A/N: I love the Princess Diaries movies (books are a whole different ball game), but part of me really likes Andrew. He's so sweet and devoted despite not needing to be. Mia makes some less than moral choices in, what I see as, an effort to force through female empowerment. A pro-Andrew AU.
"That's a fact, that's not a secret." Mia giggled as Nicholas "admitted" that he hadn't danced with her since her birthday. Howhad this man gone from obnoxious, scheming, conniving, and generally unlikeable to this sweet man sitting on the grass in front of her? How could they have been so cruel to each other over this throne? He said he was giving up and bowing out, but was he actually doing it with the goal of them being together?
"Well, the secret is, I still want to." He gave her that adorable smile and her heart melted. He's so handsome and he's the epitome of courteous when he's not trying to trick her into messing up her chances at the crown.
As they stood from their places on the ground, part of Mia's mind began screaming at her. You have a fiancé! You have pledged yourself to another man! What are you doing?
The other part of her mind, the part that had told her grandmother she dreamt of love, not fondness replied. I'm engaged, not married. I haven't pledged my life to him yet. I could back out if I felt this was too right. Besides, this is a dance! It's not even a kiss! It's not like I'm going to sleep with him.
The couple was slowly swaying back and forth, slowly turning in a circle. Mia's internal conversation hit her like a basin of ice water. She had remembered a conversation she'd had with Lily once upon a time, back in high school. The moment you have to rationalize that you aren't cheating, you are, on some level, cheating. That was exactly what she was doing. She had to leave.
Abruptly, Mia pulled away from Nicholas. "I'm sorry, Nicholas, I can't. I can't do this." Mia slowly backed up toward her horse.
Nicholas looked utterly confused. "Mia? You can't do what? It's just a dance. We've kissed with you looking less mortified."
Mia's mouth fell open. When they had kissed, he had been trying to manipulate her away from Andrew. Was this just another trick. "Nicholas?" Mia barely gasped out his name. How could she be this stupid to fall for this again?
Nicholas cringed and held up a hand, "Mia, wait. That didn't come out right. I'm just trying to get you to stay. I honestly enjoy spending time with you." He had been taking steps toward her as he talked and they were face to face again. He reached up and placed a hand gently against her cheek. To his surprise, he leaned into his touch. "I realize that soon I won't be able to do so. That your king-consort will be the only one allowed to touch you. That soon, any indiscretion, imagined or otherwise, will become a much bigger deal, as you will be a queen and wife. I'll have to avoid you, even though I think I may be in love with you."
Mia had closed her eyes when Nicholas reached for her and kept her eyes closed through the remainder of his speech. As his words touched her heart, she began using his arm for more and more support until by the end of it, she had been tucked into his arms. When he confessed his feelings, she snapped her head up.
Mia once again backed up, until she heard the horse nickering behind her. "Nicholas, I don't know how you expect me to respond to that. We haven't known each other very long at all and I am engaged. I do have someone waiting for me back at the palace who has asked me to spend our lives together and I have said yes."
"Mia, you don't love him!" Nicholas started toward Mia again, but stopped when she backed up once more and wound a hand through the horse's reins. "Please, stay, talk through this with me."
Placing a hand on the horn of the saddle, Mia looked sadly over her shoulder, "I'm sorry, I have to go talk to Andrew." At that, she swung her leg up and over the horse's back. As she urged the horse into a trot, she called back, "I'll see that the horse is returned to you!"
Coming up to the palace, Mia knew she would never be able to get back in the way she had come out. Going down was easier than going up and down hadn't gone so well in the first place.
She steered the horse back toward the gardens, making a mental note to have a chat with security at a later date, and dismounted.
Acting casual had never really been a strong suit, but with the way her mind was churning, she couldn't handle having a conversation with anyone on the way to her destination. Rounding the corners of the palace that she hoped to call her home for the rest of her life, she tried to organize her thoughts. What if Andrew would rescind his marriage proposal after this talk? Would she be able to find a way to still be the queen? Would this action actually be what launched King Nicholas on the country of Genovia and the rest of the world?
