The marriage that he'd had with Eliza had been a political one. It had been… not for show, per say, because it was real--but it had been more of an alliance than anything else. More of a partnership, where they both wanted the same things. Beckett had wanted power in the Ministry, and Eliza had wanted a husband that was powerful. She knew the right things to say at parties, and the right people to talk to. She had been a good match for him, when that was all that he had wanted. It was far from the relationship that his brother had, from the marriage that Langdon. He was incredibly happy with Odelia, and had been for years now. He was happy for his brother. But for some time, he had thought that a political marriage was just all that he needed. There had been no part of him that thought that he'd needed more than that. It all worked out quite well. Eliza was tolerable enough. She wasn't awful, anyhow, once she stopped pestering him about having kids. That wasn't something that he had been interested in. They had their goals that they were focused on, and having kids wasn't a part of that equation, in his mind.

Everything had worked out how it was supposed to, and then he had met Olivia Drake. She hadn't been a part of any plan he'd had. She had been the person that had changed everything. Not right away, of course. Months had passed before anything had really happened. She may have kissed him the first time that they had met, but after that, they hadn't had anything really… happen. Except from the one time that he had come into a meeting too early, and she had been the only one there, they had mostly avoided being alone together. Or at least, he was avoiding being alone with her. He hadn't wanted her to realize that. She was used to getting her way in those meetings, and he had been the one that had never made it that easy for her. He hadn't wanted her to notice that he made sure they weren't alone together. He kept their interactions to those meetings, and after the close call, he had always come into the meetings exactly on time. There was no being early if they were going to risk something like that happening again. He was married. It worked out well for him, and he didn't need anything messing that up. He didn't need any distractions.

He certainly didn't need what he… thought would happen, if he was ever alone with her again. He didn't need any infidelity, anything happening that would do anything negative to his reputation. He had his career to consider, and that meant that he needed to stay away from Olivia Drake. That just hadn't lasted all that long, and his self-control had ended up failing him. But that was the best thing that had ever happened to him. For quite some time, it had been enough for both of them that she was the other woman. She was the mistress. There was no reason for her to be any more than that, but then everything had changed. For him, anyway. Beckett had started to realize that it couldn't be like this forever. It wouldn't work. She was the one that he wanted to be with, and he didn't know why he hadn't wanted for her to begin with. He didn't know why he had settled for Eliza when there was someone like Olivia out there for him. But divorce was messy, and he knew that Eliza was likely to make it as messy as possible and run his name through the dirt as much as she could. He didn't want messy.

So he hadn't changed anything. He hadn't left her, hadn't done anything, until the day that Olivia had said that she'd had enough. She had been the one that had walked away, that had given him the ultimatum. It was his wife, or it was her, but he couldn't have both anymore. He didn't know what she had been expecting. A part of him thought that she'd really thought she was never going to see him again, and that he was just going to go back to Eliza. But he had decided that just wasn't an option. That it might be messy, but he wanted to be with her. They would get through the mess, and then they could be happy. He could have far more than just a political marriage to Eliza, and she could have more than being the mistress. And that was what had happened. They had this life now, and that meant surprising her whenever he could. He still thought he'd be making up for everything he put her through for the rest of their lives, and he liked seeing her happy-and it was even better when she was surprised. He followed her into the living room, grinning when he saw that the view was as good as it had been when he'd come here to check the place out. "Bathroom next…" He suggested, pointing in that direction. He wanted to see her face when she got a good look at the tub and the view in there.

Olivia didn't settle anymore. Once upon a time she had settled, she had settled for being second best. She had settled for being the mistress. But she wasn't the mistress anymore. Now the ring was on her hand. Now she was the one that he belonged to. She was the mother of his children, she was the choice that he had made, and that he had stuck by. Because she knew that he had made a choice when he had married Eliza too, but this was different. She knew because she wasn't his wife. She didn't need to be his wife to know that he was devoted to her in a way that marriage vows couldn't have made any more real. There was no fancy piece of paper saying that she was his wife. That was the one thing that they didn't have, but Olivia thought that they had most everything else. That whatever else it was that they had needed in their lives, or could ever need, they had. And they weren't special. They weren't anyone rich, and famous, and extraordinary. They were just them. But being just them worked. She thought that it was almost the perfect situation.

