Side Note - This was posted as it's own entity, but it didn't get a lot of recognition or readers, so here ya go! It's on the oneshot books instead.
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"You know, they say that souls are made of physical matter. We as humans just cannot comprehend the matter in our own ways. The soul lives within a body, and when the heart stops, the soul leaves the body and roams in whatever way comes after life. Does it find its way into another shell? Does it roam within the phantom world, just a few echoes behind the land of the living? Or does it float up and up and up until they float on clouds with small harps and wings? Does it go to after-earthly heaven that we have yet undiscovered? Do these things really matter? All I can say is, for sure, that whatever souls are made of. He and mine are the same."
"It all started with us when we were children. Our families were always close, even, at one point, our fathers were brothers in law. But Henry's sister Madeline, she died, leaving my father without his wife and his children from other relationships. He met my mother, a distant cousin on their paternal cousin's side, and they had my two brothers, then me. I'm the elder of the two of us, our mothers pregnant at the same time. I was born in the December, his mother carrying late until January. We were always close as babies, often spending the summer months in vacation homes that were next to each other on the three thousand plus acre of land that my father had owned for a time. Taking trips to see each other in Scotland and in France. Our childhoods were impeccable for the first few years, we loved each other so much, always so close. Our mothers had more children almost immediately after us. My three younger brothers and my sister, while Catherine gave birth to two girls and a boy. Everything was so disgustingly perfect, belonging in some cheesy ass rom-com. I was so happy, my brothers and my sisters, we were so happy. All of us, blended into one enormous family. We had wealth, love, family, fame. We had it all."
"But then my father died when I was five. Two months later, a second sister born still at seven months. I skyrocketed to the top of the highest mountain in the world, while my beloved Francis, he fell to the bottom of the ocean."
"Any other child would be delighted to live between to enormous, twelve bedded mansions. And, it's true, some of us did. My brothers, Adam, Jacob, William, Henry, Alexander, Arthur, James, and my full blooded brothers, Nathaniel and Nicholas, my sisters, Grace, Violet and Amelia, we were delighted for a time. But then Daddy died, and then our sister, Madison. Eric, Olivier and Edward, and little Amelia, they were too little to realise what was happening until it was too late. Our mother spiralled out of control, taking so many pills to numb the pain of Daddy's death in that plane crash, and then Maddie's death in the womb. Things changed, they were never the same.
"Some of my brothers were older than me, Adam and William and Henry, they were teenagers when Nathaniel came along. They could see the world for what it was and what it was not, they saw what was happening to their step mother, but what could three teenage boys do about it? Nothing, they were plunged into work in our fathers' business empire at not even post-college age. Bring in money, that's what she always said, when the addiction began to take over. Painkillers, opioids, so many things that I don't understand even now. We were all thrust into the world of work at such tender ages, but when though I was one of the younger ones, nobody was pushed more than me."
"It started when I was a baby, believe it or not. Ads for baby products on the side when the de Guise's hit a little snag in their own empire in France. It wasn't often, in those first five years. Daddy wasn't keen on his little girl being plastered all over the media, he was hounded enough as it was. But when he died? I was my mothers' cash cow, even though she had significant shares in her families' businesses in France, and was the main owner of our fathers' businesses when he died, and would be until the rest of us became of age to take over. I remember my fist audition eight months after Daddy's death. I wasn't even six years old, but I already had an agent and a profile out there. A publicist and a stylist, who has these things at age six? I got the part, obviously, and then my life was over. It wasn't my life anymore. I remember realising it when I had to put pen to paper on a suicide contract when I was six years old. My life wasn't mine anymore, but it didn't matter at that point."
"Want to know why? Francis was dying of cancer."
"Any other child would be running about in the autumnal leaves, the dying embers of warm summer air pushing our hair around. But at six years old, I wasn't. No, I was sleeping on a pink polka dot blanket, so exhausted by ten hour solid shooting days. And where was Francis? He was left empty and battered because of his chemo, his radiation. He slept right next to me, so shattered and hollow and frail, helpless to join in the fun as Sebastian and Claude rushed around the trees. How do children handle their hands of fate when they don't even know who they are yet?"
