A/N at end.

The low murmur of voices pulls Elizabeth's focus from the brief she is reading to the conversation outside the house. The cadence is different from that of her detail, but no, it can't be him. She's long stopped listening and waiting for him, or at least trying to convince herself she's not, that faint beacon of hope smothered in a deep pit of darkness. She doesn't want him home, anyway, doesn't want to face what he tore apart when he left. Yet she rubs the heel of her hand hard over her breastbone where her heart begins to race.

Shadows shift on the porch, separating two shapes into three, darkening the light from the window. Then the snick of the door breaks through the quiet.

"Welcome home, Dr. McCord," comes Matt's familiar grumble, and then Henry steps through the doorway into the streak of morning light. Like a hero's welcome. But he isn't a hero. Not anymore. Not to her. Not since he walked away and left their marriage in shreds. Four months. She knew the numbers down almost to the millisecond. Too much time to think, to calculate. He'd been gone four months, 127 days, 3,048 hours, 182,800 minutes, 10,972, 800 seconds, leaving in the wake of harsh words and angry accusations.

Elizabeth jolts upright on the couch, hands flailing frantically at the binder that shifts and slides from her lap. She grasps at empty space as a muffled thud echoes through the living room, pulsing against the headache coiling at the base of her skull. Her vision narrows until dust motes in the air become pinpricks of motion, suspended in time and space like the breath clogged in her throat. Then she gasps sharply, and her torso curls in on itself, protection from the impending onslaught to her psyche. Elizabeth deliberately straightens her spine, one vertebra at a time- a reluctant habit left over from the yoga practice she'd tried and discarded in a long list of futile distractions. A quick snap of her head to shake off the pulse roaring in her ears, and she begins forcing deep breaths through her lungs, trying to stem the tide of panic rushing through her body.

Inhale….1….2….3….4….exhale….1…..2….3...4… marches on a cadence in her head.

Her left thumb automatically slides to the base of her ring finger, but Elizabeth feels nothing but skin where the metal used to lay. She wishes now, as she has more times than she can count, that her heart was as empty and barren. Fiddling with her wedding rings used to calm her, to help her think, but she did that so much in the days after Henry left, a callus had formed on her thumb. Yet the more thinking she did, the less she could find a solution, and the once soothing motion eventually grated on her nerves. Her rings reminded her of broken promises, of the cruel nightmare her life has become, so she'd taken them off. She'd strung both bands on the chain with their talisman, where she'd added his until even that weight was too heavy to bear.

"What are you- Henry! What the hell are you doing?" Elizabeth sagged against the doorframe of their bedroom, as she watched her husband of over two decades haphazardly shove his clothes into a worn, leather duffle bag. "You're leaving?" She gripped the wood so hard her nails dug splitters into the paint. "You can't leave."

Henry kept packing, ripping several t-shirts from his bureau drawer, his movements jerky. "I can't look at you, Elizabeth. I can't...I can't talk to you," he choked out. "The thought of sleeping next to you, of touching you, it disgusts me." He turned towards the bathroom, flinging ire in his wake.

Elizabeth pushed herself upright, rushing to follow him, but stopped short of the corner of the dresser. "Then we'll figure something out," she insisted frantically. "Go to therapy. Something. You can't walk out on us or we'll never get past this."

Henry brushed past her without so much as a glance, shaving kit in his hand. "I'm not sure we can, and I need to think." He thrust the pouch into the corner of the bag.

"And you have to abandon us to do that?"

Henry whirled to face his wife. "I need to be somewhere I'm not constantly reminded of what you did." He jabbed his index finger at her. "Of what I did." He slapped his palm flat against his chest. "Of what the President let happen."

"That decision was-," Elizabeth began to explain, as she had hundreds of times, over and over and over in this never-ending argument.

"Part of the greater good, yes I know." Henry threw both hands out widely. "But I don't see any good about it. All I see is that we got a man killed. A man who trusted me." He rubbed his forehead with the web of a thumb and forefinger.

"I trusted you, Henry. I trusted you to honor our vows." Elizabeth's left thumb automatically brushed her wedding rings, flicking her fingers as she twirled the bands over her skin. "I trusted you to understand the responsibilities of my job."

"That job has changed you." Henry's voice was flat and cold, reflecting the desolation in his eyes.

"Me? What about you?" She countered sharply, her shock morphing into anger. "I told you you were in too deep, and you didn't listen." Elizabeth paced to the chaise and back, left hand still curled and twisting.

"Shouldn't I trust you to understand my duty to my job?" Sarcasm rang through his echo of her words. "You did this all those years at CIA, and I never once questioned you."

