Twenty Months

by Alicia Rogers

  Still standing near the door, Darcy kicked off his shoes and said over his shoulder, "You should go and get out of those wet clothes; wouldn't want you getting sick."

  "Sure thing, Daddy," off of Darcy's look, Lizzie blushed before adding, "that was supposed to come out a lot more sarcastic and less sexual than it did…I'm just gonna go change now."

  He smiled. "There's, some old shirts of mine in dryer, if you wouldn't mind bringing me one. I think there might be a pair of shorts in there, too if you don't want to go all the way upstairs."

  "No problem," she mumbled.

  "Laundry room's right through there…"

  "Yeah, I know."

  "I'm never gonna let you live down calling me, 'Daddy'."

  A sigh, "I know that, too."

  Lizzie emerged from the laundry room swimming in a Slayer T-shirt and gym shorts to find him shirtless and barefoot bent over, rummaging inside of the refrigerator. Taking a deep breath, she silently struggled to push any and all dirty thoughts about Fitzwilliam Darcy out of her mind; okay, so the man was good-looking, if he wasn't anything other than beastly she wouldn't be knocked up – so there was no reason for her to ogle and stare at him as if she were Lydia, for Christ sake. Then again, it had been so very long…and she remembered that night so very well…

  "Can I show you something?" he asked, peeking up over the door.

  Startled by the sound of his voice, Lizzie nearly jumped out of her skin. "What?" she asked, her cheeks coloring with embarrassment.

  Finally surfacing from the depths of the fridge with an apple in hand, Darcy grinned. "Wait, here," he said grabbing the T-shirt from her waiting mitts.

  Moments later Darcy reappeared in the kitchen, this time fully dressed and with a photo album tucked under his arm. He slid onto a chair at the bar, motioning for Lizzie to do the same. "I think I've seen practically all of your baby pictures…"

  Lizzie frowned. "My mom waited until I passed out, didn't she?"

  "Pretty much, yeah," he chuckled. "You liked to be naked a lot, huh?"

  "Hey," she began with a crooked smile and a shrug, "when you've got an ass that won't quit you can't help but show it off."

  "Anyway, Mrs. Reyes brought some of this stuff down out of the attic the other day and I thought it was only fair that you get to see all of my awkward pictures."

  Awkward didn't even begin to describe the photographs of Darcy throughout the various stages of his childhood; tall and lanky didn't go so well with a bowl cut, and knobby knees constantly on display in ill-fitting shorts. He never really smiled, more like painfully smirked, and his hair was always seemed to be in his eyes.

  Lizzie snickered as she flipped the album's page. "You really loved those shorts…and Hypercolor T-shirts..."

  Darcy narrowed his eyes. "Hey, did I say one word about your tendency to rock a side pony-tail; the 80's were cruel to us all."

  "I don't think they were crueler to anyone more than you," she laughed.

  Young, Fitzwilliam whom had clearly seen his fair share of playground ass beatings, was a stark contrast to the other two boys he was consistently pictured with. Richard's smile and overall gingerness was a dead giveaway, but the other kid…his features were too dark to be Bingley, and as far as Lizzie knew, Darcy had never really been capable of making any other friends.

  As if reading her mind, Darcy put his finger on the boy with his arm slung around his shoulder. "That would be your good friend, Danny," he said flatly. "We grew up together."

  She stiffened and the atmosphere in the room turned blisteringly cold. "Wow, that's quite ballsy of you. What, did my mom show you pictures of me and Amanda Becker?"

  "Who the hell is Amanda Becker?" Darcy asked, puzzled.

  "My bff up until the 7th grade when I made the major mistake of holding hands with her boyfriend," Lizzie said rather matter-of-factly, her eyes narrowing into slits, "I mean, I know my little indiscretion pales in comparison to starting a rumor about a friend and your own mother because of your insane insecurity and jealousy, but since you're breaking out pictures of people you stabbed in the back, I was simply curious."

  "My, mother?" Darcy blinked and made a noise somewhere in the back of his throat that was an unsettling cross between a scoff and a snarl. "Oh, that's real creative."

