A/N: Hey everyone! Glad you all are liking this story so far. Here's a nice, formative chapter to kick things off a little more from the beginning of their relationship. Think of the last chapter like a glimpse into what their future is looking like ;-)

I am kind of taking the liberty of creating some of the backstory, but I'm trying to stay as close to the storyline as I can given the little bit of backstory we have gotten. If there's something I'm explicitly getting wrong, though, please feel free to let me know!

I'm already loving writing this story, and this chapter is a lengthier one because of my excitement. Hope you enjoy it!

February 11, 1988 | Henry

"John, listen," Henry is still trying to convince his friend, "I just really need to get back and study tonight, okay?"

The dining hall was starting to quiet down now that most students have left for the evening. The ones remaining are mostly couples cuddled up in the booths—something Henry always turned his nose up at every chance he got. "How much PDA do you have to show in the cafeteria?" He always thought as he walked by them, carrying his tray of garbage to throw away. John leans over the table toward Henry after scooting his tray to the side, "Hank," he says, his voice becoming stern, "It's babes. Playing soccer."

"I don't know anything about soccer." Henry replies, raising his brows at his friend.

"Please, Hank." John finally says when Henry stands up from the table, holding his tray and looking at John.

He sighs and waits for a moment, glancing at the clock. It was already almost time for them to play, which was at 7:30, so maybe he would still have time to get home and study. It wasn't like this was a big test, really, but he just didn't feel like hanging around John tonight.

Ever since beginning his time at University of Virginia, John had been like a leech to him. He'd spent his entire freshman year with John as his roommate—and there's nothing quite like trying to like the roommate you're assigned to freshman year, he's found out. Living with him less than five feet away from Henry at all times was challenging, to say the least. There were multiple times when Henry had lost his cool about the mess in the room. One of those times was when Henry came home after a long day of classes to find a mouse in an old bag of popcorn John had left on the floor at the end of his bed. That was in March of 1987, and he wasn't sure if he would make it two more months until summer when they would, finally, be apart.

Ever since they came back for sophomore year, John had been embarrassing to be around. He had a jock attitude but had no athletic bones in his body. Not like Henry did much on the athletic side, either, but he didn't go around acting like he had been some bigshot in high school because of it. John was a big sports fan, though, and Henry enjoyed most sports, too. They'd mostly bonded over that while they were freshmen, and it just felt right to fall back into that pattern when they returned to school. But now, toward the end of the academic year, Henry was feeling the weight of dragging John around again. He had other friends, too, and John had other friends, so he wasn't sure why he was always dragging Henry around to these things.

"Fine," Henry finally answers, sighing as he turns and makes his way to the trash can to scrape off the leftover chicken bones from his plate.

John's hands are on his shoulders, patting his back, "Thanks, man." He says, giving Henry a little squeeze around the shoulders.

"I don't wanna be out late, though."

"We won't be."

February 11, 1988 | Elizabeth

When she'd signed up for this a few weeks ago, she thought about her days at Houghton and when she played varsity soccer. She'd only played during her sophomore and junior years since studying took all of her time away during her senior year. Her guidance counselor had suggested it freshman year after the loss of her parents that previous fall, but Elizabeth couldn't think about doing anything like that at the time. It would've been too hard to look out in the stands and know her parents would never come watch her. But after a little time, she decided it might be a fun way to get to know people.

As it turned out, she was pretty good. She always started games, and the coach was devastated to find out she wasn't going to play for her senior year. Elizabeth knew she had other plans, though—she didn't want to be an athlete for the rest of her life. She knew she needed her brain more than her athletics at that point, and that academics needed to take priority. Big decisions to have to make for a seventeen-year-old, but she was used to it.

The poster she'd seen in the hall near her Chemistry class was what originally got her attention. Like when she was at Houghton, she thought it might be a good way to meet people—something she hadn't done much of this year.

Everyone had told her that her freshman year was supposed to be exciting, but nobody told her how overwhelming and lonely it would feel. She didn't know anyone at UVA because her friends from high school had gone off to other places around the States, and some had even gone back to their homes overseas to continue their higher education. Everyone was scattered, and she was left to feel this deep loneliness.

