A/N: In celebration of our 7th year of writing fanfiction together, there's a special author's note below.

Chapter 58: Three Wishes

Jasmine sat in the middle of the bed with Aladdin on one side and me lying on her other. She and I waited for him to begin explaining himself.

Thus far, no words had been offered.

The prince?

Street rat?

The young man just stared at the floor with a grim expression shadowing his face. Time stretched as Jasmine petted my fur. She was being quiet, but I could feel her impatience mounting with my own.

I had so many questions about the where, why, and how of my current situation, and right now, this…man was my best chance for unraveling them. Yet, it was Jasmine who was forced to break the silence.

"So," she prompted, "would it help if you started with the worse news first so that you don't have to stress about it for the whole conversation?"

Aladdin stilled, considering it, but then, he shook his head fiercely. "Not this time. I can't just come out with the bad stuff first. I don't even know if I can talk about it…at all."

"Then don't," Jasmine said, switching tactics. "We can use hand signals and facial expressions. It might take a bit longer, but-"

"Abbi."

Abbi?

"Yes?"

Aladdin shook his head again, but he was smiling. "You're amazing, you know that?"

"I do," she replied without missing a beat, "and though it's nice to hear, it's only tangentially related to the issue at hand."

Aladdin barked out a laugh. "Of course it is," he said when he recovered.

"I'm glad you understand. Now," she snuggled up close to him and said, "Take your time, but no more stalling, alright?"

Aladdin's bearing became grim once more as he said, "Alright." Then, instead of falling back into silence, Aladdin took a deep breath and began his tale.

"I guess…I'd say…this all starts with that night months ago where I took you to the night market. You probably don't remember it which is fine. There's going to be a lot of parts of this you won't remember and looking back, that might be for the best.

You see I uh…tried to propose to you that night and it wasn't…great.

Knowing what I know now, I can guess that you probably thought it was real small-time and cheap, but back then, I had no idea what you were used to and I was all proud to show off my peddler's stall in the market and present you with this dinky engagement ring that…

Well, it doesn't matter.

The main thing is that you said no, talking about your responsibilities to the family business and stuff. I didn't get it. I thought maybe you just hadn't heard me right, so I tried again. I explained that through my little business, I'd been able to set some dough aside, so we could live together outside of the palace. Then I told you that once you were my wife, you could stay with me in my new place and wouldn't have to go home to your father and dead-end job of being the princess's tiger keeper. I tried to tell you that you were so much more than that, that you deserved to live your dreams, travel, have fun, and be yourself all the time. I did my best to show you how much I wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and how I'd spent years to make sure we could. I'd gotten an apprenticeship and opened my stall for you because I was dead certain you were my one true love.

Then I kissed you with your eyes full of tears and I thought this was it.

I was sure that you finally understood what I'd known since the first night I saw you:

We were meant to be together."

Aladdin's story continued, but this was when I mentally took a step back. It was all I could do to preserve my sanity. In this strange situation, I was captive and confused without even the luxury of breathing when I wanted to, but my mind was still my own.

Thus, I stopped listening to the street rat's tale like it was a true account and viewed it more like it was a political speech.

Extracting the facts from his questionable sentimentality, I learned that Jasmine's response to Aladdin's unwelcome assault was breaking her promise to me and revealing her identity as princess of Agrabah to Aladdin. I suspected Jasmine hoped this truth would make her position on marriage clear. Instead, it just upset Aladdin further. He became so angry that he got the guards involved to 'call Abbi's bluff'. That explained how the notoriously slippery street rat had gotten captured.

He had brought it upon himself.

Until recently, I thought that essentially marked the end of Aladdin's story, however, much had happened after. Apparently, while Jasmine was going through the process of making her way back to the palace, trying to negotiate with Jafar, and learning that she was 'too late', Aladdin had somehow been taken to the dungeons and freed thanks to the help of his business partner and longtime mentor who I was just now hearing about, Uncle Ghani.

"I knew I should be thankful to my uncle," Aladdin said. "He was always helping me out when I needed him, but how could I be thankful for anything when the one thing I truly wanted was beyond my grasp?

I explained everything to him and of course, my trustworthy reliable uncle knew just what to do. The job was dangerous he said, but for you and our love, I was willing to do anything.

