Three hours later, he thought to call Lizzy. He cursed himself when he remembered: he didn't have her number! Grumbling swears under his breath, he phoned Richard. Since he was on shift, he could get a patient's phone number. For emergencies of course. Richard didn't pick up the phone. Darcy deliberated a bit while he was waiting for the beep.

If he told Richard the real reason for his leaving town, his cousin would flip out, understandably. Darcy would have been all for extra help, but he knew that if their floor lost 2 out of 3 of their general practitioners for God knows how long, things wouldn't be good. Besides, he knew for SURE Richard was out of vacation days. It would be better to tell him in person anyway, once he had all the facts.

*BEEEP* Hey, Richard, it's me. Anyway, I'm just calling to let you know, I'm gonna be out of town for a few days for.. uh… business... offer. Tellyouaboutitlater. Hmm. Uh, mm, anyway, c-could you give Lizzy my number? Or, call me back, and give me her's? I was supposed to meet up with her tonight, and I was really looking forward to it. Don't wanna mess up my chances, ya know?.. so, uh, call me back. Thanks. Bye. *Beeeep*

Richard took the phone away from his ear. He breathed out something that could be called a sigh. Life was getting too complicated for him.

Richard Fitzwilliam was not stupid. He was silly. People often mistook the two, but there was a difference.

He knew that something was up with his cousin. A month ago, he wouldn't have been worried. Darcy had always been the same. Very uptight, very by the numbers. Awkward and taciturn. But something had changed in the week. He had met her.

God, what was it about beautiful women that changed normal guys into asshats? Well, of course, that hadn't been Richard's first thought on the subject. At first he had thought God, what was it about beautiful women that changed intelligent guys into sappy fools?

But now things were different. After Darcy's "private" talk with Bingley in the break room, Richard was rethinking everything. Even to the worst of the worst, the Darcy he knew was polite. Stiff, but courteous. He would have NEVER insulted someone behind their back unless they had done it first. And Richard had seen, first hand, Darcy was different around Lizzy Bennet. He clearly had feelings for her, but maybe Richard had misjudged those feelings. He had lied in the break room, but about what?

Richard had never seen his cousin love. But he also had never seen him lust either. 'Don't wanna mess up my chances'? 'Meet her tonight'? Was Darcy just using that awesome and intelligent woman for… for a quick fuck?

And now he was out of town, for some mysterious reason. God. He didn't know Darcy at all. Maybe there was an explanation. Maybe there was an excuse. If it was a valid one though, Richard had yet to hear it.

He sighed. He cleared his answering machine. He owed it to Lizzy to tell her something, but what? That his cousin was just using her? That he was acting strange and Richard had no explanation? That he loved her, possibly?

Ugh. He would figure it out tomorrow. Tonight, he just needed to go home and sleep. He trudged down the hallway with his files. He didn't call Darcy back.

Meanwhile, the very person who was weighing so heavily on his mind, was also struggling, but in a different way. Darcy, though he seemed like a Big-City man, had always been a country boy at heart. He couldn't deal with all the hubbub, which is why he usually made his sister visit HIM, instead of driving all the way out to NYC. But today, he had driven all three hours up the coast, and was now stopped in traffic for the fifth time.

"Fucking dammit," he muttered to himself as he pulled off and into a parking garage. Usually, he never used that kind of language (that was more Lizzy's style, to be honest) but right now he was under stress like never before.

His little sister, his little Georgie, was in the Emergency Room.

She had been attending the University of Columbia. She had been lonely. She had been MORE than lonely— she had been alone. Easy pickings for someone like him. He had found her. He had convinced her it was safe. He had drugged her, and taken her God knows where in the hopes of getting a ransom. He had heard sirens, and even in his drunken state, he had managed to slip away, leaving poor Georgie in an alleyway. When the cops found her, she was barely conscious, with a horrible gash on her forehead, and bruises on her wrists and.. and between her legs. George Wickham's wallet had been found nearby.

Now Darcy was slamming his car door, and racing into the hospital.

He threw open the doors to find a familiar scene: white-washed walls and linoleum floors, old folks and hushed voices, bleached smiles and scattered apologies. Usually, he was one of the doctors rushing by, carefully courteous but never making eye contact. Now, he was playing the part of the deranged family member, hell-bent on seeing their loved one again.

"Georgiana Darcy," he said to the man at the desk, out of breath, "Where is she?"

