A/N: Hi! Welcome to my new multi-chapter fic! I'm so so excited for this. Please let me know what you think :)
Elizabeth Adams drew her jacket a little bit more closely around her slight figure. She glanced up at the Virginia sky above her, an expanse of grey clouds and swirling mist in the mid-morning air, frosty with the bite of autumn and smiled slightly. Then, she wrapped her slender fingers around the strap of her bookbag as she walked, worn white tennis shoes beating a steady pattern against the sidewalk as she took a deep breath. Elizabeth loved this time of year, and always had, when the air was cooling and the leaves on the trees had turned various shades of red and orange. Winter was coming, and that she wasn't quite so fond of but autumn- that she loved. She reveled in the way the cool air filled her lungs and lent a slight burning sensation to her chest, filling her with the scent of moss and wet leaves. This was the first cool day of the season, and it was a little early for it, much to Elizabeth's delight. She was in a good mood- much thanks to the weather, she thought, but also thanks to the fact that her morning class had been cancelled, leaving Elizabeth with time to get coffee. Reluctant to leave the cool air, but driven by her thoughts of the coffee she was about to indulge in, Elizabeth ducked into the campus coffee shop. It was frequented by many members of the student body, and this morning was no different. Elizabeth smiled slightly at the scent of coffee and stale pastry. The coffee shop was by no means elegant. In fact, it was the opposite. The booths were outfitted with cheap material and the grimy tile floor was often sticky, though with what Elizabeth was unsure. She didn't care, though. It felt homey to her, with the beaten wooden counter and the warm lighting. And the coffee wasn't half-bad.
She rarely got the chance to do this. Elizabeth was driven, and her course schedule was hefty. She could handle it, easily even, but she had to admit that it was nice to get away from it all. She looked down at the cheap, waterproof wristwatch that was peeking out from underneath the sleeve of her jacket. She shook the material back and looked at the time, pleased to discover that she had plenty of time before she would have to start heading to her next class. She ordered her coffee politely- just with cream- and leaned against the counter while she was waiting.
Unbeknownst to Elizabeth, a young man with thick, dark brown curls and hazel eyes that sparkled in the light was sitting in the corner booth, books spread out on the surface before him. A religion studies major, Henry McCord hated cold weather and had taken refuge in the coffee shop. A mug of black coffee that had already gone mostly cold was sitting in front of him, safely out of the way of his scribbling. He was doing a paper on the effect of the protestant reformation on the generations that had come after it, a topic that Henry was particularly passionate about. He was so busy making notes and flipping pages that he had failed to notice the pretty blonde who had walked in, but now that she was standing next to his booth, he had no choice but to notice her.
The first thing that struck Henry about Elizabeth was the way she carried herself- with confidence in her ragged boyfriend jeans and light sweatshirt underneath her warm-looking baseball jacket. The second thing that Henry noticed about Elizabeth was her eyes, which were ocean blue and warm rather than icy, an incredible combination that made him want to look at them for as long as she'd let him.
The first thing the Elizabeth noticed about Henry was that he was taking up most of the only table that had any space at it in the entire shop, which also happened to be the table she sat at every time she went there. She normally would have sat by herself, but she wasn't particularly bothered by the idea that she would have to share a table on that particular morning.
"Hi," she said when the dark-haired guy at the table just looked at her.
"Hi," Henry answered, sounding vaguely confused.
"Can I sit here?" she asked. Henry looked around instinctively at the other booths and the counter. Finding every seat in the place full, he put two and two together and nodded, gesturing to the seat across from him. He realized suddenly that his stuff was spread all across the table and hastily started to collect the books, his movements almost frantic and a little uncoordinated. Just as Elizabeth sat down, she watched his hand, the trajectory headed right for his coffee cup. She snatched it up with her own hand, and his narrowly missed it.
"Oh," he said, and she smiled slightly at the blush in his cheeks. Elizabeth laughed and handed it back t him, noting that it was cold. "Sorry about that."
Elizabeth shook her head, still smiling at his bashful avoidance of her eyes.
"I'm Elizabeth Adams," she said, holding out her hand to him. He looked up, met her gaze, and smiled. She watched the way it lit up his warm hazel eyes and smiled reflexively.
"Henry," he said, taking her hand to shake it. "Henry McCord."
"Henry McCord," she repeated. "Sorry to crash what I assume is studying?"
"Yeah, it is," he confirmed. "But it's fine- that you crashed, I mean. Not that you were really crashing exactly, since there are…" Henry sighed, shaking his head at his own stumbling words. Elizabeth, to his relief, laughed good-naturedly.
"I get the gist," she said kindly.
"I'm usually not this bad," he laughed. "Typically a little more capable of human speech."
Elizabeth laughed, tilting her head slightly as she watched him. There was something interesting about this guy- Henry McCord. She was drawn to him, in some way that she couldn't quite explain. She hadn't sought out romantic relationships since high school, and even then she'd dated casually. Since she'd started at UVA more than a year earlier, Elizabeth had gone on a grand total of one date, which had been lackluster to say the least. Already, five minutes after meeting him, Elizabeth could feel more of a spark with Henry than she had with that guy- although she thought perhaps that said more about the other guy than Henry.
"Want to prove it?" she asked before she could back down.
"What?" Henry asked, sounding more than a little surprised. Elizabeth grinned and gestured to his cold coffee.
"Maybe if you get some fresh coffee and sit here with me for a while, you could prove you're typically more capable of human speech," she replied, and Henry, after a beat of silence in which he wondered whether she was actually asking him to stay and talk with her, nodded his head.
"Unless you have to study," Elizabeth amended, but Henry shook his head. He smiled brightly at her.
"It can wait," he replied, and then he was sliding out of the booth, reaching across the table for his coffee cup. "I'll be right back," he told her, and Elizabeth nodded, turning her head to watch him walk away. When Henry had gone, she leaned over the table and looked at the materials that Henry had piled messily on his side of the table in his haste to make room for her. A quick look over the titles told her that it was a religion paper, one that looked interesting. She read Henry's scrawled notes and smiled to herself- he certainly seemed much more eloquent on paper than he'd been face-to-face with her just then. No sooner had she settled back in her seat had Henry returned, his coffee mug now steaming with fresh, dark coffee. He smiled at her again and Elizabeth couldn't help but think about the way he lit up when he smiled. It made her smile, too, out of reflex.
"Looks interesting," Elizabeth remarked, nodding her head at the papers she'd just been looking at. Henry nodded as he sat down.
"I think so," he agreed. "But I'm a religious studies major, so I think I'm required to think that."
"Only if you like your major," Elizabeth replied with a wry smile. Henry laughed.
"I love it," he replied, and Elizabeth met his eyes across the table, her own sparkling knowingly.
"The things we love tell us what we are," she recited. "That's-"
"Aquinas," they finished at the same time. And in that moment, with the pretty blonde named Elizabeth quoting Aquinas at him in the coffee shop, Henry McCord knew that he'd already started to fall.