A/N: Hello everyone! It's been a hectic week, but I'm happy to be back writing for even just a moment. I'm still waiting on my Ao3 account to get opened, too, but I'll update you all on that ASAP. Here's part II of "The Refuge."
I hope you enjoy!
Elizabeth | Before Extraction – Eight Years
Elizabeth sat on the couch, nursing a bottle of water that she'd grabbed after coming in from a run. It was way too hot to be running today—she knew better. But she'd needed to get her mind to clear, something to burn the fog away. One whole year without her parents—it didn't seem possible that today had marked the day of the wreck, the day that took her parents.
The overwhelming smell of furniture polish had made her mad as soon as she walked in. She was grateful for her aunt and uncle taking her and Will in, but it always smelled like this. Her Aunt Shelly was constantly polishing her antique furniture that also had its own smells aside from the lemon. And in her grief, today, she was mad.
While she took another chug, she heard her water bottle crack over the sound of voices down the hall.
"I told you we shouldn't have opened it."
"We didn't have a choice," she heard her Uncle Paul say.
She furrowed her brows and stood up quietly, tip toeing to the corner of the hall where she couldn't be seen.
"Then we should have burned it."
Elizabeth's fingers tightened around the corner of the drywall. Something about the way her aunt's voice wavered—not in grief—made her ears perk up.
She swallowed thick when they got silent, and she turned the corner slowly and peeked around. When she didn't see them, she turned a little more and saw them standing in her uncle's study, a stack of yellow documents spread out on his desk. Her aunt hovered beside him, "We can't let her see this," she said, tucking her arms around her body tighter—a move that Suzanne used to do, too. "She's already been through enough."
Elizabeth saw her uncle glance up and she realized his eyes were on her, and she was caught lurking. "Elizabeth," he said to her. She swallowed hard and looked down, then took a deep breath.
"I am guessing 'she' is me, right?" she asked, her voice shaking too much. Her aunt's face said she was terrified, and Elizabeth felt a knot form quickly in her stomach that had already been on the edge of starting. When her uncle nodded, he looked at his wife and then back at Elizabeth and sighed.
"Elizabeth, honey," he said, his voice soft. Elizabeth's eyes flicked down to what he was holding—two books that looked like passports. "You should come sit."
"Paul…" Shelly said wearily.
Uncle Paul looked up at her as Elizabeth walked in cautiously, sitting down in the chair in the corner of his study. "She deserves to know," he said softly, and Shelly swallowed thick and looked over his head and out the window.
Elizabeth | Post-Extraction – 194 Hours
Her words still felt like they were ringing in her ears—the way the gunshot rang in her ears when she thought he'd been shot. "If the DoD wants us dead…"
"I was so scared when they shot through that door."
She'd tried to hold back her tears, but everything seemed to be crashing down on her now—the weight of this morning finally crashing onto her after the shock had been holding it up over her head.
In a span of just two weeks, she'd had her cover blown, been kidnapped, tortured, half-dead, and extracted by the Marines. And in a span of just twelve hours, she'd had sex three times with a man she'd only known for eight days, she'd had to draw a gun and crawl down a dark hallway to call Conrad and Rawlins, and then she had to think Henry had been shot—all aside from seeing three men dead this morning. She knew, logically, everything had to come crashing down eventually—the reality hitting with its full force.
The emotion bubbled out of her chest and into her mouth, tumbling out over her lips, "And I thought they shot you, Henry," she said, her breath hitching as she looked at him in the chair across from her. Their chairs were side by side, she was turned toward the table to be able to prop her leg on the other chair, and Henry was to her right, facing her.
"They didn't," he tried to reassure her, but it was pointless. She had already been gasping for air, her breath shuddering as she tried to keep it calm. But again, that was pointless, too.
"But it sounded like it, and I…" she froze, her body going rigid as she shut her eyes. She shook her head. Her hand was vibrating in his palm, and though she was aware of it, she couldn't stop it. "I was so scared that you were gone." The image of Freeman came to her mind and she had to shut her eyes, but the image only got worse when she closed them.
That could've been Henry.
She thought about Rawlins telling them in the backseat that they shouldn't be holding back on what they had to say to each other, but she wasn't sure where she should draw the line between excess, adrenaline-fueled emotion and just plain emotion.
