This is the side story to One Week, detailing how Charming and Doris got together before they went to Narnia. You don't have to read One Week to understand this, but both of these and One Week's sequel, (unreleased) are in the same universe, and I have no qualms about pluggage, so please go read One Week if you get the chance.

Originally I was going to do a sequel to One Week. Then I looked at the reviews, and decided, "Now that's really... um..." I'd be lying if I said I decided anything. In reality, my eyes fell upon Zepplin's review and focused on the "Charming/Doris fic" comment, and thus I decided to do a shortish fic about that couple. (Of course, 'shortish' is what I was thinking in the beginning of One Week. . .) And that couple does need more love. I'm not going to hide it. This fic is about them.

I did get a lot of people asking for a Charming/Doris fic, and I feel that they need a gift. And it'll give me more insight into the Connected Worlds and stuff, so that'll help with the sequel to One Week.

Please keep in mind that this is AU after Shrek 2.

And enough with the rambling. Enjoy the show, everyone!

And in my twisted face
There's not the slightest trace
Of anything that even hints of kindness
If I Can't Love Her (Beauty and the Beast: The Broadway Musical)

Chapter One: Lost It All

Charming Fortuna watched as the bubbles that had been his mother floated down to the pavement and died in little explosions of soapy water. Her glasses fell with a tinkle next to them, and her wand clattered to the ground, the light in its star already dying.

He stared at the damp pavement and the cloven hooves of the pig that stepped on the wand, snapping it in two. Hesitantly, he reached out and picked up the spectacles– all he had left of his mother.

He put them in his breast pocket, threw Fiona's rose to the ground, and prepared to walk away with some dignity left until he could get back to the hotel room to mourn his mother in private.

His plans went to the gutter, however, when a–well, it looked like a woman in a purple dress grabbed him with a deep-voiced, "'Ey, gorgeous," and ran a finger down his cheek. She pushed him backward onto the stone floor and tried to kiss him as they fell, but he wormed out of her grip and landed on his rear next to her in the midst of dancing courtiers and fairytale creatures. She grabbed for him again, but he writhed away and managed to force a wolf in a nightgown to dance between them, giving Charming some space to rise to his feet. As soon as he regained them–and his balance, he shoved his way through the crowd into a gaggle of dancing pigs, who immediately shoved him out of their circle, where he came face-to-face with Fiona. Her husband was nowhere to be seen, but the frog that had been King Harold was dangling by his front legs from her hands. It spitted Charming with a glare, and Fiona stared at him with something he wasn't used to being on the receiving–or even the giving end of–pity.

"Charming," she said in that lovely voice now laced with sadness. "Get out of here. Please. Just go."

He remembered the feel of his lips on hers–then considered the crack of her forehead on his that had come immediately after. He nodded, too miserable to speak. He'd lost his mother, a chance at being a King, and the woman he thought he loved, all in one night.

Moving slowly to the rhythm of the music that an orange tabby and a mule were singing on stage and trying not to attract any attention to himself, he made his way toward the stairs at the back of the courtyard. When he reached the foot, he paused for a second, then dashed up them as fast as he could, and reached the sanctuary of the hall within seconds, where he was confronted by a confusing sight. Multiple guards were heaped together, unconscious or dead in the middle of the halls he walked through. He didn't stop to check to see if they were alright; knowing the nature of fairytale creatures, when they had taken the castle they would have only knocked out or incapacitated the guards, not killed them. The cat with the sword was another matter, but when one of the guards groaned and rolled over as Charming passed, he figured they were all still alive.

He walked over the now-down drawbridge and stopped for a moment to stare down at the moat, contemplating drowning himself. No; he was too pretty for that; drowning made your face turn purple and bloated, and drowning oneself was near impossible. And he didn't want to die just yet; he could always find another kingdom with another princess; Snow White was a possibility. . . .

He didn't want to deal with the dwarves, though. They would squeal and giggle, and even if he did manage to wake up Snow White, she had to get rid of that apple stuck in her throat. He didn't want it to be on him, after all.

No, Snow White wasn't a good idea. If he went back to Mummy's factory, surely there would be potions there that could help him.

A floating castle. No, not a floating castle. A floating tower that was grounded in a dark gray cloud that occasionally lit up with bright pink lightning. The old Keebler place with the attached cottage that his mother had chased the elves out of and claimed as her factory was gone, and in its place was trees. Lots and lots of trees.

After riding for what seemed like hours on an empty stomach and an aching heart, he found his mother's factory gone, and this. . . thing in it's place. He had to know where it came from, and what happened to his mother's factory. After cautious searching, he found a rope ladder seemingly made of silver hair that was tied to the ground and led up into the cloud. He dismounted, tied his white stallion to a tree next to a blackberry bush, and strode determinedly toward the ladder. He reached it and gripped it firmly in both hands, tugging to make sure it was tied at the top. After several hard yanks, he was satisfied that it wasn't going to come loose while he was on it, and began climbing the silken ladder. When he had climbed high enough to be over the treetops, he looked around, half-hoping that he'd simply missed the turning for the factory, only to find that there was forest all around as far as he could see. There was the main road through the forest, and the Poison Apple, but that was about it. Far Far Away could be seen in the distance; only a toy-sized castle next to a barely discernible sign captioning the name, and nothing else. No factory, not even the cottage.

Charming turned his head away from the empty landscape and continued climbing. He didn't even hesitate when he reached the gray cloud; just kept climbing–not into fluffy warmth, like he had always imagined clouds to be–but into cold darkness. Cold wet darkness, complete with the slight feeling of a constant drizzle on his face.

