A/N: A very special thanks to my sister #1, ARS, for making me continue when I needed serious motivation. Love you, sis! :)

The next evening, Nancy wandered around Queen Laura's gardens, wearing her loose grey gown and frowning in concentration.

It was a lovely evening.

The twilight was softly coming on, and the leaves of the fruit trees gleamed an almost orange color in the day's last scrap of sunlight.

Nancy only noticed this in the back of her mind as she walked the neat gravel pathways; her most prominent thought was the mystery of the Prince's entrapment.

What should she do?

What could she do?

Quiet footsteps sounded behind her. She turned, startled from her musings.

It was Prince Edward.

Of course it is, she thought solemnly.

She curtsied. "Your Highness," she murmured.

The prince give her a half-smile after the formalities of greeting. "I didn't get your name last night."

Nancy quirked an eyebrow. He cared to know? "Nancy," she answered, careful to leave "of the House of Drew" out, for fear that he'd make the connection to her scout father. Her cover as a maid would be blown right away if he knew she was a Drew. Not Royal, but certainly renowned.

He nodded. "Nancy," he murmured, more to him self than anything. He looked as though he would take his leave, but then a peculiar light flashed behind his eyes.

"I know this is an unusual request...but would you mind walking with me? In sight of the palace, of course, and we needn't speak if you don't wish to - " He blushed in the fading light. "I'm sorry, I..." He glanced upward. "I don't want to be alone right now. And I know that doesn't make sense, but..."

"I'll walk with you," Nancy said, even as her mind raced through a thousand different ways she might be able to stop the evil fairy queen. None of them sounded like they would work.

But she could walk with him.

He looked, frankly, rather surprised she agreed to walk with him.

In silence they continued down the path.

Finally, whether it was disrespectful or not, Nancy had to speak. "Prince Edward - " she began.

"Prince Ned," he interjected - for the first time that evening, he was truly smiling.

She gave him a sideways look and nodded.

"Prince Ned..." This time she trailed off of her own accord.

What could she say?

"You look absolutely hopeless...!"

"You look pale?"

"How's it going, what with the whole being enchanted and/or slowly murdered deal?"

None of that would help.

She just hook her head and gave him an apologetic smile instead.

~NN~

Ned found himself smiling. Just a little bit, but it was real. Not the fake ones he gave the wretched fairy queen, not the pained ones he gave Frank and Joe when they caught him in a mood of despondency, not the exerting ones he gave his mother in vain attempts to convince her all was well.

Real smiles.

He had forgotten how they even felt. Life-giving.

That aside, he hadn't expected her - Nancy - to agree to walk with him. He knew it was an odd request, but he had to ask. He somehow...he wanted her close. She was an unusual maid. Borderline audacious, but so innocently confident in her right to be there he couldn't do anything but go with it.

It was well into twilight now, and darkness would be here shortly. Nancy had trailed off, and seemingly had no intention of continuing, so he decided he had to say something.

"So have you solved your problem?" he asked, rather unceremoniously, as they passed the shadowed, blossoming pear trees.

"Oh, well..." she looked pointedly away. "Perhaps. It's a difficult problem. There's always a way, though, don't you think?"

Here she looked at him - right at him - and Ned had to catch his breath.

"I don't know," he said softly, stopping along the path. "Sometimes...sometimes...I think you just have to accept your fate and get on with it the best you can."

In the dark of the evening, a light passed behind the eyes of the titan-haired beauty (for whatever else she was, she certainly was a beauty), and then the light sharpened into something fierce. "No," she declared. "No! You have to fight - we are not made for defeat. If one door closes, another opens. That's just the way it is!"

She spoke with such conviction that Ned was taken aback.

Her confidence almost, almost, made him believe in her words, too.

Almost.

~NN~

Yes, the lack of hope.

Nancy saw it - raw and bleeding and festering.

The lack of hope was a deadly thing.

A deadly, deadly thing.

How could she combat that?

Maybe it wasn't even her job. She wasn't brought on to give him hope or even to save him from the fairy queen - her job was to discover where they were going, and technically she had fulfilled the requirements.

But oh, she wanted to see this through. To the...to the end.

"You are not made for defeat, Prince Ned. You are not made for defeat."

~NN~

Nancy couldn't know what he was going through, but those words warmed Ned from the inside out.

Ned knew that his brothers were preparing for the night's festivities, so he reluctantly steered their steps towards the palace. "Thank you, Nancy."

She smiled, a bright, brilliant smile - and he couldn't help himself.

He reached out and lightly squeezed her hand. She gave pause.

Then she straightened and offered a delayed curtsy. "Thank you, Prince Ned, for allowing me to accompany you on your walk."

"No, thank you. Truly, thank you." He shook his head slightly. "I am indebted to you."

He gave a quick half-bow and started to walk away, before she could come up with a reply that would make him realize just how untoward he was behaving, but then he turned back to her and gave her a small but real smile.

"Nancy?"

"Yes, Prince Ned?"

"It's just 'Ned' to you."

He turned again, but not before he caught her smile.

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