Stuff about the story

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is inspired by the film What a Girl Wants (and by Arnold-the-female-purple-pyg-my-puff 's story How D'You Do?; see #4 of the author's notes below). Therefore, neither of the main characters, nor circumstances nor most of the secondary characters are mine. I'm just bending and shaping them a little to suit my story, but I promise to return them practically undamaged.

Warning: This is a slashfic about two male characters becoming romantically and sexually involved. If you're averse to this notion then go read some nice het.

Five author's notes that are utterly redundant and one that isn't:

1) Redundancy of the author's notes

All but one of the notes you'll find below are redundant, as I don't belief that I will be able to persuade slash loathers to read my fic, and slash lovers will give me the benefit of the doubt and want to decide for themselves if I've written anything good. I'm writing these notes solely for my own pleasure.

2) Farfetched pairing

The pairing I have chosen is rather farfetched. Not because I've slashed two characters that are canonically very straight; that's nothing new at all, it is done in abundance on the Internet, and sometimes with great sub-textual justification. After all, it isn't a far cry from a movie featuring male character A to be instrumental in having his male friend B getting the girl (Whatever It Takes, for example) to a fanfic in which character A realises that he is actually in love with B. Nor is it a big leap from a movie featuring male character A pretending to be gay allowing him access to the girl who happens to be spoken for (Three To Tango) to a fanfic in which character A realises that he is in fact truly gay and in love with his rival.

Oddly enough, it just occurs to me that nobody seems to have written those fics. But I digress.

WAGW isn't that sort of movie. It has no slash subtext (apart, perhaps, from the odd use of the term 'coming out' which I address in chapter 3 of my fic). Canonically, Ian is firmly smitten with Daphne and Henry is still harbouring feelings for Libby. To pose otherwise would be ridiculously farfetched. And that is precisely the reason why I wrote the fic. I wanted to see if I could turn a ludicrous pairing plausible. And I think I pulled it off. But I am, for obvious reasons, biased of course.

3) Taking liberties

I've taken some liberties with the characters. Yeah, duh. No, I mean, apart from the very obvious, I've provided Ian with a selfish streak. In my universe, he's not averse to using a certain American girl to get what he really wants.

4) How D'You Do?

And now for the only relevant note in this list: my story was inspired by Arnold-the-female-purple-pyg-my-puff 's story How D'You Do?. When I started to think about my fic, I wanted to write it from alternating Ian and Henry's POVs. I wasn't worried about writing Henry; there's ample footage of him in the movie. Ian has far less screen time, though, and I wasn't certain I could write him. Until I stumbled upon How D'You Do? and was shown the way by Arnold. She wrote almost 20,000 words entirely from Ian's POV! Very clever, very cunning, and a very nice story at that, even though I personally prefer slash. So, I was greatly inspired by How D'You Do? and I think it shows, especially in the first chapter.

5) Pace and rating

Despite the story being M-rated, most of its chapters are fairly innocent. I like stories that start slowly and accelerate towards the end. Readers who'd start at chapter 1 but abandon the fic before chapter 5 might even arrive at the conclusion that it isn't a slashfic at all. But it is! I promise. Just bear with me.

6) Title

The title of the story was initially intended to refer to a song from Queen. When I started I thought it would be nice to provide the story with a soundtrack by naming the chapters after songs, preferably from Queen and/or The Strokes. I found however that this was too difficult to do, as it was hard enough to find titles that fitted both POVs in each chapter. I kept the story's title because I liked it, but I'm sorry to say that there is no Queen in this fic. There are queens however. Two, to be precise. Three, if you count Elisabeth.

And now, if you're still there, if you're not exhausted or bored out of your skull by my notes, here's the fic.

SOMEBODY TO LOVE

1. Meeting Daphne

Ian

I was sitting on the reception desk, oblivious to the chaos around me, working on a melody for a song. Which was rather frustrating, because I had been at it for a while and I hadn't even finished the first verse. Whatever I tried, it just didn't sound right.

