A/N: This chapter could've ended up pretty long, so I decided to split it. Here's the first half. I hope to have the second half done by Friday.

Chapter 14

Henry was sitting across the table from Elizabeth when the voice filled the room, "Virginia real estate mogul, Phillip Adams-". He was quick enough to catch the look of terror in her eyes before she dropped them. She answered Patrick's question and then there was silence. Henry struggled to decide how to best handle it. He opened his mouth to change the subject when she spoke. "He's my uncle. I hope the fact that he is deranged and an evil excuse for a man doesn't taint your opinion of me."

"Of course not," Susan scoffed, "We would never do that."

"Well unless you were part of that whole incest thing. That's a fu-messed up deal. Gotta question what's going on there," Henry's sister, Maureen, said.

"Maureen, watch your mouth." Susan chided.

"Yes Mom," she said, turning her head before rolling her eyes.

Conversation returned to normal and Elizabeth calmly excused herself and walked upstairs. Henry played the rest of his hand and then left the table hoping not to make it obvious he was going after Elizabeth. He didn't want there to be more talk about it than there had already been.

Going upstairs, he checked the spare bedroom first. Finding it empty, he knocked softly on the bathroom door. "Babe, let me in."

After a few seconds, the door opened. She looked at him with puffy, red-rimmed eyes, pink nose and flushed cheeks. "I didn't know it would be on the news, and this isn't even regional. It's nationwide news," she whispered. "My life is now nationwide news."

He stepped in and pushed the door shut and folded her into his arms. "They didn't say your name. Maybe you'll escape it."

A sharp, single laugh escaped her throat. "Right. Because the press is going to respect the privacy of the victims. We'll be lucky if they aren't camped outside the apartment. Oh God!" She sat on the edge of the bathtub and hid her face in her hands. "By the end of this, there won't be anyone who doesn't know,"

Henry stood leaning against the sink. "What was the reason you decided to go ahead and do the interview?"

"I was tired of giving him control over my life." He continued to look at her. "And once I knew that I wasn't the only one, I felt the need to stop him from hurting others."

"Will you still be able to accomplish what you set out to do, even if everyone knows?" he asked thoughtfully.

"Yes, but it makes it that much harder, and I'm so tired of things being hard. I need easy, just for a little while."

"I'll do my best to be easy for you." He knelt down in front of her and placed his hands on her knees. He could tell there was more. He waited and when she didn't volunteer he said, "There's more."

She looked up at him, almost taking a defensive stance. "I never considered it incest. It's not like I don't know the definition, but adding that label to it makes it even filthier than it already was. People will think less of me because of it." The hurt in her eyes pained Henry.

"I don't think," he started, but the look on her face made him step back from what he was going to say. He offered a revised version. "I don't think the people that matter in your life will think less of you. The people that care about you will love you no matter what."

"Maybe," was all she said. Then standing up, she looked at herself in the mirror. "I can't stay holed up in here forever. Go on back downstairs and I'll be down in a minute. I need a little makeup touch up." She stepped across the hallway to the spare bedroom.

He followed her and leaned against the doorframe. He asked, "If my family starts asking questions, am I deflecting?"

"For now, please do. I don't know that I'm up to tackling that right now. Maybe in a couple days." He could see the exhaustion etched in the lines on her forehead.

"How about you go ahead and go to bed? You need to sleep. I'll tell them you're just worn out from finals."

She shifted uneasily. "I can't sleep Henry. I'm afraid I'll have a nightmare and wake up the whole house. That isn't the impression I want your family to have, especially if I have to end up telling them the rest."

Henry ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. "Okay, well, you have to sleep. You didn't get much sleep last night and we're going to be here for ten days. It's not like you can just not sleep for that long. I will sleep in here with you. I just need to figure out how exactly to get that done."

"Don't mess up things with your family over this. I'll figure it out. I always have." Elizabeth gave him a sad smile. "It will be alright." He stepped closer to her and kissed her on the cheek and then turned to go downstairs. He'd be damned if she "figured it out" by herself.

Everyone had shifted to doing their own thing. Shane and Patrick were watching football commentary. Erin was reading a book and Maureen was at the table cutting out material for whatever her latest project was. Henry passed through, making a mental note to ask about it. He and Maureen had a pretty strained relationship, but that seemed like something non-threatening that they could talk about.

He entered the kitchen to find Susan flipping through the grocery ads and clipping some coupons out of them. "Hey Mom," Susan looked up.

