William Darcy sat alone in his corner office staring at the computer screen before him. The day had finally arrived. The day the site was supposed to go live, Valentine's Day. The significance of the date had not been lost on him, and only added to his feelings of disgust toward his former childhood friend.
The site had gone down yesterday, he had made sure of that. That wasn't the reason he was staring anxiously at his screen. Today was not just Valentine's Day, today was also Thursday, and Lizzie posted her videos like clockwork, every Monday and Thursday.
He took a deep breath and opened up her youtube page, there it was. A new video, just like he knew it would be. Though he had to admit, he was a little surprised to see Lydia in the freeze frame. He had figured she'd want to stay away from the camera for awhile.
Deep down he knew he should have stopped watching these videos a long time ago, and for awhile he had. When she was here, at Pemberly Digital, when she was with him. But now that she was gone, well, he missed her. More importantly, he wanted to make sure she was ok. When he last saw her, when she found out about the site, she'd been so upset, distraught. He'd never seen her like that before. She always seemed so strong, so composed, but in that moment, she seemed broken. He had wanted more than anything to just take her into his arms and hold her, to stroke her hair softly, and tell her everything would be alright. But that was what he wanted, not what she needed. It had taken every ounce of his willpower to just get up and go call for the car and secure her travel arrangements.
No, Lizzie Bennet had made her feelings for him perfectly clear, and if he ever needed to be reminded of that he could always go rewatch her videos, where her feelings of repulsion were on full display for the world to see. He'd been foolish to think her time at Pemberly could ever change that. Still, he had known that he had to get that site down, for regardless of how she felt about him, he still cared about her and he couldn't stand to see her in pain like this. Furthermore, he couldn't help but feel slightly responsible for bringing George Wickham into the lives of the Bennet sisters.
He hit play and watched as the video began, she would have taped this yesterday, so safe to assume she'd mention the site going down. Sure enough a few moments in, in walked Lydia with the news. His breath caught in his throat a moment when Lizzie asked her sister how.
Unfortunately, he had to involve Lydia in the proceedings to get the website taken down, and though she'd been sworn to secrecy about his involvement, for a brief moment, he feared she would tell her sister the truth. The last thing he wanted was for Lizzie to feel indebted to a man she despised. He did this for her, not for what he thought he could gain from it. The fear eased away as Lydia, true to her word, feigned ignorance, though not without casting a meaningful glance toward the camera as she said thank you.
His heart warmed over the sight of pure relief and joy that washed over Lizzie's face as she heard the news. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She turned to the camera, "Oh, thank you, whoever you are, whatever you did, you are a wonderful person, and I can't thank you enough."
"You're welcome, Lizzie Bennet," he murmured with a sad smile. It didn't matter that she would never know who had come to her rescue, in fact it was better that way. All that mattered was in that moment he had made her happy.