love like a storybook story

by Siria

Summary:

Once upon a time, in a magical kingdom called Atlantea that lay on the far edge of the seven seas, there lived an evil ruler.

Notes:

Fusion with the movie Enchanted. Some lines of dialogue have been taken directly from the movie; others have been reworked; much is entirely new. Many thanks to Sheafrotherdon for betaing, and catching my unintentional innuendo.

Once upon a time, in a magical kingdom called Atlantea that lay on the far edge of the seven seas, there lived an evil ruler. King Michael was selfish and cruel, and lived in fear of the day that his stepson would claim the throne. He had managed to cling to power for a long time by distracting his step-son with a list of internal improvements that were required before Atlantea would be safe enough for him to inherit it. Prince Meredith was a rule-oriented prince, and he readily agreed with his stepfather that it was important to vanquish all the dragons and corral all the trolls before he could ascend the throne. But shortly before Prince Meredith's thirtieth birthday, all the dragons were vanquished (or at least, Prince Meredith had arranged for a dragon resettlement programme to be founded in Atlantea's northern islands) and all the trolls corralled (or given their own small village where they could usefully set to work smelting the metals needed for the prince's alchemical experiments), and Prince Meredith declared that it was finally time for him to carry out the last task on his list: to find his one true love.

Prince Meredith consulted all the books of protocol, and all the histories of the fairy tale lands. They suggested that he do something complicated with slippers and foot measuring, but that didn't seem very hygienic, and also seemed to require the co-ordination of large numbers of people. Prince Meredith had many talents which were famed throughout the land, but his people skills were not one of them. So in the end, he saddled up his trusty steed, Carson, and set forth into the great forests which surrounded the city of Atlantea—after all, if something was worth doing right, it was worth doing yourself.

Meredith rode for a day and a night, as was traditional, and on the morning of the second day, he came across a cottage deep within the woods. It was made of wonderfully carved wood, painted blue and pink and white; from the chimney curled a neat plume of smoke, while newly laundered bed clothes swayed gently on the clothes line, and through the open windows, Meredith could smell fresh-baked apple pie and hear someone singing sweetly as they went about their work. This was all exactly as he expected, and so Prince Meredith dismounted from his trusty steed, and went to the door of the little cottage.

"Lo!" he called as he rapped on the door. "Who is within?"

A young woman appeared, wiping her hands on her apron. She had long brown hair, a smear of engine grease on her right cheek and a wrench shoved into her apron pocket. "My name is Jennifer," she said.

Meredith considered things for a moment. Jennifer seemed an eminently serviceable name for a princess. An Agnes or an Edgarina, he might have had to think about, but not a Jennifer. He cleared his throat; best to get this right on the first attempt. "Jennifer!" he declaimed. "I am Prince Meredith, and you are the fairest maid I have ever met. You were made to—"

"—Finish your duet? Oh." Jennifer bit her lip. "This is all so sudden, but I suppose… yes. Yes, I'll marry you!"

Meredith beamed at her. "Excellent!" he said. "Shall we be married in the morning?"

"Oh, do let's!" said Jennifer.

And so they were engaged.

***

One day was certainly not a very long time in wish to prepare for one's wedding to a fairytale prince, but Jennifer was an orphan who had grown up alone deep in the forests of Atlantea, and was nothing if not resourceful. She invented a machine which wove silken cloth of purest ivory (the thread was provided by some very obliging silk worms), and thanks to the nimble paws and swift stitching of her happy chipmunk friends Jennifer had a wedding dress fit for a future princess of Atlantea by the very next morning. The Good Witch Samantha, who lived in the next woodland glade over, did double-duty as a Fairy Godmother when it was the slow season for Good Witchery, and was kind enough to magic Jennifer a coach and four out of a pumpkin and some neighbourhood field mice.

Jennifer was a little apprehensive on the coach ride from her cottage to the castle, but it was nothing that a good ballad about her true love's embrace couldn't cure. She alighted from the coach at the gateway to the castle, clasping her hands together in joy at the thought that soon she would be pledged in matrimony to her true love, for ever and ever and ever. There she was met by a tall man clad all in black, who looked as if he never spent quite enough time outside, enjoying Atlantea's bright sunshine.

"I am… King Michael's personal gentleman," he said. "Sent to welcome you to the city of Atlantea."

"Oh!" Jennifer said. "How kind of him!"

"What a beautiful bride you make," the king's gentleman told her, smiling. What an awful lot of teeth he had. "Meredith sent me to meet you. The ceremony will start shortly, but first there was a little matter of… tradition he wanted you and I to see to."

"Oh!" Jennifer said. "That is very important." She had not spent a lot of time with Prince Meredith, but during their conversation he had impressed upon her how important it was that they do things exactly as they were written.

"It is a wishing well, my dear," the servant said, taking her by the arm and leading her away from the castle and into its gardens. "A place where all young brides go on the day of their wedding to make sure that, well… things go as they as supposed to."

"All my wishes are about to come true," Jennifer assured him happily.

"Indeed. But a wish on your wedding day is the most magical of all," said the servant. He led her to a great circular archway sheltered by tall pine trees—by some trick of magic, the archway contained a pool of shimmering blue water. Jennifer felt her eyes grow wide. "This is the great Well of Atlantea. Just… close your eyes and make your wish."

"Oh," Jennifer said, clasping her hands together and closing her eyes. "Well, I wish that Prince Meredith and I will both get to live happily ever after." And then she felt herself get shoved roughly forwards, and Jennifer fell.

***

It was dark, and then it was cold—so cold that as Jennifer fell, her skin prickled with goose bumps. "Oh my, oh my, oh my!" she said, a chill wind rushing past her, and she couldn't tell which way was up and which was down. She twisted and tumbled and then the world righted itself and she was lying on the ground in a small, dark place. It smelled bad, and the air around her rumbled with muffled noise. She couldn't understand what had happened—was she in part of the castle's dungeons? Had she fainted and forgotten where she was?—but then caught sight of several holes in the ground below her, like tiny windows, that were letting through shafts of light. Curious, Jennifer crawled over towards them—if there was light, perhaps she could find her way out, back to Prince Meredith—but when she pressed her hands against it, a whole section of the ground pushed down and away with a metallic scraping noise.

Jennifer crawled through and found herself—well, she wasn't quite sure where. The air all around her was alive with noise—conversations and shouts, sirens and music and the rumbling of strange, fascinating wheeled machines that rolled slowly past her. There were people, too, more people than Jennifer had seen in one place in her whole life. Most of them ignored her, but some looked back when they caught Jennifer staring at them—and oh, she knew it was rude, but she couldn't help it! There were women wearing trousers, and men wearing long robes a little like a wizard's, and people with hair all the colour of the rainbow. At first, she thought that she must be dreaming, but Jennifer had never dreamed anything quite like this—none of her dreams had ever had such a combination of smells and noise, of people yelling at her and machines rushing at her, the train of her wedding gown catching and tearing on the edge of the tunnel as she climbed out of it. The ground beneath her was wet, soaking right through her thin slippers, and the narrow streets that seemed to be carved out between impossibly tall buildings were all unfamiliar to her. If this was some part of Atlantea City, Jennifer couldn't think what area it would possibly be—though it smelled like the place where the servants might bring the night soil.

She stumbled over to the pathway, but although the pathway was crowded with people, not one of them would help her. Jennifer explained her situation to several of them—that she needed to find her way to the castle, to marry her true love—but some people yelled at her, and some people called her rude names, and most of them wouldn't even look her in the eye. They pretended they couldn't see her, but Jennifer could tell by the flush in their cheeks and the look of guilt in their eyes that they did. She didn't understand.

She walked along several streets, hoping to find her way back to the castle, but the deepening night only made the buildings around her seem taller and more threatening. It started to rain in earnest. Jennifer tried to keep her chin up, to sing a happy song, but that only seemed to attract strange looks from the few people still walking the streets. "I wish I could find a friendly face!" she said, hugging her arms around herself in an attempt to keep warm. The dress that had looked so pretty on the dress form when she and her friends had made it now seemed like a very poor choice of clothing indeed—it was heavy and cold, and the damp lace itched at her collar and wrists. Finding a little hollow where she could curl up for the night and sleep was sounding like a very good idea indeed when all of a sudden, there at the end of the street, high up on top of another building, she saw it—the castle. It was a little smaller than she remembered, and pink instead of blue, but Jennifer hadn't quite been able to trust her eyes today, so she picked up her skirts and ran towards it.

In her haste, she ran out across the street without checking to see if there were other people in her way, or even a horse and carriage, and so the yellow wheeled machine coming straight for her took her by surprise. Jennifer shrieked and tried to jump out of the way, but the machine let out a horrible, metallic noise and ground to a halt. For a moment, there was no sound except the hammering of Jennifer's heart in her chest; then three doors opened in the yellow machine and three people emerged. The first gentleman was short and stout with a long beard that made her think of Grumpy the Dwarf, and he was shouting at her so loudly and so quickly that Jennifer couldn't understand him. Behind him was a tall man in a tailored suit of clothing, his long hair in locks that were pulled back from his face, and on the other side of the car a small girl, no more than five or six years old.

The first man continued to rant, but the taller one looked steadily at her for a moment before arching his eyebrows and saying, "You okay?"

"Oh, I'm perfectly all right!" Jennifer said, and then because she thought it could not do any harm to ask, she said, "I'm looking for Prince Meredith. Do any of you know him? It's just that we were supposed to be married today, but I cannot find him and I'm afraid nobody's been very nice to me."

The tall man grunted. "Welcome to New York," he said.

"Oh, thank you," Jennifer said gratefully. She had thought that perhaps this city had no one in it so polite as the chipmunks—it was so refreshing to know that there was at least one person here who had good manners.

The tall man stared at her for a long moment, then blinked. "You sure you're all right?"

The little girl walked right up to Jennifer, and stood toe-to-toe with her, peering up at her curiously. "Are you a princess?" she asked.

"Not yet!" Jennifer told her. "But when I marry my prince, I will be!"

"I'm Nalani!" the little girl told her. "And this is my daddy." She pointed at the tall man.

"Well, I'm very pleased to meet you!" Jennifer shook her hand and made a little curtsey, which Nalani tried to imitate with a giggle.

"Right," Nalani's father said slowly. "Okay, Nalani, we have to go. You sure you're all right?" he asked Jennifer again.

"Oh, yes!"

He turned as if to go towards the yellow machine, then back again. "You need me to call somebody for you?" he said, pulling a rectangular lump of dull black metal out of his suit pocket.

Jennifer frowned. He was a tall man, with a well-developed chest, but she doubted even he would have the range required for people to hear him in Atlantea. "I don't think they'd hear you from here," she pointed out. The tall man stared at her for a long moment.

"Hey, my meter is still running!" the grumpy man said. "You going, or you staying with Fruit Loop here?"

***

Nalani and her father—his name was Ronon Dex, he told Jennifer, but she could call him Ronon—lived in a building as tall as a castle. It didn't look much like the castles with which Jennifer was most familiar. Instead of sprawling out behind stone-built walls, this building was made of just one straight, square turret, and inside it was all straight lines and angles. Nalani led them into a small, metal box and pressed a button that made the door close and the floor shiver under Jennifer's feet. Her stomach felt strange, as if she were being tossed up in the air, and when the door opened again, it was onto a whole new place—a long corridor with pale walls and many doors and carpet that was plush and red under Jennifer's torn slippers.

"Was that magic?" she said, looking back at the box. It didn't seem as if Nalani had cast a spell, but after the kind of day Jennifer had had—well, one never knew!

"No, silly!" Nalani said. "That's an elevator."

"Oh," Jennifer said, though that didn't really clarify anything at all.

Nalani squinted up at her. "You know—it's a machine. You get into it and you press a button for where you want to go and whoosh! You go up to the floor you want."

Jennifer's eyes widened. "I've never seen a machine like that before!" She looked back over her shoulder at it as they walked down the hallway, trying not to stumble over her bedraggled skirts. How fascinating it would be to take the elevator box apart and see how it worked!

