A/N: The opening fan work in this chapter is, as labelled in the fanfic-within-fanfic, rated M. Skip it if you prefer. The main story should go on as usual :) I just couldn't resist the idea of spoofing our very own improbable period romance fanfics :)
Books / By the Numbers
No Hearts Left Behind
By: FelenaForever
What if Fitzgerald had a much more scandalous approach to the dance at Everett Hall? What if Selena was as into it as he was? My first period piece, all mistakes are mine. A Ballroom Number Three AU one-shot.
Rated: M - English - Romance - Selena Kensington, Fitzgerald Dunst - Chapters: 1 - Words: 526 - Reviews: 152 - Favs: 93 - Follows: 104 - Status: Complete - id: 17892381
-FF-
"May I have this dance?"
"Of course."
They twirled across the floor, eyes locked on each other, for the next half hour. The gossip grew. Murmurs and glares and pointing fingers.
But they knew that all along. It's part of it. Part of them. Part of the process of falling in love with the one person you really, really shouldn't have.
True love never did come cheap.
And they were not about to let it slip away when it's right in front of them.
The set was almost over when he pulled her into the alcove. It's subtle, but it's there. A secret, walled-off section that probably came to be because the man who'd built Everett Hall had never been much of a one-woman man.
"Fitz." Her voice was shaky. Her breath short.
Stolen kisses tended to do that.
His eyes were bottomless. An ocean.
She was down for the count and drowning in them.
"Marry me, Selena - I cannot live - "
She cut him off with a kiss. It wasn't a choice. It wasn't her choice. There were certain things that weren't hers to give.
But her kisses were something she could.
And she would gladly give him a thousand kisses a day if they were the only thing she could give him.
His hands wandered. Of course they did.
Hers did too.
The buttons on her dress escaped their loops. His hands were quick. His fingers dexterous.
His coat landed on the floor. She was no saint.
The temperature of the tiny alcove rose until it burnt. Like a furnace. Like a fiery furnace of the passions that had always been there and never given the chance to glow.
Until today.
Because she didn't care anymore.
"Selena, be mine," he whispered in her ear.
She felt his kisses on her cheek. Her lips. Her neck. Her chest.
She felt his hands reach beneath the fabric to coddle her breasts.
She knew the hardness against her thigh was him. All him.
And she wanted all of him in all of her.
She didn't reply with words. She answered with her hands. With her lips. With the way she untucked his shirt and ripped off his cravat with her teeth.
There was still music outside. There was sounds of dancing steps.
They're dancing too.
In a different way.
In a much more satisfying way.
He thrust inside her when she freed his member. Her back against the wall.
Her skirt covered them.
The rest of her body was free for him to see, to touch, to adore.
She felt adored.
And he told her, with a dozen kisses and sighs, that he did.
"Yes," she cried when his hands found her spot. He cursed against her shoulder.
Pleasure rolled over her. Like ocean waves. Like his eyes.
His bottomless, spellbinding eyes.
"Selena," he groaned before he shuddered and stopped.
They panted.
The alcove was burning. Stifling.
She knew she would bleed under her clothes. The servants talked.
But true love never did come cheap.
"I will visit your father tomorrow," he said, as he helped her get dressed again.
She just kissed him again.
"You look ridiculous," he says, on the very first day on set for Pod 705.
Lizzie grins underneath her monstrosity of a helmet. The body suit she's wearing is tight - exposing every single flaw. But his is tight too. And, Lord help her, she can't help but notice every inch of his body underneath all the decorated spandex. They've agreed since the huge media waves in Beijing that any real romance should wait until the showmance is over (or, at least, he's agreed to do that. She's just along for the ride.). But that doesn't keep her from enjoying the full-frontal view of her soon-to-be boyfriend, once all the fanfare dies down and the media will just let them be them.
"This does nothing for you?" She twirls around in her off-white ensemble - a little slowly, with the heavy helmet and all.
"Does this for you?" He shrugs, smiling, before he widens his hands as if showing off his body.
It does, actually - but she's not about to admit that when he's being so playful about it all. So she just grins.
Because their precarious balance of friendliness and flirtatiousness - their teetering between fake and real romance feels alternately rock solid and vulnerable from day to day. She's sure that he'll be staying in her life after the last scene is cut, after the last red carpet they share, as something decidedly more than "sister's husband's best friend."
But how much more will it really be?
"You have the gracefulness of a cow," he says when her twirl is complete.
He's grinning though. He's joking.
So she thanks him with a generous curtsy.
It's become something of an inside joke now - that curtsy of hers.
It took her three weeks to perfect it for Ballroom Number Three. It's a shame she won't be using it much against the green-screen backdrops for this film, if at all.
"You children insist on ruining my schedule, don't you?" Ed Gardiner walks in with the obligatory coffee in his hand and a bright smile on his face. The franchise has been nothing but a roaring success so far. Everyone's predicting that the third film will go toe-to-toe with all the box office weekend records. The man has a right to be proud. "Don't make me regret casting you."
Lizzie laughs. Darcy laughs too.
They laugh a lot together these days.
"You're the one late, Ed," Lizzie scolds.
"Only because of LA traffic." Their director settles into his chair. "La La Land isn't all fantasy, you know."
"Can you blame us for trying to entertain ourselves?" Darcy's voice still has that soft British accent - lighter than when they were in England, but still persistently present. It's unfairly attractive.
"You are distracting each other," Ed replies, smirk and all. "There's a difference."
"But we're not," they both say at the same time, in perfect unison. The two co-stars glance at each other - and fall into laughter.
"Children," Ed mutters, in a decidedly good-natured way.
"We're not," Lizzie replies, after her chuckling subsides. She looks at Darcy, then at Ed, then at all the occupants of the spacious studio in general. "We're just here to make us all millionaires."
