AN: Thank you everyone for your kind feedback! I enjoyed this week's episode and wanted to use the chapter to try to tie it in. There are some spoilers for S4E4, so if you haven't seen it yet, don't read this until you do!
The Queen lets go of Eleanor, and smiles at Jasper as he joins them. Eleanor threads her fingers into his, and shares a look with her mother that he doesn't entirely understand.
"I suppose we've cast this secret to the wind then?" Helena asks.
Eleanor grins. "There will be pictures all over social media as soon as the wi-fi comes back up. Even Rachel can't get NDAs from this many people!" She gently bumps Jasper's shoulder, and he sways on his feet. Eleanor's smile fades to concern, and she reaches around his waist to keep him upright. He wasn't lying, a minute ago, when he said that he'd never been better, but it wasn't a completely factual statement. He's walked practically across London, and the medication he'd been given before he'd been loaded into the ambulance has long ago worn off. His head, and his heart, are better than they've ever been, his chest and his lungs, they could use some help.
"What happened to you?" Helena asks, noticing, for the first time, that Jasper looks a little the worse for wear.
"It's complicated…."
"Where in the bloody Hell have you been?" Jasper tries to turn, assuming by the put-out tone of voice that James is speaking to him. Eleanor squeezes his side, and shakes her head, and Jasper is surprised to see that James is glaring not at him, but at the Queen.
"Ah, Mr. Hill, my favorite Head of Security," Helena starts.
James just keeps glaring at her. Eleanor opens her mouth and James waves an annoyed hand at her, and she stops, and seals her lips shut tight.
"Your other Head of Security killed people." James says flatly, looking as though he might be considering a similar tack.
A lesser woman than Helena would have been cowed. "Well, you see," the Queen begins, "the lock on the wine cellar…".
"Relax, Hill," Cyrus drawls, suddenly appearing out of nowhere, with champagne flutes in his fists. He hands a glass to Helena, and takes a large gulp from the other one. "We got locked into the wine cellar, with the Grand Duchess of Oxford. We've been in the Palace this whole time."
James shakes his head, exasperated. "Of course you have… with the Duchess of Oxford."
"She's resting now…. " Helena adds brightly, "In the wine cellar…."
"Because, where else?" James turns to Jasper. "We have more than a few people out looking for you." Worry creeps into his voice, " You look like shit, are you okay?"
"He's fine," Eleanor answers for him. "He's home safe, he's just a bit tired." She brushes a bit of dust off him. "Maybe a bit dusty," she swipes at her eyes and puts her head on his shoulder.
Jasper is sure that he does, actually, look like shit, but it's so much better to hear that from James than his father. He nods, slowly. "I'll be okay", he confirms."
James relaxes just a fraction. "Well, thank God for small favors. Welcome home." He smiles at them.
"Hill," Cyrus breaks in, "you need to teach your daughter how to pour… there is too much fizz in this glass."
Eleanor winces. "Sorry, Foxy," she whispers. Jasper turns, and sees Sarah Alice struggling to pour a magnum of champagne into a series of crystal flutes. He manages to catch Rosie's eye. She waves to him, pleased that he's okay, and then follows his look and rushes over to help the little girl and save the stemware.
It takes effort, but James manages to ignore the former King.
"Right," he says instead…. taking the glass from Helena's hand, and swallowing the remining contents in one. "What I need,…. right now, mind,… is I need the four of you, to go into the Queen's office, and I need you to stay there. Miss Moreno, and Rosie and I will escort all of your…guests...out of the Palace."
Helena moves quickly. "As you wish, Mr. Hill. As you say, this is your area of expertise." She is all gracious regal cooperation, and she holds her arm out to Cyrus, so he can escort her out of the Red State Room.
"Let me say a few words to the people," Eleanor says to James, watching her mother and uncle leave, "it will make it easier to send everyone home."
James can see the reason in this, "Go ahead," he says.
She squeezes Jasper's hand, and walks towards the front of the room. She stood in the same place, drunk, ages ago, and tried to tell the world that he was blackmailing her. She stopped the band, grabbed the mic and chickened out. And then they'd gone out on the balcony, and he'd been honest, and then defensive and then just shitty, and she'd gotten hurt, and angry ... and she'd outsmarted him, and she left. And he very nearly lost her.
She addresses the crowd in her 'Princess voice'. She's smiling, warm and friendly, and it's obvious that the people love her. No one in this group would believe she was the same angry girl at the Masquerade if they'd seen her.