So, he and I made a plan, and then when the time came, we went on our expedition. You probably don't remember what the Cave of Wonders is, but that's where we went. My uncle told me about how he'd found the pieces of the cave's golden scarab to unlock the entrance weeks ago and he said since I loved you that I was 'a diamond in the rough, a princely soul among peasants whose true worth lies within my pure-intentioned heart,' which meant I'd be able to enter.

All I had to do was retrieve a lamp in the center of the cave and that would unlock all its treasure, so I could buy myself a kingdom and become a prince."

And Aladdin did not think to question the validity or suspicious convenience of all this?

"…because this was my chance for a happily ever after!

But then Abuhad to mess things up!

I told him he didn't have to come with me on this adventure. You know what he's like, always being a stick in the mud and trying to take stuff that doesn't belong to him.

Well, when I bravely went up to the entrance which was shaped like a tiger head, and talked in a big deep voice, I was all ready to get the lamp. I took my first step, but then Abu hopped from my horse onto my shoulder. And the cave roared that Abu wasn't welcome.

I grabbed Abu and tossed him away, for his safety you know."

Right.

"But it was too late for me. The cave swallowed me and I fell. If it weren't for my awesome reflexes and…"

Basically, after floundering around and trying not to get burned by lava and molten gold, a sentient magic carpet saved Aladdin and brought him to the lamp.

With the carpet's prompting, Aladdin rubbed the magic lamp and summoned its genie. This genie, according to Aladdin, devoted an entire song to explaining how his magic worked as well as stating the two rules and the one caveat I was familiar with:

No direct killing, no making people fall in love, and don't bring people back from the dead.

Then Aladdin discovered the genie's desire for freedom.

"I told him that if he was good to me, I'd use my last wish to set him free. After that, he was putty in my hands. He wanted to get started right away, but I was smart."

Aladdin tapped the side of his head in a way that I found incredibly condescending before he said, "Everyone and their mom knows the best thing to wish for when offered multiple wishes is the knowledge for what to do with them, so that's what I did. For my first wish, I wished to know the best way to become the prince I wanted to be and the answer was so perfect that I didn't waste any time on my second wish.

I wished to be a model prince of a kingdom of my making, so that meant I could keep adding stuff to be that model prince!

Genie was super impressed and I felt on top of the world. I was so ready to see you again, so the two of us got to work crafting my grand return to Agrabah."

As Aladdin went on to describe his courtship of Jasmine in excruciating detail, I pieced some things together with all the new information. It was clear to me now that 'Prince Ali' had not just been constantly bragging for the sake of it. I now understood that all those times, I had caught him whispering to his second crown, he'd actually been talking to his genie lamp to add to his prince persona and kingdom.

Thinking back to his ridiculous claims, I, at last, had an explanation for all those headache-inducing Ababwan histories and trade documents, Ababwa's reputation as an 'ancient and prosperous' seaside trade city in the middle of the desert, the mute and forgettable nature of the Ababwan servants, the existence of multiple Ababwan unicorns, the prince's monkey smell, his abysmal court manners, pitiful knowledge of rulership, absurd wealth, implausible strength, and ever-multiplying talents and virtues. Even all his creepy ill-timed smiling made sense. Aladdin hadn't been mocking Jasmine that day he found her in the gardens.

Except…

He had been happy to see her mourning him and had listened to Jasmine talk about how much she missed her dear friend day after day, knowing he could relieve her of her pain and choosing not to.

That…was utterly vile!

His whole plan of disguising himself as a prince and luring a woman who had already rejected him into marriage under false pretenses was vile.

Did he have no shame?

Had I my free will, I would have tried to attack him by now: a good bite out of his leg perhaps, or maybe a swipe to his stupid duplicitous face. I fantasized about that and more to make up for my lack of autonomy and Aladdin's lack of karmic suffering as he prattled on and on about his courtship.

But I didn't lose the thread. I still needed to know what secret that even Aladdin found too horrid to share, so when he started talking about dying, I gave him my full focus again.

"I was sinking fast. Iago and Jafar and who knows who else were trying to kill me and if that weren't enough, your tiger showed up. I thought this must be one of its elaborate dismissals and that it was there to gloat."

