He felt her sharp intake of breath. Before she could move, run away, Fitz slid one hand to cover the one that rested on the sink’s edge and felt it clench in response. She froze.

“This could have been you and me - this should have been you and me.” He was so close to her now that there was barely any space between his body and hers.

“Do you know I used to dream about moments like this. I saw this in our future. You, me, our children -  sunshine and peacefulness and good friends. I never just wanted you in the dark, behind the scenes, embedded in secrets and stolen moments. I wanted to love you openly - in the sunlight for all the world to see.”

He felt her body shake in pain, felt her try to control it and fail. She trembled and choked back the tiniest whisper of a cry. 

The sound of her in pain rocked him; it acted like a fissure in the iron facade he’d put up against her, it cracked against the foundation of his anger. Emotions poured through the crack in the wall, but Fitz went on.

“You see them playing together? That’s what I wanted with you - it was all part of the dream. Our dream - our future. That’s what we were supposed to be.

“Of course, that was before; that was when I believed that you loved me. Before I learned the truth.”

“I did love you.” Her words came out on a ragged breath. She paused, then made a decision. He could hear it in her voice that she was opening her heart to him; and another rock in the foundation of his pain shattered. “I do.”

The part of him that had been so cruelly betrayed had become so much a part of him that it couldn’t accept the truth of her words. 

“You didn't. You don’t.” It was that same dark part of him that answered her. His words were harsh, his tone harsher - he simply couldn’t help it. She wanted to talk consequences, well let him show her some she hadn’t counted on. Olivia Pope, professional fixer, couldn’t fix this. 

She tried to pull away, but his hold was unyielding. Fitz didn’t move, they both knew that her physical strength was no match for his. His grip was like iron and after the one futile attempt, she realized it was useless to try. 

“If you had loved me, you would have chosen me. If you had loved me, you would have trusted me. If you had loved me, you would have come to me and told me the truth.”

Olivia twisted her body again, not to get away this time, but to turn so that she was facing him. Physically he might be stronger, but mind to mind - heart to heart - she was more than a match for him. 

But he wasn’t done. “You showed me that I couldn’t trust you. Without trust, there’s nothing. You left me alone - and empty, with no one around me to trust. No one. If you truly loved me, you would have never left me alone.”

Her eyes looked up into his, this time making no attempt to hide the heartbreak in them. His words had embedded themselves deep into her heart.

“That’s not fair.” Olivia said, not breaking her gaze from his. 

For a moment, he was caught up in her loveliness, completely snared by not only her beauty but by the emotions in her eyes. He never could stand to see his Livvie hurt...

No. He pushed his treacherous feelings aside. Admitting to her pain was nothing more than weakness. He’d started this and he’d finish it. 

“Life isn’t fair.” he said, his voice rough with a sudden, unexpected and unspoken passion.

If life were fair, it would have made him not bend to his father’s will and waited to marry Millie,  waited for Olivia to have come into his life at a time when he would have been free to love her. If life were fair, this would be their life, backyards and children and lazy Sunday afternoons and...

“Don’t you think I know that?” her voice as rough and trembly with the pain of a score and more of endless, sleepless nights. It was in her eyes as well. 

“What you did to me wasn’t fair. When you were making your choices, weighing the consequences of your actions, tell me - did you even stop to weigh what they might do to me?” he demanded.

“Yes! No! At least not the way you think.” she told him. Looking into her eyes, he could see that the honesty - and the pain -  was almost too much for her. 

Almost. Olivia would never back down from a fight. She would never back down from her feelings, either. 

Or his. 

“You’re right. Life isn’t fair. Life gave you a father with whom you had nothing in common. A man who called you a loser, who never saw or acknowledged your strengths because they were so different and above his own. What I did was wrong, but whatever I did - I did it for you!”

“I never asked you to go that far!”

“I never thought I would!” she shot back. “I went against everything I believed in - everything I was - for you! And when you found out - you never even gave me a chance to explain!

Her next words came out in a rush. 

“I was coming to tell you on the plane about Defiance only for you to tell me that your father had just had a heart attack and died. I knew what that man did to you - I saw it for myself and all I could think about how it must have been growing up with that painful, hateful petty-minded bastard as a father. And how much I loved the man you’d become in spite of him. 

“You were his opposite - you were the better man and instead of honoring you for that, he despised himself more and lashed out at you for it. I couldn’t tell you then - that man did his best to make you feel worthless and I couldn’t add Defiance to it - I loved you too much to hurt you all over again. 

She stared up into his eyes. “I loved you then - I love you now - I’ll never stop loving you - and if my choices meant I lost you - then so be it. I lost - but the country got what they needed. I did it for you, I did it for the American people and nothing you say to me will ever make me regret it!”

The passion, the truth in her voice are so painful it were like a punch in his gut. He was blind with it. A wall deep inside of him cracks open and all of his hurt and pain spills out, spills away like water in the desert, emptying his hate into the sands of the past, disappearing as if it had never been.

