A/N: Wow, I never thought I'd be back in the Scandal fandom after leaving in S3. Never thought I'd be writing in it again, either, but I'm here. I'm back. I don't know for how long, though. Season 6 hasn't been a huge disappointment; still don't trust Shonda.

Anyways, this is an AU. ; Fitz is 41, Olivia is 24 (I went with Tony & Kerry's actual age difference).

Heavily inspired by The Lumineers 'Big Parade.'

Metanoia (n):

The journey of changing one's mind, heart, self or way of life.

Olivia knows that parochial school is the last place she should be, but when she's offered the job, she takes it without hesitation.

She's never been religious. Didn't grow up with it in her household and never sought fit to find it on her own.

Teaching is her passion, though, and she didn't just sit through five years of undergrad for nothing. Plus, with the current teaching market, she knows she should be lucky to have been offered anything at all.

She doesn't meet her principal – Father Fitzgerald – until her first day. She'd originally interviewed with the head of the department she'd be teaching in (history) and the assistant principal.

He's tall, older – at least forty – with a pile of golden brown curls sitting on his head. His smile tugs upwards, crinkling his cheeks; she can't help but notice just how well his black dress shirt fits snug across his chest, the white collar resting pristinely at his throat. She swears there's a halo on his head.

If she'd passed him on the street, she'd never guess he was a priest. With that jaw line and those eyes, he was better suited to become a politician or actor.

He extends his hand out to her as they meet in the doorway of his office; his large digits eclipse her thin fingers and Olivia swears she feels a jolt of electricity as their hands separate; hers falls sheepishly to her side and she pulls the strap of her messenger bag closer.

"Hi," Father Fitzgerald greets.

"Hi," Olivia responds in kind.

They spend the afternoon going from classroom to classroom, meeting colleagues and lingering students preparing for the new year. It's clear that Father Fitzgerald is a well-liked man; magnetic even, as teachers, students, and parents flock to him.

At the end of day, they settle on an empty classroom, not too far from Father Fitzgerald's office. He holds the door open for her to enter and explains that this is her classroom; decorations are up to her discretion.

When he leaves her there, she sits at her desk and stares into space for a few moments.

He's better looking than a priest has a right to be. This strikes her as unfair, though, she's not sure why.

-x-

When Father Fitzgerald's eyes first fall on Olivia, he swears he hears a choir of beautiful angels sing.

It's a clichéd and hackneyed sentiment, but that's the only way he can describe the chorus of hallelujahs that sounds in his head.

She's gorgeous. Enough to steal the spotlight from Aphrodite. Bright brown doe eyes, deep brown skin, high cheekbones, and a tiny frame. She's young, twenty-four, but everything about her screams 'old soul.'

He gives her the classroom nearest his office and he watches for the next week as she schleps in decorations, books, and other miscellaneous items. He offers to lend her a hand and she hesitates before accepting. Next thing he knows, his sleeves are pushed up to his elbows and he's rearranging desk, hanging posters.

A poster of Peggy Schuyler glances back at him and he grins as he tacks it in place. The soft soles of Olivia's canvas tennis shoes sneak up on him and he feels her delicate hand on his shoulder.

He turns to find her holding out a bottle of water to him. August is rolling into September, which means sweat is a given as the weather doesn't know which way to go.

He cracks the lid and smiles as a he looks at all the posters on her wall. All women of various races and professions. From Joan of Arc to Mae Jemison. Father Fitzgerald can't help but to smile.

"Peggy Schuyler." he points to the poster he'd just tacked up.

She moves to stand beside him, her shoulder bumps against his and he wonders whether he should move away from her. Every accidental brush against her, every seemingly chaste touch leaves the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

"I can hear the bemusement in your voice. You do know my degree is history, right?" She raises a brow at him, the apples of her cheeks swelling with the promise of a smile.

"It's not bemusement, more like appreciation. She did a lot for the Revolution. Not many give her enough credit. She gets sandwiched in as Hamilton's sister-in-law. You know she once busted up a Tori raid…" he loves to take any chance to show off his well-earned degree in history.

"Father Fitzgerald," she's impressed.

"Fitz. And what? You think you're the only one who can get a degree in history?" he arches his brows, a smirk tugging across his lips.

"Fitz?"

"Call me Fitz."

A look of incredulity crosses Olivia's face and she shakes her head, "I can't. I can't do that. It would be inappropriate; you're a priest."

A sly grin lines his lips and he chuckles lightly, "then let's be inappropriate, Miss Pope."

He watches as she rolls her eyes and knocks her shoulder into his arm, standing against him, before whispering a soft, "Fitz."

