A/N: I decided that I'm much too attached to this story to let it go just yet, so I'm continuing it a while longer :)

Hope you enjoy!

Elizabeth | Post-Extraction – Day 20

"Mrs. Rawlins planned on having Conrad and Lydia over for dinner tonight," Henry said as they waited in the doctor's office.

The doctor had already been in and examined Elizabeth's foot as she sat on the table, and she said it was time that they could move her into a boot, but she would still have to walk with the crutches. Elizabeth was fine with that—the stench coming from her cast had to be bad if she could smell it even on herself. She didn't love the idea of crutches again, but she loved the idea of being able to wash around her scar where they did the surgery on her foot.

Elizabeth looked over with her feet dangling down and her hands in her lap, her fingers toying with the ring around her finger, "Oh yeah?" she asked, deep in her own thoughts about this gold hanging on her finger.

He nodded, "They wanted to get together again after all that happened," he explained, "I don't know that they know I'm with you."

She looked over and raised her brow, "They probably have some sort of sixth sense that tells them," she said, "At least with Rawlins and Conrad. Those two are like two old bitties."

He snorted quietly, and he looked down and away from her. "You're probably right," he admitted.

She bit her lip as she looked at him, wondering silently how the hell she was engaged to this man. Only a month ago, she'd not known him at all, and she'd not even had a prospect of dating anyone let alone being engaged. As she thought about that, the empty feeling came back into her bones that had settled there time and time again in her lonely, quiet apartment. She thought about the apartment they'd just visited and how, if she doesn't find out this is all a dream or some coma-induced state she's in, that apartment will likely never feel like that. Whenever Peter Frampton comes on, she won't have to dance alone anymore.

But then a chill went up her spine as she thought of the fact that, again, she's only known him for less than a month. They spent ten days together, and part of that she was in a medically-induced coma. Even worse, part of that they were on the run, fueled by enough adrenaline to make sketchy decisions because their lives were in peril.

She looked down nervously at her hands, her cast just beyond her focal point as it swung slightly. I said yes, she thought as she glanced at the glimmering ring.

She didn't even ask how he'd gotten this ring, where he'd gotten it, whose it was. Was it new? Was it a family heirloom? How did he know this was what she would've wanted when she doesn't even know his middle name?

She felt her mouth go dry. "What's your middle name?" she asked, her voice startlingly loud against the buzz of the fluorescent overhead lights.

He looked up at her, but she didn't turn her head. She could just feel his gaze on her. "James," he said, a touch of confusion in his tone.

She thought about that. Of course, she said to herself, because he's Catholic. She only knew he was Catholic because of the dog tag he'd given her, and she'd known his middle name started with a J, too, but she didn't know the full name.

"Why?" he finally asked, very quietly and almost timidly.

She shook her head, "Just wondered," she said.

He leaned over, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped, "What's yours?"

She looked over as though she'd forgotten he was there, even though she'd literally just spoken to him. "Anne," she said quietly, hating the way it sounded. "It's—my mom's name was Suzanne," she added, looking back down at her hands and fumbling with her fingernails mindlessly, "My dad decided on the middle name, but my mom liked it, too. I always hated my middle name."

"Why?" he asked softly, "I think it's a pretty name, Elizabeth Anne," he murmured, sounding like he was deciding how he liked it coming off his lips.

She shrugged softly, still looking down, "I think a lot of people hate their middle name," she admitted.

He was quiet again. She wondered briefly if he was quiet for a reason—just sitting there existing beside her while she got lost in her thoughts again. He must think I'm tired. Or maybe he knows I'm spiraling.

Either way, she didn't ask.

She glances over at him quickly, stealing a little look before turning her eyes back toward her ring. He'd already leaned back in the chair with his eyes closed, and she wondered what he was thinking about. She looked over at him again, taking a little longer this time as she studied the way his hands were relaxed over his thighs, his shoulders loose and his jaw relaxed. Her shoulders, contrastingly, were almost up beside her ears and her jaw was aching from squeezing her back teeth together so hard.

Her eyes wander up his body to his face, and she can still see the faintest remnant of the bruise at his temple, a leftover reminder from all they'd gone through. He'd told her that was where the boy hit him with the gun—where it had split his head open and he'd bled.

