Credit for Darcy's immediate response goes to PixieKayGirl. Per the consensus, there won't be a Lydia or Kitty in this story, with the existence of Mary yet to be determined. Reviewers, you do make a difference!

I am pondering how best to get out what is going on with G.G. Would you want to have some chapter(s) from her point of view, or do you want to stick with Darcy? I think it would be difficult to get in her head, but I would be willing to try if that's the consensus from you all. It just depends how G.G.-centric this story is going to be. If we stay with Darcy, he will have interactions with Ava, Bingley, Caroline and Elizabeth sooner, chapter-wise. It will just be a different story. I haven't written beyond this chapter, so I am not sure how I want this to go.

9.

It took me a moment to register Dr. Sharma's words, to understand that I now had one more obstacle to deal with, but as per usual I immediately started to get practical. I responded "Okay, what do we need to do, how long will it take, and will I be able to fly after? Because my baby sister is missing in England and I need to get there as quickly as possible."

Dr. Sharma grimaced. "So that was the emergency. I wasn't sure if you were putting me on. People seem to think lots of things are emergencies which are anything but."

I don't know why, it really wasn't any of her business, but found myself telling Dr. Sharma some of the pertinent details. "I'm G.G.'s co-guardian and a couple of months back we sent her to a therapeutic boarding school to get her away from a sexual predator. She thinks she's in love with her abuser, who is my age, and unbeknownst to us was molesting her for years. G.G. can be very clever and devious. I am worried she is trying to arrange how to get to him now."

"I'm sorry," Dr. Sharma responded, " but we won't be doing anything. The answers to how you will get sorted out will have to wait until at least tomorrow. I'll set you up an appointment with an oral and maxillofacial surgeon and that doctor will know best what you need, but because it's past business hours, your appointment can't be made until tomorrow morning and I can't promise you will be seen that day."

My mind was already racing about how to get myself seen as quickly as possible. "If you send me to the hospital, can I see that kind of doctor sooner?"

She shook her head in negation. "I doubt it. Specialists like that are only paged for true emergencies; otherwise they work normal hours. There is no reason to admit you now that you have been diagnosed. Your fracture isn't displaced. See for yourself."

Dr. Sharma turned the laptop around to show me images from first the x-ray and then the CT-scan. She pointed to the diagonal break on the edge of my jaw, which was about where I would have expected it to be, based on the pain and swelling, along with what I recalled about how Bingley had hit me.

"I'm hopeful you won't need surgery, or to have your jaw wired shut, but that's not up to me. I think it is fractured in just the one place, but the radiologist will have to read these for us to be certain. If you are lucky, you may just need to stick to a soft diet until it heals."

"Lucky," I murmured. "I'm not feeling so lucky these days."

"I imagine you aren't. Now, let's talk more about how you got injured." Dr. Sharma turned back to her laptop and pulled up my file. "My nurse noted that you were punched in the jaw, but made no note about a perpetrator. Also, when we talked before, you told me about being punched and then falling and smacking your head. I didn't ask more about it then as I was busy arranging for your scans before diagnostics closed. Can you tell me more about what happened?"

"It was just the one punch. Yes, it hurt and yes I fell over in my chair, but it wasn't meant to be any big deal I don't think. I don't want to get him in trouble. He had his reasons."

"What is your relationship with this man?"

"Friends," I responded. "Or at least we were friends," I corrected.

"So not dating, cohabitating or involved?" Dr. Sharma looked at me neutrally.

"No, of course not."

"There is no of course not in this day and age. If you were, it wouldn't make any difference to me. We all just want to keep you safe."

I had a sudden fear, "You don't have to report this, do you?" I imagined Bingley being questioned by the police and then making all sorts of allegations against me regarding Caroline.

"You aren't a child, or a vulnerable adult, and you have denied it being domestic violence, so no. But I think you ought to. This is a very serious injury, from a hard, damaging blow. People just can't be allowed to go around and hit others with impunity. No one has the right to lay their hands on another in anger, which I am guessing is what happened. While perhaps you don't want to take any legal action now, that could change as you see your costs add up, so I would advise you to make a police report right away."

I knew she meant well, but I couldn't imagine reporting Chuck. And money certainly wasn't an issue for me. Still, to appease her, I said "I'll think about it."

Just then, there was another knock at the door and the nurse came in with what looked like an ace bandage and a couple of pieces of paper. Dr. Sharma said "As for immediate treatment, Nurse La Vonne is going to be putting your into a Barton bandage. I want you to keep that on until you see the surgeon, but you can unwrap it to shower. She should also have an information sheet on how to reapply the Barton bandage and your work excuse. You can eat liquids and soft foods that need only minimal chewing, but take it really easy, especially on the affected side. I'm going to send in your prescription to the 24 hour pharmacy you listed today and I suggest you take the medication until you see the other doctor, or you can take up to four ibuprofen at a time on the usual schedule. Unless you have any other questions, I am going to leave you in Nurse La Vonne's capable hands."

