A/N: for the prompt 'roses' on tumblr. Thank you to adriver32 for sending it in!

The air was clear and clean on that Saturday afternoon in late spring; yesterday's rain lingered in the scent of wet earth, and overhead scattered, puffy clouds drifted against a blue so vivid that it looked unreal. A gentle breeze carried the scent of spring blossoms, and a warmth that promised an approaching summer.

Henry was barefoot in the kitchen, the window above the sink thrown open to let in the fresh air as he moved about the room, cleaning up the dishes left from his and Elizabeth's slow mid-morning breakfast of pancakes and bacon. He was also intent on giving the kitchen a deep clean since he had the day off, while Elizabeth herself had headed out after breakfast to run a few errands. He'd supplied her a short grocery list as well; when she returned they would share lunch and this afternoon, they had plans to visit an outdoor art installation that had popped up nearby since they both had the day free and the weather was perfect for it. Not to mention the fact that before too long, their free time would be drastically limited and shifted by the new baby that was due to join them later that year.

For the time being, Henry was more than happy to plunge his hands into the soapy water and let his mind wander in the quiet house, which was more or less what he was still doing when Elizabeth arrived some time later, the familiar sound of the front door latch breaking Henry's silence.

"I'm home," she called from the entryway, and something warm and familiar bloomed in Henry's chest at the sound.

There had been many adjustments for him in returning stateside after spending much of the last two years deployed, but one thing he had more than willing to fall easily back into had been the welcome return of simply existing in the same space as Elizabeth. Those had been long and lonely weeks overseas, and he didn't think he would ever tire of the sweet sound of her calling out to him across the house.

"Hey," he called back; he could hear her slipping out of her shoes and hanging her keys up, the telltale clatter of their metal against the hanger. A moment later, she sailed into the kitchen; her long blonde hair was pulled up into a ponytail that swished as she moved, and she was wearing a pair of light wash blue jeans and an old UVA t-shirt that pulled now, just enough tighter than it had been in these still relatively early stages of her pregnancy. She looked radiant, cheeks faintly pink and arms full of grocery bags, and she smiled brightly at Henry as she dropped them unceremoniously on the kitchen counter and turned to him. Left in her arms after the bags had been set aside was a large bundle of fresh white tulips, their heads drooping with heavy life where they hung from their vibrantly green stems.

"What's this?" Henry asked curiously, and she smiled at him in such a way that sent his heart fluttering, as she was so apt to do.

"For you," she said. There was not a hint of shyness nor even flirtation, so much as utter confidence and care.

Henry raised his eyebrows.

"For me?" he repeated, looking again at the bouquet of flowers she had brought in.

"Yeah," she answered casually. "I passed this stand selling them- way too cheap for so many, by the way-"

As she spoke, she held out the flowers and Henry obligingly took them, leaving Elizabeth to turn and reach for a vase. When she stretched up to get it, she did so in such a way that caused the hem of her shirt to ride up slightly and expose a little strip of skin at her hip, and her ponytail hung low and brushed the concave of her back. Vase acquired, she turned back to Henry.

"- and I thought of you," she finished as she held it out to him with a smile that was effortlessly warm and bright.

Henry looked down at the flowers, and his mind turned, slowly catching up the feeling in his chest. There was something about these tulips that had ignited a certain hesitance in him, something that he could not quite put his finger on.

Elizabeth kept her eyes on him, her smile slowly pulling away, fading into something else.

"What?" she asked; now, a note of uncertainty had crept into her confident, easy tone. "Do you hate tulips or something?"

"No," Henry said, on the breath of something like a laugh. "No, I - they're beautiful," he said. He reached out and took the vase from her, only just realizing that he had left her hanging, holding it out to him. "Thank you."

He stepped to the sink, and ran cold water into the vase, then turned the bundle of tulips upright and set them safely inside; when he let go of their stems, they fell open around the rim of the vase- a tall glass one that he thought might have been a housewarming gift.

He set them on the counter, where they instantly brightened the kitchen with their fervent life and the faint aroma that lifted into the air around them. Unbidden, a memory of his father had risen to mind. Henry wasn't sure he'd ever recalled it before, but now it played out in his mind's eye as clearly as if it had happened just yesterday.

