Chapter X

Rose woke up—as one does from a blackout—with a splitting headache.

It didn't help that there was an alarm screaming in her ears.

Someone please kill me…

Much to her dismay, no one came to kill her. But when she finally managed pry her eyes open, she realized that there was morning light coming in through the windows, and the blaring digital clock continued to grate against her pained brain. But she was just in the library, it was nearing midday then! Why was it early morning light? How long did she sleep?! And wait, the room was blurry. And her apartment didn't have this many windows! So whose bedroom was this? And where were her glasses?

Rose tried to sit up, but she couldn't really move her left arm. What the…? And there, of all people, Marianne was hugging her arm. As far as Rose could tell, the girl was still asleep. So without moving her left arm, she propped herself up on her right arm and squinted around the room. It had a bit of a gold theme, she could tell that much. But as she craned her neck to look around, she recognized the glowing numbers of the (surprisingly modern) digital alarm clock.

7:02 AM.

Next to her, Marianne stirred. She sat up and yawned, rubbing her eyes sleepily. Rose stiffened, but Marianne didn't look confused to see her at all.

"Good morning, mademoiselle!" she chirped happily. The French little girl clambered over the still stunned Rose and slapped her tiny hand on the top of the alarm clock. Marianne then grabbed her glasses off of the nightstand, then she handed Rose her own pair.

"Merci," Rose managed, sitting up and putting on her glasses as well.

"De rien," Marianne hopped off the bed. "Mademoiselle, could you please do my hair again today?"

Rose got up, then sunk down to one knee, bowing her head in the Kartojian tradition. "But of course, my Lady."

Silence—Rose sensed the girl's confusion—then Marianne understood. What a smart little girl. "Rise, Mademoiselle." Marianne frowned a little. "You know, just because my brother is the King doesn't mean I want any special treatment. I'm just Marianne."

Rose stood and looked at her. What a noble notion, truthfully… "Well then, Marianne. Let's get your hair done then."

Marianne sat down at the mahogany vanity—because of course the French King would have one in his bedroom—and handed Rose a hairbrush. And thus, Rose set herself to work.

After some silence, Rose decided to finally ask. "What am I doing here?"

Marianne blinked, meeting Rose's gaze in the mirror. "What do you mean?"

Rose wondered how she could put this in understandable terms. "The last thing I remember is being in the library. How am I in a bedroom?" She couldn't help but note that this wasn't the infamous Room. Not that she assumed that every woman the French king came across was brought there. She was just surprised was all.

"Big Brother found you in the library yesterday. He said you collapsed," Marianne replied as Rose began to braid her hair. "He looked really scared, and he yelled at Mademoiselles Rebecca and Emma to go get help. Then he picked you up and carried you here. Dr. Laurinaitis gave you a check-up, and Big Brother was really upset because he found out you weren't eating and sleeping enough."

Francis was upset? Rose speechlessly tied off Marianne's braid, unsure of what to say. Sure, whether she liked it or not, the two of them were soulmates. But she hadn't meant to make him worried… Hell, she didn't think he would worry.

"I slept with you in here because Big Brother wanted to make sure you wouldn't try to leave without proper food and sleep!" Marianne continued. "Now come on! We need to have breakfast!" And as Rose found herself dragged down giant hallways and a cascading stairwell, she wondered just how many small moments like this she missed with Peter.

She didn't get to watch Peter grow up into the twelve-year-old boy he was now. Not the way she was supposed to. The most she—well, technically Arthur—ever saw of Peter was when they were both attending the Academy. And sure, Peter understood that Arthur was busy with his duties as Queen of Spades, but… Then again, it wasn't like she had any options. At sixteen, she gave him up to a newlywed Berwald and Timo. At the time, she had run from the old family home, where everyone was unconscious from a memory spell she cast. The spell would wipe their memory of Rose: replacing her with memories of Arthur instead, even going as far as to completely eliminate gender-specific memories and alter all the family records in the house. It was a rather intricate spell, but Rose had put more than enough forethought into it.

She had needed to get four-year-old Peter out of there: her father had spiraled into a mad broken mess after her mother died giving birth to Peter. Her father saw Peter as the reason his soulmate was dead, calling baby Peter every colorful name under the sun. But the name that bothered Rose the most was "accident." By that time, Rose had lived too long and seen too much to believe that anything or anyone was an accident. And so with her older siblings' consent (They were all working hard to support themselves and each other), she devised a plan to take Peter far far away from their father, and they agreed that as the only magic user left in the family, only she could pull it off. She cast the spell and made a portal, transporting herself and Peter to Kartoj: a Kingdom once filled with magic and fond stories from their mother. And then—

"Big Brother?" Marianne called. And Rose realized that the two of them had stopped outside of what appeared to be an office door. Marianne was wiggling at the door knob, but since the door was locked, it didn't really do much.

