Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When the universe was rewritten, Gerard had expected his story to change.

It wasn't that he wanted his story to change, in fact he had wrote the same story down on his paper. Gerard would take the lake and the herons so long as he also had the kiss and the wedding. He never wrote down Elody's name, though. He allowed it to remain a vague princess, allow Elody to decide if she wanted to remained yoked to the story of the Frog Prince.

(That was why he gave up his name and humanity, after all. He wanted to put the power in Elody's hands, he wanted to make their story into something that was theirs and not just his. She was the one who saved him, after all, she was the one who took him from that pond.)

Elody could have chosen any other story, she could have written herself a brand new one where she was a fearless knight in a glorious set of golden armor. Elody could have been anyone, and of course Gerard would have been more than happy to see that happen. His wife was his best friend first, and to see her live the life she wanted was all that he could have ever asked for.

When they had sat on the back of Death (without the little girl) together, Gerard had made his peace with that being their last interaction. He had handed over the sword of truth so that she would get to protect herself, prioritize herself for the first time since they had gotten married. Gerard hadn't expected her to put her gauntlet covered hand over his own on the hilt of Veritas, and he certainly hadn't expected her gaze to soften. Elody had told him that she loved him, and when Gerard had told her the simplest truth of his life, the sword glowed.

He hadn't read deeply into that, but perhaps he should have. Gerard figured that it was some sort of more metaphorical love, that since the sword never lied and the sword evaded the question on if his wife loved him that the love Elody meant wasn't the same as before. He had made his peace with that when he had given up his name and his humanity to the Baba Yaga in exchange for Elody to control her own story.

Then they were all given their own scrap of paper and their own drop of ink.

Their story went the same, the tune never changed even as everyone got their happier stories. The world became kinder and the narrative fell away in favor of something more forgiving.

Which is why Gerard felt like it fell to him to keep their story from retreading the same steps. It wasn't their story that made him hide away in the castle while his wife went to war, it wasn't their story that had him constantly insist to his adventuring party that his marriage was totally fine and going great. None of that was covered in the happily ever after, which meant that Gerard had to nut up and deal with it himself.

They were in one of the many parlor rooms of their castle and all Gerard could think about were the choices that led them there.

He had chosen for his story to have stayed the same, he had chosen to go through the trials all over again.

He hadn’t expected Elody to choose that too.

But there is still a dark haired, dark skinned woman sitting on a chair next to him. The crest of the royal family of Greenleigh is still a frog. There is still a lily pad on a golden shield and there is still a ring on his finger.

“I think I want a divorce" is what he said. It isn't what he means.

Elody jolted where she sat, head snapping to look him in the eyes. Gerard's heart ached at the sight of barely concealed hurt in her eyes and he had to dig his nails into his thigh to maintain eye contact. "Gerard-"

He interrupted before she could continue. “It’s not-it’s not you, E. It’s just that...I don’t know who I am. I spent my formative years trying not to die in a pond and then immediately became your husband when I returned to my human form. Which was great- don't get me wrong I love you and I love being married to you. I just don’t…know who I am if not your husband, and that’s not fair to either of us. And I don’t want you to be beholden to whoever I end up being, and it’s not because I don’t love you that I’m asking for this."

Once he started talking he couldn't stop himself. Word vomiting out there all of the feelings that had been brewing inside of him since the first timeline where he was just a beautiful husband to a powerful princess-reagent. There had been one too many times where a visiting dignitary had asked him about something going on in the kingdom and Gerard had just floundered about until Elody had stepped in to save him.

His job at the castle had mostly been arranging parties and balls and events, perhaps making small talk with a few ambassadors here and there while Elody was preoccupied. He knew full well of the public's opinion of him, some strange cursed prince that the Princess Elody had found and married. Bit of a spectacle, bit of a scandal, but at the time Gerard had never cared. He was too happy being human and too happy being married to Elody to care about anyone else's opinion.

But things were different in this world.

Not to say that he knew anything about ruling, Gerard was still completely and totally lost on 99% of everything that went on, but he was no longer a fresh twenty year old who was getting used to having legs and arms again. He had all the memories of three lifetimes and all of them had one thing in common. They were full of utterly useless information that Gerard now had three times as much as.

All he knew was that Elody deserved better. Perhaps better than him in general, but certainly better than he was now.

Elody had been silent since Gerard had stopped talking, which really wasn't doing a good thing for his nerves. She seemed contemplative, a little furrow to her brow that Gerard was used to only seeing when she was hunched over paperwork. Her head was slightly tilted and Gerard had to remind himself that right after asking for a divorce was not the best time to lean in to kiss his wife.

(Even that wasn't really enough to stop him, he was just grateful that they were sitting on two separate armchairs. That was the only thing keeping him from leaning forward and kissing that expression off of her face.)

"Gerard, how much have you been thinking about this? The divorce, specifically, I can tell that the rest of it has been on your mind for a while." She hesitantly reached out, a hand settling on Gerard's and gently rubbed her thumb back and forth. "But a divorce..."

"I don't want you being yoked to me anymore."

Elody snorted, shaking her head as she rested her chin on the back of her chair. There was something infinitely affectionate in her gaze, a slight quirk to her lips. "I'm not yoked to you, Gerard. We both decided to get married even though we easily could have gone our separate ways when you turned back into a human."

"But what if I change, when I start figuring myself out?"

"Then you change, and we figure it out from there." Elody slipped her hand into his, giving it a slight squeeze. "If you want to try out being separate, I'm okay with that. But Gerard, we aren't just the prince and princess reagents of Greenleigh anymore. We're the king and queen. Divorcing would be a long legal endeavor that I'm not sure we should do without being absolutely sure of it."

"So what do you think we should do?" Gerard looked at his wife, at his best friend, and leaned in just slightly. Not for a kiss, but to show just how much of his focus was solely hers to command. "Because I'll be honest I had this whole idea of going on this self actualization adventure, and just kicking it rough with my friends, and I'm not sure how we're going to- work with this."

“What about a separation? We live in separate houses and have our lives but there’s nothing permanent. You would still be prince-reagent of Greenleigh, in case anything happened to me, and it would be easy for us to return to a marriage if we didn’t go through the legal business of a divorce.” Elody wrinkled her nose when she said it and Gerard laughed.

"You sound pretty sure that we're going to be returning to our marriage," he teased, though he found himself utterly at peace with the idea. The idea of the divorce wasn't because he had stopped loving Elody- that was something he was almost positive was impossible at this point. He only wanted a divorce because he thought that it could have been for the better for Elody.

(He refused to admit to himself that he might be scared of changing too much and no longer being a good match for her. That she would fall out of love again, not through any failing of his own cowardice but just because they had become incompatible.)

She laughed and it was almost enough for Gerard to rethink the whole ordeal they were about to enter. "Remember when we got married and I told you to never doubt me."

"And I never did." Not even when he was turning into a frog.

"So don't start now." She smiled at him and Gerard loved her enough that it hurt.

That was why he had proposed the entire deal, that was why he wanted to keep Elody from being tied down to him. The least he could do was try and work on himself to keep their relationship going strong. With the world rewritten, there was no true love that Gerard could hide behind as a shield to trust that Elody would never leave him. Love took work, and it was about time that Gerard actually tried to take the first step.

"Okay," he whispered, squeezing Elody's hand. "I won't."

Seemingly satisfied with that, Elody settled back in her chair. For a few moments, Gerard just looked at his wife as she thought. The way that she stretched her legs out and tilted her head back and forth the same way that she would when she was hunched over a battle map. Elody narrowed her eyes as she stared into the fire like it was a puzzle that she needed to figure out.

Gerard was just happy that Elody wasn't looking at him with that sort of intense focus. He knew full well that getting that sort of attention from his wife would shatter his resolve to improve himself and instead just want to focus all that he is on pleasing her. Which would be counterproductive to what he was trying to prove with this whole deal. It was just part of the natural order that he was weak to everything his wife did.

"Does a year sound good? For us to figure out where we stand?" Elody had not let go of his hand and Gerard focused on the warmth from her hand for only a few seconds before realizing that he had been asked something.

"A year? Yeah that sounds pretty good, I don't think I'll change much more after the first year." At least, he wasn't planning on it. He just needed to experience the world- a safe world, outside of the shadow of the Gander- as a person instead of just as Elody's husband. "It's just about being able to have the chance to be my own person."

Elody hummed, a slightly sad tilt to her smile and once again Gerard had to stop himself from kissing it off of her face. "Then how about we separate for a year. The legalities of divorce can be put aside until the end of the year, and when we reunite we can discuss where things lay."

His heart ached at the thought of spending a full year away from his wife. "Are you saying no contact for the full year?"

It seemed like Elody shared the sentiment, as she inclined her head a little with a softer smile. "Only if you are."

"I'm not," he rushed the words out, leaning over the arm of his chair to be closer to her. "I don't think I would be able to handle not having you in my life for that long, Elody."

She laughed, and Gerard's heart pounded twice in a beat. "Then we could meet up every month. Neutral territory, not at mine or yours house, somewhere public."

It sounded suspisciously like a date, but Gerard was not going to call his wife on it. "That sounds nice, I would love for that to happen." He does not say that he wishes that things were different, that they wouldn't have to go through the song and dance of changing without the other. It would be a lie, anyway, Gerard was determined to make it a lie.

That was the entire reason they had their stories, that was why Timothy made sure they had their own ink. Things weren't working before, but Gerard wanted them to work now. Something had to change, something had to give, and Gerard didn't want it to be either of them.

"What do you think we should do about the housing situation? Not to kick you out of our home, but if the point of this is to be separated then you shouldn't be living in the same room as me."

Gerard could second that, for numerous reasons the least of which that he wouldn't be able to tear himself away from her if they still slept in the same bed. "There's a house next to Timothy's that's been on the market for a while, all the way in Happly. I could rent that for a year, or maybe we could just buy it outright. Even if we get back together, it could be really nice to just have a home near them so we wouldn't have to just barge into their home every time."

"How long have you been thinking about this?" There was something just slightly on the edge of sad as she looked at him, like she had missed something along the way that had led to this. Not exactly surprised, just vaguely melencholy.

Gerard tilted his head towards her with a slight quirk to his lips. "Not thinking about a divorce exactly, really the thought of getting a house next to Tim has been sort of plaguing me since we all got our endings. Tim's been talking about the house for a while too, where it's obvious that he- like- wants us to buy it, but he won't actually say it."

"So that's why you wanted to move there?"

"Less move there, move there, but considering the amount of noise that comes from Tim's house most nights I doubt anyone else would be be buying the place. It would just be nice, you know, to have a house down by them." Gerard was no stranger to crashing at the Goose-Hubbard home, but that was only ever for a short while. Maybe a night or two but nothing more, which meant that he was always on the couch.

It wasn't the worst for a short time, but if he was going to be out of the castle for an entire year he knew that his back just wouldn't be able to handle it. It was hard enough on his back when he was there for three nights, let alone three hundred.

(He was also pretty sure that neither Tim nor Henry would be completely fine with him living at their house for a year.)

"I'm glad that you're not going to be on the street, I don't think I could have gone through with the idea if you didn't have something to fall back on." Elody's gaze roamed over his face for a reason that Gerard couldn't grasp. "But if you're sure-"

"-I am." Gerard nodded his head, shifting in his seat in order to hold her hand between both of his own. "It's for the best for both of us. I failed you in the first timeline and I'm not going to fail you again."

(Of course, he purposefully left out the twice upon a timeline. Neither of them enjoyed thinking much about their story in that universe, neither wanted to address the contradictory memories that were better left buried underneath literally any other memory).

"You didn't fail me," Elody sighed, gaze trailing off of Gerard's face to move towards  the fireplace. It was a gorgeous wrought-iron thing, something left over from when her parents were still around. They had a very specific sense of taste, one that Gerard didn't exactly love but the idea of redecorating and redoing the entire castle was something that he hated a lot more. "There was a lot going on-"

"-I can have all the justifications in the world, Elody, and it doesn't change the fact that I wasn't there for you." Of course, it would always be something that Gerard would regret. He held that shame in his chest and had made up in a...variety of ways. "I failed you, and that's okay. I'm going to be making it up to you for the rest of my life."

"I don't think it's going to take that long, Gerard." She had a smile on her face and it was the sort of smile that always made Gerard just a bit scared for his life. It was the smile that Elody had whenever she knew something that Gerard decidedly was in the dark about. "But if this is the deal, then let's shake on it." She carefully extracted her hand from Gerard's grasp to hold it out in front of her.

He couldn't remember a bet he was happier to make, nor one that he was hoping to lose as much as this one.

Chapter Text

It was the fifteenth of the first month of the year and Gerard's hands seemed to be perpetually, horribly damp.

No matter how many times he would swipe them off on his pants--which were a nice set of jeans that he had picked out solely on Rosamund's advice--they were perpetually sweaty. It wasn't the sort of display of a well put together man who could absolutely step up to help his wife run their entire kingdom that he wanted (needed) to present.

Elody had allowed him to choose where they should meet up first, considering that she knew he would be getting out into the community that he lived in. He had the better half of a month to get the house set up and the basics of his new life established. It hadn't been the worst way to pass the time, it was nice to catch up with Timothy after everything had fallen into their chosen endings.

Turns out the man had decided to stick around to help other people with their true paper and ink, as well as to gossip. Really, Gerard was surprised how much Timothy knew about so many different circles, and it helped pass the time as they did their best to set up the flat-packed furniture that Gerard had purchased.

It was also how he found his current favorite cafe, the one that he sat in while waiting for his wife to show up. Timothy had recommended it to him and Gerard had ended up trying it out on a whim during one late night when he couldn't sleep without thinking about how small his bed felt now that Elody wasn't there beside him. The cafe turned out to be an all night one, meaning that they had certainly seen worse than a long haired man in pajamas sit at a table with his head in his hands for a few hours in the middle of the night.

The barista was a pretty, kind, young man, efficient and Gerard could respect it considering one of his arms was perpetually stuck as a glorious white swan's wing. It obviously didn't have the same sort of usability that a hand did, and Gerard empathized with how hard it was to have distinctly nonhuman hands when you needed to do human things. Even if a frog's hands were more...suitable to doing things, the webbing still had been a trouble to work around for everything that wasn't wielding a sword.

He had a slowly cooling take away cup of coffee in front of him, just in case Elody changed her mind last minute and he ended up looking like a fool for sitting alone at a table. It didn't help that he had long since memorized how his wife liked her coffee and so had bought one for her. Which was certainly going to add to looking pretty sad if Elody didn't end up showing up and then Gerard was just sitting at a table with two drinks in front of him.

Even if he was a solid thirty minutes before when Elody was due to show up, and he knew that there was no reason for Elody to be early when she was still in charge of kingdom. He couldn't expect her to show up early, he knew that his wife was punctual, but that didn't stop the worry from curdling in his stomach.

In the faint reflection of the window, he checked his appearance. It was a habit that he had only barely begun to kick, but it still caught up to him at points. It was hard to accept that his appearance was no longer dependent on the state of his relationship with Elody. There wasn't going to be any surprise patches of mucous-covered skin, or baths that ended with his head underwater for too long.

If he wanted to get a pulse on the state of his relationship, it was going to be up to him to actually ask about it.

That was part of what he had written into his story. Elody would no longer have sole responsibility over his humanity and his humanity would no longer be out of his control.

"Hey, hi, sorry for startling you-" The apology came after Gerard had jumped hard enough to almost spill his cup of coffee- "You've just been sitting here for a while, I wanted to ask if you needed another drink."

Gerard glanced up, seeing the barista that had already memorized his order in the ten times that he had shown up at the same time every day. "Oh, Benjamin, it's fine. She'll be here soon enough."

"You're meeting someone here?" Gerard wasn't paying enough attention to recognize the strange tone in Benjamin's voice, though he knew that there was something distinctly there.

"Mhm," he hummed, twisting his ring around his finger. "She should be here soon." He cringed a bit at his own phrasing, he couldn't have made it sound less like Elody was showing up.

Benjamin obviously didn't seem to think that anyone was coming, he averted his eyes and nodded his head. "Alright, if you need a refill, just come up and ask. I'll give you one on the house."

"Thank you for that." Gerard was about to say more--because really, he didn't exactly have a job at this point (he was trying!) and free coffee was never something he would ever refuse--but as the bell above the door rang, all thoughts left his mind.

Elody looked just as gorgeous as the last time he saw her (which was only less than a week ago, she had dropped by to make sure everything in the house was going well, and to offer her assistance with building the furniture). Her hair had been pulled back in the way that she always put it whenever she had to do long days of paperwork, the end brushed over her shoulder so she could tangle her fingers in the ends when she was thinking.

Her face lit up when she saw Gerard and he was positive that he was absolutely no better. He stood up, almost tipping over the table as he barely caught the cups to keep them from toppling over. As she made her way through the slightly crowded cafe, Gerard moved around the edge of the table to meet her.

"Hey, I-"

"It's been so-"

"Sorry you go first-"

"No, you-"

Gerard let out an awkward laugh, fiddling with the front of his shirt as he gestured clumsily at the table. "Why don't we sit down?" He shifted slightly where he stood, doing his best to keep eye contact with her.

Elody nodded her head, sitting across from him and reaching out to hold the drink that he had bought for her. It was her favorite, darkest that it could be with two shots of espresso. Even though she preferred it with as many shots that could legally be added, Gerard only ever got her drinks with two of them. He always said that more than two and she would be up all night.

"How have you been?" It sounded awkward even to his own ears, and Gerard was glad that he had bought a drink if only to have something to do with his hands. He was sure that reaching across the table to hold her hand would probably send the wrong message, but having them in his lap would lead to him picking at a loose thread and there was no chance he'd be able to stop himself if he got started.

"I've been good, I've been busy but good." The conversation fell into an uncomfortable lull and Gerard scratched his nail along the sticker on the side of his cup. Elody laughed, hanging her head and rubbing at her temple. "This is awkward for you too, right?"

"I'm doing my best to not call you nicknames right now, Elody." He huffed out a laugh and shook his head. "How's the paperwork going, I know you've been in contact with Snowhold to make sure...you know." He didn't exactly want to get into kingdom secrets while in a public space, nor did he really want to make the conversation all about her responsibilities.

Elody made an annoyed-dissmissive gesture with her hand, rolling her eyes. "Oh, you've met them, you know how they can be. It's a bunch of absolute bullshit to slog through, but I'm slogging through it."

"You always do," Gerard supported his head with a hand as he looked at her, a slight smile curling his face. "I haven't been just lazing around myself, you know."

"Oh?" Elody arched an eyebrow at him and Gerard gave a slight chuckle.

"Well, nothing's set in stone at this point, but I have been trying to get a job at the rec center near where Timothy and I live. They had signs up looking for a fencing teacher, and while it's been a bit since I've done fencing, I do still have my book." Not on him, of course, he had intended to bring it with him but in the rush he was in to get out of the house he had forgotten it on his bedside table.

(His bedside table, which was really just a badly constructed shop class project that Ylfa had brought to him when she heard that he was using a cardboard box.)

Elody's eyes widened and Gerard felt only a slight flush of shame at that fact. Was he really that bad that him being proactive about getting a job was surprising? Well, he knew that the answer was yes but he certainly didn't like it. "That's amazing, Gerard, I can't believe either of us never thought about that. You always did like showing off your fencing forms for me."

"I still would, no matter how this whole thing ends, you will always be invited to come watch me fence."

"I would...appreciate that," Elody's words had a brief pause in them and Gerard was doing his level fucking best to not read into it. It was probably just the mutual awkwardness once again kneecapping their efforts to bridge the gap that had been created between them. "How are you liking Happly?"

"It's great, I love living next to Timothy and it's nice being able to see them all more often. Pib's been visiting from Marienne, I don't know what business he's on or if he just decided to swing by when he heard that I was staying. It's fantastic to see them all again, especially since we're no longer under a world ending threat." Because Gerard needs to put his best foot forward for this, he can't talk about the fact that his house currently looks like a glorified bachelor pad with various mismatched furniture that were picked out by six different people with extremely differing tastes.

He had to prove it that he could function as a person without any of the comforts of royalty, if not to Elody than to himself. He knew that he could survive during a battle (though survive probably was a little too generous, the scar on his chest still ached when it rained).

"I'm glad that you're not just holed up in your house, I hope you get that job at the rec center. I think you would do great teaching fencing, really, Gerard I do." She elaborated at Gerard raising an eyebrow at her. "You're good with kids, anyone could see it if they watched you interact with Pinocchio and Ylfa." Elody's words trailed off and Gerard fiddled with the ring sitting on his finger.

Children were always a topic in their marriage that neither of them wanted to talk about and both of them skirted around. Elody only thought about how her parents died when she was young and left the entire kingdom to her and Gerard could only think about how no one came looking. It wasn't for the fact that they didn't want kids that they never talked about it, but it was just never the right time.

There was always something more pressing that they needed to devote their attention to, Elody had been very firm on the fact that she didn't want to have kids unless they could dedicate the lion's share of their time to them. Gerard had been more than happy to agree to those terms, more than thrilled at the idea of being a father to Elody's children.

It was almost certain that Gerard would be the main caretaker of the children, just a silent assumption between the both of them. Even before his avoidance issues became apparent, Elody was always the one who dealt with most of the kingdom's dealings. Gerard had a decade to catch up to Elody on how to rule, and he wasn't even that interested in it. He was more than happy to be a beautiful prince consort to a gloriously intelligent and powerful woman, and to be the one taking care of their kids.

If he wanted to ask Timothy about it, which was never going to happen, then Tim would probably say something about how Gerard had never felt cared for as a child so he would want to be what he never got.

There was a reason that under no circumstances he was ever going to ask Timothy his opinion on it.

Elody's gaze flitted from the wall to the ring Gerard was worrying with. Something that Gerard hadn't even noticed was frozen melted in her gaze, a little smile quirked her lips up at the edges. "You're still wearing your ring."

"I couldn't let people think I was available. I'm still yours until at least the end of the year." He did not mention that he tried to take it off and felt utterly naked without it, how his hand perpetually went to the empty strip of skin searching for something that had simply always been there for him. Even when he had been transforming into a frog he had never taken it off, until his fingers had deformed and changed to the point that it was impossible.

All he did was continue to twist the ring in a way that he hoped was more casual than self-soothing.

Without his permission, his gaze dropped to Elody's own hand. She was still wearing her ring, though Gerard couldn't read that much into it. The ring was as much a symbol of Greenleigh as it was for their union, it had been her mother's before her and her mother before that.

(Something twisted in his stomach at the thought of Elody keeping the ring on her finger even when marrying someone new. At the thought of some other ruler slipping the delicate gold band onto her finger while repeating the same vows that Gerard had.)

Elody snorted, rolling her eyes a little. "I'm sure that it wouldn't stop any would-be suitors from approaching you."

Gerard couldn't stop himself from laughing, full bellied and head tilted back at the idea of anyone approaching him. "Well even if it didn't, I would very politely turn those suitors down and tell them that I'm still very much entangled for at least eleven more months." Not that he could see himself marrying again after Elody, even in the rarest case of someone wanting him. Elody was his best friend, and he couldn't see himself getting as close with another person as he was with her.

To marry someone who wasn't his best friend was impossible to him. It would be unfair to anyone who he would be marrying, to have them be in a perpetual second place to Elody. He loved and cared for Elody and that above all was why he needed to prove to the both of them that he could do just as much for her as she could for him.

She sighed, a sweet sound that had Gerard fiddling with the ring again, and leaned back in her chair. There were a few wrinkles around her eyes that came out when she smiled, ones that Gerard had rather fond memories of kissing. There was something he found utterly and intoxicatingly attractive about his wife, and he had to look to the side to stop himself from saying something that he knew he would regret.

"I'm glad we decided to meet up, Elody," Gerard smiled, inclining his head a little towards her slowly cooling drink. "I would certainly enjoy it if you drank your coffee. I'm not trying to offend you or anything, but I figured you would need it."

Elody screwed her face up in a scowl, nose scrunching up and eyebrows drawing together the way they always did when she was purposefully trying to look put out. "Oh, shut up, Gerard, I'm doing fine."

"Uh-huh, and how many shots of espresso were in your coffee this morning?" It was far too easy to slip back into the old routines and old jokes, and Gerard couldn't exactly find himself upset with it. Why shouldn't he be able to joke around with his best friend? It wasn't like they were going to never see each other again if they did decide to divorce. Gerard forcing himself to keep his wife at professional arms' length would only do damage to their marriage.

(And besides, what sort of best friend would he be if he didn't gently chide her about her frankly dangerous levels of caffeine consumption.)

Elody paused, holding her cup almost at her lips. "I am choosing to delicately refuse to answer that question."

Gerard snorted into his cup of coffee.

Elody inhaled slowly as she took a sip of her coffee, eyes squinting with her smile as she stared over the lip at him. "You remembered."

