A/N: this is based on the prompt 'mountains', sent in to me on tumblr by adriver32.

Or: Henry and Elizabeth, & three mountain ranges.

The Catskills, 1994

She was going to tell him.

She had been planning to tell him last week, really. But as life tended to do, it got in the way. A death in Henry's family- second cousin to his mother, so not someone Henry was particularly close to, but she had been young and it had been unexpected.

They would make a road trip out of it, he had explained with a sort of apologetic tone to his voice. And Elizabeth could do very little but agree. And then, it wasn't exactly fair to Henry to drop such important news on him while he was with his family and they were grieving. Not to mention then there would be the question of how much to share with them, and Elizabeth was absolutely certain that if Maureen so much as suspected anything, it would be a disaster. Visions of being accused of upstaging their cousin's funeral swam in Elizabeth's head and she firmly kept her mouth shut.

They made it through the car ride to Pittsburgh, two days staying in Henry's childhood home, their fair share of snide remarks, and the funeral itself. Henry's road trip idea had expanded; they had each been granted a few days off from work, and he had all but begged her to take the second half of the time to drive the rest of the way to the Catskills to spend the weekend.

So here they were, and she was going to tell him. Just as soon as the moment was right.

While they climbed a hiking path so steep that they were both completely out of breath, it was definitely not that moment. Henry had chosen this path, and Elizabeth had gamely agreed. They were both very in shape and loved to hike, so it had been a pretty no-brainer activity.

At the moment, she was thinking that she really might regret it.

But soon, they broke through the balsam firs and maples that surrounded the hiking trail, into a rocky clearing where the air felt suddenly thinner, cleaner. Breathing heavily, they silently crested the slight incline of the rocks until the view opened up and the sound of rushing water met them and suddenly, they were breathless for a different reason entirely.

The waterfall and the surrounding open mountain view was stunning, and for a long moment Henry and Elizabeth just stood there, taking it in as their chests rose and fell, their heartbeats pounded and slowed to a normal rhythm, and their skin prickled in the cool, early spring breeze. It was the first week of April, and the mountain air was still chilly, but all around them the early bloomers of spring were budding, blossoming, and turning bright green with the new life of the changing season.

Elizabeth looked over at Henry, and caught the look of total awe and wonder on his face as he gazed at the waterfall while it roared in their ears. He looked alive, here, in a way that he had not in some time. Coming home had been a difficult transition for him, and she understood. They were young and had been apart for so long, and he had seen and experienced things which had changed him. But lately, she had been glimpsing a happier, calmer version of him who seemed to be climbing up from where the end of his service had found him. And now, on top of this pristine and ancient mountain, he looked so much like the man who had knelt on the ground and proposed to her under the clear blue and misspelled words in the sky.

Maybe it was the right moment, after all.

"Hey," she said, reaching out to graze his wrist with her fingertips and catch his attention. He looked over at her, hazel eyes lively and bright, and she smiled.

"Come here, let's sit for a minute," she said, slipping her fingers from his wrist into his hand as she tugged him gently to a bare space of rock nearby. He followed her as she sank down onto it, her feet dangling beneath her in the little space under the ledge. The stone was cold beneath them, but felt nice through Elizabeth's jeans after the long and arduous hike. Henry reached into the bag they had brought and offered her a water bottle, which she took, and when they'd both finished with it, she watched as he tucked it away again.

He looked back up at the waterfall.

"It's so beautiful here," he marveled. Elizabeth's eyes were on Henry himself when she nodded her head in agreement.

"It is," she said softly. Her fingers found his hand again and her heart raced. When Henry looked away from the waterfall and back to her, he seemed to catch on that something was up; his eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly and his warm eyes grew puzzled.

"Is everything okay?" he asked cautiously. Elizabeth smiled, as warm and genuine as she ever had, as she nodded her head.

"Yeah," she said. She bit her lip ever so briefly. "I need to tell you something."

As if by instinct, Henry pivoted to face her more fully.

"What is it?" he asked, sounding just on the edge of nervousness. Her fingers wound around his and she swallowed.

She was going to tell him. She bounced the words around once in her head, and then set them free.

"I'm pregnant."

There was a very brief flash of utter stillness, and then it was as if the sky had opened up. The air shifted. Henry's expression flickered, butterflies took flight in Elizabeth's chest, and then his face split into the widest, brightest smile she could imagine.

"You're pregnant?" he asked. His voice had taken on a husky sort of hushed quality, almost like he could not stand to say it aloud for fear that it might disappear like smoke in the wind.

Elizabeth nodded her head, once then twice.

