Disclaimer: I know that you know that I know that I don't own anything worth having.

Author's Note: Thank you for the reviews, please keep them coming. They help me through the writing slumps I've been feeling the past couple days.

For everyone who have already left awesome reviews, this not-so-cliffhangery chapter is for you.

The Netherfield Effect.

9. Waiting.

Bing's birthday was six weeks after Lizzie and Jane returned home from Netherfield and already the plans for the event were in full swing. In addition to the party plans that Jane was always mentioning, life itself was getting away from Lizzie: almost as soon as they returned home Ricky came back into town. Without those at Netherfield unoccupied enough to distract her, Lizzie was forced to put up with the man as her mother was insistant on having him around; and then there was the fallout when Charlotte took the job that had been first offered to Lizzie. The best friends were going to be farther away from one another than either of them had been before. That they were fighting didn't ease Lizzie's tension at how things in her life currently stood.

But there did seem to be one silver lining in the chaos that was her the first month home: George Wickham. After weeks of texting and keeping in touch through conversations with Ricky and her mother's needling and missing Charlotte, he was finally back in town. And she was glad. After the company of men like Darcy and Ricky, here was a man who showed genuine interest in her and who didn't play games, and never went hot and then suddenly cold on her, and who was more-or-less from the same kind of world that she had grown up in. He ate meat on a stick and played video games and knew all the words to bad 90's songs. In short - he was everything she had never known to appreciate in a man before.

The night after his return to town, he took her out as he had promised. A casual date: a walk, and a light meal. They joked and talked about nothing of importance, showing shallow reflections of what they believed the other thought they were. And neither of them dared to broach the topic that had united them - Darcy, although she was sure that he was as much on George's mind as he was on hers.

It had been a month since he had left town (well four weeks and two days but who was counting) and she had tried not to think of him. With so much going on and falling apart around her, it should have been easy. But with so much in her life tied to him... at times she felt like he was the thing that started it all – started her down the road of doubt and loss and second guesses that reminded her of those day time soap operas that her mother used watch.

She spent much of her free time now that Charlotte wasn't talking to her and packing up to leave, with Jane and Bing - and Caroline - planning what her mother said was going to be the party of the decade. And every time they met, Caroline thought it prudent to mention their absent friend. According to Caroline, she and Darcy were in constant contact since he went away. And the distance, she claimed, was helping him to realign his priorities.

Maybe Caroline was what finally pushed Lizzie into accepting George's offer, despite Lizzie not having been sure that it was the best idea. Although she wasn't sure how going out with someone Caroline didn't care about was really proving a point to anyone. Maybe it was just the excuse she was looking for?

But Lydia was proud of her. She had said, after all, that if Lizzie didn't go after George Wickham, she would have.

~*~LBD~*~

"I'm glad you decided to come out," George told her, getting back into his car after the movie. It had been a last minute plan, and she had readily agreed. Of course, she probably would have agreed to anything to have an evening away from party planning.

"Me too. It was fun."

"Was? You think the night is over?"

She laughed, "What else do you have planned?"

He shrugged, looking her over, eyebrow raised. "We could always go to look out point."

She forgot how to breath for a moment, remembering the last time she had been taken there. She tried to laugh. "You know what, I think I'll have to pass on that one. It's kind of high school."

"So I guess running off to Vegas is also out.'

"Yeah, I think it is for tonight."

"Some other time then."

She nodded and he smiled. The first time he had smiled at her she had felt it in her toes - warm and special. Now there was a nagging feeling that came with it. A feeling that something just wasn't right. It was a feeling that after this second date, she still couldn't place.

"Why don't we call it a night?" She asked after a stretched out moment of silence, no longer feeling social.

An eyebrow rose, "Are you propositioning me, Miss Bennet? I'll have you know, I never put out until the third date. I am, after all, a gentleman. But, I can pencil you in for tomorrow."

"Just drop me off at my door, Monsieur gentleman." She laughed, falling into easy conversation with him again. Despite everything else, she would give him credit, being with him was simple. It was nice, being with someone that didn't make you angry like Ricky did, or self-conscious and confused the way... Well, things with George were just easy. Things often were, she realized, when there was nothing at stake.

He walked her to the front door, and gave her a light kiss goodnight. She stopped him from walking away, pulling him in for another, less innocent, kiss. There was something she needed to find out.

George winked at her when he stepped back, "I will see you later, Peach. We'll have to talk about that third date."

She couldn't help her frown as she watched him leave, her fingers tracing patterns over her lips. That wasn't what she had been expecting at all, nor was she as surprised as she thought she should have been. And, as she made her way to her room, she wasn't sure if she should have been more disappointed that it wasn't.

