AN: Shorter, sorry about that! Next chapter will have more characters making their way into the fic!

Part Two: Lemurs and Gelato

Belle was in the middle of listening to August talk about his latest character, a bespectacled man with an umbrella, when she set down her tea cup and asked a question that had been bothering her for a very long time.

"Don't you ever want to go outside?"

The wooden man stopped mid-sentence, and if the question hadn't have been so persistent, Belle would've felt bad about interrupting, "No. I've been outside."

Belle rolled her eyes, leaning forward in the chair that sat across the work table from his. She had brought it in after the third Friday, "Obviously, or you wouldn't have made your way inside. But don't you want to go out? Do something besides stare at a blank piece of paper?"

"…it's writing."

Belle rose her eyebrows, "It's sulking."

Again, August gave the affected sigh, "I can't leave. Not like-"

"Like?"

"Not…the way I am now," he amended. "Turns out, I'm sensitive to staring."

Belle hummed, tilting her head, "You're something of a liar, aren't you?"

The widening of his eyes was the only response she needed, but what followed merely confirmed it, "I'm not a liar."

"You are a liar," Belle confirmed, taking a thoughtful sip of tea, "I believe I have proof."

"What's that?"

"You know how last week you were telling me about your trip to Nepal?"

"Yeah?"

"And the lemurs?"

"You think I'm a liar because I talk about lemurs?"

"Lemurs aren't native to Nepal. I read about them."

"You read about lemurs?"

Belle bit her lower lip, "I was somewhat curious. But let's not derail the subject."

"I saw them at a zoo," August clarified, "Honest."

She snorted, "That's still misleading."

"But not lying."

Belle frowned, her grip on the tea cup tightening just a little, "Playing with words is the same as lying, you know. Just…a way of sidestepping the guilt."

August sent her a look of mock outrage, "First I'm a liar. Now I sidestep guilt."

"You are hiding in a wall."

Silence. August took a sip of his coffee and Belle tried hard this time not to listen to the sloshing noise it made as it traveled to his hollow stomach, "…what makes you think I'm guilty?"

"Because I don't think it's your…condition that makes you afraid to go outside," Belle stated simply.

"And you're an expert on my condition too, I take it?"

She bit the inside of her cheek, looking down, "…no. But I do know what a person who feels ashamed of himself, but also can't admit to it, looks like."

"Personal experience?"

"Of a sort."

"What sort of sort?"

"Why don't you go outside?"

He ran his hand through his hair, "Because."

Belle pursed her lips, "Can I offer some advice?"

August chuckled, shaking his head, "You've been doing it without permission for a few weeks now."

She smiled, hardly phased, "I don't think the ending to your story is going to come from my library."

"Your library."

"I do operate it."

"Don't you mean the town's library?"

"Derailing again."

"I'm a dirty liar, I got it," August bit out, and Belle was intrigued by the sudden shift of tone. The harsh quality to the man's words filled the air, a tenseness settling over them that hadn't been there before.

"It's…it's alright to be a liar, sometimes," she offered, "Writers have to be liars. People…" she stared at her tea cup, "People don't want the truth as it is, most of the time. You have to go around it."

The wooden man looked down, not meeting her stare, "I'm. I'm not someone who lies to get people to the truth. I lie because it's…easier." He shook his head, "It's always been easier."

Belle smiled, "That's probably why you have writer's block, you know. The easy way out usually ends to it."

August chuckled, looking up, "You're a funny girl, you know that?"

"I've been told. Twice. By you," Belle sipped from her cup, "For what it's worth, I do think you need to go outside. If only for an hour. It can't be good for your mind, hiding in the dark all the time."

He frowned, staring at the tea cup as well, "Maybe. Later."

She nodded, "Later might be good. Now, why don't you tell me about Mr…Hopkins?"

"Hoppins."

"Right. Arnie Hoppins. He's the hero?"

August shook his head, "No, not really. The hero's…the hero's in the works. Arnie is more like the mentor figure."

"And a friend to the carpenter, yes?"

"Yeah. That's him."

"Well, I guess the first question about your plot is what they're going to do. Why tell a story about them? What haven't they done?"

His wooden fingers tapped against the table. Belle wondered if that meant they would be having good luck in the foreseeable future, "It's not really their story. I mean, they have their stories, but they can't be concluded without the hero's."

That was interesting. And not at all a…what had she been calling it, with Rumpelstiltskin? A projection.

"And this hero, what's he like?"

The tapping sound stopped, his fingers stilled, "He breaks things."

"Like a maniac?"

"No. He just. He's a weaker character. Circumstances get away from him."

"And these circumstances are affecting Hoppins and Gelato?" Belle paused, "I still think that's really not the name you want to go with for that character, by the way."

August gave a slump of his shoulders, "It's a working name. But yes, he needs to figure out how to fix…everything."

"Hm," Belle said, contemplating it. "I think it might be too much material."

"What?"

"You can't really expect one person to fix everything. That's too much. No one would believe that as possible."

August shook his head, "What he broke. He needs to fix it."

"You said it affects Hoppins and Gelato, right?"

"It does."

"Then I honestly think it would be a more compelling story if they were to get more involved. There's no…there's no meaning to one person doing everything. Real people aren't like that. They need each other," Belle shrugged, "It just doesn't seem likely that someone can completely change their behavior without a little support."

He was quiet for so long that Belle was beginning to worry if she was ruining his entire plot. Or perhaps initiating an existential crisis of some sort. It was hard to tell, with that thin line of projection.

"No. It has to be just him."

"Why?" She asked, just a little too sharply. Perhaps the projection concept was contagious.

"Because he's…stuck, otherwise."

"Stuck?"

August nodded, and his gaze drifted to his fingers as he made wooden joint by wooden joint curl into an equally wooden fist, "Stuck."

Belle cleared her throat, "If you ask me, part of that might be because he doesn't want to go outside."

He looked up sharply and gave a short laugh with no humor, "That obvious, huh?"

"A little," Belle admitted, "But then again…let's just say this particular plot is more like a re-read of sorts."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Why?"

August shrugged, "You're…the way you are."

"I hope that's not like gelato," she said flatly.

"No, I just have a hard time seeing you relating to…all this."

Belle drummed her painted fingernails against the table in a way echoing August's earlier motions, "Relating to what?"

"Being stuck."

She exhaled, "I was stuck for a very long time, Mr. Booth."

"Mr. Booth." He echoed with dry humor.

"You can call me Miss French if that helps."

"I think I prefer Belle."

"Good, me too. French was something that came with that whole…curse thing."

August stared at her for a few beats. Something that again made her wonder what was going on behind those painted blue eyes, because whatever it was, it seemed to be of a conspiring and enigmatic nature, "…do you know a Moe?"

Belle cleared her throat. She did not know a Moe. She knew a Maurice. Maurice would not have chained her to a cart or threatened to destroy her true love. Maurice…maybe Maurice wasn't as Maurice as she remembered. It had taken a while, but Belle was slowly coming to the realization that most girls did not decide their fate to eternal servitude just to show that they could, actually, decide something for themselves.

"Yes."

"Related?"

Belle offered an apologetic smile, pushing out her chair and standing up, "I'm sorry, I just remembered that there's going to be a few students coming in to work on a history project soon. I'll be back later?"

August nodded, but the stare he sent her spoke volumes for it being so…manufactured.

It was the sort of look that made Belle think, as her hand went to the leather spine of Treasure Island, that maybe she could understand why Oakley didn't want to go speak to Gelato.