Author's Note:
I wrote this immediately after finishing It's Only Love, and before I started writing the Afterlife of Georgiana Darcy... so it will be lacking in certain parts of Will and Charlie's backstory, which will become clearer in Georgie's companion piece.
Ultimately, It's Only Love is a story of redemption- not in the true sense, because Will doesn't really have any sins, but he just thinks he does. He's atoning for the loss of Georgie, which he believes is his fault: sibling love taken to the most extreme level. And what I find so telling in Pride and Prejudice is that one of the very first things that appeals to Elizabeth about Darcy is his relationship with Georgiana- there's some scene, I can't remember where in the book, in which Lizzie grudgingly admits that his obvious love for Georgie is one of his few redeeming qualities.
But because the book is primarily about the love story between Darcy and Elizabeth, that dynamic becomes a sub-plot, albeit an extremely important one, but a sup-plot nonetheless. My sister is my soul mate; there is no better way to put it. And so I wanted to write a differentstory, where Will had lost the single most important person to him. For me, Georgie always seemed to be the very air that Will breathed; if she was happy, he was happy, and vice-versa.
In the book, Charlie isn't that fleshed out (Janeites, I'm sorry, but it's the bitter truth) and personally, I've always felt that Charlie and Will had another sibling-esque relationship. Sometimes Will is the older brother and sometimes Charlie is, but it's that same dynamic regardless of who is pretending to be older. When Will is being super-Will, full of disdain and "I am above this shit," Charlie mocks him by acting like a kid. It's not obvious, what he does, but it brings Will a little bit out of himself. I never wanted Charlie to be perfect, but as far as people go, he's pretty damn brilliant. Yelling at the doctor, ordering extra Chinese food for Georgie, wearing snake scarves- I'm not gonna lie, I love my Charlie Bingley. Will doesn't even really know how lucky he is to have him in his life. Sure, he's aware of the basics, but he can't even begin to appreciate the subtleties of their friendship. But then again, that's what Charlie wants. He doesn't want the glory or recognition; he just wants Will to be happy. And given all that's happened to him, all that's he seen happen to the Darcy siblings, it's a brave wish on his part. It's brave because it's a little bit impossible and a little bit wonderful, and the fact that he keeps trying breaks my heart. Charlie sees Will as his best friend but also as someone who needs protecting, but because he's Charlie Bingley, he goes about protecting him in a way that doesn't make traditional sense. He mocks Will in a coffee shop, and it's his way of saying, Hey, I'm here for you, and if you run, I'm going to run faster. I'm going to protect you, whether you like it or not. And if you don't like it, suck's for you.
Will, Will, Will. God he's a complicated character, and I think I get lost in him sometimes, simply because everything he does is intertwined with some bigger fear inside of him. The thing is, all those fears are so obvious but at the same time, so well hidden- if that makes any sense- that something is bound to fail, and soon you're going to start drowning. Ironically, Will is aware of this, but like with his friendship with Charlie, I don't think he fully understands the significance of it. He's so used to passing glances that seem to cover everything, what with his parents and all, that he doesn't even stop to plumb the depths of what he sees. And in my opinion, that's his tragic flaw. It's not his fault, but it's his flaw anyway. In particular, the way his parents told him that Georgie was dying, speaks volumes about who the Darcy's were as parents, and to a further extent, the way the family had raised them to communicate. Georgie was the anomaly, and since Will lived vicariously through her, he never understood how she did it, how she was so open and alive. There's something to be said for actually learning how to do something, as opposed to copying, and so when Georgie died, a massive part of Will died too. Not just his heart or his connection to the Earth, but his ability to communicate without worrying.
Enter Lizzie, the girl who says what she wants to and doesn't care what other people think (or so she says.) Will doesn't base human interaction of off what Charlie does, because in Will's mind Charlie is always a bit of a lunatic, and so Lizzie is a bit of a punch in the gut for him, simply because she is so different from what he's been to taught to expect. The first time he sees her, he can't speak; yes, she's stunning, but she's also so completely out of his orbit that he's paralyzed. And Lizzie, being Lizzie, mistakes this for disinterest and a million other things, none of which are too complementary. So she twists a knife in his stomach and leaves. She likes to get the last word, and poor Will is left bleeding on that stupid terrace. He wants to say something, but he can't, he physically can't do anything, he's that paralyzed.
In the book, Will is not initially taken with Lizzie's physical appearance, and so their love story is, in my opinion, more of a gradual descent into love (even though Will does feel more than she does at first) as opposed to a straight freefall into it. But I've always wondered what it would be like if Will had been attracted to her from the very beginning, because given Will's special social skills, what would he do? That's fascinated me to no end, and what I realized is that he'd pretty much do the same thing that he does in the book. He's so paralyzed by who he is that he can't even acknowledge something that beautiful when he first encounters it. Every time I read that scene, I get the image of Will trying to shake water out of his ears- he's still drowning, but something is calling him to the surface. He knows that she's saying something, but he can't hear it. So much of their time is wasted on missed connections and hidden feelings that when they meet again in the park, it's almost destined to be like a wave slamming onto a rock, fast and furious.
