Yet another Gaia contest entry, based around the "Not So Happily Ever After?" idea that things might not work out exactly how we always pictured. Here's a continuation of the Fairy Tale Rapunzel as written by The Brothers Grimm, five years after she re-discovered her prince and married him. I'm not particularly satisfied with it, but, that could be for a number of reasons. I would really appreciate some feedback, good or bad, though flaming is very bad, so let's avoid that. Thanks for reading.

Disunited Together: The Pretty Girls and Guys Hurt Too

“Heck?” Her voice in the darkness sounded too loud against her ears, but the question was burning a hole in her chest, and she knew that if she didn’t ask it she may faint. Beside her, her husband jumped a little in his sleep, startled awake by the sudden sound, and though it was dark she thought she might be able to make out the movement of his hands as he swept them over his face to draw away the sleep.

“What?” came the muffled reply. Julia waited a moment to answer, listening to the now irregular patterns of his breathing close to her ear. Deep in her chest she knew she would have to pull the courage out, extract the fears, and hopes, and dreams and make them into something real, something solid; and she was afraid.

“Do you remember the first night...?” she trailed off, letting the question speak for itself. Heck shifted slightly, moving away from her a little as if to get out of bed. Julia lifted her hand to her forehead, felt the perspiration there, and had to hold in a small wave of panic that rolled over her suddenly. Why was she doing this? Why couldn’t she just let him alone?

“Of course,” he said slowly, she could make out the edge of reproach in his voice, but that wasn’t going to stop her now. The questions she had been dying to ask, the mysteries that she desperately needed to solve, they were going to come out tonight. She was going to find a solution, or, if not a solution, then she was at least going to figure out the problem. “I heard your voice, so loud and clear, from the woods. You drew me to you, like a moth to the flame, and I couldn’t help but follow my heart.”

The words meant nothing. They were worthless. She had heard them a thousand times before.

“And, you remember the second night?”

“How could I forget?” He paused, change the tone of his voice, and then spoke again: “’Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,’ I said. You came straight to the window, and from the moment I saw you I knew I would never love another.” She could tell that although he wasn’t angry yet, his humour was starting to wear off. Yet, part of her reasoned that the longer she kept him talking, the longer the question could stay unanswered. The longer things could stay as they had always been.

“Heck,” she began again. He rolled onto his side, to face her, and suddenly she couldn’t take the heat of his gaze, even in the darkness, and with an instant decision she climbed from the warmth of the bed and crossed to the window.

“Where are you going?”

“Heck, is there something the matter with me? With us?” There. The first hurdle had been cleared by a burst of inspiration- but, rather than the sigh of relief she had imagined would follow, there was only an intricate web of disappointment, worry, anxiety. Whatever had made her think she would get anything out of this? Why hadn’t she just left it alone?

A bitter taste in her mouth made her move closer to the window, away from him. Her face was almost pressed to the cold, frosted glass, yet nothing could prevent her from hearing the laboured breathing behind her. Unrest had fallen over them both, a panic that was settling deep into the very core of their beings, running through their veins like wildfire. Julia took a deep breath, holding her stomach as it tossed beneath the soft cotton of her nightgown.

After a few moments he spoke. His voice was hoarse with raw emotion, badly masked, and he said: “What would make you say that?” She could hear the tears, feel the quickening of his heart, and she knew that she had been right all along.

“There is something wrong. There is, isn’t there?”

“Julia, why-”

“Please Heck. Please talk to me. This won’t work if you won’t talk.”

“I can’t, Julia. I can’t do it. I’ve tried, and I’ve tried, and I just can’t.” Something made Julia think he wasn’t just talking about their lack of communication. She turned from the window, taking another deep breath to steady the shaking of her hands against the ledge.

The moonlight showed her the room; it was large, circular, much like the room she had grown up in. Heck had thought it would be a comfort, but now it seemed like a poor choice. The tower was cut off, accessed by only a single staircase, and the door was locked. Suddenly she felt more trapped, more confined and frightened than ever, comparing herself to a deer, trapped between hunter and too-deep lake.

“Heck,” she whispered his name. He was silent. She could see him now, the moonlight giving her all the illumination she needed. He was sat up, his hair flopping over his forehead like a cascade of earthy curls as his head dropped onto his chest, and his eyes were closed. She watched as he breathed slowly, tears making his breath catch.

“Heck.” This time he tilted his head towards the light, letting it fall over him as he tried to regain composure. She could see now the stubble that darkened the lower half of his face, and when he opened his eyes she was startled by the silvery colour they seemed to be.

“Whose are they?” The question was so quiet that at first Julia didn’t think she’d heard him right.

“What?”

