Pride's Prejudice (9 page)

PROVOCATION

"A new sort of way
is this, for a young fellow to be making love, by breaking his mistress's
head!"

~Jane Austen,
Persuasion

Beth
pulled her jacket more snuggly around her neck and suppressed a shiver. 
It was the beginning of December, and the breath of winter was in the
air.  Beth hadn't been truly warm since the ghastly camping trip two
months ago.  She couldn't help but feel that, at least in part, the change
in weather was somehow connected to that particular event.

Her
perpetual frigidity could also have been a result of the fact that Jenna was
now hardly ever at Longbourn, and a curious sensation of emptiness had settled
within Beth.  The void refused to be filled by anyone or anything
else.  When Jenna wasn't in class she was with Les.  She did her
homework at his house, and they ate out most meals (Les couldn't cook, and
according to Jenna, William had cracked a tooth on one of Kara's homemade
cookies).  Though Beth wasn't completely enthused about the new
arrangement, she was at least glad that she and William were far from being
indispensable to their respective friends.  She had only seen him two or
three times since Camp Catastrophe.  Each time he had either been on an
important phone call, or had simply turned and left the room when he saw
Beth.  So much the better.

Beth
pushed the door of room 204 open and, as she had expected, was overwhelmed by
the emptiness of the place.  A vague impression of loneliness stuck to the
walls and manifest in pillows on the couch, untouched since this morning.

With a
sigh she threw her keys on the counter and pulled her hair up into a bubbly
ponytail.  It looked like Jenna would be MIA for dinner again, and the
thought of making mac and cheese for the third time this week made Beth scrunch
up her nose.  She decided to make a real dinner and just have the
leftovers during the week.  Donning her apron, she set to work.  The
apron looked its age; it had been passed down through generations of Beth's
female ancestors, finally ending up with Beth when she'd gone away to college.

After
pulling some chicken breasts out of the fridge and putting them into a baking
dish with lemon juice, salt, and pepper, she prepared a box of stuffing and spooned
it onto the chicken.  Then she topped it off with slices of Swiss cheese
and deposited the dish in the pre-heated oven.  She had just begun
chopping ingredients for a salad when the front door opened and Jenna came in,
followed by Les and William.  It felt strange to see him again after such
a long time, and her stomach did a little somersault.

Ignoring
the sensation, she set down her knife, hugged Jenna fiercely, and gave Les a
broad, encouraging smile.  She even managed a friendly "hey" for
William.

"Are
you hungry? I'm just putting dinner together - it should be done in a little
while."

"Sure! 
Can we help?"  Les offered.

Though
Beth knew he was sincere, she imagined he would have a hard time doing anything
with Jenna in his arms.  And besides, Beth was just glad for the company.

"That's
okay, I'm almost done."

Apparently
they didn't need telling twice.  Les whirled Jenna around and they plopped
on the couch, dissolving into each other's eyes.

So
much for the company.

William
glanced at the couple and Beth thought she saw him shake his head
ever-so-slightly.  As she resumed her carrot chopping, William sidled up
to the counter.

"So…..how've
you been?" he began awkwardly.

"Cold
and busy.  You?"

"Toasty
and bored."

Chop. 
Chop.  Chop. 
Beth grimaced at him, suppressing a snide
comment about his apparent perpetual body temperature.

"So,
you could be on the cover of a 1950s
Woman's Day
."  He smiled
as if it was meant as a compliment.

"Excuse
me?"  Beth stopped chopping carrots.

"The
apron.  Goddess of her kitchen and all that."

Chop. 
Chop.  Chop.
  Maybe one of the carrots would slip and
launch itself into William's eye.

"It
could be worse, William - at least I'm wearing pants."

He
looked her up and down, seemingly amused.  "Good thing too. 
Pretty sure I'm scarred for life."

Beth
rolled her eyes dramatically, then dumped the carrots into the salad bowl and
decapitated two unsuspecting green onions.

William
leaned onto the counter, looking up into Beth's face, but she kept chopping.

"Why
do you like to bug me so much?" she finally asked, exasperated.

CHOP. 
CHOP.  CHOP.

He
shrugged.  "Your reactions are epic."

Beth
sniffed and lifted her chin.  "Good to know.  I'll just ignore
you from now on."

"Not
sure you have the will, sweetheart."

Beth
made a 'puh' noise.

He
grinned like a rogue, setting his deep brown eyes on hers - making it
impossible to look away.

CHOP. 
CHOP.  CHOP.