Nalani came to a halt in front of a door that said '972' on it in big metal figures. Ronon opened it with a key, and it swung open to show… "Oh!" Jennifer said when she walked inside. "It's a whole house inside another building!" There was a drawing room, with several comfortable looking chairs and a pianoforte, its walls lined with overflowing bookcases. Big windows looked out over this strange new city, and through an archway to her right Jennifer could see a kitchen with an odd kind of cooking range and several metal boxes that hummed quietly to themselves and made Jennifer long for her wrench. She knew it wasn't appropriate for a future Princess of Atlantea to carry tools around with her, but it was all so fascinating. She clapped her hands together. "I've seen so many wonders behind doors and portals today!"

Ronon set down his briefcase and shrugged off his suit jacket. "Uh huh," he said. "What kind of doors?"

"Well, the king's manservant told me to look into the wishing well and to wish for my heart's desire. But maybe I looked too far and fell in, because I fell. I fell such a long way, and when I got to the bottom I climbed out of a big, round hole in the middle of a street! And I didn't know where I was, and I walked such a long way until I saw the castle. Or thought I did, at least. And I was hurrying to get to it, and then there you were in that yellow box of yours, and now here I am with you."

"I'm going to the bathroom, daddy!" Nalani said, having divested herself of her brightly coloured backpack, her hat and coat and scarf and shoes, leaving them in a heap near the door.

"Pick up your stuff first, honey," Ronon said, and Nalani grumbled and sighed, but picked up her things before scampering down yet another hallway. He looked back at Jennifer. "This a habit of yours?"

"Getting lost?" Jennifer drifted a little further into the house. There was a big panel on wall, that was almost shiny enough to be a mirror, but so dark that she could hardly make herself out. She turned her head this way and that, trying to make out her reflection. "Oh, no. Normally I stay at home with the chipmunks. But don't worry! I'm sure that Meredith is already looking for me. He will find me and rescue me and take me back home, and we can share in true love's kiss."

Ronon cocked an eyebrow at her. "True love's kiss?"

"Well, yes." Jennifer blinked at him, before recovering himself enough to smile. What kind of a place was this, where people didn't know the most important part of a happy ending? "If we are to be married, it's important that we share it—it's the most powerful thing in the world, after all!"

"Uh huh," Ronon said, loosening his tie. "Well, phone's over there, if you want to use it. Or—"

"Oh, no, thank you," Jennifer said politely. She didn't know what a phone was, but it seemed rude to question someone's offer like that. "All I need is a place to rest my head for the night, until Meredith finds me!"

"A place," Ronon said flatly.

"A meadow full of fragrant grasses, or a hollow tree," Jennifer said, ticking those things off on her fingers. "All quite traditional. Or a house full of dwarves—they're a very hospitable people."

There was a long moment of silence before Ronon rubbed at his forehead and said, "Okay. Well, all I can do is let you use the phone. Dry off, maybe." He looked at her dress, which was mud-spattered and damp. "You don't have anything besides that dress?"

"Don't you like it?" Jennifer knew it was no longer as beautiful as it had been that morning, but she was still proud of it. "I gathered the silk from my silkworm friends, and spun it into thread on my spinning wheel, and made it myself! Well, the mice and rabbits did help with the sewing—their paws are so small, they're able to do very neat stitch work, don't you think?"

"Okay," Ronon said slowly, "I think we should get you a car to go to the hospital."

"A hospital?" Jennifer was confused. She sat down on one of the big chairs, because she was so tired and her feet ached and it was getting so difficult to concentrate when everyone was being so strange. "But I'm not ill."

Nalani reappeared, having changed her clothes for a fleecy looking pair of pyjamas. She carried a stuffed toy animal under one arm, and made it wave at Jennifer with one little paw. Jennifer waved back, then had to hide a yawn behind one hand. "Can't she sleep here, Daddy?"

"No," Ronon said, taking that rectangular thing out of his pocket again and pressing some buttons on it. "That's a big no."

Jennifer yawned again, and then laid her head against the chair's soft cushions. Surely it couldn't hurt to just rest her eyes for a moment? She would have a big day tomorrow, when she and Meredith would return to Atlantea and be married!

"She's really sleepy, Daddy!" Nalani said.

"That doesn't matter," Jennifer heard Ronon say. "We don't know her, and I don't think she's well, honey. She's a… very confused lady. She can't stay here."

"But I think she might be a real princess!" Nalani protested.

"Just because she's got a funny dress on doesn't mean she's a princess," Ronon said. Jennifer wanted to say that of course that was true—she wasn't a princess yet—that she could only be a princess if she found the man destined to give her true love's kiss—but her eyes were heavy and the chair was soft, and she slept.

***

Meredith pushed the strange grating out of the way and hauled himself up onto what seemed to be a strange, broad street. He turned in a full circle, but with such a crush of people and so many strange buildings, he couldn't see Jennifer anywhere. Carson had told Meredith that he had seen Jennifer walk into the castle's gardens, but not come out again. From all the texts of the Ancestors that Meredith had read, all the plans of the castle he had consulted, she could only have come through the portal. Meredith had been prepared to journey to this other city to find her—it was just, he realised, craning his neck to take in the height of the buildings around him, he had not thought the city would be so big. "Fear not, Jennifer!" he called out, hoping that she had not wandered too far. "It is I, Prince Meredith! I will rescue you!"

There was no sign of Jennifer, but four men in strange fluorescent jackets and blue trousers came over to him. "Hey, buddy!" one of them said, pointing at Meredith. "You ain't got no—"

Meredith held up a hand. "Silence! Your name, peasant! And quickly, please, there is no time to spare."

The lead peasant blinked at him. "Artie."

"Well, Artie," Meredith said, in a voice full of bonhomie—his very best speaking-with-the-peasantry voice, "Are you in league with whoever took my sweet Jennifer from me? They have sent my sweet Jennifer to this foul place, though we are to be wed!"

Artie gaped at him.

Meredith rolled his eyes—he was tired and worried, two things which always combined to make him impatient. "What say you, sirrah? Try my patience, and you will face my sword."

"What are you talking about?" one of Artie's companions ventured.

"Isn't it obvious?" Meredith said. He sighed, and then started to recite by rote, "I seek a beautiful girl—my other half, my one coquette, the answer to my love's duet." Surely such things were known even to the least civilised?

Artie sniggered. "I'd like to find one of them too, buddy, but you're better off going on Craig's List if you want any of that kinky role-playing shit."

Meredith lifted his chin in the air and feigned confidence, though he didn't know what Artie was talking about. "I do not know this Craig, but I will keep a wary eye out for him. Good day to you, Artie," he said, and marched off down the street. This was why he tried not to associate with the peasantry—he'd never been able to pick up their slang. Still, he was sure that he could find Jennifer without their help—this place may have been crowded and strange, but how large could it be? He was certain that he would find Jennifer before lunch.

***

Jennifer began to stir with the first rays of light peeking through the windows. She yawned and stretched her arms over her head and wriggled her toes, revelling in the feeling of being well rested. Between anticipation and excitement, she'd hardly had a moment's rest since Prince Meredith first came to her door. Neither Ronon nor Nalani appeared to be awake yet, but that was okay. There were plenty of things to occupy her while she was waiting for them to rise. She would never have said it out loud, not when she was a guest in their home, but the apartment needed a thorough cleaning—she would have sworn that Ronon had no bluebird friends to help him dust! She rolled up her sleeves and scrubbed down kitchen counters, cleaned dishes, placed books and magazines neatly on their appropriate shelves, mopped the floors, and many other things. Jennifer even found something called an instructional manual in a drawer which showed her how to put the dirty clothes into a fascinating white box with some detergent so that they would clean themselves. It was a little more work than usual without her happy chipmunk helpers, but it felt good to be useful while she was still waiting for Meredith.

By the time she was finished, Jennifer felt overly warm and the hem of her skirt was thoroughly filthy. Ordinarily, Jennifer would have bathed in a clear mountain stream, but she doubted she could find something similar close to Ronon and Nalani's home. She was sure, however, that they would at least have a pitcher of water somewhere—but a little investigation and a recollection of Nalani's mention of a 'bathroom' the previous evening brought Jennifer to a room with a great cast iron bath tub, which filled itself with water when she fiddled with its controls. The water could be made to turn hotter, or colder, or more powerful, and for a long moment, Jennifer was torn between her curiosity as to how it worked and her desire to be clean. Cleanliness won out, and she stripped off her tattered dress and climbed into the tub.

The hot water was delicious, and Jennifer let her head roll back and savoured it for several minutes before looking around for the soap. She didn't find any, just brightly coloured bottles which proclaimed that they could clean the body and soften and brighten the hair. They smelled like alchemical potions; Jennifer applied them gingerly to her skin at first, relieved when she didn't turn into a frog or lose her voice or get stolen away by fairies. You never knew, really, when potions were involved. Jennifer was clambering out of the tub and wrapping herself in one of the large, soft grey towels when the bathroom door opened. "Nalani, are you ready for—oh, Christ." Ronon took a step backward and clapped one big hand over his eyes. What a strange man, Jennifer thought, shaking her head.

"Oh, good morning, Ronon! I hope you had nice dreams!"

"Still in one," he mumbled. He certainly did look rather sleepy, with his eyes heavy-lidded, his locks hanging loose around his face, and his bare toes—peeking out from the ends of too-long plaid pyjama pants—were curled against the hardwood floors.

"This is a wonderful bath tub," Jennifer told him. "Where does the water come from? Do you use aqueducts to bring it here from the mountains?"

"Uh." He blinked at her. "The water comes from the pipes."

"And where do the pipes get it?" Jennifer was intrigued. It was all so much more complex than it seemed at first glance—and now that she thought of it, this house was rather high up off the ground. However did they pump the water at sufficient pressure to raise it up so high? She wished for a pencil and notebook in which to sketch out her thoughts, or at least a friendly bluebird to sing to while formulating her ideas.

"I—uh." Ronon was interrupted by a knock at the front door and Nalani's chirrup of I'll get that, Daddy! "No answering the door, Nalani! We've been over this." He looked back at Jennifer, and sighed when he heard the door open regardless. "You just… stay. I'll be right back."

Ronon walked down the hallway towards the front door. Jennifer, curious at the voices she was hearing, padded along behind him—what if it was Meredith, having found her? She peered around the corner to see that Nalani was reaching up to clap her palm flat against the palm of a man who looked maybe a year or two than Ronon. He was wearing a suit similar to the one Ronon had worn yesterday, but the way he slouched made it seem rumpled, and Jennifer had never seen hair like his before.

"Hi, Uncle John!" Nalani crowed.

"Hey, little bit," John said to Nalani, "You not ready to go yet? Why do you still have your PJs on?"

"We have been very busy," Nalani said gravely.

"Busy, huh?" John cocked an eyebrow at Ronon, and then jerked his head in the direction of the living room. "What's your dad been up to? Must be pretty big if it makes him clean."

"Oh, I did that!" Jennifer volunteered. "There wasn't really that much to it!"

John's jaw dropped, and Ronon rolled his head back on his shoulders and let out something suspiciously close to an exasperated sigh. Jennifer didn't understand why. "Ronon," John said out of the corner of his mouth, "who is the nice young lady in your apartment at 6.30 wearing a towel and a smile?"

"Sheppard," Ronon said, "Just… don't. It's not what you think."

"I'm Jennifer!" She held out her hand for John to shake. "It's very nice to meet you! I was on my way to the castle to get married—"

"You two are married?" The look on John's face was comical; his eyebrows could do very strange things. "Geez, Ronon, don't you think that's kind of rushing things after—"

"She's not married yet, silly," Nalani called from the kitchen. She was busy pouring milk and many small, circular brown things into a bowl. "She got lost looking for Prince Meredith and me and Daddy found her and brought her home."

"Oh," John said, nodding his head, "Well, that explains it. She got lost looking for her prince, so Ronon here takes her home and helps her find… the shower."

