Chapter Text
ii. they progress.
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She wakes for the first time in his arms a little over two weeks later, and when she does she curls her toes in the end of the mattress, spreads her arms out along the soft, cotton sheets, and hums gently as his fingers crawl slowly across her middle, tugging her closer.
“Good morning,” he mumbles into the dip of her collarbone, and Lizzie can’t help but smile into the early morning light.
She’s still not sure how they managed to negotiate this little rendezvous; but Bing is still in LA, yet to move to New York with Jane, and Lydia think she’s staying with an old friend. No one suspects that instead she’s spent the evening at Netherfield, biting her lip over a glass of red wine and watching as Will - do you prefer William? I don't mind, he'd replied - moves deftly through the spacious kitchen.
“I never thought you’d be able to cook,” she’d told him, leant up against the counter with a fond smile. He was wearing a pair of tight, black jeans and a dark, button down shirt that was both tucked in and rolled to his elbows. He has rather impressive arms and she’d told him as much, watching the spread of a blush up his cheeks and the small tug of a smile.
She’s noticed, over the past two weeks, that he needs little reminders sometimes – little nudges and promises that she’s in this as much as he is. When they talk at night he’s always silent those first few moments – hesitant words and greetings until he seems to remind himself that she’s happy to talk to him; wants to talk to him; hear about his day.
When she’d first knocked at the wide, oak doors of Netherfield that afternoon he’d appeared before her with a startled gasp, a rigid stance, and a hesitant gesture to come inside. She’d been breathless at the sight of him.
He’s always been breathless by the sight of her
She'd swept herself up against his chest before he’d had a moment to protest. After a beat his hands had landed clumsily against the small of her back and then a soft press of lips had landed on her forehead - she’d hummed into his chest and scratched lightly at the bare skin of his forearm and they’d both shivered. It was cold outside but she felt electric from the inside out – not so subtly nudging him through the door and towards the front room where they’d collapsed together.
It’s no secret to herself that she’s been attracted to him from the beginning she’d noted, running a finger down his broad chest. He may have been terse and awkward, and she may never have entertained the thought of liking him (though now, when she looks back, she wonders how on earth she could have been so wrong) but she’s always appreciated his figure and form and amazing dark eyes and strong jaw line.
While she would never admit it on video, part of the reason she’d been so averse to him at Netherfield all those months ago was that she was unable to stop the slow and sensual dreams that filtered through every few nights, even when she believed the man was deplorable.
Now, though, he’s tall and present but at the same time slim and she delights in startling him, just once, while he’s moving around the kitchen. She runs her hands up the sides of his torso from behind and squeezes, unable to be happy with simply observing him any more – she has permission to touch and she wants, wants, wants.
“Hi,” she’d cooed with her forehead pressed between his shoulder blades, and her fingers had dancing across his chest as his stomach jumped with laughter.
He wears glasses, she learns, when he’s tired and at home because while contacts may be useful for the office, they leave him itchy and irritable after a time – and he likes the familiarity of the bridge pressing across his nose.
“I’ve had glasses ever since I was a young child,” he tells her when she asks, elbows pressed together as they eat from a shared bowl at the counter - and she can just imagine him – small and lithe and wide eyed behind dark frames, examining the world as curious young children do.
When they first wake, that first morning, there’s a moment when she feels the full force of everything that’s happened rush through her body.
Then he nuzzles his nose against her shoulder and she feels laughter bubble in her chest, and his affronted look only serves to make her laughter worse until she’s curled up tight on the mattress and he’s pulling himself into a sitting position, mildly concerned.
“What did I miss?” he asks eventually, and the slight crease in his forehead tells a tale of a man who’s often had to ask that question. She sneaks a smile and then leans up to press a quick, appeasing kiss to his cheek in apology. She supposes having someone laugh at you so early in the morning is quite confronting.
“Nothing,” she tells him, and then thinks again, “Everything?”
He frowns at her, lips pursed in the way he does when he’s considering something, and then nods once. “Yes, I suppose everything is a little strange.”
“Quite,” she grins, and now he knows she’s mocking him.
He collapses half on top of her and she gasps quickly, curling a hand around the nape of his neck. Their lips meet clumsy and soft in the middle, and she never thought she’d crave the shiver of delight down her spine from William Darcy’s proximity – but she does. Oh she does.
“Do you have to work today?” she asks quickly, between nibbles at his lower lip and scratches at his scalp.
He makes a deep noise in the back of his throat, shuffles around so that his knee and one arm are supporting him and then leans back down over her, pressing her into the mattress, “no.”
“No work?”
“No.”
“No phone calls?”
