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Chapter Text

The palace at Sandringham had always looked like something out of a dream: acres of green lawn sliced through by perfectly trimmed hedgerows, ancient oaks standing watch over rolling gardens, ivy curling up the sandstone walls like nature itself was desperate to crown the monarchy. But for Henry, at eighteen, it had become less a home and more a mausoleum. The halls smelled like polished wood and grief. The servants moved like ghosts, careful not to meet his eye for too long. Every room held echoes of Arthur Fox — his father’s laughter, the faint scent of expensive cologne that still clung to his study, the grand piano he used to play at Christmas.

Arthur Fox was dead. Pancreatic cancer. Six months from diagnosis to grave. A real bitch.

The kingdom mourned him like they mourned any royal consort: with a polished pageantry that made Henry want to set the whole country on fire. But Arthur wasn’t just the Princess of Wale’s husband. He was Henry’s father. The man who had once snuck him out to the cinema in disguise, who taught him to sail, who made pancakes on Sunday mornings when Catherine had early engagements. The man who had kissed Henry’s temple when he was twelve and whispered, "You are allowed to be exactly who you are, no matter what this place says."

And now he was gone.

A week after his father’s funeral — after the grand procession, after the black horses pulling the carriage through the streets of London, after the millions of mourners weeping for a man most of them had only ever seen on screens — Queen Mary summoned Henry to her private sitting room.

She wore her usual pale gray, a shade that matched the washed-out coldness of her skin. Her pearls gleamed at her throat, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her expression a mask of regal composure. The corgis dozed at her feet. The ticking of the clock was the only sound for a long time as Henry stood there, every molecule of him vibrating with something he couldn’t name. Grief, maybe. Rage, more likely. Or just the low-grade electric hum that had settled into his bones ever since his father’s diagnosis.

"You will listen carefully, Henry," she began. Her voice was the same one she used during state audiences, clipped and even. "You are my youngest grandson, you represent this institution, you represent Britain. You will conduct yourself accordingly."

Henry stared at her. His palms itched. His mouth was dry.

"You will not," she continued, "embarrass this family with your selfish… deviant impulses. I will not have whispers circulating in Westminster, or worse — in the press."

His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.

"You will marry when the time comes. A respectable noblewoman. The appropriate arrangement will be made. You will father heirs. And you will not speak to your mother about this. She has suffered enough disgrace, marrying that common—" she paused, her mouth curling ever so slightly, "—actor."

Henry's stomach lurched. The rage boiled up again, fast and ugly. Five Oscars. International acclaim. Crowds screamed his name. How the fuck was that common?

But all he said was, "Yes, ma’am."

The cocaine came after. And it made him high and it made him mad.

His father was dead. Gone, ripped away by a cancer so vicious and fast it left nothing but an echo. And now his grandmother was sitting here berating him for being gay, as if it was some adolescent whim, some goddamn choice he had made just to spite her. The words kept spinning in his head like a broken record, loud and furious: Boo fucking hoo, he muttered under his breath.

The drugs muddled his mind but sharpened the fury. His sister was somewhere — God knows where — escaping the palace or maybe herself. His mother had retreated into a silent ghost, drifting through the halls as though Arthur's death had snuffed out her soul. His brother Philip had stepped eagerly into the vacancy of obedience, nodding along to every one of Queen Mary’s commands like the good royal soldier he was. And Henry? Henry was high as hell and too angry to care.

That night, still buzzing, his thoughts dark and sharp-edged, Henry didn’t go home. He slipped out of the palace with one of the vintage Aston Martins from the royal garage, sped into the city like he was trying to outrun the venom crawling under his skin, and found himself at one of the more notorious clubs in London — the kind that certain aristocrats pretended didn’t exist, but everyone knew they frequented.

The bass vibrated through his ribcage the moment he stepped inside, lights strobing, bodies grinding in the dark. The air smelled of sweat, smoke, alcohol, and sex — everything forbidden.

He didn’t hesitate. He wanted to be seen.

Within minutes, he found him — a tall man with broad shoulders, dark hair, and eager eyes. Henry didn’t know his name. Didn’t care. He grabbed him by the collar, dragged him down, and kissed him like he was drowning, right there, in the middle of the dance floor, under the lights, with cameras flashing from phones that had recognized his face.

