A/N: Hello all! Here it is, the final chapter of "The Professors." It's a bit longer than usual, but it's because I didn't want to leave anything out and wanted to wrap it up nicely for y'all.

I start teaching classes next week, so I won't be able to update anything for a while. It's been a stressful week of learning how to teach, I won't lie, and I think it's about to be a crazy semester! Wish me luck, and I hope you all have enjoyed this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Hope you enjoy this last chapter, too!

Have a great weekend!

April 21, 2008

He's threading his fingers through her hair, pushing it backwards and away from her face before gently twirling it around his middle finger. Her feet are no longer "colder than ice cubes" like she said they were when she woke up this morning and put them on the front of his thighs.

"You just love to wake up and choose violence, don't you?" Henry had mumbled with his eyes still closed.

Somehow, between that moment and this one, she'd lost her pajamas and the rest of her clothes, too, and is consequently more than a little dewy still from the workout they'd just performed.

"Why do you think we've gotten so close?" She asks after a few moments of basking in the silence, just listening to their breaths steady.

His hand stops mid-thread, his fingers embedded in her locks, "Well," he says and smirks, "I believe it's because you woke up and stuck your cold feet on my legs. That's where this closeness all started."

She snorts and gives her head one shake, yawning and stretching before snuggling him a bit closer, "Not this closeness." She says, then makes a big swirling gesture with her hand, "The…the marriage closeness." She corrects.

Henry shrugs and starts running his fingers through her hair again, bringing his other hand down around her waist and rubbing the small of her back with his fingertips, "Thomas Aquinas said, 'Between husband and wife, there would seem to be the greatest of friendships,' and I simply think that we became friends again."

She looks up at him by tilting her chin slightly, thinking about how sexy it was that this man continually knows how to make her explode, yet can quote Thomas Aquinas minutes after. Maybe the Thomas Aquinas part itself isn't all that sexy (can you call a saint sexy?), but Henry's brain certainly will always make her feel warm inside along with the feeling of safeness and security.

"Don't you?" Henry asks after a few moments passing, pulling Elizabeth out of her trance of thinking how perfect he is.

She nods a little, "Why did we ever stop?" She asks after a beat.

He looks at her and thinks for a while, finally letting out a sigh, "We got busy…but the important thing is that we never really stopped being friends. Friends…friends sometimes kind of dissipate, but they never completely disappear. Not true friendship, at least. True friendship manages to find its way back to one another." He says, giving her a little grin as though he wants to roll his eyes at his next statement, "And I believe that the date night that our students set us up on was the thing that brought our friendship back to being a strong one again."

She raises a brow, "Do you think we should come clean yet?" She asks softly, "To the students, I mean. I think they deserve a thank you for saving our marriage before they graduate."

"Saving it?" He asks.

She shrugs one shoulder, "I feel good using that term." She says, looking down between them with just her eyes, swallowing hard when she thinks about finally going to counseling. All the years of burnout on both of their parts had finally come to a head at that point, and she'd known then that their marriage was in danger. Though they'd agreed to no divorce, she knew that they were both unhappy, and the kids probably were unhappy too. "It was kind of rocky," she speaks up, "Don't you agree?"

He lets out a sigh and brings his hand down from her hair, stroking her cheek with his thumb, "I think it was rocky for a long time and we just hadn't acknowledged it." He admits. She can tell he's thinking deeply when he just mindlessly is stroking her skin, staring somewhere into her face, "And I also think it all would've come to a point some way or another even without you leaving us to go to Iraq," he mentions, looking up into her eyes finally, "That was really hard on us, on all of us." He swallows thick, clearing his throat free of the lump that sounds like it's made an appearance there.

Elizabeth drops her eyes down between them in a move of slight shame. She hates that she did leave, now, three years later and no longer in the heat of the moment. She thinks of the torture that happened on that trip, the seed that was planted that made her think this wasn't for her anymore. She didn't get into the CIA to torture other human beings, no matter what wrongs they did.

Henry clears his throat again, beginning to stroke her cheek once more in little back and forth motions with his thumb, "I think we would've made it out of that bleakness eventually, but I do agree. It was rocky."

