A/N: Welcome to another memory-fest. I've been really working on this one in the hope of having at least part of it posted before Christmas, and thankfully I have enough material to put up without having finished the story just yet. As I post the initial chapters, this is a work still very much in progress and may encompass four or five adaptations before I'm finished. I hope you enjoy my slightly altered, behind-the-scenes view of episodes you might be familiar with. (And if you're not, more incentive to go out and get seasons 1-3 of "Fantasy Island" on DVD—a terrific Christmas present!) Enjoy…
§ § § - June 2, 2008
Just home from seeing off the guests at the plane dock, Leslie glanced around the kitchen and living room, noting the time. "When's the family supposed to get here?" she asked Christian, stepping out of her shoes.
Christian mimicked her movements, urging the children to do the same. "About noon, if I remember right. That should give you and Ingrid a good four hours to get the house into good enough condition to satisfy your sense of esthetics." He grinned teasingly at her.
"Do we have to wait for them to come 'fore we can have our birthday?" Tobias wanted to know, pulling off his sneakers without bothering to untie the laces.
"Tobias, untie your shoes first," Leslie admonished him.
"And yes, you do have to wait," added Christian. "Your cousins would like to help you celebrate your birthday too, you know."
"And baths for all three of you," concluded Leslie.
Tobias, in the process of tugging his laces apart, groaned. "Aw, Mommy, do we have to? Can't we wait? I don't want a bath!"
"He might have a point," Christian remarked to his wife with a grin. "After all, he and the girls are likely to be covered with cake crumbs, ice-cream spills and who knows what else before the day is out."
She peered at him and riposted, "They can always have another bath tonight." At that Christian laughed, urging Karina and Susanna to head for the stairs. The girls didn't seem to mind the prospect of baths; they willingly trotted ahead of their father toward the stairs. On the other hand, Leslie had to grasp Tobias' arm and tow him along after her, enduring his protesting the entire way.
Seeing that Leslie was itching to start her housecleaning, Christian volunteered to give the children their collective bath; she gratefully agreed and hurried back out to begin in hers and Christian's bedroom. Ingrid, with an armload of bedsheets from the room that the triplets were still sharing for a last few nights, paused in front of the bathroom door on her way down to do a load of laundry. "Your Highness, should I wait until the children are finished before I do these?"
Christian glanced at her, smiled and shook his head. "No, I think Leslie would tell you to go ahead. Time's short—relatives are on their way in."
Ingrid dipped a quick quarter-curtsy. "Yes, Your Highness." She left, and Christian supervised his children's removal of their clothing while running a warm bath.
They spoke in jordiska, which was their usual habit if Leslie wasn't around. "Daddy, what's 'your highness' mean?" Karina wanted to know.
"It's a form of respectful address to a royal," Christian explained, helping her step into the tub. "Do you know what a royal is?"
"Princess Aurora!" Susanna sang out gleefully. She and Karina were old enough now to be very much into the Disney princess films, with all their accompanying paraphernalia.
"Yes, that's one example," Christian agreed, laughing. "But real royals don't live quite the same way that the Disney princesses do."
"What do they do, then?" Karina asked, while Susanna and Tobias got into a minor scuffle while jockeying for room to doff their clothing.
"You two, stop," Christian ordered mildly. "Well, Karina, nowadays princes and princesses usually help out charities, and make appearances on behalf of them, and many of them have jobs, like your cousin Gerhard, or I. In most countries, princes serve in the military for at least a while, and sometimes even some princesses do that too."
"You mean they go and fight bad guys?" put in Tobias, whose interest was piqued at the word military.
"Occasionally, but usually not," Christian said. "They help out at home, instead of going off to war, and they defend the home country. Not all of them do—I didn't, I merely served the required minimum military training for jordiska males."
Karina's mouth dropped open, as if she had just made the connection. "Oh Daddy…if you're 'your highness', and you went and were in the army, and you have a job—you mean you're a real live prince?"
