A/N: I should be doing work. I should. But this story is so much more interesting than literally anything school related right now.

Also, someone caught the fact that in the last chapter, the dude who got Henry when Elizabeth was having a panic attack said her real name. This was a total OOPS on my part! So I meant nothing by it...he should've said Eleanor LOL thank you for finding these little oopsies and letting me know.

Alas, I am a step further from being a perfect writer...*sighs in sarcasm*

I'm feeling much too silly tonight, but really I appreciate you guys and the way you all pay so much attention.

Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Elizabeth | Before Extraction – Six Years

It was easy to ignore at first.

The fall semester had been good after she'd had to move herself in, her uncle having to cancel helping her at the very last minute because of a work issue that had come up. She'd tried to not be upset about it, but she couldn't help it since her Aunt Jill had also not been able to see her off to college. Aunt Jill helped her pack, kissed her head, and wished her well, but Elizabeth was the only one pulling into the gates at UVA with her car loaded down.

As she carried a cardboard box in her arms on that hot summer day, she witnessed a man—presumably someone's father—struggling to carry a large tote of what looked like clothes. He had to stop and set it down, panting over the bucket before picking it back up after a while. Elizabeth's heart felt like it was being squeezed like an orange.

When she toted that box up the stairs to her room, she came back down to the first floor and almost ran into a woman standing just around the corner. Elizabeth backed away quickly and analyzed the scene briefly, realizing that the woman was hugging a young girl, and they were both crying.

She sucked her breath in and pushed forward, making it back out to her car. She opened the back hatch of her car and leaned over, staring down at the floor while she blinked her eyes. Just one of them, she begged, why couldn't just one of them be here for me today?

A week after she'd moved in, she received a package from Aunt Jill and Uncle Howard. It was a box of school supplies that she'd already used her own money to buy, and the note said: "Sorry we couldn't come, but we wanted to remind you we love you and we're proud of you." She appreciated the sentiment, but the box of school supplies just got shoved under her bed.

After that, she had an easier time once she got into the swing of college life. Though her roommate was a nightmare—Kathy was the textbook definition of a terrible roommate with loud music playing from her boombox and trash laying all over wherever her dirty clothes weren't—she'd filled her days with difficult classes and her nights with studying in the library.

She saw a flyer in October to join the intramural soccer team, and though she hadn't played since her freshman year of high school, she decided she'd join. She loved playing, too, and became good friends with some of the girls on the team. Those girls—Elizabeth considered those to be her closest friends at UVA that year. They had late night Waffle House visits and the occasional study session together, but Elizabeth really preferred studying alone.

Then November rolled around, and they all went home for Thanksgiving. At first, she could ignore that, too. But by the time Thanksgiving Day had gotten there, she'd found herself having to take a walk around campus just so she wouldn't sleep the whole day away.

Only weeks after they'd gotten back from their home visits, they packed their bags again after telling her about their family traditions and home-cooked meals and childhood bedrooms waiting for them. Elizabeth had smiled through it all, wishing them Merry Christmas! as they left with their suitcases, leaving Elizabeth to turn away from the parking lot and back to her own dorm.

The realization was too hard to ignore: she didn't belong anywhere outside of these walls.

At Houghton, many of the students didn't leave for Christmas or other holidays. Especially international students. She made friends so easily there, too, and everything seemed to just come more natural to her with the exception of school—she considered UVA to be easier than her classes at Houghton.

But here at UVA, the realization felt deafening. She missed Will, but she knew he was also away at boarding school. He had friends, much like she did during her time at boarding school, and he wouldn't feel the way she did during that holiday.

So she spent Christmas Eve in the common room, watching a set of Christmas movies playing on one of the local channels while she picked at a granola bar she'd gotten from the vending machine down the hall. She'd tried to go to the dining hall, but she realized that it was closed—all the workers were at home with their families. Of course. So she'd had a honey bun for lunch earlier and a granola bar for dinner. She also stocked up on some beef jerky for Christmas breakfast.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer came on the TV. As she watched the other reindeer not playing with Rudolph, she had this terrible, creeping feeling rise up from all the way down in her toes to her throat, strangling her like a vine. Did her soccer friends really like her, or was it because she was their best scorer? Was it because Elizabeth always drove them to Waffle House? She had never quite resonated with Rudolph in that way before, but she just picked absentmindedly at her nails after that.

On Christmas morning, she found herself in a pile of drool in that same seat, the TV just flickering without any kind of programming on for the morning yet. When she turned to stretch, she caught a glimpse of the pure white outside the window—it had snowed overnight.

Something about snow can always spark a bit of childlike magic, and she hopped out of the chair quickly before grabbing her blanket and wrapping it around her as she sprinted outside. When she got out there and looked around, she realized how quiet it was—there was no laughter, no giggling from people playing in the snow. It was just her and this blanket, shivering in the cold.

She brought the blanket up to her lips, trying to use it as a tool to control her breathing. She'd blamed it on the cold, the way her chest felt like it was shaking. But really, it was just the sobs she'd been trying to keep in after her realization set in.

She tried to tell herself the same thing she's told herself for years, since not long after her parents died: "It'll get better."

