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konstantyaTitle: With Walls of the Deepest Blue
Fandom: Get Smart
Genre: Romance(?), hurt/comfort
Characters/pairings: Maxwell Smart, Agent 99 (Max/99).
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2,368
Summary: In the aftermath of “99 Loses CONTROL,” Max has an injured arm, and 99 has an injured heart.
If you’d like to leave a comment, please do so on AO3!
“Well,” Max said, emerging from the phone booth, “the police are putting out a net for Royal, and they’re also sending a team over here.” After all, there was Louis’s body to collect. And Max imagined he and 99 would have to give statements, and no doubt cooperate with French intelligence for a report, and they’d also have to get a call into Washington somewhere in there to let Headquarters know what was going on, and—
It all sounded exhausting, and suddenly, Max wanted nothing more than to sit down. The adrenaline rush of being shot twice and wounded once must have been beginning to wear off. His shoulder, he noticed, was starting to hurt something fierce—a burning throb that radiated all the way to the tips of his fingers.
99 must have noticed, too, for she came up and put a hand around his side in support. Her touch felt nice, just like it had when she’d thrown herself across him at the card table—though he’d hated her cries of grief at the time—and he let her usher him back toward said table. “Come on, Max, we’d better take a look at that arm.”
“It’s just a graze,” he grunted, but he still sunk gratefully down onto the chair that materialized like magic beneath him. He could feel blood under his right palm, trickling down his left arm, and he dully lamented the damage to his suit jacket. Brown tuxedos could be hard to come by, and he’d really liked this one, all things considered.
“There must be a first-aid kit around here somewhere,” 99 said, and disappeared for a few minutes, returning with a bowl of water, a couple hand towels, and the hoped-for medical case. With a swift, businesslike practicality, she laid out the supplies, pulled up a chair of her own, and began picking at his collar.
Irritably, Max waved her hands away from him. Her fussing was too maternal, somehow—or else, if he let himself stop to think about it, it put him too uncomfortably in mind of other scenarios where she might have cause to undress him. Against his will and for not the first time, he had to wonder just how far she’d gone with Royal. Despite her generally demure deportment, he wasn’t so naive as to think she was honestly a virgin at her age, saving herself for her wedding night; she was a beautiful, sophisticated woman—there had to have been men in her past, even from before she’d become a spy. Perhaps a lack of preciousness about sex had even been one of the deciding factors in her career switch, from fashion model to government agent. But at least—as far as he knew—he’d never had to actually meet any of her past lovers. Or hypothetical lovers. Or whatever it was that Royal had been.
99 rolled her eyes exasperatedly. “Max, this is no time for modesty. We need to get your jacket and shirt off.”
“I know that, 99,” he snapped, rather peevishly, “but I can do that much for myself. Give me a little credit, will you? It isn’t like this is the first time I’ve been shot.”
Her mouth set into a hard, disapproving line, but she nevertheless leaned back, giving him room to maneuver. The bow-tie went first, dropped unceremoniously on top of the table. Then he shrugged his way out of his jacket. Then the bulletproof cummerbund, his suspenders, and finally his ruined dress shirt—and, his earlier statement notwithstanding, he didn’t even complain when she assisted by removing his cuff links.
At last, the wound lay bare—a dark, angry laceration that had just missed his undershirt. A small mercy, that, along with the fact that he didn’t have to take the garment off to allow for treatment, but could instead simply tug the sleeve up and out of the way. In truth, he didn’t like to be bare-chested in front of 99. Part of it was indeed modesty—or perhaps propriety—but another part of it was a nebulous feeling of exposure or vulnerability or something. Like she possessed the power to see through his skin and would do just that if he wasn’t careful. Which was ridiculous, because if the CONTROL labs had invented X-ray vision and started doling it out to field agents, he would have heard about it by now.
99 dipped one of the towels into the water, first cleaning the excess blood off his arm, then passing him the cloth so that he could wipe his hands. The immediate pressure he’d put on the wound had been worth it—it was only slowly oozing at this point—and she wet the second towel, holding it poised over his shoulder.
“Ready?” she asked.
Max nodded. And then she dabbed gingerly at the torn tissue.
The water was merely warm, not hot, but the pain was still intense, and a harsh hiss sucked through his teeth without his consent. 99 immediately lifted her hand, her eyes flicking apprehensively up to his face.
