Author's note 1: I don't own anything; all characters are the rightful property of one Mark Schwann.

Author's note 2: I rarely post fanfic, but this idea crawled into my head and I couldn't get it out. It was inspired by the bottom right frame of this gifset [ post/142831314278]; after seeing it over and over and over, I started thinking, "What if a photographer captured that look on Eleanor's face? And what if everyone saw the picture in the days following the King's Cup and became convinced that Eleanor and Jasper should be together?" So this fic is an experiment in fleshing out that idea. Warning: after chapter 1, there's not much Jaspenor interaction until the end. But I'll try to post chapters two at a time so that you can get to the end faster!

ch 1: had he looked

during / day of

Jasper didn't even need to turn around to see that Eleanor was having an increasingly hard time fighting the crowd. He could feel her fall behind him amid the desperation of the paps; with each flash of a camera, he could sense her panic growing.

Though he eventually had to twist around to shove yet another onlooker away from her, he didn't actually make eye contact; he was more focused on getting that person away than on the fear written across her features. In one swift motion, he pushed the onlooker aside, reached his right arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him — all without breaking stride.

He forged forward, keeping his focus straight ahead. Jasper had one singular goal: get her into the car unharmed. He shoved and elbowed his way through the scrum, not caring who he hit or whose live-shot he ruined.

Had Jasper turned around — had he looked — he would have seen the expression on Eleanor's face. He would have literally watched the realization dawn in her eyes; he would have seen an emotion in her eyes that could only be described as adoring.

But Jasper didn't turn around. His eyes were still trained forward when they reached the SUV; he was still in bodyguard mode as he pulled Eleanor out from behind him and propelled the two of them into the back seat as he slammed the car door shut with his free hand.

Because of the velocity of their entrance into the SUV, Jasper was practically sitting on top of Eleanor as the car zoomed away. His thigh was pressed against hers, and his right arm was wrapped around her shoulders — the result of him having used it to brace his entry into the vehicle. They unwittingly remained this way for a good ten minutes; both were too busy catching their breaths and silently processing the day's events to even notice that they were basically cradled in each other's arms.

When the stadium turned into a small speck in the rear view mirror and the outside scenery shifted from center-city row homes to the beginnings of the palace lawns, Jasper broke out of his trance and slid to the far side of the backseat, several feet away from Eleanor. Here, too, he moved without making eye contact with the princess. Had he looked, he would have seen confusion and hurt flash across her face.

But Jasper didn't look. Instead, he stared determinedly at the car's driver, locking his jaw and willing the guy to go faster. With Ted exposed and as good as dead, Jasper's mission was over. Which meant that he had to leave. It's what she wanted, after all. And if he had to leave, he wanted to do it as fast as possible. No sense in making the painful even more impossible.

It was only after getting through the back entrance of the palace and clearing her room for entry did he sneak a look at her. But this time, she wasn't looking at him. Exhaustion had overcome her and she was — wordlessly — kicking off her boots and crawling into bed.

Jasper opened his mouth, ready to beg for her forgiveness one last time; ready to ask for one last chance. But he quickly closed it. He had failed her on so many other occasions that the least he could do was abide by her wishes and leave.

He turned on his heels, whispering, "goodbye, princess," as he passed through her double doors one last time.

Had he turned back around — had he looked — he would have seen Eleanor peeking out from under her duvet, her eyes filled with tears.

meanwhile, in D-Throned's windowless office in Central London:

D-Throned senior editor Rod Sterling was on bloody number 150 of the 378 photographs he'd bought from the pap. Because he hadn't known exactly what he was looking for — ideally a shot of the two-timing security head getting trampled to death, but really anything salacious would do — he'd paid the bloke five thousand pounds for the whole lot of what he snapped at the King's Cup. But as he clicked past #151 and #152, Sterling was regretting not being more selective in his ask. After all, the ones in this current batch were just of Princess Eleanor exiting the stadium, nowhere near the murderous Ted Pryce.

Sterling's eyes had started to glaze over as he clicked into the 160s, but there was something in photograph #164 that made him double back and take a closer look.

It was yet another one of the princess leaving, but this one was different. In this one, she was looking at the guy leading her out of the melee — that handsome bodyguard she'd had on and off for awhile now. But she wasn't looking at him like he was just any random bodyguard. She was looking at him like he had gotten the sun to shine just for her. Hell, she was looking at him like he was her sun.

"Jackpot," Sterling whispered. The shot wouldn't go on the homepage the next day or anything, but he could throw it in a slideshow to gin up gossip about what exactly was between Eleanor and her hottie protector, and then use it in a series of speculative "follow-up" stories.

A look like that could give D-Throned a good two weeks of content — easy.