But this time, it didn't work, and she just sat down on the cold, wet ground and watched the snow fall around her.

Elizabeth | Post-Extraction – 166 Hours

The clouds passing the window every so often held her interest, but only because she'd been staring out the window before they came into view anyway. They were flying mostly above the clouds, but there were some wispy ones up in the air today, apparently, and they were flying right through even the bumpiest of wisps.

Her head swayed with each bump, and though she could feel it, she made no effort in stopping it. She was already tired before leaving the hospital—last night with Henry at the foot of her bed had been her best night of sleep since before her cover had gotten blown, even. She'd gotten eight straight hours. How could she possibly top that? But she was still exhausted—not even eight consecutive hours could make up for everything she's been through the past few months.

Her seatbelt was still buckled, finding no reason to unbuckle it since she felt like she was going to fall forward and into the big aisle anyway. These Marine planes were not made for comfort, and though she'd assumed that when she boarded, she was quick to find out for sure when she'd strapped into the bucket seat. Henry had strapped in on the other side of the aisle from her, and she's sure he hadn't taken his eyes off her the entire two hours they'd been up in the air.

Maybe not even to blink.

She wanted to tell him that she'd be okay, that he doesn't have to watch her like a hawk. But every time she thought about saying that, she remembered back to kneeling down in the sand because she felt like she couldn't stand anymore, even with the help of Sarah, and being there trying to breathe and stay conscious. She'd been fighting the blackout, she could feel it coming, and Sarah kept trying to talk her through it. Though it was helping, even Sarah could not bring her back to reality, only Henry seemed to be able to do that.

And for that, she wasn't sure how she felt about it.

But watching him breathe with her, encouraging her and nodding at her to keep going…she felt so safe, beyond safe.

So she ignored her thoughts and didn't ever tell him to stop watching her like a hawk—she understood why he watched her because just hours ago he'd been watching her have a panic attack in the Kuwaiti desert while boarding a helicopter out. She wasn't sure what had triggered it to come on so suddenly, and whenever she tried to think about it much here, she felt that terrible, strangling feeling coming back. Instead of thinking those thoughts, she focused on the blue sky and those wisps floating by the window behind Henry's head.

She hadn't known what to expect once she got on this flight—she didn't even know what the inside of the plane looked like. In her head, she was expecting some sort of bench seating or maybe even—part of her hoped—some cushioned seats. But this was more realistic—hard plastic bucket seats. Though she knew she had many hours still to go in these seats, the closer they got to home, the more the heaviness of her situation loomed over her.

Her fingers curled around the seatbelt as her mind wandered to the thoughts of debriefing. She hadn't told anyone yet what had gone on. She didn't know what happened leading up to all this, really, but she hadn't been able to forget what happened to her after her cover was blown, no matter how hard she'd tried over the last few days. How was she supposed to go home to her tiny little apartment and just…live like nothing happened? Not tell anyone other than her debriefing team what all she'd been through? How could she possibly live this life that Henry had saved for her?

When she remembered the way Hariri looked at her, the way his fingers brushed along her chest and caused her to shiver, she felt the humming in her ears before she heard it. And then the throbbing in the side of her head where they'd hit her, the aching in her eye socket from getting hit on the cheekbone too many times…

Her other hand grabbed tightly onto the bucket seat beside her thigh while her fingers still gripped the seatbelt, and she stared down at the floor with wide eyes. She felt two hands around her throat, fingers in her jaw, and she extended her neck to keep them from strangling her.

Fumbling around on the plastic, her hand is reaching for something, anything to try to hit Hariri over the head with, but then she feels a hand on her leg and she whimpers, "Please don't."

"It's me," she heard, and she looked in front of her to see Henry kneeling down beside her cast. She blinked for a few moments, freezing when she realized that all of that was in her head—Hariri wasn't here, he was more than likely dead and so were the rest of his men. Either dead or in custody. This was Henry, the man who helped her breathe not once but twice, the man who saved her life.

But she felt her breath caught in her throat as she shuddered, and she blinked once before she felt tears coming to her eyes. She looked away from her quickly, sniffling and trying to not make eye contact at all with him.

"Hey," he whispered, "Do you need something?"

"No," she muttered, barely getting it out over a choked sound.

He stayed silent for a few moments, and she almost could've let herself believe that he'd gotten up and gone back to the other side, but she felt the weight of his hand still on her leg. That, somehow, felt like it was holding her in this seat more than this raggedy seatbelt was.

She looked down at it and swallowed thick, and he was still watching her carefully.

"I know you're in survival mode," Henry said softly, and she let her eyes dart over to him. "But you don't have to be—you're safe here, and I'm not going to let anything get to you, okay? You're on a Marine plane and you're far, far away from all that…" his voice trailed off and she wondered what he was going to say. All that torture? All that disaster?

She looked down at her hand that was still gripping the plastic seat, and she saw the bruise on her arm where someone had grabbed her and yanked her into the van that night. Her breath stopped again, and Henry rubbed her leg.

"Elizabeth…" he whispered.

She looked at him sharply, furrowing her brow. "You're the only one who uses my real name," she whispered.

