I've been continuing to hammer out a plot line, so again I went back and edited the first two chapters for continuity's sake. Again it's just minor things, but they matter, and I threw a little editing in there too. Originally this chapter was supposed to be their Sunday night activity, but I put in some introspection and back story, and it kind of got away with me! Hopefully I'll post the next chapter soon! (Chemistry Homework allowing)

Read and Review, because I love you! (and it rhymed so I couldn't resist)

Disclaimer: My work/ideas based off of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, so some of it's mine and some of it's her's.

Sundays were Elizabeth's slow, relaxed days, when she didn't have twelve million things she had to do, and she usually loved the lazy feeling that pervaded the day. This Sunday morning she'd allowed herself to sleep in, waking up at eight, instead of her usual six-thirty. She ate her breakfast, sipping on her tea while reading a recently published case study on a genetic predisposition for an individual's body to limit its vitamin D absorption, and the detrimental effects that sprung from it.

When she'd finished, Elizabeth had started to clean the apartment. Cleaning in general had been rather ignored for the past two weeks, because of final wedding preparation, and the clutter that had accumulated to a point that offended her usually tidy nature. There was a pile of washed dishes on the counter, taken from the drying rack to make room, but not yet put away, a stack of mail and other papers was piled up in one corner of the counter, laundry covered one of the couches, some dead flowers sat in a vase on the mantle, a few cups and dishes could be spotted throughout the house, having been set down and forgotten.

Lizzie went through the apartment, gathering dishes, straightening stack of books, and picking up randomly discarded clothing. It felt eerily quiet to Elizabeth, normally Jane would be up, sewing, cooking, doing laundry, or, as of recently, working on some centerpiece for the wedding (the girl was like a walking Pinterest). Her folksy music would be playing on the sound system, with Jane singing along softly. But there was nothing, just lonely silence. Gaps on the shelves where Jane's books and photos had been, the corner of the living room where her sewing things were set up had been cleared out, and the doorway to her now vacant room, now all stared at Elizabeth, naked and empty.

As it had previously, the crushing feelings of loss and abandonment threatened to overwhelm Elizabeth. No, she thought shaking herself; she'd promised Jane that she'd be fine. "Shake it off Lizzie." She had commanded quietly, marching over to the stereo, finding her most upbeat playlist and turning up the volume, determined to drown out the sadness plaguing her as she had the previous evening. She kept herself busy and distracted for a while, but after two or so hours of cleaning and reorganizing things to fill some of the gaps left by Jane's departure, Lizzie knew she needed to get out of the apartment so she dressed and went to the lab to check on the Boys.

The weekend Lab tech informed her of the tests administered throughout the previous week (Elizabeth had taken it off for the Wedding) which showed that rats five through nine's nervous system cell deterioration had all declined by about ten percent. For some unknown reason rat ten's rate of deterioration had only lessened by about 5 percent. She'd only planned on checking into the lab for an hour or so, but time had gotten away from her. She had puzzled over the figures in her office for several hours when her phone rang. It was her mother.

Usually Jane was the one to text or call to check in on her when she stayed at work too late. "You're studying how important sunlight is, aren't you? You should get out of your lab and actually get some!" was one of Jane's go-to reasoning's. Or sometimes to make sure Elizabeth actually left, "I forgot to pick up something for dinner and Charlie's coming over in an hour" forcing her to wrap up and get the forgotten item from the store in a timely fashion. However Jane always managed to be so sweet about it that her concerns never felt like the nagging and thus Lizzie didn't mind the interruption. What she got from her mother however was a different matter entirely.

"Hey Mom," she answered tiredly, scrunching her forehead at the test results she was looking at, "What can I do for you?"

"Lizzie, where are you? I sent your sisters to your apartment to drop off leftovers from the reception and you weren't there. What are you doing?" Eleanor Bennet's shrill tones came over the phone causing Elizabeth to wince.

"Oh, sorry about that," She replied vaguely, continuing to study the figures before her. "I'm at the lab…"

"'The lab…'" Lizzie could hear the distaste dripping from her mother's lips. Mrs. Bennet disapproved of many, if not most all of the things that Elizabeth did; going to school in California instead of staying in Washington, not getting married while she was at college, and most of all how much time Elizabeth spent at her work. Her mother saw each moment that Lizzie spent in the Lab as another moment she could have been finding a husband.

As expected Mrs. Bennet launched into a litany of reasons why Elizabeth should not in fact be at her place of work, "Elizabeth Maureen, it is past seven at night on a Sunday, what are you doing in there? Why in the world do you spend so much time in that dismal place? You are much too like your father. How do you even expect to find a man if you never leave? How will you get a husband if you're too busy with test tubes and rats to get dinner on the table by five…" Elizabeth rolled her eyes at the nagging lecture, though a glance at the clock confirmed the time. She was indeed surprised to find it was almost quarter past seven.

"…And it's dangerous, with all those chemicals. You should know that after your accident." Lizzie instantly stiffened. No; her mother couldn't possibly be bringing this up. The mention of it made the scared skin covering her back and shoulder prickle, reminding her of its presence. "You'll get some other nasty acid or something all over you and it won't be somewhere you can cover up like the one you already have, and then what man will want to marry you? I mean really dear, even if Jane isn't competition anymore, you're not getting any younger, and then when the man sees how disfigured-"

Elizabeth cut her off sharply, "Mother!" She could let most of what her mother said roll of her shoulders, but the accident was something different and she couldn't believe that her mom would stoop so low. "The accident was not my fault and I would hardly consider myself disfigured. Not to mention the fact that I'm working with professionals in a professional lab with strictly enforced safety protocols. That was a Chemistry classroom, with a half drunken frat boy dancing around with an open bottle of Sulfuric Acid and a moon eyed Lab tech who was too busy flirting to notice that the idiot had gotten a bottle of stock solution. And the fact that I was intensive care for two weeks and rehab for nearly four months wasn't what you call a problem? No, it's the scarring you're worried about. I can't believe you!"