“The twins, Dina and Mattie, whose are they?” Julia’s breath came in short, sharp bursts as something inside her exploded. Anger began to twist in her gut, anger so strong she feared that she may burst a vein or two. How could he ask her this, after all this time? After all that she had suffered for him? How could he?

“What?” she asked again, stunned. “What do you take me for?” she cried, as loudly as she dared. Heck rubbed his hands over his face, and then gazed up at her; their eyes met, and she turned away from the fear that he might make her cry.

“I just- I just want to know,” he said slowly. “I just want you to tell me. Are they mine?” This was enough. This was ridiculous. Was this what they had come to? Where was the trust? The blind love? Where was their future?

“Of course they’re yours.” She reached up, pulling at a strand of her golden hair. They had once told her it was magnificent hair, like fine spun gold, but what did that matter any more? She twisted the plait, pulled the ribbon from the end and freed the heavy hair from its prison. “Who else do you think they could belong to?” Julia asked coldly, knowing that he wouldn’t have thought this far ahead.

“Julia, I just- there are rumours. People say things, they tell people things that aren’t necessarily true, and one doesn’t know whether to believe one’s confident, or whether they are reporting gossip. There are rumours, and rumours have killed a man more than me before now...” he trailed off, and she felt a smile of scorn fall upon her lips.

“A rumour?” she forced. “A rumour is worth more to you than five years of marriage, and ten years of love? After all I went through for you; you’d blow it all, for a god damned rumour?” A cackle of tempestuous laughter escaped her lips and she tossed her head in disbelief. “A rumour? I’ve never heard anything so daft!” She flew at him, spittle flying from her lips. “What on earth do you take me for, man? Who do you think I am? Who do you think I was? Why, if I may, did it take you five years to ask?”

Heck flinched and drew back, his face dropping as though he had expected her to act this way, but she was beyond caring. “Calm down,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I didn’t mean anything. Calm down-”

“Calm down? Calm down!” The anger in her chest had exploded, as she’d feared, and now the rational part of her brain was hiding from the rest, cowering down in the corner as she ‘gave in to the madness’ yet again.

“Julia!” he cried. “Shut up! Come on, please! You’ll wake everybody up, and that’s more publicity than we need!”

“Sure,” she spat angrily. Hands on hips she approached him until she was only inches from the bed, and then leant over so her face was directly above his. “Sure, think about the fucking reputation. That’s all you ever bother with! Dina falls off her horse in public, all you think about it how the people will see it; Mattie draws a rude picture, and you lock him in for a week for fear of what the people will say! Don’t you care about us? Are we that worthless that you care more about people you’ve never met-” She stopped suddenly, her face contorted in angry pain. She took a deep breath, twisted the features of her face, and staggered forwards, pitching onto the floor by the bed where Heck was jumping up in fright.

“Julia!” he cried. “Julia?” Heck looked down in alarm; she was still breathing, he could see that, but it was laboured and her forehead was coated in a fine layer of sweat. The outbreaks always caused a little health stumble, but never anything like this! What was he supposed to do? What would people think- No. That didn’t matter. Julia needed him.

He rushed to the door of the tower, unlocked it and shouted down into the rooms below. “Andrew! Andrew! Call the doctor! Julia’s ill! Julia’s taken a fall!” And then he scrambled back to her side, dropped to the floor and caressed her loose hair gently, wiping at her forehead, until he heard the steady clatter of leather against wood, and the doctor approached.

With dawn came the heavy burden of worry, passed from father, to son, to daughter like a baton to be forwarded after each hurdle. The twins had woken, afraid for their mother’s life, and run crying to her room in despair.

“Papa! Papa!” They had cried. “What is it this time?” But he had only climbed to his feet and walked from the room, his silence the cue that to speak of the incident would be painful and more than he could bear.

Now it was morning. The golden light from the sun was spilling onto everything, filtering through windows and giving everything that fresh-cleaned rosy look that Julia so admired. Heck was pacing the corridor, wandering backwards and forwards with a restless intensity as the doctor and Andrew, the butler, worked away in the spare bedroom below the tower. Dina and Mattie were sat in silence, by one of the larger windows overlooking the parkland, dozing against each other.

Heck took this sight in with a wave of passionate love for his wife, wondering what had made him voice such a profoundly ridiculous question the night before. This is all my fault. I just need to learn the signs; I knew she was going to ask me the question again, so why the hell didn’t I stop it? Why did I raised a subject which I should know to be avoided-- these children are more mine than anything, so why did I ask-

“Prince Tallis, you can come in now.” Heck was pulled from his agitated reverie by the sound of the bedroom door opening. From around the dark rose-panelled wood stepped an elderly man, with snowy white hair and a kindly face. Doctor Jenkins had been with the royals for fifty-five years; if there was something that he couldn’t cure, then surely it was incurable.

