Midnight Rose Chapter 24, a beauty and the beast fanfic

CHAPTER 24

REJECTION, Gaston Dupont had learned, led to man's greatest moments of weakness, he thought, furrowing his brows into a heavy scowl as he stared numbly down into his tankard of ale, waiting for Monsieur D'Arque to arrive at the appointed and agreed upon time.

This particular behavior, the hunter and former military captain now-turned-tavern-owner knew it better than most others.

Even Gaston was not immune to the power of rejection. All of his personal greatest mistakes had been made after Belle sent him away, in a feisty irritable mood he had always secretly cherished.

Leaving without Belle was one such mistake, a mistake that he knew was going to haunt him for the rest of his natural-born days.

He flinched as he felt Belle's father's disapproving and reproachful stare burning a hole right through his heart from the other side of the table, tucked away in the furthermost corner of the tavern.

Gaston himself was not sure what had drawn him to seek an audience with Belle's father first and foremost upon his defeated return to the village, but nevertheless, here he sat, feeling as small as an ant, with Maurice regarding Gaston Dupont as though the man were nothing more than a clump of dirt stuck to the bottom of his boot. Maurice's white hair and beard framed his circled sunken eyes.

His brow was furrowed with the deep lines of distress, and the dark purple bags clinging to the skin of both his eyes were only becoming more and more pronounced and darker as days passed.

It had not taken Gaston long, merely a pint and a half, to divulge the nature of his conversation with Belle at the gates of the castle, how she had point-blank refused to return with him, and for Gaston to stay well away from her. At first, Maurice was angry.

"You left her," Maurice spat with no small measure of contempt and disgust in his tone, his first words to Gaston since the man had returned from the Prince's castle earlier this morning, riding into town like a wounded dog with its tail tucked in between his legs. "Why?!"

Gaston had been asking himself that same question the entire ride back to Villeneuve, not sure he could provide an adequate response, one that Maurice would accept. His mind drifted back to her.

He had done for Belle what he had done for all the others. Offered her a gentle hand and the whispering of some sweet words, only for her rejection of his feelings to wound him, cutting him worse than anything else the fair-skinned brunette beauty could have done.

Gaston sanguinely lifted his head and dared to look at Belle's father in his piercing questioning eyes, which were heavily lidded and narrowed as Maurice continued to glower at him from across the way.

"I was…ill-prepared for the sight that met my eyes, the—the Prince, Maurice, he's been cursed by some means of witchcraft, had I known, Maurice, that I was dealing with…that, I'd have brought an army," he stammered, not sure how to voice the plain and hard truth that Belle now remained in captivity with not his old friend, but a monster. A beast, a bastard, a wretch in every sense of the words.

"All this time?" Maurice's words grew strained and very faint. He studied the inside of his tankard as his hands curled around his cup.

"Yes. I would give my life to take back that night, Maurice, old chap, you know that I would," Gaston vehemently protested, shaking his head, and trying to send images of Belle's distraught face away in his mind's eye, though her image burned itself into his aching retinas. "I am hopeful that Monsieur D'Arque will be amenable to helping me in getting Belle back," he explained, his eyes tearing away from the older gentleman and making a quick scan of the village outside, watching for any familiar sign of the owner of the insane asylum. "Were that you could have seen the monster the Prince has become, Maurice, you would agree with my decision to get him involved," he hastily explained, sensing the older gentleman opening his mouth to violently protest the idea of that man brought into the fray. "He cannot be permitted to see the light of day. I…I don't think I have it in me to kill my old friend, Maurice, I am many things, I know that, but I…I doubt my ability to kill a man I once called a friend," Gaston confessed, a pained expression flitting across his face. "As brutal as he is, there is still something that connects us. I would see him locked away instead, never again to see the light of day, and Belle returned safely to you."

It was, he firmly believed, the best he could do for his Belle. He looked across the table at Maurice, and the raw, unbridled honesty with which the military captain spoke touched the old man's heartstrings. He reflected silently as he took another hearty swig of ale and set his tankard of mostly untouched ale back onto the table in front of him.

"My daughter is the purest and honorable being in the whole of France," Maurice acknowledged, his chest puffing slightly with pride as he regarded Gaston with a stern, pointed expression. "I did not take physical or emotional connections to another person lightly, monsieur. Her mother and I did not raise her to feel casual about such things which others often take for granted without realizing what they have. But if she sent you away, then she does not see a future with you, monsieur, and you should respect that choice."

"I don't see how your daughter could willingly stay, Maurice, she's not of a sound mental mind to be thinking so clearly, whatever happened to curse Adam must be addling her own mind—" he started to say, though the sound of barreling footsteps barging into the tavern interrupted Gaston and cut him off from what he'd been about to say.

