@}~~~}~~~~~

It was around four or so in the afternoon when the door leading into the kitchens opened, and Lumiere poked his head through. When only a night ago, the face looking in would have been a mixture of wax and brass, there was now a pair of dark brown eyes that peered out of a long, narrow face, framed by light brown hair. Looking to be in his mid to late twenties, the man's eyes narrowed as he glanced inside the room. His eyes brightened and his lanky figure slid in quickly when he found his quarry.

"Ahh, Mrs. Potts!"

Mrs. Potts turned from one of the children she was giving orders to, looking a bit surprised to see Lumiere. It had felt like forever since she had seen that familiar face that it was a bit of a shock to see the footman grinning at her with his usual savoir faire. The tall man swept into the room, easily dodging the servants who were scurrying about, cleaning up and preparing dinner, and swept up one of Mrs. Potts' hands, kissing it loudly.

"The loveliest lady in all of France," Lumiere praised extravagantly. "No, the Continent!"

Mrs. Potts almost chuckled. Nodding to the boy she'd been speaking to, who scampered off with a dust rag, she turned to Lumiere. Even as a little boy, the young man could be very flamboyant when he wanted something. "What do you want, you rogue?

The housekeeper's suspicions were confirmed when Lumiere gave her one of his "innocent" looks, complete with wide, brown eyes. "Want? Moi? Why, merely the warmth that comes of being in your magnificent presence." He kissed her hand again. "Your kindness, your generosity! Perfection itself."

Mrs. Potts nodded knowingly. There weren't many things that Lumiere asked for; she had become quite adept over the years at figuring out which favors he wanted. "You want to have one of your feasts, don't you?"

Lumiere's smile turned hopeful. "Heh heh... Oui?"

"Oh, well," Mrs. Potts gave a bit of a sigh, hiding her smile. She really couldn't blame the poor dear, after all. Ten years, and not a bite to eat. Her own charges had asked for a number of sweets themselves earlier in the day, to which she replied that they could have some after dinner. It had been only a matter of time before Lumiere had come calling. "I suppose it won't do any harm, as long as you put the money back in my household account when the master gives us wages next."

Lumiere beamed, and gave her a showy salute. "Every sou!" He swept up Mrs. Potts' hand again, and bowed with a flourish, kissing it quickly. "How did this humble castle come to be graced with such an angel?"

Mrs. Potts let the laugh escape this time. "Go on with you. You'll make it up to me later."

"But, of course, of course," the footman agreed easily. He then gave her a mildly curious look. "How many adorable children do you have the care of now?"

Now, Mrs. Potts had to admit that this was an interesting twist. Lumiere didn't usually ask about the children without some sort of ulterior motive. "Seven, counting the one in nappies," she answered, more than a little curious herself. What in the world was Lumiere up to?

Lumiere winced slightly at the mention of nappies, but quickly recovered his aplomb. "Ah, your heart is as expansive as ever, to take in all of the castle's children."

Mrs. Potts beamed. "Why, thank you, Lumiere."

"Surely, they're not causing any trouble, I hope?" Lumiere inquired, his eyebrows raised.

"No, they're very well-mannered children." Mrs. Potts gave him a teasing smile. "Not like this young knave I once had the care of, who spent more time chasing girls and admiring his reflection than doing his chores."

Lumiere raised an eyebrow, but merely stepped forward and struck a pose. "Yes, but none of them have my dashing good looks and spectacular charm," he replied, letting his French accent roll around.

"Oh, I don't know." Mrs. Potts couldn't resist, still smiling. "Jean-Rene is certainly drawing more than a few glances from the girls."

"Hmph." Lumiere snorted theatrically. "He won't be able to woo the girls from the fireplaces. Perhaps I should take them off your hands for an afternoon and teach them a thing or two."

"Saints preserve us if they all decide to become like you."

"Mrs. Potts, you wound me!" Lumiere put a hand to his chest, looking aggrieved. "An afternoon to yourself, what more could anyone ask for?"

"Two afternoons." If Lumiere was offering, who was she to refuse? That, and it would allow her some peace, for once. Of course, Lumiere wouldn't have been her first choice to leave the children with, but if they were learning something productive, it couldn't hurt.

"Two afternoons!" Lumiere gasped, but the housekeeper was already more than sure that her request would be granted. "I am sure they are swift learners, Mrs. Potts.... But, very well. Two afternoons." He bowed again.

Mrs. Potts nodded. "Two afternoons with the children, and repayment for the food.... Was there something else that you wanted?"

