A.N. This is a companion piece to A Chance Encounter, so this won't really make sense without having read that. Also if you want to get into the headspace I was in when writing this, listen to Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince while reading. Enjoy!

When Jacqueline Beulah Burkhart was a little girl her daddy told her she was a princess.

He told her that princesses lived in great big houses and got everything they ever wished for; that they were loved by everyone and married handsome princes, living happily ever after.

He didn't tell her that sometimes, handsome princes turned out to be ugly frogs in disguise.

"Jackie, honey, please open up" Daniel begs for what seems like the hundredth time. She remains silent, sitting cross legged on her bed, hardly blinking—hardly even breathing—staring at the door that separates her from her husband.

Suddenly tired, Jackie curls up on the bed, squeezing her eyes shut and bringing her hands up to cover her ears to drown him out. He's been there for hours though she doesn't understand why, when the rings thrown at his face made it clearthat it's over. It doesn't matter how long he sits there; how desperate his pleas become; she won't change her mind.

When she wakes the next morning, she can't see a thing for all the flowers crowding her room. Arrangements upon arrangements sit on every surface, overflowing off her dressing table and desk; covering the floor with barely enough space for her to walk. The scent is just as overwhelming—the many different fragrances intermingling with each other and clouding the air with an aroma that makes her head spin. Picking her way through the veritable forest (and stomping spitefully on a few flowers as she goes), Jackie throws open the window, practically falling out of it as she sucks in great gulps of fresh air.

Turning to survey her room again, Jackie scowls. He thought she could be bought with flowers? The gesture might have been romantic last week, but now it just makes her want to cry.

Grabbing the first bouquet she sees, Jackie hurls it out of the open window, watching it sail down into the street below with satisfaction. Now that had felt good. And it would certainly get her message across…

Taking in the sheer volume of flowers that fill her room, Jackie ties up her hair and pulls up her sleeves before dragging the larger arrangements over to the window, ready to be thrown out.

"Jackie-what are you doing?!" glancing backwards, she sees her aunt standing in the doorway gaping at her.

"Oh good you're here. Help me throw this thing out, will you? It's hideous"

"Jackie, Jackie no-" Aunt Natalie hurries over to her, pulling the flowers out of Jackie's grip. Shrugging, Jackie goes around her, filling her arms with the smaller bouquets. "You need to talk to him, sweetie."

"There's nothing more to be said" shoving her armful of flowers out of the window, Jackie turns to face her "You know what he did."

"I know sweetie. But he explained everything to me. That it was the only way to snap you out of it"

"So it's justified?" Jackie's voice rises hysterically "I was freaking out about him cheating on me so it's okay that he hit me, so that I'd shut up?"

"No of course not" her aunt says sharply "I told him that it was out of line, but you've also only been married for six months. You can't run away every time something goes wrong. You need to make your marriage work!"

As she's leaving, she pauses in the doorway, "marriage is a partnership, Jackie. It won't work if you don't both make the effort. Daniel is trying, now you need to reciprocate."

Jackie might be here at the restaurant, but that doesn't mean she has to make it easy on him. When Daniel tries to order her favourite dish for her, she takes great satisfaction in interrupting and ordering something else; but he takes it in stride, despite the quick flash of anger she sees in his eyes.

After they've eaten—in tense silence—Daniel presents her with a small velvet box, opening it and placing it in front of her. Inside is an engagement ring-larger than the one she'd thrown at his head days before.

Jackie reaches out for the ring before she can stop herself, mesmerised. It's beautiful—a princess cut amethyst with tiny diamonds set into the band. It must have cost a small fortune.

But she had loved her old engagement ring. Loved everything that it represented-was supposed to represent.

"I can't stop replaying that moment in my head, seeing you in bed with her…when you hit me" she says quietly, shutting the box and handing it back to him "how do you expect me to get over that?"

"You're right Jackie. The way I treated you-the way I hurt you? It's unforgivable. I don't deserve to be forgiven, but…" Daniel reaches across the table, taking her hands in his "I love you. And I know you still love me" his voice cracks "can't we make a new promise? To be true to each other, to have a fresh start? I've already fired Emily and we can go on a vacation together, come back better than ever just, please please come home to me." He bows his head towards the end of his speech, his words coming out muffled and it takes Jackie a second to realise he's crying.

