Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the dialogue.
Misguided
*~*~*
She's standing on the beach, wet again like the first day. And she's hopeful and confused and angry, only this time he finds that he cares.
"I'm stunned. Why are you even defending him?"
"Because he's trying to help me."
"Really, well let's just think about that. He took the ring from his mother and gave it to you. Why? It made you a target, Alice."
He feels guilty when she yells at him because he knows he's pushing her too far, and it's selfish. But he needs to understand and he needs her to see the situation as he sees it, as it really is, because for the first time in so terribly long he feels something. For once it isn't some artificial emotional salve distilled and bottled; it is real and certain and beginning to eat him alive.
"He's engaged. To a duchess."
"So he's two-timing you."
"I don't think it's like that."
This angry, beguiling girl is throwing away something so precious on a treacherous prince. And he wants to shake her by the arms and yell and hold her until she sees what a mistake she's making. How foolish she is being. How much danger she's putting herself into, and the hell she's putting herself through when it could be so much better. It could be so much easier. If…if…
"Hey noni noni."
Charlie's nonsense is a welcome relief from the tearing in his chest and the frustration boiling between them.