Hi All! Graduate school has started, which means I will be turning out chapters more slowly . . .but I WILL finish this fic. I'm sure I enjoy reading your reviews more than you enjoy the story, so please leave one if you have a moment :)

Belle had already been awake for quite some time when Mrs. Potts knocked on her bedroom door. She had had trouble falling asleep the night before, and had spent much of the morning pacing the floor of her room worrying about Adam and whether his parents would accept her into the royal family. Since she felt that she should at least put her morning to some good use she was already dressed with her hair freshly brushed and pulled back.

"Come in," Belle called to Mrs. Potts. Belle was standing in front of the mirror, sizing herself up. Though she had often been told she was beautiful it had never been something she had given much thought to. It had always seemed so silly to her, the pride which attractive people took in their looks. She had been born the way she had been born, what sense did it make to take pride in something that had been completely out of her control? What was more, why was the one thing everyone seemed to admire about her the thing that she herself had nothing to do with?

She still felt that way, however, she looked at her hazel eyes, her full lips, her slender neck and wondered if these attributes would help her in proving her worth to her future in-laws. She had a feeling that Adam's father would hardly be interested in how many books she had read and doubted that her willingness to sacrifice her own comfort for the well-being of those around her would serve her very well at court. In fact, if the many books she had read about the gossiping, back-biting, and intrigue of the nobility were accurate, she had the sinking suspicion that quite the opposite would be true.

She saw Mrs. Potts' smiling face behind her in the mirror and turned around to face her.

"How are you this morning?" Mrs. Potts asked.

"I'm a little nervous," Belle admitted, smiling a little guiltily.

"Don't let the master's father intimidate you," Mrs. Potts responded, in the surprisingly forceful way she could sometimes have, "You've more right to be here than he does."

"Is Adam all right?" Belle asked, worried about the impact the unexpected arrival of his father would have on her emotional fiancée.

"The master says he has a headache and is refusing to get out of bed," Mrs. Potts said with a sigh.

"I'll go talk with him," Belle replied, shaking her head.

"That's good of you dearie but I'm afraid you'll have to change before you go down to breakfast," Mrs. Potts responded.

"Don't I look all right?" Belle asked, frowning slightly and turning to look at herself in the mirror again.

"You look lovely," Mrs. Potts said, "It's just that having breakfast with His Royal Highness Prince Joseph requires you to look more formal. Madame de le Grande Bouche is on her way to assist you now."

"Hmmm . . . Adam and Joseph," Belle muttered, "Does the royal family have a predilection for biblical names?"

"When the master was born I asked his mother, her royal highness, how she was feeling. She was holding the master and looking down at him with such a look of joy on her face. She smiled at me and said that she was holding a miracle. She told me that she felt like she just gave birth to the first man." Mrs. Potts told Belle, smiling at that distant and innocent time.

"And so she named him Adam," Belle commented, smiling at the thought of her beast, of her tall muscular fiancée, as a little baby being held in his mother's arms, "Was his father also excited?"

"He was. He held such a celebration, so much music, wine, food—I've been in the service of the royal family my whole life and I've never seen such a thing, it went on for days. He loved showing Master Adam off to everyone. The master was a very charming baby, you can imagine, his hair was so light when he was small and those big blue eyes, he looked like a little angel." Mrs. Potts paused, then added gently, "The master's father wasn't always the way he is now."

"What happened?" Belle asked. Mrs. Potts sighed in a way that made Belle think that she had often asked herself the same question. Before she could answer, Madame de le Grande Bouche swept into the room, her arms filled with gowns.

"We MUST go to Paris to buy you more gowns," she said, "Now that you're going to be a princess these old flat things that have been laying around the castle for years just won't due. You need big skirts, layers, better fabric. And jewelry! But never mind that for now, we'll just do our best."

"I best be off," Mrs. Potts said, "Just remember, dear child, not to speak to his royal highness unless he speaks to you first."

"And you must curtsy each time he approaches you," Madame de le Grande Bouche chimed in.

"And you mustn't leave the table until he leaves the table first," Mrs. Potts added.

Belle frowned as Madame de le Grande Bouche held the different gowns up to her slender form, muttering about petticoats and shoes. Three more servants bustled in and began brushing her hair, powdering her face, chatting with Madame de le Grande Bouche about necklaces. All at once, Belle felt like a doll, subject to the whims of those dressing her, positioned this way and that, valued only so far as she was pretty to look at. All of this pomp and circumstance for breakfast? It was not very long ago that she and beast had not even used utensils to eat their porridge.

