A/N: We're in deep sh!t, guys. This one's a doozy.
That's all.
Enjoy!
Henry | Post-Extraction – 178 Hours
He'd been staring up at the ceiling for the past thirty minutes—he only knew that because he'd checked the clock four times in the past fifteen minutes. Within moments of laying her head down, Elizabeth had fallen asleep. Her breathing had changed to these longer, deeper breaths, something he already had learned she did when sleeping just from her resting on his shoulder the whole way from Kuwait.
That shoulder was stiff from him not moving it for the entire ten hours of flight, and then his left shoulder and all down his side was throbbing and sore from picking her up and carrying her. He had Jordan's voice in his head yelling at him, berating him, even, for doing such a stupid thing—but he couldn't bear the thought of Elizabeth sliding down that ramp and getting hurt even more than she already was.
He shifted in the bed a little, barely off the edge of the mattress. He didn't want to get too close—she was obviously uneasy about sleeping in the same bed. What was that comment, anyway, about me having a girlfriend? He blinked a couple times, trying to wrap his mind around it. He laid his forearm over his head and closed his eyes, trying to will himself to sleep. When he closed his eyes, though, he just saw Elizabeth's apartment turned upside-down, the way it had been ransacked and ruined.
What was the point of cutting into her mattress?
What was the point of slicing her couch open?
His mind felt cluttered, loud with the memory of all that happened that night. He had been so dizzy and sick and out of it when he ran out of that warehouse with her in his arms. He wondered about the men they left behind—he couldn't stop thinking about them, actually. Especially Lacey—Lacey's wife, too, and his kids.
Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, he gritted his teeth as he re-lived that night all over again—feeling the aches in his body everywhere that had been beaten, feeling the panic rising up in his chest the same way he felt it when he saw that bomb. He slowly blew breath out of his nose, thinking about the way she hung so limp in his arms that he wasn't even sure she was alive. He couldn't stop and check if she was breathing—not with them shooting at his head. At her head, too.
It's a miracle either of us made it out alive.
When he'd gotten out of the warehouse and into the dark, warm desert night, he'd stumbled all the way to the helicopter, but he made it. He wondered why no one had helped him—and then he wondered why no one else was around. He clenched his teeth together, trying hard to remember who he saw on the way out.
Grayson? He saw Grayson, for sure, and he was barking something. Henry had blocked him out at the time, his ears had been ringing too loudly anyway. But now he desperately wishes he could remember what he was saying, and also why no one else was nearby.
He opened his eyes again and took a sharp inhale, and he felt her stir to his side. He let his head fall over just a little to look at her, and she was turning onto her side to face him, her eyes closed still as she tucked her hands underneath her cheek. She squished them into the pillow and moved her head, and he felt her forehead touching his arm.
There were no lights on in this safe house, but the moonlight shone through the window just enough that he could see the bruising around her eye that was starting to disappear. And once again, he couldn't get over how her hair just glowed, even in the dim moonlight.
As he watched her, he suddenly heard Grayson's voice in his head, barking those orders as he'd been running out of the warehouse: "Contain the situation!" He stared at the ceiling again, wondering what the hell Grayson could've been talking about. Henry had the situation contained, he had the package in his arms as he was running by him.
He stopped thinking about that, though, as she stirred again. It startled him this time because he was so lost in thought, and then she moved even closer to him. He wanted to inch away, knowing she was getting too close and that he didn't want her to feel awkward if she were to wake up, but he also knew he was at the very edge of the bed. If he scooted any further, he'd be on the floor.
He held his breath as if that was going to keep him from rolling off the bed, closing his eyes tightly and trying to imagine that he wasn't that close to falling. But his eyes popped open when she laid her hand on his arm, her fingers wrapping around the inside of his elbow, and he looked over at her. Her eyes were still closed, and she had a concerned look on her face, but she was still very much asleep.
He swallowed hard as he stared at her for a couple more moments.
How can I ever leave you and know you're safe?
He supposed he couldn't ever fully trust that she was safe—that was what came with her job. But he hated it. He'd saved her life, now she should be able to live it like normal. Instead, he was having to hide her at Quantico because there may be a possible leak in the CIA.
