Belle had been just about to start dinner when the doorbell rang. It wasn't really unusual for that to happen, as Arthur made a habit of coming for dinner most nights (and still insisted on ringing the bell in spite of the fact that she had told him repeatedly he could just come in because she expected him at this point), but the fact that he was here when Bae wasn't was odd. He'd never come over when it was just her.
Still, it would be nice to see him. He'd been avoiding her since his near confession at their last therapist's appointment, and even though she'd spent twelve hours at his bedside during his hospital stay, Bae had been there the entire time and she'd been freshly dumped to go along with the revelation that she was in love with her son's father. It had not been one of her more engaged moments of co-parenting, and she wouldn't deny it.
"Hey," she said as soon as she got the door open. "Bae's not here."
So, that could have gone better as far as greetings went, but he'd looked so happy to see her for that split second before he could remember to cover it up and she hadn't known what to do, so she had panicked. All she could think of was Ruby's voice in her head telling her to take his pants off.
"Oh," he replied, seeming to need a minute to process her meaning. "Where is he?"
"He had a school dance," she reminded him. "I thought I told you, I'm sorry."
"No, you did," he replied. "For some reason I thought it was next week."
"Next week is Halloween," she said. "They're lucky they can get the kids to school when it's just for classes on Halloween."
"I can imagine," he said, smiling just a little. Just enough to tell her she was forgiven. "Well, I suppose I'll see you tomorrow, then."
He turned to walk back to the car before her sluggish brain caught up with what was going on.
"Wait!" she called to him, stalling him halfway and causing him to turn around. "You don't have to go home just because Bae isn't here, you know. You can stay."
He was looking at her like he still wasn't quite sure what she was asking him.
"You can still have dinner," she continued when he didn't say anything. "With me, I mean."
She gave him a smile, hoping he'd take her offer and hoping he'd understand just exactly what she was actually offering here.
"I'd like that," he said at last, coming back to the door and walking into the house after her.
Belle just really hoped she knew what she was doing.
"So why aren't you chaperoning?" he asked from his seat at the kitchen table while she put away the TV dinner that had been about to be her dinner and started taking out the ingredients for stir-fry.
"Oh," she replied. "I'm banned from chaperoning."
"Banned?" he said, sounding incredulous. "How on earth do you get banned from chaperoning?"
"Not by the school," she clarified. "By Bae. I chaperoned a field trip last year and I yelled at one of the kids for trying to climb into a fountain at the art museum. Bae was horrified and refuses to let me attend these things ever since."
"You monster," Arthur said with a little grin at her. "Where will your reign of terror end?"
"Well, on the plus side it does free up my evenings," she replied. "And anyway, I think he wanted to be alone with Emma. Or as alone as he can be with her mom driving him."
Arthur didn't bother hiding his proud little chuckle at that. Belle was pretty sure she should probably think he was too young for girls, but he'd known Emma since the first day of preschool and she didn't really know how to start enforcing girlfriend rules with her eleven-year-old anyway. Anyway, Mary Margaret would be there the entire time. It wasn't like he was really going to have a chance to get up to any trouble.
She busied herself with chopping vegetables, and trying very hard not to enjoy the little intimacy of cooking dinner and talking about her son with a man.
"Do you need help?" he said from closer than she had expected, and she realized that he'd come up behind her while she'd been distracted - while she'd been distracting herself.
"Can you chop the peppers?" Belle asked him, trying hard to keep her voice as neutral as possible.
He nodded and she handed him her knife before going to the fridge to get the leftover chicken she had planned to add to their meal. She'd never had a man help her cook, she realized. It was something she'd only really started doing after Bae, so there had never been the opportunity to do this before. It felt weird in a good way to stand just a hair too close to him as she heated the pan and started throwing stuff into it. Her kitchen was just a little too small for pairs cooking, but she didn't really mind the way their shoulders sometimes brushed or the feel of his body heat soaking into her skin at the parts that were nearest him. Oh God, she had it bad didn't she?
This was ridiculous, she'd had dinner with Arthur before. She'd been on something that was damn close to a date with Arthur before, actually. She'd slept in a bed with him before. But she'd never been alone with him before, she realized. Not like this, anyway. There had always been somebody else in the house or the restaurant. Here, now, it was just the two of them. Bae wouldn't be home for hours still, and until then they were entirely alone. She felt like a tenth grader whose parents were out of town, and somehow she had to remind herself not to kiss him when he leaned around her to put the peppers into the stir-fry.
This was going to be a long night.
Somehow, Belle had talked him into waiting for Bae with her, which had turned into a movie, which had turned into her falling asleep with her head on his shoulder. Not that he minded at all - far from it, in fact. Her leaning on him was one of his guiltiest of pleasures, and sleeping on him was something he'd never known her to do but he couldn't have disliked it if he'd tried.
However, there was the issue that over the course of the film her head on his shoulder had slowly morphed into her head in his lap. He was trying very hard to keep his thoughts platonic and G-rated, but she was snuggling a little bit and that was becoming very difficult. He tentatively reached out and put his hand on her face, brushing her hair back and was relieved when that seemed to relax her. Now that he could look his fill, he found his attention was completely drawn away from the film and onto her. Her face was so pale against the dark wool of his trousers, and she looked so lovely and peaceful – like a fairy tale princess waiting for her kiss.
