The update's picking up right where we left off at the end of the last chapter.

Fitzwilliam, It Was Really Nothing

Part 3

Georgiana Darcy had an evil streak.

Sure, on the outside she appeared to be all sweetness and light personified, what with her fair hair, peaches and crème complexion, and gentle voice. If one never bothered to delve deep into the guts of little Georgie, then one would most assuredly come to the conclusion that the young miss was made entirely of starlight and Hilary Duff movies and that sort of nauseating cutesy bullshit.

And one would most assuredly be dead wrong.

Georgiana Darcy possessed a great darkness on the inside; okay, so it was the sort of darkness that led to things like drowning her brother's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the toilet and spitting off of third story balconies with the knowledge of a crowded sidewalk below. She may not have had a body parts collection in her freezer, but the sadism was still there, and it was this evil streak that led her to Room 304 in the Marriott Marquee at 6:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Armed with a theory that people were never as honest as they are when they're sleeping and when they first wake, Georgiana had set her alarm clock for the sort of hour humans never see unless they have cattle to tend to. Somehow she rolled out of bed at five a.m., thanked Jesus that her roommate was too unconscious to say no to her borrowing their car, and quietly slipped off of the Exeter campus. And the reason for all of this James Bond-y shit was a simple feeling – a strange nagging at the back of her mind that something wasn't quite right in the state of Will and Elizabeth.

Something Georgie'd noticed in the two's behavior when they thought no one was watching: they seemed exceedingly uncomfortable with one another. There was a moment while Jonah drove the group to the hotel that Georgie put her skills at pretending to straighten her hair in the flip down mirror to use, and stealthy observed the couple in the backseat.

Will sat stiff as a board not moving an inch save for a few furtive glances in Lizzie's direction. His 'lady friend' on the other hand, took to sinking against the backseat with her eyes fixed on the blur of trees and cars outside of the window. Certainly this was not the picture of a happy couple Will had painted so vividly over the phone, and if something was up, Georgie was going to get to the bottom of it and beat the living shit out of that bonehead if he indeed was attempting to play her for a fool.

The elevator lurched to a stop, the tell-tale ding of the doors sounded as they slid open revealing the hotel's third floor, and Georgiana crossed the threshold.

It wasn't too hard spotting Room 304 despite the hallway's infinite appearance; after watching Lizzie practically swallow three Nathan's hotdogs whole yesterday, Georgie was sure that behind the door with the two room service carts piled high with empty dishes, she'd find her brother and his paramour.

Eyeing the virtual graveyard of pizza crust, chicken bones, and what appeared to be a schooner of ice cream, Georgie shook her head.

"Lizzie should seriously look into that tapeworm theory."

xx

Darcy was in the middle of switching to uncomfortable position number five-thousand and sixty-seven of the night when a rather loud knock caused his eyes to fly open. With a heavy sigh he turned a blood-shot, baby blue in the direction of the door and casually rolled off of the common room couch.

A yawn,

A quick glance through the peep hole,

An unattractive (but necessary) scratch at the front of his boxers,

A hand on the doorknob,

A pause,

Another glance through the peephole…and a widening of his eyes:

"Shit!" he mouthed, and quickly ran back to the couch gathering up any and all evidence of he and Lizzie's sleeping arrangements. With Georgiana's persistent knocking still ringing in his ears, Darcy threw open the bedroom door and blindly made his way to the closet, chucking the pillow and extra blankets inside. Closing the door softly on Lizzie's light snoring, he attempted to bring his breathing back down to normal.

Georgiana was all smiles. "Good morning, Starshine."

Darcy grumbled, "The earth says hello."

She giggled and gave him a mock frown-y face. "Aww, what's with the sour puss? You've, only been in town for a day don't tell me you're already sick of seeing me."

He blinked. "Have you looked at a clock? They do have clocks where you live, right…?"

"Relax Fitzie," Georgie said rolling her eyes, "I'm not here for you anyway. I thought maybe Lizzie would like to grab some breakfast." Taking a quick look in the direction of the room service carts, she added, "But I fear she may have exploded."

"She's fine; fully intact." Darcy grinned.

"Where is she?"

"Playing soccer," he deadpanned. "She's knocked out, Georgie. She's exhausted and needs to…"

"So go wake her up, then!" She pushed her way into the hotel room. "Go, go, go! Egg McMuffin's are never better than when they're made first thing by disgruntled, underpaid, employees."

With Georgiana on his heels, Darcy reluctantly opened the bedroom door. He positioned himself awkwardly on the opposite end of the bed and clicked on the desk lamp; swallowing the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat, he made a move to gently tap Lizzie's unconscious form.