  "It is, isn't it," she shot back. "Kudos to you."

  Suddenly snatching up the album, he furiously flipped through to the back and practically shoved the book back at Lizzie. "Hypercolor and Max Headroom are suspiciously missing from this picture, so tell me, Lizzie how old do you think Danny and I are here?"

  For quite possibly the first time in her life, Lizzie Bennet found herself totally speechless. The picture before her was clearly recent – Danny, beer in hand, once again had his arm slung around Darcy's shoulders. The casual, friendly demeanor of the two certainly didn't reek of two men who had fallen out years before over extremely nasty accusations.

  "I…" she started but was brutally cut off by Darcy,

  "This was taken last July at my bachelor party – that would make us both twenty four. Isn't it funny how Danny told you we never really got along and yet I made him my best man?" He sighed heavily, running a hand through his dampened hair. "Daniel Wickham was like a brother to me… fuck he was my brother in every conceivable way, blood relation or not, so imagine my surprise when I come home and find him on top of my fiancée. Ask Charles or Richard, they'll be more than happy to give you more details if my word isn't good enough."

  Lizzie swallowed the hard lump that had painfully formed in her throat and hoped that somehow she could slide off of the chair and slither out of the room unnoticed. Darcy sat before her, literally shaking with anger and all she could do was put her head in her hands and feel like the world's biggest tool. She believed him, every single word and even more strangely, she felt compelled to find a way to make it all up to him.

  "Wickham played you to get at me." And with a scoff as he stood, Darcy said, "He's the bestest friend you could ever hope for," before leaving a mute Lizzie behind to stew in her own thoughts.

  Chapter 22

  Nose over Tail (month three)

  "Jane's phone."

  Lizzie's face scrunched up at the sound of Charlie's voice (which was surprisingly jovial for nine in the morning). Nothing against Mr. Bingley, but ever since she'd been clued in to the more rat bastard qualities of one, Daniel Wickham, Lizzie really needed the comforting words of her big sister to keep her from collapsing in shame and self disappointment.

  "…Lizzie, I know it's you and I know you're there, because you're breathing kind of heavily. But, if you want, I'll hang up and you can call back – with the heavy breathing, and I'll pretend that my sensibilities have been offended."

  She couldn't help but smile. "Sorry, Charlie, I'm not playing 'phone pervert' this morning, I was just surprised to hear your voice, that's all."

  "Oh," he chuckled softly. "Well, Jane's already gone to the office, obviously she left her phone behind, but I'll be sure to tell her you called…"

  And, the conversation would have ended there if not for a small thought that had birthed itself in the back of Lizzie's brain. This idea clawed its way past other, less important synapses such as, 'you're hungry', 'your foot itches', and 'you have to pee', in order to scream, "Hey, stupid! You've got Darcy's best friend on the phone, this is way better than Jane! If anyone can tell you how to fix things, it's him! Oh, and don't forget to cover the phone's mouthpiece so he doesn't hear the toilet flushing in the background"

  "Um, Charlie," Lizzie began hesitantly, "do you mind if I asked you something?"

  There was a long pause on his end. "He told you, didn't he? Please tell me he told you."

  "So, Danny really is king of the assholes," she sighed.

  "I'm thinking it's more along the lines of he's their god," Charlie supplied. "Darcy has a habit of holding things in until…well, until he can no longer stand being a sullen prick, or common sense blacks out and he punches a guy in
the face. There's rarely an in between."

  "I'm such a bitch."

  "You're not that bad," he said reassuringly. "Darce is a complicated guy and it can take some time to get a sense of who he is – he doesn't exactly make it very easy."

  "But, this is the one thing in the whole world he didn't deserve a hard time over and I beat it into the ground." Lizzie let out a frustrated sigh. "I held it over his head all because I needed to not like him. Charlie, he hasn't said a word to me since that day. That's three whole weeks of awkward silence, and I don't even have the luxury of hanging out with Mrs. Reyes now that we're back in LA.I don't know what to do or what to say to somehow make this up to him."

