Hey

This Story is something that just came to me, why I had no idea. I just wanted to write it, because Belle is a person who would read Jane Austen and love Mister Darcy. People who know Austenland and once upon a time can already see Gold as Nobley and whoever you also see.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any characters, situations and ideas, Austenland and once upon a time belong to its owners, maybe I wish that was me, but it isn't. I just smashed the two together which makes me kind of smart. I think…. ENJOY!


Chapter 1: -An Austen Experience

It's a truth universally acknowledged that girls dreams of meeting prince Charming. For me that was never a dream, I've always wanted to meet Mister Darcy.
I've always loved Jane Austen , more so than anything else in my life. I've always considered Pride and Prejudice my favourite book, I've always had this undying love for mister Darcy, not that I didn't feel the same for Mister Knightly or Henry Tilney. Or maybe even Colonel Brandon, but certainly Edward Ferrars. It just that mister Darcy had a special place in my heart, a true gentleman that truly loved Elizabeth Bennet , that had to be amazing.
Yet in life I never met a man like Mister Darcy, Gaston was a jerk . He never liked that I read, he only dated me for my beauty, he used to say he wanted to marry me because I was the most beautiful girl in town. He didn't like how I acted, that the whole town I thought was weird. We went about a month, than we broke up. It was something I liked, because I didn't like who I was when me and Gaston were together.
It is when times are hardest that I always return to Jane Austen and specially to Pride and Prejudice, something about the story makes me wonder why I've never found someone who could compare. So I guess you could say I've never met a gentleman who've I loaded first and then slowly fell in love with. I guess I'll never find someone who truly would do anything for me. I can't say if I think that's okay. The question is how do I find someone that I could see myself spend my entire life with? If I knew that, I wouldn't have a problem.
Beside love, my life was pretty great, I live in New York and work in New York public library, where I did what I absolutely loved: working with books and people. I love books I've always loved books, I guess the love started when I started with reading and it has never truly died. I don't think it ever will. True love was for me as rare as gold. I would never find it, yet I would never give up the search.

Like any day I was behind my desk at the library, I stared at the cursor blinking on the screen. I placed the returned books behind me and returned my attention to the desk. Right next to me was my best friend Ruby, who was helping a customer who needed information on the ancient Rome. Before me a woman with red hair appeared, her name was Zelena and like me she was a crazy fan of Jane Austen.
She handed me her books, I gave her a soft smile.
"The real thing is nothing like it darling, trust me." Zelena smiled at me.
"Excuse me?" I stared at the Jane Austen books she just handed me. "Do you mean the movies? Because I've seen them at least a hundred times."
"No, I'm not talking about the movies, darling." Her eyes opened wider. "I'm talking about Austenland well off course, a real life Austen experience. You travel to London's out skirts and play the role of a heroine in your very own Austen adventure."
"Wow, that sounds wild." I could hardly believe such a place even existed, my mind went to think about it, I could live the regency through my own eyes, not the heroine of the book. It seemed pretty wild, yet I could hardly believe that I I would ever find myself in that place, I had went to London off course, I had seen every item involving Jane Austen, yet I had never heard of Austenland.
"The actors are positively gorgeous." Zelina replied. "This men portray men from the regency and they give you your very own Jane Austen love story, in my case there were two men going crazy about me."
"Sound interesting." I smiled. "Is it completely authentic?"
"Clothes and all." She replied "You've never seen anything like it, I think it's very much something for you. I mean you are after all single…"
"I…" I nervously bit my lip. "Yeah, that sounds exactly like me."
"It's ten thousand dollars, give or take." With that Zelina left the desk. I stared to my computer screen, ten thousand dollars give or take for my perfect vacation. Or at least something that could be my favourite vacation and I wouldn't even get to London with that money, I thought about it. I had saved money off course and I always thought about spending money to something I really liked. I thought about meeting someone like mister Darcy.
"You're not thinking about it?" It was Ruby's voice. "I know what you're thinking, meet Mr. Darcy, get married. You're forgetting that it would be an actor. Not a real life breathing man."
"Yeah, but it's Jane Austen." I smiled. "You know how much I love her."
"Yeah, but ten thousand dollars is a lot of money, I wouldn't do it if I were you."
I understood what Ruby was saying, a part of me couldn't understand that I was even thinking about giving all the money I saved to an Austen experience, partly expecting that it would change my life. What was such an expensive experience going to do to my life? Maybe I would come back and find my life more empty than ever, what if I found my fantasy? What if I found the guy of my life and found out it was a simple act? It was a move that could harm more than I wanted to admit, I had to admit that the fantasy was too dangerous. In this house would be people from Austen's novels, people that would be perfect for me. Yet the truth would be that everything would be an act. Even if I wouldn't be acting, anyone there would be. If I went, I had to make sure that I wouldn't fall for anyone there.
I stared to Ruby who was once again focused on her work. I returned my eyes to the screen in front of me, thinking about everything going on. I let it go, for just a moment. Right now I didn't need a fantasy, I needed to think about my work, not the fact if I would ever meet Mr. Darcy.


