AN: Thank you to all who has reviewed, read, favourited or followed this story. Very much appreciated!

Again, I am so sorry for the long delay in updates. I had very little time these few weeks to get to writing. To make up for it, here's a long chapter for y'all!

Disclaimer : I do not own the Fable universe or the characters contained within it.

Chapter 11

Celeste woke up after what felt like only a few minutes. Ben was still snoring on the couch and Jasper was nowhere to be seen. With a stifled yawn, she got to her feet and crept to the room where their unconscious guest was lying.

Celeste took a seat on one of the chairs as she studied her old friend. He'd certainly changed a lot since they last saw each other. His muscled arms were crossed over his chest even while he was sleeping and she couldn't help but notice how much he had filled out. Even though she still thought of him as a friend, she couldn't deny how handsome his face had become. The only thing that was still the same were the warm hazel eyes she knew were behind his closed lids.

Another yawn slipped past her lips and she curled her legs up against her chest. She closed her eyes, only intending to do so for a minute, but she quickly fell into another deep bout of sleep.

oOoOoOo

When Percy woke up, he was aware of almost every bone in his body practically screaming at him. He turned over to find a more comfortable position, but no matter how he maneuvered, something ended up hurting.

He gave up on sleep and opened his eyes to see Celeste sitting on one of the seats, fast asleep. She looked so relaxed that she seemed ages younger than she actually was. As he gazed upon her sleeping form, he couldn't help but remember her as she'd been years ago.

Ten year old Percy hid partially behind his father as he spoke with the stern looking king. He tried to avoid making eye contact with their monarch by taking in the decorations of the enormous foyer. Their entire house would have fit in that one room.

His father's words were cut off when a girl who was about his age bounded into the room, a Labrador puppy who was almost as big a she was in her arms. Percy recognised her as the girl who had smiled at him the last time they were here.

"Daddy, can I go play in the garden with Artemis?" she asked and tugged on her father's sleeve.

Percy flinched for the girl's part when the king turned his furious gaze onto her. The girl pulled back slightly and clutched her puppy to her chest, her expression about as terrified as he felt.

"I told you to stay in your room, girl! Don't bother me when I'm busy!" he snapped, wrenching his sleeve out of her tiny hand. "And get that stupid mutt out of here!"

The girl's big blue eyes filled with tears, but she hurriedly blinked them away as she lowered her head.

"Yes, Daddy," came her whispered reply and she moved to take a step back. At that moment her eyes met his and she managed a watery smile.

"I don't think Percy would mind if you showed him your dog. He loves puppies, don't you Percy?" His father's words were accompanied by a nudge with his leg. "We're going to be busy for a while."

King George barely tossed a second glance at the two children as he waved them away. The girl glanced at him shyly and the pup gave a happy bark as she tried to struggle out of her grasp to greet the newcomer. He followed her in silence to the huge gardens outside.

He stood in amazement at the sheer amount of green around him. In Industrial they barely got as much as a weed springing up.

"I'm Celeste," the girl said quietly, still clutching the squirming pup. "And this is Artemis. Can she say hello?"

Percy nodded wordlessly as Celeste lowered the Lab to the ground. Her paws were barely on the ground before she shot in his direction, almost toppling his skinny frame over onto the grass.

"Artemis, calm down." Despite the girl's soft voice, the pup fell onto her rear and looked at her expectantly. "Good girl," she said and offered the dog a treat from the bag tied around her waist.

"I'm Percy," he managed, running his dirty fingers through his hair. His father had taught him to shake hands, but Percy couldn't even imagine touching the tiny girl in her pristine light blue dress with his soiled hands.

The princess looked almost exactly like the porcelain doll his mother kept in their display case and told him never to touch. She had the biggest dark blue eyes he'd ever seen and her thick red hair fell in loose curls to the middle of her back. Her pale face and tiny body seemed as if they would break if she so much as fell over.

"Your dad is scary," he blurted out when he realised they were standing in complete silence and he was staring at her.

Celeste glanced at her satin slippers. "It was my fault. I shouldn't have bothered him," she whispered and tugged at her dress. "I was being silly."

The girl looked as if she was going to start crying again, so he decided to intervene. "My mother is a lot scarier than your father. I once broke one of her plates and I couldn't sit for a week," he said, gesturing wildly with his hands.

Celeste managed another shy smile and, to his surprise, she took his hand in hers.

"Do you want to come to the kitchen? They made lemon cakes today," she said, her eyes brightening considerably as she tugged on his hand.

