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crack_van2012-01-21 08:25 pm
malabud.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2012-01-21 08:25 pm
Entry tags:
The True Adventures of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Time Traveler by Kathy (PG-ish)
Fandom: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Pairing: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy
Length: 93,600 words
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: The Derbyshire Writers' Guild
Why this must be read:
A middle-aged Darcy is surprised in his study one day by the sudden appearance of an old man. This old man claims to have changed the past, and thus Darcy's future. Darcy was supposed to marry Elizabeth Bennet, but instead he married a rich heiress, and is now miserable. His wife is constantly and publicly unfaithful, and Darcy's estate is verging on bankruptcy. The old man offers him a chance to fix everything. But, the old man cautions, it will not be easy, for time is resilient and resists change.
Thus, Fitzwilliam Darcy embarks on a strange journey through time. His first companion is the old man, but he disappears when they set the first thing right. He then gains help from two others, but I will not spoil you as to who they are.
I stumbled across this wonderful story only recently, and I am so glad I did. It's sort of like a semi-steampunk Pride and Prejudice, with a time machine and everything! (For those of you who do not favor the genre, the steampunk is mostly limited to the time machine itself.) The reader knows how the story is supposed to end, but it's the getting there that is all the fun. Ultimately, Darcy must go through the same humbling changes in every incarnation of himself, whether as a young gentleman or as a middle-aged man who seeks to set right what once went wrong. Highly recommended.
* * *
"We've known each other well, though not in recent years -- either for you or for me. We have not come face-to-face in more than fifty years."
"Impossible," Darcy scoffed. "I am only forty-two."
"Not to me," the old man said, laying his burden down on the desk and falling heavily into the chair opposite. "But I don't expect you to understand that. Yet."
He sighed again, carefully flexing his arthritic fingers and then rubbing his knee. "It's a beast to get old," the man said after a moment. "One starts to feel everything ... especially the regrets. Do you remember Elizabeth Bennet?"
Darcy was startled by the seeming non sequitur and felt a blush rise to his cheeks. "Bennet?" he echoed, savoring the name but striving to sound detached. "It sounds familiar, but I cannot say..."
The old man's eye grew sardonic, but he merely answered blandly: "Nearly fifteen years ago, your time. You were visiting with your friend Bingley in Hertfordshire."
"Ah, yes. I do recall the Bennets now. Five daughters. Grasping, low sort of people. I think the second daughter was named Elizabeth."
"You were supposed to marry her, I understand. And would have, if I hadn't interfered."
The flush that had before only lightly tinted Darcy's cheeks now flooded into a dull, dark red stain as he spluttered, "Marry her? I never came near to doing such a thing."
The old man nodded sadly. "I know. But you would have. And you would have been happy, with a passel of children and grandchildren. Or so said my older self when this all first started."
"Your older self? What the deuce does that mean? And what do you mean by saying I would have been happy? How dare you presume to know my current happiness. I don't even know who you are, sir. How did you get in?"
"Are you happy, then?" the old man asked, peering at the younger man through rheumy eyes. Darcy, paling, looked away. "If you were, I could leave and you would never even remember I was here. I have a lot of things I regret in my life, most particularly making her so horribly unhappy, but I could go to my grave quietly if she were the only one whose happiness I ruined. I was given a chance to fix it ... but, then, I suppose not all opportunities are meant to be taken, as I have found to my discredit."
Darcy was silent for a moment, then said hesitantly, "I don't understand. Who are you?"
The old man sighed and, getting up stiffly, moved across the room to where stood a case of miniature portraits. He laid one hand reverently upon the glass and said, "That's not as important as who I was, or who I might have been: a man consumed by hatred and seeking revenge. A man who saw you as a rival. In another life, you spoiled all of my chances to change my situation and when, years later, I came across that machine," he said, gesturing now to the mass of metal gears, tubes, and brass fittings on Darcy's desk, "I saw a chance to make you pay. I sought out ... myself, many years ago, and contrived to change the past. At the time, I felt it was my right. I was young, foolish, and thought I only had to grasp fortune to be happy. I've long since come to realize that the man I was -- the man I became in that other life, and my younger self who conspired with him -- we were wrong. Wrong to have changed time and wrong to have sacrificed the happiness of so many in order to promote our own. Especially when it seems that by doing so I sacrificed my own happiness in the bargain."
Darcy stared at the other man for a few moments, then turned to the machine on his desk. "What is this?"