"I thought that part had gotten better after counseling," she explains, referring to their marriage struggles during the War on Terror, "But I think we really were just masking a lot of problems and pretending we were alright." She says, "Henry," she says with a sudden urgency, keeping her voice low and husky, "I don't want to get to that point ever again, babe, I want to stay like this forever."

He pulls her waist to him, gluing their abdomens against each other's, "I want to stay like this forever, too," he whispers, "But we have to go to work eventually."

She laughs and presses her hand against his chest, pushing him away from kissing on her neck so suddenly, "Henry!" She chuckles throatily, "I was talking about this place in our marriage, not literally this place."

He smirks and growls while playfully kissing down her arm, "I love both places, as long as they're with you." He murmurs, "Aquinas also said in that same quote that marriage is a fleshly union that brings pleasure even among animals." He murmurs with a low, rumbly chuckle against her arm.

Yes, this is one of the many reasons she married him. Three of those many reasons have just been demonstrated in the last ten minutes of them lying here in this bed, in this home that they created together.

One: his ever-working mind thinking things through before he ever even speaks them. That, not always of course, is the case—not everyone thinks before they speak, but Henry really does try to be fair when he opens his mouth.

Two: His impeccable sense of humor working so hard to make her laugh even after the tension of thinking about those war days, the betrayal that he so obviously felt when she left to go to Iraq. Only he can combine the first two, his mind and his humor, to create a Thomas Aquinas quip that actually makes her laugh.

And, of course, three: the way he makes her feel like she is certainly the only woman in the world, and at least the only woman in the world who has ever experienced sex this good.

She glances over her shoulder at the clock on her nightstand, then lets her hand slide down between their bodies until she finds what she's looking for, giving a firm squeeze and watching him writhe, "Henry James McCord," she whispers hotly before burying her face down in his neck, letting her breath tickle his skin, "If I'm not mistaken, I think you're trying to get me to have sex with you twice in one morning."

"You're not mistaken." He manages.

She smirks against his collarbone and kisses up to the edge of his earlobe, "I'd say you can handle twice in one morning." She whispers against his ear, referring to what her hand gripped.

He suddenly flips them to where he's laying on top of her, somehow slid between her legs during the entire maneuver, "The real question is…" he says, dipping his face lower and touching the end of his nose to hers.

Looking up into her eyes, she slides her legs open further against the sheets, letting her toes curl in anticipation. She bites her lip, batting her eyelids up at him while she waits for him to finish his thought.

"…can you handle twice in one morning?"

"Good morning, class." Elizabeth says, "Is everyone ready for finals next week?" She asks, setting her things down just as she has all semester on the table before going to the podium and starting the computer system.

She had been extra sure that there were no hickeys, no wrong-side-out shirts, no crazy hair before leaving this morning. Because when she'd finally gotten up out of the bed much later than either of them should have, she jumped when she looked in the mirror. She looked like she'd been flipping and rolling on her head, which maybe she had been doing those things just…a little.

There was a general mumbling of an answer amongst the class, but Kevin's is the voice she hears first, "I'm ready to graduate." He says louder than the rest of the mumbles.

"Me too." Cassie agrees, smiling over at Molly and John, then at Kevin.

Elizabeth gives a warm smile, "I remember when I was about to graduate college." She says, leaning against the podium with both elbows and propping her chin on her knuckles as the computer and projector warm up behind her. She's slightly bent over onto the podium as she tilts her head, "I felt like the whole world was just waiting for me to come tackle it. Yet I was also pretty nervous about tackling the world." She says and laughs, standing up straight now, "I had some really great friends coming out of college to help kind of guide me along."

She steps out from behind the podium and comes around to the front, walking to the table and half sitting on it, crossing one leg over the other as she folds her arms over her chest, "And I had this amazing guy who I just knew I was going to marry. And then, all of a sudden, I was recruited by the CIA."

"You were in the CIA?" Molly gasps, along with a few other people generally looking and sounding surprised.

Blake's head tilts, squinting his eyes, "You never told us that." He points out.

