A/N: Have no fear, fellow bookworms. I did not die. I fell in love.
It's lovely to be back. I've missed you all. You've all been so patient and kind. Thank you. I hope you enjoy, and that you're as eager to be taken on this journey as I am to take you on it.
Recap: Elizabeth and Darcy reunited on a plane. The plane crashed. Kitty wrote down names of the people who survived (and counted those who didn't). Darcy has pneumonia. There, all caught up now.
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Coconut Trees
by Anton M.
Chapter 3: Reuniting
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Darcy started throwing blankets on top of Elizabeth in the early hours of the morning. He gripped her wrist when she put them back. The faintest of his movements had kept her up, but he hadn't stopped her from adjusting his covers before. She turned around. Darcy's breath warmed her cheek as he tucked the blankets under her to cover her fully.
"Don't," she whispered, squeezing her own numb palms. "You need them more."
A sheen of sweat covered his face.
"It's okay. I'm hot, and you're shivering."
His hoarse voice hadn't changed. Elizabeth helped Darcy to take his medicine and drink water from her bottle before he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. His sock-clad palm covered both of hers, warming them.
"Body heat," he explained, as if Elizabeth could misunderstand the action. She hummed.
The windows showed a blueish world outside, dim and without focus. Elizabeth felt light-headed. It could've been a delayed panic response, anxiety over Darcy's health, or contaminated food. All things considered, it was a mild enough response to the situation, and she didn't feel bad enough to vomit.
In a surreal twist of reality, the metal bottoms of passenger seats felt reminiscent of her childhood. Her mother, a flight attendant, got more discounts and free plane tickets than their otherwise humble lifestyle could provide, and she had spent her fair share of time on planes.
The first time she'd been allowed to sleep on the plane floor was when she threw a tantrum appropriate for a child scared of flying but even more scared that she missed out on all the adventures that her older sister embarked on.
Elizabeth didn't allow herself to admit that she didn't like the idea of spending time in a small tube miles from solid ground. She didn't like her mum doing it, and nothing would've convinced her to do it were it not for her sister. Her perfect, prettiest, most well-behaved older sister Jane got all the praise from their parents for being such a perfect little girl, and Elizabeth was jealous of her. She felt that if she did the things her sister Jane did, like going on an adventure with mom, she'd be closer to receiving the same praise from their parents.
It didn't work that way, of course. Elizabeth sat on top of her palms, wailing through take-off, and she could barely take a breath long enough to explain to her mother that she was terrified of flying. Her mother scolded her daughter for not telling her sooner, but that only made Elizabeth cry harder. She had expected, at least, praise for her bravery, but having a screaming child on a flight with annoyed passengers didn't encourage many pleasant emotions. Finally, seeing no other way out, her mother gave her a sleeping pill and covered her with blankets, and the only reason they let young Elizabeth fall asleep on the floor was the sheer magnitude of her voice. Sniffing and staring at strange feet, she waited for sleep, and once it arrived, Elizabeth was out cold. She woke up in her mother's lap before they went through customs.
Returning from Madeira, Elizabeth's mother gave her a sleeping pill even before she got on a plane, and to this day Elizabeth was not sure where or how she slept.
Seven years passed before her mother trusted her not to ruin her trip, and during the time, she and her father begun a game that they named 'worst case scenario'. In the game, they had seven minutes to list all the things that could go wrong in a situation they were scared of—giving a speech, admitting a lie, flying on a plane—and an equal amount of time to come up with solutions to possible problems in their scenarios. The person who came up with the most solutions won the game.
Elizabeth's fear of flying was a frequent star of the game, and as such, she had spent years training herself out of her phobia. She was afraid of not so much flying but the possibility of crashing, and she'd spent years defining her worries. Where would she get water? Shelter? Food? Medicine? The game was an imperfect method to cure a phobia, but, remarkably, it helped her. It didn't prevent her light-headedness or this dreamlike reality of waking up on the floor of a crashed airplane, but it could've been the only thing that helped delay those responses enough to help others on the previous day.
She unwrapped Darcy's arm from around her when he fell asleep. Wind wailed. Kitty was curled up in her blanket, snoring. Elizabeth ignored her anxiety and hunger as she quietly opened her suitcase and took photos of the scene. She was quick, did not hide the gruesome reality, and put away her camera before anyone had realised what she had done.
If none of them made it, she wanted the scene to be recorded.