"He was dying, his body not reacting to the medicine in the way that it should have. The first thing he needed was a bone marrow donation, that's the clearest thing that I remember after he'd fainted in a family trip to the beach in the south of Italy. Everybody was tested, I wasn't even four months past my sixth birthday when I had it done. Everybody did, Henry and Catherine did it, Sebastian and Elisabeth and Claude and even little Louis. All of my siblings, half or otherwise were tested. Even Francois and Louis, who were my mothers' sons from her first marriage. I remember the fit my publicist threw when we got the news. I was a match, a perfect match, the doctor said. Catherine burst into tears, and I said I'd do it in a heartbeat. Man, Robert was so pissed off, almost manic in the reasons why I shouldn't do it. I was in a movie at the time, and shooting that and three TV shows, one of which I was the star, he did have good reasons why I shouldn't go under and let them take away everything that Francis could have ever needed. I told him, no matter what he said or did, I was going to help my friend. How could I not? When he was the closest person to me in my life, including my siblings that were close in age to me. He was my best friend, my partner in crime in all things. I couldn't be able to life with myself if anything happened to him waiting for another donor to come foreword."
"Robert backed off, finally. And the surgery was set in three days time. It was super quick, but time was of the essence. Francis, the golden child of the de Valois-Angouleme-Medici clan, the firstborn son in the marriage of Henry and Catherine after three miscarriages and a child each from different affairs, he was dying. And dying fast, so we had to do something. Want to know something about that time in my life? Henry and Catherine didn't even ask me, how could they ask their own goddaughter to do something like that? It was a horrible procedure, after all. They didn't, but I looked them in the eye, and told them I was not a child anymore, I hadn't been for months at that point. I would save their son, I would give anything, I would get out of any lucrative contract it took. Francis would live, I would ensure it."
"I was so calm doing all the paperwork with whoever was with me. It wasn't my mother, she was too strung up to really give a fuck. Almost excited to get it done and get Francis feeling better. I knew the recovery would be rough, I knew the pain that would be ahead of me. But, I just had to, you know? I had to do it, I couldn't let some pain and grogginess take presidence over the boy who meant so much to me. The boy who held me in my father's funeral, who held me and let me ruin his blazer with my tears in that hospital room when he was pronounced dead. My everything, even at such a tender age. I had to help him when he needed help, and when I was given the opportunity to do so, how could I refuse? You get that, don't you?"
"Anyway, my label and my team was furious, but Lucia, the publicist, she managed to spin it into the truth of what it was. A good thing, a rising young actress and singer helping save a boy's life. It turned into marvellous publicity for my name and my movie and my shows on Disney. We hit the actual, proper news all over Europe and even in the US. The movie got three times the money we had to make it, because of that publicity and the angel-like persona I was given, saving a little boy's life at great risk to myself. I felt so good doing it, I was finally going to help Francis feel better after months and months of suffering because of the cancer and the chemo. Little did I know, that it wouldn't be the last time that this would happen. Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same."
"I woke up, the procedure went marvellously. Robert backed off breathing on my neck, and the first person to come see me after I woke up was Henry, Francis' father. I was given extra anaesthesia to knock me out in the roughest part of recovery, the immediate aftermath, and he told me that he loved me, he thanked me over and over and told me that my father was looking down at me and was so proud of what I had done. Henry told me that Francis had just finished the treatment with my bone marrow, and already had colour back in his cheeks, already had sat up straight for the first time in four months. He gave me the most beautiful necklace. Pure gold, the finest one at that, and beautiful. It was a locket, a golden locket on a golden chain. The pendent was in the shape of a heart and had so many intricacies on it, the largest diamond I had ever seen front and centre. Inside was a picture of Francis and my father. I cried with him after he slid it over my neck and let it sparkle on my neck. He told me that Catherine had gone into labor while Francis and I were doing what we had to do, and had given birth to a beautiful baby boy that looked exactly like Sebastian. A day later, when I was out of recovery, Francis came to me on his own power, he hugged me and kissed me and thanked me. I told him I was never going to do his chores or eat his parsnips again, and we laughed. We were so happy, the baby was healthy, Francis was recovering, I was okay, things were finally looking up after so long of unrest. With my fathers' death, Madison's death, Francis' cancer and the rough schedule I had to adapt to, all on my own, we needed that joy. We really, really did."
"It turns out that for over seventy percent of the things Francis needed when he got really, really bad, I was a perfect match. It was a marvellous thing, such a shocking joy that what he needed, I could give him. I did, every time I was physically able. And the rest? Sebastian was the match he needed. There was only once that neither of us were a match, and then, just by chance, it was my older maternal half brother that gave him what he needed. Francis was given the all clear by the age of nine, we had the biggest party that weekend. But then it would be me who needed his help."