She smiles, "Good CIA agents don't go around bragging about it, even after they're out of the agency." She prods, leaning her hands back on the table, "I was in the CIA for sixteen years before leaving to spend more time with my family." She says, knowing that was partially a lie. She left because of all the morals she felt she was losing courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Government, but she decided they didn't need to know that much.

"What about this man you so craftily mentioned?" Cassie coos, propping her chin on her hand, her elbow rolling in her desk a moment before steadying it by wrapping her other arm behind it.

Elizabeth waves her hand in the air, shaking her head. She was opening her mouth to say something crafty again, but she couldn't actually seem to get anything out. She has her mouth hanging open, though, smiling sheepishly.

Before she's able to find an answer, Cassie groans playfully, "Oh, come on Professor Adams!" She goes on, "Let us in on a secret before we graduate."

Elizabeth looks around the room, folding her arms in front of her again. This time, though, she did it for a false sense of protection, "How about this," she starts, tilting her head one way then another, trying to loosen up the tense muscles in her neck, "I'll let you in on that story on Wednesday—on the last day of class. But I had better see so much effort in your final papers since you're no longer having to dwell on my personal life." She concludes, pursing her lips and eyeing Cassie and Molly in particular.

Molly chuckles along with the rest of the class, "I, for one, promise to work extra hard." She says extra seriously, putting her right hand up in the air as if she were swearing to it.

"Me too." Cassie says, imitating her friend.

Elizabeth rather enjoyed the goofy mornings of class when everyone was a little delusional from studying for finals and being burnt out, so she just stands up straight and gives a quick nod, "Deal." She says, walking back behind the podium and pulling up her documents, "Now, remember that your final papers are due next Monday. You're to bring them to my office and slide them underneath my door." She reminds, clicking her PowerPoint slide on the computer. "Let's get this review started."

"I'm actually a little nervous about it." Elizabeth admits, looking down at her shopping list while Henry searches for the blue box of spaghetti they always buy.

Henry finds the box and sets it into the shopping cart, "Why are you nervous?" He asks, "You've been married to me for eighteen years, I don't think you can have second thoughts and last-minute jitters now." He teases.

She takes a deep breath and shrugs, "I don't know. I've kept it quiet from them the whole time I've been at UVA," she admits, thinking how silly it sounds now when she says it out loud. She's only been there less than a year. "And keeping it quiet when I was in the CIA was something that was very important, too. I mean, our friends knew, of course, and your family and Will…" her voice trails and she shrugs again somewhat defensively. "I don't know, maybe I just like holding onto a secret." She says.

Really, though, what she liked to hold on to was the idea of this being a secret. She liked sneaking around a bit with him on campus. She liked that this whole game had brought them back together. What if, without it, they fall apart all over again?

"So you're actually going to tell them?" Henry asks.

She marks the item off her list, looking up and driving the cart again, "I want us to tell them at the same time," she says, searching for the brand of pasta sauce they buy, "Come to class with me? I'm bringing donuts that morning anyway."

"Can we stay off each other long enough?" He teases quietly.

She pushes at his arm with the pen threaded in her fingers, "Maybe if we're in the same room for that long all our clothes will stay on." She adds sarcastically, grabbing a jar of tomato sauce and setting it in the cart.

They share a quiet laugh about that before he looks at his watch, "We'd better get going," he says, "Kids will be home from school any minute now."

She picks up her speed a bit and goes to round the corner to turn down an aisle, running straight into someone else's cart. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry!" She exclaims, then looks up to see it's Blake Moran, staring at her and Henry like a doe in front of a moving vehicle. "Blake," she blurts out, "Mr. Moran," she corrects herself, trying to gain composure.

She clears her throat and looks over at Henry, "Blake, you have to swear to me you won't tell anyone."

He just stands there, still shocked.

"This is my husband, Henry," she says, gesturing to the man who is smiling wildly beside her. "Henry, this is one of my star students, Blake Moran, who I tried to get to come over to Poli Sci but he refuses and says the world of finance is for him."

Henry extends his hand across the shopping cart toward Blake, "Nice to meet you, Mr. Moran."

