Chapter 9: Recap

Lizzie looked around her as she set up her tripod. Of course, she had suggested that they go back to his hotel room for purely practical reasons. Charlotte's apartment was tiny and had bad lighting. If this was going to be one of her most viewed videos — and lets face it, her fans shipped her and Darcy even back when she hated him, so it would be — she wanted it to have a high production value. It was a matter of professionalism. These rationalizations were harder to maintain as she sat in this rather fancy room in fancy hotel while William Darcy made her fancy tea.

She was maybe a bit giddy, apparently kissing Darcy did things to her otherwise solid reasoning skills. The best light in the room was in the entry way, so she framed the shot with the door slightly off-center behind the stool from the foot of the bed. She sat down just as Darcy brought over her cup of tea. "Are you ready?" He asked.

She saw the nervous tension in his face, "yeah, are you?"

"I've never done this before."

"Don't you have a short memory, we shot a video on Sunday!"

"Yes, but that was just a conversation. Costume theater is... different."

"You're portraying yourself, you'll do fine. Would you rather I do the intro, then you join?"

He sighed and a bit of the tension left his forehead, "Yes, I think that would be best." She suppressed a giggle. How did it happen that she suddenly found his shyness adorable when previously she'd labeled it haughtiness?

Thursday morning Gigi Darcy was sitting at her desk at Pemberley Digital when Fitz sent her a youtube link with the message: "You'll get a kick out of the earlier videos too, but you've got to see this one first! Our boy's all grown up!" Intrigued, she clicked the link and sat back to watch

A pretty redhead smiled at the camera and said, "Hi everyone! This has been the most surreal night of my life. You know how there are some things you just know are true? And you know that you're so clever and perceptive that even though other smart people whose opinions you trust tell you otherwise, you know that you're right? Well, as it turns out, maybe you should listen to your friends in those situations. I'm Lizzie Bennet, and guess who played my knight in shining armor tonight?" She reached out her hand and William took it and sat down next to her. Gigi nearly spit out the sip of coffee she'd just taken while the peppy intro music rolled, drawing a couple of her co-workers over to her desk to see what was happening.

Who was this girl? Wasn't William on a business trip? It took him like forever to get comfortable with new people, so how was he was holding hands with her and smiling like a fool?

"So, as you know, I haven't always had the best opinion of Darcy here."

"You called me a robot, and a newsie."

"Yeah, that probably wasn't the best descriptor, I only saw you in that hat once and ran with it."

"But more importantly, you thought me an arrogant snob. Rightly so."

"Well, you don't make a good first impression, but, those of you who've been following my videos, will be surprised to hear that Darcy here defended my honor tonight." William blushed and Gigi gaped at her screen. "We were both invited to dinner at Catherine DeBurgh's house tonight and somehow Caroline showed up."

"I'm not surprised, I'm sure Monday's video made her nervous. As you've said, I didn't do a stellar job at hiding my feelings." Feelings! Gigi thought to herself, how am I just finding out about this!

Lizzie looked back at William with a knowing smile then abruptly turned back to the camera. "Anyway, it didn't take long for things to get ugly." As she said this she picked up a hat from beside her and placed it on William's head. Her hand lingered for a moment in his hair, William closed his eyes and leaned his head into her hand like a puppy until a knock on the door spoiled the moment.

William stood to answer the door and Gigi heard Fitz's shout of: "Yes! I knew you had it in you!"

Lizzie twisted around and said, "Fitz! Perfect timing, will you be our Caroline?" Fitz pushed into the room past William.

"I thought you'd never ask Lizzie B! I've been dying to be on your vlog!" He sat down on one side of Lizzie while William settled back on her other side. There was a cut and Fitz was wearing one of those doctor's reflector headband things with a pink flower clipped to it, Lizzie was wearing floral reading glasses and petting a stuffed dog.

Gigi watched in fascination and indignation as they played out the scene with her Aunt. Fitz's rendition of Caroline was perfectly campy and Lizzie's portrayal of Aunt Catherine was uncanny. Gigi was upset, though not terribly surprised to find that Aunt Catherine had used her to disparage Lizzie. She clapped when William shot their aunt down and was surprised by the crowd she'd drawn around her when they clapped too.

As William finished the scene, threatening to leave the dinner party over his aunt's silliness, Lizzie leaned over and gave William a kiss on the cheek. "I'd really prefer if you weren't dressed as my Aunt when you kiss me," William said with dry sarcasm. Gigi couldn't believe that her brother, Mr. No PDA, was casually joking about kissing a girl she'd never met on a vlog on YouTube.

"Yeah, sorry," Lizzie cringed and removed the glasses before turning back to William and with an exaggerated voice declared: "What can I say, that kind of chivalry? Women swoon!" She playfully fell back on him and he shifted his arm around her.

Fitz watched the whole exchange with a huge mischievous smile. "I think that's my cue!" And spun off of the seat. Standing behind the couple, he gave them a quick group hug and added "You guys are my heroes, Catherine was so outraged that she was speechless for a full five minutes!" He stood back up, took off his costume — after a comical struggle getting it around his hair — and said, "Peace, Lizzie B, Darcy. I'll leave you two alone ... in this hotel room ... with a camera ..." He then winked at the camera and Gigi knew he was winking at her.

Once he left the room, Lizzie said, "So... we're not going to reenact what happened next."

"But what about the ratings?" William asked with a smug smile and Lizzie blushed. Gigi heard some of her coworkers high-fiving each other behind her at that, and she just stared at her reserved brother teasing and flirting. Whoever this Lizzie Bennet was, she must be something special.

After a moment of fondly looking into each other's eyes, William grew serious again. "I really am sorry for my aunt's behaviour, it was unpardonable."

"Yeah, if she wasn't Charlotte's boss's boss I would have said something similar myself," she said. "But, you have nothing to apologize for, you have no more control over your aunt than I do over my mother,"

"True, but I can't stand to see anyone treat you like that. I don't think I'll be able to talk to my Aunt until she apologizes to you."

"I bet that'll make tomorrow's meetings somewhat difficult," Lizzie teased, and ran her fingers along his tie. "But seriously, your aunt's outburst did push us along rather nicely."

"I can't complain about the result." William said as he leaned down to kiss her. This one was more than just a peck on the cheek. Gigi had to look away — that was her brother, eew! The small crowd of coworkers cheered at the development, William was well liked by his employees and they were all thrilled only to see him smile, let alone in love. The video jump-cut to a more disheveled shot of William with his hair sticking up at odd angles and a blushing Lizzie shifting off of his lap and smoothing down her dress.

William turned to the camera with a smug smile of victory, "I thought we weren't going to reenact that part of the evening."

Lizzie scrunched up her face and punched him playfully. "That wasn't a reenactment, that was spontaneous!" Her other hand was still grasping his tie and they were beginning to gravitate back toward each other when Lizzie cleared her throat and turned her head toward the camera. "I think we've given the internet enough of a show for one evening." William pressed another kiss to her temple with a sigh before Lizzie reached forward and turned off the camera.

Her co-workers erupted into excited chatter, and Gigi tried to process it all through the din. William was in love! And he hadn't told her! She left the rest of the graphic design department gossiping and slipped into an empty conference room and shut the door.