"Of course I did." It was simple, to him at least. His wife enjoyed coffee to keep her awake, he was her husband. Of course he would know how she liked her coffee. "I know it doesn't have as many espresso as you prefer-"

"-The chefs have actually restrained me, they refuse to put anymore than one shot in a drink." Elody winked at him over the cup, taking another long drink. "This is the most I've gotten this month."

Gerard let out a faux-wounded sound, pressing a hand against his chest and laying back in his chair as though he had been grievously wounded. "You're just using me because I'll get you espresso."

"It's one of your many good attributes, Gerard, I'm not going to deny it." Elody smiled around the edge of her cup, sighing softly as she set it down. "Gerard, I really liked meeting with you. I'm glad that you're having a nice time in Happly and that things are working out for you, but-"

"-But the kingdom also needs you." Gerard nodded his head, unsurprised and only slightly disappointed. He always figured that their meeting would end whenever Elody was called away on business, and he had made his peace with that. He was really just happy he could have her ear and sole attention for a while, even with their current situation. Far be it for him to keep her from doing her very important job, especially when one of the fundamental failings of their relationship in their first life was because Gerard ignored the wolves at the door.

(He didn't think that Snowhold would pose the same threat here, everyone was far too busy with their paper and ink to make largely aggressive moves like trying to invade. Still, that didn't make international relations any easier. Everyone wanted something, and Greenleigh was situated on a very lovely parcel of land that had high connections to various fairies and witches.

Something that Gerard had never quite gotten comfortable with, but at the very least he could recognize that he couldn't do anything about it without causing an incident or even a generational curse.)

He slowly stood up, holding his mostly empty coffee cup. There was a bubbling urge to bend down and kiss the crown of her head, which was something that he cannot do. It was easier to remember that their relationship was on hold when she wasn't in front of him, it was much harder to remember that he couldn't kiss her or hold her waist or rest his chin on her shoulder.

Chapter Text

It was the month of love and Gerard was still waking up alone.

He was fine with that, really. Not only was this his idea, but he knew that while dealing with Snowhold, Elody probably wouldn't have been coming to bed regularly anyway. His memories of that first timeline were always vaguely dormant unless he called upon them, but he could still remember what it felt like to wake up to an empty bed. Sometimes he would be restless before falling asleep, and find himself wandering.

Every single time, he would always wander his way to Elody's office and find her passed out over her papers. Gerard never carried her away from her work, never wanted to do something that bold, but there was a reason that Elody's office had a pillow and blanket hidden in a chest. If his wife couldn't come to bed, the least that he could do for her was make sure she didn't wake up with a sore neck.

It was the month of love, more specifically it was the day after the day of love, and Gerard had changed their meeting spot.

The cafe was completely decorated with red and pink and white, heart decorations spiraling down from the ceiling at regular intervals, and little heart-shaped confetti scattered around on each and every table. It would be a pretty damn bold move to take his wife their marriage was technically on pause to a place that shoved love in their face at every turn.

(Which was more than a little sad, for him personally. Gerard had always loved celebrations of love, mostly because they gave him an excuse to get as disgusting with his public affection as possible. The amount of times he had gently led--or been led by--Elody into a vacant hallway for a brief tryst. He had to put propriety first, though, and he couldn't justify putting Elody in that awkward of a position.

Though, he had visited that cafe the previous day in order to take advantage of the limited time options. There had been a strange smudge of ink on the side of his cup, but he figured his sweat from working out at the rec center had wiped off his name on the side of the cup.)

Instead of sitting down at a cafe, surrounded by people who's relationships aren't currently balancing on a tightrope, Gerard decided that it would be for the best if they went somewhere a little less densely populated.

There was a beautiful park a short trip away from where he and Tim lived, one that was big enough and had enough trails that no one would need to come near them. It would be easy to keep their little meeting for themselves, not needing to hide their voices and that any inner dealings of Greenleigh could be talked about candidly.

(And of course, Gerard made sure to pick a path that would keep them far away from any ponds or marshes on the property. No need to set them up for failure so soon.)

Gerard waited at the entrance to the park, tapping his foot on the ground as he searched for a familiar face. He had a repackaged box of chocolates, one that he had bought for a discounted post-celebration price and then tore the red and pink packaging off so it didn't seem like he was changing his mind suddenly on their deal. He just noticed that the box had some of Elody's favorites, and well his recently acquired job at the rec center paid well enough that he could certainly excuse a small frivolous purchase like that.

It wasn't long that he was kept waiting, not that he expected Elody to make himself wait. She was in something far more casual than he had last seen her, not having come straight from organizing political stuff. Her hair had been braided back, complicated and decorative in a style that Gerard knew that she had most certainly bitched about before. A short thrill ran through him at the idea of Elody purposefully wanting to look attractive for him, but he quickly dismissed it.

For all he knew, Elody was dressed up like that for something that she had to attend to after Gerard, and the occasion were just scheduled so tightly together that she needed to be ready before as opposed to waiting for after. There was a high likelihood that Elody needed to meet with someone after him, and that she didn't go through the effort of one of the more annoying (but equally more beautiful) hairstyles.

"Gerard!" She grinned at him, striding across the grass to meet him. "How has it been?"

He smiled at her, looking up and fiddling slightly with the box. "It's been good, I got that job I mentioned last time. The one at the rec center." It was only when he heard the faint riiip of cheap cardboard that he presented her with the chocolates. "Please don't read into this."

Elody blinked, a bit off put by the sudden thrust of a box into her hands. The box was still heart shaped, despite all of the red foil being carefully taken off, and it was pretty obvious what it was. "Gerard-?"

"I had money to spare, I had money to spare and I noticed that the chocolates had caramel in them and I remembered that those are your favorite. And I bought them earlier today because they were discounted because it's after the whole day and stuff. This isn't- a thing, we don't need to make this a thing, you know? I just wanted to get you something nice, because you deserve nice...things." Gerard clapped his hands, mostly to stop himself from talking. Elody didn't seem like she was about to throw the box of chocolates in a nearby trash can, so he tried to count that as a win.

"Gerard, I wasn't going to take it as a thing." Elody smiled as she said it, tucking the box into her bag and resting her hand on Gerard's shoulder. "We're friends, you can give me presents if you want to. Honestly, you don't have to justify things like this to me, we're friends."

"Oh!" Gerard said, rather eloquently in his opinion. "Oh, okay, that sounds good. Do you, why don't we take that walk?"

It wasn't as though Elody was obviously a Queen, and he doubted that most people in Happly paid much attention to the goings-on of Greenleigh to the point where they would recognize the Queen and King-Consort of the nation on sight. Especially since no one had done a royal painting of them since they had gotten married, and neither of them were in anything close to regal garb.

Gerard was wearing what he normally wore to work, simple pants and a white cotton shirt that would wash out easily. Elody was dressed in what she always referred to as her hunting outfit, though Gerard had never known her to be a real hunter. Not that he ever had anything to do with that realm of the world, hunters always had dogs and Gerard...was less than comfortable being surrounded by barking hounds.

"Of course, why don't you tell me about how you got that job of yours." Elody took him by the arm, just like how she did whenever they needed to make an appearance at balls. Her hand gently wrapped around his bicep, thumb positioned right to the side of a very tender nerve in his arm that he had seen her use against numerous people who tried anything against her.

He knew full well that she could bring him to his knees very easily just by sliding her thumb a little bit and digging it in. However, he wasn't exactly scared by it. If Elody wanted him on his knees there were far easier ways to achieve that.

"Well, it's not exactly an interesting story. I went in for the interview and they gave me the job. I've only taught three classes at this point, but I'm rather enjoying it." Gerard led the both of them onto the predetermined path. According to the map, it was one that was rarely traveled, basically ensuring that they wouldn't be interrupted. "Really, the job is great. The kids are excited to learn, it's nice."

Elody nodded her head, thumb rubbing up and down his inner bicep as she stared at the trees slowly blocking out the sun. "I'm glad you found something you enjoy, Gerard."

"I do enjoy it, more than I actually thought that I would." Gerard watched the small songbirds flit from branch to branch, and reminded himself that songbirds were not a predator of frogs. "The kids are better to work with than I expected them to be, they all get really excited when I grab stuff with my tongue." He remembered having to break up a fight via snatching the rapiers out of their hands and reracking them.

It dissolved the fight very quickly, but then everyone was asking him to grab their rapiers and the class got off track for longer than Gerard wanted to admit.

Elody let out a little hum, a grin teasing at the corners of her lips. "I'm sure that makes you feel fantastic, doesn't it?" She leaned into him enough to make him have to step to the side in order to steady himself. "Having all those young impressionable minds looking up to you?"

Gerard laughed, leaning his own weight back on her to make her stumble. "It's incredibly stressful, I mean we all are holding weapons. Sure, the sabres are tipped with a cap to make sure that no one gets seriously hurt, but you'd be surprised at how determined twelve year olds are to hurt each other. It's like I can't even turn my back on them for a second if I don't want them to just start attacking each other without any respect for the art of fencing."

A sympathetic hum and Elody rested her head on his shoulder. "Well, I don't think I've heard of any child murder in Happly in any of my meetings, so I think that you've been doing a rather good job of keeping them from killing each other."

"I'm so glad you think so highly of me." Gerard rested his head on top of hers as they made their way deeper down the path.

The park was gorgeous, even in February. It was only the slightest bit cold, a bit of a nip biting at his nose and other extremities, but not enough to discourage them from taking the long way around the park. The trees were still bare, but the overlapping branches were enough to give a bit shade from the sun. There was only the barely bit of snow still on the ground from a small flurry in the week past, making their individual boot prints stark against the ground.

They walked in silence for a bit, both of them enjoying the silence and the walk in nature. It was similar-though not exact-to when Gerard would gently cajole her out of the castle in order to walk around the gardens at night. Towards the end of that first timeline, those occasions became rarer and rarer as the war with Snowhold began to come to the forefront of everyone's mind.

(He still tried, even if he was never taken up on the offer.)

"I'm....Gerard, I'm very happy that you've found a job that you enjoy." Elody patted his chest with a hand, and Gerard got the briefest flash of the past.

(It was an awkward conversation, the first night they coupled and Gerard had no idea what to do with his new body. There were two neat scars running underneath his pectorals where there hadn't been before and he was far more familiar with her anatomy than he was with his own. They had figured it out eventually, of course, but the first night was more than a little awkward for  Gerard.)

"I never thought that I'd have as much fun teaching as I am, I always figured that I'd get overwhelmed and want to quit within the day." And truth be told, Gerard had gotten close one or two times. The class was larger than he had expected to be thrust into, but he supposed that in a town like they were, anything was interesting enough to warrant a high turnout.

According to Timothy, it was because it had been announced that The Frog Prince, that one of Destiny's Children, had signed up to teach the class, but Gerard couldn't understand that. The biggest achievement he made in the last battle was grabbing someone with his tongue and eating them alive, not a lot to do with his skills with fencing.

"You've always been pretty good at ignoring what people think." The conversation hit a sudden and awkward pause before Elody gave a breathless laugh. "God, sorry, Gerard that came out a lot meaning than I wanted it to. I just meant that you wouldn't be the type to get upset if you're being heckled by a bunch of kids."

"There's actually a surprising lack of heckling, it's mostly infighting between the kids themselves. I need to actually start demonstrating some of my more advanced techniques to get them to stop fighting with each other."

"You show them the classic Two Eels for Supper and they all quiet down?" Elody laughed, right next to his ear, and Gerard knocked his hip into hers.

"That's actually a very beginner move, I don't blame you for not knowing it." Gerard adopted his most pompous voice, patting her hand condescendingly. "I prefer to show them a more high level move such as Stone Falls from the Mountain, which while it has a similar name, is very different from the move Stones Falling from the Mountain."

Elody covered her mouth and failed to stifle her laugh. "Oh, I'm sure. Extremely different."

Gerard's hand drifted down to settle on the pommel of his sword. Despite the Times of Shadow being over, Gerard still made sure that he was armed at all times. It wasn't some bulky broadsword like Veritas, just a simple fencing foil that had been sharpened to the point of being a true weapon. "Would you like to see?"

"Of course I would." Elody grinned and carefully unlinked their arms, gesturing in front of them for Gerard to show off.

He was very used to showing off for his wife, even before the war he had an interest in fencing. It was a simple but pretty way to exercise and he enjoyed it when she would visit him in the middle of his training and watch. Elody was always fantastic at sneaking up on him, even in all of her armor, and Gerard couldn't count on one hand the amount of times he turned around to set his foil back on the rack onto to see his wife had been sitting there for who knew how long.

(He was always sweaty afterwards and she would run her fingers through his hair as they made their way back to whatever nearest room was empty.)

"I'm going to need a bit more room if I want to show off without hitting a tree. If I'm right, there should be a clearing just a little ways away." Gerard tilted his head up to see if there was any evidence of that being true. Sure enough, at the end of the trail there was a wide, sunny clearing with a few sawed off tree stumps clustered at the edges where they hadn't yet been cleared away.

When they got there, Elody seemed more than happy to perch on top of one of them. Her elbows resting on her knees and her chin resting on her palm as she openly stared at him. She inclined her head a little. "Well, why don't you show me what you've been teaching the kids?"

"We haven't reached this part in the curriculum. I don't think I'd be able to keep them from getting hurt if I had an entire room of them doing the same technique." The kids weren't stupid, kids rarely were, but with the assurance of safety and a teacher they seemed to be deadset on seeing where the boundaries were. Many of them were surprisingly disappointed to find out that one of the boundaries was to not attack each other with the foils.

Gerard thought he had been pretty clear on the fact that they were just practicing the forms at that point, but apparently not. It seemed like every single class at least one group needed to have a fight separated.

With a few practice swings of his sabre, Gerard began to slowly go through the motions of Stone Falls from the Mountain. Generally characterized by a sharp jab angled upwards towards the soft spot between the collarbones and then a series of swift jabs descending downwards alternating left and right. Of course, he vocalized it as he moved through the motions.

"Now, the name may sound similar, but like I told you, it is very distinct from Stones Falling from the Mountain. There's a lot more jabbing in that move, as well as it requiring moving into the person's personal space to push them further backwards. It's a far more aggressive move, one that's mostly used for actual fighting rather than sparring. Which means that under no circumstances am I allowed to teach it to children."

Elody laughed from where she was sitting, fully leaning her weight into her knees as she watched him. "I don't know, I think you could teach it to them."

"I teach it to them and when the parents come yelling at me, I'll just tell them that Lady Elody of Greenleigh told me that it was okay. I will be putting all of the blame on your shoulders." Gerard had to look over his shoulder to catch her eye, and was almost knocked off of his feet by the affection in them. He wasn't going to assume it was love, especially not when he had seen that love back when they were kids and he was a frog and she was an especially lonely girl.

She always found him funny, and he always enjoyed making her laugh.

(Gerard was more than just slightly ashamed of the fact that it had been so long since he had last made her laugh like that. During the war with Snowhold, any of his attempts ended with her giving a token laugh to appease him and then going back to the important work that he had been trying to drag her away from. That was also around the time that she stopped coming to watch him train in favor of practicing with her broadsword against her actual knights.

But he didn't let that get to him. It was a nice day, in a nice park, and Gerard was different now. He let himself just be happy that he could still make her laugh at all.)

"You see, Gerard, you could do that. But no one would believe you. They'd come to me and they'd ask me if I really said that, and I would say no absolutely not." She shook her head, lips slightly pursed against a smile. "No one would believe that the ruling queen of Greenleigh would encourage children being taught how to attack each other with swords."

"That's just because they don't know you like I do!" Gerard laughed as he sheathed his sword back at his side.

"Their loss." Elody shrugged her shoulder, laughing into her hand as she stood up. "I can't believe your first instinct would be to throw me to the wolves."

"It's very simple, E, I really like this job and I'm not going to lose it because I allowed my best friend to convince me that letting kids try to kill each other is a good idea."

"They wouldn't try to kill each other-"

"Elody, I promise you. They absolutely would. Already I have enough issues with keeping them from secretly taking the tips off of the foils, if I actually taught them ways to kill each other they would."

She snorted and moved to his side again, slipping her hand into his and giving it a little squeeze. "This park is really nice, Gerard."

He leaned into her, almost automatically. "I'm glad you liked it, I wanted to make sure that we were away from all the-" he broke off in favor of vaguely gesturing in the air and sort of towards the box of chocolates that Elody had- "You know what I mean. And I remembered that you always liked walking in the gardens. It's nowhere near as well kept as the ones at the castle, but I think it's pretty passable."

"It's nice, reminds me of where we met." Elody grinned at him, eyes crinkling at the edges. "Without all the birds."

It was strange for Gerard to remember that the worst time of his life was simultaneously the best. Elody had found him and they had become best friends, but at the end of the day Elody always got to leave the pond. It took a few months for Gerard to even convince her to take him back with her, and for those months Gerard had been terrified that in between visits he would end up getting devoured and never see Elody again.

"There's a pond somewhere in the park, I just figured that it might be better to have a calmer walk." Because Gerard knew that he couldn't control wildlife, and there was too high of a chance that there would be frogs and herons at the pond. There was also a higher chance of people being there, and that was what he clung to as his excuse. He just didn't want to get seen in public with Elody.

(The rumor mill really was absolutely ruthless, Timothy had kept him caught up on anything that had to do with Greenleigh.)

Elody caught his eye, eyebrows just slightly furrowed before she nodded her head. "Well, I can't speak for you, but I had a great time today."

"I'm glad." Gerard once again found himself fighting the urge to press a kiss to her hairline. For as much as they could joke around and tease each other, he felt like he at least needed to draw some boundaries for their deal. It wasn't that he thought Elody would be upset, it was more the principle of the thing. "Is that your way of nicely saying that you have somewhere else to go?"

"I mean, I don't exactly have anywhere to be. It's just that I'm pretty sure if we stay out much longer, the chocolates are going to melt." Elody patted her bag. "I really appreciate them, Gerard."

"And you promise you're not going to read into it?" He felt distinctly like how he expected Pinocchio and Ylfa did whenever they did the Gerard you can't get mad bit.

"I'm not reading into it. It's just a nice gift from one friend to another." Elody squeezed his hand as slowly they began to turn around and go back the way that they came.

The journey back was much quieter, both of them seemed content to walk through the trees and only occasionally break the silence to point out something pretty on the side of the path. Usually a flower, one that Gerard had a sixty percent chance of being able to correctly identify after so long of hanging out with Rosamund. After enough camping trips that she took with Ylfa that ended early because the girl ate a flower that she absolutely shouldn't have, she had decided that everyone in Destiny's Children needed to be able to identify plants.

Gerard was more than a little proud of the fact that he had picked it up pretty well, even if he was sort of cheating. Frogs had a much better stomach than humans when it came to eating things that were deadly, and that was one of the boons that Gerard had opted to keep even after turning back into a human. Which always annoyed Rosamund because she would point out that something was poisonous and immediately Pinocchio and Ylfa would be ganging up on him to convince him to try and eat it.

(He was definitely proud of the fact that he only had to get the poison magically cleansed from him once.)

They had spent a little more time in the park than Gerard had expected, and when they exited from the forest the sun was beginning its slow creep down towards the horizon. The shadows hadn't quite gotten long, but the air was cooler than ever and there was a slight breeze rustling the tips of the trees.

For it being their second meeting after Gerard had proposed getting a full divorce, he was hopeful. Definitely more hopeful than he thought he would be when he first asked for the divorce, but not enough to call the entire thing off. No matter how nice it would be to get out of the house that was empty unless his friends visited and return back to their marriage bed, it had become a point of pride.

For all that he had lost in terms of his ego and pride while adventuring, Gerard was not going to make it look like he couldn't survive on his own without his wife and his castle there to support him. If he could sleep on the road while traveling with his friends, he could manage a two bedroom house in suburbia. Besides, he had a year contract with the rec center and he didn't need it getting out that King-Consort Gerard of Greenleigh just left a rec center of underprivileged kids hanging without a fencing teacher.

The entire purpose of this shit was to prove to himself and Elody that he could function as her equal and not just some pretty on call boytoy. Sure he could absolutely fulfill the latter, but he wanted to make it clear that what happened in the first timeline wouldn't happen again. No matter what happened in terms of danger, he would step up and be able to carry some of the weight along with her.

He wouldn't take it from her entirely, but he would be there.

"Thank you, for everything Gerard. Really." Elody smiled up at him as they paused before her carriage. "You didn't have to go out of your way for me."

"Of course I did."

Elody paused at that, looking him up and down like the mid-afternoon light was somehow making him look different. She was silent for a few more seconds before smiling a little softer. "Stay in touch, okay Gerard?" And she rose up slightly to press a kiss to his cheek before leaving in her carriage.

Gerard did not know how long he stood there, staring blankly at the empty space that Elody had vacated. All he knew was that in between one moment and the next, the shadows had grew slightly and Elody was gone. His cheek felt like it was on fire when he slowly raised his hand up to feel where she had kissed him.

The park was just a small walk away from his home, and Gerard felt himself mechanically move all the way home while still not quite in his body. The only thing he could think of was the amount of time that had to go into braiding Elody's hair and how Elody said that she had nothing else to do that day. He didn't exactly look at the obvious conclusion, but it hovered around the peripheral of his mind as he went through his afternoon tasks.

At the very least he didn't have to cook dinner, Timothy had invited him over to celebrate something that happened at school for Ylfa. Which was good because Gerard was pretty sure he would end up burning the food or setting fire to his house if he tried to cook for himself.

(And if, at the dinner, he refused to explain why his mind seemed to be elsewhere, then that's his own business.)

Chapter Text

Gerard always figured that if either of them were going to call off a meeting first, it would be Elody.

Not for any sinister reason, but she was the one out of them who had the biggest likelihood of something coming up. Gerard expected that eventually the kingdom would need attending in a way that could not be avoided or rescheduled, and he would be left with a free day instead of being able to spend time with his wife. Which, of course, wasn't something that he minded. His wife had a very important job, and Gerard knew her enough to know that if she did put the kingdom on pause to meet with him she would be distracted the entire time.

The idea of missing out on one meeting was fine, especially since they had negotiated that sending messages back and forth was fine.

Gerard did not expect that his job would be the one that got in the way first.

Perhaps he should have, he did have a lot stricter of a schedule when it came to his job. Couldn't skip out, considering the kids' parents were paying pretty good money to have their kids get taught for a set amount of time. It was truly his first experience with a job that had a regimented time--there were no minimum wage jobs in the pond and arranging balls and meeting with diplomats wasn't exactly something that needed scheduled breaks.

He hadn't gone to work that day with the intent to miss out on his meeting with his wife, in fact he had already rescheduled it for a little later with the intent of finishing up at work and being able to take Elody out to a nice dinner.

(Perhaps it was skirting a little close to dating, but really if neither of them minded then it didn't matter. Right? Yeah, that was how it worked. Gerard just wanted to take his best friend out to a dinner that she didn't have to be dressed up for and that he could actually pay for.)

He hadn't expected everything to go wrong, group after group.

The first group of the day ran late because a small coalition of the children had decided that if they all got on each other's shoulders they would be able to ambush him. Gerard had panicked lept up into the rafters to save himself from what he thought was a genuine attack, only to realize that all three of them had grabbed onto him and were dangling from his foot.

Trying to get them safely onto the floor without falling from his precarious position on top of a rather thin rafter was harder than Gerard wanted to admit. The solution ended up involving him latching onto the rafter with his legs and transferring the kid's hand from his ankle to his hand and slowly lowering them safely to the ground. Which only worked for the lower two, he had to hold the third to his chest and hop down to make sure that they wouldn't get hurt.

And that had happened at the very end of class, meaning that by the time that the parents came to pick their children up, he was hanging upside down from the ceiling and a kid was still holding onto him. Definitely wasn't the best way to send the kids off, but in his defense the kids who ended up dangling from the ceiling all seemed entirely enthused with the situation.

The second group was only a little easier, and that was the time slot where one of the kids actually got injured.

It hadn't been big, but Gerard still had to make a note to the parent and carry the kid to the nurse--which in turn required him to wait for a coworker to come by so he didn't leave a group of schoolchildren entirely unattended while he took one to the nurse. It was just a bruise, and the kid didn't even sit out for the rest of the session despite Gerard telling them that it would have been completely understandable if they had.

(Of course, he also made sure to keep an eye on the kid who had injured them. Sure, it looked like an accident but Gerard had heard stories from Ylfa about how crafty cruel children could be, and there was just no sure way to tell other than watching.

Thankfully, it did indeed seem to be an accident. Gerard was pretty sure he heard the kid say that the injured one could get them back, whatever that meant.)

The last group, the one that Gerard always figured was his most well behaved of the three, was also the worst. And the main reason that he was currently ten minutes late to their reservation at the restaurant. It had been an entirely innocent accident, and Gerard couldn't find it in him to blame the kids, but at the end of the day the result was still the same.

