[fic] a lucky recollection, it saved (1/3), the lizzie bennet diaries, lizzie/darcy, 6k words
Title: a lucky recollection, it saved
Author: allthingsholy
Fandom: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Words: 6k this chapter
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Pemberley fic! Because of course. For plot purposes, let’s assume that Lizzie starts at Pemberley the first week of January, yeah? Excellent. Big thanks to Rachel for the encouragement, big thanks Erica & Meg for the lookings-over. All remaining flaws are all on me. Title cobbled together from P&P proper, because titling is harder than writing the damn thing.
[Also at AO3.]
Summary: Lizzie packs up her costume theater into the same bag she used to drag it from Netherfield to San Francisco and all the way back home again. One end of her red Darcy bowtie hangs out the side and she can just see the edge of the the newsboy hat beneath her blue plaid shirt. Lizzie runs her hands through her hair and sighs, because on the one hand it’s her thesis project and on the other hand, there are five sheets of high-class stationary tucked into the copy of Persuasion in her backpack. She tucks the bowtie to the bottom of her bag and keeps packing. Two months in LA with her sister. The Jane in her head says, “That’s not the same as leaving,” but Lizzie tucks that away too."
++++
“No.”
“But-”
“No.”
“Are you-”
“No.”
“I just-”
“No.”
Lizzie and Charlotte do not talk about Darcy.
++
One time, when Lizzie was eight and Lydia was four, Lizzie pushed her sister down the stairs. Well, just two or three of the stairs going down to the basement. And she didn’t exactly push her, but she didn’t exactly not push her, either. She was eight. Lydia was Lydia. Things happen. Lizzie never told anyone, not even Jane, especially not Jane, and Lydia got a fat lip and then ate ice cream for dinner.
Lizzie’s not exactly sure how cosmic scales work, but when her independent study at the Gramercy Corporation falls through and Dr. Gardiner calls with a last minute invite to accompany her to Pemberley Industries, which happens to be where she’s going to consult for two months, and which happens to have a great internship and student development program, and which happens to have William Darcy’s name at the top of their corporate portfolio, well. Lizzie figures four-year-old Lydia is wincing against a smile as she sucks down a spoonful of mint chocolate chip and she doesn’t even know why.
++
“So you’re going to-”
“Yes.”
“And he’ll be-”
“Yes.”
“And he knows you’re-”
“Yes.”
Lizzie and Charlotte still do not talk about Darcy.
++
Lizzie leaves her packing until the last minute because Lizzie is not Jane and therefore doesn’t color-coordinate her earrings, belt buckles, and shoes for every outfit. She does throw a few dresses in with her business casual daywear because she’s staying with Jane for two months and if she doesn’t bring down at least the basics of an adult’s wardrobe, her sister will be the Jane version of mad, which basically means she’ll make a “hmm” noise in the back of her throat and find something of her own Lizzie can borrow.
Lizzie packs up her costume theater into the same bag she used to drag it from Netherfield to San Francisco and all the way back home again. One end of her red Darcy bowtie hangs out the side and she can just see the edge of the the newsboy hat beneath her blue plaid shirt. Lizzie runs her hands through her hair and sighs, because on the one hand it’s her thesis project and on the other hand, there are five sheets of high-class stationary tucked into the copy of Persuasion in her backpack.
(The most nonsensical thing she’s been stuck on since Darcy gave her the letter is where he learned to write like that, the looping, slanted letters like her grandma used to make. Lizzie learned cursive in grade school and his writing wasn’t cursive, it was-penmanship, which is even more pretentious. For a minute she’d pictured him as a boy, a knotty hand on his shoulder while he traced the lines again and again, but imagining Darcy as a child is a fairly impossible undertaking. Mostly she just imagines him-shorter.)
She tucks away the image-and the bowtie-to the bottom of her bag and keeps packing. Two months in LA with her sister. The Jane in her head says, “That’s not the same as leaving,” but Lizzie tucks that away too.
++
Jane, of course, is happy to have her, so happy, the happiest, and doesn’t let go of Lizzie’s hand once while she shows her around her apartment. (The tour lasts roughly ten seconds. Jane’s place is super tiny.) Lizzie unpacks her things into the empty half of the closet and then sits down on Jane’s bed and says nothing. Jane caught up on Lizzie’s videos the afternoon after she posted the first showdown with Darcy, because Lydia has an unlimited text plan and a constant need to dog on Lizzie’s love life. Jane’s face settles into something sympathetic and Lizzie can’t help but moan.
Jane sits down next to Lizzie and runs her fingers along the lines of the quilt beneath them. “So.” Her voice is Jane-perky, almost. Not quite. At the edges, at the corners of her smile, New Jane looks an awful lot like Old Jane. There are still whole days Lizzie spends thinking about how hard she wants to smack Bing Lee. “You ready for tomorrow?”
Lizzie falls back against the bed, her legs still dangling off the side. Her toes scratch against the rug on Jane’s floor. There are small silk flowers strung up around the bedroom windows, wisps of blue and pink and yellow against the white lace curtains. It’s looks almost exactly like the wallpaper in their family room back home, and Lizzie thinks of Jane’s half-empty closet and Jane’s half-empty heart and the parts of home Jane had to leave behind, and it makes her want to cry. Lizzie reaches out across the bed and taps her fingers against her sister’s hip. “Not really.”
Janes leans back onto her elbows and kicks her feet back and forth. “Just go in and be fabulous and it’ll be great.”
Lizzie rolls her eyes. “Just be fabulous? That’s your advice? For people who are not Jane Bennet, that’s kind of a tall order.”
“You know what I mean. Just.” Jane rolls onto her side and props her head up on her hand. Her hair’s in two pigtails that fall over her shoulders and she’s picking at the quilt with her nails and Lizzie might as well be ten years old again, sprawled out on Jane’s bed back home, talking about whatever ten year olds talked about in the mid-90s-Sweet Valley High, possibly, or maybe Pogs. Lizzie can’t remember what they thought was important back then, but she can remember Jane, stretched out exactly like this. Jane smiles and knocks her knee against Lizzie’s and says, “Just be yourself.”
Lizzie rolls onto her side and tugs at one of Jane’s pigtails. “Such a good big sister,” she says teasingly. Jane laughs.
++
Lizzie sees a lot of things her first afternoon at Pemberley-three floors of well laid out office space, lots of smiling employees, and the small office she’s been temporarily given on the building’s second floor. She does not see William Darcy. No newsboy hat. No bowtie. No one wearing a scarf, except a cheerful lady in the third floor break room who introduces herself as “Debbie Reynolds, please no jokes” and helps Lizzie find the milk for her tea.
Lizzie spends a frankly ridiculous amount of time deciding how to set up the camera for the videos she’ll be shooting at Pemberley. Eventually she settles on pointing the camera toward the only open wall, which is blank except for a painting of a forest scene that’s either standard Corporate Art or, knowing Darcy, a rare and priceless work from some dead Italian. She sets up her first shot and hits record.
“Well, it’s my first official day at Pemberley Industries, and since I had about a thousand tweets asking me, no, I have not seen Darcy.” Not that she’s looking for him. Even if she is, she doesn’t find him. She spends the rest of the afternoon going over her project proposal and Pemberley’s organizational documents, and barely talks to anyone at all.
Truth be told, it’s actually a super boring day, and when Lizzie follows Dr. Gardiner out to the parking garage across the street, she decides that the strange, rolling feeling in her stomach is probably just hunger.