"My back is aching from all of this running around for Cogsworth and the Master." Lumiere put a hand to his back and added a hobble for effect. "If you would draw me a bath, I would be *eternally* grateful to you."

"That shouldn't be too much trouble, then," Mrs. Potts replied. "I will have to send the food up to one of the guest rooms, however. I'll be sure to tie a ribbon around the doorknob so that you know which it is."

"Excellent." Lumiere grinned expansively. "Could you have it set up by ten tonight? I need my rest and recuperation, after all."

Mrs. Potts attempted to look offended. "I'll see it done myself, you rapscallion."

Lumiere favored the housekeeper with a long look and one last sunny smile before stepping forward and spreading his arms. "Ah, what a sorry place this would be without you here." He closed the gap and gathered Mrs. Potts in a warm hug. While unexpected, Mrs. Potts returned the embrace warmly.

"Merci, Mrs. Potts." The soft voice in her ear didn't sound like the rakish Lumiere that set all the maids to giggling and speculating wildly about his intentions. No, it sounded more like the little boy who would wrap tiny arms around her neck and kiss her cheek before being tucked securely into bed, once upon a time. The footman pulled back just enough to kiss both of her cheeks and let her go. "Ten o'clock, then." The cheeky smile was back.

Lumiere skipped out of the room, not noticing that Mrs. Potts's kind eyes followed him, seeing not only the charming facade but the man he hid underneath.

@}~~~}~~~~~

Lumiere's eyes strayed again to the clock as his hands mechanically polished the candelabra in his hands. Half an hour until ten... half an hour of trying to convince himself that this whole day hadn't been a dream. That the past two days hadn't been a dream. There were times when he thought he would look down to see his hands had become candles again. And if all went as planned tonight, he'd never have reason to doubt he was human again.

Food, a bath, and warm sheets on a bed. Mrs. Potts was truly an angel. Lumiere had a feeling that she understood his need for the feast, or she wouldn't have acquiesced so quickly. Maybe she was feeling disconnected herself, but hadn't told anyone. Seeing as how only the Master had been transformed into a creature, the footman wondered if *all* of the servants needed to feel things, just to remember they *could* touch something and feel it.

Opening the door and glancing up and down the hallway, Lumiere put down the polishing rag and took the candelabra in his hands. It was brass, and a bit heavy; as a weapon, it would work well in a pinch. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and ran his hands across the surface. It was rough in places; he wasn't finished polishing it. The work in the stand felt intricate, with a number of grooved shape Lumiere couldn't readily identify. As his fingers traveled up and across to touch the candles, he could feel the dried wax which held the candles stationary, soft and malleable. He let his fingers travel the candle to find the wick, burned and crusted from use, but not recently. This candelabra hadn't been lit in a while. After a moment, he started to feel a bit silly. He was touching a candelabra. Lumiere had to be desperate if he was touching candles. The footman's eyes snapped open, gusting a sigh across one of the candles as he did so. He was about to put the candelabra down when he noticed something.

One of the candles was lit.

Lumiere blinked, feeling stunned as he stared at the candle. He hadn't lit it. There wasn't even a matchstick in the room. He could light candles of all sorts when he was a candelabra himself, but he was human now. Humans had to use matches to light fires. Unless....

No. It wasn't possible. For the sake of his sanity, it wasn't possible.

Lumiere took a shaky breath to calm himself. *It's not real*, he told himself. He snuffed the fire with his thumb and index finger, ignoring the slight burn as he did so. He moved the candelabra away from him and exhaled softly on the middle candle.

Before his eyes, the middle candle lit.

"This is impossible."

The candle ignored him, its little flame still burning.

"Stop that!" Lumiere barked, his shout like a gunshot in the empty room.

The candle's fire flared up explosively before snuffing itself out. The only evidence it had ever been lit was a single tendril of smoke rising from the wick.

Lumiere shook his head sharply, trying to clear the image from his mind with little success. It was impossible, it was wrong. He was *human* again, not an enchanted candlestick. He slammed the candelabra down on the table it had occupied, not even bothering to pick up the polishing rag from beside it. He turned to the door, his hand reaching for the doorknob.

Lumiere didn't care what time it was now. He didn't care about having to polish each and every damn one of the candlesticks in the castle. He didn't even care about the dressing down he was going to get from Cogsworth when the butler found out. Right now, he wanted -- no, *needed* to know that he was still human. Wasn't that more important? Hadn't everyone in the castle waited ten years on that slim hope that someone would break the spell and they would be human again? It had to be. Cogsworth would understand, wouldn't he?

