"Monsieur, there is something I feel I must confess to you. It had been a burden on my soul ever since it happened, and it is something that you deserve to know."
"By all means, tell me, Marius," said Valjean jovially as the two walked through the garden. "But I am sure that whatever secret you have will be nothing compared to the secrets I have wrongly kept from you and Cosette."
"You are wrong, Monsieur," said Marius gravely. "You see, I have sinned against you and your daughter. I am a coward and a fool and I do not deserve forgiveness. If you had known, you never would have saved me."
"I am sure that is not true," Valjean told him. "Would a coward have saved the barricade by threatening to blow it up 'and himself with it'? Would a fool have been able to track down my daughter in a city of millions, even after I tried so hard to evade both you and the police? Speak, my son, and unburden your mind. Whatever it is, I am sure it is not nearly as bad as you believe it to be."
"Remember that day in February of last year when Monsieur Thénardier and the Patron-Minette tried to rob you at the Gorbeau House?" Marius began, then paused briefly to wait for an answer. He waved it aside. "A stupid question- of course you do. How could anyone forget something like that?"
"How do you know about that?" Valjean asked curiously.
"Well, Monsieur, that's just the thing," said Marius, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "I was there. I lived in the next room. I saw all of it unfold, and I did nothing."
"You were there?" Valjean repeated in disbelief. "Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Because I was ashamed, as well I should be. Also because after everything else I had been through, it seemed unimportant. But now it is all finally starting to fit together."
"You were there... "
"And turned aside," Marius finished for him. "And it's not as if I had no means with which to intervene. I had two pistols and was told to fire them into the air to tip off the police. But I couldn't bring myself to do it."
"You were being cautious," Valjean said. "You were waiting for the right moment."
"No," Marius insisted. "You see, I had overheard their plan, and as soon as you and Cosette left, I snuck out of the apartment and went down to the police station to warn them of the robbery, but- "
"You did? You saved my life!"
"No," said Marius, bewildered at Valjean's reaction. "I couldn't do it because- "
"And you risked your own life, too! Didn't you realize Thénardier would have killed you if he'd noticed you trying to foil his plan? And you didn't even know me!"
"Well then, I guess we're even," said Marius with a nervous chuckle. "And I didn't really do it for you, anyway, I did it for- "
"Cosette, of course," Valjean said understandingly. "Then I suppose I made the right choice."
"But I didn't end up saving your life," Marius said indignantly. "I just sat there, watching, while they tied you up and defended yourself all on your own. And when the cops busted in- " Marius gasped with the sudden realization. "You ran away because the Inspector was going to arrest you! He would've recognized you!"
"There's no way you could have known that," said Valjean. "For all you knew, I was an upstanding citizen who had nothing to fear from the law."
"Nevertheless," said Marius, "the fact remains that you are a hero and I am a coward. I cannot accept your forgiveness because you do not seem to understand the gravity of my misdeed. I refused to protect Cosette when she may have been in mortal danger, and in so doing, I have brought shame to my noble father, his name and his title."
"Listen to me, Marius," said Valjean, putting a hand on the young man's shoulder. "I may be a strong man, but I am still a man, and I am not as unbreakable as I seem. I only could have held out for so long against all those thugs. They would have tortured me, tried to get me to tell them the whereabouts of Cosette. And as much as I would like to believe that I would have died before breathing a word to them, I cannot be sure. You saved my life and Cosette's life as well. Stop blaming yourself for Thénardier's misdeeds."
"I cannot, Monsieur," Marius said softly but firmly. "You see, the reason I didn't try to stop Thénardier was... my father owed a life debt to him."
Valjean's eyes widened. "Thénardier saved your father's life?"
Marius nodded. "At Waterloo. Thénardier was a sergeant, my father was a colonel. My father was gravely injured, and after the battle, Thénardier found him alive amongst the bodies. My father was so grateful that he wrote me a letter just before he died, instructing me to find Thénardier and perform for him whatever service I could."
"Couldn't it have been another Thénardier?" Valjean asked. He simply couldn't believe that Thénardier had saved someone's life. True, he had saved Marius' and Valjean's lives in the sewers, but that seemed irrelevant.
