Late night phone calls were nothing out of the ordinary for Elizabeth. She deemed the necessary communication a part of the job, but that simple fact didn't mean she was fond of the idea of being woken from her already limited sleep. With the previous hectic day at the office, she ultimately decided she deserved to rest, and whatever problem there seemed to be, could be solved without her.

She turned on her side, ignoring the irritating buzzing noise. Just as her eyes began to slip closed, the ringing sounded through the silent room once again. She turned with a huff, and delved her hand blindly over her nightstand, searching for the offending device.

After finally grasping her phone, she answered with a hoarse 'hello'. "I'm sorry to wake you ma'am, but Russel Jackson is inside your home." One of her DS agents informed her. Her sleep fogged mind took a few seconds to process what had just been said to her. "What?" she mumbled. Elizabeth's eyes dashed to her bedside table and read the bright numbers on the clock. "It's three thirty in the morning." She spoke into the phone. "I apologize ma'am, but he said or rather yelled that the situation couldn't wait." The voice responded. "It never can with him." She replied before ending the phone call.

After dragging herself out of bed, and wrapping her body in a robe, Elizabeth opened her bedroom door. Her eyes flew wide open, and a gasp found its way from her lips when she was startled to find Russel an inch from her face. The older man stood in front of her, hand raised ready to knock on the now opened door. "What the hell." She snipped, hand resting over her rapidly beating heart. "We have a problem." He said sternly, and loudly, at least for a house full of sleeping people.

Elizabeth pulled her robe tighter against her body and laughed off his concern. "Well there better be a problem when you're waking me up in the middle of the night." She muttered, annoyance in her tone. "This isn't a matter for joking." He cautioned. Her eyebrows furrowed. The Secretary turned and quietly shut her bedroom door, aware the other occupants of the house were still asleep. She motioned with her hand to the staircase.

"Russel this is highly inappropriate." Elizabeth proclaimed. He chuckled dryly. "I could say the same." She stood behind the couch in the family room, watching on as Russel fumbled to find the remote to the television. "What exactly is this about?" she wondered. The chief of staff spun around towards her and they locked eyes for a moment, before he quickly turned his glance to the floor. He opened his mouth, but suddenly closed it. "I don't really know how to say this." There was a hesitance in his words. This behavior, coming from the usually upfront man, caused a wave of worry to rush through her body. He turned to the television, and pressed a few buttons before the screen came to life.

When Elizabeth realized what her eyes were seeing, her stomach dropped. Her heart sped up, and her mind began running a mile a minute. Her mouth hung open, at a loss for words. Her cheeks burned red, as she snatched the remote from the hands of Russel. She flipped through numerous other news stations, but only one story, the same story as the first, occupied their broadcast. Her jaw clenched. She felt sick seeing the tape, the sex tape, of her and Henry in bed together. She snapped the TV off in anger, before closing her eyes, and pinching the bridge of her nose. After a moment, she looked up at the almost forgotten man. Her gaze was cold, eyes filled with rage. "This could destroy you, Bess." He said firmly.

~2 weeks earlier~

"Let's catch Elizabeth up." Just by Conrad's simple sentence Elizabeth recognized this moment as the beginning of being blockaded from the inner circle. Stepping into the oval office to find every member of the NSC present except for her felt like a punch in the stomach.

She wasn't happy to discover that Conrad had selected the new National Security Advisor without her input, let alone hiring her old rival for the job. She was furious, but she served at the pleasure. But the way Craig Sterling operated drove her up the wall. She was having a hard time holding her tongue. And in their line of work it was vital for these two competing persons to be able to collaborate with one another. They needed to work together, stand together as one unit. But that was easier said than done when the pair couldn't agree on any national security and foreign policies.

At times the disagreements were reasonable. Elizabeth was in fact an out of the box thinker, sometimes there wasn't even a box. On the other hand, it often seemed he would simply disagree with her to push her buttons, hoping to receive a hostile reaction from the Secretary, making her look bad in front of the President.

And so he did. There were more than several times last week Elizabeth had lost her cool. "Craig has come up with a new defense initiative." The President had said. The Secretary took her seat, out of sorts from not receiving any of this new information. The whole situation with Craig angered her. It seemed that she was being pushed off to the side, utterly forgotten. "Look I get shifting our focus. But what about the impact that this is going to have on diplomatic relations?" Elizabeth spoke up addressing the President, currently thinking about what position she would be put in if Craig's idea was put into place. Sterling turned his head slightly and scowled at her, and declared, "Well, to that, I would say, Madam Secretary… you've had your turn. And you see where that led us." Her opinions were being overlooked, and she was frustrated. She turned to the President to hear his view on the topic. He quickly answered her pleading eyes with, "This is a done deal, Bess."

And certainly, it was.