A/N: Hi! Thanks for the reviews on this story. Yes, it's going to be a full story :-) Lots of meta action going on in it, and won't go over more than a short span of days in the story, most likely.
Hope you enjoy!
February 3, 2024 | Henry
He drops his head back to look in the bowl in his hand, "Glad you're home," he hears her mumble on her way out. He can't see her face, but he knows she's rolling her eyes. The disgust in her tone says enough for him to know that.
He stares at the last few pieces in the bowl for a few moments, wondering how they got here to this point again. They hadn't acted like this in years, he was aware, but something about this time didn't feel right. The bowl feels heavy in his hand, and he slams it on the counter a little too hard, swishing milk out everywhere behind him. Tomorrow's problem, he thinks to himself, storming into the office they share in their living quarters, just like they used to in their Georgetown home.
He quickly makes his way to the desk chair, plopping down in it and propping his feet up on the desk. Three fingertips rest against his forehead just above his brow as his elbow digs into the arm of the chair. For a moment, there's nothing in his mind. The peace startles him to the point of him almost jumping, and he sits up and leans his elbows on the desk, burying his head into his palms.
The bickering—he's not entirely sure when it started or why, but he knows the moment when he started to really notice that this was going downhill. It was December of 2022, right after Christmas:
He walked in and saw Emmie tucked into Elizabeth's arm like a football—something rare these days, now that she'd started to walk and crawl all over the place. She rarely wanted to be held, but Henry and Elizabeth both treasured it whenever she did want in their arms. It was to sleep, usually, but she was getting big enough now that they were okay with that—she wiggled too much when she was awake anyway to really be able to hold her. They knew, too, that her parents appreciated the snuggles. "Enjoy it while it lasts," Elizabeth had told Stevie. Emmie was only two months old at the time, and Stevie was, like any parent of a two-month-old, exhausted and sleep-deprived.
Henry had recognized the tone of her voice—a bit of remorse with a touch of sadness. She missed those days of her kids being little, and so did he, really. He loved the different stages of their lives, too—he loved getting to watch Stevie be a parent, even. But sometimes he missed singing to them in their nursery at two in the morning, begging them to go back to sleep with his smooth voice lulling them.
"Hey," Henry announced his entrance into the office, sitting in the chair across from the desk.
She didn't look at him, though. She just was rifling through her papers, and he noticed she looked stressed, so he went to stand and walk behind her. His hands dropped to her shoulders like they typically would, beginning to rub the knots out. "What's got you stressed?" He asked softly, looking at the papers on the desk. None of it resonated with him, though, it was something about the oil prices in Russia.
"I'm just busy." She breathed, shrugging her shoulders.
With that move, his hands froze, and he looked down to gauge whether he just read that situation right. Did he just shrug him off her shoulders? Something she typically enjoyed? And loved? But upon seeing her move back to writing things on those papers, he knew he had read it right—she didn't want him touching her.
So he walked in front of her and looked at Emmie, "Want me to take her to bed?" He asked, knowing Stevie and Dmitri would be back in the morning for their beloved always made him want to tuck her in so he could savor every little thing with his first grandbaby. He stood there with outstretched arms for a few moments before she finally nodded.
She set her pen down and scooped Emmie out of her arm carefully, being cautious to not wake the sweet, limp baby, "Thanks," she mumbled.
Henry held Emmie against his chest for a few moments, telling himself he should turn and walk to the room they'd made into a nursery for Emmie at the beginning of the year when they realized Stevie and Dmitri would obviously need trusted babysitters. Who better to trust than her grandparents?
But he didn't turn, and instead opened his mouth: "Are you sure re-election is good for us?" He asked.
That got her attention, and she immediately moved her face to stare at his. "What do you mean, Henry?" She asked. They'd just talked about this at the beginning of the month, and now with the Christmas trees still up throughout the White House, he's wondering if they'd made a mistake by agreeing to another four years.
"For our marriage," he cautioned, "We don't talk like we used to."
"We're okay," she assured, reaching out for his arm and rubbing her fingers on it gently, "I've just got a lot of work right now."
