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“Alright, so, you wanna play my Dad?” Lizzie holds out the hat towards Darcy, shaking it slightly in the direction of his face. He raises an eyebrow at it.
“Well, I’m certainly not playing your mother, that’s for sure.” Darcy’s response is accompanied by a slight shudder.
Lizzie grins and her eyes light up. “Oh my God, I hadn’t even thought of that.” Her eyebrows positively wiggle at the prospect.
Immediately filled with remorse for his own attempt at a joke, Darcy turns his head to her. “No.”
“Aw, come on, why not?”
He sighs, taking the Mr Bennet hat from Lizzie. “Lizzie, nobody could do your impression of your mother justice.”
“Are you just saying that because you’re worried you’ll look stupid?”
Darcy almost feels a denial come out of his mouth, but he relents and opts for honesty. “Well, yes, that’s part of it. But I really do think yours is fantastic.” He eyes the Mr Bennet hat suspiciously.
“Well, go on, put it on,” she says, handing him the pipe.
He pauses for a moment, holding the hat in his hands. “Didn’t you say once that me costume-theatreing your Dad would be ‘weird?’’ Why exactly was that, Lizzie?”
She rolls her eyes, donning herself up in her mock-Mrs-Bennet garb. “Come on, Darcy. Here’s the script.”
“No, no, really, Lizzie, I am quite curious.”
“William Darcy, are you trying to avoid costume theatre with me? Again?” Lizzie leans up at him and her eyes are teasing, challenging with a lighthearted tone. He almost kisses her, but then glances at the camera. No. They’d done enough of that for the internet for a long, long time. Not that it had been a bad experience.
Bringing himself back to reality, he remembers Lizzie’s remark. “No, I am not!” He places the hat on his head with attempted defiance. Or, at least, he’s aiming for defiant, but Lizzie’s laughing so hard that her Mrs Bennet hat falls off, so he’s guessing it didn’t have the desired effect. In retrospect, watching her, he would take this response every time, because it’s for him, and even though he should be feeling embarrassed, he’s just happy to make her smile, so he smiles and holds the pipe in his hand. Lord knows he’s embarrassed himself enough on the internet for the sake of Lizzie Bennet. One more time wasn’t exactly going to hurt.
Once she’s recovered (which takes long enough to warrant a jump cut from Charlotte, later on), she composes herself and holds up her script. “My dear husband, have you heard the incredible news?”
Darcy takes a breath and prepares himself. Channel Mr Bennet, he thinks, but then he hardly knows the man, frankly, so he really finds himself channelling Charlotte Lu. The result is a little more awkward than the actual Mr Bennet, but it’s passable. And at least he doesn’t have to do a high pitched voice or wave his hands about. “About Lizzie’s new dream job at Pemberley Digital? Why, yes, I h-”
“Not that, you ridiculous man! About her impending marriage to William Darcy!” Lizzie’s fully into character, almost forgetting that Darcy is there, and he catches a sidelong look at her, smiling to himself, although it’ll be shown to the entire internet.
He raises his eyebrows at the next section of the script. “Marriage? I did not think that they were betrothed. Besides, don’t you think that Lizzie landing such an important job is far more worthy of your excitement?” Darcy muses to himself that he may actually quite like Mr Bennet if he got to know him.
“Yes, yes, that’s all very nice, but we really must start planning the double wedding!”
“A double wedding?”
“Yes, yes, Jane and Bing can come down from New York, and they can all get married together.” Lizzie catches a sidelong glance at Darcy’s expression – which is somewhere between bemused and amused, and stifles a laugh. She was right the first time. Darcy playing her father really was weird. But it was hilarious all the same.
“But my dear, to my knowledge, neither Jane and Bing nor Lizzie and Darcy are engaged.” says Darcy, and even to the best of his efforts he cannot sound like Mr Bennet, but he keeps trying anyway, which Lizzie finds endearing. “Besides, I thought you disliked William Darcy? Why are you so pleased that Lizzie is dating him?”
“Disliked? No, no, of course I don’t dislike Darcy! He’s rich, successful, and handsome!”
Darcy has to break character again at that moment. “Did she really say that?”
Lizzie smiles. “Afraid so! Despite the fact that I’m soon to have a well-paying job of my own, my mother still thinks I should advance my financial state by sponging off my rich, successful boyfriend!” She stops for a moment, then they look at each other. It’s the first time she’s called him boyfriend, and it stops them both dead in the middle of costume theatre, though for very different reasons. Darcy’s looking at her with curiosity, and Lizzie feels mortified.
And she did it on camera. Like every other milestone of their relationship, apparently.
“I’m sorry, I know we haven’t really-“
“No, no, it’s fine.” He smiles. “I like it. You just... caught me unawares.”
She smiles, and then leans towards him to kiss him, slipping her arms around his neck. He pauses, an inch from her lips. “Lizzie,” he says, in monotone.
“What? Oh, sorry, do you want me to turn the camera off? I can just edit this out.”
“No, uh, it’s not that.”
“Then what?” she says.
“Would you uh, please take off your mother’s hat before you do that? It’s a little, uh, odd, to kiss you in costume theatre of your mother. It feels... very strange.”
She laughs, having forgotten she was wearing it. “You’re right,” she says, and removes the hat, throwing it unceremoniously on the ground. Darcy follows suit, and then leans in to kiss her.
There is quite a long section cut from the end of that video.