Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i. this is how they begin

-

It’s strange at first, she comes to realize, what being loved by this man means.

For so long she’d taken for granted the strength of his feelings, and it hadn’t been until she’d found herself drowning in the middle that she’d appreciated the torture he’d once put himself through.

It’s like fire and passion and a terrible ache all brewing in her heart at once.

And even then – after the videos and the fights and the confessions and the realization that she doesn’t dislike him; (a secret - she loves him) – even after all of that, she still doesn’t really understand how he loves her.

But slowly she learns that he does.

The truth; he loves her because of a million different reasons that he’s never been able to put into words and probably never will; but that once started with her eyes and suddenly, slowly, grew into everything.

They don’t tell anyone about their relationship in the beginning.

It’s a bold move, she knows, and she wonders how long she can keep it from Jane and Charlotte. How long he can keep it from Gigi and Fitz; but they both agree that too much has happened in the past to make anything easy, so much has been said and done, so many harsh moments exchanged – and they’re both so stubborn – so whilst the past can be learnt from it cannot be so quickly erased.

The last thing they need is a chorus of we told you so's raining down upon them as they navigate their slightly fumbled first steps.

William Darcy arrives on her doorstep the morning after she hangs up on an indignant Catherine De Bourgh, fidgety and awkward and with a million words hesitant on his lips, but also with a brief spark of hope – because she hadn’t denied his love to his aunt, and that’s more than he’s been given by her in months.

He stands before her and thinks, I love you – please don’t break me again - and in her bedroom she kisses him slow and soft and sweet, halting his stumbled words and apologies and answering with an unequivocal yes, my feelings have changed.

William, silent and still, doesn't move save to curl a hand low around her waist, steadying her as she teeters on the tips of her toes, and for the first time he allows himself a moment to truly smile.

The strong arms he wraps around her body later allow him to pull her up close and she laughs against his lips, gripping his shoulders tight so she doesn't fall. Their height difference is laughable he realizes as he holds tight to her hips, but Lizzie is barefoot and adorably wide eyed, and when they stumble backwards a moment so that she’s pressed to her bedroom wall she tips her head down and snickers, fingers scrambling at the nape of his neck.

He loves her laughter; her smile and her spark.

"We'll get the hang of this," she mutters, forehead pressed to his chest and he's sure she must be able to feel his heart beat stupendously - an hour ago he turned up on her doorstep to apologize for his aunt, and now he has a hand heavy on her waist and the soft wisps of her hair nuzzled under his chin and her own fingers itching hesitantly against his hairline.

"I hope so," he murmurs back, and leans down to kiss her.

They pass the afternoon in her bedroom – the house blessedly empty of Bennet’s – and William learns that she has a book collection much too large to have all been read; and a poster from a child’s movie (something about Wild Things, and he has a vague recollection of Gigi’s bedtime stories) and that she wears odd socks because she has a rather extensive draw full of them but can never find the time to sort through them all.

He sits on the edge of her bed, stiff at first, but she sinks slowly against him until they’re sprawled along the tops of the covers – his long legs dangling over the edge and his shoes kicked off haphazardly, whilst her own are curled up underneath her thighs, tipping her against the curve of his shoulder and chest.

Slowly his fingers crawl around her waist, and with a not so subtle smile she tugs at his hand until he’s cradling her flush to his body, fingers tangling and playing with his own across the expanse of her waist. He sucks in a deep breath because before this afternoon he could count the number of times they’d exchanged physical contact on one hand – now she’s running a finger along the edge of his fingertips and obliterating any notion of propriety he'd once held.

“Lizzie,” he murmurs, and his lips are pressed to the crown of her head. She’s been rambling softly about the latest draft of her thesis and he’s been half listening, noting the mentions of major scholars and information gleamed from Pemberley, but the majority of his thoughts are caught somewhere hazy and in-between; she hums in recognition of his words and the vibration rumbles heavily down his spine.

“I have to go back to San Francisco tonight,” he tells her finally, because he has a flight to catch in a little over an hour and while he’d much rather stay tangled in her bed for the foreseeable future, when he’d made quick plans to atone for his aunts actions this morning he’d not really considered the possibility that he’d end the day anywhere other than in a late board meeting via satellite phone to London.

She stiffens in his arms and he feels his heart hammer in his chest, and really, he thinks, he should get used to this. It would appear that his utter uselessness when it comes to rationality around her isn’t going to alleviate just because she’s content in his arms.

“Do you have to?” she murmurs, and her lips are worried between her teeth – her eyes are wide and hopeful and he feels everything drain from him – all his resolve and professionalism. He’d pull the moon from the stars for this woman if she asked him.

Once upon a time he saw a pair of bright eyes across a dance floor and hasn’t been able to see straight ever since.

“I’m so sorry,” he breathes, and she believes him – of course she does. His arms are heavy around her waist and his lips skim the crown of her head and his fingertips play with the ends of her hair. Charlotte had not been very subtle when she’d pointed out the utter adoration on his face when he’d sought to prove to her how special her vlogs were, in a video that feels as if it were a lifetime ago.

Sometimes she watches back those few videos of their time together and wonders how she'd once been so blind - her smiles and his eyes and the teasing and his comfort. He makes her laugh and she plays with him and somewhere in those few weeks she'd fallen in love.

“I know,” she says, because she understands now that he means it; she finds herself smiling and rubbing a thumb across his cheek.

“This just feels like a dream,” and he nods emphatically – neither of them want to wake up.

He holds her close on her doorstep and when he finally thinks it might be time to pull away he presses a kiss to her forehead and whispers, feather light, “I love you.”

He’s down the stairs before she’s had time to blink.

He’s on a flight back home within an hour and Gigi has texted him three times wondering as to his whereabouts. Fitz has tried calling, and instead left a long message that seems to be about sangria - nothing else. Bing has also text him about a possible weekend in Netherfield and Will's heart beats double as he messages back immediately – yes, that sounds wonderful. And then deletes the word wonderful so that he doesn’t sound so eager.

He's already plotting a trip there around an upcoming report and a reshuffle of the finance floor and the holiday he always takes with Gigi, because he's sure she'll be only too happy to join him at Netherfield - though he could always ask Lizzie to go away with them...

He pauses with his lips pressed to the top of his phone, trying to hide a smile because he has the option to invite her places now. She's in his soul and written on his heart and for the first time it feels like breathing is easy again - he's no longer trying to suppress the one thing within him that feels pure. 

Back at home, half dazed and definitely giddy, Lizzie passes the night curled cross legged on her bed, a pillow hugged to her chest and the phantom press of lips to her own still playing across her mind and when Lydia stumbles into her room without preamble and immediately flops down next to her, she welcomes the distraction – and if she smiles a little brightly when she receives a small, but perfect message from him – well, Lydia already thinks she’s crazy.

Did I forget to tell you that you’re beautiful?

And whilst he’s never been one to focus solely on looks, he hopes it goes some way towards expressing how utterly blind he was to ever think she was merely decent enough.

That night he rings in the late evening and she answers with a sleepy sigh and then a hitch to her breath, as if she was half asleep but then remembered the events from hours previous – the kissing and the holding and the soft sighs that bordered on I love you.

Now, with the clock ticking towards midnight and the drain of business still heavy on his mind, he can barely get passed a hesitant, “Good evening Lizzie,” before he’s cringing at his own jilted conversation – but then she startles and huffs a laugh at him and something blooms liquid hot in his chest, warming him from the inside.

He remembers that she won't turn cold on him; instead she'll smile and tease, “Good evening Mr. Darcy," and he can chuckle.

“I’m sorry I had to leave,” he finally tells her, “Truly,” and she makes a soft, breathy noise from the back of her throat. She’s sleepy and curled beneath her covers now, Lydia banished from her room, and he wonders if it’s normal to be this intoxicated by one so far away from him – he can hear her steady breath and imagine her small and tucked in her bed – in a bedroom he’s now seen and can picture her amongst; she hums low and then shrugs her shoulders, tells him, “I understand. Work is important.”

“You are important,” and the inflection and emotion underlying those three simple words pound deep in her chest.

“I wish I could be there with you,” he finally mutters, and the giggle rumbles up her chest before she can stop it.

“Are you real?” she whispers, like the conversation might disappear if she speaks normally, and Darcy closes his eyes as he leans back against his kitchen bench. The apartment is still and silent and he wants her there with him – has wanted her in his space for over half a year now, but for the first time in his life has reason to hope in reality.

“Very real, I assure you.”

“Thank god,” and then she pauses. He can hear her stumble a moment, and then hesitantly murmur, “William?”

It’s the first time she’s ever called him by his first name and it sounds so much better than Darcy that he feels his toes curl and wiggle in his socks.

“Yes?”

“This will be here tomorrow, right?”

And he wants nothing more than to wrap her tight in his arms – “Yes, and the day after that. And the day after that.”

She hums and yawns and he bids her a soft good night despite her protests. “I’ll speak to you tomorrow,” he murmurs, and with a happy little huff, “Sleep well.”

The name love almost slips from his lips without meaning to, but he manages to claw it back; savours it for another day – a tomorrow.

His heart is full to the brim with emotion but he has the rest of his life to show her each precious piece. 

Chapter Text

ii. they progress.

-

She wakes for the first time in his arms a little over two weeks later, and when she does she curls her toes in the end of the mattress, spreads her arms out along the soft, cotton sheets, and hums gently as his fingers crawl slowly across her middle, tugging her closer.

“Good morning,” he mumbles into the dip of her collarbone, and Lizzie can’t help but smile into the early morning light.

She’s still not sure how they managed to negotiate this little rendezvous; but Bing is still in LA, yet to move to New York with Jane, and Lydia think she’s staying with an old friend. No one suspects that instead she’s spent the evening at Netherfield, biting her lip over a glass of red wine and watching as Will - do you prefer William? I don't mind, he'd replied - moves deftly through the spacious kitchen.

“I never thought you’d be able to cook,” she’d told him, leant up against the counter with a fond smile. He was wearing a pair of tight, black jeans and a dark, button down shirt that was both tucked in and rolled to his elbows. He has rather impressive arms and she’d told him as much, watching the spread of a blush up his cheeks and the small tug of a smile.

She’s noticed, over the past two weeks, that he needs little reminders sometimes – little nudges and promises that she’s in this as much as he is. When they talk at night he’s always silent those first few moments – hesitant words and greetings until he seems to remind himself that she’s happy to talk to him; wants to talk to him; hear about his day.   

When she’d first knocked at the wide, oak doors of Netherfield that afternoon he’d appeared before her with a startled gasp, a rigid stance, and a hesitant gesture to come inside. She’d been breathless at the sight of him.

He’s always been breathless by the sight of her

She'd swept herself up against his chest before he’d had a moment to protest. After a beat his hands had landed clumsily against the small of her back and then a soft press of lips had landed on her forehead  - she’d hummed into his chest and scratched lightly at the bare skin of his forearm and they’d both shivered. It was cold outside but she felt electric from the inside out – not so subtly nudging him through the door and towards the front room where they’d collapsed together.

It’s no secret to herself that she’s been attracted to him from the beginning she’d noted, running a finger down his broad chest. He may have been terse and awkward, and she may never have entertained the thought of liking him (though now, when she looks back, she wonders how on earth she could have been so wrong) but she’s always appreciated his figure and form and amazing dark eyes and strong jaw line.

While she would never admit it on video, part of the reason she’d been so averse to him at Netherfield all those months ago was that she was unable to stop the slow and sensual dreams that filtered through every few nights, even when she believed the man was deplorable.

Now, though, he’s tall and present but at the same time slim and she delights in startling him, just once, while he’s moving around the kitchen. She runs her hands up the sides of his torso from behind and squeezes, unable to be happy with simply observing him any more – she has permission to touch and she wants, wants, wants.

“Hi,” she’d cooed with her forehead pressed between his shoulder blades, and her fingers had dancing across his chest as his stomach jumped with laughter.

He wears glasses, she learns, when he’s tired and at home because while contacts may be useful for the office, they leave him itchy and irritable after a time – and he likes the familiarity of the bridge pressing across his nose.

“I’ve had glasses ever since I was a young child,” he tells her when she asks, elbows pressed together as they eat from a shared bowl at the counter - and she can just imagine him – small and lithe and wide eyed behind dark frames, examining the world as curious young children do.

When they first wake, that first morning, there’s a moment when she feels the full force of everything that’s happened rush through her body.

Then he nuzzles his nose against her shoulder and she feels laughter bubble in her chest, and his affronted look only serves to make her laughter worse until she’s curled up tight on the mattress and he’s pulling himself into a sitting position, mildly concerned.

“What did I miss?” he asks eventually, and the slight crease in his forehead tells a tale of a man who’s often had to ask that question. She sneaks a smile and then leans up to press a quick, appeasing kiss to his cheek in apology. She supposes having someone laugh at you so early in the morning is quite confronting.

“Nothing,” she tells him, and then thinks again, “Everything?”

He frowns at her, lips pursed in the way he does when he’s considering something, and then nods once. “Yes, I suppose everything is a little strange.”

“Quite,” she grins, and now he knows she’s mocking him.

He collapses half on top of her and she gasps quickly, curling a hand around the nape of his neck. Their lips meet clumsy and soft in the middle, and she never thought she’d crave the shiver of delight down her spine from William Darcy’s proximity – but she does. Oh she does.

“Do you have to work today?” she asks quickly, between nibbles at his lower lip and scratches at his scalp.

He makes a deep noise in the back of his throat, shuffles around so that his knee and one arm are supporting him and then leans back down over her, pressing her into the mattress, “no.”

“No work?”

“No.”

“No phone calls?”

He grins, “No.”

She pauses a moment. “I don’t believe you.”

