A/N: School is a struggle this semester, which is why I'm putting it off and writing instead. Who knew you could get senioritis in grad school?
This is an "unseen scene" from s5 ep10 when they're learning the tango for their vow renewal. A lot of the first part is directly from that scene, but feel free to watch it again if you'd like to get a refresher :-) Or just want to see their faces because it always brings a smile to mine when the instructor says what she does.
Hope you enjoy!
"Tango is not math," the woman to the side of them is shaking her head as Elizabeth's hand rests on Henry's shoulder, her other hand just recently settled into his palm.
She's looking at her feet and trying to figure out where "four" comes in (after all, there's always a one, two, three, four, isn't there?), moving and about to re-start at one when the woman in the coral dress continues her thought.
She's stopped shaking her head as she's staring at the two of them, but particularly she is talking to Elizabeth this time, "It's sex."
Henry's head swivels around to face the woman and so does Elizabeth's, almost in perfect sync as their bodies drift just a few inches further apart, "Well," Elizabeth gasps, dipping her head down and forward to face Henry again, "I…appreciate that." Her hand comes out of Henry's palm again and she waves her fingers as if she were flicking food off her hand.
He lets go of her waist and lets his arms drop down to his sides, and with a sigh, his shoulders slump over. Elizabeth looks down between their bodies, trying not to let her face get red—or maybe at this point, trying not to accept that her face is becoming red.
The woman swoops in between she and Henry and takes his hand, "Mm…okay." Elizabeth mutters, spinning herself away and listening to the instructor tell her husband to put his hands on her hips. She walks away toward the bar, watching the two dance the tango so easily behind her.
She's leaning against the bar now after smirking when she hears the woman tell Henry she doesn't bite, "Ahhhhh!" The woman says, "This one understands!"
Her head is tilted down as she is holding back her tongue, trying to not snap at the woman to get her hands off her husband's face and back a few feet away from him. But she quickly pulls out of her almost-rage when Henry gives her a look of "see?" and she rolls her eyes, turning away, "Well, maybe you should dance with Esmerelda at the ceremony."
She walks in the house, pulling her coat off and hanging it up on the rack before sliding her gloves off, too, and sticking them in the coat pocket. "Anyone awake?" She calls out, half yelling, half whispering in that way that mothers often do when she knows her kids might be asleep. Having all three kids under one roof, again, is nice until they yell at you for waking them up.
"In here," Henry replies, "The kids are all away for the night. Jason's at Alex's house, and Ali and Stevie said they had 'out of town business' to attend to." He says suspiciously.
She rounds the corner to the kitchen and laughs when she hears him say the last bit, and then she sees him sitting at the dining room table, picking mindlessly at a bowl of grapes while doing something on his laptop. "I'm starving," she groans, sauntering over to the refrigerator and looking through halfheartedly before finally opening the freezer and grabbing the half-gallon of ice cream.
Henry looks over his shoulder when he hears the freezer door, "Two spoons?" He requests.
She's already grabbing two from the door so she just looks up and winks at him, sliding her glasses up on top of her head and shuffling tiredly over to the table.
Instead of pulling a seat out for herself, she backs herself up the table and sits on top of it so Henry can reach the ice cream better. She hands him his spoon and they each dig out a larger-than-needed bite, "What did you have for dinner?"
"You see it," Henry answers, nodding slightly to the container they were eating from.
She smiles a little and looks down, "Sorry I had to leave the lesson today," she admits.
He shrugs, "It's alright," he says, but she can tell it bothered him anyway.
She sets her spoon down in the container and shifts on the table, scooting back just a little before picking it back up and waving it around mindlessly as she's thinking.
"What's going on in Arizona?" Henry asks.
She huffs and shakes her head, taking a dramatic scoop with the spoon and putting the ice cream down on her tongue, "Governor Barker is trying on his dictator hat." She jests, her glasses falling down her face a little as she looks down into the tub again. Grabbing them from her head, she folds one side up and tucks the other arm into the V of her shirt, "Mexican border stuff. The usual with Arizona and Barker." She explains.
He nods a little and gulps down a big bite of ice cream, taking a moment to breathe from the coldness in his throat before speaking again, "It really is alright about the dance lesson." He says again.
She looks up at him and raises her shoulders up to her ears, "I'm not sure dancing is for me." She admits sheepishly. "I just…I don't feel it like she says to."
He smiles and looks down, shaking his head slightly, "You do feel it," he says, "You just don't know you feel it and you're nervous doing it in front of people." He corrects.
"I'm not nervous." She says defensively, poking the tip of her spoon down in the ice cream harshly and furrowing her brows at him.
He looks up and raises his brow, "Whatever you say, babe." He says dismissively, sticking his spoon in for another bite.
She blocks his spoon with hers, making a clink noise when the two hit. Both of their eyes are on the spoons, and they follow each other's arms all the way back up to their eyes at about the same slow speed, and they both squint at each other. If there was a soundtrack to people's lives, the Wild West signature song would be playing in the background, she's pretty sure. Maybe a tumbleweed or two rolling behind him down the kitchen pathway.
