"What were you thinking, Harold?!" Queen Lillian scolded her husband. She had been quiet during the ball, not wanting to cause a scene, but it was time for Harold to tell her the truth. The entire ball had been one big, confusing mess, and Harold expected her to just stand by and pretend that nothing had happened? He should know her better than that. Of course, it seemed that she didn't know him that well, either. Never in her wildest dreams could she imagine him doing something as awful as what he did at the ball.
"What were you thinking?" she repeated in a furious, yet much quieter, voice.
"Well, you see Lillian........" Harold started to say, but stopped. He knew that he had been wrong to give Fiona the potion, and wrong to have had Shrek arrested, but what was he supposed to do? He was afraid of the Fairy Godmother, and the last thing he wanted to do was go against her wishes. Lillian, however, was giving him reason to be intimidated, as well.
"Lillian, I'm sorry...." The king said, for he really meant it, "but what did you expect me to do?"
"Just tell me this," Lilliansaid aspatiently as she could, ignoring Harold's question, "was the man you arrested the REAL Shrek, or was he pretending, too?" She said the last part of her statement sarcastically. She knew the answer to her own question, of course, but she wanted to see if her husband was dumb enough to lie to her.
"Um...well," Harold was tempted to lie, but he decided that it would be best not to, "No, he was the real Shrek."
"And I'm guessing that the man with Fiona was Charming," Queen Lillian said.
"Yes, that was Charming," Harold said, not suprised that Lillian had figured it out, "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you before, but I didn't think you would let Charming take Fiona to the ball if you knew the truth. I just wanted her to give him a chance." Harold was trying his best to avoid the truth without actually lying to his wife.
"Harold!! Whether you like it or not, Shrek is Fiona's husband," Lillian tried to talk some sense into her husband, "did you think that bringing Fiona and Charming together and arresting Shrek would change that?"
"Well..not exactly," Harold said, trying not to find a way to not reveal how much power the Fairy Godmother actually had over him, "And that's not the reason I arrested him. He...uh.....he attacked Charming. Yeah, that's why I had him arrested."
Harold thought that he had actually found a good excuse for his actions, even though it was mostly a lie. Of course, as he knew, his wife was not going to let him off the hook that easily.
"Prince Charming was kissing his wife, Harold," Lillian shouted in exasperation, "I think our son-in-law had the right to be a little angry!!"
When Harold didn't respond, Lillian continued..
"Why did Charming kiss Fiona, Harold?" Queen Lillian questioned, "and why did she return it, even after she realized that he wasn't her husband?"
"Well, um...." Harold struggled to find an answer.
"And why didn't you do anything to stop him, if you knew who he really was all along?" Lillian interrupted.
"Well.....you see, Lillian," Harold struggled even more to find an answer to this question.
"And what was our son-in-law talking about when he said that this was all your fault?" Lillian said, giving Harold a warning glare. Finally she ceased her questioning, giving Harold a chance to answer, and if he lied to her one more time.....he was going to be in deep trouble.
Figuring that there wasn't really a way to lie to her, Harold decided to tell her the truth, for once. He recalled everything, from the hitman to the potion. At first his wife became angry, but when Harold finished talking, she was justdisappointed. How could her husband, whom she had been married to for quite a while, do something like this? Standing by and letting all of this happen was bad enough, but it was hard to accept the fact that he had planned it all. After a moment of taking in what her husband had told her, she found her voice again.
"Harold...." Lillian said, in a voice that was suprisingly quiet, "You know what you need to do, don't you?"
"Yes..." Harold started, " but....."
"Then I expect you to do it," Lillian interrupted, still eerily quiet. Lillian had never been this angry before in her life.
Before Harold could respond, Queen Lillian turned towards the door, shaking her head with a sad look in her eyes. Then, without a word, she walked into the hallway. She was going to give Harold one last chance to redeem himself, and if he failed to do so, she didn't know what she would do.
Shrek stared pensively at the wall that stood in front of where he was hanging. Ever since his brief cry after being brought to the prison, it was all he had left to do. Without Donkey or Puss, whom he was suprised he missed so much, he was all alone. That is, except for the prison guards who, ever since Shrek and his friends' first escape, had been keeping a very watchful eye on him. Not that he was going anywhere, even if he could. Where was he supposed to go?
At first, he was suprised when he did not turn back into an ogre at midnight, until he remembered kissing Fiona inhis pathetic attempt to get her back. It's not like it mattered what he was anymore, but he hated the fact that he had saved the Fairy Godmother the trouble of turning Fiona human again. He continued to stare sadly at the wall, wondering if he would ever see his wife again.....
Harold was not looking forward to the talk he was about to have with the Fariy Godmother. He still didn't have the nerve to tell her that he wanted to call the whole deal off. He had, however, come up with a reason why it wouldn't work. The Fairy Godmother would probably find a way around it, but it was the only possible way not to get on her bad side, yet still make Lillian happy.
"Uh....excuse me, Fairy Godmother," Harold said tentatively.