She picked up Kitty's list. People were dozing, sleeping, and staring at the floor. Anna, the Russian lady, held her son's head in her lap as she rocked back and forth, muttering to herself. Their eyes locked when Elizabeth took a step, and Anna's were tearless. Even if she could understand, there was nothing Elizabeth could say to ease her pain, and so she stood beside the woman and squeezed her shoulder. She put her hand on top of Elizabeth's.
The ceiling above Charlotte was lit, and Charlotte put away her phone in guilt when she noticed Elizabeth's attention. Elizabeth paused. Did she have the right to scold anyone for the silent comfort that their phone offered? Yet, she knew that had Darcy caught Charlotte, he would've no doubt expressed his opinion without mercy. He used confronting language and made tough decisions, but he did it for the benefit of everyone. He kept his caring a close-guarded secret, but Elizabeth knew.
Mary Gardiner and George Wickham sat close to the heap of snow, talking quietly. Both gave Elizabeth a nod as she passed. The 15-year-old boy Lei whimpered with silent sobs in the right corner of the plane, and Elizabeth sat down beside him, waiting as he gathered himself.
"She's dead," he finally whispered, face contorted in pain. His mother lay four rows ahead of them by the other bodies. "Her hand was so cold when I touched it in the night, and then her pulse was gone. I don't know what happened. She was okay. She just lost blood, she had a broken arm and a bump in the head, she was okay…"
Elizabeth's eyes snapped on his sister, and sure enough, the little girl was leaning against the window, lips blue and eyes open, cold and without focus. Elizabeth's heartbeat rang in her ears. She clutched the seat behind Lei and dry-heaved. Nothing came up. Lei's little sister, the girl who hadn't said a word all through last night, had passed away.
"Please, take her away. I can't look at her, I can't touch her, I can't… she was okay…"
"Okay," Elizabeth heard herself say. Her voice felt alien. She squeezed past Lei's sleeping brother to take their sister away. Juan's limbs hung in the air and freezing chin brushed against Elizabeth's neck as she picked up her tiny body. She must've been dead for hours. Her blankets fell. Blood pumped in Elizabeth's ears as she put the little girl's body beside their mother's. Elizabeth felt breathless, and her eyes burned.
Feeling dizzy, she returned to Lei. Tears ran down his cheeks.
"Don't cry," the familiar, hoarse voice of Darcy, said. "You're wasting salt."
Lei punched him in the stomach, and Darcy doubled over.
"You knew!" the boy accused. "You knew, and you didn't tell me." He slapped Darcy's face now that he could reach it. Elizabeth stepped between them, but Lei hopped off his seat and kept punching every reachable area of Darcy's body. "You made me think she was going to be okay, but you knew! You lied to me. I hate you!"
"I hoped but I never—"
"What if your wife dies, then what? How would you like it if I told you you're wasting salt? I hate you!"
There was a pause.
"My wife?"
Just as Lei was about to resume punching Darcy, Elizabeth felt so light-headed that she had to sit on the floor. They fell silent. A large, solid hand pressed against her neck.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
Lei stared at Darcy before one last kick landed on Darcy's shin. Lei walked away, face contorted in pain, and Darcy, rubbing his leg, took a seat next to where Elizabeth sat on the floor. They looked after where Lei had walked, but he needed space.
"Are you sure?" Darcy whispered. "Did you eat anything? Did you drink water?"
His breaths were raspy, and he cleared his throat often to avoid coughing attacks.
Elizabeth looked up at his face, realising that she had not, in fact, had any water after they crashed. The rationed supper on the previous day had included a water bottle, but she had kept hers tightly sealed in case Darcy needed more.
She took a breath and ran her palm over her face. "Water," she said, almost a whisper. "I haven't had any."
Darcy squeezed her shoulder before he walked over to where they had slept and took the bottle from her handbag. He gave it to Elizabeth who opened the cap and drank it. It was near-freezing, and its effect was immediate. Her light-headedness subsided.
"Why didn't you?"
Elizabeth, feeling the sharpness of his gaze, contemplated the consequences of telling the truth.
"I forgot," she replied.
Darcy sat down and leaned forward, resting elbows on his knees, and if Elizabeth had thought her mind had exaggerated the effects of his sheer size and attention on her, her reaction to his proximity and concern proved otherwise. He tilted her chin up and scratched the dried blood on her jaw before looking in her eyes.
"Do not forget again."
She pursed her lips. "I won't."
Darcy held out his hand to her. "You'll get a UTI sitting on the floor like that."
She sat beside him, pulling her legs up on the seat. Darcy squeezed her knee but left without a word, and Elizabeth rested her chin on her knees, surrounding her legs with her arms. Darcy did not owe it to her to spend time with her, not even in these circumstances, but his departure still stung.
