Thank you all for the absolutely lovely comments, they made my day! There were suggestions that I expand this story to be a series of one-shots about notes Henry leaves Elizabeth, and I adore the idea. Thus, I thought it'd only be appropriate to harken back to baby Elizabeth and Henry with this second one, and take us back to the start. Classic teammccord, but hey, I love them.
Enjoy, and reviews are my lifeblood. xx
It's just gotten to the point in the new year where the sun's supposed to be out and shining, but of course, that happens for maybe a hot second until Charlottesville turns cloudy and damp and miserable again.
Elizabeth pulls the zipper of her raincoat further up and picks up her pace as she crosses the grounds, avoiding puddles on her way to the package centre. She's due an order of books and the building is naturally located as far away from her dorm as possible.
When she gets there, she's freezing cold and she can feel her nose going numb. She ducks inside, sighing when her glasses immediately cloud over from the temperature change. The mail room is in the furthest corner of the building, so at least she gets to spend a little time indoors and warm up before she has to head back again.
When she's picking up her parcel, the student at the desk hands her a letter too and she's surprised and a little confused — she hadn't been expecting mail from anyone.
She briefly stands in the hallway and wonders who on earth could've sent her a letter before she realizes her lecture starts in ten minutes and she has to make a mad dash for it — books and all.
It's only much later, when she's back in her room and meant to be doing stacks of problem sets for linear algebra that she reaches in her backpack and pulls out the letter again.
There's no sender or return address, and the handwriting only looks vaguely familiar. The stationary seems quite plain, and she realizes there's nothing she could further discern without actually opening the thing.
Deciding she's in need of a break anyway — matrices and vectors be damned — she grabs a knife she swiped from the dining hall to use for peanut butter and hops on her bed.
She slits open the envelope with her makeshift letter opener and pulls out a neatly folded piece of white paper.
She opens it up, takes a look at it, and almost can't believe her eyes.
Her boyfriend of five months has actually written her a love letter. A genuine one, like in the movies, hand-written on a page in his neat scrawl — just because he loves her.
Her heart skips a little beat and she can feel her eyes welling up already and she hasn't even read the damn thing yet.
Dearest Elizabeth,
I think you might be as surprised to read this as I am to find myself writing it. Then again, I think we agreed a while ago that I'm the sentimental one in this relationship, so I figured I might deliver what's expected of me.
Let me start with the obvious: I love you.
I think I've loved you since I first set eyes on you, not that I had a good way of vocalizing my feelings when I hadn't even spoken to you yet. (Probably wouldn't have ended well with me telling you that from the get-go either; I think sputtering "Hi, I'm Henry" was actually a good choice then).
Elizabeth, I don't think I've been surer of anything in my life than of the fact that I love you. It feels as natural as taking a breath, and you've breathed a fresh air into my life I didn't know I needed.
You're constantly thinking, you see all sides to a problem, you're sometimes so quick I don't know if I can keep up with the ten thousand things going through your brain at once. Just sitting with you and talking about everything and nothing has become one of my favourite pastimes.
You're the strongest person I know, partially out of need, but also from determination and sheer force of will that impress me every day. I cannot wait to see what the future has in store for you; it's going to be incredible.
I'm so grateful you let me see not only this Elizabeth, but the unguarded part of yourself that's so rarely on display. It's my greatest honour that you trust me so deeply; I know opening up to another person is one of the bravest things you can do.
"Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul." — St. Augustine
You have a beautiful soul, Elizabeth, and it shows in your utter kindness toward others. You're one of the most caring people I know, you touch everyone around you, and your smile never fails to brighten my day.
"We are the most alive when we're in love." — John Updike
I'm alive, babe, and in love with you.
Henry
Tears are drying on her cheeks by the time she's done reading his letter; they'd started sometime after the first sentence and she'd been too focussed on reading to bother to wipe them away. Nobody has ever done something like this for her, and she's floored by the sincerity of it, the simple fact that someone cares about her enough to write her a love letter.
That thoughts of her make someone's brain so full they need to write them down to make sense of them. That someone loves her like Henry loves her. And that she's capable of loving someone like that too.
She's filled with a sudden and intense need to see Henry, to be close to him and try to express just how touched she is by the gesture.
He's is the first person she's felt completely comfortable opening up to in what feels like forever, and she realizes that he must feel that way too, to write a love letter and let himself be vulnerable like that.
She finds herself slipping on her coat and boots almost on autopilot, her brain somehow unable to process anything — his words have effectively rendered it to mush and she knows attempting any more linear algebra in this state would be useless.
She crosses the grounds at a considerable place, not caring that it's practically the middle of the night and walking around alone is probably not the smartest choice she's made today. Never mind that, she thinks, shoving her hands into her coat pockets to guard them from the cold.
The grounds are picturesque tonight, the rain turned into snow late in the afternoon and the flurries are still descending from the sky. Coupled with the fir trees and streetlights, everything looks a little more sparkly than usual, and Elizabeth thinks it might have something to do with her mood too.
