"I need you. Here. Now..."
He looked up at her, half angry from his day and half worried that she was going to burst into tears. Had she been pushed too far? What happened? He was confused. She was responding with anger when she normally bared her pain openly to him when she was upset.
He took a breath.
"What's this about?" Henry kept his voice calm and even. He didn't want to escalate the situation.
Elizabeth felt tears start to form at his caring tone. She didn't want to cry. She wanted to fight. She wanted to fight Henry into recognizing her pain. He should have noticed how she was hurting. She felt alone.
Her words came louder than intended, her tone screeching upwards with the effort to hide her tears.
"It's about you! It's about you being inconsiderate! Why do you do whatever the DIA tells you to? Why do you ignore your family? Why don't you care about me..."
With that, her voice broke. Her tears fell, unbidden.
Henry bit back his retort. Elizabeth had purposefully tried to wound him. But looking at her now, she was wounded, too. He tried to breathe through his anger and understand her pain. It almost helped that she was crying. It was easy to recognize her bravado was all a mask when she was crying. It was her strength that sometimes made him forget that at the core, she was just as broken as anyone else.
He knelt in front of her at the foot of their bed, placing his hands heavily on her knees. He hoped it would help ground her.
"Elizabeth? Babe?"
He brushed her hair back where it had fallen in front of her face.
She was crying with her head buried in her hands. She didn't respond to him or even acknowledge him.
"Babe, it's gonna be okay. It's all overwhelming right now, but we're gonna get through it." Henry spoke softly, almost in a whisper, yet his voice rumbled from deep within his chest.
She still didn't seem to notice him, but he heard a faint whimper come from her. "But I can't do it without you."
"You don't have to do anything without me." He cajoled. "But if you had to, you could do whatever you set your mind to. Don't put yourself down." His thumbs traced the inside seam of her slacks. He could feel that her knees were shaking slightly under his touch.
"I need you here, Henry. I'm falling apart," she whispered.
A fresh wave of tears accompanied that statement.
Henry's heart melted at the sight of her so fragile. She had been reaching out to him all week, and he hadn't noticed. He had been preoccupied with licking his own wounds about Dmitri.
"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere tonight. You're okay. I'm not going to go if you're not okay. Deal?"
She nodded and held her arms out to him in a peace offering. He accepted her embrace and quickly wrapped an arm behind her back and another under her knees so he could pick her up. Her body was limp against his, but he lifted her easily onto the bed with him. He held her tight to his chest, listening to her uneven breaths as he rubbed her back and soothed her gently. When she lost the tension in her shoulders, he spoke up again, but more quietly now.
"You're not losing me, baby. Why the urgency?"
She clung to him tighter. "You've been so busy at DIA. I just... I just..." Her body shook as she tried to articulate her thoughts.
"Come on, babe. You can tell me."
"I feel like you aren't thinking about what's best for us or our family."
"In being gone so much?" He tried to let her words roll off him. This was about her, not him. He told himself to breathe through his initial reactions to her words.
"Not just your schedule... You going to Merchant's house... Working when you knew I was upset after the vandalism in my office... Making me joke with the kids that you had taken an office in the Pentagon. Henry, I was scared after I saw that spray paint in my office... and you weren't here. You didn't even answer my texts. I wanted to give up the whole job..."
"Why didn't you tell me how scared you were? You know I would have tried to help." He looked down at her confusedly. She usually let him know when she needed him. And even if she didn't say anything explicitly, he could read her pretty well. Why had she hidden it from him? Had she done it consciously? Or had she been trying to tell him the whole time and he just missed it?
"You were so angry... I didn't want you to resent me for being weak."
He kissed her hair and wrapped his arms around her body more securely. Henry was frustrated with himself that he had let his anger hurt Elizabeth. She had been too scared of his reaction to come to him with her pain. God, that stung. He had promised her that he would always be open to hearing whatever she needed to tell him. And he had failed her.
"I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry I wasn't around to notice, and I'm sorry my anger got in the way of being here for you."
"I'm sorry for yelling at you..."
"Why didn't you yell at me earlier? You don't usually just sit back and stay quiet. Why didn't you call me on it?"
"I don't know..."
"Come on. Yeah, you do. Why didn't you talk to me?"
"I guess I thought if you loved me, you'd just know..."
"I do love you, even if I can't read your mind. I was spending so much time working to try to make sure we caught the stalker. I was working because I love you. I guess I thought you knew that."
