A/N: Hello everyone! Still waiting on my Ao3 account, but it does say it's only two days away from letting me in...so fingers crossed. If you don't already have an account, you should sign up now since it's a waiting list!
This is a doozy of a chapter, and I'm sad because this story is starting to wrap up and come to an end. (still got a few more chapters though, don't fret :))
But I do hope you enjoy this chapter!
Elizabeth | Post-Extraction – Day 8 (205 Hours)
The house had fallen into silence for about an hour after they had gotten the intel, both of them looking it over and trying to wrack their brains to add in any missing pieces.
And there were a lot of missing pieces.
There were so many names involved, so many U.S. weapons that seemed to be missing, and she was trying to make all the connections between the places they had been shipped to and where they had been lost. She tried to circle names that led to those places. But ultimately, she wanted to know who the mole was in the CIA, and then who was in charge of it all.
She'd assigned Henry to a job after she'd first looked over the documents. "I need you to circle any mark the page any time you see this name here," she said, pointing to the name Bryan McAfee on the page. "And I need you to write down what it's in relation to, too."
"Got it," he'd said.
That had been six hours ago, and she was still combing through intel.
He wasn't much help analytically, but he was great when she gave him a job. He also was a steady presence across from her at the table, and she appreciated that most—something to hold her down, to keep her from spiraling.
She hadn't spiraled after her parents death—not until she had gotten that letter. And though she never found out the specifics of how they died, it was definitely not because she hadn't spiraled far enough down into a deep, deep search of any information on them. But every trail she seemed to have went cold.
She was determined to not let that happen now—it couldn't, not with her and Henry's lives on the table.
Henry set down a cup of coffee by her elbow, and she looked up at him, startled by the noise. She smiled, "Thank you," she said, glancing at the clock on the kitchen wall to see that it was already 7:19. The sun was starting to set outside the kitchen window, and she could imagine the way it was sparkling on the water.
More time passed, and soon it was completely dark. Henry had done his job, but he sat there and waited for her, waiting for her to give him another job if needed. They'd moved from the table to the floor, tired of sitting in those wooden chairs that were once comfortable but, eleven hours later, no longer were. Henry sat with his back to the couch, right next to her, and looked over her arm at the papers in her lap while she studied them and scraped through the vault of names that she's learned over the years in the CIA.
"Okay," she breathed aloud, feeling like she was on the edge of something—she just needed to talk it out, maybe. Looking at the clock, she realized they've been at this for almost twelve hours—it was 11:42. She gripped the paper tighter and her sweaty finger stuck to it a little too much, causing it to jump over. She pulled it back and took a shaky breath, laying it down on her lap. "Lark approved blocking comms. That means he had the power to make the tactical decisions." She paused and thought for a few moments, her tongue dragging the inside of her teeth, "But he didn't orchestrate the extraction itself. And we already know Grayson is involved, too," she reminded, and Henry nodded softly.
She took another breath and held it, gathering her thoughts, "So that took someone with the ability to manipulate the military, which leads us back to Defense." She swallowed hard, her brain screaming at her to stop. It was tired, but also, this was dangerous work she was about to step into. "Someone in Defense, with connections inside the CIA, and someone who knew enough about my op to know exactly when I'd be exposed."
Henry leaned forward, his arms crossed over his stomach, "Like a deputy? A policy head?"
"Someone higher than that," she breathed, swallowing thick. "High enough to control a major in the U.S. Marines and to also get his hands on a security contractor, on weapons, and—" she stopped, her voice catching her throat as she pushed the sudden bile back down. "Henry…" she looked over at him nervously, "What if it's the Secretary of Defense?"
She combed through her papers again and found the places she'd seen his name, double-checking her and Henry's work of circling and underlining and making crazy-looking maps on scrap sheets of paper. His name tied back to everything.
Henry stopped breathing—she could hear it catch in his throat and never start again. She looked over and felt a pang in her chest. How the hell are we going to accuse the Secretary of Defense of something like this? She thought, too, how Conrad will ever get it through to the president—SecDef was his friend. They went to college together.
"Davison." The name barely came out of Henry's mouth, but it was enough to send chills down Elizabeth's spine. They'd read that name over and over, but the fact that it's been spoken out into the world—even just in this living room—meant that there was no going back from it.
