The rest of the visit passed quickly enough. He waited a decent interval before following Olivia out back outside, ignoring an inquisitive look from Cyrus. 

There was more conversation, more jokes and laughter but it was clear that the morning brunch was ready to wind itself down. Olivia looked at him as little as possible without being obvious about it and Fitz found himself doing the same. 

She was the first to leave and again, Fitz waited a decent interval before announcing his departure as well. He bundled Teddy and his things up, gave a kiss and a hug to Ella while his SSA guys checked the exterior prior to his leaving. 

Cyrus did walk him out to the car.  “I have to say, I was surprised to see you today.” 

Fitz shrugged. “I surprised myself.” In more ways than one, he thought.

“Is - everything all right, sir?” Cyrus asked just before they reached the car. 

Fitz raised his eyebrows in a silent question. Just what exactly was Cyrus asking?

Cyrus hesitated, clearly not wanting to clarify his question but clearly felt that he had no choice. “Olivia, sir. I apologize. I had no idea that you and her would meet here.”

Fitz smiled, even if it were a little tight around the edges. “Don’t worry, Cyrus, I know you would move heaven and earth to keep Olivia and I apart. You’re no matchmaker. No apologies needed.

He changed the subject. “My guys were not pleased by the fact that I came here in the first place without prior knowledge and they are going to start having fits in a minute if I keep on standing out here in the open, so again, don't worry about it. It happened, it's done and behold, the earth is still intact. "

He didn’t want to discuss Olivia at all so before Cyrus could say anything more on the subject, Fitz thanked him for the invitation and told the other man that he would see him in the office tomorrow.

Cyrus watched the president’s sedan pull away, wishing he could believe that it was true. The ground beneath their feet may be solid enough for now, Cyrus was thinking it was only a matter of time before that changed. He wanted to brace himself for the aftershocks - he just didn’t know how.  

Thankfully by the time Fitz returned to the White House, Mellie had taken herself elsewhere. Right now, the last thing he needed was another bout with her. He was too drained from the rollercoaster emotions of the day to go yet another round with her. More than likely things would have been said that should never be said, and would be resented by the both of them. 

He took the time to give Teddy a bath after his outdoor playtime; he even stayed and played for a little while with his son, but for once found himself to restless to stay in the nursery long. 

Luckily, the little boy was tired from their morning’s adventure; that and the bath made him easy to rock to sleep. In a rocking chair in the nursery that Fitz had had installed for just this purpose, Fitz sat with his youngest son in his arms, breathing in the peaceful scent of little boy and sleepy time, wishing that it could cool his thoughts, wishing it could ease away the jangles in his nerves. Usually it did, but today it failed.   

Eventually he lay Teddy down and after a last caress of his son’s tiny body, left the room. 

As Fitz walked the halls alone, he felt lost; he was torn inside, everything in him being pulled in a million directions all at once. Caught between need, anger and frustration - between hate, desire, duty and love he no longer knew which way to turn.

He questioned himself ruthless as he walked, wondering if he ever really knew what all of it meant.  Had he been fool enough to not know what love was after all? Had he been nothing but a foolish older man who had let himself get caught up in a fantasy? 

No.

Fitz let his feet lead him to the Oval Office and closed the door behind him.

No. That would make him no better than his father. The man was dead and he needed to let go of him and his hatred and his belittling and the pain he had brought to him once and for all. 

He glanced at his desk; Fitz knew that there were some briefs he needed to read and review, but there were always briefs and reports and facts and figures to be attended to - suddenly he decided he would look at them before the day was done but there wasn’t anything there that needed his attention at this precise moment. 

He needed time to tend to him. He just didn’t know if he could. 

Responsibility still called to him - it would be a way to turn away from taking a harsh look at himself. If not the reports, he could look at the newsfeeds for news on the hostage situation, take a look at the international intel channels, do his job in other words - but if anything had changed, he would have been notified the moment it had happened. 

All these other tasks clamored for a place at the edges of his mind and it would easy to let them in. Almost easier than dealing with what happened between he and Olivia earlier.

No. 

Instead, he found himself wandering out into the gardens, walking slowly along the paths to the terraced patio where he and Jocelyn Martin had been working and past them into the cultivated woodland beyond it.  

He was angry - he was so angry at her. As hard as he tried to control it, his hands clenched into fists as he imagined her face before him, the pain in her eyes as she took in his words. Why couldn’t Olivia understand why his anger was so much more towards her than anyone else?

Was he sad and infuriated by Mellie’s actions - by Cyrus’? Of course. But in the end, he was hardly surprised. Hollis? He was just being Hollis. 

But Olivia, couldn’t she see how her part in this hurt, destroyed him, decimated him more surely and thoroughly than all the rest combined?

Did he have the right to still want her? Did he still want her? Fitz couldn't answer that. He had opened the doors of his soul to her. She had been the only one who had known how he cried for his father - for the man he wished his father could have been, he reminded himself bitterly. He had told her how much he wanted to win this election. And her response was to make a deal with the devils to make it happen.

He hadn’t won. He didn’t never known that until Verna had told him. And he would never know if the victory would have been truly his or a result of the same backroom politics that were the rulebook for his father’s life and had become everything he’d hated.

Fitz’s soul ached with the knowledge of the betrayal of the country. His soul had gone mad and died a little with the knowledge of it - and yet to reveal it would destroy this country and bring it down in anarchy. His own pain was nothing against that. He was forced into silence, into dishonesty and lies and that made him no better than the others.

All of that, combined with the betrayal of the person who had become the most important person in his life after his children had broken him. The pressure of it had almost driven him to his knees  and there was no one who knew that at all; how the inner guilt and pain drove him to work twice as hard after he’d been told, after he’d been shot. 

Knowing what she did of him,  claiming to love him like she did, how could she could betray him like this in such a fundamental way? How could he love her after that? She betrayed everything he had believed about her. She had destroyed him at his most basic part of him, the very foundation of who he was. 

But he still loved her. That unexpected kiss had made that impossible to ignore or to deny any longer. 

Fitz had more or less had been walking blindly through the White House grounds, not noticing until he looked up that he had reached that quiet little grove where he and Jocelyn had talked. This time he went into the exquisitely ivy-clad glass-walled structure. A chaise lounge demi-couch took up one side of the interior and he went to it swiftly, sinking down onto one corner, letting his aching head drop into his hands. 

How could he love a woman capable of making such a choice? How could he allow himself to be so weak - to be everything his father had said he was? 

His father’s lies, against who he had aways believed himself to be. It was a war that he was finding almost impossible to battle.  

He didn’t know who he was anymore, let alone what he wanted.

Or even what he needed. 

He was lost, so lost. Sometimes at night, he felt broken beyond repair.

He couldn’t hate her - because she was the love of his life, even now.

He couldn’t love her - because her betrayal had cost him all that he was.

Like a child, he wanted to weep. But he couldn’t - he was the leader of the free world. 

He couldn't - because there was no time for his personal weakness - not here, not now, not ever.

He couldn't - because this time there were no loving arms waiting to hold him when he fell.

He was alone.