A/N: I kept the political side of this story which would have happened to a minimum. I'm not that great at writing the political side of the show, and I wanted to focus on Elizabeth and her team.

Prompt: After a bombing, Elizabeth assumes that she's fine and keeps going for a long time before realizing that she's losing blood.

Elizabeth was thrown off her feet by the close proximity of the blast. Her ears were ringing and she had to force herself to look around and see what was actually there in front of her instead of what she thought should have been. Abdol wasn't screaming for his father. Fred wasn't on top of her. Instead, her staff, the people she had come to care about so much, were picking themselves slowly off the floor. Blake was muttering something to her? She didn't know, but the sight of them moving and sort of okay made her start moving too.

She started checking herself for injuries when she heard Daisy groan. The younger woman was clutching her head as she rose briefly, then fell again. Elizabeth pulled herself off the floor and went to her press secretary.

"Daisy? Talk to me."

"Ma'am, I - I don't know." She gasped out harshly.

"We're going to get you help, Daisy. For now, deep even breaths. Okay?" Daisy nodded and Elizabeth left a very worried but okay Matt by her side to check on the rest of her staff.

She found Blake standing by his desk staring at his phone.

"Blake?"

He didn't even turn around. She reached around him and called 911 herself. Then she turned to look at her assistant.

"Blake?"

He didn't say anything at all. His eyes held the same shock and fear that Elizabeth saw in Daisy's and Matt's. They'd never experienced this personally, she had to remind herself. It was different with Iran. She gulped and pushed the thought away.

Instead she focused on her assistant who looked like he was around 5 minutes from a full blown panic attack. She placed a gentle hand on his arm. "Blake? Deep breaths, okay?"

Blake nodded, and Kat took Elizabeth's place by Blake so she could find Jay. She found her chief of staff huddled in a corner of the staff room, trembling.

"Jay? Are you hurt?"

"Chloe was in Diplotots yesterday. She could've been here."

She placed a hand on his shoulder and helped him up. Her core staff accounted for, she spent the rest of the day helping others who were faced with the trauma of the attack. She didn't even think about herself again until she saw Henry. Henry, who she'd definitely called in the minutes after the attack. Henry, who knew that she was alright, who still sagged with relief at the sight of her.

They met for a brief hug, and Elizabeth allowed some of the comfort that she'd been offering others for hours to seep into her own skin.

"Henry. I'm fine. I promise." She said as he led her into the semi privacy of her office to make sure.

It wasn't until her back met the open air that she realized that she was dizzy. She tried to reach for anything to stabilize herself, her desk, Henry, a chair, anything, but nothing was within her reach. She stumbled and fell. She would've hit the floor, hard, if Henry hadn't caught her.

The next few minutes were a mass of confusion and hurry and a sense of urgency that the State Department was usually very good at, but at the moment, it just felt like someone pouring salt into the open wound of trauma.

Paramedics stood over her, working steadily, while she just tried to keep breathing. Henry stood just out of their way, holding her hand.

"It's okay, sweetheart."

Elizabeth nodded, and lost her battle to stay conscious.

She awoke later in a bed that was not her own, Henry sitting in a chair beside her. A doctor walked in before she could ask Henry what had happened to her.

"Madam Secretary, you lost a lot of blood. It is my understanding that you were not checked over by paramedics when they first arrived, or they would have seen the injury you sustained on your back. We've given you a transfusion, and you have 50 stitches. They'll need to be removed in 3 weeks. Any questions?"

The barrage of information didn't make sense to Elizabeth's muddled brain. This wasn't Iran where she was struck with undeniable terror, the pain of the moment more emotional than physical (panic attacks aside). She should have felt a wound wide enough to require that many stitches. But then she remembered Daisy's face contorted in pain, Blake in shock, Jay trembling at the thought that his daughter could even have been in danger, Matt and Kat both grim and determined to get everyone through it. No wonder she hadn't felt it. She had more important things to do. And now, she had to see her staff and her family. She wondered briefly before her children stormed in and smothered her in hugs and "I love yous" with her staff trailing behind looking a little awkward at the sight, exactly when the line between staff and family had started to blur.

Henry caught her eye and ran a finger over her knuckles. One thing that would never change. He was always by her side.