This story is for teammccord for the Season 3 writing challenge with the prompt "Henry and Elizabeth meet someone from their past". I hope you like it!
I'm on holiday in Canada at the moment so I've had to edit and post this on my iPad, I hope it comes out ok!
Elizabeth McCord trailed arm in arm with her husband behind their youngest daughter as she pushed a trolley in Bed, Bath, and Beyond. She could not believe that in just 3 short weeks their little Noodle would be going away to college. Where had the time gone? It seemed like just yesterday she had been pregnant with Alison, and now here she was, a young adult ready to launch herself into the big wide world.
"Can I get this bedspread, mum?" Alison asked excitedly.
"Sure" Elizabeth replied absentmindedly as she rested her head against her husband's shoulder as they strolled along the aisles. She had not long returned from a long business trip to Asia and was beyond tired, but she was determined to finish this shopping trip with Alison. It had been brought to her attention over the past few years that she sometimes didn't pay as much attention to her youngest daughter as she did her other children and more than anything she wanted to help her daughter prepare for college, just like she had with Stevie. It had taken weeks of negotiation with DS to allow her to make the trip happen; confidentiality agreements had to be signed by the staff of the store, look-a-likes of Henry and she had been deployed to another store to act as a decoy for the press, and even now there were 6 undercover DS agents surrounding them, but after the fiasco of her first college tour with Alison she was determined to give her daughter this little bit of normalcy of shopping with her parents for college supplies.
"What do you think about this armchair?" Alison asked.
"Will you have room for it? The dorms didn't look that big when we toured them." she replied.
"But what will I sit on?" Alison asked confusedly, earning a chuckle from both her parents.
"Noodle, you're about to learn that there is no comfort in college dorm rooms" Henry replied with amusement, to which Alison scowled.
"We could look at beanbags or get you some of those big cushions that could be used on the floor or propped on your bed to make it into a makeshift sofa" Elizabeth suggested.
Alison shrugged and moved to turn the trolley in the appropriate direction. Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief, with Hurricane Alison you never knew what reaction you were going to get and she desperately wanted this shopping trip to be a success. So far they were an hour in and all was going well. They hadn't been bothered by anyone, and although she was aware of the curious "is that really them" looks, no one had approached them for which she was grateful.
"Madam Secretary?" Elizabeth flinched and felt her stomach drop as she heard her title called and saw the undercover agents tighten around them. "Spoke too soon" she thought to herself. She glanced towards Alison and could see that her posture had already tensed and she had a guarded, disappointed, look on her face. Instinctively Henry and she moved towards Alison.
"I'm sorry, Noddle" she said as she wrapped her arm around her youngest daughter. "DS will take care of him, we can carry on shopping" she said reassuringly as four of the DS agents moved to usher them out of the way.
"It's ok..." Alison began before being cut off by the man again.
"Please, Madam Secretary? I just want you to meet my grandson".
Normally Elizabeth would have ignored the request, but there was something in the man's voice that stirred something in her. Some memory from the past and it caused her to pause. She felt Henry tense and pause beside her she and looked up at to see that he felt the same as she did.
"Ma'am, we need to get you to a safe area" she heard her chief DS agent say.
Ignoring the agent's advice she slowly turned round and took a good look at the man. He was an older man, probably in his mid 70's and he looked familiar, but she just couldn't place him.
"I'm sorry, do I know you?" she asked.
"Not really. Well, we've met once before. It was during the snow storm of March 1999, the 14th if I remember correctly. My name's Earl. I, um, I gave you a lift to the hospital" he replied awkwardly.
Suddenly it all came rushing back to Elizabeth. The snow storm. The crashed car. The truck. Alison's birth.
"Mum" Alison asked guardedly "Why does that man know when my birthday is?"
Elizabeth glanced at her husband who simply shrugged with a helpless expression on his face.
"Alison. Noodle. There's no easy way to say this; you were born in that man's truck" Elizabeth stated matter of factly.
"WHAT!" Alison exclaimed as her eyes darted between her parents and the stranger who stood before her.
"It was your father's fault..."
"MY fault! YOU were the one who wouldn't go to the hospital..."
