(I have no idea if this is what you had in mind, and I've never written BatB before, but I've been wanting to try, so here goes nothing!)

They don't tell you these things in the fairy tales, she reflects, soothing her prince back to sleep after another nightmare. "Happily ever after" has been happy indeed, it's true, but though in the daylight he can calmly recall and even joke about the old cursed days, two o'clock in the morning is a different story. The enchanted rose is gone, but somewhere deep inside him, a thorn still makes itself felt.