To his even bigger surprise, he let the tiny girl lead him to the kitchen, not even considering the fact that he was holding hands with a girl.

Celeste stirred slightly in her chair, a faint smile on her lips. Percy couldn't help his own smile at her sleeping form. Surprised didn't even begin to describe how he felt when she turned up in that cell. He surmised that Page would eventually send someone after him, but he didn't expect the princess.

Even though he was furious with his uncle for tricking him by pretending to support their cause (and himself for allowing him to get fooled into getting caught), he owed him a certain amount of gratitude. The man was an arse, but at least he didn't hand him over to Logan. At least not immediately.

Percy's uncle had been one of the men to climb social ladders when King George became king. As a very ambitious man who craved social status he didn't possess as a simple blacksmith's son, he did a few unmentionable favours for the tyrant king and earned a title out of the deal. Percy's own father, who worked as in the shop his grandfather started, was furious with his brother and didn't speak to him after that.

That might have been enough to stop other people from instantly trusting the man, but Percy had always wanted to believe the best about people. This wasn't the first time it didn't exactly work out.

He was still mulling over his thoughts when he caught Celeste's eyes fluttering open.

"Percy?" she asked hoarsely, rubbing her eyes. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"Can't," he replied, struggling to sit up. "You can go back to sleep."

The redhead straightened her dress as she got to her feet. "No, I should be getting up. How are you?"

"Fine." His words were contradicted by the flinch when he shifted his body too far. Celeste rushed to his side, her eyes filled with concern.

"Where does it hurt?" Her hands carefully hovered above his body as she met his gaze. He couldn't help but notice the faint blush against her pale skin.

"It's nothing," he insisted, resting his head against the arm rest. "Don't worry, Princess."

She sat back into the chair, seemingly struggling what to say. "How's your father?" she asked finally.

A sudden wave of discomfort washed over him and Percy looked away. "He…died a few years ago."

Her eyes widened at his words. "I'm so sorry," she said sincerely. "I…I hadn't heard."

He shrugged as far as he could. "How could you have? It was after…you know."

"He was a good man. I'm sorry."

"Sorry about your father as well," he said after a moment of silence and a small smile appeared on her lips.

"No, you're not. Very few people mourned his death, but I appreciate the sentiment."

Percy smiled apologetically. "Sorry. Is Artemis still around? I doubt she'll remember me, but-"

"She's gone," she interrupted quickly, lowering her gaze. "My father had her…put down…when I was about fifteen."

"Was she sick?"

Celeste hesitated for a moment before answering. "No. She…bit him and he…"

"She bit him?" Percy couldn't believe the sweet Labrador would have hurt anyone.

She looked down at her hands. "Um…You know my father could get quite angry…and he…he tried to hit me and Artemis bit him," she said quietly, still not looking at him.

He felt a wave of anger rush up inside him at her confession. He never liked her father, but he couldn't believe that he would lay a hand on his daughter.

"I'm sorry, Celeste," Percy said and reached out to place a hand on hers. "I know you loved her."

Celeste continued to stare at their touching hands for a moment more before meeting his gaze. "Thank you." The tiniest of smiles appeared on her face. "Logan got me a new puppy for my eighteenth birthday. I'm sure he'd love to meet you. He's an even bigger sweetheart than Artemis was."

"I'd love to meet him." Percy saw anther blush colour her features when her eyes darted to their hands and he pulled away as if burnt. He hadn't even noticed that his hand was still there. "Um…I'm sure Page is wondering where we are."

Celeste sprung to her feet with her hands now behind her back. "Very well. I'll go check if Ben is awake and then we can get back to the hideout."

"Celeste, wait." The princess turned at the sound of his voice, the blush still present. "I…wanted to say thank you for coming to get me."

A sweet smile appeared on her lips and she looked at the ground. "You already thanked me, Percy. Besides, I couldn't refuse to help someone in trouble." She looked up, still smiling. "For what it's worth, I'm happy that you are still well."

"It's good to see you again as well, Celeste."

She nodded again before leaving the room and Percy settled back into the couch.

oOoOoOo

When they reached the hideout, it was early morning. Percy was quickly led away by Page for a debriefing without as much as a thank you. Celeste argued that he wasn't well enough, but Page was not the sort of woman to be told that she should wait.

Ben attended to a few matters for the rest of the day and returned to the hideout for some much deserved rest.