He swallowed thick and stared into the blackness again, his mind going through who it could've possibly been to leak her information to those men. He didn't even have all the details as to who they were—but Elizabeth had mentioned a Hariri at some point, and he assumed that was the leader of this whole mess.
His mind wandered to Conrad, and he wondered why he was so intent on making sure Elizabeth was safe, that she got back alive. Henry hadn't done other extractions like that before, but he assumed that the director of the CIA wasn't usually that emotionally invested in each of his spies. He looked at Elizabeth and squinted in the darkness at her, wondering how she knew Conrad and if he was connected in any of this.
He never cared much for the man.
Her fingers were now gently squeezing around his arm, and her face was all scrunched, contorted like she were about to sneeze. But then she whimpered, and he opened his eyes more to get a better look at her. Another whimper, and another, and then he rolled onto his side and gently touched her shoulder, "Elizabeth," he whispered, "You're having a nightmare."
"No…" she murmured, still asleep and now squeezing his arm tightly.
"Elizabeth," he said louder, "Elizabeth, wake up."
"No!" she exclaimed, "Don't! Stop!"
Henry shook her a little and said her name once more, and her eyes bolted open to look at him immediately. Her hand relaxed against his arm and then squeezed again, but this time as if she needed something to hold on to.
She took a shaky breath, and he swallowed thick, "You were having a nightmare," he whispered.
She nodded, closing her eyes, "I know."
He watched her trying to calm herself down, and finally he started tracing his fingers along the skin just underneath the hem of her sleeve. He waited a few moments before speaking again, "Are you alright now?"
"What even is alright anymore, Henry…" she whispered, closing her eyes tiredly. Before they closed, though, he saw the glimmer of teardrop lingering there, and he wanted to reach for it. He found himself, even, holding back to keep from reaching from it, and that startled him. I'm in too deep, he thought.
He kept tracing little circles on her arm, more for his own reassurance than hers, at this point even though her breathing was starting to slow. After a few minutes of total silence, he thought she'd fallen back asleep, but then she spoke up with a rough, deep voice—pure exhaustion.
"Henry…" she whispered, and he saw her eyes look up at him when he darted his down toward her. He'd been lost in his thoughts again, thinking she was asleep. "Your thoughts are so loud."
He felt his throat tighten when he tried to swallow, looking away from her quickly. He huffed out a breath, something like a laugh as he shook his head, "Sorry," he whispered back.
She shifted, and that's when he noticed she was still laying there in his arms. He felt his chest swell an inch more. "Want to share?" She asked.
He hesitated, looking down at her again and seeing how sleepy she was. But her eyes were wide, she looked ready to hear him, and he sighed. The moonlight made the wetness on her face shimmer, and he realized then that she'd been crying, too—he hadn't noticed it before. His fingertips felt feathery light against her skin as he continued his circles, now just above her elbow, "It's Grayson," he whispered, furrowing his brow as though the name confused him, "Something's been bothering me about that night."
She moved so that her head was propped up on her hand now, and she had the upper advantage instead of him. The way she looked down at him made him just want to hold her, to tell her she'd be safe forever, but he couldn't—it would be a lie. "What?" She probed.
He paused, trying to gather all his wild thoughts up into proper sentences. He blinked a few times, shaking his head and turning it to face her better, "First of all, why was I grounded?" He asked, "He kept saying it was because Lacey and I were trustworthy, but then he just…left Lacey?" he shook his head again and looked away from her because her face shifted, looking much more sad than worried now.
He swallowed hard when she didn't respond, but he didn't give her much to respond to. "And then when I was getting you out," he continued, still staring past her and replaying the memories in his head, trying to get their clarity to be better, "He was yelling something. I didn't think anything of it then—I was too focused on getting you out and getting you to the heli. But that's the other thing," he said, turning and looking at her with a frown, "I was the only one trying to get you out—everyone else…" he trailed off and paused, thinking again, "I think everyone else was already loaded up."
She blinked at him, tilting her head.
He didn't give her a chance to respond before adding, "He kept yelling 'contain the situation.'"
She swallowed thick, "That could've meant anything."
