Belle's voice was sharp as a whip. "What is the meaning of this?"

Rumple did not cower, nor did he stare aggressively at her. Instead, he had a simple, pointblank, if somewhat concerned expression. "The girl needs a home."

"Look," Belle held out her arms in a defiant, defensive manner, "I get that saving people's lives is your thing…but you don't bring strays home. She has to go."

"Why can't we adopt her? She's a good kid, and she's allergic to shoes," Rumple petitioned.

The five-year-old girl was outside, climbing trees. Rumple had just brought her home and informed his pregnant wife he wanted to adopt the kid. He had also explained the horrible truth that Chrissy's parents hadn't cared about her and her brothers had staged it so she would be killed.

He understood his wife felt her work was cut out for her with the new baby on the way. She was unable to keep up with the housework as she had before her pregnancy. She often lost her train of thought and sometimes couldn't remember why she'd walked in a certain room until she had left.

He understood she was stressed, but a part of him simply couldn't abandon the kid, even if it meant his wife divorced him.

With all his heart, he loved Belle. And he could understand she was short on empathy with her mind full of horrible things that could happen to their baby. The need to protect the kid even before the birth. But he couldn't understand why she wasn't allowing herself a shard of empathy now, when this girl so badly needed it.

Which was why when Belle uttered a sound of pure frustration and stomped her foot, Rumple said calmly, "Can you try to envision how you would've felt if you were her in your childhood?"

A tormented expression stole on Belle's face. She almost started crying but got a grip. "Okay, look…I get it's tragic, but I had a plan! You and I were supposed to have our own kids! From the moment I saw you. I never planned to adopt. I just wanted to marry you. Okay?" She sucked back even more tears and wiped her face with the back of her hand. Wetness showed her she hadn't managed to swallow them all. "I used to be a princess!"

She continued, "And now I'm sitting here, doing housework. Yes, I like to be independent, but these clothes don't wash themselves. Gosh, I am losing it, and most of the chores around the house are my and my friends' mess since you're almost never home! I should be the one cleaning it, I should be accountable since I'm an adult making the mess, yet I feel so goshdarn overwhelmed! I am drowning here…and I shouldn't be."

Rumple put his arms around her and rubbed her back soothingly.

"I'm fat, and…how can you even be attracted to me when I'm like this?"

"Oh, sweetheart. Everything will be fine, but can we please at least give her a temporary home? She might actually help with chores."

Hiccupping, Belle wailed, "So far all she's done is track mud in the house and knock over a glass lamp."

Rumple sat on a kitchen chair and pulled Belle onto his lap. He blew his breath up by his forehead. "I cleaned up that lamp, and it was ugly anyway. A gift from someone who didn't like it. I mean, it was a good lamp," he admitted. "It had a nice glow. But it was ugly, and it's hardly a 'gift' when the person who gives it to you uses you as a trashcan." He stroked her hair back. "I'm not saying it won't be a challenge to have Chrissy around, but she is in dire need of a home where she is wanted and doesn't feel unnecessary. How would you like it if you died giving birth to our child and I died in battle, and no one would take our baby or raise it?"

Lowering her head to his shoulder, Belle sighed. "You make a very strong point. I'm just so tired of cleaning and feeling like no matter how much I do it, there's always another plate that isn't shined enough…"

"And that feeling is likely going to increase tenfold when the baby comes because babies don't do anything for themselves…would you rather go home to your father?" Rumple wondered. "You had servants that would care for the baby."

Belle stood off his lap but kept her hands pressed against his shoulders. "No. Way. I'd have to marry Gaston. Uh-uh. Ain't doing it. I'll cook, I'll clean. I'll curtsy," she said through gritted teeth, "but I will not marry that…" She sighed heavily without finishing her sentence then went outside to talk to Chrissy.

Squinting up at the kid, Belle marveled, "I've never seen someone climb a tree so high before."

Sitting proudly, leaning up against the tree trunk on her particular branch, bearing the expression of a content black panther, Chrissy murmured lazily, "Yes, I was always the best climber of all my brothers and their friends. It's what I'm good at. Some kids can spit. I can climb."

