This may be one of the darkest things I have ever written. I am not sure where this macabre plot bunny came from, or what foul mood formed it, but I was hell-bent on writing this over the past three evenings. I had wanted a practice-run before venturing into a multi-chaptered P&P fiction, but this became its own little monster.

Warnings: Dark, violent, graphic in spots, horribly tragic. Turn back if you cannot take these things. Please.

-SL

The carriage rattled, hollow metallic clatter and wooden creaking along the rutted cracked dry road. A moonless sky with piercings of weak starlight lit the way on this Plutonian night.

Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, Landowner, progeny of conquerors, Lords, Kings, is unable to clean the blood dried at the edges of his fingernails on this, his last journey to Hertfordshire. His mind is calm and resolved for the first time since everything had gone wrong, since….

The driver wasn't the wiser. He had walked from the old barn on an unoccupied tenant property back into Lambton as casual as the day was long and met his carriage as had been planned. Normal seeming business about town, but indeed what could be covered in the disarmament of routine – all but blood that would not be cleaned from civil fingernails. And a short blade left behind in a puddle of entrails and slowly cooling and congealing blood. But no one had seen or found what was not routine in Mr. Darcy's day, not yet, and so there was nothing amiss.

Nothing amiss.

With dark eyes, wearied but incapable of sleep, he watches the swaying shadows thrown from the carriage lanterns grow and fade, catching the low mist radiating from the damp earth along the road like glowing phantasms rising from their resting places in the moors. Few thoughts occupy his calm mind at this time, one of the past, one of the just-finished present, and the last, of course, future. He runs through what has brought him to where he is now, like passing over pages in a book that he has read many times, but can't help but read again and again. He also knows the ending: it is where there will finally be nothing amiss.

He muses on when he last passed down this road, albeit in the other direction, he was halfway through this story, but already a dark shadow of the man he once was. Those long months before, he could hardly remember what it was like to be the simple man that he was, before he had loved, before that love twisted him into nothing more than a fury. He had last left Hertfordshire with one purpose left: to find the man who had ruined all that was good within his life and brutally murder him.

North was all he had as a lead then, and with his purse full of coin, a horse, and nondescript dress he turned his back on life and left to chase his quarry like an embodiment of death. Months went by without leads, months of sleeping on flea-ridden inn beds and terse interviews of every bar maid, gambler, or debt-collector across the North of England, but he never relented, never turned his mind from his goal. A man could not disappear, not anymore. Someone somewhere would have known or seen him, even if he had set sail across the ocean, he would find him. He grew thin, his hair long, his bearing that of a highwayman – not a sign of the gentleman that he was.

No one was the wiser. He corresponded regularly with his steward, his sister, his cousin. He was on tour through the North country, maybe Scotland, to rest his mind and recover from the unfortunate events in Hertfordshire. He assured them that he would rally and return to them soon, and so though there was concern, there was no indication of what had truly happened: the Fitzwilliam Darcy they knew was no longer. They could not know. If they knew they would find him, stop him. If they knew they would grieve, and by God, he could not share this torment with them. At least not yet.

Then he had found him.

What was worse, he had been hiding practically in the backyard of his own vast estate, a small town on the edge of Nottinghamshire. Been there quietly, living as a hired farmhand. He had cleverly tried to reign in his normal activities – gambling, drinking, womanizing – but unfortunately had recently 'slipped' and drunkenly coaxed one of the local milkmaids into the hayloft with him not long before Mr. Darcy rode into town, and the inn was abuzz with gossip.

And then it happened: like Providence himself had aligned the stars all at once, the second night that Darcy was staying at that particular inn, the door burst open and there he was, George Wickham, laughing and carrying on among a group of farmhands. Darcy's appearance had so changed that Wickham walked right by him as he approached the barkeep and gathered a round of ales, and it took every fiber within his body to not reach up and tear the man's eyes from his skull right then and there. He watched. He waited. And again, be it the devil below or the angels above, Wickham stayed last as his friends all filtered out the door one by one. When Wickham finally stumbled away, he followed.

