Los Angeles, CA – October 2014

He holds her for a long time. It feels just like it always has, but he hesitates to associate the word home with her. There are so many things about holding her that are instinctively normal for him. She's not the kind of woman who would ever melt into someone's arms. She's strong, tough, and independent. And she's not the type of woman to lose control and cry, at least not that he remembers. But when she does, whenever she used to... She had trusted him with her tears. She had trusted him with her true fears and shortcomings. And he had always been honored to know her – to know her so deeply and intimately.

"You know, we were a family. You were my family. And you abandoned us." His voice is thick with emotion.

"I know. I know." She agrees and pulls away. He watches as she dries her eyes with the back of her hand, swallows, and retreats into herself. He's never seen her build her walls in real-time before because she never did with him. He wonders if it's a conscious decision or if the action is automatic.

"You went through a lot..." He starts. He doesn't know what to say to her. He doesn't want to ask too much or upset her further, but he doesn't know what's off-limits. "Do you... Do you want to talk about anything else?"

"You want to know why I stayed away." She says bluntly. He watches guilt wash over her face. She looks down at her hands, and then she meets his gaze.

"It's a fair question." He sighs.

She takes a deep breath. He can see her building her courage, and he can see the fear behind her eyes.

"When I woke up in Landstuhl, actually woke up, not the in-between surgeries waking up... I realized I was alone. And it made sense for the first few days. You would've needed to be notified. I would have had to be properly identified. Its procedure, you know, is to make sure that the spy who calls themselves Elizabeth McCord is Elizabeth McCord. But after the first few days, nothing changed. No one showed up." She can feel her emotions getting the better of her. She swallows them down and clears her throat. "And then George did." There's a small smile on her face. He remembers that she and George were close before she 'died.' But her smile now holds an extreme amount of familial fondness. He is reminded of how close they are, and he can't help the small surge of jealousy. George was there for her. George has been there for her. And it was his job. He was her husband. He should've been the one there. He wants to go back in time so he can be there.

"I remember thinking George had brought you, but you weren't with him... And I didn't know why." She has to pause because although she does know why now. Back then, when she was alone in a military hospital, she had felt so abandoned. She had felt so broken, and she thought he didn't want her. It was a devastating feeling that nearly destroyed her. "I was... I was angry and confused and scared." Her voice breaks.

"And within a few days... I spoke with Conrad, and he told me you weren't coming. He said that you had moved on and you didn't want the kids to know I was alive." Her sentence causes him to gasp audibly, and her tears are no longer held at bay. She quickly wipes them away, but her chin wobbles and her shoulders are tense. And he can tell that there is part of her, however minute, that believes those words. She believes somewhere that he could feel that way. And he needs her to know that he could never. He will never.

"Elizabeth... What?" He has to clear his throat and swallow the lump that has formed. "That's not true. I didn't know. I swear. I would never leave you alone in a hospital. And I would never think it was better for our kids to think you're dead when you aren't." He feels the need to prove to her that he is not the bad guy here. No matter what happened, he had nothing to do with any of it.

She looks up at him with an unreadable expression, and he doesn't know what to do or say. It's an excruciating moment. Their pain mingles together, but yet they are so far apart. The space between them may be the Pacific Ocean, and there is no possible way to build a bridge. At least not yet. There are too many things they don't know. There are too many things they aren't ready for.

"It's not your fault." She says quietly.

"Why didn't you reach out?" He asks, "Once you knew."

"Henry, I never really knew. When I got back to the States, things spiraled for me," she admits. It had been confusing, seeing the flowers he left on her grave one day, and then the threat from Conrad, and then Stalking Henry and the redhead in Pittsburgh. All the while, she was starting to fall down the rabbit hole of active addiction. She hadn't had the clarity to see what was happening until it was far too late.

"Spiraled, how?"

She lets out a humorless laugh because none of this is funny. Not her kidnapping, not Conrad Dalton's lies and threats, not her heartbreak from seeing her husband with someone else, or her son calling that woman mom. And not her addiction. Not the risky sex, she had to regain some control. Not her arrest, and certainly not her almost suicide. Though she supposes the entire addiction itself was one prolonged suicide attempt.

"I got lost in a way I never thought I could be lost." She shrugs. She grabs the files off the table. "In Landstuhl, I noticed how well the morphine worked to numb me out. And when I got back to the States, that didn't end. I spent some time at Walter Reed doing rehab for my shoulder and gaining weight. I was very thin. Malnourished actually. And the pain meds were still there. And I left Walter Reed for George's apartment. I had a script for more painkillers. It was the time of overprescribing anyway, and I don't think any doctor knew what to do with me." She takes a shaky breath. He wants to tell her to stop, to take a break, but he also wants to know.

"I remember so clearly trying to hold on when George and I opened these files for the first time. I was chewing on an Ibuphrofin. I loved the bitter taste of it... and it would hold me over until I could take that next Percocet. That's how it was. I would wait until I was desperate, and then I would pop a pill and go into a daze for the next few hours. The only time I was happy or calm was when I was high. But I'm almost thankful I wasn't high when I read these. Because I would hate for this memory to be fuzzy. To find out I was betrayed so terribly by someone who was like a father to me, and then for that to blur out."

