A/N: Hey! You made it to the second chapter! That's a good sign, right?

If you didn't notice, I'm using limited 3rd. Chapter 1 was from Belle's perspective. This one is in the Beast's perspective. I'm flipping the perspective between the two for a while. (It flips to Maurice later on, but that's neither here nor there.)

Thanks for reading! :D

-Emily

The Beast stood in shock out on the balcony. Why hadn't he said it? Why hadn't he just told her?

But she loved him. She loved him, she had said it herself. She loved him.

He glanced at the mirror on the table. She hadn't taken the item with her.

The Beast looked out on the stars. The sky was oddly clear this night. She loved him.

A voice from behind him, Cogsworth, a little giggly almost, intensely pleased: "Well, your Highness, I must say everything is going just peachy. I knew you had it in you."

The Beast did not turn from his view. "She loves me."

"Ha, ha, ha, yes. Splend—" Cogsworth's voice suddenly cut off. "She what?"

"She told me she loves me."

Cogsworth sputtered behind him. "A-A-And... what did you say to her?"

"I—I said nothing. I let her go."

"You what? How could you... do that? Why didn't you say—why didn't you say anything to her?" Cogsworth's voice sounded like a plea.

"I... had released her and she, she told me that she loved me. Then, she just ran away."

The Beast turned away from the night sky and to his servant, the Majordomo, the clock. The man-turned-thing's eyes were enormous. "Yes, but—but why didn't you respond?"

"I don't know."

Cogsworth's eyes moved to view the rose. The Beast looked too then, and he noticed that while he had been looking at the sky, another petal had fallen, leaving only two remaining.

"We must find her," the clock said with a sudden burst of focus, half hopping, half walking towards the Beast. "We must find her and you must tell her how you feel. Immediately."

"But her father. She needs to go and help him. She said he was all alone. He could be dying."

"Yes, and you'll be much better suited to help him if you have a staff full of human beings, Master."

"Human beings. Human... again."

"Prince Adam!" The Beast looked down in surprise to where Cogsworth was stomping at his feet. That name, his name. Adam. It was never to be spoken again. Never again. The clock man's face was pink. He looked like he was going to lose his gears. The Beast had never seen him in such a state. "The rose! The girl! Master, please!"

Only a few months ago, Cogsworth never would have made such a display around the Master. No one would have dared. He or she would have been subject to a terrible fury. The Beast had been a monster. But the Beast felt no rage at this display. None at all.

He was not a monster anymore. Not in his soul, and not to Belle.

He heard the sounds of hooves clattering against the bridge outside.

Beast ran to the edge of the balcony. There she was, cloaked in purple, halfway across the bridge over the chasm.

"Belle!" He called out. "Belle!"

If she heard him, she did not respond. And in a moment, she was gone, gone into the thick of the woods beyond the castle gates.

"Belle..." he whispered, leaning against the railing.

She would return, but by then, it could be too late. And it wasn't just him at stake. Perhaps, perhaps she'd still have him even... like this. She had fallen in love with a beast. Perhaps, she'd—but she deserved better than this. She deserved everything he'd had, everything he could give... as Adam.

And the servants. They deserved better than an eternity of this. They deserved to get their lives back. Ten years of this. Ten years, and yet, while most of the staff feared him, who resented him? No one, and yet, all of this was his fault. He had to make it right, for her, for them. There was still time.

He looked at the rose. Two petals. Still two. There was time.

"Master?"

The Beast glanced down at the clock. "I'm going to make this right, Cogsworth. I'm going to find her."

And on all fours, he dashed out of the room, snatching up the mirror on his way out.

The clothes were constricting. They were slowing him down. He had to find her, but thank God for the snow. Her steed's tracks were fresh and obvious.

He ripped off the blue coat, the vest, the shirt. They could be retrieved and mended later. For now, he had to reach her. The Beast bounded across the snow. Her and her father. Bring them back to the castle. Tell her the thing he had failed to. Tell her...

"Tell her I love her," he said in a whisper.

And then he crashed in the snow ahead of him, face first.

The Beast couldn't remember ever feeling so cold.

His eyes opened. His face was resting just above the snow. How long had he been passed out? A moment? An hour? The Beast felt entirely disoriented. He lifted himself up.

And then saw it. Arms. Hands. Skin.

He scrambled up, noticing how awkward he felt doing so. He felt... small.

He looked down. The hands in front of him moved when he went to touch his chest. They were his. The fronts, the backs, no fur, no claws. He touched his face. Cheeks, brows, lips—such soft lips! He was human.

Human. Finally.

But how?

He thought back—was that all it took? Those seconds after she left the room, he could have done it then? After she said those words, all he had to do was say them back? She didn't even need to be near him? Or hear them?

He laughed at himself, and then laughed more, hearing the human sound of it. He had forgotten what his own laughter sounded like. When had he heard it before, though? The Beast had been a boy then, and a bored one at that. His laughter had come infrequently and sounded nothing like the sound he just released.

"I'm a different person now," he said out loud to himself and the trees and the world, not wanting that phrase to be kept inside himself. "Or, at least I hope I am."

He felt intensely cold. His feet, they were freezing, bare against the snow. His chest, too, and his arms. He regretted tearing off the coat and shirt so hastily. As big as they would be now, they could have served him well wrapped over his shoulders. He looked around. No, the coat was far back. He had been bounding so fast. The Beast, the former Beast, looked ahead to the hoof prints in the snow. Nothing new had fallen over them to conceal them. He looked back. How far had he travelled? One mile? Two? Three? No, the castle was too far, he couldn't even see the form of it through the bare trees and what if Belle had run into trouble?

Not that there's much I can do, half naked in the snow.

Surely the village was closer. He'd meet Belle there.

He slapped his forehead, and then felt surprised by the sound of skin hitting skin instead of fur hitting fur. The mirror. The magic mirror. It was so obvious. But Belle was the smart one of them.

The Beast, the former Beast, looked down to retrieve it from his waistband. It wasn't there.

"Oh, no."

He cast a glance around. He noticed the glint of it a few yards away, near a tree. It must have been cast off when he transformed. He jogged over to it and picked the thing up, shaking the snow off the surface of the glass.

"Show me Belle."

A smile came to his lips. She had found her father and was slowly working her way through the snow back, he figured, to her house. Perhaps he could catch up with her, after all.

He looked at his exposed feet. It was a bad idea to do this. He knew it. But going back to the castle was also a bad idea. Both locations were a little far, especially as unaccustomed as he was to his restored form.

But he had to try.