Growing increasingly vexed that he seemed to be continuously interrupted, Gaston's head whiplashed sharply upright and to the left, as a soft shadow engulfed the wooden surface of their table, indicating someone's presence was hovering by, either eavesdropping on what was intended to be a private conversation or hoping to speak with him.

He was just about to tell them to mind their own bloody business and to go away, though the words died upon his tongue, and he felt himself relax when it was only LeFou's beautiful bride-to-be.

"Mademoiselle," he murmured, extending his arm out and taking her hand in his and bringing her knuckles, which were coated with little flecks of flour from helping her father in the baker's shop. "What a pleasant surprise," he said, his voice a buttery purr. "What can Maurice or I help you with?" he asked, relinquishing control of her hand the moment his lips pressed against her knuckles, tasting flour.

A strange tingling warmth rested in his heart the longer his eyes swept over the young woman's features, taken aback, and startled by how much she looked like Belle, save for the woman's eye color and her nose. Other than that, the resemblance was almost uncanny, really. Though something was wrong. Her face had gone pale, and her cheeks held an ashen tinge to them. The poor girl was looking sick. She swallowed down hard and looked at the men seated at the tables frantically, clutching a stitch at her side, heaving to catch her breath.

"Monsieur's," Claire gasped, struggling to catch her breath. "I need your help." Her voice trembled and quivered with fear. Gaston was immediately concerned, which in it of itself was foreign for him.

Usually, he harbored no interest in keeping the company of another woman that was not his Belle, but for Claire, the need was dire. Perhaps it was the look on her face.

"My lady," he spoke up, rising to his feet, Maurice doing the same, looking equally as concerned, though he shot the soldier a look that told Gaston everything he needed to know.

That their conversation was far from concluded. Gaston shoved aside all thoughts of Maurice and winning back the man's approval for now and forced himself to focus on poor Claire.

She wavered on the spot and looked as though she might faint.

"What is the matter?" he demanded, unable to keep the note of urgency from seeping its way to the surface of his voice. Never before had he seen a woman in such a horrible state of panic like Claire was.

Something was horribly wrong. A pang of worry wormed its way into his stomach as a coil in his gut twisted the longer he looked at the sheen of sweat that had started to throng along Claire's forehead.

He reached out as if to steady the baker's daughter, but pulled back his hand, unsure if LeFou's affianced would allow it and if such a gesture would be warranted from a man who was not her future groom. Maurice was instantly on the alert as well, Gaston noticed.

"I can't…." Claire began, her words forming ahead of her thoughts. Her amber eyes scanned the spaces nearest to them, searching, though for what, Gaston couldn't say. Only she knew. "I cannot find my baby brother!" she spluttered, afraid to say the words.

"What do you mean, you cannot find him, my lady?" Maurice stepped closer; the older gentleman certain he'd heard the baker's daughter wrong. "He is with Monsieur LeFou, is he not, my dear?"

Gaston nodded as he felt his heart tighten in his chest, not sure what in the seven hells was happening to him now or why he felt this way. He looked towards Claire as her distraught voice reached him.

"They are both gone," Claire informed the men, violently trembling as she swallowed down past a lump in her throat. "I have looked everywhere. I—I was helping Papa in his shop for a while, and when I came back home, LeFou and Lukas are nowhere in sight!" she reported breathlessly, tears forming in her worried glistening eyes at the thought of any harm befalling either her brother or sweet LeFou.

Without hesitation, almost instinctively, Claire felt her eyes drift towards Gaston's face, searching his face as though the captain were the only one left in the entire bloody village who could help her.

Gaston realized that Claire was not even considering his initial assessment of LeFou's character and suspected preferences the first night he'd made the young woman's acquaintance when she'd saved Belle as he moved forward and held onto the girl by her arms. He was grateful that Claire did not resist him.

"Listen to me, milady. We will all search. They cannot be far." He tried to give Claire hope through the despair growing within him. This was his village, his charges to look after, and the thought of an innocent young babe murdered on his watch, he could not abide by, to say anything of the whereabouts of his old friend.

"I will check the stables and the chapel," Maurice offered kindly, trying to remain calm for LeFou's bride. He saw so much of his Belle in the young lass, and he liked to think that once Belle returned home to the village, that the two women would become bosom friends. Maurice was insistent, wasting no time in setting off towards the stables and the chapels to investigate.

"Come with me," Gaston told Claire. "We will look for them by the village's wall," he offered, putting one hand on the small of the girl's spine and doing his best to ignore the searing heat emanating within his hand the moment his skin touched even the fabric of her dress.