He turned back to the rag, reaching out to pick it up when he saw something glint out of the corner of his eye. Spinning quickly, Lumiere saw it was a full-length mirror and was surprised that he hadn't noticed it when he had first come in the room. With a soft chuckle at his panic, he reached for the rag again when he glanced at the mirror again, and saw his reflection, all white and brass and flame.

With a horrified gasp, his hands scrabbled for something, and upon bumping the candelabra, Lumiere swept it up instantly and hurled it wildly at the mirror. It exploded into a shower of color and glass, but he could only see that grotesque caricature of a reflection.

Sucking in shaky breaths, Lumiere suddenly found himself kneeling on the floor, his arms shaking with the effort to keep himself upright. As he concentrated on breathing deeply, the seconds elongated and stretched into a small eternity. He continued to tell himself silently that his eyes had played tricks on him; he just needed a good meal and a long night's rest. It was all right. His eyes had been playing tricks on him.

After an eternity captured in panicked moments, Lumiere picked himself up off the floor, his hands mechanically dusting himself off. He deliberately avoided looking in the direction of the broken mirror as he picked up the second candelabra he had brought with him to light the way and the polishing rag. The door closed behind him with a soft click.

@}~~~}~~~~~

He couldn't remember how exactly he had found his way to the guest rooms, but at this point, Lumiere wasn't about to question it. It had been bad enough to see that horrible sight again; right now, he had to calm his racing heart, and he figured the best remedy for that was food.

The footman's eyes flicked from door to door, resolutely ignoring the candelabra he held high over his head until he saw a bright red ribbon tied in a bow on a doorknob to his right. The knob gave easily to a twist, and he closed it after himself quietly.

The room was lavish, with a large canopy bed flanked by two night tables to his right, a bathtub sitting lengthwise in front of the fireplace to his left. The fireplace itself was lit with a roaring flame, casting a ruddy glow over the white of the claw-foot tub and the array of decanters surrounding one end. There were trays of food covered with silver domes polished to a shine sitting on two smaller tables at the foot of the bed, almost within arm's reach of the tub. The curtains on the bed were open, the firelight revealing soft, white linen sheets that were turned down invitingly. Mrs. Potts had done her usual spectacular work. Lumiere felt he would be hard-pressed to repay such splendid service.

His clothes fell to the floor in an untidy mess, the rustle of cloth muted by the crackle of the fire. The footman stood for a moment, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. The room had been recently cleaned, telling from the crisp smell of the sheets. Running one hand slowly over the bedsheets, Lumiere found himself trying to learn the feel of each thread, alternating rough and smooth against his palm and fingers. He could feel the warmth of the fire on his bare skin, wafting gently over his chest and stomach, brushing across his legs.

Lumiere opened his eyes and roamed over to the silver covers, lifting one or two and inhaling the scent of all the delicacies Mrs. Potts could get together on short notice, the savory and the sweet. Taking the plate from the place setting, he piled it high with a little bit of everything and placed it carefully on the table with the decanters. One more deep breath and he re-covered the platters and moved towards the tub.

Lumiere could feel the steam slowly rising from the water, and he touched the surface with a hand. Hot, but a pleasant burn. He eased one foot in, hissing a little before he got accustomed to the temperature. Slowly, an inch at a time, Lumiere eased his way into the water until he was submerged up to his neck, a dreamy smile tugging at his lips. The water splashed softly as he reached up to undo the ribbon binding his hair.

God, what a sensation! Lumiere had difficulty finding the right words to describe how it felt as he lay in the tub. He was cocooned in a liquid inferno, the heat of the water sparking his nerves to life. Lumiere could feel the water everywhere, and if this was fire, he wanted to be *consumed*. He took a deep breath and ducked his head under.

It was as if he could feel infinity being created as each second slowed and quickened in the depths of the water. His hair became a dark, weightless cloud, and he could feel the water soaking into every pore, warming his face in a moment. He stayed for a moment or so before his lungs began to burn in his chest, and another splash found Lumiere surfaced and sucking in grateful gasps of air. For the first time in years, Lumiere truly felt human again.

With another splash, Lumiere flipped his hair back and out of his face, and he sighed. Laying his head against the edge of the tub, he propped his feet up on the other side, crossing his legs at the ankles.

Ahh, feet. He flexed his toes, feeling a ridiculous smile creeping across his lips as he watched. He had two feet now. He could get warts on them now, or fallen arches, or even an ingrown toenail, and it was the best news he'd heard in a long time. He rolled one foot at the ankle, then the other, groaning loudly when he felt them pop. It had seemed like an eternity since the last time he could flex his feet. During the enchantment, there had been a peculiar numbness where his feet were supposed to be, along with the feeling of rope being tied around his ankles. Now, he could *feel* them. He chuckled a little when he felt them start to get chilly, and dunked them back under.

