Lizzie packs to leave Pemberley, Darcy stops in for a word, words get left behind. Funfunfun!
There Will Be Typos, starring Daniel Day Lewis.
Enjoy.
She should have worn heels for this. Like feeling small made this any easier. But no, Keds, and crap clothes, a ponytail, no makeup. She hadn't quite planned on this happening today. Though she was pretty sure part of her had planned on it happening, and she was kind of running out of opportunities here.
Every minute she spent jostling paper stacks into symmetry and tucking folders into boxes, she wondered. Wondered what company could ever live up to Pemberley Digital's standards, whether she would stay in touch with Gigi, if she should say goodbye to a certain misjudged CEO. Mostly that last one. Almost entirely that last one. A few interns dropped by periodically to say their farewells, but she was distracted. Distracted by how much a few changes in a person's composure could change her opinion of him. Him. She had to say something to him. Unless that would be strange. Unless he was best left alone.
The decision was made for her, though, because then it was him and not an intern in her doorjamb. Him, without any paperwork or phone or otherwise productive material. It looked a bit foreign.
A soft laugh. "No rolling camera?" he said, eyebrow raised but looking more than a touch unsettled by her presence. She could never tell if that looked stemmed from intimidation or infatuation or fear of scaring her away. Or maybe she was over thinking her influence in his life.
"For once, no," she shrugged. "All tucked away, ready to be taken home."
Her voice caught on the word home, and he noticed. She noticed that he noticed.
"I love my family, don't get me wrong, I'll just…miss it here."
"I'm glad you found the phacilities satisfactory. I was afraid Pemberley might be colored with, uh, previous events in your eyes."
She wrung her hands. "Regardless."
Eye contact. Unbroken eye contact. Had this office always been so small?
"Um, did you come by for something?"
"Oh! I did, yes," and he was closing the door.
The room was miniscule.
But as he reached out, hand on the doorknob, she noticed the way his sculpted shoulders shifted under his sleeves. She noticed how much she'd come to like his profile. Something in her chest like fear welled up.
He walked over, stopped a pace away. Fists clenched and unclenched.
"I just wanted to tell you and make certain that you know, despite my intentions being good and thoughtful at the time, I am sorry for convincing Bing to sever his relationship with Jane."
"Oh."
His eyebrows rose. "Oh?"
"I just thought you'd come to say goodbye. Seeing as I doubt we'll ever meet again."
He stared into a box of consumer statistics. "Yes, I had considered that as well."
He rubbed his thumb into his palm.
"I hope life is more than decent to you," he said.
It was her turn to raise eyebrows. "That's some goodbye."
A nervous laugh. "Eh, the motions of social interactions aren't a strong suit of mine."
"I'd noticed," she smiled.
His wide shoulders shrugged a bit and he shook his head.
"Of course. Of course you have. First hand, I'm afraid. What I mean to say is, and this is the best I can do for a farewell, I hope you get exactly what you want from life."
And he looked at her again, the unsettled look gone, replaced with sincerity. What do I want? she wondered. What do I really want, now? Now that things have changed.
She stepped towards him, held out her hand to be shaken.
"Thank you for being civil to me when you've had no reason to be," she said.
He took her hand.
"I had every reason to be," he answered.
And then she wished she'd worn heels, because she closed the last of the distance between them and tilted her face up to his but discovered that she wouldn't quite reach him. So in the second it took for her hands to tangle into his hair, to pull his face down to hers, she tracked his expression from confusion to shock before she snapped her eyes shut and pressed her mouth against his, hard.
He was so tense, until she wrapped her arms around his neck. His mouth relaxed into hers, his arms found her waist, and they both found a rhythm, shifting angles, feeling the warmth, the sweetness of each other so close. But then his hand found her lower back, and her teeth found his lower lip, and sweetness was abandoned, leaving only hasty abandon. After all, they had lost time to make up for.
They were lurched and rocked, her heels drawn off the ground by one strong arm snaked around her waist, the other searching for purchase behind them. Clamoring for each other's taste even above breath, they gasped as his feet moved them back, back, till his calves hit something solid and they landed in the depths of a sofa. She was sprawled out the length of them, disheveled, and he chuckled as he hooked a wide hand under her knees and pulled her across his lap; his lips searched for hers by way of her cheeks, her jaw. Fingers found hair, palms spread flat. She tugged on his tie.
