A/N: Still struggling toward health. We begin the fourth arc with a briefer, reflective chapter. Longer chapters ahead. Sorry for the delay.

Pride, Prejudice, and Pretense

Chapter 18: Compunction

Lizzy's tears stopped for long enough for her to take off her clothes and put on something to sleep in.

Her shed clothes she wadded up and threw into a shadowy corner of her closet, hiding them from her sight, hoping to keep them from reminding her of Wickham, the horrible dizziness she had felt — her heart capsizing and sinking in a kitchen vortex of shame and disgust.

She was not sure (not entirely sure) why she had cried once Darcy closed the door. She was sure that her heart had swollen and beat faster at his parting words. And then everything had seemed impossibly too much.

Mission impossible. Idiotic cliché.

Darcy's words had been a promise — and a promise of a promise all at once. Maybe that didn't quite make sense, but it was how it felt at the time and still felt. Like an engagement. Again. But not Ned. — Stop it, Lizzy!

But what had been promised, what promise had been promised?

The words were brief but deep, personal, a promise about the mission but not merely a mission promise, professional. Sealed with a kiss.

Committed. Together.

Darcy was not a man to speak lightly, Lizzy knew; he paid attention to his words. He spoke deliberately and reservedly. Even exhausted and emotionally spent, he was careful. It felt like he was projecting beyond the mission too, speaking beyond it, his words both encircling them now and reaching ahead of them. Wanting her to understand that but leaving it implicit. They couldn't talk about this explicitly until they were done with the Wicker Man, done with Wickham. It was too early for her to feel this way, for him to feel this way, and it was absolutely the wrong setting for the occurrence and the growth of such feelings. Mission impossible. But hearts had schedules of which missions knew nothing. Sometimes your eyes obscure your vision.

She turned off the lights and stretched out on the bed, staring up at the darkened ceiling, as if its pattern of shadow and dim street lights might suggest a path forward, hieroglyphically.

But she found no answers there.

As she finally began to relax, she saw her father's face in the shadows above her. Why was he so much on her mind? Because it had been him, his life, and especially his death, that had started her in this life, that had sent her into the dark.

God, I loved him so much when I was little! And she had. So much.

But as she grew older, she began to see him for the man he was. But I never stopped loving him. His habitual center of personal energy was his satirical view of life, his merciless satire of others but also of himself. He had good principles, in some sense — but they were on the periphery of who he was, and never had that last acuteness, that touch of explosive intensity, that would allow them to irrupt into his life and subdue the satire, the irony, allow him to take his life and other lives seriously. He could sometimes acknowledge that he was in the wrong but not bring himself into the right, not by main strength anyway, although sometimes outer events would conspire to move him there.

By the time Lizzy was in college, she had loved her father and been chagrined by him almost equally. He had been the head cheerleader of her plan to become a professor, to devote her life to books. He had done the same but as an amateur, shut in his study, armored by pages.

If she was honest — and tonight she was being honest with herself, she was too tired, too demoralized for self-deception — her father had created her self-compunction. She had delighted in her father's satire and irony as a girl, encouraging it, imitating it herself, internalizing it, delighting him. But later and older, she began to wonder if her growing difficulties with people, her reluctances with Jim Haden, for example, resulted from having made her father's habitual center of personal energy her own. Her worry about whether she could get a job teaching Literature or succeed at it if she did was her deepest worry about herself. That worry was that she would retreat into her books much as her father had, hide in them. Cloak herself in fiction. Distance herself from real life by rhetorical means. Hide. She had done that in high school, dodging much of the storm and stress of those years in the carrels of school or the public library.

Fanny Prince really was not a stretch for me. Darcy's instinct was true. Like his choice of Fanny's cover clothes. — It had been him, she was now sure.

Maybe she had chosen the Company to try and force herself into closeness with life, contact with it, and to do some good — to create a new center of energy for herself, a new set of ideas to live by and live for. But working for the Company was about survival, not about living. It was like that harsh pun in Walden. "The people who are said to live in Concord." The suggestion was that they didn't live there — or anywhere. "The people who are said to live in the Company."

Her job distanced her from life not rhetorically (a trope between her and life) but by means of darkness and shadows (a cover between her and life). Her attempt to escape her father's influence led her into a drumly version of the very cage she feared. Cut off. Armored. Hidden. Undercover. Cloaked in fiction after all. Pages.