"I know... I just wanted you here."
"I'm always here, babe." He rubbed her arm to reassure her.
"Not if you're in Arizona..." She still sounded sad.
"Do you want me to stay?" He would gladly send someone else to Arizona if it would keep her from feeling so isolated.
"You should go. Dmitri needs you."
Henry wasn't sure if he was imagining the hollow tone of her voice or not.
"That doesn't mean that you don't need me, too. And I'm married to you." He tried to get her to smile. He ran a finger along her jaw, but he didn't quite manage to pull a smile from her.
"It's just a couple days. Go to Arizona. Just promise me that when you come back, you'll be around more. I can't handle the kids and work all on my own."
"You're not on your own. Never on your own." His tone was firm and sincere now.
"You'll call me when you land?" Arizona wasn't Pakistan, but she needed to know that Henry was safe.
"Of course. Call me when you get home tomorrow night? Let me know how your day went and how Allison's essay is going. I'll make sure you get to sleep alright."
There was a pause before Elizabeth slowly nodded.
"It gave me nightmares... the stalker. When you were here alone with the kids and the house was hacked."
Henry massaged her shoulders and buried his nose in her hair, inhaling the sweet scent.
"Babe, you've got to tell me sometimes. I still love you just as much even if I don't notice when you're upset."
"It's not that I don't think you love me..." Elizabeth was starting to feel like she was overly needy. That was something she was determined not to be.
Henry picked up on the shift in her tone. "You're just overwhelmed and need some TLC. You would have been fine if everything hadn't come all at once." He wanted her to know that he still thought she was strong and completely capable.
At his words, she finally gave him the smile he had been hoping for all night. "I love you, Henry. I don't say that enough." She stroked his cheek, feeling the stubble underneath her fingers.
"And I love you. When you're scared, when you're brave, when you're sad, and when you're angry."
Elizabeth groaned. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. It wasn't even about the Arizona trip..."
"You're hardly ever actually mad at me when you're mad at me."
"Okay." She kissed him. "Careful before you start sounding condescending."
Henry deepened their kiss, tangling his fingers in her hair. "It's not condescending at all, babe. It's just your way of telling me you need to talk. But I've got you figured out."
"I should be mad at you for that, but I'm just so thankful you're willing to push past my anger even when I don't know it's a bluff." She felt Henry gently roll them so he was hovering over her. She kept her hand on his cheek, still needing physical contact with her husband.
Henry thought for a moment about how independent she had had to become when her parents died. No one was there to help her sort through and make sense of her emotions. She had managed remarkably well, but she had missed out on a lot of love.
"We're together, always." He leaned down and began kissing her forehead and cheeks. At that moment, only actions could convey how much he cherished her and their time together.
Recognizing the words, Elizabeth muttered softly. "You said that when Buttercup died."
"You know why?"
She shook her head silently against his chest.
"Because I needed to remind myself that our relationship is bigger than me. It's bigger than you. It's bigger than any temporary emotion. I don't love you because you need it. I love you because it is best for both of us... for our common good."
"You're breaking into the church Fathers, aren't you?"
He had spoken the last line in the tone she knew to mean he was quoting someone.
He smiled indulgently, "A little JPII never hurt anyone."
She rolled her eyes. "Well..."
He cut her off before she could get started.
"Okay. Okay. Point taken. But my meaning stands. Our relationship is our common good. I never want you to feel selfish for asking me to nurture our relationship. It's the opposite of selfish."
Elizabeth was feeling warm and content, lying in his arms.
Henry noticed her eyes begin to flutter. "Okay, babe, you need sleep. You'll feel better."
"K..." she murmured. "Don't forget to call me when you land."
"I'll call you, promise. I'll probably check in on you tomorrow after lunch, too."
"You're a good guy, Henry. I'm sorry I let it get this bad before I said anything." The pull of sleep was quickly becoming too strong for her to deny, but she wanted him to know how much he meant to her.
"Shhh... just go to sleep."
"I love you." By the time the words fell from her lips, she was already asleep.
"I love you, too."
Henry kissed her hair before getting up to finish packing. He looked at her sleeping form before taking his suitcase downstairs. When she was asleep, she looked so much smaller than she did during the day. Her confidence made her seem so much bigger. It was only when sleep stripped her of her persona that she looked as normal and vulnerable as Henry knew she was. Somehow, he had forgotten how much she needed him when life got scary. When he got back, he would have to make it up to her...