It was mid-spring and Elizabeth was once again caught in the midst of her own personal idea of Hell. Doing her best to block her stepmother and half sister's nonsensical conversation from actually sinking into her consciousness with any meaning, Elizabeth immersed herself in the task of putting the final touches on the meal that was the reason she was once again at her parents' house.

Jane, although she had been expected at this family dinner, was not present to lend any relief by way of meaningful conversation or assistance with the meal, and so it had fallen to Elizabeth alone to prepare the lavish dinner that Mrs. Bennet had decreed necessary for the occasion but which she would not actually deign to cook herself. Lydia was ostensibly helping, but had only half-completed the few tasks Elizabeth had assigned to her and was instead pestering her mother.

The general thrust of the conversation that Elizabeth was endeavoring to ignore seemed to be Mrs. Bennet's agreement with Lydia that Lydia's confinement to the house for the period of a month was far too severe a punishment for the flighty girl to endure but that, for a wonder and a change, Mr. Bennet was proving to be immune to any amount of cajoling, wheedling, begging and shrieking.

Although she had managed to be absent from her parents' home for over a month and thus had no idea what infraction Lydia was being punished for, Elizabeth mentally applauded her father for at last putting his foot down where his youngest daughter was concerned. Aside from conjecturing that whatever had grounded Lydia for a month was probably really awful enough to have warranted at least two months, she was content not to get involved with this latest bout of dramatics.

Indeed, she was always content not to be directly involved with her family's affairs. Elizabeth thought again of how much she would rather be anywhere than here. She would even rather be with Jane, who had been excused from the family meal on the grounds that she was spending the evening with Mr. Bingley's family. The pair had finally become engaged only a few weeks before and, as a result, no one could really protest Jane's spending an increasing amount of time with her intended and his family.

I wonder who is really worse, Elizabeth mused to herself, a half smile on her lips. Caroline Bingley or Lydia Bennet? But at least I am in no danger of running into Mr. Darcy here.

The thought was a painful one and she attempted to push it away, having grown quite adept at pretending to herself that the majority of the past year hadn't ever really happened.

Ever since their abortive attempt at a date some months past, Elizabeth had not seen even a glimpse of Mr. Darcy. Her last memory of him was how he had looked as he had stood outside the restaurant, allowing Fitch to drive her home without Darcy's sharing the vehicle. As she so often did, Elizabeth found herself wondering whether she ought to have stayed long enough to hear the end of whatever he had been about to say.

But no. The whole story he had started to tell her had been so preposterous. She was right to gain some distance from the man, for he was a danger indeed, always confusing her with what his true character might be. It was easier - and not only easy; it was better - to believe that he was either insane or a liar. No matter which was the truth of his character, Elizabeth would be better off without a man that had either quality.

Shaking off the thoughts with a more conscious effort, Elizabeth pasted on a smile that felt entirely false and turned to her stepmother and half sister. "Lydia, do you go run and fetch Papa. Dinner is ready. I will finish setting the table."

Lydia huffed and made a face, but rose without further complaint to do as she was bid. Mrs. Bennet, who had been sitting at the kitchen table, rose and moved down two chairs to take the seat that was normally hers at mealtimes.

Left without her youngest daughter to commiserate with, Mrs. Bennet quickly turned her attentions to Elizabeth.

"Is it not a splendid thing that Jane and her Mr. Bingley are so soon to be wed! I daresay I am almost entirely beside myself with happiness for my Jane. I knew she could not be so beautiful for nothing! And to think she will live in that fine house and need not spend her time teaching things like arithmetic and letters to whatever little brats end up in her district! Nor will she need to spend all her free time scribbling away like she did before."

Elizabeth bristled at the casual way that Mrs. Bennet dismissed Jane's passion for writing, but held her tongue. If even Jane had not seen fit to enlighten her mother about her current aims to have her first novel published under her own name, Elizabeth was certainly not going to betray the secret.

"No," Mrs. Bennet uttered a dreamy sigh. "She may now spend all her time as I have for the past years, taking care of the needs of a home and husband. What lovely children my Jane will have, do you not think? Of course. How they could not be, with such a fair beauty for their mother?

"But what will become of you Lizzie? You cannot afford that dreadful flat on your own. You must return home at once, of course. There are some things that will need to be moved out of your old room, but what of that? You scarcely noticed them when you were convalescing here, I daresay. Returning will be your only option, I should think."

