A/N: We now begin our fifth and final arc, Parlous Agency. We transition to the final setting of our action.

Thanks for sticking with me and the story.

Pride, Prejudice, and Pretense

The human condition: "the condition of being finite rational creatures, limited in their physical and intellectual powers, inhabiting a world in which their race has never yet contrived to enjoy peace or plenty, but whose reason sets before them their own nature as something to be unconditionally respected. Refusal to accept the human condition may take the violent form of rebellion, of repudiating what reason presents as an end to be respected, and embarking on a life 'beyond good and evil.' Or it may take the abject form of treating the task of respecting every rational creature as such as an impossible one, which it is unfair of our nature to have imposed upon us. The result is a life of pettiness and resentment."

— Alan Donagan, "The Limits of Practical Reason" in A Theory of Morality

Chapter 25: Sub Specie Durationis

October ended while Lizzy was still at Banner Wyoming Medical Center. Her stay had been a few days longer than she anticipated.

Dr. Williams had been good about seeing Lizzy each day. Lizzy spent most of the time sleeping or talking to Karen (and sometimes to Ricky and Philippa too) — she used the trip down the hallway to Karen's room as her primary physical therapy.

Otherwise, she worried and fretted about Darcy.

Bingley stayed in Casper to watch over her, and there were still agents posted outside her room and Karen's. The two women grew steadily closer, and Karen made steady, remarkable progress. She was a strong woman. Talking with her helped Lizzy; she suspected the talks helped in ways of which she was unaware.

Jane had begun to call once Lizzy was up and about. They talked a couple of times a day. That too, was a help. Lizzy was planning to stay with Jane in DC while she took care of the necessary procedures to finish her Agency resignation.

On Halloween, on a whim, Lizzy convinced Bingley to send her two agents with her to the children's ward, and she helped the nurses give out candy and helped them arrange a small costume party for the children who could participate. It gave her something to do, but it also touched a part of her. She had always enjoyed children but had never considered having any. Her Agency life made that seem unlikely, given her almost non-existent dating life. The danger to which she was routinely exposed made it seem imprudent, even if she had a prospect to father them. But Darcy and her resignation had changed all that, and for the first time in her life, she interacted with children while actively imagining that someday she might be a mother.

The problem of course was that she had no clue where the father she imagined for them might be.

No one had heard anything from Darcy.

Bingley promised Lizzy he would tell her if Darcy contacted him, but Darcy had not. Every day, Lizzy hoped the mail might bring her something but it did not. She was deeply worried about Darcy, frightened for him. It had taken a few days for her head to clear, for her to think straight and know she was thinking straight, and it occurred to her then that if her cover had been compromised, it was almost certain that Darcy's had been too. No more Ned. She was unsure what Darcy was planning, but another undercover ploy the Wicker Man seemed impossible.

The final Wicker Man agent who had been on the mountain, the one at which Karen had shot when she first found Lizzy, was never found. No one reported a body; Bingley assumed he had managed to escape.

With Lizzy's discharge pending, Bingley made arrangements through the Agency for them to fly back to DC. Other agents in Chicago broke down Fanny's apartment, no more Fanny, and the apartment across the street that Darcy and Bingley used.

Her final mission was finished.

On the second day of November, Dr. Williams told her that she would be released the next day. She had a clean bill of health. Her ribs were still sore but manageable, her blistered feet were healed. All the tests from the rape kit had finally come back negative.

"You look rested — or well on your way to rested," Dr. William told her during their final visit before Lizzy was to be discharged. She was standing by Lizzy's bed, chart tucked under her arm, staring above her reading glasses.

"I hope you don't mind, but I was talking to Charlie — Agent Bingley — and he told me that you resigned. Is that all there is to it? You're done?"

"No, not all. I am done, but I will have to go back to Langley. There are exit interviews and training sessions. When your work has all been, or mostly been deep cover, it's not easy to construct a normal resume. So there's a retirement class, as it is called, and exit interviews, NDAs."

"Oh, non-disclosure agreements? Right, I guess I can see how those might be necessary. So you retire from your past with almost no evidence of a past?"

Lizzy shrugged carefully, protecting her ribs. "Lizzy Bennet only existed now and then since I joined the Company, like a strobe light."

Dr. Williams looked at her steadily. "Speaking of — sort of — that too-blonde hair of yours is losing to your natural brown. It will look good when it's gone."

Lizzy hadn't thought about it. She had been blonde for long enough that seeing the color was no longer any shock. But Dr. Williams was right; her brown roots were showing through; she'd seen them in the mirror.

