Chapter 11 – Acceptable Apologies

Lumiere and Cogsworth stood in the hallway, looking down at the passage no longer inhabited by their mistress. Ger was facing in that direction as well, though his eyes were so unfocused as to be practically unseeing.

"Well, now you've really done it, Lumiere," snapped Cogsworth. "Just look at this mess!"

Lumiere turned on him. "Me? You are blaming me for this? What could I have possibly done wrong? In fact, mon ami, the only thing here that did not go according to plan was that I was kept back in the kitchens when her Grace arrived. I am sure that, had I been here, I would have smoothed over any small misunderstandings that had occurred."

"Are you insinuating that this is my fault?" Cogsworth gasped incredulously.

"No, I am saying so right out!"

Ger was lost in his own thoughts, trying to understand what had just happened, but he could not help but overhear the two servants bickering.

"Excuse me," he said, looking down a moment before the argument became a brawl. Both men froze and immediately leapt back to their previous positions as if they would never even dream of putting on such a display.

"I was wondering if you could clarify something for me," continued Ger pleasantly, amazed at how calm and genial he was about to sound a minute after facing down a beast. "You were responsible for planning the magnificent dinner inside, correct?'

"Yes," answered both objects, before glaring at one another again.

"And you didn't tell your mistress..?"

"No, we wanted it to be a surprise for her," answered Lumiere rather miserably.

Well, you succeeded, thought Ger to himself. This put a whole new spin on the events of the evening. The Beast clearly had nothing to do with this plot—she had been content to let him roam her castle and leave him alone. Ger felt a bit guilty for his earlier assumptions that the Beast had been purposely trying to humiliate him. His father had always chided him for being too quick to think that everything was about him.

"Dare I ask why you decided tonight, of all nights, to have such a feast?"

The two servants stared at each other in mute horror, wondering how exactly they were supposed to answer this question.

"Well-," began Cogsworth at the same time as Lumiere was saying "You see-"

"It's all very complicated and we can't get into it right now," they finished together in a rush.

Ger raised an eyebrow. "I see. You must have very important things to be doing, like seeing to the kitchens." Ger tried not to smile as both objects dashed back the way they came to explain that dinner might just be the littlest bit delayed,

As soon as they were gone, Ger left in the opposite direction. He had not seen where the Beast had gone, but he wanted to find her. Part of his brain was aware that this was a profoundly stupid thing to do. She was very clearly angry with him and had been moments away from killing him before she had left. And now he was going to go after her?

He was and, moreover, he was not even quite sure why. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Obviously, she thought that he was responsible for the debacle in the dining room and, while Ger personally found that ridiculous, he remembered his conversation with the feather duster from earlier when the object had all but told him that the feast was in his honor.

Well, maybe if she were a bit kinder, then her servants would throw her feasts too, Ger thought snidely. He had to remind himself how disdainful the Beast had been when she saw him dressed up—clearly, she did not revel in such banquets and it was probably on her orders that they never happened.

Ger winced—that was the part that made him feel guilty inside. If the Beast's servants had simply managed to upset her on their own, he would not have really cared. But by an accident of fate, he had found out and immediately assumed that she was out to humiliate him. If he had just ignored the information he had gleaned, the Beast would never have blamed him for what had happened.

True, Ger wanted to clear his name and not stand accused of conspiring with the servants against the mistress, but that did not seem like good enough motivation to go off and risk his life. It would have to do for now, he decided, since probing any deeper might lead him to some uncomfortable conclusions. Like that he was going to see if he could comfort his gaoler.

The one thing Ger had forgotten was that he had no idea where said gaoler actually was. He blundered through hall after hall, opening door after door in order to stick his head in and discover that this one, like the last five, was empty. But Gervaise Dupont was stubborn as a mule, or so he had been told, and so he kept on in his quest.

