Jean Valjean had a single thought in mind as he hurried through the shadowed night, still unfamiliar with the hard solidity of proper cobblestones under his feet. Rain slicked the wind and plastered his hair, cropped for the commercial aspect of his bitter victory tour, but the weather did not concern him. Likewise, he could not care less for the terror that had all right to be gripping his heart—he was free, of course, free of the damned arena and all it contained, and yet he had emerged from its confines with more ahead of him than ever. His promise to Fantine still guided his every action, and it was that oath that drew his limbs forward now, determined through the downpour, as undeterred by the resolute lash of coldness as he had been by the low advice of his mentor. He could recall Myriel's words now, pounding in his head just under the constant staccato of Fantine's last breaths, which had lodged itself in the back of his skull as permanently as his own heartbeat.
"I know what you promised her; all of Panem does. If there were a way to help that poor girl, I would not hesitate to send you on your way. But you must understand, Jean, that it is quite simply impossible. Fantine did not win the Games, and so the Capitol will be determined that she receive no reflection of victory. Cosette must be forgotten, for any attempt to retrieve her will only put you both in greater peril."
Yet he was willing to risk that. His promise to Fantine had been anything but empty, and so it was that he found himself here now, shivering outside of a dark shop in the outskirts of District 8, illuminated only by the flickering glow from the dusty windows. This had to be it—the Thénardiers' inn, the place that Fantine had spoken of with something close to reverence in her voice; though, he thought now, it didn't come near fitting the high expectations she'd set with her awed murmurs. She called it a hearth of salvation, a beautiful refuge of mercy and second chances; said, with tears in her eyes, how Mrs. Thénardier had accepted Cosette without question—promised to care for her, and that her husband had interjected only to humbly, as Fantine had phrased it, request some portion of the winnings that she was sure to return with.
Humble and respectable, however, were the last words that Jean would think to associate with the wreck that lay before him now. Part of the roof appeared to be caved in, and shattered glass from what presumably used to be wine bottles lay in fragmented piles around the battered threshold, yet neither dismal attribute did anything to lessen the sense of revelry that hung about the place. Loud voices were audible from even outside in the rushing storm, occasionally punctuated with drunken laughter, and Jean knew that this had to be the place. There were no mistakes to be made.
"Soon, dearest Fantine," he breathed softly, casting his eyes swiftly to the left and right to reassure himself that he was not being pursued. "I will have her within the hour."
He drew his coat up to his chin in a futile shield from the wet cascade, then stepped forwards to the door, extending a hand and rapping firmly against the soaked wood. The resulting pause stretched on far too long for his comfort, and he found himself gritting his teeth, unable to shake the irrational sensation of unwelcome eyes on his back. Of very particular eyes, in fact, a distinctly penetrating blue-grey stare that he couldn't help but feel constantly in the hold of.
The face that clung to his mind more vividly than any of the rest, in his nightmares as well as his waking hours, was that of the Head Gamemaker, the one who was ultimately responsible for everything that he and Fantine and all the rest had been so cruelly forced through. He had only seen Javert's face once, during the broadcast of a previous round of the Games in his younger years, but it was an image that had stuck with him all this time. Javert had had a peculiar air about him, even through the shivering mess of the poor television screen in Jean's old home, and though virtual ages had passed, he found himself unable to forget the sharpness of the Gamemaker's scowl, the immaculate cut of his silvered beard. He was eerie in his resistance to Capitol trends, his face rough-hewn and naturally affected where his companions slicked theirs in all matter of dye and plastic and makeup. The fact that he was genuine made him wild, wolfish, and it so it was his face above all others that lingered at the back of Jean's thoughts now, as he stood shivering and cursing outside of the Thénardiers' inn—as absurd as the fear may seem, he couldn't shake the feeling that Javert would be the one to pursue him. If President Bonaparte were to send anyone after him, if Myriel could not deter such attempts, then the Head Gamemaker, inexplicably and yet undoubtedly, would be the one given the task. The fact that the Games were over changed nothing—Jean was still Javert's task, his responsibility, and, suffocated by unwelcome victory as he was, Jean doubted that such would ever change.
His thoughts, thick and shuddering with such rampant paranoia, were extinguished like a candle flame at the noise of a creak behind him.
He turned, eyes wide, and his gaze raked the woods clustered behind him in desperate seeking of whatever had stirred. It took several seconds for him to realize that the source of the disturbance was too miniscule to be captured in his initial stare—in fact, it lay below his eye level, so that he had to crane his neck slightly to get a proper look.