"YOU were the one driving like a fighter pilot..."
"I was..."
Elizabeth and Henry were interrupted from their bickering by the sound of Earl's hearty laughter.
"Do they still argue like this?" he asked Alison.
"Pretty much" she replied with a shrug.
"We..." Henry and Elizabeth began together, but were silenced as their daughter held up her hand and gave them both a stern look.
"Why don't you tell me what happened?" Alison asked Earl.
"Alison, I really don't think..." Elizabeth began before being interrupted by her daughter.
"You two don't get to speak. You've had 18 years to tell me I was born in a truck and neither of you have. I've had to find out from a stranger and I want his side of the story" Alison stated firmly. "Continue" she commanded as she gestured at Earl, leaving Elizabeth and Henry looking dumbfounded and shocked at the assertive young woman before them.
Earl looked helplessly between Henry and Elizabeth unsure as to what to do, very aware of the fact that he was talking to the Secretary of State who currently had 6 body guards surrounding her and her family in the middle of Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
"It's ok Earl, you can tell her" Elizabeth agreed with a sigh as she simultaneously motioned for her DS agents to let Earl though.
"Well, it's not something you really forget" he began with a chuckle. "It was a few days after the big snow storm of March 1999 and at the time I owned a small tow truck company. Most of the roads had been cleared, but there was still heavy snowfall and I was just driving along the roads around midnight keeping an eye out to make sure no one was getting stranded by the snow. That's how I came across your parents. I saw this car in a snow bank and a lady having a go at a guy, and I gotta say, I was glad it wasn't me she was having a go at!
Anyway, I couldn't leave them stranded there and as I got out the truck your dad came running up to me almost in hysterics saying how I had to get his wife to the hospital as she was in labour and he'd just beached the car as the tyre had burst. Your mum was bent double by this point and was leaning on the car crying out in pain. I've got 5 kids of my own and I could tell then that she was close to giving birth. I didn't even bother trying to get the car out of the snow and just helped your dad get your mum into the cab of my truck - it was a tight squeeze I can tell you! And your mum, she was not a happy lady! She kept yelling that your dad wasn't a fighter pilot anymore and he couldn't drive like one. There was quite a lot of cursing going on and she threatened on more than one occasion to have your dad castrated. She kept yelling how she hated him for doing this to her, how she was never having another baby, how she wanted the drugs. Your dad just took it all. He gave me his phone and I phoned the hospital to let them know what was going on as by this time your mum's contractions were only a minute apart. She was crying and saying she wanted to push and your dad and I were telling her not to, that we were almost at the hospital. As I remember it, as we entered the car park she had just started pushing, she couldn't hold it off anymore. I pulled up at the entrance to the maternity unit and there was a doctor and nurse already there and I took that as my cue to leave."
"So what happened then?" Alison asked her parents inquisitively.
Elizabeth looked up at Henry helplessly. Truth be told, she couldn't remember much of Alison's birth. All she could remember was the intense pressure and pain and how angry she was at Henry for crashing the car. The actual delivery bit in the cab of a truck she had blocked out.
"Well, the doctor examined your mother and you were already crowning. There wasn't time to move her from the cab, so the doctor and I twisted your mum around in the seat so she was leaning against me and her legs were in the drivers section of the cab. Three pushes later and you were born just after midnight" Henry finished, fond nostalgia coating his words.
"In the back of a truck in a car park" Alison stated bluntly.
"Delivered by a doctor in a hospital car park" Elizabeth clarified.
"Because that makes it so much better" Alison stated with a roll of her eyes.
"Listen Noodle" Elizabeth began in earnest "I know it's not the ideal way to be born, but as soon as you were here you were put in my arms and I knew you were perfect. You were crying and pink and covered in goop, but you were perfect and worth every contraction and every one of the stitches that followed".
"Stitches?" Alison enquired with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes, Noodle, stitches. But it didn't matter because you were here, you were loved, you were ours, and you were perfect - still are" she said as she pulled her daughter into a hug and placed a kiss on her forehead.
