By Any Other Name - Primeval Fanfic - Part 3/3
Title: By Any Other Name Part 3/3
Author: Clea2011
Word Count: 10,704 total. This part 3,292
Characters: Becker/Connor, Jess, Lester, Danny, Philip, April
Rating: 15
Spoilers: No
Warnings: No - although possibly this chapter could be thought of as dubcon. I hardly think it's worth warning for, because really everyone is perfectly happy about it all.
Disclaimer: Primeval belongs to Impossible Pictures, I'm just writing for fun and non-profit.
A/N: For the
trope_bingo square au: royalty / aristocracy / feudal. Thanks to fififolle for the beta, and to celeste9 for all the Fairy Tale discussions.
Summary: This is a retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale. It contains no mpreg, as requested by Celeste. It is very much crackfic.
Part One is here
Part Two is here
Jess stared at him, looking a little horrified. "A child? Like, a baby? Wouldn't you rather have a puppy or something? Puppies are adorable!" Evidently this wasn't a good wish like his first one.
"No, we need an heir to be king or queen when we're gone. A crown prince, or princess."
"Why are you asking her?" Becker wondered.
"Shh, she's a genie and I have two wishes left. She can get us a baby with no complications."
"Can you?" Becker looked at her in some confusion. "Do genies give them away?"
"Well I wouldn't want to keep the noisy, smelly thing! Of course we give them away. Connor.” She looked to her master. "Are you sure, are you absolutely sure that's what you want? I'm doing the questioning thing, you'll notice. Not too late to back out."
"I'm sure."
"People won't mind if there's no baby."
"People like babies. Do you want me to wish it again?"
Jess sighed. "That won't be necessary. How horrible." She threw a huge handful of sparkles up in the air, and the king watched as they fell all over the three of them.
"Is that it?" Connor looked around but no screaming baby had magically appeared. All their clothes had vanished though.
"Of course not! Now you both have to shag me. A lot. Oh, and it doesn't work unless you both make sure I enjoy it."
"Um... we're both gay?"
"That's okay, I'm not and after all it's only me that has to enjoy it! It's compensation for the terrible, terrible thing you're making me do." Jess beamed at them both in a way that made it clear she wasn't going to accept any arguments. "So, no problem, right? Oh!" She threw another handful of sparkles over them both, and suddenly Connor felt a whole lot happier about the prospect. In fact, Jess was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen that wasn't Becker, and it looked as though Becker was feeling the same.
And so the king and his consort managed to produce a genuine and extremely adorable heir without any mpreg taking place, and everyone was very happy. Particularly Connor, who had been a little concerned. Jess of the Bottle was perhaps less happy than the rest of them, and got progressively less happy as the months passed. Her lack of happiness reached a peak when she lost her shoe modelling contract due to swollen ankles. Apparently Connor was the worst master ever, and this was going on the list of most dire things genies had ever been asked to do.
Considering how much she hated it, it was surprising how many magazine spreads the new royal surrogate managed to find herself smiling across, and how many highly fashionable maternity wear companies were vying for her modelling services. And giving her clothes. Lots of them. When Connor asked her about it, he just got that overly bright smile again, and a reminder that nothing, but nothing was compensation for the horror she still had to undergo.
Except, when the time came, Jess waved an extra-large load of sparkles, grimaced a little, and suddenly there was a screaming princeling. Jess wrinkled her nose in disgust, shoved the noisy bundle at Connor and promptly vanished, presumably worried he'd ask her to start feeding the thing.
Becker was ridiculously pleased with the baby. He even attempted to change the royal nappies on one occasion, then saw what was in them and immediately handed Becker Junior over to a nanny. Prince Becker Junior, or BJ as they preferred to call him, had a lot of nannies. He was never without food, toys or attention, and as a result only cried a few times a day, at least within his fathers' earshot. It was another reason why the king was so pleased with him.
Connor was also pleased, because it became apparent that although their son looked very much like Becker, he had inherited Connor's brains and was soon coming out with his first word. Admittedly, it might be wind, but Connor preferred the other option. As he was also part genie, BJ seemed to have a bit of a thing for bottles, which might prove worrying later in life but at that stage all he seemed to want to do was cuddle empty feeding bottles.
