~~~ Part 3 ~~~
After she left the room, he let the tears he had been holding in fall. He felt a sense of loss, though what he had lost, he couldn't easily articulate. Maybe not their marriage, but at least their marriage as it had been, or his marriage as he had thought it had been. He and Elizabeth were so often on the same wavelength, able to understand each other without words. That connection seemed lost. It was rare for him to be so surprised by what she was thinking. And for him to be surprised by something she was thinking about their relationship? For him to have no clue where it was coming from? His confidence in them had been shaken. He felt so lost. So confused.
Where was this coming from? Had Elizabeth felt lonely while she'd been away? But she'd been so busy on this trip, not only with work, but with Jason and Alison, and then the earthquake. He'd texted her frequently, but because of her schedule, they'd really only talked on the phone when she'd called him. Should he have called more? Should he have kept her up at night with phone sex, rather than letting her get the sleep that he'd assumed she'd needed? And if she'd been lonely, why the lukewarm welcome on return? Why the need for a relationship conversation first thing home? Could it be something to do with the earthquake and him not being there then? It must have been hard for her with both work and Jason and Alison.
He'd already felt bad about missing the trip and disappointing Elizabeth, and now he felt even worse. He'd figure out a way to accompany her on at least her next few trips. Could he figure out how to arrange his schedule around hers so that he could be available whenever she was free? He would definitely try. His book could wait, but there wasn't much he could do about the unpredictability of his schedule until the NSA work wrapped up.
He sighed. There was still that. He'd had every intention of telling Elizabeth about Stevie running into him as soon as she'd gotten home - he'd tried to tell her on the phone before even - but she hadn't given him a chance. He'd tell her tomorrow; he'd tell her he was working with the NSA if he had to. And surely she'd understand why he hadn't told her right away. He and Elizabeth had juggled their careers and dedication to service with their relationship ever since the beginning.
Which is why it didn't make sense to him that such a short time away could have shaken things up so much, could break or threaten to break them. But if loneliness wasn't the trigger for Elizabeth's bombshell - a metaphor he didn't use lightly - then what was? Was she interested in someone else? Who? Someone else at State? Blake? Jay? Nadine? Someone he hadn't met?
Was he even capable of having an open relationship if he agreed that was the best path forward? Could he put up with Elizabeth having "temporary fancies" without being overwhelmed by his own reactions? Without taking out his emotions on her, or without them otherwise spilling out and poisoning their relationship as lovers, partners, best friends? And what if her fancies became more than temporary? What if she wanted an ongoing serious relationship with someone else? Would there be any of her time left for him? Would she even want there to be? Was an open relationship a slippery slope towards an inevitable divorce? Or a marriage without eros?
Should they tell the kids? He and Elizabeth were entitled to some privacy, but them having an open relationship had the potential to affect them greatly. Would they even be able to keep this from the kids? He hadn't even managed to hide meeting his handler from Stevie. If Elizabeth were seeing someone else, how would they hide it from the media? Better the kids hear it from them than from some trashy reporter, but what would they say? This was not a family meeting he was at all prepared for. Would Elizabeth even have time for a family meeting? Forget worrying about if Elizabeth would have any time for him if she were in another relationship, would she have any time for the kids? He was willing to make sacrifices for her, but the kids shouldn't have to. They'd already given up so much because of her job.
He was on the brink of losing himself in a spiral of negativity. Time for some positive thinking, or at least less-negative thinking. Was there anything positive he could think of about all of this? He watched the second hand on his watch do a full rotation while he thought. There were some positives he could focus on. Elizabeth was communicating; she had told him what she wanted. She wasn't sneaking around (and between her CIA training and him being used to her unpredictable schedule, she was probably quite capable of sneaking around without him knowing it if she'd wanted). She wasn't leaving him. Quite the opposite, she said she wanted to come home to him. And Elizabeth had ended the conversation with "I love you". He probably should have said it back, but she'd rendered him speechless.