When I arrived at my apartment, I found my mother and a far aunt waiting for me. I had completely forgotten that they would stay with me on their tour to New York. I lifted the bag from my shoulders and placed it on the ground, I picked my keys from it and opened the door. My aunt Ursula walked inside, sitting down on the first chair she could find. She stared right in front of herself, trying to ignore anything that happened in the room.
"Really, Belle." Ursula stared at her. "I don't know how you survive here."
"It's Manhattan." I sat down across of her. "What did you expect?"
"It's not this loud in my daughter's apartment." Ursula replied
I thought about the apartment Arielle lived in, near Central Park, she always said how things were more quiets in her daughter's apartment, her windows must keep sound outside, unlike mine who brought every sound inside. I smiled for a moment as I asked if they wanted coffee. When they answered I brought my tired body to the kitchen to make three big cups of coffee. I pushed them in front of them and listened to the streets outside.
"Belle, how is your friend Ruby doing?"
"Ruby's great." I replied. "We've been friends since the sixth grade, she's working with me in the library and planning on getting engaged."

"Really?" Ursula smiled. "Is she bringing you to ideas? How about settling down with this boy your mom told me about? Gaston is he?"
"Gaston and I have broken up for almost 4 years." I turned away from her. "Beside I'm only 29 years old. I have time to find a man and do whatever needs to happen."
"What's for dinner?"
I wanted to get mad, I didn't like when Ursula came over, she always said something bad about my life. Mostly about the fact that I was still single, she would always ask after Gaston, even if she knew that we had broken up. And it was getting more and more difficult to keep answering like I cared. I opened the drawer and pulled out a menu from the local restaurant, they delivered and there was no way I was going to cook for her. The first couple of years I did, but I noticed she would always have some comments, so the past seven years I had ordered out. The result, Ursula would have mean comments for whatever restaurant we would pick. I let them choose for a few minutes as my mind went to Austenland once again. The perfection of the whole land was so absolute that I would spend every dollar there, they had me convinced that it would change my life, even if I would come back more empty then I was now. I was empty headed to what I was getting myself in to. I was so obsessed that I didn't even notice what effect it had on my body and on my entire life.
"Is that what I think it is?" Ursula got up walked past the sofa and pulled a cardboard cut-out of Collin Firth from behind the chamber plants, I was very ashamed. Mostly because I knew where it was, I had bought it online, knowing I didn't need one. Yet he looked so nice, so I placed him right behind the plant to hide it from sight, when I was alone I would place him right front and centre, like an obsessed woman, after all I was an obsessed woman.
"He's the devil, that Darcy." She said. " but you wouldn't hide him in a houseplant. If you didn't have a guilty conscience."
Well, that was what I had I admitted to myself. I should have placed him in that small closet that anyone ever came, yet I placed him in a bad hiding spot, where almost everyone could find him. I lived in a two room apartment in New York and had a cardboard cut-out of mister Darcy, if that didn't spell obsessed, I didn't know what would.
"You're almost thirty, you're not married, not dating and if your mother's gossip and the photo's in your apartment tell the truth. And it all comes down to that, you're obsessed."
I should have nodded, I should have told her that she was right, yet I didn't want to admit. Watching the movie didn't make me obsessed. Reading the books a million times didn't make me obsessed. It made me a fan, right? It did make me a fan.
"I'm not obsessed."
"You're blushing, what makes this story so intoxicating?"

