A/N: Hello all! Hope you're having a great weekend so far.

Just wanted to say thanks for loving on this story. I'm trying to keep the timeline straight (I have literally created a timeline...haha) and I try to make it historically accurate as possible. As a little fun fact: the temperatures that are provided in this chapter are the actual highs from that day and city in 1988. It's a little thing that I could totally make up, but I think it's just more fun to do the little bit of research (maybe that's the grad student in me talking...)

This will be the last chapter before a little bit of a fast forward, so don't worry, we'll move on into other things than just this one weekend Elizabeth Adams and Henry McCord have spent together.

I hope you enjoy this chapter of fluff.

February 13, 1988 | Elizabeth

Henry had asked her to call him whenever she got back to her dorm room last night, and they didn't hang up until about three in the morning when Amy had come in the room after a night out.

"It's late," Henry would say whenever Elizabeth yawned, "I don't want to keep you."

"I don't want to hang up." She finally admitted after the third time of him saying that. The other times she just kept conversing with him, but this time she let it be known that she enjoyed talking with him. They never really talked about anything super important, just little, mindless things that filled their conversations with happiness.

"What do you have planned for tomorrow?" Elizabeth asked.

Henry just sighed, "I'd love to hang out with you." He started, "But I have to go home for the weekend."

"Pittsburgh?" She asked, sounding a bit more surprised than she'd intended, "Henry, isn't that a far drive for the weekend?"

"Yeah," he answered, "But it's my mom's birthday."

Her shoulders slumped a little, feeling a little let down that he wouldn't be around this weekend. It was silly because they'd just met and she didn't really celebrate the holiday anyway, but it was Valentine's Day Sunday. He would be gone for a good reason, but she'd hoped to spend the time with him. Maybe it was for the best, though, because she had that chemistry test Monday and needed to study for that anyway.

"Wait," Elizabeth said, "So you're leaving in the morning?"

"Yeah."

"How far of a drive is it?"

"About five hours."

"Henry!" Elizabeth yelled, "Go to bed! You need sleep if you're leaving soon." She glanced over at the clock and realized it was already 2:43 A.M., "What time are you leaving?"

There's a silence on the other end, and she wondered briefly if he had fallen asleep. But he finally cleared his throat and sighed, "Seven."

"Go to sleep!" She snipped.

He laughed at her, and it made her bite her lip. "We've only known each other for, like, a day, but you're already yelling at me like you've known me my whole life."

She smirked, "Go to sleep, Henry, or I won't give you a welcome kiss back to Charlottesville." She said. "Be careful. Call me when you get there?"

"I will." Henry answered.

Another silence lingered, and this would normally be when she told Will she loved him on the phone. That's the protocol for phone calls like this. But she simply ended with, "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Elizabeth. Talk to you tomorrow."

When she woke up this morning around ten, she decided to call Isabelle and see if she was available to study with her for their test. They came to a decision to just meet in Elizabeth's dorm since Amy had announced she was going home for the weekend, and Elizabeth hoped that studying with a friend would keep her mind off Henry long enough to focus.

"I was really glad you called," Isabelle says, setting her backpack down next to Amy's desk while taking a seat in the chair, "I was looking for any excuse to not be around Michelle today. She's taking up all my time."

Elizabeth raises her brows, hoping she doesn't look too shocked to hear this. She thought Isabelle liked Michelle more than that. "Oh," she replies, getting her books out of her backpack and laying them on her own desk that was across the room from Isabelle's, "I thought you guys were friends?"

Isabelle shrugs, "We are, I guess." She says, sounding unsure of herself, "She's just a little too petty and immature for me."

Elizabeth snorts, "To put it lightly."

"Right," Isabelle answers, looking over at Elizabeth and smirking, "You hide it well at practice that you don't like her, but I can totally read right through it."

She tilts her head, "I don't dislike Michelle." Elizabeth says, but it was a total lie.

Isabelle laughs and slaps her hands down on her textbook, "That's such a lie, Elizabeth Adams!"

She tries to keep her front, but she finally breaks and laughs along with Isabelle after she's stared a hole through Elizabeth's eyes. "Fine, fine." She says, "Gosh, what are you, FBI or something?"

"Like I'd ever tell you if I were." Isabelle chides, giving Elizabeth a wink.

Elizabeth just laughs and looks down at her textbook briefly before looking back up, "Wait…you're not actually…"

"No!" Isabelle exclaims. "Okay, where should we start?"

