Cameron and Belle had fallen into a routine after a few weeks of working out the kinks of 'we're having a baby'. When they were in class she was sweet Miss French and he was the evil, cane happy Professor who didn't give a damn about the obviously pregnant teen sat in the front row. Belle's morning sickness was killing her and thankfully most people didn't notice she was pregnant since she was just thirteen weeks but the ones that saw her on a day to day basis, now they did notice, then the silly little rumours started, half of which made no sense. Once was that the baby was Victor's, which obviously, was total crap. Another was that she was a surrogate for him and Jefferson, slightly less ridiculous but still very far from the truth. Even with all the quiet comments as she passed in the corridor no one was brave enough to just come out and ask her, no instead she had to listen to the whispers and see the strange looks. Belle forced herself to cope though, only a few more months then she and Cam would be free to raise their baby and Bae without college and annoying teenagers getting in the way. They wouldn't have to hide.

With everything that had happened Belle had somehow mislaid her copy of Dracula, yes she could just get another from the library but that wouldn't have her notes in it. She needed it, and rather a lot of hormones had led to her going on about the book. Belle didn't mean too, she just couldn't help it. Ruby had looked high and low for it at the apartment and Victor had been though the library for it. Alas it was nowhere to be seen.

It was five to five when a knock came at the door to her and Ruby's apartment. Belle had been getting herself a glass of water while Ruby sat on the couch, hunched over the coffee table working on her Dracula essay. Since she was already standing Belle called out to Ruby a pleasant 'I'll get it' and opened the door.

"Good evening, dearie." Cam greeted.

"Cameron, what are you doing here?" Belle couldn't help the smile that pulled itself onto her face.

"Well, you have been complaining about it for days and so I thought you may want this back."

He held out a much loved copy of Dracula. Its edges where crinkled and Belle recognized it as hers within seconds, taking the book from him and pulling Cam into a hug.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you." She chanted. "Where did you find it?"

"It was in Bae's room, no idea why."

Suddenly Belle remembered reading it on that night the toddler had insisted she stay with him, she must have forgotten to pick it up again. Belle felt so silly, making a fuss over nothing.

"You have just saved my essay."

"I try."

Belle turned letting him into the apartment but Cam froze when he saw Ruby Lucas sat cross legged with a whole forest of paper around her on the couch. Belle didn't seem to notice the sudden change in atmosphere and if she did she said nothing about it.

"Em, Hi." The girl with red streaks in her hair said cautiously.

"Hello." 'God this is uncomfortable' he added in his head.

Belle vanished off to her bedroom where she placed the book back in its rightful place and returned to the man she loved. He wore a dark suit, like always, with a dark green tie. Belle wanted nothing more than to slam her lips to his and knock any and all air from his lungs, to press her tongue to the pink seam of his perfect lips and demand entrance into his warm wet mouth. To feel his body pressed against hers as his hands slid down her body, however Ruby was there so she kindly restrained herself.

"Bae misses you." Cam announced upon her return to the room, probably due to the awkward silence he and Ruby had been in.

"I saw him yesterday."

"Yes but Bae is two, a day is like three to him." Even Ruby chuckled at that.

Belle wasted no time in pulling Cameron into a hug, they hadn't seen much of each other that day and she felt the need to latch onto him and never let go. Cam's hand, the one with his opal ring, slipped down to her slowly growing belly and a fatherly smile took over. His child was in there, slowly growing and one day soon he would they would meet and to be honest, Cam would probably cry. He hadn't been told Bae had been born until three days after but with Belle and the new baby he was determined to do things properly.

"I should get back, I haven't got my next lesson done yet." Reluctantly he released her and pressed a kiss to Belle's pale forehead.

"Fine. Tell Bae I love him."

"Of course. And whoever finally fixed your elevator, thank them for me." Belle smiled, It had taken Max a while but he had finally got it.

With another gentle kiss and a soft 'bye' Cam turned towards the door. The front door was almost half way open when, surprisingly, Ruby called out an uncertain 'wait'. With just a little shock he turned.

"Yes, dearie?"

"Em, Professor Go-Cam-Sir."

Ruby wasn't going to lie, she had no idea what to call him. He was her Literature Professor, but they where in her apartment and he was her best friend's boyfriend. Was he Professor Gold or was he Cameron? She had no idea and she really didn't want to get yelled at for using the wrong one. He shut the door and came closer.

