Elizabeth Bennet was sweating as she dashed into the burning apartment building yet again. She was thankful for the improved speed, strength, and toughness that came with bearing a Focus, but at this moment, the specific power of her Focus, a longbow, wasn't helping her much at all. She leapt up the stairs to the top floor and scanned the room. Was that a child under the bed?
"C'mon out of there, sweetie. Everything's going to be just fine," she told the child, who responded by curling up even tighter and shaking his head a firm "no." Elizabeth sighed and pulled him out, and he clung to her shirt with such a fierce grip that she wondered if he was wielding a Focus himself.
There was a crash behind her and she turned to see the staircase disappear into flames. For the child's sake, she bit her tongue against a stream of profanities. She turned to the window. If she had been alone, she could have simply broken the glass and jumped to the ground. But even with Elizabeth doing her best to break the kid's fall, the height was much greater than a normal human could survive. It looked like climbing down would be the only option, and she would have to use both hands, leaving only the little tyke's death grip to keep him from taking a nasty fall. And who knew what could happen to the integrity of the building in the time it would take her to reach the ground?
"Okay, honey, you're going to have to hold on tight and not let go, okay?"
The kid was still terrified—Elizabeth couldn't blame him—but he managed a quiet "uh-huh."
Elizabeth shattered the window with a kick and lowered herself onto the outside of the building, taking care that the child was shielded from broken glass. Gingerly, she began to make her way down, the lack of good handholds and footholds making her uneasy. She didn't panic, though, until she heard the child say, "I'm slipping," and felt his grip on her weaken. She took one hand off the wall and used it to support the child. Hesitating, she considered her next move. She couldn't climb with only one free hand, nor could she hold onto the wall indefinitely.
It was then that she saw Colonel Fitzwilliam flying up to meet her. His boots, which ordinarily had the appearance of having seen better days, were glowing slightly. He took the child from her with a smile, and Elizabeth let go of the wall. Her Focus-enhanced body easily absorbed the impact with the ground.
After filling out the paperwork for their involvement in the rescue, they left the scene and walked back to Rosings Park. "I can't thank you enough for showing up when you did," said Elizabeth. "I don't know what I would have done."
"Don't mention it," replied the Colonel. "Anyone would have done the same in my situation."
"Anyone but Mr. Darcy, no doubt," said Elizabeth, laughing. Mr. Darcy's words on her desirability, or lack thereof, as a crime-fighting partner still rang in her head. Her technique is decent, I suppose, but really, Bingley, your partner is the only woman here with any grace, and I'm not in the mood to rush to the aid of girls who are inept on their own. "It's a wonder his own friends even bother to rescue him," continued Elizabeth. "Or perhaps he doesn't need them."
"That's where I think you're mistaken, Elizabeth. As far as I know, Mr. Darcy's friends may not be numerous, but they are loyal. He doesn't change his mind once he decides to like someone, and he does take care of his friends."
"Then tell me, in what ways does Mr. Darcy take care of his friends?" asked Elizabeth.
"Well, for example, just the other day he mentioned having saved his friend Bingley from a disaster of a marriage. I don't really know the details, but—"
"Didn't he trust his friend's judgment?" Elizabeth interrupted.
"From what I hear, Bingley is the type who would make that kind of rash decision about a girl. It seems she was totally unsuitable as a partner. Darcy was only looking out for his friend by separating them, I'm sure."
"I don't think I'd want my friends looking out for me in that way." She realized her tone was angry, and caught herself. "But I guess I can't really say if it was right or wrong. After all, I don't know the details."
"And I don't know them either," said Colonel Fitzwilliam.
After that they walked on in silence, Elizabeth trying her best to hide her anger.
For Darcy to have separated Bingley and Jane was unforgivable. At the first opportunity, Elizabeth went back up to her room and looked over the e-mails she'd received from Jane since she'd been at Hunsford. When she'd read them individually, she hadn't consciously noticed it, but looking at them all together she could see that Jane certainly wasn't her ordinary cheerful self. The more she read from Jane, the more obvious it was. She wished the trip were over, so she could just go home and see Jane. They could go get pizza, or see a movie, or find some bad guy to stop together, anything to get her mind off of that guy. Only another week to go, she thought with a sigh.
