Author's Note: Progress is slow on The Captain's Wife, but it is not abandoned! In the meantime, enjoy some plot-less fluff. Inspired by the song from Nat King Cole.
Love Me as Though
It is done.
Petrov is identified.
Elizabeth sees the tears, when Henry meets her gaze. She sees how at last the burden Henry had been carrying was relieved the moment his student crossed the line between certain death and uncertain saving (who knew what else Murphy Station might need? Scratch that, what Russell or the President might need doing).
No words are shared on the trip home. Not for lack of trying, though - several times she turns to look at him, opens her mouth, but second-guesses herself. What could she say, really?
The last several months have been hard on her, but until tonight, she did not understand just how much Henry was invested in his work. No, not his work; his belief, that he was doing the right thing. That every situation, no matter how desperate, has an obvious and just solution. That every call he makes is the right one.
And how close it came to being the wrong one! Waiting for her husband to identify the man the Russians had was like waiting for the storm to come. This time, it passed by; damage minimal, but no less the frightening.
He is engrossed in thought every time she looks over, lines furrowed deeply into his brow. The tears she glimpsed when Dmitri hugged him are long gone, replaced by a tension in his shoulders she wants to ease. But she holds back, reluctant to break the spell of whatever held Henry quiet.
For a long time she never understood his need for silence. She is the one to put her hand forward, always looking a step ahead, willing to draw someone out with whatever means necessary. Several times the technique had saved her life; looking charming, but being deadly allowed her to work for the greater good (or so she thought at the time).
Henry, though…he keeps himself removed, burying himself in theory after theory. The sacredness of knowledge was the altar he worshipped at. He believes in righteousness, a moral code that guides him in every motion, every gesture, every word he speaks.
Is his faith shaken? She is tempted to ask, but the curious reluctance does not break until they are stopped at a light just a few blocks away from home.
(Home. What will it be now that Henry can lay down his burdens?)
She reaches over in the car and grasps his hand.
"I love you, babe," she says. Any questions, any of the heartache are set aside in favor of the reminder that they are a team, and even if she has to wait, she is right here.
She can feel how cold his hands are, how dry. How they fit around hers carefully, and how, as she rubs across his wrist, they are shaking.
The kids are asleep by the time they get in the house. Seeing Jason's arm across the back of the couch, curled just so around Allison's shoulders, and Stevie's legs in Allison's lap….the image is sweet and dear and relieving, because for the millionth time they owe their kids an explanation, but this one they cannot give.
It is enough for now that both parents were away, doing "work", and her and Henry can collapse upstairs without having to say a word.
Henry, right behind her, perks up for the first time since boarding the plane. "It's like nap-time again," he says. A hoarse whisper, but communication all the same.
Elizabeth's heart leaps.
"Remember when Stevie used to be a light sleeper? We couldn't even walk around in socks!" His eyes are warm as they tip-toe carefully to the steps. He pauses to keep his gaze on them, something in his eyes telling her he wants to keep them in his view for as long as possible.
"And Noodle used to fall asleep in the hallway, after watching you write," she adds, smiling. A watery grin sort of appears on his face, and her heart leaps again.
A fond memory – Allison would take her sleeping bag and watch Henry work on a dissertation. Something about the sound of typing being reassuring. Ever the peace-keeper, she has always loved the idea of the better world Henry believed in.
They manage to take the stairs a half-step at a time, freezing every moment Jason shifts his arm or when Stevie kicks one leg over the edge of the couch. They must have been deeply worried, or seen something awful, to be so willing tangled up and vulnerable.
It can wait til morning, she thinks, and reaches deep inside herself for an answer she will have to give eventually (spy-craft, it was spy-craft, CIA and DoD and POTUS and all the other acronyms on a need-to-know basis and no, Jason, you are not needing to know.
Except he might if this trend of walking openly into danger keeps up, and for that she knows she will have no response).
Henry makes it to the bedroom before she does and immediately sheds his clothes. Like he wants to shed everything related to Russia away, she muses, eyeing the pile. She doesn't bother it; in fact, adds her own clothes to it. The next time she is in the mood, she will do the laundry herself, using so much detergent the washer bubbles up and Henry will fix it with an arched eyebrow.
He stands in the middle of their room and looks…lost.
"It almost wasn't him," he says, "I could have been shot. Elizabeth, you could have been shot. We could have left our kids parent-less!"
"But we didn't," she says, and crosses to him to hold him and the tears that are finally, finally, streaming down his face.
They haven't been naked together in some days. She's lucky if she sees him at all during the week, and even during the night. Skin-to-skin contact feels amazing and damn if some part of her wasn't turned on, despite the trauma of the near-end-of-the-world experience.
"I don't know anymore," he says after a minute. "I do not know anymore than I have ever known before."
"Is that an Aquinas?" she asks, pulling away to examine him.
He shrugs. "At this point, I don't know."
It's the way he says I don't know that undoes her. Henry is her rock, her advisor, her confidant…though that was questionable, given the recent circumstances. They still had to do burgers and bowling.
"What do you want me to do?" she asks him, and the question surprises her, too.
Tears dried and wiped away, he can wrap his arms around her and hold her gaze.
"Love me," he answers, somberly. "Love me as though there is no tomorrow."