Elizabeth's lips parted when she realized something, "He had motive," she breathed, blinking a couple times as she thought back to the last year of her work, "The funding I flagged? It tied back to contracts I questioned last year—contracts that were funneled through Talon Solutions. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now…now it makes perfect sense. He's been covering his tracks, using people like Lark and Grayson to do his dirty work." Elizabeth paused and looked over, feeling tears wanting to prick her eyes, "He needed me out of the way before I could find the connection. That's why I was set up. That's why the comms were blocked. That's why Hariri's men were given my location. Because I was getting too close."
With each sentence, she felt her hands shaking more. Her fists were already balled up and her legs were sitting straight out in front of her as she leaned against the couch, but now she felt the anger bubbling up inside her to the point where there was no way for it to stay in her body.
But then she felt a hand on her wrist, and she felt Henry's thumb rubbing gently.
Her eyes finally let the dam down and she felt a tear run down her cheek. She looked away and took a sharp breath, "All this…" she breathed, shaking her head. Her voice sounded broken, it sounded, again, like Eleanor Morgan's—not Elizabeth Adams'. "All this…so I could be collateral damage in Davison's life."
"I know," Henry whispered, but she could hear the anger in his tone. His thumb was steady against the back of her hand, and finally he took the other one in his hand and squeezed it gently, "We're going to get to the bottom of it, and Davison will pay for this."
"No he won't," she said pitifully, shutting her eyes as she feels more warm, wet streams drip off her chin, "Men like Davison never pay for what they did."
She thought back to her mother and father and how, likely, they could've also been caught up in some kind of government conspiracy. She knew they had been integral in the Vietnam War, though, that their intel served a lot of good. She had found that much out while searching through files and records and talking to people who would talk.
Her hands were shaking and she looked down, balling her fists to try to get them to stop.
"Elizabeth," Henry whispered.
She sniffled like a protest, but she couldn't manage to conjure any words of argument. She just looked down at her hands and remembered the way they'd looked only days ago when she'd woken up in that infirmary in Kuwait, and the way she couldn't breathe, and the way she felt so sore, and even this stupid ankle was because of Davison, in the end.
Taking another deep breath, her body shaking as she did so, she looked at the financial records for Talon Solutions again. She skimmed through to double check her hypothesis that had just occurred to her, and she realized that there was a big deposit the day of her kidnapping, a sizable withdrawal the night that she was extracted from the warehouse, and then a transaction that was routed to an offshore account—something she assumed was payoff or hush money.
She looked through the financial records once more, combing through to try to get a better sense of all of this. Finally, she found a defense contract Lark had approved two months before Elizabeth's kidnapping—that contract was for the same amount of money as what was deposited the day of her kidnapping. "Lark approved the funds," she whispered.
She could feel the energy coming off Henry, radiating and piercing through her. She knew that if she looked at him he would look angry, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him. She couldn't bring herself to take her eyes off the pages as if they would disappear if she did.
She sniffled and grabbed for the phone, but it was just out of reach. "Here," Henry said, rolling over and grabbing it for her, "Conrad?"
"Yeah," she whispered, dialing his number.
She cleared her throat and tried to make it sound like she hadn't been crying, "Conrad," she said, "Sorry it's so late, but I—"
"You've been working on this all this time?" Conrad's voice cut through.
"Yes sir," she replied.
"You need sleep, Elizabeth."
"Not now, sir." She was firm in that, though her lungs felt like they were going to shake out of her ribs. "Just—"
"Elizabeth," Henry interrupted, and Elizabeth looked over at him. He was looking down at pages in his own lap, "Look at this," his finger was shaking as he pointed to a call log. "Lark's number contacted an unknown—"
"Hold on," Elizabeth interrupted this time, putting the call on speaker, "You're on speaker, sir," she announced.
Henry swallowed thick and continued, "Lark's number contacted an unknown line minutes before the CIA comms went down during Elizabeth's extraction—the failed one, I mean." The way the words came out of his mouth felt like a knife digging into Elizabeth's stomach. They failed me.
"Are you with Isabelle?" Elizabeth asked.
"I am," Conrad said.
"And you're chiding me about sleep?" she asked.
"Very funny," he replied, "I'm asking Isabelle to run the number now."
There was a short silence, and Henry took Elizabeth's hand back in his as they waited.
"Elizabeth?" Isabelle's voice came on the line, and Elizabeth melted.
"Isabelle…" she whispered.
"God, it's good to hear your voice," Isabelle replied, the shakiness in her tone appearing. "I—I…anyway. I just ran that number and it traces back to Jamal Al-Darazi."
Elizabeth's throat tightened, "Fuck," she whispered, closing her eyes.
Henry looked over, "Who is that?"
