A/N: In 2.13, Russell Jackson covers up part of a report to give the President deniability. He urges Nadine not to tell Elizabeth, saying that as Chiefs of Staff, "that's our job - we take the hits so they don't have to." I've decided to take Russell's words literally, and then I wrote this strange story. Let me know what you think!

Elizabeth let out a deep sigh. She pulled her glasses off her face and tossed them aside, pressing her fingers into her temples to massage away the faint headache that had settled between them. She was supposed to have been home in time for dinner tonight, but the President's office had other plans for her.

Nadine regarded her sympathetically. "Why don't we pack it in for the night? All of this can keep until the morning."

"Nadine, you've been in the office today even longer than I have. I don't understand how you can still be so chipper." Elizabeth groaned. They were the only two left here at this ungodly hour; Nadine had allowed the rest of the staff to depart earlier in the evening since they didn't need a full staff to finish reviewing the report. They were working at the sofa in Elizabeth's office, and Elizabeth was practically melting into the cushions at one end while Nadine was perched primly at the other.

"I didn't have a three-hour meeting with the Swedish delegation this evening." Nadine pointed out. "That would've taken the wind out of anybody's sails." She began to gather all of the papers that were strewn across the coffee table before crossing the room to place them on Elizabeth's desk.

Elizabeth closed her eyes.

"And anyway," her Chief of Staff continued, "things have been a little too calm around here lately. I was beginning to think that the world had forgotten that we…"

Elizabeth waited for Nadine to finish, but the other woman had fallen silent. "That we what?" Elizabeth asked.

No response.

Elizabeth opened her eyes. "Nadine?"

Her Chief of Staff stood behind the desk, frozen in place. She was holding onto the wood in a white-knuckled grip, staring straight ahead. Something was wrong. Elizabeth followed her gaze.

From her position on the couch, she could just barely see the figure of someone standing in the doorway, though she couldn't see who.

Nadine quickly remedied that for her. "Mr. Wilson," she said softly.

Wilson. Scott Wilson? The night custodian?

Nadine had released her hold on the desk and lowered her arms to her side, forcing calm. Her one hand was blocked from view, but Elizabeth could just barely see it moving along the underside of the desk, slowly. Where the panic button was.

With the other hand, directly in Elizabeth's line of sight, Nadine made a gesture with her thumb and first two fingers. Gun.

Elizabeth tensed. What was going on?

"Mr. Wilson, can I help you?" Nadine asked. Calm under pressure.

Elizabeth got up slowly.

The man moved forward into the room, and Elizabeth could see that he indeed had a gun at his side. With every step that he took, Nadine took a step sideways, moving in a smooth arc so that she remained between Scott Wilson and Elizabeth the whole time.

What did Nadine think she was doing?

"Scott," Elizabeth said sharply, moving out to the side, "what is this about?" She could hear the pattering sound of footsteps out in the bullpen - diplomatic security. They usually kept a bare minimum presence on the seventh floor - even less when it was late and she was one of the only ones in the office. Maybe they needed to reconsider some of these policies.

"Scott!" Elizabeth repeated. The footsteps grew louder as DS got closer. She knew that Wilson could hear them too because he set his jaw and raised his gun. He cocked it.

And then several things happened at once.

One of Elizabeth's agents burst into the office with his own gun raised.

Nadine stepped in front of Elizabeth at almost the same instant that Wilson fired. The bullet went directly into Nadine.

The agent fired. His bullet went directly into Scott Wilson.

A squad of DS agents poured in.

Nadine violently stumbled backward from the force of the shot. She collapsed into Elizabeth, who braced her under the arms and lowered her to the floor. A dark red stain was quickly spreading across the top of Nadine's blouse.

Shit, shit, shit.

Elizabeth's ears rang from the gunshots and her heart raced with adrenaline and low-grade panic, but she forced herself to suppress it so that she could address the immediate damage. It looked like Nadine had been hit in the upper chest, just below her collarbone. Elizabeth yanked off her own cardigan, bundled up the fabric, and pressed it to the wound hard, trying to stem the flow.

Nadine made a small noise of pain. Elizabeth searched the other woman's face. All the color had drained from it, and she looked like she was very much in shock.

