Hellooooo! I'm back! :) So I started this Saturday night after I watched Scream Machine (oh my LORD SO MUCH CHENRY) and worked on it on and off until like, five minutes ago when I finished it. I wanted it to be perfect for you guys, and I don't know if it's perfect but it's something.
This two-part type thing was actually a little test for me personally. I have thought about maybe doing a chapter story, but honestly, I am still nervous about it. I don't know if I'll stick to it since I've never really done anything other than one-shots for Fanfiction, but I really would like to. I have tossed around the idea of a college Chenry story, as I had the idea of them going off for college and deciding to share an apartment since they're best friends and basically they learn real quick that maybe things aren't as simple as they thought. (I promise it's not going to be like they all of a sudden decide they like each other and hook up and all that, it will have an actual plot and slow development type line to it!) But I'm nervous to try it out, like I said, because I don't know if I would actually be able to keep up with it. I may try it out first and see if I can at least get a good start, and if I decide I like it, I'll post it.
Anyway, I really hope you guys enjoy this sequel to Start of Time! The title and lyric at the beginning is from Drive by Glades, you should really listen to it if you never have. It's amazing.
Let me know whatcha think, love you guys!
"Here to stay, you and I,
Dancing in the color of the golden light,
Say you love me too."
It's been one week, three days, sixteen hours, and forty-four minutes since she mighta-kinda told Henry Hart that she loves him.
(She doesn't bother keeping count of the seconds.)
She's been avoiding him for most of that one week, three days, sixteen hours, and forty-four minutes as best she can. Only being in the same room with him when there's at least one other person there, pretending not to get his texts and calls saying they need to talk, having her mom tell him that she was asleep that Tuesday night he came over after she literally ran out of Junk N Stuff when she realized that they were the only two in the room.
(He only got out "Hey, Char, we n-" before she bolted and didn't stop running until she was at her front door.)
She would just brush it off, tell him she meant it as a friend or even just a heat of the moment type thing, but she isn't even sure what it was herself.
Which is why she just can't face him yet.
She's just thankful that the Gizmo Show is here to distract her. She loves science, she's getting good at it, and she is going to win this year.
(She should've known something was going to go wrong thanks to one of the four dorks she works with.)
She's 'perfecting the finale touches on her machine' (aka hiding from Henry until a third party enters the premises) while trying to avoid confrontation.
Silence.
"Hey, Char-"
"Working!"
"Right."
Silence.
"But-"
"Working!"
Silence.
"We should really-"
"Working!"
She hears him huff in frustration and forces herself to pretend to keep working.
"Charlotte-"
"Not now, Henry."
He must've heard the underlying plea in her tone, because he doesn't say anything else until Ray and Schwoz walk in.
(Leading to her machine that she spent four months working on being demolished and her proceeding to take her anger out on Schwoz until Henry and Ray pull her off and agree to have Schwoz remake her machine.)
Honestly, she's a little glad that she's so angry that it pushes out other emotions.
(It helps dim the way her heart raced and her cheeks heated up when Henry tried to calm her down and his brown eyes met hers and she was not prepared for the impact.)
Fast forward to Schwoz losing the plans to the Scream Machine and instead using his transportation machine for her project which really just sets all the chaos into motion.
(Henry didn't have to pull her to him to tell her that it wasn't her machine and she swears he is touching her more since her stupid confession-moment-of-weakness-slip-of-the-tongue-thing but she isn't sure what to think.)
Ultimately, Captain Man and Kid Danger sorta-kinda fix it (well, destroy it), therefore freeing her of the questions of Fox News and the FBI and whoever else was surrounding her with millions of microphones and cameras which she was not fond of one bit.
At least they get ice cream so she can pretend to focus on the strawberry flavored cone rather than Henry sitting way too close and leaning way too much towards her while they all sing.
(And then Ray falls out and she doesn't overthink Henry sitting so close since he's basically saving them from dying as they stop the car and go get Ray from the middle of the street.)
In the end, they all end up back at Junk N Stuff safely. Ray and Schwoz go to their rooms and Jasper heads home and Charlotte tries to figure out how to get out of walking home with him because it's Henry and no matter what, he always walks her home.
