Prompt: Henry 'meets' Elizabeth's parents. Written for the season premiere fic exchange, for glitter-lace-sophistication.

It's now officially October 2nd in the UK, so here's the fic! I'm not sure what you were hoping for with this prompt, but I hope it's OK and that you don't think I've cheated too much. I found the prompt unexpectedly quite hard and I'm worried I've properly ballsed it up. I've also kept things purposefully a little vague in an effort to prevent it being completely torpedoed by canon at some point haha. Anyway, hope you enjoy! Thanks to BessAndHenryMcCord for organising :D

P.S. I cannot for the life of me fathom out Elizabeth and Henry's early years timeline. I gave up on trying to figure out dates in the end as I honestly have no clue (sometimes I'm not entirely sure the writers know, either!)…

L'Interdit

It happens gradually, over a course of years. Decades, in fact. Slower than he would've liked – he has to admit that he would've liked the whole story up front, at the start; he just wanted to know what happened so that he could help, just wanted her to be able to trust him – but he comes, with time, to understand that it's more than just a painful subject.

He thinks if it were just a painful subject, it would be easier. It could be dealt with. They have never shied away from talking about the difficult things.

But the topic of Elizabeth's parents is to a large extent an unacknowledged subject, something forbidden, one she avoids most of the time, and on the times that she forgets and starts to talk about it, one that stops abruptly as soon as she realises.

It's an absence. (Just like her parents.)

Beyond an initial, botched attempt in their very early days that ends in her shutting him down by starting a row in a public place, Henry doesn't push to know more. He sees her disappear into herself at the memories the topic stirs and while it kills him not to do anything, he sees her desperation for him to leave it alone, and so he does.

She'll talk when she's ready. He learned that in the beginning.

In later years, when they are married with their children almost grown and he has known her for the better part of his life and she has, over the years, given him enough that he can piece the story together, he thinks how very like her it is: there is always more about her to learn, more for him to discover about the love of his life, and he never ceases to be fascinated by anything she has to say. He'll take whatever she'll give.

He just wishes he could give her back her parents, the people he knows only by their absence.

They're the one thing he can never give.

In the beginning

"That was my mom." Henry hangs up the phone and turns back to his new girlfriend where she sits on the small couch in his small, cramped, damp apartment.

He's a little embarrassed to bring her here, and even more embarrassed that the first time he gets up the nerve to bring her here, three weeks into their relationship, it gets interrupted almost immediately by a phone call from his mother.

Elizabeth shakes her head and smiles, still looking a little nervous at being in his space, but she's being genuine when she says, "Honestly, it's fine. It sounds like you're close with her."

"We are." Henry has just noticed the pile of dirty laundry in the doorway to the kitchenette and so doesn't notice the wistful, slightly pained tone to his girlfriend's voice. "Are you close with your parents?" he asks.

It's an innocent question, and it's only when she still hasn't answered after ten seconds of silence that Henry drags his gaze away from the mortifying pile of worn socks and underwear to find her with an expression on her face he hasn't seen her wear before. He wouldn't call it sad, exactly, more like… empty. And hurt, but not by him. He can see her toying with her thoughts as she stares near him but not at him.

"Elizabeth?" he prompts softly, calling her attention back to him.

She looks up at his face and says, quietly, "My parents are dead."

Henry freezes. Oh. Oh. He hadn't known, hadn't realised. It occurs to him that while he has told her plenty of stories about his own family in the few weeks they have been dating, she hasn't told him any in return. He had thought it was maybe because her upbringing was so very different to his – he knows she comes from money, and he definitely does not – and she didn't want to dwell on it. He hadn't thought it was because…

He wants to ask her more questions, find out when and how and how old she was and who looked after her after it happened, because it obviously happened when she was young. She's still young now, although far more independent and self-sufficient than her years would suggest.

Now he knows one of the reasons why.

He wants to ask her questions, but they are still so new and he doesn't want to risk anything, and he doesn't yet know her well enough to know when or how to push. And the look on her face is very definitely saying don't push.

So he doesn't. Instead he says, "Baby, I'm so sorry."

And she looks surprised at the compassion and genuine apology in his voice, and there is the spark of tears in her eyes, but she doesn't let them fall, not even when he crosses the little room in two strides and sits beside her to hug her close. Instead she says, muffled against his chest, "Baby?"

He follows her lead and copies the amusement in her voice as she queries the term of endearment. "Yeah. That OK?"

There's a long beat before she answers. "Yeah. That's OK."