"The shower is wonderful, John," Jennifer assured him.

"I'm sure it is," John said, very sincerely.

"Okay, that's enough." Ronon pointed at John—"Be quiet"—at Nalani—"Finish your breakfast, brush your teeth, get dressed"—and at Jennifer—"Nalani, find her some of your mom's old yoga clothes to wear. They're in the box in my closet."

"Okay, Daddy," Nalani mumbled around her mouthful of food. "C'mon, Jennifer, this way!" She hopped off her stool and pattered down the hallway.

"You don't have to worry about finding me clothes, you know," Jennifer said, following her into what must be Ronon's bedroom. A big bed stood against one wall, neatly made; on a small table beside it were a lamp and a towering stack of books. The walls were a pale brown, the curtains and bed clothes a deep cream. Jennifer approved of it; it seemed like exactly the kind of room where Ronon could have sweet dreams. "I have a dress!"

"You got it very dirty," Nalani said dubiously. She pulled open the closet door and switched on the light to reveal on the left several neatly pressed suits, and on the right two dozen t-shirts and jeans. The shoes on the floor showed the same kind of demarcation—deep-polished black shoes on the left; shoes that looked as if they were made of light-weight canvas on the right, in many different colours—and in the middle of the two groups of shoes were several boxes with Elizabeth scrawled on them in big letters. Nalani opened up one and started to pull out some clothes, but Jennifer shook her head.

"No, honestly," she said. "Look!" She took Nalani's hand and led her into the bathroom, where she'd left the dress while she was bathing. "See?" She picked it up and shook it out for Nalani to see before she wriggled into it. It might have been much less elaborate than her wedding dress, but the soft blue cloth was very comfortable, and much more like the clothing she tended to wear when back in her own little cottage.

The little girl's eyes widened. "Where did you get that? Was it magic?"

"Oh, no, not this," Jennifer said. "I found some fabric and made it this morning."

Nalani frowned. "Where did you find fabric?" she asked, just as Ronon and John's voices got much louder and Jennifer heard footsteps heading down the corridor towards them.

"What happened?" he asked Jennifer, holding up the pair of scissors and the remnants of his curtains. "What is—Nalani, school clothes, please." Nalani scurried out of the bathroom, then Ronon said, "Did you make a dress out of my curtains?"

"Yes!" Jennifer said, doing a quick twirl. "Do you like it?"

He didn't have to say anything—he set of Ronon's mouth answered that question for her. She stopped mid-twirl and clasped her hands in front of her. "Oh, you're unhappy!"

Ronon's jaw tightened. "Not unhappy—angry. I'll get you where you need to go, but then that's it. It's done, okay?"

"Angry?" Jennifer said, nonplussed. She had heard about anger, of course—there were people in books who got angry—but she'd never felt it herself. As far as she could make out, it was what happened when you weren't as happy as you should be—and everyone should be happy all the time, the books were always very clear about that. Her heart ached for him—what must it be like, to be unhappy? "Would you like to sing for you?"

"What?"

"Something reassuring and cheering," Jennifer said. She frowned, trying to think of something that would work—she realised that all the songs she knew were about being happy, but she didn't think she knew any about how to cheer someone up, or how to accept something as terrifying as anger with fortitude. "Perhaps a beautiful ballad, or a… why are you staring at me?"

"You always this happy?"

Jennifer didn't know how to answer that, so she fell back on good manners. "Excuse me?"

"It's like you escaped from a Hallmark card."

"Is that a bad thing?" Jennifer didn't like the thoughts of having to escape from anything.

"Okay, Daddy, Uncle John is going to take me to school!" Nalani interrupted them, calling out at the top of her lungs as she ran down the hallway, feet clattering on the hardwood floors and her school satchel trailing behind her. "We're late! Bye, Daddy!"

"Sheppard, you're not to feed her any—" Ronon started to say, but both Nalani and John ignored him.

"You wanna stop and get something full of sugar and additives before you go to school?" John said, taking Nalani's satchel in one hand and her hand in the other. "I hear hyperactivity is awesome."

"Yay!"

"Sheppard!" Ronon said, but the door swung closed behind them, and Ronon let his head fall back against the doorjamb. "I hate Thursdays," he mumbled.

"Really?" Jennifer said. "I've always quite liked them!" Ronon turned and walked down the corridor to his bedroom without another word and closed the door softly behind him; Jennifer winced a little and looked at the now-closed door and wondered why her words hadn't cheered up Ronon, or even quite herself.

***

The city was far larger than anything Meredith had ever seen, its buildings taller than even Atlantea's towers. The streets were broad and well paved—curiously uniform, too; had they used magic, to make them so level?—and the people here had tamed great steel beasts to transport the peasantry. His eye was continually being caught by something new and amazing, and more than once, Meredith bumped into someone.

"Nice tights, jerk," a woman with a haircut shorter than his own sneered when he accidentally trod on her toe.

"These are hose, specially spun from the finest quality yarn!" Meredith pointed out, but the woman continued on her way without so much as a backward glance. "Charming."

"Compensating for something?" a man snapped when the flimsy white satchel he was carrying became entangled with Meredith's sword. "Why don't you fuck off back to Disney World, huh?"

"And I bite my thumb at you, sir!" Meredith shot back. It lacked a little something in finesse, true, but the very fact that he had allowed himself the retort—he could not remember the last time he had allowed himself to express what he felt when he had been irritated with someone. He could not remember the last time he had allowed himself to feel irritated. It felt… strangely good. "Huh," he said, and shrugged, and continued on down the street in search of his Jennifer.

***

Ronon re-emerged from his bedroom dressed in the same kind of stiff-looking suit he'd worn the day before. He found Jennifer a pair of shoes to wear, since the delicate slippers she'd intended to wear for her wedding were still soaked through, and hurried her out the door. "Where are we going?" Jennifer asked him as they left the elevator box and exited the building. Ronon's strides were much longer than her own, and she had to hurry to keep up with him.

"Can't leave you home alone. You're coming to work with me," Ronon said. His lips quirked upwards. "Unless you suddenly remembered where home is."

Jennifer thought carefully. "No, I haven't. But I am still sure that Meredith will find me!"

"Sure," Ronon said, and was quiet for the rest of the trip to his office. It was in another tall building, this one fronted all in glass, and the trip in the elevator took so long that it made Jennifer a little nervous. The elevator doors opened into a room that was all thick-piled carpet, chrome and glass. A woman sat at a large semi-circular desk, tapping away at a funny metal box with a large screen. Behind her on the wall in embossed metal letters were the words Sheppard and Hammond - Attorneys at Law.

"Sheppard?" Jennifer asked. "Does John work here, too?"

Ronon shrugged. "He has an office here. Sometimes he does work."

"I don't quite understand," Jennifer said. Everyone had a place in Atlantea, everyone had an assigned role that they were born to and followed faithfully—the sons of bakers became bakers, the daughters of seamstresses became seamstresses, and it was only if you were lucky enough to catch the eye of a prince that there was any chance of you changing your stars.

"Yeah," Ronon said, "neither does John's dad." He put his briefcase down on the desk and leaned in to the woman sitting there. "Amelia, please don't tell me Dr Jackson is here."

"Dr Jackson is already here," Amelia said, with only a ghost of a grin. She put several envelopes and two files down on top of Ronon's briefcase. "And so is Mrs. Jackson and her lawyer. They're all in Conference Room B." Jennifer saw Ronon flinch and cast a wary look down the corridor to his right.

"Great. How long?"

Amelia arched her eyebrows. "Do you want to know?"

Ronon sighed. "No. Listen, I need you to handle something for me while I'm in there."

Amelia held up both her hands in mock surrender. "If you want me to lie for John again, I'm not going to do it. I'm all ears if you want to tell me whatever it is the idiot did now, but Papa Sheppard is scary, and I like being employed."

"For once, it's not him," Ronon said. He pointed at Jennifer. "See her?"

"Uh huh." The look Amelia gave Ronon was knowing, though Jennifer didn't understand why.

"She's lost, and I'm pretty sure she's not from here. Find out where she's from and get her back there—plane, train, bus. I don't care. And when John finally turns up, tell him if he did give my daughter sugar before nine in the morning, I'll hurt him."

"Okay," Amelia said, dragging out all her vowels. "You go get 'em, tiger. I'll stay here with…"

"Oh! I'm Jennifer," Jennifer supplied. She put out her hand for Amelia to shake, and smiled at her. "It's so very nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too," Amelia said wryly. She looked up at Ronon. "Definitely not from New York, then."

Ronon snorted before picking up his briefcase and walking away down the corridor. Jennifer smiled once more at Amelia, and hoped that she didn't look as nervous as she felt.

***

Meredith walked up and down streets, weaving in and out of alleys, for so long that his feet—even though he was wearing the special orthopaedic boots that his cobbler had personally made for him—were beginning to ache. The black and grey substance which made up the roads here was unforgiving, and Meredith wished more than once that he and Jennifer were safely back in Atlantea, where nothing bad ever happened and all the days were happy in just the same way as the ones before. He was about to sit down and rest by the side of one of the buildings, no matter how unhygienic the footpaths looked, when all of a sudden, right in front of him, he noticed it—the city abruptly giving way to trees and greenery, lush against the grey of the buildings and the blue of the sky.

"The Enchanted Forest!" Meredith cried out, delighted.

"It's just Central Park, for Christ's sake," a woman wearing perilously spiked heels said as she passed him. "Tourists."

He hurried across the street and into the park. Surely this was where he would find Jennifer, in the middle of this oasis—no doubt she had come to find sanctuary with the chipmunks. Inside, however, Meredith found neither Jennifer nor chipmunks, though the park was almost as full as the streets outside it—people flashed past him on shoes with many small wheels attached, or on strange, thin metal frames which balanced on two large wheels; there were street artists of all kinds, painted and wearing outlandish costumes, just as there would have been at a festival back home; there were many carts from which vendors sold flavoured ices and some kind of edible pink cotton and long, thin sausages in buns. Meredith was tempted by the food, but none of the sellers would accept his coin, for all that it was good Atlantean coin of the realm.

"Of course it's real!" he protested to one of them, pointing at the five solidus piece in his hand. "Don't you see how it has my step-father's portrait on the reverse?"

"Yeah, buddy," the guy answered, "And I'm the Queen of frickin' Sheba."

Meredith was feeling rather discouraged, but then he saw a horse and carriage crossing over a low bridge in front of him. His eyes widened—was it Carson? "Wait!" he called, "Wait!" scrambling up the low embankment to reach the path along which the horse was travelling. He ran panting until he caught up with him, catching hold of the reins so that Meredith could slow him down and talk properly. Up close, the horse didn't look so much like Carson—though the colouring was very similar, Meredith had to admit—but perhaps this horse might know where Jennifer was. Horses were very gossipy creatures, everybody knew that.

"What ho, faithful steed," Meredith said. This horse, admittedly, looked like neither particularly faithful nor much like a noble steed, but Meredith believed in proper etiquette. "Have you had any word of a young woman, recently arrived here from Atlantea? Her name is Jennifer; she has hair the colour of new honey and eyes as brown as… whatever the poets think I should compare brown eyes to. She is to be my bride!"

"Hey, buddy!" yelled the coachman. "What in the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Do you mind?" Meredith said, irritated. "I'm trying to ask this horse a question!"

"I don't care if you want to make sweet love to it," the coachman said. "You're going to back away now, or I'll call the cops."

"You have no civic conscience!" Meredith said, taking a reluctant step back—and it was another black mark against the coachman, Meredith thought, that he didn't look at all wounded by that, but drove on without a backwards glance.

***

There was not much to see in the foyer—no exciting machines; no glossy, flimsy books full of people in outlandish clothes and women in trousers, and hardly anyone to talk to. Amelia showed her what a computer was, and some of the basics of how it operated, but flatly refused to allow Jennifer to take it apart to see how the mechanical parts worked together. "I don't think so," she'd said to Jennifer's request. "No one gets between me and my Mac. But hey, if you want to practice on a computer that's never used, you could always go find John's office."

