Lord, what's going on, I'm writing fanficiton in my spare time again. anyway... that's all I really have to say about this. Please reveiw :)
DISCLAIMER: I am not Jane Austen, Hank Green or Bernie Su. I know, the shame.
It turned out to be much easier than Lizzie expected. Dinner at the Marina, costume theatre to remove any remaining awkwardness about the Bing and Jane situation. A trip around LA with he and his sister. A surprising, unplanned kiss when they said their goodbyes.
She was dating William Darcy, and the internet was none the wiser.
It had been her idea. She'd told him that maybe this was one thing she would keep private. The internet knew a hell of a lot about her life, and it'd be fun to keep them in the dark. William had no objections. Gigi did, but she kept to her word and said nothing.
They didn't get too far with the interview Lizzie had planned as the first video since the kiss... They blamed each other. The video was fun though - the fans didn't get their full Fitz!Darcy costume theatre experience. Lizzie edited that out. Why? Because after laughing hysterically, she pulled him back down next to her, pulled the afro wig from his head and kissed him senseless. Something told her that keeping in that scene would be a bit of a giveaway.
She was, for the first time in a while, truly happy. She hadn't told Charlotte or Jane yet - Gigi only knew because she guessed. There had been a moment when she considered sending the uncut video to Charlotte, just for the hysterical texts she'd receive in response. But she wasn't sure her phone could take it - and she wanted to see Charlotte's reaction for herself, anyway.
The main topic of conversation between Gigi and William of late was the new Pemberly software, Domino. Lizzie, as a shadowing employee, wasn't strictly supposed to know, but being the CEO's girlfriend and good friend of the person chosen to run the test videos meant Lizzie knew quite a but about Domino's bugs, release date and internet capabilities. What she didn't know, yet, was the program was actually going to be used for. When she asked Gigi, she just laughed. When she asked Will, he got nervous and told he couldn't say but she could figure it out.
When Gigi texted her to say that the first Domino test video was out, Lizzie watched it, grinning widely. She didn't even care that Gigi almost gave the game away telling Fitz about the theatre tickets William had bought, because, insane as it seemed, Lizzie was struck by a sudden realisation that Domino obviously was developed for people like her. Video bloggers. Auto-upload and auto-editing suddenly made sense, and Lizzie couldn't fight the feeling that William had developed this software as a gift for her. Which was mad, of course, because software like Domino took years of planning and he had only discovered she had video blogs a few months ago, and they'd only been dating less than a week. But still. The program was perfect, and she told him so.
"You know, Lizzie, the reason I chose Gigi to run the test videos wasn't just because she hounded me."
"Was that part of the reason?"
"Well, yes, but it's also because, after Gigi and I appearing in your vlogs, Domino test videos were bound to get more views through our association with you. You're good for publicity." He admitted.
That made sense. Lizzie's fanbase was certainly insane enough to make even Gigi, who had hardly appeared in any videos, internet famous. "Could I try it out? That'd definitely get more people hearing about it." She blushed, realising how narcissistic that sounded, but William only laughed softly.
"Of course you may. But I'd rather you did it with Gigi's supervision. She knows the program better than anyone but the programmers, and Domino is still somewhat buggy, after all."
"Oh, ok." She smiled up at him. She didn't think he truly appreciated how fascinated she was by Domino. The ability to call Charlotte or Jane, or even Lydia through the vlogs, so the viewers could see both sides of the conversation, would be awesome - it would definitely help with the storytelling William had told her she was so good at.
That's how Lizzie found herself in front of Gigi's camera and laptop, which had Domino installed, barely hiding her fascination. Gigi said she'd be in in a minute, and Lizzie could just get started. Lizzie didn't even hesitate, and was already filming and trying out features when William entered the room.
"Wil- Darcy! Come on in, Gigi's letting me try out Domino." Will sat down next to her, looking worriedly at the camera. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Pemberly's CEO, William Darcy."
"Lizzie, are you sure it's a good idea for you to be using this? It -"
"No, no, it's fine. I turned off the auto-whatsit feature before I started."
William didn't look convinced, but let Lizzie try to call Jane through the video chat system. Jane didn't pick up. "That's... weird. I suppose it's her job again, she told me she'd be online, but she's really busy at the moment."
Jane's absence, although only a small issue, made Lizzie strangely sad. It didn't matter how selfish it was, she couldn't help but miss the times when Jane was always around to chat. William rubbed her shoulder guessing what she was thinking, and without really thinking about the camera Lizzie kissed him. William stiffened.
"Lizzie, you did say you turned off auto-upload?"
"No, I turned off auto-edit." She turned to look at the laptop, the Domino logo flashing on the screen. "Oh, hell. Is there way of turning off auto-upload once you start filming?"
"No, not yet. It's one of the bugs we haven't sorted out yet. The minute you stop recording this video is uploaded straight to youtube, leaving everything in."
Lizzie looked at Will, eyes wide, who looked back at her with equal panic. Then he started to smile again. "I suppose this is the moment we tell the internet, then?"
Lizzie sighed. "I'd call Charlotte before it finished uploading, but my phone's broken and she's offline."
"If it's urgent, you can always borrow my phone... Shall you share the news to the viewers, or should I?"
"No, I'll tell them, it's my video blog." she turned to face the camera. "Well, I suppose you guessed by this point, but guys, I'm dating William Darcy. I wasn't really ready to tell you but I suppose it's out of the bag now, we've been dating since the San Francisco tour and already I know I love him." She held his hand. "If there was a way I could keep this secret longer, I would, but-"
The door crashed open and Gigi entered. She had clearly caught the last few lines of Lizzie's speech and was grinning. "You guys are both such drama-queens! Hint: If you don't want Domino to upload the video, or save it to auto-upload later, all you have to do is this." She walked to her laptop and held the power button down until the screen went black. "There, all better. Although I would have uploaded it, you two were being so cute."
Lizzie decided to give up on Domino for a while and leave Gigi to do her bug reports before she tried again. She returned to her own office space, found out her new phone had arrived, and sat down to record another video. She still needed one to upload for Thursday, after all.
Gigi's suggestion to upload the video was still going around her head. On one hand, she quite liked having this secret thing with Will, but on the other, she had shared so much her viewers about Darcy it seemed wrong to keep them in the dark about her true feelings. And she'd be missing an excellent opportunity to let them flood tumblr with gifs and feels.
Will entered, thankfully, while she was filming. She really didn't want to force her viewers into listening to her talk about her new phone for five minutes, which was literally the only topic she had planned for the video.
He asked her to the theatre. She tried to play it cool, pretending Gigi would be coming to, but they looked at each other and Lizzie realised this was Will giving her an opportunity. She could reject him, keeping her viewers in the dark a little longer, or say yes. Either way, she was going to the theatre with William tonight. Before she could make her decision, her phone buzzed. She picked it up instinctively. The pretence of checking it gave her more time to make the choice, after all. But then she saw the missed calls from Charlotte.
Lydia and Wickham. A sex tape. How could she have been so self-centred, so stupid?
She had to pack. She had to go home. Will offered to help her but she knew it would only make matters worse - arriving to talk to her with the man who knew what George was capable of but had said nothing. She knew Lydia well enough to know that to her it would feel like betrayal. Accepting help from William was a bad idea. But she did so anyway. Because she was scared, because she was sick with worry, because one more bad idea couldn't hurt, after all. But the reveal would have to wait, Lydia couldn't know.
"Darcy?" He turned to look at her. She didn't know what to say. she wanted to say sorry, but they were still filming. "Thank you."