Chapter 24: Yet don't forget the good old days

A/N: I wanted to go ahead and post this chapter. It's shorter than the other ones I've been writing, but you're getting it early. I've also got my grandmother coming up this week, and I'll probably not have any chance to write because she needs minding.

I wanted to tell you that your fabulous reviews for last chapter really helped me get out of the funk I was in when I posted the last chapter. Thank you. And all the suggestions you've given me have been super helpful (and half of them are already exactly what I had planned...) Thank you all for being a wonderful fandom. You make writing fun.

And random side note, this chapter marks 200 pages on my word doc of this story. I have another 65 pages of content written past this, but most of that is one-page outlines for each chapter. The plan now includes a total of 63 chapters.

Starting the workweek was bittersweet for Elizabeth. She loved her job. She loved being able to make a difference and help people. Fixing things made her feel useful. But she didn't like that she had less time to spend with Henry. Certainly not now that she knew how much fun they could have just being alone. As late as she finished at the office each day, she was lucky to get a couple hours with him in the evening. It was only on the weekends that they could lock themselves in the bedroom for hours on end. And even then, that was only if no international incidents forced her back into the office.

Secretary of State was a great job, but eventually it would end, and then she might want a more normal 9-5 so she could spend more time with Henry.

When she got to her office Monday morning, she found someone already sitting in wait for her. Elizabeth sighed to herself, knowing she had put off the inevitable for as long as she could.

"Isabelle. So good of you to give me notice... I love being prepared for our meetings." Elizabeth's voice dripped with sarcasm, though she wasn't really angry. Isabelle was Isabelle, and that wasn't about to change.

"Oh whatever. This isn't work related. No need to pretend to read the briefing book before this meeting."

"I read my briefing books..." Elizabeth replied, rather indignantly.

Isabelle snorted. "No one reads the whole briefing book for each meeting. You're supposed to skim them."

"So what can I do for you?" Elizabeth cut right to the chase.

"You've been avoiding me."

"Um..." She hedged. She had, in fact, been avoiding Isabelle. But she had to come up with a diplomatic answer. "I've been busy..."

"Well I'm taking you out to lunch today. It's already on your calendar. No getting around it."

"Blake!"

"Don't yell at him. I threatened him with dismemberment if he didn't get me on your schedule."

"Yes, ma'am?" Blake asked nervously, poking his head into the office.

Hearing Isabelle, Elizabeth deflated, though she was still annoyed. "It's... It's fine, Blake. Go back to your desk."

"Yes, ma'am." He ducked out quickly.

"You really could have just called, you know." Elizabeth sat down next to Isabelle, resignation in the set of her shoulders.

"I have been calling." Isabelle reminded her gently.

"I know. I really have been busy..."

"You need to make time for you. You need to have a few friends outside of work."

"Henry counts..."

"Yeah..." She shuffled her feet and shifted in her seat, "We'll talk about it over lunch. I'll let you get back to work. Let me know if there's anywhere special you want to go. I'll be here to pick you up at noon."

"Okay..."

"See you later."

Elizabeth sat, surprised and confused by Isabelle's sudden exit. The woman was hiding something, and the mention of Henry seemed to have set her off. What on earth could be up? Elizabeth knew she wouldn't get any answers until lunchtime, but she couldn't think what Isabelle would have an issue with...

"So do you want to explain why you had to kidnap me for this lunch?" Elizabeth asked, once they had been seated in the back corner of the restaurant. From the choice of tables, Elizabeth could tell Isabelle wanted privacy. It was private, but it wasn't a work-related or classified topic or they wouldn't have been out in public.

"Alright... I noticed something odd the other day..." Isabelle trailed off, trying to figure out how to explain without revealing how or why she knew what she did.

"On the clock or off?" Elizabeth interjected.

"Um, on..."

"Why don't we just go back to my office...?"

"I'm telling you this as a friend. I'm not going to tell you how I got the information, but I happen to know that Henry was in the hospital a couple weeks ago."

"You're running an op... never mind. Don't tell me." Elizabeth stopped herself. There was plenty of information the Secretary of State wasn't told. If she knew all of the ops being run before it was confirmed what was going on, she might make assumptions, and that was dangerous.

