Archive of Our Own

Will Darcy was no people's man. He could be peevishly intractable, on occasions, and in particular places; at his own house especially, and on a Sunday evening when he had nothing to do.

Darcy likes 'busy', he likes to work on his computer for hours, comparing figures, making calls, managing capitals, taking care of his sister, his friends, his employees. What he can’t cope with is that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55 on a Sunday afternoon, when you know you’ve checked all the emails you'll possibly receive that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, that there are no more memos to send, and that as you look at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to eight; then is when it always hits him, that masochistic urge to fill the restlessness with her videos.

He throws his blackberry aimlessly at the sofa, where it lands with a deaf thud. He feels like a wild animal in a cage of idleness, and he's in no mood to reply to Caroline's enthusiastic tweets. At least Bing knows when to get lost. He turns on his laptop, and, as it happens when he's moping - no, brooding (somehow, he's convinced that a brooding man, sadistically watching the love of his life slaying him on youtube, is more respectable than a moping one. William Darcy does not mope, thankyouverymuch), he googles her name.

It's not stalking, he tells himself. Not when she insists on using her real name on every site she's registered on - it almost irritates him, really, but he's come to accept long ago that he's in love with her flaws, too, and what once he perceived as a betrayal of his own character it's now almost a comfort – somehow, he can rely on this pain. It had been too long since he had felt so much, and so thoroughly.

Presently, though, he's too focused on what he sees on his screen to remember he's supposed to be heartbroken. Apparently, thelizziebennet has posted a fanfiction on A03. Of course, he wouldn't know what a fanfiction was to begin with, hadn't he found some disturbing stories concerning his own persona online; he tries to ignore them. He's not interested in What if's. But this is Lizzie, and after months of trying to make out her character, he's drawn to the chance of stealing a little piece of her through her writing. Deep down, we all write about ourselves.

It's a Downton Abbey fanfiction, he can see that much. Hell, he watched the whole damn thing just so he could talk about it with her, but as usual it didn't end well when she told him "I don't normally discuss tv shows at a party, my head is always full of something else. And I'm not too inclined to discuss Downton Abbey with you. I don't think we feel the same about it, I'm sure you believe Robert Crawley is an honorable, sensible man. You both must miss the good ole times so much, when people with tailored suits weren't forced to mingle with peasants". On hindsight, she had given him some hints regarding her own not-so-friendly feelings.

And even if he knows he really shouldn't, he clicks on the link and begins reading.

A/N: Charlotte is convinced that my Mary and Matthew are slightly OOC (edit: Lizzie sees what Lizzie sees) and I know perfectly well what she was trying to imply. So before any of you gets some funny ideas, I do not have a fixation with bow ties (men did happen to wear black bow ties for informal dinners – in the twenties. If you get my drift.) and none of this comes from some…subconscious, repressed passion or whatever your shippers minds might conjure. Anyway, with no further adieu, I give you:

First Impressions

Mary Crawley sits on the bed, eyes trained on her husband with an amused, poorly concealed smile. Presently, he’s trying to fasten his black bow tie, alternatively failing and trying again with an irritated, endearing childish huff.

“Where’s Molesley?”, he sees her asking,  reflected in the mirror.

"I don't mind doing it myself, you know. In any case, I sent Molesley to fetch your sister. I didn't want to trouble other servants."

Mary rolls her eyes, more out of habit than annoyance, "Is she out, wandering through the highlands like a lost soul again?” her tone shifts, and she adds, sincerely, “I do worry about her."

"Don't be so hard on her. I suspect the sudden presence of a certain gentleman in the neighborhood must be the cause of her need for solitary walks."

"What are men to rocks and mountains?"

He chuckles, revealing a pair of dimples, and shakes his head slightly, before saying "She seemed in good spirits, lately."

"Edith was never happy-go-lucky, and she's certainly not been in her right mind, recently. Did you hear her yesterday? 'The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters.'-"

Matthew cranes his neck to catch her eyes, flabbergasted, "That's exactly what she said."

"I forget nothing," she punctuated, pointedly, before turning half serious, half sarcastic, again, "She's going through another of her heartbroken phases, and that editor, Gregson, is probably to blame."

"You barely know him. I’d think he seems a nice enough chap."  he finally managed to adjust his black tie, and smiles at his reflection proudly. Meanwhile, Mary brushes off his naïve conceptions with a sway of her hand.

"Oh please. His ulterior motives are all but honorable, I assure you. He very conveniently chose to visit this area of Scotland, at the same time of our own stay? I just hope Edith has grown some sense, for her own sake."

Finally satisfied with his appearance, Matthew turns fully to face his wife, pointing a finger in her direction, smirking, "Your problem is that you have a propensity to mistrust everybody."