He looks flabbergasted a moment, as if he doesn’t quite know how to respond to her – for so long their typical conversation had left him completely on edge in case she took action against him – and while they’ve spent two weeks exchanging sweet and sleepy conversations into the early hours of the morning, he’s still not used to the bite of her tease, or the sparkle in her eyes, or the curve of her lip being directed at him.

“Elizabeth Bennet,” he breathes after a slow minute, because despite that, he is learning. He leans close so that their foreheads rest together and with his voice low, murmurs, “You are not leaving this bed.”

When he flips her over with a startled, happy gasp, her hair flies wild around her face and shelters them both from the light and the noise and the world.

He never though he’d fall in love with a redhead. Not for any particular reason. Truthfully, he never though he’d fall in love at all. 

Like all good plans, their one to stay in bed and learn each other inside out is overridden by a sharp, piercing ring tone and a deep groan from Lizzie.

She has a hand dangerously low against his spine and he’s caught between pushing back into the warm press of her fingers and down into the soft flesh of her body – she grips him tight with her other hand tangled in his hair and tugs harshly as the phone keeps ringing.

“That’s Charlotte,” she mumbles against his lips, and Will presses his forehead down to her collarbone because even he knows what that means.

There are three people in the world that Lizzie Bennet would drop anything to answer.

There are four people, actually. He just doesn’t yet realise he’s made her list.

It’s midday and Charlotte is back in town and has commandeered her best friend for lunch. Will is left wandering the halls of Netherfield, completely bereft of things to worry about.

For so long there was Georgiana, and then Pemberly, and then Lizzie, and then Wickam, and Lizzie again. Now, however, it’s like the weight of the world has risen from his shoulders.

Dramatic, yes, but there’s a small part of him that is very much his mother’s child and Mrs. Anne Darcy was always prone to a little drama.

(Gigi is so frighteningly like their mother it hurts – it’s some cosmic joke that she should act and talk and walk like a woman she was never able to know).

He finds himself in the library, barefoot, and he can’t remember the last time he wandered around some place that wasn’t his own bedroom without at least socks covering his toes. He’s wearing a good pair of jeans but an old, black t shirt and he thinks if anyone else saw him like this he’d be mortified – somehow the suits and the bowties and the suspenders help him feel so much more put together and solid.

He pulls a book from the shelf without looking and settles in a chair nearby the window that’s letting in light. There’s chicken marsala left over from last night – one of the few dishes he can make, much to Lizzie’s delight – and he has a small bowl of it on a nearby table.

At first he sits with his back straight and feet flat on the floor, but half an hour later and the sun is warm on his neck, and the book – Russian, Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward – is fascinating and startling and he always forgets how much he loves getting lost in someone else’s world.  He tucks one leg underneath his body, and then another, and then sometime later draws the bowl of chicken over to his lap; and hours later when Lizzie creaks open the door she finds him curled up with both legs thrown over the side of the lounge chair, face hidden in the folds of the book with his glasses perched on the end of his nose and a fork still dangling from his fingertips.

She startles a moment, and then takes the opportunity to watch him, fascinated – a wild Darcy in his natural habitat, completely and utterly at ease and without refinement. Not at all the Darcy-bot she had once proclaimed him to be but instead a wonderful, beautiful man – mouth open and eyes flickering across the pages, completely lost.

She heads to his bedroom and takes off her shoes and jacket and when she returns to the library he doesn’t seem to notice until she’s stepping towards him. He startles and drops the book to his chest, but then his cheeks bloom bright with a smile and she feels loved and safe and cherished – he’s still a little groggy from a trip to another world and pulls her willingly into his arms until she’s curled tight against his chest.

She falls slightly more in love with each breath.

And this is perhaps the most startling thing about learning to be loved by William Darcy.

His touch.

Never had she thought he would be one to reach for her so quickly – to tug her close and press kisses to her forehead and run fingertips down her spine.

But it makes sense, she’s beginning to see; he can be terrible with words but his hands are reverent and soft and loving – she understands their meaning without having to wade through the formalities of speech. In speech they get tangled and lost, but with a simple brush against her cheek she understands how precious she is to him.

She rests her head over his heart and feels the steady thump, thump, thump and thinks how insane the world is, that less than a month ago she’d come to realise she was in love with this man, and now she knows the feeling of his arms and his heart.

“How was your day, dear?” she teases him, leaning back slightly, and he has a little dimple in his left cheek when he allows himself to smile without reserve.

“Peaceful, love.”

She hums; both at the name and the sentiment, and thinks she could get used to this little world they’re somehow building.

Dinner that night is pasta with herbs and red wine sauce, and red wine to accompany – they actually sit at the dining table this time and Lizzie can’t help but fiddle with the napkins between them. She has a socked foot resting against his ankle and the domesticity of the touch is playing with his heart.

“You told Charlotte?” he supposes, because she looks ready to burst with the information and really, he can’t blame her. If he hadn’t spent most of his time engaged in meaningless texts with Gigi and Fitz he’s sure it would have all come out in conversation.

“Yes. Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I think she’s a ninja.”

Her brow is furrowed adorably and Will glances up at her, startled.

“Ninja?” he questions simply, and she rolls her eyes at him.

“She’s very shrewd.”

“Oh.”

Lizzie swirls her glass in her hand and then peers over his head, muttering to herself, “We should probably never let her and Gigi in the same room. Or Fitz. Or Lydia.”

Will lets her ramble, focusing on his pasta and the curl of her fingers around the stem of the wine glass and the soft drift of her voice through the room – he didn’t quite know what it meant to be lonely until he’d come to learn how wonderful it was to have someone else fill out the space alongside him.

“Somehow I doubt we’ll be able to avoid that,” he tells her, and she crinkles her brow, finally nodding.

“I guess.”

She spears a lone twirl of pasta on her fork and eyes it carefully as she brings it to her mouth and he watches her, fascinated. She seems to sense his gaze and blushes deeply and he wishes he didn’t make her feel watched – wants to tell her he’s simply remembering every detail of herself so that he can recall it all when he’s away – but history has a tendency to creep along in the background and they’ve spent the better part of a year feeling judged by the other.

“You’re adorable,” he tells her, voice catching on the words, but her startled smile is bright and true and he feels like he could get used to this – speaking his words and his feelings out loud, especially if it helps her understand him.

All he’s ever wanted was for her to understand him

“I suppose this means we should tell Gigi, and your sisters?” he ponders later.

There’s soft music playing in the background and he has no idea who they are, but he likes the soft melody. Lizzie had eyed him carefully when selecting it and the hint of a smile at her lips leads him to believe she would class this as ‘popular music’.

One day he might tell her that he was trying to ask her to dance that night – he remembers that video – and Jane’s quite apt interpretation. One day he’ll have to remember to thank the eldest Bennet for defending him without reason to.

Lizzie, now leant against his shoulder with her legs tucked beneath her (and he’s beginning to think she likes that position) tilts her head up to gaze at him, chewing at the inside of her lip.

“We could,” she says slowly, pondering the words, “But Charlotte would keep it a secret.”

“However?” he prods.

“I think it might be nice to tell them.”

“Gigi will be very pleased,” he states, already imagining her words and exclamations. He must remember to hold the phone at a safe distance from his ear. And perhaps warn Lizzie.

“Your sister is insane,” she teases, but her voice is soft and fond and he remembers the two of them running like lunatics through a park along the bay that wonderful weekend – desperately wishing that this was something regular they did each Sunday afternoon.

“Yours are no better,” he reminds her, and she snorts, jolting by his side.

“That is very true,” she laughs, tipping her head to his shoulder.

“Though perhaps you are the craziest Bennet sister,” he murmurs gently, tugging at the tips of her ponytail and smiling as she swings backwards, eyeing him carefully.

She doesn’t answer him with a response – instead eyes him warily, rubs a quick thumb against the slight show of stubble on his cheek – and then unfolds herself from his arms gracefully, rising to walk from the room.

She pauses at the doorframe and he watches her, entranced, until an arm reaches out for him and crooks a finger and he’s left with no question of her intentions – her destination and intent.

He scrambles after her quickly and she wonders if anyone else has ever seen this man before – barefoot and tumbling hair and glasses askew and an old t-shirt. She thinks this Darcy might just be for her, so she tangles her fingers with his tight and leads him down the hallway.

The next morning he manages to find a newspaper and has it spread out across the kitchen bench. Coffee is brewing and curls deliciously in the air and only the soft patter of rain outside, the rustle of paper as he turns the page, and the clink of his teaspoon against the rim of the mug sound through the eerie silence.

Lizzie wanders into the kitchen as he’s midway through he financial report – he hardly notices until she leans up on tip-toes to press a kiss to the back of his head, fingers running down his spine as she passes him.

She pours herself a mug of coffee and joins him at the bench with a soft knock to his elbow. They have plans to call Jane and then perhaps Gigi later this morning, but for now he’s content to spend the time existing in her space.

He glances up and smiles warmly at her, still not quite believing everything.

 “Good morning love.”

They’re both building this thing.

Chapter Text

iii. they meander

-

The rain stops mid morning and by lunch the ground has hardened to a damp but solid crunch. The sun is starting to appear and the air is cool but not freezing - he’s warm and engrossed in his book, wearing a grey jumper and plane white socks with his feet dangling in the air – Lizzie has spent the morning running her fingers across all the titles in the library and her small frame has sat in the corner of his periphery as he reads.

Sometime later, and she’s sitting amongst his legs on the long lounge - she tugs at his sleeve as Will turns a page of Cancer Ward and when he glances down, her own eyes are gazing out the slightly open window. She stands slowly and turns to him, announcing, “Let’s go for a walk,” without preamble - and Will barely has time to protest before she’s pulling him up and forward.

“It’s wet,” he reminds her, trailing behind her down the hall.

“The sun’s out.”

“And cold.”

She turns, and the crease in her brow is worrisome. “Do you not like walking?” she asks, partly curious, and Will feels like this is one of those important moments – sometimes Gigi fixes him with the same glare and it almost always means his answer is being judged harshly.

“Yes?”

And he guesses from the happy little smile on her face that his answer is correct.

They end up ambling down the road away from Netherfield, Will wearing a dark pea coat and Lizzie wrapped in layers of scarves and sweaters. She has a small, cotton grey skirt and dark tights and boots and Will’s never seen her dressed quite like this, but he likes it. He tells her as much when she emerges from the bedroom and then he can’t help but run a hand down her arm, squeezing her hand.

He doesn’t know how he survived so many months without touching her. His fingers ache with the need to be close and she’s so warm and soft, a perfect comparison to her spark.

He’s like a rag doll being pulled, blindly, hopelessly, along behind her – stupidly in love.

He’s so entirely in love with his woman.

“That,” and she points, one hand firmly enclosed with his own and her shoulder knocking against his with each step, “That is where I had my first kiss,” and they’re standing on a deserted street in the middle of a field. She’s pointing at a large clump of trees and Will squints as he peers closer at it. He looks down at her, and then up again, and then nods because he isn’t quite sure what to do with that information other than accept it.

“I was ten and his named was Jacob and I was so in love with him I thought I might die.”

Now he raises en eyebrow, “That’s quite dramatic.”

“Jane thought so too.”

She tugs at his hand tightly and pulls him off the road and he has no choice but to follow her, stumbling in his boots. The ground is squishy but the grass isn’t too long and Will only grimaces once at the thought of what the mud will do to the leather. Lizzie is determined and her hair is wisping softly at the edges and the sun has peeked out from behind the clouds to glisten on the edge of raindrops clinging to branches. 

He breathes in deep and realizes that at some point he actually began to like it here.

“There.”

There?

He glances up where Lizzie has stopped to point and there’s an old tree house sitting halfway up an oak tree. It’s shrouded in branches and looks dangerously wet and soft, but Lizzie has dropped his hand to go searching for the old rope ladder and when she emerges moments later with a triumphant cry, Will knows he’ll have no choice but to climb.

She fixes him with a glare that’s somewhat reminiscent of old times, and five minutes later Will finds himself pressed against a slightly rotten wall with Lizzie’s small frame sitting amongst his legs.

“Happy?” he grumbles and she lets out such a content, little sigh that Will can’t help but feel slightly appeased.

And really, it’s not so bad. The wood smells appalling and he can feel the dampness soak through the bottom of his jeans and the boards creak terribly, but Lizzie has her arms resting on his knees and one hand tucked up underneath, clutching at his thigh. Her back is pressed flush to his chest and he can feel her exhale against him – he wraps an arm snug and low around her waist and she hums in a way he’s growing terribly enamoured with – she doesn’t just speak and touch; she hums and ahhs and sighs breathily and moans at the back of her throat.

All these little things that Will is slowly learning and falling in love with; little pieces that are only for him.

She turns gently in his arms and Will smiles crookedly down at her, watching her cheeks flush a little before she arches up and presses her lips to his own – hard and purposeful and so intoxicating that his hand comes up to tangle in her hair.

When she lets him breathe he sobs a gasp and she laughs softly against his lips, so close still that his eyes go crossed trying to see her. She presses a simpler, softer kiss to his lips and then settles back against his chest, stretching her legs out to let them swing.

“I used to hide here when I was little – I was always in trouble and I never understood why. And Lydia was loud and Jane was always trying to stop the two of us fighting – so I’d run out here and pull the ladder up after me. It must have taken my mother three or four years to find this place.”

Her voice is wistful, and not for the first time Will longs to know what her relationship with her mother is actually like. The Mrs. Bennet he’s met and the Mrs. Bennet she portrays in costume theater aren’t so unalike, but Will is sure there must be more to their relationship than fond bemusement – relationships are always more complicated than they seem.

“And your father?” he prods, because glimpses at Lizzie’s past are like precious gold. He knows so little about the person she once was – almost nothing of her childhood, but he’s beginning to understand this little segue up the tree house - she’s showing him her past, piece by piece.

She snorts, and the movement jolts against him, reminding him of her presence.