Her roommate was…well, interesting. On the very first day after Elizabeth had worked to move herself in, her roommate, Amy, stood in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips, "This is my half, and that's yours." She'd told her, "And as long as you don't be a snitch, you don't have to worry about me screwing with you in your sleep."

Elizabeth had just stared at her, thinking that surely she was having some weird fever dream from the exhaustion of moving her things in earlier. Although she was still astounded, she knew it wasn't a dream, unfortunately, and just stayed quiet in the interest of keeping things civil. She didn't want to show all her debate team skill off on the first day, and she was simply too tired to do so, anyway.

After signing up for the soccer intramural team, they'd held a few practices. All the other girls on the team were pretty stuck up, but there was this one named Isabelle, and she seemed alright. She and Elizabeth had hung around a bit together after practice a few times, but Isabelle was pretty good friends with the captain, Michelle, so they mostly were around each other all the time.

When Isabelle wasn't around, it was mostly just Elizabeth by herself. She would come to practice, not make any kind of scene or commotion, and leave practice. Tonight is the first game they've had so far, but she knows she'll probably do the same exact thing she does at practice: warm up next to Isabelle in silence while she talks to Michelle, focus on her position as center forward, and then go back to her dorm afterwards and study.

The team had all just migrated out to the center of the field to meet up with the referee and the other team, and the two captains partook in the coin flip before finding out that UVA was on offense first.

She takes her place on the field, tugs at the number on her jersey (number nine, just like at Houghton), and immediately as the ball makes its way to her, she drives it through the defending team like it was an absolute breeze. Her mind was made for this position: she was calm under pressure, she was methodical, and she was smart overall. She could watch people and know the moves they were going to make pretty easily, so when she kicks it into the corner of the goal with the clock only down fifteen seconds, the small crowd erupts in a cheer.

At halftime, the score was 3-1 UVA, and all her teammates were gathered around the bleachers while sipping on their drinks. She'd tried to go over there once already, but she just wasn't in the mood to listen to them bitch about their boy problems like it was middle school again. She didn't come to college to hear all that, so she just stood at the sideline and nursed her water as she thought of her next moves for the remaining half of the game.

A voice behind her startles her from her thoughts, saying, "Hey," and as she turns around she sees a guy just a few steps away from her.

February 11, 1988 | Henry

He really hadn't wanted to come tonight, but he couldn't stop watching that number nine. John had been yammering on about how "hot the chicks" were, but Henry's eyes literally could not come off the blonde striker who had made two of UVA's three goals tonight.

"Hank," John had said, pushing his arm.

"Ouch," Henry said, finally looking at his friend. "What?"

"Who are you staring at like that?"

Henry looks back out on the field as they are breaking for halftime, watching number nine walk toward the sideline after gathering with her team for a minute. "It's no one." He says. "Hey, you said Mike had beer in his truck, right?" Henry asks after a few moments, looking over at John while Number Nine was taking a drink.

"Yeah, you want one?"

"Yeah, man, can you go get one for me? I gotta run to the bathroom. I'll meet you back here." Henry says, absolutely lying through his teeth. He didn't want a beer and he didn't have to go to the bathroom. He wanted to go talk to Number Nine without this joker breathing down his back.

Once John had walked a few steps away, Henry makes his move. He jogs up to Number Nine and gets close enough for her to hear him before he says, "Hey."

She turns around, and he's worried he startled her. Her mouth was full of water, so she takes a moment before smiling at him warmly, "Hey to you, too." She greets. He could tell he'd made this awkward already.

Normally, Henry didn't have much of a problem talking to women. He liked to talk to women at all the keggers he'd attend, and he was always pretty good with women. But he'd never really had a serious relationship with any of them—it was always a few dates and a few make out sessions at the movie theater before he'd break it off with them. Nothing too serious because he hadn't found "the one" within any of those girls he'd dated.

Number Nine, though, standing in front of him? He feels like he might have lost his ability to speak the English language just in the past ten seconds.