"Yes, you did, Henry." Elizabeth reminded him. "You questioned me, and you made me choose- our family or my job. You're doing the same thing again."

"And you've made your choice crystal clear."

"Don't go there. You put your asset above our marriage." She flipped her hand at Henry, and at the invisible presence that was Dmitri, always Dmitri.

"No, you did that. You and the President. You killed him. And I sat there and let it happen."

"This is the job you claim to understand. You knew the risks. Dmitri became the sacrifice we had to make for peace. Had you tried to stop the Russians, you might've been killed or captured."

"Would you have even cared?", Henry asked, his doubt evident.

"How can you even ask me that!"

"What would you have done if it were me?"

"I would do anything for you, Henry. Anything," Elizabeth promised, fervently.

"But you couldn't do this," he sneered.

"What did you want me to do? Defy the President's orders? I'm married to you, not Dmitri." She worried the cuffs at her wrists, twisting the material between her fingertips. "I have a duty to this country and the President."

"I don't give a damn about your duty. Where is your morality? I don't know who you are anymore."

"Stop playing the fucking martyr. You can't let yourself get this involved and be surprised at the outcome."

"I'm not being a martyr. I actually have ethics." Henry crossed his arms over his chest.

"So that makes you a better person, now? Despite the fact you targeted him, recruited him, played on his trust in you?"

"I cared about him."

"You cared too much."

"And here I thought that's what you loved about me." His lips twisted in a sardonic smile.

"I do, but look where it's gotten us. This is what I dealt with for years. Still deal with every damn day. I don't have the luxury of caring too much."

"God, you are a coldhearted bitch," he spat at her.

'I can compartmentalize and make the hard decisions. If that makes me a coldhearted bitch, so be it." Her eyes flashed blue steel. "The safety of this country is more than one person."

"Well, that one person was killed because of you. Your patriotism has taken over your humanity." Henry gathered his reading glasses and the book on his nightstand, tucking him into his bag. "You know, Jane said I was one of the few that hadn't let that happen."

Elizabeth watched helplessly as he wrenched those pieces of himself from their life. "There's a line, and you crossed it. When professional turns personal, it affects everything."

"Yeah. Yeah, it does." Henry's eyes met Elizabeth's. "And it destroys everything, too."

Husband and wife glared at each other, faced off like mortal enemies. Neither could comprehend how they'd reached this moment, and neither could comprehend how they'd get past it.

Henry zipped shut his suitcase, the harsh sound of metal ripping through the stark silence. He bit back a sigh, refusing to show any remorse in his tirade.

Elizabeth blinked back the tears blurring her vision. "If you walk out, I don't know what it'll be like when you come back." The words flew out of her mouth before she could think. "I don't know what we'll be like."

She'd never seen him regard her with such disdain until that moment.

"I'll stay in the guest room tonight. I can't promise what I'll do in the morning." Henry grabbed his bag, slinging it over his right shoulder. He took three steps toward the door, then stopped and looked down at his left hand. He spread his fingers, staring at the band glinting there. Ran his fingers over it. Flipped his hand, as if he were inspecting an object he'd never seen before.

Elizabeth expected him to take the ring off, maybe throw it at her. But instead, Henry reached into his shirt collar and jerked the chain of the necklace he wore. Anguish rolled over his face as his fist closed around the broken gold. When he tossed the pieces on the bed and stormed out of the room, Elizabeth gasped and crumpled to her knees. Her hand fisted her shirt over where her half of their promises lay and broke into bitter tears.

Despite the sleepless night, Elizabeth didn't hear Henry slip out in the early hours before dawn, leaving her alone in the cold, empty bed with the tears on her pillow.

Henry had texted a few times, letting her know he was safe. Her barrage of questions was met with vague, impersonal replies, obviously intended to discourage conversation. Elizabeth gave up trying after a while, not willing to expend any more fruitless effort until- unless- he came home. Although she still spent too much time in the endless days between those messages talking herself out of backchanneling her network of resources to find him, and nearly bit Blake's head off when he timidly suggested the same. She presumed Henry communicated with the kids (hoped he did), but they almost deliberately didn't mention their father, not since the initial shock of his absences wore off and never in front of their mother. Stevie and Alison faked cheerful, inane conversations when Elizabeth was in earshot, and Jason buried himself sullenly in hours of violent video games. Meals consisted of take-out, unless Stevie was home to cook, and short stifled conversations invaded by technology or interrupted by calls from The White House.

