So, it's been a while... and I'm sorry. I had most of this chapter written for a while, but I got sort of blocked and also haven't really been writing, which is generally not good. And just focused on other things, and no one really cares, so here's this chapter.

This chapter (Pemberley #2) is pre-episode 79. As in the same day but before Lizzie films, for reasons that will become obvious midway through the chapter.

This is kind of a weird chapter, and it actually wasn't one of the Pemberley chapters in my original plan for this story (there are like 6 at least now?). But the whole point of the Pemberley arc both in LBD and the book was for Lizzie to get to know Darcy. And this was just another way of doing that, and I kind of don't really think she could know him without talking about his parents, so here we are. It's a bit all over the place, I guess, and I kind of struggled with bridging the different parts and with some of the more emotional parts of it. Anyway, this chapter can best be summed up as Darcy has Daddy issues (kind of ironic that I'm posting this the day after Father's Day, eh?), Lizzie learns about Darcy, and then mystery guest.

Again, it bears repeating that this isn't really compliant with the Secret Diary. In case that wasn't obvious, lol, because obviously Lizzie's diary would be a lot more interesting and sexual. I sound like Lydia, ha. But that aside, I'm actually talking about Darcy's parents. The actual vlogs never outright state anything about when his parents die, so I basically mirrored P&P in that respect (mom first, dad later, the sort of fanon interpretation of Darcy's dad and his parents' relationship) because I think it works better. Also, I find it very hard to believe that a man who grew up with his mother would attempt such a ridiculous love confession, let's be real. Unless his parents had a very bizarre relationship, which they kind of do in this story not gonna lie, but the boy had to get it from somewhere. Anyway, I'm not sure I say the exact age anywhere, but I think I made him about nine or ten when his mom died in case you were wondering.

Also, again, to state the obvious, I do not own LBD or the 200-year-old book it is based upon. The concept of the Memorial Hall comes from the ancient Pemberley Digital website, but what is inside is 98% my artistic license. As always, reviews are highly appreciated, and enjoy!

It took a few days before Lizzie finally felt brave enough to go to the Memorial Hall. It had been one of the things that most intrigued her about Pemberley ever since she'd read about it on the website, and it had not been included on her tour. She wasn't sure if that was a deliberate oversight on Gigi's part or if it was left out from every tour. She'd quietly asked some of the employees about it, and they'd all said different things depending on how long they'd worked there.

Older employees called it a moving tribute. They talked about the breathtaking art collection—it was the largest privately-owned collection in San Francisco. New employees whispered about it feeling haunted and being somewhat creepy at night. The younger ones spoke of its beauty, of the fun film screenings and premieres held there, of the live music and theatrical performances put on there. Reynolds spoke fondly of the rooftop garden she and Gigi had helped design.

But Lizzie had needed to see it for herself, and she'd wanted to go alone before she came there for one of the weekly screenings or performances. She'd kind of always realized that Darcy's parents weren't around. He never really spoke of them, never mentioned them in the casual way most people talk about their parents, and they hadn't been to Bing's party... which meant that either Darcy hated them or... well, the alternative. At the time, she hadn't wanted to think too deeply about what that meant. She hadn't wanted to feel sorry for him at first, and he wasn't the kind of person who wanted to be pitied.

But here, in the Memorial Hall, was the incontrovertible evidence of their deaths, that he and Gigi had become orphans.

So when she visited the first time, she didn't go to the conference rooms or the theater or the stage or the greenhouse. She went straight for the small display dedicated to William and Anne Darcy at the back of the first floor. It was kind of like a chapel, alternately dim and bright at the same time, and beautiful. She stopped in front of the painting of William S. Darcy and stared.

She read the plaque underneath his name outlining the facts of his life and listing his accomplishments, but she was drawn back to staring at the painting. It was so well done she almost couldn't tell it was a painting. He looked like the photo George had shown her, only younger. His hair was all dark, and there were no lines on his face. His eyes seemed bright and distracted, and he was smiling warmly. There were ancient computers in the background of the portrait, and she got the impression that he would've preferred to be working on them rather than sitting around for a portrait. She was silently comparing his features with Darcy's when she felt eyes on her.

She turned to the side to see if she was being paranoid and promptly laid eyes on the man himself. He was only a few feet away, staring at the picture of his parents together in the middle of the hall. When had he come in, or had he been in here first, and she just hadn't noticed? She froze, not knowing what to do, and then watched as Darcy slowly walked over to her. "I come here every day at this time," Darcy said quietly, standing next to her, his eyes on the portrait of his father. His eyes focused on his father's neck, on the loosened, askew tie flipped over his father's shoulder.

Lizzie closed her eyes briefly and tried to avoid cringing. Part of the reason she'd come here was because it was common knowledge that Darcy avoided the Memorial Hall like the plague, only coming when it was absolutely required. She figured he did that because it was too painful or it reminded him of them. Given how rarely he spoke of his parents, she would've thought that he would avoid this part of it most of all. If she'd known he came here every day at this time, she would've come later or at a different time or... not at all.

"Oh, I'm sorry... I... didn't know. I didn't see you when I came in," she found herself babbling helplessly, alternating looking at him and his father's portrait and finding the whole experience very unnerving. She felt like William Senior's slate-colored eyes were staring into her soul and somehow finding her wanting. It was an eerily familiar sensation. "I should, um, leave you to it. I'm just, uh, gonna go," Lizzie said hastily, motioning towards the door with her thumb and already beginning to back away. The last thing she wanted to do was interrupt some private ritual so Darcy couldn't... be left alone with the memories of his parents in peace. She'd already taken enough from him.

Ordinarily, Darcy would have been fine with that, would've preferred it, actually. Only a select few knew of his daily visits, just a brief, silent fifteen to thirty minute walk when the Memorial Hall was at its most deserted, and they all knew better than to join or interrupt him. It was too painful, and he was never in the mood for conversation in this hall of ghosts and memories. But fate had brought her here at this time and this hour, and he couldn't turn down any coincidence that brought her to him.

She'd said before that he'd never let her get to know him, and she'd been right... but here was his chance to change that. What better way was there for her to get to know him than for him to share this, the rawest part of himself with her? He was so desperate to spend any free moment he could with Lizzie that it didn't even fill him with trepidation just... He didn't want her to leave. It would hurt worse if she just turned on her heel and acted like she'd never seen this. For once, he felt like he could use the company.

He reached for her wrist, stopping just short of it, as if he'd thought better of touching her. But his fingertips still brushed over the bone. She stopped briefly to look at him and saw that he was shaking his head. "It's fine." He wasn't quite smiling, but he was wearing one of his pleasanter expressions. "You don't have to go, Lizzie," he said, his voice hushed like he was speaking in a church or a crypt. She supposed he sort of was. "I take it it's your first visit to the Memorial Hall?" he continued, sounding a bit like a tour guide.

She nodded dumbly and stared at him for a moment, wondering how he could sound so calm. She still felt like she was interrupting and wanted desperately to leave, but she couldn't now, and Darcy didn't seem like he was going to throw her out. He gestured at his father's picture. "That's-"

"Your father, I know," she replied, saving him from having to say it. The words sounded odd. It was still sort of strange to think of Darcy having a father, stranger still to think that he was dead. His brow furrowed, and he looked over at her questioningly. She shrugged. She could say that she can read or that she sees the resemblance, but that's not what she says. "I've seen pictures before."

Darcy's brows shot up, and she saw the question there. Lizzie looked down. She could've copped out and said that there were pictures of him all over the office, which was sort of true. Or she could've lied, but she didn't want to do that. She straightened her shoulders. "Gigi didn't show me, neither did Fitz, and I didn't do research or anything..." she trailed off, tentative. She doesn't want to ruin this by saying George's name.

Darcy nodded slowly, quiet. "Ah... He showed you?" He wasn't sure what to make of that. He looked over at her, and Lizzie nodded again, still looking down. Darcy's jaw tightened; she could see the muscles almost jump as he flexed. A part of him felt that George had stolen something from him yet again, but another part of him felt, well, sort of glad that someone else still remembered him. Darcy cleared his throat, trying to master his emotions. "How?" he asked patiently, clenching his hands together, knuckles white. He was very still. "What I mean is... what did he say?"

Lizzie shrugged a shoulder, looking at the painting. "I asked him about you." Darcy turned abruptly to face her, his expression a mixture of shock, worry, and confusion. Still, she'd been curious enough to ask George about him? Had she wanted to hear bad things, or had she just wanted to know about him? Why did he feel like he was back in high school all of a sudden? Lizzie met his gaze before looking away quickly, back at the picture. She wasn't sure what she had wanted at the time. Maybe George had a point about that after all.

"And he told me about your dad," she continued haltingly, "Not much, but he mentioned him sometimes." In the way Darcy studiously hadn't. The way people casually mention their parents or family members—people who are important to them—in conversation. It hadn't escaped her notice either that George had never once spoken of his own family, which said a lot in and of itself. "He said that your father was a great man, that he loved him very much." Darcy almost smiled, but looked over at her instead, as if imploring her to go on. By the way he was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Darcy wanted an answer to his earlier question.

His next sentence confirmed that. "And what, exactly, did he tell you about me? Aside from the lies he told you about the trust," Darcy asked carefully, watching her for any sign of a response. He needs to know, needs to know exactly how bad the damage is.

She didn't want to give an answer at first, but she owed him that much. Lizzie let out a soft little sigh, running it over in her head. "I think most of what he said about you was true, actually." She didn't want to look at Darcy's face after she said that, but, then, she didn't want to recite everything George had said to her verbatim either, though she could. She still wonders how much of the many things he said to her were true. Honestly, George didn't have to say much. She cringes now to think just how willing she'd been to think ill of Darcy—had she really needed more reasons not to like him? Or was she just looking for them?

Why had she needed more reasons anyway? Was Darcy not really that bad after all? Did some part of her realize that back then?

She could feel Darcy's eyes on her, was sure he'd cringed or something worse, but she didn't look. She kept talking, though. "He... said... that you were jealous." Darcy looked down, jaw tightening, but he said nothing, not even to deny it. He did that thing with his chin, where he pulled it nearly back to his neck, all of which served to make him look nearly as severe as his father. She watched him from the corner of her eye for a moment before continuing. "Of him. Of how close he and your father were. He, uh... He never said that was true, that your dad loved him more."

Darcy closed his eyes. There was no mistaking the pained, stricken look on his face. It was an old wound, one that would never really go away, but it didn't bother him the way it used to. George had been more right than she'd given him credit for. Lizzie hesitated for a moment, debating whether or not to say anything more. Should she give him an opportunity to respond? Either way, it felt a little like she was rubbing salt in a wound, and that wasn't what she intended to do. She just wanted to tell him what George had said, like he'd asked.

After thirty painful seconds, Lizzie decided to continue. "He said that you didn't get to have a childhood." Darcy blinked. Whatever else he'd expected, it wasn't that. She looked upwards, unable to look at him as she recounted the story George told her. She doesn't want to think of how painful it all must be. "Your dad wasn't around much. He was... busy working, distant with you. You admired him a lot, and he had high expectations of you, and you didn't want to disappoint him. You two didn't exactly see eye to eye... G-He, uh, he said that you two were too similar to... to be close?" But George had been close to the both of them, for that same reason.

