Writer's Note: Thank you for your reviews! They make me smile. Anyone who's seen me whining on Twitter will know that I have serious doubts about the structure/format of this story—you might start to see why.

She defended that seat with no more than a glare in September.

Henry leant back against the edge of the desk and folded his arms loosely across his chest. He watched Elizabeth as she stooped over the chair at the head of the table and stuffed her notebook into the canvas satchel she had dumped on the seat. The early evening light flooded in through the window behind her and enveloped her in its golden glow; it hazed her edges and gave her a softness he felt pretty sure she had never and would never show in conversation. If the past few weeks were anything to go by, he seriously needed to reconsider his definition of 'sharp-tongued'. He might have called her out on it too, if only it weren't for the faultless logic and even sharper mind that stood behind her arguments.

When he felt the inevitable pull of his gaze down towards the miles of leg that stretched from the hem of her denim mini skirt to the white cuffs of the socks that peeked out from her faded blue low-tops, he cleared his throat and forced his attention to the pile of essays stacked at the corner of his desk.

His gaze drifted back to her less than a second later.

He probably ought to have found her irritating—that seemed the general consensus—but something about her intrigued him. And it wasn't solely to do with those legs and the length of her skirts.

Elizabeth straightened up from her stoop, picked up her bag and slung the strap over one shoulder. She grabbed her essay from the tabletop and handed him the fistful of pages with the quirk of a smile. "Double-spaced this time."

"Thanks." He gave the cursive handwriting that flowed across the page a quick glance over, and then placed the paper down on top of the pile and folded his arms across his chest once more. "Nice defence, by the way."

Elizabeth had already taken several strides towards the door—for once not hanging back to interrogate him on some offhand comment he had made during the seminar or to start a discussion on an obscure passage of text she had uncovered at the library—but at his remark, she stopped. She turned to face him, her brow pinched with a puzzled frown. "Aquinas?"

He nodded towards her seat. "The chair."

Her bemusement deepened for a second, and then dispersed in a flash. "Oh." She laughed, the sound full of sunlight and grit. Then she met him with a lopsided grin. "And here I was thinking you were complimenting me on my debating skills."

He eased himself away from the edge of the desk, picked up the essays and jostled them together against the oak surface. "They're commendable too."

"Commendable, huh?"

He shot her a sideway glance. "If a little brutal."

"I was trying to make a point."

"Were you trying to make Dean cry?" He folded back the worn leather flap of his messenger bag and wedged the stack of essays inside.

"I did not make him cry." Her voice strained. It softened again a second or so later as she dismissed the comment with a shake of the head. "He probably just has hay fever."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that wasn't hay fever."

She pursed her lips, folded her arms across her chest, and narrowed her eyes into a glare—a look not dissimilar to the one she had given Andrew when she had arrived at the seminar to find him in her seat; a look that Andrew had managed to withstand for no more than thirty seconds before a blush crept into his cheeks, his gaze swivelled away, and he grabbed his bag and retreated to the opposite end of the room; a look that said she wasn't backing down—not today, not tomorrow, and probably not next week either. "Well then, Dean needs to grow a pair, or come up with a better argument. Or—preferably—both."

For a long moment, Henry just stared at her, the picture of indignation. Then, without warning, he burst into laughter.

He half expected her to give him a verbal lashing and storm out of the room. But instead, all that outrage melted away, she cracked a smile, and succumbed to her own laughter too. It struck him that perhaps this was the side of Elizabeth that her peers didn't see; not because she hid it, but because they saw the pretty, blonde girl and expected her to be meek and straightforward, and when they found she was anything but, the unease it stirred in them provoked them into dismissing her, rather than inspiring them to find out—and appreciate—who she really was.

Henry lifted the strap of his bag over his head and settled it so that it hung snug across his chest, and he followed Elizabeth out into the corridor. Rays of sunlight flooded through the row of windows on the right-hand side and illuminated the motes of dust that spiralled above the parquet floor. "So, I gave your question from the end of last week's session some more thought…"

"The Augustinian solution to the problem of universals."

"Right," he said. He flashed a taut smile at Mark, a fellow first year grad student, who hurtled towards them in a speed-walk that made him seem all swinging hips and jagged elbows. Then he returned to Elizabeth. "Well, seeing as I couldn't give you a satisfactory answer, I went and looked it up in—"

"Kretzmann, Kenny and Pinborg."

He shot her a sideways glance, his brow furrowed in a deep frown. How did she—?