Light was appearing in the East, a glow of grey drowning out the dimming stars. He could see the town of Meryton just along the horizon to the west, opposite the sunrise. It was time to embark, and time to give the first cue that this was no normal visit. He called to the driver to stop. He did so, but as he climbed out of the box leaving his hat and coat behind he could see the question on the old driver's face.

"Return to London. Do not go into Meryton. I have correspondences to my sister and cousin left in the carriage – upon your arrival pass these to the housekeeper to distribute," he said to him flatly, making no eye contact.

"Sir?"

"Go. I shall send for you when I need you."

He turned on his heel to face the driver and saw his servant's concern turn to fear when the old man stared into his eyes. He knew they were dark, lined and deep, and reflected the emptiness within him, nothing like the man his driver had served for all these years. The driver said no more and turned the carriage at the closest flat field.

Fitzwilliam Darcy walked in the half-light towards Longbourn.

A similar grayness was upon the land when he arrived at the unoccupied tenant barn on the far edge of his property with a bound and unconscious Wickham draped over his horse in front of him. It had been a few hours' ride, but he had done so as quickly as he could: he could not wait now that his prey was caught.

George Wickham awoke bound to a post, his arms behind him, and a monstrous headache.

"Who… what did I drink…?" He croaked out as he looked from side to side, and soon his eyes began to focus on the tall, ragged figure in front of him silhouetted by the morning light.

"Say, who are you? Why have you tied me up? I swear, that was not me with that little tramp the other night…" He had no chance to finish before the figure before him raised up a heavy iron bar to his shoulder and revealed the dark eyes of Fitzwilliam Darcy. "Fancy meeting you here… Took you long enough," he spat brazenly at his captor, doing his best to smirk over the fear that was betraying him in beads of sweat forming quickly upon his brow.

For a long while Darcy said nothing, made no moves save the small flicks of his pupils this way and that over Wickham's face, almost as if he were lost in thought. The silence only tempted Wickham to be louder, though his better judgment (what of it that existed) screamed at him for foolishness. He was never one for taking heed of that voice, however.

"Cat's got your tongue, eh there Darcy? So you found me. Can't say this is the first time I've been roughed up for having a way with the ladies. Well, come now… I'm ready for my bad medicine over that country thing you fancied," he blathered on, waiting for the rise in Darcy's otherwise disconcertingly hollow and even countenance. He received no satisfaction.

Nor did he receive a warning of any kind when the iron rod was brought down with great force to his right kneecap and successively his left, the crunching sound of bone and flesh being grated together echoed in his own ears before he could even howl like a wounded animal.

As what remained of Wickham's last meal was expelled from his twisted-open jaws and drooped over in agony to avoid putting as much weight as he could on his broken legs, Darcy tossed the iron rod to the floor with a clatter and turned to leave.

"No one can hear you scream here. Try not to die before I return. I'll be back at sundown," Darcy said flatly over his shoulder, then walked out, leaving George Wickham hanging from his bounds, legs useless, covered in his own vomit.

Mr. Darcy's walk takes him through what will soon be a beautiful fall morning in the Hertfordshire countryside. It was here that he once rode with his friend Mr. Bingley, it was here he had seen her, unknown to her, that he had watched her on her daily hikes through the land she loved so much by a man that she had no idea was falling ever so hopelessly in love with her. He tries now to remember what that felt like without pulling at the ragged and mortal wound that lay where that love used to reside in his breast, but it is of no use. The cheerful finches disregard him and the noble rook peers down, waiting, like messengers from the dark underworld. The trees tremble and quake with long bony fingers and cast early shadows over him. There is no joy for him, but peace – he made his first step towards peace just the night before….