"How about this Miss Lucas?" He began. "In class I remain Professor Gold and here, you can call me whatever you're comfortable with?"

"Oh em..." She hadn't been expecting that. "...Okay, em. Well, Belle calls you Cameron so...so lets give that a go."

"Alright." Cam stood by the arm of the couch with his cane planted between his feet and a calm smile that she had never seen before decorating his face. "What is it I can do for you Miss Lucas?"

"Ruby, we're at the apartment." She was trying so hard for Belle, that and Ruby was rather surprised to see this kind side of him. "You asked us to write an essay on why Quincey Morris dies, but, well I have no idea. He's not really a threat anymore than Harker and Van Helsing where. So..."

Gold chuckled. "You are over thinking it Miss Lu-Ruby. You have a habit of doing that, its why you always get a C rather than B's. You blather too."

"I do?"

Cam just nodded, then sighed and looked down at his watch, Ashley was with Bae until eight, he had time. Belle could see what he was thinking and so wandered off to the kitchen to make him some tea. Much to Ruby's surprise Cameron sat down beside her and reached for her half done essay.

"Let me read what you've already done, and pass me that pen."

In pure shock that he was actually helping her Ruby passed the black ball-point pen. Within a minuet he was crossing out bits and changing others. Time passed and Cam sipped his tea as he flipped through double checking his crossing out while Ruby just watched in amazement. Belle had already finished hers but after walking Cordelia she still settled down at the breakfast bar and went through it looking for more to add now she had her copy of Dracula back.

"You don't need any of this, Ruby." He turned the notepad towards her. "These points aren't relevant, we don't need to know that he proposed to Lucy."

"But I don't know why Quincey needed to die. He was so mysterious and handsome. Oh and American which makes him unique."

Cameron chuckled deep in his throat and Ruby shot him a what-the-hell-is-so-funny look.

"Exactly Ruby. You're over thinking again. Like you said he's mysterious and American, the only American. We know the least about Quincey and his family. He doesn't even have a journal entry." He watched for a moment as the point that Belle had figured out days ago hit her square in the face

"So you're saying that it's because he is mysterious that he dies? He can die because there's no one there to miss him?"

"Now you have it. Who he is in the novel is not a reason for him to live..." Ruby cut him off.

"It's a reason for him to die?"

"Yes."

Time went on and Cameron helped Ruby, giving her pointers and tricks on how not to start blathering. Just simple things, she still had to do the work herself, Ruby took pride in her work and wouldn't even let Belle help her. All to soon though Cam looked at his watch.

"Shit!" Ruby had never heard him swear before, it was rather cool in a teacher sort of way. "Do you think you can manage the rest on your own Ruby? Its nearly eight and I need to get back to Bae."

"Oh em yeah, sure."

Cam nodded in acknowledgement and stood to make his way over to Belle who was on her third cupcake; she thought no one had noticed.

"Enjoying that?" He asked in a teasing voice, startling Belle who almost dropped the cupcake.

"I was." Belle said in mock anger. "Do you think I am eating too much, I feel huge."

Cam took her into his arms with a smile and pressed a gentle kiss to her peach glossed lips.

"Sweetheart, you're beautiful and it's perfectly normal for you to have cravings."

"Yeah I know, but still Ruby only got these cupcakes today."

"Oh help yourself babe, I need to work off the one I had." Came Ruby's kind voice from the living area.

The lovers chortled for a moment before Cameron rested his hand on her belly.

"I love you." He whispered to his child.

"And the baby loves you. Mama does too."

After a moment of kissing Cam looked down at his watch, swore and left with the vow he would see her the next day. Ruby had thought that Belle and her Literature Professor was just a crush that he had taken advantage off at first but now she saw that it was way more than that. Not Belle and her Literature Professor, it was Belle and Cameron. She could see there were two sides to him: the teacher that scared everyone in his class, and the man who loved Belle with every fibre of his being, who hadn't run away when Belle got pregnant, who had sat and helped her with an essay she didn't understand. In that moment Ruby mentally moved him from the 'tolerated because he's with Belle' list to the 'Liked because he's a good guy at heart' list.

