Chapter 2: propositions

Four days had passed since Fitz had moved into the office next door. He'd barely been around, which suited Liv, considering her heart felt like it was going to collapse whenever he looked at her. She assumed he was busy filling out all of the new faculty paperwork and finding his feet in Stanford.

"Liv, that Nobel Laureate lecture starts in ten minutes, if you still want to go."

Cyrus' voice made her jump. She checked her watch. "Shit. Thanks, Cy."

Every few months, the department invited a Nobel prize winner to give a free lecture to the students and staff members. This week, they'd invited someone who was practically Olivia's idol growing up. She wasn't about to miss it by daydreaming.

She followed Cyrus through the hallway, subtly glancing into Fitz's office on the way past. It was empty, as it had been every time she'd checked in the past three days. She felt a small pang of annoyance every time. He'd acted like he'd wanted to make an effort and be friends with her, but now it just seemed like he didn't give a shit, just like in the old days.

She and Cyrus found a half-empty row in the auditorium to slip into, four minutes before the lecture was due to start. The guest speaker, a woman in her mid-sixties, was already standing behind the podium with a confident half-smile. Liv couldn't help but lean forward to try and see her better. Her name was Mary, and she'd only been thirty-six when she'd made a key discovery to understanding human genetics.

"I can't believe she's here," Liv found herself whispering.

"Nope," Cyrus agreed. He was equally in awe of her. After all, it wasn't often that a British Nobel prize winner flew halfway across the world to give a guest lecture. It was no wonder that the theatre was completely packed with staff and students – one of the only spare seats was next to Olivia.

Right as the lecture was about to start, Liv heard someone ask, "Is this seat taken?" and without so much as looking at them, she nodded and gestured for them to sit down. Mary was about to start speaking, and she deserved her full, undivided attention.

"Oh, so you're not even looking at me now? I see how it is."

Liv turned her head to see Fitz sitting there with his usual lopsided smirk. "What are you doing here?"

He raised an eyebrow and looked down to where Mary was beginning her talk. "I'm a member of staff here now, if you hadn't heard."

"You're not interested in X-chromosome inactivation."

He leaned a little closer, lowering his voice so their talking wouldn't disrupt the rest of the audience. "And how would you know what I'm interested in?"

She fought the urge to roll her eyes, and turned her attention back to what she was really here for.

At the front of the room, Mary adjusted her glasses and clicked to the next PowerPoint slide. "So, here we go. What led me to the discovery of Barr bodies…"

Fitz really had gone to the lecture to witness a great talk by a great woman, but he couldn't help but zone out every time he caught Olivia in deep concentration. Her thinking face was adorable; the slight scrunch of her nose, the subtle forward lean, the way her eyes lit up when a new piece of information was revealed.

Each time he caught himself watching her, he'd force himself out of it and prayed to god that nobody else had noticed.

Back in college, he'd seen her every now and then around campus with who he presumed was her boyfriend. And most of the time, he was being dragged around by his ex, Mellie. Looking back, he had no idea why he'd stayed with her, especially not during the final year of his PhD. The only problem was, Mellie's father was highly influential when it came to the scientific research world – he was incredibly rich, and if you secured a research grant from him, you were bound to be successful (and if you weren't, he'd force you to try something else until the results were good enough to be associated with him). He didn't mean to use Mellie in any way – after all, she'd asked him out first – but perhaps one of the only reasons he saw the relationship through was because he was terrified of his name being blacklisted from any future research grants.

He'd had a conversation with her father three years after graduation. He'd already been co-author on a few papers by that point, and he was getting his name out there. Mr. Arthur "Art" Waters was an extremely intimidating guy, even for Fitz.

"Tell me, then, Grant," he'd said. "How much longer are you planning on faking this engagement for?"

Fitz had almost choked on his water. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Art fixed him with an even, unwavering look. "Are you only with my daughter for my money? What's your deal?"

"With all due respect, Sir, I don't need nor want your money. I'm doing fine for myself as a researcher, and at some point I'm going to try and secure a tenure. As for me and Mellie's relationship…" He glanced at the man, bracing himself. "I must admit, I don't think we're going to last much longer, as much as I love and respect her."

Art didn't say anything for about five seconds, which made Fitz squirm. He hated awkward silences.

"Good," he said, finally.

Fitz frowned. "Good?"

"Listen, Fitz…" Art stood up, indicating that Fitz should do the same. "I don't think your life is compatible with my daughter's. You're too busy for her. Which… good for you, I suppose, for getting so much work." He paused. "She needs someone who is more present. More available. That man isn't you."

"You're asking me to break up with your daughter." Fitz had to double check, because it sounded ridiculous coming from his girlfriend's own father. "Four months before the wedding."

"Correct." Arthur rooted in his pocket for a cigarette and lit it, taking a long puff. "She needs a politician, or something. Not a scientist."

"Alright."

"Good man." Art clapped him on the shoulder. "Break up with her by the end of the week."

Fitz was about to leave, when he turned around. "What does this mean for us?"

"What, about the grant I was about to give your team for the Alzheimer's project?"

Fitz nodded, and Art grinned, taking another long drag of his cigarette. "Don't worry about it, my boy."

As it turned out, when Fitz broke up with Mellie, she was heartbroken – but more than that, she was absolutely furious. And sure enough, within the week, Arthur had pulled out his funding for the project. Fitz tried to get hold of him to ask why he'd changed his mind, but his number had been blocked and he couldn't be bothered arguing with one of the richest men in America. The Alzheimer's paper, which Fitz knew deep-down would be the best he'd written so far, had to be shelved. He had a makeshift team of four people, and when he told them the grant had been redacted, they were in disbelief.

