Chapter Text
iii. they meander
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The rain stops mid morning and by lunch the ground has hardened to a damp but solid crunch. The sun is starting to appear and the air is cool but not freezing - he’s warm and engrossed in his book, wearing a grey jumper and plane white socks with his feet dangling in the air – Lizzie has spent the morning running her fingers across all the titles in the library and her small frame has sat in the corner of his periphery as he reads.
Sometime later, and she’s sitting amongst his legs on the long lounge - she tugs at his sleeve as Will turns a page of Cancer Ward and when he glances down, her own eyes are gazing out the slightly open window. She stands slowly and turns to him, announcing, “Let’s go for a walk,” without preamble - and Will barely has time to protest before she’s pulling him up and forward.
“It’s wet,” he reminds her, trailing behind her down the hall.
“The sun’s out.”
“And cold.”
She turns, and the crease in her brow is worrisome. “Do you not like walking?” she asks, partly curious, and Will feels like this is one of those important moments – sometimes Gigi fixes him with the same glare and it almost always means his answer is being judged harshly.
“Yes?”
And he guesses from the happy little smile on her face that his answer is correct.
They end up ambling down the road away from Netherfield, Will wearing a dark pea coat and Lizzie wrapped in layers of scarves and sweaters. She has a small, cotton grey skirt and dark tights and boots and Will’s never seen her dressed quite like this, but he likes it. He tells her as much when she emerges from the bedroom and then he can’t help but run a hand down her arm, squeezing her hand.
He doesn’t know how he survived so many months without touching her. His fingers ache with the need to be close and she’s so warm and soft, a perfect comparison to her spark.
He’s like a rag doll being pulled, blindly, hopelessly, along behind her – stupidly in love.
He’s so entirely in love with his woman.
“That,” and she points, one hand firmly enclosed with his own and her shoulder knocking against his with each step, “That is where I had my first kiss,” and they’re standing on a deserted street in the middle of a field. She’s pointing at a large clump of trees and Will squints as he peers closer at it. He looks down at her, and then up again, and then nods because he isn’t quite sure what to do with that information other than accept it.
“I was ten and his named was Jacob and I was so in love with him I thought I might die.”
Now he raises en eyebrow, “That’s quite dramatic.”
“Jane thought so too.”
She tugs at his hand tightly and pulls him off the road and he has no choice but to follow her, stumbling in his boots. The ground is squishy but the grass isn’t too long and Will only grimaces once at the thought of what the mud will do to the leather. Lizzie is determined and her hair is wisping softly at the edges and the sun has peeked out from behind the clouds to glisten on the edge of raindrops clinging to branches.
He breathes in deep and realizes that at some point he actually began to like it here.
“There.”
There?
He glances up where Lizzie has stopped to point and there’s an old tree house sitting halfway up an oak tree. It’s shrouded in branches and looks dangerously wet and soft, but Lizzie has dropped his hand to go searching for the old rope ladder and when she emerges moments later with a triumphant cry, Will knows he’ll have no choice but to climb.
She fixes him with a glare that’s somewhat reminiscent of old times, and five minutes later Will finds himself pressed against a slightly rotten wall with Lizzie’s small frame sitting amongst his legs.
“Happy?” he grumbles and she lets out such a content, little sigh that Will can’t help but feel slightly appeased.
And really, it’s not so bad. The wood smells appalling and he can feel the dampness soak through the bottom of his jeans and the boards creak terribly, but Lizzie has her arms resting on his knees and one hand tucked up underneath, clutching at his thigh. Her back is pressed flush to his chest and he can feel her exhale against him – he wraps an arm snug and low around her waist and she hums in a way he’s growing terribly enamoured with – she doesn’t just speak and touch; she hums and ahhs and sighs breathily and moans at the back of her throat.
All these little things that Will is slowly learning and falling in love with; little pieces that are only for him.
She turns gently in his arms and Will smiles crookedly down at her, watching her cheeks flush a little before she arches up and presses her lips to his own – hard and purposeful and so intoxicating that his hand comes up to tangle in her hair.