"Henry. Sit. Tell me what's been going on in your life," she said, putting down her things to focus on her son.

"Uh, well, finals were really hard this time. I'm worried that I might end up getting a couple Bs. It will be close, but we'll see here in a week or so when I get my final grade. Otherwise, things are fine."

"And Elizabeth?"

"She's my best friend. We do everything thing together, including studying. She's super smart." Henry get his chest get tighter. He tried to console himself by telling his conscious that he wasn't saying any untruths, but he was fully aware of the lie by omission that this entire conversation was.

"Are you dating her?"

Oh hell, this was getting dicey. Henry answered truthfully, ignoring the omission. "We've been on a few dates, but we enjoy just hanging out together."

Susan furrowed her brow. "You know you're there to get an education, not to be screwing around. If you truly want out of here, then you don't have the luxury of being mediocre. You need to be at the top to get a good job."

"I know Mom," Henry said, a little exasperated. "It's not like I'm unaware of my situation. I know I need good grades and I'm very serious about school, but I need to have friends too. I gets really lonely not having anyone to share the day to day things with. He loved his mom, he really did, but she went to nursing school after she was married and had him. It wasn't remotely close to the same. She was in a much different time in her life than he was, but she didn't see the difference.

"As long as you keep your grades up, I suppose it's fine," she lamented.

Henry worked to keep from rolling his eyes. Thanks for your blessing was his thought. "Mom. I have a request and I know I'm going to be purposely vague, but I can promise you that absolutely nothing will happen. I swear, because I know how you feel-"

"For goodness sakes, Henry, spit it out," Susan said.

"I want to sleep in the same room as Elizabeth. I will sleep on the daybed and she can sleep on the real bed. I just need to be in the same room."

Susan pursed her lips, "May I ask why you need to do this?"

"I would like you to just trust me and know that there is a very good reason for the sake of the entire household."

"She's the one isn't she?" Henry's mother grilled.

Henry's mind raced. How does she know? Play dumb and deflect, he thought. "I asked her to come here right after Thanksgiving. She spent the holiday with her brother, but wasn't going to have anywhere to go for Christmas, so I invited her here."

"And now you need to sleep with her?"

"Not with her. In the same room." This was getting out of hand. Henry was about ready to pack Elizabeth up and find a motel, although that had a definite downside as well.

"Did she have a falling out with her parents?" Susan asked. "Is that why she doesn't go home like normal people."

Henry let the normal people thing slide. But he saw an opening to make a case. "They're dead. It's just her and her younger brother, and he made other plans. She has nightmares and I don't want that to become the topic at breakfast. You know how Dad and Maureen can be. I want to be with her so I can wake her up before she wakes you guys up. That is all. She's embarrassed about it as t is and I don't want to make it worse, but I wasn't about to leave her on campus by herself over the holidays. Okay?"

Susan looked a little embarrassed at her presumptions, which was obviously wrong. "Both of her parents are dead?" Henry smiled inwardly. He had her.

"Car wreck. When she was in high school. A freshman I think. Her brother is a grade below her."

"Poor child. That's tough. You may. I want her to have a nice time here. She may not have had many nice family Christmases."

"Thanks mom. I'm sure she appreciates it. I do," Henry gave her a beaming smile. He hoped that Elizabeth didn't care about him telling his mom that her parents were deceased. It seemed like the easiest thing to share that wouldn't give away anything else. "I'm going to go on upstairs to bed. I haven't had a lot of sleep with studying for finals. Love you."

"Love you too son." She gave him a hug and a kiss and let him go.

Henry hurried up the steps and pulled his duffle bag from Shane's room and knocked on the spare door. Elizabeth answered it, looking better than when he'd left her. "Hi roomie," he said, stepping into the room.

She knitted her eyebrows, pushing the door closed behind him. "How did you manage that?"

"I talked to my mom. It was getting a little hairy, so I finally told her that your parents had passed away and you had nightmares and you didn't want anyone else to know so I was going to sleep on the daybed and wake you before they got bad. I really hope I didn't give her too much information, but the conversation was going downhill and I needed to salvage it." Henry looked at Elizabeth hopefully.

"That's okay. There was a time when sharing my parents' death was hard, but in light of everything else, that is the easiest part of the story to deal with." She threw herself backwards on the bed. "That is so fucked up. It is beyond comprehension." She lay there for a minute before rolling to her side to look at Henry. "Thank you for being here."

