AN: So my laptop has officially died, which is rather lovely. It took me a rather long time to extract the main disk so I could transfer anything of value in it, but thankfully, nothing was lost. In the meantime… I rewatched the movie. Cried, as always, but threw myself immediately back into writing. This story might be going long for longer than I anticipated. Let's see. Naturally, I suggest listening to Topsy Turvy while reading this chapter so as to "set the mood". Enjoy!

-Bee

Upon arriving to the square, filled to the brim with noise, people, and an awful lot of drinking, Anais wasn't quite so sure she had made the right choice in attending.

The atmosphere screamed happiness, yes, with its popping colours and constant bustle of people, but it made the girl breathless just from watching the scene in front of her. She had unceremoniously bumped into a man on stilts while avoiding being shoved to the ground and almost let out an ear-splitting shriek from the fright of the man's apparent height.

Scurrying away as fast as she could, she only stopped when the crowd seemed to quiet down, and a few robed people began to sing about closing the schools for the day and whatnot. Assuming it meant the official beginning to the festival, she leaned against a wall and kept her gaze on the singers.

When a man swept out from under them, and the song completely changed its tone, Anais couldn't help but smile. It was obvious to her who that was, and she expected him to be no less flamboyant, but his outfit and general disposition still managed to bring a smile to her face. Her eyes followed him as he sang, as one did when they didn't expect to be recognized, but what she really didn't expect was to be thrown right into the fray.

All it took was a small shove for her to be in the middle of dancers who didn't hesitate to take her by the hand and spin her around like a ragdoll. At some point, she held a bouquet of weeds and had a crown of dross placed on her head, and the next thing she knew she had somehow consumed an inordinate amount of alcohol and laughed the same way a 5-year-old would. She had a blurry memory of people making ugly faces on a stage, but what was left of her muddled mind was set on her darling gipsy.

He had vanished from the stage and his song had ended, but Anais was quick to find him. Smiling, she clutched him from behind and vanished into a fit of giggles. He spun in her arms and she giggled ever the more when he failed to recognize her. In her drunken stupor she struggled to untie the string keeping her mask in place, but when she did remove the aforementioned item, smiled a goofy smile while watching his eyes widening in surprise.

"Anais?!"

She kept laughing. "Maaaaybe…"

He touched the ends of her hair and grazed his thumb across her freckled nose in continuous shock. "You look… new."

Her nod was eager, and she snuggled into his tunic, a hug which he returned briefly, only to push her back slightly to gaze into her eyes deeply.

"Are you drunk?!"

"Noooo…" She nodded, contradicting herself. "All I drank was…funny water…"

Clopin sighed. "Come on, chérie, I'll take you back to Jacques'."

She pouted, clutching onto him tighter, mumbling soft no's and demanding attention from him.

All of a sudden, she popped back with a small shout. "I know! Hold my hand, honig, and watch out for the guards!"

Clopin didn't have the time to ask what the hell she had meant by that when she picked up a tomato from a random stand and chucked it across the square, aimed right at the imposing Judge Frollo. Her drunken calculations missed by the slightest bit, landing on his hat and forehead rather than right in his face, but it created enough of a splash to allow Anais to tug on her lover's hand and dart towards the Cathedral.

She was laughing the whole way through, and Clopin could only run behind her with a blanched face, constantly looking behind him in search of any guards.

Upon entering Notre Dame, the gipsy fell on his knees with a quiet, relieved shout. Anais stumbled towards a bench and sat, waiting for him to join her. When he did, he began to give her the longest scolding he had ever given anyone, but it all fell on deaf ears as she just stared at him with drunken, love-sick, eyes.

The words died in his mouth when her lips found his neck. He attempted to remain calm by thinking that she was aiming for his cheek, but the alcohol had made her miss the spot, but when she didn't stop her advances, in a church nonetheless (even if it was empty), he had to take a very deep breath to keep his cool.

"Anais, you really shouldn't…uhm…" he attempted to clear his throat. "You are drunk off your senses, we really must stop."

"Kiss me, fool."

