Esmeralda: Her nose burned, her eyes watered, and the roaring inferno pounded in her ears. The baby kicked and squirmed, sensing its mother's anxiety. Guilt tore through her heart; she was not herself afraid of dying, but now if she died her child would too. A child that had done nothing wrong except to be the product of a scandalous affair between a corrupt politician and an illegal foreigner who had been brave (or stupid) enough to hide in his house.
And then the next thing she remembered, she was laying on her back and something cold was pressed against her lips.
Water. Water was trickling into her parched mouth. It was the sweetest sensation in the world. She opened her green eyes to see Quasimodo's anxious face quickly fade to an expression of relief.
"You're alive," Quasimodo gasped.
The baby was alive, too. She could feel the kicking.
Quasimodo continued to pour water slowly into her mouth, and filled her in in the details of how he had rescued her and her husband. They were interrupted when Claude regained consciousness and started groaning. Already recovering, she had willingly crawled over to his side to help Quasimodo give him water.
Doctor de Vries was insistent on being left alone while tending to the minister's injuries, but Es was willing to give him space. Claude needed medical attention much more severely than she did. So, she and Quasimodo sat outside and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Quasimodo knocked on the door, expressing his concern for Esmeralda, but was met with sharp directions to leave the doctor alone. When Quasi demanded again, de Vries told him to go find another doctor because he was going to be busy for a long time. Unwilling to leave the injured people unsupervised, Quasimodo asked a curious loiterer outside the cathedral to make himself useful and go find another physician.
And they waited.
Es hated waiting. She stomped over to the door and knocked. "Is everything ok in there?"
"Leave me alone so I can work!" de Vries shouted.
"Claude. CLAUDE. What is going on in there?" she shouted back.
"He's sleeping!" the doctor snapped.
The girl's inner alarm was going crazy. She knocked louder. "Seriously, haven't I woken him up yet? Claude, say something! I'm scared!" She reached for the doorknob, but it was locked.
Quasimodo broke the door down and they were greeted by the sickening sight of a lifeless mummy and a very terrified de Vries.
And Quasimodo grabbed the doctor and threw him out the cathedral doors down the stairs. And he hit his head on the stone stairs and cracked his skull. And died.
***A/N*** This is the official last chapter of DwtD. I'm so pumped that I got something finished! Thanks to everyone who stayed with me through this really long story. Don't worry, I'm not done with Frollo. He's coming back as a ghost in the sequel. :D Because Esmeralda still needs to get citizenship, Clopin needs to get over being mad, Frollo's estate needs to get settled, and I can't wait to see the baby.