"I'm not nervous," she says again, a bit more sternness in her tone.
He keeps his spoon touching hers and lifts his head up defiantly, raising just one brow at her and leaning his forearm on the table, hunching over to be closer to her, and ultimately, to their spoons, "Would you have sex in front of people?"
"Henry," she whines, "Why so raunchy?"
"Just answer the question."
She squints at him again and her mouth is gaping, "No," she answers, "I wouldn't. Would you?"
He smirks and leans back in his chair, not saying anything to her. However, when he looks up at her, he's said all he has to without using his voice once.
"Henry James McCord," she breathes, "You would not."
He shrugs his shoulders innocently, his spoon still in the same position of war, "It's a pride thing, Elizabeth," he admits, "Not that I want to be arrested for public indecency or anything, but…" he just shrugs again and laughs, and uses the moment to slide his spoon past hers.
She gasps as she hears his spoon hit hers, watching him dip the tip down into the ice cream. She presses her lips together and looks up at his face, retreating her spoon and setting it down on the table once she licks it clean, "So you're saying that I'm nervous to dance in front of people because I wouldn't have sex in front of people?"
He laughs a little, "I'm just saying that Esmerelda has a point. Tango isn't math, it's sex."
"Dance is not sex." She says. "Sex is dance sometimes." She corrects, folding her arms over her chest and leaning back slightly, "But dance can't be sex."
"Dance can be sex." He argues, licking his spoon clean, too, and putting the lid on the now-empty ice cream carton.
As he's standing up and putting the carton in the trash, she's staring at him with her arms still folded over her chest, "How so?" She asks finally, curious to know what his answer will be here.
He walks over and takes her spoon from the table, going to the sink with both of theirs and starting to wash them. "It's intimacy, Elizabeth," he says, rubbing the rag across the first spoon a few times and rinsing it off good. "That's what it all comes down to."
She sets her palms on the edge of the table and wraps her fingers around, "So you're saying I'm not intimate enough?"
"That's not what I'm saying," he says quickly, washing the other spoon now, "I'm saying you don't like to show a lot of intimacy outside of the house," he explains, "Which isn't a bad thing, necessarily, I'm not saying that." He sets the other spoon in the dish drainer and turns the water off, hanging the rag across the faucet before walking over to the cabinet and dragging down two wine glasses.
She watches as he sets the glasses on the counter and reaches for the wine in the refrigerator, pouring out two slightly over-filled glasses of wine before putting it back. He carries them over to the table and sits down again, and she nods in thanks to him.
"What exactly are you saying, Henry?" She asks tiredly, trying to understand whether she should feel as hurt as she does. Maybe she should be more intimate in public, maybe she should be willing to have sex with him in front of people since he's so willing to. Or at least be somewhat open to the idea of it.
He looks up at her after taking a sip of wine, and he just shakes his head with a grin, "Your job requires you to be a strong public figure, Elizabeth," he says, "And before this job, when you were with the CIA still, you couldn't be vulnerable there, either. But you always showed it when it was just us." He clarifies, "Around the house, yes, but in the bedroom…that's always been our safe place for both of us. That's who we are to each other in there."
She looks at him as he explains and finally takes a big swig of her wine, gulping it down a little too hard as she takes all that in.
"Our intimacy is something special, Elizabeth," he says more softly, "And it's okay to not share it with everyone."
She's looking down in her glass and swirling it half-consciously, trying to come up with something to say, but ultimately everything sounded silly now. Now, she thinks, is when she's vulnerable.
He sets his glass down on the table and gently takes hers from her hand before holding both of hers in his, giving a gentle squeeze to both, "Dance is vulnerability and intimacy, but it also is like sex in other ways." He reminds, "We don't…" he laughs at the thought that is about to come from his mind, "We don't plan every move when we're having sex."
She snorts and bites her lip, "No," she retorts, thinking of some of their craziest times.
"Just like you don't plan every step of dance." He says, "You do what feels good. You connect with your partner," he continues, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand and looking down at them.
She looks down at her hands, too, and watches as his skin gently swipes over hers, taking a deep breath in when she feels like someone had ripped it away from her.
"I know things that I can do to get a response from you," he says, still staring at her hands. His voice has dropped an octave now, and he's almost whispering, "I know when to take it further and when to stop, and when to change it up." He explains.
She finds her toes are curling in her house shoes, and her hands jump a little in his.
"And trust," he whispers, "Dance and sex are about trust. Just as you trust me with your body in our bedroom, you can trust me to lead our bodies on the dance floor." He breathes, swallowing thick and dragging his eyes up her body to look into hers, "And communication doesn't mean counting out steps in sex," he teases quietly, dragging his tongue over his bottom lip as he smiles, "It means knowing that when I touch you like this," he says, bringing his right hand up to her breast and just swiping his thumb over her shirt gently, then going back after a few seconds of silence to feel the raised surface there and smirking, "That I get that response."
"That's four." She says suddenly.
"What?" Henry asks, trying to not laugh.
She bites her lip, "You did one," she stops and takes his wrist, moving his hand close to her chest again, "Two," she says, putting his thumb on her breast, "Three," she says, swiping it a bit dramatically. "And my response is four."
