I don't know that I'm happy with this one - it sort of ran away from me. The way it turned out was not the way I'd planned it to turn out and that always sounds weird, but hm. I blame it on that last episode. My sense of rationality went out of the window.
Anyway, it's kind of been canon-balled because of the amazing awesome twitter pics that went up today, but I suppose that there's various ways that you could allow for both to have happened in universe.
I also haven't really edited it, so if you spot any mistakes then holler and let me know. I need to get better at editing...
It's gone midnight when William Darcy nudges the front door of his apartment open.
He's left his luggage in the car, deciding that the neatly packed clothes in the suitcase can wait until tomorrow to be reunited with those in his closet, and is imagining being able to sneak straight to his room to sleep (a luxury he hasn't exactly taken advantage of during the past week and a half away from work). He's got a number of meetings in the morning - meetings that he managed to put off when it became evident that Lizzie Bennet was going to accept him as a more permanent fixture in her life but couldn't postpone forever - and what he really needs is to close his eyes and indulge in five hours of uninterrupted slumber before he has to slip back into his CEO-of-Pemberley-Digital mindset.
It's gone midnight when William Darcy nudges the front door of his apartment open - and he really should know better than to have expected to get away with that.
The open plan nature of his apartment is, often, a good thing. When it comes to socialising events it means that his guests can be scattered and conversation need never dry up. He can prepare food while they sit at the dining table, open wine while they relax on the couch, still maintaining a line of chatter that avoids the awkward lulls that can happen when people have to move from room to room.
Tonight, however, it means that when he pushes open the door to his apartment, just before he wipes a hand over his tired eyes, he's greeted with a sight that proves he won't be getting the sleep that he needs. Not immediately, anyway.
"Look, Gigi D. Told you he was alive."
"I never doubted that he was alive, Fitz. I just wanted him to maybe call me back."
William sighs, walking towards the kitchen island around which they're both perched, his footfalls on the hardwood floors echoing around the space. As he speaks, he tosses his keys rather unceremoniously on the granite surface in front of them and comes to a halt at the far end of the thinner edge of the rectangular shaped worktop. "I did call you back."
"Chyeah. Eventually."
"I think we should cut the boy some slack, Geej."
Gigi glances at Fitz, one eyebrow raised in query.
Fitz returns the look with an expression of almost incredulity that the same thought hasn't occurred to her. "There's plenty of evidence that he had a pretty good reason to not answer your calls. Mind otherwise occupied - if you catch my drift."
"Oh." Gigi's eyes light up. "I catch your drift. Consider your drift caught."
They fall into silence, both turning to look at William at the same time with the same satisfied smirks plastered across their faces. If he weren't so tired, and if he weren't so incandescently happy with the way in which the events of the last few days have panned out, then he'd shoot them his best unamused expression. As it happens, he attempts his best impression but fails miserably. Even though he hates this sort of scene - this 'we-have-been-flailing-over-screenshots-of-your-kissing-and-by-the-way-we-told-you-so' sort of scene - he can't help but want to smile because it all comes back to one thing: he and Lizzie are in a relationship. How can he be annoyed about anything when he knows that to be true?
His companions (or, seeing as they let themselves into his apartment uninvited at such an unsociable hour, should they be considered more like invaders?) are still waiting for him to say something, their smirks stretching wider across their faces the longer he leaves the words left unsaid.
He knows that they know. They know that he knows that they know. And yet here they are, still playing this game, putting the world on pause until William Darcy says the words that Fitz Williams and Gigi Darcy - Team Figi - have been preparing themselves to hear for so long. They want to hear them in reality instead of through a video camera or the speakers of an iPhone.
And can he blame them? He wanted the same thing, after all, when he went to visit Lizzie in the flesh. He could have just called her back, but he had needed to see her face when he asked her where she imagined that they stood.
This is his sister and his best friend - he slides his gaze from one to the other, his eyes narrowed in his pitiful attempt to keep the unimpressed expression thriving - and they just want to hear it from him.
It is at length that he finally says: "I take it you saw the videos then."
This earns a heavy eye-roll from both Gigi and Fitz, an action which both of them simultaneously segue into wide-eyed looks of confusion. (At this complete synchronisation, William wonders if they've been rehearsing this conversation for the better part of ten days. Then he realises that it wouldn't be at all surprising if they had.)