He grins, “No.”
She pauses a moment. “I don’t believe you.”
He looks flabbergasted a moment, as if he doesn’t quite know how to respond to her – for so long their typical conversation had left him completely on edge in case she took action against him – and while they’ve spent two weeks exchanging sweet and sleepy conversations into the early hours of the morning, he’s still not used to the bite of her tease, or the sparkle in her eyes, or the curve of her lip being directed at him.
“Elizabeth Bennet,” he breathes after a slow minute, because despite that, he is learning. He leans close so that their foreheads rest together and with his voice low, murmurs, “You are not leaving this bed.”
When he flips her over with a startled, happy gasp, her hair flies wild around her face and shelters them both from the light and the noise and the world.
He never though he’d fall in love with a redhead. Not for any particular reason. Truthfully, he never though he’d fall in love at all.
Like all good plans, their one to stay in bed and learn each other inside out is overridden by a sharp, piercing ring tone and a deep groan from Lizzie.
She has a hand dangerously low against his spine and he’s caught between pushing back into the warm press of her fingers and down into the soft flesh of her body – she grips him tight with her other hand tangled in his hair and tugs harshly as the phone keeps ringing.
“That’s Charlotte,” she mumbles against his lips, and Will presses his forehead down to her collarbone because even he knows what that means.
There are three people in the world that Lizzie Bennet would drop anything to answer.
There are four people, actually. He just doesn’t yet realise he’s made her list.
It’s midday and Charlotte is back in town and has commandeered her best friend for lunch. Will is left wandering the halls of Netherfield, completely bereft of things to worry about.
For so long there was Georgiana, and then Pemberly, and then Lizzie, and then Wickam, and Lizzie again. Now, however, it’s like the weight of the world has risen from his shoulders.
Dramatic, yes, but there’s a small part of him that is very much his mother’s child and Mrs. Anne Darcy was always prone to a little drama.
(Gigi is so frighteningly like their mother it hurts – it’s some cosmic joke that she should act and talk and walk like a woman she was never able to know).
He finds himself in the library, barefoot, and he can’t remember the last time he wandered around some place that wasn’t his own bedroom without at least socks covering his toes. He’s wearing a good pair of jeans but an old, black t shirt and he thinks if anyone else saw him like this he’d be mortified – somehow the suits and the bowties and the suspenders help him feel so much more put together and solid.
He pulls a book from the shelf without looking and settles in a chair nearby the window that’s letting in light. There’s chicken marsala left over from last night – one of the few dishes he can make, much to Lizzie’s delight – and he has a small bowl of it on a nearby table.
At first he sits with his back straight and feet flat on the floor, but half an hour later and the sun is warm on his neck, and the book – Russian, Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward – is fascinating and startling and he always forgets how much he loves getting lost in someone else’s world. He tucks one leg underneath his body, and then another, and then sometime later draws the bowl of chicken over to his lap; and hours later when Lizzie creaks open the door she finds him curled up with both legs thrown over the side of the lounge chair, face hidden in the folds of the book with his glasses perched on the end of his nose and a fork still dangling from his fingertips.
She startles a moment, and then takes the opportunity to watch him, fascinated – a wild Darcy in his natural habitat, completely and utterly at ease and without refinement. Not at all the Darcy-bot she had once proclaimed him to be but instead a wonderful, beautiful man – mouth open and eyes flickering across the pages, completely lost.
She heads to his bedroom and takes off her shoes and jacket and when she returns to the library he doesn’t seem to notice until she’s stepping towards him. He startles and drops the book to his chest, but then his cheeks bloom bright with a smile and she feels loved and safe and cherished – he’s still a little groggy from a trip to another world and pulls her willingly into his arms until she’s curled tight against his chest.
She falls slightly more in love with each breath.
And this is perhaps the most startling thing about learning to be loved by William Darcy.
His touch.
Never had she thought he would be one to reach for her so quickly – to tug her close and press kisses to her forehead and run fingertips down her spine.
But it makes sense, she’s beginning to see; he can be terrible with words but his hands are reverent and soft and loving – she understands their meaning without having to wade through the formalities of speech. In speech they get tangled and lost, but with a simple brush against her cheek she understands how precious she is to him.
She rests her head over his heart and feels the steady thump, thump, thump and thinks how insane the world is, that less than a month ago she’d come to realise she was in love with this man, and now she knows the feeling of his arms and his heart.
“How was your day, dear?” she teases him, leaning back slightly, and he has a little dimple in his left cheek when he allows himself to smile without reserve.
“Peaceful, love.”
She hums; both at the name and the sentiment, and thinks she could get used to this little world they’re somehow building.
