AN: I made a list of possible prompts from lilacmermaid25 (or 33, depending on where you know her from). I started writing this one in my head before I even finished the list. I hope you enjoy it. I love reviews. Feel free to follow me on Tumblr-same name.
Madam Secretary Prompt: Henry and Elizabeth first meet when one of them accidentally falls asleep on the other's shoulder, and is mortified when they wake up.
Opening the door to the dorm, Henry McCord squinted his eyes against the sunlight. His head pounded and his stomach ached. He pushed his sunglasses up into position and adjusted his backpack on his shoulder. He took off walking in the direction of the library.
As a new student on campus, Henry was experiencing serious culture shock. Everything was bigger, fancier, and much more expensive than in his lower middle class life in Pittsburgh. Here in Charlottesville, on the UVA campus, everyone seemed to have more than he did.
Henry wasn't one to dwell on his troubles. His high school grades had earned him a good academic scholarship and he was supplementing it with an ROTC scholarship. That meant he would need to go active duty in the Marines once he graduated, but that seemed like a reasonable trade-off. Henry was at UVA with the purpose of escaping the steel mill that was his otherwise predetermined life plan. He wasn't going to let a little thing like his lack of spending money keep him from his goal.
Being short on cash wasn't usually a problem. Henry just made sure to eat plenty at meals and spend lots of time at the library. If he was studying or reading, he didn't have to worry about what other people were doing, and both activities were already paid for.
The events of last night were unforeseen. Henry had accidentally written the due date for a paper on the wrong week in his planner. Luckily, he caught his mistake, but it meant that Henry had to pull his first all nighter. When others in the dorm lounge we're snacking and drinking sodas or hitting the fast food places to help them stay awake, Henry just powered through finishing the paper just in time to grab a shower and get ready for class. He first ran by the library to print his paper then he headed to the cafeteria for breakfast.
Now, walking into the building, Henry finally felt better. He caught a second, or maybe third wave of energy. Eating helped greatly and he made a mental note to at least buy a box of granola bars so he had something to snack on should he have to stay up all night again. He walked into the lecture hall. The room was filling up quickly. Henry picked a spot in the middle of the room, but a little toward the back and sat down. Henry liked to sit in this area. He wasn't close enough to be in direct line of sight with the lecturer, but he was close enough that he didn't get too distracted by other things going on in the room. He removed his notebook, pen and the paper from his backpack and pulled the small writing desk up and over his lap. Students crowded in around him and busied themselves with getting their own papers out. Moments later the graduate assistant walked in and asked for the papers to be passed to the end of the row. Everyone shuffled papers to the right and then the end person passed them down. The assistant took the pile and placed it on the corner of the table and started the lecture.
Henry opened his notebook and started taking notes. He was warm. The room was noticeably stuffy and when filled with 200 people, it only got worse. Henry was irritated with himself for not taking his sweatshirt off when he sat down. Now there were people on both sides of him and he couldn't take it off without a big scene. He decided to just lean back and deal with it. Class was only 50 minutes.
Elizabeth Adams hit snooze on her alarm. The third time it went off, she rolled over and focused on the red digit numbers in front of her. "Crap," she muttered rolling out of bed. She tugged her faded Joan Jett concert t-shirt off and tossed it in the middle of the bed. Elizabeth threw her bra on and rifled through a laundry basket full of clean but unfolded clothes. She found her freshman orientation t-shirt and pulled it over her head, slipping her arms in. She picked up yesterday's jeans off the floor and slid them up over her narrow hips as she stuck her feet in her favorite pair of navy blue Keds. Picking up her watch, she checked the time. It wasn't quite as bad as she thought. She strapped the watch on and grabbed her string of pearls heading out of her room and down the hall to the bathroom.
