A/N: Here's a short-ish update for y'all. Finals are OFFICIALLY here, so it might be a few days before I am able to give a new update! (Wish me luck...these papers are killing me :'))

Hope you enjoy!

March 10, 1988 | Henry

It took them a little too long to leave that overlook, but they finally managed to get each other into Henry's truck and load the blankets in, too. The drive back to the house was, well, awkward. They didn't know what to say after seeing each other in this new way, after already confessing their love for one another. What do you say when it feels like everything has already been spilled? What do you say when you've seen the woman, who you think you might marry, half-naked and writhing underneath the touch of your hand? What do you say when you know her lips have been places you never guessed they'd go tonight? How do you even look at each other without giggling and blushing like two schoolkids?

But, then, she touches his hand from across the seat. She never looks at him, keeping her own eyes on the road in the passenger's throne, but when he glances over at her she's wearing this big, sweet grin. It makes his heart feel like pounding from his chest.

When they pull up to the house, Henry gets out and opens the door for Elizabeth with no hesitation, and they make their way up the steps quietly while holding each other's hands. "Everyone's probably asleep." Henry whispers to her as he quietly turns the doorknob after unlocking the top lock.

Elizabeth simply nods at him, staying quiet as they slowly make their way in and carefully shut the door behind them. "Where were you two?"

"Shane!" Henry hisses, jumping and turning around when Shane starts talking from the dark spot in the living room. "What are you doing up?" He asks, looking at the clock on the wall—it was already almost midnight and they had school tomorrow.

He shrugs, "What are you doing up?"

Elizabeth is still holding his hand, but she's also standing there completely dumbfounded as she watches this unfold, "My girlfriend and I were out on a date. I'm in college now, I don't have a curfew like you." Henry explains quietly, trying to hold his anger back toward his sneaky little brother. "Get upstairs and go to sleep."

"You're not the boss here, just because your girlfriend is here doesn't make you some big—"

"Shane." Henry snips, letting go of Elizabeth's hand and walking toward him, "Get in—"

"Boys?" Elaine's coming down the stairs, "I thought I heard the door. Are you two just getting back in?"

Elizabeth looks up at Elaine and her face blushes, and Henry just thanks God that it's dark enough in here that his mom wouldn't be able to see it. She would know, otherwise, "We went out to the Duquesne overlook and played a few games of cards." He says, hating that he was lying to his mom. Had Shane been in bed like he was supposed to be, they probably never would've gotten caught. "We were just watching the lights on the water and fell asleep for a little. When we woke up, we realized how late it was." He's suddenly aware of how much he sounds as though he's overselling this, so he just shuts up and takes Elizabeth's hand again, hearing her swallow the lump in her throat beside him.

"Shane," Elaine suddenly realizes, again, that he's up, "It's almost midnight! You have school tomorrow, young man, get in bed!"

"I'm not a baby!" Shane rushes across the living room and goes to the stairs, brushing past Henry's mother and hitting her with his shoulder. Henry fumes at that, thinking how much Shane could be like their father sometimes. It infuriated him—their mom did so much for them, the least all of the kids could do is treat her with respect. However, Elaine just ignored it, letting it slide to keep the peace.

"You two should probably get to bed, too." Elaine says in a softer tone, but he notices that it also sounds exhausted and disheartened after the little display that Shane put on.

"Of course, Mrs. McCord," Elizabeth pipes up, nodding, "We were just headed there."

Elaine smiles and turns to go back upstairs, stopping and looking back, "Goodnight," she says before going back up, not waiting to hear Elizabeth and Henry both tell her goodnight back.

When Henry hears the bedroom door shut, he turns to Elizabeth and smiles, "Your face was more red than a tomato," he says, "You're lucky my mom couldn't see you."

"You think she couldn't?" Elizabeth asks exasperatedly, touching her cheeks and feeling the warmth, "God, Henry, I know I almost blew it. But when she told us to get to bed—well, I just have never felt so ashamed in my life. It's like she knew what we did."

"She doesn't know what we did." Henry assures.

Elizabeth laughs, "I don't know about Mrs. McCord, but my mom had this weird, second-sense about both me and Will. She knew whenever we did something even kind of wrong, but she wouldn't always tell us until later. Sometimes I think she knew we did other stuff, but she just never mentioned it." When she gets quiet and her eyes focus on something past his shoulder, he just puts his hands on her arms and rubs them gently.

"Let's go to bed." He whispers, kissing her forehead.

March 10, 1988 | Elizabeth

"She doesn't know what we did." Henry assured her after she admitted to feeling ashamed.

