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.

18. Day Four: Christmas Day

Author's Note: Nobody worry about Will in section 12. I wouldn't write an epilogue just to kill off one of my favorite characters.

11.

He'd been awake for two hours already. No—Will corrected himself, glancing at the clock and taking another sip of his coffee—it was 6:44. That would make it two hours and eighteen minutes. He had really expected someone to join him by now. If he had known it would take this long for the others to get up, he would have tried napping on the couch.

Just when Will began reconsidering picking up his guitar, he heard light footsteps padding down the staircase, and he set his coffee mug down and waited, expecting Charlie, preparing to ask him whether or not—

Will noticed a bright flash of red hair and promptly forgot what he was going to ask Charlie.

"Oh," said Jane hesitantly, reaching up with a narrow-fingered hand to smooth her mad hair flat, "I didn't realize anyone else was up."

Will managed a smile. He couldn't remember a time when he had last been alone with Jane Elinor Bennet. This couldn't be the first incident, but he couldn't remember another. Perhaps back at Netherfield, back when she'd visited so often and Will had been too self-occupied to take notice of her.

He remember suddenly that he was supposed to reply, so he said quickly, "I couldn't go back to sleep."

"I'm sorry," Jane said and smiled back a little. Will nearly hoped that she would excuse herself back upstairs, but instead she walked silently around the counter and toward the coffeepot, tugging her blue cotton robe tighter around her.

When Will realized she was staying, he politely closed the anthology he'd been reading, supposing that it would be rude to continue reading Shelley. Lizzy certainly wouldn't like it if she heard he completely ignored her sister.

"Charlie woke me up," Jane explained as she opened the cabinet and reached for a mug. "He had to go to the bathroom, and I woke up when the toilet flushed. Of course, he went straight back to sleep," she added with a short laugh, looking up as she poured the coffee. "It takes a lot to keep him awake."

Will forced himself to smile again. "Lizzy was moving around quite a bit. She was dreaming," he explained. He wondered how much more Lizzy wouldn't mind him telling Jane, if it was all right to mention Lizzy's pained, sleeping frown, the whimper-like whispers in the back of her throat. "She said something, but I couldn't quite understand it."

Jane looked at him sharply, in a very Lizzy-like way. As if she were measuring something. "Did she wake up?" she asked.

"No," said Will. After a pause, he added, "When I said her name, she stopped."

"Oh," said Jane with a slight, thoughtful frown.

Will didn't tell Jane that after he'd spoken, he'd reached across the bed to stroke Lizzy's face gently. He also didn't tell her about how Lizzy had turned her face toward his hand, but he remembered it and remembered how her skin felt under his hand, warm and soft.

"It was probably a nightmare," Jane explained to Will.

"Does she have them often?" Will asked. It was difficult to imagine that. They shared a bed most of the time they spent together, but this was the first time he'd noticed a nightmare. There was that time back in October when she'd sat bolt upright in bed in the middle of the night, but she'd said that she had an epiphany—an idea for an upcoming photo shoot. She might have lied, though. It would be like Lizzy to lie about letting a nightmare scare her.

Jane shrugged. "When she was little, yeah. Anytime she was sick or worried."

It was not lost on Will that she wouldn't meet his gaze. He wondered if it was him that was making her comfortable or if it was talking about Lizzy in this way.

"Once," she added, as she opened the refrigerator and found the milk, "back when we were being picked on at school—"

"You were picked on?" Will repeated surprised. He could imagine Lizzy having trouble with other children, especially if she let her mouth run off and say whatever it liked, but Jane—teasing Jane should have seemed like teasing an infant.

Jane looked at him then and smiled. "We both were. Right after we skipped fourth grade and went right into fifth," she explained, tucking her cropped red hair behind her ear. "You can't blame them, though."

Will thought that Lizzy probably had no trouble blaming them.

"We were just so much smaller than everyone else," Jane continued, her spoon clinking against the mug as she stirred sugar and milk into it, "and I was even tall for my age. Poor Lizzy was just stood out like a sore thumb. She was half the size of the oldest ones."

Lizzy was never and would never be pitiable. Will rather pitied any bully with the bad luck to stroll into Lizzy's playground.

Jane smiled again wider, and Will worried that she was guessing his thoughts. "Of course, that didn't stop Lizzy from breaking the nose of an eighth grader who pushed me down," Jane told Will, tilting her head at the memory. "She kicked him in a certain, ahh…sensitive area—"

Will resisted the urge to snort, wondering how someone could get through medical school and still refer to a man's groin as a "certain sensitive area."

"And then Lizzy rammed her head into him," Jane continued. Will laughed, surprised first, but imagining it: a miniature version of Lizzy, with pigtails in brown tufts behind her head, a rounder face, but with the same bright, fierce eyes. Her head bent, feet pounding in the dust; a boy twice her size dropping to the ground. "Gave herself a black eye," Jane added. Will laughed again, this time glancing at the doors at the far side of the room, worried that he'd woken someone up, but no one emerged from the bedrooms.

Jane shrugged. "They almost sent her back to elementary school for that."

Will could imagine that too: the round-faced, fierce-eyed, black-eyed Lizzy staring down her principal.

"They didn't, though," Will said after a moment.

"No, she promised to behave after that," Jane said. "She even offered to do lines."

Will guessed—from the troubled look on Jane's face—that Lizzy hadn't wanted to leave her twin alone in such a school.

"Of course, no one bothered us much after that," Jane said with a bemused smile.

"But—" Will said quietly and stiffened slightly when Jane turned to him, with that measuring look that worried him when he saw it in Lizzy. "She had nightmares?"

Jane nodded, looking away again, noticing a dishtowel crumpled on the table, setting her mug down to fold it. "There was one week where she woke the whole house screaming, several nights in a row," she said quietly, and the gulp that followed in the silence was almost impermeable. "She shot Mom's nerves to ribbons, but she wouldn't stop crying until she saw us both."

Will could only imagine how Mrs. Bennet might take those shredded nerves out on Lizzy, could only imagine the abuse that Lizzy would've been forced to hear at the foot of her bed, at the breakfast table, the carpool drive, the—Will noticed the wary glance that Jane was aiming at him as she returned the milk to the refrigerator, and then he realized he was scowling.

"That wouldn't have inspired many kindnesses in your mother" was all Will could bring himself to say.

Jane didn't respond to that, not directly. She was the favorite, though. She couldn't be expected to understand. "I thought Lizzy had grown out of it," Jane said hesitantly. "We haven't shared a room for so long, I wouldn't know."

That surprised Will, the thought that he could know more about Lizzy than her twin could.

Jane was staring at him levelly, and if Will had been a bit more familiar with her, he might have supposed that she was thinking the same thing.

"Do you think she's sick?" Will asked quietly.

"It is cold season, but no, I doubt it," Jane said, sipping her coffee. "You saw her at Netherfield. She's crankier when she's sick."

Will paused, thinking of the exchange of worries that they'd had the night before. She wouldn't have nightmares over work, not over photography—Will was almost sure. He was angry with himself suddenly—for not believing her at first. He hadn't exactly inspired confidence or encouraged Lizzy to tell him about what else was on her mind.

"Do you know what's bothering her?" Will asked Jane.

Jane looked back at him warily, her lips pressed thin and tight and disapproving.

"I'm not asking you to tell me," Will added quickly. "I just want to know if she's talked about it to you."

Jane looked down. She unfolded and refolded the dishtowel in front of her. "She hasn't mentioned anything to me."

Will wasn't sure if this was a good sign or not. It was possible that Lizzy wasn't bothered enough to tell her sister, and it was possible that for Jane, Lizzy would hide any feelings that would bother her.

He noticed with a start that Jane was still watching him. "She doesn't tell me much anymore, not when she's upset," Jane explained. "I think, since a couple years ago, she doesn't want to trouble me."

Will froze. He knew that Jane knew, the role he'd played in Charlie leaving Netherfield; Lizzy had told him so. He didn't know what to do now. He knew what Lizzy would tell him to do. He could hear her voice again, encouraging him: Come on, Will. Practice with me. Ask me. And while you're at it, you might as well say, 'Lizzy, I'm so sorry I was a complete and utter asshole.'

Jane picked up the dishtowel and wiped down the area around the counter. Then she was looking at Will with the kind of challenge in her smile that reminded him very strongly of Lizzy. "But I'm not as fragile as everyone seems to think."

"I'm sorry," Will blurted, looking into his coffee. "I know that what I've done was unforgivable and that I was interfering with—"

"What?"

When he looked up, Jane was staring at him, her eyebrows blending into her red hair, a hand pressed to her mouth.

"The Christmas party at Netherfield—" Will started and stopped. Then he added, "I assumed that Lizzy—"

Jane took her hand from her mouth, shaking her head. "No, Charlie told me—Lizzy didn't. Well," Jane amended, and Will was surprised to hear the annoyance in her voice, "she admitted to knowing, but she didn't tell me…she did explain..." She thought about it again. "To be fair, I did tell her not to. She just chooses to listen to me at the most inconvenient times."

Will paused, looking from Jane's thoughtful frown to the door of the bedroom he was now sharing with Lizzy. Then, he said hesitantly, "I am sorry. I'm a terrible ass sometimes, and I misjudged you."

Jane smiled back hesitantly, her hands turned toward each other, and she pressed her weight on them slowly, watching her fingers spread on the marble counter. "Yeah, but you don't know me all that well. And you really didn't know me well back then," she said carefully, and then she looked up at him, her lips pressed together tight. "It really was Charlie that I was angry with; he's the one who should've known better. But," she added with a reassuring smile, "I do appreciate your apology. Lizzy says you don't give them out easily."

Will wasn't sure how he got off so easily. Lizzy would never let him off so easy. Will remembered suddenly what Lizzy had once told him about Jane when the subject was still tender between them. "There are two things you should know about Jane," Lizzy had said. "One is that she's probably the kindest person you'll ever meet. That doesn't mean that she'll forgive you right away, but she definitely won't hold it against you. The other thing is that she's more private than you are. Watch her when she talks to you. She won't volunteer any information about herself. She'll distract you by talking about other people." Will realized then that they'd been speaking mostly of Lizzy.

"It's something Lizzy's done with Charlotte and me," Jane explained, and Will realized that she was trying to reassure him. "When we dated someone she wasn't sure about. You two are really a lot alike," Jane said with a small smile. "She's just a better judge of character than you are."

Will thought darkly of Wickham.

"Except for Wickham, of course," Jane said thoughtfully, "but he had us all fooled."

"Not me," Will muttered.

"Well. Lizzy figured him out pretty fast," Jane said, sipping from her coffee mug. "Soon after she kissed him anyway."

"She kissed Wickham?" Will said aghast.

Jane froze, her mug still pressed to her lips, her blue eyes very wide over it, as she understood what she let slip.

"God, Will," said another voice, and Will turned from the kitchen to living room to see Lizzy stumbling around furniture, her brown hair mussed. She hadn't noticed that her pajama top was still partially unbuttoned, and it flapped around her waist, exposing the soft, pale skin of her stomach. "Hush, or you're going to wake up the whole house," she told him, with a significant glance back at Giana and Jimmy's door.

Jane settled her coffee mug quietly on the countertop, looking from her sister back to Will, her lips pressed tight.

Will scowled, but he was quieter when he asked again, "You kissed Wickham?"

Lizzy hugged her sister before she chose to do anything else, and Will noticed that she was careful to look everywhere but at him. "Don't look so relieved to see me, Jane," Lizzy said, kissing her sister's cheek. "I'll wonder what you were talking about."

"You kissed Wickham?" Will hissed.

"Correction," said Lizzy, turning to him with her slyest smile and searching the cabinets for a mug she liked, "Wickhead kissed me. Cornered me in the Caribou bathroom."

This calmed Will only slightly. "Did you kiss him back?"

Lizzy tilted her head, but Will knew by the smirk hanging wickedly around her mouth that he wasn't going to like her answer. "Yeah," she said slowly. "Until he tried to unbutton my shirt."

Jane squeaked through the hands pressed to her mouth.

"He did what?" Will asked carefully, as Lizzy found herself a clean mug in the dishwasher.

She then poured herself some coffee, watching him sidelong through her lashes. "It's not like I slept with him, Will. That's more than you can say about a certain Harpy we both know."

"You mean Desi Harper?" Jane asked her sister, startled.

