This chapter is a bit sappy, but I really needed a scene between these two! Thanks for being patient!
Jasper opens his eyes and meets concerned blue ones, staring back at him.
"I'm not supposed to wake you up," Sarah Alice reports.
"No?" Jasper slowly sits up, and orients himself – he's in bed in Eleanor's room… in their room. The people who had been taking sanctuary in the Palace had all gone home. Jasper had tried to explain the nonsense of his father appearing as a made up Italian count with a name that anyone other than a member of this royal family would have immediately recognized as fake. The Queen had shrugged it off – she was still badly hungover – and Eleanor had kissed him. She was excited to meet his dad later and she started making plans to get her hands on Jasper's baby pictures. Only James had understood that this was an emergency, or at least he said he did, but he insisted on letting Earl's plot stretch out a little longer to see where it led. James was much more concerned with immediate details. He forced Jasper to eat a sandwich he'd procured from somewhere. He watched him down a bottle of water. James and Eleanor seemed to have some kind of silent conversation over Jasper's head, and then James sent them both back to her room… their room… with instructions to get cleaned up and sleep.
Jasper hadn't needed to be told twice. He took a quick shower in the bathroom off the closet. He'd considered shaving, and then decided not to bother. He was tired enough that he'd probably cut himself to ribbons, and Walsh had him on some kind of blood thinner from the surgery and had warned him to be careful. He found a drawer that had some of his clothes in it – he had no idea how Eleanor had tracked them down – James, probably. He'd pulled on a t-shirt and some flannel pajamas that Eleanor had bought for Christmas pictures that they'd never taken, and then fell into bed. Eleanor had smiled at him and handed him another round of medicine. He was too tired to even ask what it was for.
"I am so grateful to have you home," she told him. "I might never let you out of this bed again!"
He laughed, sinking into the bedding, reaching for her, and pulling her closer. "Later," he promises, "I might hold you to that."
"Mmm, hmmm," she mumbled, sleepy, and happy to have him back.
Now he doesn't know how long he's been asleep. Eleanor's side of the bed is empty, and Sarah Alice is standing warily on his righthand side. She looks every bit like a kid who has been up all night, eating cake, and trying to not be scared. She has dark circles under both eyes, and she's dressed in blue and white pajamas with birds on them.
Jasper sits up, slowly. He feels better for the sleep he's gotten, though his chest is sore, and he's very aware of the stiches in his side.
He smiles at Sarah Alice. "What time is it?"
She shrugs, "I don't know. Daddy said it was time for bed."
That gives Jasper literally nothing to work with. He grabs his phone off of the bedside table. It's a quarter after 6, later than he thought, but not exactly bedtime.
He looks at her, raises one eyebrow. "So how come you're not in bed?"
"I'm not sleepy."
This is a fight that James has plainly already lost, and not one that Jasper can win. "No, you don't look sleepy," he lies, wondering where everyone else is. "I missed you," he tells her… not lying… and climbing out of bed, slowly.
"The hospital wouldn't let me come." Sarah Alice looks like she might cry, "I asked, but they wouldn't let me…. And Liam said he would bring me anyway, but then Len and Daddy said you were coming home… and then you got stuck…." She's pulling on the hem of her pajama top and biting her lip.
"I know you wanted to," Jasper says. "Len brought me your pictures." Sarah Alice had sent Eleanor back to the hospital with a collection of assorted happy caterpillar drawings, which had been pinned up to every available surface. "And now you are here…. So everything is fine." He smiles at her, willing her to not start crying. He has not shed a single tear since this whole mess started…. Not when he got shot, not when Eleanor came back, not when his asshole father appeared in the middle of a riot to pull him out of an ambulance, and not when he finally kissed his girl in front of a room full of people and gave up his last real secret…. He hasn't cried… because if he starts, he might not stop for a very, very long time… So it feels very important that no one start crying.
Jasper makes his way towards the bar on the wall. On instinct, he opens the small refrigerator, looking for something to distract his overtired friend. He gets lucky. Eleanor must have been planning ahead, because he finds bottles of Ribena, stood up in neat rows, next to cans of Guinness on the shelf. "Look," he says to Sarah Alice, pulling one of each out of the fridge, "The Princess loves us." He opens a Ribena bottle for her, and hands it over.
"Of course, she does," Sarah-Alice answers, like he's just announced that the sky is blue. There are truths in her world that are unassailable – markers are in the bin under the window seat, Daddy will be home for tea, the Princess loves them.
Sarah Alice grins over her bottle. "Daddy says this is just sugar."
