OK, here it is. You have all been utterly, fantastically amazing. We still have an epilogue to go, but the story itself ends at the bottom of the page. Enjoy.

I believe you dropped something

There are awkward silences and then there are awkward silences. This, is the latter.

"Well," says George, as she edges towards the door. "I think I'll go and make a drink." She has all but dived through the door before I hear myself say, "I'll help you," and I get up and follow her close behind. The moment the kitchen door closes, I lean back on it, and groan.

"You know I was trying to give you guys some space," George says as she dumps her laptop on the kitchen island unit.

"I know," I groan, heels of my hands pressed against my eyes.

"Because, you know, he just said a pretty big thing in there, and I thought you might need to, I don't know, respond in some way?"

"Yeah," I say, hands now totally covering my face.

"And much as I consider myself an excellent hostess, I wasn't going to make drinks for you. I was going to come out here, make myself a tea, and then hide in my bedroom for a while."

"Yeah."

I hear a gaping silence as she, no doubt, stares at me, hard, but finally I hear her sigh and the sounds of a kettle being filled. I open one eye.

"You're going to have to talk to him sometime. It was a big thing for him to say. I mean, I know he's said it before…"

"He told you?"

She leans against the counter. "Yeah."

I consider whacking my head against the door. I decide that it probably isn't the best plan that I've ever had. I shuffle over to the bar stools at the island and sit on one. "I nearly hit him that last time."

George smiles a little. "He deserved it."

"He said that?"

She smiles further. "He told me everything, including just how much of an ass he was." She starts assembling the required things needed for a pot of tea. Finally, breaking the silence, she says, "Lizzie, you know, he's changed. Since then, I mean. I think it was all you."

I look at her through my fingers.

"He was a miserable workaholic, completely fell for you, and then said and did some stupid things. I don't…" She pauses, a mug in hand as she stops midway through getting out the crockery. "I'm not telling you how you feel, or that you have to return his feelings, or even that he has still completely thought this through or anything…but he does not put himself on the line like this. He has barely given anyone a chance to get near him in years. It's been you that has broken down these walls. I'm just saying, maybe…give him a chance."

I sigh. "And don't break his heart."

She smiles and gets down the other two mugs. "Right."

A few minutes of silence later, George pushes two mugs of tea to me. "Talk to him." She picks up her own mug and walks out, shaking her head to herself.

Left alone I stare at the mugs for a few silent second. "Will," I murmur, rehearsing, "I'm…it's…I…" I hear my Dad's voice in my head, echoing back through all my stubborn moments and refusals to help. 'Lizzie sweet pea,' he'd say. 'Just do it.' Damn him and his Nike philosophy.

With a sigh which sounds a little more like a groan, I pick up the mugs and walk back through to the living room, to find Will poking the fire, rousing it back into life. He glances over his shoulder and smiles, then turns back to the flaming wood.

"Thanks," he says.

"Oh, it's fine," I say, lamely. "George made it."

I sit down and sip the tea. Finally, he sits down in one of the armchairs, and draws his tea to him, breathing in the steam for a second, eyes closed in bliss. "She makes a good cup," he says, and smiles again.

"Look," I say, addressing the massive elephant in the room. "I didn't react properly."

His mouth quirks into another smile. "I wasn't expecting you to leap into my arms. Then again," he says, with a rueful look, "I wasn't exactly expecting to say anything."

I breathe out. I hadn't really realised that I was holding it in. "We should talk about it though."

His smile drops a little. "We don't have to," he says quietly. "I don't want to torture a response out of you."

"Thumb screws?"

The dimples make a brief reappearance. They really can still make my stomach jump. "I seemed to remember that you were in favour of crushing your victims."

I frown briefly.

"You know," he says. "In the car? On the way to church, when we stayed over after the fundraiser?"

Right. Wow. He has a good memory. "How is your concussion?"

He smiles a bit more, and hides it behind a sip of tea. "It's been making me act a bit differently recently." He looks away for a moment, down at the fire.

"I heard that it was the other behaviour that was out of character."

He shrugs. "Maybe."

I take a deep breath. "Can you promise me that that other Will won't make a reappearance?"

"What, the miserable up-tight one?" He looks straight at me and shrugs a little. "No."

I feel my shoulders drop in disappointment.

"I can't promise it, Lizzie, but…" He sighs, and smiles a little. "I'll do my damnedest to make it happen. I'd do anything to be even half worthy of you," he says with another rueful shrug.

I feel propelled out my seat and end up standing in front of him. He isn't looking at me. He appears to be studying our feet. I sit down on the edge of the coffee table. "Will," I say softly, a hand on his. He looks up, uncertainty in his eyes. "You were always this person, even when you were miserable and up-tight. You were always incredible, and…" I pause trying to find the words. His fingers curl around mine. "I was angry that you didn't act like I thought you should."

He nods a little, his other hand covering both of ours.

"Will, since then, you've been the most thoughtful, the most extraordinary…you really are the most worthy guy that I've ever met."

He smiles a little and I reach out to his face. He smiles more and leans in to my palm. "Tell me again," I say. "Tell me again what you said last Christmas."

His smiles grows. "What, that we're cut from different cloth and that your family is hard work?"

I pinch his ear. "No."

He laughs a real, rumbly laugh and finally says, "that I love you?"

I breathe out a breath a year long. "Yeah."

He readjusts his hold on my hand, and sits forward. "Well then. Lizzie, I need to be honest with you."