One of the agents knelt down next to her. He said something to her about a medic team, but she had a hard time focusing on his words. Then he put his hands over hers, trying to take over. She refused.

"I've got her," she said, not once taking her eyes off of her Chief of Staff. She tried to keep the edge of panic out of her voice. "Just go and make sure the medics get up here as fast as possible!"

The agent stayed at her side, but in her peripheral vision she saw a few of the others sprint out of the room at her directive.

"I've got you, Nadine," she said again.

Nadine didn't answer, but her eyes were trained on Elizabeth's face. They were a little glassy with pain, but focused, which Elizabeth took to be a good sign. She assessed the injury. Nadine was bleeding so much. It was passing right through the delicate chiffon of her blouse and saturating the fabric of the makeshift gauze with a quickness. Elizabeth pressed down harder.

"I'm going to lift you a bit to check for an exit wound, okay?" She gently rolled Nadine partway onto her side, making the other woman groan. There was nothing. She laid her back down.

"Fuck," Nadine muttered.

Elizabeth could have laughed, if the situation wasn't so dire. Nadine never cursed.

When she looked up again, her agents were leading a medic team toward her, with a gurney trailing behind them.

Elizabeth let them take over, backing away to give them space to work. One took over applying pressure to the wound, another lowered the gurney to floor-height, and another used a large pair of shears to cut away at Nadine's blouse. They ripped open packets of gauze and pressed it against the bleeding. They tossed the soaked cardigan to the floor in a wet pile by Elizabeth's feet.

Nadine was lifted easily onto the gurney, with one medic on top of her to keep pressure on the bleeding as the others wheeled them toward the elevators at a sprint. Elizabeth trailed right behind them.

"Ma'am, we need to -" one of her agents said, matching her stride.

Elizabeth was having none of it. "I don't care. I'm riding with her, so you guys can just follow us to the hospital."

"Madam -"

"I'm not leaving her," she snapped. Her eyes were trained on Nadine's face. Her Chief of Staff looked in danger of passing out. "Stay with us, Nadine," she called out.

When they loaded Nadine in the ambulance, Elizabeth clambered in after the paramedics. She grasped Nadine's hand in both of hers, holding onto it tightly, and Nadine squeezed back with weak pressure.

The ambulance screamed through DC traffic, and when they reached the ER bay, a team was already standing by to receive them. They whisked Nadine away before Elizabeth could even blink. She stepped out of the ambulance on wobbly legs and let out a shaky breath.

A young nurse lingered by her side. "Will you be okay, ma'am? Were you hurt?"

Elizabeth stared at her, the words requiring some additional time to process. "What? Oh, no, no I'm fine. Where - where are they taking…?"

"She's going into surgery. Shall I show you to the waiting room?" The nurse placed a gentle hand on her back, pushing her forward. She steered Elizabeth into the waiting area and sat her down.

"She lost a lot of blood."

"Some of the best trauma surgeons in the country are working on her," the nurse reassured her. "She's in good hands. Do you… do you have someone you can call? Someone to wait with you?"

"My security detail should be here any minute and I guess I should call my… my husband…"

"Well, in the meantime, do you think you could fill out some paperwork for your friend?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "I don't know too much about… I don't think I can -"

"Do you know if she has any family in the area? Relatives we can call? A next of kin?"

Elizabeth considered the question. "Her son is out of country. She has a sister, but I don't know where she lives." Her stomach sank a little. Surely she should know more about her own staff? Three years in the office, and was this all the personal knowledge she had to show for it? Sure Nadine was a private person, but even so.

The nurse patted her on the shoulder and said, "That's okay. Let me know if you need anything, okay?" And quietly excused herself.

Elizabeth slumped further into the cheap plastic seat.

She was shaking. If Nadine died, her blood would be on Elizabeth's hands. How had it come to this?

She felt herself creeping toward panic again and bent forward, lowering her head between her knees, trying to stave it off. Inhale. She trained her eyes on the black specks of the floor tiles, counting them. Exhale. She curled her hands into fists. Inhale. She pressed her nails into her palms, then released them just as fast. Exhale. They were still gritty with dried blood. Nadine's blood was literally on her hands. Fuck. Inhale, inhale, inhale, exhale.

