AN: Oh no! Anachronisms! This is unacceptable considering the high standards of historical and scientific accuracy presented in the source material. I should be shot for my crimes against literature and humanity. As long as I have a blindfold and a cigarette, I'll go with dignity.

Chapter 7

Eugene wakes from a restless sleep when he is disturbed by the shifting of his pillow. He opens one gummy eye and comes face to face with Pascal's dirty look.

"Don't give me that."

Pascal shakes his head slowly, dripping with disappointment.

"Do I comment on your sex life?"

The frog's head tilts to an odd angle.

Eugene groans and rubs his temple, where his headache has grown into a dull throb. He feels crusty and depressed and he would very much like to take a bath.

Pascal chirps and blinks at him with concern.

"I'm fine. Is it time for her to go?"

This is met with a nod, but the frog's nice enough to look a little sad.

He looks down at Rapunzel, her face obscured by stray stands of dark hair. She is dead weight against him, her breathing deep and even. For a moment he considers pretending to be asleep when Pascal wakes her. For a moment he considers running as soon as she leaves the room, running and running and running until he's far enough away that he can't look back. He gave her his heart, he gave her his life, he finally found the place where he belongs, and she didn't seem to care.

Maybe he's over analyzing it. She does care for him. He knows that - he knows. But he can't help thinking that she cares for everyone. It's her nature. And really, what makes him different from anyone else except for the fact that she saw him first. If one of the Stabbington brothers or one of the palace guards had stumbled across her tower, would she be lying here with them? The idea fills him with jealousy and self pity that tastes like poison.

He's pulled from these thoughts by Pascal, who purrs and rubs against his cheek. It comforts him to think that Pascal would never nuzzle the Stabbington brothers, so he must have some sort of redeeming qualities. Of course he does, Rapunzel's not stupid. He takes a deep breath and brushes her hair behind her ear.

"That old witch really messed her up."

Pascal nods vehemently and makes a disgusted kacking noise. He was hurt pretty badly himself when he was kicked across the tower. Eugene scratches the little guy's head and pokes him once in the chest, glad that he has at least one ally.

"Hey, sunshine," he murmurs, brushing his lips against Rapunzel's forehead. "Time to get a move on."

She mutters under her breath and snuggles closer to him.

"Nope. Wake up." He manages a cheery smile as she cracks her eyes open. He's a fantastic liar. "Good morning!"

"Eugene?" She rubs one eye with her wrist and props herself up on an elbow. "What happened?"

"You fell asleep. And now it's morning so you need to go back to your room."

"Can't I stay here?"

"No, Blondie, you can't."

"Hmm. But I'm tired."

"You're also eloquent and agreeable."

"Don't be rude," she grumbles, flopping back down on the bed and closing her eyes.

"Come on, now. You can go back to sleep in your own bed. In order to get my beauty rest, I need to sprawl out." He kicks at her gently with a leg, invading her side of the bed - the side that wasn't his side, that is. She giggles and smiles up at him with a look that makes him melt. Man, he's got it bad.

"It feels like I've been struck by lightning," she confides.

He raises an eyebrow. "Is that a good thing?"

She considers this a moment. "I don't know. Is it supposed to be a good thing?"

"What matters is what you think."

She considers again, absently petting Pascal, who's turned a sunny yellow color. "Did you feel it too?"

He blinks, not knowing how forward he should be. Put himself out there and let her squash him, or protect himself?

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I did."

She nods and smiles. "And you like it."

"Yeah."

"Then it's a good thing."

He finds himself honestly smiling. "I'm glad you think so."

"So can we do it again?"

"Uh… not right now."

"Why not?"

"Because your maids are going to wonder where you are, and they'll send the palace guards straight here, and then they'll hang me."

"It'll take them a while to find me."

"No, it won't."

"I'll tell them to leave you alone."

"I don't think that will make a difference."

"I'm the princess," she says indignantly.

"And that's why you need to stay away from scum like me." He gives her a peck and a gentle shove, but she won't be moved, choosing instead to thread her fingers through his.

"Then when?"

"When what?"

"When can we do it again?"

"Uh…" He's momentarily boggled by how she can be so perfectly at ease while asking him something like that. Oh right, he thinks. She doesn't know any better. It's refreshing in a way. He could be the worst partner ever and she would have no idea. Well, maybe not the worst, and he wasn't anywhere close to being the worst anyway. But it does take a bit of the pressure off. He won't have to constantly be trying to impress her or top himself or top someone from her past. You see? he tells himself, there is a silver lining.

"Soon," he says. She gives him a skeptical glare, just daring him to lie to her. "Soon."