Lumiere continued the rediscovery of his own body by lifting his hands out of the water and examining them intently. He had *hands* now, each with five fingers, palms, knuckles, fingernails. They weren't two candles anymore, held in place by dried wax and numbness. He flexed his fingers all together, then one at a time. His mother had said he had his father's hands, a musician's hands. Had he been legitimate, he would've lived in the lap of luxury, the son of a count in northern France. But, he wouldn't have been Lumiere. He would've had some noble name, and never would have polished candlesticks or turned spits or cleaned fireplaces. While Lumiere had often dreamed of being a noble from the stories his Mama had told him of princes and knights, he wondered now if he hadn't changed his mind. If given the choice of a servant's life or a noble's, would he make the same impetuous choice he had in his childhood, knowing what he knew now and knowing the people that he did?

Plucking a croquette from the plate, he nibbled on it as he thought, his other hand straying to one of the decanters that surrounded the closest end of the tub. It was then that he noticed the hand-held mirror perched on the mantelpiece. He hesitated for a moment before rising out of the water with loud splashes and retrieving it, turning it away from him to look at the back of it as he lowered himself into the tub again. It wasn't as ornate at the one that Master had kept in his rooms during his self-imposed imprisonment, but there was something striking about the design, something that caught the man's eye. After a long moment, he turned it over.

Dark brown eyes looked back at him in almost bewildered surprise. In a way, Lumiere had been grateful to the Master for breaking all of the mirrors during the enchantment. He had happened on a whole one once as a candelabra, and it had nearly given him nightmares, if indeed enchanted objects could have nightmares. Up until the point when he had seen his reflection that first time, he had almost convinced himself that he was in a nightmare from which he couldn't wake up. The very same face that stared at him in disbelief had been changed. Elongated, carved, melted... he didn't know *how* to describe it, but it had been a caricature, a mockery of the man he had once been. The man he was now again.

Lumiere sighed and let his hand hang over the side of the tub, feeling the mirror slip from lax fingers. He heard the mirror hit the floor with a thump. Closing his eyes, he lifted his hands to touch his face. He could feel the steam on his skin, water beading and trickling down his cheek to his chin. His lips were soft, stinging a little as he brushed a finger over the small cut he had acquired earlier. He could feel water gathering in his eyebrows and dripping off the end of his narrow nose. Gone was the lifeless feeling of wax as Lumiere ran a hand through his sopping wet hair. Gone was the icy chill of brass in the wintertime as he brushed a thumb across warm flesh. He wasn't a candelabra anymore, and if he had to stay in this tub all night to prove it to himself, he would.

The clock chimed on the mantelpiece, its ringing echoing softly in the room. Cogsworth. Lumiere smirked at the thought, and helped himself to some of the creme brulee. Cogsworth, Cogsworth, Cogsworth. They had had that tussle earlier in the ballroom, of course, and he had the cut lip to prove it. Cogsworth lost his pocketwatch in the skirmish, but it only served the butler right for letting his wounded pride cloud his judgment. He hadn't wanted to admit Lumiere was right, but there had been no need to get so physical. Truly, it had been much simpler when the Englishman had been off-balanced and "learning" from Lumiere in the ways of love.

Love. Lumiere nibbled thoughtfully on a bite of foie gras and cheese on a cracker. Yes, love.... It had been four years ago since he and Cogsworth had confessed themselves to each other. True, it wasn't the way he would've anticipated, but then again, he hadn't considered the notion until it had been too late and the enchantment was in place. Lumiere remembered telling Cogsworth to meet him in his room at the stroke of midnight, so they could celebrate being human again... The thought sobered him for a moment before he realized just who he had made the offer to. He also shot the clock a quick look and saw that it was half-past ten.

Cogsworth was as insufferably stuffy and strait-laced as an Englishman could possibly be, but he had been uncertain of himself during Lumiere's "tutelage". Cogsworth had come a long way, but he probably had further to go before he could take Lumiere up on his offer. It was no insult to the man, just an admission that Cogsworth may be more uncomfortable about the situation than Lumiere.

Still, Lumiere looked at the door as he took a swig of sherry and ate some more creme brulee. He wondered if Cogsworth had even remembered it, let alone considered the proposal... And he wondered if he had the courage to be in his rooms at midnight to find out.