There were other things she could've said, like about his mother's early demise or how he'd raised Gigi, or how George had said they were like family. But those things felt even more raw and off limits somehow. Darcy took a deep breath, gazing at the portrait of his father. There were others, but he'd specifically chosen to put this one here because he didn't seem disapproving or sad. It was his father at his best, but a father Darcy had barely known, one who was harder to remember than even his mother.

He wants to pace, to lean against the wall, to do something. He feels restless and unsettled because, even after all these years, George still knows these things about him that he thought he'd forgotten. Things, insights into him that even Darcy had never expected George knew. That's his curse, he supposes—that the one person in the world he absolutely can't stand is, ultimately, the one who knows him best. It still gets under his skin. And it bothers him that George can so easily see and sum up his entire life, his entire complicated relationship with his father like that. "He always understood me. I suppose I always underestimated just how much," he muttered, clenching his fists.

"I'm surprised he didn't say anything worse," he said, finally tearing his eyes away from the portrait. He could only stand to look at his father so long. Standing in front of his father's portrait, or really any picture of him, always made him feel small. There were reasons why he had almost no pictures of the man in his private spaces. George knew a lot, after all, things he could probably use to blackmail or embarrass him, so it wasn't as if he'd lacked material. Darcy could admit now that his conduct wasn't always above reproach. He thinks, for the first time in a while, that maybe he'd been just a little bit wrong about George.

Not that he could be reasonably certain George was telling the truth, but, well, why would he talk Darcy up to Lizzie when he'd been dating Lizzie and Lizzie disliked him? What did George possibly have to gain from that? Some of it had to be true, at the very least. But that was the problem with George. You never knew what was true or real and what wasn't. He lived in the gray areas, in the shadows between truth and fiction.

Darcy turned left, away from the portrait and memories, and walked towards the photos of his father and grandfather next to a blueprint for the building and the addition. His father had always meant to add on to the building, had set money aside for that express purpose, but he wouldn't have built something like this. His original, typically pragmatic plan called for more conference rooms, offices, a computer room, and a bigger theater. The additional amenities had, of course, been Darcy's own innovation, modeled off the success of his contemporaries and the areas' start-ups in an attempt to attract young, talented staff. He was proud of this, of the fact that the space honored both of his parents and reflected their perspectives and was still practical.

He focused his attention on the familiar blueprints. He felt a bit less affected, a bit more on solid ground, over here. Lizzie ran a hand down the side of her face, pushing her hair back. Apparently she'd followed him. "He said he... felt sorry for you." She let out a dry laugh, and Darcy's expression darkened. The gall of him! He had to take a deep breath and count to ten to suppress the sudden burst of anger he felt. George would've wanted him to be angry. "And..." She looked over at him. "He said he didn't hate you."

That was almost the last thing he would've expected George to say, much less to Lizzie, who wouldn't have cared about his answer. Darcy blinked furiously. He felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. And, god, after all these years, why should knowing that George doesn't hate him make him feel anything? Why should he feel good or better about that? Why did he even care what George Wickham thought or felt about him? He didn't owe George anything, didn't like him... but he had felt guilty sometimes.

He'd been so sure he was right, and it had cost him his oldest friendship. It had cost him part of his family, George, who was more of a sibling to him than Gigi had been most of the time. But now, after everything that had happened with Lizzie... well, it had him questioning how he'd expressed himself and all the big decisions he'd made in his life. And it was impossible not to wonder sometimes, when he let himself think about it, if maybe he wasn't wrong about other things too.

And, truthfully, as much baggage as there was between them, as much as he wanted to, he didn't (couldn't) hate George either.

Lizzie cleared her throat again uncomfortably. "You know, your dad wasn't the only one he still had pictures of..." She'd gone through George's wallet once, out of curiosity, when he'd been in the bathroom. He'd had a surprising amount of pictures with Darcy in them. There was one of the two of them in a bear hug, its edges just as worn as those on the picture of Darcy Senior. She remembered wondering at the time why George would keep a picture of the man who ruined his life, and, weirdly, she hadn't asked.

Darcy closed his eyes, as if trying to forget, his expression clearly pained. He didn't have any pictures of George, not anymore, had banished them all after Gigi. As if he needed reminding what George Wickham's face looked like. He didn't like talking about him either, but he'd messed up by not saying anything before and letting George control the narrative. He opened his eyes and slid his hands into his pockets. He was so still that Lizzie thought he wasn't going to say anything, but then he spoke.

"It would be a lie to say I don't miss him sometimes, that there weren't good memories there too, mixed in with the bad." Darcy hated that ambiguity, those shades of gray, hated that he couldn't separate the bad from the good. He hated what George had done, but he knew he was hardly blameless in that affair himself. He saw that now. "I wish I didn't remember, that I didn't still think about him sometimes or... miss him." His voice choked a bit at the end there, on that admission. He wouldn't—couldn't—have told anyone else that.

There was a hollow ache in his heart, sharp between his shoulders, when he thinks about it. He can't put that feeling into words. Darcy cleared his throat, swallowing over the lump in it. "It would be easier that way, if I were really as unsentimental as I'm sure he's made me out to be." Sometimes Darcy almost thought he was that unsentimental, but then he remembered a good moment and felt torn again. There was so much history there that he couldn't write George off the way he wanted to. "I can't fully close the door on it, I guess," he said with a shrug, squaring his shoulders.

Lizzie looked at him as if she were seeing a different person. She shouldn't be surprised, given that conversation they'd had about Charlotte all those months ago, but she was used to thinking of Darcy as a character of implacable resentment and principle (by his own admission). A man who was fastidious and certain about everything. The ambiguity threw her a little. Darcy blinked a little too hard and too frequently, turning to face her. Her face betrayed nothing. "But, at the end of the day, after everything that happened... I know that we're better off without him," he said resolutely. Lizzie nodded solemnly, unsure of what to say. She felt the need to apologize for bringing it up, honestly.

After a few almost painful moments of silence, Darcy cleared his throat, saving her from having to make a segue from that. He motioned for her to follow him, and they crossed the room to stand in front of the portrait of his mother. Darcy stared up at it as if mesmerized. Lizzie peered up at it as well; she'd never seen a picture of Darcy's mother before, and George had never had anything to say about her. He said he hadn't really known her well, and he and Darcy had only really gotten close after she died.

Anne Fitzwilliam-Darcy was a beautiful woman. She was slender and fragile-looking, with long, dark brown hair and big hazel eyes. She resembled Gigi considerably, but if Lizzie looked at the painting in the right way she could see bits of Catherine de Bourgh in her. Darcy had her nose. She looked young in the picture, wearing a brightly colored sundress, her hair down, so different from the business-like woman she'd heard stories about. The more she looked at it, the more it seemed like an odd choice to put in the Memorial Hall. "My mother loved art."

"Especially modern art," Darcy added, making a bit of a face. Lizzie suppressed a chuckle. Darcy's eyes, however, remained fixed on his mother's visage. He swallowed hard. "My father... he was a bit of a loner and brilliant, and sometimes he would get so wrapped up in whatever he was working on that he would sort of shut himself away and forget the rest of the world. Mom always got on him about that, and they got into big fights because of it." Strangely, at that moment, Darcy smiled. "So he'd buy her a painting every time as a way of making amends."

Lizzie's eyebrows shot up. Given the size of the collection, Darcy's parents must've argued a lot. That was sure an expensive way of making amends; her own dad just bought flowers when he screwed up. She tried to think what that marriage would've looked like, if that meant that Darcy's parents were happy. What that had done to him. "She liked abstract art and geometric patterns. I don't know why. My father was always the one with his head in the clouds, and she was the one with her feet on solid ground," Darcy continued, sounding distracted.

There was an abstract portrait of her hanging in his bedroom, a mess of white, black, gray, and blue paint that didn't even resemble a human being. It was one of the few pieces of the collection he'd held back. His father had commissioned it from a very famous artist for her and had given it to her after William was born; she'd kept it in her office for the rest of her life. When she died, his father had tried to throw it out in a fit of despair (he had never really liked it, even before), but Darcy had stolen it from the trash and hung it up on his bedroom wall to remember her.

When he couldn't sleep, or when he wanted to remember what she looked like, Darcy sat up in bed and stared at that painting until he thought he'd go blind. But that was the problem with an abstract work of art. You saw what you wanted to see in it, and the subject of the painting was more of a suggestion than anything concrete. Sometimes he would catch a wisp, a suggestion of her here or there—the slant of her eyes, a smile line, the slope of her nose, the color of her hair—but the whole of her eluded him. He never seemed to see her in it, but, after a while, he realized that staring at the streaks of paint calmed him down.

Darcy swallowed hard. "Anyway, I donated most of her collection to the museum upstairs." His father had taken down and boxed up most of the paintings after she died. He couldn't bear to look at those visible tokens of his love, to be surrounded by his late wife's taste. Bill Darcy hadn't bothered to replace them either, so William had grown up with the stark, empty white spaces where paintings once hung to remind him every day of his mother's absence. As if he needed yet another reminder.

When his father had died, William had found the paintings in storage. His grief-stricken father hadn't been able part with them either, apparently. William had them appraised, because that was what you did, and he'd laid eyes on them for the first time in nearly a decade. That was when he'd realized that his mother would want those paintings to be seen, so he'd dusted them off and started loaning them out to museums. As much as it felt like he'd rediscovered a piece of his mother, most of the paintings weren't actually to his taste. He'd let Gigi have her pick among them since, after all, she was the artist in the family, but there were too many to give her all of them, so he'd come up with the idea of the museum—a way to display the artwork and honor his parents.

"I've heard it's great," Lizzie ventured, more because she needed to say something than for any other reason. Darcy smiled slightly. "The largest private collection in the city, right?" He nodded. It was the second largest private modern art collection in the country, but he didn't say that. Earlier she might've mistaken the look on his face for pride (at least, the undeserved kind), but she could see now what that artwork meant to him and what it meant for him to share something so personal with others. It really was his parents' legacy, and he was preserving it.

"Art is meant to be seen," he said quietly, staring at the picture. His mother would've said seen and felt, but art (and particularly modern art) had never made him feel much of anything.

"What was she like?" she asked in a similarly somber tone. He almost started at the question. No one ever really asked him about his mother, not even Gigi. He felt bad about that; he didn't want his dearest family member to be afraid to ask him about their mother when she had the right to know. It wasn't entirely his fault; his father was the one who had firmly established it as verboten. He'd gone dark and silent every time they'd mentioned her until they got the hint, but he'd kept that picture of her in his office until the day he died. But, then, William didn't exactly bring her up either after so many years of practice avoiding casually mentioning her in conversation. Sometimes he felt like he was the only one who still remembered her, like everyone else had forgotten her. She didn't deserve that.

Darcy was even quieter than before, mulling it over. Every year it got harder to remember, and he started to wonder if the woman he was remembering was really his mother or just who he thought she should be. Sometimes he wondered if what he remembered had even happened or if it was pieced together from pictures and home videos. They had been close before she died, but he wished he could've known her as he was growing up. Not just for the obvious reasons but so that he could know her as more than just a mother, as a person, as a friend. It wasn't the same.

