A/N: Throwback references to TBaH in this chapter! I love the chapters when I get to be a little nostalgic. Hope you all enjoy!

The Thing About Meetings

The things about meetings was, Elodie was always early.

She had her whole day planned down the the minute and stuck to it. Every phone call, every conference, every meeting was neatly penned into her schedule at least two weeks in advance so she could dedicate the necessary amount of time to getting ready. And when it came to the day of, she was always the first person in the room and the last to leave. Always.

Which was why she was currently tripping over her feet trying not to have a heart attack as her watch screamed five minutes until her next meeting while she was still pulling on her shoes.

Elodie was late.

Elodie was never late.

And yet, there she was, throwing herself together like a mad woman and trying not to spill her coffee as she ran down the halls to the council room.

There was nothing different in her routine, nothing out of the ordinary. Her alarm went off at the same time. Janus sat on her chest and meowed his demands for food until she got up and poured the good wet stuff into his bowl. Her assistant came in and ran down the list of the day's events. And yet, somehow all that time got lost in translation. Elodie snapped out of her funk only to find herself staring at her bedraggled reflection, counting the number of faint finger-print shaped welts on her cheek, foundation brush in hand and not a single stroke of make up applied with ten minutes to go until she had to be up and moving.

Lord only knew what her face looked like. Whatever it was, it couldn't be worse than Delia's bangs.

She was so distracted securing the strap around her left ankle that she ran smack into someone twice her size.

Elodie and her papers went flying.

"I'm so sorry, Your Highness," he apologized, reaching out to steady her. The guy looked genuinely regretful, dark eyes wide and panicked. He was dressed far too casually to be part of the council or staff, so that really only left one other option: Selected. The doctor, if she recalled correctly. Which also explained the look of mild terror. Maybe he thought that bowling the princess over got him a one way ticket back home.

"No, it's fine. I should watch where I'm walking."

Elodie wouldn't blame this innocent stranger for her own distractedness. She needed to get herself together, get her head back in the game.

The stranger bent down and helped pick up her scattered files. The papers really did fly everywhere, completely out of order. Elodie could feel her temple pound at the idea of sorting back through them. But what was one more inconvenience at this point?

"Are those for the Hope Foundation?" The guy asked as he looked more closely at the file in his hand, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them. And he looked like he wanted to stop them. "Sorry, I shouldn't have looked."

"It's fine. The Queen is in the middle of planning their annual banquet," Elodie replied, more curious that he knew his stuff than irritated at his reading private documents. The Hope Foundation was large, but it wasn't the most prominent non-profit. Most people preferred to donate to cancer research or retired fire fighters pensions, not to kids with mental and/or developmental problems. Even though the castes had long been dissolved, sometimes the stigma of an Eight still stuck. "You've heard of it?"

"I volunteer with them from time to time. It's a great organization."

"It is," Elodie agreed, approving of his charitable habits. This guy's attention, however, was still focused on the papers in Elodie's hands, his gaze a little less than enthusiastic. "But it looks like you have something you want to say."

"It's really not my place - "

"It's okay. Go ahead, please."

He looked uncomfortable, torn between keeping his mouth shut and speaking his mind. Elodie could see the moment that speaking his mind won.

"Alright. Well...the Hope Foundation is founded on pillars of outreach and education, but you just seemed surprised that I even knew about it, which is pretty telling. The advertisement and advocacy really needs to be stepped up if they want to have a chance at breaking through to real recognition."

Elodie had recognized that shortcoming, and had always put it on her to-do list year after year. And year after year it got forgotten or brushed aside by some other crisis. Maybe this would be the year she finally got to it.

"And then there's the whole funding problem. The foundation relies almost solely on the donations from a few select sponsors, most often the elite ones that get invited to the banquet and no one else. It really limits the impact the foundation can have. Last time I volunteered, they ran out of pamphlets because they didn't have it in the budget to print more. But if you opened it up to a wider variety of sponsors, maybe even the public..."

The train of thought ended with him running a hand over the back of his head, embarrassed.

"Sorry. I got carried away."

Elodie smiled. This guy...he was really something. Delia didn't know what gem she'd stumbled upon here.

"Follow me," she said, turning on her heel.

Thankfully, if the heavy footsteps behind her were any indication, the guy followed.

This was the first time Elodie had ever skipped a meeting. But she was already late to said meeting - another first - so she figured she was already in trouble. Besides, this was just as important. She had a meeting to discuss The Hope Foundation later in the day; she was pushing it forward. Why not? Her immaculate schedule was already ruined.

They stopped in front of a large office door with two guards stationed outside. Elodie only had to knock once.

"Come in!"

One guard opened to door, letting them into the large office.

