SORRY FOR ALL TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES! There should only be one new chapter (43) despite how many times I've tried to upload this chapter.

Thank you, lovely people who are still reading this, hope you enjoy this chapter! As usual it took me forever to write. Review shoutouts to delovlies, RunawayGirl8125, mnbvcxz-xx, Virtue01, and Lizcran! Upcoming chapters will feature the Selected a lot so let me know who your favorites are! –shades

…

"We're staging an intervention."

Wesley looked up from his computer, his eyes so glazed over he had to squint to see who it was. To his surprise, Fallon and Alyex had somehow appeared in front of his desk in his office.

"Wha—?"

Fallon closed his laptop with devise flick of her wrist while Alyex came around his desk to grab Wesley by his rolling chair and pull him away from his desk.

"You've been locked in here for days. You need to at least shower," Fallon wrinkled her nose.

"That's because I'm a prince, I'm on the Council!" he reached blindly for the coffee that had been hot…days ago and drank it anyway. "I have so much to do…" At least he had some nice and dare he say sexy stubble going for him because he didn't have time to shave anymore.

"Okay, you seriously need to shave." Alyex read his mind. "You look homeless."

"Hey!"

Ever since the conclusion of the Public Trials two weeks ago, Wesley had been thrust into a mire of royal duties, contrary to his belief that everything would be over. No, instead life had other plans for him. The Public Trials ended up being unpopular with some of the staunch supporters of the monarchy, who they hadn't considered when designing the event—to appease the faction who believed the rebels got off too lightly while avoiding alienating the northern population. Instead, what they got was backlash that they gave in too easily to the faction's demands. Additionally, the province of Atlin had not taken well to the arrest of the prominent members of the Berlin family nor the jailing of General Caine and Cody Trevelyne (by his own actions escaped them). The official naming of Jason Trevelyne to the Council did little to placate them, instead serving to stir up the eastern provinces, who were largely disconnected from the drama of the war and its aftermath. The Berlins continued to make demands of their lawyers and not cooperate with anything, really, and Atlin's unrest only added fuel to the fires.

The only good that had come from all the drama was that Lillian's choice to be eliminated went mostly under the radar. It didn't matter anyway, since Wesley had basically ignored his Selection since then. He especially ignored the fact that there were now eight girls left and two of them—the two attempting to kidnap him away from his office—had friend-zoned him.

"When is the last time you ate something?" Alyex asked him. Wesley turned on his phone to check the time only to find it dead as usual. He rummaged through a mountain of paper to find the clock on his desk, which showed it was somehow 4 pm. Hadn't it just been almost time to go to breakfast? He groaned and rubbed his face.

"I had a pbj…yesterday?"

"Did you just call it a pbj and not a pb and —you know what, never mind," Fallon held up her hands in exasperation. Wesley was surprised she hadn't said anything about his Spiderman pajama pants and terrifically clashing plaid shirt. Maybe she couldn't see it for the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Oh, wait that reminded him, they were friends now, so she couldn't be mean about his clothes anymore.

"So is all this," she gestured to the disaster of his desk. "Because of my family?"

"Um, some of it," Wesley admitted. "But it's not your fault."

Alyex forcibly removed the blanket from his clutches. "Come with us."

When the two girls had roped him into taking a shower, shaving, and putting on real clothes, and eating some real food. After the basics, Fallon dragged him outside, demanding that he needed fresh air and sunshine. Feeling increasingly like a house plant, Wesley insisted on showing Fallon and Alyex around the palace compound, including less of the fancy palace part and more of what he considered his home. It was pretty nice today, and he barely even needed his sweatshirt. The first stop was the hanger, where all the private aircraft were stored as well as Andrew's collection of luxury cars. The tennis court, that no one ever used (they were spoiled okay) and the archery field, the outdoor gym space, and his personal favorite running track around the palace. The girls preferred the two gazebos, the hidden fountains, and the secluded spa hot tub he had been sworn not to show anyone whose last name wasn't Shreave. They spent a moment at the memorial that had been dedicated to the women of the previous Selection who had their lives in the uprising, finding some flowers to lay on the stone monument in a quiet area surrounded by boxwoods. It made Wesley sad, remembering. Remembering the four women and thinking about how different it would have been if it was his Selected.