He could hear the gasps even over the music. Felt the dozens of stares slicing into him from every corner of the room. He kissed the man harder.

There was no hiding now.

The next morning, it was everywhere. The tabloids ran full-page spreads: SCANDAL AT THE PALACE: PRINCE HENRY CAUGHT IN SHOCKING PUBLIC DISPLAY. Every news outlet from London to New York had the grainy club footage. The kiss looped on morning television like a car crash the world couldn’t look away from.

When Queen Mary summoned him again, she was livid in a way Henry hadn’t known she was capable of. Her hands trembled slightly, and for one dizzying moment, he thought he might actually see steam rising from her ears.

"You absolute fool," she hissed, the mask slipping. "You have humiliated this family. The world is laughing at us."

But the cocaine was still there, still humming through his bloodstream, wrapping him in that warm invincible cocoon. And instead of bowing his head, instead of apologizing like she expected, Henry laughed.

He laughed right in her face.

This was glorious.

For all her talk of image, of duty, of hiding who he was behind the gilded mask of royal propriety — it was done. The secret was out. The world knew now. Photos. Videos. Analysis. Speculation. She would never be able to cover it up without making the Crown look like exactly what it was: an antiquated, outdated, suffocating institution being dragged into the twenty-first century kicking and screaming.

She sputtered. "You have destroyed your future."

The room was too bright, spinning slightly as the drugs kept him balanced on that knife’s edge between fury and euphoria. The mahogany sideboard gleamed in the lamplight beside him, and upon it sat the decanter. Cut crystal, heavy, filled with deep red wine like arterial blood.

Without hesitation, with a grace that was almost theatrical, Henry reached for it.

Her eyes followed his hand as it closed around the neck of the decanter. She stiffened, but she didn’t move. Maybe she thought he wouldn’t dare. Maybe she forgot, for a moment, that the boy standing in front of her was no longer the pliant grandson she thought she could mold.

He tipped the decanter.

The red poured like silk over her perfectly coiffed white hair, soaking her pearls, staining the expensive dove-gray suit she wore like armor. It ran in rivulets down her shoulders, down her lap, pooling on the polished marble beneath her slippers.

For a heartbeat, neither of them spoke. The only sound was the quiet, almost polite splatter of wine as it dripped from her onto the floor.

The red looked beautiful on her. Like the centuries of blood on his family’s hands finally bubbling to the surface.

"Good," Henry said, his voice soft, his smile unflinching. "It wasn’t much of one, anyway."

Her mouth opened, a gasp caught somewhere between horror and rage.

"You are a sanctimonious, pathetic little bitch," he continued, each word sharp, deliberate, slicing through the air like blades. "You are way past your best before date. And you will rot alongside the crown."

Her face twisted into something ugly. "How dare you—"

"No." His voice was calm now, too calm. "How dare you . You think I give a fuck about your little fairytale institution? Your precious bloodlines? You think I’ll wear your chains and smile for the cameras while you shove me into a loveless marriage so you can parade your obedient grandson around like some relic of a dying empire?"

"You will regret this," she spat. Her voice cracked under the weight of her fury. "You will regret this for the rest of your miserable life."

"I’ve regretted plenty already," Henry said, his hands steady despite the adrenaline pounding in his ears. "But not this. Never this."

Her chest rose and fell rapidly, eyes burning with something feral now. "You’re sick."

Henry took a step closer. The scent of the wine was sharp in the air between them.

"No," he whispered. "I’m free."

And God, that was the truth of it, wasn’t it? For the first time in his entire life, he was free. There was nothing left to hide. No secret waiting to explode. No carefully constructed facade to maintain while his soul suffocated beneath it.

The press couldn’t unsee those photos. The videos were everywhere — grainy, strobing, full of sweat and abandon, showing Prince Henry of Wales with another man’s tongue down his throat and his hands in places no royal hand was ever meant to be caught. The whispers weren’t whispers anymore. They were headlines. Commentary. Think pieces. Royal crisis analysis at eleven.

The Crown could not pretend any longer. The world would see them for what they were: a crumbling edifice held up by hypocrisy and denial. Henry had blown the whole rotten stage to smithereens and the public was now leaning in, fascinated by the smoke.

"You’ll destroy us all," his grandmother rasped, her pearls sticky with wine, her hair stained a dark, dripping red that made her look like a ghost in a murder mystery.

