Disclaimer: I do not own anything

PROLOGUE

"Ms Pope, have you already filed for divorce?"

"Ms Pope, how do you feel about Governor Grant being seen having dinner with Mellie Williams?"

"Ms Pope, did you plan the argument as a political stunt?"

"Ms Pope, is someone from your firm going to represent you during yours and Governor Grant's divorce?"

Olivia was overwhelmed. There were reporters and photographers coming at her from all sides, shoving cameras and microphones in her face. After a few stunned seconds, she retrieved her wits and started backing up to get back into the building where she would be relatively safe from the press. Just as she was about to open the door, Harrison and Huck materialised at her sides and took her by the arms to lead her through the crowd of reporters to get to Harrison's car which was parked down the steps leading to her building.

The reporters closed in on the car but Harrison managed to get them out of there quickly. From the back of the cab, Olivia's mind was going a thousands miles a minutes, she couldn't understand what was going on. The silence inside the car was deafening after the screams coming from the crowd. No one talked until Harrison had driven around a few blocks and went through a couple of underground parking lots to make sure they weren't being followed. Only then did Huck turn around from the passenger seat.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Olivia didn't answer. She was still shocked about what had happened. How did they know about the argument? Had Fitz really been having dinner with Mellie after what they'd said to each other last night? Why would anyone think that them arguing was a political stunt? It didn't make any sense.

"Olivia?" Huck prompted.

"I'm fine," she whispered, looking out the window. "How do they...? I mean what... How?"

"There's a video," Harrison said. "A video of you and Fitz arguing, talking about getting a divorce and about Mellie Williams."

Olivia was stunned. A video of them? How had this happened? They were the only ones home when they had argued, how could anyone had filmed them?

"Who?" she asked.

"We don't know."

Soon after, they arrived at OPA. Harrison drove through the crowd of reporters who were also waiting down their offices and into the underground parking. When they stepped out of the elevator, Abby and Quinn were waiting for them in the hall. As soon as they saw Olivia, they started talking, already planning how to handle the scandal. Olivia walked through them, still silent, and went into her office, sitting down behind her desk.

The others followed her and stood before the desk, still discussing different strategies, but Olivia wasn't listening. She needed to think. She needed time and space to think but she knew she couldn't have any. The press was all over DC, waiting for her to move or make a statement. The elections for the Republican Primaries were getting closer and Fitz was considered to be the favorite, of course the press was all over this. Nothing better than a video leaked about them arguing to destroy the good family image necessary for a Republican candidate to win.

She knew that if they were going to make it through with both their political careers as intact as possible, they needed to make a statement quickly. But first, she needed to assess the damage - she needed to know what was on that video exactly. Then she'd make an official statement.

"Olivia? Olivia, what do you think?" Abby called.

Olivia rose her eyes from the desk to find her whole team looking at her expectantly. She rubbed her eyes and sighed.

"Turn on the news. We need to see what they're saying."

"Olivia," Abby started "I'm not sure you're gonna want to hear what they're saying."

"I may not but we'll treat this like any other case and as objectively as possible so I need you to turn on the news so I know how bad it is."

Abby nodded and Harrison turned on the TV.

"Grant would have been a great choice for the next presidential elections' conservative candidate but after today's events, he now has very few chances of even making it through the Primaries. Earlier today, an anonymous source sent a video to all the news outlets in Washington of Governor Grant and his wife Olivia Pope arguing - and quite violently I must say. On this video, it is pretty clear that their relationship is not as perfect as they've always made it seem in public. Ms Pope even suggested a divorce, as you can see in the following extract."

The screen faded black before a very low-quality video of Olivia and Fitz arguing in the middle of their living room appeared.

"This is obviously not working, we should stop hurting each other and stop pretending," Olivia told Fitz.

"I'm not pretending, Olivia, it's never been about pretending for me."

"And you're saying it is for me?"

"I'm saying you're the one holding back. I'm not the one who insists on keeping my old apartment, or my name, or always push back the time to have kids."

"This is low, Fitz." Olivia hissed at his face. "We talked about it and you agreed that it wasn't the right time for us to have kids."

"No, I never said that, you just heard what you wanted to hear, like always. I've been wanting to have kids for years now, but it's never the right time for you and I'm starting to think there's never going to be a right time for you!"