++
Lizzie has been at Pemberley Industries for four days-four days and four hours, four days and four hours she has absolutely not spent with a tight ball of anxiety coiled in the pit of her stomach and twisting up into her ribcage every time she turns a corner-before she sees Darcy. It’s lunchtime on their first Thursday in LA and Lizzie’s in the elevator with Dr. Gardiner and when the doors slide open on the fourth floor, there he is. He’s not wearing a bowtie (just a regular tie, grey, with white polka dots (polka dots)) and there’s a blonde girl next to him, her arm tucked into the crook of his elbow, and they’re laughing. Lizzie has .5 seconds to take it all in-the blonde’s head tipped toward Darcy’s shoulder, the fact that he’s got one dimple on his right cheek, the way his laugh’s a little lower than his normal speaking voice, the realization that she’s actually never seen him laugh before-and then reality snaps in at the same time Darcy locks eyes with her. The joy slides out of his face in an instant and even though the elevator’s standing still, Lizzie’s stomach has plummeted somewhere beneath the lobby floor.
Darcy opens and closes his mouth a few times. “Lizzie,” he says, and the blonde uncoils her hand from around his elbow. When they board the elevator-which isn’t possibly big enough for four people, they have to be violating some overcrowding rule or weight restriction, Lizzie’s sure of it-Lizzie can see the usual tension creeping back up into Darcy’s shoulders, his neck, and working along the muscle of his jaw. Lizzie was sure he knew she was coming. She’d mentioned to Dr. Gardiner that she knew him but she’d left out some of the more incriminating details. Lizzie had seen Dr. Gardiner’s email to the HR rep, had seen Darcy’s name in the cc: line. She’d mentioned it in her videos. If she’s been a tight ball of nerves for the past four days and he didn’t even know she was here, well. The knot in Lizzie’s stomach tightens even more.
They all rock back on their heels a bit as the elevator starts to descend, and Darcy clears his throat and gestures to the blonde beside him. “Lizzie, Dr. Gardiner, this is my sister, Georgiana.”
Lizzie’s eyes go from Darcy’s face to Georgiana’s and back again. There are still five pages tucked into Persuasion, now relocated to a stack next to her side of Jane’s bed, and a large chunk of those pages are to do with Georgiana. Darcy doesn’t say anything but Lizzie can tell he knows what she’s thinking, can tell she’s mentally reviewing every line of his letter that had to do with his sister. Georgiana doesn’t seem to notice anything. She takes a small step closer to Lizzie and holds out her hand. “Lizzie Bennet! Will mentioned you were coming. It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Gigi.” Lizzie takes Gigi’s outstretched hand and doesn’t quite miss the way that Darcy winces at his sister’s words. So he did know she was coming.
By the time the elevator settles in the lobby, introductions have been made all around-Darcy and Dr. Gardiner, Gigi and Dr. Gardiner, everyone’s smiles just a shade past too wide. (Or maybe that’s just Lizzie projecting. The ache in her cheeks is radiating up toward her temples and as soon as Darcy let go of Dr. Gardiner’s hand he started a very thorough inspection of the toes of his shoes.) The doors open with a ding and Lizzie’s pretty sure she doesn’t imagine the increased speed with which Darcy steps out of the elevator.
Gigi clasps her hand around Lizzie’s wrist and pulls her a little bit closer, giving Darcy a smirk that Lizzie recognizes; little sisters will be little sisters. “Will and I have to go meet someone now, but tomorrow, let’s you and I get lunch?” Gigi’s smile is the brightest thing Lizzie’s seen all day and she even bounces up and down on her toes. Darcy continues to find his shoes to be the most fascinating thing in the whole lobby.
Lizzie covers Gigi’s hand with her own, just for a minute. “Lunch tomorrow sounds great.”
Gigi squeezes her wrist and then lets go. “Fantastic. I’ll come by your desk and get you. Where is it?”
“Oh, umm.” Lizzie’s mind is blank, totally empty, and she sputters and tries to remember.
Darcy-still with his eyes on the toes of his shoes-says, “John Mercer’s old office, on the second floor.” His voice sounds flat, like a minute ago he hadn’t been laughing at all. The knot in Lizzie’s stomach tightens again.
They make their goodbyes and set off in opposite directions. Dr. Gardiner has the good grace not to say anything at all on their way to restaurant, and when they do talk, it’s about the corporate structure of Pemberley and not about an elevator full of tension and awkward smiles.
++
If Lizzie’s first impression of William Darcy was at one end of a spectrum, her reaction to Gigi Darcy is at totally the opposite end. In Lizzie’s first week of knowing her, Gigi takes her to lunch at an amazing sushi place and shows her a cluster of incredible second hand clothing shops that Jane will love. They eat lunch on Friday and again on Sunday, when they split a pitcher of margaritas and eat way too much guacamole.
They talk about: contemporary chick lit and the pros and cons of reality television; late-90s boy bands and the formative experience of The Babysitters Club; British pop music and which Bronte sister was the craziest. Every once in awhile, Lizzie has to remind herself that Gigi is only a year older than Lydia, fresh out of college and three years younger than Lizzie. She’s grounded in a way Lydia isn’t, tempered in a way Lizzie probably wasn’t at her age, and when she talks about the things she’s done and the places she’s been, it’s warm and inviting and Lizzie leans forward on her elbows and soaks in every word.
They do not talk about: George Wickham, at all, or Darcy, hardly ever. (Gigi calls him Will, which Lizzie is definitely not ever going to do, barring some sort of life and death situation where it saves the President’s life. Never.) Beyond the first few awkward minutes-“Will and Caroline mentioned the Bennets plenty, but I don’t get to talk to either of them enough for real details, tell me everything”-they hardly come up at all. Lizzie spends their first lunch together worried she’ll blurt out something awful, like, “So is your brother a total asshole or not?” or “Does he fall for all the girls who are super mean to him?” or “Is Caroline a lying bitch to everyone or just me?” Halfway through their pitcher of margaritas, Lizzie nearly makes Gigi promise never to google “Lizzie Bennet,” but Lizzie keeps her mouth full of tortilla chips until the urge passes.
(Gigi does tell one story about her brother, about a trip to Hawaii with their parents when they both got stung by jellyfish. “Will was 18 and I was 12,” she says, “and he carried me up the beach, all the way back to our parents.” Her smile is equal parts fond and sad, but then she lifts her foot with a laugh and shows Lizzie the faint scar that wraps around one ankle. Lizzie pours them both another margarita and asks whether Stacy or Claudia was Gigi’s favorite babysitter.)
Lizzie makes the mistake of thinking Gigi completely unlike her brother, but she still sees Darcy echoed in the narrowing of Gigi’s eyes at her menu, the bend of her neck as she leans toward Lizzie to whisper about their waiter. Lizzie can’t help but see Darcy in the times when Gigi is silent. Though she won’t say it’s on purpose, Lizzie fills their afternoons with noise.
++
Right outside Lizzie’s temporary office is this big conference room and at the start of Lizzie’s second week at Pemberley, a whole team floods in and sets up, files and folders and charts and projectors. Every time Lizzie walks by and peers through the windows, she sees a whole group of them sat around the table or pacing in the empty spaces around the edges of the room. From the break room just past Lizzie’s office, if she stands in front of the coffee and hot water machine, she can see right through the conference room windows. On Tuesday, Lizzie looks up from making her tea and there’s Darcy, one hand raised to scribble something on the whiteboard, the other pointing at something on the wall that she can’t see. Everyone in the room has their eyes on him and he’s more animated than Lizzie’s ever seen him. He talks with his hands, these great big movements as he points around the room at the rest of the team, at the words on the board, at the charts on the wall. Lizzie doesn’t even realize how long she’s been standing there watching him until the door opens and Mrs. Reynolds comes walking out, headed straight for her.
“Ms. Bennet,” she says, slipping past Lizzie to grab a coffee packet. “How have you enjoyed your time at Pemberley so far?”
Lizzie looks down at the tea in her hands, now steeped probably to the point of bitterness, and says, “Good, it’s been really great, it’s great.” Her voice is squeaky and nearly shrill and Lizzie winces. Mrs. Reynolds doesn’t seem to notice. “What are-” Lizzie pokes at the tea bag in her mug awkwardly. “How’s the meeting going? You guys have been in there for awhile.”
