Chapter 16: Faith

Cold tears dashed themselves against the windowpane. Inside, the air was still, still and sterile as a tomb. In that dark and empty white space, an old woman lay sleeping on the edge of a steel bed, upon which an old man lay deathly still. An intravenous tube dripped. Various electronic sentinels glowed and made unearthly sounds.

The old man twitched. His hands clenched into claws, grasping something invisible. Words unintelligible murmured from his lips. The woman stirred, and yawned.

"Toulouse?" she said, muzzily.

"Hide, hide, hide," mumbled her husband. "Get away…run…"

Bullets spun and split the walls around him. He cringed, and held the rifle tight to his chest.

"Toulouse!" shouted his friend, on the opposite side of the street.

"Toulouse?" Madame rose. A thick book fell to the floor.

"No…no…I can't," mumbled Monsieur, tossing. "Too many, Robert, too many, don't make me, no…"

A machine gun roared. The crates Robert and the others were behind disintegrated. Philippe screamed. Robert fired blindly over his shoulder. "Shoot, damn it!" he yelled.

She held his hand. "Toulouse! Wake up! Toulouse!"

He shook his head and squirmed, as if trying to hide in a corner.

"Toulouse!"

Three objects flew through the air. Men screamed. Heat. Light. Noise.

"No!" he cried, leaping up. Madame caught him.

Madame caught him. "Toulouse! It's me!"

Monsieur looked through her, blind with panic. "Cosette?" he whispered.

"Yes! You're in the hospital. You're safe here. Everything's all right."

Mind and body made their way back to the present. "Peter?" he asked, fearfully.

Madame swallowed. "Madame Duceppe came by a few minutes ago. He said they've found him, and that he should be joining us soon."

"Oh." He sagged back onto the bed, relieved and exhausted. Madame let him down gently.

"The doctors say you should be fine," she continued. "They said it was just a flesh wound."

He nodded, weakly. "The apartment…the police, we should call them…?"

"Monsieur Duceppe says he'll take care of it," she reassured him. "It's…what he does, apparently," she added, to herself.

"You…you think you know someone, eh?" joked Monsieur, wheezing.

"And then the mask falls away," replied Madame, recalling the words she'd heard, "and you're never prepared for what's beneath it."

"Right, right under our noses!" he continued, shaking with laughter.

"She seemed like such a good person," she said, to herself. "She talked with me in the hall, walked with me by the riverside, helped carry the groceries. We, we even shared recipes."

"The truth, it was right before us, we, we just didn't want to see it. Even, even after he showed us."

Something changed in the tone of Monsieur's laughter. Madame noticed. "Toulouse?"

"Peter," he said, through his sobs, "you were right, Peter."

"Toulouse?"

Tears started in his eyes. "Oh, Cosette, he was right. About me. I'm a coward. Always was. Always will be."

After a moment, Madame understood what he meant. "That's not true," she replied. "You're a hero to all of France."

"I'm no hero," he moaned. "There are none. No heroes, no good, no evil, none then, none now, none ever. Just people, running scared, trying to survive."

The words shook her heart. "Toulouse…"

"The good die," he continued, "and we live on. Liars, cheats, thieves, murderers, betrayers, all of us."

The rain poured on. She sat back, at a loss for words.

"World's dark," he whispered into his pillow. "Nowhere darker than in our hearts."

A single tear floated down her cheek. She touched it, and remembered a face, lit by the light of heaven.

The face of a killer.

The face of a young woman.

Her friend.

In grief.

"Maybe you're right, Toulouse," she said, softly. "Maybe there are no heroes, anymore. Maybe we're all just fumbling in the dark, trying to survive."

He sighed.

"But there's more, Toulouse. There has to be. Maybe we're not all…good…people. But we all try do what we feel is right. Sometimes, we get it wrong, and we hurt, when we do, both others and ourselves. The darkness grows within us. Grief, anger, betrayal, it all builds up in our hearts."

"Until it swallows us," said Monsieur, bitterly.

"It doesn't have to, Toulouse. It doesn't. It didn't take you."

He considered this. "Or you," he said, after a time.

"A dark room stays that way until you open the door. And that's what you did, Toulouse. You let me in, shared all you were with me. You did the same every day with our children, and our friends. That takes courage, real courage, Toulouse. And to keep that door open, to forgive, even when hurtful things pass through it?" She smiled. "That's the bravest act of all."

Two strong hands closed gently around her fingers, to her surprise. Monsieur raised them to his lips, and kissed them. "Most wonderful woman in the world," he said.

"And you're a wonderful husband," she replied.

Thunder rumbled off distant rooftops. "The world," said Monsieur, his eyes distant. "Changed so much, since we were young."

Madame nodded, and sniffled.

"Yet hasn't," he continued. "Still at war. People, still fighting each other."

"And loving," she added.

Monsieur nodded. "Those two…the young folks…"

"Yes?"

"Maybe…maybe we leave things to them, eh?" He smiled, weakly.

Madame wiped away a tear.

They embraced each other, and closed their eyes.