This story is based on the movies The Princess Diaries and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, which are the property of Meg Cabot and Disney. No infringement is intended.

Note to readers: This story will be dealing with themes of violence and heavy subject material in later chapters. This is not going to be a very lighthearted story overall, so be forewarned. Also, I'm going to be telling this story in the first person, from the points of view of the characters so when you see a character's name in italics at the beginning of a chapter, it means that that chapter is being told from that particular character's point of view.

Chapter One

Mia

February 14, 2014

After I attended several diplomatic meetings earlier in the day, I held a meeting with my security staff to discuss the arrangements for the charity dinner that was scheduled to be held in the palace dining room later that evening. While everybody else in the world was thinking romance, I was thinking diplomacy, security detail, and running a country. It always amazed me the way that people think it's such a dream to be a royal. Today was one of those days where I would have given just about anything to simply be an ordinary woman enjoying her Valentine's Day with her husband, and to not have to deal with all the stress that went with having the well-being of an entire nation resting on my shoulders.

But even though I didn't want to admit it, I knew that it was much more than the regular stress and strain of my job that was making it so hard for me to get through the day. It was true that I certainly missed Lionel; he and his Uncle Sebastian and Aunt Sheila were in L.A. attending a cousin's wedding, but it was a lot more besides being in a stressful career and missing my husband that was getting to me. I honestly couldn't explain why, but for some crazy reason, ever since a couple of days ago, I had been absolutely filled to the brim with pure terror. Not fear. Not anxiety. Not stress. Terror! And I simply could not understand why, but for some strange, unknown reason, I felt completely certain, I just knew it with all my heart and soul that something unbelievably awful was going to happen. I hadn't felt that frightened since six years ago.

But I'd had good reason to be petrified right down to the bone back then. Some pretty awful things were happening to me then, but I didn't have any reason to be so scared now. It didn't make the slightest bit of sense, which is why I was pretty angry at myself. I yearned so badly to be able to cancel the meeting and the charity dinner and to be able to just crawl into bed and hide under the covers and cry my eyes out. I had already cried myself to sleep last night, thinking and hoping that doing that would make me feel better, but it didn't. When I woke up this morning, I felt just as terrified as I'd felt before I'd fallen asleep. And it was for absolutely no reason! I was a ruler for heaven's sake! I had an entire country to be responsible for, and here I was, wanting to cancel all my duties for the day just so I could run off and cry like a little baby. It was ridiculous! Heaven knew Clarisse Renaldi never had an experience like this, and I was sure my grandfather never had, either, may he rest in peace. How, how I wished I could be as strong and rock-solid as they always were! True, I never knew King Rupert, God rest his soul, but I'd been told for years what a strong, confident ruler he always was, and Grandma most definitely never lacked strength or confidence. Just in that split second before Joe, Shades, and the rest of the security staff came into my office, I said to myself, Oh Mia, if only you'd stayed the invisible girl that you were before you met Grandma! You should never have taken this job! You're not perfect enough to be able to handle it the way Grandma always is!

When Joe and all the others came in, though, I took a quick breath and tried to clear all the other thoughts from my mind, and I focused on our meeting as best I could. I hoped and prayed none of the men there could see the terror in my eyes and the tears I was fighting so hard to hold back. When the meeting was over about ten or fifteen minutes later, much to my relief, everybody started leaving my office without saying a word. Somehow, I'd managed to mask it, amazingly enough…

…or so I thought. Joe came back into my office after everyone else was gone and shut the door behind him, and I immediately realized that I shouldn't have been surprised. Of all the guards on our security staff, nobody knew me better than Joe did. Sometimes, I've even thought to myself that Joe knew me better than my own husband, or even better than Grandma, despite the fact that God gave her that incredible gift of hers. Joe didn't need Grandma's gift in order to be able to see right through whatever royal, professional mask I might have been trying to wear at the moment, because he had the most powerful sense of instinct I have ever seen in another human being. It's undoubtedly what's made him such a wonderful Royal Head of Security all these years. All it took was one careful look, and his eyes could penetrate right through the mask and get down to my very soul. In all the years I've known this special man, I have never once been able to lie to him or fool him about anything. No matter what, Joe always saw the truth about whatever's going on inside of me. I imagine that's one of the things Grandma's loved the most about him through the years.

