A/N: Sorry for the delay but me and this chapter had words... and of course, there's real life and the holidays... anyway, I hope it's not too terrible...

Rose pulled away from John and turned toward Martha. "It's Martha right?" She was clearly embarrassed, her face red.

Martha nodded and started to step toward them, trying to get herself between John and Rose. She grabbed John's arm and gently started to pull him back into the rehearsal. "JJ wants to start again, he wants to get through the next few scenes before we break for lunch."

John stepped around Martha and took Rose's hand, using his thumb to stroke her palm. "Were you coming to the rehearsal?" When she hesitated, he tried out his best 'lost puppy' look, (he hadn't used that since he was a child, he really hoped it would work) and said "You promised you'd come. You wouldn't want word to get out that you don't keep your promises, would you?"

Rose got caught up in his eyes, in his focus on her, on his fingers holding her hand and stroking. If she could get her brain to coordinate with her mouth she'd probably tell him anything he wanted to hear.

"Oh for God's sake!" Martha mumbled as she busted between them, effectively breaking their hands apart. She grabbed John by his shirt and brought his head down to a level that let her look him in the eyes, "You... are... working..." she said slowly, with emphasis, looking into each of his eyes, back and forth, waiting for him to follow her, "JJ, your director, wants you back in there to finish. Let's go!" With that, she pushed him back up to his full height and stomped off, back into the rehearsal room. If he didn't follow, she was done.

"I, uh..." John gulped and watched Martha's retreating form, then shoved his hands in his hair, "I better get back in there." He pointed with his thumb in the direction Martha just walked but he didn't make a move to follow.

"Yeah." Rose replied.

John slumped a bit, taking this as another rejection from her. First no lunch, then no rehearsal. She probably only agreed that day to get away from him. "Right then." He turned and started moving away.

Seeing him move startled her out of whatever paralysis had a hold on her. Taking a few quick steps (his long legs covered a lot of ground, even when moving slowly), she caught up to him and grabbed his hand, stopping him. "Yeah, I'm coming to the rehearsal."

He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Right then, Allons-y!"

x13x

Rose had sat toward the back of the room when the rehearsal resumed, opposite him, and behind Joan. They started with the dinner scene, just the dialogue for now, later they would include the after dinner waltz. This scene was, in John's opinion, the first time that the Beast started to realize that he cares for Belle.

John took a breath and began getting into character. Belle was supposed to enter the room while the Beast watched from a darkened corner.

Joan stood and 'entered' the scene "Adam? Are you here?" Joan, as Belle, asked.

"I... yes, Belle, I'm here." John, as Adam, the Beast, walked toward her. As he approached, his eyes strayed behind Belle to Rose, who had a small smile on her face. His breath caught. "You're beauti- I mean, you look beautiful."

Rose flushed. John gave a small smile.

Belle looked down, "Thank you, you look beautiful too."

This startled John a bit, reminding him that he should be concentrating on his lines, and not on Rose. Embarrassed, he continued, "Should we eat?"

They moved toward two chairs set in the middle of the room. John was focusing so hard on trying to not focus on Rose that he tripped over his chair. He smiled sheepishly.

"Nice touch, John," JJ whispered. "Let's make a note of that."

John let out a deep breath as he sat down. He went through his lines, talking about the Beast's childhood, listening to Belle talk about her life with her father, how she didn't fit in. At some point during the exchange John noticed that he could still see Rose behind Belle. He stopped thinking about his lines, saying them from memory, to Rose more than anyone else in the room. Telling her the Beast's story, his story.

His lines were flowing, everything became easy. He became the tortured Beast, clinging to the light this... this girl... brought into his darkness. Feeling like he she could release him from this burden, from this ugliness he had become, and knowing that he didn't deserve it.

Belle stood and took his hand. "Dance with me?"

John pulled his hand away, quickly recoiling from her. The touch felt wrong, and he started to panic, the same old stiffness and anxiety returned to his features. Joan looked at him, puzzled.

"Nice job Joan, John. Let's stop there for now." JJ interjected, and started to clap. He came over to Joan and John, and puts his arms around them. "I knew we'd get there, just needed everyone to get more comfortable. I think we'll be able to start shooting this next week!" He spun around, releasing them and continued, "All right, one hour for lunch, then I want to run the Gaston scene at the pub!"

John relaxed, feeling saved by JJ's call to stop there. He looked around the room, saw some of the cast looking glassy eyed, like tears were starting to form. He wondered if that was because of him. His eyes found Rose again and she smiled at him, full blown with a bit of tongue. It drew him in like a magnet.

Martha intercepted him on his way to Rose, "Really nice job John. You had everyone hanging on your every word, every expression."

John kept moving, "Thanks Martha, it felt good. I've gotta go uhm... find Rose."

Martha's face hardened, "Find her for what?"

He panicked for a second before inspiration hit, "I'm worried about the costume. Yeah! The costume, for the waltz scene. I haven't even tried it on yet, and I have to practice waltzing in it. I need to find her and figure out when I can start working in it."

He caught up with Rose because of the bottleneck to get out of the room and the promise of food on the other side of the door. He pulled her off of the 'line' to leave, grabbing her hand again and asked, "Want to have lunch?"

Rose blushed, feeling like this was a permanent state for her when around John, "Uhhh, I was just going to go." Seeing his face drop she recanted, "I mean I thought this was just for the cast and crew."

"Oh, it is, but you're the costume designer, I think you count as 'crew.' But I didn't mean here." He paused, and decided to go for it. "I'm basically finished for the day, you heard they want to run Gaston's scene after lunch, so, I thought maybe you'd like to go grab something. Like, I dunno, maybe chips?"

The smile she gave him said it all. They waited for a path to clear and John said "Run!"

They took off out of the building, garnering stares from those they passed, some no doubt thinking they recognized John as they ran by. Rose was laughing the whole time and was very out of breath when it finally occurred to John to stop and look around for a chippy.

x13x