I'm so sorry. I just couldn't keep the evil plot kittens away from me. They used to be bunnies. But they changed. ...Ahem.
And so, rather than updating my other story, they made me write this.
Disclaimer: In case Miss Austen would like to rise from the grave and sue me in a court of law, I do not own Pride and Prejudice.
On with the show!
...
Elizabeth Bennet is six when she is kissed for the first time.
McLardy Bill Collins, with his puffy lips and drool-smudged cheeks, is the one who tries the first morning of kindergarten; they're in a room full of screaming children and Elizabeth can't imagine where his amorous mood possibly came from. He aims for her face. He smooches the top of her head when she turns away. Then he sobs for a while and toddles away to eat paste.
Elizabeth decides, if all kisses are like that, she wants no part in them. But when she complains to her mother, the latter is thrilled to the point of cooing.
Her mother never coos.
Elizabeth Bennet is ten when she is kissed for the second time.
Gorgeous George Wickham is the one who almost succeeds, planting a kiss on the corner of her mouth and pulling away, only immediately before she starts to grin like an idiot. Only immediately before he is yanked back by twelve-year-old William (Squilliam Fancyson) Darcy and punched in the face.
This time, it is Elizabeth who cries, but she is embarrassed that she did and so she knees William (Squilliam) in a very uncomfortable place.
The look on his face is oddly satisfying.
Elizabeth Bennet is thirteen when she is kissed for the third time.
She and her best friend—she shan't say 'bosom' friend for the word bothers her—Charlotte (the spider) Lucas are pretending to get married, because no sleepover would be complete without mortifying fourteen-year-old Caroline (Carrot-Rind) Bingley (Elizabeth's mother insisted upon inviting her). Dear, sweet, lovely Jane is holding the tiny video camera and loudly humming her favorite love song in the wrong key. Elizabeth thinks that, if Jane weren't her sister and so darn good at singing no matter what key, she would tell her to shut up.
Carrot Rind Bingley looks intrigued but disgusted and awed all at the same time. It is such a distracting expression that when Charlotte says "ready?" in a stage whisper and they both shout "I do!" (this is the cue, when Elizabeth is to put her hand in front of her mouth), Elizabeth forgets and Charlotte kisses her square on the lips. They fly back from each other with faces as red as the freakish tomatoes Elizabeth's mother grows in her garden, and Jane abruptly stops her singing in almost perfect sync for Carrot Rind to screech, "Oh, my GOD!"
The next day at school, Elizabeth realizes from the looks she's getting (Squilliam is the worst) that the video has been circulated. She then swears on her existence that she will stop at nothing to destroy the life of Caroline.
Elizabeth Bennet is fifteen when she is kissed for the fourth time.
It is Christmas Eve, and everyone has a Midnight Kisser. (It's a stupid name, she knows, but her school uses it and so must she.)
Everyone has a Midnight Kisser, except for her.
Even Charlotte has fifteen-year-old McLardy Bill Collins, who seems quite grateful to have her on his arm. Elizabeth knows Charlotte is just helping him gain some self-esteem. She knows.
Jane jokingly offers to be her Midnight Kisser and Elizabeth almost takes her up on it, but then Charlie Ginger Bingley has to foul everything up, sweeping Jane off her perfect size-five feet and asking her to be his forever. Literally. Charlie admits he may or may not be completely foxed but that he's still quite serious.
The night comes many hours later and Stupid Dropout George Wickham is snogging Elizabeth's youngest sister, Itty Bitty Lydia, in the corner of the very dark auditorium. Lydia is only thirteen and Elizabeth is discovering what kind of person George is, marching over to separate them when she cuffs someone that was too stubborn to move out of her way. It is William Squilliam Darcy. He looks down at her with half-lidded eyes and she can smell smoke on his person; she decides right then and there that her school is far too lenient when they let a mixture of cigarettes and Darcy on the grounds.
"Excuse me, Mr. Fancyson," she says. His lips move as he says something back, but the throb of music and inebriated laughs drown out his voice. She catches only the mood of what he's muttered and so she nods.
"Yeah, whatever," she says, and starts to move past him. But he catches her by the arm and grins down at her, trapping her, pulling her in, and she has never been more confused at him in her life. He is crushing her with his arms, and she can barely make out the deejay's raucous voice begin the countdown to midnight over Christina Aguilera's whining music and her own subconscious saying you'll regret it, you'll regret it, you'll regret it when Darcy inclines his head and kisses her.