Mrs. Reynolds stirs milk into her coffee and then pushes the carton toward Lizzie. “It’s a new pitch for a big client, Mr. Darcy wants it to be 100% ready before we meet with them. He’s a bit of a perfectionist, always has been.”
Lizzie hasn’t asked Gigi anything, but Mrs. Reynolds’ eyes are lively and warm and Lizzie can’t help herself. “How long have you worked here?”
Mrs. Reynolds cups her hands around her mug and smiles. “Likely longer than you’ve been alive, dear. I worked for Mr. Darcy Sr. and now I work for Mr. Darcy Jr.” She leans forward, all smiles and conspiracy and affection, and whispers, “I say Mr. Darcy Jr. now, but I’ve known him since his mother called him Willy and he took naps on the floor beneath his father’s desk.”
Back in the conference room, Darcy is sketching out a proposal on the whiteboard, the slashes of the marker swift and slanted. Lizzie shuts her eyes and clenches her jaw-five pages of thick stationary covered in his writing tucked between the pages of a book beside her bed. In her mind, she sees a knobby hand on his shoulder and his arms clasped around his knees beneath a big oak desk, scenes half guessed and half imagined, and it’s a little easier now to think of him small and reckless, his hand tucked into Gigi’s as they walked these very halls.
Lizzie spoons the tea bag out of her mug and adds a splash of milk from the carton Mrs. Reynolds hands her. “It seems like a lovely place to work,” Lizzie says. Mrs. Reynolds smiles.
When Lizzie walks the hallway back to her office, she keeps her eyes off the conference room windows and glued to the carpet in front of her feet.
++
Lizzie’s posted three videos since she got to Pemberley. She absolutely does not check their stats anymore-she had 347 @replies after the whole thing with Darcy, so her relationship with the internet is complicated-but Charlotte emails her to tell her viewership is up and everyone wants to know more about Pemberley and Darcy. Somewhere along the line, Lizzie’s life turned into a soap opera. (“A super lame soap opera, please,” the Lydia voice in her head says.)
She’s been making videos for months and suddenly Lizzie’s more conscious of her words than she ever was before. She hasn’t gone back to watch any of her old videos-partly due to embarrassment, partly due to lack of time, partly due to reasons she can’t and won’t look at too closely-but she remembers them being easier to record. Set up the camera, hit the red button, talk until Charlotte told her to stop. Now she sits in her office at Pemberley and weighs her words more carefully, picking and choosing the things she’s willing to say about the people who may or may not see them.
Darcy hasn’t said anything about the videos and she’s not even sure if he’s still watching them. She records two floors below his office and there’s a ridiculous part of her that almost wants to whisper every time she mentions his name-which only happens in passing. Lizzie keeps her features neutral the few times he does come up; the newsboy hat and red bowtie are shoved to the very bottom of the bag she’s got stashed in one of her desk drawers. Lizzie purposely hasn’t mentioned meeting Gigi, who has texted her twice since Sunday and invited her to play tennis this weekend.
According to Lydia, Lizzie’s silence on the subject of Darcy has the viewers up in arms. She sends Lizzie emails with screenshots of her youtube page, comments from people with a questionable grasp of basic grammar who want to know if she and Darcy have made amends, have made a sextape, have made a baby. Okay, her relationship with the internet is very complicated.
Lizzie sits in her office at Pemberley and tries to figure out what to say. Across the hall, Darcy’s leading a meeting and even through her closed door, she hears a voice that might be his. The red record light stares back at her.
++
Pemberley isn’t a big enough company to maintain any type of long-term avoidance plan, which is why Lizzie doesn’t even try. She mostly drifts back and forth between Dr. Gardiner’s office and her own, bracing as she walks around corners in case her life decides to make the jump from soap opera to romantic comedy. (Romantic comedy at this point seems pretty unlikely. The minute Darcy watched her videos, that was probably off the table. Plus, Lizzie doesn’t have the bone structure for that type of storyline, she’s not Meg Ryan.) Dr. Gardiner, it turns out, hasn’t watched Lizzie’s videos, which Lizzie finds out at the end of their second week at Pemberley, when Dr. Gardiner comes in with two steaming mugs of tea and the most incredulous smirk Lizzie’s ever seen on a grown woman’s face. (Lizzie first had Dr. Gardiner in her first year of grad school, for a class on internet culture and marketing. She’d given Lizzie her first C. Lizzie then gave her a thirty-minute speech on the social structure of the internet and the implications of new media on different types of online subcultures. The C became a B and Lizzie became one of Dr. Gardiner’s favorite students.)
Dr. Gardiner walks into her office-up on the fourth floor, with a terrific view of a neighboring church-and sets Lizzie’s cup down in front of her and says, apropos of nothing, “Lizzie, I don’t usually get involved in the personal lives of my students because it’s both inappropriate and I don’t usually care, but.” The space of her pause is time enough for Lizzie to count how many steps it would take to get to the door, and then the stairwell, and then outside the building and into oncoming traffic. She doesn’t move a muscle. “Is there something going on between you and William Darcy that would affect your participation in this independent study?”
Lizzie feels her face go cold and her palms start to sweat. She’s been waiting for this conversation. Not necessarily from Dr. Gardiner, but she’s been waiting for someone to say to her, “Lizzie, why are you at Pemberley, are you out of your mind?” Truth be told, she thought it would be Darcy, but beyond 30 seconds in an elevator and his constant presence twenty feet from her office door, she hasn’t seen or heard from him at all. She’s prepared no acceptable answer to the question, so she works her a jaw for a minute and says nothing.
Lizzie crosses and uncrosses her legs, keeps her voice flat-which is probably a dead giveaway, why doesn’t she have Lydia’s knack for lying, dammit-and says, “Why do you ask?”
Lizzie’s got her eyes fixed on Dr. Gardiner’s knees so she can’t see her professor’s expression when she says, “Because I ran into him getting coffee just now and he asked about you? And then looked like he wanted to throw up and die?”
It’s only sheer force of will and the thought of having to restart her whole project that stops Lizzie from dropping her head into her hands and telling Dr. Gardiner everything. Not that Dr. Gardiner won’t find out-she’ll have to watch the videos eventually. Lizzie knows that playing fast and loose with the truth now will only lead to questions later, but she just tightens her hands around her too hot mug of tea and straightens her spine. Dr. Gardiner waits, eyebrows raised expectantly.
“I do know Darcy from home,” Lizzie finally says. “And he was at Collins & Collins when I did my independent study there as well.” Lizzie takes a sip of her too hot tea and winces against the heat on her tongue. “We interacted socially.” God, she sounds so formal. She sounds like a robot. She sounds like Darcy.
Dr. Gardiner nods her head. The look on her face is entirely too knowing, a little bit concerned and mostly puzzled. “Lizzie, if you coming here is going to affect your ability to complete your independent study, we’ll find something else. I know that I don’t know the whole situation, but based on his demeanor today and your interactions in the elevator last week”-of course Dr. Gardiner had noticed four floors’ worth of awkwardness, dammit again-“if you’d rather complete your project somewhere else, you need to say so. I know grad school isn’t quite the real world yet, but we should maintain at least the illusion of professionalism.” Dr. Gardiner smiles, but there’s a reasonable dash of actual warning at the corners of her eyes. She turns back to her computer screen. “Please let me know by the end of the week so I can find something else for you.”
Lizzie picks up the business plans she’s been reading. “Okay,” she says. It takes her four attempts to actually get through the first page.
++
Lizzie would never admit it if asked, but she’s re-read Darcy’s letter more than a handful of times since she got to LA. Jane caught her at it once last weekend, came out of the shower and into her bedroom and found Lizzie on the bed with the thick, worn-edged stationary in her hands. Jane had kept herself busy towel-drying her hair, had averted her eyes to the mirror to give Lizzie time to slide the paper back into its envelope and between the pages of her novel. Jane hadn’t said anything, but when she’d climbed into bed beside Lizzie that night, she’d scooted a little closer than she’d needed to, the point of her elbow brushing up against Lizzie’s arm.
