Fauchelevent had never wanted to live forever but he had to confess that he had hoped for just a little bit longer. But then, if one was always asking for more time then sooner or later that would add up to forever, wouldn't it?
Madeleine insisted that he was going to be fine. They had all gotten sick a few times over the years, the two of them and Cosette, and they had all come through it just fine. Why should this time be any different?
Fauchelevent wanted so very much to believe him. A part of him, the part of him that always came back to that damn cart, believed him. That part of Fauchelevent would believe Madeleine if he insisted that he was Louis XVI himself.
Another part of him wasn't so sure. This time it felt different. This time he was just so tired and all the rest in the world wasn't doing him a damn bit of good.
But he wasn't going to die today and Madeleine was sitting so devotedly at his bedside and so there was time to worry about those he would leave behind and leave his impending journey to another day.
"Does she know?" he asked quietly.
"Does she know what?" Madeline asked, equally quietly. There was no need for him to ask who 'she' was, of course. To Madeleine there was only ever one she that mattered. He wondered suddenly if that had always been so. It seemed impossibly sad either way.
"About Madeleine."
As he had expected, Madeleine's eyes shuttered and his face turned distant. "No."
Fauchelevent knew that he had to proceed cautiously. All these years had passed and he was one of only two people that Madeleine had spoken to at all and the only other adult. He had accepted Madeleine's request that Fauchelevent not know anything more about him than he had known back in Montreuil but he had rather expected that he'd learn more as the time went on. To some extent he had. On the subject of Madeleine's past he was still hopelessly ignorant.
And that was alright. He didn't need to know and the questions that burned inside of him were not worth the distance they would no doubt bring. But that wasn't what this was about.
"Madeleine, you know me better than to think that I am trying to pry," Fauchelevent told him. "I do not wish for you to tell me anything. I'm just…concerned."
It was true. Fauchelevent knew nothing about who Madeleine was before he came to Montreuil and little about him afterwards, really, just the basics. As far as he knew, Madeleine was alone. Who was he before? Was there anyone left that knew the answer to that? Did they know what had become of him? The people of Montreuil had loved him long before Fauchelevent did and he knew that they had no idea what had become of their former mayor just as Fauchelevent did not know for sure why he had left.
When he died, who would look at this man in front of him and think to remember Madeleine? Would everything he was now and had ever been just fade away in the face Ultime Fauchelevent, a man long dead?
He must have his reasons and, knowing Madeleine, they must be good ones but it broke Fauchelevent's heart and almost made him wish for his forever after all.
If Cosette knew then that was something, at least. The past would still exist if two people could be together and know of it. Without that it was as lost as so much of Fauchelevent's own life had been.
"I appreciate it, Fauchelevent," Madeleine said. "But there is nothing to tell."
"Nothing?" Fauchelevent repeated incredulously. "Not about Montreuil and the factory? Not about all those people you always saved and your charity? Not about how you saved me?"
"They are…" Madeleine trailed off, seeming to struggle with himself. "Those things all happened. They all mattered. But they do not need to be shared. Cosette knows me as her father and as Ultime Fauchelevent. That is all she needs to know. Such complications…I have told you nothing but you must see that there are complications. I would not do that to her."
It was not a surprise and Madeleine's tone made it clear that he would not be changing his mind anytime soon. Fauchelevent did not want to spend whatever time he had left (and who knew? Madeleine could be right after all) fighting.
But it felt like an end to an era just the same.
"You are a good person, Madeleine. I may not know what the past holds or the future and you may choose to leave all of this behind you but, no matter what happens, I will remember," Fauchelevent vowed. "Those times mattered and they deserve to be kept close to our hearts."
Madeleine smiled but said nothing.