Summary: The fever seems to have knocked down more than just her immune defenses when Lizzie falls ill at Pemberley Digital. She's forced to shift her perceptions when a certain CEO comes to her aid. Notes: Licensing Note: Based on Characters and story lines from Lizzie Bennet Diaries, written and produced by Bernie Sue and based off of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Dialogue from the Lizzie Bennet Diaries is in blue, text from Jane Austen is in green. The tense, pronouns, or wording of these quotes may be slightly modified to fit the scene. All original content and plot for Defenses Down is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license by Morgan A. Wyndham. Cross published on as MorganAW.
Lizzie woke on Thursday morning shivering and cursing the San Francisco climate. How could it be this cold in California? She lingered under the warm jets of the shower a trifle longer than usual, dreading opening the bathroom door and letting out the soothing heat. She put on a warm sweater and leggings under her knee length skirt and boots, wrapping a scarf around her neck before she ventured outdoors. She was halfway to the office when she realized that most of the people she passed were not similarly dressed against the weather.
By the time she made it to her office she was vacillating between freezing and burning up and it dawned on her that there may be more than the weather at fault here. The sniffles and cough started sometime around nine thirty and by the time she left her office to attend the ten o'clock budget meeting she felt drained and slightly queasy and was starting to suspect that she was coming down with something. These suspicions were confirmed by her stomach's reaction to the mere sight of the fancy bagel spread at the meeting and the concerned looks the CEO was casting in her direction from the head of the conference table.
Her stamina and attention were flagging by the time the meeting ended and she swayed slightly as she stood up. She grasped the back of a chair to steady herself in what she hoped was a casual manner. Apparently she failed as Darcy's concerned eyes were suddenly much closer and his hand hovered near her elbow. "Lizzie, are you alright?"
"I'll be fine," she said nonchalantly. It would have been more convincing if she hadn't coughed immediately after.
"You are not well, perhaps you should go home. Can I call you a car?" He asked solicitously.
"No, I'm fine," Lizzie said with a wave of her hand and promptly started coughing again. He raised his eyebrow in concerned disbelief and Lizzie wondered why she'd never noticed that softness in his eyes before. "I have another meeting this afternoon that I need for my independent study," she added, still somewhat breathless from this latest coughing bout, "I'll stick it out."
"Is there nothing you could take to give you present relief? I think I have some cough drops in my office." He lifted his hand again, nearly placing it on her forehead as if to check her temperature but then drew back. For the first time, Lizzie found his social awkwardness adorable.
"I think maybe I just need to lay down for a bit."
"Why don't you go find an empty napping pod, I'll be right back."
She made her way to the bathroom, where she contemplated whether she had to throw up. When the contents of her stomach remained in her stomach after a few minutes, she then proceeded to the napping pods. She again marveled at the decadence of them, the implicit care Darcy provided for his employees. She had managed to clumsily wrestle her boots off and was just sinking into the cushion when Darcy walked up with full arms. He handed her a cup of tea, and said shyly, "chamomile with a bit of honey, I figured it was the best option." He then neatly laid out remaining rations on the small table next to the pod: a box of tissues, a bottle of water, a couple packs of saltines, a bottle of aspirin and a pack of cough drops.
"Thank you," she responded quietly, apparently Darcy's awkwardness was catching. She took a few sips of her tea, and began to nibble on a saltine as the silence drew out. She shivered slightly, which he must have noticed as he quietly walked to a cabinet against the wall and grabbed her a blanket. He unfurled it and was about to settle it over her when he apparently thought the better of it and handed it to her.
She covered herself with the blanket, embroidered with the Pemberley Digital logo, and nestled back into the pod. She wondered drowsily if it was common practice for the CEO to take care of his ailing employees. The look of pained longing on his face as he stuttered for a reply informed her that she had said it out loud. Shit. "Oh God, Darcy I'm ..." her apology was abruptly cut off as the nausea finally won out and she vomited all over his ten thousand dollar shoes.
He briefly jumped back but then leaned in and held back her hair. When the retching finally stopped he gently helped her to lay back down. "God, Lizzie, you're burning up. Here," he said as he handed her a handkerchief — an actual cloth handkerchief — and uncapped the bottle of water for her.
"Your shoes..." she said weakly after she'd cleaned herself up a bit and sipped some water.
"It's of no consequence," he said as he handed her an aspirin, "this should help bring down the fever."
"I'm sorry to be such a nuisance."
"You could never be a nuisance Lizzie Bennet," he said sweetly as he brushed the hair off of her forehead.
"I doubt that's what you'd have said last summer at Netherfield," She said sleepily.
"But we both know I was a fool last summer. Get some rest Lizzie." She drifted off to sleep with the ghost of his cool fingers brushing across her skin.
