AN: I know I said I was going to do a back and forth between this and Evolution, but after the last chapter, I just sort of fell into this and wanted to keep the momentum going. I hope you don't mind.

Chapter 26

Elizabeth was buried in an unending pile of Arabic phone conversations that needed translating, looking for clues to the whereabouts of the latest individual she had identified as a potential informant. She jumped when the phone rang. It took her a few seconds to collect herself. "Middle East desk, McCord… Hey, George. What do you need?... Who's Dalton?... Oh. That Dalton… I'll be right up." She hung up the phone. "Shit!" she muttered under her breath.

"What's going on Bess?" asked Karla, the lady that sat at the desk next to hers.

"I just got summoned to Assistant Director Dalton's office." Elizabeth looked weary and concerned, both were things she didn't want to be by the time to made it to her destination.

"What did you do?" Karla asked.

"I have no idea, but I guess I'm about to find out." Elizabeth walked out of the office and stepped into the elevator. Once on the fifth floor, she made her way quickly to the ladies' room to do a quick check of her appearance. "Nothing a little concealer won't fix," she mumbled, pulling the tube along with a compact of powder from her pocket. She dabbed it under her eyes, mostly camouflaging the dark circles that seemed to take up permanent residence there.

Elizabeth stared at her reflection, not really recognizing the person staring back at her. At least the woman in the mirror, looked mostly put together. She tucked her blouse neatly into her skirt, fluffed her hair a bit and headed toward the Assistant Director's office. She didn't even have the chance to sit down and wait, when Dalton was at the door.

"Bess, come on in," he said, holding the door open. "Please, have a seat." Elizabeth sat down in the chair opposite his desk and he surprised her by taking the chair beside hers and turning it to face her. "So, I bet you are wondering why I asked to see you." She expected Mr. Dalton to go ahead and tell her, but he didn't. He just stopped and studied her.

Finally, realizing he expected an answer, she said, "I am curious, Mr. Dalton."

"Call me Conrad. Anyway, I've noticed that you keep to yourself." Elizabeth said nothing. Her first concern was that the Assistant Director of the CIA noticed her at all, not to mention her interoffice relationships, or lack thereof. The knot in her stomach growing by the second as she wondered what direction this could possibly go that would be good. He just looked at her. Beth was right, she really needed to work on her "waiting people out" skills. The silence was getting to her.

"Is there something work related that we need to discuss?" He raised his eyebrows as if challenging her question. "I am not sure that my lack of close friendships with my co-workers impedes my ability to do the job I've been assigned."

"It does not, but it does explain how we didn't know that your husband has been deployed for more than 6 months in the region to which you are assigned." Elizabeth looked at him blankly. "Normally we hear these things through the grapevine. This morning I received a memo stating that one 1st Lieutenant Henry Patrick McCord is stationed out of Baghdad and has been since January 14th."

"That is true, but I don't follow," Elizabeth said.

"You're being pulled from the Middle East desk until your husband has returned from his deployment." Elizabeth's dismay was evident.

"Mr. Dalton, I don't-" she started.

"Conrad," he interrupted.

"Fine. Conrad." She stressed the individual syllables of his name a little too much. "I don't think Henry being deployed has in any way hindered my job performance. Furthermore-"

"Bess, stop! This isn't about your performance at all. You do impeccable work. You are one of our top analysts. No one could possibly argue about the quality of the work you do." She looked at him expectantly. "This is about your mental well being. You do not need to know everything that goes on in a place when your husband is sitting in the middle of it."

"I'm fine. You don't need to pull me." There was a hint of pleading in Elizabeth's voice that she did not like, yet couldn't quite manage to remove it completely when she spoke.

"You do not get a say in this. You are being moved. Today. Now, that isn't the real reason I had you come up here. Your supervisor could have told you that you were moving divisions. I actually wanted to talk to you about something else." Elizabeth's mind was reeling. The thought of not knowing what was going on would be a million times worse than knowing. Still, Conrad had more to say and she needed to focus.

He continued on, seemingly unaware of her struggle to stay composed. She hoped that meant she was covering well enough that it didn't look like she was about to fall apart. "You are one of the best we have. I'm putting together a group of elite analysts that will study worldwide trends and connections between various organizations. You will be on the East Africa desk. Your job is to collect necessary data and take it to the other analysts. As a group, you will learn about all of the major players and look for patterns. This group will be the go to for the director."

