Chapter Four
A/N: Thank you to IceQueenForLife for reviewing the previous chapter.
Above the normal calm of the garden at 55 Rue Plumet, a thunderstorm echoed across all of Paris. The lightning flashed, the thunder crackled and rain cascaded from the heavens, pattering down on the windows with the force of a shower of bullets.
Within the beautiful house, three people lay restless in their beds, unable to sleep for the noise outside their windows. Two of them rested in each other's arms, their heads pounding from a lack of sleep, while the other, the youngest of them all, lay clutching a stuffed bear in her arms, tears seeping from her eyelids as she feared what would happen to her next. After all, in the mind of a five year old child, a thunderstorm was a terrifying thing.
Marielle whimpered loudly as another flash of light appeared outside her bedroom window, followed a dozen moments later by the loudest crash of thunder yet. She clutched on tighter to the bear, which had been affectionately named Jolie Farce by the girl when she had received the gift on her fourth birthday, and buried her face in the fur on the top of its head. She was more fearful than she had ever been, and wanted nothing more than for the storm to pass.
'Please. Papa Marius, Belle-Mère Cosette, please make it stop.' Marielle cried out in her mind, though she knew that such attempts were futile. There was no chance that they would hear her.
Amazingly, as if a miracle had been granted, Marius did seem to hear his adoptive daughter, as he was out of bed and into her bedroom within a matter of moments, providing no end of relief for the girl.
"Papa Marius, I'm scared of the storm." the child admitted, a tear slipping down her face. Momentarily, the man wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest and rubbing her back in an attempt to sooth her worries.
"Marie, there is nothing to be scared of." Marius told her, hoping that the combination of comfort and the use of his pet name for her would manage to persuade her of this. "It is only a storm, and it will pass in time. All we need to do is sit and wait for it to do so."
"Will you wait with me, Papa Marius?" the brunette asked, still clinging to the man's chest. Her quiet voice still carried some notes of fear in it, though not as much as it had done before he had spoken. "I don't want to wait here on my own."
"Don't worry, ma bien-aimée." the young man soothed her, stroking the ash coloured waves locks that fell in waves down the girl's back. "I will not leave you for a moment until the storm has passed. I promise you that."
"Merci." Marielle replied, though now with more sleep in her tone than fear.
The pair remained there for a few minutes, while the storm quietened down, and when it had finally done so, the man rose from the edge of the bed, kissing the young girl on the forehead before making his way to the door. His hand had hardly brushed against the doorknob when another peal of thunder sounded just outside the window, louder than any before, equalling even the volume of Marielle's fretful scream.
With hardly a second thought, yet also a fatigued sigh, Marius returned to her bedside, resuming the actions he had used to comfort her before. Only this time, it did no good at all. Marielle was beyond consoling with these methods now, and only one thing would really comfort her. A lullaby.
Marius wracked his brain, in an attempt to find a tune that would help the girl to sleep, but he could find none. The songs he had shared with Cosette were sweet, but they did not have the right lyrics to help. The revolutionary tunes he had sung with his friends would not do any good, as they were far more likely to make him break down in tears beside her. There seemed to be nothing else.
But then, from somewhere deep in his memory, another melody came to the forefront of his mind. He could quite grasp where he had heard it before, but it was clear as day to him, as he glanced towards the brunette, that the song would comfort Marielle.
Shifting further across the bed so that he leant against the headboard, Marius pulled the girl into his lap, wrapping his arms around her as she did the same to Jolie Farce, raising her head to look her adoptive father in the eye.
Taking a deep breath, as if to be certain whether or not he knew the tune in question, the man began to sing.
Don't you fret, my dear Marielle,
You won't feel any pain,
A little fall of rain will never hurt you now.
I'm here, that's all you need to know,
And I will keep you safe,
And I will keep you close,
And rain will make the flowers grow.
When Marius glanced down once again, he saw that Marielle had fallen fast asleep in his arms, still clutching onto the teddy bear she held. 'She must have been exhausted, poor child.' the dark haired man thought, stroking a stray curl away from the girl's forehead as he manoeuvred her from his arms, laying her down on the bed and pulling the quilt up around her shoulder.
"Good night, ma petite." Marius whispered, placing a gentle kiss on the girl's forehead before leaving the room.
Within a couple of minutes, when the young man had finally settled down into bed, he found that he was the only one in the house that was still awake. Cosette had fallen asleep at some point while he had been in with Marielle, though he did not hold this against her. She had been awake as long as the rest of them, after all.
However, when he closed his eyes, a thought swam in behind them, an image that took over him with both shock and pain. He finally remembered where the song was from, and the thought was hurting him more than he would have expected.
That night, as the thunder and lightning faded into the darkness, Marius cried himself to sleep with the image of his dead friend, 'Ponine, in his mind.
A/N: Please review!