I didn't, so I sat still as the nurse wrapped the bandage around my jaw and head. I had a feeling it looked pretty goofy, but it did make my jaw feel better. When I got to the waiting room, Rick was the only one still there.

When he saw me he asked "How bad is it?"

"Broken but not displaced. I have to see a surgeon but it may not need much treatment."

"Well, I'm sorry it is broken, but not sorry that I hauled your ass in here. But it sounds like it could have been a lot worse."

Rick fell quiet for a moment but then when we had gotten outside the building and were on the way to his car in the dark parking lot which was inadequately illuminated by a single lamppost, said "So Mrs. Annesley called and told me all about G.G.'s escape. I'm worried about G.G. and what might happen next, if they don't find her right away."

"I am, too," I acknowledged. My hand instinctively went to run through my hair, but I encountered the bandage instead.

"So what's the plan?" he asked me.

"The immediate one is that I need you to take me to the pharmacy."

As we were driving to the pharmacy, we talked further about G.G. and what had happened. We were both angry at the school and spent some time criticizing their apparent lack of sufficient security.

While we were entering the drug store together, walking toward the pharmacy counter in the back corner, Rick told me, "There is one thing that really worries me. Since G.G. doesn't have any money, what do you think she would be willing to do to get some?"

I asked, "You don't think she would steal money from someone, do you?" I imagined G.G. grabbing an unsuspecting woman's purse and running off.

Rick shook his head "no."

I didn't get to respond then as I was giving the lady behind the counter my name and insurance card. As the pharmacy hadn't received the prescription electronically yet, we both sat down in the hard plastic chairs to wait.

A moment later, Rick jumped up from his seat and then held out his phone toward me. "We've got to memorialize this." He started snapping pictures with his phone.

"Those had better not go up online. I really don't want everyone to know I got hurt. It is embarrassing."

"Don't worry, I won't post them. Can you pull the wrapping aside a little so I can get one with more of the bruise?" I complied and he snapped another couple of pictures.

"I should have gotten one before your head was all wrapped up," he complained.

I shrugged. "If you are around when I take the bandage off to take a shower, I guess you can see it then."

"It's a date," Rick agreed. He sat back down then and we waited quietly. He was scrolling through his social media, while I was playing a word game.

After perhaps ten minutes, I got an alert and then saw it was just a memory of pictures I had taken on this date over the past few years. I pulled up the pictures which went from most recent to oldest.

The first picture was of G.G. scowling. I had taken it a year ago and immediately recognized the occasion.

G.G. was dressed up for the spring formal, in an ice-blue dress as she waited for her date. I recalled telling her I was going to take her picture. She had whined, "Do you have to?"

I remembered telling her, "Yes, some day you are going to want to remember this." I snapped the picture quick, before G.G. could put her hands up and completely ruin it as she had done before.

"No I'm not." She insisted. "Tracy talked me into going, but teenage boys are the worst."

"Worse than teenage girls?" She had been moody and mopey right before then, but unwilling to tell me what was wrong. I suspected it had something to do, maybe, with her menstrual cycle, but I knew better than to say that.

"Yeah, ugh. Vaughn doesn't know how to kiss. He does this bizarre, wrap his lips all around, above and below mine, rather than having our lips meet. It is gross and yucky, and he just pushed his tongue straight in my mouth during, like it was some weird kind of mouth sex. And his mouth tasted awful, like he never brushes his teeth or anything."

"Did you want him to kiss you?"

"Yes. I don't know." G.G. shrugged. "I was curious, but then it was bad, so I don't really want to have to kiss him again. Tracy thinks he's hot, thinks I should be happy and really wanted us to all go to the dance together."

"You know, you don't ever have to kiss or do anything with a boy that you don't want to do."

G.G. answered mechanically, without any indication she was giving her response any thought whatsoever, "I know, but I said I'd go. Tracy'd be mad if I bailed and if I go I have to kiss him; it's expected because he is taking me and he paid for the tickets."

"I don't care whether it is expected or not. He doesn't have a right to anything if you go, except the pleasure of your company." I pulled out my wallet. "How much did the tickets cost? You can pay him back if that makes it easier." I started counting out twenties.

"No, way, but thanks, I could do with some cash." She grabbed the top two twenties. "Maybe we can stop for some mints or gum." She put the money in a little lace covered armband thing that had a zipper. I did not object. I had plenty and there was no reason she shouldn't have some.

