A/N: Hi all! Been a little while, but summer was busy and relaxing yet tiring, too. I mostly focused on writing my book rather than FanFiction :-) I also was just simply annoyed at FFnet for all their troubles they've been having, but hopefully it's on the up and up now.
This is a little story I thought of (kind of, it kind of reshaped into something a little different but same starting point of a ring) while flying home from vacation. I was sitting across from a man and I caught a glimpse of his wedding ring, and it made me wonder where all it's been, what it's "seen," felt, done, etc. So that's where the inspo came from here. And on the other side of this, I have been dealing with heavier topics in a lot of my writing lately, and I think (truly) in my heart, too.
With that said, the world is heavy sometimes, and I hope you all are taking good care of yourselves.
I hope you enjoy this story!
Elizabeth's eyes flutter open, and she notices that it's dark all around her except little glowing lights. The roar of the jet's engines fills her head, causing her to blink a few times with sleepiness, and then she finds Henry sitting across from her, still sound asleep.
She smiles as she observes the state he's in: his head fallen over to the right just slightly, pressed back against the leather seat with the embroidered Presidential Seal in it; his mouth wide open, causing him to snore a little louder than he would want to do if he knew; and his hands crossed over his midsection, his fingers interlocking with each other. Straightening up from her own slouched over position, she stretches, moving her head to one side and then slowly to the other and listening to her neck pop from just behind her ear down to her shoulder. She tries again on the first side, getting one more tiny crack out of it before glancing at her tablet beside her.
A notification had just popped up on the screen, filling the cabin with light—a headline reading: "First Couple Plays House in Europe while White House, and Their Own House, Crumbles." She feels a brief temptation to open it, read it, find millions of ways to argue against every sentence, but she stops herself and keeps her hands folded over her own midsection like Henry's. The screen dims again, and she peels her gaze away, glancing out the window to the black nothingness underneath them—better known as the Atlantic Ocean at night. She takes a deep breath through her nose and lets it out slowly.
Their houses are "crumbling?" They know nothing, obviously. And that's the way it was supposed to be.
This campaign has been anything but easy—much like her last one, except this time, she has the weight of the presidency on her, too. On top of the shaking hands, holding babies, attending events that she doesn't care to go to, she has had to meet with her National Security Council almost every day for the past two months. Over those months, a series of (at the time) mysterious satellite malfunctions started occurring, ultimately affecting critical communication and surveillance systems across the States and even across the globe. Particularly, it was affecting communications with their overseas stations. Though there was no immediate, physical threat that anyone could find, even the CIA had all but admitted defeat. Finally, when an attack on the Pentagon was carried out, they were able to trace it back to North Korea.
Because of the nature of the attacks, the NSC believed it best to keep the public in the dark about this. For one reason, they didn't want North Korea to know, yet, that they were being monitored. And the second reason is that it would likely cause mass panic throughout the United States for two reasons:
1. It's North Korea and they are hacking the U.S.'s cyber systems.
2. Any time there's a threat to communication, social media loses their minds, and Elizabeth's campaign really did not need that right now.
As she stares across at her husband's face through the darkness, she takes a sharp breath, feeling a sudden and unusual rush of anxiety as she thinks about Sweden and meeting with Kwon Jin-woo. North Korea and the U.S. have not had great relations in the past, and her presidency, unfortunately, is not much different. Conrad had warned her about this, and she'd taken it in stride, but now she wonders if she's gone wrong or if it was just bound to happen eventually. But then she thinks of that headline again—the White House crumbling? Not really, she knew that much. The public, including the press, just doesn't have all the information. She's not worried about that near as much.
But her own house crumbling? Sure, she and Henry had spent a lot of time apart over this campaign, but they've made up (mostly) for it by some interesting (if you can call them that) phone calls ("Does the Secret Service tap into our calls?" Henry asked one night, and Elizabeth promptly answered, moaning, "God, I hope not").
She drops her eyes down to catch the glimmer of Henry's wedding band, and her heart aches a little as she stares at it. Quietly, she reaches up above her head and turns on the dim light, never taking her eyes off Henry and his fingers.
The corners of her lips pull up just slightly when she thinks about that wedding ring and all that it has seen and touched over the past thirty years. Almost as if on demand, she gets a chill through her body, thinking of the way her fingers brushed over his ring today while they climbed up the steps and into Air Force One, boarding this long flight to Sweden after not seeing each other for five days. Just that little touch alone is enough to make her feel revitalized, even after all she's been through over the past few months.
