Work Text:
"It takes years for the land to recuperate from a fire, but
even in the darkest of ashes eventually something can grow."
—Lemony Snicket, "The Beatrice Letters"
"We should really turn it down." June's stage-whisper is punctuated by her whisk clattering around the mixing bowl, and it's just loud enough to be heard over their father's old gramophone. "We're going to wake everyone else up."
Alex spins her under his arm instead, earning a loud, startled laugh.
It's the familiar soundtrack behind many barefoot kitchen nights throughout Alex's childhood—just the two of them, their abuela's polvorón recipe, and a Selena record from 1995. The only addition is Nora: now sitting on the kitchen counter.
"That’s what they get for sleeping during the party."
Alex doesn't say a word when June's hair swings into the whisk and sticks briefly to the batter; he does, however, grin and agree: "Their loss."
June swats at him. "Go turn it down, Lil Bit."
He relents with a gratuitous eye-roll, crossing the room to lower the volume on the record player. When he returns, June is at the counter, whisking away while Nora gently plucks a glob of dough from the ends of her hair.
Alex loves nights like these—free, and easy, and home.
The only person who could make it feel more like home is sleeping soundly upstairs, right where Alex left him in the top bunk. When he couldn't drift off himself—not even listening to Henry's soft snores—he'd padded down to the kitchen to find Nora and June whispering in the kitchen. How they ended up baking cookies is a little fuzzy, but that's nothing new. When the three of them get together late at night, anything is possible.
"What time is it, anyway?"
June looks over her shoulder and Alex follows her gaze to the digital clock on the oven. It and the microwave above it are blinking rapidly—eerily out of sync with each other, but flashing the same numbers: 5:17 P.M.
She frowns. "Did we lose power or something?"
Instinctively, Alex lifts his arm to inspect his watch, but his wrist is bare. "Shit. Guess I didn’t put it back on," he says. "What’s your phone say? Mine’s upstairs."
"Huh." June pats an empty pajama pocket. "Mine too."
Nora jerks her thumb towards the stairs. "The brain can only survive three to six minutes without oxygen," she says, flatly.
Alex’s lungs, very suddenly, feel like they’re on fire.
"What?"
"I said I left mine on the charger." Nora maneuvers around June’s swatting hand to steal an almond. "It was basically dead when we came in earlier."
June shakes some flour onto the counter before removing the dough from the bowl and opening the drawer to grab the rolling pin; it's the one with the squeaky wheel, and Alex feels the sound in his teeth. He has no fucking idea why he’d imagine Nora saying something like that, but June is carrying on with the cookies like nothing happened. She even starts chatting about the weather and what could’ve frozen the clocks at 5:17 P.M.
So, obviously, he’s just losing his mind. Excellent.
Not wanting to draw attention to his temporary insanity, Alex focuses, instead, on the calming view of the lake through the sliding-glass door beside him.
The peacefulness centers him—not just the whole nature aspect or whatever, but this house, specifically. Because Alex wears the key to their house in Austin like an anchor, but he wears the freckles that bloomed in the sunlight bouncing off this lake like a brand on his shoulders. He’s never been more free than during his summers here as a kid: unafraid and bold and safe. Not a mixed-race child of divorce, not a child trying desperately to prove that he’s good, but simply a child.
Now that he’s shared it with Henry? Now that his smile—the rare, free and easy laughter of Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor—has lit up every corner of this space, separate from the world desperate to define and divide them? There’s a part of Alex that could live in this bubble with him forever… or, at least, like, a really long time.
"Hey, Alex…"
Behind him, Alex faintly hears June say his name, but his eyes are glued to a sudden burst of movement on the lake. For just a moment, he swears he sees a flash of blond hair dipping beneath the cool blue of the water, but it must be a trick of the light—just the reflection of the moon—because Henry is sleeping in his bunk upstairs.
Wait.
The record skips.
(I'll—I'll be—I'll be dreaming—)
Why is Henry upstairs, again?
The memory tingles when Alex lingers on it: a splash, a clipped tone, a confession burning on his tongue like chiles de arbol. "I think I’ll go to bed." Cicadas. Mosquitos.
Dread.
The last three aren’t directly connected. Probably.
"Alex."
His sister’s voice is sharper this time, piercing through the haze. When he turns away from the window, June is suddenly right there, not even a full arms-length away. She places her hands on either side of his face.
"Whoa, wha—"
Alex goes a little cross-eyed as he watches her brush his curls back from his forehead. It reminds him of when he was a toddler, and June insisted on tucking him in at night.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Her fingers absently comb through his hair. "I need you to wake up, you little shit," she says. Her voice is soft and fond and something else that Alex can’t put his finger on. It could pass as the answer to his question, but Alex isn't convinced June heard him at all.
"Yeah," he drawls, prying her hands off his face and taking a very deliberate step backward. "You’re really freaking me out here, Bug."
June's demeanor changes. Out of nowhere, her eyes go stern as stone—and there's none of that eerie softness in her voice when she speaks again. Instead, loud enough to make Alex's ears ring, she commands:
"Wake up."
FIRST SON, ALEX CLAREMONT-DIAZ, AIRLIFTED TO WALTER REED
FSOTUS UNRESPONSIVE AFTER SECRET SERVICE VEHICLE COLLISION
JEFFREY RICHARDS EXPRESSES CONDOLENCES UPON FSOTUS NEWS: "ALEX IS IN OUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS"
CAMPAIGN COMA: CAN CLAREMONT BE A MOTHER AND A CANDIDATE?
The news of Alex’s accident is delivered to Henry through a muted television.
By this point, his ex smiling at him through the static of passing screens isn’t unusual. That doesn’t mean it’s gotten any less painful, of course. Longing rips the chasm in Henry’s chest open wider every time, digging into the tender flesh around his heart with its jagged claws, but he’s gotten used to the sensation now. He's simply… adapted to it.
Because somewhere between tequila-fueled karaoke and bonfire serenades, Alex had pried the last piece of protective armor from around Henry’s sternum; nothing can be done about that now, and he's not sure he'd want it to.
However, he isn’t a masochist—current circumstances notwithstanding. He intends to change the channel, but he freezes halfway to the remote when he sees the headline.
"FSOTUS IN CRITICAL CONDITION" glares at him from the bottom of the newscast, above a no-less-alarming subheadline: "Alex Claremont-Diaz among three rushed to the hospital following an accident outside Dulles International Airport."
