AN : Hello everyone :) This is my first LM fic. I'm using the stage production as my primary canon (and mainly using the 25th anniversary concert for visual cues and personal descriptions) but also incorporating some details from the book and the 2012 movie. Hope you enjoy – reviews are welcome :)

Chapter 1

It was a Saturday in the late spring of 1949, a day like any other, when Annette Szekely stepped out of her small, Parisian flat for a walk. The day was hot and humid, already like summer, so the young woman had dressed lightly – a pink dress with white polka dots and a pair of sandals. She took only a small handbag, no hat or sweater; she wasn't planning to be out long. She'd wander for an hour or two, maybe sit down by the river for a while or go to the park. On sunny days like today Annette liked being outside. Often she'd take a book with her, but on this afternoon she hadn't.

A few paces took her past the newspaper kiosk, a few more past her closest boulangerie, and then the tram stop. For a few minutes, Annette gazed absentmindedly into the shop windows she was passing. For a second, she stopped to admire a dress. Someone had tied up a dog outside the bar-tabac at the corner; after a moment's hesitation, the girl bent down to say hello, letting the dog lick her hand. Then she was off again, around another corner. She could have kept going straight, she supposed – she'd get to the center of town faster that way, but as she'd wanted to explore…

Turning the corner, however, she heard herself gasp in surprise. Somehow, she'd turned onto a narrow street she'd never seen before, where old, rickety, wooden buildings leaned almost dangerously over cobblestones. The street she'd just left had been normally paved, as this one was supposed to be, in fact. It wasn't as if she'd never turned the corner here before. Every time she'd previously done so, though, it had looked not unlike her own street: filled with stucco residential buildings four and five-stories high, the grocer's two or three doors down, and in the distance, an elementary school. Was it possible to turn a corner she must have turned at least hundreds, if not thousands of times, and to find herself on a wholly new and unfamiliar street?

Even stranger, however, were all the people filling it. They looked extremely poor, physically dirty, some of them with ragged, patched clothing. What's more, what they were wearing all looked like it came from another era – the distant past. Women wore long skirts, heavy shoes. Their hair was tied up in buns on their heads or down in braids, sometimes hidden under floppy cotton bonnets. Some were carrying buckets of water, others dragging along equally filthy, equally strangely-dressed children. While Annette wouldn't have characterized her neighborhood as anything other than solidly working class, she'd never seen people here before whose situation looked so dire. Besides, despite certain depreciating comments she could remember her father making in his thick Hungarian accent, years ago, almost in another life, Annette was pretty sure that nowadays everyone in Paris had running water, and they had at least a fair idea of what a bath or a shower was for.

Nowadays … the girl repeated this word in her mind. Her heart seemed to skip a beat. No, that can't be. Are they filming a picture in Paris today? It was a conscious effort to force an ironic smile. Wish I'd seen the notice. I wonder if they'd take me as an extra! But no cameras were rolling, no camera crews could be seen anywhere, and after a moment, Annette noticed that almost all of the people in the street had stopped to stare at her, as if her knee-length dress and short blonde hair was as strange to them as their clothing had been to her.

Without another second's thought, Annette instantly turned on her heel. She'd meant to head right back around the corner, back towards the tabac and the dog at the corner, back to the neighborhood she thought she knew so well. When she took the turn, however, the street she had just left was nowhere to be found. Instead, she faced yet another narrow alleyway, again paved with cobblestones. There were fewer people here, but all of them were dressed just as strangely as the ones she had seen a second ago. Here, too, everyone who caught her eye was staring at her.

The girl didn't hesitate. Walking fast, breaking into a run after only a few paces, she sped out of the area, initially trying to find her way back home. Soon, though, she realized that the warren of narrow streets seemed to go on and on. They were all filled with strange, unfamiliar people and landmarks, but she kept running as fast as she could, no longer paying any heed to who and what she passed, only half wondering if each step was taking her further from her own neighborhood, or if something inexplicable had happened and she would never see it again.

