So I started writing this a couple of weeks ago and then part of the plot got kinda torpedoed by the 3.15 press release but by that point I was in too deep to back out, so here is some post-season-2-pre-season-3 slightly indulgent angst and stuff. Also I have to say a massive thank you to Adi for reading this for me about 800 times and for providing all the best ideas x

Also, sorry Bulgaria.

Chapter One

"Babe, you didn't tell me you'd remarried."

Elizabeth stopped in the middle of pouring coffee into her travel flask and turned to face Henry. "What?"

"You didn't tell me you'd remarried," he repeated wryly, glancing up from the laptop that sat in front of him on the breakfast table to meet her confused stare.

She didn't even have to ask a follow-up question to know that one of the more idiotic elements of the press would be in some way to blame for the mirth that had taken up residence on Henry's face. "Let me guess, there's something insane on the internet?" She put the coffee pot down on the counter, a little harder than she'd intended to. It was way too early in the morning to be dealing with crap on the internet.

Henry turned his laptop towards her. "Well, I don't know, you tell me."

Abandoning her coffee, Elizabeth crossed the kitchen to get a better look. She groaned as soon as she saw the screen. There, at the top of the page on one of the less respectable political blogs, was a picture of her talking with a man who was very definitely not her husband, but who the caption beneath the picture purported to be her husband.

Elizabeth McCord and husband attend State Department reception for the President of Bulgaria.

The photographer had caught the guy smiling at her as he leaned toward her and touched her arm to get her attention. Great.

Henry nudged her hand with his. "Want to tell me about your new beau?"

"You're enjoying this." No doubt as a result of the photo caption mix-up her day was going to be filled with terrible jokes from everyone she encountered, and she really wasn't feeling all that enthused at the prospect. She stared at the picture some more and felt a sense of unease take up residence in her stomach. Henry spoke again before she could quite work out why.

"Tell me about him," he said, light-heartedly like he was fishing for gossip.

Fine. She could play along for a bit. Maybe making light of it would help her see it for the obvious ridiculous joke it was. There was also a chance it would make her husband jealous, and after he had spent so long blaming her for his failings in recent months and leaving her feeling like she was deficient in his eyes, she thought that maybe he deserved it. It may have been petty but she figured he owed her this one. She relaxed her stance and leaned against the edge of the table next to Henry. "Oh, he's wonderful," she said, letting a wistful smile play over her face. "Well-connected, educated, tall… and also the Bulgarian foreign minister. How could I resist? I only spoke to him for two minutes, but when he proposed I just had to say yes. Sorry, babe." She patted Henry's hand consolingly.

"Well, when you put it like that." Henry caught her hand before she could move away, his fingers sliding up to hold her wrist so he could pull her down to him for a playfully possessive kiss, lingering for a moment until the sound of footsteps clattering down the stairs interrupted them and they broke apart. Yeah, he may have been going with it enthusiastically but he was obviously a little jealous. Good.

Alison came over to the table to put down her school books before making breakfast. "What are you guys talking about?"

Elizabeth straightened up and reached over to give her daughter a kiss on the head. "Nothing. I'm leaving."

Alison didn't miss a beat. "To see your new husband?" she teased.

Elizabeth cringed. "Oh God, you saw it, too?"

"Of course." Alison shared a smile with Henry that suggested she found the situation every bit as amusing as he did.

"I'm definitely leaving." Feeling the need to get out of the house before they embarked on any more teasing, Elizabeth hurried through finishing pouring her coffee and putting on her jacket and shoes. When she reached the doorway to the kitchen she lingered a moment, figuring it wouldn't kill her to throw her crazy family a bone. They might as well have their fun, and she might as well goad Henry a little more. "My new husband and I have a business meeting today so, you know, as long as he doesn't have the internet at his hotel or any staff to tell him about the existence of that photo, that should go absolutely fine."

She left without saying goodbye, figuring it would ruin her exit.

The mild amusement lasted all the way to her car. As she settled herself back in the seat for the ride to the State Department, the feeling of unease started to resurface. She just wished she could figure out exactly what it was about.

Henry and the kids were in the middle of cleaning up from dinner when the front door banged to tell them that Elizabeth had arrived home. Leaving the children to finish washing the plates and wiping down the countertop, Henry stepped back from the counter to greet his wife.