It's nice to see Darcy smiling in response.
Unlike its two predecessors, Pod 705 is as much a sci-fi social commentary as it is a romance - meaning there are no passionate ballroom scenes or lingering kisses to film for this one. There is a kiss or two in the script, tame and chaste ones. And he and Lizzy pull each one off with the ease of professionalism and friendship combined.
Judging from the rabid fan responses to the previous two movies, Darcy is one hundred percent sure even the tamest little moments will get their own extensive Tumblr spreads anyway.
And after the grouchy tension on site in New York and the misty sentimentality in Derbyshire, this set feels - fun.
Everything elicits a laugh. Every outfit and direction feels light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek. Between the endless green screens and strange foreign-looking set pieces, the entire experience feels like a romp in a playground for grown-ups.
And Lizzie's never been prettier than when she shines in the midst of it all.
"Damp it down, Darcy, he's suppose to be really upset here," their cheerful director has had to remind him more than once a week.
It was a little embarrassing at first - to be caught slipping from his solemn persona so freely.
But then Lizzie laughs - in the way that lights up her whole entire face, the way that makes her feel like she's actually defying gravity in her ridiculous spacesuit - and he promptly stops regretting it.
"Is this too blue?" She asks him this morning, when he wanders into her trailer with her regular coffee order. She turns to display the handiwork of the make-up team. They're filming her infection scene today. It's a big one. Dina almost gives her life for Chad by giving him the last dose of antibiotics. It's a scene that solidifies the characters' relationship and adds a romantic dimension to their interactions for the first time in the narrative. The fans will be all over it.
He cocks his head to the side, appraising. "Should be fine under the cameras."
"Says Mr. I-always-look-perfect-under-the-lights."
He smiles. "Who only has eyes for you."
She takes her cup with a smile of her own.
Things have been easy between them this time around. It's almost as if a fog has lifted since they lay out their cards in Beijing. He likes her, and she likes him. They'll let the media storm die down before they let anything happen for real. But, in the meantime, there's a small degree of comfort in the flirtatious familiarity he gets to share with her.
The rest of the cast and crew are good at keeping secrets.
It's almost funny how it was in England, in his own home, on his own grounds, that the paparazzi got through.
There's something to be said about security measures in LA. Major blockbusters require a lot of help to stay spoiler-free, after all.
Today, they talk about make-up. Tomorrow, they talk about food. They take separate vehicles to their respective homes every day, but he shows up in her trailer every morning, with her coffee, with domestic degrees of punctuality.
For an introvert, the routine helps.
And he embraces it.
And it's the loss of that routine that makes him feel particularly torn two months later, when they wrap their final scene.
"And that's a wrap!" Ed announces, to cheers and whoops and applause.
He and Lizzie embrace. Everyone else pulls around to join in on the group hug. It's triumphant and euphoric. It's and end of a major project that's going to highlight everybody's Wikipedia pages.
"Guess I'll see you in San Diego?" He turns to Lizzie when the crowd dissipates a little - clusters of people gathering for their own mini-celebrations.
She smiles, beguiling. "See you."
And she kisses him, right on the lips, off-camera, in front of everybody. He lets himself take it in as he kisses her back.
"Enjoy England," she tells him after they let go. She knows his plans. She knows he's going to come back for her.
"I will." He smiles. "And I think I'll enjoy coming back too."
Her phone rings incessantly that day. It's been a month since filming wrapped. She's back in her New York comfort zone. Here, she knows how to blend in. Here, she's intimately acquainted with the best haunts in her neighborhood - where people who recognize her will think of her as 'that Broadway girl' rather than 'she gets to kiss William Darcy!'
She's rooming with Kitty, as she's always done. She's wearing sweat pants and her own Broadway merchandise, as she's always done. She's sipping her favorite tea, and lounging on her favorite spot in their apartment, under her favorite blanket, day in and day out.
It's comforting - and familiar - and right.
It's the calm before the media storm. The press fanfare over the end of any movie franchise is always a big deal, after all.
And then it happens - the storm before the storm.
And this one is entirely unanticipated.
"Lizzie," Kitty call her name across the room with a bit of a tension, a warning tone.
"I have to know." Lizzie looks at her cousin - and all the concern that's brimming behind her glasses.
"It's fake news."
"Are you sure?" Lizzie sounds curt. She doesn't like that she's snapping at the one person in the world she can count to have on her side personally or professionally. But she's falling, tumbling into a bottomless abyss, and she doesn't really know what she can hang onto anymore.
The first text she got two hours ago was just an honest question about whether it's true or not - has William Darcy truly gotten back with Anne de Bourgh during his England visit?
But the subsequent calls and texts and badgering were on a different level.
This isn't just asking for confirmation.
This is a pack of hyenas anxious for her reaction - to what is being discussed as fact.
"He hasn't told you anything, has he?"
"No." Lizzie glances back at her laptop screen.
"Lizzie - "
"But he doesn't owe me anything, right? We're just - friends." Her heart aches a little at the admission. She's the one who kissed him on set. She's the one who hesitantly agreed to his non-dating rule.
It's not as if she has any hold on him, in any capacity.
"Lizzie - "
She ignores the warning - and scrolls down the endless articles on her screen.
They tell her what she doesn't want to be told - what she's desperately drinking in like a drug.
Because, apparently, the announcement had come from Charles Bingley, best friend and agent, himself. It's as reliable of a source as it could possibly be.
William Darcy is off the market.
And his godmother's daughter - a smiling, overdressed Anne de Bourgh - is on his arm as proof.
A/N: The course of true love never did run smooth! In other news, Liam & Liz as well as Fathers Know Best have now been published on Amazon! The former is already out, and the latter is available for pre-orders at the moment. Thank you for all your support!