Chapter 6

After his meeting with the Prime Minister, Arthur left 10 Downing Street and walked briskly through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace. He was let in without a single question, of course, and started for the stairs he knew would lead to where the Queen would be, but he paused. The Queen had called him that morning and said delicately, oh, you haven't visited in a while; would you like to come by this afternoon? and Arthur had replied that of course, it would be his pleasure; but if this really was about Alfred, as the Prime Minister had implied . . . Arthur chewed on his lower lip. Now that he was at the palace, he wasn't sure whether this was a good idea. The Queen almost never called, so she must think that this was more important than he liked to believe it was. Doubtless she was worried that his guest was distracting him with some problem that Arthur mistakenly thought he should deal with by himself – which was at least partially true.

But it's Alfred, he thought.

And then, But it's the Queen.

He walked up the stairs and knocked very lightly on the door of her favorite sitting room.

"Come in."

The Queen smiled when he entered. "Your Majesty," he said a bow of his head.

"Arthur. It's good to see you."

He took a seat and poured them each a cup of tea from the fine china tea set on the silver tray between them. "I apologize that I have been absent the last few days."

"I only hope you've been well. I heard that Alfred is visiting. I can't begrudge you time spent with a friend." Arthur frowned slightly at that. She noticed. "Is something the matter?"

Arthur made an effort to turn his expression into something more pleasing. "I'm sorry. I just . . . hope you don't mind that I didn't mention that Alfred is staying with me."

"You did when you called this morning."

"Yes, well." Arthur sipped his tea and looked away.

"Has it been nice seeing him?"

"Yes," Arthur forced out, trying to make it sound polite. "We haven't seen each other in a while."

"Is he here on business?"

Arthur met her eyes and saw that it was an honest question. She hadn't heard anything from Alfred's boss, then, and since Arthur hadn't mentioned it . . . Arthur shifted uncomfortably and sighed. "He says it is, but I don't believe him."

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Why not?"

"He hasn't done a single thing since he got here." Arthur scowled into his tea. "Something about . . . I don't even remember. It had something to do with the financial crisis."

"Could he be here to apologize? You were very sick earlier . . ."

"I never told him about that." Arthur's lips were tight. "He never asked, anyway, though I don't know why he would have. He'd have to be blind to think we hadn't all been affected. Even if he did notice, he'd never think to be worried about me."

She smiled at him. "He does care about you, you know." Arthur shook his head and sighed. The Queen sipped her tea and changed her angle. "Have you two been getting along?"

"No different than usual."

"Really?"

Arthur looked up at the quickness of the question. It was subtle – his Queen was very proper, of course – but he had known her long enough to tell. "Has someone said something?" he asked with the slightest of frowns.

She waved a hand. "Of course not. They're far too polite." She was silent for a moment. "How is it?"

Arthur looked at her. He knew there was no use lying: she knew exactly how he felt about Alfred, even though he had never told her directly. He cleared his throat. "How is what?" he asked, just to delay the inevitable.

"Arthur," she said quietly, and Arthur had to look up, because it wasn't a plea or command to him as a country, but a request to him as a person. It hurt, a little, to know how well she understood him. She put a hand gently over his where it rested on his knee. "Please. You know you can trust me."

He let out a shuddering breath, and suddenly it was easy to speak again. "It's awful. I have a hard enough time getting him out of my head, and now he's around all the time. I have to watch every little thing I say around him all the time. I forget, during meetings, because I have to do that for everyone, and they usually only last a few days, but this–" He ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't even know why he's here."

"Why don't you talk to him about it?" the Queen asked.

Arthur scowled at his tea. "It's complicated. Well, no, it's not. It's as simple as anything. We can't talk about business in a comprehensible manner on a day-to-day basis, let alone something like this."

The Queen settled her teacup in its saucer and held it firmly in her lap. "I have known you for what, for me, at least, is a very long time, and Alfred has always made you more conflicted than I have seen you about anything else." Her voice was very quiet. "Are you in love?"

Love. Arthur froze. What did that mean, anyway? He was a country. He had survived for centuries without that kind of love. All he needed was the love of his people, and he had that. But to love another country? What right did he have? If his people had made him who he was, how could he think of another country, and by some distant extension their people, in that way? "I can't answer that," he said quietly.

"Have you thought about the future?"

He looked up to find her watching him closely. He frowned slightly. "I think it should be obvious there isn't one."

"You're prepared to wait, then? For eternity?"

He cringed. He knew full well that what waited for him probably wasn't eternity, but something very close to it. "I'm not prepared to wait for anything," he nearly snapped, and caught himself just in time for it to come out as something a little gentler. "I'm not waiting," he clarified. "I've tried to ignore it, but it's not going to just go away, so I just have to live it with it." He tapped his fingers restlessly on his knee. "There simply isn't anything I can do."

