A/N: This is a pretty personal story. It's mainly about healing, but there will be triggering scenes.
January 5, 2019
She sees him across the room. She wonders for a second if its even is him. But when she hears him laugh, she knows. She doesn't know what he's doing here, or how he got in here. But then again, she never knew his name. She never knew anything about him. But she feels his presence, and it overwhelms all of her senses. She hasn't thought about him in years. Her life went on and time clouded her memory, or she intentionally buried it. Either way she's fine now, Twenty-Eight years to the day later. Well, she's usually fine now, but in this moment, she's caught off guard. She needs to get out of this room, she can't share space with him. She needs to get out of here. Her dress feels so tight all of a sudden.
Henry doesn't notice the man. But, he notices his wife. He notices her polite smile falter for a fraction of a second. He notices her hold on her champagne flute get dangerously tight. He notices her breathing change, and picks up on her nervous shift in weight. He watches her excuse herself from her conversation and make her way to the corner of the room. She looks at him, her eyes silently pleading for him to take her out of here. He picks up on it quick.
"Excuse me, Mr. Foreign Minister." He excuses himself from the Bolivian Foreign Minister, and makes his way
"Are you okay?" He looks at her fully concerned about her sudden change in mood.
"Please take me home." She pleads with him. He looks at his watch and decides that no one here will miss the Secretary of State this late in the evening. And even if they would, he wouldn't care. Elizabeth's well-being will always come before the duties of her office. At least to him.
"Yeah, let's go." He offers her his arm and she takes it. He leads her out of the White House and to her motorcade. The ride to their home is silent. But Elizabeth's breathing doesn't even out and her grip on his hand only seems to tighten. He's concerned now. He can't figure out what happened. It was a lively party, she even seemed to be having fun. One second she was joking with the Brazilian Ambassador and the next, she was begging to get out of the room.
When they enter the house Elizabeth collapses onto the couch. Henry spends a few moments studying her. She's staring off into space. He can tell that her mind is not currently in the room with him. He takes a seat on the coffee table across from her.
"Babe?" He grabs her hands gently and holds them trying to bring her back to him. She says nothing as she continues to look through him. She spent too much time, convincing herself that it didn't happen, purposefully forgetting.
"Elizabeth, what happened?" He tries again when he gets no response.
"I'm sorry." She lets out a sob pulling her hands out of his. She holds her head and cries. Henry moves quickly to sit next to her and pulls her into his arms.
"It's okay, babe." He holds her as she cries. He doesn't know what else to do. His worry grows. He finds himself going over, not just today, but the last few weeks, trying to place what could've caused this. But he can't land on anything.
She can't believe she's crying like this. She hasn't done this in over twenty years. She never told Henry, she never told anyone. She didn't mean to keep it from him, there was never a good time to talk about it. And she was fine. She is fine. It's the lie she tells herself over and over and over. You're fine, Lizzie. But, she knows the truth.
"I'm not okay. I'm not fine." She mumbles the admission. Henry kisses her head.
"That's okay, you don't have to be fine." He tells her, because he knows she's not fine. Henry knows she has demons. She might not talk about them, but he knows her.
"What happened tonight?" He tries again.
"I saw him." She keeps her head tucked into his chest, she doesn't want to see his face. Not Twenty-Eight years after she should've told him.
"Saw who?" He wants to give her the space she needs to talk to him, let her do it on her time. But he's so worried about her and he needs to know. So he can help, he wants nothing more than to help her.
"The man who raped me." She's never said it out loud before. She's never even said it in her head. She's called it the incident or the attack. But never rape. The word was always too harsh, it burst her bubble of willful forgetfulness. Henry's hold on her loosens ever so slightly in his surprise. She feels his confusion and his hurt.
"What? Who? When? What?" He can't make a full sentence. Of all the things he thought she might say, that was not on the list. He feels her sigh in his arms and she straightens her body and moves away from him. She looks at him and decides it's time. Elizabeth will be silent about this no more.
"I was raped. When you were deployed. I saw the man who did it at the party." Henry feels like he should be much more surprised. But if he's truly honest with himself, he knew about what happened to her. But she ignored it and denied it and so did he. It was probably the wrong thing to do, he knows that. He extends his hand to her and she takes it.
"Do you want to tell me about it?" He hears how unsure he sounds, he doesn't know if he wants to know. They've both ignored it for so long. But if she's been holding on to this for nearly thirty years, then the least he can do is listen to her. He can bear witness to her story.
January 2, 1991
She wakes up in her husband's arms. It will be the last time she does that for a while. She doesn't think about the possibility that this could be the last time she does, ever. Henry got the call two days ago. Things are heating up in Iraq. He's going to be on standby. She knows she signed up for this, she agreed to marry an active duty Marine, but it doesn't make it easier. And it doesn't make her any less worried. He's well trained, she knows that too. He was the top of his class at flight school, which was not a surprise, the man had never gotten less than an A in anything. She feels him run his hand over her side and she kisses his chest.
"Good morning, babe." His voice is still full of sleep. They didn't do a lot of that last night, which is probably not the best on the day of his deployment.
"Good morning." He turns and checks the clock. They have three hours before they need to leave for the base. So he can board the aircraft carrier. He's prepared to go. He's in peak physical shape. He can flay his plane in his sleep. He has all of his benefit papers filled out. He's made peace with his God. He's ready, until he thinks about leaving his new wife. The last thing he wants to do is leave her a widow.
"I'll make you pancakes for breakfast." She smiles. His cooking has to be in the top five list of things she will miss while he's gone. He gets out of bed and heads to the kitchen. She walks to their closet and pulls out his duffle. She pulls out the bible that is packed on the very top of the bag. Then out of her nightstand she grabs the Polaroid she took for him, her posed naked body stares back at her, with her sharpie writing. For when you miss me… XO Elibet. She tucks it safely in the pages of the bible and re-packs it just as he had it before.
They eat their pancakes, keeping their conversation light. But when breakfast is over a dark cloud appears over them. He goes to change, reappearing in his Service Class As. It's her least favorite uniform. She loves him in the Dress Blues and finds him sexier than tom cruise in his flight suit. But the green one reminds her too much of the danger he will soon find himself in.
The drive to the base is silent. It's not a heavy silence, but it's not entirely comfortable either. It's just neither of them know what to say. There aren't enough words to express any of their feelings, or enough time to have those conversations. So they chose silence, drowned out by Peter Frampton comes alive in cassette. The third cassette of it Elizabeth's owned, because she keeps wearing them out. But soon, Henry is humming along to their song and everything's okay.
"I love you." She kisses him. It's their goodbye kiss, and they don't waste it. It's full of passion as they both put everything they have into it, just in case it's their last.
"I'll see you later." He whispers in her ear. They both know better than to say goodbye. Its bad luck. She watches him get on the ship. And then she watches as other get on, not quite ready to go. But soon enough the civilians are asked to leave the base. So she gets in her car and drives the trek back to DC already lonely.
When she gets home, it's dark. She's planning what to say in the first letter she's going to write Henry. That she doesn't notice the man watching her.