Elizabeth rubbed her fingertips together and watched the residue crumble off of them. She stared at the stained cuffs of her shirtsleeves. Breathe. She needed to clean herself up.

She was about to get up to find a bathroom when her detail began to file in, strategically taking up residence around the waiting room and down the hall. She acknowledged them with a grateful smile.

Matt approached her. "Ma'am, the man who shot Ms. Tolliver is Scott Wilson, a -"

"Janitor. Yes, I recognized him. I just don't understand why he had a gun." Wilson had been a replacement custodian for Diego Molina, following the conclusion of her family's stalker case. Just where in the hell was State finding these fucking janitors?

"DS and FBI are processing everything now, ma'am. Wilson is dead, so there isn't as much information as we would like, but I'm sure we'll know more in a few hours all the same."

Wilson dead. And hopefully Nadine won't be. "Okay. I, um, I think I left my cell phone in the office, and I really need to go clean up, but do you think you could call Henry for me? Tell him to go meet with the FBI. If this somehow has something to do with Julius Burton's stalking campaign still, we need to know that immediately." It wasn't unheard of for hits to be ordered from a jail cell. They thought the Burton affair was long over, but what if they were wrong?

"Yes, ma'am."

"And then call Blake, please. See if he can't lift my and Nadine's belongings from the office and bring them to me."

"Of course."

"Thanks, Matt." Elizabeth padded down the hallway to the Ladies' Room and shouldered her way inside. She was barefoot. She'd kicked her heels off sometime after her dinner meeting with the Swedes (was that really just hours ago? It felt like ages) and hadn't spared another thought for the things all night. She'd gotten a little preoccupied what with trying to do her desperate best to keep Nadine alive.

She scrubbed at her hands and wrists until they were raw and red, using several pumps of foamy hospital soap and running the water as hot as she could stand it. It swirled pink down the drain. She dried her hands and then rolled her sleeves up over her elbows, folding away bloodstains. She would trash this blouse later.

When she returned to the waiting area, Daisy was sitting there. She was wearing yoga pants and a pullover; had probably rolled right out of bed and out the door.

"Daisy, what -"

Daisy pulled her into a tight hug. "Blake called us. He's at the office now; told me to let you know that he was able to grab your things and that he's on his way here. Matt and Jay are on their way too, but I live closer than they do. How's Nadine? Are you okay? Oh my god. What the hell happened? The nurses couldn't tell me anything." Her press secretary had a tendency to babble when she was anxious.

"Scott Wilson, the night custodian, came in while we were working, pulled a gun on us. Nadine literally threw herself in front of me when he took the shot. She… she's in surgery now."

"She's going to be okay, right?"

"I don't know." Elizabeth whispered.

"Oh my god." Daisy fell silent for a second, stunned. Then she asked, "Why would he do that?"

"I don't know. The FBI is looking into it. I'm sure we'll know more soon."

"Is there anything we can do at State?"

"It's not our area. Wilson was subcontracted by the department, but he's not technically a State employee. There's nothing for us to do but wait, really. And be there for Nadine."

Daisy nodded, somber. "I just can't believe it. Do you think… have you called Mike B?"

Elizabeth hesitated. "Mike B?"

"Yeah; you know they've been… that they're together. I think he'd want to know."

Elizabeth had known that there was something between her old friend and her Chief of Staff, but she'd forced herself not to pry out of respect for Nadine's deep-felt sense of privacy. Hopefully this news wouldn't scare Mike B half to death. "You're right. I'll call him, Daisy." Elizabeth squeezed her arm reassuringly. "Let's sit down, okay?"

They sat there in silence, and it wasn't another minute before Matt and Jay barrelled through the doors, both looking just as panicked as Elizabeth felt.

"Madam Secretary is she -"

"Blake told us that Nadine -"

They spoke over each other, the rest of their words unclear as their sentences tripped over each other. Their worry was obvious though, and Elizabeth gave them the same information that she'd given Daisy, feeling even more ashamed by it with each passing minute.

This is my fault. If she dies, it will be because of me. It's my fault.

Her staff was close. Marsh's death had devastated them. If Nadine died too it would break them. How could Elizabeth possibly make that right again?

She urged Matt and Jay to both sit down, and then the four of them huddled together in silence.