Well that was a trail of thought it was probably best not to spend too long on. Luckily, before he could get too maudlin and dramatic, Belle interrupted with a soft moan. At first, he thought he'd woken her with his soft caresses, but her eyes remained closed. A little whimper escaped her, then, and he realized she was dreaming. If anything, it was more endearing than before and he smiled down at her when she moaned his name and he completely froze. Was she dreaming about him?
She turned a little bit in her sleep and he could see a slight flush on her cheeks, and she let out another little moan through parted lips. Was she dreaming about...no. No, that couldn't be happening because she'd said his name. And Belle dreaming about him like that was so far beyond the realm of possibility as to be ridiculous. But she was saying his name again and there were parts of his anatomy that were starting to take notice.
It was almost a relief when he felt her begin to stir, giving him time to turn his attention back to the television before she shot up so fast it made his head spin.
"I'm sorry," she said breathlessly, the flush still visible on her face and a thin sheen of perspiration on her chest. "Was I asleep long?"
"Not too long," he fibbed. "I barely noticed."
"Oh," she replied. "Okay. Good."
"It's not a very interesting movie," he said, offering her a way out.
"No, I guess not," she said back. "We could watch something else? Or talk? It's been awhile since we had an actual conversation."
"You never told me why you ended things with George," he said as noncommittally as he possibly could. "What did happen with that?"
Belle's cheeks were still flushed from whatever it was she'd been dreaming of, but he could recognize the way her breath caught just a little bit at the question for what it was – Belle was summoning her courage for what came next and it was all he could do to remain in this relaxed pose when he wanted to be on the edge of his seat with anticipation.
"He ended things with me, actually," she replied at last, watching him so intently with those startlingly blue eyes of hers that he felt trapped by her gaze.
"I knew he was an idiot," Arthur tried to tease but knew it fell flat. "You were too good for him."
She made a little humming sound in her throat and looked away before finally turning back to him.
"Actually," she said. "He broke up with me because…"
She had her lower lip between her teeth and she was still just looking at him, and he didn't even dare to breathe because he couldn't risk missing what was coming next because he knew whatever it was it would be the most important thing he'd ever heard in his life. She was silent so long that he was afraid he might go mad, caught in this moment between knowledge and ignorance and just waiting for her to open up to him.
Finally, she took a deep breath and, seeming to steel herself for what would be next, she squared her shoulders towards him.
"He broke up with me because he realized I was in love with someone else."
It felt like the wind had been knocked out of his chest, and he was having trouble getting his thoughts into any kind of coherent order. What she'd said – what she was almost saying – required something from him, some acknowledgment that he'd heard her and that he understood.
What he did finally do was blurt out a very confused sounding "oh?" because words were hard and if he didn't hear it from her he wasn't sure he'd ever believe it.
"Yeah," she replied sweetly, setting her hand on his knee in a way that had him all but jumping out of his skin. "Arthur, there's really no easy way to say this…"
"Mom, I'm home!" Bae's voice carried from the entryway as he slammed the door behind him.
Belle jerked her hand away from his leg and he felt the loss, but barely had time to register how cold the world felt without her touching him before Bae was bounding into the living room with a cheerful glow on his face.
"Oh, hey dad!" Bae said, coming to sit down with his parents. "Why are you here?"
"I forgot you had a dance," Arthur replied, hoping his voice sounded more normal than it felt.
"Oh, okay," Bae said, apparently accepting what his father had told him even though it felt like an excuse to Arthur.
"How was your dance?" Belle asked, looking at Bae as though she were afraid that breaking eye contact would send all three of them out into the void of space.
"It was fine," Bae replied, a sheepish blush beginning to creep into his cheeks.
"Did you dance with anyone?" Belle said to her son, and Arthur could hear the knowing grin before it was even on her face.
"I'm gonna go to bed," Bae said suddenly, leaping from his perch on the chair facing them and rushing up the stairs faster than Arthur would have thought strictly possible.
"He danced with someone," she said smugly, turning back to Arthur with a smile that made him want to avert his eyes.
"Probably Emma," he replied, letting his gaze wander back to the staircase just in case Bae was considering making a reappearance. "Or, I guess, August."
"It could have been Ava," Belle said softly. "But you're right, probably Emma. And August. I'm glad he's having fun, though. I didn't go to any of my school dances."
"No?" he was trying to reconcile this with the image he'd always had of Belle as a social butterfly who probably had more dates than she knew what to do with. "Why not?"
"For the most part I didn't want to," she said with a shrug. "But even if I had wanted to go I was too shy. If someone had asked me, I'd never have been able to say yes."
"You were shy in school?"
"Shy, and not interested," she admitted. "I had friends – and a lot of them were guys – but it just never quite took that next step."
He wanted to push her for more, try to turn the conversation back to where it had almost gone before Bae's interruption. Everything in him was desperate to hear the words she'd almost said, but the moment was gone now and whatever bravery she'd managed to muster had faded. He could try to get the words from her, but he didn't want them like this. He didn't want to make her tell him, he wanted her to say it because she meant it – because she wanted to.