Henry blindly feels for the remote on the table, turning up the volume just in time for the anchor to describe the incident in such graphic detail it nearly makes him wish he’d left it muted. Photos and short video clips flood the screen as she speaks, including hazy red light camera footage and pristine photos of the aftermath that must be press photographs—apparently, as Henry observes, an airplane shuttle skidding across concrete into another vehicle makes quite the mess. There are pieces of metal and glass scattered across the asphalt, while the nose of the bus has cratered inward. The black SUV, barely recognizable as a vehicle, has been folded nearly in half by the impact.
As tears blur his vision, the realization that Alex was in that car rips a ghastly noise from Henry's chest—and it's the only warning his body gives him before his lungs seize.
"Hen? Was that—? Oh, no."
Someone must turn off the television because the screen suddenly goes black, and he's faced with his reflection—wide-eyed and pale against the glass—though it's quickly replaced by Bea's heartbroken expression as she crouches in front of him.
Her mouth moves, but her voice sounds tinny and distant; the only word Henry recognizes is the one he can read on her lips, over and over:
"Breathe."
And he tries. He really does.
His throat feels raw as he gasps for air, trying to comply. His heart feels like it’s going to burst straight through his chest like a bloody cartoon, and he knows—he knows—he’s just having a panic attack, but somewhere behind the ringing in his ears, he distantly thinks that it would serve him right to keel over from a heart attack right now instead.
Maybe, if he did, the scales would tip and Alex would spring to his feet an ocean away.
"Henry, darling, you need to breathe. In and out. With me, now."
By the time he does catch his breath, he can only blink as Bea takes his hands and does most of the work hauling him to his feet. He doesn’t even feel like he’s in his body as she guides him upstairs and gently sits him on his bed so she can pack for them.
It helps that Shaan materializes and hands him a glass of water with one of the pills usually kept in a bottle that might as well say, ‘In Case of Emergency: Break Glass.’
But it’s not until they’re on a jet, soaring over the Atlantic, that Henry starts coming back to himself. Even then, he doesn’t feel quite solid. Bea simply swept up the pieces he’d shattered into, poured them into a bag, and propped it up in his seat like a ragdoll. He thinks helplessly, stupidly, of that nursery rhyme.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…
"Amy and Cash will be alright, they think," Bea is saying, her eyes trained on a tablet in her hand. Henry realizes she’s been talking for a few minutes, but not a single word has registered until now. "Nora says they’ll be out of commission for a while, but they’re both conscious. Apparently, we’ll all have sweaters by the time Amy is on her feet… but it’s rather hard to picture her knitting. Of course, I’ve only met her the once, but still…"
Henry blinks. "You’re talking to Nora?"
"You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?"
"I—" For a moment, Henry fumbles, but he concedes with a sheepish frown. "Sorry."
His sister pats his arm. "Hush. I know you’re out of your head." She sets the tablet on the table in front of her, then takes his hand. "I’ve told them we’re on the way."
"Them?" Henry echoes.
"Nora and June," Bea replies patiently. "I’ve alerted our group chat."
Henry forces himself to breathe: in through his nose, out through his mouth.
"I’m sorry, you’ve got a group chat?"
He reaches for the tablet, but Bea smacks his hand away—rather hard, actually.
"Well, obviously, we needed to create a new one after you boys mucked it up." Her tone is teasing, but Henry’s chest clenches anyway. It’s quite generous of her to say ‘you boys’ when the blame is solely on him. "Pez will get there before we do. He was already in New York, so he’s on that fancy speedway train as we speak."
In through his nose…
Henry knows Pez isn’t only going for Alex, or even because he knows that Henry will inevitably visit. He’ll want to be there for Nora and June, too, considering how much closer they’ve grown since the trip to L.A. Of course, Henry knew that, and he knew Bea had become a member of their group as well, but… Something about seeing it all in action—this time, very much on the outside himself—brings fresh tears to his eyes.
…Exhale through his mouth.
"Hey." Bea frowns. "Talk to me, Hen."
Henry shakes his head. Now is not the time for his self-pity.
"What about Alex?" he asks, in lieu of an answer, stubbornly ignoring the way his voice cracks around his name. "What did Nora say about Alex?"
"Ah, you didn’t hear that part." Bea swallows tightly; it does not bode well that she’s reluctant to repeat herself. "Well, Alex made it through surgery, which is promising, but they're concerned that he hasn’t woken up as of yet."
In through his nose…
"But he will?"
Bea’s mouth opens. It closes. Her lips disappear into her mouth.
…Exhale through his teeth.
"He will," Henry repeats, "right?"
His sister’s fingers tighten around his hand.
"We can certainly hope so."
BuzzFeed News ☑️ @BuzzFeedNews
ROYAL ALERT: Prince Henry of Wales was spotted in Maryland today. Could he be visiting his BFF Alex Claremont-Diaz after yesterday’s runway incident? Catch up on their friendship timeline: bit.ly/2jp6sl
11:42 AM · 1 Sept 2020
Julie Thompson @drjthompson
Look, all I’m saying is that nobody questioned Kennedy’s ability to run the country after losing his child. Or Roosevelt. Or Coolidge. Or Lincoln. If you’re questioning Claremont’s dedication to her duties while FSOTUS is in a coma… Your sexism is showing.
1:06 PM · 3 Sept 2020
Oliver Westbrook ☑️ @BillsBillsBills
Anyone—in the GOP or otherwise—buying Richards’s performative sympathy for Ellen Claremont or the FSOTUS probably needs to hear this: the IRS isn’t texting you about your taxes. Don’t click that link. #FraudAwarenessWeek
4:38 PM · 5 Sept 2020
raebeline. @iconickiwi
Sooo we gonna talk about how Prince Henry showed up last week and legit hasn’t left the hospital once? Or we just gonna let that one go?
3:12 AM · 8 Sept 2020
The kitchen has gone eerily quiet.
By the time they get the polvoróns in the oven, they've reached the end of the record—but no one has moved to flip it or put on another one. Instead, they're still gathered in the kitchen, munching on chips leftover from dinner.
Of course, this is after June released Alex’s face and started cutting the dough like she hadn’t gone all American Horror Story on him seconds earlier. Up to now, they've been acting like it (and Nora’s not-so-fun fact earlier) never happened, but… well… Alex has never been one to let anything go if he can help it.
So, he makes a list:
1. That was fucking weird.
2. ...
Yeah. That's all he's got.
Because none of this feels real. It feels like…
"Hey, Nora…" he says, slowly, approaching the only conclusion his foggy brain can come up with. "Odds that I’m dreaming right now?"
Nora chews thoughtfully as she considers his question.
"Hm, ninety percent probability that you’re unconscious."