"I'm pregnant," she repeated. "Six weeks; I was going to tell you last week, but then the-"

And then, all at once, she was in Henry's arms and laughing and they were tangled in a messy, delightful embrace and the scent of sweat and his shampoo and their laundry detergent were all a perfect match for the fresh spring air.

"I love you, Elizabeth," he whispered, voice breaking against the skin across her jaw, and at that moment, Elizabeth was absolutely sure that the moment was perfect, and the hike had been more than worth it.

The Rockies, 2012

It had definitely seemed like a good idea.

In fact, it had seemed like nothing short of a perfect idea when Henry and Elizabeth had first started throwing it around. Even the kids had been excited at the prospect of a big family vacation. It was something they hadn't done in a few years, beyond the road trips to Pittsburgh or an occasional long weekend.

Even Stevie, despite being at the height of seventeen year old angst, had seemed into the prospect of the McCord family trip to the Rocky Mountains.

By the time they actually reached the great state of Colorado, neither Henry nor Elizabeth could quite remember where all of those ideas of family fun had come from.

"Do you think," Elizabeth asked as she leaned in over the console of the rented SUV toward Henry, "that they will ever run out of things to argue about? Like maybe one day that well will just dry up and they'll be forced into silence?"

He laughed; though his head was beginning to ache from the constant bickering and his nerves felt vaguely like fraying electrical wires, Elizabeth's dry wit never failed.

"No," he answered honestly as he slid the car into a parking space and put it neatly into park, "but soon, they will be arguing in their own hotel room."

"Thank god," Elizabeth muttered, and then shot Henry a sly smile. "I might actually be willing to say thank you in prayer for that one," she added. He laughed again as he watched her get out of the car; he'd planned to take an Advil, but the sound of her laughter washed over him and he thought that he might not even need to. Maybe a cup of coffee and a few stolen moments for the two of them would do the trick.

It was the luckiest thing about raising three teenagers or almost-teenagers, Henry thought as he unpacked the suitcases from the back of the car; that he was doing it with Elizabeth. He was pretty sure that if he had to listen to Alison ranting at her sister about a certain baseball cap that was definitely hers and not Stevie's with anyone else, he would have lost his mind.

"Why does it matter?" Jason asked; at eleven, he was just starting to get snarky, and consistently said the wrong thing when it came to his sisters. Henry was beginning to think that he enjoyed it.

Predictably, Stevie and Alison rounded on him, suddenly united in the effort of tearing into Jason before they would probably go back to tearing into each other.

"Okay, enough," Henry interjected, raising his voice slightly to be heard over their overlapping arguments. "Everybody please just take a bag and let's at least put a pause on this until we get checked in, okay?"

Reluctantly and with eye rolls, the kids obliged and as they headed toward the hotel lobby, Elizabeth leaned in to grab a duffle bag from the hatchback of the SUV and slung it over her shoulder with ease. Turning to Henry, she smiled.

"That hat," she said in just above a whisper, leaning in conspiratorially, "is absolutely Stevie's."

With that, she headed inside, and Henry shook his head as he slammed the hatch closed with a resounding clunk.

He had a feeling this was going to be a long week.

And he was right- five days and countless squabbles later, the McCords had reached their final day in the Rocky Mountains, and while there had certainly been enjoyable moments, the overall consensus was that traveling with three teenagers was actually somehow harder than traveling with three small children had been.

As they made their way along what would be their last hike of the week, Henry and Elizabeth hung back behind the pack of their three kids. Elizabeth was looking at Stevie, who was wearing a pair of daisy-patterned shorts and the same baseball cap she and Alison had been arguing over earlier in the week. The day before, she'd overheard Alison claiming that she wouldn't be caught dead wearing it, anyway.

Henry had laughed when she told him, and that had made her feel much calmer about the whole thing.

"Do you remember the Disney trip?" she asked, glancing over at him in the bright July sunshine.

"Boy, do I ever," Henry sighed. There was a note of nostalgia that rose up in his voice, a sort of wistfulness that she was sure was mirrored in her own. "We were so nervous about traveling with the kids so young, but it was a completely perfect week."

"It was, right?" Elizabeth said, shaking her head. "I thought maybe I was remembering it through rose-colored glasses."

"Nope," Henry said. "You're remembering it right, babe. At some point not so long ago, these three were the happiest, calmest little travelers in the world."

"And the cutest," Elizabeth sighed. She glanced over at him again, and caught the way the sun was settling into the faint lines of his face, and she found that a little part of her was longing for those earlier days. Henry chuckled.

"They really were the cutest," he agreed. "With their little Mickey Mouse hats."

"Do you know they don't even do the hat thing now?" she asked, waving her hand dismissively. "It's like- custom ear headbands or something."

Henry made a face and Elizabeth laughed, and there was a glimmer of something effortlessly bright between them, a touch of the magic that was intrinsic to the moments that made them who they were.

