Summary

A collection of stories from Colleen's medical school years in Philadelphia.

Starting Notes

First of all, thanks to everyone who commented on my first fic here! I'm not sure the etiquette here in responding so hopefully this note here will suffice. Ao3 has a reply button.

This was originally going to be a one shot, but after reading some of my abandoned WIPs I wondered why I gave up and this little Valentine fic that has become chapter 1 was like a missing piece that connected them all. I'll be updating sporadically. Each chapter will be a different glimpse into Colleen's life with Andrew, not in chronological order.

Chapter title from the song Dance With Me by Phillip Phillips.

Fic title from the song The Forever Now by Mandy Moore.

Chapter 1: Will you dance with me?

Valentine's Day arrived with a fanfare of light snow in the days leading up to the holiday, but winter remnants clinging to the streets weren't going to dash Colleen's excitement for her night's plans. The Lady's Choice dance hosted by her women's medical school was tonight and she couldn't wait to dance all night with her husband and maybe, just maybe after all these months make some more friends from school. Many of them had been rather closed off since they had met, either angering Colleen with their doubts over Andrew's intentions or hurting her with their vocal opinions that Colleen had an unfair advantage being married to a doctor. It added an extra challenge that she and Dr. Mike never anticipated she would face in Philadelphia. But despite the obstacle she had made a couple friends, the closest being Winifred Taylor. She reminded Colleen of Dr. Mike, insisting everyone call her Freddie and that one day all the men in the medical community would know her as Dr. Fred. The two young women studied together often, sometimes at the boarding house with some of the other students but most times at the Cook residence or Andrew's clinic.

"We are going to have a nice time," Colleen mumbled to herself as she added one last pin to her feathery hairpiece. It complimented her light pink gown, a color Andrew said he loved on her because it reminded him of the pink ribbon she used to wear in her hair. As excited as she was for tonight's dance, she also had some nerves bubbling in her stomach that such an unusual social event would earn Colleen no favors with her less friendly classmates. It had been obvious who Colleen would ask to this dance, which created further resentment from her peers over what had become a new and exciting role reversal tradition for the medical school. Part of the fun, the second year students had explained, was in finding a man to accept an invitation from a woman who planned to become a doctor someday. Freddie had joked that she was going to bring a skeleton.

"I'm almost ready!" Colleen called out to Andrew, hearing him approach their bedroom as she put on her earrings. "Andrew?" She questioned after he didn't say anything, turning from her vanity mirror to look at him in the doorway.

Andrew shook himself out of his stupor, stepping into the room. "You look beautiful. Not that you don't look beautiful everyday. What I mean to say–"

"Andrew!" She laughed, cutting off his stumbling words as she slipped on her gloves. "Thank you. Now come here so I can straighten your tie."

He grinned her favorite big, boyish grin that always made her weak in the knees and came to stand in front of her. "I'm not sure what good you straightening it will accomplish."

"You're right," Colleen agreed, tugging the small fabric this way and that. "You'll just mess it up again," she teased, giving the tie a final twist. "There. Now don't touch it again."

"No, I mean..." he trailed off, huffing out a breath as he looked at the ceiling. "Did you look out the window?"

"Look out the window?" Colleen repeated. "Why–"

Andrew abruptly turning her around to lead her to the window cut her words off with a squeak. When he pulled back the curtain, Colleen could see the problem. Somehow, the lamplighters completed their task of lighting the lamps lining their quiet street so she could just make out the evening scene. Snow. Blowing everywhere.

"I don't believe we'll be going anywhere tonight, darling," Andrew observed, his hands absentmindedly rubbing her shoulders.

Colleen pressed her hands to the cold glass just before a gust of wind rattled the frame. "What... When did this start?"

"Not long after we came home, I suppose. I noticed about an hour ago."

Colleen cringed. She should have known the gray sky with a sprinkling of snowflakes that had stuck around all day was an ominous sign, but... "Andrew, an entire hour?" She turned from the window to look up at him with a frown.