The entire rack of fencing foils had been toppled over and everything had gone everywhere. The bulk of the rack had slammed against the weights that Gerard had specifically vouched for, knocking that over and spilling the weights across the floor. Thankfully it hadn't broken the mirror--he was pretty sure Odette would kill him considering that they shared the room. It had happened at the very end, meaning that most of the kids were already out of the room and he couldn't in good conscious make the kid stay behind to clean it up, so the task was left to him. Some of the tips of the foils had popped off and rolled across the floor, leaving Gerard on the ground trying to reach underneath one of the cabinets to try and grab at it.

And because his luck was rotten, and most certainly because somehow Timothy Goose had something to do with it, that was when he heard a soft, badly muffled laugh from the doorway.

In a distinctly undignified manner, Gerard turned his head around while still remaining on the ground to see that Elody was standing in the doorway to the training room. He removed his arm from underneath the cabinet and rolled to be no longer kneeling on the ground with his ass in the air.

"Elody! How did you know where I work?" He was pretty sure that she never learned more than just the fact that he worked at the rec center closest to where Timothy lived, he didn't really expect her to know where Timothy lived either. Sure he had mentioned it in passing once or twice, but he never actually expected her to pay attention like that.

"I asked Timothy." She stayed against the door frame, hip cocked to lean her weight onto it. "He was more than happy to tell me where I could find you when you weren't at the restaurant."

"You've been in contact with Timothy?" It wasn't like Gerard had an issue with it, honestly he was glad that Elody was making friends with his friends. It was just that Tim hadn't said a single goddamn thing about being in contact with his wife. His wife that, mind you, he had been talking about nonstop over drinks every weekend. The old man had too much on him for him to be comfortable knowing that he was going behind his back to gossip with his wife.

"Only here and there, he's been doing a lot to help people out with their Paper and Ink and I wanted to keep myself aware of that. Sometimes when I'm in court, I'll have people come up to ask me about it and it is nice to be able to recommend people to if they're concerned."

"I'm sorry about standing you up, E, just everything decided to go wrong today." He had to push himself to his feet, grimacing at the feeling of his joints popping. "I don't think we're going to make the reservation. I still have to clean up all of this stuff and then lock up, I'm sorry."

"It's okay, you definitely didn't expect for this to happen." She pushed off of the wall and moved to the overturned rack. "I'm fine with just helping you clean up."

"Elody, you don't have to do that." But really, Gerard knew better than to really dedicate himself to arguing with her. If she wanted to help him, then she would in fact be helping out. Any attempts that he made to keep her from helping would end up nowhere. "You can go back to the castle if you want to."

"Well, I don't want to. I think you're going to just have to be stuck with me for a little longer today." Elody hummed as she passed him, beginning to scoop up the scattered foils. "It's a very nice center, Gerard, I might have to come visit more often."

"I'm sure whatever we have to offer, you can get a hundred times better at the castle."

"No, not really." The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he registered Elody staring at him. "I think that this rec center is just fine."

"It's- it's like okay I guess. I don't want to speak ill of the place that I work, but I mean there are absolutely things that need to get fixed. Elisa has been complaining about the lack of promotion for her sign language classes, and I'll be honest I think that someone's been ripping down her advertisements." Gerard let his voice drop into a register that Elody always referred to as his pettiest register. Low and whispery as though it's of the utmost importance that no one else overhears.

Elody gasped, even though she had absolutely no context for anything that Gerard was saying. It was their little routine; Gerard would find out some secret court drama and Elody would gasp and nod at all the right places. "What makes you think that?"

"It's a very long story, but the thing is that Elisa was encouraged to start the sign language classes by her boyfriend. Now, her boyfriend's family hates her because they're convinced that she's a witch and has fully charmed him. Which is ridiculous, Elisa is such a sweet woman, she's been teaching me sign language so she doesn't have to use her communication board to talk with me."

It had been a surprise for Gerard to learn that she was Benjamin's brother, though they didn't really talk about either of their families. He knew that she saw the ring on his finger and also that she knew he lived alone, and he knew that there was a reason that she always practiced sewing when she was on her break. They both preferred to talk about the present, rather than the past, and Gerard could respect that.

"And you think that it's his family who's been tearing the papers down?" Elody frowned slightly, grunting softly with exertion as she turned right the weight rack that had been knocked over.

(Really, if it didn't mean that he missed his reservation, Gerard would have been impressed at just how much chaos a group of children could cause in a single day. On the other hand, it did give him an excuse to look at his very strong wife out of the corner of his eye as he made sure that the sabres weren't broken. If they were, then he had a much bigger issue.)

"That's what she thinks, and really I wouldn't be surprised. I haven't exactly met them, but I've come in to work one day and overheard them yelling at her before Elisa's boyfriend got them out. I don't know what they think they're doing, yelling at a deaf woman." Gerard made a distinctly disgusted noise in the back of his throat. "I'm just happy that you came when none of that stuff was happening."

"Instead I just came in on you half crawling underneath a cabinet." Elody flashed him a grin that almost weakened his knees. "I'm glad that you've been making friends, you really do seem to be having a good time here in Happly." For the briefest of flashes, Gerard thought that there was something melancholy on her face but within a blink it was gone.

He was probably just seeing things.

"Someone has to teach the kids how to fight each other, at least I can make sure they're doing it somewhere safe." Gerard knew full well that the kids he was teaching would one hundred percent be fighting each other regardless. He was just giving them an outlet for it, something that their parents would approve of so they could get out all of that energy.

Elody laughed a little, shaking her head as her loose hair tumbled over her shoulders. Gerard allowed himself a few seconds of staring at her muscles as she piled multiple weights in her arms in order to get more of them in one go. Distantly, he thought of a conversation he had with Henry as they waited for Tim to bring in the groceries and Henry said that Timothy never made more than one trip when bringing things back.

For the briefest moment, Gerard realized that he would have been more than happy enough if neither of them were royalty. If he got to wait in the living room of a small house while Elody went to the grocery store, that would be enough. He would have been more than happy to have a quiet life with her.

He had to rip his gaze away from his wife as he accidentally stabbed himself in the finger with one of the sabres. No blood was drawn, but it did fucking sting. "Thanks for helping me clean up, E."

"Of course, we missed the reservation but at least you'll be able to get out before the sun sets." Elody settled the weights onto the rack with a clang, sorting them from lightest to heaviest. "Are any of your coworkers still here?"

"Maybe, we all have keys to the front doors and it's sort of an unspoken rule that if you're the last one out that you're the one to lock up. I could technically stay as long as I wanted." Gerard had stayed pretty late before, just practicing his sword forms over and over again and critiquing himself in the mirror. There were a few coworkers there that he liked to hang out with, and sometimes they would bring food for everyone to eat after all the kids had gone home.

He had been invited out to a few parties and get-togethers and dinners by his coworkers but he had yet to take them up on any offer.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Elody had picked up one of the foils and was wielding it like she would a broadsword. "Maybe I'll have to visit after hours one of these days, show you up in all of your friends."

"Elody, I am not saying this from a place of anywhere but love and affection, but that would not happen. You are a wonderful swordmaster, you can wield a broadsword better than any I've ever seen, and you are truly a force to behold on the battlefield." Gerard moved up behind her, slipping his hand against hers on the grip of the rapier. "But fencing is much different from a broadsword."

"I've been fighting with a variety of swords, not just the broadsword." Elody shoved her elbow into his gut and Gerard made a wounded noise in the back of his throat as he reeled away. "You're not the only one here who can fence."

"I'm not saying that I am, I was just saying that you were swinging that around like it had the weight to do damage. Elody, you're strong, but a foil would bend far before you could actually slice a head off." There was something a little funny about the thought of Elody whirling at someone with a delicate foil.

"Why don't you show me?"

Gerard almost dropped the foil he was holding on the ground. Fencing had always been his little side hobby, something that he did whenever Elody was busy off doing actually important things. Something to occupy his time so he wasn't dogging at her heels and taking up space in the meeting room, and god forbid if anyone tried to actually engage him for what he thought about it.

He always figured that fencing was his equivalent to some of the wives' embroidery or weaving. Just some fanciful hobby that kept him occupied.

"You want to learn how to fence?" Now, he wasn't besmirching the good name of fencing, but it definitely wasn't something he'd rank as something to learn if you already knew how to fight with a true weapon. "I mean, I can teach you, of course I can." He stumbled over his words for a bit as he moved to take up his own sabre.

It was a little more decorated than the ones that the kids fought with, and a bit heavier as well. It wasn't the one that he fought with, that one had to be entirely sharp and ready to slice whenever the need arose. And also needed to be kept far away from any child that wasn't Ylfa or Pinocchio, those children were fine because they had definitely handled far more dangerous stuff than his sword.

"I would, Gerard, and where else would I go to other than the best teacher in Happly." Elody grinned at him, flipping the foil in her hand until it was pointed at him.

"Your stance is off," Gerard teased, though it was definitely a staple of pride in him that there was one thing he was better at than his wife. Something that he could teach her rather than the other way around. He didn't exactly think that it would be a long term thing, at least at this point, but it was a nice idea for later. If they did end up returning to their old normal, then Gerard would be more than happy to teach her fencing.

He had to move behind her, gently correcting her stance until her weight was properly distributed and her wrist was positioned to be able to properly wield the foil with the precision that was required. It was easier than he expected for him to turn his mind off from the fact that this was his legal wife and best friend in the world and instead focus on the strictly teaching method.

It was just like he was working with one of his students, or even one of his coworkers who wanted to learn more about fencing. Just focusing on the way that Elody was leaning her weight too much on the front foot, like she expected to have the swing strength to back her up. "You have to remember that your blade will bend before you do, it's not something that can slice through bone. Your swing is secondary to your thrust."

Elody was a fantastic student, following after his instructions slowly as he walked her through one of the simpler forms. She was entirely silent, leaving the room quiet aside from the sound of their footsteps and the soft swish of the blade cutting through the air. They were stuck in the thrall of fencing (something that Gerard was very used to experiencing) until one of his coworkers had poked their head into the room.

"Gerard- oh!" Rosenrot's cheeks went as red as her hair as she looked at them. "I just saw the lights on and was wondering if you forgot to lock up. So sorry to interrupt!"

"You weren't interrupting anything." Though out of the corner of his eye, Gerard could see how their posing could be misconstrued. "I'm just teaching her how to fence."

Rosenrot let out a low hum, nodding her head with a little grin on her face. "Of course, regardless of what you're doing, Benjamin brought over coffee and some leftovers from the cafe if you want to swing by. I'd suggest getting there sooner rather than later, Vasilisa has her entourage with her and I'm pretty sure that they're all going to be picking over it like scavengers."

"Benjamin? From the cafe?" Elody turned around slightly to look at Gerard, without dislodging his arms from around her.

"Yeah, Elisa's brother. Well, one of them at least." Gerard grinned and moved back, looking around the room. It had been cleaned up rather well, definitely helped along by Elody being there. He probably would have still been cleaning up if Elody hadn't helped, and certainly wouldn't have the chance to eat any of the treats that Benjamin had so kindly bought. "He usually picks her up at the end of the day, since his shifts usually end that time of day. Whenever he can't, her boyfriend does."

"Interesting." Elody nodded her head slowly, pointing the foil towards the ground and almost leaning her weight on the sword. Quickly, she found that the sword sword was not like her broadsword. She almost stumbled forward before catching herself. "Well, I don't see any reason to not go visit. At the very least, we'll have something to eat."

It was at that moment that Gerard realized he had barely eaten that entire day. Of course he had his mandated lunch break, which was taken in the employee break room with the rest of his coworkers, but other than that he had kind of been running off of fumes. The thought of some fresh coffee and pastries from that morning sounded heavenly, especially since he knew that Benjamin always made sure Gerard's favorites were included among the bunch.

(He was only half sure that it was a coincidence, the other half was telling him that once was a coincidence but every single time was suspicious.)

"If I couldn't get you that dinner, I'm at least glad that I can treat you to something." Gerard offered his arm for Elody to take, grinning at her. "Next time, next time we'll make that reservation."

"You had a reservation?" Rosenrot's eyebrow arched high, a slight purse to her lips as she looked between them. Gerard could already see the amount of effort he'd have to put in to convince Rosenrot and the rest of his coworkers that nothing was happening between Elody and him for at least another nine months. Even telling them the first time was tough, none of them seemed to believe that they were really taking a break.

"It was just at that restaurant that opened up recently, and then the room got messed up so we had to miss it." Gerard waved it off, slightly embarrassed at having to explain it. Rosenrot was definitely not going to let this go, and if she gossiped to their coworkers then Gerard would have an entire group of nosy people digging into his business.

He had enough of that with Destiny's Children.

"That's very nice, I've heard good things about that restaurant." Rosenrot grinned wide enough that she had to chew on her bottom lip. "But come on, if you guys want to get that coffee we should go now." And without waiting for either of them to move after her, she turned on her heel and moved back down the hallway.

"Why not? I could use some coffee." Elody's smile was only slightly strained, but Gerard chalked that up to the awkwardness of them being found as close as they were. Gerard gently took the foil from her hand, noting that she had an iron grip on the handle of it, and racked it alongside his own.

"The good thing about this place is that it's pretty straightforward." Gerard took her by the wrist--specifically not taking her by the hand--and led her down the single hallway that connected most of the rooms. At this point in the afternoon, almost all of them were dark and empty and those that still had the light on were being cleaned. All of his coworkers had gathered in the break room and even from his fencing room the sounds of chatter were clear.

"Does Benjamin often come over with coffee and pastries?" Elody tilted her head, light from the florescents just barely catching on her simple circlet.

"Uh--yeah, I mean since he sometimes picks Elisa up to drive her home if her boyfriend can't. He just says that since they're a day old, the cafe won't be able to sell them and he'd rather someone eat it than it get thrown in the trash." Gerard scratched idly at his jawline, feeling the starting of stubble roughening his cheeks and resolving to remind himself to pick up a razor to take care of that.

"Interesting." Elody nodded her head, eyes glancing away from him and instead roaming the walls. There were cork boards placed regularly, full of various advertisements and offers and even a few projects that the kids had worked on and wanted to show off.

The silence that settled over them was less than comfortable, but Gerard hoped that it was just the fact that Elody was about to meet a room of Gerard's friends. All of their lives together it had always been the other way around, Gerard being a wallflower as his wife spoke to a room full of delegates and ambassadors and important people who never really looked at Gerard.

(Not that they should've, Gerard was a nobody prince that people couldn't even connect to the missing prince of the Veil of Starlight. According to popular opinion, Gerard was just some pretty boy that Elody had found and fallen in love with. Not that that was entirely incorrect, but the feeling was near oppressive during those dinners.)

And now they were about to enter a room full of people who knew Gerard well and knew next to nothing about Elody.

He was just relieved that his coworkers were generally good people who were nice to new comers, and he just had to hope that none of them looked too close at Gerard's hand or at Elody's necklace. A few of them had asked who the ring was for and Gerard had always avoided that question like the plague.

"Well look who's finally decided to show up!" Rosenrot grinned at them as they came through the door. The break room was a little crowded with all of them packed inside there, but Gerard was more than used to that. "I hoped you guys hadn't just left, I was just telling Vasilisa about you guys." She patted her hand on the mentioned woman's chest, though her gaze slid to where Benjamin was slowly putting the coffee and pastries out on the table.

Vasilisa was Rosenrot's famously beautiful wife, standing right next to her with a hand gently curled around her hipbone. She offered them up a thin smile, eyes bouncing around the room from Benjamin to Gerard and then to Gerard's hand on Elody's wrist. "Pleasure to see you again, Gerard."

Gerard nodded his head at Vasilisa as he slowly dodged and weaved his way to the back of the room. As much as he liked making small talk with his coworker's lovers, he was starving and the food was all the way in the back.

Benjamin grinned at him, already moving to hand him a coffee. His fingers lingered slightly against Gerard's on the cup. "Gerard! I was hoping that I'd be able to see you." His smile lessened slightly as he noticed Elody following after him. "Hello, I don't think we've met before."

Elody stuck her hand out, fingers twitching in the way that she always did when she wanted to take out her mace. "Queen Elody of Greenleigh, it's nice to meet you properly, Benjamin."

There was a brief awkward moment where instead of offering his hand, Benjamin almost outstretched his wing. Out of the corner of his eye, Gerard could see that everyone was looking at them with varying amount of excitement on their faces.

(He took a sip of his coffee, he had no idea that he was working with fucking vultures.)

He could see Elody tighten her grip on Benjamin's hand and hold onto the shake for just a few seconds too long before letting go. "Thank you so much for bringing pastries and coffee."

"Of course, I know how hard all of you-" his gaze trailed over the assembled coworkers and lingered on Gerard- "work, and I figured that bringing stuff that could have been thrown out and wasted would be a good idea."

Elody turned to Gerard rather suddenly. "Can you walk me to the exit? I should be getting back to Greenleigh by now."

"Oh! Oh yeah, of course Elody." Gerard set his coffee down on the table and offered his arm to his best friend. "Sorry for keeping you away from your work for so long, but I did appreciate having company to clean up my room."

Elody smiled, letting herself get led out of the room. Before she spoke, she sent a glance that Gerard almost missed over her shoulder. "I came all the way to Happly to spend time with you, Gerard. I don't mind if it's here or if it's at at a fancy restaurant."

Gerard stumbled over his words as he led Elody to the carriage that was waiting for her. As he looked over it to distract himself, he noticed the carefully done runes that would make it far faster for Elody to get wherever she wanted to go. The sun had only begun to set, but with the enchantments Elody would be able to get to Greenleigh before the moon was high in the sky.

"Next time, though, I am taking you out for that dinner." Gerard stopped in front of the carriage and nodded at the footman. "I'll see you in April, Elody."

Elody paused, movement stuttering slightly as she stopped herself from doing something. She leaned back, deciding against whatever she almost did, and nodded at him. "I will see you in April, Gerard." She entered the carriage and the moment that the doors shut, the carriage sped out of Gerard's sight.

He stayed there in the parking lot for minutes too long, until the evening chill began to creep in underneath his shirt and reminded him of the coffee he had waiting.

Chapter Text

In order to make up for last month's missed reservation, Gerard made them another at the restaurant for April. At the very least, he had the chance to have a meal there himself first to make sure that the food was good enough. If he had to make them go out of their way to make an appearance at a semi-high brow establishment, at the very least he could make sure that the food was up to par.

It wasn't going to be anywhere near the level of Elody's private chefs, but it was within Gerard's price range and a little more private than the cafe.

Gerard enjoyed the cafe! It was a nice place to hang out, and since it was always open so late it worked with his schedule. He could always visit no matter how late work ran, it was easy to bring Ylfa or Pinocchio to it after school if Timothy had asked him to pick them up. He even bought stuff from the bakery to bring to Timothy's regular Sunday brunches so that he wasn't just showing up empty handed.

(The kids thought that there were half as many brunches as there actually were. Every other brunch was just for the adults because Timothy would make mimosas and none of them wanted the sixteen year olds drinking before it was even noon.)

But Elody had seemed distinctly harried whenever she spoke with him, and Gerard wanted to do something more than just a simple coffee and treat. He wanted to block out the night, reserved them a booth in the far corner of the place so that they wouldn't be disturbed, and made sure to make sure that they had a few bottles of Elody's favorites reserved.

Whether she wanted to vent about whatever was happening in Greenleigh, or forget about it for the night, Gerard was there for whatever she needed.

He made sure to show up on time for their reservation, even if he didn't expect Elody for a few more minutes. Within the first month of moving to Happly, Timothy had impressed upon him the importance of being nice to service workers. And Ylfa, who had gotten a part time job in a diner that was further away from their houses, had cheerfully told him that if he was mean to servers that they would spit in his food.

(Gerard was very worried that she had first hand experience on that.)

So he found himself sitting at the very back of the restaurant, close enough to the kitchen doors to faintly hear the noise of cooks yelling out orders. The noise wouldn't be enough to distract them, but it would be enough to cover up their conversation from anyone who may be listening in.

Gerard had only just barely been able to persuade Timothy to make sure that none of Destiny's Children followed him to the restaurant, and it had cost him a pretty goddamn penny. The old man could've lived a great life as a highwayman, Gerard wouldn't even doubt it if he got told that that was what Timothy's original story had been. However, he knew that getting the children off of his tail for this meeting only meant that they would definitely be showing up at another one.

His only hope was to keep giving them the run around.

Elody didn't keep him waiting long, by the time that she was led to the table by the host Gerard had only just barely opened up the bottle of wine.

(Another thing that made him grateful of having a booth in the back: no one could see how much he struggled--MOMENTARILY--with trying to get the cork out of the bottle.)

While Gerard always thought that his wife was the loveliest person in the room, he was not unable to see that she was just barely keeping herself above water. Deep circles under her eyes were just barely covered up by makeup and even her aura couldn't buff away the exhaustion dragging her shoulders down. Her smile was beautiful as it always was, even if it was strained at the corners, as she slid across from him in the booth. "It's good to see you, Gerard."

Really, his wife was a sight for sore eyes. As much as he liked to tell himself that he had put all of his emotions on hold for the arrangement they had, Elody always had a funny way of making him into a liar. She was wearing the same emerald green dress that she wore out to any important meeting, delicate golden embroidery showing off faint lily pad designs woven into the fabric that were only noticeable in the right lighting. While she wasn't wearing her crown, she was wearing a delicate golden circlet--one that Gerard would bet money on being able to transform into a weapon or piece of armor. It looked for all the world like she had just come from a meeting with other rulers, a fact that made Gerard's stomach flip uncomfortably.

Suddenly, he felt under dressed in his crisp white shirt and black dress pants.

"I'm glad you could make it." He almost reached across the table to pat her hand but refrained. "You look like you've had...a go about it."

She snorted, rolling her eyes as she drummed her fingers on the table. Elody lethargically flipped through the menu, but Gerard could tell that her mind was far away.

"Do you-" Gerard stopped himself from offering to order for her- "want to talk about it?"

Elody let out a strangled laugh, shaking her head as she set the menu down. "Once the waiter takes our order, alright?"

"Of course," Gerard spoke softly, eyes darting across her face for any sign of something specific. He liked to pride himself on being able to notice when his wife was stressed about a particular thing, though in timelines past he always had the issue of willfully ignoring it and hoping that another fanciful thing would take the weight off of her shoulders. The solution was never real, but Gerard was at least somewhat reassured by the fact that he tried.

(It hadn't been enough, it hadn't even been in the right direction, but at least he wasn't blind to the fact that his wife was upset. He just did not know how to solve it.)

There was a sort of weight on her shoulders, a fidget to the way that she tugged at the napkin before laying it over her lap. She looked everywhere except for his eyes, most often her eyes would get stuck on the band on his left ring finger and her hand would twitch up towards the necklace that held her own ring.

(She was never one to wear their wedding ring on her hand, she always said that it got in her way and that she preferred to keep the ring near her heart. Of course, Gerard found that hopelessly romantic and never minded, even when other dignitaries made their opinions known.)

He had already combed through the menu before he had even gotten sat, choosing out his appetizer and his entree and his dessert and even what wine he felt would pair well with them. He couldn't control anything else, but he could make sure that he had a nice dining experience. And of course, he was pointedly ignoring the frog legs on the menu and he hoped that Elody would as well.

"Is there anything I can get you?" Their server was a young woman, probably barely a year older than Ylfa, bouncing in place as though she had a thousand other places to be and needed to get to them immediately. "My name's Atalanta, I will be your server for this evening."

"It's nice to meet you, Atalanta." Gerard smiled up at her, successfully drawing her attention away from Elody to give her some time to flip through the menu to at least find something. "I'll have a glass of the cabernet sauvignon to start and I'd like to start with the papas bravas." It was a little expensive, but he had set aside money specifically to be able to treat Elody to a nice meal. One that could hopefully stand up to her standards.

(No, don't read into that thought at all. There was nothing deeper to that thought other than Gerard being a foodie.)

Atalanta hummed and nodded her head as she whipped out a small notepad and began to jot down whatever shorthand she had. "That sounds great, and miss, what would you like?"

Elody looked up from the menu, a brief flash of a deer in the headlights look flitting across her face, "Oh, I'll- I'll have the same as him, but with the calamari instead."

"Sounds fantastic, I'll give you some more time with the menus and put your orders in." With speed faster than Gerard really felt was warranted, Atalanta sped away and took a few brief spots at her other tables before disappearing into the swinging doors of the kitchen.

Elody slumped forward onto the table, holding her head up with her hands as she stared at the menu. "I can't even begin to focus on what I want for dinner, just- order for me, alright? I trust you."