"They were so brave," Alyex said quietly, tracing her fingers over Katherine Page's name.

Wesley nodded his head. "Yeah. They were all pretty amazing."

"They didn't deserve this," Alyex said.

"But we'll remember them," Fallon added, setting her flowers down.

Wesley blinked at the burning in his eyes, not expecting to feel quite so connected to his brother's Selected. He thought of the others he had lost, his dad and his best friend. "We will."

…

On their way back inside, Wesley took them on a detour, to where the kid's playground stuff was. He figured they all could use some cheering up. Aidan was there playing while Andrew watched him at the same time as talking on his cellphone. Wesley's first instinct was to ask him if it was Council business but then he kind of remembered he didn't care at the moment. The girls sat on the swings while Aidan forced Wesley (all while maintaining his favorite uncle status) to play kickball with him. Unfortunate for Wesley, Aidan's definition included only him kicking it far as his four-year-old legs could and making Wesley bring it back to him. He was both a house plant and a dog today, Wesley decided.

Andrew got off his call long enough for Aidan to beg him to let him stay with Wesley, and then Wesley reminded himself his brother was also the king as he consented and headed back inside.

"Hey, you two," Wesley called to Fallon and Alyex when he got bored of playing fetch with Aidan. "Come play with us."

Alyex proved to be particularly good with kids, and Aidan adored her, as he remembered from their cookie baking party. Fallon was shy at first, even around a four-year-old prince, but she warmed up quickly as they played actual kickball.

"You guys were right," Wesley said as he jogged back to their makeshift bases of discarded jackets from the warm day. "This totally beats my office."

Alyex smiled her cheeks ruddy from running around. "It 'll help you work better, take it from me, I was in med school."

"I forgot about that," Wesley said. He remembered she had been a nurse in Hudson during the war. "You must be insanely smart then."

"Something like that," she laughed. "Smarter than you, anyway."

"Hey!"

They both looked up, seeing three of the other Selected hurrying across the lawn to meet them. Wesley waved wildly to them. Ophelia, Eleanor, and Veyra were all grins as they joined the group.

"Kickball without me?" Veyra arched her eyebrows in a teasing smirk. "Dammit, Shreave, I'm offended."

"Can we play too?" Ophelia asked, brushing back her hair as it fluttered around her face in the breeze.

"Of course!" Wesley said. "We need better teams anyway. Being on the same team as a toddler has its drawbacks."

Eleanor was last, struggling slightly in the grass in her heeled ankle boots. "I've never played," she admitted.

"Well consider this your warm-up round. And no, you only get one." Wesley grinned at her.

Aidan was thrilled to have three more friends—especially three girls who fawned over him. Wesley knew Veyra, Ophelia and Alyex were all pretty close friends, but they were easy around Fallon and Eleanor. Fallon was her usual quiet self, but she looked the happiest Wesley had ever seen her. Aidan ditched Wesley in favor of Alyex, Ophelia, and Veyra, but he was happy to hang with Fallon and Eleanor. Alyex said she would be Aidan's partner to keep the numbers even, which the kid was very happy about.

"Prepare to lose," Wesley called to the other team after they showed Eleanor the basics. She didn't know much about baseball either, so Wesley's description of "baseball but like soccer," didn't help much. Veyra stuck her tongue out at him, throwing in a middle finger too. Wesley laughed. She looked so much different here than in princess-mode, organizing, and hosting parties. She looked better.

Wesley took over pitching duties and gently rolled the ball towards Alyex and Aidan. She helped him kick and they all gave him a bit of a freebie as Alyex ran around the first few bases with him holding her hand. Veyra kicked next, and she kicked the ball so hard it flew halfway across the lawn. Wesley chased after it, ended up tripping, and was rewarded with some very nice grass stains on his knees. By the time he reclaimed the ball, Alyex, Aidan and Veyra had run around their makeshift bases and were high fiving each other.

"This game is rigged!" Wesley yelled.

