A/N: thanks for your lovely reviews. here's chapter two! any and all spelling mistakes are mine as English is not my native language. Hope you enjoy!
My idea is to update this story weekly so I will try to update it every Sunday/Monday
lacuna: (n.) a missing part
Henry was making dinner when the front door opened. Stevie took over and Henry looked at Alison and Jason before going to meet their guest. When he found two marines, the President of the United States and a DS agent, he knew something was terribly wrong. He shook his head in disbelieve.
"I'm sorry, Henry." Conrad said, his voice breaking. "Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord is a casualty in the line of duty." He stated.
As the president he had an obligation but as a friend, he felt the need to protect and help in any way possible.
"No." Henry shook his head, tears appearing in his eyes. His shoulders started shaking and he was breathing rapidly and harshly, like he couldn't quite figure out how to pull oxygen into his burning lungs.
"No!" He said, this time louder and it got the kids their attention. Stevie, Alison and Jason walked in but stopped when they noticed everyone in the house. Stevie knew what this meant and put her hand over her mouth to cover a sob as tears now rolled down.
"Dad, what's going on?" Alison asked scared and Jason put his arm around her. He knew whatever it was, it wasn't good. Henry turned around to face his kids and Stevie wrapped her arms around him.
"I'm sorry, it's mom." He managed to get out before he couldn't form words anymore. It felt like his entire world was collapsing around him. His hands were clenching and unclenching rapidly, his bunt fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms. Alison and Jason now put their arms around their dad as well, wanting and needing the comfort of a parent.
Conrad nodded at the marines and they quietly left the house while he stayed behind. He watched the family process the news and got tears in his eyes as he tried to imagine what they must be going through. He quickly blinked them back because he knew he couldn't afford to break down as well, not now and not here. He owed it to Elizabeth to support her family and be there for them.
"I'm so sorry." He told them, his voice low as he tried to be calm and steady.
Because right now, someone had to be.
Stevie was the first one to pull back and found the other man with tears in her eyes. She walked over to hug him, not realizing she was hugging the President but to her she was just hugging her mother's friend, mentor and boss.
"What happened?" Alison asked in between sobs and Henry pulled back, drying his face and turning to the only person who could give them answers.
Jason simply shook his head but didn't look up. Not letting go of his father.
"I'm not sure that's the right conversation for today." Conrad said, and Henry understood the under lying message. Not a conversation your kids should hear.
"Why don't you three wait in the kitchen?" Henry said, trying not to break down again as he watched his three kids walk to the kitchen. They held on to each other tight for comfort and support.
"What happened?" Henry asked, and Conrad knew better than to argue with him.
He flinched because that was the very last question he wanted to answer.
It was necessary, of course, because no one could be helped not without the truth, but perhaps Conrad had been hoping that they could just wait a little while longer.
But that wasn't how this was going to play out, he thought, because Henry was wide-eyed. He looked haunted in a way no one should ever look.
"We don't think it was Iran." Conrad started because he knew Henry was wondering why they weren't at war yet if they did it. "A terrorist group probably managed to infiltrate the government. None of the actual Iranian diplomats had seen Bess yet."
"How?" He gasped out, and it's a desperate plea to understand what happened. Once again, he was clenching his fists like he was trying to fight for strength.
"We think they have been playing the long game because-" He started to explain but Henry shook his head. He wasn't interested in the politics, he was interested in his wife.
"No, how did she-" He asked, not being able to finish the sentence yet.
"We don't know." Conrad said, and he explained how DS agent Matt had escaped and told them what happened exactly, what their plan had been. "So, when we raided the building, we found blood from the two and bathtub with traces of chemicals. Our guess is they used sulfuric acid."
Henry's face contorts into something awful. The devastated look on his suddenly far too pale face was mixed with heartbreak.
"S-So there is nothing left?" Henry asked as he sat down on the couch. He had no idea how he was supposed to tell his kids they couldn't bury their mom because there was nothing to bury.
"The acid doesn't react with everything. They found her wedding ring and it's currently on its way to the US." Conrad told him, wishing he had more to say.
"Thank you." Henry said, grateful he had come here to give the news personally instead of marines he didn't know.
"Is there anything I can do for you or your family?"
"Not that I can think of." Henry said, just wanting to be with his family for the moment. He had no idea how they were supposed to get through this, how they were supposed to mourn or grieve.
"Call me or Russell if you need anything." He replied, and Henry nodded at him before showing him out. Hesitantly, he walked back to the kitchen. All three kids were hurdled on the couch and it broke his heart to her the sobs and sniffles.