Jasper pops open his beer can, and pours it into a glass. He likes the ritual. Liam swears that it tastes better this way, and Eleanor has gone to the effort of finding beer glasses somewhere, so even though it feels stilted, he does it.
"It's worse than sugar," he tells Sarah Alice, toasting her with his beer glass, which he notices has the monogram EMH printed on it. "That stuff is disgusting."
She takes a big sip. "It's delicious!" She reports happily.
He laughs at her. "The Princess thinks this stuff is healthy -it's got antioxidants… and we need those… so for tonight, we're good."
Sarah Alice settles into the couch. "What are antioxidants?"
"They help to keep you healthy, like vitamins, or something." He doesn't really know, actually, but that sounds reasonable. He sits down next to her, and drapes his arm over the back of the couch.
Sarah Alice scoots over, snuggling into his side. "Will they help the hole in you?" She wonders.
Which hole? He thinks, but stops himself from saying… broodiness is a step on the road to crying. He assumes she means the bullet hole, so he answers, with a confidence he doesn't feel, "Of course they will." His hand, he notices, fits perfectly across her head, and he smooths her curls back with his palm. She sighs, pulling her feet up under herself and taking another sip of soda.
"Your voice is funny," Sarah Alice says.
"Funny how?" He asks, not understanding her.
"Your accent is funny," she repeats. "Like an American voice in a movie."
Shit, Jasper thinks. How is he supposed to explain this? "This is my real voice… my real accent, actually." He tells her. "I used to pretend that I had a British accent for work, but now I'm not doing that."
"Why were you pretending?"
Because I was lying about everything. He hedges, "it's complicated, but I don't have to anymore, so I'm just going to use my American accent now. It will be easier."
Sarah Alice accepts this, the way children do. Jasper remembers being small. Adults were always doing silly things that made little sense – wearing costumes, banging down doors, switching cars, moving house in the middle of the night - changing accents wasn't that big a deal, really. Of course, Jasper reasons, he's the only adult in Sarah Alice's life who was likely to do any of those things. James is as straight an arrow as they come. The fact that he lets a con-man from Las Vegas within 100 miles of his daughter is a gift Jasper has never really understood.
Sarah Alice takes another gulp of her drink, and rests her head on Jasper's chest. "When did you live in America?" She asks.
"For a long time," he says, smoothing her hair back again. "Until I moved here to work at the Palace."
She laughs. "That's how come you can play baseball.".
He smiles and squeezes her a little tighter. "You're a good detective," he tells her. Back in the spring, he'd given her a baseball glove. He'd ordered it online – pink with black lacing and had it shipped to the Palace. He'd shown her how to break it in with a mallet, and then wrapped it up with a ball and elastic bands and told her to sleep with it under her mattress. Liam somehow got a bucket of dust colored baseballs and an aluminum bat from the US Embassy and the pair of them had spent hours with Sarah-Alice in the palace gardens teaching her how to catch pop-flies and throw the ball back to a fielder. After a few weeks, it somehow grew into a bigger thing. One of the Beefeaters from the Palace Garrison had shown up with his nephew and a batting tee. A Marine guard at the Embassy who knew Rosy had a step daughter who could pitch. They didn't have enough kids to make up a team exactly, but they could make do. It wasn't a bad way to kill an afternoon, and James had just shaken his head and let them get on with it. His sister-in-law, Sarah Alice's mother, had been American, and he didn't know a thing about baseball, plus this was as good a way as any to keep Liam out of underground fight clubs. That James also saw U8 baseball as a way to occupy his subordinate and maybe keep him from pining away too hard after the Princess was a truth that remained unspoken.
Sarah-Alice is quiet for a long time, and Jasper wonders if she's fallen asleep before she lifts her head up again. "The TV announcer thought you might be dead."
"Which TV announcer?" Eleanor had mentioned this, that Sarah- Alice had heard about the shooting on television. He should have prepared some kind of answer.
She puts her drink bottle down on the floor and hugs her knees to her chest. "The Announcer on TV in Daddy's office, right after someone shot at you." She takes a deep breath. "She said that you were shot because someone was trying to kill King Robert. Then that man who shares her desk, he said he thought that it would be impossible for someone to survive a shot like that, and the Announcer said that they had to wait for news from authorities. " Sarah Alice huffs again, "And then Willow said it was time to turn the TV off."
"Hmmm…. That must have been scary…." This, Jasper thinks, sounds like something James would say.
"It was scary. And then Willow made some phone calls and shouted at some people. She was pretty mad."
"Really?"