"Mija, let's drop all the titles and royal business for just a moment. Talk to your papa. What's wrong, sweetheart? Something's bothering you, terribly. I can see it in your eyes."

To say the least, my relationship with Joe had greatly changed from what it was in the beginning. We started out as friends, and as I grew older, he became a treasured confidant I felt completely safe opening up to. But then again, I'd practically always felt that I could talk to Joe about anything, especially my insecurities, without having to worry about him being judgmental about it, and that increased exponentially when I took Grandma's place as Queen of Genovia. Neither one of us had ever really admitted it, never really said the words out loud to each other before, but deep down, I'd come to look on Joe over the years as the father I never had. But when I was so ill six years ago that it honestly looked like I'd never get another chance to tell Joe what was in my heart, with what little strength I had left at the time, I poured my heart out to him, and he called me mija for the very first time and told me he felt the same way. To put it mildly, it was a huge turning point for both of us. Sure, as my semi-retired Royal Head of Security, there were times when we had to use titles and be all professional, but first and foremost now, he was Papa to me and I was mija to him. And he was still the same old tough, quiet, no-nonsense Joe to the palace staff, but after I almost died that time, he was much more tender with me now, and at some point in the day when it was just us, he called me things like "sweetie," "sweetheart," "honey," etc., and I've always felt so privileged to get to see this special side of Joe that few others do.

"Is it really that obvious, Papa? And here I thought I was giving such a good performance," I joked. In reality, of course, I'd felt like I was barely hanging on by a thread.

"Oh trust me, my dear, you were," he assured me in the most loving voice. "Your performance was just as stellar as the ones your grandma would put on after she'd had a rough day. But you can't fool me because I've been at this job for far too long not to be able to spot it when the Queen is putting on the performance of the cool, royal professional while something's bothering her inside. And on top of that, you're not only dealing with the Royal Head of Security; you're also dealing with a daddy, here, and we daddies know our little girls."

I couldn't help but smile at that, and then I got up from my seat, walked around my desk, and kissed my papa's cheek.

"I may be kind of stressed today, Papa, but I'll live; I promise you," I assured him with far more bravado than I felt.

Then just as I was about to sit back down at my desk and get some paperwork done before I went upstairs to start getting ready for the charity dinner, Joe put his hand on my shoulder and asked me, "Is your neck still bothering you?"

Best I could figure it, my Royal Head of Security must have had eyes in the back of his head, because despite the fact that my neck and my jaw had been killing me for the past two days, I resisted rubbing them to try to get a little bit of relief except for the times when I was alone in my suite, or when I was certain that Joe wasn't in the room or that he had his back turned to me. I had to hand it to my papa. He was way too good at his job.

But naturally, when he asked about my neck I had to play dumb, so I responded, "My neck? What're you talking about, Joe?"

"I've noticed you rubbing your neck once or twice here lately. Is it still hurting?"

"You worry way too much." I deliberately didn't answer his question.

"Have you seen Dr. Adams about it?"

We had a doctor's office right there in the palace, and the doctor to the Genovian Royal Family for the past eight years, a lovely, average-sized black lady named Dr. Rachel Adams, lived in the palace with us and was always on call. We liked each other very much right from the start and we were pretty good friends.

"You know I don't go running to see Dr. Adams every time I sneeze. So my neck aches a bit. Big deal, Papa. I'm running an entire nation, here, and sometimes I feel a little stressed, and that's probably what's making my neck hurt. It simply comes with the job, and it's hardly anything worth bothering Dr. Adams over."

"That's what she's here for, mija."