Connor had forgotten all about the little man who had opened the anomaly for him by this stage. He was so happy with his family and delighted that Lester had managed to win another election. He didn't really spare a thought for the bargain he'd made. In truth, if he ever thought about it, he supposed it must have been a dream brought on by the stress of it all.
He thought that, right up until BJ was a year old. And then he saw the little man again.
It was a lovely sunny day and Connor had been taking BJ for a walk through the grounds of the royal palace. He'd let the press take a few pictures, because people liked seeing the new prince toddling along, and was wondering if they had time to go down to the training ground and watch Becker practising his sword-fighting with the knights.
Suddenly the strange little man from the anomaly leapt out in front of them. BJ burst into tears and Connor picked him up to give him a cuddle.
"So, we meet again!" Leek rubbed his hands together, looking at BJ. "And I see the time has come for you to pay up!"
BJ bawled even more loudly. Connor wondered where all the royal bodyguards had suddenly disappeared to.
"You can't take our baby," he insisted. There had been loads of guards around a few minutes before. It was as if they'd been spirited away.
"Oh, but I can. If you don't hand him over, I'll open up hundreds of anomalies, all of which lead into the past and will unleash monsters onto the world. And I'll make sure they eat King Becker first." He held out his hands, expecting Connor to hand BJ over.
Connor gripped his son tightly. "There must be another way. What if we give you money?"
"I have plenty of money. I want the child."
Connor really didn't want to know what the creepy little man wanted to do with BJ, and didn't ask. "There must be something else." He was starting to cry a bit too. BJ was wailing loudly. Connor knew who he got that from.
"There's nothing. That child is part genie. I'm going to raise it and find a way to make it grant me wishes forever. But, to be sporting, I'll give you one chance to avoid this. Only because you'll never manage it. I'll give you three days to guess my full name. If you can't do it then you must hand over the child, and all rights to him."
It was unbearable. Connor ran back to the palace, clutching BJ tightly. He wouldn't give him up to any of the nurses or nannies, just raced up to his lab with the baby, sat down and starting surfing the internet looking for clues. He was there for hours. Fortunately BJ fell asleep quite quickly, but Connor wouldn't let him out of his sight. Eventually Becker wandered in to see why Connor hadn't turned up for dinner.
Becker tended to stay out of Connor's lab because it was full of high-tech stuff that he didn't understand, and he'd once accidentally caused a small disaster through flicking a switch to see what it did. After Connor had stopped the anomaly device overloading and probably exploding, he ordered Becker never to touch anything in his lab ever again, and never mind if he was king or not.
Surprisingly, Becker had done what he was told. Although perhaps it wasn't so very surprising, as Connor had discovered Becker quite enjoyed following any orders he wanted to give him, and tended to let Connor have his way in most things. It was a most unexpected part of their marriage, as Connor had expected to spend his married life just doing exactly what Becker told him to. Apparently the love spell had worked extremely well and Becker adored him.
Becker took one look at Connor's tear-streaked face and was immediately on the alert.
"You've been crying! Who's upset you? I'll have them flogged!"
It wasn't strictly legal to have people flogged any more, but Connor appreciated the thought. His search had revealed nothing, and he wasn't sure what to try next. Becker might be able to do something though.
"I don't know. And that's the problem." Connor proceeded to explain exactly what had happened and what he'd promised.
"I didn't think we'd have children," he finished. "I didn't think I'd ever have to give one up."
Becker nodded, deep in thought. Connor could tell this from the frown line that had appeared.
"So you didn't manage to open the anomaly?" he said eventually.
"No. The little man did it."
"So you cheated and we shouldn't really be married?"
Connor froze. He hadn't expected Becker to work that out. Perhaps he was brighter than Connor thought, and now Connor was going to lose him.
"Well... technically. But if I hadn't, I was going to be given to your father as bedwarmer. I couldn't admit that I'd cheated. And... we're happy, aren't we?"
