AN: Just FYI, I've changed Caroline's diminutive to Caz (I didn't bother updating it in the previous chapters) because Caro is not short enough and doesn't sound Aussie enough. It's a small thing. I am still in two minds about this one, but I will try to finish it properly. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 7

By unspoken agreement, we start walking, completely ignoring the electricity in the air. I am grateful she didn't slap me away and leave me on the beach to hobble home alone. I offered to walk on further to Bing's place and attempt to invent an excuse that would satisfy Errol, but she will not lie, and she still insists I need to be assessed medically. I'm pretty sure I wasn't unconscious when she thought I was, I think I had simply wanted to close my eyes and stop moving for a while, and her lap was a pretty sweet place to do that.

The more I walk, the stronger I feel. She asks me questions about my life, my work, my family and she shares a little about her hopes for her career and her future. She's passionate and serious but has a wicked sense of humour that comes out when she describes her family and when she teases me. She looks at me perplexed sometimes, as if she's not quite sure why she's comfortable around me or why she's talking to me at all. I'm beginning to wonder the same myself. I'm telling her how I feel and what my life has been like, with no names or details, but it's still much more intimate information than I have ever shared with anyone outside of my family.

My brain is beginning to exert some control and it becomes clear what trouble I am in. She swings the light into my face a few times but what she sees obviously satisfies her, so she keeps walking. I begin to panic and over analyse everything – the things I've said to her, the fact I kissed her! What was I thinking? I didn't lie to her, I meant what I said, but I have never been inclined to share what I really think to someone I'd spoken to for what , a grand total of 90 seconds, prior to sharing an hour-long life-threatening adventure, as she put it. Our little adventure, she had said. As amazing as our connection seems, I still know nothing about her. But who really thinks of that when they fall in love? Where did that come from?! I am not falling in love!

We are close to camp before we see anyone and are making our way towards the campsite before we encounter a group of people gathered around an empty firepit, chatting. Elizabeth runs ahead and has a few quiet words before the assembled turn as one to see me slowly walking up, wearing nothing but her towel and hoodie and carrying my pants. Having pretty much recovered from the physical ordeal over an hour ago, I am looking pretty much like the "Norse god" rake that I feel. I'm not surprised my welcome is a little more frosty than Elizabeth's. I don't see Jane among the group and assume Bing is wherever she is. I go back to being awkward and silent. Elizabeth is going to have to do all the talking.

Once the story is explained, suspicion turns to compassion and soon I'm ushered in and taken directly to the first aid room. Bing turns up and promises to get some dry clothes for me as the quiz night is going ahead despite our little ocean detour getting in the way of Elizabeth setting up. I'm recovered enough to know I'm not recovered enough for an alcohol-free youth camp BBQ and quiz night, but whatever. I'm not going to play the victim card, after protesting so vehemently and only agreeing to a medical exam under extreme sufferance.

Elizabeth returns with Charlotte, the paramedic, and then leaves me to her expert care. Her eyes flare slightly when she sees me, but otherwise she is the consummate professional. Knowing full well that I am fatigued but otherwise healthy, I try not to sound like a petulant child and keep my eye rolls to myself. She accepts my request not to touch me when I demonstrate the physical capacity to walk straight and there are clearly no broken bones from my ordeal. She takes a good long look everywhere, and I can tell when her examination concludes that I am fine, though she does have a good look in my eyes and asks all the right cognitive recognition questions, repeating them at random to make sure I'm definitely stable. Then she asks the important question.

"Lizzy doesn't know who you are at all, does she?" It's a statement, really, not a question.

"Do you know who I am?" I deflect, poorly.

"Fitzwilliam Darcy, CEO of DG International, son of the late George Andrew Darcy, apparently successfully digging himself and his company out of the corruption scandal his late father's dealings put him in. A recluse, with a very tight circle, rarely seen in public, and when he does show his face, is generally aloof, dismissive and arrogant."

"Hmm. Didn't figure you for a socialite or do you just memorise the business section of The West on a regular basis?" I hate it when people think they know me because they've read a bio or something. My disdain shows.

"Definitely not a socialite. Do read the paper, but everything I know about you I learned from my former life waiting tables at the WA Club, among other exclusive establishments. I have a better idea of how the other half really live. I've had to pick up the pieces for more than one poor unfortunate server who got on your wrong side. You sure have a mean streak."

"Well, I can't argue with your opinion, but you know what they say about first impressions." It isn't hard recalling the man I was not that long ago and letting him take over. I don't have to prove anything to this woman and quite frankly I'm instantly annoyed she thinks she has right to question me.

She looks at me in wry disbelief, but I can't be sure if it is the disdain in my tone or my actual words that she finds questionable. "Lizzy is one of a kind, with a maturity far beyond her years, but she is also sweet, kind and innocent. Your world, its values – it means nothing to her, to any of us." I know every word she says is true, and that she is only being protective of Elizabeth, but I still choose to lean into the disdain, falling into the mask I use for self-preservation.

"My world is where I live - I won't pretend to be someone I'm not, and to be honest, it's probably best if everyone walks away expecting very little from me." I rise from the examination bed, just as a knock heralds the return of Elizabeth with a bag of clean clothes for me. She has showered and carries a spare towel and some toiletries, clearly intending to offer the use of their ablution block.

"Charlotte, is he ok? So, I have a clean towel and some stuff if you want to take a shower. I'm sure Charles will be back soon with your own clothes for you, but just in case. I have to help Jane set up, we are a bit behind time." She hands the items to me as she speaks, looking first at Charlotte and then in my general direction, clearly too embarrassed to make eye contact. Perhaps it is my imposing frame, towering over them both, half naked save for a towel, her towel.