“Maybe,” Henry said with a small shrug. “But maybe you deserve to be destroyed. People like you, who revel in your homophobia, your racism, your complete lack of respect nor empathy for anyone other than yourself.”

She looked at him like he was filth. Good.

"I'd rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of your bitching and moaning,” he added, voice rising. “Do you even like hearing yourself speak? You go on and on, spouting random nonsense — are you sure you’re not going senile? You’re a spreading rot festering from the inside just like the crown."

Her nostrils flared. She made a sharp noise in the back of her throat, but he cut her off.

"I'll tell you something about my good name." He stepped forward, savoring her visible recoil. “It’s mine . Mine alone to disgrace. And I promise you, if I am going down, I am dragging you — kicking and screaming — with me.”

And he walked out. Just like that.

The door slammed shut behind him, but it couldn’t muffle the roar in his chest. It was fury, yes, but something else too — something electric and holy and unhinged. He was buzzing. The cocaine surged, made the hallway gleam brighter, made the floor feel like it was tilting beneath him like the deck of a ship in a storm. It was euphoria. Every breath was a thrill. He was flying.

He didn’t stop walking. Couldn’t have, even if he tried. The marble stretched endlessly ahead, the portraits of dead royals glaring down at him with oil-painted judgement. He didn’t care. Let them watch. Let them rot. Let their legacy burn alongside the lies that built it.

He reached the eastern corridor, the one with the tall, arched windows overlooking the back gardens. The rain outside was Biblical — sheets of it slashing from the sky, thunder groaning somewhere deep and distant. The old windows wept, thick drops sliding down glass like the palace itself had begun to cry. He pressed his hand to the pane. Cold. Alive. The world on the other side of the glass looked unreal, soft-edged and rippling. Like a painting about to be washed clean.

Good. Let it all wash away.

Henry yanked off his blazer in one swift, sharp movement and let it fall. It made no sound, just puddled on the floor like something dead. His tie came next — loosened with a jerk and flung over his shoulder like a snake shed and discarded. His shirt was half-untucked, soaked through with sweat, collar limp and wrinkled. His hair stuck to his forehead in messy blond curls.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this undone — and wanted it to stay that way.

From down the hall came the sound of scrambling claws on polished stone. David. His beagle. His ridiculous, loyal, sweet-as-honey dog with ears too big for his head and a bark that startled footmen. David rounded the corner, tongue out, tail wagging furiously, as if he knew — Henry’s free, Henry’s finally free!

Henry dropped to a crouch and scooped him up. Warm, wiggling, licking his chin. He smelled faintly of rain already, like he’d been at the windows too, watching, waiting.

“Come on, love,” Henry whispered, and then, without another breath of thought, he bolted.

Through the corridor. Through the servants' door. Through the last set of glass French doors — unlocked, praise God or a distracted footman — and into the storm.

The rain hit him like a baptism.

Cold and wild, lashing at his skin, instantly soaking him through. It plastered his shirt to his back, made his trousers cling to his thighs, blurred his vision until the world was streaks and color and motion.

It felt like permission.

It felt like screaming without making a sound.

It felt like forgiveness.

He ran barefoot through the grass, sodden and slick beneath his feet. The great oaks swayed above him like giants, leaves shivering in the downpour. David wriggled free from his arms and bounded ahead, ears flapping, legs slipping in the wet earth. He barked at the sky like it had insulted him personally.

Henry laughed.

Laughed like he was seventeen again, before his father got sick, before everything cracked open. Laughed with his head tipped back, mouth open to the rain, chest aching with something that might have been joy or grief or both tangled together like thorned vines.

He was alive.

He was alive and the rain was falling and he was free.

No one was watching. No cameras. No aides. No press officers. No palace staff armed with umbrellas and polite concern. Just him, the dark gray sky, the furious rain, and the ecstatic, tail-wagging blur of David crashing through puddles and barking at invisible ghosts.

Henry kept running until his lungs burned.

He collapsed in the grass by the sundial, the one his father had insisted be installed in the rose garden because he’d liked the way it cast shadows at noon. The roses were gone now — ripped out in the last garden redesign — but the stone base remained, slick with moss and memory.

He flopped onto his back, arms splayed wide, shirt clinging to his chest like a second skin. Rain poured over him, into his eyes, his ears, his mouth. He didn’t blink. He just breathed.