"You can win back some points with me," Ophelia said, grimacing as she stepped up to the home plate. "I'm going to be awful, just watch."

She kind of was, but she was a good sport about it and they let her have some extra chances. Her team had garnered several points by the time they got their three outs.

Wesley draped an arm over Eleanor and Fallon as they switched sides. "Okay team, we gotta win this," he said seriously. "So kick it as far as you can and run like hell. I'm counting on you two."

Fallon was giggling as she went first, which made Wesley nervous, but to his surprise she sent the ball flying and bolted around to third base by the time Veyra tried to tag her.

"Yeeeeeeehawwww!" Wesley crowed as stopped, both of them grinning. "You're up," Wesley told Eleanor as she tied her hair back into a ponytail. "Think you can run in those shoes?" he nodded to her heeled boots.

"Of course, I can. Watch and learn," she raised one eyebrow and brushed past him. Instead of kicking it far, Eleanor mostly just stopped the ball with her foot and kicked it about a foot, but it caught the other team off guard, and with a shriek, Eleanor took off sprinting. Wesley was shrieking too as Fallon came running back to home plate, and then at Eleanor as she tried to make one more base. She dived for it, just making it before Ophelia tagged her. Fallon shoved Wesley forward to kick.

"Good luck, Shreave," Veyra taunted as she prepared to roll the ball toward him. "You'll need it."

Wesley missed on the first pitch, and then somehow on the second. Which was weird because he was basically a professional kickballer. "You're pitching it funny!" He yelled at Veyra.

"I'm putting it right in front of you!" she teased.

"Do it again," he waved his arm. "Come on!"

The third time was a charm, and he sent the ball flying. He almost forgot to run he was so excited but Fallon pushed him again. Veyra tried to tackle him, even though she didn't have the ball, so they both ended up in the grass as Wesley crawled to the base. He scrambled to his feet and kept going as Alyex tried to be nice and let Aidan try to throw. He narrowly avoided Ophelia and was running back to do a home run when out of nowhere he was suddenly on the ground, his leg probably broken and still smarting when the ball had hit him.

"That's not fair, you can't hit me with that thing!" he yelled as he maneuvered into a sitting position. Veyra and Ophelia were only doubled over laughing, even Aidan and Alyex and his own teammates were laughing. "You're cheating!"

"It's legal," Veyra said when they mostly recovered from laughter. "I know my kickball rules."

"You're out, Uncle Wesley!" Aidan cried joyfully, flopping down next to Wesley in the grass and tagging him again with the ball.

"I know," Wesley admitted. "I kind of suck at kickball more than I remember." Veyra held out a hand to pull him to his feet, which he accepted. He grinned at her. "Challenge accepted."

The game went on rather brutally for the next hour, though they forgot to keep score after a while. Eleanor made a home run, and Wesley was so excited he picked her up and swung her around. After a while, Aidan decided to join Wesley's team and he carried Aidan around the bases piggy-back style. Verya's competitiveness gave her a hard edge and she took most of it out on Wesley. Ophelia's kicking improved as the game went on, and she could run for ages with what she claimed was all her breath-support from singing. Fallon was soon making jokes with the other girls out of her shell.

Wesley hadn't laughed that hard in ages, he realized when the sun started to go down and they were trooping back to the palace.

"I think that's the most fun I've had since I got here," Ophelia said. "Hands down."
"Ouch, the kickball in the kid's playground and not my masterly crafted dates?" Wesley fake clutched at his chest. "My pride had been wounded!"

She nudged him with her shoulder. "Those were fun too."

"We totally won," Eleanor claimed, joining them. "Hey Wesley, think you can give me one of those piggyback rides?"

"Girl, I know I can," Wesley said, stopping so she could jump on his back. After a few steps, they were both laughing so much Eleanor fell off and pulled Wesley down on top of her. More laughing ensued and the group barely made it back to the palace in time to change for dinner. When they reconnected downstairs in their hastily assembled dinner wear, it set them all giddy again. There were some looks from Iris, Georgia, and Vera, who had not been part of the game, trying to figure out what was so funny.

