CI: Take Me Anywhere Chapter One

TITLE: Take Me Anywhere
Summary: Alexandra Eames never wanted to be a princess. She wanted to play and climb and jump and throw with the boys -- and for thirty-two years she had. Now a country which she had never really identified with as her own, have risen up to demand her as their figurehead. BA and VERY NON-CANON

A/N: I don’t know how this one’s going to fly, but it’s something that won’t get out of my head. Their characters are very similar to how we know them, just in a different element. Its Criminal Intent meets Princess Diaries meets Chasing Liberty – so if you’re not into the BA romance, look elsewhere.

Chapter One – Big Girls Don’t Cry


A small, yet noteworthy country somewhere in Europe; Today . . .


“You have got to be kidding me,” the petite woman insisted, her voice breaking though her anger was evident. “You promised me,” she hissed, pointing her finger accusingly. “You promised this would Never. Happen.”

“I know,” her father responded regretfully, not being able to meet his daughter’s eyes despite his tough exterior. “Alexandra,” he pleaded.

“Alex,” she corrected distractedly out of habit, her palm went to her forehead and she began pacing, her steps echoing off the vast walls of the ballroom they stood in. Technically, it was a “conference room” but the former term, by normal standards, could apply.

“Alex,” he placated, “I cannot change what the people demand. And they demand you. You should be flattered,” he made a futile attempted to put a positive spin on the situation.

“Flattered!? This is my life, dad! I was NOT raised for this! I was raised for the opposite of this! Do you know what this means?” she opened her hands in entreaty, using her whole body in an attempt to communicate with him. “Of course you know what this means,” she chastised herself, “but so do I. I’m not naive. The majority of the country may want to see me in a dress and a crown, but a minority, which is an awful lot of people, demand otherwise. I’ll have the rightful heirs, a large and powerful family, out for my head!”

Richard Eames studied his headstrong daughter. Even now, she was a sight. Wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers she did not fit with her surroundings – the grand (Alex would say ‘gaudy’) conference room. Her blue t-shirt clashed harshly against the gold walls and shimmering ceiling fixtures. She’d never know how much it hurt him to do this to her – how much it broke his heart to tell her the news that would pull her into this other world against her will, utterly on her own and at the mercy of strangers.

“You don’t have to do this,” he conceded quietly.

Alex spun to face him and gave him a doubtful look, “If I don’t, the Wallace family falls into line, the country will fall apart, and everyone will blame me,” she thrust a hand at her chest. Alex closed her eyes and attempted a cleansing breath. The smell of majesty hung over the place like a death shroud and she choked on the heavy air.

When Alex woke up this morning, she thought all that was on her schedule for the day was her morning coffee (tons of sugar) while pouring over her imported New York Times. Maybe she’d even attempt the crossword. She never risen to Will Shortz’s challenge when she lived in his city for most of her life, but now that she had returned to her European birthplace to spend time with her dad at his request, the urge to have a crack at the puzzle had overtaken her.

She was only on fourteen across -- “modern business equipment,” seven letters -- and welcomed the interruption of the ringing telephone. On the other end was an over-polite woman informing her she was requested to “have an audience with her father” at noon at the palace. Alex was willing to do a lot of things for her father, stepping onto the high-and-mighty grounds of royalty was not one of them. Why in the world didn’t he just call and tell her what he wanted? When she suggested this idea to the woman on the phone, she was given a polite version of “screw you” and hung up on.

Alex sighed. When she had agreed to come back to spend her summer vacation off from her job as an elementary school teacher with him, her father had given her a cryptic response of “maybe you’ll find a job here.” What Alex at the time thought was a father’s hopefulness to be near his daughter was now known to be a foreshadowing. Which explained why every time Alex suggested him moving to New York (his birthplace); she got a shake of the head.

Since birth she had avoided the ballrooms and the palace grounds in general, if she could help it. She supposed that as a kid she should’ve liked the large estate and all the open grass, all the mazelike hedges, but she hadn’t. She much preferred the tree house in the backyard of the simple home off the palace grounds that she and her father had shared and playing with the neighborhood kids in the adjoining town where she went to public school. She knew people in the palace looked down on her, even as a child when she didn’t know the full circumstances, she could feel their disapproving stares -- that she was tracking her bastard mud into their pristine world – a reminder that their precious Queen had felt the need to go slumming with her own bodyguard and had chosen to bear the child instead of quietly getting rid of it, the option the staff and general public found more palpable.

Alex’s father had had an affair with the Queen, who was supposed to have been in mourning for her late husband, the King. At the time, the staff had looked the other way, deciding the Queen deserved some happiness, having lost her husband and left with a country to run and a young son to raise. That was, until she became pregnant with Alex. A little misdemeanor suddenly became a national felony.

