Raoul had spent his night after his first day of school not where he wanted to be. He wanted to pick his best friend, Christine, up from her choir practice, and instead had spent the night at school, for the first football meeting of the year.

He wasn't actually that great of a football star, but he was a good kicker and was actually one of their best players because of his outstanding kicking ability. It wasn't something he would ever want to have a career in, but it was a good sport to have under his belt. Pre-season was rough, but it would be worth it once he got out of Alfred and into a good school.

Christine had waited an hour before someone could pick her up Tuesday night and Raoul naturally felt guilty, so he promised to hang out with her the next night. He didn't have football practice, and she wasn't busy with too much homework, so by five-thirty on Wednesday, they both were hanging out at his house.

Raoul and Christine Daae had been best friends since they were about five. They met in school and had been friends ever since. So, Raoul had harbored a crush on her for about twelve years.

Actually, that was a bit of an overstatement. He honestly didn't really have feelings for her during Christine's (well actually, both of their) awkward, middle school years. His early years of high school he also dated other girls, and in second grade he was convinced she had cooties. But now he was seventeen-years-old, a senior, and had suddenly realized Christine was the perfect- and only- girl for him, she always had been.

They were laughing at something Raoul said that unintentionally very funny, and Christine's phone rang. She was going to ignore it, but decided to make sure everything was okay.

"Who was it?" Raoul asked, curious, and then realized it was none of his business.

"Oh, just Meg and Cosette, they wanted to see if I wanted to get pizza with them, but I'm going to say no," Christine responded simply. Meg was Christine's other old friend from the third grade, but he had actually never heard of Cosette before.

"Why say no?"

"Because I'm hanging out with you," Christine protested, "I don't think you'd want to hang out with three girls."

Raoul shrugged, he honestly didn't care. Usually, any friend of Christine's was a good girl, and Meg was always nice to him. "I want to go, we can just meet them. As long as your friends don't mind..."

"Oh, they won't care!" she said quickly, texting her friends back.

Not much longer, they arrived at the pizza place, Mr. D's, and immediately saw Meg and her fiend sitting in the same side of a booth, both with birch beers.

As Raoul and Christine sat, both girls quickly introduced him to Cosette Valjean, a small blonde girl with very big, blue eyes. "Hello," he said, watching Cosette inwardly try to figure out if Raoul was Christine's boyfriend. Ultimately, she simply didn't say anything about them at all.

They talked for a while about mundane, ordinary things, Raoul eventually figured out Cosettte was new to town. She seemed nice and was good friends with Marius Pontmercy, someone Raoul knew well from his friends Enjolras and Will Combeferre.

Christine and Cosette satisfied themselves by ordering a small cheese pizza, while Meg and Raoul decided to be more adventurous with a pineapple topping. As they waited for food, the conversation grew more and more about Marius (who was Cosette's apparent crush)- he was beginning to lose interest.

"That was Marius!" Meg shrieked, motioning towards the cell phone that Cosette had tried to discreetly check.

"No..." she said sheepishly, looking down at the text. Christine giggled, her cute snickering brought Raoul back to earth.

"Invite him, see what he says!" Christine proposed.

"Here?" Cosette questioned, looking unsure.

"Yeah, I'm sure he'd love to come," Meg said, playfully shoving her friend's arm, who in turn was quickly becoming a crimson red shade. "I don't know him, but I'm sure he's nice."

"You're friendly with Marius, aren't you?" Christine asked him, Raoul nodded.

"Yeah, Marius is nice."

With some encouragement from her friends, Cosette took out her phone and sent a text to Marius.

Less than five minutes later, he arrived at the restaurant, eagerly looking for Cosette. Her face, still slightly, pink, lit up at the sight of him and quickly waved him to their table. Marius joined them, pulling up a chair to the booth between Cosette and Raoul.

Raoul had never seen Marius be so enthusiastic to talk before. It wasn't that he was quiet, it was just he was especially friendly that night. However, with both boys around, the conversation stayed away from cute boys and petty gossip. So, Raoul was thankful for that. All in all, it was actually pretty fun.

Marius offered to give Cosette and Meg a ride home, as the two girls had walked from the Giry house and it was starting to get dark out. However, Raoul drove Christine home in his own car, they lived fairly close, anyway. Unfortunately, that left him and him alone to his best friend's fawning.

"They're so cute! They're so cute! They're so cute!" she squealed, drawing out each 'so' more and more. Raoul laughed at her eagerness. "Oh, don't laugh! It's completely true!" He rolled his eyes, still laughing at her joy over Marius and Cosette.

"Alright, alright, they're cute," he said in surrender.

"You're just not a Romantic, Raoul."

And while Raoul drove and they fought on and on about how he was and wasn't sensitive, he finally drove into her apartment complex's driveway. He sighed, lingering in the driveway, watching Christine get out of the car and go home.

He wanted to help her so badly. She and her mother were all alone and poor. Christine never would accept money when they went out to dinner or to go see a movie. Raoul always was kind to her and especially her mother, he was one of the few people who knew how much trouble they really were in financially.

Raoul sighed, watching the last trace of his friend's long, brunette hair vanish into the building. Why didn't she ever realize his feelings for her?

A bit saddened now, he returned to his own, fairly sized house, that really was too big for four- now three (his brother, Phillip, was in college now)- people. Raoul's father was the chief of police and made a nice income. However, it was his mother who came from a long line of wealthy families. Most of the money they had was inherited.

His father had left his papers sitting around, they were mostly his scrawled and messy notes, but to amuse himself, Raoul decided to read them. There was a list of unclosed cases, things that had never been resolved.

To his shock, the list contained a familiar name; Jean Valjean. He read further, suddenly becoming very interested.

Murder of three in Concord, Massachusettes. Possible suspects; Joseph Michaelsson, Jean Valjean, a man seen leaving crime scene in a hat and cape.

Raoul tried to shrug it off, there was a list of unclosed cases a mile long. However, the last name Valjean stuck out at him. It was Cosette's last name.

It couldn't be someone related to her. She was so... innocent. Still, Valjean wasn't a common last name. Valjean, the name repeated itself over and over in his mind. It was starting to annoy Raoul. No friend of Christine's would ever be related to a killer. And besides, it was only a possible suspect with the name Valjean, he could have been totally innocent.

Trying to get sleep that night, Raoul thought of getting pizza with his friends, how great his summer had been and how his senior year would (hopefully) go smoothly.

Thank you for reading everybody! Please review!