The animosity between them in regard to aspirations made by Gaston against LeFou's character seemed to have vanished, replaced by concern for their mutual acquaintance and the fate of her baby brother. As they rushed across the town square, Gaston could not help but pay particularly close attention to the tenuous and thin thread of stability the girl was clinging to.

Claire's whole world was falling to pieces in front of her. His own was not far from imploding himself. Gaston did not think he could stomach the thought of any harm befalling that of an innocent babe, or his oldest friend, nor could he imagine the fathomless dark abyss the girl would plummet into if something had happened to them.

When they reached the wall that separated their village from the edge of the Wolves' Woods that protected their kind from the wolves, bears, and the like, there was no sign of LeFou or the young charge he'd been tasked with monitoring. Gaston ground his teeth in growing ire.

If he could, he would will that baby into the girl's arms right then and there and give his old friend a thorough tongue lashing for causing her so much panic.

As it was, however, all the soldier was able to do was help Claire hold fast to that tiny minuscule flame of faith and hope that was failing her; he saw it in her eyes.

The young brunette stood before him now, a lock of her dark hair coming loose from its plait, her listless gaze fixed upon the edge of the Wolves' Woods before her eyes.

He could tell she was trying to hold onto the belief she saw both her affianced and her brother again. Gaston found himself murmuring a silent prayer to God if He was listening that this day would end with both of them found alive and unharmed and help whoever or whatever might have taken them.

This time, Gaston did not hesitate to take hold of Claire's hand and led the baker's daughter from the scene of her disappointment.

"We should check your home," he offered after a long pause as he racked his brain to search for anything he could say to offer her an ounce of comfort. "Perhaps they have returned." Claire nodded, too terrified to even speak, for fear if she opened her mouth, she'd get sick, and too afraid to hope. Quickly they made their way to the southeastern part of the village and into her home.

But bitter disappointment was waiting for them. No sign of either LeFou or her brother Gabriel were found.

Once more, Gaston led Claire away, his brain grasping at straws as he wondered where to look next.

As they descended down the front cobblestone steps of her family's comfortable and modest home, Gaston felt Claire's hand slip from his. She didn't follow.

He was grateful that Claire did not resist him.

"Listen to me, milady. We will all search. They cannot be far." He tried to give Claire hope through the despair growing within him. This was his village, his charges to look after, and the thought of an innocent young babe murdered on his watch, he could not abide by, to say anything of the whereabouts of his old friend.

"I will check the stables and the chapel," Maurice offered kindly, trying to remain calm for LeFou's bride.

He saw so much of his Belle in the young lass, and he liked to think that once Belle returned home to the village, that the two women would become bosom friends.

Maurice was insistent, wasting no time in setting off towards the stables and the chapels to investigate.

As they rushed across the town square, Gaston could not help but pay particularly close attention to the tenuous and thin thread of stability the girl was clinging to. Claire's whole world was falling to pieces in front of her. His own was not far from imploding himself. Gaston did not think he could stomach the thought of any harm befalling that of an innocent babe, or his oldest friend, nor could he imagine the fathomless dark abyss the girl would plummet into if something had happened to them.

If he could, he would will that baby into the girl's arms right then and there and give his old friend a thorough tongue lashing for causing her so much panic. As it was, however, all the soldier was able to do was help Claire hold fast to that tiny minuscule flame of faith and hope that was failing her; he saw it in her eyes.

The young brunette stood before him now, a lock of her dark hair coming loose from its plait, her listless gaze fixed upon the edge of the Wolves' Woods before her eyes. He could tell she was trying to hold onto the belief she saw both her affianced and her brother again. Gaston found himself murmuring a silent prayer to God if He was listening that this day would end with both of them found alive and unharmed and help whoever or whatever might have taken them. This time, Gaston did not hesitate to take hold of Claire's hand and led the baker's daughter from the scene of her disappointment.

But bitter disappointment was waiting for them. No sign of either LeFou or her brother Gabriel were found. Once more, Gaston led Claire away, his brain grasping at straws as he wondered where to look next.

As they descended down the front cobblestone steps of her family's comfortable and modest home, Gaston felt Claire's hand slip from his. She didn't follow.

Gaston turned back around to a truly heart-wrenching scene. Claire stood but a few steps above him on the second to the last step of the stoop of her home, frozen in her tracks, violently trembling, her hand clutching onto the iron-wrought railing so tightly that her knuckles were bone-white with the effort to steady herself. The rest of her had gone grey in fear.

Her chest heaved as her lungs fought to taste the bitter cold air for which she gasped, unable to fill in.

She stared blankly at Gaston, though he was not sure if LeFou's bride actually saw him or not.

