Belle felt the breath leave her lungs in a rush as she watched him, the reality of this hitting her again. Because she'd dreamnt this, numerous times, over the past few weeks--his being here, being with her. Especially when she'd lived in these rooms herself, hated being alone in them--perhaps that was another reason she'd decided to live in the Church; at least there, it was easier to stop seeing shades of what she'd been all but convinced couldn't be.
Taking one long moment to look at him, feeling like she was drinking the sight of him, she drew breath back into her lungs and sat beside him. It felt like almost a life time ago that they'd been in such a similar position, the table only a little less comfortable than this furniture--only then, she'd at least felt...covered in her skirts. She hadn't felt strange in trousers after the first few days, but now, with him...
She swallowed, trying to find the words that kept escaping her, about what this place was truly like, how even if she knew he could more than handle himself she didn't want the Council noticing him more than they had if it could be helped, how even people like her were looked at warily by the common people...
But he knew all that, she realized, or at least suspected. Telling him the Council was suspicious at best, that many of them were struggling to eek out something close to a normal life. She shook her head, gesturing helplessly.
"Besides that--even the simplest people here suspect all of us and that most of us don't feel safe even if we aren't the ones getting stared at everywhere we go..." she shook her head, biting her lip for a second before the most honest answer came to her. "I--suppose I just...didn't want to be out there with you. It's...been a long time since I've been able to be alone with anyone, and--I didn't want any of them interrupting that." It would have been almost embarrassing, to say that all she wanted was a few hours with someone she could really talk to without confusion or misunderstanding, but...not with him.