"Could it?" He frowned deeper, sitting up a little and propping his free hand behind his head, "We were already pulling out—the op was over. What was left to contain?"
Her eyes shifted to look past him now, and she just stared into space for a few moments. He was tempted to find what she was staring at, if anything, but then she spoke again: "The two men left behind."
He swallowed hard, nodding. He didn't want to say it aloud, but he's glad she did. "Yeah," he whispered, "The two men left behind."
They let that sit on them, weighing them down in silence and disgust at the thought of leaving those guys behind. But why? Why would they leave two Marines behind, especially a guy like Lacey who was well on his way to being a top brass?
"Grayson wasn't even looking at me," Henry realized out loud, his thought process becoming external now, too. "He was looking at the warehouse." He shifted his gaze back to her, "He wasn't looking at you either, and you were the priority. You were the package we had to get out alive."
He watched as her face tightened again, contorting into something that looked like she was in pain. She removed her hand from underneath her head, letting her hair splay over the pillow again as she buried her face slightly down into the crack between their two pillows. He realized she was covering her mouth, but he didn't quite understand why.
Finally, she looked up at him and opened her lips, but a whimper came out. She immediately shut her mouth again and swallowed hard, taking a moment to gain composure, "What are you saying, Henry?" she whispered.
He took a moment before even considering speaking these words out into the ether, knowing the weight of them out in the world would be way worse than in his head, "I'm saying it felt off," he prefaced, his breaths uneven, "Maybe they weren't just casualties."
"Henry," she warned, her breath hot against his arm.
But now he couldn't stop, he had to get it all out, "Maybe they were silenced."
Though she had to have been expecting those four words, she inhaled sharply and sat up quickly, and he startled at her sudden movement and her slight choking. She coughed and looked down into her lap as he sat up, too, rubbing her back. She shied away from him and looked over at him as though she just watched him kick a puppy. She was grabbing the sheets, then the hem of her tee, and wrapping them up in her tightly clasped fists.
They stayed there in silence, her trying to catch her breath while he rubbed circles against her back with his palm, him wondering how the hell they got caught up in all this.
It was when he felt her trembling underneath his palm that he decided to screw all protocol—what little protocol was left, that is—and just wrap her in his arms. She laid her head immediately against his chest, and he felt her body wrack with a sob. He pressed his hand gently into her head, creating a cocoon for her between his chest and hands.
She felt so rigid—as though if she were touched she would shatter into thousands of tiny, sharp pieces. Pieces that would pierce through him, too, if she were to shatter.
After minutes passed by with her silent and slowly becoming less rigid in his arms, he laid them both down, holding her still. His hand came up and pushed her hair away from her face gently, and he felt his breath catch in his throat. "Tell me if it's too much," he whispered from somewhere seemingly outside his body—it contradicted everything his heart was telling him to do.
She looked at him with a wet, swollen face and shook her head, "It's not enough, Henry," she whimpered, burying her head into the crook of his neck.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, knowing they couldn't take this any further than what they already are—she's his extraction, the package he was supposed to retrieve. They shared trauma together, of course they would feel this attachment, of course she would feel safe in the arms of the man who carried her out of danger.
Did I carry her out of danger? Or did I carry her from one danger to another?
He ran his fingers through her hair, down her back gently as he kept his eyes shut. "We'll figure this out," he whispered.
He woke to sunlight flooding through the windows, and he immediately realized they were in danger—people could see them if they happened to walk by the window.
Looking down quickly at her body, she laid there so perfectly against his side that he didn't want to move her. She was asleep, so soundly and wonderfully, and he hated having to do this: "Elizabeth?" he whispered, "We have to wake up—we have to get away from a window."
"Hmm?"
He smiled when she picked her head up, her hair going in eleven different directions when she looked at him so sleepily. She looked like she could barely open her eyes, but in the light of day, he realized that her bruise was almost gone around her eye. She still had some remnants of scratches and cuts on her face, but this was the first time he'd ever seen her without a black eye.
She's so…cute.
He blinked and shook the thought from his head, taking a sharp breath and telling himself he could not think she was cute. There was too much involved in this. Too much at stake without including his own feelings toward her, whether they were baseless feelings or not.