Gerard nodded his head, almost reaching over to pat her hand before restraining himself. "Of course, E." It wasn't often that he was put in charge of the menu, usually that was only for large banquets and not for personal dates for him and Elody. Elody had gotten the same wine as he did, meaning that she would definitely want something closer to steak rather than anything like white meat or fish.

He nodded his head back and forth, chewing on his bottom lip as he decided on one of the nicer steak dishes that he had been debating on ordering as well. Honestly, he figured that they would just sneak pieces off of each other's plates like they always did, and he knew that she enjoyed a hearty steak in the best of times. It was obvious that something relating Greenleigh, so hopefully it would give her at least a little more energy.

When Atalanta came back with their glasses, Gerard was more than happy to put in their orders of steak (a clean rib-eye for him and a skirt steak for Elody.). According to her, their appetizers would take a little longer to come out, but really Gerard had expected that as he slowly watched the tables in the middle of the restaurant fill up.

He was more than happy to be left alone, as it allowed him to look across the table at Elody. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Elody snorted, a purely undignified sound coming from the queen. "It's less that I want to talk about it and more that...you deserve to know what's been going on."

Gerard shifted up, resting his forearms on the hard wood of the table to keep himself from tugging his hair out of the braid that Rosamund had insisted in putting it in. "Elody," he paused, shaking off the urge to redirect the conversation to something lighter. Shaking off the urge that screamed at him that this was supposed to be a nice dinner for the both of them and that they shouldn't be talking of such nasty things over dinner.

(He wasn't sure if that voice was the remains of his own cowardice or if it was from another timeline. He tried not to think about it at all.)

"It's about the Veil of Starlight," Elody began, and just like that all of Gerard's hopes for a nice outing came crashing down around them. "I don't--and please trust me Gerard this is not for a lack of trying--but I don't understand the ruling system no matter how hard I try. It's nothing like anything else in the entirety of Neverafter, not even the strange commune of the Lullaby Lands. They don't seem to follow any rule!"

"Well, that's not- that's not quite true." Gerard cringed at the thought of his parent's kingdom, even after all this time he couldn't really accept it as his kingdom. Greenleigh was his kingdom, and barring that, Happly was his home. The Veil of Starlight had too much claim on his life for as little of an impact that it made on him. "It's just fey rule."

Elody bit into her knuckle to avoid saying anything that could potentially reach the wrong ears. "Fey rule...is very difficult to work around."

"It is." Gerard offered her a little bit of a commiserating. "I'm sure I could help, or at the very least translate." He didn't exactly have much experience with the Veil of Starlight other than the little he was taught as a child.

For a moment, Elody didn't meet his eyes. "Queen Mab...showed up to the meeting, and she seemed pretty peeved that you weren't there." There was a certain amount of trepidation in her voice and no small amount of guilt. "She almost walked out of the entire thing when I told her that you weren't going to be showing up."

The bottom of Gerard's stomach dropped into the abyss and he had to clasp his hands together and dig his nails into the backs to keep himself from physically recoiling. As much as he liked to pretend that his role as Elody's King-Consort was nothing more than a fancy title for an easily replaceable man, the truth was much more complicated. Even though his family had all but disowned him from the ruling line of the Veil, the fey world had more than enough control over their politics to make that decision null and void.

Gerard knew that his parents had wasted no time in replacing him with a new heir, but he also knew that such decisions were seen as entirely pointless by the court of the fey. They could just as easily decide that Gerard was actually still the heir of the Veil and declare that he should return back to his rightful home, and then Gerard would be stuck trying to find the right words to both not offend the Queen while still avoiding that fate.

"Were my parents there?" It didn't exactly change things if they were or weren't, but Gerard needed to know. There was still some locked away part of him that wanted to have his parent's approval and try as he might to bury it, it remained.

Elody's expression fell into disgust. None of the complicated respect and fear that she had for Queen Mab, just pure, human disgust directed towards his parents. "They were, but I preferred to enact the business with Queen Mab herself. Considering what you've told me about her role in the politics of the Veil, I decided it was best to go right to the source."

Gerard stifled a snort against his hand. "I'm sure that it had nothing to do with your personal opinions on either of them." Elody never liked his parents, liked them even less after she found out that they had explicitly never looked for him and instead had gotten immediately pregnant with a new heir afterwards. They hadn't even waited for Gerard to be declared dead, the second that he was missing for more than a few days they forgot about him.

She hummed, a brief smile tugging at her lips before she shook her head. All humor drained from her face as she slowly swirled her wine glass, looking into the maroon liquid like it could get her out of the situation. "Queen Mab was very clear on what she wanted done in order to correct the mistake." Elody had a pretty good impression of the Fae Queen, though Gerard would never say that out loud.

"And?" Gerard could hazard a guess, though none of the options were very attractive.

"She wants you either officially returned to the Veil of Starlight, or she wants you to come on the behalf of Greenleigh to all future meetings. Without me." Elody grimaced, taking a sip of wine to wash the taste of the words out of her mouth.

Gerard grimaced in kind, rapping his knuckles against the hard wood table to try and clear his mind. There were many things he'd love to say in response and none of them were appropriate for a fine dining restaurant. "Should we call off the arrangement? It's not that I think this is a bad idea, but I don't want to-- I don't want to cause an international incident because I had a crisis of self."

Elody scowled, but it wasn't directed at him. "I'm not going to bow to a kingdom of cowards who couldn't be bothered to search for their own son." There was pure steel in her voice, her grip tight enough around the stem of the glass to be worrying, and she had a certain set to her jaw that let Gerard know there would be no use in arguing. "We can make them wait, I don't care."

"Elody, that sounds like you're about to cause an international incident." It was a very familiar sentence, one that catapulted Gerard back to their first timeline. When Elody was more than happy to go scorched earth with a family with strong connections to the Feywildes. Gerard hadn't exactly wanted to get into an incident with his old family, certainly not when it meant that he would have to spend more time around them.

"I'll be fine, I can just hold the line." She took another sip of her wine, carefully setting it on the table as she restrained herself from snapping the thin stem. "There's nothing that they can do, Greenleigh is an independent nation that has no ties to the Veil in terms of trade or location. Nothing they do will be able to threaten us."

Something in his chest gave a small twinge at the use of us, at the fact that Elody still counts him as part of Greenleigh. Of course he knew that legally he was still very much Greenleigh's King-Regent, but there was nothing really keeping him there. The marriage was likely to return to normal, and he knew that. There was still always the chance that Elody would change her mind, or Gerard would become too different for her to love.

"I know that Greenleigh is a powerhouse, but Greenleigh doesn't have much experience with Faeries. Especially not Faeries from the Veil." Gerard knew what happened to people who messed with them, and he knew that he was among the lightest of the punishments that they had dealt.

"Greenleigh currently has deals with the City of Chimneys, we have a good price on their cold iron and steel." Elody's smile was sharp and brilliant, and Gerard's heart leapt into his throat at an unbidden memory from their second timeline.

(That Elody was far more ruthless than his Elody had been, not exactly war hungry but more than happy to rise to any challenge that was thrown at her. Gerard wasn't exactly as respected in that world, far more of an ornament than an equal like his Elody had wanted him to be, so he had a decade's worth of memories of trying to dissuade Elody from taking up her mace again and failing each time.)

"I don't think going to war with the Fairies is going to be a good idea, Elody."

"It's not war, Gerard, it's just-" Elody paused, rearing back slightly with her eyebrows furrowed. "What the hell am I talking about? I'm sorry, I don't know what's gotten into my recently. I'm just saying that we will be able to defend ourselves, you don't have to worry about us. I know how important this whole thing is to you."

Gerard could hazard a guess as to what had gotten into his wife, but he would rather not speak it into existence. As much as he loved his wife, there were some things that he would prefer to keep buried. The version of her that never really loved him was one of them. "I just don't want you getting hurt when I can help, Elody. This arrangement is important to me, but not as much as making sure that you're safe."

"You don't have to worry about me, Gerard. Greenleigh will be fine no matter what the Veil tries, just take your time." Elody reached over to briefly pat the back of Gerard's hand.

"I just feel somewhat responsible, if I was there I would have been able to diffuse the situation." He scratched at the inside of his arm, cracking his knuckles to alleviate the pressure.

Elody's expression turned stony, a true queenly countenance on her face as she looked at him. "You owe them nothing. Not your presence, not your amicability, and certainly not your devotion to Greenleigh. I can deal with your old kingdom on my own, you don't need to give them the time of day." There was a low growl to her words, something slightly possessive in her gaze as she tightened her grip briefly on Gerard's hand.

He nodded his head in agreement, there wasn't much more that he could do in response. It wasn't like he wanted to disagree, there was a certain level of relief that came with knowing that Elody would go to bat for him no matter what came her way. That he would be allowed to figure out who he was in times of peace after he had developed a conscious for anyone outside of the castle.

(Gerard knew that he was beginning to get a little too old to go adventuring daily, especially if he wanted to step up as Elody's husband on a daily basis. Timothy was fine with going into the field because the old man never really picked up a weapon, he just cast spells from a safe distance. And he knew that Elody would probably have his head if he went back into the midst of danger just to bottle lightning.)

"If you're sure," Gerard said softly, casting another glance towards his best friend. She didn't seem like she was doubting herself, but Gerard knew that Elody was surprisingly good at hiding her emotions when she wanted to. "And if you need any tips about warding off faeries-"

"-I'll message you immediately, Gerard, I know. I'm going to be fine, and if it looks like I genuinely need to call you in to catch Queen Mab's ear, then I will. But I will not be exposing you to this shit without it being necessary." Again, a fire was stoked in her eyes that made Gerard's stomach flip in a very pleasing way. Elody's passion was always one of the things he loved most about her--even in the second timeline where that fire was turned on him more often than not.

"Are- is this a good time?" Atalanta smiled, arms laden with their appetizers perfectly balanced. "I didn't want to come in the middle of your conversation, you seemed like you were both talking about something important."

"We're fine." And just like that, the flame had died down in Elody's eyes. Still there, waiting at the edges to be stoked into an inferno, but no longer active. "Thank you so much."

"Of course, I was told that there were some important things being discussed and didn't want to risk overhearing anything I shouldn't." Playfully, she tapped her ear, the dangling golden apple earring swaying with the motion. It didn't seem like she was waiting too long for them to finish up talking, since there was still visible steam rising up off of the potatoes in front of Gerard.

"Who- Who told you that?" Elody straightened up, her shoulders raising slightly as she turned her full attention on their server.

Atalanta frowned, chewing on her bottom lip with surprisingly sharp teeth. "An hour or so before your reservation, I got a call from the number telling me that. The voice was...weirdly high pitched?"

Gerard groaned, head hanging slightly. "Pinocchio was over my house, he probably took my phone while I was in the kitchen and called. I'm so sorry for him."

"Oh, don't worry. You did seem like you were pretty serious and I didn't want to interrupt. Your main courses shouldn't take too long, but I'll make sure that they don't come out immediately and crowd you." Atalanta gave a quick glance at the table, and upon seeing that they were still very much fine on the wine and water, relaxed back. She gave a little salute before leaving their table again, roaming around to her other tables to make sure that everything was good there as well.

"Sorry for holding up the food," Gerard waved a hand as he sat back. "Pinocchio learned that it was our meeting night and I guess he wanted to make sure he wasn't disturbed. I promise I don't tell the kids about what we talk about, they're just dead set on achieving certain things." Those things mostly because getting them back together far faster than Gerard was planning.

(He wasn't deaf, and the walls in the house were thinner than he liked so he had overheard his friends gossiping about him and Elody far too many times.)

"It's fine, I don't expect you to control him. Pinocchio, that was the little puppet boy, yeah? Cinderella's step brother?"

A little shudder ran through him at the reminder of the shared Stepmother that they had. Gerard had only barely seen her, mostly in glimpses from the corner of his eye when the world shattered around them, and then again in the Lines Between when she was a beast of paper and ink. Even that little exposure had been more than enough for him, he couldn't imagine actually having her as a stepmother, or as a warlock patron. "Yeah, that's him. Sometimes he stays at my house after school, when his dad can't pick him up immediately."

"That's really nice, Gerard, I'm glad that he's not just being left at the school."

"Oh he wouldn't be, even if I wasn't there. Henry or Tim would pick him up from school, and they sometimes do it when I have to teach a class." Gerard shrugged as he ate the papas bravas, feeling that they were definitely too hot to eat but he didn't exactly care. Elody was still a paladin in this world, still had an aura around her that kept all of her allies from being affected from certain things.

Like burns on your fingers or tongue from eating food too fast, or getting drunk on expensive wine.

The silence that settled over them as they ate their appetizers wasn't awkward, they were always good at eating in silence with each other. Both of them had been raised a bit too properly to even think about speaking with their mouths open, and after everything, they were good with sharing food. Elody had joked to him on their wedding that she was relieved that she no longer had to sneak pieces of food into her pocket for Gerard and could just scrape it onto his plate, and Gerard had been too focused on the fact that he could eat a full meal that wasn't insects for the first time in a decade.

Her calamari had been fine, but nothing really all that great. If Gerard was going to be picky about it, he would definitely say that it was too chewy and the breading was soaked in grease and tasted like nothing. But he wasn't going to say that because his potatoes were fine and Elody seemed to enjoy them more than she enjoyed her own dish, which was all that mattered of course.

When Atalanta had returned, they had finished off their glasses of wine and stacked the emptied plates at the end of the table. She grinned broadly at them, letting Gerard see that she definitely did not have human teeth. Both sets of canines were far thicker than any of the other teeth and the teeth right next to them were sharp as well. Her smile was just big enough to be more than unnerving and Gerard found his hand unconsciously creeping towards his knife.

"It looked like you enjoyed your meal, I'm so glad." Effortlessly, she set out their plates and picked up their old ones on top of a thin platter balanced on a few fingers (a few fingers that ended in darker skin and thick claws). "Would you like a refill on your glasses?"

Since Gerard knew he was footing the bill, he did a few quick calculations in his head to make sure he wasn't about to break the bank trying to impress Elody. "Uh- yeah, another glass would be great."

When turned to, Elody nodded her head as well. With two confirmations, Atalanta placed both of their empty wine glasses on top of the platter and left once more.

"How have you been, other than the stuff with the Veil?" Gerard hoped that it wasn't too close to the issue to be uncomfortable, he just knew that his life paled in comparison to hers. Sure it was fun and interesting for him to help kids learn how to fence and keep them from doing anything more destructive, and sure he had a great time when working with them and seeing them all improve steadily class after class was fulfilling in a way that Gerard didn't even know was possible.

But still, he had a mostly quiet life aside from that, nothing in comparison to running an entire country.

"I have to say, Greenleigh is strangely boring without you there." Elody gestured vaguely with her fork before cutting into her steak. "I understand why you're off on your own, and how that helps you, but I just miss having you around." She shrugged, gaze dipping down to the collar of Gerard's shirt.

Gerard couldn't meet her eye, opting to instead cut all of his meat up into very small bite sized pieces to give his hands something to do other than rub at the large scar taking up most of his chest. It still ached most nights, leaving Gerard short of breath and pained even when he was laying on his back. He knew that Elody knew of how it often pained him, she had woken up enough nights to Gerard scrabbling at his chest--still half asleep and convinced that there was a shard embedded in his chest.

"You're one of the most important people to me in the world, Elody," Gerard said after a moment of silence. "I just...I can't let myself go back to the way I was, just because we're finally in peace times. I need to-" he paused, trying to figure out how to put things into words- "It's just something that I need to do, Elody. We're already a fourth of the way into the year."

"I know," Elody sounded a little petulant, and Gerard reached across the table to gently rest his hand atop of hers. "So, do you still visit that cafe?"

"The one where we met up the first time? Yeah, I visit every day. If you want, the next time that we meet up I can stop there first in order to pick you up something."

"That's not necessary. I was just wondering."

Gerard quirked an eyebrow at her before going back to his meal. It didn't take long for Atalanta to return with their glasses, and both of them had decided to forgo dessert. Elody said that she was far too stuffed from the food and Gerard didn't want to be the only one getting dessert when he was the one paying for it. They still sat around a little longer, savoring their glass of wine and going a bit slower on finishing off the rest of their steak to savor that as well.

They didn't talk much about anything specific after that. Elody asked about how his kids were doing in their lessons and Gerard wanted to keep a bit of a pulse on the recent gossip in the castle. Though, he knew that Elody was not the person to talk to if he wanted to learn what had happened in his absence. As much as he loved her, she was so single mindedly focused on actually running the country that she tended to turn a deaf ear to the talk of the staff.

Contrasted with Gerard, who was always more than happy to listen to the ladies' maids talk about what so-and-so's knight had been caught doing. Gossip was one of life's simple joys to him.

And sure Elody joked with him about him having other suitors chasing him down, but Gerard had only laughed in response. Most of the people he worked with were already very happy in their relationships and he told her very smugly that he couldn't even think about another person romantically. The grin that he got in response was well worth everything, the whole dinner, the time spent apart, all of it.

The sun had long sunk below the horizon by the time that they both figured that they should be getting back to their respective houses. Gerard still had work the next morning and Elody never liked spending a night away from the castle when she didn't have to.

"I'll be right back, this has been great." Gerard pressed his forehead briefly against the top of Elody's head. He had figured that he would be able to go to the bathroom and come back to see that the bill was still there, but of course that wasn't how he went. In the five minutes it took him to find the bathroom, finish, and make his way back to the table, Elody was gone and the check was already ready to be signed.

He should have expected it, he knew that he probably should have paid first before leaving, but he had expected that Elody would respect the fact that he invited her out, and so that he should be the one paying.

Whatever, at least their server would make an amazing tip.

With a handful of bills and coins left behind on the table, Gerard left the restaurant and resolved that NEXT TIME. Next time he took Elody out he would make sure that he paid for her meal.

Chapter Text

Gerard was beginning to regret just how much frogginess he had opted to keep.

Sure it was fine when he needed to leap around the room and it was fine when he could use his tongue to grab things before they fell. But there was always a drawback that he didn't expect to need to deal with.

May was always a rather enjoyable month when he was married to Elody. It heralded in the peak of bullfrog breeding season and considering how he had opted to choose to keep enough frog traits that there was just naturally going to be a factor that came along with them without Gerard openly requesting it.

And now, when he is distinctly separated from his wife (both through the arrangement and through distance), the situation has changed.

He would love to say that it didn't change a single thing, and that he was perfectly fine with the situation at hand. Gerard was trying to stop lying, though, so he couldn't say that.

After the stress of April, of the sword of Damocles that was Queen Mab's attention, Gerard decided that it would probably be for the best for them to meet somewhere public. The cafe was nice enough for them to meet, always had the windows open so there was a nice breeze running through the place, and it certainly gave him enough scenery to chew on if it turned out that the sight of his gorgeous wife would just be too much for him.

All other Mays had been spent with him utterly obsessed with his wife, an easy thing to accomplish when he didn't have any responsibilities in the castle. He was allowed to just accompany his wife everywhere and occasionally lead (or get led by) Elody into an unoccupied space for a quick tryst. Everyone in the castle knew that, it was the world's most open secret in Greenleigh's castle.

Which meant spending a May entirely removed from his wife's presence was torture. Not as bad as dying twice, but Gerard would place it as a close second. There was constantly something burning underneath his skin and no amount of distraction through physical exertion could rid him of it.

(During one particularly horrible night, Gerard had walked all the way to the pond in the nearby park and submerged himself in near freezing water for a few hours before returning back to his house.)

Whenever he could keep himself distracted, it was great. He could function like a normal person and go about his day without needing to dunk himself in cold water. It was only when Gerard was alone with his thoughts that the issues began to arise. Elody was constantly on his mind, every thing about her was running past the back of his eyelids as he tried his best to sleep.

He knew it wasn't forever, and that eventually the month would pass and the burning heat underneath his skin would subside. But as he was the one existing and trying to manage it, the fact that all he had to go off of was eventually did not make him feel better. It was something to hold onto, sure, but it didn't help in the moment.

What also didn't help was the consistent chest pain that came with every single breath that Gerard took. In addition to being the height of bullfrog mating season, it was also the rainy season. Which meant that every rolling storm front lodged itself right behind Gerard's ribs and sent lightning up his spine whenever it came on. He had heard Tim complain about his knees giving him grief whenever rain was about to start, but even the bard didn't understand exactly why Gerard's reaction was so overstated.

(He had his own theories, such as it being a lasting effect of being amphibious and feeling it through his skin, but nothing really concrete.)

In addition to his coffee and Elody's coffee, Gerard had also asked for a cup of ice for him to chew on while he waited for his best friend to get there. He crunched on the ice, drumming his fingers on the slightly sticky tabletop as he watched the door. Even though he was mostly hidden behind other booths, with just a little bit of neck craning he could see the door well enough.

Elody never kept him waiting for long, which was a good thing because he was pretty sure he was going to jump out of his skin if he was going to be waiting much longer. Even with the cafe's automated cooling system, he still felt like he was going to sweat himself to death. Elody's arrival, however, also brought a new slew of issues.

The phrase that distance makes the heart grow fonder was far too true. Elody was gorgeous, a vision in gold and green with her hair braided all the way down her back. She smiled when she noticed him and Gerard gripped the edge of the table tighter as she carefully moved around the other patrons and tables in order to slide across from him.

"Gerard, it's great to see you." Elody's gaze softened at the sight of the steaming cup of coffee in front of her, picking it up and warming her hands with it. "If you're trying to make up for me paying last month's bill, then you're going to be buying me a lot of coffee."

"I'm just trying to bridge the gap between now and the next time I can take you out. I'm not going to let you pay for another tab, Elody, I was the one who invited you, it was my bill to pay." Gerard unconsciously moved his hand up to toy with the laces of his open poet shirt, fingers just barely ghosting over the shiny white scar tissue that made up most of his chest.

(The glass shard was rather perfectly placed between the clean crescent scars that curved underneath each of his pecs, though those scars had healed much cleaner and much less noticeable than the death blow had. There was a section in the dead middle that was slightly indented further from the battle of the Lines Inbetween, but it was mostly absorbed into the original death scar that no one ever noticed.

No one ever thought about where the death blow on a frog would be positioned on a human, and really the first one was dramatic enough.)

He could feel Elody's burning gaze on the scar, and he rubbed the bony edge of his thumb along his sternum to try and assuage the ache that seemed to have carved out a home behind his lungs. Gerard knew that Elody found his corpse, and he knew that his corpse hadn't been pretty.

(And he knew the implications of how frog he had been when he died. And he knew the implications of him dying while fighting when all Elody had ever seen him do was run.)

"Um," Gerard started and stopped, drumming his fingers on the table and avoiding Elody's gaze again. "How's the whole deal with-" instead of finishing his sentence, he gave a vague gesture in the air, trying to implicate his old kingdom.

"It's still a stalemate, but it's not going to boil over. Queen Mab hasn't shown up to any more of the meetings and your parents...well your parents seem to be sort of scared of me."

Gerard snorted into his drink, shaking his head. "I don't know why they would be, I mean you only did introduce yourself while holding your mace."

Elody smiled, eyes shutting as she warmed her hands on her coffee. He could see all the delicate lines on her face, the ones from a life well lived and the ones from battles that she had had survived. This whole affair would be so much easier if his wife was just a few degrees less attractive, everything about her was something that he loved. "I had come right from the training room, I didn't want to waste their time by changing out of my armor."

Gerard hummed false agreement, nodding his head as he reached across the table to pat her hand. "I'm sure that's the reason, it had no relation to the fact that you had recently found out that they didn't go looking for me."

"Oh, Gerard, I didn't notice that Elody had arrived." The new voice made Gerard jolt, almost knocking over his cup of ice. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Benjamin there with another hot cup of coffee. "Sorry, Queen Elody, I would have brought you a refill if I had known that you were here already. But, here you go Gerard, on the house for my favorite customer."

"Oh, thank you, Ben."

"Yeah, thank you, Ben." Elody interjected right after him, a tight smile on her beautiful features. It was a little out of place, but it was a familiar sort of smile regardless. He could remember seeing that same sort of smile in official meetings--ones that he hadn't really paid that much attention to, but ones that he had been attending solely because he was entirely unsure of himself in the castle and those were the days that he followed Elody around like a lost puppy.

Benjamin, to his credit, kept her gaze. For as much as he loved Elody, he wasn't a blind man. All of his time spent as a swan left him graceful and willowy, an arching neck and pale skin that had a strange glow to it. Even with a swan's wing for one arm, he carried himself gracefully and (according to his coworkers) rarely fumbled a single thing. Benjamin only broke Elody's gaze in order to hand Gerard his coffee, eyes wrinkling at the corners as their hands brushed. "If it's not too inconvenient, could you stay a little longer? I get off early today and I'd like to ask you a question."

"Yeah, of course, no problem." Gerard nodded in his direction, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Elody reached across the table and rested her hand on top of Gerard's. Her thumb rubbed at the delicate webbing in between his forefinger and thumb and Gerard couldn't stop himself from shivering--even with the hot coffee in his hand. "Benjamin, don't you have a job to get back to?"

