A/N: Hi everyone! I hate that the emails still aren't working. Hopefully everyone who wants to read this has found it!

I've had some tough last few weeks with mental health, so I decided it was time to take a break from real life and write the fun stuff. Take care of yourselves, friends, especially if the holiday season is a tough time of the year for you.

Hope you enjoy!

September 11, 2001

"I won't be long," she'd told Henry that morning, explaining that she just needed to run into her office because there was a file that Isabelle needed that she, ultimately, was not even supposed to have brought home.

She was supposed to be on leave, marking the first week of her maternity leave to prepare for baby Jason coming soon. He was due to be here September 18th, and it was finally Conrad who put his foot down and made her go on leave. With Alison, she worked until the day before Ali was born, but Conrad made Elizabeth take it this time. "You have two other littles at home, Bess," he'd said, "Time to go home."

And however reluctant she was to follow what he said, she did anyway. He was her boss. What was she going to do, say no?

With the file tucked underneath her arm, she waddled to her office as quick as she could as to not get caught by Conrad. She would have to explain herself, then, if he saw her here. She would have to explain the file and why it was not at Langley all this time. Her other hand rested just below the curve of her stomach, as if somehow supporting the giant bulge would help her move faster.

It didn't.

She turned the corner while looking at her watch—8:46—and saw Isabelle rushing out of her office, and she immediately held up the file. She was about to open her mouth to speak to her friend until she saw the expression on Isabelle's face as she was moving closer at a fast pace, "I have—"

"Bess," Isabelle breathed, grabbing her arm and whisking her away into the board room where multiple other agents were gathered. Elizabeth immediately saw Conrad, made eye contact with him even, and Juliet and George sitting nearby. Everyone except herself, Conrad, and Isabelle had their eyes fixed on the television.

She picked her head up to the television on the wall and saw video footage of what looked to be wreckage. "What's going—" She started to mumble.

"Twin Towers." Isabelle replied.

Elizabeth's eyes never left the TV as she watched the North Tower crumbling. She'd dropped the file on the table in front of them before she fell backwards to her seat, her legs too shaky to stand any longer. The pings of pain in her lower abdomen were ignored, really, not even noticed, while she fixed herself on the television screen. "This changes everything," she whispered to herself, blinking only a moment before sliding her hand off her stomach, pushing herself to her feet and waddling off to her own office. She realized only then that her phone had been ringing, and she had four missed calls already, all from Henry.

"I'm okay," she answered, "I'm not going to be home for—"

"A while, I know." Henry finished. "Just be careful." He said, "I love you. Please be careful."

"I love you." She managed, feeling as though she were in a daze as the image replayed in her mind over and over of watching people jumping out of the building that was on its way to falling and flaming.

December 2, 2014

When she arrives at home, she finds the living room and kitchen to be empty. She wanders around for a moment and finally sees Henry in their home office, walking in to him, "Hey babe," he greets, pushing his laptop away from him and leaning back in the chair.

She sniffles a little and just continues to walk to him, only stopping when she reaches his legs. She flops one leg over his lap and then flops another, holding on to the back of his neck before leaning her head into him. The last time she did this was when they found out George died, and this feels just as dramatic now.

Her glasses are poking into her face, and as if Henry read her mind, he reaches between them and slides them off. "How was today?" He asks.

He'd been asking her all day, but she truly had been so busy, so behind, that she hadn't had the chance to message him much in reply other than, "Fine" and "Talk later." She was just happy tonight that he wasn't mad with her because she's pretty sure she would've been mad with him if the roles were reversed. "Hard." She whispers, noticing his hand laying down on the side of her thigh and gently rubbing the material of her pants there. "Long."

He kept rubbing a few moments before finally replying, "Do you want to talk about it?" He asks.

