-1-

The Beast lay in his torn yet still grand four-poster bed, clenching his teeth through the ache in his shoulder. While he couldn't see the gashes from the wolves, he assumed they must be fairly deep, considering he felt the open breeze against them as it moved through the West Wing. He felt a wet rag against his skin, and immediately roared at the intense stinging he felt surging through his flesh.
"That hurt!" he shouted, turning his head to see a rather exhausted Belle at his side.
"If you would just hold still, it wouldn't hurt as much," Belle gently affirmed, her voice both patient and stern all at once. He didn't notice the dark circles under her eyes or the way her eyebrows furrowed with worry.
The Beast seemed to seize the opportunity for an argument, immediately snapping. "If you hadn't run away, this wouldn't have happened!"
"Well, if you hadn't frightened me, I wouldn't have run away!" Belle raised her voice, her eyebrows casting downwards on her face, her jaw clenched.
"Well, you shouldn't have been in the West Wing!" The Beast argued, hell-bent on being right.
"Well, you should learn to control your temper!" Belle scolded loudly. The room fell silent, the servants watching from the floor, anticipating the Beast to scream at Belle and order her to get out, or for him to rise from the bed and break something. The Beast opened his mouth a few times, seeming like he was between retorts, but never settled on one, eventually turning his back to Belle once more and huffing. She smirked at this, but her face fell when her eyes were once again on his injuries. She decided maybe it wasn't worth it to argue with him today - not to say that she shouldn't tomorrow, but today, he was in pain because he saved her. Her hand, still tightly gripping the rag, though most of the moisture had been wrung out from her tight grasp during the argument, hovered over the gash once more. She lightly touched it, barely grazing the wound. She'd already gotten it clean for the most part, she wasn't sure what purpose it served to put the rag against him once more - deep down, she knew she was trying to touch the soon-to-be-scar and say "thank you for saving my life."

Though all it required was a simple "thank you," she didn't actually find the words to express her gratitude until a few weeks later.

-2-

The Beast looked upon Belle's beautiful white horse - Philippe, she had called him - with sadness. This was the horse she had arrived on from an outside world, a world he hadn't seen in so long. This horse could take her places, even if they were dull villages full of dull people. He knew he could never have that again. He reached out to touch the horse, as if trying to grasp the freedom he so longed to have, to just touch it for a second, and Philippe startled, moving away. Belle calmed Philippe, whispering and running her hands through his mane. Then, she grabbed the Beast's paw. He looked at her with awe, not sure how to react to the feeling of this small, delicate hand in his dangerous, clawed one. His chest felt slightly strange, in a way he couldn't recall feeling when he held the hands of countless other girls while dancing or flirting or whatever else he had done as a prince. As she guided his paw on top of Philippe, he felt like words were caught in his throat that he couldn't quite find, and they were lost when she removed her hand and walked away. For now, he'd have to settle with stroking the horse's hair.

-3-

Truthfully, the Beast had contemplated letting Belle go ever since he saved her from the wolves - no, ever since she saved him from dying in the cold. However, his very little - yet still existent - hope that the curse could be broken seemed to justify never explicitly telling her she was free, and he told himself that she really was free, anyway. She escaped once without him really forcing her to come back. In fact, the only reason he chased after her was because he saw the wolves in the enchanted mirror. He wanted to assume she was smart enough to know she could easily escape again. He wanted to assume that she was here because she didn't want to escape, because she didn't feel like a prisoner...because she felt like a guest.

He knew Belle dreamed of adventure - what kind of adventure was always somewhat unclear, she mainly talked about travelling, however sometimes sword fights were mentioned as well - so, as a way of showing her she was free to go wherever she liked, that she had a place in the outside world, he took her to the enchanted book. As he looked at it, blowing the dust off the pages, he felt his heart drop a bit, both in the lingering guilt for not formally releasing Belle and in pity for himself, seeing the way the book had aged. It was painfully obvious that it had never once been opened because while she could escape, he couldn't. He was just as trapped as she was. He guided her hand towards the magical page, reminiscing on earlier that week when she'd led his paw to Philippe, and as she shut her eyes, he wondered where they would go. Immediately he panicked, wondering if he'd be brought to her cottage and be forced to look into the eyes of the man he had coldly imprisoned several months ago. He relished the feeling of his paw on her hand and pushed down the feelings of guilt, knowing they did nothing to change what he had done.

He snapped out of his thoughts when his hand was pulled from hers and they were thrust into a dusty attic. He moved towards the window, wondering where on Earth she had taken him. He breathed a sigh of relief, both for the fact that he wasn't in the public's eye and also that he wasn't taken to her home. Or so he thought, anyway. A few minutes later, he discovered this was her home, her old home. And not long after that, he watched her as she crumbled onto the ground crying. He desperately wanted to envelope her in his embrace, to whisper to her that it was okay, that he understood. Instead, he attempted to apologize to her for what he had done.c
"I'm sorry I ever called your father a thief," he whispered, his voice gentle and rich with sincerity.
She only sniffled a bit more, and his heart broke with each second that she sat there. She eventually looked up at him, her deep brown eyes lacking the warmth that they were usually filled with, her cheeks stained with tears.
"Let's go home," she said softly.
When he realized she meant the castle, he withheld the urge to smile, knowing this was hardly the time. Instead, he held out his paw to help her get up.
She was still holding it when they'd returned to the castle.

-4-

The Beast - or Adam, as he had been called at the time, had danced with hundreds of girls in his life, probably, although he couldn't really place the name or face of a single one of them. That wasn't due to the amount of time that had passed since he'd danced with one, but to the fact that he simply had never cared to learn who they were. As Belle weaved her arm through his, seeming so small in comparison to him, he recounted on all the things he knew about her, attempting to distract himself from the erratic thumping of his heart in his chest, the way it seemed to almost rise up to his throat uncomfortably.

