A/N: If you are reading this, then you have obviously watched Disney's Descendants. The continuity errors aside, I enjoyed the movie. When this idea first struck me, moments after the movie ended, I knew I had to start writing it down. After some time away, I've come to the realization that this needs some work. I have rewritten and reorganized the story, and I hope those of you who have read the original version enjoy this 'Version2' as much as the first! Read & Review, please.

P.S., I am not meaning to bash/villainize any Disney hero or heroine. I will preface this story by saying that Belle and Beast/Adam are my favorite Disney royals and always have been. Enjoy!

P.P.S., each chapter title is in reference to a segment or a song from a segment of the Magic Kingdom's nightly firework show Happily Ever After.

That's What Friends Are For

"So, let me see if I've got this right." Adam said to the four remaining teenagers before his wife and himself. "Hades and Maleficent actually got married?"

"He was promised power and an heir, and he believed it all. Since faerie pregnancies last longer than human ones, he didn't know that Mom was already pregnant with me, that she'd gotten pregnant just before being sent to the Isle of the Lost." Mal explained, her sad smile saying more than her words.

"As anyone could imagine, being married to Maleficent wasn't easy. It turned out to be more than Hades could handle, but since he wasn't Mal's biological father, she had to stay with her mother until Rose and I stepped in to bring her, along with the others, to the cottage." Ben added.

"But he never really did leave you behind, did he, Mal?" Belle asked, and the purple-haired faerie nodded.

"The second I moved into the cottage, I went down to his lair to tell him that I'd left Mom's and where I was going. He told me to stay safe and to visit him once in a while. I went to see him once a week, every week for six years. Right after I turned twelve, I had a major freak-out over some…new developments, and I didn't see him for three months because I was scared that he'd hate me." she said, and the Auradonian queen gave her a kind smile.

"You were afraid the wings and horns would remind him of your mother." she said to the girl matter-of-factly.

"How did you know?" Mal asked in surprise, knowing that she hadn't done or said anything to suggest her hidden appendages.

"When Ben was about that age, his horns came in whenever he was the Beast. He hid from his father for the first six months whenever he needed to change forms because he thought his father would hate him. I know about what happened to your mother's wings, and everyone knows about the horns, so it wasn't much of a stretch to think that you'd have your own, Mal." Belle answered, and Ben blushed a deep red.

"I've kept mine hidden except for when I need to stretch them out since the day they first appeared. When I did see Dad again, it was because Rose and Ben had no other options." Mal said, and Ben visibly shivered.

"No other options for what?" Adam asked, concerned at the look of fear that had crossed both his son and his daughter's faces along with their significant others'.

"I only saw my mother a couple of times each week, once for her to ask what evil I'd been up to and once to receive my punishment if I wasn't evil enough, which I never was. About three months after my wings and horns came in, I, for lack of a better way to explain this, screwed up big time. I had Dizzy Tremaine dye my hair this color, and I both thanked and paid her for a job well done. I didn't steal from the salon, I didn't hurt her for my own enjoyment, and I didn't do anything remotely evil. Dizzy is one of the sweetest people I've ever met, and she doesn't deserve being stuck on the Isle…unlike her mother who deserves everything she got. Well, word somehow got back to my mother, and when I went in for my weekly check with her, she went ballistic. I made it out of the house and as far as our inner-city hideout on the Isle before I passed out from my injuries; I barely remember the others finding me..." Mal began explaining, trailing off and allowing Ben to pick up from there.

"It was the blood. Rose and I were on our way to meet with Uma to see if she and the pirates needed anything when I caught the scent of your blood. I knew it was yours specifically, the faerieness letting me know that it could only be you or your mother, and I took off towards the source of the scent. Rose had Evie and Carlos check in with Uma and followed me. We found you on the floor, and…I roared. I was scared and angry, so I roared and scared whoever was in the vicinity. Rose tried to heal you, but you were already fading when you were healed enough to be moved. We both knew that there was only one person who could help us save you, and Rose teleported us directly into his lair. I think we disrupted his naptime, though." Ben said, mostly to Mal.

"With the restrictions on the barrier, Hades couldn't use his Ember the way he needed to in order to bring Mal's soul back. So, he did what he could to keep her alive while I consulted every magical text I have; I found the spell for a magical adoption that adds the adoptive parent or parents as a third and/or fourth parent for the adoptive child genetically as well as legally." Rose explained, and Belle shook her head in confusion.