The pages of Company files and not the pages of books.

But this mission, Darcy, had put her into contact with herself, life, her life, and what she wanted. Now wanted. Non-fiction. It was perhaps late in the day for conversion but she felt like that was what had happened, was happening to her. Deep and impactful change. She was in transition from disunity to unity, and it seemed that the unity she had not yet reached was nonetheless pulling her forward. Perhaps, after her last mission, what she had thought was exhaustion had been in large part a stirring apathy, a rising disrelish, for the half-life she was leading.

She wanted a different life.

No, I want a life.

That hope carried her to sleep.

She slept dreamlessly, deeply, and late.

A vibrating phone woke her, a woody sound. She rolled over and slid open the nightstand drawer. It was her personal phone, shaking against the wooden bottom of the drawer. She could see the caller's name.

Jane

Lizzy sat up and rubbed her eyes, blinking.

The fall sun was shining outside, bright, blinding, even with the rays elongated by the season. The dark vortex of the night before was gone; her bedroom, the apartment, was stable, with no rotation.

Why is Jane calling me?

"Hello, Jane?"

"Lizzy, hey! Did I wake you?" Jane's voice was excited but quiet.

Lizzy smiled lazily though she knew Jane could not see. "You did, but I needed to be up anyway, and you're a welcome alarm. How are you?"

"Fine, but I'm worried about you — you all. Darcy told Bingley to call me and to tell me to call you. He seemed to think you could use a friend…"

Lizzy felt warmth fill her chest, Darcy's regard. "He was right, Jane. It's great to hear your voice."

"Yours too." Jane paused and then launched into her reason for calling. "So, without giving me details, can you tell me what's happening? Why's Darcy worried enough about you to continue to breach protocol? To encourage it?"

Lizzy blew out a breath with enough force that Jane could hear it. "Well, it's not easy to explain without details."

"Is it the mark?"

Lizzy was silent for a moment. "Partly. He's complex, an evil man, devoted to the corruption of otherwise good women — and he knows how to press his advantage."

"Press his advantage?" Jane asked, sounding worried, sounding as if she understood exactly what Lizzy meant, being pinned by Wickham against the counter.

"Nothing's happened — well, not much. His hands…have been…on me. He's unleashed the full-court press. Tomorrow, I've agreed to travel with him."

"Travel? With him? That's risky, Lizzy, seriously risky. You cede control to him for real, and your backup can only be reactive, not proactive."

"I know, Jane. But I'm close. The mark wants…me…badly enough that he's willing to take me with him. He doesn't suspect me; I'm sure. This is by far our best chance to lure him into a mistake, a revelation. So far, we haven't got anything solid."

Jane was silent for a long minute. "I don't think I ever told you, but back when I was working as an analyst, I worked with a team, a man and a woman, I'll leave their names out of it, and… she did something similar. Agreed to travel with her mark. She ended up not being able to get word to her partner about where he had taken her. Her phone died, as I recall. A freak thing. He took her to a motel and…unleashed the full-court press…and she ended up yielding to him, closing her eyes, and sleeping with him."

Jane cleared her throat. "She convinced herself it would secure the mission objectives, make the mark pliable, forthcoming. But he beat her, after, savagely — nearly killed her. It was never clear if he identified as an agent somehow — or if he just was done with her. But he vanished and she did that — for nothing. She spent weeks in the hospital and then in CIA therapy, Lizzy, and I don't know if she ever fully recovered, body or mind."

Jane paused. When she continued, her voice was insistent, pointed. "Don't ever think of your body as a tool, Lizzy, or of sex as something…on your toolbelt. A mission means. Maybe there are agents who can dissociate from themselves to that degree, and maybe stay healthy, at least sane, but you're not one of them, Lizzy. I know you — you're integral, one, not two. You feel deeply.

"In mission situations like that, it's too easy to start a slippery slope argument with yourself. 'Well, if his hands are here, how much worse is it if they move there? Or if I let him do this, how much worse is that?…' You've always been eager, too eager, to please Kellynch, Lizzy, resist that urge now." Jane's voice sank to an intercessory whisper. "Think about what you're doing."