The cocaine was still singing in his veins. The high was a steady thrum, but now it was fading into something else — something cleaner, clearer. The edge of it was softening. He felt raw, like a nerve exposed. But not in pain. Not anymore.

David padded up beside him, shook out his coat, and curled into the crook of Henry’s arm. Warm. Solid. Real.

Henry turned his face toward the sky.

Let it all fall away.

Let the monarchy collapse. Let the world reel. Let the old woman drown in her pearls and blood-colored wine. Let the tabloids scream. Let the Crown suffer its shame.

He was still here.

Still Henry.

And fucking hell he wasn’t going anywhere.

Chapter Text

He woke up with a dull, throbbing ache behind his eyes, his mouth dry, his limbs heavy. The sheets tangled around his legs were damp with sweat, though whether from the high or the nightmares he couldn’t quite tell. His chest rose and fell beneath the soft weight of David, who was curled into a tight little ball on top of him, snoring softly, his warm little body rising with every one of Henry’s ragged breaths.

For a few moments, he lay there blinking up at the ornate plasterwork on his bedroom ceiling, the grand chandelier above him swinging ever so slightly with the wind rattling through the old palace windows. Sober now. Lucid. And painfully aware of the world waiting for him outside this room.

And then he saw them.

At the foot of his bed, sitting like two stone gargoyles guarding the gates of his own personal hell, were his mother and sister.

His mother. Catherine. The Princess of Wales. The next Queen. His normally vibrant, sharp, terrifyingly brilliant mother who had disappeared into herself the moment Arthur took his last breath two weeks ago. She had barely spoken since then, wandering through the corridors like a ghost in silk, her smile brittle and distant. And now here she was, eyes red, hair pulled back too tightly, face thinner than he remembered.

And Beatrice. His hurricane of a sister, who had been God-knows-where these past few weeks — probably fucking off to Ibiza or Amsterdam or some equally irresponsible escape hatch that only Beatrice could find in the middle of a family implosion.

Jesus Christ.

Henry groaned, turned over onto his side, and buried his face in his pillow. He didn’t want this. Not right now. Not when the drugs had finally stopped singing and left behind nothing but exhaustion and dread.

He felt the mattress shift under new weight. His mother had crawled into the bed beside him, slipping beneath the covers as though she were still tucking him in at six years old.

He let her. Even though he was still so, so mad at her.

She said nothing, just rested her head gently against his shoulder, her breath warm on his skin, her hand finding his and squeezing, as though she could somehow hold him together by touch alone.

Bea broke the silence first, her voice dry as sandpaper. “Gran’s refusing to come out of her room.”

Henry exhaled a sharp laugh into the pillow. “Hallelujah. Maybe she’ll die in there and never come out again.”

Bea snorted, crossing her arms, one brow raised. “What the hell did you do, Henry?”

He turned his head just enough to meet her stare, his voice flat. “She told me: ‘You will not embarrass this family with your selfish… deviant impulses. I will not have whispers circulating in Westminster, or worse — in the press.’” His voice slipped into a cold imitation of Queen Mary’s clipped, condescending tone. “‘You will marry when the time comes. A respectable noblewoman. The appropriate arrangement will be made. You will father heirs. And you will not speak to your mother about this. She has suffered enough disgrace, marrying that common actor.’”

Catherine’s hand twitched slightly against his chest, but she said nothing.

Henry let out a bitter laugh. “And none of you were around to help me or protect me. So I got high on coke, went to a club, kissed a guy—right in front of the cameras, mind you—and now everyone knows.” His voice cracked slightly, equal parts rage and something dangerously close to relief. “She was really mad, so I dumped a jug of wine on her head, called her a sanctimonious, pathetic little bitch, and ran into the rain with Davey like a lunatic high as a kite.”

Bea’s mouth fell open, and for a moment, her stunned silence filled the room like a balloon. Then she burst out laughing.

Actual, full-bodied laughter. The kind Henry hadn’t heard from her in months.

“Oh my God,” she wheezed, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “Henry, you absolute fucking maniac.”

Henry let his head fall back against the pillow, a small, tired smile tugging at his lips despite himself. “Yeah. Well. Felt good.”

Bea kept laughing, but Catherine finally spoke, her voice quiet and tight, as though it hurt her to force the words out. “Henry…”

He tensed. The air shifted, heavier now.