"Really?" Jennifer asked, excited.

"No, honey," Amelia said. "Maybe you should go sit and wait for Ronon to be done. Shouldn't be much longer—with this lot, you can generally tell when they're done for the day when the shouting gets so loud no one can hear anyone else's insults."

So Jennifer sat in one of the over-stuffed leather chairs, and waited, and hummed a reassuring ballad to herself, and waited. It seemed as if a long, long time had passed before Ronon finally reappeared. He was accompanied by a petite, copper-haired woman wearing a sharply tailored suit; a rumpled-looking man with round glasses whose hands were hidden in his pockets; and a tall, dark-haired woman wearing leather trousers who had quite a look of mischief on her face.

"Well, that went well," said the rumpled man—he must be Dr Jackson, Jennifer realised—his voice dry as a desert.

"Everyone's being reasonable," Ronon rumbled.

"And we are all grateful for that," said the woman with copper hair. Her mouth curved up into a guarded, pleasant smile. "I believe we might be able to come to a swift agreement."

Ronon nodded at her and smiled. Jennifer couldn't remember seeing him smile so broadly at anyone who wasn't Nalani before, and the effect was extraordinary—she had always understood that he was a handsome man, but his smile lit up his face with such generosity of spirit that it almost took Jennifer's breath away. "Okay," he said, "let me just set up a time with my assistant, and we can draw up the papers next week."

"Sounds good," said Dr Jackson.

"Excellent," said Mrs Jackson, her hands on her hips.

Ronon walked over to Amelia's desk. She leaned in to him and said, "10.15, next Wednesday. But listen—your friend Jenny here? She's got no driver's license, no Social Security Number, no passport, nothing. I can't find any mention of her online, and my Google-fu is strong. I can't even find this place she says she's from—Atlantea? It's not a country, it's not a city; all I find when I search for it are some really terrible self-published fantasy novels."

"Nothing at all?" Ronon said. He looked over his shoulder at her. Jennifer smiled and waved.

"Well, it's really hard to nail down a location when all she'll tell me is that she lives in a cottage in the Enchanted Forest, just beyond the Meadows of Joy and up the slope from the Valley of Contentment."

Those directions were all true, but Ronon didn't seem to react well to them—nor to the fact that Jennifer could hear what he and Amelia were saying. Feeling that some tact was required, she stood up and strolled over to the other side of the foyer, where the others were waiting—or at least, to where the lawyer was waiting, Dr. Jackson was fidgeting, and Mrs. Jackson was leaning against a wall and leering at some of the women and most of the men who walked past. "Well, hello," she said when Jennifer got close, her smile as broad as a shark's. "Aren't you a lovely little bit of Amish delight?"

"Thank you!" Jennifer said, though she wasn't really sure what that meant. "Your hair is lovely! You're beautiful—the man who holds your heart is a lucky man indeed!"

Mrs. Jackson snorted. "You try telling him that."

"Oh, I'm sure he already knows!" Jennifer hastened to reassure her.

"Excuse me?" said Dr. Jackson.

"Well, just look at the way her eyes sparkle when she looks at you!" Jennifer said. "No wonder you two are in love."

"That's not love," Dr. Jackson said, "that's murderous bile."

Jennifer blinked at him, not sure that she'd heard him correctly, but was saved from having to say anything when Ronon walked back over. He took her gently by the elbow and started to steer her away. "Excuse me," he said to the others; "Jennifer," he said to her, "Please don't—it's not like that, okay? They're not together anymore."

"I don't understand."

"They're getting a divorce—separating from each other," he explained when she shook her head at him in incomprehension.

"Separating?"

"Yeah."

"For how long?" Jennifer said, trying not to wring her hands in distress.

"Forever."

"Forever and ever?" Jennifer didn't think she'd ever heard anything so horrible; tears of sympathy stung at her eyes. The stories always ended when the boy and the girl got married and lived together happily ever after—there was always happiness, and it always lasted, just as day followed night. Jennifer couldn't comprehend a world where anything could be true.

"Yeah," Ronon said, casting a wary look at the others, "Just—are you crying? Don't cry."

"I'm sorry," Jennifer said, scrubbing at her damp cheeks and trying her very best not to hiccup. "I can't help it. It's just so sad!"

"Is she actually crying?" Mrs. Jackson said, sounding faintly bored. "Lacks in subtlety."

"Not exactly professional," her husband said—her former husband, Jennifer corrected herself, and that made her sob all over again.

"If this is an attempt at manipulation," the lawyer said, "we will have to reconsider the terms of our agreement."

"We're not manipulating you, Ms Emmagan," Ronon said, but got only an arched eyebrow for his pains and a painfully polite statement that she and her client would see Dr. Jackson and Mr. Dex next week.

When one elevator door closed behind Ms Emmagan and Mrs. Jackson, and another behind Dr Jackson, Ronon turned and looked at her silently. The tense line of his shoulders made Jennifer's muscles ache in sympathy—all the more so when Ronon said, "What is wrong with you?"

"There is nothing wrong with me," Jennifer said, hurrying after him as he led her into the elevator which had returned, empty. "It's those poor people! They must be in such pain—to be separated forever! Married one day and the next they're not—what sort of an awful place is this?"

"Reality," Ronon said tersely.

"I think I'd prefer to be in Atlantea," Jennifer said, feeling her chin jut out stubbornly.

"I'd like that too," Ronon said, and Jennifer didn't look at him once for the rest of the elevator ride.

***

Meredith decided to sit down for a moment or two on a bench, discouraged and in need of rest. He had a pebble in his boot, and he pulled the boot off and shook it, then spent a minute or two massaging his aching feet. "This is why I should never leave the castle without help," he mumbled to himself. "I am without my trusty steed, I lost my fiancée, my feet hurt, I'm hungry, and I have no idea how to find my way home."

A man walking past threw a small green piece of paper into the top of Meredith's boot. "Hey," he said, "Great costume, dude. Have lunch on me."

Meredith fished the piece of paper out of his boot. 'Twenty dollars', it proclaimed in blocky capitals, beneath a picture of a gentleman with a bouffant-looking hairdo. "It is possible to exchange this paper for goods and services?" he asked the man. "Just like with coin of the realm?"

The man stuck his thumb up at Meredith. "Method, I totally respect that. You have a good day, man."

"Thank you!" Meredith said, and stuck up his thumb in thanks. A strange custom, but Meredith was glad to find that at least some of the peasants in this strange city were friendly.

***

Ronon led her out of the building and across the street into an expanse of trees and greenery of the kind that Jennifer hadn't seen since she'd arrived here from Atlantea. It was a refreshing change from the straight lines and angles of the city's buildings, and the grass was cool and sweet beneath her feet. "Oh, this is so lovely," she said as they walked deeper into the park. "Is that a lake?"

"Ok, look," Ronon said, brow furrowed. "I can't help you anymore. You can't—I have Nalani, and I have my job, and that's it. So I'm going to give you some money"—he shoved a crumpled wad of green paper into Jennifer's hand—"and help you find a cop. He can help you find your prince, because this isn't me."

"Ronon?" Jennifer asked, but he wouldn't look her in the eye. "I'm sorry. You've been a very kind friend to me when I had no one, and I would never want to make you unhappy, or cause you any trouble. I will go to find this… this cop," she said, pronouncing the unfamiliar word carefully. "I wish you and Nalani every happiness." She gave him a tentative hug, and a smile, and then set off down the path to her right with determination in her stride. She took a total of five steps, then stopped and turned around to see Ronon still standing there, looking after her with an expression on his face that she couldn't quite read. "I am going," she said, "it's only… I don't know what a 'cop' is. Do you think you could show me?"

Ronon rolled his head back on his shoulders and, addressing the clear blue sky, said, "I'm taking this as a sign." Then looking back at Jennifer, he said, "Come on. I can't find your prince for you, but I can get you a hot dog."

A hot dog, it turned out, was not actually a dog of any kind—it was a sausage in a soft bun, laden down with mustard and sauerkraut, and it was delicious. After a wary first bite, Jennifer ate hers in enormous bites, and washed it down with a drink that fizzed in her mouth and made her hiccup. "This is delicious!" she told Ronon. He was sitting next to her on the grass, his suit jacket laid neatly beside him and his shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal a tattoo vivid on one lean forearm.

"'S pretty good," he agreed, draining his own can of drink. He was silent for a moment, looking down at the blades of grass at which he was idly plucking. "So what's the deal?"

"What deal?"

"This prince of yours. You been together long?"

"Well," Jennifer said, counting the days out on her fingers. "There was the day we met, and then there was the wedding, and now there's today, so—three."

Ronon blinked at her. For a moment, the line of his mouth trembled, as if he were tempted to laugh. "Three days?"

"Yes! And tomorrow will be four days!"

"You're kidding," Ronon said flatly.

"Why would I be kidding?"

"You were going to marry somebody the day after you met him because you fell in love with him?"

"Yes," Jennifer said. She couldn't understand why this was so hard for Ronon to understand—was she not explaining herself correctly? She had always thought the path of true love was pretty clear.

"You love someone you don't even know?"

"Well, I know what's in his heart!"

Ronon stared at her.

"You can't tell me that you've never known that feeling," Jennifer said, poking him gently in the shoulder. "What about Nalani's mother?"

"What about her?" Ronon leaned forward a little, resting his elbows on his bent knees. He looked wary, as if expecting some blow, something horrible to happen.

"Were you separated from your love? Just like that poor couple?"

Ronon snorted softly. "Sort of. We separated from one another. Elizabeth's a career diplomat."

"I don't understand," Jennifer said.

"She's never going to stay in one place too long. I'm never going to be the kind of guy who wanders all over the world. Not good for Nalani; not—we tried, I'm not who she needed. It didn't work. We stayed, she left. It was five years ago." He shrugged. "I'm over it."

Jennifer sat for a long moment and thought about that. She didn't understand how two people could fail to have a happily ever after, especially not if they tried very hard at it, but the tension in Ronon's voice told her that he, at least, believed what he was saying was true. Her hands were trembling a little, and she clasped them in her lap. "But how can you ever even begin to find your true love, if even a true love's kiss is no guarantee of a happily ever after?"

"You could date," Ronon said wryly. He was studying her face closely, as if trying to figure something out. Jennifer felt her cheeks heat.

"Date?"

"Yeah. You go someplace special."

This was interesting. Jennifer folded her legs beneath her and settled in to listen. "Like the Valley of Contentment? That's very special—that's where the unicorn herd lives!"

Ronon's eyebrows quirked upwards. "Like a restaurant, or a movie. Coffee shop—that's a good place to hang out and talk."

"About what?" Jennifer had never heard of anything like this before. She rested her chin in her hands.

"Yourself—who you are, what you do. What you like, what you don't like." His smile was unexpected; his eyes crinkled up in a way that Jennifer found strangely appealing. "But maybe we should just do like people in Atlantea—meet, have lunch, get married."

"Don't forget happily ever after!" Jennifer insisted.

"Couldn't do that," Ronon said dryly. "It's happy ever after if the marriage doesn't end, right?"

Jennifer frowned at him. "Your way sounds very…"

"Complicated?"

"I was going to say sad, but maybe that..." She bit at her lower lip, considering. "Can you be happy without a true love happily ever after?"

"Think so," Ronon shrugged. "I am." He stood up, brushed some stray blades of grass off his trousers, and picked up his suit jacket. "Ready to go? Sheppard might have shown up by now—could keep you company during my afternoon meeting."

"I would like that," Jennifer said, walking beside him back down the path. "He seemed very nice! And I don't think I could be around another separating couple."

"Not that kind of meeting," Ronon said. "The firm helps organise a fundraiser every year, for one of Mrs. Sheppard's charities. This year it's a ball. We're meeting to make sure there's no last minute… stuff."

"A ball?" Jennifer clapped her hands. "Oh, how fun!"