Jane had said, barely more than a whisper, “You want to talk about it?”
Lizzie had listened to the city, to the sounds that were so different than the ones they’d left at home. She’d wanted to ask about Bing, about how big the other side of Jane’s bed feels when Lizzie isn’t there to fill it. Every day, Lizzie goes into Pemberley and sees happy people at a well run company, the tasteful art in the hallways and Mrs. Reynolds holding the elevator door for her. Lizzie stands at the coffee machine and sees a whole room laughing at something Darcy’s just said. And then she comes home to Jane’s half-filled, still-waiting apartment and Jane’s optimism and Jane’s new strength. Every time Lizzie reads the letter she tries to align the parts of Darcy she sees with the pieces of Darcy she saw, but it’s all round holes and square pegs and nothing gets any clearer at all.
Jane’s elbow had nudged hers just a little. Lizzie had chewed her lip a while and then tucked the quilt up under her chin. “No,” she’d said. It had taken her a long time to fall asleep.
++
Lizzie’s always considered herself a fairly rational, responsible person, willing to get her hands dirty to do whatever needs doing. Sensible. Adult. In the time between stepping off the elevator and knocking on Darcy’s office door, she rethinks her entire approach to life and considers going back to her office and lying down beneath her desk. She doesn’t. (Barely.)
Mrs. Reynolds is at her desk outside Darcy’s office, phone slotted between her ear and shoulder, but she waves Lizzie toward the open door with a friendly smile, which only makes the pit of Lizzie’s stomach open up a little wider to swallow the majority of her insides. Lizzie’s pretty sure her heart’s still intact because it’s gotten twice as loud as usual.
(She’s not nervous exactly, it’s just that this conversation-which she doesn’t want to be having in the first place but probably should’ve had two weeks ago-could go any one of a number of ways. Being prepared for all of those outcomes simultaneously has Lizzie wishing she’d skipped lunch and downed a bottle of Tums instead. Hindsight.)
Lizzie tries to look as casual as possible when she walks past Mrs. Reynold’s desk and knocks on Darcy’s doorframe. She shifts her weight from foot to foot and straightens the bottom of her sweater and feels like maybe she’s having a heart attack.
Darcy’s at his desk, head bent over a folder and pen flicking back and forth between his fingers. He freezes when he sees Lizzie and even with an entire room between them, she can see the muscle in his jaw start to bulge.
Once when Lizzie was in high school she had an English teacher who taught Romeo and Juliet in the most simplistic way possible and basically blamed all of the ridiculous things that happen in the play on Juliet’s childishness and emotional immaturity. Lizzie had titled her essay “Reasons Why This Play Was Taught All Wrong” and when she had to go apologize-seriously, she had to, Principal Cho had no patience for feminist literary criticism-she’d been an anxious wreck. It was the only time she ever got into trouble, academically. The knot she’d had in her stomach that day felt a lot like the knot in her stomach when William Darcy stands up out of his chair and waves her into the room.
Lizzie’s pretty sure there isn’t a standard way to begin a conversation where one party committed online libel and the other made a horrifying declaration of feelings, so she chews her lip a minute and then says, “Umm, so.” It’s a great opening.
Darcy taps his knuckles on his desk and clears his throat. Twice. Stellar rebuttal.
Fuck it. Lizzie takes a breath and closes her eyes-literally closes her eyes, because she’s an adult-and says, “I know that things between us have been a little up and down, and that’s sort of a big understatement, but I just wanted to make sure that it’s okay that I’m here. At Pemberley. Working at Pemberley. Here.” The inside of Lizzie’s mouth feels like a brillo pad. This has been her best idea yet.
When she opens her eyes again, Darcy’s staring at his blotter. He’s got on grey suspenders and a red shirt and Lizzie can see the knot of his skinny black tie moving up and down while he works his throat. “Yes,” Darcy says finally, “it’s fine that you’re here. I’m-” He looks up and meets her gaze and Lizzie manages this weak smile, this quivering, uncertain pull of her lips. It feels mean. Darcy just takes a breath and says, “I think that Pemberley Industries will benefit from your insight and I hope that you’ll find the time spent here to be a valuable contribution to your project.”
There were six months when Lizzie would’ve rolled her eyes at how dispassionate Darcy’s voice is when he speaks, how clipped his consonants are and the awkward way his hands clasp and unclasp at his sides. There were six months when Lizzie wouldn’t have noticed the creases at the corners of his eyes or the fact that since he raised his gaze, he hasn’t looked away from her face. She notices now. She doesn’t entirely know what to make of it, but-she notices.
Lizzie’s tongue still feels stuck to the roof of her mouth, so it takes extra effort when she says, “And we’re-okay?” It takes extra effort for a lot of reasons. She waves her hand back and forth, gesturing between them. Darcy nods, just once. He still hasn’t looked away from her face.
Lizzie puts a little more effort into the smile she gives him. Darcy doesn’t say anything else and now that she’s said what she came to, the silence shifts from anxious to awkward. Lizzie looks around the office and feels-suddenly, belatedly-intimidated by how beautiful it is. There are bookshelves along one wall with windows opposite; the desk is wooden and massive, the cabinets behind it filled with knick-knacks that seem oddly personal and cluttered for his office; on a table to Lizzie’s right is an array of photographs in mismatched frames. Lizzie makes herself look back at Darcy and nods. “I should be getting back to Dr. Gardiner,” she says, “I have-”
“We’ve been working on the Rowley launch this week,” Darcy interrupts. “They’re hoping to use web content to increase traffic to their online features. It’s an interesting campaign.”
Lizzie nods uncertainly. His consonants are still clipped. The way his eyebrows knot together makes him look like Gigi.
Darcy takes a step back and starts to move around his desk. “I’d meant to mention.” He clears his throat again. Maybe it’s a nervous tick and she never noticed. (She’s not sure when she started classifying his behavior as “nervous” rather than “prickish,” but she’s not interested in figuring that out right now.) “If you want to sit in while the team brainstorms some of the material. We spent the week finalizing the process for the roll-out and nailing down most of the marketing objectives, but we still have to develop the content. I thought with your experience with web content, it might be useful to you.”
Her experience with web content. Her videos. Lizzie’s hands curl into fists just out of habit and the heart attack feeling that had started to subside comes raging back. Darcy stands in front his desk, all awkward hands and awkward shoulders. Lizzie just sort of nods. If she weren’t two steps from what feels like a panic attack, she’d be more excited about the opportunity, about the project itself, but as it stands she mostly just doesn’t want to talk about this ever again. At all.
Which is of course when Darcy says, a little more quietly than necessary (and Lizzie’s suddenly really aware of the open door behind her), “I’m not still watching them. Just, so you don’t have to-worry about that.” Lizzie’s not looking directly at him, but she’s pretty sure he actually winces. She knows for sure that she does. She tries to hide it with a nod, but it probably still shows.
The awkward silence is worse, way worse, the longer that Lizzie doesn’t say anything, so she says, “The Rowley thing sounds interesting. I’d like to sit in, if I won’t be in the way.”
“You won’t be,” Darcy says. He looks relieved to be talking business and by the time he’s done explaining the basics of the campaign--still with his back to his desk, half a room away from Lizzie--the air in the room is almost breathable again. Lizzie’s heart feels less like it’s going to fall out of her chest than it did before.
“I’ll have Mrs. Reynolds send you an invite to the meeting on Monday,” Darcy finishes.
Lizzie nods. “Thanks for the invitation.” She takes a step back toward the door; she can hear Mrs. Reynolds outside. “I should probably go find Dr. Gardiner.”
Just as Lizzie turns to go, Darcy says, “Gigi mentioned you’re playing tennis on Saturday.” She turns back to find the smallest trace of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “Watch her backhand. It’s vicious.”
Lizzie narrows her eyes but her lips pull themselves into the tiniest grin. “Good tip,” she says.
++
Gigi flattens her--except for the game where she almost certainly lets Lizzie win.
