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When “restricted number” flashes across her phone Olivia rolls her eyes.
Picking up the phone, expecting a low baritone, she’s surprised when it’s a high pitched, feminine voice on the other line she hears.
“Olivia,” Mellie stammers.
“Yes…Mellie” Olivia answers tentatively. Wondering why, of all the people in the White House, why Mellie would be the one calling her at 9pm.
“Can I come over to your apartment, there’s something I want to talk to you about?” inquired the older woman hesitantly.
“Why Mellie. What’s SO important, that you need to come over at 9pm on a Friday??”
“Please Liv, I Just…need to talk to you,” Mellie’s voice wavering, almost cracking.
Sighing Olivia concedes, “Fine… Should I be expecting 20 secret service agents showing up on my doorstep,” her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“No, just me and Hal. But he won’t need to come in, he’ll just wait outside while we talk.”
“When will you be here?”
“9:20”
“Fine. See you then.”
_
When Olivia opens the door to the older brunette, she notices that /this/ Mellie is someone she’s only seen once before in her life. And she flashes back to that day at Camp David when Mellie was insistent on having dinner with her, Mellie’s natural hair in a messy bun, wearing a green military jacket, and wearing pants (something so rare in the first lady’s wardrobe).
Looking at the woman now, it’s almost like she’s there at Camp David. Except this Mellie isn’t smiling like an idiot, no, this Mellie is silent. Eyes red, probably from crying (Olivia realizes she’s only seen the woman cry twice and it was only in dire situations)
“Hello Olivia.”
“Hi, come on in,” Olivia states directing the older woman into her apartment.
Stepping tentatively into Liv’s apartment, Mellie looks around taking it all in as if trying to save it for a rainy day. “I’ve never been in your apartment, before, it’s nice.. Very you.”
“What did you want to talk about Mellie?” Olivia demands.
Realizing Mellie is standing, playing with her necklace, shaking slightly, Olivia’s features flood with concern.
“Do you want to sit down?” Olivia’s voice fills with worry.
“No, no I just I need to-”
Quickly becoming agitated at Mellie’s hesitance to speak, Olivia snaps.
“What is so important Mellie, the last time we talked you had just told the world Fitz had cheated on you. But yet, for some reason you never told the world it was me. You could have-you could have gone back to BNC and told the entire universe that Olivia Pope was the President’s mistress and that she had destroyed your marriage. And that she was the whore that got into the president’s pants. Yet, you didn’t. Why Mellie?”
Taking a deep breath Mellie whispers, “Becaus-”
“Because why Mellie,” Olivia shouts, her frustration growing by the second.
“Because I-”
“WH-”
“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU GODDAMN IT” Mellie belts.
Shock and confusion fall onto Olivia’s face, shell shocked she sits down onto the couch, arms lank at her side, her mouth in a perfect O. Stunned speechless.
Mellie continues, her voice trembling and stuttering, all the strength that had been put into her confession gone.
“I love you. And I couldn’t ruin your life. I couldn’t go on national television and tell the entire world that you were the woman who my husband had been cheating on me with. I couldn’t tell the world that. I just-I couldn’t. I couldn’t ruin your life. Because as amazing as you are a fixer, you can only fix that so much. People only take you so seriously after you’ve been named as the girl who got into the President’s pants. They don’t think you have brains. They don’t care that you’re smart, and witty, and beautiful, and funny, and badass, and tough; they don’t care. They’ll tear you down. You’ve seen it, you see it everyday. I couldn’t let you become a punchline. I couldn’t live with myself if I was the reason why late night tv hosts were tearing you down. I just… I couldn’t do it. I love you too much. I just…I couldn’t ruin your life. And I know you must think that I hate you and I tried to, I really did. It’s so easy to hate you, you came into my life and my ‘husband’ fell in love with you and so did I. But you chose him, you didn’t know and you chose him. And you broke everything, you broke the status quo that had been going on for many years between Fitz and I. And it would be so easy, you ‘broke’ up my marriage, and you slept with my husband. Yet, I can’t seem to hate you. No matter how hard I try I just love you. I guess it’s my hamartia.”