Having announced his return to Pemberley, Master Fitzwilliam Darcy was attended to by his staff, who all declared his disposition to be much improved, that his tour had indeed been a success. They cleaned, groomed and clothed him, all to which he attended with a great equanimity. He declared that he would be traveling to London via Hertfordshire at first light, but that he had private business in Lambton which he would see to before leaving, instructing his driver to meet him at the Inn at Lambton after breakfastime.

And while the staff slept, the master retrieved his horse and a short knife from a workshed and disappeared into the moonless night.

The door to the barn moaned open, awaking George Wickham to the sight of a more familiar-looking Fitzwilliam Darcy, his features lit an unholy red by the oil-lamp he carried. Lighting another, he hung both lamps to fully illuminate the area of the barn between him and the now broken-legged man. Darcy sat upon a stool across from Wickham, who trembled at the sight of him.

"W-what do you want from me, Darcy? I- I- I'm sorry, I apologize! I never should have taken either Bennett girl! Especially Eliza—"

Wickham's mouth was met, unexpectedly again, by Darcy's fist at full force. Before he could spit out the blood and tooth that littered his mouth he found his head being throttled back by his hair, eyes up to lock with the hellish rage that finally manifested in Darcy's previously empty eyes.

"Never, NEVER will you speak that name again! You wanted revenge against me, FINE, but what sort of unimaginable slime does what YOU did to an INNOCENT GIRL?" He bellowed with a gravelly, raw voice at Wickham's wide-eyed face.

Darcy jerked the man's head to the side and then released his hand, turning and walking back to the stool. He knelt down and picked up the iron rod from where he had dropped it that morning and felt its weight in his hands.

"Darcy—Please! I- I- I went too far, I was too wrapped up in it all… too deep! I wanted to get back at you, I did, but – damn I don't know why! Darcy… please, for the love of your father, don't do anything else…."

To this, Darcy only turned on his heel, peering down on him again with those eyes, face manic, haunted, almost smiling. "Oh, my dear George, you beg me, in the name of my own beloved father to grant you mercy—"

"I'll stand trial! Just don't—"

"George, never in your life have you done things by accident. You, by sheer genius of malice, devised a way to finally ruin me. You took the one thing that I could not stand to lose, my sweet, lively, divine Elizabeth, and you DESTROYED her!"

He stormed to Wickham's side and raised the rod again, and before the tied man could scream no, the landowner brought the metal down onto Wickham's bound hands over and over again until they were no more than swollen masses of blood and bone. He stood back and waited as the other man stopped crying out and try to not flail more than he already was, the pain in his broken legs mixing with his ruined hands.

"After you seduced her stupid, stupid silly sister to run off with you, you decided that what I was offering you to marry the tart was not enough! You discovered my attachment to Elizabeth and you fled back to Hertfordshire. You waited along one of her walks, beat her, tied her in the woods and … raped her … over and… over." Darcy's voice grew quiet, far away… "You kept her all day doing this. And when she finally passed out from the pain and humiliation, you left her there, tied in the woods, to be discovered the next day practically naked by hunters…"

"I'm SORRY! I AM A WORTHLESS DOG!" Wickham screeched, tears streaming down his face, sobs wracking his body. "Please STOP this!"

"Is that what she asked you? When you wouldn't stop putting THAT into her?"

The rod came at Wickham again, this time savagely crushing his groin, which Darcy repeated again and again declaring 'THAT' with each successive strike. Wickham dry heaved again from the pain, and seemed to near some sort of pain-induced seizure. Darcy sat again on the stool, dropping the iron rod again, remembering this awful, surreal chapter of this story, reading it in his head as he waited to Wickham to regain awareness for what was to come next.

He had set chase to Wickham as soon as it was realized that he had skipped town again, though with enough time to secure Miss Lydia into the care of her relations. But when he arrived back in Meryton he was approached by one of the locals saying that something most unspeakable had befallen one of the Bennett girls and his mind raced to the conclusion that he could not bear, but held hope as he dashed to Longbourn. Sadly, he was greeted by Miss Bennett, white as a ghost, who confirmed his fears, but declared Miss Elizabeth alive and recovering from her ordeal.

