A/N This document was saved as Close Enough Chapter 20 3rd time's the charm. That's right, I totally rewrote it three times. I am still not quite happy with it, but I need this chapter out of the way before I can write the next one… we are getting to the good bits soon!

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The letter Will had written stayed in Elizabeth's handbag for the few days she remained with the Gardiners. Then it moved to her bedside table, where it remained, unless it was taken out to be reread, which happened most mornings. It became a ritual for her – torturing herself with the multitude of emotions it inspired in her. One line, the very last line, haunted her.

Yours,

Will

But he wasn't.

Yours,

Will

Not anymore.

Yours

It hurt.

She was right to have left him, of that she was sure. He had potential, so much potential, to be a good man and the best partner, but he was not there yet. And Elizabeth was not in a position to hang around while he worked on it. He had been far too controlling, it was almost creepy, and she was not prepared to stick around when he was being borderline abusive. But she still cried.

She cried of herself, for the loss of the man that she thought she loved, for the man who wasn't ready for a relationship with her, but she also cried for Georgiana. The sweet girl she had come to love dearly, who had been through so much. She cried for her sister, who had lost the first man who actually understood her. She cried.

Then she didn't cry. The tears hung around behind her eyes, that awful pressure which throbs and burns but is never relieved. She would curl up at night in her bed, all alone, not crying.

Yours

Not crying was worse. She got on with her life, not crying, as though she didn't have a hollow in her chest and an ache in her heart.

There a few times, in the beginning, when she picked up her phone and almost called him. The first time, she sat for two hours with that phone in her hand. She could never bring herself to call. It all hurt too much.

There was one time she gave in to her desire to see him. It was a month after she left him, two weeks after he wrote her the letter. She walked to his flat, and she knocked on the door, and he didn't answer.

She had forgotten. How could she have forgotten? He was gone.

Her strength left her then, and she slumped against his door – she curled herself tightly with her forehead against her knees. Elizabeth did not know how long she stayed like that, but she only got up because she heard someone call her name.

"Hi Lizzie, is that you?" It was the middle-aged lady who lived in the flat next to Will, Claire. "I've got something for you," she said with a sympathetic softness to her eyes. Claire disappeared into her apartment for a moment, then re-emerged with a cardboard box. "I think he cleaned and ironed everything, so you don't need to worry about that." Claire handed it over, and the contents was immediately recognisable as everything she had left at Will's flat. Various items of clothing, her spare hairbrush, the toothbrush she always borrowed, a notebook she had once left behind. It was a box of their life together, and he had left it for his neighbour to give back.

She did not know how that was supposed to make her feel. She had not realised how much Will had become a part of her life, how dependent she had become on him. She would find herself waiting for her phone to ring late at night, before remembering that Will would not call anymore. She would see something funny and remind herself to tell him later, but there was never a later that would involve him.

At times, she blamed herself. She thought that if she had addressed their issues earlier, if she had pushed him and made him talk to her, then everything would not have come out all at once. But Elizabeth knew that she had pushed, she had encouraged him to talk to her at every opportunity. She also knew that if she had forced him to talk, he would have closed off, and their relationship would have ended even earlier. Perhaps that would have been better.\\\

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After a relationship ends, life carries on. Despite no longer being with Charlie, Jane had seen her three-month notice through, and left the surgery in London – she had given her part of the lease on the flat where she had lived, and she moved back to Oxfordshire to live with the Bennet's. Her new job with social services would not start for several weeks, so Jane was making the most of her free time by driving the short distance to Meryton to see Lizzie.

On this particular day, the sisters had venture out in the frigid February air to take a stroll.

"How are you doing, Jane, really?" Jane gave Elizabeth a serene smile, but it was brittle.

"I am doing fine. Charlie and I have been over for more than two months now, three really, I am over it." Elizabeth gave Jane a disbelieving look.

"Janie, you gave up your job to be closer to him."