Almost, only because she had learned a long time ago that things could always be more perfect. Even if you didn't think that they could. She had been scared, when she had found out about Callahan, and even more terrified when she had found out about Lyla. But they were perfect. They had made everything that she had had with Beckett, that she had already thought was perfect, even more so. And so, she would never say that something was completely perfect. Not when there was always a chance that it could get better. Believing in the idea that it could always get better was something that she thought that she was going to have to just try and appreciate. It was something that she needed to not take for granted. And she would never, take for granted what it was that she had with him here. There was something more than special about being with him. This wasn't a marriage for politics, and it wasn't a marriage for any reason at all. Because they weren't married. They were together. Nothing else mattered. That, at least for Olivia, was enough. She didn't need validation to know that what they had was real.

This was very real. This was something that she thought that they were going to be in for the rest of their lives. Rings or no rings. They had built a life. They had two wonderful children. This was it for her. He was it for her. And he wasn't supposed to have been. He was married. He was the one that she was supposed to be avoiding. Because she couldn't have him. She couldn't do anything about how she felt about him either. He was attractive to her, in a way that she hadn't felt before she had met him. There was just something about him that was almost magnetic. That just had her reeling a little bit. Because she had kissed him, and he had been married, and that should have been the end of it. He shouldn't have stood too close in that conference room. He shouldn't have gotten her away from Ludo Bagman that night. But he had. And then there had been an offer, or an order, to this day she still didn't really know which. She had never asked. Because it didn't matter. In the end, she had gone either way. She had made the choice, and she had followed him into that coat closet, and the rest was history.

Their history. It was the story that she chose not to tell. It was the story that she kept close to her heart. Because it was complicated, and it was messy. But it was their story, and she didn't think that there was any reason to change that. To lie about that. It was what it was. Had she made him choose once upon a time? Yes. Had she been a wreck for a while after she had walked away? Of course. But it had sorted itself out. It had been a complicated fix. It had been one or the other. And in the end, Olivia was more than glad that it had been her. That she had been worth the mess. Because she thought that this life, together, was worth the mess. Looking over her shoulder at him Olivia's expression was more than a little suspicious about just what it was that she was going to find in this bathroom. Something that he apparently wanted her to see if she was being ushered away from the perfect views in the living room, to see what it had to offer. "And just what am I going to find in here, Graves?"

Beckett had thought that it was past time he surprised Liv with a trip. It was something that was not all that easy to do, but he thought that he could pull it off. He thought that if anyone as capable of successfully planning a trip without her finding out about it, it was him. Her mother could probably pull it off too, and he had thought about asking her for advice on how to get this done without her finding out. But in the end, he had just went with his gut. He had gotten this all sorted out, and of course that had required some amount of help. Asking her parents to watch the kids was not all that difficult of a choice to make. They had plenty of choices on that front too. He knew that his brother wouldn’t have minded them staying with them either--Odelia certainly wouldn’t have cared either. He would have asked them if Liv’s parents had been busy. He would have understood if they couldn’t babysit the kids, and he was sure that Langston and Odelia would have been a good second option, but it just hadn’t been necessary to ask them. Making sure that the kids had somewhere to stay was the first order of business.

