Disclaimer: If I owned all I would be Goddess Supreme and a Billionaire producer.

A/N: Thanks to all the reviewers and SmileSusieQ and Darkeuphie who have never stopped reviewing just want to say big thanks!

There will be a slight time jump in some chapter so don't get confused, you are warned and it will be explained why, we are getting to the interesting part with this chapter.

~VXLP

"I hate it when I help people and they don't help me back. When I review and I receive only you did good but no thumbs up, no nothing. I hate it when talent is not recognized and I hate being disappointed, but all that is nothing compared to the disappointment you feel when you are in love with somebody, and when that somebody you discover is telling you are beautiful and kind, you know by his tone and his eyes shifting from place to place, unfocused, that he really means we can't be together. That is the disappointment that striked with greater force than any bullet, that could kill and destroy a part of the body for which there is no prosthesis -the soul"

~Half heart by VainForLifePoetess

1552, February 25th

Hertfordshire: Hatfield: Chapuys Residence

Annie sighed. "Alexei what is it that you want to tell me?"

Alexei was not sure where to start. He decided to be straight forward. "Annie the King under your mother's advise, you real mother, has decided to make an alliance between England and Russia by betrothing one of her daughters-"

He did not get to finish as Annie jumped and squealed.

However when his face became grim her assumption that she would be the betrothed evaporated her feelings of happiness.

"What's wrong?"

Alexei sighed very deeply and closed his eyes, he held back tears. "I am sorry Annie but the marriage proposal is between me and your sister Lady Isabella …"

Eustace was looking through his window in the bedchamber he shared with his wife at Hatfield, feeling a little amusement over her daughter's behavior that she had picked from her surrogate Aunt –Katherine Dudley nee Howard. Annie and she had always been close, and since her marriage to the Dudleys he and his wife had had gained a trustworthy spy. He felt guilty that he had not told Annie about the betrothal, it would have spared her a lot of heartbreak that she was about to suffer. Eustace spent his whole life studying human emotions, the victim of them himself, he knew by seeing his daughter's expression change, what she was experiencing: disappointment, loss, and regret; his little girl was getting her heart broken.

"Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone-but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding. "

~Bette Davis

"No, no, no, no, no!" She repeated throwing a guilty a finger at him. He was going to be future Czar would he not? She questioned, therefore "You can cancel the deal, you can propose to me, England would still have an alliance!" she said.

"I can't" He said "I want to but I can't"

"Why not?" She demanded "You are going to be the fucking Emperor of Russia for Christ's sake you can do whatever the fuck you like"

"Anne control yourself if your father heard y-"

"Don't you dare change the conversation Alexei, I waited for you for seven, almost eight years, I wrote to you and you wrote me back. You promised" In her grief Annie did not see reason, she hit his chest violently. "Why? What changed you, is it because I am a bastard, is that it? Is that it?"

Alexei for the first time grew angry and his patience waning he caught her arms and held her back. "Listen to me do you think I like this?" Annie was silent, she was giving him a look of hatred and defiance but he would not be hurt by it, she had to understand things had changed. "I pleaded with Your Majesty to have you instead but he believed Isabella would be a better option, even Katherine your younger sister was said in case I did not like Isabella. I talked Anne; I talked to the Czar and to the ambassadors but none of them cared, they said that they could not help me if I married … you because of the scandal, the rumors-"

It finally dawned to her that she was a bastard, illegitimate, dirty bastard. For the first time she felt the weight of her true parentage on her shoulders, Alexei's words washed over her like a bucket of cold water.

"I am sorry" he said when she saw she had calmed down and let go of her arms.

He was never rough with women, but Annie in her angry state was capable of anything, and he needed to knock sense into that thick skull of hers. If only he had been born to some other noble, if his father had been a second noble, he and Annie could very well be. But he knew better than to submerge his head in useless fantasies.

She felt his hand touched her cheek but she shrugged it away and turned her back on him, ignoring his screams and the sound of his heavy heels as he ran after her. Annie had years of practice chasing her brothers, and playing hide and seek with the king of England and his teammates, she could outrun anyone.

"Annie! Annie! Please for God's sake hear me out –" Annie closed the door behind her and locked herself up. She did not want to hear anymore lies from Alexei's mouth, he'd said it, rumors, a bastard all the disgrace you'd bring. He and his petty little thing of his wife could rot in hell for all she'd like, she did not care anymore.

