Leave of Absence – Keith Alford – Another Story – Keith's POV

Author: The Rose Society

Rating: T

Disclaimer: All characters are owned by Voltage and respective entities.

I based this on an AR fanfic for the otome game Be My Princess by voltagebot on tumblr, called Leave of Absence - Keith Alford (add: voltagebot dot tumblr dot com/ post/77671661505/leave-of-absence-keith-alford-part-1) . Used with voltagebot's permission. Most of the dialogue is taken from her Another Story chapter (add: voltagebot dot tumblr dot com/ post/87520865004/leave-of-absence-keith-alford-another-story), but I did flesh out certain bits for the purposes of this fic. I would seriously recommend you read the series to understand what is going on. However, to provide some context, I will give a little summary.

Summary: MC and Keith have been married for eight years, but though they started as a fairytale love story, time and stressors have taken their toll. The royal couple do little but fight nowadays. In an effort to gain some perspective, the queen (MC) takes their seven year old son for a break at a beach house, but eventually they do return to Liberty Manse. Upon her return and realizing that their rocky marriage is distracting Keith from his duties as a king, the MC decides to lie and deny that she loves Keith. This culminates in a huge fight between king and queen and the MC leaves Liberty Manse, only to be involved in a car crash because she wasn't paying attention to the fact that her driver was drunk as a skunk. This is my take of these penultimate events from Keith's point of view.

The rage he felt had not cooled, but simmered just under the surface of his skin, as he stared unseeingly out his window, another drink in hand. The destroyed remnants of his done little to soothe the anger, and the anger did little to soothe the enormity of the pain he felt.

How had it come to this? He never thought a ordinary limo ride to another boring function would just so happen to splash mud upon a random commoner...that that commoner would end up being at that very function not dressed at all like a commoner...that a dance asked out of politeness would lead to a love so great, he would overlook her low-born status and make her his Queen. Shutting his eyes to lean against the coolness of the window pane, he thought of her as she was back then - young, vibrant, fiery, stubborn, compassionate, loving...

He growled and threw the glass in his hand at the wall, the third to meet an unpleasant fate. Love. He sneered, fist hitting the window frame as he glared at the gardens. Such a flimsy and unnecessary emotion. Sure, in the beginning, she might have demonstrated some shallow version of it towards Catherine and some of the staff, maybe even Luke, but when it came to him, she was all bristles and venom. When they had been stranded on that island, she certainly had broadcasted her preference for Luke's company, a sign he should have heeded that a commoner would always be a commoner and could never understand royalty and nobility. She had had him fooled when she did finally act as if she loved him, cared for him...but her love was quick to cool, wasn't it? These days she barely even looked at him. She had all the love in the world for their son, he would give her that, and still held great affection for Luke and others, but her own husband? He scoffed. Every time her eyes fell upon his, he could see nothing but a cool deadness. All her fire, her vibrancy, was gone.

The damn ringing of his cell phone interrupted his trek for another unbroken glass of whiskey and he pulled it out of his pocket even as his rage flared into life at hearing the ringtone of his soon-to-be ex-wife. No doubt the icy bitch was going to demand her things and money, which would only be the beginning of her greed and demands in the upcoming divorce proceedings. Mentally, he noted to have Luke prepare the royal lawyers to ready for the divorce and custody proceedings, and to handle the press. He would be damned if she would get shared custody and half his personal fortune; visitation and a simple settlement was all she deserved, she would not be getting a payday out of this. Somewhere, his conscience smote him with the thought that she had never demonstrated any sort of avarice, quite the opposite. The frustation he felt over the battle between his anger and conscience was visible as he smashed his thumb across the screen of his phone with more force than necessary.

He growled out, "-why are you calling? I don't care about your things, get new ones or I'll ship them or something, I don't care. I'll be cutting you off from the royal accounts tonight, so figure it out for yourself." Dimly, he registered that there seemed to be a lot of background commotion wherever she was. He could make out the sound of a hand bumping the mic of the phone and a gasp, so he knew she was on the line but still hadn't said anything. Whatever, her gasp of indignation did not deter him but instead further incensed him so he continued his red, rage-tinged diatribe with greater volume. "Don't call me on my private cell again; from now on, you will communicate with me only through my attorneys or Luke. And I don't care if you come back here begging! What you have done-"

The lack of interruption to his opening salvo began to breakthrough his haze of pain and fury, and her softly whispered "Keith" confused him enough to shut him up. Finally, he really began to truly listen to his phone. He could make out the rapid, shallow, and...oddly wet sounds of her breathing. Strange, she wasn't ill earlier, why did she sound that way? It wasn't the strident tones and quickened breathing of the infuriated commoner that practically spat fire when they argued, the clipped tones and controlled breaths of the proud woman who tried to stop her tears when she was heart-broken, or even the voice diminished by anguish accompanied by weighted exhalations of the wife he had last seen speaking with such finality as she tore open his chest and crushed his heart. No, the closest time he could remember hearing his wife like this was after her 25 hour labor with Grant.