  There, was another pause on Charlie's end, but this one spoke of the deepest wisdom being pulled together, as if it were the kind of moment the Dali Lama would need to take before the most profound of sentences rolled off of his tongue. Lizzie unconsciously held her breath…

  "Have you thought about apologizing?" Charlie asked and if she could have, she would've reached through the phone and strangled him to death. That was it?! She had agonized over this for weeks and the best answer he had was, "Say you're sorry, dude"?!

  "Seriously? Are you kidding?" she grumbled.

  "Nope, say you're sorry," he told her plainly. A beat, "Did you just flush the toilet?"

  "That is beside the point," she quickly replied, "Charlie, I…"

  "Think…" he began, cutting her off, "that I'm a big, old gullible piece of crap because I believed a slick lie crafted by the God of Assholes and Liars, and I won't be happy unless I decide to take up self flagellation, but I'm wrong. What I should really do, Charlie, is own my mistake to Darcy and start anew."

  "Okay," Lizzie mumbled.

  Charlie gave a skeptical snicker, "Okay?"

  "Yes," sigh, "okay."

  "Good."

  Once upon a time, when they had managed to survive a veritable marathon of complaining from Darcy and Lizzie, Charlie, jokingly mentioned to Jane that talking to that pair was like talking to the same brick wall, but as he and Lizzie said their goodbyes he suddenly became convinced that this was fact. Honestly, he had never seen two people who were more alike that couldn't get it together long enough to realize it.

  Tossing Jane's phone aside, he yawned as he pulled the bed's covers over his head, "…Really starting to hope they kill each other."

  * * *

  "Ow…goddammit! Ow…ow…son of a bitch, mother fuck…!"

  Operation Peacemaker didn't exactly get off to the smoothest of starts, what with Darcy managing to disappear for whole days on supposed business, but hey the hardest part was already out of the way. Lizzie knew he may have been the undisputed champion of putting his foot in his mouth, but tragic awkwardness was hardly a qualifier for worst person in the world and at least she'd acknowledged that her behavior had been just shy of "total cow".

  She was determined to know him, really know him, but this time she wouldn't have a cloud of prejudice hanging over her head.

  It was a rare thing to find Darcy home in the morning, but on the day she decided to put her potentially disfiguring plan into action, he was there hiding out in his study. Since he loved to cook, she thought food could be their great equalizer – that maybe he would appreciate the gesture of a complete microwave queen going to the trouble of cooking breakfast.

  Lizzie swore loudly as she held her poor, burnt hand under the cool stream of water; naturally when she came up with this awesome, brilliant idea she'd conveniently forgotten she was an awful cook.

  "You know, there is easier ways to burn my house down. I'm just saying."

  The look on Lizzie's face when she whipped her head around to find Darcy radiating smug from the kitchen doorway should have been accompanied by a snake rattle. "Oh, you know what, screw you!" she shouted over the sound of running water. "I'm sorry, okay! I'm sorry about Danny and about judging you without even hearing your side, but I'm trying to apologize here and you're standing there smirking – and, and I burnt my hand, and the goddamn stupid eggs, and you don't even care!"

  Darcy let out a snort.

  Red flashed in her eyes. "Yeah, laugh it up, dickhead!"

  He closed the gap between them, now looming over this incredibly pissed off, little pregnant woman. Lizzie's chest rapidly rose and fell, her good hand curled into a fist at her side, and she was ready to put her playground tested right-hook back into business when she curiously noticed Darcy's eye line led directly to her lips.

  He opened his mouth as if to speak, stopped, and kissed her instead. It was quick, just the simple pressing of his lips to hers, but it was enough to douse a situation that surely called for the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad siren to sound.

  They remained in silence for what seemed like an eternity, Darcy's hand lingering on Lizzie's cheek. He cleared his throat and attempted a smile, "I should have told you the truth about Danny sooner; we were supposed to be completely upfront about our lives, especially the major parts, and I wasn't. I'm sorry." The hand on her cheek moved to tuck a tousled strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm also sorry for any potential awkwardness my kissing you just now may create, but the scene I walked in on was more adorable than a barrel full of puppies, and you're kind of gorgeous when you're angry."

