Henry's flip phone, where it rests idle on the nightstand (he still doesn't understand the point of the thing, but having it allows him to talk to Elizabeth for an extra minute or two during the day) pings, and he strides over to look at it, keeping an ear out for each his wife and daughter.

It's a message from a blocked number.

How is she?

Henry's instantly on high alert, the back of his neck prickling with unease at this anonymous recognition of his wife.

Who is this? he fumbles out on the keypad.

IB. How is she?

He breathes a sigh of relief at Isabel's initials, brushing past the question and responding with one of his own.

Do you know what happened?

It's a speedy response. Confidential.

Henry doesn't give a damn about confidentiality when Elizabeth is so evidently physically and mentally hurt, but he won't tell Isabelle that behind his wife's back and so he doesn't bother responding. He makes his way to the kitchen, scooping Stevie up to kiss her head and set her down to play freely as he checks on dinner. Elizabeth doesn't call for him, but he hears the water abate, and a few minutes later socked feet are padding across the floor.

Slim arms wrap around his waist from behind as he stirs a pot of pasta sauce, and he feels a kiss pressed high between his shoulder blades. He reaches back for her hip, keeping his touch light across what he knows is tender skin.

He starts with an easy question. "Good shower?"

She hums quietly against him in the affirmative.

"Think you're ready to eat something?" A nod.

Good. Okay. "You know that anything you want to tell me I'll listen to and won't repeat, right?"

Another nod in response. Henry's beginning to understand that her reluctance to speak isn't so much hesitance or legal inability to share (though those likely play a role) as it is physical restriction from her hoarseness. After dinner, he decides, there'll be tea with too much honey.

In the meantime, Henry relishes in her rasp of "I love you" as he turns around in the circle of her arms to face her, choosing not to mention the freshly red rimmed eyes as she looks up at him, swamped in a ratty sweatshirt of his and clean pajama pants.

Before either of them can speak again, Stevie runs in, clutching a stuffed animal and mid-explanation of the imaginary world it dwells in, and Elizabeth spins to see her. When their little girl spots her she leaps forward, and his hand falls from his wife as she drops to her knees and holds her daughter.

"Hey, baby. I missed you."

"Mommy, I missed you, too! Daddy bought me a new animal, did you see?"

"I see, baby. Very nice. What's her name?"

But Stevie's frowning, now. "What's wrong with your voice, Mommy?"

"Oh, you know what? I was wearing a scarf on my trip and I tied it a little bit too tightly."

It's not the worst excuse they've ever given Stevie for something odd (the truth isn't always possible when your father was a fighter pilot and your mother is a spy) but it isn't a great one, either.

Stevie seems to buy it, though, reaching out to lightly touch the bruising along her mother's throat disapprovingly (he sees Elizabeth try not to wince) and if their little girl notices that it's in the shape of a hand much larger than her own, she doesn't show it. She seems more concerned at—

"Mommy, don't cry!"

Elizabeth swipes uselessly at her cheeks eye-level with their daughter, swallowing hard to rid herself of what Henry can tell from his vantage point would have been a sob, instead soothing Stevie's indignation with "I'm okay, baby. I'm just really happy to see you and Daddy."

"And I," Henry interrupts, hoping to take some of the scrutiny off of Elizabeth; neither of them will want this to be a vivid childhood memory for their little girl, he knows, "am happy to see all four of us in the same room together," he says, wiggling his eyebrows at the stuffed animal.

He scoops up Stevie in the crook of one arm as she giggles, and helps Elizabeth back to her feet with the other. He lets his wife, with one arm around his waist and one hand on their daughter, bury her face in his shoulder for a moment to regain control while he distracts Stevie with a vocal impression of the lion he'd bought her to distract her from the fact that she missed her mom. What strange lives they lead.

It's a peaceful dinner; Stevie chatters on and on to them both while Elizabeth hums interest between bites, and he puts in encouraging comments for their daughter and thanks his lucky stars that his wife seems to have an appetite. He has never been more grateful for their little chatterbox, who is maintaining normalcy all on her own where her parents would not be able to.

He takes over for bedtime after Elizabeth tells Stevie how much she loves her, knowing that she's presently incapable of both lifting their daughter and reading the customary bedtime story. When Stevie's down for the count, he returns to the kitchen to find Elizabeth hovering aimlessly, arm wrapped around her side to guard her ribs and blinking heavily.

"Babe?"

It takes a moment (he's starting to worry about a head injury) but she looks to him with a ghost of a smile.

