Services of Love, a rose of versailles fanfic

NOTE: For some reason, this place keeps messing with my layout. If you want a prettier looking fic, head over to my Livejournal, the URL is in my profile ('cause I can't get it to be properly displayed here).

Title: Services of Love (1/1)

Author: Antigone a.k.a. Anty

Rating: PG-13

Keywords: Character Death. Not Happy.

Summary: For the orphaned, there is only one thing left to do.

Notes & Disclaimer: I noticed the logistical problem presented herein already twelve years back, when I was twelve and had just seen the anime. But I only came up with a fic around it when, during my latest re-watch and re-read, I was deeply moved by what an incredibly incompetent father General de Jarjeyes is… and how very much he loves his youngest daughter. So here's to a bit of playing in Ikeda-sama's already unbearably tragic sandbox (playing that in the end actually made me cry… and my own stories never do). Rosalie is very much based on how we got to know her during the second half of episode 40. A "lieue commune" is an old French unit of length, and equals roughly four and a half kilometers. Many thanks to my patient beta mcvarmazi – all remaining mistakes are my own.

Services of Love
© Antigone, September 14th -18th, 2006

At dusk of July 14, indescribable hours after the news from Paris, General de Jarjeyes was given reason to leave his wife's bedside, and let her fade away on her own. A cart carrying a simple-dressed yet familiar figure had made its way through the creaking gate, and shortly after the general hurried towards the mansion's main entrance to see a tall dark-haired man enquire after himself.

"André!" he began incredulously, "what—"

When he had reached the threshold, two sorrowful eyes met his gaze.

"Who are you?"

For a moment, the other's voice sounded almost amused. "I once obtained two-hundred muskets from you. I still owed your daughter a thousand livres for them."

With a gasp of denial, the general rushed across the paved stones of the mansion's courtyard. There, under the pink sky, beside the cart in its lengthening shadow, stood a quiet woman whom he had once known to be a young girl named Rosalie. He pleadingly met her eyes, but it was no use, and for a brief second, there was nothing but silence.

A desperate yelp then escaped the general's lips and he jumped onto the cart, instantly noticing the blonde strand of hair sticking out from below a simple white cloth. He violently tore it away, clenching his hands at the sight of Oscar's bullet-pierced body.

"You… fool!" He banged his fist in her face. "You rash, dumb, treasonous fool!" He grabbed her by the shoulders, screaming and yelling and hitting her head against the splintering wood.

Rosalie moved to stop him, but Bernard quietly took her wrist and led her aside.

Oscar's neck gave a resounding snap.

Her father instantly cradled her in his arms, rocking her like a child, covering her dead face with kisses and tears. He whispered her name, once, twice, a dozen times, his sobbing grew louder time after time that Oscar didn't respond. "I loved you more than all of them put together…" one of his hands caressed the back of her head, "…won't you answer your father…"

In the end, he carefully laid her back down, searching her features for a reply she would no longer give. "She looks serene… almost… happy." He spun around to yell at the silent watchers. "Why does she look happy!"

It wasn't the time to talk of duty and a clear conscience. Bernard tentatively took a step forward. "She was eager to leave a world without André," he truthfully said.

From the main flight of stairs, an old woman let out an agonized cry.

The general turned his gaze towards a second cloth-covered body, eyes empty, voice beaten when he finally spoke. "I should have let you escape with her when I had the opportunity." For a long time, he did not move.

"Sire," Rosalie firmly spoke up, "she longed to go to Arras one last time with André." In the evening sun, the carthorse whipped its tail against the flies buzzing around his heated flank. "I have drenched the linen in vinegar water, but without the proper horses and carriage, the journey takes days..." She did not need to go on. The gruesome image had already presented itself.

The general turned around, eyes alight with inspired purpose. "Of course… it's forty lieues…"

Bernard carried on. "If we galloped the entire way, we could make it in fifteen hours… but not with this cart, and not without changing horses."

Oscar's father vigorously got up. "Oh, but we won't need the cart. And we'll have fresh horses in every town on the way. I'll send a messenger off right now…" He quickly knelt down beside his daughter again, right fingers and thumb gently stroking her cheek. "Did you hear that, Oscar? We'll get there in time… I promise…"

The remaining light danced in golden gleams across the delicate embroidery of Oscar's uniform, and Bernard turned away from the scene, stricken. He silently glanced at his wife, but just like him Rosalie shed no tears and did not make a sound. Some tragedies lay beyond that.

Many years later, when the general had delivered a ring to a count, watched a queen die, and seen the house where his life had grown up fallen to ruins, a painting of Mars on a white horse was anonymously donated to the newly opened Musée du Louvre, and for a short while, two graves on a hillside were more lovingly tended than once the roses in Versailles.

(Fin.)