"I, um, I was pretty floored by how you were playing out there."

She turns and looks at the field, then turns back at him with her lips pursed together, one side of them pulled up into a half-smile, "Thanks," she says, "I played in high school a little."

When she doesn't just cut the conversation off right away, he feels like he might be able to make it, like he might be able to breathe again. "Oh yeah?" He asks, "That's nice. I didn't play anything in high school. I was more of a band kid." He tucks his hands into his pockets. He was shivering from the icy Virginia-in-February air, but his palms were sweating inside of his gloves. "Band kid? Really Henry?" He thinks to himself as she gives the sweetest, most melodical chuckle ever.

She's biting on the tip of her water bottle as she laughs, and she finally takes it out of her mouth and turns the rest of her body to face him. There's a little more distance between the two of them than he wants—and if he thinks about it too much, any distance would be too much distance for them. Something about her makes him feel like he's being magnetized to her. "I'm Elizabeth," she says, extending her hand out to Henry.

He looks down at it, staring for a moment before realizing he needs to offer his hand, too. His bulky glove gets caught on the inside of his pocket and he scrambles with the material before finally extending his hand out to her, "Henry." He says, trying to ignore the fact that he'd just shown her how much of a nervous fool he was feeling.

She smiles at him, and she's about to say something when the referee blows his whistle. "Oh, gotta go." She says, "It was nice meeting you, Henry."

John had come back with the beer a few minutes after halftime ended, and Henry pretended to drink it while pouring it out in the icy grass whenever John was infatuated with some "hot chick" as he kept calling them. When the can was empty, he tossed it in the can beside John who was already three beers deep and too drunk to notice anything Henry did, anyway.

At the end of the game, the final score was 4-2 UVA, and John had gone over to try to make a move on what he said was the team's captain. Unfortunately, as gross as John was, he always had good luck with the ladies. Henry knew there was a big party tonight anyway, so he'd expected John to try to take one of them to that, leaving him to walk back to his dorm by himself.

But once John was away, he looks for Elizabeth. He had been saying her name for the entirety of the game, making sure he never forgot it. How could he forget it, though? Sure, it was a common name, but the way her own voice said it would be engrained in his head forever, he was sure of it.

Something about the way she spoke intrigued him. She had a bit of a New York accent, and he wonders if that's where she's from. Aside from the accent, though, her voice had a little bit of a rasp to it. A rasp like you get when you've sung at the top of your lungs over the radio and the wind blowing through the windows on a late night drive; the way your voice gets the next morning when the pressure on the vocal chords had been just a little too much. She might have just said a few words to him, but those few words had been replaying in his mind along with the way she said her name for the last forty-five minutes.

"Elizabeth?" He says, jogging up behind her again as she was picking up her bag and tossing the strap over her shoulder. "Hey, um, nice game."

She tilts her head at him, "Are you trying to get me out on a date?" She asks, "Because if you are, my answer is yes."

A smile jumps across his face immediately, and he wasn't even able to attempt to play it cool with this beautiful specimen standing in front of him. "Really?" He asks, his eyebrows raised as she nods. "Okay, um, have you had dinner?"

She laughs, "Right now? I'm all sweaty."

He wanted to yell that he really just didn't care and that he thought she was gorgeous and stunning and beautiful and perfect even with the little beads of sweat at the top of her forehead. Her nose and cheeks were beat red from the cold, winter wind that had been in her face all night, "If you get anymore beautiful, I don't know if I'll even be able to be seen with you." He blurts out instead, hoping that it wasn't too forward for her. But, I mean, she was the one who asked him about a date—maybe she liked forwardness.

She pushes a few pieces of blonde hair away from her forehead, but more hair blows from her ponytail around her lips. The wind had been picking up all night. "You sure are a charmer." She says, shifting her bag on her shoulder and tucking her water bottle underneath her arm. "Okay, you have a car?"

He takes his keys from his pants pocket, dangling them in front of her. "It's just over there." He says, pointing backwards to the parking lot.