"Marianne," Rose called, gently pulling the girl behind her and putting her ears to the door. Rose carefully listened for any lewd noises to make sure it was safe to open the door with Marianne here. (After all, she didn't forget the French King's reputation.) After deeming it safe, she glanced back at Marianne.

"May I have a bobby pin from your hair?"

Marianne gave Rose an odd look, but she takes out a bobby pin from her hair and hands it to Rose. "What are you doing?"

Rose didn't answer, focusing instead on her task. Sure, an unlocking spell would have been faster, but this was a Castle. Walls echoed and were paper thin. There were always people watching, and magic would certain alarm some people. And besides, she wanted to see if she still remembered how to do it.

Before Marianne realized what was happening, Rose had successfully picked the lock and flung the door open—

—only to find the French beauty King himself passed out in a pile of paperwork and a puddle of his own drool.

"Big Brother?" Marianne sounded worried.

"Go on to the kitchen, Marianne," Rose told the little girl. "I'll get his lazy butt moving."

When Marianne left, Rose turned snorted at the sight, and she found herself laughing again. Dear God, he looked ridiculous.

The French King's eyes fluttered open, just in time to see his soulmate laughing.

What a change. The last time he had seen his soulmate, she had landed on top of him, pale as a ghost with dark circles under her eyes. Thérèse would make fun him later for not being strong enough to catch his soulmate, but Francis had been a little preoccupied at the time… He wasn't sure if he had ever been so terrified in his life. He had just lost Art—His brain choked at the name—and for a second, he had wondered: what if he lost her too?

But that was a moot point, now that she was here: rested and happy, laughing at the piece of paper sticking to his face. But he was still waking up—

His soulmate gripped the corner of the paper between her pointer finger and her thumb, and Francis just stared, surprised at how gently she peeled the paper from his face.

She probably just doesn't want to rip it. It has nothing to do with trying not to hurt me…

He couldn't stand looking at her for too long. It wasn't just that she was unbearably pretty.

It was her eyes.

They were too familiar.

They were just like Arth—

He was ripped out of his train of thought when his soulmate began dabbing at the paperwork on his desk with a handkerchief, and he momentarily wondered what she was doing. That question was quickly answered when she folded the handkerchief over, grabbed him by his hair, and began scrubbing his face with it.

She was rough with him. Her grip on his hair hurt. His lips burned a bit—

She pulled away, a small smirk on her face as Francis stared stupidly at her. "You drool in your sleep," she said in English. And with that, she sashayed out the door, tossing the handkerchief over her shoulder. It landed on his stunned face.

Francis blinked. It took a little while to collect his thoughts. Because while he had been waiting his whole life to meet his soulmate—the hopeless romantic he was—he never expected her to be so…so…

Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe?

He shook his head. No, that wasn't it. It was… Rose bothered him. Francis prided himself in being a people person: capable of easily reading a personality and categorizing them into a general category in his head. For example, Bram van Dijk, Ludwig Beilschmidt and Luciano Vargas were all serious business but could be fun after the right amount of ingested alcohol. Flávio Vargas, Alfred F. Jones, and his own sister Thérèse were social butterflies and had about 200 friends each. Antonio Carriedo Fernández, Sadiq Adnan, and Heracles Karpusi all came off as lazy or self-indulgent, but they were all surprisingly hard-working at their jobs.

But his soulmate… He hadn't seen much of her behaviour, but so far, he couldn't categorize her. He couldn't predict her movements. She surprised him at every turn… And that bothered him. Not because it was a bad thing, but because there was only one other person he had that problem with.

But there was no way she was him, no matter how eerily similar they were…

Right?

The Kartojian Castle of Diamonds had seen many a woman flirting with its French King, and it had seen even more of them marching around like she owned the place. But not very many could honestly say that they left him speechless. Which made Victoria Jane Elizabeth Alice Rosaline Kirkland quite proud.