He groaned and grabbed her hand, dragging her off to a corner where she let her head rest against the stone walls. He took a good look at her before groaning again.

"Oh, damn it all!"

He grabbed her face and kissed her as she wished. She responded happily, getting as close to him as humanly possible. He knew that if the archdeacon so much as found them they'd both have a heart attack and die on the spot, but damn, those two months had been a very long time.

They stayed like that for a while longer, bathed in colour from the stained-glass windows that took away all traces of how opposite they were. In those brief moments they were nothing but people. There were no shackles on his wrists, no cloths covering her eyes.

Clopin would imagine that if she had been sober she would've smacked him all the way to Rouen for doing such unsightly things to her in a holy place such as the one they leaned on, but with her drunken stupor he took it upon himself to enjoy himself to his utmost ability.

"Mehr, honig…danke, danke, gott" he heard her whisper and mutter between kisses. It filled him with a sense of power, this new-found submissiveness of hers, as months earlier she had been the one pulling his strings. She was no less a woman than any other, he mused. He was experienced in the matters of the heart, too, which made this control over her much too easy, as she seemed to have never been touched in such ways before, and the gipsy made himself wonder how far he could push her without her toppling into terrain better left unfound.

They broke apart for hair. Alcohol lingered in their breaths.

"You've had your fun, mon coeur, let me take you home."

"Germany is far away, honig, can you really perform such a task?" Her pout seemed so genuine that Clopin wondered if she meant her own words. He rolled his eyes nonetheless.

"Of course, Anais, anything you wish." Sarcasm laced his tongue, but she did not appear to be lucid enough to notice.

He sneaked his way out the Cathedral, lover perched up in his arms, and took the long route to Jacques' house. The girl was a giggly,bubbly mess the whole way through, and Clopin made a note to get her drunk more often.

"Honig, how many more months will you leave without so much as a word of goodbye?"

The question made his step falter, the sobriety in it being far too clear for someone who just minutes before could barely form a sentence without laughing.

"I will be gone until I find a way to keep you alive. Residency in Le Cour des Miracles is out of question, therefore my hands are, at the moment, tied up."

She sighed. "Ich konnte das Land verlassen…"

"You very well I don't speak german, chérie."

She shrugged herself off of him, the drunken movements returning to her as she stumbled slightly. She pouted. "I said I could leave the country."

"No."

"Nein?"

"Non." The sterness of his gaze bore a hole through her as she stared back at him with a raised brow. "You will do what I decide you do, before you get yourself killed."

"Says who?!"

He didn't say another word as he grabbed her wrist more roughly and pulled her along to his destination.

Anais, however, drunk as she was, very clearly wrote his words in her mind, the anger clear as the purest of crystals, and could not wait to voice her indignation. He had no right, she said, no right to decide her own actions before she did! He could rot in hell, him and his possessive ideas. Him and his…attractiveness… Damn it.

The entrance to Jacques home appeared before their eyes sooner than expected, and through the window they could already see a fuming doctor glaring daggers right at them. It was, after all, well past nightfall.

They needen't knock for he open the door prepared to give them the sermon of their lives, but to no avail as Clopin released her wrist, face expression still intact, turned on his heel and left. Anais gritted her teeth in drunked anger, and whipped around to chase after him with what seemed like a rock in hand.

"Sie besitzen mich nicht! Ich werde abreisen, wenn ich dazu entscheide! Du wirst in der Hölle schmoren!"

She threw the rock at him and missed spectacularly, though he didn't seem to care much. His sillouette faded in the distance as the german fumed, not even giving much thought to the fact that she had likely blasphemed.

Turning around, she curtly wished the doctor a good night and trudged to her bed, still fully clothed and drunk, to fall asleep fitfully into what would certainly be a night without much rest.

* Translations

Sie besitzen mich nicht – You don't own me

Ich werde abreisen, wenn ich dazu entscheide – I will leave if I decide to

Du wirst in der Hölle schmoren- You can burn in hell

AN- That's a wrap! The angst is settling in because I'm awful. Expect a lotta yelling.

Happy new year everyone, and a rest of a good holiday season to those who celebrate it!

-Bee