It’s so strange to have someone pressed solidly against him, it’s grounding and startling at the same time – he’s liable to float away and melt into the floor at any given moment when she’s beside him. “My father was the one who built this – I think for that very reason. He’s always been the best at escaping my mother.”

Suddenly, and she’s tipping forward, crawling up on her knees with a happy little laugh and pressing her fingers to the faded wood sitting opposite him. “I can’t believe this is still here,” she murmurs, and Will hoists himself forward to have a look. He’s really too tall for a tree house he realizes, grunting. His head almost hits the roof and instead he teeters on the balls of his feet as he crouches. Lizzie watches him sway and pokes at his side, hindering rather than helping.

“I’m not built for tree houses,” he tells her seriously, and she laughs so brightly that he blinks rapidly to make sure everything is real.

“Look, here. Charlotte and I wrote this when we were 7,” she tells him, still snickering and pointing to the wall. He inches forwards with exaggerated movements and she rolls her eyes, but he doesn’t miss the hand hovering over his shoulder to steady him.

He grips her fingers tight once he’s settled and feels them flex in his grasp, so he tangles them together and she sighs breathily.

Lizzie Bennet & Charlotte Lu – best friends, 1995 xxx

He traces a finger down the mottled wood and a smile tugs at the corner of his lips – it must be wonderful, he thinks, to have such physical memories of the past.

“What were you like as a child?” she asks him curiously – she has a memory of Mrs. Reynolds telling a tale of a small, cheerful young boy and tries to reconcile it with the man before her.

Will pauses, seemingly lost in thought, and his brow crinkles as he hesitates.

“I don’t think I’ve changed very much, I was always quiet – but maybe not so,” and now he stumbles, “maybe not so socially unaware, or judgmental.”

And she runs a finger up his arm to tilt his chin up, where it’s dropped.

“Will,” she says, voice soft, “You’re one of the best people I know.”

Her hand drops to press over his heart and it beats staccato as he struggles to breathe, instead laughing self deprecatingly.  “That’s not true.”

And so she hits him in the chest. “It is, I was just too blind to see it at first. But other people do. I do, now.”

He catches her gaze and it’s stark and honest and he has a hard time not believing her when she’s rubbing her thumb against his cheek. She presses a kiss to his forehead, leaning forward on her knees, and when she settles back against her thighs he ducks his head, unused to such praise.

He finally glances up and she’s watching him carefully, but doesn’t call him out when he deftly changes the subject, eager to be away from analyzing his own personality and instead turning it towards her.

“I’m sure you were delightful,” he tells her, honestly.

She huffs and laughs playfully now, rolling her eyes, but there’s a light blush tickling her cheeks as she announces, “Please Will, I was a brat.”

And he thinks he could have well done with a friend like her when he was a child

An hour later and they make their way slowly from the tree – Lizzie leans heavily against his arm as they walk, her own curled loosely around his elbow and their shoulders bump and their knees knock on every few steps.

They’re slow and meandering and the whole weekend has been like one, long free fall down a cotton soft cloud. He feels wispy and muddled but also completely clear headed and when they finally stop outside her house and Lydia opens the front door with a squeal – she’d been peering out the window and had caught sight of them hand in hand someway down the road – he finally realizes that what he’s feeling is unabashed love.

Lydia throws her arms around Lizzie and punches him in the shoulder with a teasing wink and he feels too tight in his skin but soothed by Lizzie’s sparkling eyes.

Lydia doesn’t stop teasing them all afternoon, but the familiarity of her words and manner reminds him of Fitz and Gigi and he wonders, again, how on earth he could ever think her family was below his when in fact they’re the same – crazy and overbearing but so full of love.

They order thai food and sit around the Bennet lounge room eating from the boxes. Her parents are out for the evening and Lydia insists on watching some terrible reality show that he ignores. He suspects she chooses it mostly to stir him, but he’s intent on smiling and talking and being polite – and Lydia has the wonderful ability to draw anybody into conversation when she really wants to.

Somewhere between fish cakes and massaman curry he finds himself passionately defending Laurence Olivier’s role as Maxim de Winters against her loud remarks, and it isn’t until Lizzie is almost doubled over with laughter, forehead buried in his shoulder, that he realizes he feels more at home here, on the floor of the lounge room with Lydia’s objections ringing in his ear, than he has anywhere else in years.

They go to bed that night back at Netherfield and Lizzie pulls him on top of her, pressed so close he’s afraid she’ll shatter. She’s warm beneath the blankets and pale and spread out and he spends most of his time running his hands along her skin, pressing his lips to her collarbone and her breasts and her stomach and her hands and she giggles and grips at his hair and sighs into his mouth when they meet.

He has a flight back to San Francisco in the morning and she’s heading into the last two weeks before her thesis is due – there won’t be a moment for any of this for almost a month and he aches at the thought of being away from her.

There’s a question sitting heavy on his chest but it’s only partly his to give – the other depends on other people and places and it’s not his decision when it is given. He could interfere, but that wouldn’t be fair to either of them, and so he must wait and wait and wait and pray.

He hopes with everything that she’ll say yes.

Back home the next day and Gigi hugs him so tight around the middle he’s afraid he’ll suffocate. He pats an awkward hand against her back and then tries to nudge her away because they’re standing just outside his office and Peter from Graphics is watching them bemusedly from down the hall and Will really doesn’t feel like explaining why Gigi’s on the verge of tears.

Most of the people in the office know Lizzie. Some are even aware of her videos. He’s pretty sure 99% of them also know that he’s hopelessly in love with her, thanks to Gigi, but he has no desires to share his relationship with them all until Lizzie is at least living in the same city – preferably walking these same halls.

“I’m so happy William, so happy,” Gigi sighs, giddy and bouncing and Will has to bite his lip because he’s in danger of smiling too much. Eventually his little sister pulls back and he sends her on her way, promising to take her to lunch to share the details. She’s wearing a floaty dress that swirls as she spins away from him and Will has a memory, so deeply ingrained, of his mother in a long skirt swaying and humming along to Mahler in their front room.

He watches Gigi run down the hall and wishes, not for the first time, that his parents were still with him – wishes she had known them beyond small memories and photos in books; wishes they had been there when he took his first steps as an adult; wishes Lizzie could know them - especially his mother.

He chuckles to himself and imagines those two women sharing a room – his mother would have adored Lizzie, he’s sure of it, and his father would have been enamored by her wit from the start.

He finds himself back in his office with a stack of reports and a diagnostics test that needs over viewing before Domino can be launched fully and a message from Mrs. Reynolds about a meeting with key shareholders that they’re insisting be pushed forward to this afternoon; and already he can feel his shoulders heavy under the weight.

He feels detached without Lizzie nearby, like something vital is missing, but she has a thesis to write, and he has a business to run, and he believes her when she promises that they’ll figure everything out eventually.

His phone beeps and he pulls it up quickly – his smile blossoms and he laughs.

Just told mother. She’s weeping with joy into her oven mitts. Welcome to the family William.

Welcome, he thinks, indeed.

Chapter Text

iv. they pause

-

Will wakes to cool sheets and an empty bed and his heart clenching painfully in his chest; that way it does when you’re mid way through falling and your alarm clock sounds, throwing you from a nightmare.

He feels his muscles settle back into his skin with a heavy ache and the unmistakable rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins; his breath slows only as he blinks open his eyes, taking in the soft grey dawn as it crawls across the ceiling.

There’s an achy-gnawing pressure in his chest and his arms reach out across the mattress before he can stop them – one weekend and he’s already missing the curves of Lizzie lying by his side. He turns to rest on his left shoulder and the room around him is silent and still – he remembers the muffled sound of her breathing and the jasmine scent of her hair and the warmth clinging down his side where she was pressed against him – it’s 6 in the morning and much too early to ring her, but he desperately wants to hear her voice.

She’s groggy in the mornings, voice rough and somehow gentle at the same time. She crawls up across his chest and rests her cheek against his heart and mumbles against him so that wet lips skim his skin and tickle down to his stomach.

He rolls over and without thinking, sends a quick message her way.

Good morning love.

On Monday afternoon he arrived home to an empty house. On Tuesday morning, upon waking, he panicked slightly when she wasn’t in his arms. By Wednesday he’d come to accept that the heavy feeling in his chest was simply missing her – like a lost limb, or phantom fingers; when he’s with her she’s like honey in his veins, all sweet and endlessly flowing, but without her the days are long and cold and still and he stumbles between them; lost.

He has cereal in a bowl sitting on the kitchen bench and a large mug of coffee while reading the newspaper – he’s old fashioned, he likes the physical spread – though Gigi has spent nearly two years trying to convince him otherwise. He gets through three answers in the cryptic crossword before the dredges of his breakfast turn too soggy, and as he drains the bowl of milk and his mug of coffee he sets the pen down beside it on the bench and leaves the rest for the evening with dinner.

It’s a Thursday, and he has a meeting with the finance department to cover the coming quarterly budget and then a videoconference with a company based out of Dubai and a late lunch date with colleagues from the web department. His afternoon is filled with an assortment of reports and documents that need overviewing and he has a vague memory of Mrs. Reynolds reminding him to wear a nice tie and jacket because he was going for drinks in the late afternoon – he doesn’t know why, or with whom – but he picks out a thin, deep navy tie because according to the women on the fourth floor it accentuates his dark eyes.

He grabs his briefcase and the stack of paperwork that always seems to grow on his coffee table and is halfway down the stairs when his phone starts vibrating in his pocket. He pauses a second – his hands are full but he likes to always answer his phone, give the impression that he’s always available – not to mention there’s a small chance it might be Lizzie.

He makes it to his car with seconds to spare, and throwing the contents of his arms into the back seat, fishes the phone from his pocket just in time.

“William Darcy,” he breathes, rushed and slightly relieved, and the voice when it comes sends a shiver down his spine.

“What is wrong with you?” it demands, whining.

Wait.

He stands by the front door of the car and glances around helplessly, stumbling over his words, “I...I don’t...”

“It’s seven o’clock in the morning William Darcy. Seven.”

He settles in his car seat with the phone still pressed to his ear and tries to navigate just how serious she is – this could be one of those moments where she’s teasing him – but on the other hand, she might have serious issues with being awoken before 8 am. “Lizzie?”

He sounds lost – a little helpless – and she must take pity on him because she laughs bright and sudden, warming him as he sits in the dark garage. He can hear her breathe steadily down the line, and though her voice is slightly distorted she still sounds sleepy – he hazards a guess that she’s just woken up and hopes she’s still in bed, snuggled beneath the blankets.

“Thank you,” she finally says, and he’s so focused on being with her in that moment that he almost forgets to respond.

“For what?”

She makes a happy noise, a little high-pitched chuckle, and he scrunches his nose in confusion. “I liked waking up to your message.”

“Even if it is, as you said, seven o’clock in the morning?”

He has a hopeless smile and his cheeks feel warm and bright – if he closes his eyes he can almost imagine her next to him. She’d be sitting up against the mismatched pillows scattered on her bed, wearing an old stripy t-shirt and leggings and bright green socks. Her hair would be messy, possibly pulled back in a ponytail – but strands of it wisp around her cheeks without reason and last weekend he’d found himself brushing them back and rubbing a thumb down her cheek without noticing. Her eyes are always bright in the morning  - they may be muzzy and blinking and her voice rough with sleep – but they sparkle with mischief when they turn on him, capturing him in the moment.

He sighs loudly and rubs his unoccupied fingers to his temple, catching a glance of himself in the rearview mirror and the tight hold of the tie around his neck.

“I miss you,” he sighs without thinking.

And she coos at him adorably, sighing, “Oh, Will.”

“Today will be busy, and I miss seeing you in the halls.”

He so very rarely sounds emotional – his words are clipped and jilted and strong – but now he can feel the rise and dip as his throat contracts, hopes Lizzie can hear it too – that he means it with everything within him. “I have to go,” he sighs, because the clock is ticking onwards imperiously and the finance department waits for no man, lest of all one hopelessly in love, “But I’d like to call you this evening, if you are free.”

She laughs gently – he’s asked her the same question each day for the past week – and each time she’s replied with a definitive, “Yes.”

“You better,” she teases, and then quickly, lest he end the call, “I miss you too Will.”

He loves the sound of his name on her tongue – loves the warmth that spreads through his bones even on a foggy, San Francisco morning. Loves the rise of her voice, the cadence up and down, the lilt when she laughs and the soft hum deep in her throat. He hangs up without a goodbye and clutches the phone sharp to his chest - and then with a great sigh, because the day really will be impossible, starts the engine and pulls the car from the garage out into the misty, grey dawn.

That evening he rings her and she sits up past midnight, spilling her every thought and whimsy to him. He tucks his feet up on the couch and drifts with his eyes closed and her voice humming in his ear and when one of them falls asleep the other whispers feather soft, “I love you,” down the line.

On Friday morning she wakes and panics, because in ten days she hands in the single most important document of her life, and all she wants to do is hop a plane to San Francisco - somewhere in the past few months William Darcy became her calm.

The weekend is spent in a flurry of insane typing, but Will leaves her messages every few hours ranging from – Being dragged to a market with Gigi to buy herbs – to – Banging my head against a wall because paperwork is evil. Save me.

She laughs each time and sends him back something appropriately witty; she hopes he understands how much it means to her – how much he’s keeping her sane.

To say Lizzie doesn’t leave her bedroom in the two weeks before her final thesis is due would not be much of an overstatement. Rather it would merely be a statement of fact.

She emerges from her room only for tea, cookies and bathroom breaks. Beyond that her life revolves around her computer screen, a veritable mess of papers spread around her and across her desk and bed, and the steady click clack of fingers on the keyboard. She welcomes the occasional text from Jane, Charlotte and Will – if for no other reason than they remind her that she’s human and that yes, there is life beyond editing drafts. Lydia, quiet and sneaky across the hall, tiptoes past every few hours to keep watch and eyes her carefully whenever Lizzie stumbles blearily towards the kitchen.

