The Four Seasons of Michael (Princess Diaries Fanfic)

Prologue

I just don't understand. I just don't understand this, nothing of this. Everything is such a mess and I thought I had it all planned out so perfectly. I would go to Japan, finish the robotic arm, make some money out of it and gain recognition. And most importantly, I wouldn't be a big nobody anymore; I would be someone who deserves to be with a princess.

I did it for her, for us. I really thought she'd understand. I knew she didn't like it when Us Weekly or some other magazine featured us on the cover, going on and on about how inappropriate it was for a princess to go out with someone like me, a random college student and the fact it wasn't some random community college, but Columbia didn't help one bit. I know she resented her grandmother for not liking me and calling me 'That Boy'. It hurt her and it surely hurt me, a lot, even though I generally try not to think much about what others think since, let's face it, our society certainly isn't as smart as it could be. We never talked about it – honestly, we saw each other so rarely, we preferred to talk about other stuff, not these aspects of her royal status - , but it was there from the moment we started going out, we couldn't deny it.

Maybe our ignorance is what made everything fall apart so violently last night.

The thing is, I have to go. I might not exactly want to go, but I have to if I want to be with her, and being with her is all I want, she is what I want. If I didn't, I wouldn't have started the relationship in the first place. Back in my senior year, when she was a freshman and my little sister's best friend, the news of her being a princess broke out and honestly, it made me think long and hard about the feelings I had for her. I could back out if I wanted to, but she is worth all the trouble. I'd be her prince consort or whatever her husband is called, I'd put up with her grandmother and her eternal hatred for me, I'd learn French because it is the official language of her country, I'd move to Genovia, even if it meant giving up my American citizenship, I'd learn what a prince has to know, I'd do everything to be with her. Waking up next to her for the rest of my life has been worth all the trouble, but when has love ever been enough? All the world sees when it looks at me is that I am not royal. I am just some random guy she went to high school with and no matter how much I love her, their opinion would never change. I could either ignore the tabloid bashing and finger pointing or do something about it.

When in Advanced Topics in Control Theory we were given a final task, I guess I could do what everyone else in my class did – make a robot-controlled device, maybe a device to help the blind or the elderly, and get a good grade for it. Technology is something I have been into pretty much my whole life and building a simple robot was something I could do over the weekend for fun. But I decided to do something more. Something way bigger than an A, something revolutionary, something that could potentially not only change people's opinion of me, but the world. If I said I did it for a challenge or for a grade, I would be lying. I did it for her. I needed to prove everyone's doubts – including mine, I guess, even though I like to believe I deserve her merely because I love her – wrong.

And so the idea of a surgical device allowing surgeons to operate on a beating heart was born. Everyone kept telling me it was a long shot, something even the best scientists struggled to build, so how could some random college student do it?

With the prototype I proved them wrong, it is working, it is working so well my professor contacted his colleague all the way in Japan and so I got an opportunity to go to Tsukuba, build the robotic arm and change my future.

And now I am on the plane, going to Tsukuba and I should be ecstatic, finally ensuring the future for Mia and me, but honestly, I have never been more upset, confused, angry and broken in my entire life.

Of course I knew she'd freak out when I'd tell her. Hell, when I got the news, it took me a few days to sink in. Surely it was an amazing opportunity, one I didn't dare to turn down, but it also meant spending at least a year away from my love. Sure I'd have the rest of my life to be with her once the robotic arm was finished, but words are easy and reality is something completely different. Throughout the relationship, we have been spending more time apart than together, mainly on account of her having to spend the vacation in Genovia, but a year cannot compare to two months. A year is a long, long time and it definitely took me a few days to accept it. And I am the calm and the rational one. I didn't want to tell her over the phone or in our IM chats – this was something I had to tell her in person, completely aware it might end in her crying. It did, but I really thought that in three days she'd see what a great opportunity this was. Just as I started believing we'd survive it intact, last night happened ... and that's all I can say about it because I still don't understand what happened. All I know is that the snowflake necklace, the one I had given her for her fifteenth birthday and the one she had never taken off, even if it meant arguing with her grandmother, was now in my pocket.