Over her.

She thinks about the flowers, the ring, his stubborn refusal to give up on her. Nobody has ever done that for her before. Jackie thinks of her Aunt's words that morning, her belief that things could work out if she just let them, if she let go of her ego and accepted Daniel's apology. She's not a teenager anymore she can't just end her marriage on a whim she has to at least try to fix things.

"Okay" Daniel's head whips up at her voice, his eyes red rimmed. "But I'm only giving you one chance" sliding her hand out from underneath his, Jackie holds up a finger "just one."

The smile that spreads across his face at that moment takes her breath away. Daniel surges across the table to kiss her and she can't help but giggle despite the anxiety churning in her gut. Pulling away, Daniel takes the engagement ring and slides it onto her finger before bringing her hand up to his mouth to kiss. "I promise Jackie. I'll be better."

(Months later Jackie will realise—he never said he wouldn't do it again.)

Part of her thinks Hyde's offer might be a prank. An epic burn on Michaels bitchy ex-girlfriend from way back when. But a week later, she finds herself standing outside the address he had scribbled onto a napkin for her because the sad truth is, she wants a friend.

She wants someone who won't judge her or belittle her behind her back. Someone she can genuinely become friends with without wondering how long it'll be until her husband fucks the girl and she stops coming round; struggling to make eye contact with Jackie until eventually, their friendship comes to its inevitable grinding halt and her 'friend' joins the growing ranks of girls who whisper and giggle as she passes by on Daniel's arm.

Jackie doesn't tell Hyde any of this, of course. She'd run her mouth enough that night in the bar and doesn't need him to pity her any more than he probably already does. Without the loosening effects of alcohol though, their conversations are stilted and awkward until eventually they resort to Hyde's favourite activity—smoking weed.

It's strange, Jackie thinks. Back when she was the unwanted addition to the group, tolerated only because of her relationship with Michael, she'd never been invited to join the circle. So when Hyde offers her the first hit, she feels a thrill run through her, as though she's been accepted into an elite VIP club, that she has somehow been deemed worthy of joining a circle with him.

When she tries to explain it to him, Hyde looks at her like she's grown two heads and she can't say she blames him when she's giggling too hard to chew and chocolate is falling out of her mouth. There's absolutely nothing refined about the activity and her peers would be horrified if they saw her. The thought of them labelling her a drug addict sends her into fresh peals of laughter until Hyde pries the joint out of her clenched fingers.

It's the most fun she's had in years.

There are many things that Jackie regrets. Being taken in by her husband's crocodile tears and going back to him are among those that top the list, but one thing she'll never, ever regret is lying to her daddy. The man is in jail for god's sake and his wife is cheating on him with every cabana boy she can find; the least Jackie can do is let him think she's happy.

Steven doesn't agree.

"Would you stop that?" he demands, sinking down onto the couch beside her where she's assembling another page in the scrapbook. "You can't lie to him forever. What about when he gets out and comes to see you, huh?"

Furrowing her brow in concentration, Jackie ignores him in favour of making sure to line up her photos perfectly on the page. "Oh don't worry, I know how to put on a show, I've been doing it for daddy since I was a kid so it's not exactly difficult." Leaning back, she takes in her handiwork with satisfaction "wow this is definitely my best page yet" tilting it so he can see, she smiles brightly up at Steven "what do you think?"

"Well at least it doesn't have your husband in it" he grouses, "but aren't you sick of pretending all the damn time?"

She blinks up at him, opening and closing her mouth wordlessly but he continues to wait for an answer, his blue eyes regarding her steadily, one eyebrow raised in silent question. It never fails to catch her off guard; the way that Steven's simple observations manage to cut through the superficial layers she's wrapped around herself; exposing the truths she's buried so deep she doesn't expect anyone to find them.

But he does.

