What 20,000 words already? Over 1,500 views across Fanfiction and AO3, and the tale is just beginning. At the current pace I should finish posting late January.
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Finally, from here on if I will be using end notes to explain terms that might seem obscure if you're not British/a trader.
Thanks for reading on, stay safe and all the best.
Mel

'Was that Tom chatting you up?' Ben asked her as they took their seats on the long awaited C11 back to Archway, along with a crew of Dead'n Gone members and roadies ready to Moonbus their way to Heathrow the next day.

'I don't know,' she shrugged, but she was intrigued. Another hypothesis in the curious case of Thomas Wickham Lorcan George Reilly.

'He didn't tell me,' she said to Ben in the end, 'and I've not seen him chatting people up before. I have no control sample.'

'I'll go back to me box then!' Ben chirped back with his simpleton grin. He was still pretty drunk, whereas she had sobered up again – they were for a brief moment about as chatty as one another.

'Mac, we will miss you!' she shouted across the aisle.

'Take good care of our Ben, will you?' came Mac's drunken slur. 'You're a gweeeat gaarl, Elisabeth! We ALL love you!'

'Gee thanks, Mac.'

Thoughts flitted through Elisabeth's mind the next morning after her "one on one" with Rajeev, but she was too cruelly sleep deprived to attempt to arrange them into any kind of order – or indeed to get on with any actual work.

She was still so incensed about Will sabotaging her that she'd barely slept. She'd got in for 6:30am and literally had to switch the third floor lights on before gathering all the necessary evidence to prove to Raj how ill-founded Will's accusations had been. That she had to do that, that anyone should take his word over her numbers, still made her blood boil.

But Raj had not so much as asked to see her data. In fact, and in as much as Raj's fondness for corporate euphemism allowed him to vindicate anyone, he had vindicated her. Straight away, no questions asked. He assured her he had already emailed yesterday's attendees to clarify what he called the "misunderstanding". He complimented Elisabeth on her "professionalism" in handling Will's interruption, and then explained how the poor dear just came from a "different culture" and how he needed "time" and "support" to adjust from a "hedge-fund culture" to a more "collegial buy-side culture".

Now the relief, the alcohol-related dehydration and the sleep-deprivation together left Elisabeth feeling exhausted. Her third coffee of the day felt as if it were about to give her a headache rather than a boost. She thought of the dark look Will had shot her as their paths had crossed just now in the back staircase: death-stare didn't begin to describe it. Well tough, Will.

And also: I'm not scared.

Trouble was, Elisabeth thought, if Willy Wanker was right now having the "collegial buy-side culture" explained to him by Raj up there in room 4.18, i.e. if, in plainer English, he was having his wrist slapped on her account, then he was unlikely to come back down any better disposed towards her. But this she couldn't work out: what she had done to deserve any of it in the first place?

By now Elisabeth was pretty sure she could handle traders in general – enjoy them, even. Sure, like her new flat, they weren't nice in the conventional sense of the word. They could be florid, but she didn't mind that: her years of band practice in the male-dominated back rows of various philharmonic orchestras had left her inured to most kinds of sexual and scatological innuendo. And what she'd begun to appreciate was that, in a way, traders were a lot like the French: a little blunt, but this way you knew where you stood with them. So why was it that Will couldn't just have a proper go at her, since clearly he had a problem, rather than wait for an offsite to take pot shots at her in front of everyone? Most likely he was just seeing her as competition for Rajeev's attention. Not very grown up but, well, he was only a trader.

But then if that was all, why hadn't he just done what Heads of Research had done through the ages – certainly all the ones Elisabeth had ever worked for before? Why hadn't he nicked her slides at the last minute and given her presentation himself? She had offered for him to share the presentation slot – under duress, but she had.

And then, Elisabeth thought, crushing her empty plastic cup and throwing it into the bin under her desk, then there was Jane's face when they'd bumped into each other this morning: her hair pulled back in a Croydon facelift of a ponytail, and yet lugging hold-sized bags under her eyes. Dan had got her up at four, and morning sickness had kept her up since. That, and more world-class backstabbing at the hand of Mr Toad: Jane had been informed last night, by way of blanket email to the whole client-facing half of the bank, that Toad was pushing back all her planned fund releases by three months, a decision he'd not seen fit to discuss with Jane herself. All so his pet Nigel's stupid useless next Structured Product got out before Christmas.

Elisabeth was busy pondering who was more evil of Willy Wanker and Mr Toad, when the former and Rajeev got back from their meeting together. Raj went to sit at the empty workstation between Elisabeth and Neil's desks, opened his laptop and started checking his emails. Minutes later he was off again, and Will came to stand behind Elisabeth's chair. Right, well this was a first: what now?

