Executive Orders

CH 27 | Shattering

The way Fitz is looking at her, the unshed tears in his eyes reflecting the unwavering strength of his love for her shatters her - because there are words that even now that she cannot speak, memories she cannot bear to face, let alone share. If she did, there's no way he could ever continue to love her...

...She doesn't deserve his love, she doesn't deserve him - and maybe she never will...

Fitz sees the self-loathing surface in her eyes seconds before she spins herself away from him, so that her back is to him once again.

Olivia can't even meet his eyes anymore and something in him - his heart, his soul, his love - stretches to its breaking point. They're both frozen in place beneath this towering tidal wave of pain until it threatens to drown them both.

Then the pain holding him still snaps, the revelations of the last few minutes causing this last barrier between them to give way as Fitz finally moves towards her, closing the space between them in an instant.

His hands hesitates for just a second before they reach for her, resting themselves gently on her shoulders. He tries to turn her around, feeling the tension in her body as Olivia resists for just a moment, but then - to his relief - she relents.

Fitz looks down into her face. Does she even know what the sight of her crying does to him? He can count on one hand the number of times he's seen her cry and every single time it rips his heart out of his chest.

He doesn't know what it is Olivia wants or needs, but Fitz doesn't think she knows either. What he does know is that all he needs to be is whatever Olivia needs him to be in this moment - and that they'll figure it out - together.

Fitz hesitates, then his hands come up to cradle her face, his thumbs tenderly tracing the tracks of her tears...

The ice inside her shatters at his touch and in its place, a new warmth blossomed. Her mind was still in a state of confusion, but what she did know was that she couldn't take this pain anymore, she didn't want to hurt any more, and Fitz was the one constant in her world that could take her pain away.

His hands were warm against her skin, her eyes closing for just a breath of time, just a moment's respite before her hands came up to cover his. Moments later, she was pulling his mouth down to hers, a whimper escaping just before his lips brushed against hers.

Fitz felt the full force of Olivia's need but there's something in it that stops him from falling fully into her embrace. Even as he was kissing her, he could feel something else driving her and it pushed against his own want, his own need - even as she was pulling at his clothes - and a part of him was unthinkingly undressing her with the same focused intensity - even as she pulled him back, step by step until they tumbled backwards -naked - onto his bed.

The way her fingers tangled themselves into his hair forced a groan from him. The way her legs rose up to wrap themselves around his hips and held him tight against the frantic movements of her body almost undid him...

Fitz didn't realize just when it was that he began to try and shush her half-whispered broken protests with soft reassurances, or when he began kissing the tears from her cheeks, his hands coming up to smooth her hair between his fingers with gentle strokes, trying to slow her own frantic movements.

"Oh Livvie." Another measure of her hurt, her pain, her desperation, transmits itself to him and it breaks his heart all over again. "Oh, sweet, sweet baby - don't cry, please don't cry, love...please..."

For a time that had no measure, the gentleness of Fitz's touch made Olivia sob harder, helplessly. She wanted all of him now, she needed him to make all the hurt go away. She knew that her touch was feverish, unthinking, that one moment her hands were clutching at his shoulders, then she was sliding them down his back, feeling his muscles flex as he moved above her, felt the care and concern he took with her as she lifted her mouth to his in a million tiny kisses even as her tears continued to flow.