"Are you family?"

"Yes, I'm her brother— guardian."

The nurse nodded and typed something on his computer. He looked back up at Darcy with pity etched into his forgettable face. "Room 22b. First floor, second hallway on the right."

Darcy thought he said thank you, but he wasn't sure. He was already halfway down the hall, walking as quickly as socially acceptable, or a little faster. He burst into the room, startling a doctor as he barged in.

"How is she?" He asked, rushing over to the bedside.

Her answer was cut off by Darcy's strangled gasp as he caught sight of his little sister.

Georgie, his sweet Georgie, who was always bouncy and smiling and happy to see him, was lying there, unmoving. Her pale, flaxen hair was ratty and torn in several places. Dried blood stained her porcelain scalp. A pair of ugly red marks shone bright and tormented just above her left eye, just spaced out enough to be knuckles. Her blue eyes were hidden behind closed lids, the eyelashes resting peacefully on dark tired bags. He couldn't tell if she was breathing.

He moved to touch her face, to hold her close, but was slapped away by an unfamiliar hand.

"Sir," the doctor hissed angrily, "I must ask you not to disturb her! She's sleeping. Her body needs to heal."

"Yes, yes of course," Darcy reliped, numbly. "How- how long has she been here?"

"She just got in early this morning. She was alone, 'cept for the officers."

"Will she.. Is she going to.."

"She'll be fine. She just needs to wake up on her own, then we'll be in the clear," the doctor said. Her voice was quieter, now.

Darcy heaved a sigh of relief, and stumbled over to a chair nearby. He fairly collapsed into it, and put his head in his hands. He felt like crying. "How.. could this.. have happened...," Darcy whispered, "How could I have let this happen to her…" Even to himself, his voice sounded hollow, broken.

Without looking up, he could sense the doctor softening towards him. She sat down. "It's not your fault, sir. No parent should have to see their child go through something like this."

Darcy raised his eyes briefly. "She's not my daughter."

"Oh."

"Our parents are dead."

The poor doctor looked aghast. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know.."

Darcy fairly ignored her. He was in his own head; shell-shocked. "I'm just her guardian. Was her guardian, anyway. She's twenty now. First year of college. She was so proud when she got into Columbia.. I didn't like her moving so far away, but she wanted to fly… stretch her wings, she said. She always was a little songbird."

Darcy smiled. Georgie had once said grief made him wax poetic. She had said that before parent's funeral, before they knew the extent of the injuries. They had been in a hospital waiting room. She had been holding her English homework; she had been taken straight from school. They hadn't known. But at least, when they did, they had had each other. He had held her as she sobbed into his arms. They had been broken. But they were broken together. Now it was just him, and he was broken. His little Georgie had reached the breaking point, and it was all because he wasn't there for her when she needed him.

To his mortification, Darcy started to cry.

The tears slipped out down his cheeks, flowing with snot and gunk and shaking, stumbling cries as the great man crumbled into his hands. The doctor tried to comfort him, but he waved her away. He didn't want anyone to see him broken. He just wanted his little sister back.

The doctor slipped out of the room, and left him to his misery. Darcy sniffled, and wiped his face with his already soiled shirt-sleeve. He looked over at Georgie. Her eyes hadn't opened. But her heart monitor was persistent as ever. She was still alive. He had failed her, but not completely. He could still be here for her, for as long as it took.

His breathing still shaky, Darcy tried to calm himself down. All his thoughts were swirling around his head like a hornet's nest, stinging him from the inside until he swelled up with pain. He needed to get out of his own head.

He fumbled with his phone, and clicked on the keypad until he remembered he still didn't have her number. He bit back another sob. He wanted to talk to her. He needed to talk to her.

Feeling like a hopeless idiot, he pulled up the Voice Memos app. He didn't know why he clicked 'record', but he did.

"Hey... Lizzy. I know.. Y-you'll probably never hear this but.. Uh, I'm not doing too good. Georgie's in the hospital, and it's all..." His voice broke on the words 'my fault'. Breathing hard, he pulled himself together.

"I.. I wasn't there for her. God, Lizzy... H-he got to her, Lizzy. I knew he was a scumbag, but God.. His name's Wickham, by the way. Fucking Wickham. He.. drugged her. Kidnapped. Left in an alley. She still hasn't woken up."

He squeezed his eyes shut, no longer fighting the tears. His face screwed up in pain as he whispered the words he never would dare say to anyone.