"Lizzy—" Will started.

"Are you seriously going to get mad over this?" Lizzy said, taking a sip of her coffee. "It was a long, long time ago—back when you were the pissed-off rock idol I couldn't stand and Wickham was just the hot British cashier at Caribou." When she moved the mug from her mouth, Will saw she was grinning.

"I resent that," he said, turning away, fidgeting with his book, wondering if he could fool Lizzy into thinking he was still angry. "Why can't I be the pissed-off, hot British rock idol?"

Lizzy wasn't fooled. She was smiling too much to be fooled. "Besides," she said, sipping her coffee again and slipping an arm around his waist, "you're a much better kisser than he is."

No one couldn't possibly be fooled now. He was smiling too widely to fool anybody.

"Now," Lizzy said, smiling up at him, "I'd like a 'Merry Christmas' kiss."

Jane leaned over her coffee mug, her elbows on the counter, her hands over her mouth, muffling her laughter.

"You've had coffee," Will complained.

"So have you," she said, nodding at the coffee mug he'd left next to his book. "Get over it."

Will kissed her and felt her hand run through his hair fondly. Then he heard a loud groan, halfway across the room, and his sister's voice complaining, "It's too bloody early for this sort of thing."

Lizzy broke the kiss and turned, laughing when she saw Giana burying her face in a bemused Jimmy's chest. "Well, Merry Christmas to you too," Lizzy said, leaning her head on Will's shoulder and lacing her fingers through his.

Giana gasped, jerking her head back to look up at Jimmy. "It's Christmas!" she cried and kissed him, her arms around his neck.

Will grimaced. "They could at least wait for the mistletoe."

"We didn't," she reminded him with a snort.

"Would you believe that they've fought this morning?" Jane asked the couple in the living room, her mug between her hands, a smile creeping around her mouth.

"Who? Will and Lizzy?" Giana asked, taking Jimmy's hand and tugging him into the kitchen.

"Already?" Jimmy asked and grinned when Will scowled.

Jane nodded with an affectionate smile directed to her twin. "Yes, but they've already managed to make up."

"Congratulations, then," Giana said with a smirk, patting her brother's shoulder fondly. "That should earn you some sort of record."

12.

Lizzy woke suddenly, stripped down to only her long underwear, her breath ragged in her throat, and for a long tense moment, she couldn't remember where she was. She sat, waiting, her back against the wooden headboard, her hands fisted in the dark green quilt. Then she noticed Will's plaid pajamas, folding neatly across the back of the rocking chair in the corner, and relaxed, slumping backwards. The clock read 3:23, but the heavy curtains blocked out too much light to tell if it were afternoon or morning. Afternoon, Lizzy decided, throwing her covers off her legs and placing her feet on the rough carpet. Will would be next to her if it were nighttime already.

Pushing her hair from her face, Lizzy found the tender spot behind her ear and winced. That was why she wasn't still skiing, why she'd come back to take a nap. She'd fallen, earlier, on her second run of the morning. She was too distracted by racing Will down the mountain to notice the icy patch in front of her, and a good long skid spun her into the trees. She'd knocked her head on a very tall pine, not hard, not hard enough for a concussion anyway, but hard enough to give her a really terrible headache. Will picked her up, helped her back into her skis, and skied with her slowly back to the cabin, carrying her poles and keeping close enough to make sure she didn't fall again. The last thing Lizzy remembered was Will's face above her, frowning sharply with worry, as he tucked her into bed and she told him that he should go out, not to let her ruin a good day of skiing.

"I'll go in a while. After you've fallen asleep," he'd told her, stroking her face gently, his cheeks still red from the cold outside. "While I'm out, I'm going to find us some helmets. All right?" And Lizzy had been too tired to argue, had only squeezed his hand a little in response.

After pulling on the nearest pair of jeans, Lizzy stumbled into the living room, knocking her shoulder hard on the doorframe and grumbling, but it wasn't until she stepped on one of the bright red balls of crumpled wrapping paper on the floor that she remembered it was still Christmas. The others apparently weren't back yet, but it was too late to go skiing again. The lifts closed in just a little over an hour.

Lizzy blinked and looked around the room, wondering what she should do with herself. The Christmas tree looked lonely next the piano, now that the presents had been handed out; the needles had started falling off, too. But the decorations were still hanging on its branches, looking more festive than Lizzy was awake enough to feel. There were coffee mugs discarded and scattered around the room, so Lizzy collected them absent and took them to the kitchen. Then, she found an empty trash bag in the kitchen and started stuffing the abandoned wrapping paper and ribbons into it. It amused her a little that the unwrapped gifts were still sitting in stacks on top of and against the furniture, that everyone had left their presents behind after the morning festivities.

There was Jimmy's cello case, the soft kind that he could wear as a backpack; Lizzy and Giana had split the cost for it so that Jimmy didn't get uncomfortable getting such an expensive gift. Lizzy grinned, scooping up the red wrapping paper next to it and remembering Will's shocked face when Giana had explained that her boyfriend was also a musician. The writing case Lizzy had given Giana was leaning just next to the case, filled with sharpened pencils, music folders, and paper lined for musical theory. At Giana's questioning face, Lizzy had been forced to explain, "Will told me you've been composing your own stuff."

Making her way around the room, Lizzy couldn't find the stack belonging to the Fitzwilliams. Maggie must've already walked them back to the guest cottage right away. Lizzy's camera was sitting on the arm of the couch where Fitz, Maggie, and the baby had been opening presents, and she picked up the film canisters next to it, absently shoving them in her pocket. It would probably take maybe a week in Lizzy's apartment darkroom to develop the prints that would finish off their present: the one of Maggie and Fitz on either side of Zarine, helping her tear away the wrapping from the big, flat box Lizzy had just handed to them, the short tree looming above them; the next of Fitz, half-turned away and setting the gift box's top under the couch and of Maggie, one arm around Zarine's middle to steady the toddler and the other hand disappeared into the box, reaching for the scrapbook inside; the third of Fitz and Maggie holding the scrapbook between them, Maggie's face blocked by Lizzy's gift, but Fitz frowning at it, despite Zarine's tight-fisted grip on her father's red crest; another of the three of them, looking straight into the camera, paying attention with wide eyes as Lizzy explained the gift—a scrapbooked collection of all the shots she'd stolen and composed in the Fitzwilliam's less observant moments and plenty of loose prints tucked between the pages, waiting for frames. Under their busy circumstances, they probably never got a chance for a regular family portrait of a posed Walmart variety, Lizzy had told them; the scrapbook was supposed to be a kind of substitute for that, a partial chronicle of their growing family.

Lizzy really wished she could've gotten pictures of the aftermath.

Maggie had launched herself at Lizzy, hugging her tightly around the neck and asking, "Can you do another one, Lizzy? When the other one comes along?" Then Fitz had announced that they were pregnant again, but Maggie'd still had Lizzy's arms pinned in a tight hug so she missed shooting a couple pictures of the explosion of congratulations that followed. Later, in the kitchen, she'd really, really wanted to take a photograph of Fitz's troubled, touched face as he apologized in the kitchen, for the "sell-out" comment of the night before, his red hair fluffed higher as he ran his hands through it worriedly. It was all right, though, that she couldn't bring herself to take it; she only wanted it for evidence, really. She would have never thought that Fitz would apologize; she didn't expect him to care that much, except maybe if Will nagged him a lot. But Fitz had apologized; he'd even hugged her tightly, as tightly as Maggie had, squeezing around the shoulders, and told her that she was a good person. And a really great photographer.

Leaning against the arm of a leather sofa, she tied the full trash bag closed and decided that this one was a good Christmas. Maybe the best. She'd kind of botched it with her gift to Jane and Charlie—a welcome mat with their future names in giant letters, but how was she supposed to know that Jane hadn't told Charlie that she was planning to be a Dr. Jane Bennet and never a Dr. Bingley? And Will's present—Will's reaction to his present--more than made up for that.

"What is it?" Will had asked as she handed him a three-foot-long cylinder, wrapped in black and white striped paper, an envelope hanging off it like a tag. "A fishing pole of some kind?"

"Of course not," Lizzy had snorted, sitting cross-legged on the coffeetable in front of him and snapping a picture. "We made an agreement not to give each other anything we could buy, remember? I definitely can't make a fishing pole."

"Why?" Jimmy had asked as Giana wrapped the blue and white scarf she'd knitted him around his neck.

"I don't know anything about fishing," Lizzy said, wrinkling her nose. "I've never tried."

"I suppose I'll have to teach you then," Will said with a small, teasing grin. "The streams around Pemberley—"

"He means why can't you buy anything for each other," Giana explained, settling to a seat next to Jimmy, grasping his hand.

"Gives me an unfair advantage," Will explained with a sigh, hooking a finger under the paper and ripping it end-to-end along the cardboard underneath. "One that Lizzy won't let me keep."

Before he could pull off the plastic top and peek inside, Lizzy grabbed his hand. "Uh-uh. The envelope first, please. Otherwise, I'll have to explain things out of order and ruin some of the shock factor."

"So I'm supposed to be shocked?" Will asked with a slight smile, pulling the envelope off the wrapping.

"Trust me," said Lizzy with a smirk as she refocused the camera on Will's face. "There's no doubt about it."

Will grinned at Lizzy as he tugged up the flap (Lizzy hadn't even bothered to seal it) and pulled out the paper folded inside. "How shocked are you expecting?" he asked, unfolding it. "On a scale of 1 to 5? I should know so I can fake it if I need—" He let his gaze drop, squinting down at it without his glasses. Then his eyes widened, his mouth opened slightly, and Lizzy snapped a picture gleefully. Will looked up, completely shocked. "Lizzy, how did you get this?"

"Wait—what is it?" Giana asked shuffling over on her knees to come see.

"It's a contract between HEET and one Elizabeth Bennet," Will explained, angling it so his sister could see. "Stating the exception of Pemberley from the Countryside Tour, starting the first of the year."

"So, basically, in a week," Lizzy said, feeling absurdly pleased with herself.

"What's HEET?" Jane asked.

"Historical English Estate Tours. They're the people who tramp through Pemberley twice a week," Giana explained. "Father signed Pemberley into an agreement just before he died, and Will's been trying to get us out of it ever since."

"How did you manage it, Lizzy?" Will asked again. "I've tried everything. Everything I could think of."

"Did you sleep with the president of the company?" Fitz asked and blinked innocently when Will turned to glare at him. "Because I'm pretty sure Will didn't think of that."

"You know when I told you I was going to France?" Lizzy said grinning, cradling her camera in the crook of her arm.

"In February or April?" Will asked. "You went twice."

"February. In April, I really did have a shoot in Provence," Lizzy said, "but in February, I never made it as far as France. I went to England."

"So you lied," Will said with a slight frown.

"Yep," replied Lizzy with a cheerful shrug. "But only because you'd ask me too many questions if I told you I was going to England. Lemme tell you the truth: Cynthia Grayson tipped me off. Said HEET was revamping their marketing campaign. So, I sent them some slides of the time I went a couple summers ago with Aunt Diana and Uncle Sam. And I offered to give them the rest, and also come back and do the same thing for winter if they released Pemberley from its ten year contract. Then there was some bargaining, there was some photography, and then there was that," she said, tapping the paper in Will's hand. "That's just a copy, by the way; Cynthia Grayson's got the original at Pemberley already."

"It's wonderful, Lizzy," Will said beaming. "Absolutely brilliant."

"No. Save the compliments until you've opened the other one," Lizzy said grinning and picked up her camera again.

"You really shouldn't have, Lizzy. This is quite enough," Will protested, but Lizzy snapped a picture of Will reaching for the cardboard cylinder eagerly. "I didn't get you two presents."

"If you're really worried about it, then one of them can count for Valentine's Day," Lizzy said impatiently, clicking away as Will pulled off the top of the cylinder. "Careful. They're really old."

"You know, you should come to visit us again," Giana said, looking at Lizzy thoughtfully. "At Pemberley, I mean. There are plenty of rooms—"

"She won't come," Will said with a small, wry grin, drawing out the coiled papers inside. Its protective plastic coverings crinkled as they came out.

Lizzy let her camera drop slightly and scowled, and Giana lifted her chin and said haughtily, "And how do you know? Have you asked her?"