He'd called his old college buddies and gone out drinking for the night instead, wondering how the hell he was going to find something better than a 12-month research stint. Mellie, on the other hand, became somewhat of a socialite, and within a year was engaged to the rising politician Andrew Nichols.

The lecture ended, and Fitz watched as Olivia walked up to the front to strike up conversation with Mary herself.

Cyrus smiled fondly. "She's Liv's idol, you know."

"Huh."

He watched as she gestured animatedly, in deep conversation with the woman (who looked equally as interested in whatever Liv was saying).

"Have you considered working together, Fitz?"

"Hm?" Fitz's eyes didn't leave Olivia as he responded distractedly. "Sorry?"

"Have you considered working with Olivia," Cyrus asked. "I was just thinking that your specialities could fit quite nicely together, if both of you are still wanting to be active in research… and it's so convenient, the two of you being in the same faculty."

Fitz glanced at him wryly. "Are you asking me to write a killer paper with Liv, to make your faculty look good?"

Cyrus shrugged. "Everyone would benefit. You haven't published yet this year. And neither has she."

"I've been busy."

He'd been travelling for seven months. South-East Asia, doing homestays in Sumatra, then island-hopping through the smaller islands of Indonesia and further on to Japan and South Korea. If he was a teenager, he'd say that he'd been finding himself. Really, he needed a distraction. No matter how good your research output was as a scientist, it had to be impactful – and for some reason, he'd been struggling with outreach lately. His papers weren't reaching the right people. And on top of it, his mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he'd spent two months by her bedside before she passed. He'd needed a break.

"Busy, right." Cyrus nodded. "Well, think about it. You and Liv's skills could compliment each other really well. Is there nothing you'd consider doing with a genetic background?"

Fitz's mind catapulted him back to twelve years ago, back to the Alzheimer's paper that never got off the ground. "Actually," he found himself saying, "there's a paper I've been wanting to finish for a while – I could use her on it. I truly believe it could be a great paper, if we get the right people and the right funding."

Cyrus tried not to look too excited. After all, he had two of the best young scientists in the country at his disposal. It would be foolish not to want them to make the school look good.

Olivia finished talking to Mary, and thanked her before re-joining Cyrus and Fitz, a huge smile plastered on her face.

"Good talk?" Fitz asked.

"Incredible," Liv replied, her eyes shining. "She's amazing."

"I'm glad you got to talk to her."

He sounded genuine, and she looked momentarily surprised before Cyrus jumped in with a question about Mary. Her gaze slipped off of Fitz and her attention turned to Cyrus, and the disappointment that washed over him made him feel a little pathetic.

"Hi."

Fitz looked up. It was late – maybe eight p.m. – and he was still sitting at his desk, trying to run through what he was going to teach as his first week of lectures. He had no idea why Olivia was still in the building at this time of night, never mind standing in the doorway to his office.

He raised a brow and leaned back in his chair. "Hey."

She took that as an invitation to come in, coming to sit at the chair opposite his. "So. Cyrus mentioned that you had something you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Did he?"

Fitz inwardly groaned. Cyrus couldn't keep his mouth shut to save his life.

Liv sat in silence for a moment, waiting for him to start. Eventually, he crossed his arms and started talking.

"Twelve years ago, I got the go-ahead for this paper on genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's Disease."

Her eyes immediately brightened. "Really? That's fascinating – I don't remember seeing that under your papers, though."

"Exactly." He glanced at her. "It fell through because of funding issues, never even got off the ground. But I'd be interested in revisiting it."

"You definitely should."

"I feel like you're not understanding what I'm trying to say, Olivia."

God, the way he said her name was an insult to anyone else. It sounded so natural coming from his mouth.

"What–?"

"I'm a neuroscientist."

"I know that," she said.

"...Which ties in with the Alzheimer's part."

"Naturally."

"But I need a geneticist on board."

She blinked. "Oh."

He was asking her to work with him. On a research paper, of all things. A research paper could take months – months of working together in a lab at ungodly hours of the night, helping each other, trusting each other.

He saw the hesitation written all over her face. "Please, Liv. I promise you won't regret this. It has the potential to be a great paper – probably the best I've ever written, if all goes well. And in the past twelve years, the science has progressed so much that it's making me even more confident that we can get some great results–"

"Fine," she cut in.

He paused. "Was that a yes?"

"On two conditions." She exhaled slowly. "You can't act like a jerk, not when we're supposed to be working as a team. I think we've already established that I'm on the same level of intellect as you are. Neither one of us is superior, so don't think you can boss me around."

His lips twitched with a shocked smile. "I think we established your intellect back in Langston's lab, when you answered every single one of my questions."

"Exactly."

"And condition two?"

She stood up from her seat. "We can't let this paper take over our lecturing careers. We're here for Cyrus and for the students."

"Of course." He thought for a few seconds. "Why don't you come to my first lecture? Then you can pick it apart, take the piss out of me, whatever you need to do to get me back for my teasing back in Princeton."

She smiled. "I'll think about it."

"I thought you'd jump at the chance to make me look bad."

She rolled her eyes. "Fitz, I'm not you."

He grinned. She'd called him Fitz. He was definitely wearing her down. No more of the Professor Grant crap.

She stayed in the doorway for a moment, then glanced back at him. "Goodnight. Don't burn yourself out, staying here too late."

"I won't. Goodnight, Olivia."

NOTE:

Hope this gave some more background to the story. Olitz are gonna be forced to get a whole lot closer if the research paper gets the go-ahead ;)