A/N: took a little two-hour break from writing research papers to write this chapter, and I'm so glad I did lol.

Hope you enjoy!

Elizabeth | Post-Extraction – Day 84

She'd taken her vitamins. She'd gone to the doctor. She'd postponed her briefings until a later date, telling Conrad "it was harder than I'd expected," but he gave her that knowing look, and she knew Lydia had already gotten ahold of him—she'd already shared her suspicions with Elizabeth's boss. She'd watched as he didn't say anything, but just nodded, "I understand," and then asked how she and Henry were adjusting to married life.

She'd changed the sheets. She'd cleaned the floors on late nights when she couldn't sleep. She'd discussed the proper way to fold towels with Henry. She'd learned how to cook eggs without burning them, without letting them stick to the pan. She'd learned that her husband—still an odd thing to say—was a good cook. Maybe even a stellar cook.

She'd found that he loads the dishwasher the wrong way. She'd discovered that he doesn't like to be talked to first thing in the morning when her mind is going eighty miles an hour, but his is only just waking up. She'd realized that, on the nights she actually went to sleep, Henry would often be awake before her and just watching her. She'd found his hand lingering a little too close to her stomach a time or two. She'd shifted out from under him a time or two, too.

She'd gotten up and went to the bathroom every morning, some mornings crying with the water running so Henry wouldn't hear her. She'd gotten out of her boot, but she'd found herself in another imprisonment instead.

She'd not told Isabelle—the person she once told everything to. She'd ignored how Rawlins and Judy looked at her whenever they would meet for dinners, and she'd made hasty conversations with Lydia any time they were together. She'd even begged Henry to not tell his mother, and definitely not his father since she hadn't even met him yet. Except the necessary people, the ones who had already suspected and the ones who needed to care for her, no one knew Elizabeth McCord was in this situation, and that's how she wanted it to be.

For the past two months, she'd done everything robotically, as though she were living in a nightmare—wake up if she slept, go to the bathroom and sometimes cry if Henry's hand touching her skin made her feel disgusting, get dressed and avoid looking at herself in the mirror, grab an egg from Henry because he insisted she eat even though she never actually ate them on the way to work but just couldn't break his heart like that, go to work, avoid Isabelle, avoid Conrad, avoid everyone and dive too deeply into her work until she realized it was past five-thirty and she'd need to get home soon.

She hadn't bought any baby clothes.

She hadn't looked at a single name.

She hadn't let herself imagine what it would be like—what he or she would be like.

She was nearly a third of the way finished with this whole mess and she still couldn't bring herself to say the word "pregnant" out loud. She felt less and less like a mother as time went on, instead feeling like a hostage—without the torture and starvation, gladly, that the kidnapping brought upon her.

She'd sat on the table while Sarah Jordan did the first ultrasound, unable to bring herself to go in to an OBGYN and tell anyone yet. Sarah didn't say anything, and Elizabeth appreciated that—another reason she wanted to see Sarah instead of some chipper doctor. "Your blood pressure's high," Sarah said in a clinical way, and Elizabeth nodded.

"Not surprising," she said, and that was the end of that conversation, Elizabeth thought.

"You should really try to keep it down, Elizabeth," Sarah said, her tone shifting to something more serious even for her. Elizabeth met her eyes and swallowed thick, "It's not just doing harm to the baby, but it's doing harm to you, too."

Elizabeth considered that on her way home that day, but she didn't think much else about how she could actually bring it down. I'm a busy woman with a busy life and a busy job. And if she didn't have the busyness, she was afraid she would just fall apart.

Except Henry was there—and God, he did his best to be her glue. He'd already gotten acceptance from UVA's graduate program, so they were simply waiting on classes to start, and now that they had…well, Elizabeth was glad.

She'd come home to him having cleaned the house or rearranged the furniture, and he would also be in such a sprightly mood that sometimes she just had to tell him to stop talking. It only ensued two fights.

But for the most part, he made her tea, he rubbed her feet and rubbed her back when she'd even so much as make a move to show that it was a little stiff. He filled her gas tank. He made dinners, and breakfasts, and would send her on her way to work with a sacked lunch. He also, though, looked at her sometimes like he was waiting for her to arrive. Like the version of Elizabeth before the test results would somehow just come walking through the door one night.

But this was her now.

This tired, hollow-eyed woman who was carrying his child and trying to remember how to breathe, trying to remember how to walk without a pain in her ankle from no longer having a boot on, trying to remember what it felt like to be Elizabeth before she had to be Eleanor.

She didn't blame him for waiting. She was waiting too.

Something that did arrive, however, was a Sunday morning with them together. Just the two of them. It seemed like the last few Sundays they were busy doing something, but today she woke to a chill in the air—a sign of the autumn coming.