"Dr. McCord," Blake answers, giving a curt nod and shaking his hand, "I—you're…"

"I'm married to Dr. McCord," Elizabeth provides, giving him a little smile since he looks so frozen, "We have three kids together."

"It was all…" his voice trails off, sounding so confused.

"It was all a little prank because Cassie and Molly were getting a little too…"

"Nosey." Henry provides.

Elizabeth looks up at him and smiles, "Nosey." She agrees, then looks back at Blake. "Are you alright?"

He nods and lets out a nervous laugh, "I—wow." He says, shaking his head and finally loosening up a bit, "So all the rumors are true."

"All the rumors—well," she stops herself and lowers her brows, pressing the tips of her teeth together with her jaw cocked to the side like she so often does when she catches herself, "I don't know what rumors I'm confirming, exactly, since there was one about a pregnancy going around. That was not true." She says, wincing a little at the thought of her and Henry having a baby at this age with Stevie graduating high school in four short years, "But the rumor of us being together…that one's very true."

He looks down at Henry's hand resting on top of Elizabeth's on the cart, "And you're married?"

"We're married." Elizabeth answers warmly.

He raises his brow, shaking his head again and laughing exasperatedly, "So you're…you're both Dr. McCord?"

"See why I go by Professor Adams?" She asks, stifling a chuckle, "It'd be a shame if you thought you were signing up for a class about international politics and military powers when you were actually signing up for peace, love, religion." She jokes.

"Hey now," Henry widens his eyes and lets his mouth hang open, looking down at her, "It's a little deeper than that."

She smirks at him and then looks back at Blake, "I won't keep you any longer, Mr. Moran. Please remember this secret stays between us for now, okay? Wouldn't want to ruin the Wednesday surprise."

"Yes ma'am," he answers, "It was nice meeting you, Dr. McCord, officially. I'd seen you around campus and known who you were through other friends who've taken your class." He says, then physically looks as though he is panicking when he raises his brow and gasps, "I mean, all good things of course!"

Henry laughs and nods at him, "Nice meeting you, Mr. Moran," Henry says.

When they say their goodbyes, Elizabeth lets out a heavy breath and shuts her eyes, "Why did that make me want to throw up?"

"Was it that bad being called Dr. McCord?" Henry teases.

She glares up at him out of the corner of her eye, tilting her head down to look more threatening before grabbing a bag of mozzarella cheese off the shelf, "It made me feel so nervous for them to know our little secret."

"Hey," Henry says, "Look on the bright side. At least he didn't catch us in the car at the edge of the restaurant parking lot the other night going at it like wild teenagers."

She smacks at his chest again as she marks off another item on her list, groaning loudly enough that an older lady turned to look at her. She just smiles at her, walking past, and then shoots a glare at her husband once more.

"What did I do?" He whines.

"You know what you did." She murmurs, rolling her eyes as she makes her way to the check out line.

April 23, 2008

"Ali," Elizabeth coos from the sink, washing this morning's dishes, "Go get your brother please, it's time to get going for school."

Alison gets up from the table, leaving Henry there reading his newspaper and finishing a strip of bacon he'd cooked for all of them this morning. "Wow," Henry mumbles, making Elizabeth turn and look at him after shutting the water off.

She walks over to his chair while drying her hands on a dish towel, looking over his shoulder to see what he's reading. He puts his finger on the part of the article he was on, "It says here that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that Jimmy Carter was warned to not meet with Hamas." He says, pointing out the exact line.

Elizabeth reads on and raises her brows, "She's a strong one for so publicly calling out a former president," she says, thinking about other things the Secretary has said in the past. She may not agree with her on everything or with this administration on everything they've done and continue to do, but there was nothing she could say about her strong will. Condi definitely had that.

Henry flicks his brows upwards before laying the paper down and taking the last bite of his bacon, "Still want to tell the class today?" He asks.

She feels her stomach do a little flip at the thought, then nods as she steadies herself with her hand on the back of his chair, "I promised them a secret, and that's what I'm going to give them."

Her ears perk up for a moment when she hears Jason whining about going to school, and she just shuts her eyes and thinks (half guiltily) about the time when she didn't have kids to get ready for school every morning. When it was just her and Henry. When there was no screaming. No crying. Just the two of them.