“Jenkins,” he said quickly, rubbing his hand over his face in sheer exhaustion, hoping to wipe the worst of it from his features. “Is she alright? Is she okay?” The doctor nodded his head.

“Come through here, your highness, she wants to see you.” Heck almost bowled the man over in his haste to get to his wife’s side; the time apart from her had been agony. A swelling in his breast when he saw her confirmed that Jenkins had not been lying. She was alive, and awake, and definitely breathing.

The doctor and Andrew had moved the bed closer to the window, parallel to the wall so that she could not fall from the bed on that side, and they had re-braided her hair. Heck sighed with instant relief. Julia’s face was drawn, pale, but her cheeks were rosy with life and she looked a little happier. Her hair had been pulled back from her face during the night, and persuaded so that it trailed all the way along the window sill, where it was fixed out of the way with a ribbon tied to the window latch.

“Darling,” Heck breathed, striding across the distance between the door and the bed in two easy steps. “How are you my sweet?”

“Heck,” she said, quietly. She let a smile fall across her lips, and her eyes fluttered with the simple pleasure of seeing him again. For when she had fallen, something inside her had been convinced that this was it, and she was never going to awaken again. She had been wrong, and never before had she taken so much delight in her own shortcomings. “Will you ever forgive me?” She opened her sparkling, intelligent eyes wide, and Heck nodded fervently.

“Yes! Yes! Oh, my darling.” He leant over her, embraced her, marvelling at the warmth of her body beneath his fingertips. “Whatever have I done to deserve somebody as wonderful as you?” he muttered quietly, into her ear, so only she could hear. “I do love you, you know. Don’t you forget. Anything I said last night- let’s forget it, shall we? I was out of order, out of line. I’m sorry darling. Will you forgive me?”

Julia smiled at him. “There is nothing to forgive. Neither of us were ourselves last night. I’m sorry. I love you.”

Once this exchange had been completed, Heck felt as though a load had been released from his shoulders, and he felt free. He crossed to the open window, felt the cool summer breeze as it tickled at his skin, and sniffed deeply, drawing in the scents of the freshly cut grass and various flora that grew beneath in the garden Julia had planted. The doctor crossed from the door, where he had been standing patiently, and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“She needs to relax more. You need to keep her calm. I beg your pardon for saying so, sir, but you really must learn to control her temper.”

“Me?” Heck laughed freely. “She’s like a dragon.” There was a pause, and then he added: “What is the matter, Jenkins? What’s wrong with her?”

Doctor Jenkins laughed, as though struck by his own private joke, and then took Heck by the shoulders. “My dear man,” he announced jovially. “There is nothing wrong at all!”

“But then- why?”

“She’s a little weak. She needs to eat more, sleep more, and drink more. After all, she’s doing it all for two now.” The doctor, with his happy face and bushy beard smirked at the prince, his eyes sparkling. It took Heck a moment, but then he spun to Julia who had been listening to the whole conversation. She had a small smile on her face, one which expressed a confusion, and an emotion which hovered somewhere between excitement and fear of what he would think. A baby? A baby!

“Darling!” cried Heck euphorically. “Darling! That’s wonderful!” She blushed a little.

“I know we’ve had our differences, baby,” she said slowly. “But, this will be a new chance, for a fresh start. I know I’m not easy to live with- you can blame Dame Gothel for that much at least- but I can try harder, Heck. I can do better, and I will.” Heck was hardly listening, the excitement that blossomed through the very core of his body taking up most of his attention, but he heard the tone of her voice, and he smiled at her.

“Darling, Julia. This will be it, this time. I promise. This will be our happily ever after. I know it’s a little late, I know I promised it you, that day, when I found you again. I took you on my horse, and we flew off into the sunset. D’you remember?”

“How could I forget?”

“This time, Julia, the whole family will come too. Rumours or no rumours, this is our life. This is our fairy tale, and we’re damn well going to enjoy it.”

Julia’s smile was wider now, her whole face alight with pleasure. The fear was gone, only excitement left, and suddenly she looked how Heck remembered her, almost as if the last five years of arguments and aggravation had never happened, and Heck was happy. They weren’t perfect, and they knew that now, but at least they could be imperfect together.

“It seems too good to be true.”

“Heck,” Julia warned him quickly. “We’ve got a long way to go. Let’s worry about that hurdle when we get there. Now, please, go and fetch the children. I hear they’re worried about their mother.”

“Of course, my Rapunzel,” Heck said, his words laced with mirth. “Don’t go anywhere. I need you.”

“I’ll be here.”