Mentally shaking these thoughts from her head, she scolded herself silently. Yes, the entire marriage was concocted as a way to meet the needs of Genovia's stupid law, but she was about to enter the bedroom of her fiancé and discuss their future, as two individuals. As two people with hearts that can feel and break. As just Mia and Andrew.
She knocked tentatively on the door, noting the lack of a guard outside. Man, it must be nice to be one of the guys in the palace, or really, just anyone other than her or her grandmother, and not have to have a guard with you all the time.
A bleary-eyed Andrew opened the door, clad only in a pair of dark sweatpants. The lights behind him were off, clearly he had been asleep. His eyes widened when he realized who was standing at his door and he quickly coughed out an "excuse me, Princess!" and closed the door. Mia fought back a chuckle as she heard rustling near the door and he re-emerged with a t-shirt on.
The moments of physical intimacy between the two during their short courtship and engagement had been almost nonexistent, but it did strike Mia that this moment was the first time she had seen her fiancé shirtless. She figured this wasn't how it normally was for an engaged woman of 21. Tearing her thoughts away from her analysis of how much she had enjoyed the brief view- the British Royal Air Force was apparently no slouch in its physical fitness demands of its airmen- she cleared her throat.
"Mia, is something wrong? Are you all right?" The concern was evident in his voice and she realized why he had seemed so appropriate for a fiancé for the less-than-worldly princess of Genovia. He was kind, protective, and devoted. He would make sure no harm would come to her if he could help it.
A smile lit up Mia's face as she continued to think of Andrew's positive features. "No, Andrew, I'm fine. I just wanted to talk to you. Can I come in?"
Andrew opened his door up wider, while at the same time saying, "Are you sure this is appropriate? We are two days out from our wedding and it is the middle of the night. I just don't want to jeopardize your reputation." And chalk up actually knows all of this decorum and royalty rules nonsense to the list of Why Andrew Would Make An Excellent Husband.
Mia stood in the middle of his entryway, mouth slightly agape. "You are so sweet. How am I going to keep deserving you for forever? As soon as I assure you of my physical safety, you jump into wanting to protect my reputation. As if I haven't done an excellent job messing that up for myself. I think being in the bedroom of the man I'm marrying would be the least of the concerns of most people."
Andrew moved toward Mia with a huge grin on his face and wrapped his arms around her. "Mia." He chuckled as he pressed a kiss to the top of Mia's head. "Is that what brought you here in the middle of the night? Some odd idea that, what, you're not good enough for me?" He led her to the loveseat in front of a grate that held the remains of a not-long-extinguished fire. "Mia, come now, what is it?"
"Well, kind of, actually. Andrew, we barely know each other and we're making this promise. You haven't been around me long enough to see how much of a trainwreck I can actually be. You don't know how badly I'm capable of messing up!" She slid her legs up under herself, leaning slightly away, putting her weight on the armrest behind her.
Andrew shifted on the overstuffed cushions and placed a hand gently on her knee. "Mia, I think I have a pretty good idea. I had to grab a flower pot to make you almost knocking one off of a balcony look planned. I have seen you walk out of a garden maze, soaking wet. I have watched you literally lose a leg at a royal ceremony. I've seen quite a bit. But you know what else I've seen? I've seen you care about a young girl you saw on the street from a parade route. I have seen you fight against esteemed member of parliament to take away a vacation home to make an orphanage. I've seen you handle a hopeful usurper fight you for your crown, that I believe, firmly, is yours by birthright. And lastly, I've seen you make every effort to be a good future wife to me, despite that nature of our courtship. So really, unless you're here to tell me that all those rumors about Lord Devereaux are true, I'm afraid you're just not going to convince me that you're not good for me."
Mia looked thunderstruck. He had clearly meant that as a joke, but it was so close to what she wanted to talk to him about that she didn't know what to say at first.
Shifting uncomfortably in the small space Mia took a breath trying to steady herself. "Well, not all of them. Not nearly all of them, really!" There were the standard rumors about the fountain and the closet. For a short time, Mia had asked her ladies maids to keep her updated on the rumors surrounding herself so that she would know if there were any her grandmother or members of Parliament might be hearing. However, the rumors got weird, fast. After a particularly embarrassing one involving Mia, Nicholas, the slide from her birthday, and a rubber duck, she dismissed that assignment.
