Hi everyone! SURPRISE! I've decided to post my brand spanking new story. Now, the original plan was to write at least half of it before i posted but thats not working cos I'm just not getting motivated enough to write, so I've decided that I'm gonna post what I've written so far and then when I get reviews (hint! hint!) and feel I'm going somewhere with this, I'll be more likely to update regularly, which will make me write more! It kind of makes sense.

So, I give you, my second full-length fanfiction story about everybody's favourite teacup/boy. Now I know not everyone is interested in reading a story about a minor character, but I'm hoping those of you who liked my last story can also like this one. And I figure if Faith (i.e LumBabsFan) can get everyoneas interested in Lumiere and Babette as she has, then surely I can give it a stab with Chip (By the way, read Faith's excellent stories :p thats an order!)

So, please bear with me! I promise you excitement, adventure, tragedy, romance and all other good things that should be in a story, and I do plan to have several other original characters in there as well as some of my own, so theres something for everyone.

Ok, lets get started. I would like to dedicate this story to the BatB Fanfiction workshop crew for all their support and inspirationand for all the great conversations we've had. Please everyone read their stories too cos they're a talented bunch! TrudiRose, LumBabsFan, NikkiBelle18, BelleEve, beautygirl, Dutch FF-Lover, LaFemmeDarla, BookRose, Moonlight Enchantments. And, also please mosey on down to deviantART and check out Lathnon Aniron and DisneyBubbles' work, cos it kicks bottom! Now I've given them all their free plugs :p...onwards to the story.

Prologue: 1735

Once upon a time, five years before the story of the rose, the Beast and his Beauty, a child was born. His birth was as unremarkable as that of many other babies born on the same day, except perhaps for the fact that he did not scream as is common when cold hard air is forced into a newborns lungs. Instead, he made a strange sound, almost like a giggle, as he was gently lifted and held by his nurse.

"It's a boy, milady! Oh, it's a boy!" the nurse said as she blinked back tears. "Would you like to see?"

And she wrapped the child in swaddling clothes, a task made increasingly more difficult by his constant wiggling, and lowered him so that his mother might look upon his innocent face.

His mother tried to keep her eyes expressionless as her son peered into them from inside his wraps, but she found she could not. Despite her best efforts, she smiled; a weak smile but one of unconditional love nonetheless, as she saw the perfectly-formed features of her first, and last, baby boy. Suddenly, more than anything, she longed to hold him and see the first rush of his blood flush his cheeks, feel his heart beating next to hers, experience the sensation of feeding him from her breast, but her useless arms continued to lie motionless on either side of her wasted body, no matter how hard she tried to move them.

As if in response, the child began to wriggle harder but his efforts simply resulted in a firmer grip in the arms of his nurse as she moved him a little closer to the face of his mother. A face once beautiful, before it was marked, and not just from the pains of labour. A face that was now struggling to keep its composure as tears mixed with the sweat running in rivulets down its scarred surface. The face belonged to the disgraced Lady Catherine Dudley, a prominent one in wealthy estates across the south of England and at the court of King George.

At least, it had been until some months previously when it had been discovered that she was with child-the long-awaited heir to the extensive lands and titles of the Dudley family. However, celebrations had been abruptly cut short when the much revered Lord Dudley had, apparently inexplicably, ordered his beloved wife to leave the stately home where they had spent ten years of wedded bliss and made it known that should she ever return, it would mean a funeral hearse rather than a baby carriage for both of them.

And so it was that the child's birth was unremarkable when it should have been quite the opposite. He came in to the world on a stained and torn blanket when he should have been surrounded by luscious draperies and satin sheets with his mother, lacking the care of the best doctors, close to death and alone, except for her trusted maid and friend, Evelyn Potts acting as nurse.

Catherine focused on her son's fresh countenance-his tiny nose, his squinting eyes, his rosebud mouth-and felt any resentment at his existence evaporate like dew in the mid-day sun. This was the child that had cost her everything she held dear yet she could not help but marvel at the life that had been growing inside her. It was like a part of herself had become separate from the whole. For one moment, she almost believed that he had his father's eyes and boisterous nature, and she imagined them together-riding, hunting, fishing and all manner of things that little boys and their fathers did together.

Her daydream was shattered as she felt a guttural cough rip itself from the back of her throat and cause her delicate body to convulse when she wasn't even aware it was still able to move.

"Take…him…away" she managed between rasps, as if every tortured breath was poison. This seemed to trigger something from within the child for he suddenly started wailing as he was whisked away from his mother's side by an anxious Mrs. Potts.

"Now, hush now, shhhhhhhh" pleaded Evelyn, although she was not sure who she was addressing. The moment she had been dreading was upon her and she could not help but feel a wave of panic start to rise from somewhere inside her, despite all her precautions. She started to rock the baby back and forth, surprising herself that she had remembered so quickly the best way to stop a child's tear, even amidst the dire situation that they were now in.

Catherine had known she was weak, even in the early stages of her pregnancy, and she seemed to welcome it. After their frantic flight from Dudley Manor and their hasty residence in the apparently deserted woodcutter's cottage, she became a mere shadow of her former self. When Mrs. Potts had enquired about her welfare, seemingly every time she had left a meal unfinished or refused to leave a chair for hours, she had said that she felt her heart was shattered and that its pieces had pierced every muscle and limb in her body. She was broken, unfixable, and Evelyn had to watch as the woman she had loved like a daughter wasted away before her eyes. It was a miracle she had survived long enough to bring an apparently healthy baby into the world and now it seemed that death had finally decided it wanted to claim her.

"Mrs. Potts?"

The faint whisper had come during a merciful silence; a temporary break from the coughing.

"Yes, my child?"

Evelyn rushed to Catherine's side, trying her best not to notice the crimson stain creeping slowly through the sheets below her.

"Charles", the lady croaked.

"Charles?"

"His name. Charles. After…"

Evelyn understood. Charles. After the man who should have been his father.

"Of course, my child. Of course that shall be his name."

"Thank you."

The Lady Catherine Dudley managed a weak smile before finally slipping into unconsciousness and sleeping forever.

Mrs. Potts could not stand the silence. She sat carefully down in an old chair nearest the window of the room and started to hum a tune from her own childhood to the orphan in her arms.

Outside the cottage, a dark shape flitted back and forth between the trees, darting from one shadow to the other as the full moon up above glared strongly, an omnipresent light in the darkness.