candid
lydia/gigi, because they're perfect.
They first meet that Friday Gigi decides to tag along when her brother comes to visit Lizzie (again.)
Lydia is lying on the couch half watching TV and half not doing her calculus homework when the doorbell rings. She doesn't move from her position, only hollers up the stairs, "LIZZIE! Your man is here!" Lizzie bounces down the stairs and tries to give Lydia a pointed look but she ruins it by smiling too hard. Her sister is so in love right now it's, like, gross.
She hears Lizzie open the door, but she doesn't expect the high-pitched joyous scream that comes out. Craning her neck as far as possible without actually moving the rest of her body from the couch, Lydia looks around the corner and discovers the reason for the scream. Gigi Darcy is here. Gigi and Lizzie hug and catch up for a few minutes while Darcy hangs around halfway into the living room. Lydia looks back at the TV and snickers a little to herself because it's still Darcy and he's still so awkward.
Then, Lizzie leads Gigi towards Lydia and introduces the two of them. Lydia looks up at the familiar dainty face with the cute pixie haircut and without thinking, she blurts out, "Yeah I know who she is, I watch your videos."
It would've certainly been an awkward moment indeed if it wasn't for the fact that Gigi said the exact same thing at the exact same time. They both laugh and Lydia likes to think that's when they first became friends. Lizzie smiles, glad that her little sister is getting along with her boyfriend's little sister, while Darcy just looks at the ceiling, as if helplessly wondering why he's surrounded by women of questionable sanity who talk to cameras all the time.
Soon enough, Lizzie is dragging Darcy away and Gigi sits down beside Lydia on the couch. She glances at the strewed out pieces of calculus notes and textbooks and unanswered problem sets. "Homework?" Gigi asks.
"Yeah, it sucks." Lydia javelin-tosses her pen at the open textbook as if she could somehow kill it. "It's so confusing and I just hate how all my hard work to get good grades in my other classes will be for nothing if I fail calc."
Gigi gathers all the separate sheets of paper into a neat pile and scoots closer to Lydia on the couch. The seat cushion, after years of use, has lost all its firmness and sags in the middle, so Gigi slides until she is pressed against Lydia.
"I could help you, if you want," Gigi offers.
Lydia slowly sits up and lowers her feet from the coffee table. "Really?" she asks skeptically.
"That was a lie when I asked Lizzie for help that one time. I was just stalling until William arrived." Gigi laughs. "I'm actually really good at math."
"Alright. Yeah, okay. Thanks."
And Gigi's right. She's actually really good at math and she's good at teaching it too. Lydia's family is bound to have a field day when they see her here doing homework and befriending people that are good influences on her and whatever. Over sloppily drawn unit circles and deliberate mispronunciation of "L'Hospitals," Lydia looks up and matches Gigi's brilliant smile and think to herself, yeah, this Darcy is pretty cool. I like this one.
/
They don't talk about it. It being the morbidly obese elephant in the room whose name rhymes with Schmorge Dickham.
The closest they ever get to talking about it is a few weeks later when everyone goes to Carter's to celebrate Lizzie's graduation and her starting her own business. In the middle of a round of congratulatory shots, this pair of girls that Lydia vaguely remembers from high school walk up to their table and approach Lizzie with nervous smiles.
"OHMYGOD! You're Lizzie Bennet," one girl says, "Um, we watch your videos and we're big fans."
"Big fans," the other girl repeats for emphasis.
"Could we maybe get a picture with you?" the first girl asks.
"And Darcy?" the other girl adds, before blushing an impressive shade of red.
Lizzie nods and the two girls wedge in between her and Darcy while one of Lizzie's friends takes the picture.
Lydia nudges Gigi with her elbow. "How come we don't get fans asking for pictures?" she jokingly complains. "We're Youtube famous too."
In response, Gigi takes out her phone and exclaims in an obnoxiously high-pitched voice, "OHMYGOD! You're Lydia Bennet with all the adorbz!"
Lydia grins and replies in a similar voice, "OHMYGOD! You're Gigi Darcy, the Domino App girl!"
"I love you, can I take a picture with you?!" Gigi continues. She holds out her phone and snaps a quick selfie of the two of them. It's blurry and the lighting is terrible and Lydia isn't even looking into the camera, but they're both laughing and it's beautiful in a candid way.
Four tequila shots and thirty shared jokes later, Darcy comes over to them with a quirked eyebrow. "You two sure seem close," he comments.
"Well, we have so much in common. We're both energetic," Lydia throws Darcy's word back at him and she notices how he flinches just slightly. She smiles to let him know that she isn't actually still mad at him, just teasing, and he smiles (kind of) back to let her know he's still sorry.
Gigi wraps one arm around Lydia's shoulders and pulls her in until their bodies are flush against each other side by side. "And we're both Youtube stars."
"And we both—" Lydia was about to mention the one other huge (you might even say elephantine) thing they have in common. But then she catches herself and Gigi momentarily freezes when she realizes what Lydia was about to say and any trace of a smile immediately disappears from Darcy's face when he also deduces what was left unsaid. The moment passes, however, as Gigi smiles again and pulls Lydia back to the bar and all three pretend that Lydia never said anything at all.
/
The next day, Gigi posts their picture on instagram. By the time Lydia sees it, it already has a hundred likes and some thirty comments. She scrolls through their fans' cute comments about Gigi and Lydia being their two favoritest people EVER and how they're both so gorgeous I can't stand it and she even laughs at Lizzie's comment Gigi and Lydia in cahoots? I'm scared, guys.
But it's the second comment from the bottom that hits Lydia right in the stomach and the three words stay permanently engrained in her brain.
I ship it.
It's probably just a joke. It's the internet after all, and this is precisely their type of wry humor. Hell, Lydia herself might have written the exact same thing on a photo of Bing and Darcy or something. A joke, that's all. And hey, even if this person is being serious, to each his own, right? It doesn't mean anything. Three words, soon to be lost and buried in the comments of just another instagram picture on a Sunday morning.
(But it does mean something. And it changes everything.)
/
Like misheard lyrics, it's like one of those things where you can be perfectly oblivious to its existence your whole entire life, but the second someone points it out, it's all you can see.
Every time Gigi taps Lydia's arm to get her attention, the touch sears through her entire body and she feels embarrassed and silly and giddy all at once. She keeps count of all the times she and Gigi end up next to each other when they're in a group and she wonders if she's the one who goes towards Gigi or if Gigi is the one who comes to her. And whenever they're alone, she's always painfully aware of the distance between them and she keeps staring at Gigi's lips, testing herself to see if she feels anything at all.
Everything is ridiculous and Lydia really is making a big deal out of nothing at all. But she can't help that every love song on the radio reminds her of Gigi and every time her phone rings with a new text, she secretly hopes it is Gigi and some nights she dreams of heart-shaped faces with light blue eyes and SHIT WHAT'S HAPPENING?
/
So, Lydia obviously doesn't follow news or politics or boring stuff like that, but her nerdy older sister obviously does. Apparently, some anti-gay demonstration is happening downtown in protest of some Supreme Court case considering the ban on same-sex marriage, so in response, the gay community is staging their own counterdemonstration. Fitz invited Lizzie and comes to pick her up in his car and Lizzie drags Lydia along last minute and when they get out of the car, Brandon and the Darcy's are already waiting for them armed with the artillery of neon shirts and witty signs.
That's how Lydia finds herself marching down the street wearing the letters L-G-B-T spray-painted across her shirt and carrying a poster with a gigantic heart sign while Gigi parades beside her wearing a shirt with two girls holding hands and waving around a banner that says love is love is love and you can shut up.
She thinks it's kind of ironic, her being here. Of course, there are lots of straight people here too, like Lizzie and Darcy, but Lydia can't help wondering if any strangers walking by would accidentally get the wrong idea if they see her and Gigi marching together, perhaps a little too close together.
/
It's not like Lydia has anything against being gay. Some of the best people she's ever met are gay and some of the truest love she's ever witnessed are from gay relationships. Lydia Bennet is a totally radical, modern, forward-thinking person, duh.
But she's Lydia. She's always liked boys. She breaks hearts like it's her favorite pastime and her record is going through ten boyfriends in one week. She's gotten the act of batting her eyelashes at the cute guy across the bar down to an art. She's adorable and girly and loves pink almost as much as she loves partying and every inch of her screams B-O-Y-C-R-A-Z-Y.
Lydia Bennet is not a lesbian.
(I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'mnot, I'mnot, ImnotImnotimnotimnotimnot… she mutters it over and over again until the syllables blur into incomprehensible nonsense.)
/
It also doesn't help that Lizzie and Darcy are dating, and Lydia is so close to her sister, and Gigi is so close to her brother, which means Lydia ends up spending all her time with Gigi. She learned about this in her sociology class. Like, the transitive property of strong relationships or something.
They get froyo and Gigi will sometimes steal a spoonful from Lydia's cup like it's no big deal (because it really isn't a big deal, friends do that all the time) but then Lydia watches as Lizzie does the same thing to Darcy across the table and yeah, it's kind of a big deal.
They go to the movie theater and share a medium popcorn and when the sad part comes, Gigi is a mess of tears and feels and she rests her head on Lydia's shoulder and Lydia can't tell if the lump in her throat is from the movie or the girl next to her.
They sunbathe at the beach and Lydia stares at Gigi's long toned legs and tells herself that girls check other girls out all the time, to feel better about themselves if the other girls are less hot than them or to feel insecure if the other girls look like goddesses, but this time it doesn't feel like an instinctive self-conscious maneuver, it feels like something else entirely and it's unsettling but also pleasant.
/
Ever since the big epiphany, the online comment that triggered the avalanche, Lydia has only been able to act truly omfortable around Gigi when she is under at least two servings of alcohol.
It's Gigi's birthday party and Lydia mingles with Gigi's other friends, but always stays within arm's reach of the birthday girl since she's the only familiar face there. (Lizzie and Darcy ditched the party ages ago, as expected.) Gigi, who is a good amount of tipsy, eagerly introduces Lydia to all her friends, the names all blurring together in Lydia's brain.
But then they reach one of Lydia's tennis teammates, standing with fiercely straight hair and a half-grimace, and when Lydia says her name, recognition flashes across her face. She gives Lydia a once-over, then stares at the way Lydia and Gigi and holding onto each other like they might fall apart if they let go, and her mouth stretches into something less like a grimace and more like belittling sympathy.
And then it's one of those times when after you notice it once, you notice it all the time.
The two girls standing the corner. The guy with the glasses drinking beer. The group of Gigi's college friends. They all looked at Lydia and Gigi with sidelong glances, all thinking the same thing.
The two poor girls that George Wickham broke in half.
/
Later, when the guests are leaving and Lydia and Gigi are sitting on the top of the staircase leaning against each other, Gigi brings up her new project with Domino and her leaving for Sanditon soon.
"I'll miss you," Lydia whispers, because it's true.
"I love you," Gigi whispers back.
What happens next, neither clearly remembers. According to Gigi, they cuddled for a long time on the stairs before she blacked out and woke up in her own bed the next morning. According to Lydia, they cuddled for a long time on the stairs and then Lydia kissed Gigi (not a smooch on the cheek, not a short peck on the lips, but a full-out kiss) and Gigi mumbled something, got up, and stumbled her way back to her room while Lydia remained on the stairs wondering what the hell she just did and if they'll remember in the morning.
/
Back in high school, when Lydia and her old best friend first started kissing boys, they tried to keep count. "Boys Lydia Bennet Kissed." They kept an accurate tally all the way into freshman year of college before the party lights and drunken make-outs and boys with charming looks became too many to count.
Perhaps Lydia should start a new tally.
"Girls Lydia Bennet Kissed." (One.)
/
The news actually comes from Maria Lu, of all people. George Wickham is back. Maria practically walked right into him in the Starbucks around the corner, and of course he didn't recognize her, but she booked it out of there and called Charlotte right away, who then immediately texted Lizzie, who was in the middle of a date with Darcy, so when she checked her phone and her eyebrows knit together and she stopped breathing, Darcy knew exactly what had happened, and then Darcy stormed away to confront George then and there no doubt and it took a four-way call with Lizzie, Fitz, and Bing to convince Darcy to turn around and come back, and since Bing was involved, Jane eventually heard about the situation.
And that's how Lydia finally found out. Through her oldest sister all the way in New York, almost one week after the fact.
She hangs up on Jane mid-sentence and walks to Lizzie's room with this dejected expression.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Lizzie immediately knows what Lydia was referring to. She says every single excuse Lydia expected her to: I wanted to protect you, I knew it would hurt you to hear the news, you've been doing so well, I just wanted the past to be past, and I'm so sorry.
Lydia so doesn't want to be mad at Lizzie again. Look how things turned out last time around. But it hurts, it hurts so much, and she can't tell if the pain is from her still-broken heart or from the betrayal of her sister keeping secrets from her.
"I can take care of myself, Lizzie."
"I know, I know."
And then Lydia runs back to her room as she feels the sobs she's successfully repressed for the past two months resurface.
/
Three times Lizzie knocks on Lydia's locked door to ask if she's alright and repeat her apology. Lizzie was supposed to move out of the house this week, but she's postponing the move until Lydia feels better. Part of Lydia hates that her older sister is going out of her way just to hover around all day, as if Lydia will spontaneously implode or something stupid like that, but part of Lydia is grateful because Jane and Gigi are both already gone and she doesn't think she could handle being abandoned by Lizzie too on top of the Wickham crisis right now.
Which, to be fair, it's not even a proper crisis. George is only back in town, not back in their lives per se, but it's like Lydia can sense his proximity. It's easy to be strong when he's absent, but absence also makes the heart grow fonder. It's insanely idiotic, even Lydia knows that, but she can't help the little bubble of rising hope inside her that screams he came back because he loves me!
The fourth time, it was her mother and Lydia had to put on a brave face. "Just boy problems, Mom, no big," she says quietly, half-hiding behind her door.
"Oh Lydia, don't you worry. It's a shame George is gone but I'll find you another dashing gentleman in no time dear."
And then the word "gentleman" prompted a flashback to the secret kiss with Gigi on top of the stairs and she almost wants to jokingly retort that maybe she needs a leading lady instead, but she doesn't say anything because it's not funny if it's part true.
And now she really doesn't know what to think.
The fifth time, she lets Lizzie give her tea and a hug before ushering her back out of the room and telling her to get out of the house already, ya loser.
The sixth time, it's not Lizzie but Mary. Her cousin plops down on Lydia's bed, gently shoves Kitty off her lap, and fixes Lydia a look.
"Wanna tell me what's up?"
"Didn't Lizzie tell you?"
"I'm not talking about George Wickham. You and I both know it's not just about George Wickham."
"It's not?"
And then right on cue, Lydia's phone lights up with a new text from Gigi. i'm back in town for the weekend, let's go clubbing.
Lydia immediately types back an enthusiastic response.
"Does Gigi know?" Mary asks.
"About George? I don't know, I doubt the Darce told her-"
"No, Lydia," Mary sighs and Lydia is so confused as to what she's trying to hint at here. "Does Gigi know how you feel about her?"
Lydia's eyeballs just about fall onto her lap. How the fuck did Mary know? But Mary only gives her a look and, honestly, why has Mary ever not known?
"Mary, I'm not—"
"Hey. It's okay."
"...Yeah?"
"Yeah."
/
For the record, Lydia doesn't tell Gigi that weekend when they go clubbing.
But a guy did try to dance with Lydia who looked exactly like George Wickham and both girls freeze like they've seen ghosts and it's only when the guy asks "what's wrong?" in a deep voice that is obviously not Wickham that they start to relax. Still, the guy is thoroughly scared away and Lydia decides she really needs to erase all traces of George from her life because for all her adamantly claiming she's "over" him, she's so totally not. Obviously.
So, the next morning, Lydia is sitting in front of her laptop with Mary on her right and Gigi on her left. She opens her YouTube page, clicks on 'Manage Videos' and slowly selects each video with George Wickham. Her mouse hovers over the delete button.
"You can do it," Mary encourages.
Gigi reaches for Lydia's hand and holds on tight.
With a sharp inhale, Lydia clicks.
And just like that, the videos are gone. He's gone. Lydia's vlog channel is once more just her and occasionally Mary, being silly and ridiculous and innocent. It's like she erased time, the past, and every painful memory.
In the spur of the moment, she grabs her camera, left untouched in her drawer for the past few months, turns it on, and holds it out to self-film the three of them.
"Hey guys," she says to the camera. "It's been a while, yeah? But did you really think I would just leave you guys like that, without a goodbye or anything? Psssh. Anyway, my dear older sister has finished her diaries but that doesn't mean the adorbz also has to end, right? And look, it's Mary and Gigi Darcy!"
Mary and Gigi lean in to be in the frame and wave at the camera.
Lydia beams and switches to hold her camera with her other hand. "As many of you know, the past few months have been…hard. But I'm fine now. I really am. It's a new chapter for the Ly-dee-ah. And you better be ready."
Mary smiles and Gigi rests her head of Lydia's shoulder. It's true, you know. With friends like these, Lydia really is going to be fine. She blows a kiss at the camera. "Bye! Love you guys."
/
Hours later, after Mary left, Lydia is lying on her stomach on her bed, head bopping to the blasting Marina and the Diamonds song, while Gigi sits beside her with her knees pulled up and her legs creating an arch over Lydia's body. The chorus comes and Gigi sings along in her gentle voice. Lydia rolls over so she's facing Gigi and joins in, even throwing in some harmony for good measure. The way Gigi shuts her eyes and tilts her head slightly backwards when she's mesmerized by the music—it's breathtaking.
When the song ends, Lydia sits up, bringing her arms over her head in a dramatic finale gesture. They both laugh.
"Oh my god, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Gigi exclaims. "We should totally start a cover band."
Which is funny, because that's not what Lydia was thinking.
She was thinking something along the lines of I might be in love with you.
/
Lizzie is finally moving out of the house.
("Took you long enough," Lydia comments as she records footage for her next vlog, to which Lizzie rolls her eyes emphatically but pulls her sister into a hug anyway.)
And by moving out of the house, she means basically moving in with William Darcy.
("I'm not moving in with him!" Lizzie retorts. "I'm just, you know, staying at his place in San Francisco until I find my own apartment.")
Lydia wants to bet twenty bucks that Lizzie never leaves Darcy's house, but no one wanted to bet against her because everyone agreed with her anyways.
("Oh, shut up, all of you!" Lizzie throws her hands up in defeat and stalks away, accompanied by a whole room of friendly laughter.)
All the while, Mrs. Bennet sits near the back with her hands happily clasped together, practically having an aneurism of joy. The oldest Bennet's in New York with the wonderful Bing Lee and now the middle Bennet is going to San Francisco with the affluent William Darcy. Now she only needs to marry off the youngest Bennet. She glances around the party for any takers. But only Gigi Darcy makes eye contact, and only to compliment Mrs. Bennet on her spinach dip and to ask for the recipe. Not exactly what she was looking for, but she's distracted nonetheless as she leads the young Darcy to the kitchen to teach her the Bennet Fourteen-Step Spinach Dip Process.
Lydia doesn't realize she's staring off into space filming the couch with her camera until there's suddenly a margarita in front of her face, being handed to her by Fitz. "You okay there, Little B?"
She shuts off the camera and musters a small smile while taking a sip of the drink. She's only talked to the famous Fitz a few times before at other gatherings and she's never had a conversation with him alone, but she's glad that he considers her a close enough friend to deserve a Fitz-esque nickname, which is pretty great.
And to be honest, Lydia isn't quite sure what makes her confess to Fitz what she wasn't ready to confess to Lizzie or Jane or Mary or even herself. But Fitz threw her an open door with his question and she waltzed right through.
"Fitz, when did you realize you were gay?"
He blinks a few times then rubs his temples as he searches for a way to respond. "Well, huh, I guess the big epiphany came sometime freshman year of high school, but looking back, I think I've always known. I think everyone always knew."
"But how did you know for sure?"
"Hold up, why are you asking me this all of a sudden?"
Gigi reemerges from the kitchen and Lizzie beckons her over to the other side of the room, where they share a quick story before they burst into laughter. Lydia's gaze never leave Gigi the entire time.
Fitz's eyes flicker back and forth between the youngest Bennet and the youngest Darcy until the pieces finally came into place. "Oh dear."
Lydia downs the rest of the margarita. "Oh dear, indeed."
/
Jane and Bing are officially dating again.
Lizzie and Darcy are taking it slow, focusing on their careers and whatnot, but the way Darcy looks at her…it's like he'd already decided long ago that Lizzie Bennet is the only girl he will ever love for the rest of his life.
And Lydia is starting to get texts from this cute boy who was in her class, but she is still confused as fuck.
"Have you dated anyone since…?" Lydia asks a few weeks later when she and Gigi are both up in San Francisco for the weekend.
"I…no," Gigi shakes her head.
Lydia's phone beeps with another text from the aforementioned cute boy. It's witty and adorable and Lydia grins a little. But as she begins to reply, she can't think of the words to say and puts the phone back in her pocket.
"I'm scared," Lydia confesses.
"Me too," Gigi says. "I'm still scared."
/
She agrees to go to the movies with the cute boy. And then dinner. And then coffee the next day.
This is comfortable. This is familiar territory.
He holds her hand when he drives and she thinks, yeah, okay, see it was just a really weird phase, I'm totally straight.
But then one night he brings her to his house and he kisses her and he slips his hand under her shirt and she just panics. She leaps backwards, grabs her phone and her keys, and runs out the door, muttering some pathetic apology over her shoulder. Her mother doesn't understand why she would leave such a perfectly fine young man, but Lydia is curls up on her bed and thinks, oh god, what if I'll be like this forever? What if my heart is broken so badly that I'll never recover?
/
It finally makes sense a month later. Lydia volunteered to help Gigi move into her new apartment and while she was helping unpack, she found a small unlabeled box. And inside are the incriminating pictures and mementos of George Wickham—evidence that despite Gigi's apparent courage and claims of moving on, even a small part of the great Gigi Darcy still cannot let go after all these years.
They're the same. The girls George Wickham broke in half.
That's what draws Lydia and Gigi together. Because nothing fits better together than two hearts broken by the same hand.
/
She calls Fitz.
"I just need to know that what I'm feeling is real and not because of the damage George did and definitely not just because of a stupid comment on the internet."
"It's been months, Little B. It wouldn't have lasted this long if it was anything but real."
"But Gigi's not gay. I'm not even gay."
"Fuck genders."
She thinks about Gigi and the way their laughter sounds together and the day they first met and that kiss on the top of the stairs that she can't get out of her head and that stupid, stupid picture. And she thinks that yes, she's scared. But not with Gigi. She was never scared with Gigi.
"Yeah," she says. "Fuck genders."
/
Perhaps Lydia should have seen it coming when Gigi dragged her away from Thanksgiving dinner and shoved her into the closet. But Lydia is so focused on the speech she's been rehearsing for days, trying to word her confession perfectly, so nervously caught up being in love that she missed the very same look in Gigi's eyes.
They're pressed together in the small closet, their bodies haphazardously pushing coats and hangers to the floor. The dim light cast them in a yellow glow. Lydia takes a deep breath and figures this is the big moment, she should just up and say the words that have been pressing down on her chest for months. The pressure and fear of her emotions have been omnipresent in her life for so long now that she's practically forgotten what relief feels like. So Lydia opens her mouth and barely forms the first syllable for the first word when she is rudely interrupted by Gigi kissing her.
—um, what.
Perhaps this is one small, trivial thing that has escaped Lydia's mind the entire time. The small probability that Gigi Darcy would ever feel the same way.
When they pull apart, Gigi is all dazzling smiles and passion aflame and Lydia is all deer-in-headlights and disoriented in every sense.
"I—" Lydia begins.
"I know," Gigi says.
"But—"
"Yeah."
"…how?"
"Fitz. He can't keep a secret from me for shit."
She laughs nervously. Gigi joins in. And when they stumble out of the closet a few minutes later, many eyebrows are raised but it's alright. They're alright.
/
Everyone keeps asking how this started.
Gigi grins teasingly. "Lydia totally liked me first."
Lydia sticks her tongue out. "Whatever, you kissed me first."
"Are you sure?" Gigi has a smug look on her face. Lydia's jaw drops, her mind flashing back to the night on the stairs, the night Gigi swore she forgot. "Because I'm pretty sure you kissed me first."
/
Love is a funny thing.
Sometimes it's with the last person you would ever fall in love with. And sometimes it's with his little sister.
Sometimes it's a gradual process that takes you by surprise when you find yourself in the middle before you knew you'd even begun. And sometimes, you can pinpoint the single precise moment your life changed forever.
Sometimes, it's beautiful in a candid way.
thanks for reading! my entrance into this ship was largely inspired by get loved, make more by allthingsholy on AO3. go read it, it's fantastic.