"I didn't know my neighbor- Jondrette- was Thénardier until that day," Marius told him. "I found out at the same moment you did- when he revealed that he recognized you from years back and that the whole robbery was revenge for when you 'stole' Cosette from him. If he hadn't said that right when he did, I might have done my duty and fired the shot. But I was just so thrilled to finally meet the man who had saved my father- and so horrified at what he had become- that I was very conflicted... "
"So that's why... "
Marius nodded again. "A poor excuse, I know. One should never believe second-hand accounts over what one sees with one's own eyes. But you must understand that my father was for many years- and still is- my idol. He fought bravely under Napoleon, for France, and he loved me more than anything in the world. But I never knew him because my grandfather disapproved of his politics so strongly that he gave my father the ultimatum of leaving me forever or having me disinherited. Being the honorable man he was, he chose the former. Grandfather always despised my father for marrying my mother, and he told me that my father had abandoned me. It wasn't until I grew up that I found out the truth."
"I am so sorry. I had no idea. About your father, I mean." Valjean swallowed and clasped his hands behind his back. "You know, Marius, your story contains quite a few similarities to that of Cosette. I wonder if God did not bring you two together for a reason."
"For me, Monsieur, that is no question. I knew that we were destined for each other the moment I saw her in the Luxembourg Gardens." He did not feel the need to tell Valjean that he had at first thought Cosette ugly as a prepubescent girl, nor that perhaps marrying Thénardier's poor, lovelorn daughter might have been a way to repay his debt to the man.
"It sounds as if there has been a great void in your life, that of a father," Valjean observed. "You have had to grow up too quickly and take on a great deal of responsibility for one so young."
"I have had father figures along the way," Marius told him. "Father Mabeuf, for one. He knew my father personally. He was the one who told me all about him. Later, he gave me a job when I had nowhere else to go. But when he was killed on the barricade, I didn't even notice because I was so upset about Cosette leaving the country..." He hung his head in sorrow. "I miss him. I wish I could tell him how much he meant to me. He was poor and humble, yet very wise. A true man of God."
"It is not my place to say this," said Valjean confidentially, "but from what you have told me, your grandfather is not deserving of your love or respect. I do not blame you for severing all ties to him, but now I wonder why you are trying to make amends when it seems like a futile effort."
"We are blood," Marius said simply. "And there is always the fact of money."
Valjean nodded. "True enough," he agreed.
"He is all I have," Marius added.
"For someone without a decent father figure growing up, Marius, you have turned into a remarkable young man. I think your father would be quite proud to see what you have become. He wouldn't have wanted you to blindly heed his words if they turned out to be harmful without his knowledge of it."
"How am I supposed to be a decent father to my own children if I never had one myself?" Marius asked rhetorically, helplessly throwing his hands up into the air. "I want my children to know their father. But I don't think I'll ever be able to live up to my own father's example. Or, for that matter, yours."
"They are your children, Marius. You will know what to do." Valjean smiled warmly. "Look at me. I lost my father when I was ten years old. I barely remember him. My mother went a year later. My sister and I were orphans, and she began to take care of me at an age when she could barely take care of herself. She had seven children and was widowed just before a freezing cold winter during the Terror. The tables were turned, and I had to take care of them all. I became a father when I was over fifty years old and was on the run from the law. What did I know about fatherhood then? Nothing. Your children teach you. You do not need any inspiration to draw on other than the grace of God."
"I hope you are right, Monsieur," said Marius, looking away. Over the hedge, in the distance, the sun was beginning to set. Marius reflected how beautiful Paris was and how he never wanted to leave the heart of his beloved Patria. It was haunted by the ghosts of his fellow students, and he felt their presence as warm air breezing past him against the lavender sky. There would be another chance for him to fight. He would rather die than be forced to live in exile, away from France and her people. But even if that should somehow happen someday, he knew that he would still devote his life to his country even if from beyond its borders. He'd find a way to make his friends and father proud, and in addition he would give his own children something to hold up and revere. Summer was coming again.
A/N: What do you think? Should I continue this? Tell me in the reviews!