"Not fun," Ronon said firmly.

"Everyone has fun when they dance!" Jennifer pointed out. And a ball was an especially magical place—a place where dreams came true amidst music and light and the swirl of skirts. How could Ronon not enjoy one?

"I don't dance."

"Oh," she said. Well, she supposed that answered that.

***

Amelia raised a quizzical eyebrow at the two of them when they walked back into the reception area, but said nothing more than, "Janet Fraiser had to push back your meeting to next Thursday; Teyla Emmagan called for you but didn't want to leave a message; the band for the charity ball had to pull out at the last minute so Mr. Sheppard is on the war path until a new one is arranged, tread with caution; Teal'c & O'Neill couriered over some documents, I left them on your desk; and John said to tell you, quote, 'I fed her so much candy that last July's sugar high is going to look like nothing', end quote. Also, this is a good point to remind you not to shoot the messenger."

Ronon folded his arms over his chest. Jennifer was intrigued to see that that did interesting things to his suit jacket, pulling it tight across his broad shoulders. "Deal, if you've got some Ibuprofen."

"Ibuprofen is no cure for a Sheppard-induced headache," Amelia said, handing him a slim manila file. "Sadly. Otherwise I'd buy stock in the company. Everyone else should be gathered in the boardroom by now."

"Okay," Ronon said. "John still around? Think he could chaperone while I'm in the meeting?"

"Well," Amelia said archly, "He's here. You want him to chaperone her, that's your own funeral."

Ronon headed off to his meeting with a hurried request to Jennifer not to speak to any one who wasn't John or Amelia. Amelia led her down a curved hallway and into an office where John sat in a comfortable-looking padded desk chair, bouncing a tennis ball off a wall and catching it, over and over. "Hey, Amelia," he drawled, "Hey… Ronon's shower buddy."

"You're to make sure she doesn't get into trouble," Amelia said, pushing Jennifer gently into the room. "That means you're also not allowed to get into any trouble."

"And you're no fun." He sat up in his chair. "Sure, yeah, I'll do it. Not like I've got anything better to do."

"You could actually work on some of those briefs, you know," Amelia said over her shoulder as she walked away.

"I could," John said in a confiding tone to Jennifer, "but that would be doing something my dad wants, and that's not going to happen." He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a shiny silver disc. "Amelia tells me you're visiting from pretty far out of town—you guys into football where you come from? Sport of kings."

"I don't think so," Jennifer said. "Our kings mostly tend to practice archery, or jousting."

John blinked at her. "Uh huh. Well, pull up a chair. This"—he waggled the disc at her before putting it into a slot in the side of his computer—"is the best introduction you're ever going to get. This is a Hail Mary …"

***

Meredith walked into the first tavern he saw when he left the park, attracted by the large leather sofas inside, which looked very inviting, and also by the unusual smell which wafted out from its open doors. He'd never smelled anything like it; it made his nose twitch delightfully. Inside, the tavern was dim, the air humming with quiet conversation and low music. Meredith stepped up to the counter and handed over his twenty dollar piece of paper, and said, "I will have a very large cup of whatever is making that delicious smell."

"Tough day, huh?" said the woman behind the counter with a laugh. Her hair was dyed many different colours, and she had metal rings pierced through her lip, nose, and eyebrows. She took his money, pressed some buttons on the large metal box in front of her, and handed him back two other pieces of paper and some coins. "I have some friends who do some stuff on Broadway, rehearsals always take it out of them. And that costume must be no fun in this weather."

"Costume?" Meredith looked down at himself—his blue velvet doublet and pale grey hose had been hand-stitched by the castle's finest chipmunk seamstresses. "This is not a costume, ma'am—it is my wedding outfit!"

"You know, I really admire people who can stay in character," the woman told him. "It's great when people can inhabit a role like that. Here you go, sir—extra-strong venti Americano. You have a nice day, now."

Meredith was thoroughly baffled, but the first sip of his drink was enough to drive all such confusion from his mind. It was bitter and strong and made his heart race pleasingly. He held the cup aloft. "Truly," he proclaimed, "this drink they call the Americano was invented by the Ancestors themselves," and was heartily gratified to received a smattering of applause.

***

By the time Ronon came back from his meeting, John had introduced Jennifer to college football, the importance of rooting for Boston College, the cultural significance of Star Wars, and the music of the troubadour Johnny Cash. "Hey, buddy, this is the very best of American culture," John protested when Ronon arched an eyebrow at him. "The U.S. at its finest!"

"Uh huh," Ronon rumbled. "What's next—PBR and Big Macs?"

"You have no soul, man," John told him, but was more than happy to accompany them when Ronon said that they were going to collect Nalani from school and then get pizza.

"Let me guess," John said as he turned off his computer. "There's no pizza in this Atlantea place, either?"

Jennifer searched her memory, but, "No, I don't think I've ever heard of it."

An hour later, she was certain she'd never heard of it, because this she would most certainly remember. A pizza, it turned out, was a flat, round piece of bread covered in tomato sauce, three different kinds of cheese, thin-sliced pieces of tomatoes, mushrooms and artichokes, small chunks of ham and large black olives. The first bite made her eyes go wide, and Jennifer had three full slices, one straight after the other, before she looked up from her plate to find Ronon, Nalani and John staring at her slack-jawed.

"This is delicious!" she said, beaming at them. "And you said there are many other kinds of toppings?"

"Yeah," Ronon said. "Pepperoni, sun-dried tomatoes, pineapple—"

"Which is just wrong," John said, jabbing his finger at Ronon. "Pineapple and pizza shouldn't ever mix."

"Tastes good," Ronon said simply as he helped Nalani cut her pizza into more manageable slices.

"Tastes weird," John mumbled around a mouthful of tomato-and-cheese pizza.

"That's because you're weird," Ronon said, making Nalani giggle.

"Yeah, with stunning logic like that," John said, "I can see why you're a hot-shot attorney."

"Wait," Jennifer said, suddenly struck by a new idea. She looked around the restaurant—its striped awning proclaimed it to be the One and Only World-Famous Original Ray's Pizza—with its brick pizza oven and the flickering candles and the waiters in their starched white shirts. "This is a very nice restaurant."

"Uh, it's okay, I guess," John said, washing down another mouthful of pizza with a gulp of his beer.

Jennifer pointed at the plates in front of them. "And we're eating dinner."

"Yeah," Ronon said.

Jennifer beamed at him. "So this is a date!"

"Yeah," he said, before blinking. "No! No, this is just… friends having dinner, okay? Besides, a date is two people. Not two people and a kid and a… John."

"I resent that," John said absently.

"Oh," Jennifer said, "I see." She sipped at her drink, and tried not to think about why Ronon's words made her feel so disappointed.

***

The shops here sold the most amazing things in nearly infinite variety, their windows ablaze with lights and colour, displaying stacks of clothing and rows of shoes. Meredith passed a chandlers and an apothecary and then—most amazing of all—a shop which sold more magic mirrors than he had ever seen in one place. He stopped, entranced by how each mirror opened onto a different place—one where men ran around a court of some kind, throwing an inflated ball from one to another; another which looked like manuscript illuminations come to life; a third in which a woman stood in front of a busy street and spoke directly into the mirror. "Prithee, magic mirrors," Meredith said, conscientiously polite, "What is this strange place? Will I ever find my one true love?"

Then something caught Meredith's attention in the background of the third mirror—a glimpse of blonde hair, a flash of blue skirts. "Jennifer?" he said, and peered closer—and yes, it was her, walking into a tall building with a small child and two men, one of whom had the strangest hair Meredith had ever seen. "Magic mirror, I beg you, tell me where she is!" The shop door opened as someone came out, and through the doorway, Meredith could hear the mirror speak.

"… should be confirmed early next week. From 116th and Broadway, I'm Angela Montenegro for WSMI News."

"116th and Broadway! Thank you, mirror!" Meredith turned and ran.

***

Jennifer tucked Nalani in, and then knelt on the floor by the small, white-painted bookcase, looking for a good bedtime story. "You know," she said, flicking through A Treasury of Bedtime Tales, "none of these look very familiar."

Nalani wriggled down further underneath her coverlet. "You could tell me one of your stories?"

"I don't know that I know a lot of stories," Jennifer said. "Although, there was this one time, when poor Larry—he's a wolf—went to visit his grandma, and found Little Red Riding Hood there instead. She chased him around and around the house, and she had an axe. I don't know what would have happened if Pip—Pip's my best friend, he's a chipmunk—hadn't been walking by. He helped Larry get away."

Nalani frowned. "I never heard it that way before."

"Well," Jennifer leaned in to whisper at her, "Red tells it very differently. But you should never trust a girl who carries a dagger in her basket. Or who tries to kill defenceless wolves."

"Okay," Nalani said, and burrowed further into her pillow. "Good night, Jennifer. Thank you for the story."

"Good night, Nalani." Jennifer brushed a kiss against her temple. "Sleep well."

Jennifer slipped out of the room and into the bathroom, where she changed into the nightclothes Ronon had given her. She was more used to sleeping in a nightgown than in worn-soft sweatpants and a faded t-shirt that proclaimed 'Northwestern Fencing' in blocky purple capitals and came down to her knees, but she couldn't deny that it was very comfortable. She brushed her teeth, tied back her hair, and settled down on the sofa under a blanket with a copy of a magazine she'd found—the New Yorker, which had a fascinating article about impossibly tiny machines called robots. She was engrossed in it when Ronon sat down in the chair opposite her, also dressed for bed, a mug of sweet-smelling tea in his hands.

"Uh, listen," he said, clearing his throat. "That was a nice story you told Nalani and all."

"Oh, you heard?" Jennifer said, sitting up straight. "Though it wasn't very nice at the time—Larry couldn't sleep for ages afterwards."

"Right. Well. Stories about talking chipmunks and magic and princes are okay for make-believe—"

Jennifer flinched backwards. "I'm not pretending that Meredith is coming to find me. He is."

"Because that's what happens in stories," Ronon said flatly.

"Yes!" Jennifer said. "Every story passed down from the Ancestors says that—"

"You know what?" Ronon interrupted her, "I don't care if you're being ironic or if you're kidding, but there's no such thing as magic. Or talking animals, or life following storybook rules. If you need… help, I can help you get some. But—"

"That's very kind of you," Jennifer said, spine stiffening. "But Meredith is coming for me."

Ronon tugged on a lock of his hair in evident frustration. "But what if he doesn't?"

Jennifer stood up, feeling ill at ease and not knowing why—feeling her heart beat faster and some strange weight pressing against her breastbone. "Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because," Ronon said, putting down his mug and rising also, "This is what I deal with every day. If things are bad at the beginning, they never get any better."

"He is coming," she said stubbornly.

"Jennifer. He's not. No."

"Yes!" Jennifer felt impetuous, reckless, had the strange desire to stamp her foot.

"No." He shook his head.

"No? Is that the only word you know? No?"

He shifted his weight from foot to foot. "No! I mean… no."

"No! No! Over and over again! Every word out of your mouth is no. It makes me so…" Jennifer struggled to find the word she wanted, feeling some strange new emotion rising up inside her, stealing her breath and making her stomach churn and her fingers twitch. "Sometimes you, you make me so…"

"So what?"

"You make me so… so… angry!" The realisation was sudden and stunning, like looking at the pieces of a long-standing puzzle form a new angle and all at once seeing how it came together. She was angry—furious, even, at Ronon and herself and at everything that had happened to her since Meredith first appeared at the door of her cottage and turned her life upside down—and the sensation was terrifying and exhilarating, all at once. A laugh bubbled up inside her. "I'm angry."

Ronon peered at her. "Are you all right?"

"I'm angry," Jennifer told him, laughing. "I'm really angry."

Now he was starting to look concerned. "You okay?"

