A/N: so. I know I said this would be three parts but it got out of hand so it's four parts now. This chapter is very prose-heavy and lacking in dialogue but hopefully you'll find the buildup worth it in the end :) enjoy
The morning dawned bright and freezing, delicate frost settled on the ground outside the small cabin, nestled in the mountains of Virginia. It was a perfect wintery morning, but as the sun broke over the horizon with the pale blue light of sunrise, the occupants of cabin three were none the wiser, tucked warmly into bed oblivious to the cold outside.
Sunlight slowly stretched across the foot of the bed, finding Henry and Elizabeth under the war blue quilt. It was barely six-thirty when Elizabeth stirred, her skin warmed with sleep, blonde hair spread across the pillow in messy curls. The first thing that she became aware of was a warm, familiar presence next to her in the bed. As she rose to consciousness, she slowly realized that she and Henry had become somewhat tangled in the night, and now his leg was pressed against hers and his arm was slung across the space between them, his hand resting so casually on her hip that it made her breath catch to look at it.
Elizabeth had thought that this might make her uncomfortable, but it really didn't. It was just Henry- steady, kind, gentle, warm and familiar in his sleep, all the things he was for her in the waking hours. Still just Henry.
She considered waking him, but wondered whether he would be uncomfortable at the situation. She laid there in silence for a few minutes, deciding. Henry's breathing next to her was slow and steady, the rise and fall of his chest visible to her if she looked. It was soothing, watching him so at peace. Henry was a pretty calm guy most of the time, but always thinking, always doing. It was nice to see him at rest.
Elizabeth tried not to think too hard about what it would be like to see him this way more often.
Her mind made up, she slowly slipped from under Henry's hand, her hip warm where it had been resting. When she had stealthily made it off of the mattress without disturbing him, she briefly stood next to the bed, watching him for another moment as she took in his messy dark hair and the way the early morning light was shining so softly through the picture window and onto his sleeping form. He shifted just ever so slightly and Elizabeth took her cue to leave, though she found it hard not to glance back at him as she did. In the kitchen, she reached for the sweatshirt she'd left on the back of a dining chair the evening before, slipping it over her head against the chill. She moved through the motions of making coffee, filling the filter with grounds and the reservoir of the outdated coffee maker with water, plenty enough for both she and Henry. But as she worked through the familiar steps, she was thinking of Henry and the night before and waking up next to him.
It had been...nice. It had been warm, comfortable, safe. It had made her wonder why they'd gotten so worked up about it in the first place. But the way she had felt lying there with his hand on her hip...that might have been something else. It was a feeling that Elizabeth couldn't quite put a name to, but what she did know was that it was a feeling. For Henry. She was still turning over the implications of that in her mind when she settled out on the cabin's back deck to drink her coffee.
Henry, meanwhile, was staring at the ceiling. He had not been asleep when Elizabeth left the bed. He'd been lying awake since just before sunrise, too afraid to move in case he woke her up. And then when she herself had stirred, his instinct had been to lie very still and that was what he'd done. He wasn't sure why; it was childish, probably, but he had frozen up like an iguana in the Arctic.
Now, alone there in the bed, Henry couldn't help but think about what it all meant. He had liked sleeping with Elizabeth. He had liked waking up next to her, he had liked having her presence beside him like that. What did that mean? Could he feel like this about her and really be just best friends?
Henry, for the first time, didn't really know the answer.
Certainly, he'd thought about dating Elizabeth. She was...well, Elizabeth. She was beautiful and smart and kind and quick and a million other wonderful things. He would have had to be crazy not to consider it at all, but he had also considered himself very very lucky to be her best friend. He valued that relationship more than anything, valued time with her like this weekend. It was this thought which ultimately propelled Henry to leave the bed in search of the subject of his thoughts. The scent of fresh coffee drew him into the kitchen and he paused to pour some into a chipped navy blue mug from the cupboard. Then, he turned in curious search of Elizabeth; it took him only a minute to locate her curled up in one of the rocking chairs outside, a blanket wrapped around her and the steaming mug cradled in her hands. She looked up at the sound of the floorboards under Henry's feet and the way her eyes lit up at his arrival calmed the restlessness that had arisen in his chest.
"Good morning," she said softly. He smiled back at her; he couldn't help it.
"Good morning," he answered, settling into the chair next to her, taking in a deep breath of clean air and the steam from his mug. She looked so at home out there in the forest, her hair pulled up again already after sleeping, wrapped in a sweatshirt just like one he had himself back home at UVA.
"How'd you sleep?" she asked. He smiled slightly.
"Well," he answered honestly. "You?"
"Me too," she replied.
In fact, they had both slept better than well, better than they had in some time.
Elizabeth and Henry looked at one another for a moment.
"Henry," she said, and their eyes met. "I'm sorry it got weird yesterday."
He was surprised by that; he'd never blamed her for the shreds of awkwardness that had crept into their lives the day before.
"I just-" Elizabeth continued. "I don't know. I don't know why it got like that. I mean...we're best friends, we do everything together. Surely we can share a bed and not make it weird." Her voice was uncertain, pitched higher than usual, and her eyes asked a question that he wasn't sure he should answer.
Elizabeth was in turmoil too, thinking about her slowly building feelings for Henry over the past year and what had transpired between them so far this weekend.