"What - what videos?" Fitz splutters, the semblance of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, threatening to break free.
"Why, William, whatever do you mean?" Gigi's face is the picture of innocence, she's watching him through her eyelashes and she's pouting slightly and he knows this look all too well. He's fallen victim to it many a time and, quite frankly, doesn't have the energy to resist it tonight. He can't work out what exactly it is that she wants, or what exactly he'll have inevitably agreed to by the time this conversation is over, but he's just suddenly aware that whatever it is, he'll do it.
This resignation prompts him to pull out one of the empty stools and collapse onto it. He's still at the far end of the island, at the head of the table. Gigi and Fitz sit opposite one another at the other end. An aerial view of this scene would allow you to join the dots into an isosceles triangle.
(The fourth stool sits a little further away from him - weirdly, it sits next to Gigi on the wrong side of the island, the side that faces the kitchen itself.)
"I'm going to have to ask you to say whatever it is that you came here to say, if only because if you don't this conversation will consist of convoluted circles."
"Nice alliteration there, Darce."
"I thought it might be appreciated."
"It was."
"Alright, enough," Gigi interjects, hitting her arm lightly on the table in front of her. The bracelets that she's wearing make the action louder than it was intended and this makes her laugh - or maybe it's just the final straw, the final reason to giggle. "You had to know this day would come, William."
"On the contrary, Gigi, I had no reason to believe it would."
"No reason? You mean apart from the flirting, the pining and the fact that she called you for a chat?"
"Let's not forget the surreptitious 'just-checking-you-out' looks, or the fact that, I don't know, you bought out a company to help her family."
"In addition to the fact -" (William can't help but feel like he's on trial here.) "- that everybody knows the complete hatred thing never means complete hatred."
"Oh, duh. Complete hatred is usually just a synonym for complete-denial-but-I-need-to-justify-the-amount-of-time-I-spend-thinking-about-you."
"And the amount of time I spend video-blogging about you."
"While wearing a bow tie."
"And a newsie hat."
William lets them continue, wondering if he could get away with sneaking away to sleep, pondering how long it would take them to notice that he was gone.
He'd left the Bennet house the night before, Tuesday night, heading for Los Angeles where he'd had a meeting scheduled for this morning. It hadn't transpired to be a very successful meeting, mostly because he'd done little to no preparation for it (having been otherwise occupied for the week and a half prior) but it had gone on far longer than anticipated. He'd then had to make the journey back to San Francisco; a long drive made longer still because of the dubiousness that surrounds when he'll next properly see Lizzie, what with his work and her thesis becoming their current priorities.
He likes - no, he loves their mutual vision of the future but his capacity of patience is running low. Six weeks, even though he has been waiting for Lizzie Bennet to reciprocate his feelings for a much longer period of time, suddenly feels as though it stretches for eons.
"Anyway," Gigi drags his attention back to her with her emphatic connective. "We needed to be able to say it in person."
He doesn't even need to ask; it's something that he's been expecting since Sunday evening, since his phone had notified him of that heavily capitalised tweet from her, since he got a winky-faced text from Fitz on Tuesday morning when it must have become obvious that he had far more pressing matters to deal with than replying to his sister and best friend's communications. So, because he knows exactly what words are going to drop from the lips of his companions, he sighs heavily and waves them on.
They need no further encouragement.
Without even looking at each other they forge ahead with the line that if they haven't rehearsed it they've done excellently at unifying.
"We totally told you so."
William can't help it; as he looks at the smirks on their faces he's met with an irresistible urge to smile. The left side of his face gives first and as soon as it does he averts his eyes, concentrating on the keys, on his hands, on the memory of the last eight days.
Gigi squeals. Her stool scrapes back on the hardwood floors (he can't even find it in himself to berate her for the potential scratches) and in a blur of dark hair and red blouse she launches herself at him, throwing him off balance with her arms around his neck. "I'm so happy for you, William! You guys are so perfect together, haven't I been telling you that forever? You just had to wake up and see that it would work."
"I'd like to think that we can take some of the credit for the waking up process, Gigi D," Fitz cuts in, eyebrows waggling up and down.
"Oh, of course." Gigi laughs, relinquishing her hold on her brother only enough to be able to turn to her friend and co-conspirator. "I did shove them in a room with one another."