"Is this really necessary?" Belle asked, skewing her mouth to one side and raising an eyebrow, the expression she typically made when she found a situation ridiculous, "It's breakfast."

"It's a meeting with the king's brother, the master's father, a prince du sang and your future father-in-law. My dear, the occasion could not be more formal," Madame de le Grande Bouche told her, she looked to the servant now tugging on Belle's hair and said, "Pull her hair up, but don't tease it too high—I don't care how fashionable it is in Versailles to have hair that is two feet tall, I think it looks ridiculous."

"Two feet tall?" Belle repeated, now looking to the man who was raking a comb through her chestnut locks with some alarm.

"You'll be wonderful," Mrs. Potts said, holding Belle briefly by the shoulders and looking her in the eye before hurrying off. Belle looked back to the servants fussing over her and bit her lip. As they lifted the dress she had been wearing off of her and fitted her with a stay, tightening the laces, Belle realized this was exactly what she had been dreading about royal life. The ceremony and constraining expectations, the suffocating traditions that smothered her individuality, the inability to be her true self. With each tug on the laces Belle felt the rigidity of royal life tightening around her. She was a girl who rode horses and ran through fields, had snowball fights and went ice skating. She watched herself in the mirror and saw that peasant girl she had been not so long ago being shrouded beneath layers of expensive powder and satin and felt the same poignant pinch in her heart that she felt when she was looking at her prince but remembering the beast. She couldn't help but think, as the servants busied themselves with changing her provincial simplicity into something much more regal, that she was getting tired of transformations.

Belle's footsteps echoed off the marble floors as she made her way to the West Wing. Her shoes had more of a heel than she typically wore and it was necessary to gather the copious layers of her skirts in her arms and lift them as she walked, so that though she meant to go quickly her progress to the prince's living chambers was quite slow. At last she reached the enormous double doors of the West Wing and let her skirts fall around her, hesitating momentarily. Since Adam was not yet her husband, and since she did feel a little bad for invading his privacy when she had first gone into the West Wing all those months ago (though she would never tell him that), she raised her arm and gave a loud knock on the doors.

"Leave me," Adam's voice snapped loudly through the doors.

"It's me," Belle responded. There was a pause.

"Come in," he said in a much softer voice.

Belle reached up and, with a little effort, pulled the doors open. She looked around the tremendous space of the prince's sleeping quarters. Judging by the fact that Adam was nowhere in sight and that his bed curtains were still drawn she quickly surmised that her beloved was still in bed. She walked to his sprawling four poster bed and stood just outside the curtains.

"It's time for you to get up my prince of the blood," she told him through the curtains, her voice loving but firm.

The prince grunted in response. Belle paused for a moment, waiting for him to speak. When he didn't, she allowed herself to roll her eyes.

"Adam," she said, "You know that your father and stepmother are downstairs waiting for us. The longer it takes you to go down there, the worse it will be."

Adam sighed and Belle heard him shifting in his bed. He made a noise of irritation in his throat that sounded distinctly like a growl.

"And to think I ever wondered, even for a moment, what happened to my beast," Belle said.

Behind the curtains Adam smiled and reached up to pull one side open. When he caught sight of Belle he was startled, and he sat up a little in bed, blinking and looking her over. She was wearing a cream colored satin dress with vines and roses embroidered in the fabric in green, pink, and gold thread. The front of the dress opened to reveal a layer of pink silk, and her skirts flowed out from her waist in several luxurious layers, so that whenever Belle moved she seemed to be cascading through a current of fabric. Around her neck she wore three strings of pearls and her chestnut hair was piled on her head and also adorned with pearls and crystal ornaments. Though the servants had refrained from too much powder and rouge so as not to eclipse her natural beauty, she still wore more make-up then she ever had before.

"Mon dieu," the prince muttered, "You look . . ."

He trailed off. She looked as though she had just stepped out of the halls of Versailles. It had been a long time since he had been in the company of other royals but looking at her now the memories came back, of ladies with dresses so wide they had to go through the doors sideways, of card games and gambling, of noblewomen giggling behind fans, and men telling tales of who killed the biggest stag when they had last gone hunting all while fine music tinkled in the background. Belle, standing before him now in all her finery, her lips painted the same shade as the roses on her dress, looked like she was a member of the royal family. Indeed, it seemed the only thing missing from her impressive bearing was a crown. Certainly she looked beautiful, but the prince felt something he didn't quite understand while his eyes swept over her. It was a feeling that tugged at him just a little more gently than sadness and caused him pause.

