Luke seemed to have forgotten the bags of groceries clutched in his hands. He was standing wide-eyed at the scene in front of him. A few more inches and he would have been in the middle of Holly's main thoroughfare, running the risk with each passing second of being run over by a slow Subaru filled with a family of day-trippers.

Anya gave up trying to get his attention as he hadn't responded to any of the times she had called his name. She had exited the butchers to find his eyes glued to the idyllic scene the small Vermont town of Holly offered.

Anya didn't bother to interrupt the small smile breaking across Luke's frozen expression. It was commonplace during the holidays in Holly and Anya had seen it many times before. But Luke's was the first that had ever tugged on Anya's heartstrings.

She had seen the look on his face before. Not just the wide-eyed gaze taking in the lights and decorations that made up Holly's exterior holiday decorations. But Luke's own particular stare. It was the reason they had even met in the first place.

Anya had been exiting her dorm room building her first spring semester at school in the city. New York was still a maze to her and so she had her nose deep in a subway map, trying to figure out how to get to her next class. She had run nearly head-first into Luke where he stood in the middle of the sidewalk outside her dorm building.

"Woah! Hey! Sorry!"

With his exclamations, Luke's arms were around Anya's shoulders before her feet could lose balance completely.

There was a moment where they stood frozen, locked in an awkward half-hug, with Anya's arms gripping Luke's, their breath frozen, after which they quickly realize that Anya was not going to fall and quickly dropped their hands and lost all physical contact. Anya even took a half step back to gain a normal amount of personal space for them both.

Anya shook the invisible dirt from her jeans, verbalizing an apology without looking up.

"Sorry. That's my fault. I wasn't looking where I was going."

"I probably shouldn't be staring at this building in the middle of the sidewalk. I insist on taking full responsibility for our little run-in."

When Anya looked up, she found a pair of soft blue eyes smiling at her behind black-framed glasses, his blonde hair only a centimeter from falling into his eyes.

"I'm Luke, by the way."

Anya took half a second to glance down at the hand extended to her, shaking it out of courtesy as her mind tried to piece together the man standing in front of her.

"Anya," she replied after a long moment of awkward silence while they kept shaking hands.

When she realized she was staring and that their hands still held one another, Anya quickly let go. Her nervousness seemed to entertain Luke as he let out a light laugh. Anya could feel the blood rushing to her face and looked down at the ground to avoid his gaze. It was still locked on her when she looked back up.

"It was just this building. It's so beautiful. I've read all about it. I just had to stop by and see it for myself."

Anya followed his gaze that had now transferred back to her dorm building. They stood there on the sidewalk, side by side for a long moment in silence.

Anya stared at the red brick building, not knowing the names for any of the external detailings the original architect surely put a lot of time and thought into. It was a beautiful building. It was one of the reasons Anya has originally chosen this university over the many others she and her grandparents had visited in the city.

As beautiful as it was, Anya still wasn't sure why it warranted a fixed stare and possible injury.

"It was built at the end of the 19th century, over one hundred years old," Luke said.

He didn't wait for a reply to keep talking, his lecture coming out on its own.

"The original dormitory, built with the rest of the university, burned down in a freak accident. Some believe it was a student prank gone too far but the official excuse was a chemistry experiment gone wrong. Now why anyone was doing a chemistry experiment in their dorm in 1892 is anyone's guess."

"What makes this building so special then?" Anya asks, finding herself somehow interested in what else he had to say.

"It was a commission from a rich family who lived on the Upper Eastside. They hired the architect, drew up the plans, had a firm grip on the entire project. Well, not as tight as they probably thought. Turns out the architect, Jacob Kent hated their design. Despised it, actually. He thought it was the ugliest design he had ever seen but he couldn't very well tell them that to their face. He then had the impossible task of trying to make it beautiful, using the same style and details the wealthy old couple insisted needed to be included and somehow make it beautiful."

"Well, he did a good job."

"Didn't he?"

Luke was now smiling full force and Anya found that sight prettier than the building before them. She shook her head to keep from staring and tried to seem like she was gathering together her already gathered together items and preparing to head out.

"That's why it's my favorite. This building is why I chose this university over any others. I just had to come and stare at it. I'm sorry I almost knocked you over," Luke said, interrupting her exodus.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it. Too bad they made this dorm the girl's wing when the university turned co-ed in the '30s."

"I almost cried when I found out I wasn't going to be able to live here. I was five at the time."

Anya couldn't help laughing and the light sound brought Luke's gaze back down to her.

"Enjoy it while you can. You live in a very special building. I'll be around enough as an architect student, studying as much as I can from the outside."

"Good to know. Well, I should..."

Anya nodded in the direction she was originally headed in, letting her words trail as her feet stayed in the same place. She didn't want the conversation to end. Luke was the first person she had made a sort of real connection with since leaving Vermont after the holidays.

"Do you want to get a cup of coffee with me?"

"I have a class to get to," Anya replied, knowing she had plenty of time to reach her class and then some.

"What do you have?"

"Sociology with Lennox."

"That's in the Hartford building. Near the Trent quad."

His words sounded like a foreign language and Anya was sure her expression told him just how much she understood what he was saying.

"There's a coffee stand along the way. I can show you the way but only if you buy me coffee."

Anya nodded. "I'll take that deal."

They were both smiling as they left the Foreman Dormitory behind them, Anya finding in Luke a new friend at a new school.

The weight of the groceries in her arms was what finally pulled Anya back to reality. Her shoulders were getting tired and she still had the walk back to the inn.

"Come on."

Freeing up a hand, she gently grabbed the sleeve of Luke's jacket and pulled him in the right direction. Luke followed her lead but not without several looks back at the small town and its main street, the beauty of it still gripping his focus.

Once out of the town, he seemed to return to himself.

"Wow. What a place. I had no idea small towns like this even existed anymore."

"They don't. Not really, anyways. Holly is one of the only ones left and it helps that we're tucked so far into the mountains. We get horrible cell reception and we only got the internet a few years ago. It's gonna take a while for Holly to enter the modern age if it does at all."

"It must be a wonderful place to live."

With their boots crunching down on the snow underfoot, they trekked up the road, coming around a sharp corner, with the inn towering over them and in sight just ahead.

"Yeah. It is. I love it here."

"Do you ever miss the city?"

"Sometimes."

The thought of the busy streets, the crowded sidewalks, the blank night sky lit up from lights down below, all of it so far away sent a twinge of sadness to Anya's stomach.

"Would you ever go back?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

With such an honest reply, the last twinges of tension between them seemed to have dissipated completely. They walked back up to the inn, in almost the same manner Luke had walked her to her sociology class that first day way back when.

They were so young then and full of hope and optimism. So much had changed since then but the friendship that had founded their relationship somehow still remained.