You Are My Light Part II

238 - Recovery *Modern*

Prompt - Can you do an AU to the AOC story Le Reine with a different ending where something happens to Mary and Francis is forced to watch like the AU you did with her having his baby young and he watches as she's successful after breaking up with her when they're younger?

/

"Lads." the King of France greets his three closest friends and half brother as they enter the large study he keeps in Fontainebleau. He nods at them, closing the green leather backed book he was writing inside, as he turns. The four young men bow lightly, making him roll his eyes, before they came up to look at him. Well, three of them looked at him, the sandy blonde haired male keeps his eyes on his phone. 

How very informal, Francis thinks, but he does like it, in a way. A King since sixteen years of age, after King Henry's shock abdication five years ago, he had never enjoyed the pomp and pageantry and formality a man in his rank was forced to overlook. He always disliked it whenever those close to him bowed to him, and this was no different. Seeing Leith staring at his phone in front of his King did touch him, but it also intrigues him. It's usually Julien who couldn't care less for decorum, Leith usually the first to bow, for he knew his money was new money, he wasn't of nobility or powerful blood, he had gotten his rank of Earl de Montin after literally taking a bullet for the then Dauphin when they were fifteen, his rank and money gifted to him by a grateful King and Queen of France. It could be taken away just as easily as it was given, nobility and rank, he knew that better than almost any other.

"Leith?" the King of France asks, raising a golden brow. He looks up at him quickly, before his eyes fell right back down to the rectangle held at an angle, resting on his ribcage.

"What are you doing?" Bash asks him. "What're you watching?" he realises, looking at the small female face on Leith's phone, an earphone in his left ear. 

"Let me see." Remy makes to grab at the phone.

"No, no, wait-" Leith is suddenly desperate to keep the phone, it only intrigues his young King more. He blinks in astonishment as Leith, Remy and Julien wrestle for the phone, Julien finally getting the blasted thing.

"The Real Life Ice Princess." he reads, holding the phone a few inches away from his face. "Champion figure skating princess returns to the ice two years after double murder horror." his words become slower as he realises the culprit of Leith's secrecy. They all know the history between Francis and the only girl he ever truly loved.

"What?" Francis asks.

"Fine." Leith sighs. "Greer sent it to me, okay? It's why she and Kenna have been so secretive over the last few months, alright? It's about Mary."

Sebastian looks over at his friend at the mention of his on-off girlfriend of three years.

"Mary." the King of France whispers. The one that got away so many years ago, his beautiful, fiery Scottish Princess that had loved since they were five years old. A whirlwind romance from the ages of twelve to nineteen, when the King and Queen of France had broken the possible future international alliance so the new King of France could marry the Italian Lady Olivia D'Amencourt at nineteen. One would think that a King could do anything he wanted, and while that may be true in some circumstances, the former Queen ensured that the British Princess would never marry into her family, thanks to the hatred she bore for the British Queen, the French-born Marie de Guise.

"Yeah, brother." Leith mutters. "Greer says they've been working on an interview with Diane Sawyer for the last few months."

"What? Let me see." Francis demands, reaching for the phone. Being King means he doesn't have to fight for the damned thing, and when he does hold Leith's phone, he is faced with the face he hasn't seen since the tearful goodbye they had in one of his state apartments just over two years ago. A beautiful ravenette of incredible wealth and wit, she sits beautifully on the white chair, a long red dress covering her body with a black cardigan keeping her warm. She wears a layer of makeup, and the finest ruby jewelry, but her eyes are different. Gone are the dark gold eyes he could have spent the rest of his life gazing into, they are now a pale green color, and her face is remarkably thinner, the nose and cheekbones especially. A thick layer of raven sea is straightened out and laying freely around her one shoulder. She wears a smile, however, a smile he still so adored, even after two years of no contact after their breakup.