Alex feels the sharp corner of a chip drag all the way down his throat when he swallows.
"And the other ten percent?"
"You’re dead."
June lets out an entirely undignified and entirely un-June-like squawk.
"Nora!"
"What? He asked." She tilts her head before reaching across the counter to dip a chip into the salsa. "On the bright side, if he is dead and we’re here, there’s a pretty good likelihood that we’re dead too."
Alex blinks at her. "That’s the bright side?"
Nora pops the chip into her mouth, then licks a roaming tomato from her thumb. "I mean, would you rather be here alone?" she asks, crunching around her words.
"You’re just sleeping," June insists. "We would know if we were dead."
Alex raises a brow. "Bruce Willis didn’t."
"Are you seriously talking about 'The Sixth Sense’ right now?" June asks. "That’s just a movie. Besides, you expect me to believe the afterlife is just… hanging out in the lake house for all eternity? That’s it? No way."
Nora points to her with the business end of a chip. "A solid point," she says, "but… I’ll take that and raise you: If we aren’t dead, and Alex is lucid dreaming, how are we also lucid dreaming within his dream? Feels more like a group experience."
"You mean like Inception?" Alex asks, scrunching his nose when Nora nods.
June, meanwhile, rolls her eyes and stabs the guacamole with unnecessary aggression, considering it’s already mashed.
"Also just a movie, y'all," she says. "Anyway, do figments usually know they’re part of a dream? I mean, think about it. Technically, if we’re part of Alex’s nightmare, he's just making us up. We're not really us. We’re just, like, extensions of his subconscious."
Nora’s face turns thoughtful. "True. Just because we feel real doesn’t mean we are."
Alex huffs. "Yo—Socrates, Plato—can we focus on the part where I might be dead?"
"Nobody is dead," June says calmly.
Nora, on the other hand, shrugs. "I mean, a lot of people are dead..."
"Nobody in this room is dead," she amends. "Alex, what’s the last thing you remember?"
Alex cracks a chip in half. "I was—um."
Fuck. Shit. Wait. Now that June mentions it, everything beyond this kitchen—beyond this moment—is fuzzy. Really fucking fuzzy. Like, he can't remember shit. What were they doing before they started baking?
When did he and Henry come in from the lake? When did June and Nora come downstairs? When did Henry go back upstairs?
Why isn't he with them now?
Just thinking about it makes Alex's stomach lurch. Suddenly, he's bumped into a bruise that he didn't know he had. If he presses against the sore spot in his mind, Alex feels his lungs fill with panic. There's a sharp, stabbing pain at the base of his skull and a crushing weight on his chest. Trying to parse out the where and when and what, exactly, puts too much pressure on that bruise. The ache digs into his bones.
What comes out of his mouth is: "I don’t want to."
"Okay," June says, audibly exchanging her blunt, journalistic curiosity for her Comforting Older Sister Voice. Alex doesn’t hear this tone very often anymore, but he used to—before he got his anxiety under better control and she needed to talk him down from his fair share of panic attacks.
"What about the thing before the last thing? Do you remember that?"
Alex closes his eyes, trying to skim past the bruise to find something safe to hold onto.
"I think so," he says, thinking about that glimpse of golden hair disappearing beneath the water, cicadas, Henry’s fake smile, a crumpled note... A goodbye? No. Well, yes, that happened, but there’s something more recent—wrapped in silk.
"Pez made us kimonos."
"For Los Angeles," Nora supplies. "Is that the last thing you remember? L.A.?"
"No, way after. I found it in my closet," he recalls. "There was something in the pocket."
He imagines himself reaching for it, fingers brushing over the silk, and his mind wanders to that same fabric slipping off his shoulders. Alex pictures it pooled on the floor of a hotel room, just before his world was rearranged in the shape of Henry’s silhouette. He thinks about skimming his hand against the equally plush bedsheets, then the soft skin of Henry’s hips and thighs, his warm, plush lips against his…
"Focus, Alejandro," Nora says sharply.
Fuck. Okay. Back to the kimono.
Alex forces himself to remember, instead, balling the silk in his hand. He remembers the feeling of paper crunching in the pocket. With a furrowed brow, Alex’s memory pulls out a piece of paper, crumpled, but with Henry’s recognizable cursive:
"Dear Thisbe"—he can hear his accent curl around it—"I wish there weren’t a wall."
When Alex opens his eyes, Henry is sitting in one of the chairs at the kitchen table—and, holy shit, he looks fucking terrible. His blue eyes are red-rimmed, pillowed by puffy circles that rival Alex’s during finals week. Visibly unwashed blond hair flops onto his forehead, seemingly after his carefully coiffed styling collapsed under the weight of all that oil. It’s a version of Henry that the rest of the world has never seen—but Alex has seen small glimpses of it over the last several months: the deep, unknowable sadness that lives in his chest.
It’s the part of Henry that the crown has tried to hide all these years. It’s what was disguised behind layers of painted marble on the day they’d first met in Rio. It’s his heart, wide open, on the outside of his chest. Like June earlier, Henry isn’t looking at him; he’s gazing through him, as if Alex isn’t there at all.
Seemingly to no one, Henry says the last two words accessible by Alex's memory, voice thick and wet in a way he's never heard before:
"Love, Pyramus."
Alex is so distracted by the look of unguarded misery on Henry’s face that he almost doesn’t see the thin, wrinkled paper clutched tightly between his fingers. Almost.
June frowns. "What does it mean?"
"I had to look it up," Alex says, the memory coming back like a wave lapping at his feet. "It's a Greek myth or something. Pyramus and Thisbe were children of rival families—y'know, Tony and Maria vibes—so they weren't allowed to be together."
At his other side, Nora huffs. "Obviously."
"Their houses were connected," Alex barrels on, "so they talked to each other through a thin crack in the wall."
June sighs sadly. "What happened to them?"
Henry looks up then, his expression unreadable. Grimly, he says:
"They both died at the end."
For five minutes and seventeen seconds, Alex was dead.
Five minutes and seventeen seconds ticked by while Henry carried on, unaware that Alex's heart had stopped.
If Henry thinks about it too much, his stomach twists like a knife and he fears he'll be sick. Again. He still feels rather terrible about the fact that he'd stepped out of Alex's hospital room the moment he found the courage to walk in, nearly tripping over himself in his rush to find a rubbish bin in the hall.
Henry went right back to his side, of course, after Shaan escorted him to the private bathroom, encouraged him to splash some cold water on his face, and provided him with a piece of gum. Yet, even hours later, he still can't look at Alex for too long without feeling ill. It doesn't matter that Bea suggested they think of Alex as sleeping.