When left to decide between chasing after Wickham or staying by Elizabeth's side, he could not stand being far in case any other threat came to her, and thus stayed as a guest of the Bennett household until Bingley returned to Netherfield a week later. His singular regard for her was also completely in the open, which made Mrs Bennett cackle and crow about despite the fact that the daughter he admired would barely speak and spent most of her time sleeping or weeping.

Over the weeks to come, Elizabeth seemed to rally as she watched Jane and Bingley's romance rekindle even in spite of all the hardship her family was facing. Lydia was no longer spoken of in the home, and sent far away to a distant relation in Cumbria to learn the trade of a seamstress. There was no recourse for her now, and her parents had to deny her for the sake of their remaining daughters' future.

Darcy made a point to spend as much time in Miss Elizabeth's company as was allowable, and around the time of Jane and Bingley's wedding he thought that she was beginning to seem like her old self again, though she rarely walked farther than the gardens around Longbourn proper.

The day after Jane and Charles left for their honeymoon, Mr Darcy came to call at the Bennett house and took a turn about the grounds with Miss Elizabeth. His manners had been everything he could muster to reassure her that he had not lost his regard for her, and wanted nothing more than to be in her presence even in her 'altered' state. But something had changed in her today. She walked slowly, and the small smiles that she had been showing around the wedding were all gone. She looked down as she walked, but not at the grass or rocks, not at anything at all.

"Miss Bennett, I must express my concern in how I find you today. You seemed to have rallied these past weeks since your ordeal, yet you seem turned back today. Is there anything you wish to speak of? To relieve your mind?" He asked her has they walked along the path.

"My dear Mr Darcy, you do see right through me these days. I… I am afraid you have caught me, sir, in an act," she said with a small voice.

"An act? I do not understand," he said, concerned, glancing over to try and ascertain her mood, but could not see past the grey dullness that had come over her.

"Mr Darcy, I… I cannot lie to you," she stopped walking and looked away from him. "These weeks of appeared recovery have been my greatest show. I could not burden dear Jane's heart with the loss of my own, especially when her Mr Bingley had returned to her. I had to maintain an appearance of who I once was so that she could focus on her own happiness. And now that she has married and is gone with Mr Bingley, I have no more pretense," she turned and gazed at him, seeing the hurt in his eyes at this statement.

"I will not disrespect your devotion and regard for me by pretending to be that which I am not anymore. I am a broken, fallen woman, Mr Darcy. I- I- I still see and feel what he did to me every time I close my eyes… I fear open places, I shudder at hands, and, yes, even sometimes at your most tender holding of my hand." Tears were forming in the corners of her eyes, her pretty mouth twisted into a sad frown, "I do not believe that I shall ever be as I was… there is a hollowness inside of me now… like he stole wherever it was in my soul that joy was found. I beg you, please forget me! Leave me… You do not deserve this… thing that is left."

"Do not say such things Miss Bennett," he replied, heart pounding in his chest, "I… Love you more than I ever imagined I could love anyone. Do not try and set me free; I am, and will always be yours, no matter how you feel. I want to be by your side through this, whether you feel whole or not."

"Mr Darcy… Fitzwilliam… I… I feel guilty being the recipient of so much love I do not nor will ever deserve…" she openly wept now, her hands covering her eyes, "But this hollowness—I cannot stand. It robs me of all feeling, and leaves me cursed with only nightmares. I want your love to save me, but I cannot feel it! I recognize your regard, and I know in my mind that you speak truly of your feelings, but they work for me no more! Oh Mr Darcy… please, don't waste your love on me… I beg of you…"

"Shh, hush Elizabeth, do not dwell on such things!" he reached to touch her arm and she reflexively recoiled from the contact.

"I am sorry, I did not mean—" he started and she shook her head between slowing sobs.