"How would that solve the barrier problem?" she asked, and it was her husband who answered.

"Magic, if you're born with it or affected by it later in life like I was, becomes unique to you and your family. What's referred to as Family Magic isn't considered light or dark, like most types of witches' potions, so the barrier wouldn't and couldn't block it no matter who was using magic so long as they were using it on a family member. If he were genetically one of Mal's parents, the barrier wouldn't be a problem for Hades to use his magic to save her." Adam explained, noticing the strange looks he got from his wife and the teenagers. "What? I've spent thirteen years researching magic just so I could understand my daughter at some point in her life. You tend to remember a few things."

"Papa's right." Rose said, the first to break from her stupor after sending a small smile in her father's direction. "And that's what I told Hades when I showed him the spell. He told me to do it, and the second it was done, he brought her back."

"I remember waking up in Dad's arms, seeing him cry for the first time in my whole life, and crying along with him while I clung to his jacket. Rose told me what happened, the spell part, and Dad let me hold the Ember for the first time. After the first hour, he finally let me go. Ben took his turn to hold me hostage, and Dad went to ask Rose something." Mal said, smiling softly as Ben pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

"I needed to convince myself that you were going to be alright because I could still smell the blood on your clothes. It was everywhere, and it made me feel sick inside to know that you'd gotten hurt to the point of nearly dying in my arms." he told her in a tone somewhere in the whispering neighborhood.

"Hades noticed, and he asked me if I knew that they were fighting their bond. Because magic is a part of the soul, he can sense bonds before their fully formed, and he knew what was happening between the two of them before they did." Rose told Jay and her parents, and Mal and Ben gave her an astonished look.

"Dad knew for nearly three years and didn't say anything?" she asked at the same time Ben squeaked. "Hades knew and didn't forbid her from seeing me?"

"The first rule of magical bonds is that you can't interfere with them. Telling you guys that he knew, either of you, would've made it more difficult for the bond to form. As far as taking Mal away from you, Ben, he actually likes you. I'm not sure if it was the amount of genuine concern you were showing for Mal that day or if it was the rant about ripping Maleficent limb from limb that did it, but Hades is completely on board with the two of you being together. If anything, he was more worried about you keeping him from seeing Mal, which would be why he was the only adult on the Isle to have the address for the cottage until I went to see Lady Tremaine about letting Dizzy stay with us whenever she needed a break." Rose said, and Adam turned his cobalt eyes on Ben.

"I thought you said only five people knew who you were?" he asked his son.

"I wasn't sure how to bring everyone else up, Pop, or that you'd handle it well. I mean, Uma knows, but she's our age. Hades was kind of an enemy-of-my-enemy thing at the time, and Lady Tremaine needs more help than most people on the Isle by herself. They're the only other ones outside of Dizzy and our core group, and that I can promise. Gil and Harry might be able to guess, but not even Uma will confirm it for them." Ben gave as an explanation, and it was one his parents were willing to accept.

Appraising the only one of the teenagers who had not spoken to them yet, Belle allowed a smile to slip across her face as she noted the way that Jay's eyes would flicker towards Adam every few seconds as if to make sure that he wasn't being given a death stare himself. She turned to Ben instead of speaking directly to Jay, thinking that there was something the dark-haired teen had on his mind that he'd rather not have his friend and brother-in-law hearing.

"Ben, sweetie, why don't you show Mal where she'll be staying? Your father and I are more than capable of showing Jay and your sister around on our own." she said, the demand only posing as a question.

"Yes, Maman; we'll see you both at dinner?" he asked in response, and Belle gave a nod as he and Mal rose from the couch they'd been sitting on with Jay and Rose before leaving the room.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Belle and Adam detected a subtle shift in their daughter. Rose moved slightly apart from Jay, but she only moved in order to turn her body towards him. He looked up, only to meet her gaze, and gave a nod.

"Let me see it. I know he did something, and I also know how much you seem to think that you're invincible." she said, and the black-haired teen snapped his fingers together once, dropping the secondary glamour he wore revealing large purple bruises on his neck and face.