"Katy Kat, just in time," Mom sing-songed from where she sat behind her desk, engrossed in her work. If the plaque on the office door didn't read Queen Finnley Schreave, no one would know that this small blonde woman in a floral dress and pale blue cardigan ruled a country. Right now, she just looked like a mom with her feet in slippers, hair thrown up, and make up off, which was more a comfort to Elodie than she would ever know.

The office looked more like a mom space than a queen's space, too. Instead of the usual high-backed chairs and filing cabinets and political maps used as decorations on the walls, there was a well-worn sofa covered in throw pillows and sherpa blankets, built-in bookcases that held novels from Harry Potter to Thomas Payne's Common Sense to the most current encyclopedia, and a mini-fridge in the corner stocked with all the snacks Elodie and her siblings loved. Mom chose this office because it overlooked the gardens: her favorite place in the palace. Sunlight streamed through the open curtains, sunning Janus plus three more lazy cats.

If there was anything Mom loved more than her children, it was her cats. She had three: a long-haired snowshoe named Penelope, an orange tabby named Petunia, and a grey Scottish fold named Persephone. She spoiled them rotten and gave them more attention than Kase liked to say any of her children ever got. When Elodie was younger, her mother had a cat named Magnus - her first cat ever and a gift from Dad - but Magnus went to kitty heaven sometime before Petunia joined the family.

Mom looked up, the smile on her face growing curious as she spotted the unexpected guest. "Who did you bring with you? Another stray?"

"Mom this is..."

It was then Elodie realized she had never gotten the guy's name. They had been so engrossed in conversation that Elodie had forgotten to introduce herself.

"Dante Wallace-Chavaria, Your Majesty." He stepped forward and offered Mom a handshake. Mom's smile grew as she took his hand, and Elodie knew it was because she was grateful not to be bowed at for once.

"Ah, yes, you're one of the Selected. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Dante can actually help us," Elodie said, before Mom got it in her head that Dante was there to make a complaint. Which he had every right to do. Delia's behavior during the interviews was appalling to say the very least. Elodie hadn't had time to rip Delia a new one yet between work, all the Selection event planning, and growing tensions with Felix, but it was definitely on her to-do list. "I ran into him in the hall, and it turns out he has some pretty great ideas about The Hope Foundation banquet."

"Is that so?" Mom took a seat on one end of the sofa and patted the other side for Dante to sit. The cats took interest in the movement, Penelope brave enough to leap into Mom's lap and curl up into a fluffy ball demanding to be pet. "Well, let's hear it. Heaven knows I could use all the help I can get."

Elodie was going to be totally honest: she zoned out.

She tried her best to keep up with the debate Mom and Dante had started, but she quickly fell out of her league. Fundraising and event planning was not Elodie's forte. She was a taxes and policy type woman. Normally, she just sat in on these meetings out of necessity and requirement, agreeing with whatever Mom decided. Elodie had no idea that there were so many nuances, so much politics.

"The medical community is crazily underrepresented," Dante was saying when Elodie tuned back in, getting a little heated. He'd managed to stay on top of himself until now, but the more they talked, the more passionate he became. "A majority of those with severe mental delays end up in nursing homes or assisted living facilities, if they're lucky and aren't dropped by the system. And yet, as someone who will be responsible for ordering those placements in the future, I had to do all my own research to even find The Hope Foundation."

I'm not saying we need to reform the entire health care system - " Okay maybe he was trying to say that judging by the look on his face, but nothing was perfect. Elodie knew there were flaws, but there was only so much she could do at once, and so many other problems to juggle as well. " - but maybe if the inner circle of donors was expanded from upper class socialites, then maybe so many kids wouldn't slip through the cracks. No offense."

"No, please, take every offense," Mom said, amused at Dante's attempts to remain respectful. Mom had always liked approaching everyone as equals. Dante was starting to warm up to that, but it still took some getting used to. Not everyone expected the Queen of Illéa to be so open to hearing her own court roasted. "I understand the need for the pomp and circumstance, hosting fancy dinners for people to soothe their consciences with gracious donations, but it does get...tiring. Some of these women whip out their checkbooks and start saying 'my grandmother was a Two" like it's so worldly of them to abandon the old caste traditions."

"Caste tradition or not, I think you'd be surprised at the number of people willing to help if they had the chance."

"Yes, I think I would," Mom replied in that way that spoke of wisdom and experience. She was impressed with Dante. Elodie could tell. She hadn't seen Mom so engrossed in a meeting in a long time. "You know, I have a meeting with Miss Azalea Banks, The Hope Foundation President, next week. I think you should sit in on it."

"I don't want to intrude."

"Nonsense," Mom waved the worry away. "Lea's going to love you. Your ideas are fresh and you make a lot of good points. I've been royal more years than not. Sometimes I forget what life was like before all this. Thank you for making me remember."

Dante didn't say anything. There really wasn't anything to say. He had to be pretty overwhelmed already as it was. He came here for the Selection, not to plop himself down into the middle of charity drama. Still, Dante didn't look like he was backing off. In fact, he looked like he was ready to embrace the challenge.

