Fairytale

Chapter Six: Illusion

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The short term pain of accepting the truth is much better than the long term pain of believing an illusion.

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Diana hasn't even gotten Harry into his pajamas yet by the time Charles joins them upstairs, earlier than she had expected. William, of course, had obediently gotten himself changed as soon as his pajamas had been handed to him, but Harry had decided, once he was out of his clothes, that he wanted to pretend to be a monkey. He is at present still jumping and tumbling around the room in his underwear while his mother chases him with his pajama shirt. William, sitting on his bed, is laughing at his little brother's antics, which only encourages him.

"Harry," Charles says firmly from the doorway, though Diana can hear the fondness in his voice, too. "Stop giving Mummy trouble."

Harry abruptly comes to a halt, smiling innocently up at his father. "I'm never any trouble at all, Daddy!" he exclaims earnestly as Diana hastily stuffs him into his pajama shirt.

Charles laughs at this blatantly untrue pronouncement, but now that he is here, Harry does settle down. Diana gets him fully clothed, and both boys are tucked into bed and read a story and kissed goodnight by both parents in due course.

They leave the room. Charles leaves the door ajar to let in some of the light, because Harry can't get to sleep in the total darkness, so they have to get a ways down the corridor before they say anything, lest they disturb the boys. Diana isn't really expecting them to say anything at all. They often don't, sometimes because they both feel saying nothing is better than arguing, sometimes because there simply is nothing left for them to say to each other. Tonight of all nights, she certainly isn't going to risk it, much as she wishes she were insightful enough, clever enough to come up with just the right words to make everything better.

Things are better, she reminds herself, one hand reflexively resting on her stomach. Better than they were a year ago, better than six months ago, even. Objectively she knows this, but it doesn't always feel that way, and even when it does she can't pretend that means everything is alright now.

To her surprise, Charles catches her other hand just before they turn the corner to the landing at the top of the stairs. "Diana," he begins, though he falters when she turns to look at him, looking down at her hand instead of meeting her eyes. "I was...that is, before we go back downstairs, I wanted to ask you something."

Diana's heart skips a beat. "Alright," she says, trying to sound calm as her mind races, wondering what he could possibly want to ask her about.

"Have you...spoken to the Duchess of York about names?" Charles asks hesitantly, then gestures at her stomach with his free hand. "For the, uh..."

"Names for the baby?" Diana fills in for him, pointedly. It rankles, how he can't say it. Part of him, she thinks in her most vulnerable moments, still wishes this child had never been conceived. How much easier that would have been, for him. He could have gone on hating her in peace.

"Yes," Charles confirms, glancing up at her, embarrassed. Her anger abates, a little.

"Not really," she answers with a half-shrug. "Sarah did warn me we should be certain we have the Queen's approval before we get our hearts set on a name." Charles gives a short chuckle at this, for it is well known in the family that Beatrice had not been Andrew and Sarah's first choice. "But," Diana goes on, unable to help herself, "I don't think that is an issue for you and I at present, seeing as we've barely discussed names for the baby at all."