When she'd gotten back to D.C. today, she went up to their residence and packed yet another bag while Henry watched. "I have to go to Sweden and meet with the Supreme Leader of North Korea." She told him, folding up a pair of slacks and placing them neatly into her luggage.
He was spinning his wedding band around as he sat on the foot of their bed, watching her place a pair of underwear in, "I could go with you?"
The five words caused her to stop completely, her hands resting in the suitcase in the exact position they'd been in prior, "Really?" She asked, "You don't have anything scheduled?" She'd suddenly felt five pounds lighter, but she didn't want to get her hopes up too quickly.
"The rally in Florida is cancelled tomorrow—the tropical storm."
It was then that she's sure her eyes twinkled, or at least she felt like they would have. "Maybe we could spend the night in a bed together."
He smiled, and then he laughed, "I just want to sleep." He admitted, almost sheepish to do so.
"Me too," she breathed, resuming her packing with a tired smile. "I miss your body next to mine."
He stayed quiet, and it caused her to look at him again, watching him twiddle his band around his finger again.
"What is it?" She asked, sometimes wishing she could read him as well as he could read her.
He shook his head, "I just read a headline today."
"You know what Mike B says about that."
"That we shouldn't," Henry groaned, "I know. But…they pop up sometimes and—"
"It's hard to look away." She finished for him, placing her last shirt in her bag. She's had her fair share, too, of headlines that she hadn't been able to stop herself from reading, and then articles that she had to just set down and distract herself with something else.
"Right," Henry answered, and then cleared his throat, "It just bothered me, I guess. It said that I was trading you in for a 'younger model,'" he did the air quotes and all, "And then I read the rest of the article to see who they were even talking about. It was when I met up with Jennifer for coffee."
She snorted, "Don't they know Jennifer's wife wouldn't be very happy about that headline?"
Henry laughed, too, "I guess they don't care as much as they think they do about good news reporting." He said defeatedly, "And then that same article said you were too busy with Morejon."
"Morejon?" She asked, astounded. "We're back to that again?" She paused her packing once more, resting her hands on the edge of her bag.
He nodded, "Back to that." He admitted, sighing and removing his other hand from playing with his ring before moving to get his own suitcase back out after just putting it away. "They took the picture of you and Morejon out in the motorcade when we were visiting Stevie and Delila." It was never Stevie and Alexander these days, though Alexander was an integral part in Delila's being here. When there was a new baby in the family, it was hard to think of anyone other than their own baby and their baby's baby. "They made up some big story."
She sighed and shook her head, resuming her packing once again and then zipping her bag up. "I don't understand why they can't just leave us alone." She complained, looking up at Henry, "We're okay, right? You don't ever think I'd—"
"Of course we're okay." He interrupted, cracking a smile and a half of a laugh, "We haven't been in the same room long enough to even argue or fight. How could we not be okay?"
The rhetorical question had made her laugh then and it made her smile now under the glow of the small light. In her exhausted daze, she continues to focus in on the wedding ring, and her mind starts shifting through more memories.
"Do I…" he paused, his breath steady even though she could hear hers loudly—or at least it seemed loud to her. She looked up to meet his gaze, her toes uncurling slightly as her legs are wrapped around his waist. He was looking at his ring, and she eyed it, too, "Do I take it off?"
She snorted and met his eyes again, "Henry," she chided, "Why would you take your wedding ring off?"
He shrugged innocently, "I don't want to…" he murmured, and she waited for a moment to see if he was going to let something else stumble from his mouth, but nothing came out.
"Henry?" She asked, loosening her grip with her legs, "What are you afraid of?" She had known him long enough to know it was some sort of unease, something like fear, but not quite. She furrowed her brows and watched as he stared down at his ring, and then at hers.
"What if they get dirty?"
She laughed unintentionally at him, at his innocence on the eve of their wedding. Composing herself quickly to try not to embarrass him further, she shook her head, "It won't get dirty," she replied, the huskiness rising again in her voice. "I mean—" she stopped herself, then caught his eyes again, "I guess it can get dirty, but if it does…we'll wash it off."
He raised an eyebrow, and she knew he's not totally believing her, so she pulled his face down gently toward her by wrapping her fingers around the base of his skull, letting her nails gently scratch at his hairline.
"You won't be using your fingers, Mr. McCord. Not tonight." She whispered, her lips scraping the bottom of his lobe.
She shivers and reaches for her jacket, pulling it up over her lap a little more before lifting her arm to reach the air vent, turning it off her. She's unsure how such a memory could leave her still feeling chilled, but maybe it's just the goosebumps tricking her into thinking she's cold. Maybe it was just from the other sensation soaring through her body.