She gave him a smile that seemed designed to reassure him she hadn't been spying on him…again. "I went to look it up too, only for Mrs Weever to inform me that the text had been checked out not an hour before by one Henry McCord."

"Oh."

"Don't worry. I managed to get my hands on it when you returned it on Friday."

"Right… Well… If you wanted to discuss…"

"Sure." She came to a stop at the end of the corridor, and turned to face him. With her thumb hooked beneath the strap of her satchel, her hand resting against the bag itself, she gave a small shrug. "I was about to grab a coffee, so if you're free, maybe you could join me."

"Coffee sounds good." He smiled at her. But that smile quickly faded and he added in a rush, "But just to be clear—"

"I'm not hitting on you."

He gave an inward sigh of relief. "Okay, good." That relief was short-lived, though. "Not that I meant to imply that you're the type of girl who would hit on her TA—not that there is a certain type—and not that there's anything wrong with that if you did, I mean technically it isn't against the rules, and it's not that you're not attractive, I mean, you're very—"

She held up one hand, her fingertips spread into a star. "Stop talking, before you dig a hole."

He paused and stared at her, open-mouthed, and then his chin dipped and he gave an awkward chuckle.

He looked up at her again. "Good advice."

She tilted her head towards the double doors that led out onto the red brick walkway of the quad. "Shall we?"

oOoOo

"Here. I got us a muffin too." Elizabeth slid a round wooden tray onto the table. It held two steaming mugs of black coffee and a muffin studded with blueberries that had bled their purple juices out into the surrounding batter. She slumped into the seat opposite. "Do you want to cut or choose?"

"Cut." Henry leant forward and reached for the knife that balanced at the edge of the plate.

"You know, usually when I say that, people look at me like I'm crazy."

He chuckled. "I'm one of four, so I know the drill." He lined up the knife dead centre and then pressed it down through the muffin until the blunted edge struck the ceramic beneath. He slid the plate towards her, his gaze fixed on her. "You?"

"Younger brother." Her voice turned distant as she studied the two halves of the muffin so intently that she might well have been counting up the number of blueberries and calculating the density of golden sugar granules.

"That explains the fierce debating skills."

Her gaze flicked up to meet his; her eyes held a teasing glint that sharpened their almost greyish tint to piercing blue. "Fierce as in commendable, or fierce as in brutal?"

"Both."

She gave him a quick grin, and then tipped the muffin half furthest from her onto the plate and eased the flattened parchment case free from beneath. She pulled the piece of parchment and the muffin half that sat atop it towards her, claiming it as her own, then broke off a chunk, popped it into her mouth and pressed the pad of her thumb to her lips to clean it of the remnants of oil and sugar as she chewed over the mouthful.

Once again he found his gaze clinging to her, and he had to force it away to his coffee cup before she caught him staring. No doubt the teasing would be relentless if she did catch him staring, and he definitely didn't want to earn himself a reputation as the TA who ogles his students—regardless of what it might or might not say in the distinctly grey area that was 'the rules'.

At the roar of laughter that surged through the coffee shop, the sound brash against the faint strains of music that drifted in the background, his gaze shot over Elizabeth's shoulder and towards the group who occupied the booth in the far corner, nearest the back, where the lights were dimmest, giving it a cosy yet exclusive feel. Josh Carmichael, a junior majoring in History of Art, sat on top of the ledge behind the booth, his legs hanging down over the leather back, his feet planted on the seat. He made a tamping motion with both hands, summoning his circle of friends into silence, and then he resumed talking in his usual boastful tone while they all craned their necks and stared up at him.

"What is it?"

Elizabeth's voice drew Henry's attention back to her. The hint of uncertainty in her tone graced her expression too.

He shook his head and lowered his gaze to his coffee cup. "Nothing." He raised the mug, blew a ruffle across the surface, and took a tentative sip.

When her look morphed into one of expectance, he let out a tired sigh and then continued. "Just Josh Carmichael and his cronies."

Elizabeth twisted around and watched the group.

"I'm pretty sure he has more dollars in his trust fund than cells in his brain."

She turned back to face him. With her arms folded atop the table, her shoulders rose and froze in a kind of awkward shrug, and although she attempted a smile, it looked more than a touch strained. "Well, he was accepted here, so that suggests some level of academic ability."

Henry shook his head again and pulled off a piece of muffin. "Or his father paid the right people." He dusted off his fingertips over the plate as he chewed and then swallowed the bite. "He went to some posh boarding school, apparently."