The hiking trail began to slope downward, and soon opened up to a rocky gorge that bordered a still, flat lake. Overhead, a hawk soared and dipped against a perfect blue sky, and the mountains towered to majestic heights. On the surface of the clear, cold water, there was the pristine reflection of a border of impossibly tall aspen and spruce trees, and when Henry took in a deep breath, the distinct scent of juniper floated on the air.

"Wow," Elizabeth breathed, barely audible, as their footsteps slowed to a natural stop. Next to her, Henry's head was tilted back in awe as they both took in the breathtaking scene.

And up ahead, the three McCord children had come to a stop as well, all standing in a line. Henry nudged Elizabeth very lightly and inclined his head in the direction of their children. When Elizabeth looked, she found them standing like stair-steps in age order, and wondered in a flash of something that hovered between joy and pain how long it would remain like that. As she and Henry watched, Stevie and Alison joined hands in the same way they had done so often since they were little girls, and Elizabeth's heart stumbled against her ribs.

Henry silently wrapped his arm around Elizabeth's shoulders, drawing her in closer to him despite the way the heat was sinking into his shoulders as it beat down on them from high above.

"Can you believe she's going to college next month?" Elizabeth breathed softly. Henry caught the melancholic nostalgia in her voice and drew in a sharp breath.

"No," he admitted, looking at his long-legged, freckled blonde baby where she stood up ahead. "I feel like she should still be little, wearing Mickey ears."

He watched as Stevie slung her arm around Alison and pointed to something on the ground at their feet, her laughter ringing out in the cool mountain air, and something ached inside him at the stunning knowledge that she looked almost exactly like her mother had when they had first met all those years earlier.

"Guys, look!" Jason called out excitedly, looking over his shoulder at his sisters and beckoning them over to him. They came willingly, still holding hands, and a moment later they were all crouched down in the rocky shallows, eagerly peering at whatever Jason had discovered. Their laughter reached Henry and Elizabeth distantly, on the juniper-scented breeze.

Elizabeth looked up at Henry and smiled.

"Okay," she said. "It's no Disney trip, but it's not all bad."

When he smiled back at her, it was wide and real.

"No," he agreed. "But nothing is ever all bad as long as it's with you."

The wind blew pleasantly and the sound of distant birdsong rang out, and when Elizabeth leaned in to kiss Henry, she knew without a doubt that when all knowledge of who stole whose cap had faded away into nothingness, this was the moment that she would still remember, clear as day.

The Blue Ridge, 2030

The mountains were singing.

Wearing blue jeans and an old rust-colored sweatshirt as she leaned against the open window of the pickup truck they had rented for this weekend- a Chevy, like the one Henry drove when they were in college- Elizabeth was sure she could hear their song.

She drew in a deep breath as she watched a small wooden sign flicker by them, bearing the words North Carolina State Line. The air was earthy and crisp, with notes of damp leaves and that particular freshness of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

In the driver's seat, Henry leaned a casual arm on his own open window, his shoulders relaxed and content under the simple long sleeved t-shirt he was wearing. She watched as the dappled sunlight from the trees along the road flickered and danced over his face and hair, catching the gray strands and illuminating them. He looked effortlessly and devastatingly handsome, she thought, and she pulled away from the window to lean over the center console and catch his attention as the radio static flickered softly in and out of focus.

Henry glanced away from his rearview mirror, and briefly over at Elizabeth, flashing her an irresistible smile.

"I'm so glad we're doing this," she sighed, and he nodded as his hazel gaze found the road again.

"Me, too," he answered. "It's been a long time."

"God, when was the last time we were down here?" she asked. On her right, mile marker 217 flickered by.

Henry thought back.

"Had to be…what, like 2006? 2007?" he guessed. Elizabeth nodded; in tune with him as always, that was the figure she had come up with herself. She remembered it being summer, a long weekend away in which she and Henry had left his parents at the farmhouse with the kids and driven the parkway to the North Carolina border. If she remembered it correctly, it had been their first time away just the two of them since moving to the farm, and it glowed in her memory with the golden haze of elapsed time layered over a beautiful reminiscence.

"2007, I think," she mused, looking back out at the scenery that was slipping past as they drove. In the side mirror, she could see the nondescript black SUV that followed at a slight distance, a staple of their lives these days, but far removed from the motorcade that had been a hallmark of any journey these last fourteen years. Now, it was just a small Secret Service detail in exchange for the freedom to drive themselves around again.

"Right," Henry agreed. "Because it was the same year Jason started school."

"Oh, that's true," Elizabeth said. "God, can you believe that?"

A short laugh answered.

