A/N: Hey all! Back with another update. Another busy week this week, but hoping to give a new chapter next weekend.
Thanks for your comments, and I hope you enjoy this fully-Elizabeth POV chapter!
Elizabeth
"You look like shit."
She sighs when she hears him, all but tossing her body weight forward onto the counter with her oven mitts still covering her hands. Her head hangs and she feels the release of tension all the way down her back, but she knows he's still standing behind her.
"Can't we just have a decent Thanksgiving Dinner?" She begs, picking her head up and glancing over her shoulder at her baby brother.
He shrugs, grabbing his wine glass from the counter where he'd been leaning his elbow, "Just pointing out the obvious." He murmurs, sipping it while keeping his eyes on her.
She rolls her eyes and turns away, then swallows hard as she stares into the numbers that signify the temperature of the oven. Slowly, she peels the mitts off her hands, thinking about how foolish it was to have all the family here this year.
But they'd planned this last year. This was supposed to become a tradition—having everyone over for Thanksgiving in their new farmhouse was supposed to be fun. They decided on this plan last year before Thanksgiving, but also decided it was too soon to host anyone after moving. They settled to have a small Thanksgiving with just Henry's parents since Will was overseas anyway. This year, she'd already been inviting everyone by 4th of July.
She reaches around and loosens her apron just slightly after doing a double check, ensuring that it wasn't showing anything she didn't want it to show. Though only eleven weeks along, she felt like everyone could tell the secret she was hiding. In reality, she just looks slightly bloated.
When she turns around, she sees Will still staring at her and she groans, "What do you want me to say, Will?" She asks exhaustedly, already tired from cooking this morning. The kids, Henry, and his dad were all in the living room watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and Henry's mom just left moments ago for the bathroom. Maureen, Erin, and Shane's wife Jennifer were all sitting at the table and cutting up dough for dumplings while Elizabeth had just checked the turkey for what she hopes may be the next to last time. "Do you want me to tell you how exhausted I am?"
"I want you to tell me the truth," Will says, setting his glass down and eyeing her.
She doesn't dare cower, but she feels like she's going to. Instead, her chin raises just slightly and her eyes narrow.
"Because everything about you is telling me you're lying to me." He adds, and she damns herself for her body language. She should've known better. "Or you're keeping something hidden from me."
She sighs and unties her apron completely, letting it hang loose as she walks over to the sink to put a dirty cutting board in. Her tongue grazes her lips as she tries to think of a way to dig herself out of this hole, but she's coming up short so far. So she stays quiet, further incriminating herself.
Finally, she turns back to him and leans her back against the sink, crossing her arms under her chest, "What do you think I'm lying about?" She asks coyly, raising her brow. She tries to throw him on the wrong trail by talking about lying rather than hiding, a tactic she learned way before the CIA—early teenage years with her mother.
He comes around the counter and leans his backside against the edge, crossing his arms, too, and matching her stance. She makes herself stand still as he examines her, not about to give away any hints this time. Full CIA mode has been activated now. "Are you and Henry alright?"
"How's that a lie?" She fires back.
He raises a brow, "I never said for sure that you were lying."
"You said I was lying to you."
"Or that you're keeping something from me."
She feels the urge to swallow the lump in her throat, but she keeps herself from doing so. "I think you started drinking too early this morning." She diverts, turning and grabbing the rest of the wine glasses to go set the table and begging for Elaine to come back from the bathroom a little sooner.
"Aunt Elizabeth," she hears as she walks into the dining room, and she turns to see it's Sarah, Shane's daughter.
She gives a smile to the redhead, starting to set the wine glasses down on the table and ignoring Will's eyes staring a hole through her from behind. "What's up?" She asks, Sarah standing off to the side.
Sarah clears her throat, her shyness still getting the best of her—unlike Stevie. When it came to personality, Stevie was the opposite of Sarah, and Elizabeth could only guess that all her daughter's fieriness came from the Adams side rather than the McCord side. Of course, she would never admit to her own chromosomes being the reason she sometimes feels like crying herself to sleep at night after a long day with her thirteen-year-old. "I was wondering if I could go outside and pet the horses."
