"It's a misdemeanor. I'll live," he growls when she pulls him out of the precinct.
"Just shut up, Darcy. I'll pick up your car tomorrow." She shoves him into the Uber, following after him into the back row. She recites his address from memory and hangs on to him firmly all the way down the car, across the sidewalk, into the lobby, and up to his penthouse suite.
It's almost sickening how thoroughly she's entwined with his life.
She's his emergency contact – has been for years. And it makes his gut twist when he thinks of how, in another two months' time, she'll have to be leaving someone else's home – maybe even asking the permission of a bloody husband - to come pick him up in the middle of the night.
"I'm fine!" He shrugs her off when he tumbles onto his couch. At this rate, the white leather won't stay white for long.
"You need water," Lizzie pronounces, though a little more sternly than usual, before marching to his kitchen like she's always belonged there.
He wishes she did.
She doesn't say another word the whole entire time she readies him for bed – procuring his most comfortable pajamas, clearing his bed of the fancy duvet and decorative pillows his cleaning lady painstakingly arranges every day. She hauls his sorry ass off the couch and deposits him on the king size expanse that's been so very lonely these days.
It takes so much self-control not to drag her down to the bed with him. He groans.
"You've been spiraling," she says when he's finally tucked in like a child. He looks hollowly back at her. She looks a little concerned, a few fine lines creasing in her forehead, even as she fusses over his multitude of pillows and preps the array of pills and fluids on his bedside table. "Why haven't you been bringing back any bed buddies? You look like you've been desperately needing to get some."
He waits until she meets his eyes.
Then he figures the hell with it.
Liquid courage is a fascinating thing.
"Because the only woman I actually want to sleep with for the rest of my life is scheduled to marry another man in another eight weeks – and it doesn't look like I can do anything about it."
She stares back wordlessly.
He knows she's heard him, loud and clear.
"Goodnight, Darcy," she whispers, pecks him on the brow, and leaves.
He sleeps fitfully.
She's not there when he wanders out of his bedroom in the morning, but the couch sports a warm, suspicious imprint of a ladylike figure.
He tells her thanks on Monday. She smiles and says, "Don't mention it."
It all gets back to normal – too normal.
But a week later, he hears through the grapevine that she's broken up with John Lucas. Her sparse social media presence confirms it.
He wants to congratulate her – to congratulate him. He wants to pop a new bottle of champagne and flaunt Catherine de Bourgh's rigid rules against drinking at the office in her face. He wants to make an event where all the single professionals in the firm can go out and lose themselves on the dance floor.
But it's not as if he's heard of the cancelled wedding from Lizzie herself.
And because she didn't mention it, neither can he.
A/N: Not that much progress, but some! This story is so different from Fathers Know Best, that I sometimes get whiplash going between them, hehe. I'm currently working on a couple other works, and inspiration has been hit-and-miss so far. Hope they'll end up good! Thanks for reading this unusual AU :)