you and i have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead
The conversations begin the morning after the night before (although, if she had paid attention she would have realized that they've been going on much longer than that; she just never allowed herself to listen).
While the majority of the other people in the town are no doubt recovering from St. Patrick's Day celebrations, Lizzie Bennet has a hangover of her own to deal with - except hers isn't spawned by the effect of alcohol, rather the effect of William Darcy.
He'd arrived on her doorstep again that morning and she'd been the one to let him in, not Charlotte or Lydia (both of whom, she had discovered, had been looming in the doorway when he'd come to call the night before; Charlotte because she thought that he was the Chinese delivery and Lydia because she'd seen him from her bedroom window). Lizzie had kissed him and they had sighed contentedly, and then Lydia had popped her head from the doorway of the den and told them that while she wasn't going to help them get away with keeping their fledgling relationship a secret from the rest of the family forever she had decided to at least give them until dinner that night, and with that in mind they should probably know that it wouldn't be long until Mrs Bennet was home. She hadn't needed to say anything else; Lizzie was suggesting a walk into town almost instantly, and William hadn't been inclined to refuse.
They've deliberately elongated their stroll, taking the route less travelled instead of the expected path, and have been sauntering along with only each other for company for an hour or so when the inevitable question comes - and not in the way that she expects it to.
"Lizzie!" A voice behind her calls, and she spins around to come face-to-face with a girl that she hasn't spoken to since high school graduation.
The smiles aren't fake (though the hug is a bit more than necessary, but Lizzie decides that when a girl throws her arms out wide and encapsulates you in them, you either hug back or you resign yourself to being dubbed uninterested in all conversations that go on behind your back) and the questions come with a slice of genuine interest.
What are you up to now?
Lizzie smiles, explaining that she's mere weeks away from finishing up a masters degree and finishing with a shrug and her go-to phrase of "and then who knows?" (As a matter of fact, she thinks that she does know, but this is small talk, not the opening chapter of her autobiography.)
How are Jane and Lydia?
Fine and fine, Lizzie replies, elaborating only slightly to mention Jane's new job and the fact that Lydia is 21 now. (This is an old school friend who clearly doesn't know about the videos; why would she elaborate any further?)
And who is this?
The question had been expected - William isn't invisible, after all, and it's only polite for Hannah Everett to acknowledge his presence, so it isn't as though Lizzie was under the illusion that she wouldn't have to introduce him at some point.
Still, when the moment finally falls, she flounders. It isn't that she doesn't know how to introduce him, but rather that she barely feels qualified to.
The Romantic movement elicited sonnet after sonnet that attempted to describe the way in which love manages to infect every part of a person, every limb, every pore, but Lizzie almost succeeds in solidifying the possibility that nobody has ever felt exactly as she does now. She spent months and months defacing this man's character in the most public way and yet now, as they wander the streets of the town that she grew up in, not hand in hand but walking close enough for their hands to bump together, for their fingers to catch and mesh and intwine for fragments of moments, she realizes that she barely knows him at all.
"This... Um, this..." She turns to catch William's eye, smiling in spite of herself as soon as she locks her gaze onto his. "This is William. Uh... Will, this is Hannah."
He nods an acknowledgement and in that motion Lizzie can see an echo of the William Darcy that she met at the Gibson wedding. Just an echo, though, because there's something different. He's a little more at ease. She can make out the ghost of the dimple that adorns his right cheek when he smiles, and his eyes are a little more open, a little more receptive.
A few other pleasantries are exchanged and then Hannah makes her excuses, makes her promises that they'll catch up properly soon and then makes her leave.
As she moves away, Lizzie blurts out an apology though she's not entirely sure what she's apologizing for. For the interruption? For the haphazard introduction? For not knowing him as well as she should?
"It must be nice running into people that you've known your whole life," he muses, easily shrugging off her apology. "It can happen in San Francisco, of course, but it's far less likely in such a populated city. I can't remember the last time I met someone from school."
"Well, you'd think that," Lizzie challenges, quirking an eyebrow in his direction. "But to me, Hannah will forever be the girl who kissed my fourth grade boyfriend, causing him to break up with me on our four hour anniversary. You never look at her in quite the same way when you hold that information."
Darcy laughs lightly, glancing over his shoulder at the retreating back of the girl. When his eyes flicker back to meet Lizzie's gaze, they're dancing with mirth. "Fourth grade boyfriend?"
Lizzie rolls her eyes, deliberately bumping his arm with her shoulder. "Ten. I was ten."
"That is the age of the average fourth grader, yes," he acknowledges. "However, I don't believe 'ten' was an answer to my question."
"I don't believe you actually asked a question, William."
"Should I be worried about this fourth grade boyfriend discovering what he allowed to slip through his fingers fourteen years ago?"
Now Lizzie captures his hand in hers, twining her fingers through his, threading them together so that if she only glances at their hands for a second she can't tell which digits belong to her and which belong to him. "I don't know. Harry Jamison was quite a catch. He had a neon green eraser that I was just dying to borrow."
"Is that all it takes to buy your affections?"
She nods once, emphatically. "A neon green eraser and a newsie cap."
"If I had only known that last fall," he murmurs, pulling her closer to him, eliminating the space between their forearms.