"Where is the young girl in the blue dress who walked so bravely into my castle all those months ago?" Adam asked, sitting up the rest of the way in his bed and taking her hands in his, looking up into her face with his eyebrows furrowed in consternation.

"Adam," Belle responded, smiling down at him, "It's me."

He continued to look her over for a protracted moment before realizing fully what she was saying. He looked back into her eyes and smiled.

"It is you," he responded.

Her smile widened and she felt a rush of tenderness towards him. She leaned down and kissed him gently on the mouth, and wrapping his arms her waist, he returned it. Belle pulled her mouth away but hesitated, mere centimeters from his lips, her eyes still half closed. She was torn between wanting to continue and sensing that continuing to kiss each other in such close proximity to the bed behind the closed doors of the West Wing when they were not yet married was probably not a good idea. She kissed him on the cheek and stood back up straight. He continued to hold her around her waist and leaned into her, resting his cheek against her stomach.

"Mrs. Potts told me you have a headache," Belle said, running her slender fingers soothingly through his thick auburn hair.

"Hmmm," Adam mumbled, "I do. I think perhaps I am becoming ill."

"Ahhh, this is a common affliction that often affects people who have had too much to drink the previous night," Belle said, continuing to stroke the prince's hair. Adam looked up at her, looking both a little sulky and a little mischievous.

"It hurts terribly," he told her quite seriously.

"I'm sure it does," she responded, tracing the arc of his eyebrows with her fingertips as he looked up at her.

He looked back down and closed his eyes. Pressing against the softness of Belle seemed to lessen the sharpness of his headache. He then remembered that his father was downstairs.

"It is harder seeing him than I thought it would be," he mumbled into Belle's stomach. He was not accustomed to expressing his feelings to others. When he was a boy he had lived only with servants, and it wasn't appropriate for him to show emotional weakness around them. Even before then, he was raised to believe that a prince controls his emotions, never shows discomfort or distress, always maintains a steady countenance. He had had very strong emotions ever since he could remember, and the constant strain of repressing them had caused resentment to take root with in him like a weed, steadily crowding out his gentler, kinder emotions. He was determined to keep his heart open with Belle, and he supposed discussing what was troubling him was part of that.

"It must be painful," Belle said quietly, "Just try to remember that you face him as the man you are now, not the boy that you once were."

"I suppose that means I should dress and go downstairs rather than sulking in bed?" Adam asked, pulling away from her and looking up at her again.

"That would be a good start," Belle responded, smiling.

He took her hands and turned them over in his. He looked at her palms for a moment, and then kissed each one gently.

"I'll be down in a few moments," he told her, rising from bed and kissing her forehead. She nodded at him and smiled, and then gathered her skirts once more into her arms to make what she feared would be a torturous journey downstairs to the dining hall in her presently regal and imminently impractical state of dress.

Belle heard muttering as she approached the dining hall, but her footsteps announced her arrival before she entered the room, so that the muttering quickly hushed just as her embroidered slipper slid across the threshold. Prince Joseph and his wife both turned their faces towards her to take a good look at her. His wife dipped her head and smiled while Adam's father beheld her with an expression that hovered between impressed and calculating.

Belle sank into a curtsy and held it.

"You may rise," Adam's father said coldly.

"Please excuse my tardiness. I apologize for keeping your royal highnesses waiting." Belle said, rising slowly from the billows of her skirts like an angel from a cloud.

"Please be seated," he responded, his face expressionless. Belle made her way to the chair across from Adam's stepmother, not needing to be royal to understand that the seat at the end of the table opposite Prince Joseph was meant for Adam, as the other male and member of the royal family. Lumiere hurried to Belle's chair to pull it out for her.

"Thank you," Belle told Lumiere, and she couldn't help but notice that he appeared harried and that the liveliness with which he typically conducted himself was substantially subdued. She attempted to make eye contact with him, but he hurried away before she was able. She suspected that the presence of Adam's father was causing the servants nearly as much stress as it was causing Adam.

"Tell me," Adam's father began somewhat ponderously, not bothering to look at Belle with his steely grey eyes, "Does my son make a habit of spending his nights getting drunk in front of peasants and wasting his days laying about in bed?

Belle glanced at Mrs. Potts, who had come to the table to refill Prince Joseph's tea cup. An expression of vexation crossed quickly over the old woman's typically serene features before returning to a neutral expression.

"You may be pleased and surprised, your grace," Belle said, "To know that typically Ad—the prince conducts himself with a great deal of dignity. Last night was an aberration, the timing of which was unfortunate given your arrival."