Four months later

Ice skating in February might not have the same romance as it does in December, just before Christmas, but it does have the benefit that the outdoor rink is much quieter, giving them plenty of space to themselves.

It's a cold night, full of stars, beautiful.

Henry holds Elizabeth's hand as they skate idly around the rink and thinks he's struck it pretty good. They've been together a few months now, and it's great. She's great. She's smart and interesting and gorgeous and more than a match for him, but now he has known her a little while, he's starting to notice the differences between them.

Like the way she still keeps herself slightly removed, like she's holding herself back; out of fear or habit or reserve he doesn't know, but it's noticeable, and different to his own easy openness. He worries about it sometimes, and is unsure how to broach the topic.

Which is why it's a surprise – a pleasant one – when she says, out of nowhere, "So my brother called yesterday." She sounds a little hesitant, as though she's nervous of the topic, and her breath comes in little shaky clouds that linger in the cold air as they continue their lazy circuit of the ice rink.

"Oh yeah?" Henry's interest is immediately piqued. She shares information about her brother so rarely; it was almost a month before he even learned of his existence. He knows enough to know that her brother is older, and often away, and he has been able to read between the lines to get the sense that this is a source of tension between them. And that Elizabeth misses him, even though she has never said it. For her to volunteer information about him is rare, and Henry is pleased that she's sharing with him.

She nods and is silent for a long moment before she goes on, "Yeah. I told him about you." She looks up at him as she skates at his side, her face framed by blonde hair and a highly endearing bobble hat. She looks unsure.

Henry beams. "You did?"

Her confidence comes back as fast as it had disappeared at his enthusiastic response. "Well, I thought it was about time."

He has to ask. "How'd he take it?"

Elizabeth mulls it over for a second. "Really well, actually. I think he could hear how happy I am." She smiles. "He teased me about falling for an older man."

Henry laughs and then, as Elizabeth falls quiet, he decides to take a chance. This is the first time he has heard her talk about Will with anything but reticence, and he can't help but want to know more. He knows so much about most of the rest of her life, but hardly anything about her family. The yawning gap where those stories should be has been ever more apparent since he learned about her parents the first time he took her to his apartment. He has been waiting patiently for a good opening and he's not about to pass up the chance. He opens with a roundabout approach. "Were you close as children?"

She shrugs, a little awkwardly, as they continue to skate hand in hand and have to squeeze together to avoid a child who has yet to learn how to stop. "Kind of? We fought a lot, but… I guess most of the time we were fighting on the same side, at least when we weren't fighting each other."

"If your brother is half as determined as you, I can imagine you must have had some pretty intense disagreements."

"Henry, by determined do you mean pig-headed?" She bumps into his side, looking up at him through her lashes and smiling.

He laughs, but he gets what she's doing. She's purposefully keeping things light, making a joke to deflect from the fact that the topic is a personal one, one that skirts close to places that hurt.

Until very recently, Henry would have joked along without even realising anything was amiss. But he knows her better now, has spent more time with her and started to learn her quirks. Her defence mechanisms. He recognises it for what it is, and he thinks he knows her well enough and that they are solid enough for him to push a little bit. He's feeling brave. He holds tighter to her hand. "What about after..?" he starts and then stops, the question sticking in his throat.

Maybe not so brave.

"After?" Elizabeth prompts, like she doesn't know exactly where he was going with that question. She waits him out, makes him say it, challenging him.

He supposes that challenging him to ask is better than doing everything she can to ensure he doesn't. It's progress, of sorts. Maybe the straight question is the best one. "Was he there for you after your parents died?"

She doesn't answer for so long that he starts to think she isn't going to. Then she says, simply, "No."

Henry squeezes her hand, in sympathy and apology, feeling his own palms start to sweat against the wool of his gloves at the cloud of tension he senses starting to form around Elizabeth. He makes sure he holds tight to her hand, letting her know that he's with her. She doesn't have to deal with things alone. He's not letting go. Still, he's hesitant when he asks: "Babe… what happened?"

Elizabeth is looking straight ahead and very deliberately not at him, and her previously easy movements across the ice are increasingly stiff and jerky. "What do you mean what happened?"

"How did your parents die?" The question comes out harsher than he intended, more like a demand than a request for information, and he regrets it straight away.

He regrets it even more when she pulls her hand away from his and balls her hands into fists at her sides. She starts to skate faster, not fast enough to shake him, but just enough that he has to labour a little bit to catch up with her and keep pace.