"It'll be good to be me again if I can remember how."

"That's the great thing about being yourself. You do it simply by not pretending to be anyone."

Lizzy fixed her eyes on the doctor. "Simply?"

Dr. William pushed her glasses up although she continued to look over them and smiled wistfully. "Well, call that word the triumph of hope over experience."

There was still no news of Darcy when Lizzy and Bingley left the hospital to go to the airport.

Kellynch had insisted — in conversations with Bingley (Lizzy had not talked to him since she told him she was resigning) — that a plane be provided for them. Lizzy suspected it was Kellynch trying to ingratiate himself before she returned, to perhaps create a feeling of indebtedness in her. But, although Lizzy, still tired, still a little sore, was glad to be saved from the effort of a commercial flight, she felt no twinge of remorse or irresolution.

The only regret she felt was leaving Karen. But Karen seemed to be doing well. She had begun physical therapy and was able to hold Ricky for short periods, so long as he was not too squirmy. Karen made Lizzy promise to get into contact as soon as she had finished in DC and settled somewhere.

But that was the problem. Past Langley, Lizzy still had no idea what her future held, or where it might occur. She began to realize that it was likely that her first post-DC destination would be Rochester, her childhood home. She had talked to her mother briefly the day after her first visit to Karen's room. She had not told her mother any of what happened, only that she was still traveling for work and had not been feeling well.

Mrs. Bennet seemed to think Lizzy had only had a cold. "Well, you know no one dies of a cold, Lizzy. You're probably just working too hard, like always. I don't understand why you do it. You've looked tired for years. It's no wonder you've never found a man."

Lizzy let the last comment go. But she was interested in the one before it. "Tired, Mom? I looked tired? Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"I tried, but sometimes you are like your father. You tune me out. I have mentioned it to you, Lizzy."

As Lizzy thought about it, she realized that was true. Her mother had mentioned it to her, repeatedly, almost every time they saw each other in person. But Lizzy had always tuned it out, taking it for more of her mother's general complaining, trying to find a strategy for enlisting Lizzy in her perpetual hypochondria. But now Lizzy knew it was true; her mother had been right.

Burning the candle at both ends. It was easier when you were not sure which end was real and which end was fake, which was you and which was a cover.

She had called her mother again the day before her discharge and told her that she was resigning her position and wanted to stay at home in Rochester until she was clear about her next step. Her mother was delighted, delighted, and said so over and over.

"You can work in the shop for a while if you want. Your aunt would be happy to have you and it would free me up. I've been more and more involved at church, especially with the holidays coming up. They've put me on a committee for Thanksgiving — and made me the head of another one for Christmas, the Toy Drive Committee."

Lizzy groaned inwardly. She hadn't thought about the fact that she would almost certainly end up spending the holidays in Rochester, with her mother. Mom puts the dollar sign in Chri$tmas.

Christmas in Rochester would be an expensive, showy ordeal. And with toys added in. But Lizzy would have to deal with it.

Who would make Mom the head of a committee? Especially a committee for a Christmas Toy Drive?

"Alright, Mom, I'll call you when I've gotten everything taken care of in DC."

"I'll fix your room, just like you like it."

Lizzy smiled despite it all. Her room. Maybe you can go home again, regardless of Thomas Wolfe. Maybe she could remember who she'd been before all this started.

Before her dad died. Before Kellynch and the Company.

"Thanks, Mom."

Langley stood before her as the Uber turned in, stood before her like a vast fortress, so heavy and obdurate it was unclear how the earth could bear it.

She got out and stood for a moment, the early winter wind whipping at her, blowing against the exposed skin of her neck, making her vulnerability seem even worse.

She dreaded the visit. Today she would have to face Kellynch once more. She was almost done with the maze that led to the permanent exit from Langley — the narrow one for the use of the living, not often found. The entrance was wide — but not the exit. Many are called but few are released. She hunched her shoulders, ducked her head, and walked inside.

Bingley and Jane were standing at the front security desk, on the opposite side, waiting for her. She put her things on the security belt for scan and walked through the radiometric scanner herself. Bingley and Jane met when she was through. Jane helped her gather her bag and coat. Lizzy noticed that Bingley and Jane were careful not to touch, not to seem like a couple.

"So, this is it. The final meeting," Bingley commented softly.

Lizzy nodded, her throat suddenly feeling dry, her hands slightly shaky, her chest constricted.

Kellynch had been overseeing her life for so long that it had come to seem the natural order of things, and she was struggling to get used to the new order. His was the opinion that mattered to her. His orders had ruled her life.