“You’re going to trip into the wall,” she yells, bemused, and Lizzie only barely avoids running head first into the wallpaper by sticking a hand out quickly to stop it.

Lydia emerges; nose wrinkled in a judgmental way that only little siblings can pull off, and reaches forward to pat an awkward hand to Lizzie’s back, feigning comfort. “How’s it going?” she asks, and Lizzie grunts and shrugs a shoulder - then stumbles on forwards, following the scent of freshly brewed tea.

When Lizzie was ten years old and Lydia was a particularly obnoxious seven, and Jane was just entering her teenage years and through no fault of her own had less time for her younger sisters; and Mrs. Bennet had announced dramatically that having three emotional girls was too much for her nerves, Lizzie had decided that the only sensible option was to run away to the coast and join a theme park.

(Earlier that year the family had visited SeaWorld in San Diego and Lizzie had been so enraptured by the dolphins that she’d promised one day to return)

The only person that she told of this plan was Charlotte, but unlike most 10 year best friends, who would have nodded and agreed that it was the smartest, most sensible option, like, ever - Charlotte Lu had raised an unimpressed eyebrow and told Lizzie she was being ridiculous.

“You can’t run away.”

And Lizzie had placed two unimpressed fists on her hips and demanded to know why.

“Well, you have no money. No transport. And why would anyone let a ten year old work with the dolphins?”

Charlotte had pursed her lips, watching her speechless best friend, and when it had become apparent that Lizzie wasn’t going to respond, had returned to finishing her homework.

Lizzie can still remember standing in Charlotte’s small bedroom, breathless with disappointment and slightly marveled by Charlotte’s resolve. From that day onwards Charlotte had been her unavoidable voice of reason; her own Jiminy Cricket – only taller and with a more judgmental air. So when Lizzie calls her on a Monday morning exactly one week before her thesis is due, voice bordering on hysterical, eyes bloodshot, hair tangled and a pencil chewed between her teeth, she does so in the blind hope that Charlotte will make everything better.

“Make everything better,” she demands quickly without greeting, and Charlotte mumbles quietly to herself before speaking drily – “Good morning too, Lizzie.”

“I can’t do this.”

 Lizzie’s always been drawn to drama – Charlotte, on her way back from a business luncheon with Ricky and Catherine De Bourgh, barely pauses as she marches towards her office. She has a proposal for web content to complete and Lizzie’s impending doom isn’t high on her list of priorities.

Anyway, calming Lizzie is easy. Charlotte is a Lizzie Bennet pro.

“Okay,” she says simply, and Lizzie, mid breath and pacing her room, pauses with her arm waving mid-gesture.

“What?” she prods, perplexed.

“Okay. You can’t do it. That’s fine,” Charlotte responds, “Just ring Dr. Gardiner and let her know and then next Monday, don’t turn in your thesis, and then fail grad-school and keep living at home, and when Lydia finally moves out in a few years with a great job and partner, maybe you’ll be able to have her room as well. I heard Carter’s is looking for a new bargirl?”

And Lizzie hisses, “You are evil,” with only a slight hint of admiration.

“Lizzie I’ve know you my entire life – when I was 14 you broke into the school gym to retrieve my bag so no one would find the notebook I’d filled with love hearts over Peter Atkinson –”

“Terrible crush, by the way.”

“What I’m trying to say is that you’re the most stubborn person I know when you put your mind to something,” and she pauses, a fond smile on her lips, “You can do this.”

And too many miles away, sitting on the corner of her bed with text books and papers spread haphazardly around, Lizzie bites her bottom lip to stop the tight feeling in her chest breaking into a sob, instead telling Charlotte, “I love you.”

“Good, now write.”

That evening Will calls towards nine with a quick apology and a clipped voice. She startles a moment; a sudden fear that he’s upset sliding low in her stomach – but then he sighs and rambles for a full five minutes about the meeting he sat through all afternoon, and then apologises again, and Lizzie can’t help but tell him he’s adorable. He seems confronted by that notion, but accepts it readily enough – and they spend the next few hours trading complaints and sleepy confessions until Will pleads exhaustion and they both shuffle off to bed.

By Tuesday they’re both sick of the distance and Lizzie drops a pot of tea down the sink in protest against the world.

On Wednesday evening, Will has come to terms with the itchy feeling beneath his skin and instead agrees to accompany Gigi and Fitz to a new Italian restaurant in Nob Hill.

It’s swanky, as Fitz announces loudly, strolling through the front doors with a pleased nod and grin, and Will sends an apologetic glance to the waiter as he takes their coats and leads them to a table.  

By the time they’ve made their way through little pieces of bruschetta, garlic prawns and fresh baby octopus, and the bottle of Merlot has been nearly emptied and Gigi’s cheeks are pleasantly flushed, Will’s almost on his way to believing he won’t be interrogated. But it’s a rooky mistake. There’s no known power in the universe that could stop Georgiana Darcy and Fitz Williams from attempting to embarrass him).

Their main meals are brought to the table – Penne Arrabiata for Will, fresh Salmon for Gigi, and a large, meat covered pizza for Fitz that leaves the other two with a mixed, morbid curiosity (what? I haven’t eaten since breakfast, Fitz defends) - and the lively atmosphere of the restaurant is almost enough to carry Will’s thoughts far from the workday. He’s focused on his pasta and the empty wine glass by his side and the man playing a soft melody on the piano in the corner when Gigi suddenly announces, “So, William. How’s Lizzie?”

And he freezes. He swallows around a mouthful of hot, tomato sauce – the slide of chili and garlic warming his insides and deflecting his attention – he blindly reaches for the glass of cool, sparkling water by his side and takes a long sip as the other two sit patiently, awaiting his answer.

“Well. She is well.”

He thinks it’s an apt response.

“William,” Gigi’s head is tilted to the side, signaling her disapproval and Fitz is snickering around the rim of his wine glass, muttering “she’s well,” mockingly.

Will feels the hot flush of frustration run through him and purses his lips, stuttering for a response. Really, what more do they want from him?

“She has a thesis to hand in on Monday, so I believe she’s quite stressed. Other than that I’ve only spoken to her a handful of times in the evening. I don’t want to distract her.”

“Like she’s so clearly distracting you?” Fitz teases, and now the blush in his cheeks tingles uncomfortably. He shifts in his chair and runs his hand down his thighs over the linen napkin covering them – but then he glances up and Gigi’s face is alight with hope, and Fitz’s smile, whilst annoying, is fond and happy – and Will realizes once more that they’re happy for him.

“Dude,” Fitz begins, “This is good though, yeah?”

And Will nods quickly, unable to help his smile. “Yes, it is.”

“She makes you happy?” Gigi coos, leaning forward. She grips the edge of his wrist in her hand and squeezes, and Will has the inexplicable urge to pull her forward into a hug. Sometimes it’s so easy to forget that he has people watching over him – people who care for his welfare and his happiness – people who want to hug him and laugh and cry. He’s spent so long protecting Gigi that it’s odd feeling it in return – odd, but refreshing. His heart flutters madly and he knocks her hand until it turns to grasp his own.

He squeezes her fingers back and she smiles cheekily at him, bouncing once in her seat. “She’s lucky to have you, William,” she tells him, and Will is sure that it’s entirely the other way round.

But he’ll take the compliment. It warms his heart either way.

Thursday passes, then Friday, and Saturday. He spends an entire evening helping Lizzie breathe in and out, trying to keep her calm. She sends him one, final copy of her thesis late that evening – to late for him to have any input (and he suspects that’s her plan all along) and so spends his Sunday morning reading through her work thoroughly – going through two mugs of coffee, and then one pot of tea.

He calls her late on Sunday evening, “You are brilliant,” he tells her, voice soft but strong and full of emotion.

On Monday she wakes at three in the morning with butterflies in her stomach and the unmistakable urge to be sick. 

“Elizabeth?”

She has three hours before she has to physically hand over her beautifully typed and bound thesis.  Her bedroom is a mess and her hair, also a mess, but Mr. Bennet doesn’t seem to notice any of that when he leans his head around the doorframe.

“Are you busy?” he asks with a small, secret smile, and Lizzie shakes her head quickly, patting the space on the bed beside her to invite him in.

He’s a short man, reading glasses perched a top his head, and he’s wearing an old grey cardigan over his sweater. When Lizzie was very small he would come in to her room with a book from his study and the pair would spend hours trailing through the pages, learning about the planets and the dinosaurs and the time traveling capabilities of everyday household objects.

He settles beside her and lays a hand across her own, “I thought we might have one of our chats,” he tells her, and Lizzie chuckles, nodding. She turns to face him on the bed, legs tucked beneath her, and tangles her hand in his older, worn one.

Mr. Bennet seems lost in thought, peering just beyond her shoulder but then at once turns to her with a knowing smile and a pat to her cheek, “My Lizzie,” he sighs, “You are very grown up,” and for some inexplicable reason she finds herself with tears in her eyes, gently dipping against her lashes.

She hangs her head and shakes it, clearing the tears, “Not really,” she begins to say but her father silences her with a click of his tongue, a sharp smile and the sparkle in his eyes.

“You are more grown up than you think, Lizzie.”

She catches his gaze but has to look away after a moment, too full with emotion and the ache in her heart and the soft, warm hold of his hand.

“I don’t think any of us have truly appreciated just how much you’ve done this year. For yourself, and for Jane – and Lydia.”

“No, dad –“

She wants to tell him how entirely she messed things up – how her videos sabotaged Jane’s relationship, how her own selfishness failed to protect Lydia – how she spent months being needlessly cruel to the man she’s since grown to love. But Mr. Bennet is determined, and in his own way, endlessly wise, and he quietens her with a squeeze of her fingertips.

“I’m not blind, nor stupid Lizzie. We’ve all made mistakes this year, but you’ve done us all proud.” He glances to the stack of papers sitting on the edge of her desk, “Through your work, and your loyalty, and your smile,” and he pats his hand to her cheek.

She drops her head forward to the soft press of his cardigan and lets her father wrap an arm around her shoulder, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she rests.

When she finally straightens, he swings their grasped hands between them, and Lizzie leans over to press her lips to his cheek. “Thank you, dad.”

“Would you like me to drive you when you hand it in?” he asks, gesturing to her thesis – and she laughs a little; the last time her father drove her to school she was 6.

“That would be wonderful.”

Mr. Bennet, a man with very few, but well thought words, nods once and stands with a fond smile. He’s half way through he door when he pauses, leaning back, “And what’s this I hear about Mr. Darcy?” he asks, and Lizzie flushes red, hot and painful through her cheeks.

Her father raises a hand, waving away her explanations – “Do you love him?” he asks simply, and as she sits on the edge of her bed, her fathers curious, open face staring back, she can only nod, for fear of sobbing, and then through the emotion curling hot in her throat she murmurs, “Yes, I do.”

And Mr. Bennet – silent and still - beams wide and chuckles; brings a hand to his quivering lips, and says, “I’m so very happy, Lizzie.”

That evening she has dinner with her mother, father and Lydia. They are loud and obnoxious and Lizzie joins them in their laughter. Her mother sits by her side and can’t help but hold her hand through half the evening, and for the first time Lizzie truly understands what everything changing means.

She’s free now. She can work where she pleases. Go where she pleases. Love whomever she pleases. For the first time in a long time she finds herself wanting to grip her mother back tight.

Back home she’s hugged around the middle by her family and there’s a toast with expensive champagne and strawberries dipped in chocolate sauce; she receives a message from Will, a simple Congratulations, I love you, and when her eyes fill with tears her mother winds an arm around her shoulder and pulls her tight to her chest.

She wants to message him back. Wants to call him and tell him. But the words are too precious to be scattered down a line – she wants to see his face and feel his hands and smell his skin – wants the deep colour of his eyes and the crease in his brow and the safety of his arms – not a technological exchange of pleasantries.

Instead she types, I miss you and I want you – can’t wait to see you.

And that night falls into a restless sleep.

On Wednesday morning she wakes and she's spread out on his bed, his arm wrapped heavy around her waist and puffs of air against the back of her neck. It takes her a moment to realise where she is, and then her heart beats faster because his chest is warm to her back and his leg is resting gently against the curve of her thigh and if he shifted, even a little, he'd be lying practically on top of her, cradling her hips.

(Her parents had accosted her early Tuesday morning with a present – a ticket to San Francisco – and her father had bemusedly sighed, “Lydia told us this was all you would truly want.”

As usual, Lydia was right.)

Now, she takes a moment to appreciate the soft light and silence of his apartment, and then turns herself gently to analyse his sleepy profile. He looks younger in the morning - such a cliche, she's aware - but sometimes she forgets just how young he truly is. William Darcy, CEO, presents himself as such a self assured figure that it's easy to forget that he's barely older than she is, still stumbling through those terrifying years of finding oneself. She supposes he had to find himself much earlier than most - as an adult, a businessman; a guardian.

His eyelids flutter delicately and he has wisps of dark hair curled at his temples and his lips are quirked slightly as if he's content, and she supposes he might be - all warm and snuggly in the early morning.

She feels his arm tighten imperceptibly around her middle and his thigh shifts upwards across her own so that her legs are trapped and never in a million years did she suspect William Darcy would such a cuddler.

Her chest is light and floaty and she's beginning to love the clean, sweet scent of his skin. His hair is dark and delicious to touch so she runs a finger across his brow and snickers as his nose wiggles - his forehead crinkles so she smoothes down the hair at his temple and with a deft gracefulness she never knew she possessed, inches slowly out of his arms and across the mattress.

It's a slow journey - she's still a little clumsy, and Will's arm crawls across the sheets in search of her as she moves. She ends up standing by his side of the bed and rubbing a hand to his shoulder to calm him before she tiptoes softly across the hardwood floors and down the hall in search of a drink.