"She was intelligent and beautiful and creative and the only person who could ever put my father in line," he said with a nearly beatific smile, a look of such naked fondness on his face that made it instantly clear how much he idolized her. Lizzie took in the full picture, how boyish he looked. "Her favorite color was green, and she liked to garden. She was a competitive swimmer in high school and college, and she taught me how to swim when I could barely walk." He talked like a little boy too, fast enough that the words nearly ran together, like if he didn't say them now he never would. As he talked, she could see it all. She looked at him and imagined him a toddler bobbing in the pool, clumsily splashing towards his mother's arms.

It was strange to imagine Darcy as anything other than a fully grown person. Even more strangely, it was endearing.

Darcy continued, "My mother loved horses. She liked to start every morning off with a ride. She was the kind of person who would rescue a hurt animal and insist on nursing it back to health." The more Darcy talked, the more it seemed he remembered. Those facts, for instance, had reminded him of her teaching him to ride a bike and how carefully she'd bandaged his injuries and soothed his cries when he fell. He remembered going to visit the horses with her, how he'd hidden behind her leg until she gave the horse a sugar cube and motioned for him to pet the horse's nose.

"She was the one who organized our annual company social and retreat. She always said that if it was left up to my father, we'd never leave the office, but she could never have too many social functions or guests." Lizzie smiled, imagining how uncomfortable that would've made Darcy and his father. He hadn't thought he would have so much to say; he never had this much to say. "My father would've been lost without her understanding of business. He used to say she had a mind like a computer." Coming from Bill Darcy, this was about the highest compliment there was. He also meant it literally. Lizzie chuckled.

Darcy went silent for a moment. He could almost hear his father's voice echoing in his head and his mother's response, always some shade of, "That's why you love me, Bill." Sometimes she'd joke in return that his father's heart was like a calculator. "You know, my mom was one of the first women venture capitalists. She got my aunt into it, actually." This impressed Lizzie; that couldn't have been easy at the time. Finance, and especially venture capital, was still an overwhelmingly male-dominated field. Lizzie raised a brow high in a credible imitation of his aunt's pinched expression, and Darcy bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn't laugh. Sometimes even he found it difficult to believe his mother and Catherine had been sisters.

He finally tore his eyes from the vision that was his mother to look at Lizzie. "She had a real ability to look at things and immediately see their value, even if it wasn't initially apparent." Lizzie could feel his eyes on her, and the comment almost made her start. Earlier, she might've thought that was a subtle insult, but she was trying not to jump to the worst conclusions when it came to him. Now, well, now she might've thought the opposite... but maybe she was reading into things here when there was nothing to see.

Darcy wished he had this particular quality of his mother's, but in this, as in most everything, he was too like his father. His mother was cautious, unlike his father, carefully weighing every decision and examining it from all sides—but once she committed to something, she was all in and not changing her mind. So he supposed he was like her, in a way. "She put a piece of herself into her investments, and she always knew the right things to do to make them better and more profitable." Lizzie nodded, not quite sure how to take this. Maybe he had just been talking about his mother after all. "She was like that with her charities too."

"You have to leave this world better than it was when you came here, William," his mother had always said. She'd lived her life according to that saying, and she'd been right, of course.

Once, shortly before his mother's funeral, a young and confused Darcy had mustered the courage to ask his mourning father why he was so quiet, why his eyes were red. He'd still naively thought at the time that his father might eventually be the same person again, that the Dad he loved would come back. His father had answered then, only because he was drinking and the grief was still new. He still felt the compulsion to speak, to answer his son's questions because the silence wasn't a habit yet. Darcy would never forget what his father had said. He'd stared at him for a long moment and said, "She made everything better. Maybe you'll understand that someday." That was all they'd ever said about it.

It had never gotten better for him, Darcy supposed. It hadn't for him and his sister either, but at least they'd gotten used to it. At least they still lived their lives the way she would have wanted, rather than carrying on like a ghost, a shell of the man he was.

But he did understand it now. Darcy glanced over at Lizzie, while she was peering up at his mother's likeness. He looked at her and knew that his mother would've liked Lizzie a great deal, which meant somehow more than he even realized. He smiled slightly to himself and then turned his gaze back on the portrait. They lapsed into silence—one that wasn't particularly comfortable or uncomfortable. It was almost nice. But then Lizzie broke it. "She sounds lovely," she said charitably. Darcy ducked his head, muttering a thank-you.

She had been all of that and more, he was sure. "I take after my father, you know," Darcy volunteered, glancing over at where the picture of his father stood. He didn't look at it quite head-on, though. William Darcy Senior was ramrod straight, even in the picture; he had never looked quite at ease, even if he was bent over a computer. "Everyone thinks so." People had told him that his entire life and still did all the time; he had his father's looks and mannerisms, his intonation. Half of his staff still looked at him like he was his father, or his second coming.

Darcy said it like it weighed on him, not like he was happy about it. And he wasn't, really, because as much as he had loved and admired his father, well... he was a difficult man, particularly after Anne's death. He was a good man, but distracted and disinterested and sort of brusque, always too busy for you, too busy to really get to know people. He couldn't quite connect, even though he had a brain that moved practically at the speed of light. And he could be a dictator sometimes because he had this unshakeable conviction that he was always right, and life usually bore him out on it. He wasn't warm or expressive (but a bit obsessive, though), and he all but lived in his office with his machines. It was a lonely way to live. "I inherited his stubbornness."

Lizzie laughed and then covered her mouth, looking down guiltily. And it sounded like she was laughing at him again, great. She wished she could get rid of this walking-on-eggshells feeling around him. She had never been so careful with her words, so afraid to say too much or things she meant. She didn't like the way words stuck in her throat. "I didn't mean to-" She bit her lip, unable to finish the sentence.

Why did she still feel the overwhelming need to apologize to him? For everything, even things that didn't justify it? It made her angry with herself. She had been wrong, and she had wronged him... but she wasn't wrong about everything and was perfectly justified about a lot of it because she had felt those feelings, but still... She regretted hurting him and regretted treating him like, well, like the robot she'd thought he was.

Darcy's shoulders relaxed slightly; he knew she didn't mean it. The sound of her laughter made him feel lighter. "You've argued with me enough to know it's true," he replied, amused. Lizzie looked back up at him, standing a little straighter. She wasn't quite smiling, but she didn't look so small anymore. Darcy leaned in a little, bending stiffly to be more at her level. "And you're just as stubborn."

This time she did smile. "Like a mule," she said, echoing one of her mother's favorite complaints about her. Darcy held his hands up, silently saying he wasn't going to touch that one, but his lips twitched like he wanted to smile.

"Come on," he said suddenly, eager to change the subject, motioning for her to follow him. The museum was up the stairs, at the back of the building. "I'll show you the collection." He was already walking towards the stairs, and so was Lizzie, apparently. Darcy seemed to regain some of his equanimity, because he kept a safe distance and was quieter. They wandered through the sections, which were organized in more or less reverse chronological order.

The most recent acquisitions, modern sculptures, and reception desk were closest to the entrance, with the featured exhibit (currently photographs of scenes in Chinatown) in the two rooms off to the side. The rest of the rooms on this floor were connected, a maze of color and shapes that got progressively more abstract as you went along. The abstract expressionist rooms led to Action Painting and color field dotted with Rothkos and Pollocks, which flowed into Lyrical Abstraction, which melted into minimalist art and then a bright burst of Pop Art. The Pop Art room led to the wide and deliberately trippy optical art room, which tilted upwards and also contained a narrow stairway to the second floor.

Orphist, Malevich pieces, Synchromist, and Cubist art lined the wider stairway to the second floor, the one outside of the permanent exhibit rooms. The second floor consisted of a wide open space containing the larger and older sculptures, four rooms branching off from it, and another staircase that led up to a circular sunroom or, really, extended skylight. It was dual-use, meant for taking in the view and providing a place for artists to sketch or paint. On sunny days, it was almost blinding and hot in the mostly-glass room. Darcy explained that the second floor contained the older artwork, mostly pieces his grandfather had bought in Europe during his bohemian days. It went without saying that the works found here were lesser works or at least not to his particular taste. One room was dedicated to Impressionist art, another Post-Impressionist (it was mostly composed of colorful lithographs and somewhat seedy paintings of French nightlife), a bleak and dark room filled with Dada and Bauhaus art, and a room of other miscellaneous art.

Darcy occasionally volunteered details about the various pieces of art if they were significant or by a famous artist (the Picassos along the stairs, the Warhol section, the many Wassily Kandinsky pieces in seemingly every room). Sometimes he would even offer a wisp of a family story, but he was mostly like a docent. He let Lizzie explore and roam the collection on her own while he struck up a quiet conversation with the actual docent, who was so surprised to see him that she nearly fell over.

The museum itself was nearly empty; the public visiting hours ended promptly at 3:30 pm. Lizzie appreciated the space. She may have appreciated it a bit less if she realized that Darcy always had her in his peripheral vision. He enjoyed watching her reactions and listening to her mumble to herself. He wouldn't have come to this section at all if she hadn't been here; after all, he knew all the paintings by heart, and they didn't do much for him. The docent was talking to him about the upcoming summer exhibit—a bunch of sketches in charcoal and pastels from local art school students—but he was only half-attending.

They continued like this for about fifteen minutes, right up until a group of noisy art students with sketchbooks came in. They immediately besieged the attendant, claiming somewhat dubiously that they were friends of Gigi, and she'd said they could come. The mildly alarmed woman looked at Darcy, who inclined his head briefly, signaling that the museum could stay open a bit longer. His eyes were still on Lizzie, who was heading down the stairs. The sunlight hit her hair just so, highlighting the red in her hair and making her skin seem somehow even more luminous. She looked like a Pre-Raphaelite painting, yet she was lovelier than any of the paintings, almost impossibly so. He was struck dumb by it.

And then, as if in a dream, she came towards him. She was moving closer and closer, and his whole world seemed like it was narrowing to that point, with her. It didn't feel real. And then she was in front of him, and she was speaking, but he wasn't hearing a word. She had to clear her throat and repeat herself before he finally snapped out of it. "I said we should probably get out of here," she said, gesturing at the art students around them who were staking out pictures and generally taking up space. To her mortification, judging by the direction of their gazes, a few of them were clearly sketching her and Darcy.

Darcy nodded. He didn't trust himself with words at the moment. He was afraid he'd vomit out everything he was thinking, and he couldn't quite shake the daydreams that still enveloped him. He hadn't stopped dreaming of Lizzie, but Darcy had different sorts of dreams now. His dreams were blue-tinged, watery, the colors muted somehow—the coloring speaking to the fact that even his subconscious didn't think they could become real. He dreamed about introducing Lizzie to his parents, though even in dreams he never forgot the impossibility of it.

His father was remote and disinterested, all hard angles and lines. He smiled, though. His mother was a bit blurry at the edges, beautiful and radiating warmth. She enveloped Lizzie in an embrace the way he always thought she would, like a bright, silvery cloud. But Lizzie's eyes were brighter still, bright enough to make Darcy forget everything else. They loomed in his memory afterwards, hanging overhead like newborn stars. And he always woke up aching, reaching out for someone he knew wouldn't be there.

He motioned for her to go first down the stairs, which she did after giving him a puzzled look.