"Not at all," Elizabeth countered, finally finding a small opening and seizing on it. "I have already found a new roommate. My friend from work, Charlotte, will be moving in a week or two after Jane is married."

"Oh," Mrs. Bennet was flustered by the information, although Elizabeth had mentioned it at least once before. "But that simply will not do!" she objected. 'Two young women living alone! What will your father think?"

"Her father will think that this has been the state of affairs for some time already," Mr. Bennet answered, walking into the room at that moment and giving Elizabeth an affectionate smile. "And will think she is wise for wanting to remain where she is when it is known to be so much more convenient for her getting to work safely."

"I hope I never have to get a job," Lydia stated, having following in her father's wake. She plopped into her chair as though exhausted. "I cannot imagine how tedious it must always be to be working."

"No," Elizabeth replied, carrying over the last of the dishes of food and stepping back to ensure the table didn't lack for anything. "I daresay you couldn't."

The remark, pointed as it was, was entirely lost on Lydia.

"Well it does seem a vastly unpleasant thing," the younger girl pursued. "To give so many hours of your week that you might be doing pleasanter things with pleasanter people. Not to mention that it seems if you do find a nice, handsome fellow at work, they are always being let go for reasons I do not understand."

Elizabeth looked up sharply from the dish of green beans she had been about to pass. "What are you speaking of, Lyddie?"

"George Wickham, of course."

Frowning, Elizabeth searched her memory and couldn't immediately recall having told anyone other than Jane of George Wickham's recent dismissal from Blue Line.

"All Charlotte knows is that her office was notified that he was not to even be allowed into the building," Elizabeth had related to her older sister. "Someone from Mr. Darcy's main offices brought word. Blue Line was not even given a reason for any of it, other than that the owner had fired George personally!

"I know George wasn't always the most punctual or dedicated employee, but for Mr. Darcy to fire him... Well. I do not know exactly what their history is, but I do know Mr. Darcy loathes George and has fired him once before. From everything I can piece together, this is no more than some sort of personal vendetta."

"Are you certain that is the case?" Jane had asked, her kind heart troubled by the information. "Why would Mr. Darcy fire Mr. Wickham now? From all you have said, he has known for some time that Mr. Wickham worked at Blue Line. If he meant to fire Mr. Wickham out of personal dislike, he might have done so months ago. No. There must be another reason."

Elizabeth had laughed, though she was troubled by the loss of her only other real friend from her shift. "Trust you to try to see the best in everything," she had teased Jane. But though the subject had been dropped, Elizabeth could not help but wonder what had precipitated George's getting fired.

"And what do you know about that?" Elizabeth questioned Lydia, returning to the present. "Did Jane say something to you?"

"Jane? How should she know anything?" Lydia demanded. "She wasn't there!"

Elizabeth was baffled. "Wasn't where?"

"I think," Mrs. Bennet cut in, "that we should all find something a good deal pleasanter to speak of. Have you found a dress for Jane's wedding yet, Lizzie? We have already found one or two that will suit for Lyddie if she really only meant to be a guest. I cannot think why Jane has only asked for you to stand up with her when Lydia is her sister as well, but I suppose it is something to do with Mr. Bingley not having any brothers and needing to rely on that friend of his."

Lydia wrinkled her nose. "Well, I am pleased that it is not I who has to stand up with that horrid Mr. Darcy. Better that you should have to do so, Lizzie. He seems to think a great deal of you."

As usual, Elizabeth found herself wondering what her younger half sister could mean but quickly decided that Mr. Darcy's coming to visit when she had been recovering from her head injury had been sufficient to make such an impression in the younger girl's mind.

"Don't speak so rudely of other people," Elizabeth corrected automatically. "And please, do not remind me that he shall be there."

Mrs. Bennet paused mid-chew to frown over at Elizabeth. "I was under the impression that Mr. Darcy was a particular friend of yours."

"No," Elizabeth replied lightly. "We have not spoken in several months."

Lydia piped up again, seeming entirely offhand. "I'm sure you're better off for it. He is dreadfully cold."

Once again, Elizabeth found herself looking sharply at Lydia, wondering where the young woman had come by any of the opinions or information she had disclosed throughout the short conversation.

"For my part, I like him," Mr. Bennet put in unexpectedly, causing his elder daughter to transfer her stare to his face. "He seemed steady and thoughtful, two qualities I so rarely have the pleasure of encountering under my own roof."

"I do not have the pleasure of understanding how you have all come to know Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth burst out, wholly bewildered by the strange conversation her family seemed to be conspiring to carry out in front of her. "When was he here, Papa? And for what possible reason could he have come?"

