Author's Notes: This is something a little different for me, as this was another entry in the AHA Writer's 2023 Bingo Challenge. This prompt was a quickie based on a song. I was going to try a more serious song, but I thought that since the one and only P&P fanvid that I have made was with the song "Boom Boom Boom" by Rare Blend, I might try to base a story on it as well, especially since I wasn't entirely happy with how the vid came out. I wouldn't call this a songfic though.

This takes place during chapter 58 of Pride and Prejudice, around the second proposal, so there's a strong mix of Austen's text in this.

Something in Her Eyes

Darcy stood silently as Miss Kitty took her leave of Elizabeth (no, Miss Elizabeth) and him, trying to calm the beating of his heart which almost deafened him as it boomed like thunder in his ears. He managed to start walking as Miss Elizabeth continued down the path, wanting yet not daring to offer her his arm... as well as his heart, soul and all worldly goods. He should speak, should he not?

However, before he could find a single word to say, Miss Elizabeth began to speak. "Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature, and for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings care not how much I may be wounding yours. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since I have known it I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my family I should not have merely my own gratitude to express."

No, no, no. He didn't want gratitude. He didn't want her to know about his involvement. He had acted for her benefit, not her gratitude.

"I am sorry, exceedingly sorry," you will never know how sorry, "that you have ever been informed of what may, in a mistaken light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner was so little to be trusted." He had been so sure the Gardiners would keep the secret.

"You must not blame my aunt," she said. "Lydia's thoughtlessness first betrayed to me that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course, I could not rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of discovering them."

He had not been looking at her when she spoke, yet her eyes, those oh so expressive eyes, drew him in, and though he would not dare claim to know what was behind them, somehow the look in them filled him with hope that she could be feeling something other than the gratitude she professed. Oh please, let it be something more.

"If you will thank me," he replied, "let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you."

Elizabeth's eyes dropped, and a becoming blush spread across her face, and he knew that he had to speak now or forever regret his own cowardice. "You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever." Again he felt deafened from the beating of his heart, waiting for the answer that would define his future.

"Oh... this is one subject I would not want you to be silent on. My feelings have changed so greatly since that time that the offer that I spurned then, I would most gratefully accept now."

The happiness which this reply produced was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do, which is to say, not at all. He hardly knew what he said, as he took her hands in his. He knew he asked if that indeed meant that she would become his wife. She said yes, and they walked on unseeing for a time as his feelings burbled out of him in an almost unnatural way. He was not a man who burbled, yet his joy had him discombobulated and out of countenance.

When his words ran out, they had stopped under a tree beside the lane. She had her hand on his arm, and she looked up at him, and the expression in her eyes took his breath away.

"May I kiss you?" he asked.

"I wish you would."

Their first kiss was a promise of more, and he knew it could only get better with time. In that moment, he found himself awash with a surge of feelings that were entirely new to him. Yet, he was certain that everybody in love knew what his heart was feeling now and how it would only feel this way for Elizabeth, his dearest Elizabeth.

The End of the Beginning

End Notes:

And there it is. It's short, but I hope it's sweet.