Christian laughed. "Yes, I certainly am. Your mother is a princess because she's married to me; and you and Susanna are also princesses, because you're my children. Tobias is a prince for the same reason."
Tobias grunted with dismissal; royalty seemed the province of girls more than boys, Christian thought privately, watching his daughters light up and stare at each other in wonder. "We're real live princesses!" Karina cried, thrilled.
Susanna gave Christian an accusing look. "Then why don't we have crowns and lots of glittery dresses to wear?"
Christian burst into laughter, which brought in a curious Leslie. "Princesses don't wear that sort of thing very much anymore, Susanna, I'm sorry," he chortled before he caught sight of his wife and switched to English. "Hi there, my Rose."
"What's the joke?" she inquired with a half grin of her own.
"Mommy, me and Susanna are real princesses!" Karina crowed, also in English, before anyone else could speak. "Daddy said so! He said we're all princes and princesses!"
"He's right, sweetie," Leslie said, giggling at her thorough delight. "I thought you and Susanna and Tobias already knew you're princesses and a prince."
"They may have known, but I'm not sure they really understood till now," Christian said. "Ingrid called me 'Your Highness' when she passed by a moment ago, and Karina wanted to know what it meant. Now Susanna's asking why we don't wear crowns and formal clothes that sparkle."
Leslie giggled again and ventured into the bathroom, with an armload of fresh sheets. "I'll tell you girls a secret—sometimes we do get to wear sparkly clothes."
Susanna and Karina gasped with excitement. "When do we do that?" they squealed.
"Ach," Christian groaned in mock disgruntlement, "now we've really started something. I don't think we dare tell them about the Christmas ball, because tradition says no family member can attend till he or she is at least thirteen."
"Why not? There's only nine more years to go before they come of age," Leslie kidded, making him laugh again. "Tell you what, maybe we should refer them to the family when they get in. Your nieces should have some fun telling the girls all about being a real princess in a real kingdom." She winked at him, then turned to Susanna and Karina. "I can tell you one thing for sure: a real princess never gets dirty."
They looked at each other with matching round eyes and mouths. "Then we better get clean real fast so we can still be real princesses," Karina decided.
"Yeah—me first," Susanna blurted out and grabbed a bar of soap from the soap dish. Christian flinched back as far as he could lean from his kneeling position as an unexpected tug-of-war broke out between the girls over who got the soap first, and Leslie used the altercation as an excuse to duck out of the bathroom and finish making up the bed.
"You're so dumb!" she heard Tobias taunting his sisters. "I'm glad I'm a prince, 'cause a prince can get dirty if he wants, right, Daddy?"
"Only if his parents say he can," came Christian's retort, and Leslie laughed to herself as she spread out bedsheets. She had to admit, she found it poetic justice that it was Christian their children had asked for information about being royal—the same prince who found being royal such a burden so often. It would make a cute story to tell his family.
‡ ‡ ‡
Several hours later, with the triplets scrubbed and dressed in fresh clothes, the house dusted and vacuumed, all the beds remade with clean sheets, all dishes washed and put away, and everything straightened up, Christian and Leslie and their children met a group of their family members at the plane dock on the charter that had come in a few minutes past noon. Christian's older brother, Carl Johan, was the first out, and they shortly found that he was accompanied by his entire family: his wife Amalia; their older son Gerhard, his wife Liselotta, and their children Matti, six and a half, and Toria, four and a half; and their younger son Rudolf, his wife Louisa, and their nearly-two-year-old daughter Katta. Then there came Anna-Laura with her husband Esbjörn, as well as their five-year-old granddaughter, Lisi, the orphaned child of their late daughter Cecilia. And finally, there was Anna-Kristina, along with her second husband Kai, her daughter Natalia, also five, and her two stepdaughters, Annika and Erika, ages thirteen and nine and just beginning their summer vacation.