There was a knock at the door, surprising Elizabeth, since she didn't think anyone else was in the house. "Come in," she said automatically.
Darcy stepped into the room, looking uncomfortable. There was a long pause, and then Elizabeth asked, "Did you come to see me for something? I don't need your company right now."
"Yes, well, actually. . . ." He paused, took a breath, and started again. "Elizabeth, I can no longer deny my feelings. I—" He was cut off by the sound of breaking glass.
Elizabeth slung her bow over her shoulder and hurriedly followed Darcy downstairs to the kitchen, where a window was broken and pieces of glass lay scattered everywhere. In the center of the mess was a pale man dressed in a white suit, the faintly glowing crimson glove on his right hand contrasting sharply with the rest of his attire. Recognition kindled anger in Elizabeth, and she barely noticed the black-clad figures, one male and one female, to his right and left.
"Kettering," she heard Darcy say coldly. "Leave. Now. Before I am forced to remove you. You will not enjoy it."
"Oh, don't treat me like that, Darcy," Kettering replied. "After all we've been through together, you can't show a little hospitality? Besides, I'm not here for you." He turned to Elizabeth. "Surely you can't continue to refuse me your Focus. Hand it over now that you're outnumbered, and let's not have any fuss."
"Elizabeth, get behind me," Darcy ordered, anticipating a fight.
Elizabeth ignored him and fit an arrow to her bow. "If you want my Focus, come and get it."
The black-clad man drew a pistol and opened fire on Elizabeth. Immediately, she fired her arrow and scrambled to avoid the bullets. As long as she had her Focus, the bullets probably wouldn't kill her, but that wasn't to say they wouldn't hurt. Elizabeth winced from a hit to the shoulder and rolled with the impact. She ducked around a corner into the hall, and trained her arrow at the doorway. She hadn't seen whether she had hit the guy she'd aimed for, but even if he was immobilized by the power of her Focus, there were still two others coming after her.
Thus, when Darcy came around the corner, she let go of the arrow instinctively and only narrowly avoided hitting him by jerking her bow upwards. The arrow hit a crystal chandelier, shattering it, and she made a mental note to apologize to Charlotte.
"I've stopped them for now," he said.
"Stopped?"
"I put up a barrier," he said, gesturing to his Focus, an iron shield. "They'll have to find some other way to get to us, so we can be ready when they come."
Elizabeth nodded and leaned against the wall, scanning the room for potential avenues of attack. All things considered, the hallway was a fairly safe strategic position, now that the doorway to the kitchen was sealed off.
Darcy interrupted her thoughts. "I didn't finish speaking when we were upstairs, but I will not allow Kettering to prevent me from saying what needs to be said. Elizabeth, I have struggled to suppress my feelings, but it has proven impossible. I love you, and as much as I would like to change that fact, I cannot."
Elizabeth was stunned. She felt the air on her face turn cool, and she opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. It was at that moment that she was relieved of the necessity of speaking by the arrival of Kettering and his female cohort. Elizabeth scrambled to ready another arrow, cursing herself for letting her guard down, and fired at Kettering. He dodged and sprinted across the gap between them. Darcy, however, had been readying a barrier, which he put up almost instantaneously, causing Kettering to stumble backwards.
"I am well aware of the differences in standing between our families," Darcy continued as he engaged Kettering in hand-to-hand combat. "Your family has almost no standing with the Peace Council, and—" He was cut off by a blow to the jaw. Elizabeth herself was only half listening, as she was trying to get a hit on the woman, whose Focus ability seemed to be something like teleportation. To make things worse, she felt her wounded shoulder draining power from her shots. Giving up, she turned to Kettering. It would be a difficult shot, since she would need to avoid Darcy, but she aimed with a steady hand and gazed down the length of the arrow shaft at Kettering.
Unexpectedly, Darcy turned around, giving her a clear shot at Kettering. As she released the arrow, she heard a crash behind her, but she ignored it. Taking advantage of Kettering's stunned state, she knocked him to the ground, pinning him, and drew a knife. "Hand over your Focus," she said.