His grin turned tight at the edges as he nodded shallowly at Elody. "Right, sorry for intruding." With a last, lingering glance at Gerard, he turned on his heel and moved back behind the counter. For a second, Gerard's gaze was stuck on him.

"Gerard-" Elody's voice snapped him back to the matter at hand- "I don't want you worrying about the Veil of Starlight, okay? I've spent my entire life learning how to deal with foreign powers and Queen Mab is no different. It's nothing you have to worry about."

For as much as he knew that the words were supposed to be reassuring, they just turned his gut. She was right, of course, and Gerard knew that the impact that his presence would have would be negligible on the outcome. It didn't stop some long repressed part of him from shaking the bars of his mind and yelling that he didn't have a choice in whether or not he learned how to deal with foreign powers, that he spent all the years that Elody did learning how to interact with other politically trying to not get eaten.

Their marriage had never bothered him before he realized just how imbalanced they were. Of course he loved her, and he knew that she loved him, but it was hard to want to go back to that dynamic after everything he had been through. While adventuring with Destiny's Children, Gerard had done nothing but dream about getting back home to Elody and laying down in their big soft bed and not having to lift a finger again.

Then he gave up his name for her, and his humanity for her, and suddenly that idea was so much less than before. There was a burning desire to actually do something, finally there after two decades of being happy to get carried through life on his wife's laurels and do nothing but love her. Rosamund called it going stir crazy over one of their chats, when she talked about how she felt about the new timeline.

I just felt so annoyed with the entire princess thing, it was fine before I woke up, but after? Gerard, I just couldn't make myself care about any of the minutia of being a princess. The balls were unbearable, the lessons even worse the third time going through them, and the entire time I just wanted to run out into the woods and practice with my bow.

Gerard knew that Elody didn't feel the same, she loved ruling Greenleigh and she relished in the challenge of going toe to toe with dignitaries who saw her as inexperienced (despite having been raised for queenhood from birth, despite her parents dying at a young age and leaving her the sole person responsible aside from an aging reagent). More than she loved ruling, she loved her country.

He cared for Greenleigh himself, of course, but mostly because he cared about Elody. It wasn't exactly kingly of him to admit it, but Gerard would have cared for any country if Elody was the one leading it.

"Gerard?" Elody prodded, a slight concerned frown creasing her forehead. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Elody, I'm just thinking." Gerard flashed her a tight smile as his gaze dropped to her neck. As much as he would like to indulge the very impulsive thoughts about moving around to her side of the table and pressing kisses to the column of her neck, he knew it would be a bad idea. They were having a serious conversation and they were very much in public and they were technically separated anyway.

(Gerard knew full well that he had many competitors for Elody's heart, always had and he suspected that he always would. Elody was a gorgeous woman, a powerhouse of a ruler, and genuinely one of the funniest people that Gerard ever had the pleasure of knowing. If this year ended with them separated on a more permanent basis, he had no doubt that she would have suitors knocking at her door at all hours.

According to Rosamund, so would he, but Gerard took anything that she said with a heavy grain of salt.)

"I can hold down the fort, I've been doing it for years." Elody gave his hand another squeeze before retracting her hand. "You can take your time, Gerard, it's okay."

"I don't want to keep you waiting if it's going to get Greenleigh into another war."

"The Veil isn't going to be marching on our front lines, Gerard. They're not going to make that sort of move on us just because you aren't there, there wouldn't be any support and I doubt that even Queen Mab would try anything this time of year."

Gerard had to concede to that point. For as much as many lands in the Neverafter got things wrong about faeries, they had the Court system correct. Though Queen Mab was the High Queen of the entire court system, she was originally from the Autumnal Court and that stayed with her even through the ascension. The beginning of summer was not in her wheelhouse, and Gerard knew that all out war wasn't her style.

It was, however, his parent's style.

Elody let out a slow breath, offering him another smile. "I'm going to do everything I can to mitigate what they're angry about without you needing to be there. You just focus on you."

I've been just focusing on me for a bit too long sat right behind his teeth, and he swallowed the words down. He had gone over his personal failings more times than he'd care to admit in the last five months since living on his own, and he knew that selfishness was up there in chief. Gerard had changed through fighting, through losing his humanity and wavering on that weird line between man and frog.

It was different this time, he knew that objectively that ignoring the entire world in favor of keeping things safe and happy and human was a completely different thing than trying to figure out what to do with himself after saving the world and finding himself unable to fit back into the rhythm of his old life. It still felt like he was being unfair.

"Honestly, right now I'm mostly focused on Kintaro. He's one of the boys that I teach and I'm a little concerned for how ready to fight he is." Gerard changed the subject, completely unsubtle and obvious, and just sort of hoped that Elody went along with him.

To her credit, she did. She settled back in the booth and inclined her head for him to continue. "Oh?"

"It's nothing big, and I'm happier that he's dedicated to something than not doing anything. It's just he looks like he's more- it's more like he's disinterested in fencing. I was thinking about suggesting actual sword fighting classes to his mother, but I'm not sure how well that would go over. Apparently, if he's telling the truth when he's talking to some of the other kids, then he's gotten in trouble sneaking out of the house to fight a few of the infestations in the woods. I don't want his mother to think I'm supporting that."

Elody steepled her fingers against her chin, lips pursed and brow wrinkled as she stared at a point past Gerard's head. "If I was Kintaro's mother, I'd want him to be able to actually fight if he was going out there anyway. It's not your job to keep him from running into the woods to fight ghosts and onis and demons, Gerard, and if he's going to be doing that--then he should know how to actually fight. Not that fencing isn't fighting-"

"-but it's still a far cry from actual sword fighting. You can say it, Elody, I'm not at the rec center to teach kids how to fight to survive. I'm teaching them how to spar in a completely controlled, regulated environment. That's why I'm so worried for him."

From there, the conversation flowed a bit easier. Neither of them were mentioning the elephant in the room and that was perfectly fine with Gerard. Talking about his home kingdom, and the complicated nature of how the royals there interacted with the High Court as well as the Seasonal ones, was not something he wanted to do in public. Maybe in the privacy of his own home, with all of his protection wards and offerings that would keep them at least a little safer than a public coffee shop.

It was easier for them both to unwind when they were talking about light topics like whatever the new gossip was at Gerard's work and more about the kids that he taught. Elody didn't offer much from her end of experience, though they both knew that her entire life for the past month had been nothing but wading through metaphorical swamp water when it came to dealing with Gerard's parents.

As easy as it was to talk to Elody, it just reminded Gerard of why he loved her. Her quick wit, the way that she could tell what he was thinking before he could finish his sentence, how gorgeous she looked when she laughed. It burned under his skin along with everything else that had been boiling over that month. It was unfair to the both of them if he was going to make a move on her, Gerard knew that he wouldn't be able to commit one way or another if they ended up hooking up.

It would leave Gerard unsatisfied and Elody annoyed and he rather liked the peace that they had settled into. Still, it left him feeling a bit torn in two. Half of him wanted to ignore the fact that he still hadn't found the satisfaction or answer he had been looking for with this whole separation and instead follow Elody into her carriage and ride with her all the way back home. The other half of him wanted to lock the first half into a deep dark trunk and bury it under the earth to maintain his dignity.

Of course, he didn't let Elody know that he was warring with himself--but he suspected that she had at least the vaguest sense of what he was thinking. She always seemed to.

They enjoyed each other's company until the dregs of their coffees were cold and Elody was looking at the clock more than she was looking at Gerard.

"About time for you to be going home?" Gerard smiled at her, standing up from the booth and grimacing. As much as spending time with his best friend was wonderful, sitting down for hours on end was killer for his back and his legs. He wasn't as young as he used to me and his legs were only partially amphibian. In either form, he was still a man getting comfortably close to middle aged.

"Yeah, look, Gerard I-" Elody stood up, reaching a hand out before retracting it. "This has been great, as always Gerard. Seeing you again is always wonderful." She offered a slightly crooked smile, though it faltered when she looked a little to the right of his head. "If you need anything," she began, in quite a loaded fashion, "please just call."

"I will, Elody. You don't have to worry about that." Gerard smiled at her, opening his mouth to say something only to get cut off by Benjamin intervening.

"It's been lovely having you two in the cafe, but- Gerard-" Benjamin moved up behind him, his hand a spot of warmth on his bicep- "Can we have that conversation?"

"Yeah, sure, I'll see you next month, Elody." He offered her a flash of a smile before letting himself get tugged towards the employee exit by Benjamin.

It was a particularly closed off from the rest of the cafe, but it was enough to give them a modicum of privacy. Still, despite the close quarters, Gerard found himself looking after Elody. While he couldn't exactly see Elody from past the wall that Benjamin had tugged him behind, Gerard heard her boots click away after  a long moment and then heard the bell above the door ring.

It took a few more seconds for him to give Benjamin his full attention, gaze slowly trailing to his face. "What did you need to talk to me about?"

"I just wanted to say that I know what it's like to still be affected by time spent as an animal." Benjamin inclined his head towards him, not exactly boxing him against the wall. Gerard could easily get away from him, could probably easily kill him (after spending so much time genuinely fighting armored spell-casters and warriors, Gerard sometimes forgot just how vulnerable normal people were). "And I'm just offering, no strings attached, to help with that."

Gerard didn't have to be a genius to understand what Ben was getting at, and things were slowly starting to connect in his mind. Long neglected synapses dedicated to whether or not someone was interested in him began firing and he realized that no barista just gives customers free coffee. No person in their right mind would give themselves more work for people they don't have a vested interest in making happy.

"I- huh?" Gerard tripped over his words as the fact that someone wanted him. Elody had always said that he was completely unaware of his own attractiveness, but Gerard just figured that was what wives and best friends (and wives that were your best friends) said to make you feel better! He knew that Elody liked him, but then again Elody was the type of girl to bring a frog into her castle from the pond and then kiss that frog.

He loved his wife, but she didn't exactly have the most normal tastes.

"I can drive us both back to my place, and we can have sex, and we can see where it goes from there." He shrugged, rather matter of fact for someone proposing to hook up with a regular at the coffee shop he worked at. "I know that you and Lady Elody-" there was a level of annoyance when Benjamin said Elody's name that Gerard didn't exactly love- "are currently separated if you're worried about her reaction. I think that she'd be more than happy if you were taking care of yourself instead of just waiting around for her to come back."

Gerard blinked, a little taken aback but unable to really argue with that. Walking into a freezing cold lake in the middle of the night to cool down probably wasn't Elody's idea of Gerard taking care of himself while he figured himself out. And there really was no way that he was going to have a normal night, and the last time that he walked into a lake he had no idea what time it was when he got out and ended up being late to his first class.

(Which was something that his students had yet to let him live down.)

"It doesn't have to be anything if you don't want it to be, Gerard. It can just be a night, or a few nights, or however long you want it to go on." Benjamin shrugged, arching one slender eyebrow at him with the barest tilt of his head.

Gerard loved his wife, loved her more than anything, that was the reason that he had suggested the separation in the first place. He knew that he wasn't good enough for her in his current state, and he knew that she needed a husband who would actually stand by her and help her rule their kingdom. Gerard was trying to become that husband, he truly was.

But it was really hard to focus on bettering yourself or on addressing the issues that led to you avoiding all trouble when you could barely focus on anything that wasn't fencing or how hot your wife is.

"Yeah, alright."

Chapter Text

Elody was used to showing up to their meetings with Gerard already waiting for her. 

It was just the natural result of all of the meeting spots being closer to Gerard than to her, and Gerard already knowing where they would meet in far advance. She didn't mind it, she was happy that her husband had enmeshed himself into the community of Happly--no matter how much she wished that they could've achieved this without needing to have the dressing of a separation.

That wasn't to say that she didn't understand why Gerard had asked for it. The circumstances of their first timeline as well as his brief stint as a nameless gigantic bullfrog definitely didn't cement the idea of their marriage being entirely stable. Elody still didn't understand why Vertias had told Gerard that she had only cared for him when asked if she loved him, and she didn't understand why Rapunzel had said what she did to him.

(The latter was a lie. The former was only partially true.)

The only other time she had shown up somewhere before Gerard had been when he had gotten stuck at work and hadn't been able to tell Elody.

She was...definitely more than fine with it being the same scenario this time. Gerard was always at his most handsome when he was passionate about something, and she wasn't foolish enough to think that her newfound enjoyment of fencing was sourced from anywhere other than the delight of having Gerard's voice ghosting the back of her neck as he adjusted her form.

It was merely a love for the sport.

Elody rested her hip against one of the columns leading to the casual restaurant Gerard had told her to arrive to. According to the hostess, Gerard hadn't shown up yet and Elody had kindly rejected the idea of sitting at their table alone. She didn't exactly want to be a hypocrite, but Gerard and her both knew that Elody was much more of a public figure in terms of the damages of gossip.

Gerard could do things that she could never even think of attempting, he had the freedom of no one giving a shit what he did so long as he looked good doing it. If Gerard was sitting at a table alone, the tabloids would barely make mention of it--probably only talking about what he was wearing. But Elody? If anyone saw the head ruler of Greenleigh all alone at a modest restaurant's table in the middle of a small village in Happly...the rumor mill would be more intense.

Theories about what she was doing there, what this meant for diplomacy between the two nations, if there was a war coming and she was there to meet with someone else. All sorts of things that would need to be very quickly nipped in the bud before they reached any important ears.

However, the Queen of Greenleigh was at liberty to hide in the garden of that restaurant while she waited for her husband to get there. Or maybe not get there at all, and instead she would end up wandering her way to the rec center and hopefully get an eyeful of Gerard working out. That would certainly make up for having to hide behind a wall of ivy.

She cracked her fingers, spine pressed up against one of the marble columns that lined the small garden that served as a waiting area for reservations. Thanks to the fact that their schedules usually skewed to be busier towards the later hours, there weren't many reservations at noon on a slightly overcast day. Not really to the extent of expecting rain, but Elody had enough spell slots that she could excuse using a few of them up to keep her and Gerard dry.

Elody checked over her clothes, making sure that nothing was out of sorts. After May's meeting, she had a sort of a realization that she had never really needed to grapple with before. Gerard was single, and he was no longer constantly attached to her side. For as much as he had grown and changed through his encounters with death and the Lines Between, he was still blind as a bat when it came to other people

A part of her--the same part of her that threw Gerard into a wall instead of kissing him, the same part that Elody had done her best to squash out--told her that there was a very easy way to fix that. All she would have to do was call Gerard up and just gently apply a little pressure to get him to come back home. Bring up the issues with the Veil of Starlight and he would fall over himself to return, no questions asked.

But Elody hated that part of her for being selfish, and she wasn't going to listen to it no matter how tempting it was.

A glimmer of magic appeared in the corner of her vision and she turned towards it, expecting it to be some apology message from Gerard that would tell her that she was stuck at work. Instead, she saw the telltale signature of one Timothy Goose's Message spell.

Not to worry you. Gerard in hospital. 712 Briar Lane.

Elody cursed the twenty word limit on the spell, and more than that she cursed Timothy for not using up all twenty of those words to tell her exactly the state of her husband. He had only used half of the possible words which left ten words that he could have used to let her know who she had to maim in order to avenge Gerard. Cursing under her breath, she stormed out of the garden and back to her carriage.

Not even waiting for the footman to open the door, Elody ripped it open with a well placed spell and shouted to the coachman. "712 Briar Lane, as fast as you can get there without causing an accident."

And because Elody only ever hired the best of the best, the second that her carriage door was shut she heard the crack of a whip over the horses a second before the movement rocked her back against the cushion. Then came the worst part of the ride: the wait.

There wasn't anything else she could do, none of her prepared spells were going to help her get there any faster and her aura could only do so much depending on what the injury was. For all that Goose had told her to not worry--that the purpose of the message was not to worry her--Elody couldn't help but pick at the skin around her fingernails. It was a bad habit that all of her tutors had never been able to break her of and one that she hadn't exactly been able to grow out of.

It was under control most of the time, but when she was stressed it was the only thing that could calm her down. Despite the little pinpricks of pain, it kept her mind off of what sort of danger that Gerard had gotten himself in. The world rushed past the carriage windows, blurring into a mess of brown and green as the coachman navigated the narrow, dirt streets.

712 Briar Lane ended up not being a hospital at all, and Elody cursed Happly for preferring Hedge Witches and wizards over more advanced medical techniques. Of course there was always something to be said to the benefit of home medicine, but it still grated on Elody to know that Gerard wasn't being given the very best of service. He could've gotten that at Greenleigh if he had been there.

(But now wasn't the time for her to grip over her gorgeous husband's resolutions. The time for that was six months too late and Elody knew that it was a much larger deal than just him being unsure of her feelings. There was a strange weight to how he talked about his decisions to her, something that Elody couldn't place but dissuaded her from arguing with Gerard's decision. There was something he needed to figure out, and so long as it wasn't Elody's feelings for him then it wasn't anything that she could actually do about it.)

712 Briar Lane was a small shop that seemed to be primarily a botanist's wet dream. A quaint wooden hut with flowering trellises so overladen with vines and flowers that Elody was surprised they didn't crumble underneath the weight of it all. The vines and plants continued back over the roof of the hut, covering it with moss and greenery to the point where Elody couldn't see the exact shape of the house.

For all she knew, it could be a full foot shorter than what she could see and everything else was just greenery being built upon itself.

She barely waited for the carriage to stop before opening the door and jumping out. Her boots hit the cobblestones and send small pieces skittering as she marched up to the door. A flick of one hand directed her coachman to pull the carriage around and stay there for her while the other hand came up to knock. Not that she was really planning on waiting all that long, certainly not when it was her husband who was back there.

After a few seconds, when she couldn't hear any footsteps coming towards the door, Elody twisted the handle and pushed it open. With the way that it swung open, she was either expected or Happly didn't exactly have the best security for their Hedge Witches.

The inside of the hut was exactly how she expected it to be: messy in a homely sense with dirt tracked all through the house. Elody was no stranger to playing rough and dirty, but it was far more concerning when it was in a medical setting. Dirt on the ground could be expected from a plant shop, maybe even a rustic home, but it was more than a little concerning when it was a place of healing where her injured husband was.

The front entrance opened into a small shop for plants, pots spilling over with soil and leaves stacks to the ceiling in various tiered displays. It was the sort of place that Elody had once visited while trying to find the right sort of plant for her wedding with Gerard, with the same sort of charm to it. There wasn't anything obvious that declared medwing this way, but there was a door in the back that was just barely ajar.

Normally Elody had a little more decorum when it came to nosing around in people's places of work, but when it was her husband on the line that all sort of fell away. She could apologize for breaking into someone's house once she was sure that her husband was fine, her stupid wonderful husband who probably got himself hurt doing something stupid and heroic.

(It would make sense, in a weird way, despite everything that he had been before. Gerard had changed in so many ways, so far from the man who had stayed behind at the castle while she went off to fight. Through some casual conversations here and there with Rosamund and Ylfa, Elody knew that Gerard had changed into one hell of a man.

Which meant that she couldn't wait for this year to be over so he could get back to being her man.)

"Hello? Timothy?" Elody was hoping that Mother Goose was there, if not then it would really look like she just broke into a house with no good reason.

"Oh, Elody, you got here fast." The bard's face poked out from a doorway that had been completely obscured by hanging vines. "I told you that it shouldn't worry you."

"You told me that my husband was in the hospital and injured, Goose, I'm not sure what you think my reaction would be." Elody bit out the words, already a little peeved at not being immediately shown her husband.

It wasn't that she didn't like Timothy Goose, he was someone who cared for and was cared about her husband deeply. In many ways, Elody owed Gerard's continued life to him. Timothy had been a fantastic bard in the party, he had been the one to find more about the Lines Between and the fact that he had the Book was part of the reason that this was even her Gerard in the first place.

(Unbidden, the not-hers memory of the twice upon a time rose to her mind. She would have loved that Gerard regardless, but it wouldn't have been the same.)

There was still something infuriating about him, so Elody had done her best to be cordial.

But by all the gods on all the planes, she found herself having to restrain herself from hitting him in the face with his own book.

Timothy hedged his words, shifting slightly in his place. "I just-- assumed that you would have been-- that you would've been--"

"That what, Mother Goose? I wouldn't care about my husband because we're on a break? That you could just tell me that the man I've been married to for decades is in the hospital and I wouldn't drop everything for him?" Elody stepped closer to him, wishing for a moment that she had worn her armor. "You forget that even without him being my husband, he is my best friend. Of course I would stop everything to check on him."

His silence was enough for Elody to push him aside with his shoulder to enter the room.

Gerard was laid up on a couch, shirtless and with white gauze wrapped around his torso and over one of his arms. He seemed put out, a slight pout pursing his lips as he listened to the Hedge Witch perched on the very edge of a chair. "I just don't see why- Elody!" His eyes darted to her and stayed there, moving up to get up until the Hedge Witch all but forced him to lay back down.

"No you don't, Gerard!" A thick accent accompanied the words as the woman slapped Gerard on his uninjured shoulder. "I just went through all the effort of wrapping you up and you will not be bleeding through those bandages for hours more. I am not going to be replacing them until you go to sleep, so either you bleed through and get stuck with them on or you don't bleed through them and you get them replaced at night anyway."

"Sorry, Umha, sorry." Gerard flashed her a smile, the same one Elody had seen him give a thousand princes and princesses at a thousand balls. Appeasing and kind and hiding the fact that he really wasn't all that sorry. "Thank you for patching me up, I know it was a little last minute."

"Don't think of it, Timothy is an old friend of mine. Helped me and my lovers out with our True Ink and Paper. Least of what I could do for him is help wrap his friend up." Umha smiled at him, the same sort of smile that Elody had seen hundreds of princesses flash at her husband. A flash of jealousy burned in her chest, but she swallowed it down.

Really, she needed this year to be over. She needed Gerard back in her castle and back in her life so she wouldn't have to worry about everyone else in the Neverafter finally wising up to the fact that Gerard is an incredibly attractive man.

Umha turned towards her, copper eyes glinting in the light. "I'm glad that someone was called for him. He didn't get hurt too badly, but I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving him alone. I live hours away, and I need to take public transport in order to get back to the castle and I can't really stay."

Elody waved her hand, striding past her in order to rest her hip against the couch next to Gerard's head. "I'm fine with staying, I can close up the shop as well if you need me to."

"Oh no, I had Mother Goose come over to take care of that, you don't need to worry." Umha rested her warm hand on Elody's upper arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. "He was the one who told me to call you, I'm glad that Gerard has friends he can call on."

Elody offered a tight, diplomatic smile of her own. She was just positive that Timothy was trying to extend an olive branch that she really would rather not to accept. There was nothing wrong with not getting along with all of her husband's friends, especially friends that didn't mention the very important part that Elody was still very much Gerard's wife. "Of course, I came as soon as I heard."

The healer's smile was like the sun as she nodded her head and moved to the door. Wrapping a scarf around her head, Umha sent a last smile towards her. "I'm sure that you'll be able to move him to his home, just make sure that he doesn't stress himself too much."

Two years and two lifetimes ago, Elody would have laughed at the idea that she would have to stop Gerard from stressing. Presently, she just wanted to make sure that Gerard didn't hurt himself again.

As Umha took her leave, Elody waited a few more moments to make sure that Timothy Goose wasn't about to stick his head back into the room. Then she turned to Gerard and raised an eyebrow. "So?"

Gerard gave her a guilty-appeasing smile, and Elody knew that if they were still properly together that he would have taken her hand and kissed all the way up her wrist to try and swoon her. "There was an incident at work."

Elody hummed, nodding her head slightly sarcastically as she moved to sit on the small section of couch left next to Gerard. "An incident, I see. And how did this incident leave you bleeding?"

"E, I work with swords. It's very easy for anything to end in me bleeding. This time was just...a bit more severe." He smiled at her the way he always did when he knew that he had upset her and wanted to get his way around it. Annoyingly, Elody could already feel herself bending just a bit. It was hard to stay mad at Gerard, especially after so much time away from him.

The sayings were true, she supposed, time and distance did make the heart grow fonder.

"You're impossible, I hope you know that." Elody sighed, impossibly fond. "Come on, we're not sticking around here. I'd rather not have my coachman wait outside for hours on end, I'll just have him take us to your house and pick me up in the morning."

"Elody, you don't have to stay that long. I will be fine-" Gerard sighed instead of finishing, head hanging slightly. "Do you need my address or do you already know it?"

She let out a soft laugh, slowly beginning to help Gerard to his feet. Of course she understood why Umha would be reluctant to let him move, every single shift of his side made him wince and inhale a little too sharply, but there was no way that he was going to rest easy in the back room of a shop. It was better for him to make the travel to his home now, rather than later when there wasn't going to be anyone to look after him there. Elody situated Gerard's arm around her shoulders, once again extremely thankful that they were of similar enough heights to make it work.

