Disclaimer: I do not own Madam Secretary or any of the characters used in this story. What is written here is for entertainment purposes only. No infringement is intended and this story is not for profit.
Summary: Elizabeth and Henry struggle to spend some alone time.
Rating: T
Genre: Romance
It was 5 o'clock in the morning and neither parent had to get up for work yet.
Elizabeth turned over to her side to find her husband watching her. She blinked sleepily, blindly feeling for his hand under the covers.
"You're up early," she said, yawning.
"Couldn't sleep. You got home pretty late last night," said Henry.
She burrowed herself closer to him. "Conrad had us pull an all-nighter."
Henry traced a finger down his wife's jaw. "I miss you."
"I do too!" said Elizabeth, now fully awake. "I don't want to sound a bit clingy but, I miss being with you... As your wife not a mother or an analyst."
Henry sighed, dropping his hand to pull her close to him. He draped a leg over her body. "I know what you mean. There's never any time for us; the kids need our supervision and we have work."
"When was the last time we even had sex?"
There was a pause. And then, "I think when Jason was conceived."
"No!"
"Yeah."
"That's... It hasn't been that long, has it?" Elizabeth asked hesitantly.
Henry shrugged. "Well, if we had sex within the last two years, I honestly can't remember between the diaper changes and Ali's terrible twos."
"And now it's Jason's terrible twos," sighed Elizabeth.
"We can have sex now," suggested Henry, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Yeah?" Elizabeth grinned.
Henry matched the look on her face, moving atop her and pinning her under him. "If we're lucky, the kids won't be up for a pretty long while. And who knows when's the next time we'll have a quiet moment like this all to ourselves?"
"Hmm. I like the way you think."
Henry leaned down for a kiss and they both took their time getting intimately reacquainted.
And then there was laughter.
Elizabeth turned her head away, looking for its source. "Ali!" Their four year old daughter was standing in their room, watching them curiously.
Silently thanking the saints that she and Henry hadn't progressed further than kissing and necking, she sat up, feeling like somebody dropped a bucket of cold water on her head.
"What is it, baby?"
"I'm hungry. Can we make pancakes?"
"Of course! Why don't you go wake your sister so she can help you with preparing the ingredients? Daddy and I'll be down in a minute."
Alison nodded cheerfully and then ran out.
Elizabeth slumped back on the bed.
Henry rubbed her arm. "Try again later?"
Elizabeth chuckled, "Or in a year."
They both got up and out of bed, walking out of the room together.
Entering the kitchen, they were greeted by the sight of their eldest daughter standing on a footstool, taking down ingredients from the cabinet, and handing them down to Alison who set them on the island. They must have also woken Jason because he was blearily rubbing his eyes from his crossed legged position on the kitchen floor.
The sight was endearing and it made both parents forget for a moment that this was the source of the bedroom interruption.
Henry clasped his hands together. "Alright! Pancakes! Who's gonna be my little helper today?"
Alison and Stevie jumped, hands shooting to the air.
While her husband and the kids worked on breakfast, Elizabeth scooped up her son and got him a cup of milk. After putting him on his seat at the table, she moved away to make coffee.
Amidst pouring coffee grounds, Elizabeth suddenly felt arms snake around her waist and a pair of lips to her neck.
She shivered.
"You wanna do Take Two at noon?" Henry whispered in her ear.
Elizabeth laughed. "We're scheduling this now?"
"Well, we have to make time for us." Henry kissed the tip of her earlobe. "Or at least, that's what Dr. Phil says." He pulled away and turned back to their daughters. "Are those eggs done, noodle?"
"Jason has that playdate," replied Elizabeth pouring coffee over two mugs. "And Dr. Phil? Really?"
Henry shrugged and then poured pancake mix over the pan. "How about at two?"
"Meeting." Elizabeth handed him his cup of coffee and then joined Jason at the table. "How about at 4? That'll give us approximately thirty minutes before I take Stevie and Ali for some mother-daughter bonding at the mall."
"Mom promised to buy those roller skate shoes, daddy," said Stevie.
Henry smiled at Stevie. "Those are the coolest shoes!" To Elizabeth, he said, "Can't. Departmental meeting." He placed one finished pancake on a plate and gave it to Stevie who carried it to the table for Jason to eat.