She shrugs a little, peeling her head from him and looking at his face, "I don't know what to say." She whispers, "There's a lot of risks involved if I don't…if I…" she can't quite get the words out that she wants, so she just swallows them instead and clears her throat to try to get herself to move on. She takes a deep breath, shutting her eyes and regrouping, "There's a lot of risks for a pregnancy at this age. For me and for the baby." She says straightforward, opening her eyes and finding him staring right into hers. Again, she's excruciatingly aware that his hand is rubbing her skin, and she simultaneously wants to yell at him to stop—this is how it all happened anyway—and also wants to lean into his touch and tell him to do whatever he wants with her.

In an attempt to break the possibility of giving into whatever she was feeling, she speaks again, "They would do genetic testing."

The silence is heavy over them both. She doesn't know what to say more than what she already has said, so she just watches him and searches his face for any hint of expression. But all he was giving her was a vision of being lost—he didn't know the answers anymore than she did.

"Babe?" She finally mutters.

He looks at her and swallows thick, "Time to be honest," he says quietly, his voice breaking a little, "As much as it scares me—terrifies me—to be a parent again at this age, I think this will be something that haunts you for the rest of your life if you don't go through with it. The what ifs, babe, are going to eat at you forever. You're—we're not cut out for that." He says, "I think that no matter if you get testing done or just go into this blindly that we should."

"You're saying we should have a baby?" She asks. "At forty-one and forty-three, we should just…start over?" Her voice sounds accusatory, but she's not really sure she means it to be. She just clears her throat and blinks, staring in his face. "In the midst of everything else?"

He pauses and gives that sweet little smile to her, and it makes her feel a little hint of warmth somewhere inside her chest. "We did it once." Henry says, "We had a baby during 9/11."

She laughs sadly and her attention shifts slightly, realizing that her eyes have filled up with tears involuntarily. She tilts her head back and sniffles, trying to keep the tears from sliding out of her eyes, "We had been planning on that." She whispers, "We knew Jason was coming, we just didn't know 9/11 was going to happen."

He shrugs a little, "This time it's the opposite." He says, confusing her enough to make her brows raise, "We know the craziness and chaos of our lives isn't going to change, it's not going to get better, and it hopefully won't get worse," he explains, "And we didn't know this baby was coming. It's just…" he shrugs again and looks at her somewhat defeated, "What do you want to do?" He asks.

She was dreading this question all along—she had known it was coming at some point again. He'd been hinting around at it since they first found out, but he had not explicitly asked her in a while. She shrugs, too, her hands still locked around each other behind his neck, "I'm scared." She admits.

"I didn't ask that." He replies softly, bringing his hand up and tucking her hair behind her ear, "I asked what you want."

"I don't know."

"You do," Henry whispers, "I know you do because you are saying you're scared. You wouldn't tell me—or anyone—how scared you were if you didn't already have an answer in your mind of what you want to do."

The gruffness in his voice surprised her a little, but she skipped past that and just looked down at his shirt, staring there for a few moments while twisting her lips around and contorting them into lots of shapes. "I think you're right."

"You're still avoiding my question," Henry quips.

"I'm getting there," she says, picking her head up and raising one brow at him, "I think you're right that it would eat at me. The what ifs would consume me, and I don't think I could function normally after that." She admits, "I'm not sure the chaos of my thoughts outweigh the chaos of bringing a new baby into our family, but…" she stops and shrugs once more, shaking her head, "I applaud the women who have strong minds. Mine…mine is not."

"Yours is." He corrects, "Just in a different way."

She swallows thick, "But I'm scared of all the risks, too." She says, "When I was pregnant with Jason they were already worried about my health and I was a hell of a lot younger then." She says, "Now I'm going to have to get looked at every week." She states, then thinks about that and cringes at the wand again. "You should have been there today when I was rudely reminded of how invasive it is to have kids."

He laughs a little and it breaks the tension between them, resituating her on his lap and letting her fall into his shoulder again, "I wish I was there." He says, "Why didn't you ask me to go?"

"You had work."

"I could've gotten out."

"You—"

"Why?"

