31_days | [022300A APR 2013] [Honorverse] - Feeling Defensive (Fakes Smiles [et al])

Title: Feeling Defensive (Fakes Smiles [et al])
Day/Prompt: 02. fake smiles, seen 'em all, I just don't need it
Fandom: Honor Harrington Series - David Weber
Characters: Elizabeth III of Manticore
Pairing: Elizabeth III of Manticore & Cathy Montaigne
Rating: PG
Summary: There are always consequences to actions, past and present. An Elizabeth study in my Beowulf's Honor - Manticore's Shame AU.

"Damn you, Cathy. Why didn't you just bring me the evidence? Why didn't you tell me that my Lords were so corrupt, so blind to decency that they'd climbed into bed with Jessyk and Manpower. On my oaths I'd have dealt with them, even if it might have taken me a little longer than you'd have liked - and I might have been able to ..."

Basilisk was in Havenite hands - the Medusans had ... well it had been bloody, and North Hollow's eldest had acquitted himself appallingly. The war still hadn't started - and that, that had taken some fast talking - it was probably only the threat of the junction forts and a little judicious havoc that the intelligence services had been stirring on Haven herself that had saved them so far.

And the worst of it was that she could understand why Cathy was doing what she was doing. She wasn't sure she would trust her oaths in Cathy - and the Ballroom's - place, damn them, but she was trying - she'd removed the Admirals that had chased out Harrington, hadn't she? As much as Cathy might deny it, Elizabeth's first priority is must be to keep her Kingdom free of Haven's maw.

Even if to do so, it feel like she's proposing that she make yet another deal with the devil. One that tastes almost as bitter as the one that kept her from avenging her father's death.