As she stands there and stares blankly at Henry's plate while he eats and reads the flattened newspaper on the table, a sweet little memory crosses her mind from almost fifteen years ago in 1993 when she had a different kind of secret to tell and had to tell it to Henry this time and not a handful of prying college students.

She'd just gotten home from work and seen Henry working outside on her way in. All he wanted to do was fix up his old Bronco that he'd had in college and had to leave behind during the time he was overseas, and he'd mostly been doing just that ever since he came home about three and a half months ago. They'd had plenty of time to spend together, though, in this tiny little home on the outskirts of Charlottesville.

Her blazer had been unbuttoned ever since she sat down in her car at Langley. She's not been able to button that blazer for a little while now whenever she sits, and it's even getting tight whenever she's standing.

If this sickness was actually morning sickness she were feeling, she'd maybe feel a little better about the secret she's been literally carrying around with her for a while now.

His first month home they could barely remove themselves from each other. She had even called out of work sick a few times (which received a curt phone call from Isabelle, usually, telling her she knew she wasn't sick and that she hoped Henry was doing good). He's been home this entire time, though, and she knew she couldn't keep calling out even if she hadn't seen her husband in over a year. The CIA really didn't care. She needed to be their operative, first and foremost, and that's all they deeply cared about.

About a month ago now, Elizabeth realized something was off. When she finally buckled down and took the first pregnancy test she'd taken since their senior year of college, she audibly gasped and held on to the bathroom counter when she saw the positive result. They hadn't been trying, they hadn't been planning on this until later when Elizabeth's career was more settled and she wasn't doing physical spy work.

She felt a little guilty that she'd told Conrad before she told Henry, but she couldn't bear the thought of getting hurt and losing the baby somehow. So she told him she'd need a desk job soon, and he was happy to give her one.

Now, though, she can't hide the secret from Henry any longer. And why did she feel the need to, anyway? He wouldn't be mad. He'll be happy to be a dad. He'll be an amazing dad.

But really, was she ready to admit that she's going to be a mom?

"Hey babe," Henry said, walking into the house through the garage door, "I didn't know you were home. Why didn't you come get me?"

She's pulling her hair into a ponytail nervously, feeling as though she's probably sweating through her blazer underneath her arms. It was a bit warm still in that Virginia August, but she was also way more nervous than she should've been.

Looking down, she noticed that Henry was carrying a model plane. "Is that an F-18?" She asked, wrapping the hair tie around her longer hair and letting her arms fall to her stomach, folding them across instinctively.

"Yep," He answered, looking down at it, "I picked up a model kit. Pretty cool, huh?"

She smiled at him and walked over, taking a deep breath and setting her index finger and thumb on the tail of the Hornet, "You miss it, don't you?" She whispered.

He was silent for a little too long, so she already knew the truthful answer. But instead he just shrugged, "Sometimes," he said, even though she knew he missed it more than he was letting on. She could tell. Some days she would look at him and wonder if he ever was going to find his purpose again. He didn't want to be career military, but he also didn't know if studying religion was going to work out. He'd find out later this month when he starts his graduate classes back up at UVA. "But…I don't know. I'm happy to be home and here with you." He continued.

She was still looking down at the plane and she swallowed hard, dragging her gaze up to meet his eyes, "Well, you know what they say…life is like a flight. Full of unexpected twists and turns."

He snorted a little and raised his brow, "Who says that?"

"They do." She answered coyly, looking back down at the plane for a moment before taking a deep breath, "I've been on a little twisty and turny journey of my own." She admitted.

He frowned, "What are you talking about?"

Her tongue grazed over her lip before her teeth gently bit down on it, taking a sharp breath in as she made herself look into his eyes again, "What do you say about a co-pilot?"

He raised a brow again and shook his head, "I—are you flying F-18s now?" He asked.

She laughed and shook her head, letting it tilt over a little as she looked up at him, "A little McCord co-pilot, Henry." She said, barely able to keep her voice above a shaky and crackly whisper.

