Love and Other Accidents

by paperclipz

Done! A modern P and P. Darcy and Bingley are musicians trying to find material for their new album in a rural college town...where they meet the Bennet twins who are surviving college together. Lizzy's a photographer, and Jane's a med student.

9. Touring Pemberley

1.

The bus swung around the sharp curve of a cliff, and its passengers swayed with it obligingly. The tour guide—a woman in a straw hat and felt overalls (for no reason that Lizzy and the Gardiners could understand)—braced herself against the seat and told them enthusiastically about a local legend, something about a buccaneer who hid in a cave and some treasure and some other nonsense. Two kids sat in the aisle, playing snap noisily. A couple of middle-aged women were reading, but most of the passengers were napping, including—Lizzy noticed—her own aunt and uncle.

"I can't believe you two are sleeping through this," Lizzy said, pressing her lens to the window and snapping shots of the rolling English countryside.

Diana Gardiner burrowed her head into her husband's chest. "God, why couldn't Jane come just to baby-sit Lizzy?" she grumbled. "Stupid bus, driving us all insane."

"Honey, this was your idea," Sam Gardiner reminded her gently. "Remember? You need to do research for a shoot at an English manor, and you decided that this would be the easiest way."

"Everyone makes mistakes," Diana said shortly. "I just wish mine didn't involve motion sickness."

"I have the bag right here if you need it again," said Sam, stroking her hair. "Just try to sleep."

"I'm trying, but someone won't stop her incessant clicking," snapped Diana, looking over at her niece. "I have a headache too, you know."

Lizzy lowered her camera guiltily and settled in her seat a little more comfortably. "Sorry, Aunt Diana."

"Don't you 'Aunt Diana' me," she said irritably. "We've puked in the same toilets together at the same parties."

"Good thing I married you then," said Sam. "To keep you from corrupting my innocent, defenseless niece."

"Innocent? Defenseless? When I met her she was—" Diana started.

"Do I need to cover my ears?" Sam asked hurriedly.

"No," Lizzy said, picking up her camera bag from under the seat and going through the film in the front pocket. "I was just waiting tables."

"You were pouring coffee over the lap of some guy who'd just grabbed your ass," Diana reminded her.

"Actually I was losing my job," Lizzy said ruefully.

"It was still worth it, though," Diana said, grinning at the memory. "Especially when I offered you another job right after that. Easy money."

"Easy?" Lizzy replied, mouth open. "Have you ever tried modeling, Diana?"

"Ever tried my job?" Diana snapped back. "Calls every second, appointments every half hour, lunch booked up or skipped—"

"No more talk about work, honey. We're on vacation," Sam reminded his wife gently.

"I want my phone back," said Diana, glaring at each of them in turn. "I know one of you has it. No one will be harmed if it is back in my possession by the end of the day. If it isn't, I can't be responsible for my actions."

"How 'bout we make a deal?" Lizzy said grinning. "You stop being a workaholic for the rest of the week, and I hand you this bottle of Motrin."

Diana grabbed the aspirin out of Lizzy's outstretched hand quickly. "You've been holding out on me!"

"Bullshit," said Lizzy, watching Diana use her teeth to pry off the childproof top. "I just found them."

"Be nicer to Lizzy," Sam told Diana, unscrewing the top off a bottle of water and handing it to his wife. "You did invite her, after all."

Diana popped two pills in her mouth, swigged a sip from the bottle, threw her head back, and swallowed. "Sorry, Lizzy, and thanks. I'm just bitchy in general. It's nothing personal, you know that right?"

Lizzy rolled her eyes. "Of course, I know that. It was pretty obvious after a couple years as your client."

"And you were my favorite client," Diana assured her, reaching over her husband to grab Lizzy's hand. "I really like you a lot."

Sam laughed. "And with Diana, that really means she loves you."

Touched, Lizzy squeezed her aunt's hand. "I love you too, Diana."

Diana sneezed, and Sam laughed again and kissed the top of his wife's head. "That was her allergic reaction to the sentimental."

Diana retreated back into her seat and leaned her head against the cool glass of the bus window. "I'm sick, and you pick on me," she said.

"Sure," said Sam, taking her hand, "because you make such a cute pouting face. Here, do it again. Lemme see it. Better yet—Lizzy, you take a picture," he told his niece, holding his wife's face between his hands and showing Lizzy. "Diana, don't smile. You'll ruin it."

Lizzy framed the shot—Sam half-bent and in profile, as he smiled at his wife; Diana, ducking her head and laughing up at him in the circle of his arms. Click. You'd never guess that Diana had just scared a team of lawyers shitless that last week, fighting a pretty gruesome legal battle. Three of her models were suing the same photographer for sexual harassment. Diana had lost of her temper when the photographer's lawyers had tried to claim that their client had just been trying to smooth the back of the models' skirts. She'd grabbed one of the lawyers, one in a sharply starched suit with gray in his hair, ran her hands down each side of his butt, and pushed him back into his seat, saying "Sorry, just fixing your pants; they were a little wrinkled." When he'd told Lizzy this story, Sam had laughed so hard he cried.

This was supposed to be Diana's victory trip, paid for by her fraction of the case settlement, and she'd invited the Bennet twins along as an early birthday present. Jane had opted not to come, saying she was stuck trying to take summer classes so that she could finish med school early (Lydia was taking summer classes, too, since she hadn't passed as many of her courses in her first semester as she might have liked), but Lizzy really wished Jane had come. This was the Gardiner's first big trip together since their marriage a year ago, and Lizzy couldn't help feeling like a third wheel.

The bus turned off the main road and through a stone gateway, and the tour guide stood up and told the passengers in a very heavy Southern accent, "Well, y'all, if you'll just wake up, you'll notice that we're coming to the next estate on our tour."

Lizzy looked out the window at the stretch of green forest and at the stone bridge that the bus was approaching, and she grinned, reaching for her camera. "Hey, Diana? Has that Motrin kicked in yet?"

Diana groaned.

"Sounds like yes," Sam told Lizzy grinning.

"Good," said Lizzy, snapping a shot of the top of the bridge casting a shadow over the stream under it, the leaves blowing gently on the trees around it.

"Is that even going to come out?" Sam asked, as his niece snapped a quick succession of forest stills, trying to capture the intricate arrangements of the trees.

"Some of them will," Lizzy told him. "That'll be enough. Shit," she breathed, as the bus drew out of the trees and winded up the road on a green hill. "Look at that house!" She pressed the lens up to the glass, trying to capture the way the rolling grasses and the curves of the road echoed the meandering paths of the ivy that covered the front of the house. "Look at all the windows--they're huge! Those doors! They looked like they're carved out of ebony!"

"What's Lizzy in raptures about now?" Diana asked her husband.

"This is the best one so far," Lizzy told her.

"That's what you said about the last one," Sam reminded her.

"This one's different. God, what I wouldn't give to live here," said Lizzy, using the zoom on her lens to get a closer look. "Look at that staircase out front; even the railings are carved marble. It looks smooth. I wonder if you can slide down it."

"Ooo, say that again but louder," said Diana, looking at the front of the bus. "Maybe the tour guide will hear you and faint, and they'll take us straight to the inn."

Snapping pictures, Lizzy ran circles around the rest of the tour group, as they all walked up that beautiful staircase (Lizzy resolved to sneak back there later in the tour to try out the slide-ability of its marble guardrails). She didn't see anything she didn't want to capture on film. Even the cracks running down the length of the doorframe got a couple shots. The wooden inlay on the front hall floor—a scene depicting Atalanta stooping for an apple--got three. The intricate carvings along the ceilings and walls—all of the muses, Lizzy was almost sure—finished up the roll.

"You still want to live here, Lizzy?" Diana asked disdainfully.

"Absolutely," Lizzy said enthusiastically. "Why? Did a distant relative die and leave it to you?"

"Lizzy, it's a dump," Diana said, pointing to a hall on their left where water damage stained the cream paint.

Lizzy looked around, noticing, the bare patches in velvet curtains, the paint peeling off the paneling, and the white sheets thrown over the furniture (Lizzy snapped a quick still of the wind making a sheet billow off a long wooden table that needed polishing). "It's just run-down," said Lizzy defensively. "That happens to old ancestral homes. Money runs out."

"How do you know?" Diana asked.

Lizzy grinned. "I saw it on 20-20."

"It's no use," Sam told Diana. "She's in love with it already."

Lizzy chose to ignore this. "And look over there," she said, pointing to where tools had been left out next to the paneling, its many layers of paint partially chipped off to show an intricate pine base. "They're renovating, so give them a break—they're in the process."

"Where are we anyway?" Diana asked.

"Hedgefield, I think," Lizzy said, squatting to frame a shot of both the wooden paneling and the tool that had chipped away the paint.

"Hedgefield was the last estate," Sam said. "Don't you two listen to the tour guide?"

"Why? You give us the highlights," Diana said, kissing his cheek.

Sam sighed. "This is Pemberley."

"Pemberley, Pemberley, beautiful Pemberly," Lizzy sang, wondering why it sounded so familiar.

"Definitely in love," Diana agreed.

"Shit, we've lost the tour; this always happens," Sam complained.

"You can still hear the tour guide," Diana said. "We'll find them again. Don't worry."

"Ooo, look!" cried Lizzy, ducking down a side corridor. "A portrait hall. Look at the ruffly collar that woman's wearing." Lizzy lifted her camera to her face again. "I wonder how many generations ago she was."

"That's the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother of my employer," said a very British voice behind Lizzy, who spun around to face the tiny, white-haired woman in a high-collared blouse and long skirt. "No pictures allowed inside the house, miss," she told Lizzy icily.

"The tour guide did mention that," Sam muttered.

"Little late to tell us that now," grumbled Diana.

"You're going to take my film away, aren't you?" Lizzy asked sadly, cradling her camera.

"Only if you've managed to take any pictures of the portraits," said the old woman. "My employer likes his privacy. He doesn't want his picture being circulated."

"You caught me just in time then," Lizzy said.

"Do you promise me, young lady?" the woman asked shrewdly.

"I promise."

The woman graced her with a wry grin, and Lizzy saw all the wrinkles in her cheeks were laugh lines. "My name is Cynthia Reynolds, and I am the housekeeper of the Pemberley estate."

Grinning back, Lizzy shook Cynthia Reynolds's outstretched hand. "My name's Elizabeth Bennet. I'm a photographer."

"And a university student on holiday, I suspect," said Cynthia Reynolds.

"Yes, ma'am," said Lizzy. "This is my aunt and uncle, Diana and Sam Gardiner."

"It's a pleasure," said Cynthia Reynolds, nodding icily at the couple. "I heard your talk earlier. Pemberley is not a 'dump.'" Diana gulped and actually blushed, and Lizzy grinned to see her former agent look like a schoolgirl caught smoking in the bathroom. "It is indeed in the middle of its renovation," Cynthia Reynolds told Lizzy, "but you were only half-correct. Pemberley has acquired the funds it needs to keep up the estate, but it's my employer that's slowing us down. He wants to do all the renovations himself."

"All of it?" Diana said. "He'll never finish. This place is huge."

"Perhaps," said Cynthia Reynolds, with a sigh of proud and indulgent exasperation, "but all the work you see done is his own doing. He hasn't done as much as he'd like—he's often away on business, you see, but the private corners of the house have been completely redone. You won't see them on this tour. He's worked around it. My employer's father signed the contract with the tour company—needed the money, you see. Will has tried to buy his way out of it but to no avail."

"Will?" repeated Diana, and Lizzy froze, her camera suddenly heavy in her fingers.

"My employer," Cynthia Reynolds explained, pointing to the portrait behind Lizzy's head. Lizzy and the Gardiners turned.

"Fitzwilliam Henry Darcy," said Lizzy dully, and she thought she might be sick.

"Is there a plaque?" Diana asked, squinting at the bottom of the frame.

"No," said Cynthia Reynolds. "Does Miss Bennet know young Will?"

"No way," Diana said delighted.

"Lizzy, really?" asked Sam.

"Would you happen to be the same Lizzy that Will knew in Vickroot?" Cynthia Reynolds asked.

"I need to leave," Lizzy announced, starting to turn around, but Cynthia Reynolds dropped an iron hand on her shoulder.

"Not on his account, you don't," Cynthia Reynolds told her, "He's not here."

"Not here?" Lizzy echoed suspiciously.

"Not yet, anyway," Cynthia told her. "The whole lot of them is coming up in the next few days."

"Whole lot?" Lizzy said.

"Charlie's coming, and he hasn't managed to get rid of his sister," said Cynthia Reynolds.

"I still think I need to leave," Lizzy told her.

"No, stay," said Cynthia, taking Lizzy's arm. "There are things still to be cleared up."

She knew everything, Lizzy could tell. Cynthia Reynolds was must be like a mother to Will. "Concerning young Jack Wickham, he's a scoundrel," Cynthia Reynolds told Lizzy. "He wracked up quite a few debts on Pemberley credit, and I bet Will didn't tell you that. I wasn't here at the time. I was taking my retirement. I've come out of it to be with poor Giana.—Ah, Giana's here. I bet she'd love to meet you. Both of us have had our ears filled with you."

Lizzy gulped, twisted her arm out of Cynthia Reynolds's grip, and excused herself. "I think I'll just go wait on the bus," she said, walking out the way she'd come in.