"And what…? That means he didn't work for his grades?"

"It means that even if he did get the grades himself, it's only because his father bought him the best education money can buy, funded years of extra private tuition, gave him all the right connections. And you can't tell me it hurts to have a school like that on your application form."

She studied him, a deep pinch marking the middle of her brow. "So you're saying that none of the people who go to those schools deserve their place here?"

"I'm saying I think some people have to work harder than others in order to earn their place here and some offers are more well-deserved than others. You can't deny that money comes with a lot of opportunities."

Her gaze dipped and she gave a slight shake of the head, just enough for her hair to catch a shimmer of light. "It can come with a lot of burdens too."

He scoffed. "What? Like being able to party your way through college because you don't have to fund your education yourself, or like being able to skip assignments that don't fit in with your social life because there's always a donation that can be made to boost your grade?"

She stared at him, her eyebrows raised. "Wow."

"What?"

The corners of her lips turned downward and her shoulders lifted as she shook her head. "I just didn't have you pegged for such a reverse snob, that's all."

He frowned at her. Incredulity sharpened his tone. "I'm not a reverse snob—"

She stooped in towards him, her voice almost patronisingly soft. "Have you tried listening to yourself?"

"So you don't think money gives people an advantage?"

"I think it's ironic that we came here to discuss the problem of universals and you seem to think it's acceptable to lump a whole group of people together based solely on their bank balance. Or worse—their parents' bank balance."

He leant back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest and studied her. He let her words settle before he spoke.

"First of all, you know that link is only semantic, and even that's tenuous at a stretch. Secondly, I'm not—"

But at the sight of Josh Carmichael strutting towards them along the narrow aisle between the tables and chairs, smoothing down his wavy blonde hair into its pristine side-part and then admiring his reflection in the mirror that ran the length of the wall, Henry stopped—whatever he had been intending to say next now forgotten.

"Lizzie Adams…I thought it was you." The smugness that permeated Josh's expression oozed into his voice as well. With his back to Henry, he perched against the edge of the table, paying no mind to the way he caused both coffees to sway to the point that they almost spilled. He looked Elizabeth up and down. "Tell me…were you this hot in high school?"

Rather than telling Josh in no uncertain terms where to go—given her occasional slips in class, Henry felt pretty sure her command of expletives was extensive enough to make even the most salty of sailors blush—Elizabeth bit down on the corner of her bottom lip, as though trying to rein back her smile, and the blue of her eyes sparkled. "Well, given that you didn't even notice me in high school…"

"Of course I noticed you."

"I think you were too busy noticing Gabby Talbot."

"I've noticed you now. And I'm telling you, Gabby Talbot has nothing on you."

Elizabeth's lips stretched into a grin—one that gave Henry an uneasy feeling that crept out from the pit of his stomach and sent a chill crawling through his blood. She tilted her head towards Henry, while still looking up at Josh. "Josh, this is Henry." Then her gaze locked on Henry's, and her smile took on a stinging undertone. "Henry, Josh and I went to the same boarding school."

Fuck.

The rest of Elizabeth and Josh's exchange passed in a muted blur as Henry's mind scrambled for a way to back-pedal. That initial shock and panic quickly turned to annoyance, though. Why hadn't she said something straight away? Why had she let him go on and on? Why had she continued to challenge and probe, practically drawing his comments out?

"I guess I'll see you around," Josh said to Elizabeth, and then rose from his perch at the edge of the table, setting the cooling coffees swaying once again. He strode away towards his friends in the corner, who watched and waited as obediently as dogs tied up outside a store.

Henry's lips pursed and his brow furrowed into a scowl. "You could have said something."

"What…? That I went to some posh boarding school? Or that I have a trust fund?" She raised her eyebrows at him and stared him down for seconds that felt more like hours.

Then her gaze dipped and she turned her head from side to side, her expression nonchalant once more. "You're entitled to your opinion. Sure, it would be nice if you had something more than class prejudice to back it up, but I'm not going to hold it against you." Then she smiled at him, leant in so that the round pendant that he had presumed was plated (not solid) gold swayed away from the column of her throat, and she lowered her voice to an exaggerated whisper. "Though, I would like to point out that that trust fund did just buy you a coffee and half a muffin." She reached across the table, plucked up the last chunk of his share of the muffin and popped it into her mouth. "Now, tell me about Augustine and the intellectual realm."