Mr. Bennet looked appraisingly at Elizabeth before he nodded in Lydia's direction. "Perhaps you had better ask your sister since it was her complete lack of common sense that caused the event to transpire."

Much later that same night, Elizabeth sank into her bed in a haze of utter mental exhaustion. This was a common enough state of affairs after being forced to spend time in company with Mrs. Bennet and Lydia, but the events of the night had been such that the effect had been magnified several times over.

Lydia had told her story readily enough, if not very coherently, with many asides about the general unfairness of life, the unreasonableness of her elders and the pity everyone should feel for her since her amusements had been cut so thoroughly and cruelly short by the actions of one Mr. Darcy.

The eventual picture that had emerged had been a shocking one, and ever since Elizabeth had comprehended the whole tale, she had felt the pressure of a growing headache as she struggled to assimilate this new information with what she thought she had known previously.

Lydia had, it seemed, formed a casual friendship with George Wickham upon the first occasion of his having visited the Bennet household. She had, after all, been the one to admit Mr. Darcy into the house and had not returned to the parlour before Mr. Wickham had made his exit. Lydia had detained Wickham for some time while everyone else had been engaged within and had flirted with the good-looking man who was quite a few years her senior.

He had seemed receptive and perhaps a little amused, and they had conversed for some time about how her sister knew Mr. Darcy and whether or not this was the first time that man had come to visit. He had told her without her asking or particularly caring, that he and Mr. Darcy had once been friends but that Darcy had turned out to be very boring and rather disagreeable.

They had planned to meet again and had carried out several secret assignations over the past several months. But this latest time had been different, for it seemed that their original plans had been interfered with by the weather. They had, it transpired, agreed to meet for the evening, planning on a casual meal and then a walk along the riverfront pathway. Lydia had spoken artlessly regarding their intentions, sighing over how romantic it would have been to walk out under the stars in such a beautiful setting.

Not that there would have been stars, for the evening, having started out rather overcast, soon developed into something of a tempestuous spring rain. Their plans for a walk thus foiled, they had made their way to the nearest shelter they could find.

The next part of the tale had emerged but slowly, Lydia admitting that George Wickham had taken her to a hotel and procured them a room. She only shrugged in an insouciant manner when an appalled Elizabeth had demanded whether she had stopped for even a fraction of a second to think about how inappropriate such a location was for a grown man and a young woman who was still practically a child to be alone together.

"I scarcely got to go in the room, let alone be alone in it!" Lydia had exclaimed indignantly. "For when we reached the room - imagine our shock! - that dreadful Mr. Darcy was waiting inside. They started to argue at once. About me, I think, though I cannot fathom Mr. Darcy's interest in my doings. There were some other men there, as well, and I am glad for it since they stopped Mr. Darcy from hitting my George more than once.

"I do not know where they took him, but that terrible Mr. Darcy made me come here and tell everything to Mama and Papa and now I am grounded forever, or so it seems, and it is all his fault!"

Feeling a fresh pang of the sickness she had felt on hearing the words, Elizabeth turned restlessly in bed, willing her mind to stop going over and over everything that had followed. None of it had been very satisfactory. Mrs. Bennet only continued to indulge Lydia's complaints about her punishment, neither of them seeming to grasp the very real danger that Lydia had placed herself in, nor how grateful either of them should be for Mr. Darcy's interference in the matter.

Her father was more sensible of the situation, of course, but seemed to have no better plan for managing his youngest daughter than to keep her grounded for a month or two and to hope when she was allowed to socialize again that she would not run completely wild.

"Mr. Darcy informed me he would see to that blackguard Mr. Wickham being taken care of. I believe he intended to see him jailed for his criminal intent." He shrugged lightly, as though the safety of his youngest child was only a trivial topic. "I have not yet heard any news of the resolution of the matter, although Mr. Darcy assured me he would send word when he had any."

Such a drama in the family was upsetting enough, but of course there was more than even that for Elizabeth to try to come to terms with. She had managed to keep her thoughts strictly on the matter as it pertained to the Bennets while she had been with her family, not allowing the full ramifications to be thought about until she would have some privacy to consider everything.

Sitting up in bed, Elizabeth turned on her bedside lamp, blinking against the brightness of the light for a few moments. A quick rummage through her room produced a notebook and a pencil, both of which she brought with her back to her bed where she again sat.

Facts:

She headed the top of the page, feeling almost feverish to get all her thoughts down on the page where she could see them.

