Gentle Reader,

Forgive me, I hate long author's notes, but this might get lengthy.

I had so many update plans this summer! So many! I have an actual outline somewhere. Then, like an idiot, I fell down the cement stairs to my apartment and broke my wrist in five pieces (I've always been an overachiever) and sprained my ankle. The ankle thing isn't relevant, it didn't stop my typing, but I'm not real happy about it, so I'm venting a little.

I guess the fanfiction deities are getting revenge on me for Lizzie's ankle at the tulip garden. Zero out of ten, do not recommend, go down the stairs the traditional way.

Tldr; sorry this is late, bad accident.

Love,

RobinDesBois

A Bottle of Red

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a girlfriend and a ring, must be in want of a wife.

Which is why Darcy started thinking fast when he heard Lizzie on the phone saying she'd check with him to see if they were able to attend Fitz and Brandon's New Years part.

"Oh, speak of the devil," she said, hanging up and spotting him in the doorway.

"A devil, am I? Devilishly handsome, I suppose," he smiled and slid his hands around her waist.

"Indeed, you're certainly handsome enough to tempt me," Lizzie laughed, biting her lip.

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?" he sighed.

"I certainly hope not. Fitz just called, are we doing anything New Year's Eve?"

"No, but I was kind of hoping I could persuade you to go out for some Italian that night? They have a live band and a dance floor for the evening, but we'd need to make the reservations soon. I've heard they fill up really quickly for New Years. Then I thought maybe we could continue the...romantic evening when we get home? Celebrate the new year, just the two of us?" He looked so hopeful that Lizzie couldn't have said no, even if she wanted to. Which she did not.

"That sounds perfect, but I'll only go on one condition. You've got to tell Fitz and Brandon we're not coming."

"Worth it," he agreed with a kiss on her forehead.

When they walked into the restaurant on New Year's Eve, the main portion of the dining area had been converted with a rentable dancing floor and the band was playing The Way You Look Tonight, and about a dozen couples were swing dancing on the floor as the hostess carefully led them around the rearranged dining room to their reserved table, on which there was placed a small brown paper package.

"What is this?" Lizzie asked as soon as she was seated, reaching for the package. William reached out and caught her hand, bringing it to his lips for a kiss.

"Not yet, my love, it's a surprise for dessert," he whispered in her ear before taking his seat.

"You brought our own dessert?"

"No, it's a gift you get to open when we eat dessert."

"You do realize that Christmas was last week, right, Will?"

"Of course I do, it's not a Christmas gift."

"If we're giving gifts for New Years, you're getting an IOU."

"It's a gift for both of us. And you're not going to get me to tell."

Lizzie ordered garganelli with a salad, William bucatini and roasted squash. William carefully steered the conversation away from the small package between them, trying to keep himself from getting too nervous to finish what he had begun. I've crossed the Rubicon now, he told himself. He tried to focus on what Lizzie was saying about her company's next project when the waiter arrived with dessert.

"Here's the chocolate cake you ordered, one minute til midnight," the jovial waiter announced.

"Can I open this not-Christmas present now?" Lizzie inquired. William nodded.

Lizzie smiled as she slowly tore the paper off a beautiful leather bound journal.

"Open it," William encouraged, trying to ignore the anxiety building up in his stomach.

Lizzie turned to the first page, which was filled with William's neat cursive writing. Old fashioned, just like him. Lizzie smiled as she turned the pages, realizing he had written quotes from some of her favorite books in the journal, and below them attached photos of the two of them.

"For hope is always born at the same time as love." -Don Quixote, with a photo her mother had taken of 'the most awkward dance ever' at the Gibson wedding.

"Roses are red, violets are blue, you may not know it, but I love you, too." -The Princess Diaries, with a still from her YouTube, right before he admitted he loved her for the first time.

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it...I have loved none but you." -Persuasion. Below, he had attached a still of her YouTube channel right before she had kissed him for the first time.

They paused at this page to countdown to midnight with their fellow diners and share a midnight kiss before Lizzie continued reading.

"But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much." -As You Like It, above a still from her Q and A video, after she had told him she would have gone to the theater with him

"Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare...perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways." -Anne of Avonlea. A photo Gigi had taken of them while they were moving her things into his apartment.

"Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still." -Jane Eyre with a ridiculously sideways and slightly out of focus selfie she had insisted on taking with him while on pain medication for her broken ankle.

"Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!" -Wuthering Heights, above two goofy selfies they had texted to each other when he was in New York.

"But we loved with a love that was more than love-With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven-Coveted her and me."-Annabelle Lee, with a photo of them dancing -noticably less awkwardly than on the first page- taken at Jane and Bing's wedding.

"I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be." -Anna Karenina, above a photo Fitz had taken of them in front of the tree at the Pemberley Digital Christmas party two weeks before.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach." -Elizabeth Barret Browning above...nothing.

She turned to the next page and found it blank-but with the burgundy ribbon bookmark hanging down between the pages.

Tied to the ribbon was a silver engagement ring.

Lizzie gasped and looked up at William, who took a deep breath, stood up, and sank down to one knee in front of her. She put the book down on the table still open to the ring as he reached for her hand, her eyes watering slightly.

"Elizabeth Bennet," he said, swallowing and trying not to let his hands shake. Looking into her eyes, he took a steadying breath and realized that all the speeches he had rehearsed in his head were superfluous. He loved her, and now she loved him back. This was right.

"I've loved you from the moment of our first meeting. I didn't always show it well, but if you'll let me, I'll spend the rest of my life showing you how much you mean to me. Will you marry me?"

"Yes. Yes, of course, Will," Lizzie laughed while reaching to pull him up. William caught her around the waist and spun her around, both of them laughing loudly, forgetting their audience of fellow diners for a few seconds before the sound of applause pierced their bubble.

Lizzie blushed as William set her back on her feet, his jaw withdrawing towards his neck as they returned to their seats. Neither could stop smiling. William gently untied the ribbon in the journal to release the ring and slid it onto her third finger before pulling her hand to his mouth and placing a kiss on the back of her hand right above her new ring.

"Will, I would marry you using the twist tie from a loaf of bread, but this ring is gorgeous," Lizzie said as they dug into the dessert.

"I'm glad you like it, Lizzie, it was my mother's." Lizzie's eyes got big.

"It was your mother's? Shouldn't it be Gigi's? I don't want to take that from her, wouldn't she be upset?"

"Woah, woah, Lizzie. Gigi wants you to have it. I asked her opinion on some rings to narrow it down and she walked to the safe and handed it to me. She said it was yours now. She does say she wants the sapphire earrings, though."

"You're entirely certain?"

"Entirely."

"One more question. Who's going to tell my mother?"