"When I told him that I was going no matter what he wanted, he blamed it all on Maleficent but knew he could never go against her. So, naturally, this happened." Jay said as he removed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt, uncovering more purple splotches.

"Why didn't you just tell me? Clearly, this happened this morning, otherwise you would've done what Carlos did by slipping a healing potion into your coffee like he did with his hot chocolate last night." Rose asked, and he gave a small shrug as she began using her powers to heal him.

"I didn't want you to worry, and I didn't want Mal blaming herself. Just because her mother's psychotic doesn't mean that people's reactions to Maleficent's plans are Mal's fault. I was planning on just downing a potion straight once we'd unpacked and everything because the ones that Evie gave me are packed in with my things." he admitted, and Belle shared a look with her husband. "This stuff tickles."

"You wouldn't have to deal with the tickling if you'd tell me about these things earlier; you know as well as I do that the tickling sensation means minor internal bleeding on top of the bruising." Rose stated flatly, and Belle resisted the urge to laugh at the scene's familiarity.

"I'm not the only one experiencing an episode of déjà vu, am I?" Adam asked her in a whisper, and Belle suppressed a giggled before responding.

"If you just held still, it wouldn't have hurt as much." she whispered, and he chuckled at the memory of the first night either of them began seeing the other as more than an enemy.

His chuckle didn't seem to catch Jay or Rose's attention, so he and Belle continued observing the younger couple. The pink magic surrounding Jay began to fade. The bruises he'd had were gone with the rosy light, and he looked much healthier than he had before Rose had confronted him.

"I thought we'd talked about this?" she asked, and the parents listened closely.

"Well, you talked at me about it while I tried to do what I thought was right in keeping you safe." Jay replied, merely getting a raised eyebrow from the Enchantress.

"I thought your dad did this over Maleficent's plan?" she countered, and he sighed before responding.

"This is why I hate telling you about this stuff. We're not going back unless it's to bring more kids, like Dizzy or Uma, over from the Isle, so you don't need to worry." he started, pausing before finishing his explanation. "Dad followed me the day that you and I went to check up on Harry and Gil while Uma was working at her mom's; when he saw the two of us leave together, he kept following me…or, rather, us. That was the night we stayed at the hideout, and he decided to spy. He saw the ring, and he completely freaked out about it. When I told him that I was leaving whether or not he liked it, he asked about you and the ring; he wanted me to give it to him, but I said I couldn't take what was rightfully yours. I told him that, if he wanted to challenge the Enchantress, then it would be his own funeral. He liked that about as much as he liked my leaving."

"What's got him so dialed up about a ring?" Adam asked before he could stop himself, and his daughter gave a small laugh when Jay jumped in surprise. "Sorry."

"It's okay, Papa, and Jafar's issue is with who the ring belonged to before me. My ring was Jay's mother's ring, and Jafar had to sell it to Medusa after Akasha died. Without telling me what they were up to, Ben helped Jay get the ring back without stealing it after we realized that our magics had bonded. Until the ceremony, I had no idea they'd done it." Rose explained, and the king frowned.

"Shouldn't Jafar have been happy that the ring was back in his family?" he asked in confusion, and Jay snorted.

"I don't count as his family, sir, and I haven't since I was ten. The day I stopped helping him fence stolen and improperly repaired goods, the first time I saw a little girl get hurt because of something he and I did, he cut me out of his family; he's made it perfectly clear where our relationship stands. In his twisted mind, my mother's ring being on my wife's finger is the worst-case scenario. It's actually worse, to him, than being stuck on the Isle." the young man explained, and both Belle and Adam had the decency to appear horrified by the statement.

"Qui diable pense cet homme? Les parents sont censés faire tout ce qui est en leur pouvoir pour protéger leurs enfants et non leur faire du mal! Et il n'y a aucune femme dans ce monde qui convienne mieux à porter cette bague que ma fille! Je devrais aller sur l'île des Perdus et donner à ce bâtard une partie de mon esprit!" Belle started ranting in French, and Adam had a look of pure rage on his face.

"Vos Majestés, ça va. Je ne le laisse plus me déranger, et vous ne devriez pas non plus." Jay quickly tried to defuse their tempers, his eloquent French catching them both off-guard enough for a momentary silence.

"Maman, Papa?" Rose attempted to get her parents' attention, and, after a moment to collect themselves, they gave it to her.

