Disclaimer: Not mine.

Author's Note: So this is the second time uploading this chapter. My apologies to those who couldn't read it before. My computer is quickly limping to it's death, and it seems that my word program is one of the first things to go. But enough about that...

Please keep the reviews coming, they make me happy to know how I'm doing and how I can improve.

The Netherfield Effect.

10. Coming to Terms.

Not for the first time since she left, Lizzie wished that she and Charlotte were on speaking terms. She could have used her level-headed bestie right now. There was too much changing and happening in her life with too little to tie her to the ground. Jane was quickly transforming into one-half of a happy couple, Lydia was showing too much interest in the mysterious "man-cake" George who was proving himself persistent, if nothing else. Add to that Charlotte, and her mother and Darcy and her final year at grad school and worries about her parent's financial situation... and she felt herself lucky to know who she was anymore.

And yet, with all this going on in her life, her attention was constantly being pulled to the one thing in the entire situation that was solid, that she could actually put her fingers on - Darcy's letter. In the week since she had opened it she had read and re-read it until she felt she knew every sentiment, confession and comma held within the pages by heart. She figured that she could pick out his hand writing at 100 yards, not that any of that had brought her any closer to figuring out what she was going to do or felt.

There was a knock at her bedroom door, pulling her attention from the pages that were quickly looking worn. Sitting up on her bed, hiding the letter under her pillow, she called for Jane to enter.

"How did you know it was me?" The eldest Bennet sister asked, almost singing the words to her less than chipper sister.

"You ooze happiness. It enters the room before you do. Plus, I didn't hear and wailing or disappointed remarks from the hall, so I knew you couldn't have been Mom."

"She's still upset about the job?"

Lizzie nodded, "Yeah. I don't suppose you'd want to get pregnant or have a fight with Bing to distract her."

"Sorry. But hey, I'm on my way to Bing's to help him keep Caroline in line with the party planning. She is getting carried away, and it's not easy for him to say no to her. Why don't you come along?"

"Is this some strategy to get Caroline to focus her anger on me so that Bing can get the party he wants?"

"She's not angry with you."

"That isn't a defence, Jane."

Jane rolled her eyes, "Come on, Lizzie. You need to get out of the house, and you'll be doing me a huge favour. Please? I'll make you cookies."

Lizzie knew Jane better than almost anyone. She knew by Jane's expression that she wasn't going to win this one, although she never could really deny either of her sisters as much as she probably felt she should. Right then, her sister was in 'worried older sister' mode which meant that she was one step away from being a constant pusher of tea.

"They better be Snickerdoodles," she grumbled as she reached for a sweater. "And we better not run into Mom on the way out the door."

~*~LBD~*~

"Have you heard from Darcy," Caroline asked Bing five minutes after Jane and Lizzie joined the siblings at the table overflowing with the last minute party planning details and check lists. "He hasn't confirmed yet if he's going to make it back for the party."

"He's a busy guy," Bing allowed, "He'll make it if he can."

"Have you talked to him, Lizzie?" Caroline smiled sweetly, "Since you two seemed to be so close while you were staying here."

Lizzie fought the urge to grit her teeth as she returned the brunette's smile. "No, I haven't."

"Hmmm... I guess it was just a summer thing, then. Must not have been anything worth holding onto for neither of you to try to keep in touch."

"As Bing said, he's a busy guy." She lost her battle, and her jaw clenched. It was either that or smack her. So she supposed it was the lesser of the two evils, even if it was the less satisfying of the available options.

Ever the peace keeper, Bing cleared his throat, pulling both women's attentions to him. "Caroline, did you invite Gigi? And Fitz?"

"Of course, I adore them both. It has been too long since we've spent any time with them. Perhaps I should visit them in San Francisco after your party. Lizzie, have you ever been there?"

"No, I can't say that I have. You'll have to write me about it when you go there."

Jane shot Lizzie a warning look as Caroline continued to tell the sisters about everything she loved about the city the Darcy's lived in and all the things that she had seen with both siblings, proving herself to be an intimate, if not vital, friend of the family.

~*~LBD~*~

"Hey Peach, so three texts and two calls before I can get you on the phone. Either you don't want to talk to me or you're playing hard to get."

Lizzie let out a deep breath, really not knowing how to talk to him now that she had heard the other side of his history. "Or I could just have a lot going on."

"Fair enough, but I prefer to think you're playing hard to get. Listen, I don't have a lot of time to chat, but I just wanted to check to see if we're still on."

"On for what?"

"Bing's party. You did invite me as your date, didn't you?"