He spends his day doing nothing as usual, which is actually starting to get a bit boring. He's starting to consider taking those etiquette lessons that the king was hinting at the last time they spoke. Or maybe he could get a job, but he can't really think of anything he would be good at. Maybe someone else around is in the market for finding a lost princess and he could go on a quest or something. Maybe he could steal stuff from bad guys and return it to their rightful owners. He's already told the Captain of the Guards – who's a prick by the way – about all the more apparent holes in the castle defenses. He could go see if he could find more, or if anything had been done yet about the ones he pointed out. But he decides not to check on it, as most likely nothing has been done, and knowing that he's not being taken seriously will just make him feel bad.

Without really thinking about it, he wanders towards the stables, and only comes up short when he spots the great white pain in the ass.

Maximus looks up at him, snorts, then turns back to his feed in disinterest.

Eugene leans back against the stable wall. "How's it hanging?"

This earns him an eye roll. And Eugene wonders exactly what provoked him to come in here.

"Have you ever told someone you love them?"

Max pauses to give him a look of utter disbelief. On reflection, it was a really stupid question for multiple reasons.

"Has anyone ever told you that they love you?" He highly doubts it. He doesn't think the horse deserves to be loved. Maybe begrudgingly respected. Maybe gaped at. But loved?

To his surprise the horse perks up and nods excitedly, wagging his tail in a way that doesn't seem possible.

"Seriously?"

Nod.

"Who?"

Maximus bats his eyelashes and gestures towards the castle, and Eugene has a sinking feeling that he knows exactly who told Maximus she loved him. He groans and marches off, leaving the horse to stare after him in confusion, shrug, and return to his feed.

Eugene wanders aimlessly through the gardens as it seems as good a place as any to mope, and ends up at the fish pond, where he spends a while throwing pebbles and wallowing.

"You look down today."

He jumps and spins around to see the queen watching him, her head tipped to one side in interest.

"Ma'am," he says, bowing.

"Strange that you should be unhappy," she says. "Rapunzel is in an exceptionally bright mood this morning."

Don't blush. Don't blush. Don't blush. "Ma'am?"

"Emma."

"What?"

"My name is Emma. You may use it if you wish."

"I don't really think I could."

"That's up to you, of course. But I don't mind. I believe you call my daughter by her given name."

"Well, sometimes."

The queen smirks at him. "And other times you use a nickname."

"Uh…"

She laughs. It's a nice sound, honest and open. "Come sit with me, Mr. Fitzherbert."

He doesn't really have a choice, so he stiffly sits down next to her on one of the cold, stone benches. He doesn't really know what to expect from this interview, but it's definitely not what comes out of her mouth.

"Do you know how I met my husband?"

He blinks at her. "A ball? Some sort of arranged thing?" he guesses.

She makes a noise that's deceptively like a snort. "No. Richard was hunting in the forest and got himself gauged by a boar. Nasty injury. He really shouldn't have lived. He was too far away from Corona to get him there in time, so his party brought him to the nearest healer and he was forced to stay there for over a month while he recuperated. That healer had a daughter, and that daughter was me.

"I was tending to him when he woke, and the first thing Richard said to me was, 'I didn't think I'd go to heaven, and see such angels.'"

It's now Eugene's turn to snort. "That's a line if I ever heard one."

"I know," she says with a hint of irritation, "and I wasn't buying it at all. But even though I wasn't receptive to his advances, and even though I had such a lower status than him, he was convinced that he was in love and he was going to whisk me off and make me a princess."

"What did you say?"

"I said he was feverish, and too weak to whisk anyone anywhere. And then I said that he only thought he loved me because he hadn't seen anyone but me and my father and his idiot friends for a month. And then I said that he only thought he loved me because I had nursed him back to health and he was grateful. Do you see?"

He gapes at her. "How did you-"

"Eventually he went back to the castle, but he spent the next year coming out whenever he could to try to court me. And finally I couldn't take it anymore and I told him that I didn't love him and I wished for him to leave me alone."

"You lied."

She shrugs. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. But do you know what he told me?"

He shakes his head.

"He said that he loved me because I was different. Because I was the only one who would lie to his face and send him away so that he could have a better life."

He frowns and thinks on that for a second. "Are you saying that she's better off without me and I should leave?"

She rolls her eyes, which is something Eugene has never seen her do. "I'm saying that you're different, Mr. Fitzherbert. There is a reason she likes you and you should respect her choices enough not to question it."

"She doesn't always make smart choices."

"None of us do."

He pauses, unsure, and then confesses what's been weighing on his chest all day. He doesn't know what the deal is with all these confessions lately, but it seems like once they started they just won't stop. "I'm worried that she doesn't know what love is enough to love me back."

The queen sighs. "That worries me as well. All we can do at the moment is show her what it means to feel loved. That's one of the few ways I can think of to help her." For a moment she looks so exquisitely sad, but then she looks up and smiles at him. "And besides, if we truly love her then we won't care if it will be returned."

She stands and brushes her skirts to remove invisible wrinkles.

"You should take the etiquette instruction that my husband offered. Inactivity does not suit you, and coarseness does not suit a prince consort."