Even Lovers Drown CH 39

Her good mood continued throughout the rest of her evening. She keeps her mind carefully only on the events of the day, how good it felt to laugh again, to trade words and banter so easily. To have a few moments where her past didn’t matter and guilt wasn’t and regrets hanging on every word.  She’d needed it, even if she hadn’t known it.

Olivia decided on a whim to open one of the bottles she’s brought home. Her mind wanders and for once she lets it go, releases the reins and let it run free.

A meadow full of memories lie before her and before she can think about, before she can weigh the consequences, she is running through it.

She’s alone, she is surrounded by the walls that are the secrets of her life. For once they are off in the far distances of her mind. It doesn’t matter. Towering as high as the sky and as thick as her skin, she is safe here.

She spends time here less and less. Leaving is heart-ache. Leaving is pain.

She lets herself leave easy. It helps, this gentle upwards drifting of the mind. It’s like resurfacing from the ocean depths. There’s a buoyancy of spirit, a brief sensation of the  mending of numberless tiny cracks like tiny bubbles against her senses. They prickle sometimes, like pins and needles, painful sometimes, tiny fires like rivulets pouring though her mind. But they continue, leave her, float past her, spiraling upward into nothingness...

Olivia opened her eyes.

The phone rang. The sound causes her to catch her breath. It might not be him. It isn’t that late.

It might be him.  Which choice was the worst one?

“Hello.”

“Hello, Olivia.”

It’s Jake and she’s surprised to find that it's not necessarily a bad thing that it’s him. With Jake she can easily slip her masks back into place, settling them in place with a smoothness born of long, long familiarity. It slides over her with the warmth and feel of a an old familiar robe.

With him, she can smile, even if she doesn’t really mean it. That’s not exactly true; a part of her does, but it’s just a chink in her armor, she tells herself. Jake is a part of that other her - the her the world sees. The mover. The shaker. The fixer.

But him - there’s no past with him, she sees no future with him - at least she doesn’t have to think about one. There’s just the present; the here and now of him. And that’s more than enough.

So her lips curl into a smile.

His voice is pleasant enough, his words pleasant enough. She’s swallowing her wine and it’s blurring the edges and so she’s pleasant. Her words are pleasant enough.

“Hello, Jake.” She can feel him smiling on the other end of the line.

“You’re not surprised to hear from me so soon?”

She thought about that for a moment; maybe she should be - but she wasn’t quite settled into her other self. “Not really.” the words were the truth.

“You’re not annoyed to be hearing from me so soon?”

She thought about that and could find no reason to be so... “No.”

“Well, I’ll be the only one to be surprised.” he said. “And we can both be not annoyed at me.”

He has a favor to ask. He came home and found a couriered request waiting for him.  More or less a command, but put in the manner of a request. His immediate superior was bowing out of some White House function and had appointed him to the guest list in his place. Would she do him the great favor of being his partner?

“In certain high-ranking naval circles, it is strongly suggested that you do not arrive for these functions alone.” he explained. She, of course, knowing White House protocol for these functions, knows he’s telling the truth. Senior officers in general do not want younger officers than themselves offering themselves up as unintentional - mostly - eye candy.

He pauses and she can sense the wheels in his head spinning, marshaling his arguments. He won’t push, but he will do his best to persuade - she’s learned this much about him.

“Think of it as another non-date. And this time, you get to look even more gorgeous and torture me at the same time.”

“You think I’d take pleasure in torturing you?”

“What woman worthy of the name wouldn’t jump at the chance? Legal torture - that I’m asking for.”

She had to laugh at that. She tells him she will think about it and call him in the morning.

She hangs up then. Yes, she’ll call him in the morning. Because she will have to make some decisions. About her here and now and about her past. By saying yes to him, she’ll be bringing the two together.

By saying yes to him, she will be bringing the two of them together.

Out of nowhere, the words came, unbidden.

"Wait for me, Olivia."

She pours herself another glass of wine.

//**//

“Wait for me, Olivia.”

Out of nowhere, the words come, unbidden.

