Wow, this chapter is late! Tee hee... I had this all typed and everything, I just haven't been on-line in a while... anyway, here's the chapter.

Cosette had been traveling for days now, hiding her face whenever someone came near, whether out of shame or fear she wasn't sure. She was hungry, although she had been stealing and begging wherever she could. She had no qualms about either, anymore. But where to go? She couldn't keep wandering aimlessly forever; she had to find somewhere to stay eventually…

A small town somewhere. Not small enough that strangers would be noticed and give an undue amount of attention while passing through, but not large enough that someone could recognize her… Somewhere she could live safely, because she knew that if she was found again, she would be re-arrested for murder, or at least attempted murder. How stupid! But she had, of course, been put away for five years just for stealing some bread.

She didn't even like bread that much anyway. Kind of bland and tasteless. But returning to the point at hand…

After the aforementioned many days of wandering, Cosette came upon what seemed to be exactly the small town she had been wishing for. It was one of those towns that have come quickly to their own, in this case due to a thriving factory of some sort or another. The important thing, of course, was that as towns grow larger, people from all over, some simply moving about, some looking to start a new life, gravitate to them. Cosette would not be noticed.

But of course, with the odd luck that seemed to follow Cosette everywhere she went, she could not avoid being noticed. It happened like this. Even before she'd been in town a day, she heard the first snatches of rumor—concerning the mayor. Everyone spoke of his good deeds, many with awe bordering on reverence. Wherever the rare dissenting voice could be heard, it was quickly silenced by the multitude of mayoral supporters surrounding it.

So why wouldn't she want to catch a glimpse of him? She was curious, as anyone would be. And indeed, when she first saw the mayor, it was in a small crowd comprised mostly of beggars, who howled and pleaded for money or food. Along with new people, new poverty comes to a growing town.

He noticed her, for a reason she did not understand until later. She resembled quite closely her mother. She was surprised when he walked right up to her and asked for her name. Should she give it? Already, instincts of secrecy, the instinct of the hunted, had begun to settle into her. Perhaps because of said surprise, however, she answered truthfully, "Cosette."

"Where do you come from?"

"Montfermeill," she said, naming the only place she could remember living in that wouldn't raise awkward questions, as prison tends to do.

A strange series of expressions ran across his face as he examined hers. Finally he asked, quietly, "Will you come with me, Cosette?"

--

What she found, in the semi-dark room that the mayor lead her to, was a woman, unconscious and sickly looking. Cosette would have taken her for dead had there not been a doctor nearby, instructing a nun on (presumably) the care of the woman. "Monsieur, who is that?" asked Cosette, shifting uncomfortably in her bare feet.

"That is your mother, Cosette."

--

Less than twenty-four hours later, Fantine was dead. She had never woken up from the sleep she had been in when Cosette had first seen her, but passed on quietly during the night. Cosette watched as they buried her mother, the only spectator as a gravedigger dug a hole in a field full of the corpses of others who had no money to call their own.

She would have to leave this town, now that she was known. She would leave as soon as she could. She would—a hand on her shoulder interrupted her frantic thought process. It was the mayor. "Cosette," he said awkwardly, "I'm very sorry about your mother, she's been ill for quite some time, and I—I came to know her fairly well."

"Better'n I did," said Cosette, shrugging as though it didn't matter.

"Do you have anywhere to go, Cosette," he asked the girl, who glanced at him through shifting eyes, as though appraising him for an alternative motive. The expression on his face, however, brought her up short. Suddenly, she was eight years old again, watching Madame looking at Eponine and Azelma with an expression she knew would never be directed at her.

Except that now it was. And although she hadn't been able to recognize the expression when she was a child, she knew it now. It was the face of someone who genuinely cared about her. She swallowed the lie that had risen ready to her throat, and said, "No, I've nowhere to go."

"Come with me," he said, "I think I'll be able to find you a place."

--

But there was no time for that; because in the way that when one thing happens, invariably something else must follow it, a police inspector was waiting when Cosette and the mayor arrived back within the town limits (The graveyard being slightly away from the last row of houses). Trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, Cosette moved a bit away.

She didn't hear, therefore, what the conversation was about, but it seemed to have caused the mayor some worry, and when the inspector finally moved off, he told Cosette that he would have to leave to go somewhere that night, that he wouldn't be back until the following day, most probably, and that she would have to wait here for him. She acquiesced calmly. Surely, after all, a mayor had many more important duties than looking after random orphans.

--

It was midafternoon the following day by the time she heard—perhaps the last person in town to hear—that the mayor had been arrested. Arrested! Time to leave, she decided, before someone caught up to her as well. She left town that night under cover of darkness. She had not gone more than a ½ mile out of town, however, when she saw someone moving quietly up the road ahead of her.

It was the mayor.