A/N: Hello all! Sorry for the lengthier amount of time between updates; I jumped straight from the fire and into the frying pan (out of school and into work for the summer). Without spoiling anything for you, let me preface by saying I don't do this often and I'm slightly sorry about it...but it's a nice little switch up. And it'll give me an incentive to write a little faster :-)

Hope you enjoy!

July 1, 1988 | Elizabeth

Although Henry is a pretty religious man, Elizabeth can't think of many times that she's prayed this hard with this much meaning.

She had been down to needing to empty that one, final box of her dorm items for the past few weeks. While emptying that box, she managed to find her calendar that she hadn't paid any attention to and hung it on the wall, looking through the month of June before flipping to July. The house looks fairly bare still, but that's to be expected—neither of them have lived on their own before outside of a dorm room where kitchen items and furniture isn't exactly a necessity. They were living off one frying pan, one pot, paper plates, and a pair of bean bag chairs that they'd found being thrown out during UVA's move-out day. And truthfully, they were fine with that, what more could a young couple need when they have each other?

Oh, money. That would be nice.

Elizabeth had talked to her Aunt Patty about the inheritance she was supposed to receive from her parents' estate, yet nothing had really been done about it yet. "It's a slow process, Elizabeth," her uncle had said when he answered the phone, after being asked, again, what was going on with the money.

Even the money wasn't her main source of worry driving her to pray this hard. As she's sitting on this high, scratchy table, waiting for the doctor to come in, she's checking her watch while mindlessly begging the powers that be, whoever they may be, that somehow her body was just stressed the whole month of June. That somehow, the stress of moving in with her boyfriend had caught up with her, and the stress of a new job at Sears where she had to deal with too many cranky old ladies…stress, that was what caused her body to completely skip her period during the month of June. Surely not because she and Henry had spent much of May christening their new house. Right? Damn the calendar that had been in that box since she moved out of her dorm.

When the doctor okayed her to go and told her she would receive her test results Monday, she thinks about the dreadful weekend she will be spending at Sears while wondering what her life is going to look like if she is pregnant. And how the hell will she ever begin to tell Henry—and Henry's family? Thankfully he's been away all week for that ROTC training that they were both dreading, so he hasn't even been able to tell that she's been worried most of the week.

The drive to work was excruciating—all she could think about was how scared she always was to hold Henry's niece, Amanda, every time she's been around her. Although she hasn't been around her much, especially recently, she watched the amount of times Maureen cleaned spit-up off her own body somewhere, and how many times someone was changing Amanda's diaper, and how much attention the baby needed at all times.

At work, she's mostly just trying to mind her own business. She's supposed to walk around and ask customers what she can help them with, but all the clothes in this ladies' department feel like they're smothering her today.

While she's walking around and fixing hangers to all turn the right way, an older woman approaches her, "Miss," she says, "I need to see if you have this dress in a size eight."

Elizabeth looks at the dress and shakes her head, trying to make herself look genuinely sorry for her next words, "I am so sorry, ma'am, but that dress has been almost sold out since we got it in on the truck. We're supposed to receive a new shipment of dresses tomorrow."

"Well, that just won't do." The woman snaps back, "I need this dress for tomorrow morning for my ladies' tea at the country club—we're supposed to wear red in support of the gays." She explains, huffing and shifting her weight, "I saw this dress in this month's magazine and this is the only store that has advertised a red dress suitable for a tea. I need you to go to the back and find my size in this dress."

Elizabeth was taken aback for a moment, biting her tongue as the woman curled her nose when she so easily let the words "the gays" roll of her tongue. She takes a deep breath and forces her customer service-mind to turn on, "Ma'am," she says in a new, more cheerful tone, "I know for sure that we don't have this dress in your size, this is the last one of them." She says, nodding to the size zero dress the woman was holding. "However, I know that we do have a few other red dresses in your size. I can help you find some of them if you would like."

"I wanted this dress." The woman says, shoving it up on the rack. Elizabeth, again, is biting her tongue—she wants to scream about how little of an issue this dress is in the grand scheme of life, but instead she just nods.

