Hey, it's a new fic! Princesses always get what they want, especially if their name is Jamie Fleming
Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.
Also-for those of you who would prefer to read a kid being sweet, don't read the epilogue. For those of you who want shipping, read the epilogue.
- o – o -
(She's Gonna) Marry That Boy Some Day
Twelve-year-old Jamie Fleming hated that her father worked so much. He hadn't had time for her since she was eight, not even on her birthday or Father's Day. She supposed it wasn't his fault—his company was doing a lot more business than it used to, and he was working with a lot of people who made him sad and he shouted a lot at someone. (Jamie was pretty sure that, if her daddy stopped talking to Mr. C, he'd be a lot happier, like he used to be.)
He never had time to watch her dance anymore either. She'd just finished her ballet recital—doing a dance just like mommy did before she got sick and had to leave—and had looked for her daddy sitting in his usual seat, surrounded by his scowling friends who were all huge and scary and wore dark glasses and funny earrings. Peter Fleming had been absent. The only familiar faces were her scary shadows in really dark suits. Well, one of them, anyways. The others were…kinda not there.
As a precocious twelve-year-old, Jamie knew something was up. The last time one of her shadowmen had left her alone, he'd gone… Well, she preferred missing. (Jamie had seen him falling down from the balcony, but daddy told her he'd quit. Jamie was smart enough not to question that explanation.)
Jamie shouldered her ballet bag and slumped towards him. Her etiquette tutor and ballet teacher would be horrified and would go into fits over her bad posture, but she didn't care. More of her shadowmen were going to quit, and she liked these ones—they bought her ice cream if her father weren't around to do it.
And then she got over there, and discovered that the man wasn't wearing a red shirt, and his throat… Was really, really wrong. Jamie was still screaming when another man pulled a dark bag over her head and dragged her away from the ballet school's back door.
- o – o -
If anyone conducted a survey around the precincts of the Palm City Police Department to find out who hated ARK Corporation the most, everyone would have unanimously pointed their fingers towards Special Investigations (which was a catchall department for the crimes that the other departments had no desire to deal with—or, for that matter, the experience needed to deal with some crimes that ended up there). Everyone in Special Investigations would have tossed Vince Faraday to the wolves conducting the survey, because it was true. Given the nature of his previous service in the military, and his family history of there being a cop in every generation, it was…kind of understandable, really.
So, when the call came to Special Investigations that Peter Fleming's daughter had been abducted from a recital, and all sixteen of her bodyguards—including the driver and her personal assistant—had been brutally murdered, they expected Vince to be the first one to snort and say "not it", in his usual gravelly rasp. (Faraday swore it was a bi-product of his time spent in Iraq; Marty swore it was Vince being an idiot, as usual.) The majority of the detectives and patrolmen assigned to SI had a collective heart attack the size of Chandler Stadium when Faraday was the first to volunteer to join the search.
"What?" Faraday said, looking around the room. "There's a little kid in danger. What did you think I was going to do?"
His logic was undeniable. Everyone had agreed to duct tape his mouth shut if he didn't shut up about his "brilliant, perfect, adorable, and so smart" little boy, "who's so cute Dana is sure he's going to break hearts like no one's business". In short, he had a thing about kids. It was kind of annoying, but at least they knew he was a decent person…
It took remarkably little time to get a team together to find Jamie Fleming. The first forty-eight hours were the most critical when it came to finding kidnap victims or murder suspects, after all. Thankfully, Fleming was keeping his people out of the way for this case. They didn't need the distractions.
- o – o -
Jamie Fleming was scared. Even pretending that the scary man who'd kidnapped her was a fire-breathing dragon didn't help. Her daddy's voice wasn't telling her a bedtime story about princes or knights rescuing princesses from scary monsters this time. This time, she was in the story…and she wasn't getting rescued. She was scared, and her jeans—the two-hundred dollar designer jeans he'd gotten her, in place of the blue Levis she wanted, just like what Anne Carson had at ballet school—were soaked and getting smelly. She was really, really scared and she wanted her daddy, and her pajamas with the blue puffy clouds on them, and her teddy bear, and… She just really wanted to go home.
The man who'd kidnapped her was back, pacing around the room and waving his gun all over the place. Jamie wasn't stupid; she knew what he was going to do. It was…really, really scary though. She didn't want to die—she still hadn't gotten daddy to tell her when his birthday was so she could do Swan Lake for him! Darn it!
What she really wasn't prepared for was a really tall guy with curly blond hair bursting in through the door and shooting the bad guy a bunch of times. (Twelve, if she was supposed to keep track of them.) The bad guy—her fire-breathing dragon—was dead, and her knight was untying the ropes around her ankles and wrists and picking her up.
"Princesses get to marry their rescuers," Jamie said suddenly, startling Vince. He'd been contemplating kicking the crap out of the guy he'd just shot twelve times in non-lethal areas. Vince had…personal issues with kidnappers, and it had nothing to do with being a brand new daddy.
"Really?" Vince replied, distracted. Jamie slipped her hand into his, smiling up at him.
"My daddy said so," Jamie said with another smile. She clung to the officer's hand as he lead her out of the building she'd been taken too. The preteen was surprised to see that she'd been in the basement of a really nice suburban house, like the one in the Brady Bunch—although she kind of hated that show, because real families didn't act like that. "And since you rescued me, I get to marry you."
Vince looked down at her, eyebrows raised. "Well, as long as you've got a goal, sweetie," he said. "But I'm married, okay?" He held up his hand to show off his wedding ring, still shiny despite four years of wear and tear.
"Princesses get what they want," Jamie said with all the confidence of a twelve-year-old who always got her way. A paramedic wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, interrupting what was probably a well-rehearsed speech.
"You just keep telling yourself that," Vince muttered as he pulled away to give his report of the situation to his superior.
Jamie smiled as she watched him go. He was really cute, for a scruffy peasant. But scruffy was good, wasn't it? Hm… Jamie decided that she'd have to ask her daddy or Mr. Chess. One of them would have a good answer.
She sat back on the gurney, waving goodbye to Officer Faraday.
He really was kind of cute; and princesses always married their rescuers at the end of fairy tales.
Epilogue
Jamie Fleming had, as a child, believed princesses got everything they wanted. Their fathers would do anything to make them happy, they lived in castles and got pretty dresses, and they got to marry their princes or knights in shining armor. And, for once…everything had gone according to plan.
Alright, not entirely. Vince had suffered through a divorce, only made worse by the fact that his ex-wife had begun seeing another man. She hadn't been able to find out who it was (and Vince wasn't telling her), so all she could do was stand by and pick up the pieces when he stopped mourning. And… Okay, she still remembered their first meeting from thirteen years ago. Fourteen, if they were counting the year Vince was supposed to have been dead.
And, as she walked down the aisle, accompanied by Max, Jamie had to smile.
Because she'd married her knight in shining armor. Even if he was a bit goofy.
- o – o -
So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Think it's silly or sweet? Drop a line and let me know!
Also, this is probably going to be my only Vinwell story ever.