William cocks an eyebrow. "An action that prompted Lizzie to dub you crazy. And you -" He turns his gaze to Fitz. "You told her that I was the one to separate Bing and her sister. Neither one of you planned this to perfection."
His best friend pulls an expression of mock offense, hand on his heart, mouth and eyes wide. Gigi pushes his shoulder indignantly.
"Oh, because you were doing so well until we got involved."
Fitz reaches down and picks up something from beside him, something that is hidden from William's view. It isn't hidden from view for long, however, because suddenly it's streaking past his face and Gigi is catching it and she's putting it on her head.
By the time that William rolls his eyes at their antics, she's back over sitting next to Fitz - who has clipped a bow tie in place - and they both have their backs ramrod straight.
Gigi goes first. "Exhibit A: Excuse me, Lizzie."
Fitz doesn't hesitate to join in, tucking his chin so that it touches the top of his sternum. "Exhibit B: Are you rejecting me?"
"I'm not going to sue you."
"I'm here for a board meeting."
"You called me a robot. And a newsie."
"Verisimilitude."
"Are you two quite finished?" William asks as the man and woman opposite him dissolve into hysterics. "Some of us have just driven for hours and have important meetings scheduled for eight o'clock tomorrow morning."
Fitz shakes his head emphatically. "Darce, my man, we will never be finished. I already know that my favorite thing in the world will be telling the Bennet-Darcy offspring about how their coolest Uncle Fitz helped to orchestrate their entire existence."
"You'll be their only Uncle Fitz, Fitz," Will says before he can check himself, running his hand across his face again.
Gigi grins, slouching her stature and reaching across the kitchen island, her hands crawling closer to his keys until she snatches them from their resting place. She scans through them for about a second and then looks up at him, her eyes narrowed. "One of your keys is missing."
It does strike him as odd that Gigi would be able to tell from one glance that the set was one key lighter, but he's decided that very little surprises him now. "So it would seem. One of the spare ones."
"For here?" She queries, the smirk pulling at her lips again.
He considers his reply carefully for a few seconds and then comes to the conclusion that he doesn't have to; neither his sister nor Fitz are stupid, they can work out for themselves the bare bones of how he's spent his last week. They can't be at all surprised, can they?
The unbearable way in which the next six weeks would drag was something that he and Lizzie agreed upon in one of their final conversations before he left her home. They had attempted to find weekends that were ideal for visiting, but Lizzie couldn't commit to any of them. She wouldn't know until she'd embedded herself in her thesis when she'd be able to extricate herself from it to allow them to spend any time together, she'd said - and that made sense.
When Darcy had slid the spare key from the keychain and pressed it into her palm he hadn't been thinking of moving too fast, rather how much it made sense, how much easier it would be for both parties if, when Lizzie discovered when she had some free time, she could just arrive in San Francisco. And, even though she'd teased him about it initially, there had been no resistance on her part when it came to sliding it on her own keyring.
It had been as simple as that, and so his reply to Gigi's question is as simple as that too: "Yes."
Fitz laughs, leaning back on the stool and folding his arms across his chest. "I told her that you had game. Course, she found that out as soon as she kissed you, we all saw the melting, but you gave her a key to your apartment after just over a week of dating. That's game. That's game and a half."
"I wasn't aware that I'd explicitly confirmed that Lizzie was the one to receive it..."
His best friend holds up a hand, a worried frown etched onto his face. "Don't tell me: Mrs. B pilfered it."
"Fitz." The disapproving tone that Gigi uses to quiet her teammate is short-lived. "It was clearly Lizzie's dad."
William shakes his head, rolling his eyes as he stands up. He's unsure of whether he's managed to answer any of the questions that Fitz and Gigi had when they'd decided to stake out his apartment until he returned, but with every second that passes he's losing out on sleep. This conversation can wait until tomorrow, of that he's fairly confident.
"You are both, of course, welcome to continue to use my kitchen to poke fun at me, but I'm afraid that I'm going to have to excuse myself to go and sleep -"
"Wait!" Gigi cries, and he's seen a video in which her voice and demeanor are remarkably similar to how they are now - the suspicious flag has been raised.
They're all silent for a few seconds, waiting to see who is going to dare speak first.