"I know, and I really do apologize." She answers, picking up the dress and hooking the hanger over her index and middle finger, extending her arm, "If you want to walk this way, I'll show you some other red dresses."

After a long hour of listening to the woman complain about the dress selection, whine about the organization of this tea at the country club, and even criticize the very cause that this ladies' tea was raising awareness for, the woman finally settled on a red dress that was just a hair too big. Even though it was a little big for her, she raved about how much brighter it'll surely be than Carol's dress, and how she does have the perfect shoes to "outshine Kathy's stripper heels."

At the end of this workday, she could reward her diplomacy in no better way than by letting herself go home and crumple onto their mattress that still was laying on the floor. Even dinner didn't interest her. She simply laid there and listened to the quiet that she had been so used to prior to knowing Henry, and her heart suddenly ached for him.

If he were here, he would've already figured out what was going on. He would've already asked all the right questions, they maybe would've fought about it some, and he would be holding her and telling her that things will turn out okay. He would probably quote Aquinas or say something about Socrates. He would talk her down off this ledge that she feels she's on in her mind, and her life wouldn't feel like it was spinning out of control so badly.

Tonight, she will sleep it off—hopefully—but tomorrow, he will be back, and he will tell her that it'll all be okay.

July 2, 1988 | Henry

He had been told that the military's technology was pretty advanced, but he had no idea just how advanced the bomb mechanisms were in these F-18s that he learned all about this week. On the bus ride back to Charlottesville with all his fellow ROTC members, he was leaned against the window and looking out, staring off into outer space while all the other people laughed and joked about how many bodies they collected during their simulations. Henry found none of it funny—he had the highest kill rate of all of them, yet he felt sick to his stomach whenever he thought about that. He couldn't get up and make snide comments like those guys were doing.

In fact, one of the actual flight instructors from the Marines came up to him and pulled him aside, patting him on the back before telling him how much of a promising future he had in the Marines. "You have a level head on your shoulders, McCord." He'd said, nodding in approval, "We need more of that, especially flying these planes. The Marines will be lucky to have you."

It still made Henry sick thinking about his body count, so he shut his eyes and tried to think about Elizabeth. He'd gotten to talk on the phone with her on Wednesday when they were halfway through the week-long training, but that was already a few days ago. Even going a day without talking to her seemed like it could actually be months.

"Babe," Henry said, "You sound…I don't know…jumpy…?"

"I'm just, um, I'm trying to make a grocery list."

He knew better than that—Elizabeth was definitely the list-making type, but she was also the type who was constantly making a grocery list. She never had to sit down and think about what they needed. As soon as the last drop of milk was poured from the carton, she would add it to the list. Sometimes he jokingly feels like that's what they fight over the most in their relationship—Henry forgetting to add something to the grocery list as soon as it's gone.

"You're sure that's it?" He prodded.

"Yep." She'd answered.

He wondered what was going on with her this week, and a slight twinge of jealousy rolled through him as the thought crossed his mind of another man being in the house. Of course she wouldn't do that to him, but his mind wasn't all that stable right now anyway. He let himself delve into that thought, but then the image of John's black and blue jaw came to his mind, and he smiled with his eyes still closed and his chin resting in his hand as the bus bumped along the interstate. With that image, he confirmed that she would never do that to him—she's his and his only.

"McCord!" He hears yelling, and he jumps to realize that he had fallen asleep at some point.

"Yes, Lieutenant Colonel Sullivan." Henry answers, grabbing his backpack from between his feet and jumping to stand and salute in a hurry. "Sorry, Sir," he says before the officer lets him relax.

Gene Sullivan was a hell of a man—intimidating, but one of the best people Henry could've imagined being his mentor in this program. "You'll have plenty of time to sleep when you're dead, McCord." He says and claps him on the shoulder as Henry is walking into the aisle, trying to hurry off the bus to save himself from further embarrassment. He knows better than to fall asleep like that—he's supposed to stay alert and vigilant at all times, and here he is sound asleep.

"Yes sir," Henry says as he makes his way to the front of the bus behind Colonel Sullivan.