She didn't know how long she ran – maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour. When she stopped to take a breath, she found herself standing in an evidently nicer part of town, outside the entrance to an elegant, well-maintained park. Iron gates, painted green with gold trim, stood open beside high hedges. Inside, a tree-lined alleyway led towards a small pond or pool, surrounded by benches.

The park itself didn't look very different than those she had seen before. That didn't necessarily mean anything, though. She'd taken a school trip to Versailles once, and they'd spent some time exploring the gardens. These had been carefully tended to look like they had back in the 18th century, and the only thing that Annette could tell distinguished the style from that of her local park was that Versailles's was fancier. Indeed, beginning to stroll – as leisurely as she could manage – down the tree-lined path towards the pool and the benches in this park here, she caught sight of men in waistcoats and women in high-necked dresses, with shawls and buttoned gloves, sitting on blankets in the grass. Not far from them, girls with ribbons tied in bows in their long ringlets and boys with those funny shorts Annette had seen in paintings chased each other in circles. At least these people seemed more engrossed in their conversations or whatever else they were doing; fewer, (though still some), turned to stare at the young woman as she passed.

Finally, reaching the pond, Annette all but flung herself down on a bench. Where was she? What on earth was happening to her? Lifting her eyes, she attempted to force herself to focus on her immediate surroundings, to calm herself if nothing else. Nothing seemed frightening or threatening here, other than the fact that she had no idea where here was. More small children were floating toy boats in the pond; some were skipping rocks.

Not many people were sitting on the other benches around the circle. To one side of her was an elderly man dressed in white. A young girl, perhaps Annette's own age, perhaps a little younger, dressed in black, was sitting next to him. Nearly directly across from them, on the other side of the pool, was a young man, dressed in a waistcoat like the men she'd passed on the way in. He was also about Annette's own age, she supposed, with brown, curly hair and an earnest face. He had a book in his hands that ostensibly he was reading, though he kept stealing glances at the young girl across from him. Neither she nor her father appeared to notice him, though, nor did any of the three notice Annette.

For a second, Annette thought the scene seemed almost familiar. She couldn't remember ever having seen any of these people before, though. Could it be just a sense of déjà-vu? The whole moment had a dream-like quality about it, but if so, it wasn't a dream Annette remembered having had before. Could it have been in something she had read, then? She'd been doing a lot of reading recently, a lot of 19th century roman-fleuves actually, so it might just figure that if she was having some kind of a very lucid dream it might put her in some 19th century landscape. Was she dreaming, though? She remembered clearly enough waking up late this morning, getting up and washing her face, eating a slice of buttered bread and an orange, in her own flat, in 1949. Reaching over, she pinched herself on the arm. Nothing happened, though she supposed if it were an extremely realistic and lucid-seeming dream, pinching her own self in the arm wouldn't do much good in getting out of it.

Pay attention, Annette. She shifted her position, looking away from the young woman and the old man and towards the young man on the other bench. He was still gazing at the girl across from him, his eyes full of excitement, his lips unconsciously curved in a smile.

Annette could have laughed. Maybe it was this scene, not the people participating in it, which had seemed so familiar. She'd had boys look at her with ardor like that in their eyes before, after all. Only normal, she supposed, when you were young. She didn't think she was uncommonly attractive, though there'd been a boy or two who had sought to convince her otherwise, remarking on her fair skin, her small form, her bright, blue eyes. Lucien, the delivery boy from her old office, had insisted that she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen, and the nicest, too. About the first thing, Annette had more than her fair share of doubts, and the second was flat out nonsense, but Lucien, for whatever reason, had been persistent.

He'd wanted her to go out with him. She'd accepted, because it sounded like it would be fun. They'd gone to the movies together, then somehow she had wound up accompanying him back to his place. His parents' place, she supposed, though thankfully they were not home. And there, in his cluttered, boyhood bedroom they had made love. It was over a year ago, then; Annette had been very young, just eighteen, if not still seventeen in fact. Perhaps she'd had romantic notions about what her first time would be like, but they had never included glimpses of laundry, stretched out on a line from the balcony, flapping in the breeze, and a snatches of a heated argument from the next flat overheard through the open window. Finally, a baby had started crying in that flat, and Annette couldn't help it – she burst out laughing, and then it was all over. She'd dressed quickly and let herself out the door, and despite the late hour she'd made her way home, deeply embarrassed, not so much by the act than by how ridiculous the situation had turned out to be. That, and she was pretty sure she felt absolutely nothing for Lucien.