There's a respirator tube affixed and taped between his lips and, even if Henry keeps his gaze above Alex's nose—at his long eyelashes fanned across his cheeks and his curls messily splayed across his forehead—he can't ignore the slightly gray tint to his brown skin. Besides, Alex doesn't even sleep on his back like that; he sleeps on his side, one leg tucked closer to his chest… preferably slung casually over Henry's hip…
No, Alex isn't just sleeping. Henry can't lie to himself and say that he is.
At least he's stable now. That's the first thing he was told upon his arrival.
He and Bea were greeted in the lobby of the presidential suite at the Walter Reed Medical Center by June, Nora, Pez, and two Secret Service agents he didn't recognize. To Henry's surprise, June had greeted him with a tight hug, rather than anger. ("I'm just glad you're here now," she'd said.) Even Nora had simply called him an idiot before also enveloping him.
Then, in lieu of explaining Alex's condition herself, June gave one of Alex's nurses permission to explain everything they know. And Henry prides himself on being an intelligent person, but he still found himself struggling to follow along with words like "traumatic brain injury" and "cerebral hypoxia" and "potential long-term cognitive effects or memory loss" when said in the same breath as Alex's name.
Henry does understand that they won't know how (or if) Alex's mind will be affected until (or if) he wakes up. The thought shakes him to his core, but, as the nurse so dutifully explained, "the brain can only survive three to six minutes without oxygen."
Alex was dead for five minutes and seventeen seconds.
"Henry?"
June's soft voice pulls him from his thoughts, which may be for the best. He's been sitting at Alex's side in relative silence since he'd returned to the room, while the others spoke quietly to each other on the couch. There's one more chair in the corner—a large armchair that Oscar Diaz has been sleeping in since before Henry arrived.
"There's something you should know."
Henry feels his lips pinch, dread filling his stomach like lead in a balloon. Before he can respond, however, June fishes a piece of paper from her pocket and perches herself on the oversized arm of his chair.
"So, Alex's trip wasn't planned," she says. "None of us knew he was getting on a plane until we got the call about the accident. He didn't tell anyone except his PPOs. And it took forever for someone to actually tell us that he'd booked a flight to Heathrow."
Henry's lead stomach sinks. June holds out the slip she'd procured.
"While Alex was in surgery,"she continues, "they gave us what they were able to recover from the car, and… Well, this was in his pocket."
Henry takes it from between her fingers, surprised to find his own handwriting on the tattered page: now slightly bloodied like Thisbe's cloak at the foot of the mulberry tree. A lump forms in his throat.
"Dear Thisbe," he reads, voice thick. "I wish there weren't a wall. Love, Pyramus."
June squeezes his shoulder. "That was from you, right?" she asks; Henry nods. "What does it mean?"
He folds the note in his palm. "It's, erm, a rather dreary reference to a Greek myth—a poem, actually, by Ovid." With his free hand, Henry reaches out to softly curl his fingers around Alex's. "Thisbe and Pyramus were lovers, living in connected houses, but—as these myths often go—their parents were sworn enemies."
Nora pipes, "Obviously."
"Obviously." Henry cracks half a smile. "Well, Thisbe and Pyramus were forbidden to wed, but they fell in love anyway—whispering through a crack in the wall."
June makes a sad sound, not unlike a sigh. "What happened to them?"
The lump in Henry's throat grows so thick, he fears he may choke.
"They both died at the end."
For the second time, Henry stumbles out the door and directly to the hallway rubbish bin.
Alex's nose fills with the comforting scent of fresh grass as Henry walks through him, like a ghost, in the middle of his own fucking kitchen.
"Well, that's dark," Nora says. Her voice is followed by the loud crunch of a chip.
June brushes a curl from Alex's forehead, but doesn't look into his eyes—just throws a glance over her shoulder at Nora instead. "I don't think he meant it to be dark," she says. "I think it's just how he feels. I mean, it is a romantic idea."
"Until they die," Nora reminds her, crunching another chip. "Don't forget that part."
"Romeo and Juliet die too," she replies. "Doesn't mean it's not romantic."
Nora rolls her eyes. "Dying for each other isn't romantic. This isn't romantic."
"And what is this, exactly?" Alex asks. "What's that supposed to mean?"
They ignore him, and that horrible feeling rises in Alex's chest again.
Cicadas. Mosquitos. Dread.
Henry.
If this is a dream, it doesn't matter what he does. He could take this entire house apart with his bare hands and imagination to float off to the Maldives. He could ignore all of this—stop pressing at the wound at the base of his neck and run away—but that's never been his style. Running away would be easier, sure, but he doesn't think about it for more than a second before he defaults to exactly what he's been doing since he first tried introducing himself to Henry at the Olympics—longer, even, if he's honest: since he first saw that photo of a young prince in his sister's J-14 magazine. He runs towards Henry.
Alex's feet take him through the sliding-glass door and onto the back patio, where he follows the well-worn path across the lawn to the shore of the lake. There, he catches a flash of Henry ducking beneath the water—
—and he dives, launching himself at Henry’s silhouette, only to find nothing but water, which slips through his fingers as he surfaces.
When Alex turns to the shore, he sees Henry's back, again, trudging towards the house.
"For fuck's sake," Alex yells. "Now I see why all y’all had to marry your fucking cousins."
It seems to get Henry's attention because he starts to turn, but Alex is blinded by a bright, white light before he sees his face. It comes with a sharp pain in his skull, and searing in his chest. Alex squeezes his eyes shut to block out the light, but it's too late.
He remembers now.
Waist-deep in Lake LBJ, he remembers the last letter Henry wrote him. Alex remembers the silence. The waiting. "You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent," drafted and deleted. "Dear fucking Thisbe," stuffed into his pocket on the way to the airport.
And the accident.
Alex remembers the sound of it first—skidding and screeching and sirens—then the white-hot pain. It starts at the back of his neck and travels down his spine. Waist-deep in Lake LBJ, his knees buckle, but four hands catch him before he faceplants into the water—Nora's palms hit his sternum hard enough to crack his ribs.
He isn't even sure where they fucking came from, but June and Nora practically drag him out of the water until they collapse together into a pile of tangled limbs in the dirt. Alex's ears are ringing like crazy; he only vaguely hears June's voice above the din, saying, "Stay with us, Alex. We've got you."
He wants to tell her he's not going anywhere.
His lips won't move.
Visiting hours don't seem to apply in the presidential suite, whether because of the fragile nature of Alex's condition or because that's how it always is, Henry doesn't know.
