Hello you lovely readers! I'm back again with a haphazard mix of conversations. These take place post-episode 93, 94 and 97. I'm also working on a longer piece about the interim between 96 and 97, so be on the lookout for that later this week.

Until then: the conversations!

March

"Charlotte, what the hell."

Lizzie stands up, glancing at her camera to make sure it's definitely turned off, before rounding on her best friend. Charlotte has been back in town for a grand total of five minutes and she's already making trouble.

"I want to reshoot that."

Charlotte tosses her bangs to the side with a flip of her head and shoots Lizzie a look reserved for when she's being especially irritating.

"Give me one good reason why we should refilm."

"Because I told you I didn't want to talk about Darcy." Lizzie understands why Charlotte is pushing her on this, but the truth of the matter is she would really rather not think about it.

"You may not want to talk about him, but your viewers want the exact opposite." Charlotte's already going to the camera to check the image. Lizzie snaps the viewfinder shut.

"The viewers will watch whether I talk about Darcy or not."

Charlotte sighs frustratedly. "You know, Lizzie, for someone who's spent the better part of a year talking to the Internet about her life, you are really bad at expressing your feelings."

Lizzie's stung. "That is not true."

"Oh yes it is. We haven't heard real honesty from you about your feelings since you read Darcy's letter."

Lizzie opens and shuts her mouth, trying to think of a good defense. Somehow she thinks the truth — that she had never expected the audience to grow this large; that it makes her uncomfortable to talk about her true feelings in front of thousands of people, especially and particularly when she's still trying to work out what her true feelings are herself — won't go over too well with Charlotte. Instead, she tries a different tack.

"There have been other things to think about."

"Like Lydia, and Jane, and Gigi?" Charlotte lists off. "That's all well and good, but this whole project is called the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. You need to talk about you, and how you feel."

Lizzie fiddles with the hem of her shirt. "I don't know what to feel," she says quietly, honestly. "I'm very… confused."

Charlotte wraps an arm around Lizzie's shoulder. "It's OK to be confused. Just let the viewers see a little bit of it."

"It's not about them."

"Honestly, Lizzie," says Charlotte, shaking her head. "After an entire year, don't you think you owe them at least that much?"

"I don't care what they want! This project wasn't supposed to be about them. This project was supposed to be about me."

"Exactly. The project is about you. This whole year-long project has been about you, and your life. And like it or not, William Darcy has played a part in that."

Darcy's name feels like a punch in the gut. Lizzie closes her eyes. "Well, he doesn't play a part anymore."

Charlotte lets out a huff. "You can't just ignore everything from the past year."

"I know that," Lizzie says. "But it's different now. It's hard. It's just… hard. And it didn't use to be, but it is now, and I just… I just don't want to deal with it on camera."

Charlotte's eyes show sympathy, but her hand on Lizzie's shoulder is bracing.

"Every story has to have some kind of resolution. Jane and Bing have gotten theirs. Now it's time for yours."

Lizzie looks to the ground for a moment before revealing something she never thought she would say to another person, not even Jane or her since-fetuses bestie.

"I don't think I'll ever see him again." She looks up at Charlotte, tears stinging in her eyes. "I don't want to talk about him, because I'll never see him again, and that scares me. And sitting around blabbing on and on about him on my video blog is just sad. It makes me look stupid and I don't want to do it."

Charlotte gently squeezes her shoulder, and Lizzie feels very, very lost.

"William, she knows."

Gigi approaches his desk with something that could be mild contrition crossing her face, but the barely repressed glee beneath it tempers the repentance somewhat. William frowns.

"Yes, I saw," he says shortly, indicating with his outstretched hand that Gigi should sit in the chair next to his desk. She does just that, her mouth working to keep an appropriately solemn expression. But Gigi is as terrible at hiding her feelings as William is at expressing them, and her endeavors to appear remorseful are failing woefully.

"How, precisely, does she know?" he asks, trying to look Gigi in the eye. She studies the ground instead.

"Well I assume she just checked the website and saw that it was down?" she says to the threaded Berber carpet.

"Gigi."

"Well, I may have gotten in touch with her cousin Mary through Twitter and then Lydia and I may have started talking and I may have told her it was you who bought the company and tracked down George and made sure the tape wouldn't ever be shown or distributed." Gigi says all this very quickly and has to pause for breath at the end of the sentence. William frowns once more.

"Why did you do that?" he asks. He had specifically asked her not to. After everything, he didn't want the Bennets to feel any sort of obligation to him. His rebuke of Lizzie's younger sister all those months ago had clearly played straight into the girl's insecurities — something that had driven a wedge between her and Lizzie helped drive Lydia right into George's arms. William hoped that his work to take down the company and the video could help make some sort of amends.

Gigi shoots him an entreating look. "William, she deserved to know. They both did. Lydia and Lizzie. They deserved to know, just like you deserve to be happy."

William wishes he could explain it in an adequate way. He wishes he could express how he didn't do it for himself, how he had done it in an attempt to ease Lizzie's pain, to ease the pain of all the Bennets. He simply shakes his head and says, "I… didn't do this for me."

"I know. But you do deserve to be happy."

"Seeing them settled is happiness enough."

"But they're not settled! Lizzie still needs a job —"

"I will help her where I can— "

"Like by offering her a partnership at Pemberley Digital?"

Darcy's breath catches in his throat. "What?"

"You said it yourself," Gigi says. "Pemberley Digital is in the business of telling stories and she's a natural storyteller. It only fits."

"Who knows if she would even come here," he says quietly, ignoring the true point, the excitement at the possibility clanging in his heart.

"You never know until you ask," Gigi says.

"Which I will not be doing," he says firmly. Gigi starts to protest, but he holds up a hand. "Sorry, Gigi. I've got work to do."

Charlotte's in the middle of pulling out her wallet as she opens the door.

"So what do I owe you?" she says, before she can fully see who is standing on the front step.

"Nothing," says William Darcy.

Charlotte tilts her head back, mouth open, and stares for a moment.

Well, this is unexpected.

Charlotte tries to speak, then closes her mouth because she can't think of anything to say. Darcy is here. Darcy is here, at Lizzie's house, on Lizzie's birthday. Darcy, who is wearing a waistcoat and tie.

Darcy, who boarded a plane to Fresno instead of calling Lizzie back.

Charlotte will never understand this man. But she's pretty sure her best friend is in love with him, and judging by the look on Darcy's face, she's pretty sure he's still in love with Lizzie, and suddenly all of Charlotte's mental capacity is focused on getting at least some of this on camera.

"Um, Charlotte, is —"

"Lizzie's right through here," she says, holding the door out wider and stepping aside. Since Charlotte basically grew up in this house, she feels no qualms inviting Darcy inside. Just as he's stepping in from the porch, Lydia bounds down the stairs. She lurches to a halt on the bottom step, her eyes growing wide.

"Oh em gee," she says slowly. "You're here."

"Yes," he says, stilted and uncomfortable.

Together, without even discussing it, Lydia and Charlotte step forward and grab Darcy by the arms, shoving him in front of the door to the den. There's a small scuffle, given that Darcy is caught off guard, but Charlotte and Lydia are surprisingly strong for such small people. And then it doesn't matter because Lizzie is asking if Charlotte needs money for a tip and Darcy is saying, "excuse me, Lizzie" and Charlotte is thinking that she couldn't have planned this interaction better if she had scripted it herself.

Thanks for reading!