Henry shuffles a little in his sleep, and for a moment, she thinks he's waking up. But he just rests his cheek closer to his shoulder, his neck looking like it's about to break while his fingers lock tighter into each other over his stomach.
She watches his thumb run back and forth over the top of her hand, the one gripping the side of the hospital bed, and she blinked her tears away long enough to watch. "I don't know that I can do this, Henry."
He looked at her as though he were pleading someone—not her—to switch places with her. His eyes were soft, yet brimmed with tears, his lips pursed together a little tighter than normal, and the telltale sign that he was upset was that his nose was tense. She has known that face and knows when he has it so tight with worry, with anxiety and fear and anything else of the sort. She knew that he was hurting for her, too.
"I'm not going to stand here and tell you that you can when I don't…I won't ever be able to understand the amount of pain you're in." He whispered, his voice breaking before he got the third word out. "But I know you're so strong, and this baby is…" he took a sharp breath and batted his eyes a few times, tilting his head back slightly before sniffling and trying again, "This baby is lucky to have a mom like you, babe."
She flipped her hand over and squeezed his, her middle finger resting on the coolness of his golden band as she shut her eyes and let out a sob, letting it wrack through her entire body before taking a deep breath before another contraction rolled through every single muscle she had, and the ones she didn't even know she had. When the pain slowed, she opened her eyes and looked at their hands joined together. She pushed down a wave of nausea the best she could and took a blink that was much longer than the last. Her body was starting to exhaust itself.
Elizabeth blinks away the wetness in her eyes as she turns her head to look back out at the darkness, imagining the ocean below her. Stevie was born just a few short moments after that, and then only a few more moments until he held that little girl for the first time.
How could she feel jealousy toward a ring? Toward a moment in time? Her body aches a little, a desperation of wanting to become that ring itself—feel her precious daughter against her for the first time once more. To feel any of her kids for the first time again would possibly send her into some sort of coma. Again, her body aches, and she thinks of Stevie and Alexander and the fact that they just experienced that feeling with Delila. She blinks again, and the darkness is suddenly blurry.
She brings her finger up and swipes gently at her waterline, though she's unsure why she's trying to save her makeup. She'll be able to sleep and even get a shower when she gets to Sweden—she doesn't need to look her best.
Her breath is shaky as she looks back at her sleeping Henry again, dropping her eyes to that glimmering gold. She's unsure how much time passes by before she sees his hand move, and then she drags her eyes up his chest, his neck, and then meets his open eyes.
"I must've fallen asleep."
She smiles, "You did," her finger is spinning her own rings, "I did too."
He smiles at her, too, and stretches his arms over his head, does a yawn that's much too loud and only dads have the ability to do, and then he scratches at his ribcage—his usual routine when he wakes from a nap. It's as though he has to have a ritual to wake himself up again.
"I can't sleep," Elizabeth whispers when Henry comes back to bed, having left only to go to the bathroom. Another lovely part of aging—midnight bathroom breaks.
"Me either," Henry admits, climbing underneath the covers and rolling to his left side, propping his head up with a bent arm and an open palm, "Time change?"
"Guess so." She whispers, staring up at the ceiling. She tugs at the blankets, pulling them up closer to her chin. A moment later she drops her head to the side, reading his face that's reading hers, "Have you ever been jealous of an inanimate object?" She asks.
The question makes him chuckle—that low, husky chuckle that he did on mornings she would wake him with a little…surprise. One chocked full of tiredness, but with intrigue. "Care to elaborate?" He asks, settling his head further into his palm—a sign he knows he'll be here a while.
She sighs, staring at him for a moment and narrowing her eyes, about to say to forget the question, but then she takes her right hand off the edge of the blanket and wraps her fingers around his wrist, tugging at his hand to get him to move it. He slides it out from under his head, watching her carefully the entire time. Her eyes are on his ring, and she slides it off his finger slowly, careful to not catch his now-wrinkled and somewhat knotty knuckles. "This," she whispers, staring down at it, "It's seen…it's felt so much. Our wedding, the doorknob of our first house, the steering wheel of our first new car. It was there when Stevie was born and you held her for the first time—when you held my hand and told me everything was going to be okay even though—" her breath hitches, and she doesn't want to cry, so she takes a deep breath, "Even though I felt like I was dying. Like I was going to fail you and her both. And then it was there the two other times I did that because I loved you so much." She whispers, her eyes moving back to Henry's. "It's been there with you through all of it. All those moments we can't get back."
"Babe," he whispers, sliding his arm around her midsection and pulling her body into his, squishing the sheet down between their bodies. "Where's all this coming from? It's just a ring," he says, his voice so soft and so gentle that she feels like her heart is being tickled with feathers. But it's just his voice speaking to her—not a feather or beating organ in sight.