The younger children, particularly the triplets, began hopping restlessly while the adults and Anna-Kristina's older stepdaughter greeted one another with many hugs and exclamations of how assorted children had grown. The preschoolers tore gleefully around the clearing, shouting and laughing, while Erika hung back, out of both shyness and a sense of being too old for the small children but too young for the adults and her older sister. Anna-Kristina finally took pity on her. "I think we should get to our bungalows and try to freshen up," she said, glancing at her husband.
Kai nodded, having bowed to Christian and Leslie upon greeting them. "Yes, I think so," he murmured, glancing to the royals as though for confirmation.
"They're your children, Kai," Carl Johan said with a kind smile. "You need not look to us for approval. By the way, Christian and Leslie, Kristina has decided she wants to be here as well, but she won't be arriving till later this week. There was some party she felt was too important for her to miss."
"Ah, festaflikkan is alive and well, I see," noted Christian dryly, to answering laughter. "Well enough, then, we'll let Mr. Roarke know. Leslie, my Rose, do we have enough transportation for everyone?"
Amid a fair amount of confusion, family groups were duly dispatched to assorted accommodations; it had been decided that Carl Johan and Amalia would take the guest suite at Christian and Leslie's house. The triplets' party was set for three that afternoon, so it gave the newcomers time to rest a bit, change clothes and have some lunch before everyone met at the main house, where the triplets had always had family birthday parties. This year, as well, Christian and Leslie had arranged for a smaller party at their own house so that their children's friends—April Harding, daughter of Maureen and Grady; Kevin Knight, son of Lauren and Brian; and Tia Sensei, daughter of Taro, Myeko's younger brother—could be there. It would be a short party, but would satisfy the triplets' oft-stated wishes lately that they wanted a party with their friends.
As it turned out, it made for a desperately lengthy afternoon. The family party dragged on for almost three hours, till Mariki finally made a strident announcement from the porch that she was ready to serve the evening meal, and anyone who wasn't full of cake and ice cream was welcome to partake. Somewhere down the line, Christian got a phone call from Grady in regard to the children's party, and he admitted with an embarrassed laugh that it looked as though it would have to wait till around seven. In the event, it shortened the children's party, which left the kids more than ready to pack it in for the night and the adults too worn out to do more than slump in chairs and stare at one another.
"At least they're happy with their toys," remarked Amalia at last, idly watching Ingrid bustling around the kitchen and living room, clearing away the party detritus.
"I was happy with all the playclothes you brought them from Lilla Jordsö," Leslie said with a grateful smile. "I don't get away often enough to get them clothes, and these are just what we needed. Thank you so much, again."
"I'm glad they were so well received," Amalia said warmly. "To tell the truth, we had no idea what the triplets might like, and we finally decided they were better off with clothing than more toys."
"Christian's complaints trickled back to us," Carl Johan put in mischievously, and they laughed. A moment's silence fell; then the older prince got a wicked look in his eye and peered at his brother. "So, Christian, are you ready to attain a half century?"
Looking suspicious, Christian quirked an eyebrow. "Does this have to do with my actual age, or with the party you're undoubtedly anticipating?"
The brothers' wives both laughed, and Amalia teased, "Surely you didn't think you could sneak that past him."
"Actually," Leslie said, "even Christian knows there's no way on earth he can possibly escape being the celebrant at a fiftieth-birthday bash. I know my friends are cooking up something big, but they haven't actually let me in on any details, so I don't know what's going to happen in fact."
"I'd rather not see every human being on the island gathered in one spot, as they were when Leslie and I were married," Christian said, eyebrow still up, shifting his gaze to his wife. "If they happen to mention their plans, you might pass that along to them."
Carl Johan and Amalia had been looking on in amusement. "Truly," said the prince, "is every birthday on this island celebrated in that fashion?"
"Ach, no, only mine and Leslie's," Christian said, rolling his eyes, then frowning as something occurred to him. "Come to think of it, I haven't even seen a party for Mr. Roarke on his birthday. For that matter, I have no idea when his birthday is."