"Lizzie…"

In response, she snuggled further down into the blankets covering up the spot of bare skin Darcy had just hit. Gritting his teeth he climbed further up on the bed and tried lightly shaking her.

"Lizzie…hey, Lizzie…"

That time there was a snort – from Georgiana's direction.

Shutting his eyes, Darcy quickly gathered himself; he was going to have to approach this from an entirely different, much more dangerous angle. Slowly pulling the covers off of her shoulder, he leaned in close putting his lips to her ear.

"Elizabeth," he whispered huskily while raking a hand across her skin. There was a delightful, little whimper that escaped Lizzie's mouth and he continued on for the moment completely oblivious to his sister's presence. "Elizabeth…c'mon sleepy head," he nuzzled her neck.

Lizzie turned over with another contented moan and opened her eyes; her serene expression was immediately blown to hell at the sight of Will Darcy hovering over her and Lizzie did the first thing that came to her sleep-addled mind,

She screamed and hit Darcy square in the face. Hard.

"Jesus Christ!" he cried out in pain, reeling from the punch.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Lizzie bolted straight up.

"Bleeding internally!" Darcy shouted back, clutching his nose "What is wrong with you?!"

"What's wrong with me?! What…"

Georgiana loudly cleared her throat and a surprised Lizzie whipped her head around in the direction of the doorway.

Georgie smiled. "Good morning, Starshine."

xx

"Did I mention how very sorry I am? Cause, I'm really, really sorry."

Darcy's reply was muffled by the bloody rag covering his nose. "Yes; only about a million times."

Lizzie smiled thinly and positioned herself between his legs. Darcy looked down from atop his perch on the bathroom counter, brows knit. "Should I be afraid?"

Rolling her eyes she gently took the rag out of his hands. "Growing up with four sisters has pretty much made me a deadly weapon and for the millionth-and-one time, I'm sorry I unleashed the fury on you." She leaned in close to inspect his nose. "It doesn't look broken…"

"And Dr. Bennet returns…" he said with a hint of a smile.

"You, did catch the four sisters part, right? She shook her head. "Okay, so Jane's Mother Theresa and all, but those other three heifers are forces to be reckoned with. When we weren't pulling each other's hair, we were pulling the hair of neighborhood girls on each other's behalf." Lizzie chuckled, "The Bennet clan has a proud tradition of kicking ass and taking names which ultimately leads us to be skilled in medical care."

"What are their names?"

Lizzie handed him the rag. "Who?"

"Your sisters…the heifers."

"Oh," she grinned, "well there's Mary who's nineteen; somewhere around eighth grade she hit a pit of despair that only Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance can understand and likes to express this by shopping at Hot Topic. Then there's Lydia and Kit, seventeen year old twin terrors. Complete walking hormone bombs; Lydia can actually smell men within a fifty mile radius and Kit's content following her every move."

Darcy nodded a bit awkwardly at a loss as to what to say next. This was what Lizzie had wanted, right? For the two of them to get to know each other without treating the whole thing as a business deal and he'd done the impossible and managed to get her talking only to let his nerves get the best of him. He couldn't help it; there she was with her glowing skin, adorable, haphazard ponytail, and those eyes. His increasing attraction to Lizzie only served to wake up his social retardation.

It seemed as though an eternity had passed in silence and she eyed him expectantly, fiddling with the bottom of her tanktop. "So…do you have any other siblings?"

"No," he replied flatly.

Utterly defeated by his sudden shyness, Darcy made a move to jump down from the counter and Lizzie instinctually backed up to give him room.

"Thanks," he muttered.

She shrugged. "Next time we're in the same town as your sister and I wake up to you looming over me like a rapist I promise I'll react a little differently."

With a thin smile, he wordlessly exited the bathroom leaving a puzzled Lizzie behind.

"Okay…I'm gonna puke. It's not even the 'I feel like I'm gonna puke' feeling; it's the scary 'I know I'm gonna puke and it's gonna happen in the most horrible of places' feeling."

Georgie gripped the dressing table for support and stared blindly into the bright lights above the mirror. Closing her eyes briefly, she counted silently to ten and when she felt she had successfully staved off the need to heave she turned to face a sympathetic Lizzie.

It was funny her reasons for begging Lizzie to oversee all of her girly preparations for the recital had been completely mercenary. It was the first moment Georgie'd had with her alone after breakfast had (hilariously) fallen through and she'd planned to use this time to grill the unsuspecting woman. Only, Lizzie's genuine sisterly-like regard for her (and her nerves) threw Georgie's plans off entirely.