It was a girl standing before him—a horribly skinny girl, too young for the Games and yet battered fit to have been in them, wreathed in the soaking clasp of the storm to the point where it seemed a wonder she wasn't blown away in the billowing fury. Matted blonde hair hung about her trembling shoulders, and a heavy iron bucket dangled from her arms, sloshing over the top with glacial water. Her form was sheathed only by a scrappy, worn dress, and her features, perhaps naturally cherubic but roughened by starvation, were drawn into an expression of pure childish fright.
"Don't be afraid," Jean assured her swiftly, sinking to his knees and offering his arms in a gesture of absolute gentleness. Though the child's features were too young to hold any resemblance to the woman whom he achingly suspected to be her mother, he had little doubt as to who this could be. The sight of her in such clear distress sunk into his stomach like a boulder, but he didn't let it show on the surface, instead opting to send a gentle smile in her direction. "Would I be right in assuming you to be little Cosette?"
"That is my name," she allowed, but said no more. Her elbows were beginning to tremble with the effort of holding up her gargantuan bucket, and, without thinking, Jean reached out, retrieved her load in his own lithely muscled arms. She gave it up immediately, and the careful veil of caution in her wide grey eyes parted, allowing for delight in its stead. For the first time, her pale lips curled into a tentative smile, and Jean was just on the point of returning it when a crash sounded from behind him.
"Cosette!" a voice sounded—loud, rough, and almost piercing despite its uncomfortably feminine lowness. "Aren't you back yet, girl? Get in here, there's a man who's said to be coming for your sorry little self—"
The words fell away into nothing as Jean straightened and turned, his brows and mouth whittled into careful severity. He found himself glaring at a tall, heavyset woman, plain-faced and thick-lipped. Her clothes were worn and her countenance unremarkable, save for the brilliantly red curls that hung around her face and tumbled down her broad shoulders, far from graceful, giving the distinct impression that her very skull was aflame despite the rain that still gushed about them. Her already narrow eyes tightened into near-nonexistence as she regarded Jean, and she half-stepped back into the inn, out of which spilt a pool of buttery light and snatches of raucous verbal debauchery.
"I believe that would be me you're thinking of, ma'am," he confirmed, making sure to balance his attitude between solemn and amiable. He didn't want to scare her—it would be far too easy to get himself reported, and he was already walking a thin line; he didn't want the additional curse of Peacekeepers at his heel. "I've come to retrieve Cosette." To emphasize his earnestness, he stepped back closer to the child he spoke of, and was rewarded with the tentative brush of her shoulders against his legs.
"Jean Valjean," she sneered. "We heard 'bout you. They said you were after us—got a call from the Capitol itself, saying not to give Cosette to any teenage scrap who stopped by."
Damn it. So the accursed Capitol had been working ahead of him, operating deviously behind the scenes even as they advertised his heroism to the crowds. He may be praised before the public for his selfless actions, but the Capitol had no room for a genuine savior, not in their perfectly moderated nation.
"Then, pray, find it within whatever heart you have to surrender her regardless," Jean implored. "She is young, and orphaned—Fantine desired that I care for her, and so I consider it my duty. I assure you I am more than capable of recompense for your... surrender; I am a victor now." The words rang empty. Victory, surely, lost its definition when laden with such a detestable price as his friend's demise. "Name a price, and I will deliver it."
"Any price?" she repeated warily, her dark eyes glistening with undisguised greed that Jean couldn't help but grimace at. Her voice softened into a putrid sweetness, one which delivered the uncomfortable sensation that his ears were gagging. "It would have to be quite high, of course, to soothe the pain of such a loss. Cosette has grown most dear to us, sir, and it would be almost beyond us to turn her over to such an infamous head as that of Jean Valjean."
As if the name had summoned him, a man appeared almost instantly at her shoulder—or, more accurately, at her armpit, dwarfed as he was by the heavy stature beside him. He was much smaller, skinny as a rat and with a face that beckoned a similar comparison. Worn but bright-colored fabrics hung from his form, and everything about him, next to his strikingly dumpy wife, conveyed exquisite failure, rubbish swathed in rotted luxury. The two of them, surely the Thénardiers whom Fantine had spoken of, did little to stand up to her comparisons, he thought with an internal cringe. These were disgusting people, not only in their figures but in their expressions, sneering and cold with every movement.
"Jean Valjean!" Mr. Thénardier repeated, and his thin lips curled into a grin so very foxlike that Jean half-expected to make out a tail lashing behind his scrawny legs. "The very one we've been warned about."
"I can reassure you, sir, that any warnings are ridiculous and unfounded." Quite suddenly, Jean felt the whisper of a touch at his wrist, and glanced down to see that little Cosette had wrapped his hand in her own icy fingers, clinging instinctively to the him, clearly frightened by Thénardier's presence. With a strange glow trembling at the inside of his ribs, he returned the gesture, gripping her firmly. "I come to take Cosette away, since Fantine is unable to. I guarantee," he continued, stepping closer so that less rain separated them, "that I pose no threat."