"I…there was so much I hadn't said, and so much I don't even know if it's safe to say yet, and…" she had to stop, feeling like her throat was closing in on itself and choking her voice out like a rambling vine.
She heard his chair scoot closer toward her and it knocked her crutches over, causing them to clatter down to the ground after she jumped. Neither of them paid them more attention than just a glance, though, because he was leaning in and wrapping her in his arms.
"It's okay," he whispered, "I'm here, I'm alive."
"What if you're not tomorrow?"
He swallowed hard, "I think we can both safely say there's a lot we think about each other right now," he admitted, his voice unsteady as he pulled away slightly to look into her eyes, leaving his hands resting on her shoulders, "But I think we can understand the situation and know that—"
"Stop trying to use logic on me," she said, sniffling, her voice starting to calm down now that she could get proper air in her lungs again.
"Well, it's—"
She interrupted him by shaking her head, holding her other hand up in a half-stop signal, "If you die tomorrow, I don't want to live with the regret that I never told you."
"Elizabeth, you don't have—"
"And if I die tom—"
"Don't say that."
"If I die tomorrow," she continued, her voice firm, "I don't want you to have to wonder."
"Elizabeth," he whispered, swallowing hard before taking a shaky breath, "You're all worked up—there's nothing you have to make me wonder, or—"
"Stop," she whispered. It would have been begging had she had a voice. "I just need you to stop telling me what I am, what I feel," she said, looking directly at him. "I thought we'd moved past that last night."
He swallowed thick and looked down, and she knew that got his attention. She took a shaky breath and nodded, "Exactly," she whispered when he didn't say anything. She waited a moment to gather herself, then she laid her other hand down on her lap while he held the one, and she looked down at their hands, "I have only known you all of eight days," she breathed, shaking her head in her own disbelief, "But you…you were the one who was there when I woke up, who was there to help me breathe. And I know that did something to me psychologically, Henry, you don't have to tell me that. If I could remember you carrying me out of that warehouse, I'm sure that would do something to me too."
She kept her eyes focused down on their hands, knowing she'd be unable to get this out of her mouth if she were looking at him. Exhaling slowly, she finally mustered the courage: "It's stupid," she murmured, "But when that song came on in the car…" she shook her head and screwed her lips, "I used to play that song, like I said…it's one of my favorites…but I played it in my apartment sometimes. I…" she swallowed hard again, feeling like her tongue had suddenly gotten too big for her mouth.
"I was thinking about the night Conrad told me about this op, and how I was dancing in my kitchen…I was cooking carrots," she whispered, the memory coming back painful this time. It ached in her ribs, and she wasn't sure if it was from her various injuries or something else. "I swayed to the music and just…" she shrugged one shoulder, her mouth open but not saying anything.
"You don't have to explain," Henry whispered, rubbing the back of her hand this entire time with his thumb.
She glanced up at him and immediately back down, knowing for certain now that she wouldn't be able to finish while looking in his eyes. She'd seen that intent look last night, the way he looked at her while moving so rhythmically with her hips—she knew she couldn't keep going if she'd thought about that too long.
"I just remember thinking how stupid it was to dance by myself," she whispered, "Maybe not…maybe not stupid, per se, but…lame?" she tried to provide a better word, but nothing was coming to her mind, so she just shook her head, "It felt lonely, and I…it was a reminder that I didn't have anyone to share it with." She swallowed thick and felt his hand curl around hers a little more, his fingers pressing into her palm gently.
She thought back to that night cooking, and how more than anything, she wanted her heart to stop aching for someone to come along in her life and tell her to slow down, tell her to stop being so stubborn and throwing herself into work headfirst all the time.
"And then today, that song came on." She dragged her tongue along the top row of her teeth, taking a few shaky, shallow breaths through her nose, "And I looked at you, and I—" Her throat closed up before she could finish.
"Elizabeth…" he murmured, his eyes watching her so intently that she could feel them on the top of her head. She looked up and saw him, feeling her breath immediately slip from her lungs. She could tell he wanted to say something, but she didn't let him.
"I keep trying to make sense of it," she breathed, her voice choking out again. "This past week…last night…you…me…" she shook her head, "It's just not something I can explain away, Henry, and I don't…I don't know how to feel about that."
His expression flickered, and for a moment she thought he was going to be upset. "Are you saying you regret it?" he asked softly.
