His wife is an atheist.

He's a bit of a lapsed Roman Catholic himself, but believes in God nonetheless. But even Henry McCord, soon to be doctorate in theological studies Dr. Henry McCord, from the devout Catholic family, cannot reconcile the idea of a good God with what his wife is being made to go through. It's no wonder, he thinks, that at fifteen and thirteen respectively she and his brother-in-law made their religious declarations (that there would be no religious declarations) and stuck to them.

Elizabeth is twitching in her sleep. It's a subtle, frantic flicker of her eyes beneath lids, of her facial muscles. The sliding of her legs beneath blankets. A quick disruption of her breathing. He waits to see if she'll settle back down, but then—

"No, dont," she whimpers.

He gives up right then and there.

"Elizabeth, wake up."

The touch to her shoulder is what does it this time. She jackknifes to sitting with a gasp of "don't tie me up!"

He feels sick. "You're okay. No one'll tie you up now, babe. You're safe."

Elizabeth swings her legs over her side of the bed and rests her head in her hands.

"Elizabeth?"

A shake of her head, maybe in answer or maybe in search for clarity. "Give me a minute."

"As long as you need."

Eventually she stands, a little unsteadily, and goes into the bathroom after offering him what he thinks is meant to be a reassuring smile but more closely resembles a grimace. He hears the shower running and busies himself adjusting their once again twisted sheets and quilt, sacrificed to Elizabeth's restlessness. She showers all the time now.

When she comes out again she crosses to him, leans down and kisses him gently, murmurs quietly "I can't sleep anymore tonight. I love you. Get some rest," and turns to leave their bedroom.

Henry catches her hand and shifts to move with her. "I'll make the coffee," he tells her.

"Henry, babe, you have class in the morning. Go back to sleep," she advises, voice scratchy from the earlier screaming and the vocal cord injury. It isn't something he wants to think about.

"I'm playing hooky," he grins, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

Elizabeth looks at him with glaring skepticism, saying, "Henry Patrick McCord, you have never skipped a class in your life."

"Well, now's as good a time as any to experience the feeling," he replies with a winning smile.

"Henry," she begins patiently, "I'll be fine out there tonight and I'll be fine here alone tomorrow."

"I know you would be, babe, but we haven't pulled an all-nighter together since college," he frowns, "or maybe just since Stevie had colic," and he relishes in his wife's snort of a laugh.
"It'll be fun!"

"Y'know what else is fun? Attending your classes," Elizabeth remarks, moving through the living room to the kitchen, flipping a light or two on as she goes.

"Wise words from Ms. Dean's List 4.0 GPA," he shrugs playfully, trailing behind her, "but I've always wanted to know what delinquency feels like."

"Babe," she says exasperatedly, but he can hear the laugh underlying it, "for heaven's sake. I know why you're hesitant, and why you've taken leave this week, but I'll be fine. Go to class."

He sobers. "And miss a single second with you and Stevie? No way. Besides, it's Father Laurent. I'll tell him you just got back from overseas and he'll understand."

Henry puts the coffee on, wraps himself around her from behind for warmth in their chilly little kitchen, and nuzzles the spot behind her ear as she watches the steady drip into the pot. He thinks maybe the proof of God's goodness is that she is back with him. Hurting inside and out, yes, but here nonetheless.

She sighs, relaxing back into him with a quiet "you want to know something?"

"Hm?" he responds, mindful of his proximity to her ear and her lingering concussion sensitivities.

"I'm so grateful for you, Henry McCord."

His contented smile blooms against her hair. "Well, the feeling is very much mutual, Elizabeth Adams McCord."

It isn't long before they're settled with matching mugs held over a shared blanket on the sofa.

"Stevie has daycare tomorrow, yeah?" she asks between sips.

"We can keep her home. Spend some more time together as a family."

She huffs a laugh. "Never thought I'd hear you volunteer to have little ears around when you've got me alone and unplugged from my phone."

"Oh, just you wait 'til your ribs are healed," he smirks, nudging her with an elbow. "I'll drop Stevie off at a playdate faster than you can say 'good morning.'"