Beth
gasped when the knife bit into her finger.  William stood bolt upright and
then froze, as if he didn't know what to do first.  Beth gaped at her
hand, lifted in midair in front of her face.  The tip of her middle finger
hung by a thread of flesh, and blood dripped down to her elbow and onto the
floor.  Black gathered around the edges of her vision, and suddenly it
felt like all the air had been sucked from the room.

William
hastily grabbed the dish towel hanging on the oven door and firmly closed his
hand over Beth's, wrapping his other arm around her lower back for support.

"Beth
- just breathe.  Now, look at me……good girl."

Beth
looked at him, bewildered, her finger throbbing.  Then she swayed and her
eyes closed.

~:~

When
Beth passed out, Jenna made a noise somewhere between distress and
indignation.  Les hurried over.  "Dude, I can't leave you alone
for a second!"

"What
happened?" Jenna added in accusation.

"She
sort of cut off her finger," William answered with hot embarrassment
rushing into his face.  "Les, get your keys!" he barked. Les
obeyed, wrenched the door open, and William led the way out of Longbourn with
Beth's limp form in his arms.

Beth
didn't wake for several minutes.  They were in Les's truck, vacant land
whizzing past outside the windows, when William felt her stir in his
arms.  By the faint illumination from the dashboard lights, he saw Beth's
eyes rest on the bloody heap in her lap, which was cocooned in his own
hands.  She tried to pull free, but William held on.

"Don't
do that.  If I let go it'll start bleeding again."

Instead
she backed out of his arms and turned her face to the opposite window. 
William vaguely recalled a statistic about body language making up over ninety
percent of communication, and he flushed with fresh chagrin.  Beth
obviously wanted to be as far from him as possible.

He
wanted to punch the window; relish the satisfying crack that would sound and
the inevitable pain that would follow.  Instead he said, "We're
almost to the hospital.  I had no idea it was twenty minutes away. 
Stupid small towns..." to which Beth replied with a sigh.

Five
minutes later they pulled up to the Emergency Room doors.  Jenna and Les
hurried around to help Beth out, and William trailed behind, feeling out of
place.  Beth would probably freak if he touched her - even to help. 
It was probably best to stay on the sidelines.

~:~

After
a twenty minute wait in an empty admitting room, Beth was finally called back
to a semi-private room.  For an instant she found herself echoing
William's diatribe about small towns.  Why had they waited twenty minutes
when there wasn't another injured person to be seen?  After another unnecessarily
lengthy wait the nurse tromped in.  To call her robust would really have
been an understatement.  She resembled a full-grown bison, and as she
checked the injury with a reproachful expression, Beth imagined her with
curling horns and a frothing mouth.  Her severe black hair was coiled on
top of her head in a sloppy beehive.  She was precisely the sort of nurse
you might find at elderly care centers where residents were routinely abused.

"Whad'ya
go and do a thing like this for?"

"…..It
was an accident," Beth said weakly.

"That's
no excuse!" she chided, roughly cleaning the blood from Beth's finger and
causing her to cry out.

"Quiet!"
she barked.  "Whad'ya expect?  Sure it's gonna hurt.  Maybe
you'll be careful next time."

Beth
turned her head away, biting her cheek to distract herself with a different
pain and catching sight of William as she did so.  He looked livid -
angrier than Beth had ever seen him - lounging against the wall with eyes the
color of black thunderheads.  No doubt he agreed with the nurse - probably
thought she deserved the lecture and lack of gentility.  His chiseled
features emitted nothing like guilt or empathy.  Beth closed her eyes,
shutting out the sight of him, and let her head fall onto Jenna's shoulder as
the nurse bellowed for the doctor.

~:~

William
watched Beth's face in the dim lighting of the truck's console.  Her
lashes were sweeping up and down like a tired butterfly.  Why did she
fight it?  After Nurse Beast had finished lecturing her, the doctor came
in and stitched Beth's finger.  He'd shot her up with a handsome dose of
morphine and discharged her with a prescription for pain killers - ignoring
Nurse Beast's protestations and muttering about "life lessons." 
William still felt like spitting nails at the thought of her, with her Marge
Simpson hair and linebacker build.  Why exactly was she in the medical
field?  She had about enough compassion to fill one nostril.

