The clouds had battled the sun throughout the morning, making it a cool and misty one, but by the afternoon, the sun had begun to win the war, allowing Olivia and Cyrus to have a pleasant enough walk through the park. 

Cyrus had gotten to the coffee kiosk first and had been waiting for her with with their two cups when she arrived. After saying their hellos, they headed into the park, with Cyrus bringing Olivia up to speed about her god-daughter Ella. 

While Olivia always loved hearing about Ella’s doings, she knew that was not the reason why Cyrus had asked to meet with her and finally said so. 

“Of course it’s not.” Cyrus said.

For the first time in a very long time, Olivia heard the weariness in his voice; it caused her to stop and look at him sharply. “What is it Cyrus? Are you all right? Have you been sick or something?” 

Something had to be wrong.

Cyrus waved them towards an empty park bench. Most of the people passing them by were in a hurry to get somewhere else, so their privacy was pretty much a given. “Physically, no, there’s nothing wrong with me that a few shots of scotch wouldn’t take care of. Maybe I could at least sleep at night.”

“You hate scotch.” she reminded him. 

“I hate scotch.” he agreed, before continuing with a touch of his usual sharpness,“But for other people, it seems to work so well as a sleeping aid.” 

Both of them fell silent. He hadn’t meant to bring up the subject of scotch; not when they both knew in common who did have a taste for it. 

“Sorry.” he said. 

Olivia shrugged the apology away. Cyrus had already told her months ago that the president - and that’s how she tried to think of him now - not Fitz, but as the president - had been drinking considerably more than he had in the past. 

Olivia sipped at her coffee, trying to lose herself in the rich cinnamon scented brew, but she’d lost the battle before it had begun. She sighed and surrendered.

“How is he?”

Cyrus managed a small sigh of his own and with it came a resigned expression. “He’s still very much functional, don’t worry. His personal secret service guys are pretty discrete about the disposal of the bottles, but I can count too and the number has gone up. He can go through a bottle in less than a week and that’s not -” Cyrus stopped and corrected himself “ - that used to not be him.”

For a moment, Olivia couldn’t look at her friend. Times like this, she could barely bear to look at herself. “I told you he knows. We did this to him, Cyrus.”

Cyrus waited a moment before he answered - what was telling that this time, he offered no argument.

“What’s done is done.” he said. “He is the president and that’s that. And he’s a good one - and the potential is still there to be a great one.”

“It was always there.” Olivia said softly. “Maybe we should have thought of that before we did what we did...”

Cyrus put out one hand and patted her on the arm. “You’re right - it was always there. You saw, I saw it - hell, the country saw it. That’s why he got elected.”

“It still doesn’t negate what we did.”

“No, but what we did was for the good of our country. Never forget that, Olivia. We haven’t had this level of bipartisanship from either side of the aisle in decades - that’s what we brought back to America. If I’m to be damned for it, then so be it.”

His voice went fierce. “We did the right thing. Even if Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III knows - even if he will never admit that - he’s the right man  at the right time for this country. We needed him - America needed him!”

Olivia lifted her cup to her lips and drank deep from the cooled coffee. They’d had a variation of this conversation more than once and would probably have more of them again. Probably to convince one another that in spite of what wrong they’d agreed to, they’d been forced to do it for all the right reasons. 

It still didn’t sit right with her. It probably never would. She held up her hand. “You’re preaching to the choir here, Cyrus.” 

He caught himself and surprisngly, managed a chuckle aimed mostly at himself. “I am, aren’t I? Sorry, I guess I’m just feeling a little sorry for myself, since I’ve been relegated to a position outside of the intimacy of the Oval Office.”

“Give it time.” Olivia said.

“I’m trying, but with Mellie always at his side, whispering in his ear, doing her very best to keep me out in the cold, well - let’s just say it hasn’t been easy to maintain my usual practicality. This isn’t the first time Fitz and I have been at odds - but it has been the longest.”

Olivia shook her head. “She’s more of a fool than I ever credited her for. She knows Fitz.” Olivia’s voice caught, just a little, as she said his name. It was something she tried very hard not to do anymore. His name on her lips caused more heartache than she liked to admit - even to herself. 

She made a sound in a throat and continued. “He needs you.”

Neither one of them said aloud what they both knew they were thinking in that moment.

He needs you, too.

“Yes, he knows that much, so that’s why I’m still there.” Cyrus said. “Especially with the hostage situation still dragging on.”

“And that’s why the issue of Defiance has never come up between you. A part of him hates you right now.” While all of him hates me, a voice whispered inside of her. “But you’re invaluable to him and he knows it.”

“Right again.” Cyrus said. “You always were  my favorite student - and for very good reason. Smarter and quicker on the uptake than all of my students combined.”

“I was too busy being awed by you to do otherwise.” Olivia said. “But you know that you have always been my very favorite mentor.” She paused for a moment, her throat aching a little from the unspoken words that still lay between them. She drank more of her coffee, willing the tightness to go away. 

“I always said that if Fitz ever found out about Defiance that it would change him - it would change him at a very fundamental level.”