She laughed in reply, "I don't know about Mrs. McCord, but my mom had this weird, second sense about both me and Will. She knew whenever we did something even kind of wrong, but she wouldn't always tell us until later. Sometimes I think she knew we did other stuff, but she just never mentioned it."

Her mind drifted off to the time that she and Will went down to the gas station when her parents were out buying a new couch. They'd taken her mom's car, but of course Elizabeth was only fifteen and not old enough to drive on her own, especially with another child in the car. It was one of the good days of the summer before their parents died, one when they weren't bickering back and forth about something ridiculous. Will had mentioned that he really wanted an ice cream sandwich, and Elizabeth said she could provide. So they drove.

However, when their parents came home with a new couch, Suzanne Adams noticed one little thing—the car had been moved. She'd come in and asked Elizabeth about it immediately. "Did you or Will move the car?"

Elizabeth had lied to her, but she's sure that her mom didn't buy it even though she didn't push the matter further. She'd just told her, "Remember that you can get in a lot of trouble if you or Will are driving without a license," and left her room, shutting the door behind her.

She was startled from her memories when Henry said, "Let's go to bed," and pressed his lips to her forehead. It made her jump just slightly, and she wondered how long she'd been staring off in the distance prior to that. When she nods, he takes her hand and leads her up the staircase, and they go to their respective rooms for the evening after a quick kiss and a quiet "I love you" exchanged between the two of them.

March 11, 1988 | Elizabeth

The next morning, Elizabeth is woken suddenly when she hears footsteps plopping down the hall. She looks at the alarm clock on the side table and sees it's only 6:00, but she knows that Shane and Erin are probably getting ready for school, and Patrick is probably getting ready to go to work, and Elaine is probably getting ready to drop the kids off and head to work herself.

She briefly thinks to herself that this is some way to start the spring break—being woken up at 6:00 in the morning by loud people. But then she wonders when the last time she was in a home like this and heard enough footsteps to wake her up? She sits up in the bed and closes her eyes, wrapping the blankets up around her chest and listening to Elaine digging around in the kitchen, clanging some pots and pans. She listens to a shower running across the hall, and then she hears Erin singing "Walk Like An Egyptian" by The Bangles and assumes that she's the one in the shower. "Henry!" She hears seconds later, and then a knock on his door. She opens her eyes and frowns, wondering why Patrick would be knocking on his door so early—he had no reason to be awake. "I need my ties out of there."

"Seriously?" She hears Henry from the room over. Although he was mumbling, it was loud enough to hear his tone, and that it was an angry one. "Your ties?"

She hears the door open and hears the two of them bickering about Patrick moving his ties to Henry's closet. Henry says something about the fact that he comes home from college enough to keep his room to himself, but Patrick sputters something else about it being his house and how he can put Henry's bed on the damn room if he wants. She stops listening when their voices just keep going on and on—she figures she'll hear enough bickering throughout the week without listening to this round.

March 13, 1988 | Henry

"Now, Sunday dinners are…well, they can be…" He was stuttering and trying to find some way around saying they're a complete chaotic mess to Elizabeth. She'd spent the last few days here without meeting Maureen and her family, somehow, and he just knew Maureen would have something smart to say today. He was trying to prepare her the best he could.

"Just spit it out, Henry," Elizabeth murmurs, sitting next to him in his truck. They'd just come back from their church service, and it had been Elizabeth's first one in a long time. Henry already knew she was a little edgier than normal just because of that.

He sighs, putting the truck in park in front of his house, "They can be chaos. Complete chaos." He admits, "Especially with Maureen. I've—"

"You've warned me about Maureen quite a bit, Henry. How bad could she possibly be?"

He just laughs and looks over at her, turning the truck off with his mouth hanging open, trying to find words, "Well," he finally says, trying to hold back more laughing, "She, um…she's like a watchdog. Or something like that." He explains, "She'll find your weakest point and do tap dancing on it first, then she'll break you and find your next weakest point. She's always been like that."

Although he had prepared her for the worst, Maureen was seemingly on her best behavior today. Her daughter Amanda, however, was stealing all the attention—she was fussy the entire meal. Maureen had been mostly distracted with her while the rest of their family worked away on their pork chops, and while Elizabeth was the victim of being asked what felt like hundreds of questions. At one point, Henry finally cleared his throat, "Guys," he had said, "I didn't bring her here to be interrogated."