"You'll feel slightly nauseous," he remembered Cogsworth had said. He subtly shook his head, shaking away the thought. His mind returned to his memory of Belle as they walked to the center of the ballroom.

Her father was named Maurice, her horse was named Philippe. She loved roses, likely due to her memory of the rose rattle she had as a baby. Her favorite tea was either rose or lavender chamomile with just a touch of honey. She always smelled like one of the two, somehow. She loved to read. Obviously, she loved to read, and debatably more than he did. Certainly in a different way, he read for amusement, entertainment. Belle read to escape, to run away into a different world, a different body, a different mind, to feel things she'd never felt before. He wished he was able to let himself escape like that,

As she placed her hands in his paws, he knew he'd never once felt like this despite dancing so many times before. He knew what was different this time, and although he still couldn't admit it, there was one thing he was able to admit to himself - no book could ever do this justice.

-5-

The immense pain in his back and side from the gunshots paled in comparison to the swelling of his heart, the complete happiness he felt as Belle hovered over him. He thought of how ridiculous it was that he of all people was happy in the face of death, and bitterly laughed to himself, although it was barely audible to Belle.
"How much I've changed," he thought to himself. "What a powerful girl she is, to make a Beast feel like a man, to make him smile as he fades away just because he feels lucky to have her beautiful visage be the last thing his eyes see."
She cried, one hand in his paw, the other rubbing all around his chest, seeming to fidget with the collar of his shirt.
"You came back," he said, eyes filled with both shock and wonder.
"Of course I came back," she sobbed, her face filled with disbelief, wondering how worthless he thought himself to be. "I'll never leave you again," she promised.

A previous, more pessimistic and melancholy version of himself would've brooded over the bitter irony that the one time she says something remotely loving to him, the one time there's really any hope of breaking the curse, there's one petal left on the rose, and he's dying regardless. But he didn't think of that. He thought of her, of her beauty - her inner beauty, though there was no denying she was outwardly beautiful as well, even now with her face damp with tears, her clothes torn and her hair a mess. No, her inner beauty was so much more striking, and he wanted to reach up and place his hand on her soft cheek, wanting to touch the woman he had grown to love, to comfort her as she cried, but he couldn't find the strength. Instead, he smiled at her.
"I'm afraid it's my turn to leave," he said softly, rubbing her hand as much as he could, though it was hard to move.
She shook her head frantically in protest, clutching his chest tighter. "We're together now," she said. "It's going to be fine, you'll see," she continued, her words reminiscent of Mrs. Potts' hopeful advice.
If he could cry, he would, but somehow as a Beast it had always seemed impossible. He shut his eyes for a second, willing tears to come out, wanting to let go of all the sadness, pain, anger, agony, and heartbreak he'd felt over the years, wanting to only feel the love he had for Belle. No tears came, so he focused his eyes on her once again, thinking of how fortunate he was to die in her embrace.
"At least I got to see you one last time," he said before he faded away.

He didn't hear her profess her love or feel her kiss his forehead. He didn't need to. Her arms around him were enough to help him feel at peace before he slipped into darkness.

Adam stood on two feet, wondering if somehow he'd managed to not end up in hell. Was this the afterlife? Does dying as a Beast not warrant being in that body forever? After examining his hands, he looked at his surroundings, realizing he was still in the West Wing. Immediately, his mind was flooded with a thousand realizations - the most prominent of which being that the spell had been broken, and with that, he realized. Belle loved him. His heart raced in his chest, stopping altogether when he turned around to see her standing there. She seemed confused, like she didn't recognize the man standing before her. She must have seen him transform, how could she not know who he was? He wanted to say "Belle, it's me," to immediately rush towards her and place his now soft hands on her cheeks, but once again, the words were caught in his throat. Instead, he slowly moved towards her, stopping once they were about a hand's length away, allowing her to examine him. She raised her hand to his face, looking into his eyes while she stroked his now smooth cheek, and he could pinpoint the exact moment she knew it was him. Her Beast. She smiled, almost laughing in relief and happiness, and his hands at some point had reached her cheek as well. They moved towards each other, slowly but surely, until eventually he crashed his lips onto hers. He moved his hand to her shoulder, rubbing it up and down, as Belle deepened the kiss even more, wrapping her arms around his torso and pulling him against her, and they savored the feeling of uniting with each other when they'd thought they'd be separated forever. As his lips moved against hers, he finally felt a tear go down his cheek as he thought it over and over again: "she loves me, I love her. She loves me." When they broke away, his arms, seeming so much shorter and thinner, were wrapped tightly around her waist, holding her as tightly as possible against his chest. She smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck, and they moved in once more, making up for all the pain they'd felt in the past hour, for all the heartache and pining. He gave her one last peck before resting his forehead against hers, still gripping her tightly with strength almost resembling that of the Beast.
"You came back," she said, slight humor in her voice.
"I'm never leaving you again," he replied, smiling, his eyes seeming drunk with happiness.
"Nor I you. I'm staying right here, though I hope as your guest with free will," she teased.
He laughed. "Always Belle, you are always free. You haven't been my prisoner in a long time."
She smiled at him, knowing that just this once, he was right. She rested her head in the crook of his neck. "But I'll always be yours. I love you," she murmured, moving away slightly to look at him, wondering if he'd heard her earlier. She realized he hadn't as his eyes lit up with disbelief and joy.
"I love you, Belle. For evermore," he affirmed, a contagious, incandescent smile across his face as he held her against him, knowing that he never wanted to let go again.