"May I?" she muttered, but didn't wait for a response to pull at the knot, free him from his collar, and begin searching the delicious expanse of his neck. His head lolled back, and she heard him sigh, felt his hands tighten around her waist as she sucked his tender flesh between her teeth. His fingers flitted along the hem of her shirt before his warm hands inched their way under. She gasped against him, and then sat back, smiled, and pulled her top off altogether. His eyes widened, his lips tightened, but she kissed the later back soft. His mouth opened into hers and she found his tongue while unbuttoning buttons. The pads of his fingers ran the length of her spine.
Sliding her hands onto his shoulders, she pushed off his dress shirt and pulled back long enough to marvel as his finely shaped arms, curling her fingers into the muscles, counting freckles on his shoulders. The backs of his fingers stroked her stomach, wandered near her breasts. She couldn't remember when she'd swung her leg over his lap, when she'd pressed herself quite so close, but in the gasping and biting and roaming, she became acutely aware of the proximity of his groin to hers.
It was his turn to bite her neck, mark her for careful observers. Her arms linked around his back, his wonderful, broad back, and she saw it. She saw William Darcy in a bathrobe chopping onions for an omelet and a cat on top of the fridge and her reading the paper in his red flannel shirt. And her eyes, right now, with their almost naked selves tangled together, pricked hot, and a gasp welled up as his tongue ran the length of her collar bone.
His fingers toyed with the clasp of her bra and her hands fell to his lap where she worked on his belt as fast as she could. He stopped moving.
"Lizzie."
She stopped, too, her cheek pressed against his, then pulled back to look him in the eye.
"What, what is it?"
His brow contorted and he looked down, away, lips hanging apart. She resisted the urge to kiss them and drew her hands away from his lap to brush escaped strands of hair behind her ears.
"Understand, I've wanted this, desperately, and I am stunned – overjoyed – that you find me…so appealing, now."
His hands rested on her lower back. She felt a finger twitch.
"But… but as much as I want this, what I want far more desperately isn't… it's not… I don't want this to be once, and I don't want the two of us to only remember sleeping together."
She stared into her hands.
"If we do this, Elizabeth, I need to know it means something."
She took his face in her hands, but by the time he'd looked back up at her, her eyes had closed and she'd leaned her forehead against his.
"I understand," she said.
She sighed deep, kissed his cheek, put her shirt back on.
He felt something in his gut rip as she stood up and smoothed her hair. Instead of watching her leave, he focused on rebuttoning each button of his navy shirt, knotting his tie neatly. And he sighed, and he stood, and she was still standing in the office.
"The marina?" she asked.
He blinked. He froze.
"What?"
"Dinner, do you want to get dinner at the marina? Or just the pizza parlor by Bing's?"
He stared at her.
"We could try that Thai place Fitz won't shut up about…Will? Are you alright?"
"I thought…I was under the impression you had to leave today."
"I think I could stay just another day," she said. "Or two."
He looked at his feet, but when he met her gaze he smiled. Not a huge smile, those were rare, but a smile. And she smiled back. And he tangled his fingers into hers, and they walked to the door.
"How about I make you something, instead?"
"Is Gigi home?"
He smiled again, at the floor, a few teeth bared this time. "If I remember correctly, she's at a tennis conference in Phoenix."
She squeezed his hand. "Perfect."
His arm wove over her shoulders, hers tucked around his waist.
As the town car pulled up and he traced winding patterns on the inside of her wrist, she asked, "Can we make omelets?"
He chuckled. "Never had occasion to make an omelet, but I can manage eggs Benedict."
She grinned. "I suppose that will do."
Tax returns. Joint leases. Dinner parties, china patterns, painting pastel rooms. When Elizabeth Bennet felt William Darcy cup her elbow and lower her into the car, not a one of these notions frightened her. Not like she's expected them to. And then he was beside her, pressing the length of his leg against hers while she toyed with the tips of his fingers. They drove to his apartment and spoke of only trivial things – business plans, communication hypotheses, Gigi's tennis conference – but there was time to talk of more. Plenty of time.