It's a blessing, regardless, that they aren't forced to leave.
They've been rotating for the last several days: trading off who is in the seat next to Alex, holding his hand, and who huddles on the couch. Oscar, meanwhile, has practically moved into that armchair; he's glued there, seemingly 24/7, when he's not on the edge of Alex's bed or excusing himself to call his parents at regular intervals. When Ellen visits, June and Oscar are the only ones who don't vacate the room entirely.
Even when they do leave Alex's room, they needn't go far. The private wing has its own kitchen and dining room, where they all force down food they aren't particularly hungry for, and there's an office for Nora to work when she has to. It's also where Zahra spends most hours of the day, heels kicked off beside the conference table and face close to her laptop screen. Nobody but June—and, oddly enough, Shaan—has the nerve to usher her away from her post to get some sleep.
None of them are required to leave for that, either.
Whoever designed this facility had the forethought to include full-size bedrooms in the presidential suite—the largest of which has been historically reserved for the First Lady. Given that the hospitalized person is not the president, the room has been unofficially allotted to Henry for reasons he doesn't have the emotional wherewithal to parse.
(At any rate, it's been very loosely allotted. He's spent every night since his arrival tightly tucked into the king-size bed with June, Nora, Pez, and Bea—or some combination thereof—tucked around him. It should be uncomfortable, but Henry's actually quite confident it's the only reason he's slept at all.)
However, despite having plenty of time to plan his words, Henry still can't bring himself to speak to Alex—not because he has nothing to say, but because he has too much to say… and the thought of voicing it now is just as terrifying as not saying it at all.
Resigning himself to tell Alex everything he needs to hear now, while he's comatose, feels like admitting defeat. Saying it now, "while he can," comes too close to accepting that he may not, in fact, have a chance later—that Alex will never wake up.
It's too much to bear, really.
Everyone else seems to excel at it. June keeps him abreast of Amy and Cash's conditions while Nora feeds him polling data and gossips about someone named Hunter. Oscar Diaz talks about what's happening in California and tells stories Henry is sure Alex has heard before about base jumping and cliff diving. Zahra tells him he's the cause of her migraines and needs to get his shit together. Even Bea sings to him, and Pez greets him every day with a fond, "'Ello, strumpet."
But Henry… He can't seem to form a single word.
Even a "hello" quickly died on his tongue on the first day.
"Why don't you read to him?" Bea suggests from where she's currently squeezed between June and Pez on the couch. "I've brought my tablet. I know you're quite the snob about e-readers, but… you can download whatever you want on mine." She offers a soft smile. "What about Pride & Prejudice?"
Nora snorts from the arm of the couch.
"Well, if anything is going to wake him up, it’s being forced to listen to June’s favorite book," she says. "Again."
"That's Henry's favorite, too," Bea points out, her smile softening. "Has been since he was in primary school, hasn't it, Hen?"
He manages an affirmative hum.
"We'll give you some time with him." June says. "I'm sure it'll be easier without an audience, anyway, right?"
So, that's how he ends up in Alex's room alone, silent except for the variety of machines Alex is hooked up to. They create an all-too-familiar chorus of beeping and thrumming: a song Henry only recently purged from his mind. After all, it's not the first time he's been helpless beside a hospital cot, listening to the mechanical whirring of a machine forcibly pushing air into the lungs of someone he loves.
Henry stares at the eBook Store for nearly five minutes before he sets the tablet right back down, pulling his phone from his pocket instead. Before he can change his mind, he presses his thumb against the neglected name that has not been pulling its weight as a 'favorite' for some time.
It rings long enough that Henry nearly hangs up, but, then:
"Henry?"
He sighs. "Hello, Mum."
On the muddy shore of Lake LBJ, Alex tells June and Nora everything. He tells them about the late-night swim from hell, and Henry ducking under the water to escape his arms. He tells them about waking up alone. They remember the note in the kitchen, obviously, they were there, but Alex tells them about it anyway—how it'd reminded him of when their dad left. Different campout, same story.
"But then you found the other note."
"Then I found the other note," he echoes, curling his toes in the mud. "And then…"
He still can't talk about what happens next. The bruise is too tender, erupting in white-hot pain if he gets too close.
"Well, now you're here." June's hand squeezes his shoulder. "With us."
Nora bumps her shoulder into his. "As far as limbo goes, seems like you lucked out."
"Unless it's the afterlife," Alex says. "If this is the whole afterlife, I give it a solid four."
June raises a brow. "Out of five?"
"Ten."
"Ouch."
But she laughs. Nora does too.
For a moment, Alex thinks Nora has a point. It's not so bad. Alex looks out at the lake, watching the moon glisten against the still water, and he thinks… This isn't half bad. It's peaceful, and he has June and Nora—figments or not—and, maybe, he's tired of fucking fighting all the time. Maybe he's here because he deserves to be.
Maybe he deserves some goddamn peace. Maybe he can just…
"You can't stay here," Nora says, as if she's reading his mind—then again, if this is all in his head, they're probably one and the same. "Not an option."
Beside him, June nods. "You're not done, little bro."
"What happened to 'a fire under my ass for no reason'?" Alex turns to his sister with a raised brow. "I thought you wanted me to chill out?"
June gives him a look. "I do," she says, "but I never wanted you to stop being you, Alex. All I've ever wanted is for you to slow down and… figure out who that is. So, you can take a beat. You can change course. But you don't give up."
With a sigh, Alex lays down on his back and lets the sky spread out above him; it's as vast and uncertain as he feels, but then a shooting star passes through.
He closes his eyes. He makes a wish.
The White House ☑️ @WhiteHouse
In these challenging times, we are heartened by the outpouring of support and prayers from Americans across the country for the First Son. Your empathy reflects the strength and unity of our nation. We are grateful for your thoughts as we hope for a swift and full recovery.
9:10 AM · 14 Sept 2020
CNN ☑️ @CNN
Twelve days after Alex Claremont-Diaz was airlifted to Walter Reed Medical Center, The White House and President Claremont release statements to the press regarding the FSOTUS's condition: bit.ly/5sjt0q
2:14 PM · 15 Sept 2020
President Claremont ☑️ @POTUS
As a mother, I am deeply grateful for the abundance of thoughtful messages and well wishes I've received in the wake of my son's accident. And, as your President, I am encouraged by the generosity and compassion of the American People. Together, in faith and unity, we face our toughest challenges. Thank you for your support.
8:39 AM · 17 Sept 2020
Val Doreen @moderatelytoxic
Where's the royal statement, tho? Oh wait. HRH basically moving into Walter Reed is a statement in itself, innit?
