AN: heres the start of my long and drawn out murder of Pride and Prejudice. It owes its start to a certain MsDed and a 3am AIM convo. Just to clear up a few things: Jane Austen is the genius behind P&P and if she were to read this, she would probably be turning in her grave... which if you think about it serves her right for give us such unattainable standards of Darcy and Knightley. Also, this story is probably going to go off from P&P on certain things so i'm just warning you now. It is also MsDed who is forcing me to post--i have not yet reached the point where i enjoy people reading my writing. namely b/c I believe it is crap. ok time for me to shut up now. back to studying for my bio lab final tmrw! fun!

Let me tell you about the first time I got drunk. It wasn't anything spectacular, and it wasn't some rite of passage. I was 10. Now before you start, I wasn't some roughed up kid from a broken home or anything depressing like that. I was just an overly excited eggnog loving girl. Just so you know—my mom makes the best eggnog. As a kid I loved Christmas time, in fact I still do. It's just that as a kid I had this weakness for all things sweet and you never got fruitcake like you did a Christmas. So as I was saying, I was 10, my mom was out, my sister was busy being a productive 11 yr old, and my dad was in his study as usual. My parents were going to some party that night and of course mom was going take her eggnog. All I saw was this pitcher full of my mom's eggnog sitting quietly in the refrigerator asking me to drink it. At 10, I had no idea it was the bourbon filled "adult" eggnog. So I drank it. And wow it was even better than I remembered, so I kept drinking… and drinking till it was basically done. I remember feeling rather displaced afterwards. I walked around the house singing Christmas carols until I somehow found myself on the roof of our house. The roof was always a favorite place Jane and I used to retreat to—especially to throw things at unsuspecting passersby. Once on the roof I believe I began gut wrenching aria of holy night. Gut wrenching b/c I truly cannot sing for the life of me. Anyway Jane found me and dragged me down, got dad and they put me to bed. See, nothing spectacular right?

I was never a big drinker in high school. I never liked it and thought people acted like fools. Plus my friends were never into that either. Of course I did a couple of stupid things in college, I mean who doesn't? But by the end of my sophomore year I had decided enough was enough. This was due to another drinking story. For some reason Jane and I let our roommate Charlotte hold one of her parties at out Apartment. At this time in my young life I was in possession of a parrot to whom I was deeply attached. His name was Mr. Cotton. Somewhere along the timeline of the party someone let Mr. Cotton out of his cage. The guy I was seeing at the time was called Tom. And extremely drunk Tom sat on Mr. Cotton. And Mr. Cotton died. It was shortly after this incident that I decided I had had enough of drunk parties. Tom and I have never spoken since the incident.

Anyway, I'm just trying to clear up that I'm not one of those immature drinkers who go drink just to get drunk and brag about it. Also, I can hold my liquor thank you very much. So when I got unbelievably drunk last week at enter party venue I cant seem to remember it it was completely and totally out of character and unexpected. I think I was there because Jane had made me promise to go with her. She wanted me to meet the new guy she was seeing. Charles Something. When I got there I was already a bit dazed. Jane soon found me, I met her guy—one Charles Bingley; Jane asked why I was at the bar; and I told her I would be fine. By 12, I think I'd only left the bar once and was completely drunk.

"Oh we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy new yr," the woman he'd been serving one drink after another started singing to herself.

"hey…Joe? I'll have one more of those last things I just had…a very shiny nose..."

"Listen… Barbara Ellen? Don't you think that's enough?"

"Huh? Who's Barbara?"

"That's what you said your name was an hour ago"

"Oh…. I think I lied. That doesn't sound at all like my name. My name is… ugh" she put her head down on the bar, "what am I doing? J..joe? Can you try and find a Jane Bennet for me? And how much has it been?"

"Lady I don't think you want to know… its ok... it'll be on the house"

"No I couldn't do that... Here just keep that," she said sliding him all the cash she could find on her.

"Excuse me sir," Joe said turning to other man at the bar, could you please announce for a Jane Benn--"

"—or even a… Cher Bing? Jingle Bingle? ChhrrrBrr? Charlie Bing?"

"Charles Bingley?" the man asked in a reserved, unmistakably British voice.

"hey! that's the one!" Before the man could say anything else, the three at the bar were interrupted by the sudden appearance of 2 others.

"Lizzy! Oh my god. What happened?"

"Christmas!"

"Lizzy, babe. It's May."

"You must be Jane, she was asking for you" said Joe.

"Darce! There you are! I wanted you to meet Jane… though..um.. this probably isn't the best time is it?" he added laughing at himself. "Well it cant be helped now can it? Jane this is my best mate Will Darcy, Darcy this is Jane Bennet and uh.. this is Jane's sister Elizabeth."

"Pleased to meet you Ja--"

"Oh! Hello Bing! Did you know your friend is British?"

"I'm sorry Charlie, but we really should go. I need to get Liz home," Jane said.

"No no.. we completely understand. let us drop you off."

"Come on Liz. We can finally leave"

"Ugh Jane. My head. I think I'm drunk…" Elizabeth Bennet mumbled as they walked and she stumbled out.

Once in the car, Elizabeth promptly fell asleep on her sister's shoulder and Jane told Darcy how to get to the apartment. Bingley kept turning back from the passenger side and smiling at Jane like a goofball, Jane just blushed.

"That's it, a left here Will and it's the first building. Thank you both so much"

"no, no it was a pleasure" Bingley broke in before Jane could say anything else. And then added "Here. Me and Darce will help you take her up, you go get the elevator."

Jane positively beamed at Charles and ran ahead.

"Thanks for volunteering me Bing," Darcy muttered.

"Oh come now. You know you want to look the proper Brit gentleman"

"Over here guys" Jane called from the elevator, "we're on the 7th floor. Liz didn't want another room above ours. Our friend Charlotte is underneath us, but she doesn't really care about the noise. "Anyway… I wonder what happened, she hasn't gotten drunk in almost 6 years..." Jane trailed off as she fumbled with the apartment door.

Darcy looked a little taken aback and Charles laughed, "Wow... 6yrs, that's something. Well I suppose we should leave now. You probably want to go see if everything is ok. I had a good time tonight. Ill call you tomorrow," he said and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, he and Darcy left.