The apartment is cool and spacious; the walls are light but juxtaposed with the occasional patch of dark paint. There's the expected expensive art pieces hanging from them, but also family pictures and photographs and shelves and shelves of books, cd's and vinyls stacked tight - she takes a moment to read a few and finds a copy of Thomas Paines Rights of Man, The Beatles Revolver and an old, battered copy of Winnie the Pooh all sitting adjacent. There are books on architecture and technology and science; volumes of Shakespeare and Charles Dickens and albums of Bob Dylan next to The Clash. And more specifically; Organic Vegetable Gardening, 101 Songs for Easy Guitar, and a bookmarked A Brief History of Time with post it notes sticking out from all angles. She can just make out Will’s edgy, largely illegible scrawl and bites her lip to stop a giggle, imagining him pouring through the pages one lazy afternoon.

On the coffee table she finds stacked reports from Pemberly, a miniature chessboard and a half complete cryptic crossword. She runs a finger across the puzzle and not for the first time, ponders his mind. She regrets, sometimes, the missed opportunity for true conversation when they were first at Netherfield. Occasionally they had tumbled into analyzing Tolstoy, or Beethoven, or even one memorable afternoon, George Lucas; but for the large part she’d always taken his attempts at conversation as attacks on her personal taste.

She understands better now. Knows his mind a little more, and the way it works – the world fascinates him, but he shies away from it largely; instead he loses himself in technology and books.

He’s shy and quiet, but fiercely intelligent and loyal. There are picture frames hanging on the walls filled with family photos and a guitar sitting in the corner of the room and she hates that she'd once thought this man was bereft of feeling - that he was just another of the many automatons who filled their day with work and nothing more. William Darcy may be a workaholic, but she can see and feel his very essence as it seeps through the room - feels warmed by him in the air around her; his touch and style permeates each object and book.

She stops by the small, modern inbuilt fireplace and the old mantel still running across its top and peers with wide eyes and an even wider smile at what must be the Darcy family before Gigi - a tall, beaming male, a gorgeous woman and a small, bouncing boy, barely older than five. Will has blushed cheeks and glasses too big for his face and a red bowtie that matches his fathers - he's leaning back against both his parents and they're resting soft, comforting hands on his shoulder. What could have been a formal photo feels warm and lovely by comparison, simply because of their smiles.

It takes her a moment, but then she notices the small book clutched in Will's hands and can't help but laugh - she can't make out the title, and she wonders what he read as a child. Tom Sawyer, The Wind in the Willows; Peter Pan, perhaps - and yes, she can imagine a young William Darcy elbow deep in the classics - glasses crooked across his nose and brown locks tumbling preciously.

She runs a finger along the spines of the books laid on the mantle and feels the bumps and the crevices, the smooth surfaces of the glossy gold titles and the cracks along those that have been reopened one too many times.

There's an old, battered copy of Jane Eyre sitting on the edge of the shelf, dislodged from the rest of the books and with a pale blue cover. She hesitates a moment but then picks it up reverently, prying open the hard cover and smiling at the golden brown curl at the edge of the pages. The book is musty, but not too stiff - it's aged but read often - the pages seem thicker and more pronounced from the spine, as if something of the reader had been left with it each time it was opened.

She wonders for a moment if the book belongs to Gigi, but then she notices the delicate curvature of calligraphy on the front page and the inscription, To William, may you one day find the truest of love.

The handwriting is beautiful - soft, even - and she glances over at the image of the woman who once wrote those words; tall and dark and graceful. Never rushed, and with an enchanting, secret smile. There's a formal portrait of Anne and William Darcy that she stumbled upon in the foyers of Pemberly; and whilst Will might have his father’s height and profile, he has his mother’s eyes and their startling depth - and Gigi must have her sparkling personality.

She feels her breath falter as she traces the soft words and for the first time feels like she's intruding - that perhaps tip toeing idly down the hallway while Will is still asleep is not the best idea. She closes the book carefully and lays it back on the shelf and is halfway turned round when she catches his dark shadow in the doorway - she startles backwards with a hand to her chest and he steps forward immediately, trying to steady her.

"Will."

"You weren't in bed," he states, a small, hesitant smile petering across his lips. She hopes he doesn't think she'd left him, or run away for any other reason than to wander, so she steps forward and allows his fingers to curl delicately around the curve of her elbow until she's tucked in close - he has to bend his neck downwards to meet her gaze and she peers up at him open, knocking her chin to his chest so that he takes some of her weight.

"I'm sorry," she tells him, trailing a finger down his forearm. He shivers, and she delights in the trail of hair that stands down his skin.

He smiles gently, whispers, "Don't be," and then, "Are you okay?"

He's wearing a pair of pale blue striped pajama pants and a tight white shirt, but his feet are bare and for some reason she finds herself utterly fixated by that - in the same way she's fixated by his glasses, and his messy tumble of dark hair; the smudge of a blush deep in his cheek as he tucks his fingers in the waistband of her underwear, rubbing her skin.

She tilts her head so that her ear is resting over his heart and breathes out deeply - his work will remain busy and she might be finished her thesis, but the role of being an adult has only just begun.

But despite that, the sun is warming the floorboards beneath their feet, slowly climbing up the spine of the window as the morning dawns, and the only sounds in the apartment are the gentle tick of a grandfather clock down the hallway and their mingled breathing; in and out, in and out.

"I'm perfect," she mumbles into his shirt, and his fingers press into the skin at her back - tiny pressure points of meaning and love.

She thinks, maybe San Francisco would be a nice place to begin.

Chapter Text

v. they stumble

-

Lizzie sets herself up at the kitchen bench with the newspaper, a big mug of coffee and her hair pulled back in a ponytail that curls around the left side of her neck, tickling her collarbone.

She has her legs bent underneath her and a hoodie thrown over her pajama shirt with the sleeves too long – they curl around the tips of her fingers and she tucks them warmly inside. She leafs through the news slowly, reading a headline or a paragraph every few minutes, and her gaze flickers and then focuses on Will; half dressed, shuffling across the tiles in socks, and with a slice of toast held in his teeth as he navigates a jug of orange juice.

“Want any help?” she enquires, but he shakes his head and a lone crumb falls from the side of the toast; she’s a little bit in love with the fact that he slathers it in strawberry jelly (organic) like a small child, but his coffee is black and strong and makes her nose crinkle. She can only drink black coffee when she’s operating on less than three hours sleep but Will takes long, drawn mouth fills and she finds herself oddly fascinated by it.

As he passes her by into the lounge room to collect a portfolio she tugs at his shirtsleeves until he’s standing between her legs, body flush with hers and one arm curving around her waist and his mouth is all satiny smooth and rich deep coffee as she kisses him – intoxicating and stark and making her toes curl against the back of his calves through her bright pink socks – he laughs into her mouth and she feels her heart skip with delight because in the two days she’s spent here and the few weeks they’ve been doing this thing, even the months and months she knew him before, she doesn’t think she’s ever heard his pure, infectious laughter.

There’s an article on analysing the growth of online media content in the past three years that he points out to her, and she really should find it fascinating but she can’t focus, instead she tilts her head to the side, examining him as he moves – tie around his neck but hanging loose, buttons done up but shirt untucked – even his pants are unbuttoned, hanging open slightly, and whenever he maneuvers around the bench she catches a tantalizing triangular glimpse of his dark blue boxers.

It’s early in the morning, there’s only a little light streaming through the blinds, and Lizzie would usually still be curled up in bed, but Will had woken her with a soft hand trailing down her spine and a gentle kiss to the back of her head and a whispered, hesitant apology. She’d turned in his arms and tucked her head underneath his chin; hooked a calf over his hip and snuggled into him, relishing his warmth.

He’d humored her a moment, ran both hands up and down her back and whispered good morning into her hairline so that his breath tickled her skin – then he’d pulled himself away and shuffled off to the kitchen and it was then that she’d realized he’d already woken and showered – he was all clean skin and fresh scents and damp hair curling at the edges whilst she was still clogged and muzzy, desperately battling sleep.

 “You can stay in bed,” he’d told her as she followed, eyes darting hesitantly around her face but with a soft finger held to curl around the tip of her ear and trace down the sensitive skin along the side of her neck. She’d shivered through a nod and tipped her forehead against his chest (and it’s so strange to press herself into his arms and feel his heartbeat against her ear she thinks; she’s a little in love with it – the promise that he’s real and alive) and then shrugged half-heartedly. 

“Well I’m awake now,” she’d grumbled, and stumbled after him dolefully, bumping into his shoulder with a hand tangled around his wrist.

“Do you have plans for today?” he asks casually, standing before a mirror in the hall as he fixes his tie.

She’s leant against the doorframe with her both hands cradling a coffee mug and while she’s not drinking from it, the rich scent curls deliciously around them; strangely, it reminds her of mornings at Netherfield with Jane and Bing and Caroline moving around the spacious kitchen – Darcy always in the corner, flicking through emails and texts on his phone as he sipped at his cup.

It’s bordering on 7:45 and Will has to leave for work soon, so she’s taken to trailing after him as he moves around the apartment; makes a soft noise when he skims his hands through his draw full of scarves to indicate her favourite (red and yellow and there’s really no guess as to why); follows him into his office and marvels at the black and white photographs of the bay for a full minute before his hand skimming around her waist reminds her he’s leaving – she even leans back against the bathroom sink as he stands before the mirror, a bemused quirk of a smile curling at his lips as she watches him silently brush his teeth.

Now, and he’s standing in the hallway with his coat thrown over an elbow and his brief case leant against his knee and Lizzie realizes, suddenly, that she has no plans for the day.

“I don’t know,” she ponders, half surprised by her own realization – she has no plans for San Francisco in general, really. She came here to see him and now she’s seen him; beyond that there is nothing other than trying to convince him to stay in bed.

And whilst that had worked on Wednesday, something she believes may have been a first for William Darcy, she’s fairly certain her luck won’t extend to convincing him to spend a second day off work and underneath the covers.

Will glances at her, and it continues to cause a funny, tight feeling in her chest; he looks at her as if she’s something precious and timeless and safe; and then he offers, “You could visit the Legion of Honor.  Gigi and I didn’t cover it on our tour,” and she’s distracted for a moment by the flick of his wrist as he turns over his tie, “but I believe you would enjoy the exhibitions.”

“Yeah?” she murmurs, soft and with a smile, because there’s a light blush tingeing his cheeks but his voice is earnest. She pushes herself off the doorframe with her shoulder and watches his body shift as she steps carefully towards him – his first instinct is to run, but slowly it’s being forgotten in lieu of swaying towards her – his body in a constant state of motion between giving her room and wanting to be near her - and it’s beginning to drive him insane.

He still can’t quite fathom that he now has permission to hold her in his arms.

She reaches up on tiptoes before him and with nimble fingers smoothes the last crinkle in his tie. She’s wearing black leggings and a t-shirt, the hoodie forgotten earlier as she’d picked at a dry piece of toast, and he can remember his mother doing this for his father every morning before work; leant up against his chest with a secret smile and soft words that Will could never understand and fingers playing with his tie before patting him on his chest and sending him on his way.

(Anne Darcy, a formidable women who would organize her young, quiet son for school and then follow her husband to work to build her own career)

Lizzie presses her fingers into the firm skin over his heart and his pulse jumps and beats double for a second, finally settling as she hums against his lips, soft and bitter with coffee and delicious in the morning; and he wonders if he’ll have this feeling every morning – he hopes so.

“Are you free for lunch?” she asks him, head titled up so she can remain close but still see his eyes. They’re a bluey-brown in the early morning light and Will holds her gaze as he glances down at her. He tucks both hands behind her back to rest in the dip there and she curls her own underneath his coat and around his sides, fingering the border of his belt.

He aches for her touch, for the tingly feeling down his spine, like a live wire connecting them on all points and igniting. They have words and assurances and soft smiles and nods; but they also have kisses and trailing fingers and flushed bodies and biting lips – all there to remind him that she cares about him, wants him – definitely doesn’t hate him (and in the small, silent recesses of his mind, even hopes she loves him.)

He brushes the back of his hand against her cheek and her pupils dilate at the gesture – each one new and startling – and whilst he has no idea what he’s doing in this relationship, he’s growing sure and confident in their touch. “Lunch sounds wonderful,” he nods, and her smile grows until she ducks to press a kiss to his chest, achingly close to his nipple. It’s a stupid thought, but last night she’d dedicated a good hour to driving him absolutely insane, and a large proportion of that had been spent in that general vicinity. He shakes his head to rid the thought but she’s already huffing a laugh into his suit shirt and he knows he’s blushing and that his fingers are digging into her skin – but none of it really matters. She knows how much he wants her.

All that matters now is his soft kiss and mumbled, “I love you,” and her returned, teasing, “Have a good day, dear.”

She rubs a thumb under his eyes but then pinches his cheek and as he skips down the stairs towards the street he can’t help but smile.

“I actually don’t have anything to do,” Lizzie realizes, startled, mid morning, announcing it to the silent room as she sits at the bench once more; now showered, dressed and picking at a handful of almonds.

She has them scattered on the dark marble top and flicks them against a glass of water, letting the dull chime resonate through the apartment because the crossword has proven too difficult. It’s still sitting beside her, her own answers marked in blue pen (Will’s in black, separate so she can clearly show him what she contributed, ever the competitor) and she’s scribbled a few answers onto the sudoku and word-finder as well.

She could ring Jane, she ponders, though she’ll be at work  - so will Charlotte for that matter; and Lydia, whilst wonderful, isn’t really an option in the same way her mother isn’t. She glances slowly from the corner of the kitchen where the stainless steel refrigerator sits to the corner of the wide, open living space with it’s book shelves and tastefully placed art work, desperate for inspiration, and then thinks about going to the Legion of Honor as Will suggested; only she doesn’t really want to. Not now, at least.

Now she wants conversation and banter and someone to bounce ideas off and smile with – and she realizes with a start that really, she wants Will to come home.

