Author's Note: The idea for this story has been floating around in my head for a long time, and I finally mustered the nerve to write it. It is a generally accepted fact in the MSec fandom that Henry McCord is the ideal man. He's strong, smart, good looking, and inherently in tune to his girlfriend/wife's needs. He's caring, thoughtful, always respectful and every other fabulous adjective you want to throw at him.
In many social media platforms, I read posts from women looking for their Henry McCord. I hate to break it to them, but they aren't going to find their Henry McCord, at least not yet, unless by chance they are looking for a 50 year old man that's been married half his life. There are lots of great twenty and thirty-something guys out there, but they aren't Henry McCord. They have to live a lot of life and make more than their fair share of bad decisions. They can grow into a Henry, but it takes time and love of a good woman, who refuses to give up on them.
This story is a love story, but not the cutesy, fluffy love story that we often get. It's the story of bad circumstances and hard times and how with commitment, love can still win and Henry McCord can still become Henry McCord, even if he didn't start out that way.
With all that being said, this story is AU. The characters evolve into the ones we know and love, but they don't start out there, so yes, some of how I'm writing them will seem OOC. I would argue that in the real world, many couples deal with similar problems, although maybe not to the extreme that we see in this story I would love to engage in discussion, so feel free to share your thoughts.
Broken and Mended
August 1986
The city buildings rolled by slowly at first, but as the bus merged onto the interstate, it picked up speed. Henry McCord, sat in a window seat, unaware of the beautiful sunset on the other side of the glass. He was staring at the bruised and bloodied knuckles that clutched his backpack. That, and the small duffle tucked under his seat, was all he'd been able to get out with. He'd naively thought that his first trip out of Pittsburgh, his home of 19 years, would bring excitement. Instead, he traded dread of one kind for dread of another. He glanced up as the last of the city passed him by. He vowed never to return.
After some mechanical difficulty, the bus finally pulled into the bus station in Charlottesville, Virginia 14 hours later. Henry pulled the duffle out from under the seat and stood. He grimaced. The long ride had made him stiff and sore. He slowly shuffled off the bus trailing the handful of others that were getting off at this stop. The bright light of the noonday sun nearly blinded him and he quickly made his way inside the building. He located the bathrooms and headed in to clean up. Henry needed to make a good impression.
Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he cringed. He looked rough, but he'd had done this enough times, he knew the drill. He turned the water all the way to hot. Much to his surprise, the water actually got reasonably warm. Fishing a hand towel from his backpack, he placed it on side of the sink before sticking his head under the stream of water as best he could. He scooped the water over the rest of his hair wetting it thoroughly. Taking the towel, he dried his hair and pulled a comb from the front pocket of his pack. He needed a haircut, but had no scissors. Henry combed his hair down the best he could, although as it dried, he knew the ends would curl up. He shrugged. It was what it was.
Henry dampened the towel and took his bags into the stall. He quickly wiped off and pulled out his set of clean clothes. He changed and shoved the dirty clothes into the duffle. He double checked the hidden pocket inside his duffle. His cash was there as well the cash in the bottom of his backpack. Remembering the money he'd had in his jeans pocket, he fished that out and put it in the new pair. He located the packet of papers he'd neatly folded. He was all set. Henry checked himself in the mirror on the way out. "Better," he mumbled, pushing the bathroom door open and out to his new life.
He found that it was a little over two miles to the University of Virginia campus from the bus station. The attendant offered to call a cab, but Henry dismissed that idea. He had limited funds and he wasn't wasting his money on a cab ride to only go a couple miles. Henry set out walking. It was a warm August day, but he took his time and didn't work up too much of a sweat.
Henry stood across the street staring at the main entrance and was in awe. Everything large and ornate. Henry felt like he was transported to a different world, his lower income Pittsburgh neighborhood, the polar opposite of this place.
The pedestrian crosswalk light changed and Henry stepped off the curb and narrowly missed getting hit by a silver BMW that hadn't stopped. Henry leaped back. "Stupid bitch," he said aloud, glaring at the blond figure in the car as it passed. The driver tapped the brakes and then drove away, pissing Henry off even more. "Well, this is a great start," he muttered and he checked carefully this time before stepping off the curb and crossing the street, stepping onto the University of Virginia campus for the first time.
