Before she knew it the library was crawling with people. Desolate and abandoned as this wing was in almost no time at all her screams drew the guards, soldiers, a couple of maids, and then Gaston and her father were in the library with her. It was hard to keep track of what happened, but she had a fleeting memory of Gaston telling her that everything was alright and that he would make sure of it before running off, of hands on her arms moving her out of the way and placing her in the corner as the soldiers went into the restricted area. She watched as they removed the librarian. They put his rotting body onto a stretcher and covered it with a white sheet, which did nothing to contain the smell that was currently pouring out of the little room and into the library.

She didn't care. She was seething. Her skin was crawling to the point she was nearly numb to the world around her and it was growing more and more difficult to contain the fire she felt burning inside of her. It was hard to move; hard to speak even! She knew that the reality was that everyone around her thought it was the body that had disturbed her. That wasn't it. Not that it wasn't at least part of what was bothering her. How could it not?! It was terrible and horrible that they hadn't found him before now and of course it had been a shock to find him like that but…the finding the body as she had wasn't the issue, not in her mind.

It was the fact that it had been that body, the librarian. That was the real problem.

The librarian was supposed to be alive. Her father had told her that he was alive, that after the ogre attacked he'd been the one to get out of the library and inform the soldiers that she and her mother were in trouble! She hadn't seen him but she'd assumed that was because they no longer had a library and in the days that she'd been asleep the poor man had moved on, she didn't know that it was because…

Clearly her father hadn't known either. But this was good. Well, obviously it wasn't "good", but it was something that she needed. She'd known all along that somehow her father had been lying to her, she'd felt it in her bones but had put it aside because of wedding plans and battle plans and out of the fear she'd make his own grief worse, not to mention the fact that she'd had nothing to prove he'd been lying to her! Nothing more than the supposed word of a few servants who had heard so many rumors that it was clear some of them didn't even think her mother was dead! Now…now she had proof. Something had happened in here, something that he wasn't telling her! He'd made up the bit about the librarian, clearly, so what else had he made up and conveniently decided to leave out?!

"It appears that he was injured in the attack in some way," her father informed her while she watched the scene over his shoulder. "There is a gash at the back of his head and blood in the room. Whether or not he's another victim of that monster or he simply fell down we'll never know, but after he was injured he appears to have locked himself away for safety and died, probably passed out and slowly bled to death. Belle," he sighed as the men lifted the body off the ground and carried it from the room finally leaving her alone with her father. He looked around the place for a moment, taking in the turned bookshelves and fallen novels, "what were you doing down here? You're supposed to be resting!"

Resting? Resting?! How could she rest when…

No, she wasn't going to focus on that! She didn't dare tell him the real reason that she'd been down here. It didn't matter, not anymore. She just hoped that she could contain her blush and keep that fire alive long enough to say what she had to.

"You told me that the librarian was alive," she spat bitterly at him.

"What?" he questioned, taking a step away from her and straightening his shoulders. Defense. He was already preparing for an attack to defend himself against something that he had to know was coming. "I did no such thing."

She wanted to yell at him. She wanted to scream and yell and demand, not request, that he tell her the truth. But most of all she wanted him to tell her. Not because she'd caught him in his lie, not because she was forcing him to, but because he wanted to tell her. Because telling her what he knew, what he was obviously keeping from her was morally and ethically the right thing to do. She had to know what happened to her mother after her memory went black! But staring at him now…she knew that wasn't going to happen.

"You did," she pointed out, shaking her tears away so that she could do this with a clear head. "You told me that when the ogres attacked he ran away to tell the others where mother and I were. But Papa…how could he have run away if he's been here the whole time? Am I supposed to believe that he came back, locked himself in the library, and died after help had arrived?"

