A/N: Hello! Back with an update after a restful weekend and a little mental health break.

Lots packed into this chapter!

Hope you enjoy :-)

Elizabeth

Once she gets to the car, her fingers are fumbling with the door handle before Henry can reach around her and open it for her. When he pulls the handle with ease, she shoves her hand up into the car and reaches for the handle, hoisting her body in. At nineteen weeks, everything felt more challenging.

She clicks her seatbelt and tightens it, immediately turning to look out the passenger window. She hears Henry get in, turn the car on, and she watches as they back out of the parking spot and start making their way through the parking lot. They turn from the school, the only sound emanating through the car being the turn signal. Finally, though, she hears Henry sigh—a telltale sign that he wanted to say something.

"Alright," she said, huffing and looking over at him. He was leaned up against the driver side door with his elbow, his other hand resting in his lap as they waited for the light to turn green. "What's the problem?"

He shook his head at first, her gaze was staring a hole into the side of his face. When the light turned green, he did another head shake and kept his gaze forward, gripping the steering wheel extra tight: "I just think you should think this through." He said finally.

Her face reddened and she cocked her jaw to the side, "Think it through?" She asked, "Like I haven't already?"

"It's just—it's not like it was when we got married." He replied, looking ahead.

"Of course it's not, but it's fine for you to be shipped off around the world still?"

"I gave that up," he said, shooting a look over to her quickly, "You know that."

She didn't recoil, "It didn't make it easier when I had a one-year-old all alone, Henry." She barked, turning forward and tossing her hands haphazardly into her lap. Now that one-year-old was two, and she'd been asked to go overseas for about a month—maybe less—for some interrogating. She'd done this when they first got married, so it wasn't new. The only thing new to this situation was the baby, who is now old enough to be left with just Henry for a longer period of time.

"I'm not going to tell you no, Elizabeth, and you know I never would." Henry said, "But I just…I hate the idea of Stevie not having a mother for an entire month."

She looked forward and stayed silent, twisting her lips up and growing angrier. Only weeks later, she was shipping out and had come back in less than three weeks, and Stevie and Henry both survived.

The childishness forces a coldness throughout the car, not one that's caused by the cold, winter weather outside, either. She turns her head slightly to just get a tiny glimpse of him, and then she decides once again that she's staying quiet though she still continues her stare.

Her plan works, and he looks over at her irritated when he stops in the turn lane, the blinker clicking in the background while they have a stare-off.

"Care to explain?" She finally breaks the silence, batting her eyes in an annoyed fashion.

"I think I could ask you the same," he says, "Since I'm the one who got punched in the stomach."

She huffs and turns forward, not giving the attention to these childish games he's playing. She just leans back in her seat and looks out the side window again, but this time it's him who's staring at the side of her face. He's using my tricks.

"We need to talk about what happened," he says when she doesn't give in as easily as he did. "I can't help if you won't let me in."

She tries to not flinch at those words "won't let me in," and her jaw cocks to the side as she stares away from him, focusing in on a parking garage across the street. Between her fingers, she grips her coat—the gray one in the same style she'd worn the day she was taken from campus. That one was brown, and she never asked what ever happened to it. Last she knew, it was in those woods somewhere sopping wet and half-frozen like she was.

"I'm fine," she says, her voice low.

"You've got to stop shutting me out like this," he gripes.

This time it grabs her attention and she whips her face around to stare at him, "Shutting you out?" She snaps, "I'm not shutting you out, Henry, I'm just trying to get through my day."

"You call this getting through?" He asks, almost laughing at the absurdity. "You—" the honk from behind them forces him to stop mid-thought, and he grabs the wheel and drives forward, turning onto the road again and driving toward the doctor, "You jump at shadows, Elizabeth, you're on edge every second. I can't even touch you without you flinching, for God's sake. This isn't just a phase for you."

"I don't need a lecture from you about this right now, of all people to lecture me!" She shoots back, her fingers pinching the material tightly. If she would've looked down and paid attention, she would've noticed that her fingertips were turning red, then white, and her hand was shaking. This conversation felt much like the one that had popped into her head earlier about her leaving, and him being hypocritical after leaving them behind to go overseas. "You never dealt with your issues after you came back. You think I don't see how you still carry it around with you? How you freeze when a siren goes off on the TV?"