"Of course," Will replied. He unrolled the papers gently, slow and careful, but he was smiling in Lizzy's direction. "Don't look at me like that. You've always refused to meet me there. You know very well that once you've returned to Pemberley, you'll never leave."

Maggie and Fitz were exchanging significant glances, and Lizzy didn't have time to argue, not when Will was already holding his present up so he and his sister could look. When Will's jaw dropped again abruptly, Lizzy laughed and snapped a picture. "Dear God," he said softly, lowering the present slightly to stare at Lizzy. "Dear God."

"What is it?" Maggie said, mouth half open already but smiling as she came to look.

"Blueprints," Giana said, leaning on the back of the sofa behind Will's head and Looking at her brother as if she was considering his sanity.

"Blueprints of Pemberley," Will corrected.

"Pemberley can't have blueprints," Fitz said, walking behind the couch with Zarine at his shoulder so he could look. "It's too old. You got ripped off, kiddo."

"I did not. I never said they're the originals," Lizzy said huffily. "I doubt it has blueprints from when it was built. But it was renovated once before—in 1909, I think. See the date, Will? Top, right-hand corner."

"Yes. 1909," Will said, squinting again. Lizzy resisted the urge to run and grab his new glasses.

"That's when they put all those mirrors in the ballroom," Lizzy said. "Whoever was in charge of the project was really, really thorough. They made two sets of blueprints: one of the pre-existing estate with a lot of notes of the damage, and a second one for everything they were change in it."

"Huh," said Maggie, mouth open, head tilted and watching over Will's shoulder as he flipped a page.

"Cool," said Giana with a grin at Lizzy, as Jimmy succumbed to his own curiosity and came around the couch to take a peek too.

"But how did you get them?" Will asked, looking them over. "I didn't even know these existed."

Lizzy wrinkled her nose. "Brace yourself: this might piss you off some."

Will looked at Lizzy sharply, and Fitz moved Giana and Maggie a safe distance away from his soon-to-be-angry cousin.

"Your dad sold it to HEET—well, the owner of it," Lizzy explained.

"Oh," said Will, his scowl relaxing visibly. "I could expect that from him."

"I thought you were about to tell us that you did have to trade a few sexual favors," Fitz said, looking vaguely disappointed.

"Eww," Lizzy said grimacing.

Giana smacked him from his left side hard enough to make her cousin wince and rub his arm. "Lizzy wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, that's you," Maggie reminded him, hitting Fitz from his other side. "With your sexual favors."

"All I did was photograph some portraits—of the owner, his family, and his grandmother," Lizzy explained, and she shrugged, palms outstretched, her camera raised in her left hand. "I probably could've bargained a little more, but I wasn't sure how much they were worth really."

"Priceless," suggested Fitz with a grin.

"Yeah," Giana agreed thoughtfully, "but only to Will."

"Lizzy, I—" Will started and gulped, looking at the blueprints in his hands. Lizzy smiled. Then Will handed off the papers to Giana, leaving them flapping in her hands, as he reached forward to kiss Lizzy fiercely.

"Not again," Giana moaned, turning away, her hand over her eyes.

"Marry me," Will told Lizzy, pulling her in his lap.

Lizzy wrinkled her nose, her camera resting on her thighs, her arms around his neck. "That's not what you're supposed to say, Mr. Darcy. You're supposed to say, 'Thanks, Lizzy—that was the best present ever.'"

"Thank you, Lizzy," Will said and kissed her again, despite his sister's loud protesting.

"You're welcome," said Lizzy grinning, adjusting her seat sideways so that once arm was around his shoulders and her legs were stretched out over the cushions beside them. "While you're at it, you might tell me that as a Christmas present, you won't try to tell me what to do for the rest of the day—no, rest of the week. Which only three days."

"All right," Will said, grinning as she laced her fingers through his. "Any other requests, Miss Bennet?"

Unfortunately, Lizzy didn't have enough time to make any more requests—otherwise, she'd see how far she could've pushed Will in a very grateful mood—because Charlie and Jane had come downstairs with bags filled with hurriedly wrapped presents.

Lizzy snorted, crushing the garbage bag filled with wrapping paper under her arm, and glancing around at the white-cloth wrapped in clear plastic in every stack. Charlie and Jane were definitely up to something. Despite all that alleged "Christmas shopping," they still managed to give everybody the same gift, in different sizes: white, skin-tight, extra-extra-thick long underwear. Jane wouldn't stand teasing about it, either. When Lizzy tried to make a joke, Jane had snapped, "Well, it's something everybody can use, right? You can use it tomorrow."

It was 3:37, Lizzy noticed, looking into the kitchen. A little less than an hour before the lifts closed.

Lizzy put the paper-filled trash bag aside and searched for aspirin in the cupboard or for something for her aching head. Leaning on the cool oven for extra leverage, she remembered with a grimace that it was her turn to make dinner.

She could probably get out of it—what with her head banged up and the leftovers from the Christmas Eve feast. But Lizzy didn't feel like eating leftovers.

Lizzy opened the refrigerator door and grabbed the turkey inside. Then a door slammed somewhere, and Lizzy couldn't keep herself from jumping, dropping the Tupperware container on the floor. She froze and didn't make a move to pick it up until she heard a young, British voice shout, "Lizzy! Are you still alive!"

The Tupperware, thankfully, didn't crash open when it hit the floor, and the turkey was safe inside.

"Giana," scolded another voice. Maggie. "What if she's still asleep?"

"I'm not asleep," Lizzy called back, snatching the Tupperware from the floor. "I'm in the kitchen."

There was the sound of plastic boot on slate tile, and then Giana was running out of the mud room and through the living room on socked feet, her long, brown hair a little tangled and shivering down her back, her ski goggles still on top of her head. "'Lo, Lizzy!" she cried cheerfully. "We're been sent to make sure that you've not fallen into a coma.--Does it hurt?" Giana asked, watching Lizzy peel the top off the turkey Tupperware. "Do you need aspirin? I can get you some aspirin."

"I got some already," Lizzy said with a small smile, "thanks."

"I'm glad you haven't go a concussion," Giana said, as she slid into a bar stool, kicking her feet and dropping her chin in her hands. "And don't feel bad about having a bit of a tumble. I fell down last year, landed pretty hard, but I only wretched my wrist a bit. Fitz told me he fell down once, off a cliff—a small cliff, obviously. Otherwise, there'd be no Fitz. And probably no Zarine either. Anyway, he fell off a cliff and broke three fingers, knocked himself unconscious, and busted his chin right here along the jaw," she explained, pointed underneath her chin. "You can still see the scar. It's quite impressive actually."

Maggie exited the mudroom, her jacket folded over her arm, and headed straight to the closet at the front entrance to hang it up. "You're making dinner?" Maggie said, frowning over at them. "You don't have to do that. You're hurt; we can make due with what we have left from last night."

Lizzy smirked. "I was thinking soup tonight. Turkey and Rice."

"Soup. Mmm-mmm good," said Giana.

Maggie opened the fridge and glanced over what was inside. "We've probably got some carrots and celery to add to it, too."

"That's a jingle, Giana," Lizzy said laughing. "For Campbell's."

Giana pouted for Lizzy's benefit. "Oh. I suppose that's why my friends laughed whenever I said that. Why the hell didn't Jimmy tell me then?"

"He probably thought it was cute," Maggie said, pulling out a cutting board from one of the bottom cabinets. "That boy adores you."

"No, he loves her," Lizzy corrected and glanced over to see if Giana would blush.

She did and shook her hair forward to hide, just like Will did, but with more success. Giana's hair was longer than Will's.

Maggie looked between Lizzy and Giana, shocked and open-mouthed. "Yeah?" she mouthed at Lizzy, who nodded. "When?"

"Yesterday," Lizzy mouthed back.

"Yes, of course," Giana said, brushing her long hair back when her cheeks had cooled to a very becoming pinnk. "He loves me so much that he decided to go on one last run, 'just us guys,' sending us womenfolk to handle the bloody cooking. Stupid Jimmy. I knew Will would be a bad influence."

Lizzy laughed, and Maggie said, "It's Fitz that's the bad influence. And it's not just them guys. They've got Zarine with them."

Lizzy paused in the middle of her cabinet search for the chicken bouillon. "Fitz took the baby?" she asked quietly.

"He's decided Zarine will be the youngest girl ever to learn how to snowboard," Giana said, swinging the barstool back and forth with her body weight. "The first step is getting her on the slopes."

"She's safe," Maggie assured Lizzy when she noticed Lizzy's skeptical frown. "She's strapped to Fitz's stomach in her baby satchel. He won't let anything happen to her."

Lizzy pulled a large pot out from under the sink and filled it with water. Looking out the window over the sink, she said, "It looks kinda stormy out there."

"It might snow," Giana agreed. "It's certainly cold enough. For a bit, I wasn't really sure that I still had my toes. I've counted them, though. They're all there.—Do you need help, Lizzy? I can cut things."

"No, you can't. You've got to help me clean up the living room," Maggie told her.

"Wha? Why?" Giana complained, dropping her chin back into her hands and scowling. "It's Christmas."

"Which means we've got a lot of presents to pick up," Maggie told her, grabbing the girl's shoulder and helping her out of her chair. "People are still going to need a place to sit."

"This is the last time I go on vacation with all you lot," Giana grumbled, sulkily wandering toward the nearest stack of presents. "Everyone seems to think it's all right to boss me around, just because I'm slightly younger than the rest of you. I've got a mind of my own, you know."

"Uh-huh," Maggie said soothingly, stooping to settle a stack of gift boxes into a larger stack. "I'll take Jane and Charlie's, if you get yours and Jimmy's."

"Mags!" cried a voice in the mudroom. The door opened a second later, and Fitz tramped in, snow clinging to his pants and boots, Zarine screaming on his front.

"Fitz? What happened to one more run?" Maggie asked, putting the presents on the counter.

"But Zarine—she's upset," Fitz whispered horrified. "She had an echo, Mags. Off the mountain."

"What wrong with her?" Maggie asked, as Fitz handed Zarine over.

"Dunno," Fitz said, watching his wife peel away the baby's layers. "First, she was fussing, then she was screaming, then she was all red-faced—"

"Got it, no need to elaborate there," Giana interrupted. "It's not like we've not all been there before."

"Do you think she's sick? Do you think it was too cold for her?" Fitz asked worriedly.

"No, we've been here before," Maggie said calmly, tugging off the baby's miniature ski pants and reveling the swollen diaper underneath. "Where's her diaper bag?"

"That's when you know you've got too many layers on," Giana said, putting the cello case's strap of her shoulder and taking an armful of things into her bedroom.

"Against the wall, next to the door," Lizzy said, jerking her chin over that way, glancing at Zarine's red, howling face.

"Is that all?" Fitz muttered relieved, pulling his cap off his head and rubbing his hair back to a red crest. "I thought she—"

"Yeah, yeah, here," Maggie replied, grabbing the diaper bag strap and tossing it to her husband. Fitz caught it, scowling, and took the baby when Maggie handed her back.

"Wanna trade?" Fitz asked hopefully, cradling the baby against his shoulder.

"Not really," said Maggie, lifting her chin and giving him a pert grin as she grabbed Jane and Charlie's stack of presents and trotted with them upstairs.

Fitz sighed, and Lizzy ducked her head and resumed chopping the celery, trying not to laugh. Fitz noticed and half-grinned, laying Zarine down on an endtable. "How's your head, kiddo?"

Lizzy shrugged. "Fine."

"Hurts, huh?" Fitz said with a sympathetic nod.

"I took a Motrin," Lizzy said, shrugging again. She noticed Giana gathering up a bunch of Will's things. "Don't worry about those, Giana. I'll get it."

"That's quite all right," Giana said with a sweet smile, tucking Will's new long underwear under her arm and disappearing into Will and Lizzy's room.

"If you've got anything you want to hide, I'd do it now," Fitz advised, pulling out the baby wipes and a fresh diaper. "She's gonna snoop while she's in there."

To prove it, Giana called out right then, her voice just inside the door, "Will is neat. I've not noticed it before. Look, he's put all his socks in the drawer and organized them by color."

Fitz grinned at Lizzy smugly, way more smug than he had any right to be as he was pulling baby wipes from the box.

"Yep," Lizzy called back, lifting the lid off the pan on the stovetop and pushing a pile of carrots into the soup.

"He's kinda weird that way," Fitz agreed, grimacing as he rolled Zarine's diaper up.

