I'm new to writing Scandal fanfics, but I love the show so much that I decided to give it a try. Hope you all like it.

Can't Let Go

I sit up all night

Thinkin' about you

And know it ain't right, baby

But I don't

I don't think, don't think that I

That I can let go (Don't think I can let you know)

(Ne-Yo, Can't Let Go)

Olivia sat in her living room with a bottle of her favorite red wine replaying the harsh words Fitz said to her before Verna's funeral. "Screwing your mistress is one thing, but marrying her, that's political suicide." The words were on an endless loop inside her head and the more she drank, the more the words pierced her broken heart.

And the word "mistress", the very word he told her to NEVER call herself is what cut the deepest. Yes technically she was his mistress because he's married, but their relationship was so much more than just some cheap, tawdry affair. They were the loves of each other's life, they belonged to each other. She just couldn't understand what would make Fitz do a complete 180 on wanting them to be together. As Olivia went pick up the bottle to refill her glass, her cell phone rang. Sighing as she picked up the phone from her coffee table, she answered in typical Olivia Pope fashion.

"What?" Olivia said slightly slurring from the nearly full bottle of wine she'd consumed.

"Liv, are you alright?" Asked Cyrus in a concerned voice.

"I'm fine Cy. I've had a few glasses of wine." Olivia said taking another sip from her glass.

"Olivia, I need you to put the glass down and listen to me." Cyrus said slightly raising his voice to make sure he had Olivia's attention. "He knows about Defiance. I don't know how, but Fitz knows!"

"What…what do you mean he knows?! How in the hell does he know Cyrus?!" Olivia shouted, standing from her spot on her couch and immediately started pacing in circles in front of her coffee table.

"I don't know!" Bellowed Cyrus. "All I know is that he called me to come to the Oval and it was just some thing about him that was off. He was eerily calm, with a glass in one hand and Scotch in the other. And then he started telling the story about how the election came down to this one small county in Ohio. And Liv, he's told this story before but tonight, it was different. He said, and I quote 'It's like someone took it upon themselves to have me win that county.' Liv the look in his eyes said it all. It wasn't a question he was asking. He stated it as a matter of fact."

Olivia instantly started putting the pieces together. It was all making sense. The cold manner in which he treated her at Verna's funeral, his harsh words, calling her his mistress. "Oh my God!" Olivia sobbed into the phone, startling Cyrus.

"Olivia! Olivia!" Cyrus called repeatedly but only heard Liv's sobs in response. "I'm coming over to see you. Just please try to relax and….."

Olivia let the phone drop from her hands, and she fell onto her couch completely devastated. This was her worst nightmare coming true. She never wanted Fitz to find out about the election being rigged. She knew it would destroy him and prove that his father was right about him, that he'd never be a winner.

Thirty minutes later her doorbell began to ring and Olivia knew it was Cyrus. Running her hands through her hard and then smoothing out her sweater, she opened the door. Cyrus looked at her ashen face and red, puffy eyes, closed the door and immediately pulled her into a hug. After a few minutes Olivia pulled away from Cyrus and just looked down at her feet. They stood in awkward silence until Cyrus finally spoke.

"He saw Verna just before she died. Matter of fact, he was in the room with her when she passed. Do you think that she told him? You know, wanting to confess her sins since she was on her death bed?"

Olivia sat on the far end of her sofa, grabbing a pillow and hugging it before she spoke. "Verna…she's the one who tried to kill Fitz." Olivia stated in a voice so low and broken that it didn't even sound like her. She looked up to see Cyrus with his mouth agape and the color draining from his face.

"She did what?" Cyrus asked in disbelief as he sat beside Olivia, running his hands through his thinning hair.

"After my team figured out that it wasn't Hollis that tried to kill Fitz, things started to add up. Verna mentioned the burner phone and then she knew about Becky, which no one but me and my team knew about at the time. I confronted her about it and she admitted to it."

"Why would she try to kill him after everything we did to get him elected?" Cyrus asked turning to look at Liv who had now began pacing in circles.

"She said she wanted to restore honor to office. But yet she didn't want to tarnish her legacy, so she'd just rather kill Fitz." Olivia pulled at the hair at the nape of her neck as if she was trying to pull out all of the tension that consumed her petite frame. "That bitch tried to kill him Cyrus. When she admitted it to me, I was so pissed I could have killed her right then and there."