She's staring at him, her cheeks hot and her ears throbbing. She feels it in her neck, too, the way her heart is beating so hard. "You bury it under these layers of bravado, wearing your…your…" she stumbles around and throws her hands in the air, "Masculinity around like it's a badge of honor, yet whenever I put a little armor on after being kidnapped and beaten, you act like I'm failing!" She's yelling, and he's pulled into the doctor's parking lot now, putting the car in park angrily. "Somehow you seem to think it's admirable when you do it, when you shove everything down until it's ready to explode, but when I try to protect myself you look at me like I'm broken."

Her voice is shaking, and she has to stop and catch her breath. "I've seen how you push people away—how you pushed me away whenever I tried to help you. You've been in this cycle of hiding your own pain for way longer than I have, Henry, so don't even pretend that you're—"

"I'm just trying to protect you, Elizabeth!" Henry yells, cutting her off. "You think I don't know what it feels like to be trapped in your own mind?" He asks, looking at her with wide eyes, his hand gripping the gear shift. It's a nightmare that never ends! It never goes away!" He's yelling again, and it makes her sink into the seat. She hates the way this makes her feel now. "I didn't just come home and forget about it. I thought I was protecting you by not dragging you into that darkness."

"Then stop acting like you have all the answers," she snaps, her voice cracking and her cheeks getting hotter in that moment. The tension in the car makes her have to force a breath in, feeling as though it's too thick to get into her lungs. She turns her head out the passenger window and wills herself not to cry, not to let one tear spill over.

She hears Henry shift in his seat. "I don't have all the answers," he murmurs, his voice a lot softer now. She glances over at him slowly, and she sees his facial features have softened. He no longer has his brow bunched up, but instead his eyes look like they have a measure of fear in them. "I'm just as lost as you are." He admits quietly, looking over the steering wheel and staring at what seems like the speedometer as the car idles. "I want to help, Elizabeth. But you need to let me in."

It frustrates her again, and she wants to shut down and not say anything to him. Hadn't we just gone through this? How you shut me out? The tears rise to the corners of her eyes and she blinks feverishly to get them to go away.

"I want to be the one you lean on. You're my wife," he says, now looking over at her, "I shouldn't be the one you're running from." He adds. He shakes his head, "I'm not saying I was right to have shut you out, but I did what I did. I was young, too, and—" he shakes his head, growing frustrated as he looks down. "I just need you to let me in to help you before it gets worse."

"I'm trying!" She cries out, staring at him and sniffling. "Every time I even…every time I think about it, Henry, I—" she cuts herself off and takes a sharp breath in, and then she feels his hand on top of hers. She looks down and sees her fingers pinching her coat, her other hand balled up into a tight fist. He's rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. "I just…I feel like I'm damaged, Henry. I…" she shakes her head, now growing frustrated like he was, and she looks away.

He gently moves his hand up toward her wrist and takes it in his fingers, giving it a little squeeze. "You know I don't see you that way, right?"

She looks down at her wrist again, swallowing thick. Do you actually not see me that way? Because when you look at me—the way you're looking at me now—you see someone who's been through too much. You see someone who flinches when she's reached for sometimes. You see someone who physically shelters a baby she wasn't even sure she wanted before this whenever anything comes in that general direction. So…no. I don't know that you see me any differently than damaged.

Her gaze goes up to the clock on the dash, "We need to get inside," she whispers, wiping at her eyes and pulling the visor down to look in its mirror, fixing her makeup that had gotten slightly smudged through the day and through the almost-tears.

She shoves the door open and hops out before he can say anything else. It slams behind her a little harder than she meant for it to, but she's already walking toward the office door and tightening her coat around her, shielding herself from the wind. By the time she gets inside, her arms are tucked around her midsection, and she has her shoulders up around her ears.

She signs in and sits down, and Henry sits cautiously next to her. When she sits, she opens her coat up a little, feeling a bit warmer now that they're out of the wind. She looks down at her stomach, sometimes still amazed that this isn't all just some sort of weird dream. The silence next to her is loud while everyone else is talking with what look to be their mothers or their husbands, significant others, or even their other kids. She just stares down and doesn't acknowledge that he's next to her.