She shrugs, shaking her head a little, "It's more than just a ring though, isn't it?" She asks, her brows raising as she focuses back onto the band, "It…look at all the scratches. It carries each memory with it and sometimes when I see it, I remember those moments. They just flood back to me," she admits, swallowing hard, "Those moments—how they felt, how they were. I can't help but…I don't know. I feel jealous. I feel like it's somehow held onto something I can't anymore." She whispers, sliding the ring back onto his finger and closing her eyes.
She feels his fingers brush on her back, sliding underneath her tee shirt and rubbing the tips along her spine. "You know those memories are in us," he whispers, "They always will be."
She sniffles, tightening her eyes shut harder. "I know." She whispers.
He lets the silence wash over them for a few moments, and then she almost wonders if he fell asleep, but he stops those thoughts when he asks again, "Where's this coming from?"
She shrugs. Truly, she's unsure. It hit her out of nowhere on that plane earlier. "I don't know." She admits.
"Is it something to do with the kids?"
She can see how he came to guess that first. Stevie has a daughter of her own, Alison is off in another country, and Jason and his wife are settling down in their first home quite nicely. She would be lying if she said she didn't feel a little unneeded these days. But on the other hand, she's so needed with her job. Having to meet with the NSC so frequently and having so many heavy decisions ultimately placed on her shoulders—she's exhausted. "I think maybe I just miss how things used to be. When they were simple."
"Were they ever simple back then?" He asks.
It's a serious question, though it makes her feel like laughing at first. She thinks more deeply about that.
No, they were not always simple. And maybe not ever simple. But the further life went on, the harder life got, the more valleys they crossed and hills they climbed, the simpler those old hardships seemed. She shakes her head in an attempt to answer him, then buries her head in the spot between his chin and his collarbone, resting her ear to hear his heartbeat against his throat. She swallows hard, "Sometimes I just wish we could go back. Feel it all again." She whispers, "The love, the fear, the joy…all of it."
Henry stays quiet, his fingers still tracing slow, deliberate circles on her back. She notices that he's holding her a little tighter and his breaths have become a little shallower. She waits because she knows he's thinking deeply about this—she patiently awaits because she knows it'll be a good answer. He has his professor face on him.
After a while, he finally speaks in a low tone, "Sometimes I think we hold on so tightly to the past because we're afraid of forgetting it. Like if we let go, somehow those memories will slip away forever. But it's really not so much about holding on—it's about letting those memories shape who we are now."
As she listens, she keeps her eyes closed, then lets them flutter open when she hears him stop. "I'm not afraid of forgetting," she corrects softly, feeling his hand grow heavier on her waist, "I'm afraid of losing the feeling. The…" her voice trails off and she has to clear her throat, "The way that those feelings made me feel more alive, like everything was right there in front of us and waiting to be discovered."
He's silent again, and she pulls her ear away from his skin, feeling the coolness of the room surrounding them engulf her own skin. She makes eye contact with him, blinks once, and he blinks, too. He swallows hard, taking a deep breath. "I get that," he whispers. "Maybe we don't get to hold on to that feeling forever."
She blinks again, "And what do we do with that?" Though her question feels rhetorical, she hopes he has an answer.
She almost gives up when his silence becomes long again, but he finally answers: "I don't know," it's not the answer she was looking for, but somehow the way his fingertips are brushing against her skin makes her forget that she would normally want something better out of him. "Maybe we just learn to live with it. Accept that some things fade, and we can't get them back." He answers, then looks at her again, "But some things stay—they weather, but they stay." He says, dropping his eyes down to his ring finger. "They're a testament to…" he shrugs, looking for the words. "To life, I guess."
Her lips feel suddenly dehydrated, and her tongue feels so dry, too, that even when she runs it along her bottom lip, it doesn't help. It just makes her more aware of the situation. "It just feels like everything's slipping away sometimes." She says shakily, her voice fraying with sadness as she keeps her eyes locked on his.
Henry doesn't argue—he doesn't offer any kind of false assurances. Instead, he wraps his arm behind her upper back, the cold of his ring brushing against her skin, and he pulls her into him so he can press a kiss to her forehead. "Yeah," he whispers, "But we're still here."
Something about those four words makes her heaviness feel different. Not lighter, but as though it's shifted, as though the weight is distributed differently. They are still here, together, even after everything that they've gone through. Despite everything in their lives that's changed, and despite being empty nesters, and despite being the First Couple of the United States. "We are," she agrees quietly, nestling her head back into his neck.