Elizabeth sighs, "I have all the lecture notes color-coded by topic and then organized by the week we learned it. Want to start at week one with covalent and ionic bonds?"

Isabelle rolls her chair over beside Elizabeth and peeks at her notebook, widening her eyes when she sees all colors and the pristine organization, "Wow." She says, "I think I need to hang around you more often."

"Okay," Isabelle was going down the list they had made of study questions, "What is the difference between a physical change and a chemical change?"

Elizabeth thinks for only a second, "A physical change is a change in the form of matter, and then a chemical change is a change in the composition of matter."

"Right," Isabelle says, putting a checkmark with her pencil next to that question, "How does the periodic table help predict the chemical behavior of elements and their compounds?"

"The periodic table helps predict the chemical behavior of elements and their compounds by organizing them based on their atomic structure and chemical properties." Elizabeth explains, pausing to think for a moment, "Elements in the same group—" The phone ringing cuts her off, and she immediately jumps to her feet without second thought. She doesn't explain to Isabelle what's going on or anything, but just grabs the phone next to her bed. "Hello?"

"Made it to Pittsburgh."

She smiles when she hears his voice, taking the phone cord and wrapping it around her body while she leans her back against the tall bed. "I'm glad to hear that." She says, twiddling the spirally part of the cord in between her fingers. "Is it cold there, too?"

"When I looked at the thermometer on the way in, it said it was eighteen here." She thinks about that for a moment, realizing it was the middle of the day and that's probably as warm as it'll get.

She looks outside and sees the snow that started melting away, "It's warm enough here that the snow is starting to melt," she says, "Not to make you jealous or anything." She adds to tease him.

"Gee, thanks." He says and laughs, and she wants to keep him on the phone forever but knows that she's about to have to let him go enjoy his family.

"Well," she starts, "Go enjoy your family. Call me whenever you can, I'll be in my room all weekend studying."

"Alright," he says, "I'll call you later tonight, okay?"

"Okay." She answers, feeling that weird urge again to say I love you. It's only been two—no, just over one day since they met. She can't really mean those words, can she? "I'll talk to you then." She says.

When they hang up and Elizabeth scoots the phone back to the middle of her bed, she turns to see Isabelle giving her this knowing look. "What?" She asks, walking back over to her desk chair.

"What?" Isabelle repeats, staring at Elizabeth in shock. "You're seriously asking?"

"Yeah?" Elizabeth says, trying to play it cool. She realizes now that she must've made a girly fool of herself.

"I didn't take you as someone who would melt into a puddle whenever a guy calls her, leaning on your bed and twirling the phone cord when you weren't twirling your hair," Elizabeth's hand automatically goes up to the end of her hair, feeling it between her fingers and realizing that this was familiar—she had been doing that. She didn't even realize it before, "You were crossing your legs and doing absolutely everything that you could other than kiss the phone."

"I was not!" Elizabeth says, turning back to her textbook in hopes that Isabelle couldn't see the redness spreading across her cheeks.

"You were too." Isabelle says and laughs, "So who is he?"

She stays silent for a moment, wondering if she really wanted to explain herself. She wasn't really used to having girl friends to talk to about these types of things—Yousif never cared about her love life and would usually shut her down whenever she even mentioned her boyfriend's name. "His name's Henry." She says shyly.

"Henry?" She asks, then laughs. "Like…King Henry VII who married Elizabeth of York?"

Elizabeth looks over at her and laughs, "You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm a big history gal," she says, "They had a nice love story, though. Unlike Henry VIII. That guy was wild."

Elizabeth snorts, knowing enough about history to know that was the one who killed his wives, "Well that's nice to know." She says sarcastically, "Can we get back to chemistry?"

"Like we haven't been talking about chemistry all this time?" Isabelle asks, then standing up to mock how Elizabeth was talking on the phone, "I'll be in my room all weekend studying," she says in this squeaky voice that sounded nothing like Elizabeth, twirling her hair and dancing around like she had to go to the bathroom. "And thinking of you, Henry, mwah!"

"That's it." Elizabeth says, trying to hold back her laughter as she picks up her nearest pencil and tosses it at Isabelle. "You're lucky my aim is terrible." She says, watching as her pencil misses Isabelle's entire body and smacks into the wall behind her.

February 13, 1988 | Henry

"Henry!" He hears Maureen's voice from downstairs, and he groans thinking about all the questions she'll probably have for him. "Come down here. We're about to eat."