As she began to re-emerge into consciousness, Lizzie pulled the blanket closer to her face and nuzzled further into it. Whatever fabric this was she wanted to line her bedroom with it, it was so soft. She opened her eyes and jumped, disoriented at the claustrophobic enclosed space. After a moment of panic that she was in some SciFi dystopian nightmare, she realized that Darcy must have closed her into the napping pod before he went back to work. After several attempts to lift the contraption, she realized she had to twist it and it softly opened revealing late afternoon rays of sunlight. What time is it? She fumbled for her phone, still groggy, achy, and somewhat queasy. "What the F-!" she shouted as she realized it was 5:15. She had slept through the day, through her meeting!
Darcy's head popped out of the adjacent snack room. "Oh, you're awake. How are you feeling?"
"I missed the planning meeting! There's not another one scheduled while I'm here! Why didn't you wake me?" Her rant was interrupted by another inopportune bout of coughing.
He looked anxious and replied, "I did try, but you were out like a light. I thought it best to reschedule the meeting and let you sleep."
"You..." she glanced at him and he looked so adorably sheepish ... "you didn't have to do that."
"I knew you wanted to be there. Besides, the development team was grateful for the time extension." It may be the fever talking, but he really was acting rather sweet today.
"Why are you still here lurking in the snack room?"
"I couldn't leave you here alone in your condition."
"That's..." The fever was apparently also robbing her of the ability to think properly, "I'm sorry I derailed your entire day."
"It was no trouble Lizzie Bennet." He looked up at her with that intense stare. She probably looked like a trainwreck right now — she was sweaty and disheveled, her nose was running, and she had even thrown up all over the poor man — but despite all of that, now she saw what she hadn't seen last summer and fall: the longing in his eyes. He still cared about her, loved her even and at that moment there was nothing robotic about his gaze. That look scorched her and she had to look away.
He shuffled uncomfortably. "Would you like some tea? I ran out at lunch and got some 'throat coat' tea," he looked down hesitantly again, "or some ginger ale and saltines, you haven't eaten much all day, you could use some calories..."
"Tea would be lovely," she interrupted his rambling, "thank you." He returned to the snack room to make her tea and she drank some water, popped a cough drop in her mouth, and began what felt like the Herculean task of putting on her boots. She ached everywhere, and after one boot she paused to consider the merits of just riding out her illness here on this napping pod. The prospect of her toothbrush and her warm cozy bed waiting at home for her was enough to induce her to put on her other boot. After that effort, she draped the softest blanket ever back around her shoulders and curled up on her side.
She woke up to the soft clink of Darcy setting a travel mug on the table next to her. "Oh, I must have dozed off again." She said, lamely.
Darcy sat beside her and placed his hand on her forehead again to check her temperature. "Your fever seems a bit lower than this morning, how are you feeling?"
"Like I got hit by a bus after screaming for hours then punched in the stomach for good measure," she whined and held out her hand for the tea.
He handed her the mug. "Do you want to keep resting here, or do you want to go home?"
She cradled the mug in her hands, soaking up the warmth. "Why can't teleporters be a thing that exist? I want to go home, but I don't want to get up."
"Come on," he said, chafing his hand up and down her back, "I'll drive you home."
"Mmm, what a gentleman," she murmured as he offered his hand to help her up. His hand was soft and gentle and she was way too out of it to worry about the consequences now, so she kept hold of his hand as she shuffled down the hallway to her office to collect her things. "By the way, I don't think I'm ever letting go of this blanket, I think it's my new favorite thing."
Darcy's lips quirked up just a bit at the edges and he looked at her indulgently, "consider it a gift then, a souvenir of your time at Pemberley.
Several hours later Lizzie woke disoriented in her own bed to a soft thud in the hallway. Living alone for the first time she knew that she was quick to alarm at every little noise, but that definitely sounded like someone was in her apartment. A moment later she jumped when the silhouette of a man filled the doorway.
"Oh good, you're up," Darcy said as he set a bowl down on the nightstand and turned on the lamp, "I thought you might want to try eating something."
"Jesus Darcy you scared me! What are you still doing here?" She'd assumed that once he'd settled her comfortably in bed with another supply of neatly ordered rations on her bedside table he'd go home, but she'd fallen asleep as soon as she'd hit the bed.
"You haven't eaten all day, I made you some soup." She looked down and saw that this wasn't soup poured from a can. He'd cooked for her, like actual chopping and simmering and stewing, homemade soup cooked.
She looked up at him and saw how anxious he was, how eager to please. Without thinking she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "Thank you." His eyes twinkled with wonder and he gave her a boyish smile. That smile suited him. He was usually so stiff that it sometimes seemed like he'd been born a fully grown business man. "Is there a bowl out there for you, or are you going to make me eat alone?"
His grin widened, "I'll be right back." As he disappeared into the kitchen, she rearranged the pillows on her bed so she could sit up comfortably and eat. She hastily pulled her fingers through her hair to tidy it then immediately felt silly. If he'd seen her in various states of undignified today and was still able to look at her like that, a little bit of mussed hair would not scare him away. Then she stopped, shocked at her own thoughts. Was she trying to impress Darcy? She hadn't really hated him since she'd read his letter, and there had been a charged tension between them since she'd arrived at Pemberley, but she'd assumed that was because of his feelings and their uncomfortable past. She hadn't much dwelt on her own feelings. It was certainly much harder to resist this gentle version of Darcy who was patiently taking care of her.