If only…

"But it wasn't. I managed to use the tiger to get onto dry land."

Use?

Jasmine relaxed her tight grip on me. Meanwhile, I was aching to roll my eyes.

"I was pissed that Jafar had managed to steal my lamp, but you and your father didn't care and after a bit, I relaxed and thought things would still be okay. After all, your idea of a secret surprise wedding was brilliant."

My idea and no, it wasn't.

"You said that with all the new work you had to do, it wasn't necessary for it to be done in time for your birthday, but me being a good husband-to-be was determined to make sure your birthday and wedding were perfect."

Queue a painfully meticulous description of Aladdin's gaudy wedding plans.

Eventually, he remembered what actually mattered, saying, "-but you weren't interested in me or our amazing wedding. Suddenly, all you wanted to do and talk about was work. I tried to give you space to do what you thought you had to, but you were running yourself ragged, looking less like a princess and more like a grubby street urchin with a mood to match. We started getting into fights for no reason. I knew it was the work that you just needed a break and a little fun and you'd be fine, but you refused to listen.

I was so worried about you that even I got excited when you told me you gained a new advisor who seemed to be helping out. I thought it was a wish come true and that finally, things were going to get better again."

They did.

"But they didn't.

The advisor wasn't some well-meaning old man or anything like that. He claimed to be young and a noble, but he refused to show himself and be normal.

And all his dumb notes!

You were just too pure and innocent to see how he was messing with you, but I knew what the snake was scheming right away. He wanted you to be all thankful and curious about him so that he could seduce you."

WHAT!

But Aladdin was serious. He went on for several minutes about how I was secretly in love with Jasmine, using the correspondence and notes that I had agonized over as evidence to warp my and Jasmine's friendly work relationship into the beginning of an affair.

An affair!

The idea of it made me sick.

I wasn't that person. Despite past accusations to the contrary, I had never been that person.

I wanted to look at Jasmine to see what she made of this, but my eyes' gaze remained on Aladdin as he continued his licentious slander.

Now, he was saying, "I knew I had to do something to stop this and I thought I had the perfect solution that would get you to stop obsessing over him, send a strong message to him to back off, and make it so you and I could finally put aside work and talk about the wedding and fun stuff again.

But in my rush to try and fix things, I got sloppy and didn't really think things through properly."

That's what he was calling it!

"The advisor used that against me. He was the one hiding in the shadows and attempting to steal a promised woman away from her future husband, but he thought he could call me the untrustworthy one?

It was bullshit."

Look in the damn mirror!

"Then the sore loser brainwashed you into agreeing with him!"

No!

He was the one doing the brainwashing!

How could he twist things like this? Making the whole fight sound like Jasmine and I were unscrupulous liars instead of him. Painting himself as a poor man trying to woo his taciturn betrothed and Jasmine was eating it up.

It wasn't fair!

Why was I being forced to listen to this!

What had I done to deserve this sort of…

Oh.

Right.

I let Aladdin's voice penetrate my thoughts before they turned dark.

"After our fight, I did what I'd wanted to do for weeks and took Carpet and left. I told it to take me home and it immediately accelerated out of Agrabah which pissed me the hell off.

After such a long day, I was sick and tired of being jerked around.

I thought my shouting gave Carpet the message because I suddenly spotted Agrabah in the distance.

But it wasn't Agrabah at all.

It was so much better.

Carpet had taken me home, to Ababwa, and you know how perfect this place is. I couldn't not love it. It's so fancy, bright, colorful, and just…beautiful!

But of course, there was something wrong with it because that's just how my life is these days. After waking up from the best sleep ever, I noticed how quiet things were. It turned out that everyone was still in bed. After I tried everything to wake up my parents and siblings, I realized I needed Genie to do it. Without him around, I hadn't been able to add any new princely abilities and now my kingdom was cursed, and more than that, looking around Ababwa, I realized that he was the key to fixing things with you too. With his help, I could be more than enough, I'd be a thousand, no, a million times, better than your advisor and all your other suitors. I'd be so perfect for you that there would be no way you'd say no."

Aladdin started to recount his many adventures to find the two pieces of the golden scarab to unlock the Cave of Wonders, but my own thoughts had become too loud to ignore.