"Thank you. I appreciate the offer very much, but I'd really like to stay where I am for the time being." Elizabeth put all of her mental energy into keeping her voice steady.

Conrad's face softened. He looked at her and carefully appraised the situation. She hoped that meant he was considering her request. "Bess, when was the last time you were able to sleep straight through the night?"

"I'm not going to sleep until Henry comes home," she said, using a tone of indignance that once voiced, she hoped didn't sound insubordinate.

"That wasn't the question," he replied, seemingly oblivious to her angst.

"It's been awhile," she said, somewhat defeated.

"You may think it helps you to know everything, but I'm telling you it does not. Ignorance is bliss Bess. This isn't a request. It's a directive. Are we clear?"

"Yes sir," she answered.

"Good. Now, if you want, you can move your things. The advisory council will be in Room 523, but you also have a desk on the third floor. You'll have to check in Johann to see where that is. You'll split your time between both. You start on Monday. If you want, once you move in, you can take the rest of the day off.

"Thank you sir," she said. She shook his hand and left the room. She let the door fall shut behind her and let out the breath she'd been holding since she got the call. On one hand she knew she should be happy, but she headed back downstairs feeling bereft instead.

Elizabeth took the fourth batch of popcorn into the living room and handed it to Beth. It had taken Beth a long time, but she finally won over most of Amelia's friend group. That's how she ended up with four girls on her living room floor chatting, giggling, painting nails and eating copious amounts of popcorn. Elizabeth ran her hand through her hair. She would've rather had a quiet Friday night, but Beth deserved this. Beth was so ecstatic about her friendships that Elizabeth wouldn't deny her this, even if it wasn't her ideal evening, especially after the news of her being moved.

Elizabeth was in the kitchen cleaning up when she overheard the question. Sasha asked, "So, Beth, is Elizabeth your sister?"

Elizabeth heard the exasperated sigh and knew that Beth was rolling her eyes. She took a bit of comfort knowing that she rolled her eyes at other people too. There was a part of her that felt guilty for listening in, but the larger part wanted to know how she would answer the question in light of everything she now knew about Maureen.

"Technically, she's my aunt because she's married to my uncle. But really, she's my mom. She just didn't give birth to me."

"Then where's your real mom?" Jenni wanted to know.

"First, a real mom is the person that's there for you all of the time. Elizabeth is my real mom. My first mom is dead," Beth stated matter of factly. Elizabeth stood on the other side of the wall with her hand covering her mouth. She'd been around when Beth hadn't bothered to correct people, but she'd never actually heard Beth refer to her as mom. Elizabeth was a little taken aback by it. She knew she'd taken on that role long ago, but even now, after all these years, it still seemed surreal to be referred to as that.

"Oh no. I'm so sorry. Was she sick?" Sasha asked.

"Cut it out guys. It isn't your business." Amelia stepped in. She knew the story, because she was around when Maureen died and then Beth had told her about the talk Elizabeth and she had several months ago. Amelia wasn't sure that Beth would want to share it.

"It's okay. It's part of who I am. It isn't the greatest story, but there isn't much I can do about it." Beth looked back over at Sasha. "My mom was addicted to drugs and overdosed about three years ago. She was really young when she got pregnant and I was basically abandoned because she wasn't in any shape to actually take care of me. My grandparents raised me and then when I was seven, my grandma got cancer and they couldn't take care of me anymore, so my Uncle Henry took me to college with him, we met Elizabeth and here we are."

Sasha looked stricken. "I'm sorry Beth. That really stinks. Did you even know your mom or did you just know about her?"

"I saw her quite a bit, but most of the time she didn't try to get along with me. She had a lot of things going on in her head that made her act awful. I used to be really mad and hurt about how she acted, but now I know that if she could've helped it, she wouldn't have chosen to act the way she did.

Elizabeth stood just inside the doorway, out of sight, wondering if she should step in, if the conversation was getting too heavy. She stopped herself. Beth had only ever had Amelia as a close friend. She was 14. It was time she had girlfriends to share serious stuff with. Elizabeth was ripped from her thoughts by the next question. It came from Sarah. She had moved in the spring and Beth immediately befriended her and brought her to the group. Sarah seemed like a sweet girl and had been noticeably quiet most of the evening. "Did your mom start taking drugs at parties? That's what happened to my older brother."