Now she was in control. A Copernican Revolution.

Jane put her hand on Lizzy's shoulder. "Take a breath, Liz. You're all but out the door. We talked about this last night. No problem."

Lizzy nodded. Bingley winked at her. "Listen to Jane. I'm going to go and see if there's any chatter that might be connected to Darcy." He frowned and gave Lizzy a sympathetic look. "There was none yesterday."

She nodded. Jane took her hand. "I'll walk with you part of the way, but I'm not going to face Charlotte."

Lizzy gave Jane a tight grin. Jane and Charlotte did not get along. Neither Lizzy nor Jane was sure why Charlotte disliked Jane, but Lizzy thought it was because Jane had been Lizzy's recruiter, and so Charlotte had allowed her envy of Lizzy to color her impression of Jane.

Jane had gotten Charlotte's coldest shoulder on several occasions and had decided not to endure it anymore.

"So," Jane asked as they weaved through the warren-like hallways toward Kellynch's office, "are your things all moved from the apartment in storage?"

"Yes, the movers moved the last of it this afternoon. After I beard the lion in his den, I'm a free woman."

"Any clarity overnight about what comes next, other than the move to Rochester?"

Lizzy and Jane had sat on foldout chairs among her stacks of boxes and a few unboxed odds and ends last night, drinking wine and talking in the light of one lamp, its naked bulb.

Lizzy had inadvertently packed the lampshade in a box and forgotten which one.

"A little. I've decided that I will apply to the English graduate program at the University of Rochester. But, as I said last night, I'm not sure I'm likely to get in. And I have to submit a writing sample. I have a few of my senior papers — but any of them would need serious work to make me competitive. Still, I've got until mid-December to do the rewriting, or to write a new one."

"Were those in that small box you shoved under your chair?"

Lizzy nodded. "Yeah, my self-consciousness ran riot, I guess."

"What one do you think you will rewrite, or what new one might you write?"

Lizzy took a moment. They stopped at a junction of hallways not far from Kellynch's office. "Actually, I had an idea for a rewrite, something that might be — I don't know, therapeutic and interesting. A paper investigating the relationship between theatricality and spies in the works of Le Carré, particularly Call for the Dead and Little Drummer Girl. Take seriously the idea of the theater of the real. Spies as actors, actors as spies."

Jane raised a surprised eyebrow. "A little close to home, isn't it, a little real?"

Lizzy shrugged and nodded all at once. "Yes, but I think it might help me to write about it all without being in it all any longer. The Company therapist I talked to last week mentioned that journaling — or something — might be a good idea for me. And, hey, even in the academy, it's still best to write about what you know…though I won't be admitting that's what I'm doing. I'll be writing about fictional spies."

Jane shook her head and chuckled softly. "Write what you know? Someone should have told that to some of my professors in college. Lectures might have been more interesting. Well, this is where we part company. You're still spending the night at my place before you head to Rochester tomorrow?"

"Yes, of course. You've got my suitcases, remember, and the rental car's coming to your place in the morning." Lizzy realized that Jane was encouraging her to talk to calm her before the meeting.

"Right. Okay, Lizzy. Now it's time for you to part Company. Good luck!" Jane stopped, rethinking; she smiled mischievously. "Or should I say break a leg?'

"Thanks, Jane. No more acting for me."

As Lizzy approached Charlotte's desk, she made herself focus, focus on her breathing.

She so wished Darcy were waiting outside Langley, his arms waiting to hold her, welcome her into her new life. The life she wanted to share with him.

But he wasn't. That life remained distant from her, as he did. She did not know where either was to be found. Still, she knew that she needed to be finished with Langley, whatever was beyond its narrow exit.

I am Elizabeth Bennet; I am equal to anything. My courage always rises.

Just as she finished with her internal self-affirmations, Charlotte looked up. She seemed startled by Lizzy at first. She's never seen me blonde. Despite Lizzy's darkening roots and the dulling of the dye, her hair was still blonde. Charlotte frowned menacingly; she did not like blonde Lizzy, and the old line about blondes having more fun was, Lizzy suddenly knew, in both their minds simultaneously.

They don't, Charlotte, Lizzy thought as she reached the desk.

Charlotte tucked away her startled frown. Her expression slowly changed to one of subtle triumph. Of course — she knows why I'm here. From her point of view, the competition is leaving the building.

"I'm here for my appointment with the Director," Lizzy said simply, deciding to go through the full formalities. Charlotte nodded and picked up her phone.

