"Fifteen minutes," she said. "Then we are leaving."
"Fifteen minutes," he said.
He went back upstairs to get his jacket and his wallet, and he moved quickly because fifteen minutes with Elizabeth Bennet meant twelve, and he had learned that much at least.
***
The film was loud and colourful and entirely Mia, which meant Elizabeth had seen approximately four films like it in the pastmonth and had developed, against her better judgement, a genuine opinion about animated robot sequels.
Darcy sat in the aisle seat, which was where Mia put him, and he did not comment on this. He bought everything they pointed at without a word — two large popcorns, three drinks, and a pick and mix that Mia spent eight full minutes assembling at the counter with the focused deliberation of someone making a significant decision. Elizabeth stood beside her. Darcy stood behind them both and looked at the ceiling and said nothing about the eight minutes, which Elizabeth noted and did not mention.
Inside, in the dark, Mia narrated her favourite parts under her breath. Elizabeth laughed twice at things she had not expected to find funny. She was aware, without looking, that Darcy was aware of both of these things, and she was also aware that he said nothing about either, and she found this more disarming than if he had said something.
On the way out he bought Mia a second pick and mix without being asked because she had finished the first one during the trailers and had been looking at the counter on the way in with an expression of quiet longing that he had apparently not missed.
He noticed things. He always had.
Elizabeth moved that thought to somewhere else in her head and kept walking.
In the lobby Mia went ahead to look at the posters and Elizabeth found herself walking beside Darcy without having decided to, their steps falling into the same rhythm in the particular way that happened when two people had been sharing a house long enough that their bodies had made a separate peace even when everything else had not.
"Thank you," she said. Quietly. Not looking at him.
"For the popcorn."
"For not making it worse."
He said nothing. She did not need him to.
Ahead of them Mia turned from a poster. "There is a sequel. The robot one. Can we see it when it comes out?"
"When does it come out?"
"March."
Elizabeth looked at Darcy. He looked at her. Something passed between them that was not quite a conversation but was not nothing either.
"Yes," he said. "We can see it in March."
Mia nodded, satisfied, and filed it away in the manner of someone who would be referencing this at the appropriate time. Elizabeth looked at the side of his face. He was watching Mia.
Then he looked at her. Brief. Direct.
"March," he said.
"March," she agreed.
She looked away first.
***
Darcy drove as they went back home. Elizabeth had said she would manage and he had said nothing and simply taken the keys from the hand because it was nearly midnight and Brooklyn at midnight was, in his opinion, not the moment for managing.
She had let him. Which was its own kind of progress.
Mia was in the back seat. She had the remainder of her second pick and mix on her lap and the particular energy of someone who had been to the cinema and was not ready for the evening to be over and was looking for somewhere to put that.
Elizabeth watched the street go by outside her window.
