A/N: so it's eleven pm for me and I've just come back from that outdoor Artus show I got tickets as a present for;) it was lovely, just saying. So here it is: THE END

longer A/N at the finish line...

Epilogue: A few years or so down the road…

The rustling and humming of students moving grew slowly quieter when even the last of them left the lecture theatre and Darcy let out the breath he'd been holding and rubbed his temples. While this second attempt at teaching was significantly more successful this time around, he still caught himself in detailed daydreams about all the ways one could smash the heads of some ignorant dunderhead or another into their respective desks once in a while– it was strangely satisfying. As for what the seven devils had persuaded him to return to teaching after that fiasco last time – Darcy snorted. He knew exactly what or better yet who had convinced him. Green eyes, a few too many tequila shots during that Edinburgh-weekend and a defiantly raised "Prove it" that ended in boisterous laughter and he still wasn't quite sure if she'd really been drunk when she'd kissed him on the mouth and disappeared into the crowd on the dance floor, a glint in her eyes or if she'd planned all of that.

Well, she did warn him not to bet against her.

"Professor?"

Darcy looked up to the lecture theatre's entrance on the upper end of the rows of chairs and smiled fondly when he saw Lizzie standing there with her hair still impossibly wild, her jeans torn, the top of her scrubs tucked under a leather jacket and combat boots on her feet. The smile tugging on her lips was almost mocking.

"Compelling lecture." She brushed a hand over the chairs' upholstery while walking down the stairs. "I liked that part about the stop watches best, I think. The redhead in the third row looked like he'd piss himself. Very dramatic. Ever thought about becoming a Shakespeare actor?"

"I'm not making any more bets with you", he said decisively, but grinned when he packed in the rest of his papers. Giving an introductory course into trauma surgery was filled with so much more entertainment than Ethics 101.

"As if you could ever stop."

"Is that a bet again?"

Lizzie just grinned and pushed herself on the desk right next to the chair he was sitting in. "Could be. I think Lou's girlfriend is in some Shakespeare company. They sure have some space for you."

"Try it and I'll tell my aunt that you'd love to go to Bath with her to take the waters."

She gasped for air. "You wouldn't-"

"-dare? Darling, you want to put me on stage in coloured tights to recite bad puns and innuendos and at worst, sing."

"Well, Hamlet is always an option."

Darcy shot her a look. "Because I always dreamed about playing the dying swan live on stage."

"I'd totally watch it," Lizzie grinned, swinging her legs back and forth.

"Well you always buy front row tickets for whatever humiliation comes next, so…" Darcy rolled his eyes and rubbed her knee absent-mindedly with one thumb. In silent, wordless answer Lizzie just raised her right hand, wriggled her ring finger and started laughing.

They'd married three years ago in March. It had been pretty undramatic, almost a necessity born out of their wish to stay together when they'd work for Doctors without Borders for half a year somewhere in Africa and her friends had laughed themselves half mad when the couple who all thought would take the longest to find their way to the altar, was actually the first to take that step.

It had been a simple ceremony at the town hall with friends and family all in attendance and Anne and Richard as witnesses and Lizzie had joked about just wearing a blue sun dress for the occasion until Wentworth had dragged her to Islington one Saturday afternoon to try on second-hand vintage wedding dresses which thankfully didn't consist only of tulle and bows. Mrs Bennet had been quite inconsolable about that last part.

"Did Richard let you go earlier?" Darcy asked, leaning back in his chair. Lizzie worked with Richard in the paediatric department of Rosings Hospital while Darcy was still head of the A&E if he wasn't visiting the university, because their contact to Lady Catherine helped them realise this part time arrangement consisting of six months in London and six months doing developmental work all over the world each year.

"Richard wasn't even there today."

"Why? Did he and Benwick again-" When the smirk on Lizzie's face grew even wider, he clamped his eyes shut with a groan. "I don't want to know," he said weakly. "Edinburgh was more than enough."

"Well the both of them are pretty creative," Lizzie mused. "I didn't know half the things you could do with a simple pair of drawstrings or that Richard likes too-"

Darcy glared at her until Lizzie dissolved into giggles. "It was rather quiet today", she added finally when she was able to stop laughing. "And before the storm could start up again, I fled and went to visit Anne."

"Is Carmilla alright?"

"She's squealing in delight and asks everyone when her little sibling will arrive when she's not busy poking Anne's stomach or catching the baby's kicks." Lizzie's eyes lit up at the thought of her two-year old godchild and a heavily pregnant Anne who'd developed a disturbing craving for peppermint ice cream and vegetable crisps.

Darcy laughed. "And they let you leave in one piece?"

"I may or may not have left a good few strands of hair and half of a trouser leg behind." She raised her leg to check the rip in her jeans. "But I had to run some errands so Anne distracted the little terror with lollies and I ran out the door."

"Running again?" Darcy smirked. "Where to this time?"

Something flickered in Lizzie's eyes at that and she jutted her chin forwards slightly as if to ready herself for battle.

"I called Mus", she said offhandedly. "To tell him that we couldn't work for him this September and then I talked to Lady Catherine because we'll stay longer in London now and then Jane was on the phone talking plans for her wedding and she's super happy that we're able to stay for a few days and-"

"Lizzie, what the actual hell is-," Darcy tried to stop her babbling, but Lizzie just shoved a photo in his face with a bright smile and suddenly his heart was in his throat.

"That's…," he trailed off and traced the black and grey swirls that didn't make much sense unless you studied medicine which he did and Lizzie did too and –

"Seven weeks", Lizzie said lightly and looked everywhere but at him while still happily dangling her legs back and forth.

"Lizzie…" he said softly and saw the strain around her mouth tighten even more when she gritted her teeth. "Lizzie…"

She only looked at him when he tugged at her knee and then her hand – only the fingers, only ever her fingers - and the green eyes were wide and full of a deep, quiet panic standing in complete contrast with her earlier flippant words.

"Did you know," she said and entwined her fingers with his when he pressed his forehead against her knees and tried to remember how to breathe. "That bones grow from the middle to both ends?"

He looked up at her, a smile around his lips that just barely betrayed the fact that he was just as terrified as her. "Yes," he said, kissing her knuckles. "Like tiny islands in a foetus' hand."

Finis

A/N: So this is it.

I started this story almost three years ago in September, I think? I'd just started university and I was terrified and lonely and I was sitting in my lecture about developmental psychology when my professor started talking about pregnancy and how bones grow and she even had pictures - don't judge but Lizzie's and Darcy's last lines were part of some stupid poem I wrote back then.

Today I turned 22 and I've been holding on to this last chapter, this epilogue for a few weeks now because I'm almost finished with studying and the future is unknown and quite possibly terrifying. This story kept me sane and creative for a long while now and it's been a wonderful journey and I learned a lot - people I talked to, people who were inspired by this just as much as I still am and I wanted to say thank you. You are all wonderful.

I won't stop writing, I have one-shots in my mind about this story that I may come to write some time in the future, so let's just say this is not farewell, just a simple goodbye.

Much love,

Teddy