She sat up slightly, looking down at him with something raw in her gaze. Guilt. Fear. Love. All twisted together.

“I should have protected you better,” she whispered. “I should have… stood up to her. I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Henry stared at her for a long moment. She looked so small now, stripped of all the royal armor she wore so well. For a brief, sharp second, he remembered his father’s voice — Your mother loves you more than the throne, even if she forgets how to show it sometimes.

The knot in his chest loosened. Just a little.

“I’m still mad at you,” he said softly.

“I know.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “I deserve it.”

Bea shifted closer, sitting cross-legged now at the foot of the bed, still grinning like a devil. “Well, for what it’s worth, the press is in complete meltdown. The palace PR team’s probably sobbing into their Earl Grey as we speak. You’ve officially blown it all to hell, little brother.”

Henry let out a breathless laugh. “Good.”

His mother smiled softly through the exhaustion. She slipped her arm around his shoulders and pulled him close, pressing a kiss to his temple. Her voice was gentle but firm. “Come on. Let’s get some breakfast into you.”

And that’s exactly when the banging started.

Loud, rapid, relentless pounding against his bedroom door. The heavy oak rattled on its hinges.

“HENRY!” came the voice from the hallway — sharp, furious, and unmistakable.

Philip.

Henry groaned, dragging a hand down his face. Of course. He should’ve known it was only a matter of time. He was surprised Pip hadn’t burst in sooner, frankly. He was probably pacing for hours rehearsing whatever furious monologue he was about to unleash.

With a sigh, Henry kicked off the sheets and sat up. His head still ached and his limbs felt like lead, but some stubborn bit of satisfaction still glowed under his ribs. He grabbed his pillow in one hand and trudged toward the door.

“Brace yourselves,” he muttered to his mother and Bea, who both watched with poorly concealed amusement.

He flung open the door. Philip was standing there, red-faced and breathless, eyes wide with barely contained fury — like he’d worked himself into a proper royal tizzy on his way across the palace. His hands flailed as he opened his mouth, no doubt ready to unleash some speech about duty and shame and honor.

Henry didn’t give him the chance.

With one swift, perfectly timed swing, he whacked Philip clean across the face with his pillow.

The force of it sent his brother stumbling backward, arms pinwheeling as he tripped over his own feet and landed flat on his back on the Kensington Palace carpets with a loud thud .

For one brief, glorious moment, the entire world went still.

Bea gasped — then immediately burst into uncontrollable laughter behind him.

His mother let out a startled, strangled little sound, somewhere between a gasp and a horrified chuckle, her hand flying to her mouth.

Philip groaned from the floor, his expression a mixture of shock, indignation, and outrage. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Henry loomed over him, pillow still in hand, voice deceptively calm. “You’re lucky I’m not high right now and couldn’t find a jug of wine like I did for Granny last night.”

Philip scrambled to sit up, eyes wild. “You’ve humiliated this entire family, Henry! You’ve embarrassed the monarchy! Do you have any idea—”

Henry cut him off with another sharp whap of the pillow, sending him flopping backward again with an undignified grunt.

“Oh, I have an idea, Pip,” Henry said, voice dangerously sweet. “I have a brilliant idea, actually. I’ve spent years listening to you prattle on about honor and duty while you sit comfortably with your straight, golden-boy privilege and pretend none of this affects you. But guess what? It does. It always has.”

Philip glared up at him, face flushing darker with every word. “You’ve put the entire institution in jeopardy!”

Henry let out a low, humorless laugh. “Good. Maybe it should be.”

Bea was nearly wheezing now from where she sat on the bed, eyes wide, delight practically radiating off her.

“I mean honestly, Pip,” Henry continued, voice steady now, exhaustion finally catching up to his high, “you weren’t even here. None of you were. While I was spiraling, while Gran was calling me a deviant to my face and planning which poor girl I’d be paraded around with like some prize stallion, where were you? Oh right. Standing behind her like a perfectly trained foot soldier.”

“You’re being childish—”

“And you’re being a sanctimonious, self-righteous little twat.”

Their mother’s voice cut through the tension, quiet but firm. “Enough.”

Both brothers froze.