"Lizzy, are you all right?" Sam asked, but Lizzy waved the question off and walked outside. She took three deep breaths to calm herself as she trampled down the beautiful staircase and strode across the lawn, trying to remember where they'd parked the tour bus.

The view still stopped her in her tracks—the gentle sloping lawn, giving way to the trees; a lake shining blue in the right hand foreground, a flock of water fowl dotting its surface. Click (Lizzy just couldn't help herself; she could never help herself). The birds—ducks, Lizzy was almost sure—took flight, flapping across the surface of the water; there was a tall man, walking up on the left side of the frame and Lizzy hoped he wouldn't ruin the shot. Click. The whole flock was airborne now, organizing themselves into a V; the man was shirtless and lean, a rag hanging around his neck—Lizzy guessed he was the gardener. Click. The ducks were flying above the forest now, the shadow of the V just barely noticeable on the treetops; the man was near enough now that Lizzy could see the sweat across his shoulders and the black smears across his arms and face. Click. The birds were out of the frame; the man was so close now that Lizzy could see him staring at her, mouth open—smears of grease down his cheek. Click.

"Hello, Lizzy," said Will Darcy, a lot calmer than he had any right to be.

"Shit, you're not supposed to be here," Lizzy cried. "I mean, you're supposed to be here—this is your house, but Cynthia Reynolds said you weren't coming until—"

"I was always coming today," Will said quietly. "I'm late, in fact. My car broke down. I had to walk the rest of the way here."

Lizzy pushed aside the fact that Cynthia Reynolds had lied to her. "I came on a bus," Lizzy told him, almost desperately, and when Will Darcy frowned still confused, she added, "The tour bus."

"Ah," said Will. "I see. My father put Pemberley on that contract."

"Yeah, Cynthia Reynolds told us that," Lizzy said.

"Us?" Will inquired politely.

"My aunt and uncle," Lizzy explained.

"I see," said Will. "Are you enjoying your tour?"

"I got…side-tracked," Lizzy said.

"Yes—of course," Will said, and he gave a small little bow, one that looked very odd with his t-shirt draped around his neck like a rag and grease marks and sweat all over him. "Please excuse me," he said and walked up the hill to the house.

Lizzy watched him for a second and then noticed that her aunt and uncle were walking down the hill towards her. "Lizzy," called Diana, "what the hell is wrong with you?"

And that was the point that Lizzy slung her camera strap across her shoulder and ran.

2.

Will Darcy resolved to do everything he could do to convince Lizzy to stay at Pemberley for a while, even if it was only long enough for a cup of tea. All's fair in love and war, they say, and what he had with Lizzy was a bit of both. Beside, he knew if he didn't, he'd never see her again. He'd spent too many months thinking to never see her again.

Fortunately, it took about seven minutes for Will to manage a quick scrub in the shower and a change of clothes before sprinting down the lawn to chase Lizzy onto an almost empty tour bus.

"Lizzy," Will called softly to what looked like rows and rows of empty seats, "where are you?" He knew Lizzy was there, because his uncle told him she was hiding there. Somewhere in near the back, he'd said. On the left side.

The bus was silent, and Will couldn't pretend that he didn't feel foolish. He walked forward, looking around and under the seats. "Please come out, Lizzy," said Will. "I'm really delighted to see you. Well, not see you at this exact moment, but—" Will stopped and sighed, knowing he was babbling and knowing he couldn't help it—words kept spilling out of his mouth. "Besides, it's dreadfully hot on this bus, isn't it? I suppose I should expect such weather in August, but—" He heard something that sounded a lot like ripping and looked down to see Lizzy crouched under the seat. "There you are, Lizzy. Will you not come out?"

Lizzy shook her head sternly.

"Lizzy, you can't be comfortable there," Will said squatting. "You must at least come out from under the seat." He reached towards her to give her a hand, but she shrank away, scowling.

Will withdrew his hand, and they stared at each other for a moment. Even sweating in the summer heat, stuffed under a bus seat, she was still very beautiful and rather ridiculous in her independence.

"I have a dark room," Will told her.

Lizzy looked at him sharply. "You do not."

"I do," Will promised. "Giana had a photography phase, though the darkroom itself hasn't been used."

"That's not fair," Lizzy snapped, glaring at him.

"What isn't?" Will asked.

"You're playing dirty," Lizzy reminded him. "You know I have all this film I want to develop, don't you?"

Will grinned. "Does that mean you're coming out then?"

Lizzy sighed irritably. "I can't," she said. "I'm stuck. I think I just ripped my shirt."

Will did his best to conquer his grin before reaching down and pulling her shirt free from a nail under the seat. Lizzy wriggled out slowly and sat up on the bus floor, tucking her hair behind her ears. "I didn't know," Lizzy told him miserably, and when Will frowned a question, she added, "that this was your house."

"I know," said Will as earnestly as he could.

"I'm sorry," said Lizzy, looking up at him.

"Don't be," said Will grinning. "I really am delighted to—"

"No," said Lizzy shortly. "About Jack."

"Ah," said Will, no longer grinning. He knew he should now apologize for his part in Charlie and Jane's affairs, but he couldn't make himself bring it up. "I understand.—Now will you come?" he asked.

Lizzy sighed again and stood, her camera swaying behind her. "God, I feel like I'm twelve again," she groaned, walking down the aisle.

Will followed, trying to keep the grin off his face and failing. "Which part? The bus or hiding under the seat?"

"I was going to go for the complete and utter awkwardness," Lizzy said, looking back over her shoulder with a grin, and Will watched as the grin faded and Lizzy blushed.

As he followed her down the bus steps, Will's grin widened, and he was blushing himself. "Well, at least I know I'm not alone."

"This is Diana Gardiner," Lizzy said, and it amused Will that she couldn't look him in the face as he reached for her aunt's hand and shook it.

"It's a pleasure," Will said. "Lizzy has said that you are her favorite relatives." He hoped that this proved to Lizzy that he actually did remember everything she'd told him. He couldn't be sure from her expression though. The blush was much too distracting.

"Lizzy," said the older man with Lizzy's wavy dark hair, squeezing her around her shoulders, touched.

"You're sucking up for something, aren't you?" the woman said, but Will wasn't sure who she was addressing—Lizzy or himself.

"Absolutely," Lizzy told her aunt. "I saw that shawl in Bristol first, and it'll be in my suitcase when I go home."

"I paid for it," Diana Gardiner said smugly.

"You want to declare its value now, so I can reimburse you when I steal it?" Lizzy asked.

"I'm Sam, her uncle," the man told Will, as if Lizzy and her aunt hadn't spoken. He offered his hand, which Will shook.

"Uncle Sam?" Will said, and when Lizzy's mouth snorted, he added hastily, "I apologize if I've offended you. Most of my knowledge of World War I comes from American History textbooks, and there was a poster--"

A grin slowly grew on her face. "I think you spend too much time with Americans," she told him.

"Or too little," Will said, and he watched Lizzy try to convince herself that he didn't have a double meaning.

"How did you two meet?" Lizzy's uncle Sam asked, and Lizzy looked to Will to answer that. He was grateful that she still allowed him his secrecy.

"A concert," Will said. "Lizzy was quite ill."

"And you played a knight in shining armor, I guess," Diana said shrewdly, folding her arms.

"I was a bit of a prat, actually," said Will; when Lizzy snorted again, Will shrugged bashful but smiling.

"You look familiar," Lizzy's aunt told Will, and he remembered with a jolt that her aunt was very involved with the entertainment industry.

"Well, we did just see his huge-ass portrait inside," Lizzy said. It was a rescue attempt, and Will flashed her a grateful smile.

"No, I feel like I should know him," Diana said, scowling in concentration.

Sam held her hand and patted it. "You'd know him already if you weren't already sick."

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Will, glad at a chance to change the subject. "Are you not feeling well?"

"I'm fine," said Diana, glaring at her husband. "Just peachy."

"She only uses words like 'peachy' when she's sick," Lizzy told Will grinning.

"Ah," said Will, nodding seriously as to not offend the formidable aunt. "What seems to be the matter?"

"I'm fine," snapped Diana.

"My wife has a headache and some nausea," Sam told Will. "The bus ride didn't agree with her."

"Would you like some ginger ale? Or to lie down?" Will asked Diana. "I'm sure we have medication up at the house, or—"

"You'll let me lie down?" Diana asked sharply.

"Yes, of course," said Will. "I have plenty of rooms—" he began to add and stopped suddenly, because Diana Gardiner was hugging him tightly with a wiry strength surprising for her size.

"I love you," Diana told him quite seriously. Will looked to Lizzy in alarm, but she was no help, snapping a picture and laughing.

3.

Will Darcy was being really nice, and it was freaking Lizzy out. Well, actually—the whole situation was freaking her out, but it was understandable since she was in the house of the man who'd once said he loved her, who she'd rejected pretty harshly, and who'd since written a letter and a song trying to explain himself. That was bad enough, but this same man had managed to find a new personality in the few months since she'd seen him. Asshole Will Darcy was a lot easier to deal with. Polite and Accommodating Will Darcy, the one she'd just met at Pemberley, was just too nice to tease. The fact that he couldn't look at her without smiling didn't help calm her down either.

It was easier now that he was guiding them upstairs, up a dark polished staircase that spiraled up two flights. Its best feature was that it was too narrow for Will could walk and look at her at the same time. "Will, I understand that you're doing the renovations yourself?" Sam said, holding Diana's hand.

"Yes, sir," said Will from up in front.

"That's a pretty big job for one person," Sam told him, and Lizzy winced and braced herself for the reemergence of Asshole Will Darcy.

"I know," Will said shortly, before turning around to grin at them. "That's why I hired a team of gardeners. I doubt I'll ever manage the grounds in my lifetime."

Smiling back uncertainly, Lizzy leaned against the rail and framed a shot of the polished curve of the stairs. "How long did this staircase take you?"

"A weekend," Will said at the second floor landing, pointing them down a long hallway painted a cheery blue and dotted with pine doors. "This way, please."

"A weekend?" Diana said in a way that implied Will Darcy was a complete idiot if he expected them to believe that.

"A long weekend," Will amended, "and I had the help of my sister and my friend." He opened the second door on the right to reveal a room with warm green carpets, light yellow walls, and a queen-sized bed, covered with a green and yellow quilt. Lizzy wondered if Will dabbled in interior decorating, too.

"Bed," said Diana, diving at it. Lizzy looked at Will, sure that he'd balk at her rudeness.

He was grinning again, walking into the adjoining bathroom and turning on the light. "This is one of the nicest of the redone rooms," Will told them with obvious pride. "Everything in here works—with the exception of the sink's hot water here." He unscrewed it on, watched no water come out of the faucet, and screwed it off. "I'm still working on it. I really should add that to my list," he said absentmindedly, pulling a paper from his back pocket and scribbling on it.

Lizzy took a quick shot of Diana wrestling the yellow pillow into a shape she liked.

"I think I'll take a nap, too," Sam told Lizzy.

"But you're not sick," Lizzy protested, starting to suffer from abandonment anxiety.

"No, but I'm tired," Sam replied, walking to the bed and pulling the shoes off his wife's feet so she wouldn't get the blankets dirty. "Go and have a good time with your friend."

Diana snorted. "Friend?"

"Just wake us up before the bus leaves," Sam told Lizzy, lying down, and Lizzy decided that they weren't her favorite relatives after all.

"Lizzy, come here," Will said, and Lizzy noticed that he'd already left the room and gone halfway down the hall. "Please," he added as an afterthought. "I want you to see something."

The next room he showed her was four doors down the hall and three times as big as the room they'd left the Gardiners in. Boards had been taken out of the floor on the left side of the room, but the walls were painted a light green and there were gauzy, white curtains along the wall of windows.

"I think this used to be the master bedroom," Will told Lizzy. "My father never used it because there used to be water damage along this wall here," he explained, showing her. "The first thing I had to do was replace the entire roof. When I was a boy, you see, we used to have to run around the whole house whenever it rained, emptying water buckets. God, I used to hate thunderstorms."

Lizzy imagined a boy Will, shorter, dark-eyed, and still scowling.

"Come here—this is the best part," he promised her from the wall of curtained windows; they were French door, Lizzy saw when she was closer. They opened out to a huge, round balcony—its paint cracked and peeling, but the view. Lizzy could see all the way over the forest and into the fields beyond them. She gave a quiet gasp and stepped forward, camera in hand.

Will stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. "You can't go out there. It isn't safe," he explained, pointing to a fist-sized hole about twelve feet away. "Giana put her foot through it over there. I haven't figured out how to work on it yet." He sighed. "I might have to break down and call some actual professionals."

Lizzy snapped some pictures from the doorway as he talked and tried to pretend he wasn't grinning at her. "Come on," he said, tugging her arm just as she clicked another photo. It probably blurred the shot but Lizzy was too uncomfortable to protest. He dragged her down three halls and a staircase and burst through some very tall, very white double doors.

"You have a ballroom!" Lizzy whispered, mouth open, when they stopped.