William has gotten used to taking the plunge in moments like this recently and he doubts that this will be anywhere near as difficult as what will forever be regarded as the 'episode 98' scene, and so he picks up the gauntlet - not with the obvious question, but with the one that will throw her. "How did you know about my key, Gigi?"
"I don't..." She looks over at Fitz, eyes wide with what looks like (and most probably is) desperation.
He stands up quickly, swiping the newsie cap from Gigi's head and the bow tie from his neck. "I am not getting involved."
Gigi's hair is alive with static electricity left over from the cap. "You're already involved, Fitz!"
"I'm not if I leave now."
"Don't you dare."
"Oh, I'm daring." As he speaks, Fitz covers the floor, backing away from the Darcy siblings. "I am daring. I am daring. And I am also - out."
This final word is said in conjunction with the dramatic throwing open of the front door. Fitz backs through it and then pulls it shut - rather quietly, in a rather anticlimactic fashion.
And then there were two.
"Gigi..."
"William, I..."
"Gigi..." Darcy takes a step closer to his sister, both eyebrows raised as he peruses her face for any inch of information about what she might be hiding from him. When that provides no insight, he turns his attention to the rest of the room. "How did you know abou -"
A text alert cuts him off, mid-sentence. Neither he or Gigi move for a few seconds, though one glance down to the worktop where both phones lie tells him that it's her phone's display that has lit up with the notification, and then they both move at once - she to grab her phone and he to... well, grab her phone. He wins out.
Lizzie: Hey, tiger.
William reads it four times before he throws it out for other opinions, his voice raised to a louder volume than usual. "What does hey, tiger mean? Was that not your codename for -"
Before he can finish, another text pops up on the screen.
Lizzie: Give your sister's phone back to her.
His heart sputters, skipping beats all over the place before he's fully processed the words. He's frowning at the display but it still isn't making that much sense to him because he's tired and he's confused and he's suddenly not all that certain that the past year of his life hasn't been a very vivid and insane dream because nothing seems to be matching up anymore.
"Gigi," he says his sister's name again. "How..."
But, again, the text alert interjects, as though it can read his thoughts, as though it can hear him.
Lizzie: Give your sister's phone back to her and tell her to go home. Some of us are trying to sleep after very long drives.
Gigi rolls her eyes at him; unimpressed even though she can't see the characters on the screen that have made his eyes widen and his cheeks flush and his heart work double time. "Okay, so the plan was that we'd keep you talking and lull you into a false sense of security and they hey wow surprise see ya bye."
William frowns, trying to keep up. "Those words mean nothing without proper sentence structures surrounding them."
"Ugh." She throws her hands in the air and steps forwards, grabbing him by the arm and prising her phone from his grasp. As she pulls him through the apartment (as he allows her to pull him; it's much easier without resistance) she reads the texts and makes another noise of disparagement. "She fell asleep? You guys are the worst."
They come to a halt in front of his bedroom door.
"I'll see you tomorrow, William," Gigi says, squeezing his arm lightly and then stepping away from him.
He's able to abandon his curiosity for just a fraction of a second - worry for his sister always manages to come first - to stammer: "It's... it's late, though. And Fitz..."
"Is probably just waiting outside your front door like the chicken that he is. I hope he knows I'll be beating him up for this one."
And then she's shooting him a smile, one caught somewhere between a smirk and a grin, before she spins around and skips out of view.
It's gone midnight when William Darcy nudges his bedroom door open.
About fifteen minutes ago, all he wanted was to crawl into bed, close his eyes, and grab five hours of unconsciousness before the sun rose. Now - well, he still wants all of those things, but he gets to add another factor into the equation. His bed is already occupied.
"Surprise." She smiles blearily, doesn't even move from her horizontal position other than to wave both her hands at him.
It's not a surprise, not really. The initial text message had allowed the possibility to burrow into his mind and the subsequent alerts had turned the possibility into an actual truth. Yes, he may have considered the notion that it was all just a dream, that he was reading far too much into things, that his sister and best friend were just crazy, but it isn't shock that courses through his veins at the sight of Lizzie Bennet clad in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, lying on his bed and wrinkling his duvet cover as she laughs at him. It's relief. He wanted to see her, of course he did, and here she is, in the flesh.
"I filmed my last video."
