A/N: I've had lots of questions about the upcoming ball. There are only 4 chapters left, so, yes, it is on its way. I'm so glad everyone is so eagerly anticipating it and for the interest you all have in my story. I really appreciate it.
He spends the days avoiding her. He's memorized her chore routine, so he evades her during the mornings. She also doesn't go into his personal chambers, now a haven or a prison depending on how he feels at various moments.
"Papa, if I find a way for you to get rid of the power, a way that doesn't kill you or hurt me, would you do it?"
He hears Bae's voice so often in his head, he's not surprised to hear it now, but the words...he remembers that deal. It's his punishment to remember that broken deal every second for the rest of this infernal, condemned existence until someone plunges that dagger into him, and, gods help him, that's still not enough to just go ask Regina to do it. Bae first. Find him first. At any cost. Pay any price. So why does the boy's question visit him now? Because he's close to giving up? No. No, failure doesn't faze him anymore. If one concoction doesn't work, he tries another, gathers what he can, steals, wheedles, and deals to procure the most powerful substances in the world. He refuses to give up on his son. But then why else revisit that question? Only a nagging idea at the utmost bottom of his heart seems to know, so he buries it more, and will fight it whenever it tries to claw its way up.
A sound calls his attention out of himself. Sitting up, he hears it again and follows it, alarm washing over him.
Her room isn't that far from his, but the door is closed and he won't go in there anymore, not since it gave her such a turn before. But that doesn't mean he can't lean an ear to it and decipher what he can.
Crying, as he feared. Muffled sobs as though she's weeping into her pillow. He doesn't think it's about the encroaching date of the ball. A gentleman would leave it alone, he thinks, never letting on he listens at doors. And perhaps a more princely man would knock and inquire, but he is not that either. So he will bide his time.
He stares at her while she serves dinner, a hard stare. She doesn't react and, in fact, seems to be back to her old self, albeit a more subdued, grayer version of herself.
"What would you be doing in your village right now?" he pries. He waits as she swallows and sets down her spoon.
"Oh. We would, we would probably be visiting my mother's grave," she blurts and inserts more food into her mouth. He stares more. It takes little prompting. "She died around this time when I was a child, so we always go to her grave."
"And put down flowers?"
"No, it's usually too cold for flowers. We string beads around it." She bats her lips with her napkin. "I just hope..." She looks up at him and then at her plate. Go on, he wills. "I just regret not being able to be with my father this time, making sure he's all right."
Depressed Belle won't do, he decides. Something has to be done about it or, or the house will most certainly explode. Mercifully, an idea crops up into his head.