He picked up a towel to wipe his hands and watched as she walked distractedly towards the kitchen to meet her family. She had that look on her face that told Henry her mind was still on work, that she wasn't yet fully present with them. There was also something in her expression that he couldn't quite read, but as she entered the kitchen she looked up and gave him a smile and whatever it was disappeared when he leaned in to give her a kiss hello. "Hey, babe," he greeted her.

"Mmm, hi," she said. Then she pulled back to survey the activity going on in the kitchen. "Well, this looks very industrious."

"We just had dinner. I saved a plate for you. You hungry?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "No, I'm good, thanks."

Huh. That was weird. Henry glanced at his watch: eight thirty. His wife hadn't arrived home quite late enough for her to have eaten before she left the office, and she was always hungry at this time of day. Still. He didn't know exactly what had been on her schedule. "You already eat?"

She hesitated for a moment and before she could say anything, Jason piped up from his place at the sink, elbow-deep in soapy water as he washed dishes to pass to Stevie. "Maybe she went out to eat with her new husband."

The kids all laughed and Henry felt a smile tugging at his own lips. He couldn't help but find the whole photo mix up funny – he figured he could choose to either find it funny or give in to the irrational jealousy that wanted to surface, and jealousy wasn't going to help anything. "Hey, that's right," he said, turning a quizzical look on his wife. "How is your beau?"

It took Elizabeth a moment to get her game face together to play along; no doubt she'd been hearing similar jokes all day and Henry figured her patience for the charade was waning. "Oh, fine," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "He left this evening for business in Bulgaria, won't be back for a while. Hopefully never. Now. I want to hear all about what my original family got up to today, so spill."

Watching her face carefully, Henry felt something tick inside him. Something wasn't quite right, something in the set of her jaw, in the way she spoke about the foreign minister leaving before moving swiftly on to another topic… He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he figured he could let her have the breezy subject change while the kids were in the room.

Then Alison said, with a saucy tone to her voice that Henry wished she didn't know how to do, "How was your business meeting today, Mom? Did he, uh, give you everything you asked for?"

The response was perfunctory. "It was fine." Elizabeth stepped around the kitchen island and headed for the table, where she busied herself with rearranging the placemats and very definitely not looking at any of her family.

"Of course he did, he's not going to turn down her requests on their first day of marriage, is he?" That was Stevie, joking along with Alison. "I'd have thought he'd be offering her all sorts of sweeteners too."

"That meeting must have had a very extensive agenda."

Stevie nudged her sister. "Or a very short one."

"Gross," Jason muttered.

Elizabeth whirled around to fix them with a glare. "You're all gross." Then she looked at Henry. "And you, you're encouraging this?"

He couldn't quite tell if the annoyance in her tone was genuine. He held up his hands in surrender. "Hey, I'm encouraging nothing."

"You're part of the interrogation."

He knew he shouldn't but he just couldn't resist one more joke. "Well, sure. You're the one cheating on me."

Elizabeth froze for a second. Then her face unexpectedly crumpled and even from across the kitchen, Henry could see the tears in her eyes and hear the hitch in her breath. Her tone was adamant and dead serious and a tiny bit desperate as she said, "Henry, I would never –" Her voice cracked and she sucked in a breath that sounded loud in the suddenly silent kitchen.

He cast a glance at the kids standing awkwardly next to the sink, all of them trying to pretend they weren't listening to their parents' suddenly serious exchange. He caught Stevie's eye and tilted his head towards the stairs, directing them to get out of the kitchen and fast. Apparently Elizabeth wasn't OK with them joking around about her new husband anymore. Henry couldn't shake the feeling that something more was going on; he wanted to find out what but he wasn't about to have the conversation with their three kids listening in. Elizabeth didn't need that.

Waiting while Stevie pushed the other two in front of her and hustled them up the stairs, Henry stood watching his wife's face. She looked pale, and dismayed at what he had suggested, and… distraught? Annoyance and upset he could understand, but he couldn't work out why she was so distressed.

As soon as the children were safely out of the room, he held up his hands in a placating gesture and took a step towards her, careful to keep his face soft and open. "I know," he said gently. "I know that, babe. It was just a joke."

"Well, don't joke about that!" It sounded like Elizabeth was on the edge, and if he said the wrong thing she might just break apart.

