The hallway in the medical wing of the castle compound was far quieter than usual. The medical wing was fairly small, and medical staff there generally only saw minor injuries or a broken bone here and there. Of course their most common patients were guards. They came in with a variety of ailments: cuts and bruises from fight training, sore muscles from physical training, and the occasional broken bone, usually from somebody being foolish. It had been many, many years since Corona had been in a war, so doctors didn't have much to do in the castle. The last time any number of injuries had been seen by palace medical staff was the result of the palace guards chase involving Flynn Rider after he had stolen the princess' crown. The King and Queen only had one full time doctor at the castle and contracted out with the other doctors around Corona who came in a day or two a month to help out.

Normally, the few patients that spent time in the medical wing would be out in the hallways chatting and playing games to pass the time, but not this day. They remained in their rooms, respectful of the royal family as two of their members stood in the waiting room, waiting on word from the medical staff on the other side of the swinging doors that lead to the consulting and operating rooms.

The Queen, Rapunzel and Cassandra all stood in a tight circle. The King was out with the Captain of the Guard searching for the coach and the two escaped bandits. Rapunzel and Cassandra were just finishing up telling the Queen what had happened in the forest.

Cassandra shuddered.

"Seeing that bandit crushed by the coach wheel. I can't seem to get that out of my mind. And the sound it made!"

"Did he die?" Rapunzel asked. "I hadn't heard."

"Yes, he did," the Queen said. "The Captain said it appears he was killed the instant the wheel went over him."

"Do we know his name?" Cass said.

"Not yet," Queen Ariana said.

"While I was in the carriage," Rapunzel said in a hushed tone. "The Arendelle bandit said that we wouldn't be safe even in the castle. They would find you all and hurt you if I didn't cooperate."

The Queen's face paled.

"That would mean they have access to the castle. They have someone on the inside working for them."

"But, everyone here is so hard working and loyal," Rapunzel said. "I don't see anyone as working for them."

"Money is a strong motivator," Queen Ariana said. "It could be anyone, and more than one person too. A guard, a maid, a cook…a doctor even. I'll have to instigate an investigation of every member of the palace staff."

The trio turned at the sound of hurried footsteps coming down the hallway towards them. A young palace guard was walking quickly in their direction. His hands were cupped in front of him and he had a concerned look on his face. He stopped directly in front of Rapunzel and held out his cupped hands to her. Cradled carefully in his palms was Pascal!

"Pascal!" Rapunzel cried, taking the small reptile into her own hands.

The chameleon appeared to be breathing normally, but was a sickly green color and felt colder than usual. The princess pressed her friend to her bosom to try and warm him.

"I found him in a cell in the lowest level of the dungeon," the young guard explained. "I was just doing my regular rounds. We don't have anyone housed in that part of the dungeon so, I was just doing a quick check of the very back cells. I spotted him wrapped in a towel on one of the bunks. We wasn't there an hour before when I did my check. I think he's been drugged."

The princess turned her attention to her lizard friend, trying to rouse him while the Queen looked to the guard. Now that they were standing next to one another, she could see he was actually a corporal, based on the patches on his uniform sleeves.

"Thank you, corporal…"

"Corporal Glosser, majesty, Corporal Pete Glosser."

"Thank you Cpl. Glosser," Queen Ariana said. "We were growing quite worried about the little lizard. Did you see who could have left him in the cell?"

"My apologies, but I did not, majesty," he said. "I started my shift in the dungeon three hours ago and found little Pascal on my third round. He was not in that cell on my two previous rounds. I didn't see anyone in the dungeon who was not permitted to be in there and none of the prisoners were allowed out of their cells in any function during that time."

"Who all were there that are permitted?" Cass asked.

"Well, there were three other guards there with me for those two hours, Aren Nobal, Chester Rogers and Mabel O'Brien. There were two kitchen staff there at the beginning of my shift serving lunch. I'd have to look up their names in the sign in sheet."

"Did any of the prisoners say anything about a stranger or someone wandering around in the dungeon?" Cass asked.

Cpl. Glosser shook his head.

"Not that was mentioned to me."

"Thank you Cpl. Glosser," Queen Ariana said. "You will be called for if we have any more questions."

Cpl. Glosser bowed and then took his leave. Cass and the Queen turned their attention to Pascal, who was still being hugged tightly to Rapunzel's chest.

"He looks ill," Queen Ariana said.

"He's breathing like he is asleep," Rapunzel told her. "I've been trying to wake him up, but I can't."

"I think he's been drugged," Cass said, looking at the chameleon closely. "He doesn't appear harmed otherwise."

