Chapter 15

A/N: Chapter 15! : () (happy/sad)

Additional Notes: This is the end…. (smiles darkly) Thank y'all for sticking with me!

I would especially like to give thanks to Chica De Los Ojos Cafe, Graciela (where art thou, my love??), Artemis97, MariahDezie, ixi-shaj, the Mouse In The Opera House…. ::not listed in order of preference, lol:: and all of the other awesome (and undoubtedly good-looking) commenters! : )

It was touching (I actually almost cried at one point, although I admit, I could supply water sprinklers for a burning skyscraper whenever I think about Willabeth wedding stuff) to write this chapter, and, I hope funny (my favorite part is when Charlie spins Will onto the altar and hisses, "Makeusallproud!") for you guys as well. Enjoy! Hate! Review!

James Isaiah Hopkins is the guy from the Prologue, remember, the guy who accidentally slammed into Will's parents' van. I thought it would be nice for Will to remember to bring him, so there you go! P.I. is short for Private Investigator.

Disclaimer: All Jane's; the torture session is over. And I do not own the quote.

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Six Months Later

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the face of this company to watch this man and this woman… totally f things up."

-Gossip Girl

"So, wedding day, huh?" Daryl, Will's old classmate, clapped him on the back a bit tipsily. "You bagged the babe, and-"

Charlie threw him a look that kept his mouth shut. "Everything's in order, at least on your part. Eh?"

"No, wait," Will said slowly. "I need to make a call to someone."

"Who?"

"Charlie, I need you to do me a big favor. We have about five hours to the wedding?"

Charlie checked his watch. "Yep."

"I need you to call my P.I. Have him find someone named James Isaiah Hopkins, probably in his late sixties by now."

Charlie nodded, puzzled, but followed Will's wish.

O0...0O

Fifteen Minutes To The Wedding

Elizabeth breathed in deeply and out deeply.

"Ready to look?" Jane smiled knowingly.

She nodded.

"Oh come on, Lizzie, you look like a goddess, and the seamstresses have been slaving over you for a day. You owe it to yourself."

She looked.

She really was beautiful, and if she was the vain sort she would have gloried in herself. But then again, if she was vain then she would never have won the heart of Will Darcy. Her sleek black hair, brushed to shine like velvet, reached her waistline gracefully extending, in perfect contrast to the yards of smooth white silk. Her skin was cream-colored next to the silk, and her big, expressive dark almond eyes glowed out of her skin. She radiated youth and happiness.

She felt her palms. They were sweaty with tension.

"Shhhh," Jane laughed. "Pretend you're…asleep. Pretend you're in a field of flowers-"

"Yeah, that is exactly what I'll say to you when you're busy giving birth to Baby Bingley. Do you mind if I quote you exactly?"

"Yes, I very well mind! Let me put on your….erm….what is it, exactly?" Jane asked confusedly, turning the odd piece of jewelry this way and that.

"Oh, just leave it," Elizabeth said impatiently. "We have to be at the church in fifteen f-ing minutes, and--"

"You know, I brought along a plastic baggie in case I hyperventilate, in light of my condition, but you seem to need it more than I do."

"Can we just, like, go without jewelry?"

"Sure, we can just, like, go without jewelry," Jane mocked her.

"I don't remember teasing you half as much at your wedding."

"Oh, really? Because I remember distinctly you giving me a suitcase of pink thongs!"

"Hey," Elizabeth said defensively, "me and the other bridesmaids chipped in. By the way, did you ever end up using any of those?"

"None of your business," Jane said in mock anger. Then, upon checking her watch, "SHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTT!"

"What?"

"The clock in this room is five minutes slow! We have ten minutes, and the church is fifteen minutes away!"

"Oh no," Elizabeth moaned.

"Limo!" Jane gasped at the intercom.

O0...0O

It started to pour halfway there. Elizabeth glared at Jane as if she were solely responsible for the weather.

"Well," said Jane halfheartedly, "um, they say if it rains on your wedding day, you'll be rich."

"Will's already there," Elizabeth hissed, "and yeah, not helping!"

"What, I don't control the weather!"

"Sorry," she sighed.

As they neared the church, the rain let up. Elizabeth let out the breath she'd unconsciously been holding.

Elizabeth's father was standing in front of the church. Luckily he had the foresight to bring an umbrella.

They raced to the double doors. Jane pushed a strand of Elizabeth's hair out of her face, and gasped. "Oh no! Ohnoohno-"

"What?"

"We--we--forgot the bouquet!"

"Jane, what will we do--"

O0...0O

"What if she doesn't show up?" Will whispered nervously, pacing up and down near the window of the huge church. His fiancée had been known to pull crazier stunts.

"Calm down," Charlie hissed, catching his wrist just before he was about to bite his nails. "They will be here any second."