Becker nodded. "Of course. Apart from the fact we might lose BJ. I could tell my knights, they'll hunt him down and kill him."
It wasn't a bad idea. But it wouldn't work. "He escapes through the anomalies," Connor explained. "They'd never find him, and would end up lost. And he made our guards vanish earlier."
"Fine. We'll issue a national search. Whoever can identify him correctly wins their weight in gold. He'll be on the CCTV, we can find pictures. Don't worry, Conn, he's not going to get his hands on BJ."
It was a surprisingly good idea. Apparently Becker needed something traumatic to happen before his brain started working. Connor began to look at him with new respect.
Lester was pretty good as well. Much as he had threatened to strangle Connor if he tried to teach BJ to call him Grampy one more time, he was secretly very fond of the child and anyway he wasn't going to have his second term marred by a scandal that would never, ever be forgotten in all of history and go down as second only to the princes in the tower for horror. Soon the whole country was searching for the man who was, as far as most people were concerned, going to kidnap baby BJ and do who knew what to him. They had CCTV footage from his appearance in the palace grounds, but as nobody seemed to know who he was that wasn't much help.
On the first night the man appeared once again seemingly out of nowhere, but Connor was sure there would be an anomaly nearby.
On Lester's instructions, Connor read out a long, long list of names. It was pretty much the entire contents of every book of children's names they could find. By sunrise Connor was still reading, struggling to pronounce many of them as he'd long since finished all the English ones.
All that he'd established was that the man's first name was Oliver. That was something, although he suspected that was probably the easiest. Who knew how many more there would be to find? He marked his place ready for the next evening. There were many books still to go, and those in languages that didn't use a Latin-derived alphabet were going to prove impossible.
On the second night, Connor tried again. He had help from numerous translators who were able to read from the other books. Oliver just sat there with an amused look on his face, shaking his head.
"We could just kill him," Becker growled. "That would solve the problem."
"Indeed. Except how do you know that I'm not a clone, and that the real me won't come back and open anomalies all over the world to avenge me?"
Becker simmered quietly whilst Connor and the translators continued reading.
At dawn, Oliver was gone again and they were no closer to finding his other names. They were close to despair. Connor had started crying again and Becker marched around the throne room shouting that he wanted to shoot something. Anything.
"I realise I don't really want to know the answer," Lester told them when he heard of their failure that afternoon. "But why exactly does this creep want BJ? Apart from the obvious need to correct the dreadful name you two have given him?"
Connor explained to him about Jess of the Bottle, and how BJ really was the son of both of them but because of the surrogacy was apparently part genie as well. "He thinks he'll get endless wishes."
"How ridiculous. Well, where is this bottle woman? Hasn't she got any ideas?"
"You've still got one wish left," Becker reminded Connor.
Connor knew he did. He had sworn that he'd never use it, because it meant he'd be condemning Jess, who had given him both Becker and BJ, back to a life of imprisonment. It seemed a poor payment but they had no choice.
Reluctantly he retrieved the bottle, and summoned Jess.
Jess, it seemed, had been off on a round the world cruise and the tiny islands she'd been visiting didn't get the news for several days so she hadn't heard about the search for the would-be child abductor. Also, the shopping channel didn't have a great deal of news on it.
Her face fell when she realised that Connor was going to use his last wish, but she agreed that it had to be done. He was, she insisted, still the best master and although she'd miss all the shopping and holidays and modelling, she understood why he needed to do it. And, she'd added, her bottom lip trembling which just made Connor feel even worse, at least it was another good wish, and not a selfish one.
Then she skipped off for some last minute shopping, and promised to return by nightfall when Connor could make his wish.
Connor felt horrible, but at least he knew BJ would be safe.
---
The evening arrived all too quickly.
Becker had locked BJ in a storeroom surrounded by all his best knights. He stood at the door himself, sword drawn. There was no way he was going to let his son go without a fight.
Connor hoped the fight wouldn't prove to be with a very large and hungry dinosaur. He couldn't bear the thought of losing both Becker and BJ.