“I can go get you a drink,” she offered. “If you think that’ll help.”
He shook his head. “Just get it over with.” If anything, he was craving a cigarette right then, but the idea of fishing one out of his case and lighting it—to say nothing of how he’d have to follow through and actually smoke it—was making him tired just thinking about it. Instead, Max braced his right hand on his knee, prepared to dig his fingers into his own flesh if necessary. 99 took a breath and wordlessly resumed her nursing act.
Things got a little blurry after that, and by the time she was wrapping gauze around his arm, a fine sheen of sweat had broken out along his hairline. The worst of it was over, though, and as he tested his ability to bend his elbow and make a fist, he was delighted to discover the pain had receded to a mostly-tolerable sting. He’d still have to make his way to a hospital, to get it properly examined by professionals, but thankfully the bleeding was now contained and it wasn’t at risk of getting any dirtier. She’d done a good job of it, proving once again that the two of them made a good team. They always had, ever since their first assignment together. It was one of the reasons he’d been so loath to let her go, and had followed her all the way across an ocean. And now that all this Saint-Germain business was sorted out, it would be a relief to get back home and return to regular work with her.
With his arm successfully patched, 99 had turned her attention to putting the remaining medical supplies away, and it was only then that Max noticed just how quiet and subdued her demeanor had become. And no wonder, it abruptly occurred to him; it had been easy to forget about, in the midst of trying to escape and then being forced into a deadly game of poker—and then, you know, getting shot—but less than an hour had passed since she’d learned her fiancé ran a rigged casino for the benefit of KAOS. There he was, practically celebrating in his seat, and meanwhile, all the emotional fallout from the night was probably just now hitting her.
God, he really could be an insensitive heel sometimes, couldn’t he? And to think, he’d had the gall to be shocked when she’d left for greener pastures.
“99…” he started. She didn’t look over from her task of winding up the extra gauze, so he continued. “99, I… Despite everything, I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Royal.” And he was surprised to realize it wasn’t a lie, at least not entirely.
In actuality, before it had come out that Victor Royal was both a cheat and a KAOS agent, he had appeared to be everything 99 had insisted he was—considerate and kind and gentle, plus tall and handsome and rich to boot. In spite of his jealousy (and yes, he would finally admit that that was what it had been), even Max had found himself rather admiring the Frenchman, on a personal level, and he certainly could have imagined worse husbands for a woman like 99. Truth be told, he’d been hard-pressed to imagine a better husband for her. Indeed, in another life, Victor Royal might have made her incredibly happy. But now…
A brittle smile flashed across her lips. She was unduly focused on tucking the gauze back into the first-aid kit. “Well, Max, I guess you were right—I guess my future really is with CONTROL.” The words were spoken lightly, but there was a distinctly dejected edge to them.
Under other circumstances (if he wasn’t such a coward, he whispered to himself), he would have put a finger under her chin and compelled her to meet his gaze. But there was something too intimate about the act, something in the air that was too fragile to survive that kind of touch, so instead he merely ducked his head, pushing himself into her field of vision and peering up at her in concern. “And is that so bad, 99?” he asked softly.
Her eyes finally met his then, and he was legitimately taken aback by the expression in them—a deep, complicated anguish that hit him square in the chest. She wasn’t crying, and somehow that made it worse. She just looked so…defeated.
“I—I don’t know,” she confessed. She seemed to search his face for a moment, then wearily turned away again to close the first-aid kit. “I guess I was just looking forward to something different.”
Like a man who could actually commit, his mind unhelpfully provided—because for all the faults Victor Royal was revealed to have, that, at least, hadn’t been one of them. KAOS agent and crooked casino owner aside, Max would have bet good money that Royal had sincerely loved her. And if a man of that caliber had been able to commit to her, then why couldn’t he, he suddenly wondered. Just a lingering fear of ‘losing his freedom,’ as it were? Or was it something more than that, something wrapped up in their jobs and their professional relationship? It was hard sometimes, being a spy, and harder still for those agents who were married—the secrecy and deception and all that. Would it be better or worse to be with someone who knew exactly what you did and exactly how dangerous it was, because they were right there beside you, doing the exact same things?
Before he could come to a conclusion, 99 sighed and made a helpless little gesture with her hand. “I mean, I’m thirty-five years old,” she went on, frustration and perhaps the sheer stress of the evening’s events loosening her tongue. “Men have all the time in the world to settle down, but if I want to start a family, I’m going to need to do it relatively soon.”