"Oh, but it is cold," Thénardier drawled carefully, lifting his chin and tilting his eyebrows. "Far too cold for such discussions here. By all means, come inside—business is best done by the comfort of a fire, wouldn't you say?"
Jean tilted his head to get a proper view around the wordlessly staring Mrs. Thénardier's shoulder, and was rewarded by only a brief glimpse of the riotous festivities within. Every surface seemed lit with an abundance of half-melted candles, reflected glaringly on the array of bright fabrics cloaking the drinkers within. It was disgustingly dirty, stained about with sticky wine puddles and murkier blotches that he attempted not to imagine the sources of. The overall impression was one of agelessness; this scene would have been perfectly in place hundreds of years ago, if not for the anachronistic presence of a wide television over one rutted wall, currently dark but clearly for the purpose of viewing the Games that had only just ceased.
It was a habitat that, surely, was only suitable for the hopelessly inebriate; not in any case the sort of place to house a young girl. Fantine must not have seen the interior of the hell that she was condemning her poor daughter to, Jean thought with a heavy twinge of resentment, for no desperation could possibly drive her to deposit Cosette into such inevitable misery.
"Most certainly not," he decided grimly. "On the contrary—"
"Valjean!"
The shout was deafening, and he felt the blood in his veins crystallize, suddenly permeated by a much more definite chill than anything that the fierce rain could dream of bringing on. His heart snapped into rapidity, breath hitching against his skull, reminding him of where he was and what was happening. He was being pursued, and had not a second to spare.
The Thénardiers' stares flickered identically to the side, scoping out the dark streets winding away from the house, the clear source of the call. Cosette squeezed harder on his hand, and he made sure to return it in what he hoped to be a reassuring way, turning back to the Thénardiers with more urgency than ever pulsing through him.
"This girl is mine now. I made a promise to her mother; give me no arguments, for nothing you have to say will convince me to relinquish her. Listen, though—you must not tell Javert, or anyone else who comes this way to seek her out. Not a word. She disappeared, do you understand? Disappeared without a trace."
"It would be easier to understand," Thénardier mused, with a supportive chuckle from his wife, "if only we received that payment which darling Fantine spoke of—it is ever so hard to support such a precious child, to keep her bright little spirit glowing… perhaps even the slightest delivery of her debt would blind us to wherever you may choose to venture…"
"Damn it," Jean spat, pulling Cosette in yet closer, "have you no hearts? Never mind, though, never mind—" Sickened by his own actions and chained by his own promises, he dipped a swift hand into his coat pocket, fingers slipping with haste, and removed a tangled wad of bills that he didn't bother to count, crushing them in his disgusted grip before casting them onto the damp cobblestones before him. Thénardier fell to his knees like a pigeon after feed, grasping the money up, and his wife was eager to lean in as he rose again, their hands working like a single mechanism to pull apart and sort the payment.
There distraction was all Jean needed to depart. "Come, Cosette," he ordered, but didn't wait for her to join him—instead, he scooped her immediately into his arms, and then his legs were on fire as he ripped away from the treacherous pool of light surrounding the inn, darted instead towards the relative refuge of the woods meters away—the very dark forest that poor Cosette had emerged from with her bucket, which now lay on the stones meters away, its contents surging over to join the streams of rainwater haunting the ground.
He did not know whose voice had sounded—whether it was Javert or some less significant Peacekeeper. He was, however, positive that they had found out he was here, discovered his intents. And though they hadn't expressly forbidden such actions, he trusted Myriel's words enough to be sure that it would be a curse to be caught here. The Capitol would gloss it over for the public, naturally, but he and Cosette would both surely suffer.
No, he couldn't let them catch him here. But if he could get back, if he could return to Myriel, it would surely work out from there. They could find a way to shelter Cosette, a story to make up for the Capitol. They had to.
"I will care for you," he murmured into her tangled locks as he made his way further and further into the dark woods. It was oddly peaceful under the shelter of their thick, knotted branches, though the muffled silence only left more room for the thrumming roar of adrenaline against his eardrums. He barely knew his way, and was moving blindly in his frantic state, but he had gotten here from the confined of his own District, and so surely would be able to return. "As I promised your mother."
There was an odd motivation glowing inside of him as he plowed on, never hesitating to lower her drenched little figure—something gentle, tentative, and something most definitely due to the shivering weight grasped within his arms. Cosette was fragile, ruined, and yet she was beautiful. The tenderness lodging in his chest at her very touch was something profound, as honeyed and yet powerful as if she were his own child, and he knew without a doubt that this was a bond that would last, through whatever challenges the years may strike before them.