She sighs, "I needed the time to myself." She admits, "I wanted to work it out in my head before I shared anything—whatever that might be—with you." She says. "It was real before, but hearing the heart…it was that moment of clarity that I had with all three kids. Whatever worry I had about being a mother or about the health of my kids, every time I heard their hearts beat I would be able to breathe again. I felt today like I couldn't breathe, but it was different. It was like…" she shakes her head, "It was like I was able to breathe but with a heavy weight on my chest."

He nods, "I get it," he whispers, and she wonders if he truly does. She wonders, too, if he ever quite will understand, but she also knows it's hard on him, too. Not only to bring a new baby into their lives at their age, but also because there's risks involved. She knows without doubt that he is worried about her, but she also knows they're both worried about raising a baby with health issues. Something most parents fear, but something she's never experienced. But then again, she's borrowing worries from another day.

"I'm starving," she finally says, picking her head up from him and looking into his eyes.

Without even having to ask, he smirks and helps her to her feet while standing himself up, too, "I'll make us something."

"No wonder you keep becoming my baby daddy, McCord." She says, following him into the kitchen. "Keeping me fed and happy in bed." She teases.

He snorts in front of her and turns into the kitchen, looking back and rolling his eyes at her, "A little too happy, I believe." He admits.

She's leaning against the counter when she realizes this is a time, in normal circumstances, when she would put both hands on her belly and stick it out and make some sort of joke about being barefoot and pregnant or something, but she just bites her lip and lets the image play out in her head, feeling like it was still too soon to be doing any of that. She's only just now accepted that this is going to happen.

Henry puts the pan on the stove and starts scrambling eggs as she just stands and watches him, thinking of all the times he's done this for her. One image in particular stands out in her mind, the one from the morning of 9/11 when he'd been making breakfast for all of them and she'd told him she'd just have to make a quick trip to Langley. The surprise of the attack should have put her into labor that day, but Jason held out until his due date, and she just keeps thinking of how lucky she was that day.

She swallows thick and turns around, jumping up backwards onto the countertop and sitting there. He notices and lays the spatula down, turning the stove off and moving the pan over before walking to her, settling himself between her knees. "Now that this is official." He whispers, "There's something I've been dying to do."

"I know." She whispers and smiles a little, trying to not let herself get nervous, but she still feels the wave of nausea roll over her anyway. The back of her neck tightens up when he takes her sides into each of his hands, leaning down and kissing her stomach. Normally, she would lean back and give him the access, but God, that was over a decade ago that she last did that. So she freezes there in that position, just watching as he rests his forehead there—a perfect ritual he started with Stevie and finished only the hour before Jason was born. She thought that would be the last time, then, but now the ritual has begun once more—for sure, the last time.

He looks up at her as she pulls her fingers through his hair gently, and he gives her a warm smile that looks like an attempt to make her feel better. He knows her too well to not know she's conflicted about all this, still. "Do you want me to back off?" He asks softly, genuinely.

"No," she answers immediately, following up with a shake of her head and a hard swallow, "I don't."

He smiles a little more and gives one more kiss to her abdomen, standing up and kissing her lips. "Did the doctor say how far along you are?"

Elizabeth laughs a little and feels a pressure release from her shoulders when she does, "Fourteen weeks."

"Fourteen—" he gasps and raises his brow, "Seriously?"

"Seriously." She says and sighs, "I think it was at that gala."

"What gala?" He asks.

She should have known to specify—they've been to too many galas here recently. However, that is the only gala where they went off on their own little drunken excursion. "You know which gala." She points out knowingly.

"Oh," he says and laughs, "Right." He continues, "You really mean at the gala."

"At the gala." She confirms. "I mean, it could have been any time that week, but I'm guessing…it adds up, if that's true." She says. "And they measured—in their invasive process—the baby. She said it's about fourteen weeks."

He smiles a little, "Wow," he whispers, "Did you get a picture?"