Leslie grinned. "Father never bothers with birthdays. I'm not even sure he remembers the date." The others laughed. "There was only one year I know of when there was any kind of celebration at all. Tattoo knew the date, and caught Father by surprise once; but it was a few months before I came here, so I never got a chance to do it myself. Worse than that, Tattoo never told me the date, so I don't know it either."
"That's patently unfair," Christian protested, raising a façade of mock annoyance. "I think he should have to put up with the same sort of silly parties you and I do."
"Mr. Roarke doesn't strike me as the kind who would be comfortable with a party that revolved around him," Carl Johan observed.
"And you think I am?" shot back Christian, evoking a burst of laughter from everyone. He favored them all with a sort of twisted grin and shifted in his chair, heaving a great sigh. "I suppose I shouldn't complain so much, little as I like the idea of this…this mega-party. If our friends want to make a fuss, they'll make a fuss. Though I sometimes wonder just whose benefit these things are really for."
"Certainly not yours, since you don't appreciate them," Carl Johan twitted him, bringing on more laughter. "Is it too early to ask about retiring for the night? Try not to get old if you can help it, ungstebror. It really gets on one's nerves."
"I'll see if my father-in-law has any spare youth potions lying around," Christian said deadpan. "Meantime, Leslie can show you down to the guest suite…I think I'd better make sure the triplets aren't trying to destroy their room in the last night or two before Tobias moves out."
"Oh, he's getting his own room?" Amalia exclaimed. "You'll have to show us."
"Tomorrow," Leslie promised. "They said to let the paint dry and the carpet glue set at least through tonight, so we've kept the window open and the door shut in there, and we're always double-checking the kids, especially Tobias, so they don't sneak in." Amalia laughed as she and Carl Johan got to their feet and followed her down to the guest suite, where Ingrid had left their bags earlier.
Back upstairs, where Christian had ascertained that the triplets were asleep after their long day, she yawned and indulged in a luxuriant stretch. "So let's see, what's the schedule for the rest of the month?" she murmured idly.
"Well, for one thing, we have Prince Paolono's wedding to his Lindalia at the end of the month," Christian mused, plucking a bookmark off his night table and sticking it in the volume he'd been reading in bed. "Which means that immediately after my birthday, we'll have to take that horrifically long trip to Arcolos. Anyway, it would be good to see Errico again. It could be the last time." His features grew pensive; by now it was common knowledge that Errico suffered from the same sort of inoperable brain tumor that had widowed Roarke almost thirty years before, and there was no telling how much longer he had.
"That's right, I'd almost forgotten." Leslie frowned, thinking of the Arcolosian royal family, hoping there would be enough time. Then she cleared her throat, trying to alter the darkening mood. "And if I recall correctly, we've been invited to Adam and Julianne's wedding this month too. I guess we're going to be busy."
"I suspect the banter in my office will change once that's happened. Jonathan's been teasing Julianne for the last six or eight months about her anxiety over the wedding. What he seems to forget is that he'll be the last member of his generation of their family to be unmarried, and I have no doubt he'll be in for a great deal of teasing."
"He's still got his eye on Dania, but to the best of my knowledge she isn't quite ready to take that next step. But they seem to suit each other much more than he and Ingrid did; their worlds were just too different, and there was that language barrier." Ingrid had a working knowledge of English, but she would probably never gain fluency; in fact, Leslie, who had more opportunity to practice just from hearing her husband and children speaking to one another, could get along somewhat better in jordiska than Ingrid could in English. "Oh, and speaking of weddings…Myeko tells me her sister is engaged to that guy from Japan that she met at the Valentine party last year. She said something about how it was about time Sayuri got married, seeing as she's thirty-five."
Christian laughed. "That's not so old to get married, even for the first time. Well, so we are now the parents of four-year-olds. Do you feel any different?"
