"Where is she?" the Beast rasped for at least the tenth time this morning. He struggled to sit up in his bath, but Mrs. Potts pushed him back down. He was lucid enough now not to attack her.

"No, you stay in the warm," she ordered. "Tip your head back... there's a dear." The Beast shivered even under the cascade of hot water she poured on him, and she gestured for servants to bring even hotter water to freshen up the tub with.

"What did she say? He's back, I heard him downstairs... what message did she send for me?"

"Lumiere told her you're all right," Mrs. Potts said firmly, "And he says she's very excited to see you again. But as you can't go to her until you're better, in the meantime, just let's try and get warm, and then eat something, shall we?"

"Fine." He hardly cared - it was not food that was sustaining him, it was the thought of his beloved. But if food was the fastest way to getting better and thus getting to her, then food it would be. He thought soon he might be strong enought to walk around... and that was good, because he had to go to her soon. It was anyone's guess how she was managing to keep the idiot peasants and that lunatic hunter at bay... and if something happened to her while he was stuck here holed up in the castle like... well, like a Beast gone to ground, then there really wouldn't be anything much worth living for at all, would there?

The pot on the stove had a boot, two arrows, an antler, and some wood sticking out of it, and Belle wasn't done yet. On the off chance that Gaston would actually take a bite just to prove a point, she'd added some more of the bad mushrooms and plenty of pepper.

While she was chasing Rameau around the kitchen to get some of his fur for seasoning purposes, she heard the door creak open. It was Lefou. "Belle? What are you...um..."

"I'm cooking! And I expect Gaston to eat every single bite!"

"Oh... gee, what did you… you didn't put his gun in there, did you? It's the one thing he'd probably get really mad about…"

"No, but I put a whole lot of his powder and bullets into the oven. That'll teach him to-"

"What? You what?" Lefou jumped off the stool and skittered around to hide behind her. "You can't put powder and bullets in the oven!"

"Why not?"

At that moment, soft whizzing and popping began to issue forth from the oven. Lefou screamed "Duck - it's gonna blow!" and they both hit the ground…

After the explosions had stopped, they sat up and looked around at the mess that had been a kitchen. Part of the wall was blown away and a few birds were poking their heads in from the outside, chirping.

Belle retied her hair. "Good! Now there is no kitchen - let's see him tell me to stay in the kitchen now!" She sighed, realizing that she was yelling at an innocent bystander, and lowered her voice. "I'm sorry, Lefou – it's not your fault. But I just won't live doing everything his way."

He nodded. "You want to do things your way."

"That's right."

"Well, no offense, Belle, but if this is your way, I like Gaston's way better."

Belle opened her mouth and then, finding nothing to say, closed it again. Was this her way? This? Destroying things, shouting herself hoarse, focusing all her energy on inventing nasty things to say and do... Was that really how she wanted to be?

She had always wanted to be like her father, able to solve any problem from the smallest to the most impossibly complicated… but now here she was instead, making problems, making them bigger and more unbearable every day.

Something had to change. "Lefou," she said quietly, "Would you go and fetch Gaston for me?"

He went and she, as an apology for the kitchen, started working on the mountain of laundry she'd been letting pile up.

She met Gaston in the living room as soon as he came in. "I did it, I'm sorry and I'm not going to do it again," she said right away. "Please forgive me. I want to talk."

"You want to talk," he repeated after a moment. "Well, I want to eat."

She shook her head. "Most of the food's buried under the wall that caved in… but if you can lift it up, I'll dig everything out."

Although he started griping at once about coming home to a mountain of chores, he was more than happy to show off for her, heaving up the rubble and piling it back into a fair approximation of a wall while she organized what was left of the food supply. "Thank you," she said, and chanced a look at him. He was still glaring a little and it was making her nervous, so she started throwing ingredients together to distract herself.

"So," he said at last into the silence. "You're sorry."

"Yes."

"And you're finally going to start being the beautiful, loving wife I deserve."

"No! Listen, I'm never going to have feelings for you, Gaston," Belle said firmly. "Never."

"It's a phase," he assured with a dismissive wave. "You're just not ready yet. Girls your age-"

"No!" Her carrot-chopping became a little more enthusiastic, and her resolve to make friends started weakening. "I am ready, I was ready, I already had my true love! And you murdered him, you killed the one I'm supposed to be with!"

"You're talking about a wild animal who kidnapped you!" He fed a piece of meat to the dog, and the resulting slobbery spectacle gave him an idea. "We're just lucky I got there when I did, or we'd have found your skin hanging next to-"

"Stop it - I told you that's not how it was. We loved each other!"

Girls! Even if that was true – and Gaston sincerely hoped not; it was a disgusting thought – even if it was true, it was hardly the point! Why couldn't girls ever understand what really mattered? "Well, I love Rameau," he said. "But do you think I've ever thought of marrying him? Do you?" She wouldn't answer. "No. Why? Because people marry people. More importantly, good-looking people marry good-looking people... which brings us to you, and me." He snatched a piece of the carrot Belle was cutting and popped it into his mouth. "Right?"

"Well... that's what I wanted to talk about." He wasn't really looking at her, but she pressed ahead anyway. "We can't live like this. I'll never forgive you for what you've done, and you obviously can't ever respect me, but as long as we're married we have to find a way of living together in peace. Do you agree?"

"Mm-hmm, yes exactly," he said absently, stooping to scratch the dog's ears.

She blinked. "Gaston, were you even listening to me? I'm trying to tell you something!"

"Of course you are, Belle." Wanting to calm her, he spoke in his lowest, rumbliest purr, the one that always had the girls swooning all over him.

But Belle was unimpressed. "Stop it," she snapped.

He looked up, frowning, clearly not understanding.

"I know that's how you talk to most girls," she clarified, "But I don't like it. I want you to talk to me like... um..." she tried, and failed, to think of when she had ever heard Gaston be polite in his life. He doesn't respect anybody but himself, she thought bitterly... and that gave her an idea. "I want you to pretend you're talking to you," she explained. "To another Gaston. Take the things I say seriously, the way you would if you had thought of them yourself. It's important to me. Do you think you can do that?"

"Of course I can." The emphasis he put on the word made her smile. All you had to do was challenge Gaston, tell him he was incapable, and he would bend over backwards to prove you wrong. It was a useful thing to remember. "But what's the point?"

"The point," she explained patiently, "Is that being married means we're supposed to treat each other as well as we treat ourselves. And you would never ignore yourself the way you ignore me."

His eyes narrowed. "And you would never feed yourself that." He pointed to the smoking remains of the boot/antler/wood soup she had created.

Belle looked at it and flushed. "Well I..." she swallowed. "Well that was different," she argued, then realized that it wasn't different at all. She lowered her eyes. "You're right, I'm sorry," she said at last.

He beamed - now she was behaving! "That's all right," he said generously. "Now go set the table!" he pointed towards the table with the same motion he used to order Rameau outside, then frowned. Perhaps this was the sort of thing she was talking about... if it were him standing there in her place, he'd punch a man who used that gesture.

Talking to her like another Gaston might be a little more difficult than he had first thought… but he was sure he could figure it out. He lowered his arm. "Please."

She smiled up at him and fetched the silverware without any further fuss.

Gaston kicked off his boots and wondered whether her newfound agreeableness would extend so far as to finally massaging his feet by the fire.

TBC.

Ok, ok, I lied - the Beast didn't get the bad news this chapter, he gets it next one.

Next chapter will have plenty of action - raging beasts, a hunt, the whole works. I'll probly put it up tomorrow or Wednesday.