Part II

"Adam?"

It had been several hours since they'd left the village. The prince was determined to keep his eyes on the road as he found this was the easiest way to keep his mind off the young woman riding beside him. Try as he might, he could not stop the fluttering sensation in his stomach as Belle's entrancing image pervaded his mind, and he only hoped that he would learn to suppress his feelings while they were road together. He would have to, if he expected this plan to work.

"Adam?" Belle repeated, louder this time. "Monsieur Adam?"

It took a few moments for him to remember to respond - that was his name now. "Yes?" he answered, turning around to look like he was staring at her.

"Well...um...," she fumbled with her hands, "I was wondering if we could find somewhere to camp for tonight. My father is recovering from an illness and could use some rest before we continue."

The prince sat up with a start at this. She had a point. He thought the next town would be only a few miles away from Molyneaux, but it was almost sunset now, and they hadn't encountered anything that remotely resembled a village yet. And, from the look of the overcast sky and the wind rustling the trees around them, it was likely that a storm was coming soon. He knew it wouldn't be safe to go any further when the weather was threatening to turn on them like this.

"Very well," he said. "Follow me."

They made camp inside an abandoned farmhouse in the middle in an overgrown field just off the main trail. The prince saw that the horses were secured in the stables, while Belle and Maurice laid out their blankets and got a fire ready using debris lying around the barn. Dinner consisted of a loaf of dry bread from Adam had packed away in his saddlebags. Belle, who hadn't eaten all day, accepted the food without complaint. She had a lot to be grateful for, after all. A few hours ago her greatest fear was sharing a bed with Gaston, now she was miles away from him, safe with her father and this traveller who didn't seem keen on talking, but wanted to help them just the same. Yet a strange feeling of suspicion continued to plague her as she watched Adam eat his bread across from them. Just because he had helped them didn't mean she could trust him.

"I'm planning to drop you off at Cravant-les-Côteaux, where there are stagecoach connections to the capital," Adam said sometime later as he pointed to a map he'd laid out on the floor, "Unless there's somewhere else you intend to stay?"

"Saint-Jean-le-Blanc," Maurice said with a cough. "I have...a sister who lives there. She can take us in...for a little while."

"Papa!" Belle uttered in disbelief, "That's a week's journey at least! We can't go that far in your condition."

"I'm not dying Belle," Maurice retorted. "Besides, Marguerite will be able to give us a place to stay until we find a new place to live. It won't be Paris exactly, but she's family."

Belle bit her lip as she considered her father's suggestion. Her memories of her aunt weren't exactly pleasant, but then again, she wasn't sure she had enough livres for her and her father to check into in an inn for more than a few days at least. Unless they could magically raise enough money to buy a house while they were on the road, going to her aunt's was the best thing they could do. "I guess that's our only choice then," she decided.

"Then that's where we're going," said Adam. "Saint-Jean-le...le le le le..."

"Blanc," she finished.

"Thank you." He traced his finger on the map, trying to figure out the best ways of getting there from their current location.

Later that night, Belle got her father ready for bed, giving him his medicine before wrapping him in some blankets and laying him down to sleep.

"Belle, you've grown up so fast," he said as he placed a hand on her cheek. "Sometimes I think I may have missed out on something, spending all those nights working on my inventions, not spending any time with you. When I lost you, all I could think about was everything you'd sacrificed, all the things in life you'd never see, never do."

"I'm here now Papa," Belle said gently. "I'll always be here for you, no matter what."

From the other side of the barn, Adam clenched his fists and stood up, mumbling something about finding more firewood before the storm hit.

"Who is he, Papa?" He heard Belle ask as soon as he walked out of the barn.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways, Belle," her father replied. "Perhaps he is a guardian angel sent to protect us."

"You really believe that?"

The prince tried to resist the urge to laugh as he heard this. He was many things, but an angel wasn't one of them.

The castle was on fire. She could hear the flames roaring behind her as she ran up the twisted staircase, the weight of her ball gown almost making her slip off the edge where the steps disappeared into the chasm below her. Something terrible was coming and all she knew was that she had to warn him before it was too late.

