Against the Odds

Harry was completely and utterly lost.

Two days ago he had found out he was being deployed, something he had wanted desperately for so long. He had thought for sure after his antics in Vegas they would deploy him, get him away from the cameras for a while, but he was still denied. Some might call him crazy for wanting to go to war, but it was the normalcy he had craved. Being away from it all would give him a chance to think it over, to decide what he wanted next in his life.

But then he had met Alexandra Morgan and it all became clear. She was what was next in his life. Alex and Emma were the missing piece of his puzzle. He had dated socialites and models and pop singers, but nothing ever settled him, made him feel so normal, until he stepped out of the Range Rover that day almost two months ago and first laid eyes on her. And Emma, by God he loved that kid. She was everything sweet and good natured and funny that he always loved about children. The thought of never seeing her again increased his heartbreak over Alex leaving more than he could even bear to think about.

He had told Alex he would never come after her, but he had fought every single day against breaking that promise and going to find her to make her wake up and understand how ridiculous she was being for letting her past take over and ruin what they had. But he was stubborn, and for the past forty-eight hours he had sat in his room and drank glass after glass of whiskey, staring at his phone, refusing to call her, but willing her to call him. He knew, if she reached out, there would be no question that he would take her back in a heartbeat.

This particular night, however, William had decided to drop in on Harry, not having heard from him in the past two days and knowing he had been deployed. In fact, none of the family had heard from Harry since he was told. They knew he was around, the protection officers assured that fact, but William assumed Harry was processing the deployment and would re-surface after a few days. Now that he hadn’t, William was worried.

William knocked on the door at Nottingham Cottage, seeing the lights on upstairs in Harry’s room, and waited, but his knock went unanswered. He banged this time, yelling Harry’s name through the door. He waited, and when there was no answer again he rolled his eyes and finally pulled out the set of keys he still had from the time him and Kate had spent here and just opened the door himself.

“Harry!” he yelled as he stepped into the foyer. There was no answer but he heard faint music coming from upstairs and he almost retreated, thinking that Harry might have company. Hoping that Harry’s POs would have briefed him should Harry have had company he shook his head and moved up the stairs to Harry’s room. He banged his fist on the heavy wooden door, calling his brother’s name once again.

No answer.

“Harry! Open the God damned door!” William finally yelled, using his best military voice.

Then finally, after a few beats, the door pulled slowly open.

William had to step back at the smell of alcohol radiating from his younger brother. Once he recovered himself, he took a longer look and his eyes widening, realized that his brother was in a world of shit. He was disheveled, his hair greasy and sticking out in every direction. He hadn’t shaved in days and was wearing what looked like dirty jeans and a white t-shirt with several stains on it. Judging by how drunk Harry was, William was sure they were whiskey stains.

“Jesus Christ, Harry. What is going on?”

Harry squinted at William. “Piss off.”

“Nice. But no, I will not piss off.”

Harry shrugged and then tried to slam the door in William’s face.

William shot a hand out, catching the door and pushing it back hard. It caught Harry off guard and he stumbled back into the room, falling flat on his back. William stepped forcefully into the room, moving to stand right over Harry, putting two feet on either side of his brother’s mid-section. He leaned down and, fighting off nausea at the smell coming from Harry, grabbed a fistful of his shirt, pulled him a few inches from the ground, and leaned his face down to his brother’s.

“You found out you are getting deployed two days ago and no one has heard from you since, Harry. I come here to find out what’s going on and I find you drunk as a skunk, and it looks like you may have been that way for a long while. Plus, you stink like shit, little brother. What is going on?” William demanded in an authoritative tone that was an innate part of who he was.

“Why do you care?” Harry slurred back, his eyes narrowed. He reached up to pull Williams fingers from his shirt but William slapped him away. Any other day a fight between the two of them would have been easily matched, but not today, not with Harry in an advanced state of inebriation.

“That’s it. I can’t stand the smell of you anymore. Let’s go,” William said, his nose wrinkled in distaste.

“Yes, you go,” Harry mumbled back.

“No, you shit, let’s go, as in you and I are going into that bathroom over there,” he nodded his head toward Harry’s en-suite, “and I’m going to throw you in the shower and make sure you stay in there until you don’t smell like you’ve bathed in liquor for a week.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed but remained unfocused. “You can’t make me do anything.”

Then William’s eyes narrowed back, a challenge having been issued. He reached down and grabbed a giant handful of Harry’s bright red, greasy hair and pulled as hard as he could, already stepping towards the bathroom.

“OW!” Harry howled, trying in vain to dislodge his brother. “Will, stop it!”

“Get in the shower!” William yelled back, still tugging as hard as he could. He didn’t care if he pulled out all of Harry’s hair. It would grow back.