"That's not fair. We're both focusing on our careers, it's not fair of you to ask me to sacrifice everything to have kids while you're running for President and going after what you want."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know that having a family with me was such a huge sacrifice for you! I'm not asking you to give up your career for me, I never did. But if you didn't want to have kids, then maybe you should have mentioned that earlier don't you think? Like before our marriage!"

"Maybe I should have, then maybe we wouldn't be stuck in this dead marriage."

"'Dead marriage'? Really, Olivia? I'm working my ass off for us, I've always put you first, put your happiness first, but you would rather give up on us completely than consider my feelings and expectations for just one minute? What are you going to say next? That you want a divorce, that you don't want to be with me anymore?" Fitz screamed.

"Yes," Olivia said calmly, taking a step back. "Yes, I think we should get a divorce. I can't do this anymore, Fitz, I can't keep fighting with you all the time." Olivia picked up her coat and walked out the door and the screen transitioned back to the journalist sitting behind her desk.

"Well, this was quite a scene."

Harrison turned the sound off and they all turned back to Olivia.

"I need a minute."

"What?" Abby exclaimed. "No, we need to get on top of this right now!"

"I know, but I need a minute."

Harrison pushed Abby gently out the door and the others followed. Olivia sighed and cradled her head in her hands. What was she going to do? This was bad, this was really bad. They had captured the worst of their argument. It wasn't the worst argument they had ever had but it was the worst one in a while. They had been arguing quite a lot lately and except for the ending, it was very similar to every other argument they have had.

The argument had started like many before. She'd gone home late from work, forgetting about an election-related event, and Fitz had been waiting for her, sitting on the couch. As soon as the door had closed behind her, he had gotten up and looked at her. His face was contorted with anger.

"Oh, shit! The dinner!" Olivia had exclaimed. "I'm sorry, I completely forgot."

From there, it had went downhill. He got angry at her, saying that she was always forgetting campaign related events and that it was sinking him and putting him in delicate positions all the time. He accused her of not thinking about him and making it all about her whereas the election was coming up and for once, it should be about him. Olivia got angry too and they just started screaming accusations at each other.

"Well, if you wanted the perfect political wife, then you should have married Mellie Williams, like your father wanted you to!" Olivia had thrown back at some point.

Mellie Williams had always been a sore point between the two of them. His father had been pushing him to marry her for years, and even now that Fitz and Olivia were married, he was still regularly hinting broadly - whether Olivia was in the room or not - that he would do better with an old republican family like the Williams on his side, especially with such an educated and beautiful wife as Mellie. A wife who wouldn't cause any trouble. A discreet and supportive wife. A wife who wasn't black. A wife who would happily give up her career for the sake of her husband's. Things Olivia wasn't prepared to do or be.

But the video didn't show all of that. Most importantly, the video didn't show what had happened after she had left. Because she came back only minutes afterwards. She had been sitting in her car for a few minutes before she got out and ran back to the house, barging in the living room where Fitz was looking out the window. He turned around when he heard her and they dashed towards each other, colliding in the middle of the room where they had furious, angry sex. Then, while Fitz was asleep, Olivia left and went back to her apartment. She left because no matter how much she loved him, no matter how much she felt the need to cling onto him and ignore their argument, she knew that their marriage was indeed not working and maybe it was really time for them to stop hurting each other. Love wasn't everything, sometimes love wasn't enough.

A few hours later, sitting in her office at OPA, Olivia still didn't know what to do - was there something worth saving between them? Did they have any hope of making it through or was it really it for their marriage?

She stayed alone for a while, thinking it through, knowing that she needed to make a decision before making a statement to the press because if either of them was going to make it through politically, they needed to stay coherent and consistent. Whatever she told the press today, she would need to stick with it.

After a while, Harrison knocked on the door and entered as Olivia waved him in.

"Are you ready?"

Just as she opened her mouth to answer, a call echoed from the hall.

"Hello? Is anyone here? Hello?"

It was a woman's voice. Olivia saw Huck get up from his chair in the conference room and walk out of the room, He was probably the best one out of them all to handle the reporter looking for a statement and brave - or stupid - enough to come all the way up to her offices. Huck was always so inexpressive and quiet and it took a lot more to rile him up than anyone else at the office.