That should be his hint to leave it alone, to stop asking. He doesn't want to hurt her, but he does want to know what happened. And she doesn't seem so much hurt right now as pissed off. He thinks he can deal with her anger. He thinks they're strong enough to withstand a fight. "Elizabeth, talk to me."

She surprises him, skidding to a stop and spinning round to face him a little wildly, swaying precariously on her skates but dodging back when he reaches out automatically to steady her, leaving him hanging. "Why? It's not going to change anything."

He can't argue with that, but he tries, because he can't help himself. "It might help to –"

"To what? Make you feel better?"

Oh, that cuts him, but he can't deny that it's at least partly true. He just wants to help her. He wants to fix it, fix the hurt. He wants to know. He feels so much for this young woman standing in front of him and glaring up at him so angrily, and he's still figuring out exactly what to do with those feelings. It's all still so new for both of them. "It might help to talk about it," he protests. It comes out loud, defensive and accusatory all at once, and just a little pleading.

"You can't make it go away. You can't fix it, Henry. You always want to fix everything." She almost spits the words out, and while he knows it's a protective mechanism, it sparks annoyance within him.

"Well, forgive me for wanting to help you."

"I never asked you to help me!"

They're starting to get loud, and they're starting to draw attention. Henry swallows. "Well, no. I guess that's true." He's a little surprised at how bitter he sounds, how bitter he feels in the moment.

The fact she never asks him for anything makes him feel like she doesn't trust him.

Pride wounded and temper on the edge, he does something he regrets as soon as he does it. He spins around and skates away, leaving her there alone on the ice, her breath forming clouds around her face that do little to hide the fact her expression has crumpled. He waits for her on a bench by the rink after he returns his skates. It takes her over an hour to join him. It takes them a week and several awkward, allusive apologies before things feel back to normal.

But not quite back to normal. Because now Henry knows just how deep the wound left by the death of Elizabeth's parents runs. He also knows that he's in this relationship for the long run. She needs someone who'll never leave, who'll stick around long enough (forever) that she can feel secure again for what he thinks will be the first time since her parents died.

He wants to be that someone.

Seven months later

His childhood bed is small, almost comically so as he arranges himself in it so that he's able to lie comfortably on his side and look at Elizabeth lying beside him without either of them accidentally falling out.

He has an arm securely around her waist and she is idly drawing patterns on his chest through his t-shirt. The feel of her body pressed so close to his in the little bed and her finger tracing against his chest is working him up a little bit, but he pushes those thoughts to one side. This is the first time he has brought Elizabeth back to where he grew up, and his parents and siblings are in the house, only rooms away. He doesn't want to give them any more ammunition. Besides, the look on Elizabeth's face is wistful; she isn't trying to turn him on.

Elizabeth has been quiet ever since they shut the door on his bedroom for the night, shutting out the rest of his family and giving them some time alone. He thinks he knows why she's being quiet. Maureen in particular has let it be known she isn't massively fond of Henry's girlfriend, a fact that has had low-level anger rumbling in his gut since about five minutes after they arrived.

He's just about to open his mouth to apologise – again; he has already apologised to her about Maureen once today – but she speaks before he can say anything.

"Henry, your family is amazing."

He is still just close enough to the years of teenage angst and desire to flee the family nest that he can't quite completely agree with her assessment, even as he knows it intellectually to be broadly true, despite the current situation with Maureen. Instead he waits to see if she'll say anything else.

It takes a little while, but eventually she does, her gaze locked on his chest and her eyes a little wet in the dim light of the bedroom. "They're just so… loud. I've missed that. I've missed the noise and the love and the people. Ever since my parents died, everything has just been so… quiet."

Henry doesn't say anything; the last time this topic came up, his pushing for information did not go well, so he lets her set the pace, instead just tightening his arm around her and pressing a kiss to her forehead in acknowledgement. He feels an ache in his chest at the thought of her so alone for so long.

"Your mom is nice," Elizabeth goes on. "She reminds me a little of my mom."

"Yeah?" he says.

She hums in the back of her throat and nods. Then she falls quiet and she doesn't say anything else for so long that Henry starts to think she has fallen asleep. He is just drifting off himself when Elizabeth tells him, "I wish you could've met my mom. She would've loved you."

He swallows around the lump that has suddenly appeared in his throat. "I wish I could've met her, too."

Eight months later

It's the last box to be unpacked and then they'll officially be moved in together.

The box isn't big but for some reason, Elizabeth has left it unopened for a week already and Henry is itching to get it put away so their little apartment can really start to be properly lived in, can finally start to properly become their home.

