Author's Note: Ah, poor Beastie. This final chapter explores Beast dealing with the regret of the curse he brought upon those in his employ that he's come to care about like family. While Agathe restored them to animate life, he knows because of him they're all stuck in their enchanted forms forever. For so long he acted without caring who he hurt and now that he cares his past wrongs kind of crash down upon him like an emotional ton of bricks.

Plus, I know some have said over the years that BatB is a story about bestiality. I think that idea misses the point of the story, but since in this story the curse is not lifted, I thought it appropriate to address that this would realistically be on their minds, and may make Beast doubt that she should stay with him since his beastly form would dictate their relationship not cross boundaries that wouldn't have to be considered were he a human.

So a lot of emotional turmoil for Beast. But he's no stranger to emotional turmoil, now is he?

The next morning, after breakfast, Belle, the Beast, and Maurice, who Agathe did indeed see safely to the castle, sat by the fire. It had been an awkward morning for the Beast, spent in the presence of the man to whom he'd been so cruel. And he knew it had to be awkward for Maurice as well. The Beast looked at the old man, trying to figure out how to make an apology that would mean anything, finally breaking the silence.

"It's foolish I suppose...for a creature like me to hope he might one day earn your forgiveness."

"You seemed to have earned Belle's," Maurice said thoughtfully. "And she is a pretty good judge of character. I'm not so sure it's foolish."

"I showed her a book in the library that allows its user to go anywhere they wish," the Beast said. "She took us to your former home in Paris."

"I know," Maurice said, pulling the rose-shaped baby rattle from his pocket. "She gave this to me to show she'd been there. To help convince me that you were good and I should help her escape the asylum wagon to come back to you."

"We also found the plague doctor's mask," the Beast said. "I guess I realized when we found out what happened to her mother that you were trying to procure a rose like the rattle."

"I painted this picture," Maurice said. "It was my wife holding our baby Belle and the rattle. A picture of a happier memory but one not long before my dear wife took ill. Each year I would go to another town to sell my music boxes and each year I'd ask what Belle would like from the market. Each year she'd ask for a rose like the one in the painting, and each year I would make sure to bring it. Until this year. I never made it to the market and I suppose you know the rest."

"I will tell you what I told Belle that day in Paris," the Beast said, looking down at the paws on his lap. The paws that would never again be hands. "I'm sorry I ever called you a thief."

"You have my forgiveness sir," Maurice said kindly. "Actually I think I forgave you when I learned from Agathe about your past as she brought me here. Seems roses have no small significance for you either."

"That is true," the Beast said sadly. "Which brings me to something else." He looked up at Belle and took her hand in his large paw. "Belle, I know I said you and your father were welcome to stay here. But...you really should go. Find yourself someone to love and to be who I never can be for you."

"What on earth do you mean?" Belle asked, squeezing his paw. "You're the one I love and you're just fine as you are and I want to stay with you."

"And I cannot even begin to express how desperately I want you to stay with me Belle," the Beast said. "If I must remain under this curse forever your presence here should make it bearable. But it's because of the curse now being permanent that I'd only be holding you back. Had I earned your love in return before the last petal fell I'd be a man. We could marry if you wished. We could have a family. But it can never happen now. Bestiality is what that would be. We love each other but we can go no farther than that. You deserve better Belle."

"I'm fine with you, however it has to be," Belle said tearfully. "I'd have loved to marry you and maybe have children with you but if that can't be I'd sooner be as close to that as we can be than lose you. I thought I lost you last night and that made me realize I love you. Besides...you are human, technically speaking. Just like everybody else here. Well except of course Froufrou. Now, having him as a husband, that would be bestiality, since he's a dog, even in his piano stool form. Perhaps we can't officially marry, but you do see the difference, right?"

"I suppose," the Beast mused. Then he chuckled in spite of himself. "I'm not sure what is more absurd. Picturing you married to a little yapper who actually looks like one or to a barking piano stool."

"I'd say both are pretty absurd," Belle laughed. Then she spoke more seriously. "While I know you and I can never officially marry, you're human enough that we can be close to it, even though we must accept certain boundaries must not be crossed."

"I just can't help thinking you deserve better Belle," the Beast said. "You deserve a man you can be with without having to worry about the kinds of boundaries you do with me."

"I'd like to say something," Maurice interjected. "I never thought I'd hear myself say this after we first met, Monsieur Beast, but from what I see today I think my daughter would be hard pressed to find someone better suited than you, even if you cannot have a traditional married life. The fact you would even consider that she might deserve better confirms it. That's more than could ever be said about Gaston, who, it has become obvious to me, saw her as little more than prey to be conquered, a prize to be won, with no regard whatever to her wishes. You clearly love Belle for who she is. And I know that with you she'll be well cared for even after I'm gone, which is what any father with an unmarried daughter, especially one getting on in years like myself, would worry about. Even though you cannot technically be married, I can tell you'll love and care for her as if you were. Am I right?"

"Of course," the Beast reassured. "I'd treat her just as if she were my wife. At least as close to it as possible without being highly improper. She'll always be loved and cared for here. That is if she's sure she wants to be here. Honestly not only does she deserve better than me, but I deserve much worse than her. If she stays with me it will be in spite of the creature I am."

