They heard her screams as soon as they were halfway up the stairs. At first, they were terrifying, but then it occurred to both Marius and Valjean that it could have been worse.

She was alive.

"Stop it!" she yelled, "No, please-"

Her yell turned into a high-pitched scream of agony, which dissolved into sobs. Marius ran forward toward the door, but Valjean caught him.

"Wait," he whispered. "Let me go first. You go straight to Cosette, don't spend any time with the others in there-"

"But-" Marius started to argue, but Valjean stopped him.

"No, I will deal with them."

It was not fair; he wanted to injure those men, make them pay for what they had done to Cosette, and for what they had done to him.

"No one else is going to get hurt," Valjean said sternly. "Not even them."

Marius nodded, but was still regretful.

Once he had Marius' agreement, Valjean tried the door very quietly, but it was locked.

Then Marius saw him do something purely, awe-inspiringly amazing. The old man straightened up, took in a deep breath, and took several steps back. After a moment of contemplation, Cosette's white-haired father ran forward with a force akin to nothing man-made that Marius had ever seen. He resembled something powerful as lightening, frightening as thunder. And then with one, powerful move, he kicked the door down.

It fell heavily on one of the members of Patron Minette, and he fell to the floor. The rushed inside, stepping awkwardly over the door, and Cosette screamed again- but this time with shock and joy.

Her wrists were tied and she was covered in sweat, her face tearful. She was on the bed, her chemise torn, smears of blood on the cotton and on her cheeks and arms. Her hair was hanging around her face, wet with that panic-driven sweat that was still covering Marius.

"You're alive!" she yelled, her voice hoarse from screaming, but sweet and joyful. She was sobbing through her relief, her terror subsiding. "You're alive!"

Marius ran to the bed and wrapped his arms around her, crushing her to him and kissing all over her bruised face, which was cut and scarred from Montparnasse's knife. "Yes, yes, my love, I'm alive and so are you and everything is going to be fine- the police are on their way and we're going home. You're going to be fine. Everything is alright now."

He looked about- the guardsman was on the floor, having been knocked out by the door. Monsieur Fauchelevent had overpowered Montparnasse and taken his knife away, and using the rope that was tied Marius to the chair, tied he and Claquesous together. He stood, glaring at Thenardier, who was backed into a corner, looking terrified. Marius gave a spiteful cruel laugh. Thenardier acted so powerful, like he was the unbeatable, the alpha. But here he was, cowering like a frightened puppy. It served him right.

Marius snatched Montparnasse's knife off the floor, and used it to cut Cosette's bindings. He gasped when he saw her hands, which were bloody. Her fingernails were red and torn, and the tips of her fingers were cut.

"Oh, God, what happened to you?"

"Montparnasse," Cosette said. "He was trying to get me to... do things. When I wouldn't, he would stick his knife under my fingernails... that was why I was screaming."

Once her hands were free, she threw her arms around Marius neck and embraced him.

"I thought they killed you," she whispered with joy, still sobbing. "But you're here."

Marius kissed her, and she kissed him back, and he felt a potent heartbeat inside his chest, reminding him that they would survive, and they would get out of that hell. He was lost in the moment, feeling her lips moving and her body pressed against his, lost and happy and more relieved than he'd ever felt. It was not until Cosette's father shook his shoulder and started to speak that they broke apart.

"Let's get out of here," Monsieur Fauchelevent said. Marius helped Cosette off the bed, and then took his jacket off and gave it to her. They were halfway out the door when Cosette turned.

"Wait," she said to them both, and looked back at Thenardier, who was tied to the chair that had held Marius captive earlier. "I don't remember what you did to me as a child," she said, glaring at him. "So you might think you ruined my childhood, but you didn't. You didn't ruin anything for me."

She turned to Montparnasse. "Neither did you. What you all will never understand is that when you try to hurt someone else, in the end you only help them grow stronger. You didn't take anything away from me. Though you tried to hurt me, it's you who will have to spend the rest of your lives paying for this, in jail. I hope you enjoy it."

She turned back to Marius and her father. "Let's go."

Her legs were weak, because she had been beaten after Marius left. Her father saw her sway when they got to the stairs, and he scooped her up and carried her down to the carriage. He'd paid the driver extra to wait for them to return. Marius followed them, but the world started to spin again as he got back the stairs. He stopped, a hand on the doorframe, steadying himself. Monsieur Fauchelevent put Cosette in the carriage, and then look around for Marius, who couldn't move his legs, or feel them. It was only going to be a minute or two before he blacked out... he saw splotches of black in his vision, and could feel his bruises and cuts tenfold, all over his body.

The next thing he felt was Cosette's father take his arm and support him in a fatherly manner, carrying most of his weight to the carriage. They were going home.

They were loaded in, and had just started leaving with the police carriages turned the corner. Marius thought of asking if they should wait to talk to the police, but he was too weak and tired. Patron Minette would go to jail; they were wanted for so many other crimes.

They did not make it more than a block before Marius leaned back onto the seat and let himself drift away.

He had just begun drying off from his bath when there was a knock on the door of the room he was in. He pulled his trousers on- painfully, for his arms still hurt terribly, despite the fact that Basque had cleaned and bandaged his cuts earlier.

"Enter," he said.

A doctor came in.

"Have you been to see my wife yet?" Marius said first.

"Yes," he said. "Monsieur Gillenormond told me you wanted me to go there first."

"Yes- is she alright?"

"She will be fine. She won't have any permanent injuries."

"And the baby?"

"We'll see in the next few days, but she did not sustain any blows to her abdomen, so the baby should be alright. They are surprisingly protected in the womb, you know. But let's take a look at these cuts you have," the doctor said, and began to examine Marius.

A half an hour later, Marius let himself into the bedroom he shared with Cosette. He was bandaged and told not to move too suddenly for several weeks. The doctor suspected he had a fractured rib, which explained the pain when breathing, and internal bleeding. But with rest, gentle treatment, and a lack of excitement, he would be fine. Cosette was awake, waiting up for him, sitting in a ball with her chin on her knees in front of the fire.

"Come," Marius said, absolutely exhausted. "Let's go to sleep."

They crawled into their large bed, and lay down in the clean white linen sheets. Every part of their bodies hurt. Marius was just as bruised as he suspected he would be, and so was Cosette. She had gauze wrapped all around her hands, and her face had a black shadow on the side where she had taken Montparnasse's hit. But their bruises would heal in a matter of weeks, and the same with their cuts. It would be longer before their minds would recover from their time in that room, and even longer before they would feel normal again.