"And to be closer to you, and to the family, and to have the change of careers I was looking for. Really, Lizzie, I am fine." Elizabeth linked her arm through Jane's.

"Well I am glad you are doing better, then. You had me worried for a while." Jane smiled softly at her.

"And how are you doing, sweetie. Have you heard from Will at all?"
"No, he is not in Meryton anymore, but I don't know where he went, just that he had a placement somewhere. I know that Georgie has gone back to London to live with Richard. I spoke to him a while ago – he wouldn't tell me much about Will, he said that was Will's prerogative, but it was nice to hear Georgie is doing alright."

They continued on their walk, making their way further into the town to stop for lunch. With Elizabeth on a student budget and Jane currently unemployed, they chose the cheapest place on the high street. Unfortunately, it attracted some unsavoury characters.

"Hi there Lizzie," George Wickham called as her made his way across the coffee shop. Elizabeth tried to pretend she could not hear him, but Wickham approached, and tapped her on the shoulder, "Hello Lizzie. It's me, George?" Elizabeth grimace into her sandwich, but turned to greet him.

"Hello George." Her tone did not invite further conversation, but Wickham either did not notice or did not care.

"How are you? I haven't seen you around much recently."

"Hmm, yeah," she hummed noncommittedly, "Well, I've been here."

"I heard you were seeing Will Darcy. Maybe you could speak to him, I was thinking about trying to reconcile."

"Yeah. No. That's not happening – something about a restraining order? You are not getting to Georgiana through me." Wickham attempted to hide his shock under his usual affable façade, but it bled through. "Yes, I know about that. I suggest you never speak to me again Wickham." He tried to stammer a retort, but both Elizabeth and he knew that they were no further profitable avenues for him to try, so he pretended to misunderstand her, before he had to rush off to an 'urgent appointment'.

Elizabeth turned to Jane, who was looking very confused. "If you ever see that man, don't talk to him. He is dangerous."

"Dangerous? No, he looks quite nice – he was very friendly."

"Janie, I can't tell you how I know, but I do, okay? He is not somebody you want to be acquainted with."

"Are you sure it was a misunderstanding? He really did seem quite pleasant."

"Th worst ones do, Janie, the worst ones always do."

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There were moments Elizabeth thought about contacting Will. But as time passed, the reasons she left him became fuzzy and distant in her mind, and several times she had picked her phone up with every intention of calling him. But after her visit to his apartment, she had lost all confidence – she never did press dial.

She was left with an underlying sadness which rose up at the oddest times, when something suddenly reminded her of him. But Elizabeth was not made for melancholy, so she immersed herself in her school work, which she loved – despite it being difficult and time consuming – and she took comfort in having her sister nearby. By Easter, Lizzie rarely thought about Will anymore, and she was making new memories around the campus, memories which did not revolve around him.

At the start of the summer term, she opened her door to an unexpected sight – Charlie Bingley.

"Hey Lizzie," he said sheepishly, one hand rubbing the back of the other anxiously.

"Charlie," she replied evenly, leaning against the edge of the door with her hand on the doorframe, so the entrance itself was blocked. "I haven't seen you since, ooh, the end of December?"

"Yeah, I am sorry about that," he murmured, a guilty expression on his face. "Er, can I come in?"

"Why should I?"

"What?" Charlie looked taken aback.

"Why should I let you in? You suddenly stopped talking to me five months ago, I should be suspicious of you suddenly turning up here."

"Look, Lizzie, you know why I stopped hanging out with you."

"Ah yes, I was the sister of the gold digger preying on you, were you worried I would try to steal your money when my sister failed?"

"No," Charlie denied with vehemence, his tone offended. "It wasn't like that. Jane started to get very serious too soon for me – I wasn't in a place to digest it all at the time. Look, can I please come in?" Elizabeth begrudgingly let go of the doorframe and gesture him inside.