He resists the temptation until he is running the vacuum cleaner around the bedroom one afternoon and its progress is impeded by the presence of the box. He switches off the appliance and bends down to pick up the box, placing it on the bed out of the way.

A jury might not believe him, but he genuinely wasn't trying to pry. It was just that when he put down the box on the duvet, a flap came loose and he caught a glimpse of a photo just beneath that captured his attention, and he didn't even think as he reached in to pull it out.

He is still staring at the picture minutes later when Elizabeth comes in, home from a lecture to find him in an incriminating position. "Oh," she says, when she realises what he's doing.

He looks up at the sound of her voice and finds her standing in the doorway with a carefully guarded expression on her face. He suddenly feels horribly guilty, and on edge at the tongue-lashing he fears may be coming his way. He considers going straight in with an apology, but after a minute Elizabeth's stance softens and she pads over to him, coming to stand at his shoulder so she can see the picture he holds in his hands.

"That's my mom and dad," she says quietly, looking down at the photo of her parents all dressed up on their wedding day.

Henry nods. "You look just like her," he comments.

"Yeah," she agrees.

Henry holds both his tongue and himself still, wary of saying the wrong thing. This is still the one topic with her that he doesn't know how to handle. It's the one thing she is yet to properly trust him with, and he feels the need to tread very carefully.

Elizabeth takes pity on him, reaching out to open the plain cardboard box so he can see inside. She sits down on the edge of the bed so that she can rifle through the relatively sparse contents and pulls out another photo, framed this time, and hands it to him.

It shows her and her brother with their parents when she was maybe… four? Five? She is ridiculously cute as a small child, but little Elizabeth has nothing on the woman in front of him who blows him away on a daily basis. "Great dress," he says of the tiny white and blue smock she's wearing in the photo.

She smiles shyly. "Thanks." She seems to be gearing herself up for something, shifting around on the edge of the bed and tucking her hair behind her ear before finally she steels herself and looks up at him. "Henry, I know you wonder why I don't talk about my parents."

"No, I –" he starts to protest, but then cuts himself off before the lie can properly form. Of course he wonders. It has been killing him not to know for almost the entire time he has known her. "Yeah," he admits.

She swallows. "The truth is, I don't really remember them that well, not any more. And I feel so bad about that. That my memories have faded over time. I feel like I've failed them. I hate that I've forgotten things. And what I do remember about them hurts. I just… I just miss them."

A tear falls down her cheek and Henry can't stand by and watch while she cries, so he sits down beside her on the bed and pulls her into his chest, feeling the hitch of her breath as she settles against him. "Of course you do," he says, stroking a hand gently over her hair. "Of course you miss them. But Elizabeth, you haven't failed them. I haven't met them but I can say with certainty that you haven't failed them. You're fantastic, and I bet they'd be so proud of who you've become."

She has her face buried in his chest, is deliberately not looking at him, and he thinks she might be a little embarrassed. She makes a non-committal noise and squeezes her arms tight around his waist.

Henry takes a careful, hesitant chance. "Tell me about them?" he enquires.

He's surprised when she actually obliges, a little unsure of herself at first as she haltingly begins to tell him stories about her life growing up, about her father who she adored and her mother who taught her to go after whatever she wanted, and who was her hero. But she settles into things after a little while, her confidence growing the more she talks, and by the end, even though there are tears, Henry thinks she has remembered that some of her memories are good, even great, and he thinks that with time those memories might be the ones that she remembers most.

He'll never get to meet her parents properly, but he thinks that meeting them through their daughter – the woman he's head over heels in love with and with whom he intends to spend the rest of his life – is just about as good a substitute as there can be, and she is a damn fine tribute to the people they must have been.

Eight years later

"She's so like him."

"Hmm?" Henry looks over at his wife as she watches their daughter berating a boy she has taken exception to at the playground.

Elizabeth glances at him before looking back at Stevie and smiling as she gives the boy a lecture on the proper rules of make-believe. "Stevie," she says. "She's so like my dad."

"She's like you," Henry responds. He has thought it ever since Stevie was tiny, ever since she first blinked up at him as she lay in his arms as a newborn. Just like her mother, she has had him completely smitten from the very first moment, and as she grows up, it's becoming more and more apparent that she is just like Elizabeth.

Fiery and independent and sure of herself and so damn perfectly dazzling.

And, apparently, reminding Elizabeth that just because her parents are dead, they're not completely gone. Their continued influence is evident in her daughter; living on in a new generation.

"I wonder who the next one will be like," Elizabeth ponders.

