EPISODE: EPILOGUE Q&A #4

The viewers are treated to a surprise when today's video opens - Lizzie and Darcy are still in his New York apartment; but sitting between them this time is someone else: Fitz!

Lizzie gives a huge grin and gestures at the newcomer Vanna-White-esquely. "Hey, everybody - guess who's in town this weekend!"

Fitz raises his arms triumphantly in the air. "Heyyyyy!" Darcy chuckles. Fitz brings his arms back down and raises a hand more normally in greeting. "Hello everybody, it is lovely to be back on the small screen, here with my friends..." he puts an arm around the shoulder of each as he names them, "...Ms. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. William Darcy." He flashes them a thousand-watt grin and his tone becomes sly. "Or is it Mr. Elizabeth Bennet and Ms. William Darcy yet?"

Lizzie and Darcy both flush and make various noises of protest. Fitz takes his arms off from around their shoulders and holds his hands up defensively. "I was just checking," he protests with amusement. "Thought maybe you'd gotten tired of 'living in sin' here in the Big Apple," he teases. As they both shoot him 'don't be ridiculous' expressions, he swivels his head from one to the other. "Too soon?" he asks drolly.

However, neither of them immediately meets this last question with any kind of vehement denial. In fact, they've both taken a breath and then paused thoughtfully. Between this silent interchange, Fitz turns back to the camera and gives the audience a look of wide-eyed glee.

A cut, and Darcy and Lizzie have their attention back at the camera. Fitz gives another devilish grin and continues. "Anyway, good people of the Internet, I am here this weekend, to take in the sights and the various warm weather festivities that this fine city has to offer...and while I'm here, I thought I'd drop by and help Lizzie and Darcy..." here he leans forwards, widens his eyes, and raises his voice, "actually finish answering your questions!"

Lizzie gives a rueful expression. "Yeah, we're just not very good at moving through them quickly."

Fitz gives a decisive nod, and announces, "My name is Fitz Williams...and I am cracking the whip here!"

Darcy and Lizzie are still sitting expectantly on either side of Fitz when we return from the animated logo and theme song, and Fitz is reading from a piece of paper. "Darcy," he begins the first question, tilting his head in the direction of that gentleman, "How did you come to fall in love with Lizzie?"

Lizzie looks very interested to hear the answer to this, while Darcy looks a bit uncomfortable at the personal nature of the question. "Well," he opens thoughtfully, looking down briefly at his hands in his lap, "I'm not quite sure. In one way, it was quite gradual, and in another, it...came crashing down on me." He looks over at Lizzie. "I believe I was already in love with you before I realised I'd started to fall in love with you."

She shakes her head disbelievingly. "But how did you start? You didn't think I was anything great to look at...and I was always so rude to you! So...what was it? Did you fall in love with my snark?!"

Darcy gives a small exhaling sort of laugh and looks at her. "I must admit, your quick wit was very appealing." When she snorts, he presses his point. "I'm quite serious. You're very compelling, you know." She shudders at this, and he frowns. "What?"

She makes a face. "I hate that word. 'Compelling'. That's what Caroline always calls me."

Darcy inclines his head towards her apologetically. "I certainly won't use it again, then."

But the mention of Caroline seems to have given Lizzie an idea, and she regards him thoughtfully. "Maybe I was just the first woman you'd ever met who didn't fawn all over you, hoping to hook you and your money." As he quirks an eyebrow at this, she looks suddenly embarrassed. "So...you fell in love with me because I was rude to you? Great," she mutters sarcastically.

Darcy's expression turns serious. "No, not at all," he protests. "I observed many things about you - your devotion to Jane...actually, your concern and loyalty for all the people you love, and your enjoyment of their company...your sense of fun, your intelligence, your vivacious personality..."

She looks rather astonished, then counters, "Not to mention my scintillatingly decent-enough good looks?"