Her breath hitched, and she felt a rush of heat come to her eyes before she could stop it. "No," she whispered, "No, Henry, I don't." She hesitated, her fingers vibrating in his hold, "Do you?"
She watched as his throat bobbed, "Not for a second," he said, shaking his head once.
She exhaled sharply, having been waiting for that answer for only a second, but it felt like an eternity to her nervous system. Chills covered her body as she felt the tension release from her muscles, allowing her hand to just be held comfortably in his.
They sat there in the quiet for a few moments, both of them looking down at their hands while a clock ticked somewhere in this kitchen. Though the air still felt heavy, it didn't feel uncertain anymore, and she appreciated that much. Everything felt so slippery, so dangerous—it could all implode at any minute, and she was more than aware of it.
She watched as his thumb traced circles on her skin, almost making it burn from how much he'd done that over the course of this conversation. But she also didn't want him to stop.
"We never really talked about it," she whispered, not able to bring her eyes up to his again. She couldn't look at him while also thinking about the way he ravished her, then was so tender with her. She couldn't, at least, without asking him to do it again right now.
He let out a soft breath, "Didn't exactly have time."
She looked at him then and smiled when she saw the crooked grin on his face, "Yeah, guess not."
He straightened his posture and took a shaky breath, "Do you want to?" he asked, "Talk about it, I mean…" he added quickly, almost nervously.
She looked at him and wondered, how could this man have made me feel like a goddess last night, yet still be so nervous to talk about this with me? She smiled to herself but didn't let him in on her wondering.
She looked over her shoulder toward the window, nodding a little as she saw the sun shining down on the lake. It was a beautiful summer day after all the thunderstorm that had happened last night. She looked down at their hands and then took her leg off the other chair slowly, letting it down gently since it was on the verge of throbbing again.
"What are you doing?" he asked, his brows knitting as she let go of his hand.
"Come with me," she said softly, picking up the phone and stuffing it in her sweatpants pocket, "I want to talk about it out there."
She nodded toward the window, and he must've realized she was talking about the dock. He picked her crutches up for her before she could even get out of the chair, and he was waiting for her with them by the time she stood up.
Again, her mind flickered back to that night Conrad had come into her apartment and told her about the op.
And sometimes it's dizzying to go headfirst into everything all the time. Sometimes, she just wants someone to hold her, stop her from the dive, and tell her she doesn't need to keep herself busy because she has someone to lean on.
She took the crutches from him, quietly thanking him, and they moved silently through the house and toward the back door, the weight of their impending conversation looming over them both.
When they got outside onto the deck, she took a deep breath of the fresh, warm summer air. She paused, closing her eyes and gripping onto the rubber handles, resting the toe of her cast down on the wood. She heard his footsteps stop, though he was a few steps away from her, and she opened her eyes to find him waiting beside the stairs.
"It's nice out," he said, almost as if he'd gotten caught watching her.
She nodded, "It is," she said, hobbling over. He immediately scooped her up and she almost dropped her crutches, but he took her down the steps and walked her to the dock so she wouldn't have to balance on those terrible metal devices all the way through the grass and to the bay.
When they reached the dock, he put her down carefully, and she hobbled a couple more feet until she was on the edge. She laid her crutches down and carefully sat down, setting her cast up on the dock and turning her body so that her other foot dangled in the cool water. She let out a sigh, not meaning for it to be so loud, but the warm water felt good on her foot.
He followed suit, realizing that's where she'd wanted to sit, and he sat down beside her. He was pulling his sweatpant cuffs up when she looked back at him, and he dipped his feet in as she leaned against him without any warning. She crossed her arms over her stomach and, after a moment, felt one of his wrapping around them.
"You okay?" he whispered, leaning over toward her ear.
She let out a breath, "I don't know," she whispered, closing her eyes and feeling the sun on her skin. She wished she would've rolled her pants up more, or even better, just taken them off.
Silence stretched over them like the blue sky above, and she realized that between the sun beating down and feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest against her back, she could fall asleep.
"I don't do that," she finally said, poking one eye open and being blinded by the sunshine. She squinted again and ultimately closed her eyes once more, "Sleep with people like that, I mean. I don't…not…especially after only knowing them for a short period of time."
"I never thought otherwise," Henry murmured, almost sounding confused.
