You know what would be great? " Liam calls from the doorway. "If the next time the Bodyguard has some kind of mental break and decides to crush the Princess, maybe he could, you know, give the Prince a heads up first."

Jasper sighs. Eleanor has not left her room, and Jasper doesn't have the balls to knock on her door and face her in the daylight anyway. They need to talk, and it's going to be difficult. Jasper has been hiding down in the control room, if anyone asks, he's taking a year end inventory of emergency gear. He didn't see Liam coming on the monitors, which means that James probably ratted him out. Liam has a sixer of beer in each hand, implying that this is not a chance encounter, and that he probably won't be able to get out of it quickly.

"How was your Christmas?" Jasper tries for deflection.

"It started out shitty, and then it got worse." Liam hands him one of the carrier bags, pulls two beers out of the other, opens them both with the ring in his pocket, and hands one to Jasper. "Thanks for asking."

Jasper takes a long pull of beer. "It's cold," he says, a little surprised. "You do know that, that," he indicates towards the bottle opener, "is meant for keys? You don't carry keys."

"I don't drink cold beer either," Liam shrugs, "but you've had a shit day. What did you do to Lenny?" He beckons down the hall with his beer bottle, his air is insistent, but his tone isn't angry. "Come on, let's not do this in a room with guns in it."

Jasper scoffs and removes his own 9mm from his shoulder holster. Reflexively, he checks the safety and then locks it in the gun safe under his desk. If they are drinking, then he's not carrying. An idiot he may be, but even he has boundaries. "Most of these rooms have guns in them," he says. He picks up his designated carrier bag and follows Liam through the tunnels.

They end up on a sand beach along the river. It's quiet, and it's cold outside. The water will muffle their voices, and they are unlikely to be interrupted. They sit down on a rock and Liam pulls out a torch and sticks it into his now empty bottle so they can see. "My Dad was a patron of the Boy Scouts," Liam explains. "So," he continues, "my Christmas blew, but not as much as yours apparently. What. The. Hell?"

"It's complicated."

"Clearly," Liam leans back against the rock. "Would you say that it falls under 'I slept with your Mum complicated', or is it more, 'I'm planning to steal a national treasure complicated'? Because I feel like, bizarre as it sounds, most of us have moved past these things."

Jasper is startled, for the second time today, which he finds pretty irritating. He's a lot of things, but he's not, typically, totally transparent, but Liam definitely knows he's hiding something. Instinct, and 25 years of experience, are telling him to make something up, to just lie, and keep lying, and ultimately to run. This, this life, this family, this girl, this friend…. They are not really his, and they won't be. Ever.

"Let me catch you up with where I am right now," Liam fills in Jasper's silence. "This morning, my sister woke me up at some stupid hour, looking like shit, and saying that you've broken things off with her. You're feeling suffocated, or some such crap." Liam pauses to open another round of beers. "This obviously represents a pretty significant change in tune, given that you've waited her out for months and she was the love of your life at lunchtime yesterday, but okay. My interest is piqued, but Lenny clearly hasn't slept and she is weak on supporting detail. So… then I go to talk to James Hill. He doesn't have much to offer, but when we go through the whole 'it's not really my place to say-technically, you work for me, so it is your place if I say it is' routine, - that routine is getting old, by the way - he says I should ask you about some Las Vegas journalist at the Langham. "

Jasper sees an opportunity. "I was feeling suffocated, and I knew Eleanor would be tied up all day yesterday, so I met a girl at the Langham. Her name's Harper, she's cute." He up-ends his beer bottle. "And afterwards, I thought I should probably be fair to Eleanor, because she seems to have different expectations. So, I told her." There, he thinks. It's done. He'll hit me, and we can be done.

Jasper used to be a solid poker player, but whatever poker face he may have once had, he must have lost, because Liam brushes this explanation off completely, "If that's your story." He's even going to let the 'different expectations" remark go. Instead, he hands Jasper his third beer of the night. "I have an alternative story. I think this Harper person called you because she has dirt on you, or Lenny, or someone…. And you panicked. You broke things off with Lenny to keep her out of the mess. And now you're praying that you can fix it on your own and then somehow convince her that this was all for the best and she should take you back…. Because, you're an idiot."

Shit! Jasper thinks. What he says is, "I'm not an idiot."

"You're a massive idiot," Liam tells him.

For the first time all evening, Jasper meets Liam's eye. "Are we really gonna do this? Because I don't have a real brother, but if I did, dead or alive, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't go after his ex… So who's the idiot?"

"Yeah…. Well, that's done now. You might not be the only idiot, but you're the only one with a problem we can fix."

"She's going to go back to Robert." This isn't really a question.

