Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: PG
Summary: All Beast wants to do is tell her how much he loves her but he fears he'll never get that chance now as he lays dying with his beloved Belle finally returned to his side and his curse breaking.
Warnings: Het
Word Count: 1,989
Date Written: 23 May, 2011
Challenge: For the XDisneyDreamers LJ comm's weekly challenge
Disclaimer: Beast, Belle, all other characters mentioned within, and Beauty and the Beast are & TM Disney, not the author; are used without permission; and may not be used without permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
She's with me again now. She's crying, and I want so desperately to tell her everything's going to be okay. I try to talk, but I can only a manage a weak mewl. I love her. My whole body aches, but yet my heart and soul ache with a need burning even more brightly and painfully. I love her! I want to take her in my arms, kiss away her tears, make her happy again, and keep her that way while loving her forever, but yet I can't even manage to sit up.
I want to talk to her so badly. I want to tell her I love her. I want to let her know that I need her and how grateful I am to her that she has returned to me, even if it is too late. I moan as I try again, without success, to talk to her. I can't even say her name though it floats all around my mind.
Her delicious scent is all around me, covering me. I never smelled anything like it before she entered my castle that day. I know she's wondered why I keep the rose gardens in the top most shape, why I bother with their beauty when the castle and the rest of our grounds are so dark and gloomy. I can smell things with this animal nose that I never even thought had a scent before being transformed. My animal nose picks up the scents of things for miles around, and most of those aromas are not in the least enticing. There have been days when the myriad mixture of all the smells I have been picking up have almost overpowered me, and I've slipped away then to our rose garden.
The fragrant smell of the roses is sweet and yet also overpowering. I was able to step into their garden at any time and lose all the other scents surrounding me. Theirs was a smell I yearned for, that brought both comfort and relief. In that garden, I was able to forget all the other, wretched smells around me. But my beautiful, sweet Belle smells even better than any rose.
Her scent is sweeter, and although it is unlike anything else I've ever smelled, it reminds me of all the best smells - the roses in full, Spring bloom; rich honeysuckle growing on vines in the forest; the most delicious desserts from Lumiere's and the Cook's feasts. It is the best thing I've ever smelled, but for the first time, smelling it now, feeling her tiny hands comfortingly stroking and desperately grasping my fur, brings no comfort. This is the end. I know it. I've been trying to fight it, but it is the one battle against which I can not win.
I've never wanted anything more than I want to reach out and hold her just one last time right now. At last, I manage to raise my paw and touch her cheek. I can hear the words she cries, but it is as though they come from far away. She loves me! My heart soars, though I know that it is too late.
Tears sting my eyes, but I will not shed them here before her. Her tears are falling on me like a cascading waterfall. I brush one away, but another takes its place. "Belle . . . " I try to call her name, but again all I manage is a grunt.
I love her so, and I want to tell her so much how I feel about her! I want to tell her it's okay, even if it is a lie. I want to comfort her. I want to love her! For the first time in years, I don't want to die now, and yet I know that my death is coming and inevitable. I hear Mrs. Potts, Miss France, and Lumiere crying from what seems like hundreds of miles away, but their concern is no longer mine. I care only for the beautiful woman staring down at me from above, my soul mate who's begging me not to go.
If I had any power left in this world, I would stay. I would stay and keep you as my love, as my wife if you would have me, I want to tell her, for all the rest of our days, and yet I can not speak a word of the love surging through my entire being. I've never felt like this. The pain is ebbing away. Only the feelings I have for my sweet, wonderful Belle remain, and yet I can not speak a word of them to her.
I caress her lovely face; she grasps my paw as though holding to it can keep me here with her. I wish it could. I would do anything to stay. And yet I'm going. I'm slipping. I try again to tell her that I love her. I don't know if my words are coherent or not, but I can see the knowledge shining in her beautiful eyes. I hold to those beautiful, deep, and sad eyes for a moment, burning them into my memory, longing to remember them, to remember her, and hold to that memory with the very last of my thoughts, but then the darkness pulls me under . . .