Lizzy grimaced in sympathy; she could almost smell it, even all the way across the room. "The only thing I take that much care of is my film."

"Aww…" Giana cried. Her voice was a little fainter now; Lizzy guessed that she'd gone into the bathroom. "You've got both your toothbrushes in the same cup. Jimmy and I don't have a cup," she added wistfully. "We just lay them by the sink like normal boring people."

"You could get a cup, you know," Lizzy suggested, putting the top of the soup pot back on and turning the gas underneath to a simmering level. "Just grab a mug or something out of the kitchen."

"But then we'd be copycats," Giana said. Her voice was louder now. She was coming back out. "And we can't have—ooo look, Lizzy! You've got a present on your nightstand! It's wrapped. Did you forget to give to give someone their present?"

"I doubt it," Lizzy said, pulling off her oven mitts and leaning against the kitchen counter. "I'm pretty sure I've given all mine away. Good thing, too—I could use the room in my suitcase."

Giana emerged from Will and Lizzy's room, carrying a large, flat, square box, wrapped in blue paper with a silver bow on top. "I figured it out," she said triumphantly. "Although I must confess that reading the tag proved a huge help. It says, To Lizzy—From Will. It doesn't get much clearer than that now, does it?" Giana asked, settling the box in front of Lizzy.

"He didn't give it to you yet?" Fitz asked, strapping the fresh diaper on Zarine.

"He just said he'd give it to me later," Lizzy replied, eyeing it curiously. He must've put it on the nightstand so that she'd see it when she woke up, and she'd just walked right by it. Several times.

"You should open it," Giana said eagerly, nudging it forward, closer to Lizzy.

"Well, I kind of got the feeling it'd embarrass him to have an audience," Lizzy said, frowning at it slightly, fingering the bow.

"Ooo, that privacy thing we keep hearing about," Giana said, as she slipped into a barstool, facing the kitchen, giving herself a front row seat.

"You don't get that here," Fitz said, lifting Zarine back on his hip and starting to stuff things back into the diaper bag. "You can only find it in the cottage house."

"It's over-rated anyway," Giana said, pulling her hair back and tying it into a ponytail.

"What's over-rated?" Maggie asked, tramping out of the staircase and slipping into a barstool before she noticed what was sitting in front of Lizzy. "Ooo, Will gave you your present finally," Maggie said, mouth open and half-grinning. "Well?" she said expectantly. "Aren't you going to open it?"

"I don't know," Lizzy said slowly. "I assumed he was going to watch."

"No, no, no—of course not. He'd be much too embarrassed," Giana protested.

"Fitz!" shouted a voice in the mudroom, and Fitz balked. Even Zarine turned toward the door.

"Uh-oh, what'd you do?" Maggie asked her husband.

"You left your snowboard in the middle of the trail," Charlie told him.

"It couldn't be helped," Fitz sniffed, walking over to the trashcan with Zarine on her shoulder. "We had a diaper emergency to take care of."

"Well, Jane crashed right into it," Charlie said.

Lizzy gasped. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Charlie said. "She just put a huge scratch down the bottom of it."

"Sorry!" cried Jane's voice from the mudroom.

"Aww, shit," Fitz muttered, standing up. Zarine beat her hands on the top of his shoulder with a small, excited giggle.

"It's your fault," Maggie reminded her husband, but he sulked anyway.

Jane came in, tugging her jacket off and biting her lip worriedly, snowflakes clinging to her red hair. "I'm really sorry, Fitz. I just didn't see it. It had a layer of snow over, and it blended in, and—"

"Don't worry about it," Fitz shrugged, setting Zarine on the floor so that she could roam around. My fault."

"Good boy," said Maggie, patting him on the shoulder.

"Whoa," said Giana, twisting around in her barstool and glancing out the window where flakes were sauntering down from the sky. "It's snowing."

"Aren't you missing one?" Lizzy asked, trying to peer behind Charlie into the mudroom.

"Two actually," Giana said, tucking her hair behind her ears and taking a look for herself.

"They went up for another run, before the lifts close," Charlie said, heading for the stairs.

"Nope, just Will," said Jimmy, coming out of the mudroom, his goggles still over his eyes. He was carrying Fitz's snowboard in his hands. "I had to use the bathroom."

"Hurrah for bathroom breaks!" cried Giana, throwing her arms in the air.

Jimmy was smiling that he didn't want Giana to catch him at it. "Hey, Giana.—Your snowboard isn't all that bad off," Jimmy told Fitz. "I think all that came off was some of the wax."

"Oh, I do love it when you get all do-it-yourself, Jimmy," Giana said, batting her eyes dramatically over the back of her barstool. Jimmy grinned.

"Hey, you're opening Will's gift?" Charlie said, catching sight of the present on the kitchen counter.

Jane gasped, twin spots of windburn on her cheeks.

"Wanna watch?" Fitz asked grinning.

"I want to see," Jane said, bouncing on her socked feet and grinning, her hands on Charlie's shoulder as they walked closer.

"Could you wait until I get back?" Jimmy asked, ducking backwards into his bedroom with a hopeful grin.

Lizzy frowned, her eyes narrowed, her hand on top of the box. "Does anyone else think it's weird that everybody is going to watch this except the man who's giving it to me?"

"Nope," said Fitz, leaning against the back of the couch, arms crossed and smirking.

"Open it," Giana told Lizzy, drumming on the box's top.

Maggie picked up Zarine from the floor and settled her daughter in her lap, pulling the baby's hat off and smooth the hair underneath. "They're only curious, because Will's been asking for advice since October."

"Since your birthday," Jane corrected in a whisper.

"Why?" Lizzy asked.

"Because not all of us can miraculously discover antique blueprints for our Christmas giving pleasure," Fitz replied.

"No, because this time he wanted to give you something you wouldn't make him take back," Charlie explained.

"Back," Jimmy said cheerfully, popping out of the bedroom.

"Most of us already know what it is anyway," Maggie offered.

"That wasn't entirely Lizzy's fault—the presents," Giana protested, as Lizzy tugged at the end of the silver ribbon and undid the bow. "Giving Lizzy a diamond necklace their first Christmas, that wasn't really the best idea he's ever had."

"The diamond necklace part I didn't mind," Lizzy grumbled, tugging off the ribbon. "It was that it was a diamond necklace that matched the engagement ring he gave me. The one I hadn't started wearing yet."

"And you really can't expect Lizzy to expect a brand-new car as a birthday present," Jane added, grinning as Lizzy started ripping away the blue paper.

"Hey. I gave Maggie a car for her birthday," Fitz protested.

Maggie snorted. "You mean that little red convertible whose keys are on your keychain?"

"Oh. Shit," Fitz muttered, running his hand through his hair sheepishly, as Jimmy, Giana, and Jane laughed.

Lizzy's mouth fell open, the blue wrapping paper crushed between both hands, staring at the wooden box she'd revealed. It was square, about a foot by a foot. The polish was dark and gleaming, the top inlaid with lighter wood, carved in the shape of vines similar to the ones she'd photographed climbing up Pemberley. "Will made this?" she asked with an incredulous smile.

Charlie grimaced and looked at Fitz. Fitz said, "Uh…." and glanced Maggie's way, and frowning over the top of Zarine's head, Maggie opened her mouth and closed it.

"He bought it," Giana said with a smirk, her chin in her hands. "I was there when he bought it. I helped him pick it out," she added in a whisper.

"Good choice," Maggie commented.

"Thanks," Giana replied with a wider smirk.

"Cheater," Lizzy sighted, crumpling the paper in her right hand and trailing her fingers across the slick, smooth top of the box, smiling fondly. "But I won't make him take this one back."

"He couldn't actually," Giana explained. "We were at an arts fair."

"Here, Lizzy," Fitz said, leaning over the back of the couch and beckoning her forward with one finger, "I'll tell you a secret."

Lizzy leaned forward, glancing at her sister, whose head was still on Charlie's shoulder, her lips pressed together to keep from laughing.

Fitz cupped a hand around his mouth and whispered, "The present is inside the box that Will bought."

"Oh," said Lizzy self-consciously, pulling up the box's lid. Inside were many scraps of paper, all folded, hundreds even, some ripped from notebooks, some straight-edged, mostly white but with bits of blue and red and green mixed in. Lizzy lifted one near the top, unfolded it, with the tips of her fingers, noticed Will's neat handwriting—a date: August 13 and a half a poem:

Escape me?

Never—

Beloved!

While I am I, and you are you,

So long as the world contains us both,

Me the loving and you the loth,

While the one eludes, must the other pursue.

--Robert Browning's "Life in a Love"

Lizzy couldn't keep herself from snorting. Or from smiling.

"Will read a lot of poetry on the tourbus," Maggie explained.

"Looking for song material," Charlie added. "You know, for the fourth album."

Lizzy picked out another one, several pages thick, a whole poem this time. Will had underlined his favorite parts, and Lizzy read the last page first:

September 16

…

At our age the imagination

across the sorry facts

lifts us

to make roses

stand before thorns.

Sure

love is cruel

and selfish

and totally obtuse—

at least, blinded by the light,

young love is.

But we are older,

I to love

and you to be loved

we have,

no matter how,

by our wills survived

to keep

the jeweled prize

always

at our finger tips

We will it so

and so it is

past all accident.

--William Carlos Williams' "The Ivy Crown"

"He kept writing down bits he wanted to show you," Maggie was saying, "and he said he was going to email you—"

"But I'm the only one Will emails anyway," Giana said.

"Because she's the only one who makes more typos than he does," Fitz hissed in a loud whisper, and Giana scowled back at him.

"Basically, he realized how many he collected and I convinced him that this was an appropriate Christmas gift," Giana explained, turning back to Lizzy.

"Oh," said Lizzy quietly, folding "The Ivy Crown" carefully, fingers still resting on the lid.

Giana hitched her chin up, trying to peer inside. Then, she reached in the box, pulling out a small, torn scrap of paper.

Before anyone else could pick samples out of her box, Lizzy picked up the box and carried through the living room, pressed tight against her stomach under crossed arms. On her way to the Grand Piano, she paused next to the arm of a couch and slipped a hand through the strap of her camera, taking it with her across the room.

"Aww, the camera," said Fitz, grinning as Lizzy settled the box to the top of the piano, on the end closest to the keyboard.

"That's a good sign," Jane said with a decisive smiling nod, her red hair brushing her jaw. Charlie stroked the back of her head, all the way down to where her hair ended and her neck began, and settled her arm around her shoulders.

Lizzy adjusted the box, angling it at the edge of the piano top, on leaf-carved corner hanging off. She raised the lens to her face and took a step back to include the Christmas tree in the frame before snapping a couple shots.

Giana opened the folded paper and read aloud, bemused, "How many loved your moments of glad grace/ and loved your beauty with love false or true/But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you/ And love the sorrows of your changing face. W. B. Yeats. Dated June 12th. You know, I can't really imagine Lizzy as pilgrim."

"Me neither," said Maggie.

"The square collars—probably not a good look for her," Jane added with a small grin in Charlie's direction.

"I suppose it's romantic," Giana said skeptically.

"It is romantic," Lizzy corrected, lifting the box's lid. The small landscape of folded white papers contrasted sharply against the dark wood of the piano. The snowflakes that the wind was blasting against the window cast an eerie bright gleam just in front of the box.

"Ladies and gentleman, I do believe we've got ourselves a very successful present," Fitz announced.

"Hurrah!" cried Giana.

"Now all we need is Will," Charlie said, rubbing the back of his neck with a grin.

"Yes, you should thank him, Lizzy," said Jane, turning toward her sister. "He really worked hard this time."

The shutter clicked in Lizzy's camera, but she was looking beyond the box, at the window—snow blown and packing in its corners, then out the window—at the scenery bleached white with falling snow, at the looming light gray shapes that Lizzy knew there were trees, at the trail from the ski slopes. Lizzy squinted out past the thick, falling flakes, but she couldn't see the tracks that ran in long, straight lines down the trail.

"What time do the lifts close?" Lizzy heard herself ask, just to make sure.

"Uh…4:30," replied Charlie.

Lizzy glanced over her shoulder, at the clock on the microwave. It was 4:34.

"Will probably got to the bottom right at 4:29," Maggie said grinning. "He drove the lift operators crazy all last year, getting there right when they were trying to close down."

