In Limbo

Author's Notes: Well, the actual reason I even made this account was because I've recently been on a Clopin frenzy. And (as I'm sure most of you know) it's fairly difficult to go on a Clopin frenzy without either seeing a Mary Sue or hearing fans complain about them. This fanfic was written due my finding an actual request on dA for people to create flawed female leads opposite Clopin, and I thought...yeah, I can definitely do that. In fact, sounds pretty fun AND has the possibility for copious amounts of angst! xD


Introduction

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."-Matthew, 5:6

In a guilty, furtive little space in her heart that really had no business being there, she hoped that her memories of him would someday fade. She hoped that she wouldn't rest her hand on his side of the bed and imagine the lingering warmth of his body heat there. She hoped that she wouldn't be able to look at her son's face when he wore a disgruntled expression and be startled as to how much he looked like his father. She hoped that she wouldn't find herself, on absent-minded days, setting the table for three instead of two.

But she did, and though it would be dishonest of her to say that she embraced these things, she did come to accept them. They curled into a tight little knot at the pit of her stomach and settled there, and attracted emotions like resentment that might have otherwise passed like magnets.

She hadn't gone into the marriage loving him, or loving much of anything, but she had come out of it that way, and she hated them even more for taking that from her.

It was a safe kind of love. It wasn't frightening and exhilarating and painful, but it was comforting and familiar and-in time-it came easily to her. It was born from his whispered confessions to her that he didn't quite approve of Judge Frollo's methods, and from the secure way that he held her at night, as though sure of his convictions that he wouldn't let go. And it was born from the way that he cried when he stood by her side, cradling their slick and newly-born son, and that he'd made her feel unafraid to cry herself.

When her next love found her, she was a broken woman. He put her whole, and shattered her smaller.