She buries her head in her arms with a huff and a muttered, “pathetic,” and her elbow knocks the scattered almonds – one goes skittering across the marble top and falls to the tiles with a dull ping and she’s midway through standing to pick it up when the door flies open and her heart jumps, a voice shouting, “Lizzie B!?”

Fitz. Of course. She rests a hand to her heart and can’t stop a wide smile crossing her face, even as her pulse flutters madly.

“Fitz?”

“Yo, pumpkin!”

She wrinkles her nose; eyeing him distastefully as his head and smile pop around the corner of the hall, followed by his body. He’s wearing a dark, fitted shirt that buttons down the front and tight jeans, with a stripy scarf looped around his neck, and his brow crinkles as she stares at him, unimpressed.

“No?” he ponders, drawing to a halt and his head tilts, somewhat regretfully.

Lizzie merely shakes her head. She smiles though, full and real, as he stops across from her and plops himself down on the lounge. “And how are you this fine morning?”

“I’m good,” she hiccups through a giggle, and Fitz raises a thick eyebrow, waggling it a moment as she stands to push at his shoulder.

“I’ll bet.”

“What are you doing here?” she interrupts him, collecting her almonds in her palm and cradling them. She offers him one and Fitz’s face lights up like Christmas – she’s not entirely sure, but she thinks he might run on the same energy Lydia does, only his brand is all happiness, fun and rainbows.

“I am here to save you from the dull, aching boredom that is existing in Darcy’s apartment for more than a few hours.”

He nods decisively, and she can’t help but smile. She’s actually not that averse to the apartment – likes how it lives and breathes Will – but she’s also not looking forward to an entire day spent inside without company, so she nods, “Really?”

“Yes, darling heart.”

She rolls her eyes at that one, and Fitz pinches lightly at her hip.

“What were you thinking?”

“Well, I’ve already organized with D-Man to meet us at the Tea Room in the Japanese Tea Garden, but I was thinking a stroll through the Gardens would be a nice way to start,” and she nods unconsciously, still caught on the atrocious name. D-Man.

“What is with you this morning?” she asks incredulously, not so silently judging - and Fitz laughs delightedly. He stands quickly and pulls her up, ordering her into Will’s bedroom to get dressed, and shouting after her, “Brandon and I have a bet going. Who can come up with the most annoying nickname by the end of the day – thought I’d try a few out on you two, get myself warmed up.”

And Lizzie can only chuckle - trying to decide between a dress and jeans – because of course, that explains everything.

They’re ambling through the bright green glaze of the gardens, headed towards the Japanese Tea Garden, or so Lizzie is told – she has a white sundress on with a pale cardigan and a soft cotton scarf around her throat – it’s light enough for Spring but still warm against the occasional bite of cool – perfect for a day spent in the gardens.

She’s oddly quiet, and Fitz finds himself elbowing her at random intervals to goad her into conversation – eventually, mid way through an argument over Batman and Christian Bale, Lizzie finally manages to make him pause, biting her lip before taking a deep breath. There’s something that’s been playing on her mind all morning, and while it’s not that important, it still feels important – it's heavy on her mind and won’t dissipate until it’s been asked.

So she bites.

“Before you knew me,” she starts, and Fitz hums, intrigued, “I know you weren’t aware of the video’s...but had Will,” and she pauses, stumbling, “did he mention me, at all?”

Fitz stares at her a moment blankly, and then deadpan, asks, “You mean did my best friend tell me about the woman he was desperately, hopelessly in love with? Never.”

She sends him an unimpressed glare.

He laughs a little, knocks her elbow and smirks, but then makes a non-commital noise, and she feels a funny weight settle in her chest.

“Ehh. He only mentioned you to me, you know, a few million times, Lizzie. Your smile and your eyes and your intelligence and did I mention your eyes.”

She feels her face flush and burn and drops her head down a moment, before weakly rising again, “My eyes?”

“Yeah, the boy’s kind of in love with them.”

Fitz is smiling brightly and she feels all light and fluttery, like she might float away. “Look, he’s not one to talk about his feelings Lizzie. But yeah, Gigi and I both knew about you, and that he had feelings for you. After that it wasn’t that hard to put together that he was hopelessly in love with you – he’s kind of easy to read.”

She huffs again, throwing her arms up, because everyone keeps saying that and she still doesn’t understand how she was so blind, “To everyone but me,” she mumbles petulantly, and Fitz tugs her upwards, further towards the Tea Garden, laughing long and loud and clear.

Later, and they’ve found the garden. It’s a breathtaking mix of bamboo and miniature trees and blooming irises – there’s a hedge shaped like Mt. Fugi and a Pagoda and the amazingly u-shaped Drum Bridge – they spend an admittedly long time climbing it like children, and then bite back smiles as a seven year old eyes them with distaste.

“I have to ask,” Fitz starts, as they sit in the Tea Room waiting for Will – he’s minutes away and Lizzie is caught up by the thought of seeing him, like a 16-year-old girl. She makes a noise in the back of her throat, motioning Fitz on, but barely glances at him – eyes darting to the doorway every few moments.

He takes a deep breath, leant forward with his hands clasped; the picture of serious business, but then catches her attention completely when he asks, nay, demands, “What is my boy like in bed?”

“Fitz!” and she gasps, startled, slapping a hand to his shoulder.

“What?!,” he defends, laughing, “I never get to ask that question. In college he was all I don’t have time for girls, and then afterwards if he did open his eyes for more than two minutes to notice the other sex, it was always with someone that no one knew, or ever saw again.”

And Lizzie, now intrigued, leans forward, “You mean he’s never had a girlfriend,”

Fitz raises an eyebrow, judging her, “Have you met Darcy?”

She frowns at him and Fitz huffs, rolling his eyes. “Come on, Lizzie B. Spill,” he goads, and she feels her face flush and her fingers curl and Fitz has a stupid, wide grin on his face that turns into a cocky, loud smirk as she fidgets, obvious.

“Yeah, I knew my boy had moves,” and clapping his hands together, “Score baby!”

“Who did?”

Fitz jumps so high Lizzie almost doubles over laughing, but Will is standing before her – tall and real and present and he’s not wearing his suit jacket, only a tight, crisp white shirt with a skinny tie and the sleeves rolled up neatly – delicious, she thinks, and startles herself with the thought.

“Hello,” he smiles, deep and warm and bends down to kiss her cheek as Fitz rambles, not flustered but still talking in circles. Lizzie can feel Will’s fingertips along the curve at the top of her spine and they settle there as he takes a seat next to her, his arm along the back of her chair so he can play with the soft ends of her hair.

It’s intimate and tingly and something she’s only ever seen older couples do before – sometimes she forgets that this thing they have is a real, adult relationship – something that could one day definitely turn into forever (something she may want to turn into forever) and not a silly crush, or couple of fun dates with a guy.

Fitz seems to have explained away his words and Will is chatting happily with him about the meeting he had earlier in the morning – Lizzie listens half heartedly but mostly leans back; tips her head to the side with a smile that Will returns, and later, as their tea is brought to the table and Fitz is midway through a dramatic retelling of the night he and Brandon spent in a Fijian village drinking Kava, works up the courage to curl a soft, tentative hand across Will’s thigh, just above his knee, and squeezes softly.

He darts her a happy, startled smile, and she returns it was a soft laugh, and they spend the rest of their time sitting content; her tracing patterns into his thigh and Will thumbing gently at the nape of her neck.

They say goodbye to Will at the de Young Museum, and Lizzie watches him fold into a taxi with a small hum in her chest – it’s not quiet an ache, rationally she knows she’ll be seeing him again in a few hours – but she’s never had a person that she wanted to spend every waking minute with, and it’s a little hard to let go of that person now that she’s finally realised it herself.

“Hey, Lizzie,” Fitz murmurs, watching her with a happy smile and a hand holding her elbow. She hums and he starts walking, leading her further into the gardens where the flowers are beginning to bloom – everything green and bright and sunlight; intoxicating and muddling all at once.

“You love him, right?” and her throat goes tight and wheezy. Fitz squeezes her elbow and leads her towards a park bench and they settle with her legs crossed and Fitz still with a hand on her arm.

“I’m not pressuring you, you don’t have to tell me,” he explains, and her chest lightens a little. “I just think you should know something. Something about Darcy.”

In all the time she’s known Fitz, and admittedly it’s only been a few months and a couple of encounters – but in all that time she’s never heard his voice so timid. It makes something heavy settle in her stomach and between that and the ache of Will and the startling urge to say, “Yes, of course I love him,” she isn’t sure she wants him to continue.

But he must, so he takes a breath and forces out, “He’s a bit of a mess,” and she laughs, loud and sudden and Fitz cracks a smile.

“You don’t say?” she teases, knocking his shoulder with her own.

“Seriously, though, he’s a mess – he’s awkward and dismissive when he’s uncomfortable – but he’s also sensitive and loyal and so caring. He loves you Lizzie. I’ve never seen him act or think or feel like he does about you.”

And she nods softly; she believes it now. Can see what Charlotte and Gigi and Lydia and Jane have for so long.

Fitz huffs loudly and grips her elbow tight, finally saying, “You broke his heart last October – and I know, you had no reason to believe him or accept him – he was a total jerk about so many things...but you broke his heart when you rejected him. And then he went home and watched all those videos in one night and didn’t come into work the next morning,” he sighs loudly, “and Gigi was so terrified that something had happened to him –“

And Lizzie feels her heart constrict – feels all the terror and the pain of that one day in late October rush over her; feels the hollowness in his gaze as she’d yelled at him and then the mind numbing confusion that followed. Feels the hurt and the unsettling feeling that the world had just been tipped on its axis and the dull pounding in her temple – and then thinks of the man who had sat opposite her and been rejected – had laid everything on the line, his heart and his soul, and had had it thrown in his face. Thinks, if she’d had that happen to her, the way she feels about him now...it would shatter her.

“Fitz,” she croaks weakly, and he tugs at her wrist until she lays her head on his shoulder – hating him for bringing everything up but also secretly glad, because she and Will are champion avoiders but this is something that needs to be dealt with here and now.

“Gigi was scared,” he finally continues, soft and sad, “so I went to his apartment and he was there and...there was lots of whiskey drunk that night,” he pauses, and she swallows tightly, “I don’t know, the poor guy sat through hours of you calling him an emotionless robot that you could never love,” and she hiccups, softly with tears in her eyes; she hates the thought that at one time she’d been so needlessly cruel, “I wish I hadn’t told you, Lizzie B, because you are a gorgeous, wonderful woman and I adore you and that man loves you, so much. We are all so pleased that you both figured it out. But just...try not to break him again?” and she loves Fitz a little for the lilt in his voice, trying to make her feel better. She can’t help but chuckle, weakly, as he squeezes the arm around her waist.

Fitz cuddles her close and his hair is soft and springy against her forehead – she closes her eyes and imagines listening to hours straight of Will destroying her heart. She knows what it's like to be dismissed by him – knows how it feels to be hurt – but she can’t fathom what it would have been like watching him be so cruel, so calculating in his attack. It makes her stomach tight and rocky and swirly all at once, like she’s about to pitch forward and be swallowed into the ground.

She wishes Will was here, if nothing but for the assurance that despite everything, he still chose to love her – to care for her and hold her close. She wants his arms around her and his lips against her ear and his soft, rumbling murmur.

Fitz adds, “And just so you know, I’ll totally be having this talk with him as well, Lizzie B. Because you are my girl and if he hurts you again I will kick his sorry ass all the way back to Netherfield.”

And with a startled laugh, she thinks, we’ll be okay.

She gets home that evening before Will and feels fluttery at the thought; home – it sounds right.

She feels fragile in her steps and touch – takes off her coat and hangs it by the door and slips from her shoes, lining them alongside his own. She unwinds her scarf in the kitchen and it hangs on the edge of a stool, looped around the corner, and their half complete crossword is still spread out before her.

She finds some socks, her leggings and a soft, cotton shirt and lets her hair hang loose around her shoulders, free from confines; wants to feel light and warm and comfortable all evening.

Hours later and there’s soft music playing in the apartment and a few lamps, but mostly candles (she spends a good half hour searching for them amongst the linen cupboard) and the atmosphere is hazy and calm. There’s vanilla in the air and Lizzie spent 45 minutes deciding between dressing up and staying in her comfortable clothes – eventually ran out of time and had no choice – and the food from the Thai place she remembers Will and Gigi taking her to months ago is sitting in the oven to remain warm.

She’s curled on the couch with a book in her lap, blindly trying to read as she runs through her thoughts – plans what she has to say and how to say it and tries not to get muddled beneath the weight of terrible, honest feelings settling in her chest. Her heart is tight and achy and she never believed all those romance novels until this moment – didn’t know her body could physically respond in such a dramatic way.

She’s so intent on her thoughts and plans that she completely misses Will opening the front door slowly. Misses his footsteps down the hall and his soft, startled gasp as he enters the room; misses the thud of his briefcase as it’s left behind and the open, amazed look on his face – his wide eyes and parted lips and blushing cheeks – the tight, muzzy feeling in his chest that he never thought he’d experience.

He can see the peak of her head over the top of the lounge where she’s bathed in soft candlelight. It flickers against her golden dark hair, all red and fiery and ember like. He reaches out tentative fingers and brushes them down her shoulder, careful, but she jumps with a startled gasp and he finds himself ducking down to cuddle her close on instinct.

He’s pulling her up and on top of him as he clambers onto the lounge before she’s even had a chance to gasp his name, and it’s not until he’s spread out next to her, her body flush with his and cradled in his arms, that her heart starts to rest and she gazes up with a tentative smile, murmuring, “Hey,” and he parrots back, “Hey,” too.

He clears his throat, swallowing quickly, “How was your afternoon?”

She shrugs indifferently against his body, so he tries to bundle her closer, enjoying her warmth.