They found out just a couple of weeks ago that she's pregnant again, and Henry has barely been able to wipe the grin off his face ever since. "We'll have to wait and see," he replies, sliding his hand to her stomach and hoping the new life in there can feel the warmth of him, the love he already has for the baby who is yet to be born.

His answer is cagey, but privately he is sure. The next one, and any more that follow will, like Stevie, be just like Elizabeth. He's certain of it. Touched by influences from elsewhere but, ultimately, made by no one but herself.

September 2014

"Secretary of State," she says as they lie in bed that night after her first day on the job.

Henry rolls onto his side to find Elizabeth staring up at the ceiling, looking a little shell-shocked. She has looked that way ever since Conrad appeared at their farm to offer her the post. "Secretary of State," he agrees.

The idea took a little getting used to in the beginning, but Henry had never doubted she could do the job. There had never been any question as to whether she should take it. As far as he was concerned, it made perfect sense. Of course she should be the Secretary of State.

It had taken her a little longer to get on board with the idea that she could do the job, but Henry thought that his faith in her had helped her on the way.

His faith – and her parents'.

The night after Conrad had visited the farm with his gift of a senior high-profile cabinet position, Henry had found Elizabeth sat on the edge of their bed with the old cardboard box in her lap, the same one she had let him see when they first moved in together so long ago. The paper was worn now and starting to weaken in a couple of places, but it still held together just fine.

He had joined her on the bed and found her holding a leather-bound journal, open on the first page to a few lines of elaborate handwriting. He looked askance at her.

"This was a birthday gift from my parents the year before they died. I was going through a phase of doubting myself at everything and they gave me this to try and help." She nodded at the inscription in fountain pen.

Henry had looked down at what was written there, aware of Elizabeth watching him closely as he read.

You are always enough, and you can do anything you put your mind to. Write your achievements in here so you don't forget. Love, Mom and Dad.

"They died so soon after they gave me this. I never wrote anything in it. I felt I couldn't. It seemed… I don't know." She had shrugged and looked away.

He thought he got it.

"But then, today…" Elizabeth had blinked and hesitated for a moment before she flipped over the page to show him the fresh words printed in the journal after so many decades of lying empty.

The smile had spread broadly over his face as he read: I'm going to be the Secretary of State.

And now she is the Secretary of State. It's all official. She has taken the oath and got down to work and now it's the end of day one and Henry knows she's exhausted but still, she's lying awake with him in the dark and he can practically feel her buzzing with energy beside him, unable to switch off enough to sleep.

"I really wish my parents were here so I could tell them about this," she says.

Henry shuffles closer and slides his arm over her, tucking her into him and hoping to blanket her in comfort. She still so rarely volunteers her parents as a topic of conversation that it instantly sparks his protective instincts at the same time as making him alert to any new fragments of information. "I bet they'd be proud," Henry tells her.

She smiles into the dark. "Yeah," she agrees. "But first I bet they'd laugh themselves stupid."

He chuckles. He gets it; he thinks he'd do the same if Stevie or Alison or Jason ever found themselves becoming Secretary of State one day. That's a day he'd love to see. Laughter he'd love to have.

He wishes Elizabeth's parents were there, too. He'd love to tell them how much he loves their daughter and how much she has achieved for herself, what she has done with her life. Their deaths aren't just an absence in Elizabeth's life; it's about what they missed out on, too. He can't imagine missing out on the lives of his own children, and tells himself he's going to be around to see what the three of them make of themselves. He and Elizabeth are going to be around to see it.

It has taken decades to piece it all together, but Henry can honestly say that he feels he knows Elizabeth's parents. Not because of the stories she has told him or the fragments of memories she has shared or the bits and pieces he has been able to put together himself over time, but because he sees them in her, and in himself, too.

He knows them because he knows himself as a parent. He doesn't want to miss even a minute of it, and he doesn't want his children to miss him, not yet, not while they're still relatively young. He knows Elizabeth feels the same, feels it even more keenly after having to grow up without her own mother and father. She wants to make the world better for her children and Henry knows that is ultimately the reason she accepted the job as Secretary of State.

He curves his hand around her hip and tugs lightly until she rolls onto her side and curls into him, her arm draping over his waist and her head coming to rest under his chin. He feels her breath sigh against his chest.

"I wish they were here so I could laugh right along with them."

It's clear from the way she says it that it's final; she isn't expecting or inviting a response to the statement. And even though Henry knows the story now, even though he knows as much as he is ever going to, that's one thing he knows he can never change.

The absence will always be with them.