"More than anything," she sighs "but look at these!" flipping through the scrapbook, she shows him page after page of her dazzling smiles and beautiful dresses and extravagant parties. Every photo is so perfect she almost doesn't see her own screaming eyes. Scoffing bitterly, Jackie shoves the book off her legs and onto the floor. "Nobody wants to see the real Jackie. That's not glamorous"

"I dunno" Hyde shrugs. "I wouldn't mind getting to know her" and then he winks at her and smiles that stupid scrunchy half smile that makes her heart race in her chest and she has to look away before he notices how flustered his words make her. Instead she snatches her book off the coffee table and, pulling her legs up beneath her, curls up against Steven's side.

Jackie had dismissed the feelings at first, telling herself that she was just glad to have a genuine friend and for a while she'd even managed to believe it. Now, she can't believe she missed it though she knows why. With Daniel, their courtship was a whirlwind, a tidal wave of feelings crashing down and drowning her before going back into the sea and leaving her cold. But with Steven her feelings are like a steady flame, burning brighter in her chest after every visit; every game of chess, every movie, every circle until Jackie found herself lying awake at night trying to remember the way his lips had felt for that brief second in her daddy's Lincoln so many years ago.

What was it he'd said that night? "You'll find someone great."

Yeah, she'd really upgraded.

"I had a crush on you when we were teenagers" she says suddenly, twisting to look up at him.

"Oh really?" Steven sounds amused.

"Mhmm" snuggling deeper into his side, Jackie giggles quietly "After Michael. I bet if I'd kept hanging out in the basement, I'd have been annoying as shit about it too." She pokes him "You're lucky you escaped."

"Yeah" Steven echoes, his voice strange. After a brief pause where Jackie wonders if she should have kept her mouth shut, he snakes his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. "Lucky."

Jackie throws up every day for a week before she lets herself even admit the possibility. Bringing a hand to rest on her still flat stomach she almost convinces herself she can feel the lightest flutter of life behind her palm though she knows it's too early.

For one wild moment she actually imagines telling Daniel; imagines his face lighting up with happiness before he picks her up and spins her around the room while she shrieks happily, imagines him becoming the attentive man she fell in love with once more as he dotes on her and her stomach swells with a child-their child.

But he doesn't notice. Even though she knows the staff exchange knowing glances when she runs from the breakfast table to empty her stomach the fifth day in a row. And she knows better than to expect anything from him in the privacy of their home.

There is no one to hold her hair back from her face, to rub gentle circles on her back, or wipe the sweat from her brow while she retches. It's a nice fantasy, she muses. But Jackie knows better than anyone that children don't always bring a couple closer together. And they shouldn't have to bear that burden—she refuses to let that happen.

Resting her head on the cool porcelain, she feels hot tears soak her face at the thought of what she must do.

Jackie thought it would be a relief afterwards; that the weight would be lifted from her shoulders when it was done. Instead she feels a pressure on her chest as though she's suffocating, feels freezing cold as though a bucket of ice water has been dumped over her head. She doesn't notice Steven enter, doesn't even realise how much she's shaking until he grips her arms tight and pulls her towards him, rubbing his hand up and down her back soothingly to calm her down.

She wants to laugh at his movement, tell him how she'd wished for the same comfort from her husband only days ago, but the words stick in her throat and she finds herself clutching at him, trying to muffle the sounds that tear from her throat as she soaks his shirt with tears.

Through it all, Steven doesn't say a word. He just cups her head gently when she finally pulls away, watches her quietly as she struggles to find the words to thank him. He hadn't known where they were going when she picked him up that morning, but he hadn't turned away in disgust, instead he'd grabbed her hand, twining their fingers together and he doesn't know how much that means to her, how for the first time in days the ground beneath her feet seemed to steady at his touch.

Still she has to know.

"Will God hate me for not wanting to have my husband's child?" she asks, cursing at the way her voice breaks, squeezing her eyes shut when more tears leak from them. The question has been a constant mantra in her mind for the past week and she doesn't even realise what Steven's answer means to her until he answers, firmly and without hesitation.

"No."

She's pretty sure she knows now what his answer would be to her second question when he presses a kiss to her temple, (do you hate me? Do I disgust you now?) Even So, she searches his eyes and exhales a shuddering breath when she finds only concern swimming in their depths. His stare is unwavering and there's a furrow in his brow that she wants to reach up and smooth out but there's something else she wants to do first.

