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When Belle meets the grouchy tomcat in the alley by her apartment, it's not really under pleasant circumstances. Actually, she doesn't even really meet it at all. The wind is lashing her this way and that, her soaked through skirt is stuck to her legs, and to top it all off, she forgot her umbrella at home- not that it would have done anything against the relentless storm.
The cat is huddled under a droopy piece of cardboard, whiskers and fur dripping pitifully. Belle can only remember seeing the gleam of cat eyes reflected in a car's headlights as she walks by. She doesn't remember the chance encounter until the next day, on her way to work.
She sees a little furry lump under the cardboard and remembers the cat. One shouldn't approach wild tomcats though, so Belle let it alone. (She might've run back inside to put a bowl of milk down at the entrance of the alley, even though she was late for work... but people were rarely at the library early in the morning.)
When she returns the bowl is licked clean and Belle is satisfied. This routine continues for a week or so, until a foggy Tuesday morning when the cat is waiting for her at the entrance of alley. He's a small little thing, scrawny with a bad limp in one paw. He's pretty though. The cat has sharp amber eyes, a shaggy black coat, and a scratch on one of his ears. The poor thing probably had run wild all its life.
He hisses when she comes close so Belle stays a good distance from the shivering feline. She goes inside after a while and, after a bit of research, concluded that her new friend was of the Bombay breed.
It's take another week or two, but soon the cat is used to her and his meals. The cat is of that particular sort of cat that hates any kind of change. He hisses when she's late, he refused to eat from a bowl that wasn't his usual chipped one, and he won't come out if she's early. She agrees with him about the early part, no one was supposed to be up and about by six a.m. No one.
It's when Belle is refilling the milk that she notices that the little golden eyed cat is within arms reach of her. Before she knows what she's doing, she pets the little fluffball. It's just a tentative brush across the top of the cats head. The cat doesn't move, obviously shocked into not moving and Belle can see for the first time that it had little streaks of silver in its fur.
The cat scurries away.
It's not easy, but a month later the cat is living like a king in the heart of his new empire. When the poor floofy little thing gets sick, she takes it to the vet in worry. In the waiting room, there is a man with silver streaked brown hair in surprisingly formal clothes.
Belle doesn't mention his black suit with a tie a gold as her cat's eyes, only raising an eyebrow when his fluffy gray cat wanders over her way. That's how they meet. He comes over to apologize for the friendly Birman cat being out of her box. The man states that 'Beauty' hated being caged. Belle says that Gold wouldn't stand for cages.
That's how it begins, with a chance meeting in vet's office where their two cats hit it right off.
After the kittens and the dates, the two can say that Belle's Gold and Rumple's Beauty were the only reason the two met each other in the first place.