fantods: (n.) state of extreme anxiety, distress

Yesterday had been absolutely perfect but she was excited to see her kids again. She rolled over to find Henry already awake.

"Hi."

"Hi."

Together they lay for a while until Henry couldn't hold in his question anymore. "Will you tell me about the nightmare you had last night on the couch?"

Elizabeth grimaced before nodding so slowly that Henry was not sure she was answering his question. But she answered.

She told him about the nightmare she had last night. How she felt trapped beneath his body, but somehow managed to escape.

At the end of her story, Elizabeth was staring into space, and it took a warm hand on her shoulder for her to recover. Henry was watching her. He figured she would probably wince away from his touch after talking about it, but it was the opposite. She had remained stoic in telling him about these events, as if she were talking from a distance, as if she were summing up a book she had just read and that it was not her who had gone through the story.

Then Henry stroked her arm with his thumb until the his wife's breathing resumed normal rhythm.

Henry kissed her hand gently, a silent thank you for confiding in him. And the promise that he would make her forget all the bad things in this world and getting her into this bubble of happiness in which he had lived . He kissed her for all the hands that had risen against her, for all the words of hate against her, and more importantly, Henry kissed her because he wanted her. Because he could again. Because what he felt for her had to be expressed in something other than words.

"I think it's time for breakfast." Henry smiled as he looked at the clock. It was already 10 o'clock in the morning and they were still huddled together in bed. "I wish we could just stay here forever."

"Me too, but the kids will arrive shortly."

"Do you want to do anything before they arrive?" Henry asked as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

"Get dressed." She followed Henry into the bathroom and after getting dressed in comfortable leggings and a sweatshirt, they made their way downstairs for breakfast.

Henry made breakfast while Elizabeth texted the kids to see when they were coming.

"Stevie says they will be here around noon." She informed her husband who was flipping over as omelet.

After breakfast, they played one more game of scrabble just to keep her mind of things and by the time they were done, the kids stormed in.

"Hi." Alison said cheerful as she was the first one to barge in.

"Hey." Elizabeth smiled as she held her youngest daughter and her other kids followed after.

"We brought the goods." Stevie held up a bag of pastries.

"Please tell me there's a bear claw in there." Elizabeth took the bag from her daughter and opened it.

"That's not your diet, mom." Alison corrected her and saw her mom roll her eyes.

"I need to gain weight, does it really matter how? I'm pretty sure there's more calories in one of these than whatever my dieting schedule has planned."

"You're so stubborn." Henry sighed as he handed her a plate with a bear claw.

"And yet you still love me." Elizabeth teased as she leaned in for a quick kiss, surprising all three kids.

"That's the first time we've seen you do that." Stevie smiled as she saw her parents were slowly getting closer again.

"Not the first time we've done it, though." Elizabeth winked as she took place at the table. She even missed being able to make her kids uncomfortable.

"God, mom. I like that you and dad are getting back to normal but TMI." Jason whined as he took the seat next to her.

"Oh hush." She playfully nudged her son's side and he squirmed away.

"So, how was last night?" Stevie asked her dad as they now all took place at the table to eat.

"It was perfect." Elizabeth smiled as she looked at Henry. "Your dad told me you helped him out, thank you."

"What else did you do yesterday?" Jason asked interested.

"Took a walk, talked and just chilled." Henry told her and Elizabeth once again rolled her eyes at the choice of words. However, Alison was impressed.

"Look at you, using slang." She high fived her dad who in return glanced at his wife.

"I'm not saying anything." She laughed as she remembered the conversation they had the previous night.

"Did you show mom my room yet?" Alison had given her room her a make over last year and she had been excited to show her mother.

"No, I thought you might want to do that yourself."

"After lunch." Alison agreed. Lunch went rather quickly since both parents had a late breakfast.

Alison took her mother by the hand and guided her upstairs to her room while Jason figured now was a good time to hear out his dad.

"How is mom really doing?"

"She's okay." Henry assured both kids.

"What happened the past year, dad?" Stevie now cut in. She desperately wanted to know something about what her mother's past year had looked like.

"She was taken but came back to us."

"You know that's not what I meant." Stevie argued and Henry sighed.

"Mom is home. She is safe and doing alright. It's not my place to tell you."

"We both know she's not going to tell us anything." Stevie replied and Jason jumped in.

"How are we supposed to help her? When we don't know anything about what she has been through?"

Neither kids, nor Henry, had noticed Elizabeth and Alison walking back in again.

"You don't need to know. All you need to know is that I'm home." Elizabeth spoke as she wrapped one arm around her youngest daughter who was standing next to her.

"Mom." Stevie pleaded but her mother shook her head.

"No, I won't have it. I'm okay."

"Good to know my own mother doesn't even trust me." Jason mumbled before storming out and up towards his room.

"Jason.."

"I'll go." Stevie offered but her mother stopped her.

"Let me." She took a deep breath as she dreaded walking up the stairs again. She would much rather have called Jason downstairs but she couldn't do that. Not now.