Alix, for a change, was not curled up in her favorite chair in the library. She was sitting in the only remaining chair in the West Wing; a rather uncomfortable oak affair that had, so far, withstood everything she had thrown at it. She found herself tempted to put it to the test once again, but refrained herself. She had not broken anything in over two years, had prided herself on her ability to control her anger and despair. She thought that if she could conquer it, it would go away.

"Idiot," she snarled, running her paws along the gauge marks already made in the chair's armrests. She would not make new ones, but she found it calming to remind herself of her capacity to inflict destruction. "Of all the good-for-nothing sons who could have knocked on my door, I get the one imbecile who does not know to back away from a Beast."

She had thought that, once Ger had been left in his room, he would stay away and leave her alone. After all, who in their right mind would purposely go after a monster who has made it very clear that she is unhappy with their presence?

"No one," she answered herself. Which suggested, rather forcefully, that he was not in his right mind. Alix wanted to feel fully justified in having unleashed her wrath on him; as he had spent the day stealing her friends away from her and humiliating her in front of her own servants.

To be perfectly honest, she did feel justified in doing so. It was just...she wished she had not. The fact that she still felt, well, anything was an emotional state that was untenable to her. She should not care if he stole her friend and she most certainly should not care that she showed up underdressed for dinner.

"Why won't it go away?" she moaned softly to herself. "Why does it still hurt?"

After exploring a decent portion of the castle, Ger found himself heading up yet another unfamiliar flight of stairs and encountering yet another dark corridor. This time, he accidentally stubbed his toe on an end table about halfway down.

"Sorry," he mumbled to it and was surprised when it made no response. Ger stopped his perambulations and went to examine it more closely. First, he prodded it gently with his other toe. There was still no response. He rapped sharply on its top and called out "Excuse me?" but was still met with a strange silence.

"I have reached the point in my existence when I am surprised that the furniture does not respond to salutations," Ger murmured ruefully. Still, he could not help but wonder why this part of the castle was different from the others.

His natural curiosity got the better of him and, though he probably would have followed the hall anyway, simply to check and make sure the Beast was not at the end, he was practically cheerful, or at the very least distracted, at the prospect of a new mystery.

The corridor ended in front of a large set of mahogany doors. The knockers were in the shape of gargoyles, a motif that was rather popular in this castle. Ger wondered if the Beast had them put there, or if they predated her. Maybe there was even a long family line of Beasts who inhabited this strange place from time immemorial.

"Maybe your imagination is running away with itself," Ger chided his thoughts. He stepped through the door and peered into the gloom beyond.

He was in a suite of rooms that looked like it had not been cleaned, much less actually used, for at least a decade. The vast majority of the décor was made up of ragged curtains, overlaid with enough dust to cover an entire dirt track. There were any number of blank places on the walls where pictures had once hung and the battered remnants of frames were scattered all over the floor. Ger walked carefully through the gloom, doing his best to avoid both the broken furniture and the shattered glass that threatened him.

I wonder if any of this was ever alive. Ger shuddered at the sudden, horrific image his brain provided of Chip lying in a mess of shards on the floor. He hoped that these had all been plain wood, with no more feeling or soul than normal furnishings.

Ger brushed past a curtain and got a nose-ful of dust for his trouble. He sneezed explosively and, in that moment, the room's other occupant became aware of his presence.

Alix whirled around at the sound of the sneeze. "Who's there?" she shouted. Heads were going to roll for this intrusion, assuming that the object responsible had a discernable head.

Ger was struck dumb for a moment. From the moment he had stepped into the room, he had automatically assumed that it was deserted. Now, he realized rather belatedly that he probably should have knocked.

"I just came to apologize," Ger answered, stepping out from behind the once red curtain that had given him away.

And now it was Alix's turn to be speechless. This was fortunate for Ger since, had she been in less of a state of shock, the oak chair might have met its match against his thick skull.

"I thought that you were setting me up to be embarrassed," he continued, his tongue tripping slightly over the words as he tried to get them out before she recovered enough to cut him off. Now that he was facing her, the idea seemed even stupider than it had about thirty seconds earlier.