"My apologies, Jay, but I wasn't aware you spoke French, and I also apologize for some of the language I used. Though, I suppose it's nothing that you haven't heard back on the Isle." Belle said with a short chuckle, and Jay shrugged.

"I've actually heard worse, in all honesty, but Maleficent wasn't aware that I am fully capable of understanding her." he mused, and Rose nodded.

"While Jay trained us in combat, given that we were on the Isle of the Lost where fights over resources break out regularly enough to set a clock by, anyone with ability trained everyone else is languages. Evie taught German, for obvious reasons; Carlos taught Spanish, which he learned from his cousin Diego and his family; Ben and Mal taught French, and I helped where I could; and Mal taught Greek, which she learned from Hades, of course. Jay tried teaching Arabic, but I'm pretty sure only one of us actually managed to keep up with him." she said, turning to her parents, both of whom seemed impressed by this.

"You prefer it that way." Jay said with a smirk, and Rose rolled her eyes.

"Touché." she said, cutting her eyes at him before turning her attention to her parents once more. "We've always shared our knowledge with each other, no matter the subject, so long as we thought it might be of use to someone else in the group."

"That sounds like an excellent learning strategy, and I would love to hear more about it later. For now, I want to know what you're all interested in, okay?" Belle asked.

"Maman, I've missed you…" Rose launched into story after story of her time on the Isle, with Jay adding his perspective along the way, and Belle and Adam listened in an almost awe-induced silence, asking questions when appropriate all in an effort to get to know their son-in-law and reacquaint themselves with their daughter.

While all this had been going on, Ben had led Mal away from his office. They walked a short distance down the hall, stopping in front of an ornate door made of oak. Carved into its polished face, Mal could make out the face of a beast, or rather of Ben as the Beast staring back at her. She turned to see a small smirk forming on his lips.

"While the office is technically still my dad's until the coronation, I have sole control of operations concerning those brought over from the Isle, barring my sister. I thought Evie would like to have the extra space for designing…and I realized that I've gotten used to sleeping beside you to the point where, when I am actually sleeping here, I don't sleep for very long." Ben admitted, opening the door to allow her to step into the room first.

The inside of Ben's room at Auradon Prep was, for Mal, more than she'd ever imagined. Not only was it large, but it was decorated in more luxury than the faerie girl had ever seen. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the golden inverted-dome above the center of the room and the crystal chandelier hanging from it; little fiberoptic lights dotted the inky blue parts of the ceiling surrounding the gold like a starfield. Following that down, her eyes fell upon the deep blue walls and dark wooden floors. The bed was larger than the one they shared at the cottage, nestled in a four-poster frame the same color as and built into the floors, and was adorned with golden bedsheets and a jacquard duvet colored in the royal varieties of purple and blue. On the wall above the bed hung a framed canvas displaying an image that was half Beast-Ben and half Mal with her horns and wings present, a painting she had done shortly after their blessing ceremony six months earlier. The image was reflected in the vanity mirror that sat directly across from the bed, and his-and-hers wardrobes sat on either of its sides.

"It's perfect." Mal let out in a low whisper, blinking away happy tears as Ben wrapped his arms around her waist from behind her.

"You haven't even seen the best part." he told her, kissing her on the cheek before letting go of her waist in order to walk over to the gold-and-royal-blue velvet curtains.

In on fluid motion, Ben opened the curtains to allow the mid-morning sun to flood the room indirectly from its overhead position. He turned back towards Mal and held out his hand. She walked to his side and accepted it before leaning into him.

"You can see the Isle from here, even if it doesn't look very pretty from where we're standing." Ben said softly as he turned Mal away from the window and towards the full-length mirror that hid behind the curtain's wider folds. "If you ever look out and feel homesick, until we can find a way to bring peace between Auradon and the Isle while still having suitable punishments for felons, you can use the mirror to travel back there and visit with Hades."

"You are an amazing husband, Ben, and I love you so much. Thank you." Mal told him as she turned in his arms to pull his face to meet hers for a soft, loving kiss.