"Hey, I helped," Fitz reminded her cheerfully.

"Yeah," Maggie said, kissing the corner of her husband's mouth, Zarine laughing at her hip, "you were right there with him."

Lizzy felt someone press something into her hand. "Here." It was Giana, and the part of a poem copied in Will's neat print. Giana took a seat at the piano bench and dropped her hands into a few expert chords, as Lizzy read Yeats' lines over again and burst into a laugh. Next the line "loved your beauty false and true," Will had drawn an arrow from "false" and scribbled Collins' name in parentheses.

"I'm glad you like it, Lizzy," Giana said quietly. "It'll make Will very happy."

Who was it that told Lizzy that? That love was when your happiness was defined by others? It wasn't her mother. It might have been Jane, back in the days between the Netherfield Christmas party and Charlotte's wedding.

"When's dinner going to be ready?" Jimmy asked.

"When the rice softens up some," Lizzy replied, refolding the Yeats and pushing it carefully to the bottom of the pile. "It's probably still a little crunchy at the moment."

"There's leftovers if you want something right now," Maggie suggested.

Giana started plucking a Christmas carol into the keyboard: "I Wish You A Merry Christmas." Jane hummed along, endearingly off-tune.

"Ooo, do we have some more of that green stuff?" Fitz asked, trying to peer into the fridge as Jimmy opened it.

"Green bean casserole," Maggie corrected.

"We've got it," Jimmy said, pulling it out and dropping it on the counter. He was grinning, Lizzy noticed; he was trying not to laugh.

It was 4:37. Lizzy wandered toward the phone sitting lonely on top of an endtable and punched in a number. She hung up as soon as she heard a ring coming in three short blasts from the room she shared with Will.

"You lose your cell phone, Lizzy?" Jane asked worriedly

Lizzy half-smiled, shook her head, and returned the phone to its receiver. The number she'd called was Will's.

"Wow," Giana said, turning toward the window. "It's snowing."

"Yeah, we talked about that when we came in, remember?" Jimmy said. Lizzy didn't realize he was teasing until Giana stuck her tongue out at him. Jimmy shrugged, grinning, shoving a small Tupperware of stuffing in the microwave and punching buttons.

"Giana, do you know 'White Christmas'?" Maggie asked, as Fitz reconnected the walls of the playpen.

"Of course," Giana said, pausing over the keys, "but you rather should've expected a white Christmas on a mountain in Montana."

"I meant the song," Maggie said, setting Zarine down, open-mouthed and standing, in the inside of the playpen. Fitz returned to the kitchen.

Lizzy returned to the window, watching the snow fall and the wind press it against the window. She thought she saw a figure skim over the trail, but it was only snow being blown from the trees.

"Bing Crosby," Fitz told his cousin, scooping a spoonful of green bean casserole from the Tupperware and grimacing when he stuffed it into his mouth.

"Who?" asked Giana blankly.

"Now I feel old," Maggie grumbled, carrying Zarine across the room and seating her gently in the middle of the playpen.

"I know it," Jimmy added cheerfully. "Giana's just not much for the classics."

"Well, that depends on your definition of classic," Giana sniffed, and Fitz smirked and walked out the kitchen. "I got a much more thorough knowledge of Eighteenth Century composers than anyone else in this room."

"Scoot over, Miss Thorough Knowledge," Fitz said at Giana's elbow. Giana slid sideways, and Fitz seated himself and began the opening chords. "Hey, Mags? Can you heat up some of the green stuff for me? It's no good cold."

"Sure," said Maggie, walking around the bar and into the kitchen.

"I'm dreaming of a White Christmas," sang Charlie and kissed Jane's forehead tenderly.

"Ooo, I do know this one. I've heard it somewhere. Jimmy, where have I heard it?" Georgiana asked.

"The Christmas a cappella concert," Jimmy replied, pulling the top off the stuffing Tupperware. "Three days before we left New York."

"A cappella," scoffed Giana. "What's so special about singing by yourself? What's wrong with a bit of piano?"

Lizzy wondered how long it took to get from the top of the mountain, back to the cabin. She wondered how long it took through a blizzard. She'd never paid enough attention before.

"Not everyone's as good at piano as you are," Jimmy replied, cupping the bowl of steaming stuffing against his stomach and leaning his back to the bar.

Giana beamed. "I knew I loved you for a reason."

Lizzy turned farther away from the window, looking over her shoulder at Jimmy. She guessed right: he was blushing as he mumbled, "I…" and then three other words Lizzy couldn't catch.

"What? What was that, Jimmy? I couldn't hear," Giana asked with a mischievous smile. "I got a piano making noises next to me, you know."

"Making noises?" Fitz repeated insulted. "It's music. Music."

"I love you, too," Jimmy said again and ducked his head when Fitz turned to him gaping.

"Thought so," said Giana in a sing-song.

"Lizzy," Fitz said horrified, his fingers still tripping over the keys. "You've corrupted my cousin. She's getting more and more like you."

"Don't talk about us like that," Giana said sharply. "This is my piano bench. I can kick you off, you know."

"See," Fitz told Lizzy, and Giana promptly started shoving him over the edge of the bench. Fitz grinned and gripped the bottom of the seat, struggling to stay on.

Lizzy smiled just slightly and turned back to the window. She couldn't tell how much snow had fallen. The porch railing was capped by several white, fluffy inches, but she couldn't remember how much was there before it started snowing.

"It's really coming down out there," Charlie was saying. "We came back just in the nick of—oww. Jane, what was that—"

Lizzy didn't have to turn around to know that Jane was telling Charlie to be quiet, to remember that Will was still outside, and couldn't he see how worried Lizzy was—

But Lizzy wasn't worried. It was 4:46. It was too early to early to be worried.

For some reason, though, her mind was taking her back to this morning—just before the Fitzwilliams had come for their present-opening festivities, when Jane and Lizzy were in the kitchen, making their respective breakfasts.

"That looks good," Will had said, nodding at the apples Lizzy was chopping and adding to a bowl of uncooked oatmeal. "I'll have that."

Lizzy remembered glancing over at him and smirking as she reached for Craisins in the nearest cabinet. "Get a cutting board and an apple," she'd replied, pouring some Craisins into the bowl, "and I'll show you how to make it."

"What?" Will had protested, mouth open, his tousled dark hair fanning out sideways from his head.

"You heard me," Lizzy'd said, moving to another cupboard, the one with the dishes. "Here, I'll even get a bowl."

"You couldn't make it for me?" Will had wondered as Lizzy pushed the bowl into his hand. "As sort of Christmas present?"

(This had been before Will realized that he was already receiving two presents from Lizzy that morning.)

"Sure, but I'll have to take away one of your other presents," Lizzy'd said with a wry teasing grin. "Save it for another time or something."

"But Jane's making Charlie's breakfast," Will grumbled.

At the sound of her name, Jane looked up from the eggs she was cooking over the store. "Um…"

"I'm not Jane," Lizzy reminded him sharply.

Will brought his bowl down to the marble counter with a clatter. "Why is it that I have to fall in love with the one woman who begrudges me a bloody breakfast every once in a while?"

"Be thankful, Will," Giana called from the living room, eating cereal on the couch with her boyfriend. "Jimmy has to make his meal and mine."

"I don't mind, though—" Jimmy started worriedly.

"First of all, it's Christmas, so you're not allowed to stay mad," Lizzy said. "Second, if you had asked me—"

"I did ask you," Will said exasperated.

"No, you told me," Lizzy corrected. "If you'd asked me nicely, if it was a question—with a please and thank you tacked on the end, I would've made it for you. Keep that in mind for next time you want something from me. And you also seem to be under the impression that Jane makes Charlie's breakfast out of the pure and sweet goodness of her heart. That isn't so. Now, I would tell you what Charlie does in exchange for his breakfast—"

Jane gasped and whirled around, mouth open wide. "Lizzy!"

"But then my twin sister would have to kill me," Lizzy finished, handing Will the paring knife, handle first.

Will frowned slightly, wondering, as he picked a green apple from the fruit bowl. "What must Charlie do?" he asked Jane.

Jane closed her mouth quickly and turned back to the stovetop, blushing fiercely.

When she didn't answer, Will turned slightly to look at her, the knife poised over the apple, frowning. Lizzy smirked and slid her arms around his waist, whispering very softly in his ear, "Just so you don't try to ask Charlie, I will tell you that his part of the bargain is sexual in nature."

Will had turned to her sharply, his jaw dropped, eyes wide, and Lizzy had laughed, hard, and taken a picture just before Jane guessed what was said and smacked her sister's shoulder.

It was funny at the time, but thinking back, Lizzy wandered if it was so important after all—making Will ask. It was just breakfast, right?

It was 4:47. It was still too early to be really worried. But Lizzy had to admit that she was getting concerned.

She went to the piano. Giana and Fitz had declared a truce to play more Christmas Carols, "O Christmas Tree" as a matter of fact, and Charlie was singing, with Jane under her arm, grinning and trying to keep herself from singing along. Lizzy pulled another slip of paper from the box Will had given her. She opened it:

July 30

I would like to be the air

that inhabits you for a moment

only. I would like to be that unnoticed

& that necessary.

--Margaret Atwood

The tight feeling came back into Lizzy's chest, like someone was turning a screw just between her lungs. She went back to the window and leaned lightly against the frame. It was 4:49. Lizzy promised herself if Will wasn't back by five o'clock, she was going out after him, storm or no storm.

Maggie was talking to Zarine, helping her with an oversized felt and wood puzzle that Jane and Charlie had given her for Christmas. Jimmy was hanging back, wondering where his place was. It was 4:51.

Lizzy turned back to the window. The snow was thicker, or maybe concern was playing tricks on her. But Lizzy couldn't see the trail anymore; she couldn't even make out the trees across the driveway.

It was still 4:51. Time was moving too slow for Lizzy. It was a long time until five o'clock.

"…twenty minutes," Maggie was saying. "Should we call--?"

"Not yet." Fitz. "A few more minutes. He'd have to slow down for the storm."

It didn't comfort Lizzy any to hear that she wasn't the only one worrying. Her head ached, where she'd bumped it earlier, right behind her ear. She couldn't look away from the window.

Making Will ask, it really didn't seem so important now. She didn't mind him telling her what to do, not really. She didn't have to obey if she didn't want to, and he was probably too old to learn any different anyway. She just didn't want Will to try and boss her around for the rest of their lives.

"The flights." Jane. Jane, concerned. "You don't think…"

Charlie's voice was soothing but firm: "Not now. We'll call later."

A figure joined Lizzy at the window, long brown hair down her back, hands clasped behind her, face pale, mouth strained, dark eyes wide, her forehead pressed hard to the chilled windowpane. Giana's story came back to her, of Fitz's fall over a cliff, 'a small cliff' but still, of his three broken fingers and busted chin, but it was the unconscious part that made her really start to worry. She could imagine Will, skis tangled under him, almost buried in the snow, only one eye exposed and his mouth, lips tinged with purple.

She felt her nose prickle, just under the bridge, but she refused to cry. Instead, she took Giana's hand and clasped it tightly. Giana turned slightly, looking for reassurance, and Lizzy tried to smile.

It was 4:56.

The snow fell, heavy and thick, clinging to the trees.

Lizzy couldn't see anything but snow. Giana took a step closer, and Lizzy slid an arm around the girl's waist.

She'd never had a dream like this, losing Will to a snowstorm.

The room had gone worrisomely silent behind them.

If he would just tell her to marry him one more time; it didn't matter that he didn't ask—

She felt a cool hand smooth her hand behind her ear tenderly, and hoping it was Will, hoping he'd managed to sneak past her and surprise her again, she turned. But it was Jane. With a worried frown and troubled eyes.

"I'm sure he's fine," Jane said quietly, pushing Lizzy's hair from her face again. Lizzy didn't even try to smile this time. She nodded once uncertainly, looking away, looking beyond Jane to the clock on the microwave.

It was 4:59.

Close enough.

Lizzy pulled Giana closer and kissed her forehead tenderly before letting her go, before crossing the living room, and entering the bedroom she shared with Will. She pulled her ski pants back on and slung into her jacket. She marched out of her room, shoving her head into her cap.

"Lizzy—" began Jane uncertainly.

Lizzy didn't even look at her. She was zipping up her jacket, ears flattened under her ski cap; she was headed toward the mudroom's door.