7:47 PM · 20 Sept 2020
Henry starts reading to Alex every day.
He has his mother to thank for that.
After all, she's the only person who understands what Henry feels when he sits by Alex's bedside—and, for the first time, he understands her a little better, too.
Giving Alex up willingly nearly destroyed him. To lose him like this… Well.
He sympathizes in a way he couldn't before; Henry can say that much.
Obviously, these aren't the circumstances under which he's wanted to reconcile (and there's still plenty of work to be done) but it's a start. His mother even offered to make her grand return to Buckingham and alleviate some of the pressure coming from the Queen—who has been loudly announcing her displeasure with Henry staying at Walter Reed for weeks on end. Threatening to make an even greater "display" has deterred her somewhat, but the snide comments being passed down have been relentless.
(It's a blessing Her Majesty doesn't know how to check Twitter.)
"You focus on Alex, darling," she said. "I'll handle my mother."
So, Henry does that the way he knows how: he reads.
Bea's tablet feels heavy in his hands now, as if it's carrying the full weight of the books he's downloaded to her e-reader application. He's got a rather wide selection, both of his own personal favorites and works Alex has recommended throughout their correspondence, including Pablo Neruda's full catalog.
He reads passages from a different one every day, sometimes with an audience, sometimes alone. He reads passages like they'll be Alex's beacon home—from "There is always something left to love," to "I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."
June even joins him when he reads selections from Pride & Prejudice, and that ends up being a bit more fun than he thinks he's allowed to have at the moment.
However, he's alone when he pulls up one that's unexpected: a familiar maroon cover from his and Bea's childhood. It was one of her favorites, actually; they'd read the entire series together, but The Beatrice Letters, in particular, was a highlight for obvious reasons.
There are some words he wants Alex to hear, just for him alone.
Henry clears his throat, then begins to read:
"'I must admit I miss you terribly. The world is too quiet without you nearby.'"
Saying those words aloud is more painful than anticipated, so Henry swallows tightly and glances over at Alex's face—or, at least, what he can see around the obstruction that is the respirator. With Alex's eyes closed, his face slack and body limp in a catatonic sleep, Henry feels truly alone for the first time since a cake toppled over and took Henry's entire life with it. He has to look away, turning his eyes back to the tablet.
"'With you away,'" he continues, "'it is as if all the letters in my life are scrambled into an anagram, and I will not be able to put all the letters in order and make sense of anything until you return.'"
Henry inhales through his nose. "Snicket talks about anagrams quite a lot in these letters—sometimes as a metaphor, but also quite literally. Lemony and Beatrice have codes in their writings." He swipes a few pages, searching for a particular passage. "Anyway, here, this is the important bit:
"'A letter may be coded, and a word may be coded. A theatrical performance may be coded, and a sonnet may be coded, and there are times when it seems the entire world is in code. But in my case, the only thing that made sense of the world was you,'"—Henry hears his own voice break on the double-vowel—"'and, without you, the world will seem as garbled and tragic as a malfunctioning typewrite-nine.'"
He clears his throat as his vision blurs. "I suppose that's clearer when you're able to see the text," he explains, gesturing to the device with his free hand, as if Alex can see. "The font mimics a typewriter and there's really a nine jammed in there, so Snicket is implying that his typewriter is already malfunctioning. It's surprisingly profound."
With another forlorn look at Alex, he sets the tablet on the table beside the bed.
"The truth is… I suppose I’ve always treated myself like an anagram—and, before you, I was quite alright with that. I put myself through the scrambler and presented this garbled, tragic version of myself to the world. And I never thought I deserved to live any other way. To choose another way." He reaches to brush an errant curl behind Alex’s ear. "But you have always treated me as if I do, and… Christ, that frightened me. The way you're never afraid of anything frightened me because I could only hope to be like that.
"I… I wasn't, when it came to you. Us. Though, in my defense, you were never supposed to love me back. You were never supposed to chase after me like an Austenian hero."
Despite himself, Henry smiles as he toys with Alex's hand in his. He can't help but picture him, rain-soaked and determined like Mr. Darcy, 'half agony, half hope,' like Captain Wentworth…
"It's been driving me mad for days, you know—imagining you storming the palace, wondering what you'd planned to say." Henry swallows tightly. "I hope that I would've been brave enough to listen then, but I know I want to be brave for you now. I'm trying so hard to be brave enough for us both, but I'm afraid it's not going to be enough. So, if you could just open your eyes, darling, I…"
The door opens, cutting Henry off with a start.
Pez, June, and Nora, look much better than they had the last time Henry saw them in this room—though their timing is poor. They've changed, presumably showered, and perhaps even napped in an actual bed. Based on the way Pez immediately places his hand on Henry's shoulder, he knows his time alone with Alex is over.
"All right, it's your turn to get out of the hospital, mate," Pez says, predictable for the first time in his life. "We don't want Sleeping Beauty here to wake up to a ragged prince, hm?"
June is much more sympathetic: "Sleep and fresh air will do you some good."
"But, first, Bea asked Shaan to arrange a field trip," Nora explains. "They're waiting outside. I know you're not from around here, so I gave them a spreadsheet of local restaurants, which is sorted by relative distance, Yelp rating, and culinary category."
Pez clutches his chest. "You are a marvel."
Henry summons the will to stand.
"If anything changes—"
"—We'll call you," June assures him. "First thing. We promise."
Nora nods. "If he so much as twitches his pinky, you'll know about it."
Begrudgingly, Henry allows himself to be ushered out of the room. Perhaps the words will come easier after he's gotten some sleep.
When Alex opens his eyes, he's alone… except for the crowded sky above him.
That's the thing about Austin. You can really see the stars. In D.C., the city lights outshine them all, but here? The midnight sky is littered with stars, scattered as far and wide as he can see. And he's never been one for astronomy, but it's easy for his eyes to spot a familiar belt of three stars and a sword held high.
"What're you doing out here?"
There's a shuffling sound, and Alex turns to see Henry—finally—dropping to lie beside him in the dirt. It's the first time he's stayed in one spot since he got up from the kitchen, and it shows—his blonde hair is sopping wet, sticking to his forehead, and droplets cling to his eyelashes. Still, he's as beautiful as he's ever been as he stretches out in the moonlight.
Alex's lips twitch. "Looking for Orion," he says.
"Ah," Henry replies. "Any luck?"
He hums in the affirmative. "The three stars there"—he takes Henry's hand, twines their fingers, and points them together (as if Henry wasn't the one who taught him)—"are the dead giveaway. That's the belt, and his shoulders up here…"
"I see." Henry smiles; it's audible in the smooth tone of his voice. "I had no idea you were so educated in astronomy."
