This is just a random idea I'm playing around with. A kind of Cinderella meets Beauty and the Beast thing.

Bellamy didn't bother getting up. Tears made gooey tracks through the flour on her face. It turned the entire room white and gray, not that that was very impressive. The space was hardly the size of a broom closet.

"Look Cinderella," Jasmine said in her nasally voice, checking her fingernails, "you need to face it, you're not worth anything to anyone. You never were, and never will be." She puckered her lips in faux sympathy.

Bell muttered something unintelligible.

"What was that, Cinderella dear?" Jasmine's voice grated against her ears.

"I'm not Cinderella!" she shouted.

Jasmine blinked, and then smirked.

"Of course not, sweetie. Cinderella got a happy ending. Ah, well." She turned away with a dismissive wave over her shoulder. "Ta ta."

Rage boiled in Bellamy's stomach, and then it subsided. She felt cold. The anger dissipated as the all-too-familiar despair set in, coiling through her insides like ice. A sob wrenched itself from her throat. The thing was painful and she crossed her arms over her chest, as if trying to hold herself together.

Hands brushed her shoulders.

"Bell?" She didn't try to place the voice. Her father's image was too clear in her mind. When something brushed her back, she whimpered and flinched. The thing stopped. "Oh, my dear Bell." She felt some of the flour wiped from her face. "Come here." Something pulled her forward and the cold seemed to recede a bit. She was warm, embraced.

The last time she'd been held so, was the day her father left.

That memory made her sob all the harder. Bellamy missed being loved, the injustice of that was too much to bear.

Whoever was holding her shifted, and Bellamy gripped his shirt, for she was sure who it was now. "I am not leaving, Bell. Do you believe me?" She nodded, but didn't let go. His arms came around her more protectively, as if shielding her from the door.

"Kelly!" someone squealed. "Kelly, what are you doing here?" One hand was wrenched from Bellamy's back, but the other just held her tighter. "Why're you with her? She's filthy! The clumsy oaf!"

Keller jerked and Terra screamed as both arms settled back to where they were.

"Go away, Terra. Your sister is distressed and I think you will find, you are the cause." Terra let out and indignant gasp. Bellamy imagined her stomping like a child then storming through the door, her nose absurdly high in the air. Keller scoffed as his attention turned back to Bell. She was quivering, still crying into his shirt. He supposed there was no shame in admitting it: he had no idea how to stop a girl from crying. Tears like this were unfamiliar territory.

Crouching in the mess that may once have been a bag of flour, or powdered sugar, he pressed his mouth to Bell's hair and hugged her, rubbing her back.

To make matters worse, those two villainous substitutes for her sisters kept popping their heads in. Their cruel comments an annoying voices were not helping matters in the slightest.

But he stayed by her nonetheless. As he would for the rest of their lives.

Yes yes sappy ending I know. But I couldn't find another way to end things😐😑😐😑😐