Work Text:
He had everything in hand, well, that was a lie, but he had a plan. He had task lists. He had a team of people working on various problems. He hated to delegate in this case, but he knew his strengths and this work required other skills.
Darcy placed five flattened cardboard boxes, a bag containing rolls of packing tape, bubble wrap and a black sharpie in his trunk. He heard GiGi open the door and call to him. Although it was rude he pretended not to hear, using his phone pressed to his ear as a ruse. He drove away before she could reach him. There are some things you must do on your own.
His first stop was Pemberley. He let himself into Lizzie's empty office and stood there for a moment, unsure how to begin and in truth not wanting to. Perhaps he should have let someone else do this... No. This he needed to do with his own hands. He didn't like the idea of someone else doing this for her.
There wasn't much--a cardigan on the back of the door, a few files, and a spare laptop cord. He put them in the box and they didn't even cover the bottom of it. Darcy scanned the office a second time, but there was nothing else to fill in the emptiness.
**
She'd left him the keys to the apartment where she'd been house sitting. He brought in the mail and found the haphazard pile she'd made on the dining room table. He couldn't help it. He split the mail into three piles. Bills and real correspondence, junk mail and credit card offers, and then periodicals--all at perfect right angles.
He found a coffee mug and a bowl in the sink and washed them. There wasn't much in the refrigerator--half a browning apple wrapped in cling film, a white take out container, and some fat free milk. He threw them all away and tied closed the trash bag. He'd have to locate the receptacles outside later, but there would probably be other trash to remove. This wasn't so bad.
He made a circuit of the kitchen, but there was nothing of her there. He might be operating mechanically, but he was far from robotic. There was something edging toward him, something he didn't want to face, so he made his way into the living room.
There was more of her in here. He picked up the books in stack by the sofa one at a time, glancing inside to see if she'd written her name or dogeared her pages. She used bookmarks--post-its and receipts, but that was much better than dogearing pages. She'd made notes in the margins of a Dicken's novel, but there were no markings inside Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast." Was that because she hadn't read it, or she hadn't written it? The pile also contained a battered copy of "A Wrinkle in Time," which he had read aloud to GiGi when she was eight--a chapter every summer evening. They read the rest of the series too. "The Complete Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor" had phrases underlined and a series of mysterious exclamation points at the end of a story called, "The River."
Was this inappropriate and prying? Was he invading her privacy by looking in her books? To err on the side of caution, he packed them in the box without examining them further.
He folded the red throw blanket he found puddled on the couch and set it aside. There was a single black shoe lying on its side and it took him five minutes to find the other one under the ottoman. He also found a pair of discarded socks with small ladybugs on them.
He hadn't really let himself think too much about the logistics of packing her clothing, but it occurred to him that she might have dirty laundry. He could not bring himself to ship her dirty laundry. Really. He should have brought GiGi, though he was half glad he hadn't. This time alone with her things in a space she'd spent time in was good. It was a kind of closure, because she was lost to him now. That unnamed something slunk a bit closer and he stepped back as if he could physically distance himself from the inevitable crush. This was not in any way a ploy to extend his time with her. She wasn't even there.
The bedroom door was open. The bed was made, which surprised him. Lizzie wasn't exactly messy, but he could imagine her coming home and shucking her shoes and socks in the living room, with her nose already in a book. She wasn't rigid. An unmade bed wouldn't have surprised him.
He stripped the sheets swiftly, touching them as little as possible. He couldn't help the images that marched through his mind--Lizzie asleep, her hair over her shoulder. Lizzie smiling sleepy eyed in the morning sun. Lizzie slipping into bed. There was a laundry basket in the closet half full, which he tossed the sheets into before searching her room for any other dirty clothing.
The washer proved elusive and he was about to give up and search for a wash and fold service on his phone, when he found it in the back hall. He hadn't done his own laundry since college, but it wasn't the sort of thing you forget.