Unfortunately, Ben quickly found himself wandering aimlessly around the sewers. It wasn't that he was lost, it was just that Page wasn't very good or specific with giving directions, especially when the person she was giving them to was a soldier that sort of irritated her.

"Turn left at the moss covered rock...In a sewer...Thanks a lot, Page," he muttered as he turned left for what seemed like to be the seventh time. For variety's sake, he took a right turn for once at the next fork and promptly ended up where he was fifteen minutes ago.

Now he would admit to being slightly lost. But only slightly.

He was busy considering yelling until someone answered him when he heard a strange sniffling noise in the adjacent corridor.

At first, he thought it might be a rat or something equally disgusting scurrying about, but when the noise suddenly increased in volume, it was clear that someone was crying.

"Hello?" he called tentatively, moving in the direction of the noise. "Are you alright?"

Suddenly the noise was replaced with a loud sniff and a hiccup. "I'm fine," a female voice replied, shaking with emotion. "I..."

When he found the woman in question, he was startled to see the princess sitting on one of the relatively clean rocks, her clothes wet and her eyes ringed with red. Tear tracks ran down her sooty face and left telling signs that she had been crying for a while.

"Princess? What's wrong?" He took a hesitant movement towards her and her eyes widened in what resembled horror.

She scrubbed furiously at her wet eyes and took another loud sniff. "Captain Finn...I didn't think anyone would find me down here," she said, her voice still audibly shaking.

"To tell you the truth, love, I didn't think that I'd be down here either. I thought I'd have found the base by now, but it seems that Page doesn't want me to find it," he joked and sat down next to her. She was shivering from what he guessed was her damp clothes and he quickly took off his vest to drape it over her shoulders. It wasn't much, but she immediately pulled it tightly against her slight body.

"Thank you," she whispered, clearly avoiding his gaze. "I'm...sorry you had to see me like this."

"Why are you like this? What happened?" He'd come to care for the princess in the short span of time that he'd known her and he didn't like seeing her upset.

"I...don't want to talk about it," she said quietly. She'd mercifully stopped shaking.

Despite her words, Ben was, if nothing else, rather persistent. "Those tears tell a different tale, Celeste."

He barely caught the hooded look that she shot him and she let out a sigh mixed with a wry laugh. "I found out that the man that I was supposed to marry got engaged while I was away."

"You were engaged?!" Ben nearly shouted, unable to hide the shock in his voice.

This time he couldn't miss the slightly amused look on her face. "I am in my twenties, Ben. A lot of women my age already have their second or third child."

"I..." How could he phrase his answer without sounding like an arse? I had no idea there was someone waiting in the wings for her…

"I'm just surprised," he settled for saying. "You never mentioned him, is all."

"I don't know why I'm upset...I didn't love him, at least not in the way that a wife is supposed to love her husband, but he was always so smitten with me." She fiddled with the buttons on his vest. "I guess it was nice to know that someone loved me that much. Besides, it wasn't like there was anyone else vying for my attention."

Ben couldn't help the loud scoffing noise that sounded in his throat and he was met with a confused look. "Now you're just pulling my leg. I don't know what happened between you and a certain blacksmith, but he looks positively smitten with you."

A light blush washed over her face and his vest buttons became infinitely more interesting than looking at him. "You're imagining things. Percy's just a friend and that's all he's ever been to me. I'm being serious."

"As am I, love, but back to this betrothed of yours."

"My father had arranged for us to be wed before I had even reached my fifth birthday. Elliot is the son of a rather minor noble, but our fathers were good friends. My father was doing his an enormous favour by allowing his son to marry into the royal family and my father stood to make more than a few thousand gold by the shares that he would get in a mine or something. I remember that my mother objected rather strongly to the arrangement. They fought about it so many times. I remember her telling my father that he was taking away my right to fall in love on my own. He said that my only and most important duty as his daughter was to marry well and carry on the line. Certainly shows the differences in classes, doesn't it?"

She continued to fiddle with her hands. "She was always so adamant about choosing for myself. I know now that my parents married out of a convenient match." She chuckled wryly. "To be honest, it was more than that. She was the new queen, but she was still a commoner who grew up on the streets and she considered marring a noble to gain the upper-class support. My father was handsome and charming and my mother…wasn't the most discreet woman. Before they finalised anything, she fell pregnant out of wedlock and they were forced to marry to save them both from a rather embarrassing scandal. It was during that time that my mother realised that she did not love my father as she thought she had. It had merely been a bout of lust."