"To hold a Kleenex out for me and tell me to blow?" I teased and Joe rolled his eyes at me.

"You know perfectly well what I mean," he said as he barely managed to suppress a chuckle.

"I think somebody's being a little too overprotective today."

"That's what I'm here for. Look mija, I know that you've got everybody getting on your case all the time about taking care of your health, and I'm sure it's bound to get tiresome to you, but you've got to remember that when it comes to your health, we cannot take any chances. Your body has been through so much, love, and we have to be careful where you're concerned. As a matter of fact, where you're concerned, I think it's impossible to be too careful. Now please, promise me you'll go and see Dr. Adams if you start feeling any worse."

I'd dreamed of having a father in my life for so long and now that he was finally there, I could never refuse a request from him, especially such a loving one.

"Okay," I whispered, and then Joe hugged me and kissed the top of my head before he finally left to get to work on the security detail for the charity dinner, and left me to one of my most favorite duties as Queen of Genovia: my endless stack of paperwork!

When it was time for me to go upstairs to my suite to start getting ready for the charity dinner that evening, I was grateful no one else was around at the moment as I started climbing the staircase, because I was terribly shaky and it suddenly took all my strength just to climb one step after another. My grip on the railing was so tight, my knuckles were white, and I was so glad Joe wasn't there to see it because even though he was perfect at convincing everyone around him how tough he was, I also knew how deeply he worried about me, especially in times like these when he was afraid something was wrong. I still wasn't ready to concede that there might have been something going wrong with me yet; I was still convincing myself that it was merely my body's reaction to all the stress and daily pressures of my job, but I did make up my mind that once the charity dinner was finally over that night, I would indeed keep my promise to my papa and see Dr. Adams about it.

Then all of the sudden, I heard Grandma's voice coming from the top of the stairs. I looked up, but I only saw the back of her head, so mercifully, she hadn't seen me struggle to ascend a simple staircase…at least not yet. As much as I knew Joe worried about me, not even his level of concern and overprotection could compete with Grandma's. While I listened to her discussing her wardrobe for the dinner with one of her lady's maids, I remembered how distraught she'd been when, a couple of days after I'd finally come home from the hospital six years ago, I tripped and fell down the same stairs.

It had been a lovely spring day, and after being cooped up in a hospital room for all those months, even a palatial hospital room as huge as mine had been, I was anxious for the luxury of being able to enjoy a good walk outside. Grandma wouldn't even let me get near paperwork the first several days after coming home, so I'd resigned myself to the fact that whether I liked it or not, I was still going to be out of commission as a queen for a while. With that being the case, I actually then had the time to lounge about, relax, take a walk, and do some reading – which were much the same things I'd been doing in the hospital, of course, but at least now I could do them at home.

"Going somewhere?" Grandma asked just as I'd started descending the staircase.

"I'm just going for a little walk outside," I answered her.

"Are you sure you're up to that, little one?" she asked with clear concern in her voice, which really touched me. Before I'd gone through that harrowing ordeal in the hospital, let's just say that Grandma hadn't always made her feelings of concern for me all that obvious. I mean, of course she'd shown me in her own way that she loved me through the years, but because I'd been such an unattractive klutz when we first met while she'd been this incredibly regal, graceful royal, I'd constantly felt that I could never hope to measure up to her, and I'd always sensed it that at least a part of her heavily looked down on me because of all the ways we both knew I could never measure up to her. But after my little brush with death that hadn't been so little, things drastically changed between us, even more so than they did between Joe and me. I'd always felt our relationship was based on how well I performed as a royal in the past and I think she did too, without either one of us fully realizing it. Sure, she'd said the words that I was her granddaughter first and a Genovian royal second, but I honestly never really felt that way until the time I almost died. Before, I'd always known that she'd loved and cared for me, but it wasn't until I nearly lost my life that she showed me just how deep that love actually went, and to say the least, I was amazed. And it felt so good to know that from that point on, Clarisse Renaldi's biggest concern in our relationship was my well-being and not the question of whether or not I was living up to her expectations.

