I'm not repeating myself, I'm not repeating myself

"You travelled ten hours home, just to tell us that you're going back to Chicago?" Francesca Bennet has reached near caterwauling levels of noise. Soon only dogs and bats will hear her. "What's there for you? You certainly weren't interested in any of the men, and I doubt they were..." She stops herself, a mother with opinions, knowing what will happen if those opinions are shared. She has shared a few times too many to not know the consequences. Fran takes a deep breath. "I mean," she begins again, slower, "I thought you didn't want to get back into politics."

Lizzie turns her coffee cup between the palms of her hands, scraping a circle on the kitchen table. "I didn't," she says, and shrugs. "But this guy is different. Jane was right. He's good, and he means what he says. He's making me start to have faith in politics again."

Fran rolls her eyes. "Don't you set your cap at him young lady. Jane saw him first."

Lizzie eyes her mother with an air of undisguised disbelief. "It's not like that," she begins, but stops trying when Fran chuckles, patting her hand.

"All right sugar, if you say so." She rests her hand on Lizzie's a gives her a consoling smile. "There's someone else out there for you though honey. I'm sure of it...although," she adds after musing for a second, "not that Darcy character. He was as miserable as your Aunt Debbie."

Lizzie smiles involuntarily. "Yeah, well, he was in a bad mood that night."

Rex, ambles in having finished cleaning up in the scullery, keeping one ear on the kitchen. "Is he ever in a good mood?" he asks, smiling slightly.

"Rarely," concedes Lizzie.

"Well he certainly didn't dance with anyone. Not like young Mr Bingley there." Fran shrugs and wipes up crumbs off the table. "I'm just saying."

"I know," says Lizzie. "I really want to do this though." She turns to her father. "Do you mind Daddy? I know I said I'd only be a few days but…"

He silences her with a smile. "Sweetheart, if you've found what you want to do at long last, then you go chase it."

"Shame it turns out you were doing what you wanted three years ago, but you know…" mutters Fran, scrubbing at an old coffee stain on the wood.

Lizzie sighs. "I hated that job Mom, you know that."

"And so why won't you hate this one too?"

"It's completely different," she says, having planned these points all the way home. "It's with different people, a different campaign, and a completely different mind set."

"I'm just saying," starts Fran, "you could have been working all this time, have a nice house, maybe even have met yourself some young politician, just like Jane."

Lizzie rubs her forehead and marvels yet again at her mother's ability to miss the point. "OK," she concedes, deciding it will just be quicker to agree. "Well if it's all right, I think I'll go and see Charlotte for a bit."

"You're only just home…" begins Fran, but she's cut off by Rex's "OK sweetheart, we'll see you later."

Lizzie escapes by the side door and takes a deep, calming breath, before getting into the car.

"I will show you the email," says Charlotte, and picks up her laptop. Typing and clicking furiously, she brings up her inbox. "See!" she says triumphantly. "'Remind me never to go back into politics'."

"That's not my voice."

"'Chain me to your radiator if you have to'."

"Seriously, Charley, when did I become, I don't know, some kind of breathy cheerleader?"

" 'They're a bunch of blood sucking ass kissing hypocritical douche bags'…"

"Oh I might have said that."

"… 'and I want nothing to do with them'."

"Yeah, well…" Lizzie slumps down onto the wicker chair on Charlotte's porch. She fiddles with the lacey edging to the cushions, and sighs. "Am I making a massive mistake?"

Charlotte smiles, and shakes her head. "No. Look," she says, "this may be test, which I am no doubt failing, but you loved writing for the Mayor…"

"Yeah I did."

"…and it was just that ass…what was it? 'Blood sucking, ass kissing, hypocritical douche bag' Marco Pelloux that made you hate it."

"The guy was a tool."

Charlotte raises an eyebrow. "From everything you said, he sounded worse than that, but all right."

"He was a massive disappointment, that's all."

Charlotte shrugs. "Enough to make you give up on all of them, remember?" She sighs, and shrugs again.

They are silent for a moment, and then, finally, Lizzie smiles. "You think this is a good thing?"

"Yes," says Charlotte, and pats her foot. "I do. Now let's go out and celebrate."

Charlotte's initial ideas for celebrating only work on the premise that they are both only just twenty one and enjoying new found alcoholic freedom. Unfortunately the combination of the restrictions of small town life, and the hard fact that they are, in fact, twenty-seven, results in something more akin to their fathers' idea of a night out, also known as drinking in Al's Bar.

"When did Mackie's close down?"

Lizzie grins. "Years ago Charley! It involved a fire and a girl getting brained with a falling light, and something about vermin."

Charlotte sighs. "This sucks. I thought we still had plenty of places to go."

"There are places," concedes Lizzie, who adds quickly, at the sight of Charlotte gathering her things, "but they are hideous and I for one am not hanging out at the site of Missy Colver's conception."

Charlotte drops her things back onto the bar. "Ew," she says, grimacing. "I forgot all about that. All right then." She settles at her bar stool, shakes her head despairingly at Lizzie and then calls, "Al? Can we have some beer here?"

Al looks up. "You two old enough to be in here?" he calls.

"Have been for six years, and you know it."

He grins. "Just wanted to make you say it Charley," he says, and winks. "Hey, Don. Come serve these nice ladies."

Al's nephew Don appears from behind the beaded curtain of the office, and smiles shyly at Lizzie and Charlotte. "Hey there," he says. "What can I get you?"

"Couple of beers please," says Charlotte, smiles as he gives them to her, happily hands over the change, and then watches him vanish behind the curtain.

Lizzie narrows her eyes, plotting. "You should ask him out."

Charlotte whips round. "What? Don Zamzow? Are you serious?"

Lizzie shrugs. "He's cute."

Charlotte shakes her head. "Not my type. You go after him."

"No," says Lizzie slowly. "I'm going back to Chicago tomorrow."

Charlotte shrugs. "Oh well. So," she says, "to you, and your new job."

They clink bottles, creating an aura of congratulatory good luck, and at that very moment there comes the sound of a clearing throat and "Elizabeth Bennet? Are you…you are aren't you?"

Yes. Something akin to a cliffhanger. And, maybe some plot. Who knew? Now, since you've all waited so patiently, and I forgot to post before I went on holiday, and this chapter is surprisingly short (I had been congratulating myself for freakishly being able to write a consistent 2,500ish. Not so much any more), I think I will go and post another one. Also, because you leave me nice reviews, and I do so enjoy that.