She stood in front of the sink and splashed water on her face and dried it. Pulling a basket out of a cubby, she brushed her teeth before she fished through the rest of her toiletries and pulled out some lip gloss and mascara. Quickly applying it, she clasped the pearls around her neck, running her fingers over them as she stared at her reflection. She could see her mother in the face in the mirror, sometimes she found it painful. This morning, she found comfort in it. She smiled a small, sad smile before heading back to her room. She picked up her paper for this class, slipped her arm through her backpack strap and headed out.
Elizabeth walked into class later than usual, and sat in the middle of the room. She didn't like to be too close and definitely not too far back. Being even a couple minutes later, she had to sit further back than she preferred to be.
She marvelled at how completely different the room looked, only a few rows back from her normal spot. She did take note of the nice looking guy to her left, but he seemed completely in his own world and didn't notice anyone was around him at all. Everyone passed their papers to the front and settled in for the lecture.
The grad student at the front of the room was droning on about the Mongols and the Silk Road when Elizabeth heard the faintest snore. She froze, furrowed her brow and shifted her eyes to the left. The guy sitting next to her had fallen asleep. She rolled her eyes. "Really?" she thought. She looked at her watch. It was only 20 minutes into class. "How could he possibly be sleeping?" She glanced over and her eyes landed on his notebook. What she found surprised her. His handwriting was neat and precise. His notetaking skills were excellent, perhaps better than hers. That is until he'd dozed off. She chuckled softly to herself seeing that he had fallen asleep as he was writing. He trailed off mid word.
Elizabeth continued to take notes, somehow thinking that the person next to her might be upset at missing the lecture. Then chided herself thinking how quickly she went from thinking this guy was a loser to now wanting to take notes for him. She quickly justified her actions by once again looking over at his open notebook and the pen still lodged in his relaxed hand. "Losers don't take notes like that," she thought to herself.
She continued on listening and taking notes through the lecture, but at about the 45 minute mark, Henry shifted and his head landed on her shoulder. She jumped, startled by the contact and the two girls behind her started giggling. Elizabeth bit the inside of her lip, hoping that she could keep a straight face. This entire scene seemed crazy. She knew she was blushing, so she dropped her eyes and continued writing, wondering all the while, why the guy didn't wake up.
Finally, the last five minutes seeming like an eternity, the lecturer ended class. People started gathering their things and heading out the door, but Elizabeth still had a random guy asleep on her shoulder. She took a minute to decide what to do, or better yet, how to do it. Since he was asleep on her left shoulder, that arm was pretty much useless, and she thought that when she was able to move it, she would find it as asleep as her new friend. She smirked at that thought.
She shifted and reached across herself to tap him on the shoulder. "Um, hey there, time to wake up. Class is over." When he didn't move, she gave his shoulder a push. "You need to wake up. I have places to be." She didn't really, but he didn't need to know that.
Henry had been listening to the grad student in front talk about the Mongols and the dangers of traveling the Silk Road, when exhaustion finally overtook him. His dreams were of walking aimlessly, danger lurking, feeling insecure, worried about his future, and then there was a girl walking toward him. He couldn't see her face, but he could smell her. She smelled like peaches and vanilla and something floral. Henry tried to pinpoint it, but he was never very good at identifying flowers. Regardless, it smelled good. She smelled good. He wanted to talk to her, to tell her things, but she just walked past him. When she was several paces past him, she turned and spoke. He tried to understand her words.
Henry started to feel himself being pulled from sleep. Someone was talking to him, but he didn't recognize the voice. It was a woman. His nostrils were filled with a smell. Her smell. The woman in the dream. He tried to discern what his senses were telling him. It was noisy, indecipherable chatter and shuffling around. His neck was stiff and what was that against his face. He felt himself being pushed and he opened his eyes. It only took a few seconds to reacquaint himself with reality. Henry sat upright, and wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth. He swallowed the lump in his throat and physically had to force himself to turn to see the person sitting next to him.