She can't help but to kiss back after a moment, as much as she hates him. And she is surprised that his kiss is nothing like she expected any kiss to be—just the feel of it rouses a feeling in her stomach that makes her knees weak. His mouth slants over hers and she can't convey how shocked she is that kissing seventeen-year-old William Squilliam Darcy isn't gross, or bloodcurdling for that matter. When he finally pulls away her lips feel swollen and her cheeks burn hotly. Her breath comes in fast, shallow inhales and exhales.
"Well, that wasn't so bad, was it," he says after a short pause. His face gives the impression that, once more, he is incredibly bored.
Elizabeth is stricken suddenly by how well he can return to arrogance and disdain, and her cheeks burn for a different reason now. She is reminded of her severe dislike for this… person, and is immediately ashamed of acting so brazenly in response to him. (Was kissing me really too awful to pretend you liked it, Darcy?) How could she do that? How could she act like Lydia? Drunken Darcy seems to see the change of emotions on her face, for he addresses her directly:
"Lizzie?"
Now that the music is not so loud, one spoken word is all it takes to bring Elizabeth back to herself. She looks disgustedly up into Darcy's face and speaks lowly.
"Let go of me."
He is confused and does not listen; instead he begins to reach for her face, but she jerks away and ignores the hurt expression in his eyes.
"I said, let go of me."
Drunken Darcy does not seem so very drunk anymore; he has the good grace to look uneasy at her anger. Then, just as if he's recognizing why she is cross, he smiles easily and starts to say, "Elizabeth, what—"
"Just stop, Darcy! Stop trying to talk to me! Just leave me alone!" she spits, pulls roughly out of his grasp, and walks away. Her stride is purposeful; she stops for nobody, not even Jane, and when she makes her way to the double doors at the end of the gym, she pushes them open and walks home in the snow.
Elizabeth Bennet is eighteen when she is kissed for the fifth time.
Well, actually, the man had kissed her about thirty times before now, but this is the only one that counts. She is behind a Starbucks in a hot shaded alley in San Diego in her boyfriend Robert's tight grip, but she can't help to pretend that he is someone else.
Someone she shouldn't even be thinking of.
When she pulls away and stutters that she can't do this anymore, he looks nonplussed, straightens his shirt, fingers something in his pocket, and walks away. She is left guilty and shivering and disgusted at him and herself; her hands find her own pockets and burrow deep inside but she can't shake the face that's appeared in her thoughts.
Every time she sees Robert after that, he is with a different woman.
Elizabeth Bennet is twenty-one when she is kissed for the sixth time.
By some astounding twist of fate, she has ended up as William Squilliam's personal assistant, at his large company's main building in Silicon Valley.
She brings him coffee. He frowns.
She holds his calls. He frowns.
She plasters grins on her face and teases him that Caroline Bingley may never stop visiting him. He frowns.
She simply exists. He frowns.
Elizabeth is wondering if he is still hung up over high school, over that small debacle when she refused to talk to him for two years and shook his hand at graduation before wiping hers on her robe. It may be the fact that he is naturally people-shy, so much so that he comes across as conceited and distant. Or perhaps his face is stuck that way.
She doesn't think she will ask.
When she receives a call for him from a prestigious law firm in Colorado, she presses the call button and says in an extra throaty voice, "Call on line two, Mr. Darcy."
The reply she receives is garbled and almost inhuman, until she makes out, "ELIZABETH. Come see me in my office." Then a slur about something and vodka. He has not turned off the speaker.
Everyone in the surrounding cubicles and walkways pauses for a brief time, and there is no rapid clicking of keyboards until one feminine voice squeaks, "Lord, he is so stoned."
And another says, "Again."
And Darcy says, "NOW."
Elizabeth sighs and wrenches herself away from her desk and comfy padded chair. This has happened before—ever since Wickham got involved with Darcy's younger sister, resulting in a hospital visit that was timed only minutes before it may have been too late, Darcy has started drinking. But Elizabeth is never sure how to approach him about it. So she doesn't.
She walks to the white paneled door into his office and opens it, only closing it again when she is certain no one is watching or listening, and noting that Darcy is not presently lying face down on the carpet. He sits at his desk and taps a fancy pen against the top. Two small piles of paperwork, a bottle of liver pickling whiskey and a wireless telephone lie to his right, and an overturned empty cup to his left. Everything else—staples, pens, paperweights, laptop, and decorative touches are sprawled either on the ground or the comfy couch to her left. Elizabeth shakes her head.
"Can I help you, Will?"
Darcy's head snaps up and he squints at her before his expression softens. He drops the pen and folds his arms unsteadily over the desk. Then he opens his mouth to speak.