Alex smiles. "Oh, I'm not," he teases, dropping their still-twined hands onto the ground between them. "Some guy taught me. The things we'll do for a piece of ass, right?"
Henry laughs. "A piece of—Christ, Alex." He shakes his head. Mud collects in his hair. "Charming. Truly."
"Yeah, I was gonna be really charming when I busted down your door," Alex says. "You dodged a bullet, man, trust me."
Instantly, Henry's smile fades. Alex wishes he could take it back. He almost starts to, but then:
"I hope that I would've been brave enough to listen then," Henry says, softly, "but I know I want to be brave for you now."
A lump the size of a lacrosse ball forms in Alex's throat.
"Well, maybe I won't let you off the hook that easily, then, sweetheart."
He thinks Henry smiles. "Open your eyes, darling."
They've barely turned into the lobby when Henry hears it: a shrill, repetitive beeping sound coming from the only occupied room in the presidential suite, ricocheting off the walls of the narrow hallway behind them.
Henry's stomach drops.
For just a moment, he freezes, staring down a hallway that suddenly seems miles long. The memory of his father's last night spills through the crack beneath a ballroom door he'd once bolted shut, darkening the path to Alex's room like a shadow. The sounds behind it are loud enough to rattle its hinges—a cacophony of wailing machines and overlapping voices on the other side, threatening to break the door down.
Pez tugging at Henry's shaking hand in the present is what jolts Henry back into his body.
And then they're running.
By the time they push through the door of Alex's hospital room, the bed is surrounded by three different nurses, all of them creating a flurry of movement—one of them is fussing with the machines while the other two are doing something with the respirator tube that Henry can't decipher from behind. He steels his jaw and holds his chin up, forcing himself to prepare himself for the unpreparable…
But then he sees June.
And she's smiling.
Nora clings to June's arm, one hand covering her own mouth, but Henry thinks she's smiling beneath it, too.
With a choked breath, he dares to look back towards Alex and allows himself to truly see what's in front of him, rather than focusing on the memories thrust to the front of his mind. The horrible noise audible from the lobby has stopped, but it seems that Henry—as a side effect of his panic, no doubt—failed to notice the heart monitor maintaining a steady rhythm in its absence. The realization is like a balm. Henry lets the sound soothe him, a metronome swinging: alive… alive… alive.
One of the nurses steps aside, holding the intubation tube in her gloved hands; she's removed it. When she steps further away from the bed, Henry gets a glimpse of Alex himself, his mouth no longer obscured by a mask. Much more important than that, his eyes—warm and brown and open—are looking right at Henry.
"Hi, baby."
Alex feels like someone pushed air into his head using a tire pump and his limbs feel like they're made of sticky candy, but Henry is standing beside him with his blue eyes wide, so nothing else matters. He looks frantic. Alex thinks he might know why Henry looks like that—somewhere deep down—but he can't reach the memory.
He also can't remember why he smells polvoróns.
Alex wants to ask Henry if he can smell them, but he's suddenly sure Henry can't smell anything because his chest isn't moving. He's just standing there, holding his breath.
"Breathe," Alex tells him. "Breathe, sweetheart."
Immediately, Henry gasps like he just realized he hasn't inhaled for several minutes. Alex holds out his hand. The fog around this moment won't clear for several weeks, but, eventually, he'll realize:
Henry doesn't hesitate before entwining their fingers.
He doesn't hesitate before closing the distance between them, or before he noses into Alex's neck. Henry breathes deeply against Alex's throat as his free hand cradles his jaw like priceless glass. Then he pulls back, just a fraction, to press soft kisses to Alex's cheeks, his forehead, and the bridge of his nose…
Alex smiles, feeling delirious with it. "Hope everyone in here signed an NDA."
His throat feels raw and he sounds worse than a pack-a-day smoker, but Henry doesn't seem to mind. He just runs his hand back into Alex's hair, drawing a sound not too far off from a purr. Alex closes his eyes as he leans into it.
"Ah, ah, eyes open, love," Henry says, his voice traveling up an octave. When Alex obeys, he earns his favorite, wide smile—the one Henry saves just for him—and a gentle, soothing scratch of his scalp. "There you are."
Blinking the prince-shaped fog out of his eyes, Alex notices Pez right behind Henry, then June and Nora on the other side. His father is at the foot of the bed, holding up his phone, where Alex can see his mother on FaceTime. Zahra is shoeless in the doorway, wide-eyed, with Shaan right behind her. Right on cue, Bea comes running and nearly skids into him like a fucking cartoon—Shaan very gently catches her arm, and Alex can't make sense of it. All of them, standing around him.
He frowns. "Bug?"
"Right here, Alex," she says, stepping forward to sit on the edge of his bed. Her fingers wrap around his right hand—the one not currently claimed by Henry. "You're okay."
Alex blinks. "Where am I?"
"You're at Walter Reed," June explains patiently. "There was an accident. What's the last thing you remember?"
"I remember… polvoróns?"
FSOTUS RELEASED FROM ICU: WILL REMAIN AT WALTER REED
THE ‘SUPER SIX’ REUNITED AT ALEX CLAREMONT-DIAZ’S BEDSIDE [PHOTOS INSIDE]
ALEX CLAREMONT-DIAZ JOINS CAMPAIGN RALLY IN TEXAS VIA ZOOM
FSOTUS TRANSFERRED TO WHITE HOUSE MEDICAL UNIT FOR REHABILITATION AFTER 23 DAYS AT WALTER REED
[MUSICAL INTRODUCTION: 15 SECOND INSTRUMENTAL FROM DESTINY’S CHILD’S 1999 SINGLE "BILLS, BILLS, BILLS"]
VOICEOVER: This is a Range Audio podcast.
You’re listening to "Bills, Bills, Bills," hosted by Oliver Westbrook, Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU.
[END MUSICAL INTRODUCTION]
WESTBROOK: Hi. I’m Oliver Westbrook, and always by my side is my incredibly skilled, kind, patient, and beautiful producer, Sufia, who is the sole reason I have not absconded into the woods to live out the remainder of my days, beared, alone, and tormented by a pond haunted by dead poets. Say hi, Sufia.
SUFIA JARWAR, PRODUCER, RANGE AUDIO: I took the road less traveled by, and I've regretted it ever since.
WESTBROOK: That road has led to Bills, Bills, Bills, the podcast where I explain what’s happening in Congress, how it affects you—yes, you—and what we all can do about it.