"Your family must be very proud of the man you've become," Mom continued, and briefly Elodie wondered if Mom wished that Kase was a little more like Dante: a little more willing to show initiative, to get involved.

Something unreadable passed over Dante's face, the blink and you miss it type. "Yeah, I...hope so."

A knock on the door drew everyone's attention to the head now poking through the entryway.

"Hey, am I interrupting anything?"

Elodie ignored the way her entire body lit up at the sound of Jordan's voice. Nope. She wasn't going to look too closely at that, nor was she going to look too closely at his suit of the day and the way he looked really, really good in olive green.

"Nope, not interrupting," Elodie said instead of something embarrassing.

Jordan took that as his cue to walk the rest of the way into the room.

"Jordan, so good to see you," Mom crooned, getting up from the couch to give Jordan a hug and kiss his cheek.

"Good to see you too, Mrs. Schreave."

It was such a ridiculous nickname, but Mom had insisted when they were children that if Elodie was going to call Josie Mrs. Reinhardt then she should be called Mrs. Schreave. None of this Your Majesty nonsense, Mom had insisted, putting her foot down. They're just kids. Eventually Mrs. Reinhardt turned into Miss Josie, but despite Mom's persistence that he could call her Finnley, Jordan refused to budge up on Mrs. Schreave.

"Who's this?" Jordan asked, gesturing to Dante who was still seated on the couch next to Elodie. Jordan was friendly as ever, but there was a tiny flicker of tension around him that Elodie had never seen before.

Right. Introductions.

"Jordan, this is Dante Wallace-Chavaria. He's participating in the Selection."

Jordan let out a low whistle as they shook hands, the tension Elodie thought she saw earlier melting away. "Courting Delia is no small feat. Good luck."

"Thanks. It still doesn't feel real yet."

"Give it a few more days. Then it'll start feeling like a real circus."

"Jordan, be nice," Mom chided underneath a laugh. The fact that even she wouldn't deny the impending nightmare was telling. "Is this just a social call, or is there anything we can help you with?"

"Actually I was looking for Elodie," he said, casting a hopeful glance Elodie's way. "Do you mind if I steal you for a minute?"

"Sure! We were just wrapping up here." Or, at least Elodie was wrapping up. It looked like Mom and Dante could talk for hours more.

Elodie kissed her mother and wished both she and Dante a good morning before exiting the office with Jordan.

"I tried to find you using your schedule, but you weren't in in the council room."

Elodie had a paper copy of her schedule posted week by week on the cork board outside her office. That way she could be accessible and easily located at all times. It was her own idea, one that her father adopted about a year after she'd started using it religiously. But it only worked if she actually was where she said she'd be. The thought of Jordan going through all the trouble to find her even after the schedule failed lit something warm inside her.

"Sorry. Dante ran into me, literally, and the train further derailed from there," Elodie explained. "I'm glad you found me though."

"Me too."

They walked down the hall in silence. Jordan wanted to say something. Elodie could tell by the way he started clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back, how his steps occasionally rocked back at the heels. He was nervous. Why was he nervous?

"So...the other night...that was weird, right? I'm not reading into things?"

"No, that was totally weird," Elodie agreed more as an apology than anything. "I'm sorry about Felix. I tried to tell him you were coming into town, but I guess he was...taken off guard."

"It's fine. Really, I get it." Jordan shrugged his shoulders, looking somewhere down the hall instead of at Elodie. "I guess I just want him to know that I'm not trying to encroach on his territory or anything. I didn't come here to make any enemies. I wanted to make friends."

"And you have friends. You're my best friend. Felix will have to get over it."

"It must be weird for him though. Me showing up out of the blue like this."

"Maybe, but it's not like I haven't talked about you around him before."

Jordan paused. "You talk about me?"

"Yeah, all the time. Just like you probably tell stories about me. What part of best friend don't you get? Our lives are practically inseparable." Elodie felt like she was rambling. She never rambled. It was not a comfortable realization. She couldn't even bring herself to look at Jordan's face, afraid of what she would find there. "Besides, it'll be impossible to stop talking about you now. Essie is smitten. She has asked me no less than five times in the past day when you are coming back to play in her house."

"Tell the princess I am at her leisure - " Jordan's phone rang sharp and clear, cutting him off as he pulled the offending device out of his pocket. " - just as soon as I take this."

"Of course," Elodie said, waving him off. "Go be the Governor of Allens. You know where to find me."

"Dinner tonight?" He asked, hand covering the mouthpiece while someone with a dull, monotonous voice droned over the other end. "I would hate to keep Essie waiting."

"I'll let her know."

Jordan nodded, all smiles and bright eyes and sparkling white teeth. He was going to make a good governor, Elodie could tell. He already had that politician's charm, but it was a genuine charm as well. The people were going to love him.

Just like she did.