At some point a girl walked up to me and said, "That sounds really good."

She was American. And she was pretty. The kind of pretty anyone would recognise.

"Thanks," I replied.

She looked at my guitar for a second. "Is that a Gibson J-200?"

"Yeah." This girl knew something about guitars. Alwaysa sure way to win me over. "Are you a musician?"

"No," she said, "but I live with one back home."

So she had a boyfriend and was living with him. My mood dropped suddenly.

"My mom," she added.

"Oh!"My envy evaporated almost as quickly as it had appeared, and I slid off the desk and put a sign that read 'reception' on it. "So, you checking in?"

She grinned at me. "Day job?"

"Yeah, one of many. You know, life of a struggling musician."

I left the reception desk to show the girl around.

"So the kitchen's through there," I pointed, "Common room's down the hall. I should warn you the dog and bone's on the blink and we've no lift here."

She looked confused.

"Phone," I continued, "is broken. Elevator: none."

A girl walked out of the toilet and shouted, "Lou's free."

The American frowned. "Who's Lou?"

I grinned. "We better take this slowly."

She grinned back at me, but then got distracted by the television.

A reporter announced that Lord Henry Dashwood was giving up his hereditary seat in the House of Lords to run for election as a commoner.

I happened to harbour a dislike for Lord Dashwood. He was in the papers and on the telly now and again, and I once saw him in the flesh from a distance. He was more handsome and had a more pleasant voice than most, but he was still a Tory, and still one of 'them'. 'Them' being the ones belonging to the nobility. Not my kind of people.

"Why should an accident of birth give me the right to make decisions for the people?"Lord Henry was saying.

Indeed, I thought, amazed at the hypocritical ease with which he stated the obvious.

"My dad," the girl I had just met whispered.

Her words startled me. This American, daughter of one of the oldest and richest families in England?

The reporter resumed,"Lord Dashwood, who will marry his fiancé, Glynnis Payne, in the presence of the queen later this summer will also inherit a stepdaughter, the lovely Clarissa Payne."

Footage showed Dashwood with Ms Payne at his side. She looked happy and rather triumphant, he not so much. The sight of Henry's soon to be stepdaughter added to my gloating. She didn't look sour, she looked pure acid.

"It's this surprising announcement of Lord Dashwood's that has sent shock waves through Westminster,'' the reporter said cheerfully. "He now appears to be an unstoppable political force."

I looked at the girl next to me and assessed that she was in need of some fresh air. I couldn't leave her to her own devices.

"Fancy a walk?" I asked, figuring I wouldn't be missed very much at Great Britain's Grand Hotel (oh, the clever irony of the name!). The still nameless girl nodded.

Outside I said, "I'm Ian Wallace."

"Daphne Reynolds," she returned.

Huh?

I take it my puzzled expression caused her to explain that she had come from New York to look for her father of whom she had a name, a Polaroid and an address but no memory whatsoever, because she had been raised solely by her mother.

Well, well, I thought, noble boy gets common girl pregnant and flees the scene. Haven't we heard that story before?

But here she was, the fruit of his loins so to speak, desperately wanting to meet him. I could feel my heart swell with gloating. Daphne Reynolds could very well prove to be an insuperable barrier to the fulfilment of Henry's ambitions.

She seemed to be having second thoughts, however. I instantly protested, "Daphne, he's your father. You flew halfway around the world to see him. You can't turn back now."

I wasn't convincing.

"He has a family now. You saw them. They're so elegant and sophisticated. What would he want with me?"

What would he, indeed? I thought. I contemplated saying something to the effect of 'What wouldn't he want with you? You're his daughter!' but I figured she wasn't gullible enough to fall for it, so I said flippantly, "Yeah, well, you got a point there."

"Shut up." She smiled slightly. "It's just not as simple as I thought. Maybe I should just go home and let him get on with his life."

