Author's note: Thank you for your patience in regards to this story. It's harder to write that I thought when I started but I am persevering and I'd be grateful if you would too. Thank you.

Mia twisted the lock, pulling open the door as the breeze rushed into the kitchen. The wine glasses from last night's dinner were piled against the side and rattled a little, forcing Lilly to reach out and grab them and grumble as one tumbled into the sink.

"Your grandma will kill you," she said, the tone of her voice betraying her joy.

They stepped outside, "Lils! Is she up yet? No."

"No," Lilly smiled, "I suppose not. Still, Joe will kill you if you go somewhere without his permission…and to be fair on them it is only six a.m."

"I just want to walk along the beach," she protested, "What's likely to happen to me?"

"Swept away?"

"I doubt it," she laughed and raced towards the surf.

In the early morning sun the water was cold, and it foamed up against their feet and pulled away again to leave soft sand underneath. They walked arm and arm, towards the rocky outcropping they had climbed last night and turning back on themselves repeated their journey across the small beach.

"Does it make you nervous?"

"Does what?" Mia squinted at her friend from behind her sunglasses.

"The thought of being queen," Lilly answered seriously, "Like, three years in you must see how…hard it is."

"Searching for the right word there Lils?"

"Yeah," she laughed.

"I suppose it does," she bent down to fish a glittering shell from the sand. It was heart-shaped and shining in the sun. She held it up to examine it more.

"I want it though, I really do," she continued, "Even though there are parts of it I know I will hate."

"It's a real job," Lily answered as she walked a little further up the beach and sat down just shy of the surf, "I think, having watched your grandma, it's one of the hardest jobs in the world. It seems…lonely."

Mia nodded, plopping down beside her friend on the surf. Yes, it was a hard job to do and a lonely one on top of that. She knew all this. She had seen it and watched it and witnessed it so fully. She knew the loneliness of that finely tailored mask, that beautifully dressed politician. She had never properly met her grandmother, apart from flashes of true affection that had passed between them.

"She has people," she said slowly, trying to validate her own words by searching her memories.

"She has Joe. Singular," Lily muttered, "And that's it. Posh friends yes, women she might have tea with, people who are acquaintances. Friends? One. You'll need to make a conscious effort not to isolate yourself."

"I will," she nudged her friend reassuringly and dug her toes into the sand, "Sometimes though I think she's quite happy with Joe."

There was a silence then, pregnant with anticipation of the next natural question. She almost dared Lily to ask it so she could rebuff it despite her own doubts regarding the relationship her grandmother had with the Head of Security.

"Do you think it's more?"

Mia turned her chin sharply to look at her friend, "No."

"Come on," Lily defended, "You know why I am asking. Look at the papers, the websites…Look at them together."

Mia shook her head, "It's vicious. And why are you looking at those websites?"

"I'm just saying it's possible."

Mia squinted into the sun, knowing that it very much was possible, and then nodded, "Yeah it is."

"But no?"

"I'm not sure," she shook her head and toyed with the sand beside her leg. It wasn't as if she hadn't considered it.

"My grandmother's not exactly the warmest. And anyway, you're not really wanting me to believe she's the type to conduct an affair."

"It's not really an affair Mia," Lily argued.

"But if it is true…" she shook her head, "Then at some point it was an affair."

"What was an affair?"

The voice behind them startled them both but Mia turned quickest. They couldn't have heard her uncle approaching over the noise of the waves and their conversation, but now he stood behind them.

He had a football under one arm, "Want to play some soccer? I bought this out for a kick about. Plus, it'll give you a good excuse when my mother realises you've left the house without permission. Really I'm saving you."

She smirked at his humour, grateful for his understanding of just how oppressive the entire thing could be.

"I'm useless at sports," she shrugged.

"I'll show you," he smiled, "My father was good. He showed your father and me how to play. Then when we got older we used to play with Joseph."

A while later, chasing after the ball she threw her sweater down onto the sand, realising it was growing warmer. The beach house was coming alive in the distance and she watched it for a moment. It was a truly beautiful house. Shades was doing a perimeter check and Charlotte waved to them from the porch. She shook her head, dispelling Lilly's conversation with her, and kicked the ball as far down the beach as she could manage.

-0-

Clarisse watched from the window as Pierre showed Mia how to perform a rather dirty tackle, at least it seemed rather poor in her opinion. She laughed quietly as he showed her and she remembered Rupert's pride the first time the two brothers were old enough to start playing soccer properly and were able to dive around as those on the beach were doing now. It was the first time she had realised he was happy to be a father, enjoying his sons as people rather than as conduits for a blood line. Despite his infidelities, his quick temper, his almost embarrassing snobbery he had loved them – and her – in his own way. He had loved them as much as he was able to love them. Sadly, painfully, unfairly it had often not been enough.

She turned away from the window and looked towards the bed. She should really make Joseph get up and, had she been in possession of even a shred of self-preservation, she would have gone back to her room long before the sun had begun to climb the sky. He looked so lovely though, so content, that she couldn't bare to disrupt him. He was so serious, so menacing, that his vulnerability in sleep appealed to her sense of romance. For all it was fleeting, she did possess a sense for romance.

He moved, then pulled the sheets up to his chin and muttered groggily, "Either come back to bed or stop staring at me."

She laughed lightly, "Mia snuck out this morning. Pierre followed her out with a football. I'm deciding whether or not I should chastise her."

"Shhh," he urged, "You're killing that…listen, do you hear it?"

"No," she walked back towards the bed and away from the window, "What is it?"

"Silence, peace," he whispered, eyes still closed, "Don't break it."

She laughed a little, sliding back into bed beside him. This always happened on the first few days of a break; she was up when the sky was pink and new until she finally relaxed which was often around the time she was supposed to go back to working. She hated getting up but her body resisted her attempts to sleep. Now though, wrapped in the safety of his arms, she felt it threatening her consciousness. It was so safe, so inevitable in his arms.

"Tell me what you were thinking," he said so quietly, so sincerely, that she was sure she would break with sadness, "Were you thinking about the boys? About Phillippe?"

"I always think about Phillippe," she was surprised to find she whimpered, "I used to think I'd never get back up Joseph. I thought I would lie in my bed forever, mourning my child, and every woman in the world who had ever felt what I had felt must do that too. Then one day it's a little blunter, so you get up out of bed and you shower. Then a few weeks later it's duller, so you smile. Then someone makes you feel like you again and you laugh and all the while you hate yourself for it."

"But you got back up," he whispered, tightening his grip on her.

He was trying to convey his admiration and she was trying to convey her thanks; the wires were always crossed. She wanted to say she still hated herself for it, for carrying on despite his absence, but she didn't.

"No mean feat," she laughed wryly, she tried to change the tone, "Pierre is teaching Mia how to play soccer."

"Rather him than me," he laughed a little, "She lacks co-ordination in even the simplest things."

She laughed and nodded in agreement as she propped her chin on his chest, "I think, Joseph, we have the house to ourselves. Scott and Charlotte are outside too."

He opened his eyes finally to look at her and then smirked, "Whatever can you be implying?"

"I am trying to be as explicit as I can manage in day light," she laughed.

He pulled her towards him them in the silence and peace of the morning.