A/N: This is again City-of-Glass-universe compliant - however, it describes event that happened well before the story (the result of this development then can be seen in the city of glass).

Feuilly and Kataczyna: Reaching for the stars

Winter

It begins on a winter day.

It has been cold for days, and still the air is carrying the promise of moisture in it. Snow has been absent, and the skies are clear, the light of the stars cold and distant as he walks through the streets of the city.

Frost, he realizes, has painted dainty flowers on the windows, and absent-mindedly he considers to make a fan, in white cloth and light blue stars, a bright, cool thing to dress a bright, cool lady. The daintiest brush only would do justice of the tender patterns, and it would be a painstaking work to reflect the reality before his eyes, but he does not believe in the worth of things easily achieved and half decides that the capture of this particular picture might just be worth it.

Winter is the cruelest time, with his small room frigid and the fire in the stove hardly warming it, and it is on days like this that it is hardest to believe.

It is hardest to believe that he may one day carve out another place for himself, away from the atelier that takes up so much of his time, away from the tiny room, away from cold and hunger. But there is a fire that burns within Feuilly, and it doesn't give in so easily.

But tomorrow is tomorrow, and today is today. And Janusch will not appreciate him stalling.

At Place Notre Dame he waits, casual as ever, the same off-handed elegance that is intrinsic to most highborn and so very difficult to achieve if one has not learned it at an early age. There was a time, early in their acquaintance, where Feuilly had thought to imitate him, his speech and mannerisms, but in the end, after a number of failures, he had decided to be himself instead and been better off for it in the long run.

Their friendship had not suffered from it.

"I was wondering already", Janusch says, his French free of the accent of his mother tongue. He was a chamaeleon and fashioned himself to be a man of many languages. Born in Posen, he was as German as he was Polish, and living in France for the better part of five years had made him a Parisian as well.

In the same off-handed manner that he held himself he brushed aside borders and traditions, and the worries that Feuilly had had with respect to the evening in front of them.

He had never been to a salon, but when he had voiced that concern, Janusch had started to laugh, loud and long, and clapped his shoulder. 'You're a joker', he had said, even though Feuilly had not felt that way. 'You'll do.'

"Wondering what?" Feuilly pushes back his cap as Janusch snips a half-smoked cigarette onto the streets. Waste, Feuilly thinks absent-mindedly, but he has become used to the fact, that there are things that carry a different value with him than with others.

"If you'd show up, of course." Janusch grins and claps him on the shoulder. There is something in his easy camaraderie reminding of Courfeyrac. "Come on", he says. "Let's go. Or we will miss all the good pastries."

And Feuilly again pushes aside thoughts and worries of entering another world for the sake of the confidence of a friend.

Spring

It begins softly as the first dawning of spring.

The salon is like a microcosm of its own, where drinks and words and trust flows freely, and yet she does not know when he first appears in their midst.

Later, when he is willing to tell her more than he would in the beginning, he tells her of her worries, of thoughts of inadequacy, but when she first sees him, truly sees him, there is nothing of it.

He is young, her age, dark hair and dark eyes, and a cautious smile that she knows she will never forget. A worn waistcoat, yet obviously the best he owns, given the fact that he always wears it when he comes, and for a moment Katya wonders about her lace and silk, the beauty of her golden curls dancing around her face, the necklace and earrings of diamonds and pearls.

She is beautiful, and she knows it in the way she knows that water is wet – a fact accepted, never questioned, and yet not a point of pride, not even a point worth mentioning.

Clothes and looks are nothing and words are everything and what beauty his clothes lack, his speech carries, and Katya finds herself missing when he is not there.

She wonders what would make him smile, and what would make him talk, not about the world, not about the people, but about himself and the life he leads, so far from hers and yet so near.

"A sou for your thoughts", she asks him one time when he stands aside a little, because Katya knows all about conversations and worming her way around obstacles, and she recognizes a chance if it presents itself.

He leans against the window to look outside, and this is odd because usually he is enjoying the gatherings, but today he looks tired.

He flinches at her words, and for a moment there is a frown on her face as he takes in her appearance (golden curls and blue eyes and pale skin, the pride of her mother and nothing to her), but apparently he remembers or does not care and smiles an absent-minded smile.

"I would not know if my thoughts would be of any diversion to you, Mademoiselle", he answers divertingly, but Katya is not easily distracted.