"You say that as if he hasn't changed."

He looked at her levelly. "Oh, he has, and his feelings with him. Don't think I don't know that."

"Not all for the bad, Arthur," she said, and the look she gave him pierced something in him. There was something sad in that look, as though Arthur had disappointed her. Arthur hated it.

"No, but not all for the good, either," he snapped. He put his teacup in its saucer on the table and it rattled. "This isn't some crush, and it's certainly not young love. This isn't something that is just going to get better, and certainly not by talking about it." He knew he was losing his composure, but at the moment he didn't care. "I have felt this way about him for centuries, and I expect to for centuries more. I can't just fix this!"

"Arthur, as a young Queen this wasn't my place," she said sternly, "But after all these years, can you really think that I haven't known you long enough? He hurts you, I can see that, and you should do something about it."

Arthur looked away. He knew that her words were to be respected, but he couldn't help feeling that no one truly understood, or could understand, what this was like. "I have already been rejected by him once," he said quietly. "I don't know that I could bear it again."

"If you admit he has changed, you must admit there is a chance."

Arthur closed his eyes. He knew he wouldn't be able to do it; it was as simple as that. He open his eyes and met her gaze. "Thank you for speaking with me."

The Queen stood as he did. "Be careful," she said, and he could see the caring and knowledge of her years in her eyes. "I don't want to see you get hurt."

He looked away. "I know. I'll see you this afternoon."

"Yes."

Arthur left, feeling surprisingly clearheaded. At least someone knew, and she hadn't hated him for it. That much was a relief, at least, but his Queen was not Alfred. There was no way Alfred could love him like that, then or now. It was as simple as that.

"Alfred?" Arthur called when he got back. The door clicked shut behind him and he walked purposefully into the living room. With a frown, he found that no one was there. "Alfred?" he called up the stairs. When there was no reply, he went up anyway. After a knocking briefly and peeking inside Alfred's guest room, he found that it also was empty. He wasn't in his old room, and he would never go into Arthur's study. Arthur was about to go back downstairs, but he hesitated. There was something that made him want to look in his own room, even though Alfred would never go in there . . . would he?

For some reason deciding that he should be quiet about it, Alfred walked softly over to his door and carefully turned the handle. He peered inside and was met with the sight of Alfred on his stomach in the middle of Arthur's bed, surrounded by papers and his laptop. When Arthur opened the door, Alfred looked up and grinned. "Hey Artie!" he chirped.

"What are you doing?" Arthur demanded, walking the rest of the way into the room. His face went pale. "If those are my papers–"

Alfred laughed. "Relax! These are mine. My boss has kinda been bugging me to get some work done, so I thought I'd take advantage of you being all worky and stuff."

Arthur processed this for a heartbeat. "And you thought the best place to do this would be my bed?"

"Mine's too small," Alfred said matter-of-fact-ly. "And I didn't want to lie down on the floor."

Arthur stared at him in disbelief. "You really are an idiot."

"What? It's comfy." With that, Alfred, apparently without a care in the world, went back to typing on his laptop. After a few moments of silence, during which Arthur did not move in the slightest, Alfred looked up. "You can join me, if you want," he said. "There's room."

"I – I absolutely will not," Arthur said, quickly turning pink. "It's lunch time. Get your things and get off of my bed."

Alfred rolled his eyes, but got off the bed and walked past Arthur to the door.

"What about your stuff?" Arthur squawked indignantly.

"I'll get it later. Come on, I'm starved."

Muttering under his breath, Arthur followed Alfred done the stairs where a simple lunch was waiting for them.

"How's the Queen?" Alfred asked as they sat down. "Still up for seeing me later?"

"Yes, Alfred, she is, and she's doing well." Arthur eyed him and thought of the Queen. She would probably want to see Alfred even more now, just so she could see how far gone Arthur really was. It made Arthur feel anxious and slightly sick. "I want you on your best behavior, understand? No–"

"No interrupting or talking over her, yada yada yada. I'm not a complete imbecile, Arthur." Alfred rolled his eyes.

Arthur huffed in annoyance but let it go. Alfred would be Alfred, and there really was nothing Arthur could do about that.

Alfred ate his way through his first sandwich while constantly babbling about work, though it all sounded like perfectly routine things to Arthur. Certainly none of it required Alfred being in Europe – actually, from what Arthur could tell, Alfred being away from home was proving to be a major impediment. Arthur was somewhat grateful that Alfred chose to get a second sandwich just as Arthur was finishing his first. Arthur excused himself from the table with an excuse about not wasting time, and Alfred finally managed to eat his sandwich in silence.