"Sounds great. As long as I haven't traumatized her too much," Elizabeth says ruefully, face pinching into worry once more.

Henry glances at her sideways, his own humor falling away. "Stevie will be just fine, babe. There's no doubt in my mind." He doesn't tell her what he's really thinking, which is you're the traumatized one, here.

She hums noncommittally. "I'm not being a good mom. Not protecting her from these things well enough. Not when I first got home and not tonight."

"Elizabeth," he says slowly, "you're a fantastic mom. Stevie's just glad to have you home, and you couldn't control your nightmare or whether she heard it. But you know what?" she quirks an eyebrow at him, "you still caught her when she jumped on you. You still comforted her even though you needed comforting. You put her needs above your own. And isn't that what makes a good parent?"

He needs her to understand, needs to be able to soothe at least this one worry effectively. Elizabeth just shrugs and looks down into her coffee cup. He thinks he might have to take that as a victory.

They sit in comfortable silence shoulder to shoulder for a good while, listening to the clock strike one from the mantle.

It's clear she has something else on her mind, her brow furrowed and eyes pensive.

Finally, voice hushed-

"I've worked for The Company for six years. I've been deployed and I've interrogated people who I couldn't get to give anything up by normal means. But sometimes others go in after me, and they come out with what we needed."

She fiddles with the edge of the blanket, other hand wrapped around the warmth of the mug.

"I could hear the screams. I didn't like it, but I didn't do anything about it," she shrugs half-heartedly, and where his shoulder rests against hers he feels it in his own body. "That's not justifiable. I'm upset over something that happened to me that I had let happen to others. I'm nothing more than a hypocrite for that."

"Something that you let happen to terrorists, Elizabeth, in order to prevent attacks that would have killed and maimed innocent people across the world. It isn't the same, honey. And if I've put the pieces together right, what was done to you wasn't the same as what was done to them, either. They didn't want information out of you, did they?"

Elizabeth shakes her head hesitantly, mumbling, "Just wanted to send a message. Make me think they were going to-"

She tenses, closing her mouth around the word. Henry shuts his eyes in distress, threading his arm through hers to feel her closer.

"You didn't deserve what happened to you, Elizabeth," he says firmly, but he can feel her getting restless, upset now.

"But who are we to judge if the people I heard crying out in the interview rooms did, Henry? That wasn't a call that had to be made! It was inhumane! It can't be as black and white as I'm supposedly good and they were allegedly bad so they deserved to be-" she chokes on her words. "I shouldn't get to be upset over what happened to me when I didn't try to stop it from happening to others! What does that make me?"

"Breathe, sweetheart. Take a deep breath," he murmurs urgently at the way she's run out of air and is still forcing out words.

Elizabeth manages one and then another, and then the tears are overflowing, dampening his skin as she turns her head into him. He sets down his own mug, sets hers alongside it, and wraps arms around her, absorbing her quiet sobs into his body as best he can.

Aside from the involuntary tears sliding silently down her cheeks when she wakes from nightmares, Elizabeth hasn't cried, in front of him at least, since the bathroom floor the afternoon she got back.

It hurts to watch, to feel the way her breath catches and know how much the manifestation of internal hurt is in turn hurting her ribs and head. Nonetheless, he knows she needs the catharsis.

"You just let it all out, babe. Don't fight it."

When the sobs taper off into the occasional hiccup as Henry strokes her hair, he knows what's coming. It's bubbling up in him in the face of seeing his wife, his best friend, the love of his life in so much pain. This can't go on any longer. He can't watch her deconstruct.

"Elizabeth-"

"Don't, Henry," and she just sounds sad.

"I have to. You know I have to. Penny for your thoughts, babe."

It's something they've said to each other throughout their relationship, and their simple friendship before that. It's a last resort for one to ask the other what's bothering them, what's on their mind, and the person being asked has to be honest, open. In the years since UVA, with the Marines and the CIA involved, it's taken a little more caution to be forthcoming, but has still proven an effective request for open communication, for vulnerability.

But this time—

"I can't, Henry. I just can't," she whispers, voice cracking.