"My mother was a hundred percent a drug addict. She was abusive to the littler ones, an endless revolving door of boyfriends who would milk her for drugs and my money, my fathers' money, and then would leave her. Thank God she never got pregnant by one of those bastards, but they were druggies or alcoholics, never a good man. Not even once. By then, Adam was old enough and successful enough to get us a good social worker to get us out of there. Henry and Catherine helped get Marie de Guise down for her abusive nature. We did get fostered, ending up all together -god knows how that happened, why that beautiful couple in eastern France would willingly foster so, so, so many messed up kids. But they did, and we were so grateful- maybe my fame or our money helped, but it didn't matter. For five years, we lived in France, going back and forth from France and Scotland for paternal family business. I travelled all around the world, filming hit TV show after hit TV show, movie after movie. I was so wealthy that it nearly made me sick. Fame and fortune and family, that was my life as a teenager. Things changed between Francis and me, but this time, it was such a perfect change, we were so happy."
"You know the whole cliché, boy meets girl and they fall in love. But that was what happened between us. The Valois would vacation with us in the winters in Victoria and Erick's beautiful palatial home. Those two, those beautiful grandparental people, I loved them so much. I never thought to ask why they willingly took all of us in, because, let's face it, between my father's seven sons from previous relationships, and a daughter, and then me and my six siblings, and my mothers' two sons, there was way too many of us. I'll always remember that night, just after things got heated between Francis and I, when Erick set me up with mulled wine in preparation for the start of the twelve days of Christmas, he had told me and James -my youngest elder half brother- their story. They had told everybody else it when they thought we were old enough, and their story was just as fucked as ours. It turns out that they were a Duke and a Duchess, one of the wealthiest couples in France. Coming from old money nobility, their only son and daughter in law, as well as their seven children -Victoria and Erick's grandchildren- had died in a fire on the other side of the city in another palatial estate. Heartbroken, the two grieved for two years, before being contacted about fostering, both being too old to have another child. They built a bigger, stronger, safer home in the bottom of the alps, and cared for children after children. Six years of fostering later, they took us in. Apparently, with the age differences between us all, we reminded them of their child and their grandchildren. It's so sad, but I loved them just as much as I loved my own biological father. I was fourteen at the time, my brother fifteen. He's another story all together, but it hardly matters. Each time a child aged out of their care, they fostered another child. That's what happened between us all."
"Francis and I spent three years together, living our beautiful life. He was a student, living his best life with constant check-ups about his health. I was a famous actress and singer who starred in hit after hit after hit. Our academics were taken care of, home-schooling and graduating early and whatnot. We were so happy, living our lives together, I had never known such happiness before, the only time perhaps when I was a child and when my father was still around. Francis proposed when we were seventeen, and we tied the knot just before my eighteenth birthday in the most beautiful winter ceremony. It was private, just our families and my closest girlfriends. Kenna and Aylee and Greer, the four of us against the world. Kenna is actually a distant cousin of mine on my mothers' side, even though she's the most Scottish blooded person you could ever meet. Aylee and Greer, they're so sweet and loyal, even now and even then. I love them all so much. We did have another member of our friendship group, but that burned out long before the wedding. Something about my husband, but she doesn't matter to us anymore."
"Marie de Guise died when I was seventeen. I pity her, I do wonder what would have happened to her, to us, if she hadn't lost little Maddie, if she hadn't spiralled out of control using drugs and alcohol to dull her pain of burying two husbands and her own child. But the woman had her own daemons and I cannot blame her for what she did to us. I totally forgive her for all of the things she did wrong, and the things she didn't even do at all. You have to, you know? You have to. Grudges ruin people, I cannot let it happen to me."
"Three years of paradise, I was so happy and so, so in love. My career was skyrocketing, and it was so perfect. I had made the transition from child to teen to adult star without the usual breakdown of craziness that people like me usually have. I took on my share of my parents' businesses. We were so happy, wealthy and contented and in love. We took glamourous vacations and held movie premiers and release parties for different albums I managed to release on the side. Everything was so perfect, Greer and Francis' best friend Leith had gotten into a relationship, the same with Kenna and Sebastian. Aylee did her own thing with her girlfriend, Lucy. We had so much fun with each other, there were times where we'd dress up in disguises to get away from the paparazzi, or times where they'd dress up as my superfans and scream outside the hotel that we were staying at for whatever reason. We were young, we were in love. We had it all. Until we didn't."
"My husbands' cancer came back in full force, too fast for the drugs to do a damn thing. This time, in his blood, instead of his brain like when he was a child. It caused organ failure, but the doctors were confident that with a kidney donation, they would be able to save him, but it was too late for his kidneys. Then, as the time went on, when everybody started the process of getting tested, the controversy started. I was trending on twitter, do you know how many times somebody has to say they hate you to be trending on twitter? I didn't even understand it, then, why the world just turned on me like that. I wanted to call people out, I wanted to tell the truth, but the fact that my husband was dying again, it didn't matter. I remember finding out that the world hated me as Francis lay on life support, 'cause the tests hadn't come back yet. I cried that night in the hospital room, but I had to hold his hand and smile for him. It was my duty as a wife to make sure things were okay with him, even if it was an illusion."
