Bonus Chapter
June 2017
"It doesn't even feel like I'm graduating, really," Belle said. "I've already been at the new job for two months."
"How's that going, anyway?" Resa asked, her voice slightly tinny in the way only landlines made it sound.
"Oh, great," Belle said. "I'm so glad I went for it. It's one thing to work at something you like; it's something else to actually work in your field."
"Newsflash, Belle: I know how you feel!" Resa laughed. "I've been working part-time at the nursery for months now!"
"True," she grinned. "I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," she confirmed. "You and Babs are some of my best friends, y'know."
"Thanks, Resa. You know I feel the same." Belle sat herself back up on the sofa, where she'd been lying for the past half an hour chatting to Resa. "Remember you're meeting my dad and Caroline outside the theatre."
"Mm hmm. Bye, Katie."
"Bye, Theresa." Belle hung up the phone, and got up to start dinner. The kitchen in their new house was a lot easier to navigate than the one in the flat Adam had moved into after he graduated, and even more so than the one in the residence halls where they'd first met and fallen in love. Before long, the smell of food was wafting through the air, as the sun set in all its usual fanfare, lighting the room in red and pink. Belle dished up, before washing her hands and slipping her engagement ring back on from the stand kept in the kitchen. It was in the shape of a little elephant Caroline - Mrs. Cobbs as of two years ago - had given Belle as a gift from her honeymoon. Belle ran her fingers over the ring, remembering the events that had led to Adam's proposal the previous Christmas.
As if her thoughts had summoned him, her fiancé appeared in the doorway, undoing the hair bobble that held back his still-long hair. He froze in the doorway, taking in the scene.
"You didn't have to make tea tonight, Belle," he said. "I was going to do it, after I finished filing the case study."
"Work's been rough for you lately," she said. "I don't mind doing this." She walked over and kissed him sweetly, rising up on her tiptoes to do so. He kissed her back, pulling her back in for two, three more kisses, before she backed away.
"Food?"
"Food," he agreed. They grabbed the bowls and sat at the table, eating for several minutes in companionable silence.
"Lewis wanted to know if we had an itinerary for tomorrow," Adam said.
"He didn't organise it himself like he did for yours?"
"I guess not," he chuckled. "Does it surprise you?"
"A little," she said thoughtfully. "I guess he's mellowed out in the last three years."
"Lewis? Mellow?"
"I said he'd calmed down, not that he'd changed his personality!"
Adam laughed. The thought of Lewis Cogsworth being mellow in any way was strikingly funny, but he had definitely calmed down since Belle had first met him. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that his cousin's will was no longer hanging over him like a threat these days.
"It feels so weird," Belle continued. "This time tomorrow, Lewis, Babs and I won't be students anymore. It feels like leaving high school again." She paused to take a drink. "Except this time I'll actually have friends who like me. And you, of course."
"Of course," Adam grinned. "You've definitely got everything laid out so you won't forget it?"
"I'm not going to pull a Lumière and get to the theatre without my cap and gown, no." Belle finished her meal first, and got up from the table. "Could you clean up?"
"No bother, Lecteur," Adam said. Belle smiled at the old nickname, making her way to what was affectionately known as her Room of Stuff, to finish off editing a review. She could hear Adam putting the dishwasher on, and then his soft singing as he puttered around, trying to not disturb her. It was these kind of quiet evenings she loved most - ones where they existed with and around each other, there if needed and close by if desired. Small arrangements for the wedding had begun, mainly the setting of the dat as spring of the next year. Belle and Adam both agreed that given their current situation in life, a long-ish engagement was probably for the best. She didn't worry too much about it, though. If married life was even half as good as the last four years had been, through all the arguments and make-ups and bad times and fun times, with the comfortable rapport they had together that surpassed petty fights and held steady in serious moments - if marriage was even half as good as that? Belle knew that it would still be the best thing in the world, because she would be doing it with Adam.
A few hours later, in bed, he rolled over and said, "Talk to me."
"Huh?" Belle asked eloquently.
"You're doing that stoic silence thing again. Is it the graduation ceremony?"
She turned on her side to face him, shrugging the duvet up over her shoulders to keep in her body heat. "Sort of. I've just been thinking about high school again." She absently played with a strand of Adam's hair, rubbing it between her fingers. "I was so scared, back then. I had a few moments, sure," she said, remembering their first meeting, "but mainly I was quiet and mousy and afraid. And a lot of that was because of him, yeah, but . . . I can't imagine being that insecure and alone, now that it's four years later. I'm just - I'm not the same person anymore."
"I know how you feel," Adam said. "Except for me, it happened in the space of four months, not four years."