"Where are they?" she begged Gaston in a breaking voice as if the soldier could answer her. She didn't even wait for his attempt to calm her down but instead, raised her tear-stricken eyes to the Heavens and cried. "Oh, God, what if something happened to them? Wolves, or...or...I don't...I never..." Claire sobbed.

The poor young woman choked on the very sounds that rose from the back of her throat so violently that Gaston was sure it was all Claire could do not to vomit as she swallowed a lump in her throat.

With how badly she swayed on the spot, he feared she might collapse.

"They are well, both of them," Gaston tried to encourage the baker's daughter. "My lady, you must believe that. They have to be. I think that we would have heard otherwise if they were not," he rationalized, his mind working on overdrive. He tried to make himself rely on the same words he spoke to the sister of her little lost brother and the bride of his best friend, but he was having a hard time with it himself.

"What if we don't find them?" Claire stared at Gaston as if she was only just now truly seeing him for the first time since their dreadful ordeal had begun.

Gaston did not hesitate to cover the few steps of her home that it took to reach her and took her hand, surprised at how cool and smooth her palm was. "Listen to me," he pleaded, staring earnestly in the young woman's pained eyes. "I will find them, milady. I will bring your brother and LeFou back to you. I swear." He didn't realize he was shaking with the fierceness and solemnity of his pledge to the girl.

Claire searched the man's dark eyes for any hint that she could not trust him, that he might be lying to her, telling her only what he thought she needed to hear, but she could not find any. She thought, considering she was a woman who was spoken for, that she should want to shy away from his grip but didn't.

It felt good to have him so close to her, to hear his solemn oath for her brother, to hold his hand now.

All Claire could do was stare at Gaston, dumbstruck. For the soldier, it was more than enough.

Slowly, Claire managed to come back to herself and rein in control over her emotions and summoned enough strength to nod, telling Gaston she was ready without having to speak that she wanted to continue their search. They followed the cobblestone path that would take them back to her father's shop, Claire's arm wound tightly around his bicep, her long fingernails digging so hard into the fabric of his tunic, it was a miracle she hadn't punched a hole through it.

"Monsieur Dupont. Mademoiselle Renaud." Agathe's soft, mystical-sounding voice beckoned them as they reached the center of the village square. They turned on their heels to see the village's resident beggar woman perched on the stoop of the chapel, Maurice standing alongside her crouched form, looking just as lost and confused as Gaston and Claire well. "Maurice has informed me that the whereabouts of your brother and Monsieur Cote are in question?" she asked, her strangely calm demeanor a sharp contrast to that of LeFou's friend and Gabriel's older sister.

"They are both missing, Agathe," Claire confirmed, feeling like she was failing to quell the violent shaking of her voice long enough to address the village's resident beggar woman who always seemed to know the thoughts and feelings of others without the other person ever having to say a single word.

She did not even realize that her hand was still clinging tightly to Gaston's as he stood, teeming in anticipation, beside her.

Agathe nodded, considering the younger woman's words. Then her blue eyes grew distant, glossy, as she appeared to be watching a scene unfold in her mind's eye from somewhere else.

"I believe you will find your brother in the woods, dear," she told the flustered pair of villagers, almost casually speaking.

Gaston blinked in utter disbelief, feeling certain he had misheard. "The—the woods, Agathe? Are you sure?" he asked.

Agathe gave the soldier a knowing glance, silently warning the man not to contest whatever it was that she was sensing. "Yes. I sense them both there," she reported in a rather nebulous tone.

"What in God's name are they doing in the woods?" Gaston growled, gnashing his teeth, and looking to Claire for her reaction. Eager for any course of action, Claire breathed out a relieved little sigh as she sighed with hope. "Thank you, Agathe!" she cried as she turned to the soldier and eyed Gaston hopefully.

Gaston hesitated, still unsure of Agathe's unnerving ability to sense these sorts of things, as though they were visions of sorts. Regardless, he hoped the woman's prediction wasn't going to lead to more heartache and despair for LeFou's bride. He was of a mind to think that the young woman had suffered enough today. At that moment, however, the hope beginning to spark back to life in her amber eyes was worth laying his faith and belief in Agathe and her words, if only for poor Claire's sake.

Gaston offered a curt nod to LeFou's bride and was racing hand in hand with her towards the Wolves' Woods before either one of them could even draw another breath. Maurice barreled down the front steps of the chapel and followed closely behind.