"Elizabeth, I wish you could completely erase all of this from your mind so it would have no effect on you. I wish it more than anything. And babe, Stevie isn't the only one who thinks you're basically a superhero, but even you aren't capable of that. Like it or not, you're traumatized. The other day, when I was putting peroxide on your lip and my thumb brushed your throat, you were having a flashback, for a minute. I saw it in your eyes. You're jumpy, restless, having nightmares all the time. You know as well as I do what that looks like," he whispers back, still stroking through her hair where her head is buried against him, "You have to talk to me about this. Or talk to someone. It could be a professional, or Isabel, Juliet, maybe even Will, anybody. I won't be offended if it isn't me. But if you let this thing fester it's going to hurt so much worse, honey."

She's quiet against him still, and Henry sighs, his breath ruffling the damp blonde strands beneath his chin.

"Remember when I came home from my final tour? I couldn't sleep with the lights off, and I was worried you wouldn't be able to sleep with them on. But you didn't care. You said that you were so glad to have me home that you'd sleep with every light in our apartment on if it would make me feel better. And for something like three nights that's exactly what we did. Then one night, you pulled a 'penny for your thoughts,' and I finally told you why sleeping in the dark was bothering me, remember? When I was overseas I would have these dreams, really good dreams, of being with you, just listening to you talk or laugh, and then I would wake up and feel so alone without you there. When I got home, I wanted to always be able to make sure you were still there, that I wasn't lonely in the dark of the barracks surrounded by people that could've died any day anymore. I had to be able to see you, not just feel you were there, and I felt kind of silly about it."

Henry is encouraged by her nod of acknowledgement.

"It felt like after I admitted that to you, I knew I could sleep with the lights off and be alright with not being able to see you. If I woke up in the night, I could just reach out for you. After I said it out loud, I could face it and move past it. I trusted you, and I was glad that I told you because it helped us both in the long run."

Elizabeth nods again, pressing a kiss to his collarbone through his shirt. The clock on the mantle strikes two.

….

"Want another cup?" she asks him, standing and gathering their mugs.

Her husband sighs slightly, but nods. "Yes, please, babe. Thanks," he says, even though she can tell he's a little disappointed that his monologue and his vulnerability had no immediate effect.

In truth, Elizabeth just needs some more coffee to face it. She doctors his with a tad too much sugar to be socially acceptable, in her opinion, and her own with a tiny bit of cream, and then she takes her place beside him on the sofa once more, inching further into his side under the blanket for reassurance of his solidness.

Elizabeth takes her new version of deep breath, keeping it just shallow enough to not aggravate her still aching ribs, and starts to speak. Later, she will not know quite what she said, just that if she asked him Henry would remember every word.

"There was a transport. Another vehicle crashed into us. When I woke up I didn't know where I was, couldn't even really see past how badly my head hurt. I was alone in the room for a while, and then there were four of them. They came in periodically the whole time I was there. I don't- I don't know how often it really was; I couldn't tell how much time was passing, but it was upwards of twenty times that they came in, probably. It was-" she breaks off for a minute, taking another steadying breath. Henry threads his arm through hers once more.

"They kept saying how I was blonde and pretty and American. They were talking about me like I was some sort of trophy. I think they were patrolling between when they came in, but they would just...grab me. Touch me, tear my clothes, intentionally leave bruises. It was like it was a game, and they would just laugh," and her throat is closing like she's about to cry again, but now isn't the time. She has to get through this, for her own sake and for his.

"It hurt, Henry, and I can't- I feel dirty all the time now. It's like their hands are still on me," she says quietly, turning into him for comfort once more. Only then does he wrap his other arm around her, as if he's been waiting for her invitation. And of course he has. Her husband is so good about reading her, waiting until she's ready. God, does she love him.

Elizabeth clears her throat, finding it in herself to continue. "Every time I heard the door, I would brace myself, thinking they were finally going to-" and though she doesn't say the word, she feels Henry's form further tensing around her at the implication. She focuses instead on the pad of his thumb rubbing over her wrist. "But everytime one of them would start to tear my clothes, the one I… the one I," and she chooses her words carefully, "knew from an operation would tell them to stop, that I was his and that he was waiting to have his fun. He was the one that hit me," she gestures to her still swollen lip, "and tied me up." Elizabeth can't control the shiver that makes Henry's arms tighten imperceptibly around her.

