1/1/00

Happy new millennium!

Clarisse threw one heck of a good party last night, everyone got so drunk and Prime Minister Motaz passed out on the dance floor after spinning his wife around in circles - it was hilarious, Shades and I had to carry him to his car. I danced with Clarisse for most of the night, I got so jealous when anyone else went near her. Our picture was in the newspaper today – I think the press are on to us, they used the headline, 'Friends or Friendlier?'

There was a picture of us standing a little too close to each other, Clarisse brushed it off as a mere slow news day. I spent the night in her bed last night, because I noticed she was drunk and stumbling around the dance floor. I held her hand and took her to her room. She pulled me on top of her and lay down on the bed, kissing me wildly. I went along with it for a while, but when I found that she had removed her ball gown and my pants, I decided to end it there. She didn't seem to mind, she just held me for a couple of minutes and then passed out, I found myself in the land of nod shortly after her.

In the morning (early afternoon) I woke up to her kissing my chest, "Good morning, my dear."

"Good morning, darling."

She kissed my lips and lay herself on top of me, she was so nice and warm, I wanted to stay like that for hours, but she told me she wanted to get up and go for a walk with me. I didn't object to that, I just threw on my clothes and waited a few hours for her to get ready. Finally we ate breakfast and went walking around the grounds, she pointed out that the flowers were dying because of the summer heat, woah, that was so something I wanted to know…

New years resolutions:

Ask Clarisse to marry me.

Make love to Clarisse - marriage is an immediate predecessor (I will not make love to her without a marriage certificate).

Buy new leather jacket – as my old one is falling apart.

Buy engagement ring.

Actually TELL Clarisse I'm in love with her – not sure if I'd scare her off by saying so or not.

Spend lots of quality time with my family and introduce Clarisse to them as my partner.

Grow hair.

Get grown hair cut.

Things that have happened since I last wrote in my journal:

Sammy told me that I'm going to become a grandfather! How amazing is that? I'm so excited. I think they'd been trying to conceive a child for a whole year or so. Apparently Catherine is twenty weeks into the pregnancy (only twenty more to go). I'm going to have to go shopping and buy some toys and things for the new baby – I hope it's a girl; I haven't had the opportunity to raise a girl.

I decided that in order to see if Clarisse is really committed to our relationship, or if she's just using me, I'm not going to make love to her until we're married. I do realise that I need to get a divorced before I do so, but I will get one and I will then propose to Clarisse.

Clarisse's beloved dog died and she spent three days crying over it, she even had a proper funeral for it and buried in the Royal Family's Tomb – what…a…psycho. To creep me out even more she bought a new dog that looked exactly the same and even has the same name – Maurice. I stayed right away from her during that month, she was really starting to scare me.

That's all the important stuff that happened in the last months of last year.

5/3/00

I bought a ring for my beloved today, it's not as diamond-infested as the one she is STILL WEARING from her marriage to Rupert, but it will do for an engagement ring. It set me back a fair bit – it was $3,638 (I bought it off Ebay, but I won't tell her that part). I did save up enough to buy her a really REALLY expensive ring, but I'm not one hundred percent sure she'll even accept my proposal, so I decided to stick with the "cheaper" one.

19/3/00

Still haven't gotten around to asking Clarisse to marry me yet, I almost did today, but I decided not to because she seemed so happy and I didn't want to ruin the moment.

Philippe and Sammy climbed a real mountain this afternoon, Sammy said that Philippe almost lost his grip and plummeted to his death, but he didn't (it's something we're going to keep a secret from Clarisse).

4/4/00

I went into Clarisse's office late this evening because she was supposed to be having dinner with me, but when I got there I found she was on the phone, so I sat down and waited for her to finish. I kept making funny faces at her to try and get her to laugh, but she just bit her lip and turned the other way. I watched her backside sway from side to side as she listened to the person on the other line. Suddenly she stopped still, her whole body froze and she fainted, unfortunately hitting her head on the desk on the way down to the floor. I ran over to her as fast as I could to see what the matter was, but she didn't tell me because she was unconscious. I saw that there was blood dripping from the back of her head, so I picked her up and carried her out of the room. I ran into Charlotte and she asked what was going on, I told her I didn't know and then carried Clarisse to her suite. I asked the guards at the door to call the doctor, then I placed Clarisse carefully into one of the armchairs in her sitting room and went to get some water and bandages from the bathroom. She was starting to regain consciousness by the time I came back, "Phi…" was all she said.

"Are you alright, darling? What happened?"

"Phi…"

She kept her eyes closed – I figured she had concussion.

Charlotte came rushing through the door and stuttered, "J-J-Joseph, it's the p-p-prince."

"What about him?"

"He's..."

"What?"

"He's…"

"Breathe, then talk."

She took a deep breath and started again, "Philippe's dead."

"What? How?"

"The cords snapped, Joseph."

"Cords? What cords?"

"On his harness."

I suddenly remembered what day it was, Saturday, the day Sammy and Philippe were going to tackle the highest mountain in Genovia.

"Is Sammy…as well?"

"No, he's fine, it was just Philippe."

"Oh thank god."

So that's what the phone call was about…

Clarisse began to stir, I almost cried when I thought about how much it would upset her, "Oh I am so sorry, darling…"

I kissed her head and studied her face.