Protecting me? Be real.

They call her name and Henry's the first to stand up, bouncing up like a spring from his seat. She cuts her eyes at him before standing to her feet, brushing past him and walking into the back. They take her vitals, ask all sorts of questions, then leave her to change into a gown. She turns away from Henry who's sitting in the seats against the wall, taking her shirt and bra off first and sliding the gown on, then removing everything else before tying the gown in the back.

Her fingers, again, are fumbling. The string keeps slipping out of her hand and she huffs, and then she feels fingers on hers.

Silently, Henry takes both strings and ties them in a soft knot, and then he touches her on the shoulder to let her know he's finished. Without saying anything back to him, she just turns and climbs up backwards on the table, sliding backward until she's able to lie down.

Her hands fold over her stomach and she crosses her ankles, staring up at the ceiling and feeling the baby flutter against her insides. There hasn't been much movement over the last few weeks, but she first felt it move on New Year's Eve. She kept it to herself, though, because she knew no one else was going to be able to feel yet. It was her little secret that she got to carry into the new year on her own. The next day, she told Henry, and by the next week, he could feel the little flutters from the outside, too.

"Elizabeth," she hears, and she lets her eyes go to the side to follow his voice. She makes no effort to move, though. "I'm sorry for saying what I said in the car," he admits quietly.

She moves to look at him and swallows back the lump in her throat, keeping her hands on her stomach. Her teeth grit together, and she moves to look back at the ceiling. "I'm sorry too," she admits just as quietly, and then a silence falls over them again.

She bites down on her tongue as her mind races, the images of that terrible night replaying over and over in her head until she feels like she's ready to scream. The fluorescents above her head flicker a bit, making her jump—the warehouse they were in was mostly dark except this one light and one that flickered. She closes her eyes and lets out a breath, "When Adnan took me, he insisted that I killed his brother. And then when he found out about the baby, he was doing everything he could to hurt it." She says, her voice barely audible as she says it up into the ceiling tiles.

"He kicked me in the side—and that was after he'd—" her voice chokes out, and she just stares at the ceiling and refuses to cry. She takes a deep breath, her teeth pushed together as her lips tighten. She was lucky, she's been through the thousands of other scenarios that could've happened. He could've done worse physically, and he could have easily assaulted her. But instead, he chose to hurt the thing she didn't even know she wanted. How can a mother feel that way about her fourth child? The question ate at her constantly, and today was no different.

"You don't have to explain it all right now, babe," Henry assures, leaning his elbows onto his thighs and clasping his hands together.

"I know," she breathes, getting frustrated, "I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to…I don't want to keep revisiting this feeling." She admits. "I want to be the person I was before," she pauses, unsure if she meant before getting pregnant or before getting kidnapped. Regardless, it was definitely before getting kidnapped. But how far before? "But every time I think I'm there, something pulls me back."

"You're still you." He says simply.

She shakes her head, "You don't…" she swallows hard again, "You don't understand, Henry. You don't know what it feels like to have little pieces of you attacked like that, physically and emotionally. He knew exactly what to poke at. He knew where to find the kids."

"The kids?" He asks, the astonishment in his voice rattling her.

She swallows thick, still staring at the tiles, "He knew where to find the kids." She repeats.

There's a long pause, and she hears him shuffling but doesn't look.

"I'm scared that someone will find us again, Henry. Me. You. The kids. Any of us." She whispers, shaking her head, "They all know exactly what to go after—it's what I went after because the CIA told me to." Their loved ones. I may not have been the hand that harmed them, but I was the mind behind the operations. They knew that, too.

She blinks a few times and hears a soft knock on the door, "Just put a pin in this." She whispers before the door opens.

"Hello, McCords," Dr. Howard says as she comes in. Elizabeth glances upward to see her smiling face, and she smiles back at her in greeting, forcing it even though there's a heaviness weighing in her chest and suffocating her. She glances over at Henry while Dr. Howard moves through the small room, and he's shifted in his chair again, leaning forward. His expression changed—he's concerned, and she can feel it radiating from him.

Dr. Howard pulls the ultrasound machine toward the table and starts pressing buttons, "Are you ready to find out what you're having today after little one wouldn't cooperate?" She asks, her voice playful.

