1947

Rain. It smelled like rain. The sky above was overcast, albeit unnoticed seeing as it was always overcast in the moors of England. That, and it was dusk. A new moon, if he remembered correctly.

Up ahead, two figures ran about the rolling hills. One small and still unused to controlling his legs alone for motion, and one tall, graceful, play-chasing the little boy, who would squeal with delight each time she caught up to him and swept him up in her arms.

The woman turned back, her hair and skirt billowing back with the sudden gust of wind preluding the impending storm.

"Henry, come on out with us!"

She beckoned him with a wave, and the young boy toddled forward to Henry.

"Play, Daddy!" The boy called, as confident yet unsure of his words as he was of his footing.

Henry felt a smile creep up his cheeks. He took a step forward, then another, then another, and was soon running toward the boy, who attempted to run as well as he could, though not very well considering he held his arms high and oft lost his balance. Without worry of booboos, the boy got right back up and kept moving.

The chase went on for about a minute, then Henry caught up and put his arms around the boy in a hug.

"I caught you, Abraham! And you know what that means..."

He danced his fingers along the boy's sides, causing laughter to echo across the moors as Henry tickled his son. Abe tried to wriggle from his arms, but to no avail. Henry only let up when Abe's laughter exceeded his breathing. The toddler stumbled a step away from his father and caught his breath, smiling the whole time.

"Again!"

At that moment, the skies began to open. Small droplets of water slowly sprinkled onto the family, growing steadily to a nuisancey drizzle. The wind picked up and howled across the moors like the werewolves of legend Henry remembered learning as truth.

"We have to go, Abe." The boy's mother said gently. She picked him up and carried him back to the family's waiting vehicle, parked on the side of the road, Henry keeping pace beside her. They adjusted Abe into Henry's homemade safety-restraint (these automobiles are horribly unsafe for a grown man, let alone a small child!), then slid into the front seat, and into more Henry-designed safety restraints, before Abigail turned the key and began the drive home.

Henry watched his wife maneuver the machine across the hills and valleys, the wet streets, the traffic jams, with a calm ease that he could never imagine experiencing as an automobile passenger, let alone as the driver. Abigail caught his stare and gave him a quick glance from the corner of her eye that told him so. He turned his eyes back on the road, as did she.

"You're going to have to learn someday, Henry."

Silence.

"You won't always have me here to drive you around."

"Abigail, don't." He replied sharply.

"I meant if I were to get pregnant! They say it's bad for the baby if you drive when you're pregnant! Don't be so morbid, darling!"

She eased on the brakes, having a red light at one of the few intersections in the rural village they currently lived in. Henry looked at her, an eyebrow raised to her previous suggestion.

"Are you saying...?"

"If only we were so lucky... No, it's still just you, me, and Abe in the Morgan family."

She paused, watched for traffic, then proceeded through the recently-turned green signal light. After she was about halfway down the block of small shops, she continued.

"Nevertheless, I believe that as a twentieth-century man, you're going to need to be able to drive. You need to get over this crazy fear of yours and just do it."

{•*•*•*•}

"I'm not doing this."

"Henry," Abigail sighed, aiming a pointed look at her husband.

"Two horses, Abigail. I learned to drive with two literal horses."

His hands were tight on the large steering wheel, his eyes locked on the country road before him.

"This machine claims to have the power of thirty-five. Thirty-five! Have you ever seen a stampede of thirty-five horses?"

He was desperately scrambling to get out of this situation he'd somehow shoved himself into. He didnt want to admit it, but he was afraid. He was always cautious of new technology; he'd just ridden a train for the first time after Prohibition was let up! When these automobiles started appearing mass-market, Henry had wanted to stay as far away from them as possible. But then he fell in love with Abigail. A thoroughly modern woman, who not only insisted on owning an auto, but actually dared to drive the dangerous metal contraption.

"Oh, just start the car already,"

Henry looked at his passenger helplessly.

"Now you're just toying with me." Abigail laughed. "Henry Morgan, you know how to start a car."

"Honestly, Abby," he sighed, "I do not."

"You take the key," she guided him, putting her right hand on his left, which held the metal device, "and put it in the ignition, and turn it toward you until you hear the engine start."

Abigail let go of Henry's hand, and he turned the key. When the engine purred to life, he jumped back in his seat, startled by the sudden ferocity his actions had caused.

Henry heard a laugh. Beside him, the young blonde smiled and her aquamarine eyes sparkled with tears of laughter.

"What?" He sighed with exasperation.

"Nothing," she said coyly, trying to control her smiling at his fear's expense.

Henry took a deep breath, then apprehensively returned his hands to the wheel. "What next?" He asked, a much more exasperated tone in his voice than he intended.

"Now, you shift into gear."

"I what into what?"

Abigail berated his anachronistic behavior with a shake of her head. "You take your left foot and press down-gently-on the left pedal. Then you toggle this stick, the gearshift, into first gear. Slide it left, then down."

Henry very carefully followed his wife's directions and successfully put the car into gear. It began slowly rolling forward by no efforts of his own. He gripped the steering wheel in a panic as he noticed and felt the motion.

"Now slowly press down on the right pedal with your right foot," Abigail directed.

"Will that make it stop?" he asked dubiously. Abigail refused to answer him, and so Henry found out for himself that the rightmost pedal caused an unholy ruckus of the metal engine in front of him, followed by a burst of speed forward. He clung to the wheel, terrified by the car's power, and powerless himself to stop it.

Now, he knew that the left pedal put the contraption into gear, and the right one made it accelerate. So it was only logical that the middle pedal would make it stop.

Slamming one's foot on the middle pedal made it stop very abruptly.

Henry and Abigail flew forward toward the dashboard of the car and were both thankful for the safety restraints Henry had designed. Really now, someone should realize the danger present in a moving vehicle!

Abigail looked over at him, eyes wide and face stark-white. Her blonde curls were in a disheveled tangle around her face. She took a shaky breath. "Turn off the car, Henry."

"Abigail, I-"

"Turn it off."

Henry did as he was commanded, at least as best as he knew how. He'd left the car in first gear, and when the engine stopped and the car continued to roll leisurely forward, Abigail reached over and pulled the emergency brake. The car came to a halt, albeit a much more gentle halt than Henry had brought it to.

Abigail took a moment to catch her breath. When her words came, they were still puctuated by sharp inhalations as her body relaxed from the panic of the last few seconds. "You, my dear, are going to need a lot more practice."

"You mean to tell me that we are going to do this again?" Henry frowned, pleading with his eyes to never have to do this again.

"Perhaps… In a year or two… It's not all that pressing of a matter at the moment," his wife conceded.

One year turned to two, turned to five, turned to maybe sometime, and, long story short, Henry was not behind the wheel again for quite a long time.

This, believe it or not, was actually one of the first fics I started writing for the show... And I just finished it today. So yeah. Hope this softens the blow a little... *sigh*