"An aberration, was it? You speak very fine French mademoiselle," Prince Joseph said, and though it seemed he was paying Belle a compliment it sounded faintly like an accusation, "Have you studied at a university or have you been privately tutored?"

"Neither," Belle responded, "I've only read a lot of books."

Prince Joseph raised an eyebrow and seemed to be finished with his half-hearted attempts to engage Belle in conversation.

"Smart and beautiful. Such a rare and winning combination," Adam's stepmother chimed in, smiling at Belle.

"You are very kind to say so," Belle demurred. She considered Adam's stepmother. She was very beautiful but there was something inaccessible about it, so that though she pleased the eyes she did not quite warm the heart. Though Belle supposed that could also be the feelings of intimidation she felt in the presence of Adam's father. Her eyes were a vivid emerald and her long golden hair poured over her shoulders and down her back like honey. Her skin was as smooth and flawless as porcelain and yet there was a maturity that almost seemed to border on shrewdness in her expressions and her bearing, so that there was an odd sort of agelessness in her appearance.

They all sat in a heavy, awkward silence for a few moments, sizing each other up while trying not to let on they were sizing one another up. Belle did her best to suppress her irritation that Adam had stayed so long in bed, thereby lengthening the amount of time she had to sit unaccompanied with his parents. She was so proud of all the progress Adam had made, but there were still times when it was not difficult for her to imagine the petulant young boy he had once been. As Belle sat, aware of Prince Joseph and his wife eyeing her, it seemed that time had been stretched so thin by the unspoken tension in the hall that seconds lengthened into hours.

At last Belle heard the sound of the prince's boots approaching the dining hall hurriedly. She looked up and saw Adam striding into the room in a deep red jacket with gold trim over a brown vest and brown pants. Each time he entered a room she found herself startled by her attraction to his human form. He made eye contact with her and she felt a rush sweep through her.

"My apologies for my lateness," the prince said, coming around the table to kiss Belle on the cheek before settling into his seat at the end of the table, unfolding his napkin and laying it across his lap in one fluid motion.

"You've kept us waiting most the morning," his father snapped.

"You've kept me waiting most my life," Adam retorted, rubbing his temples as Mrs. Potts poured some tea into his cup.

"Is this why you asked me to come here? So you can show me how upset you are with me by undermining my authority in front of peasants and forcing me to wait for your arrival like a commoner?" his father asked. Hearing Adam's father refer to commoners and peasants with such disdain made Belle distinctly uncomfortable. She shifted slightly in her seat and glanced at Adam who met her gaze and looked ashamed.

"You are a very arrogant man," he said, shaking his head as he set his cup down decisively back on its saucer and pinned his blue eyes on his father reprovingly.

"And you are a little boy who has always been better at throwing tantrums than fulfilling your responsibilities." His father replied coldly. He motioned for Lumiere to approach without bothering to turn to look at him.

"Bring breakfast. Now. I'm famished and we've waited long enough," Prince Joseph said, in a voice that sounded both authoritative and bored.

"Can you not even say please?" Adam said, looking after Lumiere with a concerned expression as he hurried off, wordlessly, to the kitchens.

"You want me to coo over them and plead with them to do their job? They are servants. So let them serve," Adam's father said, "What on Earth has gotten into you?"

"Do you really not know?" Adam asked. Immediately a tense awkwardness descended over the table in the unique way that only a truth no one quite wants to confront can cause. Adam's father and stepmother exchanged meaningful looks as did Adam and Belle.

"We . . . assumed you wouldn't want us to see you . . . in that condition," his stepmother said weakly, after a few seconds of no one speaking.

"We were attempting to preserve your dignity," his father added, his voice for the first time containing a trace of softness.

"And so concerned were you for my dignity that you couldn't even send me a letter?" the prince asked, clearly not convinced by his father's weak defense.

"It didn't occur to us that you still had the ability to read in that state," his father replied, looking genuinely baffled, "Could you?"

"Not . . .for a while I . . .so you knew about the curse?" Adam asked, looking at his father incredulously.

"We were informed," his father answered, looking down at his plate.

"By who?" Adam pressed.

"By the enchantress of course," his father responded, "She was terribly fond of your mother. She was convinced that . . .letting you continue on as you were would be a disservice to her memory."

"And what about you? I was a boy. You were my father and you abandoned me. Where is your curse?" Adam demanded.

"It was you who made the decision to let an old woman freeze out in the bitter cold, not I. You have always been a spoiled and selfish young man. It is clear to me, particularly after last night, you haven't the faintest idea how to conduct yourself as a prince, nor do you appreciate the responsibilities that you bear with the crown." His father retorted acidly.