Her backhand’s more than vicious.
Lizzie has a great time anyway.
++++
Part 2: here.
Author: allthingsholy
Fandom: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Words: 6k this chapter
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Pemberley fic! Because of course. For plot purposes, let’s assume that Lizzie starts at Pemberley the first week of January, yeah? Excellent. Big thanks to Rachel for the encouragement, big thanks Erica & Meg for the lookings-over. All remaining flaws are all on me. Title cobbled together from P&P proper, because titling is harder than writing the damn thing.
[Also at AO3.]
Summary: Lizzie packs up her costume theater into the same bag she used to drag it from Netherfield to San Francisco and all the way back home again. One end of her red Darcy bowtie hangs out the side and she can just see the edge of the the newsboy hat beneath her blue plaid shirt. Lizzie runs her hands through her hair and sighs, because on the one hand it’s her thesis project and on the other hand, there are five sheets of high-class stationary tucked into the copy of Persuasion in her backpack. She tucks the bowtie to the bottom of her bag and keeps packing. Two months in LA with her sister. The Jane in her head says, “That’s not the same as leaving,” but Lizzie tucks that away too."
++++
“No.”
“But-”
“No.”
“Are you-”
“No.”
“I just-”
“No.”
Lizzie and Charlotte do not talk about Darcy.
++
One time, when Lizzie was eight and Lydia was four, Lizzie pushed her sister down the stairs. Well, just two or three of the stairs going down to the basement. And she didn’t exactly push her, but she didn’t exactly not push her, either. She was eight. Lydia was Lydia. Things happen. Lizzie never told anyone, not even Jane, especially not Jane, and Lydia got a fat lip and then ate ice cream for dinner.
Lizzie’s not exactly sure how cosmic scales work, but when her independent study at the Gramercy Corporation falls through and Dr. Gardiner calls with a last minute invite to accompany her to Pemberley Industries, which happens to be where she’s going to consult for two months, and which happens to have a great internship and student development program, and which happens to have William Darcy’s name at the top of their corporate portfolio, well. Lizzie figures four-year-old Lydia is wincing against a smile as she sucks down a spoonful of mint chocolate chip and she doesn’t even know why.
++
“So you’re going to-”
“Yes.”
“And he’ll be-”
“Yes.”
“And he knows you’re-”
“Yes.”
Lizzie and Charlotte still do not talk about Darcy.
++
Lizzie leaves her packing until the last minute because Lizzie is not Jane and therefore doesn’t color-coordinate her earrings, belt buckles, and shoes for every outfit. She does throw a few dresses in with her business casual daywear because she’s staying with Jane for two months and if she doesn’t bring down at least the basics of an adult’s wardrobe, her sister will be the Jane version of mad, which basically means she’ll make a “hmm” noise in the back of her throat and find something of her own Lizzie can borrow.
Lizzie packs up her costume theater into the same bag she used to drag it from Netherfield to San Francisco and all the way back home again. One end of her red Darcy bowtie hangs out the side and she can just see the edge of the the newsboy hat beneath her blue plaid shirt. Lizzie runs her hands through her hair and sighs, because on the one hand it’s her thesis project and on the other hand, there are five sheets of high-class stationary tucked into the copy of Persuasion in her backpack.
(The most nonsensical thing she’s been stuck on since Darcy gave her the letter is where he learned to write like that, the looping, slanted letters like her grandma used to make. Lizzie learned cursive in grade school and his writing wasn’t cursive, it was-penmanship, which is even more pretentious. For a minute she’d pictured him as a boy, a knotty hand on his shoulder while he traced the lines again and again, but imagining Darcy as a child is a fairly impossible undertaking. Mostly she just imagines him-shorter.)
She tucks away the image-and the bowtie-to the bottom of her bag and keeps packing. Two months in LA with her sister. The Jane in her head says, “That’s not the same as leaving,” but Lizzie tucks that away too.
++
Jane, of course, is happy to have her, so happy, the happiest, and doesn’t let go of Lizzie’s hand once while she shows her around her apartment. (The tour lasts roughly ten seconds. Jane’s place is super tiny.) Lizzie unpacks her things into the empty half of the closet and then sits down on Jane’s bed and says nothing. Jane caught up on Lizzie’s videos the afternoon after she posted the first showdown with Darcy, because Lydia has an unlimited text plan and a constant need to dog on Lizzie’s love life. Jane’s face settles into something sympathetic and Lizzie can’t help but moan.
Jane sits down next to Lizzie and runs her fingers along the lines of the quilt beneath them. “So.” Her voice is Jane-perky, almost. Not quite. At the edges, at the corners of her smile, New Jane looks an awful lot like Old Jane. There are still whole days Lizzie spends thinking about how hard she wants to smack Bing Lee. “You ready for tomorrow?”
Lizzie falls back against the bed, her legs still dangling off the side. Her toes scratch against the rug on Jane’s floor. There are small silk flowers strung up around the bedroom windows, wisps of blue and pink and yellow against the white lace curtains. It’s looks almost exactly like the wallpaper in their family room back home, and Lizzie thinks of Jane’s half-empty closet and Jane’s half-empty heart and the parts of home Jane had to leave behind, and it makes her want to cry. Lizzie reaches out across the bed and taps her fingers against her sister’s hip. “Not really.”
Janes leans back onto her elbows and kicks her feet back and forth. “Just go in and be fabulous and it’ll be great.”
Lizzie rolls her eyes. “Just be fabulous? That’s your advice? For people who are not Jane Bennet, that’s kind of a tall order.”
“You know what I mean. Just.” Jane rolls onto her side and props her head up on her hand. Her hair’s in two pigtails that fall over her shoulders and she’s picking at the quilt with her nails and Lizzie might as well be ten years old again, sprawled out on Jane’s bed back home, talking about whatever ten year olds talked about in the mid-90s-Sweet Valley High, possibly, or maybe Pogs. Lizzie can’t remember what they thought was important back then, but she can remember Jane, stretched out exactly like this. Jane smiles and knocks her knee against Lizzie’s and says, “Just be yourself.”
Lizzie rolls onto her side and tugs at one of Jane’s pigtails. “Such a good big sister,” she says teasingly. Jane laughs.
++
Lizzie sees a lot of things her first afternoon at Pemberley-three floors of well laid out office space, lots of smiling employees, and the small office she’s been temporarily given on the building’s second floor. She does not see William Darcy. No newsboy hat. No bowtie. No one wearing a scarf, except a cheerful lady in the third floor break room who introduces herself as “Debbie Reynolds, please no jokes” and helps Lizzie find the milk for her tea.
Lizzie spends a frankly ridiculous amount of time deciding how to set up the camera for the videos she’ll be shooting at Pemberley. Eventually she settles on pointing the camera toward the only open wall, which is blank except for a painting of a forest scene that’s either standard Corporate Art or, knowing Darcy, a rare and priceless work from some dead Italian. She sets up her first shot and hits record.
“Well, it’s my first official day at Pemberley Industries, and since I had about a thousand tweets asking me, no, I have not seen Darcy.” Not that she’s looking for him. Even if she is, she doesn’t find him. She spends the rest of the afternoon going over her project proposal and Pemberley’s organizational documents, and barely talks to anyone at all.
Truth be told, it’s actually a super boring day, and when Lizzie follows Dr. Gardiner out to the parking garage across the street, she decides that the strange, rolling feeling in her stomach is probably just hunger.
++
Lizzie has been at Pemberley Industries for four days-four days and four hours, four days and four hours she has absolutely not spent with a tight ball of anxiety coiled in the pit of her stomach and twisting up into her ribcage every time she turns a corner-before she sees Darcy. It’s lunchtime on their first Thursday in LA and Lizzie’s in the elevator with Dr. Gardiner and when the doors slide open on the fourth floor, there he is. He’s not wearing a bowtie (just a regular tie, grey, with white polka dots (polka dots)) and there’s a blonde girl next to him, her arm tucked into the crook of his elbow, and they’re laughing. Lizzie has .5 seconds to take it all in-the blonde’s head tipped toward Darcy’s shoulder, the fact that he’s got one dimple on his right cheek, the way his laugh’s a little lower than his normal speaking voice, the realization that she’s actually never seen him laugh before-and then reality snaps in at the same time Darcy locks eyes with her. The joy slides out of his face in an instant and even though the elevator’s standing still, Lizzie’s stomach has plummeted somewhere beneath the lobby floor.