"I found out about the banquet by accident and assumed that it was on your orders, to watch the country bumpkin try and fumble his way through a castle dinner. So I decided to try and outwit you." Ger couldn't help but smile sheepishly. "I don't think I succeeded."

Alix was staring openly at him by now. The idea that Ger would have come all this way, into the one wing of the castle that was expressly forbidden to him, and risk her wrath again after having faced it once already this evening just to make sure she knew that dinner wasn't his fault was too ludicrous to be believed.

"I just...you seemed upset," Ger finished lamely, realizing that his words were the understatement of the century. "And I'm sorry. I hadn't meant to upset you. Well...I guess I did at the time, but then I realized why you were upset and I felt bad and wanted to try and help and—I'm babbling, aren't I?"

Alix blinked her eyes. "You felt bad?" she repeated, trying to wrap her mind around the idea that her idiot prisoner was trying to make her feel better.

Ger nodded, looking even more sheepish than before.

"So...as part of this trying to help, you decide to follow a monster who nearly kills you into the West Wing; the one place in the whole castle that the monster forbid you to go?"

"This is the West Wing?" Ger yelped. At the panicky look on his face, Alix buried her face in her hands. A few minutes ago, she had been furious at the boy. Now, it turns out that everything he had done to raise her formidable ire had not been his fault at all. God in Heaven, this man was impossible!

"I am sorry," he repeated, trying to sound even more contrite. "I'll go now."

"That would probably be best," Alix said quietly, turning away from him and walking slowly towards the open balcony.

Ger meant to leave, but he found himself distracted almost immediately by a curious object that had previously been blocked from his vision by the Beast's position.

He looked up at the Beast's back and, knowing that there was no way he would ever be allowed in these rooms ever again, he tiptoed forward and cautiously raised the dome of glass that was protecting a single, perfect rose.

How is this possible? Ger wondered as he gazed at the pure beauty of the flower that floated about six inches above the table. He had expected the rose to have been secured to the glass and thus give the appearance of floating in midair. However, the simple expedient of lifting the cover and running his hand beneath the rose assured him that there was no visible means of support.

His hand rose to touch one of the shimmering petals, when a large and very heavy claw clamped down on his shoulder and he felt the talons just barely prick his skin through all his layers of clothing.

"And what?" said a deceptively calm voice, "Did you think you were doing?"

"I...um...got distracted?" Ger offered hopefully. "It's just, I've never seen anything capable of defying gravity before and I only wanted to see how it worked-"

"Magic," Alix snapped, her temper worn once again to the breaking point. "This is an enchanted castle, as you might have noticed. A place, I might add, where you clearly do not belong."

Alix was at the end of her rope as far as Ger was concerned. She was feeling more emotions with him in this castle than she had in the past seven years and she had had enough. He made her jealous and angry and bitter and, most of all, he made her realize just how painfully lonely she was. And she could not go on like this.

The rose was the last straw. Seeing him, inches away from the enchantress's legacy of bittersweet hope was just too much. She was overwhelmed by the emotions that had been roiling through her all day.

"Get out of here," she hissed, physically throwing Ger from her.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, not knowing what else to say. "I am leaving now, I promise."

"No," Alix responded, shaking with the effort of keeping control. "Get out of my castle."

"But, you said-"

"Your father was only going to be held for a night." Every word that she said came slowly and from between clenched teeth. "Why should your tenure here be any different?"

"But-"

"Feel free to leave."

"But-" Ger repeated and Alix finally lost her temper.

"Get! Out!" she roared, her voice loud enough to shake the windows in their panes. And this time, Ger ran.

As he took the stairs down, three at a time, he heard the sound of a wooden chair splintering as it hit stone.

He was at the door before he even realized it and accidentally bowled over the candelabrum and clock as he dashed to grab the handle.

"Where are you going?" Lumiere gasped as wisps of smoke rose from his suddenly extinguished head.

"Away," Ger answered as a solicitous coat rack reached him just in time and flung an ermine cloak around his shoulders. "I have to get out of here!"