But I didn't know his middle name. I'd known how he got that bruise, though, and it was because of me.

She swallowed hard and looked down again. Her own body still ached in places she didn't ever talk about. She's alive, though. She was alive. But what the hell did that mean?

In Kuwait, she thought she would die. After they'd put her in the warehouse and she'd been whipped and starved, she had come to the conclusion—the conclusion spies should never come to—that she was going to die. As she drank her own blood pouring down her mouth, tasting that metallic flavor, she would wince and know that was her last drink. She never had the moment when she told herself that she'd come to that conclusion, but she knew in her bones that it was the conclusion she'd come to.

But then Henry came, and he got her out of that closet. She didn't really remember that moment, but she did start remembering over the days after the coma how she'd bobbed in his arms before she passed out.

And now she was here, in this doctor's office, getting the cast removed after a few weeks of healing. Alive. Engaged. Sitting mere feet away from a man who says he loves her, and shows he loves her. And she said yes. She said yes to marrying him.

Because why? Because I love him?

She picked at her fingernails and pressed her lips together. The logical part of her brain had consistently been telling her to stop, to put the brakes on. It told her that the day she went into Henry's bathroom while he was showering, it told her to stop when she asked him to ravish her in the darkness of the cabin that night, and it told her to abort all when she slept with him more than just the one time that night. It kept telling her that this was all too fast, that she's not thinking clearly because of everything that happened to her, to them. It said she's running off adrenaline, survival instincts, the need to cling to something good—to someone good.

She exhaled slowly and bit at the skin on her lip until she heard a knock on the door, her body startling a bit as she heard the door creaking open and the doctor stepping inside. "We're back with the saw," she said, giving Elizabeth a little smile. A few weeks ago if someone had said that to me, I would've had to fight back and take out a terrorist.

Elizabeth remembered back to when she'd hurt her ankle playing soccer—the saw made her nervous then, but in that moment with Henry sitting beside her, she wasn't nervous at all. But she couldn't pinpoint whether it was because she was nervous about everything else going on, happening so fast, or because he was sitting there next to her.

Henry had asked her four times before finally leaving Langley if she was sure she'd be fine to ride with Conrad. Finally, she'd playfully pushed his shoulders as he sat on the couch next to her in the safehouse, telling him he needed to leave and get changed for dinner. "He'll be thrilled anyway that I decided to come," she reminded him. They'd talked on the way back about how Conrad would be surprised to know she was coming, and it made her happy somehow—she liked surprising Conrad.

The truth was, she wanted to be alone for the hour between him bringing her back to Langley and having dinner. The weight of that ring seemed heavier and heavier, and she couldn't possibly keep going like she was if she didn't have real intentions of marrying him, even though she said yes. He deserved so much more than that—she couldn't break his heart that way.

So as she dressed, extra careful of her sore-again ankle, she would glance at the ring over and over again. When the knock on the door came from Conrad, she quickly finished doing her hair and yelled out, "Coming!" before scurrying on her crutches—much more adept now—toward the door. Opening it, she smiled at Conrad and grabbed her purse before swinging it over her shoulder, "Ready," she breathed, clearing her throat.

"So," Conrad said as they drove onto the main road, his hands both tightly and uncomfortably on the wheel, "I assume Henry found you since you're going to dinner tonight," he said, breaking a somewhat uncomfortable silence. At least it would've been uncomfortable had Elizabeth not been staring out the window and consumed by her thoughts with her hands in her pockets.

"Oh," she said, clearing her throat and looking forward, her hand bunching up in her pocket, "Yeah, he took me to the doctor to get my cast off, too. It was nice catching up," she said, not letting on about the news. She didn't want to hype it up if she was just going to, ultimately, take her yes back.

"He seemed like it was urgent," he said, and her CIA senses tingled immediately. He's prodding. She bit her lip as she looked out the window, playing the long game.

Her shoulder shrugged slightly, "He just needed to tell me something," she said, "Something about Kuwait that we were trying to remember."

She could feel his gaze on her, but she refused to turn around and look guilty. So she watched the buildings pass by quickly as he murmured, "Right," and let the silence fill the car again.

Before long, they were pulling into a driveway she didn't recognize, but she did see Lydia's car. She cleared her throat and unbuckled her seatbelt as Conrad finished parking parallel by the mailbox, and then she realized he was watching her again. She put her hand down so that the ring wasn't visible, trying to not make it look suspicious, and she looked up at him.