Arthur carried his dishes into the kitchen, turned on the water, and, strangely enough, did not reappear. After a few minutes, Alfred finished up his food and took his plates in to investigate.

Arthur was standing in front of the sink with his sleeves rolled up and his fingers covered in soap suds. He was scrubbing away at a plate and had a look of absolute contentedness on his face. Alfred paused in the doorway and smiled. It was so rare to see Arthur that relaxed and carefree. The slight smile in his eyes, the tilt of his shoulders; it brought back memories of when Alfred was only a child and he would tug at Arthur's trousers, saying, Please, Arthur, play with me, and Arthur would laugh and tell him yes, but only after he finished the dishes. Sometimes Alfred would help, perched on a step-stool, and be told to be very careful with the china. The memories were vague to Alfred, but still as bright and sun-filled as ever. Arthur's voice was the constant in all of them that told Alfred none of it had been a dream.

Arthur looked up and saw Alfred. He smiled. "Aren't you going to help?"

Alfred came over to him and put his dishes next to the sink. "Don't you have a dishwasher yet?"

Arthur tapped it with his knee and shook his head. "I do, but I prefer to do dishes this way. Help dry. There's a towel over there."

Alfred dutifully picked up the towel and began to carefully dry off one of the plates. He wasn't usually so careful and so precise, but lately he had been wanting to feel closer to Arthur than he had felt in a long time. He didn't want Arthur's praise, exactly, but he wanted to do everything right.

"You've been very quiet lately," Arthur murmured almost absentmindedly after a moment of silence. "Why is that?"

Alfred winced internally. He had been trying to act normally, but he should have known better than to think he could fool Arthur. "I dunno. Probably just the recession and stuff."

"You don't look too bad."

Alfred shrugged. "Still recovering, I guess."

Arthur hummed in response. "Here's the last one." He handed Alfred a plate and picked up a dishtowel to dry off his hands.

"Thanks." Alfred hesitated and Arthur looked at him expectantly. "Hey, I was wondering. When people meet us, do you think they see the real us, or the country we represent?" Alfred's blue eyes were slightly concerned. He was holding the still half-dried plate in his hands. "I just kind of wonder how much people think about me and how much they think about my people, you know?"

Arthur sighed and leaned against the counter. "Is there a real us?" He had been grappling with this question for centuries. "Are we any more than the sum of our parts? Our people have more complex views than we usually give them credit for. Maybe we are nothing more than a sum of their desires and actions."

Alfred stopped drying the plate and looked at him, stunned. "You really believe that?"

Arthur met his eyes for a moment and then looked away, embarrassed. "I don't know. I've had a long time to think about it, and I still don't know."

Alfred shook his head. "There's no way that's how it works."

"How can you be so sure?" Arthur looked at Alfred almost desperately. He had wanted to know the answer to this question for so long. If he really was nothing more than the sum of his people, there was a reason why he felt about Alfred the way he did. If his people agreed on some level with all his thoughts, he was justified in feeling this way. If not . . . he didn't even want to think about the possibility. If this was all only the part of him that was Arthur, if he took any step he would not only probably be going against Alfred's wishes, but those of his people as well. He could barely stand the idea of being disappointed, as much as he hated it, but he absolutely could not stand the idea of disappointing his people.

Alfred ran his fingers through his hair. His cowlick sprung reliably back into place. "I'm not sure, but . . ." His mouth twisted in a childish way. "There have been times in my history when my people have wanted something – well, most of them have wanted it – and I would go along with it, but deep down it didn't feel like I should. Like it was wrong." Alfred bit his lip and looked at Arthur. "I think there's a part of us that knows what's right. Maybe it's still connected to our people, but . . . I think that if we were only what our people made us, we would always go with the majority." He shook his head. "I don't know about you, but that's not always where my opinions fall."

Arthur's heart thudded in his chest. "How can we decide when to act, then? Can we choose to act against what our people want?"

Alfred shrugged. "Of course. Sometimes we have to, right?" Arthur tensed; he could remember very well a few such instances. "I guess the question is whether we wait to act until it's the majority, or if we just go ahead with it."

Arthur's heart sank. "And if it's never the opinion of the majority?"

Alfred smiled a small, sad smile. "Then it's not an easy choice, is it?"

Arthur stood there quietly while Alfred finished drying the plate, lost in thought. When he put it away, Arthur finally straightened. "Get yourself dressed. We're going to see the Queen."

Author's note: I think half the reason this chapter took so long is because it has the Queen in it. I don't know how to write real people. T.T I did look up some of her speeches, but it was still pretty difficult to get an idea of her personal voice.

As for my headcanons: I like to think that when the whole slavery thing (or any number of other things) was happening, Alfred knew deep down that it was wrong.