Author's note: Thank you for the reviews on the previous chapters. I was genuinely pleased since I didn't feel the last one was very well written. Thank you, thank you. We're nearing the end and I hope you're still enjoying it as you did previously. Please let me know!

Anna groaned, lifted her head and let it fall back onto the pillow again. The sun was coming into her bedroom but she didn't have the energy to get up and close the drapes. Her mother had said she could have Olivia while she was here but the maid obviously hadn't got round to that chore yet. It was a Sunday and the day after the biggest party the palace had seen in a long time, which had gone on long after Queen Clarisse Renaldi had retired and at which Anna had celebrated her recent qualification as junior as fully as Amelia had celebrated her twenty-first birthday.

Her niece lifted her head too and then grumbled and lay it back down.

"I'm convinced this isn't your room," Anna nudged her, "And that my mother would consider falling asleep in your ball gown very unladylike."

Amelia laughed but quickly grimaced, "My head aches. It really aches."

"That's booze for you," Anna sat up slowly, "I mean, it's terrible for your liver."

"And your reputation."

"Don't be silly," she smiled and passed her niece a glass of water, "You were very graceful. By the time you were flying, all the old snots had left anyway."

"Did grandma see?"

"Ha, no. She bowed out with Joseph just before the band packed up and the D.J. began thumping out some seriously crummy nineties music."

"Hey," Mia defended, "That is good music."

Anna flopped back down beside her, "What's on your schedule today?"

"Nothing, thankfully," she smiled and sipped with a scowl, "I think grandma has a meeting with parliament but she gave me permission of leave."

Anna laughed, "Such charity."

The door to Anna's room was unceremoniously flung open, startling them both from their sore state.

"Good morning ladies."

It was Pierre. Jolly and fresh and already looking to irritate them.

"It's Sunday," he tickled the sole of Mia's foot and she pulled it away aggressively, "And I thought I'd treat you both to a Mass in the small chapel, since you should both atone in some way."

"No, thanks Pierre," Anna smirked, "Our niece still has gifts to open."

"Are you sure? Perhaps a long, hot walk in the hills or a game of tennis for us? You should sweat all that champagne out?"

"Did anyone ever tell you you're really annoying?" Mia grunted.

"Actually, he was the alright one," Anna climbed from the bed and threw a loving fist at her brother's chest, "Pip was the joker. Always fooling about."

Mia looked wistful a moment, "Sometimes I think something's missing and I wonder if it is that, if it's him."

Anna felt her chest constrict then and the image of bloodied hands had to be forced back into the recesses of forgetfulness, "It is. He'd be amazed by you, you know."

Mia smiled and shrugged, "Uncle Pierre, I don't know if I could cope with all your suggestions. But I think I could cope with pancakes. What about pancakes in the kitchen?"

He nodded, "I'll tell cook. Good idea."

He went from the room and Anna could feel Mia's eyes on her. She'd dropped her gown to the floor and was now putting on her sweats.

"Are you putting clothes on?"

"Yes."

"But you haven't showered."

"Mia, it's Sunday. At the palace. No one comes and goes. Well Parliament sometimes does but trust me," she laughed sardonically, "They've seen me in worse states."

Mia laughed and prepared to sneak out.

-0-

"Joseph," she paced in front of him, "Joseph I cannot make her do this."

He nodded but couldn't possibly voice his agreement. He didn't agree, frankly, but he knew that right now, he couldn't tell her that. He couldn't also tell her he'd watched Mia finding that ridiculous passage and hearing it anyway, that in itself was an unspeakable truth.

Clarisse was trembling, her hands shaking as she clasped them in front of her.

"I…I ask her," she stuttered, "I'm consigning her to…God, it's awful. I would be asking her to do what I done. Joseph, I cannot possibly! I cannot make her do this. She's only a young woman, she is only…"

He stood up then and blocked her treading path, gripped her shoulders, and set her down to perch on his desk.

"Look at me," he whispered, "Look at me."

She looked up, her face pale with worry.

"You will counsel her and Mia will make the decision that is best for her."

"I won't let her make a decision like that," she said suddenly, "Joseph, she has no idea."

He thought for a second and knew that his next words would be kindling to what was already becoming a fire.

"You can't tell her."

She looked at him, her eyes appalled, her mouth slack with incredulity.

"Are you joking?"

"Hear me out," he still held her shoulders, "She has to make this choice for herself. If you tell her that you regret it, if you make it sound like you regret it, you're already colouring her choice. Clarisse, she will be a wonderful queen-"

"You aren't serious," she muttered, "You can't be."

He swallowed, "I am. Clarisse, hear me out. Amelia has to make her own choice and it has to have nothing to do with your experience."

"The experience that kept me from you?"

He felt her words as if they were a barb but he pressed forward, thinking only of how he had to protect what she'd worked for tirelessly. Thinking that he had to protect her from herself. From being honest, for the first time, about her marriage, to anyone but him.

