Darcy knew the words were a mistake even before he spoke them. He could feel them shape themselves in his mind and it was as though there was nothing at all in the way between the thinking and the uttering. He had not actually decided to say anything so cold or accusatory to Elizabeth, but there he had done so and it was too late to recall even a syllable.

The thing was, he had just suffered the hell of a shock. He'd had no idea that Elizabeth might have even known George Wickham, let alone known him well enough to be entertaining him alone in her parents' parlor.

Would that lying snake of a man never be fully ousted from Darcy's life? Was it not enough that he had so grievously injured Georgiana, must he now also be insinuating himself into the life of the woman Darcy loved?

Was it possible that Wickham had done so only because it might hurt Darcy?

Ridiculous. And yet, what about this situation wasn't?

Darcy had made such progress with Elizabeth only a few days ago, and had waited with barely restrained impatience for enough time to pass that it might be seemly for him to spend time with her again. After Elizabeth had been bundled away from the Bingley household to convalesce with her parents, Darcy had been perfectly at leisure to think that all obstacles in his path were nearly overcome. He was almost certain that he had somehow managed to earn some small portion of her regard in the minutes leading up the accident.

It was all he had needed: a toehold in her heart that he might gently enlarge into an entire hollowed out chamber where his own heart might come to rest, safe in the assurance of mutual love and devotion.

But with those careless words hovering in the air between them and in the stricken look in Elizabeth's eyes, Darcy knew that he had lost even that toehold. He silently cursed himself for a fool as Elizabeth's face gradually hardened with some new resolve and she rose to her feet, seeming shaky for a moment but almost instantly regaining her equilibrium.

"Wait," he pleaded, throwing up a hand as though to forestall her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to come out in such a rude fashion."

Her dark eyes were wary as she regarded him. "So you do mean to question with whom I spend my time?"

Yes, he had most definitely misstepped.

"Not as such," he replied awkwardly, one hand coming up to the back of his neck as though to hide the tell-tale redness that was climbing into view from underneath his collar. "It's just... I was surprised. That man and I have a history and it's not a pleasant one."

"So I've heard." Her voice was dry but there was more than a little curiosity edging her words.

"I have no way of knowing what he might have said to you," Darcy gave in to the impulse to try to protect her from Wickham's deceitful ways, "but you need to know that very little of what that man says has ever had more than a passing resemblance to the truth."

Elizabeth arched a brow in a sign of challenge and crossed her arms. "He says you were boyhood friends but that you cut him out of your life once you realized he was poor and you were wealthy. He also says you fired him." She lay a delicate but unmistakable emphasis on the last few words.

Wincing, Darcy gestured to the couch behind Elizabeth and asked, "Could we sit? I wish to explain but it may take some time."

"Certainly," Elizabeth acquiesced and sank gracefully back into the seat she had just vacated.

Darcy did not immediately follow suit; he was standing nearest to the chair where Wickham had installed himself and though he knew it was silly, he did not want to sit where the other man had been. While it was certainly all in his imagination that Wickham exuded some foul substance wherever he went, Darcy still could not bring himself to put his own person in proximity with anything that had been tainted by that vileness.

Casting a swift glance around the room, he settled on an armchair that put him at a diagonal to Elizabeth's position, but not one that was so extreme it would be difficult to converse. He sank into the cushions and kept sinking, much to his chagrin. The chair was evidently an old one, and whatever springs it might have possessed had long since given up the pretense of cushioning the chair.

It was impossible to feel dignified as he sat awkwardly in the cavernous seat and matters were not helped any by the amused smile that Elizabeth tried and failed to hide, but Darcy decided he would much rather have her laughing, even if it were at his own expense, than he would have her angry.

Once situated, Darcy realized that he had no idea of where to begin. Addressing what Elizabeth had relayed to him of Wickham's words seemed like the safest bet, so he took a deep breath and put on his most earnest expression. Leaning forward, with his knees being somewhere several inches higher than his backside, was impossible.

"Most of what he told you has at least a portion of truth to it," Darcy admitted. "But it's only a surface truth. George Wickham and I were childhood friends. His father was my father's right-hand man for many things and Wickham and I were often in each other's company.

