trust this man. He betrayed you once, when you asked him to keep an eye on Her. He seduced Her instead, creating proof in a sex tape that Cyrus forced you to watch. Of course Jake was fucking her for the last few months.
He keeps muttering on about being inside Her as She called his name.
"Did you kill my son?"
Denial.
Punch.
Rage. Pure fucking rage. That is how unresolved sorrow metastasizes. For your first born. Grief for what the mother of your children had endured at the hands of your father. Completing this hattrick of devastation, the woman who holds your heart in Her hands, your every feeling between Her teeth, the one who you will never be over—She is moving on without you.
His face is made for punching. And with every blow, you feel free. There is not a part of you that feels regret right now. Even when your knuckles will take days to go from purple to blue to green. Then back to that yellowy peach that erases, on the outside, the physical evidence of what they did to his cheek, his jaw, his mouth, his chin, his abdomen. Repeatedly, until all your subterranean furor rises to the surface.
"Did you kill my son?"
"I think you want me to be guilty," he says, spitting out the blood colleting in his mouth. You are careful not to knock out his teeth. A gift to Her.
"Being guilty allows you to hate me for things you're not allowed to hate me for. Like these two months I spend on an island screwing your girlfriend. Oh, that must have tortured you."
Deflection.
Punch.
As if you need extra reasons to hate him. You would never give him the satisfaction, anyway. Whatever the sex this man was indulging in with the love of your life is an inconvenient truth you can discard. That is not what matters. You have been here before. What matters is that She loves you.
Wait…does She still love you? Does She know that you are incapable of not loving Her? You remember that declaration as the last thing She said to you; and that you said to Her before She disappeared. What matters is that this snake of a man was there with Her, for Her. Able to do normal things that escape you because of who you are, and the office you hold.
"We were all having a difficult time." You remember Her words, and the sad sheen in Her eyes when she said it. And you want to know more about that, and what she suffered. One day, under moonlight, perhaps. Who you are, what you represent must come first. You are continually reminded of that every time you just want to be a man. A man that She needs and can rely on. You chose this life, you remember. So, you don't get to complain. Man up.
"Did you kill my son?"
Silence.
Punch.
"Did. You. Kill. My. Son?!"
Does She know this bruised and bloody coward killed my son?
###
That night you showed up because of Gabby. Because of the way she described the curdling screams from your beloved's nightmares. Gabby said She was hurting, distressed over Jake, convinced he did not murder your son or Harrison. Despite what you would prefer, or know to be true, that is how She felt. And so you showed up with proof. And you let rip. You try telling Her that Jake is a murderer. Plain as day.
"You don't know him the way you know me!"
You say it repeatedly. But is not about Jake. It never is. It is always about Her.
###
On this national day of mourning an ex-President, you try to get through to her. You are both cloaked in Black, having gone from a public display of sadness to confronting each other in a private den of your mutual pain.
You rattle off all the discord that man has sown in your lives.
The litany of what you two have survived would fill vaults. You rue the day you ever thought he was a friend, a former colleague you could trust to watch her. Your hurt clouded your judgement back then when trust was in short supply. The singe of her betrayal was hot when you thought she was a liar who never believed you could be President, and rigged an election to guarantee you would be.
"You don't know him the way you know me!"
The words repeat in your mind, again, because they are one of the truest things you have ever said. How can she know a man who killed her friend and colleague, Harrison; killed your son and then blamed it on her mother.
The manipulation and pain Jake has caused you both should be unforgiveable. You know there is hypocrisy in your conviction. Causing pain to each other is what the two of you do between loving one another. Will these things ever be separate, you wonder.
"Look what he did to you, to us. You and I are ruined. We don't have a chance now. Too much has happened."
Your words and your eyes are trained on her face. Please, you think, prove me wrong! For once, you want her to disagree with you. If ever you needed her to prove that she is always right, it is now.
"If you hand him over; if you give him to my father to be killed you and I will never, ever, have any hope of ever being together again."
You pause for the cause. You let it sink in.
If…if…if.
If is a time that has not arrived.
If is a space of opportunity. It is a blank slate to be filled and transformed by your decisions.
What will it be?
You need to know, to hear from your beloved's mouth if she misspoke, or if her words unwittingly unearthed a subconscious shred of her latent faith in a future union.
"Are you saying there's hope now?"
She knows you. Knows how much you believe in the transformative power of that word. Did she realize that it came out of her mouth?
She is prevaricating now, forgetting that you are both trained attorneys who are dogmatic in your quest for truth and justice. She is playing defense, and so you turn up your prosecutorial cross examination until she answers your question.
"Are. You. Saying. There's. Hope?"
You repeat it firmly, more emphatically with each time she distracts with something about the man she voted for, the man who took the oath of office.
Fuck that guy.
She did not fuck that guy the day of the election.
She fucked you, the man she loves, by disappearing.
And taking that man who killed your son. She did not know this then, you remind yourself. How could she? Even now, in her refusal to accept that reality, your forgiveness is boundless. Clinging to her need to be the heroic Olivia Pope, all you demand of your Livvie is a confirmation of the only thing that matters right now.
"Are you saying there's hope?!"
You are emphatic. Finally, her obfuscations cease.