“The de Young Museum was fascinating. There was an exhibition on Dutch paintings from The Mauritshuis – Rembrandt and Hals and Steen – it was amazing. I saw The Girl With The Peal Earring,” she tells him happily, and pokes a finger into his chest.

She rubs it there, hard and intent, and then lets it rest over his heart, fingers just tucked underneath the buttons. “And yours?”

He hums softly and brings his legs up to rest, crossed on the coffee table, “Busy. Domino is entering the final stages before launch and we’re still trying to find business partners and staff to fill roles. There’s lots of offers, but we want someone who fits with the company, as well as the product.”

“And that’s difficult?” she murmurs, slipping a finger underneath his shirt to rub at his chest.

His voice rumbles beneath her palm, “Yes, but we’ll get there,” and then he squeezes the arm around her middle tight, asking, “Why candles?”

She hums gently, confused, before her eyes blink open and she darts a glance around, flushing slightly – he watches her bemusedly and thanks the moon and the stars and the gods on their mountains for creating her.

“So, I spoke with Fitz today,” she finally explains, and Will hesitates – understanding slightly.

“I’m concerned, but continue.”

She takes a breath, but then settles once more at his side, and with her head all but hidden in his chest, mumbles, “He explained some things to me, and it made me realise that we’ve not really discussed everything...before this,” and she waves a hand between them.

Will tries not to panic – really, honestly. He goes still and stiff but then wills his muscles to relax under her and his heart to stop pounding. “What did he explain?”

“You?”

“Lizzie, what ever he had to say –“

“Was true. He helped me understand that if I’d had to sit through hours of watching you basically...be completely and needlessly cruel about me, with the way I feel about you now...I...I would have broke.”

“No. Lizzie.”

He sighs, thoughts jumbled and a dull ache in his temple – he spent a long time putting all that behind him and simply wants to concentrate on the present – but she’s relentless.

“Will. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” and there are tears again – so many tears, and she was never much of a crier, she thinks. “I was stupid and blind and I hate that I ever caused you pain, but I promise, if you’ll let me...I want to spend as long as you’ll let me making it up to you.”

And his heart jumps and sings and flutters around madly because the rest of their life is a long, long time and if he gets to spend even a fraction of that with her then he’ll be happy.

“Lizzie,” he sighs, “You’re right. It was...horrible, hearing all that. Not because it was about me, though that wasn’t particularly pleasant,” he admits, stuttering “But yes, because it was from you. It hurt.”

He runs a finger across her brow and she has a crease down her forehead that he presses a kiss to, breathing in her fruity, fresh scent. “But I needed to hear all that to be the person I am today,” he tells her, and she thinks she’s beginning to understand. Hates it, but thinks they both needed the pain to be the people curled around each other in this moment. “I think I’m a better person, today,” he murmurs, “And I wouldn’t change any of that.”

“You are,” she presses, kissing his chest. “But you were a much better man to begin with, than I ever saw.”

“And you were a much more stunning, incredible lady.”

“With pretty eyes?”

And he chuckles, rocking her slightly. “Always.”

“Promise me something, though?” he asks finally. She hums and it vibrates down his chest, warming him. “Don’t spend the rest of your life working to make it up to me,” and he continues before she can object, “Just spend it with me. That’s all I want. You.”

Her heart beats quick and his arms are tight and fingers wandering – her own have dug beneath his mostly open shirt and are resting on the smooth, warm skin of his chest. She nods, and he presses a kiss to her forehead, and she tucks her feet up further so that her knees rest across his thighs.

“There’s food, by the way,” she murmurs eventually, and Will feels his stomach rumble on queue – she laughs a little. They rise and he fists a hand in the back of her shirt to trail after her as they move around the kitchen – she finds plates and he opens a bottle of wine. The apartment is warm and flickering with candlelight and music so soft he can hardly hear it plays in the background, a constant, calming hum.

Lizzie teases him when he can’t decide between dishes and he makes her tell him each detail of the paintings in the museum and then they argue over Van Gogh and Monet and Will ends up pulling a book from the shelf on early Impressionist painters.

She pinches his side as they wash the dishes and tucks herself against him with a book, (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, because one must not forget the third Bronte sister) while he does paperwork and then they crawl into bed and exhausted, curl in the middle – his arm around her waist and her hair pressed to his nose.

And just as he drifts off, thinks, this was a good evening – and he must have said it aloud because she hums, half asleep, in agreement.

He presses a kiss to her forehead and whispers, “I love you,” and as he’s drifting off to sleep, hears a sleepy;

 “Love you too.”

Chapter Text

vi. they learn

-

There are small, intimate touches that they’ve fallen into like breathing – the way he grabs her hips to keep her steady when she reaches for the top shelf, or how she knows that he sometimes runs into the shower door when he’s particularly sleepy and so needs a hand to tug him along.

Her fingers dance across his tie in the morning and his palm curves around her shoulder in the back corner of a bar late one night with Fitz; her head tips back against his chest when they sit and he presses his nose into her hair, bathed in vanilla and raspberry and jasmine – she feels the pressure against her scalp and pushes back into his body and he grumbles softly and jostles her from side to side in his arms.

One night they take a walk along the beach and Lizzie digs her fingers into his hip until he agrees to take off his shoes and then it’s all wet sand and soft granules and the occasional splash of shockingly cold water; their fingers tangle loosely and Lizzie decides that there’s nothing more inviting than the soft touch of his warm skin.  

She doesn’t think about the future. Not the phone calls from possible investors or the terrible but giddy ache in her stomach at the thought of her own business, her own home. Doesn’t think about moving to San Francisco, nor what it will be like to leave Will’s apartment. He’s warm in bed and she sleeps with her head nestled under his arm and some mornings she wakes up overheated and halfway down his chest while on others she’s spread out across the mattress and freezing, and he’s already in the shower.

She watches him move fluidly through his bedroom in nothing but a towel and droplets of water curl down his shoulders and across his chest and all she can think about is calling the bedroom their own one day – the apartment their own too; and possibly licking the path of water up from his navel.

The game starts one evening over dinner; they’re sat side by side at the table and Lizzie’s left foot is tangled around Will’s ankle – she’s in pale blue socks and he’s still wearing shoes and the smooth leather is slippery when she runs her toe along it. 

She’d spent her day on Fillmore Street browsing through stores and tweeting pictures of long knit sweaters and gorgeous boots at Jane in an attempt to goad her older sister into visiting – when she’d first raised the subject Jane had questioned, with all the mystique she could muster, just how long Lizzie was planning on staying in San Francisco if she was already organizing trips there and Lizzie had been left speechless for a moment before spluttering her way through explaining that perhaps San Francisco was exactly where she was meant to be.

For business, she’d added hastily, of course.

Lunch had been spent in Ghirardelli Square; Gigi had joined her fresh from tennis practice and the pair had spent a good hour discussing everything from work to films to Lizzie’s atrocious attempts at team sport when she was younger. Gigi had let slip that Will was a champion swimmer and Lizzie had been distracted by the image of him in nothing but tight swimming trunks; solid thigh muscles that she was intimately acquainted with cutting through the water and the gorgeous swell of his shoulder blades -

“Lizzie,” Gigi had teased, poking her and disrupting the fantasy, “please stop objectifying my brother.”

They’d taken a quick peak inside the ice cream and chocolate shop and Gigi had promised they’d return for the Chocolate Festival in mid-September. “It’s to die for,” the younger woman had moaned and Lizzie had laughed as Gigi knocked into her shoulder, stumbling dramatically, “So much chocolate, so little time.”

The afternoon had been clear and bright; San Francisco on display in all it’s multi-coloured glory, and even after a couple of days and her 6 week internship, Lizzie was still captivated by catching glimpses of the Bay – every time she turned a corner and was met with the fresh breeze off the water she’d take a moment and breathe it in. “Do you ever get used to it?” she asked Gigi, half in awe, and Gigi had shook her head quickly, the linen scarf around her neck fluttering in the wind.

 “No. Never. I think the best cities are the ones you’re constantly falling in love with.”

She’d pondered that the entire way back to Will’s apartment; jostled between people on the cable car as it crept up a hill and then on the short walk (not uphill, thankfully) to his block.

The apartment is always so quiet when she comes home of an afternoon; the past few days she’s taken to staying out later and meeting him for drinks or dinner after work (and she’s well aware that he’s been cutting his days shorter; knows that when she interned at Pemberly he was lucky to be gone by 7 and now regularly steps out the main doors just as the clock strikes 5).

They’ve created a little bubble of existence that can really only last a few more weeks. Will has work and Lizzie has a life to prepare for and at some point they both have to return to that – they can’t keep wining and dining themselves giddy each night.

Now, and they’re having a late dinner at the table and the apartment is quiet but for the grandfather clock down the hall – it’s comfortable and peaceful and Lizzie can’t help but watch Will’s chest hitch whenever she dares dart her toe up the knob of his ankle and underneath his pants.

“If you could live anywhere in the world,” she starts, just as he takes a thick spoonful of roasted pumpkin soup that burns down the back of his throat. He swallows quickly and takes a sharp breath to stop a cough, and she continues, oblivious to his peril, “Where would you go?”

He pauses, caught. Lizzie’s voice is pensive but not serious; instead curious. She’s eyeing the opposite wall with it’s large black and white photos of Piccadilly Circus and Will wonder’s if she’d like to go there one day – he’d take her, multiple times.

But she’s asking where he would go – where he would live – and the immediate answer is stuck in his throat.

London, of course has fascinated him since he was a small child. He’d spent a summer there when he was nine years old living with a distant relative and whilst the reasons for that trip weren’t pleasant – William Darcy Sr. suddenly finding himself with two small children and an entire business to run – Will can still remember the museums and parks and old, beautiful buildings with lush red carpet and people with funny accents. He often thinks he could pass a year or two living in London, or perhaps just beyond in Derbyshire, where his family is from.

France, also, would be fascinating and enriching; wine tasting and tiny old towns and rolling hills and markets on weekends. He’ll take Lizzie to Paris one day, and Rome and Prague, but he thinks living in a villa in the south of France would be the perfect way to spend a summer.

It takes him a moment to realise that he’s been silent much too long, caught up in his fantasies without answering her question. Lizzie is eyeing him critically and she’s leant on her elbow to peer closer at him. He blushes and apologises quickly, ducking his head down until she tuts and knocks a finger under his chin. “Tell me,” she teases, and Will glances up to find her gorgeous blue eyes.

“I don’t know,” he answers finally, voice raspy. He clears his throat and tries to decide if answering honestly will fall on the side of romantic but not desperate. He’s not usually aware of the distinction – is actually appalling at anything remotely within the realm of romance. But being with Lizzie is teaching him slowly and surely that romance isn’t about knowledge or perfectly constructed lines, but instead being honest with the person before him – simply loving her as best he can.

“There must be somewhere you would go,” she teases, playful and messing with his fingers by tickling her own along his palm. He grasps her hand tight in his and she smiles happily; leans forward to press a kiss to his white knuckles and he can’t help but reach his free hand down to pull the legs of her chair closer to his own, shuffling her against him.

“London,” he answers, “Paris perhaps. Or Vienna – Japan or Dubai or Sydney,” and now she’s laughing, rolling her eyes.

“I’d go anywhere,” he tells her, swinging their clasped hands on the table, “As long as I was with you.”

And he can hear her voice catch and her face sobers and for a brief, startling second he thinks perhaps that was too much – sirens sound and his eyes widen and he stiffens – but then she smiles beautifully; radiant and whole.

She ducks her head in the little way he’s learnt means she’s shy or embarrassed and her grip on his hand tightens as she squeezes. She shuffles closer to him and hooks her calf around, under his knee; presses her forehead to his shoulder and sighs, laughing, “Who knew you could be so smooth, William Darcy.”

He can’t help the bubble of laughter in his chest and the vibrations shake her by his side – he wraps his free arm around her shoulder and then with a little hop and some maneuvering she ends up straddling his lap, knees pressed against his hip bones and hands settled firmly on his chest. “Paris would be nice,” she tells him, and Will leans forward to kiss her, steady and slow.

She sucks at his bottom lip and as he pulls away she keens softly; a little breathless whimper that has him leaning in again and again until her lips are red and plump and he’s whispering nothing against the corner of her mouth. Her forehead is resting against his right temple and she’s puffing short, little gasps of air. “Lizzie,” he groans, because she’s dropt her body down to sit across his thighs and he can feel her there, warm and solid, and her fingers keep playing with the wisps of hair at the back of his neck. Her eyes are unfocused but he makes her hold his gaze until they clear – they blow wide and her irises are a deep, dark blue and he’s only so strong when it comes to resisting this woman; still wound tight by six months of watching this sensual, intelligent being command his presence on screen.

“Bed,” she mumbles; demands of him, really. She leans forward once more and he’s already scooping an arm around her waist – she lets him lift her quickly and she hooks both legs around his waist and then it’s a slight hop, skip, stumble down to his bedroom, but eventually they make it in one piece – for a fleeting second Will thinks they should probably slow down, after all the evening is young and he was enjoying talking to her about the future, but Lizzie is unhooking her bra and Will’s quite fond of that job, so he surges forward and bats her hands away with a low groan and then Lizzie has her hands on his belt and everything is a wet, hot blur – hands and hearts and fingertips trailing along sweaty skin and gasps and moans and his teeth digging into her collarbone as she fists his hair.

And that’s how the game begins.

It continues the next morning while Lizzie is lounging in bed.

It’s Friday and Will has a meeting with personnel at 10 and he can’t find the grey skinny tie that he usually wears with his shirt and suspenders. He’s digging through the top drawer of his dresser and trying to ignore the blissfully naked woman lying on his bed, chatting to him amiably about the summer she and Lydia built a raft and tried sailing it down the stream a few miles from their house, only to have it capsize and soak them in brown filth and mossy slim.