He bent his head down towards hers, suddenly lost in the nearness of her warmth. 

“Please don’t.” she whispered brokenly, closing her eyes.

They were so close now, their breaths mingled as one. She smelled of sunshine and life and the unique scent of her rises up to engulf him. He can no longer think of anything but her. 

“Olivia...” he breathed out her name. 

“No...” she shook her head, eyes closed against his voice, his heat - his heart - and hers.  

“Livvie...”

The hand that was still holding hers gentled; his fingers found their way between her own. His free hand came up in a mooth caress from wrist, to arm and throat to cup her face, fingers splaying out to hold her still. The touch of silk and satin over a core of diamond-like strength comes to mind as he slid his hand slowly across one cheek to cup her jaw. In this, her strength more than equals his.

It was one of the things he’d loved most about her - she was a diamond swathed in silk - and the truth of that shattered him.

“Look at me.”

She shook her head, eyes still closed against the intensity in his own. 

Fitz couldn’t help himself; he leaned in, brushing his lips against hers. And then he was lost. 

“You ruined me.” he found himself whispering against her lips.

“I’m ruined.” she whispered back, her voice shaking. Fitz sensed the single tear that spilled from one eye and traced its way down one cheek. 

Instinctively he turns his head, catches the tiny drop of moisture on his lips. It was moist and sweet and salty all at once and the last of his anger leaves him as swiftly as the morning dew at the first embrace of the sun.

“I don’t care.” he spoke the lie in the softest of voices, just before his lips came back to find hers. Her mouth parted helplessly, breathlessly under his.

He didn’t move and neither did she. The only parts of them alive were their mouths, one upon the other.

His kiss was tentative, as slow and as hesitant as a new lover’s caress. Fitz gently pulls at her bottom lip with his own, capturing it gently and suckling at it, tasting her. His lips then drift upwards to do the same to the upper one. He presses his lips against them together,  learning their taste and texture all over again. 

He deepened the pressure of his mouth on hers as he slid them back and forth, coaxing her mouth to open under his. 

There’s a moment of hesitation on her part - part disbelief, part shock, part pain and sorrow and regret. 

He needs to change that, he needs to change them. Nothing else matters except that - and that is everything. 

His tongue slides into the warmth of her mouth slid into her mouth seeking hers. Finding it, he drives deeper swirling his tongue against hers, driving against the barrier of pain that he’s responsible for.

All the words he cannot say, all the love that was still in his heart  - had been there all along - all of it was wrapped up in his kiss 

Her response was tremulous and unbelieving at first, then she was kissing him back. She hadn’t moved either - their only contact was their mouths one against the other. 

Now she was tasting his lips as he had done hers. He lets her take her time about it as she relearned the shape and feel of his mouth, and then she’s opening hers freely, inviting his tongue inward, suckling, twining, caressing...wanting, needing, loving?

For a moment, eternity was theirs, all done up in a kiss.

Reality returns slowly.

Reluctantly, they both end the kiss as if by mutual unspoken consent. 

Fitz pulled away, opens his eyes to find Olivia’s staring up at him. He saw the glitter of unshed tears in them, along with pain and confusion.

What had he done?

Before he could marshal his thoughts, Olivia was speaking, her voice a low angry broken sound.

“You can’t keep doing this to me.” she spat at him. “You don't get to have me where you want - when you want!”

She jerked herself away from him; this time Fitz was too stunned to stop her. 

Olivia took a few steps away, wrapping her arms around her body as though to protect herself. 

From him. Dear angels in heaven, what has he done?

“You tell me you don’t trust me - and without trust, we have nothing. Well, I don't trust you! I can’t! You don’t want me - not with your heart! Remember what you told me - that you may not be able to control your erections around me, but that didn't mean you wanted me.

“I’ve had close to twelve months of sleepless nights where all I heard were those words over and over and over again. And one kiss can’t erase them.”

She stopped, swallowed hard. Fitz imagined he could see the emotion boiling off of her, bleeding her pain into the air between them. 

“Livvie...” His hand came up - reached for her. He didn’t know why he had done what he had done, didn’t know what he was doing now...

“No!” All of her tears, all of her rage was bound up in that single word. “You don’t get to call me that! You don’t get to stand there and look at me like that with your eyes and think that one kiss is going to make everything all right. I am not yours and- and you can’t do this to me.”

Before he could answer her, she fled the room. Fitz was left standing there alone. 

She was Olivia Pope, the fixer - and she’d just walked away from him, so how was he going to fix things on his own? 

He steps closer to the sink and this time it’s his hands gripping the edges as if for balance while his world rocked unsteadily beneath his feet. His head sinks low, his heart lower still. Questions fill his mind.

How did they get here?

Where was ‘here’? 

And she’s left him with the biggest question of all - what if she were right?