She looks out that way, but of course she had no idea what he drove. "Okay," she says again, biting her lip. Henry thought his knees would buckle right then. "Can you take me to my dorm so I can just change out of these clothes at least?"

"I can do anything you ask me to." Henry answers, extending his hand toward her bag, "Want me to carry that?"

She shakes her head, "I'm good," she says, looking over and eyeing him for a moment, "But thanks."

February 11, 1988 | Elizabeth

"Oh, Elizabeth, what are you doing?" She's asking herself as she pulls her pants up and buttons them, trying to hurry up since she knows there's a really good-looking man standing just outside her hall waiting for her.

She had just broken up with her high school boyfriend over this last summer. They'd been pretty serious, and he wanted her to stay back and not go to college. Was she ready to jump into something again? Maybe this wouldn't even be anything—maybe this would just be a nice little date and they'd never see each other again.

But something tells her that's simply not true. She hadn't been sure up until he offered to take her bag for her, and that one little gesture made her want to jump into his arms. She'd never felt like that with Luke, her high school boyfriend. Her independence never felt like it had anything to lean on since her parents died, and somehow, Henry offering to take the bag for her made her feel like he could be her pillar.

Maybe she's overthinking it all, simply too excited to just be going out with a human that wasn't Isabelle and doing something other than feeling lonely in her dorm or in the library. Again, this could be nothing.

After throwing a shirt on, she slid her feet into a pair of boots and ran a brush through her hair quickly, knowing she still looked like a wreck but at least she felt like she was presentable. She grabbed her purse and rushed down the stairs and out the door, finding that Henry was in the exact same spot she'd left him in a few minutes before.

"What'd I say about getting more beautiful?" He asks.

The smile on his face made her feel like she couldn't breathe, but she makes herself take a deep breath anyway, "Well, I didn't want to embarrass you or anything." She replies playfully as they start their journey back to his Bronco.

He walks to the passenger door and opens it for her again, just as he did in the soccer field lot, waiting for her to climb up and into the truck. "It's a little tall, sorry." Henry says as she has to hoist herself in.

"I don't mind." She answers, feeling his eyes on her before he shuts the door and makes his way to the driver's side.

She didn't want to tell him that she'd eaten dinner before the game. So she braces herself for the next question that knew was coming: "What kind of food do you like?"

She shrugs, "I like pretty much anything as long as it's dead and isn't green."

He laughs, and she looks over at him to see that he had a little sparkle in his eye when he was looking at her. "Okay, we have that in common." He says, "I know a little diner down the road from here. They have really good milkshakes."

She nods, looking forward again as they start to move, "Good, I'm in the mood for a milkshake."

February 11, 1988 | Henry

He was wondering if she, too, had eaten dinner when she couldn't decide what to get. Something told him that she wasn't the type to usually flounder over what she wanted—she seemed more decisive than that. Finally, he spoke up, "I'll be honest," he starts, and she looks up from the menu and makes eye contact with him, "I already ate dinner, and I'm guessing you did too."

She laughs, letting a breath of relief out and nodding, "Yeah, I did." She admits, "I could really just go for a basket of fries and a chocolate milkshake."

"Me too." He says, and when the waiter comes, they each order a basket of fries and a chocolate milkshake for themselves.

The older woman wrote it all down, smirking the entire time, "You two on a date?" She asks.

Henry feels his face redden, and he looks to Elizabeth to see if she'd make a move in reply. "Yeah," she says, and Henry feels a weird relief rush over him that she didn't try to back out of it or say they were siblings or something. It must be going well so far in that case.

"First date?" The woman asks, and Henry looks at her nametag to see it says "Patty." He had her the other day when he came here.

He nods at her, "First date." He says, trying to not sound too nervous when he speaks.

She smiles at them both, "Well, you two are stunners apart from each other, but together?" She shakes her head and rips the ticket off of her notepad before saying, "Your order will be up soon," and heading back to the kitchen.

He looks at Elizabeth, still aware that his face was red with the embarrassment, first, of being asked if they were on a date, and then, second, of being told they're both "stunners." He smiles sheepishly, "Patty was my waitress the other day when I came here, too."

