There was no denying that this night was shaping up to be extremely odd. Grantaire getting himself arrested…messages in the middle of the night…Joly suddenly acting like Enjolras and the Archangel Michael put together (not that there was all that much difference between the two, was there?). Feuilly was confused to say the least and…to say a little more…perhaps a bit excited. This was as good a way as any to repay Grantaire for his last Scaramouche escapade. If the government can take an eye for an eye, a man ought at least to give freedom for freedom.
He swirled the coffee in his cup absently, watching small eddies splash up onto the ceramic. Perhaps L'Aigle could explain at least a little of the oddness. "Where did that come from?" he asked, looking up.
"…what?" L'Aigle looked startled, as if he really hadn't been paying attention. Half his mind not even in the room, and all that.
"He's really not acting like himself." Occasionally people made the comment that perhaps Feuilly was a bit blunt for his own good and that he ought to learn tact. He couldn't see that tact ever did much but get in the way of honest discussion.
L'Aigle just shrugged. "He gets a bit…intense…when he's had coffee."
Intense. That was one word for it. Feuilly had never particularly known Joly, but the general image hadn't been one compatible with sudden changes of plans or taking charge of anything. It had been more of the man who kept windows shut obsessively and wore scarves indoors if they were open. Then again, he had been Harlequin; that had to count for something. "…all right."
"Mmm," L'Aigle said, clearly seeing some part of Joly that he didn't. "So…why are you here, Feuilly?"
Why are you here? That is a question for the ages. The sort of thing one discusses with Combeferre if one is sure he's done with both his and Enjolras' school work, over nearly-burned-down candles and wine you can't afford on your own. But if you mean why am I here, in a completely strange apartment, suddenly conspiring to break a man out of prison…still a question for the ages, I'm afraid. "Lots of reasons," he offered as compromise since, dammit, he wasn't quite sure himself. "See justice done. Help repay him for getting us out. Anyway, I already offered to help him out if he ever meant to put Scaramouche's mask on again." His face twitched a very little at the memory – unusual show of emotion, Alexandre, and a rather unusual amount of talking for you, are you sure perhaps there isn't something in the coffee rather than only in the air? "He wanted to assign me a name, actually…"
L'Aigle chuckled. "Yeah, he did that to me too." Feuilly smiled a little. Robin Hood…really…
Joly announced his return by slapping a roll of papers down on the table in front of them and dropping a sack on the floor beside it before going in search of his coffee cup. Feuilly still couldn't decide if Joly drinking quite so much coffee was a good thing or not. L'Aigle seemed to think it was most definitely not. "Any trouble?" he asked his twin worriedly.
"Perfectly clear," Joly said, shaking his head and nudging L'Aigle over so he could have a seat as well. L'Aigle simply got up and went to fetch something or other, casting worried looks back as he did so.
Feuilly was already unrolling the papers and looking them over. Yes, they were plans of the prisons and of the Prefecture. Why Grantaire would have such things simply sitting in his apartment where anybody might find them – well, why Grantaire would have them at all - was beyond him. "What's in the bag?" he asked as he sorted them out and marveled at the detail.
Joly drew forth an assortment of odd masks and hats, some of which were well recognizable as belonging to Scaramouche and Harlequin. "You know, just in case…" Joly said with a slight grin. L'Aigle was returning with a wrap and a fresh pot of coffee, and once he had placed the coffee on the table and the wrap firmly around Joly's shoulders, he took one of the masks that Feuilly didn't recognize. "…he really shouldn't have kept them at his home," he said, looking at it and grinning a little as well.
"Well now he isn't. They're here," Joly said sensibly, and took another drink of coffee.
Feuilly stared down at the rows of cells in thought. "Where do you think they put him?"
L'Aigle shrugged. "…where would he say they'd put him?"
"Hm…" Joly said, leaning over to look. "Probably in one of the single cells along the front, where they had Enjolras and Combeferre…somewhere they can keep an eye on him." He joined Feuilly in staring, eyes crossing and uncrossing in thought until he gave up and went back to his coffee.
"I see what you mean," L'Aigle said, taking a glance over. "So…if he's there, how do we get to him? And more importantly, how do we get him out?"
That was probably the question at the moment. It was really all a matter of strategy now. There were really two ways to get him out of the cell: with anyone knowing and without anyone knowing… "Well, is there any legitimate reason for anyone to get him out?" he asked.
"Except for 'Pilon'?" L'Aigle added. "And let's face it, we're probably not going to be able to get the drop on him twice..."
"No..." Joly sighed. "Hm, do you think the internal communication is all that good?"
L'Aigle thought for a moment. "...seems to flow through the changing of the guards, wouldn't you say, Alexandre?"
It took about half a second for Feuilly to realize that the other man was talking to him. He vaguely remembered adding his Christian name in introducing himself at some point, not intending to ever really have it used – really, no one used it. While his first instinct was skittishness, he supposed that men undertaking such a venture really had no reason to pretend they were still on formal terms. It was indeed odd that the lieutenants of the Society hadn't all gotten past that stage yet. Alexandre shook it off and tried to recall what he had been asked. "Yeah, I think so. They had to get all their information off each other."
"They change…how often?" Joly had returned to staring at the map. Feuilly reflected that he wasn't quite sure if he even knew their particular names. He was bound to pick it up sooner or later.
"Every…hour? Two hours?" he replied, looking to L'Aigle for confirmation. "Maybe it was longer."
"Every two and a half hours, on the hour from 12 and cycling through half hours as it went," he said specifically.
"Your watch hadn't broken yet?" Joly said briskly.
"No."
"All right then." Joly made some note on the corner of the map. "If we go in at the beginning of the watch and take the guard out, we have two hours maybe before anyone notices."
"Right. They're not too heavily armed, mostly just with nightsticks further into the prison."
"We only ran into the one outside your cell, didn't see any in the single-cell hallway...hm...could have been around the corner."
Alexandre sat forward and listened to the other two finish each other's thoughts and discuss the workings of the prison in such quick tones they almost seemed to not need words at all. It was unsettling, how well they seemed to know each other.
"We might have to do some distracting," Joly said thoughtfully.
"I could do that," L'Aigle said. "I'm bound to be a distraction anyway, might as well make use of it." Feuilly honestly couldn't tell if that was more of a grin or a grimace on his face, but he nodded along. L'Aigle folded his arms. "Right. When do we do this, Joli?"
"As soon as possible, ideally," Joly said around his coffee. "Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow," L'Aigle said, looking to Feuilly for confirmation.
"Tomorrow," he nodded.
Joly threw the rest of his coffee back and collected the plans from the table in one sweep. "Welcome to stay here tonight if you want, Alexandre. It's not a bother."
"No, that's perfectly fine," he said, getting up. L'Aigle – was it Dominic? It was possibly Dominic – no, Bahorel was a Dominic – looked a little bit relieved and Feuilly guessed that he had spent too much time recently dealing with everything else to quite want to have to deal with one more person on the couch. "I'll see you both tomorrow, then."
The walk home was unusually short, probably because it had to hold so many more thoughts than usual. There was almost too much to process. Grantaire as Scaramouche, Scaramouche revealed as Grantaire, Grantaire thrown into prison for no apparent reason, an almost random group of his friends joined together to get him out…Feuilly was determined to make sense of it all.
Somehow he had the feeling that none of them were going to sleep very well that night.