While Ben helped Mal put her things away in their room, Belle led Rose and Jay to a room on the opposite end of the hall. Of course, the other end of the hall in this case meant the other wing of the castle. Like Ben and Mal's room, it was large and bright, it had a four-poster bed built into the floor, and it had heavy, velvet curtains. Unlike Ben and Mal's room, however, this room was done in a jewel tone color palate. The walls were a brilliant sapphire blue, and the bed was adorned with golds, pinks, purples, and a slightly darker blue than the walls. Where Mal and Ben had a crystal chandelier hanging from the golden dome in their room, Jay and Rose had an iron lamp hanging down from the center of a collection of jewel-tone silk scarves in theirs. The vanity mirror was larger than Mal's, and Rose knew why as soon as she laid eyes on it.

"Another enchanted mirror?" she asked, her mother nodding in response.

"Your father and I thought you wouldn't have to interrupt Mal and Ben if you had need of it. Do you both like the room?" Belle asked, and the couple agreed.

"It's beautiful, Maman." Rose said, and Jay shrugged.

"I'm just glad you're not splitting us up, Your Majesty." He admitted, and Belle smiled softly at her son-in-law.

"Two things, Jay, the first of which is please don't feel like you have to call me that. I may be the Queen of Auradon for another two weeks, but I'm your mother-in-law as well. Please, just call me Belle." she began, pausing before making her second statement. "Secondly, seeing as how both of you can teleport, Ben keeps me updated on all of you, I saw splitting the two of you up as being counterproductive. Carlos gets to have the extra space all to himself this semester, and there's potential for him to get a roommate next semester if what I'm hearing from Charmington is correct."

"Aunt Ella's finally letting Chris out of her sight?" Rose asked, making her mother laugh.

"Since he will be turning fourteen in November, she's letting him start in next semester. He's a free spirit, and he's her baby boy. If it wasn't so close to the main castle and your father didn't have an office here, I don't think I would've ever been ready to let you or Ben attend boarding school. Ella and I just grew up differently than Henri and Adam did, and both of us were taught at young ages to keep family close. I know you understand that, both of you." Belle answered, and Jay nodded this time.

"My father might've disowned me, but Aunt Narissa and Jade didn't; I'm hoping for the day when I get to bring Jade over from the Isle." he said.

"What about Kitty? Is she starting next semester, too?" Rose asked after a moment, Chris' twin popping into her mind.

"Yes, and we're allowing this time to act as Lonnie and Jane's adjustment period. Because Kitty will be rooming with Jane when she arrives, Lonnie will have to move in with Audrey, and none of the three girls are happy about this. They understand it, but they don't like it." Belle explained, stopping for a moment before backing up towards the door. "Look around, scout out your classrooms, and feel out the school. Ben will find you when it's time for dinner, but I have to go find your father before he finds some way to get himself into trouble."

After Belle left, Rose and Jay unpacked their belongings before setting out to explore the castle Ben had only told them about over the years. In the end, they met up with Carlos and Evie in Belle's rose garden. The enchanted gargoyle who guarded the entrance let them know that the queen had given him strict orders to only let the six of them through until more than half of them said otherwise. They sat beneath one of the wooden pergolas, the three Isle-born teens taking in the colors and scents of every rose they could see, for an hour or so before Ben and Mal joined them. Ben had, in thinking ahead, come prepared with a large picnic basket in hand.

"While I know you guys had breakfast, and I know at least Mal ate on the limo ride over here, I figured everyone would want lunch. Granny packed a bit of everything she could find, so we should be set until dinner." he told them, and the blanket he had sitting on top of the basket flew forward and laid itself out on the ground as Jay snapped his fingers together.

The six spread out around the blanket and arranged the food by placing each item nearest to the person most likely to eat it. The apples were at the furthest end of the blanket from Evie, and the strawberries sat directly in front of Mal, for example. The assorted meats, cheeses, and fruits were heartily received, and it almost felt like an ordinary afternoon lunch for their hodgepodge family.

"So, who's ready for classes to start tomorrow?" Ben asked, his tone teasing, as he bit into the sandwich he'd assembled.

"Bro, it's school. Evie is the only one genuinely ready." Jay chuckled, and the blue-haired girl rolled her eyes.

"I'm sure Carlos is ready, too. He's already skipped two grades to be in the same year as us!" she shot back, and the teen in question shrugged.

"I'm mostly ready, but I'm a little nervous at the same time. What if I'm severely behind on everything?" he asked, but Ben shook his head.

