"What is wrong?" She insists, racing after him into his office. Her heels cause strong, loud, unforgiving echoes.
Darcy folds himself on his couch – and rubs his hands over his face. "I'll fix it."
"Catherine made it clear that you're in danger of going to jail, and I will not let that happen."
"There's nothing you can do."
"There's something – there's always something." Lizzie slides on the seat beside him. Her hands reach for his. He doesn't look at her, but he feels her there, with him – when he needs it most. "Let me work my Lizzie magic."
Despite himself, Darcy smirks, just a bit. "You're not omnipotent."
"I can be."
He meets her eye, hoping that she'll interpret the despair he's feeling in his gut as something intriguing.
"Do you happen to have connections that can make a genuine perjury incident go away?"
"I – might."
He smiles softly at her – at her confidence despite it all. She's loyal, and she's smart. Every other person in the firm – especially Billy Collins – would be more than happy to use this opportunity to get rid of him for good.
He doesn't deserve her – but, somehow, she's still here.
"Will you tell me what's wrong?" She asks, all tenderness and calm. Her right hand runs gently up and down his upper back.
"I may have closed an eye – quite deliberately – to some forgery and bribery fifteen years ago with regards to a man I had cause to believe would hurt my family."
"Your sister."
"Yes." He relishes that she knows – that she's the only person in this entire building that knows about the one family member whose welfare he still cares about.
Lizzie nods. "They can't pin that on you – can they?"
"No." Darcy feels his chest tightening again. "But the judge who handled his trial – where I bore witness – can."
She nods slowly. He hopes it doesn't mean she's rethinking her allegiances.
"Give me two days."
"Lizzie, you don't have to – "
"Two days," she repeats.
Then she pecks him on the cheek and walks away.
He tries to fix it himself. He tries to study the case from multiple angles, and he tries to consider every possible peace offering he can dish out to placate the enemies on his trail. But everything costs something – and he's grown too much as a person of late to let anyone else be his sacrificial lamb.
Then, two days later, he gets the news.
"Dismissed? What do you mean dismissed?" He stares, open-mouthed, at Catherine de Bourgh.
The senior partner shrugs. "Ask Lizzie. I got the news from her. Seems like they found bigger fish to fry."
"Lizzie – " He wonders why she didn't tell him first; and he's even more surprised to learn, after some rudimentary inquiries, that she'd called with the news – and didn't seem to plan to come in to work today.
He's relieved at the turn of events over his potentially very damaging case, but now he's anxious over something else entirely.
Lizzie said two days.
When he shows up at her doorstep an hour later, his eyes tell him why she's here and not at the desk outside his office.
"What happened?" He demands, shoving himself into her apartment when she finally opened the door. He reaches for her shoulders. She seems to timidly let him touch her. "Lizzie – your face."
He uses his thumb to trace the bruise on her cheek.
"Who did this?"
"Darcy, it's okay. I just had a – "
"Who did this?"
She meets his eye. She's trembling a little. "My ex. He did what I asked but didn't particularly appreciate the favor."
She tries to shrug it off with a chuckle.
Darcy does the one thing he can do when he realizes she's saved his ass again, that she's put herself in harm's way to get him out of it.
He pulls her into a crushing embrace.
"Lizzie." He kisses her hair.
He feels her wrap her arms around his back. He wishes he'd done this under vastly different circumstances.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you." He punctuates each phrase with a kiss on her head.
He feels her smile into his shoulder.
"Don't mention it."
And it's those words that make him crack.
"No, I have to." He pulls back just enough to look her in the face but still keep her anchored against him. "Because I am over letting you put yourself on the line again and again for me – for sacrificing your evenings because your demanding boss managed to get himself a DUI – for staying the night on an uncomfortable couch only to slip away the next morning. I want to say thank you. I want to give back. I want to be that person who sleeps and wakes up next to you because there is no one else in the whole world I can imagine having with me and no one else I can tolerate seeing with you.
"I need you, and I want you to need me. I want to be that person who gets to hold your hand through whatever life wants to throw our way. And I won't let you brush off just how much you bring to my life as if it's all just an afterthought – because it is so much more than that to me."
He knows he's staring, and she's staring right back.
Her eyes are bottomless and bewitching.
"I guess," she says, her every word amplified to his very, very sensitive hearing, "I'm glad you brought it up then."
And he kisses her, just like he's always wanted to – his lips against her lips and their arms around each other. She kisses him back, again, and again. And it's all just as magical as it was that many years ago.
They maneuver themselves to the couch, with her securely on his lap, without a single stumble. He knows her apartment. He knows her.
And their bodies seem to know that this is exactly what they're supposed to be doing all along.
It doesn't take long for the clothes to hit the floor, for the suit and the robe and everything else to get as tangled as their owners' bodies do. He pauses a little when they hit the sheets – to run his fingertips over the bruises on her face and her wrist. She assures him she's okay. He kisses her until he's feels sure that she is.
And each electric touch, each heady moan, each passionate kiss reiterates to him just how much this – they – were always meant to be.
He's glad her actions say she agrees.
One Year Later
"Look, I can't. I'm on a ship to Mexico, and you do not want to interrupt a man on a holiday with his secretary." Darcy winks at his wife at the last line, his hand busy pressing his stupid phone to his face.
Lizzie, draped on the deck chair, irresistible in her red bikini, grins.
"Yes, I am married. No, you're wrong."
Lizzie chuckles.
He loves her – so, so much.
And knowing that she's planned the perfect honeymoon for them is just another reason to love her more.
"No, I will not be there. You will deal with it."
Darcy leans over to start pressing kisses on Lizzie's neck. She hums softly. He wonders if having her elicit more provocative sounds will finally get rid of his client.
"No. Collins will talk to you. It won't be a problem. No, it won't."
Another three vehement denials that his going back to NYC is a remote possibility later, he finally cuts the call.
"Sorry," he apologizes, quickly joining his wife on the chair. She laughs when he nudges her to make room for him. He snuggles against her sinfully silky shoulders. "Thank you for waiting."
Her laughter is joyful – just like the sounds she made when she twirled into their grand honeymoon suite this morning. She is Lizzie Bennet Darcy – and she is his.
She turns around to kiss him squarely on the lips. "Don't mention it."