“Jesus! Okay, I’ll do it…just let go of my hair,” Harry yelled, snapping out of his trance a little bit. As soon as William let go of his hair he stumbled to his feet, swaying slightly as he glared at his brother. “You know just because you’ve lost most of yours, you don’t have to go tearing out mine,” Harry stupidly shot in William’s direction.

William, no stranger to Harry’s bald jokes but in no mood to deal with it right now, took a step forward. Harry immediately put his hands up, signaling his surrender.

“Shower,” William said forcefully. “And use soap,” he threw in for good measure.

If Harry had any fight left in him at all, he would have turned around and punched William in the face, but he was all out of the will to do anything but do as his brother said.

***************

Not too far away from Kensington Palace, on the surface Alex didn’t appear to be as bad off as Harry, but only because she had to put on a brave face for her daughter. Emma noticed though, although she didn’t know what was wrong, she noticed that her mother was sad.

“Mummy, do you cry when you’re sad?” Emma asked that night while they sat at the dinner table. Emma was just finishing up her dinner while Alex was picking at hers, lost in thought. Her head snapped up at her daughter’s words, her eyes wide.

“I think most people cry when they’re sad, Emma. Why do you ask?”

“Because you look sad, but you aren’t crying,” Emma said quietly.

Alex stared at her daughter for a second while the last little bit of her heart broke realizing that her daughter could see her hurting. That was exactly what she didn’t want, one of the things she feared the most, for Emma to be affected by this.

Her eyes welled up and she was about to tell Emma about Harry, that he wasn’t going to see them anymore, when the phone rang out, startling her and sending a wave of anxiety through her. Every time the phone rang over the past few days she had tensed wondering if it was Harry. She knew if he contacted her she would go back in an instant, she would cave just hearing his voice.

Alex sighed, and telling Emma to go and get started on her bath, she got up to answer the phone. With shaking hands she picked it up, checking the caller, and sighing with relief she saw “Mom and Dad” pop up on her screen.

“Hello?”

“Oh, goodness! My daughter…I thought maybe you had fallen off the face of the earth!”

Alex’s eyes welled up at the sound of her dad’s voice.

“Daddy…” she breathed. And then she burst into tears.

“Alexandra? What is going on?” her dad asked in a panic.

And then Alex spilled it. She spilled it all…that she had been seeing somebody; just who that somebody was, that she was so in love with him, and that he was getting deployed and she left him. She told him the whole story, not stopping until she had it all out; until she had cried all the tears she had held back all day.

When it was over her dad was silent for moment while Alex took deep breaths, getting herself under control.

“Alexandra Mae, you are so smart most of the time, but this is probably not one of your finer moments,” Michael Emerson told his daughter softly through the phone.

“I’m sorry…what?” Alex said, stunned.

“Oh Alex, you love him. What else is there? I don’t know much about this Prince Harry fellow, but if he is a prince and still wants to go fight for his country, when he damn well doesn’t have to considering who he is, then he deserves your understanding here. He deserves your love to wrap around him and support him and tell him it will be okay. He deserves for you to tell him you will be there when he comes back. He deserves for you to write letters to him while he is over there, telling you how much you love him and keeping hope alive,” Michael said passionately.

“But Dad…”

“No buts, Alex. You let John’s death cloud your head again. You know that isn’t right. This Harry fellow isn’t John, baby. Think about it this way, even if something did happen, wouldn’t you regret the fact that the last conversation you had ended in two broken hearts?”

The tears came again, not as intense this time, just hot, fat tears that slid slowly from her eyes. Her dad was right and she was the biggest jerk in the entire world.

“Do I just go to him? Do I call him? I don’t know how to apologize,” Alex said.

“Sleep on it tonight, Alex. Tomorrow you go to him and you tell him what’s in your heart. If he loves you like you obviously love him, he’ll understand.”

“Why are you so wise, Daddy?” she asked softly.

He sighed. “I wasn’t always, not until your mother came along.”

Alex closed her eyes. She understood what he was saying. “Because she loves you.”

“I don’t know why, but she does.”

“All girls should have daddies like you,” Alex said, wiping her eyes.

“Well, they don’t, so be grateful that you do and listen to me,” Michael said with a laugh.

“Okay, Dad. How are Mom and Matt?” Alex asked.

“Mom’s good, she off to dinner with her friends tonight. Matt is well…he’s Matt,” he said with a laugh. “I think he wants to come visit you in the summer and bring Emma back with him for her two week visit.”

Alex smiled her first real smile in two days. “Really? That would be great. I’ll call him this week.”

“Good. Now where’s Emma?” her dad asked.

“Oh! Dad…I totally forgot! Emma’s in the bath…I need to go wash her hair and get her out of there,” Alex said with a laugh.

“Alex, the kid is six. Teach her how to wash her own damn hair, and then have her call us tomorrow evening, okay?”