He shakes his head. "That was an incredibly stupid first assessment. I obviously wasn't seeing clearly that first night."

Darcy starts to give her a lovingly admiring look, but Fitz, having silently observed this whole interchange, leans back deliberately to block it, and holds up a warning finger. "Ah-ah-ah!" he admonishes, looking at Darcy. "No canoodling this time, if you please...we have to move on to the next question!"

Before either Darcy or Lizzie can register an objection to 'canoodling', there's a cut, and Fitz is reading from the list again. "Darcy, how did your aunt react when you told her you were dating Lizzie?"

While Lizzie sighs and looks off to the side, Darcy's expression becomes taut, and he presses his lips together angrily. "She...expressed some...dissatisfaction...with my choice."

Lizzie snorts and looks around at Darcy. "'Dissatisfaction with your choice'? That's putting it mildly!"

Darcy's jawline is thrown into sharp relief as he tenses further. "Well, I see no reason to go into the specifics of the language she used."

Lizzie turns appealingly to Fitz. "He hasn't spoken to her since."

Darcy raises an eyebrow. "She was incredibly insulting, Lizzie. If she can't treat you with the courtesy due to the woman I love, I see no reason to maintain any contact with her."

Fitz looks at his friend with concern. "She's your aunt, man."

Lizzie nods in agreement with Fitz. "I mean, don't get me wrong, she's not my favourite person, but..." she shoots Darcy a deeply apologetic expression, "she's the closest family you have, aside from Gigi." She tilts her head appealingly. "Didn't you say there wasn't anything you wouldn't do for me?" As his eyes widen in surprise, she leans towards him. "I know how important your family is to you - I don't want to be the cause of any rifts in it!"

Darcy casts his eyes down for a moment, but remains very tense. At length, he looks back at Lizzie and takes a slow breath. "I...will consider it." Before she can start smiling in reaction, though, he holds up his hand. "Just...not yet. She said some things...that I cannot easily forgive. I need some time."

Lizzie looks into his face thoughtfully for a moment before nodding and smiling. She reaches behind Fitz to touch Darcy's arm in gratitude. Fitz, meanwhile, is looking pretty impressed at this resolution.

A cut, and Fitz looks at the next question on the list. He snorts before he reads it out. "How is Caroline dealing with everything that's happened?"

Lizzie and Darcy both try valiantly to suppress smiles, but not quite successfully. "Well..." Lizzie begins. There's a pause as she considers what to say next.

A cut, and her head is tilted in a different direction. "Ummm..."

Another cut, and she's gazing down thoughtfully at her lap, frowning. "She..."

Another cut, and she's looking appealingly over to Darcy. "Help me out here?"

Another cut, and Darcy looks uncertainly at the camera. "Er..."

Another cut, and Fitz leans forward, taking over. "I think Caroline has decided that she would still like a functioning relationship with her brother, so..."

Lizzie starts to nod gratefully. "Yes...yes! That's true." She gestures expressively with one hand. "So...she's being...nice."

Darcy looks amused, and cocks an eyebrow at her. "Nice?"

Lizzie looks calmly over at him and nods again, slowly. "Yes. Nice."

They all look back back towards the camera.

A cut, and Fitz turns to Lizzie. "Do you think Jane is buying it?"

Lizzie chuckles. "I think Jane is being as pleasant to Caroline as ever," she answers diplomatically. As Fitz shoots her a skeptical look, her expression and tone of voice become more honest. "Well, she is, I mean...it's Jane, right?" As Fitz and Darcy shrug and nod at the truth of this, she adds, "But...I don't think Jane is ever going to be quite as...open...with Caroline in the future, as she was last summer."

Fitz nods. "Fair enough," he says, picking up his question list again. "Next...how's Gigi doing these days?"

They all smile at the camera on hearing this question - we can even see a dimple from Darcy. "I think she's doing wonderfully," he offers. Looking over at Lizzie, he asks, "The two of you have been getting on well, haven't you?"