"It's okay, Henry," Elizabeth had answered, and he just looked at her with what he knew to be one of his most bewildered looks, wondering why she doesn't up and run. He certainly would up and run if he were in her shoes. "I don't mind." She said before reaching under the table, placing her hand on his thigh gently. He finally loosened up and just listened as they grilled her on where she was from, who her parents were—which he could tell was a somewhat painful subject for her, but he didn't see the need to stop it since he could definitely hold her own if she wanted—what she was studying at UVA, all those sorts of things. At one point they switched over to talk about boarding school, which brought them to the topic of Will, who was still at a boarding school in Maryland. When the subject moved to Will, Amanda began her fussing again, but Henry announced he would get her this time.

He stands up and walks over to the baby swing that his mom kept here for whenever Maureen would bring Amanda over. She was red from crying so much, and he scoops her up into his arms and bounces her for just a few moments before she stops crying. "You just wanted your uncle Henry, didn't you?" He coos to her while Elaine asks Elizabeth questions about this Salisbury School her brother was at. He hears it get silent, though, and he looks over at the table to see almost everyone looking at him.

"What?" He asks, looking at Maureen first since he always felt more defensive against her. When she cracked a smile, it almost made him shudder. "Maureen cracking a smile?" He thinks to himself, then looks over at his mom who was also smiling, but that wasn't unusual. He looks to Elizabeth who had her chin resting in the palm of her hand, her elbow digging into the table next to her plate as her eyes were focusing on him. He's pretty sure he sees a little bit of blush across her cheeks, and he just smiles and looks down at Amanda, "It's like you've never seen a man take care of a baby before."

"We haven't." Maureen says pointedly, looking at Gene first, then at Patrick. Both react defensively, but they couldn't get a word in before Elaine did.

"Henry has always taken to babies so well." She says, "Remember when Shane was born, Patrick?" She asks, looking to her husband who was still annoyed over what Maureen said. He wasn't really paying attention, but he said yes anyway. "Henry kept saying that was his baby." Elaine explains.

Henry was still bouncing Amanda this entire time, listening to his mother ramble on about how Shane was his baby until Erin came along, and then both of them were his babies. Plural. He didn't have much to say about that other than he really just liked babies.

March 13, 1988 | Elizabeth

Elizabeth was biting her lip behind her hand, and something inside her felt like it was…burning? She couldn't quite give the feeling a label—but it was a familiar feeling, yet different somehow. The other time she can remember feeling this kind of way was on Christmas morning in 1978. She was only ten years old, but she was pretty sure that the big present she saw that morning from Santa was hers—and she was pretty sure it would be a bike underneath that paper. The desire to rip into that paper was so strong, but her parents insisted she wait until Will woke up to open her presents. That was one of the times she felt this kind of burning somewhere inside her stomach—maybe it was yearning?

While Elaine was explaining how Henry used to feed Erin most of her bottles—her one and only bottle baby, she added—Elizabeth was taking shallower and shallower breaths. Something about watching this man that she's pretty sure she loves soothe this upset baby made a switch turn on inside her.

After she caught herself taking her shallowest breaths, she tried to steady her breathing as Elaine went into a story about Henry changing a monster of a diaper when he was only nine. She was half-listening, half-fearful that someone would ask her to hold Amanda next. While watching Henry bounce that baby and hold her and love on her was great and all, the idea of holding one herself terrified her. She was only three when Will was born, so she didn't have much experience with babies. She liked them, but liked them most when someone else was in charge of them.

As if he was reading her mind, Henry walks over to her side and holds Amanda out from his body a little, "You want to hold her?"

Elizabeth looks at Amanda, then up at Henry, and then over at Maureen. "I—don't know…"

Henry scoots beside her, "Here," he says as Elaine and Maureen were standing up from the table, starting to clear all the dishes while Patrick and Shane started bickering about someone who plays baseball for the Atlanta Braves. "Put your legs over on the side of your chair," he instructs, and she turns so that her back is to him, "Hold your arms like you are squishing a soccer ball, then turn your arms up," he explains.

She snorts, "Soccer balls don't really squi—"

"It's just an analogy, Miss Math Major." He teases.

She laughs and does as he says, suddenly feeling a little more relaxed. Not for long, though, because he was raising Amanda up over her head and placing her in Elizabeth's arms from behind. He slides his hands carefully out from underneath Amanda's body, letting her weight fully shift into Elizabeth's arms. "She's sound asleep," Elizabeth whispers, mostly in shock since she was just crying mere minutes ago.

"I have the special touch." Henry says from behind her, and she's pretty sure he's probably smirking just judging from the tone of his voice, but she's too scared to move and look back at him to see. He's scooting the chair behind her, and his arms wrap around her body. One hand is palming Amanda's soft head of hair, the other is touching her socked foot. "See? Not so bad."