"Shit!" Elizabeth Adams screeched, seeing the young man just off her front bumper. She'd been lost in her own thoughts and realized about three seconds too late that she needed to stop. Thankfully no cars had been coming, but she knew she'd scared that man to death. She hit the brakes thinking she would pull over and apologize, but seeing the man's reflection in her rearview mirror, she opted not to. She wasn't sure was that first word was, but the second word uttered was definitely "bitch," and the glare he shot at her made her shrink into the seat. Elizabeth wasn't a person that was easily intimidated, but it had already been a terribly long and emotional day and it was barely noon. She didn't think she could handle that kind of animosity right then, so she just drove on.
Elizabeth was on her fourth trip across the Quad lugging her stuff to her room. Her teeth were embedded in her bottom lip in attempt to keep herself from crying. It seemed like every other new student had family helping them move in. For the last two hours she'd watched moms, dad's, siblings and grandparents joke around with their kids carrying boxes, heading to the bookstore to pick up textbooks, making plans for dinner or coming home. It was too much.
She dropped the laundry basket on the floor of her room and pushed the door shut behind her. Flopping down on her bed, she thought back to the conversation with her Aunt Joan the day before, and tears welled up in her eyes.
"What time do you want to get there tomorrow?" Elizabeth had asked pulling out the stool and sitting at the bar in the kitchen.
Her aunt turned around and looked at her quizzically. "What time do I want to get where?" she asked.
"UVA. College. It's move in day. Don't tell me that you forgot. It's all I've been talking about for months." The anxiety in Elizabeth's voice grew incrementally with each word.
"Oh, Lizzie," Aunt Joan sighed. She walked over to the calendar and said, "See?" She pointed to the box. "It says next Saturday the 9th."
"Tomorrow is the 9th." Her eyes fell to the lap. "You aren't coming, are you?" The lump in her throat was large, but she swallowed it, pushing the hurt deep inside. She couldn't even wait for Aunt Joan's explanation of how she'd promised someone else that she would do something for them. She stood and plastered a smile on her face. "It's cool. I can do it myself. Maybe you can come visit in a few weeks or something?" She dutifully offered her aunt an out, knowing that she wouldn't likely ever set foot on the campus. Perhaps she could talk her into graduation, but probably not.
Elizabeth gave her a quick hug, and retreated to her room where boxes of college wares were stacked neatly against the wall. The wave of despair hit her hard, physically knocking her off her feet. She toppled onto the bed and silently let the tears soak her comforter as she remembered her mother's stories of how wonderful going off to college would be.
Elizabeth was a self proclaimed nerd. She read history books and classic literature for fun. She reveled in complex math equations. Science wasn't her favorite, but she could conduct a flawless chemistry experiment or expertly dissect a frog. Elizabeth had her mind set on college from the time she was in 6th grade, and Suzanne Adams fed her daughter a love of UVA.
She remembered lying cuddled together on this very bed and her mom telling her all sorts of stories about roommates and classes and new ideas and gaining perspectives and navigating the bigger world. It wasn't exactly that Elizabeth had no friends, but she had different goals than the girls her age. She did the things that all her friends did, but her mind was really looking to the future, and Suzanne nurtured it.
Then her parents died in a single car collision when she was a freshman in high school. Aunt Joan, recently widowed herself, sold her house and moved in with them to be the guardian for Elizabeth and her little brother, Will. Life moved on, and for all intents and purposes, Elizabeth moved on too. She played field hockey and was on Student Council. She filled her days with things to keep her busy, to keep her mind occupied. But each night, Elizabeth collapsed into bed and clung to the memories of her parents. In reality, she had a good and generally happy childhood, but as Elizabeth relived it each night, it became polished, idealized, and Ben and Suzanne Adams became the perfect parents and the perfect couple.
The sun rose Saturday morning, August 9th, and Elizabeth Adams stood staring at the wall of boxes in her room. This was not going to be the move in as her mother described it, nor would it be her revised version with Aunt Joan. She accepted in that moment that there wasn't anyone she could really rely on other than herself. It wasn't what she wanted, but that was her reality and Elizabeth Adams was very good at accepting reality and functioning in it.