The three women looked up from the reptile at the sound of the swinging doors opening. The palace doctor, Dr. Consuela Rios, approached the trio, letting the swinging doors swish back and forth behind her until they finally closed.

She was a slim, handsome, middle-aged woman; gray was just starting to show itself amongst her thick, black hair. She had worked for the royal family for the past fifteen years, after moving from her home country to the south. She had received her medical training in Corona as a young woman and only had a very slight accent. She did have the bad habit of over describing injuries and had to be reminded to stop on occasion.

Before she could say anything, Rapunzel blurted out:

"Is Eugene alright?" she asked, stepping up to the doctor. "Can we see him?"

"You'll be able to see him in a few minutes, the nurses are moving him into a room as we speak," Dr. Rios said. "He's asleep now and will likely remain that way for a few more hours. We had to do surgery on his leg."

"We understand," Queen Arianna said. "How bad was it?"

"The leg break was by far the worst of his injuries," Dr. Rios explained. "Part of his tibia bone was exposed through his shin. Probable concussion, but we won't know for sure until he wakes up. Took twenty stitches to his head, five in his left palm, sprained left wrist and some bruised ribs. We cleaned him up, there was blood all over…Oh, yes over sharing, my apologies, Majesty. He's lucky to be alive."

"Will he be alright?" Rapunzel asked, shakily, her face pale.

"It is my professional opinion that he will recover," Dr. Rios said, nodding. "It will take time though. He will require physical therapy on his leg to rebuild its strength. He will be fine."

A young nurse emerged from the double swinging doors and approached the doctor.

"We have Mr. Fitzherbert situated in room 40, ma'am," she said.

"Thank you, Anise," Dr. Rios turned to the three women, "I'll take you to him. Like I said before though, he will still be asleep."

Cass didn't step forward with Rapunzel and Queen Ariana.

"I'm going to go check on Max," she explained, pointing with her thumb over her shoulder. "He really over exerted himself during the chase."

Rapunzel and the Queen nodded acknowledgement to the lady-in-waiting and followed Dr. Rios down the hallway, the princess still clasping Pascal to her chest. Eugene's room was at the far end of the hallway, near an exit to the palace grounds. The doctor said that she would check in on them and Eugene in a short while and left the two women to enter the room on their own.

Just as the doctor had warned them, Eugene was sound asleep in the sterile looking hospital bed. Rapunzel hurried to his side and threaded her hand with his. She studied his face. A white bandage was wrapped around his forehead and his left cheek was swollen and bruised. Rapunzel chuckled when she realized that Eugene was snoring slightly.

"Here you go, dear."

Rapunzel turned at the sound of her mother's voice and the sound of something being pushed across the floor. Queen Ariana positioned a wooden chair behind her daughter so she could sit next to the bed. She moved one for herself over to the bed and sat down. Rapunzel adjusted the chair so that she could more easily hold Eugene's hand.

"So, the kidnappers believed you possess magic in your hair still?" Queen Ariana asked, quietly, not wanting to disturb the sleeping man in the bed.

"They never mentioned it. All they said was I just needed to be alive."

"Oh, I guess I came to that conclusion on my own," Queen Ariana said. "It was just the logical conclusion for me to reach, I guess. Now that I think about it, we had yet to discuss it today."

"I'm sure it is the reason they tried to take me," Rapunzel conceded. "Why else would they take me?"

"It has to be more than you just being the princess," the Queen said. "If they wanted to take you for ransom just based on the fact that you are the princess, they would have done so before now, even when you had your hair cut off."

"Maybe they'd leave me alone if they knew I no longer had the magic in my hair."

The Queen shook her head.

"I don't think that would work," she said. "They've already gone to so much trouble to get ahold of you. They could just think we are trying to trick them into leaving you alone. I don't think we could prove it to them in any way."

There was a soft tap on the door and it slowly opened. King Frederic quietly stepped into the room, preventing any further discussion between the mother and daughter on the topic of Rapunzel's hair. The large man silently closed the door behind him and approached the bed. He leaned down and kissed his daughter on the top of her head.

"How is he?"

"Dr. Rios said he will recover with time," Rapunzel said. "She also said he would probably remain asleep for the next few hours."

The king nodded. He declined the chair offered to him by his wife.

"I won't stay long," he said, quietly. "I just wanted to update you two on our investigation of the attempted kidnapping."

Both women looked to him eagerly, hoping for good news.

"There is no sign of the coach," King Frederic said glumly. "We were able to track its wheel marks to a main country thoroughfare, but due to the high amount of traffic on that road, we couldn't make out any tracks. I still have men searching in both directions, but I don't hold out much hope of picking up the trail again. It was a standard sized coach with run of the mill horses, so there is nothing unique about the tracks the kidnappers made for us to pick out."

