Well, apparently you get a twofer today. Either way, here's the next chapter. It might be another month or two before I can make a proper update, but yeah. Ciao - oohhh no, never using that one again. On to the chapter and allons-y, wolflings!

~Alex

Fitzwilliam Darcy was not quite sure where he was. He was not even sure if he was.

Either way, he spiralled between paralyzing agony and empty numbness. There were spells of brief, blurry wakefulness, when he thought he recognised an object or two, but mostly it was blessed darkness. No colour, only feeling. Sometimes he thought he could isolate the pain, but other times his whole body was an inferno of hurt.

There were sounds, snatches of conversation:

"Is he alright? Will he be alright, doctor?" Charles's voice. Yellow, but otherwise Charles's homey russet.

"William, keep clinging to life." Green and gold. Oh God, Elizabeth, no! "I shall never forgive you if you die now. God help me, I am crying, William!"

No, never weep for me, Elizabeth. Never, never for me.

There was no way to keep track of time in this soothing darkness.

A stab of pain shot through a place that must have been somewhere near his arm, trembling through his ribs into his heart. He gasped for breath, the darkness bleeding into painful light. His eyes lanced, throbbing with light after having so much dark. His dry lips parted as his tongue weakly flickered out to try to get water from air.

Once the pain subsided, he just remembered how to say 'Water' before the scarlet stabbed him again and he slipped back into half-dead consciousness.

He sort of remembered gulping down something cool and tasteless that yet tasted sweet to his parched throat – looked blue. Nothing else. But he slipped into a painless dream afterwards – bless actual sleep – a dream of gunshots and sunrises and oh God was that Elizabeth?

Crying…

Never weep for me.

Like an arrow to his heart, the pain festered, glowing scarlet and black and orange. Wickham, touching and holding Georgiana! No – had to stop them – save her – just a split second too late and now – his sister was gone and it was all his fault –

Failure. Helplessness. Pride. Resentment. Anger. His flaws, his fatal flaws. Scarlet spilling out of him while he tried to cancel out his mistakes – the world going black before his eyes…

Green and gold, but too far away. Broken thoughts that stopped and faded before even the gold of their life could begin to shine. Darkness. Light. Shards of consciousness like broken mirror. A random thought: I would like to start painting sometime.

And suddenly he broke back to the living world with a gasp like a surfacing swimmer.

A headache smacked him immediately afterwards, making him sorry he ever woke up. The light hurt, his shoulder and arm hurt, and honestly, everything hurt. He licked his lips and croaked, "Drink."

"I suppose it is rather surprising to find a man playing nursemaid," Charles chuckled, snapping his account book shut and getting him a glass of water. "But Miss Elizabeth needed to go home and I would trust Caroline with you only as far as I could spit. Not that I would." He made a face. "Here you are."

William swallowed the water slowly, letting the cold drink wash around his mouth deliciously before letting it cool his throat. Charles now appeared to have acquired a new look – a brightness in his bluish-grey eyes – that made him seem more perceptive, made his russet red sharper, though William knew he had been so all along. "Thank you."

"Saying that, I shall have to go over and get Miss Elizabeth. She will be glad to know you are awake, if not quite well. Oh, and your sister is here as well, with your cousin the colonel too."

A rush of rose brought William up to a sitting position. "How are Georgiana and Richard here?"

"I invited them," Charles stammered. "Is that alright? I mean –"

"No, thank you again, Charles. It is your house, after all. But thank you again, and thank you a thousand times, my friend!" It was only when William stopped smiling due to the pain in his head that he realised he was too tired to keep up the sitting position. He slid back down.

"Of course, you must be exhausted. It took you nearly a week to shake off that nasty fever that dogged you after the duel." Charles's more ebullient self was showing in his smile and his tone.

A week.

You were ill for a week. Delirious for nigh on two days, then dancing on the line for five more.

"Georgiana," he mumbled, before lying back. "Charles, please bring me my sister." He felt a little ashamed about giving the master of the house orders, but his lips refused to move to apologise. "Please."

"As you wish!"

A minute later, a slim young girl slid into the room like a shadow, and William's sight filled with sky blue, brown, and scarlet – although less of the latter two than before – as he looked up and saw his sister. She had grown since he had last seen her, as is the nature of a young girl of fifteen, but she also looked happier, and the sparkle in her bonny blue eyes, just a shade off his own, told him more than words could.