Suddenly, I am surrounded by a golden, brilliant light. For a moment, I think I am in Heaven, but then I hear the Sorceress' words chanting. I growl, and yet the sound comes out no louder than a kitten's cry. The spell is over, but it is too late. I lay dying, and only now do I get my human body back. Only now do I get human arms with which to gently hold my love, a human mouth to kiss her sweet lips without fear of biting her. Only now do I get my rightful body back, and although for years, I thought this was what I wanted, it matters not to me now.
All that matters lays beneath me, watching me with fearful, teary eyes. I can not see her, but I feel her gaze upon me. I have been able to sense her presence since the first day she came into my life. I did not know then what I know now. I did not know that she would be the one to call my heart awake, to cure my aching soul, but she has. She has taught me what it means to love. She has awakened my dark and miserable heart and filled my empty, longing soul with love, light, color, and life. She would have made me complete, and for a short while, despite my beastly body, I was whole.
Yet it was not to last, and that is my real curse, not the enchantment I was under but rather the fact that I would at last find love only to have it, have her, too late to do anything about it. I set her free, and she came back to me. She loves me, and I love her! Yet it is too late for me to be able to do anything about it! I can not even tell her how I feel!
Everything grows still around me, and yet within my being, I feel a pounding. I come to realize it is my heart, pounding with love more powerful and wonderful than anything I could have imagined before my wonderful Belle, throbbing within me and crying out to be set free. I no longer hurt; the pain is gone. I must be dead, but yet when I hesitantly crack my eyes open, I find I am still upon the castle's parapet.
I stand hesitantly, awkwardly, and realize that my weight is being held by my bare, human feet. I gaze at my hands; my fingers wriggle in response at my gaping stare. Then slowly, fearfully, I lift my gaze. I expect to find that this is a dream, that my wonderful Belle is not here, and yet it is into her eyes that my own questing, blue orbs raise. "Belle?" I whisper and am overjoyed to hear my own voice speaking her name successfully again.
She inches closer, but I can see the hesitation warring in her eyes. Like me, she wants to believe, but she is afraid. How can this be happening when just a few seconds ago, I lay dying? We both knew I was breathing my last, that it was too late for love or any other power to save me, and yet here I am, my clothes torn but my body as healed and whole as she has made my heart and soul! "It's me," I tell her, and still she hesitates.
I wait with a patience that I have never had with any one else as she slowly nears me. Her brown eyes are scrunched up as she examines me from head to foot, and then finally, my heart feels like whooping out for joy as I see the recognition dawn in her eyes.
"It is you!" she breathes and flings herself into my arms.
I hold her tight, smelling her delicious scent, burrowing my face into her soft, brown hair. I close my eyes against the unKingly tears that well within them. For the first time in my life, I am crying not because of sadness or grief but from happiness. I love this amazing, incredible woman with all my heart, and at long last, despite everything, despite my almost dying, despite the curse, we are going to be together! I press my lips against her hair; nothing, not even the finest of silks and satins, has ever felt softer. "I love you!" I cry out against her ear. "Will you marry me?"
Already I know the answer, and I sweep her across the castle's parapet. I cover her in loving kisses. I've never been the best with words, so I show her instead with my actions. I lift her high, bring her down against me, and cover her all over with my kisses again. Then I hear voices from the corridor, glance to them, and shout out their names. I leave her for just a split second to rejoice with my subjects, my friends, shaking their hands and hugging them tightly, before rushing back to her side with an exuberant eagerness I've not felt since I was only a boy.
I pull her into a hug, lift her high again, and bring her back down gently into my strong arms. "I love you!" I tell her again, knowing I'll never get tired of saying those three little words now that I understand the true depth of their meaning and feel them with every inch of my heart, body, and soul. This amazing woman has brought me awake to these wonderful feelings of love and joy when no other force on Earth could. She has taught me what love means and made me whole, and at long last, we have earned our happily ever after!
I dance her across the parapet, telling her over and over again how much I love her and secretly planning our wedding. I've never wanted anything like I want her, and no one has ever made me feel as alive and joyful as she does. I am in love! I am whole, and I will stay this way forever after with my wonderful soul mate in my arms! I pull her close, whisper those delightful words again, and kiss her once more, sealing our happily ever after future together, thanking her for all she has done for me, and showing her, with my actions far better and louder than with my words, how infinitely much I will always love only her forever and beyond just as I will do every day and night with my wonderful beloved by my side forever more!
The End