RECORD
Disclaimer: If you recognise it - it doesn't belong to me.
Summary: Mia quizzes the newly wedded Joseph as to what he would have done had he retired. As a result she finds out that his perfect record might not be as perfect as she thought - and that it has something to do with her Grandma.
"What would you have done if you had retired Joe?" Mia asked, looking up from her book and over to where her new Step-grandfather was sitting reading the Sunday morning papers. He looked up at her for a moment before folding his newspaper and slipping off his reading glasses.
"What's made you think about that?" he asked.
"I don't know." she replied honestly. "But I mean, you're still so full of life. It's not as if we were about to put you out to pasture. I just can't see what you'd have done with yourself." she said, looking out into the garden from the window seat and watched as her Grandmother threw Mau a ball.
"Well I suppose I'd have travelled for a while – I've always wanted to see Chile but Clarisse's itinerary never obliged. I might have settled down in Spain eventually. In all honesty, I hadn't really though the thing through. It was more of an emotional decision than a logical one."
This news didn't really surprise her. Despite being so wrapped up in her own problems at the time, in hindsight she could pinpoint exactly when the discussion that no-one had ever told her about had happened. Could picture the anguish in her Grandmother's eyes before she hid it behind her mask and remember the quiet sense of unease that had filled the palace when no one knew where Joseph had disappeared to.
"You're right though…" he continued after a moment. "I don't think I'm quite ready for my pipe and slippers yet."
"And a good job too. I have every intention of using you and Grandma to the full over the next few years. You'll be fabby ambassadors – don't know if I'll be able to get you to Chile but I could always try." Joe chuckled at this. "I'm sure with a record like yours you could have found work with pretty much anyone, even if it was only consultation had you wanted." she added and he chuckled again.
"I suspect my record isn't quite what you think it is, Mia, my darling." She looked back over at him, slightly thrown by this. They had talked about his past before and he had told her about his military and police experience before he had worked his way up through the Genovian Security Core. "I may have worked for some quite impressive people," he explained, obviously seeing her confusion. "but that doesn't mean that they liked me, or that I have what you might term a 'clean' record."
"You mean you've been reprimanded?" she asked, trying to imagine what kind of things Joe could have done to result in have notes put in his file.
"Once or twice."
"But it can't have been that bad or you wouldn't have been hired here… unless…" it took her a moment to catch up. "You've been reprimanded while you were working here?" Joseph nodded gently, obviously amused at her excitement about this discovery. She watched as he put the paper down on the table, obviously giving up on finishing it at the moment and reached for his coffee cup.
"I do wish your Grandmother would hurry up – I'm ready for breakfast." he said. Normally Mia would have taken this opportunity to make some joke about his appetite and the newly-weds' sex life but she was too caught up on her original line of enquiry to bother.
"You're not getting out of it that easily." She said, standing and crossing to perch on the footstool next to his chair. "Surely Grandma didn't put a note in your file. 'Joseph Romerez has a tendency to harbour inappropriate thoughts toward the individuals with whose care he is entrusted. This habit has proved troublesome in the past and thus should be taken into account if ever anyone were to consider hiring him.'" She hypothesised out loud in her best imitation of the Dowager Queen's perfect accent.
"No. No - it wasn't your Grandmother." Joe said, smiling and shaking his head at her.
"Well then who? King Rupert?" she asked. "He didn't catch you in flegrante delicto with Grandma did he?"
"Don't be ridiculous." he replied shortly. "And you should be careful what you say around your Grandmother about that or you'll upset her. She had, has I hope, a great deal of faith in the sanctity of marriage vows whether they are spoken in love or not. We did nothing at all untoward while your Grandfather was alive."
"Fair enough." Mia replied, sobering. "It was the King who reprimanded you though wasn't it?"
"Yes. Yes it was." he admitted, reaching down for his paper obviously intending that to be the end of the conversation.
Mia wasn't ready to give up yet though. "What for?" she asked putting on her best pleading voice and batting her eyelashes.
"I really don't think you need to know this Mia." he pointed out without looking at her.
"If you don't tell me I'm just going to have Charlotte look out your file tomorrow morning." She said bluntly. At this he closed his paper again, with a rustle. "At least tell me what it was for?" she tried again.