A mountain of cloth landed in her lap before Darcy sat beside her, holding out their supper to her. "You didn't eat dinner."
Silently, she took their sandwich (half for each person), much less sad-looking in a plane crash than she otherwise would've thought of it, and unfolded the blankets he'd brought to cover them both. He did not argue.
"How do you feel?" Elizabeth asked.
"A little better," he replied, and took a moment to clear his throat of the rumble in his chest. "Thank you for keeping me warm."
Elizabeth nodded, splitting the sandwich unevenly with the plastic fork to ensure that Darcy got a bigger piece. She unwrapped the plastic, placed her share on a handkerchief, and offered the other half to Darcy. He took it without a word.
"Do you know what the time is?"
Her smartwatch had died in the night, too cheap to handle the cold, but she knew that Darcy did not sleep or breathe without his waterproof Rolex Oyster from 1926. She'd been with him when he'd had the watch cleaned and the leather replaced, and she had teased him about his expensive taste. His discomfort at giving up the watch for even a day was obvious, and she had thought it stemmed from his expensive taste and posh upbringing.
Little had she known that the watch had been given to him by his grandfather when he was seven, and he'd carried it in his pocket until he was old enough to wear it.
"It's 08:10," Darcy replied. "At least, in Beijing. Maybe an hour or two later here, wherever we are, but I'm not going to reset my watch to a guess."
At least one third of people were still sleeping. The people who had woken up were either talking quietly, grieving, or sorting some belongings. A louder discussion had begun by the bathroom, but Elizabeth had not slept enough to pay attention, nor was she willing to give up the truce she'd achieved with Darcy.
"So how—" Darcy begun before coughing into his sleeve. Elizabeth held the water bottle in front of him, and he took a sip before continuing. "How have you been?"
It was a futile attempt at small-talk in the middle of a crisis, but Elizabeth took his lifeboat as if her life depended on it. She dearly wished to learn more about how he had been, and hoped that sharing her own life would help him open up, even if he would be disappointed by her choices. Or, perhaps, relieved that he'd never permanently tied himself to a failure like her.
"I've been good," she replied. "I dropped out of college and gave the wedding photography idea a go."
He took a bite to eat and paused as he chewed. "You dropped out?"
"Yeah," she replied, having accepted her choices. Her constant struggle with her studies was a bitter point of contention between them when they were together, even if they did date only a few months.
Elizabeth had failed her GCSEs in English, Languages and Humanities, three of the subjects that had interested her most, and once she did pass them on her second try, she had similar struggles with her A-levels. It was almost expected of her, even at home. Her sister Jane got her father's brilliance and went to study Physics in Oxford, her younger sister Mary got accepted to LSE to study Econometrics and Mathematical Economics, and Maria was just finishing her A-levels, but Elizabeth knew Maria would have asterisks added to most of her As.
And then, there was Elizabeth, always the black sheep, who dropped out of a third-tier university. The unfairness of life would've stung more if she wasn't so used to it by now.
Elizabeth had never felt more stupid in her life than when she had first met Darcy who did not keep his opinions about her intelligence to himself.
"School was never my thing," she said, carefully, knowing that they could easily travel to argument territory with this topic.
Darcy, apparently with the same thoughts, said, "Tell me you kept to the principles you held so dear years ago."
He did not smile.
"I did," she replied quietly. "I am becoming, perhaps, one of the better-known documentary-style wedding photographers in London. No planning, no poses. I don't regret the choices that brought me to where I am."
This time, he did smile, just barely, but it warmed Elizabeth to a degree she did not feel entirely comfortable with.
"You were always good at capturing the moment."
"Thank you," she replied. "How about you? How have you been?"
Darcy gulped water after a rumble in his chest refused to abate. "Yesterday, how did you know I'd finished my residency?"
"The magazine you were reading was addressed to Fitzwilliam Darcy, MD."
"Ah."
"So how've you been?"
"Good. Busy. Finished my residency a year ago."
"What subspecialty did you end up choosing?"
"Neonatal surgery."
She looked at his hands, steady, precise, and unexpectedly gentle for such large hands.
"I'm glad," Elizabeth replied. "If anyone should be trusted to do such delicate work and play God, it's you."
"I don't play God," he said. "Fetal surgeons, yes. Neonatal, barely."
Careful of his knees, she adjusted the blankets on top of them. "Don't all surgeons play God?"
"Only on Sundays."
Elizabeth huffed a laugh, and Darcy's mouth quirked up a little. It was a relief to be able to talk to him as if nothing had changed.
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