"That seems to be her plan, yeah."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

They finish the drinks in their hands, open two more and let the silence grow for a while. Jasper is not surprised when Liam is the first to break it. "Whatever she thinks she has – this Harper girl – we can shut her down."

"You can't," Jasper says flatly.

"Try me," Liam counters.

"She knows everything, about my past, about the damn diamond, about Len and me… all of it."

Liam smirks at him, "as do we. It's not like she can substantiate it. What difference does it make?"

"It's different," Jasper says, "because she has a source that will back most of it up."

"Oh really! A source! Who's she got?" Liam is shaking his head, and counting people on his fingers for emphasis. "Not me, not Lenny, definitely not James… I guess she could try to pay Sara Alice in smarties? She's a bright kid, how much do you think she's worked out?" Liam is not putting things together, possibly it's the beer, and Jasper realizes he's going to have to spell it out.

"No. She has my father…." Maybe the beer is getting to Jasper too, because he shouldn't be saying any of this. It is the exact opposite of his' lie, keep lying, and run' plan. But he's tired, and he's gotten a lot softer over the past 10 months, and the possibility of light is too tempting. James made it seem so fixable this morning….

"Your father, in Nevada, is talking to a reporter about your life here?" Liam is incredulous.

"Yeah. He knows about the diamond plot. He helped finance it, so he's out a lot of money, which means he's mad. Samantha can probably fill in enough holes in the Len piece to make a good story." Jasper tosses the empty bottle he's holding towards the water, misses by a half a yard, and makes a "give-it" gesture towards Liam for the bottle opener. "Harper offered him a price, and he took it."

"That's not…" Liam tries, handing over the bottle ring.

"Out of character? … no… it's not… I just forgot for a little while, that's all. I got used to being here. Which was not smart." The bottle fizzes when the cap comes off.

"That's not what I was going to say. We can…"

"You don't understand. If I …. if there's no relationship, then there is no story… otherwise, in like 48 hours, this girl is going to rip your family wide open. And it's going to be my fault. Once it starts, they're not going to back off, they'll come after James, your Mom, everyone…"

Liam stands up and begins pacing. "Jasper, did you really think that if you told us – Len and me – what was going on that we'd just toss you to the wolves?" He's indignant. "Which one of us was going to be first to say, 'It's been fun mate. Thanks for avenging our father and you know, keeping Lenny alive, practically, and stopping a jewel theft and all the rest, but this press is going to be a bit dicey, so off you go'?" He's standing with his arms crossed, a glare on his face. "God! Seriously?! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Jasper blinks up at him, because, yes, actually, that is what he thought. "It's too much. You don't know my family… I can't ask you" Jasper trails off. This, of course, is the crux of the problem. He doesn't ask for help, ever, because for most of his life there hasn't been any help available, and because he'd much rather never ask than be let down.

"Right, well, you're not asking. I'm just doing. I have a plan." Liam is emphatic. His face is lit by the torch in the bottle, and Jasper can see that he's not going to back down from this. "If Willow can make #kingliam into something out of nothing, she can certainly handle some girl called Harper and your Dad in Nevada." Liam pronounces Nevada the way Eleanor used to, in the same tone he'd use to say 'pond slime'.

Jasper just looks at him, "I think you're underestimating how bad my family will be."

Liam sits back down, and shoves Jasper's shoulder back towards the rock wall, just a little bit harder than he needs to. "Well, you're underestimating this family full stop, so I guess we're even." He's quiet for a minute. "We'll talk to Willow in the morning, yeah? She'll sort it. We'll give her a bit of time to come up with a plan and then we'll tell Mum and Robert. They'll get on board. Lenny too."

Jasper can see some holes in this strategy. For one, the odds of Robert signing on, are minuscule, but it is very, very tempting. And he's tired, of lying. Tired of running, and tired of re-inventing. He's had a few months of normal, of peaceful and happy. He's had a few months of love and it's just so much better.

He doesn't trust himself to say much. Tomorrow, he'll blame the beer. He shoves Liam back. "Yeah, okay." He mumbles.

It's gotten colder. They gather up the empty bottles, and make their way back to the tunnel entrance. Liam sends Willow a text about meeting up in the morning. Jasper wonders what is says about what's going on with the pair of them, that she texts back a confirmation immediately, late at night, on a holiday. He keeps his question to himself.

Liam takes a deep breath, "The reporter stuff we can fix, but there is something else I need to say." They've reached the tunnels, and the air is damp, but warmer that it had been outside. They are leaning against the stone wall, grateful to be out of the chill. "Eleanor doesn't care about your history, she won't hold it against you, and neither will I. But if you let your past screw up your future with her, then that's going to be on you. You can't keep shutting her out."

Jasper nods slowly. He knows that Liam is right. He can't do anything but agree. "Okay," he says.