When Blake finally strode into the waiting area, his arms were laden with items that were decidedly not his own. He greeted them all before depositing everything he was carrying into the empty seat beside Elizabeth.

"I have your phone and your purse and your briefcase and your coat; your heels are in here, and I brought you a change of clothes and flat shoes," he handed her a bag, eyeing the errant specks of blood on her blouse grimly. He looked down, speaking quietly so that only Elizabeth could hear him. "I figured you'd want it. There was, um, a lot of blood on the floor. And I took the liberty of tossing your cardigan."

God, her office must have looked a horrific mess.

"It was," Blake said, "but not as terrifying as what actually took place, I'm sure."

She didn't realize she'd said that out loud. "Thank you, Blake." She said softly.

"And I have Nadine's work phone," he continued, "and um, I didn't feel comfortable going through her things, so I only grabbed her purse out of her office." He separated Nadine's things into their own neat little pile. "Figured she'll need it."

He said it decisively, but Elizabeth could hear the plea underneath it. She'll need it, right? She'll be alive to need it, won't she?

"Thank you, Blake." She said again. Elizabeth grabbed her phone, put on the shoes, and took the change of clothes he brought her. "I'll be back."

As Elizabeth walked to the bathroom again, she scrolled through the notifications on her phone. A few missed calls from Henry, a couple texts each from Jason and Alison. She ignored them for the moment, pulling up Mike B's number instead. She sealed herself in the bathroom stall as she listened to the line purr. He finally picked up on the third ring.

"Bess, there had better be a damn good reason for you to be calling me at three in the -"

"Mike, it's about Nadine."

A beat. And then, "What happened? Is she okay?"

"She - she got shot. I'm at the hospital now." She could hear him inhale sharply on the other end. Damn it, I'm sorry Mike. "She's in surgery."

"Which hospital?"

"GW."

"I'm on my way." Click.

Elizabeth dialed Henry next. He picked up on the first ring.

"Babe, are you okay? Matt told me what happened, but I've been so worried. How's Nadine?"

"Still in surgery. We um, don't know anything yet."

"She'll make it, Elizabeth. She's made of strong stuff."

"She lost so much blood," Elizabeth said. And then, in a whisper, "It's all my fault, Henry. He was aiming at me and she stepped in front of it."

"Babe, Nadine knew exactly what she was doing, and what she did was brave. It's not your fault. It's no one's fault but Scott Wilson's."

Elizabeth blinked back tears. If she kept talking about Nadine and her bravery she was going to fall apart. She drew a steadying breath before changing the subject. "Did the FBI learn anything about his motives?"

"They're reasonably sure he wasn't working for Burton."

"Reasonably?"

"Well, they still need more time to exhaust the possibility, but so far there doesn't seem to be any connection between them. Santangelo procured warrants for Wilson's phone and all of his computers, and they are scouring them as we speak."

"But then why would Wilson…?"

"Seems like he was just mentally unhinged. And babe I gotta tell you, State's doing a really bang-up job contracting these custodians."

"Tell me about it." She muttered.

"Anyway, his wife used to work at State up until a month ago - she got laid off during the downsizing epidemic; committed suicide soon afterward."

"Oh, no. And I'm guessing… he blamed me for it."

"As the head of the State Department? Yeah. It's possible."

"And Nadine got caught in the middle of it." Elizabeth sighed.

"I'm sorry, baby. I'm praying for her."

"Me too. Okay. Um. I'll talk to you soon, Henry. Keep me updated."

"I'll meet you at the hospital as soon as I'm done here. I love you."

"I love you, too." Elizabeth said, and hung up. She gave herself a minute to regain her composure, then changed into the clean set of clothes. On her way out of the bathroom, she balled up her ruined blouse and tossed it into the trash.

When she returned to the waiting room her staff rose out of habit. She waved them down, slumping down in the empty seat between Blake and Jay.

"Any updates?" She asked no one in particular.

They murmured in the negative. There weren't.

"Well," she offered, "I just spoke to Henry and it seems like the FBI's initial conclusion is that this was an isolated incident. Turns out, the guy's wife used to be a State employee who killed herself after being let go. And he was just unhinged enough to..." Well. Try and kill me. Shoot my Chief of Staff. Act out a death wish.