Then Fitz was in front of her, tall, not as tall as Will, in between the kitchen counter and the back of a couch, blocking her way. "Where are you going, kiddo?"

Lizzy tried to shove past him roughly, but Fitz got a couple hands on her shoulders and he pushed her back, gentler than he needed to be.

"I asked you where you were going," he said again. He looked as stern as she'd ever seen him.

Lizzy glanced around, gauging who else would try to stop her. Jane was watching her with wide eyes, very blue in a very pale face; Charlie was glancing between the twins, as worried as Jane. Giana was still at the window, looking out, but Jimmy had gone to her, had even placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Maggie might have done something, but she was already occupied: the baby had noticed the tension in the room and had started to cry.

"Let go," Lizzy hissed, shrugging Fitz's hands from her shoulders. "If it was Maggie, you'd already be out there."

Fitz shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Nah, I'd stick around here, let the professionals handle it. Because they're professionals, right? Also, Zarine would miss me if I turned into a Fitzsicle."

Lizzy blinked, looking around him, mapping out her escape routes. Then she jumped over the back of the couch and got several steps closer to the mudroom in her stocking feet before she was tackled from behind. They stumbled together, but Fitz clamped his arms around Lizzy's shoulders and managed to get her left arm pinned to her side.

"Sorry, Lizzy," he explained as she struggled to free herself. "I'm not going to let you turn yourself into a Lizzysicle. I like you too much."

Lizzy heard Jane gasp and Charlie murmur to her comfortingly, but it wasn't enough to keep Lizzy from thrashing her head around and groping at Fitz's hold, searching for weak spots.

"Fitz—" Lizzy started.

"Mags, if you could be so kind as to call those professionals," Fitz said, scowling as Lizzy pushed against his shoulder hard with her free right hand. Maggie already had the phone; she was reaching into the playpen toward the crying baby and dialing one-handed. "And Jane, go get Lizzy's skis please. Just in case."

Lizzy snorted, watching her sister disappear into the mudroom and return with the rented yellow skis, the poles too. She didn't need her skis. Jane's feet were only a little narrower than hers, and Gianas only a little longer. She didn't need her skis to search for Will.

She glanced up at Fitz. He looked back, smiling tightly, red eyebrows raised, hair rising in a stubborn, red crest.

"What's it going to take for you to let me go?" Lizzy asked him.

Fitz let out a hard, quick sigh. "Short of physically hurting me, nothing."

Maggie turned, Zarine in her lap, mouth open and scowling. "Fitz."

"Lizzy, no—" Jane started, taking a step forward.

Fitz looked back to Lizzy, beginning to realize his mistake, but Lizzy's face was impassive when she elbowed him, hard in the stomach, hard enough to wind him. Fitz's grip loosened just enough to give Lizzy room to cock a fist back and slam it into Fitz's face. Then she turned away quickly, darting at the mudroom door.

13.

Will didn't realize how cold he was until he got inside. His hands were white and pink-knuckled when he got his gloves off, and his skin prickled in the warmth of the mudroom. His nose started to run when he sat on the bench and bent to fumble with the buckles of his ski boots. Then he stood up in his stocking feet, wincing as his toes came back to life, burning with a vengeance.

He was struggling with the zipper of his jacket, where the top had frozen over during the storm, when he heard someone—a woman, Jane probably—cry out, "No, Lizzy—"

Then, there was a scuffle, the sound of pounding feet, and a hard, bruising thump. And Lizzy's voice snapping, "What the fuck, Fitz? Do you want me to do it again?"

Will walked on uncomfortably prickling feet to the door and opened it to discover Lizzy on her elbows on the floor, scowling at Fitz, who'd managed to trip her—it seemed—by tackling her legs. Most everyone else looked to be watching them. In horror.

"Will!" Giana cried, from the other side of the room, between Jimmy and the piano.

"Yes?" Will replied, surprised to see the others turn to him so quickly.

Fitz groaned, letting go of Lizzy's legs. "Thank God."

"What's going on?" Will asked. "Did I miss something? Lizzy, do you challenge Fitz to a wrestling match again?"

Lizzy was picking herself up slowly, carefully, from the floor and looking down, brushing at something on her sweater that Will couldn't see.

"Never mind," sighed Maggie. She was speaking into the phone, eyes closed, Zarine fussing in her lap. "Yeah… Uh-huh, he's here."

"Where have you been?" Charlie asked, and it was almost an accusation.

"I missed the turn-off on the trail," Will explained defensively. "I didn't see it in the storm, and I was halfway down the mountain before I realized. I had to hike up after that."

Maggie said good-bye, sighed again heavily, and hung up the phone. Jimmy was watching Giana with concern; her face was buried in her hands.

"Fucking snow blindness," Fitz grumbled, sitting up and dabbing at his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Are you all right, Fitz?" Will asked, nodding at him uncertainly. "You're bleeding. At your lip."

Fitz snorted, looking at the bright smear across the back of his hand. "Is that what this red shit is?"

"Fitz," Maggie scolded quietly, running a hand over Zarine's hair as the baby leaned into her mother's chest, quiet now and worn out, her hand reaching for her mother's earring. "Don't. He couldn't know."

"Know what?" Will wanted to know. No one answered him, but Lizzy crossed the room, her head lowered, her hair hiding her face. Even when she stopped in front of him, Will still couldn't see her face.

"Know what?" Will asked again, bewildered.

Lizzy reached up, flicked a couple pieces of melting ice from his jacket with her thumbnail, and tugged on the zipper. "You'll need to take a shower." Her voice was low and thick, almost raspy, as if she would soon lose it. She wouldn't look him in the face. "Or you'll get sick."

"Lizzy…" Will said, catching her hand with his. It was so warm he felt his hand thaw around it. "Lizzy, what—"

She looked up, and when she looked up, she wasn't crying, not yet, but her eyes were overbright—there was moisture collecting in the corners. When she blinked, they spilled over, dropping over her cheeks. Lizzy looked away again, catching the tears in the palm of her right hand, rubbing them quickly out of sight. "It was so late, and the storm…" she said and paused. Will leaned forward, wondering, worrying. "I thought—" she added, but her breath hitched around the sentence and she had to press a hand over her mouth to keep the sob in.

It occurred to Will then exactly what she thought.

"But Lizzy—" he started, and she glanced up only briefly. A little spurt of a sob escaped from under her hand, and Lizzy slapped her other hand over the first. Will hugged her tentatively at first, but then she dropped her head to her shoulder and biting her lips tight to seal in any noise; then she took her hands from her mouth to cling to him desperately. That was probably what worried Will the most, the clinging. Lizzy didn't—under any circumstances that Will was able to remember—allow herself to cling, but she had her arms around his waist, tight enough to hurt almost. Her hands were fisted in the material of her jacket, and she was so warm. Her forehead was flushed and hot where it touched his neck.

Will wanted her to speak to him. He didn't know what to say to get her to speak to him.

"Lizzy, I'm all right," he tried. He felt her breath against his chest, but she didn't reply.

"I'm rather cold, but I'm all right," he assured her, wondering if she would smile. She held him too tightly for him to get any sort of gauge on her expression.

"I didn't mean to scare you, Lizzy," he added, and her only response was to shake her head and press tighter into him. His feet were tingling still, and he wanted very much to sit down somewhere, but Will wasn't sure how to take Lizzy with him. He noticed that she was trembling, very slightly.

Will groped for something to say, for something to lighten the mood. He let out a short burp of laughter, smoothing the hair on top of her head. "Well, marry me, Lizzy. If you marry me, you'll be the first one they would call."

Lizzy stiffened—that was the first warning sign. Jane made a noise halfway between a gasp and a moan—there was the second. Then, Lizzy shoved Will, hard, against his shoulder. It stung more than it should.

"Ouch. Lizzy—" Will started, but she had her hands together, the fingers of her left hand grasping the ring on her right, and for a minute, Will wondered if this was going to be it, if she was going to agree to it now-- Then he noticed her face: tight and hard, the jaw clenched tight, eyes closed and pained and scowling.

Her hands dropped to her sides; they curled into fists. Lizzy opened her eyes and looked at him as she hadn't looked at him in a long while, her gaze hard and unflinching and devoid of humor, devoid of sympathy. She seemed too angry now to speak.

She didn't speak. She turned, walked away, walked into their bedroom, and slammed the door, hard enough for Will to feel the door shake underneath him.

Will found himself blinking at the wrong side of a locked door. He glanced back and around the room, took in the bewildered faces behind him, and turned back to the bedroom door, rather smugly: If the others were confused, then it had to be Lizzy that was being ridiculous.

"Come now, Lizzy—" Will began.

He heard a scarp against the doorknob; he flinched thinking that Lizzy had locked the door, locked him out, but instead, the door opened. Will looked up, opened his mouth to speak to her, but Lizzy strode past him, chin-lowered and eyes narrowed. Will watched her cross the room, side-stepping a chair and a couch and a coffee table, spreading her arms and folding his sister into them.

She was crying: Giana, not Lizzy.

Will took a step toward her and stopped when he realized that he'd moved, asking uncertainly "Giana, what's the matter?"

Giana didn't answer. She instead made a noise somewhere between a hiccup and a sob and then dropped her head, pressing her face into Lizzy's shoulder.

"It's okay," Lizzy was murmuring, stroking Giana's hair. "He's okay."

Giana mumbled something back, but Will wasn't able to catch it.

"I know; it's all right," Lizzy replied, pulling her closer, and Giana let out a muffled, high-pitched sound, very nearly a squeal.

Will gulped and looked to Jimmy, who was hanging awkwardly back, and Will wondered why the boy wasn't working to help the situation.

"Are you okay?" Lizzy asked worriedly when Giana drew away, head bowed, long brown hair hanging in front of her face. Giana nodded, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand. "If you need me, you knock. I mean it."

Will realized that Lizzy was planning to return to the bedroom.

"Okay," Giana murmured, nodding again as Lizzy tucked her hair behind her ear. Lizzy almost smiled, kissed Giana's forehead, and took three great strides to hug her twin tight.

"Are you okay?" Jane asked Lizzy worriedly.

To Will, this did seem rather obvious. If Lizzy was 'okay,' she wouldn't feel the need to lock herself into their bedroom. Alone.

Lizzy only shrugged. "Kinda pissed."

Will wondered for a moment if Lizzy had gotten into the eggnog again, which would certainly explain the abrupt mood swings, but then Jane shot him a slight frown, her lips pressed disapprovingly tight, and Will understood that he was the problem. Again.

"What have I done now?" Will asked exasperatedly as Lizzy turned toward him and the bedroom behind him. He placed himself directly in her path, but she merely side-stepped him. She didn't even glance his way.

"Lizzy—" he started again.

But the door had already slammed, and Lizzy was behind it.

"I'm taking Zarine to the cottage," Maggie told her husband, standing up and cradling the child against her, one hand cupped around the back of the baby's head. "Before this gets any worse."

Fitz nodded, a glimmer of a smirk around his eyes, but his jaw was locked tight.

For the second time that evening, Will found himself speaking through a locked, bedroom door. Of course, Lizzy had been angry with him often enough for Will to become an expert at coaxing her back toward a good mood. "Lizzy," he said, leaning against the couch and crossing his arms, "surely this isn't the best way to handle this. If you're upset with me, you might try explaining things first."

"I can tell you," Fitz said lazily, stretching his jaw out wide, testing it and wincing. "Lizzy's upset. It's your fault."

"Fitz," Charlie warned, watching Will. Maggie had returned already to the cottage with the baby; Will hadn't noticed the front door open or close.

There was no response from the room beyond the door, so Will tried again: "The silent treatment will only last for so long. Later this evening, I'll have to go to sleep, and it's very difficult to ignore someone who's sharing a bed with you."

Fitz snorted. "Wait and see if you think that after you've been married for a while."

"Fitz," Charlie said again, but Will wasn't paying either of them any mind.

"Come out, Lizzy; we—" Will began, but he stopped when he saw the door open, quickly, with a squeak that was high and warbling like a birdcall. "Well then, was that—" Will said, but then he saw her face: she was looking at him, but he wished now that she wasn't. Her eyes were no longer narrowed. She faced him with an unflinching stare, her brows slightly angled, barely furrowed. There was also something else to it, something familiar but unsettling, but Will didn't recognize it, not yet.