When the men make it down the steps of the bus, Colonel Sullivan turns to him and pats him on the arm once more, "Enjoy a weekend of freedom, McCord." He says before walking off.

At first, the statement confuses Henry. "A weekend of freedom?" He thinks to himself, then looks up at the large UVA sign and sees the date, remembering that, of course, it's Independence Day this Monday.

After he gets his duffle bag from the back of the bus, he walks to his Bronco parked on the other end of the parking lot. Glancing at his watch, he sees that they arrived about three hours before they were scheduled to, and he'll be able to surprise give this little surprise to Elizabeth—and hopefully cheer her up from whatever she was so down about on the phone.

He pulls up to the curb, opting to not park beside her bright red Minata in the driveway in hopes of sneaking up to the door. Rarely does he get to pull of any surprise, especially with Elizabeth Adams. She has some sort of sense just like his mom does (maybe even a better one, if he's being honest), and she can immediately detect when someone is around. Over and over, he's wondered why that uncanny spy sense failed her with John that night a few weeks back—why that was the one time she didn't feel uneasy about a situation that could've potentially harmed her. He catches himself thinking about that too much, though, and has made himself stop on more than one occasion.

Leaving his backpack and duffle in his truck, he sneaks up the side of the driveway out of the view from the door and front windows, scraping his back against the wall as he walks sideways toward the front door. He makes it to the corner, ready to turn and view the front door, but he's suddenly kicking himself for not coming up with a better plan. He doesn't want to just come in—he'd scare her. But just knocking felt…lame.

However, he had no time to think further about what to do because he hears the front door shut. He's stuck there now, he can't do anything but hopefully not terrify her.

She walks by the corner and jumps, rearing her arm back to sock him in the face, but he grabs her wrist mid-air with his eyes like saucers. "Elizabeth! It's me!" He tries to spit out, hoping it didn't simply sound like a garbled mess in his panic. He saw the bruise on John's jaw—he knew how much her punches packed.

"What the hell, Henry!" She shrieks, jerking her arm back and away from him, still holding her hand in a fist as she stares him down, "What are you doing here? You weren't supposed to be back until tonight."

He smiles sheepishly, "I was trying to surprise you. We got back a little earlier than expected."

She sighs and he gets a better look at her face now that it wasn't covered in fear and anger, and he sees that she looks exhausted. He steps to her and takes her hand, and her breathing becomes unsteady. "I'm glad you're back." She says, and he can tell that the whisper she's using is so that her voice doesn't crack, even as she's looking down at their feet.

"Elizabeth, what's going on, babe?" He asks softly, tilting her chin upwards with two of his fingers, "You sounded panicked on the phone and now this…what is it?"

She bats her eyes and he watches as her breath hitches when she tries to fill her lungs, "You have to promise me one thing." She says, looking straight into his eyes.

Normally when he looks into her eyes, he feels a sense of peace and calmness in there. As cliché as it sometimes feels, he thinks of her blue eyes like a calm piece of the ocean—stretching for miles and having the depth of, well, the ocean. Today, though, the blue is overrun by an undertone of gray, and it literally looks like a storm is brewing in them. The little bit of water that is trying to spill over really solidifies this image for him. "What am I promising?" He asks, running his thumb over the back of her hand.

She looks down at their hands and takes a deep breath, "You have to promise me not to be too…emotional isn't the right word…" she breathes, closing her eyes and groaning, "I wasn't ready to do this. I was working myself up for this and thought I still had a few hours." She admits.

He frowns and lets out a laugh that could only be nerves escaping his body, "Elizabeth…" he whispers, suddenly afraid of what she was going to say. She'd never acted this scared to tell him anything, not even when Maureen talked badly about her and she found out. This was different. This was a fear like he'd never seen coming from the Great, the Strong Elizabeth Adams. "You can tell me anything. I won't be mad or upset."

"I'm not worried about you being mad or upset, Henry," she murmurs, "I'm worried about you being elated and attached."

His mouth hangs open as he stares at her in complete confusion, "Attached?" He manages, "Are you—you're not breaking up with me, right?"

"You wouldn't be elated then, would you?"