Unfortunately, Rose couldn't stay smug for very long. A quick thought scan around the Castle gave her a few mental statuses that she was expecting: the occasional guard making a round, a few servants here and there. There Marianne was cooking breakfast with her—surprisingly not-absent, not-hungover and not-sexed-up—older sister Thérèse. And yet, as offputting as sensing Thérèse was, Rose's heart stopped for an entirely different reason.

There, standing in the Castle's hallway off all places, was a man that Rose hadn't seen since… God, how long had it been now? What was he doing here?

Either way, Rose had questions, and he probably realized that the minute he saw her. But before he could say anything, she marched up to him, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him into an unoccupied room. After quickly checking her mental radar for eavesdroppers, she narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him.

"Alistair James Kirkland, what the bloody hell are you doing here?!" she hissed.

A surprised blink. Two. Then the man, pinned by his ghost of a sister against a wall, smirked with amusement. "Hello to you too, little sister," his light Scottish accent giving his words a familiar color.

Rose, for her part, remained unimpressed. If anything, she gripped his collar tighter.

Alistair sighed, almost rolling his eyes. His thoughts were vaguely amused, like Rose was living up to his expectations. "Well, I did what most people do when they wake up with a new set of memories. I took time off of work to get some answers."

Rose felt a wave of guilt. "I didn't mean to pull you away from—"

"Rosie," he interrupted. Rose's grip on his collar loosened, breath caught in her throat.

There was the real reason she'd yelled at Vasile for that nickname: only her family called her that. And for the past—how many years now?—her family was nothing more than a pile of sad regrets and painful memories.

She let go of him, her hand moving to drop uselessly to the side.

"You're our sister," Alistair continued. He caught her hand and gripped it, as if he was trying to make her understand something. "And we Kirklands have each other. After all," he smiled bitterly, "we dinnae have anyone else, do we?"

No. They didn't have anyone else. Because for all their posturing and stubborn pride… Kirklands were used to being alone. They were all such selfless beings to the point where it was a bad thing. They did what they thought was best regardless of how anyone else would feel. Rose knew that better than anyone: all her older siblings worked instead of spending time with their baby sister because they thought that was best. And besides, it's not like Kirklands were good at expressing how much they care, so they did it through actions rather than words.

Goodness knows that she did the exact same thing with Peter.

Peter.

Oh, God, how was she going to tell them she gave up Peter for adoption?!

"You dinnae have to answer anything now." Alistair's voice was surprisingly gentle, and for two seconds, she was reminded of her childhood. Alistair's fairytales. Dylan's Welsh lullabies. Seamus and Sinead checking the closet and under the bed for monsters, even though they all knew that if anyone could See actual creatures, it was Rose herself. All of them cuddling with the old family dog when thunderstorms got too loud for comfort.

Rose was surprised. "I don't?" That was a surprise. Alistair always used to be the most impatient of all of them. And Kirklands in general didn't like waiting unless they wanted to.

Alistair must have done a lot of growing up these past few years.

All of the Kirklands must have. Lord knew she did.

"It'd be smarter to wait for the others, anyway," Alistair shrugged. "That way," he was smirking now, "you only have to get in trouble once."

Rose scowled, feeling the urge to punch her brother all over again. "I should have expected that," she grumbled. "You never were good at being nice for long."

Alistair smiled a little at that. "I do try, Rosie. Now come on. Let's go to the kitchen. I heard there was breakfast."

Rose's eyes narrowed at her brother's train of thought. "And by breakfast, you mean Thérèse Bonnefoy."

Alistair tilted his head. "Is that what the pretty French woman's name is?"

Bloody skirt-chaser. At least some things hadn't changed. Their father had screamed at Alistair to hell and back until he quit smoking, so he had turned to women as alternative vice to alcohol and cigarettes.

Your mother would be ashamed, their father would always say.

Yeah? Alistair had always grumbled. She's also dead.

And then that would start a whole other argument.

Home just wasn't a good place for any of them.

It was why leaving with Peter had been so important.

"I wouldn't do it if I were you," Rose huffed as she began to lead him towards the door. "She is sister to the King of Diamonds."

Alistair snorted. "And?"

"It's a dangerous place to be, if you left her like you did the rest."

Well…" Alistair smirked. "I happened to overhear that a certain Arthur Kirkland was Queen of Spades. I have a royal connection then."

Rose scowled. "My name is Rose Fairchild. Sir Arthur Kirkland is dead. It would do you good to remember that."

Alistair's brow furrowed, and he was silent for a while. Now, if Alistair was the same person she knew as a child, she would have confidently sworn that there was no was he was thinking seriously. But now…

It's been so long. Do any of us know each other anymore?