"The fact that you passed all the tests to skip two grades means you won't be lagging behind in class, Carlos, and I know for a fact that you're already doing better than a certain cousin of mine." he told the younger teen, and Rose snorted.

"Chris and Kitty don't start until next semester, and they're both doing better than Chad's ever done. Of course, that's not counting all the girls Chad has doing his work for him. How can everyone just turn a blind eye to blatant cheating? Most of the time, his homework isn't even in his handwriting!" she said, and her brother shrugged.

"I think it's the number of the older generation on the school board. So many of them think that royalty should be allowed live consequence free lives." Ben responded.

"Like my stepmother?" Mal asked, and he nodded.

"I mean, Audrey doesn't need Queen Leah's brand of help to get through school. She's plenty smart enough, and she's a good person at her core. Her grandmother just makes everything so difficult because the old bitch makes her, and Aurora, feel like they'll be abandoned if everything doesn't go according to her plan. I can't count the number of times she's come back from a visit with Queen Leah, even as small as a lunch outing, in tears." Ben admitted, and Mal felt for her niece in that moment.

"Maybe we should tell her, about who I am and everything, so she'll know that she won't be abandoned if Leah gets upset. After all, we're her family, too." she said, and the others exchanged glances before anyone responded.

"If she's had as twisted a childhood as we've all had, I say she needs us." Evie voiced, her words sending a shiver up the spines of the Isle-born.

"No one should have to grow up under that much pressure; it's not mentally or physiologically healthy." Rose added, and the boys just nodded in agreement with the three girls' statements.

"I can arrange for us to have lunch in the office tomorrow, and we can have Audrey join us. Telling her in private is probably the best route to take." Ben offered, and the others agreed with his plan.

Later that night, the six teens joined Belle and Adam for dinner in the smaller private dining room. They sat around a round table, eating a ricotta and corn tortellini dish paired with colorful cauliflower and other vegetables, and discussed the happier parts of the time they all spent on the Isle of the Lost; it was during this part of the conversation when Adam broached a subject that left him unsure.

"Evie, Carlos, while I and, after next week, Ben have the ability to allow Jay and Mal to stay here over the holiday breaks because of the two of them being emancipated along with Rose and Ben through their magical bonds, the two of you are still considered minors. I made some calls earlier, however, because I was pretty certain that neither of you want to go back to your parents so long as Maleficent is upset about whatever plan she thinks she's forced you all into failing." he said, and both Evie and Carlos looked at one another in alarm.

"Calls, sir?" Carlos asked timidly, and Adam smiled.

"First, just as Belle has asked you to not be so formal with her, I will ask the same; Adam is fine, all four of you. Second, there are people who can legally keep you here if you made it known that you would rather stay with them. Evie, after I explained the situation and told them a bit about you, Snow White and Florian would like to meet you on Friday, if you're okay with this." he began, and the girl's face was full of surprise.

"Really?" she asked, and both adults nodded.

"I was there for that phone call, and Snow was very sure of herself when she said she wanted to meet her little sister." Belle told her, and Evie smiled.

"As soon as classes are over, I want to meet her, too!" she chirped, and Adam gave her a smile and nod before turning to Carlos.

"I spoke with your father, as well, but he doesn't know why I asked him to meet with me. I've asked him to come in for a chat tomorrow, while you're in class, so that I can find out how much he knows rather than having you go in blind and end up getting your heart broken. I actually know my father rather well, and I know he'd rather ignore me if he could, and I don't want you, or anyone else, having to live with that kind of pain." Adam explained to the youngest of the boys.

"I know what I am, how I came to be, so I have some of the same worries and concerns. I was actually up for a while last night because I couldn't stop thinking about it." Carlos replied honestly.

"If all else fails, little bro, I've been looking through every legal text we have to find out what all power I have as King of Auradon that could keep you here, too. We agreed a long time ago that we're all sticking together, am I right?" Ben added, and the six teenagers grinned and chuckled as one.

Belle smiled around the table at all of them, and then her eyes met Adam's across the table. With their son on his left and Carlos on his right, their daughter to her own left and Evie to her right, Jay and Mal rounding out the middle, everything just felt right. This was the family they had hoped for years to have.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this, I will try to update soon, and please write a review and hit that nifty little submit button!