"Yes?" He asked confusedly.

"Why did you let me get dressed? We obviously can't go out in this storm," Colleen complained, disappointed to now be missing the dance and also frustrated to spend so much effort preparing.

"Ah." He nodded to himself before turning his grin back onto her. "Because I still plan to dance with my beautiful wife tonight."

Colleen softened at his words and she was most certain that her growing grin matched his. "But we don't have any music." Was all she could think of to say.

Andrew said nothing as one hand went behind her back and the other gently raised up her arm, his gaze shifting to one of gentle adoration as he began gliding them around their bedroom.

A giggle bubbled out of Colleen when she recognized the song he began humming as one they danced to at their wedding, but his song suddenly stopped after they collided with the bed, the two of them collapsing onto it in a fit of laughter. "Tonight is Lady's Choice, you know," Colleen pointed out once she calmed, tracing his jaw with her fingertip. "I should be asking you to dance."

A content smile graced Andrew's lips, but before Colleen's fingers could linger there too long, he clasped her hand and pressed his lips to her own. Colleen lightly gasped and in doing so, parted her lips just enough to allow Andrew to deepen the kiss.

"Andrew..." she breathed out in the brief second he took a breath. "Andrew," she tried again, squirming at the sensation of his fingers fiddling with the fastenings on the back of her gown. "Do you intend to dance with me or undress me?"

"Yes?" He answered in a daze, his lips attempting to return to hers once more.

"We can do that later," Colleen told him, stopping him with a finger. "But first may I escort you to dinner, Dr. Cook?" She wasn't up for cooking much tonight, especially while wearing a ballgown, but the kitchen was stocked with some simple things to prepare.

Andrew sat up with a groan.

"I mean," Colleen continued while Andrew scrubbed both hands down his face, "it won't be a fancy dinner like we planned to attend, but I can make–"

"No!" Andrew nervously cut in, standing up. "I already prepared dinner." He held out an arm for her to take. "As you said, Lady's Choice, so I do believe I do the cooking."

"You went in my kitchen?"

Andrew dropped his arm, shyly looking aside. "There is no need to worry, darling."

"Andrew, you burned coffee! And I still don't know what you were trying to do with the eggs."

He nodded in acceptance of guilt, eyes dropping to the ground. "I very well remember. That's why I didn't use the kitchen. Much."

"Much?!"

"Only to mix the lemonade! And I'll have you know, it was no easy feat." It was Colleen's turn to groan into her hands, but Andrew quickly pried them away, kissing each one before grasping them in his own. "My eye is perfectly fine now."

Colleen couldn't help the laugh that burst out of her at the image her mind conjured of Andrew trying to squeeze lemons. The man could not cook. There was a reason why he always went to Grace's cafe or the hotel dining room even for coffee back in Colorado Springs, he explained, but he had wanted to help Colleen get ready for school on their first morning in their house. While she felt touched by his intentions, it nearly accomplished the opposite of those intentions by making her late for school. Colleen couldn't resist kissing him which left little time for preparing the breakfast that had brought them to the kitchen in the first place.

"Are you laughing at me?" Andrew questioned, putting a hand to his heart. "Your husband could have been seriously injured."

"Let me see," Colleen said as she composed herself, taking his face in her hands. "It appears there's been no lasting harm." She kissed the corner of his upturned lips.

He took advantage of having her so close and gathered her into his arms, making her squeal as he spun her around in a dance once again. "Perhaps we no longer need to reverse our roles seeing as we're not going to the dance," Andrew stated, spinning Colleen under his arm. "I rather enjoy us not being dependent on my skills in the kitchen."

"Lack of skills," Colleen playfully corrected.

"On the contrary, my lemonade is actually quite remarkable," Andrew defended, their dance coming to a halt.

"Well then may I try it?"

They had leaned in painfully close to each other, merely a breath apart, when Andrew closed the barely there distance and gently brushed his lips to hers. Or maybe Colleen did it. What was her question?