"It will be because of the man you are," Belle said. "I've forgiven you your past mistakes. Papa has forgiven you. Your staff, even though they now must forever live as objects, have all forgiven you. It saddens me to see you not seeming able to forgive yourself."

"That will be a long time in coming if I ever can," the Beast admitted. "I've done so much wrong, and never cared. Never cared who I hurt. I learned to care too late. I wonder if it would be better if I never started caring for others. I have to believe that caring is better than not, but it hurts. Selfishness has proved itself quite a useful barrier against the pain of knowing how my actions have hurt others. Irrevocably in the case of my staff...and young Chip who has no guilt. Even the dog must forever pay the price for my cruelty."

"I don't get the impression that Froufrou particularly minds being a piano stool all that much," Belle said. "But you were able to undo some of the harm. They were ordinary inanimate objects as specified when the curse became permanent. You got Agathe to restore them all to life."

"By asking her to take my life in their place," the Beast said. "I don't deserve to live after what I put them through. I should still be lying out there, those bullets still entombed within my body."

"Master," Lumiere said, having entered the room and heard the last few minutes of conversation. "Forgive me for eavesdropping, but I must say none of us wish you dead. Had your life been forfeited for ours there's not a single soul in this castle that would not be heartsick. I for one would rather be a living candelabra forever with your company than without."

"I don't know if I'll ever understand why you'd want my company, but I do appreciate it," the Beast said. He gently grasped Lumiere and lifted him to eye level. "You probably don't know but my paw was around you last night just as it is now. I never knew holding a candelabra could be so heart wrenching. It's much better now, with you being, well, you rather than an ordinary candelabra. I just wish I could embrace you as a human."

"But this is how it shall be," Lumiere said. "Please make peace with that Master. And we can adapt." The candelabra, after carefully blowing out the wicks on his...hands...wrapped his metal arms around the Beast's paw and wrist in what could pass for a hug. "See?"

"I'll never shake away the pain," the Beast said.

"Of course you won't," Belle said. "Pain isn't something you can just shake off like Froufrou shakes snow off himself after a romp. The fact you feel the pain you do is a good sign in that it means you have learned to love and care, but it doesn't have to be your whole existence. You don't have to spend your days wallowing in it. You learn from it, get through it the best you can, and move forward a better person."

"We all have the pain of regret of some kind of other," Maurice said. "I could never bring myself to tell Belle this before, and I'm battling myself to tell it now, but perhaps it will help you."

The Beast set Lumiere down and gave Maurice his undivided attention.

"You discovered what happened to Belle's mother, my wife," Maurice went on. "I had to leave while she was yet alive. The doctor warned the longer Belle and I remained the more danger we were in. My wife begged me to go before the awful plague laid claim upon our infant daughter as well. So with reluctance I gathered Belle into my arms and left. When I got us settled I wrote the plague doctor that tended my wife to ask about her. He said she lived another twenty-four hours before her failing body finally let go of her spirit. More than two decades now I've lived with the knowledge that I left my poor wife to live a full day and die alone, except for the company of a stranger in a funny mask. I know I did what I had to do, but if I didn't have our baby to remove from harm's way I'd have ignored the doctor's warning and stayed until she'd passed, possibly sealing my own fate. The grief could have consumed me and nearly did, but I couldn't afford to wallow long. I had a daughter to raise and provide for. So I did. And I can tell you you don't shake away the pain. It gets more dull with time, fading into the background to be less noticeable. But it still does hurt to know I left her to die, though I know I only had one viable choice."

"What about those with another viable choice?" the Beast asked rhetorically. "I didn't have to treat my servants like crap. I didn't have to laugh coldly at that old beggar and dismiss her to what might have been a death sentence had she not really been an enchantress."

"But your other viable choice was hidden from you by then," Lumiere said. "You lost your own mother when you were a small boy, and your father wasn't exactly a stellar role model for how to treat people. You may have had another choice, but you hardly knew it, what with growing up seeing that cruelty was how things were handled."

"We do the best we can given our circumstances," Belle said. "Most of us anyway. Take Gaston for instance, he knew right from wrong and yet he chose wrong. It seems your sense of right and wrong had been rather warped. I'm starting to think this spell you're under, and I know this may be hard to hear, is more a blessing than a curse. It put you in a situation where you had to learn a different way, one you learned a bit of from your mother but then had hidden from you by your father. I have watched as you learned, or relearned rather, a better way and I've watched as, seeing that right and wrong are in fact distinct options, you've chosen the right path."

"I suppose now I must choose what to do with the pain of regret," the Beast said. "For so long I dealt with pain by wallowing or anger. I know lashing out at others in anger is the wrong way. And no one seems to think wallowing for the rest of my days is right. But right now it's all I know to do. And with the curse...or blessing as you're now calling it, apparently with a fairly loose definition of the word, now permanent I have a constant, 24/7 reminder of my past mistakes."

"It'll be a process," Belle said. "And not an easy one. But you've many friends around you and I'll be at your side. You don't have to go it alone. You've learned that love can bring pain. Now it's time for you to start learning that love can also bring healing."

And so began the rest of the Beast's life, as his friends and the one he loved started walking with him on the journey toward healing. It may not have been the happily ever after fairytale ending that so many books in his grand library told of. But, he realized that night as he went to bed, it was preferable to the Shakespearean tragedy it would have been had the enchantress left him on the balcony riddled with bullets, and the rest of the castle inhabitants completely inanimate.