"It wasn't until later in life that anything changed, and when it did, I can assure you it had nothing to do with our respective economic statuses. Without going too far into detail, Wickham grew wild and demonstrated the most vicious want of principles in his behavior. I could no longer be friends with a man who had so far departed from the moral codes we had both been raised to believe in."

Darcy shifted in his chair, uncomfortable with Elizabeth's perfectly blank face. She gave no hint what she might be thinking as a response to his recitation, but he was not inclined to elaborate further on what Wickham's sins had been. Not only was it not his story, there were certain things that were simply not fit for a lady's ears.

As he shifted, the chair gave off a horrendous creaking noise and he quickly stilled, wondering if he shouldn't abandon his pretense at dignity and change seats.

"As to the charge about my firing him, I admit I did. However, I cannot tell you precisely why. I can tell you only that there were extenuating circumstances. It was not a matter of personal dislike, though I freely admit I had since learned to loathe the man, but I never make decisions such as that lightly. Particularly not when I had been trying to honor my dead father's memory and wishes by providing a job for the son of his friend."

"It is very convenient," Elizabeth mused aloud, following a short silence as she digested his words, "that you always seem to have some mysterious reason that you cannot disclose what led you to making the decision that you did.

"Furthermore," she pursued, not allowing him to make any kind of reply to her stinging comment, "from my own experience, I cannot say that I yet have any proof that you did make a well-reasoned decision to terminate my employment. From my vantage point, it rather appears that the decision was terribly hasty, considering you had only just met me and had not given me any chance to prove my worth."

Abandoning any pretense of complacency or dignity, Darcy struggled to his feet, the chair filling what would have otherwise been a tense silence with the sighs and moans of its protest.

"I begin to think, Miss Bennet," he said, having finally gained his feet, "that you have been dishonest with me. I have certainly kept my own secrets when it has been important, but I have never lied to you."

She surged to her own feet, seeming not at all shaky this time, and not being at all the sort of woman who could possibly take any sort of challenge in a passive manner.

"Do you require honesty from me?" she demanded, hands on hips and her dark eyes ablaze with indignation. "Then let me honestly tell you that I was willing to overlook my grievances with you for the sake of perhaps pursuing some sort of friendship, but I find it impossible to do so when all your secrets are more important to you than my feelings are.

"And I honestly can't say I want a friend who has no idea of how to do anything other than be a pompous, self-righteous, overbearing monster who thinks he must be in control of everyth-"

Elizabeth cut herself short, eyes going past him to the door. Darcy turned to see what had ended her tirade, finding an older woman who was holding a tea tray and staring in open-mouthed consternation at the arguing pair.

Shutting his own mouth firmly, Darcy found himself studying the tops of his shoes as he attempted to come to grips with all the conflicting thoughts and emotions that were warring for dominance in his mind. He was embarrassed and angry and confused all at once, wondering whether his Second Sight had been wrong about Elizabeth or if he was in fact to blame for all their past and present difficulties in communicating.

She had a certain irrefutable point, after all, that he was full of secrets.

Before he could think overly long on just how irrefutable that point really was, the newcomer to the room drew his attention away from himself and settled it firmly on herself.

"Who is this, Lizzie?" she demanded, voice shrill. "I leave you here with one handsome young man and come back to find you with another? Is that delightful Mr. Wickham still around?" The woman peered around the room as though expecting to find Wickham lurking in some corner, previously unnoticed.

"Mama," Elizabeth sighed, voice tight with what Darcy took to be all the anger of the words she had just swallowed. "Mr. Wickham had to leave. This is Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy, this is my stepmother, Mrs. Fanny Bennet."

"Oh!" Mrs. Bennet cried, and Darcy wondered if his name meant anything to her or if she were simply excitable. It soon proved to be the latter as the older woman came further into the room, setting her tea tray on the battered coffee table and speaking so rapidly that it was difficult to follow her disjointed sentences.