She hadn't meant to sleep in, but she was also glad Henry hadn't nudged her awake, either. When she wiped the sleep from her eyes and realized it was already nine-thirty, she suddenly realized, too, that she smelled breakfast cooking. She peeled herself out of the bed and went to the bathroom, then padded out into the kitchen with her tee shirt hanging down to her knees.

He was standing at the stove, his back turned toward her, but she could see a pile of bacon in one pan. Her hand flew to her stomach as it growled, but as though it was hot to touch, she moved it away quickly. "That smells good," she murmured, shocking herself a little when she said it aloud—nothing had smelled good, nothing had tasted good. She had barely eaten over the past few weeks at all.

The back of his tee was riding up just slightly, showing a little skin between that and his sweatpants, and when he turned around it was clear he caught her staring, but neither mentioned it. "It's almost ready," he said, "I didn't want to wake you, but I knew I was going to have to soon."

"I don't miss an opportunity for bacon," she mumbled as she walked over to the countertop, turning a barstool and folding herself up into it. She tucked her legs up in the chair with her until she realized that felt uncomfortable, and she had to put them back down, her feet touching the cold of the wooden rod.

She watched as he smiled at her and then turned back, and her eyes went down to that strip of skin that she once would've found so intoxicating—and maybe she does a little, still, somewhere in the back of her mind. But the thought of having sex with Henry these days made her cringe. Not because of him. Her body just felt so foreign to her, like she was walking around in someone else's skin and bones. She felt invaded in every sense, so she couldn't even fathom being invaded in yet another.

Ultimately, they hadn't slept together since finding out.

And Henry, respectful as always, hadn't pushed. He kissed her cheek in the mornings. He made her breakfast, he rubbed her feet, he did all these things without expecting anything in return. But then one night, he tried to touch her in that familiar way—the way that he was so soft, so slow, and so intent on making her a happy woman. He didn't say anything at first—just wrapped his arms around her middle while lying in bed together, his hands cautious of her still-flat stomach. And then he'd kissed her shoulder, his mouth warm and lingering.

She'd stopped him then, telling him she just didn't feel up to it that night. And he nodded, he said he understood, and he got up a few minutes later. She felt so terrible while he was in the bathroom with the shower running that she'd just turned over to face his pillow and cried.

Then a few weeks later, he tried again, back in their bed that had once been the place of intimacy every single night. He kissed her shoulder again, and she didn't stiffen this time, so he took that as a sign to continue. He turned her gently in his arms, and she tried to let herself enjoy it—not only for herself, but for him. She wanted him to have his wife, the woman he married. She kissed him back, but as soon as she did, she felt a tear running down her cheek.

She didn't even realize it at first—not until he started pulling back and turned over to switch the lamp on. "Elizabeth," he whispered, furrowing his brow. "Are you crying?"

She shook her head instinctively, clumsily, "I'm fine," she stumbled, sniffling, "It's just…" she couldn't bring herself to say hormones either, another step in admitting that she, indeed, was pregnant.

He was still, and he was staring so intensely at her that she felt small suddenly. "Is it?" he finally asked.

"I'm trying, Henry," she breathed after a moment of silence, "I'm really…I'm trying."

"Trying for what?" he asked, bunching the sheets up over his chest in a way that made him look self-conscious, and she closed her eyes when she got a pang in her own chest.

"For you!" she almost yelled, letting it tumble too quickly and loudly out of her mouth. "I'm trying to be the woman you married, Henry, the person I used to be before…" she shook her head and sat up a little, too, "I'm failing at all of it, I know that. So please, just…please don't ask me if I'm crying."

"Babe," he whispered, still facing her with the sheets pulled up, "You don't owe me this."

"I do," she snapped, sitting up now and wiping angrily at her cheeks. "You've done everything—you cook, you clean, you're always here alone and trying to make this home into something I can't seem to make it, and I can't even touch you now without feeling like a stranger in my own skin, Henry," she said it all with a twinge of rage, clearly frustrated.

He swallowed thick and looked away from her, "I'm alone when you're here, too, babe," he whispered.

She went silent, staring at him and feeling the tears bubble up again. It felt like he'd just hit her with a rock, a blow straight to the chest.

"I'm not trying to make you feel guilty," he added, looking at her now. "I'm just…I don't know how to help you if you won't let me in."

And then, suddenly, their fight from when his mom was here suddenly came back to the surface. Something about leaning on him, something about how she never had anyone to lean on. Something about how she's not a damsel in distress, the typical argument, and something about how he's not trying to make her feel that way but that it's also clear she's in some sort of distress.

And when she got finished yelling at him, he looked like he just wanted to crawl inside of himself, and he got up and left their bed again.