"We need to get away from the window so no one sees us," he whispered, watching as her eyes darted over to the window before she sunk further into the bed. She was using him to hide behind.
She seemed as though she was computing what was happening, and she finally looked up at him, "What's the plan today?" she asked, "We need to…we can't stay in here forever…"
His chest squeezed around his heart. I would love to stay in here forever.
No, Henry.
Stop that.
"I'm sure they're already looking for us," Henry reminded, thinking about how he showed his ID at the Quantico gate last night. It would only be a matter of time until someone remembered this safe house was out here and came knocking.
She nodded, "Conrad is probably worried sick," she said, pushing her body up from the pillow slowly and stretching.
He watched her blonde locks fall down around her collarbone, the loose tee falling halfway down her chest. It looked like a tee she slept in often, maybe one she'd had for years, even. The way it rolled up at the hem on the sleeves and around the collar, he assumed it had been washed many times.
You're supposed to be thinking about a plan.
He tore his eyes away from her hair as she stretched, slowly pushing himself up, too, and rubbing his face with both palms. He sat there for a moment and pulled his knees up to his chest, trying to ignore the shooting pain in his side and the achiness that encumbered his entire body. Conrad? He just remembered what she'd said—Conrad would be worried sick.
"How do you know Conrad?" He asked, looking over at her.
She was looking at the window before he talked, and then she looked back at him. That little move reminded him they weren't safe right here—anyone would be able to see them easily.
"What do you mean how do I know him?" She asked.
Henry looked over his shoulder at the window and got up, his body stiff and rigid when he tried to move it too quickly. He paused and looked at her, leaning on the bed as he took a moment for it to adjust, "Conrad Dalton? We're talking about him, right?"
She nodded, furrowing her brow and getting up out of the bed, too.
He looked at her sweatpants and kept a smile off his face when he saw how loose those USMC pants hung on her. They looked much better on her than they ever did on him, even though he's definitely wearing the same ones right now. "You're just on a casual, first-name basis with the director of the CIA?" He asked, "Why was he so worried about you?"
"Why wouldn't he be?" Elizabeth asked, making her way to the bathroom on her crutches.
He stood there and wished he could follow—he didn't want to be in front of this window for too long. "Because he's the director—he's not usually that close to the people on the ground. I've never done an extraction before, but—"
He heard the toilet flush and the faucet running, and she was coming out in another second. "He's my handler," she said, not meeting his eyes as she gripped onto the rubber handles of her crutches. "He's also my friend. He recruited me to the CIA and I attended their wedding the month before I left for London."
"London." Henry repeated, the word sounding foreign to him. He frowned, "We need to sit down and I need the whole story because I didn't even know anything about London."
"It's classified." Elizabeth said, leaning against her crutches more, "I can't tell you anything about it because—"
"It's classified," Henry provided, "I know. But do you want to stay alive or stay in the CIA's good graces?" he asked, his mind thinking back to Lacey, "Because if the Marines are willing to silence someone—two someones—then that means someone in the CIA could possibly have compromised you or this op or something."
He watched her as she held her breath, her eyes looking down at the corner of the bed. She looked like she might fall over if it weren't for the crutches. But he assumed, on a normal day, that she must be a strong woman. All spies were, he knew that. But he could see the tone in her arms, and he assumed she must work out. He wanted to ask her—he wanted to drop this business about the op and London and Conrad and just ask her about who she was in her life before she became Eleanor Morgan that first time.
But he couldn't.
She looked away and took a deep breath, "We shouldn't be standing here," she murmured.
He nodded, walking past her in silence and using the bathroom himself.
When he came back out, the room was empty, and he panicked immediately. He kept down a shout of her name in his chest, everything in him telling him to yell for her. But then he turned the corner to the living room and saw her sitting in the floor, her back leaned up against the couch as her leg was straightened out in front of her. She looked like she was in pain until she saw him, and then she adjusted her expression.
"You're hurting," he realized aloud, kicking himself for not thinking about any kind of pain medicine. Of course she is, dumbass.
"I'm fine," she said.
