"I am a person who is unhappy with things as they stand. We cannot accept the world as it is. Each day we should wake up foaming at the mouth because of the injustice of things." Hugo Claus

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XXVIII.

Belle was ill. She was desperately ill. Peter cupped her face in his hands and felt the beads of sweat beneath his palms. Belle's eyes were closed as she shivered. He could hear the chattering of her teeth.

"You didn't know she was ill?" accused Adam. "How could she be left in such a state?"

"She needs a doctor!" Peter cried. "Immediately!"

"She was fine this morning when breakfast was delivered," replied Mr Ennis, anguish in his voice at the clear panic and anger of the men in the cell.

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter spied a rather filthy looking tray with a bowl of grey broth and a piece of bread left virtually untouched. He rather doubted that Belle had been properly checked on that morning.

Peter could not believe that after all their searching, he finally had Belle back within his grasp, only for fate to be so cruel to her once more.

"The only doctor for twenty miles won't see her!" Mr Ennis stressed. "He doesn't treat people like her." His eyes almost fearfully flicked to Alex. "Like them."

Peter looked back down at Belle, shivering and small as she was, and his heart tore in two. She was innocent but broken, cruelly mistreated and undeservedly so. Her only crime, in the eyes of the sinful, being that her skin was a beautiful, cool brown. How could people not see it as beautiful? How could a doctor refuse to treat an innocent woman because of her skin?

"I am certain I could persuade him," Alex seethed through clenched teeth.

Adam placed a hand on Alex's forearm to calm him. "I will double his fee," he told Mr Ennis. "I will triple it. I am a member of the bloody House of Lords. I will command him to treat her if I have to."

Mr Ennis finally relented, passing on the address of the doctor to Adam, before he and Alex departed directly. Peter refused to leave Belle's side, and so Mr Ennis locked him in the cell with her. Did he really believe that Belle was in a state to get up and run away? Though Peter couldn't deny that the temptation to carry her out of there would have been great had the cell been left unlocked.

"You have to be alright," Peter whispered to her. He rested the back of his hand against her forehead, still feeling the searing heat of her fever. "You have so much left to do." Peter removed his hand and rested it against her voluminous dark curls. "We have so much left to do together if you'll let me."

Belle whimpered, though her eyes were still closed.

"Hear my voice," he whispered. "Stay close to me."

Belle was perhaps the smallest woman he had ever encountered. Peter wondered if her life before coming to England had contributed to her small stature. His mother had always scolded him as a child if he did not finish all of his vegetables, warning him that leaving them on the plate would stunt his growth. He had always thought her joking, but was there some truth to it? Belle had no doubt known the pain of hunger, in and amongst the pain of her enslaved existence. And yet despite this, despite her tiny stature, she had found it in her to fight off the evil, black-hearted swine once and for all.

Lord, he was so proud of her. Peter bowed his head, gently resting his forehead on her belly. He was so, so proud of her. Such strength, such spirit and fight deserved reward. She deserved the life that she wanted. She did not deserve to die in a gaol cell.

***

Two agonising hours later, Adam and Alex returned with an elderly doctor whose nose was scrunched up in such a way that it appeared he was permanently smelling a terrible odour.

The doctor placed his medical bag down on the floor of the cell and looked over Belle briefly. He did not even bend down to feel her temperature.

"She's full of disease," he grunted, firming his assessment. "She must be bled."

"What?" snapped Peter. He looked to Adam for affirmation. "How could you know that? You have barely looked at her!"

The doctor ignored Peter's protestations and bent over his medical bag, opening the clasp and removing a leather pouch of surgical tools and a bleeding tray. Peter's stomach turned. No, this wasn't right. He wasn't a doctor but bleeding a woman in Belle's weakened condition could not be the right course of treatment. He and his siblings had all suffered from fevers throughout their childhood and they had never been bled.

"What are you doing?" Alex demanded to know as the doctor opened his pouch and removed a surgical knife.

"Certainly a more thorough assessment is called for, Doctor Meacham," interjected Adam, stepping in between the doctor and Belle.

Doctor Meacham glowered at Adam. "Bleeding is standard treatment for fever," he snapped. "It lets out the disease."

Peter couldn't make sense of it in his head. His ever instinct was begging him to stop the doctor from touching her. But what if the doctor was right and this was the way to save her? Before he knew it, the doctor had seated himself on a stool and had rather roughly grabbed hold of one of Belle's arms, extending it outward. He placed the bleeding tray underneath her elbow and brought the knife to the crook of her arm. He pressed down enough for the blade to slice through her skin, and a red river of blood began to seep from the wound he had created.

"You butcher!" accused Alex.

The moment Peter saw it, he felt sick, and he knew it was wrong. Belle whimpered again as if to affirm his thoughts. "Stop that!" he hissed. "She is too weak for this! Stop the bleeding this instant!"

The doctor held the tray in place, collecting Belle's blood. "Of the two of us, boy, whom do you think belongs to the Royal College of Physicians?"

"I do not care if you belong to the Royal College of the Moon," Peter spat back. "Stop it this instant!"

Doctor Meacham turned around and looked to Adam. "I see my expertise is not wanted, Your Grace. It matters not to me, but the boy will be the one to kill her."

Peter knew that couldn't be right. Her fever would break. It had to. Bleeding would not help to hasten her healing.

The doctor was quite happy to gather his things and leave them standing there in the cell. The moment the path was free, Peter ripped a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against the seeping would at her elbow. "Have I done wrong?" he asked Adam and Alex worriedly.

