A/N: Thanks to my readers and reviewers- you all rock!

The Princess Diaries doesn't belong to me!

"I can't believe that you did this!" Joseph repeated himself as he unlocked the cabin door and stood back so that Clarisse could enter before him (a rush of warm air hitting him as he did so) and Clarisse turned almost as soon as she was inside with a quizzical look.

"Why would you be so surprised that I did something like this?" she queried as he carried the palace hamper in and through the open plan living room/dining room to set it down on the dining table.

"Well…"

"You were thoughtful enough to do something for me when I needed a break, so why shouldn't I have done something for you?"

"I… I don't know… maybe it could make me look weak in front of the other men."

"That is absolutely ridiculous," she snorted as she made her way down to join him at the table. "You would look weak if you had refused my suggestion… and don't you think that your men deserve a little break after the way you have been behaving for the last couple of months?" she said in a chiding tone, giving him a pointed look and Joseph sighed.

"Alright, you're right, I have been rather hard on them lately."

"'Rather hard'? I'm surprised that I didn't have a pile of complaints about you!"

"I wonder why they didn't."

"Because they like you and have a great deal of respect for you… which is partly why I had this idea and why Scott agreed to it so easily, so I wouldn't be complaining about how or why we did this," she said in a tone that brooked no argument, but when he looked up into her face, there was a warm, kind expression on it.

"I do have one question, if I may."

"Yes?" she looked a little wary.

"How did you get a copy of my keys?" he grinned at her and she blushed.

"I wasn't sneaky, if that's what you are implying… besides, didn't you give a set of keys to the men who are based near the Winter Palace? Just in case something happened?" she gave him an arch look and he laughed.

"That's right, I forgot about that… so no, you're not in trouble…. Would you like a cup of tea?"

"Joseph, I thought you would never ask," she gave him a broad beam and he chuckled again, suddenly the lines of tension that had been clouding his expression over the past month or so disappeared, making him look more relaxed… and more like the man that she had fallen in love with.

0

"This is a fine place," Clarisse said after they had had a cup of tea (coffee, in Joseph's case) and several rounds of toast- Joseph had offered to cook something more substantial but Clarisse had turned him down.

"I'll be fine until lunch… besides, I usually only have toast for breakfast anyway."

"Maybe but that was a couple of hours ago… did you just say that you only had toast for breakfast?" his eyes narrowed imperceptibly and she nodded. "That doesn't sound very healthy for someone who is on the go most of the day, doing paperwork, attending parliament and going out in public."

"I thought we came out for the sake of your health, not for you to start worrying about mine!" she laughed lightly. "However, for your information, I usually have yoghurt and fruit as well… and I usually eat very well at lunchtime and at dinner time."

"Most of the time, when you're not poring over your desk and asking for sandwiches to be sent."

"Enough!" Clarisse laughed good-naturedly. "Today is about you, not me!"

After that discussion, they had ate in companionable silence and then, after Joseph insisted that there wasn't enough to wash up (or even turn on the dishwasher), they had settled on the long, black leather type sofa that stood at the other end of the room, the fireplace in front of the them and the television nearby, turned on but merely to make background noise.

"Thank you… not that I have the opportunity to use it very often."

"That's your choice, not mine."

"True… but I don't really need very much anyway- there's two bedrooms, a library or study, an en-suite in the main bedroom and another bathroom and this…" he waved around the room that encompassed the living room and the dining room, the kitchen in a nearby separate room.

"Nevertheless, it's very cosy… If I had the opportunity to have my own house, it would have to be something like this…"

"With a garden, of course," he said jokingly.

"Yes, a garden is a given…do you have a garden here?"

"There is supposedly a garden under the snow, but not as magnificent as the one at the palace in Pyrus. Well, there's supposed to be a garden… but I'm hardly the gardening type, never have been, especially since my knees are so painful…"

"You're going to have to do something about that eventually, you know. "

"I know, I know... anyway, I'm just a little surprised about what you said before... that you would prefer a house like this."

"Why?" she sounded a touch insulted. "I married into royalty, Joseph, I am not royalty."

"But you still came from a very aristocratic family before that…"

"Which is why, as the years have passed, I have come to appreciate that simplicity is the key. Both Phillipe and Pierre realised it long before I did, but… I always had the sense that possessions weren't as important as relationships… yes, Rupert gave me quite a few pieces of extraordinary jewellery over the years, but that wasn't what I truly wanted…" she trailed off, looking away for a moment and taking a deep breath in and turning back to him with a slight smile. "But, once again, you have distracted me from the main point of today…"

"Which is?"

"…The main point is to focus on you and what you need, and what I think you really need is someone to talk to."

"Oh? And you're the one I should talk to?" he tried to sound brash but Clarisse could hear the vulnerability in his tone.

"Yes. I think I am. I'm here not as your Queen but as Clarisse, your friend."

"And I appreciate that… but you have to trust me when I say that I'm going to be alright."

