Hope you enjoy it, and don't forget to review.

Disclaimer: I need to get myself a thief to steal the rights to the show unfortunately I live of a students salary so i don't have enough money to pay him, so I guess the rights still don't belong to me.

Chapter 5: The Full Extent

"Dad… dad where's mum?" Stevie's loud voice came through the thick fog clouding his mind. Jason came running up the solemn hospital corridor not too far behind his sister.

Jason seeing the sadness in his eyes immediately stopped running towards his father, knowing that the look on his face was not one that said his mother was going to be fine. "Dad, NO!" Jason screamed as he thought his mother was dead, he began to turn and run when his father grabbed his arm.

"Jason…" his father called his name as he tried to break free from his father's grasp. Henry wrapped his arms around his only son to prevent him from running away as a tear made it's was down his cheek. He hated to see his family in such pain. "Jason, listen to me."

Jason eventually calmed down in his father's embrace. "Jason, your mum is fine for now." They moved towards the plastic seats in the private waiting area that they had been escorted to. Stevie sat on the far side of their dad as he comforted Jason.

He had sent Frank to get Allison from her friend's house a half hour ago, so he knew that she should be there any minute, so he decided to wait until she arrived before he told his children anything about their mother's condition.

- Madam Secretary -

When Allison came running through the doors of the waiting room. She ran straight into her father's waiting arms. Henry dismissed the agents nearby in order to talk to his children in private.

Henry guided Allison to the seat that he had just vacated between her other two siblings. He knelt down in front of them and began to tell them about their mother's condition. "Okay, now that we are all here, I have to tell you something." He paused for a second to gain his composure to tell his children their mum wasn't alright. "Mum, she, umm.. well she…" He stuttered. "They took her to surgery when she arrived; they are removing the bullet that is lodged in her back. The doctors in Iran had missed one that had gone deeper than the rest."

"But she is going to be okay," Jason blurted out.

Henry didn't want to lie to his children especially when it came to their mother, so he broke the cold hard truth to them as gently as possible. "We don't know. They are doing everything they can." Now tears were running down every face in the room."

Henry stood up along with all three of his children and wrapped them up in his embrace, "I know that this is going to be a long road for all of us, but I want you to help me out until your mother is able to regain some normalcy. Okay"

They all nodded their acknowledgement, before sitting in the uncomfortable hospital chairs.

- Madam Secretary -

They had all fallen asleep in the OR waiting room waiting on news that Elizabeth had made it through the surgery. In the early hours of the morning Henry awoke to Frank gently nudging him awake. Henry immediately thought that something had happened to his wife while he was asleep and Frank was going to tell him that his wife was dead.

"No, no this can't be happening." He said in a low voice so he didn't wake his children. Frank sensing that Henry was struggling not to raise his voice, led him into the hall way so that the McCord children could continue to sleep relatively peacefully.

"Doctor. McCord we just received word that your wife is out of theatre now."

"Thank-you, Frank." Henry took a deep breath before looking up to see a doctor in blue scrubs heading towards him.

"Doctor McCord," Called the man dressed in the blue scrubs.

Henry stepped forward, "That's me."

The man raised her hand to shake Henry's. "I'm Dr. Richardson, I'm the head surgeon who is treating your wife. Your wife had lost a lot of blood before she got into theatre so we had to give her a blood transfusion before we began and another halfway through the surgery. We were able to remove the built that was lodged in her lower back. The bullet nicked her spinal cord," Hearing this he nearly lost his balance, his wife was going to be in a wheelchair and he didn't know how long.

"What are the chances she is going to walk again?"

"I'm sorry we won't know really until she wakes up, but at the moment we are looking at 60% chance of walking again, but that is only being made from what we have seen in theatre. Since she was not treated here right after it happened only she can tell us how much feeling she has in her legs."

"Can I see her?"

"Yeah, she is in room 210."

Henry thanked the doctor before entering the waiting room where his kids were.

- Madam Secretary -

Henry stood outside room 210 not sure what he should expect behind the door. He opened the door to find her pale form lying against the thin white sheets of the hospital bed.

"Oh, Elizabeth." He approached the seat beside her bed, "I am so sorry." He sat down and grasped her hand. "I should have played the husband card. You wouldn't be here right now if I had." He brought her hand to his lips and placed a gentle kiss on it. "Please, I need you to be alright, I don't know how to get through this without you by my side."

Henry sat there letting the silence engulf the room of the early hours of that morning. He knew that as soon as she was released from the hospital that she would want to go back to work but he also knew that if she didn't get the treatment for both physically and mentally she would never be the same person that she was before she left for Iran.

If she didn't get help he knew this was going to eat her alive.