Once Lizzie had thought she understood what his silences meant. She thought she could fill them in with words because she'd always been good at that, and she'd always been right. She thought she could read between the lines of his behavior, that she could read him. But she'd seen disdain and disapproval and condescension where she ought to have seen admiration or love, or something like it. She was trying not to make that mistake again.

Then, all too soon, they were in front of his family portraits again, right back where they'd started. They drew to a stop, and the whole mood seemed to change. The air seemed heavier; the room seemed darker (though that was due to the timed dimmer). And she hadn't noticed until now, but they were so close that their arms were almost touching. She subtly found a way to get a little more space and hoped he didn't notice. Or maybe it was just Darcy who had changed, with cloudy eyes and a somber face.

"I find myself wandering here once a day..." Darcy fell silent, staring at the picture intently, and paused for a long time. He'd already told Lizzie that, but he felt like saying more. She thought he was just going to leave it there, but he swallowed, deciding to go on. "I sometimes feel like I'll forget if I don't," he said quietly. He'd never actually admitted that out loud to anyone before, not even Gigi. He couldn't say that to her because he'd had more years with both of them than she did, and he had no right to worry or complain compared to her.

The truth was that with every day, they slipped further away. He forgot those tiny little details or couldn't picture them, couldn't remember properly. His father had already been like a stranger in his way, even though he'd lived longer, and William wasn't sure he'd ever really known him. As for his mother, well... she was like smoke in his fingers, a ghost whose memory lingered. He had to watch old movies to recapture the sound of her laugh, had to try and recreate her piece by piece.

Darcy cleared his throat uncomfortably; it was hard when the lump in his throat was only growing bigger. "I mean, obviously I remember some things," he said, gesturing with a flick of his wrist, fingers curving in and stretching out. He rubbed a spot on the floor with the tip of his shoe, sliding his hands into his pockets so he didn't do something stupid with them. "But they've been gone for a long time and... the memories fade." His fingers curled inward. His eyes were a bit wetter than usual, his head slightly bent. He sighed, and it struck her that he looked small, in a way.

Lizzie had the sudden, strange urge then to comfort him, to take him into her arms or something equally ridiculous. She doesn't know where it came from, so she fights it for a bit until she can't anymore. Lizzie bit her lip, debating it for a moment before smiling at him and hesitantly reaching over to pat him on the shoulder. Her hand lands there, feather light, and Darcy immediately looks over. Lizzie thought to withdraw her hand but somehow couldn't with Darcy staring at her like that. As crazy and maddening as her parents can be sometimes, she doesn't know what she'd do without them. "I can't even imagine what that's like." Everything about her face said she was sorry, and it was all a little too much for Darcy. Darcy jolted at the touch but managed to relax a little.

He smiled back sadly and didn't take his eyes off of their pictures. But she couldn't really understand, and he didn't want her to, for her sake. "I come here sometimes when I need advice or guidance, and I stand here and look at their pictures and remember... and I try and imagine what they would say, what they would tell me to do. What they would think... of me." His voice had been getting quieter as he went on, and it was barely above a whisper at the end. It was hard to keep his voice steady. "Is that strange?" A shadow passed over his face, and Lizzie knew that he was thinking he hasn't done enough, that he was somehow disappointing them. It isn't true, and even the Lizzie who hated him would've grudgingly agreed with that. But she couldn't say anything to make it better, so she squeezed his shoulder instead.

"I'm sure they'd be proud," she said after a while. Darcy's lips turned upwards at the corners in a small, grateful smile. Privately, he wasn't so certain, but that meant a lot coming from her. Lizzie realized this and realized how it sounded, and she bit her lip again. The basic human impulse to comfort him was still there, but she couldn't just leave it like that. She took her hand off of his shoulder. "I mean, you've accomplished a lot here, and all the employees respect you. You've done a good job with... what they left you," she added awkwardly, making a little gesture with her hand.

He knew she was trying, but it was impossible to feel entirely comforted by that. It meant something to hear her say he'd respected and expanded on their legacy, but other people had told him that before. Darcy was well aware that Lizzie had avoided commenting on anything that related on who he actually was as a person, as a man. She'd spoken in the abstract, in the business sense, either because she didn't feel she knew him well enough to say he was the kind of man they'd be proud of... or, worse, because she still thought the worst of him as a human being. He probably deserved that.

He then cleared his throat in a weak attempt to shake off some of the emotion and proceeded to give her a tour of the rest of the Hall. He tried not to linger overmuch on memories of his parents, since he didn't trust himself to talk about them, but he found himself mentioning them more than he would've otherwise, more than he usually did. And the world didn't end; it actually got easier every time he mentioned them.

"And what about your father?" Lizzie asked, heading back to the picture they'd started out in front of. It hadn't escaped her notice that he'd barely said a word about the man. There had been echoes of personal anecdotes, she supposed, but never anything like what he'd said about his mother, never anything with that warmth of feeling. She had her suspicions about what that meant.

Darcy didn't want to follow her, but he did because, as usual, he was drawn after her, sucked in by a magnetic force that overpowered him. Lizzie jerked her head in the direction of the picture. He looked up at the portrait and then quickly looked away. The father he remembered was much more forbidding than the one in that picture. "What about him?" Darcy retorted, putting his hands in his pockets. He spoke just a bit too fast. "I'm sure you've heard a lot about him from people here." It had eased up a bit, but when he'd first started, people mentioned his father all the time. It had driven him insane, then, how he felt like they were comparing them, how he felt like he could never live up to the man his father was.

Lizzie recognized a dodge when she heard one and gave him a look. She'd heard bits and pieces, but most of the employees who had known Darcy Senior were older and in positions and departments she didn't really interact with. "Yeah, but not from you." Darcy suppressed a sigh; sometimes he forgot that she knew every communication trick in the book and was far better at executing them than he was. As uncomfortable as he was, a brief burst of something bubbled up in his chest; she wanted to hear his words, to hear him speaking about something personal. That had to mean something, right, that she was interested in him in some way?

She didn't have to do any of this. Of course, she had never been disinterested in him, so maybe that didn't mean anything after all.

"My father was a good man. A good businessman." It's easy just to stop it there, to recite those practically meaningless over and over again so that he doesn't have to think about who his father was as a complete human being in all his complexity. He felt so many things about his father, things that were so hopelessly tangled up with the man himself, their company, their family, and even George that Darcy still couldn't sort out his feelings. His father was a man who did all the correct things, but not necessarily the right ones. He was a good example, but there was a kind of hollowness to him.

And, Darcy had come to realize, up until recently, he had been headed in his father's direction. Towards that emptiness, that neverending loneliness, that white blank life. He did all the things he was supposed to do, shut himself away in his work, and disconnected. He put one foot in front of the other and lived from habit and routine, by rote, rarely taking a genuine enjoyment in anything because everything was the same and comfortable.

Helping Bing set up his new house had changed all that in ways Darcy had never expected, and he found that he wouldn't take any of it back. His days had color now. He realized that he didn't want to live the life that his father had planned for him, the kind he'd always thought he had to live. He wanted laughter and warmth and to take the risks he'd always shied from. Through the prism of Lizzie and her joie de vivre, he'd rediscovered his own passion. How could he ever thank her properly for those discoveries? For this incredible gift she'd given him?

"But?" she prompted, cutting into his thoughts. Lizzie was looking at him like she could see through him. Darcy didn't know if that was true, but he'd always felt as if she understood him somehow. Which is why his confession of love had been a pathetic failure; he'd expected her to read between the lines and see what he meant, when he wasn't even exactly sure what he meant. Maybe it didn't mean anything; maybe that was just the way she looked at everyone.

Darcy sighed. It didn't matter how many years had passed; he would never know how exactly to put his feelings about his father into words. Of course he had loved him and always would, but there was still this fierce slow-burning rage in his chest that came up like heartburn whenever he thought of him. It was resentment, and it wasn't ever going to fully go away.

He resented his father for dying so soon and leaving him to pick up the pieces. He resented his father for being more of a distant, mostly uninvolved benevolent figure than the actual father he and Gigi had wanted and needed. He still felt the pressure and weight of his father's expectations, of never feeling like he was good enough or perfect enough or the son his father had wanted. And he still wondered if his father didn't prefer George and what it was about the other man that his father had liked so much in the first place. He hated that his father had left him with more questions than answers.

"My father wasn't like yours," he said finally. Her eyebrows went up, and for a few moments he wondered if she'd taken that as an insult. Darcy licked his lips. "What I mean to say is we didn't talk much, and never the way you two do." He almost wanted to laugh, thinking of how painfully businesslike and transactional their conversations had always been. If not terse conversations, they were cold lectures (monologues) about the family name and business principles and taking care of his sister. Occasionally, he would get a warm explanation of how something worked, but his father did not discuss feelings.

Lizzie frowned up at the portrait. She was a bit taken aback that Darcy had gotten all of that from one half-overheard conversation and her videos. She had taken solace in her relationship with her father for her entire life, always knowing that he would support her, always knowing that she could talk to him. Sometimes, like now, she realized that she took that for granted; she silently resolved to call her father tonight. It had been a while.

Darcy found that when he thought of his father, the bittersweet taste of regret was never far behind. "There are so many things I wish I could've said to him, asked him," he continued, swallowing over a lump in his throat. There had always been so many things left unsaid, hanging between the two of them, things that seemed so important at the time like the business, legacy, name, and his inheritance that had overshadowed their relationship. Darcy wished he'd had more time, like anyone did, but that desire was even more acute here since they'd spent barely any time together, at least not quality time. His father had shipped him off to boarding school once he was old enough, and then it was mostly calls and emails. "There were a lot of moments in my life where I really wanted and needed him, but he wasn't there." He looked up at the portrait accusingly; an observer might've taken that for a stricken look, rather than a glare.

Lizzie was starting to feel bad for asking. She glanced up to see the troubled look on his face, emotions nakedly playing across it. It was somehow worse than that expression cemented into her memory from when she'd broken his heart, because this, well... this was just him being broken, and it was something no one alive could fix. Lizzie was fully ready to apologize and attempt to change the subject, but Darcy kept talking.

"It was sudden, when he died." Lizzie found herself holding her breath. She knew somehow that Darcy never talked about these things, but maybe he needed to. "I felt..." Darcy hesitated, shrugged. He feels helpless and small just thinking about it, which is why he doesn't think about it. Another way in which he took after his father, he supposed. He remembers the sudden loneliness most of all, the sad realization that he was now an orphan with no family but Gigi, and how he'd immediately had to shove that grief aside to be strong for her and sort everything out. He still wasn't sure he'd fully dealt with it now, nearly ten years later. Despite his issues with his father and the many ways in which they'd never understood each other, he felt like he'd lost a part of himself that day. "Lost. Adrift. Not in the usual way... I just didn't know what to do or where to start. Or where to go."

That wasn't entirely true; he had been almost immediately thrown into the many tasks that come after someone's death—planning the funeral, arranging for the burial, writing the obituary and his eulogy, filing insurance claims, meeting with the lawyers about the will, and figuring out what to do about Gigi. He'd felt like he was drowning under the weight of everything he had to do and all of the decisions he had to make, and he couldn't just mourn his father like a normal human being.