A dark pink knockout rose bush stood out in his mind, so close he could almost smell the sweet scent of its blooms.

"What's wrong?" Elizabeth asked.

Henry shook his head slightly.

"It's silly," he said, but the slight frown that tugged at his brow and his lips told her otherwise. She looked up at him, tilted her head and leaned her hip against the countertop.

"Try me," she said. He spared her a small, but genuine smile, and thought back. He allowed his mind to carry him from their small, clean kitchen back to his childhood home in Pittsburgh, the one where his parents still lived. It had been summer, then. He remembered because it was sweltering, and his shirt was sticking to his skin as his father's gaze beat down on him, perhaps even more intense than the sun in his eyes.

"I just remembered this time when I was about six or seven," he said to Elizabeth. "Erin and I had been out playing and we had this elderly neighbor at the time, a sweet old lady whose whole front and side yard had a border of knockout roses."

Elizabeth watched him, listening, as his gaze found the window and looked out, seeing something far beyond the glass or their little back patio.

"I loved them. I used to go out along our property line and smell them anytime I could. I guess she saw us doing that, because one day like I said, we were out playing and she came out and offered us each a bunch of those flowers."

He smiled, faint and a little bit distant.

"We both liked them, but looking back I think I was more interested than Erin was. But when we got back home, my dad was out on the front steps. Just waiting for us."

Elizabeth kept watching him, her face impassive despite the faint sense of dread that had crept in as Henry's story went on. Henry looked away from the window, down to the tiled floor.

"He took the roses out of my hand and asked me what I thought I was doing with them. I remember how much it felt like a trick, you know?" He paused and looked up at Elizabeth, seeking her understanding. She nodded her head.

"Like- maybe I was supposed to say they were for my mom, but I just didn't know what the right answer was. So-" he shrugged- "I told the truth. I said the neighbor gave them to us because we liked them."

"And he just rolled his eyes and he said, Hank, flowers are for girls. You're not a girl, are you?"

Henry smiled, rueful and vaguely bitter.

"He gave my share of flowers to Erin and told her to go inside. And I remember that after that I avoided those roses like the plague. I couldn't stand the thought that he might see me smelling them; even at that age, I think I sort of knew I would hear about it forever if he did."

His gaze returned to the window and though he had gone quiet, Elizabeth sensed that it was not quite her turn to speak, so she watched him and waited until his eyes landed instead on the tulips and he turned back to her.

"I hadn't ever thought about it again," he said. "I just kind of buried the idea that flowers weren't for me until it was so embedded in me that when you got me these I almost didn't even -"

He shook his head.

"I'm sorry if I seemed like I didn't want them," he said softly, finally looking up to meet her eyes.

"You didn't," Elizabeth said; her reassurance floated across the countertop and the still-waiting groceries and the tulips to make a home in his chest.

"Elizabeth," Henry said hesitantly.

"Hm?"

Henry's eyes lingered on the velvety petals of the tulips and watched as a stray droplet of water slipped along one of the leaves until it disappeared into the vase. He looked back at Elizabeth, his hazel eyes alight.

"I don't want to be that kind of father," he admitted softly. She smiled, and then she pushed off of the counter where she was still leaning, and closed the gap between them.

Her palm came to rest over his heart, and she looked up into his face. Her blue eyes were shining with something warm and bright that lit a sparkling ember in the depths of Henry's chest.

"Henry," she said, voice soft and sure. "You're already not that kind of father."

"How can you be sure?" he asked.

She smiled.

"I know you, Henry McCord," she said warmly. "I know that no matter what, you're going to love this baby and encourage them to do whatever speaks to them. It's who you are. Flowers or not."

And then she leaned up on her feet and kissed him; when his eyelids fluttered instinctively closed, the last thing he saw was the bouquet of tulips.

2006 / Twelve years later

"Daddy!"

Henry couldn't help smiling to himself at the sound of Jason's familiar call from downstairs, his little voice echoing off of the walls of the farmhouse. He finished tugging on his tennis shoes and headed for the stairs.

