A/N- Not a particularly great chapter, but certainly a long-overdue one, no? I'd write more here, but I really must get to my homework now...
Éponine moved around to the side of his chair, still kneeling, both hands clutching the armrest. "M'sieur?" she rasped.
The inspector said nothing, his jaw clenched beneath his bushy whiskers.
"M'sieur?" she said again. It seemed she was making an attempt to lower her voice into some kind of conspiratorial whisper. "'Ey, m'sieur?"
His stony silence was not deterring her. Javert rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling—and, he thought briefly, Fantine—before heaving a great sigh and asking, "What?"
She grinned again, displaying her missing teeth. Javert scowled. This waif's teeth were scattered in her head, patchy, and those that remained were yellowing. The overall effect was nothing like Fantine, who was only missing her front two (which was rather orderly) and whose others were all strikingly white. The waif girl leaned closer.
"When I was wiv 'Parnasse yesterd'y, I thought abou' you."
This remark was met with absolute silence.
At first, Javert was not sure how to react. The pallid flesh of his cheeks and forehead began to fade into a sort of purplish colour as the full meaning of this statement took root. He kept his thin lips pressed together, mentally scrambling for some sort of response.
"Montparnasse?" he said at last, the word coming out more loudly and his voice much higher than he had hoped. He cleared his throat. "Montparnasse? Is that what you mean?"
Éponine moved in closer, the stubby fingers of one hand sliding over to his arm, picking at the cloth of his sleeve. "Yeah," she muttered, her chin tucked against her collarbone as she kept her gaze on the sleeve. "I 'ad to offer 'im somefin fer somefin, y'know?"
"Montparnasse?" Javert said again. "You offered Montparnasse—"
Her head snapped up, the grin back in place. "'Course, m'sieur, it ain't like 'e 'ad to 'ave somefin to offer back, y'know? If… if someone wan'ed somefin from me—someone other 'an 'Parnasse or M'sieur Babet—I think somefin could be worked out, ey?"
"Montparnasse and Babet?" Javert spluttered. "Both?"
"An' M'sieur Gueulemer, once," said the girl. "M' pa 'ad me workin' wiv any of 'is friends. An' all of 'em." She laughed. "But not all a' th' same time, mind!"
"Your… your father? Well, who is your father, girl?" the inspector demanded. "How are you loitering around this place all the time if you have a family at home? I'm sure they'd like you to stay there."
"M' mum got sick 'n' passed on. M' pa don't care wha' I do, now 't m' sister's off wiv Claquesous all th' time. An' anyways, 'e don' wan' more folks t' care for than th' Lark, y'know?"
"What?"
"'E's got to feed th' Lark. She don't eat much, but 'e's got to."
"The Lark," Javert repeated, his face regaining its normal pallor at last. "Now, isn't that Fantine's daughter?"
"Yeah, tha's 'er. How d'you think 'at silly Marius found 'er, eh? Think 'e found 'er 'imself? 'E couldn't find 'is own arse with two 'ands, a lantern, and a servant. Tha's wha' I needed from 'Parnasse, that is. Wha' they did wiv th' Lark. 'E tol' me, sure 'nough, soon 's I'd let 'im do wha' 'e wan'ed."
"You've known where the girl is all this time?" Javert asked. His voice was low and cold.
Even Éponine picked up on the dangerous tone he was taking; she released his sleeve, pushing herself away from his chair. "I di'n't know where they took 'er. Cou, m'sieur, whatcha think I let 'Parnasse at me fer, then, eh? I foun' out where she was, fi'ty fi'ty-two, 'n' I took tha' boy there, I did. I did it fer Ma'am Fantine!"
Javert rose swiftly to his feet. "You've been lying to us, have you?"
"I ain't said a thing!"
"By omission. We've been searching for that girl for months, and you've been wandering in and out of the station the whole time. You knew where she was all along—"
"M' pa hid 'er!"
"But before that you knew. You knew about the Rue Quernie before that silly baron found out. You could have let us know, but you chose to keep quiet. Why?"
"I di'n't—"
"And, to top it all off, you've known the location of dangerous criminals! Montparnasse, Gueulemer, Claquesous, Thénardier! You've kept it all hidden from us! Why?"
