Dawn peeking through the window of the inn at Gretna Green woke Mrs. Annesley from her sleep. Well, let's face it… it was the day after a Scottish wedding, so it was more like noon or maybe evening. Mrs. Annesley contemplated the vagaries of fandom that she was about to violate. She had no traditional first name, nothing to hang her hat on, nothing to make her stand out from the crowd. She was very nearly a throwaway character. Now, she was going to lose the only real distinction the formidable Jane Austin had bestowed on her. She didn't have any idea how long it was going to take her to establish a new place in the JAFF universe under her new name, but she had no cause to repine. Yes, she could be quite happy as Mrs. O'Toole.

Dawn peeking through the window of the inn at Gretna Green woke the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Not one to indulge in vulgar Scottish displays, she had taken no part in the mass insanity of the previous evening in the one true blacksmith shop in Gretna Green. No, such fripperies were not for the likes of Catherine de Bourgh. No sir!

Lady Catherine had made a momentous decision last night. Anne was of age, and she was clearly healthy enough to take the reins of Rosings, and to what would certainly be a shocking surprise to everyone, she intended to give them to her. She had waited long enough, pretending Anne was not up to the task. A challenge was just what the girl needed. The girl had already been hardened by an exhausting weeks long battle with an insane woman and sixty thugs, so she should be nearly ready to tackle a London drawing room, and now she had sisters. Yes, Anne de Bourgh was going to be fine, and all would be well.

Yes, the dowager house would do quite well indeed. Perhaps she would even open up the townhouse and move there. Yes, life was looking surprisingly good for Lady Catherine Slyfeel.

Anne de Bourgh woke up at some arbitrary time of day, tired but exhilarated by the events of the previous day. She had survived. She had endured. She had a boatload of material for a new book or three, and she felt that with her new best friends, she was even ready to tackle a season in town. Let the ton come at her, she was ready for them. After last night, the fiercest London drawing room held nobody and nothing that could worry Anne de Bourgh.

She looked across the room at her newest and bestest friends. She had to reluctantly admit that Liz/Lizzy would always remain her very first true friend, and they would forevermore be as sisters, but reality said that Baby Bear had first claim on Wolf Mother… as it should be. Lizzy would be there to help her through her first season, but that was to be followed she suspected by a retreat to Pemberley that would be of some duration… as it should.

Her two other newest friends would conquer the ton with her, and the menfolk would either come crawling to them or they wouldn't, but it didn't matter, as they were going to chart their own course. Yes, she thought her two new best friends Jane Bennet (still) and Georgiana Darcy would be ready to tackle the world with her.

For about a week… Come on, let's get real! These were Jane Freaking Bennet and Georgiana Freaking Darcy we're talking about. They'd have men stacked up like cordwood in no time, and be beating them off with sticks (cudgels to be exact). Maybe the newly resilient Mr. Bingley might make the cut, or maybe he wouldn't but he could take nothing for granted. Her new friends' affections must be earned.

This would be most diverting!

Dawn found Mary Fitzwilliam and her handsome husband in the forecourt of the inn, practicing with staves. Mary was reasonably happy with her first battle, supremely happy with her handsome husband, very sanguine about their future, but slightly bothered that her and Mrs. O'Toole couldn't handle six ordinary thugs without assistance. Of course, that had all worked out well in the end, but Mary was not planning to have such difficulty in future battles.

One might argue that staves were not necessarily the best weapon, but she figured if they were good enough for Little John, they were good enough for her. Besides that, she assumed that within a couple of years, there were going be little FitzJuniors running around, and she really thought using cudgels on toddlers would be a bit much, so staves it was to be.

Noon found Mr. William Collins working hard on his sermon for the following Sunday, under the careful direction of his wife. His parishioners were to offer considerable thanks for the timely intervention, and whether they credited it to their own god or to Thor mattered not. The sermons would for once at least make sense… or at least they would to a Viking.

Breakfast found the ever-amiable Charles Bingley approaching the Bennet party with newly minted hope. Pulling off a rescue, or to be honest, playing a bit part in a rescue masterminded by the Bennet and Collins women should earn him some good will, and as Mrs. Darcy had suggested, maybe a bit of groveling will do the trick. Of course, the rescue was only required because of the plots and subterfuges of the Bingley women, so that wasn't really in his favor.

"Miss Bennet, how lovely to see you"

"Mr. Bingley. How is your head?"