"You've said Conrad was involved. What did he do?" He can hear the anger in his voice. His stomach is in knots, and he is overwhelmed by his need to protect her. He has complicated feelings about Conrad Dalton. He always has. Their relationship has always bothered him. It wasn't totally paternal, and it wasn't totally professional. There was something odd and uncomfortable about their bond. But he trusted that his wife would never betray him or their vows.

"Conrad had me kidnapped." She states. There is absolute truth in her voice, and she is not emotional as she says it. "My rapist, Samuel Rodriguez... He knew things about Conrad. War crimes. He committed war crimes, and, um, Conrad gave me to him as a price for his silence." She gestures between them, "Our family was the price." She corrects herself because her absence has caused the people who love her pain. And pain is a price.

His breath catches in his throat. His mind goes blank. The blood rushing to his ears deafens him. The world stops, and his brain cannot form a response. He can't process the betrayal. And he can't imagine what that meant to her, what it must still mean to her.

"How do you know this?" He asks. His mind can't form a coherent thought. Conrad has been around his children. Conrad loved his wife. He did. And to turn around and hurt her like that. It makes him sick. He's going to throw up.

"Conrad all but admitted it. George got these files, and they are self-explanatory; if you want to read them, you can. But when I met with him, he gave me a new identity and..." She has to pause because her next sentence will forever alter Henry's sense of safety and paternal protection. She's gotten used to it but has not yet come to terms with it. "He threatened to kill the kids if I didn't leave. So I did."

"He threatened our kids." It isn't a question, and she nods in affirmation. His hands are shaking, and he knows she can see the fear and the anger and the disgust and the confusion on his face.

"Yes, and I was going to try to fight him. I really was... But I, Henry, I fell apart." She admits, and she can see his anger turn to disappointment. She can see him thinking, 'How could you leave? How could you give up?' And those are questions she's asked herself. And she can see him trying to overcome those thoughts. And she's reminded of his biggest weakness. He expects perfection in ethics from every single person, and no matter how much he tries to overcome the fact that he is a product of his upbringing, his father's disappointment is too deep. Henry always had to be perfect to be loved, and he never was.

"Henry, I was in the middle of an addiction. I didn't know who I could trust. I was scared, and I was a mess. I didn't think you'd want me because I was so fucking broken. I thought Conrad was going to make good on his threats, and I had just been held in a place where I was raped every day." Her voice cracks, and she takes a deep breath. It is painful, and her hands are still shaking, "I didn't know how to regain any control over my life. But I did try. I went to Pittsburgh, and I saw you and your wife... And the kids... And Jason, my precious little Jason, called your wife 'mom,' and there was no coming back from that. And like I said, I spiraled into active addiction."

He shakes his head. His thoughts are racing, and he needs to process. He needs to think and understand. He needs to figure out what to do and what to say. And he remembers the guilt he felt when Jess adopted the kids, and he can't fathom even looking Elizabeth in the eye now, let alone telling her that information. He likes to think that he has worked hard to keep Elizabeth alive in their home, at least in her memory. But the truth is, life moved on. And Elizabeth got smaller and smaller as the kids got bigger and bigger. He never forgot her, not even a little. But Jason did. He was so young he would've needed him to tell him about his mother. And Allison's memories have gotten foggy, too. Stevie remembers, though, that she asked Henry to let Jess adopt her. He did his best. He has given his all to raising his children, but maybe he lost something along the way. Maybe he forgot to keep Elizabeth's memory alive in a way that mattered. And now she's sitting here next to him, like she has in dreams he's had. And she stayed away because he let Jess in. And he can't regret that because he does love her, and God, he loves Bobby and Drew. But he feels guilty nonetheless because Team McCord had a mother. Elizabeth was a great mother. And if she left to protect them, she still is a great mother. And he gave her kids away.

"I don't know what to say," he confesses without looking up at her.

"You don't have to say anything. You thought I was dead. I do have one question: she loves them, right?"

"Yes, of course." He says, "She does." And Henry truly believes that. Jess has never once made him think that she doesn't truly love Team McCord. Jess is a good mother, and there is no difference in the way she treats the twins and Team McCord. And he doesn't know if it's fair to Elizabeth to lie about that. And his father's adage, life finds ways to fuck you over.

She nods and gives him a sad smile. She can't say anything else. She doesn't know if she's allowed. Her kids don't feel like hers, and Henry isn't hers anymore, either.

"And they are happy?"

"I think so." He says, leaving out that he thinks every parent would call their kids happy. Maybe he should ask them. Would they tell him if they weren't?

"Good," She whispers. She swallows the lump in her throat. "That's all I've ever wanted."

The silence is deafening.

Washington, DC – October 2014

There is nothing noticeably wrong when George gets in his car—no unusual smells or sights. The engine roars to life the same way it always does.

He pulls out of the garage, and as he exits the gate, he turns the car right. It's on that first turn his stomach flips. The car doesn't slow, not when he lets off the gas, and not when he presses the brake. His foot hits the brake pedal, but his car doesn't stop.

His heart beats a bit faster, and he takes a calming breath. He can't panic. There is no time. He knows what's happening. He knows he needs a road that's not populated. There's no way in hell he's going to ram his car into an innocent person. He watches as the speedometer climbs 45, 50, 55, 60. His foot is not even approaching the gas pedal.

As he nears a stoplight, his body is filled with adrenaline, and he knows he needs to brace himself for impact. The last thing he sees is the light turning red, and then his car crashes through the guardrail and down a steep hill, and George swallows. His last thoughts are of Bess.