Alex chuckled. “Okay Dad, I will thank you. I love you.”

“Love you too, Boot,” he said, using the nickname he had given her long ago. “Bye”

“Bye, Dad.”

************

“So, are you going to tell me what got you into this mess?” William asked a clean and much less drunk Harry. A very long hot shower and two cups of strong coffee that would rival any of the sludge made in the Army had done wonders for Harry.

Harry took a deep breath and leaned back into his couch. “A girl.”

William raised his eyebrows as he drank from his own cup. “A girl, really? I didn’t know you were seeing someone.”

“No one did, except for Charlotte,” Harry said quietly.

“So tell me about her,” William responded. He was genuinely interested in how this woman he didn’t even know about and how she had sent his brother into such a downward spiral.

Harry closed his eyes, willing the emotions to stay away. “I’m in love with her,” he finally said simply.

William chuckled. “Well, that’s a good way to start. What else? What is her name? How did you meet? What happened that caused you to drink yourself stupid for two days?”

Harry sighed. “Her name is Alexandra Morgan. She’s the founder of a program I did a visit for almost two months ago, Healing Families Through Friends.”

William thought for a second. “I remember that. I saw the video. She’s blonde right?”

Harry nodded. “Blonde, big blue eyes, big smile that lights up her whole face. And she’s got this laugh…this laugh that just…sends me into another place. And she’s…” Harry trailed off, not sure if he should tell William about Emma.

“She’s what, Harry?” William pressed on.

“She’s got a daughter, Emma.”

William’s mouth dropped in surprise. “A kid?”

Harry shook his head. “Not just ‘a kid’. This kid, Emma, she’s like a miniature version of Alex. She’s funny and charming and sweet…and everything I’d expect that any child of Alex’s to be like. And I love her too.”

William leaned forward in his chair. “I hate to ask this question…but is she…divorced?”

Harry chuckled, knowing William wasn’t asking out of disdain, he just wanted to know what Harry might be up against in the future. William’s sense of looking forward was something Harry always admired. He had never been able to get a good sense of looking ahead – until he met Alex.

“No, and that’s where my current state of mind comes into play,” Harry responded.

William groaned. “Oh God, please don’t tell me she is still married.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Oh for fuck’s sake, Will. No, she isn’t still married. Her husband died in Afghanistan before Emma was even born. He was an Apache pilot who got shot down and killed. He did the exact same job as I do.”

Understanding dawned on William’s face. “So when you told her you were being deployed she freaked out?”

“Freaked out is a mild description. She told me she was wrong and didn’t love me after all and then she left me.”

“And you let her?”

Harry groaned, knowing his brother was going to give him so much hell for what he was about to say. “I told her to.”

William blinked. “I’m sorry, you told her to?”

Harry set his coffee cup down on the low table in front of the couch and then rubbed his palms on his legs. “When she said she didn’t love me after all, I challenged her. I told her if that was what she really believed then she could walk out the door and she would never have to see me again.”

“And let me guess, she left?”

“Walked right out the door and never looked back.”

William stared at his brother. “What is wrong with you?”

Harry hung his head in his hands. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know this woman, but I know that you never tell a woman, any woman, to go…because she’ll go,” William said quietly, meaningfully.

“So what the hell was I supposed to do?” Harry asked, his voice rising.

“You beg her to stay, you dumbass!”

“She wanted to go!”

William threw his hands in the hair and stood, out of frustration for his brother and his fool-headed ways. “She didn’t want to go, Harry. She was scared and she needed you to understand that. Instead you just issued a challenge and she took it because you didn’t give her any other choice. Jesus, Harry. Her husband died doing the same thing you are being sent to do and she has no way to protect you from it. Can you not understand the defense mechanism there? With all of our military training…all the psychological crap they put us through and you didn’t pick up on that?”

Harry sat stock still for a long minute and then he closed his eyes, fighting off the tears. “So what do I do now?”

William rolled his eyes. “Oh my God. For all of the people who think I’m the awkward one and you are the smooth lady’s man, you are just proving them wrong left and right here. You are being an idiot of the highest kind. Go get her.”

“Go get her?” Harry asked quietly.

“Yes.”

Harry took a deep breath.

William looked at him expectantly.

“What?” Harry asked, confused.

“Now, Harry. Go get her right now.”

“Oh. Oh…okay. Right now?”

“Harry!”

Harry jumped to his feet. “Okay! I’m going right now…I’m going to get my girl right now,” he said, a smile breaking across his handsome face as he walked purposefully towards to stairs to go get dressed.

“Finally,” William muttered under his breath; but once Harry disappeared up the stairs William smiled. He had never met Alex Morgan, but something told him Harry might just be finally on the road to his future…and William couldn’t be more excited to see all the directions that road would take him.