Chapter Text
During those terrible days of her return home, Lizzie feared the moments when there was nothing to do. It was in those moments that she could see her baby sister's face, heard her voice...
This is a joke, right?
He loves me...
There was something that could block Lydia's face. Her father's as she explained that they were all okay, but that there was this problem...
But she did not want to dwell on that either.
She had drowned both faces by immersing herself into the internet, following whatever advice she could find on how to take down a website. But some breaks were forced on her. Trips to the bathroom, waiting for the massive amount of pages she'd opened to load, downloading software that someone said on a forum could collapse the website... So, she decided to fill her mind with something else. Something nice. Something worth thinking about. She had no brain cells free to wonder why the choice had been William Darcy.
Maybe it was a way to punish herself. To imagine him doing whatever he could to help Lydia, and knowing how terribly she had misjudged him. Knowing that if she had given him a chance, or if she had been less taken in by Wickham, she would not have shared Wickham's story. Which led to her sharing the real, incomplete version. Which led to Wickham taking revenge on her on Lydia.
Maybe it had been that it she had caught herself wondering what would have happened if her phone had taken 24 hours more to arrive. She had imagined that theater date, reviewing her wardrobe for something to wear, visualizing what an opera would like from a box, and the box itself, scripting out what he might do, what she might say, what they might do afterwards.
Maybe it was the moment after Lydia left her crying, when she had needed comfort and there had been no one to give it, and she had thought back to the moments between hanging up on Charlotte and his exit from the room. To have given in, to have let him comfort her, to allow herself to cry.
Whatever the cause, the daydreams were short. Jane would knock on the bathroom door, asking what was taking her so long. Her computer would ping, signifiying page loaded or software downloaded, and reality shredded into her illusions. How he had simply left that room, and exited her life while at it. A car had been waiting for her, and a plane ticket had been at the counter for the next available flight. And then all of her things had been delivered the following morning, all neatly clean and folded. Efficient, brisk, and impersonal.
So her days dragged on, with nothing to do but obsess over the countdown page, try to comfort Lydia, bash Wickham with Charlotte, blame herself, fake being okay in front of her mother, and call anyone and everyone who could help.
Thank the heavens that one of her viewers had Pm'ed her the contact details for a lawyer who might take the case even knowing the financial situation of the Bennet family. She had been scared on relying on a stranger for a contact, but she was desperate enough to try. Calling the number "Figiwida" had given, she had been answered by a competent-sounding secretary, who had asked for the basic details and promised that she would receive an answer in the next 24 hours. Six hours later, she had a lawyer.
It was a woman, in her late forties, who had offered to take the case on a pro-bono basis. She had good reasons for that, which she explained to Lizzie.
a) She had gotten into the legal system to help abused people, because
b) She had had an abusive relationship, which had left her with
c) a daughter who was now Lydia's age, who watched the videos, and that had made her realize that
d) The social media attention this case was receiving would help countless women:
1) shed the stigma attached to having suffered an abusive relationship, as Lizzie and Lydia's videos showed her as an intelligent, smart, enthusiastic young woman, with a loving (if slightly distant) family, whose main fault was immaturity.
2) fight the prejudice that insisted that they deserved to be treated that way, because it was the only way to rein in their party girl tendencies.
3) realize that, sometimes, family and friends do know best.
While Lizzie did understand those reasons, and supported them, the long-term effect of this was of no interest to her at the moment. All she cared for was Lydia to go on with her life as if this had never happened. While that could never be, there were some things that could be done, which was her current list of objectives: destroy that website, destroy that tape, castrate Wickham and mark him so everyone would know the monster he was inside.
So, she continued doing what she could, until, one day, there was hope.
"This webpage is not available"
An hour and 12 clicks later, it had not altered.
Three hours and twenty clicks, no alteration.
Four hours, no alteration, her phone rang. She lunged for it.
"The website is permanently down. We are currently ensuring the destruction of all copies of the video."
"Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Th-"
"I need to speak with your sister."
Trembling with relief, Lizzie knocked Lydia's door.
"Go away!" At least she was talking now .
"It's down, Lydia." Lizzie wanted to yell, but her voice could not handle more than a whisper.
"Go away!"
"The video's been deleted." She managed to squeak in her normal tone.
The door opened then. "It's... deleted?" said Lydia, in that shy tone that was so uncharacteristic of her that Lizzie's heart broke all over again for her sister.
"Mostly. The lawyer's on the phone with the ..." Lydia snatched her phone, and closed the door.
Lizzie contemplated knocking again, but her sister deserved as much privacy as she could.
All she wanted was to sleep, but there was an anxious Jane looking out from her room, and her father was waiting. So she went downstairs, and told her father, and her mother overheard, so they ended up having to make up some crazy story because she was not telling this to her mother, and when she went back upstairs for her bed and sleep, there was Lydia waiting, hugging one very battered teddy bear, her eyes shining with tears.
"I am just here to return your phone-" and Lizzie interrupted her with a hug.
Jane had been right behind her, thankfully, so they were all able to hug and cry together, finally. There was still much to do, but it was mopping up a spill that was finally controlled.
Lydia started speaking, and, mindful of Jane's advice, Lizzie listened. Heard the pain at being left behind at a home that might be taken away if things did not do better. Heard the jealousy over the amount of strangers who found her interesting for what she had to say. Heard the envy at having some direction in her life.
That was when Lizzie interrupted, explaining that she had no idea what to do with her life.
At which Lydia replied, in a shadow of her usual manner: "I meant Jane, you idiot."
And they all laughed. And then cried some more. And hugged some more.
They slept like that, arranging a spread of pillows and cushions around the mattress on the floor, drifting away for naps and waking up afterwards.
They were found like this by Gigi the next morning.
"Gigi?" Lizzie tried to keep her eyes open, wondering if she was dreaming she was back at Pemberly Digital. "What are you doing here?" she asked.
"I came to see you and Lydia."
"Do I know you?" asked a suspicious, barely woken twenty-one year old.
"No. I'm Gigi Darcy. I'm a friend of your sister's." Lizzie knew that was the wrong thing to say. It sounded contrived, as if she had planned this, and Lydia absolutely would not stand for being managed. She could see her sister shaking away the sleepiness to replace it with anger.
"But, most importantly, I was also a victim of George Wickham. And he cast me aside for a check right in front of me."
"You poor thing!" Jane had awoken.
"So that was the real story?" blurted Lydia.
"You watched the video?" asked a surprised Lizzie.
"I might have come into the room while Mary was watching..." was Lydia's reply
"Then why didn't you...." Lizzie began, but gestures from both Jane and Gigi made her cut herself short. "Sorry. I should have told you myself. I should have kept on watching your videos, and then I would have known that I had to warn you. I should have called."
"You actually mean that." Lizzie tried not to be hurt by the surprise in her sister's tone.
Jane lightened the atmosphere with a: "Gigi, it's so nice to finally meet you. Would you join us for pancakes?"
"I agree."
"Hey! Jane! Pancakes!" yelled Lydia, already halfway down the stairs. "And we are doing sock slides later!"
"Thank you for coming." whispered Jane to Gigi.
"I had to. I wanted to. You were serious about the pancakes, right?"
"Yes." laughed Jane, as she guided the younger girl downstairs.