After all, there was little point in planning a trip if he got to the end of that planning and found out that they didn’t have anyone free that weekend to watch them. They had a decent pool of family to choose from as far as babysitters went, but the list wasn’t endless. So it was something that he’d needed to make sure that he got deal with first. Once he’d been sure that Liv’s parents had been able to watch them, he could get on with the rest of the planning. This place had ended up being perfect. He had been sure that Liv was going to love it from the moment that he’d gotten a good look at the place. The presidential villa was nice too--more than just nice, really, but he was glad that they’d gone with this. They just didn’t need all of that space. Even though he’d always had money, had always grown up being able to get whatever he wanted, he knew that sometimes less was more. This place was beautiful. They didn’t need anything bigger than this. All that mattered was the view, having a comfortable bed, and a good bathtub for Liv to obsess over. This villa had all of that.

There had been no doubt in his mind that Liv was going to love this place. He was confident in general, but when it came to surprising his fiancée, he knew how to make sure it would be something she loved. He knew her well enough to not doubt that in the slightest. Sometimes people ended up surprising someone with something that they hated and that had never been something that he’d had to worry about. He knew what Liv liked, and he knew how to plan a good surprise. Though he had to admit, he thought it would be the rare person indeed that wouldn’t like a surprise trip to the Maldives. People that were afraid of water, maybe, but for the most part he thought people would enjoy this kind of surprise. Still, he liked knowing that he could continue to surprise his fiancée, and he never had to worry about her not liking something that he’d come up with. He was just pretty confident that he knew her tastes well enough to make sure something like that didn’t happen. And he was glad that this had worked out so far… the frozen pizza had been a nice touch.

She had already seen the living room, which meant she’d gotten a good look at the view, and the way that the villa opened up onto the patio and the water. It was possible to close that up, in case or bad weather or anything like that, but he didn’t honestly think that would be something they did often on that trip. He had checked the weather and it was supposed to be nice the whole time they were here--that could change, of course, but he honestly thought that even a rainstorm in a place like this would be beautiful. She had seemed just as impressed by the bedroom when she’d moved to stand in the doorway so to him, the next step was obviously making sure she got a good look at the bathroom. He thought it would be her second favorite place in the villa--if not her first favorite. “A toilet, probably. Maybe a shower.” He said, with a shrug, but his smirk never faded. He thought she knew exactly what she was going to find in there; if there wasn’t a good tub, he wouldn’t have brought up going into the bathroom at all. It had an amazing view too, but it was the tub that he thought she’d enjoy most.

He knew her better than she knew herself at times, and it was nights like tonight when he proved that to her all over again. He had proved that he knew when she needed out. Olivia hadn't even realized that she had needed out this time, but now that they were here, she thought that it couldn't have been better. That tonight, pizza and a night without the kids had sounded like the perfect thing to her, but now… Now she thought that they were getting pizza, like promised, but they were getting it in a house, on the water, in the Maldives. There was nothing that could have been better than this. There was nothing that she thought he could surprise her with after that, but he seemed to have something up his sleeve. He had always had something up his sleeve, and that was part of what she loved about him. He kept her guessing, he kept her wondering what it was that he was going to do next. Because if she was being honest, Olivia had come to look forward to the surprises. Even if the surprises were that she walked into her office to find flowers on her desk. Or that there was a bottle of her favorite vintage sitting on the island when she got home after a particularly grueling day.

It was the little things that made her all that much more certain that she had the best man in the world by her side. She didn't know anything about the Maldives, she had no idea that he had been planning this trip, and that was impressive. With the jobs that they had, with the way that they operated, it would have been incredibly difficult for her to get away spur of the moment unless they had all been in on it. He had managed to get her entire department in on this little hoax, and no one had spilled the beans. That was impressive on its own. Let alone the fact that he had brought her to these beautiful islands. To this little house. She thought that the view was wonderful, and she had only just barely seen it. It wasn't big, that much she had gathered. Just the main room and the bedroom by the looks of things, but she thought that the fact that all of the one wall looked out to the ocean was beautiful. It was private, without being remote, and Olivia thought that if they really needed something, there was someone that could get it for them. It almost seemed… Resort like.