"I had no idea you knew so many fine young men, Lizzie," she beamed. "And how nice of them all to come and visit you, though it is a shame that nice Mr. Wickham had to leave so soon. Although this young man seems a more than suitable compensation for the loss."

Here, she eyed Darcy in a way that would have had him blushing had he been much younger or more inexperienced. "Mr. Darcy you say? I think that name is familiar to me although I cannot quite fathom why.

"No, I have it! You are Mr. Bingley's particular friend, are you not?"

Darcy opened his mouth to acknowledge that he was, but Mrs. Bennet evidently didn't need the confirmation for she continued on without giving him a chance to speak. "Such a nice young man, that Mr. Bingley. He is quite taken with my Jane, I think. But who could not be? She is so terribly pretty to look at and really quite clever. But I flatter myself that both my girls are uncommonly pretty. Have you met Lydia? I had really thought she would be back in here already but I suppose she is not."

Feeling out of his depth with this chattering woman, Darcy looked to Elizabeth in the vain hope that she would give him some sign of what would be expected for him to do in this situation. Her face was shuttered though, impassive as she busied herself with the things on the tea tray and then buried her nose in her cup.

Looking between the two women, Darcy only half-listened as Mrs. Bennet prattled on about this person named Lydia that she had just brought up, enumerating such good qualities as "young" and "lively" in her exuberant descriptions. It was as he gingerly eased himself into the chair he had first scorned for having been Wickham's that Darcy finally understood that this Lydia was Mrs. Bennet's daughter.

All at once, several things fell into place. Mrs. Bennet had been introduced as Elizabeth's stepmother and the two girls that the older woman had referenced earlier had not been Jane and Elizabeth, but Jane and Lydia. Darcy felt himself growing indignant with Mrs. Bennet as she carried on talking about anything and everything other than the reason that he had come; it was as though Elizabeth were not even in the room or had not recently sustained a very bad head injury.

Feeling himself grow by stages from indignant to resentful to outright angry, Darcy attempted to keep all such emotion from his face, adopting the neutral mask he used whenever he did not want to betray his innermost thoughts.

I will just wait until she asks another question, Darcy purposed. And then I will somehow turn the conversation back to Elizabeth. She looks more and more unwell. Her face is so white. All this carrying on cannot be good for her.

Not that I have been any better for her health, he thought bitterly. Coming in here and first accusing her and then upsetting her. Will I never manage to get anything right?

Mrs. Bennet seemed to require no help whatsoever in carrying on a conversation, it seemed. Every time she posed a question, she would answer it herself in the very next moment, usually without pausing for so much as a breath. Despite himself, Darcy was almost fascinated. He had never been with anyone who seemed to so love the sound of her own voice, though he supposed Caroline Bingley and a certain autocratic aunt of his were close contenders.

Normally he would not mind, since it would spare him from having to even do much to pretend to be interested in whatever the conversation was about, let alone come up with measured responses. But this infernal woman was not only keeping him from having a conversation with Elizabeth that he desperately wanted to have, no matter how badly it had begun, but he was certain that Mrs. Bennet was also wholly ignorant of the fact that her ceaseless chatter could only be worsening Elizabeth's condition.

And still, she did not stop. She seemed likely to never run out of things to say. At length, Darcy could take it no longer and he stood abruptly. The motion seemed to startle Mrs. Bennet, for she ceased talking all at once, craning her neck to stare up at him as though in shock. Elizabeth, too, had her eyes fixed upon him, her face seeming pinched as though in pain.

"Forgive me," he said automatically. "But you really must see that Elizabeth is not at all well enough to engage in lengthy conversation."

For the second time in a handful of days, Elizabeth had the supreme satisfaction of telling the insufferable Mr. Darcy exactly what she thought of him. What he meant by showing up at her parents' home and berating her for spending time with someone he didn't approve of, she had no idea, but at least he'd had the good sense to back down on that point.

Still, she was irritated at his intrusion and at the return of his more high-handed and arrogant ways. Perhaps the Mr. Darcy that she had encountered just before the accident had been the anomalous version of the man and she had been correct to think poorly of him for as long as she had.