"Sarah, I'm so sorry about your brother. Is he better now?" Elizabeth didn't hear the muffled answer, but she assumed by the response of the other girls that it wasn't good.

After a few minutes, and redirection, Beth answered the question. "My mom was at a friend's house at a sleepover and her dad put drugs in their drinks so they would be out of it and he could," she paused for a moment, choosing her words, "touch them." The silence that followed was eerie and Elizabeth closed her eyes, and held her breath for the response, knowing that she had turned down invitations to sleepovers from each of the girls other than Amelia.

"So you wouldn't come to my birthday sleepover because you thought my dad would molest you?" Jenni asked, her tone was full on accusatory. Elizabeth rounded the kitchen corner to shut that down and was stopped when Beth started in.

"No. I didn't go to your sleepover because I knew that I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself. I'd be thinking about my mom and the things she went through and the things she made my family go through because of the actions on one sick jerk. I don't think your dad is going to molest me, or is anyone else's dad for that matter, but I'm pretty sure that my grandparents didn't think that one of their close friends would molest their daughter either. Sometimes bad shit just happens."

Jenni opened her mouth like she was going to argue, but Sarah cut her off, "It's the same reason I didn't go to Cassie's end of school party last month. In my head, I knew that no one would be smoking pot or doing lines of coke in the bedroom. I just couldn't get past the thoughts of my brother and how he didn't know what would happen because of his one stupid decision. I knew that's all I would be thinking about, so I didn't go."

Elizabeth had edged her way to the opposite side of the room. Changing her direction, she pretended she was coming from the bedroom. "Are you girls ready for a movie yet?" she asked brightly. The girls quickly shifted back to their chatty selves and put in a movie, and Elizabeth hoped that the conversation would end up bonding them together rather than dividing them at some point.

The rest of the sleepover went off without a hitch and Elizabeth fed the girls donuts and delivered them to their respective homes by mid morning. Back at home, they cleaned up a bit and settled in to take a nap, both curled up in Elizabeth's bed. "How do you think it went?" Elizabeth asked. "Everyone seemed to have a good time."

"I think so. I did, and I'm glad that Sarah got to come. She doesn't do much outside of school and I learned why." Elizabeth waited for her answer. "Her brother has a drug problem and because it started at a party with friends. Her parents are really careful about what she can and can't do. They want to protect her."

"That's a hard line for a parent to walk." After Maureen's death, Henry and Elizabeth discussed what to do about Beth and sleepovers in light of Maureen's plea and Beth's opposition to discussing anything Maureen related. They had finally decided to let Beth go to sleepovers if she wanted and they would ask a lot of very pointed questions and be vigilant about watching her behavior. As it turned out, Amelia was the only one that had invited her over. Both Henry and Elizabeth felt pretty confident that she was having a good experience there, although Elizabeth always subjected Beth to the litany of questions when she came home. Once Beth learned about Maureen, she became much more discriminatory turning down every invitation to sleepover. She did attend a couple of birthday parties, but left before the sleepover started. Beth never elaborated as to why, but Elizabeth never pushed either. Hearing Beth talk about it with the girls, both relieved Elizabeth and made her feel a little guilty for not really asking her to talk about it.

I'm glad she was able to come." Elizabeth stopped and looked at the young woman who was curled up facing her and she was suddenly overcome with emotion. "Beth, I'm proud of you for being such a good friend. I know it took a long time to feel part of Amelia's group, but I'm glad that you are still friendly to those that aren't in that group. It's a remarkable quality to be accepting and inclusive of all people, not just your handful of friends. I hope you always remember to do that." Elizabeth leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I love you very much. I've been kind of wrapped up in my own stuff for a while now, but I want you to know how important you are to me and that I wouldn't be able to do this without you."

"We're going to make it. You know that right? It's hard, but we're going to do it. I didn't even realize what Henry being deployed would actually be like, but it's so much harder than I thought it would be. I just miss him a lot. It's weird because he's been gone a lot, but it's worse now because I know he's someplace dangerous. He could be hurt, or-worse." Beth squeezed her eyes shut trying to get rid of the thought.

"Henry would be the first to tell you that bad things can happen anywhere. And that he's actually in just as much danger at home as he is in Iraq," Elizabeth said.

"And I would still believe that Henry's full of crap," Beth said, straight faced. Elizabeth couldn't help but laugh and Beth joined her.

"But we love him anyway," Elizabeth said, and Beth agreed wholeheartedly.