"It's me own pa! 'E may not like me, may leave me to m'self 'alf th' time—all th' time—bu' 'e's all I got lef' now 't 'Zelma's run off!"
Javert's eyes narrowed. He looked down at his desk for a moment, sucking in his upper lip, before he let out a long sigh and turned back to the cowering girl. "Of course, poor thing," he said quickly, "of course your family loyalties are respectable." Another pause. "Here, follow me."
"M'sieur?" she ventured timidly. "M'sieur, you ain't mad?"
"Of course not. Now come along. I want you to see something in the back room."
Javert brushed past her and stalked to the back of the station, holding the door for Éponine as she passed. The girl, ecstatic and being forgiven so suddenly, didn't see the large ring of keys gripped in the inspector's gloved fist.
The door closed behind them.
From within, there was a yelp and a sound like the slamming of a gate.
A moment later, inspector Javert returned to the front room, pocketing his keys.
"I'm going out," he called up the stairs. And he did.
Fantine was breathless.
She had hardly heard Javert's words before he left the station an hour or so ago. She bit her lip, the words she had said to the scribe running through her head for the hundredth time. Had she worded it well enough?
Monsieur Thénardier:
It wasn't too cold, was it? Too stiff and formal? But "dear" had seemed so out of place.
Monsieur Thénardier:
I send you this urgent…
Should she have asked him to underscore the word "urgent"? But certainly that would have been overkill.
I send you this urgent message to let you know that the handsome young baron has abducted your serving-girl Cosette.
Cosette… she would be here any moment! She certainly hoped Thénardier arrived first.
But, hoping to earn your favour, I have convinced him to lodge her here tonight. She will be waiting here for you to reclaim her, my good gentleman, in the Rue de la Flotte.
Madame la Blonde
Fantine pressed her trembling lips together. The last time she had sent Thénardier a letter, she had signed it "Fantine." Certainly there was no chance he would make a connection between the two names…
Not yet, at least.
Hearing the door of the station slam downstairs, she hesitantly rose to her feet. Should she tell Javert of her plan? He would be glad to hear that she was so close to revenge…
"Is there no one here? Madame la Blonde?"
The words were not spoken in Javert's bass growl, but a higher, sharper voice. Fantine flew to the top of the stairs just as Montparnasse stepped into view.
"Ah," said the young dandy, "there you are."
"Here I am," she repeated. "And you, too, are here. Is there anything I can do for you, monsieur?"
He advanced up a few steps. "I've a toothache, Madame la Blonde. I hoped you could tell me if it needed pulled."
"Yes, of course," the woman stammered. "But wouldn't Monsieur Thénardier be angry to hear you've come to me?"
"He doesn't need to know everything. May I come up?"
"Of course," Fantine said again, moving aside. The handsome young murderer slipped past her and into the room.
Fantine furrowed her brow. So, this was it! Tonight would wrap up the whole business: Montparnasse now, Thénardier later, and darling Cosette before the sun was up!
She lurched forward, fingers crooked, a cry escaping her lips; Montparnasse turned at the sudden movement to face her.
And then, she found herself stopping her attack under his gaze.
"Madame?" he asked, suspicion creeping across his ivory brow. She saw his long fingers creeping into his jacket pocket—for his knife? Good God, she'd botched the whole thing!
"I was—dancing!" she said quickly. "And singing. A bit."
The hand did not reemerge from the pocket. "Singing?"
"Yes— a— a song I learned from a waif girl. It was… But never mind that, monsieur, never mind it. You've a toothache, have you? Let's see it then. Have a seat, please."
The scalding ice had not left the murderer's expression. "I'd like to see the song and dance."
Fantine inhaled deeply. His hand was twitching inside his pocket. Going for the knife. He did not believe her, of course. And he would not even hesitate to unsheathe that weapon and use it on her throat.
She had no choice.
Thank God she had learned a song from Éponine.
Fantine stepped side to side, arms around an invisible partner as she sang in a trembling voice:
"Combien je regrette mon bras si dodu, ma jambe bien faite et le temps perdu…"
Damn! That was all she knew of the song.
"Oui! Combien je regrette mon bras si dodu, ma jambe bien faite et le temps perdu," she sang again, modifying the tune of the last phrase.
And suddenly, Montparnasse was coming toward her.
