Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunchback of Notre Dame or anything to do with it. However, I do own Diamanta Devereux, her father, Oliver, Cecile Devereux, Madame Doreen,and Judge Thomas Gautier.

Note: No, the story isn't finished. I, too, am a Clopin fan and refuse to finish the story with such a terrible ending as I have in this piece of it. I don't know how many chapters there will be, but there'll be enough for the story to make all Clopin fans fulfilled.

Chapter #10

"Then he told me he loved me. It was like a fairy tale, Clopin," Diamanta said dreamily. Clopin didn't answer. Diamanta took this as a sign to continue. "All it needed was a majestic white horse to carry us away. Oh, Clopin you should have been there." Clopin still leaned against the wagon wall, his large hat covering the upper half of his face. "Aren't you going to say something? Oliver just admitted he loved me. Isn't that important to you?" A loud snore emitted from below the hat and Clopin fell to his side, revealing the half-empty bottle of whisky in his arms. "You're sleeping?" Diamanta exclaimed. Clopin didn't budge. She sighed and took off Clopin's hat. "Well, as long as you're sleeping," she said as she placed it on her own head, "I'll have some of your whisky." She took the bottle from him and took a sip. "I'm going to tell you a secret, Clopin," Diamanta said as she turned him onto his back and rested her chin on his chest. She toyed with his beard for a while and eventually spoke. "I don't know if I love Oliver. He treats me like dirt and expects me to act like his whore. He shuts me up whenever he doesn't feel like talking and he doesn't even call me by my own name. Sometimes I just want to say 'woman happens to have a name, and it's Diamanta'." She took off his gloves and placed them on her own hands. "It's not like I want him to change or anything. I just want to have a different relationship with him. I want him to hold me while I cry on his shoulder. I want to spill out all my emotions to him, and he'll understand every one of them. I want him to know how I'm feeling by just looking at me." She paused and looked at Clopin. "I want to talk to him while he's sleeping, even if I'm just babbling about my memories. I want to dress up in his clothing and surprise him when he wakes up." She grabbed his mask from the corner of the wagon and put it on her face. "I want the relationship between Oliver and I to be like ours." Diamanta caressed Clopin's sleeping face as her words started to sink in.

It wasn't until she stared into his face when she realized how handsome he was. She placed her chin back onto his chest and stroked his hair through her fingers.

"If only you knew, Clopin," Diamanta said softly. "If you were only a few years younger—"

"What are you doing?" Clopin asked, his eyes wide after just waking up.

"Oh!" Diamanta gasped as she jumped up in surprise.

"Why are you wearing my hat and mask? Where are my gloves?" She blushed as she realized how foolish she must have looked wearing his accessories. He smiled at her appearance. "You don't look half bad as a matter of fact. It's a nice look for you." He revealed the cloth-covered mirror that leaned against the wall beside his liquor collection. She stared into it. It had been nearly two years since she saw her reflection.

Her body had certainly taken its change into womanhood, her long crimson skirt and lavender top only exaggerating her every curve and dip her body had grown to posses. As she pulled off the mask, she realized how much her face had matured. The small bumps on her face had grown scarce, leaving most of it a smooth olive tone. Her eyes, however, changed the most. Back when she was fifteen, her eyes were a caramel hazel color. Now they were so light that they appeared to be yellow. Her waist-length hair, which had not been cut since she last saw her reflection, fell into elegant brown waves.

"Surprised to see an old friend?" Clopin said after noticing Diamanta's expression. He appeared behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

"It's yours, Dia." He said smoothly. Diamanta stared at his reflection.

"What? It's so beautiful! I can't take this mirror. You don't have to do this, Clopin."

"Think of it as an early birthday present," Clopin said as he squeezed her in his arms.

"You do know Oliver is going to hate you for this," Diamanta said after a moment of thought.

"Why would he do that?" Clopin asked.

"Didn't you hate it when another man would always seem to be better to your girlfriend than you were?" Clopin looked at her reflection in surprise?

"You two are still going together? Even after he treats you like some sort of whore?"

"Where did you get an idea like that?"

"You were giving me a play-by-play description of what happened. You told me he treated you like his whore." Diamanta was surprised he was even paying attention to what she was saying.

"Was that when you were slowly falling asleep?" Diamanta asked with a smile.

"No," Clopin said as he rested his head on her shoulders. "I fell asleep when you said you wanted your relationship with Oliver to be like ours."