He nodded, "I know," he said, "I do it because I think it's beautiful."

She swallowed hard and looked down at his hand, sniffling a little as she tried to steady herself. It'll get better, Elizabeth, she told herself—the same worn-out line she'd been telling herself for nine years since her parents died. Only sometimes did it actually get better. Rarely, though, did it get worse. Mostly it all just stayed the same.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do when I get back," she blurts out, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a hushed whisper as her eyes flicked nervously to meet Henry's. She waited for his reaction, but he just blinked at her. He probably didn't know what to say, either—he didn't even really know what had gone on for her to be acting this way, anyway. So she continued, trying to change the subject just as quickly as she did that time, "They'd taken me in London," she breathed.

He swallowed hard, still kneeling as he nodded.

She took that as a sign to go on. "And we drove from the hotel we were at—I don't know where we flew out of, but they got me on a plane and we flew to Kuwait. I had no idea where I was—and then I just ended up in that—" her breath hitched before she could say "warehouse," and he was standing up and sitting in the seat right beside her. His hand never left her leg, though, and he started rubbing gently.

"You don't have to tell me," he whispered, "Not unless you want to."

She sniffled and brought her hand up to wipe at her face, not wanting him to see her cry. "It's better than thinking about how my life is going to be when I get back to the States," she breathed.

He looked over at her, but she wouldn't meet his gaze. She just had her eyes fixed on her cast, the only place she could look at without feeling like she was going to burst into tears. The exhaustion, she could tell, was really starting to get to her.

Henry's hand never left her leg, its steady warmth grounding her into that seat even though everything else felt like it was slipping into the abyss. He didn't push her to talk, didn't insist on her telling him the details she wasn't ready to share with anyone, let alone the CIA team. But she could feel the weight of his gaze, gentle, but also unrelenting.

She wiped her face again and sniffled. She had no idea how to move forward from this, how to move forward, especially, while not even being able to keep it together for longer than a few hours at a time. Everything had just felt so real, like Hariri was here in this plane, and that startled her, too. How could her mind play such dirty tricks on her?

She didn't know, at this point, if she even could move forward from this.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, not looking up and still just staring at her cast, "I don't know why I keep doing this."

He didn't respond, but she felt his presence shift. He no longer felt so brooding even though his body shifted a little closer to hers. "You don't need to apologize," he finally said, his voice quiet but also firm. "You don't have to do anything right now except breathe, okay?"

She looked at him and took a sharp breath, holding it in while she held his gaze.

"You don't owe me anything," Henry whispered, his eyes fixed tightly on hers.

She swallowed hard and blinked but focused back in on his eyes quickly. Even more quickly, her eyes darted down to his lips and then back up, shaking the thought from her head before it could ever go anywhere past the initial spark. "I owe you my life," she whispered, not understanding how he could possibly think she doesn't owe him anything.

He shook his head though, still keeping his eyes locked on hers, "You told me how to disarm the bomb. If you want to think of it as us owing anything, I think we've both saved each other's lives, alright?"

She didn't answer, but she wanted to shake her head. That's not the same as pulling me out of the closet and carrying me, Henry, she wanted to say, but it just stayed in her head and bounced around like a pinball.

"You don't have to have everything figured out. Let's just get you home first and—"

"That's the thing," she breathed, shaking her head finally and looking away from him. "How do I live at home like this?"

He swallowed hard, and she watched his throat and jaw tighten before he looked away finally, and she regretted saying anything. His hand remained on her leg, though, and his fingers stopped moving briefly while he situated himself to sit forward. Softly, he started his claw-like, gentle motions again on top of her sweatpants, and she felt herself breathe deeply.

"You don't have to have it all figured out," he repeated quietly, staring down at the floor. His eyes shifted to her foot extended out in front of her, and he blinked for a moment before moving.

"Where are you going?" She asked, hating the way the warmth of his hand left her leg so chilled when he got up.

He didn't answer her right away, though, because he was picking up a crate from underneath the bench. It had been strapped in to keep from moving, and he emptied its contents out into another crate before he turned it over and slid it under her foot. He helped her prop it up, "There," he said, sitting back down next to her and promptly putting his hand back where it was. She felt at ease once more as she looked over at him, watching the way he looked proudly at his idea. "Your toes are swelling."

She glanced down at her toes and remembered how mangled they looked, and then she felt a rush of heat to her face again. "Thank you," she breathed, leaning her head back and finding it to be terribly uncomfortable.

Tiredness was seeping in, though, and she was also sick of having her head swaying through all the bumpiness. He looked over at her with her head pushed awkwardly backwards, and he moved his hand off her leg. She almost frowned at him until she felt his hand coming around her body, and she stopped breathing for a moment.

Gently, he placed his fingers on the side of her head, pulling her head into him. "There," he whispered, "I am your pillow."

She smiled a little at the idea of having a human pillow before she shut her eyes, "Thank you," she whispered again.

Her leg felt noticeably cold, though, where his hand no longer rested. She peeped one eye open and moved the crate so that he could share with his feet, and when it bumped his boot, he looked up at her. "We're sharing," she instructed, swiftly grabbing his hand, too, and laying it back on her leg without another word.