"Daniel, my mom is coming to this party" putting the finishing touches to her makeup, Jackie watches him in her dressing table mirror "you need to hurry up and get ready."

She hadn't lied when she told Steven that the holiday season would be full of stuffy parties boring her to death, but Aunt Natalie's annual Christmas dinner is always her favourite-even without this year's guest of honour Pamela Burkhart.

"And? I don't know her" he shrugs, loosening his tie and throwing it on the bed as he passes it on the way to the bathroom "you can't make plans without clearing them with me."

"I did tell you. I told you about it last night!"

"Yeah and I'm telling you now that I don't want to go. So drop it"

Jackie resists the urge to stomp her foot petulantly, irritation rising at his indifference. He knew how much she'd been looking forward to this party out of all the others and he had the nerve to pull shit like this? "Fine" she mutters angrily to herself, "I'll go on my own."

Hands shaking, she takes off her earrings and throws them on the floor where they skitter and come to a stop at Daniels feet. Daniel doesn't look at her as he dries his face, simply staring at the jewellery on the ground.

"Pick them up"

The quiet demand makes a shiver run down her spine, but she doesn't move from her place by the dressing table, her fingers curling tightly over the edge of the table behind her. "No."

Moving too fast for her to react, Daniel strides across the room to her, grabbing her wrist in a vicelike grip, practically dragging her over to where her earrings had landed. His eyes are blazing, almost crazed and his grip only tightens the more she struggles to free herself, the bracelet on her wrist pressing painfully into her skin as he hisses at her.

"Pick. Them. Up. They were a gift!"

"Gifts you gave me because I caught you with the slut of the week," she scoffs "yeah they're really sentimental" giving up on trying to prise his fingers off her with her other hand, she glares up at him "Daniel let go of me, this really hurts!" in response, he only twists her arm harder ignoring her cry of pain, yanking her closer so that he can look her dead in the eye as he speaks.

"You ever thought that you're hurting me? You don't get to be a righteous bitch, alright, I know all about your affair."

Jackie blinks, staring up at him in disbelief.

"Oh that's rich, coming from you!" she laughs incredulously "how many affairs have you had by now? And you think I should give a shit about your feelings?!" her eyes dart to where he's still grabbing her wrist and she jerks her arm, eyebrow raising when he doesn't let go. "You don't get to play the victim here, Daniel."

Jackie thinks about denying it, reminding him of how the only one who's been unfaithful here is him but suddenly she just feels tired. This isn't what a marriage should be-isn't what she wanted. If anything, what she has with Steven is more like what she imagined married life to be. Snuggling together on the couch (though he'd never call it that) after a long day, him teaching her how to make an omelette—even if she has to wear gloves to crack the eggs—stealing his favourite t-shirts, reading out the stupid passages in the books they're reading trying to make each other laugh and countless other little things that make up a life.

Marriage isn't this—standing in her lavishly decorated bedroom while her husband shouts accusations at her face and leaves bruises on her skin.

And she wants out. The thought doesn't scare her the way it did before. When she had nowhere to go; when she just wanted to please Aunt Natalie and let her daddy think she's happy.

Because she loves Steven. Has loved him for a while now, even if she wouldn't admit it to herself until she felt his absence this last week like something sharp in her chest.

Jackie's fairly sure he feels the same, though she won't know until he gets back from Wisconsin. But there's one thing she knows for certain: he won't let her fall.

"-people talk, Jackie!" Daniel shakes her, breaking her out of her thoughts "you could at least try to be discreet—" she tunes him out again, watching as he rants, gesticulating wildly with his free hand, as though he hasn't made her fodder for the gossip mills for years. As though he knew what it was like to be discreet. Daniel's so distracted by his own speech that he fails to see her barely supressed rage.

With renewed strength, Jackie slams her heel down on Daniels foot, pressing down longer than is probably necessary, stepping back deftly when he lets go of her with a yelp.