My indignation fades as I take her in, and when she finally glances up at me, we are both caught in that indefinable space between for a few moments, and I know peace and terror in equal measures. She swallows and disappears as fast as she arrived. The flush of adrenalin screaming "Flight!" is at its zenith and I realise Charlotte has not taken her eyes off me once. Her eyes are still wary but filled with new questions. What did she think she knew of me? Her antagonism suits my purposes better than the benefit of her doubts, so I throw her a dismissive sneer and ask her permission to shower as I walk out the door.

Bing drops my clothes off just as I am done and tells me he will be outside helping with the BBQ and will save me a seat at their table for the quiz night later. Debating whether I should just dress and walk home to the Shack, I give in to my desire to see Elizabeth again. She has become Elizabeth in my mind, it suits her better, she's more than just a common Lizzy, and I like to believe that she didn't object to my use of her full name, because she likes the sound of it as much as I do.

The grassed area is full of people milling around, seated on picnic rugs or camp chairs, eating hot dogs and burgers. I don't see Elizabeth anywhere as I circle the courtyard. I notice Charlotte chatting to Errol and a few other leaders, briefly glancing at me, so I know she's filling them in. I guess everybody important knows who I am now. I continue to hold myself apart, not returning the smiles of the guys I had played Frisbee with earlier and shutting down any and all attempts at conversation, even when they begin with apologies for not noticing I had fallen off the edge of the earth while out swimming. They probably are Flat-Earthers. My rising anxiety is making me cranky and I can feel my heart rate increase. I am about to take off when someone hands me a hot dog. It tastes fantastic, so I eat 2 more as I walk around, and then I spot her in the mess hall setting up for the quiz night. I grab another dog from the table and 2 cans of lemonade and make my way to her.

She hasn't noticed me as she and Jane try to solve a problem with the projector, but I can see the moment she sees me out of the corner of her eye, because she stiffens just a little and whispers to Jane, who disappears into an adjacent room.

"I wasn't sure if you had eaten anything, so I brought you an amazing hot dog and an average lemonade? Sorry, I didn't get anything for Jane."

"That's ok. I expect the hot dog is pretty average too, but anything would taste amazing to a starving man who just threw up the contents of about 4 peoples' stomachs an hour ago." She chuckles at her own joke. "Thank you, I hadn't eaten anything yet, I was just going to hoover up the leftovers once we got everything ready for tonight." She takes an enormous bite of the hot dog, chewing with full cheeks and I fall a little more in love with her. I take a sip of lemonade and just watch her eat.

She watches me back, while demolishing the hot dog in three and a half bites, before she reaches for my lemonade. She arches a brow at me as she takes a swig, sipping at the drips of lemonade caught on the lip before she hands it back to me. "I can't drink a whole can of that fizzy stuff, it makes me burp like an alcoholic, but I like to taste a little." I cannot express how utterly revolted I usually am at the sharing of food and beverages between persons, even related persons, so the fact that I calmly accept it back and then proceed take a drink from the same can, as though I was part of the great unwashed proletariat who need to share drinking vessels, is only a mind-blowing leap forward to me.

Until Bing bangs on the glass door, opens it and mouths with the appropriate hand gestures and amazement, "You shared her drink?!" He laughs and says audibly, "I don't even know who you are anymore, mate!" before pointing apologetically at the three people walking along the windows towards him. Caroline is shooting daggers at Elizabeth, and Louisa and Henry are gazing around them as though they're trying to figure out where the bad smell is coming from. Bing ushers them away from the hall and towards the BBQ, introducing them to all the people he met today as though he's known them all his life. I sigh enviously, and yet also with a tiny bit of satisfaction that I am in here and he is not me.

Elizabeth is still studying me curiously. "I wasn't lying about the phobia thing. Have you heard of obsessive-compulsive disorder? I had kind of gotten used to the way my life is and I don't really understand what's changed, why it's you, and I just, I just wanted to see you." Seeing Bingley's sisters reminds me of the world I live in now, and how much it cost me to maintain it. The reflex to protect myself takes over as I feel the prickle of anxiety that is threatening to turn into a full-blown panic attack. I don't know how to be with her and get through this, so I do what I do best.

"But this place, these people, it's too much and I-I don't belong here. I don't know how to be here… I can't do this." My hands are miming a collision or explosion because I have no words. She's shaking her head, and reaches towards me, but I am driven by powerful primal emotions and the mask drops into place to hide the terror behind it. I flinch away but my ingrained pride won't let me show weakness. The panic turns to anger, and she becomes the focus. "This is not my world, you have no idea what it has cost me to get past what the incurably and intrusively helpful did to me out of the goodness of their self-righteous hearts. I distrust the noble and pure of heart because nobody is that good. There's always an angle, they always want something from me and you are no different!" Her compassion crumbles in the face of my pointed finger.

I walk away without challenge and shoulder my way through the door. I can see Caz, Louisa and Henry on the periphery of the crowd. Their contempt and derision are evident. They are whispering to each other, and I know exactly what remarks they are making. I melt away from the crowd, unnoticed by any, other than Elizabeth, and pad silently through the grounds towards the beach. I have spent years beside the Bingleys, silently accepting the shield they provided as cover for my inability to truly relate to the rest of the world like a normal human being. They will shield me again.

The darkness and the distant roar of the breakers swallow me whole.