"No."

"Definitely not breaking up with you, Henry."

"Then what?" He asks, becoming exhausted with this conversation. Her breathing had somewhat steadied now, but the tears in her eyes still remained. That worried him, too. "The only other thing I can think of is—" he stops himself from saying something about Maureen or his dad when he sees her free hand and the position it's in.

She moves her palm across the material on her shirt, nodding her head in tiny movements. "Yeah. That's what I'm worried about."

"Oh." Henry whispers, trying to not let his heart sputter out of control. His breath is quickly becoming sporadic, and he tries to steady it but his head feels like it's spinning. "Have you gone to the doctor yet?" He asks. He wants to jump, he wants to feel excited about the possibility of being a dad, but also he knows that this isn't what their future involves yet. Elizabeth wants a career, and he's going to be in the Marines after graduation—neither of them have the lifestyle needed for kids. They're still so young, too.

"I went yesterday. I get the test results back Monday. I don't know why they make you wait so—"

He stops her by taking her in his arms, giving her body a gentle squeeze, "You must be terrified." He whispers.

Feeling her head move up and down, he hears a sniffle right beside his ear and is aware of the wetness soaking through his shirt onto his shoulder. "I am." She whispers in reply, "I don't want this yet. This isn't…this isn't the plan, Henry. We're not ready for this."

He pulls away after a few moments of silence, looking in her eyes as the tears stroll down her cheeks. He even feels a few tears of his own wanting to make their exit, too. "I know." He whispers, "We don't have to talk about it right now, okay? Let's just…let's wait until we know for sure."

She shakes her head, "The waiting is eating me alive." She whimpers, looking as though she was wilting. "I was just about to leave and go get a pregnancy test at the pharmacy—I just…I know those aren't accurate so I kept telling myself not to." She explains. "But I can't not know any longer."

He swallows hard, "I'm not going to stop you by any means," he says, "But I'm going to suggest that you hold off on it. Hear me out," he says when she opens her mouth to say something, "We spend tonight and tomorrow as though we possibly have a big decision to make next week. You call off work tomorrow and I don't have to go to the coffee shop until Tuesday—and we just go do some of our favorite things. You've been saying you want to go camping? Let's go do it. Let's live our lives to the fullest, and then Monday we find out and we go from there."

She's just staring at him, blinking every so often as her body looks like it's starting to crumble. He slides his hands around her waist and she lets her forehead rest on his, "You're supposed to tell me it'll all be okay." She whimpers.

He nods, "It will be. No matter what, it will all be okay."

"How can you know that?"

"Because we'll have each other through it all. I will be by your side no matter what happens—no matter what the result is and no matter what decision we make. I'm here."

She looks up and sniffles, pulling her head off his and wiping at her face, "Okay, let's go camping." She says after a moment.

July 3, 1988 | Elizabeth

When her eyes flutter open, she sees a good bit of sunlight flooding through their tent. Picking her head up, she sees that the door is unzipped. Suddenly, her other senses are woken up, and she notices that she smells something that smells like…bacon. She brings her hands out from under the sheets and rubs at her eyes, sitting up a little to see if she can view the grill from here. When she peeks around the edge of the tent, she sees Henry's back is turned toward her, and he's standing in the way of the grill. However, her nose never is wrong about bacon. She knows.

"Bacon?" She mumbles.

She must not have been very loud because, at first, he never even acknowledges that she spoke. But then it's like he second-guessed himself, and he turns just to briefly glance in the tent, then does a double-take and smiles. "Good morning, beautiful." He murmurs. She smirks because she feels very un-beautiful. Sleeping on the ground never does anyone's hair any good. "Yeah, bacon. The people down in that campsite there asked if I wanted the rest of their package because they didn't have any way to keep it cool. They got it at the trading post down the road this morning."

She smiles a little and feels queasy again when she thinks about why they're here in the first place. This is to take their minds off the possibility of the fact that they created something—a something that could change the course of their lives. She's not sure if it would change it for the worse or for better. "I'm not feeling well all of a sudden."