William
let his eyes fall on Beth, who leaned against her door with her hands in her
lap, obviously distancing herself from him.  Upon leaving the hospital
Beth had tried to hand his jacket back, but he flatly refused.  It was the
least he could do, after causing the whole catastrophe in the first
place.  Beth must think he was such a jerk.  His intentions back at
Longbourn hadn't been vicious; he only wanted to watch her eyes light up with
indignation as he provoked her.  Then she went and chopped her finger
off.  He had certainly distracted her - but was that good or bad for
him?  Over the past two months he had put careful distance between Beth
and himself.  Though he still thought about her several times a day, the
compulsion to show up at Longbourn had finally weakened, just a bit.  When
Jenna and Les had invited him along tonight, he thought,
why not?  It's
been months - maybe she will have gotten ugly in that time. 
Then he'd
walked into her kitchen and seen her looking all domestic and charming, and all
his hard-earned Beth sobriety went to pot.

Les
pulled the truck into Longbourn's parking lot, and William pulled Beth out of
the truck and into his arms before anyone could stop him.  Beth herself
was unconscious, and didn't have a say in the matter.  The three of them
climbed the stairs and Jenna held the door open.

William
paused before stepping in, eyebrows raised.  "Curfew?"

Jenna
glanced slyly at the RA door.  "We still have a few minutes. 
Just be quick."

William
swept past her into the entry, up the stairs, and into the girls' dorm. 
Jenna motioned to the right, and William stepped into Beth's dark room. 
Jenna cleared Beth's bed of text books and papers with a one-armed sweep, and
then retreated out the door.  William laid his charge gingerly on the bed
like a doll - she hadn't moved since morphine had won the battle in the
truck.  He shimmied the covers out from under her and folded them over her
still form.  Dark hair tangled across her face, and he pulled it carefully
away with his fingers.  After watching her for a moment, he bent down and
gingerly took her bandaged hand in his.

"I'm
sorry," he breathed, murmuring the confession into her mummified finger,
appealing directly to the injured party for forgiveness.  Then he tenderly
situated Beth's bare arm under her covers and hovered there, unwilling to break
the physical contact.

Jenna's
soft voice sounded from the doorway.  "It's curfew," she said
apologetically, and William knew she'd been standing there all along.  Not
that it mattered.  Les and Jenna both knew how he felt about Beth. 
Before leaving the room, William paused in front of Jenna.  "I'll be
over tomorrow," he promised.

UNINHIBITED

"His
avoidance, and her pursuit, with the probable intoxication of both, was an
amusing scene."

~Jane
Austen

William
knocked softly at room 204, obeying when he was beckoned inside.

Les
and Jenna sat on the couch, a tangle of jeaned legs and twined fingers.

"How's
the invalid?" William asked, wondering idly if they'd been making out two
seconds earlier.  Well, not really wondering - it was a certainty.

"Sleeping,"
Jenna informed him, not taking her eyes from Les.  "She got up to use
the bathroom a few minutes ago and fell right back into bed."

William
nodded.  "Well, I know you two had plans today, so I thought I'd
offer to spell you off."

"That's
okay -" Les had begun, abruptly silenced by a look from Jenna.

"We'd
love for you to take over," she accepted sweetly.  "I'm
starving, and we need to go grocery shopping."

Les
obviously had no clue that his angelic girlfriend was capable of deviance and
scheming.  But as the intrigue benefited William, he didn't object.

"Should
we bring you something back?" Jenna asked, donning her coat and slinging
her purse over a shoulder.

"Nah,
I already ate."

"Okay,
we'll see you later then!"  Jenna sang, giving William a significant
look before pulling Les out the door.

Once
alone, William sat down on the couch, propping a leg up on the coffee
table.  He opened the portfolio he'd brought with him, deciding to get
some work done while Beth slept.

About
five minutes later, muffled breathing and whimpering sounded from Beth's room. 
Carefully, William cracked open her door and looked in.  She was tossing
around on her mattress, her brows knit together in a scowl.  Stepping
inside the room, he knelt by her bedside and brushed the hair off her
forehead.  As he did so, he couldn't help noting the burning temperature
of her skin.  He went to the kitchen, collected a glass from a cupboard,
and filled it with cold tap water.  While the glass filled, his eyes fell
on a prescription pill bottle next to the sink. 
Oxycontin……take one to
two tablets by mouth every four hours as needed for pain.
  He grabbed
the bottle and took it into Beth's room.  Her eyes were open, but she
wasn't really focusing on anything.

"Can
you sit up, Beth?"

She
looked at him for a second, without seeming to really see him.  "It
hurts," she whimpered.  William helped her upright, sitting behind
her for support, then put the glass to her lips.

"Drink,"
he instructed.  "Do you know when you had your last dose of pain
medication?"

"It
hurts," she repeated, slumping against him.

