Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. I make no money.
Summary: General de Jarjayes has now come to Paris. He waits for the commotion around the Bastille to die down...or, perhaps, he waits for something else.
July 14th, 1789
The sunlight travelled across the shadowed room in a wide, translucent beam that hit the dust in the still air and so became visible, for that moment.
General de Jarjayes stood facing the bright window, with his back toward the oak panelled door. His elbow rested comfortably on the cold glass, and his forehead nested on his arm. The news that he was prepared to hear, but that he hoped would evade him, have been delivered. It was only the previous day, just after he had left the Jarjayes mansion armed to the nines and focused on the tasks ahead, that Oscar and her company had abandoned the French guard forces, siding instead with the peasants and contributing to the resistance of the people.
'Rebel,' he mused, a wry grin of pain, as though he had been kicked in the stomach. He didn't think that she would go so far to abandon her name and duty.
He heard the cannons firing: it was audible even from their headquarters. Among the booms and bangs, he discerned the sounds of the opposition and the gunfire of the Bastille. A messenger informed him this morning that the peasants had raided the Invalides for arms; this came as no surprise. He only hoped that Oscar was not stupid enough to have led them there. She wouldn't have had the time to do it anyway, he calculated, and relaxed his fist just the smallest bit.
He had every faith the Bastille would stand strong, for a good colleague of his was in charge. As a commander, he was close to invincible. As a person, he was despicable, but one rarely has time for personal issues get in the way of military situations.
The General pinched at the bridge of his nose. It was sometime in the afternoon, he noted, without turning round to look at the large glassed wall clock.
It was then that he heard the door open behind him, and that she came in. He steeled his nerves: he always had to. He should have killed her and himself, killed them all back at the mansion, and not have to face this…
"Oscar," he began, "You have some nerve to show your face here."
She nodded curtly in response and waited for him to say it.
"By going against your duty you have shown that you are nothing more than an idiot, undeserving of your title," the General said, delivering the speech he had been running through over and over since yesterday, "You have greatly disappointed me, and as of today, I have no son. Oscar François, you are disowned by the house of Jarjayes."
But she knows this…he thought as he spoke, you fool, she already knows.
"Still," he continued, more in an attempt to save face in front of her, though she could only see his back, "We can talk as civil individuals one last time. This was what you meant when you wrote that note, was it not?"
She only stared at him intently with those azure eyes. Yes, she was stubborn and spirited. A memory stirred within him of sometime long ago.
"Oscar, do you mean for all this? Do you mean to side with them and to forget who you are?"
Oscar smiled, saying nothing. He thought again. André. Of course. She would throw away her title to be with him. She probably convinced that boy to rebel. And he'd follow her every word…oh, naïve youth…But though the stains of her betrayal have crept onto the family crest despite her disownment, now that the revolution is about to start, could anything like this even hold any substance? And did she even forget herself? Or was it quite the opposite? Did she finally remember? Did she learn?
The General straightened up, and lifted his chin.
"Oscar," a sigh, "Oscar…"
He heard her footsteps, cautious, as she took five steps from the door and reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder. And then General de Jarjayes had an insufferable urge to turn around and to look at his daughter one last time.
He was too self-composed to flinch. But before he really saw that there was not a person present, that the door to the room was closed, just for a moment he saw her, in that wide beam of sunlight, saw that she smiled at him, just as he felt her do, her hand resting on his shoulder, and her eyes watching him so carefully, so full of pride.
The sunlight flickered and disappeared. The room was cold.
He drew a breath, and heard it, an off key chord, the sound of defeat, muffled at once by the cries of victory. The Bastille had fallen.
An impatient knock, the heavy door flung open. Nervous footsteps, the crumpling of paper.
"Sir! I have some unfortunate news, sir!"
"The Bastille," he whispered, unbelieving.
"Sir…I have some unfortunate personal news…"
A/N: Perhaps the General's character is wrong. He's such a great, complex man to write. Maybe better luck next time.