"I'm sorry," Lizzy said with a sigh like a snort, furious still and nearly exasperated. "I don't think I've made myself clear."

It seemed that Lizzy was angrier than Will had previously assumed.

She marched past him, her hair still wild in the back, made that way probably by her afternoon nap. Charlie moved aside quickly, and even Fitz got out of her way as she stormed into the kitchen. She then reached over the stovetop on her tiptoes to set the oven timer.

"You have exactly two minutes to get in there and grab whatever you need for the night," she said. When she turned back, her hands were on her hips, her mouth was tight, and her eyes were hard. She was angry, but it was a resigned kind of fury. "At the end of those two minutes, when this timer beeps, you will come out of that bedroom, and I will go and lock myself in. I won't be coming back out until morning. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Darcy?"

It seemed that she was much angrier than he'd supposed.

"Do you mean to tell me that I'll be on the sofa tonight?" Will asked scowling.

"I mean to tell you that we'll be spending the night in separate locations," Lizzy replied. "Now, I recommend you take your toothbrush, your toothpaste, your pajamas, your shampoo if you still want to take a shower—"

"The bloody sofa? On Christmas?" Will sputtered. Lizzy didn't move, except to raise her eyebrows. She didn't even flinch. Will forced himself to calm down; he wouldn't get anywhere with Lizzy if he shouted. "Lizzy, I won't lie to you. I'm rather tired and still a bit cold; I don't—"

"You're wasting your time," Lizzy interrupted. "This is non-negotiable."

"But Lizzy—" Will said, but she was glancing behind her.

"One minute, fifty seconds," Lizzy read off the green-lit oven display. "Would you like me to count out loud for you?"

Will dragged off his jacket, tossing it over the back of the couch and holding tightly onto his temper. "Lizzy, you can't—"

"All votes that Will goes and gets his shit, say aye,'" Fitz said, leaning against the bar.

Will turned to scowl at Fitz and promptly heard two ayes from Giana and Jimmy's corner of the room. Then, when Will opened his mouth to ask if the whole room had turned against him, Charlie commented, "Will, I doubt you'll be able to change her mind."

Will turned from Charlie to Lizzy. Her arms were folded across her chest; her chin was raised defiantly. "One minute, forty-three seconds," she said.

So Will went to their room and began snatching things up. He wasn't quite sure what he was taking; he was too angry, furious really, that she'd choose this exact time to decide she'd not be around him—when he was cold and tired from the cold, when all he really wanted was to take the shower she'd mentioned, a hot one preferably, and drop into his warm bed, when it was Christmas. But no, she had to go and find fault in everything he did, and blame him for a snowstorm that he'd had the bad luck to get caught in—

"One minute, fifteen seconds," Lizzy called.

Will paused and turned toward the door to tell her exactly what she could do with her bloody minute, and noticed with a start that Lizzy was reaching towards Fitz's face, wearing an expression of gentle concern.

Wondering why the hell he didn't deserve such an expression and how Fitz managed, Will took three angry strides into the living room. She was pressing something to Fitz's face, something wrapped in a towel and oddly shaped and wet and—

"It's cold," Fitz complained, flinching away from it.

"I'm sorry," Lizzy quietly replied.

Will wondered what the hell Fitz had done to deserve an apology.

Fitz shrugged, taking the towel-wrapped something from her hand, talking awkward around it as he pressed it to his lip. "It's not your fault. It's ice, right? It's supposed to be cold."

Ice—of course, it was ice. It didn't, of course, explain why Fitz would need ice pressed to the bottom half of his face.

"No," Lizzy said and added pointedly, "I'm sorry."

Two apologies. Somehow, Fitz had deserved two apologies.

Fitz seemed to understand this, but he merely shrugged.

"And tell Maggie I'm sorry," Lizzy added. "And Zarine."

Will paused just long enough to wonder what exactly Lizzy had done—to seek forgiveness from the entire Fitzwilliam family. Perhaps Fitz had said something Fitz-like, and Lizzy had thrown a bottle of baby food at his head. He was always saying something.

"Got it. Sorry's all around," Fitz replied with a short nod. When the concern on Lizzy's face didn't relax at all, Fitz smirked lazily against the dishtowel. "By the way, you hit like a boy."

Lizzy smiled, or made a very good try. "Thank you."

"Who did Lizzy hit?" Will asked sharply.

Giana made a sound like a tsk, and Fitz scowled—glared actually—at his cousin. "You know, I'm not gonna tell you. All I'm gonna say is it's your fault."

"How is it my fault?" Will snapped. "Is everything my fault?"

"You said it—not me," Fitz said, raising his eyebrows and shrugging.

"I did not say—" Will began. Lizzy was striding purposefully again, across the room, carrying something in hand: a bowl, filled with something brothy: white and orange-studded soup—her dinner, Will realized. And she was headed toward him—no, not to him, to the bedroom.

Will caught her arm so quickly that soup sloshed out of the bowl to smack the floor and Lizzy's breath hissed between her teeth. Even Giana murmured something in a fitful voice. "I still have thirty seconds left," he reminded her.

"Yeah, but you don't have any pillows," Lizzy pointed out evenly, prying his fingers from her arm and walking on.

Will watched her as she went inside the room, settled the soup bowl on a nightstand, and pulled bedding form the bed—two pillows and the warmest blanket, a down comforter. She hitched it up in one arm and dumped it on the couch before heading off toward the piano for a second time. Will assumed that she was only going to embrace Giana, again, but instead she came to a sizable wooden box resting on the piano and closed its carved lid.

"You opened my gift," Will realized.

"I did," Lizzy replied, picking it up.

Will couldn't keep himself from asking, "Did you like it?"

"I love it; it's a great gift," Lizzy replied, walking across the room. There was no smirk hiding around her mouth, and she was looking at him hard, directly in the eyes. Will didn't think she was being sarcastic. "Thank you."

Despite her anger, despite everything, Will couldn't keep himself from smiling. He couldn't stop, even when Lizzy failed to smile back. "You do like it? Really?"

"I just told you I do," she reminded him. She was walking now—Giana reached for her, but Lizzy didn't notice, or she didn't pay the girl any mind. She was halfway across the living room, side-stepping chairs, before Will recognized where she was going and made one final attempt to stop her, a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Is it really going to be like this, Lizzy? On Christmas?" Will asked, keeping his voice low, very conscious of the others' presence. "Will you really punish me for getting lost in a snowstorm?"

Lizzy winced, just slightly. "It's not punishment."

"Lizzy, you can't expect me to believe—" Will said impatiently.

"Believe what I tell you: you hurt me, Will," Lizzy said quietly, and Will felt suddenly as if he was the one she had struck. "And I can't be around you right now." Giana made another noise, strangled and almost a gasp, but Will couldn't look away from away from Lizzy, who was watching him like he was barely there in front of her. She dropped her voice so the others couldn't hear and added, "If you would like to be the one in solitary confinement for the evening, be my guest. But I'm going to be crying in the next five minutes--" Will felt the invisible punch once more, hard in the stomach. "—and I would rather not let Giana see it. She's had enough excitement for one day."

Lizzy was staring him down with same unflinching stare, the same resigned kind of anger. He knew he should recognize the look she gave him; he knew he had seen it before. She seemed untouchable; Will understood that was important.

She moved past him.

"Wait, Lizzy. You have to tell me what I've done," Will said desperately, catching her arm again, the one not carrying the wooden box. "You can't leave me without telling me what I've done."

Lizzy stared at Will's hand until he removed it. It hung in front of him awkwardly, mid-air. Then she was still staring but not at him, only at some place on the floor. The two-minute timer beeped between them. "You didn't want me to feel better," she said softly.

"What?" Will replied with a short laugh. "Lizzy, that's ridiculous."

Lizzy was already moving on.

"Of course I wanted you to feel better," Will told her, reaching for her arm again, almost accidentally.

Lizzy caught his grasping hand and threw it back before he managed to touch her. "I've already hit somebody today," she told him. She was glaring now, which would've relieved Will—as a symptom of her usual self, but there were tears sitting at the bottom of her eyes. It wasn't lost on Will that she stepped behind him, blocking her face from the others' view. "It's not going to take much to push me back into violence." Her voice didn't shake, not at all.

Her eyelids were lowered; she was staring at the floor.

She was in the doorway. Her hand was on the doorknob; she was closing it.

"Lizzy, please," Will said softly.

She looked at him with that resigned stare, her eyes unhappy but absolutely fierce.

"Goodnight, Will," Lizzy replied, and it sounded like Goodbye. She closed the door.

Will recognized finally the look she'd used to stare him down. That was the way she had looked at her mother that day at Netherfield, after Collins had gone. That was the way Lizzy looked at people she loved in spite of herself, in spite of her better judgment, a waiting sort of stare, almost as if she were bracing herself for betrayal.

He grabbed at the doorknob, hoping he could force his way in before she locked it, but she was faster than he was. Then he was facing the same locked door. For the third and final time.

"Lizzy, you can't block me out. Lizzy—" Will began, jiggling the doorknob. It was panic speaking. She probably knew that, but he didn't care.

He knew it was ridiculous to be afraid. Lizzy was only in a locked room. She obviously wasn't going anywhere, but if anyone could sneak out of a room unnoticed in the middle of a snowstorm and disappear from the rest of his life, it was Lizzy. He banged on the door; it shook under his fist. "You can't block me out, only because you were afraid. It isn't my fault that you were worried. You did that of your own accord. Damn it, Lizzy—don't shut me out; open this door. Open—"

He would've opened the door, too; he would've forced it opened, broken the door in half if he had to—damn the bloody damage fees anyway, but someone, someone with a long dark ponytail, rushed at his side and sent him stumbling three paces to his right.

"You leave her alone," Giana snapped, standing now in front of the door as if she were guarding it. "She deserves a little quiet after this. You owe her that at least."

"Not now, Giana," Will replied, scowling and returning to the door. "I can only handle one woman going ballastic on me at a time."

Fitz snorted again, across the room, and when Will looked, his cousin was uncrossing his arms and shaking his head. "Well, Will—you're officially a bastard."

"What? What have I done?" Will asked exasperated.

"I'm headed to the cottage before this evening starts to suck anymore," Fitz announced. The ice clunked muffledly through the dishtowel as he dropped it on the marble counter. "Everybody else," he said, looking at Charlie, Jimmy, and Giana in turn, "I recommend finding your own amusements in various corners of the house, so Will can sit on the couch and think about what he's done."

"What have I done?" Will wanted to know. "Why won't anyone tell me what I've done?"

"Later, kids," said Fitz, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his ski pants and strolling for the front door.

Will resumed his assault on the door to the bedroom. "Lizzy, I'm serious. Open—"

Giana shoved him again, harder and at an angle so that he knocked into the wall. "You great bastard, we thought we were going to get a bloody call!" she shouted. Her eyes were streaming tears but as fierce as Lizzy's.

"What are you talking about?" Will asked, pushing himself away from the wall. "What call?"

"The call that you were dead," Giana told him with a stubborn, gulping scowl. "That you'd fallen into an avalanche or a glacier and froze to death—"

"Well, there wasn't any need," Will replied, rubbing his shoulder absently. "I wasn't in any danger, except perhaps of losing a few toes. I don't see what all the bloody fuss—"

"You wanted to know what you did wrong," Giana reminded him haughtily, wiping her eyes, "and I'm telling you."

"All you've told me is that you were rather worried about me," Will said with an exasperated sigh.

"Rather worried?" Giana repeated slowly. She was glaring at him now, and Will braced himself for an outburst of the sort he'd heard the day before: If she thought that he would only sit and listen quietly as he had on Christmas Eve, she would unpleasantly surprised. "Do you have any idea what we've been through here tonight? Any idea at all?"

"Obviously not," Will snapped. "I've just gotten here. I've only been here long enough to get kicked out of my room, and—"

"We thought you were going to die, Will," Giana said, mouth strained, but her eyes were still fierce.

"I wasn't—" Will insisted.