(Ya know, except for last Tuesday. Cause, well, she didn't exactly give him a chance.)
But she's too tired to outrun him tonight no matter how much she wants to, so she instead takes her time leaving.
"You almost ready?" he asks a few minutes after watching her pretend to look around.
"Umm," she draws it out, refusing to even look in his direction as she restacks the papers next to the cashier's drawer for the third time in five minutes, "You know what, I'm gonna be here a little while, you can go ahead an-"
"Charlotte."
She forces herself to look up enough to focus on the skeleton with a top hat behind him.
"Really, it's fine, go ah-"
He sighs and she needs to abort right now.
"You know what, actually, I have to stop by the store and grab some stuff on my way home so I'm not even going the usual way-"
"What store?" He crosses his arms, his brows furrowing in suspicion.
"Uh, y-you know…" She stammers as he waits, "…the one with all the stuff?"
"Really?"
"Look," she sighs in defeat, "I can walk myself home, it's fine-"
She stops when he walks to the door and she thought for a moment that he was going to walk out which makes her heart drop but instead he locks it and flips the sign to closed and her heart is racing a mile a minute.
"What-"
"We're going to talk about this."
"About my decision to walk myself hom-"
"No more excuses, no more running," He crosses his arms again, stopping a few feet from her as she leans back until she feels the counter against her back, "We're talking."
She doesn't say anything, staring at him with eyes wide in fear and panic because she is not ready for this conversation and she doesn't think she ever will be.
She finds it in herself to shake her head.
"No."
He doesn't move, doesn't change expressions as she continues to shake her head.
"We're not having this conversation."
She forces her legs to move forward and she half expects him to grab her but he doesn't touch her as she passes him.
"You can't say that you love me and just walk away."
She stops, her back still to him as she trembles with nerves because she wants so bad to explain but she doesn't know how and now this is all a big mess.
She turns to face where he still has his back to the door and throws her hands in the air even though he can't see her.
"Well what am I supposed to do?"
He spins around like she's activated a bomb and his brown eyes are lit up like amber coals that should warm her up instead of making her shiver.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe give me some kind of explanation? Tell me why you said it and what you meant and why you keep running away because I definitely have no clue!" He is angry, she can tell that, and she hates that she can't really blame him.
"Look, you were hurt and I was upset cause I don't like seeing you get hurt so I said whatever happened to come out of my mouth at the moment!" She defends, not sure if it's the truth but it sounds okay to her so she'll go with it.
"And that just happened to be 'I love you'?!"
"I guess so!"
"Dang it, Charlotte, you just can't do that and then run away!" He runs a hand through his hair, messing up blonde waves as he shakes his head in disbelief.
"I panicked, okay?! Is that what you want to hear?!" She snaps, this whole situation overwhelming her.
"Well it's better than nothing!"
"Fine!" She practically throws herself off the steps, slamming her blue boots onto the floor until they are a few feet apart, "I panicked, I didn't know why I told my best friend that I love him, I don't know why I feel different around you, I don't know what's going on so I'm sorry if I couldn't talk about it right away!"
"You feel different around me?" His gaze is intense and she wishes she would've left that part out, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know!" She flings her arms up in frustration, "I don't know what any of this means!"
"So do you lov-"
"End of conversation."
"What? No."
"Henry, we're done talking about this." She reinforces.
"No, we're not!" He argues, the fire igniting again as he stares her down, "Neither of us is going anywhere until we figure this out."
"Fine, how about this? I got emotional for a second, it was in the heat of the moment, and I shouldn't have said it."
He looks like she just slapped him and she almost cringes herself.
It's only two seconds before he's only five inches from her and she can smell the sugar from the vanilla ice cream cone mixed with the faint hint of cologne and the air leaves her lungs.
"You didn't mean it?"
She stares into his gray striped hoodie-covered chest.
"No."
"Charlotte."
She takes a deep breath to steady herself before looking into the embers of the fire.
"No."
He waits in silence and she takes another breath.
"No, I didn't mean it."
"So you don't love me?"
There's so many emotions hitting her all at once and she wants to scream, cry, hit him, kiss him, run away…
And because she must do one of those and her mouth seems to be deciding things without her permission lately, her feet push her as close to his height as she can get and her lips are on his without her even being consulted on the matter.