"What if she got run over by a bus? What if she stole my money and is now headed to America? What if she eloped with Wickham? What if she still hates me for my former behavior?--"

"Get up to the stage and makeusallproud!" With one big one-hundred-and-eighty degree shove, Charlie catapulted Will onto the altar….

O0...0O

There she was.

Hanging onto her father's arm calmly, minus a bouquet, but Will thought she looked all the better for it. Her graceful, aristocratic hands, today devoid of the engagement ring that had graced her finger for the past six months, showed, whereas they would have been hidden by the bouquet.

She looked so heartbreakingly beautiful, so representative of all of his hopes and dreams and fears and happiness, that Will longed to suspend the ceremonies for a few hours and freeze time and just look at her for a while.

Well, the other half, like an overeager child in a toy store who has just glimpsed the toy of his dreams, itched to get the whole bloody ceremony done and speed off with Elizabeth to their honeymoon before any other customer could steal her.

But mostly he was just happy. The happiest he'd ever been, the closest to Heaven he'd ever been.

She smiled, nervously, but just as full of happiness as he was, as she took her place at the altar and her father gracefully receded into the background.

O0...0O

Elizabeth surveyed the audience. In the huge sea of faces (Georgiana and Jane had jointly forced, begged, and talked their way into a huge wedding), she could pick out quite a few people.

There was Mr. Collins, pudding-like face a little sour at the reunion of The Shrew and The Nephew Of My Esteemed Patroness.

Lady Catherine, Will's sour, bosomy aunt, who Elizabeth vaguely remembered from the engagement party.

Her thin, tall, rather ugly daughter, made pretty by her happiness for Will and Elizabeth, which you had to admire, especially considering her mother. Anne? Yes, that was it. Anne DeBourgh.

Caroline Bingley, sullenly acceptant and glaring enviously at Elizabeth's custom-made dress, wearing a tall feathery contraption with a fishernet-style veil. Dressed in all-black. How very sad.

Her mother, smiling as if it was her wedding day, dressed very well in peach tulle in between Charlotte, Mary, and Lydia, looking vaguely like the centerpiece plush teddy bear in a row of smaller, plump teddy bears. Elizabeth did not begrudge her this today, however; today was too beautiful, too spectacular.

A bent-over old man, with round, keen blue eyes, a thatch of white curly hair beneath his newsboy cap, wearing an old dark-red sweater, sitting next to his wife. She didn't recognize him, but by the way he was smiling at them could tell they would end up good friends someday. She smiled in return.

Next to her, with the bridesmaids lined up in tow (various Darcy and Bennet cousins, as the Bennet sisters could not be persuaded to wear 'ghastly white'), Georgiana, the maid of honor, smiling shyly.

Jane, the matron of honor, standing next to her, smiling gently and gracefully, radiating an old-world charm, her stomach curving outwards.

Charlie, grinning from ear to ear, standing behind Will, giving her a discreet thumbs-up.

She turned to Will.

"Dearly beloved," the minister began, "we are gathered here today in the face of this company…."

O0...0O

The minister asks of Elizabeth those fateful vows. Elizabeth slips a ring on my finger.

"Do you, Fitzwilliam Edward Darcy, take Elizabeth Sila Bennet, to be your wife…."

Why wouldn't I take her to be my wife?

"For better and for worse…."

No matter what happens. Because even if we lose all our money and her beautiful face becomes disfigured and ugly, I will still love her for who she is, the tempestuous, romantic artist she is.

"For richer and for poorer…."

I love her.

"In sickness and in health…."

I feel her hands lightly clasping mine, a touch so soft, so ethereal, it might very well not be real. Maybe this is just a dream. It is too good to be true.

"'til death do you part?"

Even after that, God willing.

The minister says those words. "I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride."

Elizabeth and Will had four fine children, three boys and a girl, Adalyn, Catherine, Landon, and Will. They were all quite goal-oriented, with hooking all of London society on Spongebob Squarepants, shooting a cupid's-arrow into the Prime Minister's ample behind, switching the Mona Lisa for a fake Mona Lisa with a mustache drawn on, and much, much more on their resume.

Caroline Bingley learned more about the real nature of true love, how looking beautiful is all well and good but how true love is really about the melding of two like minds and souls. She finally found someone as unabashedly aggressive, selfish, and insecure as she was.

(But of course, she always hated Elizabeth.)

The Bingleys got along wonderfully, except for a certain Darcy daughter and a certain Bingley daughter. But that is another story.

And thus concludes our tale of love and loss, joy and sadness (but mostly joy), and expensive pastries.

I cannot guarantee that Elizabeth and Will together will ever be easy, as the young couple discover each other's flaws and quirks and differences. But rest assured, their lives will never be boring.

And so, if it comes as a shock to the reader that in fifteen years we find not our Elizabeth sitting in a chair, properly hosting tea, then…. YOU'RE COMPLETELY STUPID AND TOTALLY MISSED THE REASON WHY WILL FELL FOR HER!

And they lived happily ever after.