"This one has the only floor that didn't need any help," Will told her. "I think it needed to be replaced once before. It must have been terribly scratched up. But see all the mirrors along the walls?" Lizzy looked, watching copies of herself look back. She snapped a picture, knowing that it would probably be too fractured to develop well. "They were fashionable at one time or another, but look here," he said, drawing her to the section of the wall where the mirror was missing. At about eye-level, there was a carving painted white. "See?" Will said, pointing to a section where the paint had been chipped away to reveal a much more detailed carving of a toga-wearing man with a lyre. "I think it's Orpheus," Will said, flicking a paint chip out from between the lyre's strings, "and this might just Eurydice," he added, pointing to the still-painted section where Lizzy could just make out the picture of the woman.

"The early years," Lizzy said. "The happy ones."

"Yes," said Will absentmindedly. "Or perhaps, it's Apollo seducing a mortal. Difficult to tell. The lyre's the key, you see."

"Do you think there are carvings like this one behind all these mirrors," asked Lizzy, snapping a picture of Orpheus' smirking face.

"Yeah," said Will. "I wanted to take all the panels down to check, but Caroline didn't want to. I think she rather likes the mirrors."

Lizzy snorted. "Since when has anything Caroline said been a good idea?"

"She broke the mirror," Will admitted, grinning ruefully. "She chucked a tennis racket at Charlie."

"It's your house," Lizzy reminded him.

"Yes, it is my house," said Will with a soft smile, rubbing at the strings of Orpheus' lyre. "This house is the best thing about being a Darcy.—If there are carvings under them all, then they'll be like this one—buried under so many layers of paint that you can barely see the original work. I suppose I'll have to hire professionals for this, too. I'm afraid to do more here, you see, with chipping away the paint. Sometimes I get impatient and accidentally gouge the wood. That's all right for paneling, but I'd hate to ruin something like this."

Lizzy snapped a picture of the pride on Will's face, smiling a little. "Your aunt hasn't been here, has she?" Lizzy asked.

"No, not for years," Will said slowly, and Lizzy knew he was restraining himself from asking why.

"Just don't let her bully you into using Collins as your renovator," Lizzy advised.

"God, no," Will said sharply, looking horrified at the thought of Collins invading his hall. "Aunt Catherine believes Pemberley to be beyond saving anyway."

"Well, that's lucky," commented Lizzy.

"Yes," Will replied, watching Lizzy.

They were silent for a moment, and Will leaned so close that Lizzy stepped back. "Are you all right?" he asked with such obvious tenderness that Lizzy didn't know what to say. "Did the bus also trouble you? I can find you a place to sleep as well."

"I'm fine," Lizzy said and sighed. "I'm just a little weirded out."

Will grinned, because he knew just what would cheer her up. "Giana's darkroom, then?"

4.

Although Lizzy herself wouldn't agree, Will thought Lizzy "weirded out" was good. It was, for instance, an improvement over Lizzy pissed off. And it was infinitely preferable to Lizzy leaving. Lizzy at Pemberley was, in Will's opinion, a very good thing. It meant that Lizzy that Lizzy was still in his life. It meant that he still had a chance.

He was pretty sure that he'd have a better chance if Lizzy wasn't distracted with cataloguing what the Darcy's were keeping in their darkroom.

"Whoa," Lizzy said, looking in the cabinet above the long trough sink. "You have a lot of fixer. Was your sister worried about stuff fading away?"

"That's who I wanted to show you!" Will said triumphantly. He pulled out his cell phone, called his sister, and discovered where Giana was ("I'm in the kitchen. Where are you?"), and then he immediately ushered Lizzy in that direction. When she protested and reached for her film, Will dragged her out of the darkroom and said, "Come on--it's teatime. You can't very well work during tea, can you?"

"I bet you've worked through teatime thousands of times," Lizzy grumbled.

"Not at Pemberley," Will said.

"Who says I have to follow Pemberley's rules?" Lizzy asked lifting two skeptical brows.

"Well, you are my guest, Lizzy," Will reminded her, guiding her down the hall.

Shaking his hand off her shoulder, Lizzy checked her watch and grimaced. "Thirty-seven minutes."

"Till what?" Will asked, thinking that the tour had specified a time to meet.

"That's how long since I've been your 'guest,'" Lizzy told him, "and you're already enforcing the my house, my rules policy."

"That isn't true," Will said sharply.

"Sure, it is," said Lizzy with a sharp grin. "And also very indicative of your control issues."

Will stopped in the middle of the hall. "Would you like to meet my sister or not?"

"Oh," said Lizzy in a much more respectful tone, "we're going to meet your sister?"

"Didn't I say so?" Will snapped.

"No, you didn't," Lizzy told him sharply. "You dragged me out of the darkroom without explaining anything."

"Oh," Will said, suddenly understanding Lizzy's irritation and entered the kitchen.

"Hello, Master Will," said Auntie Cindy from the stovetop.

"Will!" cried Giana, jumping up from the long wooden table by the window. "Where were you? Auntie Cindy says you've been home for practically an hour already and you still haven't come to see me, and if that's not a reason for us both to hook up the to X-Box so I can kick your sorry ass, I don't know what is."

Grinning, Will pried his sister's arms from his neck so he could get a better look at her. He scowled when he saw what she was wearing. "Giana, not the bloody overalls again?"

"Language, Master Will," Auntie Cindy told him.

"And who am I to impress, then?" Giana snapped, coloring.

"Me, probably," said Lizzy, leaning to grin around Will's shoulder. Giana squeaked and let Will go so she could cover her mouth with both hands. "I don't care, though. Hi, by the way. I'm Lizzy Bennet."

"Elizabeth Zipporah Bennet?" Giana said.

"Yep," said Lizzy with a suspicious sidelong glance at Will. He grinned back, enjoying watching Lizzy trying to gauge how much he'd told his sister. "You must be Georgiana Darcy."

"Giana," Will corrected. "Never Georgiana. Or Georgie, despite what Caroline Bingley may tell you."

"Nice to meet you, Giana," Lizzy said, and Giana nodded, blushing.

"A pleasure to see you again, Miss Bennet," said Auntie Cindy.

"You," snapped Lizzy, turning to the stovetop and pointing an accusatory finger at Cynthia Reynolds. "You are on my People-to-Watch-Out-For list, you sneak."

"Very well, Miss Bennet," said Auntie Cindy with a nod and a smirk.

"Don't 'Miss Bennet' me; it'll just piss me off," Lizzy said; she pointed to the tea tray Aunty Cindy was preparing. "Hey, you need help with that?" Lizzy asked, crossing the room.

"She's so pretty, Will," Giana whispered, watching Lizzy help arrange scones. Will grinned, embarrassed to feel pride, and Giana hit him. "Why the hell didn't you tell me she was here when you called me? I might've managed to change into something nicer."

"I thought you'd fancy a surprise, but if I'd known—"

"Master Will, when do Mr. and Miss Bingley arrive?" interrupted Aunty Cindy. "I'll need to prepare their rooms."

"In the next few days," Will said with a grimace. "I've got to drive a car to town for them."

"Give them the one that just broke down on you," Lizzy said, taking the tea tray from Aunty Cindy with a grin.

"Yes, but then poor Charlie would be forced to endure hours of Caroline's bitching," Will reminded her.

"Maybe Caroline has a hidden talent for car engines," Lizzy said setting the tray down. "You never know."

"You'd just like to see her covered in grease," Will said with a shy smile.

Lizzy wrinkled her nose as she took a seat at the table, directly across from him, almost as if she didn't feel safe unless there were four feet of wood between them. "It'd make for a good picture. Can you imagine her expression?" Lizzy said with another grin. Giana sat in the chair next to Lizzy, perching on the edge of her seat and crossing her ankles. "Are you a photographer too?" Lizzy asked Giana.

"Not really," said Giana, taking a teacup.

"You've got a darkroom and I almost got to use it," Lizzy said, shooting a smirk at Will, who smiled back a little, not sure whether to be annoyed or grateful that she'd caught him.

"It was a Christmas present," Giana said, turning slowly to grin at her brother, "but I don't think it designed with me in—"

"I briefly entertained the idea of taking up photography myself," Will interrupted stiffly. He had not installed the dark room with Lizzy in mind.

"You don't have the patience," Giana said. "You'd break your camera."

"I also heard a rumor that you're a pianist," Lizzy said, taking a scone and buttering it. "A really good one."

"I'm all right," Giana said modestly, but she was smiling.

"You're a far cry from just 'all right,' and you know it," Will told his sister. Lizzy was watching him with that same shrewd look. He felt he needed to say something else. "You two should get to know each other better," he said.

Lizzy looked at him as if she'd roll her eyes, if she manage it without offending Giana.

"I—" Giana said and stopped.

"You might see a film," Will suggested.

"Or maybe go shopping," Lizzy said, and Will looked at her sharply.

Giana looked up sharply too, but she was beaming. "Shopping, yes, that'd be lovely, Giana said, and Will frowned, wondering whether he'd missed some sort of female code. Giana liked shopping all right, but Lizzy seemed like she would hate it.

"Tomorrow?" Lizzy suggested.

"Morning," agreed Giana.

"Should we meet at my place or yours?" Lizzy asked. "Wait—I don't even know where I'm staying."

"You could stay here," Will suggested hopefully, but Lizzy sent him such a reproachful glare that he smiled back sheepishly.

"You're staying at the Lambton Inn," Giana told Lizzy. "That's where all the tourists stay. Are we going to be interfering with your travel plans?"

Lizzy shook her head. "The tours gives us a couple free days, so I can just meet you here."

"That doesn't make any sense," Giana said. "You don't know your way; I'll meet you at…" Giana tutted under her breath, thinking. "Eight, perhaps? No, nine—I don't want to get up for eight."

Lizzy nodded. "Nine," she agreed and jumped as Aunty Cindy appeared at her elbow and handed over Lizzy's camera bag. "Uh…thanks."

"I thought you'd be wanting it," said Aunty Cindy, "as the bus is nearly ready to leave."

"What?" cried Lizzy, looking out the window to see a line of tourists lined up in a queue outside the bus. She tumbled out of her seat. "Oh, fuck."

"You aunt and uncle have already been informed," Aunty Cindy told Lizzy.

"Thank you," Lizzy said with obvious relief.

"I'll see you out," Will said standing.

"You don't have to," Lizzy told him, marching toward the door.

"Yes, I do," said Will, following her. "Otherwise, you'll find yourself lost."

"Right," said Lizzy, turning back to wave over his shoulder at Giana and Aunty Cindy. "Nice to meet you both and see you tomorrow, Giana. Thanks," she told Will, who held the door open for her.

He matched her quickened pace easily, but he still said, "The bus won't leave without you. Your aunt and uncle will have them wait."

"Right," said Lizzy and slowed down just a little. He noticed she couldn't make herself look at him.

"You'll need to go to London for shopping," Will told her.

Lizzy snorted. "Why? We're just going to pick up a few things to tide Giana over,a nd there are shops in town, aren't there?"

"One of them belongs to Jack Wickham's mother," Will explained.

Will glanced at Lizzy to see her reply, watched her open her mouth twice without saying anything before finally coming out with an "Oh."

"It's nice of you to take my sister out," Will said hesitantly.

"Well, of course," said Lizzy with a grin. "I wouldn't let Caroline tear her apart."

"She wouldn't—not in my house," Will said sharply.

Lizzy raised one skeptical brow. "Don't be so sure. You know how Caroline is about clothes."

Will considered. "Those overalls are quite big," he said slowly.

"Yeah, but I was referring to her top. Didn't you see how it was cutting into her underarms?" Lizzy said. "I wonder how long she's been dealing with a wardrobe she's outgrown."

"Ah," said Will.

"You haven't noticed," Lizzy commented with a knowing smirk.

It annoyed Will that Lizzy could only manage to look him in the eye when she was laughing at him. "She can't have outgrown everything."

"She must've," said Lizzy, wrinkling her nose. "No girl wears a bra that digs into her like that if she doesn't have to."

Will grimaced. "I believe you would say that was too much information."

Lizzy shrugged, laughing. "Just trying to convince you how desperate her situation is. Why else do you think I'd take her shopping?" she said grinning.

Will looked at her, his face carefully blank, and Lizzy's grin dropped away as her eyes hardened. "I see," said Lizzy flatly, and the steel in her tone made Will wary. "Well, Mr. Darcy, why don't I just promise you right now that I won't let Giana buy me one thing with your money. Is that enough or should we get it in writing, too?"

"I'm sorry, Lizzy," Will said. They were in the front hall now. Lizzy knew her way from this point forward. Will pulled her to a stop with a hand on her forearm so she'd look at him again before she left.

He felt the hardness in her eyes deep in his chest. "Not everyone is after your money," she snapped.

"I'm sorry," Will said again. "Really, I am."

Lizzy sighed, tucking her hair behind her ears. "You should stay here," she advised. "One of the tourists might notice Will Darcy looks a lot like Will Darlington."

"I don't want you to leave and me never to see you again," he told her.

"Relax, Will—I have to come back," Lizzy said, patting the front pocket of her camera bag to show him it was empty. "Your Cynthia Reynolds kidnapped all my film."

"Shit—it'll be in the darkroom," Will said, glancing back down the hall. "I'll run for it if you like."

"It's fine," Lizzy said, and Will looked back to her. She had that measuring look back in her face, but she wasn't scowling anymore. She laughed, so suddenly that Will was startled.

"Good God—what?" he asked.

"I still can't believe you called your sister to figure out where she was," Lizzy said. "I don't think I'm ever going to forget that."

"It isn't unusual," Will said slowly, watching Lizzy's face.