With that, she went back to her papers, and he felt an ache come from somewhere in his stomach—maybe even his chest. Maybe both. He watched her for a moment, noting the way she immediately went back to her own world without a second thought. This wasn't his Elizabeth, and he knew the Presidency would change things, but he didn't think it would get this bad. He wanted his Elizabeth back, and not in 2029 when her second term could be coming to an end, but he wanted her back now. He wanted his wife back. The one who asked him about his day, the one who loved to have a shoulder rub, the one who did yoga in the mornings whenever she was extra stressed and not this one who had a strict gym routine made by the White House staff.
Turning and heading to the nursery, he sighed and reminisced about the simplicity of their complicated lives before this. The simplicity never balanced out the complication, but the complication never crushed them, either. They always figured it out together—but how is he supposed to do that when she doesn't even acknowledge that he's talking sometimes?
And as he laid Emmie in her crib, he felt guilty for even thinking that way. She's the President of the United States, he told himself, scooching his hands out from under the sleeping baby like a pro, she still loves you, she's just under a lot of pressure.
And that's what he continued to tell himself over the next year, even though his attempts to get through to her dwindled. This last year, he could count with two hands the amount of times they'd had sex, even, and it was only six—not even all ten digits would be used on his fingers to count the amount of times he'd been intimate with his wife over the last thirteen months. That wasn't them—that was never them. He understood they were both getting older (they were grandparents now, for goodness sake). But to be forgetting a body that he knew like the back of his hand? Hers, not his. He never knew his body as well as he knew hers.
Whenever the mischievous thought crosses his mind of his naked wife, it's not a current image anymore. It's always a lustful yearning for a younger version of her, and he hates it. He loves the image, of course, but it's not the one he wants to see. He wants to see her as the age she is because she's earned every year she's lived. They've worked hard to be together this many years, and he wants to see the wrinkles she's started to get, he wants to see her with the gray hairs that poke out from under the dye. He's not ageist, he wants to glorify her at every age, but how can he do that when he hasn't even seen her naked body in six months? Six months, he thinks to himself as he digs the heel of his hand into his brow, that's a record.
It was a record, with the exception of deployments. As long as they were there together in the same state, they'd never gone more than a month without devouring each other in some way. Sometimes it was a slow, methodical devouring, and sometimes it was hungry and quick. Either way, this was a record he was not proud of.
And although their relationship has always appreciated the sex, that was never their only intimacy. He loved the moments, too, of silence between them as they drove in the car together, the kids sleeping in the back after hours of asking "are we there yet?" and being asleep when they actually do get there. He loved the moments when she'd reach for his hand, their pinkies touching first and hooking together for a few seconds before he'd eventually wrap his hand around hers. She'd always squeeze his back, and it'd make him smile each time. And in the spirit, even, of missing when the kids were little, he loved when there was a sleeping baby between them—whether that sleeping baby was a newborn or a teenager—and he would look over their little head at her. Sometimes she would be asleep, sometimes she'd be staring back at him tiredly, giving a little smile. Usually he'd whisper that he loves her, and she'd whisper it back.
He sits up in his chair to make his back straighten out and looks out the window, taking a deep breath through his nose and holding it in for a moment. The inflation of his chest feels good for the moment, it makes him have a sense of aliveness again. His hands are folded in his lap as he watches the busyness of D.C. outside this window, wondering if he'd ever get to look out the window and see a farm again.
He's not really sure when he'd let himself get this far into his self-pity, and he knows somewhere in his head that it truly is self-pity—they'd agreed to this job years ago, and agreed to all eight years if that's what was in the cards. But the small part of him that was scared for their marriage has now become a big part of him. The small part of him that missed his wife whenever she was in the limelight or across the world or holed in the Oval Office has now become the only part of him that he can think of.
February 3, 2024 | Elizabeth
She's scrubbed her face until it burns, yet when she looks in the mirror, she still sees a sad woman. All the scrubbing and she's still the same, just more tired looking than before taking all the enhancements off. Her hand reaches back to take the clip from her hair, letting it all fall down as she sets it down on the counter next to the sink. She leans against the cold granite for a moment, her burning palms feeling as though they're searing from the cool touch.
Her eyes stare into themselves in the mirror, and for a moment, she feels peace. Her mind isn't going in fifty different directions all at once, and instead it's shut off. The blue of her eyes, she notices, has turned to a dull gray, too. This gray, however, doesn't come with age. Instead, it comes with the sadness she knows she's felt for too long, but hasn't been able to address within herself or with anyone else.
