Sorry for that cliffhanger! eh, no I'm not ;) but I am sorry this next chapter took so long to post. I've been away for a few days but I just got back and I'm ready to update update update!
Soooo excited to finally be introducing Robert to the story! He's so much fun to write because the possibilities are endless. I based my version of him off of Jaz Martin who played him in the season finale and who I can only assume will play him next season as well.
P.s. Check out his IMDB page he looks like a goddamn british ryan reynolds. Enjoy!
"Robbie?"
Eleanor's breath accelerated as she struggled to understand what was happening.
"Hey troublemaker," her brother greeted warmly.
She didn't believe her eyes. "Your alive?"
"It appears so, yes," he answered with a wry smile.
She rushed toward him and threw her arms around his neck.
He embraced her tightly as she wept into his shoulder. "I missed you too, Lenny" he whispered.
She laughed and sobbed as she breathed in his familiar scent. Suddenly, memories if the past year over came her. She pulled back to look up at her brother tearfully.
"Dad's gone Robbie," she choked out.
"I know," He said sadly, "I am so sorry I couldn't be here."
She nodded as she broke down again, weeping against his chest.
The moment felt rather private, so Jasper and Marcus stepped away to stand with James near the wall.
As Robert comforted his sister, he looked up to find his brother.
Liam looked as though he was trying very hard to disern whether or not he was still dreaming.
Robert reluctantly let go of Eleanor and passed her to their mother's arms before stepping toward him.
"The boy who would be king," he teased gently.
The words broke Liam from his haze. The prince all but lunged toward his older brother and pulled him into a firm hug.
Robert squeezed his brother just as hard in return.
"Sorry to muck up those plans, mate," he said sincerely.
Liam chuckled with tears in his eyes. "You know I would've given a thousand crown's to see you again."
The brothers let go of eachother and Robert clapped him on the shoulder affectionately before gesturing for them to sit down. Eleanor returned to his side on the settee and Liam took the seat next to their mother.
They sat in a brief silence as they tried to figure out where to start.
"How?" Eleanor finally asked. It was the only question she couldn't answer. She knew the who, where, when, and why of the attack from Boone, but she couldn't figure out just how her brother could still be alive.
Robert laughed humorlessly, "It's a long story."
"Your plane was in pieces." Liam remembered painfully.
"I ejected."
"But they brought back your body..." Eleanor spoke quietly.
He looked guilty at that, "I don't know who's it was."
Liam shook his head, "You went down in the middle of the ocean. Even if you ejected- "
"I was in the open water," he nodded, "and I wasn't in good shape either. When I bailed out I was too low and there wasn't enough time for the chute to open fully. Broke both legs hitting the water. "
"Shite," Liam winced.
"How the hell did you make it to shore?" His sister asked intently.
"Well I knew I was roughly 20 miles off the Lincolnshire coast when I first lost controls, so I used the sun to find west and started swiming as best I could with just my arms."
"Christ, Robert," Helena breathed, shocked by his admission.
Even Jasper shook his head in disbelief. The man had to be a tough son-of-a-bitch to survive that.
"Must have floated for atleast a day before I saw land again," he continued. "When I finally hit the sand I was so exhausted I passed out for I-dunno-how long, and when I finally woke up again the pain-" His voice tapered off for a moment as he relived the traumatic memory. "The amount of pain was unreal."
Eleanor felt nauseous. The idea of her brother in agony for hours was horrifying.
He took a deep breath an continued, "By the grace of god fisherman found me not long after."
"Did he know who you were?"
"Yeah, and it took alot of convincing to keep him from calling 999," he replied.
"How'd you do it?" Liam wondered aloud.
"I may or may not have promised him a favor of his choosing." He looked over at his mother. "How attached are you to the yacht?"
Helena bit her tongue. She reminded herself that whatever brought him back to her was what had to be done.
"But why not let him call an ambulance?" Eleanor asked.
"Trust me I wanted to, but as you've apparently heard, the crash wasn't an accident, and I was starting to figure it out then." he told her. "When I was going down, not one of my controls were responding. All my instruments gave every indication they were working and yet I was in a nose dive with a dead centre-stick. The only thing that can kill manual controls while keeping systems online like that is a remote over-ride. My aircraft was on an encrypted RAF override system. Only someone from within Cranwell or Brize Norton could have that access. That meant either someone in the military, or someone with enough influence to buy military assistance, wanted me dead, so I wasn't in a rush to let them know I wasn't."
"How are you not, like, severely crippled?" she asked awkwardly.
"Turned out he was a retired veterinarian," he half-chuckled. "He checked me out and said he'd need to bring me back to his house to set the fractures and get me rehydrated, but that he thought I should live."
"He took you to his home?" Liam was surprised.
He nodded. "Gave his wife the shock of a lifetime."
"Why didn't you use their phone to call someone at the palace?" his mother pressed him.
"I did." he sighed, "I called Ted."
Everyone was visibly shocked at that piece of information.
Liam bristled, "Your saying Pryce knew you were alive?"
"Honestly, I don't know," Robert told him, "I only got his voicemail, but the next day a man showed up, not Pryce and no one I'd seen before, claiming to be MI5 and asking very specific questions."
"How were you sure he wasn't MI5?"
"Because when he didn't get the answers he wanted he beat the shit out of the guy and held his wife at gunpoint." He grew angry as he spoke. "He ordered the men with him to search the house and kill 'him' who I can only assume was me. They didn't have badges, they didn't even wear suits, they were just men with guns." he said with disgust.
