Chapter Eight: Unexpected Visitors
The night before:
Beast sighed, rubbing his forehead as he glanced at his wife, "I told you that he was too young to be King," he announced, "Look at this mess he created, and he isn't answering his phone."
Belle placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, "He's only eighteen," she pointed out.
"Yes, but he's still the King, he just has to accept it," Beast insisted, "Mal's gone, and barging into our allies home late at night to search it isn't going to bring her back."
"It's almost been two years," Belle argued, "I don't think he showed up on Cinderella's doorstep on a whim. I think that he might have had some sort of clue, or reasoning to suspect Chad."
Beast sighed, "She's gone Belle, nothing Ben is doing is going to bring her back, he needs to grow up, accept it, and move on. He's eighteen, he needs to choose a Lady of the court."
"Since when was being married a requirement for wearing the crown?"
Beast sighed, looking at Belle with a slightly guilty expression, "It isn't, but he can't waste everyone's time and money looking for Mal."
"Tell me, what would you do if I was the one that went missing?"
Beast slumped forward in his chair, "I'd tear the Country apart," he confessed.
"I talked to Fairy Godmother," Belle suddenly announced, "Apparently she talked to Ben earlier, he wants to keep things quiet, but apparently he's found Mal somewhere."
"Mal's alive?"
"According to Fairy Godmother," Belle insisted with a shrug, "But she doesn't know where she is, Ben says that she's happy and safe where she is and she wants to stay there undisturbed."
"If she's safe where she is, what does Chad have to do with anything?" Beast asked.
"Well, Fairy Godmother doesn't know for sure, but Chad was alone with Mal in her room for almost an hour one night before she disappeared," Belle announced.
"So Mal was cheating on Ben with Chad?" Beast asked, "And Ben had Chad arrested because of that?"
"We don't know about what happened in that Dorm Room," Belle insisted, "Whatever it was, Ben felt the need to arrest Chad over it."
"We need more answers about what is going on," Beast insisted, "But Ben's phone goes straight to voicemail."
"Chip went with him," Belle recalled, "He might know something."
…
Mal watched nervously as Ben went up the stairs, she knew what he was doing, leaving her alone with the one person that could read her like a book. The one person that was probably mad at her for leaving the way she did.
"Well," she said, turning to the blue haired beauty.
"Well?" Evie echoed, "M, you had us worried sick. We weren't even sure if you had left on your own free will."
"Didn't you get my letter?" Mal asked.
"Yeah," Evie said, "But how was I… how were we… supposed to believe it when you had been lying to all of us. How many times did you spell us before Ben figured that out."
Mal winched, she should have suspected that they had figured that out, "A few," she confessed, "I was just trying to protect us."
"This isn't the Isle, M," Evie said, "You don't need to worry about us, we're the toughest kids around here. You know that."
"Tough," Mal scoffed, "I didn't feel so tough when Chad had me drugged and totally at his mercy."
"Ben had him arrested, it's all over the news."
"I know, he stopped by last night to tell me," Mal insisted, shaking her head, "He's hoping that I'll come home with him."
"Will you?" Evie asked.
"I…" Mal hesitated, "I don't know. The girls… I'm… happy here."
"We miss you," Evie insisted, "Jay, Carlos, and I."
"I know," Mal agreed, leading the way into the tiny kitchen, "I miss you too, but it's safer here. No threats, no press, no having to pretend to be something I'm not."
"Do you honestly think that Ben won't accept who you are?" Evie asked, setting the box of donuts on the small folding table Mal had before moving towards the sink.
"I'm not worried about Ben," Mal confessed, "What about the Press?"
"What about the press?" Evie asked, washing the strawberries.
"They followed me almost constantly, just waiting for me to mess up."
"Fairy Godmother and Ben can work on that so that you don't have to worry about the press. If it makes you feel better, if they come onto my property, I'll call the police and have them removed for trespassing."
"I guess," Mal agreed, "It's just so different from life on the Isle. There you try to stay in the shadows. Here, I can't step foot out of my house without the press pressing their mikes in my face."
"Or at least they would if they knew where you were."
Mal took the strawberries from Evie, and started cutting them up so that they would be bite size for her daughters, "Don't even joke about that, I'm worried sick that the press will follow Ben here one day and there goes my peace and quiet."
"I'm sure it won't be that bad, besides, who all knows where you are?"
"Ben and now you," Mal explained, taking a deep breath, it just didn't feel right having someone else in her little sanctuary, but Evie was right, no one who knew where she was was going to tell anyone else.
Just then the doorbell rang out, causing Mal to drop her knife, "Who could that be," she asked out loud, turning to Evie, "Seems kind of early for it to be someone sliding off the road again. Besides, they salted the road yesterday so it shouldn't be so slick."