'Got a minute?' she heard from up high.

'Of course, what's up?' she replied, shooting up from her seat to stand to attention.

'I don't think this seating plan's working.'

'The seating plan? Why, what's wrong with the seating plan?' she asked, tucking back the hair which had escaped from behind her ear. Standing this close to Will she had to crane her neck to meet his gaze as he looked down at her. Coming on top of the previous night's alcohol and sleep deprivation it made her feel almost dizzy, so she took a step back:

'Look, Will, I told you, I'm really not bothered by the noise,' she said, attempting a smile now that, from a safer distance, she could look at him almost without physical discomfort.

'Great, since you're not,' he crossed his arms and took a deep breath in: 'I think you should come and sit between Neil and me.'

'Right,' she said, and unconsciously stepped back another half a foot while her mind boggled. She frowned, pinched her lips, then stopped and looked at him again. He didn't look like he relished his proposal any more than she did, but in truth neither of them was pretending to: this must be Raj's idea.

It was just like him, just the kind of "suggestion" he'd make, in full knowledge of the pain he was inflicting on both parties, to foster his godforsaken "collegial buy-side culture". For crying out loud yes, trying to wrap her exhausted brain around the idea, she could see that during busy trading days it would help sitting next to Neil, rather than two seats away. But with the best will in the world there was just no upside to sitting next to Fitzwilliam Kingsley Darcy.

'So?' he asked.

'So! Uh, yes, great idea!' she said, her voice shrill from straining to lie so blatantly.

'Get you right in the middle of the action,' he said through gritted teeth. He looked like he'd rather shave his re-growing head stubble with a cheese-grater. Certainly she'd rather shave his re-growing head stubble with a cheese-grater, preferably a rusty tetanus-infected one, than move to the desk next to his.

'Sure! Yes, it would help when Neil's struggling with the spreadsheet,' she added, hoping against hope that she was doing a better job than he was of faking the enthusiasm. Raj now came back to the desk to pick up the PalmPilot he'd almost certainly left behind on purpose, so he'd have a reason to come back and check progress on his cunning plan.

'Wonder what you two are plotting now!' he lied jovially. They both turned around and flashed him their fakest most eager smiles. Raj smiled back and nodded and went off again, leaving Will and Elisabeth to settle back into their default faces: his radiating haughty indifference, hers seething impatience.

'Right, where were we?' he asked, raising his sternum alpha-male fashion before he re-crossed his arms.

'This little desk here, for the moment?'

'And so funny too,' he said, jaw still locked. 'Next big trade list comes down on Friday, so you need to move over Thursday night. I've called the helpdesk, they'll do it right after the close. Then we can go through the trade together Friday morning, Neil you and I. All right?'

'Right! Thursday close! Got it!'

He turned back and walked to his seat, and she let out a sigh, partly out of relief at being done with him for now, but mostly out of sheer dread.

Moments later Sarah Atkinson came over with some papers for him, announced by the rhythmic clicking of her stilettos on the atrium's chequered marble floor. In characteristic Atkinsonian fashion she proceeded to flick her hair about her face while leaning towards Will to her cleavage's best advantage. Elisabeth had watched her act several times but it was still a thing of wonder, how Sarah managed to manoeuvre her boobs between a man's face and three large screens. You could have put a million screens there, all playing that England world-cup final on a loop, her chest would still win the man's attention, every time.

Elisabeth saw Will turn to look at Sarah, and she also saw Neil try very hard not to move his head to stare, but peek nonetheless. Will and Sarah had a brief chat, which from where she sat Elisabeth could not overhear, and after another minute of athletic hair flicking, chest wiggling, forced laughter and eyelid batting Sarah led Will out across the atrium back towards reception, walking just far enough ahead of him to grant the best view of her pert little tight-skirted bottom, swaying ever so slightly with each of her doe-like steps.

'Looks like the new guv'nor's next in line to ride the office bike,' Master Yoda said to Andy as soon as the boss was out of earshot.

'She 'better like small dicks then,' Andy said.

Both of them were speaking to their screens, their voices relaxed, loud and clear: business as usual.

'Ask Newbie, 'e'll know,' Yoda said, dropping his aitch but raising several laughs. Thus encouraged, Andy now shouted out to the whole floor:

'Hey, Newbie, what did Sarah think of your tiny todger?'