"It's just a little walk, Grandma, not a marathon," I chuckled.

"Let me tell you something, my little dear. You crossed the finish line of the Boston Marathon the moment you left the hospital and set foot inside the palace again!" Grandma responded, and I smiled at the "little dear" comment. Grandma had called me sweet, lovey-dovey names occasionally in the past. Sometimes she'd call me darling or dear, but ever since my extended illness happened, she didn't just call me by my name, or darling or dear. From that point on, I was "little one," "little darling," "little love," "little dear," etc., and just like with Joe, I felt truly privileged because there aren't that many people on planet earth Clarisse Renaldi would allow herself to get so mushy with.

"Well I thank you very much for the compliment, but you really don't have to make such a huge fuss over me all the time. We both know my doctors wouldn't have allowed me to come home from the hospital if they didn't think I was strong enough to handle it. I'll be fine."

"Do you have your inhaler with you?"

"Surely even lungs as damaged as mine are can handle a simple little stroll through the rose garden. Will you please stop worrying?"

"No I will not stop worrying, young lady. Since we lost your mother over a year ago, I am now officially both your mother and your grandmother all rolled up into one, and that gives me license to worry about you as much as I want to for the rest of my life."

"You can't spend the whole rest of your life worrying about me all the time, Grandma. All that stress that worrying causes would be very bad for a person your age!" I teased.

"Amelia Mignonette, if you weren't suffering from lung damage, I'd chase you all over the palace right now and catch you and put you over my knee and give you the spanking of your life for saying that!" Grandma teased back, and I laughed. "I don't care if you are the reigning Queen of Genovia!"

"No, you're right about that. I don't think my lungs are up to that much activity just yet. But they are up to a nice little rose garden stroll."

"Where's your inhaler, Mia?" Grandma stubbornly asked, refusing to let the inhaler thing go. I knew what the doctors had told me about how important it was that I have my rescue inhaler with me at all times, but I guess I didn't want to carry it around in my pocket because it was another reminder that I wasn't the same healthy Mia Thermopolis I used to be, and I didn't want to be a different person from what I was…a sick person.

"On my nightstand," I sighed, knowing that I'd officially lost the battle.

"I'll go get it for you, and then I'll come back and take a walk with you through the rose garden myself. I could use a little exercise."

Grandma then started to walk away and I let out a small sigh that she couldn't hear. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy her company, of course. It wasn't as if I minded her tagging along for my little stroll through the rose garden; it was just so frustrating to have absolutely everybody around me acting like something as simple as a walk would be fatal to me. You'd think that Grandma, the former Queen of Genovia herself, would understand better than anyone the desire to simply be treated like a human being like everybody else in the world, without servants or the press making the most ridiculous fuss over it practically every time you drew a breath of air. I also really hated seeing her worrying herself to death over me so much for her sake. I may have teased her about her age, but she wasn't getting any younger and I hated to be the cause of so much stressful worrying for her after all she'd already been through. Then again, I knew it was because of going through the emotional agony of losing her younger son, my father, nearly seven years ago in that car crash, that she naturally couldn't help but be scared of the possibility of it happening again with me after I'd been so ill. She was always going to drive herself crazy worrying about me because of this. There was just simply no way of getting around it.

While Grandma was walking to my suite, I started descending the lower half of the staircase and sure enough, as I took that first step down, my natural clumsiness took over and my foot slipped and down I went. Grandma heard me crash and when she did, she ran down the stairs with the speed of a teenager, despite the fact that she was well into her sixties.

"Mia?! Mia, are you alright?! Are you alright?!" she asked as she raced down the stairs. And while she was racing, I slowly sat up and tried to catch my breath.

"Yeah," I gasped.

