Work Text:
Lizzie was sitting in her office at Pemberley, staring into the heart of what over the last year had become an indispensible part of her life. The red light just above the camera's lense stared back at her, encouraging her to weave her story. With a deep breath, she pulled a smile onto her face and started.
"Welcome to another week of my life here at Pemberley Digital. My name is Lizzie Bennet, and-,"
Before she could finish her now-familiar intro, a knock sounded from the door behind her. Knowing she could fix the video later as needed (she was getting rather good at creative editing), she called over her shoulder, "Come it!"
The door swung open, and Gigi Darcy poked her head into the room. "Hey," she said. "Wanna catch lunch with... oh, you're filming." She knelt down to eye level with the camera and cheerfully waved. "Hi, everyone."
Lizzie smiled in return. "Yeah, but I can finish it later. Lunch sounds great. What's on the menu?"
"Chinese," Gigi said, taking a seat in front of the camera. "There's this place down the street that Fitz just loves."
Lizzie, who had been moving to gather her things, paused and turned slowly to Gigi. She loved the girl dearly- the two had become fast friends- but that also meant that she was getting better at determining when the younger girl was leaving something out. Now was one of those times.
"So, lunch," she said. "It's just going ot be you, me, and Fitz, right?"
Gigi's hesitation in answering told Lizzie her guess was close to the mark. "Well, and Fitz's boyfriend."
"And that's it?" Lizzie pressed?
Under another few seconds of Lizzie's hard look, Gigi cracked, "Okay, and William."
With a sigh, Lizzie sat back in her seat. Disapproval colored her tone heavily as she said, "Gigi."
"Come on, Lizzie," she said. "You like spending time with him, right?"
"That's not the point," Lizzie insisted, refusing to answer Gigi's question, even to herself. "Why are you so insistant about me and your brother getting together anyway?"
"Because you misjudged him," Gigi said, and Lizzie had to give her that point. The Darcy that she had initially thought she met was nothing like the young man she was coming to know lately. "Plus," Gigi added, grinning. "You're perfect for each other."
Lizzie scoffed at the last bit. "There are a million different reasons why it would be a terrible idea for me to date your brother."
"Really?" Gigi said, and at Lizzie's affirmation, she continued, "Like what?"
Immediately, Lizzie began pulling to mind the things about Darcy that irritated her to no end. Like hte way he meddled in other people's lives (but only for their own good, a little voice in her head whispered) or his supposed superiority over all other beings except maybe his sister (except that's not true either, the litle voice chirped. Lizzie told it to shut up).
"Well, first off," she finally said, wondering why compiling such a list should be so difficult. "He owns Pemberley Digital, an amazing company that I might some day want to work at. That would be a huge conflict of interest." It took her another moment's thought to find the next reason, and when she did she continued, "And we live in totally different cities." Then, she reminded herself, there was the entirely obvious reason. "Plus, I highly doubt that he'd be interested anymore after my last rejection."
As her little speech drew to a close, Gigi stared at her, wide-eyed and mildly slack-jawed.
"What?" Lizzie asked.
"Of all those reasons," Gigi enunciated slowly, carefully. "Not once did you say you weren't interested."
As soon as Gigi said the words, a small shock slipped through Lizzie. Of course that was one of the reasons, a very large, important reason. So why had it taken Gigi's comment for Lizzie to even consider the idea?
While Lizzie considered this, Gigi's expression went from surprise to wonder to elation. "Oh, my God," she breathed. "You have feelings for William!"
"No, I don't!" Lizzie insisted, still a little baffled at overlooking the idea. "Of course I don't."
"Yes, you do!" Gigi was full out grinning. She clapped her hands a bit as she spoke and even bounced in place with her excitement.
Lizzie rolled her eyes at the preposterousness. That's why she didn't consider it initially, she comforted herself. It's just too ludicrous.
But still...
"Okay," she said. "Let's suppose, hypothetically, that I did." When Gigi let loose a small shriek, Lizzie raised her voice and pressed, "Hypothetically, because of course I don't. But even if I did, there's still plenty of other problems in our way." Did a note of disappointment slip in at the end of her statement there? Lizzie barely considered the thought before attributing it to mere frustration.
It was Gigi's turn to roll her eyes. "If you were working at Pemberley and dating William, he would be perfectly professional about it. I mean, I'm his sister and I work here. That's a way bigger conflict of interest."
"Yeah," Lizzie said. "But you're also, like, co-owner of the company. It totally doesn't count."
Gigi ignored her rebuttal and continued, "And if you were working at Pemberley, then you'd have to move here. So you'd be in the same city."
Gigi waited a moment for Lizzie to digest that thought, but before she could make any further arguments on that front Lizzie reminded her, "But you saw all those things I said to him, and about him. Face it, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't stand a chance with your brother."
At this point, Gigi seemed mildly irritated. "Oh, come on," she said. "Have you not seen the way he acts around you? He's still totally in love with you." When Lizzie tried to protest, Gigi cut her off with, "He wore a newsie cap for you. Of his own volition! If that's not true love, I don't know what is."
Still shaking her head, Lizzie looked away. She would swear that this situation had been simple, once. A very long time ago. She was also sure that Gigi was wrong. Even she couldn't forgive some of the things she'd said both about and to Darcy. How would she expect him to? Hypothetically, of course. But at the very least, she hoped that they maybe, might, one day be friends.
Seeing her friend's preoccupation, Gigi stood carefully. "Just think about it," she said. "Lunch is in half an hour, if you want to go." With that, she slipped back into the hall, clicking the door closed behind her.
Sighing, Lizzie cast her eyes around the room for some sort of distratction... and saw the red recording light on the camera glowing back at her. She had caught that entire conversation on video. Of course.
Well, she thought, the viewers are going to love this. One last sigh, then she straghtened and looked directly into the camera.
"My name is Lizzie Bennet," she said. "And I'm about ninety percent sure that I actually mean hypothetically... maybe seventy percent."