She then added, "Bill, could you be any dorkier? That whole 'pleasure of your company' thing, that's like something they would have said in some old century movie, like you know that one you showed me before they had AC that was all in black and white.

When I gave her a blank look she got all exasperated.

"You know, that one about the guy with the broken leg, where the dog that gets let down in the basket dies."

"You mean Rear Window, with Jimmy Stewart?"

"Yes, I guess. It was so so boring. Everything goes so slow in those weird old movies."

"It's called pacing, drama, building suspense. A movie doesn't have to be all violence and special effects you know."

G.G. groaned. "I hate old century movies. All he did was sit in his chair and look out the window."

"It is a great movie," I maintained, "But as for what I told you, I didn't get it from a movie. That was something Mom told me, before I went on my first date, but of course she said, since I was the guy, that I didn't have the right to expect anything for whatever I spent on my date, that all I was paying for was the pleasure of her company and nothing else."

G.G. pressed her lips together for a second and tensed up her forehead, but the next second it was gone, almost as if it had never been. I didn't mention our parents to G.G. very much, and I wondered then if I should have mentioned Mom then at all. I didn't want to make G.G. sad.

"Figures. Old century advice, then, just like I said."

A moment later, before I had formulated a response to that, the doorbell rang. G.G. grabbed her wrap and hurried toward the door. I was right behind her. I said again, "You don't have to go" and then offered, "we could pretend you suddenly got a stomach bug."

"Nah, I got this."

G.G. opened the door and I met Vaughn. He was a mixed race boy who had tall hair. Otherwise he wasn't much taller than G.G. but thinner than her, super skinny. I recalled her telling me that he ran track. I remember thinking to myself, Good, if he gets handsy, G.G. can definitely take him.

I would have asked to take their pictures, if it weren't for G.G. mouthing "No pictures." She mouthed some other things to me, including what might have been "Don't embarrass me."

I told Vaughn, "I know the dance ends at 10:30 and it takes about fifteen minutes to get back here so-"

"Bill, what if we want to get some burgers or ice cream after with Tracy and Jim?" G.G. asked.

For someone who didn't want to kiss this boy, she wasn't making it easy for me to help her get home right after. "How long do you need?"

"How about 'til one?"

"Midnight." I decided. "Have her home by midnight."

I recalled G.G. had gotten home by about 11:58. I had been waiting up for her. I remembered she looked a little flushed and disheveled. I had caught a whiff of something on her, a tangy, sour smell mixed with her perfume (I didn't remember her wearing perfume before, but then again, maybe Tracy had sprayed some on her) that smelled almost like . . . but of course I had dismissed it as my nose playing tricks on me. She hadn't wanted to even kiss him, after all, and I figured it might just be some boy stink from his car. Back then I had thought my sister hadn't done much more than kiss anyone, wouldn't have thought it of her. But now . . . now?

"Damn," I mumbled to myself, shaking my head as if it would make the sudden connection I had made fly out of my head.

I scrolled though some of the other pictures of that same day in other years. There was G.G. with a cat curled up her lap, G.G. riding her bike, G.G. at the zoo. She smiled in some of the pictures, but I wondered (now knowing George Wickham had been molesting her all that time), Was she happy back then, or just putting on a good show for me?

Finally my prescription came through and Rick and I were able to leave the pharmacy. It wasn't until we were back in his car driving back to my place that I took up the thread of the conversation from before again.

"Rick, what do you worry she would do?" It had been some half an hour since we had been talking about it, but he answered easily without me even having to say who "she" was.

Rick kept his eyes firmly directed forward as he drove. "Forget I said anything. I am probably just being paranoid."

"Seriously, tell me. I'd rather know the worst."

Rick hesitated further, but I just waited. Finally he spoke up. "Okay, but I could be just randomly coming up with stuff that is pretty far away from what she is actually doing. I don't know anything, after all. It is just, the only commodity she has now is . . . well, herself."

My imagination took things from there, formed all sorts of horrible scenarios, each one worse than the last. I thought, If G.G. had sex with Vaughn, just because he took her to a dance, what else might she do? But then I hit upon something that made me feel better. "Surely George wouldn't want her doing things with other men. He'd never suggest that she . . ."

"Oh he wouldn't, would he? Bill, you are being naive. George's not exactly a paragon of moral virtue, now is he? He might even find the idea of it, stimulating, that she would do so much for him. His rules, if he has any, aren't like ours."

We drove in silence the rest of the way home. I felt I had no time to waste in saving G.G. from herself. I was busy using my phone to look for last minute connecting airline tickets to Heathrow from here and then the other international airports in England, moving on to France when I couldn't find anything for a week, as I figured that perhaps I could take the chunnel from there. Then, having no such luck, I started checking tickets from every international airport within a twelve hour radius of us, figuring I could either get a flight there or drive if necessary. I quickly concluded that I had better hope I could access my uncle's plane again.