"One of Hariri's guys—his right hand, basically," she whispered, opening her eyes and looking back over at him.
"Conrad," Henry said, and Conrad answered immediately, "Is this enough evidence to bring to the president?"
"It is, as long as I can—"
"If you can't get ahold of him, I can." Henry sounded determined, but Elizabeth looked at him bewilderedly.
"How are you going to get in touch with POTUS?" she asked.
"They want me," Henry said, his voice steady even though his eyes looked nervous, "If I turn myself in, then I—"
"If you turn yourself in, Defense can nab you before you ever get to the President," she argued immediately.
"But I can—"
"Or Grayson will kill you before you ever even get back to Defense, let alone the President."
"Elizabeth," Henry almost snapped, "I can do this. Just trust me."
She opened her mouth for a moment and then closed it, never losing his gaze. She took a shaky breath. I trust you more than anyone else on this earth, Henry McCord. She shut her eyes defeatedly and felt an overwhelming sadness come over her. "Does this mean you're leaving?" she asked.
"Guys," Isabelle interrupted. "We're still on the phone."
"Sorry," Elizabeth whispered, clearing her throat and contorting her lips as she thought about the idea of Henry leaving her. The idea was already tearing her apart. "I'll call you guys back with the plan." She hung up almost immediately without even giving them a chance to speak, and then she just looked sternly at Henry and waited for an answer.
He stayed very still for a long time, very silent, and finally he breathed and nodded, "I think it's what's best." He looked down between them, "Do you feel like you're going to be safe enough here or—"
She shoved the papers off her lap hurriedly and onto the floor, pulling her feet underneath her—even the cast—and standing up. The pain shot through her leg and caused her to shudder, but she didn't falter. She just walked straight to the bedroom and slammed the door shut, locking it before going and laying on the bed.
Do I feel safe enough? Is that a joke?
"Elizabeth…" she heard, her ankle throbbing now as she laid with her face down in the comforter. She heard a knock on the door, and then the doorknob jiggle, "Elizabeth, please…let's talk about this."
"I don't feel like it," she whimpered.
A silence came through the door, and she thought for a moment maybe he'd walked away. But then she heard his hand on the doorknob again, and though he wasn't trying to turn it, she could hear it shift. "I told you I refuse to let either of us get hurt," he said, and she sniffled and picked her head up to breathe, but she didn't turn toward the door. "I know we never talked about what happened last night between us, and I also know that right now isn't the time—we're both exhausted and I know that you're worried."
That doesn't even begin to cover it, she thought as she rolled onto her side, curling up in a ball and trying to keep her toes from clenching up from the pain.
"But Elizabeth, I don't regret that. I don't regret what we did. But you know that this is the best option that we have, for me to go in and try to talk to the President."
She sniffled and wiped her eye with her thumb, "But you know that Grayson will catch you or Davison even, for that matter, or Lark or anyone, Henry. We don't know how deep this runs."
She thinks of the name Bryan McAfee again, knowing he's probably the mole in the CIA, but she wasn't able to pinpoint it just yet.
"I know," he whispered, and she heard what sounded like his body leaning against the door. She sniffled as she stared at the wall, rubbing at her calf to try to get her whole leg to stop burning so badly. "But it's our best shot." He sounded so defeated, and it's how she felt, too. "It's the way I keep you safe."
"But then what if you get hurt?" she asked immediately.
"It was never my job to keep me safe."
She closed her eyes at those words and felt like her body was crushing in on her organs, her lungs first, her heart next. Her throat was constricted, keeping her body from releasing a sob as she thought about the idea of losing him. You don't own him, she thought to herself. He's not yours to keep.
Her shoulders shook at that thought, a sob trying to escape her body, but nothing came out. She just laid there for a few moments and silently cried, her body trying to release her sadness yet another part of her body holding it back. Finally, she rolled out of the bed slowly and came to the door, unlocking it.
Before she could get back to the bed, he was already opening the door.
"Were you waiting out there?" she asked tiredly, sniffling and swiping at her hot, wet face. She leaned forward against the bed from the side of it, trying to take some of the pressure off her ankle.
He looked down at her foot first and she saw him get more tense, "Your foot," he whispered.
"It's fine."
"No it's not," he said, coming up to her and helping her in the bed.
She looked up at him through blurry vision, "Please don't leave me, Henry." She knew how pitiful she sounded, and she'd never expected to find herself begging for him to stay. But it was just this morning—early morning—that she thought he'd been shot, that he thought he'd been killed.