He doesn't move and neither does she.

-x-

A month into her tenure as a newly minted history teacher, Olivia finds herself standing in the doorway to Fitz's office. She's carrying a clear container filled with grilled chicken and lettuce, along with a sparkling water. It's lunch time and her stomach's growling.

"Room for one more?" she asks. She hasn't really been spending much time with her other colleagues; being so young and extensively more liberal in her views, she's found herself to be a bit of an outsider.

A pained look on Fitz's face greets her and she doesn't wait for his approval or welcome into his office. "You okay?" she asks softly, padding in.

Something between a grimace and a half-hearted smile tugs on his cheeks, as if it hurts to look at her.

The look alone threatens to crack Olivia's heart in half. She's never seen his face like this; conflict and confusion etched into the crinkles of his forehead and the lines around his mouth. Only God knows what has him this torn; this conflicted.

"I'll be okay."

That answer doesn't quite suffice for Olivia, who's taken the seat across from his desk and set her things down.

"But you're not right now. What's wrong?" she prods again softly, reaching across the desk for his left hand resting limply against his desk calendar. She squeezes it tightly, willing him to look at her.

"I thought I was the priest. I'm supposed to be comforting you."

"But I don't need to be comforted, you do. Talk to me, Fitz." Olivia pleads.

An indiscernible look crosses his countenance. He opens his mouth to speak, closes it, and then opens it again.

"Sometimes, I wonder if I'm doing the right job. If this is right for me." he confesses.

She's had that thought, too. Almost too many times to recall. Most times though self-doubts came at the criticism of her father.

A genuine smile, one that reaches her eyes lights up her face. If anyone was meant for this profession, it was him.

"You're great with the kids and the community; everyone loves you, Fitz. What about this isn't right?" she reassures him, once again squeezing his hand.

Fitz squeezes back, his thumb rubbing across her knuckles, and their eyes meet. There's something in his expression, in his touch, in those greyish blue eyes that Olivia finds herself melting into in her dreams some nights. Whatever it is, it sends a jolt of electricity down her spine.

He gives her a lopsided grin, "nothing."

They hold hands a for a minute, just staring at one another and breathing. The only sound in the room is that of the hands ticking on the wall clock, counting down the seconds until they must part.

When she finally let's go, she yearns to grasp his hand once more; to intertwine their fingers, hold tight, and never let go.

From his spot on the wall above Fitz's head, Jesus stares at her, seemingly disapproving; Olivia looks away.

-x-

Christmas break is upon Saint Gabriel Our Lady of Sorrows Academy as Fitz makes his way towards Olivia's classroom. School let out almost two hours ago, but like him, Olivia always seemed to be the last one left in the building. Whether she be grading papers or preparing for the next day, she almost always hung around an extra couple of hours.

Outside snowflakes flutter to the ground; night takes over day.

In hand, he carries a small gift bag, inside is a hand-bound collection of Zora Neale Hurston's letters, one of the women on her wall, a token of appreciation to show Olivia just how much she means to him.

He thinks about her - about Olivia. A lot. Dreams of her often; some dreams salacious and impure that he's had to give himself hundreds of Hail Mary's and weeks of fasting to absolve.

When he gets to her classroom, he sees the door open; instead of knocking, he lets himself in. They rid themselves of formalities ages ago.

He's shocked to find she's not alone. Not only is she not alone, but she's kissing someone – or more astutely – she's being kissed.

A tall man, athletic, kind of thin, leans over Olivia. The mystery man holds a piece of mistletoe above her head.

The sound of his gift bag crashing to the floor break the two apart and a slight tint of red ripples across Olivia's cheeks. Inside his chest, Fitz's heart sinks to the pit of his stomach. He scrambles to shove the journal back into the tissue paper stuffed bag.

He should've known. She was far too beautiful, far too intelligent and charming to go through this life alone.

"I didn't realize…" he chokes out.

"Fitz," she speaks, brushing a hand across her lips. "This is uh…this is Jake, my uhm…friend."

Jake.

Fitz immediately doesn't like Jake. Not the smarmy look on his face and not the way he keeps a hand on the back of Olivia's chair, as if he's trying to mark his territory.

"Jake Ballard, Liv's boyfriend." Jake introduces himself, setting the mistletoe down on Olivia's desk, and extending his hand.

Fitz's doesn't take Jake's hand. He's afraid of what he'll do if he touches the other man. His thoughts are far from priestly, more so primitive and visceral. They scare him.

He's got to get out of here.

"Merry Christmas, Li – Miss Pope." He sets the bag down on her desk and back out as quickly as his feet will let him move.