Dinner that night is pasta with herbs and red wine sauce, and red wine to accompany – they actually sit at the dining table this time and Lizzie can’t help but fiddle with the napkins between them. She has a socked foot resting against his ankle and the domesticity of the touch is playing with his heart.
“You told Charlotte?” he supposes, because she looks ready to burst with the information and really, he can’t blame her. If he hadn’t spent most of his time engaged in meaningless texts with Gigi and Fitz he’s sure it would have all come out in conversation.
“Yes. Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I think she’s a ninja.”
Her brow is furrowed adorably and Will glances up at her, startled.
“Ninja?” he questions simply, and she rolls her eyes at him.
“She’s very shrewd.”
“Oh.”
Lizzie swirls her glass in her hand and then peers over his head, muttering to herself, “We should probably never let her and Gigi in the same room. Or Fitz. Or Lydia.”
Will lets her ramble, focusing on his pasta and the curl of her fingers around the stem of the wine glass and the soft drift of her voice through the room – he didn’t quite know what it meant to be lonely until he’d come to learn how wonderful it was to have someone else fill out the space alongside him.
“Somehow I doubt we’ll be able to avoid that,” he tells her, and she crinkles her brow, finally nodding.
“I guess.”
She spears a lone twirl of pasta on her fork and eyes it carefully as she brings it to her mouth and he watches her, fascinated. She seems to sense his gaze and blushes deeply and he wishes he didn’t make her feel watched – wants to tell her he’s simply remembering every detail of herself so that he can recall it all when he’s away – but history has a tendency to creep along in the background and they’ve spent the better part of a year feeling judged by the other.
“You’re adorable,” he tells her, voice catching on the words, but her startled smile is bright and true and he feels like he could get used to this – speaking his words and his feelings out loud, especially if it helps her understand him.
All he’s ever wanted was for her to understand him
“I suppose this means we should tell Gigi, and your sisters?” he ponders later.
There’s soft music playing in the background and he has no idea who they are, but he likes the soft melody. Lizzie had eyed him carefully when selecting it and the hint of a smile at her lips leads him to believe she would class this as ‘popular music’.
One day he might tell her that he was trying to ask her to dance that night – he remembers that video – and Jane’s quite apt interpretation. One day he’ll have to remember to thank the eldest Bennet for defending him without reason to.
Lizzie, now leant against his shoulder with her legs tucked beneath her (and he’s beginning to think she likes that position) tilts her head up to gaze at him, chewing at the inside of her lip.
“We could,” she says slowly, pondering the words, “But Charlotte would keep it a secret.”
“However?” he prods.
“I think it might be nice to tell them.”
“Gigi will be very pleased,” he states, already imagining her words and exclamations. He must remember to hold the phone at a safe distance from his ear. And perhaps warn Lizzie.
“Your sister is insane,” she teases, but her voice is soft and fond and he remembers the two of them running like lunatics through a park along the bay that wonderful weekend – desperately wishing that this was something regular they did each Sunday afternoon.
“Yours are no better,” he reminds her, and she snorts, jolting by his side.
“That is very true,” she laughs, tipping her head to his shoulder.
“Though perhaps you are the craziest Bennet sister,” he murmurs gently, tugging at the tips of her ponytail and smiling as she swings backwards, eyeing him carefully.
She doesn’t answer him with a response – instead eyes him warily, rubs a quick thumb against the slight show of stubble on his cheek – and then unfolds herself from his arms gracefully, rising to walk from the room.
She pauses at the doorframe and he watches her, entranced, until an arm reaches out for him and crooks a finger and he’s left with no question of her intentions – her destination and intent.
He scrambles after her quickly and she wonders if anyone else has ever seen this man before – barefoot and tumbling hair and glasses askew and an old t-shirt. She thinks this Darcy might just be for her, so she tangles her fingers with his tight and leads him down the hallway.
The next morning he manages to find a newspaper and has it spread out across the kitchen bench. Coffee is brewing and curls deliciously in the air and only the soft patter of rain outside, the rustle of paper as he turns the page, and the clink of his teaspoon against the rim of the mug sound through the eerie silence.
Lizzie wanders into the kitchen as he’s midway through he financial report – he hardly notices until she leans up on tip-toes to press a kiss to the back of his head, fingers running down his spine as she passes him.
She pours herself a mug of coffee and joins him at the bench with a soft knock to his elbow. They have plans to call Jane and then perhaps Gigi later this morning, but for now he’s content to spend the time existing in her space.
He glances up and smiles warmly at her, still not quite believing everything.
“Good morning love.”
They’re both building this thing.