Her staff attempted to hide their compassionate, albeit worried, glances, rushing away from their huddled conversations at her approach, their eyes shifting rapidly to whatever they should have been working on rather than gossiping about the state of the McCord marriage. Even Russell Jackson softened his gruff demeanor around her, although his empathy was merely temporary, and only Elizabeth, and perhaps Conrad, noticed. Her old friend said nothing, but the patriarchal concern in his gaze spoke volumes, and more than once Elizabeth excused herself from the Oval Office before the President could suggest a private meeting.

Blake treated Elizabeth with kid gloves and tiptoed around her until she railed at him when she couldn't find a bear claw in the kitchen and goddamnit she was fucking tired of fruit and kale. She rarely could concentrate on work, but steeled herself to adjust so she could function with some semblance of normalcy, despite the desolate, sleepless nights she spent tracing patterns over the sheets on Henry's side of the bed with her fingertips. The United States' foreign diplomacy couldn't fall apart just because her marriage did.

She stubbornly refused to even entertain the idea of therapy; Stevie pleaded, Blake cajoled, Russell threatened, but Elizabeth had no desire to waste an hour listening to the haughty Dr. Sherman dissecting her failures- or telling Elizabeth how she should better herself.

Then her horse died, her beloved Buttercup; with her faithful companion gone, she lost the last living creature to whom she had ever bared her soul, and Elizabeth simply shattered.

And there he stands. Rugged and solemn, and because she still knows Henry better than all others- she recognizes the harsh lines of resignation creasing his features. The dull, cloudy green of his gaze scares her more than the blazing hatred that scorched them both the night he left. She searches that face, the face of the man she's loved for so long, for some thread of emotion. Even hate, for at least hate is passion. But she sees nothing but an endless void where his eyes once lit up for her. And hope withers again before it has a chance to blossom.

"Elizabeth."

His voice is raspy as if from lack of use, her name grated through clenched teeth. The muscles in his jaw tense as he shifts his duffle bag off his shoulder to rest near his feet.

She used to melt at her name on his lips; now, it sounds like a curse and it's all she can do to bite back a sob. Elizabeth doesn't know how much of her near-meltdown he witnessed; she's gotten adept at hiding her emotions, but Henry would've once known how to read her every thought. Once.

His reaction doesn't offer her any clues. Henry inhales sharply, opens his mouth as if to say more, but purses his lips instead. Elizabeth can tell he doesn't know what to say either, or how to breach the figurative chasm that spans wide and gaping over their living room floor.

She wants to welcome him home, wants to rush into his arms, wants to forget the fights and cutting words and everything that led up to this moment. Wants to, but won't. Can't. Can't bear the rejection. Can't overcome all the anger and the hurt and the resentment that's choked and clawed and swelled into a mass of overwhelming anguish that nearly smothers her. Because she still feels too much. Her heart can't handle otherwise, so she says the only thing she knows will protect her from literally breaking apart.

"This isn't your home anymore."

Elizabeth enunciates each word to steady herself from the threat of tears, although she's less careful to mask the bitterness in her voice. He stiffens slightly but doesn't move otherwise. She swallows, squares her shoulders.

"You aren't welcome here."

Her eyes are as dry as her tongue, but she makes herself clear. Henry meets her stare, unblinking, his gaze flat as desolate. The silence stretches almost into eternity until he shrugs and turns his back on her.

She waits until his hand is on the doorknob, mostly to grasp the last thread of her resolve, then sucks in a trembling breath.

"Don't come back when I'm here."

The iron in her voice is a stark contradiction to the ache in her chest. She pushes herself off the couch and leaves the room, not willing to watch him leave her yet again. By the time she hears the door close, she's safely in the kitchen and finally allows the tears to fall.

Elizabeth knew Henry came home at least once; his favorite books were gone from the bookshelf, empty hangers riddled in their closet, his extra pair of reading glasses disappeared from the chaise lounge, and stacks of papers shifted on his desk. But mostly, from the surreptitious manipulation of her schedule, as if her detail forgot she'd run ops in the Middle East, for god's sake. She ignored it all, for the most part, waving away their vague comments, allowing them to believe their own subterfuge. She could check the security log for confirmation, but preferred the thin cushion of denial padding her sanity- which was mostly the reason she'd never packed up his things herself, even as his absence grew longer.

Henry sends countless text messages and leaves four voicemails- none of which she responded to (petty of her, she's well aware)- before showing up at the State Department unannounced. Blake holds him off long enough to call her with a warning, for which Elizabeth is grateful. She had plenty of real-world crises to deal with as a legitimate excuse to send him away but decides not to postpone the inevitable.