"I cannot control it… My body and mind react without my will…" she sniffed, regaining some composure.

"Do you wish to return to Longbourn?" he asked quietly, dejectedly.

"No…" she said too quickly, her eyes haunted, "out here, at least, my mind is somewhat distracted. I fall into waking dreams too easily when sitting." Her eyes refocused, and she seemed somewhat normal again. "I… wish to see the pond today. It should be full again since the rains last week."

He smiled at her, "Certainly. We shall see the pond. But please, do not try to release me from your affections, Miss Bennett. I cannot give you up."

"Of course, Mr Darcy. I will not ask that of you again."

Their walk took them around the pond a couple of times before the hour became late. Elizabeth often stopped and gazed down into the dark depths of the farming pond with its lily pads, green algae, and bits of insect life. Mr Darcy was pleased to see that her mind appeared to be occupied with pleasanter things.

They parted ways after he returned her to Longbourn house. She allowed him to kiss her hand. That would be the last time he saw Elizabeth Bennett alive.

The next morning when he came to call the Bennett house was strangely astir. He came upon Miss Kitty in the yard as she was looking around hedges and corners for something.

"Are you missing something Miss Bennett?" he asked as he dismounted from his horse.

"Mr Darcy!" she startled, "Father has us all in an uproar looking for Lizzy," she said exasperated.

"Looking for – is she missing?" he asked, suddenly very worried.

"She was not at breakfast and when Mama went to call her down she discovered that she was not in her room. I'm sure she just went for one of her walks like she used to. Last night I heard her say something about the pond, maybe she wanted to walk there this morning?" Kitty scratched her head.

"We did walk there yesterday," Darcy mused right before Mrs Hill came running up to greet him.

"Mr Darcy Sir! Pardon my interruption, but I found this left by the back door not long ago! It's addressed from you in Miss Lizzy's hand. Perhaps she's waiting for you somewhere," she said before running back off to her duties.

He could see from the smeared ink on the outside of the letter that it had been written in haste. He opened it to reveal but a few words written at an angle:

"Fitzwilliam—

I love you. Please forgive me for what I am to do.

-EB"

His heart froze as the pieces slowly locked into place: she released him, the pond, her disappearance. He hastily mounted his horse and as he was turning the beast to the path that led to the pond shouted to Kitty, "Tell your father to go to the pond on the edge of the Longbourn grounds! I fear Elizabeth is in danger!"

He galloped off, mercilessly driving the horse along the narrow footpath, catching sticks and leaves across his face and hair, but it still took him a good ten minutes to reach the pond. Once there he reared up his horse and called her name, but there was no response. Looking to and fro frantically, he leapt from the saddle and ran to the banks, looking for anything, perhaps she was merely walking and….

He saw a strange ripple in the water. Among the lilies and the algae he spied the outline of a pale hand. Horrified, mesmerized, he moved closer and in the golden morning light he saw her face beneath the water: skin a perfect white, dark curls loose in the water spread about her face like a halo, dark, lovely eyes fixed open to the morning, with her dark green coat weighing her down at the pockets, filled with rocks.

He was absolutely silent and still before it registered in his mind to scream and fall to his knees. He launched himself upon the waters to drag her out with a sudden desperation that maybe she was still alive and he could revive her. He balled her limp body next to his not even out of the water and held her with all his strength, bellowing her name, kissing her white hands, looking into her unseeing eyes. It was thusly that Mr Bennett found what had become of his favorite daughter.

Darcy carried her back to Longbourn himself. He chose a spot along her favorite walk to bury her, as the church would not give her a place in the churchyard as she was a suicide.

And the singular, unwavering devotion of his love was tainted into an unrelenting search for vengeance. He sent word of his intentions to his relations not a week after Elizabeth's body had been committed to the ground and took to the roads north.