"Of course I know where you live, it wasn't hard to find." Especially not considering the amount of letters that Mother Goose had sent to their house almost begging them to buy it as a vacation home. The address was all but burned into her mind at this point.

Gerard snorted, leaning almost all of his weight against her as they slowly walked towards the door. Elody couldn't even look up from the ground, not with all of the vines and small pots scattered about. The last thing that either of them needed was to trip and fall onto broken pottery. "How did you even know I was hurt?"

"Timothy sent me a message, I thought you were genuinely about to die." It certainly was something that she'd prefer to never go through again. Seeing Gerard's corpse once was enough, thank you, and Elody preferred her gloriously stupid husband alive.

"I'm sorry about that, really you didn't need to come in the first place." He stopped his sentence in the same way he always did when he had more to say. "But, I am really glad that I'm not going to have to wait another month to see you."

Elody bit her tongue to keep herself from saying anything about how it would be so easy for Gerard to not have to worry about those monthly meetings if only they just called off the entire affair. "Even if I couldn't come, I'm sure we would have just rescheduled for later in the week. You wouldn't have had to wait a full month, Gerard."

The walk out of the shop was nice, there were rather gorgeous plants and Elody made a mental note to stop back in when she didn't have her injured husband leaning heavily on her. They could always use more plants in the castle, just something to brighten up the dark stone. It would be nice to have something from Happly all the way back in Greenleigh, especially if it made Gerard happy.

"I thought you were meeting with the Veil again this month?" Gerard grimaced as he almost tripped over a thick vine snaking just a few paces from the door. Elody rested a hand on his chest to steady him.

"The meeting with the Veil takes a day at most, you know that She doesn't like to stay too long in the material plane." Elody didn't put much in superstition, but whatever the Queen of the Veil had going on was not in the realm of superstition. Gerard hadn't spoken much on the matter, but the little that he did made Elody feel like doing something utterly foolish.

(He had that effect on her, always did. Gerard made her want to escape the careful eyes of her minders in order to run out to the pond and talk to a frog that listened better than anyone else in her life, including those that were paid to be around her. Gerard was the reason that their wedding was held outdoors instead of in Greenleigh's largest cathedral.

Gerard was part of (but not all) the reason that Elody insisted on being on the battlefield herself.)

Gerard hummed his agreement, though a frown still twisted his handsome features. "Don't risk angering her for my sake, Elody. I can make do with just a few messages exchanged."

Elody's gaze dipped down to his chest, to the evidence of one of his worst experiences with the Fae. Even after so long, two timelines now at that, the scar was still a puckered red. No amount of lotion and care was enough to make the irritation die down and no amount of magical healing was enough to make the skin knit together seamlessly.

It still gave him grief on rainy days.

Elody disagreed, and thought that Gerard was enough of a reason to be just the barest bit rude to the Fae. Perhaps not the Queen, not out of a lack of love for Gerard but more so that there would be nothing gained from being rude to the Queen. If Elody purposefully snubbed the Queen, then she would be dead and all of her love for Gerard wouldn't matter in the least.

However, if Elody came face to face with the Fae who had seen a neglected child lashing out and decided to make everything worse for them? Well, she would be more than happy to prove that solid gold could do just as much damage as cold iron.

"Elody?" Gerard probed, nudged her gently with his head. "Is everything alright?"

"This isn't counting as our meeting for the month, I prefer to spend my time with you when you're not currently in pain." Elody opened the door to the outside, squinting slightly in the light. Her coach was still waiting, though the coachman had pulled out a small book from his pouch and kicked his foot up on his knee to rest the spine against it.

"I'm not in that much pain," Gerard lied through his teeth, something that became even more blindingly clear when he made a wrong step onto the path and had to clutch his side.

"Gerard."

He hung his head, giving a softly resigned sight. "You know my address, don't you?" As he raised his head, Elody could see the slight smile on his face.

"Of course I do, Gerard. How do you think I talk with Timothy so much? He's your neighbor, isn't he?" Elody grinned at him as they moved up to the coach. Silently, the coachman opened the door up as Elody helped Gerard into the carriage. "Take us to Gerard's, I'm sure you know the address." The door closed and they were left alone in the coach.

A crack of a whip could be heard through the walls and soon the carriage was on its way, bumping over the uneven roads of Happly. With each bump, Gerard grimaced slightly and held his hand over the wrapping on his chest. Elody kept a careful gaze on it, making sure that no blood began to soak through the bandages. Hopefully Gerard would have some bandages at home that Elody could change them with, if that did happen.

The ride to Gerard's home (and there was no small amount of petty annoyance inside of Elody at the reminder that Gerard no longer lived with her) was silent, and slightly tense. Gerard seemed set on trying to hide the fact that every bump was hurting him and Elody felt frozen in her seat a few feet away.

Would it be a little too forward for her to move across, to close that distance between them and put her hand on his chest? She no longer had access to lay on hands, it wouldn't do anything, but it would make her feel better. It would make her feel like she could do something, even if she couldn't.

Elody sat with her hands sandwiched in between her thighs in order to keep herself from doing anything foolish.

Thankfully, the ride was over sooner rather than later. Eventually the coach came to a rolling stop in front of Gerard’s humble home, complete with a slightly overgrown front lawn that had an attempt at cultivating some type of berry. Elody wouldn’t be surprised if Rosamund had a hand in helping them grow, gods know that Gerard never had a particularly green thumb.

“Are you sure you want to stay?” Gerard searched for expression for something, eyes flicking over her face to try and find some hidden feeling. “I’m sure I’ll be fine on my own.”

“I don’t want to risk it, Gerard.” Elody reached out to place a hand on his side. Her powers couldn’t sense any infection beginning to form, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t form during the night. The last thing she needed was him falling ill. “It’s fine, I’ll stay the night and leave in the morning.”

“My lady,” the footman began as he opened up the door on Gerard’s side. “I have family in the area, could I be obliged to visit them? I will be here right as the dawn breaks to retrieve you.”

Elody couldn’t think of anything better than a solid excuse to spend the entire night alone with Gerard. “Of course, say hello to them for me.”

She moved out of the carriage first, nodding her head in dismissal to her footman as she took Gerard's arm and helped him onto the ground. As they moved towards the door, Elody restrained herself from wrapping his arm around her shoulders and helping him that way. Gerard leaned on her heavier as he rummaged in his pockets for his keys, grimacing (half annoyed, half pained) as he strained his side.

Just as she was about to reach out and grab them for him, Gerard yanked the keys free and jammed them into the keyhole. He muttered to himself about needing to get around to get it fixed or something similar, as he pushed the door open.

He offered her a tired smile, head slightly tilted to the side and hair falling like a curtain. Like always, he was handsome. "Welcome to my humble abode."

Elody was not a judgemental person, she had always been someone who saw the beauty in anything. She had fallen in love with Gerard when he was a frog who could easily fit inside of her hands, and she was always a child who loved escaping into the woods far before being stuck in lectures. However, calling Gerard's home humble was a bit of an overstatement in her opinion.

It was the same basic shape as all of the other houses around it, the same sort of layout that was almost open-concept but wasn't quite reaching it. There were a few too many half walls that kept it from being open concept, and the kitchen was still just a little too hidden away for it to count. From the front door, Elody could see a sliver of it. Just the edge of linoleum and tile, the edge of a chrome fridge, small stuff that wouldn't be out of place in any of the other cookie cutter houses on the street.

But other than the bare skeleton, there was just something empty about it.

Gerard had certainly been a man of abundance when Elody and he lived in Greenleigh in that first timeline all those years ago, and it seemed strange to see a complete lack of that in his new house. There was a couch that was noticeably second hand, scratches on the wooden posts and the upholstery was beginning to come undone at the seams, the armchair catty-corner to it was a completely different style and made out of cracked leather.

There wasn't even any sort of television, just an empty wall that faced the sofa.

It wasn't that the house was in disrepair, but it was evident that Gerard had gotten everything that he owned from friends.

(A small part of Elody relished in it.

Not her husband's less-than-royal living circumstances, but the fact that this made her almost positive that he wasn't planning on this being permanent.)

The sofa was a little too plush underneath them as she settled Gerard down, wincing in tandem with him as he strained his side. Elody preferred a sofa that would hold up underneath them, one that didn't sink all the way down to the springs just from the weight of two healthy adults. Was it entirely based on the one time where Gerard and her broke a couch in Tapestry?

Perhaps.

"You don't need to stay, E," Gerard began again, before promptly being shushed.

Elody laid a finger against his lips, barely hiding her smile at the expression on his face. Wide eyes, slightly parted lips, deeply, painfully attractive. "I'm staying, Gerard. You're not changing my mind, so stop trying."

Gerard held his hands up in surrender, a slight smile on his lips. "Okay, I won't try again."

"Good." She let her finger drag down his lip before moving his legs up so she could sit down while he relaxed. "Have you gotten injured like this before at work?"

He shrugged then grimaced. "It was more common at the beginning, back when the kids still didn't know what to do and were more prone to messing around. Today was just wrong place wrong time, Tim wouldn't have even come gotten you if he didn't know it was our meeting day."

Elody didn't want to admit to the way that made her heart pound. To know without a doubt that if it hadn't been this day, if she hadn't happened to be in Happly, Gerard would have been injured and alone.

(Or maybe, a snide little voice inside of her offered, Mother Goose would have purposefully made up an excuse to not be there so she would have to spend the night caring for Gerard. For as much as Elody had certain reservations about the man, considering everything that happened, she couldn't deny that his meddling did have some upsides.)

"Y'know," Gerard tilted his head at her, a far familiar smile on his face. "I have this bottle of wine that I've been saving for a special occasion, how about you go get it from the cabinet and we salvage this night?"

"You're injured, I don't think you should be drinking-"

"-I'm fine, they didn't even give me any medication or magic, I'm okay to drink." Gerard settled his hand on hers and gave her a sweet smile. "We were going to have a nice meal anyway, and that bottle is just going to be in my cabinet for--years, I don't know. Let's crack it open tonight."

Elody allowed herself to give in, not that her original objection was anything more than a farce. At least an attempt for her to pretend like getting a little drunk with her quasi-husband wasn't exactly what she wanted.

She huffed through her nose, shaking her head to hide a smile as she moved further into Gerard's abode.

It was an empty sort of homely, deeply obvious that Gerard spent very little time in his home alone. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were all interconnected and open concept. A nice layout at the very least, it was just empty of most things.

Which meant it was easy for Elody to find his kitchen, and then find the cabinet that the wine was in. It was one of those cabinets that obviously came with the house, slightly dinged up from the previous owner with the paint job already beginning to chip. Elody restrained herself from wrinkling her nose at the way that the hinges of the door squeaked, containing herself to grabbing the wine and heading back into the living room.

"Is this the right bottle?" Elody hadn't even really bothered to read the label, not expecting Gerard to have a lot of other options of wine bottles.

Gerard clicked his tongue, shooting finger crossbows at her as he shuffled up higher on the couch. "That's the one. It's recent, it's probably not going to be good."

"Are you sure that you want to drink this? We could let it age for a little longer..." Elody teased as she grabbed two normal glasses, unwilling and unable to go through the effort to find actual wine glasses.

It wasn't like they were trying to entertain any guests, and if they were drinking anything other than wine then Elody would be more than fine to merely sit on the couch and pass the bottle back and forth. But this was wine that was just barely good enough to warrant aerating, and Elody didn't want to risk spilling it all over the already-second hand couch.

If Gerard was dedicated to the idea of spending the next six months still separated, then Elody wasn't going to leave him with a wine stained couch.

(Though she would take great delayed gratification in letting the old thing find either a new home or its final resting place in a trash heap.)

By the time she got back to the couch, Gerard had pulled himself up to be sitting up properly. Still leaning a little heavily on his uninjured side, he flashed her a grin as he raised a hand to accept the glass.

"Thank you, E." He inclined his head towards her, carefully watching her as she moved to sit down next to him.

Before responding, she poured them both a heavy glass. "Cheers, Gerard."

As they clinked glasses, Elody watched him swirl the wine and sniff it before drinking it. Hiding a smile in her own glass, Elody enjoyed the simple fact that Gerard still treated every glass of wine like a rare vintage that needed to be appreciated.

And then immediately had to try to stop herself from spitting the wine back into the glass. It was deeply alcoholic, to the point of tasting like something that had been made in someone's backyard rather than any sort of vintage aged anywhere remotely respectable.

Gerard seemed to be having similar issues, face screwed up as he rested his glass on the arm of the couch. "Oh this is-"

"-This is bad, this is really bad." Elody laughed, shoulders shaking as she hunched over. "God, Gerard, are you sure that whoever gave you this is your friend? This tastes like an assassination attempt."

Gerard covered his mouth as he coughed, shaking his head. "I don't think so? They said they made it themselves--"

"Gods above, Gerard, why are you taking backyard wine?"

"It's not backyard wine!" He laughed, scratching at his jaw. "One of my coworkers has a thing at their house-"

"-Is the thing in their backyard? Is this backyard wine, Gerard?" Elody teased, nudging him with her leg. "Did you invite me over for backyard wine, me, your loving separated wife?"

"I'm sorry that I figured my friend wouldn't be giving out pure ethanol at a company party." He laughed, snickering as he took another sip and then regretted it. "Oh, why does it burn?"

"Because your friend made it in their backyard, and definitely didn't have any oversight." Elody coughed after taking another sip. For as bad as it was, it sure was alcoholic and she would love to spend the rest of the night less than sober.

"Hey, hey okay let's not say that this person was my friend. I said they were my coworker, I don't know them that well."

Elody marveled at her husband, unable to connect any of the dots that led to the decision to not only accept the bottle, but want to drink it with her. She sipped her drink before making a face.

Truly this was not a wine that you sipped and enjoyed with a meal, this was a wine that you drank as fast as physically possible in order to get as drunk as possible. Even with Elody having to consciously subdue her own Paladin aura to keep herself from getting snapped back to sober, Elody could already feel the room start to sway just a single glass in.

That was probably why the coworker was giving it away, this couldn't be legal to sell for a profit.

Gerard hadn't finished his own glass yet, leaning back and looking at the partially full glass. "This is the first non-royal standard drink I've ever had."

Elody snorted, shrugging. "Definitely not my first. Gods, I think my first was when I was fourteen? I know that you had come into my life, because I remember being so upset that night because I had to leave you in my room. There was some duke's son who had brought a bottle of something in his cloak and god, it was probably as bad as whatever this is."

Gerard let out a sad little hum, shaking his head as he downed the rest of his first glass. "Sometimes I think about all that I missed, being a frog."

Elody sobered up, not literally, and shifted to better face him. It wasn't often that Gerard got maudlin while drunk, but Elody was far more prepared than she thought that she would be. If her husband needed to speak on his past, then she would listen.

A warm hand on his arm was all Gerard needed to continue on, and he shrugged his opposite shoulder. "It's just something that's been on my mind recently, most of my coworkers all had fairly normal lives growing up and things only truly started to go wrong a little more than halfway into their teens. No one else had lost as much time as I have."

Elody made a soft, sympathetic noise in the back of her throat as she rubbed her hand up and down Gerard's arm. He was warm underneath her hand, he always was, and Elody let her hand slip down a little to feel the hard muscle underneath soft skin. He wasn't unscarred from his time away, even discounting the nasty scar that took up most of his chest, but parts of him were still the exact same.

That despite everything they've both been through, Elody still knew parts of him and he knew parts of her.

She didn't know what to say, lost for words as she shifted a little closer. Her hand slid down his arm until they were holding hands, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand.

"Elody, I love you. You know that right? For three different timelines, I have loved you. But I don't know what else I love." His voice broke and her heart broke with it. "I haven't had any point in my life where I've been able to just experiment with what I like."

"Well, I wouldn't say that. You and I experimented a lot when you first became human again. In fact, I think we experimented far more than others." Elody wasn't even truly trying to flirt, she just wanted to make him feel better.

A brief smile flitted across Gerard's face before it fell.

"About that-" he started and then paused, even as Elody's heart crept into her throat. "The last time we met, it was May. I'm sure you don't need to be reminded what May is usually like for me."

Indeed Elody does remember, in crystal clear detail and with full anticipation for next May when they're finally back together and they can enjoy each other's company. Despite the fact that she knew her seamstresses were grateful for the reprieve from their usual May workload, Gerard had quite the reputation in their other timelines and Elody was more than happy to entertain his needs.

"I'm not proud of it, E, I can't say that I regret it either but--" He waffled about, looking down into his glass and swirling the dredges about. "That barista from the coffee shop, Benjamin, whose sister works with me? Right after our meeting ended, he approached me. And, well it's a little uncouth to say it like this, but he asked if I wanted to go back to his house that night. And....we hooked up."

Elody felt like she almost physically had to shove down jealousy that rose within her. It wasn't as though this hadn't been covered when they were first arranging the separation, they had both agreed that since they wouldn't be in constant contact they could sleep with other people. For gods sake, it was May, it wasn't like Gerard would have had a great time suffering through the entire month alone.

Part of her was glad that he had gone out and gotten himself a lay for the night.

The other half of her could not say the same. The other half of her was seething in rage that someone else had dared to approach Gerard and proposition him, for truly she could not see Gerard going out of his way to sleep with someone outside of their arrangement.

The same part of her that had once thrown a frog into a wall and enjoyed the rewards wanted her to take her mace and slam it into the fragile, hollow bones of Benjamin's arm.

Elody swallowed heavily to keep herself from showing any of those thoughts on her face, and forced herself to shrug. "I'm familiar with him, I couldn't have placed him as your type though."

Gerard offered her a wry smile, shrugging slightly. "Neither could I."

She closed her mouth with a soft click of her teeth, setting her glass on the glass topped coffee table in order to shift closer to him. Shuffling down on the couch, she rested her head against his shoulder. "I'm surprised it took him this long to try and seduce you to his bedchambers, he's had his eye on you since at least January."

He coughed, curling up as Elody slapped his back. "He's what?"

"Gerard," she sighed, letting her hand drift down to rest on his lower back. "I've heard stories of your fighting, I've seen how you fence, I know that you're a brilliant man. But you are so terribly blind to anyone's interest it astounds me."

Gerard squawked, turning to face her with no small amount of offense on his face. "What does that mean?"

"You were deeply wanted the entire time we were courting properly in Greenleigh, why do you think I rarely ever left your side during balls? Because I knew that some high born would eventually try their luck and come up to flirt with you. It didn't stop some of them, though them I was rather impressed with their boldness."

He dropped her hand in order to run both hands through his hair. Gerard let out a low groan, pressing the heels of his hands against his shut eyes. "I didn't notice, at all. I thought they just wanted to come up and talk to the newest person there."

Elody fought off a smile as she rubbed her knuckles against his spine. "Ohh, Gerard. It's okay, it's okay. I'm sure they immediately figured out that I was the only woman on your mind once you started talking about how long it had taken you to get everything just right."

Gerard arched his back, just a little, to press into her hands. "Well," he turned his head towards her with a slight grin, "At least I know that I wasn't accidentally flirting with other people in front of you."

She couldn't stop herself from snorting at the mental image. Back in that first timeline, it took true effort to keep Gerard out of her personal space--effort that Elody never bothered to give because she was far too happy to stay wrapped up in her handsome husband. The fact that no noble ever tried flirting with Gerard twice was proof enough of that, it was blindingly obvious to anyone who had met them that Gerard only had eyes for her.

(Again, Elody found herself having to stamp down on jealousy. It was just sex. Gerard seemed unattached to Benjamin entirely and hadn't yet sent a Message to her saying that he found someone else or even that he wanted to call off their deal.)

Gerard shifted against him, humming out low as he tucked his head into the crook of her neck. His hand gently cradled his glass in his lap, making sure nothing spilled. They sat in silence like that, only ever moving more than an inch away from each other to refill their glasses. Discussion turned to lighter things, things of heavy political importance (for Elody) or things that happened at his job (Gerard), but nothing that left a sour taste in either of their mouths.

It was only when the bottle of wine was empty but for dregs when Gerard settled his glass on the mismatched side table and looked at her with slightly glossy eyes. A slow grin spread his lips as he leaned in to kiss her.

Elody of course returned it. Kissing Gerard was her second favorite boon of being married to him and he knew just how to delight her.

As he broke away, Gerard stayed close with his head inclined towards her. " 'S weird."

"Mhm?" Elody allowed her hand to ghost up Gerard's back and rest on the nape of his neck. "What's weird?"

"This is the first time in my life there's no bigger thing I'm going after." His breath was sweet with wine, and Elody shifted further on the couch so that he was no longer supporting himself over her. Mindful of his injured arm, she laid him back and hovered over him. "I'm not a prince, I'm not saving the world, I'm not trying to just survive."

Her gaze dropped to his lips, almost without her say-so. After all the wine, Elody had to fight against herself to stay focused on what Gerard was saying. It was evidently important, especially to him, and she didn't want to brush over his thoughts by pressing him hard against the couch.

"I've always...been something, y'know? I was a frog, and then I was your husband, and then I was a hero. There was no time for me to just...be Gerard." He shifted underneath her, uninjured hand resting on her hip to keep her there. "And now I am, and I...I don't even know who I am."

Elody paused, sitting back on his thighs instead of directly on top of him. Gingerly, as though not to spook a wild animal, Elody lifted his hand from her hip and brought it to her lips. Pressing a kiss against his knuckles (and relishing in the faint lipstick mark left behind), Elody cupped her own chin with his hand.

"You are Gerard of Greenleigh, the previous heir apparent to the Veil of Starlight. You're a fantastic people person, endlessly dedicated to the craft of fencing, and you can throw a ball better than most organizers this side of Reverie. You're fantastic with kids, and they can't help but trust you because at the end of the day you are a good person."

Elody fought past flickers of memories that weren't her, of throwing a frog into a wall and immediately marrying the man that came from it. That wasn't her, and that wasn't her Gerard.

Her Gerard was underneath her, happy and whole and warm, slightly flushed from either the compliments or the wine.

He tried to turn his head from her, but she carefully redirected his attention.

"You are a man who cannot handle his spice, but refuses to let that stop him from tasting any cultural dish put in front of him. You hate dogs not just because of your time in the pond, but because when you were five you got chased by one of the head guard's hounds and had to be helped down from a tree." Gerard snorted, pressing into her hand on his face.

"I can't believe you still remember that," Gerard groaned, rolling his eyes and hiding his smile against her hand.

"Of course I remember, you told me it." Elody curled over slightly, enough that her hair hung down as she stared at him. "You're a good man, Gerard. I don't want you to ever forget that."

Gerard looked up at her through slitted eyelids, lips twisted into faint displeasure. "Elody, I appreciate--"

"Gerard," she interrupted, gripping his chin a little harder to make sure she was being understood. "You're a good man with many lovely attributes. If I have to figure out a way to get you a teleportation spell so you can continue to teach at the rec center when you're back in Greenleigh, I will."

A half-hearted smile formed on his face and he raised an eyebrow up at her. "So sure that we're going to get back together?"

There was no real doubt in his voice, just affectionate teasing. If there was any part of Gerard who was planning on continuing their separation further than the next six months, he did a good job of hiding it.

Elody snorted, and bent double to kiss his forehead. "I didn't get as far as I did by doubting myself."

Whatever Gerard was going to say was interrupted by a jaw-cracking yawn, eyes squeezing shut as he worked his jaw. Turning his head back and forth to crack his neck--a habit of his that Elody never enjoyed--he gently pulled away from her hand. "I think we should turn in for the night."

His hands tightened a sturdier grip on her hips, lifting her up as though she wasn't just as tall as him and well muscled. Elody couldn't restrain the thrill that went through her as Gerard almost absentmindedly kept her raised up as he moved off of the couch. Her legs wrapped around his waist on instinct, hands settling on his biceps. 

However, he second that he was standing and holding her, Elody remembered that Gerard had injured his arm.

"Gerard!" She exclaimed, dropping her legs from around his waist so that she was standing on the ground. "What did Umha say about straining yourself?"

He grinned at her, stumbling slightly as he took a step away from the couch. "You're not heavy, not to me."

Elody let out a slow breath, shaking her head and gently slapping his uninjured arm. "We should get you to bed, you're going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning."

Gerard mumbled to himself, more than a little put out of it, and Elody wrapped an arm around his waist to make sure he didn’t fall. She was rather happy that Gerard had chosen to put his bed on the bottom floor, she doubted her ability to get them both up even one flight of stairs without stumbling. Her own vision was beginning to sway at the edges, and she squeezed him a little closer to her side.

Tiredness was already tugging at her eyelids as she laid Gerard on the bed, barely able to summon up the energy to yank his shoes off before near collapsing to sit on the other side of the bed.

Huh, he still sleeps on the left side of the bed.