I laugh and reach to pinch him again. He ducks.

"But," he continues, suddenly serious, "I love you. Full on, no regrets, no caveats on family and friends, no unrealistic expectations. Just that."

"Well then," I say. "I guess that I should be honest too."

He smiles, and draws my hand up to his lips.

"I love you. I think I probably have ever since I dragged you out of that fundraiser to look at the stars."

His gaze shimmers, and he too lets out a deep breath, warm against my fingers.

"No regrets. No stupid stuff. No talk of not being worthy. All right?"

He smiles and says, "all right," then pulls me up and into his lap. He kisses me, briefly, then quite easily and naturally, I curl up, my head on his shoulder, hand in his, his arm around me. We stay like sleeping otters, gazing at the fire, safe and comfortable that just for now, everything is going to be all right. Softly, he murmurs, "he who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind whose virtues which it possesses."

"Emerson?" I ask, my voice fuzzy with sleepy contentment.

"Emerson," he agrees, then holds me close as I fall asleep in his arms.

I could swear that I wasn't that badly injured, despite what I might let some think, and yet I'm starting to think that I was cracked on the head hard enough that I may have gone mad. The door closes, and I turn stiffly to smile at Jane, hoping to mask my insanity. She, however, is frowning. She knows. She knows I'm mad and is about to have me committed. She…

"Am I crazy, or were they holding hands?"

Thank God. "You saw it too?" I say. "I thought that I was mad."

She smiles. "You are, honey, but not about this."

"I had a concussion," I remind her. "You remember what happened to that Colin kid in that show?"

She smiles again, reasonably patronisingly. "Sweetheart, that Colin kid had been in a coma, had bone fragments removed from his brain stem, and only then went a little weird. You were unconscious for ten minutes, and even then they said you had a mild concussion."

"Yeah, well, be nice to me."

She grins and pats my hand. "All right, as long as you stop watching teen dramas."

I laugh, despite it all. "Fine. So when did Will and Lizzie happen?"

She shrugs, then winces at she regrets it. "I don't know," she says, finally. "I thought that she hated him."

"I'm pretty sure that he has been head over heels for her for well over a year."

"Are you serious?" Her eyes are wide. "I thought it was just a passing moment of…I don't know. Madness."

"Nope. I mean, even the President elect knew enough to make him come here this whole weekend."

"He was here for you."

I smile. "I've barely seen him. He's been in a few times, but even then his mind has been entirely on other things. You know," I add, "had anything happened to you he was ready to reek vengeance on me, for Lizzie."

She smiles slowly. "That's sweet."

"No," I say. "He would have killed me."

"But for her."

"I would have been dead!"

"All right," she finally says, and threads her fingers through mine. "You know, nearly killing us both was quite a drastic way to get out of planning a wedding."

I grin, stand up even more stiffly, and climb onto the space that she has vacated, scooching over her bed. "You should know," I say, my good arm round her, "that I'd marry you even if we couldn't have a jazz band and white roses and red velvet cake and, you know…"

"I know," she murmurs, and she reaches up carefully to kiss me.

"And I'd go through with it even if you had the band just play Hilary Duff covers and had thirty bridesmaids."

"OK."

"And even if you made me wear pink. Like a really girly, Barbie pink."

"As opposed to manly pink."

"Yeah."

"OK," she says. "Good to know."

"Well. I'm just saying. I love you."

She smiles and kisses me again. "I love you too." She pauses, a hand on my face. "And I'm not going to make you wear pink."

"Oh, thank goodness. Wait, does that mean that you are having Hilary Duff covers…?"

Two weeks later

The old Bennet's Farm house creaks with age, and the windows rattle against the chilly winds, but inside, it is snug and warm, largely, because it is packed with people. Exhausted, Rex climbs into bed after a long day of work on the farm, combined with sizing up potential family members, and extraneous Christmas chores.

"Ouf," he groans, tucking the sheets around him, then finally turns to his wife. "Hello," he says, and smiles and she rolls into him.

"So what do you think?" she asks, clearly having held it in all day so that her daughters wouldn't hear.

"Of what? Will?"

"Yeah," she says, " and his sister, and him with Lizzie, and…everything."

He shrugs. "I liked him back last year. I thought then that he'd be a good match for Lizzie."

"She hated him! I thought she still did until she asked if he could come for Christmas."

He laughs. "He's stubborn and fiery, but more than that, he's honest. He's Lizzie all over again." He considers for a second then says, "you know, it was him who sorted things out for Lyddie."

Fran leans back and frowns. "What are you talking about?"

He shrugs. "He was with Lizzie when she found out. He found them, he baled them out, and all on the understanding that they came home."

"I thought that they hated each other."

"You already said…"

She sighs. "Not Lizzie and Will. George and Will."

He shrugs again. "He put it behind him. All for Lizzie."

They lie there in silence for a few minutes. "Is that then," asks Fran, "why George suddenly said that they'd go to his mother's for Christmas?"

"Because of Will being here?"

"Mmm."

"Maybe." Rex looks down on his wife. "I know we've made jokes about George as our dream son-in-law but you know, maybe he's really making an effort. For the rest of us, I mean."

"Maybe," she repeats. She curls up in Rex's arm. "You think he loves her?"

"Will?"

"Mmm."

He smiles against her hair. "I guess I'll find out tomorrow when I take him out for a walk."