Gigi giggled to herself as she read some of the things that Lizzie's fans had written; it seemed that when she had given them permission to go off and write epic fanfiction about her and Darcy a large number of them had taken her up on her word. She couldn't quite decide whether it was funny to read about the way they imagined her brother reacting to various situations or just plain creepy – she had stayed away from the ones which looked… a little more risqué; no matter how much she might love her brother and how keen she was to change Lizzie's opinion of him she was not interested in reading about that. Even… no, especially, siblings need to keep secrets from each other sometimes; it doesn't matter how good looking Lizzie's audience might think William was he was still her brother. Although Gigi had to admit that – if it were ever to go quite that far – his and Lizzie's children would be adorable.
At first she hadn't wanted to like Lizzie; it didn't matter how many times William had told her that Lizzie wasn't to blame and that he hadn't made the best impression on her she still couldn't get the image of him sitting on the sofa with his head cradled in his arms like he had when they had found out about their parents out of her mind. She had been stuck miles away when he had rung her after a long bike ride, something which she suspected – having seen his previous tweets – had gone some way towards enabling him to act with his usual fairness and appearance of control, but even through the phone she could hear the pain in his voice and it made her feel sick. After everything that had happened to them they had grown used to protecting one another and, no matter how much William might claim that he was her older brother and so he had to protect her, she knew that he had just as much need of protection as she did. They had talked for a long time that night as he filled Gigi in on everything that had happened over the summer, taking great care to constantly tell her that he hadn't been thinking straight, that having seen Lizzie's videos his judgement seemed to be off and that he hadn't really made an effort to seem any way other than the way Lizzie portrayed him.
"She was perfectly justified in her rejection of me Gigi, though I will admit that it stung. I expected her to like me and to be flattered by my attention without ever considering what she thought of me; by the time I realised that I really cared for her I had successfully cultivated the appearance of someone as arrogant and proud as the way she sees me and I suppose that I proved her right by believing it my place to interfere so greatly in things such as Bing's relationship with her sister even though I believed I was acting in his best interests." Gigi had sighed as he said this and crossed her legs, curling up on the sofa as she prepared to counsel her brother on the one thing she had never thought possible; it wasn't so much that he was unattractive – if even Gigi could see it he must have something, especially considering how much attention Caroline paid to him (although it was perfectly possible that she had other motives) – or that he wasn't interested but that he had high standards – very high standards. She believed that it wasn't hypocritical because her brother held himself up to those standards as well, he just wanted someone who was his equal and who challenged him, something Gigi could clearly see that Lizzie did. Considering the small number of girls who had held his interest and the even smaller number of girls he had actually taken the time to discuss with her, Gigi knew he really cared for Lizzie – probably far more than he was letting on.
As she had watched her videos she had found herself far more entertained than she was expecting with Lizzie's impersonations proving funnier than she thought. A lot of the humour she derived from it though was from the impressions of her brother; having known him all her life it amused her to see him so cannily portrayed and yet so misunderstood and, as she got further through the playlist she realised that Lizzie Bennet really was deserving of the praise which William had heaped on her when he had talked of her, no matter how many times the videos made her wince or want to tear her hair out in frustration. It was clear that Lizzie was nearly as stubborn as her brother and yet both of them were so perfect for each other – the idea of the William he could be after dating Lizzie for only a few months was so tantalisingly close and, although she loved him the way he was – and she loved him a lot, she recognised that he could be made into a slightly more rounded person; Gigi knew that Lizzie would draw him out of his shell a little, something which she had been almost unable to do recently, particularly around people that he had never met before.
And then, in Episode 60 when her stupid brother had said all of those things and blurted out a speech which no girl really wanted to hear, especially when she was as livid as her video had revealed she was, he told her he loved her. Gigi's heart had stopped and her eyes had widened almost comically as she processed the information. He was in love with her! Of course he was, he had never spoken of any other girl this tenderly or told anyone else about what had happened with Wickham – if nothing else that alone proved that he trusted her, despite her 'prolific' video blog, and that he cared enough to want her out of Wickham's clutches. With a certainty which she hadn't known she was ever capable of before Gigi decided that they simply had to end up together, there was no way they couldn't. She had suspected that he might feel… quite deeply about Lizzie before, while they had been talking, but for William to actually say it to her… Well it was something completely different. And then, of course, she had discovered that Fitz had known about the videos and from there… They had been planning ever since.