Elizabeth forces another little smile, "I just hope that it'll work out today," she says, her voice still shaky.

Dr. Howard smiles at her, reassuring her that now that the baby is bigger that they usually can work with it a little more. "How have you been feeling?" She asks as she prepares the wand, spreading the gel over it and then placing a blanket over Elizabeth's legs.

"I'm…managing." Elizabeth answers carefully, feeling awkward and exposed even though Dr. Howard was moving with care to not actually expose her.

She pulls the gown up and squirts out gel onto Elizabeth's bare skin, and Elizabeth flinches more than she should have. She shuts her eyes, taking a breath in through her nose as she feels her cheeks get hot.

"Just a lot on my mind." She adds.

"With the baby?" Dr. Howard asks.

Elizabeth cuts her eyes over to Henry who's watching her like a hawk, and she stares back at the ceiling again as Dr. Howard turns the light out. "Yes," she lies. Of course it was partially about the baby—how could it not be? An anomaly like Henry and a borderline miracle happening with this child—of course that's on her mind. "My age and all." She tries to sell it.

Dr. Howard nods as she's staring at the screen, moving the wand around, "We've been keeping a close eye on you," she reminds, "You're really healthy, all considering." She explains, and Elizabeth feels her pulse quicken. "I did notice that your blood pressure today was very high again, however." She points out.

Elizabeth sighs and thinks back to why it was so high. She can't possibly begin to explain everything to her, so she just nods, "It's been a long morning," she says, which is the truth, just definitely sugar coated.

"There we go," Dr. Howard says, looking over at the screen. Elizabeth looks, too, and sees the clear outline of a baby staring back at her.

A smile raises on her lips as she watches it move, feeling the flutters that go along with the movements. "I've felt it a lot lately," she tells the doctor. "Henry can feel too now."

Dr. Howard nods, "It's a strong baby—a little on the small side still. But healthy," she says, and then Elizabeth catches the doctor smiling, "You ready to find out what you're having?" She asks.

Elizabeth looks over at Henry, and he stands up and walks closer to her and holds onto her arm. "Yes," Elizabeth breathes, moving her hand so that it finds his, and she grasps onto it desperately. She feels as though she might rock off this table from dizziness.

Dr. Howard smiles again, "You're having another little girl," she announces, and Elizabeth looks up at Henry and immediately feels the tears rushing in.

He's smiling at her, and he leans down and kisses her on the forehead. "Jase and I are going to be wildly outnumbered," he says playfully, and she manages to laugh.

She nods, looking up at him and feeling a chill go through her body. A flash of Adnan's face comes into her mind, coupled then with the image of him swinging his leg toward her side, and she flinches again. Henry looks down at her with his mouth gaping, about to ask what's wrong, but she shakes her head and silently begs him to not say anything. Instead, she just holds his hand a little tighter and reaches over with her other hand while Dr. Howard gets more imaging, squeezing onto his wrist.

She looks up at him again and sucks her bottom lip in, scraping her teeth against it and ripping little pieces of skin off as she stares at him. He brings his hand up to her hair and swipes it through gently, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"We need to keep that blood pressure down," she says, "How are you feeling physically other than those high measurements?"

Elizabeth shrugs, "Fine, I guess," she says, "I'm really tired a lot, but I remember being tired with Jason, too. I think it's just my age."

"That's a factor," she says, "What about hormonally? Are you having a lot of mood swings?" Dr. Howard is now filling out a clipboard.

Elizabeth shrugs again and looks at Henry, then cuts her eyes away from him before she laughs. "Yes," she admits.

Dr. Howard marks that down, she presumes, and then she smiles empathetically as she looks at Elizabeth, "Pregnancy brings that whirlwind of emotions—don't beat yourself up about it, okay?" She reminds her, then looks at Henry, "Though I'm sure it doesn't make it any easier on your relationship. I remember that my husband was ready to move out by my third trimester."

Elizabeth laughs and Henry does too, and it breaks the tension she'd felt only moments prior. She feels like she can take a full breath now.

"Remember that there's a lot of hormones involved and that they affect your emotional state," she says, going back to the clipboard. "How has your libido been? Have you noticed a change?"