"Why don't you let me decide that?" she asks, directness making any avoidance on his part impossible. Subtle she is not, but she fears that between them they would be able to find enough subtlety to avoid any meaningful conversation if they really tried.

And that would be a waste of time.

"I'm Kataczyna Woroniecka", she continues, pushing forward fearlessly. "But most here do call me Katya."

That does prompt a smile form him, sudden and bright and almost honest, and Katya puts aside for further reference that directness and honesty would draw him out.

"Should not someone introduce us?" he asks her, a tinge of irony in his voice and Katya soars because this is a game she knows and enjoys and apparently he is able to play as well.

"Should… yes", she answers with a smile. "That would be proper, wouldn't it? Can you forgive me for not standing on ceremony in this? We are all friends here, one way or the other, are we not? And if someone were here to introduce us, there would be someone else here with us, and I would not be able to question you at leisure."

That makes him laugh, if only for a second, and he shakes his head almost disbelievingly.

"Why would you want to do that?" he asks, and Katya, exhilarated, gives him the best and only answer.

"Because I can."

Two hours later, between them they have emptied a bottle of Côtes du Rhône – granted, Katya has had the most of it while Feuilly has done an exercise in restraint, but still his cheeks are tinged with red and his eyes are shining.

She knows now that his name is Maurice Feuilly, that Janusch brought him here, and that he most enjoys the petit fours with cheese. He has a strange way of eating them, bit by tiny bit, and she realizes he is trying not to enjoy them too obviously.

It is probably a rare treat for him, she realizes with a sudden intuition, and wonders even more how he came to be here, in this place where polish emigree nobles meet and dream of the glory of a motherland lost. And because she is Katya, and because this strange young man intrigues her she simply asks.

He almost chokes on his petit four and for a moment there is a strange flash of fear running through his eyes. She is dismayed and steps back.

"I meant no offense", she apologizes, "and you must think me quite impertinent, I am afraid. It is…", and she grasps for words to explain why on earth she has almost trapped this young man here asking question upon question and finds she does not have means to explain.

Not even to herself.

"It is simple curiosity", she tried another angle, "and you must not feel obliged to indulge me, Monsieur Feuilly. It is only a whim, and probably not a very appropriate one."

But something in her tone wins him over, somehow. He takes a deep, rallying breath, coming to a decision and begins to tell a story.

And so Katya comes to know more of the man she will love.

Summer

The belltower of Saint Michel calls for the two o'clock mass and time is passing nowhere near as quickly as it should.

Feuilly clenches his hand around the lamp post he is standing close to and tries to calm his racing heart. Madness it is, but a strange kind of madness, and one that he is not sure he would be wished to cure of.

He has considered spending half of last months' spending on a new jacket, but something within him tells him she would know, somehow, and not approve. She has an eye for details like these and yet, never spends more than a moment to dwell on them.

This discrepancy is one of the many mysteries of Katya.

Quite as unexplicable, if not quite as wonderful as the fact that she had coaxed him into an outing on this June sunday, with the sun burning brightly in the sky and the city being full of people enjoying the first promise of summer.

And then she is there, all of a sudden, a vision of gold and blue and he does not even know what to say.

"You're a sight", he manages, finally, hardly aware that this is not quite an appropriate greeting, much less for someone like her, but for some reason a smile lits up her face and he does not regret his words.

"My mother has left for Madame Krasnicky", she says, vaguely triumphant. "We have two hours at least."

Two hours with Katya, stolen out of time, away from prying eyes. He smiles, slightly recovered now that she is here. There is something calming about her, something that sets him at ease, and he enjoys it without questioning.

"Very well, Mademoiselle Woroniecka", he responds, the foreign syllables on her name no longer alien to his tongue. "Let us go then."

He offers his arm and she slips hers through, almost skin on skin, only separated by a few layers of cloth.

And he could almost believe he had felt her shiver.

Katya, he knows, is a keen observer of human nature and behavior. They walk through the Jardin du Luxembourg and to everyone, to everything, there is an opinion, a story, an estimate to tell. For some time, they sit on a bench trying to guess the status of relationship of those wandering around them – mother and son, husband and wife, brother and sister – or the subject of the discussions they are having.

The fun is not in being right or wrong, it is in judging and understanding the little mannerisms and motions, expressions and movements, and Feuilly has long stopped to wonder why Katya had known almost all about him before he had even dared her to tell the beginning of his story.