He stared at her a quick moment longer, "You alright, Bess?" he whispered.

She blinked once, furrowing her brows, "Why wouldn't I be, sir?" she asked.

He shook his head, "You just…you seem like…" he shook his head, "It's probably nothing," he said as he opened the door and slid out.

She swallowed hard and stayed there for a moment before following suit, grabbing her crutches and hobbling to the front door.

A woman came to the door before she could ever even knock, and Conrad was standing right beside her, "And just how do you get younger every time I see you, Mrs. Judy Rawlins?" Conrad asked in his salesman voice. Elizabeth didn't physically roll her eyes, but she felt it inside her: he should run for President with his kiss-up skills like that.

The woman that Conrad had called Judy was giving him a look like a mother would do, "Oh Conrad," she said, "Come on in, come, come." She ushered them in and Lydia immediately clocked Conrad.

"He's buttering up again, isn't he?" Lydia said to Judy.

Elizabeth tried to situate herself inside the door, but the sudden bout of pain in her ankle was starting to bother her a bit. She tried to stay toward the outside of the conversation so no one would realize. As the two women talked and Conrad chimed in, she looked around quietly, noting all the Texas memorabilia scattered around. She finally laid her eyes on a picture of what looked like a young, much younger Chuck Rawlins, and she bit her lip as she eyed it.

It was a picture of him in a Marines uniform, and of course he was clean shaven and wearing a hat. It looked so much like him, yet nothing like him at all. Age will do that to you, I suppose, she thought to herself. She looked around and hobbled to the corner, and Henry literally bumped into her as he was turning it. "Oh," he murmured, "I'm sorry."

She smiled a little at him, "It's okay," she whispered, "I was just looking at their Texas stuff."

"Could you believe they're from Ohio?"

She looked at Henry and studied him for a moment, but he didn't crack. She raised her brow, "Are you serious?"

Finally, he smiled and shook his head as he looked at the wall she'd been looking over, "No," he said, chuckling to himself, "But it would be pretty whacky if so."

She lightly tapped him on the arm as she leaned on her crutches, her arms sore from all the time spent on those excuses for cushions. She turned her attention back to the wall as he snickered to himself, and she couldn't help but smile.

"Dinner's ready, everyone," Judy said, and she turned her attention to the dining room table that was all set.

"I'll get drinks for everyone," Henry said immediately, walking over to the kitchen. He started taking everyone's orders, and when he got to Elizabeth, she told him she'd love a coke. She hadn't had a coke since she'd been back Stateside.

She settled herself at the table between Lydia and Judy, and Henry set the glass of coke down quietly in front of her. She looked up to thank him, but he'd already moved on, so she didn't say anything. Silently, she took the coke and put it to her lips, letting it fizzle down her throat and drown out the awkward feeling that had risen in her chest.

"I see you got the cast off," Lydia said to her, a smile coming to her face as she turned and looked at Elizabeth.

Elizabeth smiled and nodded, "I did," she said, "Still waiting to get off the crutches—that is the day I am looking forward to the most."

Lydia nodded and took a sip of her water, "I can imagine," she said, "I remember when Conrad had his knee surgery," she said, looking over at him, "He was a bear to deal with."

He raised his brow across the table, "Now, come on," he said, and Rawlins huffed a laugh at the end of the table.

"I'm stayin' out of this one," he said under his mustache.

"You better stay out of it," Judy chimed in from the other end of the table, passing around the basket of rolls to Elizabeth as she quietly was amused by this conversation. She reached in and grabbed a roll before making quick eye contact with Henry across from her, smirking before looking at the roll on her plate and passing the basket to Lydia. "He served in Vietnam, for goodness sake, and yet he—"

"They don't need to hear about that," Rawlins interrupted, taking the breadbasket from Lydia gently and not making eye contact with anyone.

"Oh yes they do," Judy said, laughing and drawing a laugh from everyone but her husband, too. "When Chuck had his hip replaced, you'd have thought the man was fixin' to meet his Maker the way he carried on and carried on." She did a reenactment of Rawlins, moaning and grabbing her hip dramatically.