Mellie takes a deep breath and looks at her feet, her arms now crossed against her chest, her eyes red from the tears that had fallen during her declaration. Waiting for Liv to say something, say anything. She hadn’t meant to tell Liv how she felt that way, she wanted to tell the younger woman calmly and quietly, she didn’t want to yell but god that woman could be so stubborn.
“Are you going to say anything?” Mellie questions, her voice barely above a whisper.
Another minute passes by in silence and Mellie is convinced Olivia isn't going to say anything until the woman on the couch mumbles, “But then why’d you go and tell the world in the first place?”
“I-”
Her voice gaining strength with each passing word Olivia continues, ignoring Mellie’s attempts to explain.
“Regardless of whether or not you wanted to tell the world it was me, you still told the world he’d been cheating on you.”
Using her hand to wipe the fallen tears, Mellie tries to compose herself, tries to put up the wall that had come crumbling down the minute that she had uttered those 3 words.
Her voice gaining strength, no longer wavering Mellie replies “Why did I tell the world? Because I was sick and tired of Fitz talking about his presidency as just a small thing, that I hadn’t given up my career and devoted years of my life to get him into the White House only to have him want to give it up so easily. I stole an election for him, I committed treason for him all so he could become President and stay there. But then you came in and that puppy fell for you. And all he wanted to do was be with his ‘precious Olivia’. He didn’t care about anything else, and I needed him to focus. I needed him to come back. I needed him to get his head on straight and stop with the Olivia tunnel vision. And I know he loves you and you love him and I guess I was dumb enough to think that giving him 36 hours would have had him come back to me. I know our marriage is dead, it’s basically been that way since it began. But as much as I don’t love him anymore I always thought we were partners. And I thought he would get his head straight before I had to go nuclear. But he didn’t because he’s Fitz. And I know him, and I should’ve known better than to even give him the opportunity for 36 hours. But when you’ve had your heart broken so many times you stop being rational. You stop thinking. You go with your heart and not your gut or your brain. And I knew you could talk him out of it. You can talk him, or anyone really, in or out of anything. It’s one of the things I love about you. But you didn’t and I went nuclear, and I only regret it in the way that it affected you.”
Standing up, Olivia moves across the living room to wear Mellie is standing. Without her heels there's a height difference so Olivia has to tilt her head slightly to look Mellie in the eye.
“But what was it that you came over her to tell me about?” The younger woman inquired.
Running her hands through her hair Mellie takes a deep breath and looks Olivia in the eye. She was going to tell the younger woman in front of her what she had came to say, what she had blurted out, but this time she was going to say it right.
“I came here to tell you, that…I love you.” A soft smile coming across Mellie’s lips as she looks hesitantly down at Olivia.
“Are you going to say anything? I mean if you don’t feel the same way I underst-”
“Let me, let me just think for a second. Let me- let me clear my mind and think.”
Olivia walks back over to the couch and sits down leaving Mellie awkwardly standing in the middle of the room. Liv sits and thinks, thinks back on the first time she saw Mellie. How the older woman looked at her with such…awe. And it hit her like a ton of bricks. Small moments from the campaign and beyond, the way Mellie looked to her for advice. The way Mellie acted around her. The way Mellie hugged her and touched her. It all made sense. Mellie loved her, and a wave of feelings crashed around the fixer. She realized that she might feel the same way, while her feelings for Mellie weren’t concrete, more like a jumble of pieces that needed to fall into place, she did have feelings. She felt something. She felt love. And now all she wanted to do was to tell the woman standing in her living room that she felt the same. That she was dumb, that she couldn’t believe that she was naive to think that Mellie hated her and that she realized now that she did in fact have feelings for Mellie. Something had awoken in her and she needed to show Mellie, express what she felt to the older woman.
Standing up from the couch the younger woman walks towards Mellie, a determined look on her face. Standing in front of Mellie, Liv grabs Mellie’s hands. A small gasp coming from the older woman’s lips.
“Liv.” Mellie really couldn’t handle Liv breaking her heart anymore than she had unintentionally done.