And yet, none of it had shied her off. Not that he was an orphan, not that he was nothing but a workingman, painting fans for a meager living, not the fact that his living circumstances were questionable and his prospects were bad.

"You know, Maurice"; she begins out of the blue as they are moving through a more secluded part of the park, hedges and bushes everywhere, "none of them is moving quite like you, you know?"

Feuilly frowns, still caught up in observance and discussion.

"What do you mean?"

"The way you move"; Katya shares freely. "When you grow up as I have, they teach you posture, grace and poise, men and women alike. Some learn it more easily; others spend days carrying around books on their head trying not to make them fall."

The image of a nobleman's child balancing a book on his head is amusing and Feuilly chuckles.

"It's something that you learn as a child or not at all… and probably one of the things that make it so difficult for someone low born to be accepted in the circle of those of higher standing. It can't be taught, it's something no one thinks about."

She smiles.

"You didn't learn it either but… there is something singular about it. You do not walk like Janusch, or like any of the other men from the salon, but…", she shakes her head and blonde curls kiss her cheeks as she does so. He feels is finger itch to sense how these locks would feel.

He has had his adventures, but never with a lady as groomed as Katya is, and he absentmindly wonders if her hair would feel different.

"But…", he asks, rather out of reflex, and Katya sighs.

"Dignity", she finally concludes. "That's it. Dignity. You hold yourself in another way, stronger, less casual, less natural. But… there is something coming from within. A strength in your every movement, something that cannot be denied or ignored." A quick smile. "At least not by me. It made me curious, in the beginning."

He doesn't know where he takes the courage to ask "And now?"

She turns to him, eyes blue as the summer sky.

"Now it puts me in awe, Maurice, quite honestly." Her pale skin is flushed, maybe from the sun, but somehow he knows there is more to it. And his heart picks up its frantic pace again.

"Katya, I…"

She is a miracle in her own right. There is no falseness in her, and an honest love of people, of every single person, that he has never seen before. Growing up a noblewoman, having the perception she has, he has never seen her sneer or scorn. Katya is, and sees, exactly what is and not what seems. And being with her, it does not matter what he is, or where from. It is a glimpse of a world that he is dreaming of, and yet, in Katya's eyes he can see the future become the present.

"Sometimes I wonder…", he continues carefully, "… what you want from me."

She smiles and halts in her stride, looking him in the eye and this is, he thinks, and odd moment to realize that they are almost standing the same height.

"Want…", she says wistfully. "Is it not rather a question on what you are willing to give?"

And in her blue eyes it is clear, oh so clear, and Feuilly wonders where he should find the courage to jump. But this is Katya, and nothing is difficult, nothing is doubtful when it comes to her, so in the end he simply does it.

Her hands in his are cool, her smile is warm, and her kiss is a blaze of light in which no question, no worry can withstand. And as he feels her – slightly trembling – against him, he knows that he is lost, deeply and utterly lost, and that however long he lives he will never forget the mixture of rose water and her, the feel of the golden ringlets against his skin and the soft fire of the kiss that is forging them anew.

"Why…?" he finally asks, unable to believe his fortune, and she shakes her head, still in his arms, stealing the same moment in time.

"How could I not, Maurice?" and in her voice there is the same wonder, the same conviction, and in this moment he hopes, he prays that the dream will last.

Autumn

It doesn't.

"I don't care", she says, angry and worried and despairing and seeing her pain is akin to tearing his own heart out of his chest. Which, in the end, is probably exactly what he will have to do.

They have met outside again, and the leaves are falling around them as they all, trees and humans alike, cling to a last, fading memory of summer.

A stubborn, selfish part of him wants to beseech her, to risk the displeasure of her mother who would not approve of the simple fan maker who, like a rogue, has stolen her daughter's heart away. But Katya loves her mother, and she is not a revolutionary, not like he is one.

It is the one thing he could never ask of her. Seeing the pain in her eyes, it is the most difficult thing he has ever done

"I don't care", she repeats. "She doesn't know. She doesn't know who we are. She doesn't know what it means."

"You mean she has never loved?" Feuilly asks softly. Once said the word had been easy between them, tinged with a certainty that did not allow any doubt. Katya shakes her head, and a bitter smile ghosts over her face.

"To the contrary", she answers. "That is maybe why."

Feuilly frowns.

"What do you mean?"

She looks vulnerable, her arms slung around her upper body as she shrugs.