Fiddling with the straps on the teen's dress, Lizzie smiled warmly. "Your brother tells me you're absolutely brilliant; don't worry you're going to be fine." Taking a moment to pause, she grabbed a nearby wastebasket and set it at Georgie's feet. "But, it's better to be safe than sorry. I hope you've got great aim, this dress cost me two weeks worth of paychecks," she said lightheartedly.

Curiously Georgie tilted her head with a sideways grin. "You're different."

"I've been told that," was Lizzie's self-deprecating reply.

"No, I mean, you're different from the others. Will has a history of being the typical LA snot when it comes to his girlfriends," she sighed and shook her head. "Awful models and even awful-er actresses…"

"Well, to her credit, Cameron Diaz didn't suck as hard in Vanilla Sky." Lizzie smirked and gestured for Georgie to turn around. "Let me inspect the back and then you can be on your way to rocking the faces off an auditorium full of grey hairs."

Georgie snorted as she twirled. "I admit I was shocked when I found out he was dating again. His last girlfriend, Eva…" she pulled a face.

"Trouble, huh?"

A nod, "That's one way of putting it; the way I was thinking involved a four letter word beginning with 'C'."

Lizzie grinned. "Uh-huh."

"Eva's just…well, a complete misuse of human cells – that's really the only way to say it that doesn't totally make me feel like I'm going to hell. She did a number on Will – the kind of number the sensitive types rarely recover from…" Georgie smiled wanly. "I guess I'm just asking you to go easy on him." She then added in a less serious tone, "Don't let this wispy blonde chick exterior fool you, I can kill without mercy."

Lizzie's features softened. "I'll do my best, but only because wispy blonde chicks scare the piss out of me."

After reining in her nerves (and vomiting only once), Georgie did in fact live up to her reputation for being brilliant and rocked the faces off the mostly older crowd packed in the auditorium that night – wowing them with a piece she composed entirely herself. It was when the group was making their way to the parking lot that she and Jonah excitedly announced they planned on taking Will and Lizzie out on the town.

Darcy naturally soured at this. "Taking us where, exactly?"

Lizzie shot him a look. "Don't get too eager there, Captain Fun."

A loud laugh escaped Jonah's lips and he unsuccessfully tried to cover it with a cough when Darcy glared at him.

"It's a surprise," Georgie told them with a grin. "Just make sure you change into something a lot less stuffy."

"And perhaps, skanky," Jonah added sardonically.

Georgie giggled at that. "Yeah, skanky's always good."

In absolute panic, Darcy's gaze shot between the three; he loathed surprises and surprises from his sister (a painful memory of finding his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lurking the depths of the toilet bowl came to mind) were certainly nothing to look forward to.

"Oh fuck me…" He muttered under his breath as he tried with all of his might to keep himself from smashing his forehead against the steering wheel. Grumpily, Darcy maneuvered the rental car through the crowd of kids that were heading towards the club's entrance finally finding a parking spot near a sketchy back alley.

Dear Christ, how he hated surprises.

Lizzie's eyes glowed with amusement when she turned to face him. "I'm kinda sad you don't have a cane to shake."

With a sigh, he pulled the keys from the ignition. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Are you twenty-four going on eighty?" she laughed.

"I'm not one for crowds. Clubs inevitably lead to crowds. Georgiana knows this she's just trying to torture me."

"Huh," Lizzie began with a tilt of her head, "that's ironic considering how we met and all. Next thing you know, I'll find a fly in my chardonnay."

Darcy hesitated, "When we met, I was…going through something…"

"Eva." She nodded grimly.

He regarded her momentarily, his features completely blank and then promptly exited the car without so much as peep let alone another word.

Thoroughly confused (and just a tad bit annoyed) Lizzie jumped out after him. "What is with you and these hasty exists in the middle of conversation?" She asked, frustrated, as she struggled to catch up. "All that money your parents poured into a private school education and they didn't bother to teach you social skills?"

Darcy stopped in his tracks. "What do you know about, Eva?"

Lizzie shrugged. "I know Georgie used the phrase 'C U Next Tuesday' to describe her."

Practically crushing her hand with his, he told her in a clipped voice, "Good. Let's keep it that way."

Upon reaching the door, they were immediately ushered towards the back of the stage by a tall, gangly boy who'd clearly stolen his sister's jeans.

"You're Georgie's brother right?" The kid tried his best at shouting over the chatter.

"Yeah," Lizzie answered on Darcy's behalf. "How'd you know?"

The boy smiled. "She told me to lookout for a tall guy, with dark hair who seemed like the most miserable bastard in the room."

Darcy rolled his eyes and Lizzie laughed loudly squeezing his arm. "Perfect description."

