I personally think this chapter is a little dramatic, but, ya know, sometimes a story needs a little drama.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Lost in Austen.

"Stupid girl/ I should have known/ I should have known/ that I'm not a princess/ this ain't a fairytale…" - Taylor Swift, White Horse

Chapter 14: Far Too Honorable

"Sara?" Amanda asked hurriedly when she looked up to see me in the doorway of her room. She stood. "What's wrong?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat, but that didn't prevent my voice from sounding thick. "Did Darcy read the letter?"

That was not what she'd expected me to say, but she answered, "Yes."

I nodded once and sniffed a little. "Good. Then he knows."

Amanda approached me slowly, as one might an injured wild animal; I'm sure my wide, red-rimmed eyes had something to do with that. "Sara, are you all right?" She knew perfectly well that I was not, but she was giving me a chance to tell her before she tackled me to the ground and forced the words out of my mouth.

I threw my arms out to the sides. "Never better," I said, my voice cracking.

"Oh, Sara," she cooed, hurrying towards me to pull me into a hug and tell me that everything would be fine. I held up my hand, not ready to hear that just yet.

"Can you just do me a favor?" She nodded. "Just go to my room and tell George-" My voice caught involuntarily and I wanted to hit myself. I cleared my throat and continued, "Tell him not to get up and move around." Amanda eyed me warily, but moved to do my bidding, prompting me to add, "But just tell him that, don't say that I said it." She raised an eyebrow, putting things together, and I realized how childish I sounded.

I slumped onto her bed. Why now, right before I was about to leave, did I find out why I should make an effort for George Wickham? Why not days ago, when I was beating myself up to make an effort to stay away from him?

Amanda returned a minute or two later, but remained in the doorway. "He says that he will get up and go for a walk unless you go and talk to him."

I crossed my arms. "Fine." Him being stupid made me angry, and I wanted to be angry again. It was better than what I was feeling now.

"He said that his walk would end wherever you are." I scowled. "Would you like to tell me what's going on?"

I sighed as she sank next to me on the bed. "I may have accidentally called him a knight in shining armor and told him that I loved him."

"Aha," she said. "That's why he seems so pained."

I knew she was trying to get me to feel bad for his current state. I already did, but I wouldn't let it get worse. "No," I told her stubbornly, "that's because he's so bloody honorable that he let himself get kicked by a horse and punched in the face."

"I meant his eyes." In my mind, I saw those gorgeous hazel pools, the flecks of green and gold shimmering in amidst a light brown background. "I think he lo-"

I interrupted her quickly. "Don't say it. He and I...just, no."

"Why not? I mean, now you know why he's such a good guy!"

I shook my head vigorously. "Amanda, I have to leave. This is your world; Pride and Prejudice is your story, not mine. I don't belong here. I belong back in the twenty-first century. Someone has to keeping Mum from going crazy. Sshe sent me to your apartment to check on you. Imagine if I don't come back? And you hated your job, and mine is the most important thing to me. Or it was." I put my head in my hands. "Why couldn't he have told me earlier, or even better, never let me find out, just let me hate him? I could leave knowing that it would never happen between us anyway. I could leave hating him."

"You know you never hated him."

"Ha," I barked without humor. "I was in love with him from the moment I read his name. I was so annoyed when I learned he was a backstabbing dirtbag. I eventually accepted that, but I always wanted him to be the good guy."

"We really need to get you some different dreams," Amanda said bluntly.

"You mean ones less likely than entering a piece of literature through my sister's shower to find out that a fictional character, whom I originally thought was a git, is not, in fact, a git?"

Amanda nodded once. "Point made."

"That's the worst part," I continued. "I could remind myself that he was a git to keep myself away from him until I went home."

She put her arms around me. "He has a right to know."

"That he's a git?"

"Trust me, he already knows that," she said kindly. "I mean you should tell him why you ran out of the room."

"I'm a coward." I scoffed. "Funny, because I told him he was that very same thing recently." I fell back on the bed. "I just need a minute."

Amanda nodded in understanding, allowing me to work out my feelings. "I think I can get a distraction." I watched her exit the room and turn left, which made me wonder, because my room was in the opposite direction. A few minutes later, I heard footsteps and watched with amazement as Amanda led Darcy past this room and down towards mine.

"You're an evil genius," I told her when she came back.