"She was. And then Rachel came into the office and said that Robert was coming back to the Palace, and Daddy was going to the hospital, and asked if we'd seen the Princess. Only we hadn't seen the Princess, because we thought she was still abroad making hotels. And then Rachel said that it would probably be better if Willow didn't call anymore TV stations, and she made her drink some of the nasty brown drink that Daddy keeps in the bottom desk drawer."
Jasper is trying to picture this. He knows about the bourbon in James's desk, because he'd done a thorough reconnaissance of the whole office – it's not snooping if James assumes it's happening. Then it's just work. Jasper is sure that James has gone through most of his things too. Jasper has never really pictured Willow under pressure. He can't really see her telling off a television producer, but she's probably up to it. Jasper knows that Willow hasn't taken much shit off of Liam, and figures that must say something.
"Did Rachel take you back upstairs?"
"No…. King Robert turned up, and asked Rachel to look in on the Queen. Willow hugged him – hard – and then told him he needed to go and change his shirt."
This confirms a suspicion that Jasper has had for a few months, since just after Eleanor went abroad. In the whole time that Jasper has been the King's Detail, to Jasper's certain knowledge, King Robert and Willow have never, not once, gone out. They have never had coffee at a local shop, or even had a business lunch at a City hotel. But there have been a handful of overlong conversations stretching past working hours, and the King has shown a lot more interest in his social media strategy than was strictly necessary.
"And what happened after that?"
"Willow said it was time for tea. She made toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches in the staff kitchen, and then King Robert came back in a clean shirt and we ate them."
"You ate tea with King Robert and Willow in the staff kitchen?"
"Umhmm," Sarah Alice nods, curling back under Jasper's arm. She turns to look up at him. "We had tea, and then Willow said she had some work to do, and King Robert asked if I could play in the library down the hall. So I went to draw some pictures and then a little bit after that Eleanor came home."
Jasper makes a mental note. There is more going on between Willow and the King than most people realize.
"It was nice of them to look after you." It was, actually, nicer than Jasper would have usually given Robert credit for.
"They're okay," Sarah Alice agrees, trying to be fair. "Robert came to check on me while Willow was shouting at someone else on the phone. He liked my drawings."
Jasper laughs, "Of course he did. You are excellent at drawing."
He's rewarded with a sleepy giggle. Sarah Alice buries herself deeper into his side. He holds her tighter, and pulls the throw blanket off the back of the couch and tries, awkwardly, to cover her with it.
Sarah Alice's head shoots up. "I'm not tired," she declares.
"I know," he's placating, "I'm just cold." The country is in the middle of a record breaking heat wave, and Jasper suspects that the air handling equipment in this part of the Palace might pre-date Churchill, but he thinks she might actually sleep with a blanket over her, so he's going to give it a shot.
Sarah Alice huffs, but settles back into him. "Daddy said that you would be tired."
"I am… a little." He's wiped out again actually. It's frustrating how little stamina he has. Walsh had warned him about this, given him a whole song and dance about taking things slowly, and being patient. Jasper had intended to ignore every piece of this advice, and is annoyed to find that he might have to live with some of it. Just crossing the room, opening two drinks, and carrying on a conversation is exhausting.
She is quiet again, and Jasper mistakenly thinks she's given in to sleep at last when she asks one more question. "Are you home for good?"
His breath catches in his throat. Is he? Can he be at home here, in the Palace, in this room with the gun safe and the silly pillows? Home… here with Eleanor, and Liam, and James, and this unbelievable little girl. They are not his blood family, but they have, for no good reason that Jasper can see, taken him in. This is the most homelike place he's ever had. "Yeah…. I'm home for good."
Sarah Alice makes a little contented wiggle under his arm, and adjusts the throw she's insisted she didn't need, pulling it up under her chin, and sharing some of it by draping it over his legs. He doesn't say anything else, but listens for a long time while her breathing settles out and she finally sleeps.
He lets his eyes fall shut. He's just going to rest with her for a minute and then he'll get up. Eleanor will be back soon, she's probably just checking on her mother, or more likely trying to chat up his father. That's going to be a problem. He'd like to talk to James some more. James will know how to address the Earl situation, and James can carry his daughter back to her own room. Jasper is a little worried he might drop her if he tried. He should look for Liam. His friend has been broody, and weird, and holed up with Cyrus. Jasper doesn't need to be wide awake to know that that will end poorly.
Sarah Alice shifts in her sleep and makes a little sound. Instinctively, Jasper smooths her hair back again, fixes the blanket, whispers some nonsense to soothe her. He's tired. He'll just sit with her for another little while till she's settled. It is nice to be home.
Home for good.