It's all she can do to conceal her face in her husband's neck, the spot that means safety, security, Henry, as she continues.

"At one point I managed to pick the lock, and I broke the guard's nose and ran. I had just about made it to the gate when the men on patrol grabbed me again. That…didn't end well. After that the man I knew came back into the room, and I think he was planning on, you know," Elizabeth sniffs disdainfully, "going through with it that time. That's what it seemed like, anyway. He was touching me, and my hands were still tied, and I thought that was going to be it. I managed to knee him, though. I've-I've never seen anyone look so viscerally angry in my life, Henry," and she trails off for a minute as her voice gives out, a remnant of what she's about to describe.

"He pinned me to the wall and choked me," Elizabeth whispers, eyes shut against the mental visual, "and I thought I was going to die right there." She hardly notices the flurry of kisses being pressed into her hair as more comes out in a flood of words.

"I tried to push him away from me, but he didn't let up. I was probably less than a second from passing out when I hit him and managed to get my thumb in his eye. I think he let go, but I passed out anyway, and when I woke up on the ground he had the syringe. I knew it had to be some kind of sedative and I remember thinking I wouldn't know what had been done to me while I was out if he stuck me with it."

Another carefully drawn deep breath as she runs out of air. She's nearly to the finish line now.

"It was the only time I begged, Henry. I begged him not to drug me, and he just smiled, and I felt the needle going in. And I know that I shouldn't have shown him weakness like that, but it felt like the worst thing he could do. I was already concussed, and he had already kicked me in the same side that was hurt in the crash, and he had me tied so tightly it hurt. I really couldn't have fought him off much longer. Why did he have to drug me?" she sobs the last part, genuinely asking despite her frustration with herself for losing her composure when she's almost gotten it all out.

Henry, who's been quiet throughout her rambling in an attempt, she's sure, to let her get all the way through it, finally speaks. She can hear the tears mixing with the anger in his voice. "Because he's disgusting. He's vile and he wanted you incapacitated because you fought them so hard and you were so strong. So strong, babe."

She gives a weak shake of her head, tone dripping with regret. "I'd gotten that far without doing it. I shouldn't have begged him then. It probably only made him enjoy it more. I was just so afraid of what that needle meant."

…..

Henry understands that she needed to say it all out loud, that her words will make him more capable of helping her get through this however he can, that the admission will absolve her of the effects of holding it all in. That doesn't mean that in the last few minutes his wife's quiet words have not shattered his heart. He has valiantly fought the instinct to vocally soothe her as Elizabeth has gotten progressively worked up; he has refused to disrupt her train of thought when she's clearly putting herself out on a limb here.

This, though, is the last straw. He further tightens his arms around her while pulling back to meet her eyes for the first time since she began.

"Oh, Elizabeth, you don't have to defend yourself to me. Or to anyone, for that matter. You were in an impossibly painful and frightening situation, and you made it out. You came home. It doesn't matter if you broke some rule of psychology and 'made him enjoy it more.' It sounds like he would have done it anyway, babe. It sounds like he was cruel and misogynistic and immoral, all things that you are not. You made it out. That's all that matters," he tells her firmly.

It's only when she reaches up to brush the tears from his face that he realizes he's crying.

Elizabeth shakes her head ruefully. "I'm here, Henry. I'm alright."

"You are, and you will be," he responds, gently directing her head back onto his shoulder, pressing a kiss to her hand before encasing it in his own. "You were nearly finished. Go on."

"I still don't know what happened while I was sedated. When I woke up the extraction team was carrying me out, and then I was on a stretcher. I tried to fight them, too. I didn't know that they weren't just taking me to another location to do the same thing, but then one of them told me to be still, and put a headscarf on me, covered my hair. It- it isn't safe for me to be in public without one when I'm there, and I figured if they were willing to afford me that ounce of protection then whoever they were was better than who I was with before. I think I passed out again," she shrugs, "when I came to, Isabel was there, but I was just so confused. I didn't know what was happening. Everything was a haze and people were touching me and I just wanted you, Henry. It was horrible," she shivers at the memories and his heart must be physically splintering in his chest. "And then Isabel and I were on the plane, and then I was home, and I don't remember anything else. I should remember more of it, I think. I don't know what happened," and she sounds like she's finding that more than a little distressing.