"He was in the hospital for acute alcohol poisoning. I saw the record." Isabelle almost held her breath, waiting for Elizabeth's reaction. She didn't know if Elizabeth would be devastated, scared, angry, or lost. Isabelle didn't have to wait long to find out.

"You shouldn't have seen it. There's no way that was in the scope of your work," Elizabeth responded snappily. She knew she should have waited to think things through before responding, but this was Isabelle. Isabelle was supposed to be her friend, and friends weren't supposed to ambush each other with stuff like this.

Isabelle had to hold herself back from matching her friend's ire. She was just trying to help, and now Elizabeth was mad at her. "Look, I'm just looking out for you here. I don't make a habit of breaking protocol."

Elizabeth's voice was cold now. "Isabelle, that's not protocol, that's a law. A lot of laws."

Flustered, Isabelle looked around and shifted in her seat. "I know you're having a hard time right now, and I know you're not talking to me about it. If you're talking to Henry, fine... But if there's a chance he's got a background you don't know about it, I'm not going to let that go."

Elizabeth shook her head. She was touched that Isabelle cared so much, but in this particular case, it was not helpful. "It's not your business."

"So you already know?"

Glancing around to make sure no one was listening, Elizabeth conceded. "Yes. I know. I was there with him. Why didn't you pull the security cameras? I'm surprised you didn't know I was there."

"FISC wouldn't give us a warrant for the cameras," Isabelle muttered.

"Well I already know, and everything is fine. I appreciate your concern, but-"

Isabelle interrupted. "Everything is fine? Really?"

"Yes!" Elizabeth slapped her hand on the table in emphasis. "It's fine, and it's not your business."

"Bess... Come on..." Isabelle wheedled, trying to get her friend to see reason.

"No, Isabelle. I appreciate your concern, and I understand why it looks bad, but I'm aware of it, and it's fine. End of story," Elizabeth glared pointedly.

Isabelle tried to diffuse the situation. She could tell Elizabeth had just about had enough, but she still had things left to say before this conversation could end. "I just want to make sure that you're okay. If he's an alcoholic, you need to be careful... for a lot of reasons. If he's not treating you right, you know you can tell me. I just want to check him out before you get in too deep."

"You dragged me out here to tell me you want to check out my boyfriend?" Elizabeth raised one eyebrow, clearly teasing her friend, and just as clearly trying to change the subject.

Undeterred, Isabelle continued. "I don't want you to get too involved with him before we can make sure he's not a whacko. Certainly, before you start sleeping with him." Isabelle knew Elizabeth wasn't the type to sleep around, at least not since college. But she hadn't seen Elizabeth ever be so serious about someone. If this relationship was going to get serious, Isabelle felt a duty as a friend to make sure it passed the smell test.

Elizabeth blushed deep red.

Isabelle's eyes went wide. It didn't take CIA skills to know what that sudden blush meant. "Oh my god, you've already slept with him?!" she nearly screeched. It wasn't that it was weird for two adults to sleep together after dating for several months. It was that this was Elizabeth. Not that Isabelle knew absolutely everything about Elizabeth – there were definitely conversations that were off limits – but Isabelle knew how careful her friend was about men. Even if talking about the reason behind it was off limits, actions spoke for themselves.

Elizabeth didn't know what made her speak. Maybe it was that part of her was just as surprised as Isabelle at how quickly she had fallen in love with Henry. "He suggested moving in together, actually."

Taking a breath, Isabelle nodded to herself. "And you want to do it." It wasn't a question.

"Yes. I think we're ready."

Until that moment, Elizabeth hadn't really known she was ready for it, but now she had no doubts. They had had a disagreement and gotten back together. She knew they could sort things out, and she knew she couldn't lose him. She loved him too much. He was too good for her.

Still stunned, Isabelle shot back, "Well what do you have to say about him being in the hospital for alcohol poisoning?"

"I was with him. I'm still surprised your 'sources' missed that," she jabbed lightly.

"So you visited him, but do you really know the whole story?"

"I found him in his apartment and called 911." She cringed slightly at the memory. It seems like something out of a movie – and a horror movie at that.

"So is he actually an alcoholic?" Isabelle's voice was quieter now, and it had lost its venom. She could tell her friend was upset.