Max blinked at that. As close as they’d grown over the years, the topic of romantic relationships—and consequently what might result from them—had somehow become a mutually-agreed-upon taboo, so this was curiously new territory. “Do you want kids, 99?” Perhaps more importantly, did he want kids? He supposed the answer was yes—in the same vague way he occasionally thought living in an actual house, as opposed to an apartment, might be nice—but the fact of the matter was, he’d never given it much thought.
He’d apparently never given a lot of things much thought.
99 shrugged cautiously. “I… I think so. I was an only child, you know. It could be pretty lonely, growing up, so I guess a part of me always liked the idea of a whole gaggle of children running around.” She shrugged again and amended, “Or at least a couple.” Her shoulders were slumped, her fingers tangled desolately together in her lap, and he wondered if this was what she’d been like as a little girl—all alone, waiting for somebody to play with.
Max couldn’t help it; he reached out and took one of her hands, giving it a tender squeeze. “I think you’d make a great mother, 99,” he told her—and he did. She’d make sure any girls could take plenty fine care of themselves, and that any boys were immaculately well-behaved, and heaven help any poor souls who ever tried to hurt either one of them. He had to smile at the mental image of it all.
99 smiled, too, at the compliment, and it was weak, but it was also genuine. She shifted her fingers to faintly squeeze back. “Thanks, Max.”
They sat like that for a minute, and he found himself strangely marveling at where they were connected. Her hands were so small compared to his, but he knew from experience that they weren’t nearly as delicate as they looked, and why had he ever been afraid of this, of her, of how naturally they fit together? It all seemed so stupid when put in perspective.
He’d followed her all the way across an ocean, he reminded himself—without requesting a leave of absence or even informing the Chief of what he was doing. He, 86, who was always such a stickler for rules and protocol, had thrown them all out the window and effectively gone AWOL for her. Maybe his heart had already known, long before his head had been willing to listen.
Gently, Max traced his thumb across the back of her hand and took a breath. He could do this. He was ready. No more beating around the bush like a nervous school-boy. After all this time, he would finally tell her, and the chips could fall wherever they damn well pleased.
“99, I—”
But then there was a pounding at the front doors of the casino, and they both jumped in their seats. Like teenagers caught doing something they shouldn’t be, their hands automatically disengaged and the moment was lost.
“C’est la police!” they heard from outside. “Ouvrez la porte!”
-----
A/N: Nobody talks about how 99 quitting CONTROL in 3x19 was arguably an act of self-care (distancing herself from a man who ultimately isn’t good for her emotional well-being due to his inability to commit, and deciding to finally give it a real go with one who not only can, but has committed), and nobody talks about how when it all goes tits up this was probably really devastating for her on some level? Like maybe she feels like she’s forever doomed to this dangerous job and this unfulfilling relationship (because HE FOLLOWED HER ALL THE WAY ACROSS AN OCEAN, AND IT’S A FINE LINE BETWEEN ROMANCE AND STALKING, MAXWELL), and nobody talks about this, but I am Prepared To.
Anyway, I thought my last Get Smart fic was going to be my only Get Smart fic, but Baby’s First OTP is powerful, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This is definitely more serious in tone than the series (and consequently said other fic), but then, “99 Loses CONTROL” is one of the few episodes that takes the Max/99 relationship seriously, in and of itself. That’s probably why it’s a personal favorite and one I keep coming back to.
Regarding ages, Max is canonically thirty-five in the first season (despite being played by the then-forty-two Don Adams), but we never find out how old 99 is, so I’ve just headcanoned her as being the same age as Barbara Feldon. Which would make her thirty-two at the start, and presumably somewhere around thirty-five by the time “99 Loses CONTROL” rolls around. (Though there’s evidence to suggest that time, in-universe, lasts longer than one year per season, so maybe she’s even older?) Anyway, it makes sense to me that the ticking of her biological clock might have been one of the reasons she finally accepted Royal’s proposal—though I do also think she genuinely enjoyed his company and started to let herself develop some genuine feelings for him. (DO I HAVE A “99 and Victor meet” FIC IN MY HEAD? MAYBE, BUT WHO KNOWS IF IT’LL ACTUALLY GO ANYWHERE.)
Lastly, if the French at the very end there is wrong, please let me know!
All other fics can be found here.
