It was Darcy's doing, in a way. After all, he was the one who got her a flight without wifi.

It all began when his driver pulled up to the departures curb at San Francisco International Airport and handed Lizzie her boarding pass. They had made the trip to the South Bay in record time and Lizzie was sure he had broken at least half a dozen driving laws to get there in time for her 2 pm flight. She couldn't help, but wonder what Darcy had said or, god forbid, paid to make sure she made it.

Just a half hour earlier, Lizzie had walked out of Pemberely Digital in an anxious fog. Her body was ready to act, to do, to fix, but it was impossible to settle her mind on any one course of action. She spent the entire drive on her phone, texting Charlotte, tracking down Jane, but mostly torturing herself with the website. She watched the changing numbers. No matter how hard she stared they continued to drop, as if the stupid video were uploading oh so slowly to some distant server.

Never had she felt so useless. Never had she been so compelled to chuck her phone out the window. Never had she wanted so badly to turn back time in the naïve hope that this would all go away.

Everything had gone spectacularly wrong in record time. A small, but persistent voice was in the back her head was sure that was the last she would see of Darcy.

"Love Her Madly" crackled on the radio and filtered through the car speakers. Lizzie closed her eyes in concentration. She needed to focus. But each thought was a new distraction, every outside stimuli a roadblock from finding a solution.

Don't ya love her face
Don't ya love her as she's walkin' out the door
Like she did one thousand times before

Don't ya love her ways
Tell me what you say
Don't ya love her as she's walkin' out the door

Lizzie left a fifth voicemail for Jane. At this point she could care less that the driver was privy to all the details of Lydia's indiscretion. It was about to be the entire internet's business, what did it matter if one more stranger was aware of the most intimate details of her family. It's not like she had made a habit of censoring herself in the past.

Her head was pounding when the driver turned in his seat and handed her her boarding pass. He reminded Lizzie of her dad. She had the overwhelming urge to tell him everything and to ask him what she should do next.

Lizzie let out a short, surprised laugh when she read the top of the boarding pass, Southwest flight 255. Suddenly she was back at Netherfield arguing with Darcy about, of all things, the merit of Southwest versus Virgin America. It was true, she had managed to turn everything into an argument. It was a wonder anyone could stand to be in the same room as the two of them back then.

Darcy had mentioned that he only flew Virgin America. He probably said it in passing, but to Lizzie it reinforced everything she thought she already knew about him. Of course he only flew on the most hipster airline in the country. Virgin America, with its weird mood lighting and wifi on every flight. It was the same airline that only catered to two dozen cities and featured a TV on the back of every seat to minimize the necessary human interaction. Lizzie found this especially ridiculous considering the flight from LA to San Francisco clocked in at a whopping 40 minutes – a fact she harped on as Jane was wont to remind her.

Of course she had to tell him how ridiculous she thought he was for being too good for the airline that catered to the middle-class. She lauded cattle-call seating for getting rid of first-class and democratizing coach. She teased him about his dislike for meeting new people and wondered aloud if he ever bought the seat next to him to discourage any plebeians from entering his personal bubble.

She asked if he even bothered to disconnect his wifi between the airport and the airplane.

Lizzie grabbed the boarding pass and made it to Gate 14 as they called her name over the loud speakers.

She was barely seated when the flight attendant reminded all passengers to power down their electronic devices.

Just like that she was cut off. She was out of contact, out of touch, physically separated from the crisis on the ground.

She turned her phone in her hand, staring at the black screen. It was such an innocent device when it wasn't conveying messages of doom and despair. The first ten minutes of the flight were the longest she had gone without checking the website. It was the first time she felt like she could actually breath.

The fog began to dissipate in Lizzie's mind. She sat back in her seat and peered out the window over her neighbor who was already fast asleep.

The world looked reassuringly small from up here. Her body was still anxiety ridden, but it was less debilitating in that moment.

For once she was thankful to be on a flight that didn't hand out wifi like a free packet of salted pretzels.

Lizzie began to plan her next moves; her shuttle from the airport, how to confront Lydia, the best way to keep her mother in the dark.

She stared down at the water below. Lizzie would be plugged back in soon enough, for now she silently thanked Darcy for everything he had done.