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Chapter Four

Even as she sank into his embrace, Henry could feel the tension radiating through Elizabeth, her body stiff and tense against his. He fancied that he could practically feel her entire body humming with panic and adrenaline, the trauma still too fresh and recent for her to have yet had time to process the fact that she was safe.

He shifted his arms against her, hoping that she found his presence comforting. He thought that she did. She was certainly clinging on to him like he was her lifeline.

Henry's heart was still thumping solidly in his chest, and he had a small taste of how Elizabeth must have felt when months ago she had been told that he had been shot and had made the trip to the hospital to see him. If it had been even a fraction of this…

He raised one hand to cup the back of her head, fingers smoothing over her hair. She shifted her head against his chest and he could smell the faint tang of sweat and vomit, and he remembered that Carl had told him she had been throwing up in the car.

He drew back slightly to see her face. "Hey," he whispered.

"Hi." Elizabeth looked like she didn't know what to feel. Her eyes were slightly glassy, her pupils blown wide, and Henry wondered if that was a normal response to fright or a sign of a concussion.

"Tell me you're okay," he said.

"I'm okay," she answered automatically.

Immediately he kicked himself, realising his mistake. He might be in need of reassurance, but more than that, he needed to know the truth. Of course she was going to tell him that she was okay when he asked her to. Of course she was going to say that she was fine even when she obviously wasn't. He tried a different approach. "What did the doctor say?"

"Henry, I'm fine." She looked directly at him, her expression insistent but the look in her eyes and the wince she couldn't conceal suggested she wasn't quite telling the truth.

"Have you even seen the doctor yet?"

Elizabeth stepped back, breaking their embrace. Defiance coloured her face as instinct no doubt told her to defend herself. No doubt she was feeling a little on edge and wound up knotted and tight. "I've been trying to make sure that everyone is okay. That there were no casualties. That –"

"Ma'am, everyone is fine. Nobody was hit." The adamant voice belonged to Matt the DS agent, who was standing against the back wall next to Elizabeth's unused hospital bed, the very picture of professionalism despite the stress of the situation.

Even though he had heard Elizabeth talking to someone as he stood outside the door, Henry had hardly even noticed they weren't alone in the room.

Elizabeth said, insistent, "My staff –"

"Were in the car behind us, ma'am. Everybody made it out. They're all fine." It was obvious it wasn't the first time Matt had made the reassurance.

While she was still processing that statement and before she could ask another question, Henry cut in to ask the more reliable source, "Has she seen the doctor yet?"

"Not yet. I'll tell them they can come in now." From the way Matt said it before he slipped quietly out the door, Henry got the picture that Elizabeth had, against advice, banished the medical professionals from the room until she had been certain that every person who had been at the speech that evening was accounted for.

He couldn't deny that he admired his wife's dedication and the extent to which she cared, but when he'd so recently been told by one of her agents that someone had tried to kill her and then watched the footage of the shooting as he sat in the backseat of a car? Henry's interests were currently a little more singular than that. He pulled her back into his arms, needing the reassurance of her body against his. "Oh, God, babe. I was so worried. That must have been terrifying."

Elizabeth was silent for a long moment, standing still and stiff in his arms, before she said, her voice quiet and hollow, "I felt it, you know. The heat of the bullet. I felt it rushing past my face."

Closing his eyes against the tears that threatened to spill and in the hope that the darkness would block out the image of a bullet passing so close to her she must have been able to feel it disturbing the strands of her hair, Henry swallowed heavily. He was just about to reply when Elizabeth spoke once more.

"I don't know who did this, Henry."

He found he couldn't quite read her tone and so he pulled back slightly to try to read her face instead, lifting his hand to stroke her cheek. "I know," he said. "But Carl said the shooter is in custody. We'll get answers, babe."

He thought that the real question – the one he had been able to hear clearly in what Elizabeth didn't say – was why the hell did they do this?

She nodded distractedly, and apparently a little too hard - her face suddenly blanched and her hands clutched at his arms as she swayed on her feet. She blinked like she was trying to clear her vision or maybe quell a resurgence of nausea.

She really needed to see the doctor. "Elizabeth?" Worry buzzing through him, Henry gripped her securely and was just about to call out for help when, as if on cue, the door opened and a tall woman in a doctor's coat stepped inside.

"Madam Secretary, thank you for seeing me at last," she said, and it was clear that she highly disapproved in the delay to examine her patient. Her gaze flicked to Henry. "And you must be Dr McCord."