What he was confused about was how this progress was made. She had been a forlorn little thing even more wraithlike than she was now, heartbroken and self-reproaching. Grey. Now her natural blue had returned and even though scarlet and murky brown accompanied it the gleaming azure shone. How?

"Brother, what on God's good earth possessed you to challenge George Wickham to a duel?" she demanded sternly. William was quite frankly amazed. How had this happened? A month and a half ago she could not even speak Wickham's name, and now she was chastising him for challenging the scoundrel? Saints above, what was this sorcery?

"Georgiana? Who are you and what happened to my shy little sister who believed her brother could do no wrong?" he laughed. Suddenly the pleasant laugh turned into a hacking cough as his lungs tried to jack up the air he needed.

"Fitzwilliam!" It ashamed William a little to say that he was a bit reassured by the panic in her voice. For a moment his sister had reminded him – too much – of Elizabeth. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes I am," he choked. "Just… water?"

"Of course!" The next minute a glass was being held to his lips and his throat felt less dry than before.

When he had finished, she set the glass on the table. "Fitzwilliam, where are you hurt?"

"My left leg and my left upper arm," he answered, pointing. "Wickham tried to destabilise me first, and he did. Then he went in for the kill. He missed my heart, but he very nearly guaranteed me a useless shoulder; the bullet almost shattered the bone, or so I was told." He leaned back wearily. Even thinking cost effort, something he did not have a lot of at the moment.

"Could Lizzy drop by later to check on you?"

The sudden question startled him. "Lizzy?"

"Miss Elizabeth," Georgiana replied simply. "Our friend."

"Oh. Since when were you two on such familiar terms?" His sister – friends with Elizabeth? Well, that was what he had been planning to do, but… he could not help but feel jealous of his sister, who could spend however long she wanted in Elizabeth's company and never once be scolded for it.

"Since I came," Georgiana responded happily. "She has been so kind, Brother, and so – so – well, not condescending! She does not treat me like a child to be humoured and made much of, she treats me like an adult whose company is to be enjoyed. Best of all, she talks of you as a true friend does, and she is not fishing for information because she already has all of it! Do you have any idea how refreshing it is?"

"I think I do, sweet," he laughed, suddenly feeling guilty. Had he been treating her like a child? Was he included in that group?

"I knew you did, although it was probably because people spoke to you as a miniature adult even when you were only twelve, simply because you were male and you were the firstborn. I recall something you said when I was twelve, Brother – 'You see, Georgie, it is the females and second sons who get to be immature. The first sons have to be all grown up.' Did you mean that?"

William blushed. He had been a bit tongue-loose than was good for him when that statement had come out of his mouth – it was Christmas Eve of 1807 and William had felt so lonely. "I suppose there was some truth that even a blind Darcy could get at," he confessed. "I used to think that."

"What about now?"

"No, sweetling, I do not anymore. Society thinks more of adults than of children, and so children are required to grow up as soon as possible, regardless of who they are or what their sex is." Suddenly he felt heavy and exhausted; his eyes dropped closed despite his efforts to keep them open, and before he knew it he was blinking awake to Georgiana's laugh and "I shall see you later, Brother."

Relieved at being left alone to sleep, William surrendered to slumber. Georgiana watched her brother's eyes fall shut, a stir of unwanted memories – a deathly pale face in the snow, feverishly bright, unseeing cerulean eyes – being pushed back from her mind. He was safe. Her brother was safe, and so was she.

She smiled, and exited, softly swinging the door shut behind her.

The next time he woke up, green and gold exploded into his mind and heart with a thrill of happiness. Instantly he knew who occupied the chair beside his bed, reading. Experimentally, because the last thing he wanted was to collapse from a simple sitting position in front of Elizabeth, he tested his shoulder. It felt alright, as long as he moved it slowly and not too far. William slowly pulled himself up, leaning against the baseboard, not making the slightest rustle.

He took a silent, deep breath, then greeted the brunette: "Hello, Elizabeth."

She jumped, book falling out of her hand. "Fitzwilliam!" she exclaimed, a teasing scowl on her face. "Are you allowed to be sitting like that?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea."