Lizzie leaned against her bedroom door, cursing herself for having forgotten. She did invite him to come as her plus one to Bing's party. But that was before: before the letter, before her own doubts, before she didn't know if he was both more and less than he showed himself to be.

"Hey, it's fine if you changed your mind.

She hated herself in moments like these, moments where she was torn and found herself drawn into him, into his voice and into the calm that being around him brought. With him, it was easy, she didn't feel there was anything at risk.

"No, it's just... Darcy. He's going to be there. All things considered, I didn't think you'd want to go with him there."

"I'm not scared of Darcy. Are you?" There was a challenge in his tone, a dare.

"Not at all. I just don't want there to be a scene, not on Bing's birthday."

"Right, because of your sister." His tone said more than she liked. It said that he thought her mother right, and it said that he felt Jane was with Bing not only because she liked him, but because she had something else to gain, something that could be lost by the conflict of having George there.

"No, it's because of Bing. He's my friend, I don't want to be the reason he's uncomfortable at his own birthday."

"Okay, I get that. So I won't go. But you owe me. And I plan to collect, with interest."

Lizzie hung up the phone and instinctively went to the volume of famous letters on her bookshelf, where her own letter was hidden amidst the pages, safely tucked between Jane Austen and Beethoven. She looked between her phone and the letter, the remnants of two men, two stories, two sides of one history. She needed to know which one was true. She needed to bring in someone else. She needed a tiebreaker. Without Charlotte, she really only had one readily available.

~*~LBD~*~

Lizzie had gone into Jane's room without a word, and placed the letter before her, silently urging her to read it. By the time her older sister had finished, Lizzie was sitting beside her on the bed, Kitty on her lap, the cat taking up her entire focus, too nervous to dare look at anything else.

"Wow," Jane breathed, putting the letter down and looking at Lizzie as she took the paper back into her possession, "He gave you that?"

"Yeah, the night we went to the bar."

"So what are you going to do?"

Lizzie shrugged, "I don't know, that's why I came to you. I mean, what if it isn't true?"

"Do you really think that Darcy would lie? And include his own sister?"

"When it comes to Darcy, I don't know what to think anymore."

Jane was silent a long moment, trying to find the best way to broach the topic that had long been on her mind. "Lizzie, do you think that, just maybe, you really do like him?"

Lizzie couldn't fight her groan. "Jane, I don't know him. How can anyone be expected to like someone they really don't know the character of? Everyone I know gives such different reports of him that I hardly know what to think."

"What about this Fitz the letter mentions?"

Lizzie opened the page to where she had been encouraged to call Fitz Williams, and even gave a number for him. Darcy had urged her to use it. 'If you still truly think as poorly of me as you seemed to in your last video...' that was what he said. That was what he had wrote to her. Did she still think that ill of him? She knew that he really could be all those things that she had called him in the beginning; but she also knew that those things weren't all he was. But, by calling Fitz wasn't she saying that she didn't believe that? That she only thought him petty and selfish and full of arrogant pride?

"You think I should call him?"

"I think you should do what you feel is right. You haven't been yourself since he left, and while I know that a lot has been going on, you can't tell me that even a little of that isn't because of him."

~*~LBD~*~

Fitz Williams frowned when he looked at his phone as it began to ring with an unknown phone number and stranger's name flashing on the display - a stranger's name that he had been told to expect over a month before.

"I really need to stop putting my faith in women," he sighed as a greeting into the phone, leaning back into his chair. "Elizabeth Bennet, I was told to expect your call."

She was taken aback by his comment. "Uh- Hello. Fitz Williams?"

"The one and only. What can I do for you?"

"Darcy told you I'd call?"

He nodded. "He said you might. Although after I watched your videos I told him you wouldn't. I should have learned my lesson, I guess. Never bet with that man. Last time I did, I ended up having to be the one to tell his sister that Santa Claus wasn't real."

She laughed, "What?" She liked his voice, there was an ease to it that pulled her in. Like a fuzzy blanket, or a childhood friend who didn't yet learn how to lie.

"Granted she was ten so it was probably time. It was the year after her mother died. Guess what she wanted for Christmas." He paused. "If you ever meet her, don't tell her I told you that..."

Thirty minutes later and Lizzie was wishing more men were like Fitz Williams. They fell easily the conversations of old friends not strangers, which had spiralled into so many topics that she had almost forgotten the reason why she called in the first place.

"You have once again proved that all the good men are taken. And gay."

