Chapter Text
He still watched her videos.
He hadn’t intended to. When leaving Lizzie’s office after handing her the letter, Darcy had glanced back, telling himself it would be the last time he saw her. She had never really intended for him to see her videos; only an angry impulse, immediately regretted, had informed him of their existence. To continue watching them would feel too much like intruding on her, and seeing her again could only heighten his grief. Steady to his purpose, he filed the report with his aunt and returned to San Francisco with Fitz without ever returning to Collins and Collins.
The next morning, he was the first person to arrive at Pemberley Digital. Between analyzing Collins and Collins for his aunt and debating with himself what to do about Lizzie, he’d accomplished less of his own work than he’d planned during the last month. Pemberley needed his attention, and…well, he’d always found that work provided some relief from his pain. Three hours of emails and project proposals sharpened his mind, and it was only when he finally took a break to fetch a cup of coffee that he paused to check Twitter for the first time in days. The top tweet made him freeze.
Lizzie Bennet New Video – “Letter Analysis” – w/ @TheCharlotteLu #theLBD – bit.ly/LBD62
He followed the link without hesitation, taking a deep, fortifying breath as he waited through the opening ad. He’d never been able to settle in his mind whether Lizzie was likely to believe what he’d written. Certainly she would be inclined to doubt him, and she despised him so intensely that she might even think him capable of inventing a story to discredit Wickham at Gigi’s expense. He knew she hadn’t asked Fitz for confirmation, as he’d suggested. No matter what she thought, though, he was as certain now as when he’d written the letter that she wouldn’t broadcast the details of Gigi’s story. The woman who so passionately defended her own sister against his accusations would not risk harming his sister.
She believed him. She was offended still by his words about her mother and younger sister—he winced, suspecting that his remaining bitterness had tinged his written words—but she matched his admission that Jane’s feelings might have been stronger than he thought with her own admission that Bing’s feelings might not have been as strong as she thought. And though it “messed with her worldview,” as she put it, she believed what he’d written about Wickham and Gigi and regretted having accused him of cruelty toward him. He closed the tab and exhaled as he sat back in his chair. It was some time before he returned to his work.
He should, he knew, stop following her on Twitter. He needed to allow himself space to heal. More than once during the next few days, his finger hovered over the link to unfollow her, but each time her uneasy words at the end of her last video gave him pause. “Not only did I insult and reject Darcy, but I managed to drive him hundreds of miles away.” His following her on Twitter had led her to believe he intended to retaliate for her videos, and now it seemed that his determination to avoid another encounter with her had hurt her in some unfathomable way. What might she think if he unfollowed her now? His indecision annoyed him, and he suspected that his own selfish desires colored his reasoning, but in the end he couldn’t bring himself to sever his last tenuous connection with her.
To counter his weakness, he attempted to ignore Twitter altogether—a return to his usual practice, for neither he nor the handful of friends he followed tweeted often, and he was notified when one of them tweeted him. Over a week passed before he returned to the site, but when he did he was surprised once again by her latest tweet.
Lizzie Bennet New Video – “C vs. C” - #theLBD – w/ @TheCharlotteLu and @that_caroline bit.ly/LizBe64
He watched both videos of their confrontation with mixed feelings. He remembered well Caroline’s earlier success in exacerbating Lizzie’s hatred of him, so there was some satisfaction in seeing her combative expression and tone of voice directed at Caroline rather than at him. Caroline, he saw, was attempting to manipulate him as well as Lizzie, looking pointedly at the camera when she explained why she’d hidden the videos from him and Bing and when she condemned Lizzie for unfairly mocking others. His irritation shifted to guilt, however, when she went on to parrot his own harsh words about Lizzie’s family. How much more would Lizzie have to endure because of him?
Darcy checked Twitter frequently after that, for Caroline’s parting words had been ominous, though vague. Her determination to know the contents of his letter unwittingly threatened Gigi, and he might need to say something to check her when they all met for Thanksgiving the following week. New information came from Lizzie herself over the weekend.
Lizzie Bennet It is locked away. RT @dramamusicbooks: @TheLizzieBennet What if Caroline steals the letter from you? …Maybe you should hide it!
He nodded to himself as he read, grateful for her reassurance, though unsure whether she’d intended the words in that way. Actually, it was a wonder she hadn’t just shredded the letter to save herself any further hassle concerning it. Still, he had her word that it was safe, and now…now there was no further reason for him to watch her videos. He could even unfollow her on Twitter without worrying how she might interpret it. In fact, if she gave the matter any thought at all, she might even conclude that he no longer felt the need to check whether she respected his confidences. It would be a fitting end to all that had passed between them, yet the thought of it flooded his chest with a fresh sensation of loss. Considering the matter resulted in a dull determination to watch only one more video, to assure himself that Caroline no longer bothered her.
That video shocked him into immobility, for she opened it by welcoming him to her audience. Her voice was soft and hesitant as she did, and she seemed uncertain whether he was actually watching, but as he replayed her words he felt a calmness settle over him. He could not unfollow her now, nor would he stop watching her videos. The die was cast.
And so he watched. He watched her Thanksgiving video on his phone while waiting at the airport for Gigi’s plane to arrive. Others were watched between meetings, and still others were his reward after a long day, viewed in a luxurious but empty hotel room during a business trip. Watching now, without the fresh pain and anger that had colored his initial viewing, he rapidly came to admire the videos themselves and the skill and creativity of the woman who enlivened them. “Compelling” was an excellent description of the videos, even if it was Caroline’s.
