A/N: Hello everyone! Hope you had a great week. I'm on a oneshot kick here lately. If there's a oneshot of a "behind the scenes" scene you'd like to read about, I'd love the challenge of writing it.
This is a combination of BTS scenes from S1E15 and S3E2. As a refresher, S1E15 is when Jason gets expelled for punching Preston, and S3E2 they had just taken Jason's computer to the FBI to get checked out after it got hacked.
Hope you have a great weekend/week!
February 2015 | Elizabeth
"You're the one that wanted to go for three." Henry says coyly into the phone.
Without skipping a beat, Elizabeth slips right past that remark and continues, "Oh, God, I'm so used to him getting in trouble for saying the wrong thing." She looks out the window briefly at the streets of Turkey passing her by, thinking about her youngest child decking a boy at his Quaker school and actually getting suspended.
When she hangs up with Henry, a piece of their conversation crosses her mind again. I'm the one who wanted to go for three? She thinks to herself in the backseat of this SUV, directing her gaze toward the back of the driver's headrest as she stares a hole into it.
That feels like so many years ago already, even though Jason, of course, is only just going to be fourteen later this year. She closes her eyes and rubs at her left temple, leaning her arm against the door while trying to will the headache away that has been coming on ever since she landed in Turkey.
"God," she mumbled, sipping on the last bit of her third glass of red while holding a picture in her hand, "Look how little the girls were," she continued, flipping the picture around to show Henry who's sitting across from her in the living room floor, just within reach of her legs.
He picked his head up just in time to giggle at her almost dropping the box of photos that was sitting in her lap. Elizabeth knew she was a little tipsy, but it was nice to be able to let loose for a night. She so rarely got to do that anymore with the girls being two and seven, and her job becoming more and more demanding as she moves up the ranks. "Wow," he replied, reaching up for the photo to get a better look.
Elizabeth smirked when he had to pull it closer, "Getting old, McCord?" She teased, always playing a little harder on their two-year age gap than she maybe should have done.
"Yeah yeah," Henry snapped back, waving his hand at her without moving his gaze from the picture. "I forget how little Alison was when she was born but look at her—she's tiny."
"Especially compared to Stevie," Elizabeth snorted, finishing off that glass of wine. "Stevie was my big baby."
Henry smiled as he handed the photo back to her and looked at one of his own in the box he was going through, "Here's one," he said with a chuckle, angling the photo so she could see it.
She snorted again when she looked down to see Stevie holding Alison on the couch, and she remembered the day perfectly. It was the day they came home with Alison and Stevie had been begging to hold her, so they finally decided to let her with extreme supervision. Thankfully no newborns were dropped that day.
"Wow, they were so little," Elizabeth whispered, holding on to the picture a little too long, getting a little too weepy feeling from her throat all the way to her stomach.
She quickly handed the photo back and tipped her wine glass back one more time, even though it was completely sucked dry. She set the glass down on the table and looked at Henry while he laid that photo down and shuffled through the stack to find more, and he looked up at her suddenly as though he could feel her staring at him.
"What is it?" He asked.
She shrugged, tears pricking at her eyes now—partly from the wine, partly from thinking about how quickly her babies were growing up.
He reached out for her foot and rubbed his thumb under the arch, just above her heel. Her head fell backward into the couch and the box of photos fell this time, straight out of her lap and onto Henry's.
They shared a laugh before she leaned down to start grabbing photos. She reached to pick one up at the same time he did, and they both grabbed the one of Elizabeth standing in their little home in Charlottesville. They'd been married about three years then, but Henry had been overseas for much of that time. In this picture, though, it was obvious that he had been home about nine months prior to when it was taken.
She was standing in the doorway of their bedroom with her back leaned against the frame, her shirt tucked up underneath her breasts as she gave her best fake smile to the camera. Her sweatpants were pulled so low underneath her hips that she might as well had just not worn pants, but January in Virginia called for something warm, even at nine months pregnant.