She no sooner hangs up the phone when Henry storms into her office, a sheepish Blake trailing close behind, muttering apologies. Elizabeth doesn't meet her husband at the threshold but deliberately remains seated at her desk. They're long past the niceties, and frankly, she needs all her energy for the impending argument. She vaguely registers Blake's muttered offer of coffee, quickly cut off by a sharp growl from Henry, but the click of the latch as the door closes nearly sends her reeling into old memories.

Blake's footsteps have barely faded when Henry's frustration erupts, his knuckles clenched white around the back of the visitor's chair.

"When are you going to stop giving me the silent treatment?" His question is a thinly veiled demand, colored with indignation.

"Oh, that's rich, coming from you."

Elizabeth fists her hands into the fabric of her pants, hidden beneath the desk. She's not sure he cares enough anymore to notice the nuances of her agitation, but she's not giving him the upper hand, regardless. Henry leans forward, his forearms corded with tension, but he keeps the furniture as a barrier between them. She can feel the anxiety creeping into her shoulders under the weight of his glare. Elizabeth forces her fingers to relax, then with an air of authority- or so she hopes- folds her arms on the edge of her desk.

"You walked out, remember?" Elizabeth waves her hand metaphorically, eyes flicking briefly to the closed door. "And didn't deign my messages worthy of a reply. Those were your choices, not mine." Her gaze is heavy with accusation when she looks back at him.

"Don't put this all on me." Henry jerks the chair so hard it thuds on the carpet. It's all Elizabeth can do to keep her composure, but she manages to maintain her stoic expression.

"I had to hold the country together, and keep our family from falling apart." She doesn't tell him the former is possibly up for debate if she loses her temper in another NSC meeting, and she failed horribly on the latter. He'll find out soon enough. "What exactly were you responsible for?"

He ignores that question, counters with his own. "Are you going to let me see the kids?"

She refuses to rise to the bait this time. "I've never kept them from you. You can contact them anytime you want. I assume you have. They can make their own decisions; they're capable adults." Her voice is steely, her tone usually reserved for taking China or Russia to task. "Well, the girls are. I don't know about Jason. He hasn't said much to me since you left."

Jason was ditching school, too, and sneaking beer, at least until Elizabeth threw out or hid the liquor in the house. She suspected he got it elsewhere, at the same time praying his sisters would encourage him to stop. Passive denial was easier than confronting her defiant teenager, especially when she was at a loss on how to console him.

Henry steps around the chair, sinking heavily into the seat. He scrubs a hand over his face, then down the back of his neck. She knows his tells as well as he knows hers, and can sense they've reached a stalemate. Both of them are so good with words in their professional lives, and yet neither can find any for that moment. Words had already failed them so miserably and drove their marriage to this ledge.

Henry's shoulders droop, hands nearly flopping on the armrest as his anger drains his energy. Elizabeth unconsciously mirrors his posture, pushing away from her desk as if to put more distance between them. As if she needed to.

Her fingers are restless in the silence, tracing the edge of her desk, skipping lightly over the edges of binders. The clock she'd never noticed until now ticks so loudly inside her head, she can barely resist covering her ears. Her eyes follow her fingers, never quite focusing on anything particular, just not him.

Finally, her churning emotions erupt; on a sarcastic hiss, she asks "what, no pithy religious quote to tie this all up in a neat little bow? Perhaps with some Catholic guilt to top it off?"

Henry's eyebrows shoot up, crinkling his forehead, his lips flatten but he says nothing. He stares over her shoulder at the globe behind her desk.

Huffing out a breath, Elizabeth reigns herself back in, frustrated at her lack of control. "So where did you go?" She doesn't add "when you left me", but wants to.

Henry's eyes meet hers briefly. "Mount Kailash." He doesn't offer more.

"You found answers there before. Did you find them again?

"Yeah." He shrugs, his lips twisting in a sardonic smile. His silence is telling, she thinks. Or is it? She hates herself for hoping he's still hurting as much as she is, that the shadows in his eyes aren't just a reflection of her barren soul.

"Well, I'm glad you did, because all I have is questions."

In the end, neither of them could erase the darkest moments of their past or bridge the gap to reconciliation. Elizabeth reluctantly suggested therapy- a last-ditch effort, as much as she hated going herself- and Henry sat next to her on that couch in Dr Sherman's office, fish tank bubbling in the background. After a few awkwardly uncomfortable sessions permeated by silence and muted arguments, they'd progressed to the sad realization that their attempts to find a solution were just delaying the inevitable, and burgers and bowling only existed in a fairy tale world they'd annihilated. The circle of two they'd once cherished and protected at all costs had long vanished, and those cracks in their foundation could never be mended.

