A/N: So maybe I was a little bit harsh last time I posted (understatement of the year). I really do love you guys, and I am incredibly thankful for all your reviews, and trust me I'm not just saying this because I want more. Really, I'm not. I'm saying this because I am sorry at the way I exploded last time, and I know how it is to like a story, but simply not have time to review. Believe me, I (unfortunately) feel that all the time. I only exploded because I was frustrated and insecure, and I apologize immensely for taking it all out on you guys, my lovely readers. So please accept my apology and enjoy my newest update!

Chapter 8: Getting to Know You

Over the next few days, Nathaniel and Clara's friendship blossomed. That's not to say there weren't hitches along the way, for example, when Clara caught Nathaniel staring at her for too long one day when she was bent over arranging some books on a bottom shelf in the library, or whenever Clara went a little too far in teasing Nathaniel about matted nature of his hair or the dirtiness of his claws, but in general, they got along pretty well. Nathaniel would always have a hard time opening up to Clara when she started asking him about his past, and Clara was sometimes hard put to look past the prejudices she formed on her first day in the mansion, but as long as their conversation never strayed to the dark room on the third floor or least of all the pinkish, otherworldly rose that was kept there, their friendship grew steadily, strengthening with every day Clara spent in the old house.

Unfortunately, due to Clara's hurt ankle, it was impossible for them to go outside in the snow, a fact that Clara moaned about at least three times every day. However, there was nothing they could do about the situation other than wait, and wait they did. Before they even realized it, three days of laughter and labor passed right before their very eyes, as it became Clara's mission to have the whole house—with the exception of the room on the third floor, of course—cleaned and cobweb-free before New Year's Eve. Clara and Nathaniel had agreed to hold a grand ball for the two of them and celebrate the coming of a better, brighter year, and they were both looking forward to it, although neither could exactly say why…

New Year's Eve dawned bright and clear. Sunlight glinted off the snow, dazzling Clara's eyes as she gazed out the enormous windows in her room. Sliding out of bed, she gingerly tried resting her weight on her sprained ankle before she got up. A dull pain coursed through her unbound foot, but when the wrappings wound themselves around her leg with the aid of another invisible servant, Clara found to her extreme joy that she could at last walk on her own. It seemed that the magic of the house helped to speed along her recovery, for she had been unable to put any weight on the ankle only four days earlier. Walking carefully over to the closet, she pulled out a long pink and red dress that accented her creamy complexion, and slipped it over her head. She stood in front of the mirror, head cocked to one side, assessing her reflection. She debated whether or not to do anything with her hair, and finally decided against it, brushing the tangles out quickly and leaving it down loose. She was walking over to the door when a loud knock sounded, startling her. Had she not been accustomed to his roughness, the heaviness of the Beast's knock might have frightened her, but as she was used to his nearly violent tendencies, she smiled brightly and moved more quickly towards the door, pulling it open. The Beast stood before her in a thick shirt and black khakis that could have fit at least two men inside, smiling widely. He had abandoned all qualms of smiling with his teeth, and while the Beast's grim was certainly the most menacing smile Clara had ever seen, it was still a smile, and she welcomed it. She smiled up at him for a few moments more before breaking the silence.

"Look! I can walk on my own now," she said, extending her tightly wrapped ankle for his inspection. Every morning began with the same routine. She would open the door, smiling broadly, before exclaiming 'Look!' and pointing out something new and improved about her ankle. The morning before she had shown him the small cane that was the only support she needed to walk around with, abandoning the crutches with disgust. The Beast had found them in the snow after half an hour of searching when she refused to be carried from room to room like a child. In keeping with the routine, he bent down and examined the proffered object, giving a 'humph, not bad,' before straightening with a grin and stepping slightly away from the door to allow her to exit the room.

"What shall we do today?" he asked, and Clara knew he was expecting more tedious tasks of dusting the library or restoring the front hall to its formerly glorious appearance. However, Clara had another pastime in mind, and smiled widely up at him.

"What say you to a large snowball war?" He stopped dead in his tracks, staring at her. There was silence for several seconds while he processed her last sentence, before he summoned his voice once more.

"You mean a snowball fight?" he said nervously, obviously never having participated in a snowball war before, and rather sacred of the whole idea. Clara raised her eyebrows slightly, before smiling evilly and advancing on him.