He just stood there for a moment and stared at her, then looked down at what she thought was the plane, and then looked back up at her, "Are you telling me we're…"

She shrugged one shoulder a little, "I get if you're not happy, Henry…it was definitely a surpr—"

Before she got the rest of her word out, let alone her sentence, he was setting the toy plane down on the table haphazardly and picking her up by locking his arms around the top of her thighs, giving her a quick little spin.

"This is incredible!" He exclaimed, and Elizabeth just laughed at his sheer joy.

"Put me down before I throw up on you," she said, never knowing when that morning sickness might pop up. It wasn't too bad, really, but sometimes it made an appearance at the worst possible times.

He set her down quickly and grabbed her by the cheeks, resting his forehead on hers and smiling as his nose touched the end of hers, "We're going to be parents." He whispered.

She smiled, her cheeks pressing into the palms of his hands, "A new adventure."

When she snaps out of that memory, she finds her free hand on her stomach while her other hand still rests on Henry's shoulder, and she just leans down and kisses Henry's cheek. "I love you." She says.

He looks back, seemingly a little surprised, "I love you, babe." He says, just a slight confusion in his tone before she walks away and grabs the keys while he stands up and gets his things together.

"You know," Elizabeth says and laughs, grabbing her coffee thermos from the counter as well as her bag, "I'm glad I wasn't teaching when I was pregnant with any of our kids."

"Why's that?" Henry asks, packing his bag.

She shrugs, "It's bad enough letting the students think we're dating, right? But walking into a room pregnant, Henry…" she lets out a dramatic breath and leans against the counter, pressing the granite into her back and shaking her head as she takes a sip of coffee, "That's awkward. Everyone in that room knows good and well what causes pregnancy. It's like everyone has a moment of, 'I know what you did' whenever I would walk into a room. And these young adults are brutal, you think it would've been any better in that situation?"

He's laughing and shaking his head as he throws his bag over his shoulder, watching as the kids shuffle their way downstairs and say their goodbyes. They make their way out the door before Henry takes the keys from her hand playfully, "There's always still a chance we could play that game on them." He murmurs, kissing her cheek and turning.

"Oh no, nope." She says, ungluing herself from the counter and walking after him through the door, "That ship has sailed. Three kids is all you're getting out of me, Professor." She barks behind him, "We literally just had this conversation, did we not?"

He laughs, "I just think it's funny that you don't care that the CIA knew what you did, but that you would care that a bunch of twenty-year-olds know."

"Henry!" She whines as she gets into the car, "They're way more judgmental than the CIA ever has been." She explains, "And more…I don't know. They're hungry for drama." She says, buckling her seatbelt.

After a moment when they've reached the end of their driveway, he looks over at her, "Did people really look at you like they were thinking about how you had to have had sex to cause that?" He asks curiously.

She snorts, "Yes. All the time. They'd never say anything—well, except Isabelle." She corrects, "But it's just…you know they know."

He looks forward and pulls out on the road, and she swears she sees his chest puff up a little, "I kinda like knowing that they know." He admits, "Kinda…turns me on."

"Well," she laughs again and finishes her makeup while he drives, "You can be turned on all you want, but don't expect anymore babies out of this wife. You'll have to marry another one if you want any of those. Preferably someone younger—by this age it's rough to have one. Even Jason took a toll on me." She says, remembering how swollen her feet and ankles became during the last six weeks.

"We shouldn't really be doing this." She mumbles, sitting down in her chair as he peppers kisses down her neck further and further, finally reaching her collarbone before she arches her neck to the side and lets him have full access to anywhere he wants.

He's working at the top button of her blouse, and all she can think about is how this has happened twice in one morning. How the hell do they have this much stamina? This much energy? This much…libido? They're supposed to be aging gracefully, not reverting back to horny teenagers. Not that she's complaining, because damn does his hand feel good around her breast right now while his other hand is climbing its way up her skirt.

He sits on the floor in front of her and pushes her knees apart, "Henry…" she hisses, trying to warn him, trying to keep him from continuing. She knows it's only a matter of time before they get caught doing this. But she can't bring herself to say anything else, she just lets her head fall back and hit the chair while her hands grip onto the armrests.

