Author's Note: This fic is a response to Birdman45's plot bunny challenge. So full credit to him for the plot! I own none of these characters, events, or the TV show. Needless to say, this is totally alternate universe.

Full Summary: Prince Arthur is collapsing under the weight of his family's expectations. The pressure is slowly bringing him to the point of madness, until an idea for freedom forms in his head. An idea that, even if successful, could have devastating ramifications later down the line.

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Chapter One: The Winter of Discontent (Part I).

Storms had been lashing the coast for weeks by the time Catherine finally arrived in England. Like a broken doll, she had been carried ashore by one of the English gentlemen who had sailed with her as she was too weak from the prolonged sea sickness to walk on her own two feet. Arthur knew how she felt all too well. Sometimes, when he thought of the future, he too wanted to collapse and rely on others to carry him ashore.

Over the course of the next few painful weeks, he had painted on the smile and bore the weight of expectation like a true professional. He extended every courtesy, paid every compliment, and graciously allowed his younger brother to upstage him at his own wedding. Just like he had been trained to do.

King Henry laughed as he watched the Duke of York frolic with Princess Catherine, following the wedding feast. "Have you ever seen such capering!"

All eyes were on Prince Harry that night, including Arthur's. He felt a weight shift in his stomach as he followed his father's gaze, a certain unacknowledged truth forming in his mind as he noted the way that Harry gazed up at Catherine. He tried to tell himself he was imagining things, but Harry wanted her. A child of ten, but one undeniably in command of himself and already in command of the crowds who adored him.

The end of the wedding feast could not have come quick enough. The whole charade had left him tired, emotionally void and sick to the stomach. All of his short years had been spent bearing the weight of expectation. He was the hope of the future, the promise of a new dawn and representative of a purely notional new world that he and Catherine were expected to build. But as they left for Ludlow, travelling beneath the leaden skies, he knew all he could do was disappoint. The more he realised how much was expected of him the further he withdrew into the shell of his own mind. One day, he knew, he would withdraw so far inside his mind, he might never find his way out again.

"Are you all right?" he asked Catherine once they were seen safely to bed on their first night at Ludlow. It was feeble, but it was all he could think of. Catherine looked back at him, wide eyed with incomprehension. Her English was still bad.

"My Lord," she replied with a smile. Her linen night cap was on, and she lay back with the satin quilt pulled up to her chin. She was just two big blue eyes staring up him. "You are well?"

He lay down beside her, and although he knew that all he had to do was reach out and touch her, he felt a barrier between them. A glass barrier that only he knew about. A frown marred her features, she was trying to read his mind and coming up short.

He mustered what little Spanish he knew and tried to tell her: "It will be all right."

He turned away on his side. Two strangers sharing a bed. Worse still, he knew she was thinking the same. Although his father expected grandchildren, and he expected them soon, Arthur simply closed his eyes and slipped into a turbulent sleep. A sleep filled with dreams that blurred at the edges, showing him visions of the things he could never be. He awoke several times, grateful that Catherine slept on, oblivious to the storm that was raging in his head. She was beautiful. There was no denying that. But he knew that he could never give her the things she needed. He could never be like Harry. That was always the last thing on his mind when he slipped back into his restless sleep.

With the awkward tension of their first night finally dispelled, Catherine and Arthur settled into their own routine. At nights, they retired to their own separate chambers and during the day they sat side by side at the Privy Council table, to discuss all the matters of their small "kingdom". Arthur hid his doubts and veiled his fears beneath the veneer of state. He simply carried on regardless.

With the help of a Tutor, Catherine's English improved prompting Arthur to write to King Ferdinand, thanking him for sending her unto him. Even as he set down his quill to seal the letter, he realised that Catherine had become another function of state in his world. The glass barrier remained; he could see through it clearly, but it was a barrier nonetheless. If anything, it seemed to expand, and cut him adrift from all those around him. They could see him as well as he could see them but he was still out of reach.

Not long after he despatched the letter his Groom, Anthony Denny, appeared in his Privy Chamber. He bowed low to the Prince. "Your Grace."