A jolt shoots through her body whenever it finally recognizes that her mind is resting, and she's thrown back into the fire so quickly with thoughts of China and the global summit on Monday. And in typical fashion, her mind thinks of fifty different things, then focuses on Henry for even longer.
Though she's still staring in the mirror, she's no longer seeing just herself. She's seeing Henry behind her, kissing her neck, kissing her jaw, kissing her shoulders and her arms. She sees herself turning around and draping her arms around his neck, holding on to him like a boat embraces its anchor. His arms wrap around her waist, and they close any space they might have had left between their bodies. She sees herself looking into his eyes for a moment before he continues his kisses right on her lips. And they stay there like that—she's watching the whole thing unfold in front of her eyes as she stares into this mirror. She sees herself run her fingers through his gray fuzz, "We made it," she whispers to him, and he nods in agreement, flashing her a smile and saying the same three words back to her. She sees him kiss her again, and she watches as this Elizabeth giggles and pulls away with a small protest of "Henry…"
And though it sounds like a protest, it's actually an invitation. This Elizabeth knows that, watching the couple in the mirror, because Henry has probably done something with his tongue that switched that Elizabeth on. And she's protesting the intrusion, but she's inviting it in, too. And she watches as Elizabeth giggles again with Henry peppering kisses down the front of her neck, down to her chest as he unbuttons the silk top of her pajamas. As she watches the couple in the mirror doing this dance, she wonders when she ever even started wearing silk pajamas.
With that thought, the couple in the mirror is gone, and she's left staring at herself again. She sighs and tosses the washrag on the faucet to let it dry before applying her nightly cream, then slams her fingers down on the light switch a little too hard as she brushes through the door and into the bedroom.
Three weeks, she thinks to herself, walking over to her dresser. She yanks a drawer open, It's been three straight weeks since we've seen each other, and he didn't even text me to let me know he was home? She's rifling through her pajama drawer to find anything other than the silk pajamas the couple in the mirror was wearing—she can't bear to see her own self wearing them while that Elizabeth was so happy being unbuttoned out of them. She finally finds her Frampton shirt underneath the pile and pulls it out, tossing it on top of the dresser before digging through to find the floral, soft pants that she always liked to wear at the farmhouse. When she packed these from Georgetown, she knew she should've just thrown them away—they had no place in the White House, but they were her favorites. They were well over twenty years old, actually, because she'd gotten them when she was pregnant with Jason. It was the only comfortable pants she'd had until she got too big to wear them.
She tugs the shirt over her head and throws it in the direction of the clothes hamper, but it doesn't quite make it. Her hands shove the waistband of her pants down after unbuttoning them, and she steps out of them with one little trip sideways, getting just off-balance enough to be annoyed. Her hand is gripping the dresser now, and she looks in the mirror to the side of her at her body. When did you get old, Elizabeth? she thinks to herself, sighing before reaching for the pajama pants and stepping in. To the other side of her, she hears the bedroom door open, but she doesn't turn and look. She's turned away, even, as she reaches around to her back and unclasps the hooks on her bra, letting it slide down and off her arms as she tosses it in the same direction as the shirt, also missing.
The silence is suffocating her. She pulls the Frampton shirt over her head and adjusts her glasses as they had gotten caught in the neck, and then turns and picks her pants up. She goes to throw them in the hamper, too, but then realizes the other two articles of clothing had missed. With a sigh, she drags her body over to the hamper and picks the other two up, tossing each item in all at once as she stands right next to it, unable to miss this time.
She hears him shuffling around in the bathroom, hearing the shower turn on. The thought crosses her mind quickly that she should just walk in and take back what's hers. (Him, of course). She's the most powerful woman in the world, even one of the most powerful people in the world, gender excluded. Surely she can use that power to tell her husband he needs to love her again, right?
But something stops her. It's not her heart—her heart is wanting her to move and go in there, but her legs won't move. They refuse, actually, so she just stands there and stares into the hamper for a few moments until she hears the shower door shut. She swallows hard and glances over her shoulder to look at the bed, wondering if she could make herself sleep in there tonight. She hadn't been sleeping well the past three weeks at all, starting on day four of Henry's campaign tour. She'd rotated between the couch, the recliner in the library, and the guest bedroom. Nothing was very comfortable, but it was better than sleeping alone in that bed where the dip of Henry's body outline in the mattress pulled her in nightly.