Elizabeth sighed. "It's complicated. The alcohol thing hasn't been going on that long. I think he'll be able to pull out of it eventually."

"You're going to try to save him?" Isabelle couldn't keep a hint of accusation from her words.

"No." Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to try to save him. We tried that. It didn't work." She muttered the last part.

"So what do you see in him?"

Elizabeth shot back, "Aside from the dreamy eyes?"

This time Isabelle rolled her own eyes, but she held her tongue, silently demanding a better answer.

"He understands what it's like to be hurt."

"This is about…" Isabelle trailed off, silently thinking of the number of off limits topics they had had to skirt around over the years.

Elizabeth didn't know to what she was referring. Fill in the blank, She thought. Iran, Iraq, losing my parents… There was no shortage of things that had hurt Elizabeth.

"Yeah."

Isabelle wanted to hear about her friend's rationalization for letting Henry move in. There were a lot of questions that needed to be asked, but it would do no good to spook Elizabeth or make her feel like she couldn't talk. Isabelle was still worried about her friend. If, heaven forbid, Elizabeth ever wanted to cut as much as she had before… Isabelle wouldn't forgive herself if she alienated her to the point that she wouldn't reach out for fear of judgment. Of course, she still had concerns, and chief among them was uncertainty about how exactly Henry was treating Elizabeth. When Isabelle had met Henry, he had seemed fine, but they had really only met for a few moments. If he were hurting Elizabeth at all, Isabelle would make sure he paid in every way possible. But now was not the time for that. This was the time to remind Elizabeth that she had people who loved her no matter what.

Isabelle scrutinized her friend for a long moment before finally saying, "I trust your judgment… but not implicitly. He's been trained just like we have. He would know how to be deceptive if he wanted to."

"I know." Elizabeth's voice was sure.

"Well, I'm obviously not going to convince you of anything. But I'm going to check up on you occasionally…"

"I'd expect nothing less," she smiled in resignation.

"It's gonna be hard for me to let someone else help look after you. That's been my job for like thirty years now."

Elizabeth groaned. "Don't make me feel old. God..."

"Good point. Thirty years does sound pretty terrible." Isabelle commiserated. "Can you believe it's been thirty years since we were recruited and met?"

"We've made it through a lot of tight spots, that's for sure. Remember during training when I nearly got caught during the dead drop exercise?"

"Of course. I had to save your ass, didn't I? You would have flunked out if I hadn't gotten that guy off your tail!"

"Okay, but you would have gotten the boot the very next week when you couldn't translate the Morse code…"

"I haven't used Morse code probably since that unit of training," Isabelle laughed and rolled her eyes. "Fat lot of good it did me to try to cram that into my brain."

"Not that you tried very hard…" Elizabeth said, earning a glare from Isabelle. Quickly continuing before Isabelle had a chance to retort, "Yeah, I'm not sure they had updated that exercse since they first wrote the training manual in the '40s. It isn't really a necessary skill when we can just text each other."

"I should check if they're still making the kids learn it just to torture them…"

"Imagine if they are…" Elizabeth laughed, picturing a bunch of fresh college graduates having to sit through a class on civil war era technology.

"It'd probably violate the new anti-hazing policies…"

"Morse code? It's just math, really…"

"Okay, but we didn't all get degrees in math. Some of us only passed calculus because the professors felt sorry for us."

"But math only starts getting fun after calculus…" Elizabeth teased.

"Right," Isabelle nodded once, firmly, before continuing, "but I peaked at algebra 2…"

"And somehow you still managed to succeed in life."

"I don't know if I'd call it success," Isabelle said in mock seriousness, "I've had to put up with you talking about math for the last thirty years."

As the two women settled up the bill, with Elizabeth figuring the tip in her head, Elizabeth couldn't help reflecting that a lot had happened in the thirty years she had known Isabelle. She had never imagined then what her life would turn out to be. Thinking back to the young woman she had been, thirty years seemed like a lifetime ago. But thirty years didn't sound like much at all when she thought about spending the time with Henry.

A/N: The next bit I need to write will be a little difficult. I have a scene where Henry is going to see some fresh cuts, and I still haven't thought through exactly what his reaction is going to be. So let me know in the reviews what you think his reaction to seeing minutes-old cuts would be. Particularly his internal reaction and thoughts.