She didn't know what it was, but she thought that it was perfect. This was the best little get away that they could have asked for. That she hadn't even known that she wanted until she had it. But that was how this entire relationship had gone. He had been the one thing that she had never known that she had always wanted. And the one thing that in the beginning, she couldn't have. He had been Eliza's, and yet Olivia knew that she was far more special than the other witch had ever been. She knew that because this was not something that he would have done for her. This was not something that Eliza would have appreciated. And she did. Travelling the world together. Seeing places that they had never seen. Just getting to genuinely be around one another and have everything in the world on their doorstep. That was something that you had to truly appreciate for it to be worth it, and Olivia appreciated all of it.

Being ushered towards the bathroom though, had her more than a little suspicious about what she was going to find. But the way that he was acting had her thinking that it probably had something to do with a bathtub… She loved bathtubs, and the way that he was smirking at her, and giving her ridiculous answers had her heading in that direction expecting something worthy of all the hype that he was giving it. With one last glance at him over her shoulder Olivia turned to actually look in the bathroom for the first time, and she felt her mouth open a little bit. The bathtub was situated so that it looked out of the open side of the house at a view that was more than stunning. She thought that she could spend the rest of the trip in this bathroom and be happy. When she finally found her voice again, Olivia realized that she hadn't moved from the doorway, her hands touching both sides of the frame, as if she had caught herself mid-step. "Oh Beckett…" It was slightly pathetic how much Olivia could love something as simple as a bathroom, but she did. She loved this place even more now than she had before.

upendi Your heart will lead you there

When Liv had given him that ultimatum, he could have stopped her from walking away then and there. He hadn’t needed to think about it. He didn’t need to decide who he wanted because he had known for a long time that he had only wanted her. Doing something about that had just been… a lot, and he didn’t think that he necessarily needed to make any changes if Liv had been all right with the way that everything had been going. But from the moment that he realized that she wasn’t okay with it, he could have told her that he wanted to be with her. It wasn’t a choice in his mind. There was really only her. She was the one that he loved, she was the one that he could see himself having kids with and being happy with. Not Eliza. Liv. It was really that simple. But he hadn’t thought that he could just call her back to him and tell her that he wanted to be with her. He supposed that he could have. But he didn’t think that words had all that much merit in a situation like that. He had wanted to prove that he would do what he had to do be with her and not with Eliza. That meant filing for divorce, it meant getting all of that sorted out before he even saw her. That wasn’t easy, of course. From the moment that he’d told Eliza he had wanted to go to Liv and tell her that he’d done it and that he wanted to be with her. That it wasn’t a hard decision at all because he didn’t love Eliza but he did love her. But he had decided against it, time and time again, because he’d told himself that he needed to be officially divorced when he went to see her. He needed to be able to choose her with no one else in the way and those months had been incredibly hard on him. But he knew that they had to have been harder on her. She had to have thought that he’d chosen Eliza. That he was never going to speak to her again because surely he would have talked her by then… that had certainly been what was going through her mind, and he knew that was his fault. He had just thought that it was important to come to her when it was all over. But he knew that he had put her through hell. Not just during those months but through a lot of their affair. At least from the moment that she realized that she cared about him. There had at least been some points where it had just been sex for a while, and she couldn’t have minded that he was married. But from the moment that it became more than that, he knew that it had to have been hard on her then too. He wanted to make sure that he spent the rest of his life making her happy, to make sure that she never felt that way again--and never felt like he had ever given her a reason to doubt how much he loved her. And she deserved a vacation more than anybody else he knew. So surprising her with one when she least expected it was always fun. It took a fair bit of planning, especially when he had to involve the other people in her department. But that was an unfortunate necessity to make sure that her schedule was clear. Without that, she wouldn’t be able to relax at all. She needed to know that everything was moved and rearranged so that she wasn’t missing anything at work. Beckett didn’t like having to rely on someone else for that but there were some parts of the planning process that he just couldn’t do personally and rearranging her schedule without the help of people in her department was one such thing. He just had to hope that they wouldn’t ruin the surprise--and luckily they didn’t. He knew that she was observant and that if she’d been suspicious at all, she probably would have gotten the answers out of them. But clearly she hadn’t even been suspicious, which was good. He’d have to make a mental note of who exactly helped him so that he remembered to ask for their help next time. The last thing he needed was to ask someone incompetent who then completely ruined the surprise. That was half of the fun, after all. The surprise and seeing her face when she saw the villa… and the bathtub specifically. “You like?” He asked, still grinning. He couldn’t see her expression but given the fact she’d completely stopped walking the moment that she’d seen it, he imagined that she liked it a lot.