"Is there anything we can do, ma'am?" Matt asked her.

Focus, Elizabeth. "Ah, yes, actually. You and Daisy will need to put together a statement for the press, and Jay, we really need to review State's custodial subcontracting agreement because clearly, current regs are just not cutting it. You and Blake should go through it together, but guys, there's no rush on anything. It can all wait until morning."

"With all due respect, ma'am, all this waiting is making me crazy," Daisy said, "and I can't just sit here and do nothing." She considered something for a moment, then said, "I want to be there for Nadine when she gets out of surgery, but until then I need to do something useful."

"We could all stand to do something useful." Jay agreed. He turned to Elizabeth. "Ma'am, if there's nothing else you need, I think we'll go and try to straighten out this shitshow." He got up, and Daisy and Matt followed his lead. "You'll text us with every update?"

"Of course. And guys, please just… stay out of my office. It's not pretty."

They acknowledged her with grim faces and the three of them left. Blake stayed behind.

"Are you sure you don't need anything, ma'am?" He asked.

"I'm okay, Blake."

"Is Dr. McCord meeting you here?"

"Just as soon as the FBI kicks him out of their lair."

"Did you call Nadine's sister?"

She shook her head. "I meant to, but I didn't have her number."

"I lifted it for you." Blake withdrew a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. A phone number. Bless that boy.

"Where does she even live, anyway?" She queried.

"San Francisco. Even if she took the next flight out, she wouldn't get here until late in the morning."

"I see." Elizabeth dialed the number, and the woman who answered sounded so much like Nadine that Elizabeth faltered for a second.

Nadine's sister promised to catch the next flight out from SFO.

"We'll send a car for you when you land. I'll give you my assistant's contact information so that you can update us once you have your flight itinerary, okay?"

She talked with the woman for a few more minutes. Just as she was ending the call, Mike B appeared in the waiting area. Elizabeth turned to Blake (who seemed very confused by Mike's presence) and told him to go back to the office to make all of the necessary arrangements for Nadine's sister. "I'll be fine here, Blake, thank you."

"Yes ma'am. Mr. Barnow," he acknowledged, and breezed out of their way.

"Bess, what happened?" Mike asked. His voice was rough - whether from lack of sleep or an abundance of worry, Elizabeth couldn't tell. Probably it was both.

Ruefully, she said, "Nadine, in what was perhaps the most misplaced and frightening display of a sense of duty that I have ever seen in my three years in Washington, took a bullet for me. And I don't mean that metaphorically."

Mike blew out a long breath. "She told me she was just working late. In your office, not a shooting range - how the hell was this even possible?!"

Elizabeth gave him all the information she had.

"Well," he said, but stopped. He started again. "Well, the rumor is that you can't kill her unless you throw a bucket of water on her, so she'll probably be okay." He tried for his usual snark, but lacked his usual bravado.

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow.

Mike put his hands up. "Hey, I don't subscribe to that theory; I'm just saying. It's a Washington thing. Well, mainly it's just a lowly-peons-of-the-State-Department thing, but who's counting. Have the doctors updated you yet?"

She shook her head.

"Do you think," he began, but his voice broke and he didn't continue. He looked away from her.

"Mike, I'm sorry." She tried.

He didn't say anything. He stared at the ground for a long moment. And then somberly, he asked, "Did you call her sister?"

"Yes. She's catching the next flight to DC."

"And her son?"

"Didn't know how to get ahold of him."

"I don't, either."

They lapsed into silence.

"You don't think…" Mike said, but trailed off again.

She knew exactly what he was trying to ask, even if he couldn't bring himself to voice it. "I don't know." That answer still scared her.

"Can't lose her," he murmured, but it was so quiet that he might have said something else altogether.

Before Elizabeth could ask, a nurse approached them. "Excuse me… are you here for Nadine Tolliver?"

"Yes," they said.

"I wanted to let you know that she pulled through the surgery just fine. She's lucky; the bullet shattered her right clavicle, but didn't puncture any major organs. It'll be painful, but the doctor expects that she'll make a full recovery."

They both let out a massive sigh of relief.

"Can we see her?" Elizabeth asked.

"Of course. She's still resting, but I can take you back to her room." The nurse said.

