Where is love?
Does it fall from skies above?
Is it underneath the willow tree
That I've been dream of?
[Where Is Love - Oliver!]
He hurried down the cobbled lane, one hand on his flyaway hat and the other clutching onto his briefcase. The mid-winter wind swirled around him, its icy finger numbing his body despite the many layers of clothes he had on. He cursed under his breath as the nearby cathedral bells chimed, marking the hour. The university was still ten minutes away, and he was woefully late.
Voices called out to him as he strode through the busy square, ladies who have known his mother for decades and gentlemen who came by regularly for a drink with his father. He took his hat off to them, and kissed the gloved fingertips of the women. And then there are the girls, rosy-faced and smiling even in the midst of a drab winter. He couldn't help himself in catching the kisses they blew his way, and winking in return to their blatant batting of their eyelashes. With their twinkling eyes and promising smiles surrounding him, Courfeyrac knew that he wouldn't make it to the university that day, and he was secretly glad to miss the lectures on nothing but rich man's law.
He walked to the shops with a pretty blonde, heading in the opposite direction to his university. She was the daughter of a professor of medicine and had the bluest eyes, but he couldn't recall her name for the life of him. The hour flew by, and as he helped her into her carriage he felt the slightest brush against his coat.
"Wrong pocket, my lad," he said with a hint of a smile as he looked at the culprit.
The boy gazed up at him, frozen for a moment by shock, his mop of dirty blond hair level with Courfeyrac's waist. Whether the shock was due to being caught, or due to the strange response by this upper-class young man, Courfeyrac didn't have the time to figure it out before an ear splitting scream rang across the street.
"THIEF!" his pretty blonde companion shriek, her gloved hand pointing at the child beside her carriage, "SOMEBODY CATCH THE LITTLE THIEF!"
The boy disappeared into a narrow lane before she could yell anything else, his bare feet barely touching the ground as he darted between the milling crowd. Courfeyrac reached up a hand to calm the blue-eyed lady, telling her the child did no harm and could've done with a sou or two in this cold weather.
"You cannot mean it, Monsieur," she replied, her once-pretty mouth pursed into an ugly shape, "That thing is naught but trouble and undeserving of your attention."
He had nothing to say to that, save a very quick goodbye. His friends at le Musain used to say that he was infamous for courting ladies and leaving them for no reason other than boredom, but this time he had a very good reason indeed.
He wondered briefly about the blond urchin as he walked towards the cafe, deciding to do his study in the company of a cup of wine instead of his fellow haughty law students. Perhaps he had costed the child the day's catch in speaking up, perhaps because of him the little boy will go to sleep with an empty stomach that night. He wrapped his coat tighter around himself as the wind blew harder, the image of the blond boy in nothing but rags haunting him.
Little did he know that their paths would cross again.
Many became sick that winter, a kind of infection that made the rich bedridden for weeks and killed the poor. Joly and Combeferre turned up less frequently for meetings, busy with their roles of trainee physicians. Courfeyrac himself caught the sickness, but was lucky enough to be out and about again with a few days' rest.
With his scarf tightly wound and an extra thick jacket, he made his way to the university after a week's absence. The streets were emptier now, and only a few lone figures walked the square. Now and then some street children would run past him, their faces pale and their limbs blue with cold. It was harder to steal and get away now, with no crowd to hide in.
The chill was even stronger when Courfeyrac made his way home that evening, the early nightfall making the whole city feel that little bit colder. He took the shortcut behind the shops to get to le Musain, eager to sit down near a fire and warm himself with some wine.
"Is 'e alright?" whispered a tiny voice somewhere ahead.
The young law student slowed in his path, peering into the darkness and trying to pinpoint the source of the voice in vain. Whoever it was, they were hidden perfectly amidst the jagged outlines of the many crates and barrels lining the lane.
"'ow should I know?" snapped another voice, louder, "Do I look like a doctor to you?"
"But..." ventured the first voice, concern lacing each word, "He won't die, will he?"
"I told you I don't know!" said the other, exasperated yet desperate and helpless at the same time, "All I know is that he's burning! I don't know nothing else, nothing to make him better!"
Courfeyrac inched his way forward, strangely fascinated by these hidden strangers. He almost missed them, three fey figures wedged between piles of wooden crates, two kneeling beside the third's collapsed form. They were street children, with the trademark rags and stringy hair, dirty and uncut so that in the hazy light of a dying day Courfeyrac couldn't tell is they were boys or girls.
