Belle

Belle didn't like to dwell too deeply on the disappearances of her friends on the island. They hurt her deeply, true, but she felt as though she had to honour them somehow. She grieved in private and did her best to build up some kind of work in their name in public. When Helena had vanished, Belle lost her mentor and teacher of all things related to archery. She had continued as best as she could, but she had still been too new to really know what to do.

As a result, the bow began to collect dust.

Now, she felt like she had to at least try once more. She slung the bow over her back and brought her quiver with her to the archery range, settling things down as she pulled on her gloves and readied herself for the task. That said, she did begin to peer down the rows to see if anyone else was present who might be able to offer her a tip or two.

Belle could feel the divot in her bed that she hadn't felt in years. It creaked, how it creaked! She remembered waking up on this bed every day for sixteen years thinking that she ought to ask her Papa to fix it for her because if he could invent such wondrous things as he did, then he could surely invent a solution. She shifted, right into Jacob's warmth.

Awareness, however, came quickly after and something occurred to her -- these two things couldn't possibly happen at the same time. Jacob could be with her, but the bed couldn't be. Or she could be in this bed, but then Jacob wouldn't be here. That meant two frightening things could be coming to pass: first, that horrible bed could be on the island with them. Second, she was home and there was some stranger in bed with her (terrifyingly, for a moment, she imagined with fright that it might be Gaston).

That thought drew her sharply awake, eyes flying open. She sighed with great relief when she traced Jacob's form with her eyes, but that relief quickly turned to shock as she examined the room around her. Wooden walls, Papa's inventions littering her room, rugs on the ground and her books in haphazard piles all around, in her own chaotic order.

"Oh my goodness," Belle gasped softly, drawing off the covers rapidly and shuffling into a pair of slippers and her housecoat as she flung open the bedroom door to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her.

It felt strange to be lingering in her workplace, waiting for someone to exchange stories with. Normally, she saw people exchanging goods and services, but this was a first for her. She couldn't lie -- she found the idea interesting and fantastical. Belle had warned Jacob that she'd be home late from her shift and the moment she was done singing, she had a glass of wine in hand, waiting at the bar for Nick.

Maybe it would be good for her, too. Sometimes, she still felt like her old life was strange and crazy. Maybe if she had the opportunity to talk about it with someone besides Jacob, she wouldn't feel quite so isolated. After all, only Jacob truly knew the whole story. This was a good idea, she thought. And, if nothing else, it meant she would get her fair share of stories from him, too.

Belle had been so grateful to Jane for all the help she had offered and all the lessons, but she felt that sometimes she began to pester her. After all that fuss and to-do with the portal, she'd found a ray of hope in the mess and was just waiting for the right time to pursue it. She'd felt sick for so long and then there'd been the body. Now, though, she was tired of huddling to herself and tired of putting things off.

She wanted to learn more about all the wondrous and mad and perfect things out there and if she didn't take a step out her front door, she was never going to find that. So, she ventured out to the lab when she knew that Fred worked there, knocking apprehensively on the door. "Miss Burkle? I'm Belle, Jane's student. Can I come in?"

After several days, Belle could no longer ignore the signs. She had been so tired that she had barely made it out of bed and her muscles ached fiercely with a sort of fatigue that seemed to be warring with the swelling of her ankles for the most distracting symptom. Once she factored in the irritation and the headaches, she didn't want to do anything, let alone get out of bed.

Maybe, she reflected, it was a good thing that she was still at the Homestead. She couldn't imagine this would go over very well if she had left it. For one, no one would have found her for some time and wasn't that just a scary thought? As it was, she struggled with her bedsheets -- her body a decent temperature, but her limbs sore and she wanted to warm them -- and curled up on her side, making herself as small as she could be.

She just wanted to sleep. Maybe it wasn't right that after three days, she had spent more time asleep than awake, but she didn't care. She felt like she deserved a small break. It would all go away, she told herself. It would all fade.

Belle thought that this was a bad idea.

No, it was a good idea, but in the depths of her ever-working mind where the clockwork ticked away and she had little voices that sounded like Lumiere and Cogsworth, she knew that this was simultaneously a bad and good idea. She loved spending time with Jacob, but she was starting to realize that dating someone inevitably meant there was something else to your interactions -- a physical edge of intimacy that crept up on you.

And it was here at her shoulders now, pushing at her. They had gone to the waterfall and she was ready to swim. She did really love spending time with him, but now that they had been dating for ages and she was starting to understand her feelings, she was starting to understand she wanted a little more than what they were doing.

So, bad idea in a good one.

"You're not going to dive off that, are you?" she said warily, pointing up at the cliff's edge.

When the caretaker of the house had vanished, Belle had noticed that not everything went. Their bedroom emptied, but the room at the northernmost point of the house still held strange scraps, tools, and other assorted miscellany that caught her attentive eye. Belle liked to sneak up into that room in the mornings and pretend that she was back in her Papa's workshop, fingers trailing over sprigs and parts of things that would one day become something incredible and wonderful.

She always left the door open just in case she heard a noise and needed to hurry right back down and out of the hall, pretending that nothing was amiss. As it was, she'd yet to be caught and she didn't fancy the notion of starting, so as she grasped a wrench and a piece of sheet metal, she made sure she was quiet about her work, even though the unmistakable sound of metal moving filled up the room.