"Alright, alright," Rawlins said from the other end, shoveling some salad out onto his plate, "You're makin' out much worse than it really was."

"If you keep spinnin' those tales, Chuck Rawlins, the Lord is gonna send a bolt straight down and tan your hide."

Conrad laughed and threw his hand up, "Now, now," he said playfully, looking at Lydia across the table from him and smiling, "I'll take the brunt of this back on me since Chuck here is getting all the weight," he said, pointing loosely over to the older man, "I was a bear to deal with, I'll own up to it." He shrugged his shoulders and scooped out some mashed potatoes onto his plate, "I was miserable and, let me tell you, Lydia was a complete angel of a nurse."

She raised her brow and went quiet, but Elizabeth noticed and piped up for Lydia who she knew would be too polite to say anything, "She's already having your baby, Conrad," she said cooly, "Buttering her and Mrs. Judy up? And for what?" She played it off as a joke, but she did mean it—he'd been buttering them both up already this whole dinner.

He laughed and looked at her, "I'm just in a good mood," he admitted, and she nodded, acknowledging that there was a lot to be happy about in general. They were all alive, that was one of the big things.

And there was new life swirling in the air. Conrad was going to be a dad, Lydia going to be a mom. The air was charged, Elizabeth had noticed it as soon as they walked in the door this evening.

She pierced her lettuce with her fork, "You're right," she said softly, then stole a glance at Henry before nodding and looking at her lettuce, "I think we all deserve to celebrate."

A beat of silence passes by while everyone started eating, but then it's Rawlins who starts the conversation again, "So, Henry," he said, turning to the one who'd been unusually quiet this whole time. "Remind me how many times you weren't thinkin' about Elizabeth before you showed up at Langley lookin' for her?"

Elizabeth looked at Conrad who was stealing a glance at Lydia, smirking over his fork filled with a tomato and cucumber, and then she glanced at Judy who was hiding her face behind her glass of sweet tea. She couldn't bring herself to look at Henry, but she knew he was probably staring at Rawlins with his mouth hanging open, caught in the middle of his action. She heard his fork clank quietly against his plate and she finally looked up at him, and he was wiping his mouth slowly with his napkin.

He looked like he was searching for the words to say until Judy chimed in, "Leave that poor boy alone," she said to Rawlins, then looked over to Conrad to give her look of warning to him too, "He looks like he's probably had enough wisdom from Chuck Rawlins to traumatize him for a lifetime."

Elizabeth felt her cheeks redden when she thought of the first bit of Chuck Rawlins wisdom she'd ever heard—him pointing out that they looked like two deer sniffing after each other. She'd never felt more embarrassed until now when she was thinking about how they probably did look like two deer sniffing after each other—whatever the hell that meant.

The conversation shifted from there with Judy asking Lydia about the pregnancy, and Lydia reluctantly answering. Elizabeth had always admired Lydia's ability to stay so prim and proper, but sometimes she just wanted to hit her and tell her to rip off the band aid, that we're all friends here. While Lydia didn't know Henry that well, she knew the others perfectly well enough to not be so timid. Yet she tiptoed around the subject of her own pregnancy like it was taboo, and Elizabeth just poked around at the food on her plate.

As Lydia spoke, she kept thinking about the ring on her hand, weighing it down on the end of her arm, heavy into her lap. She didn't want to draw attention to herself at all, didn't want anyone to question the ring, but somehow she felt guilty for hiding it away, too.

She toyed in her mashed potatoes, dragging the ends of the fork through. What if it was all just adrenaline? She kept asking herself that over and over, never able to even formulate an answer. What if he regrets leaving the Marines? What if I ruin this?

"You okay?"

Lydia's voice startled her, and she looked up to realize that everyone was chatting except her and Lydia now. She looked over and nodded, "I'm alright," she said quietly, unconvincingly, and laid her fork down to wipe her mouth that was already clean. "Why do you ask?" she whispered.

"You look like you're thinking yourself in circles," she said, "You've been drawing exes in those mashed potatoes for the past ten minutes."

Ten minutes? How long did I zone out for? She looked at all the crisscrosses in the potatoes and realized Lydia's calculations were probably correct.