Fandom: Get Smart
Genre: Romance(?), hurt/comfort
Characters/pairings: Maxwell Smart, Agent 99 (Max/99).
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2,368
Summary: In the aftermath of “99 Loses CONTROL,” Max has an injured arm, and 99 has an injured heart.
If you’d like to leave a comment, please do so on AO3!
- With Walls of the Deepest Blue -
“Well,” Max said, emerging from the phone booth, “the police are putting out a net for Royal, and they’re also sending a team over here.” After all, there was Louis’s body to collect. And Max imagined he and 99 would have to give statements, and no doubt cooperate with French intelligence for a report, and they’d also have to get a call into Washington somewhere in there to let Headquarters know what was going on, and—
It all sounded exhausting, and suddenly, Max wanted nothing more than to sit down. The adrenaline rush of being shot twice and wounded once must have been beginning to wear off. His shoulder, he noticed, was starting to hurt something fierce—a burning throb that radiated all the way to the tips of his fingers.
99 must have noticed, too, for she came up and put a hand around his side in support. Her touch felt nice, just like it had when she’d thrown herself across him at the card table—though he’d hated her cries of grief at the time—and he let her usher him back toward said table. “Come on, Max, we’d better take a look at that arm.”
“It’s just a graze,” he grunted, but he still sunk gratefully down onto the chair that materialized like magic beneath him. He could feel blood under his right palm, trickling down his left arm, and he dully lamented the damage to his suit jacket. Brown tuxedos could be hard to come by, and he’d really liked this one, all things considered.
“There must be a first-aid kit around here somewhere,” 99 said, and disappeared for a few minutes, returning with a bowl of water, a couple hand towels, and the hoped-for medical case. With a swift, businesslike practicality, she laid out the supplies, pulled up a chair of her own, and began picking at his collar.
Irritably, Max waved her hands away from him. Her fussing was too maternal, somehow—or else, if he let himself stop to think about it, it put him too uncomfortably in mind of other scenarios where she might have cause to undress him. Against his will and for not the first time, he had to wonder just how far she’d gone with Royal. Despite her generally demure deportment, he wasn’t so naive as to think she was honestly a virgin at her age, saving herself for her wedding night; she was a beautiful, sophisticated woman—there had to have been men in her past, even from before she’d become a spy. Perhaps a lack of preciousness about sex had even been one of the deciding factors in her career switch, from fashion model to government agent. But at least—as far as he knew—he’d never had to actually meet any of her past lovers. Or hypothetical lovers. Or whatever it was that Royal had been.
99 rolled her eyes exasperatedly. “Max, this is no time for modesty. We need to get your jacket and shirt off.”
“I know that, 99,” he snapped, rather peevishly, “but I can do that much for myself. Give me a little credit, will you? It isn’t like this is the first time I’ve been shot.”
Her mouth set into a hard, disapproving line, but she nevertheless leaned back, giving him room to maneuver. The bow-tie went first, dropped unceremoniously on top of the table. Then he shrugged his way out of his jacket. Then the bulletproof cummerbund, his suspenders, and finally his ruined dress shirt—and, his earlier statement notwithstanding, he didn’t even complain when she assisted by removing his cuff links.
At last, the wound lay bare—a dark, angry laceration that had just missed his undershirt. A small mercy, that, along with the fact that he didn’t have to take the garment off to allow for treatment, but could instead simply tug the sleeve up and out of the way. In truth, he didn’t like to be bare-chested in front of 99. Part of it was indeed modesty—or perhaps propriety—but another part of it was a nebulous feeling of exposure or vulnerability or something. Like she possessed the power to see through his skin and would do just that if he wasn’t careful. Which was ridiculous, because if the CONTROL labs had invented X-ray vision and started doling it out to field agents, he would have heard about it by now.
99 dipped one of the towels into the water, first cleaning the excess blood off his arm, then passing him the cloth so that he could wipe his hands. The immediate pressure he’d put on the wound had been worth it—it was only slowly oozing at this point—and she wet the second towel, holding it poised over his shoulder.
“Ready?” she asked.
Max nodded. And then she dabbed gingerly at the torn tissue.
The water was merely warm, not hot, but the pain was still intense, and a harsh hiss sucked through his teeth without his consent. 99 immediately lifted her hand, her eyes flicking apprehensively up to his face.
