A/N: Another chapter! I'm taking a vacation this weekend with my family to the beach so I won't be able to add another chapter for awhile, and I start school next week. Please leave a review!

Disclaimer: I don't own "Tangled" or its characters, they belong to Disney.

The princess woke up with a horrible headache, not knowing necessarily what a headache was or what it feels like, let's just say it was definately not a quiet morning.

Rapunzel awoke same as usual, not wanting to leave the warm sheets that covered her and have to go plan the wedding celebration that would take place in a few months. But something was off.

Her head pounded when she turned away from the window that the sun proudly showed off its rays through, and her body was cold despite the warm September air that filled the room.

"That's weird," She mumbled while taking her fingers and placing them at the source of the pain, her temples. Sitting up reluctantly,
Rapunzel leaned against the headboard and shut her eyes trying to get rid of the pounding that seemed to echo through her ears.

Suddenly a conversation she had once had with Eugene came back to her.

"Eugene, what did it feel like?" Her quiet question reached her companions ear as he lay sprawled out on the sofa in the library, the princess laying lazily on top of him as they watched the fire dance before them, the cold air outside made the room all the more cozy, they had been sitting in comfortable silence for hours.

"What princess?" Eugene didn't quite understand what feeling she was talking about.

"To die."

Her voice had become so serious and those bright emerald eyes looked up at him, already swimming with tears and curiousity.

Eugene looked back down at her, the words in his brain becoming jumbled as he remembered the pain of that day, the loss that he felt when his heart beat for the last time, the peace though that he had felt knowing that the wonderful girl he had fallen in love with was free.

"What brought that on Rapunzel?"

The young girl looked up at her boyfriend, bringing their joined hands up closer to her as she examined their fingers interlocked with eachothers.

"I just want to know Eugene, I'm not a child so please don't change it for me," He saw the confidence in her eyes, the wanting to be treated as her age as opposed to the care she got from everyone around the castle. Rapunzel was babied, she hadn't been in civilization before so no one truly knew how to approach a young woman who should be noble, yet runs around with bare feet all day long.

Eugene sighed deeply, looking away from those orbs that could keep him captivated for hours if they wanted. Squeezing her hand and adjusting his arm around her waist so that he could bring her even closer than she already was, the young man looked back down at the girl he loved.

"Dying was strange, it felt just as I had expected it would, the pounding in your head, the shivers that coarse through your body as the life is zapped out of you, the pain that comes and goes as you are pulled between the fabrics of reality, but what I didn't expect was that ultimate feeling of loss. I knew you were free and that alone let me die in peace, but the selfish part of me wanted to be there with you every step of the way on every adventure, every new discovery, every single day of the rest of our lives. I guess it truly was as bittersweet as everyone says it is."

Eugene could feel a tug at his heart as Rapunzel silently laid her head sideways so that she could listen to its beating, her breathing had come out quick as she remembered the intense pain it had caused her to watch the man she loved die in her arms.

"Thank you," She whispered to him as a warm tear slid down her cheek, leaving a sparkling trail behind it before falling onto his black vest. All the young man could do was squeeze the girl a little tighter than before, and kiss the top of her forehead.

"No problem Princess."

Coming back to the present day, Rapunzel suddenly started to breathe heavily as her head continued to pound and she shivered even more out of pure fear. The last straw though was the pain that seemed to not want to leave her throat no matter how much of the water she drank from the glass on her side table.

At that moment her mother walked in, and the tears began to flow from the princess's eyes.

"Darling, what's the matter?" The Queen said as calmly as her motherly instincts would allow, grasping the purple satin of her skirts and quickly running to the aid of her daughter.

"My head won't stop pounding!" The girl exclaimed hysterically as her mother pulled her into a comforting hug, feeling the warm forehead of the princess, and the shivers wracking through her body along with sobs.

"Dear I just think-," But the Queen had to stop for quickly the girl reached out for the water on the sidetable beside her and she gulped all of it, waiting in silence for a moment, and then breaking out in sobs again.

"It won't go away, mother!" The young princess continued to cry as her mother tightly wrapped her arms around her, trying her best to be of comfort.

"Oh my dear, I think your sick," Rapunzel looked up at her, those wide green eyes, red from the tears that had fallen from them. The little drops of water still fell, but the princess's face shifted strangely.

"Sick?"