Elizabeth gathered Nadine's things and then the nurse led them further into the hospital. She stopped in front of a private room. "The anesthesia should wear off soon, but you can go inside if you like. I'll leave you two here," the nurse said, and excused herself.

Through the window, Elizabeth could see Nadine's sleeping form propped against a small pile of pillows. Her right arm was immobilized in a sling. She looked small, so… fragile. Elizabeth could hardly believe that this was the woman who had stopped a bullet on her behalf.

"You go in," she told Mike. He looked more distressed than she'd ever seen him, although he was trying valiantly to hide it. She handed him Nadine's belongings. "I can wait."

"Thank you." He went inside, set Nadine's things down on the side table. Elizabeth watched as he leaned over her and tenderly stroked her hair away from her face before dropping a kiss on her forehead. He pulled up a chair to her bedside and took Nadine's free hand in both of his. He brushed his lips over it; once, twice. And then his shoulders begin to shake. Elizabeth looked away.

As she walked back to the waiting area, she fired off a quick text to Blake. Nadine out of surgery. Will text when she's awake and ready for visitors. Tell the others.

Blake's response was almost instantaneous. Oh thank God. Followed by another. Her sister is scheduled to land 11:30, Dulles. Will pick her up myself.

She felt like she could breathe again.

Henry was in the waiting room when she got back out there. He reached her in two big strides and wrapped her in a tight hug. He pressed a kiss into her hair. "I was so worried," he murmured. "I'm so glad you're alright. How's Nadine?" He pulled back to look at her.

She smiled brilliantly. "She's going to be okay." The relief was working its way through every inch of her body. "She's out of surgery. I think we can go see her in an hour or so; give the anesthesia some time to wear off."

Elizabeth quickly felt her energy flagging. She was running on next-to-no sleep and next-to-no caffeine, and with the removal of the stress of not knowing whether her Chief of Staff would still be around in the morning, there was nothing left to spur her on. She decided to take advantage of the lull and shut her eyes for a bit. She pulled Henry over to an empty row of seats and stretched out across it, laying her head in his lap. He automatically began to card his fingers through her hair, and it soothed her to sleep in seconds.

She was being shaken awake a couple hours later, and when she opened her eyes it was to see Mike standing in front of her. She was still sideways in Henry's lap, but Henry helped her to sit up properly before he got up himself.

"I'll let you two talk. I'm going to go find us some coffee," he said, and left.

Elizabeth brought her hands up to try and massage out the crick in her neck. "How is she?"

"Awake. Still a little woozy. She's asking for you."

"Did you get to spend some time with her?" She asked.

"Oh, yeah. I'm going to swing by her condo and grab some things. I'll be back later."

"Okay. Is she up for lots of visitors? Staff's been worried sick all night."

Mike raised an eyebrow skeptically, scanning the empty waiting room as if searching for the evidence of this.

Elizabeth elaborated, "I sent them back to the office so that they could keep busy. Told them I'd call when she woke up."

He nodded. "She's game for visitors. Might be good to keep it brief, though. She's in a lot of pain, even though she won't admit it. She refuses to let the nurse up her drug dosage." He rolled his eyes.

"Maybe I can talk some sense into her." Elizabeth offered. She tried to smooth down her rumpled clothing. They talked for a few more minutes when Henry reappeared with three coffees and a large bouquet of flowers in his hands.

He passed out the coffees to Elizabeth and Mike, then displayed the flowers out in front of him. "Does this appropriately convey 'Thank you for saving my wife's life' or should I spring for a bigger arrangement?" He asked. "The options in the gift shop were pretty limited, but there's a really nice florist in Georgetown that I could -"

"Henry, please!" Elizabeth exclaimed.

"Too soon?"

"Yeah, a little too soon." Mike said. "But a really nice bottle of scotch might do the trick."

"While she's on medication? That just seems cruel," Henry said doubtfully.

"Give it a few months then." Mike suggested. "But I mean nice - she has expensive taste. Anyway. This has been fun, but if you'll excuse me, I would like to get a jump on the rush hour traffic and Nadine lives on the other side of the city. Thanks for the coffee, Henry; Bess," he said, and left them.

Henry and Elizabeth walked back in the direction of the post-op rooms together. She sent Blake a text: Nadine's awake.

