Twisted Frame (VA Fanfic)

Sixteen: Base Coat, Fill In, Top Coat

A.N.: I am NOT a lawyer. I have studied a couple of Criminology subjects at University, but that in no way qualifies me to lay claim to the legal scenes being accurate in this chapter (and previous). It does however allow me to lay claim to having thoroughly researched Pennsylvania's legal processes using websites I can critically judge as reliable and accurate enough to be trustworthy and appropriate to use as a basis for the legal scenes in this work of fiction that of course canonically has a crucial element of fantasy—so I will plead artistic license for any inaccuracies.
Now, let's get on with the story!

RPOV
"Lissa, stop pacing!"
My best friend turned to face me and glared. But she couldn't hold the expression for long enough to make an impact before sighing and collapsing into the nearest lavish, over-stuffed armchair more elegantly than should be physically possible. For. Anyone. "What am I supposed to do, Rose?"
"Honestly, Liss?" I stalled while adjusting Annabella in my arms as she had just fallen asleep in the middle of her feed so I needed to get my maternity bra and top back in position, one-handedly and without disturbing my sleeping baby—a feat which became less and less of a challenge by the day.
"Honestly, Rose." My best friend's startling green eyes pierced me with their openly desperate pleas.
"You need to hand down some kind of sentence as soon as possible. You and I both know that whatever decision you make will set the tone for your reign. You campaigned on the premise of giving everyone a little of what they want—compromise. This is the first big test to see exactly what you're willing to compromise on and to what degree, and when you're willing to be a hypocrite."
"Rose!"
"Liss, you asked me here to have this conversation with you as your advisor and as your friend, not as your Guardian and your subject. I'm just being brutally honest with you—someone has to be."
"I really don't like it when you're right, Rose—because you're usually at your meanest when you're right."
I shrugged the shoulder my baby wasn't cuddled up against. "The truth often hurts."
"Too true. Now, you were saying...?"
I couldn't help my grimace, struggling for a moment to remember what point I was making. "Even though you and Christian aren't even close to being engaged, Tasha is still your family, and that creates an internal conflict within you. So does being one of her victims. The public—both your supporters and your opponents—understand that. The sentence you give Tasha has to be one you can live with, whilst also proving to both your supporters and opponents that you can be impartial... impartial but not heartless... genuinely unbiased, not disingenuous to the point of being pretentiously unaffected... which proved to be Tatiana's fatalistic wont."
"But how do I fight against the bias I feel, Rose? I know she needs to be punished. I know the evidence proves her so guilty the law all but mandates I take her head for her taking Tatiana's... for hiring a hit man to drum up sympathy for me 'surviving an attempted assassination' during my election campaign. But it just feels wrong. I'm naturally biased in her favor despite it all—I don't need to remind you of all the reasons why—and yet, I also hate what she's done to such a degree I didn't know I was capable of feeling such hatred. After all, she's betrayed Christian in the worst way possible, and you in an even worse way if that's possible, because she was willing to let you be executed in her place—which would have destroyed the man she claims to love, betraying him just as badly in the process!"
I stayed silent a while as I moved Annabella from one side to the other, then took her in and thought through all of Lissa's comments. "I don't think you can win the fight, Liss. At least, not anytime soon. You need time. You need to officially sentence Tasha soon to placate some of the loudest dissenters—after all, they didn't get my head on a platter even though my fingerprints were all over the weapon. Buy yourself some time, Liss. And be open about doing so—make them understand that as Queen, you cannot recuse yourself from any of your responsibilities and obligations in any way, so in order to be certain and able to reassure them that your sentencing is unaffected by your being one of Tasha's victims you need time to process.
"I know your Moroi advisors would tell you to do the opposite, but they're just thinking of your image and taking control of it to mould it into something typical and making a hypocrite out of you in the process. They are not going to be advising you with thoughts of you upholding your morals or maintaining your mental wellbeing at the forefront of their minds. I know you well enough and have for long enough that doing so is instinctual for me."
Lissa nodded once, lips pursed, and eyebrows knitted in consternation. After a long, pregnant pause, she sighed softly. "I suppose there's no other option. I can't think of any alternative that I can live with. Any ideas of what I have to do now?"
"Hold her while I pace and think, would you, Aunty Lissa?" I asked as I gestured to my stirring Annabella.
With the brightest smile I'd seen on Lissa's face all day, my friend took her niece/goddaughter from my arms, and a weight lifted itself from my heart, relief flooded through me.
"You and Dimitri make adorable babies, Rose. Very adorable babies, in fact."
"We've been over this multiple times already; Dimitri and I have only made one baby so far, Lissa, and as adorable as she is, she's more than enough of a handful. We still don't know if it's possible for us to have any more babies, so don't get too ahead of yourself and count on me having another baby at all, never mind one any time soon."
"Are you using protection at all, Rose? Annabella is the living proof that you only need to be careless just once to fall pregnant."
I groaned. "Don't remind me, Lissa!"
"Oh, Rose! You haven't been taking precautions. Has Annabella taught you nothing?"
"She's taught me heaps!" I couldn't help my reflexive defensiveness.
"But not to be safe, clearly."
"Can we please stop talking about my marital relations? So, I'm a newlywed and my husband and I are too heavily blanketed in the honeymoon bliss to think about trying to prevent the impossible becoming possible a second time. Who really cares? It's our prerogative, isn't it? Our marital privilege?"
"You sound like you've just stepped out of a sixties sitcom, Rose," Lissa snickered.
All I could do was pause mid-pace and scowl at my best friend, unable to deny the truth in her observation.
"Scowl all you want, Rose, it doesn't change the fact that you're turning into a stereotypical housewife... or that it, as odd as it is, looks good on you... mostly."
"It's just the hormones, don't get too used to it. It'll pass once Annabella's no longer breastfeeding." At least, I hoped so.
"Have you thought of anything yet?"
"Huh?"
In a very un-queenly manner, Lissa rolled her eyes. "What to do to buy time?"
"Oh! That! Yes. I have, actually. Call in the judge as your advisor and discuss the convictions you're certain you can hand down in the next day or so without second guessing yourself. She's been found guilty on plenty of lesser charges as well, many of which carry enough years in prison that the cumulative total would probably be longer than she has left to live. You've already spent nearly a month agonising over her sentencing already. You have to start somewhere, ideally somewhere that your conscience isn't making you second guess yourself. So start with the breaking and entering of my Guest Housing room, then the theft of my stake. The theft alone is worth, what, three or four years and a couple thousand dollars in fines? That it was a Guardian weapon she stole adds another couple years doesn't it?"
"When did you learn that much of the law, Rose?"
"When Abe was counselling me on what I could have been faced with if Dimitri hadn't found the evidence that destroyed Tasha's attempts at framing me. Then going on to explain the extra charges and punishment she faced due to framing me.
"When you're only working part-time because you have a baby in the NICU, you can learn a lot about a subject you never had any intention of touching with a ten-foot pole. It's an unfortunate side-effect of having too much time alone... well... relatively alone."