Claire and Gaston reached the forest path near the opening of the Wolves' Woods that tended to get narrower which meant horses tethered to carts could not pass through, breathless from running all the way here and the anxiety of their collective worry of not knowing what in the hells had happened. For a moment, nothing seemed like it was out of the ordinary. Cold sunshine slightly warmed the rocks beneath their feet, while the light breeze of winter as the season faded away rustled the surrounding clearing as if the tree themselves were singing a lullaby to the frantic pair.

Claire was the first one whose hearing perked up at the noise. The soft, almost muffled, and distant sound of her little brother's wailing cry. She bolted down the narrow path with Gaston close behind, and Maurice just reaching the entrance of the forest. Claire's head turned this way and that frantically, as she desperately made a quick scan of the aisle of gnarled branches that led to the vine-covered oak that was the heart tree.

This forest was teeming and steeped in magic, they could all feel it. It was rumored that this heart tree nestled within the heart of the woods. Gaston joined LeFou's bride in her frantic quest to locate both of them. The sound of the baby's wailing echoed in his ears and nearly drove him mad. The plaintiff sound only worsened in intensity and grew louder as the three of them traversed the path, all the while in their haste to find LeFou and Claire's infant brother, they tried not to trip over one another.

At the soldier's side, Maurice's eyes, though not as strong and capable as once they were, provided another set of eyes to help aid in their search now.

"I hear him!" Claire shouted. "But where is he?" she cried; her eyes wild with fear. No sooner had the words left her mouth than she saw a wriggling little bundle, wrapped in two quilts that she recognized her mother had made from her brother's cradle that was seeped in snow and dirt.

Gabriel's needful wail rose from his forced resting place, hidden in the overgrown brambles beneath a tree, screaming for his sister or his mother to come to save him.

Within a mere matter of seconds, Claire was on her knees in the thickets, pulling her two-month-old brother from the tangle of branches and a pile of melting snow, cradling him in her arms. Her relieved sobbing comingled with that of the baby's whines of recognition as the babe finally understood he was held in his sister's warm arms.

Gaston darted forward and knelt into a crouch beside her, peering over the young woman's shoulder at the baby. LeFou's bride was so focused on her brother that she did not shirk away when Gaston rested his hand on her arm. "Is he alright?" he demanded urgently, running his fingers over the infant, checking the baby for wounds or broken bones, any signs of an animal attack, or any injuries.

Claire came back to herself enough to answer him. "I think so." She brought baby Gabriel around in her gentle hands to face them. The baby smiled sweetly at his sister.

Together, she and Gaston scrutinized every inch of the infant, just to be sure before she rose shakily to her feet. Maurice stood beside them, heaving to catch his breath and clutching at a stitch in his side, though Belle's father was relieved Pascal's son had been found safe and relatively unharmed.

"But how did he get here?" he asked. "But…where is Monsieur Cote?" Maurice frowned, looking deeply along the path, growing concerned that LeFou may be lying injured in a ravine somewhere nearby.

Gaston was the first to hear what appeared to be a commotion a short distance away from the group to the left. His ears perked up at the sound as he intently listened.

"Listen," he bid them all, raising a finger to his lips and motioning for everyone but the baby obviously, to be silent. The sound was of someone grunting, struggling, maybe. The noises were emanating from behind a large stone, just off to the side of a particularly gnarled old tree.

Gaston did not hesitate to draw his short sword, casting an urgent eye towards Maurice, who quickly nodded his agreement towards the soldier's chosen course of action. He shot Claire a brief glance as she straightened her gait, clutching her brother close to her chest, looking them over once more time to ensure their wellbeing, and then moved towards the source of the disturbance. He was eager to catch and dispatch whoever had taken his friend and the girl's brother and had caused the young mademoiselle so much despair and anguish in thinking the baby missing. Without giving himself any time to second guess his actions, Gaston leaped behind the stone, sword in hand, and a young man's scream split the silence of the glade the group had found Claire's baby brother abandoned in.

Claire and Maurice all looked up, startled, to see Gaston forcing a skinny half-clothed man no older than nineteen to his feet. The lad was fumbling with groping fingers to raise fasten his belt which was loose, and his face was beet red from shock and embarrassment, and exertion as well.

LeFou emerged around the opposite side of the barrier, his hair a disheveled mess, his cheeks flushed red as he cringed in embarrassment. Realizing what it all meant, Gaston gritted his teeth in anger as he gruffly pulled his old friend nearly off the ground as he marched him furiously back to where his affianced waited. Or he supposed, former after Claire learned.

Gaston shot Claire an apologetic look and silently tried to apologize to the baker's daughter for the pain as her gaze flitted curiously between that of her groom and the other man.

Understanding sank upon the girl like a heavy anchor. She felt the angry trembling beginning in her fingers, traveling up her arm and she held on even tighter to her baby brother.