Upendi

Life was made up of choices. Sometimes you made the right one. Sometimes you didn’t. But Beckett… Beckett hadn’t been a choice. Not really. He had just been there. He had been the person that she didn’t know she was looking for until she had found him, and then it had been… Complicated. Olivia Drake was not someone that went around planning on breaking up marriages. Olivia Drake was not someone that made mistakes like that. That made choices that ruined people’s lives. But she hadn’t made the choice to fall in love with him. It had just happened. That had been all there was to it. He had been the answer to questions that she hadn’t even known that she had had. But he had made her life a hell of a lot more complicated in the beginning. Or rather, Eliza had. If it hadn’t of been for Eliza, Olivia didn’t think that there was anything that would have stopped them. She thought that their lives would have worked out this way a whole lot sooner, but there had been Eliza. There had been the choices that Beckett had made before she had even come into the picture, that had changed all of their lives.

And that wasn’t anyone’s fault. How was he supposed to have known that if he would have waited, she would have been there? How was he supposed to have known that there was more to all of this than a political marriage? He couldn’t have. But Olivia didn’t think that there was any way that anyone would have thought that it would have been the two of them in this for forever. She was pretty sure that her own father had wanted to kill Beckett when she had first brought him home. Reginald didn’t need to know all of the details to do a little digging and realize that Beckett Graves had only recently been divorced when his only daughter had brought him home to meet both he, and his wife. He didn’t need to be a genius to realize that he was nine years older than she was. And even a blind man could have seen just how much she loved him. Olivia knew that her father had had his doubts about Beckett in the beginning. She knew that he had thought that she deserved better. Because she didn’t have to tell him the truth, for him to put the pieces together.

But now she thought that he could see it. That all of these years had gone by, and here they were. Together. Nothing else mattered. Because they were still together. They had two great kids. Life was good. They were okay. And it wasn’t ideal. Nothing had started out perfect. But it had worked out. Things had worked out for the best. And she thought that if she could live out the rest of her life like this, then she would. Olivia would have given anything to know that they were going to just stay like this. To be happy. She wanted to be happy. And she wanted their kids to be happy. Merlin knew that she hadn’t thought about kids. Not back then, not when they had been caught up in that mess. Not when they hadn’t known how their lives were going to pan out. When there was no telling what was going to happen, and who was going to end up dead, or alone. For a couple months she had thought that it was going to be her. She had made him choose. Given him his options. And walked away. And he hadn’t followed her. He hadn’t come after her right then. And she thought that that was it.

She had been glad that she had never let herself think about children, and a life, and everything else that she had with him now. If she could have pictured this, and he would have let her go… She didn’t know that she would have been able to risk losing it all again when he came back. Olivia would be forever thankful that she had opened the door that day. That he had convinced her that he needed to see her. To talk to her. And that she had opened the door. Because he had come back. And she had let him back in, and the rest… Well the rest was what had gotten them to this little villa in the Maldives. The rest was what had gotten them to the here and now. And she didn’t think that there was anywhere else in the world that she would have rather been than here with him. Turning around to look at him as she took another step into the bathroom, her smile was wide, and true. “I love it.” And she did, this place was better than she could have ever imagined. It wasn’t big, and it wasn’t fancy, but it was perfect.

WORDS: 824 TAGS: @ beckett Olivia's Outfit

SHIN OF GS + ADOX