"Coming, Maureen." He had just gotten there and was hoping for five minutes to settle into his old room before having to delve into his wild family and all their loudness. He wanted five minutes to talk to Elizabeth, which he was able to do for a little while, but he wanted to just take a moment and think about their conversation and savor it and never let it go and…

"Henry!" She's calling again.

He groans and tosses his duffle bag onto the floor. "I said I'm coming!" He replies, angrily walking out of his room and back down the stairs. "When I say I'm coming, it means I'm coming, Maureen. You don't need to tell me over and over." He grumbles.

She scoffs, "Well," she says, "I don't want to keep Mom waiting on her birthday."

When he looks up to see her at the bottom of the staircase, he sees that she has Amanda in her arms. "Oh, hey there." He says, immediately reaching for the one-month-old in her mom's arms, "Your uncle Henry is here, you don't have to listen to your mom yelling at me anymore."

She hands the baby over to him and Henry immediately melts, moving the tip of his finger gently up and down Amanda's soft chin. "Mom's waiting." Maureen says, but has calmed a little bit.

Henry just smiles, "Good to see you too, Sis." He says, turning his attention back to Amanda in his arms and cooing at her all the way to his seat at the table.

Maureen walks by about a minute after he sits down and shoves a bottle into his view with a thud against the table, "Here," she says, "She'll start crying otherwise."

Henry picks up the bottle and immediately feeds it to Amanda, knowing how to feed a baby perfectly well. His brother Shane was the product of his parents saving their marriage in the mid-70s. When his younger sister was born exactly eleven months after Shane, everyone knew that she was the product of an accident and a symbol of a marriage that was still strong from being saved before. Henry was already eight years old when Shane was born, and Maureen was ten. Both of them were excited to have a baby brother, of course, but Henry took the role of big brother very seriously. He was always carrying him around, loving on him, feeding him, changing his diapers whenever his mom would let him, all that. He did the same for Erin when she was born—he just loved babies.

And he still loves them, of course. He just wishes that they were a little less annoying these days. At thirteen, Shane could be the mouthiest kid that Henry has ever met sometimes, and Erin was just a typical twelve-year-old girl.

"So," Elaine says, looking at her son as he stands next to her and helps her with the dishes, "Who's the girl?"

He frowns and looks over at her, "What do you mean?" He asks, letting out a huff of a laugh, "I didn't mention a girl."

"You're off in la-la land, Henry." She says, handing him a wet plate to dry. Even on her birthday, she still washed the dishes—Maureen had offered to do this part for her, but Elaine argued that it was she and Henry's tradition. "It's either a girl or something bad has happened."

Henry sighs, drying off the plate somewhat mindlessly. "Okay, yeah," he says, "There's a girl."

Elaine smiles, "You gonna tell me about her?"

Henry looks over at his mom who is wearing a somewhat smug look on her face, "Honestly?" He says, "I just want to keep this to me right now. It's special, and I don't want it getting to dad or Maureen that I have someone I care about." He admits.

Elaine looks over at him and frowns the same way Henry did a moment ago, "Why don't you want them knowing?"

"You know they'll make a fuss." He says, "They always find something to do that with whenever I'm home, but I just don't want it to be over her. I really like this girl."

Elaine looks back at her dishes and sighs, quietly continuing to wash the remainder, "Well," she says, "I respect that. Would you be willing to talk to me about her if we pretend I forgot to buy ice cream to go with the cake so we can go to the grocery store and talk in private about her?"

He laughs a little, turning his body and leaning his hip against the countertop as he dries a cup, "You're sly."

She smirks, "Your father isn't the only one who can tell a good story."

Henry sets the cup down, "Oh, do we not have any ice cream?" He says loudly enough for anyone in the house to hear him.

"What?!" Elaine plays along, "I thought I got some. Let's run to the grocery real quick."

She tells the others what happened just in case they didn't hear, and they were off in Henry's Bronco to the local store. "Her name's Elizabeth." He starts, "Elizabeth Adams."

"Elizabeth…" Elaine says in the passenger seat, "What a pretty name. How did you meet her?"

He laughs, "Okay, so, don't laugh at me," he starts and shakes his head, "But I met her two nights ago at her intramural soccer game." He explains, briefly looking over to be sure Elaine wasn't about to laugh, "She played so good. John dragged me to the game when I didn't want to go but, Mom, I'm so glad I did. I watched her the entire time and just knew I had to talk to her. Something in me told me I couldn't leave without talking to her." He says, "And then after the game, I asked her—well, she actually kind of asked me, but I was trying to ask her to go to dinner with me. And we did. And then we sat in my truck and talked for hours and hours and—" he cuts himself off, looking over at his mom who was just smiling over there. "What?"

