This chapter is extremely fluffy and probably a little sappy, too. You've been warned.


Drip-drip-drop, when the sky is cloudy
You come along with a song right away
Drip-drip-drop, little April shower
Your pretty music will brighten the day
Larry Morey, "Little April Shower"

"But Papa," Cosette protested, "it isn't raining so hard, and I don't mind getting a little wet. Please can't I come visit you and Uncle Fauvent?" It was a windy, rainy, chilly spring evening. The weather was so unpleasant that the girls of the convent hadn't been able to go outside to the garden that day. Cosette had gotten permission to go visit her father in his cottage, but Valjean was trying to convince her to stay inside. He thought that it was much too cold and wet for Cosette to even be setting foot outside.

Right now, he was standing beneath his umbrella, and Cosette was standing in the open doorway of the monastery. The rain was coming down in sheets. "Cosette, it's raining very hard," he said firmly. "There'll be thunder and lightning soon. You need to stay inside and keep warm and dry. I'll see tomorrow, all right?"

"But Papa," Cosette pleaded, "you said that we would spend time together every single day, always. You promised. Please can't I come outside?" She looked so heartbroken at the thought of not visiting with him for even one day that Valjean relented.

"Oh, all right, child," he said, sighing, "I suppose you can come." Cosette squealed with delight and darted forward, joining him beneath his umbrella and hugging him around the chest. He hugged her back with his free arm. "You can have dinner with your uncle and me. He's cooking it right now."

"Oh, thank you, Papa!" Cosette cried, and she rose onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. Valjean pulled the monastery door closed behind her, and set off across the garden in the pouring rain, their arms still wrapped each other beneath the big umbrella. Cosette snuggled against him and whispered into the warmth of his coat, "I missed you, Papa."

Valjean kissed the crown of her head. "I missed you too, love."

Cosette was now ten-years-old, and Valjean was living in dread of the day when she was less than thrilled to see him. He didn't want that day to come, but he felt certain that as she grew older, her greetings to him would eventually become more casual and less excited. Perhaps that day would still come... but it hadn't yet. They visited with each other every day, and every day, Cosette was thrilled to see her papa. She didn't run and jump into his arms anymore, as she had when she was younger, but as soon as she saw him, she grinned her brightest smile, kissed his cheek, and hugged him with all her strength. Valjean would hug her back – sometimes lifting her off her feet, which always made her giggle – and kiss her brow. "I missed you, Papa," Cosette always whispered to him, as if they had been separated for years.

When Valjean swung open the cottage door, Fauchelevent looked up from where he was bending over the fireplace. When he saw Cosette with him, he laughed. "Well, well," he said teasingly, "look at who you brought back with you. Did you know, Cosette, when your father left just now, he said he was just going to tell you to stay inside in this rain. And I said, 'You might try, but you'll never convince that girl to stay away from you. You wouldn't come back alone,' and sure enough, here you are." He paused, still chuckling. "If I were a gambling man, I would've bet money on it."

There was no stove in the garden cottage, but Valjean and Fauchelevent cooked all their meals easily enough in the fireplace. They roasted meat directly over the flames, they cooked vegetables in their little Dutch oven, and they baked bread on the hearth. Cosette always liked to watch them cook dinner, and she especially liked to read the labels on their tiny pots of herbs. The inside walls of their cottage were lined with herbs of every kind – they were too delicate for outdoor weather, Papa said – and every one was neatly labeled with a slip of paper tied to a twig and stuck in its soil. Valjean and Fauchelevent were very careful to never confuse one with another, for the herbs were used as remedies when one of the sisters or students fell ill. Cosette liked to walk around the room, reading the labels, as she was doing now. Routines of almost any kind were comforting to her. Bitterleaf: disyntery, elderberry: cold and flu, flaxseed: constipation, ginger: nausea, licorice root: bronchitis, peppermint: indigestion...

"Come sit down and eat, Cosette," her father called, and she scurried over to the table. She set out three plates and cups, and Fauchelevent pulled a pile of roasted potatoes from the Dutch oven and began to divide them up and slice bread.

Valjean was busy over one of the herbs, and Cosette frowned and tugged on his shirttail. "You must sit down and eat too, Papa," she insisted, pulling out his chair. "And you too, Uncle Fauvent. You've both been working in the garden all day, and you must be famished."

"I'm just cutting some chives for us," Valjean said. He turned and held out a handful of freshly-cut chives to her. "Here, take some for your potatoes." They sat and said Grace, and for a while, they were like any ordinary family eating dinner. Cosette told them all about what she had learned in school that day, and Valjean and Fauchelevent discussed what work needed to be done in the garden.