"Whose fault is that? You sent me away without teaching me anything!" Adam yelled, banging his fist against the table with such force the china shook.

"Whose fault is it? Your own! Don't sit there carping at me like an insolent child! It is time for you to grow up and be accountable, or has the curse taught you nothing?!" his father roared back, his voice resounding through the dining hall even after he finished speaking.

Adam opened his mouth to respond but then closed it. He looked down at his lap, looking thoroughly chastened. Belle desperately wanted to defend Adam, wanted to confront Prince Joseph with the fact that he had been a terrible father and demand an apology from him for abandoning his son. She hated his callousness towards the servants and his heartlessness towards Adam, who was clearly hurt by his rejection of him. She knew that her fiancée was sensitive, that being left first by his mother and then his father had cut him deeply. She remembered his joy when he had still been the beast when she had come back, and how surprised he had seemed. She realized, just then, that it had been the first time that someone he had loved had come back after leaving him. It made her even angrier at his father and it was all she could do to contain her fury behind her make-up and placid expression.

The servants brought breakfast into the noiseless dining hall, eggs, crepes, various berries and jellies, and salted meats. Everyone began to eat silently, though such a heaviness had settled in Belle's stomach she could scarcely swallow her forkful of crepe.

"You'll have to assist my son a great deal in matters of politics and decorum, my dear," his father said to her, looking at her expectantly, "Tell me, mademoiselle Belle, what house are you from?"

"I'm from the cottage just outside of town," Belle responded, only seconds later realizing with a great deal of embarrassment that he had in fact been asking her which noble family she was from.

Prince Joseph stiffened and looked quickly to his wife with a shocked expression. He then looked over at Adam, who now had lifted his gaze and was looking back at him defiantly.

"Do you mean to tell me," Prince Joseph said in utter disbelief, "That you intend on marrying a peasant?"

"Don't call her that," Adam snapped, "I love Belle and we are to be married. You really are unbearably rude and conceited. If being a beast for 10 years has made me less like you then the curse was indeed a blessing. "

"This proposed marriage is a matter we will discuss at length in private," Adam's father hissed, glancing quickly in Belle's direction.

"My marriage proposal has already been accepted by the only person who has the power to reject it," Adam countered hotly, "There is nothing further to discuss except wedding plans."

"She did break the spell," Adam's stepmother chimed in, "That is quite an act of service to the crown."

"I love your son. Breaking the spell was no act of service, it was love. I love him." Belle said passionately, unable to sit quietly any longer. Adam's father and stepmother looked at her, startled. She met Adam's father's gaze and held it steadily with an intensity that somehow seemed innocent rather than defiant. He sat back a little in his chair and blinked, thrown off momentarily by Belle's courageous sweetness.

"You married for love too," Adam said quietly. A look of surprise and grief passed over his father's face. It was understood by everyone, including his stepmother, that Adam was referring to his mother.

"We were young . . ." his father said in a voice scarcely above a whisper. Adam's stepmother sat with a distinctly vacant expression and a removed look in her eyes.

"I must marry Belle just as you needed to marry my mother," Adam told his father. His father looked at him, and for the first time Belle saw something flicker in those grey eyes that looked like it once could have been love.

"It won't be easy and I can hardly give this arrangement my blessing," his father said, clearing his throat, the coldness returning to his voice, "You need my brother's permission. For this we will have to journey to Versailles and you will need to request an audience with him. The first order of business will be getting him to recognize that you've returned to us. The second will be convincing him to approve of the marriage. The third will be to persuade him to accept this girl into the royal family as a princess through marriage."

"Then we'll set off for Versailles as soon as provisions can be collected and the carriages prepared," the prince replied. He looked to Belle and smiled. He appeared to be confident, but Belle felt substantially less so.

Though she was excited at the thought of seeing Versailles, the thought of being in the midst of all of the royals while being thought of as the peasant girl and constantly appraised for her worthiness hardly appealed to her. She shuddered to think of how uncomfortably she would be dressed while she attempted to navigate the labyrinthine social expectations at court as a lady and potential princess. Before she allowed herself to feel too sorry for herself, however, she thought about how Adam, as a beast, had gone to great lengths to reclaim his humanity and be a worthy suitor for her, learning to eat with utensils, learning to read, learning to dance, learning to control his temper and, finally, learning to put her well-being above his own. She supposed if he could learn to be human again after ten years as a beast she could do what was necessary to become a princess.