His arms pull her chair to him, pulling her directly into his face before she lets out a quiet groan. Her eyes are clenched shut, her knuckles are turning white already while he has just started working his magic underneath her desk.

Everything stops, though, when she hears knock, knock, knock on her door. She opens her eyes quickly and looks right at Henry, gasping quietly and shoving her skirt down her legs. "Stay under there." She hisses quietly at him, knowing the front of her desk covers all the way down to the floor.

She tries to run her hands through her hair but ultimately knows that it's probably still a mess, "Come in," she says, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

Cassie peeks around the door, "Hi Professor Adams," she says, "I just wanted to tell you that—"

She's cut off when there's a sneeze coming from underneath the desk, and she just widens her eyes before her mouth drops open.

Elizabeth's eyes widen, she can't even bluff her facial expression at this point. She doesn't let herself look down at Henry, though, but she keeps eye contact (somehow) with Cassie. "Excuse me," she says, trying to pull off that she sneezed when it was very, very obvious she did not.

The younger woman pulls her paper out from behind the door and takes a giant step in, setting the research paper on her desk and biting her lip, "I just wanted to tell you that I finished my paper early and was turning it in early today," she says, "Ummm…but I'll…just…" She smirks and bites her lip again, "Hi Dr. McCord." She says, "I'll see you in class."

She shuts the door behind her and Elizabeth glares at Henry, "Really?" She groans, letting her head fall back into the back of her chair for a different reason this time.

"It's dusty under here." Henry defends himself.

"Alright, is everyone feeling good about the final?" She asks the class, avoiding eye contact with Cassie and Molly for pretty much the entire class.

Everyone is nodding their heads except those two, and she knows they know. It's like being pregnant all over again, she thinks to herself.

"Alright," she says, taking a deep breath and sitting down in the chair behind the little table up front, "I believe I promised you a secret."

The class starts buzzing a bit more as people shift in their seats to sit up a little straighter, slumped over from all the reviewing they'd been doing. Blake had been sitting prim and proper as usual the entire class, but now he's leaned over in anticipation on his desk a bit more.

She takes a deep breath and slides the donuts out of her way, putting a picture on the projector on the table, looking up at the screen over her head to see if the picture was showing up. She smiles a little when she sees Henry and herself as two newlyweds. Up in the corner of the photo, the numbers "1990" are printed in a shimmery gold. In the actual photo, it's just Henry and Elizabeth, and they were standing inside the courthouse, "This was right after we'd said 'I do,'" she explains, looking at the class who were all squinting to see the photo. She smirks, knowing it's not the clearest version.

She looks over at the door through the little windowpane and gives a slight nod, and Henry comes waltzing in and takes a seat out next to her, pressing a kiss to her temple, "And this is eighteen years later after we said 'I do,'" she continues with a smile while the class starts gasping.

"What!" Kevin exclaims, not long after Molly let out a little squeal. John and Kevin were just as amazed as Cassie and Molly were, even though Cassie had surely told Molly about the ordeal from this morning.

"You're married to Dr. McCord?" Another student says, and ironically, it's one who hasn't hardly spoken all semester.

She laughs a little, "I am. I am technically, also, Dr. McCord." She says and looks over at Henry, "But he teaches all the religion stuff, where I go a little more hardcore and teach about global politics." She says, shrugging her shoulders as she offers Henry a donut from the box, "We've been together for twenty years this year," she says while he picks one out.

She gets another photo out of her bag and replaces it on the project while Henry speaks, "Isn't that hard to believe?" Henry asks, "I mean, she barely looks a day over thirty, right?" He says, and most of the class erupts in agreement.

Elizabeth feels her face redden and tries to ignore it as she focuses on getting this picture straight on the projector. She looks and smiles at the screen, "These are our kids, Stephanie, Alison, and Jason." She says, pointing out each one of them on the project. "Stephanie is fourteen, in her terrible teens stage."

"Only if you're not the Stevie whisperer." Henry teases.

She smirks at him while the class does a low chuckle, "Stevie is what we call her," she explains to them, "This is Alison, she's the one who just had her appendix taken out at such a young age." She says with a little sigh, still feeling a pang in her chest when she thinks about all that pain her little girl was in, "And then this is Jason—he's about to turn seven in a few months."

