The third time it happens, Stevie is upset.

Elizabeth has been gone for too long. They're approaching two and a half weeks since she left; Henry misses his wife and his three year old misses her mother. She's asked him about a hundred times a day where Mommy is, when Mommy will be home, if Mommy will call to tell her goodnight tonight, and he has patiently explained time and time again that Mommy is on a work trip, that he doesn't know yet, and that this is a special kind of trip where she isn't allowed to call. Elizabeth often jokes (with relative accuracy) that he's the favorite, the Stevie whisperer, if you will, but when she's gone their little girl desperately misses her. She's not alone in that.

He and Elizabeth have never outright talked about how there are two different types of trips she makes for The Company, for Conrad Dalton, and for her duty to her country. One is what she openly signed on for—analysis and interrogation—and the second isn't something he likes to think about too hard. The first, of course, is what he shares with his family when Maureen asks derisively why he's a single father several times a year. I'm not, he'd told her indignantly, Elizabeth calls as much as she can, and she'll be back soon. The latter is what he asks of God when she's gone.

Bring her back to me soon. Bring her back to me safe. In Your name I pray, Amen.

It was a while before he even knew about the second type of trip at all, and it was Isabelle who first told him. He hadn't met the woman on more than a few occasions, stopping by Langley to drop off something for Elizabeth, mostly, when she singled him out while he was out with his wife and her work friends one evening.

She's quiet for a moment, and then, "Did Bess come home acting strangely a few months back? Seemed a little out of it, maybe?" It was an abrupt question, but his mind went instantly to the time she came home seeming almost compelled to empty her stomach before she'd even let him near her.

He instinctively scanned for her across the crowded bar; she was alright then, laughing at something Juliet said. Reassured, he glanced over at Isabelle, who had been watching him as if he'd given her her answer.

She hesitated for a moment before she said, "They tried her out on a covert op a while back. She impressed them. It's about to be official, and I shouldn't be saying any of this to you, but," she hesitated once more, "she's a good friend, and she's too duty-bound to break the confidentiality agreement. So look out for her when she comes home, alright?"

And then she had gone, and he had returned to Elizabeth and stuck to her side for the rest of the night, equal parts terrified and impressed at the thought of his wife as a soon-to-be undercover CIA agent.

There was a long term op a few weeks later. They made love the night before her six week deployment to "Oh, east," (her response to his carefully phrased question of where she was going), and she returned safely six weeks later and threw up before she hugged him with a surprising ferocity. At dinner that night, her voice had trembled, but she had smiled.

Henry, I'm pregnant.

She had skirted around it, but when prompted had assured him there would be no more trips of either kind until well after the baby was born. The look in her eyes when he asked had told him that they were on the same page about the two types of trip.

Now, three years and some odd months later, he hasn't heard from his wife in a little over two weeks, and she had speculated before she'd left that she'd see him in about three. He's not even expecting the customary she's on her way home from Dalton for another few days, so when the front door opens mid-afternoon, he is momentarily shocked.

It only takes him one look at her to see that this time is so, so much worse.

Maybe it's something in her eyes, or in the paleness that makes a horrid contrast for the row of stitches near her temple, or the way she holds herself with an arm guarding her middle, but it's his stomach that twists first, this time.

And then Stevie barrels past him before he can stop her, shouting "Mommy!" and already bursting into a comprehensive account of her past weeks as she wraps small arms around Elizabeth's knees.

He watches, frozen, as his wife jolts at the contact from even her own child, and then winces as the movement jars something, probably her ribs, some Marine-manufactured backburner of his mind supplies.

Her free hand flutters over Stevie's hair, as if she's resisting the urge to settle it in her blonde curls as she ordinarily does. She manages to meet Henry's eye. Her mouth opens and closes once, twice, and then—

"Please. Henry, please."

He moves, finally, prying Stevie away, careful not to touch Elizabeth's body as he does so. Stevie is glaring at him with the distinctly furrowed brow of a toddler on the cusp of tantrum, but he can't resolve that now as he normally would. Not with his wife looking like that. So he sets her down and directs her towards her room, promising that her mom will be in very, very soon, and that she can eat a cookie and play with her trains in the meantime.

Somehow, that's miraculously sufficient for Stevie in the moment, and after a huff and a declaration, lip trembling, of "I want Mommy now!" she trots away, leaving him with his nearly catatonic wife in the foyer.

He turns back to her; she's staring blankly after Stevie, blue eyes glassy and a little wet. He takes a single, cautious step in her direction, very intentionally keeping his hands where she can see them, and her eyes suddenly snap to his.

The hand not helping to brace her midsection flies to her mouth, and he can't believe he didn't notice the almost violent trembling sooner. She's gasping quietly for breath, clearly trying not to let tears spill as she mumbles a hoarse stream of "Henry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, I just couldn't- I can't- I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

It's a litany, spilling from her lips again and again as her now wild eyes dart around their home. He is beyond horrified as he tries to reassure her, to soothe her with "Elizabeth, babe, it isn't your fault. You don't have anything to be sorry for. It's ok. She's alright. You're alright." Stevie is, that much is true, but the same can't be truthfully said for Elizabeth, who is now swaying where she stands.

He knows better than to try to apply any steadying touch, but she's literally turning green before his very eyes, and so he steps forward again cautiously, holding out his hands for the compact duffel and attached briefcase that still rests on her shoulder.

She gives it to him and at his quiet "I know. It's okay. Go," she takes off for the bathroom.

He sets her things down with care before following her.