Elody pulled at the laces of her boots, toeing them off and tossing them onto the ground without any dignity. Failing to even bother to curl up under the covers, she turned on her side to stare at Gerard’s sleeping face.

Despite her warnings of the both of them having hangovers, right before she succumbed to sleep Elody allowed her paladin aura to pulse over the two of them. The haze of alcohol disappeared from her mind right as exhaustion took over and pulled her down into the sweet darkness.

Chapter Text

Gerard stared at himself in the mirror and frowned.

His reflection was fine; it was the same handsome human man that he was always supposed to be. It was hard to remind himself that no matter how Elody felt, that wouldn't be taken from him again. He wouldn't revert back to that half-cursed state, and he certainly would never lose his humanity again.

No more true love, no more frogs.

Though he didn't know where to place the emotions that had come over him when he woke up and Elody was still next to him. As ungraceful in sleep as she ever was, head pillowed on her arm and drooling a trail down to a wet spot on the pillow.

Perhaps true love was different from True Love, whatever Gerard and Elody felt for each other was real. It just wasn't enforced by any preternatural roles that the Authors decided were best for the story. The book didn't matter, and there was nothing laid out in stone in front of them, but that didn't mean the love wasn't real.

It was a thought that had haunted Gerard for weeks after their initial agreement, the idea that if he spent enough time away from Elody, then all the feelings would fade away like paint peeling. That they were together because of the pressure of two timelines on their backs and the invisible hands of the Authors.

But staring at her that morning, the sun slowly peeking in from behind the curtain and fanning across her relaxed face, Gerard knew that he had been wrong to even consider the idea. His heart had done its best to crawl up into his throat, and it was only because he needed to get to work that he hadn't spent the next hour waiting patiently for Elody to wake up.

Gerard had left a note on the kitchen table and felt so supremely embarrassed about not having anything in the house to make breakfast with that he left definitely too many gold pieces on the table for her to treat herself with.

Gerard shook his head to clear his mind as he adjusted the collar of his button-up, attempting a charming smile in the mirror.

It had already been a month since the last time they met up, and it was time for another one of their meetings. Gerard hadn't wanted to set up another meeting at the coffee shop (not just because he had yet to look Benjamin in the eye or answer any of his messages), and it just so happened that Timothy was hosting a small party to celebrate something or other.

Gerard had, admittedly, not paid much attention to the reason behind the party. He was far too excited at the prospect of any party, even just a small one, to really care why Timothy decided that everyone needed to come to his house to celebrate something.

(In all honesty, it was probably something small specifically expounded upon in order to have an excuse to throw a party. It had been a while since the last time they were all truly together; it was far too long ago.

It wasn't like anyone was about to disagree or not show up.

He had had half a mind to invite Elody himself, but lo and behold, Ylfa had taken care of that for him.

There was no small amount of amusement that grew in his stomach as a very excited Ylfa whispered it to him like it was a secret he wasn't allowed to know. Having already been informed by Elody about it, Gerard still played the part of someone truly taken by surprise.

Then Ylfa told him, in her best conspirator voice, that she was going to make sure to talk him up to Elody. She had used the term wingwolf, which raised many questions about where she was getting the information on how to be a wing-anything.

No matter how Gerard protested, Ylfa was completely staunch in her idea to the point of roping Pinocchio into helping her. With two teenagers excitedly clamoring around him, Gerard was hopeless to deny them.

Not that denying them would actually do anything; the two of them would agree to his face and then turn around and completely go against that. The second she sat down at the table, they would immediately start regaling her with tales of their adventures and all the heroics that Gerard took part in.

The best way to spare Elody from the barrage of two teenagers doing their best to hype Gerard up was to make sure that she wasn't sat between them. Gerard couldn't do that to his best friend, especially when he knew the types of stories that they were going to tell.

However, that left more questions than it actually solved when it came to arranging the dinner table.

Even though it was Timothy and Henry's party, Gerard had been given full rein to control the placings and the decorating and the organization and basically everything but the actual cooking. His reputation as the premier ball-hoster (a title that had Ylfa and Pinocchio snickering every time they heard it) meant that the responsibility fell squarely in his lap.

Not that he minded; he would rather have the responsibility than be stuck at a horrid party.

The Goose-Hubbard house party was going to be hosted centered around a circular table, meaning that Gerard couldn't just set Elody at one end of the table and the teenagers on the other. Everyone was going to be sitting next to two people, which was where the problems arose.

Elody didn't like Timothy, for reasons that Gerard didn't entirely know and absolutely didn't want to ask about. Rosamund would get along well with Elody, considering that they had a few amicable chats between themselves back at the Snow Queen's castle, so she'll go on one side of her. Maybe he could put Ylfa on Rosamund's other side, make it harder for her to directly monopolize Elody's attention if she had to move around Rosamund to do so.

That still left Elody's other side open, and not many people who could take that spot.

Gerard...wasn't sure if he wanted to place himself there. He loved Elody, in every way that there was to love another person; he loved talking with her and spending time with her.

Their last conversation, while heavily impacted by alcohol, hadn't exactly ended badly. But it had opened up a can of worms that neither of them could close or resolve with the situation they were in. Elody was still the love of his life, but Gerard needed to figure out what that life was going to look like.

He needed to figure out who he was that wasn't a fighter and wasn't Elody's loyal husband. The former had no place in the new Neverafter, and the latter...as much as Gerard didn't like to look at it, the fact was he couldn't depend on that for his entire sense of self.

No more frogs, no more true love, and by god, Elody deserved better than someone who was a husband and nothing more.

Gerard scratched out a vague plan of seat placements on a piece of scratch paper, only to be stopped before writing down a single name by the sound of his front door hitting the wall and Ylfa screaming his name.

"Gerard!" And then, very quickly, "You have to promise not to be mad!"

He set down his pencil, inhaling deeply. Gerard knew full well that it was extremely likely that Ylfa was holding some sort of wild animal in her hands that was going to escape the second that it could. Hopefully, it hadn't bitten yet, or at least if it had, then hopefully Tim had something prepared to remove whatever disease Ylfa may get from a wild animal's bacteria.

None of her wild-shaping or raging could stop her from getting rabies, and Gerard really didn't need one of his friends becoming rabid.

(Well, more rabid than Ylfa already was.)

Gerard poked his head into the living room, scanning to see if Ylfa had accidentally let a wild animal loose in his home. The last thing he needed was for his house to be a wreck right before a dinner where he's supposed to be enjoying himself. There would be no way to properly clean up before needing to go over to Timothy's, even if he somehow immediately removed the animal.

Thankfully and surprisingly, Ylfa was not holding a wild animal, nor did she have any obvious slashes or cuts. A quick glance around the room let Gerard know that those two facts were not because a wild animal was running amok in his home. He ran through his short list of what Ylfa could want him to prematurely promise not to be mad about when she didn't seem like she was in any danger.

For a moment, his heart leapt in his chest as he realized that he couldn't see Pinocchio anywhere.

"Ylfa—" he began, already moving towards the door.

"It's not bad; there's no animal!" Ylfa grabbed onto his arm, voice squeaking up at the end. "But. I may or may not--may or may not!- have sent a letter to Elody to make sure that she would come and show up."

Gerard let out a relieved breath, not only because there wasn't a partially rabid animal escaped into his home for him to find later, but also because Ylfa was worrying over a non-issue.

"That's- Ylfa. Elody was already always going to show up." He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "That's nothing for me to get mad over."

Ylfa let out a relieved sigh and knocked her head against his shoulder, resting her forehead there. "Awesome! I was worried you'd get mad that I threatened your wife."

Before the words had a chance to process, Gerard wrapped an arm around Ylfa and tugged her close. With his chin resting on top of her head, Gerard froze as he processed what Ylfa had just said, and then it took a few more seconds to understand what that meant.

"What do you mean you threatened my wife?" Gerard pushed Ylfa back to look at her face. She didn't seem scared enough, but that was probably because she didn't know much about Elody's might.

Half of what Gerard did in Greenleigh in that first timeline was smooth over diplomatic relationships after someone made a horrid comment about the nature of Elody's regenthood. Gerard was rather proud of the fact that almost every single time, he got them to apologize to her.

"I didn't mean to, Gerard!" Ylfa looked up at him with luminous yellow eyes, worrying her lower lip. "I just had phrased things in a way that could be maybe seem like I was going to do drastic things if she didn't show up!"

"Why... why would you even send a letter like that in the first place?" Gerard rubbed his knuckles against his sternum, trying to calm his racing heart. "Even if she wasn't going to show up, why does that matter? Everything's fine between Elody and me!"

"Then why aren't you living together anymore?" Like a curious dog, Ylfa tilted her head up at him. Gerard averted his eyes and inhaled deeply.

"Things are...complicated between us. After everything that happened in the past two timelines, we both needed a little time on our own. I appreciate you wanting to get us back together, but I don't need you to fight my battles for me." He put his hand on Ylfa's shoulder, giving it a little reassuring squeeze. "When Elody shows up, you're going to apologize for whatever threat was in that letter, okay?"

Ylfa nodded her head, penitent even as she spoke. "I make no promises; if she shows up, then that means she didn't take offense."

Gerard grimaced, shaking his head a little. Better to just apologize to Elody in private; he doubted that Ylfa was going to do it herself. After all that had happened and the conversations they had during their last meeting, he felt like he was standing on a cliff's edge.

Wavering in the breeze, like any wrong move could send him plummeting.

It wasn't due to anything that Elody had done, no unconscious hints that Gerard could pick up on. The only consequence of Gerard's tryst with Benjamin was that he could no longer show his face at that coffee shop again, and he did his best to duck out early of any coworker parties.

Call him a coward, but Gerard couldn't exactly face Benjamin after their admittedly nice night together. There were a few too many feelings on Benjamin's side, and for all of Gerard's faults, he didn't like leading people on. He knew that he couldn't give Benjamin what he wanted—nor what he deserved—when Elody still held all of his heartstrings.

He found himself a little more upset over losing that really nice and conveniently close coffee shop than anything else.

The familiar sound of a certain cat scratching at the kitchen door was enough to jolt him out of his thoughts. Claws against hardwood meant that PiB had left the Hubbard-Goose house in order to retrieve him.

It was time for him to get the party set up.

Gerard couldn't think about the past when he needed to party plan at a house that wasn't his. He pinched the bridge of his nose and decided that he wouldn't worry over something that hadn't even happened yet. For all he knew, tonight would go perfectly, and his heart was skipping beats for nothing.

"Ylfa-"

"I'll get Mother Goose out of the house so you have it to yourself." She beamed, winking before dipping out of his house. Over her shoulder, she called, "We'll go to the store! We'll pick up some food!"

Gerard nodded, already fully in his head about where he was going to start. The first thing he did was, of course, go to his neighbor's house to examine what his starting level was.

Thankfully, the Hubbard-Goose home had a very similar layout to his own place, and ever since moving in, Gerard had already made several plans for how he would decorate and set up for a variety of parties. It was a simple matter to overlay his perfect vision onto the Hubbard-Goose house and a much more complicated matter to put it into action.

The next few hours passed in a blur of arranging and then rearranging things, Gerard making up and then changing his mind on a whim in order to better suit the pre-existing decorations. 

Even if he didn't agree with them, even if he thought that some of them were coasting on the line between acceptable and gaudy. It wasn't his house, and he wasn't inconsiderate enough to put the host's own decor away in order to have his vision.

It was an issue he never had to deal with in his first lifetime, where most of what he did was occupy himself with planning out balls and gatherings for any diplomat who could attend.

As Gerard set the seventh place at the table, he tried to not think of how his penchant for throwing balls had a hand in the end of his marriage.

Not that the full fault of the matter could be attributed to something as simple as enjoying a party, but it was a symptom of a much larger issue.

(The thing was, the horrible thing was, that Gerard had thought that throwing the balls was part of him stepping up.

There was an undeniable political swing to every single ball and soiree that he threw, words whispered into the right ears and glasses pressed into important hands. He had thought it would be enough.

He had hoped that it would be enough.

But war still came to their doorsteps, and Gerard still died a thousand miles away from the most important person in his life.)

And even with the political nature of what he was trying to do, that didn't solve the issue at the core of their marriage. All of his political workings were subtle, behind the scenes, barely even there except in the back of his equals minds. What was important was that Elody did not feel as though Gerard was on her side, and that was what needed to change.

The end of their marriage wasn't really the end, Gerard resolved as he set down the soup spoon on the final placing. He was a man who didn't shy away from danger now, a man who didn't have to choose the pond or the dogs.

(He was a man who was good at teaching children; he was a man who could throw a damn good party; he was a man with enough patience to run through the same forms over and over again for hours; he was a man who really appreciated a warm drink on a cold morning.

He was also a man who hadn't spoken with his one-night stand out of shame of stepping out on his wife—when his wife was perfectly fine with it and also not currently technically his wife.

Not everything could be a win for Gerard.)

He pressed the flat of his thumbnail against his lips, refraining from falling into an ancient childhood habit of biting his nails. The only reason he had gotten over it in the first place was because of the curse, and Gerard wasn't sure he could do a repeat performance if he slipped back into it.

Stalking back and forth in front of the door to the kitchen, Gerard ran through several checklists in his mind. The food was a potluck style, and everything that he could control was simmering on the stove or staying warm in the oven. The table was properly set for everyone, and he had even color-coded the mismatched napkins to make sure that everyone sat in their correct spots.

(He needed to avoid Elody being between either of the horrible wonderful teens that were in his old adventuring party, and he also needed to not be next to her so that she didn't think that he was being presumptuous.)

The decoration was all nice, the table was set perfectly, the food was out of his control, and that was for the better.

Gerard sank against the frame of the kitchen door, taking out a handkerchief and patting at his brow. Changing his mind six times on whether or not it was rude to turn around the miniature abstract nudist statue was exhausting, even if he ended up deciding that it was for the best to just go with it and decorate it.

Someone was bound to get a kick out of the fact he wrapped a garland of flowers around what could be a deeply abstract penis. It also could be a tail, and Gerard was just looking at it backwards.

He erred on the side of penis.

After the sixth time changing his mind, Gerard actually found himself really liking the statue. He had to see if Timothy or Henry still knew where they got it from and if the artist was still making versions.

If the marriage got back together, it would be lovely for their castle in Greenleigh. If things took a dramatic and terrible turn, it would be befitting of a bachelor pad.

Just a single frog-man with an abstract erotic statue.

"If that happens, I'm going to kill myself," Gerard announced to absolutely no one.

"If what happens?"

"Ah, fuck!" Not no one! Not no one!

Rosamund stood in the living room, carefully balancing several baskets on her hip with the help of some of her swarm. A little purse to her lips and a tilt to her head that was far too concerned for what caused Gerard's outburst.

"I'm not killing myself, Rosamund." Gerard rushed out, needing this conversation to be over as soon as possible.

He was already cutting it close to the wire with the back and forth on the penis sculpture; at this point he wouldn't be surprised if Elody came in the door the moment that Gerard decided to pick it up to put it away.

Rosamund gave him a doubtful look, allowing her eyes to slowly slip from him to the statue. She snorted, shoulders rising and falling, "Nice statue, Gerard. You should leave it out."

Well, if he hadn't decided before, he had now. The statue needed to be locked in their bedroom so that no one could even happen upon it, or else it would be the talk of the night.

Gerard just sent his good friend a withering glare as he picked up the statue and tucked it under his arm. "Absolutely not."

"Gerard! I'm back!" Ylfa crowed from the entrance, poking her head into the house. "I got Mother Goose to go out to the market, so he should be occupied for a little."

"Thank you, Ylfa. Help Rosamund set out some of her stuff; I gotta go put stuff away." Gerard all but stuffed the abstract penis in his shirt to keep Ylfa from seeing it and talking about it. It wasn't obscene, but he knew that Ylfa would ask about why he was hiding it under his shirt.

And then he would have to admit that he didn’t want his slightly separated-from wife to see that the dinner party she had been threatened-invited to had an abstract penis statue near where they would be eating.

Rosamund let out a little laugh, sending one of her sparrows to perch upon Gerard's shoulder. "Go hide Tim's unmentionables, Gerard. I'll make sure Ylfa actually helps."

"Thank you." Gerard flashed her a quick smile, allowing the bird to rest without being jostled even as he walked. Rosamund was the only other person in their little group, other than, of course, Mother Goose, that could make Ylfa stop snooping for a minute.

Without a war going on to kick her into focus, Ylfa was a perfect devil of a child who never gave up on a hint once she got her hands on it. Gerard's relationship with Elody was one of those things, even if it wasn't her main focus at all times. Ylfa never could let him even mention Elody without asking a few needling questions about where they were vis-à-vis their relationship.

Gerard did his best to not look around the lovingly lived-in state of the Hubbard-Goose bedroom, only partially because he did not want to know what the two of them got up to. Mostly it was because it reminded him of his home and the sad state of his bedroom, even if he found it slightly motivating. His bedroom was sparse, but he did have a frame for his mattress and a box spring underneath that. Only a few personal effects that were actually his; most stuff there was either freshly gifted or randomly bought at markets or whatever yard sales that people in the area were having.

Nice effects for sure, but nothing that was properly his.

Most of what was his was still at the castle, with Elody. He hadn't wanted to take too many things from their rooms, not when they were still technically together.

Not while there was still hope for their relationship.

So he had taken very little from the castle and thrown himself to the whims of his friends, who knew how to decorate his quasi-bachelor pad. He still wasn't sure if they were genuinely helpful and thoughtful gifts or if he was mostly being actively fucked with.

Still, even if it was that, Gerard was sure that it was helpful and thoughtful fuckery.

He settled the erotic penis statue on their side table and went back down to his kitchen to see what chaos Ylfa and Rosamund had gotten into.

Thankfully, his prepared meal was still in one piece, and everything was put together. Rosamund's berries were on the table, and Gerard's placemats hadn't been messed with. Things looked normal, which was better than Gerard thought it was going to look like.

Ylfa grinned at him, needle-sharp and narrowed eyes. "So, Elody's still coming? Didn't panic over the death threat?"

"I haven't gotten any letters or messages from her, and she's always been very good about not letting people expect her without reason." Gerard hummed, smile growing a little as he heard Henry, Timothy, and Pinocchio come through the door. They were the last ones to arrive before Elody, and they were the ones bringing the last bits of food.

"We're all in the kitchen," Rosamund called, not leaving the kitchen proper.

"What's this I hear about Elody showing up?" Mother Goose smiled up at him, setting a basket of fresh-baked bread on the table.

Gerard knew that his friends would really only bring sides or desserts; he had talked a little too long about his dish that he was excited to make for any of them to risk showing his meal up.

Not since everyone knew that Elody was coming, and all of them were just as equally conspiring as Ylfa.

The rest of them just hid it better.

"Tim, you were with me when I got her letter. You've always known that she was coming."

"I knew that she said that she was coming, but now we know for sure." He winked at him, head tilted to the side as he patted the handle of the breadbasket. "It's been too long since I've talked to her."

"Well, you just have to be normal while talking with her, and maybe you'll be able to talk to her more."

"Maybe if I talk you up to her, we can get this sped up a little."

"Timothy," Gerard said, slowly. "You have to be... just five percent more subtle about this. Okay? This dinner isn't about Elody and me; it's about all of us as a friend group. So don't make this lovely dinner we all have planned awkward."

Timothy just smiled, raising his hands and leaning against his hand. "I would never make it awkward. How could I make this awkward?"

Gerard let out a calm breath, shaking his head slowly. It was in the hands of the Good Neighbors now, and they always seemed to love fucking with Gerard's life. Hopefully, the night would at least be a net neutral, instead of a net negative.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Pinocchio had made a beeline straight to Ylfa. They stood, hunched over in the corner of the dining room, and whispered back and forth to each other in low tones. Gerard felt a little shiver of fear about what exactly they needed to discuss so pressingly, but most of it was overshadowed by the desire to tease them about it.

It wasn't long after the last of Destiny's Children arrived that Elody herself did. The Queen of Greenleigh arrived with very little fanfare, having taken only her most subtle of carriages with as small of a group as possible. As small as the attendants would allow her to leave with, who would then have the night to themselves with the royal carriage.

(Apparently, the only way Elody had been able to convince her attendants that she was going to be perfectly fine without any guards was by telling them that she would be protected by the entirety of Destiny's Children.

Well, Elody said that she told them that Gerard would be the one protecting her, but he could read through those lines. The only way her attendants would believe that is if she lumped him under their full group.)

By the time that she had even reached the front door, her carriage had already begun to roll down the street. She was dressed far more casually than the last time Gerard had seen her; Elody was wearing her hunting garb for the dinner. A freshly cleaned set, if Gerard wasn’t mistaken.

The hunter green leather was shined and expertly laundered of any viscera or blood that may have dripped onto it during a previous hunt. Elody’s mace still hung at her side; she never went anywhere without at least one obvious weapon and five hidden ones.

“Just in time.” Gerard had to stop himself from leaning over to kiss her cheek. “We just finished getting everything set up.”

“I’m glad I hadn’t kept you waiting; there were a few bits where I thought we’d get stuck and I’d have to send you a message.” Elody’s expression softened as she glanced up and down. “I know you said not to bring anything, but I just couldn’t arrive empty-handed.”

“Elody, you shouldn’t have—“

“-I brought actually good wine, from our cellars. Which means that you can get rid of whatever poison we were drinking last month.” She drew a dark bottle out of her pack and waved it in his direction. "Are Ylfa and Pinocchio able to drink yet?"

"No, but Henry's here so we'll make short work of the bottle."

"Really short work; I didn't know that Henry would be there. If I had, I would have brought more than one. Sorry for assuming it was just going to be the adventuring party." Elody grinned at him, moving closer to knock into his shoulder. "At least by the time we finish it off, your stuff will be actually drinkable."

"Are you ever going to let me live that down?"

Elody opened the door to Tim's house and tilted her head back in a laugh, "Gerard, it tasted like sewer water. I could make better wine than that on accident."

"Booze, you could make better booze than that on accident. Not even you could accidentally make good wine."

Elody shrugged one shoulder, easily letting herself into the home without looking back. "I could accidentally make better; it doesn't have to be good."

Gerard followed her in, gently closing the door behind them. "Well, we still have six months; maybe you could get into brewing and take over my office."

"Don't be silly, Gerard; brewing would absolutely take over that room. It would be almost impossible to construct it and then deconstruct it in enough time, especially if I want to make anything actually drinkable."

"Elody! You're here!" In a blur of red, Ylfa ran up to them. She grinned up at Elody, a little spark in her bright yellow eyes, but before she could say anything else, the rest of the group came in.

"Ah, and you brought wine. I'll go decant this." Timothy gave Elody a quick one-armed hug, easily slipping the bottle out of her hand to take it to the kitchen.

"Thanks-" By the time that Elody spoke, Mother Goose was already back in the kitchen. "Oh, alright."

Gerard patted her on the shoulder, flashing her a quick grin before ducking into the kitchen after Mother Goose. He needed to take his pot off the stove before it really got over-reduced. He had spent way too much time talking up his recipe to his friends and way too long poring over the recipe and forcing himself to go through trial and error in order to know that he had every single step down.

It would just be embarrassing to serve a thin soup.

He moved the pot to an unused burner, giving the soup a little stir to make sure that everything was still okay. It smelled divine, and it was just thick enough that the bread the Hubbard-Gooses made would go perfectly with it.

"So, Elody brought wine to the get-together?" Timothy had a little lilt to his voice that Gerard had heard from Ylfa—probably where she got it from, actually.

"Yes, she brought wine to a dinner party. Which is a normal thing to do, and a normal gift to bring. This doesn't mean anything, Timothy."

Mother Goose raised his hands, smile clear on his face. "I'm not trying to imply that it's weird. I'm just saying that this is good wine that she's bringing."

"It's good wine because we only have good wine. We don't own bad wines."

"Oh, so it's we?"

"I'm not having this conversation right before dinner." Gerard sent Tim a little glare as he brought down ladles and serving plates so he wouldn't have to bring the entire pot onto the dining table. It would just be too crowded, and with the amount of gesturing that everyone does, something was going to end up getting spilled.

Timothy shrugged, smiling placidly. "Can you pour some of the sauce into a smaller bowl? I want to bring it out to have with the bread."

Gerard handed over the shallow bowl, careful to not spill it over the sides, and kept a close eye on Timothy as he carried it to the table. Through the swinging door, Gerard could see that Ylfa and Rosamund had cornered Elody.

He set down the ladle before moving anything to a smaller pot in order to slip into the dining room and place his wine glass at his spot before Ylfa could take it.

Rosamund had some of her swarm in her seat, and there was an empty place between them for Elody to sit. Pinocchio was already sitting next to Rosamund's other side, and Henry and Tim both were sitting down as well. PiB had a little side table that had been dragged over next to the actual table so that he could eat with the rest of them without actually having a cat eating on the table.