"And yours," she replies archly, "is willfully to misunderstand them.”

"And you never misinterpret people?", he steps closer, almost looming over her. She’s not fazed in the least.

"I trust my judgment very much, thank you."

"Do you? Because I still remember some of the choicest remarks you made about me when I first arrived in Downton."

She rolls her eyes and retorts, faking a bored annoyance, "It's not as if you presented yourself spectacularly, you know. It's like you were purposely trying to be daft - and the first sentence I heard you utter was not flattering, shall I remind you?"

"You called me a sea monster. And a joke."

"What am I always telling you? You must forget the things I say. Come here." Mary extends her gloved hand to him, invitingly, a mischievous glint in her bright eyes.

"You'll make me untidy," he teases, but eagerly walks to her.

"Call it retaliation."

She’s on his lap now, arms carelessly draped around his neck, her fingers playing with his hair. He kisses her, lightly, behind her ear, where he knows it lays a freckle that it’s just his own to taste. Mary leans back, jokingly, and seems to consider something before telling him, "We were not too good on First Impressions, I give you that. You were a disaster at dinner, the first night. How could I marry a man who can barely hold a knife? So uncivil, Mr. Crawley."

"Is not general incivility the very essence of love?”

One of his hands is drawing small circles on the small of her back.

"Was it love?", she whispers.

"Since the very first moment I laid my eyes on you. I never really knew what love was, until I met you. Even if, at first, you only thought of me as a boring, priggish, middle-class solicitor."

“Don't remind me, you might make me blush."

"You did come around in the end, though."

"That I did. I found you improved on acquaintance." Mary feels the sudden urge to kiss his pout away, and she does, cheerfully remembering that now she finally can. When she eventually looks into his eyes, a serious, determined expression adorns her features, and she states,  "To me…I…” her eyes are fixed on a spot on the wall, behind his shoulder, and it takes her a moment to rearrange her thoughts. Finally, she says, “I cannot fix on the hour, or the look, or the words, which made me fall in love with you. It’s been so long. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."

She’s fidgeting with his bow tie now, eyes cast on the task at hand, determinately avoiding his intense stare. It was still hard for her to say it, so plainly; every time, it felt like opening her chest, and offering him her heart, however gruesome it might sound to foreign ears. The word love held little meaning to her - it could be fabricated, it could be an apology, a justification, a trick. She believed in actions over words, but with Matthew words became plastic, vivid, true, and she was not afraid of them any longer. She trusted him with her heart, as he had trusted her with his own, when he had said, for the first time, his voice shaking with emotion, "I'm...in love with you."

His lips descend on hers on their own volition, caressing the words that she had just freed.  Dinner forgotten, her fingers work swiftly to unfasten the bow tie he had taken so long to adjust, while his right hand eagerly caresses her thigh until it reaches-

"What are you doing?"

With a start, he closes the tab and, in a panic, blindly scrambles for his phone to give an appearance of work-related composure. He grabs a joystick instead, and holds onto it for dear life.

"Nothing. Working. Reading."

She eyes him with a peculiar twinkle, "Why are you blushing?"

"It's a hot day."

"Okay."

He looks around, making a mental note to delete his internet history, and says, flatly, "Well".

When people say 'well' to you like that, it usually means that they think you've outstayed your welcome, and that the time has come to call it a day. Unfortunately, Georgiana Darcy has the same ability to catch subtle meanings as her brother - which is to say, none at all. Therefore, she steps closer, until she can see on his screen that the A03 homepage tab is still open. She gasps, and can barely hold back a smile as she asks, "Were you reading fanfictions?"

"No."

"Smut fanfictions, then? Good God."

Before he gets a chance to defend himself, she turns on her heels and dashes out of the room, in a laughing fit, which is something that doesn't happen as a general rule. You simply don't laugh at Will Darcy, not even if you're his doting sister. Unless he's been caught reading smut fics on a Sunday evening.

Lizzie stared at her computer screen, lost in thought. Maybe it HAD been a mistake. Charlotte was wrong, of course, and she did not dream of slowly removing Darcy’s tie while placing small kisses on his jaw as her Mary Crawley had done…but. Her viewers were weirdly obsessed with Darcy. Romantically. And if she were to be honest, she had been wondering about him often enough. Unromantically.

He might not be a Sea Monster, after all, but that made him no Perseus – the sooner her viewers would stop being delusional, the better.

Shaking her head, she now focused on the task at hand: packing. Dr. Gardiner had informed her that their plans for an internship at Lakes Inc. had to be altered, but apparently she had just found a perfect replacement. Whatever that company might be, Lizzie was sure, she’d be busy enough to forget all about Will Darcy and his ridiculous choices of attire.

The End