The figure on the ground muttered something, his or her voice so soft that Courfeyrac couldn't make out the words. But the other two snapped their heads up upon hearing it, their eyes suddenly wary.
"Gav, won't you please?" the smallest child spoke, fearful.
The fallen child whispered something again, motioning weakly with his arms.
"No, we ain't gonna leave you here," one of the standing urchins said, determined, "Who's there? Speak up! We ain't afraid to fight ya!"
"Don't be so stupid, Pierre!" the boy on the ground muttered hoarsely, then curled up as a racking cough came on. He stuffed his mouth with his fist to soften the sound, but Courfeyrac could hear each painful rasp clearly.
"I'm not here to hurt any of you," he said slowly, extending his hands to show them that he brought no harm, "I was just passing by, that is all."
Up close, the children looked even smaller than they sounded. The taller child, the boy who spoke so fiercely, raised his fists. The younger one, a little girl, scuffled behind him, earning a sound rebuff from her elder. She inched out a little, her bare feet poised on tiptoes to run away at any moment.
"Oh, really?" the boy spoke again, the confident and challenging mask slipping a little, "You, a posh gentleman, walkin' down an alley meant for scum like us? Ow, Gav!"
It seemed as though the boy on the ground had used his remaining strength to kick his companion, a silent signal to back off and run. Courfeyrac bent down, knowing very well that the child was ill despite being a student of law and not medicine. That stench of sickness, sharp in the crisp winter air, was too familiar to him.
"What ya gonna do with him? Back off!" the standing boy inserted himself in between the young man and his friend, shaking a little despite his bravado.
"Your friend here is very sick," Courfeyrac said plainly, "The same kind of sickness that is killing people in this city is help's not given. All I want to do is to get him to that help, if that's alright with you."
"Don't need your help," the sick child whispered stubbornly, using a hand to move his protector aside, "Just go away."
"Are you sure, Gav?" his little friend said uncertainly, "He said he could make ya better."
"I said..." Gav replied, his words interrupted by a bout of coughs," ...I don' want no charity."
Their argument was cut short by the booming voice of another man, his face red and angry from the back door of the bakery.
"Get yer little hands of my crates, you vermin!" he yelled, striding out to swat at the two standing children, "Nothin' for yer dirty little hands here, don't you dare scam off honest working folks like us."
Too amazed to interject, Courfeyrac watched as the urchins ran from the man's reach, their instinct taking over. At the end of the lane, the boy Pierre looked back in helplessness as he realised they left their friend behind. More harsh words from the baker made sure that the two street children made themselves scarce.
"Oh, Monsieur," the man said in a silky voice as he realised Courfeyrac's presence, "I hope they haven't troubled you too much. If you don't mind me saying, Monsieur, a gentleman such as you shouldn't walk these alleyways. To many of those vermins, in my opinion. You gotta keep your eyes peeled around that lot, their fingers..."
The man paused as hacking coughs echoed off the cobbled lane, his eyes widening. Courfeyrac moved over to cover up the sick child at his feet. He brought his hand over his mouth and made a show of coughing. The other man's suspicious gaze stopped at his bent over figure, ceasing to scan up and down the alleyway.
"I could've sworn it was another of those vermins," he muttered under his breath, "Them lot would get sick and come hide here, dying left and right and infecting the good folks. You should go home for a good rest, Monsieur. Get the missus to brew up something for that cough."
"Yes, I'll get on my way," Courfeyrac said when the coughing came to a stop, trying his hardest to sound polite to this cruel and unfeeling man, "Thank you for your words, kind sir."
"Ah, if you'll excuse me, that'll be my own missus yelling," the man said apologetically, ducking back into the bakery and pulling the door shut.
Courfeyrac got down on his knees again, not caring that his crisply starched trousers were drenched in muck. The boy was a ball of misery on the ground, his hands and feet frozen to the touch, yet his forehead burned like a furnace. A weak punch met Courfeyrac's arm as he tried to move the child, but after that there was nothing.
"I'm just going to get you some help, that's all," he explained as he shifted the boy, "Just to get you well enough again, and then you can do as you please, my lad."
At those last two words, the little boy's eyes fluttered open. They were blue, glazed over with fever, but there was a spark of recognition. It glinted with pain as Courfeyrac tried to lift his left arm.
"Wrong arm, my lad," the boy whispered before passing out, his head a dead weight against Courfeyrac.