"This is what you were doing, LeFou, while I searched for him?" she demanded angrily, taking a cautious half step forward towards the man she was intending to marry soon. "While I was out of my mind with worry, trying to find him?" she shouted, her voice rising with contempt as her nose crinkled in a way that Gaston knew had nothing to do with a coming sneeze. "What in God's name were you thinking?! And…and with him? I'm your fiancée, I should have been told!" Claire screamed, her voice hoarse and emotional, slick tears starting to pour down her face as she stared at LeFou in hurt.

"F—forgive me, Claire, I…I… didn't…I never…" LeFou cowered, trying to shrink into himself as he cowered away from the young woman's anger. He looked towards Gaston for help, but Gaston felt a muscle in his jaw twitch in his own rage.

He himself was having a difficult time comprehending that his own compatriot had left a helpless infant alone in the cold on his watch for this. He barely stifled the low warning growl that threatened to escape from deep within his chest.

LeFou stiffened, unable to directly meet Gaston's withering glower, the guilt plastered all over his pudgy face.

"Forgive you?" Claire, in her anger, straightened her posture and towered threateningly over her future groom. Gaston remained rooted by the baker's daughter's side, adding his own judgmental stare to his friend's mortification. "Forgive you?" she repeated, as though she were hardly daring to believe the ask that her groom was asking of her now. Claire drew in a sharp breath that pained her lungs. She felt like she could barely breathe as the weight of understanding rested heavily on her shoulders and in her heart. "You left my baby brother screaming in the dirt while you laid with—with him!" She shouted, utterly seething, nudging her head spitefully in the direction of the other boy, the guilty party.

Without even thinking, the other man, a young man whom Gaston recognized worked with the blacksmith, spoke up in mistaken defense of LeFou.

"The babe would've been fine, milady." The man, Stanley, tried to pass off the angry sister's pure wrath.

Gaston stepped away from Claire for a moment and off to the side, eyeing the younger lad hatefully with furrowed brows. Pulling his dagger from his sheath at his waist, Gaston did not hesitate to raise it to the man's throat and stood more than willing and ready to push it through to the other side of his neck.

"No one is talking to you, boy," he growled hatefully. "Were I you, if you value keeping that tongue of yours that must be hung in the middle so it can wag at both ends, then I would stay quiet. Shut. Up. Not one more word, you hear me?"

Claire turned back to face LeFou, shock and horror plastered all over her ashen face as she swallowed down hard. "You've done this before, LeFou? Haven't you? And don't even think about lying to me, I know when you're lying," she growled in a rhetorical manner, imagining her baby brother screaming for her or their parents each time the man she was supposed to have married neglected him in favor of an unnatural rendezvous. LeFou squirmed uncomfortably under Claire Renaud's piercing gaze as her hazel eyes narrowed. "How often?" she demanded, her tone quite frosty and spiteful.

LeFou was a quaking mess in front of Claire and her mounting rage, struggling to keep his undone shirt from falling off him as he clutched himself as it was still fairly cold out here.

He could not even bring his gaze to meet Claire's, knowing that deep down, his careless behavior was inexcusable.

"Ah... A few times a week," he whispered, his voice barely audible as he ducked his head in shame, not wishing to meet his affianced' s eyes, knowing this had all been a lie to her. That his parents had hoped he would marry the girl to remove some of the stains upon his name and quell the rumors.

The gasp Claire let out got stuck in her throat. The entire world of the Wolves' Woods spun beneath her feet as bile rose in her throat. It was a struggle just to keep hold of the baby.

"A—a few times a week?" she whispered in a breathless voice, hardly daring to believe what she was hearing from him.

The baker's daughter did not see LeFou tense angrily next to her. It was Gaston who spoke up first following LeFou's shame-faced confession, while Claire fought to keep a hold onto her brother and tried to summon enough strength on her throat to be able to manage to speak through her burning rage.

"What? LeFou? A few times a week?" Gaston demanded, hardly daring to believe the foolishness and the chances his own friend had taken in gambling with this babe's safety, and that of his life. He looked at Claire out of the corner of his eyes.

One glance over at Belle's doppelganger was more than enough for him. Claire's entire body had gone rigid and stiff.

Just barely forcing a breath through her gnashing tight jaw, Claire stalked forward towards her former fiancé, her glower practically burning a hole straight through LeFou's heart.

"You left my brother alone on the ground, screaming here when there are wolves in this forest!" she shouted. The woman could not even bring herself to finish that dreadful thought as images of the horrors of the possible dangers that could have befallen her baby brother came clearly to her mind's eye now. "You—you idiot, how could you? Don't you have any sense at all? Anything might have happened to him!" Claire bellowed, incensed, her fists curling and clenching in fury as Maurice darted forward to take the baby from her, sensing her intent.