He was already heading to the kitchen, rummaging through cabinets to see if somehow there would be a bottle of medicine here. He knew better, though.
"Henry, I'm fine. Come sit before someone sees you."
"I just—"
"Henry." The sternness in her voice startled him—he hadn't heard that from her yet. He paused and looked back at her, and she was watching him intensely, and he felt beckoned to come over and sit with her immediately.
He slid down in the floor beside her, his back leaned against the couch. "Okay," he whispered, letting out a breath out. "If you're not going to tell me about the—"
"I was in London keeping an eye on Hariri," she mumbled, and he shut up immediately. "There was an arms deal that the CIA suspected between Hariri and this group of terrorists on the outskirts of London." She looked down at her fingers, and he noticed they were fumbling with each other and picking at the skin around her fingernails. "He visits London often, and I was sent there three months ago because that's when they thought the deal was going to happen. I was supposed to get intel on who it was and then stop it by sending in a military team. But instead, Hariri never showed, and I was just stuck in the rainiest, dreariest city for two months before I ever had any action."
He smiled a little at that, thinking about a bored U.S. spy in London.
"I just did my fake job—the diplomat thing—and I would go to the little apartment that they had for me and pretend like I was Eleanor Morgan." She looked over at him and then back down quickly, "And then finally, the night of the gala, I saw him." He watched as she clenched her jaw, and she looked like the wind could blow her over. She was already swaying as she stared at the wall in front of her, her hands totally still in her lap. "He knew who I was—he knew immediately. And it was all a setup."
She looked down after a few moments and he could hear the tightness in her throat, though there was no sound coming out of her. How did you live through this? How did you stay so strong?
"Conrad was my handler through all of it, and I think my comms were compromised at some point in the night because I'd ordered an extraction but they never came." She retold all this as though she were telling someone else's story. Maybe, in her mind, this was Eleanor Morgan's story, not hers. He wished it could be that simple. "They caught me—and the rest you know."
I don't know, he thought, I just know you looked like you'd been through it.
But he didn't push—he didn't need her to recount her torture to him. "You trust Conrad?" Henry asked, looking over at her.
She waited a moment, and he wondered what her hesitation meant. He tried to get a good read on her, but she was completely expressionless as she stared at the wall. Finally, after she still hadn't said anything, he realized she hadn't even heard him.
He gently laid his hand on her knee, and she jumped underneath his touch. She looked down and so did he, and he heard her take a deep breath.
"Do you trust Conrad?" he asked again, his voice gentler and softer than it was before.
She nodded immediately, "He's a good one," she assured.
"How do you know?"
"I just do."
He looked at her and swallowed thick, "Are you sure you're not—"
"Henry," she cut him off abruptly, and he wished he hadn't pushed. "I'm a trained CIA spy and have created profiles for terrorists for two years now," she reminded, looking at him with one brow raised, "I'm not letting something cloud my judgment. Conrad is a good guy. Something, somewhere else went awry."
"Okay," he offered, trying to not make the situation worse than he already had.
She blew a breath out and he looked over at her, watching as she tried to hold herself together. He moved his hand away from her knee and onto her back, letting the room fill with silence for a few moments. He heard her stomach growl, and he suppressed a little smile. At least she has an appetite.
He swallowed hard and got up without saying anything, going back to the kitchen. He remembered seeing a box with MREs, and originally when he saw them, his stomach turned. He hated MREs. But now that his own stomach was growling, too, along with hers, he knew that it was going to have to do for the situation.
He rummaged through the box and found one that said it was chocolate pudding. He stopped rummaging, pulling it out and eying it. She likes chocolate pudding. He put that in the pocket of his sweatpants and found a cheese spread. He almost groaned, but he knew he liked this at least. It was something in his stomach to hold them over.
He walked back into the living room and handed her the pudding package, and she smirked, "You remembered," she said, "I love chocolate pudding."
"I know," he said, "You ate three of them that night in the hospital."
She snorted as she ripped the package open, a little giggle coming out of her mouth. He looked over at her when he was seated again and smiled, loving the way that she giggled and made the whole air in the room feel lighter.
"I haven't had a proper meal in over a week, okay?" she said, digging into the pudding, "Sue me."