Oh, God. This was the end, wasn't it?
But he seized her wrists in his white fingers and placed them at the back of his own neck. One of his hands came to rest on her shoulder, and the other in the small of her back. "Your dancing is deplorable," he said, "but I can hardly blame you, trying to go it alone."
And then, in a moment that began from nowhere, the two of them were whirling around the room. The old steps came back easily, Fantine's feet caught up in memories almost identical to this moment. If not for Montparnasse's handsomeness, she could almost be in this room again with Félix, sweet little Cosette asleep on the pallet in the corner, the flickering light of a half-melted candle illuminating abandoned essays and a rumpled bed…
"Ma jambe bien faite et ma vie perdu," she found herself singing.
"Le temps perdu," Montparnasse corrected her. They still didn't miss a beat of dance. "Don't you know the rest of the song?"
And then, to the absolute surprise of Fantine, Montparnasse began to sing.
"Ma grand-mère un soir à sa fête de vin pur ayant bu deux doigts. Nous disait en branlant la tête que d'amoreux j'eux autre fois."
He had a rather nasal singing voice. Fantine couldn't help but wonder if anyone had ever heard it before. And lived.
"Monsieur?" she ventured. The pace of the dance had not slackened; she found herself panting for breath. An idea popping into her head, Fantine moved one hand down from his neck to his jacket, clutching the front pocket.
She felt his fingers flinch against her bodice; he stopped without any other warning. Fantine, launching herself into the next step, tripped over his unmoving foot. "Of course," said her companion. And he moved gracefully over to the chair, dropped into it and pointed into his mouth. "This one, here. It began hurting a few days ago, and it hasn't stopped."
Fantine was dazed. Had a handsome young dandy half her age, renowned for his misdeeds and murders, just danced with her? She pursed her lips, poking her tongue into the hole where her front teeth had been, and shook her head. "Right," she said, "your tooth."
Below, she heard the front door close. Montparnasse's head snapped up. "Who was that?" he demanded.
"The inspector, I'm sure," replied Fantine, hoping desperately that it wasn't Thénardier or Cosette. "Shall we get on with it?"
And then she leapt at him, knocking the chair over backward, prostrating them both, scratching wildly at the ivory flesh of his handsome face. "For—what—you—did—to—Co-sette!" she screamed, one syllable for each blow. The murderer was caught off-guard for a brief moment; he raised an arm in an attempt to protect his face and slid the other into his jacket pocket, fumbling for his knife.
It was not there.
Fantine made another gash in the skin of his cheek before ceasing her attack and leaning up. "Looking for this?" she asked with a little mock-pout, reaching into her own pocket and produced the missing blade. "You should be a little more careful who you dance with, you silly boy!" she grinned.
Montparnasse's eyes widened. "Who the hell are you?"
Éponine was lying under a bench, glowering.
\Inspector Javert had taken her down a narrow hallway lined with tiny cells, like a miniature prison, and had shoved her roughly into the first of these little rooms, locking the door behind.
Which meant that he didn't love her.
Or even want to be her friend.
Or acquaintance.
Unless, of course, there was some sort of jail-related fantasy he had… but then, why would he have gone away?
Once, before Babet, Montparnasse had taken Éponine to his flat, dressed her in fancy clothes, and then pulled her heavy skirts up around her waist.
She grinned at the stone floor of her cell.
That had been rather fun.
For that last hour or so, she had occupied herself with staring blankly through the bars of the cell. It had only taken a few moments for her to notice a large mattress in the middle of the corridor.
Just sitting there.
It was a rather nice-looking mattress, though a bit of straw was poking out of a corner. The middle of it was deeply indented as though a very fat person had lain there for many nights, and the fabric was covered in brownish speckles.
Éponine wondered what it was doing there.
Above, she heard a slight creaking sound, a clang, and a grunt.
And then there was a rush of sound.
And a massive WHUMP.
Éponine blinked.
Something had just fallen from the ceiling and landed on the mattress. Something rather large. And dark.
The waif girl clambered out from beneath the stone bench, crawling up to the grate and extending a skinny arm through the bars, prodding carefully at the something. Which proceeded to groan.
Éponine pressed her face against the bars of her cell, squinting to better make out the details of the something.
Her mouth dropped open.
"Montparnasse?"