Andrew stepped back too soon for her liking and held out his arm. "May I? Unless you would prefer to continue Lady's Choice?"

Colleen gently touched her tingling lips with her fingertips, thinking. No, no she wouldn't. The reversed roles may have been fun for a dance, but this wasn't the dance. This was Andrew so she smiled up at him and hooked her arm through his. "I like us just like this."

"I do as well." He returned her smile. "Shall we?"

"We shall."

Andrew led her downstairs to the parlor where a fire was already going along with their picnic basket set out in front of the fireplace. Grace had gifted them that basket from her cafe, along with the blue checkered blanket spread out underneath on the floor, so Colleen and Andrew would have a piece of Colorado Springs whenever they went on a picnic. Colleen had never expected one of those picnics to be indoors during a snowstorm.

"When did you do all this?" She asked, taking a seat on the blanket as delicately as she could in her gown and removed her gloves.

"While you got dressed," Andrew replied, plopping down next to her then passing her a matching blue checkered napkin along with their Shakespeare book of sonnets, which they brought on every picnic. It was once Andrew's book, the same one he brought on their first picnic in Colorado Springs, but now they thought of it as theirs.

"Lemonade?" Andrew asked. "It's freshly squeezed.

Colleen turned her attention from flipping through the book's pages to Andrew who was holding up a jar and a glass.

He didn't wait for her to answer and filled the glass before handing it to her. "I'm afraid I didn't pack much. As you're aware, I couldn't go out to get anything in this weather and obviously you couldn't cook."

"Had you asked, I would have prepared something." Colleen took a sip from her glass. A bit sweet, light on the lemon. "This is good," she complimented. "Maybe next time, you can be in charge of the lemonade."

Andrew almost choked on his own mouthful of the beverage. "Thank you for the kind words, but no." He vigorously shook his head no as he put the glass down. "I'm not eager to squeeze another lemon anytime soon. In fact," he added, digging into the picnic basket and taking out the heart shaped box of chocolates he had given her this morning, "I had intended to use more lemons, but then my eye..." He shook himself, opening the box and placing it between them. "I decided to replace the missing lemon with more syrup and gin."

"Gin?!" Colleen squeaked, hand hovering over the chocolates. "Are you trying to get me drunk?"

"Didn't you like that drink at my medical society welcome dinner?"

"It was the only thing good about that dinner," Colleen complained, biting into one of the chocolates. "Other than you, of course, not that I even got to see you much."

"Unfortunately, that's how these society dinners go, darling."

Colleen pouted and popped another chocolate in her mouth. "Well, that's why I was so looking forward to tonight," she stated once she finished chewing. "I could have invited you to dance as much as I liked."

Andrew covered her hand with his, caressing the top with his thumb. "And if someone else asked me?"

"They wouldn't have had a chance." Colleen jutted her chin out. "Except for Freddie." She snickered.

"What is it?" Andrew asked, amused at her shift in mood.

Colleen leaned in as if to let him in on a great secret. "She planned to inquire about our childless state and suggest you focus on being a husband rather than a doctor."

Andrew chuckled, shaking his head. They could laugh about it now, but they weren't laughing about it after that first dinner when Andrew had been on the receiving end of his new wife's anger. It wasn't his fault, they agreed once their argument cooled, that the men had dragged him off to another room while she was left with the wives and their nosy questions and, equally terrible, medical students who wanted to dance with her. They had been invited, even though some of them wouldn't know which end was the front of a medical textbook, but Colleen's only way into the party was with a husband who was now removing a dish out of the picnic basket. "And where would my wife be while I suffered?" He asked, revealing under a napkin a plate of Parker House rolls she made last night while he quizzed her. After setting it down next to the basket, he tore a pocket into one of the rolls and began stuffing it with cheese.

