A/N: I'm sorry that I'm updating so slowly, but my cousins are here for a while, and it's their first time in America for a really long time, (first time for my youngest cousin). After they leave, I won't see them again for at least two years, so please excuse me. After they leave, updates should quicken up. I should put out a separate note that disturbedavocado, (Haillie), is helping me out a lot with the plot of this story. From here on, she owns about half of the story, and I'm just giving credit where credit is due.

Disclaimer: I do not own Aladdin. Haillie owns most of the plot from here on, but I'm writing it.

Chapter 13

A Minor Difficulty

(Jafar)

I wasn't in a good mood.

When I'm not in a good mood, you don't bother me. You don't try and test my limits, because people who have tried this have been heard to have vanished mysteriously, or never been seen again, and so on. My genie wasn't listening to her master, (me), and I had just found out that the street rat, (I was calling him that by habit sometimes), and his Princess Jasmine were in love once again.

Pah, love. It was a trivial thing compared to the important things in life. Human being's nature was to trick, deceive, and take what they had to in an everybody-for-themselves world. I had learned that the hard way, once my mother left.

You see, this presented a solution and a problem to me. If the lunatic were on the throne, I could probably most easily trick myself onto the throne on the day of her coronation. Now, if Aladdin and Jasmine were in love once again, then they could very easily win the case as successors to the throne, as Jasmine's line had been ruling as far as the oldest man could remember. They wouldn't be as easily taken care of.

The past few days had put me back on the track of trying to seize the throne. Seizing the throne meant seizing this chance, the best one that I would ever get, to seal my place as the Grand Vizier until the day of Jasmine's coronation. If there ever was one. In a hypothetical case, if the heir to the throne happened to have a little…accident…before that day should come, why, the Grand Vizier would become Sultan.

And the Grand Vizier in this very hypothetical case would have all power to rule over Agra-his kingdom, and all of his descendants would then take over as the royal blood line.

Speaking hypothetically, of course.

…………………………..

Jala had cooled down somewhat from her anger fever.

We were on speaking terms again, which was good if I wanted any more wishes from her. Yes, I was still all-too aware that she would lapse into insanity like that lunatic-of-a-sister she had if I didn't wish soon. But I was too busy planning my events, events that didn't wait for my thoughts. I could directly wish my way onto the throne, but look where that got Jasmine.

And yet, as the days went by, I found myself dawdling. There was none of the fervor that had seized me the first time I had tried this. Long nights over forged documents, long nights tossing and turning as I dreamed of ways to assassinate the princess, and somewhere deep, deep inside of the little innocence in my soul, a miniscule twinge of guilt; regret, even.

Was this not what I wanted? I constantly questioned myself. It certainly was what I had worked toward my entire life. My soul was torn, like I was standing on the tip of a rapier. On one side lay the angels, and the other, the devils of my soul. It was a battle of wills with only one will, a battle that raged through my mind, my heart, and ate at my conscience. It was almost as bad as being ill physically.

Naturally, the people who watched me assumed I was going insane. The Sultana had to call me several times when I was standing right at the arm of the throne chair before I answered in a hoarse whisper. Even Jala, who was still relatively cold with me, showed her concern. Her features were drawn when she floated out of the lamp, and she didn't speak with me anymore. The lack of conversation made it all the worse.

I could only hope that nobody knew the true cause of my discomfort, as that would prove fatal to all of the alliances that I had built in the past times.

………………………..

At night, Jala never told me her stories anymore. She seemed to understand that they would not help me anymore.

If I was unsure about how much others knew about my plans, then I was sure about what Jala thought: she had no idea what my intentions were. Murder. Trickery. Extreme unlawful acts. All three she would never approve of. Secretly, I was glad that genies had not been granted the power of mind-reading by Allah.

Oh, there was the possibility that Haillie would not be butted off by Aladdin and Jasmine, I knew that. This hopeful possibility was considered by my brain in every angle, in the hopes that I would not have to murder, and deeply betray, the only people I had ever called friends in my quest for power. And yet, there was a voice inside me, a sureness, that told myself that Haillie had no way of staying on the throne if Jasmine was heir.

She was a genie, and immortal. Unless she served terms, (and that had happened before), she was not going to become Sultana. Besides, I knew very clearly what the lunatic's thoughts were about being a ruler: she was horrified. Haillie had no intentions to become Sultana in her immortal life. But Jasmine did.

And if my heart did not betray me, then I did too.

The days blended together. I took to alcohol to quell my thoughts that came in streams from every sound that I heard. Even in my dizzy state with half-consciousness, double-sight, and a migraine of migraines, there was still the faintest whisper in the back of my mind. Murder. Trickery…

When the courtiers avoided my eye, and Razoul stopped obeying my orders, I knew what they were thinking. Jafar's finally cracked. All this time, I had gleefully denied this possibility, sure that they were gossipers, liars, assumers. I was not going insane, soon they would all be under my power.

But as time wore by and no more plans were laid each night after Jala had gone inside her lamp, I began to ponder. What if I was insane? Did insane people that were eventually locked in the prison cells and bound with ropes feel this way as they entered the fanatical stage? Nobody spoke to me, and so I did not test my ability to speak.

Taking over the world is a harder thing to do when you get attached to the people you need to kill.

A/N: There isn't any dialogue in this chapter, because as you can see, Jafar is too busy in his own little thinking bubble to do any talking.