“We’re beginning our descent, Your Majesty,” James’s voice crackled over her headset. “Ten minutes to landing. It might be a little rough at the end, but we’ll set you down safely.”
“Thank you, James,” Alexandra replied.
Erin’s eyes flicked to her, then to the children, then to the windows, calculating everything. Alexandra didn’t need a headset to hear the checklist running behind that gaze; she could almost see it scrolling: angle of approach, security footprint on arrival, snowdrift depth, visibility, escape routes.
Alexandra reached out and gently covered Erin’s handwhere it rested on her thigh. Through the gloves, through the layers of fabric, there was still the familiar warmth.
“Hey,” Alex said quietly.
Erin’s gaze snapped back to her. Even with the bulky ear defenders, the flight jacket, the harness, she was still that woman Alexandra had fallen so inconveniently in love with all those years ago—the one who had stood a step behind her and a little to the left, ready to take a bullet and utterly unprepared to take a kiss.
“Hey,” Erin replied, and for a second something soft flickered there behind her intense green eyes. Then Florence squealed about seeing a tree through the snow, and the moment vanished, swallowed up by the roar of the rotors.
Alexandra let her fingers stay resting over Erin’s, and tried not to dwell on how rare that contact had become.
Five years. Five years of babies, little children, and sleepless nights and constitutional crises and school choices and NHS reforms and three small people who always—always—seemed to know when their mothers were about to sneak in a moment alone and considered it their life’s mission to interrupt.
She could barely remember the last time she and Erin had made love without one of the children knocking on the door or a private secretary calling with an “urgent” document that could just as easily have waited till morning.
She felt it as a hollow space under her breastbone, a nagging ache. Not just the lack of sex, though that was its own sharp frustration, but the sense of something fraying at the edges. A distance that had crept in quietly—not a chasm, not yet, but there in the way Erin sat a fraction too straight, the way her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
This Christmas, she thought, watching Erin scan thesnow and clouds. We’re going to fix that. We’re going to find our way back to each other properly. No matter how many spreadsheets Vic has ambushed us with.
Vic was organising Christmas. And everyone was more than a little concerned by that.
The helicopter dropped a little, a controlled fall that made Matilda shriek happily and Frank grab at the air as if he could catch the altitude with his bare hands.
Florence just sighed contentedly, leaning back against Alexandra’s side. “My tummy did a funny thing,” she reported.
“That’s the helicopter,” Alexandra said, wrapping an arm around her. “It’s saying we’re nearly there.”
“Nearly there,” Frank repeated, bouncing in his seat. “Is there snow? Is there a castle? Are there reindeers? Mummy Alex, are there reindeers?”
“We’re in Scotland, darling, not Lapland,” Alexandra said. “But Vic did say something about animals, didn’t she?”
“She said Christmas is going to be ‘fucking immaculate,’” Matilda said, the words delivered with horrifying precision.
“Matilda! Language!” Erin scolded.
Alexandra laughed, horrified. That sounded like Vic.
“Yes, well,” she said. “Auntie Vic has… big plans.”
“Big, scary plans,” Erin muttered under her breath.
Alexandra turned her head, catching the tension in the line of Erin’s jaw. There were fine grooves at the corners of her eyes that hadn’t been there five years ago—worry etched into skin by long nights and longer days. Her dark hair was a little shorter, a little more practical. There was a faint scar along her knuckles from some incident Alexandra hadn’t been present for, and that still bothered her more than she’d admit.
But she was still her beautiful kind Erin. Still her anchor in every storm.
“Just think,” Alexandra said, half teasing, half sincere. “No London, no meetings, no red boxes, no protests outside the palace gates. Just snow, and fires, and family.”
Erin huffed out something that might have been a laugh. “And Vic. Don’t forget Vic.”
“Oh, I never forget Vic,” Alexandra said dryly. “It’s physically impossible. She leaves a trail of glitter and chaos wherever she goes.”
Florence perked up. “Is there glitter?”
“There is always glitter when Auntie Vic is involved,” Erin said grimly. “Check your pockets before bed, or you’ll wake up sparkling for a week.”