When she lets him breathe he sobs a gasp and she laughs softly against his lips, so close still that his eyes go crossed trying to see her. She presses a simpler, softer kiss to his lips and then settles back against his chest, stretching her legs out to let them swing.
“I used to hide here when I was little – I was always in trouble and I never understood why. And Lydia was loud and Jane was always trying to stop the two of us fighting – so I’d run out here and pull the ladder up after me. It must have taken my mother three or four years to find this place.”
Her voice is wistful, and not for the first time Will longs to know what her relationship with her mother is actually like. The Mrs. Bennet he’s met and the Mrs. Bennet she portrays in costume theater aren’t so unalike, but Will is sure there must be more to their relationship than fond bemusement – relationships are always more complicated than they seem.
“And your father?” he prods, because glimpses at Lizzie’s past are like precious gold. He knows so little about the person she once was – almost nothing of her childhood, but he’s beginning to understand this little segue up the tree house - she’s showing him her past, piece by piece.
She snorts, and the movement jolts against him, reminding him of her presence.
It’s so strange to have someone pressed solidly against him, it’s grounding and startling at the same time – he’s liable to float away and melt into the floor at any given moment when she’s beside him. “My father was the one who built this – I think for that very reason. He’s always been the best at escaping my mother.”
Suddenly, and she’s tipping forward, crawling up on her knees with a happy little laugh and pressing her fingers to the faded wood sitting opposite him. “I can’t believe this is still here,” she murmurs, and Will hoists himself forward to have a look. He’s really too tall for a tree house he realizes, grunting. His head almost hits the roof and instead he teeters on the balls of his feet as he crouches. Lizzie watches him sway and pokes at his side, hindering rather than helping.
“I’m not built for tree houses,” he tells her seriously, and she laughs so brightly that he blinks rapidly to make sure everything is real.
“Look, here. Charlotte and I wrote this when we were 7,” she tells him, still snickering and pointing to the wall. He inches forwards with exaggerated movements and she rolls her eyes, but he doesn’t miss the hand hovering over his shoulder to steady him.
He grips her fingers tight once he’s settled and feels them flex in his grasp, so he tangles them together and she sighs breathily.
Lizzie Bennet & Charlotte Lu – best friends, 1995 xxx
He traces a finger down the mottled wood and a smile tugs at the corner of his lips – it must be wonderful, he thinks, to have such physical memories of the past.
“What were you like as a child?” she asks him curiously – she has a memory of Mrs. Reynolds telling a tale of a small, cheerful young boy and tries to reconcile it with the man before her.
Will pauses, seemingly lost in thought, and his brow crinkles as he hesitates.
“I don’t think I’ve changed very much, I was always quiet – but maybe not so,” and now he stumbles, “maybe not so socially unaware, or judgmental.”
And she runs a finger up his arm to tilt his chin up, where it’s dropped.
“Will,” she says, voice soft, “You’re one of the best people I know.”
Her hand drops to press over his heart and it beats staccato as he struggles to breathe, instead laughing self deprecatingly. “That’s not true.”
And so she hits him in the chest. “It is, I was just too blind to see it at first. But other people do. I do, now.”
He catches her gaze and it’s stark and honest and he has a hard time not believing her when she’s rubbing her thumb against his cheek. She presses a kiss to his forehead, leaning forward on her knees, and when she settles back against her thighs he ducks his head, unused to such praise.
He finally glances up and she’s watching him carefully, but doesn’t call him out when he deftly changes the subject, eager to be away from analyzing his own personality and instead turning it towards her.
“I’m sure you were delightful,” he tells her, honestly.
She huffs and laughs playfully now, rolling her eyes, but there’s a light blush tickling her cheeks as she announces, “Please Will, I was a brat.”
And he thinks he could have well done with a friend like her when he was a child
An hour later and they make their way slowly from the tree – Lizzie leans heavily against his arm as they walk, her own curled loosely around his elbow and their shoulders bump and their knees knock on every few steps.