-x-

The promise of spring hangs in the air, though the winter frost still clings to the ground. Mr. Groundhog has seen his shadow and local meteorologists says the cold will break soon.

Olivia sits in Fitz's office, arms crossed over her chest. This isn't a social call, nor a friendly visit. Ever since that day in December, he'd seen her kissing Jake, he's barely spoken to her. He didn't even respond to his thank-you card for the journal. He's mumbled a few cordial hellos, managed some small smiles, but something's different in him – with him. She misses him, their witty banter and small talk.

When he enters his office, he slams the door behind him. It vibrates on his hinges and she can't help but to flinch.

His normally dull blue eyes are electric, a jolt of red careens across his forehead. Pissed doesn't even begin to describe his current state.

"What do you think you're doing?" his baritone voice booms. Again, Olivia flinches.

"Fitz, she –"

"Father Fitzgerald, Miss Pope." he corrects; bemusement spreads across her face.

Whatever she did to him, he's yet to forgive. She thought priests were supposed to be magnanimous.

"Father Fitzgerald," she can't help the edge that seeps into her voice. He's yet to sit down, and she doesn't like the height he has over her, so she gets to her feet. "She came to me for help. I wasn't going to turn her away and let her get herself hurt."

"When you were hired here, we made it perfectly clear that we could not tolerate some of your more liberal politics."

"Liberal politics?" Olivia scoffs. She saw nothing political, only practical, about possibly preventing a teen pregnancy. "She's sixteen and swears she's in love. With or without my advice, she was going to have sex. Me giving her condoms, information on sexually transmitted diseases, and a way to get birth control wouldn't have changed that!"

"You crossed the line, Olivia! Thankfully enough her mother came home in time before Lizette could do something stupid!"

"Her mother didn't stop anything, Fitz, she just prolonged the inevitable and took away her daughter's safety. I was a sixteen-year-old girl once, I know how this works. If Lizette wants to have sex, she's going to have sex. Contrary to your church's beliefs, sex is worth more than procreation!"

Their voices continue to rise, an electrical charge pulses through the air. Olivia's on her feet know, walking and talking with conviction, with wisdom far beyond that of her twenty-four years.

"You shame these kids for something that is natural; refuse them options and hide information from them about sex, and you're putting them in harm's way. Abstinence isn't the only form of birth control, but it is the most ridiculous – and dangerous - to preach to a school full of hormonal teens."

She can hear her father's voice in her head, warning her not to throw away her brilliant historically inclined mind on teaching at a Catholic school with archaic views. More and more each day she wonders if she should've taken Eli Pope on his offer to head up the Smithsonian American History Museum archives. If she'd just taken this offer, she wouldn't be standing here defending herself for helping a student and she wouldn't be hurt by the coldness of a colleague.

"If you want to walk around like the Whore of Babylon with Jake, go for it, but leave the students out of it!" Fitz shouts.

Olivia visibly recoils, she takes a step back as if the wind has been knocked out of her. Her brows meld together in the middle of her forehead and she doesn't know what to say. Every word that comes to mind dies on her tongue. They glare at each other when she notices a flash of something a little too close to lust ripple across his face.

A lightbulb goes off in her head and a wry grin spreads across her lips. Now she gets it. His anger, his coldness. His mention of her now ex-boyfriend.

The accidental – though welcomed – touches. His soft grins, the class visits, the lunches.

All this time she thought it was in her head.

He's jealous.

He's a priest.

Somehow while the gears had been spinning rapidly in her head, he'd closed the distance between them. He's barely an inch from her. She can feel his warm breath on her cheeks. His presence is overwhelming. Her head's foggy and she's suddenly parched yet drowning all at once.

Part of her wants to crank her hand back and knock his teeth in for his Whore of Babylon comment, another part of her wants to throw herself into his arms, and kiss him until she can't breathe.

Any semblance of logic she had is slipping away like grains of sand in the wind. He's leaning down, craning his neck, his eyes are on her mouth. Olivia licks her lips in anticipation.

Her heart thuds against the walls of her chest, her cheeks grow hot.

She wants this. She wants him. Now.

His lips are almost on hers; they're both breathing heavily in anticipation with the promise of what's to transpire when just like that, it's over.

The crucifixion tacked to the wall behind Fitz's desk slams into the ground with a loud bang; it jolts them apart, and sends Olivia running from the room. She keeps her head down, ignoring straggling colleagues and students as she makes the mad dash to her classroom.

St. Agnes of Rome, the venerated patron saint of chastity and couples, watches from the wall across the hall as Olivia goes.