Elizabeth glances at the clock and screws her lips, "Hmm," she hums, "It's almost time for lunch. Maybe after?"
"Okay," Sarah says, sweetly walking away.
While Elizabeth had been distracted with Sarah, she'd been setting out the wine glasses and set one out for herself. She hadn't planned to, but now she's staring at it, her arms crossed over her chest, and she's thinking how suspicious it'll be if she doesn't join in on the toast.
Grabbing her glass from the table, she walks into the kitchen and sees Will still standing there. "Let it go, Will." She murmurs, setting her glass down next to the wine bottle as though she's going to pour some.
But she can't do anything—not with Will watching her like a hawk.
"I know what's going on." Will says, a dirty smirk crossing over his face.
Like when they were kids and he was about to snitch on Elizabeth for something, she wants to smack that look off his face. Only once has she ever attempted it, and that was right before he was big enough to actually be a threat when fighting back. Clearly he didn't learn from it, though, because he's still here and smirking at her while thinking he knows it all.
"What?" She asks, egging him on as she eyes him.
Will looks down at the empty wine glass, then at the bottle, "I don't want to keep you from pouring yourself a glass of wine," he says, "You look like you could use it."
With that, Elizabeth knows she's toast. She tries to not falter, but she's already given it away by taking that sharp breath in after he says the last bit. His smirk has turned into a look of shock, and then a smile—but not the congratulatory kind. The "I was right" kind.
"I knew it," he breathes, "I—God, Elizabeth, what in the—"
"Shut up," she hisses, cutting her eyes over to him. "Stop. Please." When she gets the last word out, she sees Elaine walking into the kitchen and clears her throat, "I'll talk to you about it tonight." She turns and grabs the grape juice from the fridge, quickly pouring a glass while Elaine has her back turned as she stuffs the deviled eggs.
After lunch, Elizabeth promptly headed upstairs after feeling like everything she'd eaten was about to make a return. While sitting on her hands and knees, all but hugging the toilet, she hears footsteps. She looks over to see Henry, a sight for sore eyes, and she sniffles a little to make it known that she saw him.
He walks over to her and tucks her hair into his hands, running his hand along the side of her head gently, "I thought you were maybe up here like this," he admits.
She hears his knee pop first, then feels him kneeling beside her. Risking missing the toilet, she turns her head and sits back onto her leg, sighing at him and closing her eyes. "Will knows." She admits, rubbing her eye and eyebrow with the base of her palm before looking at him. His brow is furrowed at her, and she shrugs, "He figured it out, and then he told me to pour a glass of wine for myself."
"Oh," Henry says quietly.
She nods, "Oh."
They stay quiet for a few moments before he clears his throat, sitting down, too. And there in the bathroom floor with the toilet as a close neighbor, she looks into his eyes and takes her first deep breath since before everyone came over this morning. Her house—full of kids and family—has stressed her ever since, and she hadn't realized the tightness in her chest and back until now.
"Well," he finally says, "Did he say anything about it?"
She shakes her head, "He was about to say something but I cut him off—your mom was coming back into the kitchen and I didn't want her overhearing him judging me."
"You think he's going to judge you?"
"Have you met Will?" She asks, "He doesn't understand any of it." She points out, shaking her head. "He doesn't even get sometimes why I got married in the first place. You know him—he swears he'll be single forever and be happy being that way."
He laughs a little and shrugs, "I still say the right woman just hasn't come along and swept him off his feet yet."
"It'll take a bulldozer to sweep Will Adams off his feet."
He laughs louder this time and raises his brows, and she can feel an accusatory statement about to come out of his mouth. Quickly, she raises her index finger and shushes him by placing it on his lips, "Ah ah ah," she chides, shaking her head and closing her eyes, turning away from him slightly. "I don't want to hear it."
"I was just going to say," Henry mumbles, her finger still against his lips, "That it runs in the family."