The box was still woefully empty, but he carried it into the bedroom and set it on the bare mattress. He hedged. Starting with the closet would probably be easier than the dresser, but he didn't like to put things off merely because they were difficult.
However he did start at the bottom, reasoning that the small drawers at the top would contain underwear. He took her neatly folded clothing--jeans and shirts, pyjamas and piled them into the box, which began to look less woefully empty.
When he could avoid it no longer, he took a deep breath and slid open the top drawer on the right slowly as if it might be booby trapped. There was nothing in it. Kind of disappointing after all that worry. He tugged open the left drawer and stared at the contents. He'd certainly thought about her underwear before--he'd just always pictured her there wearing them, or having just taken them off. The nameless crushing sensation wrapped itself around his ankles and he sat down on the bed for a moment. He was an unhappy mixture of aroused and forlorn.
She was lost to him and this was the most intimate moment he'd ever have with her--and it wasn't even with her--just par for the course with Lizzie. He'd loved her and not really seen her, failed to see that she loathed him. He forced himself to his feet. They were just clothes, he told himself. Small triangles of white cotton mostly. He scooped them up and and was about to fling them in the box, but something at the bottom of the pile felt different. Before he could reason himself out of it, he flipped the pile and it felt a bit like his lungs had collapsed for there was a pair of very small black lace underpants. He went back to his first impulse and flung the pile into the box. He grabbed the handful of bras from the back of the drawer and refused to acknowledge the matching black lace bra in the mix. He couldn't seem to remove the texture of the lace from his haunted fingertips.
No. He wasn't thinking about it at all. About her slipping out of a dress, black lace against her pale skin...
He coughed to right himself and yanked off his sweater. The room was much too warm. The dresser was done and that was probably the worst of it. He didn't expect any challenge from the closet, until he found the dress hanging there. The one she'd worn at Collins ad Collins the day she'd told him he was "the last man on earth [she] could ever fall in love with."
It was just a dress. Just fabric. He folded it neatly and if his fingers lingered on the hem a moment longer than he'd intended, that was all right.
This is how you fight infection. You ruthlessly clean the wound, even if it hurts. He founds more books on the nightstand, some hair ties and a tube of lip balm.
He carried the box into the bathroom, which sucker punched him in the gut. The room smelled deeply and redolently of her--her shampoo, her soap, her perfume.
He wrapped the fragile items in bubble wrap and quickly added the rest of her toiletries including a box of tampons, which actually didn't faze him. He'd bought them for GiGi several times--notably the first time she'd gotten her period and hadn't that been upsetting for both of them. Once you've read tampon instructions to your little sister through the closed bathroom door there really isn't much left that's going to shake you up about a little white box.
The bathroom emptied, he went to check the laundry and put everything in the dryer. He snatched up the apartment key and took all the trash outside to see if he could find somewhere to put it--and to get outside for a moment. He needed to breathe fresh air, air not full of her.
Trash stowed in the bins out back, he took a walk around the block--stopping in a small cafe for a pretty decent ristretto. The barista was a young man in a Newsie cap, which made him nearly laugh. If things had been different--he would have been here before, holding her hand. They'd sit at the window table, which they liked the best, and debate everything. He was every bit as attracted to her mind as he was to her physically, maybe even more so. The ineffableness of Lizzie Bennet was like a drug. Once an addict, always an addict.
On the way back to the apartment he checked in with Fitz, apologized to GiGi, and checked in with Jerome, who was just out of college and brilliant with computers. Everything was proceeding, but so slowly. He knew he had to take his time and get everything right though. No loose ends this time.
The laundry was dry and folded quickly. The box was full. He taped it closed and looked around. There was nothing else left to do. He placed the keys on the dining room table near the mail and left making sure the door was locked behind him.
He over nighted the box to her, drove home and sat down at his desk to check in. The creeping misery had worked it's way up to his knees, but he had too much to do. Once Wickham was taken care of and all the Bennets were safe--he could let it crash down on him. When it was all over--everything tidy and put away.