I got home and Rick followed me inside. I started talking to him about flying to England, the lack of tickets and my hope that I could use his father's plane, but he stopped me. "Bill, you aren't going anywhere. You need to see that doctor, get yourself sorted before you go flying to try to find G.G. Honestly, it is probably a fool's errand, but I'm determined. I'm going to go instead of you."

"But . . ."

"No butts, only assholes," Rick responded, raising his hand in a "stop" motion. It was an expression he had that meant "pucker up and be quiet, and stop acting like a fool." Partially it was because when your butt "talks," it is just breaking wind and no one wants to deal with that.

Rick changed his hand to make it into the "one moment" finger, and then said "You're about to argue with me, but you shouldn't, because you know I'm right, even though you always want to do things yourself. If you go off and don't get treatment, you might not heal right. I can handle things the same as you and it is probably a fool's errand, but I will go all the same."

I wanted to argue, I really did, but I forced myself to think things through and then responded, "I guess you are right. But I'm going to be on the first plane over there I can after getting my jaw sorted."

"I'm right? I'm right!" Rick grinned. "Now you are talking sense and about time, too. You can trust me, Bill, really you can, because I bet I love G.G. almost as much as you do. And if by any chance I catch up with that monster, well I can best most anyone in a physical fight. You, you didn't even fight back with Chuck Bingley."

Rick shook his head and then said, seemingly more to himself than me, "I would have never thought Bingley had it in him, would have never thought he could pack such a wallop. I always thought he was a bit wimpy, more so than you at least." With the last clause, he looked over at me. "Now Caroline, I bet she's the scratching and hair pulling type, a real psycho woman when mad."

The last thing I wanted to talk about was Caroline. Rick must have recognized his faux pax, for he mouthed "sorry." It wasn't much later after that, just after he got out my pills, handed me a glass of water and watched me take them, that I left. I had no desire to do anything else, had no feeling of being hungry even though I hadn't eaten any dinner, so I just took myself off to bed.

I must have needed the sleep, and the pills must have helped, because I slept until almost ten. I would have slept for longer, but the ringing of my cell phone roused me. I was disoriented at first, but managed to pluck the phone off my nightstand, from where it lay on the wireless charger, before the person on the other end of the phone hung up.

It was a woman from Dr. Nailer's office, calling to schedule my appointment as he apparently was the oral and maxillofacial surgeon. She said "How is three on Wednesday."

Naturally I asked, "Isn't there anything sooner?" With the slight movement of my jaw to speak, the throbbing that set off confirmed for me that the medicine had worn off.

"No, and in fact you are being worked in because Dr. Nailer is fully booked that day. Today is his surgery day and he rounds every morning. But if three won't work, I have an appointment on Friday at noon."

"No, I'll take Wednesday," I quickly agreed.

Fully awake now, I sat up and checked my phone. There was a missed call from England and a voicemail. I concluded the medication must have been pretty powerful for me to sleep through my phone ringing.

I listened to Mrs. Annesley's message. It was short and did not offer much except to conclude that the grounds had been searched, a horse was missing but it had been found at the east edge of the property, but of G.G. there was no sign. Mrs. Annesley concluded, "The east edge of the property is wooded and the furthest direction from the roads. I am not fully convinced that this is the direction of her travel. She is quite the intelligent girl. It is possible once she made it over the fence that she doubled around, using that to make us concentrate our search in another direction."

Her comments made me think of something, so I immediately called her back. Mrs. Annesley picked up on the second ring. I did not even both with a hello before asking, "Have any dogs been brought in to try to track G.G.?"

"No," she replied, "but I am afraid it wouldn't do any good. Remember, I was telling you it was storming? The rain just came down in a torrent and it rained for hours. We consulted with a tracker and he said that much rain would have erased any signs that there were."

"Oh," was all I said.

"I understand from Mr. Fitzwilliam that you were injured and cannot join us, but he will be flying in tomorrow."

"I will follow as soon as I can," I replied.

"As you wish. We really are doing all we can. Mr. Fitzwilliam approved of making a public announcement and so Miss Darcy's picture has been circulating and has received press coverage. I am hopeful that someone will find her, perhaps even before Mr. Fitzwilliam arrives here."

"I hope so, too," I replied.

After that, I read Rick's texts which pretty much informed me of what Mrs. Annesley had already told me. While I felt that I should have been consulted about the the announcement and use of her picture (I always tried my best to keep the Darcy name out of the press), I quickly decided there wasn't any need to be mad about that. Rick wanted to find her the same as me, and I would have ultimately approved doing that, too. I said a little prayer then, asking for her safety and that she be quickly found.