She pushes harder into his lips, still looking away, and then she feels his lips engulf her finger. Quickly, she turns toward him and widens her eyes, but before she can chide him again, he's letting it go with a pop. She bites her bottom lip to keep from laughing, trying to keep a serious conversation happening. "That was…" she murmurs, slightly shocked but entirely amused.
"Hot?" Henry asks playfully.
She snorts and dries her finger off on his pants, "Weird," she corrects, getting her feet under her to stand up. "And a little hot."
Henry's standing, too, and helps her up before she can get to her feet on her own. He wraps his arms around her waist and lets his hands rest on the waistband of her pants, then slides them into her back pockets. "What do you say we ditch the Thanksgiving party and find a quiet place?"
She looks up in his eyes, thinking how marvelous that sounds. But also thinking of how it's such a tease. "That might have worked when we were kids," she reminds, "But I think people would notice if the hosts go missing for hours."
He smiles at her and leans down, kissing her on the lips.
"I could've puked with those lips." She reminds him.
"I would kiss them anyway." He says, then smirks, "But I also knew you hadn't."
She snorts again and pulls away from him after patting him on the back, "We better get back before Will thinks I'm in labor or something."
After the rest of the McCords go to bed for the evening and the kids are also, supposedly, in bed (she knows they will be awake with their cousins half the night—but she digresses over school breaks), she walks back into the living room with Henry by her side and Will sitting on the couch staring at her.
"I know you have questions," Elizabeth says quietly, walking around and sitting on the loveseat. Henry sits down on the cushion beside her, half on his own cushion, half on hers, and pulls her in protectively.
Henry and Will have always gotten along, but Henry has also always been overly protective of her against Will and the things he's said to her on occasion. After she'd told him how she basically raised Will until she went off to college, Henry has always made sure Will stayed in his lane, or at least tried to be sure of it.
Elizabeth can feel the protectiveness radiating from Henry as she looks at Will and takes a deep breath, anticipating the probably hurtful things he'll have to say.
Will is still watching the two of them as he leans back in his seat, his wine glass sitting next to him on the end table after having drank another glass. He, by no means, was drunk, but he was definitely merry. "I just…" his words aren't coming out like he wants them to, she can tell. She sits with her back a little straighter as he searches some more. "I want to ask what were you thinking. But I know you'll give me some bullshit answer about this not being logic, even though you're the most logical person I know."
She narrows her eyes at him, surprised at his answer. He never thinks it through like that—he always jumps straight to the hurt. This time he managed to still get to the hurt, just in a more roundabout way.
Like a predator about to pounce on its prey, she drags her tongue across her lips, "Will Adams admitting to a higher power that may or may not be love?" She asks, her voice maybe a little too childish for being a mother herself. But this is Will. He brings out the worst in her sometimes.
He leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees, clasping his fingers together and staring at her. She feels Henry's arm wrap her a little tighter. "I never said I was admitting to it."
She feels the familiarity of their conversation earlier and realizes that he, too, is diverting like she was. With her eyes still narrowed on him, she studies him for a few moments, becoming the CIA sister he's known for so long now once again. After only moments, she raises her brow, "Are you in love?" She asks, her question such as shock even to herself that she barely hears herself say it.
Henry looks at her, then at him, and they both wait silently with their breath held for his answer.
He almost makes them wait too long.
But then he swallows thick and cocks his jaw to the side. His tell.
"You are in love!"
"I'm not in love," Will argues immediately, and Henry is shell shocked when she glances over at him. "I have, however, found a nice—"
"You're so in love." Elizabeth harasses, forgetting why this conversation had started in the first place.
Will watches her for a moment, having a little bit of a celebratory second to herself. "Are you finished?" He asks finally, and when Elizabeth just smiles at him, he rolls his eyes. "Back to you getting knocked up."
"Hey," Henry steps in, giving a solid warning.
Elizabeth places her hand on his leg gently, not having to look at him to know he was immediately angered by that statement. She felt it—the protectiveness changing quickly to fury. "I think I'm long past the stage where we can accurately say I'm 'knocked up,' Will." She points out, "I'm married, I'm in my thirties, and I already have three kids."