But when he came back moments later, he silently got in the bed where she'd been turned away, crying again, and he wrapped her up in his arms. She squirmed, but he didn't budge—it almost felt forceful the way he was holding her. She felt like she was suffocating at first, like he was burning her skin just by touching it—or worse, like she was burning him by letting him touch her. And then she felt his breaths tickling the back of her neck, and she closed her eyes and stopped squirming. The entire time, neither of them said anything, but it was clear that there was tension in the room—both from what he'd just done and from her yelling at him. But he didn't budge—his arms just stayed tightly around her, strong and sturdy.

And finally, she felt herself relax at some point, though they've never brought up sex again since that night.

And now this morning, sitting there in that chair with her toes warming the wooden rod on, she watched as he flipped pancakes in silence. He plated some, grabbing the bottle of syrup beside the refrigerator and the cup of tea he'd made and bringing them over to her. "Breakfast's served," he said, sweetly sliding her plate over to her as she smiled at him.

"Thanks," she breathed, taking a breath and feeling, for the first time in months, like she maybe could breathe again. Though, she will admit, it suddenly seemed more difficult to actually, physically, get a breath—like there was not enough room in her body.

She picked up her fork and surprised herself by devouring a piece of bacon first, then cutting into her stack of two pancakes—he had learned that was her limit not long after they married. When he turned back around with his own plate, walking toward her, he stopped in his tracks and raised his brow.

She saw what he was looking at—her half-empty plate. "I was actually hungry this morning," she murmured. She knew that he knew she didn't eat most mornings, even when he'd insist on her taking the egg. He was too smart of a man to assume she was actually eating it. They've just never discussed it—he continued making them, she continued pretending like she was going to eat them. "For once," she added, feeling a little heat in her cheeks and looking back down.

He just sort of nodded, flashing a little grin at her as he came and sat beside her in the other chair, pouring syrup on his pancake after buttering it. She watched him eat his bacon first, and then she continued eating her pancake, stealing a little piece of his bacon, too.

"Hey," he said, though he was smiling at her.

She took a bite out of it while holding his gaze, being a little more flirtatious than she had been for weeks. Nothing too suggestive, but something to at least show she did still find him unbelievably sexy. She found herself wanting him to touch her—and no, not in that way, but just wanting him to do like he used to and put his hand on her knee or find her wrist and rub it. She looked down at his hand and hoped he'd get the hint, but he wasn't looking—he was eating.

That was new, too—him not touching her at all times in the day. He still held her in his arms every night since the night they fought, but that was the only time as if there was an unspoken rule that he was only allowed to touch her if he was holding her that way and only at night. He was learning her new shape—of body, of silence.

They ate in quiet for a little while, the sound just of forks clinking against the plate. She asked how classes had been this week—his first ones—and he gushed about religion for a while. It was, for once, a normal feeling between the two of them, even if there was still something dark hovering in the corner or over their heads.

"I start my short paper next week," Henry said, "The one on transitions of power. We're doing a case study on the Balkans."

She nodded, still chewing, then sipped her tea. It was perfect—too perfect. He always made it the same now, milk and honey just how she used to like it. She hadn't told him it tasted different lately, metallic and cloying on her tongue.

"You don't have to keep making me breakfast, you know," she said after a beat, not unkindly.

"I know," he said. "But I like to."

They both fell quiet again as Elizabeth laid her fork down on her empty plate, wiping her hand over her mouth before sipping at her tea again. She peeked at him over her cup, and he was just quietly finishing the rest of his breakfast over there. She looked at the side of his head and wondered what it would be like to be in there, to know what was going on and to understand religion on the level he seems to.

And then, suddenly, the silence felt weighty. Heavy with everything they weren't saying to each other, with twelve weeks of pregnancy that they still hadn't spoken of beyond the basic logistics. With the way this tee used to hang past her knees and now only comes down to the top of them. With the way he still let his hands linger too long around her stomach.

She set her tea down and wrapped her hands around the cup, appreciating the warmth on this chilly morning, "You can come next time," she said softly, her voice catching a little in her throat. He looked up at her, furrowing his brows. "To the ultrasound. The one tomorrow." She didn't look up to see if he had changed his expression—she was barely able to get the offer out at all. She just watched the steam rise from her cup.

When he didn't say anything for a few more seconds, she finally looked at him, and he was trying to hold back a big smile—covering it, instead, with him biting his lip. "Okay," he whispered, then nodded and gave a controlled grin, "Yeah, I'd like that."

Their day went on, grocery shopping for the week, doing laundry, all their Sunday items. That night in bed, she listened to the shower running while Henry's spot lay cold next to her, her hands folded just under her ribs as she stared up at the ceiling. The offer to let him come to the ultrasound hadn't been as freeing as she'd hoped, she was realizing, and now instead felt like a heavier weight on her, like an obligation she now had to force herself to fulfill.