"Let them talk. You should probably get used to being the centre of attention now anyway. People love gossiping about a divorce." she hisses the last word, taking vindictive pleasure in the surprise that crosses his face. "You never thought I'd do it, did you?"

Jackie doesn't wait for his response, eager to put as much distance between herself and this house as she can, but she finds herself looking back one last time, nonetheless.

"And for the record? Steven is more of a man than you'll ever be."

If you had asked Jackie ten years ago what constituted a romantic love confession, she'd have said it had to be in an open field, with her wearing a flowing red gown like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind and her lover sweeping her off her feet in a passionate kiss.

She'd had something like that with Daniel, in the beginning, but in all of her romantic fantasies, Jackie had never, not once imagined that she would confess her feelings for someone in a dingy basement backroom —where she's fairly certain his friends have their ears pressed to the door outside— with her face scrubbed clean of makeup and her hair frizzing around her face, heart beating wildly in her chest.

It is so far from her perfect fantasies, but when Steven smiles her like that and leans down to kiss her again and again; cupping her face so gently as though she might disappear from underneath his palms…Jackie decides that she much prefers reality.

They don't leave his room for the rest of the night, alternating between making out and talking about everything and nothing until they fall asleep on his cot like it's the most natural thing in the world.

The next morning—Christmas morning—she's woken by the click and flash of a camera and almost scrambles out of Steven's cot at the sight of Mrs Forman cooing at them over the top of her camera. She doesn't make it far before she's pulled back by Steven's arm around her waist, giggling when he buries his face in the crook of her shoulder, pulling the covers up over their heads.

Distantly, she hears the door click shut as Mrs Forman leaves and she shifts to face him "what are you doing?" Steven cracks one eye open to look at her, amused "she probably thinks I'm such a tramp."

"Heh. My type of girl" he chuckles at her indignant gasp, his voice still thick with sleep "relax, doll. We're not teenagers anymore. How's your hand?" grasping her wrist gently, he brings it up to the light, both of them wincing at the way her bruises have darkened overnight.

"It's okay" at his dubious look, she cups his face, reiterating firmly "it's fine. He can't hurt me again."

Sitting up beside him, Jackie nudges him playfully "now come on, we should go upstairs before Mrs Forman really does think I'm a tramp!"

Once Mr Forman threatens—for the third time—to put his foot in both Eric and Michael's asses if they won't stop annoying her, it's the best Christmas she's had in a long time.

Truth be told, it had been too long since Jackie had truly enjoyed Christmas day. Her parents had always made sure to be there for it, but once she'd moved to Aunt Natalie's she always felt like an intruder amongst her cousins. And the less said about Christmases as Mrs Vanderbilt, the better.

Things were changing now though. She could feel it.

Maybe it was the way Steven would pull her onto his lap every time he sat down, or how the small living room filled up with guests until it was so warm that everyone was a little flushed as well as tipsy, and Mrs Forman kept surprising everyone with the flash of her new Polaroid camera. Or maybe it was the way Steven kept finding excuses to call her into the kitchen just so he could catch her under the mistletoe; wrapping his arms around her and holding her close until Eric yelled at them to 'get a room!', but Jackie felt like her heart would burst with joy.

Later, when the guests have gone and Jackie has been shooed out of the kitchen, Steven finds her standing in the basement flipping through a stack of Polaroids that Mrs Forman had shoved into her hands as she left. Some of them are a little blurry where someone moved, and some are a little too shadowed or oversaturated, but Jackie's surprised to see that she's smiling in every single one, Stevens arm around her waist. There are some of them speaking quietly in a corner, of her sitting in his lap with the rest of the group, Steven's chin resting on her shoulder as they laugh at something one of the guys-probably Michael-had said.

"I'm totally not biased or anything," Steven says, coming up behind her and pulling her against him to look over her shoulder "but I think you look happier in these than you ever did at any of those stupid parties"

Leaning back in his embrace, Jackie sighs happily. "Yeah. I think so too."

When Jacqueline Beulah Burkhart was a little girl her daddy told her she was a princess.

But when she was grown, it was not the prince who would love her, but the pauper. And maybe she would no longer be a princess in a fairy castle, but she would be happy.

And that makes all the difference.