"So, where was I that year that I disappeared? Why wasn't my twitter or Instagram or snapchat active for an entire year? Why didn't I put out an album or a movie or a TV episode? I was giving my husband a kidney. That's right, I was a match, and we started the process that same day. I wrote the will, I did the psychiatric and medical assessments, I did everything, I did the blood work, I did everything that could possibly be done. And, I went under that next week."
"It went horribly wrong. My body wasn't reacting well to just one kidney, the stitches were too loose, they came out. I was bleeding internally, screaming in pain. Then, they were too tight, cutting off blood and oxygen flow. Francis flourished wonderfully, his family managing to keep him from asking how I was, while I was fighting for my life in the ICU for a serious infection that could have killed me so easily. That's where I was, I wasn't hiding, I wasn't making a record, I wasn't filming a secret movie. I was saving my husbands life, and I nearly lost mine in the process."
"I lost a year of my career, perhaps the hottest time of a singer and actress' life. I gave it up for Francis, to make sure he was okay. To make sure he could grow old with me and watch our children and our grandchildren and our greatgrandchildren play out in the back garden as we sat on a picket white swing and drank iced tea. Then, I came back."
"Reputation was a big fuck you to the media who turned on me. I embraced who I was and what I had done and what I had achieved. I gave the middle finger to the people who called me ugly because of my scars along my body where they stuck tubes and blades into my skin to keep me and my husband alive. The anger in the performance at the Grammys, that was real. I hated the media, I hated the press, I hated the people who turned on me just like that. I came back when it was a different world, I came back into a world of contour and big assess and tiny stomachs. But what people fail to realise is that if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, a booty, whatever you wanna call it, then your stomach will never be flat unless you go under the knife. What people fail to realise is that you can never have pouty lips and a thin nose and high cheekbones and no imperfections unless you change who you are and become something you're not, just because it's what people want you to be, because that's the trend for a few months. I saved my husbands' life by giving him a kidney, but people called me ugly when we showed our scars on vogue magazine, because my stomach wasn't completley flat anymore. They called me fake because my boobs fell differently because I didn't weigh the same anymore, they called me so many names because my ass didn't look the same after months of laying down in hospital beds. Because I didn't meet the criteria of what was perfect anymore, it's all just so fucking impossible in that world. There will always, always be some kind of beauty standard that you don't meet, and that is fine. That's called being human, because nobody is perfect. And the fact that people wanted to try because of what others thought of them, it pisses me off so much."
"My whole image changed again when Francis and I announced that we were going to be having children. People insulted my body before it even began to change, they did everything I thought they'd do. But what those people fail to realise is that it wasn't a matter of laying down in bed and sleeping with my husband until my womb caught with child. Francis' body had also been changed because of the chemo, so we had to go the IVF route to have our children. IUI was also an option because of what they do to his things to make it viable to conceive, but we ended up with a mesh of the two, a kind of trial run with our doctors. We were twenty one when we did the round of IVF-IUI transition, and like some kind of mercy, we ended up with seventeen embryos like that. They did what they do with Francis' part of it like they do an IUI, but they conceived with eggs that I was creating by shots and medication. It seemed like the best compromise, because IVF is more likely to work better than an IUI. We were so happy, so excited, to know that if something happened to either of us in the future, we could still have the children we had always wanted. They were always there whenever we wanted to try for a baby, and whenever we felt ready to have a child."
"I had just turned twenty six when we came to the agreement to try some of the embryos, to see if any would stick. We transferred three embryos in the springtime, after I spent three months in Thailand filming a movie. We got so, so fucking lucky. All three made it to the second trimester. Our triplets were identical boys, and I was somehow allowed to have a natural birth at thirty three weeks. My water broke, the whole shebang. They were born on December seventeenth, and we took them home for a trial run over Christmas, since they were all so healthy and doctors weren't doing any important work for them until after the new year. James Henry Philippe de Valois-Angouleme was born first, at ten twenty seven in the evening. Aiden Zachary Alistair de Valois-Angouleme was born at ten fifty two, while Caspian Tobias Francois was born at eleven seventeen. Our family is so fulfilled and happy, and we're for sure going to have a go with the other embryos in the future, but for right now, we're so happy with our boys. They look exactly like their father, and each of them are completley identical. Francis is healthy, my businesses are skyrocketing and my careers are steady. I can honestly say that, right now, at this point in my life, I've never been more happy."