Chapter 13

A/N: Okay….Chapter 13 as promised, a little after 9 EST. I WILL BE EDITING THIS THROUGHOUT THE HOUR. DO NOT make your final decision on this the first time you read it.

We're almost there, people….about two-to-three chapters later, it's THE END….It gives me great happiness to make Elizabeth and Will content and complete, but on the other hand, it's sad too. I was thinking of a spinoff with Elizabeth and Will's kids. Leave comment if you think this is a good idea.

Okay, so I know Chapters 11 and 12 had this weird interval going on. In between, Will and Elizabeth talked, Will explained what happened, etc. Not my best, I agree.

Disclaimer: All Jane Austen's/Movie makers'….I do not own the quote, property of the brilliant Anna Godbersen.

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"Diana was starting to realize why the greatest love stories were also the most tragic."

-Rumors, by Anna Godbersen

Jane had left for work before, and by the time Elizabeth had got home Jane was already fast asleep. Elizabeth shuffled into the kitchen, and picked up the mail Jane had been considerate enough to leave on the kitchen table.

"Bills," she muttered. She didn't have the heart to open them now. "Junk. And…."

There was a letter. In immaculate script was printed, To Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

She tore it open.

Dear Elizabeth,

I don't know why you are this way, and I have been racking my brains the whole day trying to figure it out. Well, night, rather. I am writing at three o'clock in the morning, a testament to your charms.

I love you. I will always love you, and I am still desperately hoping you will come to me. But I know you. Once you have made up your mind there is no turning back, save for one obvious exception.

Caroline and I are engaged once again. It is my duty, considering Georgiana's children will be under Alao and not Darcy, and I am supposed to produce heirs. I hope you will understand.

If we don't meet again on Earth, there is always Heaven, if my deeds will merit it; I am sure yours will.

Find someone else to marry, Elizabeth. I will be happy if you do, and you will be happier if you do.

Yours,

Fitzwilliam Darcy. Will.

Elizabeth wasn't crying anymore, and it was all the more painful. She felt like she would never feel anything again. She was too sad to cry.

She didn't even feel like walking downstairs to the taxi to quit her job. She didn't even feel like walking up those imposing marble steps through those glass doors up the elevator into her office leaving a note that said 'I quit- Elizabeth' taking the belongings she had there walking to the elevator again going down down down down and feeling like her life, as well, was going down down down down and locking eyes once, just once, with Will in the lobby and forcing herself to look away and going back to the apartment.

But she did.

She knew that her life was over. She wanted to die. She even thought about committing suicide, those bleak four hours before Jane came home, hours that had to be the worst in her life.

She sat in the dimness of the apartment, the only lights coming from the bedroom and the kitchen, while the gray clouds cast shadows into the main room. She bathed in the blue glow of the TV, not even watching it but somehow having her eyes transfixed to it, shivering in a thin green blanket.

It was a Spanish-speaking channel; Elizabeth didn't even know why she had turned it on. Apparently Pedro and Maria were in the middle of a passionate nightly tryst when Julio angrily burst out from behind the bushes, yelling something Elizabeth was pretty sure was an obscenity. Pedro and Julio fought, and Pedro had some sort of internal bleeding and had to be taken to the hospital, and Maria stabbed Julio in her rage and cried insanely at Pedro's bedside.

Elizabeth found herself inclined to laugh at it. But she couldn't. Yesterday, she would have laughed at it. A week ago, she would have laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks. But now, she realized that these cruddy soap operas were trying to portray what she was feeling. Maybe they were doing a bad job at it, but they were emulating something beautiful. Had she not been a conscientious person she would have stabbed Caroline for coming between her and Will, and she would have cried like crazy had Will been bleeding, internally or not.

Why, all of a sudden, were things so serious? Would she have to live the rest of her life this way, finding dark and hidden meanings in things she used to find happiness or humor in?

And that's when she thought about killing herself. Her eyes darted to the gun hanging above the rusty and unused fireplace. It was Jane's father's. Jane had brought it here after her father died. It still had one shot left in it.

She felt like she was going insane. Slowly she lifted the gun out of its wooden groove, standing on tiptoe. She sat on the battered couch.

The gun felt heavy- heavier than she thought it would be, and somehow more brutal and evil-looking. Its dull gleam caught the dim light streaming through the sole window. She felt scared holding it. Her hands started to shake.

Still, she wanted to kill herself.

She tried to remember something, anything to hold on to. Will was gone from her life. Jane was safe. Her mother would mourn, but not overly so. Her father would mourn.

Then, she remembered Jane, how heartbroken Jane would be, and how Will would probably kill himself when he heard, and how sickened and sad her father would be, and how Brent, although he professed hatred the last time they had talked, would be sick to hear it.

And she wasn't selfish enough to bring all these people down with her once she killed herself.

O0...0O

Will was in the study, feeling the worst he had ever felt in his life. He was holding a book, but he wasn't absorbing the information; he was thinking about Elizabeth.

What could I have done to make her run away from me?

He shook his head and stared out the window. Elizabeth was so happy after he'd explained everything. She'd glowed with joy. And then, all of a sudden, she'd illogically come in and said those things.

He wanted to die, but he knew how awful those around him would feel about it.

He looked down at the book he was reading. It was a collection of Shakespeare. Of course; it had been his father's favorite, one he read to Will as a child.

A sentence, a very famous sentence, popped out among the dusty, grey-black tiny text. "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

Was it better to have loved and lost? Was his life better for the subsequent heartbreak?

He would have given anything to have felt the way he'd felt in the garden, with Elizabeth. It felt the closest to Heaven he ever was. And he knew, instinctively, that it was better to have loved and lost.

And it was the best of all to love and lose and gain it again, of course.

He folded his book down. "Caroline, you can come in; I know you're on the other side of that door."

Caroline came in, wearing a beige color that made her skin look less than appealing. "Will, dear."

"Did you blackmail Elizabeth?"

"What?"

"Don't lie, please." He knew she probably would, but there was the slightest chance she would tell the truth.

"Will, why would I? Elizabeth- well, you know how mercurial she is." Caroline toyed with a globe, her slim silhouette holding a cruel grace to it in front of the windowpane. "How imbalanced she is. I did nothing, I can assure you."

"You're lying."

"Am I? Or perhaps there was something wrong with Elizabeth all along, and you were too blind to see it?"

Will could find nothing else to say but, "You're lying." He felt helpless for the first time in his life, completely and powerlessly in someone else's grip, although Caroline had no hold on him.

Caroline raised an immaculately plucked eyebrow. "Fine, then. I'll have Elizabeth call you tomorrow and explain."

Will nodded slowly. If Elizabeth was being blackmailed, then it would cause him pain. Only- it was worth a shot, wasn't it?