"What, you're not scared, are you?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.

"N-no! Of course not," he replied quickly, composing himself and grinning back at her. "Well," he continued, "not for myself at least."

"What do you mean?" she asked suspiciously.

He adopted a tone of falsely sincere sympathy, "Well, you can only hobble so fast on that ankle, so I will easily pummel you. Are you sure you want to go through with this? I would accept your surrender now, as you are destined for defeat…"

Clara raised one eyebrow, saying cryptically, "We'll see about that…" and with a merry cackle, she turned on her heel and walked confidently down the stairs, her limp barely even noticeable. However, at that minute she realized that she was still wearing her indoor slippers, and was forced to turn back around, forcing the words through firmly clenched teeth, "Would you care to tell me where I might find a coat and boots?"

Recognizing her struggle, the Beast grinned widely, and walked slowly up to her, answering softly, "No." before running past her, leaving her in the proverbial dust behind him—for due to Clara, there was not a speck of dust to be found in the house—shouting at his rapidly disappearing back,

"You're going to pay for teasing me so, Mister!"

Wham! Yet another icy snowball hit him directly on the muzzle, sending him staggering back into the snow behind him.

"Oh, sorry! I didn't hurt you did I?" came Clara's voice from across the war zone as another snowball came flying through the air, narrowly missing his head.

"Taunting her was a bad bad idea," he thought, as he dodged the bullets. If this was Clara with a sprained ankle, he would be helpless against her with a healthy one. You're already helpless, said an annoying, nagging voice in the back of his head. He snarled at the thought, and assessed his options. Under the circumstances, the one that seemed most logical to him was Retreat! but he knew that if he gave in to that self-preserving impulse he'd never live it down. Another option was to return fire, but he had already found that his enormous arms were not built to throwing things, and thus his aim had been disgraceful. This option he also scratched off his list. That left him with one unfortunate alternative, but as he thought about his more and more—still dodging fire from Clara—the idea didn't seem so bad after all. He grinned wickedly, before putting his plan to action.

Oh, she was going to give him so much grief about this fight, Clara thought, and then laughed. No, not a fight, a massacre. And yes, she had got him back for teasing her and then some. She had just used up all her ammunition, and was in the process of creating more snowballs when she heard a soft footstep behind her. Standing up and spinning around in the snow as fast as her ankle would allow, she was met with the single most terrifying sight of her short life.

Standing in front of her was the Beast with an enormous snowball in his arms and an evil smile on his face. He opened his mouth to give a battle cry and dump the snowball all over Clara, when a small, compact throw hit him square on the nose. His arms, which were raised above his head, suddenly gave way, and the snowball crashed down on his own head, covering him from top to toe with cold, wet snow. He stared at her, and she returned his stare until the twitching of her mouth became too much to suppress, and she burst out laughing, her gleeful giggles echoing down the silent street.

However, with tears running down her cheeks, Clara was not watching when the Beast sprang forward with an almighty cry of "Geronimo!" and all three hundred pounds of furry wet, massive Beast swept Clara off her feet and landed her two feet deep in a snow drift. Of course, she brought him down with him, and they spent nearly two minutes tumbling around in the snow before their strength left them and they lay there, wet, panting and the oddest combination of freezing cold and sweating either of them had ever experienced. How long they lay there, neither could say, but they soon decided that the cold was just too cold, and the Beast helped Clara to her feet as together they stumbled inside. There was a change of clothes for both of them lying by the fireplace, and the thoughtfulness of the servants' gesture brought tears to Clara's eyes. She ducked into the bathroom to change and when she came out, the Beast was dressed in a soft tee shirt and a new pair of sweats, staring into the fire. She hobbled over next to him, and sat down directly in front of the fire, before looking up at the Beast. He was close enough to the fire to be slightly steaming as his hair dried, and Clara thought it looked like a good idea. Turning around so that her back was to the fire, she ran her fingers slowly through her hair, letting the heat from the fire help to dry her wet curls.