The first two seconds are frozen, only their lips connected.
Suddenly she has his hoodie in her grip and his right hand is cupping the side of her face and his left arm is wrapped tightly around her waist. She lets out a squeak into his mouth when he yanks her to him, leading her to move her arms up to wrap around the back of his neck.
She's only kissed two boys before, when Ronnie Jones planted one on her unexpectedly in first grade(she punched him right after) and Jalen Hanson in third grade at summer camp(they both regretted it-cooties) so she's no pro at it. She knows Henry has kissed numerous lucky ladies so she should feel inexperienced but the way he's gripping her like he's never going to stop kissing her seems to be overpowering that feeling.
She guesses that they're breaking apart long enough for air every several seconds, but she doesn't remember any of the moments where their lips aren't connected honestly. She's not sure when this table pressing into her back got here or how long they've been pressed against each other but time seems to be standing still but flying by at the same time.
They must have parted at some point because suddenly she's staring into what were embers now turned nearly black coals and she can't catch her breath.
"Char."
His lips brush against hers ever so lightly with the single word and she isn't sure what to do, if she should kiss him again, freak out and run away, wait for him to do something.
He doesn't say anything and the thought hits her like a freakin freight train that oh God he doesn't like her like that and she just kissed her best friend that she said she loved and why is she such a screw up.
"Oh my God, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that!" She blurts out, jumping back out of his grip in panic.
"What-" His face shows confusion even though he should be relieved because after all, she's at least trying to fix this mess she just made.
"You don't like me like that and I told you I loved you and oh God I just kissed you and you don't even like me like that and I just screwed up everything and I'm so sorr-"
"Wait, wait, wait," He interrupts, eyebrows furrowed as he stares at her in disbelief, "What?"
"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have k-" She tries to apologize again.
"Why are you sorry?" He interrupts again.
"Cause I kissed you after you obviously don't feel the same cause I told you before that I loved you accidently and you've been trying to tell me that you don't see me like that-"
"Charlotte," He waves her quiet and for once, she listens, "you do realize that I kissed you back, right?"
Her face heats up at the thought before she shakes her head quickly, "Well, yeah, but it was the heat of the moment type thin-"
Three steps forward and he's pulling her back to him, shaking his own head in disbelief before cutting her off with his own mouth. She can't help but freeze in shock again, but he's kissing her so intensely that it doesn't last long. She's confused, but she definitely isn't passing up this chance while she's got it.
But at the same time, she can't help herself as she pulls away enough to talk.
"But I tho-"
She hears him chuckle under his breath.
"Char, stop talking."
She should tell him that that's another thing you never tell a woman to do, but when he pulls her back to him before he can even fully finish his sentence and maybe she'll tell him later.
A short eternity later, there's a little bit of space in between them and both of their faces are flushed but he's grinning and his eyes are lit up and God how can he go from kissing her like that to looking so adorable and now her cheeks are an even deeper red.
"Okay," she finally speaks, trying not to give away how fast her pulse is racing, "so just clarify, you, ya know…"
He waits for her to finish and she swallows nervously.
"Love me?"
He lets out a laugh at her shy, un-Charlotte like attitude.
"I figured I made that pretty clear."
Both of their faces darken even more at the thought before she shrugs one shoulder.
"Well, I mean, you did, but you never actually said it." She rambles, "Like you never actually outright said-"
"I love you, Charlotte." He finishes as he meets her gaze and she thinks her heart is going to explode because maybe she really didn't screw up everything.
"Okay."
"Okay?" He repeats, pouting at her attempt to hide a grin, "That's all I get?"
"Hey, I already said it!" She retorts, her hands raised in surrender playfully, "Now we're even."
"Noooo!" He argues, pointing at her for emphasis, "You have to say it again now that I've said it."
"Says who?"
"It's the rules!"
"What rules!"
"Charlotte!" He whines and she rolls her eyes in response.
"Say it." He bumps her playfully with his shoulder and she turns to him, letting out a sigh of defeat.
"Henry." She leans closer to him and he raises a brow, lips turning up in a smirk.
"Yes?"
Her innocent expression drops, quickly replaced with a smirk of her own.
"Never tell a woman what to do."