"Let's see..." Colleen trailed off, taking the cheese stuffed roll he passed her as she thought of her answer. "I think I would join Freddie's date–"

"Didn't she say she was bringing a skeleton?"

"Yes, a skeleton! Don't interrupt!"

Andrew held his hands up in surrender.

"As I was saying, I would join Freddie's date and we would enjoy the amusing display on the dance floor." Colleen teased, smiling as she took a bite from her roll. She hadn't realized she was starving! "You make good sandwiches, Dr. Cook," she said, brushing her hands free of crumbs on her napkin before taking another sip of lemonade.

Andrew grinned over the rim of his own glass, taking a sip then setting the glass back down. "I think that fact deserves rescuing me from your friend's questioning."

"Perhaps..."

Andrew stood up, holding out a hand. "Will you dance with me, Mrs. Cook?"

"I do believe you'll be a far better conversationalist than a skeleton, Dr. Cook," Colleen replied after pretending to contemplate his offer and then took his hand, allowing him to help her up.

Neither needed to be much of a conversationalist after all. They spent the rest of their Valentine's Day twirling around the room in front of the warm fire, filling the quiet with singing and laughter. Colleen was unsure how long this lasted, but they eventually tired as their mood shifted to another kind of dance that they took upstairs to their bedroom. It was with pleasant thoughts of that night that Colleen contentedly sighed the following morning, the flutters building in her stomach making her squirm. But something was missing, or rather... someone... from her bed.

"Andrew?" Colleen asked, slowly blinking her eyes open to the dimly lit bedroom of the morning sunrise.

The bed dipped as Andrew slid in next to her side, gathering her in his arms with a lingering kiss to her forehead. "It appears the storm from last night has subsided significantly."

Colleen nestled as close as she could into him, her eyes drifting closed again. "We should probably get ready for church."

Andrew gently stroking her back indicated he had no intention of getting up again. "You're probably right. It's going to take us longer to get there in the snow."

"Maybeeee..." Colleen trailed off, nuzzling into his chest. The fabric of his nightshirt felt soft against her face. It brought back pleasurable images of the night when they both were too hot for bedclothes as they gave into their desires, but their heat quickly cooled in their drafty bedroom making bedclothes necessary.

"Maybe what?" Andrew questioned through a yawn.

Colleen propped herself up on an elbow, gazing down at him. "Maybe," she started again, her fingers fiddling with his nightshirt, "we should stay nice and safe in bed."

"I know what you're suggesting," Andrew said, his eyes slowly opening. "And my answer is no."

Colleen grinned seductively. At least, she thinks it was a seductive grin. It was a description used in the Monthly's stories she liked to read and she had been practicing in the mirror. "No?"

Andrew stopped her hand from wandering lower, keeping a gentle grip on her wrist. "We shouldn't so soon."

"But we checked the calendar and I'm unlikely to be ovulating right now," Colleen argued, "which is perfect timing for Valentine's Day."

"Valentine's Day was yesterday."

"I think you can make an exception for the morning after."

"I want you to finish medical school." Andrew rolled her onto her back, careful not to lower his weight on top of her. "Besides, we could use some fresh air after being cooped up inside all night."

"Cooped up? Is that what you want to call our very first Valentine's Day together?" Colleen feigned offense.

"Do I look like I'm complaining?" Andrew questioned with a laugh, tickling her side. "Hmm?"

Colleen squealed, unsuccessfully trying to scoot away from his dancing fingers. "Sto– op... ANDREW!" Once his fingers finally stilled, going to her forehead to brush her hair back, Colleen's panting began to slow until she felt she could speak. "Why don't you prove it?"

"Prove what, darling?"

"That you're not complaining," she said as she wrapped her right leg around his hip in an attempt to push him down on top of her.

But Andrew was faster as he scrambled off the bed. "Come on." At Colleen's whine, he pecked her lips. "Would you feel better if I agreed to later?"