I have, in my hands, a script about a small business protection bill that's being discussed on the hill this week, but I woke up this morning, saw what The Washington Post published, and told Suf we were scrapping everything. Isn't that right, Suf?
JARWAR: I will be billing you for my newly prescribed high blood pressure medication.
WESTBROOK: And that's why we pay 100 percent of your insurance premiums.
Anyway, in case you slept in, or just to recap… We're talking about dozens of leaked emails, confirmed by an anonymous source on the Richards campaign, which detail a diabolical plan hatched by high-ranking staffers—and likely Richards himself—to stalk, surveil, and even hack Alexander Claremont-Diaz prior to the horrific accident that put him in a coma this September. Yes, really.
The anonymous source is protecting what kind of dirt they found during this highly illegal operation, but the unredacted portion of the correspondence proves it was all part of an effort to take down Ellen Claremont in the general.
The final email, published by the Post, actually says—and I quote—"Leaking this now could backfire. We don’t want to hand her the pity vote." End quote. So, apparently, they only decided to stop pursuing the kid because they thought whatever they found would earn him—or his mother, we don’t know—sympathy from the American people.
But, wait… There’s more! About forty minutes before we started recording this, Senator Rafael Luna tweeted he was parting ways with the Richards campaign. Given Luna’s history with the Claremont-Diaz family, it's plausible that he’s hearing about this for the first time like the rest of us, and he rightfully jumped ship… but I think it’s more likely that Luna was the leak himself.
I mean, let’s all be real with ourselves here. Nobody understood why someone as progressive as Luna was on Richards’s campaign to begin with. Obviously, I don’t have all the facts because the key players on the campaign aren’t giving us a ‘here’s how I did it’ villain monologue, and Luna isn’t offering any comment other than his Tweet. So, anything we discuss here is just good ol’ speculation—but, because Casper Mattresses is paying me the big sponsorship bucks, I’m gonna put a little top-hat on that speculation and call it "political analysis." See what I did there, Suf?
JARWAR: Real riveting stuff, Oliver.
WESTBROOK: In my opinion—which is what you tune in for—here are the three things to take away from this:
First, Alex and June Claremont-Diaz are private citizens. Obviously, there’s a lot of buzz about Alex running for office himself someday, but, until then—and even beyond then, to some extent—he has a right to privacy. As long as he’s not engaging in illegal activity, nothing uncovered by the Richards campaign is anyone’s business. Full stop.
Hell, even if he were engaging in illegal activity—and there is no indication or evidence of that, to be perfectly clear—Richards supposedly supports the criminal justice system, right? That's a pretty good chunk of his platform, isn't it? Well, that’s who should be behind those investigations… not campaign aides.
Second, Jeffrey Richards was in the process of committing a hostile act of conspiracy against a sitting president, and I am very interested to see what the federal investigation looks like, once he loses the election.
Third, Rafael Luna—whether he was behind the leak, just the confirming source, both, or neither—is a boss.
President Claremont ☑️ @POTUS
This victory isn’t just mine—it’s a win for every voice that believes in unity, empathy, and a hopeful future. Let’s build bridges and work toward a future where every American feels seen, heard, and valued. Thank you. Let’s get to work. #BetterTogether
11:32 PM · 5 Nov 2020
Jeffrey Richards ☑️ @JeffreyRichardsREP
Tonight didn’t go our way, but I’m grateful for each of you who stood by this campaign, working to defend freedom across our great nation. America’s spirit endures, and so will we.
12:10 AM · 6 Nov 2020
HELLO! ☑️ @hellomag
Prince Henry announces his official relocation to New York City, following his acquisition of several Okonjo Foundation youth shelters.
8:01 AM · 20 Nov 2020
TIME Magazine ☑️ @TIME
"My sister has always said I have a fire under my a** for no good reason." Read our interview with @theACD, where he discusses his recovery, slowing down, and carving his own path at NYU Law this spring: bit.ly/6gawh
12:30 PM · 1 Dec 2020
#1 ACD Stan @sillylily
oh my god. are they gonna be ROOMMATES?
3:47 AM · 2 Dec 2020
FirstPrince4Ever @earthnati0n
@sillylily oh my god they should be ROOMMATES.
3:47 AM · 2 Dec 2020
"Just one more block. Think we can jog it?"
Alex looks down to see David's wide brown eyes staring up at him, earnest as his tail starts thwapping around at the sound of his voice. His little tongue pokes out just slightly over his bottom teeth, but he's not full-on panting, so…
"I'm gonna take that as a yes," he says. "C'mon, boy."
By now, he's accustomed to the jingling of a collar alongside the slap of his sneakers. Alex was approved for light exercise about a month after he was moved out of the ICU, and it was only bumped up to moderate in the new year. For Alex, that means he could finally break out his running sneakers—but it also means he's learning how to take it slow.
That seems to be the new theme of his life, actually.
Alex was still in the recovery suite at Walter Reed when redacted emails from the Richards campaign were released to the press, and Nora got an encrypted file of the unredacted version. He was in the White House Medical Unit when he joined his mom on the campaign trail via a Zoom call, instead of traveling to Austin himself. He was in his childhood bedroom when he decided his plans needed to slow down, too—the night his mother was re-elected as President of the United States.
And, through it all, Henry was there.
Okay, he wasn't physically there the whole time—the Prince of England moving into the White House would've turned a few too many heads—but he never missed a FaceTime date. And, with his mother's support, he started planning a move to New York.
(Alex wasn't there when they told Her Majesty, but, based on the story he got from Bea, Henry didn't inherit all that courage from just his father.)
Bringing David along on jogs was even Henry's idea. Living in New York, Alex can't rely on June to jog next to him anymore, but he has no choice but to pace himself with a short-legged beagle as his jogging partner—plus Cash, shadowing a few yards behind.
"Almost there, buddy," Alex says, scooping David up under his arm before climbing the stoop, then setting him down in the safety of the foyer. "There you go."
The best part? It also gives Alex an excuse to swing by Henry's brownstone every morning and, more importantly, leave from Henry's brownstone every morning; that means nobody has any reason to notice how frequently he spends the night.
If someone snaps a photo of him jogging up Henry's steps and unlocking the outer door like he owns the place, it doesn't matter. Nobody sees him take off his shoes and hang David's leash in the foyer, or wave at Henry's PPOs through the camera in the corner. They don't see how easily Alex navigates around the kitchen to make breakfast, or catch a glimpse of Henry trudging downstairs with bedhead and a yawn on his lips.
Sure, they'll tell the world eventually… when they're ready.
For now, perhaps for the first time, Alex is content to take his time.