She seemed to mull over her words before she spoke next. "She lost the baby after a few months, but the damage was already done. She was caught in a loveless marriage to a man that she hated. Divorce would be too scandalous, so she was forced to stay." A flush of embarrassment washed over her features and she lowered her voice. "However, this didn't stop her from certain indiscretions, as I'm hesitant to admit."

"I only learned all of this after her death when I read her diary. They always seemed as if they tolerated each other, but looking back...there was a lot of things that a young girl could misinterpret. At the end, they didn't even sleep in the same bed anymore."

Ben couldn't help but think of his own parents. They'd had many problems what with the constant shortage of money, his father's occasional drinking and his mother's exhaustion with trying to manage four rowdy boys, but there were a few happy memories. There was no doubt in his mind that his parent truly did love each other.

"But enough about that. Elliot was sweet, kind and gentle. He became my only friend growing up, after…after Percy and I had our…miscommunication, but to his immense dismay, I never felt more than that towards him."

A strange smile split over her lips. "He tried so hard to get me to love him. Out of pure guilt, I even allowed him to kiss me, but despite the flowers and the romantic gestures, never more than that."

"So you never...?" Ben trailed off with a meaningful raise of his eyebrow.

Her midnight blue eyes became as round as saucers. "No!" Then she smiled that strange, enigmatic smile of hers again. "Though he certainly wanted to. Avo only knows how much he wanted to. The only thing that kept him from going mad was probably that in the end, he would marry me."

"You have to understand, Elliot was like a brother to me. The thought of what was to happen on our wedding night..." A tiny shiver ran down her spine and Ben knew it wasn't from the cold. "I would have learned to love him and I knew he would have been a good husband and father, but being the reader of one too many novels, I dreamed of falling in love with some handsome stranger that would whisk me away from my "duty" as the daughter of the queen."

"Silly, I know," she almost whispered, her face suddenly wistful.

"It's not," Ben said equally quiet as he placed a comforting hand on hers and she looked at him with eyes filled with unshed tears. "You were perfectly justified in wanting something more than what sounds like a rather depressing future. What I don't understand is why you're crying over a man that you didn't want to marry in the first place."

"It's funny, I know. I don't know if someone told you about the choice my brother had me make?"

He shook his head and she continued, her voice now much heavier than before. "There was a demonstration...Long story short, the guards captured the ringleaders and Walter tried to convince Logan to listen to them. Elliot and I were listening at the door...and I burst in when I heard Walter being struck down. Logan...ordered us to be taken to the throne room where he ordered me to choose between saving the ringleaders...or Elliot. The choice that I made is pretty clear."

"I know, I could have let Elliot die that day and I could have been free. I think the only reason that I choose to let Elliot live was because it was so ingrained in me that he was to be my husband that I couldn't let him die and I kept hearing my father's voice telling me to do my duty as his daughter. Aside from that, he was still my best friend and I did love him like a brother. He begged me to choose him to die...but I couldn't."

A wry bark of a laugh sounded from her. "He hated me for choosing him over those villagers. He's alive with a new fiancé who actually loves him, but he still told me that he'd hated me for choosing the villagers over him and wished that I'd chosen him to die. It seems that he thought it better to be a martyr than actually happy for once."

Ben felt a stab of anger at the man that did this to the princess and his hand clenched involuntarily.

"But then...he asked me to give him another chance. He begged me to take him back and I considered it for a moment. I could marry Elliot who loves me dearly and do my father's memory proud. Besides, what were the chances of me finding someone who loved me like he did? I was being silly for thinking that I deserved better than Elliot. But then I realised that I was hearing my father's voice and that I let four people die for a man that hated me for saving him. Besides, it would be unfair to Elliot and his new fiancé. Linda loves him and he loves her. So I left him there and came here to cry." She looked at him through damp eyelashes. "You must think that I'm a horrible person."

"I don't." And he truly didn't. "I think that your future has been so controlled by others that you had no choice but to do what you'd been taught to do. No offence, love, but from what I hear, I think your father was manipulative and cruel for doing what he did to you."

"He...I know," she admitted after a moment of silence. "He was the only father I ever had and I've tried defending him, but in the end, he forced me into a marriage that I didn't want and every time that I would ask him about it, he would tell me that something was wrong with me for doubting the match."

They sat in companionable silence for a while before Celeste finally spoke. "Ben?" He looked at her. "Could you please not tell anyone about this?"

"Of course. But not without something in return, though," he said with a wink.

"What?"

"Help me out of this damn sewer."