Belle smirked. "You were a good person all along. You just needed to remember it."
"Same with you," he said. "You were this person all along." A mischievous light came into his eyes. "Ye just had tae be bahrayve enuff tae see it."
"Adam!" she laughed. "What did we say about Disney and the bed?"
"If ye had the chance tae chaynge yer fayte -" he continued loudly, before Belle pounced and shut him up with a kiss, sending him rolling onto his back. His hand settled on her hip, and when she pulled back, her hair formed a dark curtain on either side of them.
"Wood ye?" she completed, smirking. She kissed him again, warm and soft, until it became something else entirely and put an end to talking that night.
"Fate-changing has definitely been a part of our story," Adam continued as if uninterrupted the next day, picking up his shirt. "Can you imagine what would have happened if I never got up the nerve to ask you out to Leakey's?"
"You might not have gotten that scar," Belle said, running her fingers over it softly as she dashed past. Picking up her jewellery, she hurried back to the small vanity mirror set she'd had since she was little, now perched on a window ledge that overlooked Inverness. The sun was showing its face for once and the city looked particularly fine today, no mater how much the wind would make them feel half-frozen.
"Hey, that scar makes me look tough," Adam said, trying to lighten the mood. "Shows I had to fight for your love, too - like the knights in those Arthurian legends you were studying in third year."
"I suppose you're right. After all, faint heart never won fair roommate," Belle misquoted cheerfully, inserting her earrings. "I'm going to get the car keys and my robe, okay? Are we picking Babs up nor not?"
"We are," Adam said. "Lewis is getting a ride with Lumière, and Resa's making her own way there, same as your dad and Caroline."
"Cool," Belle said. "I'll see you at the car. Love you." She blew a kiss across the room, and Adam caught it, pressing it to the still-bare skin above his heart. "Sap," she smiled.
"I love you too," he replied.
The three of them - Adam, Belle, and Babette - ended up only just getting there on time, due to the hellish traffic that day. Waiting her turn to walk across the stage, Belle could see Cogsworth near the front of the line, and Babette somewhere between him and Belle. She'd dyed her hair blonde a few weeks earlier testing out a new formula, and Belle still found herself struggling to recognise her friend sometimes. She applauded loudly as her old roommates walked across the stage, unable to pick out her other friends and family in the crowded audience. And then, quite suddenly, it was her turn to collect her diploma.
She walked across the stage, not looking out to the audience but at her professors instead, the men and women who had taught her for four short years. She was calmer than she thought she was going to be, all things considered. As she shook hands and collected her diploma, Belle smiled at her teachers one last time, before making her way through the audience. She nearly started laughing when she saw Adam had dragged her father and Caroline to their feet, an enthusiastic Lumière supporting Maurice's arm and half-squishing her parents between her two friends. Belle assumed they got all the pictures they wanted in the brief span of time she was walking, but even if she had asked, she doubted she would have processed their reply. Belle made her way back into the space where her other classmates were gathered, and that was it.
She had graduated.
After saying her goodbyes to the other people on her course, Belle managed to find her group outside the theatre like they had arranged. Babette ran shrieking into Belle's arms, and the two of them hugged fiercely.
"Congratulations!" Belle grinned.
"The same to you, Belle!" Babette said, flicking her lighter hair out her face. "Cogsworth! Get over here!"
With less hemming and humming than he would have done three years ago, Cogsworth joined the women, allowing himself to be dragged into a hug. "Congratulations, Belle, Babette," he said.
"Mon amour!" Lumière swung Babette into a deep kiss, pulling away eventually but refusing to let her out his arms. As he effusively congratulated her in French (using both the language and the kiss), Maurice and Caroline approached.
"My girl," he said proudly, before he was enveloped in an embrace by Belle. "Your mother would be so -"
"I know, Papa," she said simply, when it became clear he couldn't continue. She had never needed words to understand her father, just his embrace. It was his familiar hug of old, the one he pulled out on even the smallest of celebrations; her first loose tooth, her first short story, her first responses from university. Belle pulled back, wiping her eyes. "Caroline, come over here," she sniffed. They embraced together, before Maurice rejoined them in a family hug.
"Well, if everyone else is getting in on the action," Resa said, pulling Belle away to give her a hug as well. "Proud of you, Katie."
"Yeah," Belle managed, her throat tightening. It was as all-encompassing as the first time they had hugged, after the disastrous events of the 2013 Christmas ceilidh. Belle squeezed her friend a little harder at the memory. Her long hair tickled slightly, but it was nothing Belle wasn't used to already. "Thanks, Resa."
