Disclaimer: I don't own Madam Secretary. I did use Elizabeth's message from "The Greater Good."
"Hey baby. It's me. Just checking in again. I left you a message. Call me, please? I love you. I love you."
Her voice is softer than usual, like she's trying to hold it together. But despite that, he doesn't call until he hears the news.
"Terror attack in Geneva." His hand is reaching for his phone, his breath coming too fast as his heart slows when he hears, "Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord is dead."
Scrambling with the phone, he dials her familiar number. No answer. Not even a voicemail. She's gone. And all he's left with is a message of his wife begging him to call her. And a broken heart.
The first night without her, he's not sure who cries more, him or their kids. They're broken too with a shocking clarity of missing their mother and trying to be strong for him.
He's still wiping his eyes. Their Noodle was hard to get to sleep, and he'd had to sit at the edge of her bed holding her hand until her breathing finally evened out.
Their bed looms. He's never been afraid of a piece of furniture before. But now, he's terrified.
He tries to imagine that she's just at the State Department, but that just makes it worse because he keeps thinking that she'll walk through the door.
Finally, his own breath evens out, exhaustion claiming him.
He jolts awake like he's forgotten something. And there she is. Beside him. Curled in a ball on her side as usual. Not trusting his eyes or his brain not to trick him, he tries to wrap his arms around her. She's really and truly there. And he's sobbing.
Contrary to popular belief, though Elizabeth McCord is a deep sleeper, when she's awakened in the middle of the night, she's completely awake and ready to go. So when she feels her husband's arms wrap around her and his heaving uneven breaths on her back, she both knows something's very wrong, and already trying to fix it.
First challenge: turning around.
She finally turns around in his arms. He's sobbing, crying so hard that it breaks her heart to listen.
"Henry?"
He glances at her eyes that don't actually see her. That has her helping him to sit up.
"Henry? Baby, you have to breathe. Listen to me," she says calmly.
He continues to sob with his head in his hands.
"Henry? Talk to me. What's wrong?" she leans in closer and she's close enough to hear him mumble, "Not… real…"
"What isn't real?"
"You… you're…not…real" he gasps between hitching breaths.
Her eyes widen slightly as she fully takes in her husband's appearance. His shirt is wet with sweat and clinging to him. His face is red and blotchy. His chest is heaving much much too fast. And his eyes are completely disbelieving that she could be beside him.
"Babe?"
"No! I can't! It hurts too much!"
"Henry. Look. At. Me." She uses her best Secretary of State voice, and it seems to work. At least enough to break his hysteria.
Carefully, she eases herself in between his legs. She pulls his head to her chest and says, "listen."
When he hears the steady beat of her heart, his arms wrap around her, and he cries tears of grief mixed with relief.
Elizabeth holds him there until he falls in a dreamless sleep.
The next morning, she wanders into their bathroom and looks at him curiously.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
He sighs… "Geneva." He watches her face as she takes in the full meaning of his word. As expected, she's become guarded. "The hit on Maria Ostrov… it was… for… you… instead" he says haltingly, his fear still too raw. The thought that she could just disappear in thin air.
Her eyes soften, and she comes to wrap her arms around him.
"I'm right here."