"And we're sorry we didn't tell you before Noodle, it's just not the sort of thing that comes up in conversation. Honestly, within 10 minutes both you and your mother were in a hospital bed and your mother was breastfeeding you as the doctor was seeing to her. You were thoroughly checked over and given a completely clean bill of health. Where you were actually born didn't seem to matter" Henry stated honestly. "Although there is one thing that reminds us of that truck every single day..."
"Huh?" Alison queried.
"Earl, why don't you tell our daughter your full name" Elizabeth stated.
"It's Earl Allison, Ma'am"
"You named me after Earl?!" Alison exclaimed in surprise looking between her two parents for confirmation.
"It seemed like the least we could do after we ruined his truck" Elizabeth confirmed.
"That, and paid to have it cleaned!" Henry stated with a chuckled.
"Which I'm still very grateful for" Earl agreed with a smile. "The old girl is still going strong".
"Hey man, as I said, least we could do" Henry replied jovially.
"Madam Secretary" Earl began seriously. "If it's not too much trouble, I'd really like it if my grandson could meet you?"
It was only then that Elizabeth noticed the small bundle that had been placed in the baby seat of the trolley Earl was pushing.
"Sure" she said with a smile, ignoring the warning looks from her DS agents. She knew the risks of letting strangers give her things, but Earl had picked her and Henry up in the middle of the night and driven them to the hospital. He had not once complained about the mess she had made in his truck, not once tried to publicise the story since she had become Secretary of State, and she very much doubted that he or his grandson were going to hurt her. She was a former CIA Analyst with excellent judgment skills and she knew instinctively that she could trust Earl.
With a smile Earl lifted out his snoozing grandson and handed him to Elizabeth.
A wave of nostalgia hit Elizabeth as she held the small infant in her arms and smelt that baby smell. It seems like only yesterday that it had been Alison that she had been holding in her arms and now here she was about to go off to college. Where had the past 18 years gone?
"He's beautiful, Earl. What's his name?" she asked kindly
"It's Earl, like his grandad." Earl replied proudly.
"Well, he's just perfect. How old is he?"
"4 weeks, I'm taking him for a few hours to let his parents get some sleep. Thought I'd bring him to the shops and take advantage of the air conditioning in this heat."
Henry and Elizabeth exchanged a knowing looks with Earl "Been there" she exclaimed with a smile.
She held the baby close for a few more minutes reminiscing about all the times she had spent with Stevie, Alison, and Jason when they were babies. It made her realise how much she was looking forward to being a grandma in the (very distant) future. With a sigh she reluctantly handed the small bundle back to Earl Sr.
"It was nice to see you again, Earl"
"You too, Madam Secretary. It's nice to see you not looking in so much pain this time" he replied with a chuckle. "And it's nice to see how you've grown up, Alison".
"Thanks" Alison replied politely, still digesting the news she had just received.
"Well, I'll let you go" Earl stated as he secure his grandson back in the trolley and headed off to wonder around the store.
"You ok, Noodle?" Elizabeth asked her daughter cautiously, aware that she had received quite a big shock.
"I guess so" she replied with a shrug. "I mean, it's a pretty cool story when you think about it and it's something a bit unique to tell people. We've still got time to shop though, right?"
Elizabeth laughed at her daughter reaction. Trust Hurricane Alison to go from indignant to shopping obsessed teen within a matter of minutes. "Yes Noodle, we still have hours left of shopping time" she reassured.
"Good, because I want to check out those cushions you mentioned..." Alison began as she turned the trolley and stated heading off to the relevant section of the store.
She turned to follow Alison and felt Henry's arm fall across her shoulders once again, instinctively she snuggled into his embrace as they followed their daughter around the store.
"Who would have thought we'd ever run into Earl again" Henry whispered softly against his wife's head.
"I know. It's kind of poignant that we bump into Alison's namesake on the day we are shopping for her to leave home for college. It's gone so quickly, Henry!"
"Hmmm, I know. But before you know it they're going to be bringing their kids over for us to look after and we get to be the cool grandparents this time"
Elizabeth looked up at Henry with a smile, glad that he was looking forward to being a grandparent as much as she was. "Let's just hope none of them give birth in a truck..."