"Domino," Liam spoke as the thought dawned on him.
"Given what I've been told, that would be my guess," Robert replied bitterly, clearly still irked by the memory. "Luckily they had a small, make-shift cellar beneath the kitchen that you could only get into through a trap door. They lowered me in and covered it with a rug. No one was the wiser and the men eventually left." He sighed, "They were good people. They took me in when they didn't have to."
Helena scoffed, "You're the crown prince of England of course they had to."
"No. They didn't. They could have just called an ambulance or dropped me at the nearest hospital. Instead, they brought me into their home, fed me, clothed me, and nursed me back to health on their own time and budget. Even after my legs healed, they helped me get my strength back before letting me leave. And when I finally did they gave me the keys to their old truck and what cash they had on them, trusting me to pay it back. They didn't have to do any of that." Robert said adamantly, effectively shutting his mother up.
Eleanor tried to hide her smile. She admired both her brother's gratitude to the couple and his honesty with their mother. The queen sometimes needed to be reminded that the people didn't owe them anything.
However in the spirit of reunion she decided to break the tension. "How long did you stay with them?" Eleanor asked.
"About 2 months," he answered. "Then I headed home. Or tried to, at least. I'd just reached London when suddenly every radio station was reporting that Dad was attacked. I assumed it had to be the same men, and didn't think it was safe for any of us if I returned before figuring out what the hell was going on."
Eleanor was shocked to hear his brother had been so close to home when all hell broke loose. "Where did you go?" he asked.
"No where. I stayed in London and started digging. Trying to find any clue that pointed to who could have done this. I didn't have much to go off of on the military side, but I had committed the gunmens' license plate to memory," Robert told him."Took me 6 months to finally track it down, only to find out it belonged to a 21-year-old girl in Brixton."
Liam sighed as he put two and two together, "Dominique."
He nodded. "I was rather confused as to how I ended up casing a girl at tattoo shop," he admitted. "Until the man who tried to kill me showed up."
"Jeffrey Stewart, her father." Liam confirmed.
"I spent the next 3 months following him, watching him, and digging up whatever I could on him and why he wanted our family dead."
"Did you find out?" Eleanor asked gently, knowing the gut-wrenching reason.
"Yes, as much as I didn't want to believe it." he answered sadly. "
The one thing I couldn't figure out was Pryce. I knew he was involved, I'd seen him meet with stewart, but the man had all the resources to cover his tracks and I didn't think I would ever be able to pin him down," he admitted before looking right at Liam. "At least until I saw you, on the news, playing the video of him stabbing our father."
"I'm sorry you had to find out that way," Liam apologized.
Robert shook his head, "Don't be. I was already suspicious. Lucius was obviously a patsy, and it was killing me not knowing what really happened. And had you not done it publicly, I may not have known when Ted was out of the picture, giving me the chance to come back without Domino knowing."
"How did you get back?" Eleanor asked.
"Honestly? I walked into Thames House and asked the receptionist for the director-general's office," he chuckled.
"No shit," Liam huffed.
"Yeah, they were surprised to put it lightly. The spent the next 48 hours locked in an office being interrogated to prove who I was and where I'd been."
"What did you tell them?" The queen asked carefully.
Robert sighed, "If you're asking if I told them about Domino... no, Mother, I did not. I figured this country already hates our family enough. Adding the murder of a beloved socialite who was meant to be queen wouldn't do us any favors."
His mother looked guilty but relieved.
He returned to his train of thought. "Once they were finally convinced I was me, they called the palace. James and Mum were looped in at that point but it still took another 2 days for MI5 to make sure everything could be secured for a transport," he continued. "Everything had to be kept quiet, even from other law enforcement, military, and intelligence agencies. No one could know I was being transported until it was already done, and even though it's only a 15 minute drive, it's through the most populated part of London. Which is why we're here in the middle of the night; daylight was to risky."
"And now you're here." Eleanor spoke softly, still trying to fully believe it.
Robert smiled at his little sister. "And now I'm here."
Liam sighed heavily, "And thank god you are, it's been a shit-show without you."
His brother scoffed, "Oh please. You were doing fine. Seen the hashtags lately King Liam?"
"Haven't you heard? we're illegitimate," Liam countered, gesturing toward his sister.
"Rubbish. I never believed that for a second," Robert huffed incredulously.
He shot a brief side-eye toward Helena, then shook his head, "But that doesn't matter now. Everything is about to change. I'm going to take back the throne from our sad excuse of an uncle, and my first act as king will be to call for a referendum to abolish the monarchy," He swore. "It's what dad would have wanted, and it's the right thing to do after the shite-storm that Cyrus has brought on this country."
Eleanor had forgotten about their uncle. "Does he know your alive?" she asked.
"No." Helena answered firmly for him, "and we've gone to great lengths to keep it that way until the time is right. The less time he has to scheme, the better."
"Probably wise," Eleanor mumbled.
"When do we go public?" Liam asked his brother.
"I was actually going to ask you two," he told his siblings. "alot has happened in the past few weeks and I completely understand if you want to give it time."
The twins looked at eachother.
Eleanor was fairly sure they were thinking the same thing.
She sat up a bit and spoke, "Well, I can't speak for Liam, but I personally have had more than enough of 'King' Cyrus."
Robert looked to his brother expectantly.
Liam smirked. "Amen to that."