~*~ LBD ~*~

In her room, shutting the door tightly behind her less Lydia demand to know why she was home so early, she flopped down on her bed. She was suddenly very tired, which didn't help as there was much that she had to think about. George Wickham, it seemed, had lost some his charm since their first meeting. Was it really a change in him, or her? After all, she had met him during a time when gentlemen in her life was scarce, and he was alone among 25 ass holes. And Darcy, she added almost unwillingly, knowing that that was also at a time when she didn't really understand him either.

And it was true that she still preferred George to Ricky, and that he was fun to waste time with but... Since they met she had gotten to know Bing who was definitely in a class beyond Wickham, and then there was also Darcy who, despite her fighting him every step of the way, had left her wanting more of a life she knew she couldn't have.

Groaning, she stretched out, pushing off the contents that had been in her purse before going out that night. Being last minute plans, she had been running late, and she hardly ever used the small purse that she saved for nights out. So, when the doorbell rang and her mother yelled that there was a "nice, handsome, verile looking young man at the door" dumping out the contents of said purse seemed the quicker and less embarrassing option to actually cleaning it out.

Now going through the jumble of items that had built up over the weeks of using it as storage for her other handbags would have to wait until the next day, when she could actually care what was kept and tossed away. Thus decided, she started pushing old receipts and hair elastics and that lip balm she had accused Lydia of taking onto the floor. She paused as an envelop grazed against her fingers.

Suddenly she remembered. Darcy. How had she forgotten about the letter that had seemed all important at the time when he put it in her hand? Oh right, she had gotten drunk and had to help deal with Lydia who had managed to get even drunker. Then there was Ricky, then George, then Charlotte, her mother, and the ever present Bing and Caroline and their party, and trying not to think of Darcy.

Steeling herself for whatever she might find, she twirled the envelop between her fingers, studying it. Like the man who wrote it, it confused her. The paper was fine, expensive most likely, probably the finest that Caroline could buy with her brother's money. But she could tell that the pen he had used was old – a fountain pen? - based upon the font and the blot when he had written her name in an elegant scrawl. Of course he would use cursive, no one else she knew did.

Only the CEO of a media company specializing in the latest technological trends in communication would prefer a handwritten letter using an archaic pen and outdated font. Even still, it made her smile as she opened it. The smile, however, was quick to fade as she began to read.

"Dear Lizzie,

My entire life I had been led to believe that I knew myself. Twenty-nine years, I feel, is a long time to be mistaken, especially since I now know, since meeting you, that I have to re-evaluate how I, and others, see me. Before your coming into my life, I was unaware of how much was lacking in my abilities to communicate and connect effectively with those not already known to me. While I have since worked on improving my skills in these areas, I will confess that I have a long way yet to go.

When I first came into your town it was on the heels of my dealings with my sister's heartache. As I had told you, she and I had never fought, and to have her cutting me out of her life as she had, played a role in my unsocial behaviour upon my arrival. I know that there is no excuse I can offer for my apparent knack for miscommunication. As there is no excuse I would insult both of us in offering, I will give you instead, an explanation of my history and dealings with George Wickham in hopes that you will comprehend my feeling and actions towards him.

George's father was a good friend to my own and as such, we spent much time together during vacations and holidays, and were encouraged in our closeness growing up. As George was always closer to home than I was, and as my father had a warm spot in his heart for his friend's son, and due to his generous nature and affection he gave George the best of everything. I don't believe George's father could afford much time, affection or resources for him as his wife was rumoured to have problems that took such attentions.

Looking back, perhaps that is where George learned to be who he turned out to be. To both our fathers, however, he was ever the ideal of what a son should be. While not a scholar, he excelled at sports and my father remarked more than once how he wished that I had some of the same abilities. As a young man, I will own myself to have been envious of his relationship with my father, especially after he lost his own.

To my father and those he wished to impress, he presented a front that was everything good and charitable. To myself, and his peers, however, he was more open, and I often saw the beginnings of what I now know to be his true nature. Should I have tried harder to curb his behaviours when we were young and later whenhe visited me at university? During my first two years at Harvard, as I struggled to become the man I felt my father wished me to be, I had thought George a resource. I still felt him a brother until I began to watch him when he failed to guard himself. I watched how he was with women. It was just another game for him to play. Women were something to chase, to be caught, and then turned aside when he grew wary of them. A peach to be plucked, and discarded once everything good was sucked away and only the pit remained.