"Who knows", she says, "if I am really Woroniecka."

There is only bits and pieces he knows about her – he is much less proficient in the game of guesswork she excels at so much – but he does know that they fled here when the Grande Armee returned from Russia. He knows she is born in Minsk, where her mother married Anton Woroniecki, officer in the Tsar's army.

The rest, is guesswork. But it does make a certain amount of sense and despite everything Feuilly feels a sudden pity for the woman who, maybe, lost her heart to a man she was not married to, and then her husband and fatherland to war.

At times, there is something lost about Madame Woroniecka, and now, he even better understands why Katya would never go.

"You are Katya", he says softly. "That is why I love you. And that is why you must go back."

They have known each other for the better part of a year, and yet, despite everything that Enjolras usually says on the flightiness of women, this is the first time he sees her cry, tears running down her cheeks unhindered.

"I know", she says, her voice hitching in the pain they share. "I know."

Winter

Winter is grey and cold and cruel.

And time passes more slowly than it has.

The salons have become boring without him to share her thoughts, but Katya knows that there is no use in grieving and so she is as she ever were.

She suspects Janusch to keep them apart at his bidding, and although she knows it is maybe better this way she would have given anything to at least get a glimpse from him now and then, a hint of his smile or a few words to complement hers.

She could miss everything else if she could have that – they have been friends foremost and sometimes it feels as if she is missing a part of her thoughts, a spark of intuition in a line of discussion, the one phrase that he, and only he would say.

But he does not come and Katya does not begrudge him the decision.

Each of them must carry their pain as they will.

She does not manage to be angry, truly angry at her mother for it. She knows the story, knows how, newly married, husband absent in war, she lost her heart to a French officer, a man who was good to her where Woroniecki was cruel. And she knows that no one will be able to answer the question whose daughter she is, but as far as these things go, Katya does not care.

She understands her mother's worry because she knows the story how she was driven out of Minsk into the cold when the army left, with all the spite of the freed against their occupiers, and she wants to spare her daughter the same fate of an unfavourable match.

Katya understands, she always understands, and sometimes she wishes there was more courage, more anger in her to openly resist, but this is her mother and she loves her too well.

Come her birthday in February, there is a packet that arrives carrying a fan of exquisite beauty, white and blue, a painting like an ice flower on a window pane, and Katya decides this game as gone on far enough.

And she may be no revolutionary, but she is clever none the less.

Opportunity presents itself soon enough, and when his friend – bold, courageous, lighthearted, noble Courfeyrac – appears in the salon, finally Katya knows what she must do.

Spring

The belltower of Saint Michel calls again, and Feuilly feels as torn as he ever has in his life.

The proposition was as ludicrous as only one of Courfeyrac's propositions could be.

"I'll court her", he had said, "officially, that is. Her mother loves me, I'm practically made of all the stuff she wishes for Kataczyna. I'll take her out, and directly to you."

There was no future to this scheme, of course, but the temptation was incredible. To see her again, to speak her again – he had loved her kisses, but to be bereft of discussions with her had proven a much higher penance than he could have ever imagined – was too alluring to ignore.

If this is all they are to have, snippets in time and breaths in-between the tickings of a clock, he will take it, and willingly.

Courfeyrac is late – he should have known – but finally they arrive in a carriage, and while Katya exits, he remains and drives off – and suddenly she is there again.

She has not changed – not her smell, not her kiss, not the dimpled smile and sparking eyes, and for eternity he loses himself in her, raining kisses on her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes.

For a long while they just stand there, in this secluded area of the Jardin du Luxembourg, and winter is passing, flowers and leaves returning to trees.

"I missed you", she states the obvious, words half muffled against his shoulder. "This was a stupid idea."

"What is stupid remains to be seen", he responds tenderly, pressing a kiss against her temple simply because she is there and he can. "But god be good, I have missed you, Katyuschka."

Her arms tighten around his neck.

"Let's never do this again", she proposes and he feels himself nodding, although he has no idea how they should manage this, there is one thing that is surely out of the question.

He doesn't want to submit himself again to the agony that is her absence and apparently, neither does she.

"But how..?" he dares to ask. She shrugs.

And because she is Katya, she responds in the way he should have known she would.

"We take it a step at a time", she proposes. "We're smart. We figure something out."

This is how they should have done it from the start, Feuilly thinks, as he holds her and feels the way her heart beats with his.

This is how it should be.