"So Nadine and Mike…" Henry mused.

"I know right?! I was just as surprised as you are."

"I'm glad he's there for her." Henry said.

Blake texted her back. We're on our way. ETA 10min. She put away her phone.

"Me too." She said. You deserve to be happy, she'd told Nadine once, and it was still very much the truth. She hoped that Mike made her happy.

They reached the room, and Elizabeth tapped on the door before going in.

"Madam Secretary," Nadine rasped, "Henry." She followed them with her eyes, but Elizabeth noticed that she didn't move her head. Her right arm was braced across her stomach, and she held her shoulder stiff as a board. With her free hand, Nadine gestured at the flowers that Henry held. "Those are lovely. You really shouldn't have."

Elizabeth sat in the chair by Nadine's side while Henry placed the bouquet in an empty plastic container, arranging them on the tray at the foot of the bed.

"Speaking of things that shouldn't have been done," Elizabeth said in a strangled voice, "can we not throw ourselves in front of a madman next time? I mean it, Nadine. It is hardly in your job description."

Nadine chuckled. She countered, "Part of my job is to take the hits."

Elizabeth turned to her husband disbelievingly. "She's making jokes."

"She's still high on pain meds," Henry suggested amiably. He moved to the other side of the bed and bent down. He kissed Nadine on the cheek. "Thank you for saving her," he said earnestly.

Nadine blushed lightly. "Anytime, Henry." She slid her eyes toward Elizabeth. "Don't be so hard on yourself, ma'am. I'd probably do it again."

Elizabeth laughed. "You know you almost killed Mike B," she accused. "I thought he was going to collapse from the stress."

"I like to keep him on his toes."

"I hope he makes you happy." Elizabeth said matter-of-factly. "I can make his work life hell if he doesn't." And she was only somewhat kidding.

"I guess he does alright." Nadine gave a small smile, looking a little embarrassed to be discussing her personal life with her boss.

"Are you in pain? Mike said you weren't drugged up nearly enough." Elizabeth examined all of the monitors attached to her Chief of Staff, as if she could figure out how to rectify this problem on her own.

"He's coddling me," Nadine replied, amused. "If they gave me any more drugs I wouldn't be able to think straight. I'm perfectly fine, ma'am, I promise."

"Okay," she relented. "Well, then are you up for a crowd? The staff's been worried sick about you. They've been working all night, but they're on their way now."

"I could use the distraction," Nadine said gamely.

"Your sister is on a flight in, by the way. She should be here in a few hours."

"My sister?" Nadine asked, surprised.

Elizabeth nodded, but before she could respond, there was a sharp rap on the door, and then Blake, Jay, Daisy, and Matt all tumbled into the room, with an excited chorus of "Nadine!" Blake and Daisy each held bags of takeout food while Jay carried a small vase of roses. Matt trailed a bundle of brightly colored balloons behind him.

"It is so good to see your face," Matt told Nadine as he struggled to get all of the balloons through the door. He docked them on the tray next to Henry's flowers, and Jay set down his roses down next to those.

"We brought breakfast sandwiches." Blake added. "Nadine, you probably can't eat this, but the rest of us are starving, so if you don't mind…?"

Nadine laughed. "Thank you, guys. Truly." She beamed.

Elizabeth and Henry backed out of the way, leaning up against the wall so that the others could pull up seats around Nadine. The relief and sense of goodwill in the room was palpable; they all chattered excitedly as they unloaded all the food and passed it out. Jay turned in his seat and thrust two wrapped sandwich parcels into Elizabeth's hands before she could protest.

"And by the way," he told her casually, "State will no longer be taking on custodians from ZMG Industrial; we're subcontracting from a new company now."

"Already? It's not even…" she checked her watch, "It's barely five-thirty in the morning. How did you manage -?"

"We were angry." Jay said, and shrugged. "We made it happen." He turned back to the conversation that the rest of them were having, immediately jumping in to banter with Daisy. Nadine was laughing at them, but lightly, taking care not to jostle her fractures.

"Did you hear that?" Elizabeth murmured. She handed over a sandwich to Henry. "Amazing."

"You're lucky to have them," he said.

"I am. I really am."

Thanks for reading!