Finally, Alistair broke the silence. "Everyone I left, as you put it, knew what they were getting into when they came to me. But her…" He shook his head, closing his eyes helplessly. "It feels different, somehow. That's why I was drawn to this place. I feel like I'm supposed to be here. And finding you here too… It's like a confirmation. A sign. Or you know… Something…"

Rose could only nod grimly. "Humanity has a way of messing with the natural order of things. That's why sometimes, we find ourselves in places we never thought we'd be. Or seeing things we never thought were possible. Those things are simply the universe trying to set the balance right again."

By now, they had nearly reached the kitchen, where they could hear little Marianne and her sister laughing and conversing lightly in French as the smells and sounds of a delicious breakfast wafted into the halls. Alistair stopped just before the kitchen entrance turning to face his sister.

"In all seriousness, Rosie…" He placed his hands on her shoulders and met her eyes.

*She's so much taller now…* Alistair thought sadly. *My baby sister grew up…* And both of them suddenly felt the weight of lonely years past. Years they all should have spent together…

We have the same eyes, Rose suddenly remembered. Only Peter was born with their mother's blue eyes. The rest of them had Kirkland green. It had been one of the reasons their father had hated Peter so much…

"...I missed you," Rose finally admitted. She looked down at the tiles next to her brother's shoes as she felt his arms tense. Kirklands were bad at feelings, after all.

A beat of silence.

Two.

And suddenly, she was wrapped in a strong bearhug. An echo of rare childhood comfort.

"I missed you too, Rosie. I missed you too…"

When Francis woke up this morning to see his soulmate laughing, he didn't exactly expect to find her hugging another man. But there she was, hugging a strange man. He watched as they declared they missed each other…

Jealousy was not a new feeling for the French King of Diamonds. His sisters were free to do as they pleased, their heads unburdened by Royal responsibilities. His Vargas cousin Luciano was happily married. His Ace Bram and his cousin Rochelle were, as of yesterday, parents to a healthy baby boy named Etienne. But the people Francis envied most were the ones closest to Arth—him. Because how was it fair that he was so nice to others when he was so nasty to Francis? It…stung.

Funnily enough, this new spike of jealousy reminded Francis of the whole affair with the former Queen of Spades. Yes, Francis had always known that the old Queen wormed his way into Francis's heart, and Francis had always fought it. After all, he wasn't Francis's soulmate. But the more he stared at this woman who was supposed to be his soulmate—

"Oh, you're finally up," he heard his soulmate interrupt in English. "How did you sleep?"

Francis nearly opened his mouth to respond, but he caught himself and just stared. There was a strategic reason that he never spoke in English: because most people figured that if you didn't speak it, you didn't understand it. And people are so much more willing to talk when they think you don't understand what they're saying. Even with him Francis didn't speak English. But he had refused to use French, and Francis refused to use English. So they spoke Spanish.

But somehow, some way, his soulmate knew he understood English. And also knew that he didn't want people to know that. So she kept talking, as if she hadn't actually been expecting a response.

"Francis," and Francis's brain stopped right there. Not even he had ever said Francis's name... "I'd like you to meet Alistair Kirkland. Alistair, this is my soulmate."

Alistair gave Francis a once-over, a completely stoic expression. Now in the back of his mind, Francis felt as if he should have found the intense gaze thrilling and attractive. But all he felt was genuine nervousness, like he actually wanted Alistair to approve of him.

Wait...Kirkland?!

"Take care of Rosie," he finally growled. And again, that Scottish brogue should have been giving Francis shivers down his spine. But…

"I don't speak English," Francis finally managed.

"And I don't care," Alistair shot back. "You will take care of her."

Francis, caught off guard by the French outburst, was grateful for his sister's sudden entrance.

(He wouldn't be, in a few seconds.)

"Mon frere!" Thérèse cried. "There you are! I am positively starving."

And poor Francis had about two seconds of warning before his sister turned to the newcomer Scotsman.

"Oh, hellooo~" she purred in French. "And who might you be?"

Alistair took her hand and kissed the back of it. "Your knight in shining amour, chérie."

And as the words on both their wrists turned scarlet, Francis turned to look at his own soulmate. Only to find that the horror in her eyes matched the horror curling in his own stomach.

Oh dear God why.

(A/N: To be honest, I'm probably gonna take another year to update. Because I suck.)