"Now stop right there," her father insisted, holding a hand out as if he could keep her back as simply as a lion tamer could contain a lion with nothing more than a chair. "You're out of line! You accuse me of lying-"

"I'm not accusing you of anything!" she shouted, trying to remember that she wasn't trying to fight with him she was just trying to get her answers. "I'm…I'm just trying to figure out what happened to mother. To me! Shouldn't I get to know what happened to me! How my mother and I spent our last moments together-"

"Belle, you don't understand-"

"What don't I understand? How could I possibly understand when no one will explain?! Papa…Papa tell me!" she begged stepping closer to him and grabbing his clothes. "Tell me what happened to Mama, tell me what happened to us! Tell me what happened after my mind went blank and how it happened! Please tell me I want to know! I promise I won't be mad I just need to know!"

"You don't!" he growled suddenly, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her away from him with a small shake that threw her from her momentary hysteria. She braced herself for the reprimand to follow, but as quickly as the anger had come it had gone and when she finally looked up into his eyes again what stood before her was not an angry King, only her father. He was weaker in that state and somehow he looked even more frail than she remembered him to be, like a fraction of the man, the father that she'd had growing up. The words were on the tip of his tongue. She could see them there as he struggled. He wanted to tell her, she knew that, it would be so easy for him to give into her request and just tell her! But her mother wasn't where she got her stubbornness from, or her fire. It was her father. And no matter how much he'd lost, obviously he hadn't lost any of that. They had more in common than she thought and that was how she knew before he even opened his mouth that he wasn't going to give in and tell her what she wanted no matter what she needed.

"My darling girl…" he urged sternly. "Trust me. You are better off without those images in your head, with your memories blacked out. You don't want them. Trust me."

She began to cry as she realized what he'd given her. Not the truth, she'd been right that he wouldn't give that up so easily. But he had given her confirmation. Something had happened. There was something that he was keeping from her and he was doing it on purpose. She wished that she could feel settled, she wished that confirmation that something more had happened could be enough, that she could hug him and tell him that she could trust him. But she couldn't. She didn't feel settled at all. In fact she felt nearly as sick as she had when her nurse had taken her up to that pair of rooms and told her what her mother had never told her. She loved her parents. Truly she did. Up until the moment her mother had died she would have said they were a perfect family. They had their problems but they were still a good family. Now she felt like she didn't know up from down anymore. Her mother had kept the truth of marriage from her and now her father was keeping the truth of…she didn't even know what truth he was keeping from her. But she knew that she didn't feel safe or protected or even loved just as everyone kept insisting that she was. She didn't even know if her family felt like a family anymore, or if this was really what her mother really would have wanted for their futures.

He may have offered her confirmation, but to her it was little more than nothing.

"Papa…" she cried one last time. "Please…I just want to know…please just tell me what happened to mother. That's all I need to know! I don't care what happened to my memories or how I blacked out I just need to know what I can't remember."

She stared for the longest time, hoping her pleas were enough to push him over the edge and answer her! But with each beat of her heart she realized it had been useless. He wouldn't tell her. And knowing that he was keeping a secret like that from her…

"You and your mother were in the library. When the ogres invaded you lost consciousness and your mother died before we could save her. There is nothing to remember."

She felt something inside of her snap as he repeated for her the same story he'd been telling her since the beginning. He'd lied about it after admitting that he was lying. She couldn't think of anything more selfish!

"I'm going to figure it out," she declared, pulling herself free from his grasp. If he wouldn't tell her then she'd figure it out herself and if she never figured it out…then it was time to stop playing fair. He certainly hadn't been all this time. "If you won't tell me then I'm going to do whatever I have to do to figure out what happened to me and to mother in this library!"

"Belle!"

"And I'm not marrying Gaston until I know what happened to me!" she yelled. With that she ran out of the library without a single glance back at her father, doing her best not to trip over the mess before her.

A short chapter but I felt that it said a lot. Finally we get to see Belle's rebellious streak arise and her determination. This will be what sets her on the path to Arendelle. We're still a few days away from that of course, but you know, I have a feeling that you are going to like what happens next! It's very Hero Belle like!

Thank you Grace5231973, Teresa Martin, Kathryn Claire O'Connor, Rumbellefan, and Ladybugsmomma for your reviews of the last chapter! I'm happy to hear that last week, despite it's uncomfortable subject was well handled! I hope that you'll like what we have next and I can't wait to hear what you'll say about it! Peace and Happy Reading!