They’re slow and meandering and the whole weekend has been like one, long free fall down a cotton soft cloud. He feels wispy and muddled but also completely clear headed and when they finally stop outside her house and Lydia opens the front door with a squeal – she’d been peering out the window and had caught sight of them hand in hand someway down the road – he finally realizes that what he’s feeling is unabashed love.
Lydia throws her arms around Lizzie and punches him in the shoulder with a teasing wink and he feels too tight in his skin but soothed by Lizzie’s sparkling eyes.
Lydia doesn’t stop teasing them all afternoon, but the familiarity of her words and manner reminds him of Fitz and Gigi and he wonders, again, how on earth he could ever think her family was below his when in fact they’re the same – crazy and overbearing but so full of love.
They order thai food and sit around the Bennet lounge room eating from the boxes. Her parents are out for the evening and Lydia insists on watching some terrible reality show that he ignores. He suspects she chooses it mostly to stir him, but he’s intent on smiling and talking and being polite – and Lydia has the wonderful ability to draw anybody into conversation when she really wants to.
Somewhere between fish cakes and massaman curry he finds himself passionately defending Laurence Olivier’s role as Maxim de Winters against her loud remarks, and it isn’t until Lizzie is almost doubled over with laughter, forehead buried in his shoulder, that he realizes he feels more at home here, on the floor of the lounge room with Lydia’s objections ringing in his ear, than he has anywhere else in years.
They go to bed that night back at Netherfield and Lizzie pulls him on top of her, pressed so close he’s afraid she’ll shatter. She’s warm beneath the blankets and pale and spread out and he spends most of his time running his hands along her skin, pressing his lips to her collarbone and her breasts and her stomach and her hands and she giggles and grips at his hair and sighs into his mouth when they meet.
He has a flight back to San Francisco in the morning and she’s heading into the last two weeks before her thesis is due – there won’t be a moment for any of this for almost a month and he aches at the thought of being away from her.
There’s a question sitting heavy on his chest but it’s only partly his to give – the other depends on other people and places and it’s not his decision when it is given. He could interfere, but that wouldn’t be fair to either of them, and so he must wait and wait and wait and pray.
He hopes with everything that she’ll say yes.
Back home the next day and Gigi hugs him so tight around the middle he’s afraid he’ll suffocate. He pats an awkward hand against her back and then tries to nudge her away because they’re standing just outside his office and Peter from Graphics is watching them bemusedly from down the hall and Will really doesn’t feel like explaining why Gigi’s on the verge of tears.
Most of the people in the office know Lizzie. Some are even aware of her videos. He’s pretty sure 99% of them also know that he’s hopelessly in love with her, thanks to Gigi, but he has no desires to share his relationship with them all until Lizzie is at least living in the same city – preferably walking these same halls.
“I’m so happy William, so happy,” Gigi sighs, giddy and bouncing and Will has to bite his lip because he’s in danger of smiling too much. Eventually his little sister pulls back and he sends her on her way, promising to take her to lunch to share the details. She’s wearing a floaty dress that swirls as she spins away from him and Will has a memory, so deeply ingrained, of his mother in a long skirt swaying and humming along to Mahler in their front room.
He watches Gigi run down the hall and wishes, not for the first time, that his parents were still with him – wishes she had known them beyond small memories and photos in books; wishes they had been there when he took his first steps as an adult; wishes Lizzie could know them - especially his mother.
He chuckles to himself and imagines those two women sharing a room – his mother would have adored Lizzie, he’s sure of it, and his father would have been enamored by her wit from the start.
He finds himself back in his office with a stack of reports and a diagnostics test that needs over viewing before Domino can be launched fully and a message from Mrs. Reynolds about a meeting with key shareholders that they’re insisting be pushed forward to this afternoon; and already he can feel his shoulders heavy under the weight.
He feels detached without Lizzie nearby, like something vital is missing, but she has a thesis to write, and he has a business to run, and he believes her when she promises that they’ll figure everything out eventually.
His phone beeps and he pulls it up quickly – his smile blossoms and he laughs.
Just told mother. She’s weeping with joy into her oven mitts. Welcome to the family William.
Welcome, he thinks, indeed.