"Agent Bennet here to see you, sir," Charlotte reported. Lizzy's attention was caught by the undertone of intimacy in Charlotte's sir. It was then Lizzy noticed that Charlotte's clothes were different, more trendy, actually a bit daring — her blouse had a deep V neckline, and was a deep blue. Normally, Charlotte wore only achromatic colors, professional — white and black occasionally leavened with a splash of gray. But now her blouse was deep blue and she had a matching blue hairpin in her hair, her newly styled hair.

And lipstick, red lipstick. Charlotte had never worn makeup before.

She hung up her phone and stood. Her navy skirt was pleated and short, exposing the length of her legs to her navy heels. Charlotte in heels.

Charlotte opened the door to Kellynch's office, making sure that she was on display in the doorway as she announced Lizzy. As Lizzy stepped forward, Kellynch was giving Charlotte a look, a look with as much an undertone of intimacy as Charlotte's sir.

Kellynch's look disappeared as Charlotte stepped aside, allowing Lizzy to enter.

"Ah, Agent Bennet — I'll call you that for old times' sake — please have a seat." He gestured to the chair that Darcy had been seated in the night Lizzy had been called to Langley.

She sat in it. Kellynch stayed on his feet and clasped his hands behind his back. He walked around his desk. He stood, considering her. Then he unclasped his hands and sighed.

"I suppose all good things come to an end, don't they?"

Lizzy wasn't sure that was the most appropriate description of her time in the Company, but she did not want to cause any friction with Kellynch; she just wanted this meeting to be done.

"Yes, sir."

"I talked to Dr. Williams earlier today. I wanted to know what she thought about your resignation." He frowned slightly. "She told me she was all for it, and she went on to share quite a few thoughts with me about the Company, our use of agents."

Lizzy suppressed a smile. She could imagine Dr. Williams's comments. "She's not a big fan of what you do or how you do it," Lizzy offered, keeping her tone studiedly neutral.

Kellynch stared at her for a moment. "But what we do is necessary. And we only do it in reaction to the actions of others, other governments."

Lizzy knew that wasn't completely true but she did not argue. "I suspect the most Dr. Williams would grant is that what you do is a necessary evil, and that calling an evil 'necessary' doesn't alchemize it from evil to good. It's still evil, even if it's necessary." Lizzy thought of Darcy, the Pauline Principle: Do not do evil so that good may come.

The thought made her heart ache with missing him — but it also made it ache for the two of them, for all that had transpired in Chicago, for what they had mutually asked for and allowed in the seduction of Wickham.

"Well, Dr. Williams lives in a fantasy," Kellynch said with a hint of defensiveness. "I live in the real world. Langley is realpolitik, embodied."

Lizzy nodded concessively but then added. "I guess it's that Dr. Williams is oriented on health, not on sickness."

Kellynch stiffened and his eyes showed a flash of anger. He walked back to his desk chair and sat down. "So there's no way we can keep you? No way I can sweeten the pot?"

It was the wrong phrasing of the question. Lizzy's mind immediately fastened on 'pot'. Honey pot.

"No," she said with a cool final certainty that surprised her, "nothing."

He nodded and opened a folder on his desk. "You have a lot of vacation pay coming. I hadn't realized you had used so little."

"I've been busy."

"Yes, I suppose so. Well, the check for the unused vacations will be sent to your forwarding address in…Rochester."

"Do you have any idea how my cover was compromised, or how the Wicker Man came to suspect me?"

Kellynch looked up, surprised. "No," he confessed after a moment, "I don't. We investigated here and my counterpart in MI-6 investigated there, fine-sifting everyone involved, but we discovered nothing. I don't think there's a mole here; he doesn't think there's one there. But we're on the alert, as we always are, but now, especially."

He considered her again. "We've had agents outside your apartment, as you've probably noticed. If you want, I can have agents stationed to watch over you wherever you go, at least for a time."

"No, that's not necessary. If nothing's happened by now, nothing will. But I appreciate it, both what you've done and the offer of more."

He nodded. "I like the blonde hair," he said, smiling after a silent moment between them.

"I don't think Charlotte did," Lizzy responded, partly just to provoke a reaction.

Kellynch's eyes shifted to his closed office door. "No, I suppose not." Annoyance laced his tone.

"Did MI-6 have any news about Darcy, about Agent Darcy?" Lizzy asked as Kellynch signed a form and closed the file.

He glanced up at her, the glance sharp, suspicious. "Agent Darcy? No, I've not heard anything. MI-6 has told me nothing. I asked again recently. Whatever he's doing, it's not sanctioned by the Company."

"But MI-6 is involved? He has their resources, access to help?"