The problem came in what came next. Because none of this had been part of the plan, and Darcy hated deviating from his plans. He'd already had to make himself into a man, but now he had to rebuild his whole life and somehow make his father's world his own. "And I didn't know the first thing I was doing." He let out a dry chuckle. He could laugh about it now; he'd come through that crucible stronger. "I had no one to lean on, no advice, no real plan..."

When your dreams and the life you've imagined all die, it gives you this rare window where everything is suddenly possible. And once you accept that what you've wanted will never be, you realize that you can move on and build something new. It won't be the same, and maybe you won't like it as much, but that life you imagined isn't the only answer.

"And I didn't know what he would have wanted me to do because my father, he... always wanted something, you know?" And he'd never been good at saying what he wanted, at saying anything, at explaining or spelling things out. His father was impatient and active. Darcy put his hands back in his pockets and stood a little straighter, and he finally looked at his father's face, stared at those eyes so like his own. They weren't as cold and dark as he remembered. "It was just me." He was the person he was now because of all of that, and maybe that was how it was supposed to be. But that didn't stop William from wishing it had been a different way. "It shouldn't have been like that. I shouldn't have been unprepared."

It was all Lizzie could to do to nod; she wasn't sure of how to respond otherwise. She (words) could only do so much in such weighty emotional moments. "I don't want it to be like that," Darcy said suddenly, as if making a promise to himself, "When I have children." He looked over at her and blushed, not having meant to reveal that much. He probably wouldn't have revealed that to just about any other person in the world, but, well, Lizzie was the woman he'd imagined having his children. He couldn't imagine another woman as their mother. And as much as he knew it was fruitless and tried not to, he couldn't just turn that off.

She'd completely frozen at that, not meeting his stare or even really looking at him out of fear of what she'd see reflected there. It occurred to her (not for the first time here and not even for the first time today) that maybe she'd gotten more than a little in over her head here, that maybe she'd made a gross miscalculation earlier in thinking this kind of interaction was safe. But Darcy didn't move to touch her and didn't follow up that statement with anything else, so she let out the breath she was holding and made herself look at him.

He was staring at her with the usual intensity (not entirely unlike the way he'd glowered at George Wickham), but now that look scared her a little. This time when she met his stare, he tried to look away, almost like he was ashamed of it. "Sorry, I-" he began before trailing off. Lizzie marveled at it; had he ever apologized to her before? If he had, she couldn't remember it. Darcy cleared his throat almost violently. "I'm not normally..." He fell silent, unable to think of the word to go next, but gestured vaguely with a hand out like maybe she'd understand.

This time, Lizzie filled in the blanks. Like that (it reminded her of that first excuse and almost made her smile). So emotional. That was too much. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that, to unload all of that on you. I don't want you to pity me. It's not a strategy to make you feel bad and guilt you... I know that wouldn't work. She knew, and she felt for him. She didn't know why it was so easy for him to express himself to her, especially on something like this. From the sounds of it, Darcy had a lot of things eating him up inside and no one he could say them to. She understood that feeling recently better than she wanted to, how profoundly lonely and confining it was.

It was tempting to tell Darcy that maybe he should talk to someone about his grief, such as a shrink or Gigi for example. That way she could ignore that Darcy had those options and had chosen to talk with her, that he still let his guard down with her. She didn't have to think about what that meant. Though, honestly, he really should speak to a professional about anyway because this wasn't her wheelhouse. But it was impossible to hear what he had to say and be unmoved by it. "It's okay. I get it," she said quickly, attempting a smile-like expression and tactfully avoiding calling attention to it and making him even more uncomfortable.

She didn't really, though, and they both knew it. Still, Darcy appreciated this tiny kindness more than she could know. He was so unused to being this emotional and in such an uncontrollable way that he wasn't sure how he would respond or if he would fall to pieces. He cleared his throat as best as he could, not that it got rid of the lump there, but so he wouldn't cry or do something foolish. "Thank you for listening," he said, feeling self-conscious. She definitely hadn't signed up for this bizarre kind of heart-to-heart, but, then, she hadn't yet run away either. He had clearly needed to talk to someone about it.

Lizzie merely nodded, trying to think of something to say, some way to change the subject. She desperately needed to lighten the mood, to ease the oppressive weightiness of the moment. She didn't know what to do with the strange intimacy Darcy's even more out of character vulnerability had created; she just knew she had to cut through it before it softened her too much. She wanted to make some joke, any joke, but that would've been disrespectful... and she still couldn't think of a way to get out of it.

"That... can't have been easy," she said finally, haltingly. She nearly cringed at how much of an understatement it was, at how it prolonged rather than shortened the conversation. It wasn't any kind of distraction. Was she talking about what he'd been through with his father or him sharing? She didn't know which, and it made her feel uncomfortable. It felt strange now to be so careful with Darcy, to be so worried about what she said around him all of a sudden.

But, to her surprise, he smiled slightly. He slid his fingers into his pockets rather than acknowledge the truth of what she said. It didn't do to complain about the lot he was given when he had so much. He forgot that sometimes under the crushing weight of his and everyone else's expectations. "My father always said that anything worth having or doing shouldn't come easily. It should be earned," he explained, looking at her in a familiar way. His eyes burned into her, and she hoped to God she wasn't flushing.

Lizzie didn't know what the hell to say to that. She didn't want them to be having conversations on two different levels again... but she was inclined to agree. She didn't dare nod, though. The moment stretched on awkwardly until it got to be too much. Darcy's shoulders slumped a little, and he turned away, breaking the moment. Lizzie felt like she could breathe again, but she felt like she'd let him down.

Feeling mortified and raw and hoping he wasn't flushing, Darcy moved to go. Lizzie followed, not saying anything, and a relieved Darcy briefly closed his eyes. Unbeknownst to him, Lizzie had been chewing on her lip, turning over words in her head, feeling like she had to say something. Eventually, she couldn't take it anymore and reached out, grabbing his wrist. "Darcy..." He froze and shifted to face her. He didn't know what to expect; she looked almost nervous, but her eyes were kind.

She met his gaze instinctively and bit down hard on her bottom lip. It was probably the wrong thing to say, but it was the responsible thing to do, right? She made herself keep looking at him and then just blurted it out in a hurry, "Look, I know this is none of my business, and I'm probably the last person who you want to hear it from, but... maybe you should talk to someone about this?" She took a breath. Darcy just blinked. "Like a professional?" she suggested.

She didn't entirely know why she felt obligated to say it, besides Darcy's palpable pain being more than she could handle. That and the fact that it didn't seem like he really had anyone to talk to about this, and maybe he'd pushed these feelings down for years, and none of that was very healthy... not that she was one to judge on healthy coping mechanisms exactly. For all she knew, maybe he had seen a psychiatrist about it; his aunt was enough reason for their family to have a shrink on retainer. Maybe other people had told him that, and she hoped he didn't feel like she was brushing him off or somehow undermining what he'd told her.

And maybe it was a pointless exercise anyway because William Darcy hated talking about his feelings and certainly would never open up to a stranger he paid to give him opinions on his mental state, so why would he seek that out?

Lizzie was doing her best not to see his reaction. She even held her hands up. "Not that you shouldn't have told me, just that... I mean, it means a lot that you fe-" She did her best not to cringe but let out a brief, exasperated sigh. A therapist would not have any problems or need to go on like this. A psychologist would be able to put a sentence together without worrying about hurting him, and she was certain a psychologist would also have several very interesting things to say to her about her sudden concern about Darcy's feelings.

He needed a neutral party, someone who knows how to say the right things and isn't too hung up or hamstrung by her bizarre relationship with Darcy to help him. "I just think it might help if you..." Her eyes darted back up to his, and she promptly looked down, seeing too much there. Her shoulders drooped, and she shook her head. What had she been thinking? "Ah, forget it. Sorry." Realizing she was still holding his arm, she dropped it and brushed past him.

He wanted to groan, to reach for her and immediately say "thank you," but he hadn't entirely processed what she'd just suggested. Fitz was the only person besides Lizzie who had ever overtly suggested he see anyone. Everyone else was either too afraid to mention it or knew him too well to bother. It wasn't something he'd ever seriously considered because that wasn't the way his family operated, and he had more than enough hours of self-examination. Still, he was even more confused about what she meant by it. Was she just giving rational advice, speaking of concern, or was this just a polite way of telling him she didn't want him to open up to her again?

Ultimately, he decided it was best not to say anything. Darcy managed to change the subject before he lost her entirely by asking her about her day. She relaxed a fraction and started to tell him what she'd done and what she was going to do when she got back to her office (film a video, of course). She was a little shy about mentioning it, nearly stammering that she wasn't going to talk about any of this because she didn't want to give her viewers any "red meat," whatever that meant. He appreciated it nonetheless.

Then Lizzie returned the favor by asking him about his day and what he was going to do, seeming progressively more composed the farther they got from the Memorial Hall. She wasn't the only one. It was a relief to talk to her about work and what he'd done that day. He was determined to keep up the small talk, even if it felt like he was stoking the embers of a dying fire, until everything felt normal again.

Darcy insisted on walking Lizzie back to her office, ignoring every one of her protests that he surely had more important things to do. He'd fallen into the typical midday lull in his workload, and, for the most part, it was the one solid hour in a day where his employees knew not to bother him. He would've insisted either way, of course, but he felt lighter than he had in months. And it was because of her.

So he just put his hands in his pockets and engaged her in conversation about Pemberley. Darcy did his best not to overtly stare at her, but he still sneaked glances at her as she talked, enjoying the way her face lit up and her eyes sparkled. Some people tried to stop him or talk to him in the hall (he had no idea what he did or said to them to end those conversations), but he only had eyes for Lizzie.

That didn't, however, mean that Lizzie was unaware of this. People gaped when they saw him and stood up a little straighter. Whispers swirled behind them. The mood sort of changed in that it was charged with something, with a thin undercurrent of nervous energy. She took this to mean that Darcy rarely frequented this floor. She didn't notice anything about him being out of sorts with others, just that he said the perfect thing to anyone who interrupted yet never once took his full attention off of her.

It made her important. Truthfully, if she had been paying just a bit more attention to her surroundings, she might've been embarrassed and self-conscious, but, as it was, she only felt flattered. After all this time and everything, she was more or less accustomed to Darcy's unceasing focus. For once, Lizzie wasn't overthinking things.

There was no shortage of things to say, and by the time they made it to her door, Lizzie was still mid-exclamation about all of the amenities. When he stopped walking, it took Lizzie about thirty seconds to realize it was because they were at her office. For those thirty seconds, well, her back was against the wall, and Darcy was less than a foot away from her and staring at her like he saw right into her soul and... she heard her own voice getting quieter and gradually dying off, and it was almost like they were having a moment.

Amused, Darcy cleared his throat, reaching out to tap on her door. "I should let you get back to work," he said, shifting his feet. It wasn't like him to dissemble, but he didn't really want her to go back to work. He very much wanted to continue the conversation, to prolong the moment just a bit longer. Lizzie blinked, glancing at the door, and snapped out of whatever haze she'd been caught in. Then she nodded dumbly, groping around for the doorknob behind her. Darcy gave her a small smile, beginning to take that first, hardest step back. "It was nice running into you, Lizzie."