"I used to be a princess. Princesses aren't allowed to be good at anything, except being pretty," Belle sighed. She played with her own hair, thinking what if she were in Chrissy's shoes. She shuddered. "Look, kid…" Without thinking, she reached for one of the lower branches and lifted her foot in preparation to climb. Her widening belly pressed against the bark of the tree and reminded her she was pregnant.

Her lips rounded. It was the only time since she'd found out that she'd forgotten. Lowering her second foot to the ground, she leaned her back up against the bark and craned her neck so she could get a decent glimpse of the young girl. Chrissy was in a shadow cast by a neighboring tree, but splotches of sunlight surrounded her, making looking right at her a bit painful.

"I can't make any guarantees that Rumple will be your adopted father. We weren't looking for a child. But for now, you can stay. He will be keeping an eye out for someone who might want a little girl, and I will too…" She faltered. A part of her wanted to promise that she might keep the girl. But how could she when the kid might get her hopes up?

Instead, she settled on, "We don't know what tomorrow may bring. But do you think you might can help me with some of the household chores?"

Chrissy made a face. "Chores?" she repeated in a strangling voice. Then she shrugged. "I like to peel carrots."

"You can help me cook a bit then. You can be an apprentice! Except I'm not the best cook." Belle dropped her gaze to the ground by her shoes. She couldn't look at the kid anymore. The sunlight was burning her eyes.

By her simple brown house shoes there were a couple of vibrant purple flowers.

Most of the flowers around here were orange, so she took that as a good sign.

"Usually my friends come over, and they bring food, but that's when Rumple isn't here. Tonight, I have to cook. It'll be you, me, Rumple, and the baby." She touched her stomach.

Chrissy tilted her head at Belle. "You don't want to be my mom, do you?"

Belle wet her lips. Instead of answering, she suggested, "Why don't you come down and help me get dinner started?" Then she strode into her home without waiting to see if the kid could get down on her own. From what Rumple had told her, she assumed Chrissy could take care of herself.

When she put her arms around Rumple's shoulders, she murmured, "The girl feels like a stranger to me."

The Ogre Slayer didn't meet her gaze when he spoke honestly. "The moment I met her, she felt like my family."

Belle bit her tongue because it was goading her to snap, "Well, then, find one of your cousins and ask them to adopt her."

In all the time she'd been married to Rumple, this was the first time they'd been polar opposites on a matter. Eighteen years after seeing him for the first time.

She supposed the biggest reason she didn't want to adopt Chrissy was because she'd been an only child and had never mourned her lack of a sibling. But her reasons didn't matter. All she knew was her gut feeling shrieked No. And Rumple's was pleading Yes.

It would have been, she deduced as she began to get ingredients out of the refrigerator for dinner, so much easier if the thing they disagreed on was what do have for dinner. Compromising would be a piece of cake then.

But as it was, she wasn't sure they could compromise on this matter. If Rumple had already given his heart to Chrissy and if he was already ready to be her father figure…but Belle blocked him, wouldn't he resent Belle if they couldn't find the kid a good home? And could Belle really open her heart to the child? It was the right thing, she knew. But it didn't change how she felt.

She couldn't be Chrissy's mother if her heart wasn't in the right place.

Chrissy came streaking in, snatched a carrot and peeler off the counter, and began tearing the carrot up.

Watching the kid out of the corner of her eye, Belle thought to herself, And perhaps it will just take some getting used to.

Still, she couldn't believe Rumple had come home with a big smile on his face and had said he told the girl, "Belle will love you!" Did he not know her? Certainly, she'd loved to play with the little girls whose paths she'd crossed, and certainly he'd never (in eighteen years of knowing him) tried to bring a kid home. So maybe it was a bit much for her to expect him to know she wouldn't be thrilled…

…but a part of her, in spite of admiring the five-year-old's cuteness, stirred a lump in her throat as she pondered how little her own husband really knew her.