Lizzy laughed. "Sure, it is—when you're both in the same house."

Will shrugged. "It is a rather large house."

"It's a beautiful house," Lizzy replied grinning.

"Thank you," Will said quietly, only just beginning to smile back when a megaphoned voice called, "Elizabeth Bennet—if you are still on the premises, please return to the bus immediately."

"Fuck!" cried Lizzy, bursting through the front door and running down the stairs.

Will held the door open with his forearm, watching her go. "Goodbye!" he called, mostly to see if she'd look back.

Lizzy threw him a smile and a short wave before running across the lawn.

Back in the kitchen, where Aunty Cindy was trying to teach Giana how to make pasta before she went off to university in the fall, Will watched his sister, realizing how much she'd grown in the past year. She hadn't grown taller, but when he'd left, her figure had been almost as thin as Caroline Bingley's. Now, she had the fuller figure of someone like their mother once had. Or even Lizzy.

"That must be uncomfortable," Will said, tugging on her shirt.

Aunty Cindy smiled a little, and as she stirred the spaghetti sauce, Giana hunched her shoulders forward uncomfortably. "Now you notice."

"I didn't," Will said. "It was Lizzy. You should've told me."

His sister regarded him thoughtfully. "You really love her, don't you?" she asked, and when Will only smiled, slowly and almost shy, she patted him on the head. "Poor Will. I was serious, though, about kicking your ass—fancy an X-box duel?"

5.

Lizzy hated shopping. She'd gotten enough of fashion and clothes when she was a model, and she really hadn't gotten back to the point where she enjoyed figuring out what to wear. Halfway through a morning of giving Giana a second opinion on every outfit she tried on, Lizzy was dragging her feet and ready for a nap. She'd been tired when she and Giana had walked from the tour group's hotel to the train station, but after a train ride, three boutiques, a department store, and a lingerie shop, Lizzy was ready to blow the rest of her trip's budget on a hotel room for her to sleep in. Giana suggested a coffee break instead, which was almost as good and would've been her first choice if she'd known that they sold coffee in England. ("Of course," Giana replied, with a sharp scowl uncannily similar to her brother's. "Do you not have tea in the States?") With their bags in a circle around them and their drinks steaming on the table between them, Lizzy was consoling Giana, who'd gone up two bra sizes without realizing it.

"It's perfectly normal to be growing at your age," Lizzy said. She was trying very hard not to laugh, but she hoped Giana hadn't noticed that.

"Yeah, but it isn't normal to completely skip a bloody size, is it?" Giana said, irritably puffing on her tea.

"I'm sure you're not the only one," Lizzy said.

"I suppose not," Giana said, hunching her shoulders. She looked up at Lizzy thoughtfully. "You can laugh if you like. It is rather funny."

Lizzy grinning slowly and shook her head. "I just don't see how you could've let it go on so long, even if you didn't want to say anything. I can't see Cynthia Reynolds keeping quiet."

"She said something to me back in March," Giana told Lizzy slowly. "We were only waiting for Will to notice. Thank you, Lizzy, for taking me out. Will tries to be both brother and sister, but he's hopeless about this sort of thing. He's not quite someone I'd choose to take with me when I need to find myself some underthings."

Lizzy wasn't quite sure what to say to that, so she shrugged smiling and said, "Next time you could order some things online. Just to tide you over."

"I couldn't," Giana told her.

"Sure, you could," Lizzy said grinning. "You type in Victoriasecret. com or whatever, pick out a style, and hit order."

Giana was watching her with quiet dark eyes, heavily lashed and narrowed in thought. It bothered Lizzy that she saw so much of Will Darcy in his sister's face.

"You want to tell me something," Lizzy guessed.

"Yes," Giana said, pressing her lips together as if trying to decide.

"I'm not going to like it, am I?" Lizzy said.

"No," Giana said softly.

Lizzy took a long draught of latte to steady herself. "Okay, I'm ready."

"You must promise me you won't get angry with Will."

Lizzy's face hardened. "I can't promise that."

"Promise me that you'll try to see if from his perspective then," Giana said, and when Lizzy didn't answer, she added, "Please."

Lizzy sighed. "Okay."

It was still another minute before Giana spoke. Lizzy had noticed this over the course of the morning—Giana thought before she spoke, she thought a lot before she spoke—and Lizzy had almost gotten used to it. She turned a spoon over and over on the table, waiting for the younger girl to speak.

"Will said he told you about Jack," Giana said uncertainly.

"Yes," replied Lizzy slowly, wondering what Will had told Giana about the circumstances of telling Lizzy about Jack.

"I was rather naïve then," Giana said evenly. She was looking into her tea so she wouldn't have to look Lizzy in the eye. "It was summer, Will was away, Aunty Cindy was in Birmingham with her new husband—"

Lizzy flinched, trying to take in the fact that Cynthia Reynolds was married.

"I was rather bored," Giana admitted. "Jack was in town, helping his mother. He visited me every day. I thought at the time that it was because I was alone most of the day, without Will or Aunty Cindy at home." She fingered the rim of her cup before pulling the tea bag out and setting it on a napkin. "I think now he was probably coming to see Pemberley. He knew about Will in B.F.D., you see, and he believed Will would probably leave it for Hollywood and that Pemberley would be my estate. There's a lot of money in real estate now; Pemberley's lands are rather extensive—"

"Wickham was going to marry you for Pemberley?" Lizzy asked, aghast.

Giana nodded. "Yes. The land."

"How old were you?" Lizzy said.

"Fifteen."

"You weren't legally old enough to…" Lizzy drifted off and waited for Giana to think.

"I believe Jack thought our marriage would be designed to save my reputation," Giana said delicately. Lizzy paused for a moment, before realizing that she meant Wickham was planning a shotgun wedding, and then she didn't know what to say. Giana continued, "While we were together, I allowed Jack the use of the Darcy accounts. He acquired quite a bit of debt, more than I thought was possible in such a small area here. It was terrible enough that the Pemberley estate might've gone bankrupt if B.F.D. hadn't done so well. We might've had to sell it."

"I'm sorry," Lizzy said, because it seemed like a thing she should say to this blank-faced girl, telling Lizzy of her life's tragedy with barely a tremble in her voice.

Giana shrugged, smiling a little. "It was a long time ago. After that, however, Will limited my control of Pemberley's finances, even the half that belongs to me."

"What do you mean?" Lizzy asked quietly, even though she was starting to guess.

"I haven't any sort of credit," Giana said, with Will's dark-eyed scare. "No cards or anything. Aunty Cindy has, but I don't. I've paid for it all of this around us with debit cards Will gave me this morning."

"How old are you now?" Lizzy asked sharply.

"Eighteen."

She looked Giana firmly in the eye to tell her "It wasn't your fault."

"I understand that."

"Will doesn't," Lizzy snorted.

"He does," Giana said quietly. She looked at her hands and then looked back at Lizzy. "He thinks he's protecting me."

Lizzy was shaking. It might have been anger, or it might have been something else. "From what? The big, bad financial world?"

"Will believes that anyone without honorable intentions wouldn't stay after they realize that I have no access to any money," Giana said.

"He what?" Lizzy snapped.

"You promised that you wouldn't get mad," Giana said uncertainly.

"That is not what I promised," Lizzy said, but she forced herself to calm down anyway. "It's creepy, you know. Most older brothers don't make their little sisters completely dependent on them for money."

There was a hard glint in Giana's eyes that told Lizzy she'd crossed a line. "Most elder brothers don't inherit his father's debts and a sister to raise at nineteen either," Giana said with a sharp scowl.

"He's still wrong," Lizzy said.

Giana held her scowl for another minute, before sighing and slumping against the back of her chair. "Yes, but you know Will. He's not the most perceptive of brothers. I don't think he even realizes that I've passed the drinking age yet."

Lizzy snorted, thinking to herself that Will Darcy seriously needed a talking-to. Maybe a psychologist should get involved to sort out how screwed up Will was about money.

"Lizzy, I'd like you to talk to him," Giana said. "Please. On my behalf."

Lizzy choked on the coffee she was sipping, and she stared at Giana as she coughed into a napkin to clear her throat. "It should be you telling him," Lizzy said hoarsely.

"He won't listen to me," Giana replied.

The earnestness in Giana's eyes scared Lizzy, It made her so much harder to refuse. "You shouldn't be afraid of your own brother, Giana," Lizzy said softly, and when Giana just stared at her with a carefully blank face, Lizzy looked out the window, watching people pass. "He'll think I'm meddling or something."

"Not if you tell him I asked you to," Giana replied, reaching for Lizzy's hand to regain her attention.

Lizzy's jaw was clenched, but her eyes were unsteady. "He'll be disappointed that you couldn't tell him yourself."

"I'll handle it, I promise," Giana said, and she squeezed Lizzy's hand. "Please, Lizzy. He respects your opinion. He'll listen to you."

Lizzy sighed, rubbing her eyes. "I'm not making any promises."

Giana gasped, mouth open and smiling, both hands clasping Lizzy's. "Thank you, Lizzy!"

"I haven't said I'd do it," Lizzy reminded her.

"Yes, but you will," Giana said, beaming. "I know you will. I feel I know you already—Will's told me so much about you."

Lizzy wrinkled her nose, because she really didn't want to hear this. She'd rather go back to shopping than hear this.

"I was the one who first told Will he loved you, by the way," said Giana, her grin merciless. "It was all the way back at Christmas, and at every ski lift, he kept bringing up this photographer in Vickroot who put him in his place." Giana laughed suddenly, a wilder version of Will's deep chuckle. "You should've seen Caroline's face when I told him he must be in love with you. Will denied it then, of course."

It was too much, and Lizzy groaned and buried her head in her arms. "I wish he still would," she muttered to herself, but Giana heard.

"I very much doubt that," said Giana, her impish grin widening. "In my experience, it's always very flattering to hear 'I love you' from a man you're attracted to."

"I'm not attracted to him!" Lizzy cried, looking up.

"That's not what Fitz said," Giana told Lizzy. "He said there was a poolside scene that he felt he should excuse himself from so that you and Will could throw yourselves passionately into each other's arms."

"It wasn't like that!" Lizzy protested.

"He also said that you were very good at denial," Giana said. "Even better than Will."

"Is there a let's-get-Will-and-Lizzy-together conspiracy going on that I should know about?" Lizzy snapped.

"Oh, I thought you already knew about it," Giana said, and she laughed when she saw Lizzy's face. "I quite like this. You're even blushing."

"I am not," said Lizzy.

"No?" asked Giana, smirking. "I suppose you'll next try to tell me that you don't like us Darcy's a bit, which accounts for why you spend so much time with us."

"Just leave me alone," Lizzy moaned, dropping her head back to the table.

"You can tell that to my brother," said Giana. "He just walked through the door."

Lizzy's head snapped back up. "What?"

"Didn't I tell you?" Giana said, sipping her tea with her little finger primly raised. "Will decided to drive a car to the Bingley's today. I told him to meet us here."

"Bullshit," Lizzy said, because it wasn't possible that she'd be forced to spend time with Will Darcy unexpectedly two days in a row.

"Hello," said a cheery voice above Lizzy's head. She turned in her seat, mouth open. Will's grin faded a little, when he saw her expression. "Lizzy, you seem surprised. Giana, didn't I tell you I'd come?"

"Oh, bloody hell," said Giana, snapping her fingers dramatically. "I forgot until just now."

"Oh, my God," Lizzy said, looking aghast at Giana. "You're like a mini-Fitz."

Giana laughed, and Will grimaced. "I hope not," said Will, as he pulled up a chair and took a seat. "One is quite enough."

"You're just mad because I tricked you so easily," Giana told Lizzy smugly.

"Giana tricked you?" Will asked. "Giana, what'd you do?"

"Don't let her fool you," Lizzy told Will, narrowing her eyes at Giana. "The shy and awkward thing is just an act."

"It's not an act," Will explained. "She just overcomes it much quicker than I do."

"Around certain people. I'm sure I'd make an ass of myself in front of someone I was in love with as well," Giana said and started giggling again when Will and Lizzy turned to her with identical scowls.

6.

By the time they finished shopping for Giana, all three of them understood that any relationship that might happen between Will and Lizzy would be filled with ridiculous, stubborn fights.

"I still think we should've gotten that dress," Will said scowling, while they waited in line at the Harold's checkout.

"And I still say that she shouldn't buy something that she's not comfortable in," Lizzy replied, struggling to manage the mess of clothes and hangers she'd offered to help Giana with.

"But it looked quite pretty on her," Will protested, snatching up a handful of hangers and lifting half of Lizzy's burden off her hands.

"Well, it doesn't look quite as pretty on the hanger, which is where it'll spend the rest of its days, since Giana won't wear it," Lizzy said irritably.

"Why won't she wear it?" Will asked.

"Will, the neckline came down to here," Giana reminded him, gesturing to a spot a few inches above her navel, "and it was red."

"What's the matter with red?" Will asked, shaking one of Giana's new shirts into some sort of order.

"All right, let me put it in a different way," Lizzy said to Will. "Say your personal dresser made you try on some tight, leather pants and a sparkly shirt, and say it looked really nice on you—would you wear it?"

"That isn't the same thing," Will said.

"Sure, it is—you'd be projecting an image of yourself that you didn't like," Lizzy explained. "Same as Giana. A cleavage-bearing red dress is not how she wants the world to see her."

