Royal Bitch

You don't get to decide if what I did was right or wrong

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.  You wait and watch and work: you don't give up." - Anne Lamott

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Chapter 41

Fiore was sitting across from Henry as he glossed through her files. 

"When are you planning on being honest with yourself and everyone else?" Henry's gruff baritone barked.

"What do you mean?" Fiore hadn't expected that question.

"You're lying to yourself right now, which means whether your realize this or not, you're lying to everyone else, including me.  A fact I'm not exactly pleased about."

"And what have I lied to you about?"

"You're not doing better as you'd like everyone to believe.  I took one look at you and I can see how not well you are.  The media is going to try to eat you alive."

"I can handle the press as I've been handling them since I was twelve." Fiore growled back.  "I'm not finished.  And I won't be intimidated by them or anyone else."

Henry raised an eyebrow at Fiore's defensive attitude.  "Including me?"

"Your Majesty, that's-"

"I'm not talking as your king.  I'm talking as one of the people who raised you." Henry cut her off.  "I know your intentions are good.  They always are.  Your singlemindedness is usually one of your biggest strengths.  But if you're focused on the wrong things it's the key to your downfall." Henry sighed as he put her file on his desk and stood. He walked over to his window with his hands clasped behind him as he decided how to phrase what he'd say next. "Fiore, I love you like a daughter. I'm proud of most of what you've done and how far you've come. You're a fighter and you put your everything into that fight. That's why I need your only fight to be against this. You want to beat it and you can. But you can't if you're trying to do too much. Do you understand?"

Fiore felt like she'd been punched in the gut.

"This family needs you. But you can't help us like this. Do you have any idea how frightening it was to get that call from Kenneth? You nearly died from that fever due to your stubbornness. Speaking now as your king, I'm giving you two options. You either tell the others what's going on to some extent, or you are not to come back at all until you're medically cleared."

Fiore's jaw dropped.

"You'd really kick me out?" She whispered, her voice hoarse. "After everything?"

"Fiore, I'm not kicking you out. If you won't put your health first, I'll do it for you." Henry warned.  "You have to get better or you have to tell them.  Personally, I'd like you to do both.  Tell your father and Cassie.  Christine and Alex don't have to know.  I know Ian knows and God only knows how he's kept it from Lana, but he has.  But you'd have to let them know."

"If I tell my father he'll leave again.  He'll start to distance himself from me like he's done the last two times."

"And Cassie?"

"She won't look at me the same anymore."  Fiore admitted.  "She'll look at me like I'm broken and fragile.  It was ages before she saw me as me and not as the sickness.  Can't you understand that even if I am not able to win, I want to be remembered for who I am.  Not as this." Fiore indicated her withered body.  "I know what I look like, little more than a walking skeleton.  The reason I'm here is to put more weight on before we try again.  I have a month or so before I'm gone for another four months.  I'd rather they think like Alex, that I just don't have time for them than for them to know the truth."