He almost jumped out of his skin when Elizabeth darted forward to throw her arms around him, mindful of his injured shoulder. "You were so close, William," she said. "Even with immediate medical attention, your fever rose so high that Mr. Charles and I feared for your life."

He laughed. "Mr. Charles?"

"Oh yes, I forgot to tell you!" she cried, bouncing back into her chair. "Mr. Charles asked Jane for a courtship last week, but sadly you were not awake to hear the news. He told us not to call him 'Mr. Bingley' anymore, but we had no idea what to call him. He said his sisters call him Charles, but we all agreed that only Jane should call him that for now. So we all settled on Mr. Charles."

William had to laugh again, although he choked a little on his dehydrated throat. Groping for the carafe of water, he poured himself a glass and downed it in one go. That felt much better.

"Now, I owe you a conversation," Elizabeth said brightly, brown eyes twinkling. "Spill, William."

Dandelion panic. Orange fear. No, not now. He needed her now. "N-not now, please… later, when I feel I can. I need you now, Lizzy…."

"What do you mean, you idiot?" she demanded. "You always have me. Please, tell me now."

He could not bring himself to tell this young woman that one day she would love another more than him, that he could not always have her. His shaking fingers crept to his right cuff and pulled down the sleeve of his shirt. "Look there," he requested, quietly and shakily.

Elizabeth obediently looked, and was horrified.

On William's arm crisscrossed what must have been scores of scars, thin and thick and sometimes knotted. Sometimes deep, sometimes shallow and nearly invisible. The slightly darker lines made a patchwork of his skin, a terrible pattern of pain. She raised her finger to them and traced the rough tissue as tenderly as she could. "Where did you get these, William?"

He seemed to be choking on his own voice, but at last his strangled answer was understood. "I made them."

"Why did you make them?" she cried, horrified. When had he done this to himself? Why? Oh, she was such a horrible friend! She should have been there, but no, she was here in Hertfordshire nursing her blasted pride and now look at what she had done!

"Because I was a blind, selfish idiot!" he roared, spooking her. "I was mired in my grief at my parents' passing, and what did I do? I ignored my sister, who needed more comforting than me; my cousins, who tried to help me; and my tenants, who needed me! What kind of a master do you think I am now? What kind of an excellent brother is that? Even now Pemberley and Georgiana are paying for my mistakes!"

"Do not talk like that!" Elizabeth shouted, silencing him. "You were a man who should have been too young for it, and you are still so young for a man with your level of responsibility. Stop giving me this balderdash!"

He was pulled up short. "You have no idea how foolish I was. My estate suffered for years because my poor little feelings were hurt." His tone was deliberately childish, mocking himself with a hint of bitterness. Elizabeth had no idea what to make of this side of her best friend. She loved him all the same, but she wanted to heal this festering wound in him.

"By whom?" she asked quietly, anger like she had never felt before rising in her throat. Whoever did this to William would certainly pay.

As if he had heard her thoughts, William said, "The person who did this has paid enough, Elizabeth. And that person was wholly worthy of it."

A pang of jealousy. A streak of sadness. William cared so much about this person that Elizabeth began to wonder. "Who is it, William? I at least want to know. I promise you no vengeance will be wreaked." She tried to sound light, but guilt weighed on her shoulders like stone.

William stared at the scars, cut by penknife and mirror shard and candelabrum. "It was us, as we were many years ago," he whispered. "It was me, stressed and worn out, and you, rejected and hurt."

Elizabeth at first did not understand, but when she did she drew William close and rested her head on his shoulder. Despite the impropriety of the action, neither minded. It reassured both of them that the other was there, solid, and alive.

"You're not angry?" she felt rather than heard him say.

"Never for this." Emboldened, Elizabeth raised her head and pressed her lips to his cheek. "William, never for this. And you are not angry?"

"Never for your mistakes. We are so fallibly human, Elizabeth!" The last came out with a half-chuckle as his good arm came up to hug her closer, and he leaned into her as much as she leaned into him.

"We are," she agreed, smiling. They remained that way, arms wrapped around each other, for a long time. They had forgiven each other their youthful mistakes, assured that the other's wrath would never be excited by a misunderstanding they both regretted.

Both of them wondered: Would you be angry if you knew I loved you?