She looked up at him for a moment, merely absorbing the words, and thought back to all she'd learned about him. He'd shared something really personal with her, and that couldn't have been easy. It felt like she was just starting to get to know him underneath it all, and she wanted to thank him for that. For trusting her, even though she'd given him next to no reason to do so. In fact, she'd given him more than enough reason to never tell her anything personal ever again, so it was sort of incomprehensible that he had. She didn't have the right words for all that. "Thanks for sharing," she said finally, stupidly, offering up a weak little smile. "And for the tour." And Darcy turned on his heel, finally allowing the idiotic grin to spread across his face.

Darcy couldn't erase the smile from his face, even though he could see it was weirding his employees out. He felt like he was walking on a cloud or, rather, sunshine. When he entered his office a few minutes later, he was whistling an old showtune distractedly. "Well, someone's in a good mood," Bing remarked. Darcy abruptly stopped whistling. Bing was sprawled in one of the armchairs and grinning, though his smile fell a little when he saw Darcy's face. "What, are you not happy to see me?" Bing asked in his typically jovial manner, though Darcy could hear the uncertainty underneath it.

Darcy shook his head abruptly and tried to smile again, but some of the good cheer from before had ebbed away. It was like he'd been plunged into ice water with Bing's sudden appearance. He could feel his chin already starting to recede into his neck. "Of course I'm happy to see you," Darcy said brusquely, heading towards his desk. He struggled to think of something to say that wouldn't be inadvertently offensive. He had never been good with surprises. "I just... didn't know you were here. Some notice might've been nice."

Darcy glanced up, meeting Bing's gaze head-on. Recognizing the question in his best friend's eyes, Bing swallowed, looking away, and rubbed his lip. "Yeah, I was just in the neighborhood, and I figured I'd drop in. I asked Reynolds not to tell you." He forced a smile of his own and then stood up, walking over to Darcy. "It's been a while, so I figured I would see how my best friend's doing... make sure he's not working himself to death," he added, lightly punching Darcy in the shoulder for emphasis.

Darcy had always been able to recognize the insecurity underlying Bing's actions, but he hadn't really been able to see through Bing's bravado the way someone like Lizzie or Caroline would. While he couldn't tell if Bing was putting on an act, he knew enough to know that Bing had something heavy on his mind to drop-in. If he wanted advice, well... Darcy was quite sure he was the least qualified person to give it. He'd already stepped in it with Lizzie over this once before, and he wasn't about to meddle again. It had been wrong of him to do it in the first place.

He raised an eyebrow. "Last time I checked, Los Angeles is at least an hour and a half away by plane, Bing..." he pointed out, absently straightening his jacket. Bing shrugged and looked away. Aside from the shiftiness, there was something off about him that Darcy couldn't put his finger on. Darcy's eyes narrowed slightly. "Shouldn't you be at school, cutting up a corpse or something?" He would've laughed before, but Bing made a face and cringed. This was odd in and of itself since Bing had an iron stomach, but he didn't really relish cutting into anyone, even a cadaver, so Darcy mostly wrote it off.

"C'mon, man, loosen up!" Bing exclaimed, rolling up his sleeves. "A guy can't just drop in on his best friend without getting the third degree?" he asked, throwing an arm around the taller man. Darcy had to close his eyes for a moment because something about the way he said it or the look on his face reminded him of George Wickham. Then he blinked, and it was gone. For a moment, Darcy had the uncharitable thought that Bing staying with him would seriously crimp his style, but it wasn't like Lizzie would ever be coming back to his place anyway.

So Darcy did his best to let all the questions go and suppress his natural instincts, even if it meant he had to grit his teeth a little. He relaxed his shoulders and turned into the ready hug Bing was so willing to give. "I'm sorry. I am excited to see you. I'm just... thinking about work," Darcy explained, hating the taste of the lie on his tongue. Really he was busy thinking about how this would change things with Lizzie, how she would react. This had the potential to ruin everything he'd been painstakingly building. Not to mention risking further hurting Jane and/or Bing. Maybe it was best if neither Lizzie nor Bing knew about the other being there.

Bing snorted, patting Darcy on the back with a bit more force than necessary. "Typical Darcy," he said fondly, releasing the older man. Bing paused, running a hand through his hair. "I came at a bad time, didn't I?" he asked suddenly, looking unsure.

Darcy bit his tongue, turning to straighten some papers on his desk more from a desire to be doing something with his hands than anything else. He wanted to say yes, that an impromptu office visit during the workday (especially when Lizzie was visiting) was the worst possible time to drop by. But he exhaled and said none of this, because he wasn't really mad at Bing. "Not really," he said nonchalantly, inching closer to his computer. "I just have some work I need to wrap up before I can go."

Bing had just reminded him that he was still angry at himself. Equally importantly, it had also reminded him that he and Lizzie hadn't really had a chance to talk about Jane and Bing and needed to. That was what she'd been most upset about, and he could admit now that she had far superior knowledge of her sister's feelings than he did.

She had been right about everything aside from Wickham, but she was most in the right on this subject. While he'd had Bing's best intentions at heart, it had been unfair for him to make choices for him, to pressure him, to assist Caroline in talking Bing out of what he most wanted. Darcy had done Bing a disservice, assuming that he knew his mind and heart better than Bing himself did. He'd treated him like a child, like a little brother, and a part of him recognized he always would... but he didn't know best, certainly not when it came to the feelings of others. Worse still, he'd helped separate Bing and Jane, truly the kindest two people he'd ever known, for his own selfish reasons.

Because he'd needed to get away from Lizzie for the sake of his heart and sanity, and, well, look how that turned out. He, unlike Bing, had been unable to let her go, unable to even go a few months without seeing her, and he'd let his heart lead him... and he'd ended up both losing his heart and his mind anyway in a kind of poetic irony. So his stupid attempt at self-preservation (and Bing-preservation, to a lesser extent) had been a futile failure that had just caused everyone more pain.

Bing bit his lip, looking apologetic, but Darcy was the one who wanted to apologize. Caught up in his guilt, he fully intended to do just that, even though it meant coming clean to Bing, but Bing spoke before he could. "I just..." He glanced up and then looked down just as quickly. "I know you always come back from the Memorial Hall around this time, and I figured you might need someone to talk to?"

Even Bing's rudeness came from a place of love. As usual, Bing's kindness threatened to overwhelm Darcy. That utterly indiscriminate kindness was exactly why Darcy had tried to look out for him, to protect him. He'd never possessed that natural sympathy and understanding of others had Bing had. It was alien to him, because even though his parents had raised him to be generous and to provide for others, to do all the right things, he'd done them without the feeling behind it. They had been obligations, duties, a name to live up to, not charity of spirit. Or, at least, it had been that way before Lizzie had opened his eyes.

When Bing said that, Darcy felt a little like he'd been punched in the stomach. He lost his nerve. Feeling worse, Darcy set the papers down. While his visits to the Memorial Hall weren't exactly a secret, they weren't the sort of thing he really talked about. Aside from Reynolds, Gigi, Fitz, and now Lizzie, he wasn't sure if anyone else actually knew about them. But Bing was a better friend than he deserved, and he noticed little things like that. He'd picked up on the fact that Darcy generally came back from the Memorial Hall subdued and gloomy, and, as usual, he was trying to find a way to fix that by cheering him up.

Darcy wasn't the sort to talk about his feelings, and he rarely ever seriously talked about his parents nowadays because it hurt too much. Even with Gigi, who he knew lived for what little crumbs of positive memories he could scrape from the forgotten corners of his mind, he only talked about them a few times a year, if that. Today with Lizzie had been the first time since the anniversary of his father's death that he'd talked to someone about them, and he couldn't remember ever opening up to anyone the way he'd opened up to her, unprompted.

Maybe it was because he didn't have to be Bill and Anne Darcy's son for her, that sad orphan wading in their footsteps trying to do right by them. He didn't have to be strong for her. He didn't have to be in control or protect anyone. He'd long ago recognized the futility in trying to protect himself against her—with coolness, harsh words, distance—and could just be honest with her. He could just be himself.

Why it should be that way with her, of all people, he still didn't understand... except that he wanted it to be. He couldn't help letting her in. It felt as natural as breathing now that he'd stopped fighting it. Maybe it was because he'd long ago made that fateful decision when he started falling for her. Or maybe it was because he'd told her just about everything else, and he had nothing to lose, nothing left but honesty. He had given her a grenade to blow him up, and after the heartbreak, the explosion, he was still standing.

Or maybe it was just wishful thinking—the foolish hope that by showing her new parts of himself, even the smallest and most secret, he could improve in her estimation—that wanting her to be his shoulder to lean on led to her becoming that person. Or that she would at least understand him the way he wanted her to.

He shook off the thoughts before he got lost in them. Bing knew that he wasn't a sharer and knew better than to ask. He let things go like that, but he was still always there to wordlessly offer Darcy a hand or support no matter what, without expecting anything in return. Somehow it wouldn't have felt right to talk about it with Bing, who had never known his parents. Bing was understanding, but Darcy didn't feel he could really understand.

Still, he was grateful to know Bing was there if he needed him, but Darcy also felt like there would always be that distance between them. A distance he perpetuated because he couldn't let anyone, not even his best friend, get that close anymore. Well, no one but Lizzie, who had gotten under his skin, and he'd fought that with everything in him for months.

Darcy attempted a tight smile in response, clasping his hands together. "I'm fine, Bing," he said a bit stiffly, "but thanks for the offer." Bing's expression fell slightly, but he must've expected that response. A second later, the younger man nodded and flopped back into Darcy's armchair. He sighed heavily, which reinforced the sneaking suspicion Darcy had that Bing was projecting and once again needed to talk through his feelings with him.

While he wanted to help his friend, this was neither the time nor the place for such a conversation... much less a conversation Darcy wasn't sure he should be having in the first place. But Darcy was fully prepared to call Bing on it, at least until Bing opened his mouth and said something Darcy wasn't expecting. "You know, I don't think I've seen you smiling that widely since Netherfield," he remarked almost knowingly, playing with a stray thread on his t-shirt. The light in his eyes dimmed slightly, and Darcy felt the now-familiar accompanying pang of guilt at the reminder.

But Bing didn't let his spirits deflate entirely at the memory. "It was like the one day you actually acted like you were on vacation," he continued cheerfully, letting out a belly laugh. "Remember, we played volleyball in the pool, and you kicked my ass?"

There had been several times at Netherfield when Bing remarked on the inordinate amount of times Darcy was smiling and asked him why, what made him so happy. Darcy hadn't seen it then, what Bing could see in a single look, but he had been happy then. Even if he wasn't willing to acknowledge that happiness or its source, even if he'd been so busy trying to fight and deny it, Darcy had known the reason, though he chalked it up to the regularity of getting laid at the time. He remembered this particular morning well, though. It was about three weeks into the Bennet sisters' stay, and it was a particularly nice day. A Friday morning.

He'd woken up feeling particularly well-rested and, more importantly, to Lizzie crawling into bed with him at sunrise. For some reason, the ensuing sex had been so unbelievably amazing that Darcy could neither quantify nor explain it, but he'd seen stars. Maybe it was the surprise of it or the sight and feeling of her in his lap or maybe it was the way the colors changed on Lizzie's skin as the sun rose.