Elisabeth rose to her feet, roused by instinct in its rawest, most stupid and self-defeating form. Her fists were clenched and vengeful expletives were swirling around her achy head, but failing to make it past her lips. Over the top of the screens she saw Newbie blush to his ears. Andy was grinning at him, tapping his phone's handset on his armrest as he waited to see what the new boy and girl would do. The silence was now deafening, but already Elisabeth knew she wouldn't have the guts to break it. Her head was hurting, her cheeks burning and what could she possibly say? All calls had now stopped within a thirty feet radius of poor Newbie as he stared down at his keyboard.

He'd gone past red, his startled face now well into beetroot territory. Andy's puffy eyes cast Elisabeth a glance of casual defiance before he turned back to his initial victim, and rather than scream at him she just looked away, and saw Newbie look down. With more bravery than she had just shown he swivelled his chair to face Yoda and Andy:

'I dunno, mate. She couldn't talk wiv'er mouf' full, could she?' he said, managing to contrive a loud and self-assured voice from his panic-stricken face.

Belly laughs duly rose from around the floor. Newbie's colour abated: in a few words he'd just gained more credibility with the guys than he ever could through any amount of profitable trading. Everyone got back to business, and Elisabeth collapsed back onto her seat.

'What d'ye want, you cunt?' Andy barked into his phone.

As Elisabeth sat back down Neil flashed her a brief but unambiguous look of warning. He needn't have: she wasn't going to open her gob in protest now. But she'd come close and that, of course, would have been the end of her. She knew it, and yet the visceral urge to scream would not leave her.

Fury without an outlet: she could feel it sink into the pit of her stomach, getting so dense she thought she might be starting her very own personal black hole down there. Her head was killing her and she had to watch out not to choke on her pride as she forced that down her throat too, took a swig of her water bottle to wash it down, and thought back to that touching little speech she'd had from Raj before leaving New York. According to him, the Global Trading Team had zero tolerance for sexist racist or offensive behaviour of any kind, and she was not expected to put up with any from the boys in London.

Ha!

She turned her eyes back to her code, in vain. She was far too furious to program now: furious with Sarah for being such a tart, with Andy and Yoda for being such pigs and bullies, even with Neil, for staying out of it. But most of all she was furious with herself, both for standing up and for backing down, and for being such a sissy.

After all it wasn't as if Andy hadn't already called half a dozen people cunts today. It wasn't as if Sarah's tits hadn't come up for discussion numerous times before, as had the relative merits of those of Denise van Outen, Gail Porter, Ulrika-ka-ka Johnson and, naturally, every member of the Spice Girls. As indeed had Elisabeth's relative lack of cleavage. For goodness' sake it wasn't even as if she liked Sarah Atkinson.

As if things weren't bad enough already, this was also how Mike caught her in the end. She was expecting a call back from the Data Team about some umpteenth cock up she'd found in their Corporate Actions database, and she was so busy being cross with herself that she didn't twig when an external number flashed on the screen of her desk phone, instead of the Data Team's extension. She picked up with the usual:

'Elisabeth Bennet.'

'Elisabeth. At last. Hello, how are you?'

His slow baritone made her blood freeze: not now. Of all times, not now.

'Elisabeth, are you OK?'

She toyed with the idea of putting the receiver down.

'I am.'

'Elisabeth, I've been emailing you, didn't you…'

'I got them,' she said before he finished.

'I see.'

Well, what did he see? If he'd "seen" then maybe he would have left her alone.

'Can we talk?' he asked.

'Now's not a great time, since you ask,' she answered, scanning the space around her, panicked lest the boys should spot her panicking.

'I'm sorry. I won't be long then,' Mike said. This was just like him: ask you a question, then bulldoze over the answer, in the nicest possible way. 'Why don't we meet up instead? Old times' sake, you owe me. At a better time for you, of course.'

She deemed this a very underwhelming proposal, and did not answer.

'Elisabeth?'

'Yes!'

'When can I see you?'

'I don't know.'

Her pulse was rising, throbbing in her temples now and at her dry, constricted throat. What if she did have to meet up with him? She simply couldn't. Just hearing his voice, now, made her want to creep away into a hole. She didn't want to see him, but worse than that she didn't want to be reminded that she'd ever wanted to see him.

'Look, if you're around this weekend we could go for…'

'I'm not, I'm busy!' she cut in, blood pounding in her ears. 'Away,' she added, just in case.

'Right. So how's work then, all right?'

'Yes fine, thanks,' she grumbled. Since when did he take an interest in her job? Mike and Caroline had this in common with Tom: they had no love lost for bankers.

'Why don't I come and pick you up from the office tonight then? No time like the present!'

'Mike …'

'See you then! I look forward to it!'

He hung up before she could say that she, for one, didn't.

Copyright Mel Liffragh 2021, all rights reserved