It was her irritation with him that had prompted her peevish remarks about his constantly keeping secrets about his motivations. She wasn't certain whether or not she regretted her hasty words as of yet. She felt she had every right to point out that he expected her to meekly go along with whatever he wanted and never - well, rarely - could compromise his own position or pride enough to actually hear or understand her viewpoint.

Perhaps it wasn't worth even attempting to be friends with a man such as him, who was so thoroughly awful at communicating honestly or completely.

Elizabeth dismissed the thought nearly as soon as it occurred to her. The Mr. Darcy of several nights ago who had been so humble and thoughtful and sweet was a man worth knowing. He was a man Elizabeth would want to know rather well, the truth be told. But if he was not really a good man at his very core, it was not enough for him to be extraordinary only ten percent of the time and insufferable the other ninety percent.

She thought as she accused him of being too secretive that perhaps she had finally gotten through to him. There was a flash of something in his eyes that might have been understanding or enlightenment.

So naturally she had to keep going and to call him names and then be interrupted by the untimely arrival of her stepmother with the tea tray.

Almost grateful for the way in which Mrs. Bennet immediately seized control of all the conversation in the room following Elizabeth's terse introductions, Elizabeth sat back down and childishly refused to acknowledge the nightmare that this day had become, hiding her face in a cup of too-strong peppermint tea.

Despite her outward show of disinterest, Elizabeth listened carefully to her stepmother's stream-of-consciousness ramblings, ready to do anything from smashing her teacup to faking a seizure if she should need to shut the older woman up. But the topics were mostly safe and wholly typical for Mrs. Bennet. If Darcy actually wanted to be friends with her at all, he might as well know what her familial baggage looked and sounded like.

The longer Mrs. Bennet carried on about Lydia's good qualities both real and imagined, the more frequently Elizabeth dared to dart looks at Darcy's face to see how he was bearing up under the onslaught.

It didn't take long for his mask to fall into place and even less time for anger or impatience to reveal cracks in the façade. As the transformation took place, Elizabeth could feel her own face tighten in utter embarrassment and she began rather fervently to wish that, for just the once, Mrs. Bennet would display some social graces and shut up.

All at once, Darcy stood and looked at Mrs. Bennet as severely as Elizabeth had once imagined he might, interrupting not a wailing prayer but a recitation of neighborhood gossip about which he could not possibly be interested. It was enough to startle her stepmother into silence and Elizabeth quite forgot that she hadn't meant for him to catch her looking at him.

This was it, then. He was about to say something rather rude but entirely justified and he would leave and would congratulate himself on not pursuing even a friendship with Elizabeth. After all, even if Bingley were to marry Jane, there was no possible way that it would then follow that they would be thrown much into each other's company. Her time of knowing Darcy was at an end and it made her unexpectedly sad.

But what came out of Darcy's mouth was not some cutting remark or obvious excuse about why he needed to depart.

You really must see that Elizabeth is not at all well enough to engage in lengthy conversation.

The look he gave to Mrs. Bennet was actually rather ungracious, given how pointed it was, but Elizabeth found that she did not care. She could not censure him for it. Not when he had come so unexpectedly and so thoughtfully to her defense.

Naturally, Mrs. Bennet managed to miss the meaning of the look and she sprang all at once to her feet, reaching out to clutch at Darcy's arm. "Oh, Mr. Darcy! You need not be going so soon! Why, you've barely said a word at all and I'm sure Lizzie cannot be so ungrateful for your concern that she would want you to leave."

Mrs. Bennet turned and gave her stepdaughter a hard look, commanding her without words to fall in line with her wishes. Then, perhaps feeling that this was not enough to communicate her desire, she ordered, "Do tell Mr. Darcy you are quite all right, Lizzie. He need not go."

Feeling shame stain her cheeks red, Elizabeth could not look at Darcy as she replied, not altogether dutifully.

"I admit I have something of a headache, but I assure you that it's quite normal for me these days. And as it pains me whether or not I am exposed to other noises, I can assure you that I do not mind the distraction that some conversation affords."

"Is the tea not helping, Lizzie?" Mrs. Bennet inquired, suddenly all solicitude for her stepdaughter's wellbeing. "Is there anything else I might get you? Some remedy we might try?"