"Besides being witty and funny, and maybe the best novel ever written, it's also the perfect romance in all of literature and nothing in life can ever measure up, so I spend my life limbering in its shadow."
"It's a lovely novel." I wanted to roll my eyes, but I could stop the urge. "But you were not hiding a paperback in your plant, I've seen this movie. I know Colin Firth my dear, and I think I know what your life on hold to wait for."
I was getting mad, I thought about the idea that I was putting my life on hold for mister Darcy, yet she was right. I was looking for someone like him. And what was wrong with that? There was nothing wrong with expecting a gentleman to fall in love with you, I didn't take the jerks, I wanted the man that respected me. "
"Let me guess…" She stood up. "Things aren't working out as well, so each the men in your life disappoint you, you let Mister Darcy in a little bit more. Perhaps you've come to a point where you're so attached to the idea of the perfection, that you won't be satisfied with anything else."
"That's nonsense." I reacted. I pulled my coat and stepped outside, I left them there, just the two of them waiting for the food they would order, but I couldn't handle my far aunt, or however she had to be related. I would get some food on my own and when I came back to the apartment, they would both be sleeping and I would lay down on the sofa and think about whatever I wanted. I didn't have to explain to her why I didn't have a boyfriend. I didn't want to say that she was right and that I was thinking about getting this fantasy closer than I should.
I shouldn't do it, I knew. Yet, there was a part that wanted to know if the fantasy would be real.
"Belle…" I saw Ruby from a far, she walked towards me. "What are you doing?"
"I was thinking about checking out this Austenland…"
"Are you serious?" She raised an eyebrow. "I mean…"
I didn't listen to her, I stepped inside the first agency I could find, outside the window there was a small sign indicating they knew about Austenland, I was unsure if a lot of people asked after then land where everything Austen was kind of true, so I stepped towards the first member of the staff.
"I was willing to ask something about Austenland?"
"Sure…" He smiled at me, Ruby sat right down next to me. He pulled a small computer screen near me and switched the DVD on. A video started to play.

"What separates the casual Jane Austen fan from the aficionado? Is it her admiration for the style and manners of the Regency era? The number of times she has read Austen's novels? Or her consuming love for Mr. Darcy? A true aficionado of Austen does so much more than merely read her novels and admire her world from afar. She finds her way here to the world's only immersive Austen experience."

"Are you really going to blow your entire life savings on an Austen experience?" Ruby stared at me, she was asking the right questions off course. I listened to the staff member talking about the experience, he called it a LC, a life changer. He told me about how I would be a Jane Austen hero in my own story, about how I would be happy. Yet I kept looking at Ruby, would the change of my life be that I wouldn't have money anymore. Was my friend right? Off course she was, but I was so caught up in the man's story, that I could almost feel my life changing in front of me, he told me how some people found love on this trip.
"Only the 1 percent." Ruby elaborated, pointing out that most people were left empty after they tasted from paradise and came back to a life without any savings.
"Every stay in Austenland ends with a real life ball, as in Happily ever after."
There was not much comments that Ruby had about that, she simple stood up and left. I followed her, giving the man a small hand movement that I would be back for farther information. I went after Ruby, who was stepping down the streets of New York, sometimes she would look back at me and roll her eyes. Almost like she tried to stop me. I wanted to say something, yet there was nothing to say what so ever, I wanted to do something she wasn't okay with.
"You're going to come back to an empty life." Ruby yelled. "Your whole life's savings would be gone and you would not have love either, you would have tasted from something fake and maybe you'll found someone who you care for, but oh yeah, the man's an actor. Belle, this is not real. It's a place filled with actors. You won't find love there…"
"He said…"
"He wants to sell those vacations, off course he'll call it a life changer. Belle, I'll repeat this, you'll come back to an empty life and an empty bank account."


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