Wickham's head stirred after succumbing to unconsciousness for some minutes, erupting into a low groan as his head slowly lifted. His eyes focused upon Mr Darcy waiting, patient as a saint, atop the stool across from him in only his shirtsleeves and breeches. Albeit, a saint did not have the eyes of a hellspawn, and the flickering of the oil lamps made his maddened eyes glow all the more.

"I… I… you will not… kill me… Darcy…?" Wickham croaked out between raspy pants, spittle and vomit crusted at the corners of his mouth. "You do not… want blood on your hands. Think of… think of Georgiana…"

"Blood on my hands… I have the spectre of death following close behind now," Darcy replied lowly, rising to his feet. "Wickham, Miss Elizabeth took her own life rather than live with the memories of what you did to her… and ultimately," his right hand raised with a short, hefty steel knife towards his lips. Wickham shuddered and whimpered at the sight. "Ultimately, her death lies on my hands. Had I never loved her, had I never met her, YOU would have never had any reason to take your spite out upon her."

He pointed the blade at George Wickham's trembling and sputtering face.

"What of me that was of human emotions and compassion died and is buried with my Elizabeth. What I am now only exists to make right of this world between you, Elizabeth, and myself. I know full well what awaits me, but I shall not go there until I dispense justice upon you for Elizabeth."

Mr Darcy pushed up both sleeves on his shirt.

"George Wickham, I shall deal you a slow and painful death!"

The knife was a blur – cuts to the cheeks at the corners of the mouth; tendons slashed at the joints. And lastly, he paused his cleaving, hovering above the soft flesh of Wickham's belly, made eye contact with the sniveling, moaning creature that was once his childhood companion, just to be sure that he knew what was coming. He then savagely plunged the blade through skin and muscle and drew a ragged line from side to side, then pulled what insides had caught on the blade out into the air of the room and to the dirt of the floor.

Wickham wailed as he watched his own viscera spill out before him.

Darcy stared down at his handiwork, at the carnage and blood gathering on the floor, listened to the wretched moaning and crying from the dying man beside him. The knife fell to the floor with a clatter. He walked to a nearby trough with gathered rainwater and rinsed the blood and spatters from his hands. It would not clean from his fingernails. He donned his waistcoat and jacket, both covering the spots of blood that dotted his shirt, and adjusted his cravat. Then, putting out one lantern and taking the next, he left without another look back.

The path takes him some thirty minutes through the picturesque wood outside of the Longbourn estate. The sun is peeking over the eastern hills now, a joyous disc of gilded light making the remaining mist glow before the warmth of the new morning faded it back into the ground.

He stands now before a mound of dirt having not quite settled in the passing months, a stone with the name of his beloved carved onto its face. She lies alone out here, though he imagines her far more content to lie in the beauty of nature than in the crowded, cold churchyard.

"My Elizabeth… my dearest sweet Elizabeth, I have reckoned with he who took you from me… who broke you so completely," he whispers, kneeling at her grave-foot. "I pray that your soul is at peace, and perhaps you could ask the Lord a favor to forgive this broken man… I have taken a life with these hands," he looks down to see the dried blood black along his cuticles, "And above all… I bear the burden of leading death to you."

Tears fall from his dark eyes, no longer furious, but full once again of all of the grief and loss and horrible regret that he had buried beneath the anger that dissipated with the ending of Wickham's life.

"I have known what I must do to put us all back in balance, where nothing shall be amiss…"

From his coat he produces a single barreled pistol.

"Forgive me, dear Lord, and forgive me, Elizabeth… You would not have wished this upon me, but it must be so. I cannot love without you, and I cannot live with this blood and death upon me."

He looks up to see a beautiful day dawning, hears the finches warble from the trees, the gentle soughing of the wind through leaves. He smiles, closes his tear-filled eyes, and presses the barrel to his temple.

A crack of gunpowder resounds through the woods, to Meryton, to Longbourn. Finches take cover and the noble rook watches the body of a tall gentleman slump to the ground.

The sun is shining, the day dawned and alive, nothing amiss in the world. Nothing amiss at all.