She shakes her head immediately, looking down as though the question brought her a little too much shame, "No," she answers, "I didn't even look at the screen." She admits. "I heard the heart beating—that was enough for one day."

He nods and kisses her forehead, "I'm just…I'm really a happy man, Elizabeth." He whispers, "A lucky man—blessed, whatever you want to label it. I'm happy."

"You are?" She asks, unsure if she felt the same way. She wasn't necessarily happy, but she wasn't sad, either. Nervous, but not happy.

"I am," he answers without hesitation, "Having babies with you is one of my greatest accomplishments, Elizabeth," he says quietly, "They turned out to be amazing humans, and I have no doubt this one will too."

She swallows thick when she thinks of it as human—she'd been mostly avoiding that this whole time. But she nods, sniffling a little, "I think that's also my greatest accomplishment," she admits, "Our kids will always be my favorite part about my life because they're little pieces of you."

He smiles, "That's my favorite part of my life, too."

"That you have three little pieces of you walking and talking out in the world?"

He snorts and gives her a look, "That they're little pieces of you, too."

"They're big pieces of me." She quips immediately, shifting into a more teasing tone. "I grow 'em."

"I help."

"Uh-uh," she says, "We're not arguing about this again. We settled this back when I was pregnant with Alison."

"You said it was settled." He's egging her on now, she knows that, but she's also enjoying the break from the heaviness. Although she's not sad about the situation, she also feels like the air is sucked from the room every time she thinks about it, "I never agreed."

"I'm the one who carries them for nine months." She answers, "And then I birth them. I'm pretty much solely responsible for feeding them, too." She says, "With the exception of Jason." She thinks back and feels that guilty sensation again. Everyone frowned upon her not breastfeeding him, but it wasn't feasible. She'd tried for the first week, but the stress of the CIA and 9/11 lingering over her was too much. She'd not been on job duty, technically, but it's not something you can turn off at that point. Everyone told her "breast is best," and they meant well, but it just made her feel like a bad mom.

Jason is thirteen now, and a healthy young man. Fed is best.

He grabs her in his arms and rocks her side to side for a few moments, hugging her tight, "Fine," he gives in, "You do most of the work."

"Thank you." She mumbles into his shoulder. "Eggs are getting cold," she realizes.

"Right," he pulls away and scrapes the pan of eggs into two bowls, serving them up and sitting next to her on the counter. "I just can't believe it. A baby."

"I know." Elizabeth answers, shoveling eggs into her mouth as though her life depended on it immediately. "Life with a baby is going to be so different."

When she scoops another mouthful in, she notices something move in the hall and squints her eyes. She looks again, but she sees nothing. "Noodle?" She calls out quietly, just loud enough to not wake anyone up but also to grab her attention if it really was her and not just her aging eyes.

"It's me," Jason says reluctantly, somewhat sulking into the kitchen. "Is there any leftover?" He asks, peeking into her bowl.

She shakes her head and looks at Henry, alarmed and wondering if he heard the discussion about life with a baby. She hands her son her bowl, "Here," she says, "You can have mine."

He takes it without second thought, "Jason," Henry says.

"What? She gave it to me."

"It's your mother's food!"

"I'll eat something else," Elizabeth says, "Don't worry about it."

Henry offers her his bowl but it had maybe two bites left in it, so she waves it away and jumps off the countertop. "What are you doing awake?" She asks Jason as she walks to the cabinet and grabs a box of cereal.

Opening it, she sticks her hand straight into the Cinnamon Toast Crunch and grabs a handful, popping it into her mouth while Jason finished off her scrambled eggs. "I heard voices."

"Hopefully ours." Elizabeth says, half-asking, half-stating.

"Yours." Jason says.

She swallows thick and looks down into the box, suddenly feeling very exposed—almost as if she were standing there with an ultrasound attached to her stomach. "And you decided to check it out?" She asks.

"I smelled food." He answers shortly.

She picks up on his tone and swallows thick, making a move to look at Henry and lock eyes with him. He knows, they both silently told each other with that one look.