“I can go get you a drink,” she offered. “If you think that’ll help.”
He shook his head. “Just get it over with.” If anything, he was craving a cigarette right then, but the idea of fishing one out of his case and lighting it—to say nothing of how he’d have to follow through and actually smoke it—was making him tired just thinking about it. Instead, Max braced his right hand on his knee, prepared to dig his fingers into his own flesh if necessary. 99 took a breath and wordlessly resumed her nursing act.
Things got a little blurry after that, and by the time she was wrapping gauze around his arm, a fine sheen of sweat had broken out along his hairline. The worst of it was over, though, and as he tested his ability to bend his elbow and make a fist, he was delighted to discover the pain had receded to a mostly-tolerable sting. He’d still have to make his way to a hospital, to get it properly examined by professionals, but thankfully the bleeding was now contained and it wasn’t at risk of getting any dirtier. She’d done a good job of it, proving once again that the two of them made a good team. They always had, ever since their first assignment together. It was one of the reasons he’d been so loath to let her go, and had followed her all the way across an ocean. And now that all this Saint-Germain business was sorted out, it would be a relief to get back home and return to regular work with her.
With his arm successfully patched, 99 had turned her attention to putting the remaining medical supplies away, and it was only then that Max noticed just how quiet and subdued her demeanor had become. And no wonder, it abruptly occurred to him; it had been easy to forget about, in the midst of trying to escape and then being forced into a deadly game of poker—and then, you know, getting shot—but less than an hour had passed since she’d learned her fiancé ran a rigged casino for the benefit of KAOS. There he was, practically celebrating in his seat, and meanwhile, all the emotional fallout from the night was probably just now hitting her.
God, he really could be an insensitive heel sometimes, couldn’t he? And to think, he’d had the gall to be shocked when she’d left for greener pastures.
“99…” he started. She didn’t look over from her task of winding up the extra gauze, so he continued. “99, I… Despite everything, I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Royal.” And he was surprised to realize it wasn’t a lie, at least not entirely.
In actuality, before it had come out that Victor Royal was both a cheat and a KAOS agent, he had appeared to be everything 99 had insisted he was—considerate and kind and gentle, plus tall and handsome and rich to boot. In spite of his jealousy (and yes, he would finally admit that that was what it had been), even Max had found himself rather admiring the Frenchman, on a personal level, and he certainly could have imagined worse husbands for a woman like 99. Truth be told, he’d been hard-pressed to imagine a better husband for her. Indeed, in another life, Victor Royal might have made her incredibly happy. But now…
A brittle smile flashed across her lips. She was unduly focused on tucking the gauze back into the first-aid kit. “Well, Max, I guess you were right—I guess my future really is with CONTROL.” The words were spoken lightly, but there was a distinctly dejected edge to them.
Under other circumstances (if he wasn’t such a coward, he whispered to himself), he would have put a finger under her chin and compelled her to meet his gaze. But there was something too intimate about the act, something in the air that was too fragile to survive that kind of touch, so instead he merely ducked his head, pushing himself into her field of vision and peering up at her in concern. “And is that so bad, 99?” he asked softly.
Her eyes finally met his then, and he was legitimately taken aback by the expression in them—a deep, complicated anguish that hit him square in the chest. She wasn’t crying, and somehow that made it worse. She just looked so…defeated.
“I—I don’t know,” she confessed. She seemed to search his face for a moment, then wearily turned away again to close the first-aid kit. “I guess I was just looking forward to something different.”
Like a man who could actually commit, his mind unhelpfully provided—because for all the faults Victor Royal was revealed to have, that, at least, hadn’t been one of them. KAOS agent and crooked casino owner aside, Max would have bet good money that Royal had sincerely loved her. And if a man of that caliber had been able to commit to her, then why couldn’t he, he suddenly wondered. Just a lingering fear of ‘losing his freedom,’ as it were? Or was it something more than that, something wrapped up in their jobs and their professional relationship? It was hard sometimes, being a spy, and harder still for those agents who were married—the secrecy and deception and all that. Would it be better or worse to be with someone who knew exactly what you did and exactly how dangerous it was, because they were right there beside you, doing the exact same things?
Before he could come to a conclusion, 99 sighed and made a helpless little gesture with her hand. “I mean, I’m thirty-five years old,” she went on, frustration and perhaps the sheer stress of the evening’s events loosening her tongue. “Men have all the time in the world to settle down, but if I want to start a family, I’m going to need to do it relatively soon.”