Her ruminations were interrupted by his reappearance with another bowl of soup and two cans of ginger ale. He sat down in the chair in the corner of the room and their habitual awkwardness seemed to fall upon them again. They ate for some time without speaking a word; and she began to imagine that their silence was to last through the whole meal. Gathering up her courage against the new reflections of the evening, she said: "This is really good, where did you learn to cook?"
Darcy looked up with a slight blush and Lizzie was again struck by how cute he was when he was vulnerable. "When we were younger my mother always made us this soup when we were sick. I'd never made much attempt to learn to cook when she was alive, but the first time Gigi got sick after she was gone she insisted that she needed the special soup. Our housekeeper found the recipe and made a batch for her but Gigi insisted that it wasn't the same. She wailed that evening that 'mom always made it with love!' So I had the housekeeper teach me how to make it. Gigi swears that it only works when it's made with love." Darcy abruptly stopped talking as he realized what he was saying and that haunted anxious look spread back over his face. Lizzie was certain that was nearly a declaration of his feelings and it was so much sweeter than his last attempt that she was almost sorry he'd stopped himself.
"I'm honored you'd share it with me then." She said, somewhat self consciously. "Will Gigi be upset that you shared your mom's special soup with me?"
He raised his eyebrow and gave her a rueful look, "I think you know my sister better than that by now." They lapsed back into silence for a few minutes as they finished their soup. Darcy got up to clear the dishes and when he returned, Lizzie felt it was finally time to have that conversation about Tolstoy he'd attempted last summer.
Lizzie woke up with a crick in her neck on top of the general aches and pains of the flu. At some point she must have fallen asleep sitting up while they were talking. She glanced up and saw Darcy asleep in the chair. She quietly got up to go to the bathroom and brush her teeth. She returned to the bedroom and almost tripped over Darcy's long legs sprawled out in front of him. He couldn't be comfortable like that. Glancing at the clock she noticed that it was nearly 3am. He'd spent the whole day caring for her comfort, the least he deserved was a comfortable night's sleep.
Impulsively, she reached out and grabbed his hand. He unconsciously grabbed hers back without waking up. "Darcy," she said softly as she squeezed his hand, trying to gently wake him. He sighed and shifted but didn't wake up. "Darcy," she repeated and this time she lifted her hand to stroke his cheek.
"Lizzie," he sighed and nestled his cheek against her hand, still asleep.
As charming as this sleepy puppy Darcy was, Lizzie was impatient to get back to bed. She tugged more forcefully on his arm, "come on Darcy!"
He finally woke with a startled breath. "Lizzie? What's wrong?"
"You are! You're far too tall to spend the night in that chair, come on." She gave his arm another insistent tug.
"Come where?" He asked, as he obediently stood up even though he was obviously still dazed.
"To bed."
Suddenly he was awake and resisting, "Lizzie. I ... that's not a good idea." Ugh, I've hit my limit with this chivalry she thought in frustration.
"William Darcy, you've spent all day taking care of me. You held my hair back while I threw up, you made me tea, we had a philosophical debate about social and gender dynamics in Tolstoy, you cooked me soup with love." She stepped closer and kissed him tenderly. "That's got to count for at least three dates worth of bonding. Now, I'm exhausted, you're exhausted, and we've got this big comfortable bed here ... can we please just go to sleep and figure the rest out in the morning?"
He looked at her with a searching gaze, as if not trusting that this was actually happening. "Lizzie I still feel the same way I felt back in the fall. More strongly even than I did then. So if you just want to say thank you for recent events then..." Lizzie couldn't stand this sad hesitation any more so she grabbed him by the neck and kissed him. Passionately.
"Last fall you told me that you loved me in the least romantic way possible. Today you showed me that you love me and managed to be sweet and tender in the least romantic scenario possible. Maybe this is the fever talking. Maybe it's not just my immune defenses that have been compromised. I don't know. But realistically, it's the fact that I literally vomited on you and you still looked at me like I was the most beautiful woman alive. You rearranged the schedules of an entire department so I wouldn't miss anything important. You spent your lunch break buying a small pharmacy of get-well-soon supplies. You cooked me dinner, you stayed with me because I was sick and you wanted to take care of me." She paused to emphasize the point with another kiss. "Now, I'm still sick, I'm cold, and I'm exhausted. All I want to do is crawl into that bed with you and fall asleep in your arms."
"Who am I to argue with that logic?" He breathed against her lips just before he kissed her again. Then he silently took off his tie and belt, emptied his pockets, unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt, and kicked off his shoes. Five minutes later Lizzie was happily drifting off to sleep soaking up William Darcy's body heat and feeling content — if perhaps still a bit queasy.