Andrew had withdrawn his hand from her knee by that point. "Mia, I'm not sure you understand, I'm an extremely eligible bachelor in England. I've got plenty of attractive lady friends. If you don't want me here, then by all means, dismiss me and we can both move on with our lives." The hurt was definitely there, but he was trying not to let it show. Mia was holding back tears, although at this point, she wasn't sure if they were from anger at herself, sadness at hearing Andrew speak those words, or frustration at the whole situation.
She couldn't meet his eyes as she spoke, "Andrew, that's not what I'm saying at all. Tonight, it just kind of all came to a head. Earlier today, Nicholas met with me to tell me that he was leaving the palace and bowing out of the competition for the seat. I felt so good, I felt like I had won and that you and I could move forward and we'd have this great wedding, and figure this out together."
"Then tonight, Nicholas showed back up here and started throwing rocks at my window. He said some cheesy line about climbing down from my window and I barely even thought about it. I climbed down and we went for a horseback ride. We talked, we thumb-wrestled, we danced for maybe thirty seconds when I realized that I didn't feel right about it because of you." Mia finally looked up to see the stony face of Andrew. "I started walking toward my horse and he told me he loved me. I panicked. I came straight here to talk to you."
Andrew finally met her gaze. "Do you love him?"
Voice breaking, Mia reached for Andrew's hands in both of hers. "I don't know. There's so much that goes into the circumstances and I just don't know."
His thumb slid over the back of her hand, "The same can be said for us, Mia. But, you know you don't love me."
Mia moved her hand to his cheek and stroked at the slight five o'clock shadow growing there, "but I know I could. I know that, with what I do know about you, as we grow closer, I truly believe I will be able to love you."
Andrew moved her hand away and back into his lap, "Mia, we don't have to discuss it like this. I'm not some wounded soul that you have to give some big confession to. We entered into an engagement of convenience. I've seen my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents have loving, happy, and fulfilling marriages through arrangements, but I understand if you just can't do it. Being honest, does it bother me that you went with Nicholas tonight? Yes. Does it wound my pride, absolutely. Does it make me jealous, yes. But it does not break my heart. We aren't there yet. In a few years, in addition to what I'm feeling now, yes, it might break my heart as well, but it doesn't now. What we need to decide, is if, going forward, we can still go through with this wedding, knowing that we're banking on future feelings."
Andrew lifted his hand under Mia's chin to force their eyes to meet. "Mia, I know I can love you. I still think this marriage is a good idea. I just need to know if you can go through with it."
Mia leaned forward and grasped at Andrew's face. The kiss she was throwing at him was not a gentle one they had exchanged in front of cameras or in courtyards, nor was it like the one she and Nicholas shared in the gardens. This was hard, fast, and coming from a more primal place. Mia wasn't aware that she had it in her, but before answering Andrew's question, she had to know if she could handle kissing him for the rest of her life. They would be sharing a bed at some point in their marriage and she had to know if that would be tolerable. Pulling away, the feeling in her chest wasn't what she had felt before, but it wasn't bad.
"Well." Andrew ran a hand through his hair, breathing hard. "That was unexpected."
Mia mirrored his actions, playing with the tip of her ponytail. "yeah, sorry about that. I just wanted to see how kissing you for the rest of my life might feel."
Rubbing the tip of her knee, Andrew leaned forward, "And?"
Covering his hand with her own and breaking into a big smile, "I think I can work with it."
Andrew laughed and snaked an arm around her shoulders. Mia let out a small scream which quickly turned into a laugh as Andrew tipped the two of them over so they were lying down and kissed her cheek. With Mia still laughing, and Andrew speaking through his own laughter, said "I'm glad, because I can too."
A/N: I guess I wasn't exactly sure where I wanted this to go when I started it. I knew I wanted her to walk away from Nicholas and have a frank discussion with Andrew. Not sure how happy I am with it, but here you go!
As always, I don't' own Princess Diaries franchise.