1. Darcy claimed that he could sometimes see the future

2. Darcy claims that Wickham is reprehensible

2a. Darcy seems to be correct in that assessment

3. Lydia made it seem as though her plan with Wickham on the night Darcy intervened was fluid. There could not have been any way for Darcy to know of it in advance if they did not themselves

3a. But he was waiting right where he needed to be and at exactly the right time to save Lydia

4. If Wickham was fired by Darcy again, it was because of all this

5. I have judged him too harshly

Throwing down the pencil and notebook at this conclusion, Elizabeth buried her face in her hands and wept.

If time had seemed to be me moving slowly over the course of the long months of winter giving gradually way to spring, it was nothing to the snail's pace that marked the progression from spring until summer.

When Elizabeth noted the anniversary of the day that Darcy had fired her, she did so with a bleak sadness that she would never have expected, rather than with the comforting fires of a righteous fury that she would have previously anticipated.

She had been so wrong about everything and had stubbornly refused to listen to any opinion or explanation that had differed from her own. Miserable with the knowledge, but feeling it only justified that she should be miserable, Elizabeth found herself wondering whether Darcy had foreseen something of how unfairly she would someday treat him and whether that had been the reason for his seemingly precipitous action in terminating her employment.

But if that were so, then why had he bothered trying to show himself to her at all? Why demonstrate enough liking for her as a person for him to want to take her out, treat her like a lady and reveal to her a secret that he said he had never revealed to anyone else?

The bitterness of knowing that he had offered her a gift of intimacy only for her to have instantly and viciously thrown it back in his face made her feel heartily ashamed.

She knew she ought to swallow her feelings and find some way to thank him for what he had done for Lydia. Though the younger girl was often a trial, Elizabeth honestly loved her and the very thought of George Wickham having been permitted to do anything that would have harmed even a hair on Lydia's head was not to be borne.

But days passed and then weeks and, in time, it was more than a month since Elizabeth had learned the truth of what kind of man Mr. Darcy was and still she could not put aside her shame or embarrassment to seek him out. That thanking him for his service and apologizing for her own actions and words would only heap more shame upon her didn't signify. She had no reason to believe he would see her at all and still less reason to imagine that her thanks would be at all welcome.

If he had saved Lydia for Elizabeth's sake at all, surely he would have wanted her to know of it. Surely he could have found her and told her of his precognition, thus proving the truth of what he had said about his abilities. But he had not done so and that, more than anything, convinced Elizabeth that Darcy had saved Lydia only because it was the right and decent thing to do. He did not require Elizabeth's gratitude or her belief in him.

Still, as Jane and Charles Bingley's wedding date grew ever closer, Elizabeth could not stop her heart from foolishly hoping that they would eventually be thrown together in some fashion. It was not unreasonable to think that it might occur since she was Jane's maid of honor and he was Mr. Bingley's best man. But Darcy must have been working assiduously to prevent their meeting, for it was not until the rehearsal that Elizabeth saw him at all, and even then he took some pains to keep his distance from her as much as he could reasonably do so without appearing to be rude.

Given that he had to escort her back down the aisle on two separate rehearsals of the ceremony, his avoidance was really quite remarkable. He might have been escorting a piece of furniture for all the acknowledgement he gave her when she settled her arm through his.

Determined as she was not to ruin anything about Jane's special day nor to make herself appear still more foolish in Darcy's eyes, Elizabeth did not comment or give any outward sign of the turmoil her heart was experiencing. Instead, she smiled, she kept a respectful distance from Darcy when the ceremony did not call for them to be in contact and she said no more to him throughout the whole evening that what polite social niceties dictated, merely greeting him when they met, thanking him when he rendered her the service of saving her from a fall and bidding him a good night when he left the dinner.

And that night she cried herself to sleep, more than half afraid that the next day would be her last to ever see him or touch him or talk to him. If this was punishment for her own prejudice against Darcy, it was bitter indeed.

A/N: Welp, this ended up a bit shorter than I had thought it would, but whatever. I'm glossing over the misery of months spent in exile from each other. Next chapter should be bring some resolution! Huzzah!

Have you ever had to spend months away from your loved one? I did, but that was due to it being a long-distance relationship from the moment we met until we finally married. I knew all about misery back then, let me tell you!

Thanks, as always, for reading. Extra thanks to those who review. I'm know I'm rubbish at replying, but isn't it worth it for three chapters in only a few weeks?

-Imp