"Frankly, I'm a little disturbed that it's how you want the world to see me," Giana said with a half-smile.

"Perhaps you'll grow to want to wear this red dress," he suggested.

"Will, now you're just being an idiot," his sister informed him.

"Before that happens, she'll out-grow the stupid dress," Lizzy pointed out.

"Perhaps she'll have a need for it and not have the time to purchase such a dress," Will said.

"Giana, can you think of any upcoming occasion where you'd wear this dress?" Lizzy asked.

Giana smiled at Lizzy, her eyes glancing towards her brother. "No."

"So," Lizzy told Will, "you want to buy your sister a dress she doesn't like on the off-chance that she'll someday want have a reason to wear it, want to wear it, and still fits into it?"

"It's my—" Will started, but Lizzy interrupted him, murmuring to his sister, "This is the part where he tells us it's his money and he'll do what he likes with it."

Will scowled, pretending that Lizzy hadn't taken the words from his mouth. It was their turn, and huffing out his displeasure, he slammed Giana's new clothes on the counter with such a force the cashier dropped her pen and took a tiny step back.

"Shame on you, Mr. Darcy," Lizzy scolded, laying her pile of clothes on top of his. She squinted at the cashier's nametag and smiled. "Sorry, Barbara. He's just upset because we're not letting him waste his money."

"It's quite all right," said Barbara the cashier, pulling a hanger out of a silk shirt, scanning its tag, and folding it.

Will retreated back to the women's coat section, while Giana and Lizzy set about trying to help Barbara the cashier with the heap of clothes and hangers they'd just dumped on her counter. Several minutes later, Will returned with a pale blue trench coat that Lizzy'd tried on an hour before.

"What are you doing, Mr. Darcy?" Lizzy asked him sharply.

"Buying you a coat, Miss Bennet," Will said with a scowl.

"No, you're not," Lizzy said.

"Yes, I bloody well am," said Will. "It doesn't make a bit of sense that you blow your budget on something that I can purchase more easily."

"There is a big difference between you buying me a coat I really like and me buying me a coat I really like," Lizzy snapped.

Will shook his head once, still scowling.

"Besides, I know you're only trying to buy yourself out of trouble for pissing me off yesterday," Lizzy said.

"Will, you already pissed her off, did you?" Giana asked, obviously amused.

"But you don't need to, since you already apologized," Lizzy said, staring Will down.

Giana gasped. "Will apologized? Will?"

"Yes," Lizzy said with a small smile, as she glanced at him. "Twice." She could tell Will was still angry. His nostrils were flaring a little and his jaw was clenched. "Besides, that's not even my size," Lizzy added with a grin.

"What is your size?" Will asked exasperated.

"I'm not telling," Lizzy replied in a sing-song. After a moment of watching Will and Lizzy stare each other down, the cashier Barbara asked, a little apprehensively (it was the last thing left on the counter), "The coat, too?"

"No," Lizzy told her firmly, just as Will said, "One in each size, please."

Barbara froze with her hand on the coat's hanger, not sure what to do. Giana snorted, two hands clapped over her mouth to stop herself from laughing.

"Good thinking there, Mr. Darcy—ten of a two-hundred dollar coat. That'll be two grand you'll waste," Lizzy told him. "If you're that eager to spend money, you could give it to charity or to poor Barbara here, who you've been picking on. At least that way we wouldn't have to lug three extra bags around London."

"We deal in pounds here at Harold's, miss," Barbara told Lizzy. "Or Euros."

"Well, then, that's even worse," Lizzy said, smirking at Will. "What d'you say, Mr. Darcy? Spend an obscene amount of money being stubborn, or leave the coat here?"

Will pulled his money clip out of his back pocket. "I'm afraid we won't need the coat this evening," he told Barbara, quietly sliding a credit card across the counter.

"Lizzy-four. Will-one," said Giana.

Lizzy picked up a handful of bags and shrugged with a smile, and Giana giggled.

Will had wanted his sister and Lizzy to bond over this shopping venture, but he hadn't counted on them getting closer by mocking him. He signed one receipt quickly, slipped the other into his pocket, grabbed a few bags, and walked away.

Behind him, he heard Lizzy say, "Thank you, Barbara."

"Good luck with him, miss," the cashier replied, and Will threw open the door and strode out.

He was aware of Lizzy and Giana hurrying behind him a few seconds later. "Will you slow down?" Lizzy snapped. "Not all of us are blessed with as long legs as you, and both Giana and I are carrying more bags."

Will stopped in his tracks just long enough to snatch the rest of the bags from the hands of an astonished Giana and an annoyed Lizzy before striding away in great, long steps. He heard Lizzy snort. "Do you have your cell phone, Giana? We'll just call him when he stops being ridiculous."

Will wheeled around and returned to them. "I am not ridiculous," he snapped.

"You sure?" Lizzy asked, arms crossed. "You're the one practically running down the sidewalk with huge bunches of bags in each hand."

"You also left this," Giana said, holding out the credit card he'd just used to pay for the Harold's purchase.

"And you signed the receipt as Will Darlington," Lizzy said. "You're probably safe, though. I don't think Barbara can read your handwriting."

Will lowered a handful of bags to the sidewalk and took the credit card from Giana so that he could return it to his money clip. "I'm not ridiculous," he told Lizzy quietly. "I only seem it around you."

"You certainly are ridiculous," Giana told him grinning, but she looked away when both Will and Lizzy scowled at her.

"You're only ridiculous when you don't get your way—"

"Don't make me sound like such a spoiled child," Will protested irritably.

"—and with me, you don't always get your way," Lizzy continued.

Will snorted. "No, I certainly don't."

Lizzy grinned and picked up most of the bags he'd just dropped. "It's not a big deal anyway. I'm just going to look the coat up online and buy it when it goes on sale."

"But what if they no longer have your size?" Will asked, as Giana took over her share of bags and they continued down the street at a much slower pace.

Lizzy shrugged. "Then, it's not meant to be. All the best things are meant to be, you know. There are other coats in the world, after all."

Will sighed.

Giana giggled. "Lizzy-six; Will-one."

"Would you stop playing as a bloody scoreboard, Giana?" Will snapped.

"Sore loser," Giana replied with a smirk.

"Yes, actually," Will said. "And I'd like to know where my one point came from, because as far as I can tell, my opinion hasn't once counted for anything today."

"Well, Lizzy's here, isn't she?" Giana said, and at this point, Lizzy felt herself blush, and a slow grin grew on Will's face.

7.

Lizzy knew Will was misunderstanding things. She was just hanging around for Giana—just helping with her wardrobe—that was all, and she'd told Will as much. There w She was even careful to keep Giana between them as they were walking so that they didn't accidentally touch, and she made sure to sit across from him when they were seated at dinner so her hand would never have the opportunity to brush his. None of that keep that look off Will's face, the one where he seemed to expect something from her. She avoided his gaze over their pizza and cokes, but after dinner, she jumped because his fingers brushed hers as he handed her some shopping bags. He beamed during all of the walk to the train station, especially when they stopped a moment to dance in front of the club Swingers.

It doesn't mean anything, she wanted to tell him, as she felt her face brighten. It was just surprise. She couldn't actually say that, because Giana would grin and giggle, and everything seem so much more important.

Will was humming as they walked the last block and a half to the train station, and when she recognized it, Lizzy glanced over at him. "Cut that out," she said.

"What?" Giana said startled.

"I know what Will's humming," Lizzy said.

"What's Will humming?" Giana asked.

Will obliged by singing aloud:

Take a good look around you

Take a good look you're bound to see

That you and me were meant to be for each other

Silly girl.

"The Beatles, isn't it?" Giana said to Lizzy.

Hold your hand out you silly girl see what you've done

When you find yourself in the thick of it

Help yourself to a bit of what is all around you

Silly girl.

Lizzy nodded grimly. She couldn't look him in the face while he was singing to her. "Martha, My Dear."

"Aww, you get to be 'Lizzy, My Dear,'" Giana teased, and Lizzy scowled, feeling her face flame red and not being able to stop it.

Lizzy my dear—you have always been my inspiration

Please

Be good to me—Lizzy, my love

Don't forget me—Lizzy, my dear.

"You sound rather nice, Will," Giana told her brother. "Do you think Aunt Catty would let you record a cover of the Beatles? Does it count as literature, do you think, Lizzy?"

Lizzy shook her head mutely and walked ahead, reminding herself that it could always more awkward. He could've sung one of his own songs. Behind her, she heard Giana say, "You'd better stop, Will. If her face gets any brighter, I think they might mistake her for a traffic light or something."

Lizzy was annoyed when Will caught up to her with a few quick strides.

"What music do you listen to?" Will asked, bending towards her.

"Oh, B.F.D. definitely," Lizzy replied, snickering. "They're all I listen to."

Giana laughed, and Will frowned and said, "That wasn't what I meant."

"No, what you mean was if I'd heard your single yet," Lizzy said scowling.

"I suppose you have, then," Will said.

Giana looked from Lizzy to Will and back again, grinning so broadly that Lizzy could've counted her teeth.

When Lizzy chose not to respond, he said, "Well?"

"You know it doesn't work like that with me," Lizzy said sharply. "You're going to have to actually ask."

"All right, then," Will said. "What did you think of the song I wrote you, Lizzy?"

Lizzy stumbled, mouth open, into Giana, who pushed her back on her feet. "I don't think you weren't actually supposed to ask, Will," Giana said grinning.

Lizzy shook her head. "You were supposed to get all quiet for while so that I'd have time to figure out something to say."

"I apologize," Will said with a carefully blank face, but Lizzy knew he was laughing at her. She'd just witnessed the emergence of a third personality—Teasing Will. "I'll strive to read your mind more carefully next time."

"Well, I liked it, if that helps," Lizzy said, and again she couldn't force herself to look him in the eye. The closest she got was his shoulder.

"Yes, but that isn't what you thought of it," Giana pointed out.

"Answer me later, if you like," Will said. "I didn't mean to put you on the spot."

Lizzy looked at him then, smiling. "Thank you," she said, surprised that he'd be so patient.

"Don't thank him quite yet," Giana said dryly. "He's trying to make sure we see you at Pemberley tomorrow."

Lizzy turned a harsh scowl towards Will, who shrugged. "You were planning on coming anyway," he pointed out. "For your film."

"Yeah, but that was before she found out that Caroline and Charlie are coming tomorrow," Giana said.

"Tomorrow? Oh, shit," Lizzy grumbled, and Giana laughed.

After a moment, Will asked, "You are still coming, aren't you?"

"I guess so," Lizzy said. "I pretty much have to. You should have seen how excited Sam and Diana were when they realized they were getting a couple days to themselves."

The train station was crowded, of course, in the warm summer evening. Streams of people covered every meter of the floor, which wouldn't normally be a problem for Lizzy Bennet (she had plenty experience on the New York subway after all). Today, though, Lizzy had to navigate through the crowd with two handfuls of bags (that were getting heavier by the second), as she tried to outrun the Darcy siblings (whose long legs gave them an unfair advantage). Lizzy struggled forward until a gaggle of schoolchildren—herded by a tall, thin man with a nametag that read St. Mark's Academy for Boys—cut her off so violently that she fell backwards into a billboard for Big Ben tours.

"Bloody hell," Lizzy snapped.

Giana caught up first, smirking. "Lizzy, you've been in England too long."

"Are you all right?" Will asked Lizzy.

"I'm just pissed," Lizzy snapped, glaring at him.

Will dropped his eyes to the floor, smiling apologetically. Then, he grinned and pried several shopping bags out of her hands.

"Hey," Lizzy snapped, reaching for them. "I can carry those."

Will walked ahead, turning over his shoulder to grin back at Lizzy. "It's not a matter of you carrying them, but one of you carrying them and keeping pace."

"Don't be an asshole," Lizzy said, as she and Giana hurried to catch up.

"Forgive me," Will said still grinning. "I was under the impression that carrying a lady's parcels was the act of a gentleman."

"Don't be smug either—I saw that," Lizzy told Giana suddenly.

"What?" asked Giana, who'd just been admiring the figure of a fellow commuter, a moderately tall fellow with dimples and questionable facial hair.

"You know what," Lizzy teased with a grin. "At least go for one without sideburns."

"What happened?" Will asked Lizzy.

"Hormones," Lizzy said, unable to meet Will's eyes. "Okay, Giana—look to three o'clock. Broad shoulders, red rugby shirt, and dark hair. See him?"

"Yeah," Giana said, trying to glance covertly to her right and failing utterly.

"He was totally checking you out a second ago," Lizzy said.

Giana looked at him again over her shoulder. "He was not."

Lizzy laughed to see Giana blushing. "Sure, he was."

"Will you both please refrain from such talk in my presence?" Will said curtly.

"Jealous, are you?" replied his sister with a smirk.

"Got anything better to do than people watch?" Lizzy wanted to know.

"You might help me find the track we need," Will told them, glancing around.

"Are we lost?" asked Giana, mouth open.

"I am not lost," Will replied with such scorn that Lizzy laughed.

"Excuse me," said a small, young American voice. Giana, Will, and Lizzy all turned to see a red-faced teenage girl, her hair in braids and teeth in braces. She was holding a pen and a small notebook open to a blank page. Her friends lurked four steps away, their hands on the straps of their backpacks and their eyes on Will. "Can I have your autograph?" the first girl asked.