"Well, it's just something to keep in mind." Mrs. Bennet sniffed, sounding affronted. "I worry about your safety, that's all."

"Thanks Mom, but I'm busy, I've got to go." Elizabeth told her stiffly, trying to keep most of the anger out of her voice, and wanting to get off the phone as soon as possible. "I'll talk to you later."

"You are coming to dinner Wednesday, right?" she asked before Lizzie could hang up. "A lovely gentleman from the reception is coming. You caught his attention, and he asked Mary about you. He's actually Mr.-"

"I'll talk to you later mom, bye." Elizabeth snapped, and hung up the phone. Weekly dinners, she'd forgotten her family did that, the last few had been canceled because of wedding plans, appointments, and what not. Elizabeth loved her family she really did, from a distance that is.

The dinners were always the same; Jane would make some adorable dessert or side dish (again the woman was a walking Pinterest), their mother would question every serving her daughters took "Do you really want seconds?" "Are sure your waistline can take another piece of pie?" "Men don't want a wife who eats more than he does."

Jane would take it all with her signature sweet smile, patting Lizzie's leg under the table, and listen patiently on the way home as Elizabeth enumerated all the reasons their mother should be institutionalized. "She thought it was unnatural that I was a vegetarian for three years, yet she's totally fine with Lydia and Kitty only eating purple foods?" "Why the hell does she cook so much if she thinks I'm going to get fat?" "What exactly is domestic about Jello based dishes? They're so wrong in so many ways!" Jane would nod sympathetically, when they got home, she'd make tea, or pour wine depending on how upset Lizzie was, and sit there sipping quietly until Elizabeth mellowed. Then Jane would gently remind her that their mom really did love them, she just worried, and other sensible, if not overly forgiving statements. There would be no Jane Buffer this family dinner. The thought instantly caused Lizzie's shoulders to bunch up with anticipated tension; she was dreading the upcoming evening less than usual.

The only good thing to result from her mother's call was that Elizabeth realized the time. Darcy would be coming over to watch Downton Abbey a little before nine, and she still needed to go grocery shopping.

Lizzie was looking forward to Darcy coming over. The apartment was too quiet and well, she had begun to rather like spending time with him (not that she dare admit it after her smack down rejection of him over a year and a half ago).

He's attractive, that's for sure, she mused as she wandered through the grocery store, and as it turns out, he's funny when you can break him out of his shell. Lizzie's respect for him had grown the more she'd seen him at her internship at Pemberly Pharmaceutical. For a Not-Nerd type, he interacted very well with his company full of gifted, and often eccentric, introvert scientist.

And then of course with all he'd done for Lydia when George Wickham had tricked her into moving drugs for him. Ugg, just the thought of that man, if he deserved the word, made Elizabeth tense, and she was lucky that it was a bottle of wine she was holding, and not something more crushable. But again, thanks to Will's intervention, Lydia had been proven innocent, and she had been able to provide the authorities with information about Wickham's misdeed, including evidence that pinned him to several unpleasant murders (some of Wickham's previous employee's who'd been caught skimming funds, or product). Yeah, Will had fixed all that, and repaired his screw up of convincing Charlie to leave Jane. Elizabeth had absolutely no reason to dislike him as she had before.

And, with all the wedding prep, cake tastings, picking theme, colors, music, and the menu, making centerpieces, organizing seat assignments, and mother soothing, they'd spent a lot of time together. A small bit of her (that she tried valiantly to quash, with no avail) regretted that she'd rejected his offer of a relationship. She'd judged and assumed so much about him, before she'd hardly even known him, all because of some stupid comment she'd overheard. Elizabeth felt like a fool and a jerk, to say the least, about how she had acted towards him and what she'd said about him to others.

Pity he'll never like me like that again, she thought, exchanging Jane's sweet tea cookies for the savory cracker she found out he liked and putting them in her filling shopping cart. Despite her initial protests that she did not need to be babysat while Jane was on Honeymoon, she was silently grateful for the ridiculous list her sister had pressed upon Darcy. Jane knew Lizzie would be lonely, and she was right. Lizzie hadn't lived alone since before the accident, and Jane had always been right there for her. She knew this was a natural progression; that one day Jane would get married to some amazing guy, and they would stop living together.

What Lizzie hadn't expected was the sinking feeling that she'd be alone forever. When Darcy had found her in the gardens during the reception, she'd been mortified, (she hated people seeing her cry, it made her feel weak). But he'd been so sweet, and he'd made that abandoned feeling go away a bit, same with the previous night, watching the movie. It's not like they had some deep philosophical conversation or anything, he'd just been comforting. Will hadn't mentioned her reaction to when he touched her back and shoulder, like he hadn't notice it. Lizzie made sure to always have her scars covered, and was fairly certain that Will knew nothing about the spill, she didn't want anyone's pity, but she felt a bit bad shrugging away from the comforting touch he'd offered. He'd helped her feel less alone, and she was grateful for it.