There were already a lot of things on the internet about them, especially about William and Lizzie; not enough fanfiction to be overwhelming but just enough to fill a few days – Gigi was desperate to tell William about some of the things people had been writing but she wasn't too sure how he would take it; he claimed he was fine but she knew he still hadn't recovered from his rejection, throwing himself into his work and beginning meetings almost immediately after their New Year's party. But still they were so perfect for each other and as the weeks had gone by and Lizzie had started to seem less sure of herself Gigi had been growing fonder and fonder of her. By the time Lizzie had announced that she was shadowing Pemberley Digital for her Independent Study Gigi had barely been able to hold in her squeals of excitement and had called Fitz instantly.
She skimmed the descriptions of the stories, opened the ones which seemed the most interesting in new tabs and settled down for an evening of reading. As she finished each one – none of them were particularly long – she realised that Lizzie's viewers really liked soppy romance stories. Which was perfectly fine by her because she found them as sweet as the other readers did and she wriggled in happiness as she imagined William and Lizzie doing some of the things which happened in the stories. She wasn't sure if he had been watching Lizzie's latest videos – they hadn't had time to speak once he had flown over to LA and started working again – but making her mind up she copied the links to some of her favourites into a new email and sent it to him.
Darcy sighed as yet another email appeared in his inbox; he had only been out of the office for a few days, not even a week, and he already had meetings and projects lined up for the foreseeable future. Every single person who knew him or worked with him seemed to want to talk to him and know what he thought on every single thing and he was running out of hours in his day to manage it. He only had another week to finish everything out in LA which needed his direct attention before he was due to fly over to the main offices of Pemberley Digital and begin overseeing everything over there.
His thoughts, however, took a completely different turn when he saw Gigi's name on his computer and, without realising it, he smiled widely, a brief flash of the carefree young man he had once been, before he had inherited Pemberley and long before Wickham, shining through.
'Hey there my darling big brother,' Gigi had written, 'I don't know if you've been watching Lizzie's videos lately (you might want to if you have the time) but I was just trawling the internet when I found these. They're some of my favourites – I chose them specially. Perhaps they might give you some ideas for the future, make you laugh or just… distract you from your work for a little while. I'm not even there with you and I know that you need a break; you always work way too hard when I'm not around to annoy you! Hope your meetings in LA aren't too boring, I'll see you when you arrive here (if you ever arrive here!) and we can have a long catch up then! Don't be too long, I miss you!
Love Gigi xxx'
To say that Darcy was a little worried at what she had found was an understatement; when he had first mentioned Lizzie's videos and told her that they would explain just how horribly wrong he had gone far better than he could he hadn't realised quite how… excited Gigi would be about them. It seemed that, despite the unflattering things Lizzie had said about him, some of which Gigi had talked to him about as she was watching them all, she really wanted to get to know Lizzie and to be a part of this and he wasn't quite sure whether to be happy that she seemed to approve of Lizzie or to be terrified by just how much she liked her.
The cursor hovered over the first link as he wavered slightly but he reasoned that nothing Gigi sent him could be too bad; clicking it slightly absentmindedly as his thoughts drifted back to the enormous pile of work which loomed over him he was surprised to see a page of text. Normally Gigi just linked him to songs she thought that he would enjoy and he thought maybe she had compiled a list of songs about love, perhaps with tips for expressing his feelings a little more eloquently in the future.
But no, he began to read it and his heart almost stopped in surprise when he realised that it was fanfiction; he had half a mind to ring Gigi and ask just what she was doing with her time and why she had been reading fanfiction about him and Lizzie. She must have read more than the ten or so which she had linked if those were her 'favourites' and Darcy wondered just why she had decided to read them in the first place. With one final glance at the proposed show he had been looking at for the past hour Darcy decided that it could wait for a few minutes and started reading.