Backstage was virtual chaos, with loads of teenagers and even more loads of equipment crawling over every inch of its surface; somehow the pair managed to spot Jonah in the middle of all of the madness carefully unpacking guitar cases.

Happening to glance up from his work, Jonah smiled brightly at the sight of Darcy and Elizabeth, and pushed a mess of chocolate hair out of his eyes. "Hey! You made it, huh?" He gave Lizzie a quick once-over. "What happened to skanky?" Jonah asked playfully.

"My best skanky days are behind me, I suppose," she told him with a crooked grin.

"Where's my sister?" Darcy didn't bother with the pleasantries and Jonah solemnly shook his head,

"Bathroom," he told Darcy with a sigh. "She's really got to get over this stage fright thing. Anyway, we're about to go on in fifteen minutes – just as soon as they finish sound check and I pull Georgie's head out of the toilet. So, you guys can sit back here and chill or I highly recommend finding a good spot out front." He shook his head. "I never understood the appeal of being backstage at a show."

Eyebrow cocked and lips curling into the insult-hurling ready position, Darcy had a verbal assault lined up that was so powerful it would have left a cloud of obscenity and piss and vinegar hanging over the whole of New Hampshire, and then Lizzie went and grabbed his arm,

"Cool, we'll be right up front. Have a good show, okay," she told Jonah while yanking Darcy in the direction of the crowd.

"Please tell me whatever it is you were about to say to Jonah involved the phrase 'have a good time'."

He threw his hands up in frustration. "Georgie's supposed to be focusing on graduating at the top of her class not screwing around with some band!"

Brown eyes rolled heavenwards. "Because god forbid she play anything other than some dead Austrian's concertos! Or have a social life."

"That kid is wasting her time!" he shouted. "She…"

The house lights dimming and the cheer of the audience around them put an end to Darcy's rant and Lizzie told him sternly before turning her eyes to the stage, "Shut up and be supportive."

As it turned out, Georgiana and her boyfriend fronted one of the most popular/buzzworthy bands to come out of the Exeter area. Through enormous talent, and lots of MySpace hits, what was once a way to kill after-school boredom had become the juggernaut known as, Everywhere and His Nasty Parlor Tricks (named so because of Jonah's Modest Mouse obsession).

It also turned out that 'Everywhere' and its five members (all of whom had yet to reach legal voting age) had been cranking out their own special brand of quirky, indie-pop for over a year, and were lucky enough to be noticed by a few record execs. This particular show was a celebration, as it was their first as a signed band.

And, in other heart attack-inducing events Fitzwilliam Darcy did not see coming, it seemed that Lizzie had a penchant for dancing. His senses were ridiculously heightened from their short fight earlier and the crowd closing in from behind only served to press him into the back of his gyrating, fake girlfriend (who was clearly feeling the song's groovy bass line).

The crowd shoved forward and he instinctually put an arm around Lizzie's waist to hold her steady. She cast a look over her shoulder, seemingly grateful for the protective gesture and when the crowd finally settled, Lizzie once again lost herself in the music.

Darcy's arm remaining firmly wrapped around her petite frame proved to be the death of him as Lizzie's hips rocked back and forth in perfect time. Eyes closing, he found himself getting lost in the feel of having her in his arms and unconsciously moved with her; resting his chin on the top of her head afforded him the luxury of a whiff of Lizzie's hair, it smelled of strawberries and Darcy wondered if she tasted like strawberries as well. In the back of his mind he knew this train of thought was no good – this was a business arrangement and it was idiotic and dangerous of him to treat their relationship as anything but, but good leaping Christ, he was a man after all! No straight man could possibly be immune to the package that Elizabeth Bennet presented; he'd grown to admire her confidence and her wit (even when he was the target), and if he hadn't found her physically attractive, the tiny bump in her stomach, which his hand now rested on, wouldn't be there. In the end, cold, business-minded logic took over, allowing his libido this small victory but vowing to stay strong from here on out.

Thunderous applause and screams brought Darcy out of his reverie and he reluctantly let Lizzie go. She turned around, smiling brilliantly.

"They're so awesome, aren't they?!" she shouted above the crowd.

"Yeah," he nodded, "not bad."

"Not bad?!" She raised an eyebrow. "Fucking amazing is more like it!"

He shrugged, the corners of his mouth turning up in a grin. "That's what I meant by 'not bad'."

Lizzie put her attention back on the stage, cupping her hands around her mouth and shouting an appreciative "Whoo!" at the top of her lungs.