"Yes."

She turned back to Elizabeth, her manner brusque but good-natured, like she knew exactly what was required to deal with this particular difficult patient. "Let's see how we're doing, shall we?"

The combination of the memories of the gunshots and Dr Gerber's careful examination were threatening to overwhelm her.

Elizabeth was aware of the doctor carefully probing at a sensitive spot just above her temple and the sharp throb of pain that rushed through her head in answer, but she wasn't really fully present in the sterile hospital room.

The memories kept pulling her back.

She had felt the first bullet before she heard it.

It had been from nowhere, the brief heat of something flashing past, ruffling the strands of her hair and snatching her attention from her speech. It had only been instinct that told her that something wasn't right. The bullet was already embedded in the wall behind her by the time she registered the crack of the gunshot.

"What did you do before you became Secretary of State?"

Dr Gerber's question filtered through the panicked jumble of her mind and Elizabeth clung onto it, grasping onto something that was familiar, forcing herself back into the present. The doctor was obviously testing her memory. "I was a college professor. Before that I was in the CIA."

"Good. Look here for me." The doctor held up one finger and indicated that Elizabeth should follow her movements.

She did as instructed, feeling the strain on her eyes and blinking rapidly to seek relief. A glint reflected off the wedding ring on the doctor's hand, like sunlight glancing off polished gunmetal.

The gun.

Had she seen the glimmer of the gun in the crowd? No, probably not, although her brain was trying to fool her into thinking that she might have. But the gun was probably made from dull black plastic, and she hadn't even known to look for one until it was already almost over.

But she had been aware of the second bullet as it slammed into the podium in front of her at the same time as the shot rang out, the echo muffled by the bodies of the crowd. It was only then that she had realised exactly what it was, and the icy burn of adrenaline had flooded into her veins as she stood frozen up on the stage, undecided in how to react. Caught in the need to keep her professional composure in deference to the cameras, and to run for her life.

Then DS had barrelled into her and taken the decision away from her, reigniting her instinct to flee.

A warm hand rested on her shoulder for a moment before stroking gently down her arm, soothing her rising distress. Henry. Elizabeth looked up at him as he stood at her side and saw the worry etched into the lines of his face, and wished that she could take it away from him. Her head throbbed as she twisted to see him properly, but the feel of him standing so close beside her made her feel at least a little better.

It was clear that Henry had been scared.

She felt guilty about that. The shooter had been aiming at her, and yet she wasn't the only one who felt the fear. The shooter had been aiming at her, and while she knew that later that thought would fill her with anger and defiance and a purpose to do something, at that moment all she had was lingering terror and aches and pains and the guilt that other people had been made to feel scared as well.

She had heard the screams of the crowd as her agents had closed in around her and spirited her back towards her car.

She could see the look on Henry's face.

"Ma'am, we're almost done," said the doctor, prompting Elizabeth to look back in her direction.

"I'm fine," she said, not for the first time, even as she knew that it was an obvious lie badly told. Elizabeth was aware she was breathing rapidly but there was nothing she could do to stop it and, damn, her head hurt from the collision and the car ride from hell and the tension she had been holding within her since that first bullet shot past close enough for her to feel its heat against the side of her face.

Dr Gerber's calm voice filtered through her building stress. "Can you tell me who the President is?"

Good. An easy one. "Dalton." She reached up one hand and the feel of Henry's fingers closing warmly around hers anchored her, a little.

"Which party does President Dalton represent?"

Trick question. "He's an independent."

"Good." The doctor may have been speaking in response to Dalton's political allegiances or Elizabeth's correct response to the memory test. "Nearly there. If you could just look straight ahead for me. You're going to see a bright light."

Elizabeth looked straight ahead, over the doctor's shoulder at the blank wall in front of her, forcing herself to focus. A light flashed into her eyes, no doubt the doctor checking for abnormal pupil responses. The intensity of it set off a stabbing pain in her temple and she squeezed her eyes shut against it for a moment.

She was hardly aware that she had moaned in discomfort until she felt Henry's hand moving softly over her hair as he murmured, "It's okay, babe. You're okay."

She forced herself to open her eyes and looked ahead again, her head feeling heavy and filled with fog but her eyes slowly acclimatising to the doctor's light.

Then it moved, flashing quickly, and it was only the feel of Henry's hand wrapped tight around hers that kept her in the moment, made her realise she was safe.

Stopped her thinking it was the flash of a bullet as it sped through the air towards her.