Chapter Text
His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales is delighted to announce the engagement of Prince Henry to Mr Alexander Claremont-Diaz.
The wedding will take place in Spring next year. Further details about the wedding will be announced in due course.
His Royal Highness and Mr Claremont-Diaz became engaged in Paris earlier this month. Prince Henry and Mr Claremont-Diaz have informed Her Majesty The Queen and other close members of his family. They have also sought and received the blessing of President Ellen Claremont and Senator Oscar Diaz.
The couple will live in Kensington Palace.
They finally released the announcement when Alex was able to finally leave his job in the Capitol Hill, working for Democratic leader Katherine Fielder, a close ally of his mother, who thought it would be good to give him a couple of years experience at Congress.
Alex was still in his work suit when he boarded the last flight to London. It was a Friday and he had a long week. He had not had any sleep since 4 am because even though it was his last day, the work never seemed to end.
As the plane was taxiing out and a flight attendant was serving him champagne, he was still typing briefs on possible financial packages to avoid government shutdown to the new chief of staff that he picked and trained after he tendered his resignation last month.
The wedding announcement was published from Henry’s office just as Alex was giving a short goodbye to Katherine and dozens of other staffers. They were bemused but not too surprised, since the prince has visited him many times whenever he was in the US but work went too crazy for Alex to leave.
Alex told them that he’s moving to London and he will get British citizenship, but he is not leaving politics. He will remain focused on the issues that’s close to his heart so he will keep close contact with them. What he did not tell them is that in two years he will be launching his own campaign to reclaim her mother’s seat in Texas.
But that's a medium term plan, the more immediate one is the wedding. Even though Henry has been knocked down to be the fourth in the succession line after Phillip and Martha had little Georgie, their wedding was still highly anticipated. Henry’s will be the second biggest royal wedding since Phillip’s and it will be the first gay royal wedding in the British monarchy’s history.
Henry had been handling the planning like a champ in the past month. They have set the dates and the venue and Henry has sent Alex the initial guest list that would need to be finessed more because at this rate it is still ten times longer than it should.
Thinking about the protocols and the customs that he would have to endure ahead of the wedding and after the wedding has given Alex enough headaches. He had met with most of Henry’s aristocratic family and as a politician he knew how to charm them. He knew how not to roll his eyes when these old shrivelled white men talked about the coloureds and the orient, but after the wedding he would be an official member of that family, those people would be his in laws.
It was both the fact that they are going to have a royal wedding and a gay wedding that forced Alex to pick this as his poison.
He cannot let Henry face the backlash from Britain’s notorious conservative media alone. Every vicious thing Alex had heard the US media said about him is still pale in comparison to what the British tabloid said about Henry. He had to be there with him.
And it was a compromise. Alex agreed to leave his political career, one that he just started two years ago after he graduated law school, to be Henry’s royal consort, but in two years they will resign from royal duties and move to Texas where Alex will launch his campaign for a seat in the US House of Representatives.
He chugged the champagne hoping it would dull the throbbing headaches that he’s had since he left his mom’s office this evening before he went to the airport. Ellen hugged him tightly and asked to send her regards to Henry.
Alex hated the fact that he’ll probably meet her mom again next year after January 20 when the new president–whoever that would be–is inaugurated, but there’s nothing else he could do. There’s never been a good time to leave DC but leaving just two weeks before voting day would not have been his first choice.
He shut his laptop after telling himself that would be the last email he would send to anyone in DC and must now focus on what’s waiting for him in London. His fiance.
He had not met Henry for over a month now. The last time they were together was when Alex went to Buckingham Palace to meet The Queen to ask for her blessings. He stayed at Henry’s quarter at Kensington Palace for a long weekend before returning to his job in DC.
Alex and Henry have been taking turns between London and DC, and make their relationship work between long weekends and holidays, late night calls and all day texts.
He opened his phone and wrote “boarded the plane now, see you in the morning.”
*
Alex was jolted by a turbulence somewhere above the Atlantic ocean after getting only two hours of sleep. He was flying first class and he got to lay down but he still struggled to make himself sleep. His head was killing him. The inside of his skull was pulsating and it hurted to even open his eyes.
After a couple minutes of bracing himself to finally wake up, Alex looked at his phone and realised that the plane was just about an hour before landing. He knew, it’s instinctual by this point, that it was morning already in London.
“Good morning baby,” he sent a quick message to Henry. “How are you today?”
“I’m good, I’m getting ready to go to the airport, Shaan will take me.” Henry replied. “I cannot wait to meet you,” he added.
“Me too. And now that I don’t have any more national security crisis to deal with, I can at least make myself relax,” Alex said.
“I don’t know about that, there may be some cake crisis that we might have to address, and it can be just as stressful.”
"Oh not the cake crisis!" Alex replied, he could not help but to roll his eyes even though it hurt.
It was almost noon when he landed in Heathrow and Henry was already waiting for him at the gate.
Alex hugged him tightly, his arms around Henry’s waist and his head leaned into Henry’s shoulder, and Alex needed that very much. The migraine that he had since yesterday never seemed to go away, there was pressure behind his eyes and he realised his vision began to blur.
Henry pulled away, kissed him softly, then examined his fiance’s face. Alex cannot hide the deep dark circles around his eyes.
“You look terrible,” he said with a concerned look.
“I know,” Alex’s brows furrowed, forming a deep line across his forehead. “I did not get enough sleep,” he said.
“Do you think we should cancel the meeting? I knew it was a bad idea, you should have a day or two before jumping into the preparations,” Henry said, sounding actually concerned.
Alex exhaled. They were due to attend the first meeting with the whole team, protocols, publicists, and representatives from Buckingham Palace and Downing Street. In the past three weeks, Alex's side was mostly handled by the US embassy and it was like a whisper game of relaying updates from one office to another. Now that Alex is here, the preparations should be more effective since any decisions do not have to wait for people in DC, who are four hours behind.
“No, let’s just do it,” Alex said. He took Henry’s hand as they walked out of the gate. He squeezed Henry’s hand, feeling the engagement ring he has worn for almost a month now and already felt like it's a part of him.
He squinted when they were outside, the glare of the sun felt amplified, intensifying the throbbing ache behind his eyes.
Alex could not think much about what was happening, he barely registered what Henry was saying as they were walking to the car. He saw Shaan and remembered he waved at him before everything went blank.