Note: It's a "parallel universe" bonus scene! With 100% more Volger! Aren't we all lucky!
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No one's a fool
- from "Destiny Rules" by Fleetwood Mac
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Fools require little time to bring about disaster, and young fools require no time at all.
Volger knows this, and yet when he checks his pocket watch, nearly forty-five minutes have passed.
With no sign of Aleksandar or Miss Sharp.
He curses, abandons the paperwork to the care of his secretary, and makes his way to Aleksandar's cabin with all deliberate speed. The cabin door is shut, and there is no sound within. Hardly encouraging.
The door, when he tries it, is unlocked. Of course it is; he's the only soul aboard who would dare to open the door without the emperor's express permission.
Except, perhaps, for Miss Sharp. It's hardly necessary, however, since she's already inside. With the lights off. Lying on the bed, entangled with Aleksandar.
Both asleep. Atop the bedlinens. And fully clothed, thanks be to a merciful God.
Volger directs a dark thought towards his dear, late friend. How kind of Franz to leave all of this in his hands.
He steps closer, intending to roust the girl and drag her from the room, if need be. Aleksandar is perfectly intelligent, but he is also less than twenty years old and inexperienced with the fairer sex. It is not an ideal combination, especially with a strong dose of Hapsburg stubbornness added in the bargain.
Franz Ferdinand stood firm against three emperors and a pope. His son will be at least as difficult, and Volger has far fewer weapons to range against Aleksandar.
Too, Volger doesn't trust the girl. At all. He read the dossier his office put together before he left Vienna; her military record is impressive, but that only underlines how unnatural she is. How uncanny her deceptions. Her refusal of Aleksandar's offer was undoubtedly a ploy, as was that ridiculous spate of note-writing and hand-holding in the captain's quarters earlier.
As though he wouldn't notice. Bah.
Light from the corridor spills over his shoulder, illuminating the bed and its occupants. More precisely, illuminating their faces.
Aleksandar has been crying.
Volger stops.
Surely not over the girl. For God's sake, she's wearing a man's suit - one of Aleksandar's, in point of fact. A vulgar, possessive display indeed, from a vulgar, rough creature. Her hair is cut like a boy's, her manners are appalling, there is nothing elegant or refined in her movements or speech. If one was assembling a list of undesirable attributes for an empress, she would embody them all. Aleksandar himself acknowledged this little more than three hours ago.
Miss Sharp twitches, and then she is abruptly awake, staring at him, one hand reaching beneath the pillow. For a weapon? Good Lord.
"At ease," Volger says. He makes the words as scornful as possible while keeping his voice low so as not to wake Aleksandar.
"Oh, it's only you," she says, matching his volume and intonation exactly. She begins to extract herself, revealing, in the process, what she'd been reaching for under the pillow. It's a sheathed knife.
She's saved my life several times this week, Aleksandar had said. Evidently she continues to take the job seriously. Further ridiculousness: aboard the emperor's own airship, what harm can come to him?
But those are tearstains on his face.
The circumstances recall their escape from Konopischt nearly five years ago. Aleksandar, newly orphaned, uprooted from his home for reasons best concealed from him, had borne it stoically.
Except in stray moments, when he believed himself alone, or unobserved.
Once in the castle, he had continued to present himself as His Serene Highness, carrying the weight of new expectations with utmost grace. A model emperor-in-waiting.
Except whenever he would vanish to the parapets for an hour, perhaps two.
He has been emperor for the better part of three years. There have been no lone moments during that time, no unaccompanied trips to the metaphorical parapets.
If he is to be honest with himself, this is one of the reasons - if not the primary reason - that Volger sent the boy to Britain.
The girl's efforts to leave the bed are disturbing Aleksandar, who begins to wake but stills again as soon as she lays her hand over his.
"You may as well stay," Volger tells her.
She stares at him. Blinking. Saying nothing.
Explaining things to Miss Sharp is irksome indeed when she only gives him that blank look in return. His English is impeccable; there's no chance of her misunderstanding. Volger scowls. "He needs his rest."
She blinks again, then glances down at Aleksandar before looking at Volger once more. Her confusion finally clears. "Aye sir."
Volger nods, once, crisply. He turns around and exits the cabin as quietly as he entered, being certain to pull the door shut behind him.
In the corridor, he waits a moment. He could use rest himself. This is obvious, because under normal circumstances he would never have left the girl where she is, and he would never need to lean against the wall.
Nor would there be such a hollow sort of pain in his chest.
You have a peculiar sense of humor, Franz, he thinks. First myself as a guardian, and now that creature as a guardian angel.
Although the latter is much more in keeping with Sophie's sense of humor, rather than her husband's.
He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. Fatigue makes one maudlin.
Through the thin cabin wall, Volger hears Aleksandar's voice, muffled and indistinct and sleepy, and Miss Sharp's voice answering in a soothing murmur. Then silence.
He waits another minute. Then he straightens, adjusts his cuffs and lapels, and returns to work.
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