He's answered with a grin. "Very well!" she says enthusiastically. "I mean...she's busy with school, and I'm busy here, so we've only been able to text each other lately, but we've picked things up right from where we left off when I was at Pemberley." She chuckles. "I think she's a bit shocked at how much I tell her I tease you, though."

Fitz laughs, too. "Yeah, well, Darcy's usually a pretty hard guy to tease...especially for a very little sister!"

Darcy sighs. "Are you trying to teach Gigi how to tease me?" he asks Lizzie, attempting to sound put-upon.

Lizzie considers this. "No..." she finally says, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully, "I think I'm actually teaching her how to tease her future boyfriends."

At this, Darcy's nostrils flare, but just as he's inhaling sharply to say something in response, there's a quick cut. Fitz leans towards the camera intensely and calls out, "Anyway..."

Another cut, and Fitz looks at his question sheet once more before tossing it over his shoulder. "Last question: How is 'Jing' doing? Do we hear wedding bells?"

Lizzie lets out a disbelieving laugh. "Oh, I think it's a little early for that." Beside her, however, Darcy starts to tense up and his eyes dart away from the camera, appearing interested in another part of the room. Initially oblivious to this, Lizzie continues. "I mean, it's only been, what, two months since they got back together? And, okay, yes, they were together last summer...and yes, they are spending every free waking moment together now...but still, it's way...too...soon..." She trails off mid-sentence, as she and Fitz have both noticed Darcy's discomfiture. Darcy's demeanour becomes even less relaxed as their attention focuses on him. Lizzie frowns, looking more intently at him. "What? What did I say? Why are you..."

Fitz peers closer at Darcy as well. "Do you...know something?"

Darcy draws himself up and looks back at the two of them, attempting nonchalance. "Know something?"

Fitz's eyes narrow, and he points a finger at Darcy. "Yeah...you are totally hiding something, man."

Darcy gives a derisive snort. "I?" he asks in a dignified tone.

Lizzie's eyes suddenly widen. "Wait a minute...you said you helped Bing go shopping on Friday, didn't you?"

Darcy pulls himself up even further and turns away from them to face the camera, raising an eyebrow inscrutably. "Is this relevant to anything?"

Lizzie's mouth purses to one side, and she leans in closer, her finger pointing at him. "And what exactly was he shopping for? Perhaps...jewelry?!"

The eyebrows twitch again, and Darcy pulls his chin back into his neck. "I really don't think your viewers are interested in the minutiae of the male shopping experience."

Fitz's mouth quirks into a side-smirk, while Lizzie's jaw drops. "Oh...my...gawd," she says slowly. At this point, a cheery little ringtone sounds. Longtime viewers will recognize that particular sound as signalling an incoming text from Jane. As Lizzie whips out her phone and reads the message, her drama quotient escalates. "Oh my GAWD!" she screams.

Fitz chuckles. "Lizzie B, you are freaking out," he observes.

She covers her face with her hands (and phone) and makes some inarticulate freaking-out noises.

Suddenly, Darcy chuckles too, and the other two look at him in surprise. "What?" Lizzie asks him accusingly.

"Well," he says, his smile beginning to broaden, "it turns out that your mother may have been right all along." As Lizzie's nostrils begin to flare in horror, Darcy turns to the camera, and clarifies:

"A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

He grins saucily, flashing quite a lot of dimple.

Fin.

Aaaaand...that concludes my take on how an epilogue to the LBD series could end off! Thanks so much for reading, and extra thanks if you wrote any reviews! (And if you haven't written a review, but want to - please do!)

If you liked this, check out my other LBD episode prediction stories, "The Last Two Episodes" and "The Pemberley Placement". I don't have any other stories planned for the immediate future, but I will certainly write something if the mood hits me! In the meantime, I have a Tumblr, feel free to check it out, username midnightstylus, just like here.