She rests her cheek against his shoulder, bringing her left hand across her body so as to trace her fingers along the muscles of his arm. She just wants to touch him, ensure that he's never out of grasp, and she berates herself for this apparent clinginess because she's not that kind of girl and she never wants to be but she spent so many weeks thinking that she'd lost her chance and here he is, willing to give her another one. It seems too good to be true; she has seconds where she doesn't trust that he's not a figment of her imagination. Those seconds are only disrupted by the sound of his voice, by the words that fill in the blanks in the story of William Darcy, words that she can't possibly have invented because they tell a tale that she doesn't know yet.
"Didn't you have a fourth grade girlfriend?" she asks, and it strikes her that she wants to know all of these personal things. She wants to know everything, wants to become fully versed in the life and times of this man. He's scanned through the equivalent of a year of her diary. She wants to scrutinize every single page of his.
"What's your definition of girlfriend?" he asks, immediately.
"So you did?"
"Until I garner an acute definition, I can't possibly confirm or deny that."
"I'll rephrase the question: when was your first kiss, William Darcy?"
"Eleventh grade."
"Really?"
He tucks his chin back, clearing his throat quietly before he nods curtly.
"Wow."
"Are you surprised?"
"A little," she concedes. "Not that it's a thing to be ashamed of. It's not, at all. I just can't believe that people didn't think you were a bigger catch."
She feels him laugh. "Are you being facetious, Lizzie?"
Her initial reaction is to frown, because she doesn't instantly know what he means.
When she doesn't reply he glances down at her and seeing the crease between her eyebrows prompts another buried chuckle. "The Lizzie Bennet of October would have joined ranks with those who didn't think I was a catch, would she not?"
Lizzie colors slightly, her gaze dropping to their feet. The pace at which they amble is perfectly matched, the rhythm never formally established but adopted naturally by them both. "The Lizzie Bennet of October was entirely wrong."
"The Lizzie Bennet of October had plenty of reason to say what she did."
"No, she didn't."
"Yes, she - " Darcy trails off with the hint of a sigh, twisting his body slightly to allow someone walking behind them to overtake. At length, he breaks the silence with a name: "Rebecca Van Wright."
Lizzie frowns again, forcing the lingering thoughts of all of the horrible things that she'd purposefully published on the internet out of the forefront of her mind for the moment. "What?"
"My first real girlfriend," he explains. "I was sixteen and she was in my English class. She liked Sherlock Holmes novels and metallic blue nail polish and Fitz was the one who convinced her that I had social skills."
"He wasn't always the worst wingman ever, then."
Darcy smiles. "No. He had fine priorities and made sure to reserve that behavior for the woman that I really wanted to impress."
"So, what did he say?"
"To Rebecca?" He doesn't wait for Lizzie's confirmation before continuing. "He told her I had tickets to see her favorite band and was too shy to ask. None of which was false. I did have tickets, though we only found out they were her favorite band by chance, and I was painfully shy, hence why Fitz had to do the talking. We went to see The Strokes, and had a few other dates over the course of the year."
"A few?"
"I hope you're going to be as forthcoming when it comes to details about your first dating experience." His sidelong glance brings a smile to her face. "Yes, a few. We broke up just before spring of 2002."
Lizzie has to suppress the want to ask about the other girls that followed Rebecca Van Wright. Her inner self has to catch the urge to do so, has to ball it up as tight as possible and lock it in the darkest part of her mind because she doesn't want to overwhelm him with questions. She has all the time in the world to ask him about first loves, to enquire about his high school prom, to quiz him on how, exactly, his friendship with Fitz began and how it reached a point where Fitz was the one to instigate Will's romantic involvements - or she hopes she does.
For now, as they walk along the main street in the town that she grew up in, no doubt under the watchful gaze of somebody she used to go to school with, or somebody who works with her father, or who has tea with her mom, she can be content with that. She doesn't know everything, not yet, but she knows that she has the chance to know everything. She doesn't have to hold him so tight. He's letting her in.
Slowly she extricates herself from him - she slides her left hand down his left arm, and as soon as her fingertips brush against the buttons of his shirt she pulls away; she lifts her head from where it rests on his shoulder, tilting it from side to side a few times so as to stretch the muscles on the other side of her neck; she moves away from his side, not far away, but just far enough that their forearms aren't crushing together anymore. She even begins to unravel their fingers without thinking; their thumbs unclasp and their index fingers bid one another adieu, and their middle fingers separate, and their ring fingers hang on for dear life but don't quite win their battle.
Their little fingers remain locked, and although she doesn't set out to leave it that way she doesn't untangle them and nor does he. It's their silent pinky promise. Things are alright. Things will continue to be alright.
"I don't know what else you expect me to say about Harry Jamison," Lizzie begins again, her grin broad as she looks up at him.
"But you were in a loving relationship with him for all of four hours. There must be endless anecdotes."
"I only liked him for his eraser!"
"It's no wonder he left you for Hannah."
"Excuse me?"
"I have to be honest, if I find out you're only with me because of my office supplies..."
"Pemberley does have a lot of lust-worthy office supplies..."
I started writing this yesterday in the midst of the Lizzie Bennet Monday withdrawal symptoms. Wait. Does that sentence make sense? I don't know. I don't know if this entire thing makes sense to be honest, because I didn't write it entirely chronologically and even though I've gravitated toward using present tense for all of the LBD stuff I've posted I don't usually, so I probably slip up despite editing. Maybe I'll get better for the next conversation.
Title/quote is from Two of Us by The Beatles.