trigger warning for references to sexual assault and related medical procedures

…..

When Henry turns back, Juliet and George look as if their concerns have been compounded, but Henry's not sure what part of that is worry for his wife and what is trepidation at the details that Isabel had best not be finished sharing with him.

She opens her mouth to continue, or perhaps to comment on her friend's brief wakefulness, but Henry puts up a finger to silence her, beckoning all three of them through to the kitchen, away from Elizabeth's efforts to sleep.

"Alright," he says with resolve. He will hear this out, no matter how much it hurts him. No matter how much he wants to shut his eyes to the bruising and hold his wife and feign as if the evils of the world couldn't touch her. "How long was she missing?"

"Thirty hours," Isabel informs him flatly, "Six more and Conrad would have notified you that she was MIA."

He squeezes his eyes shut.

Too much can happen in thirty hours.

"What else?" Juliet asks, and Henry's a tiny bit grateful for the prompt, because he himself couldn't have voiced it.

"Like I said, after Conrad called I met her at the med. She hadn't given a statement, and they barely let me in to sit with her. She was-," in a break of composure, the rarity of which she and his wife have in common, Isabel runs a hand through her hair and exhales, "she was so disoriented. She just kept asking for you, Henry. I just- I don't know, I just kept telling her that she'd see you soon. She was panicked and I- I did my best."

Henry's heart sinks at the sheen of tears blossoming in the eyes of Elizabeth's stoic friend.

…..

Now that business has been attended to, now that Bess is safe at home, sound asleep on her sofa and subject only to her husband's devoted love, Isabel can admit to herself that she had been genuinely frightened, in that med bay room.

That had been her friend, badly bruised and trembling from shock and pain and seeming nearly unaware of where they were as Isabel had gently held her hand.

There had been a disaster elsewhere, and it had been too busy and short staffed and overwhelmed, and so they were there for hours before they got to the worst part of it all.

When the nurse had traded torn clothes for a medical gown that made her look so small, Bess had noticeably suppressed tears, enduring through gritted teeth the touch that was clearly unwelcome on her skin.

When they had unwrapped the headscarf Bess had squeezed her eyes shut tight, and Isabel had winced at the blood still seeping from the wound on her temple.

As they had stitched up the gash, checked for concussion, run the toxicology screening, evaluated her vocal chords, poked at her ribs, and muddled through a series of probing questions, Bess had looked as if she was trying to quell nausea.

But none of that had been the worst of it. Bess, her clever, determined, sharp friend, had been clinging to some semblance of composure throughout all of that, she realized. That had ended very abruptly.

Isabel knew why they had to do it.

She had wondered the same thing at the state of Bess' clothes, at the little flinches as people, handlers and med base staff alike, had approached her. She too had noted the torn nails and defensive wounds marring her knuckles.

The understanding that it had to be done didn't mitigate her own upset when they began the exam with no forewarning and Bess absolutely lost it.

There had been male nurses and a male doctor, all seemingly unphased as they had begun to examine her and she had in answer begun to kick and scream, pleading unseeingly don't touch me, please, please stop, no, no, no, please.

As Isabel looked on in horror, momentarily frozen, not one of them had hesitated. Instead of pausing, making any effort to calm her, there had been an organized effort to pin her limbs, keep her from striking their flesh, clamp down to hold her knees apart.

The screams had gotten louder, then. Her own yells had joined Bess' cries as she had acted in the most intense blinding rage she's probably ever felt.

"Stop it!" she remembers shouting, lunging towards them, "let go of her!" They had, slowly, looking at her in disbelief as she physically jerked one of them backwards to take his place by her friend's side, where he had been determinedly holding her wrists over her head.

As they watched, she had pulled together every scrap of comforting instinct she'd never exhibited before for her panicked friend, who was just then trying very hard to simultaneously draw breath and curl in on herself protectively, both of which had to be accomplished around aching ribs.

Isabel had taken her hand once more, keeping her hold loose. "You're okay, Bess. It's me, it's Isabel. I'm not going to let them do that to you again, okay? Promise."

Bess had buried her face in the crook of her own elbow then, evening out her breathing.

"They aren't going to touch you again. I'll get you a different doctor, okay, honey?" She'd never in their years of friendship called her that before, and chances are she won't again, but it had seemed right in the moment.

"I want Henry." It had come out a whimper, and Isabel's heart panged for her just as it had each time, in the last several hours, that she had begged for her husband in her drugged state.

"I know you do. I know. You'll get to see him soon. The sooner we can get out of here, the sooner you'll be home with him, yeah?"

Elizabeth had nodded reluctantly and winced at the movement. They had shone a light in her eyes earlier, and though they'd disclosed nothing to her, Isabel would have put money on a confirmed concussion.

"When can I leave?" she had whispered, as if wary of the men hearing her. Isabel didn't blame her.