He wanted to say something. Something that would comfort them, take their pain away but he didn't know what to say. He made himself known and crouched in front of the couch. Alison was the first one to throw herself around her father before the other two followed and Henry couldn't keep his tears at bay anymore.
According to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross there are five stages of grief. They may be different for each person and everyone experiences them at a different moment, but there are always five.
All three kids and Henry had to go through the process. They had to grieve in their own way and find a place for what had happened.
Now, everyone overcoming grief will start at denial. This is a stage most people will quickly pass through as their first reaction is disbelieve. For all Mccords, denial was a stage they hardly even noticed.
Of course, after the first reaction, everyone was still hoping it wasn't true. Hoping their mom, and wife, would walk through the door and tell them it was all just a mistake. That nothing had happened and that she was fine.
That it was all just a terrible nightmare.
But that never happened.
The second stage of grief is anger. Now this was something the Mccord men in particular were good at.
A week after he had buried his wife, or in this case an empty casket, Henry sat downstairs in the study. All three kids were upstairs, and he found a picture of Elizabeth and him at the farm.
"We were supposed to grow old together." His thumb grazed the picture frame as he talked to the picture. "We were supposed to go to a nursing home together. Watch out kids grow up, spoil out grand kids."
Henry's anger was just below the surface. How could she have left him. 'I'll see you in a few days'. That's what she had said. How could this have happened.
He didn't even get to say goodbye properly. It wasn't fair, none of this was fair. Why did it have to happen to them? They had devoted their entire lives to protecting this country.
Yet he couldn't even protect his wife. He was supposed to protect her. Be by her side no matter what. He should've been there or stopped her and maybe she would be here.
Henry smashed the picture against the wall and shielded himself from any glass that might bounce back.
His hand moved across his face as sobs wrecked his body and he stared at the picture in the now broken frame on the floor. "Nobody said I had to do this alone. I can't do this without you. Please come back to me."
As it turned out, Henry wasn't the only one who got stuck in stage two; anger. Jason had managed to get expelled from school after getting in a physical fight with one of his classmates.
Alison and Stevie had both managed to get through the anger stage and had moved on to the third.
Bargaining.
The third stage of grief is where one clings to an irrational hope even when the facts say otherwise.
Now though Henry was a religion professor, none of the kids had really been raising believing in a higher power. However, Stevie turned to religion when all else failed.
In a spur of the moment decision, she walked into a church and started praying.
"I don't really know how to do this. I've never done this before. I don't know the rules of this or anything but if there is a higher power, someone, anyone, please bring my mother back. I can't do this without her. I need her." She repeated the same few things for a few times until she figured she should go home. Why did she even bother?
Then again, no harm could be done in trying.
Luckily for Henry, both Jason and Stevie had gone through depression rather quickly and had moved on to the fifth stage, acceptance. They were still sad and mourning but things seemed to go better.
However, Alison hit the fourth stage of grief hard. She became sad, depressed, and after a while, Henry started to get worried. It had been seven months since Elizabeth had passed. He was lingering between depression and acceptance, but Alison was different.
She was barely eating, spending a lot of her time sleeping or in her room. She gave up on studying, though she read just enough to pass any exam she had to do.
Henry knew it wasn't uncommon to isolate yourself during this stage. To avoid discussing the trauma. It was a self-protective mechanism by which Alison tried the problem to 'cease to exist' if she didn't acknowledge it.
But Henry knew she had to talk about it.
After a long, agonizing talk, Henry convinced her to see someone and only a month later, things seemed to get better. By the time the entire family had moved into stage five, it had been a year.
An entire year of missing the love of his life. They managed but it was a major loss that was felt every day. He knew today marked one year and told his kids to stay home for the day.
It had been hard on everyone. Their mom had missed so much the past year and Henry had tried to be there as much as possible, but his work got in the way sometimes.
He was wearing Elizabeth's wedding ring as well on a chain around his neck. Almost always covered by his shirt but he knew it was there and he was glad a part of her was always with him.
He had accepted the death of his wife but hadn't moved on. He couldn't. Elizabeth was the love of his life and moving on felt like betraying her.
The kids seemed fine. Stevie and Jason handled it well although Alison had a harder time. She had the occasional late night break down but other than that they were doing alright.
Or as alright as they could be.
Two weeks later, the phone rang, and Henry picked it up.
"Hello?" He asked but was met by silence before the line went dead. He got a weird feeling but quickly brushed it off and went to work.
TBC