After Georgie's death, Will is terrified by the thought of losing the people he loves. When Will is talking to Georgie's grave, and saying how he just feels something when he's with Lizzie, that, that something, is the most dangerous, frailest thing in the world. It's not just lust or attraction, it's something that's bigger than them, and it takes hold of your heart and scares you shitless. And Lizzie runs from it by making fun of Will, and Will just stands there in his pink pajama pants and lets her because she somehow knows the way to get past of all his defenses and twist that knife right in, and maybe there's a little part of him that wants her to cut into him and leave a scar, because then he knows that he's alive.
Charlie is the bravest but Will is the strongest, and Charlie lends a bit of his bravery to Will so that he can turn and fight his demons. You can't run from demons because they run so fucking fast and they go so deep in your brain that you can't escape them, no matter how hard you try. Charlie's been in the arena when all the lights are on and you can't see a thing. He was at the hospital first. He saw Georgie die. He was there first, and that's something that he's never forgiven himself for, but he keeps fighting for the light because, as he told Will, "that's what Georgie would have wanted." So because of that, I think that Charlie's the bravest. Will isn't the bravest but he's the strongest, and that distinction makes a hell of a difference. He won't turn to face his demons unless he's pushed into it, but when he does, he could destroy them. There's a visceral rawness to how Will deals with everything, that can't be taken away from him. Everything he does, he does honestly, and it's all fucked up because of Georgie dying, but it's honest. When he runs to her grave and shouts "FUCK OFF!" at all the weeds, that's pure Will, right down to the bone: a little vicious, a little heartbreaking, and deadly real. He's awkward as hell with Lizzie, because he's being honest and she's unknown territory. All those girls he dated before her, they didn't get that side of Will at all. Even the people at work don't get the real Will; all they receive is Will Darcy of the Darcy family. He dated girls who wouldn't look too closely (connecting back to his Darcy roots, 5 points for Will) and then dumped them the instant they got a little too comfortable dating a Darcy. When people get complacent, Will becomes cruel. There's a part of him that lashes out at their complacency because it doesn't make any sense to him, how stupid people can be alive and his sister, his fucking sister, gets hit by a cab and dies before he can say goodbye. It's a twisted worldview, and it's unsettling, and Will runs from it by drowning himself in meaningless things. For Will, it's his pathetic way of getting back at the universe for taking Georgie away from him, and it doesn't work, but he keeps doing it anyway, because it's something.
The first draft of the epilogue did not have Lizzie's accident in it. It ended with Will and Lizzie in the park, watching an elderly couple, and Will realizing that he's happy. I was rereading it and about to upload it when suddenly, it just happened- of course she was in an accident. I didn't plan it, and I'm not trying to manipulate the story in some way; it just happened, the way that Will tells Lizzie that things just happen. It's true. But once I started writing it (which happened very quickly; there are little if no revisions in that section), I realized that this is, on some deeper level, a message in a bottle to Will, that while yes, the universe will break your heart, it will also save it, because Georgie died but Lizzie didn't, and it's like a coin toss: an outcome determined by gravity and luck and (sometimes) fate. In my own way, I like to think that the universe is looking out for Will, showing him that not all things are bad, that not all things will end the same way they did before.
I cut out so many characters from the book because I honestly didn't need them. Caroline Bingley? (Did not need a bitch in sunglasses.) Louise Hurst? (Ditto.) And I took out Mary, Kitty and Lydia because while the story is Will and Lizzie's love story, it's also an ode to the bond- the true bond- between siblings, not the bond you have just because you're supposed to be nice to each other, sharing blood and whatnot, but also the bond between friends who breathe the same breathe as you do. And what with all the talk of other lifetimes in the epilogue, it made me think that, in its own way, Will's life as told by the death of Georgie is another lifetime for Will Darcy, a lifetime that spans four years and runs together very, very quickly, gathering speed until he has no choice but to turn around and face the demons that will always be there. Will never really grew past Georgie's death; he's frozen in amber and tormented by his past, and it takes him several long, painful years to come to terms with all of life's beautiful brutalities.
I never intended to make a straight, linear adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and I don't think I ever will, because I suck at it. The characters in It's Only Love are not mirror reflections of the ones in Jane Austen's masterpiece, but rather shattered fragments from that original mirror, and in their own way, I like to think that they found a way to become whole again, once more.
Author's Note continued:
I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on It's Only Love, and especially things that you found confusing or just didn't work for you. The companion piece, which is currently 34 pages single spaced (I keep saying this because that's a huge fucking deal for me!), is about Georgie's life, and it initially started out as something simple, and grew into something twisted and winding. It's not going to be a chapter fic, but rather an extremely long one-shot. And for any Mama Bennet fans, don't worry: I'm working on chapter 10 of Reasons Why.
A huge thank you to everyone who read the story- you guys make my day.