Elizabeth's eyes widen as she finds a spot on the ceiling to stare at once more, and she slowly feels the heat rise in her chest, then her neck, her ears, and her cheeks. The more she thinks about her libido, the worse it gets. "I mean," Elizabeth starts out, her voice hoarse for a moment. She clears it and looks at Henry, then immediately darts her eyes back to the spot on the ceiling, "I…have been very…ah…" she stutters around and pushes out a breath as she tries to find the words, "My body has been very sensitive, and very responsive." She says finally, thinking about the other night when Henry just brushed up against her chest when they were cooking dinner. They'd both turned into each other accidentally, and Elizabeth dragged him upstairs in a rush while the kids ate, citing that she needed help reaching something in the attic. Five minutes and Henry's used-fingers later, she was coming back downstairs breathless and wobbly. "And the noises I—" she stops herself, widening her eyes and feeling the heat shooting back up her neck.

Dr. Howard just laughs quietly and Henry squeezes her hand, biting his lip, "That's perfectly normal," she explains, "Just remember to keep an eye on your overall wellbeing, okay?" She says, and it feels very pointed as though she knows something else is wrong. She and Henry exchange a glance, and Elizabeth notices. She furrows her brow, but shakes it off as Dr. Howard cleans her up.

When they step outside of the doctor's office and off the curb, she stops him by yanking on his hand. He turns to face her and she grabs his cheeks, smashing her lips into his. Her lips stay on his for a while, and then she pulls away, and he looks at her with wide eyes in a befuddled way. She smiles at him a little, "I'm sorry," she whispers, "For throwing the war in your face."

He smiles back at her, kissing her gently and quickly while bringing his hands to rest on her disappearing waist, "It got me to understand," he admits, "So I think we just let that one go."

She nods in agreement, pecking him on the lips once more and sliding her hands from his elbows to his wrists, then to rest on his hands as they slide around to the sides of her little-ish belly. "Another girl," she whispers, looking down between them. "Can you believe that? A miracle little girl?"

She feels him kiss her head, and he rubs his palms along the sides of her stomach. "Alison will be very happy," he reminds her.

She laughs and nods, "I just hope that Jason can be consoled."

They turn around and walk to the car together, and Elizabeth checks the time when they climb in. "Can you take me home before we pick the kids up?" She asks.

He furrows his brows, "Are you not feeling good?" He asks.

She shakes her head, "I just want to do something for them," she says secretively, giving him a little smile. "And we have time. I don't want to sit in carline."

He laughs, "Fine with me."

Almost as soon as they get in the house, she pounces on him, and it causes him to stumble backwards and fall into the door with her lips locked onto his. He turns their bodies around so that she feels her back against the hallway wall, and she moans into his lips loudly. "I shouldn't feel this way after being so mad at you."

"Doctor said it's normal," Henry mumbles against her chest, peppering kisses down the front until he reaches the top of her sweater. She shimmies from her coat quickly and throws it on the floor, ripping her sweater off so that he has better access. His hand is already wandering around her breasts, and she's melting into his touches little by little. "If we hurry," she breathes, "We may be able to get two rounds in." She entices.

Once Henry had left (and left her with wobbly legs yet again), she went into the kitchen and took the Kool-Aid from the cabinet. Following the instructions, she mixes together a gallon of pink lemonade—which also happens to be Henry and Jason's favorite. She sets that aside in the fridge and takes out the strawberries from the drawer, cutting them all up into halves for the kids to snack on when they get home. She's never home before they are, so she never has time to do this for them, but they do love a good after school snack. It just so happens that this snack is part of their little surprise.

There's two strawberries left in the carton when she hears the horses stirring, and she glances up out of the window to look in the driveway. She assumed it was Henry and the kids coming back, but she didn't see a car. She furrows her brow and looks out again, shifting to see if she could get a different angle, but to no avail.

Dismissing it, she finishes cutting the other strawberry in her hand. Not five seconds later, she hears the horses again, and this time she hears hooves pounding the ground. She looks out the window to see the horses running at full speed through the pasture, "Something has them stirred up," she murmurs to herself, setting the halved strawberry down. She keeps the knife in her hand as she walks over to the window, and now she can suddenly hear a motor that seems to be getting closer. No car motor, though. This was a small engine.