She has her right leg bent up with her foot planted on the mattress and the other is crossed over her knee, jiggling as she talks. The bed sheet is pushed as far down the bed as possible but she has a corner of it fisted in her hand and every now and then it flutters up as she gestures – her hair is out and messy and her eyes are bright and Will is on the verge of a headache from the strain of ignoring her – does she realise what she does to him?

When he finally turns to face her she’s smirking and he growls low in his throat but refuses to step forward – of course she does. Little minx.

“What’s your middle name?” she asks, and Will is so taken back by the question that he messes up his tie mid-windsor. He stares down at his hands holding the silk fabric, lips parted in surprise, and Lizzie laughs high and merry at his confusion.

“Frederick,” he grumbles finally, and she parrots it back at him.

“William Frederick Darcy. I like it. Very regal,” rolling the final word off her tongue as her left hand trails slowly across her collarbone.

Will watches her a moment, the shift of skin under her fingertips along the exact same path that his lips had mapped in the early morning light; “And you?” he questions, curling his fingers around the final part of the knot to distract him– he tugs and it sits perfectly across his throat and he can’t help the small thrill of accomplishment that shoots up his spine; he still has a small amount of control left.

“Cassandra. Elizabeth Cassandra Bennet,” she says, voice low and he thinks that’s probably her attempts at being posh. It’s somewhat like her imitation of his voice, and he can’t help but glance at his open drawer where a red bow tie still sits, unworn for the past year since his first visit to Netherfield.

“That’s pretty,” he murmurs, stepping forward and leaning close. She curls her head to the side on the mattress as he hovers over her and he can imagine her mind whirling behind her eyes, wonders what she’s thinking – is it about me? About getting me back in bed? Or perhaps something entirely different – for all he knows she’s probably planning where she’ll go for lunch.

“Do you have plans for today?” he asks, and her gaze darts just over his shoulder.

Her smile is playful, however, and she’s caught the end of his tie in her fingertips, slowing crawling up it until there’s a steady pressure around his throat. She tugs once at the end and he can’t help but fall forward, hands catching the mattress on either side of her head and she darts up immediately to press a kiss to him; one hand scrambling up his back to fist his shirt whilst the other hooks underneath the knot at his throat.

When they break he’s panting quickly and drops his head, nuzzling her neck until she laughs weakly. She’s got a firm hold on his tie and she tugs once to try and pull him back up, whining when he resists and shudders against her.

“What is with you today?” he breathes against her collarbone, mouthing at soft skin and Lizzie laughs quickly, letting go of his tie to run both hands up his back. He leans back and she’s wonderfully happy and he can’t help but smile, heart still beating double and pants uncomfortably snug.

“You’re just really gorgeous today,” she shrugs nochantly, and he huffs, pursing his lips.

“Really?”

“Yeah babe,” she teases, and slaps a gentle hand against his side. “You should go to work,” she tells him but instead he melts back into her body. She’s feather soft without her clothes and Will inhales against her; she smells of vanilla and some soft fragrance that he thinks belongs to his soap. “Soon,” he grumbles, lying completely still.

She’s petting her fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck and it takes him a minute to realise his cheek is pressed to the supple curve of her breast – he’s too tall for this position to be comfortable for long but Lizzie is warm and inviting and tickling his scalp in the most delicious way.

It takes him a moment to realise she’s telling him about her plans for the day, her voice drifts through the open room and lulls him against her. “I have some people to call, actually,” she’s saying, and she sounds excited but also nervous – and suddenly he realizes she’s talking about her business. He makes a noise to indicate his interest but she remains silent after that, still petting his hair absently.

He pushes back and she smiles hesitantly; rubs a thumb down his flushed cheek. “You’re going to be late,” she reminds him and he nods. He waits her out and eventually she sighs loudly, deflates back into the mattress and lets her hair fan out beneath her – a rusty auburn backdrop to the myriad of emotions flittering across her face.

They’ve talked about her plans for the future; one hazy night when they’d both had too much wine and Will had stumble through expressing just how much he wanted her to work at Pemberly. She’d leant back in his arms and bit her lip and her eyes had been crossed like she was trying to navigate something painful – and for a few, horrid seconds Will had felt that rush of dread that he’d once come to expect.

She’d hastened to assure him with her forehead pressed to his temple that it wasn’t that she didn’t want to work with him, wasn’t that she didn’t like Pemberly Digital – “But I don’t want to be the bosses girlfriend,” she’d finally murmured with her fingers playing under his collar – and Will had taken a moment but nodded; understanding. Of course he understood.

And then Lizzie had mentioned shyly her plans to start her own business, to perhaps be his rival, to start discussions with investors, and Will couldn’t stop the warm, bubbly feeling in his stomach because the woman in his arms was incredible. How he’d ever ended up with her love was beyond his wildest dreams.

It’s been three days now, however, and she’s yet to tell him anything more than a few cryptic sentences; offered a few shrugged shoulders and one teasing wink and Will is desperate for something. Information or plans or procedures – he’s a pragmatist at heart and not knowing what she’s got mapped out is driving him slightly insane.

“I’ll tell you later!” she finally exclaims with a smile, and he grumbles, finally acquiescing. Tonight, he decides defiantly – he’ll get her to explain everything this evening over roast lamb and red wine. He stands with a groan and she stays lying naked on the bed and he rubs his hand against her hip fondly - she seems to take it as a goodbye and smiles back at him full.

“Meet me for lunch?” he asks softly, and she bites her lip before nodding in agreement.

“I’ll tell you about the phone calls then,” and when he still doesn’t leave the room even after her assurance, she lifts a foot to kick at him. “Goodbye William,” she sings, nudging him insistently out to the hall.

On his way out of the apartment he runs into three doorframes.

Lunch is skipped, as some inevitably are, because Lizzie gets caught up in a phone call with a man from Chicago whose nephew originally started watching her vlogs last July and had passed the link along to his uncle with a clear message to find this girl and fund her. Will, too, is caught up with Human Resources and only has time to send her a quick message – “Sorry love, can’t make lunch, HR trying to kill me,” and receives in return, “Thank god, me too. I think I’m talking to someone who actually wants to give me money!!!!!”

He does manage to break free of the meeting to wander down the street for five minutes to the nearest decent coffee shop. He orders a gibraltar and sits in the window of the shop for five minutes and picks up a newspaper but only reads the front page – then there’s a message from Timothy in the finance department and he’s rushing back out of the cafe and down the street – he barely has time to wave goodbye to the barista (a short, happy guy with square glasses who's been supply him with coffee for three years) before he’s back on the phone and organizing a quick report to hopefully explain why Timothy’s having a meltdown.

The apartment is dark when Will returns home. The television is off and the kitchen is silent; there isn’t a glass of water resting by the sink or three mugs of mostly drunk tea to indicate Lizzie has been there. He passes through the living area and her bag is sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen bench – the only sign that she’s home – other than that it could be any desolate evening before Elizabeth Bennet invaded his life.

He toes off his shoes and leaves them with his coat and suit jacket in the study – there he notices Lizzie’s first mug of tea and can’t help but smile. So she has been home and puttering about. If he closes his eyes he can imagine her curled up in the office chair with a notepad out, scribbling ideas down hastily.

He’s just putting his briefcase in the room’s corner when there’s a brief shuffle outside the door and Lizzie’s sleepy, warm voice fills the empty silence.

“You’re home,” she mumbles, and the word, home, sings through his veins quickly.

She’s by his side before he can move and then there’s a heavy weight against his chest and her two arms anchored around his waist, clasping together at the small of his back. He returns the gesture with an arm around her shoulder but rests the other on the crown of her head and pulls her forehead to his collarbone, rocking her from side to side.

She’s still half asleep and her body melts into his and Will could easily scoop her up and carry her back to bed. “I’m sorry I missed lunch,” he tells her, and she rubs her nose against his chest in what he thinks must be understanding.

“I was busy too,” she murmurs, and then tugs her hands at his back to get him to move.

She runs her hand down his arm and circles her fingers around his wrist so she can pull him into the living room. Once there she falls down to the couch and pats the space next to her; he curls into it without question.

He doesn’t ask how her day went – she’s clearly exhausted, was probably asleep when he arrived home – and he think she wants to tell him in her own time. She’s heavy and still in his arms but underneath is the slightest hint of a tremor – like she’s vibrating with some uncontained excitement. Just a few more minutes, he thinks, and she’ll bubble over completely.

He has a hand in her hair and she’s managed to nudge him backwards so that she’s lying on his chest without him noticing, and seconds later she tells him, voice a little clearer, “I think I took the first, solid step towards starting the business.”

He can’t help but smile even if she can’t see him in the dim room. He rubs his fingers at the nape of her neck instead and she purrs at the steady pressure down her spine – “Good?” he rumbles, and she nods distractedly.

He doesn’t quite know what to say in response to her admission – he’s excited for her (ecstatic, really). She’s bright and smart and compelling to watch and Will’s sure that she’ll go far in life with such tenacity. He could say he’s proud of her, and in some way he is, but at the same time it sounds like something her parents might say – sounds condescending when he rests it on his tongue. He doesn’t want to pat her on the back and tell her she’s done a good job; instead he wants to tell everyone else that she’s amazing.

“Will?” she prods, lifting her head slightly from his chest, and he can hear the underlying trepidation.

He runs a hand down her back and she seems to settle a little and then he presses a kiss to her forehead and speaks the only words he can think; the only ones that truly summarise how he feels.

“I love you,” and she curls further into his chest as she smiles.

They don’t talk much more about the future. Lizzie has a business to start but also a home to return to in between and Will has his own company forever weighing on his shoulders. Instead they rest sleepily against the other and when Will’s stomach rumbles they wonder into the kitchen and cook chicken strips and then eat them dipped in tzatziki with fresh lemon juice and chilled wine.

Lizzie announces midway through their makeshift meal that she’s decided her company will be called Longbourn Media, and Will knocks his elbow into hers where they’re sat side by side at the bench when she mentions looking for office space in San Francisco. “I could help,” he offers, feigning indifference, and even though she hesitates a moment, he can’t help but feel a little more at ease when she nods slowly and tells him that would be wonderful.

“I actually have no idea where to look,” she murmurs, and he reaches down to tangle their hands together and squeeze. He knows just how terrifying it can be to run your own business, especially when you’re young and unprepared. She’s not yet asked about his parents, or the intricacies of owning Pemberley, but it’s a discussion not far off and he’s already thought about what to tell her – he’s never discussed his parent’s death with anyone beyond Fitz, Bing and Gigi – and even then it was never his truest, dearest thoughts. He’s always been the strong one, the one to guard his heart, but he thinks he might have to be honest with Lizzie.

No matter what problems their relationship faced in the past they’ve never once shied from being truthful.

Later that night they’re lying in bed with Will on his side, his knees bent up so their legs are tangled and his elbow supporting his weight as he leans up and over her. She’s resting one hand against his chest and he’s playing with her hair and even though it’s well past midnight neither of them can be bothered resting – tomorrow is Saturday and the day is blissfully theirs to spend and they’d both much rather be wrapped up in each other than sleeping.

“Favourite colour?” Lizzie asks, and Will can’t help but laugh – they’re playing their game again, but he loves learning little things about her.

“Green.”

“Green?”

“Yes. An emerald green, I think.”

He ducks his head and Lizzie huffs and pushes his chin up until his eyes catch hers; “You were wearing an emerald necklace the day I first noticed you; noticed your eyes and how they sparkled. It was a tiny, teardrop stone. But I loved it,” he finally mutters.

She’s silent a moment but her gaze is locked on his; she gets this look of pure adoration when ever he mentions loving her or noticing her, and Will can’t help the shiver down his spine whenever she smiles wide.

“And you?” he presses.

She gets a determined look and then grins, “Red.”

“Red?”

“Yes. You wear lots of red. It makes me think of you.”

“You do know that I’ve only worn that bowtie once or twice. And that cap. They’re hardly staples of my wardrobe.”

“Yes, but they were the first thing I ever saw you wearing. It stuck.”

He grumbles a response and Lizzie pushes back a stray lock of hair that’s threatening his forehead; nose crinkled as she smiles. “You make a cute newsie,” she finally teases, and he sighs deeply.

“You should kiss me now,” she demands.

He leans down and brushes his hand along the back of her shoulder to rest at the nape of her neck and her own fingers march up the column of his spine to pinch at his shoulder blades. Her body is pressed up against his and he works his free hand underneath her shirt to find warm skin and then she’s shuffling impatiently, trying to worm her fingers between them and undo his buttons and kick at his pants. He laughs and she takes the opportunity to suck at his chin and his neck and down his collarbone; a hot little trail along his skin – and then she hooks her leg over his hip and Will groans as she rocks him back on top of her, presses into her body and the cradle of her thighs and pulls her up to meet his lips again, and she gasps as he works her shirt quickly over her head.

“Slow,” she mumbles, cheek hot against his own; her lips are red and bitten and her eyes are blown wide and her hands are everywhere – his back and his shoulders and down the curve of his waist and his thighs – she’s moving and shuddery and he wants to pull her up and over his body to sit on his hips but then she’s moaning long and deep, telling him again to go slow, and he mumbles against her lips, “Yeah?” voice rushed and shakey.

“Want to feel you,” she tells him, and her toes curl into his thigh – he can feel each tiny pressure point anchoring him and in that moment completely understands – wants to feel every second of her body with his until they’re exhausted and sweat slick and sleepy in the early morning.

“Love you,” she mumbles, and he pauses only a moment, breath caught before returning the sentiment, pressing her down into the mattress and tucking his nose to nuzzle against her neck; breathing her in.

When they wake in the morning the sun is high and it’s already nine but it’s a Saturday and Lizzie’s hair is crazy and Will can hardly see without his glasses or contacts and so they decide to keep sleeping until their bodies wake them.

Everything else can wait.