"I wish I could trust you on that," she said sympathetically and he looked at her with something akin to irritation in his eyes.

"You don't believe me?"

"No, I don't and, deep down, you know that I wouldn't have believed you anyway," she said matter of factly. "So…."

"So…" he echoed, half unwilling to say anything but also secretly relieved that she had been more astute that he had given her credit for.

"So….what happened yesterday? Not with the explosion in the staff room, I've heard about that… I'm more interested in what you did when you left palace- where did you go?"

"I drove to Mertz," he said simply.

"Mertz? Why Mertz?"

"I just found myself in the car, driving and I just wanted to get out of Pyrus and hoped that no one saw me and I suddenly found myself in Mertz."

"What did you do in Mertz?"

"Not a lot in particular- I wondered down the main street, looked into windows, particularly the real estate agents, had lunch at a local pub and that was that."

"You must have done more than that, if you gone until late in the evening."

"Well, I did also go out to the lake, to that camping site that Phillipe tried to insist that I visit… unfortunately, I never got the chance to do that and now I'm probably too old to go camping."

"Phillipe did enjoy camping very much," Clarisse's expression lightened as she remembered the many, many times when Phillipe had gone camping, something that had begun when he was younger and Rupert, surprisingly, had taken the boys camping overnight. It was an experience that he wasn't to repeat, but Phillipe, being the active, outdoorsy boy that he was, loved it and usually insisted on at least one camping trip every summer with his friends, Pierre and their security team. "I know he tried on several occasions to convince me to go camping…"

"And?"

"I may appreciate the simple life and not having so much, but camping… it's hardly something I would do."

"I can't imagine you camping either," he agreed, although there was a smile on his face.

"Thank you…. So what did you do out at the lake?"

"I didn't do anything, I just looked at the frozen lake and remembered what Phillipe had told me about his camping trips…."

"He was already so passionate about it, and I have to admit, it was something that I encouraged- he already had some many responsibilities, so many rules guiding his life and what he could and couldn't do, camping was one thing where he could actually be normal like everyone else and enjoy a relatively normal experience. I really loved seeing him when he came home from these trips, exhausted, filthy and usually catching a cold, but there was just something about even a few days away that gave him pleasure, and that's what I wanted for him."

Clarisse wasn't looking at him when she was saying that, so she gave a start when she felt him take her hand in his, but she didn't let go, squeezing back when he squeezed and he suddenly realised that he had probably given her a scare personally yesterday- she already had so many people leaving her life, his storming out of the security hub could have been considered as another case of abandonment (although Pierre and Phillipe hadn't left her by choice, but he had).

"I'm sorry about yesterday," he said suddenly and she turned to look at him.

"Why are you sorry?"

"I shouldn't have left….I shouldn't have abandoned my post," he almost mumbled and she sighed softly as she moved closer to him.

"I told you last night, as Queen, I wasn't angry at your decision, I was concerned that you weren't coming back… I couldn't afford to lose my best Head of Security."

"I'm not talking about abandoning my post with my Queen, I'm talking about abandoning my post as your friend… I shouldn't have left you alone."

"I wasn't alone."

"You were alone in the ways that counted."

"I still had Charlotte… but yes, you are right, you did leave me but I'm not angry about that either."

"You should be."

"I'm not, I'm more worried about you personally and professionally."

"I promised I would never leave my post," he continued, still mumbling and Clarisse was growing increasingly worried- she had never seen him this low before, not in a long time, if ever.

He had always presented himself as rough and tough, cool, calm and collected but today… he seemed to have given himself permission to be vulnerable, and she couldn't help but love him more for it.

"Joseph," she said softly, tugging gently on his shoulder, forcing him to lift his head up from where he was gazing at their entwined hands, so that his eyes met hers.

"I'm not angry at you, I'm worried about you. I care about you."

"I care about you too… which means that I shouldn't have left my post."

"But you came back, that's what matters, and I'm glad that you did."

"'I'm glad that I did too, even though I was convinced that you were going to fire me," he admitted with a soft chuckle and she joined him- their faces were so close, they were whispering to each other and almost painfully aware of the chemistry building, the atmosphere that had suddenly become charged with something like what they had experienced at the beach, in the lead up to their first kiss.

"I couldn't have fired you."

"Why not?"

"You were stressed, you're only human."

"As are you, which is why I hate it when people treat you as an Ice Queen or someone who is incapable of feeling or intelligence."

"Why do I have a feeling I know who you're referring to?" she teased with a low, throaty chuckle and he laughed.

"Of course you would know, it's quite easy to guess."

"I wonder what they would say about us now if they knew where we were and what we're doing?" she flirted.

"They'd say it's a shame…"

"Too bad I usually don't listen to their opinions about my private life."

"Which is just as well…" before he moved that slightest bit closer, their breaths almost intermingling before he pressed his lips down on hers and he felt a different sensation, one he hadn't felt for a couple of months but happily welcomed back again….

Bliss…. It was complete and utter bliss…