That warm feeling was back—the one when everything felt okay when it didn't matter about the bad, the good was more than enough to keep him going. The feeling that he could make it. There were other moments, during the yacht party, during Christmas. He took a moment to remember this one too, the pleasant feeling of being exhausted from running around all afternoon, the sound of Veyra's laughter, the way Eleanor caught his eye as she was talking, Fallon's smile breaking across her face, the feeling of being safe and warm inside his home while winter darkness stole over the grounds. There were sad bits too from today, visiting the memorial, the ever-impending doom of dealings with the Berlins and the healing of the country that seemed to never quite finish, and all the unanswered questions he had about the Selection. Wesley ignored it all, choosing to focus on today. It was enough.

After dinner, Alyex and Fallon bombarded him to talk about more dates, with the three girls who had been absent.

"We're pretty much your only hope at this point, Wesley," Alyex told him as they headed back to his room to make plans.

"And you need all the help you can get," Fallon added. "So, I'm here too."

"That's great, because—" Wesley stopped. Vera looked up from where she was sitting at his desk, her legs draped over the side of his chair, eating chips. Her beloved bathrobe was open over her flannel pajama pants and a white tank top. She caught sight of the other two Selected behind him, and her smile faltered.

Wesley halted in his tracks. "Uh, hey, Vera. How'd you get in here?"

She shrugged and licked the chip dust from her fingertips. "Nick let me in."

"Um, okay, we should go, sorry Wesley," Alyex stammered behind him. "Come on Fallon."

"Wait, what about planning my next date?" Wesley turned to ask them as they started to back out of the room.

"Do you two want any chips? They're barbeque," Vera shook the bag, her voice taunting.

Fallon's eyes darted from Vera to him. "It looks like you have other plans," she said with a very Fallon-esque smirk. "Have fun."

Wesley looked at Alyex for assistance in decoding Fallon. He found her blushing and embarrassed.

"We didn't mean to interrupt," she said.

"You weren't—OH." The implications of Fallon and Alyex slapped him over the head. "WAIT. That's not what we were…uh, I mean, this looks like something way different than it is. Vera and I just hang out a lot."

"In your room?" Fallon pointed out coyly. She was enjoying this roasting of him, Wesley could tell. Good for her, Fallon Berlin needed some joy- even if it was at his expense.

"Yes, in my room," Wesley said. "Hanging out. Just hanging out."

"Ooookayyy," Fallon's eyebrows raised. "I totally believe you."

Wesley decided to set things straight. "We're not sleeping together."

"Wow," Vera put her feet up on his desk. "You're very adamant about this. Should I be offended?"

"We're really not," he told Alyex and Fallon.

Alyex was leaving anyway. "We'll talk later about your dates."

He started to thank them for their help, but Alyex all but dragged Fallon out of there.

Vera threw a chip at him. "What's going on with those two?"

Wesley shot her a very offended glare, rubbing his arm where the chip had hit him. "Hey!"

"Why were they all up in your business?"

"They're helping me."

"They're part of the Selection helping you date the other girls of the Selection?" Vera asked him. "That's not weird at all."

"They're not not part of the Selection…they kind of friend-zoned me." He mumbled. He moved her feet from his desk and hopped up to sit on it.

Her voice was casual. "Is that why you spent all afternoon with them?"

"Are you jealous?"

Vera rolled her eyes, doing her little half-smile thing. "No."

Wesley sighed, and then grabbed the chips from her. "You don't like the other girls much do you," he said around a mouthful of chip. Potato chips weren't as good as tortilla chips and salsa, but they would do.

"Do I have to like them?" Vera asked. "Is that like a requirement?"

"I have a feeling you don't like this whole Selection thing either."

Vera looked away, having the graciousness to look abashed. When she looked back up, her blue eyes deep and in the dim lighting looked darker than usual. "I like you."

Wesley tried to stop the smile on his idiotic face to no avail. "I like you very much too, Vee."

She smiled back, equally dumb. Then ruined the moment by snatching the chips back from him.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Wesley said, though the question made him a little nervous. 'Can I ask you something' could really mean anything.