Lizzy glanced at Will quickly. His expression was closed, eyes narrowed and jaw clenched. Lizzy tried not to smirk, because he looked more like his pictures than ever.

"Please, Dar?" asked the American girl, thrusting the notebook and pen closer to him.

Lizzy looked from the girl back to Will, laughing.

"I told you," she told Will, poking a finger at his ribs. He winced and turned to her, bewildered. "I told you that you looked like him." To the young American tourist, Lizzy added with a hand on Will's arm, "Thanks. I keep telling him how much he looks that singer—the tall one from B.F.D., right? He never believed me."

"Oh," said the girl, closing her notebook abashedly. "Sorry."

"It's quite all right," Will said with an awkward nod.

Lizzy tried to take her hand away from Will's arm, but he caught hers in his, which made carrying the shopping bags even more awkward. She looked at him sharply and decided he was definitely misunderstanding things.

"There!" Giana announced triumphantly, pointing at a tunnel all the way over at the opposite side of the station. "That's where we're supposed to go."

"Have a good night," Lizzy told the girl, as Will strode off and pulled her along after Giana.

Halfway down the tunnel, when she was sure that they were out of earshot, Giana said, "Lizzy, you're brilliant."

Lizzy shrugged with an amused smirk and pulled her hand out of Will's. "I try," she said, ignoring the look that Will was watching her with.

"Usually Will just growls something like, 'you've got the wrong man' and stomps off, and then we get followed half the night by groupies," Giana explained.

"You're fantastic," Will told her smiling, and Lizzy smiled back, suddenly and annoyingly shy.

8.

Lizzy knew exactly what Giana was doing. It involved her dumping most of her bags on Will and Lizzy so that she could run ahead and reserve a compartment. ("A compartment? Like in Harry Potter?" Lizzy asked excitedly, and Giana replied, "How much older than me are you supposed to be?") Of course, this arrangement also meant that Will and Lizzy were left to struggle together with the packages and the other passengers for close to ten minutes. It also meant—since by the time they reached the chosen compartment, Giana herself was stretched along one row of seats, asleep—that Lizzy was left pretty much alone with Will. Which would have been worrisome in itself, but Lizzy really dreaded what Giana wanted her to tell him.

To make matters worse—by the time they'd managed to pack Giana's new wardrobe in the overhead racks and stack it on the remaining seats, Will and Lizzy were squished together in about four feet of seat.

"She did this on purpose," Lizzy said, squeezing into the spot between Will and the packages and glaring at Giana's sleeping form.

"Probably," Will said, but he was smiling.

Lizzy's hair was in her eyes, so she raked it back impatiently. It was tangled, she noticed, so she started to fingercomb it, pulling it forward and examining the split ends.

"Are you tired?" Will asked.

"What?" Lizzy said startled.

"You always play with your hair when you're tired," Will explained, and when Lizzy didn't know how to respond (except to quickly take her hands out of her hair), he added, "Would you like the window seat?"

Lizzy shook her head. It was dark anyway. She threw Will guilty, side-long glances, which he returned with a steady stare. When the train jerked and chugged into motion, he said, "Lizzy, do you need to say something?"

She sighed heavily. "You aren't going to like it," Lizzy warned him.

"Probably not," said Will with a sharp sigh, "but I've prepared myself."

"You'll probably be pissed," Lizzy said ruefully.

"I'll try to contain myself," Will told her. "Before you start, however, may I have permission to put my arm on the seat behind you? I'd rather you not believe I'm taking liberties, but this arm has fallen asleep and I think it might give us more space."

Lizzy shrugged, which Will took as approval, and he stretched his arm out behind her head, careful not to touch her.

"It's about Giana—" Lizzy started.

"Giana?" Will repeated sharply.

"Yeah, she asked me to talk to you about something," Lizzy said, surprised at his surprise. "What did you think I was going to say?"

Will scratched his nose with the hand that wasn't behind Lizzy and shook his head.

"Oh. Oh," Lizzy said. "You thought I was going to address the 'You Told Me' question. Sorry—I can only handle one thing at a time."

Will nodded once and waited.

Lizzy took a deep breath, paused long enough to look him hard in the eye, and asked, "How long are you going to keep Giana dependent on you?"

Will scowled. "I don't understand what you mean."

"Don't give me that shit." He knew exactly what she meant.

"She's eighteen," Will protested. "Most young women aren't independent at sixteen like you."

"She's still old enough to have her own credit card," Lizzy pointed out. "Maybe even her own bank account, too."

Will glanced out the window roughly, and Lizzy knew he was forcing himself to keep his temper in check. "Lizzy, you're prying into affairs that aren't yours to—"

"Well, duh," Lizzy interrupted, "and if you're about to allude to next installment of the Wickhead-the-Dickhead saga, you can save it. Giana told me."

"She told you?"

"Yep," Lizzy said with a very small smirk. "Wickham didn't break her, Will. Just her heart."

Will looked out the window again, jaw clenched but eyes now more troubled than angry. "There are more men than just Wickham who would try to use her."

"I know, and I'm sure Giana knows, too," Lizzy said. More quietly, she added, "You can't protect her forever, Will. At this point, you'll just end up humiliating her."

"Why—" Will started, scowling, and then stopped.

"Why didn't she tell you herself?" Lizzy finished softly.

Will was silent for a moment, watching his sister sleep, and Lizzy was silent too, watching him. His face was closed again—eyes narrowed, brows fierce, and jaw clenched, but his mouth was half-open, hurt and vulnerable.

"Is she really afraid of me, Lizzy?" he asked quietly.

"I don't think so," Lizzy replied. "Of disappointing you, yes."

Will snorted. "This is rather disappointing."

Lizzy shook her head slowly. "You're mostly disappointed that she didn't trust you more," she replied, and Will set his jaw again and refused to answer. "I think she was just scared that you wouldn't take her seriously."

"I—" he said and stopped. "I feel like such a shit," he admitted, scowling sharply and pressing two knuckles to his mouth. "She must have known," Will told Lizzy, watching his sister sleep. "She knew I would…" he said and stopped. Lizzy watched him, startled that he was confiding in her. "She knew to come to you. If Charlie—well, no. Charlie probably wouldn't have done it. Or Fitz, really," Will added, glancing at her with a rueful smile. "He wouldn't understand. The Fitzwilliams have never known what it was to need money. But you…" he said, looking at her again and drifting off. His scowl was so sad that Lizzy squeezed his hand just to see him try to smile. "God, I'm such a shit."

"You're not so bad," Lizzy told him softly.

"I'm sorry you had to get involved," he replied, his gaze very serious.

Lizzy shrugged, with a half-grin. "It's fine. I actually thought it was going to be way more awkward. You should've seen me when I found out that what she wanted from me. She probably had no idea what she was asking me."

"She did," Will said, looking down at his sister. "She knows more than you think. We're quite close."

Lizzy didn't know what to say. She would've taken her hand back, but this didn't seem like the right time for it, not when his jaw was so tight with emotion.

He looked at her side-long with a half-smile. "Thank you," he told her, and gently kissed her temple.

This was the time for Lizzy to push him away, to make loud and angry protests, and leave the compartment. At the very least, she should've glared, but she only went very still, her eyes very wide and watching Will.

Will paused. Lizzy could feel his breath stir her hair. Slowly, he kissed her cheekbone, right under her eye. Lizzy only closed her eyes. He kissed her neck, just below her ear. His hand cradled her face, and he kissed her jaw, her cheek, the corner of her mouth—

"When most couples get a room," said Giana, her voice thick with sleep and only one eye open, "they don't usually choose one with the little sister in it."

"You're supposed to be asleep," Will informed said little sister.

"Sister's sixth sense," Giana said, turning over and settling back into sleep.

His hand had dropped away from her face, Lizzy noticed with relief. He wasn't touching her, except for when the train car rocked and the arm he'd lain across the top of her seat brushed the nape of her neck.

Lizzy wouldn't look at Will, even though she felt him watching her. She didn't speak; she didn't know what to say. Thankfully, he didn't either. In the quiet compartment, the only sound was of the railroad clacking under them and Giana's long, slow breathing.

It was stupid, she knew that. She had no right to let him do that. She had no right to run around London with him either or follow him around Pemberley. She had to be more careful, more wary. Eyes on the compartment floor, she resolved silently never to do anything Will could misunderstand again.

Ten minutes later, she was asleep, her head drooping to his chest. Will allowed his arm to cradle her shoulders, and looking out the window at the nighttime shadowy countryside, he struggled to keep the grin off his face.

9.

Nobody likes to lose. Men especially hate it. Especially when he loses at something that he prides himself in having some skill in. Especially when he had an audience. So, it was a problem the next afternoon at Pemberley when Giana forced Will and Lizzy to try out her new Karaoke Revolution video game—complete with two microphones—and when Lizzy's score put Will to—well, not shame exactly, but scowls at least. To be fair though, no one could expect Will to handle this defeat gracefully, since the song that Lizzy beat him on was B.F.D.'s "Do I Contradict Myself?"

"Are you seriously going to pout about this?" Lizzy asked, and Will scowled sharply, unplugging the microphone and coiling the cord around the handle. On the TV screen, Lizzy's video game character (a ballerina) did a spinning victory dance, while Will's character (a goateed man in shades) sulked in the background.

"Don't put it away yet, Will," Giana said; she was extra-polite to her brother this morning. Lizzy guessed that they'd had a talk that morning—or maybe late the night before, after Lizzy walked back to the hotel and the Darcy's waited for Aunty Cindy to pick them at the train station with their bags. When Will kept wrapping, Giana said, "I'd like a turn."

"It's broken. We'll have to take it back," Will said icily.

Lizzy snorted. "Bullshit, Mr. Darcy."

"It's broken," Will repeated stonily.

"How old are you?" Lizzy asked, handing her microphone over to Giana.

"Twenty-four," Giana said, but when Will shot her a glare, she quieted abruptly and set about scrolling down the list of songs to find something new to sing.

"You're overreacting," Lizzy told Will.

"You didn't write the bloody song," Will snapped.

"Uh, Will? That's Charlie's song," Giana reminded him.

"I helped, didn't I?" Will said, "and I've played it to stadiums throughout the states."

"Well, the world, really," Giana corrected him, with a fond little sisterly grin.

"That's probably why you lost," Lizzy pointed out, and when Will looked at her, scowling but listening, she explained, "This game judges against the recording your label released. That's the version I've heard and sung along to thousands of times, but you improvise a little every time you perform. So, I end up scoring better and you end up singing better, because I'm an imitator and you're an artist.—God, now you're grinning. You're so moody, Will."

"It's because you called him an artist," Giana suggested.

"No," Will said, still grinning.

"Oh," Giana said, rolling your eyes. "My mistake—it's 'cause you listen to B.F.D. and sing along even."

"You're the moodiest person I've ever met," Lizzy grumbled. "How do you even function?"

"Practice," Will said, shrugging with another grin.

"Please don't mention practice. I've just now gotten over the nightmares the studio sessions gave me," said a voice from the doorway, and when Giana, Lizzy, and Will turned to look, Charlie was in the doorway, his hair still uncombed and curly and his smile a little less broad than Lizzy remembered. "Hello, Lizzy," he told her, wary but resigned—as if he was bracing himself for the worst.

Lizzy grinned away his discomfort and slowly Charlie's smile grew less forced. "Hey, Charlie," she said, "you should check out Giana's new game."

"Don't do it," Will warned his bandmate. "It will only make you angry."

"He's not you," Lizzy reminded Will with a smirk, and Will grinned back at her.

"Where's Caroline?" Giana asked in a hopeful voice, as if she hoped Charlie had lost her.

"Taking a shower," Charlie explained, coming into the room and settling into the leather couch that Lizzy'd previously said belonged in the office of a CEO, not in the rec room. "She wilted in the car."

"Good," said Giana with relief. "That gives us a little time, then."

"Well—" Charlie said apologetically. "Not necessarily."

"What's that?" Giana said sharply.

The next thing they heard was a sharp, loud cry-- "Will!" There was a blur of pink velvet and blonde hair rushing across the room, and when it stopped, Caroline Bingley was draped over Will, his arms crossed between him and her and her face angling up toward his. "Will, I've missed you so much; did you miss me?"

Caroline's attentions to Will weren't as funny to Lizzy as they'd been at Netherfield. It was annoying to watch Caroline give a bad name to women everywhere and set a bad example for Giana. "Hey, Caroline," Lizzy said. "How's your sister?"

Caroline turned with the kind of horrified frown that made Lizzy suspect that someone hadn't told Caroline who to expect at Pemberley. "What are you doing here?" Caroline asked her.

"Nice to see you too," Lizzy replied.

"Louisa's well. She's in Boston still," Charlie said, and Lizzy nodded a little, smiling to encourage him. It worked a little too well, because Charlie next asked, "How's your…um, family?"

Lizzy regarded him with a hard smirk. "I haven't seen my mother since you met her. Dad's fine. Lydia, my cousin—"

"Why is she here?" Caroline asked Giana, who dutifully explained about the tour bus.