"Yes!" Jennifer said, feeling the anger and the joy of it still fizzing in her veins, making her bold and reckless and Ronon was right there in front of her and she took a step forward—not really aware of what she was doing but knowing that it felt right, this strange new thing that had taken up residence behind her ribs. This close to him, she could hear the slight hitch in his breath; smell him, damp and salt-clean from the shower; feel the heat of his body and wonder at the strange sensation of knowing exactly where his body was in relation to hers. "I'm… I'm wonderful."

"You sure?" He leaned in to her, and Jennifer was struck with a pang of inarticulate want so strong she didn't know what to do with it. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.

"Yes, I'm… I'm fine. I'm… never better."

For a moment, she thought that Ronon was going to… to do something. But he closed his eyes and took a careful breath; and when he opened them again, he seemed just a little further away from her. "Okay, then. Good night." His voice was oddly hoarse.

"Okay. Good night," Jennifer echoed weakly, and as Ronon walked away towards his bedroom, her traitorous knees failed her and she sank down to sit in a nearby chair. She had no idea what had just happened, but she had the strangest sensation that she was in an awful lot of trouble. "Oh my," she said. "Oh, my."

***

Jennifer didn't sleep well that night. She tossed and turned on the sofa for hours, mind racing, before finally giving up any pretence at rest. If she couldn't sleep, she might as well be doing something. She cleaned for a while, before abandoning that in favour of reading some more of the magazine, and then something called National Geographic, and a dog-eared copy of Scientific American, before she figured out how to operate the small computer Ronon had that was called a 'laptop.' By the time Nalani stirred and came up to the kitchen, hungry and looking for breakfast, Jennifer's mind was buzzing with new information, there were pancakes cooking on the stove, and Jennifer was wearing a new dress that had the same pattern as some of Ronon's linen.

"Thank you," Nalani said as Jennifer put a plate of pancakes and syrup and a glass of juice in front of her. "I like your dress. It's pretty."

"Oh, you think so? Thank you." Jennifer twirled for her, enjoying the feeling of her skirts flaring out and then settling back around her knees. "I've never had a dress this short before, you know." It felt very daring, to be walking around with her calves bare. Jennifer kind of liked it.

"Morning," Ronon said as he shuffled into the kitchen. He was fully dressed in suit and tie except for his shoes. His multicoloured, striped toes made Jennifer grin.

"Morning, Daddy," Nalani said, tilting her head up for a kiss.

"Good morning," Jennifer said, feeling her cheeks flush when Ronon looked at her. "I made breakfast?"

Ronon sat down at the table. "Great," he said, helping himself to some of the pancakes. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Jennifer said, but before she could say anything more, the doorbell chimed.

"Uncle John!" Nalani yelled, scrambling out of her chair and running to get the door.

Ronon twisted around in his seat. "It's not Uncle John's morning to—Nalani, I'll get it," he said, but it was too late. Nalani pulled the door open, and it wasn't John standing there. Jennifer's fork fell to her plate with a clatter, her eyes wide.

"It is I!" she heard Meredith say. "Prince Meredith of Atlantea, come to rescue my bride-to-be, the fair Jennifer! Tell me, young maiden, do you know where she is?" Meredith's shoulders slumped suddenly. "It's just that this is a very large building and I'm sure she's here, but I've been to hundreds of apartments already and no one seems to know who she is. Plus, the people in 315 have a shotgun. Did you know that? It seems rather reckless."

"He's here," Jennifer breathed. "He came for me."

"Looks like it." Ronon's face looked strange—more like a rigid mask than Jennifer had ever seen—but her brain was whirling too quickly for her to think about it.

"Oh my. Oh my goodness," Jennifer said automatically. "Oh, um, how do I look?" She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and straightened her skirts.

Ronon cocked his head to one side. "Little bit stunned."

Jennifer shook her head. "No, I mean—how do I look?"

"You're beau—." Ronon cleared his throat, ducked his head. "I mean… good. You look good."

And then there was no time to say anything more—Nalani led Meredith into the room, and Jennifer stood up to greet him. "Meredith! I'm glad to see you."

"And I you, Jennifer! Let me just dispatch this fiend, and we will return to Atlantea." He unsheathed his sword and held it at Ronon's throat.

"Daddy!" Nalani screamed, running to cling to his leg, just as Jennifer said, "What? Meredith, no!"

Meredith looked confused. "But this is my duty as your betrothed! He has been holding you captive against your will, surely? Do you have any last words, varlet?"

"Seriously?" Ronon snorted, looking far too composed for someone who had a wickedly sharp piece of metal held against his throat.

"Strange words," Meredith said, "but I honour them, if that is your wish." He drew back his sword, ready to strike, but faltered when Jennifer stepped in between him and Ronon. "What are you doing?"

"Don't, Meredith—these are my friends."

Meredith blinked at her for a moment, then shrugged, said, "Oh," and sheathed his sword.

"This is Nalani," Jennifer said, struggling to remember her manners, "and her father, Ronon."

Meredith made his best court bow at them before taking Jennifer's hand. He cleared his throat. "Should we take it from the top? I don't have a tuning fork with me, but if we keep it in the key of—"

Jennifer stared at him, confused. "I'm sorry?"

"The duet?" Meredith squinted at her. "I believe it's traditional at this point. You know, dreaming of a true love's kiss, pure and sweet, waiting to complete my love song, et cetera, et cetera."

"Oh." Jennifer blinked, looked over at Ronon—who was standing with arms folded, face a blank—then back at Meredith. "It's just… I was thinking of something different."

"Different?" Meredith echoed.

Jennifer clasped her hands together. "Before we leave, there's one thing I would like to do."

"Oh! Of course," Meredith said. "Name it, and it is done! Does it have something to do with getting more of this drink they call Americano here? Because that would be—"

"A date," Jennifer said firmly. "I want to go on a date."

"An excellent idea!" Meredith said, then hesitated for a moment before saying, "What exactly is a date?"

"Well, we go out to dinner. And we talk about ourselves, our likes and our dislikes. Our interests." She looked to Ronon for reassurance that she was remembering it correctly. He nodded at her once.

"A date," Meredith said again, as if trying out how the word felt in his mouth, before his face brightened. "Well, that sounds like an excellent idea!"

Jennifer gathered her things—her ruined wedding dress could only be thrown away, but she carefully folded the blue dress she'd worn yesterday and placed it into a small pack that Nalani gave her, together with the little hairbrush and toothbrush Ronon had bought for her, and the copies of the magazines she'd been reading, the best pages carefully ear-marked. Then she and Meredith made their awkward goodbyes to Ronon and Nalani at the door.

"Good luck on your date," Ronon said, hands jammed into his suit pockets.

"Good luck with the ball tonight, and with—with everything," Jennifer said limply. "It was so nice spending time with you—with both of you. I'll never forget you, you know that." She stooped to hug Nalani and kiss her cheek, and gave Ronon her bravest smile, then turned to follow Meredith down the hallway towards the elevators.

"Thank you for taking care of my fiancée, peasants!" Meredith called over his shoulder.

Jennifer looked back over hers to see Ronon pick up Nalani and settle her on his hip, turning to go back inside the apartment. "I'm going to miss her, Daddy," she heard Nalani say; heard Ronon's quiet voice say, "I'm going to miss her too, sweetheart."

***

Jennifer and Meredith set out into the bright sunshine of the city in early morning; several stories above them, Nalani scrambled into her school uniform while her father helped her brush and braid her hair; and far, far away, in the tallest tower of the great castle of Atlantea, King Michael watched them all through the lens of his magic mirror with narrowed eyes and set jaw. He had thought that once the girl was out of sight, she would be out of mind, but he had underestimated the tenacity of his step-son's heart; he had thought that once she arrived in the Other City, her own naïveté would be her undoing, but he had not reckoned with her resolve. They had found one another, and if they returned to Atlantea and were married, Meredith would take the throne and all would be lost.

He put on his cloak and headed for the portal through which the Ancestors had travelled, long ago. It seemed that if Michael wanted to keep control, a hands-on approach would be required.

***

"Did you like your hot dog?" When Meredith looked at her with wide eyes and seemed as if he was about to spit out his mouthful, Jennifer hurriedly shook her head. "It's not really a dog. They just call it a hot dog here. I don't know why."

Meredith swallowed. "Oh. Well, it's quite excellent. I really like this what do you call it—this sauerkraut? A marvellous invention. Do you think the cooks back home could learn how to make it?"

"Probably," Jennifer said. There was another awkward silence. At first, Jennifer thought that the date was going quite well—Meredith had seemed very interested in what she had to tell him of robotics, and computers, and the vacuum cleaner of Ronon's that she had opened up to see how it worked; they had both been quite animated when trying to figure out how the science of the New Yorkers could be reconciled with alchemy and magic—but when it came to talking about her, to talking about himself, neither of them seemed able to bridge some indefinable gap between them. She kept thinking of Ronon—of the look in his eyes when she'd turned and walked away—and she tried to tell herself that she felt cold because they were so high up. The view from the Brooklyn Bridge was beautiful, grey-green waters flowing away to meet clear blue skies, but Jennifer couldn't stop from looking back at the island behind them.

"Well," Meredith said stiffly, interrupting her reverie. "This has been a splendid date. Shall we go?"

"Go where?"

"Atlantea," Meredith said. "To be married. To live happily ever after, fulfilling our functions as king and queen of all Atlanteans, forever and ever." He looked scarcely any happier than she did.

"We don't have to go right away, right?" Jennifer caught herself twisting her hands nervously in her skirts, and forced herself to stop. She liked Meredith, a great deal, but a happily ever after was a very long time indeed—and to be a queen seemed an awfully big job.

"Oh!" Meredith said, a note of hope in his voice. "Well, how long do these dates usually last?"

Jennifer thought. "As long as you want, I think. They can just keep going and going, as long as you can keep thinking of activities to do."

"Activities?"

"We could go to another museum. Or to the theatre? Or there's… well, Ronon is helping to organise a ball for this evening."

"A ball?"

Jennifer nodded. "With dancing and music. You like that, right?"

"It would take several hours, wouldn't it?" Meredith said. "And we wouldn't have to go back to Atlantea until after it was over."

"Oh, yes," Jennifer said, and hoped she didn't sound overly relieved. "Not until then."

"Then I think a ball sounds an excellent idea," Meredith said gallantly, and offered his arm as they turned to walk back towards the city.

***

Jennifer knocked anxiously on the door of the apartment. There was a moment's pause, then the sound of running feet and the door flew open to reveal Nalani standing there. Her eyes grew wide and then she shrieked, "Jennifer! You're back!" and flung herself at Jennifer, wrapping her arms around Jennifer's waist.

"Yes," Jennifer said. "We decided, Meredith and I, that we'd like to go to your father's ball this evening before we go back to Atlantea. Is… is he here?"

Nalani shook her head. "He had to go back to work. Uncle John is here, he brought over his Wii because he said I need to complete my education."

"His what?" Jennifer heard Meredith say, just as John emerged from the living room.

"Hey, Jennifer," he said. His hair was in even bigger disarray than usual, and instead of a suit he wore a pair of sweatpants that hung low on his hips and a faded black t-shirt at least one size too small for him. "Hey… Jennifer's friend. Ronon's not here—there's this whole thing going down at the firm."

"Not something bad?" Jennifer tried to ignore how her stomach lurched.

"Nah." John scratched at his belly. "Just this divorce he was working on—the Johnsons? Jacksons?—anyway, they decided they're not going to split up after all. Something about the way her eyes sparkled, and recapturing the magic. Though from what Amelia said, it had more to do with her walking in on them in the conference room this morning with Vala on her knees and—" He stopped abruptly and looked down at Nalani, as if just remembering that she was there. "Uh. Anyway. So he's gone to clear that up. You guys said you wanted to go to the ball this evening? Because I can hook you up with tickets."

"That would be very nice, thank you," Jennifer said.

"Yes indeed," Meredith said, making a deep bow. "We are most grateful for your courtesy, sir."

"Okay then," John said, drawling out his words in apparent amusement.

"This is my—this is Prince Meredith," Jennifer said, finding herself oddly reluctant to introduce Meredith as her fiancé.