"Of course," Henry said. "We can." He smiled at her, and she smiled back but he could tell her heart wasn't completely in it. He resolved in that moment that it wouldn't be weird. He couldn't assume that Elizabeth had even considered making this more than what it was, and he himself was wary of damaging their friendship given that it was so special to him. Their weekend, Henry decided then, had been derailed enough, and he was going to get it back on track., back to the intimacy that naturally came to them. He smiled more brightly.
"What do you say about breakfast?" he asked. Elizabeth's eyes brightened at that, the way he'd anticipated, leaving Henry already feeling more confident.
"What are we having?" Elizabeth asked, following Henry into the warmth of the cabin with the blanket over her arm and her now nearly-empty mug in her slender fingers.
"Omelettes?" Henry suggested. Elizabeth, who had been a recipient of Henry's omelettes more than once, nodded enthusiastically.
"Definitely omelettes," she agreed, and Henry grinned.
"Omelettes it is," he declared, and reached out for Elizabeth's cup to refill it from his side of the split countertop island. It was something he did all the time, during studying sessions or just when they were hanging out together, but at that moment the domesticity of it struck Elizabeth for the first time. She turned that over in her mind, adding it to a suddenly lengthy pile of things that she wasn't sure how to feel about.
She watched Henry cook and they made small talk, Elizabeth asking Henry what time he wanted to leave for the battle site they were visiting, and Henry interjecting to tell Elizabeth to stop stealing vegetables from his cutting board. It was their usual banter, but Elizabeth was dwelling on Henry's hand on her hip and Henry was focused on trying to silence his feelings for Elizabeth in favor of making things normal for them.
They ate together and got ready to leave, the necessity of being in the bedroom reminding them both of the night they'd spent together. Henry compulsively made the bed, and missed the smile it brought to Elizabeth's face. As he folded the sheets neatly over the mattress and covered them with the quilt, he was struck by a sort of nostalgic feeling for the way he'd risen to awareness next to her earlier in the morning.
His heart raced at the prospect that he'd be doing the same thing the following morning.
Elizabeth smiled slightly at him across the room and he tossed a pillow at her, listening to the way she laughed.
It was worth it, he thought, to avoid making it weird, if it kept her laughing like that with him. Elizabeth tossed it back at him and thought to herself that she wished he were always the person across the bed from her on Saturday mornings.
The day passed uneventfully. Henry and Elizabeth fell into step side by side on their way to the battleground, their lunches packed into Elizabeth's backpack. They talked passionately the entire way without stopping, about everything that entered their minds, and the bed and the morning were pushed to the sidelines, though the thoughts of it all hovered at the edges of both of their consciousnesses. They toured the battle site on their own, the two of them walking in lockstep and talking about the politics and ethics of the war that had been fought here, reading all of the plaques and taking in the nature. They ate their lunches in the cold, and otherwise empty, picnic shelter; neither of them minded the weather.
"What do you think about heading back?"
It was close to four pm when Elizabeth posed the question, and Henry readily agreed. The golden glow of the late afternoon sun was on his face, and she could pick out the golden flecks in his eyes, sparkling as brightly as ever. They looked somehow a little different to her now, though.
His hand on her hip rose unbidden to her mind as they walked along the path that would lead back to the cabin.
And then Elizabeth did something that she had not planned to do.
She reached out in the cold November air across the space between them and tangled her fingers with Henry McCord's, the warmth of his palm pressing against hers like a reflex. His steps faltered, pulling him just slightly out of step with her as she also stopped, their arms connected between them. Henry was looking beautifully lost as he stared at her.
"Elizabeth?" he asked, but didn't move his hand. It was as if he were cemented to her, now that her warm fingers were wrapped up with his own. Her mouth was dry, but she shrugged her shoulders as if it was nothing.
"My hands are cold," she answered. Henry's face remained confused, but his eyes were warm. Elizabeth didn't move her hand.
"Is that okay?" she asked, delicately unsure in a way that made Henry's heart pound against his ribs. The sun was shining on her and strands of her braid were escaping and she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and her hand was in his and maybe right that moment, Henry didn't care if things got a little weird between them. He squeezed her hand, so lightly she wasn't sure if it had actually happened, and then he was in step beside her again, leading her to follow as their boots resumed their soft sounds against the earthen path.
Elizabeth had thought- before she took his hand- that it would send her into a tailspin of whirling thoughts. But as she and Henry made their way back along the hiking path to where the cabin waited, she found herself very calm. Henry had that effect on her; it was perhaps why she was so willing to trust him, so willing to give so much of herself to him.
But Henry was her best friend. Elizabeth had always thought, somewhere in her mind, that that was why things were so easy between them, that it was for precisely that reason that she could give him so much. Because they were just friends. Things couldn't get messy like this. Henry couldn't leave her like this. Being his best friend- that was safe. It was irrational, and Elizabeth knew it. Loss had touched her life; she knew that it was senseless, that it didn't care if it was stealing your parent or your sibling or your friend or your lover.
Walking hand in hand with Henry that evening, Elizabeth wondered if maybe she was looking at it all wrong. If things between them could be- somehow- even better, even richer, if they were to become more than friends.
Henry squeezed her hand again as they walked, like he knew what she was thinking.
Their second night at the cabin was looming closer and closer, and Elizabeth squeezed back, finding that this time, she didn't really mind the idea at all.