Max blinked at that. As close as they’d grown over the years, the topic of romantic relationships—and consequently what might result from them—had somehow become a mutually-agreed-upon taboo, so this was curiously new territory. “Do you want kids, 99?” Perhaps more importantly, did he want kids? He supposed the answer was yes—in the same vague way he occasionally thought living in an actual house, as opposed to an apartment, might be nice—but the fact of the matter was, he’d never given it much thought.
He’d apparently never given a lot of things much thought.
99 shrugged cautiously. “I… I think so. I was an only child, you know. It could be pretty lonely, growing up, so I guess a part of me always liked the idea of a whole gaggle of children running around.” She shrugged again and amended, “Or at least a couple.” Her shoulders were slumped, her fingers tangled desolately together in her lap, and he wondered if this was what she’d been like as a little girl—all alone, waiting for somebody to play with.
Max couldn’t help it; he reached out and took one of her hands, giving it a tender squeeze. “I think you’d make a great mother, 99,” he told her—and he did. She’d make sure any girls could take plenty fine care of themselves, and that any boys were immaculately well-behaved, and heaven help any poor souls who ever tried to hurt either one of them. He had to smile at the mental image of it all.
99 smiled, too, at the compliment, and it was weak, but it was also genuine. She shifted her fingers to faintly squeeze back. “Thanks, Max.”
They sat like that for a minute, and he found himself strangely marveling at where they were connected. Her hands were so small compared to his, but he knew from experience that they weren’t nearly as delicate as they looked, and why had he ever been afraid of this, of her, of how naturally they fit together? It all seemed so stupid when put in perspective.
He’d followed her all the way across an ocean, he reminded himself—without requesting a leave of absence or even informing the Chief of what he was doing. He, 86, who was always such a stickler for rules and protocol, had thrown them all out the window and effectively gone AWOL for her. Maybe his heart had already known, long before his head had been willing to listen.
Gently, Max traced his thumb across the back of her hand and took a breath. He could do this. He was ready. No more beating around the bush like a nervous school-boy. After all this time, he would finally tell her, and the chips could fall wherever they damn well pleased.
“99, I—”
But then there was a pounding at the front doors of the casino, and they both jumped in their seats. Like teenagers caught doing something they shouldn’t be, their hands automatically disengaged and the moment was lost.
“C’est la police!” they heard from outside. “Ouvrez la porte!”
-----
A/N: Nobody talks about how 99 quitting CONTROL in 3x19 was arguably an act of self-care (distancing herself from a man who ultimately isn’t good for her emotional well-being due to his inability to commit, and deciding to finally give it a real go with one who not only can, but has committed), and nobody talks about how when it all goes tits up this was probably really devastating for her on some level? Like maybe she feels like she’s forever doomed to this dangerous job and this unfulfilling relationship (because HE FOLLOWED HER ALL THE WAY ACROSS AN OCEAN, AND IT’S A FINE LINE BETWEEN ROMANCE AND STALKING, MAXWELL), and nobody talks about this, but I am Prepared To.
Anyway, I thought my last Get Smart fic was going to be my only Get Smart fic, but Baby’s First OTP is powerful, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This is definitely more serious in tone than the series (and consequently said other fic), but then, “99 Loses CONTROL” is one of the few episodes that takes the Max/99 relationship seriously, in and of itself. That’s probably why it’s a personal favorite and one I keep coming back to.
Regarding ages, Max is canonically thirty-five in the first season (despite being played by the then-forty-two Don Adams), but we never find out how old 99 is, so I’ve just headcanoned her as being the same age as Barbara Feldon. Which would make her thirty-two at the start, and presumably somewhere around thirty-five by the time “99 Loses CONTROL” rolls around. (Though there’s evidence to suggest that time, in-universe, lasts longer than one year per season, so maybe she’s even older?) Anyway, it makes sense to me that the ticking of her biological clock might have been one of the reasons she finally accepted Royal’s proposal—though I do also think she genuinely enjoyed his company and started to let herself develop some genuine feelings for him. (DO I HAVE A “99 and Victor meet” FIC IN MY HEAD? MAYBE, BUT WHO KNOWS IF IT’LL ACTUALLY GO ANYWHERE.)
Lastly, if the French at the very end there is wrong, please let me know!
All other fics can be found here.