He ripped his cheese spread open and ate it with just his finger, swallowing it down and trying to not be grossed out. Food was food.
"Maybe you're right about Conrad," Elizabeth said suddenly.
He frowned at her, "What do you mean?" he asked, knowing he didn't say anything for him to be right about.
She looked at him, "That maybe I shouldn't trust him," she answered, "Maybe he's…I don't know. Maybe he's in on this somehow." She looked down and swallowed her pudding, "I don't know who to trust right now, really."
He looked at her and watched as her face became heavy with worry, but something in him, a voice somewhere, told him to be happy because she trusts him. He felt like he'd been entrusted with the treasure of Olympus, maybe, by earning her trust. He took a shaky breath when he felt the weight of that, too, crushing down on him, "What did you see when you were in the warehouse?"
She paused for a moment and then took another bite of pudding, thinking deeper. "A lot of crates," she murmured.
"Me too," he said, licking the cheese spread off his tooth. "But if it was an arms deal, that'd make sense. Who was the deal with?"
She shrugged, "I was supposed to find that out—but I was made too quick."
He twisted his lips and looked down, then looked back at her to see her twisting her lips, too. It almost made him smile. "Why would they be after you still?"
She looked over, "They could've ransacked my apartment any time in the last three months," she said, shaking her head, "I don't know that it was targeted after the extraction."
He nodded, letting that sink in. "Right," he whispered, thinking again about those crates. He was trying to conjure a better image in his head, "Do you remember anything strange about the warehouse?" he asked, trying to prompt something in their heads to start coming to the forefront.
The memories had to wade through all the pain and trauma, so he could see why it was taking them both longer than it normally would've.
"I was barely conscious half the time," she admitted, shaking her head. "Where were Lacey and the other guy?"
"Smith," Henry provided, swallowing hard, "Lacey was with me at the flank—I left him in the entrance area and Smith was just ahead of us." He frowned, trying to remember more what was in that room that he left Lacey behind in to go find Elizabeth.
"Do you think maybe they saw something they weren't supposed to?" she asked.
The pit of his stomach felt more hollow, much more hollow than this cheese spread would've fixed, and he laid it to the side on the carpet.
Suddenly, a memory flashes over him as though he were hit with it. It hurt his head, even, and he had pushed it so far back in his mind whenever he thought about that night—all the pain and the nausea from the concussion, him having to step over that boy's body who he killed. He looked at Elizabeth and was unable to say it.
"What?" she prompted, finishing off her pudding.
He blinked, his voice feeling like it was off somewhere outside his body, dancing around him and teasing him. He needed to say this. He needed to get it out. "Elizabeth," he murmured, his face feeling cold along with his arms and chest, "The crates."
"What about them?" she was turned toward him more now.
"They had U.S. markings."
"They were U.S. weapons?" she asked.
He nodded, swallowing hard.
"In that warehouse?"
He nodded again, "I didn't even think—I was just so focused on trying to find you—on trying to get you out—" his breath stopped him because it got stuck in his throat, and he tried to calm himself by taking a ragged breath, "What the hell were American weapons doing in a compound run by Hariri's men?"
She exhaled and looked away, "Jesus, Henry…" she whispered.
Henry's mind was spinning, and he felt like he was going to get sick. He pushed the package away from his leg, knowing he wasn't going to want anymore of that cheese. "Grayson put me on the ground for this," he remembered, thinking about their conversation last night.
She looked over at him and he saw the tears in her eyes.
"I'm always in the jet," he thought aloud, his body feeling frozen, "But Grayson put me on the ground for this op. I thought it was weird at the time, but I didn't question it further. Now I'm wondering if it was intentional."
She frowned, "Why would he want you on the ground?"
"He kept telling me and Lacey that we were trustworthy," he murmured, "Maybe he thought we wouldn't notice or…that we were two people who wouldn't ask questions and would just go along with it."
"You're saying Major Grayson was in on it?"
Elizabeth's words sucked the breath from Henry's airways, and he just had to stare at her for a minute. "This is a lot bigger than just an op gone wrong, Elizabeth," he whispered.