Without even thinking, Claire took a half step forward, curled her fingers into a fist, drew back her arm, and unleashed her fury against LeFou's face, knocking the shorter man to the ground, grinding her teeth as he howled in pain and clutched at his nose, blood now stemming through his shaking fingers.

After a moment of groveling on the ground and trying to stem the bleeding of his nose, sniffling, LeFou sobbed with pain and regret as he shakily rose to his feet, keeping a distance.

"Forgive me, Claire," he begged. "I—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it. B-but you know I would never do anything to hurt your brother. I—I swear it!" he implored.

Unable to stomach the sight and presence of the man who had put her brother's life in danger and had turn broken her heart, Claire furiously turned her back on the young man's groveling and begging, turning a deaf ear to LeFou's protests to just let him explain.

She did not look at him as she marched towards Belle's father and politely enough took the fussing baby from the old man's arms.

When she did finally address LeFou, her tone was flat and cold. "Save it. I don't want to hear your excuses, Monsieur Cote," Claire spat, her tone positively dripping with disgust. "Just go." Her voice cracked and broke and it was obvious to the soldier without Gaston even have to look the young woman squarely in her eyes that she was furiously biting back tears and struggling to maintain what little composure she did have a hold on. "Get out of my sight, LeFou, and don't even bother showing your face to me ever again," she commanded furiously in disgust and hurt and began to walk off.

While Claire busied herself and tried to calm down in order to attend to the squalling infant still wailing in his big sister's arms, Gaston pulled LeFou unceremoniously to his feet, seething in rage.

The former military captain shoved his oldest compatriot ahead of him along the woodland path, with Maurice trailing closely behind. Maurice furrowed his thick white brows at LeFou's lover, a chap from the tavern. Stanley, Maurice thought his name was. Belle's father glanced at LeFou's 'friend,' who had the good sense to remain quiet, no doubt remembering Gaston holding a knife to his throat.

It was Maurice who grabbed Stanley and dragged him behind Gaston, who was dragging LeFou and ignoring his friend's protests. They reached the edge of the Wolves' Wood only to stop in front of the judgmental glare of none other than Agathe herself. LeFou was shoved to the front by Gaston, who stood cowering and trembling underneath the beggar woman's gaze.

"You've betrayed that poor girl's trust and feelings in you," Agathe stated to LeFou, her tone cold as she eyed Gaston's old friend and his lover with an immense look of disapproval, her lips pursed. "Mademoiselle Renaud put her utmost faith and trust in you." She shook her head, thinking of the tiny babe who would have frozen, or worse, become food for the wolves if something had happened to it. "She entrusted you, gave you charge over her younger sibling, and you deliberately put that babe's life in jeopardy, Monsieur Cote."

Her glistening eyes narrowed in immense disappointment as she surveyed LeFou and Stanley for a moment before turning towards Claire, who was already marching back towards the village stiffly with her baby brother in tow, though the young mademoiselle halted in her footsteps as Agathe's voice pleaded with Claire to wait.

"A moment of your time, milady," Agathe's voice was kind. "Given that Monsieur Gaston is in charge over the village, more or less, I believe it only right that he should decide his…friend's fate," she said, after a brief hesitation as she looked towards Gaston with that familiar glossy stare that never failed to send a chill through him. Her piercing stare penetrated a hole right through his heart.

Gaston was silent for a moment as he raised his eyes to Claire. The young woman was shattered by this, which only incensed his anger towards LeFou further.

"This is not my decision to make, Agathe," he remarked, coolly. He raised his gaze towards Claire again, having briefly looked away to look Agathe in her eyes as he spoke. LeFou's trembling grew even more violent with his realization. "Were it up to me, I would leave you out here to rot, LeFou, as food for the wolves," Gaston snarled, grinding his teeth in anger. "You've done a lot of stupid things over the years, my friend, but never anything quite this foolish," he spat angrily, contempt and hatred dripping from his voice as he regarded his friend in his ire.

Gaston drew in a breath as he looked towards Claire again.

"Milady, it was your brother who was put in danger by my former friend's current actions," he growled, ensuring he placed the appropriate amount of emphasis on the use of the word former.

He did not want LeFou to mistake his meaning, and he could tell by the crestfallen, worried expression on LeFou's face, he didn't.

Claire's hateful glower lingered upon that of LeFou and Stanley, her nose crinkling in disgust. It was clear, whatever affection she might have beheld for his former friend was by now long gone.

Gaston, Agathe, and Maurice all waited patiently for her to pronounce whatever punishment she saw fit upon the two culprits.

