His finger hovered over her twitter photo. Many mornings Darcy could resist, but not today. His head was ruled by a heart that surged as he pressed his finger to the screen, even as his cynical mind prepared for disappointment. He skimmed the three visible tweets - Charlotte, Charlotte, Happy New Year - and the grip on his phone relaxed a little. Nothing. As was his habit, he scrolled to the top of the page as he prepared to navigate back, and was suddenly struck by something different – TheLizzieBennet follows you. Lizzie Bennet. Follows you.
His mind had a little trouble processing this– fact, for it was a fact, carried by electrons and photons from her mind to his. Lizzie Bennet follows me? He looked more closely at her latest tweets and carefully and precisely parsed each of them, like a teacher before a dim-witted student: Lizzie has moved to San Francisco, Lizzie has visited Pemberley's website, Lizzie Bennet follows you. For several moments the fine balance he'd achieved between certainty that he'd squandered his only chance and hope for a second teetered precariously toward optimism – she wanted to see him again!
He nearly gasped at this thought and the almost physical response brought him back to the physical world. A dull breakfast meeting was about to reconvene in the room across the corridor. None of the other attendees, all absorbed in the worlds within their own devices, had any inkling of his loss of composure. Sobered by his surroundings, Darcy formulated a more sensible hypothesis: Lizzie expected to see him again, but there was no evidence she wanted to see him. He had to admit that it was unlikely that an encounter would be welcome to her, for there was little reason to think that her opinion of him could be much changed – all she had to recommend him was his own letter, which only partially absolved him of wrongdoing. Darcy however, had changed, and if all of this was an indication that he might soon see her, then he was prepared for the opportunity to show her his best self.
Of course, he wasn't actually in San Francisco, he was stuck here in Los Angeles moving from one interminable meeting with an over-ambitious, unoriginal Hollywood media start-up to another. He sighed heavily, frustrated at his strong sense of familial duty to Aunt Catherine that too frequently forced him into these dead-end explorations. There was no chance of returning to San Francisco tonight as he suddenly longed to. If the first couple of days are a reflection of the year to come then I will be spending much of 2013 in meeting rooms in Los Angeles, he thought, vexed. I should tweet just that, was his next surprising thought. He warmed to the idea – it would alert Lizzie to the fact that he does use twitter, albeit sparingly, and that he would not be in San Francisco anytime soon; information she might appreciate whether she hoped to see him or to avoid him. Darcy nodded as if to affirm to himself the correctness of his decision. He then had the satisfaction of feeling that his entire train of thought had been neatly tied up in his tweet; and the dissatisfaction of returning to a meeting with men who almost made Ricky Collins seem sensible.
When Darcy exited the meeting room late afternoon he was certain that Aunt Catherine had sent him on a fool's errand. He'd already wasted most of the last two days with morons, with the only positive outcome his determination that if his evening meeting went only half as badly as the others, he'd cancel the rest of his LA trip. Duty be damned, he can achieve much more at Pemberley. He heard a whisper from the back of his mind, Lizzie Bennet follows you. That, he assured himself, has nothing to do with it.
Darcy's phone rang. "Fitz," Darcy's spare greeting belied his relief – Fitz would be the first sensible person he'd spoken to all day.
"Darcy, my man, have you been surprised and delighted by the new media darlings Catherine the Great has unearthed for you?"
"If these men are indicative of Hollywood's approach to new media, then Hollywood is in trouble," Darcy deadpanned, the sources of his derision out of earshot at the other end of the corridor.
Fitz continued in his mocking tone. "How shocking that the woman who chose to finance Collins & Collins on the basis of Ricky Collin's flattery could err so badly."
"Perhaps she thinks there is a Charlotte Lu available to improve every insipid start-up."
Fitz laughed. "I don't think there are enough people with enough patience to work with all the Ricky Collinses of this world. Yours must have run out several hours ago."
"Indeed it did," acknowledged Darcy.
Fitz became serious. "Perhaps it's time for you to abandon this pointless trip."
"Well, actually, I–" Darcy began quietly.
Fitz ignored him. "I know we've had this discussion before. I know you feel you're duty-bound, but really, Darcy, you've been CEO for years. You know that you're perfectly capable and everyone else knows that you're more than perfectly capable, including Catherine. You don't owe her anything."
Darcy attempted to interrupt him again. "Fitz–"
"You do, however, owe it to yourself to get out of there with your sanity intact."
And again, this time a little louder. "Fitz, listen–"
It only served to make Fitz even more insistent. "No, Darcy, you listen, there's much more you can achieve with your time at Pemberley rather than–"
"Fitz!" Darcy hissed, with enough urgency to interrupt Fitz's lecture. He spoke more quietly as he approached the group waiting for the elevator. "I have already decided to cancel the trip. Assuming my next meeting goes as badly as I anticipate, I'll fly home tomorrow morning. Thank you for your sermon, but it was completely unnecessary."
