If you haven't read It's Only Love, go back and read it before you read this.
1.
Lizzie Bennet never intended to fall in love with Will Darcy.
She'd gone to the party because Jane, sweet, stupid Jane, had asked (begged) her to come.
"I can't do this alone," Jane told Lizzie urgently, her eyes racing over Lizzie's face, and because Jane is Jane, Lizzie said yes.
If she hadn't said yes…
2.
When she was six, Lizzie Bennet crashed straight into a window, and the glass shattered around her like snow. While her parents whirled around her and drove her to the hospital, she stared down at her hands. They were bleeding softly, like a melody, and it stayed in her head all the way to the hospital and all the way back home.
3.
Lizzie Bennet found out about Georgiana Darcy after she and Jane had what could have been called a double date with Will and Charlie. Charlie had played the tape of Will's 21st birthday, and Lizzie had thought that Georgie was one of Will's (old?) girlfriends. Surprisingly, Jane had been the one to start yelling. Lizzie had followed her quietly out into the hall and caught snatches of Jane's shouted accusations to Charlie of "What the hell are you playing at?" and "Is Will even single?"
Charlie was glaring furiously at Jane, and Lizzie had the oddest feeling that this was a Moment to be Remembered in the saga of Charlie and Jane, happily ever after. So she turned to him and asked, "Charlie, who is she?" and he said, "Will's dead sister," and Jane just stared at him, dumbfounded and humiliated and probably only a little bit in love with him.
At that moment in time, Lizzie hated her.
4.
Lizzie Bennet was known primarily for two things: her mouth and her eyes. Her mouth, because of what came out of it, and her eyes, because they were like the sea. Once she'd stared at herself for hours, trying to see what would happen to her eyes. When nothing happened, she slammed the mirror shut and went for a walk, disgusted with herself, and only a little bit disappointed that her eyes were, upon closer inspection, nothing extraordinary.
5.
For a couple weeks, Lizzie Bennet edited books and tried not to fall in love with Will Darcy. It was a hopeless task, and she fell in love with him anyways. He didn't call her; she didn't blame him. She didn't call him, either. Maybe it was something of an unspoken agreement between them; maybe it was just apathy.
She didn't acknowledge that maybe it was just fear. That would have been stupid.
6.
When she was 14, Lizzie Bennet realized that her parents had stayed together for convenience, not love. She never forgave either of them.
7.
"Lizzie, I'm worried about you," Jane says one day. It's a Sunday, Charlie's in love with Jane and Jane's in love with Charlie, and it's raining.
Lizzie looks up from the manuscript she's editing. "Why?"
"What happened with Will?" She asks, all concern, and Lizzie wants to throw her mug of tea in Jane's perfect face. Instead, she says, "Nothing, Jane," and part of her burns, because it's the truth. Nothing happened.
All Jane can say is, "Oh, Lizzie," and Lizzie turns back to the manuscript, digging the pen further into paper, and a little red ink leaks out and leaves a smear on the title, Things I Don't Say, and Lizzie chokes back a laugh, or is it a groan?
8.
Jane Bennet, Lizzie Bennet- how they went together, hand in hand, matching pigtails, perfect smiles. They were the odd ones out, simply because they cared about each other, and so they never had to share separate bedrooms or lives because it was just so much easier when Mrs. Bennet didn't have to divide them up.
Lizzie said the things that Jane couldn't, and what did Jane do? Jane smiled when Lizzie couldn't, and maybe that's why Lizzie had gone along with everything, why she said yes, why she went to the party, and why she didn't yell at Jane when Jane yelled at Charlie.
She just couldn't do it.
9.
One day, Lizzie Bennet decides to walk in Central Park, and that same one day, Will Darcy decides to do the same, and so they- finally- meet. It's awkward and uncomfortable and Will almost threatens her, making her shrink away, and then she realizes that she's shrinking away, so she throws it all back in his face and tells him the truth, that she's scared shitless, that she's really, really fucking sorry but she can't change anything. When he looks at her outstretched hand and pauses, she can feel everything slowing down, but then, slowly, too slowly for her liking, he reaches out and takes hold of her, and everything stops slowing down and just exists, and it feels right.
10.
She doesn't really know how she fell in love with Will Darcy. She wishes that she did, because then she'd have something to tell people, but when everyone asks her how she fell in love with him, she just says, "Things happen, I guess," and they all give her a disgusted look and walk away, like coincidence is not enough anymore.
11.
It's January, and Jane bursts into their apartment and says giddily, "Charlie and I are getting married!" Lizzie beams, and Jane goes on endlessly about how he proposed, and what he said, and the ring, and Lizzie pats her hand absentmindedly and wonders if this is how their parents used to be, giddy and in love.
She rather hates herself for thinking it, though, so she hugs Jane softly and tries not to think about the chances of survival of a marriage today. She finds herself walking over to Will's apartment, and finds him and Charlie passed out in the bathroom with a gallon of orange juice and a stack of wedding magazines, a strange and wonderful scene, and she doesn't know why she's suddenly crying.
11.
Lizzie has a cat named Seamus; sometimes he gets called that little motherfucker who keeps stealing her underwear.
12.
Jane gets married. Lizzie is Maid of Honor; Will is Best Man, and Charlie is somewhere off in his own head. Jane notices this, and slips her hand through his, but doesn't say anything, like it'd be a waste, and as Lizzie watches them walk away, she realizes that she doesn't really know Charlie Bingley at all.
13.
It's surprisingly easy to tell Will that she loves him. It's not a Moment in a happily ever after; it's just her, telling him that she loves him, and pass the paper, would you?
14.
"I'm really happy," she tells one day, and he looks over at her and grins, shaking his head at her, as if she's just so cute.
The next day, she walks across 42nd street and a taxi slams into her. The whole time she's airborne, which is only a few seconds and yet only a few lifetimes, she's smiling, but her smile is frozen, and she tries to claw it off (who dies smiling?), but by the time she's realized this, she's strapped in a gurney, and then her eyelids close.
15.
She's okay. She's okay.
Words float through her head, words like Oh God oh God oh God and What the fuck and Will, is he okay? Words float through her head, words like Ow, ow, ow and I've felt this before and What about her?, her being Georgiana Darcy, a girl she never knew.
She wonders if it hurt as much to die as it does to live, and if there is a light, and if Georgiana Darcy is okay, wherever she is.
Author's Note:
Surprise surprise, I'm having writer's block for Georgiana's piece. So...y'all get this instead!
I love reviews, feedback, thoughts, questions, the whole nine yards. In other words: review. Please.