Elizabeth opened her mouth to reply that she could not think of anything, but Darcy surprised her again by turning to Mrs. Bennet and asking in very formal tones whether they had tried butterbur extract.

"Why, no," Mrs. Bennet admitted. "I do not believe we even have any. Do you know, Lizzie?"

Hiding a smile at her stepmother's obvious attempt to seem as though she knew what Mr. Darcy was referencing, Elizabeth murmured that she didn't believe there was any in the house.

"Well then," Mrs. Bennet came firmly to her feet. "I will just have to go to the apothecary shop and get you some. If this fine young man thinks it will help you, then we must try it! You have no idea how much it pains me to think of you suffering on and on the way you have been."

With only two or three more remarks about how hard it was on her to see Lizzie suffer, Mrs. Bennet was at last out of the room and on her way out of the house.

Looking over to Darcy, Elizabeth laughed lightly. "Is there any such thing as butterbur extract or is that something you made up in order to get her to leave for a while?"

"Oh, it's quite real," he assured her. "A little difficult to find, but it should actually be helpful if she manages to procure it."

Feeling at all once unaccountably shy, Elizabeth murmured her thanks and then dropped her gaze to her hands, twisting her fingers together nervously.

"It seems I owe you yet another apology," Darcy broke the silence, his voice low. "I assure you that I did not come here intending that we should argue again. It seems I have a knack for saying precisely the wrong thing where you're concerned."

She looked up, feeling her heart accelerate slightly at his words. "It takes two to argue," she observed. "I'm sorry for letting my temper get the better of me and for calling you names."

Darcy shook his head. "I am not accustomed to thinking very ill of myself, but I do not think you spoke without justification. I have not appeared to be very fair on the surface of things. If it helps, I can assure you that it is not my secret I will not tell when it comes to the issue of George Wickham. It is someone else's secret I cannot tell. I would not betray this other person's trust."

The mood between them was gentle now, as it had been the night of the accident, so Elizabeth nodded her acceptance of his statement and did not comment further.

Another silence descended between them, this one somewhat awkward. Elizabeth could not think of a single thing to say that might be on a topic safe enough that it wouldn't lead directly to another fight. The realization was sobering, raising as it did the question of whether she could ever actually be friendly with Darcy or if they had so much between them that would put them at opposition with each other that they would never be able to fully clear the air.

After several more long moments, Darcy cleared his throat and stood. "I should probably go. You really do seem as though you could use some peace and quiet and I... I believe I have much to think on. But I would like to see you again soon, if you'll permit it."

Hiding both her disappointment at his going and her sudden surge of excitement at his wanting to see her again, Elizabeth forced a smile onto her lips. "I would like to see you soon, as well. Hopefully I'll have escaped this prison in a day or two and be back at my flat."

Darcy smiled, but seemed distant as they finished saying their farewells. Long after he had gone, Elizabeth could not help but wonder what he had been thinking and whether he would ever share those thoughts with her.

A/N: Welp.

It's... progress. Right?

Don't worry, they will have the big old talk they need to have very soon. This one just got away from me as soon as Mrs. Bennet came in the room. She's a handful. Maybe even two handfuls. Possibly many handfuls.

Anyhow. I have what may or may not be a fun challenge for you guys. See, when I started writing this chapter, my beta demanded that I work in either the word "backside" or the word "derriere." Since I have no problem talking about butts (lol), I was like, SOLD. She has already demanded a different word make it into the next chapter, and I am totally up to the challenge.

If any of you want to join in, feel free to leave me a word. There will be some exceptions (ie: no profanity, because it just doesn't fit); I'm obviously not going to butcher my story just to try to include anything super random. But, you know, if you have a favorite word and want to see me work it in, feel free to throw it at me within the next few days. If I don't manage to work it in, I guess you get a golf clap or something. It'll look like this:

*clap*

*clap*

*clap*

Okay, enough nonsense from me. It's been a long week and it's only Tuesday. Send help and wine and reviews.

xoxo

-Imp