"I just have a few more words to say," she tells them. "I know you are all anxious to be getting home…. I just need to thank you all for coming here tonight…. For showing faith in us, your family," she stops and collects herself, "For your faith in your Royal family. It is our greatest privilege to be worthy of your trust in difficult times. Like so many of you, I was terrified for loved ones last night…". She pauses again and smiles at Jasper. "And I thank you for helping me through that, and please know that your Royal family is praying for each and every other person who is still working to find their way home." A few members of the crowd turn to look at Jasper, and he tries to smile back, but his chest hurts, and it's getting harder and harder to stand upright.
"She's unbelievable, this girl," James says to Jasper under his breath, the pride evident in his voice.
"She's breathtaking," Jasper agrees. "Look," he says, "I need to talk to you… it's important."
James nods, looking his former protégé in the eye. "Is this going to be about your miraculous rescue from an abandoned ambulance during a South London riot?"
"It is, yeah."
"And possibly a problem with the no-fly list?"
Jasper is stunned. James can't know that his father is here… there's just no way that he could know that.
"How did you….?" Jasper's chest is aching now, and it might not just be because there was recently a bullet in it.
James grasps Jasper's shoulder. "Rosie saw some fishy images in some CTV footage from Heathrow. I didn't tell you about it because I didn't have anything definitive, and you, had quite enough to be getting on with. He never came into the hospital, but Boone saw him nearby." His tone is serious, but its low, and kind. "What is important, right now, is that you are home safe. We will sort out all of the rest of it. I promise."
Jasper nods, believing him. James continues, "Right now, in this moment, I need to get your girlfriend out of this room. I need to get some proper medication and maybe some food into you. I need my daughter to stop playing cocktail waitress…. And I guess I need to get the damn Duchess of Oxford out of the wine cellar. "
Jasper is fading fast, but he laughs. He is focused on short, one syllable words… home… safe….we… and girlfriend, which is obviously two syllables, but sounds nice. He's getting punchy.
"Okay," he says. It takes too much energy to say that he thinks the Duchess will be fine in the wine cellar for a while, but he thinks James probably knows that. "My Dad… he wanted me to bring him here. Don't let him in. They're not safe if he's here."
James takes this seriously. "I'll do my best," he promises.
"And finally," Eleanor is wrapping up," I have to thank a few very special people, without whom we would not be able to do what we do on any day, but especially a day like this one." She calls out James, and he has to wave to the same crowd that he is anxious to disperse. Then she says, "And last but not least, heartfelt thanks to my crowd of badass bi" she catches James' raised eyebrow and corrects her language, "unstoppable girls who dropped everything to help make this work – Willow, our social media maven, Rosie, the best bodyguard a girl could ask for, and our munchkin, Sara Alice, banisher of ghosts and slayer of Zombies. Now… of you go!"
The crowd cheers, and slowly people begin making their way to the doors.
Eleanor walks back up to James and Jasper. "They won't all leave unless I do," she says, knowingly, taking Jasper's hand again. "Queen's office, you said?", she smiles at James, all innocence now, as if she hadn't just taught the man's daughter how to pop a champagne cork.
"Yes please, Princess." James is willing to play along, but he knows that Eleanor knows he's not buying it. She beams at him and pulls Jasper towards the family quarters.
"Princess," James stops her, "His," he points to Jasper, who has now lost enough color in his face that it matches the wall, "his medicine is in your room. You may make one stop…"he holds up his finger for emphasis, "one. Put some painkillers into him, and feed him something, but do not get… distracted." It's Eleanor's turn to raise an eyebrow, and then she looks again at Jasper who looks more likely to fall down than engage in any of their usual distractions. She smiles fondly at them both and nods to James, "of course," she says. "We will keep Mum and Uncle Cyrus in line for you."
"If anyone can do it, Princess, it's you." He waves them off, and turns to face the remains of the festivities in the Red State Room, which run the risk of becoming a bit too festive now that the alcohol has had time to set in and the anxiety is lifting.
Eleanor leads Jasper down the familiar hallway and stops in front of her double doors. She pulls her mouth into a small frown. "I had a whole thing planned…. Before, you know, the lights went out…" She laughs a little, "so, I want a rain check on the thing."