At first he was sceptical, wondering how anyone could think that they knew his character well enough to write from his perspective, but before too long, he had given in, stopped wrinkling his nose at the way in which he was portrayed in the story, the things he said which he would never dream of saying and the odd reactions people had had him have, and just read them. As he read the words which littered the page, each one so innocuous and innocent by itself but each one a single bead strung together in pearly sentences which tightened around his throat, he realised what an idiot he had been. If he had just made more of an effort, been a better person, then instead of experiencing these scenes from a distance, through the amateur words of an anonymous person on the internet, he could be experiencing them in reality; instead of reading about the way he and Lizzie strolled back through the streets in the evening he could be kissing her goodnight right now after another successful night out. This realisation hit Darcy with a punch which was almost as visceral as the longing he felt as each vignette draped itself around him, pretending to comfort him and promise him happiness but instead reminding him once more of what he could have had. If there was one thing which his painful proximity to Lizzie Bennet over the summer had rewarded him with it was the fantastic ability to perfectly imagine each scenario as it was described and each one pierced his heart with the accuracy and intensity of her very eyes.
It wasn't long before the couple in the story began to succumb to the tension between them and Darcy groaned aloud as his fictional counterpart kissed Lizzie; laying his head on his desk he shut his eyes tightly, trying desperately to banish the vivid thoughts of the feel of her in his arms and beneath his lips which rose unbidden in his mind; unfortunately for his aching heart he couldn't get her out of his mind, every time he tried to think of something else he would see another scene from the story or an old memory – which he had spent months convincing himself was long buried – would bubble up to the surface, and Lizzie remained painted on the blackness of his eyes as he succumbed to the oblivion which swelled up to envelop him, losing his mind and all rational thought to half imagined fantasies mixed with real events, each one filled with Lizzie, her ivory skin and flashing eyes. He had never acted this way towards a woman before – but then Lizzie was unlike any other woman – and never before had a simple story elicited such a reaction from him; with each sentence that he read Darcy wandered further and further into the maze, both frantically looking for a way out and feeling the familiar swell of happiness which his adoration of Lizzie induced.
Eventually he decided to let the Lizzies be – with each mental turn he had made as he tried to shake himself out of his stupor another one had appeared and captured him in a different scene and it was clear to him that they refused to let him go, which was more than could be said for the real Lizzie Bennet – and allowed them to lead his mind in various different directions. Each one acted a little differently, some drawing him into the discussions that they had had during their stay at Netherfield and some smiling at him tenderly like they had in the stories while others allowed him to wrap his arms around them and dance together, much as they had before but without all the eager eyes watching them and without his awkwardness or her dislike, just the two of them embracing in the moonlight and the sweet scent of Lizzie's hair tickling his nose as he rested his chin on her head.
Each different scene caused Darcy's heart to ache, a pain which burned through his entire body and made his heart shy away from it but he couldn't stop himself; however much it might hurt to imagine what he had lost he was unable to tear his mind away from Lizzie – his pain was tempered with happiness as he pretended that she loved him back. Never before had he realised quite how much he had lost when she had rejected him and the thought of what they could have been sent spasms of grief through his veins. He was so masochistic, refusing to relinquish her when he knew that all that would come of his infatuation was hurt, and he continued to read, even going as far as to return to the listing and find others, ones which Gigi hadn't sent him.
It was impossible for him to read them with disinterest, each word coiled around his mind, each image around his heart, but he ploughed on, allowing the future which he had lost that fateful day to cocoon him and lull him to sleep, Lizzie and her infectious smile pervading his dreams all night long.
The next morning he frowned at his actions, trying desperately to convince himself that he hadn't liked them. All day the new ideas which they had presented to him drifted through his mind, catching him unaware and crippling him when he least expected it; by evening he was fighting the urge to read them again. It took all of his willpower to refrain from opening the tabs at the top of his screen when he sat down to reply to Gigi's email.
'They are certainly… interesting Gigi,' he had written after sitting at his laptop for an age, nothing running through his mind except the images which made it their mission to taunt him, 'although not quite what I was expecting. Don't worry about me working too hard though, they did provide a… rather strange distraction last night. I'll be back as soon as possible. (And no, I haven't had time to watch her videos recently.)
William x'
This is just a little… ficlet that I wrote after discussing it with my friend… I don't know if I wrote Darcy's reaction/feelings well enough so I may well edit this in the future but for now… enjoy!