"I know, Jace, I'm coming," he called back patiently as he cast a look around for the sunscreen that he was sure he had left on the landing yesterday afternoon. He caught sight of the bright pink bottle and snatched it up as he passed. Living on the horse farm with three kids, they burned through sunscreen like crazy in the summer months, and it seemed like there was always a stray bottle of it being left somewhere out of place.

At the bottom of the stairs, Jason was waiting. Their youngest child would be turning five this year, and he was currently going through a very independent phase, which meant that his outfit choices were often wildly mismatched, and today was no exception. He wore a pair of dinosaur-patterned shorts in primary colors with a striped green and blue t-shirt and of course, his favorite light-up Cars themed red tennis shoes- the movie had only just come out that same summer, but it was already Jason's favorite thing. On his head, he was wearing a UVA baseball cap that Elizabeth had bought him, which he was already almost outgrowing.

He absolutely lit up at the sight of Henry, and something inside Henry's chest glowed. He didn't think he would ever tire of seeing his children react to him like that, and already ached for the day that was surely coming when it would stop.

"We have to go!" Jason urged, grabbing for one of Henry's hands with both of his smaller ones as soon as his dad was in reach. Henry laughed and scooped him easily into his arms.

"Not so fast, little guy," Henry said. "Sunscreen first, remember? The roses will still be there, I promise."

This summer, Jason had taken an interest in two things: the movie Cars, and Henry's carefully tended rose bushes. Each sunny morning since May had arrived and brought with it the end of Henry's academic term, he had been heading outside to give the flowers a morning once-over and quick watering. Early on, Jason had taken a particular interest in this routine; one morning, Henry went outside and while Elizabeth sipped coffee on the porch and Stevie and Alison skipped rope further out in the grass, Jason was crouched in front of a rose bush, peering at its little buds curiously while his toy trucks lay discarded and forgotten a few feet away.

"What are they doing?" he asked when Henry went over and crouched down next to him.

"They're growing," Henry said. From then on, Jason had been eagerly waiting each morning after breakfast to get a coat of sunscreen and to accompany his dad to the patch of rose bushes along the side of their house.

Today, when Henry stepped out into the brilliant sunshine just a pace behind Jason, they found that the roses were in full bloom.

"Daddy, look!" Jason exclaimed in utter delight and surprise, smiling back at him with a look of total wonder, and Henry's heart suddenly felt much too big for his chest.

"Wow," he said, lowering himself to a crouch so that he was on Jason's level. "Look at that."

"They finally came!" Jason said. Henry smiled.

"I told you they'd be done growing soon," he said. "Here, if you lean in like this-" he demonstrated- "you can smell them."

Slowly, Jason leaned in and took a sniff of one of the peach-colored blossoms.

"Wow," he said. He looked up at Henry with serious dark brown eyes. "I want to smell them forever," he declared.

Henry felt a tightness in his chest, somewhere between his lungs, as he remembered his own childhood roses and the disappointment he'd felt at having them taken away from him. And he remembered Elizabeth, twelve years younger with a bouquet of tulips in her arms and their eldest child barely more than a thought inside her. He had feared so deeply, then, that he would not be able to parent a son.

But here was Jason, in a little UVA cap, smiling up at him and smelling the roses his dad had grown.

Henry swallowed hard. And then he smiled.

"Well," he said, "how about we pick a few and you can take them inside? Then you can smell them even when it's nighttime and we can't come outside."

Jason's eyes grew wide.

"Can we?" he asked.

"Yes," Henry laughed. "Come on, we'll go grab the scissors and I'll show you how to pick some."

Jason was on his feet immediately, his usual energy multiplied by excitement.

"And for Mommy," he said urgently, grabbing Henry's hand with the intent of pulling him along more quickly. Henry's heart stumbled against his ribs at the open, sensitive thoughtfulness of his little boy. He knew that Jason was growing, that it wouldn't be this way forever. But for this shining, golden moment in time, he would cling to every bit of it.

"Yes," he said as he pulled a giggling Jason into his arms. "Some for Jace and some for Mommy."

Later that night, when the day had ended with after-dinner ice cream on the porch and thirty minutes of firefly catching, and the children were in bed, Henry would pause in the kitchen - just for a moment- to take in a breath of the sweet scent of a vase full of roses, and think that he could not have asked for anything more.