"Okay," he agrees. He gets it. He's walked in these doors a hundred times, at least, but this time is different. He's not carrying her home drunk, or barging in uninvited, or sneaking in after dark and setting an alarm on his phone so he has time to sneak back out before work in the morning. This is different. This time, when he walks in, the room is theirs…. And they don't have too many things that are theirs, so this is big.
She kisses him, full on, like she's been doing for days, and he is vaguely aware that she has fisted both of his jacket lapels in her hands in an effort to keep him from falling over. He breaks off the kiss when he realizes that she doesn't have the counter-balancing weight to pull that trick off.
"Okay," she says, and pushes the door open.
He takes in the space, and smiles. It's still very Eleanor, but somehow, between trips back and forth to the hospital and planning a dance for Becky Beauregard, she's managed to make some changes to the room. There's a new bureau, next to hers on the wall, and a second desk in front of the window. And a genuinely ridiculous pillow with his initial painted on in glitter. It's possible that Becky Beauregard herself picked that out, but he kind of loves it, because Eleanor has put it on her side of the bed, and there's a matching 'E" pillow on his. The wingback chairs are still in the sitting area, and she pushes him gently into one.
She chats busily, moving around the room. She's nervous and fidgety. She walks over to the new bureau and pulls out a middle drawer full of T-shirts and sets it on the bed. She reaches inside and pulls out a box and brings it over to the coffee table. "A secret drawer," she says, almost shyly..."It made me think of you. Also…" her voice gets a little more confident, "Sarah Alice is in here all the time, and some of this medicine is dangerous for children." She opens the secret box and takes out one of several prescription bottles, and tips two into her hand. "Sopadol," she declares… and then she reads the back of the bottle, frowns, glances at Jasper's prone frame, and tips out a third one. "Wait," she says, and hurries over to the bar and pours some club soda into a glass. She digs around under the bar counter and comes up with a packet of water crackers. "It says you should take it with food… we'll have to order actual food… but the Chef has been a bit pre-occupied…." There is no sign of the girl who use to keep a rainbow of drugs in a candy dish on the coffee table. He obediently swallows his pills, and eats a cracker to make her happy, even though he has no appetite.
"This is…." He begins, trying to find the right thing to say.
"Is it okay?" she cuts him off anxiously. This is the most important room she's ever styled. Ever.
"It's amazing," he says, pulling her down into his lap. "I can't believe you did all this!" He buries his face into her hair, inhaling cucumber and mint and peace and home. "I love you. I love this… it's amazing."
She doesn't answer back, but he can feel her relax in his arms. They stay that way, in an easy quiet, until Eleanor suddenly squeals, "I forgot the best part!" She jumps up, and runs to the desk that Jasper presumed was his. She pulls open the bottom drawer. "Look at this," she calls.
Jasper can't see from the chair, but the medicine Eleanor has given him is starting to work, so he stands up and warily walks over to her. He looks down and starts laughing. He wraps an arm around Eleanor. "Is that a gun safe?" He asks her.
"That," she says, entirely proud of herself, "is your gun safe… in your desk. So that you," she pokes his chest, "can come home from work, and lock your gun away, every… single… day." She stands on her toes and kisses him again, and she doesn't have to hold him up this time.
"You hate having guns in here," he reminds her.
"I hate having guns in the chimney and taped under the vanity…. I can live with your gun, locked up, in there, when you are not working."
"I can live with that," he smiles, returning the kiss. "Plus, there's Sarah Alice." He's teasing and she knows it. His gun had been locked in the control room whenever he wasn't wearing from the day Sarah Alice had moved in.
"Don't joke," she warns… she's tired, and protective of her smallest friend.
"I'm not joking," He's not. "She will be much safer this way." He pauses, he's exhausted, and he isn't good about talking about his feelings. "You made a real home for us, I love it, it's perfect."
She kisses him again. "I promised James I wouldn't distract you," she reminds him a few minutes later, and he reluctantly releases her.
"Okay."
"You look a little better," she says, leading him towards the door, the same one they'd painted together. "Are you sure you're up for this?"
"Yeah." If Eleanor isn't going to distract him, then Jasper just wants to rest…. He's not particular as to where.
They walk down the hall to the Queen's office, and through the open double doors. The Queen Mother and her former brother-in-law are slumped on one end of the sofa and look like their tequila hangovers have officially taken root. Eleanor sighs, and directs Jasper onto the opposite end of the sofa, and curls up next to him, with her knees up on the seat. They rest there, the four of them, just like James asked them to do, until Rachel comes in to announce the new guest.