"Why do you keep Fallon around?" she didn't give him much of a chance to respond. "Because I've always thought it was weird, that she was here in the first place. And especially with everything that's going on with the Berlins—it's sketchy as hell, Wesley."

"Oh, um…" Wesley didn't have much of an answer. He also thought of the broken deal he still hadn't told Vera about, hoping he would never have to.

Vera continued. "And especially since you said she friend-zoned you, I just think it's weird."

It wasn't his place to tell Vera why Fallon was different than the rest of her family, to reveal her secrets. it wasn't his place to explain what they had decided. It wasn't Vera's place either to tell him what he should be doing with his Selection.

"Look Vera," he sighed. "I don't feel comfortable talking about this with you."

It felt like their stupid flirting just two minutes ago had never happened.

"Why?" she asked. "She's a traitor."

"She didn't take any part in the war." Wesley reminded her. "She even helped us at the Public Trials."
Vera rolled her eyes, and not in a cute teasing way. "That is—"

"Not really any of your business," Wesley finished, trying to be nice. "Sorry, but…"

She looked at him for a moment, her eyes narrowed. Then she stood up, upsetting the bag of chips. She held up her hands. "Fine."

The door closed loudly behind her.

Wesley groaned, opting to move from his office to his bedroom and flop face-first into his pillows. All his earlier happiness from the afternoon evaporated as the echo of Vera's slamming door hung in his ears. There was a nagging feeling again, the one he got when she always chose to defy the rules, showing her displeasure just a little. It was part of her charm, sure, but…still. He should run down the hall after her, he should wait by her door until she opened it and deigned to hear his apology, he should do a lot of things.

Instead, he got ready for bed. It was still early for Wesley to go to bed, but the all-nighters he had been pulling on work hit him all at once. It hit him then, that he actually could sleep now. Overtime or all at once, he realized he couldn't remember the last time he had not slept through the night. When he wasn't doing Council work or late-night meetings or the occasional stressing-over-the-Selection-foray through the forms again, that was.

At the beginning of the Selection, he had been plagued with nightmares of distorted memories and haunted with panic attacks and insomnia. He had resorted to drinking heavily and sleeping as little as possible, even holding those dumb parties with various members of the Selected. Around Christmas, there had been a period of time where Vera and he would spend their nights together, each taking comfort in the other's presence as the nightmares of the attack that day in Angeles marauded through their minds. They had tampered that off around New Years due to do each other's schedules and Wesley spending time with the other girls and feeling guilty. It felt somewhat lonely, with her sudden absence and leaving in anger, but it also felt okay. Maybe people were right, maybe time really did heal all wounds.

While he was brushing his teeth, he opened his phone. He now had a digital copy of his New Year's Resolutions on his phone, instead of the paper. Yeah, he had broken a lot of them. He had a few drinks, he smoked with Georgia that day of the Convicting (and a few more since then shut up). He had been going to see a therapist twice a week and hadn't skipped an appointment once. Or well, his doctor came to the palace for security and privacy reasons. Dr. Holland was nice, she showed Wesley pictures of her cat and her two daughters in middle school, and she was easy to talk to. They mostly talked about Wesley's current stressors, but he had told her some about his experiences in the war. she had given him a journal, encouraging him to write in it, though he only really did when she gave him an assignment of sorts. At least that resolution was going well.

And it made his mom happy too. She had sat through his first appointments until Dr. Holland had nicely asked her to let this be between Wesley and her only. Ever since he had that stupid panic attack in front of her, she had been so worried about him. Their regular palace doctor had given him a clean bill of health and some sleeping pills after that forced visit, and Wesley had convinced him he didn't need a therapist.

It felt like progress admitting that he did. Dr. Holland said there was nothing wrong with seeing her, and it in no way meant he was crazy or sick or anything. As he went to more and more sessions, he was starting to think she was right.

He finished up in the bathroom and changed into some clean pajamas instead of his favorite sweats he had been wearing earlier before Alyex and Fallon had dragged him outside.