"There are two – both stemming from the same incident." He said after a moment. "One for using what was deemed to be unacceptable force and restraining methods on the Italian Ambassador apparently without provocation. The other for insolence in the face of the ruling monarch."
"Wow. You don't do things by halves do you? I was half expecting it to be for reporting for duty late or not wearing your pager or something…" she admitted.
"Yes well…" he said quietly. "In my defence I'd still maintain I was in the right and I'd do the same thing again today. It just happened that the King didn't agree."
"What happened?" she asked softly.
"You are just as bad as your Grandmother once you've got the bit in your mouth – do you know that?"
"Why thank you." she responded with a winning smile.
"I give up. I really do."
"Good – so go on then…" she urged him. He looked at her for a moment and she felt those dark eyes seeming to bore into her soul as though he were deciding if she was ready to know what he was about to tell, suddenly she wasn't entirely convinced that she wanted to.
"It was a while ago now." he began quietly. "I'd only been working as Clarisse's personal body guard for a few months, but I wasn't even officially on duty in that capacity. It was a ball, a big one at the start of a week of trade negotiations, so we were all just posted around the palace. I was inside the ballroom and I noticed that the Italian representative, who Clarisse was dancing with, was getting a little too friendly. I stepped in."
"You hit him?" she asked.
"Yes. And then I pinned him on the floor and barely restrained myself from dislocating his shoulder."
"Ah." Mia said. "And the insolence…?"
"The Ambassador was piled into his car and driven back to his embassy. The following morning I was pulled up in front of the King who proceeded to tell me that my behaviour had been totally unacceptable. I might have said something about the fact that I had been employed to protect the Queen's safety and having seen a threat to it I had acted in order to neutralise it. King Rupert claimed that there had been no danger, that I had totally over reacted and that the man was only dancing with Clarisse. He started mumbling something about damaging possible negotiations and I lost my patience."
"What did you say?"
"I believe it might have been along the lines of - With all due respect Sir, I've yet to come across a dance that follows the pattern; Waltz for three, spin for three, force your partner into a deserted hallway, place one hand over her mouth and with the other reach for your fly, all the while muttering obscenities into her ear."
"Way to go Joe!" she cried instinctively.
"Yes well, I was suspended for a week and had those reprimands added to my file. I suspect your Grandmother was the only reason I wasn't fired point blank."
"I can't believe he thought that trade negotiations were more important than his wife's safety though…"
"It wasn't quite as simple as that… but well… Rupert's logic was sometimes difficult to understand."
"Well I'm glad you were around to look out for her." Mia said, standing up and hugging him.
"Thank you." He replied, returning her embrace.
"What is all this about?" The former Queen's soft tones enquired from the doorway.
"Oh – I was just learning some more about Joe's past as a daring Knight in Shining Armour." Mia said taking a step back. "In any case, I'm sure Grandma would have written you a glowing reference had you actually retired that would outshine those reprimands in a second."
"Huh." Clarisse replied, snorting in a very un-Queen like fashion. "That's what you think – you should have seen the draft I wrote the day I found your letter of resignation on my desk. No-one would have touched you with a barge poll." She continued, perching on the arm of Joseph's chair.
"Well it's a good job I intend to be a kept man for the rest of my days then, isn't it?" Joe said raising his eyebrows and wrapping an arm round his wife's waist.
"That's what you think is it?" Her Grandma said with a wonderful air of indulgence about her. "Well Mia, what would you say to breakfast my dear? I'm afraid to say that I smelt something horribly like pancake batter as I was passing the kitchen. I will never understand how you could eat those at this time of the morning…"
Mia realised, as she walked arm in arm between them down the hall, that the more she learned about her Grandmother and her new husband the more she came to love and respect them. She could only hope that she would be lucky enough to fall in love without the complications they had endured. As she sat down at the breakfast table and helped herself to a stack of pancakes she made a mental note to add a note to Joe's staff record, nullifying the unpleasant remarks left by her biological Grandfather. Not that she thought he'd ever need to use it but none the less…
A/N: Much love to revsue for casting her discerning gaze over this. As always I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!
so let me know
thanks for reading
xLx