"You're kidding, right?" (Mary)
"What did you say?" (Edward)
"Could you just repeat that please?" (Grandmother)
We stared at the surgeon in disbelief, except for Mother, who was still crying.
An older surgeon came out of the door.
"Yes, it's true. I'm so sorry."
Edward and Mary ran into the theatre to check. We could hear a few surgeons and nurses gasping, then Mary promptly ran out, opened a nearby window, leaned over it and threw up. Edward came out a moment later.
"Yup, it's true guys." Edward sighed.
"Are you alright Mary?", I asked her.
"Yes, I'm fine," she said dizzily. "It's just that there was so much blood..."
Then she giggled. "Some guy down below has the nerve to shout at a princess."
I looked out the window. "I can understand."
Luckily, no-one had been hit.
"So... he's really dead?" I asked.
"Yes," said Edward.
We all found it hard to believe, and it was only when I got back to my room in the Royal Palace that I realized.
Father was dead.
Time to go rustling through my stuff until I found a few photo albums and looked through them.
There were several holiday snaps of us at beaches in Spain or Hawaii (Altea is landlocked) and a few of Father celebrating his 10th Jubilee, as well as many more photos of us at various points in our lives.
There was one of Edward, Father and me celebrating because we had built this (come to think about it, rather naff-looking) sandcastle. Mary was in the picture too, but Edward and me were very small at the time and Mother was sunbathing beside us in a bikini with her bump on display. We were all smiling.
There were more photos. There was that selfie of me and Father I took with my smartphone by the Riten Tower on a state visit... Smiling, of course...
Then there was this one of us posing together, me doing a derpy smile and holding up my exam results...
Father...
Then I saw a photo of Mother and Father bringing home baby me from the hospital... (Oh my days I had a face like a dried tomato)
Opening our Christmas presents... Turns out I got this stuffed giraffe one year...
There was even this newspaper clipping announcing my birth...
Father was dead...
We didn't see him that much, and we had had our fair share of spats (I remember Edward threw a fake Ming vase at him one time) but still.
I remember hugging him, awww... and he read me a story once when I was small and sick... I remember falling asleep to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe... watching The Hobbit together at the cinema...
I started crying.
"Are you alright?" It was Edward.
"Congratulations."
"For what? I was out when the shooting apparently happened." He looked rather angry.
"No silly, I just realized. You're the Crown Prince, aren't you? I know you'll make a great king. Good luck." I patted him on the back.
"Shit."