He’s staring out of the windows into the night, seeing nothing. The Oval Office is a refuge in the late night hours. It's a comfortable silence, able to hold uncomfortable thoughts.

And he is full of them tonight.

He isn’t drinking tonight. It’s not that he doesn’t want to. It’s become an old familiar, trusted friend, able to hold all the secrets in the world. He enjoys its company.

It’s just that - he doesn’t want to.

That surprises him, but he doesn't fight it. There’s an unreal clarity in his mind tonight; every thought seems to be outlined in light. Every beat of his heart is amplified, reminding him that he is alive. There’s a clarity to the shadows in the room and in his mind.

The doctors had told him this might happen;  it was not uncommon for those who came close to death. Every now and then, life would come rushing back in on them, like a giant wave.

He felt like he was riding one now. Fitz loved swimming in the ocean, has since he was a boy and even more so as a man; feeling the pull of a power greater than his own, owning the sensation and becoming one with it.

If he closed his eyes, he could let it in. The swirling turbulence was all around him,  a thousand tiny sub-currents spiraling against his senses. And it strengthened him. It flooded into a thousand tiny cracks and crevices and he let it. Sometimes it’s too much; sometimes he isn’t ready to face it.

And in a very rare sometimes, like now, he can open up a crack and let it in for a very little while.

He feels his head tilt backwards onto aching shoulders. He flexed them slowly, feeling the tension in them. He exhales slowly, letting himself slide into the waves.

The worries he could do nothing more about tonight - he let them drift downward of their own weight. He felt so many others, all waiting their turn to come at him. All trying to press in on him. But the main current that held him, held some small amount of healing held them at bay; slow and deep and insistent, it spun it’s own web around him.

There were answers in it; some he were even finally willing to acknowledge. Some he were not ready for. But tonight, he could forgive himself for even that.

There was so much to be forgiven for.

He will face it when he can. Right now, he needs to find a way to deal with his life day by day, hour by hour, breath by breath.

Alone, and out of sync.

And he will. Just as he has been doing. Walking each lonely step by step of the way. In the moment, he doesn’t care - he surrenders all sense of thought to it. All he wanted was peace.

All he wanted was...

“Fitzgerald.”

And the world came back into existence.

Fitz turned wearily to watch Mellie close the door behind her and walk towards him. Angels in heaven, what is it now? He may no longer know what he wants in the end, but he knows for now - right now - he knows he wants peace not war. There was war enough beyond that door as it was.

So he says nothing.

“I just wanted to know what your sleeping arrangements were going to be tonight.” Her voice is brittle, but careful.

He looks her in the eye, sees the hardness in them - but something else, too. He doesn’t recognize it.

Some of the fight seems to go out of her even as he watches. “I - I just wanted to know.”

Now she’s looking at him; her gaze sharpens a bit as though she’s seeing something new in him as well. Her gaze flickers to the end table that usually held his scotch. Eyes widen slightly as she measures it and knows it hasn’t been touched tonight.

He turns away from her. Why does she feel the need to ask him such a question? They haven’t intimate since Teddy was conceived. They rarely even shared the same bed anymore - more often than not, he’s preferred sleeping in the adjacent nursery - and that was more for the benefit of the staff than anything else.

“I thought it might help if you slept with your wife tonight. Fitz. Seeing how we have a State reception coming up where we will be back in our expected roles of the devoted presidential couple. Think of it as a rehearsal on how to behave when you’re next to your wife.”

“All right, Mellie.”

“We will be side by side for hours at this event.” she goes on, determinedly. “And I need to know that I will not be sitting and standing and dancing with a man whose body language screams that he doesn’t want to be near me.”

“All right, Mellie.” he tells her. He gets her point, he really does. And he’ll give it to her.

After all, none of them had signed up for this rollercoaster. Not even Mellie. If he had to slip on the mask a little earlier than he’d planned, so be it.

Fitz closed his eyes until he felt her presence leave. He was suddenly tired - so very tired. And yet he knew that another sleepless night lay ahead.