She makes her legs work and moves toward the bed, crawling in on her side and tucking the blankets around her. Her back sinks into the mattress and she folds her arms over her stomach—it's not even 8:00 yet. She shouldn't be going to bed. But what else, if not this? Work? She doesn't want to work right now—she's not sure she can. Her mind is too lost tonight, and for the first time in a long time, she can't bring herself to working.
She hears the shower shut off moments later, and she almost lets her head turn to look in there, but she keeps it straight and stares at the ceiling. That couple she saw in the mirror was still haunting her, still teasing her with the sounds of her giggles and the sounds of his playful growls as they chased each other to the bed. She can't see them, but the sounds she hears in her ears are telling her that they're having a good time. The wet sound of kisses, the vibrating sound of moans, the sound of the springs in the mattress—it was all just a tease. Elizabeth shuts her eyes and tries to block it out, but she hears Henry say "I love you," and it's not this Henry in the bathroom. It's that Henry, the one with a happy Elizabeth, and the ones who are so happily making love on their bed right now. The bed that she lies in alone, wondering how to get these sounds to get away from her ears.
She hears a new sound—the light switch—and recognizes it's from this Henry. Her head tilts this time to look over at him as he walks through the door shirtless. Upon further research, it's not just his shirt that's not there, it's the rest of his clothes, too. She watches him quietly as he walks to his dresser, taking in the side view of him first as her eyes follow him. He's still her same Henry, the one with the scar on his hip from a nasty fall during basic training. The Henry with muscles just lying humbly underneath his skin, not protruding obnoxiously or losing their sculpting. She watches as his quad muscle contracts with each step he takes, her eyes moving up to watch the glute, too, and see it move with his strides. His back is turned toward her now, and she watches as he bends a little, her eyes focused on the muscles between his shoulders. She wonders briefly how long it had been since she left fingernail marks there in his skin, how long it had been since she'd worshipped this beautiful body of his standing in front of her.
As she tries to think of the last time they'd had sex, it suddenly scares her because she cannot remember the exact date. A sign, surely, it had been much too long.
But he's exhausted, he's made that clear tonight. If not by his words and actions, she could tell it in the way he looked at her with the circles underneath his eyes and the way his eyelids weren't fully open. She can tell he's exhausted without him having to say it, but so is she.
When have they ever let exhaustion get in the way of their lives?
She pulls the blanket up over her chest, feeling a little conscious about the way she looks suddenly after seeing him still looking like his same self. After three kids, the girls weren't as perky as they used to be, but now with age, they've really moved from the "perky" category into the "deflated" category. Sure, she could get a boob job, but why? So the tabloids can pick her apart? No thank you.
The dresser drawer makes a sound when it shuts, and she drops her eyes to look at him again as he steps into his boxers. A shirt is resting on the dresser's top, and she wonders now when he started wearing shirts to bed all the time. He only used to on some nights, but now, she realizes, he's worn a shirt to bed every single night that they've been here for at least the past two years. How had she not noticed before now?
He pulls the shirt over his head and turns around, and her eyes flick away so that he doesn't catch her staring. Instead, they're staring at the ceiling now as she continues to wonder when things changed, and why she hadn't even noticed. The feeling in her stomach turns from anger and annoyance to disgust—but disgust with whom? Henry? Or herself?
She feels the bed dip beside her and she turns to look, watching as he crawls in and turns his light on. He slides the book off his bedstand and props his pillows up behind him before leaning back and opening the book up.
While he's doing this part of his nightly routine, she thinks of the clock again. It's only, what, 8:15? Maybe? She doesn't look at it because she doesn't want to pull her eyes away from him. Instead, without thinking twice, she rolls over on her stomach and looks at him, propping her elbows up underneath her body. "Henry," she whispers, "Please talk to me."
He looks at her over his book, letting it fall slightly to the side. There's that same look as earlier—the one with his hooded eyes and dark circles that she wonders when he developed. Was it on the tour? Was it before that? She'd developed her dark circles about a year into the presidency, but that was a given. He seemed happy with his job, with his life, so when did this happen? When did any of it happen? That question is the one that made her feel sick every time she thought of it, and she can't stop thinking of it now.
"And say what, Elizabeth?" He asks, his voice not in its full power. He doesn't whisper, but she notes that he sounds exhausted, too.