At last, she reached the West Wing corridor, forcing the doors open and flinging herself inside. He was standing by the window, his tall figure hunched over the enchanted rose, just as she had left him.

"Beast!" she exclaimed.

"Belle?" He inched towards her cautiously and broke out into a smile. "You came back!"

She felt a thrill run through her body as she ran to embrace him. All senses were lost; the only thing that mattered was them being together. But no sooner had she reached them than the room filled with a terrible howl of pain. When she looked again, the Beast was staggering backwards, his paw unable to conceal the fresh wound seeping out of his shirt.

"Beast!"

"Belle..." His eyes moved to her raised right hand. She jumped as she realized she was holding a dagger, a bloody dagger she could not remember carrying before. "How...could you?"

"No," she cried as he fell to the floor. "It wasn't me! Please, NO!"

Suddenly, the room filled with maniacal laughter. Belle spun around to see Gaston staggering towards her. "You!" she screamed in a blind rage, dagger raised. "You did this to him!"

"Oh, how could you say such a thing Belle?" Gaston said, taking the weapon from her hand as thought it were little more than a child's toy. "I wasn't the one who killed him, was I? Now come along like a good little wife. The whole town is waiting for us."

"No!" she screamed. "No! NO!"

The fire spread into the West Wing as he dragged her away. When she looked back at Beast's corpse, her heart stopped because standing beside him was a man with long red-hair, staring at her intensely before the flames consumed her entirely.

"No!"

She opened her eyes to semi-darkness, the sound of her father snoring and the wind creaking against the farmhouse bringing her back to reality. Some one's hand was on her shoulder. She turned around with a start, fearing it was Gaston, but it was Adam.

"Are you alright?" he asked her softly. "You were shouting in your sleep."

She quickly wiped her nose with her sleeve. "Sorry," she muttered, feeling embarrassed. "Just...a bad dream. Did I wake you?"

"No. I was already awake," Adam replied. In truth, he wasn't used to sleeping in cold conditions in his human form, and had been spending the past hour tending the fire as a way of staying warm.

He took his hand away from her shoulder (he wasn't sure why it had been there to begin with), giving her space to crawl over to the fire and pull her blanket around herself. It surprised him, he had never seen her look so desolate before, not since the first night he'd taken her prisoner, or two days before when he'd seen her crying in the mirror. The Beast would have gone out of his way to comfort her, but he was Adam now and Adam kept his distance, observing, not acting.

Belle couldn't stop her body from shaking. For a moment, all she could do was sit there and cry as the memories of the dream took over: the Beast's mangled body, Gaston, the red-haired man. Every night just the same, she thought. Maybe I'll be haunted like this for the rest of my life. At last, she wiped her tears away, shifting her attention from the fire to the man sitting across from her. The firelight faintly illuminated the lower part of his face where she could see a strong looking chin and full lips. He was interesting, she had to admit. She remembered meeting a hooded man on a pilgrimage to Spain when she was a child once, but Adam was different. He bore no holy emblems, or anything to indicate he was a pilgrim or part of a church.

"What is it?" he asked her. It occurred to her just a second too late that it was rude to stare.

"You aren't...," she hesitated, "an excommunicate, are you?"

"Huh? No!"

"I'm sorry," she said, face flushing. She felt bad making judgments based on appearances, but it was the only thing she had to work with now. "I just - how old are you?"

"Twenty-one," he replied curtly.

Only twenty-one? That left him only a few years older than she. He was even younger than she thought.

"Are you sure you're alright?" he asked her again.

"Yes. Sorry, I just..." She wrapped her blanket more tightly around herself, looking down at the ground. She hated sitting in this silence and felt like she would go crazy if she didn't have someone to talk to right now. "Adam, I know we've only just met, and I don't expect you to answer this honestly. But have you ever done something bad...something so terrible and wanted desperately to change it?"

There was a pause before he answered. "I suppose. Why?"

"What did you do after?"

"Nothing...at first. That is...not until I found someone who helped me learn to put my mistakes behind me."

"What do you mean?"