"Only one way to find out," Evie insisted, nodding towards the door.
Mal pulled a face as she headed to the door, pulling on a jacket with a hood as she did so. She had learned the other day that she couldn't rely on colorful hair being in style to hide her from people that she had known back in Auradon.
She pulled back the curtains and peered outside, before quickly dropping it again, her heart pounding. How had they found her? The doorbell rang again, causing Mal to take a deep breath, this wasn't the Isle. She rested her hand on the doorknob, taking a deep breath, before turning towards the stairs, "Ben, your parents are here, and they brought Cinderella and Fairy Godmother with them."
"What!" Ben's voice came from the bedroom, "Let them in, I'll be down in a minute."
Mal nodded, opening the door with a sigh, "Hello Belle, Fairy Godmother," she said, using her fake happy voice that she hadn't used since she had left two years earlier.
Little hands grabbed her legs, as a little head poked between them, peering upwards at the visitors, green eyes round in surprise, "Hi-hi," the little girl exclaimed, looking at the people on her stoop and then at her mother.
Mal quickly scooped up the toddler before she could run outside into the snow without shoes on, and looked at the group of people at the door, Belle, Beast, Fairy Godmother, Jane, Prince Charming, and Cinderella. This was the most people that she ever had at her door at one time. Or over at her house, "Hi," she said nervously, "It's cold out, you might as well come on in."
Cinderella glanced around the house, "This looks cozy…" she said in a tone of voice that told Mal that she had a different word in mind when she said cozy.
"It works great for me and the girls," Mal insisted, "I don't entertain much. If I knew that I was hosting a breakfast party, I would have rented out a hall somewhere."
"I'm sorry," Belle confessed, "Chip told us that Ben found you, but he wasn't sure where you were, but that he came here first, so we figured whoever lived here knew where you were."
"Well," Ben said, coming up behind them, Adelle perched on his hip, "In a way you were correct, but why didn't you call me."
"We tried son," Beast announced, "It went straight to voicemail."
"Cell signal is weak here," Mal explained, shrugging.
"I'm sorry," Ben offered, turning to his parents, "I should have called you, but I wanted to take care of Chad first, and then…" he trailed off.
"We wanted to take care of a misunderstanding we had before we let others know my location," Mal insisted, "We didn't think that Chip might figure out where I was and tell people."
"I don't think Chip will tell anyone else," Belle insisted, looking at the others, "We'll make sure that he doesn't tell anyone else."
Cinderella nodded sadly, "We wouldn't have come, but Charming and I just felt like we had to talk to you, about Chad."
...
Mal's house was overly crowded with Ben, his parents, Evie, Cinderella, Prince Charming, Fairy Godmother, and Jane, as well as her five daughters made fourteen people in a house that could comfortably fit three people.
"This is no place for Mal to raise five babies," Cinderella informed Belle and Fair Godmother, "Charming and I can help with that."
"The person who should be helping Mal out is Chad," Ben insisted, before turning to Mal, who was close enough that she no doubt was aware of the conversation, "We discussed it last night, Chad needs to take responsibility for what he did. He'll have to provide child support until the girls are of age, no matter what."
"How much would that be?" Charming asked.
Ben frowned, "I don't know, child support is like four hundred dollars for one child, five children is two thousand."
"Perfect," Charming announced, "A little high, but it's his own fault. Hopefully he can find a job with this on his record, because he's not getting a penny from me again."
Cinderella nodded, "We've coddled him too much, hopefully we can correct that with his younger sisters."
"Perhaps we should have Remedial Goodness become a required class for everyone," Fairy Godmother suggested, "Not just for those from the Isle."
"That might be a good idea," Ben agreed.
"What about you Mal, are you returning to school?"
Mal shifted slightly picking up a random toddler from the floor, Chelsea, "I don't know, my first concern is the girls, you know."
Cinderella and Belle both nodded, "That's the way that it should be," Belle insisted.
Charming was looking around the house, taking note of what Mal did have and what she didn't, he had noticed a major thing missing, "You don't seem to have any warm clothes for the girls," he announced.
"What do you mean warm clothes?"
"Hats, coats, mittens, boots, stuff for them to wear when you go places so they don't get cold."
"We don't go places," Mal announced, "I don't have any form of transportation, and I do all of my shopping online."
"What happened to the Moped I got you?"
"It's in the garage out back, but I can't really carry five babies on the back of it now can I?"
"We'll have to rectify that," Cinderella insisted, "It isn't fair to you or the girls to be cooped up all the time."
Mal shrugged, "It's better than my childhood," she explained, trying hard to ignore the guilty look Beast and Ben exchanged, "At least the girls are safe and don't have to worry about getting on my mother's bad side."