"What if she never wakes up?"

He held the phone closer to his mouth, and watched numbly as the voice waves stopped for four, five, six seconds. "I don't know if I can keep going without her," he whispered.

Then Darcy laughed to and at himself, harshly. "What am I doing? I sound like a fucking poet, pining after.. after some... unattainable goddess of the night... Ugh. I'm doing it again. Georgie was right. I do always get poetic when.. When…" he sighed again.

"I miss you, you know," he said to the recording. "I wish you were here. I don't know why. I've known you for a week. I don't know why I feel like you should be here, waiting with me. I want you to."

He smiled out at the tearing nothingness that blurred his sight. "Did you know, there's only been five people in my life I've ever loved? Like, I feel like I couldn't breathe when something happened to them? Well. Now there's six."

"I wish I could say I was good for you," Darcy murmured, "but I'm not. I just hurt everyone around me. I wish I was the white knight. People say I am, well. Georgie said that. But I'm scared, Lizzy. I'm always scared. Scared I'm gonna mess up and hurt someone. People always expect me to be perfect. And I don't want to disappoint them. But all they see is a mask, just a mask. Nobody sees me. Not like you do. You see my flaws, and like me anyway. Or at least, I think you do. I hope so. I wish you did. I- I think I love you. Yes. That's what I'm feeling. I love you, Lizzy. More than I can say. I wish you were here with me, and I could just hold you and you could say it would turn out okay and then make me laugh with some stupid joke and we would go home and Georgie would come too and then everything would be—"

He cut himself off. He was crying again.

After a while, he spoke. "God," he said, his voice raspy and brittle, "I'm in deep shit, aren't I?"

"I would say," a soprano voice croaked from across the room.

"GEORGIE!" Darcy exclaimed, leaping up. "Oh my God, you're awake, how are you feeling? Are you okay?"

"A little woozy," Georgie mumbled into her neck, "Could you speak a little quieter, please?"

"Yeah, of course," Darcy said, whispering now. He took a hold of her hand. It was trembling, and damp with sweat. He kissed it, and didn't let go.

"So," she said after a while, "Who were you talking to?"

"Um," Darcy flushed, "N-no one?"

"Nice try Will," Georgie breathed, her voice a shadow of its former, light and peppy glory. "Tell me who. Call it my last request."

Darcy's stomach fell down to his shoes and he crushed her hand in his before he saw her slight, sleepy smile, and realized she was joking. "Jesus Christ," he sighed, relaxing, "Don't joke about that."

"Don't tell me what to do," she suggested, smiling wider (a sliver of a grin), "Now. Who was it?"

"You don't know her."

"Will…"

"FINE." He puffed all the air out into his cheeks. "Her name's Lizzy. She was a patient of mine, contracted pneumonia pretty bad. She works as a photographer. She's… intelligent. Well read. Very… witty. Very pretty eyes." Darcy stopped himself before he could say anything MORE embarrassing than that.

"OooOOooOh," Georgie cooed, attempting to sound teasing, but failing in that she couldn't raise her voice about a whisper, "you LIKE her, don't you."

"Yes. Yes I do."

"Oh." Georgie blinked. She had expected a little more.. Resistance to her prodding. "Does she know?"

"She does. At least, I hope she does. She knows I like her, but I am.. Unsure if she realizes the extent of those feelings."

Georgie almost tried to sit up, but thought better of it. "When can I meet her?" she asked, hopeful.

"Soon, hopefully. When you get better."

Darcy stroked her matted hair, and she didn't even have the strength to protest. Darcy frowned at the dried blood on her scalp, as if noticing it for the very first time.

"Hold one sec, I'm gonna go get someone to clean you up a bit. Hang tight, okay?"

"Not like I have any choice," she tried to joke.

Darcy smiled at her, melancholy and affectionate, pushing up on his eyes more than it showed his teeth. "Get some rest, Little Songbird."

"I will." She allowed him to lean down and press a kiss to her forehead; he was feeling very touchy-feely today, apparently. At his retreating back, she whispered, "Mama Hen."

She didn't see him snicker at her usage of the old, never-used nickname, but she knew he did. Will seemed in better spirits, despite everything. Georgie had a sneaking suspicion she knew what brought this on, and a bigger, less discreet suspicion that she was going to like Miss Lizzy. She knew her brother did, in any case.