Colleen frowned at him, displeased, but he was right so it would have to do. And with that, she followed him out of bed to the dresser where he was already picking a shirt to wear and hugged him from behind. "I would be agreeable to that, but only because I think I would like to see the snow from outside."

Andrew was also right about the fresh air. Philadelphia was bright with sunshine this Sunday morning, not a cloud in the blue sky or a single gust of wind to whip the snow around. Speaking of snow, however, the streets were covered in it! Colleen held her skirts up in one hand while the other held tightly to Andrew's arm, but he wouldn't let her fall. The chill in the air kissed her cheeks, a different kind of invigorating from Andrew's kisses, but it's exactly what both of them needed this morning.

"Do you ever miss the roads in Colorado Springs?" Colleen suddenly asked, after they had been walking quietly for a while.

"The roads?" Andrew repeated. "They're dirt, Colleen."

"Can you imagine how muddy they would get with this much snow?"

"I'd rather not."

Colleen tugged on his arm to stop them. "I think you would have to carry me," she flirted.

"Orrrrr..." Andrew leaned close. "We could stay in bed."

Colleen gasped when he abruptly pulled away before their lips could meet. "You tease!" She exclaimed, holding up her skirts again as their walk resumed.

Andrew chuckled, saying nothing else as the church came into view along with some other churchgoers.

"Freddie!" Colleen called out, easily seeing the contrast of her friend's inky black hair and bright green hat against the white snow.

Freddie eagerly waved back, picking up her deep olive skirts and hurrying over to the young couple as fast as she could go. "Colleen! Andrew! Did you go to the dance last night?" She asked, giving Colleen a hug in greeting.

"No." Colleen returned the hug, exchanging a smile with Andrew as she pulled back. "We ended up having our own dance at home."

"My, how romantic!" Freddie exclaimed, a hand over her heart.

Colleen hugged Andrew from his side as he wrapped his own arm around her, soothingly rubbing her shoulder. "It certainly was," she agreed.

"I'm afraid Mr. Taylor... that's my skeleton," Freddie explained, "because if I'm ever to marry someday, the man will take MY name..."

Andrew exchanged a raised eyebrow with Colleen. "I don't believe many men–"

"Are you saying," Freddie interrupted, "you wouldn't want Colleen's name?"

"I wanted to be Cook," Colleen assured Andrew before he could object or agree or something awkwardly in-between.

"Back to the topic at hand, Mr. Taylor doesn't have a romantic bone in his body." Freddie snickered at her own joke. "I suppose handsome doctor husbands are good for something."

"I think they're good for more than making emergency Valentine's Day plans," Colleen said, gazing adoringly into Andrew's eyes. Her eyes drifted to his lips. She so badly wanted to kiss him, but she couldn't out here in public. It wouldn't be proper!

Freddie groaned dramatically. "Will you two just kiss already before you make eyes at each other in church?"

They didn't, because of course they wouldn't, but Andrew's cheeks flamed an adorable red as they did each time Freddie suggested something so bold. Colleen couldn't be entirely sure if they made eyes in church but judging by Freddie's eyebrow waggle as they left, she thinks it's highly probable they did. The young couple only cared about one thing... spending the rest of the day with their Valentine.

Historical Notes

Ladies Choice - In the 19th century, leap years were sometimes an occasion to hold ladies choice events that also might coincide with Valentine's Day celebrations. The dance in this story at Colleen's school was inspired by one held in 1880 in I believe Napa Valley where social protocols were completely reversed. It seemed to me something like Colleen's school would do even in a non-leap year.

Rolls - The rolls Colleen made are Parker House rolls, a pocketbook shaped roll originating from a hotel in Boston in the 1870s. I think either Mrs. Quinn or Aunt Rebecca could have sent Colleen the recipe. I had wanted to squeeze this tidbit into the story, but it felt awkward.

End Notes

This fic is crossposted to ao3 under my username LoveReading and will be updated there first with new tags as I go. Also, please bear with me while I'm still learning formatting.

Thanks for reading!