Now that I was a bit calmer, I could see that Jasmine's headpiece had played a role in this mess. Without the aid of genie ownership, it was likely Aladdin had completely fallen victim to its influence. Even he seemed to recognize his plan to impersonate me was faulty, but just like everything else, he had little remorse for his actions. No apology letter had come from him when Jasmine destroyed her headpiece. The only thing he seemed to care about was results.

That's why I hated that in a weird twisted way he had started to sound like me.

I did not want to have anything in common with this lying shameless street rat, but this now made three things.

Perhaps that was why I'd been sent here.

My eyes found Jasmine again of their own accord. It was good to see her and remember there was a bright side to all this, brighter than I deserved.

I could tell that we were sharing a look about something which meant it was time to pull myself together and start paying attention again.

Aladdin was saying, "I'd hoped that maybe Genie just shape-shifted the lamp into a ring, but no such luck. The smoke that came out of the ring was red and when it cleared, I got a good look at my new genie.

But it didn't look like a genie at all.

It was just Jafar's parrot, Iago."

What?

Both of Jasmine's hands went up to her mouth in surprise.

"Exactly! You could've fit a melon in my mouth. It was so huge.

Iago was just as shocked.

We looked at each other all big-eyed and open-mouthed, but then, I got angry. I wanted to throw the ring away.

Iago and his master were the reason I was in this mess!

But Iago stopped me, saying 'hold your horses' and stuff. He explained that he really was the genie of the ring and because of that he couldn't help what happened when he was with Jafar. He tried to convince me it was all in the past and he was my genie now.

I was having none of it. I demanded to know where the lamp was and Iago just said it was long gone and wasn't likely to come back.

Then he said 'don't worry 'bout it' that we didn't need it because he'd help me.

I still wasn't so sure. I was pretty sore about the whole trying to kill me thing, so I told him if he expected me to give him the same deal for freedom for good behavior, he better impress me.

But Iago wasn't interested in freedom. He was all like 'do you know how long a typical parrot's lifespan is, bub?'

He said that all he wanted was to get out of the cave and he'd be happy.

I still didn't trust him a lick but I was determined to get our happy ending and prove I was the perfect prince for you. So, I got comfortable and said I'd be willing to make my wishes outside if he could give me some decent advice.

He said that he could only offer me two wishes and listed out so many rules for them that my eyes crossed. I don't even know if there really were that many rules. Iago's a real smooth talker and I was so worried about fixing our marriage that I let him convince me to hold off on making an official wish. Before I knew it, he and I were sneaking back into Agrabah disguised as Ababwan servants."

The detail slotted into place. I remembered seeing the ring on the bell-ringer and his smell. That must have been Aladdin!

He claimed that, "Iago told me it'd be a lot more 'efficient' to talk to you and see what you wanted instead of 'wasting' one of my two wishes. But even with me being gone for weeks, you weren't happy to hear about me coming back. Hell, I'd say you were even more pissed than when I left and when I asked what I could offer to get your forgiveness, you said nothing would change your mind.

I couldn't believe it. You'd never been so stubborn and cold before. It was like you were a different person.

Iago tried to comfort me. He explained that you were a princess and I was dressed as a servant and that I'd screwed up all the formalities, so you had to act like that and that the best thing we could do now was go back to your rooms and wait to get you alone, so I could have a proper talk with you one-on-one.

So, we waited."

He had?

"It was hard waiting. Hours and hours passed. I sent Iago to go fetch me food twice. Then finally, you entered your rooms.

You were smiling and I thought Iago was right. You were happy I was returning. You'd just been lying to the court again.

I stood up.

And…

You stopped smiling, but that was okay because you looked so surprised to see me.

'Ali,' you said, 'you're here.'

'I'm here,' I came forward and said, 'Did you miss me?'

When that didn't get a smile, I tried again.

'Jasmine,' I said, 'I missed you. A lot. After our fight, I knew I had to do something big to show how much I love you so-'

But you didn't let me finish.

It was like my first proposal all over again. With the most serious face imaginable, you tried to sell me on the biggest whopper I'd ever heard, talking about curses, responsibility, life expectations, and all this random stuff!