It her that after all these years of fighting and denying the ultimate truth, that she was a bastard, her mother's words were right, nobody would ever want her.

Alexei kept banging on her door but all he received were foul words from Annie's mouth, some of which he did not think a lady (or close to) would say.

Eustace finally decided to intervene and placed a hand on Alexei's shoulder above his fur coat. His eyes told her to leave it. "Give her time" he said, followed by his wife's short sentence "she will come around" with her more sympathetic and maternal voice.

Alexei squeezed his fists. God he would give anything to be normal –to be a nobody. Nobodies were free to choose who to marry for love, and weren't bound to duty.

"It is not fair" He whispered when Eustace led him to his study, Elizabeth leaving them so they could talk in private.

"Alexei my daughter really loves you and nothing would please me more than to see her married to someone who will love and respect her. I loved you like a son, you know that" Alexei nodded not knowing where he was going with this but sensing he was not going to like it. "There is nothing I would not do for you. Your mother despite our religious differences (to put it lightly) was someone I highly respected and giving you up was the hardest thing I watched her do. But she would be proud to see how far you've come. The world Alexei is harsh and cold, it leaves no room for weakness, you are going to step into big shoes with a court who is going to seek you out only for favors. Deception will reign there like in every other court, you are young and you must learn how to deal with it. I know you love Annie, but not only is my daughter not ready for such a task, as your wife and even more as your regent, you would be forsaking your chances of becoming a good ruler. Alexei, Annie's grandfather a man I will always despise but out of respect for my wife I have never uttered a word against him; was someone beastly, who let himself be taken by passion and had delusions of grandeur. He went to great lengths to have his marriage to Annie's grandmother annulled and when that was not enough, in his quest for a son he killed my mother in law."

"I am not going to become Henry VIII, Eustace"

"No but if you go through such lengths to marry the woman you fancy or love you might very well be on your way" Eustace said with his usual neutrality, his eyes however spoke different, they showed emotion and were Alexei's only window to decipher the older man's soul. He could tell, after years of being under the tutelage of the coldest tutors, when people were being honest.

He saw no deception in the Duke of Sicily's eyes.

"What do you want me to do? Become cold, break Annie's heart more?"

Eustace shook his head. "No" his own voice broke as he struggled to say the words that he would come to regret at a later point in his life. "If you love her you must let her go, it is for the best, for her sake and your sake. You will be ruler of an Empire someday, you can't allow yourself to sacrifice that Empire for a woman" Even if that woman is my daughter, my joy and love.

Alexei felt like Eustace had driven a stake through his heart.

"Kings marry royalty, nobles who bring alliances, profit, not …" Eustace closed his fists "daughters of a simple man"

A pregnant pause reigned. Alexei rose from the armchair facing Eustace's desk and Eustace who was seated behind it in his tall chair, making the man look even taller.

"Thank you for the advice Your Grace" He said bowing his head at the elder man albeit not as low as before.

Eustace watched him leave. It hurt him to be this cold, this disgusting, but he had to if he wanted to spare his daughter from a fate that would only bring her nothing but disappointment and fear. He did not want to repeat her ancestors' mistake, he wanted his daughter to grow free –free to know love- and old and chose a man who would love her and she would love back in return, a man whose responsibilities would not compromise his marriage.

Annie remained in her rooms for three days and three nights. She only came out of her room to eat, drink, and shower. Her brother Anthony became increasingly worried and begged her to go for a ride with her, to play with their little brother George like they use to, or better yet come to Court and be cheered by the latest gay fashions that the ladies wore and the new tunes and dances that were being introduced in each feast.

Annie refused all his offers. But one day when she grew tired of sulking, tired of shedding tears for someone she had known all along but was too much of a coward to acknowledge it, would never be hers. She decided to come out of her room. Surprising everyone when she reached the dining table, she said that she was sorry for being absent but she had not been feeling well, but now she was ready again to face the world. Face the world and anything it put in her way.

Alexei remained with them for his whole stay until the King decided to give him better rooms in Greenwich like the ones a royal heir deserved. The day he left, was the happiest day in Annie's life. She did not need him, she would not need anyone. She would make Alexei know what he lost when she walked straight back into court and half the men began to notice her, she would dress in the latest fashions, imitate the rest of the noble women and who knows? Maybe, just maybe, she would find a good marriage with some low nobleman's son or a merchant's son, who would love her for her and would give what Alexei never could: happiness.

R/R!

~VXLP