"A time machine," said the man. "From the same man who made it -- from whom I had taken it the first time."
The True Adventures of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Time Traveler
Pairing: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy
Length: 93,600 words
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: The Derbyshire Writers' Guild
Why this must be read:
A middle-aged Darcy is surprised in his study one day by the sudden appearance of an old man. This old man claims to have changed the past, and thus Darcy's future. Darcy was supposed to marry Elizabeth Bennet, but instead he married a rich heiress, and is now miserable. His wife is constantly and publicly unfaithful, and Darcy's estate is verging on bankruptcy. The old man offers him a chance to fix everything. But, the old man cautions, it will not be easy, for time is resilient and resists change.
Thus, Fitzwilliam Darcy embarks on a strange journey through time. His first companion is the old man, but he disappears when they set the first thing right. He then gains help from two others, but I will not spoil you as to who they are.
I stumbled across this wonderful story only recently, and I am so glad I did. It's sort of like a semi-steampunk Pride and Prejudice, with a time machine and everything! (For those of you who do not favor the genre, the steampunk is mostly limited to the time machine itself.) The reader knows how the story is supposed to end, but it's the getting there that is all the fun. Ultimately, Darcy must go through the same humbling changes in every incarnation of himself, whether as a young gentleman or as a middle-aged man who seeks to set right what once went wrong. Highly recommended.
* * *
"We've known each other well, though not in recent years -- either for you or for me. We have not come face-to-face in more than fifty years."
"Impossible," Darcy scoffed. "I am only forty-two."
"Not to me," the old man said, laying his burden down on the desk and falling heavily into the chair opposite. "But I don't expect you to understand that. Yet."
He sighed again, carefully flexing his arthritic fingers and then rubbing his knee. "It's a beast to get old," the man said after a moment. "One starts to feel everything ... especially the regrets. Do you remember Elizabeth Bennet?"
Darcy was startled by the seeming non sequitur and felt a blush rise to his cheeks. "Bennet?" he echoed, savoring the name but striving to sound detached. "It sounds familiar, but I cannot say..."
The old man's eye grew sardonic, but he merely answered blandly: "Nearly fifteen years ago, your time. You were visiting with your friend Bingley in Hertfordshire."
"Ah, yes. I do recall the Bennets now. Five daughters. Grasping, low sort of people. I think the second daughter was named Elizabeth."
"You were supposed to marry her, I understand. And would have, if I hadn't interfered."
The flush that had before only lightly tinted Darcy's cheeks now flooded into a dull, dark red stain as he spluttered, "Marry her? I never came near to doing such a thing."
The old man nodded sadly. "I know. But you would have. And you would have been happy, with a passel of children and grandchildren. Or so said my older self when this all first started."
"Your older self? What the deuce does that mean? And what do you mean by saying I would have been happy? How dare you presume to know my current happiness. I don't even know who you are, sir. How did you get in?"
"Are you happy, then?" the old man asked, peering at the younger man through rheumy eyes. Darcy, paling, looked away. "If you were, I could leave and you would never even remember I was here. I have a lot of things I regret in my life, most particularly making her so horribly unhappy, but I could go to my grave quietly if she were the only one whose happiness I ruined. I was given a chance to fix it ... but, then, I suppose not all opportunities are meant to be taken, as I have found to my discredit."
Darcy was silent for a moment, then said hesitantly, "I don't understand. Who are you?"
The old man sighed and, getting up stiffly, moved across the room to where stood a case of miniature portraits. He laid one hand reverently upon the glass and said, "That's not as important as who I was, or who I might have been: a man consumed by hatred and seeking revenge. A man who saw you as a rival. In another life, you spoiled all of my chances to change my situation and when, years later, I came across that machine," he said, gesturing now to the mass of metal gears, tubes, and brass fittings on Darcy's desk, "I saw a chance to make you pay. I sought out ... myself, many years ago, and contrived to change the past. At the time, I felt it was my right. I was young, foolish, and thought I only had to grasp fortune to be happy. I've long since come to realize that the man I was -- the man I became in that other life, and my younger self who conspired with him -- we were wrong. Wrong to have changed time and wrong to have sacrificed the happiness of so many in order to promote our own. Especially when it seems that by doing so I sacrificed my own happiness in the bargain."
Darcy stared at the other man for a few moments, then turned to the machine on his desk. "What is this?"
"A time machine," said the man. "From the same man who made it -- from whom I had taken it the first time."
The True Adventures of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Time Traveler