"A prince, huh?" John shrugged. "Well, why don't you guys come on in? Nalani and me were going to order pizza in a little bit, maybe watch some Star Wars while I'm waiting for the courier to bring over my costume. It's a fancy dress ball," he elaborated when both Jennifer and Meredith looked blank. "You dress up in clothes you don't normally wear, you eat little fiddly bits of food, drink a lot of champagne. It's kind of a pain in the—" He looked at Nalani again. "It's kind of a pain, but it's for charity. So. And hey, you look like you're ready to go, buddy," he finished, gesturing at Meredith.

"I don't know why people in your city seem to find my hose so amusing," Meredith grumbled. "They're perfectly acceptable attire!"

"Uh huh," John said, and Jennifer raised her eyebrows at how his gaze seemed to linger on Meredith's thighs. John reddened a little when he noticed that she'd seen, but hitched one shoulder and said, "Well, come on through."

Jennifer followed him and Nalani into the living room. Meredith was already seated on the couch, fascinated by what the television was showing—projections from this Wii of John's, Jennifer guessed. "Is it a form of magic mirror?" he asked John.

John scratched at the back of his head. "Sort of? I don't quite know how it works, but here, let me show you—" The two of them were quickly absorbed by the game, both of them vowing vengeance on one another. Jennifer stood in the middle of the room, feeling awkward and uncertain.

Nalani tugged on her skirt. "You okay?"

Jennifer made a face. "Well, Meredith has an outfit for the ball, and so does your Uncle John, but I don't think I have anything to wear. I'm not sure what to do, and I don't know where to find a fairy godmother at this late hour."

Nalani's face brightened. "I know where we can go! I've seen it on TV, and it's got all kinds of magic in it. But I only have $5.37 left of my pocket money."

"Hey," John said, digging out his wallet from his pocket and pulling a small slim card from it. He handed it to Jennifer and she looked at it curiously. It said 'American Express Platinum', with John's name written beneath a long string of numbers. "Don't leave home without it. You know what to do with it, little bit."

"Fritter away your inheritance?" Nalani said, words running together as if this were something she'd heard many times before.

"You're a natural," John said, then whooped when his Wii character knocked Meredith's over.

***

"Welcome to Mood Fabrics," a smiling man said when they walked in the door.

Jennifer gaped. She was quite certain she'd never seen so many bolts of fabric in one place—rows and rows of them, stacked to reach all the way up to the ceiling, in more colours and textures and patterns than Jennifer had ever dreamed of. She gently squeezed Nalani's hand. "Oh my gosh, imagine what we'll be able to make!"

Nalani grinned up at her. "Over here!" she said, pointing at bolts of primary coloured fabrics. "One of those!"

But the decision took longer than that—they spent a good half hour wandering the aisles, investigating patterns and fabrics, wrapping swatches of fabric around themselves and placing peacock feathers in their hair. By the time they were handing the bolts of ombre-dyed silk for Jennifer's costume over to the cashier, Nalani had also decided on material for a costume of her own—a little cape of red fabric that, she'd told Jennifer, would make her look 'just like Supergirl.'

"Is this what it's like?" Nalani asked her shyly as the cashier was ringing up their purchases.

"Like what, sweetie?"

"Going shopping with your mom."

"Oh, I don't know," Jennifer admitted. "I never went shopping with my mother." She had died long ago, before Jennifer's memory truly began; she had only vague memories of kind, dark eyes and cool hands.

"Me either." Nalani shrugged. "Mom doesn't like shopping, even when she's not in Tibet. She sends me stuff from Amazon instead."

Jennifer had no idea what Amazon was. "Well, any gift is worth treasuring, no matter where it comes from," she pointed out. "Besides, your mother loves you."

"Yeah," Nalani said, helping Jennifer gather up the bags. "I know she does."

Jennifer shot her an encouraging smile. "Of course she does! Mothers always do, no matter how far away they are—and fathers. And stepparents, for that matter. Meredith has a stepfather, you know. I've never met him, but I hear he's just lovely."

***

Michael was impatient, and in no mood to be discreet. He emerged through the portal, ignoring the people standing around and gaping at him. He strode across the street and made for the nearest large body of water, conjuring a fountain into a magic mirror and casting a spell to reveal the location of his idiot stepson and his harlot. He saw a large room filled with flowers and music, dancing feet moving across hardwood floors, Meredith and Jennifer in the middle of a crowd of people—and then an address. "Excellent," he said, waving the mirror out of existence, and strode off northward through the city.

"Dude," one guy said as he passed, "Awesome cloak. Dig the head dress."

Michael sighed, but kept going. It seemed he would have to come back this way and administer a smiting once the most pressing task was done.

***

The ballroom was beautiful—tall windows looked out over the twilight city, thousands of pale yellow flowers and acres of greenery twined around graceful columns, a polished wood staircase led down to a dance floor already full of swaying couples. John sauntered down the steps ahead of Meredith and Jennifer, hands in the pockets of his costume. His boots, breeches, waistcoat, shirt and cravat—product, he'd told Jennifer, of "getting his Hugh Jackman on"—were all black, and he stood out next to everyone else's costumes, which were brightly coloured without exception. Meredith still wore the outfit he'd arrived in from Atlantea, but thanks to Nalani's help in figuring out the washing machine, dryer, and clothes iron, it was somewhat fresher than it had been. Jennifer trailed behind both of them, because she'd spotted Ronon out in the middle of the dance floor and she was suddenly so nervous that she had to concentrate very carefully to make certain she didn't trip and fall down the steps.

As she reached the final step, Ronon looked up and saw her. He said a few words to his partner—a tall woman with silver hair piled high on her head; her long chin and the set of her spine made Jennifer think she must be John's mother—then walked over to her. "Didn't think you'd be here," he said, but he was smiling—and, Jennifer couldn't help thinking, looked very good in his suit, made of a soft-looking fabric in a blue so deep it was almost navy.

"You said you couldn't dance," Jennifer said.

"Said I didn't," Ronon said. "Never said I couldn't." He cleared his throat. "So you, uh. Your date…"

Jennifer looked around for Meredith, eventually spotting him standing with John over by a long, low table full of food. The two of them appeared to be bickering with one another over the plate of food in Meredith's hand; as Jennifer watched, Meredith smacked away John's hand, preventing him from stealing a tiny canapé, and John brayed out a laugh so nasal it startled her a little. "Oh, well we… It was very… enjoyable. But I really wanted to come, so—"

"You look pretty," Ronon blurted out, and then looked faintly mortified.

Jennifer looked down at her gown—product of several frantic hours' work and Nalani's enthusiastic help—and felt herself flush. She had never made anything like it before—strapless and tight in the bodice, the watercolour purple skirts skimming close around her legs as she moved. The stitching was perhaps not as neat as the mice, with their tiny paws, were capable of, but Jennifer thought it had still turned out quite well. Before she could say anything, the bandleader on the dais said, "Well, folks, it's that time of night. I'd like to ask each gentleman to invite a lady he did not accompany this evening to dance the King and Queen's Waltz."

"Dance with me?" Ronon said, and offered her his arm.

Jennifer looked over at Meredith, but if he minded the thoughts of her dancing with someone else, he didn't show it. He and John were discussing something with great animation, Meredith's hands sketching out something in bold curves and his cheeks rounded with mouthfuls of food. John looked amused, his arms folded and his hip balanced against the table, his whole body canted towards Meredith. "I would love to," Jennifer said firmly, and took Ronon's hand.

The band struck up, and Jennifer let her feet follow the rhythm of the waltz—one, two, three, one, two, three—as Ronon spun her around the room, her yellow skirts flying out behind her. Ronon, it turned out, could do more than just dance—he could dance very well indeed—and the touch of his hand was sure but light on her back. His eyes never left her as they moved, her hand in his never felt anything less than right, and for as long as the music played, Jennifer forgot about everything else—forgot about Meredith, about Atlantea and her cottage in the woods and the rules of the story. There was only Ronon, and the curve of his mouth when he smiled, and the desire to go up on tiptoe and kiss him was—

The music ended, and Jennifer felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked around to see Meredith standing there. "We should go," he said, looking about as happy at the thought of leaving as Jennifer felt. He looked back over his shoulder at John, who was still standing by the buffet table. John's arms were folded over his chest; the expression on his face was unreadable, but the lines of his body were tense and dejected. "The portal back to Atlantea isn't very stable—it's only open once every thirty eight hours, so if we're going, we should go now."

"I—yes." Jennifer looked at Ronon for a long moment, but couldn't bear to say goodbye. She wanted so much to stay, to give into temptation and press her mouth to his, to feel the warmth of his skin and the strength of his arms around her. She wanted to know what it would be like to wake up every morning and be greeted with his smile—but was that love? Every story Jennifer had ever known told her that she was supposed to end up with Meredith, their love unquestioned and not fought for; every fibre of her being yearned for her to stay here with Ronon, in this place where love could end with the exchange of papers and she had never felt so alive. Her thoughts went round in circles, alternately defiant and fearful—but in the end, Jennifer thought, who was she to defy the story? She was only one part of the tale, and Atlantea was where her life had been written. She took Meredith's arm and walked beside him up the staircase, knowing that both of them were miserable and unable to do anything to stop it.

Meredith looked at her when they reached the top of the staircase, and for a long moment looked as if he were struggling to say something to her. In the end, he settled for a half-smile and saying, "I'll get your wrap."

Jennifer stood there and waited for him to come back, and the whole time she looked back down at the room, where Ronon had moved to talk with a small group of people just off the dance floor. If she could never see him again, she thought, then she could at least commit every last detail of him to memory—the fine lines of his mouth, the tear's trail of freckles on his cheekbones, the curve of his neck—her last and only talisman against loss. She was so absorbed in the sight of him that she startled when she felt a cold hand touch her shoulder, and she turned to find a pale man standing there smiling at her—the same man, she realised, who had sent her through the portal.

"You!" she said, taking a hurried step backwards. "You sent me here!"

"And I'm so glad to have found you!" the man said, voice smooth and appealing. "The king sent me to find you—we were both so very worried. Such a terrible, unexpected accident, to have brought you to this awful place."

Not awful, Jennifer thought, unable to repress the impulse to look back down at Ronon.

"Ah, yes," the man said, following her line of sight. "How painful it must be, to never be with the one you love. Doomed to live forever after with someone else."

Jennifer's breath caught like a sob in her throat. Part of her wondered how the servant could tell, but more of her insisted that her guilt must have been written all over her face, clear enough for anyone to read without need of magic—she'd rejected what was written for her, closed her heart to her true love and chosen another, and what story would not punish her for that? Traitor, a little voice whispered inside her. Faithless. Jennifer squeezed her eyes shut, tried to ignore that voice, because she was doing the proper thing—she was going to leave with Meredith—but when she opened her eyes again, her gaze was dragged once more, inexorably, towards Ronon. No.

"But it doesn't have to be that way," the man continued. "I can stop the hurt; I can make the pain go away." He reached under his cloak and produced an apple that shone a dull red under the ballroom's soft lighting. "One bite of this apple, and all those bad memories will disappear. One bite, and you won't remember anything you've seen here, anyone you'll met—you'll just be Jennifer of the Enchanted Forest again. You won't remember anything except unending, unchanging happiness."

Jennifer looked at the apple in his hand, then at the man's face. She didn't know if she could trust him, but she wanted so desperately to believe that what he was saying was true—that there was a way to stop her heart from aching; that there was a way to protect Meredith from being hurt. If she forgot it all, maybe he at least would get his happy ending.

"Just one bite," the man said, holding the apple out to her. "But you must hurry. The magic won't work unless you eat it before the clock strikes twelve."

Jennifer looked up at the clock over the ballroom door. Five minutes to twelve. It was now or never, she supposed, and she reached out to take the apple from the king's servant. It was surprisingly heavy in her hand. "Hurry," the man said. "That's it!"

And Jennifer took a bite.

