The anguish etched across Victor's face was painfully clear to Belle. He hadn't spoken it aloud, but she could read the despair in his expression, the turmoil in his furrowed brow and twisted mouth. She wished she could reach out to him, touch him, offer some comfort, but his physical distance and the protectiveness of his posture made that impossible.

She hadn't known that her answer to his question might hurt him, and she couldn't have anticipated the depth of his anguish, the overwhelming sense of betrayal that seemed to radiate from him. It almost broke her heart to witness it.

"Victor," she said, her voice filled with pleading, an earnest attempt to bridge the emotional chasm between them. "What would you have had me do instead?"

Belle's question was genuine. She had made her choice, out of love, duty, or perhaps a blend of both, and she had stayed to be with him, to try to make a life with her husband. It had been a disaster - they had been lost in their own grief, he had pulled away, and she had been too far underwater to follow him.

But now, she needed to understand what he expected of her, what he believed she should have done differently, even if she feared his answer would only deepen the pain they both felt in the limbo in which they were both living.