Chapter 1 #2
Snow gusted sideways in white sheets as they descended, the world outside turning briefly into nothing but motion. Alexandra felt Florence press closer to her, and she curled both arms around her daughter, bracing herself as the skids met ground with a firm jolt and the engine throttled down.
For a moment, the noise seemed to grow louder, then faded slowly into a dull roar.
“Stay seated,” Erin said, unhooking her harness in one smooth movement. “I’ll go first.”
Alexander watched her move—compact, efficient, shoulders squared, even in the mess of cold and family and Christmas. Erin ducked, pushed the door open against the resistance of the wind, and stepped out into the blinding white.
Snowflakes swirled inside, sharp and icy on Alexandra’s cheeks. The blast of cold air hit, crisp and clean and so different from London’s exhaust-heavy chill.
“Right then,” Alexandra said, unclipping Florence’s harness. “Who’s ready to make Scotland regret agreeing to host us?”
“Me!” Frank yelled, already scrabbling at his seatbelt.
“Me,” Matilda said, more dignified, then ruined it by squealing when the wind gusted again. “It’s like the telly but better.”
Florence just tucked her hand into her mother’s and gave a small, pleased smile.
A crew member appeared at the door in heavy winter gear, offering a hand. Alexandra accepted, climbing down carefully, Florence on her hip and the other two glued to her sides.
Snow hit her face full-on, the wind cutting through the thick wool of her coat. Balmoral loomed ahead, its stone dark against the white sky, smoke curling from chimneys. The courtyard was already dusted in soft drifts, their edges disturbed by the prints of boots and tyres.
Erin stood a few paces away, back straight, scanning the perimeter. Her dark hair was ruffled by the wind, cheeks pink with cold. She was as tall and gorgeous as ever. There was something about that sight that tugged hard at Alexandra’s chest.
Even now, even after everything—the IVF, the triplets, the coronation, the constant negotiations of public and private lives—Erin still instinctively put herself between Alexandra and the world.
Old habits. Old vows.
“Sergeant Kennedy,” Alexandra called over the wind, deliberately slipping into the old form of address. Erin’s head turned immediately, the lines of her face softening when she saw who had spoken. “No one here is going to attack me with a snowball. You can relax.”
From somewhere to their left, a snowball smacked into the side of a staff member’s boot. Frank, already knee-deep in a drift, beamed up at them.
“Traitor,” Erin informed him.
“Future security risk,” Alexandra corrected fondly. She shifted Florence down so the little girl could stand on the packed snow. “All right, everyone. Hands out of pockets, no throwing snow at staff unless they explicitly consent, and absolutely no licking anything metal.”
“Why not?” Matilda asked.
“It’ll stick,” Erin said darkly. “Ask Auntie Vic about the great lamppost incident of 2019.”
Matilda’s eyes got very wide. “Can we? Can we ask her?”
“Later,” Alexandra said quickly, before that story could be deployed to entirely the wrong audience.
She turned fully to face Balmoral then, allowing herself a moment to simply…
take it in. The sheer familiarity of it, and the weight that came with that.
The knowledge that every year here, every Christmas, every minor disaster and family argument and scandal and quiet reconciliation was part of a history she now had a duty not only to remember, but to shape.
“Mummy Alex,” Florence said quietly, tugging at her coat. “It smells different.”
Alexandra inhaled deeply. Woodsmoke. Cold stone. Wet wool. The faintest hint of baking drifting from unseen kitchens.
“It does,” she agreed. “It smells like… holidays. And wet dogs. And burnt toast.”
“That’s just Auntie Vic’s influence,” Erin said dryly.
Frank laughed so hard he almost fell over.
A cluster of staff approached, bowing and curtseying, offering murmured welcomes. Alexandra shifted smoothly into Queen mode, offering smiles and handshakes, doing the rounds even as she kept half her attention pinned to the three small bodies orbiting her legs.
Somewhere in the background, she could hear Vic’s voice, getting closer.
“…no, the tree goes there, I don’t care what the fucking plans say, we are not doing another year of the Queen’s Ball with the star facing west– oh my God, they’re here!”
Alexandra turned just in time to see her oldest friend, Victoria Grey- Hughes-Wilding—Vic, in all her breathless, endearingly dishevelled glory—skid slightly on a patch of snow as she barrelled across the courtyard, coat flapping open, scarf trailing, clipboard somehow still clutched in one hand.
She looked exactly the same and entirely different.
