Joseph knocked lightly on the door to the queen's suite. She didn't share a suite with the king, though there was a connecting door between her sitting room and his. But at this time he was fairly certain she would be in her own suite. So when she didn't respond, he knocked a little louder while calling out, "Your majesty? It's Joseph."

A moment later, he was surprised by the door swinging open to admit him rather than a voice calling for his entrance. She was partially hidden behind it, but once she'd pushed it closed again and turned to pad back across her sitting room, he could see that she was in her pyjamas, despite the time being only slightly past dinner. "Your majesty," he greeted her as calmly and formally as if she was in a ballgown and he was to escort her to her husband at the top of the stairs. "How are you?"

"As well as can be expected, in light of everything, Joseph." She paused. "Perhaps not quite as well as could be expected, honestly. Expectations and duty demand that I should be with him, or planning to ease the transition for our people. They'll need me to stay strong until Philippe . . . until Philippe can . . . can take over."

He heard her struggle - wanting to specify, but not wanting to say that Philippe would be crowned king once his father lost the battle with this wretched cancer raging its way rapidly through him. Knowing she needed his strength right now more than ever, he stepped a little closer and asked, "And, if I may be so bold . . . Clarisse, how are you?"

She frowned a little, though whether at his boldness in using her name or his repeated question, he couldn't say for sure. What she did say in response was, "You just asked how I am."

"I asked how your majesty is. But I would also like to know how Clarisse, the woman, the person, the human being with a very human-like complex set of emotions, is."

She opened her mouth to argue, closed it, opened it again, turned, stepped out onto her balcony, and all but collapsed against the railing, her hands slamming down against it to catch herself. A gasping sob came out of her mouth, though no tears fell from her eyes.

He was instantly by her side, arm around her in strength and comfort. In the back of his mind, he was still evaluating potential threats: considering the location of her balcony, hidden in such a way that nobody without access to palace grounds would be able to see it; pondering everybody on staff, especially the newer ones or ones with a history of being disgruntled; trying to determine whether any opportunist might try to get a photo of them. In his brain that saw contingency after alternate possibility, he could see the headlines now. While ailing king fights for life, queen seeks refuge in arms of security guard. But as irritating as the press could be, the people genuinely loved the Renaldi family, including the matriarch who had married into the family. Ultimately, he calculated that the risk of being seen drawing her back into her room would be greater than staying put; and the risk of her not receiving the comfort would be a greater risk to her personally than anything else. She didn't exactly sob against him or anything, but she also didn't stiffen up or pull away, instead relaxing into him and allowing him to give her the comfort she so desperately needed.

Though his entire risk assessment of hugging her was done in a matter of seconds, they stood that way for several minutes before she finally broke the silence. "What will we do, Joseph?"

"We . . . the palace? We, you and the king? We, you and your boys as the remaining members of the Renaldi family? We, the country? We . . . you and I? Which we are you referencing?"

She was silent another moment before she said softly, "Maybe all of them."

"We, the members of the palace, will continue on, doing all we can to ease the transition from one king to the next. The doctor said His Majesty may have some weeks left yet, but the work will begin to pass to Philippe now. You will have some work to do too, in the meantime. You and your husband will discuss things, both trying to comfort the other because you care too much not to want to ease one another's burdens during this difficult time. You and your boys, as the remaining members of the Renaldi family, will grieve your husband and their father in all the ways you need to grieve him, to the best that we, the members of the palace, can make that possible despite the crazy nature of your very public roles. We all - the palace, the country - will be grieving in our own ways as well."

She waited, but he did not continue, so she finally asked, "And you and I?"

"I will be here to be whatever kind of support you need me to be. And you will be grieving your husband and best friend."

"But not my love."

He hesitated there. The sentence clearly held significant meaning for her, but it was so ambiguous he wasn't sure which way she meant it. Finally, he said, "Do you have a love to grieve?"

Whichever way she had meant that previous sentence - that Rupert was not her love, that she had no love to grieve, that she had another love whom she would not need to grieve, that the kind of love she held for Rupert would not pass with him and thus would not require grieving - whatever she had intended, she went with his question as though it was what she had meant all along. "A love? How could I have a love? I made that mistake already."

He pulled back a little to look down at her, surprised at her words. "What mistake?"

"I fell in love." For a moment he was afraid she would give voice to the romantic tension that was always unspoken between them, but she continued and immediately put his fears at ease and more questions into his mind. "Some thirty-five years ago, as a young woman, almost more girl than woman, I fell in love with love itself. With the idea of love. I was making every fairy tale come true. I was the woman not of royal blood who was selected to marry the prince. And, young and naive as I was at the time, I believed that love would be an inevitable conclusion to that. I fell in love with love, with this make-believe idea of that beautiful ending. And where did it lead? Love fell out with me."

Joseph drew her closer, rubbing his hand absently up and down her arm. "Do you really believe that? You fell in love with the idea of romantic love, perhaps, and were disappointed to find something else. But you have had a deep and wonderful friendship. He still needs you, and you need to stay strong, for him and for the country. Turning to cynicism won't help anyone."

"What if I can't? What if that's not possible for me? What if . . . what if there's no love left in me to give?"

"Clarisse," he whispered, using her forbidden first name and hoping she wouldn't kick him out for it, "you are one of the kindest and most loving people I have ever known. You love your people in a way that many born to the role cannot understand. You love your husband with a fierceness that belies your errant romantic senses. You love even your staff with a kind brilliance that endears everyone to you and inspires them to want to work harder for you. Do you understand that? Love may not have arrived the way you want it to, but it certainly has not abandoned you."

She turned her face up toward his, and, ever mindful of the potentially compromising position they were in, he pulled back a little to view her tear-streaked face without being close enough to succumb to the temptation to kiss those silent tears away. He had never felt a change in her body to know the tears had even begun.

"And is that what I am, then? Is that what I'm left to? I'm destined to every other kind of love but not the very kind I wish?"

He could have offered any number of platitudes, but both their friendship and their working relationship were built on honesty and he would continue to be honest with her, as always. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. If you can't believe right now, I'll believe for you, and I have to believe it is never too late."

She searched his eyes with her glistening ones before saying softly, "I should go to him."

"He was asleep. Do you think he'll be awake now?"

"It doesn't matter. He is, after all, one of my best friends. And he's my husband. I should be with him, as much as possible, until the end." She turned to leave, then turned back and whispered, "Thank you my friend," before fleeing her own suite for the relative safety, but certain discomfort, of her dying husband's bedside.

Falling in Love with Love

Falling in love with love is falling for make believe
Falling in love with love is playing the fool
Caring too much is such a juvenile fancy
Learning to trust is just for children in school.

I fell in love with love one night when the moon was full
I was unwise with eyes unable to see
I fell in love with love, with love everlasting
But love fell out with me.