It had been that way for Lizzie too, because she'd bitten down hard enough on her bottom lip to draw blood trying not to scream. She'd more or less collapsed afterwards and been unable to get up for nearly an hour. When she regained the ability to speak, she'd licked her parched lips, sworn, and breathed, "Wow." To his bemusement, she'd then lifted her hand up like it was lead and pressed her palm to his in a sloppy high-five. "We should do that again tonight."

He'd smiled and kissed her then. She'd mumbled something like, "You're not so bad when you loosen up, Darce." She'd been able to talk, which was more than he could've said for himself at that particular moment, and she started halfheartedly teasing him about how he'd yet to actually enjoy his vacation out of the bedroom. Somehow, she'd ended up goading him into promising to actually treat the coming weekend as an actual vacation.

He'd wrapped himself around her, naturally, and fallen asleep while she was still there. When he woke up again two hours later, she was gone, but his good mood hadn't left with her. When he showered and went downstairs, he uncharacteristically forwent his usual morning reading. Instead, he grabbed a glass of orange juice and a plate of waffles slathered in syrup and went to eat out on the veranda. When Bing found him an hour or so later, he was wearing sunglasses and reading for pleasure on one of the lounge chairs by the pool. Disbelieving, Bing had stopped dead in his tracks.

Darcy had been paying attention to what he was reading, but his mind couldn't help but stray back to Lizzie, replaying each and every extremely satisfying moment in slow motion. And so, when Lizzie had walked in a few moments later, he grinned at her so widely that Lizzie stopped in her tracks, flushing slightly, causing Jane to bump into her. Stranger still, she returned the smile. "You know, I think this is the first time I've ever seen your teeth. Glad to know you don't have a kind of George Washington situation going on there," she teased, sinking into the lounge chair only two down from him, taking off her cover-up, and starting to apply sunscreen.

Though he was still pretending to read, his eyes were on her for most of the next ten or so minutes. That is, until she looked over her shoulder, meeting his eyes, and made a pointed comment about how slowly he must read since he hadn't turned a page for at least ten minutes. He hurried to turn a page, much to her amusement, and then dropped the book entirely when she asked him to rub sunscreen into her back. He gaped at her for a moment before her eyes cut over to where Jane and Bing were eating breakfast and staring deeply into each others' eyes. Too deeply to notice the world outside of them. So he rubbed the sunscreen onto her back and shoulders, taking his time, enjoying how she shuddered a little when his fingers skimmed just under the clasp of her bikini top. Looking back, it was the only time he'd properly flirted with Lizzie in their entire acquaintance.

Of course, it had all been ruined when Caroline walked out and saw them laughing. Always faster thinking than he was, Lizzie had taken the opportunity to shove him into the pool, splashing Caroline (who was even more annoyed than she had been before). Lizzie backed away from the edge before he could reach out to pull her in too, so he'd pushed himself out of the pool, taking off his sodden shirt, shades, and shoes. He knew, of course, that both Lizzie and Caroline were staring at him, and he couldn't help but want to show off a little, so he asked Bing to help him set up a volleyball game. Bing was so shocked to see Darcy actually enjoying himself that he went along with the whole thing and took his defeat typically goodnaturedly.

Darcy snapped out of his reverie a bit too late. Bing's eyes had lit up. "Did you meet someone?" he asked excitedly, tilting his head to the side slightly. Bing wanted few things more than to see Darcy happily settled, so he was always offering to set him up with people or to be his wing-man. He had been the top cheerleader for any romantic entanglement Darcy had even come close to. Darcy, who had never really had the time or inclination for relationships, had never appreciated this before, but now he felt bad again that he'd helped deny Bing the same happiness.

He shook his head no abruptly, and Bing frowned a little. He gave Darcy a look that was part disappointment and part disbelief, but, as usual, he didn't really push. Sometimes Darcy wished he would; a real friend would (like Lizzie and Charlotte, he thought), but that was just Bing's nature. Fitz would've pushed, but even he had a limit. Back when they were friends, George would've known Darcy was lying, sussed out the truth within thirty seconds, and then proceeded to taunt him into doing something about it. There were very few people, if any, who would call Darcy out if they thought he was wrong or didn't want to talk about something. Having his whole world come crashing down around him had made Darcy realize the carefully-maintained boundaries he kept around his friendships, his work, his life—a kind of extended comfort zone that made his world smaller and less interesting, black and white when he knew now he wanted color.

Darcy took a deep breath. It was really past time to tell him. He needed to stop acting as if Bing wasn't his own man, as if he needed protection. He needed to let go a little, to stop trying to look out for everyone and, more importantly, to stop trying to make decisions for everyone else. Bing's life wasn't his life to live. "Look, Bing... there's something you should know," he began seriously.

Bing swallowed, tugging at his collar, and sat up straight. He made some kind of weak joke that didn't cover how nervous he'd suddenly become. Darcy stood up and went to sit in the chair opposite Bing. "Just so you don't get blindsided," he added a moment later, pressing his hands together. He made himself look Bing in the eyes, even though it now pained him to do it. "Lizzie Bennet's here."

Bing's expression was sober at first, like he was thinking it over, but then he grinned. His smile, however, was missing a bit of the usual brightness. The nervousness he'd noticed before hadn't dissipated, but he relaxed a bit and started to fidget. "Lizzie's here? That's great! What's she doing here?" His voice was a little too high, tinny, every sentence going up at the end like a question or exclamation.

Darcy cleared his throat and looked down at his hands. He was afraid his face would give him away. Fitz surely would've connected the dots. "She's shadowing Pemberley. It's for her grad program, I believe," he explained dismissively. Like he didn't know, like he hadn't spent any time with her, like he couldn't possibly be attached, like she was just an acquaintance. The less details the better, and the less details, the less likely Bing was to pick up on his personal feelings about her visit.

Bing nodded thoughtfully, appearing to buy it. "What a coincidence," he remarked, sounding a bit dazed. "Did she ask you or did she set it up herself?" he asked after a moment. Even Bing had to know Lizzie wouldn't have asked him for a favor, but, then, he supposed Bing might've thought Lizzie had come back to lobby him about Jane or something.

Darcy almost snorted but stopped himself just in time. In response, Bing's brow furrowed slightly in confusion. He looked for a moment like he wanted to ask Darcy something, most likely, "wait, you know she hates you?!" However, a moment later, Bing shook his head slightly, having decided against saying anything, which was probably wise.

Darcy bit the inside of his cheek. He was positive she was partly there through meddling, but he wasn't about to question his good fortune either. He had to make the most of the second chance he knew he didn't deserve. "I believe her thesis advisor has contacts here," he replied evasively and a bit too nonchalantly. He glanced away guiltily, pretending he was looking at some papers. He said it as if it didn't mean anything to him or as if he didn't know, which was a lie. He had no real reason to keep it from Bing except exposing his own pride and hypocrisy, and they would probably have to have that conversation one day (if Lizzie said it was okay)... but it still felt like a betrayal in a bizarre way. Like he was still ashamed of how he felt about Lizzie.

He wasn't anymore, but he was still ashamed of his own conduct, of the way he'd treated her and others.

And, if Bing was really his best friend, well, that was the sort of thing he should've talked to him about. He hadn't really talked about his feelings to anyone, though. Fitz had figured it all out without him having to say anything, and Caroline had teased him about it, but he hadn't really told them anything. He'd asked Alex for advice, but that was it. Gigi was the only person he'd told, and that had been under duress, when she'd all but forced him to tell her why he was moping around the cabin at the holidays. He couldn't bear to let her think he was so silent and brooding because he was still mad at her, so the sister-appropriate parts had just spilled out, and he couldn't help it.

This time Bing was too distracted to notice Darcy's discomfit or that he wasn't telling the full truth. "Hm, interesting." He tapped his lips, beginning to pace. Bing had the anxious energy of a golden retriever that needed to relieve itself, Darcy mused fondly. When excited about something, he was always fidgeting or twitching. Bing looked a bit flustered, but, then, he also looked more animated than he'd seen him since he'd left Netherfield. "Hey, I should go see her, yeah?" he asked, looking down at Darcy with wide eyes. He cleared his throat. "Since, you know, you've got work and everything..." he said a bit too fast, motioning to Darcy's desk.

Darcy opened his mouth to try and warn Bing, but he didn't have the right to say anything. It was Bing's choice... and possibly his funeral. Instead, he held his hands out, palms facing up, as if to say "I won't stop you." Sometimes it was best to say nothing, but he told Bing that he thought her office was on the third floor (even though he knew the number by heart). Then he stood up and headed back to his desk and work. It was very difficult to concentrate around Bing; he was a man who couldn't really stand silence most of the time. It was as if he viewed the silence as hostile and needed to fill the space somehow.

"Yeah," Bing repeated, his smile slowly growing surer. "I should go catch up with her, kill some time until you're done. It'll be so good to see her again, you know?" He said it like he was trying to give himself a pep-talk. He was right to do so. If Bing had done to Gigi what he'd done to Jane, Darcy would surely be reaming him out, and he could see Lizzie doing the same. He truly had no idea how Bing thought such an encounter could possibly go well except perhaps that Bing was willfully deluding himself because he was dying for any news of Jane.

Darcy logged back into his computer. "I'll be back in like fifteen, maybe longer." Darcy nodded; he was debating texting Lizzie to warn her. He heard Bing shuffling towards the door, leaving. His shoulders relaxed a little, and he sank into his chair. Admittedly, between Bing's sudden visit and his talk with Lizzie earlier, Darcy wasn't sure how he'd be able to concentrate on the rest of his work for the day, but he was going to try. "How is she?" Bing asked suddenly.

Darcy nearly jumped; he hadn't known Bing was still there. Darcy's brow furrowed. "Hm?" He looked up at Bing, who was standing at the door, his hand on the doorknob. He hadn't expected the question either, so he had to think how to answer for a moment. He gave the vague answer. "She's... fine, as of about ten minutes ago when I saw her last." Bing gave him a questioning look, and Darcy hated himself a little as he clarified. "You were talking about Lizzie, correct?"

It had just occurred to Darcy that maybe Bing had meant Jane Bennet, but Lizzie was his own personal preoccupation. Bing's eyes dimmed a little, but his cheeks flushed slightly, almost like they did when he was drinking. "Oh, Lizzie, right," he said, rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand. "That's, um... good." He sounded predictably disappointed, and Darcy felt a bit bad. But, then, if he wanted to know about Jane, he would have to actually ask Lizzie herself or check Twitter or Facebook. Last Darcy knew, Jane was doing all right, despite Bing, but, then, he was too guilty to ask how Jane really felt (and too focused on Lizzie).

Suddenly, Bing turned around. Darcy barely glanced up from his computer; he was starting to think maybe Bing didn't actually want to talk to Lizzie after all. Maybe he wasn't still hung up on Jane Bennet. Darcy was bracing himself for another painfully awkward question about feelings when Bing said something he wasn't expecting. "Speaking of sisters... Caroline's been trying to get in touch with you," he said. Bing had somehow found a subject Darcy wanted to talk about even less than feelings. He did his best to avoid grimacing, but he'd never been a good actor. Bing looked torn, like he felt bad for even asking, but Caroline had clearly put him up to it, and she expected him to report back.

"Has she?" Darcy asked blithely, as if he were unaware of that fact.