Olivia, remembering their encounter at the christening, knew that she could never tell Cyrus just how right he was. There was a time that Fitz would have never been capable of using her own passion against her as a weapon. Her heart ached with remembered pain as she’d sat in the pew at Verna’s funeral and came to the painful realization of what his words to her had really meant. 

It was nothing she wanted to dwell on, so she changed the subject. “You were right, we both know that now, but this wasn’t why you called me, Cyrus - will you tell me why you did now?”

A shadow passed over Cyrus’ face. “It’s James.”

Olivia was alarmed at the look at her friend’s face. “Is he sick?” Her mind went racing off in a million directions all at once, the fixer in her went to work. “Does he need a second opinion, a third? Is he in some sort of trouble? What can I do to help?”

Cyrus actually managed a laugh as he interrupted her. “No, it’s none of the above. James is fine, health-wise. I told you already, we’re all fine. And I don’t think there’s anything you can do to help - not at the moment, at least.”

Even though the smile tried to linger on his face, something altogether different was in his eyes. “He’s lying to me.”

Olivia didn’t know what to say and it must have shown on her face.

“It’s not what you think - he isn’t cheating on me. I have no doubt that James loves me. But he lied to me anyway.”

She knew that despite Cyrus’ ability to be ruthless, she doubted if he’d ever loved anyone in his life as much as Cyrus had come to love James. Whatever the betrayal was, it had to have hurt him badly. 

“About what?” she asked. She was unprepared for Cyrus’ answer.

“It may have to do with Defiance.”

A shock went through her. “How?”

“I don’t know the how of it yet.” Cyrus said. “What I do know is that he told that he was going to see about his father, but I recently discovered that the week James said he was going, he actually flew out to Ohio instead. Defiance County to be exact.”

“No.” Olivia breathed.

Cyrus nodded. “Oh yes. And we both know that James is very highly experienced journalistic investigator. A Pulitzer Prize level journalistic investigator. If his nose gets on the scent, he’ll follow it no matter where it leads.”

He turned an anguished gaze on Olivia. “I can’t have him finding out.” Cyrus’ voice dropped to a desperate whisper. “It will destroy - everything.”

His words took a moment to sink in. Everything could literally mean anything when it came to Cyrus Beene, Chief of Staff. “Cyrus, what are you going to do about it?”

The fact that he turned his gaze from her and didn’t answer the question set a thin current of fear rising in her.  She reached out and gripped his arm. “Cyrus?”

For a long moment, he still wouldn't answer her. Cyrus sat up a little straighter and set his shoulders before turning to face her. 

“I will protect America from the upheaval this news would have on the country. I will protect the presidency of this United States however it needs to be done. I will protect Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III  with all the  resources at my disposable. I always have and I always will.”

A chill washed over her as Olivia knew that he meant every word of it. She had had ample example of how far Cyrus would go to protect Fitz, even if he never knew about it. Defiance itself was but the tip ofthe iceberg. 

The specter of Amanda Tanner rose up between them. It was something that they had never discussed, she and Cyrus, but she was ninety-nine percent sure that Cyrus had had her removed because of the threat she had posed to the presidency.

“Cyrus?” she was afraid to ask, but the question hovered on her lips, understood yet unspoken. 

“He’s been seen talking to David Rosen.” Cyrus said. He  turned his gaze away from Olivia, continuing on as though she hadn’t spoken. “Oh, they have been very accidental meetings. Run-ins here and there. D.C. can be a very small town when you run in the circles of power. One might think that they were totally coincidental.”

“They could be...” Olivia said.

“And it could be they aren’t.” Cyrus said. “And if they aren’t, then I will have to make a decision on how to proceed.”

He stood up and drained the last of his cup. As he moved to toss it into the nearest trash can, Olivia followed him and did the same. 

She touched his arm again. “I want you to promise me something.”

Cyrus stood there for a moment, silent, locked into his own thoughts. Then he turned to face her. “What is it, Olivia?”

“If you come to a decision about what actions you need to take, I want you to promise me that you’ll come and talk to me about it first.”

A strange expression crossed his face then, one Olivia couldn't quite read. “I don’t know it you’d want to....” his voice trailed away.

Olivia slipped her hand down from his arm to his hand and gripped it tightly. “I do want to know. Because I want you to be sure about it. You and I - we don’t always see eye to eye on a lot of things. But when we’re on the same page, we are one hell of a team and you know it.”

A faint smile came to his lips. “That’s true.”

“Then you remember that. On this matter, we’re a team. But you and James - and Ella - you three are also on the same team. You need to remember that, and you need me to help you remember that. Blind loyalty to -to - Fitz.”  - and even in the middle of all of this potential bombshell, it was still a struggle for her to say his name - “- played a huge part in what’s happening now. Let’s try and not repeat that mistake. There’s too much at stake here.”

Cyrus gripped her hand harder. If his voice was a little rough around the edges when it came out, neither one of the remarked upon it. “My favorite student.”

“I learned from a master.”

Before either of them could say anything else, both of their phones began to ring. It was the world was calling them back. Cyrus nodded at her, even as he reached for his. 

Olivia returned the gesture as she reached for hers. 

A moment later, both of them left the park, headed in opposite directions. Back into the world to fight the battles that lay before them.