He pulled the blankets up over her body, and he leaned down and pressed his lips to her head. "It was never my job to stay," he whispered.
"I told you I don't want the Marine," she whispered.
He looked down at her and swallowed thick, taking a shaky breath. She thought she saw his eyes fill with tears, too, but she wasn't sure because hers were still so blurred. "The Marine is what you have to have," he whispered, turning away slowly from her and rifling through the duffle bag.
He got out the pill bottle and brought one to her, "I'll bring you a drink," he said.
She looked at the pill in his hand but didn't move to take it from him. She just stared at it in his palm, and finally he shut his hand and sighed.
"Elizabeth," he breathed, "I'm not leaving you tonight."
"I don't care," she whispered, still staring where the pill was, where his hand was extended.
He sat on her side of the bed and she felt the dip, and finally she looked up at him tiredly. "I won't meet with the President until Thursday," he said, and she immediately thought about how that's only less than forty-eight hours away. Way less. "I'll give Conrad that long. And in the meantime, we'll continue to try to find evidence, but to do that, you have got to sleep. We both do."
She sniffled and turned on her back, staring at the ceiling. If she weren't exhausted, she would realize that she was very tired and definitely needed sleep. But she's hit the stage that toddlers do, too tired to want to sleep, and she's cranky and upset now. And, to top it off, her ankle hurt. She reached for the pill without looking at him, "Friday," she tried.
He didn't answer so she looked over at him sternly, "Thursday," he argued, "By Friday, there's no telling if I'll get anyone in office."
She knew he was right unfortunately, and she pinched the pill from his hand, popped it in her mouth, and swallowed it dry. It went down harshly, scraping the insides of her throat while he watched with wide eyes, but she didn't show the ache and pain it caused inside her. She finally turned over on her side away from him, "Come to bed," she said tiredly.
"I need—"
"Just come to bed, Henry, please don't make this harder than it needs to be." She shut her eyes and hoped he'd just, for once, listen to her without her having to beg. And finally, she felt the bed dip on the other side of her, and she fluttered her eyes open to see him crawling in. He was laying a gun on the nightstand, and then he was turning the light off.
She felt his hand slide across her waist and then slide up her body and to her face. Her hair had been tickling her nose, but she was too tired to move it out of the way. She felt his fingers tuck a strand behind her ear, and she closed her eyes tighter and felt that sadness wash over her again.
Somewhere, she'd known that this would never last. It couldn't. But somehow, she'd hoped that it would.
Henry | Post-Extraction – Day 9 (214 Hours)
When he woke up, he felt the ache in his chest that hadn't gone away all night. He'd felt it as soon as the idea came up of trying to turn himself in to talk to the President, or at least get to the President and maybe not turn himself in. But he knew just as well as Elizabeth did—he was going to get turned over to Defense, most likely. But he hoped that he could cause enough hell to get the President's attention at least.
Her blonde hair was feathered down in front of her face again, and she, for once, didn't have her face all scrunched up. She looked peaceful, and he couldn't bear to wake her up. Her body was relaxed—he could feel it underneath his palm where it rested on her waist. She was breathing normal.
No, he couldn't wake her.
So he laid there like that, waiting for her to wake up. He watched the way she laid so still, and he wondered if he would ever be able to run into her again. No, Henry, he thought, you probably never will because you'll probably be in jail for going AWOL. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, trying to shake himself of that thought.
He felt her start to stir after a few more minutes, and he knew that the sun was probably starting to wake her. There was a good deal of it coming through the blinds behind his back. Her eyes fluttered open slowly, and she squinted for a few moments, trying to get her bearings. She looked like she didn't know where she was, and he smiled softly, "Good morning," he whispered.
She closed her eyes again and squeezed them before opening them, "Good morning," she murmured, moving and tucking her head into his chest.
He breathed in sharply. The way the crown of her head fit so neatly into his breastbone made his whole body ache. He bent his neck down and rested his lips and nose on her hair, closing his eyes and taking her all in. He wrapped his arms around her and scooted the rest of her body closer. "You slept good," he said, mostly a statement. He'd woken a couple times during the night and watched her sleep—he'd been too worried to stay asleep for long.
She nodded and murmured a tired "mhm," and then he realized it wasn't just a tired one. He realized she was already crying. He gently peeled her away and looked her in the eyes, "Elizabeth…" he whispered.
She looked up at him with teary eyes and it broke his heart—it felt like her eyes were piercing through it, actually, like a dagger. "I didn't…" she stopped and closed her eyes, laying her head back down on the pillow, "I wouldn't have slept with you had I known you were going to leave me like this," she whispered.