The class is gushing over her kids while Henry takes her hand underneath the table and holds it, and she can feel how red and hot her face is. She looks over at him and smiles, "If I were a little younger, Professor, I'd do it all over again if it meant getting to do it with you." She whispers while the class is still talking amongst themselves about how much they really do look like both of them and how they'd never realized before and blah blah blah. All the normal stuff you say whenever you're in shock, even if you thought you knew the secret like Cassie and Molly did.

He tilts his head, "Do what?"

She smiles, "Get married. Have kids," she says and chuckles, "Live this life with you, be a professor with you. I'd maybe leave out the part about the War on Terror and the rocky marriage, but…" she shrugs as the class is starting to die down a bit, and she can tell some of them are listening to her, "But it brought us here. And I love this life with you."

"Awwwwwww."

She looks out at the class and smiles, feeling her face get one shade redder, "I love that you all are so invested in our lives," she teases, "But really, I'm glad we could share this semester together." She says to all of them, then looks at Cassie and Molly, "And I'm glad Dr. McCord and I had mutual students who thought we should get together. We're sorry for playing this prank on you, a little," she jokes and smiles, "But it was too good to pass up."

Henry smiles, "We went back and forth a few times on whether we should go ahead and tell you all, but…" he shrugs, "Like Elizabeth said, it was too good to pass up."

After people started leaving, Elizabeth calls out to Cassie and Molly and asks them to hang back. She's leaning against Henry now with his arm wrapped casually around her shoulders while they come up to the table beaming, "We're happy you're together," Molly says.

Elizabeth smiles, "Thank you," she says and looks over at Henry who gives a little nod, barely visible to anyone, "We just…we wanted to thank you ladies for bringing it up in the first place, though."

Cassie tilts her head and frowns, "Why? You were already married," she says, "We didn't really do anything."

Henry sighs a little and sits forward, sliding his arm off her and leaning on his elbows on the table, "Well," he says and looks up at the two, "If we're being honest, our marriage…it wasn't going well." He admits, shrugging his shoulders, "And by you two asking us to get together and go on a date…well, we did it. We went on a date. And I think our marriage is better than it has been in a long time, and we owe that to you guys." He says, "So thank you."

"Yes," Elizabeth says, "I think neither of us really noticed how unhappy we were before." She admits, "Before you explained to us how we seemed unhappy and lonely." She teases, raising a brow at them.

They both laugh a little and Molly just shakes her head, "I can't believe we never noticed you two were together."

"Former CIA, remember?" Elizabeth teases.

"Right," Molly says sarcastically.

When the two of them leave, the door shuts behind them and Elizabeth looks out at the empty classroom, taking a deep breath before looking over at Henry. He has his arm around her once more as she's tucked into his side, "Let's never let our marriage get to that point again," she whispers, "To the point where we have to rely on students to play matchmaker with us because they think we're lonely or sad." She says, "I want them to see how strong our marriage is. How much we love one another."

He laughs and bites his lip, and she immediately whacks his leg with her hand, "Maybe not the way they saw it this morning," she says, feeling her face get red once more when she thinks of Cassie's face when she realized Henry was under the desk.

"I kinda like that way."

"Of course you would," Elizabeth quips, "You got to hide under the desk."

He smiles, leaning over and kissing her cheek, "I liked playing this game with you."

"From now on, no more matchmaking from our students." She says and raises a brow, "They won't ever need to guess if we're together."

"I agree, Dr. McCord." Henry says, tilting his head as if to ask her if she were changing her name back.

She smiles a little and toys with the ring she'd finally remembered to put back on her finger, looking down and seeing that Henry has his on, too. "Hopefully our students don't end up in the wrong class of Dr. McCord."

"Drs. McCord," Henry says, waving his free hand across in front of them like a rainbow, "The professors. I like it."

She smirks, closing her eyes as she leans her body into his side a little more, holding her left hand over his left one and watching as their rings touch, "Drs. McCord, the professors." She agrees quietly.