The Queen realized that Rapunzel must not know what being sick even means, the mother recalled that the healing flower had healed her so it must of healed her child too in some ways. But her hair was brown now, so she must be experiencing this for the first time.

"Yes, Rapunzel. Here I'm going to go get the doctor, I will have Miss Lucy bring you another glass of water. Please though calm yourself down, the more you cry, the worse is will get." The Queen then left the room, watching as Rapunzel nodded feebly and hid back under her covers, overcome with a fever.

"Lucy!" The personal maid of the princess was just walking down the hall to help the girl get ready for the day. Brown hair up in a bun, and hazel eyes shining like they were every morning since the two had arrived.

"Yes. your majesty?" Lucy bowed before the queen, smoothing out her skirts and apron as she spotted the look of discontent on their rulers face.

"Rapunzel isn't feeling well, I'm going to go and fetch the doctor, would you mind going and getting her a glass of water?"

Lucy smiled slightly and shook her head, "Nothing would please me more, should I also go tell of the princess's state of health?" The Queen smiled and nodded, knowing that if anyone could calm her daughter down it would be him.

Lucy smiled slightly, the sparkle returning to her eyes as she turned from the Queen and went on to continue her duties.

After fetching the doctor from the infirmary, The Queen stopped at her husband's office, where the King sat at his desk, scribbling notes and such on a piece of paper. Seeing the open book on the desk though, his wife knew that he had been neglecting his work.

"Dear, Rapunzel is sick. The doctor is already on his way to her room, would you like to join me?" The King's eyes widened as he quickly closed the book that lay open, and threw down the pen he had been writing with. Coming up to his wife, he offered his arm to her, the evident worry already flooding those expressive blue eyes. "Don't worry I think it may just be a cold."

The sight that met them when they reached Rapunzel's room though nearly broke both of their hearts.

In the middle of the huge lavender bed sat Rapunzel, who's eyes were still red and puffy as she tried her best to conceal the cries that threatened to rip right through her, the doctor though was trying his best to keep the thermometer that rested in her mouth from bobbing too much.

"Princess, you have to hold it still or it won't be accurate," The girl just looked up helplessly at the doctor, who in return gave her a sympathetic smile.

Both royals approached the bed slowly, hand in hand, standing on the side that didn't have the side table. Rapunzel looked up at her parents, the thermometer still dangling from between her lips. Both just looked down comfortingly at her, reaching out their hands and gently stroking her cheeks and hair.

"Ok, so she does have a fever, and a very red throat, I would say the princess has caught a mild case of the flu," Both parents looked at each other, relaxing a bit at the word mild, "She seems to be in excellent health otherwise so I would give it about 3 or 4 days to run its coarse."

"Thank you so much," The Queen expressed to the physician, who in return smiled slightly and bowed, telling her that he would give Lucy the medicine the young girl would have to take for the next few days.

Rapunzel had remained silent this whole time, leaning against her father's hand that gently stroked the brown spikey haircut. Her eyes were on the wall on the other side of the room, staring blankly at them.

"Father, may I have some water?" The girl asked timidly, testing the word on her tongue and looking up at him for a reaction.

The King looked surprisingly down at his daughter, she had never called him that before and it had only been a few weeks since the first time she had uttered the word "mother". The tears began to gather in his eyes, but pushing it down he leaned down so that he could answer her quietly.

"I already sent Lucy," The Queen told him, returning to the side of the bed after showing the doctor out of the room. She had heard Rapunzel's use of title, and couldn't help the gentle smile that adorned her lips.

Lucy, at that exact moment entered the young girl's room, a glass full of water set on the tray in her hands, along with a strange syrup.

"Sorry it took me so long, the doctor had to give me the instructions. Oh! will be here..." She was cut off by the sound of the door quickly opening and closing behind her and the rush of wind as a young man sprinted past her, "...right now."

"Eugene!" Rapunzel exclaimed as her fiancee hurriedly came to her side,
opposite of the king and queen. The young girl's face upon seeing the man arrive had visibly brightened up despite the fact that it was still pale.

"I'm sorry it took me so long," The man murmured to her as he sat by her side, gathering her into his arms and kissing her head multiple times and closing his eyes.

The King and Queen though had to laugh a bit at the man's appearance, he looked as if he seriously had just jumped out of bed and threw on random articles of clothing. He still had on his sleep pants, and he wore his white shirt that was buttoned in all the wrong holes, the poor young man hadn't even bothered with shoes.