Henry sat down on the bed and leaned over her. "I'm always going to be here for you." He kissed her softly. "Now go get ready for bed. You look exhausted."

"Well thanks!" she said sarcastically, and Henry rolled his eyes. He pulled her to her feet and gave her a playful shove toward the doorway. By the time she returned a few minutes later with makeup removed and hair pulled into a loose ponytail, Henry had changed into a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt.

He went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth, washed up. When finished, he slipped into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He found Elizabeth wearing her favorite pair of flannel PJ pants and one of his t-shirts. He grinned and took her into his arms, kissing her. "I was looking for that shirt," he said accusingly.

Elizabeth laughed, a real laugh. "If you want it, come take it." She tugged at the hem of his shirt.

"No can do. I promised Mom that I would only be sleeping in here." She fake pouted, which made Henry laugh.

"Fine," she huffed. "Do we at least get to sleep next to each other?" Henry shifted his eyes away from her. "Well damn. This is sucking."

"I told Mom that I would sleep on the daybed and you would sleep on the bed."

She eyed the bed and then the daybed. Back and forth. "Are you feeling letter of the law or spirit of the law?" she asked.

Henry grinned. "Oh I think letter of the law is perfectly fine. You know we'll have to move the bed back in the morning though."

Elizabeth nodded smiling. It was nice to be able to be fun and silly, even if for a short time. "Think we'll get caught?"

"Possibly. I'd keep the door shut just in case. Come on. Help me move the daybed." After a bit of a struggle, they got it moved so that it was next to the full bed.

They both climbed into this respective beds and lay facing each other. Henry reached out. "Give me your hand." She slipped her hand into his and sighed, letting go of some of the day's stress. "I just want to let you know how proud I am of you. What you did today was incredibly difficult and you faced it with a level of courage that I just cannot fathom. I didn't know it was possible to love you even more, but I do."

"Even after hearing all of the gory details of what he did and what he made me do?" In the dimly lit room, he could see the embarrassment all over her face.

"Elizabeth," Henry put his finger under her chin to tilt her head up. "Please look at me. You are not defined by what happened to you. That isn't who you are. You are smart, witty, beautiful, well spoken, kind, and compassionate. You are still all of those wonderful things no matter what he did. Don't ever let anyone make you feel like a lesser person because of him." Henry pressed his lips to her hand. You are a good person and deserve to be happy."

She smiled back at him. "I am happy. You make me see the good in every day. I love you Henry McCord." She leaned up on her elbow and kissed him chastely.

"Goodnight beautiful."

"Goodnight handsome."

Henry was jolted from a sound sleep when Elizabeth ripped her hand out of his. He sat up and turned to she her thrashing about as she started to cry out. Quickly, Henry flipped on the lamp on the bedside table and shook Elizabeth's shoulder. "Babe,' he whispered. She jerked away from him but sat up, her chest heaving, tears in her eyes. "Hey, it's okay. You're safe." He held her hand, stroking her palm with his thumb. She looked up at him, eyes wide with fear. Henry crawled over to her bed and she fell against him.

"Henry. It always feels so real. I always think I can fight him off, but I can't. Then he pins me down." she cried into his shoulder.

"He can't do it anymore. He's in jail. You put him there. He can't hurt you anymore." Henry held her until she fell back asleep and then he scooted over to his bed. He switched off the light, but reached out and caught her hand. Her fingers instinctively wrapped around his.

Susan walked down the hallway early Sunday morning giving the preliminary courtesy knock before she physically woke her children up for church. Sleepily, sisters Erin and Maureen filed out, Erin taking the upstairs bathroom and Maureen heading to the kitchen to start coffee. Shane called out that he was already awake, which left Susan standing in front of the spare bedroom door. She knocked again. When there was no answer, she adopted the attitude that it was her house, she had the right to enter.

She cracked the door and announced her presence before pushing the door open. The scene before her was actually quite adorable. Elizabeth was sprawled all over the bed with the blanket mostly just covering her head. Henry was most certainly on the daybed curled up facing the opposite direction. The notable part of this display was Henry's arm thrown behind him and Elizabeth's stretched out most of the distance of the bed so that their finger interlocked. "Friends my ass," she muttered before tapping Henry's leg. When he stirred, she said, "Time for Mass." Turning, she walked out of the room letting the door fall shut a little harder than necessary for emphasis.