AN: What if Esmeralda had not seen or heard her beloved Phoebus and yelled his name, when soldiers came to search her? She would not have been hanged, Frollo would not have laughed at the body of poor girl, Quasimodo had not killed him and made suicide, and voila - everybody of big three had been alive. Story begins quite near in the end, with more or less insane Frollo waiting to hear about Esmeralda´s death.
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Lovely red roses bloomed on the altar of Notre Dame, when Frollo sat on the bench. He remembered even lovelier roses, huge and crimson, blooming in Esmeralda´s hair, when she had danced in the streets. And soon she would be dead, poor girl! Literally mad from grief and agony, Frollo sank his face to his palms.
"Master."
Frollo turned his head and saw Quasimodo. "I can´t find Esmeralda anywhere," hunchback said with sign language.
"She is soon dead, Quasimodo," Frollo answered in the same way.
"Don´t say that, Master! She gave water to me when I had tried to carry her away, when everyone else tortured me..."
And when I had betrayed you, thought the priest. Furiously, he continued to make signs: "She can never love you or me, only that filthy young scum with handsome looks!"
Quasimodo hanged his head. He too knew Esmeralda´s shallowness with appearances and how worthless Phoebus was.
Frollo turned back to the altar. Mad laugh started to shake him. "She is soon dead, hanged like a witch!"
Quasimodo, who could not hear his voice or saw his face, saw him shaking and thought he cried. He turned around and walked away.
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When the night fell, the crowd who searched gypsy witch left the streets but there had been casualties. One of the young priests came to sit with Frolllo and told him last news.
"Captain of King´s Archers was killed. His fiancee must be heart-broken. Didn´t the gypsy witch stabbed him?" Young man shook his head. "Anchoress is disappeared, too."
Frollo stared to the emptiness. "He followed her to the grave, " he said with tones.
"Who?"
"Gypsy witch. She is dead."
"No, no, she has escaped. Satan probably helped her to escape."
Frollo turned his head. "Esmeralda... is alive?"
"Apparently. She went back to Hell, I suppose."
Frollo began to laugh hysterically, insanely. "She is alive! She is alive and I am not a murderer!"
Young priest looked worried. Archdeacon was clearly ill. "I think you should go to rest..." He saw Quasimodo coming to the room and said, hoping that deaf hunchback would understand: "Archdeacon is ill."
They helped Frollo to his chamber and to the bed. When they opened his cassock, they saw the badly-healed wounds.
"This kind of self-torment is self-indulgent wallowing and from Satan, not God," young priest scolded "Look! One of those dagger-wounds has almost pierced your heart! I call someone to take care of you."
When the young priest went to search help, Quasimodo sat on the chair near Frollo´s bed. He knew it was not wounds which caused Frollo´s madness, that he had to get the gypsy girl from his blood.
"Esmeralda is escaped," he told in sign language.
"And Phoebus is dead, " Frollo made his sign language weakly.
"Well, good riddance," Quasimodo snarled and Frollo´s mouth turned to weak smile. "What we are doing now?"
"I will take care of you, Master. You did it, when I was helpless and alone. Whatever happens, I will not leave you." There was no sentimentality on hunchback´s face; he just told the facts.
Priest came back with bandages and Quasimodo rose from the chair. "I will soon come back."
He went to the bell-tower, and soon the heavy ringing was knelling in the Paris night. For the new beginning, perhaps?