Catherine stood now, hands clasped in front of her, her composure visibly fraying but her voice as steady as the throne demanded. “Philip, your brother has made his choices. You may not like them. I may not fully understand them. But this is not the time for you to play judge and executioner.”

“But Mother—”

“No.” Her voice sharpened like a blade. “I said enough.”

Philip clamped his mouth shut, breathing hard, but wisely said nothing more.

Henry took one final, steady breath, looking down at his brother. His pulse had slowed. His rage, for the moment, was spent. Only the bone-deep exhaustion remained now, wrapping around him like a second skin. He felt hollow and too full at once, stretched thin beneath the weight of everything that had unraveled in the last few days. But his mother was here. And Bea was laughing. And Philip—for once—was silent. That was enough for now.

His mother exhaled softly, as though some impossible burden was beginning, finally, to ease its grip around her throat. She moved closer to the bed again, smoothing her hands down the front of her simple black dress—one of many she had worn in the quiet weeks since Arthur's funeral. The fabric looked too heavy on her thin frame, her face still drawn, but there was a steadiness returning to her eyes. A kind of fragile resolve.

“I will have breakfast with all three of my children,” she said quietly, but with a firmness that did not invite argument. “And Davey, of course.”

Henry felt David’s warm little body shift against his chest at the mention of his name, the beagle letting out a soft, snuffling sigh in his sleep.

Catherine’s voice wavered, but she pressed on. “I have been wallowing in my grief for two weeks and ignoring you all since your father died. And I see now that it has only made everything worse. I thought… I thought if I disappeared into my own grief, it would spare you from having to carry more than you already have.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “But that’s not what Arthur would have wanted.”

At the sound of his father’s name, Henry’s chest tightened. He hadn’t allowed himself to say it much, not lately. Not out loud. Saying his name made it too real. Too final. Like somehow keeping Arthur’s name locked away in his chest would stop the world from fully realizing he was gone.

Arthur.

His father. His shield. His anchor. The one who would’ve pulled him into a hug during all this and whispered some ridiculous, half-inappropriate joke just to make him smile.

Henry blinked hard against the sting behind his eyes.

Bea’s voice broke the silence, uncharacteristically soft. “Dad would’ve loved this whole mess, honestly.”

Henry let out a tired, breathless laugh. “He would’ve called me a ‘spectacularly dramatic little shit,’ patted my head, and poured us both a drink.”

Bea grinned, eyes shining. “Exactly.”

Even Philip let out a reluctant, tight-lipped exhale, some of the tension draining from his rigid frame.

Catherine sat on the edge of the bed now, her hand gently brushing Henry’s hair back from his damp forehead the way she had when he was a little boy fighting nightmares. Her fingers were cold but careful. Familiar. And despite everything—despite the distance, the silence, the mistakes—Henry leaned into the touch.

“We have all been trying to survive these past weeks,” she murmured. “We’ve each failed in our own ways. But I will not fail you again, Henry. I promise you that.”

Something inside him cracked, and before he could stop himself, he reached out and wrapped his arms around his mother’s waist, pressing his face into the fabric of her dress. She smelled faintly of lavender and rain. She let out a tiny breath, a small, shuddering thing, and held him tightly, resting her chin against his hair.

Bea sniffed, standing from the edge of the bed and coming around to wrap her arms around both of them in one big, awkward embrace.

“I’m joining this hug before I start crying like a bloody idiot,” she muttered, her voice rough with barely-contained emotion.

Philip lingered for a beat longer, stiff and uncomfortable, before he finally crossed the threshold. He stepped forward, sat awkwardly on the edge of the mattress, and reached out to rest one tentative hand on Henry’s shoulder.

Henry didn’t pull away.

The four of them sat there in silence, clinging to each other like survivors clinging to driftwood in the middle of a storm that had finally started to break.

After a long while, Catherine spoke again, her voice gentler now. “Come. Let’s go have breakfast. The four of us. We can figure everything else out later.”

Henry pulled back slightly, wiping at his damp cheeks with the sleeve of his shirt, his voice rasping. “Can we have pancakes?”

Bea snorted. “You just want an excuse to drown something in syrup.”

“It’s been a traumatic few days,” Henry deadpanned. “I deserve syrup.”

Catherine smiled. A real one this time. Small, but honest. “Pancakes it is.”

David stirred beside them, sensing the movement, and yawned dramatically before scrambling to his feet and wagging his tail as if he, too, had been waiting for breakfast to finally happen.