"All this rain has probably exposed some roots," Valjean said. "We can cover them up again tomorrow, if it stops by then."

"I hope it stops before Sunday," Cosette said. "I want to spend the whole day in the garden with you. Oh, and I just remembered, Papa. I asked the Mother Superior for permission to keep a plant in the dormitory room, and she said that I may, as long as I take care of it and don't get any dirt on the floor. I think I want one of the same herbs that you and Fauchelevent keep inside here. Can I have one, Papa? Oh, I mean, may I?"

Valjean loved listening to her chatter on like this, and her enthusiasm – over something as simple as an herb plant, no less – was impossible to resist. He chuckled and cupped one hand against her cheek. "Of course, child. I'll put a mint seedling in a little pot for you."

"A mint seedling, that's just the thing," Fauchelevent nodded approvingly. "They grow splendidly indoors."

"And they smell divine," Valjean added. "You'll love it."

Cosette gave a little squeal of delight and impulsively kissed his cheek. "Oh, thank you, Papa," she gushed, and Valjean imagined that she couldn't have looked happier than if he had just given her the entire Chateau de Versailles. "I'm going to keep it on my bedside table, right in the front of the window, and I'm going to water it every day. Then I'll be a real gardener, just like you, won't I, Papa?"

"Yes, and you've been doing such a fine job of helping me that I'm sure you'll be splendid at it."

Later, Valjean let Cosette help clear the table after they were done eating, but he shook his head when she asked to help wash the dishes. He had a strict rule that Cosette was not to do any hard work. He said that it was time for her to be going back into the monastery anyway.

"Must I?" Cosette pouted, looking glum.

"I'm not going to keep you out late in weather like this, child," Valjean told her firmly, in a tone that should've ended the conversation, but tonight, Cosette couldn't resist pointing out, "It isn't time for me to go to bed yet."

"You're already sniffling, and I don't want you to get any worse. I'm taking you back to the dormitory, and you're going to read from your Bible, say your prayers, and go to bed early."

"Yes, Papa," Cosette answered dutifully, sighing. Her papa didn't have many rules, but one of them was that whenever he told her to do something, she must do it, without complaining or being contradictory. It was a rule that usually gave her no trouble, but tonight, she found it hard to do as her papa said. She couldn't say so, but she thought glumly, I wish I could spend the night here in the cottage with Papa.

Valjean held her shawl out to her, and she took it from him and stood up. As she pulled it around her shoulders, she turned to Fauchelevent. "Uncle Fauvent, will you make sure Papa dries off properly when he comes back inside? And you'll warm yourself up by the fire too, Papa, won't you? If you don't want me to get sick, then you mustn't allow yourself to get sick either, Papa. If you were catch a cold, then I would catch it too, when I came to visit you."

"I wouldn't allow you to come visit me if I were sick, child."

"Oh, but I still would," she argued back, with a sly little grin on her face. "You might try to stop me, but I would still come to visit you anyway. You would never be able to keep me away from you." Valjean felt her little arms wrap around his waist and tighten, demonstrating her point.

"She's right, you know," Fauchelevent put in, chuckling as he looked on at how Cosette was clinging to her papa like a monkey. "I don't believe you would."
Valjean laughed a little and stroked her cheek. "Well, I guess I'm outnumbered, then, aren't I? You go say goodbye to your uncle, so I can put my boots on."

Cosette scurried across the room to Fauchelevent. "Goodnight, Uncle Fauvent," she said politely, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thank you for dinner. It was very good. I'll see you and Papa tomorrow."

Valjean pulled on his big black rainboots and opened the front door a crack. The evening had grown windier and chillier, and the rain was still pouring. The gravel path that ran across the garden from their cottage to the monastery was flooded from sight beneath puddles. Valjean grimaced as he took it in. He mustn't let Cosette get her feet wet. He turned to her and held out his arms. "Come, Cosette," he ordered, "let me carry you." He scooped her up and held her easily with one arm and opened the umbrella with the other.

"I'll be right back," Valjean called over his shoulder to Fauchelevent. "Are you all ready, my girl?" Cosette nodded, and he raised the umbrella and stepped outside into the cold. She shivered as the wind blew at them, and Valjean held her tighter. "I don't want you to get wet. Try to keep as close as you can to me, all right?"

Cosette wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her soft cheek against his stubbly one. "Always," she whispered in his ear.