Kindergarten
"Let me get this straight…" Lizzie started, her eyes narrowing at the man still kneeling in front of her. "You were a complete jerk to me… because you liked me? Are we in kindergarten or something? Are you going to pull my hair at the playground tomorrow?" Lizzie is pretty sure that she woke up in some alternate universe that morning when the bane of her existence, Dr. William Darcy, showed up in her office that morning and asked her out on a date. Someone please wake her up.
"Don't go out with him."
Lizzie looked up abruptly from her desk, mouth mid-chew and full of apple, to find a disheveled Dr. Darcy breathing heavily in her office. "Excuse me?" She choked out, forgetting to finish chewing her apple as her brain tried to ascertain whether or not she had woken up in what must have been an alternate universe or some sort of hallucination.
"Don't go out with Wickham."
Lizzie swallowed audibly and stared dumbstruck at the pain-in-the-ass that was Dr. William Darcy, the bane of her existence of the better part of her first year at the hospital. Ever since she joined as a Vice President of administration, he had been there arguing with her about her decisions, nagging her constantly for more things for his department, and just being an overall jackass about everything. He was brilliant, really. He was the youngest doctor to be named the head of a department in the history of this hospital, had an amazing bedside manner with patients (he just seemed to conveniently forget about his charm when he was with Lizzie), and was listed as one of America's hottest doctors in People magazine (which Lizzie would have found hilarious if she did not think that the title was a kind of, sort of true).
But aside from the fact that Lizzie was a tiny bit attracted to him (she had eyes, damn it) and occasionally the knowledge of his presence in meetings would push Lizzie to do her very best work (only so she wouldn't have to hear his annoying voice in meetings, though somehow he almost always had some kind of opinion), to her, Dr William Darcy was unequivocally a huge dick. And here he was standing in her office, somehow under the impression that he had a say in her love life.
Lizzie raised an eyebrow, pushing down the irritation that was pulsing through her veins. "Excuse me?"
"Go out to dinner with me instead."
Lizzie's eyes widened as she literally choked on her own spit. As she got a hold of herself and managed to control her coughing (this was decidedly not her best moment), she used this brief reprieve to restart her brain and again ask herself "Where the hell am I?" and "Am I in the Matrix?"
She turned back to Darcy, who had taken the opportunity to run out to get her some water and moved to her side of her desk to pat her on the back.
"Excuse me?" Lizzie said again, as if she had been replaced with a parrot. Her brain had turned to mush (especially with how close he was standing to her), and she was really struggling to pull herself together with his really piercing blue eyes staring into her soul.
Darcy sighed, running a hand through his hair as if he was frustrated with her ineptitude. Lizzie nearly rolled her eyes at him. She was the one whose world had been turned upside down when the man who she was about 99.9% sure despised her showed up in her office and asked her out to dinner. But sure, he was frustrated.
"Look, Wickham is terrible. You don't know him. Please don't go out with him."
That deep, soothing doctor voice did nothing to calm Lizzie's rising anger with him. She wasn't sure how he had heard that Doctor Wickham had asked her out, but she was 100% sure that it was none of his damn business. She was a grown-ass woman and capable of taking care of herself, and she already knew that Doctor Wickham was one of the biggest sleazeballs within the hospital and she wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole. Not that Darcy had any right to that kind of information, given that they weren't friends, or even acquaintances.
Lizzie took a deep breath and summoned up whatever calm that she could so she didn't rip him a new one. "My love life is not any of your business, Darcy. And this is highly unprofessional." Hoping this would knock some sense into him and force him to vacate her office immediately so she could hit her head against her desk and wake up from this bizarre nightmare.
Darcy pinched the bridge of his nose, which she knew he only did when he was extremely frustrated. She had been on the receiving end of this look many times in their meetings.
"I know this is extremely unprofessional, Lizzie, but so was Wickham asking you to go on a date with him. I knew if I didn't speak up I would never forgive myself."
"Speak up… about what?" Lizzie asked hesitantly.
"You must know." Darcy said as he moved to his knees in front of her chair. "Please go out with me." He said softly.