But what it boiled down to was you didn't care what I did or said. You just…you…" Aladdin stopped talking and squeezed his eyes shut.

Jasmine hugged him tight but she didn't say anything.

I realized she hadn't said anything this whole time even though there must have been plenty of moments when she'd wanted to interrupt. It wasn't like her to be so quiet.

Against my will, I watched her nuzzle closer to Aladdin. Even after everything he'd said, she still seemed enamored with this monster.

Aladdin petted her head and sniffed loudly. "Damn it," he said. "Just…damn it. I don't…stop it." He pushed her away and stood up.

Jasmine stood up as well.

"You really don't remember any of it, do you?" he demanded.

Jasmine shook her head.

Aladdin whirled away from her and stormed out to the balcony.

We followed and I got my first proper look of Ababwa. It was like Agrabah, but more tropical with palm trees and the ocean so close. The roofs of the buildings shone like jewels in the moonlight.

The place was a paradise.

And I hated it.

Aladdin didn't-

"You said," he began harshly, "that I wasn't good enough. That 'on a fundamental level we were too different' that you cared too much about your work as Princess of Agrabah and that I was too interested in having fun like that was a bad thing.

Of course, I couldn't believe any of it.

I knew you.

So, we fought.

And I just couldn't hold it in anymore!

I told you I wasn't just some pampered prince, that unlike you, I had been working hard for us for years! I even told you that I had access to a genie, so I literally could be whatever you wanted, but that only made things worse!"

Of course, it did.

"We started shouting and crying and I wasn't watching my words anymore and somewhere in that whole mess…

I made another wish."

Oh.

Aladdin turned to Jasmine.

"All I wanted was for you to be like the girl I remembered, my best friend, the one I care about more than anyone else in this world, a girl who wasn't a princess, but just an underappreciated royal tiger keeper, Abbi, my one true love.

But Iago tricked me.

He claimed he granted my wish, told me that the princess part of you would stay in Agrabah-"

Princess part?

"-and that we could go anywhere in the world to live. He barely protested when I told him I wanted to come here. He helped me wake up this city. He let me think this was our happy ending, but in all that time, he didn't tell me.

Not him, not Genie, not my first wish, nobody let me know that every wish and addition I made to make myself more impressive, every servant, person, animal, and thing that was crafted as part of Ababwa:

Everything had a cost.

And that, with us getting married and your soul split between here and Agrabah, it's just too much for you. I've been trying to find a cure for this curse, but what I found was…

I couldn't do it!

I couldn't do it and it wouldn't help you anyway.

Now we're nearly out of time and…you've just sold Iago, so I can't even try to make another wish to get us out of this and if we don't figure something out in the next few days…

I…

You…

We're gonna die! And it's all my fault and I…I'm so sorry. I'm so…so sorry."

"I know," she murmured.

And I did too. I felt his tears and regret because despite all our many differences, Aladdin and I now had four things in common.

"And you should be sorry," she said sternly, "What you did is wrong, very wrong."

I know…

"But," she added in a new voice.

I looked up in time to see her place a hand on his forearm and pledge, "I made you a promise and you kept your side of the bargain, so you're not alone anymore. We'll either find a way to solve this, together, or we'll die trying. I wouldn't have it any other way." Her eyes shone with tears and a determined look that I knew all too well.

Jasmine…

"Abbi…

I love you."

Her answer was a kiss.

Author's Husband's Note:

Hey all. Hope you don't mind if I do a little interruption to your regularly scheduled Author's Note. I wanted to thank everyone who clicked on this story. I absolutely love reading Rajah's Curse, but more than that I enjoy being a part of making Rajah's Curse. This is one of annbe11's stories that I don't directly edit, but I've right there to discuss ideas, plot points, and overall arc plans. A lot of work goes into this story that you don't get to see, but I'm always happy to be there for it. Heck, I still remember when this story was just half an idea we hammered out in a Las Vegas hotel hallway after being subjected to live-action Aladdin for the second time! And now look at how far we've all come!

I love Rajah's Curse not only for being a fun story with adorable characters, but for how happy it makes my better half. I hope you all enjoy reading and make sure you let annbe11 know how much you love it.

See you around!