She swallowed hard and craned her neck so that she could look at him, and though it strained around her collarbone, she persisted.
"And I'm never that forward," she admitted, finally breaking into the specifics since it was clear they were both going to have a hard time doing so. She swallowed thick and almost let herself give in and look away, but she held her gaze, and so did he, "I've never…I don't know what overcame me," she said.
He swallowed thick and she felt the grip around her arms tighten, "Are you apologizing for it?" he asked.
She waited and thought about that for a moment. Am I apologizing? she wondered to herself, biting at the inside of her lower lip. Finally she shook her head, "No," she said, "I just…"
"Then don't say it like an apology," he said, his voice firm like an instruction. He wasn't berating her, but he was definitely letting her know it wasn't unwelcome for her to be that forward. A beat passed before he spoke again, "You don't have to defend any of it. I just want you to know that…" his voice stopped, and she looked up at him in anticipation, "That I…I never would've done that…experienced that…had you not been that forward." He admitted it like it was top secret.
She thought about it for a moment, thinking about how strained he was when she'd told him to turn around and look at her. She knew he was uncomfortable already, that he had a hard on from the moment they'd gotten heavy handed on the couch. She'd known. And then when she saw the way his jaw was clenched and the way his neck muscles were so tense, even in the darkness, she knew that she'd done her part.
"I just…I have a problem separating duty from other things, sometimes," he admitted.
She swallowed hard and looked up at the sky, watching as a small, white, fluffy cloud passed by slowly. It looked a little like a bird. "What made you want to join the Marines?" she asked, realizing after she'd said it how out of the blue it was. But she'd been wondering, and now felt like a good time when he'd mentioned his sense of duty.
"Piss my dad off," was his immediate answer, and she looked up at him to see him smirking, and then they both chuckled. "No, not really. I mean, that was a perk, but…" he shrugged, "I got a scholarship, for one. I did ROTC all through college and that's how I paid my way through. There was some money that Mom and Dad forked over, which Maureen got mad—"
"Is that your sister?" Elizabeth interrupted.
He nodded, "Yeah, Mo is my sister," he said, his voice getting a little heavier. She could sense the tension there, but she didn't press. "Anyway, it wasn't just that. I always just—I felt this duty to serve my country." His voice felt distant, and she looked up at him to see that he was no longer looking at her, but instead out across the bay.
She swallowed thick and studied his face for a moment, wondering how she could tell he looked conflicted. It wasn't that his face necessarily said it. She finally clocked that he bit the inside of his cheek when he felt that way, and she settled into her observation skills.
Finally he laughed a little, breaking his serious expression, "My mom said I used to pick up trash in the park, even. She always said she knew I was duty bound from that."
Elizabeth smiled, still watching him as he looked out over the calm water, "How old were you?"
He shrugged, "Maybe three or four."
She smiled again and bit her lip, thinking about him as a child. "I bet you were a cute kid."
He snorted, "I had curly hair and a giant gap between my teeth," he said.
"I'm sure it was cute," Elizabeth chided.
"It was far from it," he answered.
She raised her brow, "If you had a son who looked like him would you say the same thing?"
He didn't say anything, just looked down at her and took a few shallow breaths. She could feel his grip tighten around her chest and she swallowed hard, realizing the force of her question. Yeah, she thought, you've officially lost it, Elizabeth. You brought up kids eight days in.
But she didn't back down from her question, either. She just held his gaze intensely.
Finally he shifted and swallowed thick, "No," he said quietly, clearing his throat and looking at the water. She kept her eyes on him. "I was still the same curly-headed, duty-bound kid when I graduated high school. I lost the curls the summer between my senior year and freshman year of college. I don't know why, but my hair just started getting straighter, and by the time I started at UVA, I—"
"You went to UVA?" she asked, sitting up some.
He looked down, "Yeah?"
"So did I," she said, feeling her heart skip a few beats at a time. She took a shaky breath and leaned back into his side. "I graduated in 1990."
"I graduated in 1988."
She looked up, "So we were there at the same time and didn't even know each other," she said, realizing the humor in that—it took having her cover blown in London and being shipped to Kuwait and having the Marines conduct a full extraction for them to meet. She never could do things the easy way, it seemed.
"That's…"
"Crazy," she provided, pressing her lips together and then looking out over the water, too.