Jess of the Bottle turned up at dusk, looking rather downcast and trailing several large cases behind her. She was anticipating a long confinement, and had come prepared with a vast selection of DVDs and books.
"I have a few more names to try," Connor told her. "Then I'll have to use up the last wish. I'm really sorry. I wasn't going to use the last one, ever."
Jess sat down on one of her cases. "Don't worry about it. It's all part of being a genie."
That didn't make Connor feel any better. But just then an anomaly started to open and Jess clapped her hands together.
"Ooh! Sparkly!"
Connor failed to see anything good about it. Especially as it heralded the arrival of the man who wanted to take BJ, and stopping him was going to mean the loss of one of his friends.
Sure enough, Oliver appeared. He strode through the anomaly, smiling nastily.
"So, Connor, do you admit defeat?"
Jess stared at the little man. Then she crossed her arms and glared at him: "Oliver Rumpelstiltskin Leek! What the devil are you doing here, you evil little worm? Tell me it's not you who's trying to steal Connor and Becker's baby?!"
"That's him," Connor whispered. "That's... Oh! That's Oliver Rumpelstiltskin Leek!" He beamed happily at Jess. "You're the best!"
Leek gave a howl of rage and ran back through the anomaly. It closed behind him and they never saw him again.
"Phew!" Jess wiped her brow. "For an awful moment I thought I was going to have to pop out another one for you. Conjuring those things up plays havoc with your figure. My ankles swelled up so much I could hardly fit any of my favourite shoes on!"
Connor was barely listening. "You saved our baby! Becker won't divorce me!"
"Oh, Becker wouldn't have done that, he's got the whole love thing going on."
"Yeah." Connor looked a little downcast. "I feel bad about that. It's as if I'm forcing him to love me because he's under a spell."
"Oh no, that wore off after a few weeks, he really does love you. He's written poetry about you, you know? It's in the drawer under your bed. I wouldn't read it, it's the most dire thing and he really can't spell. But it's sort of adorable that he's done it."
Connor started to laugh, then considered it. "Hang on, how do you know?"
Jess drew herself up to her full height in heels, which still didn't quite reach five foot, and eyed him sternly. "I am your guardian genie, until you've made your third wish. I have to be around constantly."
"You're watching us have sex, aren't you?"
"God yes, that's delicious! Could I put in some requests?"
Connor glared at her, but she just shrugged and threw up some rainbows and sparkles.
"Look how pretty this is! Wheee!"
"You're not distracting me!"
She shrugged. "It works with Becker. Worth a try!"
"Talking of Becker, we'd better tell him he can stand down now, Leek's gone. I won't tell him about the spying on us thing though. As long as you stop."
Jess shrugged. "Sorry, it goes with the job. Have to watch everything. Guardian genie and all."
"Until I've made my third wish?"
"Exactly. And that would mean returning me to cruel and harsh imprisonment."
"Unless my third wish was for you to be free. Can that be done?"
Jess stared at him. "You'd do that? Really?"
"Well, I've got everything I want, the whole happy ever after thing. I don't need a third wish."
"I'd need to get a job."
"You won't need one. You'll collect the reward for saving BJ. But you could be a personal shopper."
Jess clasped her hands together in delight.
And so BJ was saved, for which everyone was thankful. He grew up to be a very handsome and clever prince, and when his father abdicated to go and retire somewhere warm with his consort, BJ became an excellent king.
Jess went off to be a personal shopper and part-time shoe modeller. She married one of the knights and had lots of delicious sex but didn't have any more babies because of the ankle-swelling thing.
Queen April kept Sir Danny as her personal bedwarmer. This annoyed the king, which amused Sir Danny and they bickered happily for many years.
James Lester continued as the most popular and sarcastic Prime Minister the country had ever known. When he eventually got bored with being able to tell everyone what to do after several decades, his son in law knighted him and he went off to the House of Lords where he was very happy as he didn't have to be there much and had plenty of time for TV appearances and book writing.
Finally, because Connor had rescued Jess a second time he appeared even more heroic and adorable to Becker, so of course they lived happily ever after.
The end.
Author: Clea2011
Word Count: 10,704 total. This part 3,292
Characters: Becker/Connor, Jess, Lester, Danny, Philip, April
Rating: 15
Spoilers: No
Warnings: No - although possibly this chapter could be thought of as dubcon. I hardly think it's worth warning for, because really everyone is perfectly happy about it all.
Disclaimer: Primeval belongs to Impossible Pictures, I'm just writing for fun and non-profit.
A/N: For the
trope_bingo square au: royalty / aristocracy / feudal. Thanks to fififolle for the beta, and to celeste9 for all the Fairy Tale discussions.
Summary: This is a retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale. It contains no mpreg, as requested by Celeste. It is very much crackfic.
Part One is here
Part Two is here
Jess stared at him, looking a little horrified. "A child? Like, a baby? Wouldn't you rather have a puppy or something? Puppies are adorable!" Evidently this wasn't a good wish like his first one.
"No, we need an heir to be king or queen when we're gone. A crown prince, or princess."
"Why are you asking her?" Becker wondered.
"Shh, she's a genie and I have two wishes left. She can get us a baby with no complications."
"Can you?" Becker looked at her in some confusion. "Do genies give them away?"
"Well I wouldn't want to keep the noisy, smelly thing! Of course we give them away. Connor.” She looked to her master. "Are you sure, are you absolutely sure that's what you want? I'm doing the questioning thing, you'll notice. Not too late to back out."
"I'm sure."
"People won't mind if there's no baby."
"People like babies. Do you want me to wish it again?"
Jess sighed. "That won't be necessary. How horrible." She threw a huge handful of sparkles up in the air, and the king watched as they fell all over the three of them.
"Is that it?" Connor looked around but no screaming baby had magically appeared. All their clothes had vanished though.
"Of course not! Now you both have to shag me. A lot. Oh, and it doesn't work unless you both make sure I enjoy it."
"Um... we're both gay?"
"That's okay, I'm not and after all it's only me that has to enjoy it! It's compensation for the terrible, terrible thing you're making me do." Jess beamed at them both in a way that made it clear she wasn't going to accept any arguments. "So, no problem, right? Oh!" She threw another handful of sparkles over them both, and suddenly Connor felt a whole lot happier about the prospect. In fact, Jess was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen that wasn't Becker, and it looked as though Becker was feeling the same.
And so the king and his consort managed to produce a genuine and extremely adorable heir without any mpreg taking place, and everyone was very happy. Particularly Connor, who had been a little concerned. Jess of the Bottle was perhaps less happy than the rest of them, and got progressively less happy as the months passed. Her lack of happiness reached a peak when she lost her shoe modelling contract due to swollen ankles. Apparently Connor was the worst master ever, and this was going on the list of most dire things genies had ever been asked to do.
Considering how much she hated it, it was surprising how many magazine spreads the new royal surrogate managed to find herself smiling across, and how many highly fashionable maternity wear companies were vying for her modelling services. And giving her clothes. Lots of them. When Connor asked her about it, he just got that overly bright smile again, and a reminder that nothing, but nothing was compensation for the horror she still had to undergo.
Except, when the time came, Jess waved an extra-large load of sparkles, grimaced a little, and suddenly there was a screaming princeling. Jess wrinkled her nose in disgust, shoved the noisy bundle at Connor and promptly vanished, presumably worried he'd ask her to start feeding the thing.
Becker was ridiculously pleased with the baby. He even attempted to change the royal nappies on one occasion, then saw what was in them and immediately handed Becker Junior over to a nanny. Prince Becker Junior, or BJ as they preferred to call him, had a lot of nannies. He was never without food, toys or attention, and as a result only cried a few times a day, at least within his fathers' earshot. It was another reason why the king was so pleased with him.
Connor was also pleased, because it became apparent that although their son looked very much like Becker, he had inherited Connor's brains and was soon coming out with his first word. Admittedly, it might be wind, but Connor preferred the other option. As he was also part genie, BJ seemed to have a bit of a thing for bottles, which might prove worrying later in life but at that stage all he seemed to want to do was cuddle empty feeding bottles.
Connor had forgotten all about the little man who had opened the anomaly for him by this stage. He was so happy with his family and delighted that Lester had managed to win another election. He didn't really spare a thought for the bargain he'd made. In truth, if he ever thought about it, he supposed it must have been a dream brought on by the stress of it all.
He thought that, right up until BJ was a year old. And then he saw the little man again.
It was a lovely sunny day and Connor had been taking BJ for a walk through the grounds of the royal palace. He'd let the press take a few pictures, because people liked seeing the new prince toddling along, and was wondering if they had time to go down to the training ground and watch Becker practising his sword-fighting with the knights.
Suddenly the strange little man from the anomaly leapt out in front of them. BJ burst into tears and Connor picked him up to give him a cuddle.
"So, we meet again!" Leek rubbed his hands together, looking at BJ. "And I see the time has come for you to pay up!"
BJ bawled even more loudly. Connor wondered where all the royal bodyguards had suddenly disappeared to.
"You can't take our baby," he insisted. There had been loads of guards around a few minutes before. It was as if they'd been spirited away.
"Oh, but I can. If you don't hand him over, I'll open up hundreds of anomalies, all of which lead into the past and will unleash monsters onto the world. And I'll make sure they eat King Becker first." He held out his hands, expecting Connor to hand BJ over.
Connor gripped his son tightly. "There must be another way. What if we give you money?"
"I have plenty of money. I want the child."
Connor really didn't want to know what the creepy little man wanted to do with BJ, and didn't ask. "There must be something else." He was starting to cry a bit too. BJ was wailing loudly. Connor knew who he got that from.
"There's nothing. That child is part genie. I'm going to raise it and find a way to make it grant me wishes forever. But, to be sporting, I'll give you one chance to avoid this. Only because you'll never manage it. I'll give you three days to guess my full name. If you can't do it then you must hand over the child, and all rights to him."
It was unbearable. Connor ran back to the palace, clutching BJ tightly. He wouldn't give him up to any of the nurses or nannies, just raced up to his lab with the baby, sat down and starting surfing the internet looking for clues. He was there for hours. Fortunately BJ fell asleep quite quickly, but Connor wouldn't let him out of his sight. Eventually Becker wandered in to see why Connor hadn't turned up for dinner.
Becker tended to stay out of Connor's lab because it was full of high-tech stuff that he didn't understand, and he'd once accidentally caused a small disaster through flicking a switch to see what it did. After Connor had stopped the anomaly device overloading and probably exploding, he ordered Becker never to touch anything in his lab ever again, and never mind if he was king or not.
Surprisingly, Becker had done what he was told. Although perhaps it wasn't so very surprising, as Connor had discovered Becker quite enjoyed following any orders he wanted to give him, and tended to let Connor have his way in most things. It was a most unexpected part of their marriage, as Connor had expected to spend his married life just doing exactly what Becker told him to. Apparently the love spell had worked extremely well and Becker adored him.
Becker took one look at Connor's tear-streaked face and was immediately on the alert.
"You've been crying! Who's upset you? I'll have them flogged!"
It wasn't strictly legal to have people flogged any more, but Connor appreciated the thought. His search had revealed nothing, and he wasn't sure what to try next. Becker might be able to do something though.
"I don't know. And that's the problem." Connor proceeded to explain exactly what had happened and what he'd promised.
"I didn't think we'd have children," he finished. "I didn't think I'd ever have to give one up."
Becker nodded, deep in thought. Connor could tell this from the frown line that had appeared.
"So you didn't manage to open the anomaly?" he said eventually.
"No. The little man did it."
"So you cheated and we shouldn't really be married?"
Connor froze. He hadn't expected Becker to work that out. Perhaps he was brighter than Connor thought, and now Connor was going to lose him.
"Well... technically. But if I hadn't, I was going to be given to your father as bedwarmer. I couldn't admit that I'd cheated. And... we're happy, aren't we?"
Becker nodded. "Of course. Apart from the fact we might lose BJ. I could tell my knights, they'll hunt him down and kill him."
It wasn't a bad idea. But it wouldn't work. "He escapes through the anomalies," Connor explained. "They'd never find him, and would end up lost. And he made our guards vanish earlier."
"Fine. We'll issue a national search. Whoever can identify him correctly wins their weight in gold. He'll be on the CCTV, we can find pictures. Don't worry, Conn, he's not going to get his hands on BJ."
It was a surprisingly good idea. Apparently Becker needed something traumatic to happen before his brain started working. Connor began to look at him with new respect.
Lester was pretty good as well. Much as he had threatened to strangle Connor if he tried to teach BJ to call him Grampy one more time, he was secretly very fond of the child and anyway he wasn't going to have his second term marred by a scandal that would never, ever be forgotten in all of history and go down as second only to the princes in the tower for horror. Soon the whole country was searching for the man who was, as far as most people were concerned, going to kidnap baby BJ and do who knew what to him. They had CCTV footage from his appearance in the palace grounds, but as nobody seemed to know who he was that wasn't much help.
On the first night the man appeared once again seemingly out of nowhere, but Connor was sure there would be an anomaly nearby.
On Lester's instructions, Connor read out a long, long list of names. It was pretty much the entire contents of every book of children's names they could find. By sunrise Connor was still reading, struggling to pronounce many of them as he'd long since finished all the English ones.
All that he'd established was that the man's first name was Oliver. That was something, although he suspected that was probably the easiest. Who knew how many more there would be to find? He marked his place ready for the next evening. There were many books still to go, and those in languages that didn't use a Latin-derived alphabet were going to prove impossible.
On the second night, Connor tried again. He had help from numerous translators who were able to read from the other books. Oliver just sat there with an amused look on his face, shaking his head.
"We could just kill him," Becker growled. "That would solve the problem."
"Indeed. Except how do you know that I'm not a clone, and that the real me won't come back and open anomalies all over the world to avenge me?"
Becker simmered quietly whilst Connor and the translators continued reading.
At dawn, Oliver was gone again and they were no closer to finding his other names. They were close to despair. Connor had started crying again and Becker marched around the throne room shouting that he wanted to shoot something. Anything.
"I realise I don't really want to know the answer," Lester told them when he heard of their failure that afternoon. "But why exactly does this creep want BJ? Apart from the obvious need to correct the dreadful name you two have given him?"
Connor explained to him about Jess of the Bottle, and how BJ really was the son of both of them but because of the surrogacy was apparently part genie as well. "He thinks he'll get endless wishes."
"How ridiculous. Well, where is this bottle woman? Hasn't she got any ideas?"
"You've still got one wish left," Becker reminded Connor.
Connor knew he did. He had sworn that he'd never use it, because it meant he'd be condemning Jess, who had given him both Becker and BJ, back to a life of imprisonment. It seemed a poor payment but they had no choice.
Reluctantly he retrieved the bottle, and summoned Jess.
Jess, it seemed, had been off on a round the world cruise and the tiny islands she'd been visiting didn't get the news for several days so she hadn't heard about the search for the would-be child abductor. Also, the shopping channel didn't have a great deal of news on it.
Her face fell when she realised that Connor was going to use his last wish, but she agreed that it had to be done. He was, she insisted, still the best master and although she'd miss all the shopping and holidays and modelling, she understood why he needed to do it. And, she'd added, her bottom lip trembling which just made Connor feel even worse, at least it was another good wish, and not a selfish one.
Then she skipped off for some last minute shopping, and promised to return by nightfall when Connor could make his wish.
Connor felt horrible, but at least he knew BJ would be safe.
---
The evening arrived all too quickly.
Becker had locked BJ in a storeroom surrounded by all his best knights. He stood at the door himself, sword drawn. There was no way he was going to let his son go without a fight.
Connor hoped the fight wouldn't prove to be with a very large and hungry dinosaur. He couldn't bear the thought of losing both Becker and BJ.
Jess of the Bottle turned up at dusk, looking rather downcast and trailing several large cases behind her. She was anticipating a long confinement, and had come prepared with a vast selection of DVDs and books.
"I have a few more names to try," Connor told her. "Then I'll have to use up the last wish. I'm really sorry. I wasn't going to use the last one, ever."
Jess sat down on one of her cases. "Don't worry about it. It's all part of being a genie."
That didn't make Connor feel any better. But just then an anomaly started to open and Jess clapped her hands together.
"Ooh! Sparkly!"
Connor failed to see anything good about it. Especially as it heralded the arrival of the man who wanted to take BJ, and stopping him was going to mean the loss of one of his friends.
Sure enough, Oliver appeared. He strode through the anomaly, smiling nastily.
"So, Connor, do you admit defeat?"
Jess stared at the little man. Then she crossed her arms and glared at him: "Oliver Rumpelstiltskin Leek! What the devil are you doing here, you evil little worm? Tell me it's not you who's trying to steal Connor and Becker's baby?!"
"That's him," Connor whispered. "That's... Oh! That's Oliver Rumpelstiltskin Leek!" He beamed happily at Jess. "You're the best!"
Leek gave a howl of rage and ran back through the anomaly. It closed behind him and they never saw him again.
"Phew!" Jess wiped her brow. "For an awful moment I thought I was going to have to pop out another one for you. Conjuring those things up plays havoc with your figure. My ankles swelled up so much I could hardly fit any of my favourite shoes on!"
Connor was barely listening. "You saved our baby! Becker won't divorce me!"
"Oh, Becker wouldn't have done that, he's got the whole love thing going on."
"Yeah." Connor looked a little downcast. "I feel bad about that. It's as if I'm forcing him to love me because he's under a spell."
"Oh no, that wore off after a few weeks, he really does love you. He's written poetry about you, you know? It's in the drawer under your bed. I wouldn't read it, it's the most dire thing and he really can't spell. But it's sort of adorable that he's done it."
Connor started to laugh, then considered it. "Hang on, how do you know?"
Jess drew herself up to her full height in heels, which still didn't quite reach five foot, and eyed him sternly. "I am your guardian genie, until you've made your third wish. I have to be around constantly."
"You're watching us have sex, aren't you?"
"God yes, that's delicious! Could I put in some requests?"
Connor glared at her, but she just shrugged and threw up some rainbows and sparkles.
"Look how pretty this is! Wheee!"
"You're not distracting me!"
She shrugged. "It works with Becker. Worth a try!"
"Talking of Becker, we'd better tell him he can stand down now, Leek's gone. I won't tell him about the spying on us thing though. As long as you stop."
Jess shrugged. "Sorry, it goes with the job. Have to watch everything. Guardian genie and all."
"Until I've made my third wish?"
"Exactly. And that would mean returning me to cruel and harsh imprisonment."
"Unless my third wish was for you to be free. Can that be done?"
Jess stared at him. "You'd do that? Really?"
"Well, I've got everything I want, the whole happy ever after thing. I don't need a third wish."
"I'd need to get a job."
"You won't need one. You'll collect the reward for saving BJ. But you could be a personal shopper."
Jess clasped her hands together in delight.
And so BJ was saved, for which everyone was thankful. He grew up to be a very handsome and clever prince, and when his father abdicated to go and retire somewhere warm with his consort, BJ became an excellent king.
Jess went off to be a personal shopper and part-time shoe modeller. She married one of the knights and had lots of delicious sex but didn't have any more babies because of the ankle-swelling thing.
Queen April kept Sir Danny as her personal bedwarmer. This annoyed the king, which amused Sir Danny and they bickered happily for many years.
James Lester continued as the most popular and sarcastic Prime Minister the country had ever known. When he eventually got bored with being able to tell everyone what to do after several decades, his son in law knighted him and he went off to the House of Lords where he was very happy as he didn't have to be there much and had plenty of time for TV appearances and book writing.
Finally, because Connor had rescued Jess a second time he appeared even more heroic and adorable to Becker, so of course they lived happily ever after.
The end.