***

Meredith came back from the cloakroom, his arms laden with Jennifer's wrap and his own cloak and scabbard. He concentrated very hard on putting one foot in front of the other, trying not to think of the disappointment in John's eyes when Meredith had said goodbye, or of the strange fascination the curve of John's mouth had held for him. "Jennifer?" he said, unable to see her at first in the press of people. "Where are—hey!"

Jennifer was lying on the ground, surrounded by a small cluster of people who were fussing over her. There was one particularly familiar man in a long black cloak bent telling them that she was fine, she had just fainted, he would bring her outside for some fresh air. Meredith frowned, pushed forward, and saw that it was— "Stepfather?"

The king turned around and gave Meredith a smile that was all teeth. "Meredith! An unexpected surprise."

"What are you doing here? What happened to Jennifer?" Meredith knelt beside her and brushed away the hair that had fallen across her face. Her skin felt too cool, her breathing was coming too shallowly, and beside her hand lay an apple with one bite missing. Meredith's stomach turned over. Apples were a mainstay of malevolent sorcery—any scholar of the rules knew of those who broke them—and apples were always used to contain the most lethal of potions. He looked up at Michael. "What happened?"

"Mer, buddy, what's happening?" Meredith looked over his shoulder to see John and Ronon jogging up the steps. Ronon looked angry and worried, his hands bunched into fists; John looked dangerous.

Michael didn't seem at all disconcerted by their arrival, though Meredith definitely would have been. He held up his palms in mock surrender, his smile charming and plausible. "The lady seems to have fainted. I was simply taking her outside for some fresh air. I'm sure she'll be fine."

"She's not breathing right," Meredith told Ronon. "We need to get help. We need—" His voice broke.

"Call 911!" he heard someone yell.

"She will be fine," Michael said placatingly. "It is a simple swoon."

"You poisoned her!" Meredith snapped, suddenly absolutely certain that that was what had happened. "When I get home, all of Atlantea will know what you've done, and I will make certain that you will never wield power ever again."

For a moment, it seemed as if Michael would protest further, but then his expression changed and he shrugged. "You won't save her. When the clock strikes twelve, she'll be dead—and what prince has ever reigned in Atlantea without his true love by his side?"

Meredith did not think he had ever been so angry in his life—so angry that his whole body echoed with the force of each pulse of his heart—nor so scared. "I'll kill you," he said, and wasn't at all surprised to find that he meant it. "If she dies, I'll kill you." Michael just smirked.

Then from behind him, Meredith heard John speak. "A kiss." Meredith looked around. John visibly swallowed, looking abashed, but there was something in his gaze that caught and held Meredith's own, that made Meredith's mouth go dry. "That's how these stories go, right? True love's kiss wakes you up."

Meredith looked back up at Michael, who seemed frozen to the spot. "No," Michael said, "my magic is far too powerful for that," and Meredith knew that John must be right. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Jennifer and felt—he felt nothing. Her mouth was still against his; her lips so cool they had taken on a blue tinge. There was nothing of the magic that any schoolchild could have told you always accompanied true love's first kiss.

"It didn't work," Meredith said, stricken. He sat back on his heels and looked up at the clock—a minute to midnight. Jennifer was going to die, and it was all Meredith's fault—he was failing the story.

"You'll never save her now," Michael said in a voice of quiet satisfaction.

"Unless—" Meredith had a sudden burst of inspiration. What if he wasn't failing the story—what if he was reading it incorrectly? He looked over at Ronon. "Please."

Ronon shook his head. He held himself very still, as if he was afraid to trust his own sense of balance after suffering a stunning blow. His eyes were wide with an emotion that might have been fear, or simply surprise at a sudden and unexpected realisation. "Couldn't be me."

"Please."

"I've only known her for a few days."

"Kiss her, Ronon. It's okay." Meredith moved away, and let Ronon kneel beside her—watched Ronon's hand tremble as he reached out to cup her face and, with only a few seconds to spare, Ronon bowed his head to kiss her, slow and sweet. For what felt like forever, nothing happened—Jennifer stayed limp on the floor, and as the clock started to chime midnight, her breathing seemed to stop.

"Please," Meredith heard Ronon whisper, voice raw and low, "Jennifer, don't leave me."

There was nothing—and then Jennifer heaved in a gasp of air so violent that her back arched off the ground. Her body shook with wracking coughs, coughs that sounded so painful Meredith's own chest ached in sympathy, and then her eyes focused on Ronon's face. Her smile was sudden and brilliant, twin to Ronon's own. "I knew it was you," she said, pulling Ronon's mouth down to hers and kissing him deeply. Meredith knew he should feel sad—at the sight of his true love with her arms wrapped around someone else—but he found that he was simply glad for her, glad for both of them. The story was different now—it could be different. He looked over to meet John's eyes and grinned. John grinned back at him—and Meredith was entirely unprepared for the blow that struck the back of his head.

***

"No!" Jennifer heard John yell, and looked up to see that the king's manservant had struck Meredith over the head with the hilt of his sword, sending him tumbling down to lie in a tangled heap of limbs at the foot of the stairs. John leaped down after him, leaving the manservant free to turn his sword on Jennifer and Ronon. The ballroom was so quiet that Jennifer could hear the hitch of her own breathing as she and Ronon scrambled to their feet.

"True love. Always the most nauseating of alchemical concepts," the manservant said, as calmly as if he had not been unmasked as a poisoner and a traitor—as if he didn't have hundreds of horrified eyes trained on him. He backed down the stairs, the crowd ebbing away from him as he walked. "Luckily, if I am to remain king of Atlantea, I won't have to put up with you all much longer."

Jennifer's eyes widened. "You're the king?"

"Rather slow to catch on, aren't you? I don't know what Meredith ever saw in you. But still—such a tragedy, hmm, if on a trip to the perilous Other World, Prince Meredith and his loyal companions were to be attacked and killed by a ferocious beast." Michael cast away the sword and spread his arms wide. "Demuta!" he yelled, and it was like seeing the fabric of the world rend in two—the air turned thick and green and roiling around him, and Jennifer had to squint at the blinding light that was cast as Michael changed.

There was no other word for it, but Jennifer didn't know if she was able to describe the horror of watching it—nails lengthening into claws, teeth growing too long for a human mouth to contain, Michael's spine snapping and reforming, pale skin turning chitinous, joints reshaping themselves. People started screaming, scrambling to get away, because where Michael had stood was now a dragon, and the adrenaline was flooding so quick through Jennifer's veins that she felt as if every hair on her head were standing on end. She felt Ronon take her hand, and she took an unconscious step backwards, but there was nowhere to go—Michael bent down low over them, his breath stinking of blood and copper, the timbre of his voice so much deeper. "Well," he said, "let's begin with the brat that started it all."

He reached out for Jennifer, but Ronon blocked him. "Have to go through me first."

Michael shrugged, a great flexing of wings and muscles and bone. "If you insist," he said, and he snatched Ronon up in one enormous hand. Ronon struggled, but even his strength was no match for Michael in this form. Michael turned and made for the windows, smashing them with ferocious blows of his free hand. Cold evening wind rushed into the room, and Jennifer's breath caught in her throat as she remembered just how high above the ground they were—so high that no one could survive a fall. She cast around desperately for something, someone, to help her—the only people who weren't fleeing were Meredith and John; Meredith still unconscious, John kneeling beside him—before she caught sight of Meredith's sword lying abandoned in the middle of the dance floor. Could she possibly… Jennifer's jaw tightened. There had never been a story where the princess rescued the prince, but maybe it was time for her to write her own ending. She ran down the steps and snatched up the sword.

"Michael!" she yelled. "Leave him—he's not important. If you want to fight someone, fight me!"

Michael swivelled his massive head around to look at her. "A twist in the tale," he said, voice rich with amusement. "The brave little princess comes to rescue her prince. Or does that make you the damsel in distress?" He shook Ronon, who seemed too dazed and disoriented to answer. "Well, if you're prepared to fight, little princess, then you'd better be prepared to lose something." He squeezed his massive bulk through the windows and outside onto the broad stone balcony, moving over to the edge where he held Ronon up over the impossible drop. "I wonder how this story ends, hmm?" Michael said, swivelling to look at her. "I think sadly, a little… predictable. Remember the rules, Jennifer."

Jennifer took a deep breath and thought: no. She could learn from the stories, but she could use what she knew to make something new of them—she could learn from the stories that a dragon always had a weak spot, and use that to change the ending. "No," she said aloud, and exhaled, and threw the sword end-over-end to land buried to the hilt in Michael's chest—in his heart. The scream he let out was terrible, shaking the ground beneath Jennifer's feet, and then his great bulk was falling backwards, toppling over the edge of the balcony, dropping Ronon as he fell.

Jennifer's hands were shaking, and she thought she would be sick. She had killed Michael, but she hadn't saved Ronon. She hadn't saved him. He was gone. He was gone and it was her fault, and he must have been her true love—what else but true love's kiss could have brought her back when she had been so close to death? What else but true love's loss could have left her feeling as raw and as wounded as if she'd plunged the sword into her own chest? He was gone, Nalani left without a father, and the grief and the guilt built inside her like a scream trying to break free—but then she saw two hands gripping at the edge of the balcony, heard a shaky cry for help. "Ronon!" she cried, and ran over to him, giving him her hand as he hauled himself back over the balcony and landed sprawled on his back on the floor. Jennifer couldn't blame him—all her limbs felt like rubber, and her knees gave out suddenly, as if she were a puppet whose strings had been cut. "Hi," she said, knowing that she was grinning down at him stupidly, completely unable to help herself.

"Hey yourself," Ronon said, sitting up and taking her hand. "Are you—what about Meredith?"

Jennifer looked back through the shattered remains of the windows into the ballroom. A swaying, complaining Meredith was being helped to his feet by John, who dusted him down and yelled something at him before grabbing him by the nape of the neck and pulling him into a kiss—a kiss, that Jennifer was somehow not surprised to see, was enthusiastically returned by Meredith. "I think he'll be fine," Jennifer said, looking back at Ronon, cupping his cheek in the palm of her hand, thrilling at the way he leaned into her touch. "We'll all be fine."

"Happy ever after?" Ronon said, eyes crinkling at the corners when he smiled; and Jennifer laughed, feeling lit up with joy, and kissed him.

***

Once upon a time, in a magical kingdom called Atlantea that lay on the far edge of the seven seas, there lived a good king. King Meredith was a little blustery and prone to hypochondria, it was true, but he and the Prince-Consort, John, were beloved by the people. They battled dragons (or at least pestered them until one agreed to let John fly on her back when she took to the air), explored the enchanted gold mines of the dwarfs of the Northern Mountains (well, they went to take tea with Meredith's good friend Radek, King of the Dwarfs and a very good alchemist in his own right), and ruled with wisdom (mostly because John finally was able to use his legal knowledge for something useful, and helped Meredith rewrite the constitution to abolish the absolute monarchy and bring in free and fair elections).

At first, Meredith grumbled a little about that, but John soon showed him that there were definite benefits to be gained from changing the rules of the story. At the very least, it freed up a lot of time for Meredith to do things more interesting than paperwork. (John was very bendy; Meredith, it turned out, was a fan.) And if you tumbled through a portal that looked like a sea contained by a great ring of stone, you would find yourself in a city by the sea—a city a little less magical than Atlantea, perhaps, but which still had thousands of tales worth the telling. Jennifer thought her own story—and Ronon's, and Nalani's—was one of them. She may not have been a princess, but she had a home and a family and studies that were opening up whole new worlds for her; she loved, and she was loved; and she had found the words with which to tell her tale.

"Good night, honey," she said one evening as she tucked Nalani in under the covers. From the kitchen came the low sounds of music, and the smell of Ronon cooking a late dinner for the two of them.

"Tell me a story?" Nalani said sleepily, her eyelids already drooping.

"Okay," Jennifer said, brushing Nalani's hair back from her cheek. "Well, this story begins the way all good stories do—once upon a time, with a happily ever after."