XXXX

A few days past and the best friends found themselves in their Literature class like every Tuesday, Ruby chewing her strawberry gum as she wrote and Belle with her hand resting over her growing baby bump. Cam was down by his desk giving the Dracula essays a last once over before he gave them back.

Gold had a system of passing back essays, he would wander up the stairs and set them on desks to be handed down along the rows, every now and then making a comment about the best and worst. He only did it because it put the whole class on edge. He looked up every now an then to check on Belle who had been feeling a little 'odd' lately as she put it.

"Oh." Belle suddenly said quietly and a little confused.

"What?" Ruby was worried that was, until Belle smiled.

"I just felt the baby kick."

"Oh my God, you did?"

Belle nodded and took Ruby's hand placing it over the spot where the soft thumps where coming from.

"Oh that is so cool."

"That's the first time I've felt that."

"Well what are you thirteen weeks?" Belle nodded. "The stuff Victor printed out said it would be around now."

"You read that?"

"Yeah." Ruby nodded turning in her seat a little so she could feel Belle's baby bump better. "If I'm going to be the perfect Aunt Ruby, I need to know these things."

Belle liked the sound of Aunt Ruby, she was just about to say so when she heard Cam speak from half way up the steps, a pile of papers in one hand and his can in the other. Belle couldn't help but notice he was wearing the purple button down shirt she had bought him after she ripped the buttons of his last one in a fit of passion. Belle smiled at the memory, it was a good night, unless you were a shirt.

"Harrison Roberts?" A cautious hand went up at the end of a row behind Belle and Gold set it down in front of Mary Margaret with a look that said pass-it-on-dearie. "Your conclusion doesn't conclude." It went like that for a few moments, him in his Professor Gold persona handing out essays, until he suddenly spoke again. "Francesca De Marko?" Another had shot up. "Well done, dearie. You made some good points." Francesca looked like she was about to faint. More papers where handed out and then he got to Mary Margaret and set hers down with disappointment in his eyes. "Miss Blanchard, do learn to spell. Quincey has an E in it and ambivalent is V-A-L not V-E-L. Also Van Helsing is two words."

Mary Margaret just ducked her head, she got so lost in the writing sometimes she forgot to check her spelling. He finished handing out the essays, but not Ruby and Belle's those he kept on his desk. Why? They had no idea, but Ruby was terrified she had failed, yet that wouldn't explain why he had Belle's too.

"On Thursday we will be starting Frankenstein so I want you to all go and read it, I want you to know at least the first three chapters by heart. Class dismissed."

Everybody jumped up, the ones that had done badly off to lick their wounds. Belle had to move a little slower as the baby was still kicking, but she soon got to her feet. Then he called out again.

"Miss Lucas, Miss French. A word."

Together they made their way over to his desk and then waited for everyone to be gone so as they could drop the charade.

"Cam!" She practically screamed the moment the door shut. "The baby kicked, come here."

Cameron's eyes widened as his hand was pulled to rest on her belly, the kicking was soft and painless but Belle was beginning to think their child would be a kick-boxer. He didn't speak he just stood their with a grin plastered on his face until the thumps slowed and stopped. That was his baby.

"What was it you wanted Cameron?" Belle eventually asked bringing him back to the real world.

"Oh, em. Your essay, A as usual." He handed the stapled stack of paper to Belle. "But I thought I would call both of you down here rather than just Ruby and scare her half to death."

"Too late." Announced the girl with red streaks in her hair.

"Here, take a look how you did."

Ruby took her essay, her eyes widened more than anyone thought possible when she saw the grade in a little ring.

"B+?" She whispered. "A B+?"

"You earned it. No blathering, right to the point. A little more refinement and you could be getting the same grades as Belle..."

Before he could finish his sentence Ruby had him in a hug, squeezing his neck ever so slightly and almost crying, she was so happy.

"I need a B if I want to take over Granny's." She began then started chanting 'thank you' about a million times before she realized the bear hug she'd locked him in and jumped back like she'd been burnt. "Sorry."

"Its no matter, dearie. But we should cut this short, Dean Mills would love to get her teeth into this."

"Bitch."

"You said it Ruby." Belle laughed, she turned her attention to Cam. "Can I stay at your place tonight? Ruby has a date and I miss Bae."

"Of course, Sweetheart."