A/N: This story intended for Adults. Please respect the author's intention and click the back button if you are not yet 18.

He awoke in the middle of the night to her moans and restlessness.

********EIGHTEEN********

"Belle, what is the matter? Are you well?"

She opened her eyes and then squeezed them shut as she curled in on herself, keening "Oh god, oh god," she gasped. "It's time."

"Time! Are you sure?" he looked at her anguished face "Of course you are sure."

He dashed off to have the midwife sent for and returned and made sure her chamber was prepared for her, he stirred up the fire and turned back the bedding. Then he went back in to retrieve her. She insisted on walking and made it all the way to the bed before collapsing against him in another pain. He lifted her and settled her in the bed. She was uncomfortable and rose again before long. In this way did they pass the remaining hours of darkness, shifting and pacing, worrying.

The midwife arrived and evicted him from the chamber. He refused to go farther then his own room, where he sat in horrified tension as he listened to her labor. The midwife never raised her voice, never panicked and he held on to that. Mrs. Potts came and went, stopping to reassure him. Before the morning had passed he was a father.

Mrs. Potts came to tell him. He had a beautiful, healthy, normal, daughter.

A daughter! He had been marginally prepared for a beast-child. But a daughter! He was stunned. He burst in to see Belle, scandalizing the midwife, whom his beast-feelings kicked out before his higher reasoning could intervene. Mrs. Potts tsked behind him and soothed the lady's feelings, bundling her off to have a spot of tea.

"Belle, it is a girl!"

"I know. I am as surprised as you."

They had at some point ceased to consider a girl-child. He had been unable to imagine a girl-beast, so conversation had centered entirely on boy children, beast-like or otherwise. Girls had been forgot.

But here she was!

He stepped closer, Belle was holding the tiny bundle. He reached toward her and tentatively touched her head.

"Would you like to hold her?"

"May I?" he asked in wonder. She placed the bundle in his arms, instructing him how to support her head.

"She is tiny, and so beautiful."

"I assure you she is not so tiny. She is a perfectly normal, robust babe. And she must have a name."

"A name! I suppose Raphael will not do."

"No, I should think not."

He studied her, his darling Belle, she looked pale and tired, but her eyes were bright and her voice strong. "Are you well, dearest? Did everything go well? Was it awful? I heard your cries and I wept for you; I have never felt so helpless."

"It was painful and difficult, and I shall be lucky to walk in the next several days at least. But It went as well as it could. I should be well in time. And this little one was worth all the effort. Is she not beautiful?"

She was. She was so perfect. And to think, they had created her together when he was a beast, a brute in body. He had hated himself, then, and only barely believed Belle could and did love him. His own love, he saw now, had been tenuous and reedy. No wonder it took so long for the curse to lift. It took him all those weeks and months of being loved by Belle, being accepted and cherished by her, to learn to love in truth. To accept himself and believe in his own love for her.

And here was the product of that love, that imperfect, stumbling, brutish love.

"We should call her Esperanza," he said, looking up at his wife.

"Esperanza. Yes, she was born in our hope," she agreed, and took the babe back to feed her when she fussed. He watch on in pride and amazement and deep gratitude.

Three years later Esperanza was joined by Raphael, and then five years later by David. Their grandfather visited several times a year until his health grew poor and Belle established him in a cottage nearby where her staff could see to his needs regularly. The children went to see him, then, and delighted in learning tricks and how to construct toys and contraptions.

Belle and Adam watched in awe and wonder as their children grew in wisdom and strength. They carefully taught them each how to recognize and control the brutish tendencies of their hearts. They grew into compassionate and kind young people, ready to help, eager to learn, curious and loving and strong. The were the best of their parents, the strong parts that had learned to see their weakness and overcome, to love and hope when it seemed impossible.

They had hardship and misunderstanding and grief, like any life well lived. But they loved fierce and deep and wild.

A/N: So that is the end of the tale. I hope you enjoyed. Let me know your thoughts.