Will helped her load her car, her father's BMW, and gave her an awkward hug when his friend, Steve pulled up in the drive. "See ya sis. Don't do anything I wouldn't do," he joked, then revised his statement. "Actually, you should do a few things. Live a little Lizzie. You're going to college. You're on your own. No one to boss you around. Take advantage of that."
Elizabeth smiled at her brother. It was rare that he was ever serious and she recognized that he was trying to make an attempt. "Well, it wouldn't hurt you to try and be a little like me. You know, maybe do your homework or study for a test. Otherwise, the only place I'll ever see you is living here in the basement. She gave him a light punch in the shoulder. He shot her a wiseass grin and hopped into the car with his friend and they drove off.
Aunt Joan breezed out of the house and gave Elizabeth a hug. "Give me a call when you get your phone set up and let me know how it's going, okay?" Elizabeth nodded and they stood awkwardly for a few seconds. Then Joan motioned to the car. "I need to head out, so," Joan didn't finish her sentence, but Elizabeth quickly understood that she needed to get her car out of the way, so Joan could leave and do whatever important thing it was that she needed to do, not that Elizabeth had bothered to find out what that was. Elizabeth looked up at her house one final time and got into the car, pointing it toward Charlottesville, UVA and a life where she really was on her own.
Elizabeth sat up and forcefully wiped the tears from her eyes. "I'm being stupid," she muttered. "Getting upset about it doesn't do any good.' She stood and took a deep breath. Glancing at her reflection in the mirror, Elizabeth decided she looked good enough and walked out of her room to make one last trip to her car to fetch her belongings.
Henry stood at the railing outside his dorm people watching. It had taken him all of three minutes to unpack and put his meager belongings away. He had already met a few guys and one was headed to the store later so he was going to catch a ride and buy a few necessities he didn't realize weren't provided, mainly a pillow, blanket, and towels. Then of course some soap and a package of razors. It had been two days since he shaved and not only did he look scruffy, but it was starting to annoy him.
While he waited, he just watched. Henry tried to think of how often he watched families interact with each other and wondered what they really looked like behind closed doors. He wondered if they looked like his family, although he quickly conceded that his family would never have looked like this in public either. There was a lot of joking, hugging, and a fair share of crying from the girls and usually mothers, although it stunned Henry to see some fathers shed a few tears as well. He smirked. He'd never known Patrick McCord to show much emotion at all, unless downtrodden and sullen could be classified as emotions.
It was then that he saw a blonde walk across the Quad for the fourth, or maybe it was the fifth, time. She was by herself. As far as he could tell, she was the only other person besides him that didn't have family come to help them move in There was also a group of international students, perhaps Vietnamese or Filipino, he wasn't sure, but they looked like they had been on campus a few days already. He figured they came alone, considering their families were likely on another continent.
Henry narrowed his eyes, focusing back on the young woman. He noticed that as the day wore on, her shoulders slumped a little more and her tightly knit brow indicated that she definitely wasn't happy. He had briefly thought about offering to help her, but her designer clothing and just the way she carried herself told him that she was one of "those" girls. "Those" girls were the ones his mother labeled. They were of obvious upper class heritage and they looked down on "trash" like him, at least in Vivian McCord's eyes. "Stay with your people. Don't think you are better than you are. You're nothin' and you'll always be nothin,'" she always said. Henry didn't think that should be the case. People should be judged on their own merit. That being said, his experience was that he was looked down on frequently because of where he came from and who he was.
It wasn't exactly his fault that his parents were the way they were and that he grew up in the poorest neighborhood in Pittsburgh. He was a victim of circumstances. He was doing his best to rise above it. Looking down at his still bruised knuckles, he knew he still had a way to go. It was easy in the heat of the moment to fall back on how it was in his house. Henry counted himself lucky that he spent a lot of time at Tommy's growing up, so he had an idea what a more normal family looked like. He sighed at the thought of Tommy. It had been 9 years and he still missed him so much. Henry closed his eyes and fought the onslaught of emotion and devastation he felt. His eyes snapped open and he jumped when his suitemate, Dennis, clapped him on the back. "I'm heading out to the store. You ready to go?" Henry nodded. He was definitely going to escape his past and make a new name for himself.