A/N: Thanks for reading everyone! I know the chapter lengths are a little inconsistent, but…here is a longer one! I'm thinking there are at least three more chapters to this story. Hopefully I can get them up this week, but work is making that very difficult!
Okay. Lizzie had thought a lot about Darcy's quip that the hills in San Francisco could be "quite unforgiving." It had stuck with her. It may have even entered a strange dream a few days after the incident.
And yes, the hills were something, but no one had mentioned how far away everything was. There was so much she wanted to see and she felt bad dragging her tour guides all over a city they had practically grown up in. She couldn't help, but be aware that this was for her benefit. They had a story for just about every street they walked down. No part of the city was safe from Darcy and Fitz's dorky high school antics or Gigi's artistic eye.
There was only one thing she had promised herself she would do while she was here. Just a quick picture with a certain statue about an hours walk from where they were currently sitting. But she couldn't make Gigi and Darcy walk all the way to the Presidio for one little picture. Then again, she wasn't sure when she would have another chance to visit this part of the city. She only had two more weeks here and between Gigi and Pemberley Digital it was packed. But it was only one picture. One really cool picture.
"Hey Lizzie. Lizzzzzie." Gigi tapped Lizzie on the shoulder.
"Oh, oh my gosh I'm so sorry," Lizzie stammered. "I completely spaced out."
"Don't worry about it. You really don't need to know the details of my 5th grade field trip to the wharf. A bird pooped on me. That's really the only point of sharing it."
Lizzie laughed and bit into her ice cream cone, thankful that Gigi was so easy-going. She wasn't sure what she would have done without her here.
Not that she would be here without Gigi. After all, Gigi was the one who planned it. It's not like her brother was the one who took her out to see the city.
They were sitting in Ghirardelli Square enjoying some seriously delicious ice cream despite the fact that it was much colder here than Lizzie was used to. The breeze coming off the bay was not exactly summer weather, but dark chocolate ice cream in a chocolate dipped cone was impossible to pass up.
Darcy walked over to their table with a large scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream in a plain white cup. Before Lizzie had a chance to say anything, his sister was berating him.
"What is the point of ice cream if you don't get it in a cone?"
He looked at the cup for a second.
"Well, for one you don't get messy."
Lizzie was reminded of his Twitter tag and rolled her eyes a little, "I like things to be well-ordered." Typical. Wait. How the hell did she remember that?
"And this way I'm not rushing to finish my ice cream before it melts all over. I can sit and watch the city without having to stare at the cone the whole time."
Lizzie was suddenly aware she was chasing a large drop of melted chocolate ice cream down the side of her cone. She paused for a second before realizing how completely undignified she looked with her head leaning down to catch the wayward chocolate.
"Also I have a theory that the people that work there give you more because the cup looks so sad."
Lizzie looked over at his cup and compared it to her cone.
"You totally got more ice cream than me!" She shouted indignantly.
"Do you want some?" He offered his spoon out to her and she just stared at it. He raised his eye brows, daring her to take a bite. Off of his spoon.
Okay those new glasses of his were seriously dangerous. Lizzie felt herself about to lean in when Gigi interrupted.
"God you can be such a weirdo Will."
Darcy took back his spoon and went back to eating his ice cream with a pleased little smile. He looked at Lizzie from the corner of his eye.
"What?" Lizzie asked. "Is there ice cream on my face?"
"No, no. It's just not often that I get to render you speechless. I have to enjoy those rare moments."
Lizzie thought back to the moment when Darcy came into the office in costume theater dress. That same self-satisfied look.
Okay so that look combined with the glasses was way too dangerous. She was going to have to keep her wits about her for the rest of the day if she was going to avoid doing something stupid. Being caught off-guard wasn't usually an issue. She just needed to step up her game.
"Alright, Lizzie. We have Lombard street a couple blocks away. We can take Muni up to Golden Gate Park. Ooh or we could stop by Fillmore Street! There are all sorts of cool independent store and thrift shops in the area."
Those all sounded fun and she really didn't want to drag Gigi somewhere she had no interest in going.
"Uh. Well actually. I've wanted to check out the Presidio. But I don't want to make you guys walk more than you already have so if you want I can just head over there and meet up with you both later?"
Gigi and Darcy both just stared at her.
"It's like another hour of walking and then walking back and really I just want to check out this one dumb little statue. It's not even a big deal. I could even grab a cab and I'll for sure be back in time for dinner. I won't even get lost on Muni or anything."
Okay she was starting to sound a little loony and her ice cream was about to topple out of her cone.
"Lizzie, that's totally fine. We can walk over to the Presidio. It's beautiful and it's really not that bad of a walk," said Gigi.
"Yeah, but what about Fitz? Gigi, I know you're supposed to meet him for dinner in a couple hours. I don't want to make you late."
Gigi looked completely torn. Lizzie was not expecting that strong of a reaction. Really she had just thrown it out there as an excuse. Oh god. She really hoped that Gigi wasn't crushing on Fitz. She had to know that that ship was going nowhere, right?
"We can just have Fitz pick us up from the Presidio and we can figure out dinner from there," said Darcy, finishing up his ice cream. He looked over at Gigi who still seemed to be dealing with some sort of inner turmoil.
"Great!" she managed.
Lizzie stifled a groan. Okay. So the picture she wanted was super dorky. It wasn't about the distance. She just wanted a little bit of privacy when she went and got it. Now she was going to be dragging Darcy and Gigi on a wild goose chase. She really wasn't even sure where the statue was…The Presidio couldn't be that big. Right?
Gigi began texting Fitz the new plan.
"The Tiger and the Eagle will be joining us for dinner. I repeat, operation 'Dinner Ditch' is a no go."
Well it looks like her and Fitz were going to have their work cut out for them after all.