"But… but you hate me!" Lizzie sputtered as she thought of all the times spent in meetings, in her office, and in the hallways of the hospital arguing. "You argue with me all the time about my projects, and complain about how I never approve your department's projects, which by the way, I fucking do, and literally just glare at me ever since I first joined this hospital! Why on earth would you ask me to go out with you?"
Lizzie watched as a blush overtook his cheeks (she had never imagined that she would see him so flustered) as he muttered "fuck" to himself.
"Look, I'm sorry for the way I treated you when you first arrived at the hospital. I wish I could blame it on Caroline Bingley," Lizzie snorted at the mention of her second least favorite person at the hospital, "but really, it was just me having a bad day and being an asshole."
"Bad day? Try bad year." Lizzie muttered before she could control herself.
"I'm sorry that I've been rude to you ever since you arrived." Lizzie looked at him as his voice got softer and his eyes somehow got impossibly bluer. "You're amazing, do you know that? You care so much about patients and this hospital. You command attention in every meeting that you're in, and you always think of everything. You push me to be a better doctor and department head, and I love it when you challenge me."
Lizzie blushed deeply as she tried to awkwardly look away from the earnest way that Darcy was looking at her. "You always get weirdly quiet when people compliment you." He paused, and Lizzie half wanted him to stop but also wanted him to keep talking. She was completely speechless, and that seemed to only ever happen around one William Darcy.
"The first time I had a meeting with you about some equipment my department wanted, you grilled me on all aspects of it. You were so knowledgeable and passionate about your job and you forced me to reevaluate my proposal because you had listed things that I hadn't thought about."
Lizzie smiled slightly, remembering how victorious she felt after standing her ground around the famous William Darcy. "You were so mad at me by the end of that meeting."
Darcy chuckled. "I was. And because I was a complete idiot, I researched the hell out of your opioid project before your meeting with the department heads so that I could question you about your first project."
Lizzie growled. "You asshole."
Darcy sighed. "I'm sorry, Lizzie. I realized later I just really liked seeing you when I pushed your buttons, and when I overheard from Caroline this morning that Wickham had asked you out, I knew that I couldn't just sit back."
"Let me get this straight…" Lizzie started, her eyes narrowing at the man still kneeling in front of her. "You were a complete jerk to me… because you liked me? Are we in kindergarten or something? Are you going to pull my hair at the playground tomorrow?"
"And steal your lunch money. I really want ice cream." As he guffawed at her incredulous expression.
Lizzie gaped at him. "Will Darcy has a sense of humor? Alert People Magazine! America's hottest doctor just got hotter."
Darcy stopped laughing, and Lizzie did a mental victory dance. She knew he absolutely hated that magazine, as he got so much crap for that article.
A sly grin appeared on his face, and Lizzie ignored the little flip her heart did at the sight. "So you think I'm hot?"
Lizzie sputtered, attempting (and failing) to deny that she found William Darcy at all attractive.
"Go out to dinner with me tonight, Lizzie."
Lizzie's tried to think up a witty comeback to his earnest expression, but the only thing that her brain managed to come up with was quiet, "Okay." She couldn't ignore the fact that she got heart palpitations with him so close or that despite the arguments, he pushed her and he admitted that she pushed him to be better.
A wide grin broke out on Darcy's face, as if he was fully expecting her to reject him.
"I get off at 7 PM tonight. Pick me up then?" Lizzie asked before she lost her courage.
"Oh fuck." Lizzie looked at him, alarmed and confused. Her defense mechanism kicked in, half expecting a TV crew to jump out from the hallway and say that she had been punk'd.
"You're going to hate me." Darcy muttered as he rubbed his face with his hands. "My shift just started and I don't get off till tomorrow morning."
Lizzie snorted at the normally very well-put-together man in front of her. "You didn't really think this through, did you?"
Darcy sheepishly responded, "Raincheck till our schedules line up?"
Before she could respond, a loud beeping interrupted them. Lizzie watched as Darcy furrowed his brow at his pager.
"Duty calls?"
He nodded, smiling apologetically at her.
"Go save lives!" She shooed him out of her office, nodding at his "I'll call you!" and gasped when he ran back into her office to kiss her cheek. Before she could respond, he was gone.
Lizzie sat back, staring at her empty office in shock.
And that's how she agreed to go on a date with William Darcy.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Currently a one-shot, but may be convinced to write a bit more in the future.