"Congrats, Lewis," Adam said, giving his cousin a tight hug that lifted him clean off his feet. "You'll knock the courtrooms dead. It'll be like Legally Blonde! Except you're not Reese Witherspoon. And you're not blonde."
"Yes, thanks Adam," Cogsworth laughed once he was back on solid ground. "I'll take that as a compliment." He huffed a sigh, his eyes growing a little serious. "I'm so glad you're here today." They hugged again, before Adam straightened up and cleared his throat.
"Shall we go take some pictures?"
"Sounds good to me," Belle said, slipping her hand into his as they led the way. She squeezed gently, and she felt a gentle pressure back. Grabbing onto her cap to stop it flying away in the breeze, Belle stopped him a few feet away from their still stationary friends.
"I love you," he said quietly.
"I love you too," she replied. "It feels so weird to be a graduate."
Adam smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear. He wrapped his arm around Belle's waist, pulling her in for a kiss, when her hands on his chest stopped him.
"Mr. Darensbourg," she said in fake shock, "you're trying to seduce me!"
He started to laugh, and Belle pulled him into a kiss. Their windswept hair flew around them, Adam smiling beneath her lips, and Belle knew that while part of her life had just ended, an incredible new chapter was about to begin.
There were five photos from that day Belle and Adam would show their kids regularly. After looking over the individual shots of Belle, Babette and Cogsworth, both throwing the caps and standing still, they drew their attention to the small collection.
First, the three graduates posing together. Belle and Babette stood to the left and right, their caps barely staying on, while Cogsworth stayed in the middle. They were pointing their fingers at the camera, pouting (or at least attempting to pout). Belle's poker face had started dissolving already, mainly because Lumière and Adam had been shouting instructions at the three of them. It was captioned 'Cogsworth's Angels'.
The next one showed Belle, Maurice, and Caroline standing together, smiling. Belle's cap had been foisted onto Maurice, and the three of them looked like they were about to burst out laughing. (This was because behind the camera, Cogsworth had managed to throw his cap on Adam's head without Adam noticing.) 'Belle and #Cotts' was written in black pen on the back of the photo.
The third photo had the confusing subtitle of 'Team Cupid + Honorary Member Resa Gerard'. Babette, (in one of the few remaining photos of her as a blonde, before she destroyed the other ones because "I looked ridiculous - like I had a feather duster on my head!") Lumière, Cogsworth, and Resa were in mid-jump, holding hands High School Musical-style. Adam liked to mention how all of them lost their balance when they fell apart from Cogsworth, an achievement that would impress Adam significantly more than anyone else in their friend group.
The fourth photo is of Belle and Adam, kissing in the middle of a busy street. His arm is around her waist, and her hands are holding his face. Her heels mean it's one of the few times she doesn't have to go on tiptoe to reach him, and despite their windswept hair covering most of their faces, Adam's grin is still visible. 'The Graduate' is written on the back, but to its immediate left in blue ink is written, 'Just AFTER Belle quoted'.
The last photo is of Belle, Adam, Lumière, Cogsworth and Babette, all crowded around a park bench. Belle and Babette are leaning over the top, directly behind Adam and Lumière, respectively. Cogsworth is between the two of them, on the bench. Resa managed to catch them mid-joke, all of them laughing. Belle says they were talking about the time Cogsworth and Lumière exchanged the lamest insults ever, about a clock and a candlestick. Adam maintains they're re-hashing the subject of Adam's twelfth birthday, when Cogsworth broke four plates and set off the fire alarm. Twice.
It's simply titled, 'The Flat'.
A/N: It's been a year since I finished Behind A Fair Façade, and I missed these guys a lot. So, here ya go.
If people are wondering when Belle and Adam got engaged (and when they moved into the new house), that's written in my other collection of stories, The Beauty of a Beast, Chapter 19. I might move it over to this story, since it does have more to do with this universe. It wasn't posted earlier because it was written while this was still a WIP, so lemme know what you think and I'll make a decision.
Notes: Technically Babette and Cogsworth would not share the ceremony with Belle, since they're all studying different disciplines, but this is fiction, y'all. Also, Caroline is Mrs. Potts' first name, but since she married Maurice it felt strange to call her Mrs. Potts, and Mrs. Cobbs was a bit stiff, seeing as she's Belle's stepmum. Since I have yet to graduate, this was based off of a family member's graduation I attended.
Timeline-wise, I never really cleared up who was in what year, so: During BAFF, Adam is in Fourth Year (Senior), Lumière is in Third Year (Junior), and Belle, Babette and Cogsworth are all in First Year (Freshmen).
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