Henry couldn't forget her role in the President's decision, and she couldn't forgive his decision to abandon her. Even after Dmitri was found alive, even after Elizabeth begged and cajoled and broke every professional boundary she'd ever set to broker a deal to bring him home. Dmitri hated Henry, and Henry blamed Elizabeth- one more nail in the coffin of their marriage.

"So I guess we need to be talking to lawyers."

"Yeah. I guess we do."

She'd thought the work would bring her solace, but found herself second-guessing every decision she made, wondering what lives she would irrevocably destroy. Her doubt made her ineffective, and she lost her edge- and with it the spark that made her so compelling. Elizabeth knew the government couldn't operate if their top diplomat carried on like a beaten puppy, cowering in the corner. Conrad never commented, although she sensed he relied less on her counsel, but Russell never held back, and more than once, she left him in the Oval Office literally vibrating with rage. After Nadine and Jay had to save her ass one too many times, Elizabeth realized yet again how one impossible choice shattered her entire life.

Henry didn't know that the day Elizabeth signed the divorce papers would be the day she handed in her resignation. He had to find out on the news.

She hadn't told the kids, partly because she didn't trust they could keep it from their father, partly because they weren't home enough for her to tell them all together. Whether by coincidence or intention, her family had splintered even more since Henry had come back to D.C.

"You can have the brownstone when the divorce is final. The kids want to live with you, and that's their home. At least until they decide differently."

Henry made his choice; so had her children. Elizabeth still loved their father enough to not allow their children to blame him, so in the end, she suffered the consequences. They believed she'd lied to them their entire lives, and they weren't wrong. Maybe she didn't deserve their trust. Maybe she deserved for them to leave her, too; after all, she was complicit in the bargain that drove their father away.

Beneath the heartache and anger, buried as deep as she could manage, lay a sliver of blame that Elizabeth only let herself admit in the endless hours of her sleepless nights- that she created the catalyst for her marriage to disintegrate. Logically, she knew why she and the President agreed to the terms with Russia. Rationally, she understood the need to protect the greater good. But logic and reason aside, her life still imploded, and every circular argument she made with herself came back to one singular moment- and she was left even more alone.

This time, Elizabeth answers the phone when he calls.

"What the hell, Elizabeth. You're quitting?" His fury blasts through the receiver, loudly enough she winces and pulls away.

"Oh, now you decide to care? This doesn't concern you, Henry."

"You said you'd give up this job if it threatened what we have. Isn't it a little late for heroic gestures?"

"You said you'd be the man beside the woman. And you weren't." She counters.

Elizabeth hates having this conversation over the phone, but being in the same space with her soon-to-be-ex-husband isn't a challenge she's equipped to handle anymore.

"So you're blaming me?" They've been zinging that question at each other for months now.

"I made a promise, and I thought you did, too." She rubs her fists against the headache brewing behind her eyes. "You gave up first and didn't give us a chance. So, yeah, I guess I am blaming you."

"But I came back."

She'd never told him he was right. Pride had kept her from admitting the truth back then, and they'd managed to salvage their marriage. She thought the sacrifices she'd made were enough, but here they were, after repeating the same mistakes. Maybe she should have told him a long time ago.

"You know, I resented you for giving me an ultimatum about the Baghdad job. But I realized you were right. Things wouldn't have been the same when I came home. Just like things aren't the same now."

"But why?" Henry's voice cracks, surprising Elizabeth, and she senses the sorrow creeping through the hostility.

Why was she quitting? Why did their marriage fall apart? Why couldn't they keep their promises to each other? Why couldn't they forgive each other? So many meanings in those two words.

"I just can't do it anymore."

Then with a sigh, Elizabeth wearily pulls the stack of papers in front of her, couriered over from his lawyer's office, that she's been avoiding all day. Composing her resignation letter came easier than dissolving her marriage. She twirls a pen between her fingers, sets it back down.

"What will you do?" His genuine concern breaks her heart. And yet, too little, too late.

"I'm going back to the farm. I want my horses. It's where I belong. Maybe I can find some peace."

When Elizabeth gingerly hangs up the phone, her hand lingers on the receiver, then resolutely picks up the pen again. She can control her tears now, but the anguish burns deep as she begins to end the last 30 years of her life.

A/N: Please don't hate me. This scene popped into my head after reading nonadhesiveness's answer to a Tumblr ask about Henry taking a pilgrimage after Dmitri's capture and presumed death. Don't blame her. The angst is all mine. (She had a much better ending planned.) For the record, I don't think they'd actually get to this point, the way the characters & marriage were written and portrayed on screen. But the unresolved conflict in this storyline will forever frustrate me, and this is the way my muse spun the story. (Also, because real life is a bitch, angst is still the word of the year.)