And that took the dagger and twisted it, corkscrewing into his lungs, too. He knew that he'd feel a regret eventually, but it wasn't a regret for sleeping with her. It was a regret for having to leave, for being dutybound. "I know," he whispered, closing his eyes and resting his chin back on her head. "Maybe we can find something today that can help get the President's attention."
She sniffled, "It's useless," she whispered, "Because even once all this is said and done, we'll live two separate lives. We'll…we have to. We can't be a spy and a Marine—that's just something out of novels. And believe me when I say I know my life is no novel."
It sounded so defeatist, and though he didn't know her for much longer than a week, he thought it sounded very unlike her. She's distancing herself. Something you should be doing too, Henry. He swallowed hard, "Think you'll move back into your apartment?" he whispered.
She shook her head, "No," she answered almost immediately. "Probably rent somewhere else," she said, "You?"
He shrugged, "Active duty," he reminded her, the realization crashing down on him once more. He swallowed thick, "We should go outside before it gets too hot—go soak in the bay and clear our minds before we get back to work."
She moved her head to look at him, her eyes already red, and she nodded slowly after staring at him for a moment. "Okay," she whispered.
Once they'd gotten out of bed and he went and got her crutches, they got changed into shorts and tees and went outside back onto the dock like yesterday. But this time, she didn't lean back in his arms, and he felt naked because of it. It's right. She's doing what's right, he reminded himself.
He looked out over the water as she situated her casted leg on the dock, the other dangling in the water. He was lost in his thoughts about how he would even get to the President whenever she hit him with a sentence he hadn't expected, "Can we talk about it now?"
He looked over at her suddenly, his eyes wider than they had been. "It?" he asked.
She shrugged, "What we did," she whispered, her cheeks becoming a little rosy as she looked back out over the water and away from him.
He nodded slowly even though she wasn't looking, "It…um…" he thought about that night again, the thought that couldn't leave his mind was how intensely they'd watched each other that second time.
He'd had a serious girlfriend in college, but it wasn't serious for the real world, just serious for being students. By the time senior year rolled around, she had been planning on attending UCLA for grad school and he'd been intending to go active duty, and he knew he'd be deployed soon after. They'd had sex—it wasn't meaningless, of course, but it also was nothing like what he and Elizabeth had done.
He got chills as he thought about it again, staring at a spot in the bay. The way they watched each other—it was like they were inside each other's bodies, inside each other's souls.
He ran the tip of his tongue across his top lip, "It was nice," he murmured.
She had been watching him ever since he first spoke, but he didn't realize it until now. He saw her brow move up in the corner of his eye, "Nice?" she asked, her tone unreadable.
He looked over at her, "Yeah, it was—" he paused and ran his tongue over his lip again, feeling nervous to be lying to her. Of course it was nice. It was a thousand other things too. "It was nice," he finally repeated.
"Henry," she said sternly, and it got his full attention. "Do you really want to lie to me right now?"
He furrowed his brow after his breath caught, "I'm not—" he started, then realized she's CIA. She's probably analyzed every single tell that he has—one being that he nervously licks his lips when lying.
"If you are," she said, "Then I'm going to start, too, and you already know my tell," she added.
He sighed and turned his head away from her, unable to look at her staring him down any longer. "Yeah," he admitted, "It was more than just nice, Elizabeth—it was something insanely special that I don't know how it ever even happened. I felt like…" he didn't want to repeat his thoughts about being in their souls, so he just shook his head. "It meant something," he settled.
She nodded, "Yeah," she said, looking down at her hands as they fumbled with each other, "It did."
They sat in silence for a moment longer, the wind pushing the water up against the boat dock next to them in the distance. Finally, he spoke up again, "Why does it feel like we're pretending it didn't happen then?" he asked shakily.
She didn't look at him, but her foot dangled in the water. "Because if we talk about it…if we admit what it meant…" she swallowed hard as he watched her fight for her words, "Then it just makes everything harder."
"Because I'm leaving," he added quietly.
She nodded, "Right," she whispered.
He looked at her for a few more moments, and he hated that though they were sitting right next to each other, inches away from her body, he had never felt further away from her since he found her. Even in that warehouse, there was something calling him toward her, but now—now it just felt like there was already a wall put up between them.
"We better get to work," she said, startling him, again, from his thoughts. She was already trying to stand up, too, so he rushed to his feet and helped her with his crutches in silence. He followed her closely as she hobbled back to the house, and they sat at the table with the papers once more.