The Fairy Godmother had been in her factory all morning, working hard to replace the many potions that Shrek had destroyed the day he took the Happily Ever After potion. It had all been worth it, for the potion had worked completely in her favor. When she heard Harold's voice, she was somewhat annoyed.
"Yes, Harold?" She said in the sweetest voice she could muster.
"Well, um, I just need to talk to you about a little.......problem with Fiona and Charming's marraige," Harold said.
"Come again?" The Fairy Godmother asked, with a little challenge in her voice.
"You see, I would be fine with Fiona and Charming getting married if it weren't for......" Harold started, but hesitated when he noticed the glare the Fairy Godmother was giving him. After a second, he continued, "the fact that Fiona is already married to.....the ogre."
The Fairy Godmother started to object, but suddenly realized that he was right. She had, of course, realized that Shrek and Fiona were still married, but had not thought of the effect that fact may have on Fiona and Charming. Fiona couldn't be married to two men at once, whether she knew she was or not. Not legally, anyway.
"Hmm....you're quite right, Harold," The Fairy Godmother conceded, "so I guess there are two things we can do."
Harold knew that this was coming. The Fairy Godmother always found a way around everything.
"Because the ogre will definetly not divorce Fiona," The Fairy Godmother said, "We can either kill him or find a way to make Shrek disappear."
As the Fairy Godmother said this, she suddenly came up with an idea. She did not need to kill the ogre, for he had kissed Fiona, thus making him permanently human. Killing a human would be murder, and not even the shifty Fairy Godmother would go that far, no matter how much she hated Shrek. No, she could handle it in another way. A way that would make everything easier for everyone.
"Just leave it to me, Harold" The Fairy Godmother said cheerfully, not noticing the disappointed look on Harold's face, "I'll fix everything. You can count on that."
"You -- you're not going to kill him, are you?" Harold asked. He already felt bad enough already, having done what he did to Shrek. Harold did not want to add to his guilt by actually having the poor guy killed.
"Oh, of course not, Harold," The Fairy Godmother exclaimed, to the great relief of King Harold, "There are smarter ways of dealing with it than that."
"What are you going to --" Harold started.
"Don't worry," The Fairy Godmother interrupted, "I'll handle everything. You just get your daughter ready for the wedding."
With this, the Fairy Godmother motioned for Harold to leave. Very reluctantly, Harold did as he was told, and sulked out of theroom. The moment he left, the Fairy Godmother's cheerful smile turned into a rathermischievous one. Why had she not thought of this before?
She looked at her ingredients for her potions, and when she was certain that she had the adequate amount of each ingredient, she began to create the potion needed for what she had in mind for the ogre. Although she had made this potion only a few times before, it did not take her long to finish it. Now all she had to do was find a way toconvincethe ogre to drink the potion. She realized that she would just have to trick him into drinking it.
' That shouldn't be too hard ' The Fairy Godmother thought, ' After all, he is just a stupid ogre.'
That night, she slept better than she had ever slept for quite a while.The next day, she was going to make sure that Shrek disappeared forever.
Shrek watched indifferently as all of the prison guards went to the front of the prison, leaving their posts. He didn't really care what they were doing, but he had nothing else to do except to watch them.
At first, the guards had attempted to be somewhat nice to Shrek, trying to carry on polite conversation with the poor guy. After a few minutes of no responses, however, they seemed to have forgotten he was there. Not that he cared, but things were getting pretty lonely, not to mention boring, in the dungeon.
' Far Far Away must be a pretty law-abiding kingdom ' Shrek thought to himself, noticing that he was just about the only inhabitant in the whole prison.
After spending almost twenty-four hours in the prison, Shrek had had time to think and rationalize about the awful night before. He knew that he had very little hope of ever seeing Fiona again, much less winning her back. Each minute that passed, that little bit of hope faded a little. Now he doubted that he would even make it out of prison.
As if on cue, five prison guards walked into Shrek's cell, and started to unlock his chains.
"You've been bailed," A surly guard told a rather confused Shrek. After all of the chains were unlocked, Shrek fell to the floor. Rubbing his wrists, he wondered who would have any reason to bail him out. Before he could ask, however, the guards had left the cell. Shrek followed suit, until he was finally outside of the prison. From the position of the sun, it seemed to be about noon.
At first, while he was adjusting to the light, he couldn't see much. After a few seconds, his eyes were mostly adjusted, and he saw her. Shrek was shocked that this person, out of all people, had been the one to bail him out. He thenbecame angry. Of course she was not here to help him. This was all some kind of trap. He had been once again pulled into another one of the Fairy Godmother's traps, and it made him angry.
A/N: Uh-Oh. I bet you can't guess what's gonna happen!! Anyway, I want to thank my reviewers. Red and Gold Phoenix, Mandy of the Amoeba, BookRose, and HottStuffMelv, y'all are the greatest. Things are going to get a little complicated from now on, so it may take me just a little longer to update. Then again, maybe it won't. I guess it just depends.