After dinner, Judy announced that there was a pecan pie in the kitchen waiting to be cut into, and just as she was getting up, Elizabeth and Henry both announced at the same time that they'd get it. The table fell quiet, uncomfortably so, but Elizabeth pushed her chair out anyway and grabbed her crutches from the wall beside Judy. She hobbled into the kitchen and hoped that it wouldn't be awkward, that Henry would just stay back, but then she heard his footsteps coming around the corner.

"Elizabeth?" he whispered.

She stopped but didn't turn around, "Yeah?" she asked quietly, clearing her throat when her voice came out all garbled.

He stepped in front of her and leaned down to look in her eyes, blocking her view of this deliciously stunning pecan pie that Judy had prepared, "Are you alright?" he asked softly, "You have barely spoken a word and…"

She swallowed thick, "And what?" she asked, glancing at him and then back down.

He swallowed, too, and took a shaky breath, "And you hardly look my way," he said. He sounded hurt, and she wasn't sure why. But she looked at him now and took a deep breath.

"I'm just…" she shook her head and looked away again, her shoulders rigid as she thought about all the thoughts that have swarmed her head this entire dinner.

"Are you regretting saying yes?" he whispered. She sensed the heartbreak in his voice already, and she looked up at him immediately. She wanted to say no, she wanted to quickly reassure him that she just wasn't at her best tonight. While she wasn't regretting it, though, she also wasn't jumping for joy. There were too many thoughts conflicting her too much.

"No," she said finally, but he just looked at her as if he were saying that she needed to be more convincing, and she couldn't blame him. She slouched a bit over her crutches, "It just…I'm hoping I didn't make the wrong decision, Henry, and it's nothing about you." She looked at him again and felt the tension in her own face, "I'm afraid I've given into the adrenaline."

"Does it really feel like adrenaline to you?" he asked.

She took a breath and waited, thinking about that. "No," she whispered.

He looked down and took her hand gently, his fingers shaking before they finally got a good hold of hers. His thumb swiped over the ring, and she looked down at their hands touching. He squeezed her fingers gently, and she realized he was grounding her again—he wasn't doing this to be possessive, but he was doing it to keep her from floating away, from spiraling down the staircase of her mind.

"We don't have to have it all figured out right now," he whispered, "But I don't think it's adrenaline."

She swallowed thick. Neither do I, she wanted to say, but her voice seemed to be completely gone when she tried to speak. So she just nodded a little, unsure if he even saw, and then he turned and got the pie and started walking back out with it.

When they got back to the table, Lydia cut the pie into pieces for everyone. Somehow, the conversation shifted onto the military again, and Henry had stayed quiet for the most part until Judy mentioned something about Kuwait. "Didn't you just get back from your tour?" she asked Henry.

He looked at her and blinked, looking like he was thinking in slow motion. Elizabeth fumbled with her hands underneath the table and was holding her breath. "I did," he said, swallowing thick. "But I'm done—that was officially my last time."

"Really?" Conrad asked, then looked at Elizabeth. She wanted to sink under the table. He looked back at Rawlins, "Did you not tell Mrs. Rawlins all that happened?"

"Wasn't sure if it was declassified yet," he admitted, finishing off the last bite of his pie while scraping his plate with his fork.

Conrad cleared his throat and took a deep breath, staring down at his empty plate before looking at Judy, "There was a CIA op that went wrong—really wrong," he started, and her face dropped completely. Henry looked down and got tense, and Elizabeth was tugging at her ring. "Elizabeth was my asset for that mission, and she ended up being kidnapped and brought to Kuwait."

"Oh my," Judy murmured.

Conrad nodded, "It ended up that it was part of a much bigger conspiracy," he explained quietly, and Elizabeth felt Lydia get more uncomfortable beside her, though she stayed quiet, too. "I'm sure you saw Davison, the Secretary of—"

"I did," Judy said, taking a shaky breath, "I was hoping that wasn't what Chuck was out doin' in the middle of the night."

Rawlins looked down guiltily, and Elizabeth watched as he just hung his head.

Conrad swallowed thick and Elizabeth looked down again at her own plate that still had some pie left, "Well," Conrad said, clearing his throat.

"Anyway," Rawlins interjected, "That's how the kids know each other."

"Oh," Judy said, looking between the two of them. But neither one would look up. "Are you still targets?"