They both stared at it for a moment and simultaneously began the slow tilt of their heads to find each other's eyes. When she found his, she feels her breath catch because he's staring at her so intently. She felt as though she had been caught doing something or saying something she wasn't supposed to, even though they had both been silent since the box fell.
He, too, had the same expression—one of a deer in headlights.
"Are we thinking the same thing?" Henry asked quietly, finally seeming to have found his voice.
She shrugged again, feeling a little too innocent for the thoughts she was having suddenly, "Do your thoughts involve two naked bodies in the bedsheets?"
He smirked before letting out a quiet, almost embarrassed chuckle, looking down at the picture, "It involves two naked bodies on the couch, but the bedsheets will do too." He replied.
"That son of a…" she mumbles as her driver comes to a halt, arriving at their destination in Turkey. She shakes her head and makes a mental note to bring this up next time she talks to Henry. It wasn't me, it was him, she thinks as she gathers her bags and steps out of the opened car door.
October 2016 | Elizabeth
"And look," Jason says at the end of the kitchen island, "I get it if you don't want to worry the girls." He continues, looking over his shoulder at Alison and Stevie who are walking out the back door as he speaks. "But I…" he looks back over his shoulder quickly again, "I got it, okay?"
Elizabeth stares at him with one hand on her hip, the other steadying her tired, exhausted body with the countertop. She thinks of what lies she and Henry have just told the kids, how they're just getting bodyguards for routine security crackdowns. Jason is too smart, though, and he immediately knew that it wouldn't be the case that they'd up her security after she was no longer in the running for Vice President. He knows too much, that one.
She lets a twitch of a smile come across her face as she thinks to herself, Glad to see one of my kids got my CIA skill. But then a sadness quickly falls on her face once more as she realizes how big he is acting, how grown he is pretending to be in this moment. She knows that it's terrifying for him even though he doesn't know the extent of the security threat, just that his computer was hacked. She knows he's scared just based on the way he's looking over his shoulder at the girls, trying to act tougher than any fifteen-year-old boy truly can be.
In his fatherly duty, Henry reaches his arm out straight in front of him, waggling his fingers with his palm facing upward at Jason.
She's reaching for her cup of coffee as their son sighs and finally gives in, reaching in and grabbing his phone before quickly laying it on the counter, turning, and sprinting, "Good luck cracking the security code!"
"Hey!" Elizabeth screams after him, even though after a little further thought, she's once again kind of proud of his CIA skills that have, apparently, been transferred on.
"Jason!" Henry yells, too, but neither one of them do any good.
Now that he's out of sight, Henry is turning angrily on the other side of the kitchen island, but Elizabeth just picks her coffee cup up and nods her head to the side, sticking her tongue in her cheek, "You're the one who wanted to go for three." She murmurs, turning away from him with her brow raised, bringing the cup to her lips.
October 2016 | Henry
Henry stops in his tracks with his hands full of electronics that they'd just confiscated, widening his eyes as he stares at the table in front of him. I'm the one who wanted to go for three? He thinks to himself, tightening his grip on the stack of two laptops and three phones.
He lets out a sigh and continues walking, deciding it was too early in the morning to continue the fight for now. But as he sits down at the table with his daily briefings, he can't focus on the words on the sheets of papers. All he can think about is what she said, and how she had it completely wrong. She's the one that wanted to go for three.
"You're a little drunk," Henry pointed out as they made their way down the hall to their bedroom, flicking on the light for the master suite.
She had just stumbled over the rug a few steps back, but now she's holding onto his arm and kissing up and down his collarbone, neck, ear, shoulder—whatever it seems she can reach without moving too much, he's noticed. "I'm not that drunk," she replied, and she's right, she sounded sober.
He's seen her drink much more than just the three glasses of wine spread over dinner and a few hours of chatting over photos.
When he watches her get in the bed, he squints and stops for a moment at their footboard, thinking for a moment about how they even started looking at the photos this evening. And really, maybe it's his own wine scuttling his memory, but he thinks they'd just started talking about the kids and pulled some boxes out of the cabinet.