"Ok. I have it," he announced. "After we put the kids to bed. They'll be too tired from the day to even prolong taking a bath which means we'll have some time to ourselves. That's a sure deal."
Elizabeth smiled at him before returning to cutting Jason's pancakes into bite-sized bits. "I'll hold you to that, professor."
...
Elizabeth was distracted.
Instead of keeping an eye on her son during his playdate, she kept thinking about what was going to happen tonight. If Henry was right and it really has been two years since they've done any lovemaking, she wanted it to be perfect.
Maybe she could buy something in the mall later, something sexy. Not that Henry wouldn't sleep with her if she didn't have sexy lingerie on. But when she does, the look on his face shoots tingles all over her body. And she desperately missed those tingles.
Just then, a painful wail snapped her out of her musings and she looked towards the kids to find Jason sprawled on the floor.
Elizabeth rushed to him, another mother already kneeling down by his side.
"What happened?" Elizabeth asked as the other mother handed Jason to her, a bleeding cut on his eyebrow.
"Managed to fall off the chair, head hit the T-Rex." The mother looked on sympathetically, pointing to the toy dinosaur. "I think it's more of the shock of it than the pain."
"Ooh, baby." Elizabeth looked her son over. She would have to clean the wound, which wasn't going to be easy with Jason squirming and crying.
It was a full ten minutes before she managed a bandaid to her son's split brow. It was another five minutes of comforting and soothing and then after that, Jason was running all over the place with the other children, his wound forgotten.
"Kids bounce back fast," said one mother. Elizabeth nodded in agreement.
She sent a quick text to Henry. "Jason fell. Nothing serious just a split eyebrow. He's ok now but he might be a little fussy later when you pick him up at day care."
Her husband replied shortly after. "I'll try my best to be mommy for him when he asks for you because we know he will. Speaking of later, I can squeeze ten minutes before my departmental meeting. I can call you. I miss you."
Elizabeth smirked. She glanced at Jason and then jokingly texted back, "I'm not going to engage in phone sex with you, Henry."
"Fine. I'll just call somebody else with my ten minutes."
"I think Dr. Phil has 5 minutes free."
"'She's being a prude, Phil.'"
Elizabeth giggled silently. "Seriously though, I would appreciate you calling me. Miss your voice."
"It's a date then. Don't keep your phone on silent. We all know you can't feel it vibrate."
"Will do, Captain."
"Oooh. Captain. Are we going to roleplay tonight?" Elizabeth can practically hear her husband's seductive voice in her ear.
"You'll have to wait until I get home to find out."
After that, Elizabeth put her phone away, not wanting to get distracted a second time. Then, she continued to watch Jason, eyes never leaving him again for the rest of the hour.
By 3:30 PM, Elizabeth wished she could bounce back just as fast as her son. She was still in her meeting at Langley and things were complicated, not to mention tense. Well, working to avoid global catastrophes was always tense but she wished it would leave her with a little bit of energy to spare for a shopping trip with two excited little girls.
"I'm gonna have to pass on that phone call, babe." She texted Henry. "Iraq isn't being very nice today and Conrad extended the meeting. I can't even leave the room to pee."
"No problem. I'll let you make it up to me with a roleplay of my choice."
Elizabeth stifled a laugh, not wanting to push her boss' buttons if he thought she was taking this meeting lightly.
With a reply of "Anybody for you," she put her phone face down at the table, and paid attention to the meeting again.
...
Henry had started out the day feeling optimistic and excited, even a bit naughty and playful, what with texting his wife majority of the day. But as he spent more and more time grading awful papers that simply didn't get better, and then learning in his departmental meeting that his superiors wanted the midterm grades a week early, his good mood had spiraled into a panic.
After the meeting, he snuck a few extra minutes cramming grades and reports, and then rushed out of the office to beat the traffic in order to pick up Jason from day care.
By the time he walked in the threshold of their house, all he wanted was to sleep. He was mentally exhausted but dinner needed to be cooked before the girls got home.
Boiling noodles and simmering pasta sauce at the same time, Henry bit back a desire to curse as a grumbling Jason ran up to him and cried for Elizabeth. Henry tried to pick him up but Jason fought against him.