It took her longer than anticipated, but she managed to make it to his bedroom and knocked before entering. She found him on his bed with his phone in his hand.

"I'm sorry, Jason."

"Do you know how many times I just wished I could apologize to you? To just say I'm sorry for being such a pain in the ass sometimes." He made place for his mother to sit next to him on the bed and she did.

"Don't you dare ever apologize for being who you are. I love that about you and yes, you can be difficult at times but so can Ali and Stevie."

"But I could be so rebellious and the girls were so perfect and- "

She doesn't, wouldn't, let him finish that sentence. She simply wouldn't let her son believe he had done anything worth apologizing for.

"Stop." She ordered and he finally looked up at her. "None of my kids are perfect but you're all perfect to me."

He frowned as he couldn't quite understand what she meant by that statement and she noticed.

"You will understand when you have kids one day." She smiled as she realized she would be able to meet her grandchildren.

"So, you're really not telling us anything?"

"I don't know. I haven't fully processed it myself, but I know it's not fair to you guys to keep you in the dark completely."

"Whatever he did to you, we can take it. We just want to be there for you and help you."

Elizabeth let out what sounded like a whimper and then she dropped her head to his shoulder for a moment and just allowed the embrace. Allowed herself the comfort that her son was offering her.

After a long moment of this, the straightened up, wiped away her tears and stepped out of his arms.

"When did you get so grown up?"

"I will always be your baby." He told her and though he used to hate whenever she said that, he figured it might bring her comfort at a time like this.

"Will you come downstairs with me?" He nodded and together they resided downstairs.

"You okay?" Henry asked his son, who nodded in responds before joining his siblings on the couch.

"Do I need to tell them?" Elizabeth bit her lip as she stared at her kids. She wanted so badly to protect them from this, but she also knew their imagination might be worse than what actually happened.

Perhaps giving them some answers to their question would ease their minds a bit. She knew she would downplay any story she told majorly, but maybe she should answer a few of their questions.

"You don't need to do anything. If you're not ready then they can wait." Henry promised her and she nodded before looking at him.

"I don't want the media or anyone else to put stories in their heads. They were already worried about things because we weren't kissing." She took his hand and sat down with her kids opposite of them. "I know you have questions and I might not answer all, I do feel like I owe you a few answers."

"Mom, you don't owe us anything. If you don't want to tell us." Alison assured her.

"I know, but I don't want you to fill in the blanks. You could end up imagining it was much worse than it was."

"What-" Jason started before carefully thinking about his choice of words. "What did he do to you?"

"You saw the bruising on my ankle. It was a chain to prevent me from escaping." She got an encouraging squeeze in her hand from Henry and continued. "I had a few bruises which mostly faded but that was it."

"What did he want from you?" Stevie asked and Elizabeth thought about her answer for a moment.

She carefully crafted her words as not to make her kids think the worst. "Remember when I broke his nose? It was revenge but once I was there, his joy was over and I actually rarely saw him."

She refused to tell her kids about how he had made her fight in the ring. Or how he had felt her up.

"How did you get out?" Alison asked with tears visible in her eyes. Hearing her mom talk about what happened felt very overwhelming.

"One of the guards and the Filipino secretary of Defense helped me." She explained before taking her daughter in for a hug.

With her left arm she grabbed Stevie and with her right arm she pulled Jason closer.

"I don't want you to worry about me for a second. I'm home with my family, that's all I care about. "

"We love you, mom." Alison managed to choke out and Elizabeth tightened her hug.

"I love you guys."

Elizabeth could help the smile that danced on her face all day long. She felt like see could watch her family for ages.

At times she had wondered if even it would be worth it. To hang on if there was no way of getting out. But the slim chance there was of seeing her family again, was enough for her to keep going.

The agony, the pain, the fear and the nightmares were all worth it if it meant she was reunited with the people she loves.

After dinner, she wanted to take one more walk outside and Stevie offered to walk with her.

"I'm really glad you guys kept the farm. Your dad told me you pitched in." She said as she took her daughter's hand in hers and started on their walk around the house.

"We all know how much you love this place. We couldn't bare to see it go."

"Thank you."

Stevie took her a bit off the path and though Elizabeth had wanted to stay close to the house, she followed. Stevie stopped in front of an, for her mom, unfamiliar tree.

"We planted this after your funeral. When things would get hard, we would all seek comfort here." Stevie explained as she gently touched it. "I never thought I would be able to show you this."

"Basically you replaced me with a tree?" Elizabeth joked and was glad to hear her daughter laugh. "I think it's nice you had a place where you could find some sort of comfort."

They continued their walked around the house and Stevie started thinking. How confronting it must be to see the place your kids had mourned you.

"Mom, do you want us to cut down the tree?"

"What? No."

"It's just that, dad had to get rid of the candles and I just thought maybe you'd rather not have this reminder in your backyard."

"That was different." Elizabeth promised and they finished their walk in silence.

Afterwards, she said goodnight to her kids before residing upstairs. The day had drained her and she was exhausted but she loved today. Everything had been perfect and with her family around she was slowly starting to feel like herself again.

TBC