"Just let me keep it and you'll never have to see me again," he promised. "It's not like you can use it anyway."
"You broke into my friend's house in order to threaten me," Elizabeth growled. "I'm not letting this happen again. Hand it over."
With a glare, he started to remove his red glove, but the buckle seemed to be giving him some difficulty. Elizabeth allowed herself a glance back to where Darcy had engaged the woman. "You left your back open to attack," he explained. "But with time, I'm sure that flaw could be overcome."
"Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth began, but he cut her off.
"Yes, you are a liability in combat, especially considering your relatives, not all of whom even have a Focus. But all that is irrelevant in the face of my desire for you. Please, Elizabeth, do me the honor of becoming my partner—in battle, and in life." His face held a hint of a rare smile.
Kettering chose this moment to attempt to twist away from Elizabeth, and she responded by stabbing him in the shoulder with her knife. He cried out, clutching his shoulder, but escaped from her grasp. Elizabeth once again cursed her lack of concentration. As she drew her bow, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye: the other of the black figures had made his way back to the battle and was headed for Darcy. She swung her bow around rapidly, wincing from the pain in her shoulder, and hit the man in the hip. It seemed to be a lucky hit, as he crumpled to the floor. Behind her, Kettering was still on the ground clutching his shoulder.
She approached him with an arrow aimed at his chest. "You have one more chance. Give me your Focus."
He nervously shook his glove free of his hand and tossed it onto the floor in front of Elizabeth. There was a flash of light as its power left his body. She didn't take her eyes off him as he stood up and left the house. The black-clad man followed, and Elizabeth briefly debated whether or not to follow him and force him to surrender his Focus. A captured Focus was dead and useless without its proper owner, but it would be unethical to allow such a person to keep one. Her shoulder aching but her legs unharmed, she reluctantly chased him down, thankful when he surrendered his Focus, a green amulet, without a fight. She looked back to where Darcy was taking the woman's Focus and sat down against the wall. She wasn't sure whether to let fatigue or anger overcome her. What kind of man insults a woman as he's proposing to her? she thought. As if she hadn't already had enough reasons to hate him. This was the guy who had driven Bingley away from Jane, she reminded herself. And the way he'd smiled, as if he were sure no girl would refuse a guy like him, had been unbearable.
Darcy walked over to where she was sitting, wiping sweat and blood off his face.
"The answer is no," Elizabeth said flatly. "I hope the flaws of mine which you skillfully detailed will help you get over me quickly."
Darcy stared at her, his face pale and his expression livid. After a long pause, he said, "I see that you couldn't even deign to give me a polite refusal. Very well. I won't inquire again."
Elizabeth stood up, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. "Did you really think that I would even consider accepting you? You, who crushed Jane's happiness? You, who destroyed Wickham's Focus out of no reason other than spite? You, who have never shown me anything but arrogance and disdain?"
She could tell by looking at him that he was shaken. "So that's how you think of me. If that's the case, it is little wonder that I was rejected. And perhaps my case suffered from the manner in which I asked you. I must have hurt your pride in pointing out your family's low station and your weaknesses in battle. And of course I embarrassed you by causing you to falter in combat."
"Don't flatter yourself," Elizabeth said coldly, "to think your approach mattered to me in the slightest. There was nothing you could have said or done that would have changed my opinion of you, and no way you could have asked that would have tempted me to even consider the proposal."
"You've said enough!" Darcy snapped. "Don't let me take up any more of your time. Good luck wherever your life takes you." He turned and walked out the front door, evidently unconcerned about walking back to Rosings in his state. Elizabeth's eyes followed him until he was out of sight, and then she allowed herself to slump against the wall again. Her whole body shook and felt weak. She could feel the adrenaline draining all at once from her system, and she brought her knees up to her chest. Her head was a whirlwind of emotion. Darcy's never had anything but contempt for me, and yet he confessed his love for me. He was in love with me all this time. I just rejected a guy ten times richer than my family put together; what'll I say to mom?