"Excuse-me- no! You don't understand! No, we want to speak to Olivia Pope! We need to speak with Olivia Pope!"

The woman could be heard screaming all the way down to Olivia's office. Then a man's voice joined it.

"Take your hands off my wife!"

"You need to leave, Ms Pope has no comment," Olivia heard Huck say.

"Comment?" the woman asked. "Oh no- we're not reporters, you're mistaken, we want to hire Ms Pope! Please, you need to let us talk to her, it's urgent, our daughter's missing!"

Olivia instantly got up from her chair. There was no mistaking the urgency and fear in the woman's voice. She was not a reporter. The others followed her from the conference room to the hall where Huck was standing beside a middle-age couple.

The woman was small and had a mass of curly brown hair. The man was tall, had a massive blond beard and blond hair. They both looked as though they hadn't slept in weeks.

"We have other things to focus on, I say we don't take their case, the police is already on it," Abby said.

The couple - who had introduced themselves as Nathalie and Marc Anderson - were sitting in the conference room while Olivia, Quinn, Abby, Huck, and Harrison were watching them from the other room, discussing their case. Mr Anderson was Governor of Georgia and had heard of OPA through a colleague.

"And as Mrs Anderson mentioned, Atlanta is way outside of our field." Harrison put in.

"Their daughter is missing, according to what they've said, there are clear signs of kidnapping, the police hasn't been able to find her, I say they need us." Quinn, as always, empathized more with the clients.

"Huck?" Olivia prompted.

He didn't answer for a while, observing the couple on the other side of the glass doors.

"Part of their family is missing, they need it back," he eventually said.

"We're taking the case." Olivia announced.

It was the right thing to do and it would give her exactly what she needed: time and space to think about Fitz, about their marriage, about her future.

"I've got it!" Huck exclaimed.

They were in a small motel room in a town just outside Atlanta. They had been working on the Anderson's missing daughter case for days and after following several leads that were dead ends, they had finally found her.

Olivia dialed Abby's number.

"We were right," she said when Abby answered. "It's the ex-boyfriend. Stay in your car and keep watch until the police get there."

"It's always the boyfriend. The creepy bastard!"

A couple of hours later, Alexis Anderson had been found tied up and cuffed to a bed in a dirty motel, and taken to a hospital, checked out and discharged. Her drugged and stalking ex-boyfriend was taken to the station.

Alexis, Olivia and the whole team went to the airport to wait for their flight back to DC where the Andersons were waiting as per Olivia's orders. They had been wanting to join them on their trip to Atlanta and help search for their daughter but given how distressed and panicked they were, she had deemed more prudent to ask them to stay behind.

Olivia was relieved they had finally found Alexis. In the past couple of days, she had started to believe they were going to be too late but they hadn't been and in a few hours the family would finally be reunited. That relief was however shrouded by the fact that as soon as she would be back in DC, she would have to deal with the press and Fitz. He had sent her a couple of texts and left a few messages on her voicemail but she hadn't listened to them. She soon would have to, and then make a decision that would probably change both their lives forever but she still had no idea what that decision would be.

It had been two days since the video of their argument had been leaked and she still hadn't made a single statement to the press but Cyrus probably did on behalf of Fitz. Even though he and Olivia were friends, she had no doubt he would do anything to protect Fitz's chances of being President and that included throwing Olivia under the bus. She hadn't checked the papers or the news in the two days they had been gone but as soon as their plane landed in DC, she would have no choice but to face it all.

Which is why, when a hostess called on the PA system for volunteers to take the following flight to DC because the current flight had been over-sold, Olivia took the $400 offered by the company and waited for the next flight. Huck and Harrison decided to stay with her. She knew they were staying because they were worried about her and she tried telling them she was fine and didn't need them to stay with her, but they wouldn't listen. What surprised her was Alexis' request to stay behind too but she agreed to it when Alexis insisted that she needed some more time before seeing her parents.

In the end, only Abby and Quinn took the first flight back while Huck, Harrison, Alexis and Olivia waited for flight 828.

Funny how one little decision can ruin your life. But also save it.

Review? :)