Disclaimer: I am not Jane Austen, nor do I own Pushing Daisies (which I have loosely based my writing style upon).
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife…"
"Really, Lizzie? This is how you're going to start? Some cheesy line about money and marriage prospects?"
"Darcy, do you want me to tell you or not?"
Fitzwilliam made a show of zipping up his lips and throwing away the key.
"I'll be good."
Elizabeth Darcy-Bennet was sitting across her husband in a diner. The facts were these: Fitzwilliam Darcy had, just four months ago, been in a rather serious car accident. His (pretty much new!) BMW had been savaged viciously by a drunk and speeding teen at an intersection, who had recently been dumped by a girlfriend. This resulted in police cars, tears, fines, hospitals and Fitzwilliam Darcy in a coma. Fortunately, Darcy had had the good sense to wake up a little over a week after the accident, causing his doctors to declare a miracle and his wife to become a blubbering idiot at the scene of the reunion. What was unfortunate was the bewildered look on Darcy's face when he found himself being hugged quite violently by a stranger whose lovely brown eyes were producing tears at an alarming rate. When Elizabeth had finally released her husband, he had cleared his throat, croakily asked for a glass of water and asked, very politely and very sensibly, "I'm very sorry, but who on earth are you?"
It was with this question that Elizabeth's worst fears were realised. Fitzwilliam Darcy, it turned out, could not, however hard he tried, recall the past few years. Even as he recovered physically, he strained to remember small details such as his favourite midnight snack, the smell of his aftershave, the high score in his game of Fruit Ninja and the name and identity of his wife.
Many would have been alarmed, dismayed and disheartened at such a discovery, but not Elizabeth. Determined to keep what she had once narrowly lost, she bombarded her husband with so much information that his doctors had to warn her several times about overloading.
"Not too much at once," they warned. "We don't want to overwhelm him, now."
In time, Darcy was excused from the confines of the hospital and as he recovered in an enormous beach house on Point Piper that was now his home, he learnt that he was 29, a lawyer, extremely wealthy and married. And in time, he, without even realising it at first, came to fall very deeply in love with his wife. Darcy soon fell for Elizabeth's kindness, her intelligence and her very good looks and it wasn't long before there was no doubt at all on his part that Elizabeth was his wife. In fact, Darcy often found himself asking the question of how exactly he managed to find such an amazing and beautiful woman so adept at conversation and with whom he had grown so comfortable.
For, sadly, what Elizabeth had failed to reveal, despite the constant pestering by her husband, was how she had come to know, love and eventually marry Darcy. She was infuriatingly quiet on this particular subject.
"Lizzie, how bad can it be. Really, it can't be all that bad. I mean, I've asked Georgie and Mrs Reynolds and they tell me its not bad at all so…"
(They had reached the level of intimacy that necessitated nicknames long ago.)
"It's not that its bad, Will, it's just long."
It was here that Darcy had given Elizabeth a look that said don't-bull-with-me. Darcy had established quite early on that his wife had a tendency to be verbose, and he was sure length was not a reason for why Elizabeth was being so very secretive.
"Okay, so that's not the only reason," justified Elizabeth. "It's just-"
Darcy had sat stock still, not wanting to interrupt this train of thought. An awkward ten seconds passed, and Darcy let out a cry of frustration.
"PLEASE, it is killing me Lizzie. Please."
"First off, don't say that. You know any talk of you dying upsets me." (Darcy meekly muttered an apology). "Secondly… Will, the truth is…"
She exhaled, and tried again. "The truth is…"
And there it was. Elizabeth had once been prejudice and it had almost cost her happiness. She had taught herself never to make the same mistake again, and yet, once again, she found herself unable to place her prejudicial sensibilities to the side. Here was her chance to redeem those moments of failures and inadequacies and to give Will a chance, and yet she could not. Because, as much as her husband looked and acted like Fitzwilliam Darcy, the truth of the matter was that he was not her Fitzwilliam Darcy. Her Will had had those experiences that had shaped and defined who he had become and without them, Elizabeth felt him just as proud and unrelenting as he had been when she had first met him. And she knew only one way to fix it.
"Okay, I'll tell you." she conceded.
"Wait, what? Just like that?"
"Yeah, just like that."
"Wait, hang on. You were going to tell me the reason behind-"
"I've changed my mind. You're right, of course you're right. It's important that you know."
"Well, of course I'm right and of course I should know but I'd really rather like to also know what you were going to say after-"
"Shush, Will, or I won't tell you anything~," sung Elizabeth with a grin.
And so Lizzie began to tell Will Darcy, quite arguably, the greatest love story ever told.
A/N: I feel I should mention some things before I begin my endeavour to complete a fanfic. The reality is that I am no doctor and no professional writer. I actually have very little knowledge of what the recovery rate for comatose, amnesic patients are and so you will all have to excuse me on the particulars of Darcy's recuperation. I also have a tendency to use far more words than necessary. (Hence, Lizzie's characterisation as verbose.) Hopefully, I am engaging enough for you to all read through a chapter without wanting to put a fist through your computer screens.
That being said, I really am enjoying writing this, and I hope that you all enjoy reading it. Please review, it would mean the world to me and I will take all constructive criticisms in hand (:
