Belle was up before dawn, and she dressed as silently as she could in wool skirts and a matching homespun bodice. She went without stays, since she couldn't properly do them herself, but she didn't care today about appearances. She slipped out of the bedchamber and made her way down to the kitchens, where she found that Mrs. Potts was already making the beginnings of breakfast for the castle's inhabitants.

"Mrs. Potts?" Belle asked carefully, stepping into the kitchen and seeing the older woman whirl round. Mrs. Potts murmured to a few of the other kitchen servants to quietly attend to the porridge, and as she neared Belle, she swept her into a motherly embrace and whispered,

"You poor things, the both of you."

"I want to focus on action," Belle said firmly as she pulled away. "Mrs. Potts, after I've gone to the village a few times myself, will you come with me? To help convince the people. Your husband still comes back and forth; they're much warmer toward you than they are toward me."

"Of course I'll help, dearie!" Mrs. Potts nodded frantically and put her hands on Belle's shoulders. "You just let me know when, and I'll be in a cart to Villeneuve at once."

Belle gave her a little smile and nodded. "Thank you. Now, would it be possible for me to take some porridge and apples up to my bedroom? I think today more than usual, he might want to just... relax... for a while."

"I expect the Master's still in a terrible shock," Mrs. Potts nodded. She moved back to the ovens and began ladling porridge into small copper tureens. Belle scoffed as she picked up two apples from a basket and began slicing them on the butcher block.

"He's still asleep, or he was when I left," she told Mrs. Potts, who put the breakfast into a tray with a teapot and two cups.

"Men or beasts, they all sleep like rocks," she said. "Let me help you upstairs with this."

"I can do it, but thank you. Have a good morning." Belle took the heavy tray, silently willing herself not to spill it all over herself halfway up the stairs. She made it all the way to the door before she had a problem. She huffed and set the tray down on the ground outside the bedroom, flinging the door open and picking the tray up as she marched inside.

She went over to the windows and drew the curtains, sending the gray light of the new morning spilling into the room. She decided right then and there that the two of them would move into Adam's far more spacious quarters in the West Wing, at least until he was half this size again. From the bed, Adam huffed a little growl and rolled over, so Belle spoke loudly and clearly to him.

"I believe the best manner of approaching all this is penance," she said. "Your average person in the village understands the concept, even if they don't live it. The idea of a prince - whose heavy taxation and sour temper are now well remembered - making restitution? It's quite a notion. Père Robert can speak on the matter at church; it's all quite appropriate. I mean to speak with as many people individually as I can, and Mrs. Potts will come with me to -"

"Belle." His low voice was thick with sleep as he pushed himself up onto the pillows. "How long have you been awake?"

"I dunno. Hour and a half?" Belle said lightly. She went to the tray of food and lifted copper tureen of porridge to bring to Adam. "Use the spoon, please," she warned him.

"Just once, I think I'd like to take care of you instead of the other way round," the prince grumbled.

"You're welcome," Belle said meaningfully. "And I'm not taking care of you; we are eating breakfast and discussing strategy. This is a morning meeting is what it is."

Adam spooned porridge into his mouth, the spoon looking minuscule and awkward in his hand. He dropped the spoon from his clawed grasp and just managed to catch it before it fell into the tureen of porridge. He finally huffed and set the spoon on the table beside the bed. As Belle pulled up her boudoir stool and started eating her own food, Adam brought the bowl to his lips and slurped it quietly. Belle smiled a little, remembering the way they'd done this with soup. She continued using her own spoon, though, as she reiterated,

"So, I think our plan of action is to enlist the help of Père Robert at the beginning, then just me, then Mrs. Potts going with me… we need to convince people not to despise the concept of a beastly prince well before we put one before them."

"Do you really think it could work?" Adam asked, setting down his empty bowl and swiping at his enormous, fur-covered face with his paw. Belle balked a little and said,

"There's Plague coming. It must work. There's no option to fail. Imagine if Chip got sick and died because we didn't try hard enough with this. Imagine if I got sick and -"

"No. No, I will not imagine that." Adam snapped. His bright blue eyes flashed oddly, and Belle sighed as she set her own bowl of porridge down beside his. She covered his paw with her hand, the bones and sinew and fur feeling at once strange and familiar.

"All I'm saying is that if Agathe's right about the Plague - and I suspect she is - then you don't know who could be taken victim. Don't you want to minimize any risk of -"

"Stop. Please. Why are you talking like this? What's the matter with you?" Adam's voice was sharp and angry then, and Belle found herself frowning at him as she pulled her hand back and stood.

"I'm going to go write a letter to Père Robert and send it by horseman at once," she announced. "I won't wait for a reply; I'll let him know that I'm coming to town tomorrow. And I'll take a cart from here. It's important that none of this seem overwhelming to the townspeople. I'll meet with him to discuss everything, and after I come back tomorrow, we'll talk about it again. I think that, until then, you should focus your mind on something else."

"Like what?" Adam demanded, and Belle shrugged. She glanced out the window at the soft, chilly rain that had filled the November sky.

"I always like a little bite in the morning air," she declared. "I'll be out on the covered veranda near the ballroom. The one with the iron benches. I'll bring a book, and you can read aloud to me, just like you did on the way from Italy. You should clean yourself up and dress nicely; it'll help you feel more…"

"Human," he finished for her, pulling the blankets back and heaving himself out of the bed. He glanced around the room and said, "I think we ought to move you into the West Wing."

"I was thinking the same thing," Belle said. She smirked and added, "At least until you aren't shoving me off the bed just by lying on it."

"You can… you can stay in there after I'm myself again, too, you know." Adam's mouth twitched a little. "I know I'd first told you never to go there, but things are different now. And I know… well, you know, my mother always had a separate bedchamber from my father, but they weren't… they didn't love each other, I don't think. Not really."

Belle gave him the warmest look she could, and she moved to stand between his legs as he perched himself on the edge of the bed. She ran her hands down over his thick arms and touched her cheek to the warm fur on his face.

"I'm sorry you didn't have love modeled for you," she said, thinking of how much her father had loved her mother even after she'd gone. "But I love you, more than I ever thought I could love anybody."

"Even like this?" he asked, and she met the only part of him that stayed constant - his eyes. She nodded, kissing the flat bridge of his nose.

"Even like this."

"Do you know, before and just after we were married, you were helping me learn to be human again?"

Belle turned around at the sound of Adam's voice coming out onto the veranda. He sat beside her on the iron bench, having obviously washed up before putting on a dark red velvet ensemble.

"Now," he continued, "you're helping me accept being… this. How is it, Belle, that you manage to make me so very comfortable in any skin?"

She shrugged. "It's your soul I love, and all I can do is to try and show you that your soul doesn't change with the aesthetic."

He sighed and looked out over the rain-soaked gardens. It was cold enough that Belle had put on leather gloves and a dark red cloak, and she laughed a little as she noted to Adam,

"We match." He seemed confused, so she held the end of her cape up against Adam's frock coat and smiled. "It's Red Day, apparently."

"Oh. Great minds and all that," Adam said. "Did you send a letter to Père Robert?"

"No. I felt too badly about sending a messenger in this weather. The roads will be dangerous. I think it's important that I meet with Père Robert as soon as possible, so he'll just have to deal with my unexpected arrival tomorrow or the day after. Whenever I can get a horse safely on the mud. I'll just ride; a cart would require me to let the roads bake out, and that won't happen for a few days at least."

"You're very practical," the prince grumbled. "I wish my mind was as practical as yours. What are you reading?"

He took her book from her before she could answer, and he rolled his eyes as he read the gold wording from the spine. "Romeo and Juliet. Again?"

"Always," she grinned. Then, as if to rub salt in the figurative wound, she said, "I had left off just there… Act one, Scene five. Will you read it to me?"

"How am I meant to read a play aloud?" Adam demanded, and Belle grinned as she shut her eyes.

"All right, then. You read Romeo's parts, and I'll recite Juliet's."

"Don't you need to see the book for that?" she heard him ask, but she shut her head.

"I have the whole thing memorized."

"Of course you do." Adam growled quietly and then cleared his throat as he began to read the scene. "If I profane with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."

Belle froze, realizing just how meaningful this particular scene was given their circumstances. Her breath shook a little as she opened her eyes and studied Adam's beastly face. "Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this, for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."

The prince stared at Belle for a long moment before turning his pale eyes back to the page. "Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?"

"Ay, pilgrim," said Belle, reaching out to put her hand on Adam's enormous sleeve. "Lips that they must use in prayer."

Adam shut his eyes for a moment, the little copy of the book trembling in his paws. He used a claw to turn the page, and his deep voice was tight as he said, "O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair."

Belle stood from where she'd been sitting, and Adam's eyes went wide with surprise as she pushed the book into one of his hands and put her arms around his incredibly broad shoulders. "Saints do not move," she recited, "but grant for prayers' sake."

"Then do not move," Adam read, "while my prayer's effect I take."

He set the book down and put his paws on either side of Belle's face. She leaned forward and kissed him, just like the stage direction in the play told Romeo and Juliet to do. She touched her lips to his, and when he gasped in surprise, she snuck her tongue bravely into his mouth. She let his fang graze her tongue and her lips as she pressed a firm kiss onto his mouth, and his grip on her cheek tightened almost painfully. His eyes were searching and anxious as she pulled a few inches away, but somehow he managed to find enough breath to pick up the book, glance at the page, and say,

"Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged."

Belle smirked. "Then have my lips the sin they took."

"Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!" Adam read, his voice shaking like a leaf. "Give me my sin again. And… and then it says they kiss again."

"More ardently this time, I should think," Belle insisted. She took the book from her prince's grasp and set it on the bench beside him. This time when she kissed him, she held nothing back. She kissed him just like she'd been doing for months, with tongues running over roofs of mouths and lips being dragged carefully between teeth. He tasted the same - dark and savory - and his lips felt very much the same. The size and shape of him was a little different, and when she brought her hands to his cheeks, there was soft fur beneath her palms. But that wasn't so very different from his silky beard, and when he grunted with pleasure, there was no mistaking this was Adam. Her Adam. Her prince.

"It's much, much too windy, Belle. If you weren't planning on going yourself, I'd say -"

"This is important, Adam!" Belle insisted, but even as she spoke, a great gust of wind thrashed rainwater against the glass lining the West Wing drawing room. Belle huffed and put her hands on her hips, and the prince gave her a serious look.

"If you got injured or lost or stranded," he said, "I wouldn't be able to help you properly. Not without putting both of us at serious risk. Please, Belle. Wait for these storms to let up. Please."

Belle's face softened as more rain was whipped violently against the glass. "I suppose one day doesn't make an enormous difference in three months," she admitted, "but we need to move quickly. I'll go tomorrow. It'll be better by then, I'm sure."

"Thank you," Adam said in a conciliatory voice. He and Belle stayed in the drawing room where the enchanted rose had once been, where he had died on the ground and she'd cried and said she loved him. He studied the floor, the walls, the windows, and he knew his voice sounded off as he said, "That night you left, Belle, I died long before the gunshots."

Belle's face turned to the spot on the floor where Gaston's final shot had done him in, and she shivered visibly. "I thought I'd lost you forever," she said, "before I'd ever actually had you. What did it feel like?"

"Getting shot?" asked the prince, confused because he'd already explained that to her, but Belle shook her head.

"Dying."

"Oh." Adam shrugged and shook his head. "One minute you were staring down at me, and then I shut my eyes and was asleep. Then I was human again. I don't remember anything in between."

"No harps and angels?" Belle asked with a tiny smirk, and Adam shrugged again.

"Sorry to disappoint you. I was… asleep. That's all."

"Interesting." Belle walked out of the drawing room, back into the bedroom where she'd nursed him back to health after he'd been attacked by wolves. She dragged her fingers down the thick bedpost and yawned a little. She gave him an apologetic look. "I didn't really sleep last night."

Adam glanced out the windows at the rainstorm, and he asked, "Anxious about the weather?"

"Actually, I… had a dream," Belle admitted, her cheeks going scarlet, "and then I woke up and the dream was beside me."

Adam's heart thumped in his broad chest, and he pawed his way down into the bedroom to stand before her. He threw up a furry eyebrow and asked, "Was it like that dream you had a few months ago? The one where I had you pinned against the wall?"

Belle shut her eyes. "Something like that."

Adam let his teeth dig into his bottom lip, eyeing Belle up and down and then looking at the paws where his human hands had been. He frowned as he poked one of his claws against the pad of his own thumb, and he noted,

"If I touch you with these claws, Belle, I'm going to do some serious damage."

"I know," she sighed, opening her eyes and tipping her head. "Maybe you could just… erm… maybe if you just lay on your back and I -"

"That part would hurt you, too, probably." Adam spoke quickly then, feeling very embarrassed. He knew her body well, and he knew the body he'd been damned to possess in this form. His member as the Beast was entirely too large; she'd be miserable at best and wounded at worst. He stared at the floor as he added, "I'm not putting my fangs anywhere near… and your mouth wouldn't fit… can we stop talking about this?"

"It's fine," she assured him, stepping up to him and putting one hand on his chest. Her other hand drifted to his paw, her fingers dragging over his sharp claws as she said, "Three months isn't that long. I went years as a young woman before being physical with you. You went years without a woman. We'll both be fine for three months."

Suddenly an angry sense of need came over Adam, and he seized Belle by the waist and shoved her hard against the wall. His movements happened in a flash; he could move so much more quickly like this than as an ordinary man. He lifted Belle up easily, for when he was like this she seemed to weigh nothing at all. She yelped with surprise, and for a moment her pretty brown eyes looked hungry. But as he pinned her hard against the wall, letting her feel the burgeoning lump in his breeches, the look on her face shifted to fear.

"It isn't that I don't want you like this," she whispered, her voice shaking, "but it's as you said. Claws and fangs and… and that bit. I think I might really get hurt."

The prince panted a bit as he stared down at her, but he nodded and set her down on the ground. He took a step back, very self-conscious of how he'd started to go hard, and he turned away.

"Three months isn't very long," he said, just as she'd done. He stared at the place on the floor where he'd died again, and from behind him, Belle promised him,

"I can wait very patiently. I promise. And in the meantime, I'll fall asleep listening to your heartbeat. The same heartbeat I heard in Verona."

Adam's lips curled up a little bit, and he nodded silently as the rain outside whipped and thrashed the windows.

"Are you sure this horse is all right?" Adam asked, and Belle rolled her eyes from where she rode astride with her skirts hiked up and a cloak falling about her.

"Don't worry. Onyx is a good mount. Very calm; wouldn't spook even if you wanted him to."

She patted the black crest of the gelding she'd chosen for the day. Adam stayed a few steps away despite Belle's assurance that the horse was good-natured.

"You could always just demand that that witch give you Phillippe back," Adam suggested, and Belle smirked as she said,

"I don't think it's wise to poke her with a stick. Do you? Besides, I think Phillippe's happy with her. He was the last time I saw him, at least."

The prince pursed his lips, dragging his clawed paw over his long mane of hair as he told Belle, "Thank you for doing this. Stay safe."

"I'll be back tonight," Belle promised him. She reached down, and he let her squeeze his paw tightly. She squeezed her heels against Onyx, and he started off into a trot. Belle glanced over her shoulder as they rode out of the gate to see that Adam was still standing at the bottom of the winding staircase.

The air was brisk and wet as she rode toward Villeneuve. The roads were still muddy, and from time to time Onyx padded through a puddle that Belle knew was throwing dark speckles onto her cloak and drawers. She was sitting atop one petticoat that she'd pulled between her legs, but she knew she'd have to walk Onyx into town if she didn't want people to chatter about how indecently the princess rode her horse.

She relished the feel of the breeze on her cheeks, the sound of Onyx's hooves thudding on the ground. By the time she was just outside Villeneuve, the sun was high in the sky and the frigid morning had given way to an almost pleasant midday. Belle hopped out of the saddle and took Onyx's reins in her hand as she walked into town. Her horse's hooves clacked on the cobblestones, and at once Belle could sense that her identity in this town had changed.

With months to ponder what they remembered and who everyone was, Belle had become an actual princess. Even in the rough-spun wool dress she wore today, she earned herself curtsies and bows and respectful nods from the same people who used to mock her. Belle tried desperately not to mentally point out the hypocrisy. The entire point of all this was to stop the judgment. So she inquired after Madame Renard's grandchildren, and she even gave a pleasant smile to Faustine Coulmier, who had flirted so openly with the prince before their trip to Italy.

Belle stopped at her father's old house, tying Onyx up outside where there was hay and water for the village's horses. Her heart raced as she climbed the stairs up to the house, and she paused before opening the door. She shut her eyes and whispered,

"This is for you, Papa."

She pushed open the door to the house, and when she saw what was going on inside, her eyes instantly welled with tears. It was a Saturday, so she wasn't surprised that the village's children weren't in school. She just hadn't been expecting ten of them to be sitting on chairs and stools and even giant pillows on the floor. She hadn't been expecting to walk into the house and find the children's noses stuck in books. So she had to fight back tears as all their little faces turned toward her and she shut the door.

"Madame Belle!" cried little Madeleine, the girl Belle had been teaching to read before she'd ever met Adam. She flew to her feet, and the other children followed suit. They gave awkward little bows and curtsies, and Belle curtsied right back. Suddenly she thought that perhaps today's meeting didn't need to be with Père Robert. Perhaps, she thought, the first step in all of this was the children. Perhaps she was exactly where she was meant to be.

"Will you all tell me what you're reading?" Belle asked. One little boy, no older than seven, held up his book and proudly declared,

"I'm reading Paradise Lost. It's about the fall of Man."

"And I'm reading As You Like It," declared a girl of perhaps eleven. Belle's throat went tight as she nodded.

"Shakespeare is my favorite."

"I'm reading Manon Lescaut," said a boy, the eldest in the room, perhaps thirteen or fourteen. Madeleine rolled her eyes and whispered loudly,

"There's a prostitute in that one. That's why André likes it."

Belle couldn't help but laugh at that. She pulled up a chair and gestured for the children to sit. "Do you all like reading?" she asked, and the children all nodded frantically.

"Thank you for the books," squeaked a little girl, by far the smallest one present. She looked just like Madeline. Sisters, Belle thought. She smiled and told the girl,

"You're very welcome. It brings me great joy to know you're all enjoying them so much. They wouldn't do much good sitting unread in our library at the castle."

"Do you like being a princess?" asked Madeleine, and Belle shrugged amiably.

"I just like being me. I think I'm the same whether I'm a girl from Villeneuve or a princess in a castle. People don't change just because their titles or homes change, right?" The children shook their head, and Belle decided to seize her chance. She leaned forward in her chair and said furtively, "If I tell you all something very important, can you vow to keep it a secret for now?" They all nodded eagerly, but Belle said, "Cross your hearts!"

The children all seemed very serious as they drew crosses over their hearts and set their books down. Belle sighed, unsure of how to phrase all of this.

"I'm sure you all remember when there was a lot of fear in the village about there being a beast in the castle."

"But I heard it was the prince himself all along," said the boy called André. "We were told that he'd been put under a curse for having been cruel, but that the curse was broken and he was himself again."

"You're very right, André," Belle nodded. "Now, what if I told you all that he'd been cursed again, that he was a beast again? Would you be able to see him as a prince?"

"I'd be afraid," admitted Madeleine, "but I felt awfully bad for Caliban. It wasn't right how they treated him."

"Caliban," Belle repeated. "You've read The Tempest?"

Madeleine nodded enthusiastically, and Belle smiled. "Well, it is rather like Caliban. And like Sebastian. You see, the prince has been put under a spell again, because the people of Villeneuve need to show they can respect and love someone no matter what they look like. That's an important lesson for us all to learn, don't you think?"

The children nodded, though they seemed uneasy. Suddenly Belle had an awful, grim vision of the Plague coming through the town and claiming at least one of the little ones before her. Her stomach twisted and her resolve turned to steel.

"It isn't time to tell your parents yet about the prince's curse," Belle said, "but can you promise me something, my friends? Can you promise me that when the prince comes through our town, you'll bow and curtsy to him, just like you did when I came into the library?"

"Even if he's a beast?" asked the littlest girl, and Belle nodded.

"Even then."

"I promise," the little girl replied, and Madeleine crossed her heart.

"Promise," she said. The other children did the same, and Belle smiled a little. Perhaps, she thought, this exercise wasn't doomed. Perhaps the children would save them all.

When Adam awoke in the middle of the night, it was to the sound of Belle huffing angrily beside him. The prince scowled and half-opened his eyes as he demanded in a bleary voice,

"You all right?"

He didn't get an answer, so he started to roll over in the opulent, gilded bed. He couldn't imagine what was nagging at Belle at this hour. She'd had a successful visit with the village's children and with Père Robert. There was real hope that perhaps the people might prove themselves not to be judgmental. But Belle seemed deeply perturbed as she stared up at the ceiling.

"What's the matter?" Adam asked, trying to keep his tired voice gentle.

"Nothing. I'm fine," Belle said through gritted teeth. Her cheeks were dark, he could see, and her fists were balled up on the red coverlet. Adam frowned.

"Obviously not," he argued. "What's the matter?"

She shut her eyes and swallowed hard. "If these dreams don't stop, it's going to be an awfully long three months."

"Oh." He felt a strange flush go through him at that. He stroked at her arm with his knuckle, but as he eyed his sharp claws, he thought of how easily he'd torn through curtains and paintings, and suddenly the idea of wounding Belle from the inside out made him feel ill. He pulled his hand away and said quietly, "I'm sorry I can't… that we can't…"

"It's fine," Belle repeated. "Let's go back to sleep."

She wasn't going to fall asleep again any time soon, Adam knew. He put his lips into a line and informed her, "I would be the last one to judge you if you… you know, took care of yourself."

Belle's eyes sprang open, and she gave him a shocked look in the dim light of the candles around them. She sounded indignant as she said, "You want me to - to do that? To touch myself? Here? In front of you?"

"Don't act so scandalized," Adam teased her. "I know what you look like and feel like and taste like down there."

Belle's eyes went round as saucers for a moment. Then she shut her eyes again, and when she opened them, she sounded almost wounded. "It's like an itch I can't scratch. Like an ache that won't go away. You lying beside me, warm and whole and you, is only making it worse. You're so close, but I can't have you."

"Belle." He pulled one of her fists away from the blanket, gently pushing her wrist beneath the blankets. He wasn't teasing her now as he said, "Go ahead. Your own hand won't tear your body to shreds, so go ahead."f

Belle sighed, but as she shifted a little, he could tell she was pulling up the hem of her nightgown. She seemed genuinely embarrassed as she said, "Don't look at me, though."

Adam raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "All right, then."

He started to turn back around, but Belle's left hand clapped onto his shoulder, and she said a little breathlessly, "Actually… do look at me. Please."

He struggled not to smirk as he turned back around. He was going a little hard between his legs, just from talking about all of this, but he ignored the feeling as his eyes locked onto Belle's. He brought one paw up to her face and cradled her cheek in his hand, and she let out a soft little moan. He couldn't see her hand moving, but he could tell by her rickety breath that she was already touching herself.

"When I can do that for you," he told her seriously, "I'm going to make you finish over and over and over again until you can't think straight."

"Oh." Belle's eyes fluttered shut, and her breath hitched. She turned toward him a little, and he could see her arm and shoulder moving. Suddenly his cock went fully hard, blood rushing from his head as he said in a tight voice,

"When I can use my mouth on you again, I'm going to make your back arch. Make you cry out for mercy in between repeating my name."

"Adam," she whispered, and the syllables sounded so sweet on her lips that his cock twitched and ached. Adam lay on his back and reached beneath the blankets, turning his head toward Belle. Their eyes met again, and he admitted,

"I can't help it. You're too much."

"Do it," she murmured, her voice a low whine. Adam peeled the blankets back a little, far less ashamed of his member than he'd expected to be. If it hadn't been Belle, he never would have shown this most vulnerable part of his beastly form. But she loved him, even like this. She wanted him, even like this, even though he couldn't give himself to her. He could give her this. They could give this, lying side by side and doing this, to one another.

He stroked himself with quick jerking motions, knowing he wasn't going to last long with her beside him. Belle snuggled up against him, and now he was acutely aware of the way her fingers fluttered and pumped against her own body. He encouraged her to rub herself up against him, and suddenly she moved her hand away from herself. She wrapped her leg around Adam's and started to move, grinding herself on his hip as her right arm flung over his chest. She stared him right in the eyes as she ground herself onto him, and Adam let out a choked little noise.

It was so much to absorb - the way he was pleasuring himself freely in front of her, the way she was staring at him with hungry, tired eyes. The way her body felt, wet and tight and soft, as she moved against his hip. It was too much to bear, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he came. He'd be absolutely covered in his seed, he knew. It would be all over his fur and he'd have to scrub at himself for ten minutes to get it off. He didn't care. He let it leap onto his belly, letting out a feral growl of completion as the heat of pleasure took him over.

He opened his eyes to see Belle had put her head onto his chest. She squeezed him as tightly as she could, feeling and looking smaller than ever as her body contracted tightly around him. She huffed and panted desperately as she finished, her fingers snarling in Adam's fur as she let out a muffled cry on his chest. She stayed like that, wrapped around him like a vine, for a long moment, until finally she rolled over onto her back and shut her eyes.

"Thank you," she whispered, "for letting me… well, I don't think I couldn't have gone a full three months with nothing at all. I'm entirely too attracted to you."

"You don't have to thank me for that," Adam scoffed, moving carefully to stand from the bed. He managed to make his way to the wash stand without incident, and he wet a cloth and started scrubbing at his fur.

"Sometime all full with feasting on your sight," she said from behind him. "And by and by clean starved for a look."

"Sonnet 75," the prince said knowingly. He turned round and raised an eyebrow. "Save what is had or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, or gluttoning on all, or all away."

"It'll feel better after three months," Belle said, propping herself against the pillows. She nodded and said in a sure voice, "Having you inside of me, your mouth on my neck, my hand around you. It'll all feel even better after a little while of not being able to have it."

"It doesn't have to be the full three months," Adam reminded her, "so let's try and get those village people bowing to their beastly prince as soon as possible."

"So, Plumette," Belle began as she packed bread and cheese into a basket two weeks later, "Have you got baby names in mind?"

"Lumière likes René for a boy and Renée for a girl," Plumette laughed, and Belle grinned over her shoulder.

"So 'Ruh-Nay,' in any case, then?"

"He is so excited," Plumette declared. "I think he'll be a good and playful father. The Master would be a good father, too!"

"Someday, perhaps," Belle said in a light voice. "Mrs. Potts, this basket is ready to -"

"Pardon me, Madame," said a voice from the doorway to the kitchen, "but this just came by messenger."

Belle frowned as she walked over to Cogsworth, thanking him as she took the wax-sealed scroll from his hand. She broke the seal and unfurled the scroll, and she read aloud to everyone in the kitchen,

"Madame Belle,

I write to urgently inform you that the children of the village have been chatting - to their parents - about the fact that His Grace is currently in an inhuman form. Monsieur LeFou and I have managed to quell most of the disbelief or outrage, but I would advise that you attempt to get here as quickly as possible to prepare the people for the truth.

Warmest regards,

Père Robert."

Everyone in the kitchen stared at one another for a very long time, and Belle finally said in a numb voice,

"Cogsworth, please go fetch the prince. Please make sure he's dressed as elegantly as possible. I'm taking him to the village."

"This still seems like a bad idea," Adam said, hunched over and profoundly uncomfortable after five hours in a too-small carriage. "You've had many good ideas, Belle, but this is not one of them, I don't think."

"We have to try," Belle insisted. "If it gets dangerous, get on Onyx and get away quickly."

They'd brought the calm black gelding as a backup, in case the people reacted so badly that Adam needed an immediate escape.

"These people marched to my home intent on killing me," Adam reminded Belle. "They shoved you into a cart to be hauled off to an insane asylum. How could they ever be good enough to bow to a beast?"

"If you want the benefit of the doubt, you need to give it first," Belle informed him crisply. "And, anyway, even the most handsome prince must earn an obeisance."

The ground beneath the carriage wheels shifted to the clatter of cobblestones, and Adam knew they were very near Villeneuve. He gulped, feeling properly nauseated, as he said,

"Remember that if you get the impression things will turn ugly, I'll just stay in here."

"Ye of so very little faith," Belle muttered, pulling back the curtain on her own window and looking outside. When the carriage stopped, Adam could tell they were near the church. Belle flashed him one last nervous smile and leaned to touch her cheek to his. She kissed the hard bridge of his nose and murmured, "I love you. With all that I am."

"I would not wish any companion in the world but you," Adam quoted in response. Belle quickly slipped out of the carriage, and Adam peeled back the curtain on his window and pushed the glass open just enough for him to see and hear what was happening while remaining hidden.

Belle stepped out into the square where a curious little crowd had gathered, and a stringy woman demanded,

"It's not true, is it, Madame Belle?"

"Tell me what you've heard," Belle said wisely. LeFou, the onetime companion of Gaston himself, stepped forward and said,

"The children were saying that the prince was under a curse again. I told everyone that was silly nonsense, but -"

"No. It's true," Belle declared, eliciting gasps from the townspeople and making Adam's stomach turn with anxiety. A little girl tugged on her mother's skirts and cried,

"I told you, Maman! But it's like Monsieur LeFou said, isn't it?"

"What did Monsieur LeFou say?" Belle asked. LeFou cleared his throat and said carefully,

"I simply pointed out that he whole village went on a crusade with torches in hand, only to discover that we'd all been under a curse, and that it was the prince the whole time. Seems silly to get riled up over someone's looks. That's all."

Belle nodded as the villagers whispered among themselves.

"You all gladly bow and curtsy to me," she pointed out. "Me. Belle. The strange girl with her head jammed into a book. Why? Why do you respect me now?"

"Because you're our princess, Madame," said a man with a tight, awkward voice. Belle shrugged,

"Your prince is your prince no matter his face. You bow before the odd girl from the village. Will you bow before a beast?"

No one answered her for a long moment, until Monsieur LeFou said rather proudly,

"Yes. I will."

"So will I!" cried the little girl at her mother's skirts.

"I suppose if his soul is the same," pondered a woman aloud, and Père Robert interjected sharply,

"His soul is the same. It is the same prince. To save our own selves, to earn grace upon our own souls, we must all recognize that."

"I want to meet him," said the little girl, and Belle grinned.

"What an excellent idea, Madeleine." She turned back to the carriage, her eyes peering through Adam's window. "Your Grace… please, will you greet your subjects?"

Adam froze for a moment, unable to obey her. Finally he managed to put his hand on the carriage door and push it open, climbing into the cold afternoon in his fine blue clothes.

There were many gasps, and one woman at the back of the crowd appeared to faint. Even LeFou, the one who had stuck up for the idea of respecting the Beast, seemed utterly horrified.

But the little girl, the one Belle had called Madeleine, came striding right up to stand before Adam. Her face was unafraid, even as her mother snatched at her to try and keep her back. Madeleine said up to Adam,

"Your Grace. On behalf of the children of Villeneuve, I want to thank you for the books in our library."

Adam's eyes burned fiercely all of a sudden, but he managed to nod and say, "I would like to bring more books to the library. May I come by and do that sometime?"

"Oh, yes, Your Grace. Please, will you bring more Shakespeare?" The entire town was now standing in utter silence, watching little Madeleine speak to the Beast. Adam nodded again and said,

"If the children of Villeneuve want more Shakespeare, they shall have every last play."

Madeleine grinned broadly and dipped into a deep but unpracticed curtsy. Adam's heart raced as he bowed in return. Suddenly a dozen or so more children had trotted up to stand beside Madeleine, all of them giving the best bows and curtsies they could manage.

"Your little scholars," Adam said to Belle, whose brown eyes had gone visibly wet. LeFou stepped up then, and he said to Adam,

"Your Grace… this town treated you unkindly the last time we saw you."

"I am made to understand that you switched sides rather quickly, Monsieur LeFou," Adam pointed out, loudly enough for all to hear. "All is forgiven on my front. I hope the town might say the same for me. I have been a less than benevolent prince in the past."

"The way is forward, Your Grace." LeFou bowed, and Père Robert quickly followed suit and agreed,

"Always forward."

Things stalled then for a long moment as the rest of the townspeople skeptically stared at one another. But the little girl called Madeleine whirled round and shouted angrily to the villagers,

"This is your prince! Show His Grace the respect he is due!"

The girl's mother dipped into a curtsy then, after being shot a death glare by little Madeleine. The other children shouted encouragement, and one by one the people of Villeneuve dipped and bent before their prince.

In the back corner of the crowd, a beautiful woman stood beside a stately white horse. Agathe and Philippe. Adam met her eyes, and she was the very last one to curtsy. Adam stared at her as she rose, and then he dipped into a formal bow.

"Very soon," he announced to the villagers, "A hospital will be built near the castle. If anyone you love is ill, bring them to the hospital, where they will find healing at no cost. Madame Belle will come to announce its opening… after we bring some more Shakespeare to the library, of course."

"It seems more than a little odd to thank you for all of this," Adam said to Agathe, "so I don't think I will."

Belle watched as Agathe turned her lips up a little and said serenely, "Behold the repentant libertine, beloved even in this form by the basest of his people."

Adam rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Just tell me when the hospital will be built. And when I'll be myself again."

"Self," Agathe repeated. "Such a fluid thing, isn't it? You will find the hospital in one week's time, just south of the castle, nestled safely in the woods."

"And who will… you know, heal people?" Belle asked. She flashed Agathe a skeptical expression and asked, "Are you conducting a hiring process?"

"The patients will receive care from the finest doctors in all of France," Agathe said assuredly. "Now. Your Grace, if you'd like me to change you back?"

Belle and Adam moved behind her father's house a bit more, out of sight of the mostly-vanished crowd of villagers. Belle studied Adam's large, flat nose, his fur-covered cheeks, and his enormous clawed paws. She realized she might not ever see him like this again, and for some bizarre reason, that sent a spike of grief through her.

"I'll be back in a moment," Agathe said knowingly. She disappeared before Belle could reply. Belle turned her attention back to Adam and reached up to put her hands on his cheeks. He gave her a meaningful look and said,

"It is a good thing that I get to be human again."

"I know," Belle nodded, but she found herself running her hands down her arms and planting them on his broad chest. He brought her knuckles to his mouth, dragging the smooth fronts of her fangs over her skin before kissing her there.

"Tonight," he said very quietly, "I will show you why it is a good thing that I'll be human again."

"All right." Belle stared at his horns, at his ears and his nose and his fangs, and she swallowed hard as she said, "I'm just trying to cement it all in my mind. I only had a short while of you like this before we married. And now just over two weeks. Somehow, my mind is panicking."

"Belle." He tipped his head and sighed. "It's always me, no matter what, isn't it? Let me be blond, will you?"

Belle smiled and took a step back from him, for Agathe had walked back around the house and had her hand extended. Belle staggered backward a little as Agathe's golden spell washed over Adam. His body lifted off the ground and his back arched a bit, and she watched as the fur and claws and fangs gave way to his soft human skin. As he landed slowly back on the ground, his elegant blue clothing scaled back down for him, Belle turned to see Agathe had gone again. She smirked up at Adam's bright blue eyes and said,

"There's my handsome human."

"Let's go home," he suggested, taking a step toward Belle. He brushed his thumb under her eye and said, "I have to tell you, I'm very glad not to have to wait the full three months."

Belle smirked and covered his hand with hers, nodding. "Home sounds good."

It was past dark by the time they got back to the castle, and the servants were so elated to see their prince human again that an elaborate dinner was prepared and served. Belle did not want to express the slightest hind of being ungrateful, so she smiled and thanked her way through escargot and potatoes and roast duck and sweet carrots and a pastry. She was too full and very impatient by the time Lumière supervised their plates being hauled away.

"Oh, I am just so 'appy to see you yourself again, Master," Lumière said, seeming blissfully unaware of the way Adam and Belle were staring hard at one another across the dining room table. Lumière asked carefully, "Would it be possible, now that some of these little 'angups 'ave been corrected, for Plumette and I to have a little wedding celebration?"

Belle snapped to rights and gave Lumière a warm look. "I would love to help plan," she said. "Anything you want to do. I'm sure Père Robert will come and perform the ceremony in the chapel here, if you'd like."

"Ah! That would be spectacular," Lumière declared. "And my love will look so beautiful as a bride. Almost as beautiful as she already looks as a mother."

Adam was still staring intently at Belle, but he did manage to say to Lumière, "I'm sure it will be a wonderful party."

Lumière seemed to pick up on the tension between the prince and his wife, and he gave a knowing little laugh as he backed out of the dining room and said, "We'll all be… you know, in rooms that are not this one. 'Ave a good night. Goodbye!"

Once the door had shut, Belle stared down the table, through the dim lights of the candles and sconces, studying Adam's brilliant blue eyes.

"Eternity was in our eyes and lips," she murmured, and his gaze flashed as she began to quote Antony and Cleopatra. Belle rose from her chair and continued, "Bliss in our brows' bent, none our parts so poor but was a race of heaven. They are so still."

"You can manage to like me this way, then?" Adam asked, drumming his fingers on the table as Belle approached. Her heart began to pound in her chest as she approached, and she admitted in a quiet voice,

"I don't think I can make it all the way up to the West Wing."

"No need to wait," Adam said, pulling up to stand before her. She reached up to stroke at his blond-bearded cheeks, to touch his hard chest, and she let out a shaking sigh. Adam's hands went to her own face, his fingers snaring in her silky hair as he leaned down to kiss her.

She groaned softly against him, for without his fangs, his kisses were deeper and more bold. His tongue lathed over her bottom lip as he snarled a little against her. She realized then that he would always be a hybrid of some kind, to the marrow of his bones. The Beast would never leave him, not really. And even when he'd looked a beast, he'd been a man inside. It didn't matter, she knew, if he was big and broad or passionate like this. Either way, he was her Adam.

He pushed her toward the wall, his hand cupping her breast through her bodice and squeezing rather roughly. Belle gasped as her back hit the wall, and her own hands flew to the front of his breeches.

"I'll take you here," he whispered, hiking up her skirts as his hand frantically went between her legs, "and I'll take you in our bed. And I'll take you on the rug. And in the bed again, and again until you plead with me to let you sleep."

"But I don't want to sleep," Belle protested, tipping her head against the wall when his fingers pulsed against her entrance. She pulled his hard cock out with shaking hands and insisted, "I want you to make love to me until the sun rises."

"That sounds splendid," Adam said, and he crushed her mouth with his again.

He only barely been exaggerating with all of his talk. Belle lay asleep beside him, hours after dinner, both of them spent beyond measure after making love on the wall in the dining room, then twice on the bed in the West Wing. Now she slept, peaceful as a dove where she was curled up against him. But Adam couldn't sleep. He'd wanted her so badly when he'd been the Beast. He'd longed to touch her, and he'd never hated his claws more than when he'd been unable to do so. Now he had his fingers back, and he'd made very good use of them. Still, he wanted more. He shut his eyes and tried in vain to sleep, reciting from The Tempest in a whisper to calm himself.

"Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises," he said very quietly, breathing in the rosy smell of Belle beside him. "Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices, that, if I then had waked after long sleep, will make me sleep again…"

He breathed slowly and deeply in the silence for a while, adoring the feel of Belle pressed naked against him. She'd told him it was a fine day for him to finish inside of her, but he'd probably taken too much advantage of that. He stroked at her back gently and was surprised to hear her bleary voice finish Caliban's line.

"And then, in dreaming, the clouds methought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again."

"I didn't mean to wake you," Adam murmured, leaning to kiss the top of her head. She needed her rest, he knew, for he'd plundered her so roughly in the dining room and then had taken an eternity thrusting into her from behind on their bed. But she met his eyes and smiled a little.

"I dreamed of you."

"Of the Beast again?" Adam asked, and Belle shook her head.

"No. It was springtime, and we were walking through an apple orchard. You were blond. It was nice."

His chest twisted and ached for some reason, and he shrugged helplessly as he informed her, "I love you."

"You are a good man," she said, and it wasn't the first time she'd told him that. She pressed her hand to his bare chest and kissed him there. "The hospital will save lives. Madeleine and the other children in the village. Chip. They may all live because of you, because of what you've done. What you've taught people through your sacrifice."

"I am no saint," Adam argued, but Belle pushed herself up to face him and nodded a little.

"You are to me."

He kissed her, not caring one bit about the taste of sleep on her lips. She moved to straddle him, pressing her breasts against his chest and making him come alive at once. He went harder and harder as he ran his hands up and down her bare back, and when he reached a hand between them, Belle was already a little wet. She winced, though, and she explained apologetically,

"Little sore. I'm tired there."

He chuckled and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Sorry about that. Why don't you go back to sleep?"

Belle's hands went between them, her fingers drifting around his length as she gave him a dark stare. "I don't want to sleep."

She moved up and forward then, and as she sank down onto him, it seemed her satisfaction had overridden any lingering symptoms of overuse. She began to rock slowly, her movements far more leisurely than they'd done anything all night. She combed her fingers through Adam's blond hair, her body snug and wet and warm around his. Every time she rocked up and forward, he breathed in, and he exhaled when she went down and back. It developed into a smooth, steady rhythm in which their hands gently searched one another, their lips touched every now and then, and everything seemed to be synchronized.

"I would not have made it three months," Belle said finally, leaning forward and burying her face in the crook of Adam's neck as a quiet little climax washed over her. She hummed his name a few times, her breath warm beneath. Adam pulled Belle tightly against him, focusing on the feel of her breath and her hair and her skin. For some reason, the sensory combination sent his heart racing and made everything go tight between his legs.

"Belle," the prince groaned, squeezing Belle so tightly he worried he was hurting her. "Please don't leave me again."

He wasn't sure why those words came out of his mouth, and he was immediately embarrassed. But as his own climax crashed over him, as his seed pumped and jerked into Belle's body, she kissed his cheek and promised him,

"Don't worry. I'll never leave you again."

Adam couldn't answer her. He was too overcome, by attraction to her and love for her and the sheer physical bliss of finding completion. He kissed her, carefully and slowly, and when he pulled his mouth away at last, he whispered against her mouth,

"None of any of this would have happened without you. My freedom. My happiness. The library. The hospital. Do you realize how… how important you are to me?"

Belle seemed to be very near sleep as she breathed steadily on his shoulder. Her hand went to his cheek, and she rubbed her thumb over the hair of his beard.

"Without you, I wouldn't have dealt well at all with the loss of my father," she said, "nor would I have left France to see Italy. You're more important to me than you'll ever understand. And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, compared with loss of thee, will not seem so."

"But I won't lose you, nor you me," Adam insisted. Their bodies were still locked together, messy and sweaty, but he couldn't bring himself to pull Belle off of him. He kissed her cheek and let her fall asleep as he hummed a gentle little song he remembered from his youth.

He'd worn them both out with his endless insistence to take her body, though of course Belle had initiated this encounter. As he slipped out of her but kept her cradled against him, he realized he would never truly lose the Beast. That animalistic bit of him would always be there. And he would always be human, Prince Adam of Vendôme. But despite the knowledge that his true self existed regardless of his exterior, his new epiphany was far important.

Belle was his real constant. She was the anchor keeping him grounded to the reality of the villages he had so long ignored or mistreated. She was brilliant, a visionary and a thinker and a kind-hearted soul. She made him feel more human than anything else. And he wanted nothing more in all the world to spend every night like this, with her curled up against him, falling asleep flush against him. For tonight, at least, Adam didn't move her an inch. He tipped his head back against his lace-edged pillows and kissed her forehead, petting her hair as he joined her in sleep.

"It looks like a palace unto itself," Belle breathed, taking Adam's hand as she stepped out of the carriage. She shook her head in wonder as she gazed up at the hospital. It was a gray stone building with elegant straight lines and many windows that looked out upon the courtyard. It was three stories tall with garret windows beyond that, and the enormous entrance at the level of the gravel drive consisted of enormous double doors. Belle was, for a moment, amazed that Agathe had been able to build such a thing with her magic, but then she remembered that Agathe had managed to transfigure one man into a beast and another into a clock with relative ease.

"It certainly is impressive," Adam admitted, his shoes crunching on the gravel as he and Belle made their way to the front doors. There, they were met by a uniformed doorman who bowed and said,

"Your Grace. Madame. Our patron has arrived. Welcome."

There was something off, something ever-so-slightly not human about the way the doorman spoke, and for some reason Belle had a sudden worry that Agathe had done the reverse of what she'd done to Adam's castle. Perhaps, Belle thought, she'd crafted this hospital from the pebbles in the forest. Perhaps these employees were animals made human. She had no way of asking, and she didn't want to know. She just gave the doorman a little smile and received a very broad grin in response.

"Please come inside," the doorman said, "the head of medicine, Dr. Duval, is very excited to show you around."

"Oh. All right." Belle smiled and took Adam's hand rather casually, walking with him into the hospital building and allowing an attendant to take her heavy cloak. The first thing she noticed inside the hospital was a clean smell, not usually what one expected in a place full of sick people. The first patients had started arriving, Belle knew. The Plague had not yet come to the area around Villeneuve, but there were injuries to be healed and fevers to be brought down.

A warm-faced, middle-aged man came walking across the airy foyer and gave a respectful bow. "Madame Belle. Your Grace. My name is Dr. Duval; I've come from Paris to be the head of medicine here."

"May I ask," Adam said carefully, "what compelled you to come and work at our little country hospital?"

"The opportunity to start something new and fresh," said Dr. Duval, and Belle gave Adam a curious look. Dr. Duval gestured to his right and said, "May I give you the tour?"

"Yes. That would be wonderful," Belle nodded.

"Well, here to our right we find our injuries ward," said Dr. Duval. "At the moment, our only patient is one man from Villeneuve. He broke his femur falling from his horse."

Belle gasped, for that sounded like a horrific injury. She followed the doctor into the ward and saw tall, wide wooden shelves full of bottles and jars and bandages. There was one full of clean linens. The wide, comfortable-looking beds were spaced evenly, perhaps ten in all, and the large room had a fresh and airy feel.

"Even with the cold air, we open the windows for at least one hour per day," said Dr. Duval. "It's important to air out the diseases from the space."

Belle frowned but nodded. In one of the beds, she saw a man she recognized as Monsieur Coulmier. He was lying on his back, seemingly deep asleep, and Belle asked,

"Will he be all right?"

"Oh, yes," said Dr. Duval. "He's comfortable right now while his leg heals up. He'll be home and back to work within the week."

"Miraculous," Adam said, and when Belle met his eyes, she saw that his were wet. She squeezed his hand and said very firmly indeed,

"How proud I am of you, husband. Very, very proud."

"I've got the new comedies over here," Belle was saying. "All's Well That Ends Well, Winter's Tale, Measure for Measure, Love's Labour Lost. The new tragedies are over here. Cymbeline, Troilus and Cressida…"

"Ah, that old Problem Play," Adam noted, still holding a stack of books in the house that had become a library. When Belle smirked up at home from where she knelt, he tipped his head and quoted, "Farewell, bastard. Probably the greatest line Shakespeare ever wrote."

Belle giggled and held her arms out. "Give me the rest, will you?"

Adam passed her the biographies - Richard II, Henry VIII, King John, and others. He watched as Belle tucked them into the shelves, and he said,

"Well, they'll certainly have a good comprehensive collection of Shakespeare now."

"That they will," Belle smiled. She pulled herself to her feet and brushed her hands on her simple apron. "Thank you for allowing me to bring so many books here."

"They bring everyone far more joy in this library than in the one in the castle," he said. "We still have thousands of books; we could certainly spare some for this noble place."

Before Belle could say anything more, the door of the house opened and a little girl backed in with five books stacked in her arms. At once, Adam recognized the child as Madeleine, the little girl who had started the others in their obeisance that fateful day weeks earlier. Madeleine dropped her stack of books when she realized Belle and Adam were inside the library, and she curtsied quickly before scrambling to pick up the books.

"So sorry, Madame Belle. Your Grace. Am I interrupting? Shall I go?"

"No! Of course not! So good to see you," Belle said warmly.

Adam bent to pick up one of the books and read the title on the binding. "Utopia by Sir Thomas More," he noted, handing the book to the child with a smile. "What an interesting title. Do you like it?"

"I do," Madeleine said, taking the book, "but I don't think it's feasible. People can't really live like that?"

"Never?" Belle asked, taking a few of the books and helping Madeleine put them back on the shelves. "Not under any circumstances?"

"I'd like to think people were as good as that," Madeleine said, pushing a scientific treatise from Newton onto the shelf. She shook her head and admitted, "I'd need more evidence of goodness before I could believe in a Utopia."

"Try this one," Belle suggested, pulling a worn old text from the shelf. She held it out, and Madeleine used two hands to take it as she read the title.

"Civitas Solis. The City of the Sun. What is it, Madame Belle?"

"It's an Italian take on the idea of a idyllic place. No money, shared labor. No slavery. One thing you may notice, and probably not enjoy, is the way that women are communal property in this Utopia."

"Blech." Madeleine pulled a face. "How can it be idyllic if women are communal property?"

Belle grinned. "You'll need to read many people's take on the same idea before you decide if it's realistic."

Adam smiled a little to himself to see Belle interacting with a child that seemed very much a miniature version of her. Good, he thought. Villeneuve needed someone like Belle at all times, and if she was to live in the castle, it was fitting and right that Madeleine take her place as the resident bookworm girl.

The door to the library opened again, and Adam was very surprised to see LeFou come barrelling in from the snowy day. He rubbed his bare hands together, shutting the door as he said,

"Sorry, I'm late, Maddy; the roads were slippery from the snow, and… oh. Oh, my. Good afternoon, Your Grace. Madame Belle."

He bowed at the waist and stayed there for a moment, and Belle gave Adam and then Madeleine a very ponderous look.

"Good afternoon, Monsieur LeFou," said Adam finally, and LeFou rose. Little Madeleine explained,

"I've been giving Monsieur LeFou reading lessons."

"You have?" Belle suddenly looked and sounded like she was going to cry. She stared at a book on a shelf for a long moment, apparently overcome, and Madeleine pulled a small children's book of rhymes from the bookshelf.

"We've been working on poems about spring," Madeleine said proudly, and Monsieur LeFou recited,

"And we ourselves are born anew, to blossom as the flowers do."

"I have never heard truer words than those," Adam nodded. "We'll leave you to your lessons."

"Thank you for the new Shakespeare!" Madeleine said enthusiastically. "I can't wait to read them all."

"Goodbye, then," Belle nodded, accepting Adam's hand and waving as LeFou and Madeleine dipped respectfully again. As Adam and Belle walked out into the cold afternoon, he could hear LeFou's voice awkwardly and slowly saying,

"All the snows do melt away, to make room for a… a brig… brigger…"

"A brighter day," Madeleine corrected him kindly. "All the snows do melt away, to make room for a brighter day."

When they got back into the carriage, happy tears spilled down Belle's cheeks, and she stared out the window at her father's house.

"Do you think he'd be happy?" she wondered aloud, and Adam assured her,

"I'm sure he's very happy. Very proud. I know I am… I couldn't be more proud of you, Belle."

She gave him a damp-eyed smile and nodded. "Thank you."

"Oh… doesn't she look a dream?" Mrs. Potts asked, sounding more than a little emotional from where she stood beside Belle.

"She looks magnificent," Belle said honestly. Plumette was dancing with Lumière, and her gown was cream raw silk with pink and gold frills and lace. Her hair was piled up in tight curls atop her head, with a glittering gold headpiece and opulent white and pink flowers. Belle smiled a little as she beheld the way the gold-clad Lumière stared at his bride. "Have you ever seen a man look at a woman with so much love?"

Both Mrs. Potts and Madame de Garderobe chuckled then, and when Belle looked at them curiously, Madame de Garderobe said,

"The way the Master look at you? He and Lumière give each other run for the money when it come to looking at women with-a love."

"Don't be silly," Mrs. Potts said, patting Madame de Garderobe's shoulder. "Maestro Cadenza stares at you like you're an angel."

"And Mr. Potts… well, just look at him." Belle gestured with her glass of wine across the ballroom. Mr. Potts was standing chatting with Maestro Cadenza, and both men were smiling at their women. Then Belle realized that Adam was only half-attentive to the conversation he was having with Cogsworth. His blue eyes were locked on Belle, and his lips turned up a little when she glanced over.

"It would seem as though they're all quite enamored," Mrs. Potts laughed. "Perhaps we ought to give the boys some attention, eh?"

Mrs. Potts popped the little pastry she'd been munching into her mouth and winked at the other women as she walked off. Belle watched as Mrs. Potts took her husband in her arms, and suddenly Belle realized how much it must have hurt to have him miles away in the village for years and years with no idea his wife or son existed. Belle's chest ached as Chip went running up to his parents and all three of them began talking. She remembered Agathe's warning about the Plague, and all she could hope was that the children of Villeneuve and Chip would be spared.

"You look very pensive," said a voice from beside her. Belle turned to see Adam, resplendent as ever in scarlet velvet. Belle herself wore the same buttery yellow she'd worn months earlier at their garden party, the last real event that her father had attended. Belle studied her husband's sapphire eyes and noted,

"It's good to see everyone human and happy and together."

"So it is," Adam agreed. He looked up to where Lumière and Plumette were finishing their dance. He sipped from his wine and said, "I never thought I'd be a guest in a crowd at the wedding of two of my servants. How things change."

"How people grow," Belle nodded. "Like flowers in a garden. With the right care, the beauty comes out."

"Do you remember when I threw a snowball at your face?" Adam asked suddenly, and Belle laughed, sipping her wine.

"That was not a snowball," she said matter-of-factly. "It was a snow boulder, and I thought I was going to die."

"Sorry about that," the prince said awkwardly. "I suppose my point was… can't you just see Lumière playing with his child out in the gardens? Throwing snowballs?"

"Small ones, I hope," Belle said, and Adam laughed a little. He set his wine on the nearby table and held out his hand.

"Dance with me, will you?" he asked, for a slow minuet had started up from the little hired orchestra. Belle took his hand and let him lead her out onto the floor. They were quickly joined by Mr. and Mrs. Potts, by Madame de Garderobe and Maestro Cadenza, and by a coachman who had bravely asked a chambermaid to dance.

Belle curtsied low to her husband, and he gave her an elaborate bow in return. He held out his arm and Belle took it, and as they swept in an arc with the other couples, he murmured,

"You couldn't look more lovely if you tried."

Belle glanced over to Plumette, whose frilly gown draped just so in the front to accommodate her growing belly. "I think the bride is by far the loveliest one here."

Adam shook his head, trailing out from Belle and circling slowly around her. "Plumette looks wonderful," he conceded, "but my wife will always be the most beautiful person, no matter the room she's in. I look around and my eyes settle on you and I can't breathe."

"Breathing is important," Belle laughed quietly, spinning around slowly and then touching her palm to Adam's. She stared at his eyes, his clear blue eyes that had never changed no matter the circumstance, and she said with an abrupt seriousness, "You stole my heart for the first time in this castle's library. It was the moment I really knew I adored you. Then you stole it again the day you married me, and again in Verona, and in Florence and Bagno. You're stealing it away again even now. Someday you'll have to give it back."

"Never." Adam shook his head, sweeping Belle into his arms and letting his feet stop. "I have your heart, and you have mine. That won't ever change."

"I love you very much," she told him, and Adam took her face in his hands, once more quoting the line from The Tempest he so often used in situations like this.

"I would not wish any companion in the world but you," he said, and he leaned to kiss her, letting the wedding around them dissolve into the air as his lips touched hers.

Epilogue - 18 months later

"Ah! Look at my sweet little child. Look at her go. Come, Renée! Come to Papa!"

Lumière beckoned wildly at his daughter, who had her mother's beautiful curls and her father's playful eyes. Belle watched from the doorway of the parlor, smiling as Renée toddled from a grinning Plumette to a profoundly proud Lumière.

Renée had been spared the Plague that came just before her birth; Plumette had taken ill for a few days but had been rushed to the hospital, where she had received mysteriously effective care. Such had been the story for the children of Villeneuve, many of whom, including Madeleine, had contracted the disease but recovered. While the Plague had ravaged Poitiers and a few nearby towns, the villages around the castle had been spared except for a few very elderly victims. Not a single child had died. Belle often thought back to the day she and Adam had returned from Italy, the way they'd both been angry and confused about Agathe's demand that he once more become a beast to save the townspeople.

Agathe was an enigma, Belle thought; her goals were pure, but her methods were odd. And, yet, she couldn't find it in herself to complain about the hospital's strangeness, nor about the demands Agathe had made over the years. If it hadn't been for the new hospital, little Renée would not be waddling back and forth between her parents right now. And if it hadn't been for the first curse, she and Adam would have never met.

Belle put her hand on her own swollen belly, shutting her eyes as the baby inside her kicked a few times.

"Careful of Maman's ribs, then," she murmured down to her unborn child, thinking that this child was already a particularly prolific kicker. She raised her eyes to see Adam come into the far side of the parlour.

"Mrs. Potts says if we're not all eating in five minutes, dinner is cancelled," he said with a smile. He marched over and picked up Renée, looking utterly natural with her as she pressed her fingers to his lips and ordered him,

"Noise!"

"Oh, all right, then," the prince laughed. He buzzed his lips against Renée's fingers, sending the child into a wild fit of giggles. Plumette and Lumière both rose from where they'd been playing on the ground with their daughter, and as Adam hauled Renée up onto his shoulders, Plumette came walking over to Belle.

"He's going to be a very good father," Plumette assured her. Belle smiled and cradled her belly as she said nervously,

"Not too much longer till we find out. Any day now."

"Don't worry." Plumette gestured to the way Adam and Lumière were laughing with Renée. Plumette nodded and said again, with all the confidence in the world, "He'll be wonderful."

"Ladies, we must not make Mrs. Potts angry, eh?" said Lumière, and Adam flashed Belle a brilliant smile from where he stood holding Renée.

"Come, my love," he said gently, holding out one hand. Belle stepped into the parlor and walked with her husband and friends, with the child they all adored and the one they would all soon meet. She walked with them through the halls of the castle they all shared, their joyful voices reverberating through its halls.

~ The End ~