Darcy opens and closes his mouth a few times. “Lizzie,” he says, and the blonde uncoils her hand from around his elbow. When they board the elevator-which isn’t possibly big enough for four people, they have to be violating some overcrowding rule or weight restriction, Lizzie’s sure of it-Lizzie can see the usual tension creeping back up into Darcy’s shoulders, his neck, and working along the muscle of his jaw. Lizzie was sure he knew she was coming. She’d mentioned to Dr. Gardiner that she knew him but she’d left out some of the more incriminating details. Lizzie had seen Dr. Gardiner’s email to the HR rep, had seen Darcy’s name in the cc: line. She’d mentioned it in her videos. If she’s been a tight ball of nerves for the past four days and he didn’t even know she was here, well. The knot in Lizzie’s stomach tightens even more.
They all rock back on their heels a bit as the elevator starts to descend, and Darcy clears his throat and gestures to the blonde beside him. “Lizzie, Dr. Gardiner, this is my sister, Georgiana.”
Lizzie’s eyes go from Darcy’s face to Georgiana’s and back again. There are still five pages tucked into Persuasion, now relocated to a stack next to her side of Jane’s bed, and a large chunk of those pages are to do with Georgiana. Darcy doesn’t say anything but Lizzie can tell he knows what she’s thinking, can tell she’s mentally reviewing every line of his letter that had to do with his sister. Georgiana doesn’t seem to notice anything. She takes a small step closer to Lizzie and holds out her hand. “Lizzie Bennet! Will mentioned you were coming. It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Gigi.” Lizzie takes Gigi’s outstretched hand and doesn’t quite miss the way that Darcy winces at his sister’s words. So he did know she was coming.
By the time the elevator settles in the lobby, introductions have been made all around-Darcy and Dr. Gardiner, Gigi and Dr. Gardiner, everyone’s smiles just a shade past too wide. (Or maybe that’s just Lizzie projecting. The ache in her cheeks is radiating up toward her temples and as soon as Darcy let go of Dr. Gardiner’s hand he started a very thorough inspection of the toes of his shoes.) The doors open with a ding and Lizzie’s pretty sure she doesn’t imagine the increased speed with which Darcy steps out of the elevator.
Gigi clasps her hand around Lizzie’s wrist and pulls her a little bit closer, giving Darcy a smirk that Lizzie recognizes; little sisters will be little sisters. “Will and I have to go meet someone now, but tomorrow, let’s you and I get lunch?” Gigi’s smile is the brightest thing Lizzie’s seen all day and she even bounces up and down on her toes. Darcy continues to find his shoes to be the most fascinating thing in the whole lobby.
Lizzie covers Gigi’s hand with her own, just for a minute. “Lunch tomorrow sounds great.”
Gigi squeezes her wrist and then lets go. “Fantastic. I’ll come by your desk and get you. Where is it?”
“Oh, umm.” Lizzie’s mind is blank, totally empty, and she sputters and tries to remember.
Darcy-still with his eyes on the toes of his shoes-says, “John Mercer’s old office, on the second floor.” His voice sounds flat, like a minute ago he hadn’t been laughing at all. The knot in Lizzie’s stomach tightens again.
They make their goodbyes and set off in opposite directions. Dr. Gardiner has the good grace not to say anything at all on their way to restaurant, and when they do talk, it’s about the corporate structure of Pemberley and not about an elevator full of tension and awkward smiles.
++
If Lizzie’s first impression of William Darcy was at one end of a spectrum, her reaction to Gigi Darcy is at totally the opposite end. In Lizzie’s first week of knowing her, Gigi takes her to lunch at an amazing sushi place and shows her a cluster of incredible second hand clothing shops that Jane will love. They eat lunch on Friday and again on Sunday, when they split a pitcher of margaritas and eat way too much guacamole.
They talk about: contemporary chick lit and the pros and cons of reality television; late-90s boy bands and the formative experience of The Babysitters Club; British pop music and which Bronte sister was the craziest. Every once in awhile, Lizzie has to remind herself that Gigi is only a year older than Lydia, fresh out of college and three years younger than Lizzie. She’s grounded in a way Lydia isn’t, tempered in a way Lizzie probably wasn’t at her age, and when she talks about the things she’s done and the places she’s been, it’s warm and inviting and Lizzie leans forward on her elbows and soaks in every word.
They do not talk about: George Wickham, at all, or Darcy, hardly ever. (Gigi calls him Will, which Lizzie is definitely not ever going to do, barring some sort of life and death situation where it saves the President’s life. Never.) Beyond the first few awkward minutes-“Will and Caroline mentioned the Bennets plenty, but I don’t get to talk to either of them enough for real details, tell me everything”-they hardly come up at all. Lizzie spends their first lunch together worried she’ll blurt out something awful, like, “So is your brother a total asshole or not?” or “Does he fall for all the girls who are super mean to him?” or “Is Caroline a lying bitch to everyone or just me?” Halfway through their pitcher of margaritas, Lizzie nearly makes Gigi promise never to google “Lizzie Bennet,” but Lizzie keeps her mouth full of tortilla chips until the urge passes.
(Gigi does tell one story about her brother, about a trip to Hawaii with their parents when they both got stung by jellyfish. “Will was 18 and I was 12,” she says, “and he carried me up the beach, all the way back to our parents.” Her smile is equal parts fond and sad, but then she lifts her foot with a laugh and shows Lizzie the faint scar that wraps around one ankle. Lizzie pours them both another margarita and asks whether Stacy or Claudia was Gigi’s favorite babysitter.)
Lizzie makes the mistake of thinking Gigi completely unlike her brother, but she still sees Darcy echoed in the narrowing of Gigi’s eyes at her menu, the bend of her neck as she leans toward Lizzie to whisper about their waiter. Lizzie can’t help but see Darcy in the times when Gigi is silent. Though she won’t say it’s on purpose, Lizzie fills their afternoons with noise.
++
Right outside Lizzie’s temporary office is this big conference room and at the start of Lizzie’s second week at Pemberley, a whole team floods in and sets up, files and folders and charts and projectors. Every time Lizzie walks by and peers through the windows, she sees a whole group of them sat around the table or pacing in the empty spaces around the edges of the room. From the break room just past Lizzie’s office, if she stands in front of the coffee and hot water machine, she can see right through the conference room windows. On Tuesday, Lizzie looks up from making her tea and there’s Darcy, one hand raised to scribble something on the whiteboard, the other pointing at something on the wall that she can’t see. Everyone in the room has their eyes on him and he’s more animated than Lizzie’s ever seen him. He talks with his hands, these great big movements as he points around the room at the rest of the team, at the words on the board, at the charts on the wall. Lizzie doesn’t even realize how long she’s been standing there watching him until the door opens and Mrs. Reynolds comes walking out, headed straight for her.
“Ms. Bennet,” she says, slipping past Lizzie to grab a coffee packet. “How have you enjoyed your time at Pemberley so far?”
Lizzie looks down at the tea in her hands, now steeped probably to the point of bitterness, and says, “Good, it’s been really great, it’s great.” Her voice is squeaky and nearly shrill and Lizzie winces. Mrs. Reynolds doesn’t seem to notice. “What are-” Lizzie pokes at the tea bag in her mug awkwardly. “How’s the meeting going? You guys have been in there for awhile.”
Mrs. Reynolds stirs milk into her coffee and then pushes the carton toward Lizzie. “It’s a new pitch for a big client, Mr. Darcy wants it to be 100% ready before we meet with them. He’s a bit of a perfectionist, always has been.”