"Elizabeth, I need your help," he began, once he had sat on her old and battered sofa that she had found in a charity shop. "I need to talk to Jane."

"You are in no position to ask that of me. And you don't deserve to talk to Jane, either."

"Please Lizzie, I made a mistake when I broke up with her – she overwhelmed me and I panicked. But when I went to her place in London, her housemates said she had moved back home, and I don't know where that is."

"Have you suddenly decided she is not a gold digger then?"

"For God's sake Lizzie, I don't think Jane is a gold digger!" Charlie looked angrier than Elizabeth had ever seen him. "Why do you keep saying that, is that what you think of me?"

"All I know is Will told you he thought Jane was after you for your money, then you broke up with her."

"What Will said did not make me break up with her. I was already considering that we might need to take a step back for a while, and when it transpired that somebody else had doubts about her, it was part of the catalyst, but Will is not the reason we broke up." Elizabeth looked thoughtful.

"That changes things." Charlie breathed a sigh of relief. "Before, I just thought you were gullible and a bit weak-minded. From what you tell me, breaking up with Jane was all your doing, which means I can blame you entirely for her broken heart." Charlie looked significantly less relieved.

"Please, Lizzie, you don't have to get involved, just tell me where I can find her."

"She took months to get over you, Charlie – I don't see why I should let you go in there and cause a whole load of damage when she is finally over you." Charlie's eyes were wide and beseeching.

"Just let me apologise. Please, Lizzie, please, just tell me where she is. I think she blocked my number because I can never get a response when I call, and I need to talk to her. Please." In the face of Charlie's apparent remorse, and understanding the need for closure after the end of a relationship, she gave him the Bennet's address with a firm stare.

"Don't bollocks this up Charlie."

"I won't," he promised earnestly. "And Lizzie, it's good to see you."

"Yeah," she replied as she closed the door behind him, "you too."

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Elizabeth's weekends were now always spent in her tiny flat, because she no longer had another place to go. Despite this, she was not lonely – Charlie was once again a part of her social circle. Not only was she seeing her redheaded friend more, but something was happening between him and Jane. It was much slower this time, and the couple were allowing their relationship to grow gradually, having restarted from scratch. They saw each other almost as infrequently as they had when they had begun seeing each other the year before – between Jane's new job with the social services and Charlie approaching the end of his fourth, and last, year of his degree – but they did not jump in emotionally as quickly and deeply in as they had the first time.

While Jane was in a constant state of cautious joy and Charlie was becoming increasingly demob happy, Elizabeth was generally feeling better about her life. [1] She was halfway through her Masters, her sister was not heartbroken anymore, and her life was on the up. Sometime, late at night, she would lie in her bed in her tiny flat and notice that she was lonely, but she never allowed herself any pity.

Although her occasional fits of melancholy did not make her miserable, she was buoyed by news that her godfather was leaving the armed forces after over twenty years of service. Upon his discharge, Ed and Maddie were going to spend the summer travelling around Britain, and their first destination was to be Maddie's childhood county of Derbyshire for hiking in the Peak District – Elizabeth had been invited along.

At first Lizzie had refused – "I know what you are like going on holiday, and I am not a fan of the lists and scheduled itinerary."

Maddie had laughed, and reassured her niece that she was in charge of the holiday, and there would be no itinerary, no regimented breakfasts, and definitely no clocks read in twenty-four-hour time. Elizabeth was doubtful that twenty years of habit would change, but figured it would an amusing thing to watch. She decided that a trip with her chosen family would be the best way to spend her holiday. In fact, she thought it would be just the thing to make everything better.

TBC…

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[1] Demob is short for demobilisation, which means 'to take troops out of active service, particularly at the end of a war.' Brits use demob happy to refer to the strange sort of happiness which comes with the end of something major, like retirement, the end of any institutionalisation (eg. school) and obviously, the end of a deployment or military service. You might recognise teachers at the end of the school year as going a bit 'demob happy'.