"Sir Anthony," Arthur bid him rise.

Normally, the sight of an old friend would have cheered him. But these days, Denny was just another face to satisfy. He had bragged to Denny of his bedroom exploits with Catherine and it was an experience that had left a bitter taste in Arthur's mouth. It was another demonstration of Arthur's own weakness and he almost hated Denny for exposing it in him.

"Your Grace, there has been an outbreak of sweating sickness in the town," he informed Arthur gravely.

Arthur set the letter to Ferdinand down on the desk in front of him. "How many dead?"

"Nearly forty dead in the main town, Your Grace," replied Denny. "It is set to rise higher still."

Arthur closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying, breath. He remembered reading about Edward III, who defied the threat of the black death and rode amongst his people despite the dangers posed. The sweating sickness was just as deadly as black death, and Arthur knew the old saying: merry at breakfast, dead by dinner time. The contagion was swift, and merciless. It cut down the weak and the strong. Young and old alike.

"Anthony," Arthur said, fixing the Groom with a sharp eye. "I will ride out to the Town myself, and assess the situation-"

"I would advise against that, Your Grace," he quickly cut the Prince off.

But Arthur was not to be deterred. "Please, Anthony," he implored. "These are my people, and they need me."

There was a long silence, during which Anthony realised that resistance was futile. "Very well, Your Grace."

That night, Arthur sat in the window of his private chambers. Out in the distance, he could see tiny pin pricks of light from a hundred small fires that had been lit. The people would be burning the clothes and linens of the dead, or lighting herb fires to ward off the bad humours in a desperate attempt to stay safe. Cumulatively, the flames caused a faint orange glow in the dark night.

But the Prince was not really watching them. He gripped a goblet of warmed wine in one hand and chewed absent-mindedly at the nail of his index finger on the other. A seed of a thought had taken root at the back of his mind. At first, he tried to dismiss it and pushed the thoughts away. But they kept coming back, bigger and stronger than before.

Agitated, he paced the floor trying to shake himself free of his own thoughts. He tried to think of the consequences, but the benefits soon rode roughshod over that. He looked at the distant fires, still burning through the night and thought of freedom. In a fit of anxiety, he sent again for Anthony Denny, the one person who he could still almost count as a friend.

Anthony appeared, sleep befuddled but fully dressed, not twenty minutes later. "Your Grace. You summoned me."

"Anthony, I need your help." Arthur set down his goblet, and steered Anthony to the window embrasure. "I need you to get me out of here."

"What? Now?" Anthony frowned, and tried to gather his wits. "It's a bit late-"

"No!" Arthur retorted. "Not now, tomorrow. For good."

Anthony mentally shook himself. "Arthur, please. Think about what you're saying and try to make some sense."

For a moment, Arthur wanted to slap him. Instead, he took a deep breath and started at the beginning. "I want you to write to my father and tell him I have the sweating sickness. Then tell my physicians I have it, too. While they are tending to me, you will have time to go into the town and bring me the body of someone who is my age, height and has my colouring. There must be scores of them. We shall dress the body in my clothes and he can be passed off as me. Given the virility of the illness the physicians will not look too closely, anyway."

Anthony was rigid with shock, but Arthur could sense his mind working. No one knew him as well as Anthony and he had sensed the black moods that had descended on Arthur recently. But still, Arthur could see he needed persuading.

"Help rescue me, please," he pleaded. "You know I cannot do what they all want me to do."

"This is insanity..." Denny's words trailed off and he backed away until Arthur seized him by the shoulders.

"It will be insanity if I get the throne," he insisted. "Can't you see? I am begging you, Anthony. Please, I cannot do this anymore."

"Where will you go?" he asked, in a daze.

"Say you will help me."

Anthony shrugged Arthur off and turned away. His mind was in a whirl. His loyalty was to Arthur. Above and beyond anything, Arthur was his master. His master needed help and he was duty bound to give it. Slowly, he turned to Arthur and gave an uncertain nod of his head. A chasm of doubt opened up inside of him and terrified the wits out of him. But all the same, his sense of duty overrode his fears.

"I am yours to command."