A/N: regarding longer chapters... I can definitely do them longer from now on, but then it will be a little longer between updates.

When the doorbell rang, all three of them looked up from their cooking.

"I'll get it," Belle offered first.

"No!" Gaston said quickly. "Let your father do it."

After one look at the dark, smoking sludge Maurice was stirring on the stove, Belle had to agree with him. "Gaston's right, Papa, go on. We'll finish up in here." As soon as her father had gone, they both lunged for the stove.

"Hurry, we have to get rid of it!" Gaston whispered.

"Where?" she whispered back. Saving herself from Maurice's cooking took priority over hating her husband, at least for the moment.

"I don't know. Throw it out the window."

"No - we did that yesterday, and it killed all the flowers!" They were both looking around frantically for another hiding place. "Oh! Can you get Rameau to eat it?"

"Belle, he's not stupid. Aha - here, we'll disguise it as mop-water!" Gaston put the pot on the floor and rested the mop in it.

Once that threat to their health was handled, things returned to their unpleasant norm. Belle chopped vegetables and glared, Gaston gutted fish and grumbled complaints. "I've lived my whole life without doing women's work," he growled. "Why is that now that I'm married and I have a woman to do it for me, now I end up slaving away in the kitchen like a, a fishwife!" He lopped off the fish's head and shot off a glare at least as powerful as Belle's.

"Gaston, it's been three days, don't sound like you've been working in here forever!" she snapped back. "And I told you, if you don't like cooking, you're welcome to not participate!"

"No thank you! I've learned my lesson: from now on I'll be eating not just in the same house, but probably off the same plate as your father. And I'm watching every speck you put into that pot. One serving of poisonous mushrooms was more than enough."

"It was an accident!" Belle jammed her knife point-first into the countertop and crossed her arms. "I told you, I didn't know anything was wrong with them!"

"Right! And that's why you wouldn't even take a single bite for yourself!"

"Well maybe I don't like mushrooms." But she couldn't make eye contact.

Gaston didn't even bother to point out that she was dicing up mushrooms right now - normal mushrooms, healthy ones he had picked out himself - and adding them to the dinner she had every intention of eating. He was too busy ranting: "You cooked up enough of that poison to kill a horse! A moose! A whale, even! But not me." He threw his chest out, sounding less and less upset as he continued: "I admit, I might have felt a little queasy-"

"...You were throwing up all night..." she muttered, but he continued right over her.

"-might have felt that somewhere inside my... perfect machine..."

"-Sweating bullets even in an icewater bath..."

"...the gears might be squeaking just a little..."

"-Shivering til you broke the bed..."

"... But in the end, of course it couldn't do me harm. It takes more than a little poison to break this."

Belle watched him flex proudly all around the kitchen and hated him more than ever. It was one thing to have had to spend the night terrified on the porch, trapped between the slavering beasts of the forest and the vomiting beast in the living room... that she could live with. She even supposed, maybe, that she deserved it. But this? This was intolerable - he was happy. As if he didn't even mind when people tried to kill him.

Well, good, she snarled to herself, he'd better get used to it.
Maurice heard none of this - he was paying far too much attention to the man on his doorstep.

It was a tall, smiling man in a rich-looking uniform. "Can I help you?" Maurice asked politely.

"I have brought good news. For Belle."

"Err... what news?"

"She is about to be..." the man leaned close and purred into Maurice's ear: "Rescued!"

The voice was familiar, but not quite familiar enough to place. Maurice smiled and patted the man on the arm. "Oh, I thank you most kindly, but it's not necessary - Belle's already been rescued."

"She- she's what?"

"Rescued. Already." Maurice beamed. "After that fearsome beast took her away into his castle, Gaston went... you know, Gaston the dashing young hunter from town... he went and, and he slew the beast! And plucked Belle right from its jaws!"

"Ahem. Yes, well, believe it or not I already knew that. What I meant to say was-"

"And they're married already!"

"-Was that in fact the-" After a huge double-take, the visitor swallowed hard a few times. "Er-? Pardon me... you didn't say she is married...?"

Nodding, smiling, Maurice prattled on: "Yes, they married straightaway! And I thought, that's a little fast, I thought, but... you know young love..."

"Married already?"

"Yes!"

"Married? Mais non! It cannot be, she wouldn't-"

"Yes! And they're so wonderful together, they come visit me every day!"

There was a long pause. Maurice waited to be congratulated. "She married him," the man repeated at last, sounding dazed. With no further farewell than that, he turned and hurried down the steps, muttering to himself.

Maurice gave him one more strange look as he left, then shook his head and went inside. "Some people," he muttered to himself, "Are so odd..."

As he watched the happy couple playing Footsie all throughout dinner (Belle was attempting to kick through her husband's shins and he was attempting to stomp on her toes in answer) his heart was so warmed that he completely forgot to mention the bizarre visitor.

TBC. Ok, so I didn't get to the part where Belle and Gaston really have it out, but don't worry - they're about to.

I really appreciate the comments. I agree with charlemagnebrat1, it would be cheesy for the Beast to just show up and snatch Belle right back. So if you're holding your breath for it to happen that way, make sure you have somebody CPR-certified on hand because you're going to need them.