"Absolutely not," Henry said with another glance in her direction. "Feels like a couple of years ago and a few centuries ago all at once."

It really did. Elizabeth thought back to August, when their youngest child had made the trip out to the farm the weekend after his twenty-ninth birthday to see them, which meant it had been more than twenty years by her count since their last little trip to the Parkway.

"Oh, speaking of Jason," Henry said, brightening, "he texted me yesterday and said everything with the new baby is looking perfect."

Something beautiful and light settled in Elizabeth's chest like a feather spinning and spiraling to the earth.

"Oh, good, I was going to ask you if you'd heard from him," she said. She shook her head with a light laugh. "Sometimes I go a little bit insane thinking about the fact that Jason is going to be an actual father in a few months."

"You and me both, babe," Henry laughed fondly. "He's so grown up."

Elizabeth's eyes caught on a patch of rhododendron, and then it was gone before she could get much focus on it. That was something of a metaphor, she thought. The presidency had felt so long while she was in the trenches of it, but now that it was over it felt as if it had just disappeared in the blink of an eye. And it wasn't just the Presidency, or her tenure as Secretary of State. More than that, it was everything else; motherhood, the childhoods of her children, the youth of her marriage to Henry, their days as academics. Everything that she had cherished now felt like scenery along the parkway, the speed limit too quick of a pace. Even this- this present time, which was so precious to her- often felt like it was zipping past at an alarming rate so much of the time. She thought now of her grandchildren, and something in her ached at the knowledge that even their young lives were going so quickly.

Lately, Elizabeth had just been wishing for everything to slow down. Her sixty-second birthday had passed this year with a sweet little celebration at the farmhouse with her close family and friends; all of the kids came with their own spouses and children, and it was the first time she'd seen Blake in a couple of months, and the cake had been homemade by Henry. But no matter how perfect it was, there was the lingering sense that another year had somehow slipped through her fingers, and sixty-two was certainly on the downward sloping side of the hill of life.

She supposed it was why she had suggested they go on this trip, retracing the route they'd driven more than once before, when they were much younger. It was hard to believe that she had not yet been forty when they drove this way last.

"You okay over there?" Henry asked, and only then did Elizabeth realize she'd fallen silent, lost in thought. She nodded and offered him a smile.

"Yeah," she said. "Just thinking about…I don't know, time."

"Very lighthearted, standard vacation fare," Henry answered with a look in her direction and a teasing note in his voice that brought a smile to her face which reached her blue eyes.

"Very," she said. She shook her head, setting the thoughts of aging and the passage of time aside for now. Henry was right, even if he was just teasing her. She would do well to remind herself that she and Henry had worked hard to keep themselves healthy and in the best shape to enjoy this latest era of their lives, and though it might be passing too quickly for her liking, she really was enjoying it.

Especially right now, riding shotgun with her favorite person in the world as they wound through picturesque country roads, not another car in sight. The earthy autumn wind blew through the window and into her blonde hair, and she closed her eyes for a moment as the sun streamed through the trees and glared into her vision. When she blinked them open again, a sign up ahead caught her eye and she perked up at the sight of the word Overlook.

"Ooh, let's pull in," she said, pointing it out to Henry. Excitement flooded her voice, her worries of elapsing time forgotten for the time being.

As far as Elizabeth was concerned, and she knew that Henry shared this opinion, there was very little in life that couldn't be fixed or at least improved by a beautiful view.

Henry parked the truck along the edge of the overlook and the Secret Service SUV did the same, keeping their usual slight distance. Henry and Elizabeth got out of their respective sides of the car, and slammed the doors with a near-simultaneous clunk. Stretching her legs, Elizabeth met Henry halfway and took his hand, as easy and natural as breathing; together, they walked to the low stone wall that marked the edge of the little overlook. It was one of the smaller ones that were scattered along the route of the parkway and at the moment, there was no one else around.

Just Henry, Elizabeth, and the singing Blue Ridge Mountains. In the distance, their shapes grew violet and bruised and hazy, while up close they were alive with color, all shades of dark red, brilliant yellow, and striking orange amongst the forest hues of the evergreens.

Elizabeth leaned into Henry, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and as she looked out at the endless Appalachia that sprawled before her, it was as if time simply slowed down. She took a deep breath of the fresh air, and suddenly felt very light.

"It's even more beautiful than I remember," she said, leaning in and pressing her palms to the cool stone of the border wall as her gaze feasted on the view in front of them.

"I think so, too," Henry said softly.

When Elizabeth looked over at him, it was to find that his warm hazel gaze was not on the sprawling mountains, but on her. Heat crept into her cheeks and she felt twenty-two all over again.

Wordlessly, they closed the gap between them and Henry kissed her under the clear blue sky and the mountains sang for them, and all was well.