"It hurts like the dickens. It feels like the hounds of hell are inside. I mean the actual hounds of hell, not the tavern near Rosings."

"So you're feeling extreme pain right now?"

"Yes. It hurts like the dickens."

"Does it seem likely to hurt for some time?"

"Yes"

"Good"

"Good? I only vaguely remember the injury, but I could swear you hit me with a workbasket."

"I did"

"Understandable enough, heat of battle and all that."

"Mr. Bingley"

"Charles, please"

"Mr. Bingley"

Sigh, "Yes"

"The battle was over. There was no heat left."

"So you deliberately bashed me in the side of the head with a workbasket."

"I took half the rocks out of it first."

"Why"

"You say you are in extreme pain, and likely to be so for some time."

"That seems likely"

"That seems fair. When you've suffered for four months, come find me."

The six-o'clock bell found Lydia and Kitty Bennet lazing around their bedroom just like they always did. You would expect with the biggest Scottish wedding in history, stocked from a full cart of Scottish whiskey, which was quite drinkable once you got the bits of bone and blood out of it would leave the two silliest girls in England married, but it was not to be the case. It turned out that there wasn't enough whiskey in Gretna Green, and probably wasn't enough in all of Scotland to induce anybody to matrimony with those two.

It was probably for the best. Both sisters might eventually grow up into worthies considering how well they had acquitted themselves in the Battle for Gretna Green; and the sheer number of formidable family members they had now had.

There was the Valkyrie/Wolf Lizzy and her Bear Companion, the Formidable Jane, the ever-clever Anne, the pretty and catalytic Georgiana, and that didn't even count the new aunts, uncles and such.

Best of all… they were now almost related to a Tax Collector from the Kings Revenue Service. Yes, things were looking up for the youngest Bennet sisters.

Noon found a roaring fire burning across the square from the spot where Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam had practiced their staves that morning. The fire was burning and generating the most hideous smoke imaginable. It was orange, primarily because every orange piece of clothing in Gretna Green was being ceremoniously burned to the delight of everyone present.

Lizzy and Caroline stood next to each other, acknowledging their rocky history and the debt owed.

"Mrs. Darcy, I feel I owe you an apology for the way I treated you all of these many months. I believe that until I found myself entangled in Louisa's scheme and standing next to a man that despised me, I never really knew myself."

"Do you know yourself now?"

"Partially. I have much to learn. But there is one thing I do know."

"Pray, continue"

"The woman who tripped my sister and saved your life. That wasn't me, but it's the woman I want to be."

"Caroline"

"Yes"

"Please call me Eliza. I don't mind it any more."

"You'll call me Caro, just to establish a sense of justice in the world."

"It would be my privilege"

After another short pause, Lizzy asked the one question that still had her perplexed.

"Caro. What's your last name now?"

Caroline stood in silence for a moment, and said, "I don't know. I can't really call myself Caro the Pirate. I'll have to ask Jimmy to clarify."

Dawn really was peeking through the window when Our Dear Couple woke up from a well-deserved slumber.

"Wolf Mother"

"Yes, Baby Bear"

"I'm puzzled by something."

"Ask and I shall enlighten."

"You said you had seven proposals."

"Eight counting your better one, although all things considered, I think my seventh was my favorite. That seems so long ago, practically another lifetime."

"I'm curious about something. You said three were more or less eligible, and three were clearly unsuitable. That's only six. What about the seventh?"

"You're not going to let this go are you?"

"Afraid not"

"I can outwait you"

"We're going to be married a very long time Wolf Mother."

"Ah well. The seventh was ambiguous. It was difficult to estimate his future income."

"How so?"

"He was six and I was five"

"You counted a proposal from when you were five."

"I like to be accurate."

For a time, they talked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.

Finally after some time, Fitzwilliam said, "They were right, you know"

"Who is that my love"

"My father, among others"

"What did they say that astounded you with its correctness?"

"Being married. It is better than Chocolate. Much better."

~~~ Finis ~~~

A/N: Thanks for reading my little story. I hope you enjoyed it. I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, faved, gave me ideas, and generally made this such a pleasant experience. I will probably publish this story, but if I do I'll leave it here to be read for free forever. If you're curious about me, I've recently updated my profile above, and I'm always super-stoked to get reviews, PMs or any other communications.

Thanks For Reading
Wade Hatler
Wademan dot com