She tightens her grip on the knife and looks all over for where the sound was coming from, then she sees a dirt bike dipping into the woods on the far side of the pasture. Immediately, she turns around and scurries for her phone, trying to remember where she left it. Think, Elizabeth. Think! She's scrambling now, looking under her purse and under the papers from the doctor. Knife in hand, she goes to the front door and ensures, first, that it's locked. She checks the hall table—nothing. She rushes upstairs and flips through the bed covers that had been messed up when they got home—nothing. Frustrated, she lets out a growl and tries to stand still long enough to retrace her steps.

Finally, it hits her: her coat. She rushes back downstairs and finds the coat now draped over the couch, and she fumbles around in the pocket until she finds her phone. She dials Henry's number, but before she pushes call, she sees Henry's car coming up in the driveway.

Trying to steady her breaths, she stares at his car and sees Stevie in the front seat next to Henry, and her heart calms down just a little bit. She looks out the back window in the direction she'd seen the motorcycle go, but she doesn't hear it anymore.

A thought crosses her mind and her breath catches in her throat, and she immediately presses call on her phone. It rings four times before he picks up. "Elizabeth?" He asks, confusion deep in his voice.

"Someone's outside," she says quickly, "Lock the doors and don't let the kids out."

"What?" He asks, and she can see him looking around. She has the knife down by her side and she has a death grip on it. "What do you mean?"

"I don't want to freak the kids out," she breathes, the fear setting in now as her voice becomes shaky. "Someone is out there and was stirring the horses up. It could've…it could've been anyone, I guess," she admits, realizing that herself. Plenty of kids had dirt bikes around here. It could've been a number of neighborhood kids. "I just…Henry…" she breathes, the severity of the situation hitting her.

"It's okay, babe," he says softly through the phone, and she focuses on his eyes. He's caught a glimpse of her through the window now, too, and he's watching her carefully. "It's okay. We're going to come inside, okay?"

"No," she breathes, her heart racing in her chest. "I'm—I'm scared they're going to get hurt."

"They're more likely to—" he stops himself, and she watches him look over at Stevie and then glance in the rearview mirror, "Out here in the car. Okay? We're coming inside."

She lets out a whimper as she watches Henry say something to the kids, but he's taken the phone away from his mouth so she can't hear what he's saying. If her CIA training isn't too rusty, she thinks he's saying that they need to get in the house, and not to be scared, but not to ask questions and just do as he says. Stevie looks terrified, and she tries to get a glimpse of Ali and Jase, but she can't.

Her heart feels like it's being strangled by her throat, and her lungs have forgotten how to work. She's leaning up against the back of the couch for support as she watches them hastily get out of the car. "You still there, babe?" Henry's asking through the phone.

"Yeah," she whispers, watching them all move in good time. Her breath hitches when they get to the door, and she realizes how ridiculous it is for her to be standing here crying when they come in. It'll worry them half to death.

Quickly, she turns away and heads into the bathroom down the hall.

"We're inside," Henry says into the phone.

She hears Alison ask where she is, and Elizabeth is trying to strangle out her cries as she leans over the sink in the bathroom, the phone resting on the vanity.

"She's probably just upstairs or something," Henry answers, though the tone of his voice is filled with worry. Elizabeth lets out another quiet whimper and brings up her knuckle to put between her teeth, crunching down on it to keep from crying out anymore. "Go upstairs and start on your homework, mom isn't feeling good, okay? I'll come get you when dinner's ready."

"You're being weird." She hears Stevie say.

"Just do as I say, Stevie." Henry says.

She hears their footsteps first going up the stairs, then she hears three doors shut, and then she opens the door carefully. "Henry…" she says quietly, trying to not raise alarm.

He looks over at her and rushes to her, hugging her into his arms. "Elizabeth," he breathes, holding the back of her head in his hand. "What happened? Are you okay?"

She shakes her head, "I don't think I'm okay," she admits shakily, "I—I saw…I saw a motorcycle going into the woods…and…" her breath hitching is keeping her from making a full sentence, and she's sobbing uncontrollably now. She's trying to hold it together so that she doesn't alarm the kids any further than they already surely are alarmed. "I just…I knew it was one of them, Henry."