As he leans against the footboard, he smiles and thinks about the way her face lights up each time she's told him she was pregnant. Even with Stevie when they were scared, surprised, and quite frankly, unsure how it was going to work with him still active duty in the Marines. Alison, of course, was a surprise, too, but they weren't as scared. They were kind of pros at this whole parenting thing, having had Stevie for a few years now. They kept her alive, so they were okay parents, right?
She was undressing on the bed when he came back to present, and immediately he felt his abdomen tighten when he saw her beautiful, naked body. "Are we sure about this?"
"I'm sure. Are you sure?" She asks, not even getting under the sheets or anything before just laying herself out for him.
The sight makes his breath catch as he works on his boxers and tee, throwing them somewhere behind him. He didn't really care where. He didn't need them any time soon.
"Then let's make a third baby." He said determinedly, almost jumping into the bed and on top of her. The move made her giggle, but pretty soon her noises were stifled with his lips.
He turns around and looks at Elizabeth who is washing her coffee cup out at the sink, "It was definitely you," he finally says, deciding that yes, it was worth the argument this morning because he was definitely right about this.
She picks her head up and snorts, setting the now-clean cup into the dish drainer, "You've lost your mind," she says, "Stevie and Ali? I'll agree they were both surprises. But it was you who brought up a third, and that's why he's so ornery."
"He's ornery because he's all Adams." Henry baits, turning his seat so that he could see her fully.
She raises her brows and leans against the sink, her tongue in her cheek once more, but this time not as sarcastically, "Oh yeah?" She says coyly, "He's ornery because he's all you, McCord." She corrects, picking up an apple and angrily biting into it. He almost laughs when she winces at her own drama, but he knows that the force of the bite had to hurt her teeth. She continues to chew anyway and starts walking toward him with the apple in her hand, pointing at him with her middle finger like she often does, "Tell me that boy you saw just sprinting out the door wasn't all Henry McCord, or even Shane McCord." She says, bringing his brother into it, too.
He huffs out a laugh and shakes his head, "Will. Adams." He declares.
She shakes her head, "Oh no, McCord, you have this all wrong." She argues, sitting down in the other seat next to Henry, "He's all you because he was all your idea."
"All my idea?" He asks.
She pauses for a moment and Henry watches as she takes another bite of her apple, and he can tell she's thinking about her next answer, "Okay, fine, it was a team effort." She admits.
"It was all your idea."
"Was not." She claps back quickly, her mouth full of juicy apple.
He leans against the table and squints his eyes at her, getting close and personal, "Do you even remember that night?" He asks.
"Clearly." She says.
He squints at her again and takes a few moments, then smirks when she does her tell. She sniffles, crinkling her nose just slightly, "Aha!" He exclaims, smacking the table.
She jumps a little at the sudden loudness and gives him a look, "What?" She asks.
"Your tell!" He says, "You don't remember that night we conceived Jason."
"Yes I do," she says.
"Then tell me about it. What were we doing?"
"Having sex, obviously." She mumbles, biting into her apple again.
He snorts, "What were we doing before the thing you kind of obviously have to do to make a baby?"
She chews on her apple for a few moments and finally groans, "Fine," she says, "I remember being a bit tipsy, and that we were looking through photos of Stevie and Ali. However, I don't remember what happened between seeing that picture of me as a whale before Stevie was born and the moment I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache and too much of a sticky feeling what felt like everywhere on my body." She explains, "So I believe you coerced me into having a third child."
"I did no such thing," he says.
She shrugs, "Too bad there's no third party to tell the actual story then, huh?" She says and takes the last bite of her apple, smiling at him with her mouth closed as she chews.
He raises his brow at her, "I think I could replay the scene." He says.
She looks down at her watch and then back up at him, laying her apple down with a sigh and crossing her legs, folding her hands over her knee. She looks at him and bats her eyes a few times, pressing her lips together to form a grin, "I believe I have time." She says.