The next day, Lucien had tried to catch her eye at work, had tried to speak to her. For her part, Annette had done what she could to avoid him, but he'd eventually cornered her in the stairs. He'd wanted to talk. Nothing about the previous night, but he wanted to see her again. Did she want to go to another picture at the weekend? She'd told him no, and after a few more awkward attempts at conversation, a few more invitations, Lucien had gotten the hint.

Annette supposed she hadn't dealt with Lucien all that nicely, which was what made his initial comment ring so false, all things considered. There was nothing wrong with Lucien, really. He was just a young boy in love, or thought he was, at least. A relationship was out of the question, though. If it went any further, he would start to ask her things, would eventually want to introduce Annette to his parents, and how could Annette tell him she had no parents anymore? How could she tell him everything else?

In fact, Annette had very few friends. She hadn't kept contact with the girls she'd known at the orphanage, after she'd left when she was seventeen. Fantasies of brief affairs aside, she'd realized after Lucien that romantic relationships were just as impossible. So, always an avid reader, she'd really plunged herself into the novels then, figuring that she might as well lose herself in the imaginary lives of other people.

Lost in her recollections, she'd sunk back into the wood of the bench. Now, though, she looked up again, at the pond. Once more, she looked over at the young man. He'd stopped staring at the girl across from him and had returned to his book, but just as Annette glanced at him, he looked up, too. Suddenly, as he saw her, his eyes narrowed, he scrunched up his nose. While Annette might have forgotten how strange it was that everyone she had seen this afternoon was dressed like people from the past, he was evidently as shocked as the people she had seen in the very first street she'd found herself in to see her.

Instinctively, Annette jumped to her feet, off again and running once more, back out through the park's gate, back into the street. She didn't stop at that point; she kept going for several minutes, though soon enough she slowed, her legs beginning to ache with fatigue. Running wasn't doing her any good – that was clear. Once again, she found herself in a wholly unknown street, here too paved with cobblestones. At least this one had fewer people wandering around in it.

Dejectedly, Annette slumped down to sit on a step, carefully avoiding a place where muddy water sloshed from a pipe into the gutter. She ducked her head into her hands, raking her fingers through her hair, bringing them to rest on the back of her neck, fighting off a wave of sudden panic. Whatever charm this dream – or whatever it was – could have brought her so far, it had long worn off. Her heart was pounding fast, and though she was making an effort to try and breathe slowly, in a measured way, her breaths were coming out shallow, ragged, and bile was rising in her throat. Not just because I've been running, she told herself, trying to keep her mind clear and rational, at least.

Suddenly, someone tapped Annette lightly on the shoulder. Immediately, she jerked her head up, but her gaze softened at the sight of the person she saw there: a small boy of about ten or so, with long, scraggly, blond hair and a newsboy cap.

"Miss, are you lost?" he asked.

She nodded first, barely trusting herself to speak, but soon enough she croaked it out. "Yes."

"I can take you somewhere safe, if you want? I'll take you to my sister. My name's Gavroche, by the way."

And at that moment, just as she was coming to stand and taking the – dirty – hand he offered her, it suddenly hit her. Where, when she was, why those people sitting around the small pond in the park seemed so oddly familiar to her. I'm in Les Misérables. I've somehow travelled into Victor Hugo's book. Holy hell, I'm in Les Misérables!

AN: I will be translating most French terms at the end of each chapter.

bar-tabac – a corner or convenience store, selling cigarettes, magazines, stamps, with a bar or café corner.

roman-fleuve – literally a 'novel-river' – a long novel, a 'brick' :)