Henry and Elizabeth talk forgiveness post Dmitri. Takes place directly after the season two finale.
I've just scrubbed my hands raw, but there are some blood stains that can't be washed away. Looking up at my reflection, I don't like the person staring back at me. So, much so that I want to put my fist through this mirror. I'm scared that Henry doesn't like her either. I used to know what greater good versus individual harm meant. But that line has gotten blurry. There was a time when I chose family over country. That time has passed. I am the Secretary of State, my duty is to the American People, to execute foreign policy to their benefit. I was not allowed to be Henry's wife in that room, four months ago. I am three different people now. I'm Elizabeth, Henry's wife of over twenty five years. I'm a mom to three wonderful kids. And I'm Bess, the CIA agent turned Secretary of State and National Security expert. Bess is cold and calculating. She can play ten dimensional chess with other people's lives. She can be power hungry. Bess lets rage overcome her. She can order someone to be tortured, but least even Bess can't stomach being in the room when it happens.
"You okay, babe?" Henry pulls me away from my reflection, genuine concern written on his face. I find myself shaking my head, and he quickly envelopes me in a hug. It's a real hug, the kind we haven't shared since before Geneva. And I lose it. I grab on to him, holding my husband closer than I have in what feels like lifetime. I start to cry quietly into his chest. He holds onto me, just as tight in the small bathroom of our Finnish hotel room.
"What's wrong, baby?" I can hear the exhaustion in his voice. This has been so hard on him. He had to come to terms with what intelligence work actually is. Henry doesn't do great with gray. Ethics are black and white, sins are black and white. It's the religious trauma he has deeply ingrained that he refuses to acknowledge, that makes him less likely to weigh the hypothetical greater good against a singular person being harmed, because the individual harm is also a mortal sin. So, I flew us both halfway around the world to help him make this right. Because, selfishly, I need us back. Without Elizabeth, I'm only left with Bess.
"Do you hate me?" I say, but now I'm not sure I want to know the answer.
"Of course not." He says quickly, like didn't have to think about it. I feel relief start to flood my body, but I need to hear him tell me he loves me. I need him to mean it.
He pulls away from me and cups my face. And I look down in shame.
"Elizabeth, look at me." He says softly. I look up and our eyes meet.
"I. Love. You." He says it slowly, delivering it with a kind of sincerely that runs a shiver down my spine. But I'm not in a place to be convinced.
"Are you sure, because right now, I think I hate me." It's honest, because Elizabeth is the honest one and Bess is the liar.
"I love you." He repeats. "Why don't you love you?"
"I've done unforgivable things, Henry." And I have, because after all Elizabeth and Bess are one in the same. He shakes his head and then speaks.
"Unforgivable things don't exist." He pauses, "I know that you and I have different feelings about God, and the Church…" This time a longer pause and I can feel him thinking, filtering through his font of knowledge.
"When I got home from Iraq, the first thing I did was go to confession." He never told me that. As I open my mouth to say so, he speaks again.
"I know that I never told you that. And, I'm sorry for that, but I have a point." I nod encouraging him to continue.
"What I learned that day, is that the only thing I had to do to be forgiven, was let myself be forgiven." That's a ridiculous notion, he is the one that has to forgive me. I didn't wrong the God that he believes in, I wronged him.
"How can I let myself be forgiven, if you won't offer your forgiveness?" I ask him pointedly.
"You don't need my forgiveness. I need yours, and I need to forgive myself for what I did. I love you, Elizabeth. You are my wife and my best friend. I know who you are. You are a good person with an impossible job. I've taken a lot of my own guilt out on you, these last few months, it was unfair and mean. I am very sorry." He ends with tears in his eyes, mirroring the ones I have in mine. I pull his head in to give him a chaste kiss.
"I forgive you." I say, pulling his mouth to mine once again.
"What about yourself?" He asks.
"I might have to work on that one for a while." I reply honestly.
"I understand." He kisses me again, this time deeper, with more passion. When he pulls away, he smiles, his eyes actually sparked with genuine happiness at my presence. Maybe we are both ready to put this behind us. Ready to move on together. I kiss him again, this time throwing my arms around his neck. His tongue starts to graze my bottom lip, asking to deepen our kiss. I let him. It's been so long since we've made love. We've had sex sure, but it has been lacking connection. These last four months we've used each other's bodies as means for self-pleasure. I've missed him. I pull out of the kiss.
"Henry, take me to bed." And he does.