She looked up at me, apparently hoping for more advice.

I walked ahead of her. Pressuring her wouldn't do me much good I gathered, but I could let her know without words that I disapproved of where her thoughts were headed.

She caught up with me and we continued to walk in silence. At some point she said, "You're right. I'll see you around," and hopped on a bus.

I had no idea if she had already made a decision, or what it would entail.

Henry

The women in my life were already having breakfast when I entered the room.

"Morning," I said. "Everyone sleep well?"

By way of reply Clarissa screamed, "There's someone at the window!"

Those bloody paparazzi again!

I told Percy to call the police. My seat at the House of Lords was still warm and the journalist scum were already prying through the fence in search for gossip. But I wouldn't tolerate this media circus.

Running outside to look for scumbags I soon bumped into a young girl.

"Where do you think you're going?" I hissed.

"To you," she had the nerve to answer.

"How long do you people have to spy before realising there's no story here?"I said angrily.

She claimed I had the wrong idea.

"Tell it to the authorities," I snarled.

I took her inside to wait for the police.

"The real scandal is how young they're starting you guttersnipes now," I lectured her. "You sit down and tell me who sent you. The Sun? The Daily Star?"

She couldn't be more than 17. "Now, take your picture and go away."

"I already have a picture of you." She showed it to me. "From Libby."

Glynnis entered the hall, Clarissa and Mother in her wake, demanding to know what was going on. "Libby?" she said, "that singer you met on a camel?"

"She thought I'd want to know what my father looked like," the girl said to me. "My name is Daphne Reynolds. I'm Libby's daughter. According to this... I'm your daughter, too."

She showed me a birth certificate. I was dumbstruck with shock. Glynnis voiced her terror rather loudly. Clarissa stated coldly that I seemed to have had an even better time in Morocco than I'd let on. I muttered that it must all be a mistake and Glynnis couldn't agree more.

The girl in front of me looked defeated. "Maybe I shouldn't have come," she said. "l can tell this is a big shock for you."

She professed that she had known that I was her father her entire life, as it were. She had dreamt about meeting me for just as long, but it was probably a mistake to have come.

"You have known about this your whole life?" I said. "And your mother didn't feel l deserved the same kind of consideration? How could she keep something like this from me?"

Glynnis wasn't pleased with my sudden change of heart. "Excuse me. What happened to the mistake theory we were operating on a moment ago?"

The girl was about to leave when my mother called after her. "No, wait a minute, ducky."She turned to me. "Henry, I know this has come as a shock, but we can't just let the girl go. At least not until we've got to the bottom of this."

Percy suggested he call a hotel.

"And tell them what, exactly?" Glynnis said. "That the best-known electoral candidate in a generation is requesting a room for a teenage girl? The press will have a field day."

"Glynnis is absolutely right, dear," my mother said, to my surprise but not Glynnis's.

"Thank god someone else is thinking straight," she said.

After a meaningful pause, my mother spoke. "The girl must stay here, with us."

I knew she didn't like Glynnis very much.

Daphne, on the other hand, she seemed to have taken an instant liking to. I watched the two of them talking outside in the garden while I was lectured by Glynnis.

"Before we let this hypothetical daughter blow your political career out of the water we might consider checking up on her," she said. "I'm trying to think of what's best for you. l know you don't like thinking about it, but the press can be brutal."

"'Exclusive! Henry Dashwood in Love-child Shocker!'"Clarissa exclaimed, in mock imitation of a headline.

It occurred to me (again) that I didn't like her very much. And anyway, Daphne isn't strictly a love child. Libby and I were married in a Bedouin ceremony in Morocco. We even planned to make it official, but when I had introduced her to my parents in London she left before arrangements could be made.

"Glynnis," I said firmly, "the girl has a birth certificate. She has my photograph. She has my eyes, for god's sakes!"

I was vaguely aware of feeling an odd sort of satisfaction when my fiancée didn't reply.