The next day, she fell back into her normal routine—wake up, bathroom, dress, avoid mirror, work. At two-thirty, though, she knew it was time to leave and head to Walter Reed to see Sarah Jordan for what, undoubtedly, would be the last time. Sarah had told her at the last appointment that she wasn't an OBGYN and would need a real one soon, and Elizabeth had obliged but still insisted on just one more appointment for her own sake. Sarah obliged, but it was made clear that it was against her better judgment.

Robotically, again, Elizabeth laid back on that table and stared at the ceiling—something she was good at these days—and she flinched when she felt Sarah put the gel on her skin. Henry was sitting beside her in silence now, even though he and Sarah had just been in a conversation about one of their buddies from Kuwait. It was as though he needed silence, as though he was holding his breath.

And when she exhaled, she realized she'd been holding her breath, too.

"There's the heartbeat," Sarah said, and the familiar swishing noise came through Elizabeth's ears like last time. Sarah said it so low that Elizabeth knew she wasn't talking to her, but instead to Henry, who was watching the screen closely. She could only seem him out of the corner of her eye—she didn't want to turn her head and see it.

Then she felt his hand on hers, and she instinctively let him hold it. "Wow," he whispered, breathing out what sounded like complete awe. Elizabeth was tempted to look over, but she just couldn't make her neck move.

The sound of the heartbeat took back over in her ears as she took a deep breath and held it in. It was a distant noise. It didn't belong to her—not quite. Yet, she recognized it, and that made her chest feel tight. The swish-swish-swish was so steady, so strong, and so alive. And all of that made her feel even more lost in herself as her hand went limp in Henry's.

He squeezed it a little tighter, though, looking at her. She was still just staring at the ceiling, her eyes locked on a panel up there while her lips were pressed tightly together and her teeth peeled some of the skin off them.

There was a quietness that engulfed the room, only accompanied by that swishing, and she saw Sarah come into her view. "Elizabeth?" she said softly, way softer than she'd ever heard Sarah Jordan's voice. "I know this is hard, but you have a really healthy baby," she cooed. Henry squeezed her hand again.

Elizabeth just shut her eyes, trying to shield herself from being seen, from being examined like this. Her pulse was beating in her throat, and she couldn't shake the sound of Sarah's voice. Healthy. Alive. I should be happy. What the hell kind of person am I that this doesn't make me happy?

She wanted to feel the joy Henry felt, that he so clearly was trying to hide from her even though he was not a very good liar. She wanted to feel something other than dread, than invasion, imprisonment. But every time she grasped for something else, it just felt like sand slipping through her fingers.

She swallowed hard and kept her eyes shut, "Thanks," she managed, her voice frail sounding.

She felt his hand squeeze hers again and she looked up to see him staring at her, giving her a reassuring smile before turning his gaze back to the screen. She didn't look at the screen, but she did watch him. She watched the way his eyes softened, the way they filled with some sort of hope that she hadn't been able to feel in a long time. He was taking it all in, every little detail he could, like he just couldn't get enough of any of it.

Her hand was balled up, gripping the material of her gown as she watched him. It almost felt like a betrayal to be so closed off when he was this open, this soft. But no matter how hard she tried to make herself feel the same, it never worked. It was like trying to fit into clothes that were two sizes too small. She was suffocating in this new life, in this new reality, and it made her angry. Angry at herself, angry at the situation, angry at the fact that she couldn't just be like him.

Henry was everything she had been before—all hope, all optimism, all the best parts of her. And she was here, empty, barely holding on, pretending like everything would work out even though she felt like she was living someone else's life.

When Sarah finished the scan, she pulled away the probe and wiped Elizabeth's stomach gently. Elizabeth didn't move, didn't speak. She just felt cold.

"All done," Sarah's voice rang through her ears again, but she couldn't bring herself to speak.

"It's all over," she heard again, this time Henry's voice. "You okay, babe?"

She looked up at him and swallowed thick, sitting up and fluttering her eyes, "Yeah," she said unconvincingly, sniffling and pulling her gown down and taking the paper off her hips. Everything felt so sterile except for her. She felt the opposite.

As they made their way back to the car after a few more moments and test results, Elizabeth felt his hand squeezing hers and watched the way he walked with such pep. "Henry, I—" she started, but then it choked out. She looked at him desperately, and he stopped to turn and look at her, too.

"What is it, babe?" he asked, his voice soft and gentle.

She looked at his expression—one of concern, yet one that was also still so happy. She couldn't bring herself to tell him she felt nothing, or that she was barely holding on, or that she was living with this constant ache in her chest. "Nothing," she whispered, shaking her head. "It was nothing."

He watched her as she got in the car, and she knew she set red flags off, but she didn't say anything about them and neither did he. Yet, for the rest of the day, she felt like she was under a microscope.