"Yes. You didn't choose your arranged marriage, you were told you were getting married. A fundamental difference."

"It's the exact same Joseph," she threw up her hands in exasperation, "Why? Why are you so determined I don't?"

He pulled his hands away, "So you don't have to relive it. So that your final promise to him has a chance. So that Amelia gets to make the choice for herself, not for you. You know I am right. You have to be neutral."

She nodded, her teeth jutting out to bite her lip and force back tears, "I…"

"It's alright," he turned away, "I don't want to see her do something foolish but at least, at least she gets to choose."

There was silence.

"Do you know what I would have chosen, had I had the choice?"

He nodded and felt her wrapping her arm around his chest and pushing her face into his back.

"Of course I do."

"I don't want her to have to wait forever."

He nodded.

"Maybe we won't have to wait for much longer."

"Don't say that," she said softly, "It will only lead to disappointment."

Nearly a month later Joseph pulled on his sweats for the first time in a long while, his new sneakers, and wilfully ignored the burning pain in his knee. It was nearly dusk, the only time he got to run these days, and he only had an hour to do so before he was to meet with Clarisse to discuss the wedding plans one final time in the ballroom. It had been a frantic few weeks, in which he'd barely spoken to Clarisse and when he did it was always worries or panics or they'd be mid-way through conversation and she'd be so exhausted she'd nod off. Honestly, it was a relief to find himself doing something normal, something without stress.

He stood at the kitchen doors, stretching his legs out and grimacing at each ancient agony, when his daughter spoke behind him.

"Fancy a running partner Joe?"

She called him is name for the benefit of the nearby staff. And no matter now many times it happened, it hurt as equally as it had the first.

She'd taken to running in second year of medical school, looking for an outlet to clear her head she'd told him, and now it was as much a part of her routine as shifts at the hospital in Geneva and her new boyfriend, whom she'd only told him about at the garden party. He wanted to be jealous and exercise fatherly anger but the boy was a doctor, and clever and by all accounts sounded lovely. So he couldn't. In fact he was quietly happy – her life was settling into a pattern she was comfortable with and the addition of romantic love was an indicator that she felt ready to settle even more. She hadn't yet told her mother and he knew why. Clarisse took a lot of convincing, not least because she was afraid that Anna would be hurt eventually.

"Yes," he smiled, "Always. If you can keep up."

"I don't think that'll be an issue old man."

They took off, jogging in companionable silence.

"I started jogging when I got to this place," he muttered a while into their lap of the extensive grounds, "The gym was there but it was a shambles."

"It's fine now," she answered, "So why did you keep running?"

He smiled, "I used to run into the queen. I sometimes went running when I knew she was in the gardens."

Anna laughed, "Old romantic."

"Old desperate," he answered.

There was a pause then and he could practically hear her thoughts. He decided to pre-empt her questioning.

"She hasn't given me an answer yet."

Anna stopped to a slow jog and it made him slow beside her. He had confided in her that he was going to ask Clarisse to marry him once it became clear she would no longer be Queen Regent. It had been a desperate moment, something he was sure he regretted telling Anna now, but it had been a relief to share it with her too.

"Really?"

She looked angry all of a sudden.

"Anna, she's frightened," he said softly, "I have to accept that."

"No," Anna bit, "You don't. You really don't. Frightened of what?"

They were walking now and he motioned towards the walled rose garden in which Clarisse first pushed him away, all those years ago, when Anna had been a terrible, fresh secret. They settled on the bench beside the fountain and he tried to create the right words, the right tone, without sounding miserable.

"Lots of things," he whispered, "The press. The reaction. Mia needing her. This thing with Mabery and his foolish nephew. Going public."

"Excuses."

"No," he touched his daughter's knee, "Don't be angry with her for doing what she has always done. All she has ever known is fear, don't be angry at her for that."

"So what happens?"

She was asking the questions he dreaded and he was about to give the answer he dreaded in equal measure.

"Anna," he shook his head, "I'm too old for this and – and I am tired. Either way, I'll be resigning."

She was evidently shocked, "What?"

There were already tears forming in her eyes.

"Whether your mother agrees or not, I have to."

"But what about my mother? What happens?"

He nodded, knowing he'd been asking himself the self-same question for weeks now. What would become of them if they weren't them? What would that do to Anna, who had always harboured hope of their being together as fully as they could be?

"I will always be her friend," he paused, "I will always love her but I can't…if your mother doesn't want it now, she never will. And Anna, I can't make her change who she is. I don't want to change who she is. And who she is…she's the Queen, she always has been."

Anna swallowed a little then turned her head towards the flowers by her side. Her voice sounded far away.

"I'll speak with her."

"You will not," he ordered softly, "She has to be the one to make the choice."

Her silence indicated that she understood.

Ah, so back on form I felt. Did you enjoy it?