"Do they know?"
"No one other than you and Henry know," she says, the weight on her chest returning when she thinks about why she wants to keep it a secret. For a few minutes, she'd been so giddy about Will finding love and her uncovering it that she'd momentarily let go of that worry. But now it's back with a full force.
Henry loosens slightly, "We're keeping it quiet until she's further along," he says.
Will's gaze shifts between them a few times, and then lands on Elizabeth again, "What's the reason?" He asks, knowing the history of her pregnancies. As soon as she'd known the last three times, she'd told people. It wasn't that she just needed to announce it to everyone, but there was also no reason to keep it hushed.
She shrugs, "A few reasons," she admits, "My age, for one. It's a geriatric pregnancy."
"I'm well aware." Will replies.
"Then you should know there's risks involved with that." She reminds him cautiously, her tone changing to one with more warning in it. He's about to cross that line, she can tell. "And our kids—they're all old enough to understand the weight of the situation if we lose a child. I don't want to hurt them if we don't have to." She admits, the lump so quickly appearing back in her throat. She swallows hard and clears her voice quietly, about to say something, then stops.
He's still watching her intently, and Henry is rubbing small little circles on her back and making her feel just slightly calmer. Still, no amount of little-circle-rubbing could keep the anxiety she feels at bay tonight. "Is something wrong?" Will asks quietly, the smugness dropping from his voice.
She swallows thick and looks down, wondering whether she can lie to him and get away with it. Weighing her choices, she decides she's already losing today, so she just shrugs, "I know you're not going to understand when I say this—because logic and all—but I have not had a good feeling this entire pregnancy, Will," she says quietly, her voice just barely above a whisper. She looks up at him, "Mother's intuition is a strong and scary thing."
He shifts uncomfortably on the couch, then grabs his leg and crosses it over his knee as he looks like he's thinking. She watches in silence, and Henry keeps rubbing circles. Finally, Will looks at her again, "I believe in a mother's intuition," he says, and Elizabeth hears the difference in his voice. It's no longer a smug little brother speaking to his adult sister about being "knocked up." It's the voice of a man who has seen war—who has saved lives and watched as they cannot be saved, too. It hits her hard that he probably has helped with births, too, and has probably had to tell mothers their children didn't make it. She feels an ache in her chest and she looks down at her hands, picking at her fingernails mindlessly.
"Then you'll know it's scary," she says again.
"I know that it's right sometimes," he says, and the silence hangs thick in the air for a few moments. Elizabeth looks up just as Will is continuing, "But I know that sometimes it can be wrong."
She studies his eyes, and she sees that he's somewhere else. Her own eyes dart over to his empty wine glass, and in her mind she tries to recall the amount of glasses she's seen him drink today. Again, the brevity hits her that this is not just her little brother—her annoying Will who snitches and teases. This is a man, her father's son, who has witnessed tragedies beyond what she wants to imagine. So she swallows the lump in her throat and reminds herself to pray her kids never have to see that amount of tragedy he's probably seen, and she looks back down and tucks her feet up under her on the couch.
"Do you hope it's wrong?"
The question throws her, catches her completely off guard. She looks up at him quickly, and she feels Henry's eyes staring at her, too. She feels, suddenly, as though she's under a microscope with no way out. Her heart races and she feels it beating in her neck, and she looks away and past the couch, behind Will. What does she hope? She's felt too much fear to let herself hope anything, really. Grappling with this shock hasn't been easy the past few weeks, and though she's had some time to sit with the situation, she still doesn't know how she feels about it.
Truthfully, she's been too busy to really settle on an answer. She'd taken on the extra class in the department, she'd been busy with her own students and her advising and midterm grades, and her kids were also keeping her busy with Stevie playing basketball this year and Jason in a fall soccer league. Since the week after they'd found out, she'd barely even talked to Henry about it all. They were lucky if they'd see each other outside of school, and she didn't want to talk about it there. By the time they would get home at night and eat dinner and put the kids to bed, they were both exhausted. Most nights she would fall asleep reading papers, and even though in the mornings she would wake with Henry's head inches from her stomach, she hadn't felt it necessary to hash out all over again what made this situation so terrifying for her.