Elizabeth raises her brow and looks impressed, "With another blonde date?" She asks.

"What?" He asks, and then shakes his head immediately, "Oh, no. I'm not really—" He shrugs, "I'm not really dating anyone right now. It's been a few…" he trails off.

"Weeks? Days?" Elizabeth asks.

Something about her brazenness made the magnet turn on within him again, feeling like he wasn't able to keep himself on this side of the table from her. "Months." He answers, then laughs, "I guess I look like the player type?"

She shrugs, "A little." She answers, tilting her head, "You're straight out of a magazine, Henry. The typical college heartthrob."

He smiles and looks down at the table, picking at the placemat in front of him, "Well, thanks." He says, then looks back up at her with just his eyes, "You could be a model."

"Then I guess Patty was right, we're stunners." She teases, taking a sip of her water.

They did a little more back and forth small talk ("What are you studying?" and "What classes are you taking?" and "How've you liked UVA so far?"). When Patty comes back to their table, she has a giant basket of fries and a giant glass filled to the top, and then some, with chocolate milkshake. The whipped cream and cherry on top was about to fall off the glass if it didn't get consumed quickly. "Order up." She says, placing them on the table.

"I—uh—"

The older woman interrupts Henry's stammering, "I made it convenient for you, Dollface, and just gave you one big one to share. You're gonna be sucking face by the end of the night anyway."

Elizabeth's face is reddening now, too, and Henry's feels like it's on fire. "Oh, I—don't know about that." He answers, "But thanks for this." He says as Patty tosses two straws on the table and leaves.

There was a silence surrounding their table for a few moments after, and both of them were just staring into the milkshake that was now dripping whipped cream from the rim. He makes the first move, scooting the straw toward Elizabeth but not lifting his eyes from the glass.

"She's, um…" Elizabeth starts, pausing to clear her throat, "Cheeky."

"Cheeky's a good word." Henry answers immediately, finally lifting his eyes up over the tall milkshake and looking at Elizabeth.

Her face, once more, was red all over. Her hair was starting to lose that just-brushed, fluffy look, and he takes a shaky breath. "Maybe Patty was right," he thinks to himself as he tears the wrapper off his straw, shoving it into the shake.

February 11, 1988 | Elizabeth

They'd been sitting here in her dorm's parking lot for about an hour—they hadn't been able to stop talking ever since they finished their milkshake at the diner. Patty finally had to kick them out at closing time, and Elizabeth wasn't ready to let go of this night yet.

Maybe it's because she didn't want to go inside to Amy, who may or may not have a guy in her bed, but she didn't want this night to end yet. So she kept their conversations from ending by yammering on about anything she could think of, and getting him to yammer on about whatever. But she's noticing that Henry is yawning, and she glances at the clock on his radio and sees that it's already one in the morning. "I should probably go." She says, making herself come out of what feels like this magical dream.

If you would've asked her before the soccer game tonight if her night would end up like this, she would've laughed.

"Oh," Henry replies, sitting up a little and straightening his back.

She looks at the bench seat that was sprawled out between them, and she wants to close that gap. But she's already made too many of the first moves tonight, she doesn't want him thinking badly of her. She doesn't want him to—

She's yanked from her thoughts when she feels Henry's hand wrap around hers, so she looks down at the way his fingers were entwining with hers. "Can we do one more thing before you go back up to your room?" He whispers, scooting a little closer to her.

Closing the rest of the gap, she scoots closer to him and looks up in his eyes. "Only if that thing is you giving me a kiss and walking me up to my door."

"That's two things." He teases.

She smiles, "Okay, two things, then." She coos, tilting her chin up and readying herself for his lips.

When he leans into her space, she feels like her body is trying to magnetize to his, and she pushes herself toward him a little more. His lips touch hers delicately, his breath was gentle and soft and nothing was rushed about this entire moment. When their lips finally were fully touching each other's, she wraps her arms around his shoulders and leans into him a little more. The moment had to end, though, and when they pulled away from each other and she looked into his eyes, she wondered if she had just kissed the love of her life.