"Easy for you to say," Elizabeth replies immediately, "You're the one with the special touch."

"Well, she's still asleep, so maybe you have it too."

"Or maybe she's just re-charging."

Henry laughs from behind her, and she feels his chin resting on her shoulder. She briefly peels her eyes off the baby long enough to turn her head and find his face right there next to hers, "Babies aren't that scary."

She looks at him and her breath hitches, and then she laughs softly and turns back to Amanda, "Henry McCord, surely you aren't talking about babies a month into this relationship. Right?"

He kisses her cheek and lets his lips linger next to her skin as he whispers, "Maybe I am."

The goosebumps on her arm immediately rise, and she just chuckles quietly, "Well, I don't know if I can promise kids," she admits, "And besides, it's a bit early to be talking about that. Don't you think?"

He shrugs next to her, his hands still playing with Amanda's head and foot, "I think you're the one who I want to spend this life with, so…no. I don't. But I won't push it if you don't want—"

"I—" she interrupts him, turning and picking Amanda up to hand back to him. "I, um, I need to…" she couldn't think of anything because her head was feeling a little swimmy. "I think I just need some air." She finally says, going with honesty.

She walks out to the front steps, shutting the door behind her and immediately starting to shiver. "Some spring break," she thinks, wondering what the temperature is today—it can't be over freezing. She looks around and sees the breath in front of her, suddenly glad she's remembering to breathe even though her head feels like it's spinning off in a far away land. "Kids?" She thinks to herself. She'd just met this man a month ago. Moving fast felt fine until now—now they were talking about real futures together.

It's not that she didn't want a future with him, necessarily, it's just that she's been mostly unable to imagine her future since her parents died. Experiencing death at such an early age can apparently do that to you, she's realized over the last few years after doing her own personal research on the topic some late nights in the library. It's hard to imagine yourself older than your parents, and Elizabeth's were still in their late thirties. Their ages didn't feel all that far away when she really thought about it and adding kids into the mix just felt selfish. If she were to die at a young age, too, her kids would just be left to deal with that.

"Hey," Henry says, walking up behind her.

When she turns, she feels the chill from a tear dripping down her cheek. She quickly wipes at it and tucks her hands back under her arms, trying to keep them from getting too cold. "I just needed a minute." She states.

He moves to stand beside her, and she can tell he wants to put his arms around her. He's awkwardly standing there, but she doesn't make the first move. She's in too lucid of a state to do much of anything. "I—" he starts but clears his throat and shoves his hands down further in his pants pockets. "If you don't…if you don't see a future with me…"

"That's not it at all, Henry," she whispers, keeping her gaze fixed forward and closing her eyes, letting out an exasperated breath. "It's a lot to explain. And I'll explain it one day. Not today." She breathes, "Let's just hold off on that particular conversation."

"The future conversation? I don't want to continue this if you don't see a futu—"

She interrupts him by turning and kissing his lips, standing on her toes to be able to reach him. When she pulls away, she slowly opens her eyes and locks in with his, "I do see a future with you," she whispers, "The conversation about kids is one for another time. I promise I'll explain. Just not here and now." She looks up at him, hoping that he wasn't upset. "Okay?"

He smiles sadly at her, "Okay," he whispers, wrapping an arm around her body and pulling her into him, "The worst part about this little…whatever…it's not really a fight…" She snorts and lays her cheek against his chest, hoping that it would warm up against his body temperature. "Anyway, the worst part is that I actually got scared."

"What?" Elizabeth asks, furrowing her brow but keeping her head where it was, "What do you mean you got scared?"

"When you walked out," Henry says, his voice soft and somewhat distant, "I thought I'd pushed too far. I thought that this was maybe not going to work—that maybe you didn't feel what I felt." He explains, "And it really…I don't know what else to say other than that it scared me."

She snuggles her face into him and leans further toward him, her arms tucked up between their bodies while his are wrapped around her, "Do I know that this will work out and that we are each other's futures?" She asks, "No, I don't. But…I like to think of you in the future I imagine." She admits quietly, closing her eyes, "I like to dream about what it might be like to move into our first apartment together or pick out wedding rings. And I am always left happy with those thoughts, Henry, I really am."

He lays his cheek down on her head, sighing, "I feel the same way." He admits, "Except I just can't imagine a future without you in it."

She swallows hard, feeling that tightness in her chest when she hears him say future again. How can she explain what he'll probably never understand—that she doesn't feel like her future will be that lengthy?