Georgie wore a Cheshire Cat expression as she put her lips to her microphone. "Nice moves, Fitzie," she said and Darcy immediately attempted to will himself off the face of the earth. "My brother's here tonight…" The announcement garnered a lot of cheers from the female members of the audience and Georgie laughed, "I guess you guys read People, huh? Anyway, yeah, my brother's here and it's cool because it's rare that I get to have family out at one of these things. Maybe, I can persuade his girlfriend to let him come sell T-shirts for us when we tour in the fall."

"Keep him for as long as you want!" Lizzie shouted back good naturedly earning a few laughs.

"Oh great," Georgie chuckled, "Will you're a merch-boy now."

Jonah strummed a few cords, absently tuning his guitar. "We're super excited to be opening for Mewithoutyou this fall, so every one of you has to come out and go ape-shit during our set," he said with a smirk. "We wanna look as important as possible."

"Damn straight," Georgie interjected.

"Okay, we got a couple more for you before we get outta here. I had a dream about being abducted by aliens and wrote a song about it. Wanna hear it? Here it goes," Jonah told the audience jokingly and launched into the blistering opening cords of the next song.

xx

"Oh my god, you guys! That was incredible!"

Georgiana enthusiastically hugged Lizzie as she came off stage and humbly blushed. "You really think so?"

"Trust me, I'm a total and complete music snob – you were amazing."

Smiling, Georgie gave her brother a playful punch in the arm. "It definitely looked like you were enjoying yourself for once." Darcy's expression was cold and Georgiana's own turned to seriousness when it dawned on her he wasn't playing along. "Look, I was only kidding up there – I didn't mean to embarrass you, it was just great to see you having a good time…"

"I've been trying to figure out how you're going to do a national tour and attend classes at Brown at the same time," he said sternly and the teen paled.

"I meant to tell you about that," Georgie started.

Darcy's eyes narrowed. "Tell me about what?"

"I, uh," she paused and took a deep breath, "I decided I'm not going to Brown in the fall."

"It's not a good idea to defer enrollment, Georgie. You don't want to be behind your peers." His hands had made their way to his hips and his sudden fatherly tone made him appear far older than his twenty-four years.

"Actually," Georgiana began with weakly, "I've decided I'm not going to college. Period."

Lizzie's eyes flitted nervously between the siblings and off in the distance she swore she heard a snake rattle.

"I know it's really none of my business, but you were kinda hard on her…"

Darcy walked purposefully toward the car with Lizzie once again struggling to keep up, while she continued to state her case to the back of his head.

"Georgie's immensely talented and this is a pretty huge opportunity for her band. Okay, so this wasn't exactly in the Darcy-family plan, but she deserves the chance to do what makes her happy. The least you could do is support her."

Stopping suddenly he turned to face her, his countenance practically stone, but fire blazing in his eyes. "I'm not going to support her fuckups and that's exactly what she's doing! Do you have any idea what my father would say if he were here?! This wouldn't even be an issue – he'd set her straight faster than you could blink. We have an obligation to uphold, one that you couldn't possibly begin to understand. The 'Darcy' name doesn't exactly conjure up images of gigging across country in dirty night clubs!"

Lizzie stood, mouth agape and her hands forming into fists at her side. "You think I don't understand familial obligation?! Oh, I can't wait for you to meet my mother."

"It's not the same, Lizzie." He shook his head. "Our linage can be traced back to English lords, not to mention that Georgie and I are the faces of our father's business empire. There's certain expectations that come with that, and yeah, a I wouldn't expect a girl from the Valley to grasp that."

At the taste of blood, Lizzie had to remind herself to remove her teeth from the meat of her cheek. "And you're certainly doing a good job at keeping the 'Darcy' name golden," she spat out nastily.

"I'm fixing my mistakes," he replied coolly and without another word he fished the depths of his jean pocket for the car keys.

Author's Note: So, how's everybody doing? Cool I hope. I didn't intend to make you all wait so long for an update, but I discovered writing longer chapters when you tend to second guess every line you type, means they'll take longer to finish. Sorry if I gave some of you the impression that this fic was abandoned, it's not…this chapter simply went through a few rewrites.

Anyway, there's a line about Lizzie's baby bump being tiny – this is what I intended all along, seeing as how she's somewhere around 14/15 weeks at this point in the story, but it occurred to me that I didn't make that clear in the first chapter. I plan on going back at some point and rewriting the end scene in the first chapter to reflect this (I was never happy with the end of that scene anyway).

Um, I think that's about it. If I said this chapter would finally wrap up this arc in the story, I lied my ass off. The next chapter DEFINITELY will. And it'll be considerably shorter, to hopefully minimize the wait.

Review if you feel like it.

Hallelujah, hollaback.