"Arthur still hasn't woken up, aru," Yao muttered as he came into the library, in which Alfred had already been sitting for hours, reading. Contrary to popular belief, he could read and did it rather well. He'd gone through 5 pretty large books. 2 or 3 about the Jokers and the rest about the Queens of Spades. There were whole series on those girls…

"Yeah?" Alfred muttered.

"You've been reading the whole time in here, aru?" Yao asked.

"Yeah," Alfred turned around quickly. "It's weird that I haven't been looking at things like this before. But ever since I saw those Jokers I figured that I should look them up, see if they were like fakes or something. But they aren't! It's really weird seeing people you've actually met in pictures painted about a hundred or two years ago!"

"Jokers?" Yao asked, walking over to his book.

"That's kinda how I knew how to fix Arthur," Alfred rubbed the back of his head. "That's what they told me, at least. Did you know that all of the Queens of Spades have had a powerful magic connection?"

"I didn't know magic really existed, aru," Yao sighed, leaning against the table.

"Me neither," Alfred shrugged. "But it's what saved Arthur's life. All of the Queens are so deeply connected to magic and stuff that if that connection is severed, they'll probably die. It's weird, though. In the past, the Queens were all open about magic. But now, they've all kept it secret. From what I can tell, Arthur's the most open about it for the past hundred years…"

"So you have been studying, aru," Yao looked at the stack of books.

"But, don't you think it's weird?" Alfred asked, looking at Yao's eyes. "All of those years ago, it was considered cool to see fairies when no one else could. It was considered cool because they could cast spells and all that shit, right? The Queens are in charge of the army and wars and all of that. They would go across the battlefield and cast fire spells and all of that. But now, none of them even try to acknowledge their magic connection. I mean, they don't deny it or they would die. But it's almost like the connection should have disappeared but it didn't really…"

"They're just scared of being judged, aru," Yao shrugged, standing up. "Have you read about the 16th Queen of Spades?"

"Not yet," Alfred shook his head.

"She was made a laughing stock when she was talking about fairies," Yao stated. "The one after that just didn't want that embarrassment, so she started hiding it, aru. Everyone after that was scared of coming out. Arthur was, too. That's why he tried to keep it secret. Look where acknowledgment got him, aru."

"But…" Alfred sighed, leaning back in his chair. "I just don't understand what's so bad about it. Even the King has a little bit of magic inside of him. That's how I was able to see the Joker and those fairies, but only because they put effort behind it. I just really wish I could see Arthur's guardian fairy again… Did you know, all of the Queens have a guardian fairy?"

"I will just leave you to your studying, aru," Yao sighed as he started back towards the door. "I will tell you if Arthur wakes up while you're in here."

"Sweet," Alfred called back and turned to another page in his book. But he couldn't get the idea of the whole magic thing out of his head.

Sure, the news spread quickly about Arthur going to an asylum. But when the news of Arthur being the Queen spread, that was what really got to everyone. Was everyone really that scared of being different?

Alfred sighed, looking out one of the many windows in the library. Naturally, there was that group brave enough to try to storm into the castle because they were mad, or thought that the clocks were wrong and all of that…

Luckily they weren't crowned yet, or they would probably get booted out of it. That had happened before. To that one Queen Yao talked about. Who became a laughing stock. She was actually booted out of the royalty. Alfred still hadn't finished reading about her, but he was sure the other Royals had a hard time working after that happened to her.

Alfred got up from the table he had his large pile of books at and walked over to the window. He looked below and just about one story under him was that little crowd of people yelling at no one. No one really cared enough to listen to them. That was one thing that hadn't changed over history.

"Hey!" Alfred snapped down at them and most of them stopped yelling and looked up at him, apparently bewildered that someone yelled at them. "Could ya quiet down? Some people are trying to read up here."

"Who are you to deny the people what they want?" one of them yelled at him.

"I'm a 5," Alfred said casually. Technically, that was still true. They couldn't take that away from him up here.

"Then you should join us," one of them said. "You shouldn't have to serve an insane, male Queen. It's wrong in the first place."

"I kinda like Queen Arthur, though," Alfred rested his head on his hand. "He's pretty cool, you know?"

"You're an idiot if you like the insane fraud…" one of them sighed.

"What even are you up there?" another tilted their head. "Waiter? Cleaner?"

"Well, you see," Alfred dug into his pocket and pulled out his clock. "This weird clock thing," he showed it to them, he wasn't quite sure if they could see the "K" in the background marking it as the King Clock, but that didn't matter, "chose me for some big job up here. Some position called a King or whatever… So I just get to chill here for a while until they decide what to do with me."

"Our new King is a 5?" one of them marveled.

"I'm a 5…" someone muttered.

"I heard he was a servant, but a 5? Really? I'm a 7!"

"I figured you looked familiar, 5 dude," Alfred leaned a little more over the window. "Haven't I seen you before?"

"My King," someone said behind Alfred and he turned his head to see a servant. He sighed when he saw that it was one of his closer friends before he got chosen.

"You can call me Alfred," he groaned.

"I-I've been told to bring your attention back to your work," the servant stuttered.