"Oh, no wait!" Cogsworth pleaded, with Lumiere chiming in. "You can't-"

But the doors of the castle shut heavily on their pleas and Ger was already running to saddle Phillipa and obey.

The worst part of all this, he thought to himself as he sat shivering atop Phillipa and guiding her towards home, was that he didn't even want to leave. Sure, it would have been nice to have reassured his father that there was nothing wrong with him and he hadn't been eaten, but otherwise the castle was practically perfect in every way. There was no one to bother him, no one to mock him for being different. For Heaven's sake, he fit in better with a bunch of animate objects than he did with those villagers.

He tugged his cloak closer around him, wishing dearly that he was back in the castle with a hot bath and warm sheets. Of course, it was his own fault that he had been summarily evicted.

"That castle would have been perfect had it not been for the Beast," he groaned, but even that thought felt wrong. Yes, she had been very terrifying, but the only crime he could think of her committing was imprisoning his father and that seemed less terrible when he remembered that it was only for one night. In Paris, trespassing in a castle at night would get you shot.

"That doesn't make her good," Ger grumbled as his brain insisted on being logical. "Just...human, I suppose."

Which, as an assessment of the nature of a Beast, was very disconcerting indeed.

"I hate ethics, Phillipa." The mare snorted in agreement.

Ger sat back in the saddle and wondered how exactly he kept getting everything he wanted, but in the worst way possible. First he'd wanted to get away from Genevieve and ended up a prisoner. Then, as soon as he successfully escaped said prison, he realized that he would probably have been happier to remain incarcerated.

He concluded that Lady Fortune simply hated him, a line of reasoning that was even harder to argue with a moment later, when it dawned on him that he and Phillipa were hopelessly lost in the woods.

T.B.C.

A/N – I didn't realize how much time I spent planning stuff for that wedding until I no longer had to spend time doing so. This means, hopefully, more updates. At least until Graduate School begins. You should all be grateful though, that the economy is so bad and I'm not trying to get a job instead. Then I'd have no time for updates. As things stand now, I'm trying to be very overqualified for anything other than academia so that I can, well, go into academia.

Anyway, you're not reading this to find out about me (and some of you are not reading this at all) so let's get on to the analysis bit where I tell you what happened why.

Ger – Ger is a good person at heart, if a bit stupid sometimes. In this case, he realizes that he made a huge mistake about Alix and feels driven to fix that mistake and let her know that he wasn't trying to hurt her. Genevieve was a different story, since he had been provoked and his attack on her was most certainly deliberate. But deep down, Ger never really developed that utter loathing for Alix that Belle had for the Beast. She confuses him and he wants to think the worst of her, but he can't and now he doesn't know what to do. Of course, Ger's problem-solving technique consists of ignoring the person when he is in the right and confronting them when he is not. And Alix just does not understand the latter.

Alix – The poor girl has no idea how to handle Ger. She doesn't really understand the idea of people apologizing because they didn't mean to hurt her. People/objects generally apologized to her because they did not want to die or lose their jobs. She was positive Ger was hiding an ulterior motive somewhere...but she just can't find it. Most of her carefully built up defenses work because people care about not making her angry. That doesn't seem to bother Ger; he just ignores her. It's very hard to be cold and cutting to someone who is determined to ignore you harder and come out on top. So while this rivalry created the misunderstanding between them, it's also the basis for the crack in the armor. Alix and Ger are a bit too much alike; they just don't know it yet.

The objects – really don't appear in this. And for that I apologize. I'm sure they'll be back, but since this story is about the main characters, I find them more compelling (or is that the other way around?). In any event, I will try and fit them in where they fit, but this clearly was not that place.

By the way, was anyone else wondering if all that broken furniture in the West Wing was ever alive? Tune in later (I don't know when) for more questions that the movie didn't answer.

Thank you, all, for coming back after my prolonged absence and still reading and reviewing! As always, reviews and reviewers are wonderful and concrit is more than welcome.

Damian