"When someone saw your ribs did they give you any pain medicine?"

"Yeah," she says on a slight delay.

"Okay, when was that?"

"I-," she frowns, "I have no idea."

He has to have an approximation before he gets her something for the pain he can see written out on the tension in her face and body, so he presses. "Was it before or after you were on the plane?"

She has to think about it a little too hard for his liking. "Before."

Definitely safe to take a second dose of something, then. Based purely on his loose understanding of the geographic area she's been focused on at work, Henry knows it was a long flight.

"Good, babe. Sit down, okay? I'll get you something." He makes good on his desire to overwhelm a cup of tea with honey for her throat, and she drinks a little of it and uses it to swallow the painkillers he holds out to her (her lack of coordination when she tries to scrape them from his palm is a topic he files away under a mental checklist entitled 'causes for concern').

Henry takes his place next to her on their sofa, arm wrapped carefully around her shoulders. "Want to talk about it now, or wait until tomorrow?"

Elizabeth's mouth twitches into a smile. "Not sure I can talk about much of anything right now," she rasps.

"Fair point. Want to watch something?" Her nod causes her still damp hair to tickle his nose, and he breathes in the comforting scent of her shampoo.

He's hoping to take her mind off of bruises and unfriendly hands and nightmares with mindless television, possibly help ease her into dreamless sleep. It doesn't take long, exhaustion and medication interacting in her system as she gradually slackens against his side. He eases her down on the sofa, carefully situating her head, and leaves the television murmuring on low to clean up their dinner.

It's not long before he hears the doorbell, disturbing both his worries and his cleaning, and he's at an utter loss as to who it could be. Henry checks to see that it hasn't disturbed Elizabeth on his way to the door, making use of the peephole before yanking it open.

"What are you doing here?" His voice is hushed for Elizabeth's sake, but forceful and inexplicably angry at them, at their connection to whatever it is that's hurt his wife so badly.

Isabel, Juliet, and George peer back at him from the stoop of the little house.

It's the former who speaks. "You didn't answer my question. I asked how she was."

"And you didn't answer mine. What the hell happened to my wife?" he hisses.

George looks around quickly. "Henry, may we come in?"

"We just want to check on Bess," Juliet adds.

He reluctantly steps aside for them, prioritizing gleaning a little information on recent CIA events over his righteous resentment.

"She's asleep," he tells them, but they of course can and have already seen her dead to the world on the sofa behind him. He watches his wife's friends as they take in her limp form, and his anger lessens a bit. They look upset, concerned. Good, he thinks, as they should.

George gasps. "God, her throat. Is that a handprint?"

Isabel nods numbly.

"Tell me what you know. Please," and Henry knows they can hear the desperate edge creeping into his tone.

Isabel looks for just one second to be fighting tears, but Henry's never known her to show one single emotion, and the hint of dampness is soon replaced by the glint of steel.

"You will not repeat a word that is said here tonight," she says, and it's a statement, not a question, but Henry affirms it with a nod nonetheless.

"Alright," she sighs, "I wasn't on the same op, but Conrad called me afterward so that she wasn't alone. Bess was on a covert about two hours from me. I can't tell you where. There was a transport and the humvee was attacked. In the chaos of the crash the target abducted her. That's what they told me at the med, at least."

"What-" Henry starts, but Juliet interrupts him.

"Henry," she says cautiously, gesturing to Elizabeth behind him. He turns.

She's stirring, but seems to be shifting in return to consciousness rather than frightening dreamscape. Henry's relieved; he knows she'd be reticent to let her friends see her as disoriented as he had earlier.

Nevertheless, he wants her to sleep on, both for the sake of her rest and the continuation of this conversation. He crosses the room in two strides, feeling the couch dip with his weight as he settles lightly next to her hip.

Elizabeth twitches again, head lolling sideways on the pillow, blinking once and then stopping as if her eyes are too heavy to cooperate.

It's quiet, slurred, but there. "What's happenin'? Where'm I?" It's evidently hard for her to form the syllables under the influence of possible concussion and heavy painkillers; Henry wants to reassure her but more than anything he wants her to doze right back off.

"No, no, babe. Shh, shh. It's nothing. You're home. Go back to sleep." He's all too aware of her colleagues looking on, but his real focus is his wife.

He can practically see the medicine dragging Elizabeth back under as he runs gentle fingers through her hair, sweeps a thumb over her cheekbone. She grumbles for a moment, but then she's out cold again; after he's lingered for a moment to be certain he gets back to his feet, facing the triumvirate of concerned coworkers once more.