She just laughs and shakes her head, "Henry," she coos, "You've known her for two days?"

He shrugs, "Almost two days."

"And you're already this head over heels about her?"

He nods, "Yeah," he admits, "But if you saw her and got to know her…you'd see why, Mom. I know you would."

She smiles at him, "Tell me more about this Elizabeth."

February 14, 1988 | Elizabeth

"Elizabeth Adams?"

"Yes," She answers the phone, "Who's calling?"

"You have a delivery in the mail room that needs picked up as soon as possible."

She hadn't gotten any mail before here—no one ever wrote to her or anything, so why would she have gotten mail now? "A delivery? Like…mail?"

"No, it's a different delivery." The man says, then hangs up.

She scoffs at the audacity of him, then hangs her own phone up and slides from her bed. She puts her boots on and grabs a coat, making her way down the stairs from her dorm and across campus in the cold and windy weather. Some rain was spitting on her as she trekked to the mail room, but her curiosity had been piqued. She needed to know what kind of delivery this was.

"I'm Elizabeth Adams." She says, noticing the counter full of vases with dozens and dozens of red roses filling them. "There's a delivery for me?" She asks, tucking her hands into her pockets when she thinks about all these people getting flowers. She hadn't even heard from Henry this morning and only briefly got to talk with him last night. After that conversation was so short last night, she wondered if he was having second thoughts about her, but she hadn't had the courage to ask.

The guy lazily gets up from his chair and walks the row of vases, thumbing through the cards on each of them before finally stopping, "Adams?" He asks, and when Elizabeth confirms, she's surprised to see him pick the vase up and bring it over to her.

He doesn't say anything else, so she simply takes the card from the flowers and studies the envelope it was in. It didn't say anything on the outside other than "Elizabeth Adams," and on the back it had the name of the company where the flowers were delivered from.

She goes over to the common area and sets the vase down on a table, freeing her hands up to open the envelope. When she rips into it, she reads the card:

"Elizabeth,

Thomas Aquinas once said, 'Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.'

The reasonable person in me (and the reasonable person in my mother) tells me that this isn't right. A human surely can't feel this strongly about someone in just a few days. But Aquinas even said that we live according to sense, and every sense in my body has told me that you are heaven-sent.

I'm sorry I couldn't be there today, but I hope this helps.

Oh, and will you be my valentine?

Xoxo, Henry

P.S. my phone number for here is on the back of the card."

When she finishes reading it a second time through, just to be sure she wasn't hallucinating that he had asked her to be his valentine and that he feels so strongly about her, she stands there in shock. The card was shaking in her hand, and she realizes that her whole body is shaking. Unable to place the reason why, she simply shoves the card back into the envelope and grabs the vase, walking as fast as she could back to her dorm.

She shoves through the door and Amy scoffs at her, "Why are you always in such a hurry, Adams?" She snips.

"Amy," she says, startled from the girl suddenly appearing in their room when she hadn't been in there all day or last night. She's frozen in place, the vase making her arm tired from holding it out so awkwardly away from her big coat. "I need to make a phone call."

"Go somewhere else, then." She says, "I have a headache."

Elizabeth sighs, knowing that the headache was probably created from an overload of alcohol and God knows what else last night. She briefly thinks about arguing with her but decides she doesn't want to waste the time. Instead, she goes downstairs again and finds the hall phone, sitting on the couch with the vase on the floor beside her. She dials his number and after only two rings, someone picks up, "McCord residence," a woman's voice says.

She's startled, and she doesn't know why she didn't think about one of his family members answering the phone. "Oh, I—hi." She says shyly, trying to gather some coherent thoughts so that she doesn't sound like a complete ditz. "I'm calling for Henry?"

"Who's asking?" She says, and Elizabeth hears a hand cover the mouthpiece of the phone, "It's someone asking for you."

"Give me the phone, Maureen." She can hear Henry's voice in the background and some shuffling from the hand being over the mouthpiece, "I'm serious, Maureen! Give me the phone!"

"No, tell me who it is."

"You're not the boss of me."

"Just tell me who it is and I'll give you the phone."

"It's none of your business."