"She's taken Charlotte's place, so she's living in the apartment with us," Lizzy continued. "My aunt and uncle are here in England with me, but they're enjoying a day of sightseeing to themselves. My aunt Maddie, Lydia's aunt, is trying to weasel out of paying Lydia's portion of the rent, and we're pretty sure it's because she's just bought a house in the Hamptons—" Charlie nodded dutifully through all of this, but when he glanced uncertainly at Will, Lizzy took pity on him and told him what he really wanted to know. "Jane's okay."

Charlie met her gaze with a soft frown, and Lizzy decided she still liked him.

"She's okay, but she's not happy," Lizzy added. It was just a push in the right direction, but she still looked towards Will to gauge his reaction.

"Will, you haven't told me whether you missed me or not yet," Caroline complained, throttling Will's neck in her arms.

"I did see you just yesterday," Will reminded her, trying to pry himself out of her grip.

Lizzy shrugged at Charlie and said, "But don't say that I told you so."

"I—" started Charlie, but Giana embarked on a mission to rescue her brother, by saying, "Caroline, you fancy a try at my new game? I'll do a duet with you."

"Aww," said Caroline, untangling herself from Will (mission accomplished) and patting Giana on the head (with some light casualties). "You're still young enough to play games. That's so cute, Georgie." (Make that heavy casualties.)

"You want me to go again with you?" Lizzy told Giana. "I mean, you did let me and Will have the first turn, so it's only fair."

"That's all right," Giana said, grinning because Caroline was glowering at Lizzy. "Charlie will go with me."

"What am I doing?" Charlie asked, but he was already getting up. (He really was such a nice guy, Lizzy decided, just too accommodating.)

"Karaoke," Lizzy warned him.

"Oh, okay," said Charlie, taking up the microphone that Giana handed him.

"Charlie will lose as well, I suppose," Will said to Lizzy.

Lizzy wrinkled her nose. "Depends on whether Giana gives him his part or yours."

Will cursed, and Lizzy laughed, and scowling, Caroline came to sit on Will's other side and took his hand in hers. "Oh, is this B.F.D. Karaoke?"

When no one else replied, Charlie said, "I think so."

"Yes," Giana confirmed.

"Oh my God, it has 'Coming to Bed'?" Caroline asked as Giana's cursor reached it, and then she turned to Will, her hand on his bicep, "I just love that song: every time I hear it, I get all—"

"I don't think we'll do that one," Giana interrupted quickly, scrolling past it.

"Please?" whined Caroline. "Will, can you make them?"

"No," said Will very quietly, and his face was stone again.

"That song's a little sultry for a room full of siblings," Lizzy said smirking.

"You aren't a sibling," Caroline pointed out.

"Plus, it'd be a bit hard. I can't remember all the words," Giana said.

"Sure, I am," Lizzy told Caroline. "I just didn't bring my twin along this time."

"Jane's in England?" Charlie said, and he looked like he was halfway between panic and joy.

Lizzy shook her head at Charlie. "She's still in Vickroot."

"Shall we do 'If I'?" Giana asked Charlie, controller in hand.

"Sure," Charlie said.

"Do you want Will's part?" Giana asked Charlie, who shrugged and nodded. Lizzy looked to Will pointedly, with a slight grin curling at the corners of her mouth.

"It means nothing," Will said sharply, and Caroline curled into Will's side.

"I love that picture," Giana said, gesturing toward the TV. Everyone looked at the Tscreen as the song loaded, where the B.F.D.'s first Rolling Stones cover sparkled with musical notes: Fitz—with a crest of red hair and his usual expression of half-bored mischief, in the background, absentmindedly drumming on a seated Charlie's head, and Will staring straight at the photographer, all very dark eyes and harsh, rigid attention, with his mouth tight and his hands clasped behind his back. Lizzy leaned forward, squinting at it, her mouth half open. She was remembering the brand new band and her first photograph (almost a secret) and the tallest of them turning to her with dark eyes, asking her what she thought she was doing.

"That's because I'm in it," Will said, grinning at his sister.

"You wish. It's because Charlie looks so nice in it," Giana replied, sticking her tongue out at her brother. "I'm sorry, Charlie, but I took quite a fancy to you once upon a time."

Charlie shrugged, but he was blushing and Lizzy remembered how much she liked him. "Who was the photographer for that one again? Burt McTerrin?" he asked Will.

"The asshole-photographer," Lizzy said scowling.

"You had a shoot with him?" Charlie asked.

Lizzy grimaced. "Three—my least favorite."

"Were you an intern?" Giana asked.

"A model," Lizzy replied.

"You were a model?" Giana said, mouth gaping, and Caroline smiled triumphantly.

Lizzy slumped backwards, elbow leaning on the couch cushion behind Will. "Everybody reacts like that."

"McTerrin got the credit for it," Will said quietly, "but he didn't take that photograph."

"Right, I forgot," Charlie said grinning. "You think one of the models—"

"The song's beginning," Giana said.

"Right," Charlie said, turning back to the screen where Will's goateed character in shades was swaying from side to side. The words crept closer along the bottom of the screen, and Charlie and the character both raised the microphone to their mouths. "If when, my wife is sleeping, and the baby and Kathleen are sleeping—"

"He's beating you already Will," Lizzy said.

"Not by much," Will replied.

Giana joined in, and together she and Charlie sang, "and the sun is a flame-white disk—"

"Finish the story," Caroline said, squeezing Will's arm again. "There was a model who…"

"in silken mists—"

"Charlie and Fitz don't believe me, but a model took the picture when no one was looking just before the shoot started," Will said.

"above shining trees,—"

"Well, you were looking obviously," Lizzy pointed out, smiling.

"But who was she?" Caroline asked, jealous of a mystery.

Charlie was singing alone again. "If I in my south room, dance…Oh, shit—look at that; I've fucked us up already."

"Just keep going," Giana hissed.

"None of us know," Will said.

"Well, if it was a model, maybe Lizzy might know him," Caroline suggested.

"Her," Will corrected. "I think she was a brunette, not terribly pretty, and a little short for a model."

Charlie and Giana were going together again, "singing softly to myself—"

"Well, Lizzy?" asked Caroline, smirking like it was a challenge. "Know any short, moderately attractive, brunette models who dabble in photography?"

"I might," Lizzy said, and Will heard the laughter behind her polite tone.

"I am lonely, lonely, I was born to be lonely, I am best so!"

"It was you!" Will said, turning to her, and Lizzy couldn't stop herself from laughing. "Lizzy, it was you—all this time and all the shit Charlie and Fitz gave me, and it was you."

"What was her?" Caroline asked.

"Charlie," Will called. "Charlie, are you hearing this?"

"Will, shut up, please," Charlie said, eyes on the screen. "I've already messed up once, and—oh, fuck. You've made me miss my cue."

"This really isn't difficult, you know," Giana said, looking wistfully at the dismal score they were getting.

"You might want to start over anyway," Lizzy advised, and Giana reached for the controller.

"Charlie, it was Lizzy," Will said.

"You were the one who screwed me up. Don't blame Lizzy," Charlie scolded with a good-natured grin.

"Lizzy was the photographer," Will said. "The Stones cover—it was hers."

"No…really?" Charlie said, turning to her.

"It was my first real photograph," Lizzy said, and both Bingley's gaped at her.

"You can't expect us to actually believe that," Caroline said.

"Of course not," Lizzy said shortly. "I'm having a hard time with it myself."

"Well, we could try to prove it," Charlie offered. "Lizzy, what did Will ask when he noticed…whoever it was taking pictures?"

Lizzy shrugged. "He asked me what I thought I was doing, but that's not exactly a hard question."

"And what'd you do after that?" Charlie asked.

"I left, of course. I could've gotten into a lot of trouble," Lizzy said.

"Was it illegal?" Giana asked.

"McTerrin would've liked it to be if he caught me messing with his camera," Lizzy replied.

"But before that? Before leaving?" Will asked, and that look was back in his eyes, the one where he expected something from her, the one that scared her. "What did you do?"

"I winked, Will, but--" Lizzy said.

Will grinned. "It was you."

"Shit—I don't believe it," Charlie said.

"I know," Will said happily. "It's astounding. Lizzy must do all our shoots in the future."

"I can do it," Caroline announced. "I've taken all of Louisa and my digital photos; we even have a website now."

"No," Charlie said grinning. "She just called you 'Will.' I never thought she'd give the 'Mr. Darcy' shit up."

"www. caroandluz4ever. com," Caroline announced.

"Who gave you a website?" Giana asked Caroline.

"I bought it," said Caroline.

Lizzy had a choice of glaring at Will or Charlie. She chose Will, because Charlie was too easy a target. "I'm not going to be your photographer; we're too complicated now for that."

"She's called me Will for two days now," Will told Charlie smugly.

"I don't see why any of this is a big deal," Lizzy said scowling and crossing her arms, and Will smirked at her in a way that Lizzy knew would be trouble later.

"Well, for one thing, McTerrin must have made over a million off of that photograph with all the poster sales and all," Charlie explained.

Lizzy's mouth dropped open, and she closed it swiftly.

"You can make that much money with a photograph?" Caroline asked, clearly impressed.

"Rarely," said Lizzy grinning. "Very rarely."

"Are you like, upset?" Caroline asked with a newfound respect for Lizzy in her voice.

"Ask me later after I graduate and need to find an apartment in the city," Lizzy said shrugging. "It's fine right now, though. I just managed my last tuition payment so I feel pretty good about money matters."

"Lizzy, you're my new favorite person," said Giana beaming, and Bing and Dar both seemed equally impressed.

Lizzy grinned. "Thanks."

Caroline however was not impressed and was less inclined to be, when it turned all the attention away from her. "I guess a model needs to develop other talents if she's not terribly attractive," she told Lizzy.

"Yep," chirped Lizzy proudly. "Pretty much."

"There may have been a time when she didn't seem so," Will said evenly to Caroline, and Lizzy turned to him sharply with a scolding grin, wondering what had pissed him off so fast. "But for several months, I've considered Lizzy to be the most beautiful woman I know."

The room became very still, and Lizzy watched every eye in the room turn to her and felt all the blood rush to her face. "Way to make it awkward, Will," she growled and stood up.

"Oh, well done, Will," added Giana, but Will was watching Lizzy—not frowning exactly but not smiling either.

"Are you leaving?" Charlie asked.

"Not exactly," Lizzy replied, not meeting anyone's eye, "but there's a darkroom I've been meaning to visit."

"Will," Charlie said, as Lizzy walked through the door, "how long have you known you're in love with Lizzy?"

Lizzy walked faster down the hall, but she didn't get far enough away to escape Caroline's shout: "WILL IS NOT IN LOVE WITH LIZZY."

10.

The dark room always calmed Lizzy. There was something about the way that it was set up that let her feel—just for a little while—that she had absolute control over these things that she had chosen and purchased with her own hard-earned income. Of course, that was at home in Vickroot. As a student, Lizzy would've never been able to afford the enlarger like the one that Pemberley had or a sink with such a fancy faucet system, but it only served to remind her that this wasn't her darkroom—it was Will's.

When she heard the knock at the door, Lizzy was cutting up film to fit in the sleeves that she'd picked up in London the day before. She knew it was Will by the way the feet were positioned in the narrow slat under the door. "Lizzy, can I come in?"

"No," Lizzy said flatly, gathering up her film. When the door opened and Will walked in, so tall that he nearly blocked out the light from the windows behind him, Lizzy asked, "Did you not hear me?"

"You haven't started yet," Will pointed out. He was watching her with that tight expression she hated, the one that had so much feeling in it that it seemed expressionless. "You haven't even shut off the lights."

Lizzy snapped off the switch for the regular lights and flipped on the other set, and the room took on the dark, moody angles that seemed to come with the glow of a red bulb.

"You do understand that you're being absurd, don't you?" Will asked, leaning against the countertop and watching Lizzy fiddle with the enlarger, centering the negative under the bulb. "Most women enjoy compliments."

Lizzy flipped another switch, and the enlarger projected a fuzzy, black and white image of Pemberley onto a white square of cardboard below. "You can't say stuff like that, Will."

"Like what?" Will asked, and it wasn't the serious note in his voice that scared Lizzy—it was the thought that this was going to be the kind of conversation that she would want to forget later but couldn't. "Perhaps, you don't want me to say that I think you're beautiful? That there hasn't been a day between our last meeting and this that I haven't thought about you? That there has to be something here—with all these chance meetings we've had—this first photo shoot, my dressing room, Aunt Catherine's, even Vickroot—there has to be a little bit of—"

"Yes," Lizzy interrupted sharply in a small voice, and she wouldn't look at him. "You can't say that."

"Why not?" Will asked, and his tone was a little gentler. "If it's what I believe, then why shouldn't I say it?"

Lizzy didn't answer. She adjusted the enlarger until the lines of Pemberley grew more distinct.

"The silent treatment, Lizzy?" Will said softly, almost joking. When she still didn't answer, he added, "If you're going to force me to ask these questions, you'll have to answer them."

"I don't like it," Lizzy said.

"It scares you, you mean," Will replied.

"Yes," Lizzy said quietly. "It scares me."

"All right," Will said, and when Lizzy finally looked at him, he was nodding. "Okay."

"Thank you for letting me use your darkroom, Will," Lizzy said.

"Is that my dismissal?" Will asked, reaching for the doorknob.

"No—I was going to ask you which pictures you wanted me to develop for you to keep in your private collection," Lizzy said.

Will's grin was slow, but it was infectious. "Will you autograph them?"

