I seem to be in the mood for this ship right now. I hope you enjoy this. It's rather angsty, but romantic too. None of this, aside from the plot, belongs to me. It's all the property of Disney and Meg Cabot.
There are numerous roles he has to fill. He has been a soldier, a fighter, a tactician, a councillor, a diplomat. He has also been in charge of all that is seen of them. He looks at her and hears her say it; "The cameras, Joseph."
One word and the blinking light is extinguished.
The first time she asked him to break protocol; it was so no one was able to bear witness to her arguments with her husband. It was merely a few months after he had arrived at the palace, and much to her chagrin, he had been granted his first directive as Head of Security. His request had been a very pricey overhaul of the security measures, including CCTV. In his first directive, he realised years later, he had inadvertently made her life even less private than it already was. No wonder she hated him at first.
From then on in, he had always switched the cameras off when he had heard their voices raised in anger. One night he had listened to them, this couple into whose life he had intruded, and had to ball his fists against his side. The king was rude and she was cold. They loved in the way partners loved, politely and perfunctory. On the odd occasion, he switched off the camera himself because it was too much to bear for another reason. It was cold and lifeless. And it was wrong to watch them like that. He always wanted to watch her. It made him feel suddenly very vulnerable.
Another time he had done it to preserve Phillipe's dignity. He brought a girl back to the throne room, of all places. He had roundly scolded him the following day and told him he should clean up his act. That his mother, if she were to find out, would be ashamed. The young and sheepish prince had muttered an apology to the Head of Security and begged him not to tell. He went directly to the observation room and wiped the tape.
He had switched the one in her private sitting room off, entirely, a few years before. When he had suddenly realised that it was more than just lust. The connection was still there, and at a flick of the switch he could have watched every intimate move. Even for him this seemed wrong. Sometimes at night though, when sleep proved elusive, he would come into the observation room after she was abed. There was nothing to watch on the blinking black and white monitor but somewhere, hidden behind the doors, in the one true place that was private in the entire court, she was asleep. Beyond the black plastic border of the screen she was wrapped in sheets, already breathing deep in sleep. Once, a while ago, Shades had asked him why this monitor was not operational. Not needed, was his gruff response. Not by anybody else, aside from me, he thought to himself.
At her request he had switched the camera in Rupert's bedroom off on the morning of the king's death. There is, she had said quietly, no dignity in this Joseph. He spoke into his mic, and watched as the little light died out, just as the king did. It was against protocol, he knew, but he had to do as she asked. He stood in the shadows as his king, her husband, drew her last breath. She went directly to her room and changed into black.
There was one time that he hated the cameras more than anything in his role or detail. He regretted them more than anything. When the news of the prince's fatal car crash reached the palace, he had gone directly to the room and looked for her on the cameras. It would be him that told her. Before he could reach her, he watched Sebastian tell her as she walked in the gardens. She crumpled below the edge of the monitor, falling onto the gravel below her feet. All he could see was the fumbling prime minister.
That evening – once she was abed and sedated - he spent the night going through each of the archives, going back years from each file, to each CD, until it was VHS. He took every frame he could of the prince and it was noon the next day before he had everything he needed. By that point she was awake, and to his surprise, she had asked for him.
Later that night, after sitting with her until she fell into a fitful sleep, he watched the frames in his room. The prince grew from boy to man through the years. The last frame was him opening the private garage that morning, smiling as he appraised the sports car in front of him. He tore out of the garage and into oblivion. A few months later, it finally occurred to her that there would be a video of that, at least. He cried for the boy she had lost, and for the Crown Prince, and for the anger he felt.
He had known she would ask. After all, the cameras were such a part of her life that she was aware of them acutely, so he had known it would not take her long to ask. He had nodded with a sad smile and presented her with the box of CDs. Cameras shut off from the world, they watched it in her office that evening. He switched the camera off because he should have been the only one in the world to witness those tears. He didn't even use his mic to tell Shades to shut it down; he just pulled out the wire.
She knew exactly where the cameras were in the Consulate too and she politely asked him to delete any evidence of Princess Mia's State Dinner debacle. They laughed wryly about it as she watched him scrub the footage. You look tired, your Majesty, he had said. I am, she had responded, so very tired. He had brushed his hand across hers then and said, You looked splendid in your dress last night. She had said nothing, merely smiled.
A few nights before he had gone in there alone, after the Security team had changed shift, to delete other footage but prior to deleting it, he watched it once more. He wanted to reassure himself. He wanted to make sure he had not imagined the intensity in her eyes. The recording was grainy but even to an outsider, it was evident. The camera had faced them directly as they danced. One track after Mia left, then another, and one more after that. He replayed it once more and then deleted it. Something like that was dangerous for her and for him even more so. To have proof of it merely made him more desperate. Even in black and white, the colour was evident.
"Joseph?"
Her voice cuts through his memories. He realises that that was when he had known. When he realised, as he watched that footage, that there was no escaping how he felt. There were never enough cameras he could shut off.
"Joseph, the cameras?"
"They are switched off," he responds, his voice low and thick.
Suddenly she is pressed against him, her mouth on his. Standing in her office, where only the most intimate of associates are allowed, they drag it out. He is leaving this afternoon to fetch the princess and she knows, as well he does, that it's the last stolen moment they will have in a while. He feels it in her response to him. Her grip is just a little tighter, her mouth more demanding.
It can't be public, so he always switches the camera off before he comes near her because, inevitably, it always leads to this. He laughs softly against her mouth.
She pulls back a little, though does not let go of him.
"What is funny Joseph?"
She can be belligerent at times, and for feat that he has offended her in some way, he quickly explains. He has to be gentle with her because this is fragile. She is frightened as it is, of being found out, without him making any wrong moves.
"The first request you ever made of me was to switch off the cameras."
She thinks for a moment, then says dryly, "For other reasons, I wager."
She is always so serious. Then again, she has to be.
"Yes," he responds lightly, "I don't care to remind you of them, my dear."
"I don't care to be reminded of them," she answers with a smile and begins kissing him again. She is getting carried away, he can tell. She is relaxing against him. Under his hands her spine softens, her shoulders relax. Suddenly there is a knock at the door. They spring apart, as if burned. Charlotte comes in.
They know she knows, but they keep up pretences. Shades does too, and Joe knows he erases any footage that he misses and suddenly remembers. Even those moments where his hand brushes hers, Shades makes sure it disappears. It wouldn't do for her to be caught like that.
"Your Majesty, we have to go. You have Parliament."
Charlotte feels awkward, he can tell. But she's doing her job, keeping up an act. Just like he is.
Clarisse shares a look with him; it is one he has seen a million times before. The one that tells him she can never lead a private life. Each time she looks at him with that withered, defeated look, it is like a fresh blow.
"Have a safe flight Joseph," she says brusquely, "Do make sure Mia does not do anything utterly silly."
He nods.
He goes to the observation room and watches her in Parliament. There is such sadness in her face that it seeps from her, makes its way through the vast palace and finds its resting place in a ball of dread in his chest. At one point, just before he is due to leave to board the plane she stares at her watch. He reaches out to flick the button, but he is momentarily stunned as she looks directly at the camera and smiles a smile that he knows is reserved only for him. Then she looks back down at her hands, as if nothing has happened.