Judging by Henry's look on his face, she knows he immediately is thinking she's pregnant. But she's not sure that this would be considered morning sickness—it really just feels like that fire of anxiety burning in her stomach and chest.

"I just…remembered why we're here." She explains and sits all the way up, taking a breath and tilting her head at him, "Tomorrow can't come fast enough."

He gives her a half-hearted smile and nods, "I agree…" he answers, putting bacon onto two paper towels. She recognizes their makeshift plates, knowing that Henry always keeps a roll of paper towels underneath his seat in his truck. "But…we're here, and we said we would enjoy ourselves. Which is why I walked down to that hut right there and rented us kayaks for the day, if you're feeling up to it."

She looks at him with wide eyes as he steps into the tent, carefully sitting down and focusing on not dropping their bacon, "You what?" She asks, smiling a little, "How'd you manage that?"

He laughs a little, "Well, I'll be honest…the woman in there is probably in her seventies and I flirted with her a little and she gave me the second kayak free for the day." He says and shrugs, handing her a paper towel of bacon and smirking as he tilts his head back and drops a piece of his own bacon into his mouth, "It pays off having this pretty face." He teases.

She smirks and pushes his shoulder playfully with hers, picking at her bacon. Her stomach starts to grumble a little, and she immediately takes that as a greenlight to eat. "I can't ever flirt to get my way. I tried it once."

"When?"

"It was in a biology class. My professor refused to give me full credit for questions that—"

"Elizabeth," Henry stops her, his mouth full of bacon as he's trying to repress a laugh, "You flirted with your biology professor? Isn't your biology professor Dr. Lyons?"

She snorts and nods, "Yeah, but there's something about his little old man glasses that make him pretty endearing. But also it made it very hard to flirt with him."

He laughs and shakes his head, "You picked the worst person and time to try flirting your way into something—or out of something."

July 4, 1988 | Elizabeth

Exhaustion wasn't even the right word for what both of them were feeling after kayaking on the lake much of the day in the hot, July heat. Around 8:40 last night, Henry mentioned being ready to go cuddle up in their tent and go to sleep, and Elizabeth had agreed. Less than ten minutes later, they were both sound asleep.

Now, her eyes are wide open as she's staring up through the darkness, imagining the top of the tent above her. She knows they're up there, but it's so pitch black that she can't begin to make out the shape of the rods holding the canvas up.

She briefly wonders what time it is, but her mind immediately goes back to think about the dream that just caused her eyes to shoot open in a panic, turn over to check that Henry was still asleep, and lay back on her back with her hands over her head as she tried to catch her breath.

"Our baby is perfect, Elizabeth, see?" Henry was saying in her dream. The hospital sounds surrounded them, and nurses were attending to Elizabeth as she looked at Henry—she couldn't bring herself to look at the bundle wrapped up in his arms. "Here…hold him."

"I—" Elizabeth shook her head and turned away, facing the ceiling and gripping the bedrail. "I'm good."

Henry laughed and shook his head, "It's our son, babe, you gotta."

"I—I'm just…not…ready." She said.

"You just gave birth."

"I'm not ready to be a mom."

"Honey," Henry said, becoming more and more persistent and leaning over her bed toward her, pressuring her into trying to look at the baby. "You're already a mom."

"No." She simply said, causing herself to wake up.

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath through her nose, letting her mind drift into the "what ifs" once more. "If I'm pregnant," she thinks to herself, listening to the faint sound of Henry snoring, "And we keep it…" she thinks again, knowing that this would have to take way more consideration—she's never had to consider one for herself before. "My life would be totally different. No financial analyst job. Just stay at home mom for the rest of this kid's life." She tosses those words around in her head, then squeezes her eyelids together tighter and almost winces, "Stop calling it 'this kid.' You might not even be pregnant, Bess." She tells herself, trying to not sigh too loudly. "But…if you are in there…" Her mind begins to drift again, but she's also becoming sleepier and less conscious of her own thoughts, less in control, "I don't know…I don't know what I'll do if you're in there. Just know that I love you…if you're in there…" Her thoughts become less concrete as her mind starts shutting down again, letting herself fall back to sleep.