"As soon as they can make sure you weren't assaulted."

"I wasn't-"

"You were dosed, Bess. You might not remember," she had reminded her gently.

Elizabeth had bitten down on her lip, then, tears resurfacing but refusing to fall. "I don't want them to tie me back up," she had mumbled hoarsely, confusedly.

Isabel had jolted for a moment before turning to glare daggers at the men, who were still loitering uneasily as if, and she had scoffed to herself, they were ever going to be allowed near Bess again.

"You won't be tied up again. I promise. I'll stay and make sure while they do it, okay?"

"Okay," had been the whispered response, as Bess seemed to fade out of awareness a little bit.

"I'm going to get a different doctor. I'll be right outside, and no one will be in here with you."

A stilted nod of the blonde head with the dazed, tired blue eyes.

If the apprehension on the men's faces was anything to judge by, her own expression had twisted back to rage as she had ushered them out into the bustling hallway, stretchers of bloody figures being wheeled past.

Must've been a bomb, she had understood offhandedly.

"What in the hell were you thinking? Is that how you treat victims here?"

They had exchanged an uneasy glance. "It… has to be done. For her to be cleared for flight back to the States."

"Yes. It has to be done when she consents to it," Isabel had hissed, "not when you feel inconvenienced by her panic so the easiest course of action is to pin her down and ignore her say in things. Do you want to clear her for flying, or do you want to traumatize and injure her further?"

They had shrugged. "It was regrettable that she was upset, but it is procedure."

Isabel had shaken her head furiously, wordlessly. "That cannot possibly be true. I'm reporting each and every one of you. Go get me a woman who's capable of performing the kit."

They had just looked at her blankly.

"Now!" It was a tone to frighten Taliban generals. They had scurried off.

When she had slid the curtain to Bess' small exam area closed behind her again, she had found her clumsily trying to tug out her IV.

"Hey, leave that in."

Under the fluorescent of the bay lights, Bess was frighteningly pale, dark circles under her eyes and visible bruising and stitching making for a more startling contrast. She hadn't seemed quite as disoriented then, though, which gave Isabel hope that the drug was working its way out of her system.

She had, however, seemed to be bordering on unconsciousness. From what they had told Isabel in passing as she had rushed to get to Bess, she had passed out after they found her, after she had nearly escaped her captors on her own, and had woken en route to the bay and fought the foreign extraction team until the sedative effects put her back under.

Bess had just shaken her head tiredly, blanching at the motion once more. "No more drugs."

Isabel had taken a seat on the stool beside her, carefully tugging her right hand away from the line in the back of her left. "I'm pretty sure it's just saline. You were dehydrated when they found you."

"Hm," her eyelids were drooping, by then, but she was fighting admirably to keep them open.

"You can rest your eyes for a few minutes. I'll stay with you."

"Don't wanna sleep," and it was slurred, whether by exhaustion or toxin or painkillers or head injury Isabel did not know, and that was entirely too many options.

"It won't be for long. I'll have to wake you for the concussion in half an hour, and if a doctor comes before then I'll wake you early."

Elizabeth had not seemed persuaded.

"Bess, I'll be right here. No one will do anything to you," she tried to reassure.

Her friend had reluctantly allowed her lids to follow through on their inevitable path, then. "Promise?"

"I promise."

That had been it until the nurse, a woman that time thank God, came back, and Isabel had woken Bess as gently as possible, per her word. The procedure hadn't been easy, of course, but at least the woman had the basic decency to talk through what was being done as she was doing it.

Aside from the nurse's "you're very tense, Agent McCord. Try to relax your muscles," as Bess had clenched her fingers in the material of the gown and with the other hand born down on Isabel's, answering with an indignant snap of "obviously I'm doing my utmost, here," the exam had gone, on the second try, as seamlessly as any such exam could.

The quick retort had actually reassured Isabel, just a tad, that Bess was feeling well enough to be coherent and even herself again. But when the nurse pulled back, telling her that she could close her legs at last, Bess had snapped them together and then lurched over the side of the cot and thrown up on her boots. Isabel had turned to the nurse with wide eyes, about to question the severity of the head injury, but the woman had shaken her head.

"It's the drug. Diazepam has to leave the system somehow. She's alright."

She wouldn't have passed the polygraph with that last part, Isabel had thought.

As the nurse left, seeming totally unconcerned as she swept the flimsy white curtain shut behind her, Bess had sat back, carefully bracing her ribs, breathless.

"Sorry about your shoes," she mumbled, wiping her mouth.

"Don't mention it," Isabel had assured her, looking around for a tissue to dab at the trickle of blood from Bess' split lip, now reopened.

"Isabel?" Bess had asked, picking anxiously at the sleeve of her gown.

"Yeah?"

"I really appreciate you being here but-" she trailed off, swallowing hard and blinking up at the light.

"But?" she prompted.

