Disclaimer: I know you're shocked to hear it's not mine.

Summary: Lianne knows it could be different, if only Alan would let it be. 31_days prompt #4: "one day here and the next day gone"

Sorry for the delay, but it *was* posted yesterday on Goldenlake, which is where I'm trying to keep to posting on the day of most. I had to rush out of the house and didn't have time to post it on here.

To Alan, no feeling in the world quite matched up to the joy he felt whenever he saw Lianne. This time, his return to the palace after almost a year spent at different outposts, was especially joyful.

He entered her rooms quietly, having knocked on the door before hand. His heart kicked in to double time at the sight of Lianne, splendid in a light blue dress, laughing in her sitting room. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, and all of the ladies she had been talking to obliged her by going in to the next room, although more than one gave her a glance that suggested they would be listening from there.

Only once they were gone did she turn to Alan. He held out his arms.

"Oh, darling –" She rushed to him, and he held her tightly close. "I've missed you so much," she murmured, muffled against his tunic.

"And I have missed you," he whispered, capturing her face in his hands and kissing her. She trembled, pulled away.

"You shouldn't – we shouldn't – it's simply not proper!" But when he pulled her close again, she didn't stop him from stealing a kiss.

"I missed you so much," he whispered again. "I'm so happy with you. It's—" he stopped abruptly. He had been about to say it was so different from being with Liam, that he had no worries when he was with her, and only caught himself at the last moment.

"It's what?"

"Nothing."

She stepped away from him, walked back to her chair and sat. "You didn't tell me you were leaving."

"I didn't know myself." Her scornful gaze brought him to her side. "I woke up and had the most powerful feeling that I simply needed to get away from here – I had no time to tell anyone. Even Aly didn't know I was going to visit her – I simply showed up."

"Why would you want to leave here? Did you need to get away from me?" Lianne's lip trembled, and although Alan was sure it was at least partly an act, he still felt awful.

"Not you, Lia. Just – everything."

She suddenly seemed not sad, but angry. "Your first holiday since you'd been knighted, and you cut it off by half because you needed to get away? Alan, sometimes I wonder why I keep turning down marriage offers from other men."

He pushed off his knees and sat down opposite her, leaning back in the chair. "You won't marry some knight to old to joust who hasn't the faintest idea what you're interested in, Lianne."

"Well, it certainly doesn't seem as though I will ever marry you."

The words sat between them, stopping all others.

"Lia, I'm sorry. You say you're tired of sitting around your chambers waiting for me to come back from my station – what makes you think it would be any different if you were sitting around the Swoop, or some Corus house, or different chambers in the palace? That's all that would change if we married right now."

For a moment Lianne looked very like her mother. "It would be different," she said.

"No, it wouldn't. Not yet, Lia—"

He thought he saw tears glistening in her eyes. "I had [i]no idea[/i] where you'd gone," she whispered. "The night before, we were at a party dancing and everything was fine. The last I saw you, you were talking to Liam, but you turned and kissed my hand and said you'd come to my rooms the next day after you'd done morning practice, and we'd take a walk." She paused, regaining her composition. "And I wake up and you're gone – nobody knows where you've gone, not your parents, not my parents, not anyone. And the only letter I get from you is after you're back." She pressed a hand to her mouth. "If we were married, you couldn't be like that – here one day, gone the next. If we were married, it would be different."

"Lia—"

Her ladies would comfort her. Alan was sure they'd overheard everything.