"Yes, I know." She smiled. "I'm having dinner brought here so someone won't have to walk to the dining room. This someone and Darcy will eat in your parlor, and then this someone will move to a different room." Her blatant efforts to avoid saying his name made me grin a little, but I really had no appetite, nor any desire to move from where I was. In fact, I just wanted to curl up in a ball on the bed and have a little pity party for myself while I worked out my jumbled thoughts. Everything was so clear, but I couldn't sort it out.

"Food can only help," Amanda offered when platters arrived some time later. I felt a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach instead of the usual emptiness I felt around six in the evening, but I dutifully picked at the pheasant in front of me anyway, not tasting it, which was okay, because I'd had it back in Hammersmith once and found it was too gamey for my taste.

Amanda had been right; even though I mostly pushed around the food, what I did eat was beginning to make me feel less light headed. I had attributed that to my declaration to George, overlooking the fact that I hadn't eaten anything since noon.

"How about some chocolate?" Amanda suggested sneakily. It was what we always did: eat chocolate in times of dire need, which was usually after some boy trouble. As we'd grown older, the chocolate was joined by a sappy, romantic movie - usually a version of Pride and Prejudice - and a few glasses of wine.

She headed off to the kitchen, determined to get the rich dessert herself, which would be faster than sending for someone to do it for her; if I knew my sister, she probably had her own secret stash somewhere anyway. But I didn't think chocolate would solve this problem.

Her departure, however, gave me a few minutes reprieve from her attempts to keep me talking. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my thoughts.

I knew George Wickham was an egotistical ass. He had a sarcastic comeback for almost any comment, hardly ever let me have the last word, and seemed to have made it his life's mission to infuriate me. He had a cocky grin, eyebrows that were forever raised in amusement when he looked at me, and a pair of playful, mischievous, gorgeous eyes. He was a troublemaker.

But I also knew that George Wickham had never touched Georgiana, though he had taken the blame to protect her from Darcy. He had played a major part in saving Mr. Bennet's life, as well as mine and Amanda's when we were totally lost. Underneath that rough exterior, there was a good, kind, decent, and honorable man, so much so that 'knight in shining armor' wasn't too far off the mark.

And I was in love with him.

And none of it mattered, because I also knew that this was Amanda's dream, not mine. I was meant to be back in the twenty-first century, wearing jeans, t-shirts, and my paramedic jacket, or riding in the back of an ambulance, diagnosing and treating traumas in the field. That was my dream, my world, where I belonged.

And what about Mum? Mum was always just plain nuts, but now I was getting a little worried; she literally went mental because Amanda hadn't called, and she was bound to only spiral downward in the smoke of her cigarettes when I had the pleasure of telling her that Amanda was married - like she'd always wanted - but was not going to call again, nor visit again, and there was no way to reach her.

What didn't offer any help was her sister, my Aunt Brandi, who at one point was going to legally change her name because she preferred tequila, and she didn't bother trying to hide it. She was that relative at family reunions, hitting the bar way before five o'clock. Unless things had changed in my few days here, she was still in her third or fourth stint in rehab. Since Mum could barely keep her own life together, excusing every impulsive action as "what divorced women do," I knew there was no way she could support her sister alone, and there was no chance of Dad or my insolent brother helping. Even with me there it would be a hassle.

I rolled over and screamed, my shriek muffled by the covers on the bed. When I told my parents that I wanted to be a paramedic instead of an accountant, like Dad, who said I had such promise with all my talent with numbers, they protested. I fought for the future I wanted for myself with everything I had, and eventually my dad softened and said, "You really want this, don't you?" I told him that I had never wanted anything more in my life.

Until now. Nothing in my life experience had I felt as strongly as my desire to stay here, to never again think about my deranged family, to live - go figure - happily ever after with a fictional character whom I had secretly loved since I was sixteen.

This was my chance at the fantasy that I had always dreamed of having since I'd immersed myself in that first fiction book, the one about a handsome, valiant knight and a damsel in distress - who was actually fairly capable of saving herself. I'd reread it countless times, loving how honor was so important to the heroes; doing honorable deeds, defeating dishonorable villains.

I found it ironic, now, that honor was what was screwing me up. It made Wickham the man I'd sappily dreamed of. It made me accept the fact that I couldn't stay here.

Damn honor.

Yeah, yeah, melodramatic. Hope you could at least get through it - two more chapters left!