"Elizabeth," he says.
It's almost weird how often he speaks her name, she thinks. As if he likes saying it.
"Yes?" she asks. Once over to his desk, she stands directly next to his chair and looks down at him. A bit of a shave and better tailored suit, she thinks, and he would look better. But his bright eyes shine out through the haggardness of the rest of his features, and she must admit she has always found him attractive. She just never brooded on it.
He half-smiles and takes her hands, which were previously hanging stiffly by her sides.
"Hello."
Now she is slightly suspicious.
"Um, hi."
"Elizabeth, I would like to ask you something." He slightly slurs when he says this.
"What?"
When he staggers forward and grips her shoulders, Elizabeth manages to stammer, blink, and pull away only after he's pressed a poorly aimed kiss to the side of her mouth. She can feel her face burning hot, can feel that it is the same shade of red as when she accidentally kissed Charlotte. (Maybe darker. But that would be ridiculous. And nothing—nothing!—in Elizabeth's life is allowed to be ridiculous.)
"Elizabeth!" Darcy says again, but his voice is more pleading, desperate, and she realizes that she has come within inches of the door once more. Her fingers are at her lips. "Lizzie. Please."
She inclines her head back to him, sees that he is holding a small blue velvet box, says one passing word that she can't quite remember, and she leaves with a heavy head.
Elizabeth packs up her desk and slips her resignation under his door later. She never asks herself if she is a coward. Or if she should have let him finish.
…She wasn't getting paid enough anyway.
Elizabeth Bennet is twenty-four when she is kissed for the last time.
Because she is getting married.
And after that, she will no longer be Elizabeth Bennet.
She always thought it was a little odd, how her fiancé managed to find her wherever she went, especially when she was running away from him. Of course, then, he wasn't exactly her fiancé yet. Which was a good thing. Or so she thought.
Elizabeth went to England, first, to visit some of her family. They laughed and joked and decided to visit a wonderful old house, built in the 1800s and passed down through family. It was a gigantic house. She was impressed.
But he was there.
It was his house.
She walked back to her aunt and uncle's house in high heels. Her feet had blisters after that.
Elizabeth went to Japan because it was somewhere she had never been, and she had money to burn. Of course, no one in their right mind burns money. So she used it for a plane ticket.
Once off the plane, she found a translator, who said "Of course I will take you on the tour, but there's a whole group we will have to stay with! Is that okay?"
She said yes.
But he was there.
The man was his hired translator too.
She stayed this time, because she thought he might not have recognized her in an oversized sunhat and sunglasses, but he stared at her the whole time they drove, walked, and boated. She was so tense she wasn't even sure she saw any scenery. And she may have silently called him a few names.
Elizabeth went to Greece, because there would be no earthly reason why he would go there. She lounged on the beach in a new red two-piece. She kept her eyesight away from the topless old women. She sat under a large umbrella and drank so many sodas she wasn't positive if she would bloat or not.
But he was there.
And he had on only swim trunks; therefore, he was such a sexy bastard it was disgusting. Elizabeth had never paid much attention to abs, or why shirtless men she'd seen before did not have them, but there they were on him and they were just smack in her conscious mind. He carried a wakeboard, which he dropped when he saw her. She swallowed.
"Elizabeth!" he said, and jogged to her own little beach space. It was like watching a film. His hair waved and dripped shining water as he moved, and his skin gleamed rather dark in the Mediterranean sun. She thought many things in those moments, but only one was prominent: Damn you! Damn you!
"I'm glad I caught you," he said, standing above her as she rested her upper weight behind her, on her hands. She wished she could have pointed out that he'd been stalking her, so it was only a matter of time, but what came was a blush.
And she muttered, "Me, too."
When he grinned, Elizabeth is still very certain that she forgot all her misgivings and promptly melted into a human puddle.
What came after were explanations, tears (on her part), messy dinner dates, plenty of kisses, running and stopping, and more things that one cannot describe without going into great, great detail. It ended with the same little ring box that he had shown that one day she would always look back on with no small regret.
Carrot Rind Bingley sobbed grossly at their wedding. Elizabeth laughed in her face. Jane and Charlie presently have plans to be married themselves, and things cannot be better.
Elizabeth Darcy is kissed for the first time, in the morning, in a very large London house in her husband's arms.
…
…But who's counting?
A/N: The end.
Did you like? If so, rant about it! If you didn't, tell me what to do! Except jump off a cliff or something like that. I'm afraid I like life for the time being.
P.S. Help me. The plot kittens are trying to get me to write a Phantom of the Opera fic. D: