AN: First try at a P&P fanfic, lets hope this goes well! This chapter is just a set up to the opening lines of the movie. I'll mostly be following the movie, but I'll be adding my own insights and scenes. I'll try to stick as close to the events as possible :) Please read and review!

"Come on Gwen! We're going to be late!" Gayle called to her friend, her corkscrew curls swinging every which way as she ran around her room, stuffing things into her massive backpack.
Gwendolyn chuckled, tucking her dark red hair behind her ear as she watched her friend scramble to find everything.
"I've been ready since last night, so I don't know why you're blaming me. Are you looking for this?" she held up a pair of sturdy runners, mud stained laces a knotty mess.
"Yes!" Gayle yelled, snatching the shoes and shoving her feet in them. Gwendolyn shook her head, smirking at her friend's antics.
The two twenty year olds had lived together since they were seventeen, renting the suite above Gayle's parents' garage. They had been best friends since grade ten at their high school, and had been in the same Guiding group. This weekend, all the girls in their group were getting together again for the first time in two years, and going on a three-day camping trip on Vancouver island.
"Come on slow poke. Let's go. We're taking my car!" Gwen called, grabbing her massive pack from beside the door down to the rest of the house.
"Fine... I still say that we should take my car," Gayle grumbled, rolling her eyes.
"I don't fit in the tin can you call a car, to say nothing of all the crap we have to take," Gwendolyn said, elbowing her friend in her ribs. Gwen had bought her parents standard Ford Escape, Gayle buying her dad's little Kia Rio. Gwen was almost six feet tall, most of that height coming from her legs, and fitting herself in her curly-haired friend's car was a chore.
She dug the keys out from the small front pouch of her bag and clicked open the silver Escape, unlatching the hatch and throwing her bag in the back on top of a four-man tent, a large cooler, and a fabric shopping bag full of chips and other junk food.
"You ready for this?" She laughed, knowing very well it was all that Gayle had been talking about for weeks. Both girls were excited, but Gayle was far more vocal about it, as she had been in Guides far longer than Gwen.
"I was born ready!" Gayle said, plugging her iPod in to the car and set to picking a song as they pulled out of the driveway.
The car, which Gayle had affectionately started calling Pedro, was standard, and Gwen had been driving it since she was sixteen, and was quite good at it.
Thinking about her car made Gwendolyn start thinking about her parents, and how she hadn't seen them, or her little brother for a while. I'll have to visit when I get back she thought. Her mother loved old folk tales and legends, and was responsible for naming Gwendolyn. She was also responsible for getting Gwen interested in piano, which was her favorite instrument.
Her father was more interested in science fiction novels and movies, and had dragged both his children into the 'wormhole of lasers and soul sucking aliens,' as her mom said.
Her brother, Garth, was an odd one in Gwendolyn's opinion. While she had a love of music, drawing, and was in her second year of Social Services at UFV with hopes of becoming a humanitarian, Garth was only interested in shooting people in videogames, and spent most of his time on the computer.
It took an hour to get to the ferry, then they were on their way to the island. Alix, Courtney, Jasmine, Megan, and Taylor had caught the earlier ferry, and were setting up tents on the campsite they had reserved.

Gayle insisted on bringing her pack up from the car, since she wanted to use some of the things she had brought during the ferry ride.
"I swear this bag is as big as I am," Gayle said, making Gwendolyn laugh. Their Guiding packs were indeed huge, with enough room to store a small child if you so desired, and plenty of straps to tighten and loosen each time you took the pack off or put it on.
"No joke. People must think we're moving into the ferry!" the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, the only things that happened was multiple card games of War that threatened to turn violent, and the purchasing of much candy.

"What do you think of Joey?" Gayle suddenly blurted out, referring to her boyfriend. Gwendolyn had been the one who set the two up, seeing as Joesef was a family friend. He was a total nerd, much like Gayle herself, and the two had gotten along splendidly, much to Gwen's approval.

"You two are extremely cute together, he likes you a lot, and he's funny, good natured, and generally nice to be around." Gwen laughed, twisting her hair into a bun with one of the many elastics on her wrist. "I hope you and him have a better relationship than," she shuddered. "Greg and I." Greg had been Gwen's one and only boyfriend. He transferred into her high school for grade twelve, and the two had several classes together. They dated until the end of the semester, and through half of the summer until Gwen heard of a party he went to in July where he soberly made out with all the girls there, then proceeded to spread rumours about how bad she was in bed, even though she would never have slept with anyone after such short a time.

The frown that had fallen over her face at the thought of Greg was quickly wiped away, and her normal smile returned. "Joe will not get the slushy umbrella from me!" The two burst into laughter at the thought of their inside joke.

"I almost forgot about that one, it's been so long since either of us brought it up!" Gayle said. "You came up with that in grade eleven, right?" Gwen nodded, grinning widely.

"What was it? 'If you ever date someone I think is a total jerk, I will wait until winter and fill his umbrella with slush so that when he opens it he'll get covered in said slush,'" She remembered, causing the two to laugh even more.

Gayle had far more luck in finding boys than Gwendolyn, even if the relationships didn't always stick, she was never lacking male attention.

"Hah! With my luck, I'll end up an old maid with more cats than I can count!" Gwen chuckled. She was one of the few girls in her university who was single, and she didn't mind it all that much. It did bother her sometimes, but for the most part, she was a girl who wouldn't date a boy just because he was there. She liked to think herself a good judge of character, even thought Greg proved she was not as infallible as she once thought.

Gayle smirked at her friend, knowing that she would find the right man someday. Gwendolyn was five foot eight, with long auburn hair and clear blue eyes. She was one of the kindest people Gayle knew, not liking to drag anyone down with gossip, but was headstrong as well. On a regular basis, her blue eyed friend stood up to the uptight popular kids when they picked on somebody, and she was a great friend who was always there for her.

"You'll find someone someday, Gwen. Don't worry. You just need someone good enough to come along." Gwendolyn rolled her eyes, sighing. The two went back to their game of War, headphones stretched between them as they hummed to whichever song came up.

They pulled into a parking spot beside Alix's Honda Civic, Gayle unplugging her iPod before joining Gwen at the back of the truck. Gwen checked her phone, double checking the directions to the campsite as she swung her heavy pack over a shoulder.

"We have to go down here," She said, gesturing to the path heading North from the parking lot. "Then take the second left. Alix says they're all set up, and our tent is ready." They left the cooler in the car, taking the tent and the bag of junk food with them.

The two walked in silence for a while before breaking into song. Both had taken vocal courses, and were decent singers, certainly not unpleasant to listen to. They sang One Life by Hedley as they made their way down the path. The skies had been clouding over as they drove from the ferry, and there was an impressive bank of dark clouds hanging over their heads.

Hopefully we won't have to cancel our trip Gwen thought, glancing at the cloud cover as they switched to Fallout by Marianas Trench.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Gayle announced just as they came within sight of the path they needed to take to where the others were. There was a gross looking old outhouse opposite the path, and Gayle set her pack on the ground before heading in.

"If there's a serial killer with a chain saw in there, scream so I can start running," Gwen said, smirking at her friend, who stuck her tongue out before shutting the door behind her.

"It smells worse than Becca's dairy farm in here!"

"Did you expect it to smell like roses and sunshine?" Gwen asked, shaking her head at her friend's antics. The path was surrounded by undergrowth at the edges, with huge, old evergreen trees a bit farther back. It was so peaceful, with birds chirping in the early summer air, squirrels chattering to one another as they rustled from tree to tree. This was the type of place she loved.

The booming sound of thunder filled the air.

"Great," Gayle said, still in the outhouse.

"Yeah, pretty much," Gwen agreed. It was then that something caught her eye sparkling in a bush. Taking a curious step closer, she saw it was a locket. It looked very familiar, like something she had seen before. She drew even with the bush, and realized that the heart-shaped locket, about the size of a loony, was the locket she had found when going through her grandmothers old jewelry, and was wearing at that moment. She had never been able to open it, but liked the way it looked, with vines twining around the edges, a smaller heart echoing the locket itself in the centre. She checked her neck, and found the locket was still there. She picked the locket up off the bush, noting that its chain was thicker, as if meant for a man. She found the little indent on the side, slipped her thumbnail into it and gently opened it.

There was a burst of light, and when Gayle exited the outhouse a moment later, her friend was gone, along with the clouds, both which were odd.

"Gwen? Come on! Let's go!" She said loudly, squinting in the sudden light. When this brought no response, Gayle figured that her friend must have gone ahead to the campsite, trying to freak her out. When she got there though, the others had no idea where their friend could be.

They figured she was playing some sort of joke, and thought she would turn up in a few minutes. After a while, they grew worried, and began looking for her, to no avail. By the time the sun was almost setting a few hours later, the campground was filled with policemen and search dogs.

Gwendolyn had blacked out when he locket she found lit up like stadium lights, and when she regained consciousness, there were two young girls hovering over her. She blinked a couple times to make sure she was seeing clearly, and the pair above her burst into shrill giggles, running off. Gwen pulled her arms out from under the thick, downy comforter on top of her, rubbing her eyes until she was sure they were working. It was then that she realized she was in a nightgown. She didn't know those things still existed, and it certainly wasn't hers.

She was in a medium sized room with faded blue paint, a night stand to one side with an unlit candle, and a window lighting the room. It the whole affair, while elegant and full of dignity, seemed past its prime, like her aunts stately old greyhound, Martin.

She slowly sat up, taking in the rest of the moderately furnished room. Besides the bed, a dresser, and a worn armchair, there wasn't much in the room. A faded painting of the grounds of some grand mansion adorned the wall, and there was a vase of fresh flowers on the dresser. She had just noticed her pack when a pounding as somebody ran up the stairs just outside the door broke Gwen's study of the room. A plump woman appeared at the doorway, accompanied by the two young girls who had ran from the room so suddenly. She realized they were all in old fashioned floor-length dresses, and was unsure as to what was going on.

"Good morning my dear!" The plump woman said, giving a small curtsy, echoed by the giggling girls, before coming to the side of the bed. "I am Mrs. Bennet. You gave us quite a turn. When we came across you in the backyard we thought you were slain!"

"My name is Lydia," Said one of the girls, giggling once more. She had a long face, and soft-looking mouse brown hair, and she gestured to the girl next to her. "And this is my sister Kitty!" Kitty elbowed her sister in the ribs and scowled at her.

"I am perfectly capable of introducing myself Lydia!"

Gwen turned her attention back to Mrs. Bennet, who was fussing over the covers.

"I'm Gwendolyn Yardley." She paused, taking a deep breath to steady herself. "Where am I?"

"Why, You are in Loungbourn, dear." Geography not being her strong point, Gwen furrowed her brow. She was going to ask if that was in Australia, but realized just in time that they had British accents.

"Oh. Okay. Um. Do you have any idea how I got here?" She asked, doubting they did, but asking anyway. She thought back to the last thing she remembered, and came to the conclusion that someone must have knocked her out and dumped her in some sort of Amish town. In Europe. What was going on?

"There was this marvellously loud clap of thunder!" Lydia said, flopping down on the foot of the bed, narrowly missing Gwen's foot.

"Not a cloud in the sky. It was quite queer," Kitty added.

"The gardener found you, out cold in the yard. He brought you in, and we've been taking care of you for... how long has it been Kitty?"

"Three days now." The way the two of them finished each other's sentences was quite distracting.

"Really? What's the date?" Mrs. Bennet frowned at her, seeming to disapprove of the way she spoke.

"It is July 24th 1797 dear. Goodness, you ask a lot of questions." She continued to prattle on about the Bennet's history, their house, and her four daughters, but Gwen didn't register any of it.

"I need to go outside," She decided, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, steadying herself on the bed post as a wave of hunger hit her.

"You must eat first! Where were you heading to before you passed out in our backyard?"

"I- I- I just need to go outside, I need to check something," Gwen insisted, heading to the door, her legs working better now. Mrs. Bennet followed, all concerned, telling Gwen she ought to eat something. She ran down two flights of stairs to the bottom floor, and was grateful that the front door was right there so she didn't run around the Bennet's house looking foolish. Upon exiting the house, her jaw almost fell off her skull.

Gwendolyn wasn't in Kansas anymore. There were chickens squawking and plucking corn off the ground, a wolfhound chasing a flock of geese around the feet of a gardener trimming a hedgerow.

There was a dirt lane just to the left with a horse-drawn carriage trundling along. What struck Gwen most about the whole thing was how clean the air seemed. Even up in the mountains, where her parents had a cabin, the air was never this fresh. The sky was brighter, and everything just seemed... cleaner.

"Oh." Her legs stopped working, and Gwen sat down on the step quite hard.

For Gwen, the next two months were a bit of a blur. She met the rest of the Bennets, and quite liked them. She tried to explain as best she could where she came from, but the only thing they really seemed to understand was that she had nowhere to go. For the first two weeks, she would stay in the little room they had provided her, curtains shut, fighting depression and trying to figure out how to get home, lockets constantly at hand. Jane or the Bennet's maid would bring her food at the appropriate time, which she would rarely eat. Sometimes, Jane would stay for a while, and try to get Gwen to open up, and she slowly started to, telling the kind, soft-spoken girl about her friends back home, her life. Eventually, Gwen managed to pick herself up out of her emotional stupor to venture around the house.

A little over two weeks after she arrived, Gwen finally set the lockets down. She wasn't sure how the lockets worked into the event that brought her to the eighteenth century. Both opened now, and only contained blank white slips of paper, and nothing she did to them could convince them to take her back to her family and friends. There was no secret button she could find, and nothing she did to them triggered any sort of response. In a fit of temper, she had even tried to smash them against a stone wall, but they weren't even scratched. She had settled herself on the fact that she would be there for a while, and wasn't as tenacious about fooling with the unresponsive lockets. When she wasn't fiddling with the lockets, she slipped the one she had found into an interior pocket in her guiding pack so it wouldn't get lost, putting hers back on. Throughout the following months, she would lay both on the bed, and she would stare at them for a half hour or more, willing them to send her home. It was quite curious. Neither locket would open if not in the presence of the other.

She found much healing on the Bennet family pianoforte, playing all her favorite songs. She and Mary got along fairly well, though the younger girl was slightly bitter that Gwen could play the piano even if only slightly better than she.

Mrs. Bennet and Jane took on joint responsibility for teaching Gwen the proper etiquette and dance, and the auburn haired girl found it a welcome distraction. While the way they used their words was far more complex than she was used to, she could understand their meaning more, and was getting better at speaking like they did. Mr and Mrs. Bennet came to regard Gwen as sort of a long lost child, and she got along with their other children well enough to be considered their sister.

The family had come to terms with the fact that they would never understand where the new member to the household came from, but knew that she was something special. Gwendolyn had amazed them with her cell phone, even though there was no service, and Jane had helped her go through her iPod, writing all the lyrics to Gwen's favorite songs down so she wouldn't forget them when her battery died.

Having come to the conclusion that where Gwendolyn truly came from was beyond imagination, they quickly agreed that they would tell all their friends that the Yardley's were family friends, and Gwen's parents had both met unfortunate ends. They told everyone who cared to know that they took Gwen under their wing, and they would be caring for her until she found a husband.

Once she had recovered, and gotten more used to the fact that she was stuck in the past, Gwen opened up a bit more, and they found her near constant smile and caring nature endearing. Jane, whose room she had been occupying, moved back in when Gwen started recovering from her bought of depression. The eldest Bennet had been in the younger girls' room, and, thankfully, the two oldest children of the household got along amiably.

Gwen would always miss her friends and family, though, and Jane would often wake her from nightmares. There was one in particular that occurred alarmingly frequently. She would be on the bank of a river with the Bennets, and across the river would be her family and friends. The Bennets would beg her to stay, but she longed to be with the people she knew, who were beckoning her over. She'd leap in the water, the dress she was wearing hampering her greatly. She would look back to the Bennets, who were sadly turning and walking away from the river, fading into the forest that had sprung up behind them.

She would turn back to the shore where her family and friends were, and keep swimming towards them, but she'd never seem to get any closer than the middle of the river. Her dress would keep getting heavier and heavier, and her family would start to point and laugh at her struggles. She'd turn around to go back, but that didn't work either. Everything outside the river would start running and dripping like melting wax, including the people she was trying to reach, and then her dress would pull her under, water filling her mouth and nose, making her wake up spluttering and coughing.

The nightmare, while unpleasant, always faded quickly, and Gwen would normally be in better spirits by the time breakfast was done. She was a great help around the house, cleaning up after herself (thanks to years of her mother's incessant training), and was a great help with the other animals on the property.

Gwendolyn knew she had become a part of the family when Mrs. Bennet a) insisted she refer to herself and Mr. Bennet as mother and father, and b) began including her in her rants about how none of her poor daughters were married. Gwen had quickly gotten used to Mrs. Bennets seemingly desperate need to marry off her children, and Jane had explained that who a daughter married meant everything to the parents, a foreign concept to Gwen. She had grown up with the idea that she could marry whomever she chose for whichever reason she chose, within some reasonable boundaries. Jane smiled softly when Gwen had crossed her arms and stubbornly stated that she wouldn't be marrying anyone she didn't want to, and softly told her that Gwen would have to have the worst of luck to remain single.

Charlotte Lucas, whom Gwen had befriended in August, agreed with the eldest Bennet girl's assessment, telling Gwen that only Jane's beauty itself surpassed Gwen's, which the blue-eyed girl waved off with a smirk. She figured that if boys from her own time hadn't found her attractive, then boys from this time probably wouldn't either.

She supposed she had developed a bit of Stockholm syndrome, adapting to survive, but there was nothing she could do to get back to where she came from. Sometimes, the thoughts of what and who she left behind would hit her, and she'd get quiet, tears threatening.

Charlotte and Jane were the best at recognizing these moments, and would do their best to cheer Gwen up.

While she got along with all the Bennets, Lydia was the one whose sanity she most questioned. Kitty was her accomplice. But Gwen was sure that the second youngest sister would be more sensible if separated from her younger sibling.

It was a fateful day, however, when Gwen was returning home from a walk, having been sketching in the field, and just as she passed the window to Mr. Bennet's study, overheard Mrs. Bennet proclaim loudly.

"Netherfield has let at last!"

AN: Hope you liked it! If you have constructive criticism, please feel free to tell me. Please review. I like to know what people think. Also, the more reviews I get, the more likely I am to want to post more :)