After ten minutes of this treatment in silence, her hair was dry, and she glanced up at the Beast standing beside her, frozen staring off into space. What he was thinking, she couldn't guess, but she could tell it brought some pain to him, so she reached up and tugged slightly on the bottom of his sweats. He stirred and looked down into her questioning gaze, but he merely smiled slightly in response. She glanced beside her and patted the rug, asking silently for him to join her on the floor, and he complied wordlessly, sinking down with unusual grace to sit beside her. His fur was warm and dry by that point, and Clara moved over slightly so that she could lean her head against his shoulder. She could feel him tense at first, but after a moment he relaxed, slipping an arm behind her so she could better lean against him. They stayed in that position, immobile, gazing into the fire, until the small ring of the bell alerted them to the servants' presence. Not expecting to be interrupted, Clara looked up at the Beast.

"What do they—" she started curiously, but he cut her off.

"If you really want this ball you've set up to happen, you should go get ready," he said softly, "It's getting to be close to dinner time…" At which point, Clara stood up quickly, wincing slightly as she remembered belatedly about her sore ankle. She noticed his concerned look, and tried to divert his attention,

"Oh God! What time is it?" But he would not be dissuaded.

"Are you sure that ankle of yours is strong enough to dance on?" he asked, looking up at her from his place on the floor.

"Yes, of course," she said dismissively, and then continued on a different note, "Well I am going to change. I'll meet you back down here at eight."

"Better make that eight-thirty," he said, "Its already seven-fifteen."

She gave a small yelp, and hurried from the room, calling behind her, "Eight-thirty it is, then! And don't be surprised if I'm fashionably late!" The last sound he heard from her was her chiming laugh as she hurried up the stairs.

A/N: first order of business: Sorry sorry sorry sorry! To all my fantastic reviewers, thank you thank you thank you. For a) sticking by me in my crappiest of moods and b) all your comments and criticisms, truly, every single one makes my day over and over again. thank you! now, for the personalized:

M: I know exactly what you mean. yes, its quick, and yes, it bugged me when i was writing it, but here are my reasons for not changing it: a) if you watch the movie, the Beast falls in love with Belle remarkably quickly. maybe it has something do do with the fact he's been able to change over 200 years, i don't know... b) he watches her all the time in the mirror, as I alluded to (maybe not enough) with the "Show me the girl" moment in Chapter 3 and c) Its not really as quick as it came across. in the beginning, he is intrigued, but not in love per say. then he feels attracted to her, but its really mainly an instinctual reaction to her. so yes, he does fall for her in about 5 days, but i speak from experience that when you live with someone for even that short amount of time with that intensity of interaction, you can fall for someone in a fraction of the time you would in a normal situation. so sorry if it all seemed too abrupt, but I didn't want this story to ramble on too long, and have my readers get bored. hope you still like it though despite its flaws =] thanks again and again!

Lauren: thank you for the advice. I will address them separately: 'princess-style': i agree with you completely. if I ever go back and edit the story and repost, i will certainly change that. "Chuckle": oops. thats all i can say. obviously it came across as being less cute than i intended. in my mind, Nathaniel was not laughing at the fact that she was crying as though it was humorous that she was upset, but more that she tried to be strong and cover it up with an excuse as obvious as 'something in my eye.' However, now that I think more about it, maybe it was too cute for Nathaniel at that point. I don't know. that will be something i will have to work on if i ever go back and change things. hope you enjoyed the update, and sorry for exploding. thanks!

blackbeltgirl95: thank you so much! you have no idea how much that means to me =] hope you enjoyed the update!

YGUYGUYG: Sorry! I didn't really mean to explode- well, i did at the time, but now i feel bad about it. I know exactly what you mean, and I'm glad you reprimanded me about that, i needed to hear it. i was getting too spoiled with my reviews. so thank you a bushel and a peck, and i hope you like the story despite my temper tantrums. =]

jackiemac916: sorry! wow, I've been saying that a lot, haven't i? trust me though in that i mean every single one! I'm glad you're enjoying it, and found the wolf thing clever. I was having the hardest time with that part, and i'm glad i pulled it off for the most part. thanks again!

I think that's it for now. as I said to jackiemac916, while I've been saying sorry and thank you a whole bunch this chapter, i really do mean ever single one. You guys are reason I keep going, and even when I explode, know that its only because I miss hearing from you, no matter what your comment may be. So know that you really are loved, and are incredibly important. And please, for the love of god, don't feel bad when a spoiled author like me throws a temper tantrum, because you all are truly special and are the reason so many stories get written every day. so thanks again!

xoxoxo A-N