"What made you want to serve your country?" he asked her. It shouldn't have felt so out of the blue, but it still did. She wasn't expecting him to turn her question around on her.
She swallowed thick and thought back to her days in high school after her parents died. "What makes you think I wanted to serve my country?" she asked coyly, trying to stall.
He blew air out of his nose but didn't look at her, "Oh, I don't know. Just a hunch I had."
She smiled a little and bit her lip, not wanting to bring up touchy memories. But he deserved that, didn't he? He deserves everything.
"I had a bad experience with…" she swallowed thick and shut her eyes, blowing out a slow exhale, "You are sworn to secrecy on this, and I will likely never, ever talk about it again." Her voice was low and serious, and when she opened her eyes, he was looking right at her startlingly.
He nodded, and she continued. "My parents died when I was fifteen," she whispered, looking out over the other side of the bay and seeing her cast in the view. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes for a moment to regain herself, "It was a car wreck. The police told us that it was probably a distracted driver and that they left the scene." She took a shaky breath, "Will was in the car—I'm just…I'm so thankful he was alive."
He tightened his arm around her a little more and she laid her hands over his, digging his arm into her belly a little more. She felt her heart beating underneath her jaw, pounding against her tongue somewhere and telling her she should probably stop—but she couldn't. She couldn't stop the night before, and she couldn't stop then.
"On the year anniversary that they died, my aunt and uncle…I overheard them talking about something in his study, and I went in. It was…it was obvious they were hiding something from me. My aunt looked like she was about to shake out of her skin, and my uncle…he looked so guilty. They had gotten a letter from a law firm. That letter," she felt her voice shaking, and he leaned down and kissed the top of her head.
"Are you alright?" he whispered.
She nodded, taking a breath, "That letter said that there was a safety deposit box. It also said that they were receiving this because something had gone awry, and it was signed by my parents, dated back in 1966." She swallowed hard and rested a beat, "They got married that year." She twisted her lips a little, "Anyway…Uncle Paul assumed it was some kind of financial matter that needed addressed, so he got the stuff from the box." She shook her head, "But it was old passports—pictures of my parents, but not their names. Foreign currency." She exhaled, "And a letter addressed to me."
She squeezed his hand, "My parents were supposed to be normal people—they were normal all my life. But that letter turned my entire life upside down again, only a year after it had been turned upside down the first time. It said that they worked with the CIA, and that if their death seemed sudden, there was likely more behind the story. So…" she shrugged a little, "I started looking at the police reports and the inconsistencies, and…yeah. It didn't add up much. I received a settlement check not long after—one that was addressed to me and Will. Having to tell him…" she laughed sadly, shaking her head, "Having to tell him our parents were killed because of what they did…that was a real treat. Especially when he almost became collateral damage."
He took a deep breath against her and rubbed the edge of her ribs, "God, babe…" he whispered.
She felt that word tickle her ears. Babe. I like that. She rubbed her thumb over his hand, "Anyway…that's how this all started. Because after that, I knew I wanted to do something like them—I wanted some kind of…" she was trying to find the word, squirming a little to get more comfortable.
"Vengeance?" he asked.
She took a sharp breath, but slowly she nodded, "Yeah," she whispered, "I guess so. And then…a few years later, Conrad Dalton showed up, and he…" she shrugged one shoulder and looked up at Henry, "He told me that any child of Ben and Suzanne Adams would make a great CIA asset, he was sure of it."
A silence stretched between them for a moment, and a breeze blew her hair out of her face. She felt his chest rising and falling, and she closed her eyes for a moment, just letting herself be held in his arms while she remembered the way she'd thrown herself into their case after finding out. The way that she couldn't stop working, she couldn't stop blinding herself to the pain—and the night she danced to Peter Frampton in her apartment before Conrad had told her about this op she had just been wanting someone to stop her. She'd wanted someone to keep her from diving headfirst continually, someone to keep her from breaking her neck.
She shuddered against his chest and he wrapped her more carefully, but then the phone in her pocket started ringing. She sniffled and pulled away, "That's probably Conrad with the intel," she said, answering it after wiping her nose on her wrist. She nodded at Henry as she listened, and he heard the fax machine in another room, startling him a bit even though he knew it would eventually be coming.
"Oh," she said, the worry in her voice reappearing. "Okay, we'll…we'll look at it."