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Language:
English
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Published:
2013-03-31
Updated:
2022-04-21
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13,716
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16/?
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well sweetheart, it's just not that simple

Summary:

Lydia has had about enough of being shoved into friendship with Gigi.
They think that Gigi will understand her, that she knows what it was like, that she’ll be a good influence. And as much as everyone’s full of kind smiles and good intentions, and as much as Lydia is genuinely feeling a lot better, throwing her and Georgiana Darcy together just shows that nobody really gets it. Not really.

And after all, how could they?

~~~~~~~~
Rated T for swearing and some implied things later on, perhaps.
Accompanying playlist I wrote this to: http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/Lydia+gigi+Writing+Mix/84828940

Notes:

Playlist: http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/Lydia+gigi+Writing+Mix/84828940

Song of this chapter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4sa2HoXpsE

Chapter 1: dinner parties

Chapter Text

The first time it happens is at Jane and Bing’s reunion dinner.

Although Lizzie has undergone a lot of change over the past year, she’s still approximately as subtle as a spork in the eye, and so Lydia’s eyebrows practically jump off her face when her sister attempts to skilfully manoeuvre Lydia and GiGi next to each other.

Lydia’s attempting to sit down next to Jane and opposite Lizzie when Lizzie stops her with a panicked expression on her face. “Lydia!” she says, too-quickly, and Lydia pauses halfway into her seat.

“Yeah?”

“I- don’t sit there! Come… sit between me… and Gigi!” She shoots a panicked expression across the room at Darcy, who just coughs awkwardly.

Lydia raises her eyebrows. “Isn’t Darcy going to sit there?”

“No, William will sit on my other side.”

“I thought Charlotte was going to sit th-“

Darcy catches the panicked expression on Lizzie’s face, and awkwardly places himself on the chair on her other side. “No, I, uh, need to talk about some things with Bing, actually.” He forces a smile, and ‘forced’ is really not a good look for him.

“And that means I can sit next to Jane,” says Charlotte, her demeanour even more convoluted than Darcy’s (if that was even possible). “We never get to catch up.” It’s clear from the expression on her face that this was most certainly not her idea.

“…Alright,” says Lydia, and sits as directed.

Jane smiles brightly, but there’s worry behind her eyes. “Right! Yes. Good. Perfect. Wonderful. I’ll go get starters, then.”

“Let me help!” says Lizzie, too quickly, leaving Lydia with no one to talk to but Gigi. Which she’s pretty sure is her sister’s plan. As she watches her sister dash away, she thinks to herself: Who’s deceptively deceptive now, sis?

Well, she muses as she avoids all eye contact. The design on Jane and Bing’s table just got super interesting.

She glances sideways towards Darcy. She’s surprised that attempting conversation with her sister’s socially awkward boyfriend actually seems like a more viable option than talking to Gigi. She has no interest in getting to know George’s ex, and she’s pretty sure Gigi has no interest in getting to know her. So that works out perfectly, as her sister once said.

“Hi,” says Gigi, quietly.

Then again, we all know how that story ended.

Lydia knows from Lizzie’s videos – and the Pemberley Domino videos that she pretended she never watched – that Georgiana Darcy is not shy, so she’s surprised to hear the tentative, unsure note in her voice, and it’s enough to get Lydia to actually look at her for the first time – the first time when she risked being looked back at.

And Gigi’s eyes are fixed right on her. And Lydia’s pretty sure that they haven’t moved since she sat down.

Lydia looks down at the table before she can take it all in.

“Hi,” she responds.

There’s a pause, and she notices that several members of the party are looking nervously at the pair of them. Lydia feels almost like she’s going to hurl. She doesn’t want to be shoved together with George Wickham’s fucking ex, with Darcy’s sodding sister, some perfect, smarter version of her who didn’t get hurt so bad, some together-girl who’s rich and happy and unscathed. She was doing just fine up until now. She hadn’t thought about him all day, but in Gigi’s tentative gaze all she sees is a thousand sunsets.

“Bathroom,” she manages to choke out for politeness’ sake, and she shoves her chair back and stalks out the room.

It’s not exactly a lie, because she does go to the bathroom. She shuts the door tight and locks it and sits down on the edge of the loo, and stares at the pink, pretty together look of Jane and Bing’s apartment. Everything down to the mirror is startlingly clean, not a speck in sight. It’s beautiful, but it’s the exact opposite of what Lydia loves. If she lived here, she wouldn’t be able to feel home. Home is blankets and empty cups of coffee, and dumping your jacket on the sofa when you come in after a long night, and collapsing on messy covers. Home is the mark of crayon from when you tried to draw on the bedroom wall when you were six. Home is not neat-pressed flowers and too-clean walls.

And more than anything right now, Lydia wishes she was home. Because in home, in cups of coffee, under blankets and books and bad reality TV, sometimes she entirely forgets about George Wickham. But when she looks at Gigi, it’s like he’s back again, and he gathering her in his arms, and turning her world upside down again, just to rip it all away to grey.

And most of the time she’s not hung up on him, really. But sometimes it gets to her.

She takes a deep breath and looks in the mirror. There’s mascara running down her face, and her eyeliner is all but vanished. She looks at herself in the mirror and feel entirely, truly, pathetic. She’s supposed to be better than this now. She thought she was done with this.

“Oh, George,” she whispers to the surface. “How many tears have I cried over you now?”

Enough to fill a river.

“Lydia?”

It’s Gigi.

Lydia doesn’t reply, and focuses on erasing the marks of tears that have stained her face.

“Lydia, I just wanted to check that you were-“

“I’m fine.”

There’s a pause.

“O-okay,” says Gigi.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Alright.” But Lydia doesn’t hear footsteps, and she’s pretty sure that the other girl is still on the other side of the door. She breathes out a deep sigh, wishing her away, when she says something else: “Lydia?”

“Yes.”

“Did I… do something?”

“For God’s fucking sake, Gigi, not everything in the world is about you.” The words are out before she thinks about them, and Lydia regrets them instantly. They belong to some former, shadow of herself, a girl she buried under earth and hoped she would never see again. But she’s wrestling out of the grave, dragging out the hate and hurt that put her there, groping to damage everything in her path.

“I-I’m sorry,” Lydia stumbles out.

Silence.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I didn’t me-“

“It’s alright,” says Gigi. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

No, I’m not, Lydia tries to say. But she hears footsteps at last. Gigi is gone.