Darcy hadn't seen Caroline much in recent months; their two most recent encounters were accidental and in passing. He had politely made his excuses those times, refusing to be drawn in, and beat a quick retreat. It was deliberate, even though he did his best to make it not seem so, mostly for Bing's sake. It was difficult enough to even be polite to Caroline when just looking at her made him furious all over again. All he could do was offer brief remarks and stiff, disinterested pleasantries.

The last extended amount of time he'd spent in her presence was that particularly miserable Thanksgiving Dinner he'd been forced into attending. It had seemed like a good idea back when they'd discussed it in the summer, back when he'd expected the Bennets might be involved, but he'd gone into it knowing it would be a miserable affair. The food was more awful than he'd expected due to Caroline's failure to hire caterers and lack of culinary skill, and everyone was out of sorts. Bing was trying but subdued; Caroline was flustered and taking swipes at anyone and anything, and even Fitz' best attempts couldn't make the situation less awkward.

Darcy personally had lacked either the appetite or the desire to be there. It was still so soon after the fiasco with Lizzie that he didn't have much of a will to live either, for that matter. He ate for appearances' sake, but the coffee turkey and Brussels sprouts tasted like ashes in his mouth, and the gluten-free stuffing was like gruel. He felt like he was stuck with a collection of unloved misfits, rather than his closest friends. Worse than even the bad food and stilted conversation was the thought of the Thanksgiving he would've preferred—warm and cozy at Lizzie's house, with a mouthwatering feast and a real family. The mere thought had made his empty stomach ache with envy.

Caroline had texted him and tried to call him, of course. Repeatedly. However, after seeing what she'd done on the videos, Darcy had absolutely zero desire to speak or interact with Caroline whatsoever. He had never particularly liked Caroline as a person, largely because of how transparent she was, but he'd tolerated her and occasionally found her amusing before. He'd gotten used to her, and she and Bing were a package deal, so she'd become a sort of friend. He'd had little patience for her overfamiliarity and desperation before, but now he absolutely refused to put up with it.

He had let her messages or texts sit for a while before responding, usually about a day or so. When he did reply, he texted back monosyllables that didn't encourage any further conversation and only called back when he knew Caroline was in a meeting or otherwise occupied so that they were playing a perpetual game of phone-tag. That was really the way he preferred interacting with Caroline anyway; how had he ever thought she was an actual friend, much less someone to almost confide in?

She had betrayed and manipulated both him and Lizzie. Caroline had shown her true colors, and she was only acting in her own best interest because that was all she cared about. He even doubted her reasons for separating Bing and Jane; her motives seemed more like a desire to control her brother than protect him. He couldn't forgive that. Darcy wasn't convinced she really cared about him, if her disinterested and insincere insinuations could even be considered pursuit, with him the ultimate goal. He supposed he could forgive her behavior if it was because of actual feelings, but when he thought about it, even his vanity didn't lead him to the conclusion that Caroline was in love with him.

Best he could tell, she viewed him as just another status symbol, a handsome and rich trophy for her to show off. He was an accessory, and, worse than that, he was a replaceable one. Nothing about him as an individual attracted her; everything that made him himself was interchangeable, easily swapped out for someone superficially similar but with a completely dissimilar personality. Once she finally understood it wasn't going to go anywhere, he was certain Caroline would turn her attentions to a more receptive subject who checked all of her boxes for an "accomplished gentleman."

As much as Lizzie's disinterest and rejection of him hurt, at least he knew it was honest, genuine. And he knew that she was rejecting everything about him specifically and personally, even if she'd seen him as some sort of caricature and didn't have all the facts. Her refusal was from her heart, which should have made it worse, really... yet, oddly, he found he'd rather know what she really thought about him than have her say yes because of all of those superficially-appealing things about him. If loving her had taught him anything, it was that what looked good and right for you on paper wasn't always what you needed, that just because all of the pieces and logic seemed to fit didn't mean that feelings would naturally follow.

Looking uncomfortable, Bing rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I think she wants to talk to you about something that happened while you were with your aunt?" he said guilelessly. Caroline probably hadn't told him anything more than that, which was just typical. The veiled reference to Hunsford made him tense, but if Bing noticed, he didn't react.

Darcy rolled his eyes, glad that his computer blocked his face from view. "I can't think of anything your sister and I have to talk about, much less anything that occurred in Hunsford that's any of her business." He was sure Caroline wanted to talk to him, but he had no desire to discuss Hunsford with her. He didn't want to hear her excuses or justifications. He didn't want to listen to her spin and the impressive mental gymnastics she'd have to do to explain herself or why she was trying to pry into the contents of his private correspondence. Bing frowned, but he couldn't offer up a more specific topic of conversation to rebut that. "If she has a question, I'm sure she has other means of getting the answers she wants," Darcy remarked coolly.

He wasn't sure if he meant the vlogs or his aunt or even Lizzie, but he wasn't going to fall for such a pathetic story.

In truth, Darcy was well aware he was just indefinitely postponing a conversation he didn't want to have. He didn't want to give Caroline a platform to try to talk him into circles. He could just imagine that wheedling voice in his ears, pleading that he "just didn't understand" whatever it was she was trying to do. As if he could somehow fail to understand when he'd seen her do the exact same things to Jane and Bing, planting little thoughts in her brother's head and even brazenly sabotaging Jane when that wasn't enough. He didn't want to deal with her coy attempts at prying, her insinuations, or, worse, her feigned sympathy. He didn't want to listen to her insist that Lizzie had misunderstood her, that it was all "an unfortunate mistake," and that her actions were somehow the exact opposite of what they seemed. Lizzie had certainly misunderstood him and misconstrued things, to an extent, but she hadn't misunderstood Caroline's behavior.

It was truly galling that Caroline should think to argue otherwise when there was fairly damning video evidence to the contrary. He knew that if and when he called her on that, Caroline would pivot, lightning fast, to saying she just wanted to protect him, that she was looking out for him all along. This assertion was as laughable as it was ironic, of course, since Lizzie wasn't mercenary. Her "help" had, in fact, contributed to and even encouraged Lizzie's poor opinion of him... which had led to his own broken heart. She'd done him no favors, and he was tired of people trying to control his life.

Bing's brow furrowed in confusion. He was aware he was missing something big, something that neither Darcy nor his sister were telling him for whatever mysterious reason (they both seemed to have a lot of these). Had something happened when Darcy was visiting his aunt that he should know about? He opened his mouth to say something then hesitated. Darcy thought (hoped) he might just leave it there, but Bing surprised him by speaking. "Darcy, I know my sister can be a bit much, but... she didn't do something, did she?"

That depended entirely on what your definition of "do something" meant. If Bing actually saying something had surprised Darcy, what he said had truly stunned him. Bing generally tried to look the other way when it came to Caroline's worst qualities, though he had always seemed to know exactly when to mediate or intervene, just at the very moment when Darcy was about to lose it. He was clearly being a bit too obvious if Bing felt the need to acknowledge Caroline's conniving nature. Bing was more perceptive than Darcy had given him credit for, and he knew the both of them too well to accept whatever Darcy was going to tell him.

Still, Darcy did his best to school his face into an impassive expression. As much as he wanted to tell his best friend exactly what his sister had done, there was no way he could do that without revealing his feelings for Lizzie or, worse, exposing his own role in separating Bing from Jane. He knew it was selfish to keep those things from Bing, but what was the point in telling him now? It had been an honest mistake on his part, and telling Bing about Caroline's role could only damage that relationship. Besides, he wasn't going to meddle anymore, really. So he laced his fingers together and remained calm. "Like what?"

Bing gave him a knowing look that said "you don't really want me to answer that question, do you?" Darcy briefly wondered what was going through Bing's mind at the moment; did he even know everything his sister was capable of? Darcy was bombarded with memories of Caroline's numerous attempts to ingratiate herself with him, to seduce him, even that accursed memory of her all but throwing herself at him. A disgusted expression passed over Darcy's face before he could stop it.

He was sure his face was still twitching, but the important thing was to shut down Bing's inquiry. "No, of course not. Why would you think that?" Darcy said dismissively, glancing back at his computer like he didn't have time for such a stupid conversation.

Bing crossed his arms over his chest and came closer. Darcy avoided eye contact, pretending like his computer screen was fascinating. It was slightly more successful than fake-texting. "Because you're acting like she's offended you in some way... and, generally if you're acting that way, it's because she's done something," he pointed out. Bing's hands came down on the desk so suddenly the glass rocked a bit, and Darcy jolted. "Caroline has never been accused of inaction," Bing pointed out. His eyes bored into the taller man, and Darcy had the odd and distinctly unusual sensation that Bing was looking straight through him.

Darcy bit the inside of his cheek and thought of a delicate way to put it, since denying the situation was apparently impossible now. "Don't worry about it, Bing." He wanted to tell Bing that it was between himself and Caroline and that he shouldn't get involved, but that would only invite more questions and interference. "We're having a... disagreement, and Caroline needs to understand that I cannot possibly come to see things her way." There was no real point in attempting to have a conversation with her about this.

Bing's brow furrowed. "So it's like an agree-to-disagree thing?" He tapped his lips. That didn't sound like Darcy; the guy could never let anything go, and Caroline tended to agree with him on everything. It also didn't add up. "You two don't normally argue."

It wasn't so much an argument as Darcy doing his best to avoid her and cut her out of his life, but Bing would take that the wrong way. He was sure his jaw twitched at Bing's words, but he tried not to react, focusing on typing an email. "You know Caroline likes to have things her way, and I like to have mine," he said simply. That was really all there was to it. He looked over at Bing, who was silently acknowledging the truth of that statement.

"Look, could you just do me a favor? If your sister's planning on coming up," he began, "could you let me know?" He truly wouldn't put it past her, if her other tactics didn't work. She seemed to have a sixth sense about when he was possibly making progress with Lizzie and the perfect timing to interrupt and block him.

Bing nodded and immediately assented, and Darcy felt himself relax a little. "If... could you also let her know she can't stay at my place? You're fine to stay for however long you'd like, but..." He lowered his voice, leaning in a little closer. "Caroline kind of stresses Gigi out a little, and I don't want her to be any more distracted from her studies, if you know what I mean. Plus the house gets kind of cramped with four people."

That wasn't entirely true; Darcy's house had a guestroom, nursery, and three bedrooms, more if you counted the study and living room, which could both sleep visitors if necessary, but Darcy had never been fond of large (house) parties in his personal space. Bing almost frowned, but he knew better than anyone that it could be a trial being around Caroline when she was in one of her moods. And trying-to-be-your-new-bff-Caroline was somehow even more obnoxious and ingratiating (and certainly time-consuming) than when she finally showed her true colors.

So Bing nodded again. "Sure, whatever you want, man." Darcy smiled and thanked him before turning back to his computer as if it were the most riveting thing on the planet. It definitely seemed like Darcy had his mind on other things, but he clearly didn't want to talk about it... and, besides, he wasn't the only one. Bing loved Caroline, but it was impossible to be around her and try to figure his life out. Besides, he didn't plan on crashing at Darcy's house either, not when he needed some alone time to think things over. Still, some quiet time hanging out with Darcy sounded like just what the doctor ordered.

But first he needed to talk to Lizzie.

- Loren ;*