More and more during these years he showed himself reckless and prone to doing things to excess – drinking, gambling, fighting... there was more than one occasion where I had to bail him out of jail, or convinced someone not to press charges. All of this, my father didn't know and I could not be the one to tell him. I would never be the one who broke his heart.

I loved my father, Lizzie. He was the best of men. I know others might have gloated over the fall from grace of their father's favourite. But I never could, not when doing so would hurt the man who had given me more than I would ever be able to repay. One of my greatest strengths, I believe, is my want to protect those I love. When thinking on George, I wonder if it was also a weakness.

Until his dying day, my father never knew the true nature of the man he held as close to him as a son. He even used the last of his college contacts to get George into Oxford, the school that he had wished for me to attend – something that we could have shared. I know that he felt disappointment with my decision to go to Harvard, but I felt it important to stay close by. We had just lost my mother. The company needed me close. Gigi needed me and I felt that my father needed me too. Just as I needed to be nearer to them; nearer to home.

I don't know what would have happened if my father had not have died that summer. I don't know who George would have become, as I don't know what would have become of us all, but my father did not live to see Wickham off to Oxford. Instead, it fell to me to give him the funds that my father had set aside for him. I wanted to believe Wickham sincere in his want to go and in him wanting to do justice to my father's memory. I own to you that I had seen enough of him and his nature by that point to know that my wants and hopes were most likely in vain. I had doubts, even as I tried to believe he was not beyond hope, more for my father's sake than his own. I tried to persuade him to allow me to pay the school directly, but he declined. He said that he was old enough and man enough to take care of everything himself.

Foolishly, I allowed it. What my father gave him should have been more than enough to cover four years of studies, expenses and board. It was less than a year later when he returned, asking for more. I refused him, knowing that I had already allowed him to abuse my father's good will. I would not allow him free rein with mine as well. I will spare you the insults and tactics he utilized to get me to change my mind before he left. Had I not been grieving the loss of my father, I might have paid more attention to his departure as it was quick. He did not leave with a threat on his lips, although I now know that there was one there, left unspoken between us.

Perhaps naively, I hoped that he was gone from my life forever. I was even willing to overlook the whispers and rumors of lies that he was said to spread about me wherever he went. I knew that he wished revenge on me, I knew him too well to have ever thought otherwise. However, never would I have dreamed the lengths he would go to in order to achieve it. Not until the spring when I discovered him with my sister.

My sister is one of the most important people in my life. She is the best of both my parents and the only true family I have left. There is nothing that I wouldn't do to make her happy, and nothing I wouldn't do to protect her. As I know him well, so to does Wickham know me. He used the one thing left in my life that was good and pure in order to exact a revenge he felt owed to him. He seduced her, made her fall in love with him, and tried to turn her against me all because I had denied him wealth.

He was with her for her money while she was with him for love. She believed him to be sincere, and believed him when he told her that I was trying to hurt her by forcing him from her for my own cause. I will not go into the details of how I acted when I discovered their relationship, knowing who he was and what he wanted. I would rather forget those moments that led to my sister's heartbreak. I only wish I had had some other way to have shown her the truth of these things that would have spared her the pain that she felt when Wickham choose my cheque over her affections.

I sincerely wish that you never know the pain of seeing your sister crushed for what someone can gain by using her. I also hope that you might now forgive me my hatred of him, or think me more just in these feelings that I cannot want to change towards him.

You once discussed in your videos the disadvantages of growing up without financial resources. You may not believe this, but I know the disadvantages that come from have too much. You grow up suspicious of those around you. When people think they can take advantage of you, they will. When you have money it is hard to know why people are in your life: because of who you are or what you can provide. This is a pain that I know well, and a pain that I would do all I can to prevent in others. I would not wish Bing to live with the same regrets, betrayals and hurt that I have felt. It is the same, I am sure, as what you would do protect those you care about as well.

I have said all I can say to clarify our latest miscommunication. If you still truly think as poorly of me as you seemed to in your last video, I will direct you to my oldest friend Fitz Williams, who knows of what happened first hand, and has been looking after my sister in my absence ever since.

I hope that I will see you at Bing's birthday party. Until then, be well. Be happy, Lizzie Bennet.

Yours Truly,

William Darcy.

P.S. I feel it prudent to add this word of caution. If Wickham knows of your videos, as I suspect he might, then he is also aware of my attachment to you. I would not put it past him to try to do to you what he did to my sister. Please, do not let him near you. I pray that my warnings have not come too late."

When Lizzie finished the letter, she was no longer ready to go to bed. Once again William Darcy was the reason she wasn't going to get any sleep. Once again, she was left not knowing what the hell to think.

~*~TBC~*~

A/N: Thank you to my friend Phil who helped me with this letter.