"Darling?" Charlotte inquired.

"Thankyou for the information, Charlotte, you can go now."

"But-"

"Now!"

Clarisse opened her eyes and stared at me, "Oh Joseph…I was having this terrible nightmare…they raised the price of red meat by ten cents…"

"What?"

"It was terrible…"

"I think you may have concussion."

"And potatoes…they went up by fifty…fifty!"

"Definitely concussion."

I bandaged up her head and kissed her, carrying her to bed shortly afterwards. I'm wondering what to say when she snaps out of her delusional state. Will she remember what was said to her on the phone?

I'll find out tomorrow morning, I'm going to stay with her in her suite all night until she wakes up.

5/4/00

Clarisse didn't remember a thing about last night, so I thought it would be best not to remind her. I asked her how she was feeling and she said she had a headache, because of this, she stayed in bed for half the day. I told the staff she wouldn't be working and that she was to spend the day in her room, they were quite happy because that meant they didn't have to do as much work. Later on, she asked me if I would go and get the newspaper for her, so I walked downstairs and picked one off the pile – surprise, surprise Philippe was on the front page, 'A Drop of Heir'. That was harsh, I decided that it would be too soon to inform her of his death, especially that way, so I took the front cover off and brought the remainder upstairs to her. Clarisse was sitting up in bed at the time, so I passed it to her and prayed she didn't ask of its whereabouts, "Where's the front page?"

"Umm…it uh didn't have one."

"Really…I don't believe you. Go and fetch me another one!"

"There aren't any left."

"Then ask somebody if they'll give me theirs."

"What if they haven't finished with it?"

"Then drive down to the store and buy me one! I think someone on the staff has a few coins you could buy it with."

"Is it really that important for you to have the front page?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"I don't know, I just feel strange without it. Please go and get me one…"

"I can't just leave you here, you're not well."

"How noble…go and get it now!"

"It's just a front page!"

She slammed her hands down on the doona cover, "Do I have to go and get it myself!"

"No…"

"Good."

She folded her arms and watched me standing before her, "Off you go!"

I backed slowly out of the room and pondered what to do. With my quick thinking, I decided to find yesterday's newspaper and replace today's paper with the cover, but it didn't work, "Joseph, you do realise this is yesterday's paper, don't you?"

"What?"

"Look at the date."

"Oh, I am so sorry, I didn't realise."

"It doesn't matter."

I was so relieved when she said that, until she started flicking through it, "Strange…it has today's stories in it."

I put my hand on my forehead.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Something's going on that you're not telling me about!"

She threw the covers off and walked over to me, her face inches from mine, "Tell me very slowly now…what is going on?"

I couldn't escape her gaze, "Clarisse, I…"

"Yes?"

"I don't know how to say this, but…"

I put on a serious face, "He's dead."

Her eyes grew sad, "Who's dead?"

I knew that what I was going to say would bring her grief, so I decided to lie, "My son."

"Oh Joseph, I am so sorry to hear that. How did it happen?"

"He had a fall, a great fall."

"Oh dear…come here."

She held me in her arms and kissed my cheek, I thought that if that was how she'd react to my son being dead, I could only imagine what she'd be like if she found out it was actually her son.

"And I've been so selfish in ordering you around all day, this is your moment of need…"

She led me over to the bed and sat me down, "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Can I put some music on for you?"

She walked over to the radio and picked it up, I realised that the radio always had news updates on so I quickly ran over to her and snatched it from her hands, "No, I don't feel like listening to music right now."

"Alright then, what do you feel like doing?"

"I think I might take a walk, you just stay here and…get well."

"Fine, I think I can find something here to amuse myself with."

"Good, I'll see you later then."

I wiped the sweat from my forehead and walked out of her suite, Charlotte came up to me as soon as I closed the door, "Is her majesty feeling any better? She has two-hundred letters waiting for her and thirty-five missed calls."

"No, she's not up to coming to the phone right now, or answering letters. The shock hit her pretty bad."

I don't know how I'm going to work this thing out, I haven't let anyone see her, nor have I let her have any contact with the outside world. I know she's going to find out eventually about Philippe, but until then…I have to keep her in the fairytale. God this is going to be hard.

I was so relieved when I met with Sammy later on, it could have been him that died instead. He told me the whole story – how he was climbing just above Philippe and he watched as the cords snapped and he fell to his death. Sammy said that while he was falling, he shouted, "I love Helen."

He said it was very traumatizing and that he needed to be hugged, it was a sad moment with my son, but I'm just so glad it wasn't him.

What am I going to tell Clarisse when she finds out I've been lying to her?

A/N: Yes, I can assure you that I'm quite aware that he needs to divorce her, don't worry though, he will soon.

No, they didn't say it was a car accident, that's just what pretty much everyone else says, because it seems highly likely. They didn't actually say anything about how he died, so I used my imagination to kill him off lol. What Clarisse said in the movie was, "Philippe was ready to be king…then the…terrible accident." She doesn't actually say what happened to him.

I can understand why you all wanted Philippe to die, I would too :D

By the way, I plan to put little to no movie dialogue in when I do get around to those movie chapters. R & R.