Elizabeth hadn't considered it much, but she supposed she was still a target somewhere along the line. She was sure she'd pissed the people off in Kuwait, and she'd probably not cleaned out everyone in the government system that was part of this conspiracy in some way, shape, or form. So she just shrugged, "I suppose," she admitted, looking up at Judy and swallowing hard, "But I think it comes with our jobs," she added, looking over at Henry.

He nodded, "Which is one reason I am done," he said, "That, and we left two great guys behind."

The table fell silent again as the Marines thought about their brethren and their wives thought about the fact that it could've been their husbands at one point or another. Elizabeth just was trying to not relive the nights she spent in that closet.

"Maybe the best thing to do, then," Judy said quietly, looking over at Elizabeth and then Henry, but not pointedly—it was almost as if she thought she were being subtle, "The best thing to do is to stop waiting around and start living life how you want to live it," she instructed softly, sounding ever practical.

On that note, the rest of the table had gotten quieter, and Elizabeth clenched her jaw and tugged at her ring finger a few times before finally pulling it up above the table, "I guess now is a good time to mention this," she said, her voice shaky and quiet as she tried to not sound too nervous.

Henry looked up at her, his mouth slightly parted as he stared like he hadn't expected her to bring that up right in that moment. And really, he shouldn't have expected her to—she figured she'd probably made him nervous with her admission in the kitchen. In the corner of her eye, she saw Rawlins lean back in his chair with what can only be described as a smug satisfaction, and Conrad looked between the two of them with a slow, knowing nod. Lydia's hand drifted to her stomach and her other one drifted to Elizabeth's wrist, giving it a pat of excitement, and Judy nearly knocked over her sweet tea in a rush to set it back down.

"I'll be damned," Rawlins said, and Judy shot him a look like he knew better than to cuss at the table, but he didn't pay attention to it, "I thought y'all were actin' extra feral tonight."

"Feral?" Elizabeth mumbled under her breath.

"I just figured y'all had—"

"Don't finish that," Judy warned.

He looked up and laughed, straightening his back up, "Guess that explains why you were playin' tic-tac-toe in your mashed potatoes then," he said to Elizabeth.

"I wasn't playing tic-tac-toe," she muttered, looking down at where her potatoes were still on the plate and feeling Henry's stare fixed on her.

"Sure, sugar," Judy said, "And I don't put extra butter in my biscuits."

The whole table laughed, and even Elizabeth smiled at that.

Henry, still silent, took a breath before finally speaking. "We were going to tell everyone," he admitted, though it was kind of a lie. They hadn't even discussed it yet. His voice was level, but there was a tightness in it, as if he was still waiting for someone to challenge them on it.

Lydia arched a delicate brow. "When?"

Elizabeth hesitated, but straightened in her chair, "Soon," she said, but even she wasn't convinced. The truth was, she hadn't even figured out how to process it herself yet, let alone tell people who actually knew her.

Conrad leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "I mean, I can't say I'm shocked," he admitted, tilting his head toward Henry. "You didn't exactly take the long road to finding her, after all."

Henry exhaled sharply through his nose, but Elizabeth still didn't look at him.

"So, y'all set a date yet?" Judy asked, reaching for her tea again.

Elizabeth blinked again, looking over in Judy's direction. "A date?" she repeated, like the concept had never occurred to her. Because, in truth, it hadn't. The whole thing had been a whirlwind, and while she was pretty sure she wasn't backing out, she also hadn't let herself think far enough ahead to logistics.

"Well yeah, honey," Judy said, "Engaged doesn't mean married," she pointed out as if Elizabeth were the one being unreasonable.

Henry looked at Elizabeth and this time she met his gaze, and she just stared for a moment because she didn't know anything to say.

The question hung between them, over the table and ready to drop on everyone's heads, especially theirs. Because, really, what were they waiting for? The world had nearly chewed them up and spat them back out. They had been to hell and back, survived things that should've easily broken them both. Yet, here they were, sitting at dinner with people surrounding them who cared about them enough to point out that they were wasting time. Precious time.

Elizabeth exhaled slowly when she felt Henry's foot touching hers carefully underneath the table, "We're just…" she swallowed thick and looked at Judy finally, "We're just ripping the band-aid off," she admitted, "I think we might do a courthouse wedding this week."

The admission surprised both herself and Henry, but no one gasped the way Chuck Rawlins did at the end of the table.