A hint of sadness winds through her tone, and it's the hint of sadness that spurs him out of his position of loitering in the doorway. He gets his feet to co-operate, walking closer, towards the bed, towards her.
"Then I went for a froyo with Lydia and she asked me why I was sticking around in dodge."
Darcy sits down on the side of the bed, an inkling of a frown on his face. "Your family -"
"Will probably survive without me."
"Your thesis -"
"Can technically be written anywhere where there's a stable internet connection, and I figured that if the CEO of a digital enterprise didn't have a stable internet connection then what hope was there for the rest of us?"
He pauses before his next question, wanting to get the intonation just right. He has an answer that he'd like to hear, and he has an answer that he expects to hear, but he doesn't want to sway her either way. "Are - are you staying?"
She pauses too, propping herself up on her elbows, her lips parting slowly as she considers the question. "Honestly? I haven't decided yet. I just... I said goodbye to my viewers and then Lydia quizzed me about my life choices at Pinkberry, of all places, and I went to leave a tip for the server and I felt your key in my pocket. And I made a spur of the moment decision. Is that okay?"
William smiles, averting his gaze as he nods. "Most certainly."
"Are you sure?"
"Without a doubt."
Seemingly satisfied with that response, Lizzie lies down again and watches him take off his shoes, his tie, his belt, his dress shirt, his suit pants. Everything else, much like his luggage in the trunk of his car, can wait until tomorrow.
"Fitz and Gigi seemed happy. I was here when they arrived. Don't think they were expecting that."
"I hope that you were also subjected to their smirks and gloating."
He pads into the ensuite bathroom to remove his contact lenses, keeping the door open so that he can still hear what she has to say.
"Just a little bit. Does that knowledge make you feel better?"
"Marginally. Did they have costume theater for you too?"
"You got costume theater?"
"A rather embarrassing amount of it."
"Well now I'm just disappointed. Think they'll have driven away yet? Can we get them back here to make amends to me?"
Twenty-twenty vision gone, William turns back to the bedroom. He's not got horrific vision without lenses, but things go a bit fuzzy around the edges. Details are lost, colours kind of blur. He can make out Lizzie, maneuvering her body so that she can pull the covers over her without actually having to stand up and pull them back and, when she successfully pulls that off, he can see her patting the duvet next to her.
It's not an invitation because it's his own bed and although there's been no actual conversation surrounding it they're both far too tired to contemplate anything but utilising it for its main purpose tonight, but as he pulls back the closest corner of the bedding and settles into what has apparently become his side, he can't help but feel that they've jumped through relationship milestones that would take normal people far longer than a week. It's not a huge stretch of the imagination to pretend that this is ordinary for them. He's getting back from a long day's work. She waited up for him. They settle down to sleep and she wreathes herself around him, pressing against his side, tilting her head to kiss him for the first time since they'd last parted...
"You haven't even brushed your teeth."
He quirks an eyebrow at her. She's resting her chin on his chest and their faces are so close together that he can take in every little aspect of her face, every eyelash, every hue in her blue eyes. "Have you?"
"Point taken. But I'm not kissing you in the morning."
"We shall have to see about that."
"Nope. I'm not. And just so you know, I'm only not demanding you go and brush your teeth right this second because it's one o'clock and I'm now too comfortable to move. Tomorrow I'll be stricter."
"Tomorrow? I thought you said you hadn't decided whether or not you were staying."
She hums, her eyes drifting shut. "I'll decide in the morning."
William smirks, reaching his free arm out to turn off the light. It's as he plunges the room into darkness that he drops in a surprise of his own - an inevitably unwelcome one.
"I have a five am wake up call."
His words are met with a groan and she digs him in the torso with her knuckle. "I hate you."
The words are familiar - up until recently they were practically on repeat in his mind and had been since that November day where he sat and watched fifty-nine videos on her YouTube channel where she reiterated the sentiment in a variety of different ways. They'd caused misery and confusion and a re-evaluation of fairly large proportions and yet now when they fall on his ears they elicit the opposite reaction.
"Oh, duh. Complete hatred is usually just a synonym for complete-denial-but-I-need-to-justify-the-amount-of-time-I-spend-thinking-about-you."
"And the amount of time I spend video-blogging about you."
"While wearing a bow tie."
"And a newsie hat."
He laughs at her as he shuts his eyes. "I know."