"Jase, mommy isn't here right now. She'll be back soon," said Henry, crouching down to his son's level.
"Mommy!" his son insisted, tears streaming down his face.
"How about we watch some ninja turtles while we wait, huh?"
Jason only shrieked even louder.
"Come on, Jason! We're supposed to be a team!" said Henry, standing up to remove the pan of pasta sauce and transferring it to a bowl. Then, he picked Jason up (who resisted) and tried to keep him occupied, at least until the noodles were cooked and mommy came home.
...
"We're home!" cried Elizabeth, kicking the front door closed behind her as she balanced shopping bags in her arms.
"In here!" Henry cried back from the living room.
Stevie and Alison ran straight to him.
"Daddy! Daddy! Look at our new shoes!" cried Alison.
"Wow! Very pretty!"
"It has skates, see?" added Stevie, rolling around him.
"Whaaat! That's amazing! I want one!"
Elizabeth dumped the shopping bags in the foyer, calling out, "No skating in the house!"
"Uh-oh. You heard mom."
Elizabeth joined them in the living room. Alison and Stevie were retracting the wheels of their shoes while Jason was looking very put out and red faced beside Henry on the couch. The minute the boy saw his mother, he held up his arms, wanting to be carried.
"Hi," said Elizabeth, tiredly pecking her husband on the lips and then lifting Jason up who immediately wrapped his arms tight around her, head resting on the crook of her neck.
"Hi." Noting her lack of energy, Henry commented. "I see the girls wore you out at the mall. Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?"
Elizabeth snorted. "You look pretty beat yourself."
"Well, teenagers, department heads, dinner and a two-year-old can do that to you."
Elizabeth sent her husband an inquiring look with a point at Jason.
"He missed his mommy," Henry explained.
"And mommy wasn't here," Elizabeth concluded sadly. She rubbed Jason's back. "It's that eyebrow. I'm sorry, baby. I'm here now."
"We better eat." Henry got up and herded them to the kitchen. "Wash hands before eating, girls."
"Has the little guy eaten?" Elizabeth asked Henry as he pulled out a chair for her. She sat down, Jason still clinging to her neck, and ate slowly.
"Hmm mm. He was really hungry after loudly sobbing for you. And then once he finished eating, he just sulked for you some more"
"Maybe Jason's sad he didn't get to go shopping too," said Alison. She reached out a hand to touch Jason's head. "It's okay, Jason. You can share my skating shoes."
Elizabeth smiled gratefully at her daughter. "You're such a nice big sister, noodle."
After dinner, Jason finally fell asleep in Elizabeth's arms and she put him to bed early. The two girls, however, were still brimming with energy even after their bath. When Elizabeth and Henry checked up on them after washing the dishes, they found Stevie reading a story to her younger sister.
"But why does the cat only have four mittens?" asked Alison.
"Because the story said so," replied Stevie.
Henry chuckled before interrupting them, "Alright. Time to sleep, girls."
"But daddy the cat's mittens!"
"Will still be there tomorrow. Now, you have to go to bed because you have school in the morning."
Stevie nodded. "And you and mommy have work."
"That's right," said Elizabeth, taking the book away and putting it on top of the dresser. "We have to get the right amount of sleep so we're not tired tomorrow."
"I'm not tired," insisted Alison, trying to stifle a yawn but failing.
"Your mouth says you are," said Henry, tucking the youngest in her bed while Elizabeth did the same to Stevie.
With all of that over, the two parents walked back to their own bedroom and finally found themselves alone together.
Silently, they changed into their sleepwear and brushed their teeth. Then, they walked over to their respective sides of the bed and locked eyes. This was it. This was the moment where they get some much deserved alone time to do things not related to their children or work at all.
After a day of imagining all of the things he'd do to his wife, Henry couldn't believe the words were coming out of his mouth, "You want to just—"
"Sleep?" interrupted Elizabeth.
Henry nodded appreciatively. "Sleep."
"Sleep is still sexy," reassured Elizabeth, climbing into bed.
"Right?" Henry climbed in after her. "Sleepy is the new sexy." He spooned against her and they both ended up losing consciousness, too drained to do anything more.
Maybe they'll have better luck tomorrow.
A/N: Tell me what you think! I'm also running out of ideas so if you guys have any requests, just drop it in a review.