"Thank you for the compliment Lizzie B. But I do think you are wrong." He assured her, the playfulness leaving his tone at last, "There are still some good ones left that like women."

She suddenly felt uncomfortable. "You're talking about Darcy."

"I know that you don't see it now..."

She cut him of. "What do you mean?"

He paused and she could almost picture the surprised confusion on the face she's never seen before. "You called me. I'm assuming it was about Darcy and that letter he wrote you."

"It was," she allowed.

"So I assumed that meant that you didn't exactly take him at his word, which, by the way, will hurt him when he finds out."

"Does he have to find out?"

"You are sneaky, Lizzie B. I like your style. Okay, I won't tell him, yet, if you give me a reason not to. Deal?"

"Deal."

"So," he began again, "You have a problem with my man, Darcy." It wasn't a question or an accusation. It was simply fact.

"Sort of," she allowed.

"Gey, I get it. I do. He is not always the easiest of men to be around."

She smirked, "He is insufferable at times with his knack for playing devil's advocate."

"But..." he prodded.

"He's not a bad guy, is he?"

"Not compared to most. I've seen him go to hell and back for those he loves. He will set himself up to be hurt time and time again if it stops someone he cares about from being hurt instead."

"White knight syndrome?"

"Well I wouldn't go that far, but the modern, hipster-ish equivalent, sure."

"And, do you know George Wickham?"

He inhaled a deep breath. She wasn't beating around the bush. He admired that. "Yeah, I do. Well, I did."

"And what Darcy put in the letter, that was accurate?"

"While I don't know exactly what he wrote, I do know Darcy. He's not prone to exaggerating, and I doubt he would lie about anything. And I'm betting I could have used more colourful language to describe that dude."

"Not a fan?"

"Not since he punched me in the face. He was nineteen. And he's gone steadily downhill from there in my estimation." He paused, "You're not mixed up with him, are you? What is it with smart women doing dumb things with dumb ass men?"

She focused on the letter she still held. "No, I'm... I don't know. There is something about him that doesn't always seem genuine. But I needed to know for sure. I've made too many mistakes with taking things at face value."

"And Darcy doesn't make a good first impression."

She smirked again, "No, he doesn't."

"But, he does grow on people."

"Yeah," she allowed, "He kind of does. And, I admit that he also doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would slander someone else to make nice with someone who is barely in his life."

"So..." He seemed to be fishing for something.

She rolled her eyes, stopping herself from laughing. It was easy to talk to Fitz. Too easy. "What?"

"Just wondering the question of the hour. Or at least the past thirty-five minutes. If you don't think so badly of him, then..."

"Why call you?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Not that I haven't enjoyed talking to you."

She shifted, uncomfortable about the real reason. She settled for a different truth. "I don't have his number, so I couldn't have asked him?"

"Well, if that is the case then you are in luck, because, as one of his closest friends and business associates, I just so happen to have that information, which I could give you."

"No," she said quickly, "You don't have to."

"See, Lizzie B, this is why I still don't think you trust him. The trust is not there in your voice."

"You know, I now understand how you and he are friends. You're both pains in the ass."

"Fair, but that's not answering the question."

She sighed. "I'm sure that he's busy, and has very important things to do with his time. I don't think he'd want to be taken away from that, not for me."

Fitz took in a long, steadying breath, wondering how someone as intelligent and witty and quick as Lizzie had showed herself to be in her videos could also be so very slow. "Look, I'm not going to butt into this, no matter what my opinions are and how much I think you both need help to wake up and smell the love. All I'm going to say is that Darcy is a private person, and protecting his sister from any harm, real or potential, is something that he does not take lightly. But he trusted you enough to tell you about what happened with her. For a guy like Darce, that's big. That means something. I think you need to come to grips that you might be a little more important to him than you're currently giving him, and yourself, credit for."

He paused. He waited for her to say something. He waited for her to deny it, or to call him crazy. But there was only breathing on the other end.

"Lizzie? You still there?"

"Yeah," she assured him, her fingers tracing the post script on his letter. "Listen, I have to go. But thank you for talking to me. And I promise that I won't tell if you won't."

"Scout's honour."

"Will I see you at Bing's party?"

"If you're going to be there, I wouldn't miss it for the world. Hey, you okay?"

"Me? Yeah, I am. Everything is going to work out, I think. I just- there is something that I think I have to do."

~*~TBC~*~

A/N: Thank you for everyone who has stayed with me so far. I know that the last two chapters have stuck pretty much to canon, and I appreciate the feedback I've gotten about this. Let me assure you that from this point on, things sort of take on a life of their own.