Executive Orders

CH 30 | Live Your Best Life

After ending her text connection with Fitz, Olivia smiled and took a deep breath of the cool evening air.

She was standing on the deck of the presidential cabin; it was chilly but not overly uncomfortable, especially since she had one of Fitz's sweaters wrapped around her. The warmth surrounding her came more from the fact that it was his rather than the fabric of the gray fleece itself. That thought made her smile again.

The scent of the trees surrounding the presidential retreat filled the air, lending her a portion of the peace that Fitz had promised, right along with the quiet of the night and the river of bright stars shining bright overhead.

Peace; Fitz had promised that she'd find it here - and as much as she'd tried to argue with him, it turned out that he'd been right. Getting away from DC and all of its pressures was what she'd needed. Even Harrison had agreed.

It wasn't until Tom had brought Olivia back to her apartment that she'd realized that in her rush to get away she'd left her phone behind. She was in her bedroom packing her overnight bag when she noticed it charging on her nightstand. A quick check showed that there were a pile of messages waiting for her - but the most of important of them to her were the ones from Harrison.

Anyone else could wait, she'd decided as she called him back. OPA wasn't in crisis mode at the moment so Olivia knew things were quiet enough to trust was sure that they could handle things on their own overnight and some. And if they couldn't, Harrison was trustworthy enough to tell her so. could handle them, she told herself as she returned his call. before returning Harrison's last call.

As she'd known, Harrison had her back, brushing off her apologies for having dropped out of sight without missing a beat, quickly making it clear that he'd been more concerned about her current well-being more than anything -or anybody - else.

The first thing he'd asked her was how was she - the words "I'm fine" came to her lips without thinking, but just as quickly, Olivia realized that she didn't want to lie to him.

"I'm better." She amended herself. If not one hundred percent okay, Olivia knew that she was better.

There was a silence after her words; Olivia tried to guess at what Harrison was thinking. She wasn't expecting his guilt.

"But you weren't when you left OPA." He said when he finally spoke. "I knew that and I shouldn't have let you go home alone."

"I didn't know what was happening inside of me." Olivia refused to let Harrison blame himself. "I wasn't feeling right, but we both know that I had reason to. I went home and tried to do the usual - a hot shower and a glass of wine. But the usual didn't work."

Something inside of her remembered and reacted. Olivia took a deep breath to fight down a sudden shaking inside her before she was able to go on. "Something broke in me, Harrison."

Her eyes squeezed shut as she forced herself to continue. Harrison would probably disagree, but she owed him this. "Too much was on my mind that I couldn't turn it off - everything came crashing down and I - I couldn't think. All I could do is run."

He couldn't see how she closed her eyes, couldn't see inside her mind where the memories of the night before washed over her, but his next words made it obvious that he guessed at some of it.

"That explains why you didn't answer the door when I came by - you weren't there. It wasn't until after you'd left that I started worrying that something I'd said had upset you - " Harrison paused and when he spoke again, his voice was heavy with guilt. "Olivia, I'm so sorry if anything I said was a trigger."

Again, he couldn't see Olivia as she shook her head. "It was nothing you said or didn't say -"

She surprised herself with her next words, a tiny shock running through her as she realized not only how true they were, but the discovery that they had never occurred to her before now. " - if anything, I'm my own trigger."