Henry scooped him up with a grin, standing carefully on unsteady legs. His head still pounded slightly, but the fog was lifting.

They filed out of the bedroom together, down the long, familiar corridors of Kensington Palace. And for the first time in weeks, maybe even months, Henry didn’t feel like the walls were closing in.

For the first time, they were moving forward. Together.

The weeks that followed were strange in a way that Henry couldn’t fully put into words.

The air in the palace was still heavy with grief. Arthur’s absence hung over everything like a storm cloud that wouldn’t quite break but refused to drift away. His chair at the breakfast table stayed empty, his old leather jacket still hung by the door, his voice still echoed in certain rooms when Henry walked through them late at night. But there was something else now too — movement. Life slowly returning, step by tentative step.

His mother was present again. Not quite herself — not yet — but getting there. She smiled more often. She joined them for meals, took walks in the gardens with Bea, sometimes even sat in the library to read the books Arthur used to love. She’d even laughed — really laughed — the other morning when David stole one of Philip’s slippers and refused to give it back.

Bea had taken a leave from university. She claimed it was to “support the family in this time of great national drama,” but Henry knew it was also because she didn’t trust him to stay upright without someone to keep an eye on him. Not that he minded. Bea’s chaos was oddly comforting.

Philip was… shifting. Quietly. Slowly. Henry caught him one night lingering in the drawing room long after everyone else had gone to bed, staring blankly at a portrait of Queen Mary from her youth. His face had been tight, his jaw clenched like he was fighting a war with himself. He didn’t say anything when Henry entered. He just nodded once, tired, and left. That was progress, Henry supposed.

Queen Mary, of course, was still livid. She hadn’t spoken more than necessary since the scandal broke, but when she did, her words were loaded. Little comments at dinners. Passive-aggressive remarks dropped like pins into conversation, each one designed to sting.

“Such a shame how some members of the family choose to behave so… publicly.”

“Of course, respectability seems to mean less to the youth these days.”

Henry let her have her barbs. He didn’t even flinch anymore. He’d learned something new: she couldn’t touch him now. Not really. Not after everything. The public had decided, and shockingly — blessedly — the public liked him.

Perhaps it was his age. Perhaps it was the way the press had framed him: young, grieving, just eighteen, finally forced into the spotlight under impossible pressure. Perhaps it was Arthur’s memory still shining like a halo over the family. But the world hadn’t turned on him like his grandmother predicted. If anything, they embraced him. The interviews were kinder. The headlines read “Brave Prince Henry Opens Up About His Truth” and “Monarchy Finally Enters the 21st Century.”

His public approval ratings skyrocketed — higher than his mother’s, higher than Philip’s, higher than the Queen’s. Even international headlines called him a modern royal. And with every new poll, every new puff piece, Henry saw the faint twitch in Queen Mary’s eye grow sharper.

Sometimes, when she pushed him too far at dinner, when she made some thinly veiled comment about “respectable bloodlines” or “moral decline,” Henry would reach for the nearest jug of wine or water with just the faintest flick of his wrist. And like clockwork, she’d flinch. Every time.

Good.

He was still angry. Still grieving. But that small power? He would keep it.

No one mentioned the cocaine.

Not his mother. Not Bea. Not Philip. Not even Gran.

It hung in the air — an unspoken agreement, a silent understanding that everyone was pretending hadn’t happened. Maybe they thought it would break him further to confront it. Maybe they just didn’t know how to. Either way, the word “drugs” never passed anyone’s lips.

He was trying. He really was.

The worst of the withdrawal had passed in the first miserable, sleepless week — headaches, tremors, waves of nausea and bone-deep exhaustion. But now? Now he managed.

He hadn’t touched coke since that night. Instead, whenever the cravings got too sharp, too loud, he reached for the joint hidden in the drawer of his bedside table. A compromise, he told himself. Lesser evil. Safer. He only smoked once every few days, just enough to quiet the frantic buzzing in his skull. David would curl beside him while the haze settled in, his breathing steady, warm against Henry’s ribs.

“I’m getting better, Davey,” he whispered one night as smoke curled toward the ceiling. “Aren’t I?”

David licked his hand in reply, as if to say: You’re still here, aren’t you?

And he was. Still here.

Alive. Sober—mostly. Still standing.