"I am. I'm not eager to please Kellynch, Jane. Not anymore. Things have changed since I've been here. This is it for me. I finish this mission and then — I find another job, another life." The resolution in Lizzy's voice surprised Jane, she gasped quietly. "My motives…have changed. What I want has changed?"

"What — ?" Jane asked, still doubtful. "You mean it, don't you?"

"I do. I think I've sort of known it for a while; my last mission left me so empty. I took it to be exhaustion, and that was part of it, I was tired. I am tired. So tired. But I was done, done. I just hadn't owned it yet, hadn't realized it yet. When I took this mission, crazily, I was grasping at straws, angry at Darcy, but I was really fighting my own unacknowledged desire to be done, trying to force myself back in."

"By taking the kind of mission you hate, that you normally refuse?"

"In for a dime, in for a dollar…" Lizzy said, still reconsidering her decision, her choice in Kellynch's office, what she had actually done.

"So you doubled down, but ended up with a mission that truly finished you, instead of recommitting you?"

"Basically, yes. Jane, do you think I'm a fool?"

"No, of course not. But I do wonder if you're telling me all that's relevant. There's something else, isn't there?"

Lizzy sat for a moment, pulling her mind fully back to the present. "There is. Darcy."

"Darcy? What do you mean?"

"I have feelings for him, Jane. Deep…feelings."

Jane started to say something but stopped it, making only an unintelligible sound. After a moment, she started again. "So soon?"

"Yes, — and you know I've never had any history of falling for mission partners."

"No, but you mostly work alone." Oh, right. "Are you sure, Lizzy, sure of yourself, I mean? You remember the Farm. The anxiety and intensity of many missions, especially seduction missions, can create…illusory feelings. The agent starts believing her own pretense. I've seen it happen. Partners in deep cover, pretending to be a couple, and they start believing they are a couple. But then the mission ends and the illusion melts away, like frosting on a still too-warm cake. It all slides away and they're left as their own marks. Surely, you remember cautions against this at the Farm."

She did. She had not brought them explicitly to mind but they had been there, drilled into her long ago, not now in the front of her mind but ultimately unforgettable.

"I do remember. — But this isn't that. I'm not duping myself and neither is he."

"So, he's told you he had deep feelings for you too?"

"Yes. No. Sort of. He's reluctant — as I am — to let it all begin, go too far, while we still have the mission to finish. For professional — and personal reasons…"

"And you think he's ready to make the same sort of decision you are, he's done, ready to leave the spy world for a normal life with you?"

"I don't know," Lizzy confessed in a rushed breath. "Maybe. He wants something with me."

"Something, Lizzy? Are you sure it's not just a vacation, a long weekend, when the mission ends? Play out the tension between you and then part company?"

"So, you think he's hoping we'll be, what, partners with eventual benefits?"

"No. I don't know what to think. I'm just trying to make sure you're thinking straight. I admit Darcy's done a kind of about-face where Bingley and I are concerned — and, I'm making this call ultimately because he asked Bingley to ask me to call you. I'd say it's obvious that…something had changed with Mister MI-6. It may be all you hope. I hope it is, Lizzy. All the time I've known you, I've known you wanted…deep feelings, the deepest love. But you never seemed to trust yourself to have it, or you never seemed to think you deserved it, or something. There was always something sending you back to Kellynch, back for another mission…"

The two friends sat in silence for a long minute. Lizzy finally broke it. "I've been thinking about myself, Jane. This mission has stirred up more than new feelings; it's stirred up old memories, but with a new sense of what they mean, who I've been, and why. I won't pretend I've got it all worked out, but I'm working it out."

"Good, Lizzy. I'm happy for you. But don't get too far ahead of where you are. Try to find the end of the yellow brick road in each step on it, instead of getting distracted by Oz. There may be no man behind the curtain."

Lizzy blew out a breath. "You're right, Jane, and I know it. I'll be careful. Circumspect. Ponder the path of my feet."

"Liz — I want this for you almost as bad as I can tell you want it for yourself. Don't let me discourage you. I only want to encourage caution. And I'll tell you something: it was obvious from the time you took this mission — this mission — and the dyeing of your hair, that something was up. I wasn't sure if it was Darcy, but I suspected it. Just remember, blonde is not your natural color."