"No, you shut up, you great bastard," Giana snapped, taking a step forward, and for an instant, Will worried that his sister would strike him. Her eyes glinted, perhaps still close to tears, and bits of her long hair stuck to her face. She lowered her chin sharply, scowling, and the reddish tearstains on her cheeks began to look like war-paint. "Let me tell you how it was. It was Lizzy who was worried first. Then it was both of us at that window—" She pointed toward the piano, but Will was too busy to glaring stubbornly back to turn away. "—looking out and waiting for you to come back. Do you know what it's like to wait when you've worried, Will? Look at my nails," she told him, shoving her hand under his nose. She moved them too much for him to get any sort of impression of them, except blurring pale fingers. Helpfully, she added, "Bitten to the quick. I haven't bitten my nails in years, not since Auntie Cindy came back to Pemberley. And Lizzy—" Giana drew away from Will, jerking her long hair over her shoulder and beginning to take long pacing strides back and forth across the living room. "Lizzy was going after you, did you know that? Did you notice that she'd already dressed herself against the weather? Fitz managed to stop her, barely. She fought with all she's got to leave. Who d'you think Lizzy hit? Who do you think busted Fitz's lip?"

Fitz was still there, shaking his head at Will, looking smug and vicious and much to self-righteous than he'd ever had a right to be. His lip was rather swollen.

"It would've been all right," Will protested. He made the mistake of glancing out the window looming over the piano, at the storm beyond the warmth of the cabin, at the flakes blown in all corners, at the landscape bleached white as far as the eye can see. A shiver sauntered up from the base of his spine, chilled him enough to draw goosebumps on his arms under the sleeves of his jacket, but he knew that it was ridiculous. Everyone was fine now. There was no need to feel bothered after the fact. "I would have met Lizzy on the trail," he said, forcing himself to believe it. "The worst that could've happened was that she would be forced to climb up the mountain with—"

"The worst that could've happened is that she could've frozen to death," Fitz corrected sharply.

Will threw his cousin a sharp, warning scowl. "I thought you were going to the cottage."

Fitz shrugged but crossed his arms, so smug that Will might have hit Fitz himself if they were only five years younger. "Yeah, well, your sister telling you off is kinda more entertaining."

"Come on, Fitz," Charlie said in a quiet voice, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"What?" Fitz said irritably. "Even you have to admit that Will's being a real asshole."

"Yeah, but you don't need to make it worse," Charlie pointed out.

"I am not being an asshole," Will snapped.

"Could've fooled me," replied Giana.

Will sighed irritably, pushing his hair back from his face. "Giana, I understand you're angry, but you really can't speak to me that way," he said in as stern a voice as he could muster. "I'm your brother—"

"Can't speak to you that way?" Giana repeated, raising her chin, her hands traveling slowly to her hips.

"Yes, that's what I said," Will said, fighting to keep the scowl from his face.

"Did I hurt your feelings?" Giana asked sharply.

"I…" Will started and stopped, watching her uncertainly.

"I'd like to know," Giana told him. Her hands were still on her hips, and her chin was still raised in challenge. "Did I hurt your feelings?"

Will didn't answer. He didn't know what to say.

Giana looked away, grimacing. There was an angry flush to her cheeks, under the tearstains. "Do you know, Will, all my life I've let you treat me exactly as you wanted?" she said, more softly than Will had expected. He had expected her to yell again. "Mostly because I was grateful that someone was paying me any attention at all. There have been plenty of times, Will, so many times that you've said something and hurt me, and I—"

"So, that's what this is about?" Will snapped impatiently. "Revenge?"

Giana's gaze snapped up, hard and furious, her mouths open and defiant. "No. Of course not. God, Will. I could never say anything when it was me, but Lizzy's right. It's so much easier when it's not you you're fighting for."

"What are you talking about?" Will asked bewildered.

Giana slammed her hand down on whatever was nearest, the arm of a leather couch, so hard that Will imagined Maggie complaining about damage fees again. "Listen to me, and I'll tell you." Her teeth were bared. "You came in. You may not believe this right now, but I was rather happy to see you. And Lizzy was overwhelmed, so much so that she didn't know what to do with herself. And she went to you for comfort, and how did you react?"

"I comforted her, of course," Will said, not much appreciating such an interrogation.

"No. No, you didn't," Giana said through clenched teeth. "She's right—you didn't want to her to feel better. You just wanted her to stop crying so you wouldn't have to bother any longer. So you could go about your business and warm yourself up with hot cocoa or whatever."

"That's not—" Will started to protest, but it was true. Or true enough.

"And then you made a joke out of it all. Acted as if she had no right to be scared. Acting as if she was only over-reacting—" Giana continued harshly.

"She did overreact," Will insisted. "You all did. I wasn't in any danger—"

Giana let loose a brief, frustrated scream and stamped her socked foot hard on the ground. Will remembered with a touch of amusement that she threw her childhood tantrums in a very similar way. "This is what I can't stand about you, will," she snapped. "This is what no one can stand about you. The fact of the matter is that Lizzy trusted you not to hurt her and you did."

"I didn't mean to hurt her. She does know that--" Will pointed out helplessly.

"Yes, well, you didn't mean to burn her hand," Giana replied, hands returning to her hips, "but that didn't stop the welts from coming, did it?"

"I didn't do anything of the kind," Will replied, worrying now that he might've.

"Did you not see it, then?" Giana asked, hitcher her chin higher. "You grabbed her arm and the soup spilled out. It was hot, it's been on the burner for an hour or more; it turned the back of her hand red."

Will hadn't noticed. He hadn't even looked. He hadn't known that he needed to look.

"Whether or not you meant to hurt her doesn't matter. You hurt her," Giana snapped. She was yelling now and pacing, taking long furious strides along the wall, and Will swallowed numbly and couldn't bring himself to stop her. He braced himself again, more carefully this time, and prepared to wait it out. "You were wrong, and you can't bloody well admit it. You've never been able to. You say stupid things sometimes, terrible things, and you hurt people terribly. All the bloody time. And what's worse is that you never seem to care much, not enough. No wonder no one seems to want to stay with you. Maggie ran off with the baby the first chance she got, and Jane went upstairs as soon as Lizzy removed herself. Charlie's been eyeing the stairs since then; Fitz already established his desire to leave. Jimmy's only still here to hold my hand if I need it. And Lizzy—" Giana paused just long enough to suck in a deep, angry breath. "The stupidest thing is all you had to do to help her was to hold her until she settled down. That's all she wanted really. but now—of course she's going to want to hide herself away. Of course she's going to refuse to marry you, if you treat her the way you do—hurt her and pretend you're not sorry. You—"

"That's enough, Giana," Charlie said quietly, grimacing again as he rubbed the back of his neck.

Giana stopped pacing, her hair flying out behind her as she turned toward him. "But—"

"Nope, I'm with Charlie," Fitz said sternly. "You're done here today."

"Fine," snapped Giana, and she took four long strides to her room, walking in and slamming the door.

Will couldn't make himself move.

It was Jimmy who went to the door, the one most recently slammed. Will supposed that the boy would've knocked or asked Giana if she was all right, but the door opened again. Giana strode out, anger making her pace jagged, fury still molded to every line in her tearstained face. "I changed my mind," Giana said scowling, dropping in an armchair, legs crossed, arms folded. "I'm going to sit here and glare at you as you think about what you've done. Go on, then. Think."

Will's breath was coming now in short, shallow gasps, quiet enough, but he heard them loudly in his ears. He moved leadenly to the other side of the sofa and sat down, his elbows on his knees. His legs were trembling slightly, and if he chose, he could tell himself that it was only a symptom of the strain of climbing a storm-ravaged mountain. He was only dimly aware the others were moving around him, murmuring to one another.

He turned to the bundle of bedding that Lizzy had left him. He noticed her black pajama bottoms caught in the middle, studded with bright pink dots. He tugged them out gently and folded them carefully. This was usually the point when Lizzy would find him, place a hand on his back, and murmur something sweet and funny and encouraging, but he had no right to ask that of her now.

The blueprints of Pemberley were before him, spread out wide on the coffeetable just in front of him. He turned a page idly, realized belatedly that he was looking at the plans of the ballroom. With his head bent so low, he also noticed that it was spotted with tiny, pale blue Post-its; he hadn't seen them earlier, not without his glasses. He lifted one from the blueprint, pulled it very close to his face, and read in Lizzy's slanting, looping script: You were right! This one's Orpheus. There was an arrow next to that, pointing at nothing now. Then, in parenthesis: Eurydice is carved just one panel over.

Will dropped the Post-it back to the paper, smoothed it down exactly where he found it, one fist was pressed hard against his mouth. Then his hands traveled upwards to cover his eyes. Then he bent almost in half, his chin dropped to his knees, and he brought his hands to rest loosely on the back of his head, buried there as if hiding in his hair.

Giana apologized just before they sat down to dinner. Will shrugged a little and tried to smile, but when he couldn't bring himself to say anything, Giana held him firmly by his shoulders, frowning worried. "You're still my brother," she explained. "I'll always love you, you know. You're all I've got."

That didn't really make Will feel any better. He wasn't sure it was supposed to.

At the table, he found he couldn't eat much. It wasn't that it tasted bad. It was good, quite good actually, but he knew Lizzy had prepared it, that she was eating alone, and that it was his fault. After half a dozen spoons, he mumbled his excuses and rose from the table, taking his dishes absent-mindedly with him and settling them in the bottom of the sink.

She was still awake, Will was almost sure: there was a line of light escaping from the slit under the door.

He still didn't know what to say. Even when he knocked, he wasn't exactly sure that he was just trying to see whether or not she would answer him.

"Lizzy?" he asked. He braced himself with one hand on each side of the doorframe, straining to hear what she would tell him.

She might not, of course. She didn't have to talk to him.

"Lizzy?" he said again, only slightly louder. He waited for a while, preparing himself to walk away.

Then he heard, "I still don't want to see you, Will. You've only given me an hour. A little over an hour, but still."

Time moved too slowly. It didn't help at all that it seemed as if Lizzy had suddenly developed a horrible cold. Will found himself resting his forehead on the door without remembering having bent his head. "No, of course, I—" He dragged a breath deep into his lungs and then let it out again. "I'm sorry. I wanted you to know that…I am sorry. I—" And then he didn't really know what to say, not through a door. If she was there before him, if he could see her face…

"Thank you," Lizzy said in a strained voice that Will could only wince at.

He waited a moment longer, waited to discover if Lizzy would say anything else. When she didn't, he turned away and caught Giana watched him with a worried, wide-eyed frown.

Will woke up in the middle of the night with a hand against his face. He knew before he opened his eyes that it was Lizzy cupping his cheek. When his eyes did open, when he did begin to pull himself into a sitting position, she gave a small gasp and jumped slightly back. She was not wearing any pants. Her legs shone white in the dull moonlight streaming in through the last flurry remains of the storm.

"Lizzy?" he heard himself asking, blinking several times.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. There were silver glints on her cheeks that might have been tears. "I didn't mean to wake you up." Her eyes were very wide and over-bright. "I had this dream; I was just checking—" She hooked her hair behind her ears distractedly, looking away, looking sideways at nothing. "You know, to see if you were all right. I'm sorry," she said again, backing away. "I'll go. I didn't mean to wake you up—"

Will reached out from under the comforter and grasped her hand. Lizzy turned back, head bowed, a thumb wiping something from under her eye. He knew they couldn't talk yet, not now, it was too late now, but he hitched himself up a little and twisted. He tugged the cushions from their places against the back of the couch and tossed them over the side. Then he scooted himself backwards in the extra room that afforded and lifted the blanket in silent, hopeful invitation.

Lizzy climbed in wordlessly. Her body was flushed, her feet cold, and Will worried that she was running fever. When she seemed comfortable, he tucked the blanket around the both of them and settled an arm around her waist. Her back was to him, but he knew she was still crying: her breaths were coming shaky and slow, and every so often, he heard her licking the tears from her lips. He pulled her gently closer and kissed her hair tenderly, just next to the spot where he knew she'd knocked her head. The gesture seemed to have the opposite effect he'd intended, because she released a small, strangled hiccup of a sob.

But she moved the hand that she'd curled around the edge of a pillow, moved it until she was clasping his tightly. The grip of her fingers was warm and fierce.

Author's Note: I know I promised a cliffhanger, but…I decided against it. Originally, I was going to stop this update after section 12—you know, like the twelve days of Christmas, but I came to the conclusion that was just mean. Maybe in the final draft, there will be twelve, but that's okay. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this. I'm sorry this update took so long. I was working at a summer job, and then I had to move back to college and settle in and everything. BUT the good news is that there's just one more chapter go! And it's mostly written! I'm going to finish it up as soon as possible and post it. Thanks for reading!

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