"One of who?" He asks.

"Any of them," she breathes, looking up at him desperately. "Any of the ghosts from my past. Any of them might've found us—if Adnan did, surely others can."

He sighs a little and holds the back of her head gently in his palm, then gently presses her face forward into his chest and cradles her in his arms tightly. "Shh," he whispers, "We're safe. The kids are safe."

"How can you know?"

"They're all here with us," he whispers.

She slides her hands away from his back and across her belly, shaking her head. "He was so ready to hurt my kids, Henry." She whispers, "I could never live with myself if any of them got hurt."

"They're not going to get hurt," he whispers, pulling away and kissing her on the forehead. "I'm going to call the police and have them search the property, okay?"

She nods in agreement, sniffling and letting her body shake one more time before trying to really pull herself together. "It could've been anyone—I know it could've been anyone." She admits, knowing that it was the elephant in the room. She knew Henry knew that, too. But she also knew he was purposefully not saying anything about it.

"It could've," he admits kindly, "But we'll be extra safe and have them come and look around. I think it would give us both a better peace of mind, yeah?"

She nods childishly, falling back into him once more and steadying her breaths. She has to lean into him, breathe into him, to know that she's okay.

An hour passes by and the cops came out and searched the property without the kids ever being aware of any of it, and Henry went upstairs to get them after Elizabeth had thrown two frozen pizzas in the oven. The strawberries—the cut ones—were on a plate in the fridge, and the uncut two were still laying on the counter. They could have them with whipped cream for after dinner now.

They all ate in virtual silence—a few awkward questions about how was everyone's day. Then Henry shook it up, "We found out what the baby is today," he says happily, and Elizabeth's heart soars a little. In all the commotion, she'd forgotten that this was even the point of her making the lemonade and cutting the strawberries. It was her own little way of announcing.

"Is it a boy?" Alison asks, and Elizabeth raises a brow.

"I thought you wanted a girl?" She asks.

Alison shrugs, "I think it'd be fun to have another little brother."

Elizabeth looks over at Henry and laughs, and Henry just smiles, "We'll tell you after dinner."

Jason eats the last bite of his pizza, "Done!" He says excitedly, even though he'd been acting like he didn't want to know. For a six-year-old, he definitely had been acting like Mr. Cool this entire conversation as though he wasn't one of their more excited kids about having another baby in the family. Now, his true colors were shining through.

Alison had already been finished, and Stevie was the last one. She took a bite out of her pizza and then set the crust down, "Me too," she says, and Elizabeth even notices a tinge of excitement in her voice, too.

"Okay," she says, scooting her chair out from the table and eyeing Henry. She smiles a little and gets butterflies in her stomach, then realizes that it's also because the baby is moving all around. She heads to the kitchen and gets the pitcher and the strawberries, and Henry follows behind her and gets the whipped cream. He smiles down at her, out of view of the kids, "You ready?" He whispers.

She smiles and nods, "Ready," she says.

He leans down and pecks her on the lips, "Are you okay after today?" He asks, throwing her off.

The sadness seeps back into her and she automatically nods, then freezes. "I don't know," she admits, taking a shaky breath. "For now, I just…I want to celebrate this little life."

He nods, kissing her on the forehead before leading the way with the whipped cream. "Alright…drumroll please…" he says, waiting for Elizabeth to come out from behind him.

"We're having a…" Elizabeth's voice trails off as she walks around Henry, smiling with the pitcher and strawberries.

"A Kool-Aid man?" Alison asks, half-innocent, half-sarcasm. Elizabeth couldn't help but laugh wildly. Alison was occasionally so funny for being so young.

"Yes, Noodle, you got me," she teases back with her daughter.

"A girl!" Stevie says, another drop of excitement coming out of her daughter's mouth.

Elizabeth smiles bigger and nods, "A girl." She confirms, and Alison whoops and even Jason gets excited.

In this moment, she stands at the head of the table with Henry's arm around her shoulders, and she watches as her kids high-five each other from across the table. Jason's climbed halfway on the table trying to reach everyone, and her head is spinning a bit. They're all excited, she thinks to herself, they're actually all excited.