"I don't know. MI-6 has been tight-lipped about Agent Darcy since he went dark. I don't think he's rogue, but I'm not sure what his relationship is with his own Agency. I'm not sure they know."

It wasn't the news Lizzy wanted to hear, but it was news. Her heart thumped in her chest, anxious for Darcy. She stood, needing to move, and extended her hand. "Thank you, sir."

Kellynch stood too. He took her hand and shook it, the gesture ceremonial and solemn.

"I hate losing you, Agent Bennet. Hate it. Let me know if I can somehow be of help to you."

He led her to the door of the office and opened it. She walked out and he closed the door.

Charlotte was watching. "So, you're doing it, quitting us, quitting him?"

Lizzy nodded once. "Yes."

Charlotte smiled happily. "Best of luck, Elizabeth Bennet."

Lizzy thought about Charlotte's new clothes and her new hairstyle, and she thought of Jane, misquoting Thoreau after dying Lizzy's hair. Beware of all enterprises that require new hair.

"Good luck to you too, Charlotte."

The next day, as Lizzy drove to Rochester, in bright, cold November sunshine, she noticed that time seemed to be passing differently.

She had noticed it before, but only in passing, in odd moments where the minutes or hours or days seemed altered. It was as though present time itself were thickening, becoming elastic; the present seemed as if it could be stretched backward indefinitely, stretched forward. Time seemed continuous, deeper.

On missions, when working for Kellynch, time had been reduced to dust, to particles, not continuous but hard, discreet moments, the past to be forgotten and the future beyond the mission meaningless. She realized that she had been experiencing time as subservient to her mission, her agent habits, experiencing time to facilitate action, mission necessities.

She was discovering that the world she had been living in, the Company world, the world the Farm gave to her senses and her consciousness, was no more than a shadow of itself: and it was as cold as death. All was arranged for maximum agent efficiency. Everything was in a present that seemed constantly to be starting again, discontinuous with the past and with the future.

She sighed as the miles passed by, letting her time stretch itself, like a lazy cat in the sun.

That evening, Lizzy was stretched out on the bed in her old bedroom.

Her mother was downstairs, cleaning up after dinner. She sent Lizzy upstairs to rest.

Lizzy's room had been freshly dusted, and cleaned, and the bedding changed, although it had not been used in a long time.

The room looked like it always had. Her posters from high school were still on the walls. Her bookcase was filled with her favorite books.

Instead of feeling that her life was moving backwards, she felt as if she were reclaiming herself, tugging the elasticized present backward to recover who she had once been and what she had once wanted, hoped for. Allowing the woman to be reintroduced to the girl.

It was not that she wanted to revivify all her childhood dreams, many of which now made her blush for or smile indulgently at her past self. It was rather that she wanted to revivify herself, to recover some of the youth the Company had cost her. Langley aged agents quickly, and Lizzy was weary of the world-weariness her job had taught her. She wanted to breathe free. She wanted a life, one life, hers, not a succession of lives, covers.

"Lizzy!" Mrs. Bennet shouted up the stairs. "Your aunt is here and she has something for you."

Lizzy had been so lost in thought, as she had been all day, that she had lost track of the household noises, the doorbell.

She got up and hurried downstairs. Her Aunt Gardiner was standing near the front door, a box in her hands. She looked well, and she greeted Lizzy with a smile of deep affection. She handed the box to Mrs. Bennet and threw out her arms and Lizzy rushed into a hug. They held each other for a long time until Mrs. Bennet began clearing her throat.

"What's this?" her mother asked, shaking the box.

"I don't know," her aunt said, ending the hug, "it arrived at the bridal shop this afternoon. It's addressed there, but the name is Lizzy's."

Mrs. Bennet held the box out to Lizzy. She took it and recognized the writing. Darcy. She tore the box open and handed it, empty, to her aunt.

"Oh, it's just a book," Mrs. Bennet said when Lizzy held up the contents of the box.

Lizzy knew the book. It was the copy of Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, from Fanny's apartment. Lizzy opened the cover.

The dedication was there but changed.

For My Love, Elizabeth, hoping for a Wife — and Daughters (or Sons)

Fitzwilliam

'Fanny had been marked out and 'Elizabeth' written above it. 'Ned' had been marked out and 'Fitzwilliam' written above it. Otherwise, the book was the same. Lizzy hugged it to her, tears in her eyes.

"Is it valuable? Worth money?" Mrs. Bennet asked, curious, slightly puzzled..

"It's valuable," her aunt said, and she hugged Lizzy again as Lizzy continued to hug the book.

A/N: More soon.

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