There were lines at the sides of her mouth now too, carved by laughter and stress and late nights with Julia and Hyzenthlay.
Her hair was tucked under a woolly hat that had absolutely not met royal dress code, patterned with little cartoon foxes. Her cheeks were flushed bright pink.
“YOU MADE IT,” Vic announced, as if this were some incredible achievement and not the result of a meticulously planned helicopter flight. “Hi, hi, hello, welcome, it’s freezing, I’m so glad you’re alive.”
“We’re very fond of being alive,” Alexandra said, stepping forward to hug her, ignoring the scandalised little gasp from one of the more traditional courtiers hovering near the entrance. “It’s generally how I prefer to spend my holidays.”
Vic squeezed her hard, then leaned back, blinking snowflakes off her eyelashes.
“You look bloody knackered,” she said bluntly.
“Thank you, Vic,” Alexandra said. “You’re as charming as ever.”
“I mean it in a loving way,” Vic said. “Like, you look like a very beautiful, very tired queen who needs mulled wine, and possibly a nap, and definitely some time alone with her terrifyingly competent wife.”
Heat flickered in Alexandra’s cheeks before she could stop it. She caught Erin’s gaze for a split second, saw something flash there—want, maybe, or just embarrassment—and then it was gone, shuttered behind a polite, weary expression.
“We’ll… see what we can do,” Alexandra said lightly. “I suspect three small people have their own priorities.”
“They do,” Vic said gravely, bending down as Matilda launched herself at her. “Hey, you lot! My favourite small monarchy.”
“Auntie Vic,” Matilda squealed, clambering up her like she was a climbing frame. “We’re at your big scotland house!”
“It’s technically your house,” Vic grunted, shifting her grip. “I just ruin it occasionally. Frank, are you eating the snow?”
Frank froze, mouth suspiciously full.
“No,” he said, the word muffled.
“He is,” Florence reported calmly.
“That tracks,” Vic said. “Come on, let’s get you inside before you turn into popsicles. Julia’s got Hyz making biscuits in the kitchen. There’s flour on literally everything she owns.”
“I want biscuits,” Frank said immediately.
“You wanted snow five minutes ago,” Erin pointed out.
“I can want two things,” Frank said with the unshakeable confidence of a five year old.
Alexandra laughed, the sound surprising herself. It loosened something tight inside her chest, like a knot coming undone.
For the first time in weeks—months, maybe—she felt a spark of something that wasn’t duty or exhaustion.
Here, in the swirl of snow and shrieking children and Vic’s ridiculous hat and Erin’s steady presence at her side, it was easier to imagine that the rest of the world might fade to a manageable distance for a while.
That they might really get the chance to breathe.
Vic led the way toward the great front doors, still talking at speed about Christmas timetables and emergency contingency plans and a minor crisis involving a shipment of organic cranberries.
Erin fell into step beside Alexandra, close enough that their shoulders brushed. Alex let their arms touch, casual and unremarked, feeling that point of contact all the way down to her toes.
She looked sideways at her wife.
There was tiredness there, yes. Tension in the set of her mouth.
She was already scanning the entrance hall ahead, noting exits and shadows and potential hazards.
But when she met Alexandra’s gaze, something softened.
For a heartbeat, it was just them again, two women walking into yet another situation together, braced for whatever came next but together.
Snow clung to Erin’s lashes. Alexandra reached out and brushed it away with a gloved fingertip.
“Welcome to Balmoral, Sergeant Kennedy,” she murmured.
Erin’s mouth quirked. “Glad to be here, Mrs. Kennedy.”
Alexandra smiled, letting the old familiar address settle between them, an echo of the past carrying them into this new, chaotic, beloved present.
As they stepped over the threshold, into the warmth and light and inevitable pandemonium of Christmas at Balmoral, Alexandra made herself a promise.
Somehow, between the snow and the spreadsheets and the children and whatever madness Vic had concocted, they would find time.
Time to talk. Time to touch. Time to remember who they were to each other beneath the titles and the routines and the constant interruptions.
Time to reconnect.
She glanced up at the high, vaulted ceiling, the ancient beams decked with greenery and ribbons, the portraits of stern ancestors peering down from their frames, and almost laughed.
“Well,” she thought, as Frank immediately slipped on a melted patch and Vic dropped her clipboard into a decorative urn. “Let’s see what you’ve got for us this year.”
We’ll find our way, she promised herself again, more fiercely this time.
This Christmas, we get us back.