"Were there any witnesses along the road?" Queen Ariana asked.

"None that could give us a good accounting of where the coach went," the King sighed. "There were several that recall seeing the coach or a similar coach go by, but nothing that will help our search."

"Surely, they could point us in the direction the coach went?" Queen Ariana said.

"We have conflicting accounts on which direction they went. Witnesses from the north and from the south claim to have seen a coach like the one Rapunzel and Cassandra have described."

The queen sighed.

"I see."

"What about the bandit that was killed?" Rapunzel asked.

The king's face brightened a little as he brought up the topic of the dead bandit.

"We were able to identify him," he said. "His name is Anthony Johannes, age forty-three. We were able to discover that he is a well-known bandit in several surrounding countries, and while he had been labeled as a man to watch here in Corona, he is not well known here. He also has not committed any local attributable crimes while here in the past five years."

"Where is he from?" Queen Ariana asked.

"He was actually born in Corona, but his family is originally from the Southern Isles. His mother and father passed away some time ago, but his father, George, was a palace guard for twenty-seven years, retired the year before I was passed the crown from my father. Anthony would have been twenty years old at the time, just a few years younger than me."

"Do you remember his father, dear?" Ariana asked.

"I do not," the king shook his head, "It was so long ago and we've had so many guards. He only reached the rank if Second Lieutenant. I asked around our long serving palace guards. There are only a few left who were around twenty-three years ago and they don't remember him. I read through his palace record and while he didn't have any outstanding accomplishments, he was noted as a hard and studious worker. None of his superiors had anything bad to say about him that was recorded and he left of his own volition."

"So, there was nothing that would cause his son to hate us and want revenge," Ariana said.

"Nothing that was noted in this father's record any way."

"I see," the queen nodded. "So what steps are being taken now?"

"The Captain is heading up the search of the countryside in hopes of tracking down the coach. I am heading up the investigation of Johannes' and the other two bandit's last known movements while in the city."

King Frederic turned to his daughter.

"Is there anything more you can tell us about the driver and the Arendelle bandit? Anything at all?"

Rapunzel slouched in her chair and shook her head.

"I wish I could," she said. "I've been thinking about them this whole time. I've been trying to picture them in my mind, but I can't give a better description of them. The driver was just a regular shaped man, thin. The bandit with the accent was large and muscular, but I couldn't say anything more about him."

"Well, if you think of anything, let me or the Captain know," King Frederic said. "I'm going to be posting guards at all entrances to the medical wing and right outside the room door. I'll be by later to check in. In the meantime, I'm going to be working on tactics to ferret out the mole we obviously have within the castle."

The king kissed his wife and then his daughter and took his leave. As promised, a guard could be seen standing at the door as the king opened the door to leave. Queen Ariana stayed with her daughter and Eugene for another hour before she too left, leaving Rapunzel to keep watch over the man she loved.

The sun's final rays were stretching themselves over the walls of Eugene's hospital room. The remains of Rapunzel's dinner were on a tray set on a table next to the door. Eugene had yet to wake up. Rapunzel sat curled up in her wooden chair, sound asleep. She was still cradling Pascal in her lap. He had woken up some time earlier, but has since fallen back to sleep. From what Rapunzel had gathered, he had eaten some pastries that had been left by his bed by an unknown person and had just fallen asleep. It was clearly a case of drugging.

Cassandra had stopped by for a short time, reporting that Max was doing fine, the stable hands were tending to his needs and he was resting comfortably. The lady-in-waiting didn't stay long. Her own exertions that day had made her tired and hospitals weren't her favorite place to hang out. Rapunzel had encouraged her to go to her room and get some rest.

Now it was just the sleeping Rapunzel that remained by her love's bedside.

What roused her from her sound sleep, Rapunzel couldn't tell, but it didn't repeat itself once her head snapped up in surprise. The princess rubbed at the back of her neck, sore from the position it had been held in for the past hour or so. Once she had cleared her vision and her sleep muddled brain she was able to focus on what was in front of her.

Eugene was still sound asleep, snoring ever so slightly. Beyond him was a large window. Rapunzel studied the dim scenery of the palace grounds. She could see the dark shapes of the trees and bushes of the immaculately groomed palace gardens and the long, flat shadow of the wall at the far end.

Rapunzel's blood froze when she finally saw it. The two dark shapes of two people standing behind her could be seen in the window reflection! Rapunzel also could see that one of them was holding a knife!