So the best answer she gives is a shrug, and she says, "I don't know." And she hopes Will can settle with that.
Henry hugs her a little tighter, and she looks down at the coffee table between her and her brother, unable to bring herself to look at her husband. In just moments because of those three words, the silence could easily be cut with a butter knife it was so thick.
She takes a shaky breath and feels Henry's hand rest on her thigh, patting a few times. She looks down at it and recognizes it as one of reassurance, and she feels slightly better. It makes her feel even worse that he's so excited to be a father to another baby when she can't even bring herself to make up her mind about how she feels.
When she looks up again, she realizes it's not even the silence pressing on her chest so harshly, it's Will's intensity. It's suffocating her.
Will clears his throat, and the atmosphere gets even heavier, "I've seen things—things that can't be explained." He admits shakily, "I've held mothers in my arms while they've grieved, watching them lose their children in ways that…" he pauses and takes a shaky breath, his gaze somewhere off in the distance even though it's fixed on Elizabeth somewhere. "Ways I can't even begin to describe. The way they break, Liz…" his voice crackles and he pauses with his mouth open, "It's like watching the world shatter into a billion little pieces.
Elizabeth's breath catches, "Will…" she says, unsure where she's even headed with that. She stops entirely, shaking her head just slightly.
He holds up a hand, and she notices that it's shaking, even in the dim light she can see it. "No," he says, "Let me finish. It's not just about death or the fear of it." He says, and Elizabeth feels herself leaning forward just slightly, being pulled into him so violently and uncontrollably, "It's about the lives those mothers held, the hopes and dreams vanishing in an instant. I've watched them—" his voice cracks again and he grits his teeth together, gathering himself, "I've watched them clutch—clutch—at nothing, trying to bring back what was lost. And the thing is, those moments haunt me. And they will forever."
Elizabeth attempts to swallow the lump in her throat, blinking the tears away from her vision. Instead, they run down her cheeks, "I can't even begin to pretend I understand what that feels like, Will." She whispers.
He nodded, his loopy gaze coming back to focus on her eyes. She feels, again, the intensity of his being. "And that's the thing, right?" He says, giving a half-smile, "The uncertainty, the fear…it's a haunting thought. I get that." He says, and suddenly she feels like he really might get it. As much as she loves Henry and knows he's there for her, she's not felt quite as seen as she does right now by her brother. "I've watched these mothers face that despair and struggle to find any kind of hope to hold on to. And struggle, too, with hope that their kids live because they know it'll just be a hard life for them down the road. In either situation, death or life, some of these kids don't have a chance at a good life." He says, his voice far away again.
Will meets her gaze again, his face softening but still heavy with a pain she will never understand fully, "You can't let that fear consume you, Elizabeth." He warns, his voice still serious, "It's all a complicated mix of love and loss and joy and sorrow, and sometimes, it's all intertwined in a way that's impossibly to unravel until you're in the thick of it."
She wipes away a tear that was running down her neck, not bothering with the ones sliding down her face. Henry pulls her in close to him and she lays her head down on his shoulder, calming her breathing for a few seconds. After a while, she picks her head back up and looks at Will, "Speaking of thick of it," she murmurs, trying to bring it back to a lightheartedness, "Who is this girl I busted you on?"
Will's face immediately shifts back into a smile, though she recognizes now, too, that there's many layers to that smile. She swallows the lump back in her throat again when she thinks about how quickly he's grown up. Though he's a full-blown adult, she still thinks of him as her baby brother. "It's really not that big of a deal," he says, but his grin betrays him.
She smirks a little, snuggling deeper into Henry.
"You're reading way too much into it," he adds quickly. Too quickly.
She smiles again and is about to say something, but Henry speaks up now, "She is former CIA." He reminds Will playfully. She looks up at Henry and winks, then back at Will.
"He's right. Sister-sense and spy-sense really will screw you every time." She states matter-of-factly.
"You're impossible," Will breathes, almost laughing, "I told you I'd be single forever. Love was never my thing."