"Isabel said it was a dangerously high dosage of sedative, and then they gave you painkillers at the med bay, babe. You would have been pretty out of it, but Isabel looked out for you. Don't worry about it."

"Harder than it sounds," Elizabeth sniffs.

"I know, baby."

There's no more to be said now. Later there will be, in the next days and years as the dreams become more sporadic and she works through the repercussions of a mere and eternal thirty hours.

For now, they play Scrabble together until the sun rises.

Henry thinks that maybe he should be down on his knees, begging Elizabeth to quit her job, to never be in such close proximity to such situations ever again, to never be hurt again. But that isn't how the world works, and it certainly isn't how their relationship works.

He knows that this work is what she's meant to be doing at this moment in time. She's unfathomably good at it, capable of it, and when she comes home periodically with her face alight with a piece of intelligence she can't share with him, he knows that this is her calling for right now. Elizabeth strives for accomplishments that are in microcosm saving the world, and he can't ask her to relinquish that for his peace of mind.

Instead, he prays for her safety and he basks in the time he gets with her and with the child that they made together.

They're awash in the light of dawn before they get to anything other than the merits of certain game tile arrangements.

"Well, babe," Elizabeth sighs, "I think this might have been a bit more emotional than our college all-nighters, but," and she pauses, scanning the board, "some things don't change."

"Like what?" he inquires hesitantly, catching the glint in her eye.

Elizabeth lays out 'ineptitude,' grinning at him like a fiend. "Like I can still utterly outdo you in Scrabble."

He growls despite the way her competitive joy refreshes him to see, adding her points into the tally and patting the empty bag. "That's game, huh?"

"Oh, yeah. My streak continues."

"Well, I would expect nothing else," he relents, as he dumps tiles back into the velvet, "but I would argue that we did have some pretty emotional all-nighters at college. I seem to remember each of us having a fair share of academic crises."

"I don't think I had any part in that, Henry McCord," she says mockingly.

"Is that so?" Henry snorts, pulling her back up onto the sofa with him, "Because only one of us ever teared up over a 92, babe."

"That was one time!"

"And it's seared into my memory. You acted like you had failed the class!" he laughs as she wraps an arm around his waist.

"Okay. I'll admit I had some moments of slightly crazed academic effort, but you loved it about me," she says, scowling playfully up at him.

"Yeah. I sure did," and his lips are being pressed to hers in the morning light. She's smiling too much for him to really properly kiss her, and the feeling might just be his favorite thing in the whole world.

She chuckles as she pulls back, and then after a moment grows serious. "Babe?"

"Yeah, 'lizabeth?"

"I don't know how much longer I can do this," and the somber look in her eyes as they search his stills him.

"Do what?" he asks curiously, struggling to follow where she's gone with this.

Elizabeth answers as soon as the words have left his mouth, as if it's a thought she's been on the verge of voicing for a while now. "Risk leaving the two of you."

It steals the air from his lungs for a moment to hear her express it so fully. He needs her to understand. "Listen, I'll support you while you're in it and I'll support you whenever you decide to get out of it. But in the meantime, just know that I think you're a badass, and I have absolute, indelible faith in you, Elizabeth McCord."

She kisses him again, soundly, until he might just have lost his sense of time and space. It's interrupted only by their baby, not such a baby anymore, calling for them as she wakes. They stand, still entangled with one another, and Elizabeth clutches his hips and holds him to her, eyes latched onto his.

"We'll get through this," and though her words don't take the form of a question he offers her an unwaveringly veracious answer.

"We can get through anything, as long as we're together."

They can. They do.

….

So there's ch. 7. It could be ended here, but I may have an idea of somewhere interesting to tie it in so we'll see if I'm feeling inspired. Hope you enjoyed this immense amount of dialogue.