**A/N: Mentions of mental illness, hallucinations and alcohol use-age / the idea was given to me from a fan who I will leave anonymous xxx**
The wind was gentle against the pages of the book Amelia had in her lap as she sat on a chair on the verandas of Kensington Palace's Apartment 1B. It was one of the few afternoons that Amelia completely had to herself, no planning for a royal wedding, no event that she had to attend. Just sitting on a comfy chair with her hot cup of tea on the table next to her and a book opened wide on her lap. Listening to the sounds of birds singing in the trees and distant dogs barking.
"Hey, beautiful lady." Harry's voice spoke as he opened the sliding door and walked onto the veranda, joining his fiance with his own cup of tea in his hands.
"Hey handsome, how was your day?" She asked
"Tiring, but worth it," Harry said, Amelia, smiled. He had done a local concert event where he introduced the events coming on and reminding the audience that it was a charity event where the money would be going towards the children and families of Africa struggling to survive. Africa was a content that was special to her fiance's heart, though personally, she had never gone herself. She hoped that one day she would be able to experience the beautiful country that held a special place in her man's heart.
"That's good. How much money did the fundraiser achieve?" Amelia asked, she had been watching her grammar and how she phrased questions. The royal family had all grown up knowing the right things to say and how to say them. As Amelia had grown up in a different environment to her fiance, noticing the way things were said was not always something Amelia wanted to change.
"$50 thousand, all of it is going towards the charity. It'll be worth it seeing how they have coped the next time I go to Africa." Harry spoke
"Which'll be when?" Amelia asked, she hated it when he had to leave her for overseas engagements. The Queen was yet to arrange one where both would go on the tour, and arrange another after the pair officially tied the knot.
"Unconfirmed at this stage, though I know Granny's planning a tour sometime before the wedding. She'll request a meeting before she finalizes any dates or events beforehand." Harry answered, Amelia, nodded in understanding. Knowing that was how the Queen worked, mapping routes and planning events before Royals even left their own countries soil. Amelia also knew that it was required for royals traveling overseas to carry black formal attire in case of an emergency, ever since Elizabeth's own father died on her honeymoon tour, and she hadn't been prepared when returning home early for the funeral.
"There are so many places I want to visit, I know that I've been to Paris and New York, I've just never actually visited them. Those tours were more for movie premieres and we were always on a tight schedule." Amelia spoke, telling Harry that she'd wanted to visit these places properly with him by her side was something she'd always wanted to do when the pair of them got together. Traveling with him and just
"Paris is beautiful, I remember visiting a few places with my mother before she passed, I'll make a note to show them to you if we ever find ourselves in Paris. It would make a lovely vacation away from here wouldn't you think?" Harry asked, as he got up from his seat and walked towards his fiance. He lowered himself down to attempt to give her a kiss. Chuckling, she raised her head and kissed him first before he could plant one on her.
"Have you ever told me why you don't have more than one drink?" Harry asked as he sat back down on his own chair and looked at his fiance. Amelia looked back down at her own book before looking back into her fiancé's eyes.
"When I was young, I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia, it's a mental illness that someone can sometimes struggle with determining the differences between reality and hallucinations. It happened after my grandparents on my mother's side died. I kept seeing them at night, thinking I was going insane. My parents had me tested multiple times until it was determined that I had Schizophrenia, that is why I have a passion for mental illness charities. Because I've been through it when I have too many drinks I see them. And after my parents died, I started seeing them too. I thought I was going insane." Amelia answered, she never told anyone this, not even Kate. Though Kate only believed that she had nightmares of seeing her cousins grandparents and parents.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Harry asked
"I didn't want you to think of me any different, because if you start looking me differently, the whole world does. I kept it secret because I didn't want to be put down and told I wasn't good enough to be your wife." Amelia answered
"I need some time to process this," Harry said, as he stood up from his chair, he left his cup of tea on the table and walked inside. Amelia got up from her own seat and walked after him, leaving her book and blanket outside, not caring what happened to either of them.
"Have I done something wrong?" Amelia asked,
"No, I did," Harry said, before walking towards their bedroom.
"Talk to me!" Amelia called, raising her voice as she looked at Harry's retreating back.
He stopped in his tracks and ran a hand through his hair, before turning back to his fiancé.
"For the past 10 years, I thought you trusted me enough to tell me this! Why?" Harry said, his voice was getting louder as he spoke.
"Because I was afraid you would abandon me! My grandparents left me here, my parents are dead! I am alone!" Amelia shouted, looking at Harry with her eyes wide.
"You are not alone! You have me! You have my brother, you have your cousins! You are not alone." Harry said
"Why are you mad at me?" Amelia asked
"I'm mad because you didn't trust me enough with this, I thought we were past that, you never once took the opportunity to tell me about this mental illness so that we could work through it together! That's all I want to do with you and now, I don't know how many more secrets you're hiding from me!" Harry shouted, punching his hand onto the bench hard enough to make an impact. This time, Amelia jumped, not looking at him but looking at the hand on the bench that made a small dent in the bench. Amelia's breathing was jagged as she looked at Harry. Shaking her head with a small tear running from her face, she walked out of the apartment, not even grabbing anything to protect herself from being spotted by the public.