"Yet here you are," Elizabeth says, "Sitting across from me on my couch with a blush across your cheeks that even my geriatric eyes can see in this dim light." She smirks, "You know if you don't tell me about her that I'll just abuse my power of having friends in high places to find out about her, right?"
"Good luck with that," Will says, and it fuels her. She feels a rush of excitement roll through her body as though she's just been told she'll win something if she can figure it out. A challenge. And she accepts, gladly. Something to take her mind off everything else, especially the feeling that she's a bad mother, no matter what Will says about joy and sorrow and all that.
She's unsure when the lull of Henry's voice and Will's gentle laughter made her fall asleep, but she blinks her eyes a few times to see Henry waking her up so sweetly. "It's time to go to bed, babe," he's whispering, shaking her shoulder with a soft touch.
She sits up slowly and rubs her eyes, glancing at the clock to see that it's 1:30. "Did you and Will stay up this whole time?"
"He went to bed about twenty minutes ago," Henry coos, "I couldn't stand to wake you up—you were sleeping so peacefully. But I really had to go pee and you were laying on my leg."
She snorts tiredly and stretches, then stands to her feet and lets him up, too. They walk up the stairs together after turning all the lights off, and then she hears giggles coming from Stevie's room and smiles. "Were you and your cousins close growing up?"
"Not at all," Henry replies quietly, being careful to not wake anyone who actually was sleeping, "But my siblings and I—we were all pretty close until we weren't." He says.
She screws her lips to the side and steps into their bedroom, and he closes the door behind them. "I'm glad Stevie has a friend in Sarah." She admits, "Maybe Sarah will rub off on her."
Henry laughs quietly and crawls in the bed while Elizabeth is changing into a night shirt and sweatpants off to the side. She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror after she slides her sweats on, the tee still laying on the mattress and her bra hanging on the end of the bed. She turns just slightly, looking at the side view. One hand is scratching nervously below her ear, and the other hand is dwindling around her stomach, and she watches from the side as she brushes her fingers against her skin. Chills run down her back, and she takes a sharp breath, and the conversation with Will floods back to her.
Do you hope it's wrong? She thinks back to his question as she lets her fingers rest on her stomach, battling to push aside thoughts of final papers coming up and Christmas shopping for three kids and the smaller paycheck she and Henry both will receive in December. She swallows hard again and rests her palm against the side of her belly while her other hand still lingers around her ear.
When she hears a shuffle, she sees Henry crawling over to her on the bed, and she moves her gaze again to the mirror as she watches him place both hands on the sides of her stomach—the little bloat looking bigger tonight after she's eaten Thanksgiving meals. Though she'd felt nauseous, she never got sick today, and she'd eaten leftovers for dinner, too, when everyone was playing games around the table.
She watches him lean down, closing the gap between his face and her stomach, and she feels his lips before she watches them, somehow. "Lean on me," he whispers, then drags his eyes up her body and looks into hers, "Lean on me and tell me your fears when they're too much, Elizabeth. You know you have me."
"I know," she whispers immediately, "I know I do." Her hand drops from her ear down to his hair, and she runs her fingernails above his ear now.
"Sorrow. Joy. Love. Loss." He lists off the words Will had said earlier, and she feels a ringing in her ears when he mentions the last one. She swallows thick, knowing what she hopes.
Do you hope it's wrong? The tightness down her spine tells her yes, she does hope it's wrong. The ache in her jaw tells her yes, she does hope it's wrong. The tenderness in Henry's touch and voice tells her yes, she does hope it's wrong. But she can't let herself be broken by admitting that just yet.
"All of it." He whispers, kissing her stomach gently.
She takes a deep breath and leans down, resting her chest against his head and engulfing him in her body. She holds on to him tightly, clinging to the hope he's trying to give her.
Slowly, she peels herself away from him and strips back out of her sweats, climbing in the bed in only her underwear. He watches her from where he was sitting, waiting for her to settle on her pillow, and she pats the bed right beside her. "Okay." She replies finally, "All of it."