She grinned, changing clothes. "About as different as you'll probably feel the day you turn fifty. I'm still looking forward to sending them off to kindergarten and watching them learn new things about the world beyond their own front yard."
"Oh, tell the truth," he scoffed playfully. "You'll just be happy that they'll be someone else's responsibility for part of the day." They laughed and Leslie retreated into the bathroom to brush her teeth. Christian picked up his book again, managed to get through the rest of a chapter, then set it aside for the night when she emerged. "I just had a thought. Do you think Carl Johan and Amalia will be interested in helping us move furniture, or is it more likely they'll think of that as servants' work?"
"Seriously? I think they'll be watching. I can't see them dragging furniture around, they being royalty and all."
"I'm royalty too," he pointed out.
"But you've always tried so hard not to act like royalty, at least consciously. I mean, since you were raised that way, there's a little royal core in you that comes out when you're not even aware of it. But you've spent most of your life burying that core alive, so you don't strike me as someone who thinks he's above menial tasks like lifting bureaus and taking beds apart." She caught his signature hiked brow. "Something wrong with that analysis?"
He grinned. "No, actually, I rather like it. I think it makes me sound more like a real live human being." They snickered and settled down for the night. "We may as well try to get some decent sleep; we'll need it for what lies ahead."
§ § § - June 25, 2008
Just over three weeks later, Christian found himself wide awake, early in the morning of his fiftieth birthday, and stared at the clock, wondering for some absurd reason what time of day he had been born. He supposed he'd have to ask his brother or sister about that; he remembered from one of his mother's diaries that his older siblings and his grandfather had come to see him shortly after his birth, but Queen Susanna had made no mention of the time of day. Then he rolled his eyes at himself. Vanity, prince, he scolded himself, vanity! It does no good to hold onto what you can't grasp and have no control over. Something tells me Mother would have advised me to embrace my future, not yearn for my youth. Anyway, no matter what anyone might say, he certainly didn't feel fifty. It was hard to feel fifty (if one even could "feel fifty") when he was the father of three lively four-year-olds. He rolled his head leisurely to one side and gazed at the sleeping face of his children's mother. What would their life be like in another seven years when it was Leslie's turn to face her fiftieth birthday? He smiled a little, letting himself imagine it for a few moments.
Then he felt a tickle in his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head aside, all to no avail. His explosive sneeze made Leslie stir in her sleep and then lift her head. "Well," she said dryly. "Happy birthday."
Christian let out a snort of helpless amusement and grinned apologetically at her. "I didn't mean to wake you. I'm afraid I just couldn't help it."
She giggled and cuddled up beside him. "I guess I don't have to ask why you're awake at this ridiculous hour." Slowly she ran her hand along his chest. "What should we do?"
He gave her a wry look, eyed her hand smoothing his skin, and inquired, "Is that a suggestion? To see if a fifty-year-old is still capable of making love to his wife?"
Her eyes danced. "Well, now that you mention it…" He grunted, she snickered, and then they rolled toward each other, unable to resist the idea after all.
By the time the rest of the household had begun to stir, they had made love no fewer than three times, as if something about the early hour had prompted them to take advantage, and were drowsily considering the day ahead of them. "I hope this damned party doesn't start till at least after lunch," Christian muttered. "I'd like time to contemplate attaining half a century, as Carl Johan put it."
"Hmmmm…the fine art of contemplation," Leslie mused, yawning. "It's nice if you have a chance to do it. Unfortunately, I hear noises that suggest you won't."
Sure enough, within the next thirty seconds, the triplets had all galloped into the room, clambering onto the bed and shouting, "Happy birthday, Daddy!" Christian had to laugh at their enthusiasm, and finally suggested they go find Ingrid and see what she was making for breakfast so that he and Leslie could get ready for the day. After the children had eagerly thundered downstairs, he leaned over and kissed her. "Perhaps we'd better share a shower. I don't think we'll have much chance to get cleaned up with them up and about."
"Probably not. Okay, I'll be right in," she agreed, chuckling.