Richard was quickly demoted to bodyguard for the young Prince Michael, the Queen’s legitimate child, and the Queen had spent the duration of the pregnancy in hiding, not making a single public appearance. Upon her daughter’s birth, Alex’s mother had been given the choice of kin or country and she chose the latter. Richard had more or less raised Alex as a single parent. She had a happy childhood regardless. Not one of anonymity, as her father’s affair with her mother was a nationwide scandal. Her mother had tried to reach out a little, but Alex had gone away to the United States where she had duel citizenship, to go to school and live with her father’s family.

But, as the castle was her father’s place of business as bodyguard to the Prince, entering its sacred grounds couldn’t always be prevented. As the guard to Prince Michael since before the young heir could walk, Richard Eames was to naturally rise to the place of bodyguard to King Michael one day – but that would never be. Michael had tragically died of cancer mere weeks ago, which had been followed, even more unfortunately by the death of the Queen (and consequently Alex’s estranged mother) days later by a stroke. Alex had mourned their deaths, but not as half-sister and daughter, and not as dedicated supporter, but the kind of mourning of a distant relation. She hadn’t spoken to either of them much at all in her entire life.

Michael had been so youthful, even during the illness, and only a couple years older than Alex’s thirty-two. No one believed he would ever die before having a son or daughter of his own. His wife, filled with grief and overwhelmed by the pressure, had vanished. The whole country mourned. The line of succession had been abruptly snuffed out. They looked to a leader and they had chosen Alex, the Queen’s only other offspring, by popular consent and, hours ago, officially by Parliament. Alexandra would either agree to give up her status as a normal citizen or the line of succession would fall to the Queen’s mother’s side, the Wallace’s. And a dubious side of the family it was.

“You’re life will have to change,” Richard Eames spoke finally. “I wish it didn’t, but I have no power to change that.”

“And I don’t either?”

Alexandra Elizabeth Eames never wanted to be a princess. She wanted to play and climb and jump and throw with the boys, and for thirty-two years she had. Now a country which she had never really identified as her own, have risen up to demand her as their figurehead -- the same country that had branded her a bastard upon birth, the product of an affair when her mother, the Queen, had an affair with her bodyguard, the man that stood before her now.

Alex knew, in the back of her mind despite how far she forced it, that this might be a possibility some day, that her parentage might come back to haunt her, that she might someday be called upon to aid her mother’s native country. As hard as she tried to leave it behind her, when Alex was in America, she couldn’t help but scan the newspapers for the name of her native country.

“I don’t look like these people. I don’t talk like these people,” she offered piteously.

“You’ll learn,” her father assured her, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“An English accent?” she kidded.

Richard smiled at his daughter’s characteristic humor. He put his arm around his daughter, “Well, maybe not the accent. I’m afraid you and I will never be true residents, will we?” He led them towards the door. Before she exited, his expression turned serious and he moved her shoulders to face him, look him in the eyes. “You’re going to be hearing this a lot from me in the upcoming months, but I want you to know that I mean it now. You will make a great Queen, Alex. I knew you always would. I recognized you as the Princess you were – even if the rest of the country took a little longer.”

Allowing his daughter to be whisked away to make her decision official, Richard entered his office that resided off of a side hallway. He heaved a great sigh as he flopped down into his chair. Well, it was over. He had broken the news to Alex and she had taken it with dignity. He was filled with pride for his daughter and beloved adopted country. But his thoughts quickly sobered. Nothing was really over. It’s really only just begun.

“Richard,” Tom, who had been the bodyguard to the Queen until her death, greeted as he entered. “I just heard the news. Congratulations are in order, I suppose.”

Richard shook his head, “I didn’t do anything. It was Alex’s decision.”

Tom shrugged, “Congratulations all the same. It’s about time Alex was recognized. But this leaves us very little time. There’s going to have to be some arrangements made. A bodyguard for instance. You could be a conflict of interest and I’m only staying on long enough to get things settled. I could suggest a few men and women we’ve been training, but I don’t have to tell you that this is a delicate situation. I don’t think Alexandra has the full grasp of just how much danger she could be in.”

Richard stood, shaking his head, “I’ve already found the guy,” he plopped a folder down onto the desk between them.

Tom picked it up, looking doubtful he flipped through. “Robert O. Goren,” he recited. “Wait, Goren? The guy who jumps off buildings?” his speaking earned him a glare and he quickly corrected himself. “But . . . he is not one of us,” he ventured. “He’s American.”

Eames nodded, “So is Alex, really. She might feel more comfortable with someone she more identifies with.”

Tom continued to peruse the folder. “I don’t think anyone could identify with any part of this guy,” he commented offhandedly. He snapped the folder closed and looked up at Richard incredulously, “He knows five languages.”

Richard ignored him, “We bring someone in from the outside, we know he will not be aligned with anyone but us,” he reasoned.

“Or he could be bought off by the other side,” Tom threw out.

Eames shook his head, smiling excitedly, “Not this guy.”

Tom made a last ditch effort to persuade his colleague, “Isn’t he a little . . . unconventional?”

Richard Eames sat back in his chair, “These are unconventional times, Tom. And Alexandra is an unconventional princess.”

TBC

A/N: Will Shortz is the editor of the NYTimes’ notoriously difficult crossword puzzle.