He laughs quietly and nods, looking down and smiling, "Okay, fine, Miss Math Major." He teases, "Do you count in your head whenever I do that?" He asks after a moment, raising his brows at her.
She takes a swig of her wine again, pausing to look up at him. She starts to open her mouth, but decides to just finish off the wine and set the glass down beside her on the table. "No," she admits finally, admitting it as if she were a kid who'd gotten caught red-handed in the cookie jar. "I don't."
"Exactly," he whispers, scooting his laptop back over within better reach and typing quickly on it.
"What are you doing?" She asks.
Before she even finished her question, he's pressing a button and music is coming out from the computer's small speakers. "If I knew anything about technology, I'd connect it to the Bluetooth speaker." He admits nodding over to the speaker sitting on the shelf.
She smiles as she recognizes the song after just a few licks on the guitar. "Beast of Burden" by The Rolling Stones was one they danced to frequently as young college students in new puppy love.
He's slinking over to her and taking her hand, gently helping her off the table and onto her feet.
I'll never be
Your beast of burden
She smiles at him and sinks into his body, finding her hips fit perfectly against his. Really, she always has known that they fit perfectly—they're the perfect height against his. But maybe she'd forgotten that with Esmerelda watching them like a hawk.
Her fingers sit in the wedge between his thumb and his other fingers, wrapping around to hold his hand with a little squeeze. Her other arm is draped over his shoulder, and she's leaning her head in his chest.
My back is broad
But it's a-hurting
Their bodies are slowly swaying to the beat of the music now. Her eyes are closed, but she doesn't have to see to realize they're in perfect rhythm with the song.
All I want
For you to make love to me
She drags her head away from his chest and lets out a giggle as he suddenly changes it up, twirling them around and getting dangerously close to the kitchen island. She bites her lip and squeezes his hand a bit, taking note that through the sudden change, their hips never parted.
She doesn't have to look down at her feet, either, to know four is next. She feels that deep inside her.
After the song is over, he's picked up the laptop and brought it to the edge of the stairs, extending his hand out to her to come up with him and continue up there, "There's no kitchen island in the way," he teases in a husky tone.
She takes his hand and follows him up with a smile, trying to catch her breath—but she never lost it from dancing.
Somehow their shirts had both been lost, recklessly tossed somewhere around the room along with her bra. Their skin is sweaty, but as close as they are, they barely even realize they're not one body at this point.
They're still dancing at the end of their bed, Elvis Presley's "Fever" has come into the queue. Some of the songs prior to this, Elizabeth knows she didn't even recognize, but she didn't care. He was holding her so close that it didn't even stay in her mind for long.
When you put your arms around me
I get a fever that's so hard to bear
Their hips cannot physically be any closer as Elizabeth drops her hand away from his, pulling it up to his neck and resting her palm against the muscles there. Her other hand is gripping into his shoulder, possibly leaving some fingernail marks, but the friction between their bodies is overpowering that sensation anyway.
Her eyes have been closed for a while now, but she leans her upper body into him and presses her skin flat against his chest, dragging her hand around to the front of his neck, her thumb pressed up against his chin and his lip.
He opens his mouth just slightly and lets her finger slip in, and she slowly parts her eyelids open to look at him before he sends shivers down her entire body by sucking on the end of her thumb.
I light up when you call my name
And you know I'm gonna treat you right
You give me fever
Her knees start to buckle underneath her, but she feels his arm readjust and grab her a little tighter, keeping her from wobbling too much by holding onto her waist.
She grins at him momentarily before he leans down and kisses her lips, and the thought briefly crosses her mind that they're not even really dancing anymore. Their hips stopped swaying; they're just rolling against one another to feel the resistance of their person against them.
The hand that's wrapped around her body squeezes into her side a bit and she pulls away from his lips, looking into his eyes and taking a deep breath.
He gives a mischievous smile before stepping back and doing their tango steps that Esmerelda had taught them, and she follows along perfectly. With only her dress slacks on, her shoes kicked off to the side, she follows his lead as though she were a rag doll just being moved from place to place. She feels free, she forgets that she can even count at all, let alone that she was counting earlier today to figure out these no-longer-complicated steps.
She shuts her eyes and lets herself feel dizzy.
They give you fever
When the beat stops for a moment, she feels her hair brush against her neck as he whips them around, dipping her down. Her leg comes up instinctively, bending and wrapping around his hip as she stands on her toes on the other foot. Her head has fallen backwards a bit, but her eyes are staring straight up into his. She wonders, briefly, how long it's been since either of them spoke a word to each other now.
Fever 'til you sizzle
What a lovely way to burn
Her leg is still wrapped around his body when she feels her hips roll, and she doesn't even mean to, but it just happens.
He smiles down at her and bites his lip, setting her back upright. As Elvis sings the last few lines of the song and the finger-snaps continue, they tango their way over to the bed before she sits down on it, taking that same leg and wrapping it around his hip to pull him in. When he slides between her legs, she drags him by his shoulders down on top of her, kissing him feverishly as the music switches to a new song.
There's always a four.