She's
not pulling away from me…..she must be in a world of hurt,
he
reasoned. 
She probably hasn't had any.

"Here,"
he said, shaking two pills out of the bottle into his palm and offering them to
Beth.  She tossed them back, chased them down with the remainder of her
water, and then her head fell back against William's chest.  He swept his
fingertips from her forehead to hairline, hoping that the sheen of moisture on
her skin didn't indicate fever, or worse - infection.  After gathering the
hair off her shoulders and twisting it away from her neck, William rested his
hand on his knee.  Beth breathed uncomfortably, astounding William when
she gripped his hand with her uninjured one.  Her fingernails dug into the
flesh of his palm, and acting on instinct (and to avoid possible scarring),
William flipped his hand so they were palm to palm.  Beth resumed her
vice-like grip on William's hand, melding their fingers together.  Then,
after fidgeting a little more, she stilled and her breathing evened out. 
William felt the tension in her muscles gradually slacken, and knew that she'd
fallen asleep.  The room was so quiet that all he could hear were his own
thoughts.

Beth
wasn't in her right mind, or even conscious for that matter.  But if the
truth was rain, then William was waterproof.  She had reached for his hand
like she needed it.  Like she needed
him
.  Like touching him
was the most important thing in the world.  All at once, he knew that all
his efforts to become immune to Beth had been a complete waste of time. 
And now he was in deeper than ever.  William waited for the fear, the
dread, to crash around him as it had so many times before - but it never
did.  Beth, with her soft hair smelling of what he assumed to be shampoo,
and her warm skin under his, filled him up.  She took up every cell, every
molecule, every atom in his body.  And there would be no getting her out -
he could sooner peel the flesh from his bones.  Beth was there to stay.

Half
an hour later William gently, if regretfully, freed his hand from Beth's,
wiggling his fingers to dispel the pins-and-needles sensation when the blood
returned to them.  Absently tracing curls on the back of her hand, he took
in her room.  It was only about six feet from wall to wall, and probably fifteen
from door to window.  She didn't have much of a view outside - just the
back of another dorm building and a parking lot bordered by barren winter
trees.  At the foot of her narrow bed a desk stuck out of the wall,
littered with text books, pens, pencils, and loose-leaf paper.  William
chuckled to himself.  Beth definitely wasn't the organized type.  He
mused over the fact that there were no pictures on the walls or even on the
narrow shelf that ran parallel to her bed.  Apparently she wasn't your
stereotypical homesick college student.

William
was roused from his thoughts when Beth, waking from her cat nap, turned her
face into his chest and moaned in a contented sort of way.  Breathing
deeply she said, "You smell good
.
"

William
tried to suppress his laughter, only partially succeeding.  Relocating to
the foot of her bed so he could face her, he asked,  "Feeling a
little better, are we?"

She
giggled, pitching forward and rolling herself into a ball with her head on
William's knee.  He rubbed her back awkwardly for a moment, trying to
ignore the wide band of skin that was visible between her t-shirt and
shorts.  She nuzzled her cheek against William's leg like a purring
kitten, then straightened and faced him with a lazy grin.  Raising his
eyebrows at her, he tried to disregard the good amount of bare leg that seemed
to be reaching for him.  Folding her hands in her lap, she sighed happily
and then cocked her head to the side.

"You
have a good face," she said amiably, placing her hands on his
cheeks.  "Good arms too," she added, running her hands up and
down the admired limbs while pressing her cheek to his chest.  "Fast
heartbeat."

Can't
imagine why,
William thought wryly, patting her on the
back.  Something was definitely
off
.  A horrible suspicion
began digging roots in his mind, and he reached for the pill bottle on her
shelf.  Why hadn't he thought to check the quantity before giving her
any?  The intensity of her pain had simply been too much for him to bear,
wiping rational thought out of his brain.  His heart plummeted to the
floor when he shook the pills into his palm, counting twenty-six out of
thirty.  When William had lain her in her bed the night before, she'd been
dead to the world, and he doubted that she'd had a dose before this
morning.  Which meant that the dose he'd given her had been an
overdose. 
Crap
.  Panic seized him for an instant before a
cool voice of reason told him that, aside from being stripped of her
inhibitions, Beth didn't seem to be in danger.  And since Beth was acting
like a cat in heat at the moment, William was more likely the one at risk in
the scenario.

"Why
don't I make you something to eat?" he suggested, grasping her by the
shoulders and pushing her off his leg.

Beth
looked at him with cloudy eyes for a minute, then shook her head happily. 
"Shower."