Lizzy heard the computer beep in the kitchen. "I will. Got to go. Mission."

"Okay, Lizzy. You're going to be alright?"

"Yes, Jane. Thanks for calling. You always do me good."

She ended the call and got up, moving quickly through the apartment and to the laptop, touching a button. Fanny's phone was beside the laptop on the counter.

Darcy smiled at Lizzy from the screen. He hadn't shaved, although he looked like he had showered, gotten dressed. Lizzy took a breath; she could almost feel his inky stubble rough against the delicate skin of her face.

The warmth in her chest from earlier spread all through her, especially sinking south.

"Good morning," Darcy said.

"Morning," Lizzy replied, pushing the laptop back a bit and climbing on a stool. "I got up late and haven't had a chance to shower or get dressed."

"It's fine," he paused as if thinking, then added softly, "I like your hair mussed."

For some reason, the small compliment made her feel almost dizzy, and she took hold of the counter with one hand, steadying herself on her stool. She tried to sound as if she were in mission mode. "Where's Bingley?"

"He's out, hoping to meet Teresa Sanz, the UIC student and — "

"Wickham and Catherine's girl-toy," Lizzy said by way of ending Darcy's sentence.

He nodded once. "Apparently. Bingley's not crazy about the assignment for a variety of reasons." Darcy paused as if his silence spoke to some. Then Darcy went on. "He had expected to be behind the scenes only, not to have to step on stage, take on a cover and cultivate a mark, or maybe an asset, depending on how things go."

"Do you think we might be able to cultivate her, get her to help us in some way?"

"Well, I'd certainly like to know if she has more than a one-night knowledge of Rosings or Wickham. The fact that he went to her apartment suggests there's more. But who knows? Bingley will have to trust his instincts. None of our background on Lady Catherine suggests that she even occasionally dallies with women, so it seems more likely that Wickham invited Sanz to the bedroom. But who knows?"

Lizzy nodded. "By the way," Darcy added, shifting tone, "Bingley's got the library phone tree set up, so if Wickham calls, he'll think he's reaching you at work. Don't forget where you're supposed to be."

"I won't."

She looked at him on the screen; he looked at her on the screen.

"You need to find out where he's taking you. He'll probably be very cagey about it, if, as I suspect, he's taking you with him on a working errand. Fanny's gotten deep under his skin; I'm guessing he's taking a risk. When Georgiana traveled with him, she never knew where they were going and never asked questions when he disappeared. He had made her so confused and so co-dependent that she just accepted whatever he said, did what he told her. I guess for a while that amused him, to have shamed her into…complete self-abasement.

"Anyway, try to find out. That'll make everything easier for us. But if you can't get him to tell you, we will be able to find out from security cameras at the airport. But that will mean that we won't be able to put a team in place until you are airborne, and it will mean that Bingley and I will be at least a few hours behind you." He stopped and smiled at her, not happily but in dark self-amusement. "And of course you know all this."

She smiled at him, her largest smile. "It doesn't hurt to be reminded." She winked. "I'll just chalk it up to MI-6splaining. They both laughed but Lizzy thought of Jane's reminders and her laughter ended a beat or two ahead of Darcy's.

"I agree with you about Wickham. A night's sleep has made it even clearer to me. He'd decided I'm — Fanny is — no threat to him. That he can safely take her with him, get what he wants, and with minimal risk. But that means I can't push much about where we're going. It's not what he'll expect from Fanny. You may have to work it out from airport cameras. Make sure the Langley analysts are on top of it."

She saw a shadow behind his eyes. Worry? Fear? But he nodded hard, one time. "I'll be sure. And if we don't know, Ned will text you that he loves you. If you see that text, do not get on the plane."

"I won't. I promise." She was back to promises again. Promises of promises.

They held each other's eyes for a moment and then Darcy glanced away. "Speaking of which, I need to call Langley now and alert them to what they need to do."

Lizzy started to ask if Darcy would be coming to the apartment later in the day, but Fanny's phone vibrated. Lizzy looked down at it.

Wickham

"It's him, Darcy."

"Okay, Lizzy."

She shut the computer and picked up the phone.

Still not 100% — added to my extended illness, one of my closest friends died Friday.

It's a small thing, miniscule, but I dedicate this chapter to his memory.

More soon.