"There's very little I wouldn't give to talk to Henry right about now," and her voice had cracked terribly.

Seeing her friend so vulnerable, so pitiful, so very unlike Bess, had been breaking her heart.

"I know. Soon."

'Soon' had been loose. Isabel had known that the nurse would be back to swab for DNA, to photograph bruises for the CIA file that would be sealed in a matter of hours. She had known it would be a while yet before they would make a flight, and Isabel would have given almost anything herself to let Bess call her husband, just then.

But her op wasn't technically over. Elizabeth contractually could not contact him until they landed on US soil.

When Conrad spoke to them on the phone on the plane, hours later, and tried to persuade Bess to go to an American hospital when they landed, she had refused outright. When Elizabeth fell asleep again, Isabel assured him that she'd been sufficiently checked out, that it's best to just let her go straight home.

So, no, neither of their operations were exactly a walk in the park. She'll leave it to Bess to disclose the finer points of it to her husband, though.

…..

He's feeling the press of tears behind his eyes, too, now, desperately pushing the urge down.

Isabel is still speaking, he realizes. "I've never seen her like that before, and finally they came back and said they'd run a tox screen, and there was Diazepam in her system."

Henry doesn't know what to ask here; he wants information but he's overwhelmed, and keeps hoping that this is all an elaborate nightmare of its own, that he'll wake up and Elizabeth will be alright, and telling him that he's alright, and that she's there.

"Okay, okay. Um- are there long term effects of that?"

Isabel shakes her head reassuringly. "No, the doctors said no, that it would wear off in eight or so hours. The flight was longer than that; by the time we landed most of the sluggishness was exhaustion, I think. I have a paper for you, it has the other details of injuries."

It's so clinical.

It's all

grade 3 concussion, four cracked ribs on the right side, bruising to the larynx causing vocal cord strain, general contusions, rather than your wife won't be able to speak normally and she'll have to throw up before you can touch her and she might wake up begging not to be tied back up.

But it's totally fine, right? All in service to the country, he thinks, derisively.

There must be something shadowing across his face, because Isabel speaks once more, eyes dry again. "They told her in the med bay that the laryngitis would worsen over the next day and then start to improve," she notes.

"Alright," he voices though his stomach is filled with dread, "did she happen to mention anything about what happened when- when they had her?"

Isabel shakes her head remorsefully. "I think that's something you'll have to ask her yourself."

"Well, unfortunately it's rather difficult for her to answer since she can barely speak," he snaps,

"and since she's having to tell our three-year-old that Mommy tied her scarf too tightly and just hope that she doesn't notice the shape of all those bruises."

Two sets of eyes widen slightly at the outburst; Henry knows that he's never been anything but even tempered around Elizabeth's friends (he's rarely anything but even tempered full stop) but he's well past abiding by his nature in the face of injury to his wife.

All of his gentle, soft spoken qualities are directed toward Elizabeth right now, and any excess he could have given to her colleagues had long since been sapped. It's been a long day.

George seems to understand, in some capacity. "Tell him, Isabel. You know Elizabeth would tell him herself if she could. You aren't betraying her, here," he says gruffly. He keeps his eyes on Henry as he speaks.

"I don't know much. She hasn't given a statement yet. All I know is what she kept saying, which was that she wanted you and that," she swallows hard, "that she just wanted them to stop grabbing her, and to leave her untied."

He can tell by her expression that that was even harder to hear Elizabeth say than it was to repeat, but she continues, "but if I knew intimate details I still wouldn't tell you. He's right," she nods sideways at George, "she loves you so much, Henry, and I'm confident she'll decide to tell you the parts of it that aren't sealed when she's- I don't know- coherent and vocal and not drugged up to her ears."

Henry wants the details, wants to know how to best help Elizabeth, wants to maybe be able to persuade her to quit, after this, but he knows that Isabel is right, that it's better that Elizabeth tell him these things herself.

There is a flurry of effort to impart information gleaned by Isabel to him, then.

She'll have two weeks leave and the stitches will have to come out in four days and she needs to be woken every three hours tonight and nothing strenuous for the sake of her ribs. Conrad might come by to check in on her. Get her to a hospital if she seems inexplicably disoriented or there's any sign of internal bleeding.

Henry tries to absorb it all.

They're leaving him, after that, Isabel's gaze lingering on his sleeping wife as she hangs back at the door a moment.

"I know you're worried about whether-" she doesn't finish the phrase, but she hadn't needed to, "I was worried about it, too." She meets his eyes suddenly, determinedly. "They ran the kit. It was all negative." Her hand flutters for a minute as if she's going to squeeze his arm reassuringly, but she flicks her hair over her own shoulder instead and slips out the door.

As she heads towards the waiting other two and Henry moves to lock up, he can't help but call after her.

"Isabel?"

And when she acknowledges him once more- "thank you for not leaving her alone."

A firm nod. "Of course."