Author's notes: Thank you again to aserene, sue, RevSue, nofearonlylove, gremlin313, Prettycrazy and anonymous for your wonderful feedback!

Ok, had to up the rating because of a nasty little word, but I think anyone in their teens or older can handle it.

I decided to change this chapter in the way that it's Joe's POV and then the next chapter will be Clarisse's POV. Both chapters' cover the time they left each other, to the end of that day. Because of that, I tried to write both chapters together so I could post them together. Hopefully, since it's a 2 chapter update, you forgive me for making you wait so long, I know it's been longer than the week I said it would take to write it. These past few weeks have been hard with finals and then last week my grandmother passed away, so I hope you understand why I wasn't able to work on the story and update it sooner.

Chapter 5

Joe was lying on the couch in his suite, trying to read, but he's been staring at the same page for 5 minutes now and still doesn't know what it says. Finally he throws the book onto the table in frustration and picks up his glass of brandy.

"I just don't understand, she seemed fine when I left her at lunch," He thought back to when he left her. He had gone off to the kitchen's to get some lunch, nodded at the chefs that were there, he had met them this morning at breakfast. He had a sandwich and some soup, honestly he wasn't really that hungry, but he forced himself to eat a little more than he would have, just to make sure he didn't get hungry while they were out riding. He finished early and spent some time once again familiarizing himself with the palace and its staff. Finally it was 1:25 and he headed off to her suite. One of her lady's maids answered the door and showed him inside, asking him to wait while she told the Queen he was there. The maid returned a few seconds later, looking slightly upset, informed him that the Queen would be out in a minute, and then promptly left the suite. Once again that feeling of unease that he had felt early that morning crept up on him. A few moments later she opened her bedroom door and walked out into the sitting room. The first thing he noticed was her riding outfit, or more specifically, how well she looked in her riding outfit. The second thing he noticed was the hard look on her face, nothing like how she had looked when he had left her for lunch.

"Is there anything specific you are staring at?" Her clipped tone surprised him, although he didn't show it.

"No, your Majesty. Are you ready, ma'am?" He slipped back into his security personality, strictly business.

"Yes," She said firmly and walked passed him, she whispered, "Let's get this over with." But he heard her anyway.

The walk to the stables was silent, and uncomfortable in Joseph's opinion. Her posture and walk were more rigid than it had been that morning, she even greeted the staff that they passed with short, clipped words. Even when they arrived at the stables she was strictly business. He had made sure to inform one of the stable hands that they would be taking two horses out, so they were already saddled and ready to ride. She easily mounted her horse and waited, looking strait ahead for him.

Truthfully, he never really enjoyed riding, maybe because he never did it for the enjoyment, it was always to accompany whoever he was guarding, always business.

As soon as he had gotten settled, she took off, catching him off guard and having to push his horse to it's limits to catch up with her. "If this is one of her tricks to try and loose me it won't work" he thought to himself.

She slowed her horse down to a trot when he caught up to her, but didn't even glance in his direction.

Joseph was perplexed, "Your Majesty, if you do not wish to ride today we could go back and continue at a more convenient time for you."

"If I did not wish to be here I would not be here." She said firmly, "I am Queen, and I decide what I do." She then turned her horse sharply, "The lake is this way and marks the edge of the forest."

He followed her, but was more confused then he was before. "I just can't understand why she's so harsh. What could have happened in an hour and a half? Fine. She wants to be business now, that's fine with me, just business." He thought to himself.

The rest of the ride consisted of her occasionally pointing out the boundaries of the palace grounds. Joseph, for the most part, said little other than to acknowledge that he had heard her. Whenever he did dare to comment on the security she would snap at him, either saying that it was obvious and she didn't need him to tell her than, or she would say that his idea was silly and completely unnecessary. Finally he just stopped talking altogether.

When they had, finally, gotten back to the stables she said nothing but dismounted quickly and quickly headed out the door. Joseph scrambled off of the horse, determined that she wouldn't be able to loose him that easily and practically ran out the door and almost collided with her. Apparently she had standing right outside the doors waiting for him.

Instead of walking to her suite like he had expected, she instead headed towards her office, the silence still lingering around them. Joseph could barely stand it, but he couldn't understand why, it's not like he hadn't gone through days, sometimes weeks, of uncomfortable silences between him and whoever he was guarding. "It's because we were getting along fine this morning and now she's suddenly acting like a b..." his thoughts where interrupted as they reached the doors to the office.

She quickly turned around and faced him, "I'll expect you here at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning to discuss your ideas now that you've seen the grounds. Goodnight." She said simply and entered the office, closing the door behind her.

Joseph looked at his watch, it was 3:30. They had spent less than 2 hours to tour the entire palace grounds and he couldn't remember anything specific about it.

"Fine, she wants my 'ideas', she'll have them." He muttered to himself and headed off to the security office. If she expected a full report he was going to make sure she had nothing to yell at tomorrow. He could deal with stubbornness, arrogance, spoiled but not someone yelling at him for not doing his job. He was excellent at his job and there was no way she could insinuate any different, none of what he'd show her tomorrow would be called 'silly' or 'completely unnecessary".

Now he continued to sit in his room, the finished report he had spent the rest of the afternoon working on was sitting on the coffee table next to his book and glass. In less than 7 hours he had seen her be a nice, caring, warm and genuinely friendly person, and then turn into a cold, stern, unfriendly, strict, for lack of a better work, bitch.

He sighed to himself, "Hopefully she'll be in a better mood tomorrow." He muttered to himself and decided not to worry about it any more tonight. He was going to go to bed and whatever happens tomorrow he'll deal with then.

End of Chapter 5

Ok, I didn't really know how to end this chapter, so yeah, ending kinda sucks, but I've also posted chapter 6 so now you can find out why exactly Clarisse is acting the way she is.