The best part of continuing to watch her videos was also the worst. Each little window into her life and mind made him realize anew how thoroughly delightful she was. She continued to refer to him every few videos, sometimes with lingering anger over his interference with Bing and Jane, but other times with a more tentative inflection, as if unsure what to think of him. She made him laugh about George Wickham, of all people, by describing his dissipated college lifestyle as “not very spelunky.” She live-tweeted her mishaps while writing her first independent study report, and he found himself wondering how her assessment of the company compared with his. He wanted to tell her of the lame title Fitz had insisted upon for their report, “The Consultants’ Comprehensive Checkup on Collins & Collins,” just in the hope of winning a genuine smile from her.
He barely heard most of her fight with her younger sister, so absorbed was he by one statement she made. “Sometimes people form hasty impressions, and while they may not be completely accurate, it can be useful to understand how people came to those conclusions so you can change the way people see you.” Her words aptly described the task he’d set before himself: to understand how an intelligent, discerning woman had come to see him as she did and to amend his behavior so that others did not come to the same conclusion. His task went beyond that as well, for many of her descriptions of him had been based on an accurate estimation of his arrogance and his disdain for those he felt were beneath him. Hearing her put his determination into words was more moving than he would have expected.
Though committed to his task, he found it difficult to know what progress he made. People he met certainly talked to him more now than they had previously. Fitz, at least, was satisfied that he was improving. He’d decided early on to take his friend into his confidence. Fitz had responded to his halting, self-doubting words with compassionate reassurance and, characteristically, with his own peculiar brand of humor. It had been Fitz’s idea to keep a newsie hat in his office, where he would see it often and be reminded of his task. To humor him, Darcy had dutifully placed the hat atop the coat rack by the door, but in truth he needed no external reminders. He thought of Lizzie far more frequently than he looked at his coat rack.
Christmas drew near, and with it another dilemma. Since their parents’ deaths, he and Gigi had always spent the holiday at their cabin in the Sierras. His sister knew nothing of what had happened. He’d spoken to her briefly on the phone before writing the letter to Lizzie, but his pain had then been too raw to speak of. At Thanksgiving, she had eyed him worriedly during the drive from the airport to the Lee’s home and had asked him outright what had happened to him in the last few months. He had evaded her questions, for he could hardly tell her of Lizzie without mentioning Bing and Caroline’s involvement. Thanksgiving dinner promised to be awkward enough without that added complication.
There would be no evading Gigi now—in fact, when they’d talked on the phone earlier in the week, she’d said pointedly that the ski trip would allow them time to “really catch up.” The first evening at the cabin, she sat next to him on the couch before the fire, turned sideways so she could see his face. Her own face was so full of concern and affection that he began to speak with only minimal prompting. He warned her first that what he had to say might hurt her, for it involved George Wickham. Pain clouded her face at his words, and he tensed, preparing himself for her tears or silence. She looked away for a long moment, then turned back to him, her eyes steady. “I need to know what happened to you, William. Please tell me.”
So he did. He told her of meeting Lizzie, of the way she challenged and exhilarated him, of his turmoil as she unknowingly beckoned him to fascination and admiration and love. He told of his mistakes, how he had danced with her as if she were covered with fleas and spoken thoughtless and cruel words, how his battle against his feelings had kept her ignorant of them. He told how Wickham’s lies, but ultimately his own faults and flawed judgment, had caused her to hate him. He told her of the videos.
Gigi’s hand came to rest on his arm as he spoke. She listened with sympathy, occasionally interrupting with a question or with words of disbelief. When he finished, she was quiet for a time. “I’m sorry,” she finally said, “that Lizzie didn’t see who you really are.” He looked over at her in surprise, for Gigi was certainly aware of his failings. “You sound like you think it was all your fault, but that can’t be right. I know you don’t want to discuss this much more, but just…don’t let the fact that you failed with her make you doubt who you really are.” He compressed his lips and nodded, too drained from speaking of Lizzie to argue his culpability. Gigi said little after that, but she pulled him close in a hug before heading to bed.
Darcy remained in the darkening room for a long time. Gigi’s last words ran through his mind, and he was struck by their similarity to words he’d heard in one of Lizzie’s videos. The video called “New Jane” had done much to relieve his guilt where Jane was concerned, for there had been happiness and peace in her face as she spoke of her new life in L.A. “I don’t need one failed relationship to define me”—those were her words that came to his mind now.
Did his failure with Lizzie define him? No, he realized, but rather it was redefining him. He was now a humbler man, one more considerate of the feelings of those around him, than the man she’d rejected almost two months ago. He was a better man…and one who loved her more deeply than ever. If only he could somehow reverse time and repeat the months he’d spent with her, so he could meet and interact with her as the man he’d become rather than the one he had been. Would he still be “the last man in the world she could ever fall in love with?” It was impossible not to wonder but useless to speculate. The reality was that he had irrevocably ruined his only chance with her.
What now? Watching her videos now was somehow comforting and healing and yet wounding, all at the same time. Her videos kept her fresh in his mind, and there was little chance her hold on him would lessen while he continued to watch them. Should he stop? It was an unsettling question, one that he was too exhausted to reason through just then but that recurred to his mind frequently during the following days.