A/N: I know, I know. I'm a nutcase.I'm going to regret updating so often (3x in the last 36 hours?!) when I only update once a week or every two weeks. Don't get used to this, my darlings. There are just pieces of this story I'm so eager to share with you all, I can't help myself. Please leave a review or thought if you have the time! Much love!

Chapter Five: Maxon

"I'll be glad when you're gone."

"I'll be glad when you're gone."

"I'll be glad when you're gone."

I'm not sure how I had managed to stand up in that moment, making my escape from the War Room. I couldn't remember what my father had yelled after me, or what my gentlemen said as they tried to stop me as I sprinted past.

"I'll be glad when you're gone."

"I'll be glad when you're gone."

"I'll be glad when you're gone."

My last words to my America rang in my ears in time with my tortured heartbeat. Cruel and cold, the opposite of everything I felt for her deep in my heart. In my very soul. How had I let anger write such a final speech for our love?

…Was it that moment that she carried with her? Had her last thought been of that moment, and those words? And God… Oh, God. Had my dear love believed them to be true?

I didn't know where my feet were carrying me as I pushed back into the main halls of the palace, tearing past the Women's Room. I ignored Kriss as she peeked out the door, the commotion from below loud enough to make it to the ladies' ears.

"X, What-."

I didn't hear the rest of her question as I took the stairs, two at a time. I turned down one hallway, then the other, and I was already in America's little wing before I realized where I was going. I paused just outside her door like I had time after time during The Selection, often stopping just to listen with joy as she played games and laughed with her maids like they were old friends.

Her kindness had been evident to me from the very beginning. Maybe it had been from the moment my parents and I watched her greet fans at the airport like they were family. She had been so good.

She had been meant to be my Queen.

Bracing myself, I turned the knob and stepped into her room. I was shocked when the floral aroma of her perfume struck me, mingling with the clean scent of her shampoo.

Kriss had mentioned that she had not seen the maids cleaning the girls' rooms yet, seemingly concerned we would not have room for guests. I understood now without being told, however, that the women had left this room, her room, untouched on purpose. They missed her presence almost as much as I did.

She was still here in the space we had so briefly shared.

The dress she had been wearing the night I slept in her bed was still pooled by her nightstand where she had dropped it before lying with me, torn and forgotten. Her open closet revealed she had left her complete wardrobe behind, including the pants I had gifted her the first week she had been in my life. I ran my hands over the rough denim of the jeans, remembering the night we both wore such trousers to sneak out of the palace.

She had always been so brave.

I turned away from the closet, my eyes falling on mementoes of us everywhere.

A rose tucked into a book. A game of Tic-tac-toe scribbled on the back of a reception invitation. The beginning of the photo collage she had asked me to make for her, taped to the back of her chamber door. A professional picture of us, laughing on the bench in the women's room. It was one of the magazine's rejects, but to me, it was beautiful. It was us.

"We'll make a bigger one once you're in the Princess' Suite," I had promised her, so sure of our future together for one small moment in time.

My lips parted when my eyes landed on her desk, my letters to her open and artfully arranged as if she had read them, and reread them again, before coming down to the ceremony.

On top of my last letter, the one in which I professed my love, she had left me one last, frantically scribbled note. The paper was dotted with water stains as if she had been crying while she wrote.

Maxon.

Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.

I wish I had time to explain everything that Aspen was, and how much more you ARE.

I'll never love someone else. I love you. YOU.

But I understand that you now need to love her.

I'll support my prince, always. I'll be happy for you, always.

I'm so sorry.

America

I picked up the note, rereading it much like I imagined she had reread mine. I brought it to my nose and inhaled, desperate to have some piece of her.

Her slender fingers, callused from playing the violin, had touched this paper. Her breath had washed over the words she had written me, words she tried to say before I silenced her.

"I'll be glad when you're gone."

I sank to my knees, burying my face into her pillow, and wept. My tears were silent at first as I breathed in her scent, still mingled with my own on the sheets. But soon, my body was wracked with sobs, and I twisted my fists into her bedding.

How had everything gone so wrong, so quickly? How had I gone from a naïve boy who had never known a woman's love, to a broken man, lost without the one his soul was meant for?

I don't know how long I knelt there before I felt a gentle hand smooth my hair back.

For one wild, hopeful second, I dreamed that it was her.

"Maxon," My mother breathed instead, sitting on the edge of the bed, cradling my head in her lap much as she had when I was a boy, "Your father just told me. Oh, son… I'm sorry. I am so sorry. He said she died a hero's death." I continued to weep into her dress and felt her body shiver as a cry rocked through her as well. "Oh, our brave girl."

I could not answer her but continued to cry. I cried like I had not for years… Not when rebels attacked, not when my father beat me, and not when America had broken my heart.

I would have taken that heartbreak a thousand times over if it meant she still existed. I cried for everything she was meant to have, everything I was meant to give her… and for everything we had already given each other.

I cried for the life that we would not get to share together, all the moments that had been stolen from us. A kiss at the altar. Her body gently changing as our unborn child grew. Bickering over little things and loving each other through tough times. Watching our children grow as we grew, too. Grew old… together.

Somehow, not even my choosing Kriss had seemed final. It was as if a part of me existed without me even knowing, a part of me that always hoped I would find a way to turn back the clock and make things right. Somehow, deep in my soul, a part of me had believed that America and I would be able to right our mistakes someday.

I took a shuddering breath as the tears dried on my cheeks and I allowed my mother to lift my face to meet her gaze. She wiped the remnants away with her thumbs, then kissed my forehead. I shifted to sit beside her, taking her hand in a silent thank you.

Our gazes wandered around the room that still so clearly belonged to America. A room that I vowed would always remain hers.

"No one else knows," My mother whispered, "Not in the palace, nor anywhere. The reporters have been banned from airing their footage on the news. Your father hopes that will buy us time to handle this peacefully."

I heard her answers to my unspoken question.

"I'm still marrying Kriss, aren't I?" I sighed, dejected. She had for so long been my second choice. A sweetheart. Safe. Loyal. Someone who loved me. And I had felt something for her, too, although I had not been lying when I told America that she had meant more. So much more.

I was suddenly grateful I was yet to tell my own fiancée that I loved her. Those words still belonged to someone else.

"…I would never force you to do something that caused you pain," My mother hedged, rubbing the back of my hand, "But in your father's mind, you chose her. Why should her second's death stop you from marrying her now? The wedding will be delayed, of course, out of respect."

I nodded, hating myself for making a mess of three lives, and perhaps even my kingdom.

"I will keep my duty to my country and my fiancée," I stood up, straightening my tie as I pulled myself together, "Tell father that should not be his focus. But I want to catch the people who did this… Her… Her…" The word stuck in my throat like poison. "-murderers WILL be brought to justice."

I silently gathered my notes and America's as my mother watched, tucking them under my arm. I bent and brushed a kiss to her cheek, then another to the ring my father had given her so many years ago. I hope she could read the 'Thank You' in my eyes.

"I love you, mother," I whispered, kissing her forehead again before turning to leave. I paused at the door, my eyes on America's face in the picture, smiling up at mine.

"And spread the order, please," I took the picture off the door, leaving a blank space in the collage, "No one touches this room without my permission. It belongs to me now."

I stepped out of America's room then, closing the door.

My heart broke all over again when I heard my mother's muffled cries coming from the other side.