At this point, Harry had realized his mistake. She had finally been honest with him about the scars she kept hidden from the people closest to her in her life. She did it to make people look at her and see the bubbly cheerful girl that they all loved. He too had scars that he kept hidden so why did that give him the right to have a go at the love of his life over a mental illness that she had fought over and won as a young child. Not many people can do that at a young age, and his fiancé had managed it.
Amelia, meanwhile, was walking out of Kensington Palace and headed towards the car that would take her somewhere that wasn't her apartment.
"Where can I take you, Miss?" Mr. Diggle asked as he leaned against the car, he had been told she was heading towards him and had bought the car around, knowing that when the future Duchess gets angry. She takes drives out of the Palace to clear her head,
"Anywhere, that's not here," Amelia responded, Mr. Diggle, nodded and opened the door for Amelia, letting the woman slide into the car as she had been practiced into doing for months.
As Mr Diggle drove the car through London's streets, taking lefts and rights, Amelia had the chance to think back to the fight that she and Harry had previously had that lead to her being in the car alone with just Mr Diggle. The man she trusted to guard her life if she got into any incident.
"Did you want to talk about it?" Mr Diggle asked after turning off the radio, that had been playing love songs, and noticing Amelia's change in body gestures as each one turned on after the first finished playing.
"Not really," Amelia answered
"Did you want me to take you back?" Mr. Diggle asked after another five minutes of silence and aimlessly driving around cloudy streets of London with the lights on so he could see where he was going.
"Yes actually, I think I'm gonna spend the night with Will and Kate." Amelia said, Mr Diggle nodded, knowing a young couple in a fight when he saw one. Turning back around on the nearest roundabout, the drive took ten minutes to get the woman back to her place of residence.
When Mr. Diggle turned the car off, Amelia had gotten out before Mr Diggle could get the door for her. Saying good night to her driver, she walked back into the palace, taking the corridors that she knew Harry didn't take often because they took too long to get where he wanted to be.
The walk was quiet, but it gave Amelia time to think about what had happened, whenever Kate and Will used to get into fights years ago. The couple wouldn't speak to each other for at least a couple of days before working through it and talking about what the problem was. Amelia knew the problem, Harry was in the wrong, not her. She'd told him the truth and he'd gotten mad at her for not telling him sooner. She didn't want too because she knew that once he knew, he would want her to get checked to make sure that it would never happen again. Amelia had gotten older and the hallucinations had started to slowly disappear, the last one Amelia had was when her parents died and they'd haunted her for a couple of weeks before Amelia thew a whiskey bottle at the wall. Smashing the glass and spilling the contents all over the wooden floors of the apartment. Now, Amelia didn't want to go back to her own apartment, she was staying true to her words and had found herself at her cousins apartment.
Knocking on the door, Amelia hugged her arms to her body, suddenly feeling the cold that she hadn't felt while driving in the car. The door opened after she knocked again, not wanting to wait any longer.
"Mia? What's wrong? Harry's been looking everywhere for you." Will's voice asked as his soon to be sister in law, walked into his apartment after he let her in. Kate walked into the living room, cradling her small baby bump.
"Come here, come sit down. I'll make you a cup of hot cocoa." Kate said as she grabbed her cousins arm and pulled her towards the couch, sitting her down gently and walking into the kitchen to make her cousin the warm drink that would get her body tremperature back up.
"What happened?" Will asked sitting down next to his best friend who looked like she was about to burst into tears.
"Harry and I got into a fight, I mean, at least I think it was one, it might be more on the lines of a disagreement." Amelia answered, when she was nervous and upset Amelia's old habit of talking and overlapping her words from her illness came over her. Which was why she tried to keep up with the persona of being a happy person all the time.
"Over what?" Kate asked, coming back with her cousins drink. Amelia gently took the cup from her cousin and held it in her hands, the warmth of the cup heating them up as she did so. She didn't take a sip though, she wasn't feeling like drinking.
"He asked me why I never have more than one drink." Amelia answered
"It's because you don't like alcohol too much, why is it an issue?" Kate asked, looking at her cousin in confusion. That was the lie Amelia had told her cousin to keep her from asking too many questions and worrying about her when she was perfectly fine.
"It's not because I don't like alcohol, it's just, when I have too much I start hallucinating." Amelia answered
"Why didn't you tell us about it?" Will asked as he looked at his wife then back at his best friend.
"Because, it's the same reason I didn't tell Harry about my mental illness, when I was a child I was diagnosed with Schitzophrenia, shortly after my mothers parents died. I started hallucinating them in the middle of the night, eventually I overcame it." Amelia spoke, finally telling her family what she'd just told Harry about half an hour earlier.