"Oh." Fitz's surprise slowly turned to glee and Darcy felt Fitz grinning, "That's great! Glad to have been of absolutely no service to you whatsoever."
Darcy smirked, he enjoyed upsetting Fitz's expectations. "You've confirmed that I've made the right decision."
Fitz replied with good humour. "The least I could do."
The elevator had arrived. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yep, tomorrow. It should be fun." Fitz ended the call.
Fun? Thought Darcy, as he entered the elevator. Even from Fitz that seemed an odd way to refer to a Friday at work.
"Evening, Gigi." Darcy had just finished a long phone call explaining to Aunt Catherine why he had cancelled his remaining LA meetings. She had not taken it well, but at least Gigi would be glad to hear of his change of plans.
"Hey, Will! How's LA?" Gigi's cheery greeting was a welcome change from Catherine's diatribe.
"Dreary," he intoned.
"Which is why you're coming home tomorrow?" That, and Lizzie follows me. The thought thrilled him afresh. Darcy ceased his pacing of the hotel room - a legacy of his previous, unpleasant phone call - and sat at the end of the bed.
"How did you know?" Darcy replied evenly, even as the answer came to him.
"Fitz told me. He's invited himself to dinner on Saturday," she enthused.
Darcy rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Of course he has."
"Will I see you tomorrow night then?" She asked hopefully.
"You will." The need for sleep had hit him as he sat, driving out thoughts of doing any more work, or a longer conversation with Gigi. "It's been a long, long day and I need some sleep, but I just wanted you to know that I'll be home soon. Let's talk tomorrow."
"Can't wait! Sleep well and have a safe flight."
"Good night, Gigi."
Gigi replied with equal fondness. "Good night."
As he waited for sleep to overtake him Darcy reflected on how easy things were between him and his sister now. They'd never been uneasy, but their relationship had been affected by keeping the importance of Lizzie from her, only he hadn't realised that until after he'd told Gigi. It was, perhaps, a little selfish of him to have left her in the dark for all that time, but he needed to truly understand himself before he could trust himself to explain it properly and carefully. (His practiced mind quickly clamped down on thoughts of Wickham after the unavoidable, instantaneous surge of disgust and hatred had passed).
Once he was ready, Darcy had shared as much as his reticent personality could allow of the love and disappointment that had consumed him for months. It was ironic that he could rely on Lizzie's videos – a catalogue of the failures of his personality, his eloquence and his love – to provide a record for Gigi, however prejudiced, for when his mind, his tongue or his heart failed him. After she'd finished watching them all, Gigi had come to him with a smile, a hug and a hunch that he was not quite the lost cause he considered himself to be. Outwardly, he scoffed, but he still tucked the pleasant idea away with a handful of other hopeful thoughts he had been collecting, for Gigi read people very carefully these days. And now, Lizzie Bennet follows you. What would Gigi have to say about that?
He drifted to sleep with a pleasant, hopeful sort of sensation.
Darcy sat by the window in the airport lounge, enjoying the natural morning light that he'd been a stranger to over the last couple of days. There were a few minutes left until boarding and since he'd managed all of his morning emails already, he had time to give into the temptation he'd been fighting since he woke to the thought, Lizzie Bennet follows you. It was both the best and the worst way to wake up – ridiculous joy crossed with a nervous, unsettled feeling. Darcy skimmed through the latest tweets and shook his head when he noticed 'eagle' and 'tiger' appearing in a conversation between Gigi and Fitz. Their capacity for silliness was baffling and he paid no attention; he had eyes only for Lizzie's tweets. There were none. He checked her profile, just in case – Lizzie Bennet follows you. Disappointment at her silence turned to relief that all was as it was yesterday morning. He remained in his seat by the window for a few more minutes, not really thinking, just feeling something he couldn't quite put his finger on.
When it was time, he picked up his bags and strode through the terminal, settling incrementally with each step into a state that was calm, but not quite normal. His whole body was tingling subtly with a nervous excitement that he now realised had been there since he found out that she was in San Francisco. Lizzie Bennet follows you. Darcy clenched his empty hand – he must not read too much into it, he must not do anything rash – and relaxed it again.
The short flight from LAX to SFO gave him just enough time to pin down and identify the feeling: it was a heady sense of anticipation and of possibility. There was no point trying to analyse it any further and so Darcy accepted, with a grace that he had not possessed a few months ago, that this feeling would stay with him for a while longer, labelled Lizzie Bennet follows you.
A/N: Does Darcy actually return to Pemberley in time to crash Lizzie's first Pemberley video? I'm beginning to suspect not, but what is fanfic for if not temporarily filling in the blanks? I hope you've enjoyed my speculation.