What seems like an eternity of silence passes, but her face speaks volumes, even when she refuses the intensity of your face by looking away.
A deep sigh precedes her declaration. "There's hope," she relents before hightailing it out of the room.
You do not stop her. You are still frozen in place, reliving those two words, making sure they are real. You thought you heard a crack in her voice when she said them. She wanted to avoid saying it, that much is evident. But was that because saying it was a lie, or because it was the truth?
"Don't let love cloud your judgment."
Rowan's words come back to you. There are no clouds. And love? It is a double-edged sword clearing the path in front of you, revealing hope's light on the horizon.
There's hope. That is all that matters.
###
"I don't know why you won't let this go."
You want to talk about what hope means. Is this not what she promised? Why must everything be on her terms? You bring her the report she requested, so that she can tell you what hope means. Then she starts to talk about your suicide. How did we get here? Inside that question, you stumble upon an epiphany.
She is a terrorist.
You are in love with a terrorist. You can admit that now. A brilliant, beautiful, bombastic, emotional terrorists who, within the small, puffed pillows of her mouth, can make, or break you. Had she not already done this to you more than a week ago? When she broke the suction of your kiss to tell you she jetted off with another man.
And now here she is, again, changing the subject after you brought what she requested of you: a report on Jake's wellbeing. A health report on a murderer. You try not to laugh out loud on the phone, but it feels darkly humorous to you. What is not funny is that your Love still has a deluded sense of Jake as some wounded dog who she can care for and keep in her loyal stable. She has not learned. She will not listen to you, hearing in your words only petty jealousy.
Your knuckles itch, reminding you of the good work they have carried out. Kicking Jake's ass, you don't feel bad for him, nor about what you did to him. That she is disappointed in you for it is your only regret.
As you rattle off this report to her, you do not give a damn about how Jake's face is healing. You are doing this for her. For the hope she says exists.
"Tom says you tried to kill yourself."
What.
Now it is you who has been punched in the gut. The chest? The throat, maybe? Because you are speechless, your mouth open and dry as the Australian outback. Neither are breathing. All you feel is a roiling pain in your belly, and the stab of betrayal.
She is not supposed to know this. No one is supposed to know this. You were never going to tell her. Are not going to tell her. Not the why, when, where or how of any of it.
"You don't know him the way you know me."
The days' old declaration to her rings in your head now, and it makes you want to laugh. Except understanding the source of your cryptic chuckle would be one-sided. You do not intend to do this with her: excavate the source of the unfathomable desolation you felt that night. The one where you wailed, on your knees, in The Nest, until the sharp glint of broken glass blunted all reason and Tom intervened. Your soul cannot revisit the weakness in you.
Not now.
Not later.
Perhaps, not ever.
It is yours to hold, carry, and withhold.
The way she has withheld where she had been those two months.
Secrets: some mine; some, hers.
"I wanna talk about what hope means," you tell her. You want to get back on track.
"I want to talk about what Tom said."
Emotional terrorist. The answer is a firm an unspoken hell no. But you do not say that.
She always did underestimate what a shrewd politician you are. Perhaps she needs reminding.
"I thought you said Tom was a liar. Or…are you a liar? Were you lying when you said there's hope? Was that just to save Jake's life?"
"I wasn't lying," she protests. "I don't lie."
You erase the fact that she lied to you about having taken off to distant lands all by herself. Because, just hours later, her guilt (remorse? pity?) had her reversing course toward the unpalatable truth.
Confronting her is not what you want. Her being in front of you is.
You're lubricated. Crass suggestions cover your vulnerability. You want her here, but the mountain will not come to Mohammed.
"You're drunk. I should go…"
But you know her. Know where she is pliable, softly yieldable when enveloped in the bubble of the intimacy you two create. You crave more of that with her, even if it is on the phone. You do not want her to go.
"Don't you wanna know what you're gonna miss?" you entice.
"Fitz."
You cannot stop yourself. In your quest to erase the last few months, including your lowest point, experienced on her parquet floors, you focus on your strengths. You regale her with a fantasy you are all too ready to act out with her. One that reminds you that you are a vibrant man, not a broken vessel of loss.
You want to be wanted by her. To be claimed by her.
"And then what?" you hear her say in a low, sultry tone.
Smug is such a seedy word, but it is honest. Triumphant, powerful are the feelings tugging at the corner of your mouth. Still got it, you think. The honey trap has been laid and her voice is viscous with desire. Her eyes half lidded, you imagine, as she watches your lips, praying that she has waited long enough and deserves the kiss you promised. The picture you paint is so clear in your mind, and you hope the same is true for her. There is more, but you need to know she wants it.
"That depends on how much hope there is."
To be sexily continued from Olivia's POV
A/N: Don't worry, I did not skip over the contents of the phone sex. I'm dedicating a detaild treatment to that from Olivia's perspective. That's next.
Thanks for supporting this canon-based miniseries. Was there anything insightful here for you, from Fitz's perspective? What did you like, or want more of? What do you interpret differently? If you don't care about any of those questions, then bring up any point you care to tell me. But, please, do show some support with a comment :).
See! I told you I would update every few days until we are done with this. We are now at the halfway point. Three updates left.
Later,
IP