Slowly, the background noises that had slipped his notice due to the blood rushing in his ears earlier filtered back through his mind. There had been the sound of distant screaming and yelling when he first picked up the phone, with various muffled voices he now realized were saying things like '...call emergency services...', '...terrible accident...', '...thrown from the car...no one can survive...', and 'Fucking paparrazzi, stop taking pictures!'. No simpleton, he processed two key words he had neglected earlier: '...the queen!'. Horrific, dawning understanding caused his anger to bleed out of him in a sudden rush as a chilled, gnawing emptiness began to develop in his gut.

"What's wrong..." With the feeling of dread came panic, its claws around his throat choking off his words. He tried to swallow before beginning again. "Where are you? I'm coming for you stay there!" His numb fingers threw the door open as he strode into the hallway. Barely registering the surprised countenance of Luke who had been holding vigil, waiting for the king, he ran towards the garage. Without a pause, he motioned for Luke to hand him his phone, years of always having Luke by his side leading Keith to be able to communicate non-verbally with his trusted butler. He punched in the number for emergency services before shoving the phone back at Luke. The man widened his eyes but promptly snapped into action.

Keith spared no thought to any of this, focusing instead on the labored breathing on the phone as he slammed open the door to the garage. Hastily motioning for a driver to start a car, he quickly sat in the vehicle, Luke not far behind him. Luke gave the driver the command to head the same direction the queen had last been seen going in the hired car. All the noises overrode the sounds coming from his phone so he quickly turned the volume to its highest. Even then, it was getting harder to hear her.

He was glad that the automatic connection between his phone and the car via Blutooth had kicked in, giving her faint voice an extra boost in volume; he might have missed it otherwise. "I'm sorry... I lied..." Her usually clear speech was muffled now by that growing liquid sound he could hear in her breathing.

Balling his fist, Keith smashed the back of the driver's head rest, then moved his arm in aggravated jerks to tell the moron to go faster. He had to hurry. He was the prince of this fairytale, afterall. He had found his commoner princess. They had married, become husband and wife, king and queen, and father and mother to their son (oh God, Grant!). He might scoff at fairytales, but for her, his beloved, passionate, infuriating commoner/princess/wife/queen/mother of their son/soul's mate, he would ride his white horse and charge to her rescue. They were owed a happily ever after, right? "What are you talking about?"

Someone was trying to tell his wife that the ambulance was on the way, but Keith heard only her soft words and slowing breaths. "I... still love you... . I love you... and Grant, everyone... I'm so sorr-" Her words were prematurely terminated as she was overcome by coughs, punctuated with soft moans of pain. Those disturbingly wet coughs filled the sudden silence of the vehicle. Keith's heart stopped beating at end of each cough and wouldn't beat again until her next one.

Sorry. How he hated that word. Had he not said before, if sorry were enough, there would be no need for the police? He never said the word, but she did. Early on, she said the word every time after they had cooled down from their argument. He never accepted it; she would need to show him through action rather than word if she was truly sorry. Over time, she stopped saying it altogether. So why now is she saying that word? He would much rather she save her breath on more important things...like staying alive.

"I'm sorry... Goodbye..."

At this, any semblance of control fled the king of Liberty Kingdom. "No! You can't do this to me! You can't leave me again! Luke! Send some-" a soft clatter could be heard, "-one, anyone, EVERYONE." Wrapping his fingers and then fisting the fabric of Luke's suit jacket, he shook the man.

Panicked green eyes bored into Luke's own. Luke had worked all his life to become a butler to the Alford royal family. Through diligent application of effort, he aimed to fulfill every request of the royals, and to date, he had never failed. But this, this desperate entreaty in his King's eyes...he could not fulfill this. So for the first time, Luke averted his gaze from his king's without permission. He began to speak even more rapidly into the phone, even though he knew the police, emergency medical services, and a medical evac helicopter were already en route. He would not fail his king's verbal command, but as for the screamed plea- tell me she will be alright!- in Keith's eyes... For the first time, Luke failed his king.

Slowly, the sounds of heavy, short, wet breaths became slower... the silence between them grew longer... and longer... until...

..they stopped.