"In the place where I came from," he hesitated, as though afraid of sharing this aloud, "I made a mistake once. I...hurt someone. Many people actually. And...my actions haunted me for a very long time. I thought I would wear them with me forever, until I met this girl. This girl...she was a remarkable woman, and she...well...," he paused, "She befriended me and helped me to see past my mistakes, made me feel like I could be a better person despite what I'd been before. I owed a lot to her." There was silence.

"Well what happened to her?" Belle asked curiously. There was something very moving in the way he told his story that made her want to keep listening to him. The prince knew this was because Belle liked to read people the way she read her books.

"We parted ways, eventually," he replied. "She wanted one thing, I wanted another. I knew it wouldn't be right to force her to...stay with me, so I left her to her responsibilities while I left...to look for answers." It seemed like he intended to say more, but he chose to be silent. Belle picked up the ball again.

"I met someone who changed me like that once, too," she said. "I could never really relate to anyone in my village, but then I met him. I never thought we'd be friends at first, but once we did, things changed. I began to see something in him that wasn't there before. He became sweet, kind; he even let me read my favourite books to him."

"Gaston, right?" said Adam.

"Gaston?" Belle blinked at him in surprise,."Of course not! He hates reading! I would never...he just wanted to marry me for the sake of having a wife. Why, what made you think that?"

"Oh, I don't know," Adam lowered his head for a moment. "I guess...a woman with your intelligence, I find it strange you'd agree to be his accessory if you disliked him so much."

Belle opened her mouth in outrage. "I never agreed to be Gaston's accessory!" she snapped, "You have no idea what he put me through! He threatened to lock my father in an asylum, and after what he did to the - ,"

"Yes?"

"Never mind." Her faced burned red in shame. She shouldn't be yelling like this. What could she possibly gain from telling her story to a complete stranger anyway? It wasn't like Adam could magically fix this problem she'd started with Gaston. That was her fault and hers alone. "I should rest," she said finally.

Adam nodded and handed her a quilt. "Use this. You'll freeze in that," he said as he pointed to the ragged blanket she had draped around her shoulders.

She raised an eyebrow at him curiously. First bread, now blankets? How many things did this man have exactly? "Thank you," she replied. As she reached over to retrieve the quilt, she happened to notice something shiny tucked inside his cloak. A knife? Before she could take a closer look however, he turned his feet away and shoved the blanket into her arms. "Goodnight, mademoiselle," he said coolly.

"Goodnight, Adam."

She lay down under the quilt next to her father, feeling confused and intrigued all at once. In many books she had read, something interesting always came along at a tragic moment. She thought of Prospero from The Tempest, banished from his kingdom, only to become a ruler of his own island with two spirits at his command. Perhaps, in the midst of her tragic circumstances, a new story was just beginning, for both her and her father. What had Adam done to "hurt" all those people exactly? Who was the girl who had changed him? What answers was he looking for? Still waters ran deep, and she had a feeling that there was a lot more to Adam than met the eye.

"He became sweet, kind; he even let me read my favourite books to him."

As the prince lay down on his blankets, again he felt his heart pumping with adrenaline. Belle might have been sleeping right beside him for how clearly he could hear her breathing.

If it wasn't Gaston she was talking about, was it me? he wondered. It was a fair guess. He thought back to the days spent reading books together, walking out in the grounds, eating breakfast together and couldn't help feel a sense of hope growing inside of him. Maybe it had all been worth something after all. Maybe she does have feelings for me. But he quickly shooed away the thought. That was the Beast talking, not Adam. Adam hadn't come here to find out if Belle loved him or not. Adam distanced himself from wistful sentiments, knowing the truth would only hurt him in the end.

Just one week, he told himself as he turned to his side and closed his eyes. Just a week of keeping silent, a week of acting like perfect strangers and then they'd never have to cross paths again. It was the least he could do, after all he'd put her through.

"I'm just serving as an escort for her and her father, that's it. If I give myself away it will ruin everything."

Thunder rumbled in the distance, reminding him of the opening of a book she had read to him once. What was the title again? Macbeth? The Tempest? Then, he heard her voice against the wind.

"I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry…"

He thought he'd known pain once. But nothing could ever measure up to the sound of those cries, which tormented him for the rest of the night, worse than ten years of living under the curse could ever do.