Lately, he had been putting the Selection on hold when he was so busy with Council stuff, but if today proved anything, it proved it was going well. That was another resolution. The others—exercising more and drinking less caffeine and being more organized—were works in progress but he had the whole year. He looked over his schedule for tomorrow, finding it surprisingly less than expected, especially if he got an early start. There was even time for a date in there somewhere if he didn't get wrangled into some extra work by his brothers or his Selection coordinators or his newly instated Selected friends-only. But he wouldn't if he had a date. Wesley wandered back into his office and dug around through the mess until he found the forms, now practically memorized and very unhelpful. He still had Dresden and Lillian's in there, so he took them out and put them with the rest of the eliminated girls. He also took Fallon and Alyex's and stuck them in their pile, leaving only six.

Shit.

He left his desk before he could think about that too fast. As he hurried out of the room, deciding to plan dates another day, he stopped as he moved to turn out the light. There was a wrapped Christmas present still sitting with all his other (opened) Christmas stuff he neglected to put away. It was Lissa's Christmas present, the one he had never given her, finding she had gone home for the holidays. The one he would probably never give her because he would feel like a fool now. Wesley grabbed the box and shoved it in one of his desk drawers.

When he returned to his rooms after an adventure to the kitchens for ice cream, he went straight to his bedroom. Wesley shoved the mountain of pillows that his bed always was made up with to one side and turned the blankets down. He turned off all the lights in his suite of rooms except for one of the lamps by his bed and went to the window to eat his ice cream. He opened the curtains, surveying the dark gardens below. He didn't have a balcony in here, it was off his sitting room, but he didn't mind. He could see the lights of Angeles from here, glittering orange and gold and pink before succumbing to the dark of the ocean.

Sometimes, those lights really haunted him. Shining through all his broken pieces and making him think of the times he had tried to fix them with shaking hands. The pieces that he had managed to glue back together were always in danger of breaking again.

It was pathetic, really, how sometimes he still hoped in was Lissa in the end.

The memories of the start and the end of the two of them haunted him like the lights below him. Wesley closed his curtains, telling himself once again what they had was gone. All it was now was

echos of the spark, from the start of it all, he supposed. He didn't believe in that stupid broken pieces story anyway.

…

Wesley scheduled a date with Iris the next day, in the small library on the first floor. It was one of those spaces no one ever used that Ophelia was so fond of, however, Wesley decided to invite Iris instead because she had missed the impromptu kickball game, and with all that was going on around the Public Trials, he had hardly seen any of her.

"Hi!" she said in greeting. Wesley had camped out here a few hours earlier to get some work done so he wouldn't forget. He stood up to give her a quick hug.
"Irissssssss," he drew her name out, and her smile widened. She sat a stack of several minimalistic printed notebooks on the table where Wesley's stuff was strewn about. Her short black hair swung around her cheeks as she sat down. She was so damn cute, with her nail polish the same color as her light-yellow skirt.

"This is really weird, but I remember watching Prince Ethan go on a date here on the Report," Iris said, looking around. "With Lady Taylor."

Wesley laughed awkwardly, mostly to cover up the fact that he didn't remember who that was. "And now you get to go on one with me! Well kinda, it's a work date, sorry."

Iris beamed. "I don't mind," she said. "What are you working on?"
Wesley shuffled his papers. "Honestly, I don't know. Some budget stuff, some public relations stuff. I hate to say it but I miss the days when the Council didn't tell me about meetings so I could focus on the Selection." He peered over his laptop to look more closely at the cover of one of her journals, propping his face in his hands. "What about you, that looks way more fun!"

"It's some building designs I'm working on," Iris opened up the little pencil case she had brought. "Architecture stuff."

"Can I see?"

Iris looked embarrassed, and then shrugged, opening up the bright cover to some very technical drawings inside. He felt a pang as he saw them, kind of like how he felt with Ophelia and lately Veyra, seeing Iris's drawings. It was a bad pang, seeing what she was capable of and knowing she was instead here at his home as he struggled to form some sort of coherence in his dating life. And failed spectacularly.

"These are amazing," he blurted. "How did you learn how to do this?"

"College," Iris explained. "I'm only a junior but I've taken several architectural classes already."

Wesley remembered it was January when another semester would be starting for her. He knew she had already taken the previous fall off. And now it was even longer.