She shrugs, "Anything," she whispers, "Tell me something from the trip? Tell me what's going on in your head and why you don't want to talk to me?" She asks, almost begging when she says the last question. "Ask me about Emmie or about China or about my day or tell me about yours." She sounds desperate, she realizes, but isn't she desperate anyway? Shouldn't she be desperate at this point? Maybe so, but she hates the way it sounds coming out of her mouth anyway.
He shakes his head, shrugging, "You are too busy, Elizabeth." He whispers, returning his gaze back to his book dismissively.
She stares at him for a moment, analyzing his face and wondering what exactly he meant by that. Of course she's not too busy, she's lying here in bed next to him and begging him to tell her things about his life that she's wondering how she's missed in the first place. She watches his eyes move to the side with each word he's reading, and she finds herself sucking in on her lips, something she does before she feels like she can't breathe, typically.
So she forces herself to take a deep breath, and she moves her hand to rest on top of his thigh, the comforter between her palm and his boxers. "I'm not busy right now." She pleads.
He looks at her again, waiting for a moment this time before lying his book in his lap and sliding his glasses off his face, rubbing his eyes with his palms. She studies him, knowing that this is usually what he does when he's not ready to admit something. And the sick feeling in her stomach turns to a weight in her stomach, dropping hard and fast like a boulder and stretching the insides to the out.
"Are you having an affair?" She whispers.
"What?" He asks, looking at her wildly. "No, Elizabeth, I'm not having an affair."
The way he says it makes her feel small, much like a child being scolded. He says it as though he's disgusted with her for thinking he's had an affair. She's the one who should be disgusted, though, to have to wonder if her husband is having one in the first place.
"I didn't really expect you to," she whispers, trying to find more strength, more power somewhere in her body. But she can't. She's depleted of all that right now. "But you're scaring me," she admits, "What's going on with you?"
He shakes his head again, "I'm just tired," he says, and she squints her eyes empathetically at him, waiting for him to go on. When he doesn't, she tilts her head a little.
"Of?" She asks, realizing it's not the sleepy kind of tired. He's that, too, but it's not just that kind.
He swallows thick, "This," he admits quietly, looking down into his lap.
She follows his eyes to see where he's staring, and she realizes his gaze is fixed on her hand. The stare makes her feel uncomfortable, and she moves her hand away from his leg, "Do you not…" she tries to find her next words. Does he not love her? Is that she wanted to ask? Does he not want her to touch him? Does he not think she's pretty anymore? What is it, damn it?
He's staring at her now, too, as she's still silent and hanging onto that cliff she just jumped off of with those three words. He takes a breath that sounds like it was hard to get, and she frowns.
"Are you sick?" She asks.
He shakes his head, "Not according to the doctors." He says, looking back at his book that's folded on his lap. His hands come together and clasp, and he's rubbing the backs of his knuckles. She wonders if they hurt, too, like hers too—arthritis, the doctor told her.
"Then what is it, Henry?" She asks desperately, moving in a fiery jump to sit up, facing him as she criss-crosses her legs, throwing her hands up in the air as she talks, "Because I'm sick of wondering why you're acting as though you don't love me anymore. I don't…" she takes a sharp breath, trying to hold back a sob at the thought of her Henry McCord not loving her anymore. "I don't think that's it, and I don't want to think that's it."
"It doesn't feel great, does it?" He shoots back, staring through her soul.
She swallows thick, closing her mouth and studying his face. He's serious, she realizes, and it makes that boulder-weight feel like it's dissolving, but consequentially eating her insides up at the same time. "What?" She finally manages to strangle out of her throat.
"It doesn't feel great." He repeats, "Does it?" The pointedness in his voice feels like an accusation.
And maybe, she figures out, it is an accusation. "Do you think I don't love you anymore?" She tries to piece everything together, but her mind is spinning too fast. When did it come to this? When did this happen? Those questions are slamming into the walls of her brain over and over and over again.
He shrugs his shoulders, dropping his gaze back to his folded hands as his fingers toy with each other. "Should I ever have to wonder?" He asks.
The question hit her hard. Should he? No, he shouldn't. Just as she should never have to wonder if he's having an affair, she figures, and it goes both ways. She swallows thick and just stares at him, feeling the urge to scream, cry, and punch him all at once. How could he ever think he wasn't loved by her? How could he ever have to wonder if he's loved? Who the hell has she turned into if he's having to wonder if he's loved by her?