"Eugene, I was so scared," The princess mumbled into his shoulder as he rocked her slightly from side to side.

"Your going to be ok princess, look Lucy even has your first round of medicine," The girl, for the first time, noticed her personal maid now stand beside her bed, pouring a bit of the medicine into a spoon.

While Rapunzel watched, Eugene turned his head to her parents and mouthed, "What does she have?"

Both royals mouthed back, "Flu".

The young man nodded, watching as the princess wiped the remaining tears from her eyes, clutching the fabric of his shirt tighter as Lucy, satisfied with the amount of medication on the spoon, held it out to Rapunzel.

"Here you go, your highness. Just take the medicine then I will hand you the glass so that you can get the taste out of your mouth," Rapunzel looked at the woman doubiously before taking another look at the sticky brown medicine that was suppose to go down her throat.

Letting go of Eugene's shirt, the girl lifted her hand slightly to grasp the spoon within her fingers, still crinkling her eyesbrows at the sight of it.

After a moment of speculation, she very carefully placed the spoon between her lips and sipped all the medicine from it. After that she gave the spoon back to Lucy, a disgusted look adorning her face.

"No princess, you must swallow," Eugene told her gently, holding his hand out for the glass that Lucy was holding. Rapunzel looked up at him with pleading green eyes, while his hazel ones looked back with a stern gaze. Finally, the girl swallowed the syrup and quickly grabbed for the glass in Eugene's hand.

The King and Queen watched as the princess again began to cry, hiding her face in Eugene's shirt. Lucy choose this moment to leave, deciding that she would check on the girl again in an hour to see if she needed anything.

"Rapunzel, dear you're going to be ok," Her Mother said gently,
the King and Queen walking over to the side of the bed where Eugene sat with the girl in his arms.

"I know, I know," She kept on repeating as she looked up at her parents, then up at the man she loved who at the moment had a concerned look on his face,"I just got scared."

"Rapunzel, your just sick. The doctor said you have a very mild case of the flu, there's nothing to worry about," The King tried to offer some words of consolation but his wife just gave him a look that told him to keep his thoughts to himself, this comforting thing did'nt seem to be helping.

"I was scared I was going to die!" It came out of her mouth so quickly that it stunned the three other people in the room, two of which looked at her their mouths opened in shock, and one who looked down at the girl in his arms, shocked but with the most sympathetic and loving gaze anyone could ever conjure.

"Dear, it's just the flu," Her Mother recovered from her shock looking at her daughter, with a pleading gaze in her eyes, wanting the girl to calm down.

"I know, I know, it's just that my head was pounding and my throat felt like it had been burned by fire and I was shivering and I have never been sick before so I couldn't understand and Eugene, you told me that that's how it feels when you..." Rapunzel had said this all in one breath but on the last word she let out a painful sigh, "die."

Eugene looked down at the princess, finally understanding why she had been so scared. He knew that night that he shouldn't hav told her what it actually felt like to die, he knew that she would end up jumping to conclusions.

"Oh princess, I shouldn't have said anything," The young man squeezed her even tighter as she rested her head on his shoulder, holding on to him as if he were to disappear at any moment.

"It just scared me because, like you said I want to be with you every moment of every adventure and experience and, the thought of leaving you - ," The girl continued to cry to the point she couldn't form words, her throat felt as though someone had taken a match and lit it on fire.

The royals stood, wanting to comfort their daughter but they knew whatever they said wouldn't help.

After a few minutes of listening to Eugene whisper words of encouragement into the girl's ear they decided to leave.

"Tell her if she needs anything, we will be in the study," Eugene nodded, remembering that her parents were still in the room. His hazel eyes still contained that look of worry that surely wouldn't disappear until Rapunzel was back to normal.

"Alright I will, could you ask Lucy if she would send our lunches in here? I doubt I'm going to be able to pull myself away from her side," He said it with such sincerity, that both the King and Queen nodded at his wishes and backed out the door, closing it.

"Dear?"

The King asked as they walked down the hall silently, both wanting to take away the pain that seemed to crush their daughter.

"Yes?" She answered, turning another corner and barely missing the antique table that lay there, all the guards were silent as the majesties passed, all already knowing that their princess was sick.

"Have you ever noticed the strange way they talk about death?"

The Queen nodded, she had noticed that a very long time ago, and to be honest she had no idea whether she wanted to know why.

"I believe it's one of those things we won't ever understand."