He looked up at her, watching her press her lips together in a nervous way that was impossibly cute to him. Wesley wanted to ask her then and there if she wanted to leave, but he couldn't bring himself to.
"How did you get into all this?" he flipped to another page, examining the sketch of what he thought was a skyscraper with a rooftop garden.

"I'm not sure," Iris said, tucking her hair back. "I've always loved cities and drawing, and it was just the logical thing to study in college. And…" she hesitated, "I guess I wanted to do some good. Rebuild, you know. We left Illea right when they first attacked Angeles during the uprising, and I remember when our plane to Japan took off," Iris looked down at the table, "I saw the city I had grown up in burning. It made me so sad."

Most of the time, Wesley tried not to remember that time in his life. He hardly ever thought about what it had been like for others.

"That's actually kind of cool," Wesley said. "I was just scared as shit then, and you were already planning what you would do after it was over."

A smile tugged on Iris's lips. She touched her hair again, something Wesley realized she did when she was anxious. "Not long after that, we heard the news that you and your family had been exiled to Yukon," she said. "With all the Selected."

Wesley nodded, shuffling through his abandoned papers for something to do. "Yeah." He thought of visiting the memorial in the gardens yesterday.

Iris continued; in a nervous rambling sort of way, he could relate to. "My friends and I were obsessed with the Selections back then. We were crazy about both of your brother's. We didn't know what to do it all when everything bad started happening."

"I feel that," Wesley said, grimacing. "I didn't either."

Iris considered this, her dark eyes studying him.

"What?" Wesley asked.

"You tend to make jokes about bad things that happened to you," she pointed out. "It's just something I've noticed."

"Oh really?" Wesley was intrigued. "What else have you noticed?"

Iris blushed a little. "This and that. When the Selection first started…you were struggling."

Wesley leaned back in his chair, rubbing his neck. "Yeah, it was a lot going on. I wish they would have given me some more time to adjust being home first. Its… it's getting easier now. I've, uh," he cleared his throat. "I've been seeing a therapist, just to talk. It's helped a lot. I'm still so embarrassed about what happened that one day in Angeles."

Iris looked equally embarrassed as he felt. "It's okay," she said quickly. "I didn't know what to do either."

Again, he felt that inability of his to reconnect to her that he had felt since the incident in question. He wondered about that.

"You're also really funny," Iris changed the subject. "And you would do anything for your nieces and nephews. You also work way too hard sometimes and because of that you are always stressed out and you're terrible at acting like everything is fine."

Wesley laughed. "Hey, I thought that was my secret talent."

"You have your moments," Iris conceded. "I also used to have the biggest crush on you on the Reports and stuff—" as soon as she let this slip, she clapped her hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

"Used to? Should I be offended, Lady Iris?" Wesley teased her. "Have you been secretly watching me all these years?"

Her cheeks flushing, Iris looked up. "Maybe," she stammered.

"You're allowed to have a crush on me, you're in my Selection," Wesley reminded her. "And hey, I was a total babe when I was a teenager."

"You were different then. Not like bad different," she corrected herself.

"Was I?"

Iris nodded. "I remember from the Reports that back then, you and Lady Lissa were friends. You guys were always so funny together when they did the special episodes."

Wesley stiffened, feeling his face flush. "Oh yeah, well she was my age and waaayy too young to be there."

"I think it's great she's working at the palace now," Iris said. "The other day when we were watching the Public Trials in the Woman's Room, I asked her about you."

"Oh?" Wesley tried way too hard to act casual.

"She said you were special," Iris replied. "And that you were kind of an idiot."

Wesley looked down at his pile of papers, fighting back a stupid smile at Iris's words. He had that feeling all the sudden, that glow in his chest. It kind of hurt this time, but it was enough, to know what he was somebody to Lissa. She didn't hate him. And as much as he tried to deny it, with those words, he had a flicker of hope.

"She's right about one of those statements and you get three guesses and the first two don't count," Wesley closed his laptop with a bit more force than necessary. "Speaking of which, I am an idiot for planning a date with the intent of working the whole time." He shoved his mess to the side. "Show me more of your architecture stuff."

…