This was certainly not what clouds were supposed to be! Clouds were fluffy, and white, and you could sit on them! This tower thing was resting on a cloud, but the only other times that Charming had encountered clouds, he'd been in Mummy's carriage.

He gritted his teeth against the cold and the wet, and kept placing hand over hand and pulling himself up the now-slick ladder. After several near hits with the unnatural pink lightning, he banged the crown of his head against something solid. Muffling a curse, he twisted the ladder around his left arm and reached up with his right to discover what felt like a trapdoor. He fumbled around in the dark with his fingers, hoping to find the handle or some other way to open it. His fingertips brushed against what felt like a stylized glyph of some sort, and he pressed at it. Suddenly the door gave way and lifted away above him, giving him a glimpse of a white tiled room with what looked like a bathtub in one corner before he heard a feminine shriek, and a sudden wind whipped up from beneath him, throwing him high into the air and through another trapdoor in the ceiling, which gave him another chance to get a glance at a woman in the bubble-filled bathtub, who was frantically trying to cover herself before he was whisked away into a room full of bookshelves replete with books like Moby Dick, Les Miserables, and The Disappearance of Pegeen,and odd knick-knacks.

He took a seat in one of the comfortable looking wing chairs to wait to meet the owner of the tower. Unfortunately he had a nasty sinking feeling that the owner was that woman he had passed on his way up–the woman in the bathtub.

That did nothing for his mood, and before he knew it, he was sniffling and trying to hold back tears for his mother. He pulled her glasses out of his front pocket and held them in his fingers, staring at the only physical remnant of Dama Fortuna other than bubbles and pieces of a broken wand.

He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth as the tears slipped down his cheeks. He managed to hold back the sobs, but the tears fell unchecked. When a door slammed open somewhere to his right, he didn't look up, so lost was he in his mourning.

"Do you know the meaning of knocking?" a girl's voice screamed. "Not only do I have to interrupt a bubble bath to see a client, the aforementioned client sees me in said bubble bath! Why I even bothered taking– oh. Oh, dear. I've gone and made you cry, haven't I, lad?" Without any further yelling, a tissue was pressed into his hand, and he took it gratefully, hastily wiping the snot from his nose and the tears and gunk from his eyes.

"Oh. Oh, my," the voice said. "Oh, this is unexpected. Prince Charming Fortuna."

He looked up to find the source of the person who apparently knew him staring at him through eyes that looked like the bottoms of spoons. They were completely silver except for slit pupils in the centers.

His eyes immediately wanted to look away from those deviant eyes, and somehow his gaze traveled upward to the–cat ears? This woman had black cat ears? He hastily checked for normal, human ears, but couldn't see any ears, but that could have been because of the abundant orange hair that foofed around her head.

He looked at the ears again, only to find that they were pierced. Six times.

My god, he thought. I must be dreaming.

"Sorry to have made you cry, Charming. I suppose you're wondering where your mother is, hmm?"

He nodded, not trusting his voice.

The girl frowned, causing a small canine to slip over her lower lip. "I really don't know. I just graduated from Godmother school, and this is my first assignment. Admin just sort of gives you a place to go, and you tell them what you want your home and office to look like, and then you wind up there. I really can't tell you anything, but you can send a complaint form to the IFAGA. They take months to get through everything, though. Sorry to say this, but your mom's as good as gone."

"Oh." His voice was very small, and he didn't really know what to say. He toyed with the glasses in his hands, relieved to have found someone who knew something about what was going on.

A hand touched his shoulder. "Sorry to have screamed at you," the new Godmother said. "I was just startled. I wasn't really expecting anyone tonight; you should still have been at the Ball, and you also should have used the elevator. Did you take the hair ladder?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Ah. For future reference, the elevator is in the clearing just off the main road. It's not really an elevator–that just makes it easier to remember. It's just a Portal that–"

And she was off, rambling like there was no tomorrow. Ever the pervert, he glanced down to find out if she was naked or wearing a towel, only to see that she was wearing some sort of odd black and white uniform, with a short black pleated skirt, an orange sailor top with a red bow, and white stockings withshort orange boots. She was so different from his mother! While Mummy had been all mother and mostly manipulative, conniving and ever the businesswoman, this girl was seemingly innocent, wise, and helpful. And her clothing! Quite an odd outfit, on the whole, he thought, barely noticing the shapely legs and trim waist. She caught him looking and lightly slapped him on the side of his head.

"Bad Charming. You can stay for the night, but don't think you get anything more than that."

It was then that he realized how tired he was. His head ached from when Fiona had headbutted him, and he ached all over. He thought he might be catching a cold, too, when he sneezed and–

"You're not sick," the Godmother said. "Just tired. And you've been coddled all your life. Go to bed and get some sleep. You'll feel better in the morning. This fae light will show you the way."

She flicked her fingers and a light shot away from her hand. It twinkled purple and orange–a revolting combination, he thought–and floated toward a previously unnoticed door in the wall. He looked back over his shoulder as she turned–or rather floated–away, revealing a naked back adorned with real butterfly wings patterned with seemingly random black and red and purple splotches. He'd almost lost the fae light when he managed to tear his eyes away from the sight of the sensuous Godmother, and hurried after it.

The light led him to a plain wooden door, marked with the rune jera¸ which meant 'fool.'

"Ha," he muttered, opened the door, and went inside, leaving the light in the hallway.

There was a bed in the far corner– he stumbled toward it and fell into the soft warmth of a featherbed. He didn't even remember someone relieving him of his boots and jerkin before he fell asleep.