Rambling Mellie added “If you don’t feel the same way it’s fine. I understand I sprang this on you I shouldn’t have I just wanted you to kn-”
Before Mellie can finish her sentence Olivia’s kissing her. And then Mellie can’t think straight, all she feels is soft lips on her own and small hands fisted into her shirt and then she’s kissing Liv back. And Liv tastes like this wonderful mixture of wine, popcorn, and coffee and Mellie thinks that this is what heaven tastes like. She can hear her heartbeat in her ears and a loud moan and doesn’t even care that it’s her. And then Mellie is fisting her hands in Liv’s hair and directing her towards the wall to get more leverage and Liv giggles into the kiss and moves her hands from Mellie’s shirt to the first lady’s arms effectively pinning the older woman against the wall.
The kiss picks up in heat and it’s no longer hesitant and slow it’s fast and sloppy. And then they’re fucking against the wall. It’s hard and fast and their clothes are half off and it’s over too soon.
The room is silent save for their heavy breathing until Liv kisses her way up Mellie’s neck and kisses her ear before whispering, “That was amazing.”
Blushing Mellie ducks her head into Liv’s neck before whispering back, voice husky and still filled with sex, “It was. How about we go do it some more, some place more…comfortable?”
Biting her lip Liv nods and takes Mellie’s hands and drags her to her bedroom.
_
When Mellie first wakes up it’s 5 am. At first it takes her a minute to realize just where she is. Her arms are wrapped around a tiny body, and she smiles when she realizes that she’s with Liv. Mellie runs her hands along Liv’s shoulder and kisses it before curling into the younger woman more, tangling their legs she falls asleep with a smile on her face.
When Mellie wakes up again she looks over at the clock to see it’s 9:30 but this time her arms aren’t wrapped around the Liv, the woman isn’t even there. Mellie sits up with a start and panics, grabbing a shirt off the floor where it had been discarded the night before she runs her hands through her hair and pads out to the living room looking for Liv.
She finds Olivia in the kitchen in front of the stove cooking. Leaning against the doorway she takes it all in. Olivia in her shirt and only her shirt cooking what appears to be pancakes humming, hair messed up from the night before. Mellie smirks when she remembers all the reasons why Liv’s hair is messed up and how she caused most of the damage.
Walking towards the shorter woman she wraps her arms around Liv’s waist and kisses her neck causing Liv to jump a little.
Putting down the spatula Liv turns around in Mellie’s arms and wraps her own around Mellie’s neck.
“Hi”
“Hi”
“You’re making me pancakes, you didn’t have to do that,” Mellie remarked,
“I wanted to. Pancakes are an edible way of saying thank you so much for last night.” Olivia replied winking.
“Liv?”
“Yeah Mellie.”
“What does this mean?” Mellie inquired the hands that had been on Liv’s waist now playing with the hem of Liv’s shirt mindlessly.
“Us?” Olivia responded. “Well /this/ means that I love you too.” Giggling Liv plays with the hair at the nape of Mellie’s neck causing goosebumps to break out on Mellie’s neck and arms.
“You do?” Mellie asked hopefully, eyes shining and heart soaring. This is all she had wanted, when she had decided last night that she was going to make her feelings known to Olivia she hadn’t thought it would end up like this. What was happening right now was what she was dreaming would happen last night but didn’t actually think it would happen in a million years. But here she was in Olivia Pope’s kitchen, wrapped around the younger woman who had just let it be known that her own feelings were reciprocated. And she couldn’t help but smile.
“Yup, I do.” Liv replied standing on her toes and giving Mellie a chaste kiss before saying, “Now if you love me you’ll go sit down at the table and let me finish these pancakes so we can eat. Last night was tiring.”
“Okay,” Mellie replied absolutely beaming, eyes spilling with love. Untangling from each other Liv went to go back to cooking the pancakes when Mellie grabbed the shorter woman’s hands and kissed them. Giggling Liv blushed and went back to cooking as Mellie padded over to the table to sit and watch Liv finish cooking.
Mellie watched in silence, a huge smile on her face, still in shock that the beautiful woman standing a mere 4 feet away felt the same way about her as she had about her. It was new and fragile, and they didn’t know where it was going or how it would work. But they had time to figure that out later. Right now she just wanted to live in this bubble of happiness. She’d never felt so happy in her life, and she didn’t want to think of all the things in the world that would break it. So she smiled and waited for Liv to finish cooking, smiling even more when Liv turned around every minute to look at Mellie her smile as wide as the first lady’s. This moment was theirs, and she’d be damned to have anything ruin it.