Bar Red's Redemption Extra

r o y a l s. a n d. r o m a n c e. p t 2

"...alone is such a nebulous state when one is queen."
― Rae Carson 

Hey guys! Here's the second part! There might be something in the future, because I don't really like cut-offs like this, or unexplained happy endings, but for now my brain's a little pooped with this, so it's gonna be a hot minute.
Anyways, please let me know what you guys want to see next, if it's something I've mentioned before or something that you guys want in general :))

Also... I was looking over The Man Named Death, so to those who have read that:
Oh, duh. You're here for the story.

extra chapter
"crown of control"
royal AU pt.2

After the seventh hour, he must've fallen asleep, because Bar wakes up with a gasp, hands gripping tight to his Princess, who's curled into his chest, sitting in his lap. That's not, they'll never napped like this before—he sits up in a blind frenzy, blinking repeatedly as his senses try to grapple his surroundings, skin feeling too tight to fit his panic.

"Baby?" Bar pushed himself to her pulse, hands shaking but not as bad as his voice. She's alive, but whimpering. "Babygirl, can you wake up? Clementine!" Hearing her cry out, seeing the pink fuzz into anxious red, he holds her face in his hands.

She's cold and her face is scrunched up like she tasted a lemon.

But she's breathing, she's alive— and it makes relief puncture his lungs and for a heavy sigh to escape him. He knows better than to panic, when she stirs into consciousness.

"Gr-Grumpy?" Clementine's mint eyes slowly blinked open, mouth parting in some form of a daze—as if she's looking right through him. "What... the a-attack! No, n-no, no. This, this can't be happening! I can't be—I-I have to get back! And Bar. I need to get back to him!"

Even panicked, even blind from the darkness, she's thinking of him.

It makes him hurt.

"Sweetheart, it's okay, I'm right here." Bar shuffled them closer, until her head was under his chin, until she could hear his heart. "We'll be okay. I promise, we'll be okay."

He's blue and she's pink but purple would be okay if she's safe. Purple would be okay, for just a moment, if he could continue to hold her. If he could make sure nothing else—no one else—could hurt her.

"Okay, o-okay, we're, we're fine," Clementine said to herself and Bar watched, unsure of where to go next, but Bar was a Red, chaos ran in his blood and he was used to life throwing a curveball and painful things his way, used to going with the flow and preparing for the worst, used to figuring things out on his own.

Anything could happen, and he'd keep her alive, safe.

"We are," Bar confirms, rocking her gently. "We're okay."

It takes a while to start to calm her down completely, but she does calm down. Her breathing returns to normal, her tears dry up, but he doesn't stop holding her, doesn't stop murmuring softly, not until she takes a deep breath, and speaks.

"There's no more screaming."

This, he noticed as soon as he woke up, but that doesn't mean it's safe. It only means that no one is actively dying.

"I know," he gently runs his fingers through her hair, black curls bouncing into place as soon as he lets them go. "I'm going to check to see if anyone's still here, okay? They might have evacuated."

"What about me?" Clementine asks, arms squeezing from around his waist.

"You're going to stay here. I'm going to give you my dagger, and you're going to use it to keep yourself safe, yeah?" Bar says, feeling her nod against his chest. "I'll be back every fifteen minutes to check if you're still here. We'll have one knock to make sure the other is okay, a different one to use if I want you to open up the door."