"We, me and you, have to fix this Liv. With Fitz finding out about Defiance and dealing with the assassination attempt, he's in a bad place right now. We've worked too hard to get him to this point for Fitz to just drink himself into self destruction."

"Cyrus, us 'fixing' shit is what got us in this mess in the first place. I let you all talk me into something that I knew was wrong. If I hadn't been emotionally involved with Fitz I would have recognized what was wrong before it was too late and fixed things." Olivia said continuing to pace in circles around her living room.

"Tomorrow morning, I need you to come to my office. We need to work this thing out and try to defuse Fitz before he goes apeshit. We have to get him under control and make him understand why we did what we did. 9 AM, not a minute later Liv." Cyrus said standing. "Try to get as much rest as you can tonight because starting tomorrow, we're gonna be in for the fight of our lives." Cyrus said walking towards the door. "9 o'clock Liv, 9 o'clock."

As soon as Cyrus closed the door, Olivia picked up her wine glass off the coffee table, down it's contents in one gulp and hurled the empty glass across the room, it shattering as it made contact with her front door.

The next morning Olivia was sitting in Cyrus' office at exactly 9 o'clock, staring at nothing in particular. "I don't know how to fix this Cy. I…I just don't know." Liv said as her voice cracked, full of emotion. "We royally fucked up Cy and I don't think there's anything we can do to right this wrong for Fitz. He's the love of my life and I did something that I knew would hurt him deeply if he found out. I just wanted him to win because I knew he wanted it so badly." Olivia said as a lone tear rolled down her cheek.

"Liv, we all did it because we knew how much Fitz wanted to be president and that he was truly the best man for the job. And look at all the things he's done. We did the right thing Liv." Cyrus said as Olivia gave him a look of utter disgust.

"No! You and Mellie and Verna and Hollis did this to your benefit!" Olivia screamed. "You became Chief of Staff, Mellie became First Lady, Verna became a Supreme Court Justice and Hollis got to run around here like he owned the place. You four benefited and got the power you wanted from the beginning, so don't insult my intelligence by saying you did this for Fitz!"

"Now wait one minute! Don't act like you got nothing out of all of this. You became Communications Director. You chose to leave and start OPA, but if you hadn't been on the trail and turned around Fitz's campaign, OPA wouldn't be as successful as it is now. And YOU…" Cyrus said pointing his finger at Olivia "Got the most power of all! When shit hit's the fan in this city, people run to you to fix it. And the power you wield over Fitz is nothing short of amazing. He would hang on your every word as if it were the gospel. So don't tell me you didn't gain from Fitz becoming president."

"But the thing is that I would've been fine without those things. All I wanted was him but I knew he wasn't mine to have. So I did what I did out of love for that man. Things could have been so different for us if I hadn't voted yes! But I love him so much that I went against what I knew deep in my soul was wrong. Because I didn't want him to think he was the looser his father told him he was. I wanted him to be happy and I knew becoming President of the Unites States was what would make him happy." Olivia said almost breathlessly. She was so tired. Tired of it all. Tired of keeping this secret for years. Tired of having to love the love of her life from a distance. Tired of being the one to always have to fix the messes others created. Without another word, Olivia picked up her coat and purse and exited Cyrus' office. As she walked down the corridor, she heard her named being called. Looking back she saw that it was Tom and knew why he was calling her name.

"Ma'am, the President would like to see you. I've been given strict orders to bring you to the Oval immediately." Tom said giving Olivia a look that said he was sorry.

Olivia walked into the Oval Office and placed her coat and purse on the sofa, waiting for Fitz to arrive. She was too anxious to sit down so she had to keep moving. As she paced in circles around the seal on the floor, she heard the door open and shut behind her. Turning to face the door, she saw Fitz and the look in his eyes told her this wasn't going to be pretty. His grey eyes were dark and she could tell it was from a mixture of alcohol, a lack of sleep and pure anger. He walked past her and stood in front of his desk, his hands at his side tapping lightly on his thighs. They both stood and looked away from each other in silence. Fitz was the first to make eye contact as he cleared his throat. He closed the gap between them and reached out as if he wanted to touch her but pulled back, as if he had found a bit of self control he didn't even know existed.