"Okay, but why would Harry react the way he did to cause you to leave the apartment? We heard everything from outside. We were going to see if you two were okay but decided not too as it sounded serious." Will admitted
"He couldn't understand why I kept it from him, like a secret that he didn't know about. And I understand his frustration, I just didn't think he'd react that way and then he might see me as some mental illness patient that needs treating." Amelia responded, not looking up at either Will or Kate and staring at the cup of hot cocoa in her hands. Taking a small careful sip from the cup she knew her friends were taking time to consider their words carefully. Amelia hated using her mental illness as a way to get people to talk to her, she hated that she had to be defined through it. That was why she never told the three people closest to her in her life the truth about her diagnosis.
"He's most likely hurt that you didn't find it in yourself all these years to tell him about it. He could have helped you through the nights you had nightmares and stayed up for days on end because you kept seeing people. Trust me, I had an inkling during college I just never said anything, I knew that in time you would tell us in your own special way." Kate said next to her cousin as she looked at Amelia. She knew that Amelia struggled with demons as a child and still did occasionally when she let herself go and find the drink more than she should have. This made Amelia love her cousin even more than she already did. She just hoped that Harry had taken the news as Kate did. But knew that it would take some time for him to understand what she was going through and how to help her get past it.
"You can stay here for as long as you like, Harry will come around eventually and love you even more for telling him. If your parents were still around I'm sure Adam would've given him a hiding that's for sure on the way he reacted. I know my mother would have too." Will spoke, Kate nodded at Will's words on the first part of his mini speech. He loved his best friend too much for her to go back to Harry until the pair of them sorted out what was going on between them and worked through it. The couple both touched Amelia's shoulders gently before getting up from their own seats and walking towards the kitchen to privately have their own conversation. Amelia knew they were and didn't care, she sat on the couch and continued to drink her now warm drink in her hands. Staring at the family portrait photos of the couple and their dog Lupo. Lupo had been given to the couple as a Christmas present from Kate's parents, and was much loved in the family even by Amelia herself. Speaking of the dog, he jumped onto the couch and gently placed his head into Amelia's lap.
Closing the door to the kitchen as quietly as Will could, he looked at his wife with a concerned look.
"I never knew, how come you didn't tell me your feelings about it?" Will asked
"Because, I didn't want to start something that might not even be true, and Amelia's a private person with her own mental health struggles, I've known her for almost 28 years and never once did she mention it. It took her this long to let the truth out, sometimes it happens." Kate answered as she looked at her husband.
"So that depression stage she went through when her parents passed, that was her illness coming back?" Will said, Kate nodded.
"I think so, she'll tell us when she's more comfortable. She only told us because Harry and herself got into an argument about it, otherwise she would have continued to keep it a secret." Kate responded
"I've always wondered if it was just Harry's influence that got her supporting mental illness charities, but now I know it's not. It's her own past with it that influences her support to those charities." Will spoke, Kate nodded at her husbands words. Finding the same feeling in herself, she'd never asked why Amelia supported those types of charities even before she meet Harry.
In the next room, Amelia turned on the tv that was in the living room. It turned on to a live stream of Prince Harry at one of his afternoon events. He was smiling and didn't look as angry as he was a couple hours earlier with his fiancé.
"He's at another concert?" Kate asked as she walked into the room with Will, a cup of steaming tea in her hands. Amelia nodded, not saying anything.
Harry held the microphone in his hands as he stood on stage, he was dressed rather casually for an event for a senior royal. But the Queen must've let him get away with it.
"For those of you expecting Harry Styles being your MC tonight, I apologize, though technically my full name is Henry not Harry. Anyway, so, tonight, the charities that we are supporting for this concert this evening are very close to me personally. A member of my family recently told me, that they struggled with a certain type of mental illness as a child. Known as Schizophrenia, as a child this family member hallucinated their own family members who had passed away before their diagnosis. For me, hearing this for the first time was hard, I didn't fully understand it and I should have been more supportive. I've come to understand that in time, mental illness's fade and sometimes they don't. And telling you about a mental illness is a strong physical attribute for someone to overcome because they could be scared of the response. So, I want to say to the special family member of mine personally, that I'm so sorry. I should have been there for you and I wasn't. I love you so much, don't forget to keep leaning on me like you always do. Aside from that serious note, we will also be supporting children's charities in hospitals who need our help. So thank you so much for listening to my story and apology, I hope you all have a great evening and love every moment of it. Thank you London!" Harry yelled the last word into the microphone and cheers rang through the arena.
Amelia had tears rolling down her face by the end of the declaration, even though he had said he was sorry at a concert to thousands of people who had no idea what he was apologizing for. Amelia still loved the apology all together. That was all she wanted, was him being accepting even if he didn't fully understand the extent of what had happened to her during her episodes. Knowing now that he would support her, made her heart full of love.
——————————————————————————
A/N: Disclaimer:
I did not want to offend anybody while making this chapter, I saw an episode of Grey's anatomy where this mental illness was apart of it and it really opened my eyes to mental illness's around the world. I wanted to include it in Amelia as a mild one for now, so that she wasn't apart of the normal royal future wife stereotype. She had flaws and yet her family still loves her for it. So, if you have any issues with it please message me x
I hope you enjoyed the chapter and the wedding's coming up very soon!! Thank you for sticking with me for so long I appreciate it very much.