  Alright, that was absolutely not fair; he didn't get to pretend she didn't exist for weeks on end, then kiss her, tell her she's gorgeous, top it all off with a shit-eating grin, and expect things to be magically better! She was still pissed off and her hand still hurt, but her insides had been sufficiently liquefied, thus making this a battle, logic would not win.

  Lizzie blinked and desperately tried to remember how to form sentences. "Sorry…I am…too?" Fiercely shaking her head, she quickly corrected herself, "I mean, I'm sorry, too."

  "Can I see your hand?" Darcy asked and she held up the damp, injured mitt. "It's just a surface burn," he said with a grin.

  She shrugged. "To, my pain receptors every degree of 'it fucking hurts' is the same."

  "Fair enough," he laughed. "So, you spent six months working in a restaurant and you can't cook?"

  "Hey, I was a server in a restaurant for six months; absolutely no food preparation involved – with good reason."

  Darcy cocked an eyebrow. "…and your mother…" he began.

  A snicker, "You really think the woman with the 'Juicy' pants can do anything in a kitchen besides microwave a Healthy Choice meal? Dad's pretty good with the burgers and steaks, but my first words were 'take out'."

  "Well, despite the burnt ass smell permeating my kitchen, I am pretty hungry."

  Lizzie's face cracked with a wide smile. "There is one thing I can cook, but you have to be totally open minded."

  He gave her a look. "Exactly what do you mean by totally?"

  "Richard was right," she laughed, "you are so weird and snobby when it comes to eating."

  "I am not!" he whined.

  "So you're totally open, then?" she smirked.

  He nodded firmly but there was a good amount of fear in his eyes.

  "Okay, then – pork or chicken?"

  "What?"

  Brown eyes rolled heavenward. "This is not a trick question, pork or chicken?"

  "Um, chicken?" Darcy uttered while curiously scratching his head.

  "Alright," Lizzie clapped her hands, "go have a seat in the living room and eagerly anticipate a feast for the senses."

  A quick and nervous look was shot in the direction of the colossal mess as Darcy reluctantly made his way out of the kitchen.

  * * *

  "It's got a sort of pleasant… rubbery taste."

  Darcy's home nestled in the midst of a Hollywood Hills gated community that could put Fort Knox to shame, carried the stereotypical cool elegance you'd expect when the numbers in the price tag come equipped with more than one comma. Pristine, polished, much more like a museum rather than a living space, and Lizzie often found herself afraid to touch anything, believing that just her middleclass fing
er print would drive the value down; yet here she was sitting cross-legged in the middle of this plush, white carpeting, draped in dirty sweats and a T-shirt with a bowl of Ramen Noodles in her lap.

  Memories of having the exact same meal with Charlotte in their first apartment flooded her mind, "This is so much nicer without the cockroaches," she giggled.

  "What?" Darcy asked.

  "Nothing," she smiled. "Yeah, the beauty of Ramen lies within the slightly rubbery taste. It should be gross, but somehow it ends up being completely awesome."

  Chuckling, he took another bite. "You know, it doesn't even taste like it could be related to chicken and I don't mind." Reaching over, he switched her bowl out with his. "How many flavors are there?"

  "I'm not sure, but its loads of things you wouldn't expect your noodles to taste like, and all for about thirty-five cents a pack. You should get your friends in on the action."

  Darcy snorted loudly and off of Lizzie's look said, "Sorry, I just pictured Caroline being told it costs thirty-five cents."

  She laughed.

  "While this turned out pretty good and I applaud you on your insta-meal skills…"

  "Thank you, sir."

  "…Would you mind if from now on, I did all of the cooking?" he grinned.

  Lizzie threw up her hands. "Hey man, knock yourself out; my limbs will thank you for it. Speaking of new norms around this place," she began hesitantly with her eyes decidedly fixed on the remaining noodles floating around her bowl, "this kissing me when I'm adorable thing, is that going to be a regular occurrence?"

  "Do you want it to be?"

  All of the color in her body drained itself and reformed in her cheeks. Lizzie bit her lip and slowly met his intense gaze, "Maybe."