Lizzie hasn’t asked Gigi anything, but Mrs. Reynolds’ eyes are lively and warm and Lizzie can’t help herself. “How long have you worked here?”
Mrs. Reynolds cups her hands around her mug and smiles. “Likely longer than you’ve been alive, dear. I worked for Mr. Darcy Sr. and now I work for Mr. Darcy Jr.” She leans forward, all smiles and conspiracy and affection, and whispers, “I say Mr. Darcy Jr. now, but I’ve known him since his mother called him Willy and he took naps on the floor beneath his father’s desk.”
Back in the conference room, Darcy is sketching out a proposal on the whiteboard, the slashes of the marker swift and slanted. Lizzie shuts her eyes and clenches her jaw-five pages of thick stationary covered in his writing tucked between the pages of a book beside her bed. In her mind, she sees a knobby hand on his shoulder and his arms clasped around his knees beneath a big oak desk, scenes half guessed and half imagined, and it’s a little easier now to think of him small and reckless, his hand tucked into Gigi’s as they walked these very halls.
Lizzie spoons the tea bag out of her mug and adds a splash of milk from the carton Mrs. Reynolds hands her. “It seems like a lovely place to work,” Lizzie says. Mrs. Reynolds smiles.
When Lizzie walks the hallway back to her office, she keeps her eyes off the conference room windows and glued to the carpet in front of her feet.
++
Lizzie’s posted three videos since she got to Pemberley. She absolutely does not check their stats anymore-she had 347 @replies after the whole thing with Darcy, so her relationship with the internet is complicated-but Charlotte emails her to tell her viewership is up and everyone wants to know more about Pemberley and Darcy. Somewhere along the line, Lizzie’s life turned into a soap opera. (“A super lame soap opera, please,” the Lydia voice in her head says.)
She’s been making videos for months and suddenly Lizzie’s more conscious of her words than she ever was before. She hasn’t gone back to watch any of her old videos-partly due to embarrassment, partly due to lack of time, partly due to reasons she can’t and won’t look at too closely-but she remembers them being easier to record. Set up the camera, hit the red button, talk until Charlotte told her to stop. Now she sits in her office at Pemberley and weighs her words more carefully, picking and choosing the things she’s willing to say about the people who may or may not see them.
Darcy hasn’t said anything about the videos and she’s not even sure if he’s still watching them. She records two floors below his office and there’s a ridiculous part of her that almost wants to whisper every time she mentions his name-which only happens in passing. Lizzie keeps her features neutral the few times he does come up; the newsboy hat and red bowtie are shoved to the very bottom of the bag she’s got stashed in one of her desk drawers. Lizzie purposely hasn’t mentioned meeting Gigi, who has texted her twice since Sunday and invited her to play tennis this weekend.
According to Lydia, Lizzie’s silence on the subject of Darcy has the viewers up in arms. She sends Lizzie emails with screenshots of her youtube page, comments from people with a questionable grasp of basic grammar who want to know if she and Darcy have made amends, have made a sextape, have made a baby. Okay, her relationship with the internet is very complicated.
Lizzie sits in her office at Pemberley and tries to figure out what to say. Across the hall, Darcy’s leading a meeting and even through her closed door, she hears a voice that might be his. The red record light stares back at her.
++
Pemberley isn’t a big enough company to maintain any type of long-term avoidance plan, which is why Lizzie doesn’t even try. She mostly drifts back and forth between Dr. Gardiner’s office and her own, bracing as she walks around corners in case her life decides to make the jump from soap opera to romantic comedy. (Romantic comedy at this point seems pretty unlikely. The minute Darcy watched her videos, that was probably off the table. Plus, Lizzie doesn’t have the bone structure for that type of storyline, she’s not Meg Ryan.) Dr. Gardiner, it turns out, hasn’t watched Lizzie’s videos, which Lizzie finds out at the end of their second week at Pemberley, when Dr. Gardiner comes in with two steaming mugs of tea and the most incredulous smirk Lizzie’s ever seen on a grown woman’s face. (Lizzie first had Dr. Gardiner in her first year of grad school, for a class on internet culture and marketing. She’d given Lizzie her first C. Lizzie then gave her a thirty-minute speech on the social structure of the internet and the implications of new media on different types of online subcultures. The C became a B and Lizzie became one of Dr. Gardiner’s favorite students.)
Dr. Gardiner walks into her office-up on the fourth floor, with a terrific view of a neighboring church-and sets Lizzie’s cup down in front of her and says, apropos of nothing, “Lizzie, I don’t usually get involved in the personal lives of my students because it’s both inappropriate and I don’t usually care, but.” The space of her pause is time enough for Lizzie to count how many steps it would take to get to the door, and then the stairwell, and then outside the building and into oncoming traffic. She doesn’t move a muscle. “Is there something going on between you and William Darcy that would affect your participation in this independent study?”
Lizzie feels her face go cold and her palms start to sweat. She’s been waiting for this conversation. Not necessarily from Dr. Gardiner, but she’s been waiting for someone to say to her, “Lizzie, why are you at Pemberley, are you out of your mind?” Truth be told, she thought it would be Darcy, but beyond 30 seconds in an elevator and his constant presence twenty feet from her office door, she hasn’t seen or heard from him at all. She’s prepared no acceptable answer to the question, so she works her a jaw for a minute and says nothing.
Lizzie crosses and uncrosses her legs, keeps her voice flat-which is probably a dead giveaway, why doesn’t she have Lydia’s knack for lying, dammit-and says, “Why do you ask?”
Lizzie’s got her eyes fixed on Dr. Gardiner’s knees so she can’t see her professor’s expression when she says, “Because I ran into him getting coffee just now and he asked about you? And then looked like he wanted to throw up and die?”
It’s only sheer force of will and the thought of having to restart her whole project that stops Lizzie from dropping her head into her hands and telling Dr. Gardiner everything. Not that Dr. Gardiner won’t find out-she’ll have to watch the videos eventually. Lizzie knows that playing fast and loose with the truth now will only lead to questions later, but she just tightens her hands around her too hot mug of tea and straightens her spine. Dr. Gardiner waits, eyebrows raised expectantly.
“I do know Darcy from home,” Lizzie finally says. “And he was at Collins & Collins when I did my independent study there as well.” Lizzie takes a sip of her too hot tea and winces against the heat on her tongue. “We interacted socially.” God, she sounds so formal. She sounds like a robot. She sounds like Darcy.
Dr. Gardiner nods her head. The look on her face is entirely too knowing, a little bit concerned and mostly puzzled. “Lizzie, if you coming here is going to affect your ability to complete your independent study, we’ll find something else. I know that I don’t know the whole situation, but based on his demeanor today and your interactions in the elevator last week”-of course Dr. Gardiner had noticed four floors’ worth of awkwardness, dammit again-“if you’d rather complete your project somewhere else, you need to say so. I know grad school isn’t quite the real world yet, but we should maintain at least the illusion of professionalism.” Dr. Gardiner smiles, but there’s a reasonable dash of actual warning at the corners of her eyes. She turns back to her computer screen. “Please let me know by the end of the week so I can find something else for you.”
Lizzie picks up the business plans she’s been reading. “Okay,” she says. It takes her four attempts to actually get through the first page.
++
Lizzie would never admit it if asked, but she’s re-read Darcy’s letter more than a handful of times since she got to LA. Jane caught her at it once last weekend, came out of the shower and into her bedroom and found Lizzie on the bed with the thick, worn-edged stationary in her hands. Jane had kept herself busy towel-drying her hair, had averted her eyes to the mirror to give Lizzie time to slide the paper back into its envelope and between the pages of her novel. Jane hadn’t said anything, but when she’d climbed into bed beside Lizzie that night, she’d scooted a little closer than she’d needed to, the point of her elbow brushing up against Lizzie’s arm.
Jane had said, barely more than a whisper, “You want to talk about it?”