Elizabeth is listening to them bicker back and forth, just blinking her eyes and wondering if she should call back. But then she thinks about how awkward it will be if this Maureen woman picks up again, so she decides to stay on the line.

"Maureen! Give me the damn phone!" Henry yells loudly enough that Elizabeth even jumps, and finally she hears the hand shuffle again while Maureen mumbles something about him not having to cuss her. "Elizabeth?" He asks, finally having possession of the phone.

"Henry," she says happily, smiling and biting her lip. She catches herself doing that and makes herself stop, "Who was that?"

"My sister Maureen." He explains, "She's always felt the need to control who I talk to." He says, raising his voice clearly so that he could be heard by all in that household, she's sure of it. "Did she give you a hard time?"

"She just asked who I was and I asked for you." Elizabeth explains, "I didn't know you had a sister."

"I have two. And a brother." Henry says, "Wait here just a minute, okay? I'm going to go upstairs and get to my phone in my room." She hears the clicking of the phone and then the picking back up, "You there?"

"I'm here." She says, moving her gaze to stare at the beautiful dozen of roses again.

"Good," Henry says, "So…did you get my delivery?"

"I did." She coos, unable to keep herself from smiling. "They're beautiful, Henry, but—did you write that card?"

He laughs, "Of course I wrote that card. Why do you ask?"

"God, you could be an author." She says, looking at the card in her other hand, flipping it around to view the words over and over again. "You quote Aquinas." She didn't mean it like an accusation, but she also didn't really know how she meant it. It came out like a statement, she thinks, and she feels an awkward silence overcome their conversation.

"Yeah?" Henry finally says.

She chuckles, "I've never met a guy who quotes Thomas Aquinas."

Another silence. "Is that a good thing?"

"It's refreshing." She whispers, genuinely meaning that. "I, um…I feel the same way, though." She admits against her better judgement, "I feel like…I feel like everything in me is telling me that I shouldn't be falling so fast for you. And that it's ridiculous to even feel this way at all. But that's just the rational part of my brain trying to make sense of what my senses already know. And I know that—" She stops herself, swallowing the words "I love you" back down. She wasn't ready for that yet, and how could she truly know that she meant them? She might feel like she loves him now, but she didn't want to toy with his feelings. It was way too soon to make that call. "And I know that I would love to be your valentine, Henry McCord."

She can hear him smile on the other end, "Good," he says softly, sounding as though he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "I feel like the luckiest guy in the entire universe."

Smirking, she twiddles the phone cord again and thinks briefly about Isabelle's mockery of her for doing this yesterday, "I wish you were here." She blurts out.

"Me too." Henry says. She hears people yelling in the background again but can't hear what anyone's saying. It's very muffled through what she imagines to be his door and walls.

"Everything okay?" Elizabeth asks.

He sighs, "You can hear them, can't you?"

She laughs quietly, "Yeah," she says, thinking back to the absolute silence she always had for every phone call she made while at home with Will. Her aunt and uncle both worked during the days whenever Elizabeth and Will were both home from boarding school, and Will would always go outside and ride his bike or find other trouble to get into while Elizabeth would sit inside and read or talk to Yousif about their upcoming debate competitions.

"I'm so sorry." He says, and she suddenly wonders if he feels embarrassed.

"Don't apologize," she says, "It's okay."

"They're just so loud."

She smiles sadly, shrugging, "Sometimes loud is good." She says, suddenly aware of her own surroundings and how quiet it was here, too. The sounds of her late-teenage years. "I don't mind loudness."

He laughs quietly, "Well, that's a good thing because my family might be one of the loudest in Pittsburgh. Between my sister Maureen always bossing everyone around, Dad yelling at whoever is lucky enough to be in the same room with him, and the other two always bickering…we're loud over here."

"You didn't mention your mom." Elizabeth points out. "Is she not loud?"

She can hear him smile again, the way your teeth separate from your lips and how it makes that sticky noise. "Mom's not loud necessarily, but she's kind of obnoxious about things. She won't leave you alone. She's loud in her own way if that makes sense."

She smiles, "It does." She says, then sighs a little, "I'll let you get back to them. Thank you for sending me these, Henry."

"Thank you for being my valentine," he answers, "I'll be back on campus later tonight. Do you want to try to hang out?"

She thinks about her chemistry test and makes herself reply, "No," and then sighs, "I have a chemistry test tomorrow and I have to be focused. And God knows any time I'm around you that I'm not focused at all."

He chuckles, "Okay," he whispers, "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow." She coos.