She remembers parts of the grounds from when she was little, when she visited her dad at work, and tonight she's filled with fond memories of waiting in his office until he was done for the day. He'd take her (and sometimes Will too) across this particular path in the winter and they'd catch snowflakes by the moonlight, before bundling up with hot chocolate and starting the drive home.
Whenever she thinks of her parents, she feels a pang in her heart, but tonight the feeling of loss and sadness is mixed with hope. She wants to take Henry out here sometime, to catch snowflakes too, drink hot chocolate and feel the same sense of belonging she did all those years ago.
By the time she's made it to Henry's apartment building, she's freezing cold. Her nose is numb and her feet feel a little like someone put them in an icebox for half a day.
She pulls her key out of the pocket (he gave it to her a week ago with a sheepish look on his face and she remembers the initial shock and then kissing him senseless because she was so full of joy) and fumbles with the lock, partially because of the cold and partially because she's so jittery she thinks she might burst.
She just about sprints up the stairs and doesn't even bother knocking before she's in the apartment, completely breathless. It's only when Henry walks out of his bedroom at the noise of the door opening that she feels herself slow down.
Suddenly, she feels a little bashful standing there, out of the blue, with nothing to give back. He wrote her a love letter, a genuine one with quotes and everything (he's really quite predictable that way and she loves it) and all she could think to do was run over here in the dead of night and stand in front of him like a crazy person.
When Henry sees it's her his face immediately fills with concern, something terrible must have happened for her to show up unannounced at this hour. He takes three large strides over to Elizabeth and stands in front of her, reaching out to cup her cheek and stroke it with his thumb.
"Are you okay? Did something happen?"
Elizabeth is confused for a second until she understands and lets out a laugh, leaning into his touch. She wraps her arms around him and breaths in his scent, resting her head in the crook of his neck. Henry reciprocates on instinct, still concerned and now a little confused.
She pushes herself up on her tiptoes and whispers in his ear.
"I'm alive too, and I love you."
It takes him a second until he gets it, and she can almost hear the gears turning in his head as he realizes she got the letter. When he does, he loosens his hold and looks at her, suddenly a little self-conscious of his open display of adoration.
Elizabeth just smiles and leans up to kiss him, running her hands up his chest so she can grab onto his sweatshirt. He takes her kiss as a positive response to his letter and wraps his arms around her back, slipping his tongue past the seal of her lips and leaning into the kiss.
They need oxygen after a little while, and Elizabeth uses the opportunity to catch a breath and make sure she's looking Henry in the eyes when she says it.
"No one's ever done something like that for me before. Thank you."
Henry's heart breaks a little as he thinks back to the years she spent nearly alone, and the closed-off version of her he met just five short months ago. Since then, Elizabeth has opened up in ways he thinks she didn't even expect herself to, and he's so incredibly proud of her for it.
She pecks him on the lips again and he pushes a lock of hair behind her ear when she pulls back, lingering a little and gazing at her in a way that makes her feel so adored she's sure she'll melt into a puddle right there on the floor.
"You don't have to thank me. I should be thanking you, for coming into my life five months ago and turning it completely upside down. I love you, baby."
"I love you too, Henry. I just — you have all these grand declarations and beautiful quotes and the letter and I just can't begin to express anything like that—"
She's pulled back at this point, wrapping her arms around herself and looking anywhere but Henry. He tilts her chin up and brushes her cheek with his thumb.
"Elizabeth, hold on, please. I didn't write you a letter because I expected one from you in return, or any other gesture. I wrote you a letter because I wanted to, because I wanted to try and put into words why I love you so much."
"Henry—"
"You show me how much you love me in so many ways baby, I don't need you to write me letters too. You show me you care every single day, and I'm so lucky to have you in my life. Okay?"
His gaze is imploring, like he needs her to believe this over anything — that she's everything to him and he can't bear to be without her. Five months in, he's already having trouble remembering life before she was in it, and he can't imagine a future without her.
He wants her to know that — just maybe without the grand declarations of inevitable marriage (spooking your girlfriend of five months isn't really the best strategy to maintain a relationship) — so he kisses her again instead, hard and insistent, like he means it.
They end up in his bedroom, tangled in the sheets, limbs interwoven, sated and spent.
They both realized at some point that this, the moments after, are the most precious, the most vulnerable and at the same time where they feel safest.
Elizabeth buries deeper into Henry's side and releases the softest noise of contentment. Henry chuckles and pulls her close.
"Henry?" she mumbles, her voice muffled by the pillow and his shoulder.
He grunts in affirmation.
"These letters, is this something that's gonna be a regular occurrence?"
He chuckles and turns so they're laying on their sides, facing each other.
"Would you like that?"
She nods, a twinkle in her eye.
"Hmm, it's a good way of learning new quotes."
They both break out into peals of laughter.
Three days later, she finds a post-it on her pillow.
A very short love-letter:
"If I know what love is, it is because of you." — Hermann Hesse
Henry