Lizzie had listened to the city, to the sounds that were so different than the ones they’d left at home. She’d wanted to ask about Bing, about how big the other side of Jane’s bed feels when Lizzie isn’t there to fill it. Every day, Lizzie goes into Pemberley and sees happy people at a well run company, the tasteful art in the hallways and Mrs. Reynolds holding the elevator door for her. Lizzie stands at the coffee machine and sees a whole room laughing at something Darcy’s just said. And then she comes home to Jane’s half-filled, still-waiting apartment and Jane’s optimism and Jane’s new strength. Every time Lizzie reads the letter she tries to align the parts of Darcy she sees with the pieces of Darcy she saw, but it’s all round holes and square pegs and nothing gets any clearer at all.
Jane’s elbow had nudged hers just a little. Lizzie had chewed her lip a while and then tucked the quilt up under her chin. “No,” she’d said. It had taken her a long time to fall asleep.
++
Lizzie’s always considered herself a fairly rational, responsible person, willing to get her hands dirty to do whatever needs doing. Sensible. Adult. In the time between stepping off the elevator and knocking on Darcy’s office door, she rethinks her entire approach to life and considers going back to her office and lying down beneath her desk. She doesn’t. (Barely.)
Mrs. Reynolds is at her desk outside Darcy’s office, phone slotted between her ear and shoulder, but she waves Lizzie toward the open door with a friendly smile, which only makes the pit of Lizzie’s stomach open up a little wider to swallow the majority of her insides. Lizzie’s pretty sure her heart’s still intact because it’s gotten twice as loud as usual.
(She’s not nervous exactly, it’s just that this conversation-which she doesn’t want to be having in the first place but probably should’ve had two weeks ago-could go any one of a number of ways. Being prepared for all of those outcomes simultaneously has Lizzie wishing she’d skipped lunch and downed a bottle of Tums instead. Hindsight.)
Lizzie tries to look as casual as possible when she walks past Mrs. Reynold’s desk and knocks on Darcy’s doorframe. She shifts her weight from foot to foot and straightens the bottom of her sweater and feels like maybe she’s having a heart attack.
Darcy’s at his desk, head bent over a folder and pen flicking back and forth between his fingers. He freezes when he sees Lizzie and even with an entire room between them, she can see the muscle in his jaw start to bulge.
Once when Lizzie was in high school she had an English teacher who taught Romeo and Juliet in the most simplistic way possible and basically blamed all of the ridiculous things that happen in the play on Juliet’s childishness and emotional immaturity. Lizzie had titled her essay “Reasons Why This Play Was Taught All Wrong” and when she had to go apologize-seriously, she had to, Principal Cho had no patience for feminist literary criticism-she’d been an anxious wreck. It was the only time she ever got into trouble, academically. The knot she’d had in her stomach that day felt a lot like the knot in her stomach when William Darcy stands up out of his chair and waves her into the room.
Lizzie’s pretty sure there isn’t a standard way to begin a conversation where one party committed online libel and the other made a horrifying declaration of feelings, so she chews her lip a minute and then says, “Umm, so.” It’s a great opening.
Darcy taps his knuckles on his desk and clears his throat. Twice. Stellar rebuttal.
Fuck it. Lizzie takes a breath and closes her eyes-literally closes her eyes, because she’s an adult-and says, “I know that things between us have been a little up and down, and that’s sort of a big understatement, but I just wanted to make sure that it’s okay that I’m here. At Pemberley. Working at Pemberley. Here.” The inside of Lizzie’s mouth feels like a brillo pad. This has been her best idea yet.
When she opens her eyes again, Darcy’s staring at his blotter. He’s got on grey suspenders and a red shirt and Lizzie can see the knot of his skinny black tie moving up and down while he works his throat. “Yes,” Darcy says finally, “it’s fine that you’re here. I’m-” He looks up and meets her gaze and Lizzie manages this weak smile, this quivering, uncertain pull of her lips. It feels mean. Darcy just takes a breath and says, “I think that Pemberley Industries will benefit from your insight and I hope that you’ll find the time spent here to be a valuable contribution to your project.”
There were six months when Lizzie would’ve rolled her eyes at how dispassionate Darcy’s voice is when he speaks, how clipped his consonants are and the awkward way his hands clasp and unclasp at his sides. There were six months when Lizzie wouldn’t have noticed the creases at the corners of his eyes or the fact that since he raised his gaze, he hasn’t looked away from her face. She notices now. She doesn’t entirely know what to make of it, but-she notices.
Lizzie’s tongue still feels stuck to the roof of her mouth, so it takes extra effort when she says, “And we’re-okay?” It takes extra effort for a lot of reasons. She waves her hand back and forth, gesturing between them. Darcy nods, just once. He still hasn’t looked away from her face.
Lizzie puts a little more effort into the smile she gives him. Darcy doesn’t say anything else and now that she’s said what she came to, the silence shifts from anxious to awkward. Lizzie looks around the office and feels-suddenly, belatedly-intimidated by how beautiful it is. There are bookshelves along one wall with windows opposite; the desk is wooden and massive, the cabinets behind it filled with knick-knacks that seem oddly personal and cluttered for his office; on a table to Lizzie’s right is an array of photographs in mismatched frames. Lizzie makes herself look back at Darcy and nods. “I should be getting back to Dr. Gardiner,” she says, “I have-”
“We’ve been working on the Rowley launch this week,” Darcy interrupts. “They’re hoping to use web content to increase traffic to their online features. It’s an interesting campaign.”
Lizzie nods uncertainly. His consonants are still clipped. The way his eyebrows knot together makes him look like Gigi.
Darcy takes a step back and starts to move around his desk. “I’d meant to mention.” He clears his throat again. Maybe it’s a nervous tick and she never noticed. (She’s not sure when she started classifying his behavior as “nervous” rather than “prickish,” but she’s not interested in figuring that out right now.) “If you want to sit in while the team brainstorms some of the material. We spent the week finalizing the process for the roll-out and nailing down most of the marketing objectives, but we still have to develop the content. I thought with your experience with web content, it might be useful to you.”
Her experience with web content. Her videos. Lizzie’s hands curl into fists just out of habit and the heart attack feeling that had started to subside comes raging back. Darcy stands in front his desk, all awkward hands and awkward shoulders. Lizzie just sort of nods. If she weren’t two steps from what feels like a panic attack, she’d be more excited about the opportunity, about the project itself, but as it stands she mostly just doesn’t want to talk about this ever again. At all.
Which is of course when Darcy says, a little more quietly than necessary (and Lizzie’s suddenly really aware of the open door behind her), “I’m not still watching them. Just, so you don’t have to-worry about that.” Lizzie’s not looking directly at him, but she’s pretty sure he actually winces. She knows for sure that she does. She tries to hide it with a nod, but it probably still shows.
The awkward silence is worse, way worse, the longer that Lizzie doesn’t say anything, so she says, “The Rowley thing sounds interesting. I’d like to sit in, if I won’t be in the way.”
“You won’t be,” Darcy says. He looks relieved to be talking business and by the time he’s done explaining the basics of the campaign--still with his back to his desk, half a room away from Lizzie--the air in the room is almost breathable again. Lizzie’s heart feels less like it’s going to fall out of her chest than it did before.
“I’ll have Mrs. Reynolds send you an invite to the meeting on Monday,” Darcy finishes.
Lizzie nods. “Thanks for the invitation.” She takes a step back toward the door; she can hear Mrs. Reynolds outside. “I should probably go find Dr. Gardiner.”
Just as Lizzie turns to go, Darcy says, “Gigi mentioned you’re playing tennis on Saturday.” She turns back to find the smallest trace of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “Watch her backhand. It’s vicious.”
Lizzie narrows her eyes but her lips pull themselves into the tiniest grin. “Good tip,” she says.
++
Gigi flattens her--except for the game where she almost certainly lets Lizzie win.
Her backhand’s more than vicious.
Lizzie has a great time anyway.
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Part 2: here.