Fandom: The Hundred-Foot Journey
Rating: T for language, sexual references, and coming-out angst
Pairings: Hassan/Marguerite, Mahira/Man on Bicycle, Mansur/Original Male Character
Note: I do not speak French or Hindi, nor do I know anything about French or Indian cooking. I apologize for any linguistic and culinary errors. Please let me know if I need to fix anything. Also, I am only familiar with the movie version of this story, if that affects anything.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Richard C. Morais, Scribner Publishing, Simon & Schuster, Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks Studios, Harpo Films, Imagenation, Participant Media, or Reliance Entertainment. No profit is made from this story.
When he stood in the doorway to her apartment building, getting drenched in the downpour, asking her what he should do, Marguerite knew she loved him. All the petty arguments before, the jealousies, the rivalry, was nothing now. Hassan was here, and he was on the brink of the biggest thing that could ever happen to him, and he was scared, and she loved him.
She loved him, and she had to let him go.
"Go," she said. "Go, it's okay, go."
If he stayed one more minute, they both knew she would pull him inside and up the stairs to her apartment, and he would never leave her side again.
"Hassan, it's all right. Go," she said.
He nodded and got back into the taxi. Marguerite stood and watched him drive away, tasting the kiss he didn't leave on her lips.
They wrote to each other, of course, sometimes. It reminded her of when she had first known him and he had hesitantly asked questions to which he received short answers. It had been a game then, a slow flowering of something which she had both shied away from and anticipated. Now the texts felt like the bud had died before it had even grown, and they were trampling on its remains. She missed him. She wondered if he knew it.
Marguerite would never be as good as Hassan. That was something she had to accept. She had worked for Madame Mallory for years, faithfully sacrificing everything to Le Saule Pleureur, while he worked under Mme Mallory for only one year. Yet Mme Mallory told Marguerite nothing of planning to retire from managing the restaurant, while she handed the reins of Le Saule Pleureur to Hassan. Marguerite's old self would have flared up, struck out at Hassan, but she had grown now. She loved Hassan the man, and loving the man meant accepting the chef, and accepting the chef meant accepting that he was better than she was.
She told him as much when he pulled her aside to tell her the news. He apologized for usurping her place, looking at her like he had years ago, when she pushed him away for gaining Mme's favor. He didn't look like the man who had used his creative genius to single-handedly bring a tired restaurant back into Parisian.
"You don't owe me any favors," she said. "This is yours. It is your right. You don't need to feel sorry for me." It sounded bitter, but it wasn't, really. It was accepting. There was a place for her in the world of food, but it was not his place.
"Marguerite," he said. "I don't feel sorry for you. Le Saule Pleureur is your restaurant. I couldn't run it without you."
"Ha," she said, cleaning the sea urchins, "says the man who's getting a third Michelin star tomorrow."
"Marguerite," he said. His hands lay still on the cutting station, garlic forgotten. "I can't do it without you. I won't do it without you."
Heat flared up inside her like she had added too much Cognac before flambéing a dish. "Don't be stupid, Hassan," she said. "You just told me this is want you want."
"Yes," he said, using a hand to sweep toward the whole kitchen before indicating the space between him and her. "This is what I want. You are the soul of this place, Marguerite. You always have been for me."
She wondered what had happened to the bashful man who depended on little gestures to get his point across. This Hassan was not afraid to state things openly. "I will think about it," she allowed, turning away. "You had better start shaping the croissants if you want them to be ready by morning."
A hint of his old smile played across his face. "All right."
She accepted his business proposal, of course, and they ran the restaurant with the grace and skill that only comes with the perfect pairing of Chef de Cuisine and Sous-Chef de Cuisine. Their third Michelin star was awarded in two years.
The next year, Hassan looked down at their new baby girl, cradled in Marguerite's arms. "She is the real star of Le Saule Pleureur," he said, and kissed his wife on the top of her head.
They named her Sitara, Hindi for star, and she was the greatest achievement of all.