He nodded as he closed the gap between them, coming to stand a couple of steps in front of her. "OK, I'm won't. I'm sorry."

"I'd never cheat on you."

"I know that." Henry reached out to cup her face in his hand and was startled when she flinched slightly at his touch before relaxing into him and pressing her face against the warmth of his palm. He stroked his thumb over her cheekbone. "I know that," he repeated.

Elizabeth sniffed and blinked. She looked down for a moment as a tear fell from her eyelash to run down her cheek. "It's just one stupid photo and everyone spends the entire day making stupid jokes about me remarrying or cheating on you and I've just had enough."

There was the sense that she wasn't being entirely honest with him. Everything she said had the ring of truth, but from the way she spoke and the way she wouldn't meet his gaze as she said it, Henry figured there was something his wife wasn't telling him. He felt a hint of frustration rise within him; he'd had the feeling recently that she was holding herself slightly back from him, unwilling to share everything of herself as if she was afraid she couldn't entirely trust him.

The feeling hurt, even as he knew she had good reason to be a little wary after the events of the past few months with everything that had happened and how he had handled things – or hadn't handled things, which he knew deep down to be the root of the problem. He could kick himself for that now as he watched Elizabeth edit herself around him, reluctant to share things with him when once it would have been second nature.

He took another half-step into her, making her look back up at him. The tears in her eyes told him it wasn't just that she was pissed off about some silly jokes about a stupid picture on the internet. Concern started to beat inside him. "What happened today?" he asked.

"I spent the day with a bunch of comedians, only none of them were funny," she replied. Again, it was obviously not a lie, but it was also obviously not the whole story, either.

Then something occurred to him. "How did your meeting go with the Bulgarian foreign minister?"

Elizabeth snorted and stepped back, turning away so she could go and pour herself a glass of wine from the bottle Henry had left out on the counter. "Don't you mean my husband?" she said in the tone she occasionally used when she was trying to get a rise out of him.

So she was spoiling for a fight and Henry got the feeling it was so she wouldn't have to talk to him about whatever it was that had happened during the day. He couldn't decide exactly how to feel about that. "No," he said softly, desperate to make amends for the offence he had obviously caused with his final ill-judged joke. He stood with his hands at his sides, his expression open, letting her see that he might have been kidding around before, but now he was serious and he was there for whatever she had to say.

Swallowing her mouthful of wine, Elizabeth regarded him carefully. Then she said, "You know, when I met him last night, I didn't know anything about him. It was so quick. I mean I guess I thought he was a little weird but it was only for a minute and then someone interrupted and that was that. There was still time for someone to take that stupid picture but I told myself I didn't get to spend enough time with him to make a proper judgement."

"OK." Henry leaned back against the table, resisting the urge to move closer to his wife; she seemed reluctant enough as it was to be talking to him and he didn't want to do anything that might upset the delicate balance now that she was.

"Then today everyone was making these idiotic jokes and –" She broke off and drank some more wine, shaking her head like she was casting around for the right words but was unable to find them.

Henry waited her out, watching her pace the floor and feeling his anxiety rise in line with Elizabeth's as she was unable to quell her agitation.

Then suddenly she stopped abruptly in front of him, the look on her face accusatory and ever so slightly outraged. "I don't like you joking about me cheating on you at all, Henry, it's not funny. But it's especially not funny in relation to that… that –"

"That what?" he prompted when she failed to fill in the blank after a moment.

"That sleaze," she finally said. "I mean, you spend all these months making me feel awful for reminding you of your failings and you don't talk to me for so long, but then suddenly it's like everything is light and fine again and you're making these stupid jokes about me stepping away and –"

"Elizabeth," he cut her off, pushing away from the table. There was lots to talk about, so much to discuss, especially as it seemed his wife's distress was as much about his emotional absence and the way he had acted over the unmentioned Dimitri incident as it was about his terrible jokes, but there was one thing that was at the top of Henry's list. His voice was urgent as he asked, "What do you mean, that sleaze? What happened in your meeting today?"

A moment of indecision passed over Elizabeth's face and Henry could see she was torn over which way to play things, brashness and vulnerability warring for dominance in her expression as she said, almost defensively, "He hit on me, OK? That's what happened at the meeting today. He hit on me."

Henry stared at his wife and any humour he might have previously found in the situation with the Bulgarian foreign minister vanished into thin air.