Was there any other possible explanation than that she was interested in someone else? Maybe there was no one in particular, but for some reason now she wanted to explore her sexuality more? Maybe she wanted to be with a woman. Maybe she wanted to try something she didn't think he'd be into. Or maybe she was just feeling a little bored and looking for something new. Maybe he needed to spice up their sex life, install a harness in their bedroom or something.
Could she feel guilty about her long work days and work trips taking her away, and have somehow convinced herself that she owed it to him to let him pursue someone who was more available? Because she absolutely doesn't. Of course, he missed her when she was in India or when she'd pulled all-nighters, but he could deal. They'd frequently managed being apart for extended periods before. (And besides, how could she have thought someone else would be a substitute for her?)
He hoped she didn't feel guilty about working long hours. He understood and accepted the demands of her job, he'd encouraged her to take the job, and he was being, he thought, or at least he was trying to be, fully supportive. He hadn't literally been beside her on this trip, but he had taken his vow to be the man beside the woman seriously. And he'd done everything he could to keep her guilt at bay: he thought he'd adequately assured her that being a wife and mother who worked late was just normal life stuff, that neither he nor the kids were going to turn into monsters because she wasn't present every moment, and that the two of them were having plenty of sex. Maybe they weren't having enough sex for her? Though if that were the case, surely she would have just said so or have initiated more sex.
No, it was more likely that despite his repeated assurances that he didn't feel neglected in favor of her job, she didn't really believe him. He sighed again. No matter what he said or did now, he couldn't take back his words from over a decade ago. "If you go to Baghdad, then go, but I can't pretend it's not going to affect me. It's definitely gonna affect the kids." It had be true, and he hadn't meant it to be so hurtful, but he knew it played into her parenting fears. Worse, his ambiguous "If you go to Baghdad, I don't know what it's gonna look like when you come back." He could hear himself saying those words as clearly as if he'd said them yesterday, which meant Elizabeth probably could too. Would it always come back to that? He'd known as soon as the words were out of his mouth, that it had been the wrong thing to say.
He'd never meant he might leave Elizabeth while she was away; he'd meant he didn't know how her time in Baghdad would have changed her, and how (if?) they'd all have been able to readjust when she returned. It had been hard enough for the two of them to rebuild their relationship after he'd come back from the Gulf War, hard enough for her to process her experiences after her short deployments for the CIA, while simultaneously compartmentalizing enough to be present for the kids. Especially that final trip. He'd tried to be supportive when she returned, but it was hard. Initially, she'd shut him out completely, and then there was the period when she was working on the report. He greatly respected what she was working to achieve and her courage in standing up for her belief, but she had thrown herself into writing the report with a vengeance that he'd worried was unhealthy for her both physically and mentally. The idea that she'd go back to Iraq and for so long, knowing the challenges she would be up against there and how being there had affected her before... He'd been overcome with worries for her, for the kids, for them.
And, yes, he'd been upset that she would choose to turn her back on her family - on everyone and everything she claimed to care about - for that. He'd been angry that she'd taken it for granted that he would keep their family running for a year as a single parent, that she'd assumed she could just come back from that and expect him to help her pick up the pieces that he was sure her time in Iraq would have reduced her to. No, neither of them had been their best selves then.
But he thought they had gotten over that long ago. And he thought he had convinced her that he was 110% on board with her being the Secretary of State, with them being the family of the Secretary of State. Would anything be convincing enough to overcome the doubts he'd sowed in the past? Much as he didn't want to dredge up that period of arguing and silent resentment, maybe they needed to talk about it again.
Was there anything else that could have led her to ask about an open relationship? Maybe someone had hit on her, and while nothing had happened - he had to believe that - it had caused her to consider the possibility that someone might tempt her while she was away, or that someone might tempt him. Was she merely planning for contingencies that might never occur? She does that, thinks a hundred steps ahead and prepares for all possibilities. (It's part of what made her such a good analyst.) But the simpler options were more likely: either there was someone else she was attracted to, or something else that she wanted that she thought could only come from outside of their relationship.