Alex fell to his knees and began uttering things under his breath in French, while Adam put a comforting hand on Peter's shoulder.

"You protected her. That is all you can do. When Perrie was ill with fever, Grace and I simply had to wait. We had to wait and hope."

***

There was no persuading the three men out of the cell, and Mr Ennis was quite at a loss to know what to do or say. Peter wagered that he only hoped for the judge's swift arrival so he could be rid of all of them. Peter hadn't even begun to think of what he would say to the judge. What he would beg.

"No."

Peter awoke with a start. He had not realised that he had fallen asleep, but he had. He was lying in a very awkward and uncomfortable position alongside Belle's cot. Adam and Alex were similarly lying in varying degrees of misshapen awkwardness within the cell.

For a moment Peter thought that he must have imagined a noise, but this notion was quickly disproven when Belle spoke again.

"No, no."

Her voice sounded laboured and scared and not at all coherent.

"Belle?"

"No, Jean!" Belle mumbled, frightened.

Peter didn't know that name, but it did not require a lot of deduction to wager a guess the identity of the man haunting her nightmares. Peter reached for Belle's forehead again and breathed a sigh of deep relief when he felt that her searing temperature had settled, and her fever had broken.

Though it was dark, Peter was able to hold onto her arm and gently shake her. "Belle," he whispered. "Belle, wake up."

Belle stirred groggily, and the moment her coherency returned, he felt her stiffen. "Qui êtes-vous?" she asked fearfully.

Peter did not know what she said, but all he could do was let her know he was there. "Belle, it's me. I am here. Thank God you are alright!"

"Peter?" Belle gasped.

Behind him in the dark, Peter could hear both Adam and Alex stirring from their own slumber. A moment later, Peter was knocked over backwards by Belle launching herself at him. He fell flat on his back, Belle landing on top of him, as she scrambled to hold onto any part of him that she could in the dark cell. She finally managed to grip hold around his neck, and he felt her press her head tightly against his chest. Not a second later did he wrap his own arms around her, returning her embrace just as fervently.

"Belle, are you awake? Are you alright?" Adam gasped, his voice thick with sleep.

Alex similarly asked something of her in French.

"Yes, oui," she said to the both of them, her head not shifting from Peter's chest. "You are all here," she whispered to herself. That thought seemed to stick with her, and a few moments later, Belle suddenly sat bolt upright, nearly kneeing Peter in the gut in the process as she could not see anything. "Ow! My arm ...?" she began, but she seemed to dismiss the thought. "You're here. You're all here. How? How are you here? How did you find me? No, why are you in here with me?" And then she gasped. "Peter!" she cried. "Peter! Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Belle practically threw herself back down on top of Peter, hissing at the pain in her arm, but seemingly needing to feel that he was real to convince herself that he was there and that he was fine.

"I'm fine," Peter promised. "Perfectly fine." A concussion and stitches were nothing to worry her about. "It doesn't matter how we found you. What matters is you. Are you alright? Are you hurt? Did ..." but Peter couldn't finish the question.

Belle seemed to read his mind, and he felt a shudder from her before she uttered, "I stopped him. I won. He can't hurt me. He can't hurt anyone."

Peter reached for her in the dark, finding her face and cupping it with his hands. He felt the wetness of her tears as they spilled down her cheeks. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was for failing to keep his promise, for failing to keep her safe. But her words echoed in his ears. "You won," he repeated. Belle had fought and she had won.

A fresh tear fell against his hand as she whispered, "I'm not sorry." It sounded like a confession one would make to a priest. Her voice trembled, and Peter believed that she had forgotten that they were not alone. "I'm not sorry I did it and they're going to kill me for it."

----

My poor girl. But I'm so proud of her. 

I hope you enjoyed it!

So I had my first day with my new class yesterday. It was EXHAUSTING! Going from my kids at the end of last year all the way back to the beginning was just a shock haha. But they're super cute. I was madly missing my babies though. They keep coming up to me and hugging me whenever they see me in the yard which is just so heartwarming, and their year 1 teachers keep telling me that they come up and tell them excitedly whenever they see me which is so cute. They even spent their first art lesson writing me letters which of course I put up on my wall. They haven't forgotten me thankfully *cries tears of joy*. 

I had a good day with my new babies despite how tiring it was. We started off with our new routine. I'm VERY rigid with routine, and if you teach little ones you'll know how important it is. Part of my routine is going through the daily schedule. I'll be like, "First we're doing spelling, then we'll have a fruit break, then writing .. etc" and I'll get to the last thing and say, "and before you know it ..." and my kids would say "IT'S HOMETIME!" and I said "before you know it ..." to my new class and they didn't know what to say next hahahaha. I'll train them! 

I did start training them on my expectations of cleanliness on the first day haha. I showed them exactly how their desks should look as their teacher can't cope when they're messy lol. They actually did a good job. 

I got to a point last year where I would pretend to cover my eyes and say "I can't cope with your tables, make them acceptable!" and the kids would scramble to clean. It was so cute. I remember one day when it was a wet day timetable (meaning they had recess inside because it was raining), as I was coming back to the classroom down the hall, three of my kids were blocking me from coming back in the classroom as they wanted to surprise me with how clean it was. 

So back to school on Monday for a full week. I'm excited, and hopeful. And a little bit nervous as these kids have had two years of covid interruptions *bites nails*

I had the best dream the other night though. Completely unrelated lol. I had a dream that was literally the second season of Bridgerton. Like I was a fly on the wall. It was freaking awesome. And now I'm so super impatient for the next season gahhh. Less than two months to go. 

I hope you all had good weeks!

Vote and comment xxx