"Thanks," Alfred nodded towards her and turned back to the people. "Gotta go, work, you know how it is." Alfred took a step away, remembered something he wanted to say, and turned back to the window. "By the way. You make another crack about how my Queen is insane and I'll make sure you get sent somewhere far away. Maybe Clubs… Nice meeting you, by the way!"

Then he walked away.

Smiling to himself.

Arthur slowly opened his eyes, the sunlight hurting them slightly, but not too bad. He felt really warm… He had to blink a few times to clear his vision and he figured out that he was lying on his back. The longer he sat there, the more he realized that he was just bored. He didn't know why he was sitting there for so long. He felt fine.

In fact, he felt better than fine. Better than he had felt for a while, to be honest. He slowly sat upright and looked around his room. Nothing much had changed except that the giant pile of papers was gone and the crumpled papers behind his desk was cleared out. The Queen Clock was resting right in the middle of his desk. He could hear it ticking the seconds away.

He ran a hand through his hair, that always helped him think a little more. He realized that he hadn't done much thinking since about a couple days into that damn water treatment. As he ran his hand through, he frowned at how greasy his hair felt. He hadn't had a proper bath since he got taken away…

Arthur sighed and dropped his hand. Judging from the light coming in through his window, it was the middle of the day. Even if it was in the middle of the night, though, he wouldn't be able to go to sleep. He felt like he had enough sleep to last him a life time. He didn't even know how long he had been asleep.

"Arthur?" a small voice asked tentatively. It sounded familiar, but Arthur couldn't place it for some reason. He looked around for it as he swung his legs over the side of his bed and moved the sheets off of him. "Oh, my God! You can hear me!" Arthur felt something attack his ear, making his head loll to the side slightly.

Arthur blinked a few times, registering the voice in his head. "Ella?" Arthur felt a smile grow on his face.

"Arthur!" the familiar face of Ella flew into his face and hugged his nose. Arthur let out a laugh and Ella flew back a couple inches from his face so Arthur could see her clearly.

"I-I'm sorry…" Arthur rubbed the back of his neck. "I should have just stayed stubborn but I…"

"It's okay," Ella smiled. "Because you believe again and you're still alive and…and I missed you…"

"I'm alive…" Arthur muttered. "What does that mean?"

Ella stiffened. "Nothing…" she quickly flew up to the clock resting on the desk.

"Ella," Arthur stared at her. "What do you mean by 'still alive'?"

"You broke your connection to magic," Ella sighed and touched the clock with her foot. "You're connection with it is so strong that it nearly killed you. If it weren't for Alfred saving you. What no one else saw, though, was that you're clock stopped when you admitted you didn't believe…"

"It stopped?" Arthur moved to sit upright, but his vision blurred and he got queasy, so he sat back down. "Wh-what does that mean, if it stops?"

"If it wasn't fixed soon, the other clocks would stop," Ella murmured. "That's a sign of death of the Royals. When one dies, they all do. That's how it works because the set of Royals has to be connected and have chemistry."

"That's why the last Queen mysteriously died in the garden…" Arthur muttered. "Because the King and Jack died…"

"The clocks restart after all of the royals die," Ella sighed. "You were going to know eventually, so I figured that you learned now."

"So I almost killed Alfred because I stopped believing in you?" Arthur asked shakily.

"And Yao," Ella muttered.

"Right," Arthur sighed. "The Jack…"

"You should probably go find them now," Ella said, flying back up to Arthur. "They're worried and Alfred hasn't been able to check up on you very much recently… Besides," Ella's mood suddenly brightened, "I totally wanna see the look on his face when he sees you again!"

"Fine, then, let's get going," Arthur sighed.

"Well, not looking like that," Ella scoffed.

"Wh-what do you mean?" Arthur looked down and winced when he found that they were the same clothes as the ones he got taken away in. They were wrinkled and there were even a few holes in them. "Bloody hell," Arthur rolled his eyes. He immediately moved to the dresser and tried to find something.

"You should probably take a bath, too," Ella flew up and landed on the top of the dresser.

Arthur stopped moving his clothes around and heaved a heavy sigh. "Not right now…"

"Hm?" Ella tilted her head. "What happened to you needing to be a crisp and perfect gentleman?" She put emphasis on it by strutting around with her head held high and her arms moving too much.

"Ella," Arthur stared at her until she stopped. "I'll do it eventually. That fair?"

"Is this because of the asylum?" Ella asked tentatively.

"Please don't ask," Arthur pulled out a random shirt and pair of trousers and turned around.

"'Kay," Ella said. "I'll just wait outside the room for you to change and stuff."

Arthur pulled of his old, tattered shirt and sighed. He hadn't thought about taking a bath… Just the thought of his head going underneath water made him shiver. He had to close his eyes for a second and sit down.

Good Lord, was he afraid of water?

Bah, I slept in today... Reading through this chapter, I realize it's not the best, but there's really not much I can do to change it and I'm still tired, so... Yeah...Things'll be kinda calm for a while, I'll probably put in a little more humor to lighten things up from the past couple chapters. But, um, yeah. Hope you enjoyed!

Review please!

I don't own... I don't even want to write this disclaimer today...