Title: I Write This Confession
Fandom: Pride and Prejudice
Pairing: Darcy/Wickham
Rating: PG
Length: 426 words
Summary: A letter from Darcy to Wickham

Pemberley

George Wickham,

I write this confession not to obtain your forgiveness but as an attempt to find some solace within my tortured soul. Whether I will find the courage to send this, I know not, but I can no longer go on without admitting to these truths.

I have lied. Lied with such frequency and so beyond my character that I am now naught but shame and turmoil. I had believed myself to be always in control of my emotions and had even endeavoured to build a wall to protect my heart. Yet, it still does not remain untouched – by you.

With great pride I have foolishly believed that from our boyhood my feelings for you were not only plainly evident but returned with the same passion. Though, because my father was still living and with your respect for him and your need for his continued support, that you were unwilling to sully his good name and subsequently could not approach me within his lifetime.

I never meant to hurt you with my unthinking actions but my feelings for you are so strong that I could not prevent myself from reacting in such a negative fashion. I had hoped that upon my father's death, with my inheritance and subsequent good financial standing that we would both reveal our true emotional connection towards the other and would leave for the continent to live together free from the scorn and judgement of modern society.

When it became evident soon after my father's passing that you wished to be free of me with such urgency and that your feelings were so unlike my own, I felt myself to be betrayed and humiliated. And so I lashed out at you in any manner that I knew how, not realising that in doing so I lost any chance of making you love me or of having you by my side even in simple friendship. Reason was beyond me at that moment and I lost you forever.

There is no atonement for my sins now and there are no words of apology that I could possibly give you to soothe the pain that I have brought to your life and subsequently, to my own. Even if you never receive this letter I am, in some small way, uplifted once more to know that I have revealed these secrets that have haunted my daily life for so long.

That I have admitted in writing that my heart is and will forever be yours - George Wickham.

Forgive me my love,

Fitzwilliam Darcy.