William
nodded. "Good idea.  Maybe it'll clear your head."

Beth
giggled.  "You're
funny
."

"I
get that a lot," he said dryly.  "You have everything you
need?  A towel, clothing?" 
Please having clothing,
he
added mentally.

She
absently grabbed a handful of clothes from her top drawer, hugged him around
the waist, and danced off toward the bathroom.

William
ransacked the cupboards and fridge - twice - with no luck.  If Beth got
something in her system besides drugs, maybe it would dilute the crazy a
bit.  Jenna had been right, though - there was nothing to eat. 
William finally found a battered-looking
Cup-O-Noodles
in a tiny
cupboard he'd overlooked.  He rummaged until he came up with a saucepan,
filled it with water, and set it to boil on the stove.  Peeling back the
seal on the cup, he sat back against the counter with his arms folded to
wait.  A few minutes later, he caught movement at the periphery of his
vision, and looked up.

At
least she was wearing something.  Beth wobbled toward him in an oversized
t-shirt.  Her dripping hair was pasted to her neck and shoulders, and her
skin glistened with water droplets.  Before he could be assaulted by any
other sultry details, William turned hurriedly to the stove, barely noticing
the water bubbling in the pot.  He clicked off the burner, took the pot
and soup to the sink, and dumped the water into the Styrofoam cup, burning his
skin when it overflowed.  Aggravated, he set the pot and the soup down in
the sink, stiffening when Beth's damp form pressed up against his back. 
She wrapped her arms around him contentedly in a bear hug. 
Am I being
punished for something?
he thought desperately.  Deftly, he unhooked
her arms from around his middle and led her to the kitchen table, motioning her
into a chair.  She hopped up on the table instead, sitting on the edge
with her legs dangling off, pulling a sigh from William.  Clearly she
hadn't dried off after her shower; her clothing was plastered suggestively to
her skin, leaving little to the imagination.  Locking his eyes on the far
wall to keep them off Beth, William steered her into one of the kitchen
chairs.  Then he scooted her up to the table and placed the soup in front
of her.

"Sit. 
Eat." he commanded.  "Stay," he added in a menacing tone
when Beth's eyes twinkled.  He definitely couldn't handle her flitting
over and attaching herself to him again.

"I'm
thirsty," she sighed after a few bites.

William
retrieved the glass from her room and set it forcefully down in front of
her.  Halfway through her soup, the giggling started in earnest. 
After several minutes of this, William decided it was time to put her back to
bed.  He would lock her in her room if he had to.

"Leprechaun!"
she told him between fits of laughter.  "A leprechaun swimming in my
soup!"

Towing
her up from the table by an arm, William led her to her room.  Once inside
he rummaged through drawers, banging the first one shut as it was clearly full
of unmentionables.  Finally he came up with a pair of sweat pants.

"Put
these on," he instructed.

She
obeyed, then stood up on her bed and began bouncing.

"There's
the leprechaun again!  See? 
He's after me
Lucky Charms
!"

William
blew out a frustrated breath, then braced his hands on either side of her waist
to stop her bouncing.  Beth's eyes sparkled as she looked at him. 
Then, taking him completely by surprise, she ran her hands through his hair and
planted a sound kiss on his lips.  Her mouth was warm and salty, and
William's hands tightened of their own volition.  He couldn't help kissing
her back; after all, how much self control could a poor chap really be expected
to display in a situation like this?  With great effort, he pulled away
and looked into Beth's face.  How he wished she wasn't hopped up on pain
meds at the moment.

Her
head lolled onto his shoulder.  "I'm tired," she said, nuzzling
William's neck.  Blinking hard, he swept Beth's legs out from under her
and laid her in bed.  He mummified her in her blankets, tucking them
tightly around her so she couldn't get out.  When he straightened, her
eyes were closed and a sweet smile had settled on her lips.  Her warm,
blushing, delicious lips…..

Pushing
down the sensation that rose in his chest, he left her room and closed the door
behind him.  Then he plopped on the couch and let his head fall into his
hands.

~:~

Two
hours later, Jenna and Les glided through the front door, laughing and holding
hands.  Les froze when he took in the look on William's face.

"Uh-oh,
what?"

William
forced a polite expression.  "Did Beth, by chance, have any pain
medication this morning, Jenna?"

Jenna
bit her lip, fear taking over her face at once.  "Crap.  I gave
her two when she got up."

"Mystery
solved, then.  I gave her two more right after you left."

Jenna's
eyes widened.  "Is she okay?"

"
She's
fine.  I, on the other hand……"