He wouldn't have done it had he known what he was doing. That was a statement that rarely applied in the life of William Darcy, but then time passed in dizzying fits and starts that year, especially the first few weeks, leaving him more off-kilter than he had ever been before or since. Cliches about desperate times barely grazed the surface of that year's sick reality. Besides, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, not so much a good idea as a necessary action. Necessity—he had barely thought of the term prior to that year, and then all of a sudden it guided his every decision.

He was fifteen and Gigi was eight. Of course he had to be The Adult. That much was obvious. What was less obvious was how to fill that role. He was hardly immature—even as a child, he'd had an overdeveloped sense of propriety—but there was a difference between being grown up enough to do things for oneself and being a grown-up who did things for others.

For perhaps the first time in his well-ordered life, William improvised. Before long, he was an expert at taking steadying breaths to avoid crying. As soon as he learned to drive, he started picking Gigi up from school himself rather than merely riding along with Aunt Catherine's chauffeur. When the cook's hot chocolate proved unsatisfactory, William spent days in the kitchen messing with the recipe until Gigi was satisfied with the result.

But the most important thing was not crying. William could tell he was the only person Gigi trusted. He couldn't fail her now. Even when he was alone, he had to be stoic in case Gigi called or walked in unexpectedly. Besides, having emotions himself might leave him too drained to help Gigi. He saw no options aside from shutting down his emotional apparatus and padlocking it shut.

Twelve years later, he couldn't help but wonder if there had been another way. His attempts over the past several years to revive his emotions had been awkward at best, and lately it seemed that he had bungled everything. He had hurt Gigi—the one thing he had spent most of his life trying to avoid—and exposed her to still more hurt; misjudged an innocent woman, hurting both her and a personal friend in the process; and hurt, demeaned, and offended the only woman he had ever truly fallen in love with.

Lizzie Bennet was more correct than she knew when she called him a robot. His understanding of emotions was crippled by his misguided attempt to grow up to protect Gigi. He had failed himself and his sister and everyone else as well, yet he still could not see what he might have done differently

Lizzie was a study in doing things differently. She appeared to care for her sisters, yet she did not hide her emotions from them. She did not always agree with her friends' decisions, but she was transparent about her misgivings rather than playing puppeteer with the lives of others. Most of all, she was open about how she felt, not just with those close to her but with the Internet. For William, who had closed himself off for over a decade, this was a revelation.

He could never be as open as Lizzie. The mere thought of baring his heart to strangers made his skin crawl. But perhaps, for a select few . . .

The letter required seven drafts. In truth, it required more, but San Francisco beckoned, and he could not justify shirking work for the sake of love. Well, not for love alone. The three weeks he had taken off last winter after finding George with Gigi had been motivated by both love and duty. No matter how much of William's heart Lizzie stole, he knew that he was bound to his sister on a still deeper level.

Lizzie was not fully satisfied with the letter. William had expected as much. If Fitz and Bing had so far failed to pry open his emotions, then it could not be done quickly, full stop. Still, Lizzie had kept and read the letter, and she had not disclosed Gigi's secrets. William did not presume to know what that meant, but it was at least further from the worst case scenario than their previous interaction had been.

As had been the case twelve years prior, there was no one to ask for advice. Gigi was still too fragile to take on emotional burdens (but then, she had never been otherwise), and Fitz and Bing had hardly shone with emotional astuteness on Lizzie's videos. It was tempting to ignore his emotions altogether and throw himself into his work, but he could not risk remaining his unintentionally hurtful current self. In the Brown Equilibrium of life, he would run into far too many people for that.

The only change he managed before his next encounter with Lizzie was an increase in self-awareness that seemed to manifest itself as social anxiety and yet more awkwardness. That in itself was not an improvement, but the businessman in him knew that the first step to avoiding a problem was being aware of it. He allowed himself to hope that Lizzie's proximity would help him progress further, despite the sense that his brain was not fully functional in Lizzie's presence.

Lizzie herself seemed strangely awkward, but her scorn appeared to have diminished. She thanked him, wished him a good day, and touched his arm. William could not name the sensation this physical contact induced in him, but it seemed to be coaxing his mouth into a smile.

The next time he came into contact with Lizzie, the subject at hand precluded much emotional discovery. Tension and awkwardness were two sensations William already knew well. The following meeting, however—facilitated by Gigi's presence and prolonged by the largeness of San Francisco—was revelatory. Jointly, Lizzie and his sister catalyzed a shift inside of him; for the first time in a decade, it seemed that he was made of flesh rather than metal, and he was surprised to realize how thoroughly he approved of this change.

When Lizzie interviewed him that Monday, he felt like a butterfly that had just exited its chrysalis. After years of living in cramped darkness—so many years that he had ceased to notice that he could no longer hear nor see—he was suddenly surrounded by brightness and fresh air and space, and here he could unfold and stretch himself. Never before had he inhabited this body or this world, but now they were his.

William allowed himself to experiment and to enjoy the sensation. It hardly felt like a choice, so compelling was this new freedom. For the first time in his recollection, he understood the word "playful." He dared to name his emotion, and he called it happiness. The positive results of the interview imbued him with courage, and a few days later he managed to ask Lizzie to the theater.

Then everything went terribly wrong, and William longed for his habitual stiffness. This was why he had developed it, after all—to withstand the unspeakable and never experience the full extent of his pain. Being made of flesh rather than metal made him vulnerable as well as flexible, and he almost regretted the shift. As the true horror of the situation revealed itself, William hardened again. It helped him focus and avoid breaking down. Besides, maintaining emotions was an exhausting task in Lizzie's absence, and he needed to devote his energy elsewhere.

It was with stiffness that he greeted Lizzie when they finally met again, and he remained metallic for the first part of their conversation. Perhaps it was for the best, since holding his emotions in a vice grip was the only way to avoid shattering in the face of this newly unbearable rejection.

Lizzie's lips met his and his entire circuit board shorted. There was no returning to his metallic state now. Lizzie had killed William Darcy the robot and resurrected William Darcy the human being. Every corner of his recently discovered body flooded with pleasure, and he named the sensation bliss.