"Hope you had a good nap," she said, the amusement obvious in both her voice and her facial expression. She reached out and grabbed the sleeve of Henry's sweatshirt and wiped the trail of drool off her arm. "You can have that back." She grinned at him.
Henry was sure that his face couldn't possibly get any redder than it was. "Oh my God." His hand flew up to his face covering his mouth, before flying aimlessly around. "I-am-so-sorry, Oh my-I don't know. Ugh!" Henry was beside himself. "Please forgive me."
Elizabeth was struck by the man in front of her, who she now realized was much more handsome than she previously thought. "It's okay. Really. Don't worry about it."
Henry was embarrassed more than he could possibly imagine. His elbows now rested on the tiny desk and he had his face buried in them. All of the insecurities that he had pushed down in the weeks he'd been at UVA now came bubbling to the surface. "I don't belong here," he muttered under his breath. Finally Henry looked over at the girl, and for the first time, he saw how beautiful she was. He was speechless.
"Did it turn out well?" Elizabeth asked. Henry had a confused look on his face. "Your paper? I guessed that you stayed up working on it."
"Oh, yeah, I think so. I put on my calendar that it was due next week, so I spent a lot of time working on another paper and just realized yesterday afternoon that this was was due today." He looked at her. "Rookie mistake?'
"It's good that you figured it out before you showed up today and everyone else was turning in papers," she offered. She studied him for a moment. "When is your next class?"
"Not for a couple hours,"
"I bet you want to go take a nap," she said.
"Actually, I just caught a pretty good nap." Henry met her gaze, and swore she had the most beautiful eyes of anyone he'd ever seen. "Thank you by the way, For not making a big scene and embarrassing me in front of everyone."
"It's fine really. A little weird, yes, but no big deal." She paused, really taking him in for the first time. His soft brown eyes staring back at her made her stomach flip. "Uh, what are you doing right now? I mean before your next class?"
"I usually go hang out at the library."
"Well, if you would like to join me, I've got a great hook up for free coffee." She looked at him, hopeful, as she dropped her notebook and pen into her backpack.
He shoved his things in his backpack and stood. "On one condition," he said. "I'd like to know who I'm going with."
She stood and slung her pack over her shoulder, then extended her hand. "Elizabeth. Elizabeth Adams."
He grinned at her as he took her hand. "Henry McCord. It's a pleasure."
"Is that what you say to every girl you sleep on?" Elizabeth laughed and Henry blushed again. "Too soon?" she asked.
"I think it will probably be too soon for a long time. I can't believe I did that." Henry covered his face with his hand as he climbed the stairs out of the lecture hall.
They walked out of the building and immediately fished for their sunglasses in the side pocket and grinned at each other as they put their glasses on at the same time. As Henry and Elizabeth neared the sidewalk, she gestured left and they walked side by side silently. Henry glanced at Elizabeth. "I'm wondering if I should be concerned about this."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Well I'm just wondering why you would want to have coffee with me after-after that? I probably would have been running for the hills after that incident thinking I am some big loser, not coffee and conversation material.".
"You have very nice penmanship." Elizabeth shrugged. "And you take excellent notes. Well, when you're awake that is." She smirked at him.
" I won't ever be living that down, will I?" Henry asked, laughing.
"Not in the near future, no!" Elizabeth laughed. It was a hearty laugh, full of joy. It filled his ears and made him light headed. Henry was completely unprepared for it. His lungs wouldn't let him take in air. His heart beat wildly in his chest. His feet became rooted to the sidewalk. Elizabeth took another two steps before realizing that Henry was no longer beside her.
She turned to face him, a puzzled look crossing her face. "Are you okay?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure I'll ever be the same again." He took a deep breath and matched her step once again. Elizabeth looked at him with a searching eye.
When he met her gaze, she felt the familiar butterfly feeling in her stomach. "Me either," she murmured as she pointed to the coffee shop they we're walking up to. Henry held the door for Elizabeth and followed her in, wondering if he would ever be able to sleep again.