"I don't care what happens to either one of them, Agathe, Monsieur Dupont, as long as neither one comes near me ever again."

There was nothing, in her mind, that she could see done to them that would ever compensate her intense need to avenge the wrongs and heartbreak that was done to her brother, or to her now.

Gaston nodded his agreement with the young woman's assessment and looked towards Maurice as the pair of men began to follow after the women, content to leave LeFou and Stanley alone to sort out the right and proper disaster they had made of their lives. Gaston was smart enough not to look back. He furrowed his brows once he and Maurice reached the town square, keeping his gaze fixated on the young woman's backside.

The soldier was conflicted, torn between two desires to get LeFou a thorough scolding, if not a beating within an inch of the man's life for what he had done to that babe and for hurting the young woman as he had. And torn between wanting to go after and offer some small modicum of comfort and finish his conversation with Maurice. Almost as if Belle's father had sensed Gaston's intentions, he spoke up as he moved to stand alongside Gaston, their shoulders touching.

"I think it best, monsieur, if you follow after her. Take her someplace where she won't happen to see Monsieur Cote," Maurice sighed, furrowing his brows into a frown as he too followed the young woman's silhouette, torn by how much she looked like Belle. "I think the girl needs her space. Claire seeing your friend will be a danger to them both at this point," Maurice calmly explained to the hunter. "Try to ensure she does not happen to see the man again?"

Gaston sighed heavily, nodding his agreement, and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He hesitated, biting his lip.

"Our conversation…?" he started to ask, but Maurice cut him off, almost irritably with a wave of his hand and shoved him slightly.

"Can wait. The young mademoiselle has just been through a traumatic ordeal and could use the comfort of someone who cares. Nothing will be solved just yet anyway. Monsieur D'Arque has not made his presence known to the village and trust me, we would hear about it if we did."

Maurice knitted his brows in a scowl at his words. He would have been more than happy never to have met the owner of the insane asylum, though it was a necessary evil, his work.

Nevertheless, his presence never failed to unhinge everyone. Maurice heaved a tired sigh and clapped Gaston on the shoulder, giving the appendage a light reassuring squeeze, and exchanged a strange glance with Agathe that Gaston was not sure what to make of as the pair headed back towards the village, without so much as a single word to Gaston, to LeFou, or to Stanley, then.

Gaston was left alone to ponder his next move, though before he could so much as take the first step to follow after Claire, LeFou's sniveling, pleading voice that was a mere faint whimper rent the air.

The soldier felt his former friend move up beside her, and his entire body tensed. His hands curled into shaking fists at his side.

He lifted his head and swiveled his gaze to find LeFou standing in front of him, his pleading eyes full of remorse and pain.

"Gaston, I—I don't, I never—"

But Gaston could not let his former friend finish. Without even thinking, the military captain curled his dominant hand, his right, into a fist, raised his arm, and decked LeFou squarely in the face, in the exact same spot where Claire had hit him a solid one.

Gaston squared his shoulders, the sound of LeFou's yelps of pain almost like music to his ears as seething hatred surged through his veins. He felt worlds better after that, though a horrible, hollow ache still remained in his heart as he realized that he had now not lost just one friend in Adam, but two in LeFou.

Things would never be the same after this. He scowled as LeFou managed to gasp out, "I suppose I deserved that, my friend," he whined as he gingerly pulled his hand away and looked at the blood sliming on his fingers. He raised his nervous eyes to the soldier and felt the bridge of his nose. "I—I don't think it's broken, Gaston, but if you want to try again—"

"Shut. Up. Don't tempt me, LeFou. Don't even speak to me." Gaston huffed and turned away, folding his arms across his chest.

LeFou shakily wiped the crimson lifeforce from beneath his nose with the sleeve of his dark jerkin and then dropped his hand.

"I—I'm sorry, Gaston, I don't-" he started to say, but was cut off.

"Save your 'sorry,' LeFou. I am not the one who needs to hear it," Gaston barked hoarsely. He decided he was not in the mood for a former friend's company tonight, much less LeFou, after what he'd done. He did not want to hear anything else the man had to say to him. Agathe was right.

There was nothing LeFou could say that he could offer in defense of his actions.

Nothing could possibly fix this.

Gaston turned sharply on his heels and glowered at LeFou with the intensity that would have made a fully bloomed rose wilt, stopping the man in mid-apology before he turned and quit the scene. With slow even strides, the hunter exited the edge of the Wolves' Wood, to trail after the baker's daughter to check on her.

Given his current mood, Gaston Dupont thought that he would be perfectly happy if he never saw LeFou Cote ever again.