"Fitz, I…." Olivia began to say but was cut off by Fitz raising his hand, telling her to stop.

"You are going to listen! I don't want to hear what you have to say right now Olivia!" Fitz's voice roared, sending a cold shiver down Olivia's spine.

"Four days ago, I begged and pleaded with you to wait for me. I told you how much I love you and that I was going to divorce my wife and that all I wanted was for you to wait for me. Wait for us." Fitz sat down on the sofa opposite of where Olivia was standing. Tugging on his hair, he continued to speak. "I trusted you above anyone else on this earth. I knew you were the one person who would be honest with me no matter what. That's one of the things that made me fall for you. You told me what I needed to hear and not what I wanted to hear. You were my best friend! The love of my life, the woman of my dreams. My everything. Why? Why did you do it? Why did you lie to me for so long? How could you do this to me? You told me you believed in me. If you believed in me so much, why did you think you had to cheat to put me here, in this office?" Fitz asked, his voice raw with emotion.

Olivia stood looking away from Fitz and down at the floor. She wanted to tell him that she never stopped believing in him and that she only did what she did out of love for him. But she just couldn't find the right words because everything she could think of felt so trite.

"Nothing huh? The great Olivia Pope is going to stand here and say NOTHING!? Come on Liv, you have to tell me why you of all people did this?" Fitz said standing up and getting into Olivia's personal space. He leaned down and whispered in her ear "come on Sweet Baby, you have to tell me why. Why did you do this?" Liv looked into his eyes and could see that he was openly crying, which broke her heart even more.

"Fitz I knew how much you wanted to be president. You had worked so hard but with six weeks to go, you were still down 10 points. And while you father had helped close the gap for you, we still had a long way to go and not enough time to make up that gap. I struggled with that decision. I agonized over it. I did not want to do it. But the day before the election, I knew if we, if I didn't do it, you would loose and that would have devastated you and I didn't want you see you like that. To feel as if what your father said to you was true. I wanted you to be a winner. You were the best man for the job. Man of the people."

"But I'm not the man of the people!" Fitz hissed "The people didn't elect me! You helped steal the Presidential election! Do you know what could have happened to you if someone else found out? Do you know how reckless you were Olivia?! The other four, I could expect this from, but not you. Not the woman I love."

"Don't you see that I did this because I love you. It wasn't a hasty decision I made. I just felt like there was no other choice. I did what I had to do for you Fitz. Always for you. Because I love you more than I can fathom." Olivia said with tears welling up in her brown doe eyes.

"You love me huh? Love me so much that you lied to me for the past two years. Love me so much that YOU again made a decision that you though was best for me. That sounds like some twisted love if you ask me. You always take this, us into your hands and make decisions that affect us both by yourself. Just like when you left the White House. Then when you conspired with Mellie when I wanted to resign." Fitz reached out and stroked Liv's cheek with his thumb. "You let everyone else get inside of your head, inside your gut when it comes to us and you throw us away. To hell with how I may feel. Did you ever think that I may have eventually been ok with loosing the election? Would it have hurt, yes. But I would have been free to be with you. We could have planned a life together. You could be my wife right now. You cheated more that the American people. You cheated us. And I'm tired of being cheated by you. I'm tired of being the one groveling at your feet, begging you to give us a chance. I don't trust you anymore and I'm done. I'm tired of this back and forth with you Olivia."

"Wha…what are you saying Fitz?" Olivia stuttered. It felt like all of the oxygen was being sucked out of the room and she was getting light headed.

"I'm over this." Fitz stepped back and motioned between him and Olivia. "I'm over us. We are done. I don't want to see you, I don't want to speak to you. I don't want to hear you voice. I don't even want to hear your name. I just want…I want you out of my life. I can't deal with you right now. I'll always love you, but I just can't. I can't handle this." Fitz turned his back to Olivia and stared in the direction of his desk, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands.

Olivia blinked away the tears that attempted to fall before she spoke. "I can't Fitz. I can't let go. I tried it once but I can't do that again. There has to be some other way. I told you I'd wait as long as you needed me to and I mean it."

"There is no need to wait Liv. This is over. I called off the divorce. I'm not leaving my wife." Fitz turned to see the heartbroken look in Liv's eyes. "We are done. You can leave now Ms. Pope."