There were only two spots left, for Elody and Ylfa, and there was no way that Elody was going to let herself get sat next to Timothy Goose.

Predictably, Elody noticed and set her wine glass—unfilled, Gerard noted—down in between him and Rosamund. She gave Gerard a little half smile before going back to answering Rosamund's questions about the practicality of maces.

Ylfa blew out a frustrated breath, sending a little glare towards Gerard. He just smiled slightly and inclined his head towards her.

"So, how is school going?"

"I'm going to go talk to Pinocchio." She ducked away, fiddling with one of her braids.

Henry picked up one of the knives, tapping it against his wine glass. "I think we should all settle down to eat before things get cold. Gerard, could you get your soup?"

"You made soup?" Elody's voice was softer than Gerard had expected it to be.

Before he could say anything, Ylfa interjected.

"Of course! He got super into soup making; this has to be, like, the twentieth time he's made it this month." Ylfa was very matter-of-fact as she settled down into her seat, giving Gerard’s ankle a little kick with her boot. “He’s gotten a lot better at it; you should’ve seen his first attempt. It was really bad." For the last sentence, she dropped into a fake whisper.

Elody gave a shocked laugh, hand raised to cover her mouth but not quite reaching there. "Did it?"

"I think he somehow burned the water; he had to throw the pot out." Pinocchio added, already ripping through one of the Goose-Hubbard rolls.

"Can we not talk about how I threw the pot out?"

"Gerard, you smashed a window with it. You threw it clear out of the kitchen."

"It was a bad pot! It was the pot's fault that the soup was bad."

"You were cooking while on pot? Gerard, no wonder the soup was bad!"

"I was not on pot while cooking! I don't even— Gerard turned to Elody, exhaling heavily. "I don't smoke pot, and I certainly wouldn't do it while there's a burner on."

Under the table, Gerard felt the rustle of someone kicking out, and then Ylfa exclaimed.

"Oh! Yeah, Princess Elody, Gerard is super responsible. He only ever smokes pot when all the burners are off."

Gerard let out a slow breath, shoulders slumping as he realized that just because Elody wasn't trapped between the two terrible teens, it wouldn't stop them from trying to help.

He was honored, truly, but he really wished that they would just let things go as they would.

Elody coughed into her hand, barely able to hide her smile. She tilted her head slightly at him, eyebrow arched.

Gerard could only mouth I'm sorry at her, doing his best to ignore the burning in his cheeks. It wasn't like he expected much more from his friends; they were supportive of the entire endeavor, but they were all still devious bastards who prayed for his downfall.

Timothy nodded sagely, swallowing a bite of bread before adding to the conversation. "Gerard is a very good cook, but he's a bit of a bong hog."

"I am not a bong hog!" Gerard was unable to stop his shoulders from rising up around his ears. "Don't tell her that I'm a bong hog."

Rosamund covered her mouth with a hand, feigning a gasp and obviously hiding a smile. "Do you want us to lie to her?"

Elody choked a bit on her wine, setting her glass down. "I find Gerard being a bong hog a little hard to believe. He was never anything but generous whenever we relaxed together."

Ylfa's jaw dropped as she looked at Elody. "You've smoked pot with Gerard?"

"Ylfa, I'm a forty-year-old woman who has essentially been ruling a country since I was eighteen years old. Of course I've smoked pot."

"Gerard, how could you fumble her—"

"-Alright, how about we have stew?" Gerard interrupted Pinocchio, cheeks fully flushed and chest feeling hot. "I worked very hard on this stew, and I wasn't under the influence, and I think we should all eat. We should all shut up and eat."

Ylfa, who had her mouth open to pile on, shut her jaw with a little click of her fangs and pouted. "Gerard—"

"Gerard," Pinocchio added in.

"Gerard, I would love to try your stew." Elody finished for them, cutting in before either of them could really get rolling.

"Thank you, Elody. I hope you like it." Gerard carefully pushed away from the table, moving into the kitchen to grab the pre-portioned soup from where it was cooling on the counter.

The whole pot was definitely enough to feed all of them at least two helpings, with the chance for some leftovers. Gerard didn't do things by half, and all the recipes he found were for big servings.

He wasn't about to mess with the serving size and end up making a terrible meal because the ratios were all off.

Gerard wasn't hopeless in the kitchen, but he wasn't at the point to play fast and loose with editing recipes.

"There's more in the kitchen, but I'm not carrying that pot all the way out here for you guys to spill it everywhere." He sent a very pointed look towards Ylfa and Pinocchio.

Ylfa blinked big yellow eyes up at him, and Pinocchio cradled his chin in his hands like he was a cherub.

"I'm not going to be the one serving you; go at it." Without any more fanfare, Gerard took his seat by Elody again and ripped off a hunk of bread.

As he dipped it into the sauce that he had spent hours on, he carefully watched as his friends passed bowls around so that everyone got a serving. Timothy handed him a full bowl as they were passed along the line, and Elody received one of her own from Rosamund.

Still, despite having a bowl in front of him, Gerard couldn't make himself eat any of it.

There was a strange amount of nervousness that curdled in his stomach, impatiently looking around at his friends to see if they were like it. He spent so much time on the soup, and he really hoped that they did like it.

Ylfa was already wolfing it down—no joke intended—and the others were slowly beginning to dig in with enough gusto.

Not to a ridiculous degree, but enough that Gerard knew that they weren't just doing it to appease him.

(He knew the signs that they were doing it to appease him, and they weren't doing it. Rosamund wasn't secretly feeding spoonfuls of the soup to her swarm, Pinocchio wasn't draining it out of his leg, and Timothy wasn't pushing chunks around in his bowl.)

Warm breath curled around his ear as Elody leaned in to whisper. "It tastes fantastic and smells even better, Gerard."

Gerard suppressed the urge to croak, swallowing heavily as he stuffed a spoonful of meat into his mouth.

Elody's hand moved down to squeeze his thigh, and Gerard had to work very hard to not choke on meat. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her smug grin as she continued to peacefully eat her soup.

He wondered if he was going to be able to survive the rest of the year or if Elody was going to kill him one of these days.

"Is your serving too hot, Gerard? You're looking pretty red in the face." Rosamund tilted her head at him, blinking round eyes at him.

For a moment, Gerard really regretted the fact that everyone could see everyone's face for the full dinner.

"I guess it hadn't cooled down enough!" The last part of his sentence leapt high as he felt Elody's thumb dip in between his thighs. "Sorry, stubbed my toe against the leg of the table."

"Gerard, aren't you wearing shoes?" Ylfa looked at him, head slightly tilted and nose twitching like she smelled blood.

"You can stub your toe in shoes." Gerard subtly moved his hand down to hold Elody's, briefly frustrated at the fact that she was sitting on his dominant hand's side. He carefully detached it from his thigh and held it instead, rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand.

Henry Hubbard smiled at him across the table, crow's feet wrinkling up. "Well, Gerard, I think I'm going to have to ask for your recipe. This soup is delicious; you've really outdone yourself."

"Thank you so much, Henry." Gerard was grateful for the distraction, especially considering the way that Ylfa and Pinocchio exchanged a glance. "You'll probably have leftovers as well; I made a lot, and I don't think that we'll be able to finish it off in one sitting."

"I'm never going to say no to free leftovers." He laughed, a wide grin on his face as he squeezed his husband's hand.

Conversation fell into a lull after that, each of them all focused on finishing up their bowls. Gerard couldn't deny the thrill that washed over him as he noticed a few of them going back for a second helping, even if it was smaller.

Ylfa in particular seemed dead set on using up every piece of bread she could get her hands on to eat as much of the soup as she could without anyone noticing. Gerard was more than a little impressed at the streamlined efficiency of how she went about it.

The only thing that distracted him from the joy of having his friends enjoy his food was the way that Elody continued to caress his hand and whatever she could reach of his thigh.

After she had polished off her bowl, Elody stood from the table and collected her bowl and silverware. "Should I put this in the dishwasher, or is there another place for me to put it?"

"Oh, E, don't." Gerard stood up, almost knocking over his chair. "You're a guest; let me handle it."

Even as he reached for her bowl, Elody carefully weaved out of his grasp. "You're not getting out of this, Gerard. At the very least, I'm going to clear my plate."

Gerard was a master of picking his fights, and he knew that the best he could hope for was her only clearing her own plate and not try and clear the rest of the table. He followed her into the kitchen and just barely was able to put his dish down on the counter before being pressed against it by Elody.

She mouthed at his neck, and Gerard tilted his head back to give her more space, hands automatically resting on her hips.

"Elody," he whispered, doing his best to not sound too loud.

"I just wanted to show my appreciation for the meal." Despite being pressed up against his neck, Elody sounded utterly innocent. Her hands curled into the lacing of his shirt as she continued to attack his neck.

Not for the first time, Gerard was grateful that Elody rarely wore lipstick. It started as something she never started because it always got over her goblets, and then became something she never did because it would make their little trysts far too obvious.

Not that they were all that secret to begin with, what with how Gerard often needed to be dragged back to the main room and how his laces weren't always done up correctly when he was.

Gerard's hand moved up Elody's back, carefully moving along the complicated lacing that he always hated having to undo whenever she wore it at the castle. His hand settled, warm, on the back of her neck.

Elody nipped slightly at his collarbones, and Gerard hated himself for how he had to gently push her away.

No matter how enjoyable making out with his wife was, when it came down to it, all of Gerard's best friends were just a flimsy swinging door away.

And Gerard had a bad habit of being loud.

He offered her just a bit of a smile, leaning in to press a kiss to her lips and drawing away before either of them could get too into it.

"We have guests, Elody." He kept his voice as low as possible.

"That's never stopped us before."

"I'm trying to keep my pride for just a little while longer with these friends." Gerard gave Elody's hip a slight squeeze as he carefully wormed his way out from underneath her. "Don't forget, we still have dessert that Rosamund brought."

As he made his way back out to collect the rest of the dinner plates, he did his best to readjust his shirt to cover up any marks that Elody may have started.

The effort had gone entirely unrewarded, as the second that Ylfa laid eyes on him, she shoved away from the table with the widest grin.

"I'll help clean up!" She chirped, holding her empty plate and grabbing Pinocchio's as well. Before Gerard could stop her, she made her way into the kitchen where Elody was.

Gerard knew that she was not doing this out of the kindness of her heart and that Elody was certainly being faced with all of the curiosity that a teenager could muster.

As he moved around the table, Timothy patted him on the arm. "Give her a little time in there; Ylfa's been talking about picking Elody's brain for a while."

"Don't lie to me, Tim; I know she's harassing my wife in there."

Timothy laughed, shoulders rising and falling. "Let her harass a little; no harm in it."

"Harm in it, Tim, harm to my marriage in it!" Gerard hissed as he collected more plates on his arms.

"If Ylfa can genuinely do harm to your marriage, maybe that's a sign." Rosamund shrugged, smiling up at him. "It's not like we're going to be leaving if you move back to Greenleigh. Your friends should be her friends, if not at least her acquaintances."

Gerard had to set the plates down to avoid dropping them as Rosamund's words swirled in his mind.

"Gerard, you look a little pale. Are you okay?"

"I am; I'll be right back. Just have to freshen up." He flashed a half-hearted grin at her before setting the plates back down onto the table.

If Ylfa was going to harass Elody in the kitchen, the least that she could do was help clear the table.

Gerard returned to fidgeting with his shirt as he ducked into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

It was just a simple powder room, decorated as sparsely as a maximalist like Henry could, and Gerard could reach out both arms and have his hands flat against the walls with a slight bend to his arms.

Gerard stared at himself in the mirror and slowly began to compose himself. He needed to almost completely redo all of the buttons and ties on his shirt; no wonder Ylfa jumped at the chance to interrogate Elody.

He looked a mess, like someone had pushed him against a counter and bit at his neck like he was more of a meal than the soup.

Which of course was exactly what happened.

Rosamund's words still rang in his head, echoing in his skull like they had wormed through his ears.

It's not like she was wrong; his friends should be Elody's friends because they weren't going to leave him alone just because he went back to being a husband. That was the point of the entire separation idea, for Gerard to construct an identity away from Elody.

He was a hero; he was part of Destiny's Children, and Destiny's Children were all his close friends. Just because he would move back to Greenleigh didn't mean he would sell his house in Happly.

(Even before the separation, Gerard had always planned on buying the house to have a place to stay for as long as he needed.)

And it wasn't like Gerard had much going for him aside from Elody in his life. It was hard to make friends as a Prince-Consort, and even harder to convince himself to pull away from Elody for long enough to bother.

Adventuring with Destiny's Children was the first time in his entire life, all thirty years of it, that he genuinely felt part of something bigger than himself. That he felt like he had friends who, at the very least, cared if he lived or died.

It was the first time that anyone other than Elody cared about whether he lived or died.

(Perhaps that was overstating it, or perhaps it was proven by the fact that his parents produced an heir 9 months after he became a frog.)

It was rather stunning to put it into thought like that.

Gerard's utter unimportance in the lives of everyone other than Elody was always in his peripheral, something that could be easily ignored so long as everything in his marriage was going perfectly.

Then war came to their doorstep, and Elody left for the frontlines, and Gerard was left with the women and children.

And then he died. And then he came back.

And now, three lives in, Gerard had friends who cared about him and a wife who was willing to let him work through whatever he needed to.

He couldn't go back to how things were, further than that he wouldn't let things go back.

His life was good now; he couldn't throw it all away just to be soft in Elody's bed. Gerard loved her, loved being her husband, but things needed to change for both of them. What a waste of an entire year, if he went through all of this effort to construct a personhood for himself away from Elody and ended up retreating to old habits just because they were familiar.

Gerard composed himself, frowning slightly at his reflection in the mirror. At the ways that he still automatically looked at his neck and jaw to see if any of his amphibious looks had returned, despite knowing that was no longer how it worked.

No more True Love, no more frogs.

He came out of the bathroom, no longer looking like a man who had been ravaged gently in the kitchen, and returned to the dining room. Thankfully, Ylfa had actually gone and helped Elody clear the rest of the plates.

The table was cleaned off and ready for dessert, which was still cooling nicely in the fridge. All of Destiny's Children had struck up a lively conversation, laughing and cutting each other off in order to keep the story going. Pinocchio's voice had reached an octave that Gerard wasn't sure was physically possible before now.

"And then—and then!" He broke off laughing, cackling wildly with his head tossed back. "He came back, year later, just like—just like he said! Oh Gerard!" He perked up visibly when he saw Gerard. "Gerard, I'm talking about the Wolf!"

Gerard laughed softly as he slipped into his chair next to Elody, relaxing in the presence of all of his friends. "Pinocchio, this has to be the tenth time you've told this one-"

"-Elody hasn't heard it yet!" He protested, a wide smile on his face.

He rolled his eyes, shrugging his shoulder lazily as he leaned back in his chair. "Fine, fine, tell it again." He waved his hand lazily, warm again after the freezing cold of Rosamund's question. PiB, no longer contained to his side table with food cleared off, wormed into his lap. Boneless and dark black against his nice tan pants, Gerard knew that giving him any amount of affection would lead to him needing to lint roll his pants for hours.

Still, he couldn't stop himself from absentmindedly petting one of his best friends. It was better than getting the shit scratched out of his hand for ignoring him.

With PiB purring up a motor on his legs, he adjusted slightly to angle his body towards Elody.

She did the same, shifting in her seat to rest heavily on the armrest closest to him. "What is he talking about?"

"Oh, there was a—there was a whole thing with the Wolf, Death before Ylfa. Pinocchio told a bad joke and then got told that he had a year to come up with a better one."

"Or what?" Elody whispered out of the corner of her mouth, nodding her head along to Pinocchio animatedly telling the story.

"Or he'd come back and kill him." It didn't sound as funny to say it like this, and he grimaced the second that the words were out of his mouth. "But hey, it turned out okay in the end."

"What happened on that adventure of yours?" Elody seemed equal parts impressed and concerned, and Gerard's neck burned under the weight of her attention.

He offered her half of a smile, leaning close to whisper in her ear. "A lot of stuff, probably not the best to explain it all a few glasses of wine deep."

Elody hummed, not content but fine with letting it lie, and shifted back to sit straight up. "Sorry, Pinocchio, I wasn't listening. What was the joke that you told the Big Bad Wolf?"

Pinocchio grinned at her, showing all of his teeth. "What's a wolf's favorite time of the year?"

She sighed, huffing out a laugh prematurely as she tilted her head at him. "What is a wolf's favorite time of the year?"

"The howl-idays!" Pinocchio could barely get through the punchline before tumbling back into hysterical laughter.

Gerard hung his head, having heard the joke ten times before; now it had lost all of the little luster it once had. He could only imagine how it went down in person with the Wolf himself.

He imagined it would look a lot like what Elody looked like now, shoulders trembling with quiet laughter and head tilted down to hide the struggling smile on her face. That the Wolf too would find it funny and hate himself for that fact, especially since it meant that he would be unable to kill Pinocchio. Especially after a joke like that.

Elody snorted, hand coming up to cover her mouth and nose. "That was...truly horrendous, boy of destiny."

Pinocchio just beamed at her, "But you laughed, didn't you?"

Elody nodded her head, rubbing at her cheek, and sighed, "But I did laugh."

Conversation flowed on from there, and Gerard made sure that Elody wasn't left behind. Every so often he leaned in to explain something in her ear, words slowly slurring the more glasses of wine he had. There was, of course, an upper limit to how drunk he could become.

Elody only brought one bottle, and Timothy only took out a bottle on top of that from his own stores. With four adults having glasses of wine, they made short order of both of them. Gerard's head was pleasantly warm, slightly fogged from good food and good conversation, and Elody's hand was even warmer on his arm.

Somehow, both of them had carefully scooted their chairs until they were brushing up against each other, unable to move without their shoulders gently bumping. Even as Rosamund brought out her fruit tart and began to serve it up, they stayed close. Like two magnets, irreparably stuck together.

He wasn't blind to the way that Ylfa grinned at him, the way that her eyes became half moons compressed by her cheeks the moment that she noticed them nearly cuddled up.

Eventually, all good things had to come to an end. Elody sighed, putting back her cleaned-off plate on the table and turning to Gerard with a regretful smile. She patted him on the arm as she pushed her chair back from the table.

"This has been lovely. Gerard, your soup was impeccable. Rosamund, your dessert was delicious. Timothy, thank you so much for welcoming us into your home and hosting this lovely night. I need to make it back to Greenleigh before the morning, and I don't want to make my coachmen wait for me."

"I'll walk you out to them." Gerard stood up, nudging their chairs in. "Wouldn't be gentlemanly of me to let you do it alone."

Elody laughed, one hand over her mouth as she offered her elbow for Gerard to take. "Well, who am I to refuse such a gentleman?" Her cheeks were warm, smile crooked from the wine and company.

Gerard loosely linked their arms, tugging her just slightly into himself as they made their way to the front door and then out towards the road. They weren't all that drunk, and there was no reason for them to lean into each other like they were. But their shoulders still brushed, and they still kept each other upright the entire way down.

Elody's carriage was waiting for them, but none of the attendants seemed all that impatient at this point. Their spirits were still high, as though they had barely been made to wait.

Gerard watched the smile that grew on Elody's face as she took in the warm night air. Fireflies flickered, buzzing this way and that to curiously land on their cheeks and arms before taking off to another place. There was a warm breeze coming in from the west, ruffling through the leaves of the trees and disrupting the heavy heat of July.

"Tonight was nice, Gerard," Elody said, voice almost a whisper as she leaned into him. Her warm brown eyes caught the flickering light of the fireflies and the lanterns hanging from the carriage. "Thank you for inviting me."

"Of course, you haven't really had a great chance to get to know my friends. I'm glad you had fun tonight." He leaned into her, head tilted towards her the way his entire being always canted towards her.

Slowly, regretfully, Elody took her arm out from being linked with Gerard's and stretched. "I'm glad you have friends here, and I look forward to getting to know them better."

Gerard's heart burned in his chest as he reached out and took her hand. His heart leaped towards his throat as he brought it up to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it, enjoying the brief feeling of her warm skin against his lips. He savored it, for a moment, before drawing back to smile at Elody.

"Have a good trip home, Elody. I'll see you in a month."

She stared at him, brown eyes unreadable as she considered him. Slowly, a smile curled her lips as she nodded her head, shoulders slumping gently. "I'll see you come August, Gerard. Have a nice night." Her hand cupped his cheek, briefly, and he couldn't resist the urge to lean into it.

For a moment, he thought that she would lean in and kiss him. For a moment, he hoped that she would.

Instead, Elody just rubbed her thumb across his cheekbone, staring into his eyes like she was trying to figure out the truth. The moment held, and then broke softly as she stepped away and into her carriage.

She stole a last glance over her shoulder, and Gerard could see the barest hint of a smile at the distance, and then the carriage door shut.

He raised a hand in gratitude and farewell to the driver and stood on the paved stones of Mother Goose's driveway as the carriage took off. Even when it disappeared down the road, he still waited.

It was a cul-de-sac, and eventually the carriage turned around and passed Tim's house again. Gerard knew that Elody could likely see him out the darkened window of her carriage, and the night was nice enough that he didn't mind.

Even once the carriage vanished out of his sight for the final time, Gerard stayed out in the warm summer night. His hands loosely hanging by his side, cheek still warmed by Elody's hand holding it, and he sighed into the night air.

He knew that he was in love with Elody, in a true and irreparable way. No matter what happened at the end of the year, Gerard doubted that he would ever be able to carve out the bit of himself that loved her. Perhaps he didn't need to; it was fine for him to love her in such a vital way because she would never leave his life.

Not fully, not completely.

There was no life that he could lead from here that would disinclude his best friend, not from either of their sides. No war would take her from him, and he would never leave her side to deal with everything.

Married or friends, a single unit or co-rulers, Gerard would have a hand in ruling Greenleigh, and Elody would have a hand in his life.

He heard the door open and close behind him but stayed where he was. Staring out into the street as he heard footsteps come up behind him, only turning his head when Timothy came up beside him.

"You coming back inside, Gerard? Or do you want to go home?" There was no judgment in the old man's voice, just gentle curiosity.

"I'll be back inside, unless the others are about to go. No point in continuing a party when everyone is already packing up."

"Everyone in there is ready to go for a few more hours, I'm sure we could find something in the cupboards to rummage up. Maybe the teens will convince us to let them have a glass of wine."

"Well then I really should be coming back in, to keep you from letting them have anything." He laughed softly, turning his head this way and that to crack his neck. "It's a nice night, isn't it?"

"One of the better we've had this season," Timothy commented, in the way only old men could when talking about the weather. "Come on, Gerard. Let's go make sure that they aren't getting into my shelves anyway."

"Henry always did have a soft heart when it came to those two." Gerard smiled, slowly turning around and walking back inside.

Tim's house was warm and bright, light pouring out of the door and across the lawn. From inside, Gerard could hear Ylfa laughing at a joke Rosamund told and Pinocchio trying to one-up it through his own loud cackles. He could hear Henry start to fuss over the plates, ushering everyone into the living room, and he let himself drift towards them.

As the door shut behind him, Gerard joined in on the extended bit that Pinocchio had started and moved to sit down on the couch next to Rosamund. Timothy shared the loveseat with Henry, pressing up against his husband with all the love in the world.

Gerard nudged Rosamund with his knee, grinning broadly as he launched into a particularly long-winded bit. One that definitely didn't have enough payoff but got near-hysterical laughter from all of them.

Henry did end up bringing out another bottle of red, though this one barely got halfway through before all of them decided it was best to tuck in for the night.

None of them were in any state to leave, and none of them particularly wanted to either. Ylfa and Pinocchio slept in the living room, taking the couch and the loveseat, respectively.

(Gerard got no small amount of glee from condescendingly telling them that they could not sleep on the couch together, and the way that both of the wonderful, terrible teens flushed bright red and loudly protested.)

Henry and Timothy retired to their bedroom, and through the wall, Gerard could hear one of them shriek at the sight of the abstract erotic penis statue.

He glanced at Rosamund, fighting through a grin as they both moved into the single spare bedroom.

"Ready to have a completely platonic, non-sexual, adult sleepover?" She grinned at him as she settled into bed, head almost swallowed up by the ridiculously large pillows that the Hubbard-Gooses saw fit to give their guests.

"It's better than me passing out in the kitchen." Gerard slipped under the covers, curling up on his side.

Even though he lived next door, the thought of leaving such a nice night short was impossible to him. Gerard didn't want to go back to a badly decorated home when there was the option to sleep in a house full of people that he loved and wake up to someone making breakfast for him.

"Goodnight, Gerard."

"Goodnight, Rosamund."

The few glasses of wine were more than enough to send Gerard into an easy and dreamless sleep, warm underneath the blankets and relaxed by the sound of Rosamund's steady breathing next to him.