Prompt: Elizabeth and Henry reunite at the airport following his deployment.

Elizabeth was nervous. She was pretty sure she shouldn't be, but she was. Maybe that was normal, and as she looked around at the other people in the surrounding area who were all waiting on their soldiers as she was waiting for hers, she thought that likely. A lot of them looked nervous, anyway, though she reasoned that could be just her own interpretation if it since she, herself, was so incredibly nervous.

It was Henry, she told herself. She had no reason to be nervous. This was her husband, and he was coming home. She should have been thrilled and she was. Of course she was. She couldn't wait to see him, having missed him terribly during his deployment. There had been times when she hadn't been sure she was going to make it to this day, standing here at the airport just minutes away from seeing Henry again. Yet now that she was here, Elizabeth found that her hands were trembling against the fabric of her baby blue sundress. It was one that she thought Henry would like, which now seemed ridiculous and she was wishing that she'd stuck with her jeans and maybe just a prettier blouse. Too late now, though, because Elizabeth had noticed that soldiers had begun to filter into the space around her. All around, families were being reunited. There was tangible joy in the air as Elizabeth reached up and tangled her fingers in the chain around her neck, taking comfort in the familiarity of the pendants that hung there as she scanned the crowd for signs of Henry.

Henry, meanwhile, was looking eagerly for Elizabeth. He was nervous, too; what if things had changed? What if it was hard for them to slip back into the routine of their marriage? What if they couldn't manage it? He tried to tell himself that none of that was anything he needed to worry about; this was Elizabeth, after all. She was his wife, and he was finally getting to see her again. He scanned the crowd for her, absentmindedly reaching up to touch the necklace that rested against the fabric of his uniform. He usually wore it on the inside, but it had made its way out during the plane ride home, as Henry had stared out the window and thought about seeing Elizabeth.

Now, his eyes caught on a head of loose blonde curls and his heart stumbled in his chest. Across the room, he saw her standing there in that blue dress and he suddenly as if he'd lost his ability to breathe. She was somehow more stunning than the vision he'd had in his head of her all these months, and the photo that was now worn on the edges from his constant pulling it out to look at it no longer seemed to do her justice. She looked up and met his eyes and suddenly, neither one of them was nervous anymore. Henry smiled as she weaved past a couple of families, each of them picking up their pace to meet in the center of the space between them.

"Elizabeth," Henry breathed as he dropped his backpack on the floor and swept her up in his arms. Elizabeth was in tears as soon as his arms were around her. No longer nervous, she found herself filled with pure, unadulterated love.

"Henry," she managed, a flood of relief and joy at being so near to him again. She held tight to him and buried her face against his neck as he held her, taking in the sweet scent of lavender shampoo that he'd missed desperately for so long. Everything felt like a tiny blessing in that moment, each of his senses overrun by all things Elizabeth, and Henry wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Henry found that he was crying, too, months worth of emotion coursing through him now that he had her back in his arms. It was as if a switch had been flipped; with her touch came the security of home. And suddenly, he felt safe again, which was something he'd nearly forgotten how to feel.

"I missed you so much," he murmured against her, and she heard his voice break, so she pulled back to look at him through her own tears. She swiped at the tears on his cheeks with tender fingertips and smiled up at him.

"I know. I missed you too," she said. "It's okay. You're home now."

He pulled her back into his arms again and held her close, taking in every second.

"Henry, babe, you're going to have to let go if you want to go home," she laughed against his shoulder a few minutes later when he showed no signs of letting go of her anytime soon.

"Don't care," Henry mumbled, and Elizabeth laughed. The sound was like music to Henry, as the soft, familiar notes of his voice were to her.

She pulled back slightly and studied him; there was something different about him, but she was relieved to find that so far he seemed overall to be the same man she'd said goodbye to before he had left. She'd been worried about that, but he still looked at her like she'd put the stars in the sky and he still smiled at her with all the tenderness and love in the whole world, as if she were the only person on the planet with him. She rested her hand on his cheek and smiled slightly.

"You're so beautiful," he said quietly, and she laughed.

"I was regretting the dress," she admitted. "I thought maybe it was too much-"

Henry shook his head and leaned in, capturing her lips in their first kiss in months. Elizabeth, fingers wrapped around his collar, had to fight to remain standing at the torrent of emotion that his kiss brought with it. She melted into the kiss instead and Henry sighed contentedly against her. She couldn't help but smile at that, and then he was smiling too, and they both were finding it a little bit difficult to kiss like that.

She looked up at him again, ocean eyes suddenly more serious.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly, her words all in a rush as if she'd been afraid to ask. Henry smiled at her and rested his hand at the base of her skull, fingers buried in her locks of blonde hair.

"I'm okay,baby" he assured her, and with those warm hazel eyes on hers, she believed him. Neither of them were naive enough to believe that this was going to be as easy as they'd have liked it to be, but in that moment, standing together in the crowded airport, they were both pretty sure that they were going to be okay.

"Come on," Elizabeth said softly, rising up ever so slightly onto her toes to kiss him lightly. "Let's go home."