Then Grandma knelt down to where I was sitting on the floor and asked me again, "Are you alright?! Honey, are you okay?!" Once again, I was touched by all of Grandma's concern for me, and it was another reminder of how deeply our relationship had changed. It was hard to believe that this obviously very concerned grandma who was kneeling before me now was in fact the same woman who'd stood by countless times in the past when I'd fallen onto much harder floors than that one and said absolutely nothing about it and acted like she couldn't have cared less, while it had been my lady's maids who'd bothered to ask the question if I was alright or not. I certainly wasn't glad to see her so worried and upset, of course, but I had to admit that as a granddaughter, it felt pretty good to hear that question coming from Grandma this time and not my lady's maids.

A moment later, Joe, Charlotte, Grandma's lady's maids and my lady's maids came onto the scene and they were all pretty much asking me the same thing.

"Mija, what happened?!" Joe asked in a very abrupt tone of voice, but I knew it was only because he was so worried about me, and like with Grandma, I was touched that he was so concerned about me that he forgot to be professional and called me "mija."

"She fell down the stairs," Grandma answered.

"Maybe we should get Dr. Adams in here," Charlotte Kutaway suggested. Charlotte had been Grandma's personal assistant for several years, and then when I ascended the throne and got the law forbidding women to serve in Parliament changed, she served in Parliament for over two years. Of course, I'd hired a new assistant to take her place, but she'd never been as helpful to me as Charlotte had been to Grandma, and when I'd had to spend so much time in the hospital, she actually resigned her position in Parliament and took over her old position in the palace. Naturally I'd wanted her to when she first made the offer because she'd always been such a wonderful friend to Grandma and me through the years, as well as a truly incredible assistant, but I tried very hard to talk her out of it because I hated seeing her take such a step backwards with her career. No matter how hard I tried to talk her out of it, however, she was unbelievably stubborn, and she absolutely insisted on coming back to do her old job. And although I hated seeing her do that to her career, I couldn't possibly have been more grateful to have her back, and I don't think Grandma could have been, either.

"Did you fall because you were dizzy?" Joe asked.

"Are you feeling faint, Your Majesty?" Brigitta Lancaster, one of my lady's maids, questioned.

"It might have been fatigue," Brigitte Wyatt, my other lady's maid, suggested.

The fall had really knocked the wind out of me and it had taken me a little time to get my breath back, but when I did, I told them, "Guys, I fell because I'm a klutz!" Thankfully, that got a little bit of a laugh out of everybody and helped to ease the tension.

Then Grandma sat on the floor beside me, put her arm around my shoulders, kissed my temple and told me, "Yeah, but you're the most beautiful little klutz in the world." It was in that moment that I saw it that she was fighting off tears.

So to say the least, my brush with death six years ago really, really shook Grandma up like nothing else ever had, as she herself admitted to me on more than one occasion. And that made me all the more determined not to let on to her about it whenever I had bad days like this one where I wasn't feeling well. If she'd preached the "You have to tell me about it when something's wrong" lecture to me once over the past six years, she'd preached it a billion times, but I wasn't about to cause her more worrying over me than she already did on a daily basis if I could possibly help it.

Luckily for me, Grandma went back to her own suite without turning around to see me, as did Priscilla Thompson, the lady's maid she'd been discussing her evening wardrobe with, and I was able to get to the top of the stairs on my own without anybody seeing me struggling to get there. Then I went to my suite to start getting ready for tonight's dinner, myself. But right after the guards opened the doors to my suite for me and I walked in and they shut them behind me, for the first time since I'd first woke up that morning, I was alone, and my determination to hold back my tears was quickly dissipating. I then decided in that moment that I would allow myself one quick little cry before changing into my evening gown for the royal dinner that night. Perhaps letting all my tears go once again would make it a bit easier for me to stay calm through the charity dinner and act like the calm, poised royal professional I was supposed to be.

Knowing that I couldn't take any chances of anybody overhearing me crying, I went into my bathroom and turned on the water in my shower so that no one could hear me, and then I sat down on the edge of my enormous white marble bathtub, and I just let the sobs go.