Lizzy snorted, sensing the return of Teasing Will. "No way."

"But you must. I won't want them if you don't autograph them," Will told her.

"Fine—I'll just have to pay you in cash for renting your darkroom," Lizzy said.

"You don't have to pay us anything, Lizzy," Will said sharply.

"Sure, I do—otherwise, I won't feel comfortable," Lizzy said.

Will sighed. "Where's the thing, then?"

"What thing?"

"The thing with the pictures, but they're smaller and it's the whole roll," Will explained.

"Do you mean the contact sheet?" Lizzy asked laughing.

"That's it," Will said with a triumphant grin.

"There," Lizzy said, nodding up to her left, where a wet piece of thick photography paper was hanging from a clothesline. Will leaned and reached across her with an impossible long arm that smelled of soap and something else that made Lizzy freeze.

Will took the sheet down and squinted at it in the dim, red light. "This one."

Lizzy looked where he was pointing and wrinkled her nose. "Ugh. No."

"What? I'm not allowed to choose? You just said you wanted me to choose," Will reminded her.

"Yeah, with the intention that you'd pick one of the pictures that I'd taken," Lizzy said.

"You didn't take this one?" Will asked.

Lizzy rolled her eyes. "Will, it's a picture of me. How could I have taken it?"

"It's the one I want," Will said. He was smirking. This was definitely the teasing side of Will.

"That's creepy," Lizzy said.

Will frowned. "How is it creepy?"

"To know your picture's in the someone's home a whole ocean away."

Will laughed, the rich laugh she'd heard once before an ocean away at the Collins' residence. "This coming from the photographer who put the faces of B.F.D. on newsstands around the world and in many homes besides."

Lizzy scowled. "Fine," said Lizzy, pulling out the negative out of the sleeve, "but that's not the only one I'm making for you."

"All right, I saw another one with you in it somewhere here," Will said, squinting at the contact sheet again.

"No."

"I don't have any pictures of you," Will protested.

"Tough luck. There's a new rule—only one of your new pictures can have me in it," Lizzy said.

Will scowled. "Why not?"

"Because," Lizzy said with a grin, "I'll think that you don't appreciate my work if you don't pick any that I took."

He picked the view from the master bedroom's broken balcony. He picked the half-exposed ballroom carving. He picked Giana's face—bright and beaming in a London train window. He picked a mountain of shopping bags piled at his sister's feet.

"Whoa—slow down there," Lizzy said. "It'll start with those, and we'll move on from there."

Will moved on when Lizzy did, shadowing her movements—from the enlarger, where they watch a few bright seconds of light exposed to a sensitive page—to the sink, where they watched one solution develop it, another fix it, and water wash it—to the rack, where they left the photos to dry. He was always a step behind—so close that his movements drew goosebumps on her arms and his smell made it impossible for her to concentrate.

After exposing the third photograph, Lizzy lost her patience and pressed him backward with a firm hand on his chest, and he let her push him two steps away. "You're too close," she explained, dropping the paper in the developing solution.

"Am I?" Will asked, and he was grinning again as he stepped close again. And then closer until he was only half a foot away and towering over her. "Is this too close, too?"

"Cut it out," Lizzy warned. This wasn't Teasing Will anymore. This was someone more dangerous.

"And this?" Will said, leaning down until he was only an inch away. "Too close, do you think?"

"Will," Lizzy growled.

He pressed his forehead against hers. "How about this? Is this too—" he said, and then Lizzy kissed him—on the mouth, probably because it was closest.

It was a quick kiss, just an impulse before she gasped, realizing what she was doing. "That didn't happen," Lizzy told him, and she was very glad that the room was red already, so Will wouldn't notice how much she was blushing.

"Yes, it did," Will said, and he was still too close—she would've pushed him away, if she trusted herself enough to touch him again. "You kissed me."

"That wasn't a kiss," Lizzy said and realized how stupid she sounded. "There was no tongue, so no kiss."

"Don't be ridiculous, Lizzy," Will said.

"It won't happen again," Lizzy told him, pulling the photograph of Giana's face out of the developing solution and into the fix.

"I don't think you understand," Will said. "I would rather it did happen again."

"Well, it still won't," Lizzy said firmly and felt Will's hand firmly turn her towards him.

The angles of his face seemed softened by the red light, but his scowl was the kind that made her heart stutter in her chest. "That isn't fair, Lizzy."

"Let me go," Lizzy snapped. "Now," she added, and he did but he was angry.

Will was pacing now.

"I'm sorry," Lizzy said and meant it.

The room was too small for his long-legged steps. He only managed two-and-a-half before he had to turn himself around again.

"Look, what do you want me to say? I messed up," Lizzy replied.

"You didn't mess up," Will told her.

"Will, you—" Lizzy started, one finger raised.

"You won't let anything happen," Will interrupted. "You just make everything seem possible and then just steal it away—"

"Is that any different to what you did to Jane? And Charlie?" Lizzy snapped.

A different man might have hit something, but Will only turned—looking at Lizzy with a flat expression too sharp to be a scowl. "I knew it," Will scoffed. "I knew that at some point in this conversation, you'd think I was too bloody close, and you'd insult me to get me to take off. But that won't work on me, Lizzy. I'm just as stubborn as you—"

"That's not what this is," Lizzy snapped.

"What is it, then?" Will asked. "What are you doing now? Is this revenge for what I made happen between my friend and your sister? Is that the kind of woman you'd rather be?"

Lizzy didn't answer, except to look down, swallow, and turn away, trying not to believe that he'd just accused her of coming to Pemberley just to make him miserable and get back at him for Jane.

"Lizzy…" Will started, reaching toward her, but she sidestepped him to take Giana's picture out of the fix and into the rinse.

"Let it stay in there for another couple minutes," Lizzy said quietly, gathering up all the film she saw—the silvery sleeves and the dark ribbons in them, "and then you can hang it up to dry."

"Lizzy," Will called again, but she threw open the door—flooding the red room with white light.

She fled.

"Lizzy, you know I don't actually believe that," Will called after her.

She knew she was fleeing, but she didn't care. It was better to be gone than to be brave; she might not have returned to the rec room—if it hadn't been for her camera bag and Giana ("You're leaving?" the girl asked. "I'm sorry," Lizzy replied, hugging her). The Bingleys stood up in the confusion, almost a salute. Aunty Cindy was in the corner, watching Lizzy with a shrewd, judging look. Then Will came into the room and Lizzy went out of it, through the nearest long-windowed door, across the marble porch, and down the front stairs. Will tried one last time ("Lizzy!"), and Lizzy raised one hand in good-bye and left Pemberley.

11.

There are moments in life when someone needs someone else, and Lizzy had structured her life against these moments. She'd fortified herself from them. To be independent, she'd navigated herself around their onslaught. But sadly, no plan is fool-proof, and this world is too crowded for anyone to be alone forever.

Her aunt and uncle were gone again. They'd told her that they would be—it wasn't a surprise, but when she walked into their empty room, the unguarded part of her still panged with loneliness.

There was the phone. Lizzy had a calling card—it was only for emergencies, but this was the only kind of emergency that Lizzy ever needed her sister for.

She couldn't tell Jane everything, she knew that. It was too big a burden to force on someone over an ocean. But Lizzy could hear her twin's voice, and Jane would say in her soft-spoken way that everything would be all right.

After a thread of numbers and bombardment of voice commands, Lizzy was calling home, cradling the phone to her ear with one hand and pressing a hand over her eyes with the other. She wouldn't cry. The phone rang once, twice, three times; Lizzy held her breath and the answering machine came on. Lizzy let the air out of her lungs in a sharp cry and would have hung up, but instead of Jane's determined "Sorry—we can't come to the phone right now…", the message was Jane again, saying sharply, "We're not here, but Lizzy, if it's you, check your email. Or your voice mail. Please." The tone came and went, and Lizzy said "I—" before hanging up quickly. Before dialing through the calling cards numbers with fingers that almost shook, hearing her own tinny voice tell her whose mailbox she'd reached, and typing in her password carefully.

She listened.

She closed her eyes, pushed a button, and listened again.

She placed the phone back on the receiver, breathing carefully. She sprang into action: she pulled out her travel information—her ticket and her itinerary. With one hand, she dialed through her calling card codes again; with the other, she gathered her clothes from the room's floor and shoved them into her bag. With the help of a travel agent mercilessly badgered ("There's nothing earlier? Are you sure?" "Quite sure."), she rerouted her flight from New York to Boston, from a week away to just a few hours. She booked a shuttle to the nearest international airport. She paid her fees by credit card. She hung up the phone. She zipped up her suitcase. She put it by the door; she put it outside the door so that she could move it faster when the shuttle called for her.

She found the hotel stationary. She found a pen. She perched at the edge of the bed—the paper on the nightstand, the pen on the paper.

She didn't know how to tell her aunt and uncle.

She didn't know how to put it into words.

A shadow stretched into the room in the long, late-afternoon light, and there was a figure in the doorway. "You left some of your things," he said. "Your film."

"Are you all right?" Will asked.

He took a step forward; the sun blazed in a window behind him. "Lizzy?"

"I—" she started and swallowed. "I have to go home."

He was holding her before she realized she was crying. She curled into him, her arm looped around his neck. His arms were around her waist, his chin on top of her head. She was crying--she never cried. But here she was, crying like a child, worse than a child—she'd been a braver child than this, a calmer child than this—unabashedly hiccupping sobs into Will's shoulder as he drew slow, long circles across her back.

When she was calmer, when she was quieter, Will said, "I'm sorry, Lizzy. I'm so sorry."

Lizzy shook her head and took a deep, shaky breath. "I just have to go home."

"I didn't mean—" Will started.

"What?" Lizzy said, drawing away so that she could shake her sleeve forward and wipe her eyes. That was worse because she could see his face. She could see how much she'd scared him. "No, Will—this…isn't about you. This isn't about us."

"Ah," said Will, and the most rigid lines of his face softened.

"I called home," Lizzy told him and gulped.

Will waited, watching her with very dark eyes.

"Lydia's pregnant," Lizzy whispered. Will nodded seriously, and Lizzy smiled, just a twisted mouth and too many bared teeth. "You don't even know who Lydia is."

"No," Will said, brushing hair away from the damp parts of her face, sticky with leftover tears. Lizzy felt his guitar callouses brush her cheek.

"She's my roommate—my cousin and my roommate," Lizzy told him. He tucked her hair behind her ear. It was just an excuse to touch her now, but she didn't mind. "My mother's sister Maddie—she married a corporate someone. Golddiggers run in my family--that's why I get so upset, Will, when you accused us of it. My mom failed at it. That's why she pushes so hard."

"It's all right, Lizzy," Will told her, his hands on her shoulders.

"Lydia's in Boston alone—that's not all right," Lizzy murmured. "She's seventeen and pregnant. She shouldn't be alone right now, but he just left her there."

"Who?" Will asked. "The father?"

Lizzy nodded. "It's all my fault, Will."

"You're thousands of miles away, Lizzy," Will reminded her. "It can't possibly be your fault."

"I should've told her, but all I said was not to tell him about the money," Lizzy said sadly. "I thought she was safe. She was so young—I thought he wouldn't want her. I thought she was safe."

"Lizzy, you aren't making sense, love," Will told her, and Lizzy knew she was scaring him again and forced herself to calm down.

"It's Jack—it's Wickham," Lizzy said, and all the harsh lines returned to Will's face. "Wickham's the father; Wickham eloped with her to Boston; he left her—he left her when she told him about the baby."

Lizzy was crying again, and Will pulled her back into a hug, her head back under his chin, his hand drawing circles on her back again. "It's all my fault."

"It isn't," Will insisted.

"I knew she liked him, Will," Lizzy told him, and it was almost a confession. "All I had to do was tell her about Giana. I didn't have to use names. All I had to do was tell her what he is and what he wants, and I didn't."

"It isn't your fault, Lizzy."

"She's only seventeen," Lizzy said with a shaky breath. "I know her life's not over, but she's just made it so much harder for herself."

"Is there anything I can do?" Will asked.

"I just need to go to Boston," said Lizzy. "Jane's driving there now, but Lydia won't tell her where she is. We just have to find her."

"I can make some calls," Will said. "I have family there; they can—"

Lizzy shook her head. "Lydia will be found when she realizes I'm looking for her."

"A flight, then? A ride to the airport—I can drive you," Will offered.

Lizzy shook her head again. "Already taken care of it," she said, pulling back but not brave enough to look Will in the eye yet.

"Lizzy," Will said, and he sounded as helpless as she felt.

"I got your shirt all wet," Lizzy said, tugging at it. "Sorry."

"I don't care," he said, shaking his head. "I really don't care."

"Thank you," Lizzy said, embarrassed. She looked up at him, though, to prove that she meant it.

"It's a shirt, Lizzy, and it'll dry," Will reminded her.

"No," Lizzy said, and she smiled at him, the smile curling more naturally. "For this; for coming."

Will was silent for a long moment, long enough for Lizzy to start realizing that they were on the bed together—with shoes on, but still. "I didn't want you to leave angry," he told her quietly. "Again."

Sorry that it took me so long to update! The next chapter will be shorter, so hopefully, I'll get it out faster. Also, credit should go to animeanne for coming up with the term "Wickhead the Dickhead." Thanks—it made me laugh and I had to include it, and thank you to everyone who reviewed.